In his sermon 'Inhibitors of Transformation', Douglas Campbell explores Romans 12:2, focusing on the factors that hinder spiritual transformation. He emphasizes the critical role of mind renewal through the Word of God, highlighting that neglecting scripture leaves believers unequipped for spiritual growth. Campbell contrasts being 'conformed' to the world with being 'transformed' by God, asserting that true transformation requires a new nature through being born again. He discusses the dangers of cultural conformity and media consumption, which can dull spiritual vitality and lead to a departure from biblical truth. Evangelism is presented as a means of grace that fosters transformation, while pride and self-reliance are identified as obstacles to spiritual growth. Campbell calls for a commitment to saturating the mind with scripture and warns against the cultural and technological distractions that inhibit a deeper relationship with God.

If you'd turn with me to Romans chapter 12, This morning I'm going to be again looking at verse 2. We'll read verses 1 through 2. Last week we looked specifically at the means of transformation, the renewing of our mind, that thing which the Holy Spirit uses to transform us. This week we're going to look at the other side of the coin and we're going to look at the inhibitors of the transformation. So let's look at Romans 12 verses one through two.

Says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Let's pray. Father, thank you for this beautiful day you've given us. Father, thank you for your creation. Father, as we, as I discussed with my, one of my brothers this morning, What beauty in your creation.

How we might look at it and stand in awe, not of the creation, Father, but of you, the creator. And so Father, this morning, as we appreciate the beautiful days that we've been given, Father they're but a gift from an uncomprehensibly good giver. So Father this morning let us focus upon you, the giver of all good gifts. Father, as we think of you as the giver of gifts, Father, it can't escape our mind of the gift you have given us to redeem us to you. Father, the gift that we could never earn, the gift that we could never deserve.

You freely give to all who would turn to you and trust in your son, Jesus Christ. Father, this morning as those who have done that, who have turned from their sin and trusted in Christ, Father, we read your word, that your desire is to daily make us more like you, that our very nature is being changed. And Father, as we pondered last week, the means of that change, which ultimately is your Word. And Father, this week, as we look at the inhibitors of this change, all those things ultimately would distract us from your Word. Father, help us to understand.

Father, we know that that change ultimately is from you. And so Father, today we renounce all dependence upon ourselves. And Father, we cling to you. We need you, Father. Father, draw our hearts today.

Let our hearts not be hardened with our own pride, but let our pride be broken, Father, that we might come to you humbly. For Father, your word says, you resist the proud and give grace to the humble. Father, we need grace today. Help us to hear your word. Help us to not be distracted by our flesh.

Make us more like you, we ask, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. This morning as we come to the word of God, the very words that he has given to us. Not simply the words that man has written down and man has preserved, but the very word of God is before us.

The very word that God himself has preserved, that evil men through history have tried to destroy it, evil men have tried to put it out, they've tried to erase it, and yet today, the word of God stands before us. Let's look again at verse two. It says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. God, last week we looked that God accomplishes this transformation in your life, that transformation to be made more like him, that transformation that we pray, and that God desires and accomplishes in all those who are truly his, that are the day that we pass from this life to the life to come, that we will be the most like Christ, that we've ever been in our entire life. And in fact, on that day, it's as if we, when we're born again, we begin this journey down this road and we travel it and we come through hard times where God conforms us more and more like him.

And then each of us in this room will come to a day where God will say, you've traveled enough down this road, I'm just going to pick you up and take you to the finish line. We never reach perfection, yet through sanctification we continue to get closer and closer and closer until God grabs us and delivers us from this flesh. As we're on this path, God accomplishes this transformation through the renewal of your mind. Your mind is renewed by the Spirit and by the Word of God. For those who neglect the Word of God, we talked last week that it's as if we are asking God to make bricks and not provide the straw.

Now understand again, God is completely responsible, or the Holy Spirit is completely responsible for changing us. But he chooses to use the means of the Word of God. He chooses, The way that He chooses to operate in that is that He uses the Word of God as we read it, as we study it, as we encourage each other with it, as we sing it, as we celebrate it, as we remember it continually, that the Holy Spirit then uses those things to change us to be more like Christ. In fact to bring this even to into evangelism after after I was it was getting close to time I I really felt like one of the means of grace that God gives us to make us more like Christ is also evangelism. I figured if I added that on that we were going to be here for a couple of hours, so I ultimately decided to save that for another day.

