MAKING CHANGES

The Road to Recovery—Part 5

Romans 12:1–2

We all have hurts we will never forget. We all have hang-ups we will never get rid of. We all have habits that are messing up our lives. We’ve been in this series on the Road to Recovery, and today we’re going to look at Step 5 which I call the Transformation Step. It’s the V in the road to recovery.

VOLUNTARILY SUBMIT TO EVERY CHANGE GOD WANTS TO MAKE IN MY LIFE AND HUMBLY ASK HIM TO REMOVE MY CHARACTER DEFECTS.

It’s based on the verse, “Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him … and let God transform you inwardly by a complete change of your mind.” Rom. 12:1–2. Transform, change of your mind. The way we are transformed is by having our minds changed.

This morning I simply want to do three things. Talk about where do my character defects come from; why is it so hard to get rid of them; and then how do I cooperate with God’s change process in this step and see God change the hurt, the habits, and the hang-ups that have been messing up my life.

I. WHERE DO MY CHARACTER DEFECTS COME FROM?

Because you’re complex they come from three sources: biological source, sociological source, theological source. My chromosomes, my circumstances, and the choices. That’s where your defects come from.

MY CHROMOSOMES—Some of them you inherited.

That’s your chromosomes. Both your mother and your father contributed to you 23,000 chromosomes each. And so you inherited some of their weaknesses. You inherited some physical defects from your parents, and you inherited some emotional defects from your parents. This explains your predisposition towards certain problems. But it doesn’t excuse a sin. For instance, because of my parents, I may have a tendency to have a hot temper, but that doesn’t excuse me to go out and murder somebody. I may have a tendency to be lazy, but that doesn’t excuse me from doing nothing with my life and just being a bum. I may have a tendency, genetically, to be given toward certain addictions, but that doesn’t excuse me to go out and make the choice to become addicted. My genes, genetics, my nature is one source.

MY CIRCUMSTANCES—My Nurture is another source.

You were raised a certain way, and you learned a lot of your ways of relating, your patterns, and your habits. You learned from your parents and you learned from other people. You learned to respond to your own needs in certain ways and how to cover for yourself, how to handle hurt and rejection. A lot of your defects are simply self-defeating attempts to meet unmet needs. You have a legitimate need for respect. But if you didn’t get respect early in life, you settle for attention and figured out a way to get attention in many various ways. You have a legitimate need for love, but if you didn’t get love you may have settled for cheap sex, to get the emotional closeness. You have a need for security but if you didn’t get it, you may have tried to cover yourself with materialism and possessions to show “I’m secure.”

MY CHOICES

If you choose to do something long enough, it becomes a habit. Once it becomes a habit, you’re stuck. Things you never intended to develop in your life develop because you chose to do a certain thing that became a habit.

Why does it take so long to get rid of these things? Why is it so difficult? I’ve tried fads and therapies and books and seminars.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO CHANGE THE DEFECTS IN MY LIFE?

1. Because I’ve had them so long.

You didn’t get them overnight. It took years and you’re not going to lose them overnight. Many of the habits, the patterns, you have you developed in childhood, and they may not be comfortable and they may even be self-defeating, but at least they are familiar. It’s like an old pair of shoes. Maybe they’re not the best for running, but they’re comfortable. So a lot of your defects you just say, “That’s just the way I am.” Because you’ve had them for so long, it’s hard to let go of them.

2. Identity.

We confuse our identity and identity with those things. I don’t know why but we often confuse our identity with our defects. We say, “That’s just the way I am.” You don’t have to be that way. You can change. When you say, “That’s just the way I am,” you’re identifying your identity with your defeats. Complete this sentence (in your mind) “It’s just like me to be _______________________,” a workaholic, overweight, anxious, passive and let people run over me, fearful, to lose my temper. What you are is that you’re setting yourself up and identifying yourself with your defect and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You say, “I’m always nervous when I get on planes.” What’s going to happen the next time you get on a plane? You’re going to be nervous. You set yourself up by saying, “That’s who I am.” What happens is that unconsciously, one of the reasons you can’t change, is because you’re afraid: “If I really let go of this defect, will I still be me? This has been a part of me. I’ve always been this. If I let go of it, will I still be me?”

