The Process of Change

Well, we've been through the days of Unloved and Bread. In our time in the Church, we learn year by year, there are things in life that we need to change. It's constant.

God reminds us and shows us things that need to happen in our lives. We see problems that we may not have seen before. Some of the problems are very big, that we realize other problems are small. But we've been called to a life where we change. Change is a big thing in our life. Let's go back to Hebrews 6 and look at a few verses here to begin.

In Hebrews 6, we have the foundational doctrines of the Church, if you will. As we look through those, I think you'll see the elements of what God has called us to when He opens our minds and lets us know how we should walk and what we need to do to follow Him. The author here of Hebrews 6, verse 1, says, Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let's go on to perfection. That's the ultimate goal, isn't it? The ultimate goal is perfection. And none of us are there. All of us are still far from perfection. I know an announcement that I forgot to make, Dave, so I will make it.

I saw you and I thought, yep, that one is within the bulletin. Let me make it right now. Children's choir practice is going to be 10 minutes after services, back by the kitchen area.

So, children, parents, if you can have your children back there, that will be 10 minutes after services. We're talking about change and going on to perfection. To go on to perfection means we have to constantly be letting God show us where our imperfections are and weeding those out of our life. He says, let's go on to perfection.

Not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and the faith toward God. We did that when God called us. We went through that. We understood that our life up to that time had been lived in contrast, contrary to the way that He would have us live. And we did lay that foundation of repentance. And we told God and we acknowledged our life is not going in the direction that you have us called to. We turn it around.

We turn it around. But repentance is something we do for the rest of our lives. It isn't something we do just before we're baptized. It's something we do the rest of our lives as we realize the weaknesses, the faults, the sins that are in us. Not laying again the foundation of repentance that results in us being here and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

And this we will do if God permits. He calls us. We grow. We build on the knowledge that we have. We become different people over time. We change. We change. Over in Romans 12, verse 1, Paul puts it very succinctly as he tells us what our roles are. Romans 12, verse 1, he says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

You know, year by year I understand more what that verse means. Because when we recognize what God has done for us, when we recognize the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, when we realize that we were going nowhere, that the world doesn't have the answers, that it all is futile, whatever we do on our own. Yes, we owe it all to God. And it is a reasonable sacrifice to yield our lives to Him.

He says, this is a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And don't be conformed to this world. Don't look to be like them. Don't let them change and dictate the way you should be.

But be transformed. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You've been called. You understand the way of God. You understand what it means. Be transformed. Be changed. Let God change the way you think, change the way you act, change to be more like Him. Don't be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

And that's what we're here to do. Prove it and then live it. To do that, we have to change the way we think. The renewing of our minds, the way we thought before, God called us totally different than what we think today. We may have thought that we were pleasing God by the things that we did, but then we realized, no, we weren't loving Him at all when we worshipped on a day that man chose rather than God chose.

Not obeying Him in the spirit of the law, but doing the things the way that someone else had told us to do things. Not following the word of truth, but following our own ideas or following others' ideas of what that truth was. That all required putting out, as we've talked about over the last seven days of Unleavened Bread, and then renewing putting in the new way of life and letting God, through His Holy Spirit, teach us and guide us along that way.

It's all about change. Now, change means every single one of us, every single one of us, has changed in our life, and will continue to have change in our life. We can talk about that from a spiritual purpose. But there's a lot of other things in our lives that need to be changed, too. Not simply from the aspect of the Bible, although it all does really flow from that. We all just want, we follow Christ.

And so there's aspects of our lives that we change. And there's people that have some problems in the world. We had problems, and still do have problems. People who are alcoholics have to change, don't they? People who are addicted to pornography need to change. People who are drug-addicted. People who, I don't name any of the hundreds of addictions that they say they're out there, addicted to gossiping, negativity, focus on self rather than focus on others.

Leaning on their own understanding. All these things that happen in our lives. Talk about the obesity epidemic, how we eat, and how that lends itself to our health conditions. There's all sorts of things that, as we become aware, we need to change. Now we know that, and the talk about change is very, very easy.

But how do we do it? How do we do it? You know, before, well, in my prior career, I guess, I worked in healthcare with hospitals, and I started off in accounting, but the bosses I had allowed me to grow into other things. In the last several years, I worked with hospitals, and I worked with doctors, and a lot of disease-specific areas to develop programs and to work with them to introduce those into the hospital and do the education, well, we coordinated the education, and really the whole component of it. And one of the things that we talked a lot to people about, who had chronic diseases or addictions or any of the things that required, well, almost everything requires change.

It was one thing to be treated. It was one thing to have a surgery. It was one thing to be on medicine. But if you really want to get well, you have to change the way you're living. What you have is a result of what you've been doing so far. And if you go back and do the same thing, the same results are going to apply. There's a famous psychologist. What does he say? Look at all your life.

Has that been working for you so far? If not, you need to change. And if you want different results, you've got to change your behavior. God would tell us the same thing spiritually. Through all of this, there's a spiritual application for all of us. But the process of change, we would teach them about the process of change.

What does change look like? How do you know where you are in the changing process? It's one thing to say change, but how do we do that? What do we go through? What does our mind go through? Because if we just say we're going to change, how many people on January 1st of each year say, I'm going to change the way I eat. I'm going to lose 10 pounds, 20 pounds, 50 pounds, 100 pounds. And by the end of January, maybe by the end of the first week, that's going out the window, right? Because they don't know the process of change.

