Sermon Tone Analysis
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By Pastor Glenn Pease
On a dark November day in 1884 the people of Chicago passing over the bridge near Clark street were surprised.
Below them at the dock was a ship piled high with Christmas trees of all sizes.
The news raced through the city, and soon there were reporters there sensing a story, and they were right.
A 13 year old boy named Herman Schuenenman, who was an orphan from Wisconsin, conceived of the idea of a Christmas tree ship that could bring Christmas trees from Northern Michigan to Chicago.
His idea worked so well that it became a Christmas tradition to buy a tree from his ship.
Children who bought a tree with their parents grew up to become parents, and they brought their children to buy a tree.
In 1898 the ship sank in a Lake Michigan storm, and Herman's brother went down with it, but he didn't quit.
He got another ship and kept the tradition going.
In 1912 Herman and his crew of 18, and all of the trees, went down in another terrible storm, and they were never found.
Barbara, his wife, known as the Christmas tree lady, the following year in 1913 shipped in the usual 20 thousand trees and kept the tradition going.
She kept it going until 1932 even though in the last years all her trees were brought in by train.
She died in 1933, and with her the tradition ended.
All that is left is the cemetery headstone engraved with their names and a Christmas tree.
The point of this true story is that even deeply formed traditions can and do change, and nothing stays the same, for the very essence of life in a fallen world is change.
We can all remember experiences of Christmas that can never be the same.
I had a cousin and uncle near my age, and we ran around together as young boys.
Christmas at grandma's house was a tradition all my boyhood life.
It was a special time, but once I grew up it was never the same, for all of life had changed.
It is the same for everyone, for nobody can stop time and keep everything the same.
Even if you lived in the White House you cannot do it.
Listen to Elinor Roosevelt describe her Christmas experience.
"I remember especially the Christmas that Mr. Churchill
was with us after we were involved in World War II.
After
that year, the Christmases weren't so cheerful.
My mother-
in-law died in the autumn before that first war Christmas.
The boys all went off to different war theaters.
Their absence
meant that we did what we could to cheer their families if they
were with us, or we tried to get in touch with them by telephone
if they were far away.
We did more in those years for foreign
people cut off from their homelands by war, but it was no
longer the old-time Christmas and ever was to be again."
The world changes, the family changes, you change, and all of life joins in a conspiracy to make sure that nothing stays just as it is.
There is good reason for the wedding vows being a covenant for better or for worse, for both are inevitable in a world of change.
But thank God there is a solid rock in the midst of this quicksand of constant flux.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
He is the Rock and the Anchor that gives stability in this world of perpetual change.
Nancy Turner wrote,
Under the old and arching skies
Clear carols call, by street and hill;
The stars that saw the great Star rise
Are shining still, are shining still.
In all the long years, come what will,
There's nothing new and nothing strange
In one old night of song and light-
The heart of Christmas cannot change!
If we are going to cope with life in a changing world, we need a heart that is captivated by the heart of Christmas that cannot change.
We need to be filled with the Spirit of Christ, and surrender to His Lordship.
This is always the key to a happy new year.
The way to God does not change, and the ways to please God do not change.
What we need to see is that even the Christ-filled Christian has to still live in, cope with, and adjust to, a constantly changing world.
Paul becomes an ideal subject for the study of a Christian in a world of change.
He went through the most radical change of any of the Apostles in his conversion.
He had the most radical change of career, and faced the most radical changes in theological commitment.
I do not think you will find another person in all of the Bible who had to adjust to more change than the Apostle Paul.
He was changed from a persecutor of Christians to a promoter of Christians.
He was a brutal, prejudiced, and legalistic tyrant who became a gentle, open minded, grace oriented servant of the very people he persecuted.
He changed from a Jewish focus to a Gentile focus.
Paul was a settled scholar who was changed into a world traveler.
All this change was not without struggle, and so we can learn a lot about facing the future with all its changes from a man like Paul.
What does the New Year hold in store?
We do not know, but we know for sure there will be change, and so learning to understand change and how to deal with it will always be an asset.
The first thing we want to learn from Paul's life is:
I. THE REALITY OF CHANGE.
Paul's life does not prove that change is good, or that change is bad.
It just proves that change is a part of reality, and that it is inevitable.
It can be good or bad, or both.
His conversion was good, and the best thing that ever happened to him.
Nobody can be saved without change, for one cannot go from a lost sinner to being a new man in Christ without change.
Change is of the very essence of God's plan of salvation.
Every major theological word dealing with salvation revolves around change.
D. L. Moody saw this, and on the fly leaf of his Bible he had these notes:
"Justification, a change of state, a new standing before God.
Repentance, a change of mind, a new mind about God.
Regeneration, a change of nature, a new heart from God.
Conversion, a change of life, a new life for God.
Adoption, a change of family, a new relationship toward God.
Sanctification, a change of service, separation unto God.
Glorification, a change of condition, at home with God."
There is no point in being anti-change, for change is a vital part of God's plan.
No change would mean no hope for a fallen world and lost men.
It is the reality of change that gives us Paul instead of Saul- a builder instead of a destroyer of the kingdom of God.
The first thing we have to do is face up to the reality of change as a blessing.
Yes, it can be a burden, but it is not automatically so.
Change also means hope.
The negatives of life can become positives because of the reality of change.
Lost people can be saved.
Messed up lives can be restored to order.
Good can be brought out of evil.
Thank God we always have the hope of change.
Balzac considered himself an expert in handwriting.
One day someone brought him a notebook of a small boy and asked him to evaluate the lads potential.
After careful examination of the child's scroll he said to the woman, "My frank opinion is the child is slovenly and probably stupid, and I fear will never amount to anything."
The woman began to laugh and said, "This is your very own book from when you were a little boy in school."
Thank God that little boys change, and what they do changes.
Paul said, "When I was a child I talked like a child; I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
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