Change That Lasts

Welcome to Twin Lakes Church again. My name is Adrian. I'm one of the other pastors here and I'm excited to get a little extra time. I'm just doing announcements. We get to preach the first sermon of 2020 and the new decade. And so, very honored to be up here today. Thank you.

Oh, thanks. And anytime I get a little extra time, I like to share about what's going on with our growing family. This is a picture of us on the first day of school. Aw, I am so cute. There's all the white hairs you see on my beard. But Ella is our eight-year-old. She's in third grade and she still loves to read. She's very into American Girl dolls right now. It's a very expensive thing she's into. Just keep making more and more things. How many things can a doll have? So many things. Anyways, she wants a Tesla. And she's like, "Okay, that's enough. I want a Tesla." Okay.

But she also loves theater and she's in her first musical at Twin Lakes Christian School this week. So she's really excited about that. Penelope is our six-year-old. She's halfway through kindergarten and she's beginning to read and she loves to play and laugh and sing. And Jamie and I will be married 15 years this year and... Oh, thank you. You did it. Just keep us in your prayers anytime you think of us or if you see us in town chasing after those things. So just pray for us or those kids.

Well, Happy New Year! It's 2020. I remember when we began the 2020 vision that was like, "2020? Whoa. Are we building a spaceship? It's a coffee house." But here we are. It is 2020. And with the New Year come New Year resolutions. Anybody make a New Year's resolution this year? And nobody wants to raise their hands. I'm not gonna ask you if in five days you're still doing it. I just want to know if you made one.

But maybe you didn't make one. Like me, I didn't. Partly because I forgot. And also, I kind of don't know what to do or what resolutions to make. So if you're like me, you need some inspiration. Here's some that I found from some kids. Here's Declan. He's 11. He wrote, "My New Year's resolution is to eat 10 bags of Clementines each month." That's a lot of Clementines. How many are in a bag of Clementines? Like 10? 20? How many is that? I don't know. So many.

Jude keeps the fruit intake thing going. He says, "I resolve to eat more bananas because I only eat two or three a day." That's a lot of bananas. Here's Will. There's a little change of pace. Will writes, "I will eat all the cake." That's four. That's not a resolution, buddy. That's like a declaration to his parents. Here's Hazzah wanting to stop a habit. I'm gonna stop picking my nose. It is going to be hard. You know what, Hazzah? It is hard. It's still hard. Nobody's... I'm driving. Nobody can see, right? So you just go for it. Anyways.

And finally, we have Kendra. She's six and she has some brutal honesty. So what is the point of making resolutions if you never really keep them? She's six. Like already disillusioned with life. My goodness. She's looking at Declan, that 11-year-old, wanting to eat all these tangerines. Like, "What's wrong with you? You're not gonna do it? Crazy." She knows what's up. And I wonder, like, has she made resolutions and never kept them? Where she just sees her parents failing every year, throwing away treadmills. And anyways.

But it's the truth, right? So many people make resolutions and don't keep up. Don't keep them. In a recent survey, it says 60% of people get really excited in December and make resolutions. But only 8% follow through. And about half of them quit by January 31st. There has to be a better way, right? I mean, what if, instead of just vowing to change our habits, we dug a little bit deeper to find out how we could make lasting change?

Or what about making changes that matter while eating more fruit is fine and not doing certain things? That's okay. But a lot of times those things don't matter, the things that we resolve to do. And so we just forget about them. But what about things like being more kind? Or being more generous? I mean, less angry? Making changes that matter. Making changes that last, it's what our brand new series is all about. Habits of the Heart.

Take out your message notes that look like this. If you want to follow along and write some stuff down. Today we kick it off, Habits of the Heart. It's based off of a book called Enemies of the Heart by Andy Stanley. And if you haven't grabbed that book yet, I encourage you to do so. It's a great resource to read along as we are going through this series. There's a few available out in the lobby. They're available instantly at Kindle or any of those kind of digital platforms or the audiobook if you want to do it that way.

But I really encourage you to do that because in this book we see that there are four deeply rooted emotional forces that can wreak havoc in your life. And these enemies of the heart can cause the same destructive habits that a lot of us try to stop and try to change. And what we're going to learn in this series for the next few weeks is how we can combat against these enemies of the heart by beginning new heart habits. Each week you'll learn a new heart habit you can practice. And we'll start that next week with habit number one.