But evangelism is another way in which God renews our minds. And so often in American Christianity, we most, or seemingly most inside of the church, never evangelize because they make these excuses that, well, I just don't know what to say, I don't know how to respond, I don't know even what to do. And for those who diligently study the Word of God, if you are one of those who are devoted to studying the Word of God, and then you push yourself and you get beyond this fear of sharing your faith, what you will soon find is that when you're sharing your faith, the Holy Spirit will bring to mind those verses, those parts of scripture that are needed for that time. The book by Cory Tenboom, Barb shares this often, but she asked her dad about what it would be like, how would she know that she would have the faith to do what's right in spite of persecution? And her dad gives her this illustration.

She says, when do you get a ticket to get on a train? You don't get it until you're at the train station, until you're about ready to board the train. And so as when you need, need empowered by God to fulfill what God's called you to do, very often he doesn't give you what you need until you need it. And sometimes that means going to the train station with just faith that I'm going to get a ticket when I get there. And so with evangelism sometimes, or most of the time, if we're to be obedient to the Word of God, if we're to be obedient in evangelism, we must trust that when the time comes for someone to ask me a question, that God will give me the ability to answer that, or the ability to humble myself and say, I don't know the answer to that, but I'll find it and I'll get back to you.

The problem, though, in American Christianity is we so neglect the word of God that the Holy Spirit has nothing in our heads to use. So we come to a situation where we're bankrupt. When we go to the bank and we need some money. We tell the teller, hey, I need to, today there's something special going on. There's the trip to the pumpkin patch and I'm going to need a bunch of pumpkins and so I need $50.

And the teller gives you $50 and you go get your pumpkins. I don't don't spend do what you want. I'm not to tell you what to do with your money But what if we had nothing in the bank and then we say I need $50 And then we have the embarrassment of being in front of those around us when the teller says, sir, you don't have $50. And so often, that is our problem in evangelism. That's why part of what contributes to why we're terrified.

It's not so much that I don't, I don't know the answer to every question. Now some of you that come to the prayer time, you might have been fooled. I don't know the answer to every question. I don't know. There's sometimes when I've been asked questions on the street that I don't even know how to formulate a response.

There's been times on the street where I've told people, I've never thought of that before, and I don't want to just make something up. But there's been other times where they've asked me a question and I've said, I've never thought of that before, but These verses are coming to my head. These studies are coming to my mind. And I'm able to formulate a response empowered by the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit drew from the bank, from the deposits I put into that bank.

And I went down a rabbit trail Dave. So let's come back. So our mind is renewed by the Spirit and by the Word of God. If we bankrupt our mind of the Word of God, the Spirit chooses to use that to transform us, and what He chooses to use to transform us, we leave Him without anything to work with. Look at Ephesians chapter four, 20 through 24.

It says, but that is not the way you've learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth in Jesus to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. The thing to understand when we come to Romans chapter 12 verse 2 and verse 1 is that this is written for Christians. This is written for those who are truly born again. There is no such thing as an unborn again Christian. You guys hear that?

There is no such thing as an unborn again Christian. You guys hear that? There is no such thing as an unborn again Christian. If you are not born again, you may go to church, You may read your Bible, you may be the guy in town that everybody says he's a good guy, but you are not a Christian. The Bible says over and over, to be a Christian means we have a new nature.

We have a new heart. We put off our old self and we begin to put on this new self, this new heart that God has given us. Now to understand this better, we have to come back and understand who we are before Christ. So for many, many years, and I'm very much indebted to this man whom God has used to bring me to the word that the Holy Spirit has renewed my mind. This small man, Ray Comfort, has taught me much about scripture.

But one thing that I never understood, and if you've heard me before, you've heard me how I talk to people maybe on the street or at Walmart, or even in my sermons, You'll see so often, and even one of the questions this morning in the, not Sunday school, but in the prayer time, was about the rich young ruler and how Jesus took him to the law. And this is a concept that I never saw before in Scripture until I came across Ray Comfort's ministry. And so with that, to biblically share the gospel with someone, I understand that I must take them to the law to see who they are in truth, not in who we think that we are through our pride-filtered glasses, but who we are in truth. And as we come to the law, we ask the questions, have you ever told a lie? And Everybody in here should say, yes, we've told a lie.

