Embrace the Change

Change is Hard

Change is always hard.

Even healthy and good changes are hard.

When someone our age gets married. It happens. Probably been married before. Maybe for a long time. Maybe been single for a long time. Got used to doing things one way. Got used to living w/ someone else. Now, even the simplest things get hard.

Which side of the bed are you sleeping on?

Who’s dishes? Whose sheets? Whose house?

Let’s get real. The real question is what are you going to do w/ his dishes and his sheets. Flowers or brown plaid? Obviously, we’re going w/ the flowers.

Maybe, you need to sell both houses and buy and different for both of you.

When you decide to make healthy changes to your lifestyle.

Diet and exercise. Giving up all the old food you like is hard. Vegetables, protein drinks may not satisfy.

Changing perspective. My Peloton coaches say all the time I need to start seeing food as fuel, not reward. Refuel your body. Don’t reward your tastebuds. Give your body the fuel it needs to do what you are asking it to do.

A bowl of ice cream and a diet coke won’t refuel anything.

Maybe the health change came b/c the doc told you it needed to change. From in attitude to a change in altitude.

Changing to make exercise a regular part of your life. But exercise hurts. And, you filled that time in your day had already been scheduled w/ something. What gets cut out?

All the commercials on TV try to sell exercise equipment as easy to use and easy to do. It may be easy to figure out. But there is nothing easy about that 45th minute sucking wind and sweating bullets trying to keep up w/ the coach who is telling me to pick up the pace and increase the resistance again.

Many of us have been thru job changes. A promotion. More money. More responsibility. More opportunity. But often comes w/ a relocation.

Selling/buying a house. Nothing more stressful and harder than that.

Getting the kids settled in new schools. New doctors. New friends. New little league coaches.

Churches go thru it. We must. Culture changes. Demographics change. Younger ppl like different things than older folks.

MPCC has gone thru change. It’s been good. It’s been hard. Harder on some than others. We get that.

Just this week we donated all of our old choir music to a church in Flagstaff. A reminder of where we’ve been. The changes are good. God is moving. 13 baptisms. Maybe one more before the end of the year. But, it’s been hard.

Here’s the irony; we are always changing. About the time we get used to status quo, our status changes. Health changes w/ age. Family changes when kids get married and grandkids are born.

The stock market changes, our retirement savings change, and plans need to change.

Our plan A for retirement for years has been buy a camper and tow-vehicle and travel.

Do you know how much Suburbans, Expeditions, and Pick-up trucks cost now?

6 mpg uphill thru CA as they eliminate gas engines and tax gas pumps?!

Our Plan A is changing.

I’ve shared this before, a good friend from LR, he’s a pastor’s kid, older than me. He was always fond of saying, “I’m all for progress as long as nothing changes.”

The Xian life is all about making progress, walking w/ Jesus, growing in our faith, and life-change.

More patient than last year. More self-control than I use to have. Wiser decisions.

Less sin. Less guilt. Fewer bad decisions. Better marriage. Better family. Better church.

Jesus is the change-agent. He Himself was a change from how God interacted w/ the ppl before He arrived.

From the first day he walked up on the scene he brought changes to ppl’s lives. All of his changes are good and provide better opportunities.

But not everyone likes the changes and not everyone who changes takes advantage of what’s good about them.

We must embrace the reality that change is going to continue once we accept the Change-Agent.

This is how it all started. John had already baptized Jesus. The crowds were continuing to swell. The spiritual climate was palpable so the religious leaders came out to find out more about what was happening. This was the very beginning of Jesus’s 3-year public ministry.

John the Baptist was the first prophet to speak to Israel in over 400 years. They had settled into a routine of rules and rituals. And Jesus was about to blow that up. Change doesn’t come easy.

Old Ways are Out

John 1:19–28 NIV

Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.” They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’ ” Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

There are 2 groups of Jewish leadership represented here. They knew something was happening out by the river, it involved Jewish ppl some Jewish history. So they came out to find out more about it.

They questioned John.

First mentioned are priests and Levites. They were from the group of Sadducees. Then, the Pharisees had questioned.

The 2 groups were similar in that they were Jewish leadership, but they had different beliefs and different social and political views w/in Judaism.

The Sadducees were more strict in their interpretation of the OT; the law, prophets and poetry. The stuck to the written word. They mis-interpreted a lot of it. They didn’t believe in a resurrection, life after death, heaven or hell. They tended to be wealthier, more elite in their social standing. And, they had a better relationship w/ Rome than the Pharisees.

The Pharisees bel’d in life after death, bel’d in angels, but placed equal emphasis on oral traditions as they did the written word. They did not get along w/ Rome, at all. The Pharisees were more about traditions while the Sadducees were more about strict adherence to the written rules.

