How to Get People to Change [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. Only free people own things. Slaves don't own things. Slaves don't think like heirs.

And until people see themselves as owners, they'll never really work to their full potential. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see yourself in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Free Yourself, Be Yourself. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It could be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on that later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. Title of the message that corresponds to the title and the chapter in the book for yourself, be yourself, is how to get people to change. And I know that title, I just say up front, that bothers a lot of people because half of the point that we're trying to make is you can't get people to change.

You know, you're not responsible for other people. So this is kind of meant there to pique your curiosity and it is to ask the question for us, everybody that's joining us by video for their small groups or just for personal growth. Okay, if you've been with us and learning about shame, learning about the fact that it's a lie that says I don't measure up, I have to measure up and I have to make myself acceptable. And how contrary the gospel is to that, the gospel is such good news that says that no, God's love goes first and he accepts us and out of that radical acceptance in Christ, we're empowered to change.

But it leaves us with the question, okay, if I'm going to make a decision as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend, a co-worker, a teacher, a coach, whatever position you might be in, that I'm not going to shame people in order to try to make them do better, how am I going to help them to change? Well, it went viral here recently on the internet, unfortunately. It's amazing how these things wind up catching on so quick, but it was a preacher that was on his video and the video had him in the middle of his sermon where he was preaching and all of a sudden all you see is the preacher stopped preaching and he said, no, no, no, I'm too important for you to fall asleep during my sermon and he stops and he walks down out of the platform and goes up to the guy who'd been sleeping and goes over there and shames him right there in front of everybody for sleeping in church and then he turned to start railing against some other people. He looked at this young couple and said, and there you guys are, where you been? I hadn't seen you in too long and I see on my calendar I'm supposed to officiate your wedding. He said, I will not be officiating your wedding.

You're the sorriest church member I got. You're not worth 15 cents and then he pointed up to the sound booth. He said, and you kids up there in the sound booth, this isn't the time for you guys to be up there having a party or something.

He started railing on them. We just started picking out people by name all on the video and I wonder who posted that on YouTube, but anyway, it went viral at the time. I'd seen it.

Hundreds of thousands had already seen it. By the way, I just want to say to anybody that would be in my congregation or anybody watching by video that if you do fall asleep, I'll count it part of my ministry to have given you some nice rest and in fact, it reminds me of the man who said, you know, if you take all the people that sleep in church and you just lay them end to end, they'd be a lot more comfortable. I bring up that story to say, not just to say, how is it possible that a preacher could be that far from understanding the gospel to think that he's supposed to go out and shame people and humiliate them and that's the way he's going to but here's the question. Was it wrong for that preacher to want his people to be awake? No. Was it wrong for him to want that young couple that was at church to have been more faithful in coming and into the body of Christ where they could learn and grow? No. Was he wrong and maybe wanting the young people that I don't know if they've been messing up with the sound just to be able to excel in what they're doing and put their work as a high priority with honor?

No. It wasn't, it wasn't, let's be honest, it wasn't wrong of him to want people to change. What was wrong was how he did it. See, I always tell me, I've told people, I've told people, I've told people in premarital counseling over the years, I've said it to other people, listen, don't try to get her to change. You know, you're getting married and you might as well accept the fact that you can't change anybody and so you need to accept them and so don't go into it wanting them to change. Really, I mean, I've said that because it sounds spiritual and all, but it's just not true. We do want people that we love to change.

I mean, let's be honest about it. I mean, there are things in my kids, I'd like to see them change. In other words, when you grow, you change.

So if you want somebody to grow, then they're going to change. Jesus came and his ministry hinged around him saying, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And what does the word repent mean? It comes from two words, change and mind.

Change your way of thinking. In other words, Jesus said, I want you to change. You have thought the kingdom of God was off in the distance, but I'm saying it is now at hand.

He's saying, you have thought that God was simply a distant judge, but I have come to show you that God is love. Now, I want you to change your way of thinking. I want you to have more faith.

I'd like for you to understand the mysteries of the gospel that are unveiled in Jesus Christ. The reason I preach the gospel, the reason I write, the reason that we're developing these videos is because we'd like to see people be able to grow and to grow means to change. I finally just accepted the fact there's nothing wrong with wanting people to change.

The reason that we feel like it's so bad is because people try to get people to change by using shame. They try to get people to change in all of the wrong ways, but it's okay for a teacher to want his students to learn. It's okay for a coach to want his students, his athletes to be better trained. It's okay for a leader to want people to gain their strength.

It's okay for people to gain new vision. Moses wanted the Hebrew people to change. He wanted them to become obedient to the law. Joshua wanted the people to change for them to have courage. Paul wanted his congregations to change. He said, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We don't err by wanting people to change. We err when we use a non-biblical strategy to help people get kind of practical. If you'd like to help people grow and therefore change, but you don't want to use shame, you don't want to withhold love and acceptance as a motivational force, how can you help people grow and change?

