The Power to Change: Week 1

Good morning. My name is James, and first of all, I've encourage

you as we start to see series, grab a book before you head out

has devotionals for you to grow spiritually during a season. And also if you're

not a group, grab a group passor Tim would be morning happy to help

you with that. And also I just want to encourage our church. Yesterday

we had another great neighborhood market where we were able to serve a lot of

families in our community and bless them. And I'm just so proud of all

the work that our church is doing right now to reach out to the community,

to love on people, to encourage people, and to actually just meet

practical needs. Now, Michael Thickpen preached last week and then he sung after

he preached, and a lot of people have asked me if I'm going to

sing, and I just want to tell you that if I could sing,

I was sing every single week, every single sermon, I would say that

reminds me of a song. But you are lucky that I cannot sing.

And so but it was a great pleasure having Michael. Michael actually be back

here in about a month. But today we're starting our new series on the

Power to change. Let's pray and ask God to speak deeply into our hearts

today because you will be challenged. All right, let's pray. God,

We thank you for the opportunity to come here today to seek you, to

draw near to you, to put ourselves under your teaching. And so,

Father God, we asked now in the mighty name of Jesus, that your

word will be powerful and effective. In Jesus name, Amen. Now,

I wonder how many of you at the beginning of the year you had some

big goals. Anyone here has some goals at the beginning of the year,

and anybody's still accomplishing those goals? Yeah, just a very few. If

you are, congratulations, But if you are, how would you say slacking

in that area? You're not alone. According to INC magazine, when they

did a survey of forty million people, guess how long it takes to make

a goal to start working on it before you give up on that goal?

Less than two weeks. They said, almost everybody has done with their New

Year's resolution by the second Friday of Jane. Way and and and so you

know, that's just a reality. You know, we struggle. We have

good intentions, but we don't follow through for whatever reason. I remember last

December, I was thinking, all right, twenty twenty three is going to

be the year that I'm going to become a handyman. And I studied like

crazy. I looked up all kinds of tools, I looked up projects.

I was online like crazy, and and and I decided, all right,

I'm gonna do this. And so I did major deep dive study. I

watched several seasons Home Improvement reruns. I watched one of my favorite shows,

Homestead Rescue, and some other inspirational shows on Discovery. I even added some

biblical things to it. I found that scripture that it said Jesus was a

carpenter and Paul was a tent maker. And so I mean, I'm all

prepared. And then even for Christmas, I picked out a couple of d

Walt and my parents actually for Christmas, they couldn't believe it. I asked

them for this specific expensive Dwalt drill, and so they got it for me.

And I told my mom and my wife, I said, here's what's

gonna be my big winter project. I plan on making you both raised flower

beds come spring. Okay, so that's gonna be my big project, and

so I had every attention of doing that, but then life got in away.

Penelope, our young lab at that time, a couple of days after

Christmas, she broke her arm. A couple of weeks weeks later she did

it again, and we had to have another surgery. And finally in January,

they were like, hey, if you're at home, you've got to

watch this dog the whole time. So we were just on dog duty.

Come February, I got about a vertigro. I did not think that that

was a good time to practice with the power drills at that time, and

so I had vertigo. And then vertigo took about a month to get over.

And then as soon as that was over, the staff like, hey,

you gotta catch up. Easter's common. We got a lot to do,

and so my whole mind was on Easter, and so we I'm going

full fledging to Easter. And then the holidays are over and I go home

to visit my mom and dad, and my mom brings me outside to show

me her beautiful garden and I look at a flower bed and then it hits

me. I was supposed to build that. And then I was like,

oh, and I felt so horrible. Even told my mom, I'm so

sorry. You know, life got away. But here's the thing. I

really had good intentions, but life gotten away and I completely forgot. It

wasn't like every day in the back of my head it was nagging, like

you need to build a flower bed today. No, it looked I think

that's what happens. So often. We have these good intentions, we have

this passion, we want to do things, life gets in the way.

