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INEED2CHANGE.COM
Making Change
Ed Young
September 9, 2007
Are you ready to change? I’m ready to change. We all have things in our lives that need to change. ineed2change.com. I need to change. I am going to give you a shocking statement to begin this series of talks on change. And when I say this, it’s going to be a doggy downer.
I think some of you might be looking for the exits. You’ll be like, “Wait a minute. Why am I here?” after I say this statement. And here we go, are you ready for this? I can’t change. Say that with me. 1‑2‑3, “I can’t change.”
If you’re in Miami, Plano, Downtown or Alliance, let’s say it, “I can’t change.” Now before you leave, before you go, “Whoa, why am I here, then?” just let that sink in. Because the true beginning of change occurs when we admit, “I can’t change.”
God is a God of change; yet, what’s so interesting is the fact that God says throughout the Bible, “I don’t change.” Time and time again, God said, “I don’t change. I don’t change.” Yet, he is the agent of change.
When we open the lid of our lives and invite God in, he changes us from the inside out. If I look to the inside of me, I’m in trouble. If I look to the inside of who I am, I don’t have the stuff to truly change. Yet, if I look to God, I see that change occurred on the outside. God sent Jesus Christ to do his work on Calvary, to do the exchange on Calvary, to take all of our sin onto his shoulders.
And then he offers us righteousness and forgiveness and the power of change. But that is on the outside. True change is on the outside not the inside; yet, we make this grace reception. We receive Christ. When he infiltrates our lives, we move him from the outside to the inside and then we’re changed from the inside out. Without that, though, I’m just trying hard. I’m just striving, I’m just tweaking, and I’m just involved in superficial change.
What I want to talk to you about in this first session is supernatural change. Because we can’t change superficially and then suddenly go, “Okay now I have changed supernaturally because I began with the superficial.” We begin with the supernatural then we can talk about superficial changes.
Our culture, though, is addicted to change. Have you ever noticed that? We’re addicted to change. We love change. We change hair colors. We change outfits. We change houses. We change spouses. We change cars. We’re all about change. And I truly believe that this desire that we all have for change comes from God. God is a God who changes our lives from the inside out; thus, we have this capacity for change. We yearn for change. There are things in my life that I need to change. There are things in your life that you need to change; yet, to truly change we have to come to the point where we say, “I can’t. I can’t change.”
ILLUS: How do you like this watch right here? Get a close up on this watch. Is that sweet? Bling, bling. Some of you who know jewelry are like, “I wonder how much that costs?” Someone gave this to me. Some of you are saying, “Are those real diamonds? Man, that’s an expensive watch.”
What if I told you, though, it’s not an expensive watch? What if I told you, though, this watch is just a cheap veneer and it covers something even cheaper, a mechanism that doesn’t work? What if I told you that the friend who gave this to me bought this watch on the streets of New York? I didn’t buy it so police officers don’t cuff me. I’m just telling you what happened to me. This is not stolen; someone bought it.
Well, I’ve got to confess to you something: This watch is not the real deal. This watch is a cheap imitation of the real thing because the mechanism is not that great. This watch cost $40. I’ve had it for a couple weeks, and when I take it off, it stops. Right now the time is wrong. It’s not even moving. It’s not even right, but it looks good.
I have been wearing it around for the last several weeks and it’s interesting to watch people look at my wrist like, “Wow!” You can tell what they’re thinking, “Must be nice.” “Whoa, look at that watch. I like that, you know, because that’s a sweet looking watch.”
I’ve lived my life like that before, and so have you. We project one thing, yet in reality we’re another. We project this, we project that, we have this larger than life personality, the cars, the clothes, the talk, the hype, the rappa dappa doo; yet the mechanism is not that great. It’s broken. It’s cheap.
And it’s interesting how we can do that. How we can come to the House and portray one thing, but in reality we’re another.
Well, if I’m going to allow God to change me from the inside out, I have to say, “God I can’t change. Only you can bring about true change. I submit my life to you, God. I’m tired of showing this veneer, of this fake stuff. I want to show you my mechanism, God. Take my life—tax, title and license. Take my life—warts and all, all my shortcomings, my strengths, my weaknesses. God, I give my life to you. You, God, are the only change agent out there that can bring about true change from the inside out.”
It happens, though, when we invite the outside in and then we move from the inside out. God wants to change your life and mine. And that, friends, is some great news. It’s incredible news.
