Sermon Tone Analysis

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.