Sermon Series -- An Inside Look
Text: “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
This is the last part of our Inside Look series. We’ll take our last look at one of your bedrooms tonight – and we saved the best for last!
Show Video Clip. Trading Spaces Introduction
Trading Spaces: Redesigned from the Inside Out
TV show. Trading Spaces. Yet another TLC creation. People agree to let their family or friends or neighbors come in and redecorate a room in their home, while they do the same to the other person’s house. Needless to say, it can get quite interesting with some of the things they come up with. Sometimes things get really messed up and the people aren’t happy. Other times, the rooms were in desperate need for a facelift and it helped a great deal.
It’s not just our homes that need redecorating, but our lives as well. We need to be redesigned. All of us start out flawed. We have a tendency to sin. We’re drawn to it. We’re also drawn to God, but the conflict remains. And we all blow it and give in to sin.
Romans 3:23 “Because all people have sinned, they have fallen short of God’s glory.” (GWT)
That’s everyone. You. Me. The person sitting next to you. Your Mom. Your Dad. Everyone. We’ve all blown it and just don’t measure up when it comes to God’s standard.
When you have a decorator that knows what they’re doing, they walk into a room and see the potential. They see what could be done to make things better.
God takes a look at our lives and sees so much potential. He sees what your life could be like. And like Trading Spaces, we just need to step out of the way and let Him come in and do his thing. God wants to help you get your life where it should be and where it could be. We just need to let him.
2 Cor. 3:16-18 (GW)
But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
17This Lord is the Spirit. Wherever the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom. 18As all of us reflect the Lord’s glory with faces that are not covered with veils, we are being changed into his image with ever-increasing glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
God wants to redecorate our lives, and He wants to pour himself into it. Using himself as a model, God will show you how you can be changed.
God’s Redecorating Tips
Clean Things Up
One Trading Spaces, the first thing they need to do is come in and get rid of everything that can’t be used. They tear up carpet, throw out old furniture. They clean house. They can’t really do much else until all of the old junk is gone.
How many of you have bedrooms that really couldn’t have much done until the junk was gone. Anyone have a junkyard for a room? Well, at least one of you does…
It’s time once again for our next, and final, victim as we take An Inside Look… on location.
SHOW MATT BOPP VIDEO
Obviously, there’s a little bit of cleaning up that needs to be done in Matt’s room. But he doesn’t. The question is why?
We have a lot of things in our lives that need to be cleaned up. We’ve all got junk there that needs to be removed. Problems with sin. Things we watch or listen to that is not glorifying to God. Habits we don’t let go of. We know things need to be cleaned up, but we don’t. The question is why?
In reality the reason is the same for both Matt’s room and your life. Matt doesn’t clean his room because he’s used to it. He’s comfortable in the refuse. In fact, he probably doesn’t even notice it’s a problem until his mom has company coming over and threatens to kick him out of the house if he doesn’t clean it up.
The reason we don’t feel the need to get rid of the junk in our lives is because we get used to it. We’ve lived with our mess for so long that it doesn’t even bother us. The hardest part about turning your life around is recognizing the need to do it.
I was talking to someone the other day… I’ll protect their name in the sermon. But he was talking about a new movie and how much he liked it. He said I needed to see it. I told him I wouldn’t because of the language in it. He said it wasn’t that bad, and I proceeded to tell him that they dropped an “f-bomb” in the movie. He argued with me until I told him about the website I use to screen movies and they detail every bit of content. He said he didn’t even notice it.
That’s where we get if we’re not careful. We get to the point where we get comfortable with the garbage. Where we are so accustomed to it that we don’t even know it’s there.
We get that way about the things we watch and listen to, and we also get that way about the things we do. Maybe the language we use. Maybe the way we treat other people. Maybe the way we respond to our parents. Maybe the shortcuts we take to get a better grade or get something we can’t afford. We allow ourselves to let the junk pile up and it’s time to clean up.
So how do we do it?
There’s a couple things that will help us. In Matt’s room, someone had to look at it from the outside to point out the mess. Tony did a great job of that. But don’t think Tony is without his faults. Tony went into work last week and realized he had locked his keys in the car when we went outside after an eight hour day. To make things worse, the engine was still running! Anyway, Tony was able to see Matt’s room from a different perspective.