Both groups imposed top-down leadership on the ppl. They considered themselves superior b/c of their education, social status, and position in the temple.

Jesus was about to change everything about their lives and leadership. He was going to prove there is life after death. He is going prove the Word of God over the word of men.

No more emphasis on rules and rituals. The priority will be a personal relationship.

No more top down leadership. Jesus came to lift up the outcasts and give us positions of honor.

From fancy clothes to the outfits of commoners.

You see this in the questions they asked John.

The priests and Levites, the Sadducees, wanted to know more about who John was. The OT said someone specific was going to come at some point in the future. Is this the time? Are you the one?

Are you THE Messiah? John would not have been the first to come along and claim to be the one. But, he didn’t. Short answer. I am not.

Next, they asked him if he was Elijah. The OT said, either the real Elijah would return to announce the Messiah, or someone that rep’s him would come.

Remember, the real Elijah showed up at the transfiguration w/ Moses to speak to Jesus. And, likely, these 2 are the two witnesses that show up just prior to Jesus’s 2nd coming.

Elijah is still alive. Proving life after death.

John says, “No, not Elijah.”

Then they asked if he was the prophet written about in Deut. 18:15. They mis-interpreted this OT passage b/c the prophet written about there is the Messiah. He’d already answered that. But, again, no.

You can almost feel, in the exchange, their dismissal of John as he denies the ID of key players.

So, who are you? Who do you think you are?

But, then, he says, Just like Isaiah said, when he wrote about Elijah, I am the one calling out in the wilderness preparing the way for the Messiah.

Seems confusing. He just denied being Elijah. Then said, he is doing what Elijah did.

Next, the Pharisees jump in. If you’re not the Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah; then by what authority do you say and do these things? Who gave you the right and responsibility to baptize, cleanse ppl spiritually; and tell all of us we need to repent?! They were offended that John had said they need to repent and be baptized, too.

Who do you think you are?

John replied, my baptism is only w/ water. It’s just a representation of the real baptism that the next guy will do, and it’s the important one.

They were giving John grief about this b/c they overcooked the result of his baptism; b/c that’s all they could do. They overcooked their own ministry. They made a bigger deal out of it than it was.

But that’s all they had. God had gone dark for the previous 400+ years. This is one of the ways the Jewish leadership used to control the ppl. Outcasts couldn’t baptize ppl. They certainly couldn’t remove the contamination from sinners. Only the elite leadership could, in their mind.

Sometimes we get so focused on what we don’t want to believe, or don’t want to do, we miss what we should believe and do that would be good for us.

In their eagerness to expose him as a false Messiah, which he never claimed to be, they missed the real one.

John didn’t want to talk about himself or raise the importance of what he was doing. He wanted to talk about Jesus and what He will do. He’s saying, “I’m nobody. But, somebody is coming. And, He is going to change everything. So, get ready. And get used to change.”

Here comes the Change-Agent.

Change-Agent

John 1:29–34 NIV

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.” Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”

The very next day. This was Jesus’s official introduction to Israel as their Messiah. His first public appearance as His 3-year ministry began.

Jesus came before John and then came after him. Jesus was there in the beginning, spoke on behalf of His Father to create the universe, including the earth and all of us.

Then, He strolled up on the scene by the river in the wilderness to begin to offer Himself as the last Lamb they will ever have to kill.

In a few short years, no more Passovers. Passover weekend changed to Easter weekend. They celebrated the death of a lamb. We celebrate the life of The Lamb.

The Lamb takes away our sins. A lamb only reminded them of their sin.

John’s message up this point had been condemnation for their sin. W/ the into of Jesus, his message shifted to hope for forgiveness and the assurance of entrance into the kingdom.

This is the One who will provide the means of our hope.

He will fulfill the prediction from Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53:4–5 NIV

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Jesus’s sacrifice brought us peace.

Before He could be crucified, He had t/b baptized. When He was baptized in the water, the HS descended on Him from heaven. Now He baptizes us w/ the same HS, and that’s when we begin to change.

Jesus is the Change-Agent that changes us from the inside out. He sends the HS to make it happen.

You know what baptism means now, literally. Immersed to look different.

Tailor would immerse the dirty white thread or cloth in bleach to clean it and make it bright white.

Then, he would immerse the bright white cloth in red, purple, or blue die to change it permanently.

John 14:15–17 NIV

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

When we keep the first command, to love God more than anything else, implies belief in all that He is and faith to be saved, He will send the HS to come into us, forever. He never leaves us. That’s a change.

The HS, during the period of the OT, would come and go. He would come in ppl to help them w/ a job, or task. It might be for an hour, it might be for years. Now, He comes in and never leaves us.

We are permanently changed by God on the inside. So, now, when God looks at us, He sees something different than He did before.

He sees Himself in us.

