Yes! You Really CAN Change - How to Become the Person You've Always Longed to Be, Part 2

No in our day we hear a lot of people talk about spiritual maturity. What one powerful phrase spiritual maturity can ask you? Are you spiritually mature enough for today. I'll give you gods for phone criteria for measuring your spiritual growth and how you can become the person always want to become stable welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with the mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christian Bible to win the middle of chip series.

Yes, you really can change focusing on genuine life transformation. After the teaching to share some extra insight. What he's learned in this area, so be sure to stick around for that. This message builds on several you made last time. So I encourage you to get your message notes before we get started their quick downloaded LivingontheEdge.org the broadcasts.

Listeners just happily notes. Now here's chip with part two of his message. How to become the person you always longed to be from Ephesians chapter 4 my first two or three years as a pastor. That's all I knew that's what I did. I worked 80, 85 hours a week. I grew this magnificent church from 35 to almost 100 people and and just about landed in the hospital. I mean, my wife, type the bulletin.

We did the mimeograph. My kids help me cut the grass. I clean the toilets. I did all the counseling I did all the preaching actually to help lead the music, which was scary and then this passage became a reality, and we flipped everything around that church and we helped. We helped everyone discover what God made them to do and remove the pastoral care from a person to assist in the small groups the way Jesus did.

And they started loving one another in that little town of about 3000 people. Pretty soon we had about 500 people, and pretty soon we were connecting with the black church in town and Hispanic kids and ministries were being launched by people because I finally got my job was to help leaders equip, they drive the car forward. They help people like you. All of us regular people discover how God made us grow to maturity. Use our gifts so that notice.

The second principle second principles are every member is a minister little phrase I said work of service, that's a word for minister. Every member is a minister. When someone would ask me will how many ministers you have at the church that you get the pastor you know my answer is bullying between 3030 500 come on the weekends and I know about 1/3 of them are 40% of them are out doing something and you know for lots of good legitimate reasons or office Sunday. Here we can hear their and some of them for not so legitimate reasons or office Sunday here and there and so I would say we have about 3000 ministers now some of them pose like secret agents, a stay-at-home moms are software engineers or CEOs or plumbers or construction workers and that other people are on college campuses posing as students but actually underneath of it underneath the robe of their closes as full-time minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's who you are, so you minister you you are the hope of your neighborhood, the hope of your family, the hope of where you work. You are a full-time minister of the gospel leaders job is to help equip you personally, spiritually, relationally, so you can be an effective minister in your home in your school and your work in your neighborhood and I remember the story I was like the old Westerns we still, watching my wife has an amazing ability. I wish I had this I can't sleep during the day but she takes these 15 minute naps and wakes up refreshed I started doing some reading on. It's mostly really good for you.

I can take a two hour nap. I think were nothing and so I don't do anything but his real funny like on the weekends. It's sort time for her 15 minute nap and like she likes to nap to bonanza gun smoke here. These old things she falls asleep quickly Sitting There in Our Thinking. What Are You Doing Her 15 Minutes Are up, and I Always Love the Part on the Old You Westerns Where the Banks Been Rob Put His Boom Boom Boom Boom Marshall Comes up All Rockefeller's Going to Form a Posse and Then What You Do All Right, Marshall Aland.

I Will Deputize All You People Read Your Now Deputy Bobby or Debbie in Brightly Deputize and What Do They All Get on Their Horses and Had Their Guns. They Now Have the Power to Go Do Exactly What the Sheriff Does Can I Tell You When You Came to Christ.

God Gave Gifted Leaders to Equip You Your Deputized You Can Counsel You Can Lead People to Christ, You Can Share Your Faith, You Can Open Your Home You Have a Unique DNA in Terms of Relationships, Spiritual Gifts, Backgrounds, Opportunities, and Often Your Deepest Hurts. Often the Things That You Have Been through That You Feel like Will Be the Very Things That Will Help the People in This Valley Understand Who Christ Is Not What You Know Even Deputized. Remember Really Interesting Experience Because We Talk about Life Change and Sometimes We Talk about Authentic Community Week. If You're Not Careful You Can Get Authentic Community to Mean I'm in a Great Small Group I'm Privately Reading the Bible We Share Deeply. It's a Great Time Together. We Are Having These Wonderful Relationships and I Guess This Is Authentic Community Known, and I Don't That's Part of Authentic Community. See Authentic Community Isn't Just about What You Get, or Deep Relationships or Accountability. Authentic Community Has To Do with Being Fitted in the Right Spot so That Those Kind of Relationships Are on Mission to Fulfill What Jesus Said When He Said Go Therefore and Make Disciples. And If You're Not Involved in Not Just Receiving and Loving and Caring in the Word but Serving Out Of the Supernatural Deposit of Gift. Your Life Doesn't Change, and You Don't Experience His Power. I Had a Weird Experience with This.

