We started our journey into the year with looking at chance, choice, and change. Today we go deeper into change. As we explored chance, we talked through the story of the good Samaritan and how he took the chance to help someone in need when others wouldn’t. The question posed to you was this: what prevents you from taking chances that will further God’s kingdom here on earth. Then last week, we moved towards making choices and how our choices impact our lives and our faith. The questions posed to you last week was this: What are the ways you feel you are choosing to serve the Lord and how that impacts you and those around you? Today, we focus on change. The thing about change is that it is always happening!  

Taking chances and making choices both lead to change. Some of that change is good and some of that change isn’t good. Throughout our lives, we all encounter situations that challenge us to examine our lives, make decisions, and work some sort of change within us and for others. “Change is hard because by default, we cling to the status quo. Typically, people change when the pain associated with the status quo becomes greater than the pain associated with change. In many churches, as long as the bills are being paid and people are still showing up, the motivation to change remains too low to really push ahead on the issues discussed in this book and the other issues facing the church. The motivation to change is even lower if you are experiencing momentum. Many leaders in growing organizations don’t want to jeopardize success. As a result, the greater threat to your future success in leadership is often your current success (Lasting Impact by Carey Nieuwhof, pg. 141).” 

This past week I was reminded of the book unChristian by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons. The book was published in 2007 and the research was done the 3 years before. As I started reading this book, that is now 12 years old and the research is 15 years old, I was saddened by the information even more. Talk about the church having 12 years to make different choices and take more chances to reach those who are outside the doors…and not much has changed! Anyway, the premise of this book is about how Christianity and Christians have an image problem. The research shows that both “Christianity and Christians have very negative perceptions amongst younger generations…those my age and younger. The research shows that many of those outside of Christianity, especially younger adults, have little trust in the Christian faith, and esteem for the lifestyle of Christ followers is quickly fading among outsiders. They admit their emotional and intellectual barriers go up when they are around Christians, and they reject Jesus because they feel rejected by Christians (unChristians, pg 11).” They continue by saying, “What we found was their perceptions of Christianity reflect a church infatuated with itself. We discovered that many Christians have lost their heart for those outside the faith. The negative perceptions are not just “images” conjured up to debase Christianity…The most common reaction to the Christian faith: outsiders think Christians no longer represent what Jesus had in mind, that Christianity in our society is not what it was meant to be. The Christian faith looks weary and threadbare. They admit they have a hard time actually seeing Jesus because of all the negative baggage that now surrounds Christians. One outsider from Mississippi said, ‘Christianity has become bloated with blind followers who would rather repeat slogans than actually feel true compassion and care. Christianity has become marketed and streamlined into a juggernaut of fearmongering that has lost its own heart.’ (unChristian, pg 14 and 15).” The call from this book is the importance of the church changing…As I shared last week, “If the change inside the church isn’t equal to or greater than the change outside our walls, greater irrelevance is inevitable (Lasting Impact, pg 135).” 

Again, this research is over 12 years old! The research shared the perspective that the Christians and Christianity was: hypocritical, focused on salvation, were anti-homosexual, sheltered, too political, and judgmental. Remember, what you are hearing is information from a 3 year research project of people my age and younger…the people we talk about not being here in worship with us and part of our community.  

Hypocritical: 

Perception: Christians say one thing but live something entirely different.  

New Perception: Christians are transparent about their flaws and act first, talk second.  

Get Saved!: 

Perception: Christians are insincere and concerned only with converting others.  

New Perception: Christians cultivate relationships and environments where others can be deeply transformed by God.  

Anti-homosexual: 

Perception: Christians show contempt to gays and lesbians.  

New Perception: Christians show compassion and love to all people, regardless of their lifestyle.  

Sheltered: 

Perception: Christians are boring, unintelligent, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality.  

New Perception: Christians are engaged, informed, and offer sophisticated responses to the issues people face.  

Too Political: 

Perception: Christians are primarily motivated by political agenda and promote right-wing politics.  

New Perception: Christians are characterized by respecting people, thinking biblically, and finding solutions to complex issues.  

Judgmental:  

Perception: Christians are prideful and quick to find faults in others.  

New Perception: Christians show grace by finding the good in others and seeing their potential to be Christ followers.  

