Sermon Illustrations on Renewal

Renewal

Spiritual renewal changes a person's identity and restores their social acceptance.

M. E. Hume-Griffith, in her “Behind the Veil in Persia and Turkish Arabia,” tells of a little Persian boy badly disfigured from a “hare-lip,” who was brought by his father to the medical mission at Julfa to be operated upon for the trouble.

The Persians believe that this congenital malformation is the mark left by the Evil One, so this afflicted boy was known in his village by the unenviable title “little devil,” and had been a good deal tormented by his playfellows. The operation was a complete success. After ten days’ careful treatment the dressing was finally removed, and the boy was handed a mirror that he might look for the first time upon his “new” face. Tears of joy rolled down his face as he kissed the hand that had wrought the change, and he murmured brokenly: “I am no longer a little devil, I am no longer a little devil!” And he went back to his comrades to be a hero and an idol.

Renewal

Renewal requires continual outflow and inflow, like fresh water lakes versus salt lakes.

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The difference between men who are taking in and giving out life and knowledge and men who are living in their own selfish circle is like the difference in lakes stated below:

Fresh-water lakes are always only expansions of rivers, due to the particular topographical configuration of a valley. They are all characterized by the fact that the water that they receive runs out, either continuously or intermittently, and that the chemical constitution of their water remains constantly the same as that of the streams and rivers of the same region.

Salt lakes, on the other hand, are always closed basins, without outlet, and their water is removed only by surface evaporation. These facts being well understood, we see at once why the former lakes contain fresh water and the others salt water.(Text.)--PAUL COMBES, _Cosmos_.

Renewal

Living things need renewal to restore strength and productivity after exhaustion.

See INNER LIFE.

RENEWAL NECESSARY

If I have a certain sum of money, I can calculate what necessities it will meet, and how far it will go; but it will go only so far; beyond that is exhaustion. But if I have a bed of strawberries in my garden, after it has borne the crop of the season, and there is no more to be got from it, I can weed and cultivate and fertilize it, and next year it will bear again. And tho the whole bed shows exhaustion, I can set its runners in new rows and nurture them into new life, tho the old plants are only fit to be dug under; and I can renew the life of my bed and after a season it will be as young and fresh and fertile as ever. I have completely renewed its life. So I can renew the life of a note, or lease, or partnership. So bodily strength, tho exhausted every day, is renewed every night; and even if impaired by disease, it may be recovered. There is nothing necessarily hopeless in the exhaustion of anything that has life in it; but all living things need renewal.--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons in Illustration.”

Renewal, Spiritual

Spiritual zeal requires fresh breath of the Spirit, like warming a room with fresh air.

A lady calling upon a friend one day, exprest surprize that she had both windows open while the thermometer was at zero, saying that she never opened her windows in winter, adding that even then she was unable to keep warm.

“I open my windows,” was the explanation, “to warm the rooms by filling them with fresh air. It is impossible to heat dead air. To inhale the same air over and over again is to breathe in poison.”

As “it is impossible to heat dead air,” so it is impossible to incite zeal in a dead church. The breath of the Spirit is first needed to change the spiritual climate. (Text.)

Renovation

Spiritual renewal is like spring cleaning the soul, removing old gloom and planting new ideas.

The verses below by Sam Walter Foss, from a poem on “The Soul Spring Cleaning,” have in them a suggestion that every man may now and then utilize:

Yes, clean yer house, an’ clean yer shed, An’ clean yer barn in ev’ry part; But brush the cobwebs from yer head, An’ sweep the snow-banks from yer heart. Yes, w’en spring cleanin’ comes aroun’ Bring forth the duster an’ the broom, But rake yer fogy notions down, An’ sweep yer dusty soul of gloom.

Plant flowers in the soul’s front yard, Set out new shade an’ blossom trees, An’ let the soul once froze an’ hard Sprout crocuses of new idees. Yes, clean yer house, an’ clean yer shed, An’ clean yer barn in ev’ry part; But brush the cobwebs from yer head, An’ sweep the snow-banks from yer heart!(Text.)

Renovation

Ongoing spiritual renewal is like constant repair and care of an ancient cathedral.

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Each great European cathedral has its regular corps of repairers--architects, engineers, masons, carpenters, every man a master of his craft. The work of renovation goes on at all seasons; crumbling stones must be replaced, fresh cement supplied, broken parts mended; there is always something needing to be done. The inexperienced traveler is at first much annoyed by the sight of the stagings and scaffoldings from which cathedral walls seem never wholly free. “When,” he exclaims, “shall I at last find a façade which is not in the process of repair?” But with larger knowledge and more careful thought his feelings change.

The flimsy, unsightly framework clinging to the ancient gray stone no longer seems a blemish, but a true adornment, since it eloquently tells of the reverent, affectionate care which faithfully preserves for the future these “poems in stone” handed down from the mighty past.--“Monday Club, Sermons on the International Sunday-school Lessons for 1904.”

Renewed In the Spirit of Your Mind

Sermon in Ephesians series: Spiritual renewal.

I. What we have been saved from.

A. Thrill as a young Christian - hearing sordid testimonies.

B. Christians must make a complete break from their former life.

II. Three characteristics of the pagan life:

A. Hearts are hardened. 4:18

1) The process of decay begins with hardening, according to

2) Hardening leads to ignorance. (related to "agnostic") 4:18

3) Hardening leads to insensitivity. 4:19

4) Hardening leads to separation from life of God. 4:18

B. Thinking is futile. 4:17

1) Note emphasis on the mind: thinking, understanding,

2) The way we think deeply influences how we live.