I Do Grow up As a Christian and I Came to Christ and I Coached and When I Coached I Did Bible Studies with My Players and after Treece I Got Married We Both Were in a College Ministry.

She Was Working and I Was Coaching and Working and Then like on Tuesday and Thursday Morning I Meet with the Group of Guys and She Met One Evening with a Group of Gals That She Was Discipling and Then Once a Week. We Have All These People over in Our Lives Were Filled with Caring and Loving and Discipling and It Was Very Fulfilling Text.

That's Why I Actually Thought I Think God Wants Me Chip Regular Ordinary Person to Actually Be a Pastor. I Thought You Be Kidding God Certainly Have To Be Smarter Than Me, and A Lot More Holy Than Me and God Said No Actually, You'll Do. So I Said Okay and and so We Go to Seminary and and You Know and in West Virginia like a Huge Church Is 200 People Mean There's Only a Million People in the Whole State on Mega Mega Churches like 300 People.

We Were the Church about 200 People Will Get to Dallas and It Was All My Lands and and People Invited Us a Wind of This Church about 2500 People in the Pastor Was Awesome and Had All These Seminary Professors Teaching Sunday School Classes. I Went to a Sunday School Class on the Psalms and the Editor of the NIV Bible When It Was Being Developed. He Taught the Class and You Got, You Know This Guy Who Wrote Seven Books and so I Mean It Was like I Mean Every Was I Going to a Conference Every Week and You Go to Class over Here and Amazing Things for Your Kids and so Was like Wow While Week One Week to Week Three Week Four Week Five Week Six Week Seven and You Get All the Stuff at Seminary and Were Trying to Figure out Life and Never Forget Had It Interesting Experience Because I Mean Great Great Great Teaching and I Can Still Remember Getting Right to the Door of Where You Went in This Big Church and I Turned to My Wife Message You Feel like Going to Church Today and Please Don't Make Too Heavy Application on This. She Said No. I Said Mean Either You Want to Go to Wendy's to Ensure Sorry so We Did and so You Know That They're Doing This Great Stuff for the Kids so We Go to Wendy's. Wendy's and I Said Honey, Something's Wrong.

I'm Not Never Going to Church with Such a Teaching on Them and Churches.

The Current Programs but Now I Just Feel.

I Think That Was the Word I Used.

And She Said I Feel Exactly the Same Glass of What What Could Be Wrong Were Here Preparing for the Ministry in Civil Why Did We Come in. We Begin to Talk about What a Normal Week Was like in West Virginia and Knew I Realized I Realize That All I Was Doing Was Eating Spiritually.

But There Was No Exercise, the Grace of God Wasn't Flowing through Me to Help Other People and so I Mean I Was in a Small Group and I Was Getting All This Great Teaching Becoming the Person You Long to Become. Cannot Happen by Being Simply a Spectator and a Receiver of Great Spiritual Food and a Great Spiritual Environment.

It's by That Which Every Joint Supplies, According to the Proper Working of Each Individual Part and I Remember Writing on a Napkin. I Said Okay Were That We Could Fix This so I'm Working Full-Time and Going to School Full-Time.

I Don't Have Any Kind. I'm Thinking If Might My Spiritual Life Is a I'm I'm I'm Doing a Dive. There's No Power.

There's No Energy There's No Life, and so I Got an Appointment with the Pastor and We Set down This Booth and Slow Restaurant and a 3 x 5 Card I Had My Name My Phone Number.

What I Thought My Spiritual Gifts Were Ministry Experience I Had in College Ministries and Then I Pretended I Had to Go to Bathroom. Excuse Me I Need a Bathroom I'll Be Right Back and I Handed Him the Card and on the Back of It Said You Tell Me Anyplace in This Church You Need Help on in and Saw Him Coming to the Bathroom 2 1/2 Minutes Maybe Needs Three You Know What Lecture He Reads the Card.

