Readings
2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12Acts 1:4-8
Introduction
What would happen if you never changed your socks? They would get pretty smelly and, over time, probably rot away!Our theme, this morning, is "Change, Faith and the Power of the Spirit." I want to talk a bit about change and how to embrace it – or, depending on your point of view, how to survive it!
It's been over five years since my last visit here and, just as Paul heard a good report of the Thessalonians from Timothy, I've heard good reports about you from [anonymised]. She told me something of the changes that are going on here, and I must say it was great to hear about what God is doing among you.
Some of us find change stimulating; its a land of new opportunities, flowing with milk and honey. Some of us perhaps find change a difficult thing to cope with; it takes us away from our place of comfort or threatens long-cherised traditions. And that can lead to tensions among us, with some striving to advance (as they see it) and others desperately digging trenches.
Almost the first thing Paul writes in his second letter to the Thessalonians is, "Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ." As we think about change this morning, I want us to keep in mind that God comes among us with grace and peace. And that's how we should relate to one another as we move from where we are to where God may be leading us.
Change
Our first reading tells us there was a lot of change going on in the life of the Thessalonian church. Paul gives thanks to God for their burgeoning faith (which he says "is growing more and more") and for the love they have for one another in increasing measure.Anything that's growing is changing and developing, and, in the Thessalonians case, the growth that was happening was helping them to persevere.
Paul's prayer for them is that they may undergo even more change! He prays that God will make them worthy of his calling. Now, he's not saying they are unworthy at the time of writing. Really, he's praying that they'll be able to endure the opposition they're encountering. In a sense, they are being refined through their struggles, and their faith is being proven. His prayer is that they will stand the test!
Being made worthy suggests they're on a journey; it implies there will be challenge, and change. And all of us who are born of God are on a journey that involves change. Paul writes elsewhere about our being "conformed to the image of [God's] Son," (Ro. 8:29) that we are being "transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory" (2 Cor. 3:18), and he exhorts us to be "transformed by the renewing of [our] mind" (Ro. 12:2). All this change is for the here-and-now, not just for the moment we step into heaven! And this change is essential!
Even in ordinary life, we undergo constant change. We're thrust into the world at birth, leaving behind the warmth and comfort of our mother's womb. Huge change! We develop and grow and learn.
One change in my life that I still remember clearly is my first day at school. I was allowed to go in my cowboy suit but the first thing the teacher did was take my guns off me! Then my mum abandoned me to total strangers! Huge change!
The next day, mum woke me with, "Come on, time for school!" Surprised at this news, I said, "Do I have to go again?" Bigger change than I'd been prepared for!
We continue to grow and develop, become adults, and have to make our own way in the world. Huge change! Get married – huge change! Raise children, who in turn grow up and leave home – huge changes! We retire – best change ever!
All of life is in change. Change is inevitable.
If we're not changing, we're dead!
Paul prays that God will make the Thessalonians fruitful in goodness and action. Even this idea expresses change. Think about fruit trees: to bear fruit they have to undergo change. New life surges in the spring and they put out buds, which become new growth, then leaves develop to capture the sun's energy, then blossom grows to be pollinated, and then the blossom blows away and the fruit grows.
In writing this, a thought occurred to me. We love the time of blossom, don't we? But we can't forever hold onto the blossom. For the fruit to come, the blossom must pass.
Then another thought occurred: after the fruit, the leaves fall off and the whole cycle goes round again. In the same way, the change we undergo doesn't necessarily bring us to an end point. Where we get to is just for a season. We need the constant renewal of change. Otherwise, like our socks, we get a bit stale! We have to be prepared to let go of the good that's gone before to obtain the good that's yet to come.
Obstacles to Change
For some people, of course, change is not a welcome thing. Some are reluctant to change, and others may fear what change could mean.Reluctant people may say things like, "We've always done it this way." Actually, looking back over history, even Methodists haven't always done it this way, and the church of today would probably be unrecognisable to the early church.
We have to ask, is "the way we've always done it" working? In the light of dwindling churches of all denominations throughout our land, we'd have to conclude that it isn't. Albert Einstein once defined madness as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. I'm a firm believer in the saying, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it!" But if it is broken, it needs fixing!
