Why Preaching From Isaiah is Relevant to 21st Century Christians

Why?  Why is that a funny name for a church?  In the 70’s, “The Church of What’s Happening Now” was meant to be funny partly because of the manner in which many young African-Americans greeted one another with “What’s happening?“, which seems to evolved into ”What’s up?” or “Wassup?”  

But while “The Church of What’s Happening Now” was funny, it was also a commentary on how things were beginning to change.  Just the fact that a black man had a successful TV show was nearly miraculous.  Many things were also changing within Evangelicalism.  Those were the days of the the Black Power Movement and simultaneously the Jesus Movement, when hippies were becoming Christians and transforming, if nothing else, the unspoken, long-standing, unspoken dress code for church goers.  The hot theological debate of the day was whether or not Jesus had long hair.  The Jesus Movement also brought about the birth of CCM: Contemporary Christian Music.  

What Flip Wilson meant to be amusing and entertaining has now become the norm.  Today, many churches spend large sums of money, and expend tremendous amounts of energy to be what was once a joke: The Church of What’s Happening Now.  Contemporary.  Modern.  Hip.  Cool.  No one wants to appear irrelevant.  Evangelical irrelevance is the new mortal sin.  Relevance has become the sacred cow among evangelical pastors and church growth specialists.  Being contemporary is the greatest virtue a church can attain to.

Let me show you what I’m talking about:

Screen Shot #1 - I looked up the word “contemporary” on Dictionary.com.  Here’s what it looks like.  You have the word at the top, a couple of ads, and then several definitions. 

Screen Shot #2 -  Here we have a close-up shot.  The definition we’re mostly concerned with is number 3: of the present time, modern.  That’s what most people mean when they talk about the need for churches to be contemporary.  

Screen Shot #3 -  Now notice that various businesses place their information on the Dictionary.com web page which contains the definition of the word “contemporary”.  

We have a furniture store here that apparently wants us to know they do not sell antique furniture, but contemporary, modern, what’s-happenin’-now-types of furniture.

Then we have a link to a web page for contractors who install contemporary, modern kitchens with electrical appliances and such.  There’s no ice in their ice boxes!  They have energy-efficient, low carbon footprint, stainless steel appliances and solid granite countertops that POP!  None of that old stuff your like your Mom has in her kitchen.

Finally, we have a link to The Journey Church.  Now this church is not your grandfather’s church.  No way!  This church is relevant, contemporary, and you can even come in your pajamas and have a latte while the speaker shares from a bar stool about the latest episode of LOST.  

This church is not only contemporary, but it is also relevant.  What do they mean by relevant?

Screen Shot #4 -  

So I think what the Journey Church is saying when they say they are a relevant, contemporary church, is that they are connected with what’s happening now.  What’s past is past.  We are “on the cutting edge of societal evolution”. Or in other words, we are not bogged down with historical baggage or traditions.  We’re pertinent.

Screen Shot #5 - 

And, thank the Higher Power (or Powers, whoever he, she, or they may or may not be) . . .  Thank whoever, or whatever, we’re not (gasp!) IRRELEVANT!

Screen Shot #6 

How can you be the Church of What’s Happening Now and be “not applicable” to how the culture thinks, and acts, and lives and sins (i.e. "makes mistakes") today?  We can’t be using old stuff and old methods and old ways and old thinking to reach today’s post-modern, non-thinking, TV and MTV gorged, iPod generation!  

A couple of days ago I read one of the most helpful and profound quotes I’ve read in a decade.  You’ve probably never heard of Dr. John Hannah.  He’s not particularly cool.  

“John Hannah is an Alliance [of Confessing Evangelicals] Council member and the Distinguished Professor and Research Professor of Historical Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He has been affiliated with the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals since 1995. He has a Th.M. and Th.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, an M.A. from Southern Methodist University, a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a Post-doctoral Fellowship in American Studies at Yale University. A prolific writer, he has authored numerous journal articles, contributed chapters to many books, and has authored or edited several more. He is a frequent conference and church speaker, both home and abroad. He and his wife, Carolyn Ruth, are the parents of two adult children.”2

He teaches History.  He is not really interested in what’s happening now.  Or is he?  I want you to read the quote I found regarding why all Christians should be students of History: 

1st Hannah Quote - Dr. Hannah said this in a live interview, so it isn’t stated here as clearly as it might be.  But notice the words in BLUE .  

Sometimes “contemporality” (and I’m not even sure that’s a real word) is irrelevancy.  Sometimes, to be contemporary is to be irrelevant.

That is exactly what I have been trying to say for years, and didn’t know how to say it.  Thank you, uncool history professor Dr. Hannah!  To be contemporary, only concerned with what is happening presently in the culture without any historical context, is to be irrelevant.  

Many, many people within evangelicalism are fervently striving to be relevant and contemporary by distancing themselves from everything within historical Christianity.  In other words, the cutting-edge evangelicals of today are trying to re-invent Christianity, and deliver it from the dregs of the past.  Consequently, what they are succeeding in doing is creating un-Christianity.

I get a LOT of so-called Christian junk mail.  It is Christian, so-called.  But there’s no doubt about the junk part.  I got this promotional poster yesterday to put up on our bulletin board.  This is from Dare 2 Share Ministries.  Of course, the word “to” is a number, just so we can be hip.  SHOW the POSTER.

Apparently, we need to be un’d.  READ the POSTER.

