Starting Over: Rethinking It

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/starting_over-rethink_it.mp3[/podcast] Last week, I concluded: We can’t blame our way into a better future. Blame enables us to smuggle our issues into our futures. Blame sets us up for a repeat performance. Purity of heart brings clarity of thought. If you want to take all of yourself into the future as you start over, you’ve got to come out of hiding. It’s painful. It’s shameful. But owning it, is beneficial. Besides, admitting sets other people free as well. When we learn from our mistakes in the areas that matter least. We repeat our mistakes in the areas that matter most. Too often, we look at our pasts and our decisions don’t even make sense to us. We end up asking, “What was I thinking?” But how do we avoid getting stuck in cycles of repeated mistakes that take our lives down the wrong paths? This week, my sermon is entitled: Rethinking It. Before we get into our scripture, I want us to look at six lethal assumptions we need to rethink. If you want to break the cycle of repeated mistakes, regret and resolve aren’t enough. You can’t will yourself into a different future. If you think the way you used to think, you’ll do the things you used to do.

1. “If I can find the right person, everything will be all right.” When you use a relationship as an escape strategy, you undermine that relationship. Relationships are not designed for rescue. This is not only dating relationships. I’m also talking about employer-employee, parent, sibling, friend, etc. Do you think finding the right person will really help when you’re actually the problem?
2. “My situation is unique.” This is what we say to avoid good advice. You are not the exception to the rule. You are unique, but your situation isn’t. I hate how people who ask me for advice think they’re so special. As special as that participation award says you are, you’re really not. What you’re going through is not unique, nor is it the first time anybody’s ever gone through it. If you don’t believe me, go do a search for whatever unique problem you believe you have and I bet you’ll find resources beyond resources solving those problems.
3. “It’s not right, but it makes me happy. God wants me to be happy.” If it’s not right, things won’t turn out right. Also, God doesn’t want you to be happy. It doesn’t say that anywhere in the Bible.
4. “If only I had ___________, then I would be satisfied.” Things don’t satisfy. If you feed an appetite, it grows. The more you have, the more you want. Trust me, satisfaction is fleeting until the next thing you want and you are never left satisfied. Just go to the buffet and stop eating for 6 hours, then you’ll know that you’re not satisfied.
5. “‘I owe’ is better than ‘I want.’” This is backwards. “I want” is always better than “I owe.” I don’t think I need to get into this, but take it from me, being poor later is the same as being poor now.
6. “My secret is safe with me.” Secrets leak. And when they do, they sink relationships.

