If you could go back and get an accurate count, how many decisions do you think you made last year? If the truth were to be known, the number would probably be in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, wouldn’t it?
Now, exactly what is a decision? A decision is a point in time where you have to either leave something in your life the same as it always has been, or to change it to something different. You can make a decision on which color shoes you wear, on where you live, etc., but it always boils down to either changing something or leaving it stay the same.
Change. Offering changes, to be exact. That is why we are in business, isn’t it? Offering the chance to change lives through making Godly decisions.
Our focus is not about money, even though the church does need money. Our focus is not about being well known in the community, even though we must be known to grow. Our focus is not even about having many activities for the members, even though we do need to have activities for our members. No, our main focus as a church has nothing at all to do with any of these. It is simply about changing lives for God, through Jesus as our Christ.
Diana and I do not have personal knowledge of what this church was before we got here. But, just since we have been here, we have seen some changes and some of the reactions to those changes. I will be very honest and tell you that everyone in here seems to look forward to what lies ahead with a very refreshing mindset. That is such a blessing, not only to us, but also to the rest of this church body. And, I pray that God blesses you abundantly for your positive and loving attitudes. It is because of that, this church will go forward.
To be effective in reaching the unchurched in our community, we must be willing to change some things about our service as time goes by.
For instance, in the 1969, the Wheaties company put a picture of Rev. Bob Richards riding a bike on the front of the Wheaties box. The reason was that Rev. Richards had won a gold medal in the Olympic pole vaulting contests, and as a current sports hero, they utilized his name to draw attention to themselves.
In 1998, 25-year old Tiger Woods had become the golf hero of the day, so Wheaties utilized his picture on their box to draw attention in this time and era.
But, you will notice that the essance of Wheaties, or the cereal within the box has never changed one iota from day one.
So, when we see a church add new types of songs, or change the formats of their services a little, we need to know that this is being done to attract the unchurched within the community.
The unchurched listen to radio. The most listened to type of music today is called easy-listening contemporary. These people will refuse to go anywhere if they have to listen to a type of music they do not feel comfortable with.
If we offer them some of the same type of music to listen to as they are already comfortable with, they will be more willing to accept other things in the church, like the true Word of God. And, that is when we shall have the ability to offer them the information that will affect their eternal souls.
But, as much as we need to change some aspects of our service, we must be very sure that, just like the cereal within the box, the true Word of God that we teach and preach stays true and never changes.
This morning, we witnessed just such a change. Wwe witnessed the birth of our Praise Team. What a beautiful job they did, too! Melody was wonderful in her solo, wasn’t she? And, this change in our singing will work to the good of helping us offer others the chance to change their lives.
Of course, we all know that this church cannot change anyone’s life by itself - that any and all change in a person’s life is all from Jesus Christ working in their lives. That is good for the church for two reasons. First of all, by knowing that Jesus is the only life-changer here, it keeps us from getting the big head and thinking we are doing it instead of Jesus.
Secondly, it shows that Jesus Christ is alive and well and in this church. And, I think that sums up what Rolling Hills Christian Church is all about.
As a matter of fact, Christianity is all about the changing of your life, but the only changing that will be of any good is the kind of change that changes you from the inside out. And when that happens, you will know it is directly from Jesus Christ who has set up residence in your heart.
When Jesus begins a change in you, it will generally be a four-step process. Life will be a lot easier when you are aware of this, too. The first step He takes you through will be:
1. A POINT OF CRISIS IN YOUR LIFE
If your life has some kind of a crisis in it today, I want to say, “CONGRATULATIONS”. Why would I say something like that? I say that because it means that you are ready to make a change in your life, and we want to show you how to make that change for Jesus.
Let me tell you something you may not have thought about before. The biggest battle in your life will not be a physical battle. It will not be a financial battle and it will not be a relationship battle.
The biggest and toughest battle in our lives will be a spiritual battle that you will wage against God. And, we start it! See, God wants to be the focal point of our lives and He wants us to be obedient to Him. The problem we have is that we want to be the focal point of our lives and we don’t want to be obedient to anybody but ourselves.
You are not alone in this battle, though. Everyone else goes through it at some point in their lives, even the saints in the Old Testament went through this. Let’s look at the battle Jacob went through with God.
