Extreme Makeover - God Edition

Extreme Makeover – God Edition

TCF Sermon

September 9, 2007

Change is big business on TV these days. TV’s love affair with reality shows has led to many TV programs that have to do with change. You have interior and exterior design programs on TV, that transform an ugly home, or an ugly room, into something that might be featured in Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

You have a poorly-dressed man or woman who is willing to put up with insults about how he or she looks so they can get some so-called experts to tell them how to dress better. You have a program called The Biggest Loser, where overweight men and women try to change their physical makeup and lose the most weight in a competition.

You have a program on one network called Extreme Makeover. I don’t know how much someone would have had to spend in the real world to change their appearance that dramatically, but let me tell you, plastic surgery and other external alterations, are definitely involved.

You have a spinoff of sorts, called Extreme Makeover – Home Edition. The twist on this one is that instead of making over a person, they make over a home.

Makeovers are big business. Just ask a plastic surgeon. So, we have Extreme Makeover. We have Extreme Makeover Home Edition. But we also have Extreme Makeover – God Edition.

That’s what the Christian life is all about. Each of the things we mentioned in our popular culture has to do almost exclusively with the outside – outer appearance – how something or someone looks. The extreme makeover God does, has little or nothing to do with externals, and everything to do with what makes us who we are – our hearts, our spirits, our character

Though God is a God who never changes in Himself – the Word tells us that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever - God is very much into changing His people, in a big way.

God was into extreme makeovers before extreme makeovers were cool. Did you know that extreme makeovers are clearly spoken of in the Word? No, not like certain cars are mentioned in the Bible. For example: And they were all in one Accord. Or they spoke in many tongues – whostolemyHonda?

Here’s a passage that, if it isn’t speaking of change, of an extreme makeover, then I don’t know what is:

2 Corinthians 3:18 (NIV) 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

A transformation is definitely a makeover. An extreme makeover. A transformation is a metamorphosis. In fact, the Greek word here, used only four times in the entire New Testament, twice of the transfiguration of Jesus, is the word from which we get our English word metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis defined:

1. A transformation, as by magic or sorcery.

2. A marked change in appearance, character, condition, or function.

When we think of metamorphosis, we usually think of biology and insects. I remember first reading this word in the 4th grade. I did an oral report before the class on metamorphosis, which ended up being one of the most embarrassingly traumatic experiences of my life. I described what metamorphosis is, but I didn’t quite know how to pronounce it, so I took my best shot with my 4th grade mind and put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

I said meTAMorFAsis. It was embarrassing not only because my fellow 4th graders laughed, at least at first. They certainly didn’t know how to pronounce this word any more than I did. The teacher, trying as hard as she could, could not stifle her laugh when I said this word wrongly. Then, of course, my fellow 4th graders thought it was pretty funny too. I probably turned about four shades of red.

Anyway, that traumatic experience aside, I have vivid memories of metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis refers to the way that insects develop, grow, and change form.

Metamorphosis actually means "change". There are two types of metamorphosis--incomplete and complete.

About 12% of all insects go through incomplete metamorphosis. Incomplete metamorphosis has 3 stages.

• Egg

• Nymph - The eggs hatch into nymphs. Nymphs looks like small adults, but usually don’t have wings. Insect nymphs eat the same food that the adult insect eats. Nymphs shed or molt their exoskeletons (outer casings made up of a hard substance called chitin) and replace them with larger ones several times as they grow. Most nymphs molt 4-8 times.

• Adult - The insects stop molting when they reach their adult size. By this time, they have also grown wings.

In other words, once hatched, these insects that go through incomplete metamorphosis always look basically the same, only bigger. The only real change is in size. Remember that as we move along here.