When Something New and Different Comes

Aug 30, 2026 • Pastor Tim McCalmont

It's really been wonderful to be with you in this time of transition that is now coming to a close.

And it's been such a joy to be with you each Sunday and work with your wonderful staff.

It's been short, but sweet.

As I said before, I came by for a cup of coffee.

But boy, was it sweet.

And so I have really enjoyed my time here with the leadership and the staff.

And though I haven't probably yet met you all, I appreciate your prayers and we will meet again, I'm sure.

I'm really happy this morning to bring a challenge to you as you step into this new era here at LNPC.

Challenge is so much a part of our lives and much of those challenges come as a change that's placed before us.

How do you deal with change in your life?

It's all around us, isn't it?

The cultural changes that just are mind-boggling.

I've been spending time with Ben Roebuck

Your staff guy, he is into technology and I can't even begin to comprehend much of what he says, let alone what he does.

But it's changing so rapidly.

And how about changes, personal changes in your family?

Today we've come with my son David and my grandson Eli.

Eli once, not long ago, was a little baby.

And we held him in our arms and now he's taller than I am, bigger than I am, beginning his junior year at Biola.

And he's going to school for two days and then he's getting on a plane and he's going to Turkey, Greece, and Italy to follow Paul's journeys.

And then he worked out a deal with his professors and he's coming back to enter the term late.

So say hello to Eli on your way out.

He'd like to meet you.

but he represents a change that is so lightning fast.

It's like a fire that just burns through your life, and you've got to adjust.

You've got to change.

Remember that book that came out when we were back in the 70s, just after the Civil War?

Future Shock, Alvin Toffler.

I didn't believe him.

His voice was prophetic.

Well, Jesus in our text for this morning, as Isaiah did a few moments ago when we read his prophecy, he is addressing local religious people, actually followers of John the Baptist.

And they came with questions about how to live out their faith.

And as we've learned in weeks past,

He responds with a story, with a parable.

And so I read from Matthew 9, verses 14 through 17.

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?

And Jesus said to them,

The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?

The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made.

Neither is new wine put into old wineskins.

Otherwise the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed.

But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

The Word of the Lord.

now Jesus tells a story about how the culture carried their beverages and they carried them in this container that was made of dried animal skins they called them wine skins because that was their beverage of choice and wine

After it was poured as new wine, it needed room for fermentation and expansion.

And so the skins needed to have an elasticity.

But over time, they became hard and stiff and brittle.

And when new wine was poured into old skins, they would give off gases that caused pressure on the skins

And if they were new, they'd allow, again, they'd allow for that expansion.

But if they were old, hard, and brittle, and dry, it would explode.

And the wine would spill out and be lost.

Jesus uses that as a way to describe that God is doing something new.

Lili, I like the first song we sang this morning.

God is on the move.

That's one of C.S.

Lewis' favorite lines.

Aslan, the lion in the Chronicles of Narnia, is on the move.

God is dynamic.

God is never static.

And Jesus is describing here, this is like a celebration because God is on the move.

It's like a wedding feast.

It's not a time for lament or mourning.

That's what fasting was about.

But God has come with His joyful presence, and it's time to party on.

This is a feast.

But then he adds just a word about how this will not be one continuous party because life as we know it is not like that.

There will be times for mourning and sadness coming for he's headed to Jerusalem where he will be crucified, dead and buried.

Then something else is coming after that, we all know.

But they must be ready for it all.

And even in this first century traditionally bound culture, you need to be ready for the new thing that God is doing.

Well, I was thinking about when we face major change that arises from life's circumstances, like in our personal lives, when we come across computer changes.

You ready?

You get a note and it says, there's a new update available.

Am I supposed to smile when I get that?

I don't know.

Or you're shifting to remote work in an emergency at your job.

Or you're moving to a new city or

You're becoming a parent for the first time.

Let's talk about change, huh?

Or how about navigating a new life as empty nesters?

Retirement after a career of structured 40 hour work weeks.

These all bring dramatic changes in our lives.

And that's a real challenge, isn't it, that squeezes us and those close to us, and we have to adjust the way we live each day.

So why is it that we often oppose change?

Well, I think change is upsetting because, as Jesus said, our wineskins are brittle, inflexible, for a variety of reasons.

Maybe it's because things have been the way they are for a long time.

And we've just kind of settled in and we got used to it.

And our views have become, our views of fixed reality in the world have become stagnant.

We've become accustomed to the way things are.

