Kerry Shook - Power to Change
There was a pastor who loved to play golf and one Saturday, he noticed that the weather on Sunday was supposed to be just perfect. And so he started thinking, I never get to play golf on Sunday morning. I don't think it would hurt, just this one time, if I missed church and went golfing. He was kind of having a pity party for himself, thinking about all those out there that got to play golf on beautiful Sunday mornings. So Saturday night, he called his associate pastor and he said, I feel terrible. I've got a really high fever, I've got aches, I've been throwing up all day, and, you know, I don't think it would be fair to the congregation if I came to church, I might get someone sick.
That would be very selfish of me, and so I don't think I can preach tomorrow morning. Could you just throw a sermon together at the last minute and preach the message and the associate pastor was kind of freaked out, that he said, I'll try, it may not be that good, but I'm just sorry that you're sick. I'll get the whole church to pray for you in the morning. Well, the next morning the pastor got up really early and he drove to a golf course about two hours away in hopes that there'd be no one there that would recognize him and he started playing and after 17 holes, he was playing the best golf of his life. Meanwhile, up in heaven, God and Gabriel were watching everything. They were watching him and Gabriel was puzzled and he asked God, are you gonna let him get away with this? And God said, of course not, just watch what he does on the next hole.
And so the pastor got up on the 18th hole and his tee shot was on a par four, and it was a miracle drive that went over 400 yards, landed on the green, rolled into the cup, for a hole in one on a par four. And Gabriel was really confused now and he said, God, I thought you said you weren't gonna let him get away with this and then you make him get a hole in one at a par four? And God said, who is he going to tell? We all have things in our lives that we want to hide and I think we pastors probably most of all. We all wanna act like we have it all together, when none of us really do. We try to hide our mess and cover up our brokenness and it keeps us from experiencing the power to change. That's why we're in this series Now or Never, it's all about experiencing the power to change. That change you've been waiting for, God wants to give you, starting today. And it really comes down to the power to change.
So I want you to look at Ephesians chapter 1, verse 19, would you stand in honor of God's Word, and what an amazing key verse today? "I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us who believe Him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead". You can be seated. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us today, to give us the power to change. Ironically, the only way that we can access that power is by admitting that we're powerless. Look at Matthew 5:3, it's the first of eight Beatitudes that Jesus preached in the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. And this first Beatitude is really the start to life-change in any area of your life. And these eight beatitudes are really the steps to powerful life-change.
Look at it with me in Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are those who recognize they are spiritually helpless. The kingdom of heaven belongs to them". Jesus is saying those who find true happiness are those who realize they are helpless to change and they need God's help. Really, there are only two types of people in the world, those who know they need to change and those who need to change but they don't know it. You see, it's those who know that they need help and those who really need help but they just don't know it. And Jesus is saying true change starts when you realize you are powerless to change yourself. So here is step one to real life-change: I admit my powerlessness to change myself and control everything, in my brokenness, I humbly admit my need for God and others.
Now some of you are probably thinking, well, I don't really think I'm totally powerless, my problems aren't that bad, I'm not powerless. Well, let me ask you, do you ever stay up late when you know your body needs sleep? Do you ever eat more calories and drink more calories than you know your body needs? Do you ever know the right thing to do, but you don't do it? Do you ever know that something is wrong, but you just do it anyway? Are you ever in a situation where you know the truth, you should tell the truth, but you shade the truth and lie to make things easier on yourself? Are you ever in a situation where you know you should act unselfishly, but you act selfishly anyway? Do you ever try to control a problem or fix a problem or change another person, and things just get worse, things just get more out of control and it just wears you out?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, I just want to say, welcome to the human race. I want you to look at what the apostle Paul said about it, in Romans 7, verse 15, Paul said, "I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can't. I do what I don't want what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws i'm breaking. But I can't help myself because I'm no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things. I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn I can't make myself do right. I want to but I can't. When I want to do good, I don't; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway".
