My great-uncle, Ed Weber, drove an ancient car. I doubt if you’ve ever heard of its brand name. He drove a Terraplane. Anybody remember the Terraplane? Well, dearie, if you do, then you are much older than I, because my great-uncle’s Terraplane was already ancient when I was a boy. It had been around many years, plying the streets of Louisville, whining and chugging along its way.
Now my great-uncle had a theory about that car. He knew exactly why he had been able to keep it so long. He knew precisely why, despite its birth somewhere in the early 1930’s, his car had made it through the Second World War and well into the 1950’s. Uncle Ed said that the secret of his Terraplane was that he never drove it in high gear. Second gear was as far as he would go, and although my brother and I thought it was a riot of laughs to ride in Uncle Ed’s Terraplane, the engine screaming but the speed about 20 miles an hour, somehow other drivers did not think it quite so funny. Somehow the public was not pleased. Uncle Ed said, "I am saving the brakes." "I am saving the brakes." If you don’t go in high gear, and don’t move too fast, when you come to a stop sign or a red light, as you inevitably will when you are driving in a city, well, you can let the engine slow you down. And you can save the brakes.
Now I know this picture may be murky for some of you. If you have not had the dubious privilege of driving a manual transmission, you may miss the point. If you have been babied with an automatic transmission, you may not understand. But some of us learned to drive on cars with gearshifts, three gears: low, second, and high. You sat at traffic lights, waiting impatiently, and revved up the engine, letting out the clutch, engaging that low gear, so that you could get off the dime and get moving. You couldn’t go very fast that way, but low gear was necessary. It got you out of the inertia of standing still. As soon as possible, you shifted up into second gear, which was for acceleration. Second gear took your two tons of steel and got it going faster and faster. Second gear provided a rush, because you heard the engine whining as it turned faster, you felt the power as you hurried forward. In second gear there was a feeling that you were really moving on.
And then, when the time was just right, when you realized you were about up to traveling speed, you shifted into high gear, using the engine’s power not to overcome inertia, and not just to accelerate, but to keep the car moving smoothly toward its goal. It was in high gear that you stayed when you let your car do what it was supposed to do. High gear was what a car was designed to do.
But Uncle Ed’s ancient Terraplane never got out of second gear. He was saving the brakes. It moved, but slowly. It never achieved the potential the engineers had designed. Cautious, safe, a barrel of laughs, but not much of a ride.
Most Christians have at least gotten into low gear; we are certainly off the dime and moving. We’re at least at worship, we have some good habits, we know how to do church. We’ve at least gotten into low gear.
And a good many have shifted into second gear. We’ve got some passion about the gospel. We think it’s good to save souls and claim people. We have found out how to accelerate. We can sing, we can pray, we can give testimonies, some of us can even shout and sort of wave our hands a little. Second gear is not too hard. But just when it would seem that it is time to shift into high gear ... just when it is time to move on in a mighty way ... just when we could achieve a bold victory for our God ... we shut it down. We decide it would be good to save ourselves ... and we chug along in second gear, and stop short of what we really could be, if we trusted God completely. We become Uncle Ed’s Terraplane, stuck in second gear; we’re saving the brakes.
I’ve chosen this morning to pull together three things. First, I want to acknowledge that today, the last Sunday of October, Protestant Christians observe as Reformation Sunday. Reformation Sunday commemorates that moment on the 31st of October in 1517, when a young German monk, Martin Luther, nailed to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, some 95 propositions, challenging the church of his day. That bold act began to reshape and reform the church. It gave us a whole new expression of Christian faith. It was a low-gear act. It got a dead church off the dime. It got things moving.
My first focus is Reformation Sunday; reform. And the second thing I want to touch on is revival. Up to 200 of us were here each night this week in an exercise we called a revival. We sang, we prayed, we heard preaching, we drank in the testimonies of various people. And each night it felt as though the fires burned a little brighter, the energies mounted a little higher, until, at the end of the week, people were saying things like, "I do feel revived." "Our church has had a revival." "We really needed that revival." We felt some new life. We felt new vitality. New energy. We felt like we are now in second gear.
Acceleration. Really getting on the move. Second gear. Reform first, and then revival.
But I also want to move on to a third step. I want to move on to think with you about renewal. Something that reaches farther than reform and plumbs deeper than revival. I want to talk about renewal. I want you to see that it’s good for Christians to reform and reshape, good to rework our thoughts and to reorganize our programs. That’s good, but it’s not good enough. And I want to ask you to discover that revival, however exciting, is not enough. Revival, however stirring, is still not enough. Christ calls us to renewal. Beyond reform and beyond revival, to renewal. Christ has designed us for high gear.
Where are you? Are you in low gear, just getting started? Or in second gear, winding up? This is not your father’s Oldsmobile. But it may be my Uncle Ed’s Terraplane. Are we going to make it all the way up to high gear? Reform, revival, or renewal?
I
Let me take you to the seventh century before Christ, to the Kingdom of Judah. It’s 621 years before Christ. Just about a hundred years have gone by since the destruction of Israel, Judah’s sister kingdom to the north. You may remember that up there, centered around the capital city of Samaria, the ten tribes of Israel had been devastated by the Assyrians. Wiped out, never to appear again on the stage of history.