3. Payoff.

Every defect has a payoff. It may mask my pain. It may give me an excuse to fail. It may allow me to compensate for guilt in my life. It may get me attention. My defect may allow me to control other people. Any time a negative behavior is repeated in you, yourself, your kids, anybody, even though it’s self-destructive, there’s always a payoff. We don’t do things that don’t get rewarded. You may have never thought about it that way but there’s a payoff. You may just be getting attention by your defect. You may be getting to control somebody by your defect. So there’s a payoff and you don’t want to let go of that payoff unconsciously. Mother says to the kids, “Kids, come down to dinner.” And they don’t come. So she yells, “Kids come down to dinner.” They come. We set up our mothers to yell. She figures out yelling works. There’s a payoff. You have to be aware of that.

4. Satan discourages me.

He’s constantly suggesting negative thoughts. He’s the accuser. He says, “This will never work, you can’t do it, you can’t change.” Some of you have been coming to this recovery series and thinking, “This is good. I’d really like to get rid of this habit, I’d like to stop hating that person, I’d like to stop hurting from that past experience, years ago, that happened out on the school yard, I’d love to change.” Then you get outside and Satan starts: “Who do you think you are? You think you’re going to change, forget it! Other people can change, but not you. You’re stuck. It’s hopeless. Don’t even think about changing.” He’s always saying these negative thoughts to you. Worse than that he says, “If you try to get rid of this, you’ll go crazy. If you try to get rid of this, you’ll self-destruct, something bad will happen to you.” The Bible says Satan is a liar. He’s a liar. The Bible says the truth sets us free.

Let’s look at the truth.

III. HOW DO I COOPERATE WITH GOD’S CHANGE PROCESS IN MY LIFE?

Romans 12: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Transformed. 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. The Bible says, your thoughts determine your feelings, your feelings determine your actions.

If you’re in a boat and it’s going this way, the auto pilot says East, you can force it to go West, but you pretty soon get tired, and you let go of the boat, because it wants to go back East. It’s geared to go East, your auto-pilot, you set it to go East. You can turn it around, by forcibly grabbing the steering wheel and the whole time you’re under tension, because by will power you’re going the opposite way that you’re naturally inclined to go. Pretty soon you get tired and you let go of the wheel and it automatically turns this way. So I make a decision, I’m going to do _________; I make a resolution. By willpower, I force myself. But pretty soon I get tired and let go, and I go off the diet(?), start smoking again(?), acting the way I’ve always done(?). If you want to change, you’ve got to change your auto pilot.

What’s your auto pilot? It’s just like me to be __________. That’s your auto pilot.

SEVEN WAYS TO CHANGE YOUR MIND SO YOU CAN COOPERATE WITH THE WAY GOD WANTS TO CHANGE YOU AND MAKE YOU WHAT YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE. Things you thought you could never change. It’s real simple. Seven ways to refocus the winning focus, so you can change those habits, hang-ups, hurts, you never thought possible to change.

1. Focus on changing one defect at a time.

Proverbs 17:24: “An intelligent person aims at wise action but a fool starts off in many directions.” Some of you come to recovery series and think, “This is great; I’ve got thirty things I want to change.” Don’t do it. You’ll get overwhelmed. You’ll get discouraged. And you won’t change anything. You must be specific. What I would suggest you do is you pray to God and say, “God, which specific defect would You like to work on first in my life? Not what I’d like to, but You.” You 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. You’ve got to be very specific. “God, this is what I want to work on, my anger, my anxiety, my tendency to control people, my workaholism, or being dishonest …” 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 defect at a time. Otherwise it doesn’t work.

