A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Intimacy is a wonderful thing. Well, as it turns out God is into intimacy – both spiritual and emotional. And the intimacy on offer from God is meant to make a profound difference in our lives. So – let me ask you, is it making a difference in your life?
God's miracle makeover, sounds a little pretentious perhaps, a little grand, a little over stated. Can God possibly want to do that in my life, in your life? I know there's someone wondering that today, perhaps it's you, you look at your circumstances and you think to yourself, 'nah, that joker on the radio has to be talking about someone else, no miracles here in this place, in my life'.
But actually if that's what you're thinking then today this message is most probably for you. The reason sometimes we don't see miracles happening in our lives is that we simply don't expect them and when our faith doesn't reach out to expect them then what we're told in the Bible is that miracles are probably not going to happen.
You may remember the other week we took a look at this passage about Jesus when He travelled to His home town Nazareth, Matthew chapter 13, verses 54 to 58:
He came to his home town and began to teach the people in their Synagogue so that they were astounded and they said, 'Where does this man get this sort of wisdom and these deeds of power? Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother called Mary and are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas with us and are not all his sisters with us too? Where then did this man get all of this?'
And they took offence at him but Jesus said to them, 'Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and within their own house' and he didn't do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.
People just didn't expect Jesus who they knew, who they'd seen grow up, to be the Son of God, to do these miracles that they'd heard He was doing everywhere else. And mark that final sentence, 'and He did not do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief.' Yet this very same Jesus, this same miracle-working Jesus is prepared to be as close to us, as intimate with us as we would ever like.
If we're interested in a miracle makeover then the person we want to be close to is the miracle-working Jesus. Just have a listen to this powerful passage as God speaks to us through Paul's letter to the Galatians chapter 2, verses 19 and 20:
For through the law I died to the law so I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live but it's Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
See Paul's talking to people here who were thinking they had to work hard to get into God's favour, to be accepted by God. We're like that often, we slog away and we wonder why blessings don't just drop out of the sky sometimes. We imagine therefore we have to work harder, be better.
But Paul's saying, 'Look no, you've got it all wrong. That guy who used to think that way and slog his guts out, he's been crucified with Christ'. In other words the old me is gone and as a result it's not the old me who lives anymore but it's Christ, Jesus Himself who lives in me.
Now you know what, that may well sound like, I don't know, like theological mumbo jumbo to you and to be honest with you in the early days of my walk with Jesus it sounded precisely like that to me and in those early days I made my mind up that I'm not much into theology for theology's sake if that makes sense.
Now given what I do these days sure I call myself a theologian but still today I don't want to play theoretical games here. I want to understand what God's Word really speaks into my life in a real practical life transforming way and into your life, are you with me? I have this passion, I want to live my life for Jesus, I want it to count for something as imperfect as I am. I want my life to be changed and transformed step by step by the Holy Spirit, not by me, by Him as I walk side by side with Jesus down the road that's my life's journey.
So I come to this Scripture looking for meaning and answers in that context, with that desire in my heart. So let's read one more time and see if there are any real answers in there, for you and for me for our lives:
For through the law I died to the law so I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ and it's no longer I who live but it's Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
When we believe in Jesus the old me, the old you is dead. We die to the idea of having to obey all these rules and laws to work our way into God's favour, man that's great news because try as I might, I think you're with me here, try as we might we can't keep all the rules all the time.
Living your life trying to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' is no way to live your life at all. The old me, the old you, those guys are crucified with Christ. We've abandoned the old person and now it's no longer the selfish me and the selfish you that's living in our bodies but Jesus. It's no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me.
Now that's forensically true for anyone who believes in Jesus. Several times throughout the Bible we're told that the moment we believe we receive the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God dwelling in us. That's this intimacy thing that I was talking about at the top of the program, it's like marriage but only much, much, much more intimate because Jesus is in me and in you if you're a believer, in us 24/7 around the clock and He never leaves us or forsakes us.
The same miracle-working Jesus who performed all those miracles we talked about last week and the week before on the program, now that's a game changer, that's a total game changer. Because now all of a sudden if I spend time consciously with Jesus His power and His love do things in me and through me that I could never have done for myself.
