Extreme Makeover: Dead Guy Edition

pray

Back in the early 2000’s there was this TV show that was on for a few years called Extreme Makeover. I don’t remember every watching it, but I remember hearing about it and what the show was about. It was really kind of a gross idea…

There were a couple spin-offs…

But the original basically went with the idea of finding people that were so unattractive that they couldn’t do anything to help themselves so they needed all this help from plastic surgeons and people to yell at them to exercise and professional stylists. And I guess the thought was that they would have amazing new lives because they were pretty now.

Well getting saved is kind of like that! But it’s dead guy edition. We’re going to see tonight that we are dead and unable to do anything to save ourselves. The Bible says that even the good things we try to do on our own, apart from Jesus, are like filthy rags. But there’s good news!

God raises dead sinners to life in Christ because He loves us with a great love!

read 2:1-10

Dead

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Our sinful nature makes us spiritually dead, unable to do anything to honor our holy God.

There’s a movie that came out in 1994. It’s an incredible movie. It’s called Dumb and Dumber. The short version of what the movie is about is…

There’s this scene where their pet bird gets killed…

God’s wrath

Matthew 10:28 ESV

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Mark 9:45 ESV

And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell.

We have to first acknowledge and accept that we are sinful. Then we must believe that God is rightfully angry about our sin, that it is right for Him to punish sin. Then we begin to understand how grave a problem it is, the seriousness of our situation. That something must be done, but we are unable to do anything.

Extreme Makeover

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God makes spiritually dead sinners alive with Jesus.

Use a glove to illustrate our inability to save ourselves. To do anything. That’s us. In our sins, so talk about the glove being in nastiness.

Romans 5:8 ESV

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We are saved through faith…

If you have not put your faith in Jesus to be saved from God’s wrath against your sin, to be saved to a seat with Christ in the heavenly places, believe on Him tonight!

New life

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Receiving this gift is not the end. The gift must be put to good use.

One of the most frustrating things about being a parent is all the junk we by y’all for Christmas that you use once and then it just sits in a corner and collects dust and gets in the way! They’ve gotten so many watches that are just stuck in random places now. I’ll be trying to find something in a drawer and come across one and it just aggravates me. For like two years there was one somewhere in the kitchen that had an alarm that went off every night!

If you get a gift and never use it, you don’t truly appreciate it. You don’t see it’s value. We use the gift of salvation and life by honoring God with our lives!

Titus 3:8 ESV

The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

Good works, living lives in obedience to God’s Word to honor Him, is that natural response to receiving this gift of salvation. The visible evidence of inward faith.

In other words, if you say you are a Christian, but nothing in your life has changed, you aren’t genuinely trying to live a God-honoring life, then you may be lying to yourself.

I was lying to myself for a while before I became a Christian…

If you have truly put faith in God, then it is only logical that you would obey his Word…

So Christian, you were saved for good works, walk in them!