Our society is different, and we have to find different ways to reach out to people. Otherwise, they may never grasp the unchanging message of God's love and salvation.
Things that are different will mean things we are less familiar with, and that will mean our comfort will be disturbed. We can't sit in church recognising the need for change but hope it happens after we die! People outside the kingdom of God need to see it in action now, before they die!
Paul gives a good reason for his prayer for the Thessalonians to have worthy and fruitful lives. He writes, "We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."
One remedy for reluctance is to realise that we're not here for just ourselves: we're here for the glory of Jesus. We're here to make known the grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to search out the best ways of doing that in our age. And glorifying him turns out to be good for us too!
I mentioned fear as another reason for avoiding change, and I'd like to illustrate this with some personal testimony.
Back in 1985, I was not in a good place.
I'd finished university and returned to the small church back home which hadn't really changed much while I was away, nor did the change in me really fit in there any more.
My parents had divorced and I continued living at home to support my dad for much longer than he needed or was good for me.
The job I had at the time was on the other side of Birmingham and was a mixed bag with parts I loved and parts that really dragged me down.
I actually wanted change. I wanted to get a home of my own but should it be near the job I no longer wanted to do or near the church I wasn't thriving in?
The obvious answer was to look for another job and move to wherever that took me but the problem was that I really believed that God wanted me in that church. I got an interview for a job in Leeds but so strong was my fear of stepping out of God's will that I deliberately sabotaged it so I wouldn't be offered the job.
Then a job in Newcastle came up. I got the application forms and filled them in. On the night before the last chance of posting them off in time, I spent ages pacing the floor of my bedroom, agonising about what to do. And then, a little question that was totally foreign to everything else going on inside me just popped into my head: "Why can't you just apply in faith?"
I know without a shadow of doubt that it was God who asked that question, and it really pulled me up short. I said, "What? You mean if I get the job it's your will, and if it isn't your will I won't get it? OK, I can live with that." All the fear was gone and I went straight to bed and straight to sleep.
The next day, I posted my application, which resulted in an interview. I travelled up to Newcastle the day before and stayed overnight at the parent's of a friend of a friend. When I woke up on the day of the interview, my reading just happened to be 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, in which I read, "With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith."
I went to the interview knowing I would get the job!
God was very gracious to me because my faith wasn't really that impressive. But the lesson is that faith overcomes our fear. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that, "... faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Heb 11:1).
Now, not every change will turn out to be positive; we're human beings and sometimes we get things wrong and head off in directions that are less than helpful. But as someone once said, "You can't steer a ship unless it's moving." If we're moving and our desire is to do good things, and we act in faith, we can rely on God to correct our course and to supply the power we need to be fruitful.
God wants to glorify Christ in us, and us in Christ. We're in all this with God!
The Spirit's Power
So, where do we get the power we need? Paul, in his prayer, implies that it's God's power that leads to fruitfulness. This is not something we're expected to do in our own strength.The Greek word translated as 'power' in verse 11 is dunamis, and it's about ability or enabling. In our reading from Acts, Jesus says, "...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses…"
Here's the same word, dunamis, again. Jesus tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit will enable them to be witnesses. We only have to read on into chapter two to find out what a difference the Holy Spirit made: disciples who met in fear behind locked doors are now out in the open preaching Christ to the crowd!
The same Holy Spirit is the source of our enabling. If you are born of God, you already have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. You can't be born of God without the Spirit! But we can grieve him; we can resist him; we can suppress his working; to the extent that he is effectively dormant in our lives.
The Bible exhorts us to go on being filled with the Spirit! Let's welcome the Holy Spirit in and among us. Let's cooperate with the guidance he brings us. Let's allow his enabling dunamis power to lead us through change and to bring glory to Jesus.
Winding up
Change is inevitable. Change is essential. God's love motivates us, faith takes hold of the possibilities, and the enabling power of the Spirit makes it happen.Here's some good news: God doesn't change! "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever." (Heb 13:8) He will be with us before, during and after the changes. And the message doesn't change! God is still seeking reconciliation with people, looking to bring them to repentance and faith, to rescue them from judgement and to lavish his love on them.
And let's remember, as we wrestle with the implications of change, that God comes among us with grace and peace. Let's be like him as we work things out together.
