# The Renovation of Your Life

Category: Grace
Key Passage: Romans 8:28
Speaker: Anthony Aaron
Date: July 27, 2023

All right. I don’t know if I’m on or not. Can you hear me out there? All right. Good, good. I taught them everything that they know. Praise the Lord that they got a mama that taught them some more. So that’s good. But take your Bibles. Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8.

Wow, the last message here. This is quite an honor. It really is. I really appreciate Preacher letting me preach here, you know, and being here as assistant pastor for six years. We came, like the preacher said, newlywed, just found out we had a baby on the way.

When I first talked to Preacher, we accepted the position before we knew we had a baby on the way. I told Preacher, I made that phone call, and I said, “Well, Preacher, it’s just not going to be just the two of us coming down. We’ve got another one on the way.” Praise the Lord, he was excited about that. Y’all have just been so welcoming to us. I love our church family here. This has been amazing. I came here green, fresh out of college. I knew the bus ministry, and that’s all I’ve done. God really has grown me in a lot of areas and is still growing me. We’re going to talk about that tonight.

It’s just amazing. It really is to be around God’s people. God’s people are the greatest people in all the world. I’d rather be around a bunch of Christians on a Sunday night listening to God’s Word than any football field in the whole world. I love being around God’s people. I love seeing y’all interact with my kids. The men in here have been able to have a lot of good fellowship with, a lot of friendship with. Y’all have just been amazing. You really have, through it all. We even made it through COVID. How about that? It’s just been great. It really has.

We’ve gone from just me and my wife and a baby on the way to now four kids, no more. Somebody told me today—it was Brother Mark Gates, I don’t know if he’s here tonight—but he said, “So, man, six kids in four years.” I was like, “Whoa, hold on. Let’s stop that just a second there. Four kids in six years. Let’s get those numbers right there.” I know it was homeschooled, but let’s get those numbers right there. But…

It is good to be around God’s people, and you guys have been very welcoming to our kids, and we appreciate that. There are going to be a lot of tears that have already been shed and will be shed, but they’re happy tears. They really are. God is not done with us. I’m not going to be a chocolate salesman, so, yeah, I don’t have a future in that, but we are going to serve the Lord still. We do feel like the Lord is opening these doors, and it’s just been incredible, timing-wise, and just everything the Lord has put together to put us here. We are thankful for the investment that you’ve made to us. Pastor, again, taking me from nothing, you know, and not that I am something now, but just taking me fresh out of college and investing in me. I really appreciate that, and I won’t forget that. I really won’t. I’m thankful for this opportunity to preach tonight. If you have your Bibles, let’s stand. Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. We’re going to start in verse number… Let’s see. Are y’all hungry? Because we could skip some verses. No. Let’s start in verse number 28. Verse number 28.

Preacher read this this morning. I thought he was going to take my message. I’m like, “Oh, please no, please no.” Praise the Lord. Look at this. Romans chapter 8, verse number 28. The Bible says this: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? How powerful these verses are. We’re going to look at some things here. Last verse we’ll read, and we’ll pray. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifies. Let’s pray. Lord, I thank you so much, God. I don’t take this lightly, Lord, to be able to stand here talking to the people of God from the Word of God. Lord, I just thank you so much for this opportunity. Please just bless us, Lord. Would you open our hearts, open our minds to what you have for us to learn tonight? Lord, I do thank you so much for the opportunity, the things that we’ve learned while we’ve been here, and the things that we are going to learn. You’re not done with us. We are a continuous project, Lord, and I’m thankful that you have patience for us and that you love us enough to conform us to the image of your Son. We ask that you bless these things. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. Thanks so much. You may be seated.

Many of you know that three years ago, a little over three years ago, we bought our first house. That house was fully done? We walked into it. The baseboards were all completed? No, of course not. That house was built in '56, and it looked like they hadn’t touched it at all since then. It was quite the house when we first bought it. We bought it with the intention of fixing it up. It’s our first house—the American dream. We were going to get this house and do some stuff to it, and I was thankful for that.