They don't understand what they're doing. They haven't made the commitment, which I hope we've all made the commitment to follow God and put the old man out and put the new man in. But what's the process of change? And I want to talk about that today. There was a model that we used, and it was based on a doctor, a psychologist. He may have been a psychiatrist, I'm not sure now. His name was James Prochaska. And he studied thousands of people over a long period of time to determine what the elements of change were. And what I liked about his model is, it was, I don't think he patterned it after the Bible, but when we did it and taught it, it follows exactly what the Bible would say our process of change is.

And it helped people to identify what are the stages of change. Because we're all in this room in a different state of change. Spiritualism of us have been around for 20, 30, 40 years. Others are brand new and making major changes in their life. Health-wise, changes have to be made. Financial situations change, and in life, we have to change. Health conditions change, we need to change.

You may be told by doctors or others, this is what needs to happen in your life, in order for you to get to where you need to be. God certainly tells us that in the Bible. So today I want to talk about some of those processes. I've got a PowerPoint, I have an awfully loud up here on this podium, which is nice and big, but today I'm challenged here. Let me turn this on, see if I can do that.

Yes, I know what I need to do.

Bear with me just a minute. Ah, okay. Very good. Thank you, Dave.

Let me put some of these things. Some of these concepts, I mean, you will understand them, but it might be difficult to grasp it all at once, so sometimes putting things up on the board where you can read at the same time as you hear has a big aspect.

The first stage of change is called by Dr. Prochaska, pre-contemplation. Pre-contemplation. And it means exactly what it says when you know what contemplation means when we get to that in a minute. We would call it, or the Bible would call this, a state of ignorance. In this stage, you kind of know that something needs to happen. You realize there's something in your life not right. You've heard people talk about there's a truth to the Bible, there's a reason that God gave those laws and that you should keep them. And maybe you thought all your life, I've been obeying God by keeping these days that really aren't the days that He wants us to keep at all.

And you begin to hear, and there's something there, but you're kind of in a state of denial. For those who have addictions, maybe people begin saying, you know, you've got a problem, you need to do that. That's affecting your life negatively. But you're in a state of denial, and you don't really understand what it is, but you know that there's something out there. I want to look at a few examples here today of people, primarily Israel and the Apostle Paul, to show what these stages are. Go with me back to Exodus 1.

We'll see Israel here in their kind of pre-contemplative stage, or their state of ignorance. They didn't even really know. They didn't know that there was a future. They didn't know there was a life different than what they were living. And here in Exodus 1, verse 11, we find Israel in Egypt before Moses appeared, before they knew anything really was going on. Their life had just been slaves, and that's what they thought they would be, really, for eternity.

1 Corinthians 11 says, Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Python and Ramses. But the more the Egyptians afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread, the Egyptians were, of the children of Israel. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field.

All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor. The Egyptians weren't going to let them out of that bondage. Israel didn't even know what their potential was. They didn't know there was another way of life. Later on, the light would begin to dawn. They would begin to say, oh, there's a way out of this. But they didn't even recognize their strength, that they might be able to revolt against the Egyptians. That they relied on, of course, God to do that, to deliver them.

But they didn't even recognize it. They were in a state of ignorance. They were just going through life in bondage, no future, no hope. Just thought that that was their life and life, and that's how it would always be.

Many of us were in the same situation. If we've had things like, I'll just name the... I'm not stepping on anyone's telescope here, and I'm just going to... If we've had anything like drug addiction, pornography addiction, trapping addiction, alcohol addiction, all those things that are common in the world today, there's a time where people don't even know there's a way out. They just think that's who they are.

That was some of us, but we have changed when God opens the light. You know, Paul...it all happened in the early church as well, back in 1 Corinthians 6. Remember when Paul is listing all these things, all these sins that won't be in the kingdom of God? And he enumerates them one by one, very serious sins. And he says, And such were some of you. And what does that tell you?

They changed. When they realized, when they found, when God opened their minds, they changed. They allowed God to read them and guide them, and they put their faith in Him. But before that, they were ignorant.

God calls it a state of ignorance. Let's go and look at the Apostle Paul here, back in Acts 8. You know the Apostle Paul, back in the verses we're reading here, he was known in Saul, the Saul of Tarsus at that time. But he became a very, very loyal servant of God. Many of the books of the New Testament here are written by him. He lived his life to God, but there was a life before he was an Apostle, where he was living in the state of ignorance.

Acts 8 and verse 1. Here we see Saul right after the stoning of Stephen, who was talking about the truth of God. Paul, verse 1, says Saul was consenting to his death. And at that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the Apostles, and devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him.

Paul was there. He heard what this man was saying. He heard the truth of what he was saying, but he said, I don't believe it. I don't want it. It's good that you've martyred him.

It's good that he's gone. Let's drop down to chapter 9, verse 1. Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Here he was, in a pre-contemplative state, in a state of ignorance, fighting against the truth of God, warring against the people who believed in Jesus Christ, denying the fact that Jesus was the Messiah that was sent to earth. He didn't even know what he was doing. He thought he was doing right. But he was in a pre-contemplative state. When we're in a pre-contemplative state, I would say from God's calling aspect, none of us are in this state today, perhaps, but other areas that we don't even know where that we need to change yet. Those are the things that God chose us over the time that we're in the church, that need to be weeded out as we are on the road to perfection.

