Sermons
“The Changing Church”
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You will turn your Bibles to Galatians chapter 1 verses 6 through 12.
I wanna read, reading this morning out of the English Standard version.
you also have up on the, the screen overhead.
So here at the beginning of the book of Galatians, Paul was starting with some pretty uh Strong rebuke and instruction for the Galatians as they've uh Been tempted and pulled away by Uh, false teachers, these Judaizing teachers that have come in, Paul gives some.
Instruction on and rebuke on how they should respond when someone comes and preaches a different gospel to them.
So again, Galatians chapter 1 verses 6 through 12.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be a cursed, as we have said before.
So now I say again, if any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?
Or am I trying to please man?
If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ, for I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached to me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Good morning.
Has it occurred to you that the one constant in life is that things are always changing?
And I know that sounds like an enigma, but it's true.
And I'm gonna illustrate that with a little bit of my own history.
When I started preaching nearly 45 years ago, no one had personal computers in their homes.
Can you imagine that?
Nobody was getting on the internet.
Nobody was using the internet to search for information or writing papers on computers.
But within 4 or 5 years of beginning my preaching, I purchased a computer.
Does anybody recognize that?
Yeah, I see a couple computer, uh.
Lovers, people who are well versed.
That's a Commodore 103.
And I used it for word processing.
The program I used was called Paperclip.
It took 90 seconds to load.
Just to load.
If your computer, you turn it on or if you go to your computer and you open up an app, and it takes 90 seconds and it hasn't loaded yet, you're calling the geek squad.
Something's wrong with my computer.
But 90 seconds was blazing speed back then.
But of course, I used the computer to produce teaching materials.
About 10 years later, as Debbie and I prepared our family to move to Brazil, I was using a PC then.
I've repented since then.
And one of the things that was the in technology then was an LCD panel.
What we were using back then were overheads.
Some of you got kind of a little bit excited slash concerned.
When I carried this in this morning, like, is he actually gonna use an overhead projector?
But we did, and we used the transparencies and sometimes I would uh use a little piece of paper to unveil, unveil some of the points as I was moving along cause you couldn't do that uh except manually.
I got to the point where I was actually producing transparencies through a computer with bullet points that were outlined so I could color in the bullets and I would have color to the transparencies.
We were really then cooking, because we had colored uh audio visual aids.
But the transparency, the LCD panel that would go on top of this would actually allow you to show what was on your computer up on the screen through the overhead projector.
Man, I thought 1995, that's what I wanna do when we get back from Brazil, I'm gonna get one of those LCD panels.
Two years later we come back from Brazil.
Nobody knows what an LCD panel is because by then the RGB.
Sectors had become popular.
Gutch Lane in this area was, I think, the first congregation to purchase and use that kind of projector and of course since then, we've been using projectors that are even better in quality and uh their abilities.
Do you know someone who is a technophobe?
I see, I see a couple people going, yeah, don't look at them, OK?
Cause it'll embarrass them.
A technophobe is someone who is, uh, perhaps, uh, avoids new technology, fears, dislikes.
I mean, old is better, right?
Anybody use a phone like that?
That was actually before my time, but that phone I remember very well the rotary dial.
You, you did the dial and then it went until the next number.
We had one of those growing up, the, the one that had the 25 ft cord on it so that you could go from the phone to the other side of the house as it stretched.
Some of you, at least some of you that are my age or close to my age, probably remember those kinds of phones used as landlines.
Anybody have a cell phone like that?
Had the big cell phone with the antenna on it?
Anybody?
OK, I see some folks that use that.
Well, you graduated, didn't you?
You move to new technology.
You got a flip phone.
The kind that flipped open.
And uh then you could, you know, dial with the the numbers on the flip phone.
Well, we've come a long ways from that, haven't we?
There's one constant in life, and that is that things are always changing.
The technophobe does not mind being behind the times.
Old is better.
If it worked for Grandpa, it'll work for me.
And so people will continue to do the same things, the same ways, even though technology allows them other opportunities because they don't really like the changes in technology.
That's one end of the spectrum.
There are people that are on the other end of the spectrum.
Those are the ones who believe that new is always better.
And in fact, these are the folks who are constantly buying the newest technology, the newest products.
They salivate when Apple has their uh yearly meeting where they're gonna unveil the newest product, Apple product, that's for people who use Apple products.
Some of you don't.
I see violent shaking in the heads.
But technology is always introducing or new technology is always being introduced, and there are some people who just feel like we've got to go and get the latest and newest toys.
It's not just about technology though.
In the area of religion, there are many people who are concerned about keeping up with the times of being relevant to today's populace.
