For instance, the basic importance of marriage and the family unit were taken for granted. It was largely assumed that truth and goodness were absolutes - and the measure of agreement on standards of right and wrong was very substantial! People saw work as a good thing and it was assumed that there would be a job for everybody. Standards of living were certainly lower, but this seemed to be accepted - and acceptance led to social stability.
We see this most obviously in the growth of technology. Our lives are affected by new ways of doing things, new kinds of transport and, perhaps more than we realise, by the computer.
These changes are confusing to the old, but the new generation is conditioned to accept change. I recall an old lady who complained that they shouldn't have brought in decimal currency until all the old people had died off. If she had still been alive, I wonder what she could have thought of metrics. I recall visiting another lady during the Apollo 11 mission. They couldn't possibly land on the moon, she told me, because we aren't meant to go up there! I tried to prepare her for what was about to happen, but it was no use!
However, the important changes (some subtle but many not so subtle) have been in community values and lifestyle.
I suppose we have all heard the story of the frog experiment. It has been discovered, so we are told, that if a live frog is popped into a pan of boiling water it will hop out to safety. But if it is placed in a pan of cold water which is then slowly brought to the boil, it will stay in the water until it is too late - and die!
So there is another set of changes that have been taking place in society and suddenly it is coming home to us (is it too late?) that something drastic has been happening! Suddenly, with great boldness the practitioners of immorality are able to "come out of the woodwork" and declare themselves in full confidence that they will be accepted and perhaps even commended!
A few months ago we had a Family Forum in this Parish which encouraged us with statistics that 95% of couples are living in registered marriages. Yet the divorce rate still hovers around 40% - each year there are forty divorces for every hundred weddings. It seems to be accepted that many couples will live together before (or without) getting married. Some actively promote the idea that it is good preparation for marriage - despite the statistics which show that domestic violence is up to seven times more likely in such relationships!
In other ways, too, the Ten Commandments are being rejected by many as giving a basic rule for conduct. Truth is becoming a very relative matter. And what you do is up to you - you do what seems good in your situation. We can live extremely selfish lives, provided we are not actively harming someone else or their property.
We have a generation growing up to take these kinds of change for granted. Ask any teacher about the proportion of children in schools from single-parent families and broken homes and about the effects on class discipline. These children are not only being brought up in insecurity, but, with poor employment prospects, are going through school towards an insecure future.
Yes, there are. In the midst of change, we seem to have rejected them as possibilities. Yet only accepting these certainties can restore meaning, purpose and hope to life.
There is a God, the final Maker of it all. Now, someone will say, just about everyone believes that! But do they? and do you? It is one thing to say, "There's got to be some final explanation for it all! There must be a God!" But it's quite another to believe it in a way that affects how we live.
Before coming to this Parish, we lived in a suburb blessed (?) with jets flying overhead - until the new runway was built and the Bayside suburbs began complaining about the noise we had been putting up with for years! There was no question that everyone in Bulimba believed in aeroplanes. They didn't need to be convinced of their existence! But there was a significant proportion of older people who wouldn't be seen dead in one, even if someone gave them a ticket! Do you believe in aeroplanes? Do you trust your life to them? Do you allow them to benefit and change your life? That's another question! And it's the kind of question I am asking about your belief in God.
We are responsible, accountable to God. I think this is where our lack of real belief in God shows up. We say there is a God, but then want to make our own rules. We say there is a God, then act as if he isn't interested in us. And we are wrong both times! He's the Boss, not us! The time of reckoning will come!
We speak very freely about the certainty of death and taxation. But the Bible speaks about another certainty - "Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God" (Hebrews 9.27). How do you think you'll match up - by God's standards?
We can't make it alone. By our own standards we're not too bad, most of us. But, if God is the Boss and we must answer to him…! Already the verdict is "guilty!" and the sentence that awaits us is a Hell of separation from God and from everything good.
Paul wrote, "Sin pays its wage - death" (Romand 6.23). But the sentence doesn't come as a sudden ZAP! out of heaven. It has been deferred. But make no mistake about it - it is certain. God isn't a kind of sentimental Santa Claus who doesn't mind much either way how we live. Rather, he takes our rejection of him very seriously. If we choose to live alone, without reference to him, we will find ourselves very alone - we won't make it to heaven!
But God loves us. He's not a big computer master-mind. He's a Person. He is Love (1 John 4.8). He hasn't left us guessing. He has communicated with us, told us his love and provided the Way. And there had to be a Way - because we are guilty and under a deferred sentence and yet he loves us and wants to share life with us, here and through eternity!
It was Jesus Christ, God's own Son, who said, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me" (John 14.6).
Think about that unique life - in the centre of our history. Never has there been such an outstanding life marked by such genuine care for others! But the people of the day couldn't stand it. His kind of life exposed them (as it exposes us) for what they were! They plotted to get rid of him, had him nailed to a cross, thought they'd seen the last of him! But - you can't kill God! If Jesus really was God's Son, how could they do it? Only if it was part of God's plan! And that's the point of it all! He came alive again to confirm his identity and to make it clear that his death is not just a sign of human rebellion and rejection - his death is a sign of God's love, for Jesus took the sentence himself, experiencing all the pain and aloneness that awaits us if we persist to the end of our life trying to make it alone.
God will accept anyone and everyone who has faith in Jesus. All sorts of people try to make it alone - some by helping others and carefully trying to do the right thing, others by caring only for themselves and lashing out against the rest of society; some by regular religious observances, others by giving up all religion.
None of us can come with credentials. Jesus said, "I will never turn away anyone who comes to me" (John 6.37). We come with our uncertainty and need. We come, agreeing that by God's standards we are guilty, yet accepting that the sentence has been paid for us.
These are the certainties in our world of change. This is the Way back to meaning and purpose - to life!
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