This past week, I went online to learn how to apply to be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition!
They ask, “Does your home desperately need some attention?” You are encouraged to print out an application and send it in. They also require each application to have a video tour of the home.
Include your family’s story. Make sure you tell us why you deserve a Makeover. Talk about how your life situation relates to your house and how having your home fixed would improve your life. Open up to us during the tour and give us a chance to get to know you. Then you should go back to the front of your house and say, “Bye ABC! Thanks for coming to see our home; we hope you pick us.”
Most of us are willing to admit that a makeover would help. But we don’t know how to make the makeover happen.
Don’t forget that Jesus is alive. That means that the life of Jesus is accessible for us today. He makes all things new. His life in us can mean an extreme makeover for us.
Jesus wants to impact every area of your life. We can tap into the resurrection power of Jesus so that our lives have more joy, more peace, and more kindness than we’ve ever known before.
This series is designed to help us get an extreme makeover from the inside out.
On TV’s Extreme Makeover, only a few people can be picked. The sponsors of the makeover only have limited resources.
That’s not true with God. He has unlimited resources. He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in all His ways.
Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool; what is the house that you would build for Me, and what is the place of My rest? All these things My hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word.”
Isaiah 66:1-2 (ESV)
Look – nabat - to show regard to, to pay attention to
This is the one I esteem… (NIV)
These are the people I am pleased with… (NCV)
This past week, I did a little study on what it means when God “looks” at us.
God “looks” to give us…
1. … His strength.
I don’t have the energy to do everything I need to do. I run out of gas. I bet I’m not alone. That’s why we need His strength.
For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him.
II Chronicles 16:9a (ESV)
He looks to give us His strength.
2. … His protection.
When you are driving on slick roads, you want His protection. When your kids head out to school or on a date, you want His protection.
The eyes of the LORD watch over those who do right; His ears are open to their cries for help.
Psalm 34:15 (NLT)
He looks to give us His protection.
3. … His reward.
This life is filled with injustice. Some guy at work conned the boss and got away with it. The bad guys sometimes get ahead in this life. But God is looking for just the right time to reward His people.
Great are Your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Your eyes are open to all the ways of men; You reward everyone according to his conduct and as his deeds deserve.
Jeremiah 32:19 (NIV)
He looks to give us His reward.
4. … His forgiveness.
Just a little thought about this past week, will remind us that we didn’t live the way we wanted to live. We let the people around us down. Worst, we let God down. But God is a God who lives to forgive. He’s looking for people who will confess and turn from sin.
Be not so terribly angry, O LORD, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people.
Isaiah 64:9 (ESV)
He looks to give us His forgiveness.
5. … His renewal.
It’s Extreme Makeover time. The biblical word for this is revival.
Return to us, O God Almighty! Look down from heaven and see! Revive us, and we will call on Your name.
Psalm 80:14a, 18a (NIV)
He looks to give us His renewal. We need this Makeover. We need renewal and revival.
Why is every form of moral impurity rampant in our evangelical, Bible-teaching churches? Why do the vast majority of people who say they know Christ never introduce anyone to Christ? Why are our churches loaded with people who want a part-time, convenient, weekend Christian experience and who show no serious interest in spiritual growth? Why do pastors have to twist people’s arms to give, to serve, to get involved in the work of the ministry? Why are church splits so common? Why are so many professing Christians barren, empty, hurting, confused, and in spiritual bondage? Why is the world so utterly disinterested in what we have to offer?
We need His renewal, His forgiveness, His reward, His support, and His strength. Who wouldn’t want all this? How do I get God to look at me this way?
We are impressed with success. The bigger, the brighter, the higher, the more spectacular someone is… well, that’s the people we look at. Stars.
But what impresses God?
The Lord will “look” at me when I…
1. … am humble.
But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble…
`aniy {aw-nee’} - poor, afflicted, humble, wretched
The opposite of humility, of course, is pride. What does pride look like? I don’t ask God for wisdom very often. I’m unwilling to admit that I am often the source of my relationship problems. I’m unwilling to see that the reason I end up in so much conflict is me! I don’t think I need to pray much. I act in self-sufficient ways. I do not see my sin.
A proud person puts himself beyond God’s grace.
Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor.
Proverbs 3:34 (ESV)
Notice that the verse says that God is scornful to the scorners. In the NT, this passage is paraphrased and it says God opposes the proud. “Oppose” is a military term describing a full army ready for battle. God is in full armor, ready to oppose the proud.
How does God oppose the proud? Our plans don’t work out. We run into all kinds of difficulties. My career plans are frustrated. The peace I want to have in my home never comes. How do we know that our difficulties aren’t somehow caused by our pride?
What does humility look like? It doesn’t look like being a marshmellow of a person.