When we first came here, we lived in a little duplex. Miss Ruby Ross was our landlord, and she’s tight with money, but she’s been very good to us over the years. When we were first moving here, we were debating on going to an apartment or to this duplex. God just really opened the door for us to go to this duplex. We were at that duplex for three years, the little bottom half of a flat. We had some great neighbors that lived above us, and we had Brother Frank—no, I’m just kidding about that—but we had Brother Frank, who was also our next-door neighbor. They were a blessing, they really were, during those first couple years of marriage. I know Josell understands this completely. You just need five minutes, just ten minutes. “I’m just going to go to the store and get a slushy real fast.” Brother Frank was wanted: “Can you watch the child? I don’t know how we’re going to do it any other way, but please, would you watch the child? We need to go and get a break.” Brother Frank and Miss Wanda were there for us, and we really appreciate that part of our life. Then we had one and then two children, and it was like, well, this two-bedroom apartment was getting a little tight. So we wanted to find a house.

From the start of us looking at houses to the time that we bought our house, we looked at about 25 individual houses that we drove up to. Some of them we had showings on, some we put offers in, and it didn’t work until the last one. We had this whole process we went through to be able to get our house. I remember… In the last six weeks before we actually got our house, we put in five different offers. We were doing anything: “All right, hey, you know what? It doesn’t leak all the time. We’ll take it. All right. You know, it’s one bedroom. We’ll take it. We’ll survive. We’ll get in there.” God really was growing us through that time. Eventually, we found the house. It’s at the end of a cul-de-sac, 0.71 acres, which is a perfect amount of land for us. It was three-bedroom, two-bath. I’ve always wanted a two-story house; it’s one-and-a-half story, so you don’t always get what you want every time. But I got one-and-a-half stories, and it was a two full bath, three-bedroom house. We fell in love with it. We were like, “This has got to be the house.” In the description, it said, “Handyman special.” I’m like, “Whoo! We’ll take it. I don’t know much about houses, but I don’t care. We’ll learn it.” Praise the Lord for that. I remember us getting our house. We put in an offer for the house—this will be our fifth offer in the last six weeks—and we were like, “Well, you know, we’ll live there. That’ll be okay. If they take it, great. If not, you know, we’re just kind of stuck. We’ll just keep looking.”

We put in that offer. We didn’t hear anything for a couple of days. We heard back, and they said they had accepted our offer. In our original offer, we had an escalation clause so if somebody came in and bid a little bit higher, we would be able to hopefully outbid them. They said they used your escalation clause, but they did accept your offer. They didn’t tell us the final price. I was like, “Oh, well, right. You know, we went up to a million dollars, so I think we’d get the house.” But no, they told us that when we came to sign papers, the people who owned the house messed up on their paperwork and gave us the house for the asking price we had originally offered before all the escalation. God worked those details out to get us into that house. As soon as we did that, we had a lender who gave us—she had a federal grant where they’ll give you $10,000 as a down payment. You have to pay it back when you move, but $10,000 was greatly beneficial. We came into that house and got to work. It was definitely a house that needed some work. I was praying for a fixer-upper, and God said, “All right, here we go.” And that’s what I got. Praise the Lord, we’re going to be talking about my house today and what the Lord has done through it. I’ve got some pictures to show for tonight, and hopefully, you can relate with me on this. Maybe you’ve never done a remodel or a renovation on your house, but the pictures here tonight will help us out. The title of the message tonight is “The Renovation of Your Life.” The renovation of your life. We read there in Romans chapter 8, verse 29.

The Bible says, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.” I don’t know about you, but we played with Play-Doh growing up. We ate most of it, but we did play with Play-Doh growing up. If you’ve ever taken Play-Doh and you take it up to a football, put it on the laces, and smash it down real good, then you take that Play-Doh off. Guess what? The indentation of the laces from the football are formed, conformed onto that Play-Doh. That’s exactly what God wants us to do in the life of Jesus Christ. He wants to take us as the potter and conform us, mash us together, conform us to the image of God’s Son. That’s what God is doing. God is doing a renovation in your life.