Well, this morning I want to ask you the question, what about the Lord's church?
Should we be concerned about keeping up with the times?
Should the Lord's Church mirror changes that are taking place in our modern Western culture?
And there are many changes that are taking place even in our lifetimes.
Well, I'm gonna answer that question right at the beginning of the sermon.
And the answer is yes.
And no.
So, if you're confused about why I'm answering it on both sides of the fence, let's continue by looking at a phrase that is sometimes used today.
It's called progressive Christianity.
Progressive Christianity is a phrase that we're hearing more and more.
There are churches that describe themselves as progressive, and what they mean, if I may borrow the words of a church website, they mean that these churches view the Bible through a lens that changes with the culture.
And so as culture changes, they view the Bible differently, and so they change their practices, they're progressives, they're willing to introduce new and sometimes the word is used pejoratively, but liberal ideas.
As they try to remain relevant to the people around them.
I'm not talking just about denominations.
Even some churches of Christ congregations would consider themselves to be progressive.
And by that, I simply mean that they're willing to abandon traditional practices with regard to corporate worship and social issues.
For instance, these congregations are some of the churches that are introducing instrumental music in their corporate corporate worship.
Some of them do it in a gradual fashion.
They'll actually have an a cappella singing only service if that's the way you like worship or you see the Bible, but they'll also have another worship service that employs instrumental music.
Gradually, what'll happen is the a cappella singing will that worship service will eventually fade away as people become more accustomed to desensitized to the use of instrumental music in their worship assemblies.
These progressive churches are the ones that are using women as preachers and giving them other leadership roles or positions.
Some of these congregations, not all of them that describe themselves as progressive, but some of them are also embracing the ecumenical movement.
You may not be familiar with that phrase ecumenical movement, but it's the idea that the, the Church of Christ, the church, what we would call the, the Lord's Church is really only one part of the universal church, that there are other religious groups that are part of Christ's church.
We're just one.
I hate to say this.
We're one branch.
Uh, according to the ecumenical movement.
And so they consider themselves, these progressive, uh, congregations to be in some degree of fellowship with denominational churches.
And these progressive churches incidentally, are proud that they are not turning people away from Christ by being out of touch with modern culture.
And so they've decided to abandon those traditional ways of worshiping.
And the tra traditional doctrines of that have been taught in churches of Christ for a long time now, because they want to keep in touch with modern society, what people are thinking and practicing today.
Their motivation, I think comes from a couple of different sources.
I would point out to you, first of all, I think that this progressive idea really illustrates or manifests a lack of respect for God.
You can't disrespect God's word, ignore his word without disrespecting the one who gave that word.
And when you decide that you can set aside certain portions of God's word, because they don't fit very well with modern society and its ideas or uh values, what you're basically doing is showing a lack of respect for God's word.
Appreciated Jonathan's selecting songs that talked about the value of God's word and the respect that we ought to have for God's word, the function that it should play in our lives.
But I think there's another reason.
And I actually, uh, Headed up there already.
There's another reason that I think some of these groups are following this progressive uh template, and that is its marketing.
What they're trying to do is appeal to the masses, and they are frequently much more concerned with aligning themselves with the current popular thinking in America than they are of aligning themselves with God's will.
What's important to you?
Is it more important that we are on the same page with the people of our community or that we are on God's page following his revealed will?
But progressive churches don't want to be out of touch with cultural shifts, such as the widespread acceptance of divorce.
And so some congregations never talk about divorce, certainly not from a biblical standpoint, and they uh will tell people that we welcome everybody and so divorce is acceptable regardless of the cause for the divorce and the acceptance of the LBGTQ blah blah blah movement.
Where we need to be inclusive and not shut anybody out and not disrespect anybody.
In fact, if you preach against the homosexual movement, the LGBTQ movement, you are accused sometimes of being a hater.
I would suggest to you that those who do not inform the sinner of their sin, but intent just allow them to go peacefully into eternity and condemnation, those are the people who are the haters.
Marketing, as cultural values change, progressives do not want to be left behind.
It's about numbers.
It's about filling the building, and ultimately, it's often about money because numbers translate into money.
Well, you've probably already noticed the chart that's up there already, and that is that the apostle Paul preached affirmed that the gospel is unchanging.
Even in the first century, Before all the apostles had even been martyred or had died, the gospel was already being changed, twisted by some.
Acid Ethan's introduction to the reading this morning.
If you'll pardon me, I'm going to read it again.
Galatians 1:6 to.
hands on the screen.
I am astonished, Paul wrote, that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
Paul had preached to these people on his first missionary journey, and he says, I'm surprised you're turning away so quickly from Christ and you're turning to some other gospel.
