He hasn’t been gone very long -- just a week, but if you’re not missing Rick, I can tell you that he is missing you. Continue to pray for him. And for us....
To tell you where we’re at in the process...
- informal conversations
- collecting information (survey)
- we’ll expand the rings with further contacts
Meanwhile we are getting ourselves ready -- emotionally and spiritually for the change that is no doubt coming when God brings us another pastor.
If you brought your Bible with you, open it to 2 Kings 18...for the second semester of Change U
We’re not the only ones talking change. You might have heard that there is a presidential election going on. One of the candidates has chosen as a slogan "Change we can believe in." The other candidate selected a spunky vice-president who responded this week by saying..."There are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those who use their careers to promote change." All of which caused my daughter Jenna to say to me, "I am sick of all this talk about change." - and she said that right as I was working on my message this week...about change....thanks Jenna.
Whether we want to talk about it, or not, we face three types of transition:
1. Personal
- Happens deep within us, in the hidden parts of our lives....
- I am not the same person I was 5 years ago
- I pastored here until 2005. I’m a different guy, and you have changed too.
Over time we’re not the same people that we used to be. We’re all on a personal journey. [When I counsel couples about to get married...] you’re making a commitment to the person they are going to be.
On a personal level, researchers say that every person will experience 3-9 "significant changes" or turning points in their life. You may be in the middle of one right now.
2. Relational
Throughout our lives, people are coming in and out. Through the stages in life we have to make adjustments. Relationships -- even family relationships -- can be unstable over time.
3. Environmental
Philippians 4:12
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.
Paul wrote these words from prison [not a nice clean prison, but like in the movie Gladiator] Change happens. Sometimes change happens to you. Your company goes on strike. Gas goes up to $4 per gallon. You get in an accident and are hospitalized.
It’s not what happens to you--it’s what happens in you. We have to be careful when it comes to change, because we can mess up by either changing, or not.
When it comes to change, it’s a two-step process.
1. Knowing what needs to change
2. Changing
We get in trouble either changing what shouldn’t change, or not changing what we should. And it’s the second concern -- not changing - that gets addressed in 2 Kings 18:1-4.
"In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it."
Here’s the deal...Good snakes can become bad snakes.
It’s the Bronze Serpent Effect: We fall in love with the way God worked.
The snake had been a symbol of God’s work. It later became an object of worship.
1. God worked through the snake
2. They fell in love with the way God used to work.
What do you do with old snakes? Smash them so that God can do something new.
William Whyte (The Organizing Man): "All creative advances are essentially a departure from agreed-upon ways of looking at things."
You can’t go forward without a departure. Here, as a group, we’re experiencing some transitions as a church. We’re moving out of one chapter, into the next.
This has been Rick’s ministry to lead. He has led it well. There were things that God did here that were awesome. But don’t fall in love with the way God worked. Make the internal adjustments necessary to adapt to change.
The key determination in transition:
What are you going to take with you, and what are you going to leave behind?
Just like when you move physically, you have to take inventory. When you move spiritually, or want to, you have to take inventory.
Paul has some diary entries for us, from his own determinations about what to leave behind and what to take with you in Philippians 3...
Leave Behind: Take With You:
* What you have done * What Christ is doing
"Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ."
* Your importance * Christ’s importance
"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things."
This is an important church:
* Social identity * Spiritual identity
"I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ --the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."
This is a cool church:
* Your kingdom * Christ’s kingdom
"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
This has been a bigger kingdom church...we see the bigger picture, a whole ’nother state.
* Past imperfections * Future possibilities
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Everything on the left side: religion
- what you have done
- your importance
- social identity
- your kingdom
- past imperfections
Everything on the right side: faith
- what Christ has done
- Christ’s importance
- Spiritual identity
- Christ’s kingdom
- Future possibilities
[Two books: the book of memories and the book of vision]
Here’s the kicker, you can’t read both books at the same time! Paul clearly chose to read from the book of vision for his life..."I want to know Christ." This would be a goal for each of us during this time.
To make this our goal: To know Christ.
A headline in USA Today said, "We’re heading into something big -- but what?" In the article it said "Standing at the front edge of history can be disconcerting. This year feels like just such a point in time. The stock market disaster, the wreckage in the technology industry, the stutter-stepping presidential election -- they all have that teetering quality. Could lead to something great. Could just as easily be horribly awful. One way or another, there’s momentousness in the air. Almost everything.....seems to say so. We’re hanging. Waiting. The tectonic plates of civilization have been storing up potential energy and are about to let it rip. We’re a little uneasy with the tumult of the past year, and more than a little unsure of what comes next."
This appeared in USA Today in 1999, over 8 years ago...The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The economy comes and goes
The stock market comes and goes
Industries come and go
Companies come and go
Presidents come and go.
Pastors come and go.
It’s up to you to decide, what are you going to take with you and what are you going to leave behind?
Leave behind the snake.
