Two men had gone moose hunting up in Canada for a week. Their week of hunting was over, and a pilot had flown in to pick them up, as arranged ahead of time. The pilot taxied the plane down the grass landing strip to where the hunters stood with all of their equipment and the two moose they had shot. The pilot got out of the plane and looked over the men’s equipment and the two moose. He then said, “I am sorry men, but we cannot take both moose back with us. There will be too much weight, and the plane will never get off the ground.”
The two hunters looked at each other for a moment, and then one of them said, “We think it will be all right. Last year we came up here with the same equipment and shot two moose about the same size as these. The pilot who picked us up had a plane about the size of yours, and we got off the ground just fine.”
The hunter thought for a moment, and then said, “Well, if you think it can be done, we will try it.” So they loaded up all the equipment and the two moose, climbed aboard, and the pilot taxied as far back on the grass strip as he could. He headed down the strip as fast as he could and began to pull the plane up. The plane bounced a couple of times, and then finally lifted off the ground, flew a short ways, and crashed.
About fifteen minutes later, one of the two hunters regained consciousness. Soon the other hunter regained consciousness. They looked around for a moment, and then one of them said to the other, “Where are we?” The took one more look around and answered, “Oh, about two hundred yards farther than last year.”
Isn’t that about the way things seem to go in the church too often? We only make a little bit of progress from year to year. We do so today in an age where everything else seems to be changing so rapidly around us. How do we deal with changing times in the church and in our lives?
This is a critical question in light of some of the circumstances we find ourselves in today.
I serve on a Christian college board where we are in the midst of one of the biggest changes a school like ours will ever face as we move toward a merger with another college. Right when we had things moving in a good direction, this opportunity presents itself as a possibility for moving the school forward even further. How do you face such a thing? Through the discussions with the other school, we worked back and forth on whether moving forward with the merger was a good idea, finally concluding that was the direction the Lord was leading us. How do you deal with that kind of change?
The same issues are present in the church. I am in new church work. Those of us in that field know the great value of church planting, but sometimes existing churches feel threatened by a new church being planted near them. Yet when approximately 70% of the United States population is unchurched, how can we not proceed with every effort that will bring people to Christ? How do you deal with the kind of change such efforts bring?
A couple of Scripture passages open the way to dealing with these questions and lead us toward a text that will serve as the heart of this article:
In 1 Chronicles 12:32 David has become king over Israel after several years of battle with Saul. At this time of change, the writer is citing the number of men who have come to David and turned Saul’s kingdom over to him. The writer references 200 chiefs from the men of Issachar. He says they “understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” Could the same thing be said of us?
In Esther 4:14 Mordecai, knowing his people were being threatened, went to Queen Esther and said to her: “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
Let me ask you, do you understand the times and know what to do? Who knows but God has placed you where he has for such a time as this? How then should we respond to the challenge of our changing times?
Examine with me, 2 Corinthians 5:16-6:10. In the verse preceding this passage, Paul reminds us that we have a building from God that we long for, because our earthly tent is no good. We can, then, be confident in Christ, live by faith and not by sight, and make it our goal to please the Lord. On that basis, then, we try to persuade people of the Gospel, not tying to commend ourselves; we are compelled by Christ’s love to do so. He then goes on to answer how we can face the challenge of changing times. In doing so, Paul gives us three essential elements to facing changing times. The essence of these elements is that we have been changed to serve an unchangeable God by delivering an unchangeable message so others will be changed.
DEVELOP A COMMITMENT TO RECONCILIATION.
Have you given yourself room to change? Some people will not do so: A man once bought a new radio, brought it home, placed it on the refrigerator, plugged it in, turned it to WMS in Nashville (home of the Grand Ol’ Opry), and then pulled all the knobs off! He had already tuned in all he ever wanted or expected to hear.