There are some things we learned about this house project: there is a big difference between remodeling and renovating. Remodeling is Hobby Lobby throw pillows, Yankee candles, and a couple of coats of paint. That’s what a remodel is. A renovation—we tore that house apart. Literally, we signed on the house. My wife’s grandfather passed away. We went up to the funeral up there. Driving up there, my mind was just working: “This is going to go down. I’m breaking this wall down. I’m going to tear this wall down. We’re going to open this up here. This is going to be fantastic.” We had it all together. We came down, and my dad—he was a pastor in Memphis—came up, and we just went to work. We had two sledgehammers and two days, so we got it done. We completely tore down that whole upper story, the half story, to the studs, the whole thing. The house fell down? No, I’m just kidding. But we tore it all down up top. Downstairs, we were knocking out walls. I brought my wife into the house again, and she looked at the kitchen. She said it was seven feet wide, eleven feet deep, and said, “This kitchen’s not going to do.” I said, “If it’s going to make food, we will make it work. We will get you something that you will enjoy so you can get that magic happening in the kitchen.” She didn’t like this small kitchen; she wanted a bigger kitchen. I said, “Easy. We’ll just knock a wall down.” And that’s what we did. We knocked the wall out and did a bunch of work on it.

After that demolition week, I remember going back through the house with my wife. Here we are; we’re still living in this duplex. I brought her in and took her through the house, and I’m like, “Look, honey, this is amazing.” She was looking at all these wires hanging everywhere, all this sheetrock and mortar all over the place, and I could just see her eyes start to widen. “We are about to move into this place?” “No, baby, it’s going to be great. We’re going to get this taken care of. It’s going to be wonderful.” If I knew now what I knew then, how long it actually takes to renovate a house, we probably wouldn’t have done it to begin with. But we came into that house with a job to do. We came into that house wanting to renovate and make that house brand new. Jesus Christ does the exact same thing when he comes inside your heart. Jesus Christ comes into your heart, not with throw pillows, not with fancy smelling candles, but he comes into your heart with the tool bag, his work belt on, and he is ready to get to work fixing your heart, fixing your life, to mold you to the image of Jesus Christ. That’s what Jesus wants to do in our own life. He doesn’t want to remodel our life; he wants to renovate our life. He wants to completely tear down. The Bible says, “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” He wants to go inside and not just put new paint on the wall, but he wants to tear down some walls. He wants to get to some of the root issues. He wants to take that old wiring in your life, maybe those old habits that you have. He wants to rip those things out, and he wants to put some new desires in your life. He wants to put something new in your heart. That’s what Jesus wants to do for us as we become a Christian.

We’re going to look at some things here. This message is not to brag on my home-building skills. I’m about to show you some pictures, and you’re going to be like, “Wow, is it done?” Like, that’s supposed to be the end product. Don’t laugh too hard, okay? I want to show you some of these pictures. It’s not to brag about our home-building skills at all, but it’s to show you what the Lord enabled us to do to this house. We’ll relate this to our own life. I want to show you the first video—I think—our initial walkthrough of the house. We got word we were going to get the house, and we did a video walkthrough. I don’t know if the audio will work, but the video sure does. I’ll let you watch that real fast. That is the spiral staircase. The infamous spiral staircase. Very beautiful, very old, and we were ready to get that thing out of there. This is our laundry room that we initially came into. There’s the kitchen again, seven feet wide. Not much happening there, but Cotora wanted that whole thing gone. We were just showing the yard what it looked like at that point, just kind of doing our initial walkthrough. All that was hardwood flooring, but some of you people like dogs inside—more power to you, but that’s a lot of cleaning. Anyway, bathroom stuff like that. Sorry, I tried not to put the bathroom videos in here. I just wanted to give you an idea of what the house looked like when we walked into the front door. This was it. In my mind, this is what we were looking forward to. This is our house. This is what we were going to get after. I know it’s a little dark. That’s okay, Brother Patrick. Thank you. That was our house. That gives you an idea of what it looked like. The upstairs had pink carpet, and the closet doors—the handle was way down here. You had to open up to get out to this little bitty tiny closet. Very old, pink, stained carpet. The bathroom upstairs was at a slant. You could shower, all right, let’s say that, but you could shower and be super close. You could even brush your teeth while you’re showering. Everything was so compact, tight, and we were like, “Wow, this has got to go.” That was what we came into, but we came into this with the idea: this is not how the house is going to stay. We are going to do some massive work on this house.

