New Can’t Fix You: Week 1

Announcements

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Valentine’s Banquet: Saturday, February 15th / $50 per couple, sign up in Church Center app or scan the QR code - signups online only

Child Dedication: Sunday, February 16th / 11:15 am service / children 2 and under / See Johnny Lewis or fill out a Connect Card

New Class - Doctrine of Sin: Starts Sunday, February 23rd / 8:00 am - Discipleship Room / 4 weeks

PRAY

Message

We’re a little over a month into the new year… anybody given up on their New Years’ resolution yet?

For those of us who make New Years’ resolutions, we start the year off strong, with great intentions but then most of us just kind of fall off a few weeks in, right? Like maybe you started off with big fitness plans — and now just a few weeks in, your plan is just fit’ness whole pizza in your mouth.

True story though — about 80% of New Years’ resolutions are fitness-related. But less than ten percent of people actually follow those things through. And according to the statistics I was reading this week, about 75% of gym membership sign-ups happen in January alone, but on average people give up on the membership after the 5th visit. Unfortunately, at that point most gyms have you locked in for that year-long contract, right? It’s how they get you.

And so if you’re giving yourself a hard time right now because maybe you failed yet again to get in shape… let me remind you that round is still a shape.

By the way, my New Years’ resolution was to keep on being the most handsome pastor at Matthew’s Table — and as y’all can tell, I’ve stuck with it. You’re welcome.

The point is — we see the evidence every year, and yet so many of us fall into the trap of this lie that with the turn of the calendar, we’re going to somehow magically get our lives together and everything is just going to fall into place. And yet, here we are, just a few days into February and once again many of us have realized we’re just doing the same stuff over and over again hoping for a different result — which is the definition of insanity by the way. I mean, we all know somebody who’s been “starting their diet on Monday” since 2017, right?

So if you’ve hung around Truth & Grace for a while, you’ll know that the intent of what we do here is to introduce a lie that we have believed — and then look at the Word of God to see His truth about that topic or issue, right? And so for the month of February we aren’t making it very hard to figure out what that lie is.

See we have believed this lie that we can’t somehow fix ourselves if we try harder — and do more — and white knuckle it… and we think “Man, if I just try harder I can finally do it this time. I’ll finally beat this thing I’m struggling with, or I’ll finally be a “better person”. And yet every time we try that — it doesn’t last very long.

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And so our series this month is the truth — it’s the response to that lie we have believed — and it’s that New Can’t Fix You. And what we’re going to learn together over the next four weeks is that if we want to see real, lasting change — it’s only going to be through the power of God working in our lives that we’ll finally get to experience it. We’re going to be challenged to consider what Scripture teaches about real change and transformation — and how that’s not the same as the hype and the gimmicks that we buy into. And we’ll look at how culture has tried to change and distort what God has already told us is the truth.

So over these next few weeks together, we’re going to see:

How we experience true transformation when we grow in our relationship with God.

How we grow and change as we spend more time with Him.

And how growing in His Word is the key to this transformation.

But tonight, we’re going to start by understanding how God calls us to experience a transformed mind.

And as we explore this — if you’re like most people — me included — who try to just kind of white-knuckle your way through life and figure stuff out on your own, or try to make all of these changes by yourself — I want to challenge you to consider the difference between that and the kind of change that God calls us to experience. So many of us are guilty of acting like we’re on some spiritual episode of Survivor, where we’re trying to outwit, outplay, and outlast our sin. But spoiler alert: that strategy never works.

So let’s look at what God says about it. If you have your Bible with you, we’re going to start in Romans Chapter 12. We’re going to be in a few different passages tonight but for right now, we’re starting with Romans 12, verses one and two. Let’s take a look at the Word of God together.

Romans 12:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Paul starts off here urging and pleading with us. He’s saying “Look guys — I need you to see that this is serious!”

And look at what he says:

SHOW VERSE 1 AGAIN

“In view of the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” In other words, Paul is telling us, “Give your bodies to God because of all that He has done for you.” And he’s calling us to see that giving our bodies to God is our response to what God has done for us.

I mean, what if we looked at the world around us — and the way that we approach everything we do in our lives, in view of the mercies of God. What a perspective-shift, right?

And then look at verse 2:

VERSE 2 AGAIN

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you can discern the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”

Paul is giving us what is basically a two-step process — not just to grow in our relationship with God — but to find true freedom in Him.

Step 1: Present yourself as a living sacrifice.

