How a Moment Can Change You

Thank you. My name is Mark, one of the pastors here. It's so good to see your smiling faces. I just wanted to stay down there and listen to them play that incredible music. I mean it's like Twin Lakes Church turned into the House of Blues this morning. I mean it's just...yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Well it is great to see you. Maybe you're visiting here for the very first time. I know that a lot of Santa Cruisins like go to Lake Tahoe this week and a lot of people in Lake Tahoe come here. We wave to each other right around like Vacaville and Fairfield, right? So it's great if you're visiting with us here on this drizzly Fourth of July weekend, but I hope your weekend is going well.

And if you've been with us for a little while, a month or so, you know it's been a bit of a roller coaster for some of us. For me personally, as I told you last time I spoke, I was right on the heels of the loss of my best friend and I officiated his memorial service last Saturday. And we're still grieving. We're still grieving. Two weeks before that I was officiating René's mom's memorial service, Rose Marie. And so I'm tired of doing memorial services so don't die, okay? Just...I'm not ready for that. So actually thank you so much for your prayers, your love, your empathy, your support. You are such an amazing, amazing church.

And it's been a great series, this "Aha" series we're doing this summer. So far we've had some very cool "Aha" moments. Rich Conwisher last weekend, that was a lot of fun. Got to watch that online. By the way, if you're watching us online or you're over in venue, hello to all of you. Just turn around to that camera right there and wave to everyone that tunes in online both locally and around the world next door in venue. We're so glad you're with us as well.

But we had Rich Conwisher, with Dave Dravecki, man that was an amazing weekend as well. We had Valerie Webb again, she just crushed it when she spoke. We had some other guy, I've already forgotten his message, but anyway it's been a great series "Aha" and there are several more to come as we welcome Albert Tate, Craig Barnes a little bit later in the summer. Our good friend, the very funny Adrian Moreno is gonna be speaking here sometime very soon.

And today, as we continue in "Aha," I want to make this really practical because, you know, just speaking for myself personally, I don't want to just sit here every weekend if someone else is speaking and go, "Aha, that's very cool. That's a very interesting point." I want it to do more than just lodge in my head. I actually want it to make a difference in my life because after all what we do here every weekend, it's more than just information, it's about transformation, right? God is conforming us more and more, little by little, he's changing us into the image of his son Jesus Christ. That's the point, that's his agenda for us while we're on this earth and so that's what I want to be going on in my heart and I'm just guessing that there's room for growth in your life as well.

And so today I want to talk about how a moment can actually change your life. Because just because you have insight, a light flicks on, you're seeing something you've never seen before, just because that might happen or has happened, that's no guarantee that your life will actually change. No guarantee at all. For example, there's a guy named Dr. Edward Miller. He's the former CEO of John Hopkins University, the dean of their medical school and he oversees all sorts of different medical studies and the one that he is most fascinated with, it has to do with people who have undergone some sort of heart surgery bypass or something like that.

In fact, there's 600,000 people in the United States every year have a coronary bypass surgery, 1.3 million of us have angioplasty. So I hope you enjoyed that hot dog yesterday. But here's the thing that it kind of baffles them because all of the people who undergo one of these types of surgeries, they all know that they have a serious medical condition. They all know that if after surgery they make certain lifestyle choices, if they do that they will extend their lives often in significant ways, if they do that, the thing that continues to baffle Dr. Edward Miller and others is this, how come so many people don't actually make those changes?

Listen to what he says, "If you look at people after coronary artery bypass two years later, 90% of them have not changed their lifestyle and that's been studied over and over again and so we're missing some link in there even though they know they have a very bad disease and they know they should change their lifestyle for whatever reason they can't. Just because you have insight does not guarantee that you will change because actually insights only part of the equation. There's actually three elements that come together in an aha moment if that moment is actually going to lead to change in our lives.

