Begin to decree this morning that whatever the enemy has determined in your life to cause you evil, God has turned it around. Begin to decree this morning; begin to speak into the air; into your atmosphere; into your business; into your career; into your spiritual life; into your family; life of your children; whatever the enemy had determined for evil, God has turned it around, He has turned it around, He has made it good; all things work together for good to them that love the Lord; the Lord will take that thing and He will turn it around for you, for your children, for your business, for your career, He will turn it around.
Begin to decree this morning in your life, whatever it is that has challenged you; whatever it is that has withheld you, God has turned it around in the mighty name of Jesus. In Jesus mighty name we have prayed.
Father, we have come this morning, truly You are God because You make all things work together for good to them that love You. The first song said we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us and the second said, whatever the enemy had meant for evil, just like in the life of Joseph, You turned it around; we believe that, we decree it even as we hear from You today, continue that work, let Your word come to perfect what You have ordained in this place.
Father, speak to every man, every woman, every child, that at the end of this service, we’ll indeed decree, we’ll declare that Father, You have turned it around, in Jesus name we have prayed. Amen!
I want to thank our father in the Lord, Pastor Netufo, the Pastor in charge of the Province for this opportunity; for me, it’s a learning opportunity, when one has to prepare for a sermon, you learn, so I thank God for the opportunity.
Our topic is related to our songs today, it’s simply titled “Change, how are you doing”? how are you doing with change? Praise the Lord! Let’s read some scriptures, 2nd Corinthians 3: 17 & 18, “Now, the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord”. Praise the Lord!
Romans 12: 2 &3, Apostle Paul was telling the Romans and to everyone of us, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think: but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith”. Praise the Lord!
We’re dealing with the issue of change, praise the Lord! A common saying is that the only constant thing in life is change, however, many of us don’t want to change, we are uncomfortable with change. For some, it’s because they are comfortable where they are, you’ve made it, so you want to keep it that way; for others, they are afraid of the next thing even when they are not doing well, praise the Lord!
Whatever category you are, please know, God has not created you to remain stagnant and to stay where you are forever. According to the scriptures we read in 2nd Corinthians, it says ‘but you all, (no exception) with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image, which image? The image of Christ, from glory to glory’; so there’s a bigger glory, praise the Lord!
Even some, who are suffering, actually enjoy sympathy. You know people want to always receive, for me; I want to be a giver, praise the Lord! But some want to be in that state of pity where it’s always ‘pele, sorry, take’, that’s a poor state to be in and if you are in that state today, God will deliver you to be the giver in Jesus name. Now yes, the poor must always be with us, but must you be the poor? That’s the question, praise the Lord!
We will not talk about physical change today, otherwise we’ll go to the gym and start working out, praise the Lord! I know that also requires change because you also have to cut down on the pot belly and all that stuff, it takes discipline and work, but today we are looking at spiritual and mental change; the change of the mind, change of the spirit which is even more impactful because if you are not changed inside, you can’t even work out, when pain comes, you will backtrack, praise the Lord! So if you are not changed inside, if your mindset is not transformed, all the physical stuff is fake.
What is change? It means basically to make or to become different; now it implies making an essential difference either amounting to a loss of original identity, (as in you are no longer how you used to be), or you substitute one thing for the other. So if you say I’ve changed, the question is, what were you before and what are you now? If you can’t define it, maybe you need to examine that change again; so when the Bible says in 1st Corinthians 5: 17 that when you come to Christ, you become a new creature, old things are passed; you have to ask yourself, have I truly changed? Am I different? It’s not the pot belly difference, praise the Lord!
It has to come from the inside, you know and you know if you are born again; you know if Christ has transformed your life; you know if you are new; if you are living in sin, you know, praise the Lord! So every man must behold himself as in a mirror against the glory of God set before him.
You know change is constant; if you like, don’t change, stay in a room, lock yourself up, ten year time, go look at the mirror, you have changed, praise the Lord! My wife and I tease ourselves sometimes, we are getting old, but I tell her no, age is a mind thing, I’m still young. I was telling Brother Benson yesterday that I’m youthful; he said Joe, let’s not deceive ourselves; but I’m still youthful, praise the Lord!
But let’s look at a certain type of change that we must cope with; because many of us in the church sometimes want to hide under the cover of spirituality but we don’t accept change. You know there’s this stubbornness, God created stubbornness and many of us are stubborn, ‘age-old traditions’ and so we want to live in the Old Testament and forget the New Testament, praise the Lord!
So let’s look at technology; there’s what we call ‘destructive technological innovations’; one simple example, remember the DVD, the sales for DVDs in the US in 2005 was about $16.5 billion; fast forward to 2022, when you talk of videos, some people refused to give up DVDs, praise the Lord!