The next question that we would go through is, what does that make you? It makes you a liar, right? Usually I get you to say that, so that way when you say you're judging me, I'll say, you're the one confessing to all this stuff. You're saying it. But here's the, this is what, and this isn't nothing wrong with this way of doing things, but this is what I didn't understand for a long time.

See, the legal formality is this. If you've committed a crime, you're a criminal. If you've lied, you're a liar. If you've stolen, You're a thief. Right?

If you've committed adultery, you're an adulterer. If you've hated your brother, you're a murderer, scripture says. But here's where the disconnect comes or came for me for a long time. I saw this is if you've done this then you are this but that's actually opposite what it is. I know this is this is a little confusing that's opposite of what actually is true.

What is true is this, you're a liar, therefore you lie. You're a thief, therefore you steal. We find this in the fall of the Garden of Eden, we're all born into sin, we are all born with this nature. We don't become a liar, the first lie that we tell. We tell the first lie that we tell because we are a liar.

It is our very nature. And that nature is the very contradiction to who God is. So in essence, if I'm not born again, I'm this guy. If you're not born again, you are this guy. If you're not born again, when we go to Revelation and it says that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire, there is no amount of goodness you can do.

You are a liar. Your heart is not changed. And no matter how much religious, how many religious things we can do, no matter how many times we can walk the aisle of a church, no matter how many times we take communion or be baptized or pray this or that prayer, if God doesn't give you a new heart, you will be judged for who you are. And God will judge you rightly, and he will judge you fairly. In his right fair judgment, all liars will have their part in the lake of fire if You're not born again today You should tremble in fear You should be much afraid of the future.

You should agree with Ecclesiastes when it says to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. Take advantage, you should agree with this culture that says you only live once. But I can tell you this morning, it is a lie from the pit of hell. The very place you're going to go to if you don't repent and trust in Jesus Christ, if he doesn't change your heart, if he doesn't give you this new heart that desires him. That is the born again experience.

Your very nature changes. Romans two was written to those who have new hearts. And that's why it says don't be conformed to this world. Conformed means to change your outside to fit in with what you're around. Transformed is, the Greek word is connected to our word metamorphosis, like when a butterfly comes out of a cocoon.

You're a different creature, you're a different creation. Transformed means you are just becoming more and more of your new nature. The warning though is this, as we go into those things that inhibit transformation, As we go into those things that conform us to this world, we have to ask the question, if there's so much conforming going on, that we don't see any transformation, we have to ask, has the metamorphosis happened at all? If I am completely like the world, perhaps I'm not, I don't have a new nature. And so as we go through some of these things this morning, understand this.

It's not about doing it better. If your heart is not changed, you will not be able to do this better. You'll be extremely frustrated. You'll be extremely stressed because you simply can't. You can't change.

Only God can save you. If you examine yourselves as the scriptures tells us to do and you find that there isn't a new nature in me at all, The response is to repent and draw near to Christ. Plead with him. Plead with him to change you. To change your heart.

To give you this new nature. To give you this nature that ultimately is a child of God. An adopted child of God. If you're born again today, the question isn't, am I going to heaven or not? If you're born again, you're a child of God.

It's already settled. Amen? Someone who sees that their heart has changed, you have great comfort this morning because you will still struggle with these things. When we get to them, I will stomp on your feet very hard today, just as I've stomped on my own. But if your heart has changed and it desires to be more like Christ, you have assurance today.

But this morning if you examine your heart and you say it's not changed, it's just like the world, it's just like those whom I go to work with or go to school with. You have much to be fearful for. So let's look at Romans 12 2 again. It says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. In this verse, we have two principles that are at odds.

It's confirmation, or not confirmation, maybe, confirmation versus transformation. That sounds weird now that it comes out of my mouth. It's either you're being conformed or you're being transformed. It's two ends of the spectrum. It's one direction or the other direction.

You'll notice in this verse, it says don't be conformed to this world This world and we define this once before this Greek word. It actually means this world or this evil age It's a particular stage of history understood according to its values beliefs and morals in distinction to God's So often when I share the gospel with people, and you get into these things that which 50 years ago we would have all agreed that they were heinous perversions, and in our culture today that's completely flip-flopped that you are now the bigot because you think this way. The excuse they use so often is this, is that times have changed. Now These are different days than they were when they wrote the Bible. And I will say you are exactly right.

