ACTS: "Can a Person Change?" - Acts 7:59-60 - Part 2

Brett Meador: The Lord says, "I want you to put off the nightclothes and I want you to put on the armor of light." And what does that look like? Putting on Jesus Christ. And that's a work in progress. The Lord says, "I will change your heart. I will change your life. But I also want to change your exterior garments, the exterior part of you." And how do you do that? You put on Jesus.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador on swapping filthy rags for robes of righteousness.
Brett Meador: But as you put on Christ, the Lord will give you the strength. And we're not perfect. We haven't figured it all out, but we're a work in progress.
Guest (Male): The first martyr Stephen displayed the same spirit of forgiveness that Jesus demonstrated on the cross. Not only did he ask God to forgive those condemning him, but he proclaimed it boldly. Pastor Brett Meador highlights the powerful example Stephen set in today's word, offering valuable lessons for every believer seeking to live Christ-like both inwardly and outwardly.
Brett Meador: We have in our story here today, things get very real. Our character in the story, as things get real, he is about to die and he knows this. It is Stephen, this guy who is a fairly new Christian. Why do I know he is a new Christian? Because Christianity is new. The whole idea of being a Christian is fairly new, only months old. Now we have a guy who loves Jesus and he is speaking the truth in front of the supreme court of Israel, the Sanhedrin. He is there defending his faith and belief in Christ. They are getting angrier and angrier. By the end of his sermon, they are gnashing their teeth at him, and they are going to want to kill him. Eventually, that is the way this story goes. Let's read it. It's Acts chapter seven. I just want to focus on the last two verses because of what happens when it gets very real. Acts 7:59 says, "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep." It's an interesting description of death. He is hit with these rocks, and what happens? He falls asleep. But what does he say? Do you notice some characteristics here of Stephen? It reminds you of someone else. Who does Stephen remind you of in this part of the story? He sounds like Jesus! When Jesus died on the cross, he let his spirit go to the Father, even as Stephen said, "receive my spirit." It is interesting because the psalmist prophetically wrote about this, about the releasing of his spirit. We are going to see how Jesus is really modeled here by Stephen. How does this happen? How does a guy on his last dying breath say words like Jesus? He has become like Jesus. He's just like Jesus, and we'll see how that shakes out. How did Stephen, as a young Christian at a time where things get real, become more like Jesus? Saying words like Jesus, forgiving, being big-hearted like Jesus. The Lord does that work in us. The first thing that he does when it comes to change is you have to allow the Lord to change your heart. I use the word "allow" deliberately. Does it sound a little weird to allow the Lord to do anything? He is God, you are not. Why would we allow him? Well, as it turns out, God does not superimpose his will on you in a way that, from our perspective, is more of an invitation. Yes, I believe God is sovereign, but for some reason, the Bible also tackles it from our perspective. It's the Lord saying, "Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." There is an invitation for you. The question is: are you going to allow the Lord as he lovingly invites you to come? Are you going to allow him to give you that comfort and rest that he wants to give you? There are a bunch of things the Lord says, "I will do this if you allow me." He gives you a free will, and it is up to you on that. The idea of getting your heart changed is where it all begins. It starts with the heart. Jeremiah talks about this in the New Covenant. He starts with the notion, "Your heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?" That is an important verse for you to know, and I'll tell you why. Because in our goofy world, we like to say all the time, "Follow your heart!" Can I just say how stupid that is? The Bible says your heart will deceive you. Your heart is deceptive and wicked above all things. That is the bad news. The good news is God actually wants to change your heart, literally like a heart transplant. If you want to follow your heart, there are some things that have to happen before that. Let's talk about the New Covenant that Jeremiah talks about in Jeremiah 31:33: "But this shall be a covenant that I will make with the house of Israel." You might say this is for Jews. Yes, but we get this same covenant superimposed on us when we are grafted into the vine of the Jewish people. The Lord will do this for us as well: "After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Jeremiah is talking about what God wants to do. He wants to write his will in your heart. Instead of having a deceitful, lying heart, suddenly your heart is reminding you of things God cares about, and you will be God's people when he writes that on your heart. In fact, the author of Hebrews, in chapter eight, verse ten, echoes the exact same thing in the New Testament. He quotes from Jeremiah 31:33. If you want to change, it has to happen in the heart. Change starts with the Lord changing your heart. You are required to change your mind. That is the free will part. When you change your mind and say, "Lord, my heart needs help with that. I need a heart change," the power to change comes by the Holy Spirit in the new heart that the Lord wants to give you. The repentance part is where you change your mind. That is what it means to repent: change your mind. Then you say, "I am going to be responsible for what I am responsible for—changing my mind—but Lord, now I am going to ask for you to change my heart because I cannot do that." The Lord says, "I will give you a new heart." The Lord is the great heart surgeon. David, the psalmist, knew this to be true. He talked about his heart all the time in the Psalms. For example, remember when David said, "Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me"—that is in my heart—"and lead me in the way everlasting." The idea of a heart change is the key to changing, the number one key. Number one: allow the Lord to change your heart. Next on the list of change is number two: allow the Lord to change your life, to start to make a change. To become more like Jesus, you must first see your heart change, and then the externals will come after: changing your lifestyle, what you do, and what you think is important. Allow the Lord to change the places you go. You