Bethesda First Baptist Church, Bethesda, MD, September 19, 2004
Will anything really change? I mean, really?! So often change is only apparent, and not real. So often we tinker with things, but we do not really change them. We lack the will to change things, really. We lack the imagination to change them very much. And so beneath the appearance of change, cosmetics, so much in life remains unchanged at its heart.
You are coming to a new time in the life of your church. I do not pretend to know all that is involved in it. I have not been exposed to the history of your congregation, nor have I been privy to the proposals that are to be placed before you today. As an outsider I would not think it appropriate for me to comment on any of that. But as a preacher of the good news, I can raise one key question: as you consider your future, will anything that matters really change? Will the church adjust to its new situation and be different from what it is now? Do we expect that new leadership and new faces will give us new vision and new direction? Or do we think that, really, there is nothing anyone can do, it’s all winding down, and nothing will really change? Will we suddenly start to do better than we have been doing lately?
The evidence is not too persuasive at this moment: my doctor says I need to watch my diet and get that cholesterol down, cut down on the red meat. But the other day, seems that old car of mine, out of habit, turned itself right into the McDonald’s drive-through and, before I knew it, a couple of double cheeseburgers were right in these hot little hands! How did that happen? Can’t figure it out. Must be a case of “Mad Car Disease”!
No, you know the issue. You understand the problem. We get into patterns and we don’t easily get out. We get set in our habits and we do not do what it takes to move beyond. We promise ourselves that we will do better with our health, with our work habits, with our relationships, with our prayer life, with our worship attendance, with all sorts of things. But before the hurricanes of September have drifted into the golden glow of October, we too have drifted. We have drifted from high resolves back to deeply entrenched habits. We do not easily change.
And so my question again. Will anything in the life of this church really change? Will anything that matters be different with a new leadership team? I want to mention two different approaches to the issue of change. I want to lift up two ways in which we deal with this matter of change. But I also want to show you how, in the providence of God, we can do far more than either one of these approaches permits.
First, I want to speak about those who fear change and resist it. Then I want to speak about those who do not even believe that real change is possible. But finally I want to proclaim the good news about the opportunity that the Lord gives us to turn change to our advantage. I want you to hear good news this morning – that whether you fear change or disbelieve change, God is able. God is able to work through all that is coming and, as the psalmist says, to dig our feet out of the miry clay and set them up on higher ground. God is able to turn change into victory.
I
First, would you agree with me that some of us fear change? Some of us resist change. There are some folks who will stick with something that isn’t working, no matter how bad it is, but the devil they have seems better than the demon that may be out there, and so they stay put. They stay in a bad job. They live in an impossible house. They dabble at a hopeless relationship. They refuse to change.
My wife and I have a few dollars in the stock market. Back in the bubble years we bought a couple of stocks whose bubble burst with a splash. My wife and my son have been saying, “Dump those dogs.” But I have hung on and hung on, hoping that by some miracle they would go back up. It has taken more than three years for them to persuade me to realize I was into something that was not going to get better. But I just do not like change.
But the problem is that life is not that simple, and change is going to come anyway. Something is going to interrupt our neat plans and force us to change. And if we do nothing but cringe in fear, we will not be well prepared when change is forced on us.
I think I understand this kind of person. In some ways I am like that. Once I set out my course of action, I do not jump the tracks. It’s hard for me to believe it myself, but it was forty-one years ago this month that I began my ministry work, as campus minister at Berea College in eastern Kentucky. But, you know, I didn’t want to go there and didn’t think it was the right place for me. I did it out of sheer necessity, not seeing what God had in mind for me. You see, I was one of those bright young things, as a seminary student, who had illusions about being a professor. While the other seminary students sat around the cafeteria tables and dreamed of being the pastor of the First Baptist Church of somewhere, I talked about teaching Renaissance and Reformation history at somebody’s seminary. Got myself all psyched up for that, and told myself that higher education would be the arena of my ministry. The only thing about that was that I could not get a call to a church near one of the universities where I wanted to do my doctoral study, and so I accepted, as second best, as a compromise, a position in campus ministry. So stubborn, so set in my directions – so wanting in prayer! Until one day, about six weeks into my ministry at Berea College, it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks – you dummy! You are doing ministry in higher education. You are where you are supposed to be! But because you were so set, so hostile to change, so intent on purusing what you saw, you almost missed it. I think it is testimony enough to the power of that change that I stayed in campus ministry for 23 years.
