A Summer of Transformation

So we are in a series called Summer of Salt. We want to be salty people this summer, not the bad salty, the good salty, right? We want to be good salty people. And we're doing a number of messages, just not a series necessarily. We're just kind of putting pause as we enter into summer.

It's a little more laid back, and we have some felt needs messages. We have some more deeper messages, kind of get a little deeper on some things, you know, and we talk about some things. So we're going to be doing that over the next few months, actually. We're just going to kind of hit these different things, whatever God leads me to talk about or others that I invite to speak here in the church. We're going to have some guest speakers at different occasions, and it's going to be an amazing summer.

We're going to have a great summer, guys. Also, we've got some outreach stuff coming this summer that I'd love you to be a part of, and we'll talk more about that in some future services. But today, I just, last week, I kind of talked about the journey, you know, the journey and finding, you know, your way on the journey and the people you need to surround yourself to get to where you need to go on purpose. So that was kind of a little more practical, a little more kind of easy-flowing, easy-go kind of stuff. But this week, I want to talk about something that's a little deeper.

It's a little more serious. Buckle your seatbelts a little bit because this isn't, if you're not a believer, that's okay. This might not necessarily be for you. But it is if you just kind of listen and lean in a little bit. But for others, it definitely is something that we need to consider.

We need to think about no matter where we are in our walk of life. And the title of my message is A Summer of Transformation. A Summer of Transformation. Now, we like that word transformation, right? Like, that's a tagline.

Any of you business people, y'all like to use that, right? Like, I'm going to transform your whatever that is, right? I'm going to transform your finances, right? I'm going to transform your, the work, the people who are fitness experts, you know, and things like that. You're going to transform, you're going to transform your body.

I'm going to show you how to transform your body. You get those Facebook ads, you know. Transformation can take place. You can be a different person from this day forward. And we think about transformation.

We like that tagline, transformation. And we work on transforming our lives, right? We work on transforming our lives by eating better, we quit drinking, or we organize our life better, or we control our finances better, and we look out after what we spend, or we put ourselves in the right network so that we can live better lives. But is that really transformation? Is that really what we call transformation?

Because I believe there's a misunderstanding of what transformation really is. Because those are only behavioral modifications. And there's nothing wrong with behavioral modifications to be a better you, to be a better you tomorrow than you were yesterday. We can all use some good instructions to be a better us. But God talks about transformation.

He talks about real transformation. It's one thing to be an improved you, to perform better, to be a better you. And we all can improve. But when God uses the statement transformation, you can be transformed. It's completely different.

It's changed. God doesn't just want to improve us. He doesn't want to just improve us. He wants to renew us. He wants to make us a new creation.

In fact, when I gave this point to the guys who do our notes and things like that, I kind of thought about it, and I wish I had gone back. In fact, I would say, God doesn't want to just improve us. He doesn't even want to just renew us. He wants to make us brand new, brand spanking new. That's what the Bible talks about.

That's what the gospel's about. Now, and we look to Ephesians, and if you'll turn with me, you can go to the Bible app, pull up our event, and you can go and get all of our scriptures and things like that. We don't have handouts or anything like that, but you can go there and do that digital and follow along with us. And in Ephesians 2, it says this, for God, or for we are God's masterpiece. We are God's masterpiece.

What does that mean? We are a work of art. And when God comes into your life, he doesn't just make you a better you, okay? It's like that. He doesn't just kind of look at the tattoo.

You know how we got these tattoos that people put on them that cover up the old tattoo, and they paint it up, and they make it like, they take the devil, and they make it a little nice cute turtle, you know, later on, or something fuzzy and friendly, kind of to cover up the old life. You know how we do that? So, no, no, God doesn't do that. God actually comes in, wipes it clean. He starts out clean.

He takes the tattoo, the old ugly tattoo off, and he starts printing a new one. It's an empty canvas. You were this messy, all over the place artwork that began from the beginning of life. What does he do? He takes the canvas.