And then after life gets in a way over and over again, what do

we do. We kind of just back off, and then we just forget

that that was even a goal until next New Year's Eve, and then we

say, oh, I need to make some changes. All right. Now,

here's who the sermon is for today. It's for all of you who

you've set goals over and over again. You know you struggle with addiction,

but you know you keep not being able to overcome it. Those of you

who say, hey, I want to spend less money than I make,

or hey, I want my marriage to be better, or I want to

get out of that toxic relationship, or this is a year that I'm going

to finally read the Bible every day. How many of you guys have done

that, Like I'm going to read the Bible every single day this year.

It's like I've done that four or five times, and by its time I

get to the Leviticus, I'm like, this is some weird stuff. I

don't know if I can do this. And we do this stuff every year.

And this is for those who are still impatient after praying over and over

again. Not for you who are overstretched. For those of you who are

tired of gossiping, but when you get bored and there's something else to talk

about, you gossip. This is for those of you who have been trying

to forgive that person forever but you just can't. This is for those of

you who have negative thoughts and you've worked on it, but you still have

negative thoughts. This is for those of you here today. You want to

change, you hope to change, You've tried to change, but at this

point you're not even for sure of change is actually possible. The Sermons series,

it's for those of you who are sick of being stuck. So I

know a lot of you. You feel frustrated when it comes to this topic.

You feel embarrassed, you feel ashamed. But the good news is again

you are not alone. When we get to the New Testament, we find

this guy, Apostle Paul. This guy wrote most of the New Testament,

planted most of the churches. He's considered the most successful Christian ever. But

let's check out his desire to change. He talks about this in Roman sevens

and I wonder how many of us can relate. Let's look at Roman seven,

verse eighteen. What does he say? He says, an, you

know what I really desire to do, what is good, but I cannot

carry it out. Can I get an amen? For I do not do

the good I want to do, but I do the evil that I do

not want to do. This is actually what I keep on doing. I

want to do good, and that's the thing I want to keep doing.

But when it comes to evil, that's the thing I actually keep doing.

And I wonder how many of us can relate with him? And we have

the desire to do good? And you were like, we have What in

the world is wrong with me? I mean, year of the year,

I do everything I said goals, I make vowels, I have a vision

board, I have a prayer partner, I have an accountability partner, I've

done everything. I have the right intentions. But here's what I've suggested in

this room because I've been there and done that a lot. I think a

lot of us have the right intentions, but we don't have the right strategy.

We have the right intentions, but not the right strategy. And that's

what I want to talk about today, is the right strategy for bringing change.

See, we're trying to bring change, but we're trying to change in

the wrong way. I ran across this article this week and I couldn't believe

it. Actually, this happened August seventeenth in Nigeria, and there was a

woman who had all kinds of things that she was wanting to be delivered from.

And she was so desperate for her life to change that she went to

her pastor and the pastor said, all right, here, I need you

to go get three things because we're gonna have a prayer service for you.

He says, one, go get amazing Grace perfume. I would love to

know what amazing Grace perfume smells like. But yeah, she was told to

go get amazing Grace perfume and some eggs. Now, I have no idea

what those two have to do with anything. And then he said, and

bring a candle, okay, And this is exactly what happened. This is

in the news. You can check it out. He sprayed her all the

way down with this perfume and then he had her hold the candle for the

prayer. The next thing you know, she's the candle and she caught on

fire. Now she's alive because I wouldn't tell you a crazy story like that.

It's depressing, first thing on Sunday morning. But she got some burns,

but she's okay. But the pastor was arrested. I think the charge

was insanity. But here's a point. Some people are so desperate to change

that they're willing to do anything. And it's almost like we're always in these

two categories of I can't change, so I'm just gonna totally give up,

or man, I'm so desperate I'll do anything. And that's why you've got

a lot of these television shows where very very poor people are taking great advantage

of because these preachers or whoever, they get up on TV and they say,

if you really want this, send a thousand dollars, If you really

want this, send five hundred dollars. And you know who's sending that money

in. It's the people who are so desperate for change, they're willing to

do anything. And I think a lot of us get so desperate to change

that we're almost willing to do anything. But here's the thing we're gonna talk

about today, and here's what I want you to understand. This is so

important, real change in your life. We're not talking today about behavioral modification.

You hear me, everybody say on account of three behavioral modification one two

three, behavioral modification. We're not talking about that today. Today we're talking

about spiritual transformation. We're not talking about behavioral modification. We're talking about spiritual

transformation. And here's what this is. It's not just changing what we do

on the outside. It's allowing God to do the work two changes on the

inside. It's not behavioral modification. It is spiritual transformation. Out Let's get

back to Paul, because it's very fascinating. Because Paul continues with this struggle,

and so he elaborates more. He says, here's what I find going

on in my life. He goes, I find this law at work.

Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. So

he's recognizing in his soul there's two things going on. He says, For

my inner being, I delight in God's law. Okay, what's he talking

about here? He's talking about the Holy spirit that's in every single one of

us that wants to do good, that wants to follow God's words. So

he says, Hey, in my inner being, I delight in God's law.

But there's also this other work in me waging war against the law of

my mind and making me a prisoner of the law Senate working within me.

So he is there this work that's working against him, says, keeping him

a prisoner. He's talking about his old sinful nature. Paul says, every

single one of us we have this, those of us who are following Christ,

we have the holy spirit that draws us to do good. But also

we have our old sinful nature that says, no, go back and do

the things you've always done. And Paul says, man, there is this

huge battle going on within me. I want to do good, but my

old sinful nature keeps showing back up. And then he says, what I

love this. After talking about this big battle on his soul, he goes

man. What a wretched man? Am I? What a wretched man?

Am I? And then he says, Who's going to rescue me from this

body that is subject to death? And then he switches and he gives the

answer. Thanks be to God who delivers me through who Jesus Christ, our

Lord. When he talks about deliverance, when he talks about change, when

he talks about true spiritual transformation, it is through the work of Jesus Christ.

So the answer is not by my best effort, not my outward behavior,

but true changes Jesus Christ in you see, it's not behavior modification again,

it's spiritual transformation. Now here's what I see Christians do. And I've

watched this my whole Christianity, and a lot of you who grew up in

certain denominations, you are going to relate big time. Okay. There are

three what we would call formula mindsets, three ways we go about changing our

life. And this doesn't come from me. It comes from Jerry Bridges originally.

If you want to read more on it, there's a book called The

Power to Change by Craigrochell. But basically, there's three mindsets that we have.

The first two are wrong and then we'll talk about the last one.

But I want to talk about the first mindset that is very wrong, okay,

And here is simply this. When it comes to change, a lot

of people believe it's God than me. God than me. In other words,

God initiates God. You know, he draws me to him, he

convicts me. For those of us who are Arminian, that's called prevenient grace.

He draws us to Him to the point where we say, yes,

I want to follow you. If you grew up Calvinists, you experience this

irresistible grace where you're like, oh, no, matter what I can do,

I gotta follow him. But either way, it's like God draws me

to him. I become saved, I'm a child of God, I'm heaven

bound. And then God's like, good, I did my work. You

are saved. Now become holy. But the rest of the works up to

you. How many of you grew up in the Church of God. I

did not every church, but I would say a vast majority of the Church

of Gods tadd this theology. God saves us, but then it's up to

us to bring that change. And so because we did not understand how to

bring true change to our life. What the Church of God did, and

a lot of other denominations, Nazarene and a whole other bunch of them,

and their in their heart to do good. They came up with all these

rules, and so what we did in order to hopefully change people. We

put rules in place because we felt like if everybody could just follow these rules,

we'll all become holy. And so we had all kinds of rules put

in place, like no cussing, no drinking, no smoking, no dancing.

