Sunday August 24, 2008

Making Changes: The Road to Recovery – Part 5
Philippians 4:8-9

Original message by Rick Warren – used by permission and modified by Kelly Cohoe

I. Review

Last week we began our look at step five in our road to recovery. This step which uses the letter “V” (the fifth letter) in
the word recovery stands for “Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in my life and humbly ask Him to remove my character defects.”

This is based on Romans 12:1-2: “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. 2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into
a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (NLT)

This passage addresses God’s desire to transform us into the people He created us to be.

As we looked at allowing God to bring the changes we need in our lives we began by asking, “Where do our character defects come from?”

Most of our character defects come from three sources: our chromosomes, our circumstances, and our choices.

Essentially, we inherit certain dispositions from our parents (but this does not gives us a license to sin), we are impacted through our family and social upbringing, and we tend to make bad choices that turn into bad habits.

The second question I asked was, “Why is it so hard to change the hurts, habits, and hang-ups in our lives?”

In response I shared the following:

   1. Because we have had them so long.

   2. Because we often confuse our defects with our identity.

   3. Because there is a payoff.

   4. Because Satan constantly seeks to discourage us.

It was at this point, after listening to Harry’s testimony that we had to stop.

But there is still one more extremely important question we need to look at and that is, “How do we cooperate with
God’s change process in our lives?”

II. Cooperating with God’s Change Process

Our passage in Romans 12 says: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Your thoughts are your auto-pilot in life. If you want to change your life, you’ve got to change the way you think.

You may try to change your behavior, but trying to change your behavior without changing the way you think is like constantly swimming against the current.

You can do it for awhile, but in time you just get too tired and give up, because by will power you’re going the opposite
way that you’re naturally inclined to go.

Pretty soon you get tired and start heading back down the stream.

We can make resolutions and by sheer willpower force ourselves to change our behavior. But soon we get tired and go
off the diet, start smoking again, and acting the way I’ve always done.

If you want to change, you’ve got to change the flow of the stream and that is done when you change the way you think.

If we want freedom from our hurts, habits and hang-ups, if we want to be transformed into the people God created us to
be, we must first have a change of heart (which I believe most of you have experienced on some level).

But a change of heart is just the beginning – now we must go through the grueling process of having our minds transformed.

Trust me, if you continue to be conformed to the thinking of this world you will not experience the blessing of a transformed life. You can say you love Jesus and that He is your Lord and Savior, but your thinking will still keep you in bondage.

So, let us look at seven ways to change your mind so you can cooperate with the way God wants to change you and
make you into the person He created you to be.

   1. Focus on changing one issue at a time.

Proverbs 17:24 says, “An intelligent person aims at wise action but a fool starts off in many directions.” (GNT)

If you try to change everything at once, you will get discouraged and you won’t change anything.

You must be specific.

Pray and ask God to show you what He would like to work on first in your life.

Don’t just pray, “God, I’d like to be a better person.”

That in itself can be denial. You’ve got to be specific.

Go back and get your moral inventory that you made in Step 4. Go down that list and say, “God which of these is
damaging my life the most?” Let Him start working on that. You must work on one issue at a time. Otherwise it
doesn’t work.

   2. Focus on victory one day at a time.

Matthew 6:11 does not say, “Give us this month our daily bread.” No, it says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Why? Because we experience God’s victory in the moment.

You don’t need the victory tomorrow or next week – you need the victory now. When tomorrow comes it will be now
and in that moment we rely on the Lord for victory.

You take a lifetime problem (you didn’t get it overnight—that hurt, hang-up, habit) and you work on it one day at a
time, relying on God’s strength.

When you get up in the morning you cry out to God, “Lord, just for this day, I want to be patient; just for today, I
want to think pure thoughts; just for today, I don’t want to lose my temper; just for today, I want to be positive instead
of negative.”

This keeps you from making any rash vows. (“I promise to never do it again, clear into eternity.”) You’re doomed to failure if you say that.

The Message Bible says, “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up
about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when
the time comes.” (Matthew 6:34)

We want instant spiritual maturity. One day I’m a total mess, the next, I’m Luis Palau – but it doesn’t happen that way.

True life change is a process that occurs one day at a time. Don’t set a deadline for yourself: “I’m going to lick this thing
by this date.” No, just work on it one day at a time.

You’ll work this step and all of the other steps in the recovery series for the rest of your life.

At night thank God for whatever change or victory you experienced, no matter how small, and over time you will
experience the life-changing power of a transformed mind.

   3. Focus on God’s power, not my willpower.

You already know willpower isn’t enough. If willpower worked, you’d already be changed. But you haven’t, so you can’t.

In fact, depending on your own strength blocks recovery in your life. When you say, “I can work it out, I can handle it, I can do it all myself. Really, I’m fine. This is not a big problem.”
When you say – then what?
Well, it is a big problem, because you’ve still got it.

And we know resolutions don’t work. Pretty soon you get tired and let go.

God says, “Forget it – you’ll never change in your own willpower.”

But, here’s the good news: “I can master anything with the help of Christ who gives me strength.” So you pray, “Lord, I know I can’t change on my own power, but I’m trusting You to take away this defect in my character.”

Think about it. What are you working on first? Your temper?