2. Focus on victory one day at a time.

Matthew 6:11: “Give us this month our daily bread.” No, it says “Give us this day our daily bread.” Why? Because God wants to give you enough strength to change for one day, not for one week, one month, the rest of your life, eternity. He wants to take it one day at a time so you trust in Him. That’s like the old saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Life by the yard is hard, but by the inch, it’s a cinch. You take a lifetime problem (you didn’t get it overnight—that hurt, hang-up, habit) and your break it down into bite-size pieces and you work on it one day at a time and you get God’s strength one day at a time. And you pray when you get up in the morning, “Lord, just for this day, I want to be patient; just for today, I want to think pure thoughts, instead of lust; just for today, I don’t want to lose my temper; just for today, I want to be positive instead of negative.” You ask God to help you for one, or better yet, for the next three hours, “Help me to think good thoughts, help me to not be afraid.” And take it a little bit at a time. Ask Him one day at a time. 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. One day at a time. Bite-size pieces.

If you have a boss that’s a real jerk and he tends to bring out the bad in you, you tend to get resentful. So you get up in the morning and say, “Lord just for the first three hours this morning may I respond to that boss how You’d have me respond, not get uptight, not get worried, not get resentful, but smile at him.” Matthew 6:34: “Don’t worry about tomorrow, each day has enough troubles of its own.” Don’t worry about tomorrow, victory tomorrow. Just today. Rome wasn’t built in a day, character wasn’t built in a day. Character defects aren’t removed in a day.

We want instant everything: mashed potatoes, coffee, microwave popcorn. We want instant maturity, spiritual maturity. One day I’m a total mess, the next, I’m Billy Graham. It doesn’t happen that way. You must grow by inches. You must grow by days. One day at a time. Don’t set a deadline for yourself: “I’m going to lick this thing by this deadline.” 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 you stop and thank God for whatever change or victory, no matter how small: “Thank You that You gave me help today.” Any victory, no matter now minor, you thank God for it, and take one defect at a time, and you get victory one day at a time.

3. Focus on God’s power not my power, 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. And you won’t because you don’t have the power to do it. So you know willpower doesn’t work. 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.” It’s a big problem, because you’ve still got it. And we know resolutions don’t work. Resolutions are simply forcing the boat to go one way when everything else in the boat wants to go another way. Pretty soon you get tired and let go. Resolutions don’t work. “Can a leopard take away his spots? Nor can you who are used to doing evil start being good.” 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.” I want you to literally imagine God taking away your defect. What are you working on first? My temper? Here’s what I’d imagine in my mind: I imagine taking my temper out and opening up the garbage can, put it in the garbage can, putting the lid on the top, setting the garbage can out by the sidelines. The garbage truck comes up that says “God & Son, doing business with people like you for 2000 years.” Jesus sends out one of His buddies, they pick up the garbage, they dump it in the truck, they crash it down, you see the truck turn around and speed off to heaven. That’s what it means to visually think about giving my problem to God. 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 I want not on what I don’t want.

Philippians 4:8: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and good, and right. Think about things that are pure. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about.” Focus on good things, not bad things. Whatever you focus on is what you move toward. 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’ve 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. You don’t resist temptation. Not once in the Bible does God command you to resist temptation. Not once. He says, resist the tempter, resist the devil, but not temptation. Why? Because whatever you resist, persists. The harder you push it (“I’m not going to do this”), the harder it pushes back.

Instead of resisting, the Bible teaches refocusing. Just turn the mental channel of your mind. 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 refocus off of what you’ve been to what you want to be 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 these negative thoughts that the devil and other people give you. You fill your mind with God’s word. 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, that gets deeper, reinforces that brain pattern. Some of you have negative ruts in your mind cause 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.

