Description
TRADING SPACES
The Reveal
Ed Young
May 4th, 2003
“Trading Spaces” is the rave these days because people like to see one thing. They like to see something called “the reveal.” You might not have ever seen “Trading Spaces” before. It’s a show that is on television. It basically has a set of designers, carpenters and people and a budget. They trade spaces. They trade rooms. They redecorate each other’s rooms. The reveal happens when the people move back into their newly redecorated places. People just gather around the television sets and billions are mesmerized as they watch the reveal.
“What is going to be the response of the couples as they move back into their brand new rooms? Oohs and ahs? Or tears and sobs?” I’ve seen both.
I’ve seen, “Oh, incredible! Oh, it’s beautiful!”
I’ve also seen [Sound of crying], “This is horrible! What have you done?”
I logged onto the “Trading Spaces” Web site and I discovered something pretty funny. Most people change their rooms back to their original look after the crew leaves their house. The reveal is important on “Trading Spaces.”
It’s also important in your show and my show. Trading spaces is not a brand new deal. It’s been on for a long time. In fact, for thousands of years, God has been playing out his redemptive show in people’s lives. Our life is all about the reveal. We have an opportunity to reveal something. The Bible says that we are made in God’s image, that we are unique, and that we are one of a kind. It also says that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and rose again. If we ask him to walk through the door of our lives, he comes in, takes his residence there and he changes our lives from the inside out. The Designer, that’s God the Father, plans our lives. The Carpenter, that’s Christ, builds our lives. As Christ-followers, we live the stuff out. That’s a phenomenal thing. We reveal, basically, what the designer has done. We reveal the décor of the carpenter. That’s a great responsibility. It is something that’s really unique about the life of a follower of Jesus.
I want to ask you a question right up front. When people look at your life and mine, when they tour your home and my home, what do they see? What do they see when they get up close and personal? As you reveal hopefully the décor of your designer, what do they see about the way you treat others or your spouse. What do they see about your values, your priorities, your emotions, or your reactions? Remember, the reveal is all about the response. How do we respond to God’s reveal?
After all, the Bible says that God the Father sent the Son, and the Son reveals the Father. Then God the Son sent the Spirit, and the Spirit reveals the Son. God made you and me, so our life’s purpose should be to reveal what God has done. We should reveal God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit because our viewing audiences, a lot of people, a lot of individuals, are checking us out. They are looking at your house and mine. What are we revealing and what kind of response is playing out in our lives?
So, we’re talking about the reveal. Let’s just kind of camp out here for a second and see how the reveal relates to your life and mine. I think you are going to see that it is hugely important. Right up front, you will notice something. The reveal is all about the house. In the Old Testament, God was in the house. He was in the Tabernacle. He was in the Temple. In the New Testament, God got out of the house as he revealed to us the person of Christ. In the New Testament, s
1 Corinthians 6:19, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.”
My wife, Lisa, and I spent the last nine months working on projects called Body for God. I did a series a while back that was very popular. We talked about the importance of our bodies. Our bodies are a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit of God. We shouldn’t trash the Temple. We shouldn’t mess around with our bodies. We should take care of our bodies. Why? Is it because of vanity reasons? No. It is because of value reasons. We should use our bodies for maximum service. We should have healthy bodies. How we treat our bodies is an act of worship. It’s very strategic that we understand this aspect of living. It just blows me away to think about the fact that our bodies are housing for the Holy Spirit of God. Speaking of that, how many of you have ever gone on a tour of homes before? That’s very popular these days. If you have gone on a tour of homes, why did you do it? I’ll tell you why you did it. You did it to get ideas, didn’t you?
“Oh, I love what they did with the entry way or the family room, the way they landscaped the spa and the pool. It was just gorgeous and I can apply that to where I am.”
When people tour your life and mine, what kind of ideas do they get? What kind of ideas? What kind of ideas do they get about Jesus Christ? Your audience, your viewing audience and my viewing audience, is dying to see authenticity. They are dying to see the real deal. They are dying to see someone who has given everything to the Lord. Yet, we compartmentalize our lives, don’t we?
We say, “Okay, God, you can have the family room. God, you can have the hallway, but let me keep the closet or this little garage for myself because, God, after all, I know what I should do.”
The Bible tells me that everything I am, everything I say and do should reflect the majesty of my Maker. It should reflect the décor of the designer. So, check this out now. Our lives are all about the reveal. We reveal the décor of the designer. What is the décor of the designer? Do you know what it is? It’s something called the glory of God. That’s what we are doing. We are reflecting the glory of God. What’s the glory of God? People say, “The glory of God.” The glory of God is simply the atmosphere of his presence. That’s what it is.