We have this website, ineed2change.com. Have you checked that out? Have you seen all of the entries of people being honest about what they want to change? And that is a good thing. But I’m here to tell you once again, I’m not talking about superficial. I’m talking about supernatural change.
Well, you might be saying, “Okay Ed, you’re talking about bringing God on the inside of your life. You’re talking about this Jesus man infiltrating your life. You’re talking about opening up the lid of your life to Christ. What exactly are you talking about?”
ILLUS: Let’s say that you saw a caterpillar, and let’s say this caterpillar could talk. Let’s just say that. And you see this caterpillar and you go, “Hey man, what’s up?” And the caterpillar stops and says, “Hey, nothing much.” And what if you said, “Man what are you doing? You seem like you’re working hard.”
“Man, I am working real hard.”
“Well, why?”
“Because I’m trying to be a butterfly. Watch this Ed, I’m going to fly.”
And let’s say he was on one branch, and he tries to jump. “Pick me up man, pick me up.” I pick him up put him back on the branch. “Okay Ed, it’s not working very well but now, right now, I’m going to try to have some beautiful wings and this array of colors like a butterfly.”
Well, if I love the caterpillar, and let’s show the caterpillar some love, okay. If we love the caterpillar we say, “Caterpillar, give it up. You can try to fly, you can try to have these beautiful wings, but it’s not going to happen for you.”
“What?”
“That’s right. It’s not going to happen for you. So you, if you want to fly, if you want to become a butterfly, you have to cooperate with the miracle of metamorphosis.”
“Meta‑what?”
“Metamorphosis.”
You cooperate with it. Because when a caterpillar does that, when he cooperates or she cooperates with the miracle of metamorphosis, what happens? The caterpillar dies, is born again, then the caterpillar becomes a butterfly.
How do I become a changed man? How do you become a changed woman? How do you become a changed student or a changed child? You have to cooperate with the miracle of spiritual metamorphosis. That’s what it means to be born again. We have to die to ourselves. We have to die to trying to change this stuff and tweak this stuff. And we have to admit, “God I can’t change. You are the change agent.” And once that happens, we become this butterfly. We’re transformed. We’re changed from the inside out.
Now, you might be saying, “Well that’s cool. So I just cooperate with the miracle of metamorphosis and just let go and let God, right? So that’s how it is. You just kind of chill and relax.”
Well, just hold on to that thought. So many of us have areas in our lives that are secretive. So many of us have things we’re processing that are keeping us from discovering the great path and plan that God has for us.
I want to draw your attention to a verse in the Bible. The book of Proverbs 28:13. It says, “He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
What we cover, God uncovers. What we uncover, God covers. What we cover, ultimately God will uncover. And so many of us right now at our various campuses, so many of us right now in this room, we’re playing the cover up game. We’re playing it. We’re projecting one thing but in reality we’re another.
ILLUS: Have you ever played the cover up game? Oh, I have. Playing hide‑and‑go‑seek with my kids when they were smaller, I would say, “Okay I’m going to count. You hide. 1, 2, 3, 4…” And a lot of times they would get in their beds and do like this [Ed pulls a cover over his head]. They thought they were hiding from their father. They couldn’t see me. I couldn’t see them. I could see them. They looked ridiculous.
That’s how ridiculous you look and I look when we try to cover our stuff from God. “I’m going to cover my stuff, my sin, my rebellion, and God won’t know. My Heavenly Father won’t know.”
Whenever we cover sin, here’s what we do: We tend to blame others. You know, “I’m the way I am because of my family of origin. I’m the way I am because my mother was mean spirited; my father was domineering. I’m the way I am because of my friends. You know what? I’m the way I am because of my spouse.
“The reason I’m sleeping in the wrong bed is because of you. You’re not meeting my needs. You’re not doing it for me.” And we play the blame game. Have you ever played that when you’re trying to cover your sin?
And then something else happens when we’re under here: We invite others under the blanket with us, “Come on, come on.” And I’m talking about those sinful sympathizers—those people who are also covering up stuff in their lives, and they help us be sinful sympathizers, “I would sleep around on your spouse, too, if she acted like that or if he did that. And you know, yeah, man you have to smoke weed at least three or four times a week. That’s just what you do. You’ve got to frequent those places. And yeah, it’s good to gossip and rip people apart.” Sinful sympathizers.