These three things, if they're there you will change, you omit any one of them and you won't change. So we're gonna talk about that today and I want to give credit to a pastor named Kyle Eidelman. Kyle wrote a book called Not a Fan, maybe you've read that. This is his latest book. I found this in the Mount Hermon bookstore two weeks ago. It's entitled Aha! Now how convenient was that? I thought that I might just pick it up and see if it had anything that you know could help in the weeks to come and it did and so the outline comes from Kyle. Some of my thoughts are informed by him so I want to give him credit. Thank you very much Kyle wherever you are and for your great timing.

But one of the things that Kyle talks about, he's fascinated with these aha moments. He's interviewed hundreds if not thousands of people over the year about how an aha moment led to transformation in their life and he also does a good job of pointing out in Scripture how whenever there's life change inevitably these three elements are present. One of those moments in Scripture is in Luke 15. I'm gonna invite you to open your Bible to Luke 15. Grab one of those few Bibles if you like or you know you can pull it up on your Bible app on your phone or whatever tablet and then I won't know that you're actually texting or something like that. It'll just look like you're reading from your Bible.

Luke 15 if you're familiar with this chapter Jesus tells a bunch of stories about things that are lost and then they get found and he does this because he wants us to know God's heart. God loves to find and restore and heal things that are lost and really the pinnacle of the series of stories he tells the one that's the longest and the most dramatic is the story of the prodigal son. A story that's probably familiar to all of us. We're just gonna be looking at verses 11 through 20 this morning. The verses will also be in your notes and on screen so there's no shortage of ways to follow along.

Please do as I start reading at verse 11. "There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. Not long after that the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have food to spare and here I am starving to death. I will sit out and go back to my father and say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.' So he got up and went to his father."

Now you don't have to read the rest of the story to know that this young man returns home a changed man. In fact the rest of the story is about the incredibly warm welcome he receives from his father and the one he doesn't receive from his older brother who will remain unchanged. But what makes the difference in the life of this younger brother, this wayward son? Well it starts with an awakening. I want to write that down. Every aha moment begins with this sudden awakening and again when we first meet him he's rude, he's self-absorbed, he's like, "Dad I can't wait around for you to die. Give me my inheritance now."

And once he receives it he sets off for what? A distant country and that when that hit the ears of Jesus first body listeners you know that was not like, "Oh and he's gonna go on an exciting vacation." The surrounding lands to them were not places they had done well in. And so this is a bad omen. This is his first step in a downward spiral and they know this is where he's gonna go and he's gonna go and he's gonna pursue happiness on his terms right? Because what does dad know about having a good time? He's got these confining you know traditions and boundaries and I'm gonna go and live life the way that I want to because hey after all isn't the pursuit of happiness a right? And we know that that doesn't work out so well.

And we know that we've actually lived that ourselves because part of us, most of us, if you've been a child of God for some time you love being in your father's home. You love that feeling you have with your fellow family members and yet at the same time you also feel the pull of the distant country, don't you? I do. Thoughts, impulses, ugly, wicked thoughts pop into my head. Sometimes these thoughts they can lead to behaviors. They can lead to habits and we go where did this even come from? What am I doing? I know where this is going to end. I know it's wrong and yet part of being human is to be susceptible to the call of the distant country and so we can identify with this guy and we're also we're not surprised that you know this doesn't go well.

We know that certain kicks have kickbacks don't we? And so they start to descend upon this young man's life and there's really a combination of two things he's got to deal with now. He's got to deal with the consequences that he deserves and the circumstances that he cannot control. First there's the consequences right? He squanders his inheritance and wild living. He's like "Wow I didn't see that coming." Yes he did. He's not stupid. The problem is is that he ignored the alarm bells when they started to go off in his life.