I tell you all of that not to elicit praise for myself, but to point out two things: first, that the life course I found back then is one I have never questioned, never felt it necessary to change, never considered setting aside. I am the kind of person who does not relish change for the sake of change. If you dislike change, I understand. I’m right there with you.
But also to point out that when you finally, prayerfully embrace change, because it’s the right thing to do, it will bring you joy and fulfillment. It will bring you happiness and hope.
I have an idea that the apostle Paul was this kind of person too. He speaks about pursuing things through to the end – “This one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind.” He describes himself as relentless – “as touching the law, blameless; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.” And when I think of the determination and sheer grit it must have taken to launch those missionary journeys, I think I see a person who did not like to change, once he had a plan in mind.
But, again, things happen that make it impossible to avoid change. Things intrude that you didn’t count on. A sudden death, a break in health, a reversal of fortunes, an accident – all sorts of things interrupt. There will be change, even for those who don’t like it. The question is, “Can interruptions be turned into opportunities? Can I see God taking the things I did not plan for and using them for good?” Paul could see that. Paul could see God at work when things happened he didn’t expect.
Imprisonment, for example. Paul did not exactly plan to go to jail. In fact, nobody ever plans that! Even the hardest of criminals think they won’t get caught again. Paul did not start out his apostolic career saying, “Let me see how often I can get locked up.” That would be absurd.
But what Paul did do was to see that even though he had been clapped into jail, there was an opportunity. There was a chance to stay on track with what he really wanted to do with his life. It was difficult, yes, to be chained to a Roman soldier, under house arrest. But Paul knew who he was, knew what he was about. As the poet puts it, “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” So Paul made this cell his pulpit and turned his chains into a opportunity!
“I want you to know that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ; and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.”
You see, some of us, like Paul, are in prisons – sickness or aging or distress or disappointment or grief . But you can use the prison of the moment to become even more who you are, if indeed you know who you are. Some of us make these things into prisons from which there is no escape; we let them paralyze us and hold us down. But I challenge you: have the faith to see that in life’s changes, God is at work for those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose.
When I first went to serve Takoma Park church, I met a truly great saint. One of the first things I was asked to do was to visit one of our church’s charter members. Mrs. Verna Royle lived to be 106 years old, and spent the last 17 years of her life in a nursing home bed. Most of us would have found that an impossible prison and a totally unacceptable change. But Mrs. Royle used that bed as a place of witness, so that every orderly, every nurse, every roommate, and every visitor who came by heard about Christ! No, she was not confined to a prison, nor did her bed capture anything but her frail body. Her heart and her spirit were free, her confinement was for Christ, and, like Paul, she encouraged others to live without fear. It was an unwelcome change, but it was not a prison.
I spoke of my forty-one years in ministry. I got that many years because I started early. But I have learned to salute people like those who heard the Lord’s call out of our congregation at Takoma Park, and who accepted their calls in their forties and fifties, some of them. I salute people who understand that if you listen to the Spirit, He may lead you into change you had never anticipated. But if you have the faith to see it, even though it looks scary, He will take you into delirious joy!
I think of the great man of letters and Christian theologian, C. S. Lewis, who thought himself all settled and stable. But into the life of this middle-aged, conservative Oxford don came a most unlikely intruder, a Jewish American socialist, a woman named Joy Davidman. Before he knew it, Lewis was head over heels in love. He wrote a book, “Surprised By Joy” about their marriage. And when Joy died a painful death after all too short a life together, C. S. Lewis became an even more powerful witness to how the grace of God is given when your plans are interrupted.
Brothers and sisters, you may like stability. You may fear change. You may think you want to avoid change. You may be skeptical about the changes that appear to be coming in the life of your church. But I ask you, stand with the apostle and embrace change. Carpe diem, seize the opportunity. I pray that whatever happens make you even more who you are and that it give you opportunity to share the good news.
