Tired of Patching the Leaks? Why Your Spiritual Reno Isn’t Working
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So we had basically gone from this terrible living situation where it was just constantly things in need of fixing that were done in such a half-baked, dodgy way that it actually was really uncomfortable to live in, and it definitely didn't make us feel good or comfortable or anything like that. And we left that behind to go to a place that basically felt like a sanctuary where we were taken care of, where, which I still to this day would say is the best place that we ever lived in besides where we currently are now.
So while I am talking about physical places that we lived in, we, you and I, if you have, particularly if you have given your life to Jesus, if you have acknowledged Jesus as the Son of God who died on the cross and took on our sins, all the things that Pastor Kev was talking about earlier, then you actually have two types of nature at work as well We have the old nature and we have a new nature.
The old nature, and I know Pastor Kev already said this, but I'm gonna recap it because it's so important for us to understand this. And what Pastor Kev said last week actually clarified a lot of stuff to me that I didn't understand about how the old and new work, how they work under the laws. So I would really encourage you to watch that if you missed it last week or didn't get it, because it's really helpful for us to understand why we operate the way we do as people.
But our old nature, our old self, it's sometimes called, um, or, uh, Paul, in a lot of his letters, calls it the flesh, um, is what we are born into. It's what we inherited when we're born into a broken world. Sin entered the world back at the beginning of creation, and then God introduced the laws through Moses to bring in a sense of, like, civility, but also those laws serve to reflect that we cannot make ourselves righteous and holy.
We just can't, and that's the old nature. And because we were born into that nature, and we lived in that world, and we grew up in families there, and we were influenced by things, we have lots of habits, thoughts, beliefs, um, actions, automatic responses that come from living in and inheriting a s- a nature, a self that comes from this world, this nature.
Actually, you know what? I've got props. Where are my props, Josie? Can't do this without a prop today. Thank you. Look at these people. Oh, pretty. They are pretty. All right. So we've got our old and our new. So that's our old self. I needed visuals today. And then we've got our new self. When Jesus came, and He lived on Earth, and then He died on the cross, and He sacrificed himself, in doing that, He took all of the sin of the world, and He turned that into a pathway of grace that we could come in through and actually become righteous with God.
That is the most incredible gift. And actually, when we were singing the songs this morning, I was getting a little bit emotional, so I was like, I forget sometimes that that is the most incredible gift, that God gave us that second chance through His Son. And I forgot. I had forgotten that until this morning, that that is the most amazing thing that could have happened, that He gave us a way out of this and into this.
When we accept Jesus, this is what happens. Jesus said that we are born again. We are actually born as a new creation spiritually, not physically, but spiritually, where we live in, by, and through the spirit. No longer stuck here, but actually reborn to live in this nature until the time comes that we go into heaven and spend eternity with Him.
That is part of the gift that He gave us, that we would not head to death, but instead we would head to life. That's worth celebrating right now. We could just go, yes, awesome. That's where we're at. That's what's good. The problem for us is that because we are silly humans and because we are fallible and we're not perfect, and that's why we need Jesus, we have habits and things like that that still stick around.
We are not made perfect in every action and behavior when we start following Jesus. That is a lifelong process of undoing the old and moving into the new. Paul, uh, I'm gonna go to another scripture, another, uh, thing that Paul wrote to this church in Rome. Um, he wrote this... Oh, it's very close behind me. Oh, that's good.
Oh, there we go. Um, oh, I feel like I'm very far forward. For wh- he says, "For when we were in the realm of the flesh," which is this, the old nature, "the sinful passions," now this is interesting, "the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us so that we bore fruit for death." That's a little confusing until you realize that Paul is not just talking about living in the old nature.
He's saying that when the law, the passed down to Moses, when those laws were active for those people, the Jewish people back then, having rules and laws actually made people rebel against them. That's how silly we are, that we corrupt ourselves in order to not do the thing we're told to do. So it's the same as if you said, "I'm gonna lose five kilos.
I'm gonna stop eating chocolate." What's the only thing you cannot stop thinking about? Chocolate, because the second you deny yourself something, that's the thing you want the most. That's what he's talking about. The laws actually served against us in some ways, so we bore fruit for death. So that set us on a path of destruction, death, poor outcomes from the things that we did.