It's kind of like the snooze button on your alarm clock. Why did they even bring those over to the phone? I don't know. Anyone a fan of the snooze button? Do we have an ear? Honest? A few of us? Okay it's good. I used to be a fan. I used to have it now to an art when I was younger. I knew how many times I could hit the snooze button and still get to work or school on time. But now it's like a torture thing. It's just like you can't really sleep. It's like alarm snooze. Alarm snooze. It's like this kind of, I don't know, some self-imposed form of purgatory because you know you're really you're not waking up and you're you're not really getting going and it's just I don't know. Stop the insanity. That's what I tell myself. Just get up.

And this guy you know this prodigal son, he notices that his bank account cannot keep up with his lifestyle and it's like beep beep beep. A little while later, checks his account again. It's like hey I'm gonna be probably bankrupt in a matter of weeks maybe a month. Beep beep beep. And he just does that over and over again. Beep beep. And he hits snooze. And it's no big shock that he's bankrupt. There's nothing complicated about it. We all knew where that was gonna go. He just refused to wake up.

Now what he can't see, what many of us often fail to recognize, is that our life is not merely the sum of our choices. Whether they be positive or negative, our life is not merely the sum. It's not that simple because there's also circumstances that we cannot control. Sometimes you don't get what you deserve and you say thank you Lord, right? Sometimes you do but there are circumstances beyond our control and in this story one of those is a famine. Just happens to hit the moment he runs out of money. Now did he cause the famine? No. It's just his bad luck. It just makes a bad situation even worse.

Another thing he can't control, he can't control the responses of the people around him who to a person all turn their back on him. It says in verse 16, "No one gave him anything." You know so much for the loyalty of his new party friends. It's like what you're out of money? See you later dude. They just moved on. But this is when under the crushing weight of both his the consequences and the circumstances, this is when he wakes up. This is when the aha moment begins. Verse 17, the beginning it says, "When he came to his senses." There's the light bulb right there. There's an awakening.

"And now with wide-eyed clarity," look what he says, he says to himself, "My father's hired servants have food to spare. Here I am starving to death." Now he kind of sees reality for what it is. And you know there's that old saying, "You got to hit bottom before you can go up." Well this guy's case in point. But think about it. There's no law that says that we actually have to hit bottom before we make a change. I mean often that's the way it plays out because most of us are fairly hard-headed. But there's no law that says we actually have to hit bottom.

Some of you, maybe over the past couple weeks or maybe this morning, there's an alarm bell going off in your life. It has to do with your marriage. Or it has to do with maybe what you do in privacy behind a closed door. Something like that and it's beep beep beep. But you just keep hitting the snooze button over and over again. And maybe you're thinking of that thing right now. And I don't mention this to bum you out. I don't mention this to make you feel bad. I mention this with the hope and the prayer that maybe a little bit of awareness today can save you more pain tomorrow.

But if you keep hitting snooze, eventually the bills will come due. It'll come due. They will come due. Even when we manage, because sometimes we can manage to silence the alarm altogether, it's quite possible to live in the distant country so long we forget what it's like to be in the father's house. We just forget. Or maybe others of you are thinking you're like, "Mark, whoa, whoa, time out, you don't get it. I was born in the distant country. Hey? That's where I grew up. That's all I've ever known. My family was so messed up, so dysfunctional. That's all I know. And I know that that that may well be true. And that's regrettable. But just because you were born there does not mean you have to stay there. Your life can change today.

In Kyle's book, he's got the story of a man named Pierre Paul Thomas. Pierre Paul Thomas, this is him on screen here. He was born blind. And at age 66, he has a bad fall down a flight of stairs, and he breaks a number of facial bones, and they rush him to the hospital. And the first concern is just to get the bones set in his face correctly. A lot of the bones around his eyes are broken. And then a couple months later, he goes in for plastic surgery for the final cosmetic repairs. And while he's meeting with the plastic surgeon, she says to him, she says, "Oh, by the way, while we're fixing your face, do you want us to fix your eyes as well?"