And the Bible addresses that very idea that when it says don't be conformed to this world, it actually means don't be conformed to this evil age, this age right now. The values and beliefs and morals that we find in our culture that our culture thinks has progressed but actually has fallen away immensely. Don't be conformed to these ideas. So in living our lives, how can we tell the difference between doing the things the way this evil age does them, or doing the things the way God tells us to do them. How can we know the difference?

Because a big problem is this, that each of us, we spend every waking hour in the age we live in. Nobody in here, including Brody, has a time machine, so you're stuck here, Brody. You're in this age. And when you live inside of something, it has a way of deceiving you. When you, for instance, if you lived with a dad who went fishing almost every single day, you begin to think everybody goes fishing every single day.

You begin to think everybody knows how to tie a lure on a line. It's something that when we surround ourselves by whatever we're surrounded by, we begin to think that is normal. In fact, this morning if you would just go to a different church, you would notice very quickly what they do differently than what we do here. Because you would say, well, that's not normal. Right?

And imagine if you went to a church and everybody brought a balloon and popped them at a certain point, you'd be like, those people are weird. Nobody does that in church. They probably shouldn't, but I don't know the reasoning for it. But to those people, what do you mean you don't pop a balloon during church? Right?

It's whatever we surround ourselves in, we begin to think is normal. And you and I have grown up in this age. We're surrounded by everything that this age does and we begin to think it's normal. So how do we know the difference? How do we know if we're being deceived or if we're doing things the way God wants us to do them?

It's easy. The only thing we have is the Word of God. So once again we come back to this. If we want our minds to be transformed, we have to come back to the Word of God. We can't go to human reasoning.

We can't go to human logic. We can't go to anything except for the Word of God. John MacArthur in his commentary, he says, the renewed mind is one saturated with and controlled by the Word of God. Is your mind saturated? Are your decisions determined by the Word of God?

The way you lead your family, is it determined by the Word of God? The things that you do on the weekend? The place that you work at? Is it determined by the Word of God, or is it determined by human logic? Is it determined by what the neighbors do?

Is it determined by everybody you know what they do? These are deceptions that we fall easily into because we live inside of this world. The Bible says we're aliens, we're sojourners in a foreign land. And so often through the Old Testament with different stories, we find that when the Israelites would go and live amongst a foreign people, it didn't seem like it was very long before they were doing the very things that God hated. Yet we find ourselves as foreigners in a strange land.

But for many years our guard has been let down. Because preachers and people in the pews cared more about culture than they did the Word of God, we have very strangely skewed what it is to be a Christian. This morning our desire should be this, that our mind is renewed, that it's saturated and controlled by the word of God. That very thing is what renews our mind. That's what the Holy Spirit uses to transform us, to be people who glorify God, who ultimately are people who are salt and light to those around them.

In the past many years, The American church in general has done whatever it could take, whatever it seemingly could do to dull our saltiness and to hide our light so that people might be comfortable around us. It has been devastating to the church in America. Understand that it has been devastating. So this morning if our desire is this transformation, what inhibits this transformation? What is it that that thing that has inhibited us for so long in America, what is it that's inhibiting us?

The first thing that we have to look at, that thing that inhibits us, is to be conformed, to understand it, is to be conformed to this world. How are we being conformed to this world? To be conformed is to take on an outward expression that doesn't reflect what's really inside. If we're born again, to be conformed means to hide our saltiness. It means to hide the light that's within us.

So how are we being conformed? The question has to be, what are we filling our minds with? What are we renewing our minds with? I know we've went through some of these things before, but I would ask this morning to really think about these things. The first is media.

American media consumption per day on average is 292.6 minutes. That's almost four hours. So if the statistics, if they are correct and if we could apply them to everyone in this room, if you are living just as the average American lives, you're spending almost four hours a day consuming media. What different types of media are there? The TV.

Every time you turn the TV on, or almost every time you turn it on, you are getting a secular worldview. I was talking to Carol this morning about this, that she was a teacher for many, many years, and I said, what people don't understand is the public school system is getting progressively and rapidly worse. I said, for instance, and I made this up, but I've seen lots of examples, even when your child is at math, they're getting math questions like this. The starving minority guy has one apple, and the rich white man has 10, 000 apples. How many more apples does the rich man have?

And I believe God created us all equal. I believe that God sees skin color. I believe that we should help those who are hurting, but this is more than that, it's a mindset. It's something we're being programmed with. Even when your child goes to math, they're being programmed.

