CHANGE YOUR LIFE
December 31, 2006 • By Ed Wrather
CHANGE YOUR LIFE
SW12.31.06am
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. - Romans 12:1-2
Are you happy with your life? If I were to ask each of you individually that question what would you say? Knowing you as I do - I think that all of you are reasonably happy with your lives. There may be some things that you would change but not much. Having said that - there are, however, millions of people, possibly billions of people that are not that happy with their lives.
Have you heard of “Second Life”? It is an Internet community which appears to me to be for people who are not happy with their lives in the real world. Here is what the “Second Life” website says about it:
“Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 2,260,866 people from around the globe.”
“From the moment you enter the World
you'll discover a vast digital continent, teeming with people, entertainment, experiences and opportunity. Once you've explored a bit, perhaps you'll find a perfect parcel of land to build your house or business.”
“You'll also be surrounded by the creations
of your fellow residents. Because residents retain the rights to their digital creations, they can buy, sell and trade with other residents.”
The Marketplace currently supports millions of US dollars in monthly transactions. This commerce is handled with the in-world currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online currency exchanges.”
Second Life has been so successful financially that the IRS is making plans to monitor and tax financial transactions taking place through the Second Life Internet community. Dan Miller, senior economist for the Congressional Joint Economic Committee says, “You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there’s no mechanism by which you’re taxed on this stuff.” Think about this: In Second Life up to $500,000 in user-to-user transactions take place every day, and the economy is growing by 10 to 15 percent a month. Game designer Sam Lewis, who trained as an economist says, “Ownership, property rights, all that stuff needs to be decided. There’s just too much money floating around. The tax laws don’t know how to behave because these are virtual items: ones and zeros on a database we’re allowing you to play in.”
I think you can see what I am getting at. There are millions of people who have begun to work and play in what is essentially an imaginary, make believe world. For the vast majority of them they have entered into this virtual world because of their unhappiness with their real lives.
Over the next few Sundays I plan to share with you why we need to change our lives, how to change our lives, how to continue the change, and how to finish well. Why, you are probably thinking do I need to change if I am happy with my life? Because you are not the only one involved. The rest of us are involved as well. What you do and what I do affects everyone else. But the most important reason to change our lives is - if God wants you to change. Have you asked God recently if He is happy with the way that you are living your life? If you were to ask God if He is happy with your life - what would He say?
Part of the idea for this message came from reading an article in Prevention Magazine (January 2007). On the cover of the magazine is the lure of “#1 Food To Drop From Your Diet.” Now who wouldn’t want to know the #1 Food to drop from your diet? Inquiring minds want to know these things and I apparently have an inquiring mind so I read the article. Do any of you know what the #1 food is to drop from your diets? Trans-Fats. I knew they were bad but I did not realize just how bad they were.
We’ve heard about them recently because of the news about New York City banning trans-fats from restaurants and eateries. In New York City all trans-fats must be removed by July 2008. On the surface it appears to be a somewhat drastic thing to do and the first reaction of many of us is “Who are they to tell us what we can eat or not eat?”
We’ve all pondered over the past years why there has been such an epidemic of health problems with continually escalating rates of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s and dementia. This article that I read put it into perspective for me. Amy O’Connor who wrote the article asks, “…how much damage could a little man-made fat do?” Amy quotes Jeffrey Aron, a medical doctor and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco who says, “Emerging data strongly suggests that cancer and dementia are made worse by trans fats. Putting trans fats into your body is like dropping fine grains of sand into a Swiss watch. Eventually the system shuts down.” In response to that Amy said, “My body may run more like a Timex than a Rolex, but I still want to keep it ticking for as long as possible.” I think we all do.
The article goes on to cite the studies that indicate the problems with trans fats. “In the 1990s, at least six major studies found that trans fats raised the ratio of ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol to ‘good’ HDL cholesterol; other research has found that trans fats can raise triglycerides another risk factor for heart disease.” Three large scale studies “strengthened the link between heart attacks and trans fats.” The reason? Trans fats trigger widespread systemic inflammation which causes the cardio problems.
The head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, DC, nutrition-policy advocacy group, Michael F. Jacobson, PhD, says, “Trans fats account for as many as 50,000 deaths a year.” It appears from the studies that have been done that that is a very, very conservative estimate. And the sad news is that trans fats are in so many of the foods we like to eat like McDonald’s French fries, most of the over-the-counter cookies, crackers, and other sweets.
If you want to improve your physical health the number one food to get rid of is trans fats - read the labels, investigate, and get rid of it. I know that I am going to try to do exactly that.
Reading that article made me think beyond the physical to the spiritual. Is there something that we need to get rid of spiritually more than anything else? There are so many possibilities! In Proverbs 6 for example we have a list of things that God hates that are an abomination to Him: “These six things the LORD hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and one who sows discord among brethren (Proverbs 6:16-19).”