The essence of the Christian life, however, is to recognize that God desires to change people. The heart of understanding change in Christ is that we no longer view anyone from a worldly point of view (2 Corinthians 5:16). That is, we no longer regard that a person cannot be changed. Rather we are committed to reconciliation.
My friend, Roy Ratcliff, who preaches in a church in Madison, converted Jeffrey Dahmer after he had been imprisoned. Dahmer, you recall, killed seventeen people; eleven corpses were found in his house. He cut off arms and ate body parts. Max Lucado says in his book, In the Grip of Grace, that what most troubled him about Dahmer was his conversion.
The essence of the Gospel, though, is that we no longer regard him from a worldly point-of-view, as one deserving punishment, but as one needing grace. Paul said, since we now view people this way, that anyone who is in Christ is a new kind of person (2 Corinthians 5:17). God has been at work all along reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them.
If God can change us, he can change anyone. The word “new” very specifically means “a new kind” of thing. It is the world Paul used in Romans 12:2 when he said, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind”; that is, be transformed by taking on a new kind of mind. Think differently than you did before. That is the kind of person God makes us. That is how we are to view people, because God has committed the ministry of reconciling people to God to us (2 Corinthians 5:18).
That change begins with us. We need to be changed ourselves.
Soon after Augustine’s conversion, he was walking down the street in Milan, Italy. There he accosted a prostitute whom he had known most intimately. She called but he would not answer. He kept right on walking. "Augustine," she called again. "It is I!" Without slowing down, but with assurance of Christ in his heart, he testified, "Yes, but it is no longer I." He was a changed man, now possessing the powers to change his former style of life.
We also need to recognize that others can be changed and need to be changed.
A cultured woman found herself among people of a strange language and race. Many varied customs. While she was there she became a close friend of a devoted missionary. One day she said, "I was troubled by an experience with those quarreling, difficult people, and I related my grievances to my missionary friend. ’They are so self- interested,’ I complained. ’So self-absorbed, so soft on themselves, so violent with others, so unreasoning, so totally difficult,’ and when I had finished rehearsing their faults as I saw them my friend smiled a little and said something I have never forgotten. ’That’s why they need us."
If we are to face the challenge of our changing times, we must hold a commitment to God’s reconciling work in Jesus. While our world may change, people still come to salvation in only one way – through the atoning blood of Jesus. Even when we hold to that belief unswervingly, it is difficult to put it into practice when dealing with the Jeffrey Dahmer’s and difficult people of our world. We must never forget, then, that God has changed us before he expects us to be agents of change in the lives of others. That is the challenge of our changing times.
CARRY OUT THE COMMISSION TO RECONCILIATION.
When God changes us, he commissions us to deliver this unchangeable message to others. Oscar Cervantes understood this:
Oscar Cervantes is a dramatic example of Christ’s power to transform lives. As a child, Oscar began to get into trouble. Then as he got older, he was jailed 17 times for brutal crimes. Prison psychiatrists said he was beyond help. But they were wrong! During a brief interval of freedom, Oscar met an elderly man who told him about Jesus. He placed his trust in the Lord and was changed into a kind, caring man. Shortly afterward he started a prison ministry. Chaplain H. C. Warwick describes it this way: "The third Saturday night of each month is ’Oscar Night’ at Soledad. Inmates come to hear Oscar and they sing gospel songs with fervor; they sit intently for over 2 hours; they come freely to the chapel altar.... What professionals had failed to do for Oscar in years of counseling, Christ did in a moment of conversion."
Paul sets this kind of attitude before us – 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.” Hopefully you understand the message of this verse – we are representatives of God. He is appealing to people through us. When we deliver the Gospel, it is as it God himself were speaking. This Gospel is unchangeable; indeed it is the one message that can change people’s lives.
The true story of the characters, Rhett Butler and Scarlet O’Hara, from Gone With the Wind testifies to this fact:
They say truth is stranger than fiction. A case in point is the book Scarlett, a sequel to the classic novel Gone With the Wind. For decades, readers have dreamed about what might have happened next. Now one reader has written her dreams down in a book.