It's like, "Say what?" Apparently, there's a surgical procedure that can correct his form of blindness. In fact, this procedure has existed for decades, and he did not know it. And so the sad part of the story is that Pierre Paul Thomas received his sight years later than he could have. But on the upside, better late than never. You might have walked in here today blind to something in your life, and it's quite possible for you to walk out singing. You might have come here enslaved to something today, and it's very... it's quite possible because we do have a living, active, powerful God that you walk out free and better late than never.

So however, whenever it comes, the awakening is a gift. But the awakening will not lead to change unless the second thing comes into play. It's a little word we call honesty. Honesty. Honesty is a very uncomfortable thing. It's why we often avoid it. But honesty is absolutely necessary. In fact, it's one thing to acknowledge the truth or to come to your senses. It's another thing to own it. And by the way, just as a sidebar, this is the difference between regret and repentance. Regret is about being bummed about the circumstances you deserve or the consequences you deserve and the circumstances you don't have control over. That's just being bummed. That's regret.

Repentance goes further and repentance owns it. Repentance takes responsibility for my part in those things. And this is what this young man does in verse 18. The prodigal says to himself, "I will set out and go back to my father and say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.'" And there he is. He's owning it right there. "Hey, I've sinned against God. I've sinned against you, Dad. There's no blame. There's no excuses. There's no, 'Hey, I'm a victim.' It's, 'I sinned.' Period." And if awakening isn't followed with this kind of honesty, you or I will not change because it stalls out.

It's kind of like the story I'm reminded of. It's about a bishop and a priest. I probably shouldn't tell you the story, but I'm gunwoo anyway. So this priest is invited by a bishop to his house for dinner. And while the priest is there, he notices signs of intimacy between the bishop and the housekeeper. And so at the end of the meal, the bishop kind of pulls the priest aside and says, "Hey, I know what you're thinking, but I want you to know that our relationship is strictly proper." Well, a couple days later, the housekeeper notices that this very valuable antique silver ladle has gone missing from the bishop's home, and she asks the bishop, "Hey, you know, it's been missing ever since that priest was here. Could you look into it?"

And the bishop says, "Well, yeah, I can ask him, but I don't think he would do that." And so he writes the priest this very diplomatic letter. He says, "Dear Father, I'm not saying that you did take a silver ladle from my house, and I'm not saying you did not take a silver ladle from my house, but the fact is that the ladle has been missing since your visit." Well, a few days later, he receives the priest's response, which reads like this, "Your Excellency, I'm not saying that you do sleep with your housekeeper, and I'm not saying you do not sleep with your housekeeper, but the fact is that if you were sleeping in your own bed, you would by now have found the ladle." I know, I know. The grief is clouding my judgment. You just gotta give me a pass. Okay, if you want to complain, my email is valerie@tlc.org.

I've had it. But seriously, if you've awakened to an issue in your life, but you find yourself stalling out, I'm just gonna guess that you're not being totally honest with yourself. You've told yourself you can manage it. If I can manage that habit, I can manage my drinking, I can manage the occasional recreational drugs, I can manage the anger, I can manage the gossip, I can manage the bitter spirit, I can manage the critical tongue, I can manage whatever it is that I picked up in a distant country. I can manage it. But you probably can't.

Or if you are honest about your helplessness in your own very private moments, but you're still stalling out, then probably what you need to do is be honest with someone else. Someone who has the wisdom and the integrity and the maturity to be able to help you. That's why James, the brother of Jesus, says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed." Proverbs 28:13 echoes the very same thing, "Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy." There's something about telling another human being the truth that breaks the chains. It's the way we are.

So if you want a life-changing, truly life-changing, aha moment, it starts with an awakening, and then honesty, and finally, just as crucial, action. Action. After coming to his senses, being honest with himself, what he knows he needs to confess to his father, there's really only one more thing for this young man to do. In verse 20 it says, "So he got up and went to his father." And this is where his story takes a turn. On those five little words, "He got up and went." He got up and went.

