Transforming Our Character

The following video transcript has been lightly edited

When I was high school, I had a 10 o'clock curfew on school nights, and I was out with a couple friends and my one friend was driving and he lived near me, but the other friend that was with us was lived far from us, and so it made the most sense to take him home first. And so we did. But because of that, by the time we got back to my house, we were about 15 to 20 minutes late.

I walk in and my dad says, Hey, you can't have the car for two weeks and you can't go out. Uh, essentially you're grounded. I was like, ah, but you know, and he's like, Nope. Rules are rule 10 o'clock. So I'm telling my buddy this the next day and he was a family friend and so he decides that he's gonna talk to my dad on my behalf and he says, ah, Mr.

Pipes, it wasn't Kyle's fault, it was my fault. I had to take this guy home. And so I had no other choice. I really think that you should let him off. And my dad looks at my friend and says, Brian, Kyle is taking your punishment like a man, and it's a chance for him to grow in character. So today we're starting a new series on building character, and I think character is something that we all know that we would like to have.

We know that it requires some level of work, maybe traveling through some hard things. It's a bit of a process. We don't just wake up one day with a bunch of character. And so what we're gonna do over the next few weeks is look at what the scriptures have to say about what character is and how to build it so that you and I might build the kind of character we want.

And here's what happens when we build healthy character. We experience peace and freedom and a sense of unity with love and goodness, and peace and patience and God, and so character is worth investing in. Paul in Romans 12 tells us that because of God's mercy, he says, Hey, I want all of you to live as living sacrifices to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.

And to do that, you're gonna have to do a couple things. You're gonna have to renew your mind. And you're gonna have to think about things with sober judgment because of the faith that you have. And so I think this is a helpful picture for us. If we want to build character, we wanna commit to three things.

We want to have sober judgment. We want to be intentional about renewing our minds, and we want to live our life as a sense of worship, and let me sketch each of those out so that you might see how it could help you build character and get to this place in which you experience peace and patience and goodness and gentleness and self-control as you live and lean into that kind of character.

So when he's talking about sober judgment, he's saying, Hey, I want you to be honest. I want you to be honest about who you are in relationship to yourself, to God, to the world. And I want you to just understand that [00:03:00] you are a work in progress, really, that Christ has set you free, but there's more growth to be done.

And I think for each of us, when we were able to own that, when we were able to have sober judgment about ourselves. It actually brings us freedom. There's lots of times in which when we have anxiety or fear or we're trying to overcome something, we lack sober judgment. We're not objective about it, and we're actually afraid to admit the truth.

But when we think about it, if we are able to have sober judgment about ourselves, it actually brings us quite a bit of freedom. Rather than feel insecure, we're able to appreciate the gifts and talents that others bring. We're able to apologize. We're able to ask for forgiveness. We're able to say, Hey, I need some help here because I'm not capable all on my own.

We're able to admit things so we don't have to walk alone. And so sober judgment. While we're afraid of it sometimes, 'cause we are worried that if we admit [00:04:00] this wrong or this weakness that we'll be taking advantage of, it actually gives us a sense of freedom and our ability to own that grows our character.

There's a great scene in the movie Big Kahuna, in which a senior salesperson's talking to a younger salesperson, they're having this conversation about character. The younger salesperson's name is Bob, and he says to him, Bob, I don't think that you have any character because you don't regret anything.

And Bob says, you mean I have to do something that I regret in order to have character? And he says, no, Bob, you've done plenty of things to regret. You just don't know what they are. But when you own them, now that produces something in you that's honest and authentic and actually builds your ability to have compassion towards others.

And so for us, we want to have sober judgment about ourselves. And that's gonna shape our character, and that's gonna put us in alignment with who God is and the character of God, so that we are able to experience forgiveness and offer [00:05:00] forgiveness. We're able to have a sense of gratitude for the gifts in our life instead of thinking we've always earned them.

We're able ait our need for help and all other kinds of things. So encourage you towards that. The second thing that Paul tells us in this passage is he wants us to renew our minds. And here we have to sort of own this reality that our minds need renewing. I think that this can be sometimes counter-cultural because we are afraid to admit that our minds don't always work as they should, but in reality, we can confess that and that actually allows us to then grow.

So this year I've noticed that my vision has started to degrade. For the first time, I've always had excellent vision, but recently when I look at my watch, I have a hard time seeing the date on my watch 'cause it's too small. If the lighting's not as good, I have a hard time reading. And so I have to admit that in order to begin working on it, I have to go to the doctor and say, Hey doc, you know, my eyes aren't as good as they used to be.

Can you help me? And so as it relates to character and the way our mind operates, Paul is saying to us, Hey, I want you to admit that you need to renew your mind, that your mind doesn't always think through the lens of faith, hope and love. Sometimes you think through a whole bunch of other things. And so you have to be intentional about that.

Just like I have to be intentional about going to the eye doctor. We have to be intentional about reshaping our minds to think through the lens of faith, hope and love. We can do this in all kinds of ways. Sometimes we can reshape our mind by conversations with people who know us really well. Sometimes it's through reading and reflection.

Sometimes it's prayer. Sometimes it takes a counselor. You know the things in our life in which there's avoidance or denial or anxiety. Those are sometimes brain patterns that we've established that we have to undo. And sometimes that's the value of counseling. But whatever it is, you wanna renew your mind. 

So that rather than experiencing sort of the burden of sin and evil and death, that traps us, sometimes we can be set free to begin to grow into things like love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. Lastly, we wanna put all these things together, so we're gonna operate with sober judgment.

Then we're gonna renew our minds. We're gonna be intentional about that. And lastly, we're gonna see the whole thing, the whole process as a way of living, a life of worship. So rather than thinking about worship in a little. Sort of specific activity that we do. We see our whole life as worship. That's what Paul is encouraging us towards, and what he says is that because of who Christ is, living a life of sacrifice and worship is one in which we live in the midst of this world in such a way in which we reflect the future world.

We live in the present age reflecting the future age, and how do we do that? Well, we do that by growing in character. By leaning into these things like letting love be genuine and [00:08:00] hating what is evil, but holding fast to what is good, as Paul sketches it out in Romans 12. And so my challenge to you this week is to think through your life, to take some moments and have some sober judgment about yourself, to set up some practices to root new your mind and see all of it.

In your home, in your workplace, and out with your friends and in the community, and in your neighborhood and in the school, living this life in which you're leaning into your true self. As a person who resonates and finds fulfillment in grace, peace, love, hope, faith. Okay. And to, to lean into that. And as you lean into that, you will grow in character, and in fact, you will experience the freedom and peace and goodness that comes from being a person of character.

Looking forward to tackling more of this as we go through the next few weeks, and I'll see you soon. Take care.