Changing Hearts One at a Time

So it's kind of an interesting thing to look through the Guinness Book of World

Records. I don't know if you've ever done that.

In leafing through the pages, you can gather some very interesting tidbits of trivia,

probably useless trivia unless you happen to be invited to appear on the game show Jeopardy.

I, along with some of my classmates, my classmates from my high school class,

in the latter part of our days at

school held a world record for a longest softball marathon game in 1975.

A representative from the Guinness World Book of Records was on site to monitor our play.

We had 10 paid players in the field at all times for each team,

and then we had one person on each team who could,

an additional person who could substitute in and out for people in the team

because every person was allowed a five-minute break to go to the bathroom and

get something to drink per hour. So we could substitute in and out.

So we had, we played about, I think it was about 80 hours.

I don't remember for sure, before torrential rains and lightning stopped our

play. Unfortunately, our record was broken the very next year from our game.

In 1978, some of my college running mates and I attempted a marathon relay race

in which each one of us ran a mile before handing off the baton to somebody else.

This continued nonstop for three days. It was not a record, but we were recordly

worn out after that time.

The Guinness Book of World Records is packed with trivia information,

but also some amazing facts.

Everything from the size of the world's largest lasagna to how many gas pumps

are in the world's largest filling station.

In fact, another trivia, and I just found this out this week,

I can't think of the guy's name, Wadworth? The tallest man ever recorded,

not quite nine feet, was from near my hometown of Woodstock, Illinois.

He was thinking it was from Harvard or something like that, but almost nine feet tall.

Obviously, I didn't get those genes. But if you want to stay up on the news

of world records, you need to purchase a new copy of the book every year because

things change and there's new things listed.

For example, on January 3rd, 1988.

Students from three Dutch universities got together and set up 1,382,101 dominoes

and toppled them in succession.

Now, that's a lot, dominoes. In fact, it took 30 days of 12-hour shifts with

as many as 35 students working at the same time to set them all up.

Now, understand, these dominoes were not just the standard black and white variety,

but were multicolored, and in fact,

were very carefully arranged to illustrate several pictures,

one of them being the drawing of the Ariane Space Project, and another was the

a rendition of a painting of Rembrandt's Night Watt.

Once the first domino was toppled, it took nearly an hour for all of them to finally fall.

Guinness didn't say how long it took them to pick them up again.

Since then, the Dutch have continually bettered their own record.

In 2002, a group of Dutch college students reset the record with 3,847,295 dominoes.

Six years later in 2008, a Dutch team toppled 4,345,027 dominoes.

And on November 13th, also known as International Domino Day,

November 13th, 2009, a team of 89 Dutch students toppled 4,491,865 dominoes.

I've lost track of what the Dutch students have done since then,

but it makes me wonder what their college tuition actually went for.

But seeing these domino toppling displays shows that it really is amazing what

can happen when you knock over one little piece of wood so that when it falls,

another falls, and then another, and another, and another.

It is a great way to illustrate the basic laws of principle or physics that

says, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.

We're going to read some scripture from Philippians chapter 2,

Philippians 2:12–16

verses 12 through 16, and I believe Ida is reading that for us.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence,

but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure.

Children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.

Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.

And then I will be able to, I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that

I did not run or labor in vain.

So you know that the law of physics, the law of motion doesn't just apply to dominoes.

Its principle is seen in the kingdom of God as well. Jesus frequently referred

to the impact, the equal and opposite reaction that one person can have on the entire world.

One Christian living and acting like Jesus can create a change in the world around him or her.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught that Christians can be as influential

as salt on a flavorless meal and light in a dark room.

Then a few chapters later in Matthew 13, Jesus alluded to this again when he

said, The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a

large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.

So Christians can have an incredible impact on society.

We will have an impact one way or another, for good or for bad.

As Paul put it in today's text, we can shine like stars in the universe.

And what is so amazing is that this influence can begin with just one person.

When even one individual is changed by the power of God, then his peers are

influenced by his change of behavior, and they too begin to hunger for a change

brought by God, and so on and so on.

