Your Divine Design - You're a Masterpiece in the Making, Part 1

If you could ask God for an extreme makeover, what would it look like?

Maybe an attitude, a relationship, maybe it's your heart. Today we're going to learn how we can change the most important things in your life that would make you the person He longs for you to be and that you would greatly enjoy. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drouy, and in just a minute, Chip will begin his insightful series, Your Divine Design, how to discover, develop, and deploy your spiritual gifts. In the coming programs, he's going to break down what these spiritual gifts look like, how God has uniquely gifted each of us, and why they're so important. I hope you'll join us for each message as we discover the extraordinary person God has made you to be. Well, with that, let's join Chip as he kicks off this series with his talk, You're a Masterpiece in the Making.

If you have a Bible, turn now to Ephesians chapter 2. As we get started, I want to make a confession. In fact, I'm going to make three real small confessions, so brace yourself, and if you don't know me very well, I don't want to be too vulnerable too early. But my first confession is I do not watch a lot of prime time TV, and I do not like it, okay? I don't like TV a whole lot. There's not a lot of good things to watch.

It's just a confession. My second confession is of all the things on prime time TV that I hate, that I loathe, is reality shows. Have you noticed in the last few years, I mean, reality this, reality that, I mean, I just hate reality shows. So here's a guy that doesn't like TV a whole lot, and I mean, he loathes reality shows.

Are you ready for this, my third confession? I watched a reality show recently. Yes, I did, and I loved it. It was called Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and I had taught that night.

It was a Sunday night, and I came home and wanted to relax, and I turned it on. I had no idea what was going on, but before I knew it, here is this guy, and he had like six kids or five kids, and four of them were teenagers, and they begin to unfold this story, and his wife had died about a year and a half or two years ago, and you could tell from the little snippets they gave that he was a believer in Christ, and I mean, he was now working two jobs trying to be a dad, and any time the thought of his wife was brought up, he would begin to tear up, and it was a really close-knit family, and your heart just began to break, and apparently the theme of this program, Extreme Makeover, is they find people in very difficult situations, and then they have a team of construction people and designers, and then they go into the neighborhood and to the relational network. In this case, they went to this guy's church, and they went to his neighbors, and they asked them to donate their skills, and they brought in a group of pros, and then they take the family away.

I don't know if it's for a week or ten days or how they do it. I didn't get that much into it, but then they totally revamp the house. Now it looks a little bit like it used to look on the outside, but I mean, they knocked out walls. They increased the square footage.

They put in an upper floor. They redid a room for every one of the kids, and each one of them was designed according to the needs of the people. The dad was working two jobs just to make it now, and so they created this unbelievable office so he could do his second job at home.

The four teenagers, no hope of going to college. They were financially strapped, and so the one was kind of a strong guy, and he was working out. They created an indoor gym with a spiral staircase, and they had every piece of equipment you could imagine, and then one of the girls had this artistic flair, and she had this dream of maybe being a designer or an artist, and her room, I mean the bed, they could pull out the bed, and she could do drawings. One of the other kids had this dream about working with animals, and so everything in the room there was an aquarium, and the bed spreads, and the pillows, and everything was about animals. Every room was designed around the desires and the gifts to help their life and their family function in a way that would be extremely different and extremely more wonderful than before, and then they bring the family back in, and they look at the house from the street, and all the neighbors who helped are there, and they're all cheering. It's going crazy, and they pull this big truck, and then the truck goes away, and they look at their house, and then they walk in and open the door, and then this is what happens. The tears start going down their eyes. Dad, and then they just walk them from room to room to room, and they tell them why they created this room for them and how to help their family, and I mean the people, you can tell. I don't think the people who run the show are necessarily Christians at all, but when they love someone that much, they start crying, the neighbors start crying, the people who get love start crying, and I'm on my couch going, I hate reality shows, but I just love this one.

I mean I'm crying in my living room, and I thought to myself, Ingram, this is ridiculous, and so I did a little research, and I found out that there's not one reality show. It is a movement. I actually did a little research. Not only do they do extreme makeover for houses, they do extreme makeover for cars. They take old cars, and then they turn them into spiffy cars. They do extreme makeovers for motorcycles. In fact, I found there's a channel that I think the only thing they show is the chop shop, and they keep making these, redoing these motorcycles. On good authority, I have a friend who tells me they have extreme makeovers for pets. You bring your ugly mutt, and it'll come out woo woo woo.

Woo woo woo woo. Unbelievable. They do extreme makeovers, and this is one I do confess out of pure curiosity.

