Sermon Tone Analysis

Can a Person Really Change?

‘Is it possible?

Can a person really truly change?

There are some who say, "Impossible!

You are what you are.

Can a leopard change its spots"?

The rhetorical answer is apparently not.

And we wonder, can we really change?

Can a person be changed?

I'm not talking about just changing your personality or changing necessarily just modifying your behavior.

But a genuine internal change, a change that comes from the inside out.

That's what we really want to know.

Now we live in a world of change.

The change that has taken place in my lifetime.

I was born in 1950 and in these last almost 60 years it's been remarkable the change that we've seen, from radio to black and white small televisions to now high definition, wide screens and projector televisions and now even 3D movies are on the way.

TiVo, one of the greatest, I think the greatest invention since air conditioning is the digital recorder.

So I never miss a tip off or the first pitch or the kickoff, or whatever!

I mean you know you, you can record and now you can watch television on an airplane or your iPhone, and the smart intelligent phones, or the iPads!

And yes, I did rush down and get an iPad.

Here I am using an iPad and I couldn't even use a typewriter in my previous life!

(Yes, there was such a thing as a typewriter.

They're antiques now.)

And now we're all on these computers.

My little five year old grandson is a whiz already on the computer like your little children are.

computers can be confusing and we have all of these identification numbers and passwords.

During a company's recent password audit it was found that one of the employees who happened to be blond was using this password: Mickey Minnie Pluto Huey Louie Dewey Donald Goofy Sacramento.

And when asked why she had such a long password, the blond said she was told that it had to be at least eight characters long and include at least one capitol!

That's not funny!

Well, it can be confusing.

But on a more serious note who could have envisioned in our own lifetime planes flown by terrorists, taking down major buildings in this country, attacking our nation and plunging us into a global war on terrorism?

You personally are living in a time of change.

We look back on our lives and all the change and we wonder what happened?

How did things change so quickly?

Maybe your life has not ended up where you expected your life.

Your dreams have been destroyed and shattered.

And maybe your own life is not where you envisioned it to be.

And you wonder how could my life have changed like this?

All the anticipation, all the dreams, all the hopes, the plans for the future.

What happened?

And can anything change now?

Can correction come in my life?

Now there are some who are listening to me right now and you wonder, "Well, why is he talking about this because I mean, my life isn't perfect, but I really don't need to change that much.

I'm a basically good person.

I pay my bills on time.

I'm a responsible employee or employer.

I have good quality relationships.

And though there have been some mistakes I really have no regrets.

I really don't need to change anything".

And there are many who are watching by television or listening right now, you think that you are just fine.

"Don't talk to me about conversion.

Don't talk to me about change"!

There are others who are believers in Christ who wonder if people really need to be changed or could be changed.

We see all the devastation of humanity and we see all the injustice and the pain and sometimes in even watching the evening news we see it's getting worse and worse and worse, and we wonder, "Can things really change?

Can our country really change?

Can the world really change"?

And the answer is yes, one life at a time, one witness at a time.

Life change can happen and will happen but you must be willing to admit your need.

Perhaps your need today is first to see your own need for life-change.

In 2 Corinthians, chapter 5 in verse 17, it's the end of the passage that we're going to deal with in just a moment.

But this verse unequivocally states: "if anyone is in Christ, that one is a brand new creation.

Old things are passed away; behold, the new has come".

It's never too late for a new beginning!

You're never too old or too young for your life to change!

What is the need for this change?

Again, the culture may say, the world may say, "People don't really need to change.

They don't even They can't change"!

I was reading a study: a psychologist at some major university reported in the New York Times magazine, they actually did a study on infants and what the emotional and rational and moral behavior of infants might be.

We're talking about small infants, under the age of 2 and 18 months, and so on.

And amazingly they discovered that little babies are not amoral animals but in fact are born with a spiritual disability or a moral inclination to do what is wrong; that every baby is broken in one sense of the word.

In fact, one of the psychologists described these little ones as "unrepentant sociopaths".

Well, we don't really need a psychological study to tell us that, do we?

For the Word of God tells us clearly in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12: "Therefore just as sin came into the world through one man", that one man was Adam and his wife's name was Eve, "and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because of sin".

Spiritual death, psychological brokenness, ultimately physical separation of the soul and the body takes place because of sin.

David would write in Psalm 51:5, and he himself knew something about sin and misbehavior.

He said, "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me".

Speaking, of course, of the child bent and inclination to sin, passing on the sin nature.

Hey, mom is good.

I hope you have a great mom as I did.

But let me tell you something... Mom ain't that good!

Every mother, every father, every person passes on this congenital disease called sin that brings death.

That's why you don't have to teach a child to lie; you have to teach a child not to lie.

They lie naturally.

You don't have to teach a child to steal.

A child steals naturally.

You have to teach a child not to steal.

You don't have to teach a child to be angry.

A child is angry from time to time, and so on.

And this is because of the spiritual condition of every person.

Psalm 58:3 "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray from birth, speaking lies".

And then listen to Romans 3:10-12, "As it is written none is righteous, no not one.

No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside.

Together they have become worthless.

No one does good, not even one".

Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God".

Now this isn't what the world is telling us.

The world, and perhaps if you studied psychology or behaviorism in in school, you know the world is telling us that people are basically good or at the very worst are morally neutral.

But that's not what the Bible says.

If we're going to go straight up in the culture we have to be willing to say what the Bible says and that is that "We've all sinned and come short of the glory of God".

That every person is in need of a radical reformation of their character!