In those days, we used to have DVDs, I haven’t played one for donkey years; DVDs only control less than 10% of the video market, thanks to Netflix and other streaming media. So folks who had invested their lives and energy in buying the latest DVD set in 2005, if you don’t change, you won’t have anything to play with those DVD sets because the world would have left you behind, praise the Lord!
So there are destructive technologies coming up, there are other things but it’s destructive because it basically replaces what it used to be; now, if you don’t like it, you’ll be archaic; if you don’t learn it, you’ll be left behind. Then there are some technologies that sustain a certain industry or market, those things keep improving the market, see amazon.com for instance, it hasn’t changed sales but it has transformed how you buy, how you sell, praise the Lord!
Let me just read through some technologies that have changed our world: starting with the printing press in the 15th century; you know today, some people said you must read the paper Bible, so some people would say how can a preacher bring iPad? If you really want to live in the past, go and get scrolls, because technology brought printing press, so even the Bible you have is an innovation, praise the Lord!
And then we’ll talk about the tin engines; light bulb, telephone, aeroplane, personal computer, the internet, mobile phone, artificial intelligence (that’s the one that scares people today, they said it would replace jobs, it’s a lie, we just have to innovate, we built it – humans built it; it’s what we expose the artificial intelligence to that it brings out, praise the Lord!) then we have others, we’ve heard about them – block chain, 5G technology (the rumor during COVID – some very spiritual people said 5G is COVID, praise the Lord); there’s virtual reality, cloud services, nanotechnology (very tiny little things can do so much); there’s big data, 3D printing (there are some guns now that are plastic and they actually work, they kill people; so some people would go through scanner, see metal, the world has changed now, you don’t need metals to use guns); cyber security, quantum computing, tab boards, smart assistants, smart cities, so on and so forth.
In places, your television, even fridge, we know, when some foods expire or about to expire, they order for you, you don’t need to go to the market, all you know is somebody has delivered stuff, someone didn’t order it, your fridge did, praise the Lord! So the world is changing too fast. The question is how does it affect us? Are these changes bad or good?
James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning”; so the question is, why do we have to change? Why must I change? I’m comfortable, I’m doing well – whether you are in Nigeria or America, the question is why must I change? I’m a billionaire, why must I change? That’s a big question.
The first one: God hates stagnancy; God hates just staying where you are and not moving forward. God loves advancement and renewal; we’ll go through some few examples in the scriptures, but the one that really jumps out at me – Deuteronomy 2: 3 says, “Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward”.
Let me paraphrase: you know Israel sinned in the wilderness and God decided to keep them there for forty years so that that generation would die; this was the beginning of that long wait and they were circling Mount Seir, God didn’t want them to go into Jordan, so He was saying you guys will stay in this wilderness and in that stage where God was pissed off with these people, they were just going round and God said you have stayed here too long; He kept moving them even while he was pissed off with them, talkless of when God loves you like He does today.
In the state where God was pissed off and wanted to waste the people, He was telling them you can’t keep doing this, that’s not your life, that’s not the life I desire for you. So as we examine ourselves, you need to look at yourself, am I circling this mountain too long? That’s not the desire of God.
Revelation 3: 15 & 16, God was speaking to the church in Laodicea, He says, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth”. God wants action; you can’t sit in the pew one year, you don’t do anything. In the office, there’s no promotion, no demotion, that’s not God, He loves movement, praise the Lord!
Isaiah 43:19 says God loves creating new things, praise the Lord! It says “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert”; though God Himself is unchanging; God Himself is a stable God; He’s the same yesterday, today and forever, but He says for you, I will always do a new thing, so we must be expectant of the new things that God has in store for us, praise the Lord!
And in Revelation 21:5, “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new (and He will keep making all things new). And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful”.
Why must I change? Second reason: we can only attain our destinies through change; you know we pray for destiny helpers, if you don’t change, you aren’t going anywhere, praise the Lord! The text we read earlier in 2nd Corinthians 3:17, it says that “…with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’, praise the Lord! So we attain the highest level of glory through change, so if you don’t change, there’s no new glory.
Romans 12:2 says that when we change and we renew our minds, it says that ‘ye may’, praise the Lord! So it is when our minds are transformed that we can then prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God; so we must embrace transformation. When the Bible says we should be all things to all men, you can’t be all things to people that you don’t understand, you don’t belong; so first of all, you’ll separate yourself and you’ll go and preach, they’d laugh at you because you don’t know where they are coming from or where they are going to; so we must change even if not for ourselves, for the sake of that person that God has appointed you unto, you must change.