At Gena and I's wedding, we could not dance together. They were

scared to death what that would lead to. But we weren't allowed dancing because

we were in a Church of God. Church. Well, you're not allowed

playing cards. You're playing Uno and youth passor comes over like the devil.

You know. It's like, man, it's just unos, like the devil.

No, it just guards. Man, it's just guards like monopolies,

the game. We should be scared about that. That makes people want to

crush other people. But listen this, oh no, you know nowhere shorts

at the campground. Man. I was a chubby white boy with pale skin.

And then they take us to the campground a bunch of times in the

summer it's a hundred degrees and I'm in jeans. And then they're like having

a worship service, and I'm just mad at God the whole time, Like

God, for real, for real, I'm sweating. I like that girl

over there, and I look like a pig, and I'm just like mad

and and and it's and it's because of all these rules. And these rules

are supposed to make us holy. But all those rules. You know what

those rules did to me? They just made me want to not do them.

My desire to break those rules became huge. And also ladies, think

about this, uh no makeup, no jewelry. I've even seen back in

a day, no girls, which I don't even think that's a thing anymore.

But anyways, they just had rules, and it goes on and on

and here and here's the goal. Rules lead your life, not the Holy

Spirit. So if if you mess up and say you're trying to follow all

these rules but you mess up, then that you would consider that backslid.

Who'd heard that term? So my backslid. And so that's why we had

a great altar calls all the time, because you messed up, you broke

one of the rules at the weekend services. Calm down to the altar and

get saved again. I can't tell you how many times I got saved Lord.

I won six Uno games. I tapped my feet during a song.

I'm so sorry forgive me, forgive me for it. But see, here's

the point. We had all these rules in place, and and the goal

was that these rules would make us perfect and holy. And so here's what

happens to people, especially like me. I can't follow rules like that,

and so you know what, by time I hit seventh grade, I just

gave up. So here's what this calls is it calls us people who become

like I just can't do it. They either give up and then they resent

the church because the church makes him feel like failures. Or number two,

you just happen to be a disciplined person. Some people are just very disciplined,

and it's like, oh, here's the rules got him, love you,

thank you for the rules. They become prideful. So here's your choices

when you have a rules based religion or denomination. Either give up, are

you become prideful. One of my young when I was young, I was

talking to one of my pastors who had a lot of influence on me,

and he was explained to me how he had not sinned for and he says

something like it was like either eleven or thirteen years. I didn't call him

to get to exact date because it's a weird conversation, but he told me,

I know it had been over a decade since he is sin And we're

talking with three or four people there, and and my naivete as a eighteen

year old, I go, well, what about when you did this,

this, this, this, this, Remember when you gossiped over here,

you trash this person over here? And I just went on it, just

named every sin that I saw that person. Do did you know that people

do not like being told in public all their sins? And I wasn't even

like trying to convict him or anything. I would just trying to be like,

what you haven't said, don't you consider that a sin? Or that

a sin or not a sin? Oh? Anyways, it calls his pride

pride or you want to give up? And we hear this in our own

language. I'm trying to stop losing my temper, I'm trying to stop cussing

darn it. I'm good more than only one person got that Thursday. I'm

trying to get close to God. I'm trying to stop spending four hours a

day on TikTok and Instagram. God saved me, but see, we believe

it's up to me. So the first one is it's God than me.

