How People Change: Why Change? What Needs To Change? II Peter 1:1-10, Romans 12:1-2

Why Change?

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Good morning, church family. And uh welcome guests that are with us today. Glad that you're here. Um it's been a great week for us as a church family because we uh for one we had an opportunity to send a group of teenagers um along with Alex and Laura and my wife Jada. Uh they went to uh a camp this week in Wichita Falls, and God did some awesome, awesome stuff. And I'm uh just still hearing stories about that and all that God did. And so thank you guys for praying for them. Thank you for those who grabbed a bracelet last week and prayed for by name. I know in my house we prayed a lot for a lot of people, and it was just really encouraging to hear stories of how God was working because He's good and so very faithful. Uh just pray for those teenagers and especially probably their parents as they're recovering. Uh, because I know that uh sometimes you have great experiences like that and you come home and you crash. And so just pray that uh there will be peace and comfort and uh quick rest uh to get back into the rhythm of everyday life. Um that being said, I just want to encourage you guys, uh, we here at Point Community Church, we're a family uh of disciples on mission, a family of Jesus followers on his mission. And we don't have it all together, we don't have it all figured out. Uh we're learning and growing in the process. If you happen to be new, uh I've already met a couple people that are new this morning. Uh we're glad you're here, and we we hope you feel like this is a place where you don't have to put on any face or front or a mask or to pretend, but we just are here to learn and to grow. And we're thankful that we have a gracious God who's calling us to grow, who's helping us grow and change and become new. And in speaking to that very issue, we're going to be preaching uh over the next couple of months here at Point on how do we actually change, how do we actually grow, and be very explicitly clear in regarding uh how that actually works biblically, how we understand that. Um, before we get into the message, just a couple things. If you did not get a worship guide when you came in, uh some of our ushers would love to put one in your hand. It's just that simple sheet that's folded in half. Um, it's got some information about how you can get more connected here, as well as a place you can take some notes for today and even some scripture passages to read throughout the week. So we encourage you if you did not get one of those, you can lift your hand real quick. I think you got everybody. Oh, wait, here was one. Okay, great. So, um, and then secondly, uh, we do this right now every week. Uh just a simple way for us to know who's with us, and that's that on my left, your right, at the end of the row, there's a little black pad. If you'll just pick that up, sign it. That just helps us to know if you're guests and you want to know more about who we are and how to get connected, we can follow up with you. We're not gonna stalk you or anything, make you feel weird. Uh, we just wanted to say thanks for being our guest. In fact, if you are a guest, my left, your right, in the back of the room on your way out today, you can grab a small little gift uh just to say thanks for being our guest. We'd love to give that to you. And those people, uh, great team back there that would love to answer any questions you might have about who we are and what we're about. Um today, as I've already alluded to, we're gonna start a new series. And some of you were here last week. We wrapped up the Sermon on the Mount on Father's Day, and we talked about what it looks like to build our house on the rock versus about building our house on the sand, and what the consequences of not building our life on Jesus are, according to Jesus' words himself. Uh, today we're gonna dive into this idea of how do we actually experience change. Um, and and the truth of the matter is that change is a constant thing. In fact, uh a Greek philosopher uh Heracletus said the only thing constant in life is change. We all are experiencing change, whether we want to or not, change happens, right? But we're experiencing change on different levels. We're experiencing change physically, like from the time you're born, your body is changing, uh becoming different. I mean, one of the things as a parent, it's fascinating to watch your kids change and grow up, you know, and then even as you age, you change and go the other direction. Um and so we basically experience these different changes in our body physiologically. Uh we experience change emotionally because our emotions can go up and down and all around. Uh, we experience change and relate relationally, uh, relationships can change, um, and and we can be in people's lives and out of people's lives, and how much interaction we have and kind of how close we are to people. Those things can change. But also, what can change is spiritually we can change. And and in fact, we are all changing, whether we know it or not. And uh it might sound a little bit blunt, but just to be honest, like we're either growing closer in affection to God, or we're actually growing colder towards God. There's really no such thing as a neutral position with God in terms of spiritual change. Um, but I believe that every human being is hardwired to pursue uh to pursue God. That there's something in us that knows that we were made for God and we're looking for that. But the challenge for us is that we tend to look in the things that he's made rather than looking for him. And it's in the pursuit of him in the things that he's made uh that sometimes reveal just how um much we need him, how much how desperate we are for him, if you're if you're still tracking with me, okay? And so I want to read a passage of scripture this morning that'll sort of lay the groundwork uh for the next uh season that we're gonna be together talking through this. We haven't really refined exactly how long this series will go, um, but myself, I say we, me and the and some of the elders, and and then uh Tim Gillen is actually gonna help teach some of this, maybe some others, but at least Tim and I will be teaching some of this. Tim's been teaching a class for a number of years on gospel change. And and if you've been around here um very long, you've probably heard us talk about gospel change, or you've heard us talk about gospel growth. If you've ever done uh DNA, gospel DNA study with one of us, one of our uh in one of our discipleship groups, you've you've you know uh some of the language that we've used there. Uh maybe you've read the book You Can Change uh by Tim Chester or even Tim Lane's book, How People Grow. I'm gonna give a couple of those books that I suggest that you could read uh in your own time. I think they were really helpful. And here's the thing like sometimes we need new language to sort of reawaken us to what God's trying to do. It doesn't mean that the concept or the process is actually changed, but it does mean that sometimes we need to remember that God is actually working on us, and sometimes we can get complacent. I don't know about you guys, but it can get spiritually complacent, kind of get indifferent, or sometimes I can hear things so much and I can keep hearing the same language and kind of go, oh, I've already heard this, and then sort of check out. Have you ever done that? And so the hope is that even through this series, we might have a fresh view of how God wants to change us, how he wants to transform us, how he wants to