He takes and wipes the canvas clean, and he begins to paint you new. He begins to paint you new, and that's why he says, for we are God's masterpiece. You are his masterpiece, and he has created us anew in Jesus Christ, so we can do the things he planned for us to do long ago. What does that mean? That he actually, even before we knew him, he prophesied over us.

Did you know that? He gave you a purpose. He gave you an identity, even before you knew that identity. That identity was stolen, but God took you back, and he made you anew, and he created you. He prophesied over you.

He gave you a purpose, and he wants to make you new today. So, here's three truths I want to give you today, and then I'm going to give you three ways you can help this process in which God is making you new. So, the first one, the first truth I need to give. You is that the gospel or the core of the gospel is change. The gospel is changed.

The core, the central root of the gospel is about changing, guys. It's about changing. It's not just living a better life. It's about completely changing. And every other religion in the world, this is what distinguishes Christianity from every religion in the world.

Every religion in the world says there has to be behavioral modifications in order to reach God. There has to be some kind of outward standard that we have to meet. There has to be some type of improvement. But God comes in and he says, you don't have to do anything. I change you.

I do the changing. So the core of the gospel is change. The core of the gospel, the central message of the gospel is change. In fact, 2 Corinthians says it like this. Paul says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

Not an improved creation. Not a better creation. He is a brand new creation. And the old things have passed away, right? The old things have passed away.

All that old stuff, it's gone, guys. It's a fresh canvas. It's a nice work of art. He's designing it. It's gone.

It's gone. And all things become new. And all things, you can have a fresh start. This summer, you can have a fresh start. You can have a transformational summer.

Once you get this in your mindset. In fact, the Greek word for that is metamorphosis. You know, y'all all understand. You're smart people. Y'all all understand metamorphosis.

How you have the ugly caterpillar that somehow builds this cocoon, you know, around themselves for a season. And they come out a completely different animal. It's amazing, right? We all, when we think about that for a second, how does this ugly little creature that looks completely different become this beautiful butterfly? And the same thing is with us.

That's what they're getting at in the scripture here. That we become a completely different person. And the church is our cocoon. The church is our cocoon. This is the place where we are formed.

This is the place where the metamorphosis takes place. And it's not about a building. It's not about even building Salt Church. But it's a vehicle that God has created to help us become something completely different. Something completely new.

So we allow him to become a part of the process. And this is why you should be a part of a church. This is why you should be involved in church. This is why you should not miss out on church. Be involved in the community and connecting with the community.

Because you need to be a part of the, you need to invite yourself in the process, involved in the life of the church. Because once you do that, you don't think the same. Your marriages aren't the same. Your habits go away. Your emotions aren't the same.

Because when we are together, when we are in that cocoon in which metamorphosis takes place, this is where you need to be involved in a spiritual family. We have a lot of people, well, I have a relationship with God. You know, I have my own thing with God going on. You know, I don't really need a church. I don't really need a church family.

God and I are like this. And I can tell you that change probably isn't taking place in that life because they're not being molded in the cocoon of where God has, that God has placed, and that is the church. John speaks of a story of a man named Nicodemus. And he was kind of similar to this, you know. He wanted change, but he wasn't quite ready for it.

He wanted to be transformed, but he wasn't quite ready for it. So, in John 3, it says there was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. Now, you knew he was a religious leader because when you saw Nicodemus, he had the clothing on. He had all the stuff that suggested the outward appearance and all that. They knew him as a religious person in that community.

When people saw Nicodemus, they saw him that way. And that's why Nicodemus came in the dark to talk to Jesus. He says, after dark one evening, he came to speak to Jesus. Now, why did he come in the evening? Because he wanted change, but he was afraid of what his friends would think.

He wanted change, but he's afraid of what the others would think, like the religious community would think, how they would react if he was talking to Jesus. And maybe you want it. Maybe you're ready for it. Maybe you want change. Maybe you know, but you haven't experienced this metamorphosis.

Maybe you want it, and you're ready for change, but you're just not ready to go there yet, right? So many are not ready to go there yet. I don't want to let my family know about this. I don't want to let my unbelieving boyfriend or girlfriend know about this. Let me tell you something.

