Starting A Renovation Project

INTRODUCTION Morning. I’m David Sorn. Lead Pastor of Renovation Church I wanted to start this morning by giving you a little background of my life and where I came from I grew up in Cambridge, MN………. GIVE TESTIMONY RENOVATION CONNECTION This morning I want to talk about the different reasons for starting a “Renovation Project” What are the different things that lead us to start a R.P.? In your house, your kitchen, your garage, your car Any sort of Renovation… Which is to take something old and to make it like new And I think it’s important for us to examine what leads us to start those sort of projects, for there are very similar reasons for what leads us to want to be renovated spiritually as well. For us to want God to move in our lives. To invite Him in. To make us “new again.” To be Renovated Because that’s what Renovation Church is all about We don’t just specialize in new kitchen cabinetry or anything Renovation Church is about helping people “renovate” their lives. To make God new again in their lives. Relevant again. A lot of us spend a lot of time working on “renovating” our homes, our areas, our “stuff” in a lot of different ways… But we want to help with the big picture of “renovating” your life Because I believe that if you are interacting w/ God, He will renovate your life. Make it new Which is sort of theme verse for this Church: (2 Corinthians 5:17) NLT This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! It’s a Renovation. So the question is… what is it that leads us to want/start any sort of Renovation Project in our lives in the first place? DESIRE FOR SOMETHING BETTER I think there are a couple of different things that lead us to starting a Ren. Project One of them is what I would call: The desire for something better You take a look at your kitchen, your bathroom, your car, your TV, your speakers for your supposed “entertainment room,” and lots of times we desire something new. And in this case, what we have might work just fine. It’s not broken. But we still often just desire newness. Like for instance, when I’m at home this Monday night watching my “narrow screen” TV, I may desire a new one The problem is that 75% of our desires for new things, for something renovated, are not usually noble or worthwhile desires But sometimes they are worthwhile desires. For instance Play room space for kids Extra converted bedroom for aging parent And similarly, sometimes God gets our attention by simply just putting a desire in our hearts and minds for newness. For Him. See God’s mission, His purpose, is to draw us to Him (John 6:44) NIV 44"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. God is like a magnet…finding different ways to draw people closer to Him every day. And maybe he’s doing that in your life right now. And one of the ways He does that is to give us a desire for something new. Something better. Not just in our homes, our jobs, our bank accounts But in our lives. In our souls. He gives us the desire to want Him. It’s one of the ways He worked in my own life. God speaks into our hearts, he speaks to us “in a whisper” the Bible says. In our thoughts. And for some reason, you feel interested in God. You maybe even desire for God to bring newness into your life. And that’s just one of the ways he can draw us in. Planting a desire in our hearts to want Him to renovate us. To make us new. SOMETHING ISN’T WORKING I think another way that God often draws us to Himself is by showing us that our lives don’t work without Him If we make a comparison again to the world of renovation, this is probably the number one reason people Renovate stuff right? They have something that just isn’t working (whether that’s aesthetically or functionally), and determine they need something new. Your windows are absolutely falling apart (so you determine you need new ones), your car has been falling apart for years, your laptop computer weighs 100 lbs One of the main reasons we want something new, is because what we have is falling apart, thus we need something new It can be very similar to my last point of just having a desire for something new, except this time it’s fueled by the fact that something you have is broken or falling apart, so you NEED something new And God often works the same way in our lives… One of the number one reasons people seek out God (whether for 1st time, or maybe to come back) is because we realize that our life isn’t “working right.” We start thinking, “I wasn’t meant to feel this empty” (despite everything appearing “ok”). We think, “Why is life so hard?” “Why do I feel like this?” And in our frustration with all that is wrong we start seeking for something different. Something new. Something to bring change to our lives And God often draws us to Him or back to Him this way. When we start to wander away from Him, He gently speaks to our hearts that that’s not how he created us to be… When we walk close to God in our lives, it’s as if we walk side by side with Him on the path of life, but when we wander, our walk of life becomes that much more confusing, tiring, and frustrating. Not that walking with God means that life will go perfectly. It certainly doesn’t It’s just that God has put some sort of compass, some sort of sensor within us that lets us know when we wander. For instance, Olive Garden story… And God operates in a strangely