C. Actions are impure. 4:19

1) Sensuality as a sign of society's decay.

2) "Every kind ... continual lust for more." 4:19

III. The difference in being a Christian. 4:20-24

A. The old self has to be discarded. 4:22

B. Our thinking and attitudes must be "made new." 4:23

C. The new self has to be "put on." 4:24

IV. The tragedy of a compromised Christian.

A. Jimmy Swaggert and enslavement to lust.

B. There should be harmony between how we think and how we act.

C. Is Christ in charge of your inner life? [1654]

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Can the Old Become New?

Luke 5:36

NEW YEARS DAY sermon:

"CAN OLD THINGS BECOME NEW?" Luke 5:36-39

I. The need for renewal.

A. New Year's resolutions remind us of need to change.

B. Is dramatic change possible?

1) People tend to resist change.

2) When people claim to change, most others are skeptical.

C. Often, dramatic change isn't a wish, but an absolute necessity.

D. The Bible says people can, and must, change.

1) "Except you are born again, you won't enter kingdom of God."

2) Conversion may start small, but has a big impact.

3) Analogies from self-help groups.

4) Don't just believe in Jesus - do what he says.

II. Old vs. new. (The reason for resistance)

A. We feel safe with what is old and tried-and-true.

B. Jesus brought something totally new and exciting.

III. Being open to newness.

A. Churches certainly resist change.

B. Churches can change.

IV. What will we change about ourselves? Our church? [1740]

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What Must Be Changed

John 3:3

A Chinese general put it this way: "If the world is to be brought to order, my nation must first be changed. If my nation is to be changed, my hometown must be made over. If my hometown is to be reordered, my family must first be set right. If my family is to be regenerated, I myself must first be."

Let's Begin the New Year With God

Acts 5:20

New Year’s is one of the church’s best opportunities for evangelism and renewal. The ending of the year is awesome. It cannot be re-lived; there is a finality to failures and lost opportunities. No wonder so many simply get drunk on New Year’s Eve! What a time to proclaim God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

Throughout history, most of the New Year’s celebrations were wildly pagan (and still are). So, John Chrysostom devoted his golden-tongued oratory to discourage people from the riotous eating and drinking and sexual excesses of the pagans in Asia Minor. Ambrose wrote that in the light of pagan celebrations, the church had good reason to make New Year’s a day of fasting!

In that vein, the New Year’s Eve “Watchnight Service” was started in St. George’s Methodist church in Philadelphia back in 1770. For many of us brought up in the long and somber “Watchnight Service,” the pendulum had swung too far. Somewhere, the notion of a New Year’s Eve PARTY needs to come in. There is celebration upon the realization of God’s grace through the year, hope and joy at the prospect of the new.

[Plans for a Watchnight Service are given, including spiritual resolutions ideas.]

[Sermon topics for New Years, and verses, are suggested on back.]

Let's Begin the New Year With God

Acts 2:42

Bruce Larson and a few friends once covenanted to live by the following:

1. To keep a one-half hour of devotion at a set time daily.

2. To pray continually through the day, offering up flash prayers for self

or others, or situations, and to give thanks.

3. To share life in a small group.

4. To make a personal retreat two hours monthly.

(This means two hours alone with God for inventory, confession,

intercession, thanksgiving, future plans, re-reading of marriage

vows, ordination vows, etc.)

5. To express my Christian vocation in specific social action (such as: care

of, or service to, needy, sick, orphans, intercultural groups, etc.)

6. To tithe consistently.

7. To offer grace at each meal.

8. To share worship daily with my household, weekly in church.

9. To live frugally, practicing simplicity in my spending, eating, keeping

fit, sleeping enough, using my surplus for others.

10. To grow intellectually as a Christian, reading a solid book at least

monthly.

[From ASK ME TO DANCE, Word, p. 30]

Beyond Politics: A More Effective Way To Transform Our Nation

Acts 4:19

We must be careful about the trend to make America "Christian" through moral reform. "When most advocates call for a Christian America, they mean a nation whose laws and general standards of behavior do not offend moral principles as Christians understand them. But by stressing moral behavior, the 'Christian' in 'Christian America' suggest that Christianity is more about behavior than faith, more about works than grace. To reduce the adjective 'Christian' to label mere lawfulness represents a serious compromise of the gospel." Changing minds, not laws, is the key to national renewal.

Christian fanatics like Paul Hill believe they are obeying the Biblical injunction to do justice, but Christians must consider the relationship between cultural values and civil law.

1. Promote the general welfare of society by loving our neighbors.

In the two great commands are the reasons for involvement in the

culture beyond the Church. It is love, not the lure of power, that

motivates the Christian action in society. We can share these goals

with non-believers. Submission to Christ can only come by the work of

the Spirit, not by legal or political coercion. Our society will

always be "mixed" until Jesus returns.

2. Political involvement has limits. It is better to shape the culture.

Women seek abortions because our culture has conditioned them to

accept it, not because laws are liberal.

3. Servants, not rulers.

Christians cannot "take back America" because we never had it.

America has been hospitable to the Church, often because the Church

has not been prophetic. In the end, we have on this earth no abiding

city. What we do have is a duty to love God and neighbor. The crisis

that has occasioned the call for a Christian America is in part a

fault of the negligence of the Church - not simply its political

indifference, but its ignoring the signs of the times, the way the

cultural winds have been blowing for centuries.