First of all, Jacob swindled his brother Esau out of his inheritance. After Esau threatened to kill him, Jacob did like any good conniving coward would do and he left town. Here it is years later and Jacob is coming back and will meet with Esau and he is afraid that Esau will kill him. The night before they are to see each other, Jacob wants to be alone, so he send his family on ahead of him. He is now alone and very afraid. He dreads the next day. He hates confrontation and he is getting ready for the biggest confrontation that he could ever imagine.
With that in mind, let us now go to GENESIS 32:24-25 -
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
Now, Jacob was a twin. His twin brother was Esau. Esau was the oldest, and in those days, the oldest got the inheritance. But when their father Isaac was old and about to die, he called for Esau so he could bless him and his wife helped disguise Jacob and told Jacob to go in and pretend to be Esau and get the blessing. The father was all but blind at that point, so he could not really tell that it was Jacob rather than Esau.
Jacob was a wrestler. He had wrestled with his brother even when they were in the womb. The Bible tells us that when they were born, Esau came out first and Jacob was holding on to Esau’s foot. Jacob was always trying to grab hold of something, wasn’t he?
Some people wonder who it was that Jacob wrestled with that night in camp, but in the book of Hosea, we read that Jacob wrestled from the time before he was born until he wrestled as a man with God.
Think for a moment about the biggest spiritual battle you have ever had in you life. Regardless of what it was about, I can tell you two things about it. It all boils down to two basic issues.
“Will I obey God in this situation and do what He wants me to do?”, and “Will I trust God in this situation and let Him handle it for me?” Trust and obey. I think there is a hymn about this, isn’t there?
Whether your problem is financial, physical, relational, or anything else, what makes your problem seem bigger is that we all tend to do what we want to do instead of what He wants us to do, and we all tend to try to handle things ourselves rather than step aside and have full trust that God will handle it for us. And guess what? Both of these actions on our parts will only make our problem worse than it needs to be.
Last week, I spoke about the necessity of asking God for His help, and then getting out of His way while He works for us. That involves trusting Him with your heart. Trusting Him so much you can actually have knowledge that He really is working for you. You will find that every time you step back, you will see God working, but every time you step up again to take control of the situation, you will see God stop working.
And, just like Jacob, the root of all our problems comes down to our struggle against trusting God to have control of our lives. We want to be in control, and God will allow things in our lives to show us that we don’t have the power to be in control, but if we have faith in Him, He will do everything.
Now, what is the goal in a WWF wrestling match? It is to make the opponent say, “I give up!” And the goal when God allows us to wrestle with Him is for us go give up, too. Give up to God’s wonderful and perfect will. Give up our useless and world-driven will. God just wants us to finally say from our hearts, “God! You win!” He wants to hear that from us, because it is only at that time will we truly be willing to be obedient to His will. And, without being obedient, we cannot be His children.
God will allow crisis to come into your life sometimes just to get your attention. He will knock you flat on our back if necessary so you will have no other place to look than up to see Him. God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you way too much to let you stay the way you are.
Some of you are in step one this morning, and there will be a point in time where you realize your need to trust in God. When you are able to fully realize that, you will then start to go into step two, which is:
2. A POINT OF COMMITMENT IN YOUR LIFE
In this phase, we actually try and refuse to change. We won’t let go. We don’t see any reason to change. After all, we think we are pretty good just the way we are, don’t we? We tend to think that if we do let go and do change, we might miss something.
In verses 25-26 we see the man tell Jacob,
Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.
We read later in the Bible that Jacob knew He was wrestling with God, but I don’t know if he knew it that night. But at some point in the wrestling match, Jacob found out that the one he was wrestling with was so powerful he could actually bless Jacob, and Jacob was committed to holding on until he got that blessing.
Now, I used to wonder why God let the match go on and on all night. I mean, God could have thrown Jacob to the mat and pinned him instantly, but God let Jacob struggle all night. Why did God do that? The answer is very simple, really.
You see, when God lets a crisis come into your life, He will not resolve it immediately. He wants you to come face to face with all aspects of the real you in any given situation. It is when we struggle enough to do that, that we find our resolve, our commitment and that is when our faith in God begins to grow.
