Transformed by the Spirit

You can listen to the Bible and be unchanged. You can go to church and be unchanged. Dr. Tony Evans, his spiritual transformation starts when we're willing to face the truth. When you come to the mirror of God's Word, you want to say, Lord, show me me as you see me. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. Facing up to our faults is never easy. But today, Dr. Evans explains how that important first step can lead to dramatic, exciting changes driven by God's power instead of willpower.

Let's join him. I hope nobody here is content that there's nothing in their lives that does not need improving. After all, if you were all that, then you probably don't even need to be here this morning. In fact, you're probably ready for heaven right now.

The reality is all of us are in need of some changing. No passage of Scripture digs this more deeply than 2 Corinthians 3 in discussing the role of the Holy Spirit. The term spirit comes up a number of times here. For example, in verse 3, being manifest that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. He says in verse 8, how will the ministry of the Spirit fail to be even more with glory? He's writing the Corinthians about how to be transformed. And he tells them that the transformation of your life and therefore our lives does not merely happen because of what he calls what was written on stone. He says it comes because of the work, the transforming work of the Holy Spirit. Let me use as our reference point, of course, the two closing verses in chapter 3. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the Spirit. You see the word spirit come up three times in two verses.

What is the goal? He says in verse 18, being transformed into the same image. The goal of spiritual transformation is to become like Jesus Christ.

It is to have our character and our conduct to increasingly reflect the character and conduct of Jesus Christ. You are being transformed when you are now saying what Jesus would say. You are being transformed when you're now doing what Jesus would do. And the increase of your ability to do that on a consistent basis is the validity of your being transformed. And that is God's goal.

How does this transformation take place? He says it takes place by the Spirit. The Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. We are transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the Spirit.

What does he mean the Lord the Spirit? What he's saying is Jesus Christ is going to transform you. He's going to turn you into something different in the areas that need to be transformed in your life. But the way the Lord is going to do it through his Spirit which dwells inside of every believer. You can listen to the Bible and be unchanged. You can go to church and be unchanged. You can say amen and be unchanged. You can have devotions and be unchanged. Why?

Because biblical information, as important as it is, is not enough. You've got to get a change of heart. The veil must be removed from the heart. Now what's the heart? Well, we know what the heart is physically.

It's the pump that sends life throughout the body. Well, that's exactly what it is spiritually. The heart is the center of the soul that sends out the life of God to the rest of your soul. And you must understand, the reason that you do what you do with your body is because of your soul. Your problem is not your body. Your body only implements what the soul dictates.

Your problem, my problem, whatever is wrong in our lives does not exist with our body. You say what you say because you have a skewed soul. You do what you do because you have a skewed soul.

All the body does is act it out. It is the soul where the problem exists. That's why when God saves you, he saves your soul. It is the soul that must be corrected by the Spirit of God. And just as the heart is the centerpiece of the proper functioning of your body, the Bible takes that same phrase and uses it for your soul, your soul has in its core a centerpiece that pumps out life to your soul and it pumps out life to your soul from the Spirit. How does he do that?

He tells you. But we all, verse 18, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed. In that one line, he tells you everything you need to know about being transformed but we're afraid to ask. When you read the Bible or hear the Bible preached, God says treat it like a mirror.

So he gives you a practical illustration about how to approach the Bible. Whether you're hearing a preacher preach it or you're reading it, look at it in a mirror. Now what's a mirror designed to do?

Create a reflection. What two things are you looking at in the mirror? When I go to a mirror, I'm looking at me looking at me. When I look at a mirror, I am seeing me as I can't see me because I can't look at my face. The only way I can look at my face is look at something else telling me what I look like because we are not qualified without a reflection to determine how we really look.

I don't care how self-confident you are, you are not qualified to talk about your own okayness without a reflection. In other words, you go to the mirror for the mirror to tell you the truth. When you come before the mirror of God's Word, the first thing you are looking at is you. You come to the mirror of God's Word and you want to say, Lord, show me me as you see me. That's why you must come with an unveiled face. And many of us don't want the mirror to tell us the truth because we won't like what it tells us. God says you must come to His Word with an unveiled face. You must give God the right to tell you what you look like. He must have the right to tell you you are selfish.

He must have the right to tell you about the evil attitudes and actions that lurk there. He must have the freedom to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If you come to the mirror of God's Word veiled so that He can't really tell you what you look like, there will be no transformation.

But He says there's a second thing. You've got to come with your face unveiled. But when you come with your face unveiled, what you're looking for in the mirror, He says, is the glory of the Lord. I am willing for you to expose me to me. But while you are exposing me to me, please expose you to me. Because when you expose you to me, that tells me what I'm supposed to look like. When you expose me to me, you're showing me what I, in fact, do not look like. God says when you go to the mirror of the Word, watch this now, giving God freedom to show you what you look like.

