You Don't Have to Stay the Same

Kathy and I have always been interested in One thing in ministry - changed lives. We want to see lives changed by the Power of the Holy Spirit every day and every week.

That’s what God does. God is in the Life changing business. It’s Life Transformation.

Moth Illustration - Metamorphosis

Romans 12:2 NLT

2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Paul says to let God TRANSFORM you by changing the way you think. We literally become something different… something new when we change the way we think.

Proverbs 4:23 NLT

23 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

We are beginning a short series on Transformation from the inside out. We are going to look at how God helps us change for the better, to make the changes we want and that he wants in our lives.

When God begins to transform your life, He will often take you through 4 steps

FOUR STEPS GOD TAKES YOU THROUGH TOWARD TRANSFORMATION

GOD WILL TAKE YOU THROUGH A CRISIS.

Are you in a crisis today? God can transform that into something good in your life.

Listen, your biggest struggle in life isn’t with finances, your boss, your kids, your relationships, your friends, the culture… You may think they are, but ...

Your Biggest Struggle is: You Struggle with God.

A crisis is when we struggle with God because we really want to be God in our lives. Our biggest struggle is that we want to be God, or at least we play God in our lives. We want to be in control. We are going to look at an amazing example of this in the Bible today.

In Gen 32, Jacob had an unusual wrestling Match. His opponent was God. You think WWF is exciting, try wrestling with God. It’s difficult and you will never win. Jacob wrestled with God.

Genesis 32:24–25 NLT

24 This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. 25 When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket.

Look at this… Jacob is afraid of Esau so he send his wife and children ahead to meet Esau while he stays behind. Jacob doesn’t like confrontation… most of us don’t either… and he has been running all of his life.

Here he is alone and a man shows up and begins to fight him. Who was this man? The writer of Hebrews answers that question.

Hosea 12:3 NLT

3 Even in the womb, Jacob struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God.

Jacob had fought and deceived all of his life. He wrestled with his brother in the womb. When Esau, the first born who Jacob tricked out of his birthright, Jacob was holding onto his ankle trying to hold him back. His life was a struggle with his brother and others, but his biggest struggle was with God.

Think about your biggest conflict… the toughest problem you are facing right now.

What ever it is, it comes down to 2 issues.

Will I obey God and do the right thing whether I like it or not?

Will I trust God in the situation to handle it?

No matter what your problem is – financial, physical, relational, social, career wise – no matter what it is it really comes down to am I going to do the right thing and obey God in this situation and, two, am I going to trust God to handle the outcome for me? The real problem is trusting and obeying God.

The Root of All of Your Problems is Your Struggle with God.

We all want to be God in our lives. We have to stop trying to be God. So God will allow us to control and control and then he will bring it to a boiling point… allow Crisis.

God often uses a Crisis to get our attention

Jacob has a crisis. He has been attacked. This is real wrestling. The objective in wrestling is to pin the other guy to the mat or get him to surrender… to get control over him.

Many of you have been having this wrestling match with God all of your life … fighting to be in control of your life.

Genesis 32:25 NLT

25 When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket.

Jacob thought he was doing ok, and then the “man” touched his hip and dislocated it. Jacob was in a no-win situation.

Have you ever been in a no-win situation? Who do you think might be behind that? God is. He hacks you into a corner to get your attention.

All of a sudden you are laid flat on your back and you are forced to look up. He wants you to trust him to make the changes in your life to get you through the crisis.

You have heard me say, God loves you just like you are… right were you are. But he also loves you too much to leave you the way you are. God is a renovator. He renovates our lives. He wants to transform our lives.

Why does he use crisis? They are painful...

We will rarely change until our pain becomes greater than our fear of change

For some reason, most fo the time, we don’t change when the light comes on, we change when we feel the heat.

Next...

GOD WILL USE THE CRISIS TO BRING US TO A COMMITMENT.

He wants to get us to the point where we will not give up. This is actually where we refuse to let go. Look...

Genesis 32:26 NLT

26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Jacob was holding onto God for dear life. He wasn’t letting go until God blessed him. Just so you know, God could have over powered him at any time and ended the wrestling match… why didn’t he?

When God Allows a Crisis in Your Life He Doesn’t Solve it Immediately.

Why is this? He wants to see if you really mean business… of you really want to be blessed and are willing to put yourself in a place to be blessed. Is this a whim or a deep desire?

What if God answered all of your prayers immediately? What would happen?

You would be Spoiled

God is not a genie in a bottle where we rub it on the side and our wishes are granted. So God let’s you struggle for a while.

God wants to build Your Character

If he bailed you out every time, you would never learn to relate to people… you would never learn to learn to not spend more than you make… you would never learn work through problems.

God wants to build your character… to teach you persistence.

Many people Miss God’s Best because they Give Up Too Soon.

People say they prayed about something… twice? Here is what God wants you to do in addition to praying… He wants you to be persistent.

Galatians 6:9 NLT

9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

If you are in a crisis, keep doing the right things. If you are in sales, and sales are slow, keep doing the right things… If you are struggling with a stronghold in your life, keep doing the right things.

It took years to get into the mess your are in, and God won’t pull you out of it overnight.