Well, there really isn't another gospel, he says.
But some people are twisting the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be a cursed.
Paul said, the gospel is unchanging.
You and I don't have the right to change the gospel and preach something other than what's revealed in the pages of Scripture.
As we have said before, he continues in verse 9.
So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
Is that happening today?
Are people preaching the gospel, this progressive gospel that views the Bible through the lens of modern culture, and so they change what God said about any number of things.
What does Paul say about that?
He said, don't accept that even if an angel would preach it.
For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?
Who am I aligning myself with, Paul says.
Or am I trying to please man?
If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
The gospel of Christ was intended to be an unchanging message.
In fact, there are some examples, we'll just look at one, for the sake of time this morning, I owe you a minute.
Uh, in 143 Corinthians, the 11th chapter, the apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthians.
Because they had begun uh practicing something different than what he had delivered to them regarding the Lord's supper.
If you're in 1 Corinthians the 11th chapter, I'm just gonna note two verses in particular, beginning in verse 240 and running on to the end of the chapter.
Paul talks about what was going on at Corinth.
He makes some corrections, but I You to notice in verse 220, but in the following instructions, I do not commend you because when you come together, it's not for the better but for the worse.
Paul didn't say, well, now, you Corinthians, you just adapt your practice to whatever your culture is there in uh in in the Peloponnesus in Achaea.
And he says down in verse 21, for I receive from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, took bread.
Did the Corinthians have a right to change the supper to make it more relevant to a gentile audience or perhaps to avoid uh offending the sensibilities of maybe some Jewish Christians?
Absolutely not.
Paul said, when you come together, it's for the worse, not for the better, because you're not following the instructions that you were given regarding this act of worship.
You'll see in the letters of Paul to Timothy and Titus.
A, an emphasis on sound doctrine.
Paul emphasized the need to teach sound doctrine.
I appreciated the comment that was made earlier about sound doctrine.
I believe Ethan was the one who made it.
Notice what Paul has to say to Titus in chapter 22 verses 259 through 210.
He writes to this evangelist and he says, he that is Speaking of elders, elders must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught.
Hold on to what you've been taught, not changing it uh as culture changes, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound.
That word sound there is the word that could be translated healthy in some context.
Sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it sound doctrine.
Elders need to hold fast to what they've been taught, that is from the word of God, and they need to be able to contradict or rebuke those who contra.
Predict sound doctrine.
Notice then in verse 63, they must be silenced, these false teachers since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
Paul says, the gospel is unchanging.
And elders need to stand up for the gospel once for all revealed to the saints.
In First Timothy, the apostle Paul writes to the young evangelist Timothy, he says those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers.
Rather, they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.
Teach and earth these things.
If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, What's Paul say about that individual?
He says he's puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.
He has an unhealthy craving.
Notice the contrast between sound words or doctrine, and unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions.
Paul says, watch out for people who are teaching things different from the sound words of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then finally, one final passage here.
In 26 Timothy 23 verses 24-4, once again, the apostle writing says, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching.
That's what I'm talking about today.
I'm talking about people who are abandoning sound teaching because they want to align themselves with whatever the current popular ideas are about religion, about moral issues, social issues.
But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.
It's like Paul read a newspaper from 2024 about what was going on in Western culture.
He said there are people who will listen only to those teachers who will tell them what they want to hear, according to their own passions, they heap up these teachers and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
So my conclusion is if you can't change the gospel, if it's an unchanging message.
Then the Lord's church shouldn't be changing either in terms of uh the organization of the church, the work of the church, of the local congregation, the worship of the church, the teaching of the New Testament about social issues like moral issues.
That's part of the gospel.
That's part of this mystery that God revealed through His apostles and prophets.
If the message is unchanging.
Then the church should be unchanging in these areas.
Should the Lord's Church change with the times?
Well, here's the answer.
In doctrine and practice, absolutely not.
We are what we are because of what the Lord revealed.
And we will continue to be the Lord's people so long as we continue to follow the Lord's word, not the culture of our day.
Well, I'm about to throw you a little bit of a curve.
Because the fact of the matter is we have changed.
Not in the areas that I've been talking about.
Hopefully not.
If we understand the teaching of the New Testament, but we have changed, have we not?
There are certainly some areas in which we've changed.
We've seen many changes in technology used.
There's an illustration sitting right there in front of you, the overhead projector, and that's just the beginning of it.
Blackboards, people started with those and I never could write well on a blackboard.
I'm so glad we 86 of those a long time ago.
