How to Change (Part 2)

Overview

Let’s end right there. These verses, especially verses 22, 23, and 24, are very important verses. Put off the old self, be renewed in the attitude or the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in Christ is made to be in true righteousness and holiness.

When I was converted around 1970, I was 20 years old. There were two or three years there in which these verses were very pivotal to me, because I think that one of the three most sensational things about Christianity … I use the word sensational. I mean, three things that are the most appealing and the most incredible because they’re too good to be true, that are the most appealing to the world. This is one of them. You can change. Theologically, the three things go like this. The ideal is not a philosophical principle and it’s not an abstract force; it’s a person, God himself, Jesus Christ, and the ideal has broken through the wall of the world and has come in. The ideal has become real. Because the ideal has become real, we can know Jesus Christ. We can know God personally. He can come into our lives. He can change us, and through us, he can change the world.

So put in the most stark and simple way, I think the three most sensational things about Christianity is it’s able to claim with a real straight face you can know God personally, you can change, and you can change the world. Three things. When I was a kid, there were a lot of people who just believed that in general, not so much about God, but there were a lot of people who sang Peter, Paul, and Mary songs. “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer out danger and warning.”

Everybody said, “That’s it! We can change the world.” We wanted to go straight to number three, and as a result of that, a lot of people of my particular generation are really pretty disillusioned folks. They decided they were going to do an end run around number one and number two and get to number three. We can change the world! At this point, not only are we cynical about that, but we’re extremely cynical about whether we can change ourselves.

About 20 years ago, I wrestled a lot with these verses. If you want to know, if those of you who would be interested … It might just satisfy your curiosity. I read a man named Jay Adams 20 years ago on these verses, put off and put on. The issue was … Can you change? How can you change? How can you change in such a way that it sticks?

At the same time I read a man named John Owen who went a little deeper. He wrote about 300 or 400 years ago. He wrote a particular book called On the Mortification of Sin. That book changed my life, and it saved my life, and it was on the same subject. As good as Jay Adams was on put off and put on, he didn’t really develop the little bridge between the put off and put on, which is right in the center, “‘… be made new in the attitude of your minds …’” John Owen did not ignore that, and he explained that.

Those were extremely important people to read, and I was constantly brought back to these verses … these three verses especially, 22, 23, and 24. Those verses right there. Put off the old self, be made new, and put on the new self. So if you don’t mind, I’m indulging and spending a couple of weeks on these verses because they’re so critical. Do you believe you can change? That is the most sensational thing about Christianity, and yet a lot of you have been either Christians or at least hanging around Christianity for a long time, and have you really changed? Have you really? There are so many things you want to change.

I asked my wife last night, “Give me a list of all the things you want to change.” I said, “Not just you in particular, but you in general.” We made a little list. Of course, there are a lot of things today in modern New York we were talking about, “Oh, we have to change our addictive behavior.” We’re addicted to food. We’re addicted to sex. We’re addicted to substances. But then you have uncontrolled emotions. We can’t control our anger. We can’t control our bitterness. We can’t control our fear. We can’t control our tongue. We have problems with our tongue. We say too much or too little.

We have problems with harshness. We have problems with cowardice. We can’t keep secrets. We can’t keep our promises. We have all kinds of fears. We’re afraid of certain situations. We’re afraid of certain kinds of people. We have hardness of heart. We say, “Why can’t I be more tenderhearted toward that person or toward that situation?” We know we’re hypocrites. There are certain areas where what we say does not at all measure up to what we actually do. There are various sorts of anxiety.