Have you ever gone into a house that had an atmosphere that was just phenomenal? When you walk into one, you say, “Man, this house is something else! Whoever designed it, the interior decorators and the carpenters, knew what they were doing. This is unreal!”
Several years ago, some generous friends allowed my family and I stay in one of their beautiful homes along the coast of California. This house had an atmosphere that I cannot describe to you. Let me just say this. When you walked into the backyard and it opens up to the Pacific Ocean, and albino seals are there in their yard barking, it was just incredible. The house was built in the 1940’s. It was decorated. It’s just really cool.
As believers, we should have that kind of décor, that kind of atmosphere. We can’t conjure it up ourselves. God does it. As attractive as that house was in California, our lives should be even more attractive. People should be drawn to our lives. They should see the zeal and passion we have from God. They should see the glory of God. And people should say, “Wow, I want some of that! Man, I just can’t explain it. I can’t understand it but this is phenomenal, your life, your house. I just am attracted,” they will say, “to the glory of God.”
That’s what it is all about. So, remember this. It is very important. The reveal, your reveal and my reveal, is all about the house. Also, the reveal is about something else. The reveal is also about the offer. It’s all about the offer. I can’t reveal something that I don’t understand. I can’t reveal something that has not been revealed to me. Once I reveal myself to God and say, “God, I offer myself to you,” then I understand how he has revealed himself to me. I can, in turn, mirror that to others.
What am I talking about? I mean, that’s kind of confusing. What am I saying? Okay, here’s what I am saying. In one word, I am talking about “worship.” To boil it down, what I have been talking about thus far is worship. To glorify God, to mirror the décor of our designer, to reflect him, is worship. Worship is huge. It’s important. Do you know that we become Christ-followers in order to worship? That’s why we become Christians. We must be pretty valuable to God. We are so valuable that he did something to keep us around for eternity. Everything in the Bible that talks about heaven is talking about worship. When I say the word “worship,” a lot of you have a whacked and warped view of worship. In fact, more Christians are whacked over worship than any other topic, in my opinion. Most of you right now are thinking, “Worship, okay, that’s stained glass, cathedral, confirmation, baptism, and communion. That’s someone hammering out ‘Bringing in the Sheaves,’ ‘Just as I Am,’ or, ’Holy, Holy, Holy.’” That is part of worship, but that’s just a little, itty-bitty, fractional view of worship. That’s not real worship. What is worship? Worship is being passionate about something. Worship is holding something in high esteem. All of us worship. Study anthropology. Go back as far as they can go back. Every person on this planet worships. Many times, we worship the wrong thing, but we are going to worship. You can’t keep worship down. We are going to worship.
So, if we are going to worship, how should we worship and who should we worship? The Bible cuts the confusion. It says, “Here is how and what you should do with your house.”
In Romans 12:1-2 Paul is saying, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers in view of God’s mercy (allow the Holy Spirit to hammer that on your frontal lobe), to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.”
This is a wild verse, a revolutionary verse, because the whole sacrificial system in the Old Testament was about dead stuff. People sacrificed animals, and the animal died. All of a sudden Paul says, “No. Offer your bodies (remember your bodies are a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit of God, housing for the Holy Spirit of God) as living sacrifices.” Living sacrifices.
I have a problem with this and so do you, because living sacrifices can crawl off the altar. Do you hear me? We just kind of creep off the altar. This word “offer” is a very important word. It means that we are to offer, at a point in time, everything to Christ, every square foot.
“Lord, here’s my rubble trouble. Lord, here is my door.”
If you don’t understand what I just said, just buy the series called Trading Spaces. I don’t have time to go there. When we open the door of our life, he comes in and takes our rubble and begins to renovate our lives to become Christ-followers. Then phase two, the construction project, takes place as we die to ourselves, as we allow the Lord to live in us, and allow the Holy Spirit to refine us. That’s the beauty of this word “offer.” So, we have got to offer at a point and time — that is becoming a Christ-follower. Then, we have to continually re-offer and resurrender our lives.
“Okay, Ed, but why? Why should I offer myself as a living sacrifice to God?”
For several reasons. First of all, because of God’s mercy. What did Paul say? “In view of God’s mercy…” What’s mercy? Mercy is simply not getting what we deserve. I deserve hell and so do you. I deserve eternal separation from God and so do you, because God is holy and we are not. But, I have not gotten what I deserve. That’s mercy. Because of the mercy of God, I should offer myself to God. I should also offer myself to God because of worship. This is my spiritual act of worship. I am showing God my passion. I am giving him my best. I am giving him my esteem and my honor and my all. That’s expressing my love to God. That’s worship.