make us into who he's created us to be, designed us to be. And so I want to read first from uh the book of 2 Peter. And so if you have your Bible, encourage you to pull that out. 2 Peter chapter 1. We're gonna explore more of this text in the future. Um, it's gonna be kind of a launch pad for some of our messages, not all, but some of our messages. And the reason why I want to go there is because I always want the word to drive the direction that we go, okay? Uh you don't just need me to philosophize about how to do ministry and life and the church thing and the Christian thing. Like it's a walk with Jesus, it's dynamic, and God's word is living and active, and that's how we're instructed. In fact, this is a side note, sermon, sermonette, if you will, and I won't take much time here, but just know that when 2 Timothy 3.16 says that God's word is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness, so that every man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work, it means it. It actually means that God's word is what helps us become who God wants us to be. All right? But how we actually use God's word, how we actually understand God's word, and I would even say apply God's word, is very significant. Because you can hear it for years and never actually obey it. You can hear it for years and never actually apply it to your own heart. Um, at least not at a deep level. It can be very superficial if we're not careful. And so that's not what we're shooting for, okay? So here's the deal: 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 1. Because Peter, who is one of the uh apostles, this is the same Peter who walked on water, this is the same Peter who said, Jesus, you are the Christ, made that declaration. And the next moment, you know, Jesus was saying you're the devil, uh, because he's saying he was going to protect Jesus. Uh this is also the same Peter who denies Christ three times and Jesus restores him. Um, and this is the same Peter who preached at Pentecost. And again, some of you may not be very familiar with the Bible, and so you're like, I don't even know what you're talking about. But if you know the New Testament, you know the gospels, this Peter is a pretty big figure in the New Testament because he's the one who preached the first gospel message uh when the church was born, and under the power of the Holy Spirit preached, and 3,000 people came to faith the day one. It's incredible. Uh, and and then a few days later, another few thousand. So here's the thing uh this guy is is legit, he loved the Lord, and God inspired him to write these words. Here's what it says Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ. I mean, I just said Simon Peter is a stud, and he calls himself a slave to Jesus. He has a right heart posture, doesn't he? He understands that yes, I had a privileged seat at the table with Jesus, and yet I see myself as a slave to him. That's incredible. The word do loss there, literally a bond servant to Jesus. I am bonded to him, and my life belongs to him. I love that. To those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege with ours through the righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ, just one note there. Here's Peter, and he's saying to a group of people, hey, you may not have been an apostle, you may not have been a disciple, you may not have been traveling around with him and seen the miracles and had firsthand interaction with Jesus, but you still have the same salvation. Isn't that awesome? I mean, we have the same salvation that all the apostles and all the prophets who've come before us have had. We have that in Christ because it wasn't based on them. There is not one other figure in the Bible who's perfect except for Jesus. Not one other pick person in the Bible who is divine except for Jesus. And he says, You've experienced, you've experienced this faith that is of equal privilege to ours through the righteousness of God in the shape of Jesus Christ. And he says, May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Grace and peace show up in a lot of the letters in the New Testament. Um, Paul uses it a lot to begin and end his letters. And he's basically saying that the grace of God is the foundation for all that we have, right? Because if there's anything good in our lives, it's God's grace. If there's anything that we received of any worth or value, it's God's grace towards us because he doesn't owe us anything. Let me say that again. God doesn't owe us anything. We're not entitled to get any blessings or benefits from him. He's just that gracious, he's just that good. Aren't you glad? Like, I mean, he doesn't have to do anything he's done. He doesn't have to save us, he doesn't have to redeem us, he doesn't have to send Jesus, but he did and didn't have to send the Holy Spirit, but he has. And so we are blessed by him, and we are we are graced, but also peace that we would experience increasingly what was in the Garden of Eden, which was a shalom. Everything was right. And we experienced that in Christ. We actually experience the beauty of what it means to walk in real peace in our hearts because we're right with God, we're right with each other, we're even right with the world around us, we even right with ourselves, like we talked about last week, in Christ. And notice he says you would be multiplied, that these grace and peace would be multiplied through the knowledge, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Anybody who says that you can grow spiritually without knowledge hasn't read the Bible, right? You need knowledge. But here's the only issue I want to encourage you. It's not just head knowledge, it's experiential knowledge. It's deeper than just knowing intellectually the right doctrines, the right truths of scripture. It's about knowing God personally, experience. There's a different word that's even used in that. But here's the thing it's also not just about knowing it, but it's about applying it, doing it, obeying it. And I've already mentioned that a couple times today. And we keep hitting that home because spiritual depth and maturity is not about how much information you know about God. We can sometimes confuse those things. In fact, I would say it this way: you can help others grow in their knowledge of God and yet not be growing in your own relationship with God. Which is kind of scary, isn't it? Because you can teach truth about God and help people grow up and yet you in your own heart not be growing if you're not surrendered and submitted to God personally. Now, these are the two verses that I want us to hone in on, and they're loaded. I mean, like literally loaded. I love, I love the word of God. I don't worship it, but I love it, what it teaches us about God. He says, His divine power, God's divine power, has given us everything required for life and godliness. Now, that that's a sermon right there in and of itself, okay? We have everything we need for life and godliness in God. Everything. Do you believe that? I I believe it sometimes. I don't believe it all the time. I'm just gonna be completely honest. Because if I believed that, I wouldn't be freaking out so much. If I didn't, if I if I really believed that, I wouldn't be so unsettled and I wouldn't be so like, you know, anxious or uptight about, but if I genuinely believe that I have everything I need in God for life and godliness, man, what kind of peace does that bring in my heart and my mind? Man, it's so good. He says, You've everything you need, everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge. There's that word knowledge of him, knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness. Why