Let God Change You -- The 3 steps of Romans 12

 This episode focuses on what it is to be a Christian: renewal, transformation, and discernment.

We dive into a deep examination of Romans 12. 

Being a Christian is primarily a transformation of mind, heart and character which God directs when we “present ourselves”, mind and body, to be a living sacrifice for Him. The discussion touches upon the process that begins with repentance, and renews our mind, attitudes, and actions from the day we surrender our hearts to him.

The transformation that happens in this spiritual process is complete. Some have called it a “gradual bending heavenward” of that which naturally bends earthward. The host also explores the usage of the Greek term 'Dokimazo', suggesting it implies a process of testing, questioning, and ultimately approving of the circumstances that emerge under God’s guidance. It is God who works within us to will and to do His good pleasure. 

Lastly, the episode underscores the notion of testing or experimenting to discern God’s will, and then approving or accepting the will of God.

God, it turns out, is not a perfectionist — he forgives and loves us until we become a vessel suited to the great work of mediation and mutual edification that he plans for us to engage in as the world of mankind is taught the principles of life in the future. 

00:07 Introduction to the Series

00:09 Understanding Christian Growth: Renewal, Transformation, and Discernment

01:39 Exploring Romans 12: Using the Blue Letter Bible

02:10 Deep Dive into Romans 12:1-2

06:25 The Concept of Discernment in Christianity

08:28 Marks of a True Christian: Growth and Change

13:36 Overcoming Evil with Good: A Christian Perspective

13:55 Revisiting Romans 12:1-2: The Meaning of Sacrifice

04:54 Understanding Worship in Christianity

26:13 Interpreting 'Age' in Biblical Context

27:21 Exploring the Greek Word 'Aeon'

28:06 The Concept of 'Ages' in Biblical Perspective

30:17 Christianity and the Future Age

31:52 The Process of Transformation in Christianity

37:33 The Concept of 'Dokimazo' in Christianity

47:08 Understanding God's Will: Good, Acceptable, and Perfect

51:47 The Role of Christians in the End of the Christian Era

This new podcast is meant for serious Christians -- people who are focused on following Jesus faithfully, until death. The trials are real, but the joys are beyond expression. Eye has not seen, nor ear heard ... the things God has been preparing for those who love him supremely.

The more we pay attention to the terms of discipleship and predictions of the actual deeds of Jesus' truest followers, there have not been many humble, meek Jesus followers who made it into the pages of history. Most genuine, obedient Christians have been laboring in anonymity, ignored or even hounded by the powerful forces of the outwardly respectable, "orthodox" Christian geopolitical system.

For the most part, the true followers of Jesus were not famous, they did not have official recognition, they did not seek or gain political power, and often they were oppressed, persecuted, neutralized in this life. Probably, few made their living as "ministers of the gospel". They were like the ancient prophets of old
-- men and women who suffered for their faithfulness-- "of whom the world was not worthy."

But the future era will be different. Jesus will exalt his obedient followers. They will be revealed by him as having been victorious in his eyes. He will promote them to places of power and influence in his future "government of the world, when the times are ripe for it." (Ephesians 1:9,10 -- Weymouth translation.)

