The Capacity Challenge

The Capacity to Change

Introduction:

· Within each of us is this enormous capacity to fulfill our God- given assignments and see our dreams come true.

· We have this capacity because we were created by and in the image of the limitless God.

· Through Jesus Christ we have also been adopted into the family of the limitless God.

***A life in Christ is a life without limitations.***

Foundational Scripture: 2 Corinthians 6:12-13 (MSG)

“The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively.

· It is unfortunate that in many ways we are out here just existing in life when God has created and given us the capacity to thrive in life.

· We are literally out here, doing the same things, in the same way when change and growth is available and possible.

· Capacity is the ability to handle life and what it throws at you. But you can’t handle life until you first know how to handle yourself.

· When you know how to handle yourself, handling life is no longer an issue.

***Today I want to talk you about the capacity to handle oneself.***

Body:

· The greatest challenge for a person is to acknowledge their own need for change.

· You ever notice how we can look at everyone else, identify their flaws, and the things they need to work on, but we either can’t see or refuse to acknowledge those same things within our own self?

o The greatest thing you can do for yourself is listen to the people who love you when they point out to you the things you need to work on.

o Criticism is an act of unconditional love.

· When we look at others and can’t look at ourselves, we’re literally saying, “I believe that they have the capacity to change, but I do not.”

5 Reasons Why Change is Difficult

1. We perceive change as a threat to the current version of ourselves. (Elaborate)

a. The threat obscures the vision of what you can become.

b. Change should be seen as an opportunity to become better, not a threat to who I currently am.

2. Remaining the same is comfortable.

***Someone once said, “It’s not that change isn’t difficult, it’s remaining the same is easy.”***

3. If I change one thing, I’ll have to change another.

4. Self-control is work.

5. We won’t take responsibility.

Things We Say So We Don’t Have to Change.

1. That’s just the way I am.

a. You can’t see yourself as anything different.

b. Romans 3:2-3 MSG 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Vs. 3 The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

2. I don’t need to change. They need to change.

a. Signs of immaturity and insecurity.

b. Matthew 7:1-5 MSG 1-5 “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.

c. Secure, mature people embrace change.

d. They understand that it qualifies them for better.

3. They need to accept me as I am.

a. Pride

b. Pride will make you make a fool of yourself.

c. Pride is the root of every evil thing.

d. Pride is deceptive.

e. Pride is destructive.

f. Proverbs 11:2 (CSB) When arrogance comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.

Conclusion:

· Everyone has need for change. Not just you.

· Change is necessary.

· Change is positive, not negative.

· Change is a qualifier.

· Change makes you a better person.

Philippians 3:13-14 (MSG)

12-14 I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

Philippians 4:13 CSB I am able to do all things through him[a] who strengthens me.