Change Your World | Dr. John Maxwell

let's talk about transformation let's let's talk about changing our world i was 17 years of age when i really established my relationship with god i was going to school a couple days later on a friday morning and i read a passage in corinthians that said if we are in christ we become a new creation old things pass away behold all things become new and it was at that moment as a very as a teenager a young christian i realized that my life had been transformed and and i went to school that day as a transformation

carrier i was carrying the message of the good news of what god had done in my life and i can tell you that throughout my years this desire to see people know god have their life incredibly positively changed has just increased and the process was very simple in the beginning i just wanted to make a difference if you come up to me as a young person i'd say i just want to make a difference i didn't know how i was going to make a difference i didn't know when i was going to make a difference

i didn't even sometimes know why i want to make a difference but i just knew i wanted to make my life count and over the years i have found that desire to make my life count add value to people see lives be changed absolutely increase and that's what the teaching's about today the teaching about today is transforming in our own life and transformation in the life of others let me just ask you this question how many of you has to look now 2021 in front of us how many of you would like to improve your

life this year let's let's just do a little poll here okay looks looks pretty good to me let me ask you another question how many of you would like to see the person that you're sitting beside have their life greatly improved this year i mean now let me just say something you were more eager on question two the excitement level on question two was a little bit higher pitched than than on on on level one well we're going to talk about how we do it and we have choices when we do don't like what's happening

we have we have one of two choices we can either curse the darkness or we can turn on the light and what we need to understand is that cursing the darkness improves no one's life but if we turn on the light all of a sudden we have a way that we can bring incredible beautiful life change to other people and and i want to encourage us in this teaching today to turn on the light and as i talk about changing your world i'm not the first one to talk about it jesus in matthew chapter 5

basically taught a change your world message let's look at the scripture okay let's dive into it it's on the screen jesus starts off in his teaching by saying let me tell you why you're here let's stop right there a lot of people come to me and they say john i would really like to know what god's purpose is for me in my life i would really like to know what god's will for me in my life and i say well you know it's quite simple jesus kind of set that straight at the beginning of his

ministry let me tell you why you're here let me tell you why you are on earth and now he begins to explain you're here to be salt seasoning that brings out the god flavors of this earth if you lose your saltiness how will people taste godliness you've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage now he emphasizes again here we go here's another way to put it in other words if you don't understand salt let me share it with you another thing you're here to be light bringing out the god colors in the

world god is not a secret to be kept we're going public with this as public as a city on a hill if i make you light bearers you don't think i'm going to hide you under a bucket do you i'm putting you on a light stand and now that i put you there on the hilltop on a light stand shine keep open house be generous with your lives well this is a huge verse by opening up to others you'll prompt people to open up with god this generous father in heaven jesus basically said that we

change our world by being salt which makes things better and light which makes things brighter in other words we are to be catalytic in helping people find god now when we begin to understand our responsibility to be catalysts for change the first thing that we understand is the fact that there are a lot of people who don't want to change would you agree with that how many of you know people who just they just they're just kind of stuck in the mud i mean yeah okay yeah and and i'm gonna yeah i'm gonna ask the

question you you know it's coming don't you how many of you are sitting beside that person right now okay don't don't go there just get you know just trust me don't go there as i think about change the reason people don't like it is because it's uncomfortable it gets them out of their comfort zone by the way in coven 19 as i've shared this year i've done a lot of my gosh i've done a lot of virtual teaching more i've done more teaching this year i've ever done to more people than i've ever done and

one of the things i shared with him with this year that we've just gone through is that that um that a crisis is a detour in other words what a crisis is is it takes us out of our rhythm and out of our way of doing things and and all of a sudden the way that we're familiar with the way that we understand the way that we appreciate is taken from us and we're now going a different way it's a detour and in fact i i've been encouraging everybody enjoy the detour tour and the reason

you want to enjoy it is because you're seeing things that you've never seen before you're going places you've never been before you're experiencing things you've never experienced before and this is where the learning and the growing of life becomes so so so take the tour tour and here's the statement everything everything that you want or need but you don't have stay with me everything that you want or you need but you don't have it it's outside of your comfort zone that's why you don't have it if it was in your comfort zone you'd already have

