Extreme Makeover: Soul Edition part 4:
Completion
by
Greg Hanson
Sunrise Wesleyan Church
November 26, 2006
Main Passage: Philippians
3:12-21 (NLT)
If you could have a
personal makeover, what would you change? Would you have liposuction?
Laser eye surgery? A nose job? A chin job? A face lift? Hair plugs? If
you could have a makeover, what would you change?
For the past few weeks we’ve been in this message series, Extreme
Makeover: Soul Edition. And we’ve talked about some of the changes that
happen in our lives as we choose to live for Jesus. We’ve seen that
when we come to Jesus, He makes us a brand new person. He re-creates us
from the inside out.
We’ve seen that this transformation isn’t just a superficial, cosmetic
change. No, we’re changed at the heart level. There are changes that
take place in our lives immediately when we come to Jesus, and there
are changes that He works in our lives every day of our lives. Some of
the changes are easy, some are more difficult. Some are fast, some only
happen over time. Some are major changes, some are minor changes.
We’ve also realized that this Makeover is not one that we can perform
on ourselves. God is the one who performs the Makeover. But we partner
with Him by giving Him permission, cooperating with what He’s doing,
and allowing the changes that He works in our lives to be expressed
outwardly.
And what are these changes that occur? Well, I think a good summary can
be found in Galatians chapter 5… Read it with me…
Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of
fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Those are the qualities that God is building into the new you. And
where were all of those qualities seen most fully? In Jesus. So as
these qualities develop more and more in our lives, we become more like
Jesus. We become more Christ-like. And we’ve seen all along throughout
this series that God’s desire is to make us like His Son… to make us
like Jesus.
But that doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a life-long process that we go
through. And the beautiful thing is that God always has more for us
every day. But there will come a day when His work is complete.
Philippians 1:6 (NLT)
And I am certain that God, who began the
good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally
finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
So there will come a day when the transformation is finished. And what
will happen on that day? Well, Lynn read about it earlier…
Philippians 3:21 (NLT)
He will take our weak mortal bodies and
change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power
with which he will bring everything under his control.
Well, that’s good news. Because if Jesus returns today, I don’t want to
be stuck with this body. Hey, I’m already making old man noises when I
stand up and sit down. No, I don’t want to be stuck with it. And if
Jesus doesn’t return for another thousand years, well, I don’t want to
be stuck with it then either (of corpse). No, when Jesus comes, these
frail bodies we now cope with will be transformed into glorious ones.
You know that one thing you’d want to change? Well, it will be changed.
In an instant it will be changed. This Makeover we’re going to go
through is not something you can attain at Curves, or at the Spa, or
through dieting, or at the hands of a plastic surgeon. This will be the
most extreme makeover you’ll ever get. It will be the end result that
makes everything we go through now worth it.
Now, will this Makeover be for everyone? No. No, it won’t. No, this
Makeover is reserved for those who are citizens of Heaven. That’s how
the apostle Paul described it. And basically he’s saying, “If you want
to experience the transformation then, you need to experience a
transformation now.” You’ve got to change your citizenship. You’ve got
to decide during this life time where you’re going to spend the next.
You’ve got to become a citizen of Heaven.
But what is a citizen of Heaven, anyway? Well, those of us who have
chosen to live for Jesus and have experienced the forgiveness and new
life that He offers… we are citizens of Heaven. Everyone is welcome to
become a citizen of Heaven, but only citizens of Heaven will experience
that final makeover then. Are you a citizen? If not, then you need to
give this some serious consideration today.
In fact, let’s just pause right now and give you an opportunity to do
that. If you’re not a citizen of Heaven right now, but you’d like to
become one, then it’s really quite simple. You choose to live for
Christ. It’s not always easy, but it’s simple. You choose to live for
Christ. That means that you seek to please Him, it means you read His
Word (the Bible) and allow it to impact your life, it means you allow
Him full access to your life and allow Him to begin to change you.
Basically, it means that your life becomes His life. You choose to live
for Him. And if you’d like to make that choice today, then you can pray
something like this…
Jesus, I’ve
been living for myself. But today I choose to live for you. I’m sorry
for trying to live my life without you. I want to receive your gifts of
forgiveness and eternal life today. And I want to place my trust in You
to transform me into the person You meant for me to be.