This means that the most efficient and effective way of change to change our

world and make it more godly is nearly and really as simple as toppling dominoes, one at a time,

that starts the domino from others.

The interesting thing about toppling dominoes is if you topple one and it topples

another and another and another, if one of those falls out of place,

the rest of it is done for. It's not going to go.

So the same thing with us.

If we are going to influence our world, it all depends on what we do. The next one we topple.

We can positively impact our entire country by changing one individual, one heart at a time.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this principle in chapter 8.

In verse 5 of chapter 8, he refers to the nation of Israel and asks,

why then have these people turned away?

Why does Jerusalem always turn away?

Then in verse 6, he answers his own question when he says, here is why the nation

has turned away. no one repents of his wickedness saying, what have I done?

Each pursues his own course like a horse charging into battle.

So nations turn from God when individuals also turn from God.

It follows that if we want America and our nation to turn back to God and become

a more godly nation, The best way for us to do that is for us as individuals to become more godly.

We need to change if we want the world to change.

Tony Evans, preacher in Texas, describes this domino principle of godliness in this way.

If you want a better world composed of better nations, inhabited by better states.

Filled with better counties, made up of better cities, comprised of better neighborhoods,

illuminated by better churches, populated with better families,

then you have to start by becoming a better person.

In the biblical way, the way to change our nation,

to sanctify it and make its laws and policies more pleasing to God is to simply

change our hearts one at a time to make individuals truly sanctified and more Christlike.

When our predecessors were praying for a revival, the thing that brought revival

was not their praying for the revival.

The thing that brought revival was the conviction that we need to get right with God first.

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and turn

from their wicked ways and seek my face, then I will hear from heaven,

will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

I want us to topple a domino this morning. I don't have anything set up.

So we're going to do this in our mind by looking at four principles of sanctification

and transformation suggested by John Ortberg.

Four things that we need to know if we as individuals want to live more godly,

more Christ-like lives. The first principle is this.

Spiritual transformation is not optional. It's normative.

Some Christians tend to believe that being transformed spiritually is something

they can take or leave like options on a new car.

But the truth is, anyone who is truly a Christian is in the process of being

transformed spiritually.

If you are truly following Christ, you are being transformed.

In Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, Paul writes, Don't be conformed to the

Romans 12:1

world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Implied in this admonition is the fact that if you're not being transformed

by God's renewing power, then you're being conformed by the forces opposed to

God. You're being conformed by the world.

So if you're not being transformed by the power of God, if you're not being

transformed into the image of Christ, the question is not if you're going to

be influenced and formed spiritually.

The question is, by whom will you be influenced and transformed?

And then along with that, if we are not in the business or in the condition

of being transformed into the image of Christ, we have to ask ourselves, are we truly Christian?

God does want us to become sanctified. He wants us to be like him.

In 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 3, he says this, it is God's will that you should become sanctified.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

God wants us to grow spiritually, but God will not force his influence upon us.

He'll stand at the door and knock, but he's not gonna kick the door in.

We have to open it to him to allow him to come in and transform us.

God wants us to be spiritually transformed.

And if you don't make this choice, if you don't seek to be formed by God,

then you have a spiritual adversary, the devil, who will be more than happy to do the job for you.

We see many people around our world who have been influenced by demonic forces

in the way they live and the way they act.

You see, we live in a fallen world, an environment that deforms people spiritually

and pulls them away from God. It's like a white shirt being washed with a load

of brand new red t-shirts.

Unless something's done.

That white shirt is going to be changed. And it's the same with us.

If we don't choose to be influenced by God, then we will be influenced by the world, by darkness.

If you've ever been with a group of northerners, especially children,

who spend an extended time in the South, you will realize that they begin to

take on the accents of the South.

There's no harm in this, but allowing ourselves to be spiritually influenced

by a sinful world in which we live is no laughing matter.

We live in an ungodly society. Unless we choose to be separate and to be influenced

by God, we will become ungodly ourselves, for spiritual transformation is not

optional. It's normative.

The second thing we see is spiritual transformation is a process, not an event.