I’m just going to show you the before and after pictures of what we were able to do, and then we’ll get into our message. This is our first picture, taken after the final walkthrough. Our real estate agent took our picture here. That’s what it looked like when we first bought it. Keep going. This is what it looks like now, based on the real estate pictures. Not a lot of change on the outside, it looks like, but let’s look at what happened on the inside. Keep going. This is that kitchen we had originally. Behind that white cabinet was some very old wallpaper. We tore it down. Next picture, Brother Patrick. This is what our kitchen looks like now. Again, there was a wall there, and I think I’ll have time to get into that, but we opened it up. We took down a door, took out some windows, and tried to make the kitchen a little bit bigger. You can do the next picture. It looks a little washed out. Anyway, there was our laundry room. Nice beautiful sheetrock piece right in the middle there and pipe sticking out—that’s always a beautiful thing. This is what it looks like now. Just seeing these pictures, I’m like, “Wow, is that really what it looked like?” Go ahead, Brother Patrick. This is if you’re standing in the kitchen, looking out into the living room. This is what it looked like before we put the flooring down. Brother Patrick, this is what it looks like now. That wall over to the right is made of that plaster stuff. It’s super thick, super heavy. I remember Preacher helped me out the first time we tore a bunch of this stuff down, and we just started throwing it out the window. There was so much junk, and some of that plaster—Preacher brought his truck over and helped me. We loaded up his truck bed full of this plaster. It’s like carrying cement around. We brought it to the dump, and as we were loading it up, both of our backs gave out. We were just laying there until somebody helped us out. It was pretty bad there for a little bit. Go ahead, Brother Patrick. This was the upstairs. I didn’t have a picture before because it was just super ugly, so we didn’t even care to take a picture before. These are some of the walls we tore down. Look at the next picture—this is what it looks like now. The stairs were built by an electrician, my dad’s electrician, and they turned out really good. Then we had someone else put in the carpet; that was a very smart thing. Go ahead, Brother Patrick. Next picture. Okay, we don’t have to do that. Cancel that out. This is just another… Well, okay, I’ll show you this video. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go back to it.

This is a video, halfway through the demolition part. We haven’t technically moved in, but we are going to town on the inside here. Cotora is narrating, showing you where we actually slept last night—in this bedroom. We had to move the insulation out so we could get our bed in there. There was the bathroom there, another room. You can go to the next picture; we’ll show the downstairs. This is what the downstairs looked like: one of the bedrooms looking out into the laundry room. We tore everything down to the studs, and we even removed some of the studs. Go to the next picture. That was the bathroom there. Next picture. Again, just to give you an idea—Brother Mark Gates actually put that door together. Praise the Lord, God brought us through this house. It was a huge, massive project. I say all that to say that God did a renovation in our life just the same way we did with this house. This house is not perfect, but we’re going to get into some of those things today. Let’s keep going. Now I’m going to give you three points, and then we’ll be done for tonight.

Number one: The world does not have the same value system that God does. Number one: The world does not have the same value system that God does. Romans chapter 8, you’re already there. Look at verse number 16. The Bible says, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” Not the servants, not the low-life slaves or just the half-breeds or anything like that. No, we are the children of God. We are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. The first thing we have to realize about the renovation of our own life—what is God doing for my life? What is God doing in my life?—the first thing we have to realize is God and the world have two different value systems. They just have two different value systems.

