News commentator Paul Harvey tells about the time the Italian sailing team went to Australia to participate in the America’s Cup race. Gucci, the famous Italian designer, had outfitted them with all the latest sportswear fashions before they left for Australia. After they arrived, the men had some time to kill, so they rented a car and drove out into the bush. They wanted to see some kangaroos. They not only saw one, they ran into it. They jumped out of the rented Land Rover and ran over to the kangaroo. It was just lying there on the roadway without moving. They took some pictures. Then one guy had the idea that it would be funny if he put his expensive Gucci jacket on the animal and took its picture. So he did. Just after he got the coat on the limp kangaroo and stepped back to take a picture, the creature revived and hopped away so fast he couldn’t catch it. Somewhere in the Australia outback is a fashionably dressed kangaroo. He wears a Gucci jacket, and in the pocket are the keys to a Land Rover and the team’s credit card.
Just because you might look like a team member on the outside doesn’t mean you are a member of the team.
Some people change their outside to fit what the world wants then to be...
ILL>>> “The Total Body Makeover” TV show -- New nose, new facelift, new tummy, new teeth, new cheeks, new chin ...
No man can change who you really are inside, only God can do that. He gives us a ...
A Total Life Makeover >>>Col. 3 --
Beginning with a ... v1-7
I. A New Mind
A. A New View //seek (co-resurrected) v1 - saved
Rom 6:5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:
ILL>>>One night a little boy fell out of bed. His father raced into the room to find the little guy crying and trying to climb back up into the bed. The father asked, "Son, what happened, why did you fall out of bed?" The little boy answered, "Daddy, I guess I went to sleep a little too close to where I got in." That is the trouble with many people in the Lord’s work - they never get in far enough to keep from falling out of it.
B. A New Focus // set your mind on things above v2
1. We died to sin at salvation
2. We are alive (hidden) with God // protected //
ILL>>>"The only people who really want somebody else to change them are wet babies. The goal of counseling is not to change people. It is to provide a relationship in which persons learn to change themselves--a relationship in which people mature." --Les Parott III (in Helping the Struggling Adolescent, Zondervan, 1993)
C. A New Life v4 He is our whole life - Jn 14:6 - I am the Way, the Truth and the Life...
D. A New Death - dying to sin v5 ...which is idolatry! How? - walk away/ focus on heavenly things
1. Because the wrath of God will fall v6
2. Because you are walking in a different life now v7
Another way to understand this total life makeover is to realize God made us into ... v8-17
II. A New Man
Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
Rom 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Rom 6:8 Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him:
A. Put off the old man v8 v9 do not lie
2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
B. Put on the New understanding = renewed New equality of people v11 renewed in knowledge // of people ...ect
C. Put on New relationship skills v12-13
ILL>>>A handicapped girl with leg braces became discouraged with her condition and wished she could quit her physical therapy. One day when her father insisted that she continue, she fell into his arms and asked, "Daddy, don’t you love me just the way I am?" Knowing how she felt, he hugged her and replied, "Yes, honey, I love you just the way you are. But I love you too much to let you stay that way."
D. Put on a New Priorities v14 above all...
1. Love v14
2. peace v15
3. WOG v16 teaching, encouraging, singing
4. the Name of Jesus = everything
III. New Manners
A. A New life in the Home
1. Wives submit as is fitting in the Lord
Eph 5:22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
Eph 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Eph 5:24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Eph 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
2. Husbands love // not bitter
A wife told her husband not to forget that the family would not be in the same house when he got home from work. She reminded him that the moving truck was coming and that they would be on the other side of town when he got off work that evening. He was appalled that she would even think for a moment that he would not remember that they were moving. Well, he went to work and just like she thought, he forgot and drove back to the old house. He went in to see the house empty and then he remembered. The family had moved and he was supposed to drive to the new home. But he had even forgotten the address of their new house. He went outside and saw a boy riding a bike in front of the house. He said, "Hey son, do you know the people that used to live in this house?" The boy acknowledged that he did and then the boy said, "Yea dad, mom left me here, she said you would forget where the family has moved."
3. Children obey
4. Fathers provoke not / not mean or degrading, or discouraging
B. A New life at work
5. Employees - obey v22-25
6. Employers be just & fair 4:1
The Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., is an imposing structure. It is a black granite wall upon which are craved the names of 58,156 young Americans who died in combat during that conflict. Since 1982, this memorial has stood as a silent, dark reminder of the price of war. Three names appear on that wall which are of great interest: Robert Bedker, Willard Craig, and Darrall Lausch. These three names were carved on the wall by mistake. They are listed as dead, but they are alive. For the child of God, death may carve our name on a tombstone, but we will still be alive.