They actually do it for people. The one I saw, okay, fourth confession I guess. They took a lady who was significantly overweight, and who by her admission and who by her admission and everyone else's went out very attractive, and they did everything to her you could ever do.

I mean, it was scary, scary. I mean, she got a facelift. She got a liposuction. She got new dental work. She didn't like her jaw.

They broke it, gave her a new one. They did implants in all kind of places, and they cut stuff off in all kind of other places, and I'm just going to let your imagination know where it goes, but I mean, you know, there's a lady that came in at about a size 40, and then they took a hairdresser, and then they took an expert in clothing and a designer, and about, I don't know, about three months later, she ended up on the top of the staircase, and she walked down the staircase. All of her friends and neighbors and her kids, you know, and I mean, she's got a facelift, and just imagine from the neck down all the other things that occurred, and I still remember they went, huh, and I just thought to myself, unbelievable.

I mean, she had more plastic surgery done on her body than I think is humanly possible, and I thought to myself, man, we are into this extreme makeover stuff, and then I asked myself, well, okay, what is an extreme makeover, and why are we so fascinated by it, and let me give you a definition of what I think an extreme makeover is. It is the process of taking something that is old, broken, imperfect, damaged, or not useful, and recreating it into something that is whole, useful, beautiful, attractive, and new, and then I asked, well, what is it about something that's old that's made new, something that's broken and made whole, something that isn't right and then is made beautiful and useful, what is it about that that really attracts us, and there may be a lot of reasons, but let me give you my top three. The first is, I think we all inwardly love to see positive change. I just, in my human heart, I love to see positive change. Remember even as a kid, you know, when I was a kid, when I found a penny, I thought it was really cool, and we had this stuff where you could rub stuff on an old yicky penny, and it would become a bright, shiny penny, and it would be like woo.

I mean, what is that? There's something about seeing positive change that is so exciting for all of us as human beings. The second reason is I think our curiosity is riveted by the skill and creativity involved in making the old new and the broken whole and taking that which was unbeautiful and then making it beautiful. I mean, the curiosity, I looked at this extreme makeover thing, and I was asking myself, how do they knock out a whole wall?

That house doesn't look big enough to have two stories now. The third reason I think that we're fascinated by extreme makeovers is this. I think all of us secretly long for an extreme makeover in some area of our lives or relationships. See, I'm just like you, and I think down deep in my heart and down deep in your heart is I long, boy, I'd like to be different. I'd like to take something old in me and make it new. I'd like to take a broken relationship and see it whole. I want to see positive change.

And you know what? Rather than feeling bad about that, I think it's God-given. I think it's rooted in the spiritual DNA of your creator in your heart and your life that you want an extreme makeover. Because I'm going to suggest that the ultimate extreme makeover is Jesus Christ working in a human heart and taking that which was old and make it new. Jesus Christ working in a human heart and taking that which is broken and fixing it.

Taking that which is unuseful and dysfunctional and making it useful and functional and winsome and beautiful. In fact, I believe our fascination with makeovers is rooted in the author of extreme makeovers himself. The ultimate extreme makeover, 2 Corinthians 5.17, says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away.

The new has come. God's desire, listen to this, God's desire, the one who created all that there is, the one who created you, his desire is to do an extreme makeover for every single person on this planet. An extreme makeover. You know, as fascinated as I was with the woman before picture after picture, as amazing as it was to see the house look like this and then the house look like this, God wants to do a relational, spiritual, emotional, internal, forever transformation in every man, every woman, every child. He wants to do a recreation. He wants to take the old and put it away. He wants something new to come in. He wants an open door in your heart and life in a relationship with Christ that gives you new desires and a new future and a new purpose and a new life and a new peace. And he wants to take the old and forgive and he wants to take the old and he wants to cleanse and he wants to put your past behind you. God wants to do an extreme makeover in your life and mine and the way he does it is through his son Jesus.

Now what I'd like to do, are you ready for a little analysis? I'd like you to open your Bibles to the book of Ephesians and I want to spend a little time and ask ourselves how does it work? Okay, if we were doing extreme makeover with God, we would say, how'd he do that?

How'd he do that? And in the book of Ephesians, we're going to learn exactly how he did that. Let's begin in chapter 2 and notice who you used to be. Over here is the before picture. In a minute we'll see the after picture. The first three verses of Ephesians 2 is going to give you the before. Before the spiritual plastic surgery. Before they came in and knocked out the drywall and put in the second floor.