When we bought that house, we were just going to town trying to get that thing built. We had a higher interest rate, and of course, we were trying to get some things done to it. The first year and a half, we were just booking it, trying to get some stuff done, trying to get the house done. Then we had the appraiser come out; we were going to refinance our house. We were expecting this guy to just go, “Wow, this house is incredible.” We were just listening; he was in the other room. Is he saying “wow”? At this point, our house still had flooring that didn’t have baseboard on it; we still had closets that didn’t have doors on them. We were kind of halfway through the process. We were trying to refinance our house, and we were expecting this guy to come in and say, “Man, you guys have done an amazing job on this house.” But you know what? That guy was here for 10 to 15 minutes, took a bunch of pictures, and ran out. We never even got to talk to him. He didn’t value our house at the value that we had on that house. At that point, we had put in time. At that point, we had put in a ton of effort. At that point, it had been blood, sweat, and tears into that house. The value that man placed on our house was not the value that we had for that house. The same thing goes with you. The world values money. The world values fame. The world values position, power, glamour, and glitz. But God values faithfulness. God values somebody that will show up and do what they need to do. God values somebody that’s willing to be submissive to Jesus Christ. That’s what God values. What God values and what the world values are two completely different things. God sees the end project. He sees the end product—what’s going to be at the end? We just had our house refinanced again. This lady came into our house as it was completed, and she said, “Oh, this is a really nice house. Do you have any pictures of what it used to look like?” We were able to show her these pictures, and she said, “Wow, you guys have done a ton of work.” She sees the end product.

The world does not see the end product. The world sees you for who you are right now. It is very foolish for us as Christians to judge each other by where we are right now because you don’t know where I’ve been. I don’t know where you’ve been. I don’t know what the Lord has delivered you from. I don’t know what you are dealing with currently. But I do know that we serve a Savior, Jesus Christ, that doesn’t see you at this point. He sees you at what you could be. He sees you at your potential. That’s the way Jesus sees you. God values you for who you are. God values you because he sees the end project. The world does not see where you used to be; they judge where you are now. We get frustrated as Christians because we compare ourselves to the next guy. We get frustrated as Christians because I’m not as far along as the next guy. I’ll tell you this: we bought this house, and again, it’s a big project. I remember some guys we went to college with, and they were buying houses too. They were like, “Man, we stayed up real late last night painting this room. We’re almost done. It’s ready to move in. We got candles and pictures.” Then we’re looking at our house, and there are mud lines, there are cracks here, there’s a whole wall missing over here. Charity is walking in and out with no door. It’s like, “Man, that sounds pretty nice.” And you know what happens? I get frustrated, and I say, “Man, I want to be a house. I want to have a house like that. I want to be to the point where we’re ready for that stuff. I want to be at the point where I could throw some throw pillows”—Cotora will do the throw pillows—“but I want to be at the point where we could start decorating.” I remember we would get so frustrated because we weren’t at that point, and we weren’t just content with where we are now.

Here’s the thing: God is doing a work in your life. You can’t get frustrated because you’re not a super Christian. You are who you are right now. God has a different value system than we do. The world will make you feel worthless, but you are valuable to God because he has a plan for you. He has a plan for you. The Bible says in Psalms 139:14, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made.” God designed you from the beginning. He had a purpose he wanted you to do. When we get saved, God moves in with that tool bag, ready to conform us to the image of his Son. God loved me even as a sinner. Some of you know who I am, but you do not really know who I am. I don’t know who you really are, but Jesus knows everything that we’ve done, and yet he still loves us. He still wakes up every morning and says, “All right, all right, Brother Gregory, what are we doing today? All right, what are we going to get done today? What are we going to change? What are we going to renovate in your life?” That’s the way Jesus looks at it. He’s never frustrated. He’s never depressed because things are not going the right way. Jesus says, “All right, it’s a new day. Let’s get going. Let’s get going.” God loves us for who we are; He sees the end result. God sees the final picture in our life. Who cares what the world thinks about you? Only what God thinks about you matters. So number one, we have to realize that the world does not have the same value system that God does.

