Sermon_050607_Change
Sermon: The Winds of Change:
“Jesus can change the foulest sinner into the finest saint.”
Change is real and inevitable – history gives testimony to that. Just as time has not stood still, nor has any one society of civilization. We don’t always welcome or want change in our lives, or let me say that we wish to be selective about the changes that come to us. If we could, we would pick the changes we experience. We would welcome the ones that change our lives for the better, in mostly a worldly way, while we would like to pass on the ones that cause us pain or require us to think or act differently. Either way, we praise God for the good changes and express our anger, or at least disappointment with God on the ones we would just as soon pass on.
We welcome the job change that increase our pay or gets us out the rut or a compromising situation.
We welcome the news that we are no long 17, for we are by the world’s standard considered an adult and we have become independent, free of our parents curfews, house rules, and standards – at least until the reality of the bills hits our mailbox, or at least until, as it was years ago, until the draft notice came.
We welcome a raise that changes our standard of living, just like we welcome a change of address, even if the change means moving away from friends.
The Wind of Change is constantly with us and we ask, is there anything constant in our lives that we can trust that never changes.
For this we must look back in time and the Book that describes that one that began change and continues to be in control of the beginning and the end and everything in-between – the Great Manager of Change.
As we begin, Jeanne and I will take you on a journey of the Wind of Change – a brief look at the changes that are recorded in biblical history and the some of the consequences of those changes.
Creation (Carl)
The very first versus of the Bible begin with words of change: (refer to page 1 Pew Bible)
Genesis 1: 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, let there be … words of order.
The order that followed led to the created order that created man and woman who were charged to supervise creation as stewards. But our own choices led to the beginning of the our separation from God, a change of our own making that would forever alter who we are – that we are mortal and the death is inevitable, that suffering is real, that illness and the nature of our death would be a mystery. But the outcome of our spiritual choice would again cause us to visit the question: Is there anything in our lives amidst all these changes that is constant?
Abraham’s Journey (Jeanne)
God’s Plan of ultimate change, seems to begin with a man named Abram where in the 12th Chapter of Genesis, (page 17 of your pew Bibles), it says,
“The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go the land I will show you.” Abram did as he was asked to do and he became as promised the father of a chosen nation, and he received the promise of the Land under the covenant of circumcision. Yes, the “people” of the chosen Nation would begin here with the “obedience” of the one we would come to know as Abraham. His change in name recognizing God’s remake of a man chosen by God to accomplish what to most of us would seem an impossible request – to go by faith. And his faith was credited to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15: 6).
What then can we glean from this change of Abraham – He was obedient. When change comes, we must be faithful to the one who knows the most about change – the one who began change – God. This change
Exodus (Carl)
It would not be long and the covenant people of God would find themselves calling to the Lord out of 400 years of slavery. Much had happened, but God listened and would bring a “wind of change” through the exodus that would return freedom to his chosen people. But this new found freedom would not automatically lead to “trust,” and ingredient that test the people on the andvil of adversity, bring them to the Law, the mountain and the Ten Commandments. It is hard to “trust” when the outcome of change seems uncertain.
The Law (Jeanne)
The Law would bring a most significant change for the people of God – it would set them apart from all others, not only in monotheism – worship of a single God, but would given them rules to worship and live by, demanding what was already described as a rule for change – obedience to the One who began change. A new ingredient discipline – following, not striking off on one’s own without the power of the one who began change – God. If change is a part of the nature of God, is this a glue to the one thing that doesn’t change?
The Promised Land – Carl
Oh, just when we arrive at some place comfortable, and things are in control – a change seems to have settled down to something manageable, we are faced with choices. All the ingredients of obedience, trust, and discipline to follow God’s ways seems confining and the world seems to have so much more to offer. We must stand firm as Joshua said to his people in Joshua 24: 15d, “…But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” The Promised Land comes with reaffirming the covenant love of God, but making some promises of our own and sticking with them as faithfully as God does to His. Oh yes, another ingredient, “faithful to our promises.” Through many changes we a close to an a clue for God is faithful, but why must be the clue we seek –to the constant in the Wind of Change that never changes.
Exile – Jeanne
But it is hard to be faithful. After all, there are so many hurts, distractions, detours, temptations, and disappointments. For the people of God, they wanted what others had. The monarchy instead of chieftans and judges, treaties with foreign nations, even worship of other gods seemed reasonable. After all, God seems so intangible when change comes, at time so inaccessible – yet, this does not alter the nature of God, it just speaks to how unfaithful we are – all the way back to the garden story, where sin all began. Our unfaithfulness would bring Old Testament punishment – exile. First the North and then the South. Like the wilderness stories, the unfaithful generation would be gone.
Even here, God brought in the “wind of change.” This time it would be a new prophesy of not stone tablets, but the God’s laws written on hearts. Out with the Old and in with a new thing – a significant change that would alter our understanding of God – we would not be accountable for the mistakes of prior generations, but just our own choices – and God would stand willing to forgive (Jeremiah 31: 34, - page 1228) “…For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Exile, seems like God has left us in the wash of the change of our own making, but God is constant, he never leaves what he has created.
