The Process of Change

Starting a new series this weekend.

And um the series is called the Master's Degree.

I'm gonna tell you how how this uh came about.

I was actually studying in April.

I was studying for a series uh called Interruptions, and it was I spent like I don't know how many weeks in Mark chapter six.

And to study for Mark six, I just read all the whole book of Mark over again, and and so as I started to read through Mark, a different series came to me.

So I sort of press pause on that.

I outlined seven messages that that I observed throughout, not just Mark, but into the book of Acts, where Jesus uh developed the leadership skills of the disciples.

So these seven messages, the master's degree, are going to be seven leadership tests, seven leadership lessons that Jesus took the disciples through in order to prepare them for what he had for them to do, prepare them for their purpose.

And it's applicable to us.

Today, what I want to talk to you about is the change test.

The change, the process of change, the power of change, the change test.

We're gonna start in Mark chapter 1.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

Uh start reading in verse 16.

If you have your Bible, you can go to Mark 1.

If not, it'll be on the screen.

Uh Mark 1 and 16 says, one day, as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he said to Simon.

Now, when you see Simon, think Peter is probably the name you hear more often.

Simon Peter, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew throwing their nets into the water, for they fished for a living.

Jesus called out to them, Come follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people.

Verse 18.

And they left their nets at once and followed him.

A little farther up the shore, Jesus saw Zebedee's sons, James and John, in a boat repairing their nets.

He called them at once, and they also followed him, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men.

We're going to talk today about change.

Change.

You know this.

Change is inevitable.

It's like the one constant.

I'm not asking you to love change, but you are going to have to embrace it.

Change is coming whether you like it or not.

When I think of the subject of change, I think of Dr.

Seuss.

Any Dr.

Seuss fans in the house?

All right.

When I put my kids to bed, I'll read them oftentimes a Dr.

Seuss story.

And I have one that I really love, and it's called The Zax.

I've read this to them so many times, and frankly, I think they like it, but I know I like it.

I read it over and over.

And I've read it so many times, I told my wife, I I think I could, I think I could actually quote the Zax by heart.

I think I've memorized it.

And so today I'm going to attempt to quote the Zax by heart.

Now, in order to hold myself accountable and to have you believe me that I'm doing this by heart, I will quote the Zax blindfolded.

Don't try this at home.

Blindfolded poetry is dangerous.

Now, this is some David Blaine type stuff I'm gonna attempt.

Now here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna do my best with the Zax.

I'm not gonna get it perfect, more than likely.

I'll probably mess up a few words.

If I mess up a few words, please don't correct me.

If I get stuck, I'll ask for help.

Alright, I'll ask for help.

Now, but if I if I pause, just leave me alone.

And let me try to get it.

Because I want to see if I can get it by myself, but I want you to get this.

This is really good.

And I step away from the edge of the stage because I can't see.

Are you ready?

Oh yeah, by the way, the pictures should be behind me.

Are they there?

Alright, here we go.

The Zax by Dr.

Seuss.

Copyright 1961.

One day, making tracks in the prairie of Prax came a northgoing Zax and a South going Zax.

And it happened that both of them came to a place where they bumped.

There they stood, foot to foot, face to face.

Look here now, the north going Zax said.

I say, you're blocking my path.

You're right in my way.

I'm the north going Zax and I always go north.

So get out of my way now and let me go forth.

Who's in whose way?

said the south going Zax.

I always go south making south going tracks.

So you're in my way, and I ask you to move and let me go south on my south going groove.

Then the north going Zax puffed his chest out with pride.

I never, he said, take a step to one side.

And I'll prove to you that I won't change my ways if I have to keep standing here 59 days.

I'll prove to you, said the South going Zax, that I can stand here in the prairie of Prax for 59 years, for I live by a rule that I learned as a boy back in South going school.

Never budge, that's my rule.

Never budge in the least.

Not an inch to the west, not an inch to the east.

I'll stand here not budging.