The second thing is you cannot fix everything in one day. I don’t know how many times we would start out the day, and man, I had my to-do list. Brother Chip, you’d be proud of this. I had my to-do list, and it had everything down to the detail. I’d stay up later; I’d wake up early, thinking, “This is what we’re going to get done today.” Then we’d get after it, and we’d tear a wall down or something like that, and we’d go, “Whoo! All right. Well, I didn’t know that the whole flooring underneath here was rotted away because of water damage.” All right, well, I guess I have to take care of this now. Then we’d get done with that, and we’d hear some buzzing noise. We’d go outside, and there’s a circuit breaker buzzing. We pull it out, and it’s melted. I’m like, “You know what? Let’s go ahead and worry about this. This is a little bit more of a priority than getting this wall painted over here.” We would have some things we wanted to do, but just things started coming up in our life. I would get frustrated: “Man, God, I want it done. God, I want to be finished.” I would get frustrated because I can’t fix everything in one day. You can’t either. You say, “Well, man, I’ve been struggling with this forever—10, 15, 20 years.” Well, guess what? Start another day. It’s a new day for you. It’s another day. Say, “Well, hey, I can’t fix everything, but man, I can work on this. Holy Spirit, would you help me work on this today? God, would you help me overcome this sin in my life?” God says, “I’m here. I’m ready. I’m ready to get this done in your life.”

Frustration comes because there is no magic tool. I looked all up and down Lowe’s and Home Depot, and there is no magic tool to put up a wall and have it mudded and painted for you. There is just nothing like that; it is hard work. You have to get after it. We redid all the wiring in the house, and there were some points where the wires would just come together, and there was a paper towel jammed up in that box. I was like, “Okay, I guess they wanted us to die. I think that was the goal there.” But man, there were some things that needed to be addressed, and I couldn’t fix everything in one day. God is the same way. Here’s the thing: Life is a journey, not a pit stop. Life is a journey. You wake up every day and say, “All right, God, here I am today. I can’t change what I’ve done before; I can’t worry about the future, but I’m here today. God, what do you want to do in my life?” God is ready to do that for you. The Christian life is about doing, but it is also rather about being. It is easy for us as preachers to come up here and say, “Man, you need to do this, this, this, this, this.” It is another thing to say, “Hey, you need to be spiritual.” It is one thing to say, “Yes, you get to do all these spiritual things; I need you to be involved in this.” But it is easy to do spiritual things, but it is difficult to be spiritual. It is difficult to be a Christian day in and day out, being in a workplace where people are cursing and coming with their alcohol and all these other things that you have to deal with. It is easy to say, “You know what? I don’t know if I can handle that, and I’m just going to let it go.” But, oh, man, church comes; I’ll be in church. It is easy to do spiritual things, but it is difficult to be spiritual. That is what God wants us to do. He is working at trying to clean up the inside. He is working at renovating our life. I don’t know if any of you have used Scrubbing Bubbles before. Brother Renick has no idea what I’m talking about. That’s okay; that’s why you have Ms. Angeles. Scrubbing Bubbles, right? You spray Scrubbing Bubbles on, and then what happens? As soon as you spray it, you grab the sponge and start wiping it down? No. What do you have to do? You have to let it work. You have to let it sit. You have to let it soak. That is my excuse for the dishes in the sink: “Honey, you just got to let them soak, and all that’ll come off.” But God is trying to work in the background. He is trying to work on those things, and we have to be patient and let him do his perfect work. So again, this is something that we can’t fix all in one day. We are ready for God to do a work in our life, but we have to understand and not be frustrated. I can’t do everything today, but God, I can do this today. God, would you help me with this today? So number one, the world does not have the same value system that God does. Number two, you cannot fix everything in one day.