Now the second one is God not me. God not me. And this

is where we believe that God saves us, but after we were come into

a relationship with God, he absolves us from any responsibility. So any change

in our life. And this is where you get some theology. It's like,

hey, they're saved. They haven't changed at all, but they're still

going to go to heaven because if there was going to be any change in

their life, God would have done that change in their life, okay,

And so they just live their life however they want. And so they go

along life and they're like, hey, I don't like this job. I

don't think this job is what God wants me to have, so glory to

God, I'm gonna quit this job. Oh God, I need a new

job. It's up to you. Or they spend way more money than they

make, and so they go to the convenience store. They buy a loaf

of bread and it's dirty scratch offs and they're like, Lord, I dedicate

this lottery win to you. Lord, I dedicate this. I'm going to

give ten and a half percent if I win fifty million dollars, and God,

I give us to you because I know you know that I need to

get out of debts. So God is up to you to get me out

of debt. See. I've seen this a lot in a very practical ways

of how it can damage one of my closest friends, great guy, great

pastor, amazing heart. Would love to have him on our staff, but

he's in an old system called an appointment system. And an appointment system is

simply this. A group of people are in a room. They look at

open churches and then pastors who are not connected to a church, and then

they just match them up. And they barely know much about that church.

And they really don't know these pastors well other than some tests they've taken.

And so what happens is people just get put in churches and they get mismatched

all the time. There's no prayer, there's no seeking the Lord, there's

no Hey God, where are you leading? Me. God is completely out

of the situation. So my friend, he is the ultimate city dude.

He is a world traveler, he's all about culture. He's a guy that

eats live optopus in front of you all the time. And it's like,

what are you doing? And just if it's out there, if it's culture,

if it's unique, that's him. And so the Denomination keeps saying,

huh, I bet we're gonna take this guy, who's the most city person

we've ever met, and we're gonna put him out in the country where every

single person in that church has lived on that land since the eighteen hundreds.

They've done this two or three times within two or three years. Those people,

this guy's a phenomenal pastor. The people beg the Denomination, please take

him away, Please take him away. We cannot hear one new idea this

century, you know. And and and it's sad because his heart's broken.

But man, if he would just pray and we would just trust the Lord,

the Lord would bring him to a city and he would do a phenomenal

job. But this is what happens when we have you know, hey,

it's all God, not me at all. And this breaks down in many

different ways. Some of you have friends who are like, I don't understand

why I'm not closer to God. You know, I haven't been a you

know, in the worst since nineteen ninety eight, and I haven't been a

church since COVID, but I still don't know why I'm not close to God.

Or you've got some of those people who are like, man, our

God really loves to forgive, and I really love the sin, so we're

a good combo. It's all God, it's not up to me. So

those are the first two mindsets where it's either all up to you or it's

all up to God. Neither one of those correct. Let's look at the

correct mindset for true change in our life. And here's what it is.

Simply, it is God through me. On the count of three, everybody

say God through me, one, two, three, All right, now,

how do we really change? It's not behavioral modification, it's spiritual transformation.

It's God through me. Now here's what I want to show you.

This is so cool because we actually get to see Paul recognize this. He's

the guy who's saying, I'm trying to change, but I can I don't

know what's wrong. With me. I do everything I can. But then

he finally says, you know what, the only way I could change is

through Jesus. So we watch him process this in his writing. Okay,

and I love the humility and it depends on God. Check this out first

Corinthians fifteen. What does he say? He says, first of all of

all of the apostles, I'm the least. I don't even deserve to be

called in an apostle. Why because I persecuted the Church of God. In

other words, I killed people, I did horrible things. But because of

this grace of God. And I love this. Because of the grace of

God, I am what I am. And then I love this next statement.

This is really beautiful and this is where you understand true change in your

life. He says. His grace to me was not without effect. In

other words, this grace I received having a huge effect on my life,

he says. And then he goes on to talk about himself. He goes,

no, I worked harder than all of them, yet not I but

the grace of God that was through me. So let's talk about Paul for

a second. Paul, he planted more New Testament churches than anybody else wrote

a ton of the New Testament. And then Paul says, hey, based

on my qualifications alone, I ranked the lowest. I'm not very good.

I'm the least of the apostles. I don't even deserve to be called an

apostle. I persecuted the Church of God. I killed people. And then

he's very humbly. He says, it's not by my talent, my education.