Surprisingly enough, at the top of the list is “a proud look.” And it is somewhat surprising that “a lying tongue” is second on the list and that they both come before murder ie “hands that shed innocent blood.” Now don’t misunderstand all of this - all sin is bad and even one unforgiven sin is enough to send you to an eternity in hell. In James 2:10-11 we read, “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.”
But could it be that there is one sin that for you is like trans fats for your physical body? Maybe there is one thing that is as Professor Jeffrey Aron says of trans fats, “…like dropping fine grains of sand into a Swiss watch. Eventually the system shuts down.”
Is there a sin, and it may or may not have been on the list in Proverbs, that you have been involved with? It is not like it has consumed your life but you have been dropping some grains of this sin into your spiritual life and you know you have. Every time you drop another grain of that sin into your life it puts a little more distance between you and your Lord. Every time you drop another grain of that sin into your life it slows down your spiritual fervor a little more. Every time you drop another grain of that sin into your life you have more of a concern about what the world wants and what the flesh wants than you do about what God wants in your life.
What is it that is slowing you down spiritually?
What is it that is decimating your spiritual world?
What is it that is ruining your fellowship with your Lord?
What is it that makes you care more about the things of this world than the things of God?
Susanna Wesley told her young son, John, “If you would judge of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of pleasure, then take this simple rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, and takes off the relish of spiritual things--that to you is sin.”
Billy Graham once said: “We’re suffering from only one disease in the world. Our basic problem is not a race problem. Our basic problem is not a poverty problem. Our basic problem is not a war problem. Our basic problem is a heart problem. We need to get the heart changed, the heart transformed.”
A few of you may be thinking - I just can’t think of anything. Dwight L Moody was approached one day by a man who claimed to have no sin in his life. Moody‘s response? “Well, I would like to ask your wife about that”.So, men if you can’t think of anything just lean over and ask your wife. And ladies if you can think of anything just lean over and ask your husband. And young people and children if you can’t think of anything just ask your parents.
If we are honest with ourselves we all have some sin in our lives. As the apostle John writes in 1 John and he is writing and talking about saved people - he writes, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us (1 John 1:8; 10).” Isn’t it time to pray as the Psalmist prayed “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).”
Let’s pause for just a moment in prayer and do that. Let’s bow our heads close our eyes. Let’s pray silently first that God will reveal this sin this spiritual trans fat that we have been putting into our hearts and lives - Then I will lead us in prayer.
In the song by Ray Boltz called Feel the Nails he sings about our Lord:
Does He still feel those nails
Every time I fail
Does He hear the crowd cry
crucify again and again
Am I causing Him pain
Then I know I’ve got to change
Cause I can’t bear the thought of
hurting him
Do you want to change? Do you want to stop putting the spiritual trans fats into your life? The good news is that you can change if you have a desire in your heart to change. Just after the apostle John says: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).” He then gives us the good news, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).”
“If we confess our sins….” It is the agreement with God that we have sinned against Him. Now we may have hurt someone else and we may need to ask their forgiveness but we have sinned against God. Think about King David in the OT who had sinned by committing adultery with Bathsheba and arranging for her husband Uriah’s murder. When David finally confessed this sin to God he said to the prophet Nathan who had confronted him, “I have sinned against the LORD (2 Samuel 12:13).” And in Psalm 51 David says about his sin, “For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight…(Psalm 51:3-4a).” But it is not enough just to say to God that I have done this or that I have done that. The confession must come with repentance in the heart.
Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Theology says that the, “Two requisites of repentance …are ‘to turn from evil, and to turn to the good.’ Most critical theologically is the idea of returning to God, or turning away from evil.”
We see that King David had this desire in his heart when he prayed his prayer of repentance in Psalm 51,
Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your lovingkindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions,
And my sin is always before me (Psalm 51:1-3).
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
Make me hear joy and gladness,
That the bones You have broken may rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins,
And blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me away from Your presence,
And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation,
And uphold me by Your generous Spirit (Psalm 51:7-12).
We can hear in David’s prayer the confession of his sin but more than that we can hear his desire to return to God, to be what God wants him to be. Do you have that desire? Do you not only want to confess the sins that you may have committed but you also want to return to God, to be what God wants you to be?
That’s what it takes to change your life. I think what the apostle Paul says in Romans 12:1-2 fits in well here as he says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
To change our lives we must present our bodies, our lives, all that we are to the Lord as living sacrifices. To change our lives we must no longer be conformed to this world, doing what this world wants, thinking what this world wants, living what this world wants - instead we must be transformed as Paul puts it “…by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” King David said it this way, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Tomorrow is the beginning of a New Year the year, 2007. In many ways it is a new beginning. I believe that God would have all us to make a new beginning with our lives. Let us begin by Changing our lives through confession, and repentance.
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