Confessing Movement Expands

Mark 7:6

United Methodists, whether conservative or liberal theologically, foresee a period of critical decision-making approaching on the mainline denomination’s horizon. Though membership declines have lessened in recent years, the United Methodist Church (UMC) is often perceived as a “sick denomination,” one that requires serious rethinking and recommitment if it is to play a role in modern culture. Membership in the United States, now at 8.6 million, has been decreasing for more than 25 years.

Several movements within the UMC are dedicated to furthering reform in the church. Perhaps none has the potential for controversy as much as the so- called Confessing Movement. Not even two years old, this movement, which seeks to reground the church explicitly in its historic statements of theological doctrine and mission, has attracted thousands of supporters and the focused attention of UMC’s leadership.

That attention should only increase next April with the church’s quadrennial general conference.

Confessing Movement leaders say they have assembled a coalition of UM moderates, traditionalists, evangelicals, conservatives, and charismatics to prevent the denomination from losing its historic faith and doctrinal distinctives. To that end, they urge the church to begin a vigorous internal discussion on the lordship and uniqueness of Christ, the status of its founding documents and statements of faith, and its duty to carry out the Great Commission.

The Confessing Movement’s critics assert the movement has set itself up as the arbiter of orthodoxy and thus is a threat to the UMC’s tradition of tolerance.

Yet, movement leaders reject this characterization. “We’re not trying to define one narrow thing you’ve got to believe,” says John Ed Mathison, chair of the movement’s steering committee and senior pastor of Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. “But how much latitude can you have? When you’ve got some people who say you don’t need Jesus Christ for salvation, you’ve gone too far.”

FOCUS ON DOCTRINE: The Confessing Movement sprang from an invitation-only meeting of about 90 United Methodists in Atlanta last year.

That meeting produced “An Invitation to the Church” -- a call to reformation and doctrinal reinvigoration -- which subsequently attracted 13,000 signatures of support. In April, an open meeting in Atlanta saw about 900 attendees adopt “A Confessional Statement.”

This statement emphasizes the centrality of Christ and takes the church to task for tolerating paganism, disregarding the world’s poor, accepting modern norms of sexuality and marriage, resigning itself to racial and gender injustice, condoning homosexual practices, and abdicating its role of support for the unborn and the mother.

At its heart, the Confessing Movement seeks to put boundaries on what is acceptable practice and belief within United Methodism.

It is also a reaction to nearly a century of liberal Protestantism, which it sees as drifting into the orbit of radical Protestants “who are creating their own religion,” according to Prof. William J. Abraham, of Dallas’s Southern Methodist University. He says the notion that the UMC does not have set statements of faith is false, and he points to the Articles of Religion, the Confession of Faith, and founder John Wesley’s Sermons and Explanatory Notes on the New Testament. “It means Methodism is clearly and unequivocally committed to the classical faith of the church, and we’re also committed to distinctives that have always been a part of this church.”

Central to the movement’s hope for dialogue is the reaction of UMC bishops, who are being urged to lead the discussion by exercising their teaching roles. Bishops have demonstrated uncertainty over how to react.

William Oden, UMC bishop of the Louisiana area, welcomes the emphasis on the UMC’s presence in the stream of Christian thought running through Wesley back to the early Christians.

He points to the current debates and to the growth of renewal movements within the church as evidence of Methodist interest in clearing up confusion over its theological core, its mission, and its execution of that mission.

The disagreements grow more serious -- and political -- when it comes to mission execution. The Confessing Movement, like its critics, stresses the Wesleyan imperative of acting out one’s faith in service, and it is not unusual to find congregations on both sides of an issue actively involved in ministry to aids sufferers, the homeless, and prisoners.

Similarly, both sides are eager to play a socially and spiritually reforming role in the United States akin to that played by Wesley and the early Methodists in eighteenth-century England. However, the role of doctrine splits the groups. The movement focuses on the centrality of Christ as the reason and the source for all social involvement. “That is the center out of which all else must move,” says Maxie Dunnam, president of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. “Unless we have agreement on the center, you can’t go anywhere.”

Some critics, such as leaders of Atlanta’s Trinity United Methodist Church, argue that too-strict adherence to doctrine can hinder outreach, particularly to homosexuals. Trinity responded to the Confessing Movement by issuing “A Call for Renewal of Theology and Mission in the United Methodist Church,” which enunciates its concerns. “Doctrine is important,” says Trinity pastor Rex Kaney, “but if it blocks us from being able to love others with the same unconditional love that Jesus loves us, then doctrine is in the way.”

GROWING DIVISIONS: The problems of the UMC are not unique among mainline denominations. Commonly there exists a sense of growing division between the views of denominational leaders and everyday believers.

To the extent that a more conservative laity and younger generation is percolating in the UMC, Confessing Movement leaders are not content to wait for a natural generational changing of the guard.

Confessing Movement cofounder Thomas Oden, professor of theology at Drew University’s School of Theology in Madison, New Jersey, says liberals are finding it impossible to ignore what he calls “an emerging leadership of young United Methodist students.” He compares the UMC movement to evangelical Anglicans, who now represent a large and vital force within the Church of England.