You worked for years to become the mess that you are and God is not going to remove those habits immediately. It’s like peeling an onion… He takes one layer at a time and peels it back.

Sometimes it takes us a while to just surrender to the Lord.

God allows a crisis in our lives … then he brings us to a place of struggle with God. Next,

GOD WILL BRING YOU TO CONFESS THE REAL PROBLEM IS YOU.

This is the breakthrough. We have stop blaming other people and admit that “I am the problem in my life.” Until we get to this step, we will not experience transformation in our lives.

Genesis 32:27 NIV

27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered.

Think about it, God knew his name. God didn’t need to know, Jacob needed to own up to who he really was.

In ancient cultures, names meant something. You name might mean … tall, short, lazy, stubborn… greedy...

Jacob = Deceiver

Deceiver, liar, manipulator… He was a guy that would chat you out of your last dollar. He was not a good man. He lied to his blind, dying father to cheat his brother out of his birthright and then manipulated his brother out of his inheritance. He used everyone in his life.

Jacob had to admit who and what he was.

Today: Greedy, Lustful, depressed, fearful, gossip,

You will never be able to change until you admit YOUR SIN and WEAKNESSES to Yourself … to God … and to Others

You may be thinking, why do I have to confess to someone else? When you confess to God, he forgives you. When you confess to someone else, you are setting aside you your pride and God opposes pride.

James 4:6–7 NLT

6 And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 7 So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 5:16 NIV84

16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

When we do this, God grants us grace. When we confess, it’s freeing.

This is who I am (worrier, domineering, conflict avoider, bully, etc) Stop making excuses and own up to it. God already knows, all you have to do id own up to yourself and others. This is the most difficult step.

When you do this,

4. GOD WILL BRING US TO THE POINT OF CONVERSION.

In a conversion, we are given a New Identity!

Genesis 32:28–30 NLT

28 “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.” 29 “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said. “Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. 30 Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.”

Now the Transformation begins...

Three Things Happen at Conversion

A. He gets a New Identity

God changes his name from Liar, trickster… to Israel… Prince with God. That’s an upgrade incase you drifted. God said that even though every one else sees (trickster, liar, manipulator) I see a prince.

God would tell some of you today… beneath all of your hangups, I see a prince / princess. Despite all of the sin you have commited in your life, I see something great in you. Just own up to it.

In the Bible, God often changed names to signify the change. Cephus - Peter; Abram - Abraham; Sarai - Sarah;

He gets a new identity and then,

B. He Gets Blessed

then he blessed hi there.

If you want to be blessed, you have to take the steps.

C. He is Given a Reminder of His Experience.

Jacob was given a reminder of the event so he would never forget.

Genesis 32:31 NLT

31 The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip.

God left him with a limp. For the rest of his life, Jacob walked with a limp. It was a reminder of the night he spent wrestling with God.

Listen, when you encounter God - for real - you will never walk the same again. You cannot meet and experience God without your desires … you life being changed. Jacob never walked the same again.

What was the Significance of the Limp Jacob Came Away With?

1. It Ended a Life Long Pattern of Running Away.

Jacob had spent his life running from trouble that he created. He would create a problem and then run. Esau… Laban… He was the most irresponsible person you can imagine. God wanted to make sure he did not return to that way of living, so he gave him something to remember it by - a limp.

It is never God’s will for you to run from a problem. If someone at work you can’t get along with and you leave… guess what, someone just like them is waiting on you. God wants to build your character.

2. It was a Daily Reminder to Depend on God.

It was a daily reminder to depend on God. Your thigh muscle is your largest and strongest muscle and God toucned Jacob at his point of greatest strength and created a weakness out of it. From that point on, Jacob had to stand in God’s strength, not his own. He leaves this encounter with God stronger and weaker… he is not the same anymore, there has been a conversion. Weaker because now, instead of fighting God, he will depend on God daily.

Listen, God’s deepest work in your life is what he does with your identity. The way you see yourself affects everything in your life. It affects the jobs you do, the people you spend time with and those you don’t. shy… outgoing… loser… bad parent… You will always tend to act according to how you see yourself.

So God gives you a new identity and begins to change the way you see yourself. He tells you today, let me show you what I think about you. When you see yourself as God sees you, it’s going to change your life and you will act differently.

For lasting change, we have to change our perception of ourselves, of our sin a d of God and How he sees us.

CR Testimony

Only Jesus can transform who and what we are. Counseling will not. Books will not… Nothing is going to change until you get Jesus Christ into your life.

Salvation Prayer

I want to ask you 4 personal questions...

What are some areas you are struggling with?

Where do you know the right thing, but keep ignoring God? You know what you need to do, but you keep fighting it. Surrender!!! Stop being afraid of allowing God to Control your life.

Are there any areas where you have felt like giving up?

It might seem easier to walk away from something, but you better ask God first. I have no doubt that there are people here or who will listen online who want to walk out of a marriage - don’t do it. Give ti to God and let godly people help you.

What do you need to admit about Yourself?

I am

When are you going to have the courage to share it with someone else? That’s the beginning of healing. appointment

Will you let Christ give You an New Identity?

Will you let Jesus give you a new identity? God knows all about you, but still sees a prince or a princess. He sees your potential, not your past. Step across that line.