Many of you will have seen pictures like these,

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1 Preparing a message is an interesting exercise. Sometimes, during the process that moves a subject from an idea in my mind, to what you hear on a Sunday morning, things happen that seem to relate directly to my topic. I guess with a topic like Change there s a fair chance that s going to happen! Realistically, receiving the phone call Monday night that our dear friend Rex Moon had been taken to hospital, then news of his death a few days later, shouldn t have been the shock it was for me. Rex s health had been failing for some time. It s been sad to witness these changes over the past year or so. They remind us that change, and some changes are taking place all around us, and within us. To be alive is to be changing. We live in times of change. Many of you will have seen pictures like these, that portray visually, the changes we all experience in life, through what are sometimes called the seven stages of life. It s rather challenging to try and assess (honestly!) which of these stages represents where you are right now! Especially if you are a woman (these pictures are obviously men). Let me help you! Just five pictures in this sequence. Feel free to imagine another one or two in sequence if these don t seem to reflect where you think you are right now! Some of the other images I saw on the internet weren t so flattering! This next one was one of the kindest, most optimistic of the ones I saw. 1

2 (See. I m not really growing old. I m just heading into full bloom!) Other things are changing, too; and changing rapidly it often seems to us. Let s consider some of the I. Attitudes to Change we may have ourselves, and sometimes observe in others. Let me give you a series of Key Words that reflect the ways different people respond to change; and perhaps our response to the different kinds of change we encounter. Starting with Resist Tolerate Accept Welcome Embrace Facilitate Initiate Some people resist change because they don t like change. Some changes we see taking place around us should be resisted. I won t list these this morning. It s hard to resist everything! Sometimes, we just go with the flow! is our next word. Tolerate implies reluctance. Acceptance is more neutral. is more positive again. This is a good thing. I m glad this happened. Next, we can change. What a blessing this opportunity arose! Let s take a further step into positive territory: we can change. The opportunity for change is here. It just needs a little nudge, a little encouragement. Finally (on my scale, anyway) we can change. This isn t going to happen, unless I (or someone else) make it happen. Where would we be today, if not for those change initiators who saw a way to make things better, and refused to rest until it happened? I wonder where you sit, normally, in your attitude to change generally. Are you an Initiator, or a Resistor? Do you tolerate, barely, or grudgingly, change when you encounter it; or are you more likely to embrace it with enthusiasm? You re probably going to want to say, It all depends on what is being changed, and how the change is introduced! Let me toss in some more words here. These take the form of contrasting or even opposing pairs. Here s the first pair: 2

3 Optional... and... Inevitable. Some changes are entirely beyond our ability to control. We ve already mentioned aging. While we can do some things to minimise its effects, aging itself is out of our hands. Marriage is optional. Death, perhaps the greatest of all of life s changes is inevitable; unless Jesus returns in the meantime. Here s the next pair: Desirable... and... Objectionable. We will naturally resist some changes as objectionable; and embrace others as desirable. Again, marriage and death are two changes we could allocate this way. Others may not be so easy. What one person may see as desirable may be objectionable to someone else, and vice versa. Our final pair is a little different: Anticipation... and... Nostalgia. Do you see the connection, or am I too obscure? Anticipation looks forward to something, often with longing. Which way does nostalgia look? Backwards! Often with longing for things, or a way of life from the past. Where are you in your life and attitude to change at the moment (and I should acknowledge that age seems to have quite a bearing on this)? Are you mostly looking forward with anticipation; or backwards in nostalgia? How do you feel about the changes you may be facing right now? Some of the changes ahead we face as individuals; many of them have a collective component as well; and I want us to consider here, II. Change and the Church. Hasn t this been a controversial topic down through the ages, probably right back to the early church? Let me acknowledge that the two terms church and change often don t sit comfortably together. Churches don t do change very well; and we can understand how this happens. Christians are passionate people, and we re passionate about our faith. Don t you mess with something I m passionate about! We re also not very good at discerning between crucial, non-negotiable fundamentals of our faith, and our local, cultural expression of it. Have you ever disagreed with a change the church you belonged to was considering? Has anyone here not disagreed with a proposed change in a church at some time? 3

4 Let s consider some different kinds of change, starting with A. Incremental Change. One of my favourite stories involves a young parish priest and a visiting preacher. After a series of meetings, the visiting preacher commented on the layout of the building and its suitability for ministry. It works quite well, he said, but it would be so much better if you shifted the piano over to the other side of the room. The young priest agreed. I d love to, but it s always been there. It would cost me my job if I moved it! (I can t believe churches could be like that, can you?) A year later and the visiting preacher was passing through again, and noticed the piano now on the other side of the building, where he had recommended. Well done! He said to the priest. How did you manage that? The young man smiled. One inch at a time! he said. That s incremental change! It s a great way to manage some kinds of change. There s also an inherent danger in this form of change; and we ve all heard the story of the frog in a saucepan of water on the stove, slowly brought to boiling point. I think that s happening to standards of morality in society around us; (but maybe I m just growing old. Incrementally!) Some changes simply can t be handled by increments. Last year I read a book called: B. Deep Change. Some changes, by very nature, need to penetrate deeply to be effective. You can inch closer and closer to Jesus in your knowledge and understanding, but conversion is deep change. If anyone is in Christ, Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he (or she) is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come! 1 Deep change! You can t become a Christian by increments! Some of you will remember the old gospel song: What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought; since Jesus came into my heart! Churches too sometimes need to bite the bullet and embrace radical, or deep change. Back when we were worshipping at the Centre, as numbers grew, we started putting out more and more chairs as required. Incremental change. Buying this block of land, building these facilities was a huge decision, a significant change. Our growth from a small church with a handful of people, to the church we are today has come from a mix of these two types of change. Our progress into the future will depend on us managing well both of these forms of change. 1 2 Corinthians 2:17 4