If you have an unbelieving boyfriend or girlfriend and you want this, you need to give them a text. You need to give them a call right now. You need to let them know we need to meet, okay? Because we're not going in the same direction. Because if you want what God wants for you, if you want this transformation, if you want this, you're going to make some decisions.

You've got to make some serious changes in your life. And Nicodemus wasn't quite ready for this, you know? And I was with a guy, there was a guy in our church a few years ago, had this radical salvation experience. It was all about God, just wanted to change the world and things like that. But he was really, really, really struggling because he was in an environment, he was in a business environment where it was really brutal.

There was a lot of values that didn't align with his values. And he was really struggling with that and he was making a lot of money. He was making a lot of money and he wanted to make changes, but he just wasn't ready to go there. And we prayed about it, talked to him about it, had lots of meetings with him about it. You've got to, like, let that old world go.

You've got to make some changes. You may lose some things, but you're going to gain so much more. Unfortunately, he didn't make the changes and he began to drift back to where he was before, drift into that old lifestyle, drift back to where he, and even today, he's still struggling with some things. See, that's what happens when we don't, God's got so. You've got something so much better for you.

God's got so much something better for you. You've just got to make the decision. You've got to make the plunge. You've got to make some changes in your life to get there. See, Nicodemus was a conformer, but God wants us to be transformed.

He conformed to what others thought. And he came to speak to Jesus, and it says, and he calls him Rabbi. Rabbi, he said, we all know that God has sent you to teach us. See, at this point, Nicodemus only saw Jesus as a great teacher. Some of you only see Jesus as a great teacher, okay?

Some people only see Jesus as a great teacher. You know, he teaches all these great things. He treats others well, you know, take care of other people, take care of your community, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. They may understand it, but they don't see Jesus, but that's not the goal. The goal of church is not to get you to a nice teaching, okay?

Or to get you to do the right things, okay? It's helpful, yes. The Bible is helpful, but the goal is not to get you to do the right things. The goal is to get you transformed. The goal is change.

The goal of church, the goal of Jesus is for you to transform and to experience God. When you come into this place, we don't want you just to get a nice teaching. We don't want you to get you some nice music and then get you a nice gift on the way out and then go have roast beef after church. I mean, that's not the goal of a Sunday morning. The goal of a Sunday morning is so that you can encounter God and be transformed for the glory of God.

That's why we do what we do. It's the gospel is about change. And then Jesus, Nicodemus says this, your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you. See, he experienced God. He knew that Jesus was who he said he was.

And then Jesus replied, I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. So here's the truth. Unless you are changed, unless you are experiencing change, you've received a false gospel. Unless you're experiencing change in your life and your heart, because there's two different gospels. There's the teaching gospel, but then there's the gospel that is about change.

And you want to make sure, and that's what Nicodemus, he experienced the teaching gospel, but he hadn't experienced this change. And he says, what do you mean? Explained Nicodemus, how can an old man go back into his mother's womb and be born again? What are you talking about this born again thing? It just really was confusing to him.

And Jesus replied, I assure you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water, which is baptism and salvation, and be born of the spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. Something didn't just happen on the outside. Something happens on the inside. That's what Jesus was trying to tell him.

It just doesn't happen on the inside. It's not an outside. It's not your Pharisaic ways of doing all these things. Something actually happens on the inside. The gospel is, at its core, about transformation.

It's not to sit where you were. It's transformation. It is change. The second thing, the second truth, God loves us where we are. God does love us where we are.

He loves you right where you are, whether you're far from him or whether you're sitting right with him, but loves you too much to leave you the way you are. He loves us too much to leave us that way. He wants to take us somewhere else. And there are two different versions of Christianity, guys. There's the God loves you.

God has grace for you. And then there's the one that says God wants to change you. And both of them are truths. And we can carry one too far one way and carry the other too far another way. We have the grace teaching, you know, like, oh, God loves you.