My good works are my effort. But why why has God brought this

change? He says, it is by the grace of God. And I

want to show you, you know, I want to show you what's going

on here in the scripture. Here's what Paul's talking about. The same grace

that saves you is the same grace that changes The same grace that saves you

is the same grace that changed you. Because he says this, but by

the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace was

not without effect. In other words, I'm not very good. I don't

deserve this, but his grace impacted me. I am what I am because

of this grace, this work he did in me. Now watch this,

he says. Now, I've worked harder than anyone else. And he goes

on to you know, we've seen scripture. He proved it. He woke

up up earlier than anybody else. He stayed up later. He planted more

churches, He grows up more leaders. He preached the gospel ferociously and fearlessly.

He was beaten, and then he was beaten, and then he was

beaten. He was left for dead, he was whipped, he was snake

bitting. Now I'm would be all about being an apostle to I got bit

by snake, and then I'd be like, all right, I got I'm

out. This dude got by a snake, flung the snake and said all

right, let's keep going. Then the dude was shipwrecked. Then he went

back persecuted, and then he's people try to kill him. And then he

went back to that city again, and he says, hey, I worked

harder than anyone else. But then check out what he says yet, not

I but the grace of God that was with me. I don't know how

many of us can relate today that are, Hey, maybe I'm not the

best, I don't deserve to be here, but by the grace of God,

he did something to me, and that grace has had affect in my

life. The same grace that saved him is the same grace that changed him.

He brought every bit of energy and effort, but at the end of

the day, it was God through him. See, real spiritual change is

God through you. It's not behavioral modification. It's spiritual transformation. And here's

what you might want to know today. If real change is God through you,

what does that look like? And I want to share a principle with

you. Okay, this is really big, ready, and you might want

to write down here's a big, big principle. Okay. For change to

be spiritual transformation, it has to be spiritual. That's simple. For it

to be spiritual transformation, it has to be empowered by God's spirit, not

your will power. There's a lot of people who have a lot of will

power and a lot of discipline. That does not mean that they have been

changed by the Holy Spirit. You know, if you want to truly change,

there's two things you need to know. And this is very important today,

and I do want you to write this down. You need to know

the why and the how. Why do I want to change? And how

am I going to change? But it needs to be spiritual. Spiritually,

why do I want to change? And spiritually? How am I going to

change? See, we have all these things we want to change, Like,

Hey, I want to lose fifty pounds. Why because I want to

show off at my high school reunion. And I'm sure God in Heaven's like,

I can't wait to help you. Yes, I'm going to empower you

to do this. You're gonna look fabulous and everyone else is gonna feel horrible.

Truly, this is a spiritual request. No, but if you're like,

you know what, I get tired all the time and I'm not able

to serve the way that I want to serve. Man, you know you're

going to receive some of empowering of the Holy Spirit. So you're why it

needs to be spiritual, and then your how needs to be spiritual. Okay,

So so here's what you do. You know your spiritual is God's purpose

for you, and you're spiritual that you're spiritual why it's God's purpose for you,

and your spiritual how is God's power through you. So it's not your

effort. It's not behavior modification as spiritual transformation. Here's how it plays out,

and you know God has called you to love on your family. Okay,

and you've been really trying not to yell at your family, not to

be mean to your family, not to yell at your spouse. So now

you've got to find a spiritual why. In the years before you you just

use a stress ball and eight ice cream at night? Are you zoned out

and watch TV at night? But now you got your spiritual why. Why

do I want to be nice to my family? Well, it's because I

want to leave a legacy. I want to have a God honoring family.

And simply that becomes your spiritual house. So you start to pray and say,

God, help me to love them and help me to leave a legacy.