People ask me that all the time. Okay, I repent. I don't want to shame my kids anymore, but how do I help them?

And this is where the rubber starts meeting the road. I've spent time just meditating, praying through the scriptures. Are there some biblical ways that God has given to us to help facilitate real change in others? And I came up with three. Maybe there's some other other main categories that I've missed, but I don't know what they are.

I think of three. And these three ways of helping people to grow, I would say are God's ways. The ways that God helps us to grow are the very same ways that we could help others to grow. And the first is this, to sow good seed. Here's the basic principle.

Paul says in Romans 12 verse 21, do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Everything, everything in this world is built upon the principle of sowing and reaping. And sowing and reaping teaches us essentially that this is the design of God for the universe.

Everything reproduces after its own kind. You put an orange seed into the ground and if you get the right conditions, what will grow is an orange tree and what it will produce is oranges. An orange seed will never in this world produce apples. So if you were to plant an orange seed somehow hoping that you're going to wind up getting an apple out of it would be the utmost folly because you can't.

There's no way. Well, in the same way in the spirit, what we sow is what we can expect to reap. So if there is someone in your life, let's start with our kids, and you would like to see your kids be more patient because they're impatient and they're always, they're always talking about how they want it, they want it now or they're impatient, they can't wait on this, can't wait on that. The temptation is what? To be just impatient with them. To be impatient about their impatience. To sow seeds of impatience into some child's heart that is already full of impatience is going to only produce a bigger harvest of impatience. That's Alan Wright and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. came into the world the bible tells us only one thing about Adam and Eve's relationship they were naked and felt no shame ever since the fall the human heart has been riddled with shame it's a lie that says until you measure up you can't be truly acceptable shame causes some to say i'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted and others to decide since i'll never measure up i might as well rebel either way the heart is poisoned by shame and there is only one antidote the grace of god in jesus christ in his highly acclaimed book free yourself be yourself pastor alan wright not only exposes the lies of shame he leads you into a revolution of god's love that heals your soul discover freedom joy and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let god take the shame off you for good it's a life-changing full-length book from alan wright free yourself be yourself the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 or come to our website pastor alan.org today's teaching now continues here once again is alan wright biblically what paul is saying is don't be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good so the spirit that you want to see cultivated in the one that you love whatever it is that you want to see developed in the other is the very thing that you should sow so oftentimes what i try to do is just stop myself because i feel my flesh wanting to just respond see if somebody sows unkindness towards you because of the law of sowing and reaping that sowing of unkindness towards you is trying to place a demand on you of a harvest of unkindness that's what you wonder why do i feel so much like i want to be unkind to them because they were unkind to me it's because of the principle of sowing and reaping the very judgment they brought against you is causing there to be within you a demand in the natural to cause you to judge them back but we are not under these natural commands of of of of the spirit we are under a higher order of grace we've been set free and so we have the potential by the grace of the lord jesus christ to say what's being sown towards me is unkindness but what i have in me is the holy spirit and the fruit of the spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and i'm going to allow the spirit of kindness to be sown it goes it's contrary to everything the flesh wants to do because what we tend to want to do is just just look at somebody that's frustrating to us and they're not doing what we want to do and our tendency is to just treat them by sowing seeds that are just as negative as what they're demonstrating but it never makes sense to expect an orange seed to produce an apple whatever you want to see developed in the other is what you can sow towards them sowing and reaping and it's all it starts in genesis chapter one it goes all the way through everything paul teaches it goes all the way through the bible everything operates according to this principle that all things reproduce after their own kind i think that's something very practical that you can do i think you can stop when you get in a difficult situation in a relationship of any type and you say well what should i do here how could i actually help them get a vision of the harvest you want to see what change would you like to see so the seed that can produce that harvest that's number one the second thing that i've discovered biblically that i think we can do is to treat people like heirs not slaves to me this is one of the most fascinating themes in the entire bible do you ever notice that when the people of god were set free through the passover if you're not familiar with the story it's the story where the the blood of an innocent lamb was put over the doorposts of the hebrew homes while they were slaves in egypt and wherever there was blood over the door the destroyer passed over those homes and yet killed all the firstborn of the egyptians where there was no blood over the door and through this pharaoh let the people go so they were set free by the blood of the lamb it's a great story the passover story well as soon as they're set free there's an odd thing we won't turn there now but look it up sometime there's an odd thing that you see and that is that the lord told the hebrew people to plunder the egyptians on the way out of egypt that's odd in other words he said tell them to give them their gold their silver their jewelry their stuff their valuables that's odd now this is in part to provide for the people of god as they went on their way but i think there's something else going on i think that god wanted the people to begin to learn early on you've been slaves now you're free but i want you to learn something other than the fact that you're free i want you to learn this you own something so what was the whole narrative about it was about the movement to a promised land that god wasn't just saying i'm going to set you free from slavery he was saying i'm going to give you a territory and i'm going to give you a territory and i want you to reign in that territory i want you to have dominion in that territory i want you to rule in that