Rev. David Holwick J Easter Sunday
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
March 31, 2002
1 Corinthians 15:12-22
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I. Spread of a virus.
A. Our state has been bullseye for biological terrorism.
1) Anthrax is nothing compared to smallpox.
a) Eradicated from planet, except for two labs.
One is in Moscow, the other in Atlanta.
b) What if terrorists get hands on it?
2) Tiny microbes infect a few, who infect a few, and all of a
sudden millions have the disease.
3) 30% to 50% could die.
4) Thirty-year-old vaccine has just been found.
B. Little things can have a huge impact.
1) Malcolm Gladwell's book on tipping points.
a) Viruses, crime, fads.
b) Society is molded by tipping points.
2) Key points:
a) The Law of the Few.
Some people are more influential than other people.
One or a few people can tip the scale.
b) The Stickiness Factor.
There must be something compelling about it.
We're said to be subjected to an average of 254
commercial messages daily. Almost none stick.
A tipping point has to grab our interest.
c) The Power of Context.
Impact depends on our situation in life.
It just wouldn't have been the same had it been Paul
Revere's Afternoon Ride.
At midnight people weren't off in the fields working,
they were home, asleep.
When Revere pounded on the doors of the most
influential people in town, they were startled.
His message had impact and was spread widely and
quickly.
II. Easter is greatest tipping point.
A. Law of Few: Jesus is unique focus.
1) Not just death as example, but death as unique sacrifice.
a) Only Jesus could do this.
b) Cross is a pretty weird symbol if you are trying to
invent a religion.
2) He didn't just die, he was resurrected.
a) Far beyond being a spirit in heaven.
b) Resurrection is the welding of the spirit world with
the physical world. Another dimension?
c) It is the most remarkable claim in the Christian faith.
B. Stickiness: his message still reverberates.
1) Jesus' message is different.
a) Turn other cheek, love enemies, care for the least.
b) Goes against our instincts.
c) Yet in our hearts we know it is truth.
2) His message is validated by Easter.
a) If he wasn't raised, the message is all a lie.
b) Paul goes farther - Christians are useless, liars,
and damned... but only if it is not true.
c) If it is true, we have more than a message.
We have salvation.
C. Context: He came during a critical time in history.
1) Roman peace united much of the world, from Persia to Italy
to England.
2) Old faiths were crumbling.
3) Jesus appeared.
III. Easter can tip us.
A. Law of the few - it is not for everybody.
1) Two billion identify themselves as Christians.
a) How many really are?
2) Jesus says many will THINK they are saved, will be deluded.
a) In his words, it is a narrow road and few find it.
b) Obedience, joy and fruit will be the signs of
genuineness.
c) Do YOU have them?
B. Stickiness - Because he was resurrected, we can be, too.
1) Not just going to heaven when we die.
2) Real life, right now. True fulfillment.
C. Context - Jesus can save you were you are at right now.
1) Salvation begins as the smallest event.
2) Small changes multiply till they transform us.
1980. Many Americans get their first exposure to Muslim
fundamentalism when Iran seizes the American embassy.
Afshin Ziafat was an Iranian Muslim.
He also happened to be in the United States, not Iran.
When he and other Iranian-Americans were experiencing persecution
because of the hostage crisis, a Christian tutor gave the
young boy a New Testament.
"She said, 'Afshin, you won't understand this book, but I want
you to hold on to it and read it later in your life."
After having grown up in a devout Muslim home, Ziafat said he
became curious in high school about Christianity.
After some searching in his closet he found the New Testament the
tutor had given him.
He opened it up to the first book of the New Testament, Matthew,
and read the whole book in one sitting.
And God just developed a hunger in his heart to keep reading.
Afshin later accepted Christ during an evangelistic campaign.
Like many other former Muslims, however, his decision bore huge
consequences.
His father, a prominent leader in the local Muslim community,
finally discovered the decisions Afshin had been hiding.
He said, "If you are going to be a Christian, you cannot be my
son."
It hit Afshin like a ton of bricks, because here's a God he's
only known a year and a half and here's his dad, his hero.
He was ready to throw up his hands and say, 'Forget it. I'm a
Muslim.'"
But he surprised himself by telling his father that if forced to
choose between his earthly father and his heavenly Father, he
would choose Jesus.
It was only later that night that God led him to Matthew 10,
where Jesus says, "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will
acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.
But whoever disowns me before men I will disown him before my
father in heaven."
From that point, Afshin said God started doing "amazing things"
in his life.
God provided a roommate who also was a former Muslim, tuition
support for seminary and an opportunity to develop a
nationwide speaking ministry through a Dallas church.
Even the relationship with his father, he said, improved.
"So I just want to encourage you that we have a God who is
faithful, even in the midst of persecution," Ziafat said.
"I just know that there are many Muslims who live their life in
fear of God -- not the holy fear we read about in our Bible,
but the fear that God will condemn them if they don't do
enough good deeds," Ziafat said.
"But as Christian leaders we must remember to tell our people
that we have the greatest power at our disposal.
And that's the love of Jesus Christ."
"I believe we can impact many people with the love of Christ at
this time, and I think that's what impacted me," he said.
"I'm so glad that there was a second-grade teacher who loved me
enough, in the midst of hate, to give me a Bible and lead
me to Christ."
#20586
IV. We can tip the world.
A. Small band of apostles turned world upside down. Acts 17:6
1) Terrorists caused turmoil. We can do opposite - do good.
2) Many Christian ministries are having an impact.
a) Angel Tree, providing presents for prisoners' kids.
We did it for first time last year.