We hunger for transformation in our lives. We want to grow and mature and be better and stronger and faster and smarter. That's what all those reality TV programs are all about, the makeover programs, the talent quests, the transform someone with raw talent into a polished performer. They all pedal transformation because we yearn for it deep in our hearts.
But the real transformation comes when the Spirit of God, Jesus Himself takes up residence in us, starts to live in us and through us and starts to woo our hearts and influence our thoughts with love and mercy and starts to strengthen our resolve to serve Him, to be honest and decent and fair.
See this transformation comes through the power of God in us and I have to tell you from where I sit that's much, much better than me on my own having to follow a bunch of rules which is what for many religion is all about. I'm not into religion, I'm not into rules and fortunately nor is Jesus. He's into relationship and love and transformation and grace and mercy and my friend I'm here to tell you, that those things have transformed my life and is still and will continue to transform my life.
And this is where the theological rubber, if you will, hits the road, the presence of Jesus in us combined with the death of the old man, the old woman who was hell-bent on destruction, quite literally, is the place of powerful transformation.
A few verses on, Galatians chapter 3, verse 27 Paul uses a slightly different metaphor. He tells us that if we put our trust in Jesus we're clothed in Him, we're wearing Jesus. So we have Him on the inside and we have Him on the outside and that right there is what I would call God's miracle makeover for you. It's for me, it's for you, it's for anyone who believes in Jesus.
I don't know what you're looking for in life but I have to say this is probably a really, really good place to start looking.

"Born again" is one of those terms that carries a lot of baggage around with it. So, if you consider yourself to be ... "born again" … can I ask you, what difference does that actually make to your life? What difference did it make yesterday? What difference is it making today?
Born again, as I said there's a term that carries quite a bit of baggage around with it and even in the Christian community. It's a term that people use without thinking through it too much. It of course comes from the discussion that Jesus had with Nicodemus one time. The old Nic was one of the good guys, he unlike most of the Jewish ruling body called the Sanhedrin, he actually believed in Jesus.
Problem was the rest of them were so anti Jesus he had to sneak over one night in the dark so no one would see him to have a chat with this Jesus fellow. Here's how that chat unfolded, John chapter 3 beginning at verse 1:
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, 'Rabbi we know that you're a teacher who's come from God for no one can do these signs that you're doing apart from the presence of God'. And Jesus answered him, 'Very truly I tell you no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.'
Nicodemus said to him, 'How can you be born after having grown old? Can you enter your mother's womb a second time and be born?' And Jesus said, 'Very truly I tell you no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and of spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh but what is born of the spirit is spirit. Don't be astonished that I say to you, you must be born again.'
What was Jesus really driving at here? His point was that just as we've been physically born into the world, as plain and as patently obvious and necessary as that physical birth was, so too if we're to enter the Kingdom of heaven there needs to be a spiritual birth. A birth that He refers to as being born again or being born from above, born of the Holy Spirit.
Now you see for the most part we kind of see that as a theological statement or maybe a statement of fact but do we really see it as a personally relevant statement? Are we impacted? Are you deeply impacted and moved by this reality? If you've accepted Jesus do you think much about the fact that you've been born again? Does it make a difference to your life?
To be honest with you as excited as I am about the life that I have in Jesus this passage hadn't really impacted on me. It hadn't impacted on how I see and feel this amazing grace that I've experienced until relatively recently. I was reading a newspaper, Spurgeon used to say that a preacher should have a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, so I'm reading my newspaper and I come across an article entitled Guilt, Innocence And The American Way.
I just want to read the first part of it to you, I wonder whether it will impact your perception of being born again the way it did mine. Here's how it went:
Death row inmates who have beaten the needle are leading a campaign against capital punishment, writes Nick O'Malley. The first man to be freed from death row in the US because of DNA evidence remembers the moment his lawyer gave him the news as though it was yesterday.
'It's as clear as the vision before me now' says Kirk Bloodsworth who was exonerated in 1993 after nine years in prison. He was sitting on his bunk in a death row cell when his lawyer was ushered in and told him that he was innocent and that he would be released in a few days. He began to weep. 'Of course I cried, everyone cries at birth' he said, 'I have been born twice, once as a baby and once as a grown man and after that I saw the whole world fresh.'
