A Catalyst for Change

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20120122 Sermon.mp3

January 22, 2012 message by Pastor Rich Doebler

What would happen if we all could keep in step with the Spirit? If we all could march to the beat of God’s heart? That’s the question we’ve been looking at the last few weeks.

What would our homes look like? Our marriages? What kind of impact would on our friends or neighbors or co-workers or our boss?

This year we’re hoping to find out what that might look like! We’re focusing on living in the Spirit—being equipped and enabled by the Spirit to live on a higher plane.

So we’ve talked about the surprising ways God works by his Spirit. We’ve talked about how God’s Spirit still speaks today.

Today I want to talk about how the Holy Spirit is a catalyst for change—how the Spirit of God is a change agent.

What is a catalyst? In chemistry, it’s a substance that helps the reaction along—it causes or accelerates the reaction. In common vernacular, it’s something that stimulates or precipitates some event or change. Even a person can be a catalyst if his talk, enthusiasm or energy affects others to be more like that.

So when I say the Holy Spirit is a catalyst, I’m simply saying that:

• He wants to start something in you.
• He wants to energize you.
• He wants to cause something good in you—to accomplish significant change.

We know instinctively that we need this kind of change agent, this kind of power.

Why? Because so many people struggle in the mundane activities of life, unable to make the changes they so desperately need. They find themselves stuck in destructive patterns of behavior. They feel trapped by the circumstances of their lives. They are powerless to escape from their habits or their situation.

Even many people who want to follow Christ can feel this way! Stuck, trapped, powerless.

A recent survey shows almost half of churchgoing Americans say church has not caused any changes in their lives, the Religion News Service reports. Barna Group found that 46 percent reported no change from attending church. In fact, 3 out of 5 churchgoers say they did not gain any significant new understandings or insights the last time they went to church.

And yet, despite these statistics, we have it on good authority that we are supposed to be changing. Growing. Maturing. Jesus promised his followers they could have an abundant life (John 10:10): victorious (1 Cor 15:57), overcoming (1 John 5:4; Luke 10:19), conquering (Rom 8:37).

So what happened? With these kind of promises, why do so many of us struggle to get by?

Why do so many feel discouraged and depressed? Why are so many starved for hope?

Why do we fight with those we love? Why do we argue over petty, ridiculous things?

Why do so many get caught in a cycle of defeat, negative emotions, and addictions?

Why are so many living an impoverished life—an inadequate life—when Jesus promised an abundant life?

Why are so many spiritually weaklings—beat up by the devil and circumstances?

Galatians 5 paints a dramatically different picture. That’s where we read the words we’ve been looking at the last few weeks: “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (v 25). In the same passage, it also says:

Galatians tells us there is an abundant life available for those who experience the fullness of God’s Spirit. If we have the life of the Spirit within and if we keep in step with the Spirit (that is, walk out our lives in the power of the Spirit), then there will be evidence (or fruit) coming out in our lives.

This tells me that we can live better than we do. Out of the overflow and abundance that God has given us—out of the power of the Spirit that fills us, our lives should give increasing evidence of:

• love more than hate…
• joy more than crippling grief or depression…
• peace more than worry and anxiety…
• patience more than aggravation and irritableness…
• kindness more than nasty, unpleasant, meanness…
• goodness more than ruthless, unscrupulous behavior…
• faithfulness more than fickle, disloyal, untrustworthiness…
• gentleness more than harsh cruelty…
• self-control more than being undisciplined and disorganized.

Unfortunately, too often we find ourselves incapable of tapping into the abundant life God has promised!

Years ago a new believer expressed her frustrations to me. “I stopped smoking marijuana, no problem, but I can’t stop smoking cigarettes! No matter what I do, I can’t seem to quit.” Exasperated, she told me, “If this is the abundant life, you can have it.”

Yet there is abundant life available through the power of God’s Spirit! Good fruit should come from the life of the Spirit within.

In other words, if you plant an apple tree in your backyard, you should expect apples—not pomegranates or kumquats. The fruit your tree produces is directly related to the kind of tree that you have. An apple tree with the leaves of an apple tree and the roots of an apple tree and the wood of an apple tree will give apples. The tree produces the fruit it was meant to produce.

So despite our spiritual struggles and inadequacies, we have to come back to God’s promise for an abundant, victorious life of overcoming power. God says we can be “more than” conquerors!

So why the disconnect? Why does the reality we live in not line up with the promises we hear? Why is there a bag of mixed fruit? Why aren’t we living up to our potential? What’s missing?

Simply put: We need the catalytic power of the Holy Spirit! We need to tap the supernatural energy of the Spirit—not just once, in a highly charged, charismatic gathering—but each and every day. We need to discover (or rediscover) the flow of God’s Spirit and power on a daily basis.