Step 2: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So if you’re the kind of person who just keeps feeling like you’ve got to do all of this on your own, let me just point out here that there is very little that you actually have to do in these two steps.

If you’re a believer here, your job is to simply respond to God. How? Present yourself as a living sacrifice. In other words, that means complete and total surrender to God. Total surrender to God means that we give Him everything. Not just a little here and there. Not just showing up to church when we feel like it, or throwing up a last-minute prayer after we’ve tried everything else. He wants all of us.

But what we’ve got to understand is that is that God isn’t calling us to surrender because He wants to weigh us down with a bunch of rules. It’s because He wants us to experience the freedom that only He can give us. This past Sunday when we started our new series in Exodus, Roger said something that I loved. He said “The Bible is a mission book, not a rule book.” Surrender to God is a good thing, because it brings us closer to Him and we experience a deeper relationship with Him. By the way, if you missed Sunday’s message I highly encourage you to go check it out. It’s on Facebook and in the Church Center app.

So that’s Step 1 — surrendering to God.

And then look at Step 2 in verse 2 here: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Notice here how Paul doesn’t say transform yourself. He says be transformed. That’s because God is doing the transformation in us as a result of our surrender to Him. That means that if you’re somebody here struggling tonight — no matter what it is — whether it’s

addiction,

or being in a bad relationship,

or not being around your kids,

or trouble with your job,

or stress about money,

or shame, or guilt, and the list goes on and on,

no matter what you’re going through, God isn’t expecting you to clean yourself up and get your act together before you come to Him. “New Year New Me” doesn’t really mean much to God if the change is something that you’re not giving over to Him. He says we’re called to surrender to Him — meaning give all that stuff up to Him, so that He can do the work. Surrender to Him means that we recognize not only that He CAN do the work in our lives, but also that we never really had the ability to do it on our own in the first place.

It’s kind of like making a car move. You probably CAN make a car move down the road by just pushing it, right? But if the car doesn’t have an engine, there’s only so far you’re going to be able to push it on your own. The engine in the car is what makes it move successfully. It does the real work. And it makes the vehicle work the way it was intended.

The same is true in our relationship with God. Surrendering to Him means that we are living our lives the way He intended.

And so that might mean saying, “Lord, I don’t really see any way out of this, but I’m trusting that You do have a plan,”

or, “God, I’ve really screwed this up again so I’m gonna need You to fix my mess,”

Or maybe even, “Father, I’m having a hard time believing that You can do this, but I’m committing to trust You anyway, even though this situation is really hard.”

Do you hear the difference there in that approach? No longer is our prayer “God, help me do this,” … It becomes, “God, I’m surrendering this to You because I know you can do it.”

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So here’s why this is important: God has a goal in renewing our minds. It puts us in this posture toward Him, so that we grow closer in relationship with Him, and understanding His perfect will in our lives. And that’s a big deal because those of us here who are followers of Jesus have to realize that there are times that our will won’t line up with His. That’s why we’re called to surrender — to give up control. Because although we may not like it, what we’ll come to realize on the other side of the situation is that God had our interest at heart the entire time. It may not look how we want, or turn out the way we want, but faith is trusting in Him that His ways and plans are perfect — even when it doesn’t make sense.

But the reason that this is so hard for us because we have believed the lie that it’s up to us to figure everything out on our own. We have bought into the lies and promises of the world that tell us that we’ve gotta pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We’ve believed the lie that “God helps those who help themselves,” which isn’t found anywhere in Scripture, by the way.

It’s like trying to fix your car by talking to it instead of taking it to a mechanic. It doesn’t work! But in our situation — God is the mechanic, right? He’s the one who knows how to get under the hood and change things. We just have to get out of the way.

But look, Paul knew this would be a challenge. He knew that we would believe the lie that we’ve got to do it on our own. Look at what he said in Ephesians Chapter 4, verses 20 through 24.

Ephesians 4:20–24 NLT

20 But that isn’t what you learned about Christ. 21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.

Put on your new nature. See, when you become a follower of Christ, you’re given a new set of clothes — a new wardrobe. But you’ve got to take off your old clothes before you can put on the new. That’s surrender to Christ. And that new set of clothes that He gives us? That’s the transforming and renewing of our mind. Paul just said it again: “Let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.” We’re not the ones doing it. God is doing the work. But the problem is that so many Christians refuse to surrender to God, so instead of putting on these new clothes, they’re just walking around spiritually naked. And trust me — nobody around here wants to see you naked! If we wouldn’t show up to work without pants on, why would we try to live for Jesus without a renewed mind?