In Philippians 3, verse 12, Paul wrote, I have not already obtained all this

Philippians 3:12

or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which

Christ Jesus took hold of me.

In other words, he said, I haven't arrived yet. I'm still on the road.

Spiritual growth takes time, and this may be the hardest thing for us to grasp

when it comes to the subject of

sanctification, we live in such an instant gratification world in society.

We want everything right now, don't we?

I mean, I pray for patience, and I want it right now.

We impatiently want everything right away. We have 10 items or less checkout

aisles at the grocery stores and nearly throw a gasket when we end up behind

somebody who is mathematically challenged, right?

We want elevators to respond to our needs instantly.

Have you ever seen anyone impatiently standing and waiting at an elevator?

They push the button and they watch what you

watch them as they watch the the lights up ahead

and as they respond by pressing that button repeatedly it's as if if they pump

that button more and more it's kind of like a bb gun if you the more more you

pump it the sooner it's going to react well that doesn't happen does it and

it's kind of like a watched pot it never boils,

so if you're standing there and i i know

you guys do this standing there at the elevator

and you're watching those lights on the thing they are

not going to move now my wife

can't stand it because when we're standing at elevators like on the cruise ship

and different things like that and people are all standing there looking at

or go into the go into the elevator box uh car and people are standing there.

They're all watching up above.

She can't stand it because I hold conversations with people.

I love to talk to the people when they're sitting there looking. It is so fun.

And she just crawls under it. But we tend to be as impatient when it comes to spiritual growth.

Sanctification does not happen that way. Spiritual growth is a lifelong task that we never finish.

We're not once sanctified, always sanctified.

And in your lifelong pursuit of godliness, you will often fail if you're pursuing it on your own.

But the Apostle Paul had a strategy for this failure when he said,

this one thing I do, forgetting what is behind, I press on.

We tend to think that forgetting is a bad thing, something we shouldn't do,

but forgetting is indispensable to spiritual growth and maturity.

There was once an old elderly couple sitting on a park bench.

The husband looked at his wife

and said, I'm going over to that ice cream store. Do you want anything?

She said, oh yes, I want a sundae strawberry ice cream with hot fudge whipped

cream nuts and no cherries.

In fact, You'd better write it down because I know you're going to forget.

But he said, no, I won't. I have a mind like a steel trap.

She said, no, I know what your memory's like. You will forget. Write it down.

He insisted, no, I will not forget. So he left and was gone for about an hour.

When he came back, he handed his wife a brown paper bag.

She opened it up and pulled out a ham sandwich.

She looked at her husband and said, I knew you would forget. You forgot the mustard.

Now, that's a silly story. But we do tend to think of forgetting as something

that gets us into trouble or something we shouldn't do.

But the truth is, you can't make any progress on the road to spiritual maturity

unless you follow Paul's advice and forget what lies behind.

It's interesting when we was at the reunion this weekend, we all talked about

things that we did in high school and all that.

And it's like, you know, some of those things I want to forget.

And I think there are many in us that need to forget those things.

Forgetting is a key tool that we must learn to use if the process of spiritual

transformation is to continue our lives.

One of the most important lessons to learn about the Christian life is that

God isn't so much into speed as he is in distance.

I believe it was Oswald Chambers who said this, discipleship is a long obedience in the same direction.

So spiritual transformation is not optional, it's normative.

Spiritual transformation is not an event, it's a process.

And then third, spiritual transformation is a team effort between us and God.

You know, psychologists say that one of the primary causes of conflicts in homes

these days has to do with disputes over who job it is to do what.

The division of labor, so to speak.

Family members argue over who is supposed to take out the garbage and who's

supposed to wash the dishes.

How many of you remember growing up in households where tasks were specifically

looked at as women's work or man's work? In fact.

How many of you know women who have to wait on their husband's hand and foot

to bring them a drink and everything else?

It's as if the man cannot do anything for himself. I'm sorry.

Nancy, I love you very much, but I'm not that dependent on you.

I do like it when you prepare my food, though, because you do so much better than I could.