it you would say oh my gosh i need that so i'm going to go get it you take it you move on the only reason that we don't get it is because it's out of our comfort zone and and what's so beautiful is people are out of their comfort zone right now they're all on the detour tour whether they want to be or not and it's an incredible time for transformation and here's why because when people are hurting that's when they're willing to make their most important changes in life okay this this is going to

be a little weird to some of you but i think christians grieve way too much when adversity comes i i don't really understand it but i watch us and we put our hopes in the wrong people and the wrong things and i can promise you right now that adversity is a friend to christianity church history tells us this and when i watch christians say boy just uh wow this would be taken from us we're going to lose this i look in there and i say excuse me excuse me i thought that we were pilgrims in

this world i i just had a misunderstanding i didn't know that this is where we were going to live eternally i just thought this is where we're passing through but let's talk about being comfortable or not being code just do me a favor right now quickly just cross your arms okay everybody just cross your arms okay now we've done this thousands of times haven't we and let me just say something every time you cross your arms you do it the same way every time you know you've done this thousands of times and you have never

done it the other way okay let's do it the other way feels so uncomfortable done i mean this certainly can't be the right way no no no no hey hey clasp your hands clatch your hands close your hands with me okay good now every time you clasp your hands you do it the same way every time you've done this ten thousand times every time you do it the same way you've never done it the other way but you can clash your hands just move one finger over let's do it again that feel doesn't feel uncomfortable

i'm not sure that you can pray with your hands class like this i'm not even sure god can hear your prayer if you i mean come on let's get it back to the way it's supposed to be let's go get it back to the right way now i say that because people change in four different seasons this is a whole leadership talk okay that i can do for about two hours but because you're so smart i'm gonna do it in one minute honest to god if i was with most congregations this would be a series

but you're just smarter okay here we go here we go people people change when they hurt enough they have to when they see enough they're inspired to when they learn enough that they want to and when they receive enough that they're able to those are the four times that people change and i want to talk to you about just one of them the hurting enough that you have to one year ago if we had been a christ fellowship there would have been nobody wearing masks we would have we would have been looking at 2020 and

and we would have never envisioned all the things that we've had happen to us this is i call 2020 the shock and numb here we've been surprised at what we've seen and then we've seen so much and been so much out of our comfort zone that we're just kind of numb to about everything but what i want you to grapple with today in being a transformational catalyst is the fact that in hurting times this is a very opportune time for you to really make a difference one of the negatives has come out of all of

this is the fact that there has been a decline in trust i call it the trust fall i put some stats on the screen in 1964 77 percent of americans trusted in federal government 30 years later only 20 percent do and i know we think well you got vietnam you got watergate of course you got all kind of things that we could point to but i can tell you it's deeper than that it's deeper than that i'll come back to that in 2014 70 of the people believe that most people can't be trusted you see

what happens is when we lose our way with values i'll come back to this when we lose our way with values all of a sudden trust begins to fall first in institutions then in people as i've traveled the world the difference between countries and cultures that do well and countries and cultures that don't do well is what i call the trust factor in fact i want it to be put on your screen so you can visually see it for a moment social trust is the confidence that other people will do what they ought to do

most of the time trust becomes a very vibrant factor that people thrive in when people do what they ought to do and the word catches my attention because where did they get their aunt where did where did they get their aud that they do what they ought to do they got it from learning and living good values trust is the environment where people thrive and do well now this is essential so we ask ourselves okay if we're going to see transformation if we're going to change our world let's go a step further how do we

create an environment of trust it's essential in families it's essential in communities it's essential in business trust needs to be the core the center the fabric of any culture i'm going to share with you now four this is the most practical part of the lesson right here i want to share with you four ways to create an environment of trust and what's so beautiful about what i'm about to share is every one of you in the auditorium can do this we all can do this it's not out of our reach it's not something that's impossible

so look at your neighbor before i give you the four things and say to them even you can do this go ahead and tell them that even you can do this are you ready let's go number one we're creating now a trust environment which is conducive for transformation number one value people a trust environment begins when people feel valued and the word beside that which is on your screen is the word connecting when we value people we have the ability to connect with people and the flip is also true when we devalue people we disconnect