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. So what I wanna do before we move on to the process of how do we actually, like really, really go from burying old things and to become new, I wanna kind of put some legs on these guys and give you some examples so that we can start to think about what is at work in us.
Where do we have some habits and behaviors and whatever that come from this old inherited life that we've been brought out of, but are still sticking around? This is in no way comprehensive. I'm just trying to give you some ideas. And what I'm actually gonna do is not just give you old ones, 'cause then what we end up with is a to-do list of terrible things that make us go, "Why does God even love me?
I am a complete mess." That's not the point. There's no condemnation. Christ gave His life for you when you were still all this. So we don't have to condemn ourselves when we have stuff to fix. This is just part of the journey. But what I'm also gonna do is I'm gonna stick someone here, because I also want us to be able to see where has God already transformed something from here to here.
'Cause I think sometimes we forget. We just... It happens, and then it's not until we actually look and go, "My goodness, God has completely changed me from who I was." All right, let's start with some of these ones. Okay, so here's one like control. Can you guess which nature this belongs to? Oh, it's actually a little bit harder, 'cause you could say God is in control.
It actually belongs to the old. So control is kind of like that's the root of something in your old nature, but then there are lots of symptoms and behaviors that come out of that. So for example, do you feel like you need to do absolutely everything because no one else is gonna do it to the standard that you expect?
Do you get frustrated when you can't control others and what they're doing? This might come out as being a bit snappy and whatever with your kids or your spouse. Maybe you're a bit, you know, perfectionistic with your coworkers. Do you think everything depends on you? Then you have a problem with control.
All right. What about this one? Fear. Do you make decisions based on what could go wrong? Are you alway- uh, do you avoid doing what God says because you're worried about what the outcome has be, uh, will be, or the impact on yourself, your finances, your reputation? Do you hold back on doing things that are your passion or you believe are your purpose because, again, you're worried about what people will think or the impact on you?
Do you just live worried about other people's opinions all the time? Then fear lives here. I can't rhyme all of them. All right, performance and value. This is a huge one, I think, especially for Christians. Do you feel like you have to tick all the Christian boxes to be actually worthy and to consider yourself saved?
That's performance-based love. Do you measure your worth by your productivity and what you achieve? Do you struggle to just stop and rest? Do you feel like you're always proving yourself so that you make sure that you are measuring up? Ooh, I like this one too. Pride and ego. Do you really struggle to admit when maybe you're wrong about something?
You have to be right. Do you compare yourself to others, and maybe sometimes you feel better when you find that you're stacking up a little bit better than someone else? Do you secretly enjoy being a little bit more Christian than someone else? And what is maybe your motivation for posting on social media?
Are you truly just sharing a joyous moment, or are you kind of hoping for a bit of validation? Are you hoping for some clicks? Are you hoping for some affirmation? That comes down to pride and ego. All right, now for some good ones. Trust. Do you find that now you pray instead of panicking, when maybe you would've panicked before?
Are you generous with your money because now you just trust that God's got your finances and He will provide and it'll all be okay? Do you leave things in God's hands even when life hands you a bunch of lemons, you just go, "You know what? God has got this. He will absolutely see me through because He is faithful."
Grace. Oh, this is me. So, are you less critical than you used to be? My goodness, I hated everyone. I thought everyone was an idiot before I became a Christian, I really did. I was so annoyed at everyone because they weren't perfect, while I myself could be as imperfect as I wanted to be. I could have a bad day, but no one else could.
And now I'm not. Now that's much different for me. Do you forgive more quickly when someone fails? Even a Christian, even... Anyone else, anyone. Is your first response to that compassion or empathy or a desire to understand rather than being critical or judgmental? Welcome to the land of grace. That's what God...
Graceland. Love. Are you more patient with people? Do you serve even when there's no recognition or reward attached to it, but simply out of a joy of serving people? Do you put others ahead of yourself? Not because you're a doormat, but because that's our commission, that's our heart for people, is to put other people first so that they come to know the love of Jesus as well.
Surrender. Are you able to say, "Your will not mine, God. This is not what I wanted. I don't even know what you're asking me to do, but I'm just gonna trust you. Your will not mine." Are you willing to obey and do what God says, even when it might cost you something? Great. That's surrender I've got two more.
Dependence. Are you a prayer first kind of person now, and do you invite the Holy Spirit to guide you as much as you can? Then you have learnt to live with dependence on God. And this last one, I'm gonna go back to here. Self-reliance. Is prayer your last resort? Is it hard to accept help? And mostly, would you just rather figure it out yourself all the time?
I think this is one of the biggest problems that we have in our old nature, is that we live so independently of God a lot of the time. But I want you to look at these. You might, you know, obviously I've just given you some examples. You might see something here, you go, "Yeah, actually, I do know I do something like that."
But I really hope you can also look at this and go, "Man, I am different." You know, we've been watching, um, a lot of baptism videos over the last few weeks. Watch the language of these people who have just had their baptism, because even though they've only been following Jesus for a matter of weeks or months, you can already hear the change from here to here.
They are already different. It is-- That is why I cry every time I watch a baptism video, because you are watching literally the sanctification of the old to the new. It's awesome. So I really hope you're able to see this and go, "Man, God is so good. Look what He's done in my life." Yeah, okay. Thank you very much.
He said it's great. All right. Now, the thing is that because we are such self-reliant people, we see these things in us, we go, "Gosh, that's not reflecting Jesus. I can't do that. I can't get mad at my family. I can't secretly gossip behind someone's back because it makes me feel a bit better about myself.
All those things aren't of Christ. I shouldn't do that." And then our immediate inclination is, "How do I fix that myself? What can I do? What course can I do? What book can I buy? What TikTok therapist can I follow? How can I fix this myself?" That's our automatic inclination because we want to be better for God.
We want to reflect Jesus more. The problem is that this nature was never designed to be renovated. You and I would be absolute moyds at renovating this. We cannot do it because this nature was never meant to be renovated. When it comes to this old nature, it's not a renovation, it's a knockdown. Boom. Okay, I don't want to wreck it We cannot fix or renovate something that was never designed to be fixed.
It was designed to be crucified. If we could fix it ourselves, the law would've worked, and we never would've needed Jesus. But it doesn't work, because when we apply rules and when we ourselves start going, "Oh, I'm not gonna do this," or, you know, "I have a bit of a gambling problem, I'll just avoid going to casinos," and whatever.
We start putting these rules into place for ourselves, then we're just adding laws, and the first thing that we wanna do is disobey our own laws. It doesn't work. The math ain't mathing. We can't self-reliantly fix something that only God can fix, because that's why He sent Jesus to give us grace instead.
Yes, okay. So how do we do that? This is where we're getting to, like, the main thing, and I'm gonna do this in about two minutes. It's gonna be amazing. The process of fixing our old nature, these big root things that are going on, actually just comes down to a couple of things. One I'll say first, but the second one is the one I really wanna say.
The first one is, it is such a heart posture of abiding with God. We need to be aware of God in our lives. We can't hold Him at arm's length and then expect to change. We have to be somehow connected to Him by talking to the Holy Spirit, by just sitting quietly with God, all the things that I have not done over the last little while because I'm avoiding the noise in my head.
But that's what we need to do. We need to have that heart posture with Him. But this process is also one of prayer and surrender, and I was so excited to see all of those in the Slido earlier, because that's what it is. If you see something in yourself, like you might say, um, uh, I don't know, like, um, someone, when someone isn't doing very well, it makes me feel better about myself.
It boosts my ego. So then you might just literally Go into prayer, like earnestly in prayer. And Jesus says in Luke 9:23, he says, "If you wanna be a follower, if you wanna be a disciple, pick up your cross daily and follow me." He's saying you've got to take it to the cross daily. So you take that problem, and you sit with God, and you say, "Lord, this feeling that I get, I don't even know what it's coming from.
I don't know if it's a self-worth problem, I don't know if it's pride or ego, but I absolutely know it is not of the nature that you gave me as a daughter of God. So what I do is I hand it to you, I put it at the cross, I ask you to bury it, I ask you to burn it. Take it from me and replace it instead with more love for you, Lord, more of your Holy Spirit, grace for people, love for people, Lord.
