Can A Leopard Change It’s Spots
Jeremiah 13:23; John 1:12-13, 35-50
Dr. Roger W. Thomas, Preaching Minister
First Christian Church, Vandalia, MO
Consider one of life’s most fundamental and troublesome questions. The Old Testament prophet phrased it like this: Can a leopard change it’s spots? We might ask it differently: can be people change? Can I change? Can you—not even will you, but more to the root of the matter—can you be any different at the end of 2001 than you are right now?
For lots of people—maybe all of us—this is no academic question. John is an alcoholic. He has finally admitted it after years of frustration and failure. But can he change or is he doomed to die a drunk? Beth started her marriage on the right track, but some where something went terribly wrong. She had an affair, left her husband and broke her parent’s heart. Now her new life has fallen apart and she wants to go back. Can she change? Can a leopard change it’s spots?
Bobby is a troubled teen. He was messed up before that. He was always in trouble. He has dropped out of school and is running with the wrong crowd. His step dad has given up. His mom is at her wits end. The neighbors say he is no good. Can he change?
Frank is a go-getter of a business man. He built a business from scratch and lost his family in the process. He has a full bank account and an empty house. The doctor just said slow down and get your priorities straightened out or else. Can he change?
Warren is the pillar of the church. He has held it together for years—so most people say. Others say he has held it back for years. That he is a worker, no one can dispute. But he is also an angry, bitter man. On the outside he is deeply religious, but inside he is a mess. His life and his memories are full of hurts, doubts, and secret sin. Can next year be any different from last year? Can a leopard change its spots?
On and on the stories could go. We could all tell them. We all know them. If not our own, then those of people we know and love. Can life ever be different? Can next year be better than last? Can I loose weight and keep it off this time? Can I get out of debt and on top of my finances and stay there? Can I be a better parent or husband or wife? Can a leopard change its spots? Can I overcome a secret, besetting sin? Perhaps anger, bitterness, thoughts, or an enslaving habit that I just can’t break despite years and years of New Year’s resolutions? Can we ever become the kind of bold, disciplined praying Christians preachers talk about? Or will this year be like last—a flurry of good intentions in January, limping into disappointment in February and outright failure by Easter?
What do you think? Can people really change? Can a leopard change its spots? Can a person really be “born again?” As church-going types we know what we are supposed to say? But do we really believe that people can fundamentally change?
My message today is really an introduction to the theme I want to explore through out the next month. We will continue to explore the Gospel of John. In fact, we will spend most of the next year and half in John. I want you to get to know it well. I encourage you to read it and re-read with me. We won’t be going directly through the book verse by verse. Some of the time we will. But most of the time, we will follow a theme or a spiritual thread through the book for a while and then come back and pick up another thread. Gradually bit by bit we will try to get a sense of the story that John has woven together for us.
First, a couple of points of reminder. John’s is the fourth gospel, or biography of Jesus. It was probably the last written and one of the last books of the entire Bible to be written. Since John was writing last, I think he was attempting to tie some loose ends together. He wanted to make sure we got the big picture of Jesus. Remember his explanation for his book: (John 20:30-31) "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. {31} But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." This book was written so that people like you and me could come to faith in Jesus.
Another fact: John falls neatly into two halves. The first part is chapters 1-12. It tells the first three plus years of Jesus’ ministry. It overviews the people, places, and miracles of the savior. At chapter 13 everything changes. The first part is a wide angle lens. The second part is a microscope. It zeroes in on the last few days of Jesus’ life and follows through until a week or so after Easter Sunday. In a sense, the whole book is about this: this what Jesus said and did. This is how people reacted to him. They reacted in lots of different ways. Now that you know the story, how are you going to react? Some people run to the light; some try to hide from the light. Which are you going to do?
This brings us back to our question for the day: can a leopard change its spots? Can people every really change? This question provides a good window into the opening chapters of John’s story of Jesus. The opening chapters are very people centered. Much of the rest will focus on Jesus’ teachings. But at the beginning John draws our attention to some of the people Jesus met and what happened next. Today I want to only tease you with a bit of the story. We will not even look at much of John’s message. Instead I want you to think deeply with me about this fundamental question of questions that lies beneath the entire Bible—and the one we wrestle with in very personal and practical ways. Can a person change?
I. Some people say yes. Of course, people can change, we are told. It is simply a matter of education or training or re-training or rehabilitation. Many of our best social programs are based on this. From welfare reform, to political initiatives, to social engineering to counseling and 12 Step groups, to psychological therapy—all presume the ability of people to change or be changed by other people. Most of these efforts are well intended. Some seem to accomplish a little bit for a little while.