If you want to break the cycle of repeated mistakes, rethink it. Let’s go to Romans 12:1-2. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. – Romans 12:1-2 ESV I want you to look at this phrase: transformed by renewal of your mind. I want you to understand the word, “transform.” In the Greek, that word is used one time in all the gospels, namely, about Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration (the mountain of “transformation” — same word, metemorphõthë): “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” This is beautiful. What the Apostle Paul is saying is that when you rethink things your life will shine like the sun. If you’re asking yourself why this time is like last time. If you’re wondering why nothing is changing. If you can’t understand why your life still resembles the car wreck you saw on the news, it’s because you are not transforming, you’re just conforming. Conforming takes no intentionality. We are perfectly useless as Christ-exalting Christians if all we do is conform to the world around us. It’s easy to blend in, all you have to do is nothing. I mean, who wants to do more than nothing? Nobody.. And the key to not wasting our lives with this kind of success and prosperity, Paul says, is being transformed. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.” If you’re wondering why you’re not transformed it’s because you’re not doing anything to transform yourself by renewing your mind. I’m not suggesting that any off go to school and learn something. Although, for some, that’s what it may entail. What I am saying is that we have to restore the way we are supposed to see life and the world. Transforming requires more than commitment, resolve is not enough, it takes renewal of mind — two pictures: weak to strong body builders. I’m going to be honest, I’d rather be the second guy than the first guy. You can say you’re going to change, you can even make pinky swears and promises about changing, but let’s be honest, it’s not going to happen. The reason it’s not going to happen is because you’re not renewing your mind to make it happen. We’re simply allowing ourselves to be conformed. When we are conformed, it is like eating cake all the time and gaining six hundred pounds and asking what happened? That’s right, you were conformed to the cake eating. We become transformed and shine like the sun when we are renew our mind. That’s what the Apostle Paul says. Renew means to restore, to bring back, and to give fresh life to. Have you ever restored furniture? I haven’t. I’m actually not that good at restoring furniture. I tried restoring my deck once. But I made a critical mistake which I learned about after the fact. I actually “restored” my deck by putting a fresh coat of paint on it, you know, to make it look good. But what it actually did was rot some of the wood underneath. When I youtubed how to restore a deck, I learned that you can’t really restore a deck without taking the old off first. Then I got a few videos about restoring old furniture and it always starts with taking the old off first. Which is often times more work than putting on the new. But the lesson is simple: if you don’t take the old off first, then the new won’t do anything. This thought then becomes that much more difficult. We can’t renew ourselves unless and until we actually shed our old selves. Most of us know that it is our old selves that define us. Can I be honest with you. Most of us can’t shed our old selves because we haven’t really given ourselves over to Jesus Christ as our savior. We haven’t really dedicated our lives to him. So we actually just cover up our old selves with what we think is our new self, but what really happens is that our old selves show a rotten version of itself because the new-self rotted the insides away even more. We never actually got rid of the old self at all, just covered it up. When we, at the church, as you to give your life to Jesus, we’re not asking you to cover your old self. We never say that. In fact, we say come as you are. We say just follow Jesus because by following Jesus that old self comes off. Then you find yourself with a new self. If our lives haven’t changed on the second and third attempt, it’s not because of a lack of trying or a lack of resolve, it’s because we still have the old self underneath the new self because we never took the old self off by giving it up to Jesus. This Sunday, I want us to take off our old selves and give our old selves up to Jesus so that we can have a new self that is transformed by the renewal that is in us through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our savior. I’m not talking about just accepting Christ with your words or saying the prayers you’ve heard in VBS or in church camps or summer camps; what I mean is that you’re accepting Jesus Christ as your savior right in your head, like meditating on Jesus’ presence in your being. Like where is he in your life? What is he doing daily with your heart? It is so easy for us to fall into the trap of simply saying we accept Jesus without contemplating the weight of it. We need to contemplate the weight and glory of it. That’s when our minds become restored to the glory of God’s original creation in us. I am saying that when we are transformed by the renewal of our minds, our lives shine brighter than the sun because all three of these things are going on in our heads and when there is a next time, it is definitely better than the last time. When Paul wrote to the Romans and said that people are transformed, you know you want to aspire to it. Now, Paul doesn’t stop there. He continues to say that when you restore your mind, you will be transformed and you will be able to know the “will of God.” A lot of us are afraid of starting over or fall over when we start over because we’re searching for the will of God and some how misconstrue that will of God. The reason we need to rethink, rather than conform is because the will of God is not obtainable so long as we allow ourselves to remain our old selves and/or allow ourselves to be conformed to the world, which goes contrary to the will of God. The term “the will of God” has at least two and possibly three biblical meanings. First, there is the sovereign will of God, that always comes to pass without fail. This is like the second coming; the salvation of people through Jesus Christ; etc. Second, there is the revealed will of God in the Bible — do not steal, do not lie, do not kill, do not covet — and this will of God often does not come to pass. And third, there is the path of wisdom and spontaneous godliness — wisdom where we consciously apply the word of God with our renewed minds to complex moral circumstances, and spontaneous godliness where we live most of our lives without conscious reflection on the hundreds of things we say and do all day. Don’t end up asking, “What was I thinking?” Don’t be a conformer. Be a transformer. Next time can be better than last time if you renew your mind.