Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

 Introduction:
~ Is radical change in adults possible? 
     What  is the natural process of change in people’s lives?
     What is the supernatural process of change in people’s lives?
~ What does God’s Word say about change?
~ What can we learn about change from studying natural revelation?
~ Our question: is it possible for me to change?  For my spouse to change? For my children to change?  Is there hope?

I.          Paul’s Story

A.        The issue is the good news, 1:11-12

B.        His previous way of life, 1:13-14

C.        But God, 1:15-16a

D.        1 Timothy 1:12-17  Fantastic passage

Acts 9:1-31
~ Headed in one direction
~ Personal encounter with Christ
~ Headed in the opposite direction

What do you see?

II.        Survey of what God’s Word says about his process for changing people.

2 Corinthians 5:17-18 
Col 1:26-27  this is the mystery - Christ in you the hope of glory.
2 Corinthians 4:6-12
2 Cor 3:12-18

(Romans 5:1-2, 17; 6:1-7; 7:14-19; 8:1-4, 12-14, 29)

Galatians 5:1,13,16-26
1 John 3:1-2  “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.”

“Sin is an unsearchable morass of disposition, drift, willful choice, unwitting impulse, obsession, compulsion, seeming happenstance, the devil’s appetite for souls, the world’s shaping influence, and God’s hardening of hard hearts.”  The trust is we are all “strugglers with indwelling sin genuinely growing in grace.  But often the generic issue (that we struggle with) remains on stage in some manner throughout a person’s lifetime.  Abiding struggles are no reason to throw over the Christian life, which is defined as growth amid struggle unto a future perfection (1 John 3:1-3).”  David Powlison

III.       Survey of the process of change in natural revelation

The process of change:

 Introduction:
~ Is radical change in adults possible? 
     What  is the natural process of change in people’s lives?
     What is the supernatural process of change in people’s lives?
~ What does God’s Word say about change?
~ What can we learn about change from studying natural revelation?
~ Our question: is it possible for me to change?  For my spouse to change? For my children to change?  Is there hope?

I.          Paul’s Story

A.        The issue is the good news, 1:11-12

B.        His previous way of life, 1:13-14

C.        But God, 1:15-16a

D.        1 Timothy 1:12-17  Fantastic passage

Acts 9:1-31
~ Headed in one direction
~ Personal encounter with Christ
~ Headed in the opposite direction

What do you see?

II.        Survey of what God’s Word says about his process for changing people.

2 Corinthians 5:17-18 
Col 1:26-27  this is the mystery - Christ in you the hope of glory.
2 Corinthians 4:6-12
2 Cor 3:12-18

(Romans 5:1-2, 17; 6:1-7; 7:14-19; 8:1-4, 12-14, 29)

Galatians 5:1,13,16-26
1 John 3:1-2  “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.”

“Sin is an unsearchable morass of disposition, drift, willful choice, unwitting impulse, obsession, compulsion, seeming happenstance, the devil’s appetite for souls, the world’s shaping influence, and God’s hardening of hard hearts.”  The trust is we are all “strugglers with indwelling sin genuinely growing in grace.  But often the generic issue (that we struggle with) remains on stage in some manner throughout a person’s lifetime.  Abiding struggles are no reason to throw over the Christian life, which is defined as growth amid struggle unto a future perfection (1 John 3:1-3).”  David Powlison

III.       Survey of the process of change in natural revelation

The process of change: