St. John Studies

Change or Die

Nothing is more dramatic than being told you are going to die if you don’t change.

Chapter 9 deals with that.

Pastor Idleman tells of patients who suffer from heart disease and have had to undergo bypass surgery.  If you have had to go through this, it is very traumatic and costly and according to Chapter 9 statistics, 600,000 people go through it every year.

They are told by their doctor that they have been fixed temporarily, but they have to change their lifestyle or die.

Two years after the bypass, 90% have not changed a thing.

My dad was one of those.

What is a heart attack?  It is not much of a stretch to say it is the brutal honesty that Pastor Idleman has talked so much about in his book.  It is your body telling you that something is very wrong and you need to change.

Let’s take a look at your soul.

Say you have a list of behaviors you do in your life and you know they are wrong.

Will you have a soul attack?  Can a doctor do soul bypass surgery and repair your problem?  Sounds silly doesn’t it?  But is it?

What if God said, change or die?

What if we are one of the 90% and we don’t change?  What if we keep sinning over and over again?  Will God grow weary of our repeated disobedience?  Will he kill us?

No I don’t think so.  He does not have to kill us. He forgives us over and over.   Jesus was asked by the disciples how many times they needed to forgive someone. Jesus said, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:22).  We are choosing to kill ourselves and we are not experiencing the victory that God has promised to give us in our lives on earth.

“When believers are filled with (controlled by) the Spirit of God and the Word of God, God’s truth takes possession of a person’s mind and heart and we experience freedom.” (Warren Wiersbe, Being a Child of God)

I have never been to jail but sin is like a jail sentence you impose on yourself.  It is like locking yourself up.  When we sin and get away with it, you say, “Whew!  That was a close one but I got away!”  But you will sin again.  This is not freedom, to be trapped in a cycle of sin, knowing you will return to your transgression.  You can’t get away from it.  It has you captive.

What if God said you need to change or die?

What if the odds were as bad as the heart attack patients?

90%

What if nine out of ten of us can’t change.?

Poor odds indeed……….

You may be familiar with this story but it fits in well with Pastor Idleman’s Chapter 9 on Change….

There once lived a tailor name Zumbach who had a reputation for making the finest of clothing. He used only the best fabrics and he was especially known for his impeccable suits. One day a man named Sam walked into his shop and plopped down a large bundle of money in front of the famous tailor.

“I’ve always wanted to own one of your suits and I’ve been saving up for years. Is this enough money for you to make me a suit?” After carefully counting the money in front of him, Zumbach replied, “Yes, I could make you a suit.” “Wonderful!” said Sam, clapping his hands and smiling with delight. “First,” said Zumbach, “I need to take your measurements.” The nimble tailor took out his tape measure and proceeded to take Sam’s measurements, carefully recording every detail in a small notebook. Then together they picked out an elegant cloth from Zumbach’s fine selection.

“Come back in two weeks,” Zumbach said, “and the suit will be ready for you.” When the promised day came, Sam could barely contain his enthusiasm. He showed up at the tailor’s shop before it even opened. “Is my suit ready?” Sam asked Zumbach when he finally arrived. “Yes, of course.” said the tailor, “Come in. Here it is. Try it on.”

“It looks beautiful!” said Sam as he stepped into the suit. There was however, one problem. The suit didn’t fit. One leg was four inches shorter than the other, the sleeves were also of different length and the shoulders were several sizes too small. Sam was disappointed and angry. “Zumbach, what have you done to my beautiful suit? You’ve ruined it!”

“Nonsense” said Zumbach. “There’s nothing wrong with the suit. You’re just not wearing it properly.” “Not wearing it properly?” asked Sam incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

“Here,” said Zumbach, “let me show you. Just bend your left knee a little more. Yes! That’s good. Now pull your right arm up two inches and bend your elbow. Perfect! Now one more thing; raise your shoulders up so that they’re almost touching your ears. Just like that! Beautiful! You see? The suit fits you perfectly! Look in the mirror. You look like a million bucks!”

