Change is in the air
I. What is change?
a. Change simply means doing, acting, thinking, feeling or looking different.
b. I am doing this…now I’m not. (Continue with acting, thinking… etc.)
II. Is change good or bad?
a. It depends on the way you look at it.
b. Change our oil, that’s good.
c. Bad habits-good
d. Good habits-bad
e. Hairstyles-Good and bad
f. Underwear-Always good
g. In my case when they changed my name after I went into the witness protection program-good
h. When they gave me a job as a preacher-bad
III. Change is usually for the better
a. Before you are a Christian you live your life in chaos.
b. After you become a Christian, your life still has bumps, but the good Lord gives you better shocks.
c. When you become a Christian the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within you. That is a change from Doritos and Pepsi usually dwelling within you. And that is a good change.
IV. Change is good, but what are we talking about changing?
a. In order to get a better understanding of what we can change, it is easier to define what we cannot change.
b. God- Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 1:12, Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17.
c. Scripture- In John 10:35 Jesus said, “And the scripture cannot be broken”. In 2 Timothy 3:16 we read, “All scripture is God breathed…”
d. Death, taxes, and Perry county law enforcement.
e. In other words two things cannot be changed, and if there is anything else that will conflict with these two things then it should not be changed.
V. What is the nature of change to humans?
a. Not very good.
b. I must admit it is hard for me to change too. El Mariachi Loco.
c. Humans more or less are resistant to change. Why?
d. We don’t want to get out of our comfort zone.
e. I disagreed with getting real comfortable pews. You’ll get too comfortable. You’ll go to sleep. That’s why we have this nice thickly padded comfortable alter up here.
VI. Is change necessary?
a. To find out the answer to that question let’s search the unchangeable scriptures.
b. Matthew 18:3 says, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
c. So Jesus himself has called us to change. He has called us to become like little children so that we may enter the kingdom of Heaven.
d. Psalm 131, Luke 18:17 (teachable),
VII. How can we change the things that we see need changing?
a. First we must take a look at ourselves.
b. Are we approaching this situation right, and for the right reasons?
c. Remember I’ve told you before that every decision we make should revolve around our one solid premise that being Matthew 28:19.
d. So we must be simplistic
e. Second we must be teachable. Children learn at such an amazing rate. If we want to change things we must be willing to learn all we can before we change.
f. Third we must be active. Jesus himself gives us an example of this in Mark 11:15-17.
g. Think of all the people before who had wondered why the people would do such horrible things, why they would try to make the house of God a place to get rich off of the poor.
h. But Jesus was the one to be active. He did something about it.
i. He didn’t just complain about it like the rest of them. He saw the problem and he fixed it. I know too often we get caught up in complaining about problems, when if we really cared we should be working to fix the problems.
VIII. Change begins when you make the decision to begin. Change begins by being simplistic, teachable and active.
