The Greatest Change Agent Ever

1 Corinthians 15:50-57

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2015%3A50-57&version=NIV;MSG

 

Change is not easy for most people. It can take us out of our comfort zone. Even the smallest change can be disruptive. As a result, we resist change because the status quo is safer. We know what to expect. We have more control of our world when everything remains the same.

 

So what does it take for us to change? To get some idea of how to answer this question, here are the first three steps of Celebrate Recovery, a Christian twelve step program that specializes in change.

 

1. We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable. 

2. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.

 

These steps tell us that in order to change requires reaching the bottom. When that happens you realize that your life is out of control; that you are powerless; that you can’t change on your own. Finally, you understand that you need the greatest change agent ever, Jesus Christ.

 

Eugene Peterson in The Message, paraphrased that change agent in Matthew 5:3-4.



 

³ “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

⁴ “You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

 

 

 

This is from the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is speaking to common people; not to folks in a twelve step program. He’s telling them that in order to change, you have to hit bottom in some sense. Otherwise, there is no need for Jesus.

 

Today’s passage is about when Jesus brings us home with our resurrected body. From then on, there is no sting from death nor struggle with sin. Only the joy of living life as it was meant to be; living in the presence of our Creator.

 

Jesus is the greatest change agent ever. He specializes in taking us home. Thanks be to God.

 

 

The Speed of Change

Hebrews 10:1-25

 

When I was in college the campus computer that was used for class took up most of one room and required using stacks of punched cards to run it. Today, some 45 years later, we carry computers around like a wallet.

 

In the mid 90’s it was uncommon for people to have a cell phone. If they did have one, it was bulky and inconvenient to use. Today, it seems like everyone has a pocket size cell phone, and many of those are smart phones with a computer chip in them. So much for the college computer I used. The speed of change is staggering.

 

Some people embrace change, but my impression is that most people resist change.

Historically, change has come on the heels of great violence. You need look only at our American history with the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Even the decade of the 60’s had a lot of violence with race riots and the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.

 

People resisted change in Jesus’ day too which also resulted in much violence. Jesus was truly a revolutionary of his day. He systematically changed the focus from law to

grace; from ritual sacrifices to the sacrifice of one for once and all; from following the religious rules to following Jesus; from excluding everyone but Jews to including all. He literally changed the world.

 

From Hebrews 10 we learn three things:  

• First that the old system of Jewish laws and ritual sacrifices didn’t work.

“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.”            Verse 1

 

• Secondly, that through Jesus’ dying we have been forgiven and made clean.

“And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”                       Verse 10

 

• Finally, we can go into the throne of grace with hearts fully trusting him to receive us because Christ has taken our sins away.

… ^“let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”  Verse 22

 

The speed of change today is amazing, but what Christ did 2000 years ago forever stays the same. It cannot be changed. But it can change us. The result is that no matter how fast the world around us is changing, our faith in Christ remains the same but changes how we relate to our friends, family, work and the daily grind of living. It gives us an eternal perspective, not pie in the sky, but for here and now.

 

Geared to the times, anchored to the rock. Let us follow the Revolutionary Jesus!