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The Exclusiveness of the Gospel

John 10:9

My hope for Eastern Seminary has been and will continue to be that it become an increasingly significant force for the renewal of the church we serve and for the divine work of human transformation to which the church is called. Essential to this hope is that this Seminary be absolutely clear -- without hesitation and wavering -- about its center: The Gospel of Jesus Christ and its teachings and implications for all areas of human life. We must have the courage to stand on the solid rock of the Gospel at a time of pervasive moral and spiritual decline throughout our land. We must also have the courage to speak the Gospel's claims with passion and conviction in the midst of a Christianity that is increasingly dancing to the tune of the prevailing culture with regard to morality, values and virtue.

My concern about clarifying the Seminary's center and its wholehearted fidelity to that center in its life and teaching is in response to a relentless almost oppressive pressure toward "inclusiveness" in both the public sphere and in Christian contexts. The demand for inclusiveness appeals for its legitimacy to such noble virtues as tolerance, acceptance, compassion, justice. After all, who among rational, well-intention, good Christian folk would not be in favor of these? But the pressure toward inclusiveness becomes problematic when, under the banner of these virtues, we are called to the inclusion of, or tolerance for, beliefs and values, lifestyles and habits, attitudes and practices that are excluded by the Gospel, either by its direct teaching or by its overarching and pervasive understanding of the nature of the relationships of human beings with one another and with God.

In many ways, the Gospel is inclusive. It is addressed to all human beings, transcending in its claim the barriers of race, gender, ethnicity, culture, class. This inclusive dimension of the Gospel -- paralleled by the culture's demand for tolerance and its rejection of moral absolutes -- has made many in the church gun-shy. No one wants to be called a bigot, a narrow-minded fundamentalist or an intolerant pietist. Many within the Christian community have capitulated to the prevailing cultural ethos. That ethos, says Kenneth Woodward, has its roots in the skepticism of the Enlightenment and is the dominant force in contemporary moral philosophy. All ideas of right and wrong have been reduced to matters of personal taste, emotional preference, or cultural choice. Since the truth cannot be known, neither can the good. In some circles of Christian theology, this ethos has produced an absolute relativism with regard to historic Christian doctrines. Theologian Thomas Oden identifies this position as "Latitudinarianism, a term Wesley used to describe those who were so broad minded that they lacked a firm commitment to Christian essentials. No heresy of any kind exists any longer."

In context of an age characterized by these pressures for inclusiveness, tolerance and the rejection of moral absolutes, it is imperative that an ancient and timeless Christian truth be again affirmed and lived with passion: namely, that in many ways, the Gospel and its claims are very exclusive: Not to be reborn by the power of God's transforming Spirit is to be excluded from the kingdom (John 3:3-5); hypocrisy and self-righteousness are condemned (Matthew 23:13f); those who deny that the divine Word became flesh in Jesus Christ are judged as "Antichrist" (1 John 4:1-3); continuing bondage to sin is the condition of those who reject Jesus' bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12-19).

The list of practices and lifestyles that are incompatible with belonging to the Kingdom included the use of sex outside the context of a man and a woman in the covenant of marriage. It also includes attitudes and practices that destroy Christian community and are therefore incompatible with life in Christ. Among them are enmity, strife, jealousy, and slander (1 Cor. 6:9-20; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph.4:20-32; Col. 3:5-11). The above is a selective, yet representative sample of an extensive list of practices, beliefs and attitudes about which the Gospel is decidedly intolerant and unremittingly exclusive.

As a seminary that claims allegiance to the Whole Gospel, we must do so not haughtily or self-righteously, condescendingly or judgmentally, but rather in humility, recognizing our utter dependence upon the power of God's Spirit to walk in the divinely purposed ways of righteousness and holiness. In the midst of both our culture's pervasive moral relativism and the broad theological and moral diversity within the denomination from which our students come and for which they are being formed for ministry, our Seminary must be a champion for the exclusiveness of the Gospel. Failure at this point will surely result in failure to be a force for renewal within the church.

How To Break Out of A Spiritual Rut

Luke 19:40

6 Ways to put color back into your life with God.

Stretch yourself by taking your faith to the street and applying it there.

1. Get Outside. Ps 19:1

2. Liturgize.

3. Let beauty reinvigorate you. Exod 35:25

4. Change your spiritual diet.

5. Get active.

6. Celebrate! Lk 19:40

7. Find your satisfaction in God.

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Taking God On Your Vacation

Your yearly getaway can be the perfect time to renew your walk with God.

1. Choose a place of solitude.

2. Don't carry on regular business.

3. Don't eat too much.

4. Exercise each day.

5. Get a good night's sleep.

6. Try to take a minimum of three days.

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(untitled)

An old story tells of a tourist who paused

for a rest in a small town in the mountains.

He went over to an old man sitting on a

bench in front of the general store and

asked, "Friend, can you tell me something

this town is noted for?"

"Well," the old timer answered. "I don't

rightly know 'cept that it's the starting

point to the world."

"Excuse me?" said the newcomer.

"Yep," the old man continued. "You can

start here and go anywhere you want!"

Redeeming the Past (Illustration B)

On a hill outside Florence, in a park overlooking that famous city and the river Po flowing through it, stands the great statue by Michelangelo, “David Slaying Goliath.” A marvelous figure of beauty, and grace, and strength, the young shepherd lifts his arm to hurl the stone from his sling. That statue was cut out of a block of marble which another artist had worked upon and then thrown away as useless. So out of our sins, out of our mistakes, out of our failures, God’s love and power, aided -- if I may be bold enough to put it that way, by our repentance, is able to reconstruct that which is forever fair and good and true.