Can anybody here relate to the apostle Paul? Yeah, some of you have it all together I guess. You're more spiritual than the apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament, I guess. But I know I can relate to what he's saying here, I do things that aren't good for me, that are self-destructive. I know the things I need to do but I don't do them or I do them for a while, then I fall back into the same negative habit pattern. I try to control circumstances that can't be controlled and I just make things worse and I just wear myself out with worry, which is worthless and it's unhealthy, and I know it doesn't help control anything but I still do it. I can relate to the apostle Paul. We're all broken, we all need restoration, and the Bible says it's because of our sin nature or our flesh.
You see, as long as you're on this earth, you'll still have a sin nature, you still have your flesh. Now, when you commit your life to Christ, the Bible says you're a new creation on the inside. All things are new, you have a new true self that really wants to follow Christ. Your true self really wants to break free from destructive habits and sins. Your true self really wants to make positive changes that can make all the difference in your life. That's who you really are now, once you receive Christ. But I know you're thinking, well Kerry, then why do I fall back into the same sins and destructive habit patterns? Because even though you're a new creation on the inside, you still have your old sin nature, your flesh, that you have to live with on this earth and your flesh wants to do whatever it wants to do whenever it wants to do it, even though it's destructive for you.
So, what's the answer, how do I break free and live from my true self, how can I have the power to really change? That's the question that Paul asked next, in Romans 7:24. He said, "I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question"? He says, how can I have the power to really change, is there anyone who can give me the power to break free? And in the next verse, Paul gives us the answer, in Romans 7:25, "The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different".
Paul says Christ died and rose again, not just to forgive us of our sins, but also to give us the power to change. But I have to admit, like Paul, I'm powerless to change on my own because my sin nature is just too strong for me and I have to surrender control to Christ's power because he's already defeated sin and won the victory on the cross. Before we can surrender to Christ's power and break free, we have to see how we got stuck in the first place. We have to go back to the beginning, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, as God placed them in this perfect place and God said, it's all yours to enjoy, I want you to enjoy life. I love you, you can eat the fruit of any of these amazing trees, except for this one. If you eat the fruit of this tree, you'll surely die.
And then the serpent, Satan, comes along and he says, what? Did God say to you, if you eat the fruit of that tree, you're gonna die? That's a lie, that's a lie, God knows that's not true, you're not going to die. He told you that because he knows if you eat the fruit of that tree, you'll be like him and he doesn't want you to be like him, he wants to keep you down. God doesn't care about you, he doesn't want what's best for you, and Adam and Eve believed the lie. So they disobeyed God and they ate the fruit. They didn't die physically, that would come years later, but at that moment, they died spiritually.
And here's the point, whatever you're stuck in started with a lie, whatever you're stuck in, in the present, started with you believing a lie in your past. Maybe it was the lie that to become accepted and be accepted, you needed to hide your struggles and your screw ups or you'd be rejected, or you started believing the lie that you needed to control things or everything is going to fall apart, or you started believing the lie that a sin wasn't that bad, you could control it and now it controls you and you're stuck in addiction. Whatever you're stuck in in the present, started with you believing a lie in your past.
And if you believe a lie long enough, it builds a stronghold. And a lot of these lies, we started believing as kids because of our experiences as children and we didn't know how to process it just right, these things that come into our lives, and if your experience as a child made you start believing a lie, it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility, now, to deal with it and go back and begin to understand the lie that you've been believing. And that's why we need to change our thinking with God's truth.
See to change, you need to change your thinking. You gotta stop believing lies, but you also have to change your power source. You gotta change your thinking, but then you've got to change your power source, because when you're stuck you have a choice. In pride, you can try to control everything or you can surrender to God's power and God's control. You see when Satan lied to Adam and Eve, the big lie was, if you eat the fruit of this tree, you'll be like God, and that's our oldest problem. We want to be God, we want to play God, we don't think God knows what's best for us, so we want to call the shots in our life.
Well, how do we play God? By trying to control everything for selfish reasons. We try to control our image, we spend a lot of time and effort trying to control our image, so that you think I've got it all together. I don't want you to know that I don't have it all together, because then you may not like me, you may reject me. We try to control other people and it's like, that's gonna work when we can't even change ourselves, and control the things in our own lives and it just makes things worse. We try to control our problems, you know, you come to church and someone says, how you doing? Oh, I'm doing great, praise God, when you're dying on the inside.
