Changing Through Choosing - Renovation of the Heart

Hello and thanks for listening today to Trinity Sermons.

Here at Trinity Church, Streetsville, we want to share encouraging sermons, rooted in biblical

truth, that guide us in our faith journey as we seek to love Jesus, live like Jesus,

and lead other people to Jesus.

This is episode 5 of our sermon series titled, Renovation of the Heart, and Rev. Rob Hirkmans

will be preaching about intentional choices and spiritual changes.

You definitely don't want to miss this insightful message.

Now before we begin, don't forget to follow our podcast to stay up to date on all of our

future sermons.

And to learn more about who we are, feel free to check us out on social media or visit our

website at trinitiestreetsville.org.

I hope you enjoy listening today.

God bless.

Good morning Trinity.

Good morning.

Our reading is from Ephesians 4, verse 29 through to chapter 5, verse 2.

Ephesians 4:29

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for

building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form

of malice.

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God

forgave you.

Follow God's example, therefore as dearly loved children, and walk in the way of love,

just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice

to God.

Trinity this is the word of the Lord.

First of all though, my name is Rob and I am the minister here at Trinity Streetsville.

I love being here and I'm so glad that you're here, especially if you're new or visiting

today and to all those who are watching online, we know you're there.

We're glad you're there.

You're part of our E family.

But what we are doing right now is we are moving through a teaching series called Fixer

Upper, where we were thinking about the ways that God is renovating, changing, and transforming

our hearts, transforming our thoughts, and transforming the feelings that we have going

on in us.

We are all Fixer Uppers.

That's important to understand.

We're all Fixer Uppers.

God is doing work in all of our lives all of the time.

In fact, to remind you of that fact, today we want to give you a little gift as you leave

church today.

Everybody's going to receive one of these little cute little tape measure key chains.

And this is just a reminder that you're a work in progress, that God is fixing you up,

renovating you by his Holy Spirit.

He's expanding your heart.

He is renewing your mind.

He is transforming your feelings and transforming your emotions.

But today what we need to talk about is how God is actually renovating the inside of us,

yes, but ultimately the work that God does inside of us has to eventually show up on

the outside in some of the externals and some of the finishes, in some of the behaviors

that we demonstrate, in some of the actions, in some of our choices.

You see, when a person walks into a newly renovated house, they don't look around and

say, oh, I love the studs here.

Or they don't look and say, oh, I love what you've done with the plumbing or I love what

you've done with the wiring.

No, they can't see any of that stuff.

They walk into a house and they say, oh, I love the wall color you've chosen and then

the artwork that you've chosen.

I love the fixtures that you've chosen and the countertop and the sink.

I love your choices that you've made.

I love the lighting that you have chosen.

And that is the same when it comes to a spiritual renovation that God is doing in our lives.

People can't see the work that God's doing in your heart.

They can't see the work God's doing in renewing your thoughts and transforming your emotions,

but they can see your actions.

They can see your life.

They can see how you're behaving differently so they can walk up and say, oh, my goodness,

look at how patient and kind and forgiving and generous this person is.

There must be something going on on the inside because I am seeing the effects of it on the

outside.

In renovations, making changes always means making choices.

It's not enough just to talk about wanting to change your life or to dream about wanting

to change your life or to have a desire to change your life.

You actually have to eventually make some choices, make some decisions.

You must choose to change.

So here's a question for you today.

Are you going to be a different person in six months from now?

A year from now, are you going to be a significantly more generous or kind or forgiving or kind

or joyful or compassionate person?

I can tell you the answer to that question right now.

It will only happen if you make certain choices and changes.

Those kind of changes don't happen by accident.

Now this is where it gets a little tricky.

Change is both a spiritual work that God does in us, but it's also an intentional work,

something that we do.

Yes, yes, God's spirit is the one who's working in you.

Only God's spirit can transform you from the inside.

We cannot do that work.

But here's the mystery.

Still requires some choices on your part.

Still requires you to make some intentional changes.

And until you start making some choices, you will not experience the transformation that

you long for in your life.

Did you actually know that our ability as human beings to make choices is one of the

things that makes us human?

Animals can't make moral choices the same way that we can.

I don't think an animal really knows the difference between good and bad or right or wrong or

better or best.

Except cats.

Cats do know the difference between good and evil, and they choose evil all the time.