Then on top of that, when we play the cover up game we begin to lie. Think about it. When we’re covering, we can’t walk in the light. We can’t discover the amazing things that God has for us. We don’t know which way to go. And we begin to lie. We lie to God. Our lives are a lie. It’s like, “Oh man this watch is expensive. Oh, yeah, I’ve got it together.” We lie. We lie to God. Then we lie to others. We just live this lie and then we lie to ourselves.
So what we cover, ultimately God will uncover. Have you noticed that? I have dealt with so many situations, so many people in my life here over the last decade, and they have played the cover up game and they have projected one thing, but in reality they were another. And I have known intuitively, I have known scripturally, after a while, the truth will come out. After a while, Scripture says, “Our sins will find us out.” And when the reveal happens, so often it’s not a pretty thing.
It’s time to be authentic and real. Because what we cover, God will uncover; yet, the last part of verse 13 says what we uncover, God covers. Now how sweet is that? That is totally off the charts. “But whoever confesses—” What does the word confess mean? The word confession means to agree with.
When I’m confessing my sin, my shortcomings, my fatal and futile attempts at changing, I am just telling the truth before God. When I confess my sins to God, God is not like, “Oh, Ed. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know you committed that moral turnover. I didn’t know you thought those thoughts. I didn’t know you said those hurtful words. I didn’t know—” No, you’re not going to surprise God. He knows.
There’s no such thing as a secret meeting. There’s no such thing as a cover up or a clandestine operation. God sees it all. And here is where men really struggle—a lot of you autonomous alpha males in the house “Man, I—man, I just am who I am. You know, I am just that way. And, you know, my fate, my relationship with God is a personal and private thing.”
Well, I understand that. It is a personal thing. And there are some private things between me and God and you and God. I understand all that. Yet Christianity, walking with Jesus, is a private decision that goes public.
Some of you guys who are married, try that with your wife. Just say, “Hey honey, we’re going to get married, but let’s not tell anybody. I love you, but I’m never going to declare that or show that or prove that.” Guys, that dog won’t hunt, will it? Yet, we come before God so many times, and we try to do the same thing.
Well, what’s the key to change? It’s inviting the change agent into our lives. It’s uncovering our junk. It’s confessing our sin. It’s agreeing with God about our condition. Well, scripture continues, it goes, “But whoever confesses and renounces—”
This word renounces, I love it. It’s left behind. That’s repentance. So we confess. We agree with God. We don’t stop there. We make an about face. We turn and walk the other way. We change our mind. We renounce. We repent. And if we confess and repent, if we confess and renounce, check out what happens.
Proverbs 28:13, “…but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”
All of our sin has been covered by the blood of Jesus, the grace and mercy and the forgiveness of Jesus. That’s what happens when we uncover this stuff. So confession and repentance trigger the mercy of God. And if we’re not doing those things and submitting to those things and obeying those things, we will never discover the mercy of God.
You see, time is melting off the clock. It’s melting off the watch. We’ve got to be real. We’ve got to say, “Lord, I have been living a lie.” So it’s interesting, remember this— let me go back for a second.
When we’re playing the cover up game, what do we do? We blame. We bunch up with sinful sympathizers. We lie to God. We lie to others. We lie to ourselves. Yet, when we confess and repent and we uncover, what happens? We don’t blame anymore, because now when we point the finger realize that 1, 2, 3 are pointing back at me. I’m taking ownership. I blew it. I messed up. I have fallen short. Then we find ourselves, by this change agent, moving and gathering around and bunched up with, not sinful sympathizers but encouraging empathizers.
Where do you find these people? In the House. You find yourself moving toward them, this strange urge to get near people who have the same transcendent values as you do. You want to move toward marriages who have this holistic view of marriage, who are loving each other, who are reconciling, who are forgiving, who put the marriage at the top of the list and the children beneath that.
And you find yourself being drawn to people who challenge you, who hold you accountable, who pray for you, who share with you. Not the sinful sympathizers. It’s amazing how people run when they’re covering stuff, and then you live a life of truth. Jesus said, “You’re going to know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
You’re being honest with God. There is nothing like that. You’re being honest. You’re agreeing with them. You’re telling the truth about your whole deal. You’re being honest with others, “Here I am, warts and all, tax, title, and license, here’s my mechanism.” Yeah, I am made of cheap veneer. Those are fake diamonds. The whole thing is fake. And church is a place where we have to take our masks off. Church is a place for imperfect people.