In fact, we've become quite comfortable

Some of us might even be benefiting from this status quo.

So why do we need to change?

That's what we ask first off.

What's the big deal?

It's good the way it is.

That's the motive behind the Jewish leaders of the day when Jesus shows up.

They were the keepers of the tradition in the first century Jewish world, and that tradition was really important.

The fasting, the way they lived, who they hung out with, they were all fixed and they were tradition and they were to be held.

Well, that shows up later on in history, doesn't it?

Centuries later with Galileo.

You ever heard of Galileo?

What did he invent?

Anybody remember?

History time.

He invented the telescope.

And he challenged with that invention, came along a new way of thinking about the universe.

He postulated the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe.

It was not even the center of our solar system.

And that was a total shock because the culture and the church had taught that for centuries.

So he took his new thinking to Pope Paul V, and the church turned against him, and he was cooked.

At age 70, he was threatened with torture, and he was forced to recant, to confess that what he had discovered was in error.

And he did.

Yet even after he recanted, he was placed under arrest and he was treated badly until he became blind and feeble.

Galileo died on a cold winter's day in 1642.

We were not ready for the change that he announced.

You know the seven last words of the church?

We've never done it this way before.

Isn't that the truth?

There's something about this combination of this culture we've developed, we've gotten used to, and this kind of religious aura that stays with us.

And that becomes our fixed point.

Perhaps we aren't ready for this because it makes us uneasy

Most of us don't like surprises.

And tension arises when we're unable sometimes to comprehend what's happening.

It's so new, it just doesn't, we don't have any place to put this new thing.

I remember this story about a farmer and his son visiting a large city and they were standing, this was years ago, they were standing in a hotel lobby in this big city.

And they were looking at this bank of elevators.

And they look at these elevators and they say, what is that?

And the son says, I don't know.

And then they watch as this old tired woman goes into the elevator and the doors close and they watch that dial as it goes one, two, three, four, it goes all the way up to seven and it stops.

And then they stand transfixed, looking at that dial.

And then it goes six, five, four, three.

And it goes all the way down to one.

The doors open.

And this beautiful, young, blonde, Orange County kind of woman walks out of the elevator.

And the father looks at his son.

He said, go get your mom.

We got to put her in there.

Other people probably looked at that elevator and said, you ain't putting me in that box.

I'm not going anywhere.

That's a killing machine.

We've all got these different ideas about changes that come.

Look at the reaction today to artificial intelligence.

Oh, this is going to be the death of civilization.

There's other people like Ben that look at this and they say, wow, that is really something.

That's going to really improve our lives.

Well, Ben actually has mixed feelings about it, but anyway.

There's lots more reasons why change is so difficult.

So as Christian men and women in the 21st century, what do we do with change, especially in the church?

You know, this is a good word for LNPC at this point, asking the question, how can we help ourselves and each other when change comes?

Because it's coming.

And as you face the new thing God is doing in this congregation, there's a new aura

of being the church together that you're about to find.

Often when we read these narratives in the gospel, we imagine Jesus or the Apostle Paul in his writings, that they're speaking to us personally, individually.

And that message certainly resonates with us on that level.

But actually, most often,

The Word of God is addressing a group.

Jesus is here addressing a group.

Sometimes He speaks to large groups.

And even most of the letters in the New Testament are written to churches, sometimes many churches.

In this case, He's speaking with disciples in a group.

These changes are what His disciples together are facing.

They've got to deal with them individually as well, but He's addressing a group.

You are together here now at LNPC for this transformational moment in your life together.

Certainly your new leadership will bring changes.

But God has been stirring among you in your lives individually and among you.

We've all been a part of discussions as to how we're going to face this new era in this congregation.

And God has been working with each of you and with Ray and Janine and others who will come soon.

There's something new going on here that hasn't yet happened here.

As you engage these changes together and renewal comes.

That's how God works.

God is on the move.

Always.

And that's the story of Scripture.

From the first pages of Genesis, God speaks and change comes.

Change comes over the chaos and God orders the chaos and creates something no one could ever imagine.

As Mel Allen, the New York Yankees broadcaster used to say, how about that?

Unbelievable.

Not what was expected.

And changes continue throughout the history of God's people.

As they trust God, new life emerges.

Moses leads Israel out of Egypt.

Not in a way that they expected, but it became a rebirth of a people.

And there's times Israel fails to trust and obey God's direction, and they get stuck, don't they?

Forty years.

They head out of Egypt, and God's leading them, and then they just have some trouble trusting God.