Not nudging the person next to you saying he talking to you. God, show me me and show me you. He says we are being transformed.

God will automatically, by His Spirit, begin to reflect or bring about the change in your life of the thing He shows you. That's why James says when you come to God's Word, be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. When you come to God's Word, he talked about God's Word in James 1.18, he says when you come to God's Word, be quick to hear. Don't come talking, come listening.

Don't come justifying, come listening. Be quick to hear. Be slow to talk. Only talk after you heard me. And then he closes that by saying get slow to anger because you ain't going to like what I show you.

So get mad real slow. Because when I show you you, as compared to showing you me, there's going to be such a gap that you're going to get ticked off. Have you ever had anybody in your life who get mad when you tell them the truth? You know why they get mad when you tell them the truth?

They don't want to hear it. So I'm going to tell you now, when you approach the Bible as a mirror, there's going to be a lot of ugly because you're approaching a perfect mirror. And that mirror is going to show up every scar, every blemish, every runny nose, it's going to show up everything. But it's also going to show you the glory of God. And when you see the glory of God, after God has shown you you, God says it is built into the mirror to begin the transformation.

So guess what? You don't have to try to change. The mirror has a change component in it. He says because when you approach the mirror with unveiled face, Lord, I want my husband to change. I really want my husband to be a different person. But maybe God today ought to come to your word and ask you, what's wrong with me? Same thing, I want my wife to change.

I want my wife to be a better person. But Lord, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me come and take the veil off of my face.

What's wrong with me? Show me your glory. Yeah, I need you to show them your glory. But right now, I must come with unveiled face. He says, and you are being transformed. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment to explain how the images we see in that mirror powerfully come to life as he continues this lesson from his series, Life in the Spirit, an eight-message collection that will answer your questions about the least understood member of the Trinity. You'll discover what it means to have God's Spirit living inside you and how His presence can change the way you think, feel, and live.

You'll also learn to recognize how the Spirit is working within you to transform you, empower you, and give you victory. Along with these audio lessons, available both on CD and as digital downloads, we've also bundled a quick but powerful read. It's Tony's book on how the Holy Spirit can charge us up from the inside out, and it's called The Fire That Ignites.

For a few more days, we're making this book and audio collection available together as our gift to you. And thanks for your contribution toward Tony's ministry. Just visit tonyevans.org, make your donation, and let us send you Life in the Spirit and The Fire That Ignites. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or call us day or night at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our friendly team members assist you with your request.

That's 1-800-800-3222. We have that information for you again after part two of today's message and this. Log on today to learn more at tonyevanstraining.org.

tonyevanstraining.org. Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. The Bible is like a picture album.

You look at the pictures, okay? It's a still. It's there, so you read the Bible. The Holy Spirit is like a movie.

He takes still frames and gives life to them. Like, we read the Bible, we've all read about the crucifixion and the resurrection. That's a lot different than going to see the movie The Passion.

You can read it in the Bible, but if you went to see The Passion, you felt it and you experienced it because the crucifixion came to life. That's the Holy Spirit's job. A lot of people find the Bible boring. I'm supposed to do it. I'm a Christian.

Let me read it. Well, one reason it's boring is because you're not using it as a mirror. Because if you use it as a mirror, all of a sudden, it's going to be talking to you about you. So it's going to take on the life right there. But on top of that, the Holy Spirit's job is to turn that thing into a movie projector and give it life.

Make it a transforming experience. Let me explain why this works this way. All of us have calculators.

You push one plus sign, one equal sign, you got two. It's going to reveal to you the solution to the problem you gave it. When God gave you and me a new nature, the new nature has all the component parts to address the problems in your life.

Either because you can't fix it or it's taken you too long to fix it, God has put a computer in your life that when the Holy Spirit gets to punching them buttons, will come up out of your life the answer to your problem. If you come with an unveiled face and you get to experience the Lord, the Spirit. How do you know it's an experience?

Because you're saying, and other people are seeing it, something's different. You have become transformed by a computer on the inside, the new nature that's now engaging with the Spirit of God through the mirror of the Word. He says, by the way, that this process happens from glory to glory.

That means from one level to another level. So you may not become perfect tomorrow, but over time God is going to change you. Now let me tell you what is included in this process. The way you're going to go from glory to glory? Trials. Cattle all joy, my brother, when you fall into different kinds of trials because God is developing you.