When, when I go with Debbie to Zimbabwe, the only real audio or visual aids they have is they'll paint one of their concrete walls.
It's a uh kind of like a plaster finish and they'll paint it green and it's got cracks in it and holes and different things, it's uneven and everything, and we use chalk to write on that and it's an absolute mess.
But that's what people used a long time ago.
Some of you young people, you don't know anything about those kinds of things because we've moved on.
We moved, we got technologically advanced.
We started using overhead projectors.
And we shined images up on screens or walls.
Then we went to RGB projectors and LCD projectors, etc. etc. etc.
We have monitor screens to convey dynamic or changing information.
So we've got announcement slides that are changing slides every 6 to 8 seconds so that we can convey more information in a limited amount of space and time.
We use songs on slides.
To sing from You, some of you young people may not realize that it's not been all that long ago that everybody was using a book.
Slides, songs on slides is a relatively recent thing in terms of the history of even just the, the Lord's Church in the United States or in this area.
Public address systems.
The types of spiritual hymns and songs that we sing have changed some over the years that of my lifetime.
Now some of these changes go far uh back far enough in time that the average Christian is not even aware that things were different in the past.
Young people in particular.
But we have changed some things, haven't we?
But notice that these are matters that are not doctrinal.
They're not things that change the organization of the church.
They're not things that change the essential nature of our worship.
Whether we sing out of a book, or whether we sing from slides that are uh up on the screen, or whether we just sing from memory, which is the way most people in Zimbabwe do.
They sing the songs without any book at all in many cases.
They know all the words and they know the tunes.
But however we do it, it's still singing and as long as that information, the lyrics of those songs are scriptural, in other words, they're building us up, they're encouraging us, edifying us.
In truth, then it really doesn't make any difference how we get the information that allows us to sing together.
Those are the kinds of changes that I think we have made over uh decades and decades.
Well, I want to talk to you a little bit about methods of evangelism.
In my lifetime, Gospel meetings were a primary method of community outreach for evangelism.
I started preaching in 1980 and that's what churches did in order to, uh, for the most part, in order to get the gospel out in the community.
They would bring a preacher or have their preacher preach a series of lessons.
We'd have a gospel meeting, we'd invite people.
In those days, gospel meetings, this would have been a little bit before my time even.
Gospel meetings sometimes lasted for weeks.
But when I first started preaching, you could seldom Hear about a gospel meeting that lasted less than 33 days, Sunday to Friday.
That was pretty much across the board.
And then you started to see a shift in our practices among congregations of the Lord's people, where gospel meanings began to be shortened to last only 2 or 3 days.
Our most recent gospel meetings here are essentially a weekend or the very beginning of a week, Sunday through Tuesday or Wednesday.
Used to be a whole week, used to be sometimes much longer than a week, but those have been shortened.
The fact of the matter is, our culture has changed dramatically by the advancement of technology and communication, by rapid transportation, and frankly, a generally higher.
Standard of living.
And what that has done is it's brought a lot of different opportunities and maybe even some obligations into our lives.
And so people don't stay on the homestead all the time and sit on the front porch in the evening and talk and tell stories.
We're going because we can travel 45 miles without even thinking about it.
Some people lived and died without ever being more than 40, 20 miles from their own home.
Now we think nothing of jumping into our car and driving over to some sort of entertainment venue that is 1 to 2 hours away.
Our culture has changed.
Americans have more time, more opportunity for recreation.
But ironically, at the same time, and this is an anecdotal opinion, it's my opinion, I think interest in religion in general has waned.
With fewer people willing to listen to an hour-long sermon.
Did I mention that this morning's sermon was an hour long?
59 minutes Give you that one minute back.
People aren't willing to listen to sermons like they did back in the days of the restoration preachers who would get up and preach for an hour and a half, and people would sit and listen because they didn't have television that was, you know, changing their attention to a different thing every so many seconds.
And I think people are less willing to visit a church assembly.
If we're talking about a group that they don't belong to.
If they want to find out what a church is about, what do they do?
What do you do?
You get online.
You look for their website.
You connect the website with the address and then you can read about what that church teaches and how they're organized and that sort of thing.
You may have a picture of the building there.
Our culture has definitely changed.
Gone are the days when visitors will show up to gospel meetings in large numbers.
There was a time when people would do that.
Because the opportunities and the things that they could do in the evenings and during their days were much more limited than they are now.
And we filled our lives with all kinds of other concerns.
I'm not Disparaging The changes.
I'm saying there are consequences.
To the technological changes that have occurred in our country and our culture.
And it has affected the way that we need to get the gospel out to people.