Living Unplugged

Luke 10:39

Once you've gotten used to a new convenience you find yourself asking, “How did we ever do without these?” Sadly, my cell phone is one of those new things that seems indispensable now. Especially when you have lots of irons in the fire and you're on the road a lot. Often, by the end of the day my cell phone and I have something in common - our battery is dead and we need recharging. I get into a bed - my phone gets plugged into an outlet. Not long ago, I went through my night-night drill in my motel room, including plugging in my cell phone. It wasn't happy the next morning when I went to turn my cell phone back on. Oh, I had plugged it in - on one end. See, I had connected my phone cord into the phone, but I had forgotten to plug it into the wall. So, my dead phone was still very dead.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Living Unplugged.”

When you forget to plug a cell phone into the power source, it's going to be powerless. It's the same for you and me. We're designed by our Creator to regularly plug into our power source. When we neglect to do that, we find ourselves increasingly losing power. Life becomes more and more overwhelming. The old you, the bad you, starts making a comeback. You become less kind and more harsh; less peaceful - more stressed; less about others and more about yourself. And as the demands increase, your power to meet those demands seems to be diminishing. Jesus becomes less real and your cold or fearful heart becomes much too real.

Those are pretty clear indicators that you are trying to live unplugged. You've been “Martha-ed.” I know that's not a verb, but it is now. Martha's story is in Luke 10:39-42, our word for today from the Word of God. And it's an all too revealing mirror of what we're like when we have neglected our connection to our power source.

Jesus was a guest for dinner at Martha's house. The Bible says: “She had a sister called Mary, who sat at Jesus' feet, listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to Him and asked, 'Lord, don't You care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’ 'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'“

Pretty amazing: Martha has the Son of God right there in her home, and she is stressed, and critical, and miserable. That's when Jesus lets her know that all the important things she is hustling around doing are not as important as what Mary is doing - sitting at His feet, listening to Him. If life has become way too stressful and overwhelming for you, it's a good possibility you've been making that same mistake. You've let the bombardment and the overload squeeze out your personal time with Jesus - at the very time when you need Him the most! The busier and “behinder” you get, the more desperately you need the perspective and power that comes only from sitting at the feet of the Son of God.

In Psalm 42, the psalmist cries out: “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” That needs to be the cry of your heart. Because a regular time with Him is, as Jesus said, the “one thing (that) is needed.” It's time for you to make your time with Jesus not an option, if and when you have time, but the singular non-negotiable of your daily schedule. You just can't afford to leave home without it - with the mercies that the Bible says are “new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23) - mercies that keep us from being “consumed.”

If you're running out of power, it's because you've been unplugged from the source of power too long. You're missing Jesus - and He's missing you. Get back to the source of your power.

__________

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5082]

Renewing Fire

1 Peter 1:6

This past summer – like so many summers before it – the lead story on America’s news was often about those fires raging in the West. Millions of acres were destroyed by fires that raged for weeks on end. Those fires brought a lot of bad news. But fires like these aren’t all bad news. Now, there’s no doubt they cause tremendous damage – but they also, over the long haul, produce a lot of new life. Somehow, nature renews itself with fire – a lot of old and dead stuff is burned away, new vegetation begins to grow, and new life begins to spring up.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about “Renewing Fire”.

God seems to have established this principle in His world – the fire that destroys also renews. If you’re going through the fire right now, that might be something very important for you to remember. If you don’t, all you’ll see is the damage and you’ll lose any sense of hope.

It may be that a fire has burned through your family recently ... maybe your church ... your business ... maybe your relationships ... maybe your health. And there is no doubt that the fire took away a lot. There’s no denying the damage and pain from the fire, but that is never the whole story.

In 1 Peter 1:6-7, our word for today from the Word of God, we get a little of our Heavenly Father’s perspective on the fires of our lives. He says, “For a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

God describes our trials as “fire”. And the fire is only applied here to something really valuable – gold. Also, the fire isn’t forever – it’s “for a little while”. And notice what the purpose of the fire is – not to destroy the gold but to “refine” the gold ... to get out the impurities…and to increase its’ value.

That’s a God’s-eye view of the fire you’re in right now. He thinks you’re worth purifying, improving, and getting ready for greater things. But first, the fire. The fire that has taken away so much can also bring new life, if you’ll stay close to God in the fire and not wander away from Him.

What kind of new life does God bring out the flames? For one thing, He helps us focus the rest of our life on the things that really matter.Everything in our lives goes in one of two columns – the stuff that matters and the stuff that doesn’t. And a lot of times we get those confused. The times of struggle and loss help us get everything in the right columns. So many people emerge from the fire more committed to the eternal than ever before.

The fire often forces you to sort out where your identity is really anchored – not in your job, nor in your title, nor your performance, nor your appearance, but in your “unloseable” relationship with Jesus Christ. The flames often drive you to a new closeness with the people you love ... sometimes they cleanse your schedule from years of accumulation ... and they can draw you deeper into your Lord than you ever thought you could go.

Yes, the fire destroys. But, thank God, that’s not the end of the story. The fire also renews!

________________

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In and of the World: A Culture of Conformity

John 14:6

At a recent presentation on Capitol Hill, researcher George Barna said, "Twenty-five years from now, historians are likely to say the year 2001 was right around the time when the era of moral and spiritual anarchy began." In his talk, Barna predicted that, of all the changes likely to occur in the next few years, moral chaos will have the most devastating impact on American culture.