Down here in the south, centered around their capital city of Jerusalem, huddled the two tribes that made up the Kingdom of Judah. Things had not been so good in Judah, either. Idolatry had run rampant. Cult prostitution and child sacrifice had crept in. Criminal activity was everywhere. Merchants cheated their customers. Lenders took unfair advantage of their creditors. Widows suffered in poverty. Power was abused by those in authority. Everywhere things looked bleak.
But in a young child there was a glimmer of hope. The child’s name was Josiah. Josiah became king of Judah when he was only eight years old, but he seems to have had an instinct for what was right. He seems to have had a natural inclination to do the right thing. Josiah, though still a boy, ordered that the Temple be repaired and rebuilt. I don’t know how he figured it out, but Josiah seems to have known that if the nation of Judah was going to get up out of its mess, it would have to rebuild its religious institutions. And so the Temple, which had fallen into disuse and decay, Josiah ordered rebuilt.
Well, one day the workers found something special in the dark and dusty corners of the Temple. They found a book. They took this book to the King, and somebody said, "I know what this is. This is the Book of the Law. This is Holy Scripture. This is what our fathers and mothers used and said was God’s word." The historian tells us that the young king read it; it touched his mind, and he ordered that the Scripture be brought back to the people. Josiah commanded that the worship of the Temple be reshaped, reformed by the words of this book. Josiah rediscovered the Bible and shaped his life and the life of the people in accordance with it.
That’s first gear. That’s reform. Josiah got things reorganized, and he did it on the basis of the Bible. Let us never forget that principle. The life of the church and the life of the Christian is to be governed by the Scriptures. If you do not use the Bible to shape your life, you will be shaped by fad and fashion, you will be blown about by the winds of popularity. If you do not shape your life and the life of your church around a deep, strong, sensitive understanding of God’s word, you will believe anything that anybody says that sounds halfway pretty. But it will be wrong. And wrong is wrong is wrong.
I read the other day that 60% of the people who took a little poll believe that the statement, "Cleanliness is next to godliness" is in the Bible; and that Sodom and Gomorra were two lovers whose romance went wrong, sort of like Romeo and Juliet. It’s sad, but lots of church people do not know the Bible. They say they love the Bible, and they may be able to rattle off the 23rd Psalm or the Lord’s Prayer, but that’s not much. The life of a Christian, first gear, getting started, begins with knowing God’s word.
When Martin Luther began the Protestant Reform, he did so because he rediscovered the Scriptures. The Bible had long lay buried under centuries of custom and tradition and hierarchy. The church of Luther’s day had said to people, "You don’t need to know the Bible. We will tell you what to believe." In some parts of Europe in the late middle ages it was actually illegal to own or to read the Bible. So when Luther rediscovered the power of the Scriptures, and heard its glorious good news that the just shall live by faith, then he got going. He demanded that the church of his day reshape its life according to the Bible. We call that the Reformation. It’s first gear.
II
But now let me carry you back in your imagination to that seventh century before Christ. Let’s go back to Jerusalem and to Judah, back to the Temple being rebuilt and the word of God being reclaimed. I wish I had the time to draw you a word picture of everything that took place, once the people got a clear picture of God’s expectations. I wish I could show you a video or paint you a mural so that you could see it all. The historian tells us that when Josiah the king heard, down deep in his soul, what was in God’s word, he tore his clothes, he wept, he cried out, and he got busy. And got the people doing the same. They repented, they wept, they cried out, and they got busy. In a word, they got revival. They got into second gear.
Oh, maybe I can take just a little while to mention a few of the things on Josiah’s laundry list for Judah. Some of them might sound familiar. Some of them might even suggest what our laundry list should look like. The historian tells us that they started to clean house right in the Temple. Started in the house of God. They destroyed all the idols, all the unworthy things, that had been put into the Temple. Judgment does begin at home, at the house of God. You cannot tell the world what to do if you are not willing to make things right yourself. Rev. Norton reminded us that we cannot deal with their mess until we deal with our mess. So Josiah and the people took the idols out of the Temple and out of their lives. They cleaned house.
And more. They dealt with misconduct in the leaders of the Temple and the leaders of the nation. They made sure that there was integrity in their leadership; folks think that’s a private matter and that it doesn’t count for much, but it does. It really does. Josiah and the people of Judah knew that. Apples rot from the inside out. You cannot have a vital nation, you cannot have a vital church, unless there is integrity in the leadership.
And then the historian tells us they called the people back to authentic worship. They brought back the celebration of the Passover; they had been so far out that nobody could even remember when Passover had been celebrated. But they brought it back. Authentic worship that celebrated and pointed to the mighty acts of God. Worship that had power and punch in it.
Oh, do you see? There is revival when God’s people clean house, when they get rid of some things that are out of whack, and put back some things they have forgotten about. Revival comes when God’s people got convicted and excited and get determined to do whatever it takes. Revival comes when there is passion. How can I say it? Let the historian tell you about Josiah:
"Before [Josiah] there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses".