It doesn't matter. Even if you're living in willful sin, even if you're making decisions that don't represent him, oh, it's okay. Grace is sufficient. Grace is enough. Grace.

And we have that gospel. And then we have the other version, which is if you're going to hell unless you get your life right now, start acting right. Start doing right. So you've got that extreme over there. So you've got two different ones that are working together.

But the fact is, it was never intended to be two teachings. It was meant to work together in unity. And that was Jesus' teaching when John says it like this. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Talking about Jesus.

The word became flesh and dwelled among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father, what full of grace and truth. Jesus was full of grace, but full of truth. Grace attracts, but truth unravels. Grace attracts, but truth unravels.

Truth helps us see that we need to be different. That we need something to happen inside of us. Grace attracts us to God. And grace invites us to be free, but truth sets us free. You need to write that down.

Grace invites us to be free. Right? It's attractional, right? That's what we want. That's what we're all longing for.

Right? But truth sets us free. Truth sets us free. And that's why we have these confrontational messages from time to time. But on the other end, we have these felt needs messages that we have.

So when we're heading into September and have a lot of new people coming in, we tend to do more felt needs messages about stress and about, you know, a better family life, about starting over and things like that. But then from time to time, we've got to talk. We've got to talk about sin. We've got to talk about the things that are eating us up, the things that are not letting us grow, things that are not allowing us to transform, which leads me to my next point, and this is the hardest point for you, and this is where, but we need to go here. We have to go here because I'm doing you a disservice as a pastor.

If I'm not changing, if you're not changing, I might not really know God. If I'm not changing, if I'm not seeing change in my life, I might not really know God. And might, I put might in that statement because it's, I don't know, I'm not here to judge, I don't know, that's between you and God. You might not know God, but that's something you need to ask yourself. Is change happening in my life?

Is transformation, if the central part of the gospel, if the core of the gospel is change, am I really changing? Do I really know God? But here's the deal, and I've got some, I've had some hard conversations with people. I've actually had to sit down with people from time to time, especially those who I've been a part of for a while. I've been in their lives for a while, and I've walked through some things with them.

And I've actually had, even in recent months, I've sat down with people, and I've asked them, I need you to come over, I need you to sit across from me, and let's talk for a minute. Now, you've been walking with me for three years, or four years, or five years, or you've been a part of SALT for this long, or that long. But here's the deal. I need to see fruit. Because if I don't see fruit, I can't trust that change is happening in your life.

So I have to question, where are you? And do you really know God? Because if you really know and you're really pursuing God, it's one thing to know about God and want to do the things of God. But if you know God and you're pursuing God, there should be change. There should be change.

1 John says it like this, and he gets really hard. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin. And if we claim to be without sin, what do we do? We claim to be without sin if we have sin.

We claim to be without sin, and here's what people think. Oh, yeah, you know, I know the Bible says that. I know I'm not supposed to do that. I know I'm not supposed to go there. But you know what?

God spoke to me differently. He said, this part of me is okay. Like, you pull out pieces of the Bible that kind of compromise what you're going through so that you can justify what you're doing, and that's okay. But here's what it says. What are you doing?

You're deceiving yourselves, and the truth is not in you. John gets really heavy on this. You're deceived. But here's the beauty of it. Here's the beauty of it.

We don't have to figure it all out, okay? You don't have to figure it all out. As long as you're honest and you confess your sin to God, because he says this, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us of all of our sins, right? And purify us from all unrighteousness. So the good news is, if you confess, if you're honest, if you're real with God, if you're real with people around you, you can have this thing called being purified.

You can have this thing called purity and righteousness. You can be made right, because God doesn't expect you to have to figure it all out. He knows you're going to stumble sometime. He knows you're going to fall sometimes. He knows you're going to fall short.

He knows you're going to sin. We're all imperfect people, and God knows that. He knew it from the beginning of time. He knows what you're going to do tomorrow. He knows what you're going to do the next day.

He knows you're going to say something that you didn't mean to say to somebody tomorrow, and you have to go to him again. Then, he knows that you're going to have to do that, but he says, if you confess it, that's where it comes. Just be honest with God, and then he goes on to say this in verse 4 of chapter 2. He says, and whoever says, I know him, but does not do his commands is a liar. That sounds hard, because we have to do his commands, but hold on with me there.

And the truth is not in that person, but if anybody obeys his word, this is the key part right here. Love, but if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. In them. Not in him, in them. It's made complete in them.

Because why? It's kind of the reverse factor. The reason we follow his commands, the reason we do the things we do, is not because we feel obligated to do them. It's not burdensome, because we understand what complete love is. We understand what it's like to be loved by a father, and a father that loves us, and we love him.

And it's not burdensome. And this is how we know we are in him. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. We must live as Jesus did? Oh, that sounds crazy.

No, if we absolutely understand the love of our father, the love of our God, it is not burdensome to follow God. But here's a red flag that I always get when I'm talking to people about change and transformation. When they give me these statements, hey, I'm trying, buddy. I'm trying. It's just so hard.

I'm really trying. I really am trying. I'm trying to do more in the church. I'm trying to do more prayer time. I'm trying to show up at Salt Group.

I'm trying to. That's a red flag for me, because I'm like, quit trying. Quit trying and begin loving, okay? Begin loving God. Don't forget about what you're supposed to do and start leaning into who God is.

Start knowing God more. You need to know God. You need to know God. And then John says, in chapter 5, verse 3, he says, In fact, this is love for God, to keep his commands, and his commands are not burdensome. They aren't.

When you know the love of God, his commands aren't burdensome. The things that you know what he knows more. He knows your heart better than you do, right? I don't obey the earned God's favor. I mean, we do sacrificial things for people all the time, right, that we love.

It's not a burden when you have a good friend that's poured into your life to do something for them. It's not burdensome to take care of your child when they need something, right, and to love them in ways that nobody else can love them. That's not burdensome to us. It's not burdensome to love your child. In the same way, when we understand the love of our Father and how much He loves us, and we know Him, we really know Him, not just understand who He is, and have a nice theology, but know Him, and have a relationship with Him, then it's not an outward behavioral thing.

It's an inward heart condition. It's a heart condition. I remember when I first gave my life to Christ, I had to learn that, you know. I was completely bought in, and for the first time in my life, I'd lived with this outward idea my entire life, thinking that I had to measure up, I had to meet these standards, I had to do it this way. But when I really was consumed by the love of God, in that room that night where I gave my life to Christ, where I felt the Spirit just pour down on me, and I gave my heart to Jesus, for the first time in my life, I understood what the love of God was.

And I walked out of that room like, Lord, I'm willing to do whatever it takes. I'll do whatever you want me to do, because it's so much better on this side of eternity. I knew God's love at that moment. I'd never known it before. I'd grew up religious.

I grew up going to church. I grew up being a preacher's kid. I grew up doing all these things. And I was the bad boy in the youth group. I was telling people to sneak out.

Let's go out and do this and do that, you know. We were like the black sheep of the youth group, the pastor's kid, right? I lived religiously for a long time. But then I understood completely and fully who God was, and I was never the same. So, it really wasn't burdensome.

So, how do we let God change us? How do I let God change me? Because some of you are in here like, God can't change me. I'm just, if you knew my past, if you knew where I, God can't change me. And that's nonsense, okay?

Let me just tell you, that's nonsense. I've seen God change the worst of the worst people. He can change anybody. If he can change a liar named Jacob and call him Israel and put him in the lineage of Jesus himself, of saving Israel and delivering Israel, if he can take a liar and do that, he can do that to you. If he could take a man named Moses, who was a murderer, and make him a deliverer, he can do that for you.

If he could take a man named Paul, an executor of Christians, who was one born out of due time, is what he said, and he uses him to write, I've heard of the Bible, the plant churches everywhere, the most, you know, renowned character probably in the Bible today, he can use you. And that's why we need to take this first point. Let me give you three real quick things, and then we'll end and go have our roast beef, okay? That's a Southern thing. I'm sorry, guys.

