Dangerous Assumptions | Cheat Code Part 1

I don't know about you, but New Year always has a way of messing with me a little bit. I'll step into the New Year, and I'm fully motivated, like this is the year that's going to be different, right? Like making some plans, putting some goals together. I'll even say some things like new season, new mindset, right? Just you got that little saying that you kind of bounce around with, or out with the old, in with the new. Or maybe we make it a little spiritual, and we put a spin, new season, new assignment, right? We have a way of coming up with some catchy phrases like that. And sometimes those things do happen in our life, but oftentimes what happens is that before we know it, January becomes July, and we're still in the middle of the same patterns, the same habits, the same regrets, the same disappointments. And I don't know if that's you as it is with me in my life, but when I find myself in those kind of moments where I've hoped and I've expected for things to be different and to change, and they don't, then I often wrestle with this question, why does this keep happening? Like why am I here all over again? And if we step outside of the emotions, the disappointment, the guilt that we often feel in those moments, there's, well, there's a pattern that's really hiding in plain sight that we just often look past. It's something that if we see it, we can't unsee it. And here's the pattern, see if you can relate to it at all. The pattern is that we oftentimes learn from our mistakes in the areas that matter least. Like we touch a hot stove, ouch, I'm not going to touch the stove again, right? Or I send a text message and I don't pay attention to autocorrect, I'm going to make that mistake once and I'm going to learn from it. But unfortunately, this also happens in our life, and that is that we learn from our mistakes in the areas that matter least, but we repeat our mistakes in the areas that matter most. The areas of our finances, the areas of our relationships, our marriage, the way that we're parenting, we have a tendency in our life to repeat the mistakes that matter most.

And when we do that, when we find ourselves constantly repeating those mistakes, we like inevitably we drift to starting to blame other people, right? We begin to blame our spouse, it's their fault, our kids, our coworker, you know, somebody in the church, a teacher, like we become quick to blame or maybe we become quick to make some excuses as to why we're here all over again. And I think if you and I were honest with ourselves this morning, that the common thread that ties all of these kind of mistakes and regrets and cycles in our life that keep happening over and over again, they're not other people. The common thread is us. It's us. And so maybe before we run into a new year, maybe before we have our resolutions and make our promises to other people and to ourself, before we have this idea of I'm hitting reset in 2026, maybe we should slow down a little bit and maybe we should try to discover the answer to this question, how can I make sure next time doesn't look like last time? And that's what this series, Cheat Code, is really all about. It's a four-week journey that we're going to take together to help us discover the answer to that question. And today as we kick off week one, Now, I want to explain just a little bit about the idea of the series title, Cheat Code. I don't know how many gamers are in the room and how many people enjoy to do that kind of thing, but cheat codes are something that the creator of the games will create inside the game. And if the player does them, then it ends up unlocking all of these hidden features and grants them special advantages. And I'm almost 50. I turn 50 next month. And so for me, when I think of cheat codes, I can't help but to go back to my game Contra back in the day. Anybody remember a little Contra, a little up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start, right? But maybe for the 90s, for you, it was Mortal Kombat, 2000s, Grand Theft Auto. I don't know what it was for you. But in all of these games, the creator would make these cheat codes. And every generation of player understood this thing. They understood that there are some players that turn on the game and they play it,

and they're just hoping for a good outcome. But then there are some other players. There are some other ones that discover the cheat code. And when they discover the cheat codes within the game they're playing, the game is never the same again. And I just want to, I want to toss out to you today that what if, what if God has done the same thing with life? What if God has some cheat codes within his word to be able to help us to break the cycle, the repeating mistakes and the regrets that we have time and time again? And so today as we lean into the first week of cheat code, I want to address some dangerous assumptions. I want to talk to you today. I want to share three assumptions that we make that oftentimes lead us into bad decisions in our life. So I want to look at a guy today by the name of Paul. Paul is somebody that whether you've been in church all your life or you haven't been in church much at all, maybe you're here today and you're kicking the tires and that's, that's awesome. Here's the thing about Paul is that most of our lives have been impacted in some way by the Apostle Paul in Scripture. Here's a guy who wrote nearly half of the New Testament. A guy like if you've ever heard of the words or read a verse that has love or or faith in it or has grace or the word endurance in it, there is a really good likelihood that Paul was the one that wrote it. But what we oftentimes overlook about Paul's life is that he he was not always a Christ follower. That he was a Jewish Pharisee that had Roman citizenship. And so what that means is that he was highly educated. He was a deeply religious person, but not religious. And like when you think of all of your negative experiences about religious people in your life, that's the category that Paul falls in. Like he's not the inspirational religious person. He's the one that makes you want to run away from God and from church. That's who this guy Paul is. And he's got all of this influence. He's got all this power and authority. And one of the things that you'll see in the New Testament is that he he goes by the name Saul and the name Paul. Now what what some people assume, and this isn't one of the bad assumptions, but it is one,