Notice what it says. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live and you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air and the spirit who is now at work and those who are disobedient. All of us, no exceptions, also lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

Now we could spend a lot of time studying this but I can give you three quick observations about how you used to be before Christ or where you are at if you don't know him personally. Number one, it says we were dead in our transgressions. Theologically that just means we are separated from the life of God. We are separated from God. There is a wall.

There is a barrier. We are separated from relationship with the God who made us. Second, you'll notice we're prisoners of the world system.

The ruler of the power of the air. We're prisoners to addictions. We're prisoners to defunctional relationships. We're prisoners to being addicted to pleasing people. And then finally notice it says that we're objects of wrath. There is just judgment for living in a way that hurts people.

The stealing and the lying and the manipulation and the image casting and the things that we all have done. And God says this is who you used to be. You used to be dead. You used to be a prisoner.

You used to be an object of wrath but notice it gets really good. Notice who are you now. For those that have a personal relationship with God by faith in Jesus Christ, picking it up at verse four, what's it say? But because of his great love for us, God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace that you've been saved. And then notice what he did. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

And if you had a lot of time to study that you would realize some major changes occurred. You used to be dead. Now you are alive.

You used to be a prisoner. Now you're delivered from sin's power, Satan's grip and past mistakes. You used to be an object of wrath and now you have a new standing with God. You are righteous, you're cleansed, you have a new identity, you have new power, you have a new future, a new purpose, a new family, new privileges.

And then very excitingly you have a new inheritance. Before and after. Then you ask yourself, well why? Why did God do that? Look at verses seven through nine. In verse seven notice the purpose clause here. In order that in the coming ages he, God, might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in the kindness to us in Jesus Christ.

And we get a very familiar passage. For it is by grace you've been saved through faith and that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. It's not by your work.

It's not by your effort. Extreme makeovers are done by God, not by you. Lest any man should boast. God wants to do an extreme makeover in your life and mine and the reason he wants to do it is so that we could see the riches of the of the kindness of his grace demonstrated in Christ. We could see here's a person's life. Instead of a physical body going from a size 38 dress to a size 12.

Instead of a shabby house going into a beautiful palace. He's saying here's an old life in Adam and an old family with sinful patterns that brought destruction to you and alienation from God because of what Christ has done. He wants to do an extreme makeover beginning in your heart and change the way you think. Change the way you act. Change your standing with God.

Change your relationships with people and the reason he wants to do it. Did you notice this? It says that so that in successive ages, that's the idea, in time of history God would exhibit that what she's really like to men and women and angels. See when that lady came down the stairs I still remember her daughter. They panned the camera real close and I'm telling you she looked different. I mean she looked so different that when she came down her daughter went, Mom is that you? When those people walked into the house and they saw that bedroom instead of the old one. When they saw the living room and the kitchen and we can eat together as a family. The kids had tears in their eyes.

Is this our house? And what's behind that? It's a sense of awe. It's a jaw dropping.

That was so bad and this is so good. And what did they do? Then they turned to the people who recreated the house with a sense of thank you so much. And see what God is about for everyone that will let him.

He is about doing something in you that takes who you were and changes it through the power of Christ into this new creature and this new person that if you would meet someone 10 years later who maybe you went to school with or maybe you used to do drugs with or maybe you used to run with or maybe you did some stuff back in junior high with. If they could see you and your life and your relationships they would go, Bobby? Is that you? I actually had this experience. And there was a fellow that I played basketball with in high school and he went on to play in one college and I went on to play at another and he was a couple years behind me. And we were a couple high school guys, both non-Christians, both kind of living the high school life in the 70s. And I came to Christ, lost track of him for 25 years.

He later went through some hard times, came to Christ and got on the internet and looked at our website, found out what we were doing, emailed somebody. So it's a new members thing and we're kind of saying, hi, it's good to have you. And I look at the first row and I'm going, I literally stopped, Phil, is that you? Yeah. Chip, is that you? Yeah. And it was kind of like we knew our history.

What are you doing here? And he looked at me and I looked at him. God did an extreme makeover on you, didn't he? And God did an extreme makeover on me.

Let me give you one picture that I think capsulate it. There is a fellow named Jim, became a very good friend. And his before life was one of, lived in Alaska, made a lot of trips to Mexico and then did business throughout California. And his business was cocaine. And he was a cocaine addict and he was an alcoholic and his family was falling apart and he was running for his life. And he had his messed up life. All of his kids had already gone south. Anything you can imagine in terms, he was a spiritual junkyard.