Transcript

0:07

Welcome to We Are Near. This is Episode 2, and for the next several episodes I'd like to do a series on what it means to be a Christian and how Christians grow. And I want to start with Romans 12. And we're going to look at three aspects of the message in Romans 12. The themes of renewal, transformation, and discernment. Being a Christian is a mental thing primarily. Obviously, we do things, we act, we live lives in a human body, but what's happening, the real heavy lifting that's happening in the life of a Christian is happening in the mind. It's a transformation of the mind, the heart, the character. It's learning to have mental discipline, to grow and mature. We drink milk, and then we eat some pre digested food, and eventually we learn to handle grown up foods. We learn to like broccoli. We learn to eat salads. Hard to chew things like steak. Those are things that we do as Christians as we're growing. But the focus of Romans 12 is going to be renewal, transformation. What are we transforming from? And then We want to look at the concept of discernment, which is a theme in Paul's writings that we're going to look at tonight. So let's look at Romans 12, and I'm going to use, um, the Blue Letter Bible, and I have it on my second camera, so that you can see, you can read it along with me, and, uh, I hope this will be big enough for you to see. And I'm going to show how to use the Blue Letter Bible to Do your own Bible study. There are so many tools available here that are really helpful in understanding the passage. I'm going to start by reading all of Romans 12, and then I'm going to go back and do a deep dive into verses 1 2. And we're going to use the ESV translation. By the way, that's right up here. The ESV is the English Standard Version, and you can tap and change to multiple other different translations. And I'm going to stay with ESV. You can organize it by verse or by paragraph. If you prefer to read it in paragraph form, it does that. And then the verse numbers appear. And the verse numbers are hypertext linked. So you can go to the tools by clicking on the verse numbers. Or you can go back to the verse, and then you have a little button for the tools. And the tools, uh, include a number of things. They include the Greek text. They, uh, order the Greek text as you choose. And I'm going to keep it in reverse. In line order, which means it is in the order of the English words, the way we would say it in English. Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. That's verse one. And notice that in each of those verses, underneath each English word is, uh, the actual Greek word. As it appears in the text. And then that same word transliterated into English letters. Another thing that's neat about it is it has the Strong's numbers. These, the G stands for Greek. And then this is the order that Professor Strong used. So that, um, you can find the definition as he, um, defined it. How it's used or where it's used in the Bible. And then the English transliteration of how it's said in that situation. This is the button here to close out of the, all of the, um, tools. Close, and now we have the verses. I'm going to read the whole chapter. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers. And by the way, we can roll over this little function button, and it'll say brothers and sisters. That's a helpful thing to, to know. That the Bible does not have a Greek word that means Um, when it says the word brothers, it does not mean, in most cases, it does not mean um, males. It means brothers and sisters. It means siblings. Okay? So I appeal to you therefore, siblings, 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. So that's the living sacrifice that he calls each Christian to engage in. Notice that we're already Christians, we're already brothers. When we are asked to take an additional step, doing something that we perhaps hadn't thought to do before this point. Perhaps we started out as someone who believed in Jesus as our Savior, but we didn't understand and it did not occur to us to engage in a Spiritual worship, a spiritual, uh, sacrifice, so to speak, that involved presenting our bodies and making our bodies and minds available to Jesus as a way of showing gratitude, appreciation, and a desire to serve. The goals and the plans and the priorities of the Heavenly Father. Now it says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And there's that idea of renewal, which we will come back to. That by testing you may discern. There's the discernment concept. And we're going to spend a lot of time on that tonight. What is the will of God? What is good and acceptable and perfect? For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, Obviously, you know, arms, fingers, hands, eyes, ears, feet, hearts, stomachs. All of these different members or parts of our body have different functions. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. And so therefore, even if our role is that of a fingernail or a piece of hair, it's an important part of the entire body and should be valued as such. Verse 6, Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. If prophecy, in proportion to our faith. If service, in our serving. The one who teaches, in his teaching. The one who exhorts, in his exhortation. The one who contributes, in generosity. The one who leads, with zeal. The one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. So each of the members of the body have different things that they can do. When they present their bodies and make themselves available to God, each one should discover what their gift is, what they can do, and then they should do it with all their heart. That's the message of those first eight verses. Verse nine."Let love be genuine." The, there's a subheading, it's not part of the Bible, but it's, it's added by the translator, and I think it's, in this case, it's a good summary point for the rest of the chapter: the marks of a true Christian. These are qualities that we should see in ourselves, growing as time goes on. And sometimes our, our growth will be less impressive than we would like it to be. Sometimes we'll feel like we're backsliding. Uh, sometimes our motivation will be lacking, and therefore some of these qualities will not be as apparent as they should be. But the goal of the Christian is to actually grow and change in character, attitude, and you know, basically thinking skills, learning to think like Jesus and the Heavenly Father. So the first one of these marks of a true Christian, he says, the very first one he leads with is. Love. Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil. Hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal. Be fervent in spirit. Serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Trouble. Tribulation is a word that refers to what you do to, um, wheat grain when you're turning it into flour. You, you roll it and it crushes it. And that's called tribulation in the Latin language."Rejoice in hope. Be patient in tribulation. Be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints. And seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice.""Weep with those who weep". So we're talking here about the development of empathy. Humility and empathy."Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly". There's humility again."Never be wise in your own sight". This is a learned skill that all of us can learn and most of us have a tendency to as we get older and, um, see how much the, uh, weaknesses that we have and the mistakes that we make outweigh the good that we're able to accomplish in most cases."Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do What is honorable in the sight of all." I'm going to read that one again."Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable. in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written,'vengeance is mine, I will repay', says the Lord." And we can be sure that if God is going to handle the question of vengeance, the question of justice, meting out justice, we can be sure that it's going to be perfect. It's going to be fair. It's going to be instructive. It's going to be corrective. It's going to actually help somebody learn a lesson if they found themselves corrected. And it's going to be restorative. God's justice is restorative. Very rarely does God resort to, uh, actual, Destructive, uh, intervention in a person's life. To the contrary, it says in verse 20,"If your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. For by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head." Now this is talking about somebody who is an enemy. If your enemy's hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him something to drink. It's not saying that you're going to be doing vengeance. What you're going to be doing is you're going to be making him, his head, his thought process, conscious of his own littleness, of his own inadequacies. If somebody who, uh, doesn't owe him anything, and who he has actually wronged does him a good turn, does him a favor, shows grace toward him, the tendency is going to be that that person's heart will soften, and that person's head will start to change. That's the, that is the winning way of love that Christians are called to do. And finally, verse 21, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. So we're not going to overcome evil by going to war. We're going to overcome evil by doing good things for others and for the very people who are trying to do evil to us. Okay, now I want to go back and review a little bit in the first two verses of the chapter. To do that, let's start in verse 1 and then spend most of the time in verse 2. Okay, so in verse one, uh, it says,"Therefore I urge you, brethren." And the word brethren that I talked about as being, referring to both brothers and sisters. The word is Adelphos. It means men and women. When Paul tells us to do an action, he uses a verb, peristemi, It means, uh, to present. And Paul, of course, was schooled in the ancient Jewish scriptures. He was an expert in the scriptures of the Old Testament. And when he uses the word"present", he's, he's pulling from something that happened in the book of Leviticus quite often. Um, animals were brought By people, to the priests, and the priests then presented that animal to God, to the altar that God had told them to build. They were offering a concrete thing, an animal, and we learn from other of Paul's writings, and even in this verse, that he's referring to what our minds do with our bodies. We present the body, we make it available, we lay our hands on it, and that blood is, uh, used