It's a bold and shocking prediction. What are we to make of it? In his prophetic new book BOILING POINT, Barna and co-author Mark Hatch report that while most Americans today claim to be Christians, this commitment is becoming less and less meaningful.

Consider the following: 85 percent of all adults claim that religious faith is very important in their lives. Also, 85 percent claim to be Christians. More than four out of five adults claim to know the basic teachings of the Bible and nine of ten own at least one Bible -- good.

Yet, just one in four adults and only one teenager in ten believes in absolute moral truth. In fact, less than half of those who call themselves "born-again" Christians believe that anything is "absolutely true."

If a majority of Americans own a Bible and value its content, if they know that Jesus says "I am ... the truth," [John 14:6] then why do so few believe in absolute truth? The disconnect comes from what Barna and Hatch call Americans' "evolving values." Our culture's embrace of moral relativism has led to an abandonment of traditional values -- including loyalty, morality, accountability, and sacrifice.

Many Americans, Barna says, now cling to the values that best align with relativism -- that is, independence, personal happiness, tolerance, comfort, instant gratification, the right to make ones own choices -- all of this centers on the individual.

Christ spoke to this problem long ago when He said, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" [Matthew 6:21]. When God is no longer the center of our lives and when we replace worship with our own self-interest, spiritual and moral anarchy inevitably follow. And without firm religious foundations, our society will have enormous difficulty arriving at a moral consensus to cope with the dramatic changes that lie ahead.

Most distressing, the church sometimes seems right in line with today's evolving values. Barna and Hatch note that people's church preferences often align precisely with their relativistic approach to life. Americans often do not join churches these days; instead, they attend churches based on how far they have to drive, the convenience of the worship schedule, the kinds of emotional experiences they can enjoy, and whether or not the sermon is upbeat and interesting.

Now none of these reasons are inherently bad, but all too often people are choosing their church without regard for doctrinal purity or reliable teaching. Convenience, comfort, and emotion tend to be the values that drive today's spirituality.

Accordingly, Christians are increasingly indistinguishable from their non-Christian friends. A 1999 study of sixty-five common values and traits showed that the values of born-again Christians were not substantially different from any other segment of culture.

Can such a church expect to change the world? If we have any hope of renewing the culture, we'll need to rediscover what Jesus meant when he called us to be in the world but not of it.

For further reference:

Barna, George and Hatch, Mark. Boiling Point. Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 2001.

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Why Did God Speak To An Inexperienced Upstart? and Not To Me?

1 Samuel 3:1

Scripture: “Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread. … Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And he said, ‘Here I am!’” (1 Sam. 3:1, 3-4).

On my way to age 50, I woke up and realized I was hearing this old, familiar story in a different way. For as long as I can remember, when I heard the story of God calling little Samuel while he lived with the old priest, Eli, I always identified with Samuel. I was one of those pastors who heard the voice of God as a youth. While I was still much too young to understand the full implications, God called me to serve him as a leader in his church. Similarly, Samuel’s story is about a boy called by God, a boy far too young to understand the full meaning of that call.

But then one day I was 50, and I realized that I no longer identified with little Samuel. I was starting to identify with aging Eli. Here was old Eli, working in the temple for a lifetime, and had God ever spoken so directly to him? Had God ever awakened him in the middle of the night, calling him by his very own name?

Why had God only spoken to this Samuel, a boarder in the Lord’s house, but not to old, experienced, dedicated Eli, nor any of Eli’s children?

Here I am, now having served the Lord as a pastor for over 30 years. Some little upstart shows up, somebody in his early twenties, telling me that God has spoken to him, telling me that God has called. Why did God not speak directly to me? Why does God insist on speaking to someone half my years?

Here is my church, shrinking in membership. Then there is that new church, that young church on the edge of town. Their building is not nearly so nice as ours. They obviously have a less able and less experienced pastor! And yet they grow. Why would God bless their efforts so profusely?

This story of little Samuel and old Eli becomes a story for those of us in the latter stages of our careers. To serve this God means to let this God be God–sovereign. This God is free to bypass us and go to those less experienced, these young upstarts, who do not have our maturity, experience, and wisdom. In each generation, God calls those whom God calls.

Why does God do this? Think about it. One day when I was young, God called me. One day, a long time ago, I was the young upstart. Now, I am the old, accommodated member of the establishment. To keep his church alive, thank God, the Lord goes to a new generation. Maybe God does this to keep shaking things up. Or maybe he does this to keep proving to us that the church is of God, not of us. God keeps sustaining the church by infusing new life into it–by calling people whom we might not have called.

The Compassionate Stranger

Luke 24:32

The stranger entered the church and took a seat near the front of the church. At first, people only noticed that his clothes did not measure up to those of the rest of the congregation, but then finally someone began to count and realized that he had chosen Mrs. Oddbody’s pew.

No one had sat in Mrs. Oddbody’s pew in years. No one except Mrs. Oddbody, of course. No one else dared. Neighbors whispered to one another, daring to speculate about what Mrs. Oddbody would do when she made her grand entrance.

They would not have long to wait for soon Mrs. Oddbody arrived at the back of the church and began her trek down the aisle without a clue as to what awaited her. As she neared the front of the church she began to count as she always did. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. When she got to eight she saw someone sitting there, so she began to count again only to come up with the same conclusion.