This stage is marked by resistance to change. What do the Israelites want to do? When Moses came, they began to say, oh, here's a deliverer, but then Pharaoh came and doubled their workload, or made it more difficult. We don't want what we have to offer. Moses, we were just happy right where we were. Now life is difficult. We're going to resist this change. Paul didn't want it. He wanted to keep doing what he was doing. We don't even know at this stage what you need to change. Pre-contemplative stage. We're in the book of Acts, over in Acts 17, verse 30. Acts 17, verse 30.

It says in the New King James, truly, these times of ignorance, the times that we didn't know the truth of God, the times that we were doing things, and we may have been thinking that we were doing things exactly the way God wanted. But there came a time when we understood that wasn't His will. Truly, these times of ignorance, God overlooked. I think the old King James puts it very nicely. Truly, these times of ignorance, God winked at. But now, now commands all men everywhere to repent.

A pre-contemplative change, where you really don't know, but when you become aware, He commands all men everywhere to repent. There comes a time when we realize we must change. Spiritually, with the calling of God, overcoming drugs, overcoming pornography, overcoming alcohol, overcoming anything that is keeping us in bondage, that we yield to, that we just can't seem to break through, and that holds us back. We come to the point where we realize there is something different, and we must change. We must repent. The next stage, then, is contemplation. Pre-contemplation, during that time, you become aware that there's something there, but you haven't made the choice to do it yet.

You're still in a state of denial, if you will. But in the contemplative state, the light begins to dawn. You begin to see that there's something more than what you used to do, something more to life. There's hope. You begin to see there's a problem in the way you lived, in the way you conduct your life. In the way you eat, in the way you handle situations in your life. You see a recurring problem, and you think, I can't keep doing this, I have got to change. And you see that there is hope. You're not under that bondage.

God, in the meaning of the Days of Unleavened Bread, is God will release us from that bondage, no matter what the problem is. But we have to change. So in this stage, the light begins to dawn. In this stage, you begin to see there's a problem, and there's a solution out there.

Hope. Hope begins to emerge as you see beyond the thing that's keeping you down. And you think, wow, maybe I can. If I wasn't this way, if I wasn't dependent on this, I see that there's a future beyond what this world has to offer. There really is truth. There really is Jesus Christ. He really is returning this earth.

He really will set up a kingdom. He really will bring peace to this earth. And I don't have to look to the governments of this world to do that, which simply will not and don't know the way to. Hope begins to emerge. There's a new way of looking at things. During this stage, you begin to look at your life. It's going to do that examination thing we talk about. Where am I? What do I need to change? What would I like to be? During this stage, you begin to look at your life, see where you've been, what's been done wrong, and that things need to change.

Because if you keep doing the same things over and over, you're going to have the same result. You begin to contemplate change. You begin to think about it. You begin to think, maybe there is an answer out there. Maybe I need to look at this more. Let's look at Paul here again. We're in Acts 17. Let's go back to Acts 9. In Acts 9, we left Paul, and he was still fighting against the people of God, still fighting against the people who lived the way of life of Jesus Christ, who believed that he was the Messiah.

In verse 3 of Acts 9, we find that he had a wake-up call, if you will. It says in Acts 9.3, As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. The light was about to dawn on him. Truth was about to emerge and come on him. Light shone around him from heaven, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Well, you know, Saul, Paul, Paul thought, who is this? I'm serving God.

Aren't I doing his will? And here's this voice saying, why are you persecuting me? Why are you doing this? Paul, don't you know that you're doing the opposite? And he said, who are you, Lord? Who is this talking? I thought I was doing your will.

And God said, or the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It's hard for you to kick against the goads. Paul, what you're doing isn't right. You're fighting against truth. You're fighting against eternity. You're fighting against the right way of living. So Paul, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what do you want me to do? Where do I go from here? And the Lord said to him, arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.

All of a sudden, he was sent from a pre-contemplative stage. He knew there was something out there. There was something different about this man, Jesus Christ. There were people who were willing to give up their life, like Stephen, because of the belief in him. But he didn't want to believe it. But all of a sudden, the light dawns, and he's thrown into a contemplative stage. For three days, he was in blindness.

He had nothing to do but think about what God had shown him. For us, as we were called into the church, we may have initially thought, no, that can't be right. I couldn't have been doing things wrong all my life. I always intended to do things we wave God said. But then we look into the Bible, rather than what we would have been told, and read, no.

What God says to do is different than what I've been told, different than the way I've lived. And I see eternity. I see that Jesus Christ is returning. I see that he's going to set up his kingdom. I see these things that I never saw before. And you think about it, and you may read about it. Many of us have gone to websites, read booklets, listened to broadcasts, read articles, read the Bible, I hope, because that's the source of truth.

And we think about it, and we contemplate it. And we realize, and we come to the awareness that what we've done, and the way we've lived our lives, isn't the way God said for those who follow him to live their lives. And we realize, little by little, as God works with us, we have to live differently.

The same thing holds true, and I'm not going to keep repeating it. The same thing holds true. If you have some other problem in life that needs to change, and you become aware of it, you take the time to think about it. If you don't just jump from one to another, you think about it for a while. And Paul was thinking about it for a while. God led him into that contemplative stage. I'll just drop down here to verse 9.

He was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. There was a certain disciple of Damascus named Ananias, and the Lord said to him in the vision, Ananias. And he said, Here I am, Lord. So the Lord said to him, Arising over the street called strait, and inquire at the house of Judas, for one called Saul of Tarsus.