did God call us to himself to be his children? Because he's awesome and he's good. He's awesome and he's just really good to us again. And he says, he goes on to say, by these he has given us his very great and precious promises. Our God is a promise-keeping God. Our God does not tell lies, he does not say he's gonna do something and then not do it. Our God tells us what he is gonna do, and he always, always, always, always, always follows through. So if he says that he's going to make a way, he will make a way. If he says that he is going to protect us, if he is gonna provide for us, if he is going to meet us in our need. Now, here's the challenge. Just one word here. Be very, very careful what you assume upon God is a promise from him. Sometimes we like to say, Well, God promised me this. Well, maybe God didn't promise you that. But here's what you can say. If it's in his word, it's a promise. Okay? If it's in his word, it's a promise. Those are for sure. Now, moving on. He says, By these has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them, catch this last this next phrase, you may share in the divine nature. That's a mystery right there. You may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires. God wants us to experience what it's like to share in the divine nature, to actually experience what it's like to know him personally and to see things the way that he sees things and to value what he values and to feel about life in the world as he feels about the life in the world. He wants us to experience this divine nature where our desires become increasingly like his desires. And escape the corruption that is in the world. Now, not everybody sees the world as corrupt. I understand that. But you have to really be blind or it really be ignoring to say that you think that the world is all of good, that it's all okay. Because when you look at the world, and for those of us who've actually like participated in worldliness, you know it doesn't bring good things. It brings hard things. And in fact, we see the impact of the corruption all around us on a daily basis, the corruption of God's good things. Because do you know, by the way, that sin is really a corruption of God's good things? God's given us all these awesome gifts, but when we begin to worship them instead of Him, it becomes corrupt. It begins to become ultimate, and God never wanted those things to be ultimate. He wanted us to worship Him. So, what I'm saying to you as we get to this verse 4 here this morning is this that God wants to change us more and more so that we look more and more like who He intended us to be. That we experience more and more of that divine nature. God desires to change us. He wants to transform us, he wants to grow us, he wants to mature us. Whatever word you want to use there, he wants us to move closer to him, closer into right relationship with him, closer into obedience to him, closer in to really walking in a relationship of love and intimacy with him. God wants that for us. Now, just a few stories from the Bible where we see transformation happen when people encounter Jesus. Some of these are pretty popular, so they're pretty common, well known. One of them that came to mind this week was the story of Zacchaeus. Anybody ever really sat and thought about that story? I hope I'm assuming if you've been around church much that you have, but if you don't know the story well, I mean you have a rich tax collector. He's been making a living by being a corrupt guy, basically stealing from his own people, um, extorting them, and basically collecting taxes higher than he needed so that he could live off of the fluff and then giving the Roman government theirs. And we hear this story of Zacchaeus where he's he's uh he hears Jesus is coming by and he gets up in a tree because he's apparently he's a short guy, and he gets up in this tree and he looks and he's looking for Jesus to come by, and Jesus looks up in the tree and sees him and says, Zacchaeus, come down, right? Because I'm going to your house today, because I'm going to your house today, you know, that whole song. And so he goes to his house, and what happens? Zacchaeus' life is completely altered. Like completely, radically altered. Why? How do we know that? Because it says that Zacchaeus, he literally says, I'm going to sell my possessions and I'm going to give it all back. I'm going to give it all to the poor. I'm going to give it away. And I'm going to pay back all that I've extorted and all these people that I've hurt. And so what we see in that is a radical transformation, a radical change of direction. Here he was, living for self, being a liar and a thief. And he turns and he says, I'm going to sell all that, and I'm going to actually start to pursue a new way of life because Christ is awesome. The second thing we notice is a second story is a woman at the well. Some of you guys know this. This woman is she's a Samaritan woman who they didn't really interact with. And then she's apparently a little, you know, she's into men. And she has this problem with an addiction to continue to pursue men as sort of her way to find security, identity, um, significance because she's had multiple husbands. And so as she's pursuing them, Jesus meets her at the well. And instead of ignoring her, Jesus engages her and he says to her, Woman, um, I know what you're looking for, and you're not gonna find it in men. I'm just kind of paraphrasing what happens in the story, okay? And he uses this whole process to say to her, What she really is looking for is living water. What she needs is something for her soul. And sex isn't gonna get her there, no, no man's relationship gonna get her there. And he basically speaks this to her, and she receives in that moment the gift that God has for her through through this encounter with Jesus, she goes back and tells her whole village about Jesus. She is transformed, she's radically changed in that moment, and so much so that she goes back, and people know who she is, and yet she's unafraid, unashamed, not embarrassed to go back and tell her whole village what Christ has done. That's radical transformation. How about one more like that? Well, you got the Apostle Paul, whose name was Saul before he came became Paul. You know what Saul did before he became Paul? He killed Christians. I mean, that's what he did. He traveled around killing Christians. His goal was to eradicate the Christians, these people who were following Jesus. He wanted to make sure they were all gone. And so he was dead set on that, and he's going to kill Christians in Damascus, and he's struck down on the road by bright light. He can't see, he's blinded, and Jesus speaks out of this bright light to him and says, Why are you persecuting me? And he basically has this radical transformation of his heart, and this killer, this murderer, actually becomes the greatest missionary to ever walk to planet Earth. And he plants churches all over the known world during his time, and we have half of the New Testament written because of this man's life. God using him to write these these letters to these churches in the known world at that time. That's incredible. Anyone who says that God doesn't change lives, again, hasn't read the scripture. But here's the great thing: we don't have to just look at the Bible to see transformation. I've seen transformation all the time in the world today. People's lives, people headed towards destruction, and now on a path to life. People on their own little worshipful path to try to self-realize and to figure out what they wanted to do it for themselves and to find life in this world and realizing they couldn't find it and then turning and coming to know Jesus. I could tell you story after story, and in fact, I'm excited. Next week you're gonna even get to hear a few stories of how God's changing people. Because next Sunday, instead of our normal preaching and worship time like we do, uh we're actually having an extended time of prayer and worship and sharing of stories. What's been awesome is I've got more people who want to share stories than we have time to share them next week. So people will keep saying, I want to share my story, I want to share my story. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna put you the next one, okay? Because we don't even have enough time, which is awesome because God's at work. God wasn't just changing people 2,000 years ago, he's changing people now. He's setting people free now, he's rescuing people now. And so we're gonna get to hear some of those stories next week in this room. But I want to just briefly, before we delve into some of the practical how to's, or at least understanding, because this is not just a formula, it's just not it's not just a magic process that we can put ourselves in, it's not a linear process to change. And I'm talking about what the pro the changing, transforming, being being made into who God wants us to be. It is it is a spiritual process, it's a supernatural process. Okay? And here's what I want to focus on today just for a minute is why should we even want to change? And then maybe just for a minute, what should we actually change? Why should we even want to change and what should we change? When I read this passage to you, I said that there is corruption in the world and that we're supposed to, uh that God wants us to, the words of Peter, to escape this corruption. One of the things that's corrupted is the motivation for why we do what we do. The fact that it's core, that's what's what's really corrupted. Why do we do what we do? Have you ever sat and asked yourself that question? Why do I behave this way? Why do I do this thing? Why do I get angry when my kids do this? Why do I uh struggle in traffic when I'm driving down the road and I have road rage? Why do I get mad at my boss every time he tells me to do something? Why do I, I mean, let's get wrong, let's get real practical, okay? Why is it then when my wife asks me a question that feels like she's like questioning whether I know something, I get defensive? I mean, why do we have those? Because we have this war inside of us, we have these motivations that are at war in us, wrestling in us. We have this under-the-hood, if you will, um struggle. And so if we're gonna actually experience change, we have to get below that. But we have a corruption that's tainting that. And here's what I would say um there are some people who change, I believe this is one of the primary reasons people try to change, uh, to fit in. They change to fit in. They're trying to just be accepted and loved and liked by others, and so they change their behavior to fit in. Uh, this means sometimes it looks like in the in public, they have a public persona and they have a private persona. They have a public face, they have a public way they interact, and then they have a private one. Uh back in the day, I don't I haven't seen this much in my family, praise God, but I remember back in the day, like, you know, my uh well, I don't want to, I don't want to point anybody out. But anyway, let's put it this way there'd be uh some stuff going on in our house, some arguing, some anger and some frustration, some, and then the phone would ring, and then they'd pick up the phone, hello? It's like, I'm just scratching my head over there, like, what just happened? That's not how you were talking to me. Now that's a silly illustration, but it is interesting how we as people we have ways that we act to try to fit in. So most much of our motivation at times is sort of to conform so that we're accepted, so that we're liked, so that we make it. I moved to a small town uh when I was in high school, and I'd come from a small town, but it was a little bit larger small town, like where it was like 24,000, 25,000. And then I moved to this little town that was like 608 people on this on the sign, and uh, and and there was like the first class I walked into. Um, I went from like a class of 400 in my graduating class to a class of 12. And I walked into this first class and it was my algebra two class, and the principals is like also the algebra two teacher, and he's playing guitar, singing to the students, and I'm like, what? It just happened. I don't even like I don't even know how to process what's what's going on here. It was so weird. And then the one of the first things is they they they said, well, you these are the only options you have for electives, and so I ended up in Ag Shop, and I'd never been in Ag Shop before. I mean, I'm I've been I'm an outdoors guy, I like outdoor stuff, but never been to Ag Shop before. And they were in the middle of preparing to go show their pigs. I didn't even know what that meant. And and so they were like, hey, you want to go to the fair and like show the pigs? And I was like, sure. And so I didn't like really own any cowboy clothes, and like it really, so like I found some of these boots that my grandfather had given me. Like uh, they were like great cockroach killers, they had a real sharp point toe, you know, and I think that's that what they call them. Um and I put those on, I put on like the closest to the cowboy jeans that I could find, and a pearl snapshirt that I found. And man, I was a fish out of water. I had no idea what they're talking about. I didn't know why they were hitting the pigs with a little stick and walking them around the thing. And I just was like totally at a loss. I was so uncomfortable. But I was doing everything I could to fit in. And many of us were motivated, we just want to fit in. We just want to conform our behavior. And here's the thing it doesn't just happen in sitting situations like that, it happens in church world. And so we like, we try to conform our behavior to fit into church. So we act a certain way. That's why sometimes and I say this very carefully, I don't mean this to beat up on the church, but sometimes church can be the most fake place we go in our entire week. Because we we can come and we can say, well, we we can't let people know that we're really struggling with blank. We can't really act like that. Like we we have to keep up the face, we have to keep up the appearance. Like, guys, listen. Yeah. Fake news. Is that what I heard? But here's the thing: like, church ought to be the place we're the most honest, the most real, the most genuine. And we'll talk more about why, but but for many of us, we find it's our performance for others, it's to gain the approval of others that we are trying to change our behavior. The next thing we do, I gotta move on, is sometimes we try to change our behavior, uh, and this fits really within this Christian thing, but we we we try to change our behavior to get God to love us. And I don't mean just Christians, by the way, but any sort of religious system where they've got like this God or deity or uh they've got some sort of uh guru or standard that that's there, they try to want, they want to please that person, so basically they try to make it their goal. And in Christianity, we say, like with God, we try to please God by our behavior, and we try to play this transactional game, you know, and we try to say, well, I'm gonna make sure that my good behavior outweighs my bad behavior. And so if I can do enough