In the past, less so today, people were very confident that people could be changed. A long time ago, at the beginning of the last century and the beginnings of many of scientific and technological innovations such as electricity, automobiles, and modern medicine, nearly everyone thought that heaven on earth was just around the corner. What man messed up science would fix up was the common attitude. Optimism reigned. Many thought that evil and suffering would soon be wiped out by bright science, good politics, and universal education. Teddy Roosevelt was less enthusiastic. He warned on one occasion that if you take a train robber and only educate him, you simply enable him to steal the whole rail road next time.
Historians tell us that World War I spelled the end of much of that optimism. World War II, Hitler, and the atomic bomb hammered the nails in the coffin of optimism for many. If all of that could happen in modern, highly educated Europe—in Germany, of all places—what hope was there for the rest of the world.
One of the remaining optimists at the middle of the 20th century was scientist B. F. Skinner. He was the father of modern behaviorism. He was on target with many things and way off base on many other ideas. But essentially, he convinced many that with the proper psychological conditioning, group dynamics, social engineering, and when needed chemical therapy, anyone could be changed for the better. His ideas still influence education, criminal rehabilitation, and social welfare efforts. Skinner started out to prove it with his own children. He was determined to condition and educate them to be the best and the brightest. Skinner died in 1981 at the age of 77, no longer an optimist. Shortly before his death, he told a reporter, “We’re not really going to solve our problems. I don’t see any hope.”
Many say, “Yes, people can change.” But most of us are little less optimistic. We have seen too much and experienced too much failure in our own lives to be too optimistic about easy change in anyone.
II. On the other hand, there are many cynics in our world. Some have concluded that people simply don’t change, period. More than that, people can’t change. They explain it in lots of different ways, but the conclusion is always the same. Some point to the environment or one’s surroundings and say that a person can never rise above their upbringing. More and more folk are looking for hereditary or genetic explanations for why people are the way they are. Bad seed produces bad fruit and there is nothing that can be done about it, is the principle for many.
More often today, some use heredity or genetics as a way of explaining certain behaviors. We live in a day and age that doesn’t like to place blame, label anything as wrong, or hold people responsible for bad actions. The popular alternative is to explain away behavior as conditioned responses or genetically determined actions. This is a very common part of the argument about alcoholism or homosexuality. The issue is not whether upbringing or heredity have some role in behavior. They certainly do. The popular mindset goes way beyond that to insist that some, if not most, behavior is totally determined and cannot be changed. This is the Popeye Syndrome. Popeye, the sailor man who ate his spinach and always saved Olive Oil from the clutches of evil Bluto at the last minute said, “I y’am what I y’am and that’s all that I y’am.” The truth is that the real scientific evidence for such conclusions is very weak, despite everything you hear.
The other side of the coin really is that such views are cynical and pessimistic. While the voices that sound like they are trying to rationalize away or condone homosexuality or all kinds of other behavior, they are really expressing deep, dark pessimism about human nature. They are really saying, a leopard can’t change his spots so why fight it. People don’t change. They can’t change so let’s just accept it and get on with life.
Some of us are cynics about ourselves. I hear this same negative notion in other arenas as well. You have heard people express pessimism about the ability of folk to change their ways, haven’t you? “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” “I am just too set in my ways.” “I am not just a religious person. My parents weren’t church going folks so I guess I never will be either.” “If I ever came to church, the roof would probably fall in.”
Some of us are cynics about others. “He will never change.” “You know his kind. You know what they are like.” “She’s from the wrong side of the tracks. She will never amount to anything.” “Once a good for nothing, always a good for nothing.” “I remember when he was a kid. He was always in some kind of trouble.” “You can’t trust her. You remember what she did.” “There is no use talking to him about Christ. He will never change.”
Most of us have learned by experience that most people don’t change. We quickly begin to wonder if it is worth the effort to keep hoping and praying for change in those we love. We are like the mother that Christian comedian Jerry Clower told about. The country woman lived near a construction site. Workers were putting a large tar roof on a building. The woman had sixteen children and one day the youngest wandered off. She looked and looked and finally found him. He had fallen in a fifty gallon drum of roofing tar.
She reached in and pulled him out and was overheard say, “Boy, it would be a lot easier to have another child than to clean you up!”
III. It may seem like it has taken a long time to get to our text in John, but we have arrived. Some are overly optimistic, thinking that people can be changed if you use just the right techniques. Other see things just the opposite. People not only seldom change, they can’t, we are told by many. The Bible has a third view. It is very important to understand this. Without appreciating this, you can never truly grasp the Gospel. Without this perspective, the Bible will always be a frustrating book of rules and laws for you. It will never be a source of hope and transforming power.