But then your spiritual how might be a Bible study, a small group

counseling. You start taking these spiritual steps, okay, and then you might

say, hey, I want to get better at money and in your in

your in your and your why might be like, hey, I want to

be able to pay my bills. That's actually a good why. But you

want to go a step further and say, you know what, I don't

only want to pay my bills, but I want to bring honor and glory

to God through my finances so I could be generous. And so therefore you

got your spiritual why because I want to honor God with my finances. And

then you got your spiritual how. Well, that's where you know you're gonna

get a kind of ability. Partners, or you take a class that we

offer from time to time on how the budget to bring glory to God,

and so you get your spiritual why and your spiritual how. Now you might

be sitting here going James, this still sounds like a lot of work on

my own. Trust me, you can do a lot of work on your

own, but you need to understand where the power comes from. When you

decide to change to bring honor and glory to God, you will see this

happen in your life. Let's look at Zechariah four six. Not by might

nor by power, but by my spirit, says a Lord. So the

Holy Spirit begins to work within you. You know, whenever I came to

Christ, there was before I came to Christ, there was three sins that

I thought it was impossible for me to overcome. Matter of fact, I

went on a lot of you three treats, you conventions, and I would

get convicted and I would be like oh, man, I gotta stop doing

this. This isn't good. This is going to get me in trouble.

I'm gonna get caught. And so there were three things that I tried to

quit over and over again. And one was and I have been involved in

pornography since probably fourth grade. Second one was sex, and I, you

know, been having sex since eighth or ninth grade. And then the other

one was just very vulgar language. And since I learned vulgar language, I

was very glad to use it. And I kept trying on my own to

change them, but I couldn't. But then in my senior year, when

I came to Christ, and I truly gave my whole life to Christ,

and I knew that he convicted me, he changed me. And it was

just such a moment where I just was just transformed by Christ. And then

all three of those sins I had struggled with year after year, day after

day, Hey guess what, they were gone for two weeks, for two

whole weeks. And then I realized, I gotta stay on this. I

gotta stay on this. And so here's what I did. You know what.

I made sure that I was involved in a small group I prayed probably

three times a day. I had this little black Bible that I kept in

my back pocket, so when I was at work, I would pull it

out and I would read scriptures. When I had a study hall, I

would ask to be excused. I would go down to the library, I

would read scriptures, and I would tell my friends, Hey, I can't

be around this stuff anymore. So I made dramatic changes. I was filling

myself up with God's word. And then I even had some friends who are

very upset they missed party James. So I would show up at their house

and they would try to sabotage me. I'd walk into house, We're all

hanging out, and then somebody would put pornography on and then they and I'd

be like, hey, I can't be a part of this. I start

to leave the house, and they say, hey, stop giving up this

Jesus act. They wanted to old James back, and man, I finally

had to get to the point where I had to give up some of those

friends. And that was literally the hardest thing I ever had to do.

But it was God at work in my soul, drawing me to him.

But I just couldn't say God, you just need to do it. All

I had to do it was God through me. And you're sitting here,

you know, you're you're trying to figure out, like, how do I

truly make change? And here's the point, spiritual transformation? What is it?

It's a change of heart. It's a change of heart. It's not

rules. See, if you change your behavior but you don't change your heart,

the behavior is gonna come back. I'm gonna say that again. If

you change your behavior but you don't change your heart, your behavior is gonna

come back. Can I get an amen? You need to understand that we

can change your behavior. We got a lot of discipline people in this church.

You can change your behavior, but if you don't change your heart,

your behavior is gonna come back. I was in my mid twenties. I

was walking around the mall and there was this girl that I had a huge

crushed on all through elementary school up to seventh grade. It's seventh grade.

She went to another school and then she went to another high school. Didn't

see her for years, saw her at the mall. We talked to them

all. We had a great conversation, and she had she knew that I

was a pastor now at a church, and we had a great conversation,

great catching up, and I was just so excited to see her. She

came to church. She started coming to church every week, and I'm like,

that's really awesome. Look what God is doing, uh, you know

through you know, life change and all this other stuff. And then one

night my wife went to a CVS as I got a phone call. Now

this was back in a day where you had phones on the wall and you

don't know who's calling. How scary is that? Like you just could be

anybody? Yes, Satan, how'd you get my number? You know?

