The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)The preacher at my church was talking a couple of weeks ago about growing and changing as you travel in your spiritual journey. Here are some observations I wrote down during the sermon. Some of them talk about the same thing, but in different directions.
-The presence of the Holy Spirit in your life demands growth. I saw a bumper sticker once that said “Christians are no different, just forgiven.” As I thought about it, I realized that if a Christian is not any different from the world, he is not a Christian. Life in Jesus demands change from us. Grace is free but it is not cheap. When we accept him, we become new and different and our entire motivation changes.
-I am different spiritually than I was a year ago. That is true. A year ago I was undergoing some severe challenges and trials. They have produced a man who is different today. I am still not sure if it is a good different or not, but we cannot emerge unscathed from our trials. The same with the rest of our lives in service. We come out changed. If we don’t, there was no point in our lives.
-Growth requires change. If you do not change, you have not grown. A child who grows changes dramatically. So does a person who grows in Jesus. He is different today than he was. His mindset is different than it was even a short time ago. As we gain more and more knowledge of God’s word and will in our lives, we have to be different than we were.
-Growth can be uncomfortable. Nothing could be more true. As you grow, you leave what was comfortable for you and come into a greater knowledge of the will of God. And sometimes it can be painful coming to a realization of what God wants of you now. The old is gone and will never be recovered. Recognizing that is growth.
-If you don’t change, you don’t grow. Growth is made evident in how different you are now than yesterday. If people do not see you as different, you are not. If you have really grown, it will be evident to all.
-The pastor should lead in the change. Someone once said that one of the main jobs of a pastor is to look out the window. He needs to see different things, things done differently, change in other situations that has both gone well and gone badly. He needs to see all this so that he can lead his church into a fuller relationship with God. He cannot be afraid of change, but must lead the church to a better place.
No church can remain the same, however much we may want it to do so. Churches that resist change will die. Churches that embrace change will live. We cannot expect to live in a constantly changing culture and have our church remain the same. We must change to meet it.
Yes, we preach the ancient unchanging gospel of Jesus and his grace. But we change in how we present it to match how our culture thinks. Otherwise we become like the Amish: a dying religious museum.
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