as, to symbolize the very life itself, all of the hopes, aims, and blessings, and privileges. of that animal. The human being is what is meant by the animal. The animal pictures the sacrifice of the priest or the, or the sacrifice of the person who brought it. And, um, so by presenting, um, It's like, it's, it's basically taking the animal, tying it in place, restricting its liberty, and saying, Okay, you, the, the high priest, who becomes a picture, we are told, of Jesus himself, the high priest has the ability to do with that animal as he chooses. And all the animal can do is make itself available and allow itself to be tied, you know. to in a place next to the altar where it can be dealt with by the high priest. That's what we do as Christians. We make a decision to make ourselves available and circumstances that are presided over and arranged by, overruled by God, invisible forces move through our lives and give us opportunities. And sometimes we don't always see that happening. Sometimes we wish we could do more and we can't. Sometimes we have setbacks. Sometimes we have to take a second job and, and work harder. Sometimes we have an illness that keeps us from doing what we would like to be doing to serve God. Sometimes we, in the case of Paul, he lost his vision. Soon after he became a Christian, and he, he had to labor very hard in order to try to, um, read anything. And he was a reader. He was a studious man. And here he was, he, his eyes were weeping and he, and he couldn't see very well. And when he wrote his name, he comments at the end of a couple of the epistles how he had to write his name in very large letters because he couldn't see small letters on the page. And when he read, it was mostly he had to have a servant. You know, somebody read to him. Somebody like Timothy or Epaphroditus or, um, you know. He could speak. But he, he couldn't, he couldn't see very well, but he presented himself and he asked God actually three times to have his thorn in the flesh, he called it, be removed. And I think most people who read and reread what Paul writes kind of come to the conclusion that it must have been something about his vision that was a super problem for him, a big, a big issue. But all of us, at one time or another, almost all of us, I should say, We have these times when we are presenting ourselves, but we don't feel like we get to see much action. We're like, we're like a football or basketball player who sits on the bench sometimes. But we are part of the team, and we need to keep our head in the game. And we need to keep learning about the, uh, opportunities and the needs and the, the skills and the, and, and what's important. The New Testament places a great deal of emphasis on growth and maturity and, um, we'll talk about that a little bit more as we, um, as we consider this, these, these verses. Now, I want you to notice the word living. It says, present your bodies a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice. The sacrifice that Christians are called to make is not self destructive. We are not asked to go to hell. kill ourselves. We're not asked to do, to lay down, you know, in some kind of dramatic way that calls attention to ourselves, that forces people to commit violence against us. Early in the church, there were a lot of people who thought that if they wanted to follow Jesus and, and have Uh, and make a sacrifice for him, they literally would go up to people and ask them to kill them. They actually would ask, they would commit suicide, they would turn their own suicide into a homicide essentially. They would make people, they would hand people a weapon or demand that they be killed on the street right then as a, as some sort of sick means of, of showing that they were really devoted to Jesus. This is not what Christians are called to do. Not at all. In fact, it was a sign of the perversion and the destruction of real faith that was happening in the early church already in those days when this started happening. It was really not very long after the apostles died that this sort of madness started spreading. Yes, the church has always had martyrs. And, what does the word martyr mean? It means to be a witness. And it came to mean to be willing to die, or actually to die. And there have been plenty of true, faithful Christians who have given life itself, uh, rather than to have their freedom of speech, um, good, wholesome speech. want to emphasize, to have their freedom of, of, of speaking calmly, kindly, but truly, to have that be prevented. Uh, the, the apostles, James and Peter, um, were commanded by the, um, Jewish authorities not to speak about what they believed about Jesus. And they said, well, you tell us, should we obey God or man? Um, they actually. were, were pretty kind and not too terribly flamboyant in the way they stood up for their rights. But they did stand up for those rights, and they were willing to go to prison as a result. And, um, in the case of James, he died in prison. In the case of Peter, he was delivered and released from prison. Uh, the point is, the sacrifice was done by the priest, and the Making of oneself available was done by the person who was pictured by the animal in the book of Leviticus. Okay, and it says it's not only a living sacrifice, it is holy. What does holy