There it is. Here is this man who was on death row born once, condemned to die, then born again as his guilt was removed from him. Of course it's a powerful, powerful metaphor or parable that unpacks the amazing thing that happens when our guilt is removed the moment we believe in Jesus. Every parable of course has its limitations; as does this one since of course he was unjustly condemned to death and the guilt was removed when his innocence was proven through DNA evidence.
You and I on the other hand through our rebellion against God have rightly been condemned to an eternal death separated from Him for the wages of sin is death and we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
But back to what strikes me about this man's story, it's not simply that he was elated the moment the guilt and the punishment was removed from him, that's natural, you'd expect that, hey I think I'd be doing cartwheels around the prison cell. The thing that strikes me is that it's still impacting his life today. It happened in 1993, over twenty years ago and still today he says, 'I remember it as though it was yesterday. It's as clear as the vision before me now. I've been born twice and now I see the world fresh.'
His second birth has impacted his whole life, his whole perspective. He is a changed man through that experience and I'm sure he'd tell anyone this story who was prepared to listen, I mean wouldn't you?
So why then do you and I know so many Christians who don't seem at all excited about being born again? Why does so many Christians grumble and wander through life as though nothing's changed when once they were lost and now they're found? When once they were condemned to death, they were whether they realised it back then or not they were on death row. But now the guilt and the punishment has been lifted off them and they have freedom and eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Why doesn't that change the perspective of so many Christians from that moment on for the rest of their lives? What's the matter with us people? There are so many people, people who believe in Jesus, people who call themselves Christians who are downcast, who aren't happy with their lot in life. Whose words are full of complaint, who are praying for a breakthrough when all along they've already received the biggest breakthrough they're ever going to get.
They were once on death row but now they've had a second birth and still it hasn't changed their perspective on life. Can I ask you plainly and quietly but directly, are you one of those people or has your escape from the eternal death row been a completely life transforming experience? Does it still bring you joy and a fresh perspective today?
So many people want a fresh new life and they think it comes from changing their circumstances and yet truly our externalities, our situation, our bank balance, our address, our mode of transport, our social status, none of those things are really where it's at. All of those, all the wrinkles and the bumps in them, all the things that we would rather change and have differently, they pale into significance for the man or the woman who once was on death row and was set free and born again.
What I can't understand is why we trade in our diamonds for stones, why we shift our focus from this awesome reality, the death row reality of being born again a second time to all this other stuff? Why is it that for so many Christians their second birth which in the eternal scheme of things is far more significant than Kirk Bloodsworth's escape, is less significant than his second birth is to him?
We're smack bang in the middle of a series that I've called God's Miracle Makeover For You and if you're in need of a miracle makeover I suggest this is the place to start. Open your Bible, John's Gospel, the fourth Book in the New Testament, chapter 3 and read what Jesus says about your second birth. Meditate on it, pray over it, let the Holy Spirit use it in you and through you and my friend here's what's going to happen, let me tell you.
All of a sudden a million small ailments in your life will completely lose their significance because you'll be seeing them with a fresh set of eyes, you'll be seeing them from God's perspective.

All too often, you and I are waiting for a major breakthrough, a major miracle, a major blessing, when all along, mostly, God's preferred way of helping us to grow, to change, to overcome, is quietly, gently, gradually, step by step. Why is that?
You know when things aren't going the way I want them to go what I would really, really like for God to do is to open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessing after blessing and miracle after miracle all at once, all at the same time right now to set things right. That's my way, hey how simple is that?
So why doesn't God get it? What's the matter with Him? You know when you put it that way we in a sense see how ridiculous that is and yet when we're between that rock and that hard place isn't that exactly what we want Him to do? Isn't our first thought, our first desire for an instant miracle, an instant fix?
Somebody is giving you a hard time so you imagine a lightning bolt striking them down. Your finances are in a hole, debts mounting so you think about winning Lotto, that twenty million would go down just so well at the moment. I wonder whether God wants me to buy a lottery ticket. All those things point to our desire for an instant miracle and every now and then God does just that, He does it for His own reasons in His own time at His own pleasure and for His own glory, I mean hallelujah.