I can and I will if it makes me and you and the whole world stand still.

Well, of course the world didn't stand still, the world grew.

And in a couple of years, a new highway came through, and they built it right over those two stubborn Zacks and left them there standing unbudged in their tracks.

My wife's like, you know, I'll take over bedtime duties.

I love the story because it really does speak to human nature.

I mean, there's all sorts of application in the story, whether it's relating to pride or stubbornness or whatever, but I think it's tremendously applicable to think about the resistance or the belief that you can resist or avoid change.

At some point, the highway is coming over your head.

And frankly, if Dr.

Seuss kept writing and he wrote a sequel, the Zaks were getting knocked off their spot.

Because they're going to bring the road right through you.

And the laws of physics tell us two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

Progress is coming, change is coming, and so you can decide what sort of relationship you want to have with it.

You can make it an enemy, you can make it a friend, it can make you mad, or you can make a change.

What are you going to do with change?

And we just read Mark chapter 1, and it's a it's a fairly well-known uh you know story or portion of Jesus' relationship to his disciples as told by all four gospel writers.

Mark 1 · chapter mention

But Jesus goes to the first four disciples and he says, put down your nets.

They're fishermen.

Put down your nets and follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men.

I'll tell you why I like Mark's account the best, is because uh, you know, Mark is actually John Mark, and he was in close relationship to Peter.

In fact, in the book of 1 Peter, chapter 5, Peter refers to Mark, the author of Mark, as his son.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

Now it's not his literal son, it's not his biological son, but he's talking about the intimacy and the connection of their relationship, and he's saying, Man, this is familial.

So they were that tight.

As Mark is writing about Jesus calling Peter, so Simon Peter, this is a firsthand account.

This is him telling him, hey, write this down.

This is what it was like when I met Jesus.

And of course, when when you see this, uh he quotes Jesus in verse 17.

It says, He called out, Come follow me and I'll show you how to fish for people.

One sentence.

Was it one sentence?

I don't necessarily know if it was one sentence.

Is that did he give them more than that?

We don't necessarily know, but here's what we know: that's what Peter heard.

Verse 17 is what Peter heard.

Come follow me and I'll teach you how to fish for people.

That is a massive change.

Put down your career, put down your nets, everything that you're secure in, put down your identity and follow me.

Follow you where?

So Jesus, according to Mark 1, and according to the hearing of Peter, Jesus gave him no detailed explanation as to where this train is going.

What do you mean where?

Physically, geographically, where are we going?

Don't know.

Where is this whole Messiah thing, Jesus thing?

Where is all that headed?

Don't know.

No explanation.

How are we gonna eat?

What's gonna happen to my business?

In fact, you see, you know, the next two guys, James and John, leave their dad and their business behind and follow immediately.

And we see that Jesus is giving them the first of many tests that he was going to give them as leaders, which is this what is your attitude toward change?

Are you willing to change?

Not do you love change, most people don't love change.

But like, what is your attitude?

Are you willing to change?

Do you value change?

Because when we fly up to 10,000 feet and we look beyond the Gospels, beyond Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, even into the historical narrative, the book of Acts, and we're gonna, I don't want to get ahead of myself, we're gonna get to some of this in a few weeks, but you are going to see that Jesus is going to use these disciples to make massive, prolific, and painful changes.

Painful changes.

They were painful to society, they were painful to their nation and their culture, and they were painful to them as individuals.

In fact, in the book of Acts, chapter 10, Peter would be going through such a painful change that in the middle of that change, he would see a vision from heaven and hear an audible voice from heaven instructing him to do something that he didn't want to do so bad, he tells an audible voice from heaven, no.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

You gotta want to not do it pretty bad to say no to an audible voice.

This is how difficult a change.

It all starts with a test in Mark 1, put down your net.

It would be the first of many changes.

But if you can't pass the put down your net test in Mark 1, I can't use you to the ends of the earth in Acts 1, and all of the necessary changes in the new covenant that are coming down the pipe.