For behold, he is praying. He's praying. He's thinking. He's contemplating. He's seeking truth. And in the vision, he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight. He's in a contemplative sight. He's in a contemplative state. He's thinking right now. He's aware right now that something needs to change.

And he's beginning to make changes in his life as he's in that contemplative state. Ananias, as you recall the story here, doesn't want to go see him. He's heard the stories about Paul. It's like putting my life at risk, he says. God says, trust me, the man, verse 15, the Lord said to him, Go, he is the chosen vessel of mine, to bear my name before Gentiles, kings and the children of Israel. I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. God is saying, Go to him. He is a Chinese man. Through this three days, a very short time to be in the contemplative stage, he realizes what he was doing was wrong. It's time to go a different direction, the direction of life. And so a choice needs to be made. And Paul and many of us were in this contemplative stage, as we were coming into the truth and recognizing it. There were things that we began to think differently. It was no longer as much fun to do the things that we used to find fun to do. Many of you felt guilty when we went out on Friday night to drink with our buddies. Go to the basketball game on Sabbath afternoon and realize, no, that doesn't hold the appeal that it used to. The kind of jokes that I used to find really funny, I don't really want to hear much about that anymore. The type of entertainment or the idea of being inuburated doesn't seem to have the same appeal to me that it used to have. My mind is changing. I'm beginning to realize there's a different way of life out there. A life that has more meaning. You remember that when John was baptizing? Remember when the Pharisees and the Sadducees came to him? John was baptizing in the River Jordan. When the Pharisees and Sadducees came to him, he said, What are you doing here? What are you doing here? Through the vipers, remember? He was very blunt with them. He talked about fruits of repentance. This baptism isn't for something to just go on the way you always have. You should be bearing fruits of repentance. I should see a difference in you. And when we're contemplating and when we're choosing and when we're making the choice that God says in Deuteronomy 30-19, I set before you this day life and death, blessing and cursing. And he says, choose life. And as we come to that stage, there's things that are changing. We're acting differently. We don't find the same things as appealing as we did before. If it's alcohol, if it's drug, if it's pornography, we realize we can't do that anymore. That's holding us back. We can never become who we are to become if we let those things always hold us down. And we begin to act differently. And, of course, for us, throughout all this, it's God's Holy Spirit that helps us because it will make all the difference in the world. We'll talk a little bit later about the failure rate of people. But people contemplate change and they make it happen. While they don't make it happen, they do choose to let it happen. We rely on God to make it happen and to see us through. But there's the fruits, the fruits of repentance that should be evident in our lives. The changes that our family members can see, that our friends can see. Let's go over to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter 4.

1 Peter 4 and verse 3. Paul talks about this change that happens in us that our friends can see, our family members can see. 1 Peter 4 and verse 3.

1 Peter 4 and verse 3. We have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles. We spent all our other life doing this stuff that we used to do when we walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelry, drinking parties, abominable idolatries. We spent our life doing that in regard to these. They, your friends, your families, they think it's strange that you don't run with them in the same flood of dissipation. And they may sneak evil of you.

What are you doing differently? Who do you think you are not to go out with us? Oh, you think you're someone better than us? You think you've got that you're so much better than us that you can't do these things anymore? And true as some friends can be, they will try to drag us down. Keep us down at their level. But God doesn't want us at the level we were. God wants us always improving, always developing, always growing to the higher standard. And that's perfection. Not what the world would say. The world might say, lose your inhibitions. Just do these things. Try it. No, we don't try the things that we know are wrong. We strive for perfection, not the ways or things of the world.

That's what we do. And so, we go through this stage and we make a choice. The doctor here who studied said, this stage takes people six months or more to go through. Because you want to go through this. You don't want to rush this stage. You want to know what you're doing. You want to know what you're getting into. You want to think it through and you want your mind, when it makes the choice, to be committed to it. Yes, I will no longer follow the ways of the world and the false religious ideas that are out there. I will follow the truth of God. Take some big changes. No, I will no longer succumb to alcohol or depression or all these other things that can hold us down and keep us from who we need to be. I will rise above it. Realizing that it's God who gives the strength that goes without saying. So, as they say, I, we know we need the strength of God to do these things because these are tough things that a lot of us face. But God gives the power, but we have to make the choice. We have to make the choice to change. We have to do the things that show Him that we're interested in. He will give us the power and the strength to do it. And so, people contemplate. During this time, true repentance is happening. People are thinking about committing themselves. If we take it back to the truth of God, committing to be baptized, committing to do God's will, saying, I know this is the truth. Many come in and they're very eager. They're very excited about what they hear. They want to be baptized immediately, but you need to take some time. We'll talk a little bit about counting the cost. We tell people, count the cost. You need to know what you're committing to. You need to know. You don't even know all the Bible. We spend the rest of our life learning. But you've got to come to the point you know that this is the right way. And if it's a disease you're dealing with, if it's cancer, if it's morbid obesity that leads to so many things, you've got to make the choice to know, I know this is the way to do it. I know that I have got to change what I am doing because what I was doing before has resulted in the mess that I'm in now. And there's a way out and there's only one way out.

Got to make the choice and count the cost. People contemplate during that time. And when during that contemplation period they come to see the truth, they know the change that needs to take place. They know they need to give this up, they need to leave it behind.

