Reformed and Ever Reforming- The Relevance of God- I John 4:7-21; Jeremiah 31:3,4a; 17-20; 31-36

                Today is Reformation Sunday.  It  is also the 500^th birthday year of John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian Church.  So today we are going to look at one of the great phrases of the Reformation “Reformed and ever reforming according to the Word of God” (first said in a devotional 1674 by Jodocus van Lodenstein).   This phrase is a part of the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (G.2.02).  It was first written in what is called the “Second Dutch Reformation.”  They believed they had the right doctrine from the great theologians like Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Knox.  But they weren’t living according to what they knew.   So they needed to reform their lives.

                The word”reform” was in disuse until the last few months, but has been used a lot lately.  Here are some headlines from just this past weeks news:

Health care reform.      Our educational system is in need of reform.       International finance system must be reformed.       

People rally for Immigration Reform.      The Truth about Tort Reform      The Judge who Reformed Texas Prisons
    The Presbyterian Church is called a “Reformed Church” because we changed the church- Salvation by grace alone- not how much you do; script alone- not what you think or traditions or experts that is most important; Faith alone and not faith and works is important.  We need to continue to reform the church for the church is "Reformed and always reforming according to the Word of God."  This reforming shows something new, something old, something wrong, and something hopeful.

I. REFORMATION POINTS TO THE NEWNESS OF THE CHURCH (Need to change)- Church believes in change- conversion, regeneration,
As the outside needs paint every couple of years- we see that, the inside needs renewal.   We don’t just take a bath once and say that’s good for a lifetime. 
                The Holy Spirit is never irrelevant.  It is the Spirit that makes all things new.   The Spirit prompts us to take the core of what we believe and make it applicable and relevant to our day.  It is the Holy Spirit who radically changes people for the better, and that can change the church for the better.
                Yet we have a tremendous need to always change.  The essence stays the same, the peripherals should always change.  So the Church should make use of every means to convey the good news to others- internet, web pages, blogspots, podcasts.  But still the very best way is to love.  Love is never old, and irrelevant.  Yet it is something we have to constantly be reminded of and be re-energized for. 
                We do not need to go back to the old ways- the old ways of unbelief, of living in selfishness and darkness.  Rather we are called to love.   In a marriage, we need to continue to ask ourselves, “How might I show more love to my mate.”  In a friendship, we might need to ask how we might put a spark into it.   We don’t just say “I do” and that’s it.  We don’t just rest on our memories.   We also don’t need to think that we need to act like we’re not married, or our relationship doesn’t matter.  
                The question we should ask ourselves always- is what can I do to renew my faith more?
Change is sometimes scary.  When railroads were first becoming popular in 1829, President Andrew Jackson got a letter from governor Martin van Buren 'railroad' carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by 'engines' which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.

II. REFORMATION POINTS TO THE OLDNESS OF THE CHURCH- (Scripture)
                When Calvin spoke of reforming the church, he didn’t think he was creating a new church.   Rather, he was taking the old church and wiping away the accumulation of stuff that made it corrupt.   Years ago my father took an old antique black hall tree.  It had layer upon layer of furniture polish, so that it looked black and ugly- and he stripped that away, and it was a beautiful piece of furniture.  That’s the way Calvin looked at renewing the church.  It’s like taking an old piece of glass that has become so clouded you can’t see through it, and wiping it clean so you can see. 
                The saying is Reformed and ever reforming according to the Word of God.   Calvin, Luther and Zwingli continually quoted the ancient fathers of the church as well as the scriptures- trying to wipe away all the gunk and extra things that had been added and were weighing down the church.  In their day, it was the gunk of indulgences and greed.  It was the extra things like the veneration of saints and the elevation of the clergy.  Anna-Case Winters of McCormick Theological Seminary says the saying, “Reformed and Always Reforming according to the Word of God” means that we get back to our roots.   I read an article about how our bodies change.  Most middle aged folk have bodies whose cells are on average about 7-10 years old.  Your liver regenerates every 200-300 days.  Your skin renews itself every two weeks- That means every two weeks we get a new body.  But the cerebral cortex in your brain- those cells probably don’t change at all.   In the church- our body changes- we add new folk, some folk fall away, but the central part- that is faith in Christ, stays the same. 

The Church needs reformation- but so do we.  The ONLY way the church is changed for the better is if we are changed for the better. 