Refill me from, with that." That is the kind of prayer that you pray, and you pray it every single day until you see it start to move. Yep. So my very astute husband, when I was telling him about this message, he said, "Well, what about a course like Emotionally Healthy Spirituality? How does that work? That's a course, are we not supposed to do that?"
That was, he wasn't, didn't say it that arrogantly. He was leg-... Somehow I made that sound bad. He was legitimately asking. And I thought, that is a really great thing to say. Because we have a program here at, at the junction that we run called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. It's a course that you do, and it teaches you exactly this.
It goes through to identify what are some of these old habits and behaviors that are stuck from your old nature, and where did they come from? From your family of origin or experiences, things like that. So yes, that is a program that has a little element of DIY self-reliance. But the thing about EHS is that it has two things running at the same time.
The first one is it's helping you to identify the problem, 'cause sometimes we don't even know that we're doing things, 'cause they're so automatic in us, they're so ingrained. So it helps you to identify things. And at the same time that you're identifying, you're also doing a process called the daily office, where every day, twice a day, you spend two minutes of silent time with God.
You read a devotion, you follow a prayer. And what you are doing concurrently is identifying and surrendering. It's running at the same time. They're giving you both elements of the process so that by the end, you know what was wrong, and now you've just kept submitting it to God over and over and over again and let his Holy Spirit work in you.
That's why EHS works So I thought before I finish up, I've got a little thing for us to do, um, as the musos play a little bit later. But I just thought that I would share with you one experience that I had before I even knew or understood any of this, um, where this happened for me, and I thought that might clarify it just as I finish up to kind of show you, like, what this process looked like for me very specifically.
Um, in 2015, I started a writing business. I'd never done writing professionally before, just for fun and different things. So I started this writing business, and it was going really well, but I found that I had this weird thing where every time I sent back a completed job to a client, I'd send the email, and then I'd slam my laptop shut, and I'd hoof it off to another room and try not to think about it anymore.
And it was weird. It was just a weird, icky feeling I had every time I sent back a job. And one day I was here having a coffee in the junction with someone who was like a, uh, like a mindset mentor and a business coach, and I was telling him about this weird thing that I was doing, and he said, "Well, what else?
Like, what other things are you doing 'cause that is really odd?" And I said, "Well, okay." I'd never told anyone this, but I said, "You know, when I have that email ready to go, and I have the completed job, and I have the invoice, at the last second, just before I press send, I'll quickly go into the e-invoice and just say it was like four hundred and fifty dollars.
I'd quickly make it three hundred, and then I'd attach it, send it, shut the email and hoof it off to the other room and stop thinking about it." And he goes, "Well, why do you do that?" Which is so fascinating 'cause in two years I'd never asked myself why I do that. And I said the first thing that came to my mind, and that was, "Because that way, when they read my work and they see how rubbish it is, at least they'll say, 'Well, it only cost us three hundred bucks.'"
So then he goes, "You know what you've got? You've got imposter syndrome." And I went, "Hmm, what?" And so I went home, and I self-reliantly Googled it, and I figured out what it was, and I'm reading it going, "That is me." Like, that... It literally was. I was a textbook imposter syndrome person, which means that people with imposter syndrome, nice label that we put on it, have a belief that despite all evidence to the contrary, we have attained a level of success fraudulently by faking it, and that it is only a matter of time before someone finds out and exposes us.
So that, that's what I felt. That's why I was knocking the price off 'cause that way I devalued my work, and it made it less likely someone would go, "Well, hang on. There's... Why are you charging so much for such rubbish?" All that went on without me even realizing it. So I did what any good self-reliant person does, and I bought a book, and it came with a workbook, and you can't achieve anything unless you print it out beautifully in color and put a leather grain backing on it and a nice binding.
And then who can work on a workbook without a nice new notebook? That's what really gets the change going. Uh, so I got this nice little stationery set, and then I had my productivity pack right there ready to go. I was gonna fix myself. I didn't want this problem anymore. So I read through the book. I'm like, "That's great."