They're being taught how to think. They're not being taught. In our school system today we debate on whether one plus one equals two. That's something we can't figure out, but we can figure out how to put our secular mindset into it. When you turn the TV on you're getting the same mindset.

It's repeated over and over to you. It's even to the point where there was, oh, last year or so, maybe the year before, we found this channel on our antenna. Probably most of you know what it is. I can't think of what it's called. Anyway, every night at six or seven, Andy Griffith comes on.

Andy Griffith is a good show, for the most part. But you know what? It didn't take long for me to say, we can't watch this because these commercials are horrible. Even to try to watch something good, My kids are being programmed by the commercials. It is intentional.

And it's working. It works well in our country. Part of our political divide, part of why we can't agree on anything is because we are programmed. We're programmed to fight with each other. We're programmed with this worldview.

How about music? Most songs we put on have a secular worldview. When I was younger, I struggled with trying to stop listening to country music. I made fun of my dad all the time when I was a kid. I was not a good kid, right?

I didn't honor my father. The thing that I made fun of him about is, he listens to the same music he listened to when he was in school. Like, don't these songs ever get old to him. And yet there's something in me that keeps saying, I sure wish I could listen to some Garth Brooks today. It's not all that bad.

And you might even say, it's not all that bad. But listen to the lyrics of, think through the lyrics of his songs. Not all of them. Most of us say, well, I just like the song. Yeah, but the word that's being, the lyrics are still going into your mind.

You're still thinking about you get the point. I know my brother Greg and I, Greg has struggled with this even in Christian music. It's to the point where I don't know what to listen to. And that was my question. Greg blessed us with a great sermon here a month or so ago, and at the end of it, I agree with him wholeheartedly.

I wish he could go to every church in America and just preach that sermon and get stuff thrown at him and get thrown out. Thank God we're not doing that here. But at the end of it, I asked him, so I have this problem. I asked myself, what do I listen to? His answer is the same one that I almost have to come to the conclusion.

Nothing. Listen to good books. Listen to preaching. Amen? I'm not saying, yeah.

Even in Christian music, we have this problem of a secular worldview. How about when you send your child to school? Understand this, If your child goes to school, goes to the public school in our day, and I'm not saying that your, I'll say it's the end of the world if they do this, but I want you to think about these things. When they graduate high school, if your child has went to public school and graduated, they've had 18, 720 hours of secular thought put into them. That's what their mind has received.

If they go on to get a four-year degree, they'll have an additional 5760 hours. And if they get their master's degree after that, an additional 2880 hours. Now by the time they graduate high school, if they went to church every single Sunday and not missed even one Sunday, if you're depending on this renewing of the mind to come from church, if They've not missed even a single Sunday. They've received 1, 404 hours of, hopefully, scripture. And lots of churches in America, that's not even true.

So let's just say they don't go to college and they go to church every Sunday. They're having 18, 000, almost 19, 000 hours of secular thought versus roughly 1, 500, a Bible. It will not work. The reason I hit on this all the time is because it will not work. You will end with heartache.

You will end with devastation. Now how about when the children aren't at school? Or how about when you and I aren't at work? We have our friends. If our best friends are not solid believers in Christ, even more hours go to secular thought.

Proverbs 13 20 says, whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but a companion of fools will suffer harm. Young people, who are your friends? It's not wrong to have a non-Christian friend, but they should never be your best friends. And they shouldn't be where you spend the most of your time with. You need to find true born-again friends and spend time with them.

Be encouraged with them. Find a friend that loves you enough that that exhorts you when you need exhorted. Find a friend that loves you enough to spend time discussing scripture with you and not what the pretty girl in the next class is doing. That's about all we talked about when I was a teenager. How about your free time?

There's all kinds of things our culture does with its free time. We have sports and all these things that take us away from the word of God. We spend all of our time doing these things, even to go into my world. There's fishing and hunting and just all these things that consume my time. And this morning, understand that God wants us to enjoy life.

He wants us to enjoy some sports and have fun and different things. And so often when we start to talk about these things many people start to go into well We have to have moderation as long as long as it's in moderation It's okay, and I agree with you if it's in moderation Many things are okay if it's in moderation even Watching the Pilgrim's Progress cartoons, okay, and I picked that because nobody can get on me for that. In moderation, many things are okay. The problem is, is because our minds have conformed so much, we don't have even an understanding of what moderation is. Public school plus media and not even add in the friends, we have 45, 000 hours of training.