And so I should phone and it's her And we just started and I didn't

think nothing about it. And then she started asking me about some things that

were very, very sexual, and I said, you know, we can't

talk about this. I can't talk to you about this. And she kept

going on. She goes, you haven't really changed, have you? And

as I saw her shift into an invitation, I just hung the phone up.

And I've never spoken to her since. You know what the difference was

between when I first got saved and seven years later, it was no longer

me trying to work on my behavior changing by time she called that day,

my heart had already changed and I wouldn't do anything to dishonor my Lord or

to hurt my wife. See, it is God through you. But it

takes season after season after season of you being humbled like Paul, humbling yourself

seeking the Lord. And after a while, you won't have to worry about

overcoming these behaviors because your heart will have changed and you don't want to do

things because you will want to honor God. And so as we close today,

here's what I want to do. It's very very very very practical and

just for your last feeling today. Really lasting change reflects God's power through you.

So if you're sick of being stuck, I got some good good news

for you. There is power outside of you to change your life. And

so here's what I want to conclude with I. As we started this series,

I grabbed a book and I start looking at the spiritual changes I want

to make. And to be honest, some of them are spiritual. Some

of them are just like just some health stuff that would make me be a

better pastor and stuff like that, and I wrote them down. And by

the way, this list is an old list. I could have wrote this

list last every year for the last six years, but this is the first

time I wrote the wise because how I want to honor God and love God

and growing God and all this other stuff. So I wrote them down,

and then on the other I made out a little chart. This might be

a little excessive, but I really love checking things off, and so I

made out a little chart. Let me tell you how I've done so far.

I'm batting about four hundred, okay, so but each day I'm praying

over these. Each day I'm working on these, and each day God is

starting to remind me more and more I don't need that. I don't need

that. I don't need that. So here's what we're gonna do the last

few minutes of church today. We're just gonna get super practical. Okay,

I'm sure everybody in here has a phone with notes on it, or you

can grab the one of the Prairie requests right in front of you, and

here's what we're going to simply do. Every one of you right now.

If I said, what is one of two, one, two, three

things you have been wanting to change your life for a long time, I

bet you and write them down, just like that, and so that's what

we're gonna do. We're gonna take time today in service for you to write

down one or two three things that you want by the power of God to

change in your life, and then you're gonna write out the why. So

I'm gonna lead you through this, Okay. So let's just pray and we're

gonna take a step by step together today. Okay. God, we just

call on you today, and none of us have the strengths, that power,

the might to do these things on our own, but we do want

to honor you. We do want to bring you glory, and we also

know that we're going to fail. And we also know that you are a

God of grace and a God of mercy. But God, we want to

bring you honor and glory. So receive this today as truly wanting to have

changed to bring you honor and glory. Okay, So let the first step

right now, Let's just go ahead and write down those one, two,

or three things that you want to see God bring about change in your life.

And it could be as practical as finances, it could be you know,

health issues, it could be stuff that you're really struggling with, sin,

sin wise, and if you have anything that you're struggling with sin wise,

please put that on the list. But here's what I want to want

to all participation today. Write it on your phone or write it on the

list in front of you. M m m m m m m. All

right, that's the easy part. Now write down the world why and answer

that question why spiritually does this matter? M Now, this is the hard

one. I want you to write down the word how, and that might

be by a lot of you. First step is just get into a small

group or a Sunday group. Might be joining a Bible study, going to

counsel, an accountability partner, might just simply be repenting confessing. So let's

hand these lists up before the Lord. Now let's pray over them. God,

we give you these changes, not because anybody in this room's asking to

win the lottery, or not trying to make changes to make us better than

anyone else, or it's just truly, these are things that we feel like

that you have been putting on our heart for a while and reminding us over

and over again. These are the things that we'd be good for me,

my family, my mental health, my spiritual health, and so God I've

tried and tried to figure this out. But today I'm asking for spiritual transformation

and so God empower me and help me. Bless you this week as you

begin this journey. Bless you, Bless you, Bless you.