A People Who Change - Transformation and the Holy Spirit [Ryan Ashley, with Mandy Mullikin]

2 Corinthians 3:17-18, Exodus 34:29-35, 2 Corinthians 3:7-18,

John 15:5-8, Galatians 5:22-26

We ask the question, “How do we change?” How are we, in the language of the New Testament, “transformed” to become like Jesus?

Without him we can’t but without us he won’t.

“Freedom to do what one wants to do. Analogously, then, the statement that a person enjoys freedom of the will means… that he or she is free to want what they want to want. More precisely, it means the he or she is free to will what they want to will… It is in securing the conformity of their will to their second-order volitions, then, that a person exercises freedom of the will.”

Harry Frankfurt

We need access to a power beyond us – The Holy Spirit.

 “Through Christ and by the Spirit we are being transformed so as to bear the likeness for which we were intended at the beginning… One takes the Spirit lightly in Pauline theology and Christian experience is at great risk. For herein lies the ‘glory,’ that by the Spirit we not only come to know God, but come to live in his Presence in such a way as constantly to be renewed into God’s image.”

Gordon Fee

“The disciplines are activities of the mind and body purposefully undertaken, to bring our personality and total being into effective cooperation with the divine order. They enable us more and more to live in a power that is, strictly speaking, beyond us, deriving from the spiritual realm itself, as we ‘yield ourselves to God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God, ‘ as Romans 6:13 puts it.”

Dallas Willard

1. All this Happens Over Time

The truth about significant, soul transformation is this: change is possible, but it is harder than we want and takes longer than we expect.

2. Through the Hard Knocks of Life

Discipleship is a long, slow journey, but it’s worth every step.