territory you have an inheritance you have a promised land so the gospel is not just the announcement that you are saved from your sin and you get to go to heaven one day the gospel is an announcement that you are saved from your sin by the blood of the lamb but you were saved so that you would know that you are an heir you are an heir of these incredible spiritual riches with which you have been blessed in christ jesus that god wanted his people in the old testament to understand themselves not only that they were free people but that they were responsible people they were heirs they they are they are they are recipients of a of a great gift with great potential and they have a destiny one day we were uh i was i was up at the office on a saturday afternoon years ago and i just uh i was up doing a little work but mickey thigpen our executive director was up on that saturday afternoon and he was in the office and he was doing something that was many years ago and um and and he was doing something some task and i just like i said mickey i said why are you up here on saturday afternoon doing that task and he said well you know such and such didn't get it done this week and i was like well why didn't so-and-so do that that's part of that's part of her job you know and he said i don't know i guess it's just a matter of ownership i was saying was you know he said i've got ownership over this he says you know i i'm not going to rest until this this you know i'm responsible for this i take ownership of this and he said i need to do it and he said you know someone else he said he was talking about a particular employee at that time who just you know just you know looked on it more like oh just a job you come to and you and you go away from um you know more like it and then and then mickey said i'm trying to convince her that she's not a slave and um i was sitting there thinking about the idea of ownership and slavery and who was actually taking ownership and he said taking ownership and i heard the holy spirit say to me we're standing there off i heard the holy spirit say only free people own things slaves don't own things slaves don't think like heirs and until people see themselves as owners they'll never really work to their full potential and mickey and i started talking about this we about had a glory fit right there in the office you know you're getting those revelations it's like i'm seeing something i've never seen before and here again in the same way that if someone is acting with unkindness towards you you're tempted to sow a seed of unkindness in a similar way when someone is acting like they won't take ownership of anything we tend to turn around and treat them even more like a slave alan wright today's teaching how to get people to change from the series free yourself be yourself we've got a parting good news thought with pastor alan coming up here in just a moment can you imagine what it would be like to be accepted perfectly envision it being free to be yourself with no fear of rejection if you mess up people don't roll their eyes make fun of you or love you less imagine no more of that anxious feeling that you get deep down in your gut that makes you feel like the pressure is always on so you can never really relax what you're imagining and longing for is a life with no shame in paradise before sin came into the world the bible tells us only one thing about adam and eve's relationship they were naked and felt no shame ever since the fall the human heart has been riddled with shame it's a lie that says until you measure up you can't be truly acceptable shame causes some to say i'll try to be perfect in order to be accepted and others to decide since i'll never measure up i might as well rebel either way the heart is poisoned by shame and there is only one antidote the grace of god in jesus christ in his highly acclaimed book free yourself be yourself pastor alan wright not only exposes the lies of shame he leads you into a revolution of god's love that heals your soul discover freedom joy and destiny as you shed performance-based living and let god take the shame off you for good it's a life-changing full-length book from alan wright free yourself be yourself the gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries this broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer we are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty that's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty or come to our website pastor alan dot org back now with pastor alan in the studio and i love this message i love the title it always gets my attention because you know how to talk to me okay i need a step-by-step plan and how to get people to change there's a twist to this well it's a provocative title because of course we can't change people but it's a myth to think we can't help them grow and change of course we can god wants us to change wants us to grow and all growth means change and so god can use us to help others but the way to help them is not by shaming them and so today and we'll continue tomorrow daniel to give the biblical ways of helping others to grow and change and i just would say as we close that if you think of that person in your own life who really needs to get a better understanding of who they are so they can change tomorrow we're going to talk about the power of blessing and it's god's wonderful secret of helping others flourish you can speak life and empower the people you love guilt and shame are two words that typically in the christian world go hand in hand together but there is a distinction between the two right well we're going to learn a lot about that um you know guilt is a real thing right if i commit a crime i'm guilty and i i have guilt um so we're all guilty we all we all have sinned we've all fallen short of the glory of god uh to say shame off you is not to soften up on sin that's not what it means um it's not to say that grace means that you get soft on sin either instead it says what's the solution to all of this and what we're distinguishing between is um what some have called true guilt and false guilt yeah um but shame is something that's not just the same thing as false guilt and it's not even the same thing exactly as condemnation but what we're going to learn is that shame really is a system of thought it is a whole stronghold a house of thoughts a way of looking at life a way of looking at your own life and it's subtle um at times and you don't realize it and then there are others who've been through the deepest and darkest types of trauma for whom it is um a poison that's been taken in very deeply and is very toxic but the conviction of sin as we'll discover is a good thing that's a gift from god it's good to know how uh we can go a better way it's good to know how the grace of god can lead us into a better way of living so that's the grace of god conviction of sin is not something to be ever uh shy about it's not it's something we should run to because it's good it's from god but shame the shame that i describe in this series uh daniel is something we say it's toxic today's good news message is a listener-supported production of Alan Wright Ministries