Rick Warren - Making the Hard Changes in Me — Part One

Today on Daily Hope with Pastor Rick Warren, we continue in our riveting journey

through the series The Invisible War. In it will explore the unseen world of

good and evil and see how it impacts our day to day existence. Join

us for eye opening biblical insights into the spiritual dimensions that influence our lives in

ways we never imagined. Right now, here's Pastor Rick Warren with part one

of a message called making the Hard Changes in Me. This week I learned

two new terms. One of them was called unavoidable defects and the other was

called the zero defect mentality. Now, unavoidable defects is a term that the

FDA uses to refer to the amount of contamination they allow in your food.

And since some of you are having a difficult time with the Daniel Plan,

I thought that I would provide a loving service and inform you of some of

the contamination in your favorite junk food. Then maybe you wouldn't want to eat

it as much anymore. For instance, you like pizza, Oh, you

love pizza. The FDA allows thirty fly eggs per one hundred grams of pizza

sauce. You like chocolate and one hundred grams, the government allows sixty insect

parts. You like potato chips, The government allows up to six percent of

the chips in a bag to be rotten. You like pasta, I love

pasta, not anymore, they should call it pasta rick. But the FDA

allows in six samples of pasta, two hundred and twenty five insect fragments.

M yummy. So you're getting protein then with your pasta. So now,

how about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat bread. I mean,

what could be better than that? Okay, now, peanut butter and jelly

sandwich and wheat bread. You're not gonna love it anymore. You hear this?

Cherry jam can have up to thirty percent mold. One hundred grams of

peanut butter, the government allows twenty five milligrams of dirt, thirty insect fragments,

and two rodent hairs. Yummy, all right, And in every kilogram

of wheat, the government allows nine milligrams of rat poop. How many of

you are now going to go on the Daniel plan with me? Mass your

hands. Yeah, that's what's called unavoidable defects. At the same time,

I read another term that I hadn't heard of, and that is zero defect

mentality. It actually started about twenty years ago when a guy named Philip Philip

Crosby. He wrote a book called Quality is Free and it's a very famous

book on manufacturing, saying that we should have zero defects in manufacturing, but

really, can you do that? This week I was reading a book on

software programming and it was saying there's no way you can have zero defects in

software program and I read this quote. I thought that was interesting. It

said, the fastest way to kill motivation, The fastest way to kill motivation

is what the army calls the US Army calls having a zero defect mentality.

Now, zero defect mentality is an atmosphere that tolerates absolutely no mistakes. Perfection

is required down to the smallest detail. And the Army considers a zero defect

mentality a serious leadership failure because it kills the initiative necessary for success on any

battlefield. Now you see, if you apply this to your life, you

try to live a zero defect life, you will always be paralyzed by indecision.

You will run from responsibility because you're afraid of making mistakes. You have

a difficult time making decision. You'll have a difficult time accepting responsibility. You

will live with unrealistic pressure and unresolved guilt because everybody has defects. Nobody's perfect.

Nothing is perfect on this planet except the word of God. It's all

broken. Every relationship is broken, every body is broken, the weather's broken,

the economy is broken. And if you try to live with this zero

defect mentality, you're going to be frustrated your entire life. The Bible tells

us this. Look at a couple verses up here on screen. The Bible

says, there's not a single person all the earth who's always good and never

since. There are no no defect people, not a just bent upon the

earth that does good and sins. Not James three verse two says this on

the screen in the message prayerphrase, none of us is perfectly qualified. We

get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. Anybody want to agree

with that part? Yeah, okay. If you could find someone whose speech

was perfectly true, you'd have a perfect person in perfect control of life.

The truth is we're all defective. We all have parts of our lives,

parts of our personality, parts of our relationships that simply don't work. We're

all defective. The Bible says it like this in Romans chapter three, twenty

three. All have sinned. That means you, me, the Pope,

everybody else, all of sin nobody's perfect, All have fallen short. None

of us measure up to standard of perfection, none of us bat a thousand

and so to pretend like you got it all together when everybody knows you don't

have it all together, it's kind of silly. In fact, the Bible

tells us it's actually self deception. We have an amazing ability to lie to

ourselves. And in First John, chapter one, verse eight, says this,

if we claim to be sinless, claim to be without sin, we

deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. We've all got our

flubs, we've all got our failures, We've all got our mistakes and faux

pause and sins, and shoot, I don't measure up to my own standards

much less Gods. Now, what I want to say as we begin this

weekend is you will never be sinless on this planet, but it is possible

to sin less. You're never gonna be sinless, but it is possible to

sin less, and it is possible to deal with your defects. And that's

what we're gonna look about at this weekend. And I want us to just

look at a couple of things. Why is it so hard to change stuff

in me that I really don't like about myself that i'd like to change?