His life, his relationships, his body, years and years of cocaine pushing and use and alcoholism. And then God gloriously started the extreme makeover process and he came to Christ in Alaska and he realized, you know something, if I stay living up here, this is not going to be good. So he ends up coming down to Northern California. He's a new believer, he doesn't know much. And it was about his third or fourth week and so, you know, he was living the high life but he kind of went incognito and he became the janitor at a local high school. And just trying to stay sober and getting a little bit of help and starting to read the Bible a little bit and his name was Jim.

And we were early on the first couple years there at the church and we were in this kind of old building and my wife had started a little library, just a little hole in the wall. And I still, in my mind's eye, I can still remember he and his wife and it was in between services and I kind of liked it. He goes, hey Teresa, how you doing? And so this couple's there and there was just something about him that sort of reeked, would somebody help me?

Does anybody care about me? It was like our first time at church and my wife is very merciful, which is really good because I need that and it's good for other people too. And she just invited him in and we had a little conversation before long. They came to the library for a few weeks and before long she was meeting with the lady and talked with her and before long I hear his story.

And if you fast forward the camera, we watched this guy, within a couple years he became our custodian. And within about three years he was in a back portable meeting with two or three alcoholics trying to get them sober and they showed up about once every other week and he was pretty frustrated. But little by little by little, the extreme makeover in the community of God's people and as he heard God's word go into his heart and his mind and he got very serious about getting it into his heart and now he was in a safe place and he got in a small group in our church and Joe was the counselor, the family pastor and really invested in this guy and pretty soon he wanted to know what does God want me to do with my life and what he was doing wasn't working and he heard about this thing down in Southern California called Celebrate Recovery and so he said I'd like to go down there and I found three or four other addicts in our church and we want to go down there and see what it's like and so we threw very little money at it, I mean very little like you know, dream a dream, find a team, that was sort of the goal of, that's how we did our church and then figure out how to pay for it, you know.

So they went down to Southern California and they saw it and they came back and all I can tell you is a janitor who was rescued by Christ in an extreme makeover after about three years came back with a team of three or four people and a year and a half later we had the second largest Celebrate Recovery ministry in all of Northern California. And pretty soon Friday nights were, I mean it got out and someone, I remember a guy came up to me after a service and said man I had a rough night last night and you know that little cable station, you were on it and I watched you on TV so I thought I'd come and I said well great, he said yeah I mean it was really bad and I'm thinking he's got a hangover and he said yeah I almost really lost it and I said well what do you mean? He said like what do you mean man, like I almost OD'd on heroin and I'm going have you ever had one of those times where you're really supposed to know what you're doing so don't act shocked, be very calm. My inside's going heroin man, you know I don't know what I, you know he's asking me for help after the service and you know I'm realizing so, but I didn't show any of that, it was oh well I'm good, I'm glad you made it through the night and God brought you here and then I just, Jim, I said could you stay right here? And I went and got Jim and I watched them talk for about four minutes, he looked the guy right in the eye and he said you ready to get help or not? I mean I'm thinking Jim why don't you be nice to this guy? Jim understood the thing, you want help or not?

And I mean they were just so direct and the guy said yeah I really do, he said you really do, this is what it's going to take. He said we don't play games here, we'll really love you, we'll speak the truth, this is what, and you know what I watched that thing mushroom and grow and grow and after a while Jim realized that his calling and his gifts were leading him and there was a Christian college and even though I'm not sure, I don't think he ever went to undergraduate, but they let him in and it took about a year and a half or two year program in drug counseling. Jim became our pastor of Celebrate Recovery and he now speaks around the country teamed up with that church in Southern California.

Is this like an extreme makeover or what? Is this like a before, dead in his transgressions, prisoner and now he's alive, free, living. Jim's life is not just a picture of Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 through 9, Jim's life is just a snapshot of what God wants to do in you.

He wants to do it in every single person and you say well where do you get that? Look at verse 10, here's what I want you to see, you are a masterpiece in the making. Look at verse 10, for we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. You are his masterpiece. Jim isn't some special guy, every person on the earth, what's it say?

If any man, if any woman is in Christ, what's it say? The old, the old things pass away, all things, notice it's a process become new. Now here's what I want you to do, do you have a pen? Pull out your pen. I want you to circle the word workmanship. Then I want you to put a little squiggly line under created in Christ Jesus and then I want you to put a box around to do good works. For you are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for a purpose to do good works. Then notice which God has prepared in advance for you to do.

God wants to give us an extreme makeover. He wants to give you a second chance. Have you ever like been shooting foul shots or shooting darts with someone and you make a little bet? I'm sure you've probably never done this but just in your former days or something. And you're not quite warmed up and you shoot one and you miss it and you say redo, redo, right?

