Romans 8_29-30 Tweaking or Transforming

Secular:

Trading spaces…

Less than perfect room…
Limited budget…
So cool cosmetics
Surfaces painted… few pictures hung… couple of garage sale treasures…
TWEAKING some space in their life… make it more presentable… more enjoyable.

Extreme Homemaker…

Broken… wounded families…
Broken and inadequate homes
Start from the ground up…
Demolish what was their…
Made new… made whole…
TRANSFORMED… what was old is new… a complete change… only the address is the same…

We have been promised an Extreme Makeover…
To often we settle for Trading Spaces…
The Spirit promises to Transform…
The Human being can only Tweak…
One is a 48 hour experiment…
The Other is Big… ground up… change…

Biblical:

29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

Personal:

’72 VW - 411 Fastback
Fun Car… handled well... Fuel Injected
Few Problems though…
Highway #1
Another problem occurred when Lisa had borrowed it to go to work…

Find the battery
Change the battery
Light up Lisa…

Still a ’72 VW 411
Sea King… Canada bought 41 of the single-rotor Sea Kings
They have been called "flying coffins." Purchased with considerable fanfare by the federal government in 1963, when they turned heads with their impressive exploits, the Sea Kings are now a sick, aging fleet, with pieces literally falling out of the skies….Twenty-eight of them remain in service, and those still flying are often hit by flameouts, engine stalls, generator failures and gearbox problems. Pilots have died flying them, falling into oceans, crashing into muskeg – more so the older they get.
They have been refurbished… reconfigured… they have been professionally TWEAKED!
The Sea Kings require 30 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight, and they are unavailable for operations 40 per cent of the time.

Bridge:

The question I have…

Are we been TWEAKED… by the Spirit of God
Or? Are we being Transformed…

Do we accept our own tinkering with our morality and focus in life?
Our do we Desire dynamic transformation by the Spirit of God?
Cosmetics… or Life Change
My Plan or God’s?
REVIVAL… starts when we stop TWEAKING and look for Transformation…

Body:

The Promise

Ezekiel 36:25 "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.

God’s promise…
He will sprinkle clean water…
He will do the washing…
The cleansing…
The Transformation…
Change of heart… Change of our essential being…"I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes”
Ephesians 2:3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
Transformation…
Change

Child of Wrath
Child of God

By grace you have been saved Been Saved

Death in Sin
Life in Christ

? Tweaking… Matthew 7:22 "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'…
The doing… instead of the being…
The Tweaking versus the Transformation…

NAU Jeremiah 31:31 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33 "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 "They will not teach again, each man his neighbour and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

Transformation… is to Know…
Tweaking… is to simply do…
Transformation… is to be indwelt…
Tweaking… is to simply mimic
Transformation… is to be forgiven
Tweaking… is a response to guilt
Transformation… is to BE A CHILD OF GRACE
Tweaking… is to merely look like a child of grace
Transformation… is to belong… be adopted… to be chosen… I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son,

The Desire

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Isn’t that it…
Desires after the heart of God…
Not only predestined… but desirous…
Not satisfied…
Restless… knowing… there is more…
Settle for Tweaking… instead of Transformation
Standing before a Grand Buffet… and drinking the glass of water on the Table…
Create in Me a Clean Heart God…
Renew in Me God…
Transform US God…

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."

If only you knew…
What does Jesus offer…
What has Grace extended…
If you knew the gift of God,
You would ask…

We settle…
We could have so very much…
So much of what matters…

Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

We are called… through thick and thin…
We are called…by Grace…
We are called… by God
We are called to be conformed to the image of Christ…

And it should be the desire of our hearts!!

Conclusion:

Living the Reality… Living the Transformation

Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Know the Will…
Live the Will…
REFLECT the Will… The Saviour
Sold out for Christ…
STOP TWEAKING

Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—

It is about reflecting…
It is about living inside out…
It is about fundamental change of ownership…

Guy you bought the car off of… shows up for a drive…
Check your ownership

New owner… New Image… New Reality

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Do you think… God looks at you like a Sea King…
With his Wrench in hand…
He wants more…
He doesn’t want just your problems…
He doesn’t want to do some Cosmic Cosmetics…
But we all are being transformed into the same image… the image of our Lord from glory to glory.
What program are you on….

Trading Spaces… A little work… little putty… little paint…
Or… have you decided… even this morning… its time…
Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Its time…

Get real with God…
Maybe it’s been years…
Maybe its been minutes…