I remember a confession, I didn’t want to get titles – pastor, assistant pastor, I’ve been a deacon since 2001 and so PICP told me, Joe, this pastor, AP are not for you, you’ve been serving God all these years, it’s for those who think if you don’t have a title, you can’t pray for them; those whose faith is strengthened because a pastor has prayed, praise the Lord! And the Lord opened my eyes through that; I don’t need a title to work for God and I hope you don’t, but some people need a pastor to lay hands so that their faith will be paid, praise the Lord!
So we have to change, if not for you, for your children; you’d say ‘I don’t know what they are doing on the internet’, my friend, learn it, study it, then you can interact at the same level, praise the Lord!
Now, there are some other reasons for change, like a link from the internet; change helps you focus, because if you have to change, you have to identify weaknesses, you’ll have more scrutiny of your life, you’ll examine yourself more, it helps you focus on those things that are delaying your progress. If you don’t want to change, you just sit down and accept anything, you are not focused; anything that comes, you accept it, but when you want to change, there are things that would come, you’ll push it aside because they are distractions to your change, praise the Lord!
Change makes life exciting; I remember when I was in an accounting firm, that was in the ‘90s, I used to do audits and I became very good at it; after four years, we discovered that companies don’t want to change, they’d say you need to improve this control, that control; come back next year, nothing has changed, so you can as well take last year’s reports, copy it, change the dates and new signature; I knew that wasn’t for me after a while, so when I got the opportunity, it was time to go.
Because for me, I looked at it and I said when I die and God says Joe, what exactly have you done with your life? I won’t say I’ve been doing audits every year, the same thing; my salary was increasing by the way, my salary was doubling every year but is that what life is all about? Is that what God has called me to do? You must examine yourself.
So if you want an exciting life, open your mind up and God will drop changes into your life and it would be exciting. Imagine the life of Moses, praise the Lord! Joseph’s life, the man went through change like you can never tell; anyone of them, Daniel; name any man that God has used that refused to embrace change, absolutely none; even Jesus Christ Himself, talking about God coming to become man, that’s the biggest change you can ever find, and you want to be like Him but you stay in your stoic place and you refuse to change, that’s not God.
Change ensures bad situations come to an end, praise the Lord! Psalms 30:5, “For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the orning”; some people don’t want to stop weeping because they think weeping will never end, it’s a lie, if you embrace change, your weeping is short, praise the Lord!
My wife is here, it’s a testimony in our life when we had our first son through a very difficult process. My wife was pregnant with twins, at 16 weeks we lost one of the babies in the womb; and so the bay was there, they couldn’t evacuate and the doctor said go home, until the baby that is dead comes out, there is nothing we can do. So we had to step back and say this baby is dead but our minds must be focused on the one that’s alive, and so we focused our energies and our prayers to begin to decree, you can’t imagine what we went through, but eve in the ward, the nurses had brought things to evacuate the entire thing, they pasted it on the wall but we refused to look at whatever they pasted and when the dead baby came out, we focused our energy on the baby that was behind, so that baby is my first son today, he’s 21 years old.
So if you don’t embrace change, you dwell in lose, whatever is behind is behind, you can’t bring it back, so you must embrace change, praise the Lord!
Change needs some opportunities and experiences, Ecclesiastes 7:8a says “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof”, so if that word is true, then we must be anticipating the end of a thing, what is the next thing? Because it is better than the beginning; if you believe the word of God, then you must anticipate the next thing.
You know it’s exciting to be in the Lord because if you are truly with Him, it can’t be boring with you; it would be good and exciting, praise the Lord! Because when you a vessel in His hand, He won’t let you down, praise the Lord!
There’s a lot about change but we’ll move on; change means progress and it documents your journey: imagine your CV without change, think about it. If all you have done is one job and you haven’t moved, your CV is like a quarter of a page. I was COO when I was born, I’ve remained COO all my life; but it is change that shows your capabilities, your breadth, your competencies; the fullness of God in you is manifested in change, praise the Lord! So you want to be all that God has called you to be, embrace change.
There are barriers to change, there are things that stop us from embracing change and I think we know some of these, they are in three broad buckets but I’ll break it down in simpler terms;
One is a loss of control: when you are used to something, you are in control of it, you know when it starts, when it ends, there’s comfort that you get from it, but when change comes, you lost that control. Humans don’t want to lose control but truly who’s in control? Let’s ask ourselves the question when that fear comes, praise the Lord!
Romans 12:3, we read, it says, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think”; what does that mean? We are not there yet, we are all work in progress, there’s still more, there’s still higher glory; so God is telling us, you are clay, remain clay, you are not the Maker, I am the Maker, praise the Lord!
2nd Corinthians 4:16 – 17, it says “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory”; there is glory at the end of your change, praise the Lord! There is a glory awaiting you, so embrace change, God wants you to change and God is telling you, I will be with you through this change.
