The Changing Church
7-4-04
The Changing Church
God wants us to reach our world--but we haven’t yet. And if all we do is to keep doing the same things we’re already doing, we won’t reach that goal that God has for us. We’ll have to do more. Someone has said that to keep doing the same thing expecting different results is one definition of insanity. God wants us to change the fact that we haven’t yet reached our world for Him. God has specifically called us to the business of changing our world. If we are doing what God wants us to do in growing, we will be changing, because growth is change. If there is no change, there is no growth.
Our challenge is that we really don’t like change very much. It takes a lot of energy to change. We are more inclined to like change if we are the ones who came up with the idea, but few of us like being pressed into change. Someone said: “Change is good, unless it happens,” and “Change is good. You go first.” Change is hard to keep up with. “Every time I figure out ‘where it’s at,’ they move it.”
Even though we are all reluctant changers, we are all inevitable changers anyway. An English poet named Samuel Rogers observed this: “It does not much matter whom one marries as one is sure to find the next morning it is someone else.”
If we are going to be a church that reaches our world like God wants us to do, we are going to have to be a changing church. Now, I know some of you are saying, “Wait a minute. The Bible says God never changes and we are supposed to be like Him.” And you are exactly right. God never changes in His character and in His nature, but He is continually changing in His activity.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” [Isaiah 43:18]
“The Lord’s love never ends; his mercies never stop. They are new every morning;” [Lamentations 3:22-23, New Century Version]
God never changes from being loving and merciful, but the way He expresses His love and mercy is new every day. As God’s children and as God’s church we are to be as loving and merciful as God is, and we must express them in as many ways as we possibly can. As we reach our world different people will become involved and different methods will be utilized. As we reach our world, we can’t help but be a changing church.
We have to be a changing church. God expects us to be a changing church in order to Maintain our Spiritual Vitality, in order to Live By Faith, and in order to effectively Engage our Changing World. We have to...
Change In Order To Maintain Spiritual Vitality
It has been said that everything changes but change itself. The truth is that even the rate of change nowadays has changed from what it used to be. A weekday edition of the New York Times now carries more information in that one day’s paper than the average person would digest in an entire lifetime just four centuries ago.
Our bodies regularly change. God designed them this way. Our skin replaces itself every month. The lining in our stomach replaces itself every 5 days. The liver replaces itself every 6 weeks. The skeleton replaces itself every 3 months, and the cells in our cheeks replace themselves 3 times a day. Ninety-eight percent of the atoms in your body are replaced every year and every cell in your entire body has been replaced every 5 years for men and every 7 years for women. Do you realize, you are not the same person you were when you came in here?
We can’t even keep our thoughts from changing. The truth is that it’s never possible for us to experience exactly what we have experienced before, because we change and everything around us changes, too. This is what is meant by the saying, “You can never step into the same river twice.”
In the medical world, the clinical definition of death is a body that does not change. The truth is that we either change, or we die. This is true for living things and it is true for organizations and businesses. A notable example in our lifetime is the watch business. For generations the Swiss were known as the greatest watchmakers in the world. They manufactured the finest mechanical watches ever engineered. In the 1970’s when someone brought them the idea of an electronic, digital watch, the Swiss manufacturers scoffed and rejected the idea as a useless toy. Today the watch market of the whole world is digital. By refusing to change the great Swiss watch manufacturers lost their business. The same need for change applies to Christians and to the church. We change or we die. One of the reasons is leakage.
I’ve told this story before. At the weekly prayer meeting of a certain church one of the men every week prayed in a heart- stirring, imploring voice, “Fill me, Lord, fill me.” After weeks and weeks of the guy praying this same prayer in emotional tones, a voice from the back of the church responded, “Don’t do it, Lord. He leaks.” Well, the truth is, we all do. We all leak from our spiritual filling. We all need renewing. Living as imperfect people in a spiritually fallen world, we all need regular spiritual adjustments in our lives. This is what Jesus expressed to His 12 disciples in the upper room on the night He was betrayed.
Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?” Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. [John 13:3-11]
Jesus knew that some things in His disciples’ lives needed to change and they were going to change. Jesus communicated this to them in a living parable. Their physical condition provided the illustration for His message. The disciples’ feet needed to be washed. It was a regular part of hospitality that a host provided as a refreshing experience--particularly for an occasion involving a meal. Their table custom was to recline while eating. This often meant that since the feet of the person next to you were not put under the table, they could get fairly close to your face. Can you imagine how sandal wearing feet on a dirty donkey path could smell? That’s the reason for foot washing. A household servant always did the foot washing. Since Jesus was the dinner host and the disciples had no servants for their group, Jesus did the washing. The disciples were embarrased that their teacher was doing the foot washing, so Peter at first refused. But Jesus said that Peter would be out of the relationship if He didn’t allow it. So Peter essentially said, “If Your washing me means I’m in relationship with You, don’t stop with my feet. I want the whole thing--total relationship with You.” Jesus essentially told Peter that he was already in relationship with Jesus. Peter didn’t need a bath. He just needed his feet washed. That’s the parable. Jesus’ message was that His disciples were already spiritually cleansed when they placed their faith in Him, but they still needed regular touch-ups. They would always need regular spiritual renewal as long as they were walking the roads of this world. And so do we.
It is interesting to note that the foot washing took place on the same occasion as Jesus establishing communion. Our need for regular spiritual renewal is one of the reasons for gathering every week to take communion together. When we take communion we are renewing our commitment to Jesus, and by taking it together we are encouraging each other to stay on this path with Him. We leak and we need to change our diminished spirit by renewing spiritually.
We have already been changed in the past by Jesus’ power. We were people on the path of destruction and now we are people forgiven and freed to follow the road to eternal life. In the future we will be changed from mortal men on earth to immortal people in heaven. Between our past and our future, we are being changed day by day as we allow God to work in our lives.
“you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you.” [Colossians 3:10, New Living Translation]
We haven’t arrived yet. We haven’t yet become all that God is working in our lives to achieve. It’s a process for us to get from where we were spiritually to where God wants us to be and it takes changes all along the way. We must not stop changing.
Not changing is stubbornness and that’s a spiritual problem. In the Bible God regularly called His people stiff-necked and uncircumcised of heart when they were disobedient and unfaithful. They did not show in their hearts the marks of God having been at work changing them.
Our need to change our lives in order to maintain spiritual vitality is not just a matter of correcting our weaknesses and failures. It is also a matter of growth.
“God who began the good work within you will keep right on helping you grow...” [Philippians 1:6, Living Bible]
God is working in us and He is helping us, but we do have to cooperate with Him. We have to be receptive and we have to work at growing. As we work at growing, we change.
“Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [2 Peter 1:5-8]
We have to add to our faith, to our knowledge and even our to godliness. When we do this...
“We all show the Lord’s glory, and we are being changed to be like him. This change in us brings ever greater glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” [2 Corinthians 3:18, New Century Version]
We need to be people who regularly experience God’s renewing change. This is the only way we maintain a vital, healthy, growing spiritual life. We need to incorporate renewal as a regular, ongoing part of our lives. Continually changing to become more like God is part of what it means to be a Christian. And we need to model this to our world.
“Now your attitudes and thoughts must all be constantly changing for the better.” [Ephesians 4:23, Living Bible]
Not only do we have to change in order to maintain our spiritual vitality, we need...
Change In Order To Live By Faith
If we don’t have change, we don’t need faith. Most of the time our reluctance to change is a matter of comfort. We are used to the way things are and we more or less like it that way. Other times our desire for things to not change may be due to a sentimentality about the way things have always been. When we know it, we enjoy it and we depend on things being a certain way, it is a small way we put ourselves in charge of our own lives. Both our comfort and our preference then become idols when we refuse to let go of the way things have always been and submit to the sovereignty of God. God created change and ordained things to change. God is the only one who never needs to change. He is God and we’re not. We never have and never will on this side of heaven rise to the level of not needing to change. We have been called to a new way of living.
“We live by faith, not by sight.” [2 Corinthians 5:7]
If we know what’s going to happen, we aren’t exercising any faith about it. If nothing ever changes, we know how to handle that and we don’t need faith. If we have everything figured out and we don’t let anything else happen except what we control, we don’t need God in our lives. We are then being the god of our lives. That’s not living by faith. Faith is dynamic, living, active--not routine, static, and the same thing all the time. Living by faith is what makes the Christian life a great adventure. Living by faith is really a wild, untamed, exhilarating ride. Change and the unknown mean we have to live by faith. Eliminating all change and avoiding everything unknown means there’s no place to live by faith. Our living like that is all by sight.