And then comes the next stage, preparation.

We read here about Paul as he was praying during the contemplation stage. And certainly during the contemplation stage we would pray, we would read the Bible, we would learn all we can about God. We would ask questions. We would come to church. We would become part of the body that God has and understand that. We would realize and see that it is the truth and then we would prove the things we would hold to it. And then there's the preparation phase as we know and have come to the knowledge of the truth or what we need to do in those other areas of our life. And we need to change so that we can become who God wants us to be. We would call this stage, the Bible would call this stage, preparing your heart. We've talked about preparing your heart before, right? Let's go back to 1st Samuel 7. Let me just look at a verse on preparing your heart. Very important part because as we make the decision to do that, if we just do it, rotely, if we haven't done it without thinking it through, if we haven't prepared our minds, this is the way my life is going to be for the rest of the time. This is what I'm committing to. And purposing in our mind, we will follow God. We will get these other factors out of our life that are holding us back. 1st Samuel 7, verse 3.

Samuel spoke to all the houses of Israel, saying, If you return, remember this is the story when the Ark is coming back, and Israel is realizing they have departed from God. He says, if you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the asterisks from among you. Prepare it. Prepare your heart. I've said this before, and you have your own stories as well. When my parents were coming to the church, I knew when my parents were planning to leave their old church and begin attending. What's the truth that my parents had come to see? They went through the house, and the crucifixes were taken down, and they were thrown out. The Christmas ornaments were thrown out. The family heirloom of the Last Supper was taken down, and I don't know if it was thrown out, or some other family member wanted it. We've talked about clearing the landscape, preparing yourself to follow God. And as you do those physical things, just like putting leaven out of your house, it's preparing your heart to follow God. If you let the spiritual part of what you're doing affect your life as well, it's preparing you. You're getting ready to follow God. You've repented. You've come to the knowledge, this is the truth, this is the way I need to go. Now my heart needs to be ready to follow for the rest of my life. My heart needs to say, I'm not drinking anymore, I'm not going to be depressed anymore, I'm not going to look at pornography anymore, I'm not going to take drugs anymore, I'm not going to live or do these things that have created my financial problems, relationship problems, health problems. These things are going. I see now that's what has resulted in the problems that I've had. I need to change. I need to adopt this new way of life. I need to follow God. I need to follow God. That's where the future and that's where eternity is. And we prepare our hearts at that time. During the preparation stage, people are making the final adjustments, mentally, using this up here before they begin to change their behavior for good.

They're making the mental adjustments, making themselves realize, I must do this. So many people, when they decide to lose weight, on January 1, they haven't thought it through. It's a whole thing to do. I know I need to lose 20 pounds. I'm going to stop. I'm going to go on this diet on January 1. They haven't contemplated. They haven't prepared. They've just kind of made a spot decision and so within one, two, three, or four weeks, they're off of that diet and they're right back to the way they were before. Christ talks about the parables in the parables, the sower and the seeds. Some people hear the truth and what do they do? They may be initially very eager about it, but then it just kind of flies away. They don't take any time to contemplate. They don't have the realization that this is proof. I must follow it. They don't let the truth grow in their minds.

I'm going to turn to Col. 3, verses 5-7. We read that during the days of Unleavened Bread. This is the time when you are putting off the old man. You are realizing the old behaviors can no longer be the way they were before.

They have to be gone. And that's a hard thing to do. And it takes the rest of our life, in many cases, to put those old behaviors out. Certainly none of us are going to attend to achieve perfection in this lifetime.

We spend the rest of our lives doing that. And as we see the things that need to change, preparing our minds and realizing, I'm not pleasing God. If I continue in that way, I need to please Him. I need to do the things that He would want me to do.

You can mark down Luke 14, verse 28. Again, during this preparation phase is the part of counting the cost. Christ says, you know, what man that's ready to build a tower hasn't sat down and called to do cost? And if he hasn't, he's going to build that tower a little bit and run out of funds, and it's going to be there as a testament. He didn't count the cost. He only got halfway. He didn't follow, and he didn't complete the project. None of us want to say that we started down the road with God, and we didn't get there all the way. We have to go through the processes of change. We have to make the decision to do that. Dr. Prochaska says that people who cut short this stage and don't prepare themselves mentally, they lower their ultimate chance for lasting success and change. They simply aren't going to achieve what they set out to achieve if they cut this short.

So we contemplate. We think. We make a choice.

We prepare ourselves mentally. We make a commitment, and it's time to take some action. Bible would call this putting on the new man. We put off the old, and now we need to put on the new. Now we need to start living, actively living the way that God has called us to live, actively leaving those other elements of our lives that we know we need to change behind, and saying, I won't do that anymore. I won't pray to that anymore. I'm not going to fall off that wagon. You know, with the recidivism rate of just for obesity, morbid obesity, people who have gone through surgical procedures. I'll take the surgical procedures back. It's over 95 percent that people go back to their old behaviors, and they fail because they don't keep themselves. They may start the action phase. I'm getting rid of myself a little bit here. They start the action phase, but they don't follow it through. They don't put on the new man and ensure that the new man is who they are going forward. They haven't mentally told themselves, I will not go back. If they fall off the wagon in any of those areas, or spiritually, they repent and they get right back on. They don't give up. They don't let a little failure drown them or submersse them. They get back up. They repent. Then they start walking with God again. Putting on the new man. Let's go back to Acts 9.