Well I Came Back and Sat down and Don Says Will Hate Seems like You Had Some Ministry Experience Is That You Can Check Me out However You Want I Can Get Back in Again Wind up Doing High School Ministry Six or Eight Months Later Went up in the College Ministry and Life. Leaders Are Gifted to Equip Every Member Is a Minister and If You Aren't Minister You Know Those Little Things Were Said Can You Imagine What It Would Be like to Forgive Someone so Deeply That Your First Reaction Would Be, You Rejoice That Supernatural. That Doesn't Happen by Reading Your Bible Alone and Trying Real Hard to Change Some Habits.

See There Is a Design There Is a Spiritual Cocoon. There Is a Master Creator and He Says the Way It Works Is When Leaders Equip and Every Member Is a Minister Then Amazing Things Happen. In Verse 13.

It's That Ministries Are Developed to Help Every Believer to Live Every Day in Every Way, Just As Jesus Would Live If You Were Living out His Life in Their Physical Body.

All I Want to Know Is That I Now Have the Ability to Say This Is a New One. I Can Say and Even More Words, What Paul Was Saying in Verse 13 Usually Uses A Lot Of Words but That Not Notice What He Says He Talks about in You Become a Mature Man, to the Fullness of the Stature to the Body of Christ and What I Want to Know Is That in God's Design. When Leaders Equip Instead of Do All the Ministry and Rob People Love It When Every Member Realizes You Know Something Okay I'm in School from a Stay-At-Home Mom or I'm Working in This Company, but I Am His Representative.

I Am the Living Christ inside of Me the Whole. This Whole Department May Be Me.

I May Be the Only Christian How I Live How I Talk. How I Love When and How I Communicate Is the Hope of the World. I'm a Minister I Don't Have a Little Collar but I'm a Minister and Then What Happens Is When This Occurs Ministries. In Other Words Outreaches to People Were Developed so That Every Single Believer Lives Every Day in Every Way, so It's Not like It Starts at Work, but It's at Home with Swords with Your Roommate Is in Your Neighborhood It's It's Realizing Unit to Step outside Your Door. Your Apartment and Look around and Realize 9/10. Most All the People in This Part of the Country Where I Live Do Not Have a Personal Relationship with God and There Is Great Need and There's a God Who Loves Them and That after They Die Because I Spent Yesterday with a Guy That They Told, Had about Six or Nine Months to Live in When You Look in the Eyes of Very Powerful People with All Kind of Background, and They Know They Have Six or Nine Months to Live.

They Act Very Differently. He Said You Know It's Clear You Know You Dive. It Gets Real Different When It Slip up Close and He Was Seated across to His Bed and I I Asked Him I Was Amazed at How Bold I Was so What Are They Telling Less Than a Year Would You Most Afraid of, You Know, I Was Able Die Is Going to Die in Right Now.

All Indications Are That He's Going to Die Apart from Christ I Said I Know All about Your past Life and How Many Regret You Might Have That You Don't Want to Have Eternal Regrets.

I Want You Know There's a Jesus There's a God Who Cares and He's Prepared a Place for You If You Receive His Gift and He Looked at Me and You Know What Hit Me This Morning Everyone I Meet Is This True or Not Your Neighbors.