So why does Paul keep talking about this? Why is our renewed mind so important? Because our old way of thinking is what keeps us locked up in our old way of doing. If you’re a Christian here tonight but you’re still struggling with everything you struggled with before you came to know Christ, may I challenge you to consider the fact that maybe you haven’t surrendered your thoughts and your attitude to Christ.

Surrender to God means that we focus on the things of God. That means we look at life, and the world around us, and everything happening to us through the lens of God being the Lord and Savior of our lives. We follow what God says instead of what just “makes sense to us,” or what we want to do. In today’s society and culture, that’s often translated to “following your heart”, right. We hear all the time, don’t we? “Just follow your heart and everything will be fine.”

That nonsense has even made it’s way into Christian circles. I’ve seen stuff on Facebook that says “Just follow your heart and trust that God is working it out for you.” But that doesn’t even make any sense. Either you’re following your heart — or you’re trusting God. The two aren’t compatible with each other.

How do we know that?

Jeremiah 17:9 CSB

9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?

“Following your heart” means you’re following your own thoughts attitudes and you haven’t surrendered them to God.

Nate Pickowicz, a pastor at Harvest Bible Church in New Hampshire said:

PICKOWICZ QUOTE

“‘Follow your heart’” had ended more marriages, mutilated more bodies, destroyed more souls, and ended more lives than the devil could have ever imagined. It is hell’s most effective slogan yet.”

- Nate Pickowicz

Following your heart is why people buy treadmills in January and start using them as start using them as clothes hangers in February. And it’s why you eat a whole sleeve of Oreo’s when you only meant to eat one. The heart is deceitful! Don’t let it lie to you and tell you that you need more than a couple Oreo’s… they’re 70 calories a piece!

So then how does this work? How am I supposed to surrender everything to God? How am I supposed to trust Him?

Surrendering to God means acting — serving — and loving like Him:

Ephesians 5:1–2 NLT

1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. 2 Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.

We imitate God — we love like Jesus — because of the transformed mind we experience through Him. The longer you walk with God — and the more you learn to trust Him — and surrender to Him — the more you’ll look like Him.

That means being quick to forgive — quick to show love to other people — be desiring to find reconciliation and peace with the people around us — and always be seeking to serve others. If we want to experience this renewal from Jesus, then we have to act like Jesus, amen?

This doesn’t mean we’re called to be perfect, but it does mean we’re called to grow more like Him as we grow in your relationship with Him. In other words — we can’t walk around acting like jerks and then wonder why it feels like everything is against us, right? Earlier this week I shared something on Facebook that said, “Just because the Church is the body of Christ doesn’t mean you’re called to be the butthole.” Yes, the pastor just said “butthole”. By the way, if you’re not sure who the butthole is in your circle of friends… that means it might be you. Just sayin’.

Think about it like this — parents in the room — when we have young children, we try to model for them the behavior that we want to see, right? We know that if we want them to be kind, then we should show kindness others. If we want them to be respectful, then we should be respectful to others. If we want them to be brave, then we should show them what courage looks like… the list goes on and on. At least — I hope that’s how you’re parenting, because the “do as I say and not as I do” thing doesn’t really work.

And that’s just how we model behavior to our kids. Thing about what God is calling us to imitate — it’s Kingdom living. We’re called to imitate Him in response to our relationship with Him — and the mercy that He has given us. That goes so far beyond just behavior and how we act. It’s living a transformed life, so that we — as believers — can discern the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God that Paul talks about in Romans Chapter 12.

Now, please hear me when I say this — a lasting change only happens when we fully surrender to God, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be immediate. If you’re here tonight and you’re a new Christian — or maybe you’re not a believer and you’re hearing this thinking, “Man, if I just surrender to Jesus everything is finally gonna fall into place,” — that’s not typically how God works. Journeying with God is a life-long process. And although He can move quickly if He chooses to, most often what that looks like is gradual change over time. He works in us and changes us little by little as we learn to surrender more and more. That means that if you sit here tonight and fully surrender to God — you still might go home and say a bad word if you stub your toe on the coffee table. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed — it means that sanctification is a process and a journey, not a single step, amen?

Remember, God does the work of changing us. Whatever you’re going through — whatever it looks like — you’ll never find that real, lasting change you’re looking for until you stop trying to handle it on your own, and you surrender to God. Don’t believe the lie that you’ve got to figure it out yourself. But believe God’s truth in understanding — and believing that “New Can’t Fix You.”

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