good stuff, then God will love me, then God will like me. If I can read my Bible, if I can pray, if I can go to church, if I can uh be kind to people, if I can help the poor, then God will love me, then God will like me, so we can form our behavior to try to meet God's standard sort of superficially. And so some people, that's kind of their game. They're playing this game, and it leads to some really deadly outcomes because you can't keep up, and you feel like you can never measure up. And so you end up sort of in this down, doom, and gloom, you know, uh depressed state. Like I can't keep up with this behavior modification process, this treadmill of sorts that I'm on. And so we we seek to try to prove ourselves to God and to gain his love and acceptance and forgiveness. But the third thing, and I actually think this is the underlying one on all of them, of these these three, is some people believe we should change so we can just live with ourselves. Um, and what I mean by that is like for me personally, uh I find, I can see this in my life, like, I just don't want to be disappointed in myself. I just want to feel good about myself. I don't want to feel like I'm failing. My perfectionism can really drive me to sort of want to perform, not even for other people, though it does include other people, but really for myself, for my own sake. I mean, self really is at the center of this whole thing, when it looks at like, why am I actually trying to do what I'm doing? Why do I talk that way? Why do I act that way? Is it for is it for God or is it for me? Most of the time it's so how I feel good about myself. That's why we dress certain ways and act certain ways and talk certain ways, and so we try to prove ourselves to God in essence. Now, here's what's interesting: when you go that route, then you have a way of trying to modify the behavior that's external. Because all three of those things are about proving things outwardly, right? So proving things to God, proving things to people, proving things even to ourselves. And so there's this external modification. So I'm listening to my kids, they're watching a YouTube video yesterday, and um and and I think you guys know this, but but our culture, like we we love to shame people into doing the right thing. Like we try to do embarrass, we try to embarrass people. I mean, I see I hear parents all the time, they try to use this tactic. Here's how we're gonna get our kids to obey. We're gonna shame them. We're gonna basically try to make them feel really bad so that they'll do the right thing. Okay? Now here's the deal. Um, I was listening to this YouTube video yesterday, and it was this channel, my kids are watching it, and it's just a practical illustration of how this works because at the end of it, they said, Hey, make your comments below on our YouTube, subscribe to our channel, you know, and uh, and everybody loves to be liked and accepted. And then the guy says, and stop making negative comments down there below, because negative comments are really bad, and it's really bummer to read the negative comments. And and it said, and by the way, if you if you post negative comments, then we're just gonna assume that you're under five years of age. And what I heard in that, and even how they said it, with the tone they said it, was like, we're basically telling you, you know, like you're a really immature person if you put no negative comments down there, right? So the the motivation for not putting a negative comment was an external of we you're just being really immature if you do that. Now, people were like, well, what's wrong with that? What's the big deal with that? Well, here's the thing it's an external way to try to adjust behavior, and I'm not slamming on those guys, they're just doing what they do, but I'm saying, like, we do that in the church too. We say, well, you know, here's the thing. Like, if you do that, well, you're just a really bad this. If you do that, you're just a really bad Christian, you're really just not good at this, and we start to use external things. If you really love God, then you'll do this. If you really love, but when we say it, we don't mean like a genuine love for God. We mean like we're trying to guilt people, to shame people into doing the right thing. And by the way, it's a powerful, powerful motivator for a short term. You can you can motivate people with that for the short term. But you know what God's looking for? He's not looking for people who feel guilty into following him, he's looking at people who are responding to his grace, who are responding to his goodness, who actually want to do what he wants us to do because they're in awe of his love. They're in awe of his grace and compassion and kindness and generosity toward us. You see, Christianity is not a religion, it's not a religion at all in the way that man thinks religion, where it's like we show God how much we love him by all this stuff that we do for him, and hopefully he'll love us back. No, Christianity, being a Christ follower, being a Jesus follower is God has given us everything in all my life. I just want to respond in gratitude and worship to him, surrender to him, because he's worthy. That's that's Christianity. That's the Christian faith. We're not climbing a ladder so he'll love us and like us. We're actually responding to who he is and what he has done. And by the way, over the next few weeks, we're gonna get really practical in how this works itself out. But I want to tell you something right now, even as a practical illustration as a parent. So, some of you guys, this is not a new thought, but I want to encourage you with this. In my life as a parent, one of the things that I really struggle with is embarrassment when my kids uh do not do well in public. We're in a restaurant and one of my kids gets on the table. Okay? It has happened. Okay. Uh one of my kids gets on the table and they try to grab something across the table, and they know we've told them 587 times not to get up on the table to grab something across the table, but ask for it kindly, right? And in that moment, in my heart, in my heart, all of a sudden, I go to a place where my identity and worth is tied to what people around us at other tables are thinking about me. Okay, am I being too real? Okay, so in that moment, then I what? I lash out. Now I do it very under control. Now you better get off. I talk through my lips and I make it really quiet, and I grab their arm and I begin to press into their arm, right? And yank them off the table. Um, slowly and under control. No, but here's the deal. In that moment, what I'm believing is that everybody's opinion of me is what really defines me. And ultimately, it's through my kid, even. And so rather than parenting them well, I parent them from a place of reactionary, like I'm not loved and secure in Christ, and so therefore, I'm gonna. Now, I'm not saying we should not discipline our kids, I'm not saying we should not direct our kids, but I'm just telling you, my own heart is corrupt in that moment because my motivation isn't the good news of the gospel. My motivation is you quit making me look like a fool, like you're being a fool, now I look like a fool. So your performance is affecting my performance, and that is not cool. And Jesus is saying, chill out, Nick. I love you, regardless of whether your kid gets on the table or not. Yes, they should know not to do that. But it's it's a shaping time, it's an exposing of my heart. It's a pressing to see like what do I really believe? Not what I say I believe, not do I preach about on Sundays to the congregation from the platform, what do