I Got News for You/I Your Coworkers by Your Family Die You What Makes You Bold When You Get We Stop Worrying about so Much How People Think of This. We Start Realizing I Have a Supernatural Endowment and Power inside of Me, the Living God Lives inside of Me and He Cares about Them and the Only Issue Is Me Getting over Me, but the Only Way I Get over Me Is When I Get Equip My Leaders and the Only Way I Learn to Ministers When I Take Baby Steps and Start Doing It and You Know When You Start Doing Is What You Fail A Lot. Okay You and I See Jesus with the Disciples. You Know What I Noticed They Fail A Lot. You Find Me in the Gospels Were He Yells at Him for Failing I Can't Find the Only Time He Gets Upset Is Where Is Your Faith. You Can Unite and Try and Oh You of Little Faith, so Leaders Equip Us. We Are All Ministers and Then Ministries Her Birth. This Is How the Church Works Church Isn't Coming in Listening and Spectating Saying the Music Was Okay. The Guy Kept Me Awake Most of the Time Not to Go out and Try Be a Nice Person. That's Not It. It's You Getting Equipped, It's You Being a Full-Time Minister It's You Watching Ministries Grow and Develop According to Your Hearts and Your Passions You Begin to Serve and As You Do, the Grace of God Comes inside of You and He Uses You and You Have This Amazing Experience Were Peoples Eternities and Families and Marriages and Kids Are Completely Transformed Because of the Ordinary Piece of Clay like You, in Whom the Living Spirit of God Lives in Key Gifts You and Trains You and You Take Baby Steps of Faith and You Fail and You Struggle and Have Ups and Downs but in the Midst of All Your Weakness and Hurt the Power of God Is Displayed to That's What Happened in the Early Church Mean They Didn't Even Have Technology and They Multiplied Factor Young Man I Was the Meeting with the Young Pastor Doing Low Mentoring Is Planted a Church and so They Grew to about 300 People and He Said You Know Now This Group Is Kind of Feeling like It's a Younger Church and Bought a College-Age and He Said I'm Watching Now the Church Is, Focused on Hey We Really like This More Kinda Different. It's Kind of Working for Us. He Said My Biggest Challenge Now Is to Help Us Remember We Planted This Church to Reach Another Generation. He Said Here's My Goal for This Year We Have 300 People. My Goal Is That Every Single Person Will Lead Just One Person to Christ on the Word to Bring the Training We Can Help Them We Love Them Adjust Every Person 300 People This Time Next Year We Get a Praying Dream and Asked God That These 300 People Believe Another Threat of People. Christ, I Thought, Wow, That's a Great Goal and How You Go about That. He Laid It out for Me and You Know Sometimes When You're Mentoring or You're Supposed to Be Helping People You Realize When You're Done.

I Think This Is Helping Me Way More Than Him. Leaders of the Clippers Ministries Will Grow and Develop Special Ministries to Special Age Groups and Special Needs and Special Backgrounds Out Of Your Hurts and Your Pains, Your Gifts and Your Passions and Then What You'll See Is This What Happens. You'll Find It Will Be Doctrinal Stability You Find People Because They're in the Word You Know What They Can Spot a False Teacher. As a Result, Were No Longer Children Right Tossed Here and There by Every Wind of Doctrine. As a Result, Will You Find As People Have Authentic Relationships You Do Ministry People and You Fail You Struggle and You Pray Together Pretty Soon Your Type Not Just a Small Group at Your Tight and Their Loved. There's Full Participation by Which Every Joint Supply. We Need You. Here's the Deal. This Isn't like I Hear Something like While I Don't Need to Go to Church Because You Know There's Nature Are Not Going to Bible and There's God and I Don't Need the Church. Okay.

Granted We Need You Okay You Is like Saying Is like the Tide and Saying I Need You I Can Toss the Ball to Myself and I Got News for You There Certain Patterns in Place We Can't Run without a Tight End Tony Both Guard and We Need a Quarterback and We Need a Coach Have Any Demand We Need Everybody.

The Church Can Be the Church Full Participation and When That Happens That's When Those Imaginary Things That I Described Are Not Imaginary, Not Imaginary You Ready. I Know This Will Come As a Shock, You're Going to Die and Is to Be People at Your House or near Your House Eaten Those Little Munchy Little Sandwiches and Talk about You and Not about You, but I Want Them to Say, by the Grace of God. You Know What He Was One of Most Loving People Ever Met All My Enemies Had His Idiosyncrasies May Laugh about Those, but Full of Integrity Christ like Cared about People, Generous, Loving Fennec. That's Not Can Happen by Trying Hard and Coming Sitting in This Building to Be a Good Person That's Can Happen When You Understand Who You Are in Christ We Understand the Power Is in Christ's Resurrection for You and with You to Walk in Newness of Life. And When You Allow Leaders to Equip You and When You Minister and Ministries Are Birth Longer Gifts and Passions and You Know the Word You Are Connected.] This Application for This Message to Become the Person You've Always Longed to Be from His Series. Yes, You Really Can Change the Point of This Series Is Not Only to Save a Genuine Life Change Is Possible, but to Help Us Reflect on Areas Where We Struggle.

Maybe You Need to Break an Addiction Repair a Broken Relationship or Corrective Behavior.

Whatever the Issue Is You Can Make the Change and Would Love to Help You with That Process.

Digging Deeper into This Series Would Be a Great Way to Start.

Take a Look at the Study Guide Stream. The Small Group Video or Download the Free MP3s to Listen Anytime the Place Your Order or for More Details on Yes, You Really Can Change Go to LivingontheEdge.org Call AAA 83336003 or Special Offers on the Chip and Remap Chip before You Come Back and Talk about Today's Message.

One of the Things We Hear from Listeners Is They Go through Seasons Where They Feel like God Is Distant.