Some of you who were around in 1981, the second year this church was built, know I went through a period of major depression. I had some physical problems at the beginning of the year and it got me so depressed, no energy and there was so much to be done, and it just depressed me. I was under a cloud most of the first part of that year. I was so discouraged and so depressed. What I did, I got these little white cards, 3x5 cards. On one side of the card I would write a Scripture verse, a positive Scripture verse, on the back side I would write a practical application of the verse for me in the form of a personal affirmation. Like “There is therefore no condemnation of those in Christ.” I’d turn it over and write, “God does not condemn me for my depression. He loves me just as much on my bad days as my good days.” “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” On the back I’d write, “I can make it through this day, in fact, it’s going to be better than yesterday, I’m getting stronger. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this depression. I was worried about it. I’m not afraid of depression.” Why? “There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out all fear.” I wrote those things down. I had a whole stack of them. Every night in 1981 as I went to bed, the last thing I’d do before I went to bed is read those verses, those affirmations, think about them. When I woke up in the morning, before I’d get out of bed, I’d pull them over, I’d read them. I’d put them in my pocket, carry them with me and began to reprogram my mind, thinking positive thoughts and creating new ruts in my mind and in about four to five weeks that massive depression just lifted. I want to tell you, from personal experience, I don’t get depressed any more. Everybody gets discouraged, but I don’t battle massive depression. Why? Because I reprogrammed my mind. People say, “Why are you such a positive person?” I trained myself, I memorized the truth about life from the Bible rather than believe in the lies about life from the TV news and what other people were saying. Major shift.

In your mind you have two scales. On one side are all the negative thoughts that the devil tells you, that former girlfriends and boyfriends have told you, maybe your parents told you, maybe some school teacher who hated you (“You’ll never amount to anything”) told you. And over here are the good things that God wants to say about you that are in His word. You’ve got more of these negative than you do positive because you haven’t spent much time in the Word, if you’re honest. Every time you think a positive thought based on the Bible, and you claim a verse “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” you alternate. Every time the devil says, “You can’t change,” you say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” “Who do you think you are? You’re worthless.”—“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, 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 on not what you don’t want but what you do want.

If you took Step 3—surrendering all my life to the care and control of God—and invited Christ into your life, then you know what the Bible says: You are a new person. The old has passed away. God says, “All your past, I’ve forgotten, you can learn to let go of it too.” You are a new person in Christ with a new identity. Once you become a Christian, your primary identity is based on your relationship to Christ not your defect. It’s no longer “I’m just _______ this,” it’s “I’m a believer.” Focus on what you want not on what you don’t want.

5. Focus on doing good not feeling good.

Galatians 5:16: “If you’re guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to self indulgence.” 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. If I don’t feel loving toward my wife, start acting loving and the feelings will come. If you wait until you feel like it, it will be a long time. So you say, “I don’t feel like it.” Do the right thing, don’t worry about feeling the right thing. AA uses the phrase “Fake it until you make it.” Do the right thing even though you don’t feel like doing it, because you know it’s the right thing to do and you do it anyway. Eventually your feelings catch up. Anytime 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 real 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. If you’re a workaholic and you say, “I’m going to let God work on this workaholism” and tomorrow at 5:00 you decide to go home when the buzzer rings and you don’t take work home in a briefcase, the first time you go home you’ll say, “This feels really weird.” If you’re a workaholic, the first time you try to relax you’ll find you don’t even know how to relax because you’ve worked so hard for so long. If you overeat, or drink or smoke, the first time you try to break that habit you’ll feel weird: “Nothing’s in my mouth.” It’ll feel funny for a little while and it may not feel right. But if you do the right thing, over and over and over eventually your feelings catch up with your behavior and you cannot control your feelings, but you can control your muscles. So you do the right thing whether you feel like it or not and the feelings will catch up with you.

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.” In other words, if you don’t want to get stung, you stay away from the bees. If you know what kind of people tempt you, just stay away from it. 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. If you’re struggling with pornography, you don’t go into those stores. You don’t get around the things that mess you up. On the other hand, the Bible says, “Two are better than one and a threefold cord is not easily broken.” When you have help from another person, when one person falls the other can help him up.