from people when people say i want to be christ-like i say well if you want to be like jesus then right at the top of your agenda should be valuing everybody because jesus valued everybody and when you say john what do you mean by everybody see when i tell you when i tell people that they need to value people they're okay with that oh yeah right yeah yeah it's good value people got it got it but when i point to jesus if you want to be jesus like he valued everybody don't don't miss this he

valued every body there is no person on this earth that god doesn't value and the only people that have a difficult time with valuing everybody in jesus day were the religious people it bothered them greatly that jesus would eat with sinners that he would hang around with tax collectors that he would be down in the marker where the hookers were bothered them greatly why are you spending time with him why why why why are you there and jesus is saying very simple you got to understand i'm a doctor i came to to take care of

sick people i'm i'm a shepherd i'm looking for a lost sheep don't miss this everybody there is something engaging and connecting when people that are different than you and me know that they're unconditionally loved by you and me and to be honest with you this is where we have as christians utterly failed when people look at us so many times they don't see us with unconditional love and so what does that do that creates the disconnect you see my perspective of you determines my attitude towards you how i see you determines my attitude and on

the on on the screen again just don't miss this if i see you as weak i will help you and if i see you as broken i'll fix you but if i see you as valuable i'll serve you now now just stay right with that for a moment this is huge this is huge because the first two see you as weak i help you see you as broken i fix you in both of those scenarios if i help you i come out on top it's like oh my gosh thank you john you rescued me oh

my you pulled me out of the ditch i always look better if i have the perspective of the first two but the moment that i see you is valuable i don't now try to be over you i try to come under you and i try to serve you and it's the serving heart it's the serving that's why paul said i do i'll go to all kinds of means to win people to christ i have learned to be a servant what's paul said paul is saying this guy that's incredibly gifted said i'm going to i'm going

to serve because the only way to bring transformation to people's life is is to serve them so we value people that word connecting goes with that number two if you want to have an environment of trust add value to people this is all about influence this is where now i began to increase my influence by adding value to people let me give you an example when i was a pastor and i was writing books and and and much to my surprise when my publisher shared with me that my books were being written by the business

community much more than the community than the christian community i was totally surprised i had no idea i shocked beyond belief at that moment i felt called to go and have my mission field the secular community i it was at that moment that i knew that i would not pastor much longer that i would have to spend the rest of my life basically with lost people and so i began to ask myself how do i connect with these people how do i influence these people and i realize the only way to influence them people and

grow and influence strength with them is to add value to them help them grow their business help them grow leaders help them develop and so i put a hundred percent into helping people helping people serving people adding value making a difference in their lives not much witnessing not sharing their faith in fact i in my in that community you just didn't you just you just added value add value add value add value until until my influence got to the place where i could now begin to talk about my faith don't miss this we increase our

influence with people by serving them and adding value where they are no strings attached number three if you want to create this type of an environment you have to live good values and that's all about attracting people attracting people paul talks in galatians about the fruit of the spirit let's look at that on the screen for a moment the fruit produced by the holy spirit within you is divine love in all of its varied expressions now now this is the picture here of an attractive person this is a picture of a person that people want

to be around if you have joy that overflows if you have peace that subdues if you have patience that endures if you have kindness in your actions faith that prevails gentleness of heart strength of spirit that's a pretty attractive person i kind of want to hang around with them don't you that's the fruit of the spirit that's within us now i don't have time to get into it tonight but just just just understand and hey and get the book get the book look at this last verse never set the law above these qualities for they

are met what are they these qualities are meant to be limitless and when you put the law more important in the values you diminish the values i have no time tonight to talk about how we have missed it in america because we've lost our way with values and we think that legislation will make a difference in people's lives if the law makes such a difference in people's life we didn't need the new testament nor jesus yeah i'm waiting i'm waiting i'm waiting we lost our way when the laws of the country became more important than

the values in a person's life trust me and we won't find our way till we go back to values which gets me number four share good values that's where the transformation the transformation begins when we share good values and and the four ways to have a create this kind of an environment value people add value to people live good value share good values it's it's it's all there folks it's all there it's all about values go back with me for a moment to 2001. i get a call from time warner that's my publisher they asked