If you just prayed that,
then congratulations. Your citizenship just changed. Sure, you may
still hold citizenship here in Canada, but your primary citizenship is
now in Heaven. And someday you will be welcomed home there. You should
let somebody know about that here this morning.
Okay, so as citizens of Heaven, we have that as our final destination.
That’s where the Makeover will be complete. What do we do in the
meantime? How do we make our way toward Heaven now? Well, in that same
passage that Lynn read, Paul gave us a map. He told us how we get there
from here.
Philippians 3:13-14 (NLT)
…I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the
past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the
end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through
Christ Jesus, is calling us.
So what I want to do for the rest of our time here this morning, is
talk about that. How do we advance toward our final destination? How do
we progress toward the completion of our Makeover? How do we get there?
How do I reach my final makeover?
How Do I Reach My Final Makeover?
Paul said…
Philippians 3:13-14 (NLT)
…I focus on this one thing: Forgetting
the past…
So the first thing is…
1. Keep the
past in the past.
This means a couple of
things. First of all, your past failures… they’re in the past. You
don’t have to live in bondage to them any longer. You can be set free
from them. Don’t allow the failures of the past to hinder your progress
from here on out.
And I know this is a major thing for many of us. We all have hurts… we
all have those painful experiences that can continue to haunt us. But
you know what? We should learn from them, yes, but we should never
allow them to prevent us from moving forward. We should never be bound
by them. Jesus came to set us free from the failures of our past. And
if you’re struggling with something in your past, then you need to
begin to pray about it and trust Jesus to set you free.
But you know, it’s not just the failures that can bind us. For some,
it’s your past success. You may have accomplished some terrific things
in your life. And you should be applauded for that. But don’t rest
there. Don’t think that you’ve arrived. Those successes are in the
past, and there’s more ahead. And that’s the second thing that Paul
tells us…
Philippians 3:13-14 (NLT)
…I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the
past and looking forward to what lies ahead…
2. Stay alert
and aware.
When I was a teenager, I
did some stupid things. And I remember one occasion in particular when
I was out driving with a friend of mine. It was dark, and we were
exploring some of the back roads near Fredericton. We weren’t really
familiar with where we were. But we were driving along having a good
time just exploring.
Well, we started to wonder just how dark it was. I mean, we were
outside of the city, there were no street lights around… how dark was
it? And so we decided to find out. As we were driving, I switched off
the headlights for a second... turned them back on… and there in front
of us was a cement wall. It was actually one of the pillars under a
train bridge, I think. Well, we had just enough time to swerve and we
narrowly missed it.
I think you’d agree, that was pretty stupid. We had stopped looking
forward, we were unaware of what was right in front of us, and it
almost meant disaster for us.
You know what? There are all kinds of things that life will throw
across your path that could mean disaster for you… if you are not alert
and aware.
1 Peter 5:8 (NLT)
Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy,
the devil.
You’ve got to stay alert and aware of what’s happening in your life. Be
on your guard against any of the deceptive tricks of the devil.
1 Thessalonians 5:5-8 (NLT)
For you are all children of the light and of
the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. So be on your guard,
not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded… protected by
the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence
of our salvation.
Stay alert and aware. Next, Paul says to press on.
3. Press on
toward the goal.
Philippians 3:13-14 (NLT)
…I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the
past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to
reach the end of the race…
In these verses, Paul paints a picture of a race. And he says that to
finish the race the runner needs to press on. That was true for
marathon runners in his day, and it’s still true in our day. Watch this…
[Video – “Inspiration” from http://www.ingnycmarathon.org]
That was a video for the New York City Marathon, which was held just a
few weeks ago. The fastest runner this year was a Brazilian who
finished in just under two hours ten minutes. But I think most people
who finished the race took over three hours to do so. That’s a long
race. And where do you think those marathon runners had to press on?
Where do you think they had to really persevere?
Did they have to press on at the very beginning? No, they were full of
energy then. Pressing on is not an issue at the starting line. So did
they need to press on when the finish line was in sight? No, not
really. Because then they could see the end. They could see their goal.
And that’s more than enough to give them a second wind and motivate
them to cross the line.