I could only do eggs and bacon.

And you know, for many Christians, there's a confusion about the division of

labor in Christianity as well.

When it comes to spiritual growth and sanctification, they ask,

is it God's job to mature me or is it mine?

Some Christians think that our becoming godly is totally God's job.

They say, if I do anything at all, if I make any effort to be holy,

then I'm living by works and not by grace.

So sanctification is completely God's job.

They support their position by quoting verses like 1 Thessalonians 5,

23 and 24, which says, may God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you entirely.

The one who calls you is faithful and he will do this.

Citing verses like this, they say that human effort at godliness is futile and wrong.

They believe that spiritual growth is simply not their responsibility,

and that to teach that is to be opposed to the doctrine of grace.

Then on the other hand, you have some Christians who believe just the opposite

and say that spiritual growth or sanctification is all our job.

They may cite verses like Leviticus 11.44, which says, I am the Lord your God.

Sanctify yourselves, therefore, be holy, for I am holy. In effect,

they believe God's job is to make sure he's holy, and they believe that it's

our job to make sure that we're holy.

In effect, they're like Rambo Christians who are determined to make themselves into godly people.

I remember one person in a church we used to attend who said that he was not

entirely sanctified until he reached out and wrestled sanctification away from God.

Friends, God isn't playing keep away. He wants to give us sanctification.

He wants to transform us into his image. But, you know, neither of these viewpoints is really wrong.

In fact, they're both right for spiritual maturity. It's a joint effort between God and us.

The initial work of salvation in us is done by the work of Christ,

but also because of our response of faith to what Christ has done.

In our text for today, Paul wrote, Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

But then he continued and said, For it is God who is at work within you,

enabling you to both will and to work for his good pleasure.

So Paul pulls this all together and says that both God and believers have a

part in their own spiritual maturity.

To understand this further, we look again at Romans chapter 12,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

where it says, do not be conformed by this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

We're transformed when we do the things necessary for renewing our mind to godly things.

However, it's not like when I studied for a history exam in high school.

I knew the test was coming up the next day, and I knew I wasn't prepared.

So I went down to my bedroom.

I laid down on my bed and read my history book, or at least I started to.

I woke up in the morning with my open history book flat on my face.

I told my mom that I was learning by osmosis. You see, we do have a role to

play in our own spiritual transformation, but we don't control it.

Our spiritual maturity is a both and and thing, a joint effort between us and God.

We must place ourselves in the position to have the things necessary for God to renew our minds.

Then by the renewing of minds or his way of thinking, we are transformed.

The third chapter of John's gospel records a time that Jesus was talking about this.

He said, the wind blows where it chooses.

You hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. Jesus is reminding us that the wind

is free and powerful to do whatever it wants, way beyond our control.

We cannot control the wind.

And he compares the sanctifying spiritually maturing work of the Holy Spirit

to the wind. It's powerful and mysterious.

It works in ways we can't understand. We can't control it. We can't manufacture it.

We can't come up with a program with predictable results.

But we can watch to see where the Spirit of God is moving and place ourselves

in position to receive this benefit like a captain steering a sailboat.

We've got a prayer warrior boot camp coming up in a few weeks.

It would be good to be there.

Spiritual growth is empowered by God.

There are several things we can do that enable us to catch the maturing,

transforming wind of God's Spirit, things like developing a growing prayer life

or devoting ourselves to the study of God's written word or becoming active in our local church.

We can spread our sails in these ways and be empowered by God to grow and mature as his followers.

And if we don't do this, if we don't make ourselves open and available to God,

then we are dead in the water spiritually. Have have you ever been on a lake

or on a river when there's no wind?

You aren't going anywhere. We don't progress in our journey toward godliness

if we're dead in the water.

So spiritual transformation is not optional. It's normative.

It's a process, not an event. It's a team effort between us and God.

And then one more thing, spiritual transformation is not self-centered.

It's not about us. You know, there's a danger in pursuing spiritual growth.

For many times in our desire to become more and more like God,

we get off track and become individualistic and even narcissistic.