Put simply, the Bible teaches that we human beings are sinners. Our behavior is messed up because our heads and our hearts are messed up. We are bent and broken and not at all what God intended us to be. You can philosophize about the whys and where fors, but the result is clear. Something is wrong and until it is fixed we are forever failing to do what we know we should much less the rest of the just and righteous expectations of our maker.
But God didn’t leave things there. From the beginning, he set in motion a plan that could result in the redemption and restoration of human kind. Jesus Christ came into the world to bring that plan about. The result: personal, spiritual, and moral change is hard. It is rare. It is difficult. But with God all things are possible. What we do not, cannot, and could not do—Jesus Christ makes possible.
Listen to John 1: (John 1:12-13) "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- {13} children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."
Do you remember Paul’s testimony of what life is like if all we have is our own will power? (Rom 7:21-25) "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. {22} For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; {23} but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. {24} What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? {25} Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." (Rom 8:1-3)Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, {2} because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. {3} For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.
Or this word of hope: (2 Cor 5:14-19) "For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. {15} And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. {16} So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. {17} Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! {18} All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: {19} that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."
The Bible makes it very clear that while the world may like to tell us that “the leopard can’t change its spots,” that some people are just too far gone to be changed, there is good news. Unfortunately it doesn’t happen to everyone, but it can happen to anyone. No one is too evil or too far gone to be radically and totally remade by the power of Jesus. Do you catch the significance of these words from (1 Cor 6:9-11) "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders {10} nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. {11} And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God."
Do you remember the encounter recorded later in John 1 that we read earlier? By itself, it doesn’t sound like much. Andrew, a Galilean fisherman, brings his brother to meet the new teacher he has heard. “He is the Messiah,” Andrew promises his brother Simon Peter. Jesus could have done many things on this first encounter. But he simply looks at the rugged, hard headed, loud mouthed, rough cut fisherman and says in so many words, “Everybody calls you this, but I’m gong to call you Peter—the Rock. “ He gave him a name which meant rock solid. We will learn later this was just the beginning of a mountain of changes that Jesus would shape in Peter’s life.
The next day Jesus meets Nathaniel. When invited by a friend to come listen to Jesus of Nazareth, Nathaniel the negative, mind all ready made up about everything, cynic replies, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Then he meets Jesus. The Master looks right past the thick skinned veneer and zeroes in on his hurting heart. He quickly realizes that Jesus knows him inside and out and despite that he still loves and wants him as a follower.
Today I am simply introducing an idea. Over the next several weeks we will dig deep into this notion of how Jesus does what many think impossible—he changes people, not just a little spit and polish on the outside, but fundamental, deep to the bone change. That’s something we all need to hear and hear again and hear over and over. Without the reminder, we will turn into pessimistic cynics or simply minded optimists. With Jesus we are forever reminded how difficult real, lasting change is, but how possible it is by grace through faith.
Over the next month, we will examine several individuals, men and women, rich and poor, religious and irreligious, young and old, who met Jesus and were never the same again. In fact, it is these people stories that fill the first half of John’s Gospel. It is as if the Apostle wants us to see in real life terms how change does and doesn’t happen. Fundamental human change is not something that you can take for granted, but it not something you dare give up on—once you have meet the Master.
This doesn’t mean that change is easy or that it happens once and we are over and done with it. It is an on-going process. That’s why return to God in prayer and the Word daily and to the Lord’s Table and people weekly. We must keep getting re-filled because we leak. It is like what Billy Sunday once told a critic. A lady asked the famous evangelist, “Why do you keep having revivals when it doesn’t last?” “Why do you keep taking baths?” Sunday replied.
Conclusion: What is the change point in your life? Don’t tell me there isn’t any? I know better and you know better. A new year provides an excellent opportunity to give this the proper attention it deserves. What changes do you want to make in the new year? Better yet, what changes might God want to make?
It doesn’t make any difference what anyone else does or wants. What do you want to make different this year? It doesn’t make any difference how many times you have put it off or tried and failed. There is good news, despite what many believe. It may not be easy. But fundamental, life-changing, re-direction in life is possible through Christ.
What is it? Nothing is too small or inconsequential. If it is big enough to dream about or small enough to irritate your hopes, it is worth giving over to God for transformation and change. It could be obviously spiritual. It could a moral habit or thought pattern. It could be a broken relationship that needs mending. It could be financial or physical. It could be a family or marriage matter. What do you want to see changed this year? It can! That is a gospel promise!
***Dr. Roger W. Thomas is the preaching minister at First Christian Church, 205 W. Park St., Vandalia, MO 63382 and an adjunct professor of Bible and Preaching at Central Christian College, 911 E. Urbandale, Moberly, MO. He is a graduate of Lincoln Christian College (BA) and Lincoln Christian Seminary (MA, MDiv), and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (DMin).
