Intro: In my last 3 sermons, I spoken on Attitude, Behavior and Character and explained why these 3 traits are so important to see if were are the real deal or not, To see if we are what we claim to be and to see if were living for Jesus and being lead by the Holy Spirit himself.
I hoped that you took time to do a self examination, to see if you needed improvement in these areas of your Christian life, to see if something has change or needs to change.
Remember we live in a world that can easily mold us into it’s’ image. If we allow that to happen and if were not what we claim to be. So once again the question we need to ask, do we have a real affect to those around us for Jesus?
If not then It all starts with the ABC’s and then we need to do something that can be very uncomfortable for us, CHANGE! Yes folks change can be intimidating and challenging because of the very nature of what the word means.
When you look at it the word “change” it means to “become of or make different.” When we made a decision to follow Jesus, we are different and were no longer part of this world, because of that, we need to show the world what Jesus really is.
Because if we walk, talk, act, and live like everyone else in the world, and not changed while we make a claim to be a followers of Christ, would that attract people to Jesus? The answer to that would be no it would not.
Reading: Ephesians 4:22-24 - to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians
Prayer……..
Title: Change
In our message were going to look at three areas of change that each of us needs to focus our life on. These changes needs to be considered because they will have an affect not only on ourselves, but on those who are around us, for all ETERNITY.
1. We must do is - Change your mind.
1 Peter 2:11 says - Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
As we dig into this verse we see that Peter loves and cares for his readers to the point that he is urging them to listen to the counsel he is giving to them. Like Peter, we need to understand the word “urge” it paints a picture of passionate pleading.
What is being shared through the text is important for many reasons, but the big appeal to the readers and to us is twofold.
• First, we as Christians, we are sojourners in this world which means that we are foreign settlers who temporarily reside in a strange house. This world is not our home! We are citizens of heaven!
• Secondly we are called exiles. This implies that we are visitors who tarry for a time in a foreign country but who will be shortly traveling on to our true homeland.
Since where we currently reside is temporary why would we get engrossed into where we now are? So If we are going to be different than the world around us, it starts with us changing our mind. We need to have a different mindset than the world around us.
Look at Romans 12:2 which says - Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
The way to keep from being conformed to this world once we belong to Jesus is to allow our minds to be transformed or changed to the mindset of Jesus.
2 Corinthians 10:5 explains it this way. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
Taking EVERY thought captive to obey Jesus is the ultimate! It takes prayer, practice and perseverance to do that. Again In our passage, Peter urges us to ABSTAIN from the passions of the flesh.
“Abstain” means to not permit the mind to show ANY hospitality when such desires seek a place to stay. See we are called to constantly hold off or keep distance from those prompted desires instead of seeing how close we can get to them.
In the Bible times this phrase we translate “passions of the flesh” dealt with the area of sexual sin. In the Bible though the term was expanded to cover other areas. So when you put together abstaining and fleshly lusts what you get is this.
That we are told we are not to permit the mind to show any hospitality to any of the fleshly lusts. We are not to allow anything that motivates sinful behavior an opportunity to keep residence in the mind.
Yes sometimes the thoughts come into the mind through the prompting of the Satan, but we can control whether or not they stay there. We are also given a good reason to ABSTAIN from fleshly desires. They wage war against our souls. Folks we are in a spiritual war with Satan.
Satan constantly tries to prompt us with passions of the flesh; our spirit tells us we should ABSTAIN from those thoughts. The war spoken of here is not hand to hand combat but rather a planned military expedition against a planned military target or objective aka the mind.
The passions stirred by the Devil are part of his carefully planned effort to thwart what God is trying to do with His people. So this is why we must be transformed and be lead by the Holy Spirit and change the way we think.
2. We must do is - Change your conduct.
1 Peter 2:12 says - Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Here we are told to keep our conduct among the lost honorable. This boils down to having conduct that reflects the fact we are Christians. Now the problem comes when one tries to have proper conduct without changing what’s in their minds.
Matthew 23:27 says “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.
This is what the Pharisees did and Jesus compared them to whitewashed tombs that looked good on the outside but inside were full of dead men’s bones. If we say that we are of Jesus Christ then our conduct should also show it.
The word for “honorable” means not only good, but lovely, fine attractive, winsome. We are being asked to make our way of life so lovely, so fair, that it will positively attract admiration from those around us.
It has been said the best argument for Christianity is real Christians, but on the other side, the worst argument for Christianity can be Christians also.
We are all advertisements for Jesus. So are you the real deal or are you something else, this is the question you need to ask, Do people want the Jesus I represent?
We are to hold up and exemplify an attractive lifestyle in Christ and in doing so we are given 3 reasons to keep our conduct honorable and for us to maintain excellent behavior and they are:
1. We are strangers and aliens to this world, 2. Fleshly desires are not good for our soul, 3. The influence for good we can have on the world around us.
If we act and react as those in the world do, we will not really reflect the God we serve. Being like everyone else around us is not going to attract people to God. This is why we are also told to keep our conduct honorable so that when we get accused of evildoing our actions will show the falsehoods not to be true.
The early church faced a lot of rumors concerning their behavior. They were accused of many things because of their meetings at night, they were accused of being cannibals because of the Lord’s Supper and a whole host of other things.
Even In Rome, Nero was able to use this to his advantage when he made Christians scapegoats as he tried to shift the blame for the burning of Rome from himself to some one else.
Peter says the world will not understand Christians, they will think things about us that are not true. The best way to change their minds is by maintaining excellent behavior through changes.
Let us conclude by understanding that if we change our minds and conduct, which means we are changing our world, then we can do what we learn next.
3. We must do is - Change their world!
Matthew 23:27 says - Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.
Important note: When the world sees we are not hypocrites, they will quit accusing us of being one. When they see the church caring for them, they will not say we are just about money. When they see real faith exhibited in the world it will win a lot of hearts.
People want to believe, they just need to see it in us first. Our actions will out-weigh false views. So Instead of listening to rumors, those without Jesus will see your conduct and will then see your true heart.
Here is the progression of thought. The lost people were slandering the Christians as evildoers. The good deeds of the Christians would prove these accusations to be untrue. Then the good lives and hearts of the Christians would convict the lost of their sins and slander along with their need for Jesus.
Finally. The lost will become converted to Christ and then would glorify God! Because being saved would allow them to truly glorify God at His return! Peter specifies the time when the Gentiles will glorify God as "the day of visitation".
1 Peter 2:12 says - Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Peter was teaching that when the grace of God visits the heart of an unbeliever, he will respond with saving faith and glorify God because he remembers the testimony of believers he had observed.
Those who don’t believe will experience the visitation of God’s wrath in the final judgment. Needless to say that our life will affect the lives of others for or against Jesus
In closing …..
How does Jesus change us? The gospel of Jesus Christ does not improve us a little. Rather, He brings us radically from death into life. Now why do we need to change?
The most important reason is this, When you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the gift of Holy Spirit is given you. You now have God’s power living in you. The Holy Spirit helps you have faith and compassion.
The Holy Spirit convicts you of right and wrong and gives you the power to resist temptation and make choices to glorify God, but we must first change and allow him to change us inside out. Change again I say Change.
Are we going to sit back and allow people to drown in their sins while we do our own thing by refusing to change or do we love them enough to allow Jesus to make a real difference in our life?
God’s Word says in 2 Cor 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
This means that Christians will undergo a complete transformation…they will be CHANGED! This transformation is a miraculous work of God done on the inside, which then begins to reveal a study changing of behavior on the outside… “old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.”
Has Jesus changed your life? Are you really a NEW CREATION in Christ? Are you willing to let him change you, you decide which will it be?
Amen