We’ll take a few scriptures; Deuteronomy 31:6, “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them, for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee: he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee in Jesus name”. Hebrews 13: 8 says “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever’; and then we have the scripture, Philippians 4:3, “I can do all things through Christ which strengthenth me”.
And then God knows you need help every day, so i n Psalms 119:105, it says My word is a lamp unto your feet, and a light unto your path; so God’s direction is not for the stagnant, there is a path to follow, praise the Lord!
Now, to be truly transformed, we need to have a reliable anchor and that’s where I will end it. You know people are chasing after technologies, for you and I, we need to understand it but not outside the Creator of all things, praise the Lord! Jesus Christ is the anchor and the foundation on whom and on which we will stand and then embrace all change and be able to overcome, praise the Lord!
Hebrews 6:19 says “Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil”; Jesus Christ is sure and steadfast; I remember one time in the bank, I used to be head of strategy and I was telling some board, you know as strategy is evolving with the changes in the economy, one experienced man looked at me and said I agree, but you need to have a focus, if you are changing with every wind of doctrine, you will get lost, praise the Lord! And I’ve never forgotten it, so your change should evolve around the Lord Jesus Christ and who He is in our life.
Now eventually, there is a biggest of changes that will happen to everyone of us; 1st Corinthians 15: 51 – 53, it says “Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed (whether you die or you are alive, we must all be changed). In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality”.
What does that mean? You know we can talk about change on earth, talk about change today, we need to change because eventually we must be changed to make heaven and when rapture happens, He’ll change us anyway, so we must be used to that change; but for folks who are here listening to me, embracing change, I know you are thinking about the change in the office, the biggest change is giving one’s life to the anchor of our souls; if you are not born again in this place, you will be swept away with the wind of change.
So I want to encourage you, take the first step which is the change of all changes, become a new creature, let old things truly pass away; all heads bowed, all eyes closed [altar call].
Just begin to thank God for the transformation that He has brought in your life; say Father, I thank You for transforming my life; thank You for giving me the desire and the ability to be transformed; thank You Lord God; Father reveal every weakness in me and eliminate them in Jesus name.
Father we just thank You Lord God; thank You for Your word that has come; thank You for the renewing of our minds; thank You for giving us the ability to do all things. For as many in this place that has been living in fear of change, we cast out fear now in Jesus name. We will embrace change in You and I know the end of it is good and Godly; be glorified, in Jesus name we’ve prayed. Amen!
Sometimes, change comes with excessive uncertainty or surprises. Some would say, I’m 60 or 70, I am retired, my heart will not take this change and so they begin to decline, because when you stop changing, decline starts, that’s not our portion in Jesus name. It’s a mindset, don’t close to change.
Change sometimes brings loss of face; when you are a guru in an archaic technology, talk about cloud technology today and I have confronted some of the heads of IT, it’s like a conspiracy, they like ‘on-prem’; on-prem is the hardware has to be in the bank, in the system, they want to control it but then, we have too much palaver. So I asked them a simple question, are you telling me that you are more secure than Microsoft, than Oracle, than Amazon? And they said no, but we have to control it, it’s a lie, it’s because if that thing leaves them, there’s nothing else, they have trained all their lives to do hardware and when hardware goes, the work is finished. Instead of transforming and changing their lives, they remain static, but we are not people who will remain static, we will move forward in Jesus name.
Change comes with work; if you are not willing to work, sorry, you won’t make it in that sense; you must work, that’s why the Bible says faith without works, if it’s alone is dead; you must work, the Bible is very clear, Bible hates lazy people, indolence is not of God, so open your mind, let the change come, then you deal with it; go learn something new, in fact, your life is better off , praise the Lord!
And then sometimes, it’s past resentment; you’ve tried before, it did not work, so you won’t try again, past resentment, may God help us in Jesus name.
What does God expect of us? We’ve read some scriptures, first of all, we’ve read scriptures that says we must be transformed, we must not be conformed to this world but must be transformed, so you must change, that is God’s expectations, we’ve read that; 2nd Corinthians 5:17, we’ve also mentioned it; if you are in Christ, a new creature, old things are passed away, all things have become new, you must change, praise the Lord!
Ephesians 4: 22 -24 says, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye may put on the new man, which after God is created is righteousness and true holiness”; and Ecclesiastes 3:1 says “To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”; we must be ready to embrace the season, there are seasons of life; there are seasons to be a young boy, to be a man, to be responsible, embrace the season and God has given you the ability to do all things.
We heard the song, all things are possible to them that believe; I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me; it’s not just about confession, start doing it, praise the Lord! God wants us to humble ourselves in this process, in fact change humbles you.