We just ate roast beef all the time after church. My mom made roast beef so much, oh my gosh, I don't even want to have anything to do with it anymore, pot roast. Number one, get past who you were and focus on God, on who God wants us to become. Get past who you were and focus on God, on who God wants you to become. That's the key right there, because we're so focused, and I talk about the past a lot, because, not because I want to talk about past, but you guys want to talk about the past all the time.

We want to talk about the past all the time, because we want to hold on to the past. But Paul didn't hold on to the past. In Romans 1, he says, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God. He says, I was set apart. I was called to be.

I knew what I was called to do. And in Colossians, as he's talking to the Colossians church, he says, you used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived, but now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these. You used to. You used to. Some of you are still living in the used tos.

I used to do this. I used to do that. Your conversations are used to this and used to that. And you need to be living in the I am nows. I am now.

I am now a new creation. I am now a daughter, a son of God. I am now walking him. I am now. I am no longer that person.

I am a new creation. I am a masterpiece. I am a work of art. I am a new canvas. I am created to be like him.

And some need to walk across that line. I think one of the most, I studied a lot. I was a big fan of John Wesley and his movement. And he always liked the holiness thing and righteousness living out. They called him, you know, the name Methodist actually comes from methods.

They were using methods in order to really structure their lives, to live holy and stuff like that. But a lot of people just don't understand, you know, what he was really trying to communicate because he saw so many people living these holy lives and these righteous lives and these lives of purity. And he knew there was something more to it than just some kind of statement that was made or some kind of behavioral modification that would happen. And what he was really getting to, you know, with his followers and the people that followed him is that there's a point, there's a crossroads in which we take, okay, where we're no longer running from sin. Because that's what we do.

We kind of have sin over here and, you know, God's over here, but I'm just kind of, I'm almost there. But there's a point where you're crossing that line and sin's no longer pulling you back and all you see is Jesus. And you begin to walk to Jesus. You walk towards Jesus and all you can see is Jesus. And you know what that sin starts doing?

It starts fading away. It starts fading in the background. It starts going away. That thing I want to struggle with, I don't struggle with it anymore because Jesus is right here. I want to be more like you, Jesus.

I'm listening to you, Jesus. I'm loving you, Jesus. I'm walking with you, Jesus. That addiction I had, wow, where did that go? I didn't even know I had that problem.

How did I even have that problem? Because I'm walking with you, Jesus. And we need to take that step across the line, across the road, across the line in which sin is no longer in our path. It's dropping off and we're walking towards Jesus. We're living holy lives because Jesus is making us holy.

We're walking towards Jesus. We desire that relationship with Jesus. Don't give God permission to put you back on the shelf. Okay? Yeah, you want to give God permission, which leads me to my next point.

Give God permission to change everything. You need to give God permission, okay? You need to give God permission. God is saying, and Scripture says this, as He's talking to the church of Laodicea. And they're a church that's neither hot nor cold.

And He wants a hot church. See, Jesus is looking for a hot church. He's looking for a church that's on fire for Him. He's looking for a church that's heavy for Him. He's looking for a church that's 100% in.

And He's talking to the church. And He says, behold, I stand at the door and knock. I'm knocking, church. And if anyone hears my voice, and not only hears my voice, but opens the door and actually lets me in, you know, so He's asking for permission because God's a gentleman, right? He's not going to enter into your life when you're just like, get away from me, God.

He's not going to do that. Yeah, He's going to pursue you. He's going to ask. He's going to whisper. And He's going to do all those things.

He's knocking. But until you open the door and let Him in 100%, give Him permission, you will not experience who you were made, who you were created to be. See, there's not a part of your life that needs to be off limits to God because He wants, He's designing this canvas. And you want Him to paint you the way you originally intended to be. You have to make a decision that you're 100% in.

And you know what? It's not burdensome when you start understanding what God's doing in you, to lay aside those things, to lay aside, well, I don't know, you know, I don't want to lose my career. I don't want to lose my friends. I don't want to lose my, you know, family. He's going to act weird and stuff.