But before we do that, today what we're gonna do is we're gonna kind of set the stage. We are gonna learn three key truths about our hearts. Things that we need to know before we can begin to change our habits and begin these new ones. We're gonna find these truths in a story in Matthew 15. If you have a Bible you can turn there. Matthew 15 we're gonna be starting in verse 1. If you don't have a Bible there's one in front of you. The scripture will also be on the screen.

Matthew 15 verse 1. But before we jump into the scripture I want to set the stage give you some context what's going on in the world right now at that time. Jesus is mourning the death of his cousin John. John the Baptist was just killed and Jesus going through that and he goes on a walk with his disciples and a huge crowd follows them. So many people, thousands and thousands of people gather and his disciples are like Jesus we got to send them home because it's getting late they're gonna get hungry we don't know what to do.

And so Jesus says well why don't you feed them? He's like all we have are these few fish and loaves of bread and Jesus is God give me that and then he breaks them up and then they pass them out and miraculously they feed thousands of people as it multiplies in those baskets. So if this miracle happened and then after that they get on the disciples get on a boat and sail on the Sea of Galilee and Jesus meets them halfway while walking on the water towards them and gets in the boat keep sailing to the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee.

They land and here we are we pick up our story in Matthew 15 verse 1. Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders they don't wash their hands before they eat. So these religious leaders show up and they are very concerned because they saw the disciples eating without washing their hands. It's like my mom was there.

So what's the big deal like why are they so riled up about this? What you have to understand is being clean was a big deal to the Pharisees because if you wanted to worship God you wanted to enter into His presence you needed to be clean and it's not necessarily a physical clean or about hygiene that's not the point it's about this ceremonial and spiritual cleansing they went through before they could stand before God's presence.

It comes from the Old Testament where they would enter into the temple and the priest once a year would take the sins of the nation and take it in and ask for forgiveness and the atonement and so before they could do that they had to go through all these rituals to make sure he was fully clean before he walked into the presence of God otherwise that priest could die. And so these Pharisees were very obsessed about like cleansing themselves and what happened is what happened over time was to make sure they kept clean they kept creating rules.

Over time more and more elaborate rules were created and these weren't even written down these were just oral traditions passed along like a one Pharisee one day is like oh you know what we wash our hands here why don't we have water ready to wash our hands before every single meal that we eat and they're like oh yeah that's a good idea and so these traditions would pass on and so then you see the Pharisees ask Jesus why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders.

So the Pharisees can't believe the disciples are eating without washing and they flip out and they confront Jesus because what they're saying is you're letting your disciples eat that way not washing themselves they're gonna defile themselves how do you expect them to be able to worship God or follow after God and Jesus wastes zero time in his response and I you know I think Jesus has just gone through a lot he just lost his cousin he just fed a ton of people miraculously he just walked on the water and he lands on the boat I'm sure he's like let's go land and let's go just hang out for a second and then these Pharisees show up like hey those guys are washing their hands before he eats and he's just like can't take it anymore.

And so he turns to them is like oh my disciples aren't washing their hands before the well what about you and then he goes into this he like lays into them and the next few verses about all these rules they've created and he specifically talks about this rule where you know you can like give away your money and how it breaks the commandment of honoring your father and mother it's this really interesting thing that Jesus talks about that we're not gonna get in today but that interests you I'm gonna record a video about that for one of our video devotionals this week.

If you didn't know this every weekday throughout all the year except in the summer we send out a video devotional a short video by René and some of our other pastors as a way to start your day with some inspiration with some scripture with some prayer sometimes some worship and you can get them via text or you can just go to Facebook or Instagram or a website or YouTube all those directions are on the back of your notes on the bottom if you don't subscribe to them yet I encourage you to do so a lot of cool stuff we cover there and just a great New Year's resolution to start each day with some inspiration and you can do it that way.

But that whole thing Jesus goes on about with the Pharisees he sums up his point in verse 7 and he says this you hypocrites Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me they worship me in vain their teachings are merely human rules you see what Jesus was telling them was they were so focused on their rules that they lost sight of what they were trying to do which was worship God.

I mean the Pharisees didn't create these rules to be mean or evil they it was from a place of wanting to honor God wanting to please God and something we need to remember today Christian in 2020 when we look back a lot of times we look at these stories and we have to like put people in categories Jesus hero Pharisees enemies but at the time the Pharisees were the religious leaders of the day that everybody looked up to is how do we follow God we look at the Pharisees and do what they tell us to do.

So Jesus is now coming in and he's correcting what they thought because they kept trying to keep themselves clean by following all these rules that they created and that's how they would be clean but what Jesus said is no you haven't twisted and in verse 10 he drops a bomb on them Jesus called the crowd to him and said listen and understand what goes into someone's mouth does not defile them but what comes out of their mouth that is what defiles them.