But those instant miracles tend to be an exception. Yes there are times and places where God acts miraculously. Often they're places of great need and there's great faith involved. Often they're circumstances where God wants people to see His glory and His power so they'll believe in Him, that happens.
But empirically from experience we realise that God's most common way of working in our lives is through a series of small steps that transforms us over a lifetime rather than say five humongous miracles each seven or eight years apart right? There's a reason for that, it's because He's much, much more interested in developing our character and the depth of our relationship with Him than He is in providing us with quick fixes when we think we need them.
Don't believe me, have a listen to this through the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 5, verses 3 to 5 he says this:
And not only that but we also boast in our suffering knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope doesn't disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that's been given to us.
Now that's what I call a chain reaction, suffering produces endurance and that forges a character of substance and as that character grows in-depth and breadth it focuses more on Jesus than the suffering. That produces real certain hope and that hope is the chamber into which God pours His Holy Spirit and His love and man there's a whole week or two of messages just in those two verses in Romans.
But you see where God's going with this right? He wants to transform us in a way that sets us free from all this rubbish, the sin, the stuff we've been carrying around and in a way that matures us so that we can really enjoy life. The life that He's given us even when circumstances are against us.
The contrast in this passage is so stark between suffering on the one hand and God pouring His love and His Spirit into our hearts in the midst of as a direct consequence of the work that He does in us through that suffering.
The reason a blacksmith will put metal into a fire before shaping it is because the fire makes the metal malleable in his hands. It's exactly the same with you and me. In our natural state we're often stiff and strong and unyielding but put us in the furnace of suffering and we become malleable, something God can work with for our own good and for His glory.
See that's how maturity happens. Let me ask you, is there any such thing as instant maturity? Probably not. Sometimes something really significant happens and we do a lot of growing up in a very short period of time but to mature a good wine you put it down in the cellar, not for hours, not for days, not for even months but for years.
In this world of reality television we're being conditioned to think about having instant makeovers. That's what cosmetic surgery is all about, that's what going to a beautician is about, that's why people have home renovations and garden makeovers and style makeovers, instant makeovers. NOW, I want it now.
We're all looking for transformation, for something that will make a difference but the deepest, most powerful change is the really profound long-lasting changes in who we are happen little by little when we yield ourselves to the work of the masters hand. When we become malleable and pliable so that He can shape us and mould us into the most remarkable person He always knew that we could be.
Have a listen to this, again God speaking through the Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 12 to 18:
Since then we have such hope, we act with great boldness. Not like Moses who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside but their minds were hardened, indeed to this very day when they hear the reading of the old Covenant that same veil is still there since only in Christ is it set aside.
Indeed to this very day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their minds but when we turn to the Lord the veil is removed. Now the Lord is spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and all of us with unveiled faces seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror are being transformed in the same image from one degree of glory to the next, from glory to glory for this comes from the Lord who is spirit.
See again here Paul picked up this terminology of people's minds being hardened. How often when things are going just fine and dandy are our minds closed to the amazing transformation that God wants to bring to our lives? We all want transformation, our fixation on reality television tells us that that's true but we reject it when things are going well.
A real paradox, it's like there's a veil over our minds but when we turn to Jesus that veil is removed and we see things all of a sudden for what they really are and we discover that God's perspective on things is so totally different to the way we've always thought.
We truly are transformed by the renewing of our minds, changing the way we see things and thinking about things in Christ. That's where the real transformation comes from, that's where this newness of life that Jesus promises us lies. All of a sudden we discover the freedom we were always looking for right there under our noses in Christ.
Now here's the crunch, the really important bit, as we open our hearts and minds to Christ and travel through the furnace of trials and tribulations along the journey we experience transformation. From what? From glory to glory.
All of us with unveiled faces seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror are being transformed in the same image from glory to glory for this comes from the Lord who is spirit.
Do you see, from one degree of glory to the next, step by step we're transformed by the Holy Spirit as we journey through the trials of life and this is deep lasting transformation. Our tendency is to fight it, we've been conditioned to expect instant easy makeovers but most times the miracle makeover that God has planned for you happens step by step from glory to glory as you're transformed back into His image so that more and more when people look at you what they see is Jesus. What a stunning picture.