might even see the Lord start to change the people you hang out with because you become like the people you hang out with. Maybe the Lord is saying it is time to change your life and make some different decisions about where you go and who you spend your time with. Speaking of the stoning of Stephen, there was a guy standing there holding everyone's clothes while they were stoning him to death. He was a young man by the name of Saul of Tarsus. If you know who that is, he became a man who hated Christians and the church and went around persecuting the church. He killed them and put them in prison. This is Saul of Tarsus. But if you know the story, God knocks Saul off his horse on his way to Damascus and says, "Saul, why do you persecute me?" Saul says, "Who art thou, Lord?" and the Lord says, "I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting." Suddenly Saul sees that he is on the wrong side of the game. He realizes that Jesus is true, alive, and the risen Savior. He becomes a Christian and starts preaching about grace: saved by grace through Jesus Christ and the cross alone. Paul is the one who penned Ephesians 2:8: "You are saved by grace through faith." But Paul then spends a ton of time saying that once you are saved by grace through faith, a lot of change needs to take place. Listen to what Paul the Apostle says in Ephesians 4 and 5. It says when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus, you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. You were taught to be made new in the attitude of your minds and, in verse 24, to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. Notice the idea of putting off. It is like taking off a garment and then putting on a new garment. We are all members of one body. In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you are sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Therefore, be followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. This is what the Bible says. The Bible says you are saved by grace through faith. Hallelujah! We get to go to heaven. But once you are saved, we are supposed to be a work in progress. We are supposed to see change. What are we supposed to change into? Like Stephen, we are to become more like Jesus. We are supposed to be conformed into his image. Paul talks about this for you Calvinists: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." What did he predestinate us for? A lot of times we think it is for salvation, whether you are saved or not, and that is true. But here it says, "Whom he did foreknow, he did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son." That is what you were predestinated to do: to be formed into the image. Those are fancy words for saying, basically, to be more like Jesus, to look more like Jesus, and to sound more like Jesus, "that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he called. To those he called, to them he justified. To whom he justified, them also he glorified." I love that we are called to be conformed to the image of his son and that we are a work in progress. This is right after he said you are saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves; it is a gift from God. Right after that, he says, "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." In other words, you are not saved to stay the same way you are with your sinful, deceptive heart, your lifestyle, and your sinfulness. Don't just say, "I am just the way I am and God loves me the way I am." No, God loves me to save me from who I am and then wants to work in me to change me to become more like Christ. You are his workmanship. The word workmanship, "poiema," is the Greek word which is like writing an artful poem. That is what God is doing in your life. He is doing a work of art in you, and it is going to be chiseling away some of the rough edges to shape what he wants in your life. The question is: are you more like Jesus today than when you first believed? In the movie "Freaky Friday," the mom and the daughter swapped places. The soul of the daughter was in the body of the mother. The reason we think that movie is so funny is because the mom went to school in the daughter's body. That's hilarious because she acted so differently. Let's just pretend for a second: what if Jesus swapped with you for a minute or for a day? For the high schoolers here, if Jesus took over your body and went to school, what would your friends think? Would you be nicer to your friends? At lunchtime, instead of going with all your popular friends to make sure you are seen with those it's good to be seen with, what if Jesus went to sit with the lowliest of people? Would Jesus go sit at that table with the kid everyone thinks is a weirdo and nobody likes and just be nice to that person? Would Jesus be extremely respectful and kind to the teachers? How different would it be? Would people say, "What have you done with our friend? You look like him, but you are not that person." It freaks me out when I think I have so far to go. When I read Ephesians 4 and 5, I realize I even have communication that is not good coming out of my mouth. If Jesus filled your body, your friends would only hear gracious words. The Bible says wherever Jesus went, people marveled at the gracious words he spoke. Are you a gracious word person? We are his workmanship. So allow Jesus to change your heart, and you also want to allow Jesus to change your life and lifestyle—kind of a total makeover. It is not just your life and your heart, but the third thing is to allow the Lord to change your clothes. Are you serious, Brett? Dead serious. One of the major themes of the Bible is that the Lord says a lot about your spiritual clothing. We are talking about spiritual clothing, not literal clothing. The Lord says he wants to swap your old clothes. Question for you Bible students: when we put on our best robes and best clothes, what do those look like to God? Filthy rags. The Bible says the best things we can put on are filthy rags to God. That is the bad news. The prophet Isaiah talked about this. Isaiah 64:6 says, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf. Our iniquities like the wind have taken us away." Our righteousnesses, all of them—even the best of them—are just filthy rags to God. We are wearing filthy rags and were born in a sinful way. But the good news in Isaiah 61:10 is: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness." It's all about the garments. You are covered spiritually in filthy rags, but the Lord says, "Let me take those rags away and let me put a robe on you." If you are not into robes, another thing the Bible says we are to put on is armor. Ephesians 6:14 says, "Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness." It