Jesus didn't give them all that, they couldn't handle all that.

But first I want to find out are you the kind of person that will respond to change?

I gave you a little Dr.

Seuss, but there's other doctors out there.

Dr.

Dobbins says this about change.

Dr.

Richard Dobbins said, most people won't change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.

That's human nature.

That's what most people do.

It's gotta hurt so bad.

It hurts so bad to stay here that I'll finally change because I can't take it anymore.

That's how most people think.

But friend, that's not how you and I should think.

Is that what you're gonna do?

You're gonna go your whole life only changing when the pain is unbearable?

Is that wisdom?

Certainly not leadership.

You see, God will use leaders who are willing to proactively embrace change before they have to, before it hits their pain threshold.

They're actually anticipating and valuing and looking for change because the work that God does in them ultimately will end up through them.

You're going to change me, Lord, and then you're gonna use me in being a change agent.

I think one of the things that keeps us from change and keeps us from sustaining change is really understanding the process of change.

So here's what I want to give you a very realistic process of what change really, really looks like.

All right?

Um starts with this.

I'm just gonna call this normal.

All right, so you're going along your normal life and something changes.

And we'll we'll represent that with like addition subtraction.

Something was given to you, something was taken away from you.

That's a change.

Something's given to you.

Maybe it was something given to you you didn't want.

Maybe it was something given to you you did want.

Even good things in your life, blessings, are stressful.

It's change.

Blessings are change, and they're stressful.

You get a promotion, it's more responsibility, it's new territory, it's change, it's stressful.

Get a new member of the family, it's a blessing, it's wonderful, it's stressful.

It's change.

You get more money, that's good.

In general, it's good, but more money, no problems.

A great theologian, biggie smalls, stressful.

Subtraction is stressful, something taken away from you.

Sometimes it's addition by subtraction.

It's okay to lose some stuff, it's okay to lose some people, something.

It's okay, it's okay.

There's something time, it's okay to lose, but it's a change, it's different.

And sometimes you have something pried out of your hand or something tragically changed in your life.

You lost something.

So there's an addition, a subtraction, good or bad, causes a the process of change to be introduced into your life.

The next phase after the the the change is actually what I'm gonna call, I'm gonna call it disorientation.

Disorientation.

I'm disoriented by the change.

Something changed, something's lost, something's gained, something's new, and and the disorientation is just not clean and neat.

It's you know, I'm going up and down, and sometimes I'm going backwards, and it sometimes feels like being lost in the woods and chaos.

It's like, man, I think I think I'm going in circles here.

All right, and and and and this can be anything from you know changes that you're making uh in your physical body, changes that happen in your career, or this could be actually deeper than that.

This might be emotional trauma, something has been unearthed.

You you learned how to suppress it, you learned how to cope with it, to push it down.

Something now, an event in your life, an addition, subtraction, brought it to the surface, it bubbled out, and so now I'm going trying to deal with it.

They told me I needed to talk to a counselor, they told me that I needed to rip off the scab and to suss out the wound and to do all of that, and be and now I'm in the state of disorientation.

Here's the problem with this phase is that the process of disorientation doesn't feel anything like growth.

It doesn't feel holy, it doesn't feel like discipleship or leadership development, it doesn't feel like anything good.

At best, it's confusing.

At worst, it's excruciating.

And so what happens in the disorientation process is most people conclude, I gotta get out of here.

And so what they do is they look for an off ramp.

Okay, an off-ramp to try to get back this way.

I'm gonna try to get back to normal.

Now, this could show up with something like this.

I'm trying to change my health habits, so I'm changing what I eat, and I'm changing how I work out, and I did it, and it's getting tough, and I'm not feeling it anymore, and my body hurts, and you know, and da-da-da, and I don't enjoy it, and and and you know, and I and I worked out and I flossed with you know, quinoa, and I did like everything they told me to do.

I ate kale, I ate a kale smoothie, okay?

And and I gained a pound.