So here's what I'd like to leave with you today. The next time you're thinking to yourself, 'why is this taking so long? How come I keep making so many mistakes? Why doesn't God just do something now?' Remember He is doing something, step by step from glory to glory.
It's time for you to enjoy that journey, to yield to His Spirit and to let His miracle makeover to happen along the way and as you look back over the changes in the months and the years to come you'll be astounded at how much you've changed, grown, matured, from glory to glory.

If only I could start over. If only I could be free of the hurts, of the consequences of the past. Have you ever thought that to yourself. Sure you have. We all have. Well, the great news is this: a fresh new start is entirely possible. That's the whole point of Jesus coming to this earth.
Mid life crisis are a well documented phenomenon. We laugh about them, you know the guy who's slightly podgy and hair on top is thinning and he has to go out sometime in his late 40's or early 50's and buy a racy convertible. Or the woman who looks in the mirror one day and doesn't like her life and her marriage and her job and her looks so she decides to kick up her heels and have some cosmetic surgery and sadly increasingly part of the whole mid-life crisis scenario is divorce.
I totally believe that 99% of life is a grind. It doesn't matter how glamorous other people perceive your life to be most of it's a mundane grind. Of course that doesn't mean that we necessarily have to be dissatisfied with it it's just that most of life is mundane.
I was listening to Hugh Jackman the famous Hollywood actor also an Aussie of course, being interviewed recently and he was talking about the sheer grinding hard work involved in shooting some of these action movies. Now we think Hollywood actor, wow, glamour, stardom, fame and sure there's that but for him a lot of the time it's just sheer hard work.
That's what it's like for all of us. We do it over and over again without thinking too much about it and at some point what we want is a new start, a fresh start. Will someone please put me on a magic carpet and whisk me away of there somewhere, to some new reality without the cares, without the pressures, without all the tensions, without the sheer boredom of my present reality. Or we've made some serious blunders along the way which is what happened to me and we wish that we could somehow be absolved of their consequences rather than living out this hell on earth thing that we're travelling through.
Whatever the reason we've all been there. I want a fresh start. Sometimes that manifests itself in a career change, a sea change, a long break, moving house, changing cities, changing countries. I've had three careers in my life, ten years in the military, seventeen years running my own IT consulting firm and now almost ten years doing what I'm doing here in the broadcasting area.
Those transformations have been important for me but you know whilst they've been interesting and challenging and satisfying they don't actually meet the deep need way down inside somewhere to get this sense of 'yes this is the life I want to be living'. That sense of contentment and satisfaction.
Our career, our relationships, where we live, what we look like, they're all great and they're all important but at the end of the day they aren't the things that make us truly happy and contented inside. They can add, they can detract but they're not the main thing.
It's like last week, we were talking about signs and wonders and miracles that Jesus performed. Healing that paralytic man, the man born blind, I mean totally awesome stuff. And I imagine that if you were paralysed or blind and Jesus comes along and He heals you of that, well come on that's huge and yet can I tell you some of the most together, satisfied, dynamic people I know live life in a wheelchair or without their sight. These are inspiring people.
See it seems to me the miracle's God's done on their inside are much more powerful than a miracle He could do but hasn't yet on their outside. I have tinnitus, constant ringing in my ears. It's socially quite debilitating because the moment there's background noise I find it very hard to hear people and so you end up tuning out, it's just too hard. I also have glaucoma, under control now but eventually it could send me blind in my old age.
Would I like God to heal those two things? Of course I would. He hasn't yet, He may one day or He may not but the greatest miracle of all that He has ever performed for me is the fresh start that He gave me when I first believed and this is what it is, have a listen, 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verses 16 to 19:
From now on therefore we regard no one from a human point of view even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old is passed away and see, everything has become new.'
'All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
It's this idea, well it's not just an idea, it's the pervading reality of my life that in Christ I am a new creation and all the old things have passed away, everything is new. Anyone who believes in Jesus is probably familiar with this passage, it seems easy to read it and go, 'well yeah, that's fine. New creation? Oh okay' and just move on but hang on a minute, a new creation.