Why is that so hard? And then what does it take to change?

And we're gonna look at the classic passage in the Bible on this, Ephesians

chapter four, which gives us the six requirements for personal change. Takes to

change those deeply ingrained defects in your life that you don't like, you don't

want to carry on with you the rest of your life, you really would

like to change them. What does it take to change those things? First,

why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to change the

stuff in me that I don't like? Well, there are four reasons.

I put a little space there at the top of your outline. You could

just write these in there. Four reasons why it's hard to change some of

the defects in our life. That's what we're talking about, the hard stuff

that just seems to be stubborn and resistant. Number one, the first reason

is because I've had them so long. I've had my defects so long.

I'm actually pretty comfortable with them. Now. You didn't get the way you

are overnight. I mean, it took a long time for you to get

as messed up as you are. It didn't happen overnight. It took years.

Some of the patterns that you have, your fears, your anxieties,

your faults, and the way you act in self defeating ways, you know

you developed them in childhood. Maybe you know, in resistance or to a

pain, or to as a stress coping device, and maybe it was a

survival tactic as a kid. But you're an adult and you still act that

way and you're not a kid anymore. But the truth is, you've had

these defects in your life for a long time, and they may be self

defeating, but at least they're familiar and you're comfortable with them, and you

know what it is. The second reason that I have a hard time dealing

with my defects is because I identify with them. I not only have had

them for a lifetime, but I identify with them. And this is a

real big problem because we often confuse our identity with our defects. You are

not your defects. You are not your faults. You are not your sins.

They may be something you do, but they're not your identity. In

other words, a lot of people, rather than saying I work too much,

will say I'm a workaholic. Or instead of saying, you know,

I have a tendency to put off and procrastinate, they say I'm lazy.

You create it as an identity and you may say, you know, I'm

timid, or I'm shy, or I tend to just say what I want

to think, or I'm aggressive or I'm passive or I'm fearful, and you

start identifying with your defects. You are not your defects. This, by

the way, is the difference between Celebrate Recovery, which is Saddleback's biblical based

recovery program, and something like say Alcoholics Anonymous. In Alcoholics Anonymous, a

person will stand up and they will say Hi, I'm Joe, and I'm

an alcoholic. In other words, they identify their identity with their defect I'm

Joe and I'm an alcoholic. But in Celebrate Recovery, we will stand up

and say hi, I'm Joe. I'm a believer in Jesus Christ who struggles

with alcohol. You see the difference. You are not your sin, you

are not your defect. You see a lot of people think, because I

have a certain tendency, a certain lust, a certain attraction, a certain

fault, a certain habit, then that is me, And they say I

am and then name it. No, no, you're not your identity.

Now this is so important because when you see yourself connected to your defect,

you set yourself up to perpetuate it. In other words, if you say,

you know, I'm always nervous when I get on a plane. When

you get on a plane, guess what's gonna happen, You're gonna be nervous.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy. And if you tell yourself I'm always late,

guess what You're gonna always be late, or I'm this or I'm that,

and you're going to act and according to your identity, And then that

keeps you from changing because unconsciously, I think, you know, if this

is me, then if I change, who am I? And all of

a sudden your identity is kind of messed up because you have identified yourself with

a particular way of acting, thinking, attracting, desiring, lusting, or

whatever. It's hard to change because I've had my defects all my life.

It's hard to change because I tend to identify with them. Number three,

it's hard to change because my defects have a payoff. There is a reward

to everything you do. People don't do things that aren't rewarded, and whatever

is rewarded gets repeated. And if you're doing something that you know isn't good

for you, or it's self destructive, or it's ruining a relationship or messing

up your marriage, or it's destroying your finances or whatever, it's because there

is some kind of payoff, an emotional payoff or relational payoff. And maybe

you don't see it, but we don't do things that aren't rewarded. Anytime

a negative behavior gets repeated over and over and over, maybe in a little

kid, maybe in a grown adult. You see something being done over and

over and over. Maybe say I don't like to do this, but I

do it anyway, you're still getting some kind of payoff. And part of

what you've got to figure out. The Bible Talls tells us to examine ourselves,

figure out what's the payoff? Why do I keep doing this? Because

you don't do things without a payoff, maybe temporary. You know, kids

set their moms up to yell. I mean a mom says, kids come

down to dinner. Nobody comes down to dinner. Kids come down to dinner.