The scribes and Pharisees in Jesus's day were a great example of this.

They self-righteously thought of themselves as very holy, very godly.

They made up more rules than God made up. but they were so absorbed in themselves

that they lost their desire to love anyone else.

You see, if we're not careful, the pursuit of spiritual growth can be distorted.

We can get preoccupied with how we see, how we are performing spiritually,

and how spiritually fulfilled we feel, and we forget to live a life of servanthood

and love. Jesus came to serve.

That instead of becoming freed to serve others, we become spiritually proud and self-absorbed.

But the real goal of spiritual growth, the real goal of spiritual transformation in one word is love.

Love of others more than self.

You see, there's a huge difference between being sanctified and being sanctimonious.

Get that? The New Testament never defines spirituality or sanctification in

solely individualistic terms.

It is always defined in terms of community. We are not called to Christ-likeness

for our own benefit, but for the sake of others.

We're studying Revelation in our men's group, and it's not written for us.

Well, it is, But the book of Revelation is not written for us to say,

thanks be to God, I'm born again, I'm going to go be there.

The book of Revelation was written to us saying, this is what's going to happen.

You better love others enough to help them get on the ship.

Right? This is not about us. It's all about others.

As Paul wrote in the love chapter, love is not self-seeking.

When a Christian matures, he or she becomes like God who loved so much that he gave.

John Outbreak tells of a member of his church whose mother was a very difficult,

unloving, selfish person, and I know there's nobody in this church like that.

This woman had married five different men in her life, and none of the marriages lasted very long.

She had several daughters and one son, but gave them little of their time and

no encouragement in life at all.

Many years later, when her son had grown into manhood, this woman developed

a degenerative muscular disease and gradually lost almost every physical capacity.

None of her children would have anything to do with her, and not one of the

men to whom she had been married even acknowledged what she was going through.

But this young son took his mother into his own home,

cared for her, feeding her by hand, combing her hair, cleaning up after her

messages, and toward the end, all she did was moan and cry incessantly.

When she finally died, none of her children came other than her son who had cared for her.

This man could have responded like his siblings and ignored his mother.

Anyone who knew her would have been sympathetic if he had done that.

But he showed godliness in his actions, for he responded with love.

In fact, He loved her when loving was hardest.

He loved her when no one else would. And that's what spiritual maturity and

spiritual transformation is all about.

For this is the way God loves us. In John 3, 16 and 17, it says,

this is how we know what love is.

Jesus laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

Excuse me, that was 1 John 3, 16 and 17.

The impact that one domino can have on millions of other dominoes is captivating.

To watch, to see what will happen next and ooh and ah as the dominoes fall and

the pictures come into place.

It's amazing that one domino can have such a widespread influence and effect on millions of others.

And as we have said this morning, the impact of the life of one godly individual

on a community is also amazing as God uses one person to influence another and

another and another and another.

Now imagine the impact that hundreds of godly people could have on a city and

a county and a nation and a world that desperately needs Jesus.

Think of the incredible effect that we could have on our own families,

our own neighborhoods, our own schools, our own businesses, our own city,

our own state, and even our own nation if we made the commitment right now to

do all we can do to be transformed spiritually.

How would our nation and world change if we committed to let God change us?

Jesus knew what would happen. He said the gates of hell could not withstand what the church does.

Each one of us can have an effect, and we can affect change by allowing God

to change us. Revival can start in us.

Maybe you need to topple that domino that is your life by recommitting yourself

to God, saying, God, I'm allowing the world to change me, but I really want

you to be the one to be the Lord of my life.

I want you to be my sole influencer, not all those reels I see on Facebook.

If you'd like to begin that journey today, I'm going to ask you,

as we close, you can come up to the altar, come up to the front,

and we'll pray together.

Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, as we look at what it means to be changed

one heart at a time, our world desperately needs that.

We desperately need that. We need to be transformed into your image.

And that means that we've got to give up self and our thought and our ideas

and seek only the ways of God, the ways of righteousness,

Father, I pray that you would be with us and help us as we go and serve a world

that desperately needs Jesus. Amen.