Let's see what Paul did. He was thrown into a contemplative stage that was very short. He prepared his mind. This crosses over into what we're doing here, what we're talking about in Acts 9, verse 18. When he comes out of the state that he was in, when he recognizes the way his life was going was not the truth. People see some dramatic changes in him. Acts 9, verse 18.

Immediately it says, there fell from his eyes when the Ananias visited him, and that he was filled with the Holy Spirit. There fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once, and he arose, and he was baptized. Action phase. This would be in our calling, I'm ready to commit for eternity.

And he arose and was baptized. So when he had received food, he was strengthened, and Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus.

What was he doing at that time? Did he go back to his old cronies that he was hanging around with that were saying, Yeah, Saul, yeah, Paul, Stephen deserves to die. Yeah, round those people up. Take them off the Jerusalem. Persecut them. Make sure they're not following Christ. Did he go back to that crowd? No, he didn't. He surrounded himself with people who he knew had the same outlook and the same beliefs that he did. He didn't go back. I'm not saying we should never talk to old friends again, but if we are in a state where people are dragging us down, and all they want us to do is talk us out of what we believe, or say, not a problem.

If you have a drink, smoke a little pot now and then, look at a little pornography. What's that hurting? It's hurting. It's hurting a lot. We wouldn't hang around people like that who want to put us back in the bondage. We want people who will exhort us to be better than we are, who will hold us up. That's part of why God called us to be part of a body so that we can exhort each other, encourage each other, help each other to be better.

Recognizing the weaknesses and never looking down on someone because they have a weakness, but helping them and supporting them through the calling that we have, through the Spirit that God has given us. And the Holy Spirit itself in us props us up and guides us and helps us to be with one another. Paul didn't go back to his old crowd. He did go on to go out and preach to him, and he saw the reaction that they had. It wasn't a good reaction. He hoped that what they would do is say, Oh, Paul, we see what you're saying.

Jesus Christ is the Messiah. No, that isn't the reaction they had at all. You and I have had that reaction with some people, right? Oh, come on. You're keeping the wrong day. God said the Sabbath, the seventh day, is the day that you keep if you want to honor Him. And you think, Oh, everyone will see that. They'll see the same thing in the Bible, especially if they read it from cover to cover.

They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear it. They don't want anything to do with it, right? The friend calls old cronies. They wanted nothing to do with what he believed. He saw the truth. They didn't. They didn't want to hear it at that time. So, He didn't hang around them anymore. Over in Galatians 3, we get insight into what He did during the action phase of His change.

Galatians 1, verse 13, as He's writing to the church in Galatians, He's used His past to educate them. He says, You've heard of my former conduct in Judaism. You know how I used to be. The stories are out there. I can't hide it. This is who I used to be. You've heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.

I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. I was successful there. I was out doing the things. Hey, people looked to me. It was a famous sermon. I realized what I was doing was wrong. What I was promoting was wrong. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son and me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I didn't immediately confer with flesh and blood. I didn't confer with flesh and blood.

I didn't go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles. But I went to Arabia and returned again to this Master's. And then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him to the cross. And I was in the cross. I was in the cross. And I was in the cross. And I was in the cross. And then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days. He thought out and he was with the people of God, people who he knew had the truth that he had.

If we're recovering from alcohol, drugs, pornography, other addictions that we might have, we don't go to find our old friends who are having the same problems we are and expect them to say, Yes, do it! Yes! Be different! Yes! Exceed to the higher level! They're not going to do that. They're going to give you every reason to say, Ah, you're not so bad. It's okay. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. You're not as bad a person as you're telling your tale, saying you're going to say you are.

No, you wouldn't do that. All of us need to improve. All of us need to change. All of us need to happen. Part of that action can be painful. It can mean that we have to start developing new relationships. We have to start talking to God, studying His Word and letting Him tell us what's right and what's wrong. Part of it is our old friends, like Paul found out, want to kill that spirit in us. They don't want that to happen. Paul's old friends wanted to kill Him. It took them by surprise when they first heard Him talking about these things, and they were puzzled.

What? Who is this guy? What is he doing? And when they realized, hey, he really believes that Jesus was the Messiah, he really believes this stuff, they wanted to kill Him. Remember, Satan always wants to kill the people of God. He wants to kill that belief in you. He wants you to remain the state you're in.

He wants you to continue to be held down and being miserable and knowing there's something more but not being able to rise above it, because the way we rise above anything is through Christ.

You know, one of the tenets of AA, and one of the reasons that people can succeed in that way, is the first element is you have to rely on a higher power. It's not within ourselves to do those things. And so they, whatever people say, they realize it's not of us, it's a higher power. Well, we know who that higher power is. We know the true higher power. It's God the Father and Jesus Christ. It's His Spirit in us that gives us the change. We don't have any excuse because we can do it.

But we have to choose to do it, and we have to put into motion the action phase after we've contemplated, after we've gone through the process and realized, ah, this is what was wrong in my life, this needs to change. And it means some things have to be put out and some things have to be put back in, not back in, new things have to be put in.

During the stage, people overtly modify their behavior and surroundings. Thus, they are making a public statement of their change. I won't do this anymore. No, I'm not going out on Friday night anymore. No, I'm not going to have a smoking joint with you anymore. No, I'm not going to sit down and watch this pornographic movie or with you anymore. No, I'm not going to do these things that we used to do.