In JAMES 1:2, it says,
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you are faced with trials of many kinds, because it is the testing of your faith that produces perseverance.
As your faith becomes stronger, you begin to find out if you really want to be blessed. What do you feel? Is it a whim? Is it a passing fancy? Do you just want to get a little involved, or do you want to offer a true commitment?
Let me tell you the difference between being a little involved and offering a commitment. Think about eating some ham and eggs for breakfast. Think about the hen and the pig. The hen gave up an egg for you. The pig gave up its life for you. The hen was a little involved - the pig was totally committed. You must be willing to give God an absolute commitment to God Almighty before we can fully receive His loving blessings.
You might not like struggles, and you would want God to answer your prayers immediately. What happens if we give a child everything he asks for when he asks for it? He becomes spoiled and unappreciative, doesn’t he?
If God gave us the answers to prayer without our having to deal with the issues first, we would become spoiled, too, and that would negate any faith or commitment on our part.
Just as a child in school needs to work out a math problem to understand how to resolve that kind of problems in the future, you need to work out life problems now so that you can better resolve them with your commitment to God in the future.
In GALATIANS 6:9, it tells us,
Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
If you are in crisis right now, or if you are having problems, hang in there – don’t cop out and give up. The situation you are in was years in the making, so don’t expect God to just snap His fingers and immediately let you out of it. Learn from this situation. Learn how to start relying upon God for all the help you need.
We talked about being in crisis, and we talked about being committed to your troubles by not wanting to let go of your circumstances and let God handle them for you. When you start learning how to release your bad situations so God can handle them, you will start to go into step three, which is:
3. A POINT OF CONFESSION IN YOUR LIFE
It is in this step that we finally admit we have a problem in our lives. This is where we stop blaming everybody else and admit that it is all “me.” Until we get to this point, there will be no change in our lives.
In verse 27, the man asked Jacob –
What is your name?
Why do you think God asked what Jacob’s name was? God knew what it was. God asked Jacob what his name was so that Jacob could own to who, and what, he really was. Jacob needed to come face to face with Jacob so that growing could start in his life.
Do you know where the name “Pamela” came from? In the 1800’s, there was a singing group in England who needed a name to rhyme with another word in their song. There was no name available, so they made up a name. That name was Pamela. The song was such a favorite over the next few years, that women started naming their girl babies Pamela. So much for names really having depth and meaning.
But, in ancient times, you were named for something about you. It may have been your character or your physical attributes. A name actually meant something back then. That was a problem to some people. For instance, "Jabez" meant "pain". Now, I don’t know if he gave great pain to his mother at birth, or he was just a big pain in the neck. The name Jacob means “deceiver.”
Jacob’s name said he was a liar and conniver - somebody who could not be trusted. And, Jacob lived up to His name, didn’t he? He lied to his father to get his brother’s inheritance and he later used his father-in-law and his wives. When he introduced himself, Jacob was basically saying, “Hi, my name is Jacob and you cannot trust me!”
Let me ask you a question. If you were named after one of your biggest character faults, what do you think it would be? Would your name be “Greedy” or “Anger”? For too many of us, our name would be very embarrassing, wouldn’t it?
The bottom line is that none of us can change unless, and until, we are placed in a situation that we finally take an honest look at just who we really are. When we get past blaming our problems on everyone else, we get into the position where we can see the truth of ourselves. And it is within this confession of whom we really are, that we find that we can change our lives into something much better – and more Godly.
Last Sunday, I told you that you needed to have a humble heart when approaching God, because the only other kind of heart there is would be a pride filled heart. God opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. Are you too proud to commit yourself to God this morning? Do you fight the need to give full authority over your life to God; by thinking you must be in control? That is prideful, and God’s Word tells us that pride comes before a fall. If you are full of pride, I am here to tell you right now that you will fall. And, when you fall because of pride, you will fall very hard.
Grace is God not giving us what we deserve, but to get that grace, we must first confess our hearts to God. And we cannot confess our hearts to God until we finally own up to whom we have been and who we need to become – in God. And, once we own up to that, then we will be ready to start giving this control that we thought we had over to God, who has actually been in control all the time.