they assume that that is a name change that Jesus gave to Saul whenever he converted to the faith of Christianity. And that's not the case because Jesus actually referred to Paul as Saul after his conversion. You see, in that day and time, it was not out of the norm for somebody that had dual citizenship, somebody like Paul, a Jewish Pharisee that had Roman citizenship, to have two names. And so for Paul, that name Paul was the Greco-Roman name that he went by. And Saul was the Jewish name that he went by. And so this morning as we as we dig into some of these verses, I'm going to refer to him as Paul, but we're going to... see the name Saul throughout the passages of Scripture, it's the same person, he's just using a different name based off of the community and the culture in which he was in. But here's the thing about Paul that I want you to understand, is that from every visible metric, every visible standard of his day, people would have looked at Paul and thought, man he is winning in life, like he's killing it in life. But here's where Paul gets it wrong, is that he thought that he was doing the right thing when he was actually playing by the wrong set of rules. And the uncomfortable part about Paul's life in this situation is that you and I often do the same thing. We do what feels right, the decisions that we make, we look at what we were taught, what we were raised with, we look at what the people around us approve of or disapprove of, and we allow those things to determine the decisions and the direction in which we go in life. Only to look back over time in the rearview mirror and to realize that the rules that we were trusting in the game of life that we were playing, that they have led to some real damage. Some real damage in our lives, some real damage in our relationships, and that's what we're going to see from this guy named Paul. This is how he kind of started out before he came to know Jesus. Gives you kind of a glimpse of who this guy was, that Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen. A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem. He's all about persecuting the followers of Jesus, and the kind of behind-the-scenes reason

why is because he grew up in this culture and understanding that you've got to follow all the rules that God has. Here Jesus comes in with this idea of grace, that it's more about pursuing God's heart than it is pursuing after getting everything right in your life. Paul sees this as a direct assault against everything that he's always known. It goes on in verse 3, like he's going everywhere to destroy the church. That was his mission, that he went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them in prison. Look at this. Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord's followers, so he went to the high priest. Watch what he does. He requests a letter addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, and he's asking for their cooperation in the arrest of all of these followers of the way. The way was a phrase that was used in those days to describe the people that were following Jesus, and he wanted to bring them, both men and women, back to Jerusalem in chains. I find this like, it's interesting because here Paul is doing everything that he thinks is right, but yet it's leading his life down the wrong path. Sometimes you and I do that. Sometimes we do the things that we think are right, not realizing that they're taking us down the wrong path. What's awesome about Paul's story is that God steps in. It's kind of like a but God moment, like the series we did last year. He steps in, and as he's approaching Damascus, like on his mission, he's looking to destroy, to kill, to imprison Christians, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He falls to the ground. He heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Lord? Saul asked, and the voice replied, I am Jesus, the one that you are persecuting. It says here that Jesus then goes, now get up and go into the city, and you will be told

what you must do. I think something that's really important about this encounter that Paul had... with Jesus is that it was the kind of encounter that was life-changing. It was a powerful encounter. It's kind of like if you've ever been to a church service or whatever and it's like you just all of a sudden God moves from something that's up here that you're aware of to something that oh my gosh this this thing is is real like he has this encounter with God but the part that you and I often miss and this is going to sound a little sacrilegious but lean in a little bit with me give me a little bit of a grace here is that an encounter with God alone doesn't change bad patterns in our life. Just because I feel the goosebumps one Sunday, just because I pray a prayer, it doesn't change the bad patterns and cycles in my life. What it does do is it redirects us but what a God encounter doesn't do is transform us and that's why that's why Paul writes this later on he writes this in Romans chapter 12 verse 2 he says don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world this is after his conversion to the faith this is after he is is now living a life on purpose and he's preaching and he's reaching lost people he's like listen don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world but let God transform you. How does the transformation happen? We're transformed into a new person by changing the way that we think and notice this it's then it's when our our mindset starts to shift and to change it's then that we learn to know God's will for our life which is good and pleasing and perfect. How does Paul know that? How does Paul get to a place in his relationship with God where he recognizes that it's not the encounter that transforms him but it's the the new way of thinking that transforms him? The reason why he was able to get to that place is because he lived it. Notice what it says in Galatians chapter 1. This is Paul talking about himself after his conversion experience and he says when this happened right the conversion experience I didn't rush out to consult with any human being nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was instead I went away into Arabia and later I returned to the city of Damascus. Three years he had an encounter with God and he spent three years in Arabia before he began to to pursue what God God's ultimate purpose was for his life. Why Arabia? Why three years? And I think it's this because God in that season wasn't changing Paul's direction. He was changing Paul's thinking. See Paul didn't rush back into into life after conversion like nothing happened. He gave God some time and some space