“How about this body deal? Offer your body? Why didn’t he say spirit? I mean, spirit, Bible, Christianity… Why did he say body — offer your body, my body?”
1 Corinthians 6:19 answered that question for us. Our bodies are housing for the Holy Spirit of God. It’s hilarious when people say this, and I have said it before.
“Hey, I can’t make the meeting, but I’ll be there in spirit.”
No, you won’t. You’ll be there in spirit? If your spirit is there, then your body is there, because your body is a housing of the Holy Spirit of God. That’s why St. Paul said, “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. This is your spiritual act of worship.”
Let’s keep on going. Look at Romans 12:2. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world.” Do you know what the Phillips translation says? It says, “Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold.”
This is going to date me, but years ago, my mother gave me a Creepy Crawler set. Do you remember those Creepy Crawler things? I think they still sell them. You get this gooey stuff and you squeeze it into these molds. These molds are shaped like weird creatures. You heat them and then take them out and peel the rubber out of the mold. Whatever you squeezed into the mold would actually make the creature. I would throw them at girls.
The girls would yell, “Ack! Creepy Crawlers!”
It was a really cool deal. That’s what we do. We do the Creepy Crawler thing. We crawl off the altar and we allow the world to squeeze us into its mold. We look ugly when we do it. We are like Creepy Crawlers. Don’t go there, the Apostle Paul says. “This is your spiritual act of worship — to love the Lord, and to honor him, but to not conform any longer to the pattern (to the Creepy Crawler mentality) of the world, but be transformed.”
Do you know what the word “transform” means? It means metamorphosis.
The verse says, “…by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
It’s all about revealing. It’s all about mirroring. It’s all about advertising the décor of our designer. The designer planned it. Christ built it. We live it. That is reflecting the glory of God. That is in one word, worship, expressing our love to God, and pleasing God. That’s worship. That’s why we are here.
Every time I think about worship, I think about two things. I have told you this before, but let me tell you again. I think about a rock concert and I think about a sandwich — a rock concert and a sandwich when I think about worship. My brother, Cliff, is a musician. He has a band called Caedmon’s Call. It is a great band. I am a little bit partial. They are probably one of the top ten bands in Christian music. Pick their CD’s up. Their great. A while back, Cliff invited me to see U2 in concert. Cliff has these connections in the music world — you know what I am saying to you. We were on the fourth row watching U2 perform. We arrived late. We showed up at the concert, and when Cliff and I walked down the center isle, I saw a couple of people who attended Fellowship Church. They were giving me that, “Is that Ed at a rock concert” type look? So, we were standing there and I was so close to Bono, I could see blemishes on his face, spit coming out of his mouth, and scuffs on his shoes. We were close.
After a while, I looked around and said, “Cliff, look at this. This is incredible!”
We looked back and some people were swaying and some were lifting their hands.
I said, “Cliff, these people are worshipping. I know we are at a concert, but these guys are worshipping. Look at them.”
Then I thought, “Hey, awesome worship! Bad object. Awesome worship. Bad object.”
We have got to worship something. What do we do? We tend to substitute our worship. Instead of worshipping God, who we are wired to worship, we put other things in God’s place. It’s like ordering espresso in a restaurant. You order espresso and instead of putting the real deal in there, sugar, you put a sugar substitute in there, Equal or Sweet and Low. That’s not the real thing. The real thing is sugar.
Instead of worshipping God, what do we do? We substitute things. We substitute sex, money, position, power, automobiles, career, spouse, or kids. We can’t waste our worship. We can get a whacked out view of worship. Worship is not compartmentalized. It should transcend everything we say, touch, feel and act. Everything we do should be worship.
It’s kind of funny when people say, “I come to Fellowship Church to worship.” If you are a Christian, no, you don’t. You should come to Fellowship Church worshipping. You leave worshipping. If you come here to worship, I don’t think you are a Christ-follower.
I laugh when I get these emails. People say, “Ed, I loved the worship today. Rob was really on today.” Or, “I didn’t really get that much out of the worship today.” You have got a whacked view of worship if you do that. Here, let me tell you something. Worship, read my lips, is not about you. I know that might shock you, but it’s not about you. It’s not about me. Worship is not. It’s not.
It’s not like, “Well, I went to worship today and I didn’t like the…”
It’s not about you. It’s about God. The question should not be , “Am I pleased?” The question should be, “Is God pleased?” It’s about God, not about us.
But see, I have this tendency, and so do you, of being self-centered. Even in my worship as Senior Pastor of a church, I can move the spotlight off of God and point it to me. When I think it’s about me, you know what I do? I just ate a BLT. This is a BLT from Jason’s Deli and a lot of us think that worship is like a BLT. B-bacon — “God bless me. God bless me. God bless me.” L- Lettuce – “God love me. Forget the other person. God love me. It’s not about me loving you. You just love me, God.” T- tomato– “Take care of me, God. Take care of me.” BLT.