God is sending a trial so that you can see whether you're changing. Are you reacting to that thing the same way you did last month? If you're reacting to that thing the same way you did last month, you haven't changed. Which means you're not spending enough time in the mirror. You say, well, how much time should I spend in the mirror? Well, James tells you in James chapter 1, it says, don't be like a man. James says, be like a woman. He says, if you really want to change, don't be like a man because a man goes into the mirror, looks, and turns away.

That's what the Bible says. James 1 says, men go to the mirror, they look, and they quickly turn away, and then James says, forgetting what they saw. He says, that's how men do. That's not how women do mirrors. Women get up, and they go to mirror number one because they want to make sure they're getting started right.

There's many a frustrated man in this building who has had to wait, be late over and over and over again because sister girl won't get out of the mirror. That's just mirror number one. That's face mirror. That is the long full body mirror. There's a mirror in that house that's a full body mirror so that she can look at the whole thing.

She can profile it. That's mirror number two. She get in the car, that's mirror number three. She pulls down that visor. You don't see no men pulling down visor going and stuff.

No, no, if you do, I need to talk to you. That's mirror number three. She gets to her place of employment. She's got to go to the ladies room, not because there's a facility need issue, but that's mirror number four. She's got to check herself out. All girl done done is driven from home to work, then already checked on the way there, but now has got to go to mirror number four to re-examine things.

Oh, it ain't finished. Because then there's mirror number five. Mirror number five is in her purse. Mirror number five, she reaches in and she checks and rechecks and looks and re-looks and puts on lipstick. If you got a mirror here as a man in your pocket, if you got a mirror here as a man in your pocket, something wrong with you. Why do women have mirror after mirror after mirror after mirror? Because they never want to lose sight of what they look like. They never want to get far away from their true looks. He says the Bible is a mirror. Don't get far away from your true looks.

And what will happen with this transformation? Now the Lord is the spirit, verse 17 says, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Liberty. Liberty means to be set free. Set free from ugly.

Ugly attitudes, ugly actions, ugly personality. Set free from in order to be set free to. See, God never sets you free from something unless he's setting you free to something. A butterfly has been set free from the cocoon of a caterpillar. A butterfly is something beautiful trapped in something ugly.

Your new nature, the Christ in you, something beautiful has been trapped in something ugly called this mortal body, the flesh. The caterpillar struggles, it's called trials. So you can't let a butterfly out too early. If you slit the cocoon and let the butterfly out before the butterfly breaks out, it'll never fly. It'll never fly. It needs the struggle to strengthen the wings to take flight. That's why the Bible says let patience have its perfect work.

Don't end the trial until God is ready to let you out of the trial because then your wings won't be strong enough to take you to flight, to take you to where he wants you to go. If you are the ugliest person in this room, I'm talking about ugly in terms of being, ugly in terms of personality, ugly in terms of frustration, ugly in terms of language, ugly in terms of lifestyle. If you are a true believer in Jesus Christ, the ugliest person in this room is the most beautiful person you have ever seen in your life if they ever break out of there. The ugliest caterpillar you have ever seen is holding hostage one of the most beautiful butterflies you have ever seen.

Why is a butterfly set free from the cocoon so he can take flight and go higher? Whenever you see a pregnant woman, one thing you can bank on. She didn't get that way by reading a book about sex. Information didn't get her pregnant. Intimacy did. She got new life because she got close.

She got close to somebody, somebody got close to her, and when the two got close to one another, new life. You don't get transformed just because you read about it. You get transformed because you get close, having read about it.

And you always know when a woman is pregnant, all you need is time. Time will always tell the story of whether intimacy has occurred because change will take place. And we all with unveiled face are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

So I guess you have to decide, do you want to look at a mirror today? Dr. Tony Evans, talking about how God changes us from the inside out through the power of the Holy Spirit. And if you'd like to learn more about exactly who the Holy Spirit is, how we receive Him, and what He can do in our lives, then I encourage you to take advantage of that special offer I mentioned earlier, the CD and digital download versions of this 8-message Life in the Spirit collection, as well as Tony's powerful and insightful book, The Fire That Ignites. We'll send this special package to you as our gift when you make a donation to help support our work here on the air and around the world. This is a limited-time offer, only available for a few more days, so don't wait to get the details and make your request online at tonyevans.org or call our resource request line at 1-800-800-3222. Helpful team members are always on hand to assist you, so give us a call anytime that's convenient for you.

Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. God's Spirit is alive and active in our world today, but tomorrow, Dr. Evans will explain that whether or not you recognize what He's doing may depend on how closely you identify with Him. It's a look at how to see evidence that greater is He that is in you. I hope you'll be with us. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.