So they spend 40 years in the wilderness.

Later on,

Same thing happens, and they're sent away in exile to Assyria or to Babylon.

But God never, ever abandons His people.

In each case, there's a remnant, and God delivers and restores.

We recall Ray's sermon two weeks ago when he was here from Isaiah 42.

It talked about changes and God doing new things.

In the very next chapter, the prophet says, Behold, I'm doing a new thing.

Now it springs forth.

Do you see it?

I will make a new way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

He brings them home.

According to that prophecy, later He brings them home in a totally unexpected fashion.

And as their expectations form as we move into the New Testament about God's ultimate rescue, again, He comes in a totally unexpected way.

Unprecedented.

The Messiah comes not as this hoped-for military conquering hero, but as a simple carpenter from a backwater town in Galilee.

An unexpected surprise.

And it's often unsettling as it unfolds.

Change is the name of how God works in and through us.

And we should expect nothing less.

And it only calls for our trust and obedience as we practice our faith.

The primary model for me facing change in the church was many years ago.

In my life, it's a part of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood.

It was a large church in Hollywood, obviously.

It was conservative.

It was an amazing place to grow.

That's what it looks like now.

That's almost totally what it looked like then.

And it had a history of growth.

Good, traditional worship with the very best music.

It had a solid, growing Christian education program for children from the cradle all the way up through adulthood.

And a vibrant mission that extended all over the world.

Henrietta Mears.

whom you've heard me talk about before, was on the staff there, the director of Christian education.

She was an influential leader in the worldwide church.

And she taught us that we are to take the gospel to the world.

The Sunday school grew.

The mission of the church stretched the church

Those growing pains that naturally come with such change.

We had the best of traditional worship.

You remember the way we used to dress?

Bill Wood will appreciate this.

With shirts and ties and coats and suits.

Ladies wore hats like Henrietta Mears.

Gloves.

Sunday was dressing to the nines, as they used to say.

That's what it was like.

Through the 50s and the early 60s, that church became the largest Presbyterian church in the United States.

It was successful.

but it started to settle.

Had it figured out.

It was under control.

Be careful.

Because God is on the move.

As the wineskins stiffened and became brittle, here came the 1960s.

And the world counterculture came to Hollywood.

And they camped on our streets.

What are we going to do now?

We had been taking the gospel to the world, and that's what we did.

But now the world had come to Hollywood.

And it changed so much of our lives and eventually how we lived out our faith.

Now here we were, as this culture came in, we started to sing new songs, we let our hair grow, we came to church in cut-offs, flip-flops, and so much hair!

My goodness sakes!

And at first it was a shock!

But eventually, gospel hospitality prevailed.

And we saw the Holy Spirit at work and lives were changed on all sides.

People came to faith in Christ for the first time.

People who had been in the church all their lives, our lives were changed as well.

And we found new ways to worship and new ways to do mission.

We had musical concerts and we shared the gospel message through this new music.

We opened our homes to care for homeless kids.

The church was actually reborn into God's new thing.

And then later a new pastor came along and new changes came again.

And today, Hollywood is in another time of change and transformation, unlike anything they've seen before.

God works with us, driving us through these change moments.

And we are invited to move and to lean into these changes.

with persistent prayer, continuing to ask and search and knock on God's door and willing to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

But you know what?

Dialogue and respectful conversation are part of the changes.

For me, this has kept my wineskins supple and flexible, listening to other people, hearing their concerns, their views and their values, sharing my views in grace and in truth, and then joining in prayer together at every station along the way.

It's not been, for me, the healthiest change has not been confrontive,

It's come that way sometimes, but by far, the majority of positive, healthy change has not been confrontive, divisive, or vitriolic, but it's been inviting, luring.

This is what Jesus does when he tells these parables, and this parable, a simple story.

And he invites conversation, he invites questions.

He presents listeners with a choice to make.

And together, in conversation, we are able to discover the new things God is doing.

To me, this shows healthy wineskins that allow for fermentation for what we are experiencing in God's new thing.

That's helpful for me in a phrase I first heard years ago.

As Presbyterians, we are always reformed and reforming.

We are reformed in our theology.

We believe there are certain things about the eternal God that are unchanging.

We can count on God for those certain essential things.

God as the Creator, God as three persons, God coming in the flesh in Jesus of Nazareth, the atonement, the crucifixion, the resurrection, fixed.

The Holy Spirit coming, fixed, and that Christ will come again.