II
But there are not only those who fear change; there are also those who do not believe change is real. There are those who do not think that they can ever really change. Superficially, maybe, but not deeply, not at the core. They say things like, “The leopard cannot change its spots.” They tell you that the apple does not fall far from the tree, which is supposed to mean that you are going to be just like your parents, no matter what. Around Takoma Park we had some families who had been there for three and four generations, and the older folks would always look at those young ones and say, “I know how he’s going to turn out. I knew his daddy and his granddaddy.” Change? Not really. Not according to these folks.
Brothers and sisters, that is a serious business. That is cynicism. Deeper than that, it is a lack of faith. I’m sure that those who would argue that nobody ever really changes, think of themselves as realistic. I don’t. I think of them as cynical; I think of them as hard of heart and faithless. This comes from a deep defensiveness. It comes from paying too much attention to what others think of us and not enough attention to who we really are.
Now let’s go back over that. That’s complicated. I am saying that if you do not believe that people can change, and change profoundly; if you do not believe that you can change, and make it stick – that comes from worrying about what others think of you. It comes from living out of a defensive and immature spirit, instead of living out of what God is able to do.
Let me illustrate. A few months ago, I went through a rough patch. I was bent out of shape for a while, because in the space of less than twenty-four hours, I had three people to read me the riot act! One person told me that it was time I got out of the pastoring business; another reported that he did not think I cared about his needs; and a third said that she had been afraid to tell me what was going on in her life. Three people in one day’s time telling me that I was not who I presented myself to be. Now I had some choices, didn’t I, about what to do with that? I could have pooh-poohed it and forgotten it – they don’t know what they’re talking about. Or I could have become a basket case and joined the walking wounded – poor me, everybody hates me. Believe me, I was tempted do both of those things and some others we don’t want to get into here today!
But when that spiritual storm passed by, after a little while, I determined, under God, that I would absorb those criticisms and use them to shore me up where I needed to be fixed. I determined that I would do my best not to be unsettled or distracted, but instead I would ask the Lord to show me what all this meant. I would ask that these things make me better at what I do and more of who I really am. I knew that if I got stuck in defending myself, I would never grow. I would never mature. And it would be faithless, because if I don’t believe I can change, I have left God out of the equation. I have told God that He is powerless. I have written Him off completely. To refuse the possibility of change is to be cynical, defensive, and, worst of all, it is to be faithless.
So look at Paul, stuck in prison, dealing with people taking pot shots at him, disappointed in their failings – Paul says, “Some do what they do out of envy, and some are trying to be my rivals, and some are selfish, and some are ambitious. And some just enjoy making me miserable.“ But listen to this. This is wonderful:
“What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.”
Great God! To know what others think of us, yet it doesn’t destroy us or make us bitter, but it makes us joyful because the Kingdom is being advanced! That is magnificent! That is the good news! We can change; and we can change even when the thing that drives change is unpleasant. God is able! God is able to work toward our maturity, when we receive His love and know that we are called according to His purposes.
Conclusion
So you are being asked to embrace change in your church. But will anything really change? Will any of us change, down deep? I hope so. No, I know so. I say with the apostle:
I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.
I am confident. I am confident that if you have started a walk with Christ, you will not let anyone’s skepticism keep you from continuing with Him. I am confident.
I am confident that if you have in prayer committed yourself to new possibilities, the Spirit of God will lead you to embrace change and welcome change. I am confident that you will overcome your fear of change. I am confident.
I am confident that you will stay by the stuff, no matter what else changes. Your church needs you, and you need your church. I am confident that if you listen to your own heart, even when some little dustup comes, as it will, you will know what you are supposed to do, and you will do it. I am confident.
I am confident, because I know that we can change. I am confident, because I believe that your church can grow. I am confident, because I understand that God is able. I am confident because when we forget who we are, God is able to remind us. I am confident because when we do not believe in ourselves, God is able to prop us up on the leaning side. I am confident, for the God who did the impossible and raised the dead to life – that God is able.
“Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me.”
I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.