On his way to a reception held in his honor, the general who later became President, Ulysses S. Grant, got caught in a rain shower. He offered to share his umbrella with a stranger walking in the same direction. The man said he was going to Grant’s reception out of curiosity – that he had never seen the general. The man said, “I have always thought that Grant was a much over-rated man.” And Grant replied, “That’s my view also.”
The higher you go in grace, the lower you will be in your own estimation.
You want your family to get favor? Your business? Your ministry? Your church? Your community? Then, be humble!
I wonder how many blessings I have forfeited for my life and for my family and for my ministry because of my pride. I wonder how much more favor I might have gotten from God if I had been more humble.
We ought to ask God to help us outdo one another in humility. That we’ll go lower and lower in our estimation of ourselves.
2. am contrite.
But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is… contrite in spirit…
nakeh {naw-keh’} - stricken, smitten
The word was used to describe a friend of David’s who was lame – a cripple. God is looking for people who know that they are crippled – lame spiritually.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Psalm 51:17 (ESV)
When we sin against our Savior, we don’t minimize its ugliness. We don’t play down the terrible offense it is to God. We don’t say God can’t get angry at us. Instead we tremble at his displeasure. We are broken by our sin and contrite and remorseful.
When was the last time we wept over our sin? Most of the time we are thinking this way: “It’s not that bad.” “I didn’t do what she did.” It’s been too long for me. I’m asking God to break my heart over my sin – to bring literal tears to my eyes.
We want to get to the solution side too quickly. We don’t’ want to do the hard work of mourning over our sins. We teachers of the word of God even apply the salve to a wound that is not yet free from infection. We don’t want to make anyone feel too uncomfortable. We too quickly get to the grace and short-circuit the work of God in our souls.
But the cancer can’t be healed unless we deal with it deeply. There is bad news about each of us. We are more depraved – more dark – than we can possibly know.
Mourn = deep grief and remorse, a complete despair that laments over sin the way someone mourns the death of a family member or close friend.
James is not condemning legitimate laughter or joy but rather the flippant, trivial, worldly, self-centered, sensual kind.
Joel 2:12 says, “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Even a committed Christian can slip into a casual attitude toward sin, presuming too much on God’s forgiving and merciful nature.
We’ve got to recognize our own spiritual poverty, to admit our desperate need of God’s help, and to submit to his commanding will for our lives. The more we see God as He really is, glorious and holy, the more clearly we see ourselves as we really are, sinful and depraved and in need of grace.
3. … tremble at His word.
But this is the one to whom I will look: he who… trembles at My word.”
chared {khaw-rade’} - trembling, fearful, afraid
Trembling. “Wait. I thought nothing is as sweet as the word of God!”
There are two kinds of trembling. One makes people hate God and run from Him. The other affects the heart and brings obedience for those who reverence God. God is looking for people who will listen to Him when He speaks.
You say you have a reverence for God? But if you disregard His word, you show that really take Him lightly.
You who tremble at His word, hear the word of the LORD.
Isaiah 66:5 (HCSB)
* * *
How can I become more broken? Three words:
1. Behold: see the Lord.
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.
Isaiah 6:1 (ESV)
2. Compare: confess my sin.
And one [seraphim] called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Isaiah 6:3, 5 (ESV)
3. Receive: seek my cleansing.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
Isaiah 6:6-8 (ESV)
A truth to take home: Beware the barrenness of an unbroken life.
A verse to remember: I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. (Psalm 57:15; NASB)
A question to answer: What is blocking me from experiencing more brokenness?
I once read an interview with one of the survivors of the Titanic. She was just a little girl when the ship they swore was unsinkable went down in the waters of the Atlantic. Over 1,500 passengers died that night.
The Titanic had been constructed with water tight compartments in the hull that were supposed to contain any flooding. The ship left England in April of 1812, traveling at speeds and through waters that were dangerous. But the Titanic was unsinkable, right?
Right. Until it hit that iceberg. Actually it only scraped the iceberg. Most passengers never even knew about it. But that simple scrape left a deep hole in the hull below the water line. For a while no one knew how much danger they were in. But within a short time the unsinkable ship was gone. The man who had designed it went down with the ship. In the interview, this crusty old survivor summed a lifetime of reflections on the Titanic in just a few words. She just said, “It was a monument to human arrogance.”
Human arrogance. It sinks more than ships. A lack of humility, a lack of brokenness, and a lack of trembling at the word of God has cost too many people too many blessings from God. For some, it’s cost them their Eternity.
It’s pretty sobering. If you can’t become humble and dependent, you’ll never get God’s look. Why? A lot of us are human Titanics steaming along through life feeling unsinkable. Our motto is “I can handle it.”