She inched forward to where the stranger could see her, hoping he would understand and beat a hasty retreat. The stranger looked at her and smiled, but she did not return his smile.

When it was obvious he had found his final resting place, at this as far as this service was concerned, she let out an indignant “Excuse me” and pushed past him into the pew.

As the service began the stranger could not help but notice she was more concerned with him occupying part of her pew than she was getting anything from the service.

They came to a point in the service where the pastor invited everyone to come to the altar and pray. The stranger arose and went forward. There was no need for him to hurry, because this did not seem to be a part of anyone else’s exercise program that morning.

He fell to his knees and began in earnest prayer. He prayed for quite some time until it seemed like someone had tapped him on the shoulder. Someone had. He raised up only to be asked by a man if he could return to his seat so the pastor could get on with the sermon.

He complied and arose to return to his seat. As he arrived back at row eight he noticed that the lady had scooted over to occupy the aisle seat once occupied by him. This time she smiled a triumphant smile.

He said, “Excuse me” as he moved past her into the pew. She had hoped that her sitting forward in the pew would discourage him from trying this, but her hopes were soon dashed. As he sat down he turned and to return her smile, he found out her smile had already gotten tired and had been replaced by a bad case of persimmons.

The service continued and concluded at the expected hour in order to keep the congregation there as long as the pastor. Besides, this pastor had heard what happened to his predecessor. He once ran into the kickoff of a big football game and nothing hurts a congregation more than a pastor who runs into the kickoff. Of course, no pastor has done such a dastardly thing twice without being sent to a cannibalistic country as a missionary.

Before the lady could leave, the stranger turned to her and reached out his hand to shake hers. Taken by surprise the stranger had managed to clasp her hand before she could pull it away.

As his nail-scarred hand took hers it was as if scales fell from her eyes and for the first time she realized who this stranger was. Her tears did not flow, they gushed. He embraced her as they began to talk and after a few moments they headed toward the altar to pray. No one had noticed any of this as they were all too busy beating a hasty retreat.

The next Sunday people were immersed in typical pre- service conversation when a hush fell over the crowd as Mrs. Oddbody arrived. Not only was she accompanied by the stranger, but she had stopped by the orphanage and picked up a carload of boys which she instructed into the pew ahead of her. Anyone could have heard a hymnal drop as Mrs. Oddbody looked up and everyone could see the glow on her face. She looked twenty years younger.

After Mrs. Oddbody and all the boys were seated the stranger turned away and went to take a seat next to the man who had tapped him on the shoulder the week before. The puffed-up man had no idea he was about to make a newfound friend.

Just as Jesus planned to do with this church, why not begin today to change the people of your church.

Seven Chanllenges To the Assemblies of God

General Council of the AOG. Rev. Trask challenged the 11,000 in attendance:

“The church is poised to experience its greatest days. I believe there is no limit to what God will accomplish. 7 challenges for the Assemblies of God as we move into the 21st century: Trask called church leaders and laity to:

1) remain doctrinally sound;

2) be a people given to prayer and fasting;

3) prepare young people for an experience with and not just about God through a dynamic Sunday school program in the local church and through our institutions of Christian higher education.

4) provide music that ministers to all segments of the congregation;

5) evangelize and make disciples in the present harvest;

6) be spirit-dependent and Spirit-led; and

7) be a church filled with the fire of Pentecost.

Trask urged ministers to expound the Word of God, reminding them that the doctrines of God’s word are not negotiable. ‘Take them to the Word and let God bring forth a divine revelation,” he pleaded. On prayer and fasting, Trask emphasized, ‘You will see God visit your assembly and your city if you will pray. A praying church moving into the 21st century is a force to be reckoned with.”

I. Delineate your fear

II. Disown your fear

III. Displace your rear

How Condi Came Back

Luke 15:11

President Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is a preacher's kid. She grew up in church. But in her mid-20s, she found she had drifted from her Christian faith.

Rice told this story at a Sunday school class at National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. in August 2002:

Although I never doubted the existence of God, I think like all people I've had some ups and downs in my faith. When I first moved to California in 1981 to join the faculty at Stanford, there were a lot of years when I was not attending church regularly ... I was a specialist in international politics, so I was always traveling abroad.

[One] Sunday morning, I went to Menlo Park Presbyterian Church [in Palo Alto]. The minister that Sunday morning gave a sermon I will never quite forget. It was about the Prodigal Son from the point of view of the elder son.

It set the elder son up not as somebody who had done all the right things but as somebody who had become so self-satisfied; a parable about self-satisfaction and complacency in faith, that people who didn't somehow expect themselves to need to be born again can be complacent.

I started to think of myself as that elder son who had never doubted the existence of God but wasn't really walking in faith in an active way anymore.

I started to become more active with the church, to go to Bible study, and to have a more active prayer life. It was a very important turning point in my life.

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Source: Washington Times (8/27/02); submitted by Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois

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Speaking In Tongues: Faith's Language Barrier?

Mark 16:17

On a wave of emotion, the man at the front of the church broke into a language only he and his God could understand.

“Ah le ah ne al la ne,” said Bill Siordia, a worshiper at The Pentecostals of Pleasanton, a small congregation in the San Francisco Bay Area. With closed eyes and palms raised skyward, he continued in a whispered rush. “Ma ne ah ne ta la ah ka wa.”

Siordia, 44, a warehouse worker, was speaking in tongues, a form of verbal prayer scholars call glossolalia. For him — and a growing numbers of Christians worldwide — the experience is a direct means of communication with God that is a transcendent and crucial part of his faith.

