“CHANGES…A PATHWAY TO DESTINY”
Acts 9:3-22

Intro:  We all go through changes, but most of us, if not all of us don’t like to go through most changes that we face in life.

I heard a saying once that the only person who like change is a baby with a wet diaper.  I’m assuming that there are no wet diapers here today, so I would like to see how change will benefit our lives so that we will fulfill our “God Given Destiny!”

• Change is something that scares many people or simply makes them uncomfortable, but it is a part of our nature:
• During my time talking your body is going to change – about ½ million cells in your body are going to die and be replaced with ½ million new cells.
• Our skin replaces itself every month.
• 70-80% of the dust in your house is dead skin that flaked of.  Just think there is 500 people in this room. 
• Your stomach lining undergoes a complete change every 5 days.
•  Your liver every 6 weeks, your skeleton every 3 months and your whole body every 5 years for men, and 7 years for women.
• Change is natural and not to change is to die!

• We have experienced Good and Bad change in society.  If you remember the times where most families would have dinner together after each day.
• Taking God out of our public systems vs. our country being based on God.

• Change is constant around us and sometimes it is hard to keep-up with the pace of change in society. 
• We are living in a constantly changing world – and as the years go by the rate at which the changes occur are increasing more and more.  Practically every phase of life changes.  Travel has changed – from horse and buggy in our grandparents and great-grandparents time to auto and air today.  We hardly even take notice when a space shuttle sends someone to space any more.  Political methods have changed – from absolute monarchs to democracies.  The entire medical field has changed – things that were once impossible are now routine, and what used to take weeks or months to heal is now outpatient.

• I have bought two iPod’s within the last five years.  From the first one I bought with 4 gigs of memory to the newer one now has 20 gigs of memory and can hold over 10,000 songs.  Now they have iPod’s just one year later that has 60 gigs and can hold thousands and thousands of songs and pictures.  The new iPod’s can hold multiple movies and TV sitcoms.  I can hardly keep up with the change they are making with the iPod.  I saw an interview that SNL did with Steve Jobs the president of Apple.  He introduces the new and the even newer iPod available to you.

Show SNL video.

• Looking at this video many of you chuckle and get a kick out of it, but so many of us don’t want things to change, because it means that I will have to change myself.  We say so many times, “I don’t mind change, as long as it doesn’t affect me”. 
• God wants to keep changing you to make you complete...from the old to the new! 
• When we gave our lives to the Lord, the old man that we were born with has been corrupted and God want to keep changing us to become like him. 

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.   -- 2 Cor 3:18

• We have been talking for the last month about “Reach, Renew, and Release”.  This is the change God has brought to our family to Release us into our God given destiny!
• As Pastor Ron walked us through these three areas of the new vision of our family, you might be thinking, “I don’t know if I can do that”.  YES, YOU CAN!
• God is changing the DNA of who we are and how we are to operate as a family.  He has laid out the marching orders for our family and He wants for you to fulfill your part to assist the rest of the family in reaching their God given Destiny.

Read Acts 9:3-20

• Paul had a radical encounter with Jesus that changed the way he saw the world and how he operated in this world. 
• Paul fulfilled his purpose on earth after he had a personal encounter with his savior. 
• God wants to make the necessary change with you to fulfill your “God given destiny” here at EBF and the world you live within. 
• Let’s look at some necessary changes that need to take place to fulfill our destiny and move in the fullness God has for us as a individual and as a family:

1. We need to Reach out with hands of love, rather than with hands of expectation.

• The only way we can reach out in love, is if we allow God to touch our hearts daily with His love.  Meeting with God every morning is essential!
• When we allow God to touch our hearts we start to see the world through his eyes, but it starts by changing our hearts and allowing Him to guide us each step of our lives.

Everybody thinks of changing Humanity and nobody thinks of changing Himself.

                                                            L. Tolstoy

• In life we have created our own identity.  We find our position and influence through the identity that we have established for ourselves.  Through giving our hearts to Jesus, we become the hands and heart of God, which reaches out to a lost and dying world. 
• We are able to be used by God as his hands, only if we allow him to change our hearts and redirect our lives.