I’ve never heard of a marathon runner who dropped out just before
crossing the finish line. They don’t drop out at either the beginning
or the end. So where do they drop out? They drop out in the middle.
When they start to ache, when they feel like they’re falling behind,
when the excitement they had at the beginning has diminished, when the
going gets tough. That’s when they’re tempted to just give up.
Have you ever heard of Florence Chadwick? Florence was the first woman
to swim the English Channel in both directions. Well, back in July of
1951, she attempted another swim. She attempted to swim from Catalina
Island to the California coast. Here you see it on the map.
[PowerPoint] But this time, the challenge was not the distance; the
challenge was the bone-chilling waters of the Pacific. And to
complicate matters, on the very day she chose to swim, a dense fog set
in over the entire area, making it impossible for her to see land. But
she set out anyway, and she swam and she swam and she swam, until she
couldn’t swim any more… and finally, after about 15 hours in the water,
Chadwick gave up. She climbed into the boat that was accompanying her…
only to discover that she was within a half a mile from her goal. She
would later tell a reporter, “Look, I’m not excusing myself. But if I
could have seen land, I might have made it.”
Well, she was pretty disappointed about what had happened. So not long
afterward, she attempted the feat again. And again, a fog set in so
that she couldn’t see the shore. But this time… this time… she made it.
Why? Because she kept reminding herself that the land was there. She
couldn’t see it yet, but she knew she was getting closer. So she
pressed on, and she achieved her goal. In fact, she broke the men’s
record by 2 hours!
[from
http://www.resourcefoundation.org/Community/Schools/Persev-i.shtml]
So when do you need to press on? When you’re well into the race and
you’re getting tired and you can’t see the finish line, but you know
it’s there… that’s when you must press on.
And when you consistently do these first three things… when you leave
the past in the past, when you look ahead at what’s coming your way,
and when you press on even when you might feel like giving up… you will
eventually finish the race and receive the prize.
That video we watched from the Marathon… It’s straight from the New
York City Marathon website, and it’s called Inspiration. And what was
the inspiration? It was crossing the finish line and received the
prize. Getting that medal. That’s why they ran the race… to finish it
and receive the prize. So that’s number four…
4. Receive your
reward in Heaven.
The marathon runners got
bragging rights and a medal to hang around their necks. What is your
reward? Well, we talked about it earlier. It’s when you will exchange
your weak, mortal bodies for glorious ones… like Christ’s own. Remember
we read…
Philippians 3:21 (NLT)
He will take our weak mortal bodies and
change them into glorious bodies like his own…
Now what that means, I don’t really know. I can’t exactly describe to
you what your resurrected body will be like. Not even John, one of
Jesus’ closest friends, could do that. He wrote…
1 John 3:2 (NLT)
Dear friends, we are already God’s children,
but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears.
But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he
really is.
So we don’t know exactly what our resurrected bodies will be like. But
we do know a little bit. We know that we will be like Him. We know…
1 Corinthians 15:43-44 (NLT)
Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but
they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they
will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies,
but they will be raised as spiritual bodies.
That was from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. In his
second letter, he continued this discussions and said…
2 Corinthians 5:1-5 (NLT)
For we know that when this earthly tent we
live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly
body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by
God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present
bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.
For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without
bodies… God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has
given us his Holy Spirit.
Joni Eareckson Tada, who herself is a quadriplegic, has talked about
this resurrection of the body and has described it this way…
“One day no more bulging middles or balding tops. No varicose veins or
crow’s-feet. No more cellulite or support hose. Forget the thunder
thighs and highway hips. Just a quick leapfrog over the tombstone, and
it’s the body you’ve always dreamed of. Fit and trim, smooth and sleek.”
~ Joni Eareckson Tada, in Heaven: Your Real Home
And that, my friends, is the Extremest Makeover. That’s our hope.
That’s what we’re aiming for.
Can you imagine what a
day that will be? Can you imagine what it will be like to have all of
the troubles of life behind us and perfection before us? Can you
imagine being freed from the limitations of these weak mortal bodies
and to receive new, glorious ones? Can you understand how it will all
be worth it on that day?
Well, for now we can only imagine. We certainly can’t describe it. But
that promise of a future reward is enough to give us the focus and the
courage and the perseverance to press on until we get there.
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