The Arrival – Carl
God was not about to leave us in exile any more than he was to leave us permanently exiled from his creation. No, there was no forgiving our own bad choices on our own merits, but He did have a plan for our salvation – the most supreme revelation of Himself in His son Jesus Christ. Grace expressed in a life offered up in love, the one and complete sacrifice to which we must chose to be open to the change described when we first began - “Jesus can change the foulest sinner into the finest saint.” But, this change is by choice, you see, not all changes are forced on us. God offers this complete make-over called rebirth. This is better than the new job or raise or vacation we were looking for – you remember, the changes we want as we pick between the good and the bad. Yes, choice becomes another ingredient – the choice to stay faithful, trusting, obedient and discipline, even when the Wind of Change does not seem to blow in our favor.
We then ask again, is this the clue that tells us what doesn’t change even in the midst of constant change? We are close.
Death and Resurrection – Jeanne
Just when we had it all figured out, we must interpret the death of the one who God sent to save us, and then accept the Good News of the Resurrection that gives us hope that we can survive any change. The Change that God seeks to wrought in us is not yet complete until we accept God’s plan for ourselves. Change is hard, and the make-over is incomplete unless we allow the Holy Spirit to complete the change God offers in sanctifying Grace. You see, the must give-up all our sins, all our evil desires, all our self-control. This fact reminds us that God accepts who we are when we left the “garden” but loves us enough not to leave us that way - I believe that was John Wesley. But we seek to hang on to our ability to control change, pick which changes we want – all that delays if not impedes the complete make-over. After all, some changes are harder than others and we are continually tested – not by God, but by the circumstances of life that represents our plight – we are human and subject to an imperfect world full of sin. Hope then, is the ingredient this segment gives us – not happiness that change can influence, but hope that the world cannot take away – not even a walk in the wilderness or some time in a seeming exile from God.
Personal Testimony – Carl
Some change comes when we least expect it, many when they are least wanted, yet others that like Job cause to question everything we thought we knew about God. It was almost 30 years into a career in industry when the corporate ladder that I had trusted and devoted my life to came tumbling down around me. After much prayer and the decision to sell home and move from friends made, I entered seminary. I confronted all those words that sounded like obedience, trust, faithfulness and peeled back layers of denial that had been built up by the world and misleading happiness in life. Even when I had heard God voice so plainly to trust him and follow him, my wife was diagnosed with cancer and I fell to my knees wondering if I had misunderstood the nature of my call much less the loving God I knew. No, change is not always welcome, and sometimes painful – even to the point of doubting God. But the Wind of Change is life and we are shaped by not by how much we suffer, but how much we weather how much we trust, how obedient we are, how much we are faithful to the ingredient we have saught on this journey that never changes, that is ever constant despite all the changes that come – that is that God loves us, has never stopped loving us, and never will. This is the constant of constant, the truth that runs through life that is not fair, not just, not always predictable.
It was the God who led his people through the Red Sea, to the Mountain of Law and Covenant, to the promised land, one covenant after another from Old to New and beyond the cross – the one to whom the three men in the fiery furnace had prayed – to whom life had changed beyond any we have experienced prayed and said in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 3, 17-18, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O King. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
End of Time - Jeanne
The end of time for each of us is the final change for all of us, whether it is our individual call or the second coming. It is the time when the change will be complete – that we will either be made perfect or made to pay. That choice we have been talking about through this journey – to be obedient, trusting, faithful to the one who loves us, is ultimately ours whether we experience all pleasant changes, little of no changes, or suffered the hardest of changes, we must make a choice to the one who promises the final change will be worth the journey that depends on Him for the outcome.
He has said in Rev. 21 (page 1937) that the final change will be the best of all – the one when he told John to tell all of us,
“Then I say a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I say the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice coming from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
The final change in us will be the best – it will be perfect love and it will be permanent. So we knew the answer the to the one thing that was constant all along: That God loves us – all the time.
Sesquicentennial
Wow! What a journey. God who is timeless loves us in our time before our time with Him becomes His time – timeless.
Our time here at Grace over the last 150 years has seen many changes. Three locations, at least three different names, 41 pastors, and who knows to numerous to count organizational changes and changes in membership. Just the changes that have occurred here since I came 9 years ago are amazing. And, there will likely be many more changes to come – why just in a few more week – it will be pastor number 42.
So God doesn’t want us to fear change – but to embrace it, as though like a child holding on to a parents hand. A child does not want to move from the place that seems familiar, but if we didn’t trust our parents hand, we will still be lying in our cribs.
So if God first loved us I John 4: 19, then to endure any change that comes along, we must first be obedient to His Word, trusting in his promises, faithful to our promises to Him, and treasure the Hope we have gained in Jesus Christ – that God is good, despite our circumstances, all the time. And that, my friends in Christ, will never change.