It's more unusual today if you have a gospel meeting to have any visitors at all, and I think we've experienced that as we've had gospel meetings in the past.
In fact, maybe you've noticed, but a lot of times, gospel meetings don't, don't reach out to uh the community.
They're not teaching gospel meeting sermons are frequently not about how to become a Christian or information about the church.
Uh, just, you know, kind of boilerplate information about the church, about the plan of salvation, scheme of redemption.
Most of the sermons that you see in gospel meetings are designed to edify the saints, not convert the community.
Why is that?
It's because people aren't coming to the assemblies in gospel meetings like they used to.
So what should we do?
Well, what we've already confirmed is we can't change the message.
We don't have the right to try to accommodate changes in people's views by changing the message to try to bring people.
That's what a lot of churches, progressive churches and others, that's what they're doing.
We're not gonna do that.
We don't have the right to do that.
But we can And probably should change the way that we transmit the message.
There are lots of different ways of preaching.
And some of you are involved in some of these things that I'm going to mention and I'm not intending for this to be kind of a, a workshop type deal where we're gonna talk about the pros and cons of these different methods.
I'm just gonna mention some things because I want you to understand.
That as culture changes, we may have to change the way that we get the message out, although we can't change the message.
If you see the difference.
Websites, you, you can hardly find a church now that doesn't have a website.
Zoom meetings.
How many of you are tired of Zoom meetings?
Some of you, some of you are kind of like, yeah, I don't like Zoom meeting.
Some of you are like, I'm sick and tired of Zoom meetings because you do them at work.
I understand that.
But that's an enormous opportunity for us to get to people who won't travel to us.
Live streaming of sermons and Bible classes.
Community doesn't have to come to the building, they can sit in front of a computer and get the information that we want to get to them via digital format.
Informal Bible classes or studies in public places.
How many of you, uh, not asking for a show of hands, but how many of you have at times gone to some place like Chick fil A or or Starbucks or something and you took your Bible and you start reading at the table.
With the idea that maybe someone would be encouraged to ask you about what you're doing or ask some sort of Bible question.
People are doing that and sometimes it's an effective way of getting a study with someone who wouldn't come to this building for us to preach the gospel to them. Podcasts.
So the question Should the Lord's church change?
In matters of doctrine, absolutely not.
That's the no.
We need to follow the revealed will of God regardless of how our culture changes.
But in matters of opinion, traditions not stipulated by scripture, we need not to be bound by practices that make us ineffective teachers in our modern culture.
We're gonna have a gospel meeting this year. Why?
Is it the most effective use of our efforts of, of funds to try to get the gospel into the community?
No, because we've always done that.
That's what we did last year.
That's what we did the year before that.
That's what churches do, you know.
And so we just follow these traditional practices that are not mandated by scripture, that particular format of teaching.
But we do it because that's what we've always done.
And we don't need to be bound by those kinds of traditions.
Please understand, I'm not suggesting that we should stop preaching the word of God.
Someone says, preacher, you shot yourself in the foot this morning.
No, not at all.
When Paul wrote to the Romans in chapter 10 and verse 14, he said, how then will they call on him and whom they've not believed, and how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard, and how are they to hear without someone preaching, but there's a lot of different ways.
That we can preach.
There are many ways to reach people with the word of God, and we need to take advantage of the opportunities that we have in this modern culture, in this modern society.
I'll tell you one other thing we can't change, and that is we can't change God's instructions regarding salvation.
It's the same.
You'll see changes made by various churches as they appeal to people and lower the bar so that more people will come in.
But what the Lord's looking for is people who we believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God with all their heart, who are willing to repent of their sins, confess the faith that they hold in their heart, and be baptized for the remission of sins.
Incidentally, that baptism thing, that's not very popular.
Most groups say, no, no, no, you don't need to be baptized.
And I know there are some churches of Christ that are now teaching their preachers and elders are teaching that baptism is a good thing, but it's not really necessary for salvation.
Absolutely not the truth.
And we can't change the truth.
Baptism for the remission of sins.
I appreciated the words of Jake this morning as he talked about what happens when we're baptized.
We're washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
We're buried into the death of Jesus Christ.
Paul would write in Romans 6 verses 3-4, into our own death to sin as well.
We can't change the Lord's instructions regarding salvation.
This morning, if you need to obey the gospel, we can't change the plan, but we certainly want to encourage you to follow that plan.
Or if for some other reason, you desire the prayers of the congregation or perhaps you need to make things right publicly.
Then we want to encourage you to do those things this morning as we stand and sing to encourage you.
- 2024.06.09A-ChangingChurch.mp3 (12.61 MB)