This is the perfect place for imperfect people. I’m not perfect, nor are you. And so often the devil will go, “Don’t share your junk with others. Don’t share what you’re dealing with with these encouraging empathizers because they’re going to laugh at you, they’re going to trash you, and they’re going to say, ‘I can’t believe you’re dealing with that.’ ”
Well, that’s a lie. Just call the devil what he is. He’s a liar. He’s the father of lies. Whenever I share what I’m struggling with with my encouraging empathizers; whenever I share my secrets and stuff that I think, “Oh man, they would freak if they knew I was dealing with that because I’m a pastor.” Whenever I do that, I get encouragement. I get support. I get prayers. I get help. I don’t get lashed. See, it’s a lie.
So we cover up and God will, I’m telling you, uncover it one day. So don’t mess around with that. You go ahead and uncover, and what you uncover God will cover with his forgiveness and grace and mercy.
“Ed, you don’t realize what I’ve done, brother. You don’t know.” And you know what? I don’t. You’re exactly right. I don’t know what you’ve done.
But I do know a guy who committed adultery and then this guy had this woman’s husband killed. And the guy’s known as a man after God’s own heart. You can read about him in Scripture. I am talking about David, you might have heard of David. Yeah, King David. And some of you alpha males, type A personalities, people who might think you’re successful; no one guy in here will touch the power, the money, or the influence that David had. And it’s not going to happen for you. It’s not; I just know it’s not.
So David committed adultery with Bathsheba, had her husband, Uriah, killed, and for a year he played the cover up game. Just think about it. When you’re like this, how can you see and hear God? How can you follow His awesome agenda for your life? Well, check out what David wrote. Psalm 32:3‑5. Can you identify with this? I don’t know.
“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me, my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” We can understand that, can’t we? “Then ‑‑ then, I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,’ and you forgave the guilt of my sin.”
David, an adulterer and murderer, uncovered and God covered him with His grace and mercy and forgiveness and power and vision and endurance and plan and agenda and clear conscious and all of the wonderful benefits that God has for every single person here. That gives me hope. Isn’t that encouraging? I mean that is phenomenal
So icantchange.com. Only God can change, really change, your life and mine. It’s a supernatural change, not a superficial one. It’s a supernatural change. Confession, that’s agreeing with God. Repentance, that’s from the word renounce, renouncing.
Romans 12:2. Here’s what St. Paul said. You remember the Apostle Paul? The Apostle Paul, he was hurting Christians and messing around with the church, and he had this Damascus Road experience where he was power washed by the love and grace and mercy of the Lord. And here is what he wrote after he became a follower of Christ.
Romans 12:2. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind; then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, His good and pleasing and perfect will.”
That word transform, that word in Greek is the word metamorphosis. [Ed sings] “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky”– metamorphosis. Cooperate with the miracle of metamorphosis. Don’t try to fly, right, and be a butterfly by yourself.
Be transformed by the renewing, of your what? Of your mind. That’s interesting, your mind. It begins in the mind. The battlefield is in the mind.
So if we’re covering up, we’re not going to be thinking right. Have you ever met someone and you’re like man, they’re whack‑a‑doodle‑doo. They are totally and completely whack‑a‑doodle‑doo. It’s okay to say that. Well, if you’re thinking whack, you’re feeling whack. If you’re feeling whack, guess what, you’re whack‑a‑doodle‑doo. It’s not that hard.
A lot of people have stinking thinking. Their thinking is all jacked up. Well Romans 12:2 tells me if I uncover and allow God to cover me, my mind can be transformed, I will start thinking right. And when I think right, when I feed on the Word, then I will start acting right. And when I start acting right, I will start living and behaving right. Confession and repentance.
So often we sin retail and confess wholesale. We will sin specifically and confess generally. I challenge you to write out your prayers. And many times I look back at my journal, and I will see when I do the confession part my writing gets a little bit sloppy and small and I begin to kind of write real fast and I don’t want anyone to read it, you know. But when I’m asking for stuff—that’s in bold print, beautiful penmanship.
You begin, though, this daily confession; you begin this daily repentance, after you’ve been through the process of metamorphosis, you will not believe what will happen.
Well, you know what? I kind of left you hanging on David’s story. You might be going, “Why did David come clean? That is kind of strange. I mean, all of the sudden he is writing this Psalm and everything is tough and then all of the sudden he confessed. Why did he confess after a year of playing the cover up game?” Well you know what happened to David? David got Nathanized.