In church in 18 years we might have 1, 400. That's not moderation. That's not even close. Everything around us says to conform. What is moderation?

I would tell you that moderation is, if I do anything more than the time I spend filling my head with the word of God, it's not in moderation. It doesn't matter if I go, if I play disc golf for an hour today, if I only spent 10 minutes in the word of God this morning, that disc golf was not moderation. It was extremely not moderation. Now to go back to, I'm not trying to preach all day, to go back to the Internet, I want you to be aware this morning. When you go onto the Internet, when you go onto social media, how many of you pay a subscription to Facebook?

Pay like 25 bucks a month. Nobody? How come? Facebook has to have tons of servers. Servers are crazy expensive.

They had to pay people. Roquet paid me to sit and just watch their servers to make sure they don't break. Facebook has tons more servers than Roquette has. They're paying all kinds of people. The Facebook guy with his name, he's always on the news because he's got lots of money and somehow that means you can talk about medical stuff and all kinds of things and people should listen to you because you have lots of money.

So if you don't give them money, how are they paying their bills? You guys know? Through commercials and ads. The thing with commercials and ads is the longer they can get you to stay on your computer, the more commercials and ads they get you to watch. The more commercials and ads they get you to watch, the more money they make.

So, not just Facebook, most of the internet, Google, all these people, they study you intently. They know things about you that you don't know about you. They can tell by where you're clicking at things on the screen and how fast you're scrolling and how fast you're reading things. They can tell by that if you're getting ready to be done. And then once they see that you're ready to be done, they pop up things or put things up that will then reengage you and draw you back in.

They study how to control you. They are so good at it that in a very short time, we'll find that they will be able to get a majority of the population to do almost anything they want. They're studying your mind. You know, one way that they keep you engaged, and I'm not going to go forever in this, but I really want you to hear this. One way they keep you engaged is they figure out who you are and they give you, let's just say this morning, Democrat versus Republican.

This morning if you're a Republican, your computer knows this. When you do a Google search for the identical thing that the Democrat searches for, it's completely different results. The results are tailor-made to keep you engaged. And so what they do, if you're a Republican, you start to doze off a little bit, They see that Carol's getting tired of this computer stuff, and all of a sudden it pops up. The Democrats are framing Trump.

And Carol says, I have to click that. And I'm not, I don't know that. I'm not picking on Carol. I like Carol. Here's the deal.

To keep you engaged, it must become more and more extreme. To keep the guy that you work with, that you think is crazy because he's on the other end of the spectrum, to keep him engaged, it has to be more and more extreme. And everything that he searches for, the Democrat, he searches for something on Google and he's surrounded by Trump is the craziest and stupidest guy in the entire world. And then you or whatever, if you're a Republican and you search, you come up with all of your results are the Democrats are the most evil and craziest people in the world. Why?

Not because they're trying to create division. They want you to stay on the computer. In essence though, it's greatly creating division. And when people spend hours a day having their mind renewed with this, it's no wonder where we are in America, but it's also no wonder where we are in the church. You're being controlled.

You're being deceived. We're spending hours a day on social media, and we're spending 10 minutes in the word. See, once I understood this, I honestly broke down in tears because I have hated the person on the other side, and I can't understand how they can even think this way. Why? Because I'm surrounded always with this point of view.

I assume that when I Google something, they get the same results. They do not. They don't know half of what I know. And I don't know half of what they know. And we each look at each other and say, you're crazy.

Can I tell you the solution? You already know the solution. We have to shut it off. We have to do as Eric Souter said so many times, he says, I'm taking my ball and I'm going home. Not playing.

And I know, I, listen, I know, I, I thought about computers since I was a kid. I wanted to be like Mr. Computer. In my high school senior prophecy, there's no profits but they call it that. They said I was going to own the Campbell Computer Corporation.

I was going to take out Microsoft. I know the draw of the computer. But friends, we either have to severely limit it, or we have to shut it off. It has so distracted us from Christ. It's so distracted us from what we're really here for.

It's so distracted us from eternity. Children can't even read books anymore Because they look at them and say, oh, they're boring. Do you know why the books are boring? They don't have supercomputers studying you to keep you engaged. And once you have participated long enough in this culture of studying you to keep you engaged, everything else seems boring.