mean? The, the, um, the Greek word is, is, uh, agios, or hagios. Some people say it means different. Let's look at what it says in, uh, Strong's. Go ahead, we'll click on the letter, and it says, um, from the word hagos, Which means an awful thing. Strong's, what Strong says, he says it's from Agos which, which means an awful thing and it means sacred. Physically pure, morally blameless, religious. Ceremonially clean and consecrated or dedicated. And it's translated Whenever you're in Strong's definition, uh, there's a colon and a dash towards the end of it, and after the colon and the dash is the way it's actually translated in the King James Bible. So, uh, it's translated holy, or most holy, or holy one, or holy thing, or saint. Those are the ways in which this hagios word is, uh, is used. That's the Strong's definition. How is the, what's the biblical usage? It's very simple. A most holy thing, a saint. Now, this is interesting. Every Christian is a saint. You know, we tend to, we tend to use the word saint to describe somebody who is like really specially pious. Somebody who just never seems to lose their temper. Someone who is, uh, you know, just really admirable in every way. That's not the way the New Testament uses the word. Uh, the New Testament describes anyone who has answered the call to become a Christian and who has done this thing, Romans 12, 1 and 2 thing. They become saints. That's what makes them a saint. And all of the New Testament is written to them. When Paul writes to Ephesians, he says, to the saints who are at Ephesus. It's a great honor and a great privilege to be in this category. There's no denominational tie here. There's no set of beliefs that are required to become a saint. You have to commit yourself completely, present your body completely to Jesus to let Him take you and use you in His service. Um. If he's willing. That's all it takes to become a saint. Holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And by the way, worship Let's just think about that for a moment. Everybody talks about worship. Here it is in Romans 12 1. It's, it's part of what we're called to do as Christians, and what does it mean? I don't think it has anything at all to do with singing or even going to church. It's talking about how we live our lives. Presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice is our worship. Okay, Romans 12 2. Do not be conformed to this world. All right, let's note this. The Greek word here is age, not world, but age. And so the big issue for Christians is to start understanding that there are time periods in God's dealings with the human race, time periods. And the Christian is to learn not to be conformed to this time period, this age. We need to not Act and not think like the people around us in this age. Why? Because the people in this age are focused on the needs and the pursuits and the priorities of this age. They're focused on earning money. They're focused on, you know, uh, their lifestyle and their possessions and, and, um, their relationships and their politics. Those are all the things that people are focused on in this age. Don't be conformed to the things of this age. I want to look at the tools here so that we can see this. Uh, reverse inline, which puts it right here. And do not be conformed to this aeon. The Greek word is aeon, and in this case it's aeoni. It's Strong's number 165. Let's look at it, look at it real quick. Um, the word is aeon. It sounds like this. Strong's G, 165. I own. I own. Obviously, I didn't say it right. I own. From the same as Uh, Strong's number 104, which means properly an age, by extension perpetuity. He says that often times they mean the world to come, or what I would say, the way I would say it is, when the Bible talks about the world to come, it usually means the age to come. Because the world stays the same, the planet stays the same, the age that we're living in changes. And so the Messianic period, which will be in the future, will be the future age for the human race. And it's translated many different ways. Age, course, eternal, forever, ever, etc. Now let's look at, uh, Thayer's. Thayer's says, When, the etymology goes back to the idea of breath or breathing. And it's tended, and so it comes to denote anything that causes life or vital force. That's an interesting idea. Then it says, the age, in the, um, Latin use of it, was, uh, a human lifetime. So, uh. And Homer used the word to imply life itself. In the Bible, it's pretty precise. It's pretty precise. It's not as, it's not, doesn't have all the poetic meanings that, uh, you know, Plato or, or Socrates might have used. He quotes Jude 125. There's a phrase that means, to the age of the ages. It's, it's saying that there's multiple ages and they all, uh, if you stretch them on out, it's, it's, it's, it might as well be to the human way of They're imagining and thinking it might as well be forever, but it isn't. It isn't forever. I mean, now that we've, now that we've discovered that the universe is 13. 