Going through the workbook, it just got you to, like, write down your thoughts, like, put them on paper, so that was great. And I got to this one section where it had two columns, and it said, "Write what you believe," and then next to it, "Write the truth based on evidence." So I wrote a few things down, and then I wrote one that said something like, "I'm not good enough to do this job."
And then in the evidence, I could have written the, the truth as per the evidence was my entire business had been built on word of mouth. No one had ever told me they didn't like what I wrote, and everyone paid their invoices with no problem. So there was all this evidence I could have put, but instead, something made me write, "I was not given a spirit of fear."
And then I kept going with all my stuff, and the idea was you're supposed to go back and read these things and, you know, like, change your mindset and the habitual thoughts and blah, blah, but every time I read it, I got stuck on that one. Why did I write that? So I ended up putting the workbook away, and I just sat on it for a couple of days, and I kinda just let, let it simmer.
I let kinda God just have space to talk to me. And after a while, I realized I didn't have a problem with, like, being successful. You know how people say that? "Oh, you've got such a fear of earning money." No, I was fine with money. I didn't have a fear of success or a fear of finances or anything like that.
What I had was a performance and value problem. I had attributed my own personal worth to the work that I was doing. My whole self-worth was wrapped up in this job, and I was equating my worth to how the quality of my work was being perceived. And I was like, "Whoa, that's not right. That's not who God created me to be."
When I accepted Jesus, I also accepted an identity in him. I'm a daughter of God. I don't believe that I should live in fear of my work, my talent, whatever it is. That's not, that's not for me. I'm not doing that anymore. So I sat down and I started praying over it. I said, "God, I can't imagine that this is of you.
I'm just gonna leave it right here, God. I don't ever wanna feel like this again. I wanna feel confident. I wanna feel courage. I wanna feel, like, the freedom to love this job and do it well. I don't wanna be hindered by this anymore." I just kept doing it over and over, and within days, it was completely gone.
That was 10 years ago. I've never had it come back. I no longer attribute any of my value to what I produce, and I started charging, like, double. I was like, "Woo-hoo." No, I didn't. I, it was very fair. But it stopped being a problem, because instead of managing the, the symptoms and the behavior, which I was trying to do, I finally took it to the cross and I said, "Jesus, this is yours and not mine."
And he took it, and that was it, and it's gone and done. That is the process in action before I even understood the process. So I'm gonna get the team to sing. They're gonna sing a song called I speak Jesus. Thank you. And this song, it has the most beautiful words because it's saying, "I speak Jesus," and then over a whole bunch of things.
And what we're really saying in that, "I speak Jesus," is I'm speaking the power of the Holy Spirit to be in control of all of these different areas of our lives. So if you have thought as we're going through this, you've had a moment where you've gone, "Mm, you know what? I am a little bit like that," or, "I do that, and I, I know that I need to look at this," or whatever.
This is quite literally a moment where you can speak Jesus into that, where you can take it and surrender it. There's no reason that you cannot right now say a prayer that starts that process, and then you just keep it up. You abide with God, and you just keep handing it over. It's not yours. It's old.
What we want is to be filled to the measure with the fullness of God, and that means there's no room for this. So we move this out, and we fill that space, as Pastor Kev says, we fill that room with more of the fullness of God. That's our goal. That's what we want, and then we have our eternal reward at the end of that.
So I'm gonna leave that with you. Um, the team is gonna sing. I don't know, maybe we'll join them in a bit. We'll just see what the Holy Spirit wants to do really. So I'll pray, and then I'm gonna leave these up here so you can kind of see them and think. All right. Thank you, Lord, for this whole morning, the way that you've put it all together.
Thank you for the way that you've touched even my own heart this morning in an area that I felt so isolated from you, God. You really do know exactly what we need all the time. I pray that this morning would be the start for some people to identify something, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would start to just pick little things out, not out of condemnation, Lord, we know, but purely because these are things that can be submitted to you and fixed, and fixed, and that we need to, um, we, uh, that allows more room for you in our lives, Lord.
So we ask for your help in this, Lord. We want to be people who understand the sacrifice that you made, and that we have that to utilize for ourselves now so that we have freedom in ourselves. That's what we pray for, Lord, this morning. Start showing us things so that we can have freedom in you, Lord.
Thank you, Jesus. Amen.