Remember in verse 17 when he came to his senses here in verse 20, now he's he's taking action, and perhaps you've seen this or experienced this, you can spend a long time lingering between verse 17 and verse 20. You know what I mean? Well you know the right thing to do. You're honest about it, but it's taking that first step that can be so difficult. And you know it doesn't even have to be, you know, something that is in response to sin or something that needs to change. It could be something awesome, like you have an idea that you you want to pursue, or you you know you you should start exercising, or you want to go back to school, or you've been thinking about plunging into a particular ministry, or joining a small group, or a Bible study, whatever it is, your story will not change unless it includes the words, "He got up and went," or "She got up and went."

Without those words there is no change. Reminds me of when I felt called, distinctly called to go to seminary many years ago, and it was not good timing. I was married, two small children, full-time job, right here, and yet I knew with crystal clarity that that's what God wanted me to do. And you know what the hardest thing in that whole process was? Eight years. You know what the hardest thing was? Harder than any paper I ever wrote, harder than any exam I ever took, the hardest part was filling out the application. It's taking that first step. I remember literally laying on my living room floor, laying on the floor face down, there's the application laying next to me. It's like it was made out of kryptonite. It was like sucking every ounce of energy out of me.

But the good news is that that's where God loves to meet us. You know, it's like the guy who said, "Jesus, I believe now help me overcome my unbelief." This story, ultimately, in the context of the gospel, it's about God's power, not willpower. In fact, if you read forward, the older brother, the guy that thinks he's got it all together, he misses out on the Father's grace because he doesn't think he needs it. His own self-righteousness, his own togetherness gets in the way. So this is about God's power. And when this young man in brokenness and humility, when he takes just that very first little step, what happens next? While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him.

He ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him. I mean, can you imagine this scene, this father scanning the horizon for his wayward son, and when he sees him, he lifts up his robes in a very undignified way for those folks, and he runs to his son, and he wraps his arms around him, and he smothers him with kisses, and he says, "Welcome, welcome," before his son even has a chance to say that he's sorry. Now, who does that? I'll tell you who does that. God does that. God is the one who does that.

So if you have an aha moment, make sure you follow it through with honesty and with action, because you know what's just waiting for you on the other side of that moment? It's the moment that you can always count on. It's the moment I can always count on. It's the Father's warm welcome. The Father that doesn't say to you, "Hey, go fix yourself." It's not the Father who says, "You know, you're not worthy. Go on, get your act together, and when you've done that, you come back, and then we'll talk." That's not what he does. He is the... He's not the God of self-help. He is the God of salvation. He's the God of mercy. He's the God of grace. He's the God of transformation. He's the God who sent his Son, because after all, we are all prodigals.

But we have a God whose heart yearns and whose mouth can't wait to say, "Welcome home. Welcome home, my beloved." Let's rush to him now in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your grace. Lord, each one of us is here this morning because, among other things, we got up and went. So thank you for that. And Lord, I have to think in a group of this size where each of us has stories, each of us have experiences, each of us have our hardships and our joys. But there are times, Lord, I know from my own life, we find ourselves in a battle for our very soul.

And so some of us are there this morning. The alarms have been going off. We've had maybe even an awakening. But Lord, our feet feel like they're made out of lead. We tell ourselves, you know, it's just been so long. We tell ourselves, "I'll just always be this way. I guess I'm just fatally flawed." Whatever it is, Lord, the lie that the enemy has sold us, I pray today, Lord, that ye would open eyes, that shackles would come off. The people who need to encounter your grace and mercy and healing in a powerful way would find it because of who you are, not because of who we are. We're just, we're weak, we're broken. We can't do it, but you can.

So Lord, save us. Save us from whatever it is that would harm us, that would inflict damage upon not only our own lives, but our families, our communities. Help us to run to you and help us to understand that in doing so, we might have to talk to someone or pray with someone or get help. Help us to put feet to those things. As we cooperate with your grace in our life. We thank you, we love you, we pray this in the name of Jesus Christ and all God's people said, amen.