What many people don’t know is that the original novel wasn’t just dreams. It was based on real people.
Yes, there was a Rhett Butler, though his real name was Rhett Turnipseed. And there was a Scarlett O’Hara, though her real name was Emerlyn Louise Hannon. And yes, Rhett really did walk out on her and join the Confederate army.
Rhett’s family, the Turnipseeds, a fine old South Carolina family, has kept the history of what happened next. Wesley Pruden in the Washington Times recounted it in a column.
After the Civil War, Rhett Turnipseed became a drifter and gambler, eventually ending up in Nashville. On Easter morning, 1871, Rhett attended a Methodist revival meeting. He was moved by what he heard and converted to the Christian faith.
Soon after, Rhett attended divinity classes at Vanderbilt University. Eventually he became a Methodist preacher riding a circuit in rural Kentucky.
Did Rhett and Scarlett ever cross paths again? Yes, the Turnipseeds tell the following story.
Reverend Rhett was worried about a young woman in his flock. She had run away, and rumor had it she was working in a house of prostitution in St. Louis. Reverend Rhett rode off to look for her.
He found the young woman, but he was told the madame of the house had no intention of letting her go. Asking to speak with the madame, Rhett discovered that she was none other than his former love, Scarlett. Excuse me – Emerlyn Louise Hannon. Reverend Rhett challenged the madame to a game of cards. If he won, the young girl he had come to fetch would be free to leave. And win he did: with a royal straight flush – an ace, king, queen, jack, and ten of spades.
The story ends well for all concerned. The young girl married well. After her encounter with the reformed Rhett, Emerlyn left prostitution, converted, and joined the Methodist church. Eventually she opened an orphanage for Cherokee children. She died in 1903, and her grave is marked to this day.
The true sequel of Scarlett and Rhett is more astonishing than any fictional account could be. It’s a story of God moving in the lives and hearts of a man who was a drifter and a gambler and a woman who lived off the proceeds of prostitution. If God can save the likes of these, surely he can work to save people in our world today.
Whether it that day or this, God continues to do the same thing. Perhaps you have read some of the accounts that came out of Columbine and of the Baptist Church shooting in Fort Worth. There were some tragic stories, to be sure, but all in all God did his best work preparing people for those tragedies ahead of time and bringing people through them afterwards.
There is a great issue that we need to face, however, in taking up the challenge of the commission to reconciliation. Our world has changed in how it will listen to the Gospel. During the Great Awakening in America, George Whitefield would preach to open air gatherings of thousands. Those days are gone. In the 1950’s, people were won to Christ in large Sunday School programs. Now it is hard work to even get people to Sunday School. In the early 1980’s, I went with a friend in Oklahoma City to hear David H. C. Read preach. You probably don’t know who he is, but I studied this English preacher’s sermons and writings in seminary. There was a gathering of about 100 to 125 people there that night. If we had gone to hear him twenty-five years earlier, the auditorium would have been packed. Today, there would be even fewer people there. Our world has changed in how it listens to the Gospel.
It is time for us to learn that when times and circumstances change, we may have to change our methodology. Most of our struggles in the church over change have to do with methodology – whether we should sing choruses or hymns, whether we should use a hymnal or projector, whether we should have deacons or ministries, whether men should wear a coat and tie to church or dress casual. You know the issues. Some of those have already passed us by, but there will be others as our world continues to change so quickly. Such issues are really not that important.
The only important issue is to maintain a commitment to an unchangeable Gospel of reconciliation and our commission to it. Our attitude should be: I may not be comfortable with how we do some things, but if doing them will reach people in a culture moving away from God, I will support and encourage those methodologies.