When you just when you read that today one you might not understand what is he talking about you're not sure what that means but also you might think like what's the big deal at the time this is one of the most controversial things that Jesus would say to the Pharisees a lot of scholars believe this is sort of the beginning of the Pharisees looking at Jesus as a heretic as somebody who's crazy somebody who might need to be gotten rid of it angered them so much because what Jesus was doing was going against everything that they believed.

Their whole way of life was being questioned how they viewed their relationship to God was being shaken at its core because what Jesus was saying is what you think makes you right in God's eyes and makes you righteous that isn't the way but it isn't just the Pharisees who are confused of the people around him the disciples themselves they're all confused because they all grew up in this place with the same rules looking up to the Pharisees being very careful about what they ate and what they did.

And so Jesus you know they're like did Jesus just say it doesn't matter what comes into my mouth? And so Peter who is well known for opening his mouth in the Gospels pipes up in verse 15 he says Peter said explain the parable to us and again just think about Jesus's mental state he's just like angry at these Pharisees so then this is what he says to his beloved disciple are you still so dull Jesus asked them okay don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and out of the body but the things that come out of a person's mouth come from the heart and these defile them.

Verse 19 for out of the heart come evil thoughts murder adultery sexual immorality theft false testimony slander these are what defile a person but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them and so here we have Jesus giving us our first truth number one we all have a heart problem we all have a heart problem.

Jesus is revolutionizing their views on righteousness everyone thought to be righteous meant to follow all these rules but what he is saying is there isn't enough water in Israel to wash off what is actually making you unclean you know what makes you unclean it's not the food you eat it's not the rules that you don't follow it's what's inside of your heart.

I mean I don't know about the disciples of phile standing there like oh did you just say my heart is evil what but this is good news and it's something I think we need to hear today more than ever. I imagine there are some people in here you're here for the first time today it's the first service of the new year or the first weekend in the new year and you thought you know my your life is turned upside down you've turned to so many places and sort of your last ditch effort is to turn to God and you're here today and you're thinking to yourself I don't know I've failed so much God probably looks at me as a lost cause but I'm here.

Or maybe you're here and you've been a Christian but you think man I just can't live up to the to what I think you're supposed to be like I look at this other person who's a Christian and there is such they're way better than me yeah sure God loves me yeah but I don't think he likes me and then there's some of us in here we've been Christians a very long time and we've created our own set of rules I don't do this I don't do that I don't go there I don't watch this I don't listen to this I don't hang out with those people and we can say to ourselves thank God I'm not like them.

And what Jesus is saying is that all of us no matter where you land we're all in the same place that uncleanness that the Pharisees were trying to fix lives in us. Paul in the book of Romans chapter 5 talks about sin and he talks about when it entered the world back in the Garden of Eden he writes this Romans 5:12 therefore just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and in this way death came to all people because all sinned.

You see back in the garden was this picture of heaven where we lived and we were created to live in perfect relationship with God in perfect communion with God the garden was a was an example was a vision of what God wanted for us to be people who lived and who stood and knew who they were and knew whose they were children of God having full acceptance by him having full belonging in that relationship.

But when sin entered the world it broke the garden it broke what God wanted for us it severed that relationship and we feel the effects of sin to this day because our hearts are longing for that communion for that acceptance for that belonging that they were created for with God but because of sin we feel that longing and feel it and as despair and dissatisfaction and and we've been doing the same thing the Pharisees did.

Now we might not wash our hands to try to clean our hearts basically but we have our own rituals to try to fix what we feel going on inside but it doesn't work and so Jesus gives us our second truth number two you can't fix your heart on your own.

Have you ever felt sick and you decide to Google your symptoms? Has anybody ever done that? There's a reason you're laughing because you should not do that unless you want to feel like you are dying. I've done that many a time and I've gone to my doctor and he goes you googled I'm like yep because you'll Google something like my arm like arm pain and you know the first thing is oh muscle fatigue a bruise like acute trauma Ebola you're like I have Ebola.

You Google dizziness swine flu dry mouth that is mad cow disease every service I say that somebody takes a drink of water I'm okay but what we needed to stop doing is googling our symptoms we need to go to somebody who actually knows what questions to ask what to look for who has the tools to actually find out what's going on in our physical body as a doctor.