But I'm telling you, like He's standing at the door and knocking. And if you just hear Him and you let Him in, He will come and He will do something so radically in your life that you'll be just, you'll never want to go back. You'll never want to be where you were before because it's so much better on this side. See, Paul gets a little more serious here. He says, The acts of the flesh are obvious.

Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissension, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and all these things. And we take and we divide these sins up, don't we? We divide these sins up. Oh, it's easy to say we don't have to have orgies, you know? Yeah, that's pretty bad, right?

I mean, or we aren't to, like, practice witchcraft. Yeah, absolutely. But when it gets to, like, selfish ambitions and jealousy and, you know, envy and, you know, all those things that are still in our lives that are just so hard to get rid of. And he warns the church, as I did before, that those who live like this will not, and he gets really hard, he says, will not inherit the kingdom of God. But he gives us hope.

He gives us a contrast because he says, But the fruit of the Spirit, and going back when I sat down with those people and I talked with them, I don't see any fruit in your life. See, he's showing, here's what you see. Here's how you know people are changing. Here's how you know. You will know them by their fruit.

In fact, Jesus talks about fruit a lot. And here's what Paul says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness and self-control. Against such a thing, there is no law. There is no law. So let's not get lawful here.

That's what Paul's saying. We're not saying get lawful here because when you're being changed, when you're walking with God, just fruit starts popping up. It just happens. Whoa, where did that come from? Like, where did that big piece of fruit on my neck come from?

What did that, you know, like, where did that happen? How did that happen? You know? It just starts popping up everywhere. And the old self just isn't there anymore.

And before you know it, you're a different person. Because you're walking in the Spirit. You're being changed. You're being transformed. And he goes on to say, Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with passions and desires.

And they crucified the flesh. And then the psalmist says this, Delight yourself. And I love this statement because it's as if a bride is putting on her gown and coming in. And we're delighting ourselves before the Lord. We're putting on our purity.

We're putting on our robe. We're putting on that. And the Lord, and he will give you what? The desires of your heart. Does that mean he's going to give you what you want?

No. It means that he knows your heart better than you know your heart. Your heart's deceitful, right? Your heart wants you to think something else. But God knows your heart better than you do.

And he changes your desires. He changes. He transforms your desires. So it says, Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him and he will act.

He will bring forth your righteousness as the light. And your justice as the noon day. Your righteousness, your emotions, your marriage, your thinking, your everything. This is the gospel. The gospel is change.

And Paul says it like this. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. So it's effortless. It's... Meaningful, it's powerful, and I don't even recognize me anymore because it's the power of God that is working inside me.

And then finally, final thing I want to say, allow the change to start today. Allow the change to start today. It's not about creating a liturgy, okay? See, we don't do this church here. It's not about having a nice liturgy, a nice opening, a nice benediction, a nice, you know, nice music in the background.

And I, you know, it's nothing about that, you know? We can have good teaching. We can have a nice message. We can have all those things. But that's not why we do what we do.

Going back to what I was saying in the beginning. That's not why we do what we do. We do it because we want to see life change. We want to see people's life change. And we, we pray.

And we put together ministries in the church. And we serve on teams. And we form salt groups. And we do all these things. Not just because we can say, hey, look at salt church.

We want to say, hey, look at God. Look at his presence. Look at his power. And this right here, these moments are a catalyst for that moment where God can have his place and you can have an experience with God. Second Corinthians says it like this, but we all with unveiled faces, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed, transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the spirit of the Lord.

So we're, we're unveiled faces. So these moments is like a moment where he can say, I'm taking off the mask. I'm taking off all, look, Lord, here I am unveiled. And we can boldly come towards or before God, his throne room. That's what we want to do.

That's what we're trying to do here. We want that opera. We, we, we invite you, Lord, this is your throne room. This is your place. And we with unveiled faces, with, with, with unholy people seeking holiness, Lord.