I am not doing that anymore because I know it's not the right thing to do. No, I'm not going to church on Sunday anymore. No, I'm not going to celebrate Christmas. No, I'm not going to call her Easter eggs. I'm going to keep the games that God said. I'm going to follow His law, do His will, and that's the way it is from here on out. And I'm going to be around people and go to a place that believes the same things that I have come to see and that God has led me to see, just like He led Paul to see the truth, just like He has led you and me to see the truth, and I'm going to commit to that.

I've thought about it, I know it, I know what's right, and now I'm going to take the action I'm going to commit to it because I've prepared for it mentally, and I will not. We tell ourselves, ever fall back or go back the other way. We will trust in God, have faith in Him, and He will lead us right to that road, and that we talked about yesterday, right to the Kingdom.

But there will be obstacles along the way. Some of those will be our friends.

And some of those are just facing the things that are going to come upon us and realizing and saying, No, I will not succumb to those giants that come up in my life. Whether it's persecution, whether it's the Great Tribulation, whether it's anything in my life that seems insurmountable, I will not let that keep me from doing what God wants me to do. And if we've gone through the phases of that, we will. People that go through the phases of it because of a disease, something they're overcoming or whatever. If they go through the phases properly, it becomes part of them. They become a new person because they don't think the way they used to. Just like you and I don't think the way we used to. We become a new man when we're baptized. The old man is buried. A new man comes up and we tell God, Write your script on me. Write on me your laws, your purpose, your will, your way. And we're no longer the person that we were before. We no longer think the same way, behave the same way, react the same way, do the same things. We don't let those things become and define us anymore. We're defined by something far different. When Israel passed through the Red Sea, you know what? They became a different people. Remember when, on that morning after the Passover, when God defeated finally all the gods of Egypt, when the firstborn was dead, the Israelites didn't wake up that next morning still acting like slaves. They plundered the Egyptians. They saw themselves in a new light. As they exited Egypt, they didn't see themselves as slaves anymore. We shouldn't see ourselves as slaves anymore. God has freed us. Doesn't mean they were going right to the Promised Land. They had a journey to go and a lot of things to change along the way. One of the falsehoods of religion is that once you're baptized, you're once saved, always saved. Absolutely not true. We talked about that yesterday. We'll talk about it time and again. And anyone who thinks that, go back and read Hebrews 10.26. Go back and read Hebrews 4-6 that tells us we can lose. Just like people who are overcoming alcoholism, addiction, or other addictions, they can lose and fall back off the wagon, stoking Christians. They can go back to the same way they were before and fall right back into the same habits and ways.

But if we come a new person, let's go back to Romans 8.

Romans 8, verse 9.

When we take the action, when we contemplate it, when we know, when we're ready to commit to God for the rest of our life, when we're ready to put all these things out of our life, in verse 9, we're baptized, we've repented, we've baptized, God sees the baptism, hands are laid on us. And in verse 9, it says, You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. God puts His Spirit in us. We are new people. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Let's drop down to verse 16. Verse 16. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. A new identity. Someone we weren't before. We are children of God, and if children and heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, if indeed we follow, if indeed we do the things that God said, if indeed we allow Him to change our lives, that we may also be glorified together. New identity. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says we're ambassadors of the Christ. We're supposed to be representatives of God's way of life to the world. When people look at us and they see honest, joyful, happy people, they think, what's different about them? They're not like us. They should see something different in the way we are. They may not understand it, but they say the way we live our lives, and they think, you know, when they say something, they do it. I don't have to worry about leaving them behind at the office. I know everything that's there when I leave is going to be there when I come back. I can trust them. Yeah, they keep this Sabbath day, and I understand why they have to take a Friday off on April 10th. But you know what? Everything else about them I like. I like them. They're happy people. They're loving people. They're joyful people. They have a purpose in life. They're not like the rest of the people who are complaining and bickering and depressed and miserable and wishing they were someplace else. They seem to have a purpose and something in life that motivates them beyond just a dollar or what they're going to do that evening or what their sports team, how they fared in the night before. You see a difference in them, new people. The action phase. Through this process, a new person emerges. A new person. Different than the person before, just like Paul was a different person.

Lasting change. In any area of change, never ends at the action stage. Never ends at the action stage. And yet, so many churches in the world will tell you, once you're baptized, you've reached the pinnacle. You've done it. It doesn't. That's not true. Lasting change does not end at the action stage. You can start down the road to resisting alcohol, pornography, depression, shopping, whatever other things that I'm not mentioning that may be part of our being.

But it never ends there. That's where it begins. That's where healing begins. Spiritual healing, emotional healing, financial healing, physical healing. That's where it begins. The next phase is maintenance. Maintenance. God would call this enduring to the end. You've done the work. You've contemplated. You've made the commitment to God. I will follow you forever. But then there's the rest of your life. Then there's the rest of your life. It didn't end with baptism. It started at baptism. Christ would call this enduring to the end. You know the verse in Matthew 24. He says, He who endures to the end. Not He who is baptized, but He who endures to the end. The resurrection of the firstborn is not those who were baptized, but those who at their death were still living by the Holy Spirit, who were still being motivated by it, who were still looking to God, following Him implicitly, searching for Him, or searching and following Him and letting Him search their hearts for what they needed to do. Ancient Israel never maintained. So many people don't maintain. The recidivism rank among alcoholism, health recovery, is astronomical. If those people fall, you know what? We all sin. What do we do? We repent. We get up and get going again. So many people, though, when they fall, they just fall back into the old behaviors. They kind of give up. They just become alcoholics again. They just revert back to the old behaviors again. There's a danger in that. Don't let yourself do that. Don't stop coming to church. Don't stop following God. Don't stop doing any of those things. That's death. That's death. That's not the way of life. Whether it's health, whether it's finance, whether it's emotion, whether it's physical, and certainly spiritual. Leaving God, not honoring your commitment, is death. Endure to the end. We read Hebrews 6, verse 1. It said to go on to perfection. That's the rest of our lives. Let's go back to Hebrews 6, though, and look at verses 11 and 12. Verses 11 and 12.