We have talked about having a crisis in our lives, and we have talked about how we are committed to not changing our lives, and we have discussed the need for true confession in our lives, and all of these deal with what we need to do in order to be able to change our lives.
And, now, are you ready for the best news of all. We are now ready to find:
4. THE POINT OF CONVERSION IN YOUR LIFE
In verse 28, the man told Jacob,
Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.
In conversion, we are given a new identity. It was in the struggle that Jacob had with God that he came to see himself for who he really was. It was at this point that Jacob overcame the lie of who he thought he was and accepted the truth of who he really was. And it was at this point that he was converted from Jacob to Israel.
In verse 29, we find that after the conversion, and after God gave Jacob a new name, He also blessed Jacob. When a conversion is received, it has three distinct parts.
GOD GIVES US A NEW IDENTITY
God knows that before our conversion in Jesus, we have been poor examples of how to live a life. He knows that to affect any kind of real change, we must be totally out of the rut in which we had lived. Hence, along with a new heart and a new commitment in life, God gives us a new identity: An identity that better reflects the image of Jesus Christ.
GOD GIVES US A BLESSING
It is only when we have taken the steps necessary to see ourselves the way God sees us; only after we have gone through the steps of losing our commitment to holding on to the world; and only after we have gone through the steps of confessing our hearts before God that we get His wonderful blessings on our lives.
A REMINDER
Once we have been converted, through Jesus, we are given a reminder that will be with us for all the days of our lives. Jacob was given a limp so that he could no longer just run from truth, but so that he had to stand there and face it.
Most people run from the truth of God. That is why we have so many people believing falsehoods about God and thinking they are correct. That is why we have so many churches delivering a false doctrine today. We run from truth because it is just too difficult sometimes to stand up to it.
But, when we do stand up to our truth, God will honor us for it, and we will then have something to always remember what we need to do in the future – for God.
IN CONCLUSION
God wants you to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. The devil doesn’t necessarily want you to spend it with him, but he sure doesn’t want you to spend it with God. That is the basis for all of our spiritual struggles in life.
And, because of the spiritual struggle that goes on, we humans have fallen away from God and continue to live without Him. When we decide to start following God, we start being stretched in many ways that we are not used to. We get sore and uncomfortable. It is like using muscles you have never used before – you will get very sore. Most people do not like to feel uncomfortable, so rather than go through the metamorphosis of change, they just quit and turn their backs on God.
God does His best work in you when he deals with your identity; in other words, who you really are. He knows that the way you see yourself affects every single aspect of your life. And, most people do not have a healthy self-image, so we can imagine just how unhealthy their spiritual lives are.
God wants us to see ourselves as He sees us. He wants to bestow His great and unconditional love on us. He wants so desperately to help us, but the problem is that we fight it. We fight it on the grounds that we need to have self-control. The only problem with having self-control is that it denies God the control He needs over our lives to make sure we don’t go to hell.
When we start seeing ourselves as we truly are; sinners in every aspect of the word, we will then be able to allow God to start working in us so He can show us who we really are in Him; how unique and beautiful we are in His love and forgiveness.
Many people do not think they need Jesus to obtain God. That is a lie that the devil has kept going for centuries. The truth is, the only way we can get to God is by having a conversion; a change; and that can ONLY come through Jesus.
In 2 CORINTHIANS 5:17, it says, that if any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new being and that all old things are put away.
Let me close by asking you four very personal questions.
A. What are the areas in your life that you struggle with God the most?
B. What are the areas you generally just give up in?
C. What do you need to confess to yourself – about yourself?
How would you finish this sentence? “I am a _________.”
(And, having answered it, are you planning on doing anything about it?)
Do you realize that you are among God’s children this morning here in this church? And, you are sitting on Holy Ground. You are sitting in the sanctuary of the only living God. Will you trust Him this morning enough to take advantage of the opportunity to put an end to your struggles?
Will you trust God enough this morning to ask His Son, Jesus Christ, to come in and reside in your life? As we go into this time of decision, let us all bow our heads and close our eyes. And let us listen. Listen to what God is talking to you about right now. He will generally not yell at you, but rather He will gently whisper to you.
As we enter our time of invitation, listen very carefully. Is God saying something to you this morning?
INVITATION
