Join us now for the chapel hour, coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Our speaker is Dr. Jim Berg, Dean of Students at BJU. The title of his message is, Four Reasons Why We Fail to Change for Good. The text is from Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 through 24. Turn in your Bibles this morning to a very familiar passage in Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians 4. I want to talk to you this morning about four reasons why we fail to change for good. Four reasons why we fail to change for good. If you want to get out a pencil and paper and write down those four reasons, I hope it will be a help to you. When I first shared this title with my wife, the first time I was working on this, she said, do you mean fail to change for good, like permanently changing for good? Or do you mean changing for good as opposed to evil? And I said, really, the answer is yes, it's both of those things. How many times have I and I'm sure you have said, I, you know, I tried this, but it didn't work. And or I made a decision last week or last summer. or last year at Bible conference, and it didn't seem to last and it didn't stick. And I'm discouraged because I promised God or I promised my pastor, I promised my girlfriend, I promised mom and dad or my boyfriend that I wouldn't do this. And here I am back in it again. Or I did OK until I left to come to school or I did OK until I went back home or until I went to work or until I got sick and then everything started falling apart. I think all of us have bemoaned the fact that change didn't come the way we wanted it to come. Jonathan prayed this morning, as as most of us pray before messages and chaplain other places, Lord, change us, conform us to your image. Well, why is it that we don't seem to be able to change for good? And Ephesians 4, very familiar, but outlines some major principles that have to be applied if we are going to change for good. And Ephesians 4 outlines those principles as major components in the doctrine of sanctification, which is God's teaching to us in the Bible about how we do change. And I want to look at those four this morning. We'll begin read 11 to 13 and then 17 to 24. And I'll comment as we go along, verse 11, and he gave to the church, to the body of Christ, some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. Paul is saying here, God has given to the church gifted men. For this reason, verse 12, for the perfecting, that's the maturing, the growing up of the saints. for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto that mature man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And he contrasts that to children who are tossed up and down by various kinds of doctrine and teaching. In verse 15, but speaking the truth in love, he wants us to grow up into him in all things which is ahead, even Christ. So the first thing that we learn here in this passage, why we fail to change for good, is that we too often look for relief and not for growth. Every problem that God brings into our lives is designed for our growth. Every temptation that he brings in is brought into our lives for our growth. How many times are we trying to change our circumstances or even asking God to change our circumstances? And we can pray that way. But most of the time, God is not nearly as interested in changing our circumstances as he is in changing us. He wants our growth. And the image that he wants us growing into is the image of Christ, so that like Christ, when if you're hung in a cross, That from that cross, you can look down at the people who have abused you and mistreated you and you actually say, father, forgive them. They know not what they do. That's Christ likeness. It means having a response when you're facing a very difficult, trying time to come that, you know, will be excruciatingly difficult that you say, father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will be done, but thy will be done. That's Christ likeness. That's maturing godliness, that is maturity in Christ. And that comes when we focus that really what God is trying to do in all of these things, he is trying to bring about my growth, whether it be chastening he's bringing into my life or whether it's temptations or circumstances are unfavorable. It is all because of my growth. When our daughters were young, we tried to reinforce this thing about growth. And I remember one time, I think it was Kirsten, our oldest daughter, we were getting ready as a family to go to a nursing home ministry. And the girls, they were in elementary school and they had learned a piano piece that they were going to play. And I was going to I was going to preach and we're going to sing and this kind of thing. And and I think it was our oldest daughter was saying, Daddy, it's so hard. I don't know if we really I don't really want to go. And and we talked about this. And I said, well, honey, this this is a really this is a good chance for you to grow. And she looked up at me with these Sorrowful eyes and she said, Daddy, do we always have to be growing? Well, and I said, yeah, we do. We always have to be growing, folks, we always have to be growing and God is going to use these things. This is why James speaking to a persecuted church. The people that he loved, he was their pastor and he said, my brethren, count this all joy when you fall into these various trials, these these various temptations, knowing this, that this trying of your faith, work of patience, work of endurance and let that endurance have its perfecting, its growing work in you, that you may be perfect, mature and wanting in nothing. And James is burdened that his people grow because of these temptations. The writer of Hebrews is concerned that we grow with the chastening God brings into our lives. And we say, I don't like it when God chastens me or when somebody else chastens me. It's hard. And the writer of Hebrews says, yes, it is no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous or wouldn't be chastening. But it's grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness under those that are exercised. Thereby, God intends even chastening to be for