How to Change — Part 1

The sermon opens by analyzing Ephesians 4:17–19, where Paul describes the spiritual condition of humanity apart from Christ — a life marked by futility, darkened understanding, separation from God, and surrender to sensuality. The pastor uses Martin Heidegger's philosophical terms 'angst' and 'geworfenheit' to illustrate this condition, and recounts Becky Pippert's story of a Harvard psychotherapy professor who could diagnose a patient's problems but admitted he did not know how to give someone a 'new heart.'

The central section of the sermon argues that science can only describe the human condition but cannot prescribe what human beings ought to become. The moment anyone says 'you ought to change in this direction,' they have entered the realm of faith and religion. The pastor contends that Christianity is fundamentally different from every other religion in that while all other religions teach 'save yourself by applying principles,' Christianity declares that salvation rests on historical events — the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He therefore insists that 'the truth in Jesus' cannot be separated from the historicity of His life, and denying the physical resurrection disqualifies one from being a Christian.

The pastor then explains Paul's three-part model of change in verses 22–24: 'put off' (aorist tense — a decisive resolution), 'be made new in the spirit of your mind' (continuous tense — an ongoing process accomplished by the Holy Spirit), and 'put on the new self' (an active human act). He warns that overemphasizing 'putting off' leads to powerless legalism, while emphasizing 'putting on' without putting off produces hypocrisy. The balance is: human beings actively put off and put on, while God renews the spirit of the mind — a synergism between human will and divine power, as affirmed in Philippians 2:12–13.

For practical application, the pastor uses the example of loneliness and self-pity, drawing on Elisabeth Elliot's book Loneliness. He explains that 'putting off' means refusing self-pity and bitterness; 'putting on' means obeying God and using one's solitude to serve Him; and 'being renewed in the spirit of the mind' means continually meditating on God's wisdom and justice until those truths become vivid enough to govern the imagination. He also uses the parable of an ungrateful adopted child to illustrate that believers owe God everything and have no basis for self-pity.

The sermon closes with a call drawn from Luke 10, where Jesus commands His disciples not to rejoice in their power over demons but to rejoice that their names are written in heaven. The pastor explains that many spiritual struggles arise because believers are not genuinely rejoicing in and meditating on their identity in Christ. He closes with a passage from C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, which warns that Christian growth is hard work, but those who push through the initial dryness become far less susceptible to temptation and far more grounded in faith.