I'm done, I'm out, I'm going back, I'm quitting.

So it's everything from quitting like that, or or let's say you start digging up some real stuff, some real stuff, some serious pain you have maybe for decades just sort of done your normal, and something brought it out, and now you're talking about it, and now you're dealing with it, and I'm not getting anywhere.

I'm looking for an off-ramp.

The off-ramp provides momentary relief, but what it really is is taking reality and pushing it down.

And it's called denial.

I'm denying, and I'm gonna tell you you start taking the denial off ramp, there's no end to how much denial you can do.

Not only am I denying it's a problem or denying it, I'm denying all the trouble it's creating, both in and through me.

I'm in denial of how much I'm hurting other people.

I'm I'm denying I'm in denial on all of it.

So you push it down, you just you just gotta know it doesn't work.

If you push those things down, they go subterranean, they become volcanic.

They are coming out, they will come out, they come out all kinds of ways.

Addictions, okay, depressions, all these different things.

You push it down, it's disorienting, off-ramp.

You can do that.

It's a free country, you're a grown-up, you can pick the off-ramp, you can try to live there.

Sometimes you gotta go there.

By the way, I get it.

I get it.

Sometimes you gotta take an off-ramp to catch your breath, but you gotta understand, I gotta get back into the disorientation.

What in the world do you do with the disorientation?

How do I get out of there?

Because I can't spend the rest of my life there.

Three things you do in the disorientation: you pray, you process, you persevere.

You pray, you process.

By process, I mean you talk it out with wise, mature, godly people.

Pray, Lord, give me the strength to make it through today.

Lord, help me see what I can't see.

You pray, you process, and then you persevere.

And you, and then once after you persevered, you pray, and then you pray, and then you process.

I gotta process my prayer and my reality, and then I just keep going.

I keep persevering.

And if you'll pray, process, and persevere and keep doing it, ask, seek, knock, stay in the chaos.

I know it doesn't feel like growth, but it's part of the process.

Stay in there, and the more you do that, eventually you'll start getting revelation.

God will start showing you things, and that revelation will lead you now to this orientation.

So I went from disorientation to now orientation.

I'm starting to ask good questions, and I'm starting to get some answers.

Uh what do I believe?

What did I believe?

What do I believe now?

Who was I?

Who am I?

Who do I even want to be?

You start to come to some answers.

And through this process of revelation, you start to orient, and as you orient, you start to stabilize.

And as you stabilize, you start to stabilize around things like this peace.

I said peace, not bliss.

Not bliss.

This isn't Disney.

This isn't, then they lived happily ever after.

No, no, no.

This is peace, like sometimes you come to peace with, I don't have the answer.

I've been asking the question.

I released some emotion.

I'm wrestling with God.

I told God what I really think.

I had a dark night, a sleepless night, a painful night, but the sun came up, and I got back into the disorientation.

I took an off-ramp, I sat there for a little bit, and then I got back on the disorientation.

And what happens is you start to come to peace with sometimes ambiguity, sometimes grief and loss and reality, and you start to get now into a new normal.

And that new normal starts to stabilize into words like peace, like this, healing, healing.

Maybe it wasn't all restored to you, but maybe your heart was healed in the process.

Getting to a healthy place.

It's stuff like this.

Maturity, stuff like this.

Wisdom.

Okay?

Stuff like this.

Strength.

I start to develop strength.

This is a muscle.

James, the book of James, chapter one, says this in verse two through five.

It says this consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

Because you know the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Okay.

This right here, this orientation, this process is a testing of your faith.

Because when I'm here and when I'm here, I can't see this over here.

I can't see it.

And frankly, I've been in the spot where I was here.

Where I imagined all of the possibilities of what this could be, and none of them felt worth it.

The testing of your faith.

I don't know what's here.

What is faith?

The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I can't see all this.

What gets me in here?

Well, you got like three options I can think of.

One is you just you can give up altogether.

That is an option.

Some people take that and they end it all.