“It is kind of a high,” Siordia said later, describing the most common form of speaking in tongues as an indecipherable expression of personal prayer and praise. “It is like being with the Lord. I feel that sense that everything is OK.”

This Sunday, Christians will celebrate Pentecost, when the Bible says God sent a “mighty wind” among Jesus’ disciples and they prayed in unknown languages. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit,” the Book of Acts says, “and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Though all Christians mark the day, only some speak in tongues. Those who do describe an immediate, ecstatic and personal experience of God. Those who do not have called it phony, weird and even dangerous.

“There is tension between people who emphasize gifts of the spirit and the people who emphasize church authority,” says David Roebuck, director of the Dixon Pentecostal Research Center in Cleveland, Tennessee.

“It’s a range of issues, from whether you are interpreting the Bible correctly to people having an experience that the institution cannot control to a personal dynamic of one group claiming to be more authentic than another.”

At the conflict’s heart are differing interpretations of the purpose of tongues. Some believe tongues and other “gifts of the Spirit,” such as prophecy and divine healing, died with Jesus’ disciples. The primacy of the Bible, they say, cancels the need for such gifts. Other Christians — known as Pentecostals, charismatics or, more generally, renewalists — believe those gifts remain available.

“We see it as evidence of the spirit of God within us,” says Terry Baughman, pastor of The Pentecostals of Pleasanton. “We see it as filling a God-shaped hole in the heart of man.”

According to a recent Pew Forum poll, renewalists are the fastest-growing religious group, approximately one-fourth of the world’s 2 billion Christians. In the USA, 23% of Christians say they are renewalists.

The largest American renewalist denominations are the Assemblies of God, the United Pentecostal Church and the Church of God, which together account for more than 12 million members worldwide. Since the 1960s, the renewalist movement has leapt from these traditionally Pentecostal denominations to mainline Protestant and Catholic congregations. There are tongue-speaking Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Catholics.

Unity or division?

“The gift of tongues unites us,” says Walter Matthews, executive director for the National Service Committee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Matthews estimates that half a million U.S. Catholics now speak in tongues, and 10 million have been renewalists at some point. “It is meant to bring unity in the body of Christ and, by extension, in humanity.”

But it can also bring suspicion. In one form of tongues, one person “translates” the tongues uttered by another, deciphering it as prophecy — a practice that, in the past, has sometimes split congregations that disagree on the prophecy’s meaning or accuracy. Some can put too much emphasis on the gift of tongues, critics say, holding it up as evidence that they are more blessed than those who do not engage in the practice.

“If I say ‘If you don’t have this experience, your Christianity is inferior,’ that gets very personal,” says Roebuck, who, as a member of North Cleveland Church of God, a Pentecostal congregation near Chattanooga, Tenn., speaks in tongues during prayer. “That is a very judgmental statement.”

A BAPTIST DISPUT

A major battle over tongues has roiled the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest group of American Protestants. The SBC’s International Mission Board does not accept international missionaries who speak in tongues in public worship because it is not recognized as a part of Baptist identity, says spokesperson Wendy Norvelle. Next month, at the SBC’s annual convention, a group of pastors will ask the SBC to officially determine whether tongue-speaking adheres to Baptist principles.

“Many in the SBC do not want to accept the inerrant word of God when it comes to praying in tongues,” says Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas, and a leader of the tongue-speaking Baptists. “They see it as irrational, but faith is irrational. I think they have chosen to reject it rather than teach it as God’s word.”

Will Hall, spokesman for the SBC, says the denomination has no official policy on speaking in tongues for its churches or individual members. But there are other signs the practice is gaining acceptance. Dallas Theological Seminary and Campus Crusade for Christ, two strongholds of independent Christianity, have done away with restrictions on tongue-speaking for students and staff.

“I see much more acceptance of it today in America than ever,” says J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, which covers the renewalist movement. “I see groups that had a hard line against teaching it now do not. There is a relaxing of old tensions.”

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STUDY: ‘BIOLOGICAL REALITY’ BEHIND THE EXPERIENCE

Critics deride it as fake, but new research shows that something authentic happens in the brain when someone speaks in tongues.

In 2006, a University of Pennsylvania team headed by Andrew B. Newberg found that the frontal lobe area of the brain usually associated with language skills and willful control of the body slips into low gear when someone engages in this form of ecstatic prayer.

“Our findings are very consistent with what people say they are feeling,” Newberg says. “That they are not in charge of what is happening and are experiencing an intense sense of themselves in relation to God.”

Newberg, a neuroscientist and co-author of WHY WE BELIEVE WHAT WE BELIEVE, a book on the biology behind belief, used neuroimaging to track blood flow to the brain. The study’s subjects were five women from the same Pentecostal church. They were measured twice: as they sang a gospel song and as they spoke in tongues.

The scans found that when the subjects spoke, the frontal lobe showed less blood flow and lower activity than it did during the singing.

Newberg previously examined Buddhist monks in meditation and Catholic nuns in prayer. Their brain scans showed that the frontal lobe lit up with more activity, the exact opposite of the tongue-speakers.

Still, Newberg cautions against using the study as proof that God speaks to people through tongues.

“It talks about the biological reality of the experience. It does not address whether there is a supernatural reality,” he says. “That question is still left open.”

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Kimberly Winston, Special for USA TODAY