There was a guy that worked for him named Nathan and Nathan confronted him in love and said, “King, you’re in sin.” You’re talking about an encouraging sympathizer. Nathan empathized with him and spoke the truth in love. Not sympathize. David could have killed Nathan on the spot. He had squillions of dollars. He had all of this power. He could have just sent him out like that.
David, though, submitted. He received the truth, he confessed, he repented, and he began to do what God wanted him to do. Every time you come to church, every time I come to church, we’re all Nathanized, right? When we read Scripture, we’re Nathanized. And that’s why a lot of people here, especially the men here, we’re afraid to have quite time.
We’re afraid to get into the Word because we might get Nathanized. And we would rather live a life of comfort with the boys, the blaming and bunching up and being sinful sympathizers and living a lie as opposed to going, “You know what? I am going to uncover that. I am going to get out of that and I am going to move toward the people and the things that God wants me to move toward.”
What I’m talking about is the power of the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit of God is the first thing that Jesus does when he comes into your life and mine. The Holy Spirit is inside of us. The Holy Spirit will teach us. He will nudge us to do what is right. And those of you who are followers of Christ, you know what I’m talking about.
Let’s say you’re in an argument in marriage. Lisa and I never argue, but maybe you do. You’re in an argument and all of the sudden this voice, this Spirit hooks in with your spirit, and it says, not audibly, but you just know it, “What you’re doing right now is wrong. Confess and reconcile the relationship, ask for forgiveness.” That’s the Holy Spirit of God.
And you say in your mind, “No way. They’re wrong. They’re like 65 percent wrong, man. I’m not gonna swallow my pride and—”
We need to acquiesce to defer to him or not. You’re in a situation at the office or school, you have an opportunity to cheat, the exaggerate, to lie and part of you is like, “I can lie and get out of this. I can exaggerate. I can make myself look good. I could take credit for this idea, and it wasn’t my idea.”
And you begin to do it and the Holy Spirit goes, you go “Whoa! You’re getting ready to lie. You’re getting ready to exaggerate. You’re getting ready to falsify.”
What do you do? Do you defer to him, or do you just say, “You know what, I am going to lie. I am going to exaggerate.”
That’s how the Holy Spirit of God leads us and guides us. Where you’re going, the place you’re going, the Holy Spirit is telling you it doesn’t honor the Lord. “What are you doing walking in there? What are you doing buying a ticket to that? What? What?” We either all forget we need to do that or we defer to the Holy Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit of God will nudge us to the house of the Lord. He will convict us and tell us, “It is time to step up and step out and serve.”
That is why the Christian life is all about a walk. How do I walk? Well, I have to take a step to walk. The first step is the spiritual metamorphosis.
Every day I am stepping, I confess, I repent, I do what God wants me to do because as my mind is renewed, my thoughts will be renewed and then my behavior is renewed and then I will discover God’s good and perfect and pleasing will. Galatians 5:25, it says, “As we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” What a verse!
So really, the only thing that can block the Holy Spirit’s power in you and me is you and me. That’s it.
ILLUS: You’ve got an infection. The infection won’t go away. What do you do? You take some antibiotics. Have you ever been on a Z-pack before? I love the Z-pack.
Now when you start a Z-pack, don’t just start it, but you better finish it because I have made this mistake before. I have taken two or three for the first few days and left the others in the cute little pack and that infection has turned and hit me harder; it’s not a pretty sight when you don’t take all of the pills. So take all of your antibiotics. Take them all.
Don’t stop short and just say, “Okay Lord, I will confess. That’s enough. I have blown it. I feel sorry that I have messed up.”
Don’t stop there. Go to repentance, but don’t stop there. Do what God wants you to do. Walk by the Spirit of God and realize that God is changing you, because change comes from the inside out. It’s all about God, and it’s a decision followed by a process.
Now, next time, we’re going to tackle something that is very, very tough to talk about. “What happens when I begin to see the change that God makes in my life? What happens as I defer to the Holy Spirit of God? What happens as I listen to him?” Well, I will tell you what will happen.
All hell will break lose, because the devil is going to come after you and me because whenever you change, you have conflict. Yet, as you stay through the conflict; if you stay through the change, if you stay uncovered and walking in the covering of mercy and grace, you’ll have growth. Change, conflict, growth. That’s next time.
But here’s the good news: I can’t change, you can’t change. No one can truly change. Only God can change your life and mine.
Have you received that? Are you deferring to that? Are you walking in that? Because you have a choice, either living like this. Trying to walk through life covered; or like this, uncovered. I’ll choose like this any day. How about you?