We just, we're taking it off and we're laying it before you. And we're looking at the mirror. We, we, we are seeing the glory of God that you are made in his image, that we are made in his image, that we actually see his image in us. And we were made for more, more, more, more. We were made for a story.

There's a, uh, book and I believe there's a documentary by, uh, Marina Chapman, Marina Chapman. She, um, the name of the documentary is The Girl with No Name, a biography she wrote. She was raised by monkeys. Let me just tell you the story, raised by monkeys. So, so she was in a Colombian village, uh, and she, a small, you know, remote village as she was playing four years old.

She was playing in her mother and father's vegetable garden and some strangers came up and, and some poachers robbed her, put her in a bag, drugged her up, drug her through the woods, uh, for days and left her out in the woods for no reason. She knows she doesn't understand what happened. She was so young at the time. She was half out of her mind because she was drugged and, uh, she was left there for dead. And she waited one day, two days, three days, nobody came.

But these monkeys started gathering around her and they began to feed themselves and, and she began to watch them and they would come over, gather food. And they were kind of, you know, how animals are poking at her and stuff like that. And she starts to learn from these monkeys and, uh, she starts learning how to gather and, and, and learning the way they live and starts living like them. It starts taking care of herself. She actually learns from the monkeys that she can take care of herself.

And, uh, she begins to, to live in the jungle and one day becomes one week and becomes one month. And for five years, she lived in the jungle. Eventually the story ends well. Uh, she, she was, uh, went through a lot of different events in her life as she was found by hunters and sold to slavery. And then eventually she lives in England now and is married and living a normal life.

But there was this one story in the book that kind of relates to what I'm trying to say here is where she was up in the tree and living among, uh, the animals there. Uh, she looked down and she saw this glittery subject, substance on the ground. And she begins to climb out of the tree and she goes down and she looks and picks up this glittery substance and sees eyes and throws it down. It's horrified because it was a mirror. And at that point in time, she had never known what she looked like.

She'd never known who she was. She's always thought that she was like the monkeys until that point in time. And in the same way, there are many of us, we've conformed to the environment around her. We've conformed to the people around us and what they think about us and what the world and the culture thinks around us. And God's talking about this.

mirror here, that there's this mirror that, that when you come before him, you're starting to see who you really are. And maybe for years you've walked in a falsehood of who you are, not knowing who you are, not understanding who you are, not really, and living in this. In this place of, I know I'm made for more than this. I know I'm somebody more than this. You've always thought you were one thing, but God prophesied from the beginning who you were to be, has been calling you forth from the very beginning of time.

And it's brought you to this moment to know Him today. And I don't know where you are in your spiritual walk. I don't know what level you are, what step you've taken. We are a church that helps people take the next step. But for some of you here today, and all of you need to be praying at some level.

With all heads bowed and all his clothes, let's just, this is a sacred moment. Everybody begin to pray where you're at right now, where you are right now in your life. That God would take you to the next level. And that God would begin to transform you. I don't want to live like this anymore, Lord.

I don't want to live with just, you know, a part of me in the world and a part of me with you. I want to be 100%. I want to be a new creation. I want to be a new masterpiece. A new masterpiece.

And for some of you, that might be the first step. That you never knew God. That you, you're that person that thinks, oh, I am just not worthy. You don't know where I've come from, Leon. Pastor, you just don't know.

That's nonsense. God changes the worst of people. Because the gospel is transformation. It's a new creation. It's a new creation.

And you can have a new creation today. So if that's you today, if that's you, you're ready to make a decision for Jesus. And no matter where you are, no matter how dark you've, you've gone, how much you've strayed, you're ready today. Would you say this with me? Just, just, just, just mean this from your heart.

Lord, thank you for dying on the cross for my sin. For dying on the cross for my shame, for that darkness that I've been, that, that, that dirty muckiness, that old canvas. But today, God, I believe that you are the son of God. And I receive you in my life. Transform me, Lord.

Live with me. I want to be in a relationship with you today. I give my life to you. And not just 25, 50, 75%. Lord, I'm all in.

Because I want change. And I know only you can change me. So I give my life to you.