If we really take this to heart and really listen to what younger generations are sharing, then the church universal has some major work to do…we, as Christians, need to make some major changes in how people perceive us and other believers. As Christians, we are responsible for changing our image, changing the opinions, changing the perspectives, and living our lives as Jesus encouraged us to live. Changing perceptions of what others think is incredibly hard. And changing ourselves is incredibly difficult to do as well. As I think about the importance of changing direction, opinions, perspectives, lives; I am reminded of these words of who the people of God are suppose to be and how we are to live out our lives.  

Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?”
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high. 

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator[a] shall go before you,
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. 

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to live in. 

I always think of the story of Queen Esther. Let’s watch this video from The Story on The Queen of Beauty and Courage for a quick overview of the book of Esther.  

In the story, there is a huge turning point. Esther realizes from her cousin Mordecai that she has the opportunity to take a chance, make a choice, and change the course of life for all the Jewish people. As the video showed, Esther was chosen to be queen even though she didn’t tell anyone she was Jewish. She was also an orphan. The likelihood of someone like her becoming a queen was almost non-existent. But it happened because her cousin Mordecai had a plan for her life. Mordecai took a lot of chances and made huge choices so Esther could have the best life possible. And things were going well. Until some Jewish folks insulted the leadership of the community. Because of that insult, a gentleman named Haman was able to get the King to write a decree against the Jewish people so they would be destroyed because their ways and customs were different. Queen Esther has found out about this and was in a place of disbelief. Esther had a choice to make. A chance to take. And change would happen in one way or another. Mordecai heard the decree and wore only a sackcloth of mourning in the courts. Esther sent clothes, but Mordecai refused them. Mordecai encouraged Esther to talk to the King, but Esther was afraid because people would be sent to death if they went to the King without being requested. Our story picks up there in verse 12.   

“12 When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, 13 Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” 15 Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” 17 Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.” 

Esther and Mordecai have been going back and forth on how to handle things throughout their entire relationship. Mordecai raised Esther as his own, she he is like a father to her. She has always listened to him. Yet in this moment, she is skeptical of his advice. Esther doesn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize her life, and then realizes through the challenge from Mordecai, that she must be willing to risk her life for the lives of all the Jewish people. Mordecai says, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” In that moment, Esther decides what she must do. She chooses to take a huge chance, but doesn’t do so without having the community praying and fasting with her and on her behalf.  Esther now takes control of the situation, she moves into motion to change the situation for her people, and Mordecai follows her instructions.  

The rest of the story is as the video shares. Esther wins the kings approval, the decree is rescinded, Haman, the man who was insulted by the Jews was hanged, and the Jewish people were able to protect themselves against those who tried to harm them without any repercussion. Esther served as the queen who showed much courage to change the situation that would harm her people. She lived into the challenge “for such a time as this.” 

Are we in a similar place as Christians? Are we being challenged to face a new wave of change in how we are to be in the world? Mordecai and Esther changed the kings perspective on the Jewish people, a whole nation in exile, and saved their lives. If we claim to be Christians, then are we living lives that Jesus would look at and say, “Dang, look at all those ‘me’ followers, really got this!” Or is Jesus looking at us, going, “Wow! Did they even read the words the disciples wrote about my life, ministry, and resurrection? They say they believe in me, but they really aren’t living differently than all the people who say they don’t believe in me.”  

Mordecai changed the perspective of Esther. Esther changed the perspective of the king. The King changed the outcome of a decree and the peoples’ lives were saved. Friends, we have some work to do. We have generations who are growing up in our world who believe that Christians and Christianity don’t hold a great deal of meaning for their lives and their world. We know differently. But are we helping to change that perspective? Are we here now, for “such a time as this” to help “shift our reputation?” If so, Christ followers must learn to respond to people in the way Jesus did. In other words, to reverse the problem of unChristian faith, we have to see people, addressing their needs and their criticism, just as Jesus did. We have to be defined by our service and sacrifice, by lives that exude humility and grace. If younger outsiders say they can’t see Jesus in our lives, we have to solve our “hidden Jesus” problem. I invite you to turn to your neighbor and think about the one thing each of you can do to begin to help change the perspective of Christians and Christianity.