Well, I heard you had some problems going on. Oh, it's no problem, it's no big deal. I'm okay, when you're bleeding to death and your life is falling apart. We try to control our problems, but the thing we try to control most of all is our pain. We'll do just about anything to escape pain, to avoid pain, to anesthetize our pain. And a lot of our negative habit patterns are just trying to avoid pain, trying to get relief from pain. But is that pain that draws us to the only one who can heal. I like the way the message paraphrase puts that first beatitude. Matthew 5:3, in the very first beatitude that we just looked at. Jesus said, "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there's more of God in his rule".
You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope? Yeah, because when you finally come to the end of your rope and you realize you can't control and you can't hold on any longer and you let go, God catches you and some of you are at the end of your rope right now, but you're still hanging on to the illusion of control that you can get it together. You're 100 stories in the air hanging, onto a ledge with one hand and you're going, oh, I'm fine. It's ok. It's great, I got it under control. Everything is great, no big deal, and you're just swinging out there just barely hanging on.
Some of you are down to your pinky holding on and you're still going. Everything's cool, I'm alright and God is just waiting until, finally, you can't hold on any longer, you let go. And that's when God says, finally, I've been waiting and he catches you and he holds you in his arms and he begins to restore your life. It all comes down to that surrender where I realize I'm not God and I surrender control of my life, in every area of my life to him. It's just pride when we don't admit that. Then that's okay, it just means that you need a little more pain and God loves you so much, he'll do just about anything. He'll allow just about anything into your life to get your attention so you can experience him and his blessings, and so you just need a little more pain, that's all, to realize that you're powerless, that you need God desperately.
Someone said, it was when the acid of my pain ate through the wall of my denial that I finally admitted I couldn't do it and I needed God. You see, there's something in all of us, we don't want to admit that we're that broke, I don't wanna admit that I'm that broken, I don't want to admit that I'm such a mess. I don't wanna do that, I'm okay, aren't I, I'm not that broken, but that's just pride and it keeps you from grace and it's a lie, it's not true.
I want you to look at James 4:6, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble". Did you know that grace is the power to change? Pride keeps us stuck, but it's grace, God's grace, bringing it to him, that we find the power to change. So if you're broken and you realize that you don't have the power to change, then I just want you to know you're the one that God wants to give us power to. You're the one that God is excited about, you're the one that God accepts in his grace. And I'm so grateful for that. I'm the one that God accepts in his grace. And it's his grace that sets us free to really change, to step into the light of his love and his forgiveness, and receive his power.
See, Satan wants to keep you from his grace and he uses shame to keep you from God's grace, shame causes us to step back into the dark to think that, oh I don't want to admit that. To try to act like we got it all together or think we're too bad to come into the light. Satan uses shame to keep us from God's grace and God's power. So what do you do when you experience shame and guilt? When you experience that shame and guilt, and you're a Christ follower, what do you do? Don't step away from it, don't run from it, that's a applied from God's grace, you step right into the shame, you step right into it and go okay, Satan.
Yeah, I've done all those things I'm broken, but you bring it right to the cross and you experience God's grace and God gets all the credit and it's undeserved and you get to experience God's grace, you just step right into it. So when you step in the light of God's love and his forgiveness and his grace, he gives you the power to change. Well, I want you to hear another life change story. Curtis Rosinski is one of the great guys in our church and he now leads our young adult ministry at our Atascosita campus, are you guys in the task seat, I know you're cheering for Curtis, but I want you to see how God used the church to totally change Curtis's life. So give him a big hand, he's my buddy, yeah.
Curtis Rosinski: What an honor to be here, I first wanna say this is, man, the fact that I'm standing here today really is a testimony of Jesus Christ in Woodlands church. If it wasn't for Jesus and Woodlands Church, I genuinely have no idea where I would be at today. See, my story is interesting, it starts around middle school, high school, playing basketball. I found that I was really good, being tall, right? And so because of that, I remember going into freshman, sophomore year, playing varsity basketball and, you know, going into these years, I really wanted to fit in with the upperclassmen.