They Want a Deeper Relationship with Him but They're Just Not Sure How Would You Say to Someone Who Struggling with That Right Now. Will Dave, I Think We All Go through Times like That. And the Thing That Help Me the Most Was a Bricklayer, Met with Me When I Was a New Christian, and We Literally Met One-On-One He Mentored Me and Rather Than Saying What I Ought to Do.

Got to Read You Ought to Pray Got to Get to Know God. He Did It with Me so We Have a Brand-New Thing Called Daily Discipleship That Will Be Coming out from Ephesians Chapter 4, and It's about How to Be Transformed. It's Yes, You Really Can Change and I Will Meet with People Individually.

I'll Never Speak More Than 10 Minutes and Then I'm Going to Ask Them for Just 10 Minutes of Their Time Each and Every Day for about 19 or 20 Days.

What I've Learned Is If People Will Do That with Me Individually, They Built a Habit Bill Learn to Hear God's Voice and Is Not like Just a Teaching Time Is Literally I Have a Couple Coffee and I'm Going to Walk Them through Ephesians Chapter 4 and Help Them Coach Them, Mentor Them into How Do You Connect with God, so He Doesn't Feel Distant so You Really Hear His Voice so It's Absolutely No Cost.

I We Don't Even Ask People for the Personal Information.

This Is Just an Opportunity to Say We Want to Help You Grow Spiritually. Dave Wanted to Give Them All the Information about How They Can Get Connected to This Copy to Daily Discipleship with Chip Are Short Daily Sessions with Chip Where He Walks You through How to Study a Passage from the Bible and Really Hear God's Voice. These Sessions Are Designed to Help You Get into the Practice of Doing That Every Day. The Study Chips.

Recommending Is Based on His Current Series from Ephesians Chapter 4 Yes, You Really Can Change. Understanding the Process of How Genuine Life Change Really Happens Is Essential to Getting Spiritually I'm Stuck If You Think a Meeting with Chip Would Help You Do That. I Hope You Make It a Part of Your Routine for the Next Few Weeks You'll Find the Daily Discipleship with chip@livingontheedge.org on the homepage app listeners just tap discipleship as we close today's program love to have just a very informal conversation with you. So whatever you're doing, lean back for just a minute and I just ask you a couple questions that I think may have come to your mind and if they didn't. If I could be so bold, I think God would want them to come to your mind, and the first question would be, are you using your spiritual gift and are you using in your local church. Well, maybe the question we had a backup before that one is do you know what your spiritual gift is and here's my experience I think most of us as Christians you read to the New Testament, are you here about spiritual gifts and and maybe some people are kind of very dramatic about some of the gifts and so I find a lot of Christians are like I don't even want to go there the last time I talked about spiritual gifts I got an argument and for others it's like yeah I think I have some and I read Psalm and I was in a Bible study once in, someone told me it's probably either leadership or mercy. Or, you know, maybe it's teaching but and you know they give you like a list of seven or eight and you just realize in your heart of hearts you don't have a clue. I mean spiritual gifts are like yeah it's sort of a neat idea, and I'm sure I've got some here's the thing God wants you to know your primary spiritual gift. He wants you to use it and when you use it.

Supernatural things happen in the lives of other people enjoy happens inside of you because he's deposited this gift in you to remind you of Christ's work in Christ's victory, but also to give you, literally, a super natural ability to love and help other people and so here's my challenge to you if you're a little bit foggy on spiritual gifts. We have a small group series. Or you could just listen to it is called your divine design I developed it at a time when I had all these different denominational groups and I could only use the Bible. No test, no gift inventories, but just the Bible and I'm so thankful because what we seen as people study your divine design as they go through it in a group they come away with this is my gift. Here's how to use it and here's where I'm going to use it.

I covered that for you, for God's glory in your good will the resource. Chip just mentioned is your divine design how to Discover develop and deploy your spiritual gifts as a Living on the Edge listeners you know were committed to helping Christians really live like Christians in your divine design helps you take one of the most important steps in your spiritual growth. Understanding your spiritual gifts you learn how to recognize spiritual gifts why you need to develop those gifts and how you can start using them. If you're ready to experience a greater sense of purpose and joy in your life. Your divine design is for you will find all of the your divine design resources on our website@livingontheedge.org. Be sure to join us again next time.

When Chip continues his series. Yes, you really can change. Until then, this is Dave grimacing ask for listening to this edition of living all the