Sam took a look. He had to admit that the suit did seem to fit better now that he was wearing it properly although somehow it still didn’t feel quite right. He paid Zumbach for the suit, shook his hand, and left the shop to catch a bus back to his apartment. As he stepped on the bus, the driver smiled at him and said, “That must be a Zumbach suit that you’re wearing.” “Yes,” said Sam, smiling with pride. “How did you know?’ “Because,” said the driver, “only the gifted Zumbach could make a suit for a man whose body is as crippled and misshapen as yours.”*

As we consider real change, let’s admit the high cost of fitting in.  Many of us spend our lives twisting ourselves into shapes and postures to make us acceptable to others.

But what happens when God says to us, “It’s time for you to deal with your problems now, and I mean it.”

You may be standing alone.

Can you do it?

You may have to cast off your cares for others because others may be challenged by your efforts to change.  Many people are very comfortable living lives of mediocrity.  They make accommodations in order to fit in and not upset the status quo.  But God is calling you in a different direction.  He wants you to mature beyond the problems which are holding you back in your life.

Others won’t understand.   They don’t feel your zeal to change, in fact your zeal makes them feel bad because they don’t feel it and they know it and they wonder why.  In short, your efforts to live a life in response to the Holy Spirit makes others recognize that they lack something in their lives.

Change takes courage, the courage to go your own way, the courage to do what is right, the courage to listen to God, not man.

Is it time to quit twisting yourself into uncomfortable positions just so you can fit in?

Is it time to be the person the God intended you to be?

Is it time to deal with your crippled and misshapen efforts at life and put on the suit you were intended to wear?

*From Linda and Charlie Bloom May 2, 2012 “Stronger in the Broken Places Blog”

Romans 7:15-24 New International Version (NIV)

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.   For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

As Pastor Idleman spends this week in Chapter 9 urging us to change, it is best to pay attention to the biggest barrier to change—our human nature.  The revealing words above by Paul “hit the nail on the head.”

Paul, the man who persecuted Christians became an apostle after God called him to spread the Christian word;  Paul knew change….yet he found he still struggled.

As do we.

There is nothing worse than a person who makes strides in becoming a better person only to “act out”.  The feeling is utter defeat.  Why have I done this?

Reference Romans 7:15-24.

None of us humans is perfect and if you are trying to be, you had better wise up.

Now let’s don’t go backward to the chapters about excuses.  You know the one about not being able to look into the mirror, denial, projection and minimization.

Let’s move forward.

Accept the fact that we are going to stumble from time to time.  It is no excuse.  It is reality.  Even though the stumble occurs, don’t wallow in it.  Accept it.  Get back up and move forward.

Sounds like Paul is really upset in Romans doesn’t it?  I bet he is, but I bet he did not stay upset very long.

Acts 20: 24 “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me–the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”

I don’t think a man who is wallowing in self-pity would write Acts 20: 24.

Do you?

I’m 63.  My dad lived to 91.  His sister lived to 85.  Another sister is still alive and doing well at 99.  Another brother is in his 80’s.

Possibly longevity is in my genes.  One never knows.  The inevitable bus may run me over tomorrow.

However, let’s say I have a shot at 30 more years.

How do I want to live them?

It is inevitable that the body will run down.  Bodies are not made to last forever.  However, I want to maximize how my body will function.

How will I do this?

You know, the “ex” word.

Pastor Idleman uses exercise as an example extensively in Chapter 9.  As we are young, we can put off exercise forever…….

As we get older, it is a different story.

You know the statistics.  Thirty-five percent of Americans are obese, which makes us the fattest country in the world.  Kentucky is ranked 47 out of 50 for most obese.

Maybe you have had a time in your life when you felt “out of shape.”  Maye that time is now.  When did you realize it?  When those pants no longer fit?  When you saw yourself in one of those mirrors in the dress shop, you know the ones that give you a side view.  When you last weighed?  Or how about the last time you tried to get up from the couch and you had to have some help.  The signs go on and on and they are not happy signs.