Let me come with you. Guys get down here right now, and

the kids come down. They are training their mom to yell. Why because

she learns the pay off is if I yell, I get action. Okay,

Now, that's true in every area of life. Now, I don't

know what the payoff is for the defects you have in your life. Maybe

it's to mask your pain. Maybe it's to cover up a fear. Maybe

it's to give you an excuse to fail. Maybe it's to compensate for guilt.

Maybe it's to get back at somebody, a former spouse or a parent.

I really don't know. It may be giving you attention. But there

is a payoff to everything you do. And that's why it's hard to change,

even stuff we don't like about ourselves, because we don't often know why

we do it. Now, there's a fourth reason why it's difficult to change

these hard, ingrained defects in our lives, and that is because Satan discourages

me. Satan discourages me. He wants you to stay stuck in your stuckness,

and so he's constantly suggesting negative thoughts. As I've said to you many

times, when you know God gives you an idea, we call that inspiration.

When Satan gives you the idea, we call that temptation. When you

get an idea, we call it stupidity. No, I'm just kidding,

But the truth is, you get thoughts in your mind all your time,

and Satan is constantly Once you start trying to work on something in your life

that you want to change, he starts saying, who do you think you

are? You're never going to change. You haven't been able to change in

the past. You think you're going to be able to change. Now,

what do you think you're doing. You can't change. It's hopeless. It's

not going to work. And when it starts working, you say, it's

not going to work very long and you may as well give up. And

then sometimes Satan starts putting fears in your mind when you start trying to change

some things or letting God change you, and he starts saying, you know,

if you rock the boat, something really bad may happen. If you

rock the boat in this relationship, they may walk out on you. If

you rock the boat in this relationship, they may not love you anymore.

If you rock the boat, nobody's going to like you. Where do you

think those fears are coming from? They're being planted in your mind. Now,

these things keep us from wanting to change, or keep us from changing

the ingrain, things that we know are not good for us, that are

unhealthy. So what does it take to change those deep patterns in my life

that I really don't like about me? It takes six things. There are

six requirements. We're going to look at them today. From Ephesians chapter four.

If you have a Bible, turned to Ephesians chapter four, if you

know what all of the verses are written out there on your outline. Ephesians

four, verses twenty one to twenty seven says this, since you have heard

all about Jesus and you have learned the truth that is in him, throw

off your old evil nature and your former way of life that's rotten through and

through full of lust and deception. In other words, we deceive ours Instead,

there's got to be a new, a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and

your attitudes. You must put on the new nature, he says, put

off the old, put on the new. Put on the new nature,

because you're a new person, created in God's likeness, righteous and holy and

true. So put away all falsehood. I means, stop faking it,

stop posing, stop pretending you got it all together, put away all falseness,

and tell your neighbor the truth because we belong. We belong to each

other. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry, for anger

gives a mighty foothold to the devil. Now, in this passage, it

talks about the six requirements for personal change. There are six requirements. You've

got to have all six of these in your life to make these changes.

Number one, change requires learning the truth. That's the first requirement. Change

requires learning the truth. Now, you know this famous quote of Jesus.

Jesus said, when you know the truth, the truth will what set you

free. Yeah, and you're not going to be free until you know the

truth. Now, Paul starts in this very same thing. In verse twenty

one, he says, since you have heard all about Jesus, and you

have learned the truth circle that the truth that is in Him. Now,

if you don't get anything else, I say today, get this. The

secret to personal change is not a pill. It's not a program, it's

not a process. It's not therapy. It's not a book, a seminar.

It's not positive thinking or psychology or anything else. The proof of personal

change is found in the truth. You've got to know and face the truth.

You got to know and face the truth about yourself before you can change.

You've got to know and face the truth about your relationships before you can

change. You've got to know and face the truth about your past before you

can change. You've got to know and face the truth about God. Before

you can change. You've got to know and face the truth about your habits,

your hurts, your hang ups. You've got to know and face the

truth about your potential and your talents. You've got to know and face the

truth about others, brothers, sisters, parents, everybody, all those kind

of things. You've got to know and face the truth about God's purpose for

your life. Nothing changes until you start with a bedrock of truth. If

you don't know the truth about these things. You are building on a phony,

fake, false foundation, and it's going to crumble when you hit the

rogue winds of life. Now, why is it so important to learn the

truth for anything I want to change in life? I'll tell you why.