All the reality TV shows on the planet promise that, they're all about transformation, our looks, our home, our lives, our careers, they're all about pedalling false makeovers and here's the real makeover, the question is do you really care? Does that stir up a yearning in you that says, 'I want that, that's what I've been looking for all my life?'
Can I tell you honestly? For most people it doesn't, here's why I know. A while back we aired a series of messages called Healthy Living To A Ripe Old Age and the free booklet that we produced for that series was My Top Three Secrets For Losing 25 Kilograms. The response to that was completely unprecedented; we'd never seen anything like it in almost ten years of producing this series of A Different Perspective. We printed over fifteen times the usual number of booklets and had ten times as many downloads of the e-booklet compared to average.
In fact I'll bet you a pound to a penny that the free booklet for this series that I'll be telling you about a little bit later won't go anywhere near the response that we had to that weight loss booklet, I hope it does but going by past experiences it probably won't.
Now is it a good thing for us to get our weight under control? Sure it is, I did, twenty-five kilograms, fifty-five pounds. I'm a lot healthier, I'll probably live a lot longer, I look a lot better, I feel a lot better, zippity doo da.
And yet God comes along and tells us that in Christ we have a fresh start, we're completely new, the one thing that people are hungering for, that people go looking for in reality TV, in body makeovers, in beauty makeovers, in home renovations, in career changes, they're looking for transformation, for a new start, a new life free from all the hang ups, all the regrets, all the hurts and the failures of the past. The one thing that people really want and the only place you can get that is in Jesus.
But do we respond? Do we run and leap and praise God because He's given us a new life? Hallelujah! Nah, come on, what would your life look like if you lift it on the basis of what Paul is saying here that it's actually true?
If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. Everything old has passed away and look, everything has become new.
Every time the past rears its ugly head in your emotions, in your feelings, in your thoughts, in your actions, you turn around and say, 'thank you Jesus that I am a new creation in you. Thank you that the old things have passed away and everything has become new' and you simply refuse to accept delivery from the hang-ups of the past.
It's like looking at the world early in the morning, just as the sun is coming up after it's rained all night with this sense of freshness and newness and filling your lungs with the sweetness of this new creation. What would your life look like if you lived it as though this new creation thing was true? Well?

Everybody these days is looking for … transformation. A new life, a new start, a new way. That, when you think about is the desire that many of today's reality TV shows pander to. But is transformation really possible, and if so – how and where do you get it?
We've all watched them on television haven't we, the makeover shows. I remember when reality TV first became a phenomenon back in the 1990's and way back then it felt kind of bizarre. But these days it's the norm and we have reality makeover shows for just about anything and everything on television.
There are body and beauty makeover shows where they take a plain Jane through a little plastic surgery, even dental surgery, a nip and a tuck here and there, some serious work on her hair and her make up and a style makeover on how she dresses and all of a sudden voila, there you have it, Miss Universe.
There are some home makeover shows, renovation shows, surprise garden makeover shows, apartment makeover shows, even the current talent shows are all about makeovers. From the initial slightly dull boring guy that fronts up for the audition to the handsome buck all glammed up who sings his heart out in the grand final.
This idea of makeovers has become the new vehicle for reality television to thrive and to become an incredible phenomenon that it's become. But the problem with reality television is that it's not real, in fact there's nothing much real about reality television at all, it's carefully stage-managed and contrived let me tell you.
Look I've been on TV shoots. I remember doing a two and a half-minute spot that took eight hours to shoot. All that stuff that looks oh so spontaneous on television is carefully scripted, carefully choreographed, carefully constructed and we take this shot and that shot and we cut it and we try that again, all that stuff.
To put it bluntly reality television is completely an illusion, it's a mirage, it's not real and through this medium producers are pedalling the concept of life transformation, its aspirational television. It's dangling the concept of total transformation under our noses and why do they do it? Because just as the age-old advertising adage that sex sells is true, advertisers have realised that they can piggy back their products off the back of this illusory seductive aspirational notion of total transformation.