me to come to new york city for an evening i went to new york city we're having a long dinner and time warner asked me they said john because of enron remember enron remember all the corporate scandals remember all the deviousness and the and the deceit of of companies in america and so we're having a dinner and they said john we've looked at all of our authors and we want we want somebody to write a book on business ethics and we picked you we want you would you write a book on business ethics for us

and i looked at them and i said i can't do that and they said why not i said well there's no such thing as business ethics well what do you mean what do you mean and they went back to all the kind no no i got all of it i got in wrong i got this so i got the i got the picture there's no such thing as business ethics there's just ethics they said well would you write a book on ethics i said i'll try i'm not sure i can in a culture that has

no absolutes that's not an easy thing to do and so i began to ask myself how will i write a book on ethics and after about a month working with my writing team and all of our creative people we came up with a with an amazing thought that i believe god gave us and that is teach the golden rule treat others as you would like to be treated the golden rule is in every culture and every religion in the world that's a value and we began to go down the values path and it was life-changing

for me because all of a sudden i realized enron will never be straightened out or anyone else will ever be straightened out because there's a law on the books so let me tell you something if you lack values you will figure a way to get around the law again it's not an outside issue it's an inside issue and the moment that we went that way we began to understand we begin to understand and so do you remember when you were do you remember when you were in school and and the teacher was going to ask

you a question and it was talking to the class and you didn't know the answer now perhaps you weren't like me but but there were many times i didn't know the answer because i wasn't the best student in the class but i was the most fun student in the class i was the most popular student in the class i won the best new new noon and when the teacher had a question i didn't know i basically would do this let me ask how many of you ever hid from the teacher okay i i i see

some soul mates out there you weren't that good of a student either were you huh you see i i didn't want them to call on me i didn't want to call on me because i didn't know the answer and there were times when i didn't know the answer but i didn't think they were going to call on me and they're going to call on somebody else and so i decided to fake it and i thought i don't know the answer but i'll act like i know the answer and so i would put my hand up

like this and then there were times i knew the answer and i not only knew the answer i wanted the teacher know that i know the answer and i want all the classmates to know that i know the answer i want everybody to know that i know the and when i knew when i really knew the answer my hand went up when it comes to transformation and changing your world and values i know the answer i know the answer in fact the reason i'm so passionate about it is i know i know the answer because

i've done it now for 25 years with millions of people and it works and i wish you could be with me i wish you could be with me when teachers who've been using our values curriculum in their public schools have talked about the change in their students life in three weeks they say they can see the change in their students after and by the way all of our we have five million kids in public schools with their values training and we've done it international and we're getting ready to bring it to america and and and

every time i say that somebody says well you'll never get the government to approve my folks looking at me listen to me my name is john i don't care the education system is so broken down it's so hurting they're starting to look for other answers because they don't have the answer i'm not one bit concerned we'll take we'll take one school at a time we'll take one neighborhood at a time we'll take one community at a time we will take it and we will move in that direction and what thrills me and i don't want

to get us too involved what thrills me is todd and julie i were talking a little bit earlier he said john i want us to do some of this in our congregation and we're going to get together we're going to talk and i want to i don't want to get ahead of you i don't want to get have you taught but but i'm going to tell you something this year could be the greatest year in the history of this church because trans and when you start teaching peoples in small groups about values that is preconditional

and that is priest that sets up evangelism it's when people begin to embrace good values the next thing they are ready to do is hear the good news but you start with values and we're i'm just i'm just so in fact i i went home back yeah after the service i went home for an hour and came back and by the way i went and took my walk so i could teach my values lesson today for you people to go online and start walking with me virtually but and i and i and i grabbed mark

i said oh my god this is we don't have much time but but i told her what todd and julie said and i said i really believe that that we could really see something huge happen in our congregation our church and i'm just so excited i'm just i'm just overwhelmed because i i tell you i tell you i will give my life for this i will give my life for this because i see lives being changed and let me tell you something i don't have to win every day of my life but i got to