Power and revival! Second gear. Moving rapidly. Accelerating. Repenting for the wrong and sharing in passionate, heartfelt, authentic worship. Revival. Second gear.
About two hundred years after Martin Luther and his Reform, along came John Wesley. Wesley, in the 18th Century, looked around and saw wrong everywhere. He saw children abused in the coal mines. He saw widows torn by poverty. He saw fathers cast into debtors’ prison. He saw oppression.
More, John Wesley saw a church that was indifferent. A church that was Biblically correct but spiritually indifferent. A church that was theologically sophisticated, but which lacked warmth. It had no energy, no passion, no drive. And it certainly had no commitment to the poor.
John Wesley set about to change all that. I cannot give you a history lesson this morning, but I can tell you that this man, a failure as a missionary, a failure as a parish priest in the Church of England, a failure even in romance ... when this man let his heart take him over, he got going. He got into second gear. John Wesley not only preached all over England, but he also sent out other preachers to America and other places. They called them Methodists, because they were so thorough and methodical in their approach. The thing is, they actually believed they were going to change the world! And they did it You read the history of Wesley’s followers in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and you see that the Wesley revival brought to their knees in repentance all kinds of people, sinners of all shapes and sizes, poor people and captains of industry alike. The Methodist preachers brought passion, feeling, a concern for righting wrongs and working justice. They brought revival. They were in second gear.
III
But even revival is not enough. Reform is not good enough, and revival is not good enough.
Reform means we work on the basics of the faith and teach the Bible and rethink how we do church. Josiah the king did that. Martin Luther did that. That’s good. But it’s only first gear.
Revival is wonderful. When you have revival, you feel cleansed and powerful. You feel! Josiah felt something when he led the people to purge abuses. John Wesley, the apostle of the warm heart, he led people to feel their faith and to clean up their lives. That’s superb. But it still isn’t enough. It’s only second gear. There has to be more. Oh, you can ride for a very long while in Uncle Ed’s Terraplane, in second gear, but the designers designed it for more. The engineers designed it for high gear.
I believe with all my heart that God has designed Christians of the late 20th and the 21st Centuries for high gear, for renewal. Renewal. Renewal is the business of going into the world, and there seeking to be redemptive. Renewal is acknowledging that there are broken lives around us, and that it is not our business to criticize people for how they got to be broken, but it is our business to help them. It is our business to be redemptive. It is our task to bind up the broken, to lift up the fallen, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to house the homeless, to untangle the confused, and, most of all, to bring home to the Father those who left home. I believe with all my heart that no Christian who wants to be faithful to God’s call can ignore the high gear: renewal. Renewal for mission. Renewal for ministry. Renewal for service. Renewal for redemption. Renewal that takes broken and battered people and gives them a reason to hope.
You see, the historian tells us that all that King Josiah did was too little, too late. As good as it was, it didn’t last long. Josiah started that reform. He rebuilt the Temple and put the Word of God back in its place of honor. That’s first gear. Josiah tore down the idols and attacked the injustices of his day. He saw to it that lively worship was available to the people, and they felt it. It was glorious. That was revival, that was second gear.
But the historian tells us it was too little, too late. For only twelve years later, Josiah was killed on the battleground, and the Kingdom of Judah fell, first to the Egyptians and a little later to the Babylonians. Judah melted in defeat. But in the midst of her defeat, the prophet Zephaniah spoke out and offered this word of hope:
Sing aloud, 0 daughter Zion; shout, 0 Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, 0 daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, Oh Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love.
The Lord, your God, will renew you in his love. Renewal. Redemption. I live and breathe for the day when we will focus on those who need redemption. Substance abusers. Bored young people. Families where violence takes over. I pray for the day when we will penetrate the high school, the junior high schools, the nearby college, and reclaim young lives. Partnerships with health professionals, with the police, with others who care about this community. I dream for that day.
For the word of the Gospel is, "Hope never disappoints." Hope never disappoints. Zephaniah, we hear you, "The Lord our God will renew us in His love." If we but trust Him, He will renew us in His love. If we but take on a little holy boldness, He will renew us in His love. If we but move out into the highways and byways of life, where many are weary and sad, He will renew us in His love. If we but get into high gear and do what the designer creator made us to do, He will renew us in His love.
Somebody told me a tall tale the other day. It seems that on one and the same day Pope John Paul, Billy Graham, and Oral Roberts all died and went to heaven. Well, with dignitaries like these, heaven was suddenly very crowded, and so the Lord called up the other place and asked the Devil if he would take Pope John Paul, Billy Graham, and Oral Roberts for just a short while, until suitable mansions could be completed. The Devil agreed, and down they all went. But in only a day or two the Devil called up the Lord, and said, "I wanted to do you a favor. And I have tried. But you’ll have to take these guys back. I can’t have this. John Paul is forgiving everybody. Billy Graham is preaching to and they’re all getting saved. And that Oral Roberts is the worst: he’s down here selling air conditioners."
It’s good to reform and forgive. It’s better to revive and to save souls. But it’s best of all, to market air conditioners and blow away the very fires of hell, best of all to renew and redeem every broken life.
The Lord our God will renew us in His love.
