April 28, 2002 2 Corinthians 5:17
“More than a makeover”
INTRODUCTION
[read 2 Cor. 5:17] Another pastor told the story of an interesting classmate that he had while he was in Bible college. His name was Shannon. What made him interesting was his looks. His hair was a different color each week, his ears were loaded with earrings, and he wore the big loose grunge style clothing. But the most interesting point of style was his shorts, and he always wore shorts regardless of the weather. What made his shorts so odd was the way he wore them. You see he always wore his shorts backwards. As you could imagine anyone who dressed like that at a Bible College stuck out like a sore thumb. One day this pastor in training couldn’t stand it any longer and his judgmental sarcasm got the best of him and he had to make a crack about Shannon’s shorts. To his surprise Shannon was ready for that criticism. Shannon turned to him and said, “I’ll tell you just like I tell everyone else who asks me why I wear my shorts backwards. I tell them that God turned my life around so fast that my shorts couldn’t keep up.”
For the past month, we’ve been talking about what it takes to get a fresh start in life. We saw that God is the only source of fresh start and that He offers it to all who will come to Him. We learned that in order to get a fresh start, you have to deal with who you are and the past you’ve lived and receive the forgiveness that God offers. Two weeks ago, we saw that in order for a fresh start to have real meaning, you have to go in a totally new direction. You don’t get a fresh start just so you can live the way that you used to live and mess everything up all over again. And then, last week, we saw that in order to go God’s way, you have to allow your thinking to be changed by putting God’s thoughts – God’s Word – into your mind. This morning, we’re going to examine the changes that God wants to make in the lives of every individual.
When the world wants a change, they get a new hair-do, new clothes or a new spouse. As soon as the novelty of that wears off, they get bored and change something else about themselves. “Wouldn’t it be great as you got older if you could get new parts? Yes, I know that through the magic of modern medicine you can [get a makeover. You can] have all kind of things stretched, pulled, pinched, tucked, tweaked, enhanced, suctioned and peeled. But all that is only a matter of moving pieces and parts around so that no one can see the effects of how badly we have treated our bodies.” - J. Douglas Duty, jr. God wants to give you more than a makeover – God wants to create a brand new person. God isn’t interested in re-decorating. God wants to change you so radically that everyone around you notices a difference – not because you wear your shorts backwards, but because you live life backwards. You live life totally different from the way you used to live it and totally the opposite of the way the rest of the world lives it. Let’s take a look at what these changes are, and then I’ll tell you how you can have them for yourself.
1. You get a new home in heaven (5:1) – eternal, not temporary
Of all the changes that God makes in the lives of the believer, this is the only one that you have to wait until later to enjoy BUT you have a great guarantee (i.e. the Holy Spirit). Add to that the fact that when Jesus went away to heaven, He went there to prepare a home for us. And He said that when He returns, He will carry us with him to that new home.
The home here is also a new home for your spirit in a new body. The body will be like Jesus’ body. The purpose of a makeover is to get someone to say, “Wow! I didn’t even recognize you!” That is exactly what happened with Jesus.
God made the original bodies beautiful. They were so beautiful that Adam and Eve could go around naked and show every part of their body without embarrassment. I mean there was a reason that Adam called Eve “woman”. He took one look at her and the first words out of his mouth were “Woe man!” Now think about your own body. What part of your body will you be embarrassed for others to see when you put on that bathing suit this summer – the belly that hangs out, the hair that covers every part of your body, the scars that you’ve had since you were a kid, or the stretch marks from your pregnancies. When God creates a new body for you, it will be perfect. There will be no reason to hide anything.
Which would you rather have – a body that has been made by the loving hand of God, or a body that has been surgically or medically altered to get it as good as man can get it? There are a lot of differences between makeovers and new creations.
Makeovers are temporary. “what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” If you get a tan, it fades a few months after summer is over. If you get a new hairdo, it lasts only until the first time you have to wash it. After that, you can never get it to look quite as good as it did when you left the hair salon. If you put in hair color, as your hair grows, the gray will start to show once again. If you lose weight, it is all to easy to regain that weight. Any change that you make to your physical appearance is temporary. But the change that God will one day make is eternal!
Makeovers are done by men. “not built by human hands” They have never seen a perfect body. All that men can do is make a body as beautiful as they can imagine. God has a much better imagination. Change is accomplished by God.