That's why people watch these programs because they scratch this deep itch, this deep desire for a transformed life. To be picked up on a magic carpet and whisked away to some new perfect idyllic reality. Just as cigarettes were the delivery platform for nicotine, to create an addict that will buy those deadly products, so the transformational message of reality TV is the delivery platform for whatever advertising message some company is prepared to pay for to get across to you during the program.
So to sum up my little social commentary rant here reality television has made us addicts to the idea of transformation and yet no amount of reality television is actually going to deliver transformation to you and me. As much as they promise a miracle makeover, as much as women in particular are flocking to cosmetic surgeons, as much as people go on fitness kicks and crash diets, as much as we got out and buy new clothes or try this and try that, none of it, none of it delivers the transformation that we're really looking for.
Today we're kicking off a series of messages that I've called God's Miracle Makeover For You. Over this last couple of weeks we talked about the signs and wonders that Jesus performed and the deep powerful message each of those miracles have for you and for me and in fact last week we finished off the series on miracles, signs and wonders with what I called the greatest miracle of them all - the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not just as some historical fact although it is that but as a present reality for you and for me. Here again is how Paul the Apostle sums it up in Romans chapter 6 and verse 4:
We were buried therefore by baptism into his death in order that just as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
The greatest miracle of them all is the newness of life that Jesus brings. Real life, newness, real transformation and that's what we're talking about this week on the program because this newness of life, it's what's available to each person who believes in Jesus. Problem is a whole bunch of people who do believe in Jesus aren't living the new life, they're stuck in the old life. They're wrapped as it were in the grave-clothes of the past just as Lazarus was when he walked out of that tomb after Jesus raised him from the dead.
That's why you and I need a miracle makeover. You can't have this newness of life when you're wrapped up in your old grave-clothes right? That's why we need God's miracle makeover, not in some shallow external sense but in a deep, emotional spiritual sense.
Look looking your best is great, do you want to look your best? Sure you do, I do, mind you for me it's not an obsession as it is for some but I like to look good. And yet at the same time you and I both know that looking good only goes so far to making you feel good. It has some impact but it doesn't deal with the deeper issues that so often holds us back from this newness of life that Jesus promises.
There's a process of transformation that we can go through to ditch the hang-ups and the sins of the past so that we can actually experience this fresh new life that Jesus promises to bring. Theologians call this process sanctification, I don't much like that word, it feels to hoity toity for me. I prefer rehabilitation or restoration, being transformed little by little back into the image of our Creator and for most of us, certainly for me, that requires a series of not so minor miracles because there are things deep ingrained in our nature that we can't deal with on our own, things that only God can deal with.
Chances are you have a bit of a handle on the things that are robbing you of this newness of life that Jesus came to bring you. With me it used to be anger and pride, that was my Achilles heel. Now you learn to live with it but you always realise it's robbing you of life. You have your own brand of let's call it sin, that's what it is, sin that's robbing you of your life and Jesus, my friend, Jesus came to set you free. Jesus came to give you an abundant life, Jesus came so that you could experience a newness of life that completely defies logic and understanding.
So let me ask you, do you want that newness of life? Do you want His miracle makeover to be happening in your life? Again the Apostle Paul puts it this way in Romans chapter 12, verse 2:
Don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God for you.
We're so well adjusted to our culture, to the reality TV aspirations of transformations that we kind of run like a bunch of lemmings off that cliff only to realise it doesn't deliver what it promises. It's time to stop conforming, it's time to stop letting the world and its flawed thinking squeeze you into its mould.
Listen, the only mould that you are ever going to fit into comfortably is the one God made for you. We're never going to fit into the worlds mould right? Paul's saying, in fact God's saying to us here through Paul, come on stop trying to do that, it won't work, instead go for total transformation, have a deep change of mind here, stop chasing after all the worlds failed systems and thinking and lay hold of God's good and acceptable and perfect will for you and that's where you're going to find transformation.
There needs to be some new thinking here, there needs to be a change in focus from the world's plan for your life which we know is going to fail, to God's plan for your life. If transformation is what you're after, if a fresh start is what you're after this is where you find it and that's why we're going to be kicking off this brand new series this week called God's Miracle Makeover For You.