I said this in the first lesson in this series, but most of you didn’t believe me: You can’t recover on your own. You must be in a group, in a relationship. 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. You didn’t believe that, but let me give you an example.

Last week we talked about building a moral inventory list.

You go home and say, “Lord, what are all the things I feel guilty about and regret and I’m going to do some housecleaning this week.” You make a list of those things and admit them to yourself, to God and to one other person you trust. Many of you had every intention of doing that this week. 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.” They were in Celebrate Recovery or a small group. Those of you who didn’t do it, didn’t because you’re not related to anybody who’s helping you on this road. That’s why we have this thing called Celebrate Recovery, one of our ministries that meets here in this Tent every Friday night to encourage people because you won’t make it on your own. Notice this verse Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so people can improve each other.” You need to be in relationship.

This morning I’ve asked Jerry, one of the leaders in Celebrate Recovery, to come and share his story how Jesus Christ and other people have helped him on his road to recovery.

Jerry: Several weeks ago I went to a seminar with Pastor John and several other guys here and we each had to do separately what I’m about to do with you now. There was about 100 of us and this one man spoke up and turned around and looked at all of us and his knees knocked and said, “I’m sure that all of you people one at a time are really beautiful people, but all together you’re just a little bit overwhelming.”

I’m a fellow believer at Saddleback Community Church. I’m also a man who for thirty some odd years of his life chose a life of sin, and I used alcohol to blot out my conscience. The fruits of this life were hospitals, mental institutions, jails, courtrooms, divorce, cirrhosis of the liver, delirium tremens, and seventeen years at unsuccessful attempts at recovery blocked by my own self-righteousness, self-will, and arrogance. Worst of all was a hardened heart against God and those that sought Him. Eight and a half years ago this obsession for alcohol was lifted from my life one day at a time, by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Three years, four months later, He took a forty-three-year-old smoking habit and did exactly the same thing. Why? Because after decades of denial I finally humbled myself and asked Him to please do it for me. It was through His loving grace that I was finally brought to a point where I would voluntarily submit to any and all the changes that He wanted me to make in my life.

His will has given me four years of Bible studies and responsibility here at Celebrate Recovery in leading a men’s Bible study that Pastor John gave me six weeks ago. Today in His infinite wisdom He has taken this sinful past and He has changed it into a useful tool to help those that still suffer from addictions. Ephesians 2:10 says, “I am God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works that He prepared in advance for me to do.” My heart tells me that He has given to us that have been freed from our maladies a road to follow. Specifically, to humbly and willingly stay in service to those who struggle with their hopelessness. Please, if your life is being corrupted by wrong character defects come join us at Celebrate Recovery and give those you love relief from the pain you are imposing in their lives before it is too late. The apostle Paul wrote, “He who has started a good work in you will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” I say trust Him with all your heart. Because I know He loves and forgives you every bit as much as He has loved and forgiven me.

Rick: All the willpower in the world cannot make that kind of change in a man. All the therapy, fads, seminars, tapes, cannot make that kind of change in a man. Only Jesus Christ can make those kind of changes in a person. Jerry read a verse I want us to close with today.

“God who began the good work with you will keep right on helping you grow in His grace until His task within you is finally finished.” God’s going to do it.

7. Focus on progress not perfection.

Some of you who have been taking the recovery series say, “I don’t see a whole lot of change yet; I’ve been in recovery for a couple months and I don’t see a whole lot of change yet.” Don’t worry about it. It’s a process. It’s a decision followed by a process. And God who starts His work in you will bring it to completion. Remember the beach head illustration I gave a couple of weeks ago. God establishes a beach head in your life like an island and the rest of the war He’s taking over the island little by little.

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 don’t expect my seven-year-old to act like a seventeen-year-old. He still makes messes, but I am pleased with the stage that he’s at right now. And God is pleased with your growth. 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 entirely ready for the change. That means voluntarily submit and humbly ask, and when you’re entirely ready He’ll start working on you.