Makeovers are limited to what men have to start with. There is only so much that a cosmetic surgeon can do with some of you. Right now, I have a dentist appointment lined up in which the dentist is going to fix this front tooth so that it looks like it was never broken. But there is another tooth in my mouth that is so badly broken that he’s going to have to pull it out. There’s not enough left there for him to work with. (illus. One of Victoria’s favorite movies is “Miss Congeniality”, the movie with Sandra Bullock in which she is an FBI agent who has to be made up as a beauty queen in order to go undercover. The guy put in charge of the makeover thinks it impossibility because of what he has to work with. She walks like a man, she talks like a man, she dresses like a man.) God has no limitations.
TRANS: Because of what we have waiting for us on the other side, something else is made new. We get a new perspective on life and death.
2. You get a new perspective on life and death (5:7) – faith, not sight
Paul says that we live by faith and not by sight. One of the things that we have to have faith about is the statement that we read in vs. 17 “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come.” It would be nice if after a person takes Jesus Christ as their Savior, something physical happens in their life. A butterfly has a physical change to show that something miraculous has happened. She can’t very well deny it or keep it a secret. It’s kind of hard to hide those vibrantly colored wings. Some people who come to Christ expect there to be a Cinderella experience where one moment she looks like a housemaid, and the next, she looks like a princess. Or they hope for a frog-to-prince fairy tale.
A lady was strolling in the park one day, & a little frog came hopping up to her. The frog looked up at her & said, "If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a handsome prince." She looked at the frog for a moment, reached down, picked up the frog, put it in her pocket & then kept on walking. Another stroller who had seen & heard everything, asked her, "Lady, I’m curious. Why didn’t you kiss the frog?" She answered, "Well, in today’s market, a talking frog is worth a whole lot more than a talking man."
If the change was on the outside, it would be much easier to accept. It was easy for Cinderella to live like a princess once she looked like a princess. God’s Word says that I have been changed, that everything about me has become new. I don’t look new, but God says that I am new. It doesn’t look like the old, including the punishment for that old life, has gone. But God says that it has, so I accept it by faith even though I can’t see it. It is easy to get discouraged in your walk with the Lord, thinking I should be further along than I am now. I move three steps forward, and then I fall four steps back. Was I ever really changed? If you are “in Christ” as Paul says, then YES, you have already been changed. You have been created new, and God is still changing you even now. The outward change is coming one day, but for now, we have to understand that God is working on the inside.
Other things have changed in my perspective too.
Death has become something to be welcomed not feared. [read vs. 6-8] Not only will death make it possible for us to receive a new body, but it will put us in the presence of Jesus. For that reason, Paul says that death is preferrable to life.
Life has become something to be lived, and used and treasured not just something to be survived or worse, wasted. The whole “Survivor” series has gotten us into the mindset that our greatest ambition in life must be just to survive until the end. Whoever stabs the other guy in the back, whoever learns to lie through his teeth the best, whoever survives until the end at the expense of everyone else wins the big prize. Maybe the TV show didn’t get us into that mindset. Maybe it just echoed a mindset that we already have. God wants so much more than that for us and from us. Look at verse 9 [read it]. Our goal is not to survive. Our goal is to please God. Life is to be lived for him in all the fulness that He offers.
Turn to Phil 1:20-26. Paul talks about an internal struggle that he was experiencing. He wanted to leave this world behind and be with Christ, but he knew that if he stayed, it would enable him to minister to more people. He had a new perspective on life and on death. Death was not an awful thing to be feared, and life was to be used in service to other people not for self-gratification. In the latter half of vs. 20, he says that his desire is that “Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
3. You get a new motivation for service (5:14) – love, not self-commendation
Love does not boast (1 Cor 13:4) or as the KJV says, it “vaunteth not itself”.
When you love someone, you not only show change in yourself, but you also have the greatest potential of seeing them changed.
I want to tell you about Arthur. If you had seen Arthur when he stepped off the bus in Kingston, Ontario, you would never have been able to guess his past. He would blend into the background and be just like any traveling salesman, or perhaps a grandfather coming to visit his family. However, Arthur’s vital statistics were anything but average. He was released from prison at the age of 53, yet incredibly had spent 42 years behind bars.
He began his prison career at the age of 11. No prison seemed capable of holding him; no prison system seemed capable of breaking his spirit or reforming his behavior. He served 24 of those years in solitary confinement. Seventeen months he sat on death row. He participated in prison riots, broke a guard’s arm, another guard’s collar bone, and brought about the death of one sheriff. In one prison in Indiana, he stole 40 pounds of cyanide while working in the prison with the idea of poisoning the entire prison staff. He spent 31 months in Devil’s Island Prison confined in a 5 x 7 foot cell, chained by his neck. Society had no hope for him, they just tried their best to confine him.
But something happened in Arthur’s life to dramatically change all of that. It began one day in Leavenworth, Kansas, while in prison. A preacher came to visit in the prison and brought along his 14-year-old son, Timmy. As Timmy followed his dad down the row of cells, he for some reason paused by Arthur’s cell, and smiled and winked.
That’s all it took. Arthur responded, called him back to the cell and began to verbally abuse him; to curse, to swear, to call him everything he could think of. The boy broke down in tears, but he stood his ground. Finally he simply said these words to Arthur, "I love you."
Arthur said later, "That was the first time in all of my life anyone had ever told me that."
Arthur began to receive letters from Timmy. Timmy would write to him and share his concern. Timmy prayed for him. For seven years those letters kept coming, and correspondence began to be exchanged between them; until Arthur finally broke down and he said, "Every letter was stained with his tears. I couldn’t take it anymore. I got on my knees and came to the Lord."
God did two miracles in the life of Arthur. The first was to transform a hate-filled, violent man into a man of love and grace with the ability to care for others. Then God did a double miracle, because He saw fit to have him released from prison in spite of that kind of a background and record. Though he had cancer, he set about proclaiming Christ with the years that he had left. -- Dr. Kenneth G. Hanna
4. You get a new attitude toward people (5:16) – brothers, not adversaries
In a Christian catalog that I receive, I came across a book that intrigued me by its title. The title was How to not let jerks get the best of you. And I thought, “That’s interesting. I thought that, as a Christian, it was no longer okay to call anyone a ‘jerk’.” And maybe it’s not okay to call them jerks anymore, but the fact of the matter is that there are still a lot of jerks out there. There may be some in here. When a person gets changed by God, their attitude toward people changes, even those who are jerks. It’s not that the people have changed. They’re still the same jerks that they always were, and they will keep on acting jerky until God changes them too. Even though they haven’t changed, you have changed in how you see them. They have become new to you. Everything has become new like you’re seeing them through a child’s eye for the first time. That makes sense though because the Bible describes the salvation experience as being “born again”. And Jesus said that if anyone would enter the kingdom of God, he must become as a little child.
A young woman lived under very discordant conditions at home. She was dissatisfied, and her discontent was manifest in her face, her manner, and the tone of her voice. Trifles irritated her; and, had it been possible, she would gladly have traveled to the end of the earth to get away from her disagreeable environment.
Some time after, a friend met her and saw in her smiling face that a change had taken place. "How are things at home?" he inquired. "Just the same," was the reply, "but I am different." -Selected. William Moses Tidwell, "Pointed Illustrations."
Paul regarded Christ as his enemy at one time. The reason was that he judged Jesus based on what he had seen and heard, and had never entered into a personal relationship with Jesus. You know what you call it when you judge people before you get to know them? You call it prejudice. And some of the most prejudicial people are Christians. Our prejudice has cost us dearly.
In his autobiography, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that during his student days he read the Gospels seriously and considered converting to Christianity. He believed that in the teachings of Jesus he could find the solution to the caste system that was dividing the people of India. So one Sunday he decided to attend services at a nearby church and talk to the minister about becoming a Christian. When he entered the sanctuary, however, the usher refused to give him a seat and suggested that he go worship with his own people. Gandhi left the church and never returned, “If Christians have caste differences also, “ he said, “I might as well remain a Hindu.” That usher’s prejudice not only betrayed Jesus but also turned a person away from trusting Him as Savior.
God hates prejudice. In James 2, it says this: “My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.” In vs. 4, he says that when you show favoritism or prejudice, you become “judges with evil thoughts.” Then in vs. 9, he says, “if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers.”
I look forward to the day that a black, or hispanic, or asian family walks into this church and decides to stick around. A few minutes ago, we talked about the marvelous makeover that we’re going to get when we get to heaven. That makeover is NOT going to include a bath that turns everyone into white European looking people! In Revelation, it records that heaven will be filled with people of all nationalities and colors. You’d better get used to people who are different than you now, because if you plan on being in heaven, you will be with black people and hispanic people, and asian people for a very long time.