That’s not what it’s about. We need to remember that. Worship is about obedience. It’s about trust. The more we obey as we learned last weekend, the deeper knowledge we will have. A lot of us have a whacked and warped view of worship. Worship is every square foot of our house. Worship is the swimming pool, the Jacuzzi, the basketball goal, the swing set, and the grass. It is whatever we have. Everything we do, say, touch and feel should reflect the glory of God. It’s important to have corporate worship. It’s important to sing songs. But, what is so funny is, I’ve seen people throughout my life that will cry and hold their hands and say, “Amen,” or this or that on Sunday, and they live like trash during the week. Unless your worship translates into life change, then you are wasting your worship. God wants worshippers. We become Christ-followers to worship. Eternity is all about worship. Eternity is not going to be one giant worship service. It will be all of us doing different things, reaching our full potential in every aspect of our lives. God wants it all.
That’s why in Mark 12:30, Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
2 Samuel 24:24, “I will not offer (there’s the word again) to the Lord my God sacrifices that cost me nothing.”
I have noticed something very interesting, especially in church services. A lot of us are involved in “stop and go” worship. We will worship and then stop — worship and then stop.
Go — “Oh, I love that song, Rob. ‘It is you, it is you.’ I’m worshipping. Ed, I like the message. I’m worshipping.” Then the offering comes — Stop. Offering is over – Go. “I’ll worship again, now.”
We pick and choose our worship. We can’t go there. We can’t do that. Worship is all about the house. It’s all about the offer.
Let me do one more. Worship is also all about the world, the whole wide world. That’s what worship is all about. The whole world. What did Jesus do? Right before he ascended, he looked at his followers and said, “You know what? (I’m paraphrasing now) The reveal is your deal by my grace, by my power, and that hinges upon the redemption of the world. The way you reveal me, that’s what the redemption of the world is all about. That’s the whole thing.”
Let me tell you exactly what he said in Matthew 28:19. He says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
That’s what Jesus said. It’s all about the reveal. You have an option. You either choose to reveal the glory of God or not. But, I have got to ask you once again. When people tour your life and when they tour mine, what’s their reaction? Is it “oohs and aahs,” or, “tears and sobs?” We have been waiting for this moment in our series — the reveal. You thought the reveal was great on “Trading Spaces?” You ought to see Fellowship’s version. This reveal is going to knock your socks off. Check it out and I’ll come back and talk to you a little bit more about the implications of this reveal. We had carpenters, designers, people, and a budget. Look and see what happened.
(Video of the reveal)
That’s pretty amazing. That’s a real reveal, right there. And we have the same opportunity as well, don’t we? God has designed it. The carpenter has built it. We have the opportunity to live it out and to reflect the glory of God. What is reflecting the glory of God? It’s worship.
We have watched the war a lot over the last several months. The war has been on CNN and Fox. We have seen bullets flying and bombs going off. We have watched the war. But there has been a war over worship that has been going on for thousands of years. In fact, Satan, the evil one also called Lucifer, led worship in heaven. The Bible said though, Satan tried to usurp God. He tried to become God. The war was over worship. He was kicked out of heaven. He took with him a third of the angels, and they are now the realm of the demonic. When the evil one went one on one with Jesus during his temptation, it was all about the subject matter that I am dealing with today. He came after Jesus three times.
The first time, he said, “Jesus, you know you haven’t eaten in forty days, so why don’t you turn the stones into bread?”
Christ said, “No.”
He said, “Jesus, why don’t you dive off the Temple because you can save yourself.”
Christ said, “No.”
Then he said in Matthew 4:9, “All of this I’ll give you (here’s the third time now) if you bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said in Verse 10, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
Every time in your life and mine that we try to become God, we are more like the evil one than any other juncture in our existence. The more I develop, the more I grow, and the more I allow the Holy Spirit of God to live inside of me and change me from the inside out, the more I realize my number one problem is Ed. That’s my number one problem — my pride, my ego, and my self-centeredness. It’s my ability to say, “God, let me take this one. Let me have this one. Let me have my own deal.” But the moment we offer ourselves, the moment we understand the reveal, and the moment we understand that we have an audience who is memorized by our lives, then we can live the life.
So, I am going to ask you one more time, when people tour your home and mine, what is their response — “oohs and aahs,” or, “tears and sobs?”
Father, thank you for trading spaces. Thank you, Jesus, for leaving your place and taking our space on the cross. Thank you for offering us your, not ho-hum grace, but amazing grace. I thank you, Father, for infiltrating every square foot of our existence.