Very intentional.

But yes.

But no, animals have instincts.

They have instincts.

That's what drives them.

We have choices.

We have choices.

That's what makes us humans.

It's a wonderful thing.

It's a part of what it means to be made in the image of God, that you can make a choice.

You can make important choices and changes in your life.

And this is so important because sometimes I think we sit around like this.

We're like, okay, God, I am ready for you to change me.

Hit me, God.

Zap me.

I'm ready to be more generous.

I'm ready to be more kind.

I'm ready to be more patient.

God, make it happen.

Anytime now.

Hit me.

Anytime now, God.

And meanwhile, God is like, Rob, I've been waiting for years to make you more kind and

more generous.

What I've been waiting for is for you to start making some changes and choices in your life.

You see, it takes two.

It's like Rob Bass and DJ EZ Rock used to say back in the eighties, it takes two to

make a thing go right.

It takes two to make it.

I would say yes.

Yes.

By the way, this applies to all sorts of changes that you make in your life, whether it's a

change you want to make to your finances, a change you want to make in your career, a

change you want to make to your health.

Maybe you want to make a change in your marriage, not change who you're married to, but make

your marriage better or a change you want to make in your relationship with your son

or your daughter.

In all these changes, it takes two.

It takes two.

It takes God's spirit, but it also takes your choices.

Now here's the thing.

It's hard to change.

Why is it so hard to change?

You know it's hard to change.

There are things in your life that you've been working on, not just for a couple of

weeks, but for several years, and they're stubbornly resistant to you making those changes.

Why is it so hard to change?

I'm going to share with you a few reasons I think why it's so hard to change.

Here's the first one.

It is just really, really hard to let go of our patterns and our habits and the things

that we've been doing, right?

Change means letting go and letting go hurts.

Letting go is scary.

When you're a trapeze artist and you are swinging on a trapeze, and here's the other trapeze,

and you have to grab hold of that one, but then at some point you need to let go.

You need to let go of this one.

And if you don't let go of that one, you're just going to be stuck hanging there in the

middle and maybe you'll even fall down into the netting below.

And I think that's where a lot of us are at today, right?

We want to make a change in our life.

We're ready to make a change, but actually we don't quite really want to let go of some

of the habits and some of the things that are going on in our life, our old patterns,

our old ways of thinking.

We don't want to let go.

Too scary, too risky.

And so we're caught there.

We're just hanging in between.

It's hard to let go.

But what we have to do, and according to the scriptures, is we have to throw off.

We have to actually let go, throw off our old sinful nature and our old former way of

life and fully embrace a choice for a change, for a better way of life.

Now the second reason why it's so hard to make changes is actually this verse kind of

gives us a hint.

And that is that word old, right?

A lot of the changes that we're trying to make have to do with old patterns, old habits,

and old hurts, and old habits die hard.

Old habits die hard, right?

Let's be honest, we didn't get the way that we are right now overnight.

It took me a whole lifetime to get this messed up, right?

I had to work at it for years and years and years.

It took you a long time to get as messed up as you are right now.

And many of the patterns, many of the bad habits that we have in our life, they were

established going way back, maybe even back to when you were a child.

And maybe back when you were a child, those bad habits that you had actually helped you

cope, but now that you're growing up, they don't work anymore.

And in fact, they're just making your life worse.

But still, we can't let go of them because they're old, familiar buddies.

They're like good friends that sit down with us and you're like, hey, old buddy, old habit.

How are you?

Oh, I'm great.

How are you?

Yeah, you're the best.

You're always there for me.

Yeah, sounds like drinking buddies, but I wasn't trying to make that kind of image.

But the point is, is that you know they're not good for you, and yet you still can't

let them go because they're old and they're familiar.

Thirdly, there's a third reason why we sometimes have a hard time letting go of old habits,

and that is because we actually begin to identify with those behaviors that we know we should

change but just can't.

So they become part of us.

We say things like, they don't say, we don't say I work too much.

We say, I'm just a workaholic.

It's just who I am.

Or I'm just lazy and there's no changing it.

That's who I am.

It's my identity now.

I'm aggressive.

It's just part of my personality.

Nothing I can do about it.

Or I'm timid or I'm an overeater or I'm whatever.

Here's a thought experiment for you.

Just finish this line.

Finish this sentence.