But they are real.

What did you do?

To my knowledge, the first thing you need to do is to start an age appropriate exercise regimen.  The second thing to do is change your diet.

It is not easy.   Exercise is no fun.  It hurts.  It is time consuming.  It is boring.

Diet change is not fun.  Where to start?  Low carbs?  Plant-based?  Atkins?  Nutrisystem?  It can be overwhelming.

Pastor Idleman uses exercise as an example because we can all relate to it.  I have felt a lack of energy.  I have seen my weight go up.  I have seen that sideways glance and it makes me unhappy.  Clothes that once fit, fit no more and the little-used scale is a “no-man’s land.”

Yes, exercise and diet change is a personal thing and no one likes to talk about it but when the Prodigal Son was ready to make a change in Luke 15, the Bible says in verse 20 “so he got up and went to his father.”

For our change, most of us need to say: “so we got up off of the couch.”

You knew it was going to happen; the call to action.

We have been discussing all the reasons that we need to wake up to our condition in Chapters 1 through 4.

We have been discussing all the benefits of being honest with ourselves and the ways we avoid honesty in Chapters 5 through 8.

Let me tell you, knowing that we need to wake up to the state that we are in and undergoing an honest evaluation of our condition does not mean that we will act.

In fact for almost all of us, it stops right there.  Nothing happens

That is so sad.

How does this happen?

Change is hard; we have to do something different, we have to commit, we have to think of a new path.

Life beats us down; we have too many efforts and too many failures.

We just don’t have a rock hard conviction.  We are having feelings but they are not strong enough to lead to anything.

Others have convinced you that you are what you are and that is all you will ever be.

You think that change will disrupt others and you don’t want to disturb those around you.

You use that old adage “I have to die from something,” if change is a health change like stop smoking, exercise or eating better.

You have accepted your role and if things are ok, you are satisfied with ok.  You don’t want to try for good, great, or super.

You are afraid that change means risking what you have and you don’t want to lose it.

You say “maybe this is the tops for me.”

You just don’t know the next step.  You have the feeling of needing to change but you don’t have the how part worked out.  You don’t know how to take the next step.

I see this all throughout society today.  People who have given up.  They are going through the motions in life.

My pastor, Pastor Janet Carden, preached on this very thing today.  Christians who need to be “born again.”  You have a routine.  You go to Sunday School, you go to church, you go out to eat after church, you take a nap after church blah, blah, blah.  Everything is the same.  Prayers become rote.  Your effort at singing becomes lifeless.  You see the same people every Sunday and say the same things.  God needs to infuse us with something new.

We need a change.

Pastor Idleman keeps coming back to the Prodigal Son story in Luke.

What finally happened to the Prodigal Son?  He strayed so far from his family, his father and he was at the “end of his string.”  He was so down in life that he was ready to live and eat with the pigs that his father owned.

But…

“He got up and went to his father.”

He changed.

As we suffer through the winter of 2015, we wonder if spring will ever arrive.

I look out the window in my office and I see the same white scenery I have seen since February 15.  The snow came in large amounts and it has lingered.  Now it is just hanging on due to the cold weather.

How about a springtime story?

Pastor Idleman gives us one in Chapter 8 when he talks about the yardman.  He moved into a neighborhood once and he found himself surrounded by homes and yards where the neighbors did not care about their lawns.  The weeds were springing up, the yards were not mowed on a regular basis and there was little landscaping.

Everything was ok because he was not much of a yardman himself.  He had plenty of stuff to do in his life to fill up his days.  Pulling weeds was not high on his list of priorities.

Then it all changed.

A new neighbor moved in and he had a green thumb.  This guy spent hours in the yard, planting, mowing and trimming.  This person was good at landscape design and he had a sense of color and beauty that was amazing.

What happened in the neighborhood?

Other yards began to pale in comparison.

The new guy set a higher standard.