Why daily? Because too many things in life can clog the flow of the Spirit. We have to deal with spiritual blockage. Each day we get up, we face a world full of junk and crud. Things break down and wear out. Stuff happens. We have to deal with garbage and waste and unintended consequences.

Suppose you eat a delicious, juicy steak dinner with baked potato soaked in butter and sour cream, sprinkled liberally with salt and pepper. The problem is your bodies doesn’t just absorb the proteins, the vitamins, and the minerals. Eat enough meals like that and your arteries will get clogged with impurities —cholesterol begins to build up, over time the flow of blood is restricted, until eventually some particle gets stuck in the narrow passage, and BOOM! You’ve just had a coronary!

The same thing happens in our spiritual lives. Too many things in life can clog the flow of the Spirit. The junk and crud of this world blocks the life and the power of the Spirit.

That’s not the way God intended it! God has a better plan! For example, here’s some of the ways that God outlines his plan for the way we can live—

So here’s the deal. God wants to give us power to live good lives, no matter what the circumstances we find ourselves in. We have resources available to us that have not yet been tapped:

• We have resources to live a better life than we have been living;
• We have powerful resources to rise above our circumstances;
• We have supernatural resources to overcome our natural limitations;
• We have the Holy Spirit’s power to conquer old habits and worldly thinking.

My friend, Wilfred Kent, tells about a time back in the 1940s, when he was a boy in a small town in western Canada. There was an eccentric man who lived there (many towns have them), named Waldo. Waldo lived in an old abandoned car at the auto junk yard on the edge of town. He would come into town each day, pushing a shopping cart filled with all kinds of stuff. They affectionately called him “the Weatherman” because he always wore a long, black, fur-lined overcoat. Winter or summer, he never took it off.

The people in the town looked after Waldo as best they could. He was kind of a loner, but every day at the local restaurant, they saw to it that he could get a decent meal. They helped him out in other small ways, but he didn't seem to need much.

One day after a severe snow storm and temperatures that dipped far below zero, Waldo didn't show up as usual at the restaurant in town. People worried because of the bitterly low temperatures and sent out a search party to the junk yard. There they found Waldo's cold body in his abandoned car.

They couldn't do anything more for Waldo, so they decided to give him a decent funeral. The funeral director picked up his body and began preparing for the funeral. But when he took off Waldo's coat, he felt something stuffed inside the lining of the coat. He opened the coat up, and found nearly $100,000 hidden neatly pinned inside the lining of the coat!

Waldo had the potential to live in a fine home, and yet he chose to live in the dump. He had the resources, but he never used them. Waldo could have rented a motel room for that really cold night, but he chose to take his chances in an abandoned car. Waldo could have had his own place and bought his own food, but he didn’

You also have resources. Are you using them? Are you living up to your potential? Jesus promised an abundant life! He promised deep, inner power to live victoriously. He promised that we could overcome by the power of the Spirit. Have you tapped into those resources?

You say, “Well, not exactly. I guess I could tap into those supernatural resources more than I do. I’m more mature than I used to be, but I still have struggles with my old sinful nature. Sometimes I have the fruit of the Spirit, but other times I’m not as kind or joyful or patient or gentle as I could be.”

What do we do? Let me suggest some things you could try over the next week:

1. Pray. Ask God to baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with power. Jesus told his disciples (Luke 24:49): “…stay…until you have been clothed with power from on high”; “wait for the gift my Father promised… you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you…”
2. Surrender. Be on guard about times when you want to take back control of your life. 1 Corinthians 3:2-3 (NLT) says: “…you still aren’t ready, for you are still controlled by your own sinful desires. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove you are controlled by your own desires? You are acting like people who don’t belong to the Lord.”
3. Be still. Spend time in God’s presence, waiting quietly for his deep work. Psalm 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God…” I don’t think we can truly know God’s power unless we learn to be still.
4. Cleanse. Loosen your grip on the crud—the junk that clogs the flow of the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18 (NLT) says: “Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. [We could list dozens of things that in excess will ruin your life.] Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you.”
5. Be disciplined. Do all this regularly, on a daily basis. Jesus said (Luke 9:23): “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Florida is famous for its sinkholes—where the earth suddenly gives way and a huge hole appears, sometimes swallowing cars or houses or other large objects. Scientists say that sinkholes occur when the underground resources gradually dry up, which causes the surface soil to lose its underlying support. Then one day everything on the surface simply caves in to form a huge pit.

I think a life of spiritual defeat and depression—the opposite of an abundant life—has a lot in common with a Florida sinkhole. It happens when the inner resources are depleted. When we stifle the flow of God’s Spirit, we set ourselves up for a cave in. If you want an abundant life, you’ve got to keep in step with the Spirit. You’ve got let God’s Spirit be the catalyst for power and change in your life.