The Bible calls Abraham the father of faith and the first thing God did in Abraham’s life is tell him to change where he lived. Staying in the city where he had been born and raised and doing the same kind of things his family and the people around him had always done did not require faith from Abraham. God wanted to do great things through Abraham. These great things would require faith. God began teaching Abraham to have faith by bringing change into Abraham’s life. God told Abraham to move.
“It was faith that made Abraham obey when God called him to go out to a country which God had promised to give him. He left his own country without knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as a foreigner in the country that God had promised him.” [Hebrews 11:8-9, Good News Bible]
Things that do not change die. If we never change, we never have to exercise faith. We are alive spiritually by faith. Without faith we die spiritually. Sometimes we need to stir up things in our lives just to make sure we’re still alive.
Someone has said that the 7 last words of the church are: “We’ve always done it that way before.” Or “We’ve never done it that way before.” Jesus said it this way.
“No one who drinks the old wine seems to want the fresh and the new.” [Luke 5:39, New Living Translation]
Jesus gives the new wine of His Spirit to His followers, and
“New wine must be put into new wineskins.” [Luke 5:38, New Living Translation]
Trusting Jesus requires new wineskins--new ways of doing things--in other words: Change. Trusting Jesus means our spiritual experience is out of our hands and in His hands. It means we are not in control of our lives. We don’t know exactly what He will do or exactly what He will call us to do, but we know it’s not going to be the same thing over and over. Living by faith is living with change.
“We serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” [Romans 7:6]
Living by faith is not a matter of having everything all figured out and doing it all the same way. Living by faith means we live with change.
So when there is a change at church, don’t complain about it. Say thank you, God, for another opportunity to walk by faith.
We need change in order to Live By Faith, and we need to...
Change In Order To Engage the World
It doesn’t matter what we think of it. With or without us the world is changing like the speed of light. Two generations ago people didn’t move more than 50 miles away from where they were born. Today people’s experiences change rapidly all the time. Today, the typical life span of inventions especially in electronics is less than 2 months. Scientific information doubles every 10 years and general information doubles every 2.5 years. Communication overwhelmingly changes our lives. People who live in New York City see 8000 commercial messages a day.
In order for the church to reach the world we have to adapt to the changes in the world and we have to involve changing methods in our ministries to the world. This is what God has done. God has revealed Himself and communicated with people in a variety of ways that have changed over time. He has not simply repeated the same things over and over.
“In the past God spoke to our ancestors at many different times and in many different ways...” [Hebrews 1:1, God’s Word]
Martin Luther says that people with true faith engage in spiritual battle at the point where the enemy is or what we do is not really God’s work at all.
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” [Martin Luther]
The apostle Paul communicated his commitment to actually reaching people with his ministry by using the example of a prize fighter.
“I don’t run without a goal. And I don’t box by beating my fists in the air.” [1 Corinthians 9:26, Contemporary English Version]
Paul says that a real boxer has to land punches on an opponent or what he is doing is not really boxing. He’s just fanning the air. If the message of the church does not land understandably on recipients’ ears, no ministry has been conducted. We’ve just been going through motions. Our ministries to the world have to change along with the world or they will never get it and and we will never reach them like God wants us to do. Thankfully, true Christian faith can handle the change required to meet the need.
In his book Soul Tsunami Leonard Sweet describes change as a characteristic of true Christianity. The author indicates that Christianity’s responsiveness to change is different than that of other religions. Other religions are inflexible and hostile to change. He says:
“The Christian tradition is open to change. In fact, that’s one of the things that distinguishes it from other religious traditions. The closest thing Islam has to the Western notion of ‘heresy’ is the Arabic word for ‘innovation.’ Fear of the new, aversion to change, and intolerance for disagreement mark many other religious traditions much more than the Christian tradition.”
Change must be a regular part of the life of our church. We must welcome change and incorporate changes commonly in order to reach our world the way God wants us to. Here’s this verse again that’s been in the last 3 messages.
“I do everything I can to win everyone I possibly can.” [1 Corinthians 9:22, Contemporary English Version]
One of the descriptions Jesus gave about His message and His effect in people’s lives is the phrase “living water.” When people heard Jesus speak of living water they immediately thought about a spring. The water from a spring is the freshest, coolest, best tasting water they ever experienced. Jesus said that people could have that continually coming from within them.
It is interesting to realize that water fills any receptacle without retaining the form of any of them. The container doesn’t matter. Containers change while the Content stays the same. You can be a container filled with the Living Water of God’s Spirit.