And number three, this is the last point. We have to fully surrender our lives to God. We have to fully surrender our lives to God. I remember when we were remodeling/renovating the kitchen ceiling. When we first bought the house, there was that wall—we tore the wall out. But then something happened; I don’t know, but there was nothing there to support it. The sheetrock and the ceiling started sagging. It was like that for a couple of years, and we were like, “All right, just nobody touch it. We’re not putting balloons up or anything. Just leave it alone. If we don’t touch it, it won’t get mad and fall on us.” We just left it like that for a while. I had to understand, “Honey, we got to take care of this. We got to tackle this project.” So we started tearing down the kitchen ceiling. And you know what we found? We found Styrofoam, enough to fill up a truck bed full of Styrofoam. They just grabbed things and just… I don’t know what they were doing. They had Styrofoam all up in the rafters there; they were missing a rafter. I was like, “Wow, well, of course that’s not going to work out.” They had blown-in insulation. They had toys in there. I remember we were tearing all this down. I was going to work, and there it all was, in the middle of the kitchen. I’m like, “All right, honey, I love you. I got to get going to work.” She says, “Excuse me?” I said, “No, I got to get to work. I got to get some things done. I’ll be back, though.” She said, “No, you’re not leaving me with this house like this. I can’t cook. I can’t do anything. There’s insulation all over the kitchen. You can’t go anywhere.” That was a very deep time that we had together. Praise the Lord for that. When we started digging into that ceiling, when we started digging into these walls, we found the root issues that were causing some of these problems. I remember we were sitting at the kitchen table, eating supper, and water started pouring and trickling down from the wall. I’m like, “Honey, I’m not an expert in this. I did go to Bible college, but I don’t think that’s supposed to be like that.” We’ve gone through some issues. We’ve seen some water damage. We’ve seen some electrical wires, like I said, just meeting up and paper towel shoved in as insulation, I guess. But we wouldn’t see those things unless we tore down those walls. We tore down those barriers that were keeping me from seeing those issues. That’s exactly what God wants us to do. We need to be fully surrendered to say, “God, I know it’s going to hurt. God, I know I don’t really want anybody to see this about my life, but God, I’m giving this to you. I’m surrendering this to you. God, do what you need to do to make me like you.” Here’s the thing: Sacrifice is necessary. You can’t have surrender without sacrifice because you are sacrificing your goals, your plans, your dreams to somebody else. You are submitting them to Jesus Christ, and Jesus says, “Okay, I know you wanted to be a race car driver when you were growing up, but this is what I want you to do.” I said, “All right, God, I don’t want any speeding tickets anyway, so what do you want me to do?” You surrender to what God has for you. You say, “God, there’s some hurt in my past that I don’t want anybody to know about.” God says, “Hey, I want to do a work in your life.” We’ve seen this in Mark, but God can only do what you let him do. If you say, “God, you can do a work on the outside; you can put some flowers out front, you can put some bushes out front, but no, not my heart. God, I’ve got some things in here I don’t want anybody to see. I don’t want you touching these things,” God says, “Okay, I’ll do what you let me, but I really want to get in there and start doing a work in your life. I really want to get in there. I know what you could be. I see the end goal. I see what your potential is, but you got to let me get in there.” We have to surrender to God and say, “God, look, I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t understand everything, but I’m just going to trust you.” We sing that song tonight, and that is a very important song to our family because you just trust God.