Another option is to wait to go there until the pain of staying the same is totally unbearable.

And I wait that long and I go in there.

Or the third option is by faith to believe that even though I can't see all of this, I believe that it's better than here.

And so I'm going to go there.

Most of the time, the first time you do that, it usually takes, it's got to be that painful.

But some people have the wisdom to go, you know what?

I'm going to walk the process because God, I'm going to trust you that the peace and the healing and the wisdom and the strength and the maturity and the new normal.

Although it's not bliss, it's better than where I am, and I'm not going to end it all.

So I'm going to go in here and I'm going to go through the disorientation, and then I'm going to get revelation and I'm going to be reoriented, and then I'm going to get this new normal.

Now, the first time you do that, okay, it says the testing of your faith develops perseverance, but what did it say before that?

It says this, you do this enough, consider it joy.

What?

How would I consider this joy?

The way you consider this joy is when you walk this process of disorientation, orientation, new normal, and you start to see these things.

These revelations come to you, the growth comes to you.

You start to, instead of being terrified of stepping into disorientation or terrified of taking this journey, God's faithfulness showing up in your life, the strength that's being produced, you start to consider a joy.

You see opportunity.

I see change as an opportunity, not something for me to zax up and stand there and only do when the highway is going over my head.

I actually see this as an opportunity for growth.

The process of change is a huge instrument that God will use in your growth.

What does all of this mean?

You know what all of this is?

It's a story.

It's your story.

And here's the truth.

This is not a one-time thing.

This isn't like the Boy Scout, Girl Scout, like, I got the badge, man, I did the change thing that one time.

He said, the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

And then he says, let perseverance finish its work so you'll be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

If anyone lacks wisdom, you should ask God.

Pray, process, persevere.

And so when we think about the disciples in Mark 1, Jesus is inviting them into the training ground of change.

And he's, you're gonna, we're gonna see the next few weeks.

I'm gonna show you how disoriented they're about to get.

And he's gonna take them into disorientation, and through the process, they'll eventually be reoriented, and then they'll come into a new normal.

But what I'm gonna tell you is when you see somebody who is strong, it's somebody who has story after story after story, year over year, situation over situation of walking this journey.

Because here's what I'm gonna tell you this whole process, this is what this produces.

It produces strong, empathetic, strong, empathetic leaders.

Strong, empathetic leaders.

This is a muscle.

You do this over and over again, you become strong, empathetic, you know how hard this is.

Whether I've walked a mile in your shoes or not, when I see you in disorientation, I know how hard it is to stick around in disorientation.

I know how hard it is to come off the off ramp and to go back into the disorientation, to come out of the denial and to bring in the truth back up.

I I know.

So what does it create?

It creates an empathy.

Think about it like this.

Let's take the physical body in that process and look at beyond the physical, into the spiritual and the emotional.

Imagine this.

Imagine you have neglected healthy changes in your body for so long, you become so unhealthy that now something happens, some sort of catastrophic event, heart attack, or or or uh, you know, let's say uh uh a diabetes or something that the doctor tells you, you gotta get healthy, you got to get healthy.

Something happens, and you go to begin exercising, and now you get reality, you get disorientation.

You go in and you realize I have neglected change in my body for so long, I literally cannot sit down and stand up without help.

I can't walk on a treadmill for 60 seconds without having to sit down.

And so you define reality, and when you do that, the reality crushes you.

So, what do you do?

You fall into a heap.

She's like, I can't believe how bad this is.

This is humiliating, this is embarrassing, this is overwhelming.

You wake up the next day sore.

I didn't even do anything, I barely did anything.

I sat down, stood up with help.

I walked a one-degree incline for 60 seconds, and I'm sore, I'm hurting.

And so, in this chaos, you all you feel is pain, and you're like, you know what?

What?

I just want an off-ramp.

And you can go off the ramp, and you can go, you know, I'm just gonna die in this bondage.

Or you can understand if I'll stick with this thing, man.

I'm telling you, one day I'll be warming up with stuff I couldn't even do.

