"Seeing that you've put off the old man with his deeds," verse 10, "and have put on the
new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."
Notice the same wording there.
The new man is renewed in knowledge.
Remember God said that if we would renew our mind, we would offer ourselves a living sacrifice.
Remember if we would not be conformed to the mentality of this world, but would be transformed
by the renewing of our mind, we'd offer ourselves a living sacrifice.
We would deny self and take up the cross and follow him.
We would die to self, be dead unto sin, mortify the lust of the flesh, put on the new man
and say, "I am here to serve you God.
I am here to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am on this earth not to become wealthy, not to become famous, not to become loved
and adored by the wicked and sinful generation that we live in, but I am here to do what
God wants me to do.
I am here to serve Him, not to please myself.
What should I preach on this morning, God?
Something that's going to please Him is what I want to preach.
Now God didn't come to me and tell me what to preach, obviously, but He left this behind.
Before I was even born, this book was there to guide me, and God does not appear to me
and tell me, "Okay, this is what you're going to preach on this morning."
You say, "How do you decide what to preach, Pastor Isaac?"
How do you know what God wants me to preach?
Well, this book was put in my hand before I even knew how to read it as a little child.
I've grown up with this book, and this book was always there, and this book has always
told me what to preach.
You say, "How do you know which thing to preach?"
I just know that God said to preach all of it.
So honestly, more than anything else, when I decide what to preach, let me tell you my
thought process.
What have I not preached?
That's the biggest question on my mind every time.
When I'm deciding what to preach, I sometimes pull up the list of every sermon I've preached
over the last six and a half years that our church has existed.
And I'm always wondering, what am I missing?
What have I not covered?
You know, I think about all the books of the Bible.
Which book of the Bible have I not preached out of much?
Which subject have I not covered?
Or maybe it's been a long time.
Maybe it's been three or four years since I covered that subject.
And my goal is to preach what God has wanted me to preach.
And if something's mentioned a lot in the Bible, I'm going to preach on it a lot.
If something's mentioned a little in the Bible, I'm going to preach on it a little.
But I don't want to just preach what I want to preach.
I want to try to preach what God wants me to preach.
And He said, "Preach the Word."
He said, "Preach the whole counsel of God."
So what I want to do is search the scriptures and see what God considers important, what
God is emphasizing, what God's talking about, and that's what I want to talk about.
That's what I want to preach about.
And so my goal is to preach what God wants me to preach.
Now, some things in the Bible that God wants me to preach, you say, "Well, how do you know
God wants you to preach that?"
Because it's in the Bible.
And if it's in the Bible, he must want me to preach it because he commanded me to preach
the whole word.
Some things that God wants me to preach from the word, you know what?
They're not popular.