God started opening doors. I said, “God, I’m just going to trust you. God, I don’t understand it, but I’m just going to trust you. I’m going to submit my life to you.” God says, “Hey, Anthony, there’s a room I wanted to get in. Thank you for giving me permission. I want to get in there. I want to change some things.” But here is what we do: We say, “Oh, I know what God wants. I know what God wants to do.” But here is the thing: When we were building this, we were doing the upstairs bathroom. You have your main light, you have the fan light, and then you have your fan switch—all three of those switches. When we first started building the bathroom, I thought Cotora wanted the two light switches on one end by the door, and then the bathroom fan switch over here on the other side, away from the other switches. I said, “Man, that’s what Cotora wants. We’ll go ahead and do that.” I don’t know where she was at; she was probably getting some sheetrock for me. But she was out and about, and my dad and I were getting after it. We were like, “All right, we’re going to put this here.” We started getting the light switches up, and we started wiring everything. We threw the sheetrock up. She comes home and says, “Why are there only two switches here by the door? Where’s the fan switch?” I’m like, “Oh, honey, hey, it’s over here. This is where you wanted it to go.” “No, that’s not where I wanted it to go at all. I wanted it to be over here.” Well, it’s too late now. It’s already done. We’ve already sheetrocked it in. I ain’t tearing that thing down; sheetrock is too expensive. I thought I knew what she wanted, but really she had a different plan. That’s the same thing with God. God says, “Hey, you know what? I’ve got something for you, Trey. This is what I want you to do for your life.” “Oh, God, I know what you want. I know what you really want over here.” We end up in a lot of confusion because we don’t just let God have his way in our life. We sing that song, “I Surrender All,” but do we really do it? Do we really do it? It is easy to say that, but do we surrender our lives to God? Say, “God, today, Sunday, I want you to have today. This is your day. What do you want with my life? What do you want me to change? What do you want me to grow in?” God is ready. He’s right there. He has all the tools. He has the knowledge. He has everything he needs to do a renovation in your life, but he just needs you to surrender. He needs you to surrender. There is a great song: “Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.” God wants to move into your life and do a work. He wants to change. He wants to do some moving around. He wants to knock some walls out. He wants to add an addition. He wants to do something in your life, but we have to be willing to say, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Let’s bow our heads and pray.

God is molding a unique masterpiece through our lives, but he needs us to fully surrender for what he wants for us. God is trying to renovate your life, not just remodel your life. We’ve got to ask yourself tonight, you’re sitting there if you’d like to raise your hand. If you say, Brother Anthony, I’ve been letting the world set my value. I’ve been comparing myself to those that are in the world, maybe coworkers or friends, Lord, my family, Lord, instead of what you want, instead of seeking your value for me. And I’ve been letting the world set my value for too long, and I’m deciding tonight, I’m going to let God set the value for my life. If that’s you, would you raise your hand for me? Just committing to God, I’m going to let God be the determining factor of the value of my life. Thank you so much. You could put your hands down.

Next question. I’m going to decide tonight, Brother Anthony, that I’m going to let God have full access in my life. Every door, every window, everything, I’m going to open it up for him to be able to move in and break down some walls, redo what he needs to do, but I’m going to give him full access to my life. If that’s you, you want to surrender to God to let him do a work in your life. Would you raise your hand tonight? I hope that’s the case. I hope that’s the case. Put your hands down.

And I didn’t talk about salvation, but in order for God to do the work in your life, he needs to move into your heart. And that comes through salvation. That comes through the Holy Spirit, quickening, making you alive inside of your heart. And you say, “God, I want you to do work, but I have, I’ve got some doubts about salvation.” And tonight I want to get those settled forever. I want to get those settled to know for sure that I’m going to heaven. If that’s you, would you raise your hand. Amen. Christians, God’s wanting to do something in our life. Let’s stand together. I’m going to pray. Ms. Cotora will play the invitation. And the invitation’s open. You come down, you surrender to God for whatever God wants for your life. Let’s pray. Lord, I ask you, please just guide this invitation. Lord, help it to be about you. We thank you so much, God, that you are not just like religion, just trying to come in and just remodel, Lord, but you really want to change our heart, want to change the way we think, want to change our desires, want to rewire us. And please, Lord, would you help us to surrender tonight to help you do that? Lord, I ask you do these things, Lord, as we pray. The altar is open.

When you give him your house and you just say, “Lord, whatever you want, it’s yours.” Sometimes it’s hard when he takes control away from you. We like control, but you say, “Lord, it’s yours. I’m just going to trust you.” And just peace comes when you give him full control.

Original File: The Renovation of Your Life - Bro. Anthony Aaron - Sunday PM 07232023