1 Corinthians 12:13 NIV

For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

We are the body of Christ. Together, we make up the temple that houses God and body that is Jesus. All of us, regardless of background, no united as one. That’s a change.

Now that God resides in us, where we once were dead, now we are alive.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

We are remade, new. You can feel the difference when the HS re-creates you. And, we can see the difference in you and on you.

As new as we are, w/ all the changes the HS brings, we’re still not perfect.

John 16:8 NIV

When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:

The HS convicts everyone in the world when the sin. Most don’t pay attention, or care. We do. We need to know what we do wrong and when we do so we can make those changes.

We’re not on our own when it comes to making changes, even.

John 16:13 NIV

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

Better decisions tomorrow. Whatever we did right or wrong yesterday, the HS knows what’s coming and can prepare us and guide us to be in the best position for it when it happens.

Eph. 1 says the HS gives wisdom and revelation. That is, He reveals more of Jesus to us as we get to know Him better. The better we know Jesus, the more we act like Him, the less trouble we create for ourselves.

The HS gives us the courage and strength we need to do right thing even when it’s hard.

2 Timothy 1:7 NIV

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

Strength. Self-discipline. Love to do the right things for ourselves and others.

Also from Eph. 1, the power we have inside us is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. So, the words “I can’t” should never roll off your tongue when it comes to doing the right things or having the right attitudes.

That’s not all.

Acts 2:1–4 NIV

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Pentecost was the day the HS began to come into all believers. He brought w/ Him so many resources.

Gifts and abilities. A purpose, a reason to get out of bed every day. A significant role in God’s program to change lives and make an eternal difference.

Work to do and the ability to do it that leads the ppl you care about to get the same things from the HS you got.

All this and more...

Galatians 5:22–23 NIV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

When the HS comes in, He brings the whole bowl of fruit w/ Him. Love, joy, peace, patience, self-control; it’s all inside. Our job is take these spiritual muscles to the gym, exercise them so they grow.

These are just a few of the changes Jesus brought to the ppl that day he strolled up on the scene and brings into our lives when accept His offer to receive His life from Him.

Everything changes. Or, at lease, we get the foundation and resources to change what we need to change, too.

No more top down leadership. Jesus came to raise us up.

No more emphasis on rules. The priority is a relationship.

No more guilt and pressure to earn God’s gifts. The ease of living under grace.

No more slaughtering lambs, goats, bulls, or birds. Jesus ended the practice for good.

Jesus changed the religious environment, political environment, and the social environment.

He changed the culture and He changed the ppl.

The changes begin when we come to faith. The changes don’t end until we get to heaven.

If you don’t want to change, then don’t come to Jesus. That’s what He does.

He loves you enough to meet you where you are. And loves you enough to not leave you there.

He is the Change-Agent they needed in the c.1 and the one we still need today.

Applications

What needs to change?

What is God laying on your heart that needs work today?

A habit? An attitude?

Something you need to add? Or something you need to subtract from your life?

You’ve got all that you need to make that change.

Use the muscle the HS brought you and make the change today.

Stopped changing?

Moment of honest self-evaluation. Have you stopped changing? If you have, then you’ve stopped listening to God.

We will be in need of change until the day we die.

There is only 1 person who walked this planet who did not need to change.

I don’t think you’re him.

Make it your daily routine to ask God what He wants you to work on. Never go thru an extended stretch w/out making at least small adjustments and changes along the way.

Stop the excuses

Excuses like, “I don’t have the patience.” “I don’t know what to do next.” “I’m not strong enough to forgive or do that.”

Stop. Patience is one of the pieces of fruit in the basket the HS brought w/ Him into your life.

Wisdom is something He does for you if you ask, w/out waffling, doubting, or hedging. He will guide you in the next step you need to take. He won’t tell you the next 10 steps, only the next 1. 1 step at a time.

The power you have inside you is what raised Jesus from the dead. If it takes that much strength, then you know it’s hard to do. But you’ve got the spiritual muscle to do it.

And, the self-discipline and self-control to start and finish.

No more excuses.

The Xian life is all about making progress, walking w/ Jesus, growing in our faith, and life-change.

More patient than last year. More self-control than I use to have. Wiser decisions.

Less sin. Less guilt. Fewer bad decisions. Better marriage. Better family. Better church.

Jesus is the change-agent. He Himself was a change from how God interacted w/ the ppl before He arrived.

From the first day he walked up on the scene he brought changes to ppl’s lives. All of his changes are good and provide better opportunities.

But not everyone likes the changes and not everyone who changes takes advantage of what’s good about them.

We must embrace the reality that change is going to continue once we accept the Change-Agent.

If you don’t want to change, then don’t come to Jesus. B/C, that’s what He does. Embrace the change.

Communion