2. We need to allow a Renewing of our hearts to be able to live out loving relationships with those around us.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will.  -- Romans 12:2

• As we allow a renewing of our minds on a daily basis, we will see the world through the eyes of heaven. 
• So many times we get into this trap of business we don’t take the time to stop and allow God renew us. 
• Paul thought he was doing the right thing and never took the time to think about if what he was doing was the right thing.  If we don’t allow this daily encounter with our Father, then we will become distant and cold.

When we consider the planets that orbit around the sun, we can learn an important lesson:

• It takes the earth 365 days to orbit around the sun.
• Earth is about 93 million miles  away from the sun.
• Mercury, which is the planet closest to the sun, only requires 88 days to orbit around the sun.
• Mercury is 60% closer to the sun than the earth.
• Pluto, which is the farthest planet from the sun, requires 90,520 days to orbit the sun. (258 years)
• Pluto was discovered in 1930 and it will be until the year 2178 when a full orbit around the sun will be completed. 
• Mercury temperature, for the side facing the sun can reach up to 750 F.
• Its side facing away from the sun can drop its temperature to -450 F.
• Pluto’s temperature ranges from -378 to -396 F.

• The further we pull away from our Father, the colder and more distant we become.  The closer we draw near to God the more He renews us and brings the energy of life that we need to fulfill our God-given destiny!

Illus.  If we continue to live out our life through our own identity we become distant and cold.  We need to allow an encounter with Jesus to take place to redefine who we are.  Saul knew his purpose, and that was to stop this move of Christian that went against the Jews customs. 

• Break glass!

When Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, Saul’s life was different from that point on, because Jesus broke the identity that Saul created and He renewed in him a vision and passion that would lay out the foundation of what we believe today.

• This is a process that God wants us to go through.  Some there will be instant change, but others God will allow time for you to change.
• People with anger issues.
• Dealing with Self-control
• What are the things in your life that are keeping you from being renewed and allowing you to walk in the freedom and purpose God has for you?

3. After allowing God to transform your life, He wants to Release you into your God-given destiny.

• We weren’t created to live our lives on our own.  We were created to take what we have received and give it away. 
• This can be through serving within the church or reaching people in your work place.

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.  -- Romans 12:4- 5

Everything continues in a state of rest unless it is compelled to change by forces impressed upon it.

Isaac Newton, First Law of Motion

• We can change the world we live in, only if we move through our gifts and fulfill the Body of Christ. 
• We don’t have the privilege to hold back what God has given to us.  We need to give it away or give it up!

Conclusion:

Back in 1912, Ford Motor Co. had a production manager named William Knudsen – considered one of the best in the field.  Knudsen became convinced that the Model T (which had been in production for 4 years) had to be updated.  But, the only problem was Henry Ford loved his creation so much it was well known that he opposed changing anything about the car.

According to Robert Lacy (in his best selling biography, Ford: The Man and the Machine) Knudsen thought to convince Ford by building an updated and impressive model to show what could be done with a few changes in color and design.

Ford had just returned from a European vacation, and he went to a Highland Park, Michigan garage and saw the new design created by Knudsen.

On-the-scene mechanics later revealed how Ford responded.  They say that the car was a four door job, and the top was down, painted gleaming red and built on a new, low slung version of Model T.

One eyewitness tell how “Ford had his hands in his pockets, and he walked around the car 3 or 4 times…Finally, he got to the left hand side of the car, and he takes his hands out, gets hold of the door, and bang!  He ripped the door right off!  How the man done it, I don’t know!  He jumped in there, and bang goes the other door.  Bang goes the windshield.  He jumps over the back seat and starts pounding on the top.  He rips the top with heel of his shoe.  He wrecked the car as much as he could.”

Knudsen left for General Motors.  Henry Ford nursed along the Model T, but designed changes in competitor’s models made it more old-fashioned that he would admit.  Competitive necessity finally backed him into making the Model A, but his heart was never in it.

Henry Ford was one of the most creative men of his age.  And yet…Henry Ford – one of the great minds of his day – resisted the obvious need for change!

• We all need to allow the change to take place in us, so that we can fulfill our God given destiny!
• Change means new identity and new identity means fulfillment.