What's the same thing with our spiritual hearts you know we've been trying to diagnose and fix our hearts on our own when something comes up and you have a thought you lose your temper you say something hurtful to somebody we alter those behaviors oh stop doing that oh you make these rules but that's what we've been taught we it's how we grew up right you're misbehaving change that behavior you're doing something you shouldn't stop doing that.

And if we get out of line there are consequences it was in kindergarten where I learned my first cuss word it's the king of all cuss words and I was six I'll let you imagine what that is and one day I was at home while my dad was watching TV and I remember I was just walking away from the living room and my dad says like hey pick up that toy there a harmless command and what I should have said was yes father picked it up put it away but what I decided to do was use this new vocabulary word that I learned because what they teach you in school is when you learn a new word use it and that's how you'll remember it.

So I knew that I knew that this word was used when you're like angry or you know or you don't feel good and so I thought I don't want to pick that toy up so I do like this half turn like bleep and then I turned back to like go wherever I was going and then I heard this noise and I it's like no noise I'd ever heard in my home it's I the way I would describe it is like imagine like there is this lion in hiding under like the tall grass and he's like you're crouched and there is a group of gazelles or zebras coming by and there's this little small one a very disobedient zebra passing by his view and then he begins the chase oh and he like pops up out of the grass that's the sound I heard that pop up.

So I had two choices at that moment I thought I could turn around and find out what this odd sound is or two that odd sound is my dad and I need to run and so I chose option two and I ran as fast as I could and so here I'm running I'm in the middle of this you know National Geographic documentary and I die I get to my room and I dive under my bed like into like first base and I dive I get all the way to the corner my bed is up against the wall and I'm like trying to get as far away as I can from the opening from under my bed and I'm six years old I don't believe in God or anything like that but I begin to pray oh my God I don't know if you're real but can you save me from this and if you can't save me can I just come into your arms gently without pain.

And I felt a very strong hand grabbed me and dragged me from under the bed all the way to my parents bedroom and my dad would proceed to show me that this is a word you don't use and this is the 80s so he used like an old-school discipline if you know what I mean this is Florida is not California I don't know it seems different out here so I got this alligator and no so he is giving me this old-school discipline and I'm yelling and then I hear a noise I hear our front door unlatch and the door open and I thought oh my mom's home thank God if you're real thank you she's gonna come into this room she's gonna see what's happening to her precious little zebra and she is going to rescue this small child.

She walks into the room she's she yells and so my dad stops and gently turns and slowly turns and he says do you know what he said to me and he proceeds to say the king of all customers to my mom so then I make eye contact with my mom after she heard this and then all the hope drained from me because her eyes widened and then she gave me this look it's like it's like the look you give somebody when you're saying goodbye and you might never see them again and then she turned to close the door behind her and I don't remember what happened I woke up the next day I'm not doing that again.

It's the 80s we've all gone through those kinds of situations you do something you shouldn't do you find that out there is a consequence and then you're like well I'm not gonna do that anymore because I'm gonna try to avoid that pain but not just physical pain there's emotional pain on the flip side a lot of times we monitor our behaviors because it's rewarding maybe you're at your job and you know I can't act a certain way and I can't say certain things because I want to keep my job or if I act this way or befriend these people that I don't even really like but if I hang out with them and I do these things and say these things then I can move up.

But this is a problem a lifetime of behavior modifications where all we're worried about are the behaviors that pop up and trying to keep rules to make sure that those things are okay what that does it leaves our hearts unchecked because we're just dealing with the results of what's going on in our hearts the outbursts and we can follow those rules that we create and like okay and when somebody says how are you doing you're like I'm totally fine I've got everything under control until one day under a ton of stress something bubbles up to the surface and pops anger jealousy greed sin and the consequences of those things can be disastrous pain hurts broken relationships addictions you say to yourself I where did that come from because you're like I've been I'm fine but then what happened there and other people are like whoa that is not like you.

It's because our hearts have gone unchecked for so long and our fixes our rules it's not working and that leads us to our third truth number three we need heart change because we've tried behavior change what we need is heart change.

All this trying all these rules that we create they don't work because they don't get to the root of the problem they don't go deep down to what's actually causing those things to pop out those sins to happen it doesn't take away the unrest that we feel that longing that our heart has all those things don't fix it because we can't fix sin only God can do that only God can offer us heart change.