goes on to talk about the helmet of salvation and shoes with the preparation of peace. We are supposed to care about what we are wearing spiritually. How does that work out practically? Look at Romans 13:11. It says, "And that knowing the time, that now is high time to awake out of sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent. The day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light." Before I keep reading, do you see what this says? We are supposed to put off the pajamas and put on the day clothes, the armor of light. I think that "putting on" thing is something I was showing you in those earlier verses. I have noticed there is a trend of wearing pajamas everywhere you go now. Have you seen people walking in their pajamas down the street? Spiritually, the Bible is saying it is time to wake up, get rid of the pajamas, and put on your day clothes and armor of light. He goes on and explains what that actually looks like: "Let us walk honestly as in the day, not rioting, not in drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof." What is making provision to fulfill the lust? "I'm just a person of anxiety; that's the way I am." No, the Lord says he wants you to put off the nightclothes and put on the armor of light. That looks like putting on Jesus Christ. That is a work in progress. The Lord says, "I will change your heart. I will change your life. But I also want to change your exterior garments, the exterior part of you." You do that by putting on Jesus. That might sound fake. You might think Christians are a bunch of fakes who plaster on a fake smile. Some people have a problem with that. But I have to put on Jesus Christ and try to speak gracious words. That does not come naturally. But when you put on Christ, after you get into it for years, it starts to become more natural and becomes who you are. You do not have to try as hard. For some of you, it's going to be really hard to put on a gracious word, a kind-hearted demeanor, and a compassionate attitude. But as you put on Christ, you will get better at it. The Lord will give you the strength. That is the power of the Spirit. Is that fake Christianity? No, it's a bunch of wacko, weird sinners like us trying to change who we are. We are not perfect and have not figured it all out, but we are a work in progress. That's what the Bible says. The more you put on Christ, the more his characteristics become your own. Colossians 3:8 says, "But now ye also put off all these things: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not to one another seeing that you have put off the old man with his deeds." That old man is the old sin nature. Put off the old man and put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him. That's Jesus. There is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies. Why are we talking about intestines? In Bible days, they would use that term to mean the deepest part of your soul. We call it a gut feeling. The Bible uses that same sort of thing, talking about the bowels of mercy, meaning you are merciful from the very depth of your heart. That happened because you had a heart change. With that heart change, you have bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. "If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfection." Charity, of course, is love. "And let the peace of God rule your hearts to the which also you are called in one body and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord." All of the scripture I am reading today is about the Lord saying he wants to change you. He does not want to save you to keep you the way you are. Stephen's story reminds me of a guy who, before long, was forgiving, talking, and acting like Jesus. That is the goal of all Christians, especially when the rubber meets the road and things get tough. Are you defaulting more to acting like Jesus, or do you default back to your old sin nature? When things get real, you realize if you are learning what Jesus is really all about. Change is possible. The world says you're just the way you are, sinful and messed up. But the Bible says the Lord wants to change you. Allow the Lord to change your heart, your lifestyle, and your clothes. Then allow time for the Lord to just be with him and spend time with him so that you become more like Jesus. If you do that, when trouble comes and things get very real, you will be more like Jesus. If you do not do this stuff, you will fall back to the default: more like you, with a heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. God forbid. May the Lord give us ears to hear what the Spirit says to the church.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador drawing great encouragement for glorifying the Lord in any circumstance, having been given a new heart through the transforming power of Jesus in our lives. And I hope you'll stick around as Pastor Brett will close his message in prayer from today's word in just a moment. But first, today's word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area where Pastor Brett is the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. I also want to mention that in addition to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn, we also have several locations in the Portland, Oregon area. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link "Locations." Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link "Locations." Well, just before we go, Pastor Brett Meador leads us in a brief word of prayer.
Brett Meador: As we see Stephen here, Lord, as he goes down big, representing, being very much like your son Jesus, Lord, it makes us wonder how we would do in his circumstance, facing death. When things get real, Lord, we want to be more like your son. We want to be strong and courageous and let our light shine before all men. And we know that comes through that process of change. Would you do that with us, Lord? I pray that we would let you have access to the changing of our hearts and our lives and even our spiritual clothing. Lord, may you change us. Not just let this sermon go in one ear and out the other, but instead of just being hearers, help us to be doers on this one. Help us to evaluate how much we've changed, how far we have yet to go, and that we'd be open to letting you have access to our hearts and our lives. Where the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak, would you be our strength, Lord? We pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Guest (Male): Amen. Pastor Brett Meador closing our time here on Today's Word. And that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue another verse-by-verse study in the book of Acts. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.