5 Something is taking place within our church while all this is going on, and will need to continue for us to continue to be effective. I want to describe it this morning with the analogy, C. Passing the Baton. As a rather mediocre athlete in our school sports, I really looked forward to the relays. I was fortunate in my age group to have two very good runners, and two more of us who adequately made up the numbers. We became a formidable team! I shake my head in disbelief when I see a relay team in the Olympics, mess up the baton change. Our school team practised passing the baton over and over again. We knew that no matter how well any of us ran individually, relay races are won, and lost, at the baton change. I shake my head in disbelief as I see how poorly churches generally manage passing the baton. What s a baton change? many of them seem to ask; as the same, tired, aging athletes run round and round, in circles, getting older, running slower; while younger, fitter athletes get sick of waiting for their chances and drift away. It s risky passing batons. Dropping the baton is disastrous! Relay races are won and lost at the baton change. No team ever won a relay race without making changes. (Back at school, we had a teacher who rather fancied himself as a runner, and he challenged our relay team to a race, by himself, over 400 metres. As the third runner in our team I had the honour and glory of passing him round the back of the oval as he ran out of steam before passing the baton to our final runner in the straight. I did enjoy that! I must have been a bit competitive, back then!) You don t win, unless you pass the baton! I loved having Grace lead our worship last Sunday. I hate saying Goodbye to our young adults as we send them off to uni each year. (We ll be doing that again next week.) But I get excited each year at Park the Kids when I see the next crop of teenagers taking their place in the leadership team, and displaying a maturity I maybe hadn t noticed in the twelve months previously. We need to keep passing batons! That s one reason I announced last year that I will be stepping away from the senior pastor position at the end of this year. I m starting to feel older, and slower! (And maybe starting to run around in circles!) I m looking forward to going a little slower. I don t want the church to slow down and lose momentum. It will be time for a baton change. And a role change for me. I certainly plan to stick around; and I hope to continue working in the church. The Bible has a lot to say about the changes we experience as God s children; and I love the term it uses to describe these changes: 5

6 III. LIVING WITH CHANGE Transformed! Here s how Paul describes this process to the Corinthians: And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord s glory, are being transformed into his image, with ever increasing glory...! 2 How good is that? Who d want to be merely changed, when God plans for us to be transformed? And writing to the Romans, Paul tells them, and us, Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 3 In order to bring about this deep, radical, transformation, God offers us A. New Hearts, Renewed Minds. Through Ezekiel, God tells his people, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean.... I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 4 What an offer! What an opportunity for the deep and lasting change many of us have sought. God offers us new hearts. Our text this morning reminds us that Therefore (because of God s resurrection power at work in us in spite of the difficulties we face daily) we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are (not only changing, we are) wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 5 Change can be good. God s plan is that his people change. One day, our tired old world will be renewed, superseded by the new heaven and earth God has planned for eternity. In the meantime he is renewing us inwardly, day by day. I love the first three verses of 1 John 3. In our context this morning, John reminds us that we are, right now, children of God, loved by him with the love of a father. We don t yet know what we will be in the future. Did you note that from verse 2? What do we know? When Jesus appears, we will be like him. We are in fact, right now, in the process of B. Becoming Like Jesus. What a way to change! How do we feel about this change? Will we resist it, or tolerate it? Or will we embrace it, and wherever we have the opportunity, facilitate the changes we know God wants to make in us? 2 2 Corinthians 3:18 3 Romans 12:2 4 Ezekiel 36:25a, Corinthians 4:16 6

7 It s interesting to speculate on just how much like Jesus we can and should become in this life. I m sure we ve all known and admired those in whom we ve seen the love of Jesus shine, through their words and actions. Why not you? Why not me? How much of the necessary change do you think God will initiate in us, when he finds hearts and minds willing to embrace whatever is required to make us like Jesus? I m sure he wants to change us! I m sure we are the limiting factors that slow down and hinder us becoming all God plans for us to be. How are you feeling about change this morning? I was really saddened to lose Rex this week; even while we could see he d run his race in this life, and was ready to move on to better things. I don t think I ll ever get used to the personal sense of loss we feel with the death of those we love and look up to. And I m not too excited about some of the other changes taking place around us. I don t particularly want to wind back the clock ; I m not really into nostalgia but I wouldn t mind if the rate of change we see around us slowed down a little. Some things don t change. God s love is a constant. And we read in Hebrews 13, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 6 Amidst these changing times, our future is in his safe, strong hands. We wouldn t want it anywhere else. 6 Hebrews 13:8 7