I mean if you want to have good competition, I mean I wasn't loose, I'm going to get loose, right? I want a second chance, I want to redo, I want to start over. And don't we all want to redo? You know what God's saying through this passage? He wants to give you a redo. He wants to give you a second chance.

He wants to give you a new life. This little phrase, you are his workmanship, the Greek word here literally it's the picture of a masterpiece in the making that's in progress. You could picture a beautiful piece of art and you're the canvas and God is painting and reworking and recreating and you're on his easel and you are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Or you could see it as a sculptor and he's re-sculpting your life and he's taking the clay of who you are and he's forming the different parts and he is making you, you are his workmanship.

Or you could be a literary work, this word was used of a poem or a literary work that was in progress. You are the workmanship of God. He's re-creating you how? Through your relationship in Christ.

Why? For the purpose of good works, doing good. God has a purpose for your life.

Don't we know that now? I mean if 23 million people buy a book, if 23 million people buy a book to discover what their purpose is, don't you think there's something down deep in the heart of men and women that say, I want to have purpose? Chippell will be back in just a minute with his application. You've been listening to the first part of his message, You're a Masterpiece in the Making, from his series, Your Divine Design. Did you know God has given you a set of spiritual gifts or tools to help you fulfill his calling on your life?

Are you actively using them or are you unsure what they even are? In this series, Chippell help you discover, develop and deploy your spiritual gifts to make an eternal impact. And if you want to dive deeper into this meaningful topic, let me encourage you to order Chippell's book, Your Divine Design. It'll really open your eyes to the incredible blessing and responsibility of your unique gifts.

To get your hands on this new book, go to livingontheedge.org, call 888-333-6003, app listeners tap special offers. Well Chippell has joined me in studio now. And Chippell, as we launch this series, you have a real specific challenge for us as followers of Christ about how we should work together with unique spiritual gifts God's given us.

I sure do, Dave. You know, the Bible says in Romans chapter 12, just as we have many members in one body and all the members don't have the same function, so we are one body in Christ and we're individually members of one another. And then he launches right into describing the spiritual gifts and how they fit together. And the point is, is that we all have a different role to play in the body of Christ that we need each other.

The old Chinese proverb that, you know, many hands makes less work. And what I want our listeners to know is that we're living in a time where God is opening doors for Living on the Edge like never before. And whether it's digital resources for young people or creating new Bible teaching resources for discipleship or the doors that are opening in Africa and India and around the world for pastors, it's the many hands and the gifts of all of us together that make that possible. And one of the critical needs of Living on the Edge is for those of you that have a heart for the ministry to consider giving a monthly gift.

We get lots of different sporadic gifts throughout the year, and many of you give two or three gifts, and we're so grateful. But when we know what's coming in on a regular basis, it allows us to plan. It allows us to project.

It allows us to do what God wants us to do in an even more effective way. So would you just pray about, Lord, do you want me at some level to support Living on the Edge in a monthly way? And let me just tell you in advance, as you pray and God leads you, we are super grateful. It'll be used to make a real difference in the lives of many.

Thanks, Chip. Well, if joining the Living on the Edge team is an idea that makes sense to you, we'd love to have you partner with us. Your support multiplies our efforts and resources in ways that only God can do.

So if you'd like to be part of that, let me encourage you to become a monthly partner. You can easily set up a recurring donation at livingontheedge.org or through the Chip Ingram app. Or if it's easier, text the word donate to 74141.

That's donate to 74141. And thanks for helping others benefit from the work of this ministry. Well, now here's Chip with a final word about today's message.

What I know for sure is a lot of you don't really believe what you heard today. When you look in the mirror, you don't think you're a workmanship. You don't think you're a poem. You don't think you're something special. In fact, you wonder down deep, you know, why did God even make me? Or you don't really like yourself.

You wish you had enough money to do a real makeover. And here's what I want you to know. You are special. God has a purpose for you. There is a good work. I mean something that will tap into the depth of your heart that he designed you for. And part of your DNA spiritually, your personality, your background, your experience, he wants to get you on the canvas and he wants you to cooperate in a way so that he can dramatically change you from the inside out in a way that will be better than you could ever dream. In our next broadcast, we're going to talk about where God does his extreme makeover. And we're going to talk very specifically about how God does extreme makeovers.

Don't miss it. Just before we close, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now. And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has been able to provide encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever before. So thank you to those who support us with your prayers. God is doing amazing things. Well, join us next time as Chip continues his series, Your Divine Design. Until then, this is Dave Drouin, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.