Rev. David Holwick ZK
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
November 15, 2015
Job 22:15-17; Hebrews 13:8
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I. The need for speed.
A. It can damage your eyes.
In the 1830s, a new form of transportation was amazing, and
terrifying, Englishmen.
It was called a railroad.
Thundering along at the previously unimaginable speed of 16 MPH,
the steam engine ROCKET made history.
Not everyone was willing to get on board.
There were fears it would be impossible to breathe while
traveling at such a velocity, or that the passengers' eyes
would be damaged by having to adjust to the extreme motion.
[1]
B. The pace has not slackened yet.
1) My grandfather lived through Orville and Wilbur's first
plane flight, and Neil Armstrong stepping on the Moon.
2) I myself have experienced the explosion of computers.
a) My first one in 1986 could not even hold one page of
text in its memory.
b) A year later I spent $2,600 on a computer. My income
was around $12,000 a year then.
c) My computer today has 50,000 times more memory than my
first one.
3) All of us have experienced tremendous social change.
a) How we handle race and sex is very different than how
our grandparents viewed these things.
b) A high school student in Illinois who was born a boy
but now identifies as a woman, was allowed to use
the girls' locker-room, but only behind a privacy
curtain.
The student sued, and this month a court ordered the
school to remove the curtain (or at least not require
it).
What would your grandparents have said of this?
They would have been stunned at him identifying as a
woman, much less the locker-room part.
C. Change can be exciting, but eventually tiring - or threatening.
1) How should our church handle change?
2) How do YOU handle change?
II. The Church doesn't change much.
A. We are surrounded by oldness.
1) Much of our architecture dates from the Gothic era of
the 12th century.
2) Stained glass windows - 9th century.
3) I have been in some cool bathrooms in churches that are
right of the Victorian Era.
4) Our church has a trophy case with baseball awards from
the 1930s.
B. Our worship traditions are even more dated:
1) The Doxology:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host: [know its meaning?]
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Thomas Ken, 1706 - 309 years ago.
2) The Gloria Patri:
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son:
and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:
world without end. Amen.
This comes from the 4th century - 1,600 years ago.
III. Many would like the church to speed up.
A. It goes way beyond our building styles.
1) Churches are seen as having out-dated morality.
2) |We have quaint views from the 1950s that didn't work then
and don't seem to work now.
B. Illustration from a recent Baptist meeting in Philadelphia.
About 100 leaders of our denomination (and token "me")
discussed hot topics like Violence, Immigration, Women in
Ministry and Poverty.
I joined a group called "The Gospel in a Rapidly Changing
Society."
Everyone agreed that society is changing but there was a lot
of disagreement whether it was good or bad.
I could tell many in my group thought the change was good and
the church needed to start moving.
Society was just fine but we are too backward.
1) They could point to key events in the past:
a) In the 1840s, our group of Baptists opposed slavery.
b) In the early 1900s, we opposed the oppression of
factory workers.
c) In the 1960s, we opposed racial bigotry.
1> In each case, we were ahead of society.
2) Are we now far behind?
a) Many liberal Christians think so.
For over 20 years, Morristown resident and retired
Episcopalian Bishop John Shelby Spong has tried to
up-end Christian attitudes about sex.
His denomination - indeed, all of them - used to
believe in the same morality we do.
This is no longer the case.
b) Many changes seem to be permanent.
1> Chastity is rare.
2> Co-habitation is the norm before marriage.
3> Many marriages end in divorce.
4> Church people are not much different than
non-believers.
c) Even some of you wonder if we should change.
1> (Ladies' Bible study discussion.)
2> I understand the issues, but I don't accept the
argument.
IV. Why do we believe what we believe?
A. Christianity is not a set of beliefs you can change as you wish.
1) Scholar Albert Mohler notes that the Bible is not a mere
collection of ancient religious writings that can be
disregarded or reinterpreted to mean something other
than what it says. #24624
2) Instead, we understand the Bible to be what it claims to
be - the inspired and inerrant Word of God.
a) This is the way Jesus himself understood it.
b) The world may dismiss it or even ridicule it, but
committed Christians have no choice but to accept
it and obey it.