Let me, I know we're going long. I would encourage you parents, if nothing else, if you take nothing else from this, teach your kids to read books. I've went down this trail too. I have made this mistake. Because have you guys ever seen a Kindle?

I have a whole library room I can take with me in my tent. It's so amazing. But where I never thought through was that if all of my books are on a device that are digital, All the government has to do is say, we don't like Romans 12.2. They go in their computer and they change it. Teach your kids to love books.

I mean, love Christ. Teach your kids to have books. They can't change the text in my Bible because I have it. They can't break in, maybe could. They're not going to break into every one of our houses and change our Bibles.

It only takes them a second to change a digital book. One of the things, and this really isn't, has nothing to do with the Word of God, but one of the things, that documentary called The Social Dilemma, One of the things that just pulled my heartstrings at the end, was here were people who were very high up. They were the CEO of Pinterest and all these different people who were gathered together to discuss social media and these different things. And the final question to them was this, would you let your kids have social media? And every one of them except one said, absolutely not.

The Apple guy, who's his name, Steve Jobs, in one of his statements, he would never let his kid have an iPad. These people who are making all this money off of this computer stuff, they don't let their kids have it. The one guy that did let his kids have it had a severe limit. They had like 15 minutes a day. And that really, I'm going to pull up my strings, but in reality we have to come back to Romans 12, 2.

What is my mind being renewed with? Is there moderation? Am I spending as much time in the Word of God as I am everything else? We found the same thing happened inside the church in the last 20 to 30 years. We decided that we knew the problem to why people were falling out of the church, why the church numbers were going down, and so we started to conform.

Think of what youth ministry is. Just think of the concept of youth ministry. We hire a youth pastor who then starts the youth group and the youth group is composed or comprised of, still maybe looking at the word of God, but we're gonna conform, hear the word, we're gonna conform everything else to appeal to what our children like. In essence, we're going to conform it to what the world likes. Here's my thumbs pointing at this guy.

When I was a youth pastor, our youth group was a combination of fear factor and a short message. And I would go to the district meetings, and I would sit down with other youth pastors, and I would brag about how I got some 13-year-old boy to puke because he was eating a Big Mac that was blended up in a blender. What is wrong with us? We thought we could get people by conforming? We didn't go to the word of God.

We didn't say, what does the word of God say, how we should minister to youth? We gave God our better ideas. In Colossians 2, 6 through 8. It says, Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophies and empty deceit, according to human tradition.

Hear that. See that no one takes you captive by philosophies and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. Are we making our decisions based off of what the world does? Are we making them based off of the word of God, according to Christ? Is that how do we spend our time?

Is it according to what the world does? Or is it according to Christ? See, the problem in America today isn't the politics. It's not the judges. It's that the church thought that it could be okay with God and still live like the world.

It's rendered our evangelism useless. It's rendered our lives useless. It's rendered our churches nearly useless. It's turned them into places where people gather, usually just older people gather once a week so that they can check their box and get back to their life. This is not the Church of Christ.

This is not a gathering together of those who have new hearts those who desire Christ above all This morning if we love our families if we love our country if we love Christ we must Have our minds renewed We must have new hearts that desires Christ above all. I'll end with John MacArthur's quote again. He says, the renewed mind is one saturated with and controlled by the word of God. I pray that that is you and I. I pray that That's us, my brothers and sisters.

Let us not be deceived. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I look back, Father, Father, I look back, Father, at the things that I've done. There is so much shame within me, Father.

Father, we pray this morning that you would morning that you would renew us, that you would draw us. That God, as we come to these very uncertain times, that we would be salt and light, that we wouldn't hide, we wouldn't hide our light, that we wouldn't be deceived by the schemes of the enemy. Father, help us we pray. Father, if there are those here who examine their selves and they find that they May not have a new heart, Father, I pray that you would draw them. What does this world have to offer us, Father?

It has nothing to offer. Help us to come to our senses that we'd be distracted by all these things that don't matter. Father, if there are those here who don't have a new heart, Father, draw them today, I pray. Father, for those who do, I pray that you would help us to not be distracted by the enemy, distracted by this world. Father, help us to do what it takes to dwell upon the word of God and not the devices and the schemes of men.

Father, for it's a people who love you, Father, whom you will use. Father, we pray that you would draw us today in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. I'd like to ask the elders if they would come.