I agree with Dr. Hannah.  This is so contemporary, it is irrelevant.  It has no connection to anything historical except a cryptic reference to some kid in the Bible (if you’ve ever heard that story) with a slingshot.  This is ignorance parading as intelligence.  Listen to something else Dr. Hannah said:

2nd Hannah Quote   

Novelty!  New things!  What’s happening right now, in this present generation, in this culture.  What new schemes can we invent to reach the unreachable.  Surely, the old ways of doing things won’t work on these progressive, modern, . . . yea, POST-Modern young adults.  They are SO contemporary, they are beyond modern!  What can we do to reach them??

Well, obviously, we need to re-invent evangelism.  We need to re-invent Christianity and the Gospel and present it in Text Message-ese, the only language an 18 year old can understand, with lots of smileys and frownys and BYBs and LOLs and BFFs and such.  

The very last thing that could possibly have any real spiritual impact on this post-modern generation is the teaching of what the Bible actually says, and actually teaching it from the Bible!  How archaic can you be?  You actually expect these young brains filled with video game images and iTunes to actually READ the Bible?  You expect them to actually sit and listen to someone else read the Word of God?  How naive!  

Beloved, I am not making this stuff up!!  While I have engaged in what may seem to be nothing but sarcasm, I am in fact sharing with you the mentality of MANY PEOPLE within evangelicalism today.  If you recall, way back at Screen Shot #3 we saw that the Journey Church of Manhattan described itself as relevant and contemporary.  

What that means to us here in this room is that you and I are sadly irrelevant and totally fossilized.  We don’t do Facebook, we don’t Tweet or Twitter, we don’t do multimedia (or rarely, and then we don’t know what we’re doing), we don’t do social networking.  To be irrelevant and un-contemporary means the preaching and the teaching of the Word of God straight out of the Bible is both undesirable and inadequate to reach people for Jesus today.  Were you aware of that? 

I want to show you a few verses of Scripture beginning in Romans, chapter 10.

Verse #1 

What is Paul talking about?  Well, presumably, he’s talking about the same thing all the relevant, contemporary folks are saying.  How does one come to saving faith?  How is it that a person comes to know Jesus as their Savior?  According to what we hear and see today, it all depends upon the packaging.  Not even the apostle Paul himself could preach an intelligible gospel message to a high school youth group today because he’s the wrong package.  The kids can’t relate to someone who walks around in flowing robes and uses big words like “sin” and “repent”.

Here, the Scriptures tell us that a person receives the faith to believe the gospel message by means of the preaching of the message of Christ.  Faith in Christ comes to a person by means of preaching the message of Christ.  Just communicate the message clearly and let God awaken the dead, unbelieving heart.  But for many, MANY people today, merely preaching the Gospel message is too simplistic and too unsophisticated to be of much use to POST-moderns.

Verse #2 - What that means is that these verses are obsolete.  

Preaching has become obsolete in this enlightened and progressive culture.  Supposedly, as a result of zillions of hours of endless TV programs and video games, today’s culture has the attention span of a gnat.  You can preach the word as long as you don’t take more than 15 minutes to do it.  Otherwise, your entire audience automatically reverts to a catatonic state.  Preaching is out.  Story-telling and sharing and spiritual therapy sessions are in.  

Verse #3 

2 Timothy 3:16-17 used to be true.  Somehow the God-breathed, inspired Word is no longer profitable today.  You can’t become spiritually competent simply by learning the Scriptures.  

Virtually everything I see happening in popular contemporary evangelicalism today is in direct opposition to the Word of God.  The Bible is not taught, expository preaching is discouraged, the Gospel message is dumbed down to the point of being inoffensive and useless.  The only way people are genuinely saved in such an environment is totally “accidental.”  The unbeliever is treated as though he has a right relationship with God solely based upon the fact that he is created in the image of God and “God don’t make no junk.”  

All of this has happened because of a pervasive faithlessness in the adequacy of God’s word to do the work of converting the soul.  Look at Psalm 19:7-11.

7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9 the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

God’s Word is perfect, sure, right, pure, true, more desirable than gold, and a great reward is given to those who believe it and keep it.  You and I are called to submit ourselves to it, not re-invent it.  We can’t modify, or customize, or edit, or amend, or revise, or adjust, or recreate what God has given us.  We can’t re-invent church, or evangelism, or the Gospel message.  We have the Spirit of God living within, and a God-inspired instruction book, for crying out loud!  What else do we want?  Why is this not enough?  Why do so many actually think they must improve upon what God has given us?

Now someone is going to say, “I thought we were going to study Isaiah today?  Why isn’t Keith preaching from Isaiah?”

I wanted to take the time to tell you that what we do here week after week, year after year, is relevant.  The Word of God is never irrelevant.  All of it is given to us from God for our profit, for the sake of our souls..God Himself attends to the preaching of His Word.  He has commanded that it be preached and taught.  Contrary to what others may do, even in our own community, I will not budge from my commitment to open this book and preach its contents to you.  And while that kind of worship may become less and less contemporary, it will never become irrelevant.  God’s Word is ALWAYS relevant.

Next week, Lord willing, I will return to Isaiah chapter 33, that Old Testament book written to the Jews 2500 years ago.  But its message is as spiritually useful to our hearts and souls today as it has ever been for all the saints through all the ages since it was written.  The Scriptures are sufficient for the Church of What’s Happening Now, What Happened Yesterday, and What Will Happen Tomorrow, and Until The Lord Comes For Us All.

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1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flip_Wilson

2. http://www.alliancenet.org/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID307086_CHID559376_CIID1964616,00.html