So you show up and you keep showing up, and you keep showing up.

What happens?

Eventually, you you can do the incline, no problem.

Eventually, you don't have somebody helping you up, you're doing it all by yourself.

Eventually, you put weight on yourself, you you can heap weight on, and I now I can carry not only my own weight, but more weight.

What happens?

You get strong.

Now what happens?

You see this all the time.

Somebody who went from really unhealthy and totally discouraged and in a heap fights their way through change, disorientation, orientation, new norm, and they keep doing it over and over again.

Eventually they get strong.

And one day they look and they see somebody in a heap sitting next to the treadmill.

And that person never walks over and goes, just change, what's wrong with you?

Because they know how hard it is.

So they take a knee next to that person, they throw an arm around that person, they bust their phone out and go, look at this before and after.

Strong, empathetic leaders.

Now, here's what I'm gonna tell you.

I'm almost done.

I'm gonna tell you this.

Not everybody has the gift of leadership.

Some people have the gift, bro.

Born leaders, I'm telling you, they they came out the birth canal, they walked, they they they walked out the delivery room like this.

And the doctors and nurses were like, where's he going?

Where's where's she going?

All right, some people they just have it, man.

They just they just have a gift.

You know what?

But not everybody's gonna be a CEO.

Not everybody's gonna be the big time manager.

Now, there's a bunch of you in this room don't even want to be leaders.

But here's what I'm gonna tell you.

God has wired you with a deep desire for your life to positively affect at least one other person.

You can't go through life as a hermit, completely isolated, and be fulfilled.

Can't be done.

God hasn't made you that way.

You may not need the masses, you may not even like attention, you may not want tons and tons of people, at least one other person.

One other person.

God has given you a purpose to be an agent of change both in yourself and in other people, to be affect one other person.

In fact, one of our greatest fears is that we would die having made no difference.

That's a terrible thought.

To think if I died today, nobody was affected.

What?

That's something God put in you a desire to positively affect at least one other person.

How do I do that?

I allow God to take me through this process of normal disorientation, orientation, new normal, peace, healing, maturity.

How do I get out of the disorientation?

Pray, process, persevere, pray, process, persevere.

When you get done, pray and process.

When you get done, process, persevere, and then pray.

And just keep doing it.

And you do that, you come through, and what happens?

God does a work in you, and then eventually you start recognizing people who are standing here or people who are parked up here, and you start showing them before-after pictures.

So come on with me, come on with me, come on with me.

Jesus had a huge plan for these disciples.

He was gonna turn them into strong, empathetic leaders.

He was gonna use them for seismic change, change beyond anything they could have fathomed.

And yet it all started in Mark I with one change.

Will you put down your net and follow me?

Will you follow me when you don't know where this is headed?

Will you follow me when you don't even know what the new normal's gonna be?

Will you put down your net?

Because if you can't put down your net in Mark I, you can't do Acts 1, and you can't do Acts 10, and you can't do all the stuff, the good work that God's planned for you to do can get a lot better than where you are now.

I can't tell you exactly what it'll be because I don't know, neither do you, but God does.

So you can wait until the pain of staying the same is so great.

You can give up hope.

Those are all options.

But today I want to give you a third option I think is way better.

Take a step of faith.

Come out of the off-ramp.

Go back into the disorientation.

Let God bring revelation in due time.

Get back to a new normal.

For some of you today, for some of you today, you've been through this.

And today you have an opportunity to decide, will you do it again?

For some of you, it's to change your attitude about change.

You've just been seeing it as all a bad thing, and yet to actually realize that this is where the greatest work, both in you and through you, is going to happen through this process.

For some of you, you're in the disorientation, and the voice in your head is telling you this can't be good.

This is not growth, this is not development, but you're actually right in the middle of the process.

Stay in the disorientation, keep processing, praying, and persevering.

And today I pray that no matter how low you are, that God would give you a wave of hope in this moment that there's something better than where you are.