B. Change is not always a good thing.
1) Old things have a sense of permanence.
a) Those Victorian-era churches with antique bathrooms -
they may still be around when other buildings are
dust.
b) There need to be some things that are solid.
1> Jesus says there is a difference in building a
house on sand or rock.
A> Any contractor would agree with him.
B> Both can stand in normal times, but storms show
the difference.
2> How does he preface the saying?
A> Wise builders are those who hear his words and
put them into practice.
B> Jesus is the only foundation that will last.
C> He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
2) Adapting doesn't lead to success.
a) Liberal churches have largely accepted the sexual
revolution - and they have hemorrhaged millions of
members over the last 40 years.
b) The ones that have adapted the most have lost the most.
c) The warning in Job 22 is appropriate - you can ignore
God, but don't be surprised if your foundation
is suddenly washed away.
C. God's ways make sense.
1) The Bible is not just true, but practical.
a) God's laws are for our good.
b) They point to the only way that humans can have
real and lasting happiness. #24624
c) And I am not just talking about going to heaven -
following God's laws gives you a better life now.
2) The essence of the Good News about Jesus is at stake.
a) The gospel promises salvation to anyone who believes
in Jesus as the crucified and resurrected Lord,
and who repents of sin.
b) If we misunderstand what sin is, we undercut the work
of Christ and our knowledge that we need a savior.
c) We also confuse the world about repentance.
d) The Bible warns us about changing its message.
V. What is your foundation?
A. Everyone needs something that doesn't shift.
1) For Christians, it is our faith in Jesus and his Bible.
2) The gospel doesn't need improvement.
a) The book of Jude says it was delivered once-for-all to
the saints. That's us!
B. Some things can be updated.
1) Recent years have seen many changes in worship styles and
youth programs.
a) For example, Sunday School is not well-attended by kids,
but our Children's Church and youth groups are
taking up the slack.
b) We recently updated our church webpage and continue to
tweak it.
1> Thirty years ago, we didn't even have one.
No church did.
2> We see its advantages and want to keep up.
2) Our understanding/interpretation may need adjustment, but
not the essential message we have held for 2,000 years.
a) Study it, understand it - and live it.
C. Does it matter?
Some time ago Harvard economist Clay Christensen has a
conversation with a Marxist economist from China who was
coming to the end of a Fulbright Fellowship in Boston.
Christensen asked his friend if he had learned here anything
that was surprising or unexpected.
And without any hesitation he said, "Yeah - I had no idea how
critical religion is to the functioning of democracy."
"The reason why democracy works," he said, "is not because the
government was designed to oversee what everybody does, but,
rather, democracy works because most people, most of the
time, voluntarily choose to obey the law.
And in your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue
every week and they were taught there by people who they
respected."
The Chinese economist went on to say that Americans followed
these rules because they had come to believe that they
weren't just accountable to society, they were accountable
to God.
His Chinese friend heightened a vague but nagging concern
Christensen harbored inside, that as religion loses its
influence over the lives of Americans, what will happen
to our democracy?
Where are the institutions that are going to teach the next
generation of Americans that they, too, need to voluntarily
choose to obey the laws?
Because if you take away religion, you can't hire enough police.
#64985
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] “Where History Happened: The Birth of the Railways,” Becky Hoskins,
September 14, 2010; <http://www.historyextra.com/railway>.
#24624 “Why Can't Christians Just Join The Revolution?” Dr. R. Albert
Mohler Jr., President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,
November 13, 2015; <http://www.albertmohler.com>.
My sermon depends heavily on his article.
#64985 “Religion is the Foundation of Democracy and Prosperity,”
Clayton Christensen, version from his YouTube presentation
posted on March 5, 2014; <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjntXYDPw44>.
I modified it from first-person to third-person.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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