our growth. We can't look at the chastening God brings into our lives and just grin and bear it and and grit our teeth and say, when this is done, I'm going to go on. No, God says, I want you growing through this. I want peaceable fruits of righteousness born in you as a result of this. God is wanting our growth. Now, our problem is it's my problem, too. Our problem is that we we really do want relief instead of growth. That's the first thing we want. We get into a trial and something is heavy. And the first thing we want to do is figure out how can I get out of this? Because the main thing in our agenda is not our growth, but it's our happiness. And there's nothing wrong with being happy, and God is not God is not trying to keep us from being happy. He doesn't look over the battlements of heaven and saying, Berg, are you having a good time down there? Yeah, Lord, that's great. Well, cut it out. You know, that's that's not his spirit. But he's primarily concerned about our holiness, and oftentimes the things that make me holy don't make me happy. And the things that make me happy often don't make me holy. But if I am exercised by what God brings into my life and I am becoming holy, then there is a happiness as a byproduct of that. Most people are coming for counsel to their pastor, to somebody else for help. Most of those people are looking for relief, and that's all right. But before any progress is made, generally, we have to renegotiate the agenda that what we're really looking for here must be growth. When the girls were young, before they could drive. On Saturday afternoon, they might come and say, Dad, can you take us to Walmart? We need to get something for school or whatever. And I had just walked down the hall and I'd seen the state of the bedroom. And I would say, well, how's your room? Well, I'm working on it. Well, I tell you what, work on it some more, and when the room is clean, we'll go to Walmart. Now, see, they have an agenda. They want to go to Walmart. I have an agenda. I want a clean room. And God has an agenda and we have an agenda. We want some relief. And God says, OK, I will work on that. How's your heart? What about that thing over there you're covering? What about that lie over there? What about that sensuality over there? Well, I'm working on I'm working on it. No, no, no. When the heart's clean, then we can bring some relief. See, God is interested in our growth. And one of the reasons we fail to change is that we too often look for relief and not growth. Secondly, We don't repent of our sin. We simply try to reform our actions. Another reason we fail to change is that we don't repent of our sin. We just simply reform our actions. Would you look at verse 17? This, I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord that she henceforth walk not as the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind. God is very clear. I do not want you walking the way the world walks. They're operating in the vanity of their mind, look at verse 18, having the understanding darkened. They don't understand. They're alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness, the hardness of their heart. And their past feeling, their callous, they have given themselves over unto lasciviousness or sin without restraint, shameless lusts. To work all uncleanness with greediness, if there's anything that characterizes our world, it's uncleanness and greediness. Verse 20, but ye have not so learned Christ. This is not what you learn from Christ. That's what you learn from the world. And he says, verse 21, if so, be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus. And then he says, I want to tell you what the truth is in Jesus. Verse 22, that you put off concerning that former conversation or lifestyle, the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts, these lusts that promise things they cannot deliver. They're deceitful. And he says, I want you to put off those things. Well, the major part of putting off is repentance. And it means coming to God and saying, God, I was wrong when I lied. I was wrong when I lusted. I was wrong when I disobeyed. I was wrong when I stole. I was wrong when I gossiped. I was wrong when I was contemptuous. Please forgive me. That's repentance oftentimes in it, and I like to smooth things over to and God has to deal with me about this. It's so easy to do something else and and say, well, you know, I guess I shouldn't have said that that way next time I need to do this differently and I'll just try to do better. That's just reformation. When we do these things, we sin against a person and we have to be reconciled to the person of God. How many times do we hear said and maybe we say ourselves. Maybe we have lied and maybe we got caught in the lie. Somebody says, what happened over there, which I did something really stupid. Are we cheat or we steal or we do something that is outside God's boundaries of morality? And we get caught in that and maybe there's some chasing that comes to that and somebody says, what happened? Well, I did something really stupid. Look, folks, Jesus did not die for the stupid things we do. He died for the sinful things we do. And as long as we call them stupid, we won't be repenting of them. They're not stupid, they may be foolish in the biblical sense of the word fool. But a real problem is that we've sinned. And we've got to go to God and we've got to go to other people that we have wronged. and living in a family that is trying to walk together in love, we are going to wrong one another. And we need to be repenting to God and to one another and asking forgiveness of other people. In a Christian home, there ought to be something going on that you hear quite frequently throughout the week in the home, and that is, I was wrong when I said that. Would you forgive me? I have a lot I try to get done. I love technology. I try to use technology, but a lot of times technology doesn't work right. And that's probably one of the most sanctifying things that God uses in my life is my computer and those kinds of things when they don't work. And when they don't work, I can get pretty frustrated. I mean, I don't