I actually believe in that moment? What do I believe about Jesus in that moment? Now, again, that's an easy illustration to talk about in some ways. I've kind of gotten through some of that, but there's other places I have a harder time going. And I can tell more of those in the future. And I would say to us that we need to change because we are not who God originally created us to be. We need to be changed and transformed because we are not living in God's original design. We're living outside of that. We're rebelling and we're rejecting God, we're ignoring him, we're resisting him, and it's serious. He says that it's corrupt and it will lead to destruction, right? We've talked about that quite a bit in recent days. So God created us to live reflecting his divine character. He created us in his image, Genesis 1. He created us for his glory, and he created us to be representatives of him on the earth. But for many of us, we're not living like very good representatives, right? I mean, the word in 2 Corinthians 5 is that we're ambassadors for Christ. We're supposed to be living out this divine nature, and yet many times we're living fleshly nature. Even for those of us in Christ, we're going back and defaulting to the old man instead of living in the new. And I'll talk more about that, what that means, so I don't want to confuse you. The divine nature is a nature that's most clearly defined, by the way, in Jesus. If we want to know what it is that we're supposed to be reflecting, let's just look at the life of Jesus. Again, I don't know how familiar you guys are with your Bible, but if you've read the Gospels, then you know you get to see a picture of the life of Jesus. And Jesus is the epitome of what it means to be human. He's the pinnacle, he is what we're aiming for, he's the target. So when we say change, what are we changing into? We're changing to become like Christ. Not be Christ, we'll never be Jesus, but be like Jesus. Are you with me? That's what we're trying to actually become. And we'll talk more about that here in a second, and what that can look like specifically. But when sin enters the world, that nature, that divine nature, that being like Christ, it's gotten changed, marred, skewed, cursed. No longer do we look like what we originally were designed to look like. We have this human nature inside of us, this engine that is propelling us to resist God and to reject God and to ignore God. The reflection was messed up, it was jacked up. And we're still trying to recover from that. But the beauty is that Christ is actually at work in that. Now, that being said, if why we should change is not because of external things, not to prove ourselves to God, not to prove ourselves to others, not to prove ourselves to ourselves. Okay? If that's not the right way. And the right way is, or the right way to think about change is we are actually responding to what Christ has done, who he is. What should actually change in our lives? What should actually change? Well, we as humans, we need a real transformation. We need a real, we need, um, we need to go from being dead to being alive. That's what the Bible says. And we need to go from living in the flesh to living in the spirit, to walking by the spirit. Galatians chapter 5 actually shows us what this looks like. Okay? So if you have your Bible, you can turn there. It'll be on the screen above me, but Galatians chapter 5. This is a section of scripture that I think you should visit fairly often because it's a great contrast passage. It basically shows us what the world's normal operating system is, and then what God's system is, what God's plan and his design is and his nature. Here's what he says in verse 19 of Galatians chapter 5. Now the works of the flesh, that's the human nature, are obvious. Sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I tell you that about these things in advance, as I told you before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Here's what I would say. I mean, if you didn't feel included in that list in some form, then you're not, you don't have a heartbeat, okay? You're already dead. Because the truth of this is that when I read that, I see those things in myself. I don't want to see those things in myself, but I see myself in those things in different places, in different ways, at different times. Now, thankfully, I don't see them in my heart near as much as I used to. I'm seeing growth. I'm seeing transformation, I'm seeing change, I'm seeing the ability to actually not live that way in the flesh as much as I did when I was younger. I'm seeing progress. Praise God for that. Thankful for my family that they're seeing progress in that. But here's the thing he says that if those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God, is he saying that if you struggle with any of these things, that you cannot be saved? Okay, I'm just making sure. Just making sure. Because here's the deal. I don't know one Christian on planet earth who doesn't still struggle with sin in some form. What he's saying is if you can do those things and you have no conviction over them, you don't feel any remorse, you don't feel any sense of like need to change from those things, the Holy Spirit's not in you. You don't have the divine nature. The divine nature says those things are not tolerable. They're not things that you can just sort of make friends with. They're not things that you can get comfortable with. So Christians who say, you know, I'm just a little angry, I mean, it's not a big deal. Because a lot of us as Christians, the way we work through sin is we say, well, as long as my anger is not as bad as other people around me, or maybe as long as my anger is not as visible to everybody, or maybe my envy or my jealousy or my selfish ambition, as long as it's manageable, as long as it's like behind closed doors, as long as, you know, I kind of have it over here, and it's not near as bad as as long as I've got other people I can point to and say they're worse than me, I'm okay. Where in the Bible is that? Jesus is the standard. He was perfection. So we're all condemned in that sense, right? And so he says that if you live in those things and you don't think they're a big deal, you don't, you just you're like, ah, whatever, then your heart has not been changed. The Holy Spirit is not in you because you can't be okay with sin. But he goes on to say this but the fruit of the Spirit, the divine nature, is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. Against such things there are no laws. Now, um, when we read that, you want to know who looks like that? Jesus. That's how Jesus lived. With love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. He lived that way. In perfection. And isn't it interesting that he says it's the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit? He doesn't say the works of the flesh and the works of the spirit. And in church, sometimes we say, well, we just need to work harder at being patient. We just work harder at being gentle. No, we actually just need to surrender to God and let his spirit produce in us patience and gentleness and kindness. It's a fruit. It's a product. I can't make myself into those things, but God can make me into those things. As I surrender to him, as I listen to him, as I grow an understanding of who I am in him as his adopted and loved son. If you want to be more loving and gracious and kind to your spouse or to your kids or to your co-workers, or to the annoying neighbor. You have them. I know you do. Then we need to ask God to change our heart. Not just try harder. We need God to rescue and to transform us. Change is hard to feel, isn't it? I mean, it's hard to feel, but you can measure it by the fruit. You can measure it, and you can see it through the fruit that's produced in our lives. Now here's what's great. God has made us new if you're in Christ. I mean, when I read that list, I can start to really heap condemnation on myself. I can see all those fleshly things in my life and just say, man, I really am bad. I don't see much of the good list, I only see a lot of the bad list. I'm really bad. But in Christ, we are made new. Listen to what Ezekiel 36 26 says. Testament, Jesus or God speaking to his people about the future and what he's going to do, and he says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit, I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your heart of flesh, from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. God is going to make these people tender to him, soft to him, willing to receive truth from him. I need that. By default, I would be hard towards God. But by his grace, by his spirit, I am learning to be soft to him, to listen to him. How about this, 2 Corinthians 5, 17? Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. Old things have gone away, passed away, and look, new things have come. God is making us new. We're new creations in Christ. Desires are changing, being transformed, being made new. How about this? And we all with unveiled faces, this is Paul writing in 2 Corinthians 3. He says, and we all with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory and are being transformed, changed into his image. There it is. What are we trying to be changed into? His image. With ever-increasing glory. I love that. It's increasing. That means it's a point, but it's also a process. Anybody arrived yet? Anybody look fully like Jesus yet? Anyone perfected your faith yet? No. Welcome to the club. Okay? We're all there. It says, with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. The Christian life is a life of transformation and change. But we are not the engine for that change. The Holy Spirit is. God is. God Himself is changing and transforming us. The question is: will we surrender to His work? Will we submit to it? Listen, we're not saved by fruit, but faith. We're not saved by trying to be good enough people, we're saved by faith. In fact, Ephesians 2 says it that way, by grace through faith. But here's the thing we will not be saved by fruitless faith. We will not be saved by fruitless faith. If your faith is not producing any fruit, then it's not real faith. Are you still with me? Because that's kind of heavy. It is important to understand both of those things. We're not saved by fruit, but we are not going to be saved by fruitless faith. There ought to be change in transformation and growth. And it's more than outward morality, it's a growing love for our God and love for others that does produce outward behavior change. So let me just in closing say a few things to encourage us today. For some of us, we've lost sight of the fact that sin is destructive and deadly. And we've lost sight of the fact that it's very offensive to God. And we've just learned how to manage it, to justify it, to rationalize it. So we don't think it's really a big deal when we get angry with our spouse. We don't think it's a real big deal when we, you know, um buy something that we don't really need to make ourselves feel better. We don't think, I know I'm stepping on toes here. Uh we don't think it's a big deal, you know, when we have a thought in our mind that's just really mean, really rude towards somebody because we envy them, their position, we're jealous of them in some form. Uh we don't think it's really a big deal when we speak something about another brother or sister or a person that's just slandering them, condemning them. We just don't think it's a big deal. And I'm just telling you right now that to God it's a big deal. To God, it's a big deal because sin is costly and it's destructive. And so we need to remember today that God wants to free us from that stuff that is actually killing us. For some of us, we've lost sight of the fact that God has called us to experience victory over our sin and live a changed life marked by his grace and his goodness. So I want to give you two steps. And again, we're gonna go through a lengthier process over the next seven weeks or so. How do we actually understand what we're believing below the surface, and how do we actually then deal with that belief? Repent is what the Bible says, to turn away from that belief, that unbelief, that wrong belief, that misplaced belief to truth. Well, I just on the front end want to say from Galatians chapter 5, which we read earlier, at the end of that passage, it says this. It says this in verse 24. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its desires. Since we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit. Two things he tells us. Number one, kill the flesh. If you heard me say this outside of understanding the grace of God, it just sounds like I'm just saying work hard at just being a better person. What I'm saying to you is we have to actually take sin serious. John Owen was a Puritan writer. Some of you guys have maybe read his material before, and in one of his writings, he says this he says, we better be killing sin before it kills us. We need to take a much more serious posture towards sin. The problem, and I think I would say a big problem in the church in the West is that we're okay with sin. We're actually okay with it. We've kind of gotten comfortable with it. As long as it's our pet sins that we're feel good about. Now, we also have these certain sins that we elevate, and we're like, well, I don't do those things. But we're clinging to sins that are not okay. We're justifying and rationalizing sin that's not okay. And we need to kill sin. We need to get serious about it. Jesus Christ went to the cross. If it was just one sin in your life, you would need saving from it. But it's not just one sin in your life, it's not just one sin in my life. And we need rescued from that sin because it's that serious. And God has made a way in that through Christ. But the second thing is, did you notice in the verse 25, since we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit. Here's the other thing that Christians have gotten good at. Not just rationalizing, and I'm including myself in this group, by the way. Not just rationalizing sin, justifying it, saying, well, it's not a big deal. I can, I can, you know, I can say whatever I want to say. I'm just keeping it real. That's called no self-self-control, by the way. Um, I'm just keeping it real. I'm just saying whatever. Listen, not only take sin serious, but also listen to the Holy Spirit. Um, increasingly in my house, uh with my kids, this is something that I'm trying to teach and encourage them in because I'm trying to learn it myself, and that is this don't practice ignoring the voice of the Holy Spirit. Now, some of you are like, I don't even know what that means. If you've ever sensed the conviction of God when you were doing something and you knew that God was saying, don't do that. I mean, if you're a Christ follower, that's normative. It's not abnormal. Because he says, My sheep will hear my voice. He even says also that the Father will speak to his children and he'll discipline his children. And I'm telling my kids as I'm preaching it to myself, don't practice ignoring the Holy Spirit because you can get really good at it really easily. And when you get good at it, what you do is you start to shut out the voice of the Holy Spirit and you just live in the