to reprogram the things that he had learned up to that point in all of his life. You see I think that as we step into this new year most of us don't need a new start. Most of us in this year need a new way of thinking. We don't need an encounter. We don't need goosebumps. We don't need a long list of resolutions. It's not bad to do that but it's not all about just changing our behavior because that's not the way that it works and that's the reason why we keep having these same habits and cycles in our life and nothing ever changes is because the one thing that we never really lean into is this idea of allowing God to transform us by the way that we think. You see, here's how it plays out in our life, our old way of thinking. There's three assumptions that you and I naturally carry into every new season of our life. And these assumptions are dangerous, and the reason why they're dangerous is because they feel right, they make the most sense, we can rationalize them, but they quietly sabotage the change that we're desiring to make in our life. See if you can relate to any of these three. The first one is the experience assumption. We make this assumption that experience is going to make us wiser. This idea of just because we went through something means that the next time that we go through it, we'll be better off. And maybe it's just me, but I don't really find that to be the case. Just because I go through something doesn't mean I grew through it. Often times in my life, the experience doesn't show me what I need to change, it shows me what hurts. You see, here's the reality of it, is that experience doesn't make us wiser, evaluated experience makes us wiser. Going down, giving God space to help us to begin to identify why we keep going through the same things over and over again, and this is why you need to make the next three weeks a priority to be here, is because I'm going to give you the three things that help you do that. I'm going to give you the three things that help you evaluate your experience so that

you can come to the other side of it wiser. Second assumption that we have in life is this knowledge assumption. If I know better, I'll do better. False. Like you know how to manage your money better, but we don't do better. You know how to respond to conflict and frustration. You know how to respond, but you don't always do it. Knowing better doesn't mean that we do better. It's a dangerous assumption, but it's not as dangerous as this next one. The third one is the time assumption. Time is against me. It's this idea that the clock is counting, like I've only got so much longer to be able to accomplish this, or to do this, or maybe it's the young adult that is watching all of their friends around their age, and they're getting married, and they're not married yet, and so they're feeling the pressure of, I have to make this happen because time is against me. Listen, it is so rare for a quick decision to be a good decision. It is so rare. Like rushing into decisions because you feel like you're running out of time rarely lead to wise decisions. You see Paul as he has this encounter with God, he didn't rush back into a position of influence. He slowed down long enough so that God could change the way that he thought. And friend, that's where Paul's story comes full circle. Full circle for us because years later, three years after focusing on spending time with God and allowing him to rewire his mindset, having important people speaking into his life after a season of waiting, a season that felt like for somebody like him, so like not good enough, right? From all that he was, the influence he had before conversion to like now becoming almost a nobody, like it was the season that he was allowed.

God to rewire Himself, and it's because He leaned into that season that He was able to write this that most of us in this room have probably heard before. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them. This was not something that Paul understood before the three years. It's not something Paul understood just on the other side of conversion. It's something that God had to help him see over time as God began to work on the way that he thought and his mindset for him to be able to get to a place that he realized that God can take all of the bad from Paul's life, and He could take all of the good from Paul's life, and in some way that only God understands, He can pull all of that together to work for the good. But here's the catch. That doesn't happen to just people that have an encounter, people that experience chill bumps. It happens to people who love God. That word agape is essentially you're putting God first in your life, and people that are living a life on purpose. That means I'm no longer living life for me, but I'm saying, God, how do I fit in the bigger picture of what you're wanting to do around me? It's when we get to that place that it activates God's ability to be able to use all the stuff that we wish we could forget, and all the stuff that we are kind of happy about, and He can use that ultimately for our good. So I want to take a moment, and I want you to wrestle with a question this morning. The question is this, what assumptions are shaping your life? Is it one of those three that we talked about? Maybe it's an assumption about God. Maybe it's an assumption about your past and your mistakes. What are the assumptions that are shaping your life? Friend, what if in 2026, what if God was more interested in changing the way that you think than changing your circumstances?