I don't yell out devotional comments or anything like that, but I'm just I'm just not I'm focused on that and I just don't always have the right spirit about it. Well, when that happens, I need to go to God and ask forgiveness. And I often have to tell my wife, honey, forgive me for being impatient about that. And would you forgive me? Why? Because I made life harder for her while I was acting that way. And if we're going to walk together in love, we need to be asking one another forgiveness. Dr. Bob came before us last week and asked forgiveness for something. I've heard, and I don't mean to embarrass anybody, I've heard Stephen Jones to the administrator saying, I made a decision here about this thing and it was the wrong thing and I put all of you in a bad light with this and please forgive me. I had to do that recently in a cabinet meeting where I said something out of frustration. And it was the wrong thing to say. And when it was all done, I just had to say before we go, I just I need to ask your forgiveness. I was wrong in what I said there. Please forgive me. I've heard Dr. Wood do that. I've heard other administrators do that. We're we're living in close quarters. We're working with each other all the time. And we and when we wrong each other, we need to make it right and we need to make it right with God. We can't just try to do better. When we have wronged God and we have wronged people. Proverbs 28, 13 says, he that covered his sin shall not prosper, but who so confess it and forsake it shall have mercy. It's a wonderful, liberating thing in confession of sin. Restores fellowship with God and restores and reconciles relationships with other people. And one of the reasons we fail to change for good is because we do not repent of our sin. We just simply try to reform our actions. Well, I'll keep my mouth shut next time. Note to self, keep mouth shut. Well, that's not that's not the solution when we have wronged somebody by what we have said. Thirdly, verse 23, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. The third reason we fail to change for good is that we try to change our behavior without changing our thinking. And a lot of times we get through steps one and two, we really do want growth in Christ and we become focused on that. And we we start saying, I need to get this right with this person and with this person, I need to talk to this guy and I need to go to God about this. And we really do repent of those things. But it's not long before we're back into it again. We what went wrong? Well, Romans 12 says that we're not to be conformed to the image of the world, but verse two, twelve, two, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. I never got to hear Dr. Bob Senior personally. He passed away before I became a student, but I read many, many of his sermons and listened to messages he has preached. I remember reading or hearing him say one time, there's nothing wrong in America that couldn't be solved by the word of God given in big enough doses. He's right. It's the big doses. The times when God has done the most transformation in my own life is when I have spent weeks in passages of Scripture begging him to renew my mind and giving me understanding and changing my heart. And you know what? He has done that on those issues. James 1 says that we're to lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness or leftover wickedness And receive with his meekness this engrafted word which is able to save our souls. And he says, but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is likened unto a man who beholdeth his natural face in a glass, and he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was, but whoso hearkeneth unto the word and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word, this man shall be blessed in his deed." How long do we stay in the word? Until we don't forget it. And those of you that have seen God do some amazing change in your life, Because you've meditated on the Scriptures, you will never forget those lessons God taught you. Every time you go back to that passage of Scripture, it's like it lights up with the same beauty and glory that it had when you were meditating on it. And God burned it into your soul and said, this is what I want you to be like. And this is how I will help you. And this is what you must do. And folks, you never forget it. But we try to change our behavior without changing our thinking. Sometimes when I'm trying to help somebody who needs to make some major change in the way they're thinking about the Christian walk or even their view of God. And I remind them, in order for you to overcome this, it's going to take many, many hours of meditation a week. Not just minutes a day. And I'm not trying to put some legalistic standard about you got to spend 10 hours a week in the word. But if you're going to change something significant in your life, that's probably pretty close. So, you know, if you walked out of my office on the second floor and fell down these steps and and really messed up your knee. And the orthopedic surgeon did his work and put it back together. And he said, you know, this is you know, and you've got in this cast for weeks and finally he says, all right, we're going to take this cast off. But I'll tell you, you really got a bum knee here unless you go through this physical therapy every day, 45 minutes working on this every day. You're not going to walk right. And you're going to have to do this for about five weeks. Did you know that all of us probably would muster the time and the energy to do that because we really want to walk? And when we've really messed up our lives in some way, we need those same kinds of repetition of the Word of God. God cleansing us through the washing of the water of the Word. Or we won't change for good. And one of the reasons we fail to change for good is that we try to change our behavior without changing our thinking. And lastly, verse 24, and that you put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, Here He's saying, I want you to put on something. And I want you to put on something that is replacing that old. And the failure here