flesh. And when you live in the flesh, you're just walking in offensiveness to God. And I would just encourage us today, let us be people who submit to the Spirit. And when we submit to the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit will start to come out. For some of you, you're not a believer yet in Christ, and so some of the things I've said today, you're like, I don't even know what he's talking about. And that's okay. Like, I am glad that you're here. But I want you to know that this the first step for those of you who are here and you're you don't even really understand this whole dynamic of God speaking to you, or even that we should do this because we are forgiven and free, because you don't feel forgiven and free. The offer on the table today, the invitation, I should say, is to come to a God who loves you, who made you, who sent his son to die for you, and he wants to save you. You know, in each of the stories that I gave you earlier of transformation, the Zacchaeus story, the woman at the well, and Paul, Jesus, God met them right where they were and he loved them right where they were. Isn't that awesome? That God does that. He doesn't say, fix yourself and then come to me. He doesn't say clean yourself up, stop sinning, then come to me. He says, right where you are, I love you. And then in that, he meets them there and then he calls them to change, to grow, to transformation. Aren't you glad that Christ didn't say, stop sinning and fix yourself and then I'll save you? But here's the deal: he did say, When I've saved you, now let's walk in a new life. Let's walk in a changed life, not go back to that old way of living. So if you're in if you're not in Christ yet, if you never receive Christ, it's a good place to be today because the invitation is there. The gift of salvation is on the table if you want to receive that. And yes, you will have to lay down your life to receive the life he's given you. You will have to say, I'm gonna stop trying to do things on my own and I'm gonna turn to God. Romans 12, 1 and 2, I'll close. Says this. This is Paul's words. He's already been writing for 11 chapters about the beauty of the gospel, the amazing realities that humanity is so sinful, so rebellious, who changes, you know, worshiping God and starts worshiping creation. And he gets to this point after he's said, we're all sinners, that the wages of sin is death. And he gets and he says in verse one, he says, Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and proper worship. Now catch this. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. God wants to change us. And he wants to change us for his glory and our good. And so if you're if you're a Christ follower today, like you, I'm just gonna go ahead and warn you, you should be prepared to be uncomfortable. Because your heavenly father loves you enough to make you uncomfortable with your sin. But he also loves you enough to draw you in and actually heal you, to set you free from the things that are actually hurting you, not helping you, to set you free from the pursuit of things in this world that are never gonna be what he can be for you. What a gift. That's why Paul's instruction there wasn't just, hey, Christians, present your body as a living sacrifice. Don't conform, treat, be transform. He didn't say that. What do you start with? In view of the mercy of God, the motivation for change is the grace and the mercy of our beautiful Savior, Jesus Christ. That's what changes us. That's what melts this heart. It gets hard and gives me a new sense of awe and wonder and purpose. And if that doesn't cause that pro for you, then the Holy Spirit's not there yet. But my prayer today is that today you would receive Him. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for every person in this room. And God, we live in a day of distraction. We live in a day where the enemy uses everything and anything he can to distract us and to keep us from hearing. But I pray that right now in this moment, even as we are here today, this is not about pragmatics or how good we can do, a good presentation. God, we are praying, Holy Spirit, move in this place and bring people to salvation. God, I believe that there are people in this room who they're not convinced, haven't been convinced to this point that you genuinely love them. And it's actually out of your love for them that you are calling them to follow you and turn away from their life of pursuing things other than you to be God or to bring their security or significance or worth. God, I pray that today they would know that you can offer everything that they're looking for. Yes, it's costly to lay down our lives, but we know that you say that those who lose their life will find it. That's so good. God, I pray that today for a fresh awakening. I pray for revival in this body. That we would not be a spiritually dead people, but we would be a living body who is listening to the Spirit and responding in obedience, even when it's costly. That we would be motivated by love, your love, moved into action. That we do more than just show up to church gatherings and sing songs and hear sermons, but that we would be a people embracing our identity in you as a family. These disciples learning to live out your ways, listen to your truth and obey it, and living on your mission, making you known in all the earth, God. God help us to be changed, help us to be transformed. Help us not to resist that and to reject that today. Yeah, I pray that in your name, Jesus. Amen. Um this morning, as we as we wrap up our time, we just simply invite you to pray. Uh pray personally. You can sit there and pray if you want to pray. We we know our culture people, we don't really know how sometimes how to be still and listen. We're move, we like to move around. We we struggle with with being still and being quiet before God, because then we have to deal with our own hearts. And my prayer is this morning, you just listen to God, whatever He's trying to say to you, whatever that looks like. Um that you would, if you need prayer personally, like if you need someone to pray for you, we'd love to do that. We actually have a group of people in the back of the room on my right. Uh, they'll be that back there to pray for you. Uh, if you have never received a gift of salvation, I don't want to say again, we're we're here, we'd love to share uh with you how you can do that. Um says call on him and he'll save you. If you are a Christ follower, what is he saying for you to do next? What's your next step of obedience? What's your next step of faith that he's calling you to in response to his grace? Uh there's tables around the room that are set up for communion, and on those tables you'll find just the cracker and the juice that represent his body broken in his bloodshed. And so if you um are a Christ follower, you're a believer, and you have the Holy Spirit in you, uh, we invite you to go to the table and to take communion. And we'd ask that you don't do that quickly. Like take a minute, make sure you have reflected on your own heart. Is there any disobedience that you need to deal with first? Um, that's important, significant to take that seriously. But also as we go there, we celebrate, we celebrate his grace, we celebrate his goodness, we celebrate his life and his forgiveness. So we invite you to do that. And uh we just want us to to be obedient to whatever God has called us to do, okay? And uh just know that that God loves you and we love you, and that's why even here today we we want to proclaim truth and then we want to respond to it and experience all he has. So let's do that together.