do the right thing every day of my life and i got to stand for the right values every day of my life and i'm just um i just i'm just full of hope every year i have nine questions that i go through at the end of the year um the last week of the every year i i don't go out and speak of course this year that's not a hard deal but i always set that side as time aside and i go through my calendar like my 2020 calendar i go through a day every day

and every hour for the whole year and i do it every day for a week and i have nine questions and i and i go through those nine questions and i i just every day i write with a different caller so i'll write with that you know i still do a pen so i'm so sorry i i you don't relate to that but that's all right and and i'll do it in green and i'll do it in blue and then i'll do it and and i put every day so i layer my thinking so i

can see the progress of my thinking but i have nine questions and one of the questions that i ask every year is i ask god to give me a word a word for that year and this year i got my word earlier than ever before in fact i got my word by the middle of december i wasn't even asking for the word and god gave it to me usually i mean one year it was literally 11 o'clock on new year's eve before i got my word i thought that was a little close but god thought

i was a little slow but this year i think he wanted me to make sure i got so he gave it to me he gave me the word in the middle of december so i've had two weeks to look and the word is hope the word is hope in a world that just no matter where i am in the last three months i've i've had per personal audiences with the president of costa rica i've had personal offerings with the president of of guatemala i've i've i've talked to supreme courts of countries i i've i've had

i've had some pretty major entrances in the last three or four months and now all of them are looking at us and in fact then when we were in costa rica the secretary of education said we're costa rica the president just signed on that every public school in costa rica will take our values curriculum and and and then as we finish the secretary of education said you do know that seven other secretaries of education in latin america have contacted me and said if we do it they want to do it also and by the way

you're very generous with equip and every year for many many years out of your admissions budget out of your birthday gift for jesus that's such a report 2.6 million that's that is it i don't know i might be wrong isn't that the best that we've done we've done better but we'll get there and it's in a covered year it's in a covered year let me your your your birthday gift to jesus your birthday gift jesus it goes for all kinds of wonderful helps and one of them you you help us you help us with with

the values cricket and thanks for doing it and i i want to i want to say thank thank you for that but but just let me i got to close but he gave me the word hope and then he gave me three words with it prosperity affluence and security prosperity if you look at the word prosperity in the dictionary it means to go forward with hope isn't that beautiful when people talk about prosperity it means to go forward with hope so he said john i want you to teach people a prosperous life of of going

forward in hope and affluence means to have a a flow of abundance in your life not have a scarcity mindset but to have a flow of abundance in your life hope is is about abundance it's it's all about moving forward and then security means having faith that's greater than fear so that's my word [Music] [Music] i gotta wrap it up i know i do but i just want you to know precious friends that will commit ourself this year to setting an environment of trust and that we will be unconditional in our love and in our

actions and in our lifestyle so we're going to have the greatest harvest year ever in this church the greatest there ever and and i just i just i just want to close the service with prayer this i love the prayer emphasis on this night this this if you're going to have prayer emphasis on on the five o'clock service this will be my favorite service because i i i i love it when the body comes together in prayer father i just humble myself before you and and these precious friends people these people that love you and

they've been transformed their life has been changed [Music] if we're going to be transformational if we're going to change our world it starts with us so i pray that you would give a a spiritual renewing transformational movement that begins in our heart start with me o god start with me but thou i pray father [Music] that you would see the heart of christ fellowship it's the same heart as you father when you gave your only son for this world it's a it's a heart for people to come to god and i'm going to pray a

prayer of anointing and favor and covering and blessing over this congregation and over every one of these individuals father in their business and their family in their community may we start transformation tables and father may we see good people [Music] learn and embrace good values and may they be lifted up so that we can be salt and light in the community that we live i i just i cover todd and julie and i cover the staff and i just pray god that you'll give them an anointing a great commission anointing that they will lead us

and father i pray that you'll give all of us a heart for people may we love people like you love people and may we reach people as you so desperately want us to reach people so we give you ourselves and we thank you for hearing our prayer and we believe that this year this is going to be the year that lives are transformed if you can believe that in the name of jesus would you just stand with me and let's claim it together as a congregation let's claim it together as a congregation that's right let's

claim it together as a congregation lift him up lift him up only god only god give that to us give that to us as a congregation give that to us in the name of jesus [Music] [Applause]