Say, it's just like me to be what?

It's just like me to be impatient.

It's just like me to speak my mind, to say the inappropriate thing.

It's just like me.

Whenever we say something like this, what we're actually saying is that this is my true

identity, but it's not your true identity.

In fact, some of those behaviors might actually be masking and covering up your true identity.

But the problem is we start to see ourselves in certain ways and it becomes a self-fulfilling

prophecy.

Which is why there's this saying that says you should define your habits before your

habits define you.

Over time, yes, your habits can be changed, but over time, if your habits actually seep

in and become actually part of who you are, it can be very, very difficult to change them

at that point.

We may start to think, well, if I change, if I change that habit, will I still be me?

If I change, won't I be someone different now?

So listen, some things are hard to change in our life.

Why?

Because we've made them part of who we are and we're scared to rip them out at this point.

A couple more reasons why things are hard to change.

This is the obvious one.

So many of the habits and behaviors that we'd like to change, we just can't because they

feel good.

It feels good to yell at someone.

It feels good to overspend.

It just feels good to cheat.

And so what we say is, I don't really want to change what I'm doing because it actually

feels good.

It's working for me.

I get some benefit out of this, right?

There's a payoff of some sort.

Now, of course, we all know that sin feels good.

Otherwise, nobody would do it.

Nobody sins out of obligation.

We sin because we love it.

It feels good.

And the reason we don't hate these behaviors is because we love them.

And because we love the way they make us feel really, really hard to change.

It feels good.

Last one I want to throw out to you, though, is that besides the fleeting pleasures of

sin, we have to realize that change is hard because we're talking about spiritual change.

We're talking about spiritual change.

And that means that there's going to be spiritual forces that are opposed to you making these

changes in your life.

The Bible talks about evil.

The Bible talks about forces of darkness that are constantly trying to discourage you.

The evil one wants to keep you stuck in a rut.

The evil one does not want you to become the woman God wants you to be.

He doesn't want you to become the man that God wants you to be.

And so Satan does this thing where he's constantly criticizing you.

He's constantly accusing you and saying, you are never going to change.

In fact, did you know that that is actually what the word Satan means?

It means accuser, accuser.

So whenever you hear that voice inside of you, that voice that says, you're never going to

change.

The voice that says, you know, you're never going to change that old habit.

You're never going to change your thoughts.

You're never going to change your lifestyle.

You kidding me?

Do you know how many diets you've been on?

You're never going to change.

You're hopeless.

You're never going to change, make your marriage better.

You're never going to improve that relationship that you have with your son or your daughter.

You're hopeless.

Why don't you, this is the voice, why don't you just give up?

Where does that voice come from?

Does not come from God.

It comes from the evil one who's accusing you the voice of the accuser.

So now just to summarize so far, do you see why change is so hard?

Why it's so hard to get our outer life to match what's going on in our inner life, right?

It's hard to let go of certain behaviors.

Old habits die hard.

Pretty soon we start to identify with those behaviors.

It feels good to keep doing the things we're doing and all the forces of evil are arrayed

against us to stop us from changing.

So good luck, good luck making changes in your life.

I mean, is change, is it even possible?

Is it even possible?

Is it possible that we could ever experience something like what Paul was trying to describe

when Annie read this reading for us this morning?

Get rid of all bitterness and rage, anger and brawling and slander along with every

form of malice.

That sounds pretty good, but is it possible?

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God

forgave you.

This sounds good.

It sounds too good to be true because change is so hard.

But today I want to give you some good news.

I want to show you very quickly.

I want to show you that just as there were those five things that I want to hold you

back from making changes, there are five choices you can make today.

Five choices you can make today to start changing into the person you want to be and changing

into the person that God wants you to be.

I'm talking about lasting changes here.

Anybody can change for a week or two.

What I'm talking about is a change that is going to last you for the rest of your life.

So let me just wrap up this time by sharing you five choices that you can make.

Here's the first choice.

You can choose truth over lies.

If Satan specializes in whispering lies in your ear, then we need to be steeped in truth.

Many of us here today, you're believing some lie.

You're believing some lie about who God is, or you're believing some lie about what happiness

is, or you're believing some lie about who you are, or some lie about your past, or some

lie about your failures, or whatever the case may be.

And the first choice, therefore, you have to make is to choose truth over the lies that

you're listening to.