Our world is so used to prejudice and the hate that it breeds that when someone chooses to go beyond prejudice and see into a person’s heart, it can go a long way toward bringing healing to hurting people.
Rabbi Michael Weisser lived in Lincoln, Nebraska. And for more than 3 years, Larry Trapp, a self-proclaimed Nazi & Ku Klux Klansman, directed a torrent of hate-filled mailings & phone calls toward him. Trapp promoted white supremacy, anti-Semitism, & other messages of prejudice, declaring his apartment the KKK state headquarters & himself the grand dragon. His whole purpose in life seemed to be to spew out hate-ridden racial slurs & obscene remarks against Weisser & all those like him.
At first, the Weissers were so afraid they locked their doors & worried themselves almost sick over the safety of their family. But one day Rabbi Weisser found out that Trapp was a 42-year-old clinically blind, double amputee. And he became convinced that Trapp’s own physical helplessness was a source of the bitterness he expressed. So Rabbi Weisser decided to do the unexpected. He left a message on Trapp’s answering machine, telling him of another side of life…a life free of hatred & racism. Rabbi Weisser said, "I probably called 10 times & left messages before he finally picked up the phone & asked me why I was harassing him. I said that I’d like to help him. I offered him a ride to the grocery store or to the mall." Trapp was stunned. Disarmed by the kindness & courtesy, he started thinking. He later admitted, through tears, that he heard in the rabbi’s voice, "something I hadn’t experienced in years. It was love."
Slowly the bitter man began to soften. One night he called the Weissers & said he wanted out, but didn’t know how. They grabbed a bucket of fried chicken & took him dinner. Before long they made a trade: in return for their love he gave them his swastika rings, hate tracts, & Klan robes. That same day Trapp gave up his Ku Klux Klan recruiting job & dumped the rest of his propaganda in the trash. "They showed me so much love that I couldn’t help but love them back," he finally confessed.
5. You get a new reason to exist (5:20) – a ministry, not a job
On the front cover of your bulletin this morning, you will find a bridge. It reminds me of the covered bridge that is being renovated just past the mall. Paul says that when He came to Christ, he received a brand new reason for existing, a new purpose to fulfill. He became a bridge-builder. Look at vs. 18 – 20. [read it making comments] First, Paul was reconciled to God. God the Father built a bridge between himself and Paul as well as all mankind when He sent Jesus. According to vs. 21, Jesus became sin for us in order that we might have the righteousness necessary for us to enter into a relationship with the Father. He built a bridge that Paul could cross over. But then God did something else. He gave Paul the opportunity to build bridges that would bring other people to Jesus so that they too could be reconciled to God. Paul says that he became an ambassador for God. Talk about a fresh start! One who had been the enemy of God has now been recruited by God to bring others into a personal relationship with Him.
[Call out to different people in the congregation and ask them what their job is. After receiving several responses, say] All those things that you just called out may pay the bills in your family, but they are not your reason for existing. They are not your overall responsibility on this earth. Your responsibility is to be a bridge-builder – making it possible for people to get from where they are to where they can clearly see Jesus and respond to Him in faith.
This morning, I, like Paul, am a bridge-builder – an ambassador for God. I have shared with you the changes that are available to you. The verse says, “If anyone”. There are no limitations on who can be changed. It is available to all. “If anyone is in Christ” The only requirement for God to erase your past and make you new is that you come to Jesus and place your faith in Him to forgive you and start you on a new path. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.” Or as the KJV says, “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I, like Paul, am a bridge-builder. And I, like Paul, implore, beg, plead with you to be reconciled with God today.
CONCLUSION
A man was selling an old warehouse, the building had been empty for months and needed repairs. Gangs had damaged the doors, smashed the windows, and thrown trash everywhere. As he showed a prospective buyer the property, the man took pains to say that he would replace the broken windows, bring in a crew to correct any structural damage, and clean out the garbage.
“Forget about the repairs,” the buyer said. “When I buy this place, I’m going to build something completely different. I don’t want the building; I want the site.
Compared with the re-creation that God has in mind, our efforts to improve our own lives are as trivial as sweeping a warehouse that is slated for the wrecking ball.
When we become God’s, the old life is over, He makes all things new. All he wants is the site and the permission to build.
Will you give Him your life today and give Him permission to build a brand new you?
