ARE, WANT, DO, GET
Romans 7:14-25
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Pastor Brian Matherlee
ARE
• You can’t do anything about this
• A man named Floyd Collins, in 1925, was exploring near Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and got stuck. He was fifty-five feet from the surface and he got stuck. Icy water was dripping in his face. The rescuers came in and diverted the water, and they talked with him, they calmed him down, but they couldn’t get him out.
He began to come unglued there, stuck in that cave. He was able to see the light, able to see where he wanted to be, hearing voices, getting food, but he was stuck and he couldn’t get out. So he slowly began to have raving lunacies about everything from chicken sandwiches to angels in white chariots. The newspapers got in on it, and ten thousand people came to see him. They sold hot dogs and sandwiches. It was a side show. Seventeen days later Floyd Collins died in that hole, able to see where he wanted to be and not able to get there.
• Popeye said, “I ‘y’am what I y’am”.
WANT
• What we desire the most
• What we expend our energy pursuing
• What we are addicted to
• In his book, I Shall Not Want, Robert Ketchum tells about a Sunday school teacher who asked her group of children if any of them could quote the entire twenty-third psalm. A little four-and-a-half-year-old girl was among those who raised their hands. A bit skeptical, the teacher asked if she could really quote the entire psalm. The little girl came to the podium, faced the class, made a little bow, and said: "The Lord is my shepherd, that’s all I want." She then bowed again and sat down.
DO
• Actions of life
• Mostly driven by what we want
• Sometimes driven by what we get
GET
• Result of our actions
• Reinforce our actions or modify our actions
• Negative consequences 2006:
• Two teenagers in Britain where so into Star Wars that they wanted to re-create the light-saber fighting scenes. So they got two fluorescent tubes, opened them up and poured petrol down it, then set them alight. One of them died, the other escaped with serious burns.
• A man was traveling by train home from work in the US. He fell asleep and missed his stop. He so wanted to get home that he pried open the train doors and jumped out. What he hadn’t considered was that the train was traveling across a bridge over a deep ravine at the time. Needless to say, he did not survive.
• In Croatia a man named Marko wanted to clean his chimney. He went to his workshop to build a tool to clean it. It was a very high chimney and his broom was too short. However, he planned to attach it to a chain, weigh it down at one end with a metal object and hang it in from the roof. He found what he thought was the perfect metal object –heavy yet small - and went about welding it to the chain. Somehow he overlooked that the object was a hand grenade and filled with explosive material. Marko was killed instantly.
Romans 7:14-25
1. If you’re tired of what you get, then you do something different…but it doesn’t always work and we fail
2. If you change what you do to get certain things but it’s not really what you want you find it is shallow and unappealing…eventually you’ll do what you want and find that it is shallow and unrewarding.
3. What you want is the driving force of your life but you realize that you are powerless to do anything about it…
4. That’s when God changes who you are!
How?
1. The Cross & the Tomb
a. God doesn’t only change our status (the cross). He changes who we are. (Resurrection)
2. The Bible & Time
a. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind (the Bible is the number one spiritual renewal tool of God)
b. Paul’s emphasis in his letters to the churches he nurtured was one of progressive growth.
i. He told Timothy to study
ii. He told the Ephesians to put on the new self which is being renewed day by day
c. Peter wrote to the believers that they should possess the fruitfulness of Christian Character in increasing measure.
d. These things take time!
3. Surrender
a. Salvation comes not from decision but from surrender.
b. Jerome was a Church Father who translated the Greek manuscripts into Latin and put the Bible in the language of the people. He purposefully lived in Bethlehem where Jesus was born. One night while living in Bethlehem, Jerome had a dream that Jesus visited him. The dream was so real to him that he collected all his money and offered it to Jesus as a gift. The Lord said, "I don’t want your money." So Jerome rounded up all of his possessions and tried to give them to Jesus. Again the Lord said, "I don’t want your possessions. Jerome then recalled the moment in his dream when he turned to Christ and asked, "What can I give you? What do you want?" Jesus simply replied, "Give Me your sin, that’s what I came for, I came to take away your sin. Give Me your sin."
c. I have recognized all of my want, do, and get have made a mess of life because of who I am. I surrender to the One I thought was my enemy because I have found that He is my friend.
d. “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 7:24-25
e. Surrender initially & continually
Conclusion
God doesn’t only change our status…He changes who we are.