We need to allow others to see into our lives. We need to have people that we are accountable to who can help us to identify the problem areas of our lives and deal with them.
James 5:16 (Msg) Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.
If you don’t have someone who can do that for you, do two things. 1) Come to me or another leader and ask them to help you, and 2) Pray for God to send a friend to you who is like that.
We need to have other people help us. The second thing we need to do is ask God to show us where we need to clean up.
Psalm 139:23-24 (Msg)
Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about; 24
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
We need to make it a normal part of our prayer lives to ask God to show us where we need to take out the trash. He will show you. The Holy Spirit is ready and willing to help you identify areas where you need to change.
Then, after we’ve seen what we need to work on, we need to ask God to forgive us and move on. We need to move on. In fact, part of the cure of living with garbage in your life is to live without garbage one day at a time.
Darrell made a decision in the past to not watch movies that had "content" in them. Instead, he rents movies from CleanFlicks, a company that edits the garbage out of movies. Recently, he watched a regular movie that had not been edited. He was shocked at what he’d allowed himself to watch before.
Psalm 51:7 (Msg)
Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
Ask God to forgive you and your life is made new. Which brings us to God’s second redecorating tip…
Get a New Look
1 Samuel 10:5-7 (Msg)
"Next, you’ll come to Gibeah of God, where there’s a Philistine garrison. As you approach the town, you’ll run into a bunch of prophets coming down from the shrine, playing harps and tambourines, flutes and drums. And they’ll be prophesying. 6Before you know it, the Spirit of God will come on you and you’ll be prophesying right along with them. And you’ll be transformed. You’ll be a new person!
7"When these confirming signs are accomplished, you’ll know that you’re ready: Whatever job you’re given to do, do it. God is with you!
We God gets a hold of your life, you become a different person.
Isaiah met God and he talked differently. Jacob wrestled with God and he walked differently. Saul ran into God on the road to Damascus and he lived differently.
You can’t have a genuine encounter with God and remain the same.
Women have this thing about getting bored with their appearance. Their hair, their clothing. Whatever. They feel the need to reinvent themselves every so often or they die from boredom. Guys on the other hand don’t care. I have worn my hair the same way since 1990. That’s twelve years. Some might consider that stale. I like to think of it as consistent.
Anyway, when a girl wants a new look, she goes into a salon, and often takes a picture with her. “I want to look like her.” Now in some cases, you know the stylist is thinking something like, “Girl, it would take a lot more talent than I have to make you look like that!” But there’s an image out there that they’re shooting for.
We need a spiritual image to set our sights on as well. We need to find a goal – a target to shoot for. No surprise to many of you, that goal – that image – is Jesus.
Hebrews 12:2 (Msg)
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it, because he never lost sight of where he was headed.
If you set Jesus as “the new look” you’re going for, you’ll be on the right track.
Be Different
If you’ve ever watched episodes of Trading Spaces, you’ll know that not all of the rooms look the same when they’re done. Even if the same decorator did them, they all are different.
We’ve all had the same creator, and the same God wants to redecorate all of our lives. He wants to come in and put the finishing touches on your life.
The problem here is that too many of us don’t want to be different. We want to be clones of everyone else around us. We want to wear the same clothes, listen to the same music, watch the same movies, go to the same parties, do the same things – whether they honor God or not.
God tells us we need to be different.
Romans 12:2 (Msg)
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
There are two types of people in the world. You can be a thermometer, and whatever the temperature is around you, you adjust to it. People want you to be a certain way, you do it.
Or, you can be a thermostat. You set the temperature. You read what is going on around you and make the changes necessary to be a difference-maker. It’s not always easy, but God will give you the strength to make it happen.
Dare to be different. Break the mold and resist the pressure to conform to what everyone else is doing, because in most cases, the flow is not headed in God’s direction. You’ve got to be willing to fight the flow. To swim against the current and lock in on God.
Final Thought
Being different from the world is not something we do on the outside, but on the inside.
1 Samuel 16:7 (Msg)
“God judges persons differently than humans do. Men and women look at the face; God looks into the heart."
Take a look inside today. Let God in and let him take what you have to offer and turn it into something incredible.