This is God's truth, God's word.

And the more you can get into God's word, the more God's truth can get into you and

the more that you are going to be transformed.

In fact, this is what Paul said when he was writing to a young Christian named Timothy

who was trying to be changed and trying to be transformed.

He said this, he said, all scripture is inspired by God and it's useful to teach us what is

true, to teach us what is true.

And to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right.

So when it comes to making changes and choices in your life, you need to know what is true.

You need to know what is wrong and you need to know what is right.

And the scriptures offer us that.

It's important to say that the Bible does not just go around pointing out what is wrong

with you.

The Bible actually shows us how to get back on the path to what is right.

That is why reading your Bible daily and having some time daily to pray is so important if

you're going to have change because you've got to have truth.

And if you want to have truth, then you've got to have God's word.

I would go so far as to say if you do not have a steady diet of God's truth, then you

will end up believing the lies.

So you want to change.

You can make a choice today.

The first choice is to choose truth over lies.

Here's the second choice you can make.

You can choose community over isolation.

You see, here's what happens.

Sometimes when we know we're not the person we want to be or we know the person that God

wants us to be, we sometimes hide ourself away.

Maybe we even feel shame.

But that doesn't help because we can't change on our own.

If we could change on our own, we would have changed already.

We can't get healthy by ourselves.

The only way we can get healthy is by being part of a community.

That's the only place you can really make better choices and learn to change.

And I'll tell you why.

If you read the New Testament, you will constantly come across this word, one another, one another.

The Bible tells us over and over again that the way we learn and grow is by doing these

things with one another.

Love one another.

Forgive one another.

Submit to one another.

Teach one another.

Like one another.

Encourage one another.

Pray for one another.

Bear with one another.

Be kind, compassionate, generous, hospitable.

Serve one another.

The list goes on and on and on.

But the point is the place where we learn to renovate our lives, to renovate our exterior

actions is in community.

Because listen, if you can learn to live out a new life here at Trinity Streetsville, then

chances are you could go out to your school and live out that transformed life there.

Or you could go into your workplace and you could live out that transformed life there

or into your relationships, your marriage, your parenting, and you can live it out there.

But we need to start by choosing to be part of a community that is intentional about practicing

and learning how to change, how to make better choices here in community, in community.

So that's the second choice you can make.

You can choose today.

You can choose to be part of a community over isolation, to be part of one anothering with

us here at Trinity Streetsville.

Here's the third choice you can make today to begin some serious change in your life.

You can choose Jesus over everyone else.

Now you heard me talking to Scott in the video, right?

When it comes to finishing your house, there are so many, so many choices, right?

Which contractor you're going to go with, which design you're going to go with, which

color you're going to go with, which carpenter you're going to go with.

And as you go out and you want to renovate your heart and renovate your spiritual life,

there is going to be all sorts of people who come up to you and say, oh, pick me, pick

me, pick me.

Let me be the one who tells you how to change your life.

Let me be the one to renovate your heart.

I know what you should look like.

Celebrities will tell you that.

Authors, speakers, self-help gurus, YouTubers, even your friends will say, hey, choose me.

Let me be the one to show you how to live your life.

Trust me, choose me, follow me.

I'll make you into what you should be.

But today I want to encourage you, choose Jesus above all others.

Let him be the one to renovate your life.

Let him be the one to finish the renovation of your life.

Here's the thing.

You may not realize this, but Jesus knows how to live your life better than you do.

Think that one through.

And I'm certain, Paul says, that he who began the good work in you will continue his work

until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

He began it, he can continue it, and he is the one who can finish it.

So tell everyone to take their hands off your life.

Tell them to get lost.

Tell them the job of transformation is already taken.

You've already hired your renovator.

You've already signed the contract to renovate your heart, and it's Jesus.

You're never going to find a better workman to do that work in your life.

Check out this.

I found this old hymn by this guy named David Mowbray.

Listen to these old lyrics.

Oh Christ, the master carpenter, high on a cross you died, a wooden cross with iron nails,

a spear thrust in your side.

Oh Christ, upon that Friday cross, your work on earth was done, yet truly in my life today

your work has just begun.

Oh Christ, take up your workman's tools and shape my life anew that I who now appear rough

hewn may be restored in you.

Oh Christ, the master carpenter, let beauty gently shine within the workshop of my life.