7 billion years old, we know that long periods of time can be contemplated for the material creation of God. And we are living at, um, an important juncture in the, the, uh, future, um, dealings of God with planet Earth. And that's what my other podcast, It Is Near, is focused on. It's focused on prophecy and ages and time and so forth. But I just wanted to show you that in this verse, in Romans 12 2, when we talk about do not be conformed to this world, to this age, we're saying that the duty of a Christian Is to be focused on, focused on the things that are going to happen when God takes control of planet Earth. We need to start living now the way we would like to live or we will need to live when God is fully in charge and the human beings are obedient to God. That's what we want to do. We want to set an example now of how it is to live. in harmony with God as all people one day will. Remember the Lord's Prayer. What did Jesus say? He said when they asked Him to pray, He said, say it like this Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is now in heaven. So there's a future age. When things will be done on earth as they are already being done, you know, where there's no imperfection in, in the heavenly realms, in the realms we cannot see beyond, beyond the planet that we live on. Um, okay, now it says, don't be conformed to this age, but be transformed. Okay, here's that idea of transformation. What does it mean to be transformed? It means to be changed. We're talking about something, uh, that is existing only in the mind. That's what the phrase says, be transformed by the renewal of your mind. You remember when, uh, Jesus had the conversation with the Jewish Pharisee, Nicodemus? Nicodemus was so afraid of, about losing his reputation by talking to Jesus that he came to him by night and they talked. He told him that he should be, he needs to be thinking in terms of being born. Or begotten is the actual word he used, which is the word they use to describe the insemination of a new, a new baby, before it's even born. The, uh, it's first begotten. He says it needs to be begotten by that spark of life, the same kind of spark of life that brings a human embryo into existence in the womb of a woman. The same idea. is what he's talking about when he says that a human being is, um, begotten from above. The word he uses in, in John, the third chapter is anothen, which means from above. And so, that's a, that's a new thing. It's a, it's a renewal of life. And for a human being who has, you know, grown up and is, uh, A teenager or an adult, and they are thinking about important issues, and they decide to be, that there's an opportunity, they hear, they hear a message, they read things in the Bible, things happen in their life, and they come to believe that it's true. A new spark of life is possible within you. That's what he's talking about here. Don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. What happens when your mind is renewed? Well, the first thing that happens is that you repent of things. You change your mind. Repent means change the mind. Metanoia is the Greek word and it means to Changed the mind, changed the thinking, changed the attitude, changed the intention, changed the will, changed the point of reference. He's saying what happens is a new way of thinking, a new approach to life. That's what a Christian experiences. And, um, I should, what I should make, what I should emphasize, I suppose, is that it should be obvious that not every person who calls themselves a Christian or who goes through even a conversion of some sort, not everybody in, is in this category of what we're talking about here. Jesus, when he addresses his followers, he talked to, he spoke of them and to them as a little flock. He didn't, he didn't expect, he didn't seem to envision that he was here to start some sort of movement that was going to sweep across the world and would one day envelop everybody. You know? The idea of reaching the world for Christ, which is a very serious objective of many of our Christian brethren. I think that when we look carefully at what the scriptures say about our goals, our jo, our our, our job, our our, uh, challenges, our tasks that we're called to do, it's not to reach everyone, it's to help those whom God has drawn, whom God has called to have. Um, help and, and direction and encouragement to move forward with that call, that little breath of invitation that they got from, you know, the things that God did in their heart and in their life. To bring them to the point where they were prepared to present themselves to Jesus and to follow in His footsteps and to do what He did as best we're able. As our minds are renewed, we first do that first thing which I mentioned, repentance, which deals with the past, not by changing it necessarily, Or even undoing it, but by recognizing that it was wrong. That it was in violation of some principle. And a, a decision to now henceforth to live in a different direction, a different way. Yes, sometimes there are, there are opportunities occasionally for us to make restitution for some specific wrongs that we have committed in the, in past times. The main emphasis in repentance and renewal of the mind is the future. We focus on what we can do today that's different than yesterday, and what we can do tomorrow that's different than today. That's the renewal of the mind. Now, here's the most important part of this verse. So that by testing you may discern, so that by testing you may discern. Now, the ESV Bible is one of the few translations which uses a phrase quite like this. Let's look at