Isaiah 43:19 "Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
For God to fulfill that promise in Isaiah, He has to bring about change. When God does a new thing, that means that there are changes about to happen. He's an agent of change.
Romans 12:2 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed..."
God is into transformation; that means change.
-When He gets a hold of a person's life, He changes it.
-When He gets a hold of a church, He changes it.
-He even changed water into wine, but here's the problem. People find it difficult to change.
People seem to be naturally resistant to change, but change happens continuously anyway. Just think of the seasons - spring, summer, autumn, winter. God has built change into our natural existence.
Think of the aging process. No matter how hard you try, or what anti-wrinkling creams you use, you will not look the same, at 60-years-old, as you did at the age of twenty. There's going to be a change.People change jobs regularly. I remember a time when it was normal for people to stay on the same job for twenty years or more; but not any more.
Change happens all the time.
How do people feel about so much change? All of this change brings uncertainty, fear,and feelings of spinning out of control because so much of the change we experience in life is beyond our control. We can't do anything about it.
Even the early church found it difficult to adapt to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Think about what Jesus said to the disciples in Acts 1:8: " But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." This is where Jesus reinforced the mission he had already given His disciples in Matthew 28:19-20 and Mark 16:15-16.
What was their mission? To go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. This is what Jesus was restating in Acts 1:8 and telling them that they would receive the power of the Holy Spirit to help them to fulfil that mission. That mission was to Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. In other words, local, national and international.
So they were filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:4, then what did they do? Did they fulfill the mission? No, they sat around in Jerusalem all the way through Acts 2, all the way through Acts 3, all the way through Acts 4, all the way through Acts 5, all the way through Acts 6, all the way through Acts 7. And it wasn't till Acts 8:1 that there was a persecution which scattered the disciples through Judea and Samaria. Finally, they were starting to be obedient to Christ's command, but not by choice.
Sometimes God has to take drastic measures to get His people to obey Him. This time it took persecution, but they still didn't get with the program. Yes, they were preaching the word (Acts 8:4), but they were still only preaching to Jews and Samaritans. What about the Gentiles? Didn't they know that Jesus wanted them to preach to the Gentiles too? Of course they did!
Jesus was very clear about that. He said, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." He didn't say, "For God so loved the Jews that He gave His only begotten Son..." He said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." This message was never just for the Jews, but people find it so difficult to cope with change. It wasn't till Acts 10 that they began to rethink their theology to come into alignment with God's theology.
Peter was on the roof praying, when he had a vision. And in the vision, he saw a sheet coming down out of heaven full of all kinds of animals. And then there was a voice saying, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." And Peter said, "Lord, I can't do that! I'm a good Jew."Now just think about this for a moment. The Lord told Peter to do something and Peter says no. Isn't that a bit strange? His tradition had such a strong hold on him that even when God told him to do something, he said no. God says, "But I've made it clean so don't call it unclean." You'd think that God would have made His point clear, but this still isn't enough for Peter. Immediately, he has the same vision, with the same sheet full of animals, and the same voice telling him to kill and eat. Now, wouldn't you think that Peter would have got the message? Nope. He answers God in the same way: "Sorry Lord, no can do. I'm a good Jew." This message had to come to him three times.
Then suddenly the light comes on. And there are some men waiting to take Peter to Caesarea in the north to speak to Cornelius, a centurion in the Roman army - a Gentile. So Peter goes with the men, and when he gets there, he finds that Cornelius has gathered his friends and family, and they're all waiting for Peter.
Peter preaches his message, and suddenly, the Holy Spirit turns up, and everyone is filled with the Holy Spirit and starts to speak in tongues. Peter looks around and his fellow-Jews who had come with him and says, "Well, I suppose we can't very well refuse to baptise them in water if God has filled them with the Holy Spirit, can we?" So Peter goes back to Jerusalem, but the news has gone on ahead of him, and there are people waiting to take issue with him. He has to explain the whole thing right from the beginning before they finally realise that God has granted salvation to the Gentiles too. That's in Acts 11:18. Why didn't this happen a lot sooner?
People find change so difficult, and the church, down through the ages has been no different.
When the Roman emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, the church went into a downward spiral. That downward spiral was already happening since the time of the apostles, but making the church the official religion brought masses into the churches who brought with them their beliefs and their immorality. The church degenerated into a political force and, except for small pockets of genuine believers, there was spiritual darkness for over a thousand years. Then in 1517 Martin Luther declared the revelation he had received from God that the just should live by faith, not works. Guess what happened to him? He and his followers were persecuted.
Then along came the Anabaptists who believed that there was another step that had to be taken after committing your life to Christ: You had to be baptised in water. Many of them lost their lives; some responded to the Anabaptists by saying, "Fine, if you want to be baptised, we'll baptise you." And they held them underwater till they drowned.The recipients of the previous revelation became the persecutors of the recipients of the next revelation.
Then along came the Pentecostal outpouring in Azusa Street revival. Guess what the Baptists thought of that? The recipients of the previous revelation became the persecutors of the recipients of the next revelation. People were kicked out of their churches because they spoke in tongues.
Then along came the Charismatic movement in the 60s and early 70s. Guess what many of the diehard Pentecostals thought of the Charismatics? The recipients of the previous revelation became the persecutors of the recipients of the next revelation. Many of them didn't like it one bit; you had to do it their way.
The church has always found it difficult to cope with change. I don't know what the next move of God is going to be, but I want to make sure that I have an open heart to what God wants to do. And even more importantly, I want to be open to the changes God wants to bring about now in this church. Here's a question for you to think about: Are you ready for what God wants to do in His church? Or are you a resister?
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