Imagine taking your temper out, opening up the garbage can, and putting your temper in the garbage. Then you put the
lid on the top and set the garbage can out by the road. The garbage truck comes up that says: “Father, Son and Spirit, Incorporated.” Jesus sends out the Holy Spirit who picks up the garbage, dumps it in the truck and speeds off to heaven.

God, I’m throwing my anger in the trash can again. I’m throwing my ________ in the trash can.

The only problem is, I have to have garbage delivery about every hour, not weekly. “God, it’s going into the garbage,”
and then you let God take it away. Willpower doesn’t work. You trust God’s power, not your own. He can help you
master it.

   4. I focus on what God wants, not on what I don’t want.

“Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious — the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise,
not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that,
and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.”
(Philippians 4:8-9, The Message)

Whatever you focus on is what dominates your life. If you focus on the bad, it will keep dominating your life. If you focus
on what you have been, it will keep dominating your life. If you focus on what you can be and what God wants to be in
your life, then you move that way.

Whatever has your attention, has you. If you say, “I’m not going to think about sex, I’m not going to think about
sex …” What are you thinking about? Sex.

The Bible teaches us to refocus our minds.

If you’re watching a bad show on TV you don’t say, “I’m not going to watch this, I’m not going to watch this …” No,
you just turn the channel.

You turn your focus away from your sin to what God wants to do in your life. This is the power of affirming the Word of God. There are over 7,000 promises in the Bible. Probably the most helpful discipline you could develop is learning to memorize Scripture. Memorize one a week; by the end of the year you’ll have 52 verses memorized.

They are in your mind so you can use them to counteract the negative thoughts that the devil and other people give
you. You fill your mind with God’s Word.

Did you know that every time you think a positive thought, every time you think a Scripture truth, every time you think
any thought, it makes an electrical impulse across your brain? Every time you think the same thought it reinforces that
brain pattern.

Some of you have negative ruts in your mind because you’ve thought them over and over and over. The only way to get
rid of negative ruts is to think God’s Word over and over and over.

But many of you have more of these negative thoughts than you do positive, because you haven’t spent much time in
the Word.

But if the Word of God is in your heart then every time the devil says, “You can’t change,” you say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Or the devil may say, “Who do you think you are? You’re worthless.” And what do you say? (Ask for an answer.) “There
is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

You’ll never break out of this and you ought to be afraid of what’s going to happen in your life.”—“There is no fear in
love, because perfect love casts out all fear.”

You keep repeating the positive over and over until finally it’s like every time you put a pebble on this side it gets a little heavier and one day the table is going to turn and you’ll have more positive than negative and you will be free. You’ll be
free. God wants to do that in your life. If you focus not on what you don’t want but what you do want.

   5. Focus on doing good, not feeling good.

“So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves.”
(Galatians 5:16, NLT)

If you do the right thing, your feelings will eventually catch up with you. If you wait until you feel like changing, you’ll never change. The devil will make sure you’ll never feel like it.

It’s always easier to act your way into a feeling than to feel your way into an action.

Do the right thing – don’t worry about feeling the right thing.
Any time you start trying to change a major part of your life – a major character defect, flaw, personality
weakness – anytime you start trying to make a major change, it’s not going to feel very good at the start. In fact, it
will feel very awkward. In fact, it will feel bad, for a while.

Why? Because it won’t feel normal. You’re so used to feeling abnormal, normal doesn’t feel normal. So you won’t feel
real good when you start making the changes.

   6. Focus on people who help me, not hinder me, in making these positive changes I want to make in my life.

The right kind of people will help you. The wrong kind of people will hinder, prevent your recovery.

The Bible says, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). In other words, if you don’t want to
get stung, you stay away from the bees.

If you’re struggling with alcoholism you don’t say, “I think I’ll go down to the bar and eat some peanuts.” Bad idea.

On the other hand, the Bible says, “Two are better than one and a threefold cord is not easily broken”
(Ecclesiastes 4:9). When you have help from another person, when one person falls the other can help him up.

Recovery always happens in relationship, never on your own. You’ll never recover just listening to a series of six or eight messages. It happens when you’re with other people.

Let me give you an example, a few weeks ago we talked about building a moral inventory list.

I am sure when you left church that day that many of you had every intention of making that list. But you didn’t. The
people who did it are those who are in relationship with someone else who asked them, “Did you do it? No? Let’s sit
down and do it.”

That is why we are starting Celebrate Recovery. We want to set aside every Friday evening from 7:30-9:00 pm to encourage each other because we won’t make it on our own.

7. Focus on progress, not perfection.

Transformation is a decision followed by a process. And God who starts His work in you will bring it to completion.

“And so we are transfigured…our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives
and we become like him.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, The Message)

Some of you are thinking that God will only love me once I hit a certain stage, once I get to a certain perfection. Wrong.
God loves you at each stage in your perfection and in your growth. God will never love you any more than He already
does right now. He will never love you any less than He does right now. As a father I look at my kids.

I didn’t expect my seven-year-old to act like a seventeen-year-old.

It’s the direction of your heart that says, “God I want to voluntarily submit to the changes You want to make in my
life. I humbly ask you to remove those character defects.” Now God doesn’t start changing you until you are ready for
the change.

That means you “Voluntarily submit to every change God wants to make in your life and humbly ask Him to remove
your character defects.”