the, uh, the Greek word here. So that you may prove. Okay, that's it. In King James it says, so that you may prove. That's what King James says. The word is dokimazo. Documadzo. Let's listen to, let's listen to that word. Strong's G, 1381. Documadzo. Documadzo. Documadzo. Documadzo. Okay. Alright, so, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Why? How? So that you may prove. Documadzo. Alright, now. What Documadzo is. is the ESV version, the English Standard Version, translates it as, as being two things, two things in one. It's testing and then discerning. There's an experimental dimension to this. It's like a scientific approach to discerning and discovering what the will of God is. We don't have a lot of moment by moment guidance from God in terms of how to get through each moment of each day. So what we have to do is we have to read as much as we can, and try to get the theoretical ideas by looking at the way people of faith acted in the past. We read that in the pages of the letters, the epistles of the New Testament. We, we read about the ancient, uh, people of faith in the Old Testament and what they went through historically. And we can glean a lot of information there about how to discern. the will of God and how to think about things, you know, how to, how to, to grow and to, and to capture kind of the mind and heart of God, how to have the disposition and character of Jesus as we follow his example. But Daki Madzo has the idea of, of testing. Actually experimenting and then as a result of experimenting to discern. We experiment, we put, we put, uh, ourselves and our situations. and our theories, and our attempts at action. We put all those to the test, and then we discern from those experiences what was pleasing to God and what wasn't. What was a productive way to live and what wasn't. What had good fruitage and what did not. Now, it's often going to be the case that what the Lord's will was, it produced hardship. What the Lord's will actually was created a conflict, created a decision that we had to make. In other words, we're not, we're not experimenting to find the easiest path. We're not experimenting to find the, the most popular path. We're experimenting to find what would be pleasing to God. And we have to do that, well it says in one verse, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. There are times when it's frightful to, to try to figure out, well, what should I do here? What should I do here?Dokimazo means to, let's look at some more definitions about it. I'm gonna click on Strong's 1381 and I'm gonna go down to the Blue Letter Bible's Summary of how it's used in the Bible. To test, examine, prove, scrutinize. And it says to see whether a thing is genuine or not. And it refers back in the use of the word, the development of the word in Greek over time. It actually was used to put metals to the test. This is an interesting thing that is a theme that you'll see in the Bible as you study it, and we won't go into it in great depth in this study. They used to have a black stone in the, in the center of each town in these Middle Eastern towns in Israel and, and, and, uh, Arabia. And, um, a lot of trading was going on. This was the crossroads of the world. And coins were coming from all over the place, and every coin, as you might surmise, um, is, is a, is a, uh, mixture of a precious metal. With some alloy, and the alloy makes it harder. Gold, the pure gold is very soft. And so to make it a little more tough, durable, they would put, uh, an alloy in the gold. But the more alloy they added to the gold, uh, the less value it had because it was, it was, um, mixed with tin or antimony or some other, uh, metal. So they would put a black stone in the center of town with a, a stripe. of pure gold drawn on it, and then people would go and they'd take the coin that they brought from the land that they came from and they would mark that next to the stripe, as close to the stripe as they could get it, so that the people that they were trying to buy from could see how close in color their coin was to the pure gold stripe. And so, Dokimazo is the process of discerning. You put the, you, you scratch the, the questionable coin against, right next to the gold, the pure gold, which of course is a picture of divine qualities, divine wisdom and justice. And, um, you, you, you stripe your, your coin that you're offering next to it, and then you can see how pure it is. You can discern. So there's two parts to Dakimazo. You, you do the test, and then you look. You look to see what, how close in color those two coins are. That's what we're talking about. And then the second definition, uh, that's used in the Bible to, uh, when this word occurs, and it occurs a lot, is to recognize as genuine after examination. So you approve it. So you have the ability to not only test something and question things, But also to have the ability, have the confidence that comes from learning and from experience to settle on a decision about what, what that quality really is. You discern something, you actually make a decision about what's good, you actually approve it, if it's something that you can approve. If you can approve it, you have a duty. Under the rubric and the thought behind Akamatsu, you have a responsibility to learn how to say yes. You have