In Ezekiel 36 there is this prophecy about the nation of Israel and what God is gonna do one day and this hopeful promise but I believe after in reading this passage in Matthew and reading this prophecy I believe that it applies to us Ezekiel 36 starting in verse 25 it's God speaking I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

You know who's doing all the work in that? God. It's God who washes us it is God who makes us righteous and the way he does that isn't by us following rules and washing our hands and trying to modify all of our behaviors he does it through Jesus Christ because the Jesus Christ who is in this story would go on and go up on a cross and die for our sins.

The Bible says that he took all of our sins the sins of the world onto himself all the impurity all the defilement onto himself and he died as a payment for the penalty of the sin that's something that only God could do the Son of God and he died and then God miraculously raised him from the death through the power of the Holy Spirit and what God says is that if you believe in that you believe in his death and his resurrection you can have heart change you can have a new life.

I will make you a new creation in a moment I'm gonna lead us in a simple prayer of faith and if you're tired of trying to make it happen on your own if you're tired of trying to fix that inner unrest if you're here today and I and like I said earlier maybe it's your first time here or you've been coming here for a while but you haven't taken that step to place your faith to surrender your life to Jesus well I want to encourage you to do that today.

You can start the new year with a changed heart you can place your faith in Jesus and you can rest from your work you know what Jesus says he says if you're tired if you are heavy laden if you are burdened come to me and I can give you rest rest from all the work you've been trying so hard to do to fix this problem inside of you that you can't fix only I can do that let me do the work.

And Jesus tells all of us today that I have done the work so I encourage you when we pray that prayer you can pray that for the first time or maybe you're here and you feel you've placed your faith in Christ but you know life happens and you feel like you are far away from God and God doesn't like you.

I want you to know this God loves you and his grace for you is the same as the day you place your faith in him and today it could be a day where you say God I want to recommit my life I want to I want to start over and he's ready.

You know as I thought about this I thought you know what for myself and I know some people you think I put my faith in Jesus God has changed my heart but I still struggle. I love how Andy Stanley puts it in the book enemies of the heart he says this what God begins at the moment of our salvation is not completed in that same moment you're still a work in progress.

There's still some heart work to be done your heart didn't arrive at its present condition overnight it won't become healthy overnight either so here's one bonus truth our hearts have room to grow we are a work in progress Philippians 1:6 says he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus he is working on us.

And what God does is when we place our faith in him he then calls us to live for him daily to devote our lives to him daily and as we do that we grow but you know what the beautiful truth of God and his grace and his love is is that he not only calls us to follow him but he empowers us to do it because when you put your faith in Jesus the Bible says that the Holy Spirit then comes to live inside of you.

The same spirit the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us the next verse in that prophecy in Ezekiel 36 verse 27 says this and I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws he moves us to be devoted he empowers us to follow after him.

So I would encourage you in this series as you come back each week to learn these new heart habits that each week isn't a week for you to find out some new rule you have to follow to please God no if there are ways for you to grow and that God is standing next to you inside of you through the Holy Spirit empowering you with you each step of the way.

So church be encouraged today by this we all have a heart problem none of us are exempt and so many of us we just have been trying to fix it on our own and it hasn't worked but the truth is our only hope is in Jesus Christ amen.

Let's pray together with all your eyes closed I just want to invite you if you're here today whether it's your first time here today or you've been coming here for years but you've never actually taken the step to place your faith in Jesus to surrender your life to God I'd encourage you to do that today in a moment I will lead you in a prayer a simple prayer of faith and if it's if you're here and like I said you know what you just for some reason just feel like your relationship with God has gone off course and he seems far away from you can I just tell you something God has not moved though you feel like you've gone far away from him he stands there arms open and you if you'd like you can pray at this prayer just as a symbol as a recommitment just a moment you can say you know what I pray that prayer so God so from today I want to live for you wherever you are as I pray this prayer repeated in your heart.

Let's pray father God thank you so much for your love and your grace I thank you for your son Jesus that he lived innocently on this earth without sin and he died on the cross for my sins God you rose him from the dead you raised him from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit so God I believe and I confess my faith in you I surrender myself to you God I will quit all my work to try to fix myself and today I ask change my heart.

Father we thank you for your love we thank you for your grace the truth is Lord that though we have this problem of sin God that you offer us new life you offer us a changed heart you offer to make us a new creation because of what you did the work that we try to do has been done by you Jesus on the cross power of your resurrection we can have new life.

So God we worship you this morning just thank you for everybody in here who prayed that prayer for the first time God made it sense your grace and your love for them for those Lord that recommitted their lives I want to just make a new start God I pray that they would know that they are you are with them through your Holy Spirit empowering them walking with them through this life.

In Jesus name we pray Amen.