Inflexibility
Audio sermon by Gordon D. Venturella | 26:16 min
TOPIC: Faith, Change, Spiritual Growth
REFERENCES: Matthew 15:8-9, Matthew 15:12-14
SERIES: Protecting Your Achilles Heel, Part 3
SUMMARY
If our faith doesn’t get stretched regularly, it can become inflexible, and it can snap. If we are not constantly stretching our faith, learning, exercising, and growing our faith, our views can become calcified to the extent that we’ll not be able to see what Jesus is trying to teach us.
When our faith becomes inflexible, we can no longer distinguish between that which is essential, changeless, and eternally true, from that which is always changing, under revision, and subject to review. The result is that we become accustomed to a certain way of doing things. Perhaps it was passed down to us by our parents or by the culture in which we live, but over time, we can equate our ways of doing things with God’s absolute truth. In extreme and advanced cases people not only equated their rules with God, they actually placed their preferred way of doing things at a higher priority then their desire to know and to serve God. And when that happens, people are no longer worshiping God they are in fact worshiping their own cultural and personal preferences. The bible has a word for this condition, it’s not inflexibility, it is idolatry.
Imagine that the United States is conquered by China and that all the Christians in this country were taken captive and carted off in exile to a remote region in interior China to live together in a concentration camp type atmosphere. Everything that is familiar is taken away from us. The question is, how would we worship God there? What would we be most concerned with then? All the cultural trappings that we’ve become accustomed to in this country have changed. Well, that’s just what it was like for many of the Jews who were taken captive and exiled to Babylon. How would our conversation and how would the way that we spend our time change in exile if God were to pronounce that judgement on you and I living in this country at this time?
If we were taken into exile just like the Nation of Israel, all that we’d have left is what they had left, and that would be our faith in a changeless God. In reality, that’s all we’ve got anyway. In reality, that’s all we’ve got in this life, our faith in a changeless God.
So how do we stretch our faith? Listen to this sermon and get ready for some faith stretching exercises to help keep you from becoming inflexible.
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REFERENCES: Matthew 15:8-9, Matthew 15:12-14
SERIES: Protecting Your Achilles Heel, Part 3
SUMMARY
If our faith doesn’t get stretched regularly, it can become inflexible, and it can snap. If we are not constantly stretching our faith, learning, exercising, and growing our faith, our views can become calcified to the extent that we’ll not be able to see what Jesus is trying to teach us.
When our faith becomes inflexible, we can no longer distinguish between that which is essential, changeless, and eternally true, from that which is always changing, under revision, and subject to review. The result is that we become accustomed to a certain way of doing things. Perhaps it was passed down to us by our parents or by the culture in which we live, but over time, we can equate our ways of doing things with God’s absolute truth. In extreme and advanced cases people not only equated their rules with God, they actually placed their preferred way of doing things at a higher priority then their desire to know and to serve God. And when that happens, people are no longer worshiping God they are in fact worshiping their own cultural and personal preferences. The bible has a word for this condition, it’s not inflexibility, it is idolatry.
Imagine that the United States is conquered by China and that all the Christians in this country were taken captive and carted off in exile to a remote region in interior China to live together in a concentration camp type atmosphere. Everything that is familiar is taken away from us. The question is, how would we worship God there? What would we be most concerned with then? All the cultural trappings that we’ve become accustomed to in this country have changed. Well, that’s just what it was like for many of the Jews who were taken captive and exiled to Babylon. How would our conversation and how would the way that we spend our time change in exile if God were to pronounce that judgement on you and I living in this country at this time?
If we were taken into exile just like the Nation of Israel, all that we’d have left is what they had left, and that would be our faith in a changeless God. In reality, that’s all we’ve got anyway. In reality, that’s all we’ve got in this life, our faith in a changeless God.
So how do we stretch our faith? Listen to this sermon and get ready for some faith stretching exercises to help keep you from becoming inflexible.
POST A COMMENT
POST A COMMENT
From this sermon...
“Inflexibility leads to idolatry.” -Gordon Venturella“What would you find if you could scratch beneath the surface of too many churches in America? I think what you would find is that too few really practice living by faith, and that too many really major on culture preferences.” -Gordon Venturella
“Those that prefer to keep things the same for as long as possible, in a paradoxical way, will hasten change even faster.” -Gordon Venturella
Recommended Books
The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Languageby Eugene H. Peterson
Helpful Links
biblegateway.comLook up a verse.