III. REFORMATION POINTS TO THE PROBLEMS OF THE CHURCH (Confessional)
                To say that the church needs reforming, means that we are saying something is wrong.  Human sin is always getting in the way.  The minute you think you have things under control, and everything is rosy, something else happens.  Murphy’s Law- that whenever something will go wrong it will- is a recognition of the universality of human sin.  It is everywhere, in every age of this world, and in every body.   Human sin is like a cancer that you keep cutting off and it keeps growing back because its roots go deep.   Maybe you’ve been wrestling with this too.  No church and no individual can rest on their laurels. 
                This means that the Church needs to accept criticism.  I remember the moderator of one of our general assemblies said that we are like a huge ship and we need to listen to the voices on the left and the voice on the right to steer the ship in the middle of the channel.   We need to listen to each other- that is one of the great things about the church.  But as I have said before, we do not listen well.   But John tells us if we love God, then we’ve got to love each other- despite driving each other sometimes up the wall. 

                There was a famous cigarette commercial years ago for Camel cigarettes.  It said, “According to a nationwide recent survey, more doctors smoke camels than any other cigarette. Three independent research organizations asked this question of 13,597 doctors, “Which cigarette do you smoke doctor?”  The brand named most was Camel.”  The illusion was the experts said this was the way to go, so we should go that way too.   In the Reformation, the smart people and the rich people tended to want to go with the Catholic church.  The catholic church didn’t want people to read the Bible lest it be misinterpreted.  They only wanted the Bible in Latin- so only their priests could read it.  They wanted the people illiterate so they could retain power.  What we don’t realize today is that literacy of the general public and the whole idea of public education began with the idea that everybody has a right to read the scriptures for themselves.  We don’t need the so-called “experts” to understand the basic parts of scripture.
                The basic problems of the church and of us as individuals come up over and over again.  The very basic problem is unbelief- not trusting God,  The second basic problem is not love- God or neighbor; the third basic problem is sin-lack of justice, fairness, wrongness- missing the mark.  Comes up in different ways.  But I believe not loving, and sinning have their root in not believing God.   When Adam ate the fruit- he believed in his need more than he believed in his God.  So it is today.

IV. REFORMATION POINTS TO THE HOPE OF THE CHURCH
                This motto also points out that we can indeed change.   The question is not whether we think God is relevant to us.  The real question is whether we are relevant to Him.  God is longing to have a relationship with us- we are made with that in mind.  But we can ignore God even though He is right here with us.   God’s love reaches out to every single person.

Maybe you are running on empty.  Maybe you find yourself trying to do God’s work but you are irritable, impatient, ambitious,   Do not forsake God, come to Him with your whole heart.  He can re-energize you, recharge you, and also give you peace and hope.

                The church is ever changing- and never really dying out.  The Bible says that the Church in some form will survive til the end, but this is not despite us- but because of us.  Bo once quoted someone who said that church is always a generation of being extinguished.  This is true. The Lord has entrusted the glorious gospel into our inglorious hands.  34 years ago about 40 people got together and formed LMPC. Today there are 7 times that many here in worship alone. The church is alive.  There have been and will be people who say that the church is dead, that God is dead, that the church is irrelevant, or God is irrelevant.
Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. (Mark Twain).
                In the communist propaganda of Stalin, they said that the Church was old-fashioned, and it didn’t leave any room for young people.   In 1975 when I was graduating high school, one of communist teachers in Romania was saying (with many others), “We no longer need the old fables of Christianity.  And you watch.  Within a generation the church will die out.”  But Christ said, “Upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”  Fourteen years later, the communist governments in Romania, Czechoslovakia,  Hungary, Russia, Georgia, and Poland were all gone.   Especially in Romania, Poland, and the Czeck Republic, they fell because the Christians protested, and refused to give in- without a bullet the whole Eastern empire of the Soviet Union fell.  Kruschev who  pounded his shoe on the U.N. table and said to the United States and the West- “We will bury you without a single shot.”  Is now buried himself, and his country is no more.  His daughter has become a prominent Christian.   When you count God out, think again.  The Church is ever in need of reforming, and so are we.
                I was with a family once who had an operation.  She was still out from anesthesia and we were wondering about how long it may take for her to recover. The sister of the patient (who hadn’t seen her in years) came by. She was surprised at how old, frail her sister was.  Then she surprised us all- when she went up to her- put her hands on her face, then opened her eyelid and said “Is that you in there?”  Sometimes the church messes up- so it’s hard to see if it’s the same church- but the essence is the same- the periphery has changed and needs to be renewed- reformed.  Our job is to let God change the church and us.