is that we stop practicing that replacement when we don't see the results we want right away. I first explained this passage of Scripture to our daughters when they were in elementary school, upper elementary school, and did a little handout for them. I'm trying to teach them how to grow, how to change. And I went through all of this, and we were talking over this over a course of evenings in our Bible time. Just short times each evening. And when I got to this point, I said, now you girls understand this and Michelle, our youngest, was in third grade. And she said, Dad, to be honest with you, I don't get a word of this. What is this put on stuff? I don't understand. And I said, OK, let me figure out a way I can illustrate that. And so I thought just a second. And I said, just a minute, I'll be right back. And I went into the hall closet in the living room and I put on my wife's winter jacket. And the sleeves came way up here and I couldn't get a button in the front. I came out and I said, how does this fit? And you know how a third grader will do? She said, Dad. And I said, so it doesn't fit. She said, it's mom's. And I said, all right, that's what God is saying here. Anything in your life that does not look like Jesus Christ, it would not fit. Jesus Christ has to go. So I can understand that. I said, can you think of anything like that in your life? And she said, oh, yeah, my room. I really had to work on her about cleaning her room. We you know, that's a patch of pirate song. Pigs don't live in houses. I would talk to her about her piggy piles, the little things around the floor that she had to clean up and had to teach her how to do that. And I made up a little rhyme to help her remember that doors, drawers, floors, close the doors, close the drawers, pick up everything on the floors. And she started it. But she really had to work on it because that is not something she wanted to do. She said, oh, I know it wouldn't look like Christ. He wouldn't leave his room like that. I said, OK, and then so I went out and I put on my my winter jacket. I came out. I said, how does this look? She said, well, that's fine. That's yours. I said, that's right. Anything that looks like Jesus Christ, that fits on Jesus Christ, you and I need to be putting on. How would he speak to people? How would he entertain himself? How would he deal with pressure? How would he deal with temptation? How would he deal with people who oppose him? How would he deal with people who wrong him? That's what you and I have to put on. But the problem is we give up too soon. Because a lot of these things are wrong, responses are habitual, aren't they? I mean, we realize we're wrong and we maybe we've got a problem with our time. Maybe we're really critical of people. Maybe we maybe we swear. Maybe that's the first thing out of our mouth or maybe we just lie like that. Well, it's not only sinful, but it has become habitual. And just like right now, I won't ask you to do this in interest of time, but if you if you wrote if you just on the paper that you're writing, if you just write your name and then switch hands and write it with the other hand, you'll find that the hand you're used to, it's very comfortable for you to do it that way. But if you use the other hand, it's really awkward and it takes a lot of deliberate thought to make the you know, the ball, the stick come on the right side of the ball when you're making a B. You got to think about it. Well, that's what it is, changing from something that is habitual to you, to something that is not habitual. It is not it does not feel right to respond in this other way, the way of Christ. But eventually it will be. And you'll find that the times that you have to go back and ask God to forgive you and other people to forgive you grow less and less as you learn to write with the other hand. Sometimes when I'm dealing with somebody who's had a particularly long standing, life dominating sin, I have them start meditating, first of all, in verses about endurance, because it's going to take a long time for them to change. And I give them verses like Hebrews 10, 34 and 35, but you have need of patience or endurance that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. In Hebrews 12, we're seeing that we have this great cloud of witnesses, that Hebrews 11 gallery of heroes of the faith. Let us run with endurance, with patience, that race that is set before us. They're going to need endurance. God wants us changing to become like Christ, I hope, throughout the day, I hope as you come to your Bible every day. I hope as you come to chapel every day, you're saying, God, change me. I need to be like Jesus Christ. This is God's work in the earth in this time in our lives. He wants us changed to be like his son. And if that's going to happen, we have to really look for growth instead of relief. That has to be our goal, that we come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. And that we have to repent of our sin, not just try to reform. We have to change our thinking and not just our behavior. with large doses of the word of God. And it will do its cleansing work in us. And then we have to continue to practice a replacement, even if we don't see the results we want right away, it will yield in us the peaceable fruit of righteousness. God will do his work. Let's pray. Father, thank you that you have given us clear instruction. We generally don't blow it in some esoteric part of doctrine. Most of us blow it. I know that I blow it in just the simple things we've discussed here. I don't want to repent. I just want relief. I don't want to take the time to renew my mind. And I want to give up too soon. Lord, help us to understand Your pattern of change and to rely upon Your Spirit and Your Word to make us like your son. You've been listening to the Chapel Hour, coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University. Our speaker was Dr. Jim Berg, Dean of Students at BJU. For a cassette or compact disc copy of today's message, send a check for $6 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date. The Chapel Hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.