The author here, and he believes it's Paul, says in Hebrews 11 and Hebrews 6, We desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end. Until the end. The same diligence of hope until the end. That you do not become sluggish, but imitate those whose true faith and patience inherit the promises. Don't get lazy. Don't become weary, Paul said in well-doing. Don't think Christ isn't coming back. I'm not sure about this or that. Keep up the energy. Revelation 2, the Church of Ephesus, rekindles the first love. Go back to God. Go back to Him and ask Him to give you that same diligence that you had. Don't fall asleep. Don't become like the latest in the era that just waltzes through life with one foot in and one foot out, but doesn't really commit to God.

Don't become sluggish. Don't become negligent. Don't let down. Don't let think. Don't think, Oh, you know, if I just do this once, it's okay.

You know, it seems really hard, but in AA, they say, not even one drink. Not even one drink. Because they know that the temptation is if you have one drink, it's going to lead to another, and then lead to another, and there's that weakness that's there. And so we might think, no, we don't have to do this this time. You know what? God doesn't care if we're not where He wants us to be at this time, or He won't care if we disobey this commandment a little bit. I mean, kind of, what's it really going to hurt? If I disregard, is really the seventh commandment really mean what it means, where pornography or other things might be involved? Yeah, it hurts. Yeah, it hurts. If we've had that weakness before, we can go right back to the way we were. We don't want to put any temptations in our way on that. Enduring to the end. This is a tougher stage, the studies show, than all the stages before. A tougher stage than all the stages before, because it lasts for the rest of your life most. And I think that's an understatement the vast majority loses during this stage. We talked about that yesterday with the number of Israelized men who went into the Promised Land. Christ saying, many are called. Many have gone through those phases, but few are chosen, and who will endure to the end?

Most lose it during this stage.

We never give up. When we fall, we don't say it's over. We get up, we get back again. We ask God to follow us, lead us, and guide us. And we recognize as part of counting the cost that this is for the rest of our life.

Just like in recovery from other problems that we might have that are chronic, that hold us down, that we must. That we must, if we're going to live life, overcome.

Finally, the last stage identified by Dr. Prochaska is termination. That sounds like a bad word, doesn't it? Termination. None of us want to be terminated, but termination, what he means here is, it means the end. You have succeeded through all those prior five stages. In this stage, he says there's zero percent of temptation to engage in problem behaviors, and there is one hundred percent confidence that one will not return to old behaviors.

You know how it says how many people reach that stage in this life? Zero. And if we ever think that there's zero chance we can return, chances are you'll fail. Because as long as you realize you can return, then you will, well, you should be encouraged and motivated to keep on your guard and not allow those old behaviors to come back in again. That would be the same case for us as Christians. Not in this lifetime, not as long as we have physical life, is there one hundred percent chance that we will not return to old behaviors? Any of us can. If we let our guard down, if we let old ideas in, if we let things creep into our lives, if we're not guarding our hearts, if we're not guarding our minds, if we're not keeping close to God, if we're not studying the Bible, if we're not praying, if we're not relying on the Bible as the source of truth and not the Internet and not the TV, but the Bible as the source of truth, we can all fail. How many people have failed and endured for many years, but never achieved the state of termination where there was zero chance that they would return to the way they were before? God would call this stage perfection. Perfection. Let us go on to perfection. You know when we will know that we won't turn back again? Now he tells us where it is. Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15.

The resurrection chapter, if you will. 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15. This I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Not the physical body will inherit the kingdom of God. It's appointed to all men once to die. And then the resurrection. This I say, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. No longer with physical mortal bodies, but with spirit bodies crystallized in perfection, because God has watched us develop. We have led Him lead us on our journey to the kingdom throughout our lives. We've followed Him. We've yielded Him. We've led Him change us. We've been motivated by His Holy Spirit. Let me put this stuff right now. Prochaska doesn't talk about this. With God's Holy Spirit, you can change. No excuse. The choice is ours. God gives us what we need to do. We have to make the choice. The trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then it shall be brought to pass the saying that's written, Death is swallowed up in victory. That's when determination. That's when there's perfection. When we endure to the end. When we allow God to lead us, and when we die, or at Christ's return, we have remained loyal to Him in just the way that you know we need to be loyal and just as we talk about. A lot. A lot to digest, and all of us are in some part. Most of us are in one part, on our spiritual lives, but you know what? In other areas of our lives that we know we need to overcome in, there's different areas that we're in. It helps to know what stage we're in and what is the mental process we go through as we make choices. But let God change you. Let His Holy Spirit lead you into what needs to change, and always follow Him. Always keep your eye on the goal that He sets, and always keep moving forward to perfection.