And because I was at that point where I'm, you know, playing basketball with these guys, it invited me into the party scene, and that really escalated into the whole drug and party scene, where I was just like, man, I had no idea how, you know, going into being a high schooler and then now being there, I was like, how did this just get here so quickly? But I remember the group of friends that I had, quickly even got worse, right? Because the fact that I was so invested in the drug and party scene, I found out that my friends were no longer basketball players, but they were now the drug dealers. And for me, that had a huge toll in my life and I very quickly became one of those people as well.
You know what's so interesting about all of this, is I continued to still play basketball, right? Like that was the thing that I was so passionate about, and I remember coming up at the end of my sophomore year, we're having the conversation about where am I gonna commit to. I remember, you know, top 10 schools in the nation and I was like, man, this is what life is gonna look like, right? I had the opportunity to be able to train with different NBA players and I was like, man, this is it. But man, that same summer is the same summer that I ended up going to jail for stealing. And I remember at this point, I was like, well, I guess all of that is out the window.
And so this was like the darkest time of my life, like I remember sitting there in jail and I'm having the conversation with the people that are in there, and I'm like, man, what are you guys doing when you get out of here, and I remember them talking about how they were gonna go back and do the same things that they were doing before they got in and I was like, man, this is my now or never moment, I don't want that. Like, that's not what I want my life to look like. That's not the story that I want to be written about me. I was at the end of my rope, man, but what's so beautiful about that is in those moments, it's the same moment that God really wants to reach out to you.
And so I remember I had a friend who stuck, you know, with me throughout all of it right through all the friends that I lost, there was one guy who continued to invest in me and I remember he invited me up to the church. And it wasn't to come sit in service, but funny enough it was to play volleyball, and so being the athletic guy that I was like, I'm in for volleyball, and so I was up here every day that whole summer, and what's so funny is I really, the fact that I came here and found a group of friends who knew my story and they didn't judge me, but they invited me to be a part of it, I was like, this is what home is supposed to be, right, like the guy who's sitting there hitting the ball into the net and saying bad words, they were just like, we're so glad you're here.
And I was like, wow. But man, I remember for me, I was this is, like, monumental, I was so excited to come up here on a daily basis. I remember going to our young adult service, which I had no business being at, because I was not that. But there, it was really cool because I went there one night and Pastor Hilman he was like, hey, we're gonna split into groups of three and pray and I got pulled into a group with two other guys and man, God revealed everything that I had hidden.
Like I walked in and I was like, so excited for this night, and then I was hit with just this reality that like, man, they knew everything that I have never told anybody and they laid it out and at that moment I came face to face with the Lord and said, like God, you obviously know I have questions, but the one thing that I cannot deny is that you are after my heart. And so I gave my life to Jesus and, man, it was a beautiful experience, right? And yeah, thank you.
But Romans chapter 8, verse one, says, "Therefore, there is no shame or condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". And so I don't know what weight you're feeling today, but know that if you placed your faith and trust in Jesus, man, he's cast your sin as far as the east is to the west. And he wants you to experience life today, and then for those who have never placed their faith in Jesus, as Lord and Savior, man, I just encourage you. Man, let today be your now or never moment. Man, you might have questions, but Jesus came to the cross and it was for you and, man, he'll meet you where you're at. You know, he met me at my lowest moment and just know that, man, God will meet you there as well, so.
Kerry: So proud of you, Curtis. Really, that's the message right there. I mean, that's the message. You see, when you come to Christ for forgiveness, he forgives you every time, his grace is always there, but he not only wants you to experience forgiveness, he also wants to heal you. He wants you to experience the power to break free from all those things that hold you in guilt and shame. You see, because Christ not only wants to give you forgiveness, he wants to also give you victory.
And without that victory, Satan will always hold you down with guilt and shame that he'll pile on you, it'll keep you from becoming all that God wants you to be and the life that you were meant to live and it'll keep you from being used by God fully and experiencing fulfillment. God wants you to see victory and here's how, in James 5:16, it says, "So admit your sins to each other, and pray for each other so that you will be healed. Prayers offered by those who have God's approval are effective". So you get honest with God and you admit your brokenness and sins to Christ and you receive forgiveness, and then you get honest with another believer and you admit your sins and brokenness to them and it says you get healed.