Pastor Idleman did not feel content to let his yard go anymore.  He felt the need to try a little harder to keep his property looking better.

I bet this story is something you can relate to.

As spring begins to melt the snow and plants begin to sprout from the thawing ground, what are you going to do with your yard, especially those weeds in your yard?

Are you not going to even look at the mess that you call a lawn?  Are you going to deny that a problem exists?  Are you going to blame the problem on your bad back, lazy spouse or rebellious kids?  Are you going to nap on that couch and say, “it is no big deal?”

Well the Yardman has moved into the neighborhood and He has set a higher standard.

As we move into Chapter 9 next week, maybe we all need to get off that couch and take action….

As I read Chapter 8, I began to consider levels of sin.  Years ago, I taught Sunday School from a book by Jerry Bridges called Respectable Sins.  His premise was that Christians today have become so preoccupied with the major sins of our society that they have lost sight of our need to deal with our own more subtle sins.

Does God have a sliding scale for sin?

Are some sins more serious than others?

Bridges lists the following sins as the more “subtle” sins that we often excuse: living an ungodly life, which means not thinking about God as we go through our day.  Others are anxiety, frustration, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience, irritability, anger, judgmentalism, envy, jealousy, sins of the tongue and worldliness.

Bridges calls these the sins of the believers.  These sins are excused and in the context of Chapter 8, probably minimized.  Do we need to deal with them?

You bet!

I think what may be going on here is the “Jerry Springer” mentality.  If you have seen this sparkling example of television art, Mr. Springer brings guests on his show who have major problems.  Many Christians would say they have done some serious sinning.   They reveal anti-social behavior on the show which naturally leads viewers to compare their behavior to the Springer guests.  I can imagine that many folks say “I have problems but at least I don’t have as many as that person!” What are we doing when we do that?  We are justifying our behavior and minimizing our sins.

Should we do this?  I don’t think so.

Pastor Idleman has what he calls an “old saying” in Chapter 8:  “Sin will always take you further than you want to go.  Sin will always cost you more than you want to pay.  Sin will always keep you longer than you want to stay.”

Remember Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”

Face up to the sin.  Don’t minimize it.  Deal with it.  There is nothing “respectable” about sin.

We all want to live a stress free life and granted, too many of us [certainly me included] make too big of a deal out of little things but do you see minimization as a problem in your life?

Do you hide from your sins through minimization, saying it is ok, or no problem and you do have problems that need to be addressed?

What is the connection between denial, projection and minimization?  Is there a common thread between these psychological defense mechanisms?

Be honest, why do we give in so easily to these defense mechanisms?

Why is honesty such hard work?

What is the payoff for honesty?

In the Bible in Jonah 3, read it.  What the Ninevites did in response to Jonah’s prophecy is a lesson.  What can we learn from their response?

Throughout AHA Pastor Idleman keeps referring to the Prodigal Son as an example of a Biblical character who has problems of his own making, problems that take him far from his father, problems that take him far from God.

A lot of the Prodigal’s problems have resulted in severe relational difficulties.  Take a few minutes and watch the embedded video of a “prodigal type” situation and think about work you need to do with your relationships.  Do you need to get to work?

Years ago, I heard of a church that did not want the whole truth.

The pastor was using words like sin, sinner, hell and punishment in his weekly sermons.

This was not sitting too well with the congregation.

They wanted words like grace, hope and acceptance in their sermons.

They were at an impasse.  The pastor said he was not going to change.  The church said they were not happy with his sermons.

You know what happened.  He moved on to another church, hopefully to a church that could accept his blunt message.

Pastor Idleman speaks of Jonah.  Jonah did not sugarcoat his sermons.  God sent Jonah to confront the people of Nineveh with their impending destruction.  Jonah did what God asked.  He said to the people “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

Guess what.  They believed.  They embraced his warning and they changed.  God responded with compassion and grace.