George Brushaber, president of Bethel College and Seminary, gives an example of how the church should function in this regard: He had an interim ministry at New Sweden, Maine, while in seminary. The town is 16 miles of gravel road past the end of blacktop. They made clothespins from the scrap pine of the logging industry. In the 1960’s their industry fell flat when people began to buy dryers and clothespins began to be made out of plastic. The town had to change to survive. They discovered that there was not enough wood in Asia to make chopsticks. Now New Sweden makes chopsticks and sends them to Asia.
That is what we do with new church plants today; we try to use strategies that fit our culture. That is our commission. Times may change, but the commission is still the same – using the best methodologies to reach people who need to be changed.
RECEIVE A COMMENDATION TO RECONCILIATION.
Are you willing to take any risk for the Gospel? Bill Body had the attitude toward softball that we need toward the Gospel of reconciliation:
In an article on old-time pickup softball games-where seniors in Naperville, Illinois, gather twice weekly to test their skills against one another-writer Ted Gregory explains the risks: not pulled muscles and sprained ankles, but sometimes senior softball players suffer heart attacks from exerting themselves in the hot sun. Despite the risks, 63-year-old Bill Body explained why he plays: "If I’m going to die, I’m going to die doing what I love doing, whether it’s playing softball, fishing, hunting, or something else."
We’re often tempted in the church to slow down, cut back, take it easy because we get tired of taking risks-and in Christ’s work, there are a lot of emotional or spiritual risks. But Bill Body is exactly right: life itself is a risk – we’re all going to die. So we might as well get involved, take the risks, and do the things in Christ we really love.
I served a church for a couple of years in Traverse City, MI, a tourist and retirement community. We saw people who retired to Traverse City who took just the opposite approach of Bill Body – they had retired not only from their job, but also from the church. They could have used their lives for Christ and commended themselves to the Gospel, but they lived for themselves instead.
In contrast, Paul risked himself for the Gospel – 2 Corinthians 6:3-10: “We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
People still come to reconciliation with God when they see the Gospel being lived out in the lives of those committed to Christ. It makes no difference what changes take place in our world; a life lived in commitment to God will also commend the Gospel to others. The challenge is still to change others.
Live, then, so as to commend yourself in every way.
Howard Hendricks tells the story of a man willing to live this way: Howard Hendricks was walking the streets of San Mateo, a small town on the San Francisco peninsula. He met an attorney he knew from a local evangelical church. He said to him, "What are you doing?" He said, "I’m looking for a job?" Hendricks said, "You’ve got to be kidding." He said, "No, last week, I walked out the front door of that corporation and told them, "You can hang it on your beak. I’m no longer going to write contracts that you and I both know are illegal and illegitimate." That man is regarded as one of the top five corporate lawyers in America, and he’s unwilling to sell his value system for a mess of pottage, because he understands the implications of the Gospel and of being more than a conqueror through Christ. We need a larger core of lawyers like that, of people like that.
In the final analysis, what changes makes little difference, because the Gospel is the same, and our lives need to commend themselves to people who need to know him.
So are you like the men of Issachar? Do you understand the times and know what to do? Are you like Esther? Have you come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?
In the end, what matters is recognizing who God is, as Jean Massillon did when he stood before France preaching the funeral of King Louis XIV. Louis XIV was a corrupt king, but he loved great preaching, and often had some wonderful preachers of his day into the palace to preach for him, including Massillon. When he died, Massillon was asked to preach the king’s funeral. When he stood to preach, he read from his text, Ecclesiastes 1:16: "I spoke in my heart saying, Behold, I have become great, and have advanced in wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem.” Pausing for a moment to let the text make its own solemn impression while he looked with quiet dignity over the scene, and the audience became awed to breathless silence, Massillon said: "God only is great, my brethren; and above all in those last moments when he presides at the death of the kings of the earth. The more their glory and their power have shone forth, the more in vanishing then do they render homage to his supreme greatness; God then appears all that he is, and man is no more at all that which he believed himself to be."
God, perhaps, has placed us in the Kingdom for times just as these, to be changed to serve an unchangeable God by delivering an unchangeable message so others will be changed.