a responsibility to say, okay, that's as close as I can get here to the gold standard. And so, a Christian learns not just to question everything. And test everything, because that's part of Dakimanzo. We have to test everything. But we also have to learn to approve some things. We have to learn to approve the good part of things. And that might mean that we'll have to say, yeah, but, you know, there might be some reservations. There might be some issues. There might be a, well, I like that idea. I like that approach, but can't we change it in this way to try to help these people who might be hurt by this plan you've got? Whatever it is, whatever we're trying to discern to try to get along with, uh, and, and, and make good things happen in, in serving God. There's also, there's a need to question and there's also a need. to, um, find what we can agree with and agree with it. So that's the, that's the growth process for Christians to become positive people, not only just negative critical people. Okay, now we're almost done with, with Romans 12. 2. So that by testing you may discern what is the will of God and what does it say? What is good and acceptable God's will is good things, acceptable things, and perfect things. Do you see the difference? Sometimes God's will is acceptable things. It's good enough. And sometimes God's will is perfect things. We have to learn to decide when we need to press for and insist upon what's perfect. In terms of what, how that works in our individual lives, and in our churches, and in our marriages, and in our dealings with our children, there's going to be lots of times when we've got to settle for what's acceptable. In order to have peace, in order to have positive, constructive relationships, and make, and work together as a team. And then there's other times when we have to say, that's too far away from perfect. You know, um, I probably am an am more of a perfectionist than most people, and I've been that way in my creative life, in my work life. Um, I've been that way as a father. I've been too much of, I was too much of a perfectionist at times when I was dealing with my kids when they were little. God deals with baby Christians, middle-aged Christians and old Christians. And I think in pretty much every case, he's focused primarily on what's acceptable. what's good enough. Good and acceptable is all he's trying for when he's when he's working with imperfect people because God knows I know that I know that it's popular to believe that God is a perfectionist and he can't even look at us because we're so imperfect. I don't think that that that opinion holds up. When you, when you walk with God and when you see what the Bible says about all of the many things that God has done and dealt with in His children, He forgives again and again. That's, that's doing what's, making do with what's acceptable. Okay, well, I wanted to go into some more work on, uh, documadso in the other scriptures, but we have, we are out of time. I've overshot this, my time slot. So, uh, the next episode I'm going to, um, go back into the first chapter of Romans with you and look at how Paul uses the same word documadso. Uh, in terms of how God deals with the unbelieving world, and then we'll go and we'll look at uh, Doc Amazo in the life of believers, um, discernment. We'll add to this, uh, theme that we've started on here and we'll continue over the next, uh, episode or two. And these are going to be, I think, kind of frequent and, uh, unedited, mostly, episodes that I'm just going to crank out and, um, let you, um, um, and hopefully they'll be useful. Hopefully they'll be something useful. And I hope that you are, uh, can discover from this. Your own power of, uh, studying the Bible, uh, with these, uh, amazing tools. You don't have to have a Bible scholar, uh, underlining things. You can have the Bible itself explaining itself to you. Uh, and, uh, with that, um, I hope that everyone who in their Life experience has, has, um, presented themselves to God as a follower of Jesus that you continue to do so and do not lose heart. And if you have not recognized the opportunity in that invitation that we have in Romans 12, 1 and 2, consider it. There's more to following Jesus than believing that He is your Savior. There's an opportunity that may crystallize in your own heart to present your bodies and your minds to Him, which is a reasonable and logical form of worship, life worship. Thanks for listening. This has been We Are Near, a podcast that's focused on the common denominators of Christian life and faith at this late hour. Almost the very end of the Christian era. We are very close to the end of the Christian era. And it's time not for Christians to try to conquer the world and circle the wagons and think that God is going to destroy everybody who isn't Christian. But rather, it's time for Christians to focus more carefully than ever before on their own hearts, their own growth, their own obedience. And when their obedience is complete, and only then, will they have an opportunity to shepherd and guide the nations. Towards their growth and their obedience, which will happen in the next age, as I understand the Bible. So, thank you for tuning in, and let's pray for the kingdom to come. It is near. And we, as Christians, are near to the goal.