Because behind every self defeating behavior in my life is a lie. I'm believing.

Behind every self defeating behavior in my life is a lie I'm believing.

If you're deeply in debt right now, it's because you believe some lies.

You thought you know, I can just keep charging it forever and then get

away with it. Oh really, the entire world governments now know that delayed

gratification doesn't work. And maybe you thought I have to have this house?

Oh really, do you really have to have this? Is it true?

Can you prove it's true? How do you know it's true? Every time

you get yourself into problems because you have believed some lie, like I have

to do this in order to get ahead. I have to do this in

order to be liked. I have to do this in order to be happy.

Oh really, we lie to ourselves all the time. We have an

amazing ability. The biggest liar in your life is you to you okay,

because you tell yourself all the time it's no problem, when it really is

a problem, and you tell yourself it's not a problem, and you tell

yourself it is a problem, and sometimes it's not. What is it in

your life you're pretending isn't a problem, the big elephant in the living room.

You got to deal with the truth. I have to know and face

the truth first of all, if I'm going to change now, Jesus said,

the truth will set you free. But first it makes you miserable,

and it makes you miserable as long as you deny it. Now, the

moment you are honest with the truth about you and everything else in life,

then it starts setting you free. Now, who is the truth? Jesus

said, I am the truth, Not I have it, not I point

the way, not I teach it. He said, I'm it. I

am the truth. So you can trust his word. And his word is

the Bible. The Bible is good for four things. The Bible tells us

what it was given for why God gave us. Look at this next verse

two Timothy, chapter three. All scriptures inspired by God, and it's useful,

and it tells us for four things. Number one, to teach us

what is true. You got to build it on truth to make Number two

make us realize what's wrong in our lives. Number three it straightens us out,

and number four it teaches us to do what is right. It's God's

way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God

wants us to do. The Bible in that passage says that it was given

to us for four things. It's like a path, and it shows us

the path to walk on. It shows us when we get off the path,

it shows us how to get back on the path, and it shows

us how to stay on the path. The theological words for this are doctrine,

reprove, correction, and instruction, and righteousness. It says God's word

does four things. It shows you the path to live on. You stay

on that path, you're going to have a pretty good life. It shows

us when we get off the path you messed up. That's called reproof.

It shows us how to get back on the path. That's called correction.

It shows us how to stay on the path. That's called instruction or training

in righteousness. So change requires learning the truth. You're listening to Pastor Rick's

Daily ho We're so happy you've chosen to study along with us. Today,

here's Pastor Rick with a letter from one of our listeners. Today, I

want to share with you a note I got in the mail from Alyssa.

She wrote, Hi, Pastor Rick. I'm a thirty three year old living

in Jamestown, North Dakota, and I'm married with three kids. I just

want to thank you so much for your Daily Hope broadcast. I listened to

them regularly and I've learned so much. You know. I realized very quickly

that I needed to have a notebook journal available to write down all the notes

as I listen to you. I love the convenience that the podcast have,

and I turned them on as I'm getting ready in the morning, while I'm

cooking, or I'm in the car traveling, and even when i'm working out,

which is great. Eight I've also been sharing them with several people.

I often think of specific people that I want to share your podcast with after

I've heard your message. I don't know if they've listened to them or not

after I've shared them, but I do know that one of my friends has

been regularly listening to you now and I ran into her at the park when

she was jogging and when she stopped to say hi, I could hear your

voice in her earbuds. That's great. She's been struggling with a verbally abusive

relationship for many years, and I know that your Daily Hope has helped her.

Rick. God has really used you to reach so many people, and

I thank you for being obedient to Him and He's calling to you. I

will continue to pray for you. Thank you for impacting my life. Alissa.

Well, Alissa, thank you for sending this message. You know we

live to hear these stories, and I'm so glad to hear how God is

using Daily Hope not only in your life, but in the life of your

friends because You've cared enough to pass it on. So thanks for sharing that

podcast with others. I know you're being a blessing to them, and I

want to say to the rest of you, have you shared the news of

Daily Hope with anybody? Would you find one person today and recommend that they

start listening to Daily Hope, either on the radio or on a podcast or

getting the daily devotional through the email. We are here to help you fulfill

your mission in sharing Christ with other people. So tell one person today about

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much this broadcast has helped you, please send him an email at Rick at

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us next time as we look into God's word for our daily hope. This

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