similar way: He has a way of creating his own “annoying beeping of unrest” in our lives. He has the ability to get our attention by proving to us that we weren’t meant to live this life away from Him and His Goodness and His Forgiveness and His Love. SOMETHING BREAKS And so God often gets our attention by showing us the slow deteriorating fade of our lives. Just as we one day can just wake up and notice, “Wow, my kitchen does look like it’s from 1973.” I need change. Or maybe you’re a college student, and you always thought your dorm room looked fine, until some girl visited some day and remarked, “It’s really gross and here.” And over the next few weeks, the more you look around, you start thinking, “IT IS GROSS IN HERE” Cuz now and again our desire for renovation, for newness, for change is just a long process of realization like that As John chapter 6 said, “No one comes to Jesus unless God is drawing Him” there. And He does so in so many diff. ways. And sometimes, just sometimes, God draws people to Himself in a more radical and quick way. Because sometimes you need a Renovation because something just breaks unexpectedly Sometimes a Renovation project isn’t started because your garage has been falling about for 20 years, sometimes a Renovation Projected is started because your faucet stopped working. Out of nowhere! Your car broke down, and now it’s totaled and you need a new one! Let me tell you a little story of completely unexpected Renovation that happened to me a year and a half ago. TELL SNAKE STORY And just like that…they had to Renovate the entire apartment. Gut out the walls, rip up all the carpet, and more. Thankfully, I didn’t stick around to try out the newly renovated apt and asked them to move us to a different one Two weeks earlier, I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t planning on getting SNAKES in my apt. For goodness sakes, this isn’t the everglades, this is Anoka Cty. And out of nowhere so much changed at once And sometimes that happens in our spiritual lives. Sometimes it’s even really positive radical change: You have a baby, you find the love of your life, you get a promotion that you weren’t expecting. And once in a while things just unexpectedly break in your life. A Relationship, a job, a friendship, or others. And often it takes the unexpected falling apart of something in our lives for God to get our attention. And maybe it’s something that He didn’t even desire to happen, but sometimes, we won’t even give him our attention until these moments. It’s like taking care of a car. I know I should take my old car in more often, but I usually only take it in when it unexpectedly falls apart on me. And sometimes we do the same with God We only remember that we need Him when things start falling apart And nonetheless, even though I guess that’s not the most “noble” way to come to Him, He’s still overjoyed that we are willing to look for Him. Overjoyed. See because God is trying to “draw us to Him” in whatever way He can. Whether that’s through implanting a desire in our hearts, slowly showing us that we need change and need Him, or through speaking to us through more unexpected circumstances. CONCLUSION And maybe that’s why you’re even here this morning. Maybe God has been tugging on your heart in one of those ways. Drawing you to Him Maybe He’s even been trying to get your attention in a unique way. Because sometimes He has to prove to us that we NEED him before we call him. Otherwise, we continue on trying to renovate our lives on our own. Maybe you’ve tried to make life work. Maybe you’ve been trying to do it on your own. But just not with a master renovater. The one who is supposed to be the “architect of your life.” “The carpenter in your life” We’ve all sort of had those experiences when you try and fix something on your own and you should have called somebody else to help. I’M NOT CALLING ANYONE!! I CAN DO THIS!! And we do the same things with our lives. Even though, there is one out there who knows us better than ourselves. And can help make us new again… It’s so easy to just rely on ourselves So, watch for Him. Listen for Him. How is he trying to get your attention to let Him in to help? Whether it’s for the first time in your life, or for the hundredth time in your life. Because it’s not easy. We stray, we fall away. And we need to remind ourselves over and over that we can’t do this on our own. And when you get to that point, and maybe you’re there now, when you start to realize OR remember again how real God is… Remember these words from the Bible. (2 Corinthians 5:15 17) – NEW LIVING TRANSLATION 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. 16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! Seek out God. And He will make you new. Let us as a church help you in this process that we’re all in together of renovating our lives. The mission of this church is to join w/ individuals become a people being changed by God to change the world. And in the coming weeks, I’m going to continue to talk about what it means to let God in on the renovation of your life. And it is an incredible life changing process. And unbelievably worth it Let’s pray. Copyright: David Sorn Renovation Church in Blaine, MN You may use this material all you like! We only ask that you do not charge a fee and that you quote the source and not say it is your own.