Extreme Makeover

Extreme Makeover

2 Corinthians 5:17

January 27, 2013

Quite awhile ago I talked about the program Extreme Home Makeover. It’s so cool to see how a home is torn down and Ty Pennington and his crew take over and create something that wows everyone. Those are obviously extreme situations. But we do it in our lives as well. We will renovate bathrooms and kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and more. Sometimes we just gut the room and start over to create something great.

But we go beyond that don’t we? We look at ourselves, and we don’t like what we see, so we start to change ourselves. We look at the exterior. We get a new wardrobe, we start exercising to lose weight, we change our hair color, maybe we have surgery so we can have a more drastic change. We do all of this so that we can feel better about ourselves.

It’s usually much easier to look at the exterior and see what’s wrong, and start to fix it, but we neglect to look at what type of makeover needs to occur in our interior. You see, it’s always easier, albeit, more expensive to make changes to the exterior.

God is also in the extreme makeover business. He's in the business of transforming your life and mine. God sees possibilities in you and me that we often miss when we look at ourselves. He’s also able to do for you and me what we can’t do for ourselves. And God is able to pay the price for what He does. We can't afford the price. He paid it for us, by sending His Son to die for us. But His makeover is a little bit different in one area. The reality show makeover is external. God's is internal. He makes you a new person from the inside out.

This theme runs throughout the Bible. It’s from beginning to end. We have the opportunity to join God and find new life in Him. It started with the first sin, when Adam and Eve chose to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. satan told Eve that God didn't want her to be just like Him. But Adam and Eve bought into the lie, so they ate — and discovered evil.

The Bible reminds us, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) and "None is righteous. No, not one" (Romans 3:10). We know that about ourselves. We don't have to be told. None of us is perfect, and that imperfection separated us from the God who created us. Here is a righteous, holy God, and on the other side are you and I, sinners, and there is a chasm between us.

The good news is that God has taken action on our behalf. He promised Adam and Eve that someone would come — a second Adam who would crush the head of the serpent. The Old Testament people lived in anticipation of the Messiah. That's what it's about — God coming and dying for the sins of the world. The Scripture says, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed" (1 Peter 2:24). That is great news.

This is God's extreme makeover. This extreme interior makeover means we have to change. In other words, we become new creations. One of my favorite verses is involves us becoming new creations. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17) In other words, you can be a brand new you!

I love what this verse says, but, it’s kind of like, so what? I mean, I think about life, I think about you and me; and I wonder how much have we let go of the old things, because if we were all to be honest, we may wonder about how we’ve changed since we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

And most of the time it’s easier to make an extreme exterior makeover, than an extreme interior makeover. It’s easier to buy new furniture, to redo a room, to change our hair, or whatever external, as opposed to working on the real issues which are internal.

Paul tells us ~ if you are in Christ then you are a new creation. It seems to me we need to start with a look at answering the question are you in Christ? Do you know Jesus, and does He know you? Not do you know about Him, but do you KNOW Him?

This isn’t just head knowledge, because the image the Bible gives us about our relationship with Jesus is that it is an intimate one. It’s one where the heart, the spirit, the head and the whole body are given to Jesus. So, to know Jesus is more than just intellectualism, it’s giving our whole being to Jesus.