17 Jan Change or Die | Part 2 “The Challenge and Confidence to Change”

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February 4-9 we are organizing a work weekend at our Florida Campus.  If you can, come down and help.  We will have a church watch party, watch the Super Bowl together, canvas the neighborhood, have a First Tuesday on the Monday and do some painting, building and landscaping!

Key Verse: Romans 7

Romans 7:14-24; Romans 8:1-4

Icebreaker: Talk about an instance this week where you knew you shouldn’t do something or say something and you did it anyway.  (For example: debate about politics, instigated an argument, stayed in a poisonous relationship)

When it comes to change, in that moment we want to change, there will be challenges and roadblocks that will get in the way.  In the scriptures, Paul records his challenges in trying to do what is right but constantly fails.

Discuss Pastor Tim’s terra cotta pot illustration: Man comes from dirt. Apart from God/salvation we come from dust. The word of God going into us is like a seed. If the seed just sits on the top of the dirt it just sits there.  God opens your heart and gets the ground opened up and drops the seed into the soil.  But something has to sprout out of the dirt.  Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God.

Q: What are some ways can you allow the seed of salvation to sprout in your life? Have you been intentional this week in doing so? (John 7:38)

Saul/Paul’s transformation:

Acts 9:8 (ESV) Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Life group leaders this is a good time to remind your members and discuss FASTING and PRAYER – January 31st – February 2

Even after Paul’s transformation, he still struggled with sin.  The scriptures referenced below, remind us we still sin, and we mess up (to quote Pastor Tim, “We’re jacked up.”)

Romans 2:14–15 (NLT) Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. 15 They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.

The best non-Christians can do is to live a life according to their conscience.

3 things non-believers do with their conscience:

Follow their conscience and feel good about themselves

Disregard or ignore conscience and feel dejected

Drown their conscience and suppress their feelings

Romans 7:12 (ESV) the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Romans 7:7–8 (ESV) What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

If we listen to what God tells us to do we tend to do the opposite.  The law provokes the sin inside us and into disobedience.  Sin hates God and it hates His law.

Romans 7:9 (ESV) I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

Romans 7:14 (NLT) So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.

America will tell you you need the right politician.  Educators will tell you you need more information, friends will tell you you need more things, family will tell you you need to be married and have children.  All those things are external.  They cannot change you and there is One who can and it is Jesus.  He sets you free from your slavery from sin.

Q: What are some things you might be currently thinking that will help change you?  Or things you thought in the past could change you? For example was it more education, relationships, marriage, children, job, material things etc.

The Challenge to Change:

1. I CAN’T change.

Romans 7:15 (ESV) For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Galatians 5:17 (NIV) For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

The Christian is not FULL of SIN, the Christian is not FULL of RIGHTEOUSNESS, the Christian is FULL of CONFLICT.

A. KNOWING WHAT I SHOULD DO doesn’t HELP me do what I should do.

Romans 7:14 (NLT) So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.

B. WANTING TO DO what is right doesn’t HELP me do what is right.

Romans 7:18 (ESV) For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.

C. TRYING HARDER doesn’t HELP me do what is right.

Romans 7:19 (ESV) For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Romans 7:20 (ESV) Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

Romans 7:21–23 (ESV) So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

There is a sin-nature inside of us that will not stop fighting against us. We’re trapped, and we can’t get out.

Q: Can you relate to Paul in Romans?  What are some areas in your life you KNEW, WANTED and are TRIED HARDER to do or change but failed?

The Confidence to Change:

2. God has SET the TABLE for MY CHANGE

Romans 7:24 (ESV) Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

A. The VERDICT is IN: Not GUILTY.

Romans 8:1 (ESV) There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV) For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

We can’t ever change if we feel like there is a debt we owe God, or we need to make things right. We need to speak against the enemy and tell him that God has freed us. Tell the enemy he is a liar, that Jesus Christ loves us and saved us, and He has the final word in our life.

Godly grief is over what sin does between us and God.

Worldly grief is over what sin does to us.  (2 Corinthians 7:10)  This is a great point to discuss as a group and ask if anyone wants to share a time in their life that they had an “Aha” moment or realization of the difference in godly/worldly grief.

B. The SPIRIT comes in: He EMPOWERS me. 

Romans 8:2 (ESV) For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

Acts 9:17 (ESV) So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

When we feel tempted, or feel like we’re getting back into that mess in our life,  say, “Holy Spirit help me.”  The Holy Spirit does not give up on us and enables us to resist temptation and walk in righteousness.  We as believers are led by the Spirit.

Romans 6:17-18 (ESV) Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

C. COMPLETION is CERTAIN: God is FINISHING me.

Romans 8:3–4 (ESV) For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 (ESV) Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

God is able to empower us to live the life we can’t live on our own.  God is working on us step by step, level by level. We are all in a process of change.

Q: We’re all in the process of changing something in our life, and it may have been already mentioned in our discussion.  But are there some areas in your life that you are still in the process of trying to change?  How can we as a small group pray for you?

(Circle back to Pastor Tim’s terra cotta pot illustration)

The seed is in the dirt. We need to get some Sun: The Son and behold the face of Jesus.  We need to get some Rain: The Holy Spirit and ask for Him to come into us. Over time the sprout will come up from the old rotten dirt, and the Lord will do something beautiful in you and through you.  He doesn’t save you to get you to Heaven.  He saves you to change you.

He is committed to the process.