A recent headline on the church page of our daily newspaper grabbed my attention. It said, Study Views Christians As Judgmental. It was about some changing attitudes toward Christianity. Well, what should the church do in a changing culture like ours? Hmmmm, that deserves some thought, doesn't it? Suppose we do that now.
My friend, it is truly a blessing we have to welcome you to another program of Bible study In Search of the Lord's Way to become and to be a Christian. We pray we will both be blessed by the study. The Bible message is an old, old story that's always new. That is what Katherine Hankey was writing about way back in 1866 when she wrote the old hymn "Tell me the old, old Story, Of unseen things above, Of Jesus and His glory, Of Jesus and His love."
You know, some things never grow old, out of style or useless anymore. Dr. Donald W. McCullough was President and Professor of Theology and Preaching at San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1995 when he wrote the book, The Trivialization of God. He may still hold those positions even now; I don't know about that. Anyway in that book he wrote that Lloyd C. Douglas, author of The Robe and other novels lived in a boarding house when he was a university student. On the first floor there was a retired music teacher, infirm and unable to leave his apartment. Every morning the two of them had a routine: Douglas would come down the steps, and open the old man's door and ask, "Well, what's the good news?" And the older gentleman would pick up his tuning fork and tap it on the side of his wheelchair, and say, "That's middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but, my friend, that is middle C!" Douglas says-- and we have to agree-- "The old man had discovered a constant reality on which he could depend, an unchanging truth to which he could cling." My friend, we have other constants, or other unchanging truths, in Christianity, too.
We are studying about Christianity, the church Jesus bought with His own blood, in times of America's changing culture. If you would like a free printed copy or CD or cassette tape of the message, simply write us: In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Our e-mail address is searchtv@searchtv.org. Our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. Ken Helterbrand is going to lead us now as we sing, then I'll be back for Bible reading and prayer.
We are reading from the third chapter of Ephesians today, verses 14 through 21. “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” Now we will go to God in prayer. Holy Father, we are thankful for this reading of the Scriptures and for the truths that it has revealed to us; and we are thankful that You have preserved it for us in spite of and giving us this message. We are thankful, Father, for the church; and we are thankful for its message of salvation and we pray Your blessing upon our study that we may know something about our duties and responsibilities and opportunities for the future. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen!
It seems we are all interested in new things. It is sometimes called progress: new inventions, new methods, new ideas for success, new products. New technology: oh me! For my birthday (I'm still having them you know-- more frequently, too, it seems.) anyway, Lois, my wife, got me one of these new gismos for my birthday for my car that tells me how to get where I want to go. Well, people have been telling me where to go for a long time, but I have found this to be much more helpful than what they tell me.) It's new. And it is amazing. And it makes me want to go places I have never been, so I can hear it tell me how to get there.
Well, there have been lots of new things in American religion, too. In the last half-century or so there have come new churches, (new denominations who claim "non-denominational" status), big churches, satellite churches, new creeds, revised creeds, new revised creeds, new music, new contemporary forms of worship, new hermeneutics, new doctrines-- new churches with no doctrine, actually-- just "Do Your Own Thing Churches." It is interesting that just a few years ago (no more than 30 or 40 years ago really) there were only about 350 denominations in America. But by 2001 the number had grown to 330,000. And new ones keep coming up every day. I have no idea of the number now. But, friend, let's face it, the new isn't always preferred over the old.
We-- and I am talking about all of us-- appreciate the value of change, when it is good. Despite the fact that it was once so, no one I know today would prefer a Model T Ford as his principle means of transportation. Why, of course he wouldn’t. He would be run over by the time he got the thing out of the driveway, wouldn't he? It would be an excellent museum piece, but, well-- you get the idea, don't you? The new cars are better.
We also know that some changes are not so good in other things. In some cases, we appreciate the unchangeables, too, don't we now? For example, "Middle C will always be middle C.” The musician appreciates that especially. You can count on it, friend. The tenor upstairs may sing flat. He may not think so. But he may take, and he may even take offense to being told that it is so, even if it is true. The piano across the hall may be out of tune, but middle C will still be middle C.
God says, "I am the Lord, and I do not change..." (Malachi chapter 3, verse 6). So, people's ideas about God may change, but God, Himself, does not change. I like that! The Scripture says, God "is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us; to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen" (And I say “Amen” to that again.) (Ephesians chapter 3, verses 20 and 21 as we read it a while ago). And, He gives many examples of having done so. Oh, there are lots of them, but the one I'm going to use as an example is in Acts chapter 11, verses 19 through 26. As soon as it was known that God is also the God of the Gentiles, too, some preachers went out preaching Christ to the Gentiles in Antioch of Pisidia! Can you believe that? Oh me, it wasn't at all that popular-- or it wasn’t the thing that would have been expected at the time. And verse 21 says, "And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord." Ah, their teaching was crowned with great success, because "the hand of the Lord was with them." I love that verse. I have preached whole sermons on that one verse. You see, that is very personal for me. The reason is: I'm here with this program right now because "the hand of the Lord" has been with me. This ministry that began on one small TV station in southeast Oklahoma as an effort only, and only to preach Christ to the people of our small town, has grown to be an evangelistic thrust to the whole world-- not because of me or anything I have done, but, because the hand of the Lord has been with us. Oh no! God hasn't changed.
In Hebrews 13:8 the Bible assures us that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Then, Christ is another unchangeable, isn't He? That is the Christ who once said, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Oh, most of us love and quote that verse because of its inclusiveness. Jesus said, "whoever believes." My friend, Jesus hasn't changed. That message hasn't changed; it is still whoever believes in Christ. The church to which the Lord added me when I was saved, according to Acts chapter 2, verse 47, teaches and preaches that even now in this 21st century. Yes, Jesus was very "inclusive."