So often this is not the case.  Jeremiah was another prophet who had a message to a backsliding people, Judah.  The people of Judah are stubborn and they have rebellious hearts.  Jeremiah’s message is that the people must wash the evil from their hearts.

It won’t be easy.

Even if they try to scrub themselves with soda and soap, the stain will not be removed.  If Ethiopians can change their skin and leopards can change their spots maybe they can change their ways.  That is not going to happen.  Jeremiah says that the sin has been written with an iron pen and engraved with a diamond point.  It is not going away.

In short, their deceitful heart is sick.

What is their only hope?  God.  Only God can change the people.  Nothing they can do as humans will clean up their mess.

What will not help?  Responses like “I’m sure it won’t be that bad,  there is plenty of time to turn this around or I am sure things will get better” are not going to help.  Making a serious problem less of a problem is not the way to go [minimization].

“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

Embrace the truth; don’t fire the preacher and say “it’s going to be ok.”

Embracing the truth is the way to experience God’s compassion and grace.

Pastor Idleman tells many tales of people who minimize their actions as a defense mechanism against the guilt of their sin but as a Sunday school teacher, I want to share some information from Pastor Warren Wiersbe that fits in well with Chapter 8 of AHA.  Pastor Wiersbe has a list of “Immortal Lies” from his book Being a Child of God.

He begins his list with a quote from Mark Twain who said “that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.”

“God doesn’t really mean what he says” is one of the oldest lies ever told [back to The Garden].  God’s rules are pretty evident in The Bible but somehow people want to find a way around them.  Have you ever argued with someone and they used the “that’s your interpretation” defense?  What that defense is, is just an excuse for them doing what they want to do.

“I can get away with it” is a lie based on contemporary society where people think they can lie, cheat, steal and even murder and not suffer consequences.  God does sometimes delay executing a just sentence to give people time to repent and people will use this delay to sin even more.  One can never know when God will lose patience and call for an accounting.  When that happens, we will not “get away with it.”

“I’ll only do it once” is the approach satan used with Jesus.  Satan told Jesus that he could have the world if He would fall down and worship satan.  It is based on the old Lays Potato Chip slogan, “can you just eat one?”  Can you really just eat one and stop?

“Everybody’s doing it” is the bandwagon fallacy.   It is reasoning through justification.  Since the whole world is involved in this sin, it must be right.  First of all, can one prove that everyone is doing the sin?  Secondly, just because a large number of people are sinning, does that make it right?  I don’t think so.

“I can make up for it somewhow” is the idea that sin only hurts the one who is commiting it.  No matter how much you argue this, you can never know what you are doing to your family, friends and neighbors through your sinning.  Pastor Wiersbe tells a tale of his youth.  He was walking downtown in his community one night with his parents and they passed by a tavern.  Two men were arguing on the street.  One was saying “don’t go in there.  Think of your family.  Think about what you are going to do to them!”  The other man did not listen.  He went in, saying “I’ll make it up to them somehow.”  Pastor Wiersbe says that “the idea that the consequences of deliberate sin can be wiped out by gifts and the memory forgotten was born in hell.”  We never sin alone; what we do always involves others.

Lastly, “nobody will know about it” is the lie of character.  Everyone knows we have a reputation.  That is based on public behavior, what everyone sees us do in our public lives.  Character is what you do “behind closed doors” and minimizers have the attitude that if I don’t get caught, I have not sinned.  Well God knows about it and you know you have sinned.  Pastor Wiersbe says today’s added commandment is “thou shalt not get caught.”  In other words, until a person is caught, no sin has been committed.

In Chapter 8, Pastor Idleman focuses on minimization as a way to deal with sin, but what he is really saying is that people who minimize don’t pay enough attention to the erosion of their character.  Erosion is most often a slow process of removing soil and rock from one location to another by the steady movement of water over the surface of the earth.  It is hard to see because we can’t stand over the surface and watch for long periods of time.  However, what happens when we leave a location and return days later to the eroded location?  The ground has changed. The consequences have caused change.

The imortal lies have taken their toll.