The praise be yours, not mine.

Where are you going to get workmanship like this?

Nowhere.

Choose Jesus.

That's the third choice you can make today.

Here's a fourth choice you can make.

You can choose all these things today and not tomorrow.

Some of you are here and you're saying, this sounds really good.

I think I'm going to go home and think about it.

I'm going to think about it for a week.

All this renovation stuff sounds kind of fascinating.

Maybe I'll take the summer to mull it over and ponder it.

What an interesting sermon.

What an interesting idea.

But listen, do you remember how I said we did not get this way overnight?

Our change is not going to happen overnight either.

It is going to take time.

E-I-M-E.

It is going to take a lot of time for God to do the work in your heart.

It's going to take the rest of your life, in fact.

So why not get started today?

I mean, Rick Warren is famous for saying, when God wants to make a mushroom, it takes

six hours.

And when God wants to make an oak tree, he takes 60 years.

Do you want to be a mushroom?

Or do you want to be an oak tree?

Get started.

It's going to take a while.

Don't put off to tomorrow what you can start today.

You know, there's a wonderful story where Moses is leading the people of Israel to the

brink of the promised land.

They're right there.

They're ready to cross over the river.

And now people are starting to hesitate.

Do I really want to make this change?

Do I really want to take this huge step in my life?

And he says, guys, today, today I'm giving you the choice.

You can choose life and success, or you can choose death and disaster.

Today can be for you the same thing.

It can be the first step for you on a lifelong journey of transformation.

God can't renovate you overnight.

Right?

He can't do it today.

But you can choose today to get started.

You can choose today to choose truth over lies, to choose community over isolation.

You can choose Jesus over all the others.

So who knows what tomorrow will hold?

Choose today.

And here's the last choice you can make.

And actually, this is the easiest of them all because it's not a choice you have to

make at all.

And here's the thing.

God made this choice.

It's already been made.

And that is God chose you.

Apparently, and I don't know why, but God likes you.

Other people may not like you.

You may not like you, but God likes you.

In fact, God more than likes you.

God loves you.

And this is so important because some of us were like, why bother making these changes

in my life?

God has already has such a horrible opinion of me.

God doesn't care about my life, but you are so wrong.

God cares so much about your life.

He chose you before you even thought to choose him.

And he didn't choose you because of any amazing thing that you have done.

He chose you just because of who he is and what Jesus did.

Here's some good news.

The Bible says in Ephesians 1, 4 that even before he made the world, God loved us and

chose us in Christ to be his holy people, to be without fault in his eyes.

Guys, I know sometimes when you look back in your life, you see all these bad decisions

you've made and you got this, you feel maybe a sense of rejection.

Maybe from your childhood, you felt rejected.

Maybe you got rejected by some friends.

And the trouble is when we feel rejected, you know what we immediately try to do?

We try to change to become people that our peers will like or become people that our

parents will like.

Or we try to change to become acceptable and welcoming.

And so everyone will like us and we change out of our rejection.

But listen, when you realize that God has already chosen you, God has not rejected you,

you're already loved, then you won't find yourself changing to please anyone or to earn

anything from God, but you'll find yourself changing just because of this God and how

much this God loves you.

And the thought of becoming more like this God is so appealing.

A spiritual renovation, hard work, very hard work.

It's hard to change our hearts, our minds, our thoughts, and our feelings, and it's hard

to change those actions and those attitudes and those behaviors.

But you still have a choice.

You cannot choose your life circumstances, but you can choose how you respond to life.

You can't choose what happens to you when you walk out this door today necessarily,

but you can choose whether things make you better or whether they make you bitter.

God always gives us a choice.

And once you've made your choices, you'll see your choices end up making you.

So make your choices.

Choose truth over lies.

Choose community over isolation.

Choose Jesus over everyone else.

Choose today, not tomorrow.

And remember, God has already chosen you.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Thank you so much for listening today.

It is our hope that you enjoyed this message and are inspired by Rob's words and by the

words of the gospel.

And if you enjoyed the sermon, please take some time to rate our podcast so that we can

continue to better share the good news with others.

Don't forget to come back next week where we will be finishing up the sermon series

on our final episode of Renovation of the Heart.

Today's sermon was taken from the July 9th, 2023 service at Trinity Church, Streetsville,

in Mississauga, Ontario.