Honesty demands, though, that we quote Jesus in other verses, too. And very often He was very exclusive. Oh yes, He was! Look: The Jesus who said John 3:16 also said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). According to that newspaper article, Christ could be labeled "judgmental"-- maybe even "intolerant." He also said, "Except you repent, you will also perish" (Luke 13:3 and again in verse 5). He is also the one who said, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven" (John 3 and 3). And, "Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (John 3 and 5). It was Jesus who said, of whom it is said, "is the same yesterday, today, and forever," and He said, "Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many that go in by it" (Matthew 7:13-14). So, even Christ didn't encourage and exhort people to get in the crowded popular way because it leads to the place you don't want to go, friend. It is better to tell you that now as Jesus did, because, believe me you don't want to go there, my friend. Ok?
Let me point out another truth. The word of God is unchangeable, too. In First Peter 1:22-25, the Bible says, "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever." Young people-- well, older people too-- I mention the young people because the newspaper article I referred to awhile ago reflected the thinking of the young--16 to 29 years. In spite of what you may have been taught, there is absolute truth. When God speaks through His word, the Bible, it is indisputable, incontrovertible, undeniable, authoritative, absolute truth. In the Scriptures, it is often called, "the word of truth" as for example in Ephesians 1 and 13.
Oh yes, and God's eternal purpose for the church hasn't changed either. Before He laid the first rock of the vast universe that we now live in, God had a plan in mind for the redemption of sinful man. Yes, God made man capable of sinning. Oh yes, He knew Adam would sin when He made him the way He did. But, God was gracious and He had a plan for which the human race, by which the human race would be reconciled to Him. And it included the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ, and whoever would receive Him, as we said a moment ago, could be reconciled with the Creator/Father. However, if just one soul lived and died without hearing about it, it would be to him as though God had no plan for his salvation. So, God created the church for the purpose of getting the message of salvation in Christ to every living being in every generation. Read about it in Ephesians chapter 3, verses 1 to 13, and the passage we read awhile ago, too. No, no, no, it is not the purpose of the church to be a fellowship club or an amusement or entertainment or sports center, or a financial or a political entity. God's church was Divinely planned before the creation of the world to be the agency to "Go...and make disciples of (Christ) in all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that Christ commanded." Oh say! In that the church has the promise of His beloved Son to be with us in that work, even to the end of the age or to the end of the world as the King James Version says (Matthew 28, verses 18 to 20). That, my friend, is the church's business. No, no, no; if you have been convinced that preaching the gospel will kill Christianity, friend, you have bought "a pig in a poke."
That leads me to another unchangeable about Christianity. It is the church's message. I'm told almost every week something to the effect that, "We're living in a different culture now. You can't preach now what you used to preach to that other culture in the old twentieth century. The X-generation, won't listen to that." That was the thrust of the newspaper article with which we began this study. But, what is new about that? There have always been people who refused to listen to God's word. In the first century when the apostle Paul preached the gospel of God to the worldly wise Athenian Areopagate, the Scripture says, "...some mocked, while others said, (oh well) We'll hear you again about this matter...but some joined him and believed..." (Acts 17, verses 22 through 34). No, Paul was no failure on Mars' Hill. Oh no! Students of world literature declare his sermon there to be the second only to our Lord's sermon on the mount.
God says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace (meaning God's grace, of course) through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation (or a satisfaction) by His blood, through faith..." (Romans 3:23-25). To me it borders on an unforgivable sin for the church to know that men all around us are living and dying in sin, and God is eager to forgive them-- and a church or a preacher knowing that, and knowing the way of salvation revealed in the Bible-- for fear of being rejected, they cowardly refuse to tell the lost how to be saved in Christ!
The Lord said, "The seed is the word of God" (Luke 8 and 11). And one of God's unchanging laws about sowing and reaping in spiritual things as well as in the natural world is clearly stated in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6. "He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully." The church who preaches the word freely and unsparingly won't die from it, friend. No, no it will grow! Don't say to me, "I don't believe it-- not in our culture, not in our generation!" That is a bromide of the devil himself. He can convince enough people, if he can convince enough people in the church to believe that, he will have defeated Christ as certainly as if he had prevented His crucifixion. The apostle Paul said, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase" (I Corinthians 3:6). Paul also said, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing...We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." That is I Corinthians 1:18 through 25. And I believe it, friend. Let us pray. Thank You, Lord, for the blessings of this message today, that we have studied from Your word the blessings of teaching others the way of salvation. In Jesus’ name, we thank You. Amen!
So now the question before the 21st century church is this: “In view of the unchangeable nature of God and of Christ and of God's word and other unchangeables about Christianity, should Christianity try to change its message, its faith, its worship, and whatever else is necessary so as to accommodate the thinking of those reported in the news article?” The answer must be clear to any believing soul, friend. Another question is: Can the church who doesn't make those changes, survive? Oh, absolutely. In fact let the record show that the churches sticking most closely to the written word of God are growing, while those who are more liberal in their application of Bible truths, are diminishing in number. Another thought came to my mind: how much change can Christianity make until it's no longer Christianity? Whoops! Oh, that is our final thought for today.
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We are sponsored here on your station by churches of Christ and members of churches of Christ in this area, who would love to have you worship with them. I hope you will. We will be back next week. Hope you will be, too. God bless you now. We love you.
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