Now we need a coordinator for next year...
b) Other service possibilities.
3) Every action counts.
One pastor has said:
We are not always at the mercy of forces beyond our control.
Small, moral acts repeated over a period of time can bring
about large-scale change.
Progress is often slow, invisible, and change is not always
obvious.
So often efforts to bring about change appear, in the
short run, to be failures.
We expect an action to produce an immediate reaction.
But in many cases, small actions add up until critical
mass, or a tipping point, is reached. [1]
B. We have a great message. It speaks to our hurts and dreams.
C. Context - wherever you are at in your life, accept God now.
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] Sermon by Rev. Suzanne Meyer, Fountain Street Church, Grand
Rapids, Michigan. February 4, 2001.
#20586 "Tutor's gift of Scripture later draws Muslim to Christ," by
James Dotson, Baptist Press; October 4, 2001.
These and 20,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
=========================================================================
HOLWICK'S ILLUSTRATION COLLECTION Number: 22618
SOURCE: Christianity Today;
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/009/6.64.html
TITLE: How To Infect A Culture
AUTHOR: Michael Cromartie
PAGE: 64
DATE: 8/7/00
ILLUSTRATION:
Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell thinks churches can learn a lot
from the flu bug.
What do the weird resurgence of Hush Puppies shoes, the sudden drop in
New York City's crime rate, the steady rise in teen smoking, and the
revolutionary success of SESAME STREET have to do with proclaiming the
gospel? A lot, if you take to heart Malcolm Gladwell's thesis in his
bestseller, THE TIPPING POINT: HOW LITTLE THINGS CAN MAKE A BIG
DIFFERENCE.
Gladwell, a staff writer for THE NEW YORKER, has taken principles of
epidemiology (the study of how diseases spread) and translated them into
strategies for understanding the life cycle of cultural trends. Just
like disease epidemics, he says, ideas and messages have "tipping
points"-dramatic moments when, all at once, they explode upon a society
and "infect" it. Studying these phenomena could help us "start and
control positive social epidemics of our own."
CT advisory editor Michael Cromartie spoke to Gladwell at his NEW YORKER
office in Manhattan about social epidemics and their potential
implications for the church.
HOW DOES THINKING IN TERMS OF EPIDEMICS HELP US UNDERSTAND OUR SOCIAL
WORLDS?
It gives us a new appreciation for the extent to which ideas and
behaviors can be contagious, and that we pick things up largely
involuntarily. When your 6-year-old decides she wants a Cabbage Patch
Doll, she's not sitting down and making a rational choice. She has
caught the Cabbage Patch "virus." She caught it the same way kids catch
a cold virus in first grade.
There are moments when all of us get swept up in causes, ideas, and
behaviors. There's this notion that every time we do something, it's
because we sit down and make a rational choice. But we fool ourselves
when we think that individuals are autonomous creatures. We're not. We
are exquisitely sensitive to the pressures and influences of the world
around us.
WHAT ARE THE LAWS OF EPIDEMICS THAT CAN BE APPLIED TO THE SOCIAL SPHERE?
First, there is the Law of the Few; with epidemics, a core group does
all the damage, all the work, all the spreading. This is true in social
epidemics as well.
Certain personality types are responsible for playing that critical
role. There are "Connectors"-a small number of people who know a lot
more people than the rest of us do. "Mavens" specialize in knowledge
accumulation, and we appeal to them for insight or expertise.
"Salesmen," those with a gift for persuading others, are the third type.
These personality types have an extraordinary amount of social
influence. But it's not the influence of power, money, or physical
attractiveness; it's personality. The people who are ultimately
influential in your life are not the ones with status or money but those
who inspire trust, credibility, and love.
BUT JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS CONTAGIOUS DOESN'T MAKE IT AN EPIDEMIC.
Exactly, which moves us to the second law, the Stickiness Factor. The
common cold is the most contagious virus we know, but we never talk
about epidemics of a cold because the cold doesn't stay around. We do
talk about flu epidemics, and the difference is that the flu is sticky.
You're on your back, it stays with you for two weeks, and you remember
it. It changes the way you live your life.
The same is true of ideas. For an idea to take off, it must be more
than simply infectious. It also has to make a lasting impact on
everybody it infects, which is that additional quality of stickiness.
SESAME STREET is a show that deliberately engineered stickiness; the
producers figured out not just how to capture a kid's attention but also
how to create something that would stick in their brains. We're often
too concerned about the initial grabbing of the attention. But an idea
takes off not just because it grabs your attention but because it stays
with you. And the things that make something stay with you are often
not obvious but quite small.
In a famous study at Yale University, researchers tried to influence
students to get tetanus shots. They played with all kinds of variables:
Should we make them take a two-week course, or a one-week course? Read
a 10-page paper, or a 15-page paper? It turns out the only thing that
made a difference was the little packet they gave students: it included
a campus map to show them how to get to the place that administered the
shots. That's what made it sticky. They didn't need to be warned about
the dangers; they didn't need a two-week course on the medical history
of tetanus. All they needed was a map.
YOU'RE SAYING IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TO INFLUENCE PEOPLE, IF YOU KNOW WHAT
THE KEYS ARE.
The Power of Context, the third principle I discuss in the book, says
human beings are much more sensitive to their environment than we think
they are. Years ago two psychologists at Princeton University gathered
a group of seminarians and said, "We're giving you a topic to work with.
Prepare something quickly, and deliver your message to a group of
professors." On their way to give the talk, each student came across a
man moaning and in dire need. The question was: Who's going to stop?
A few variables were built into the experiment. They asked everybody
whether they were in the ministry to help people or for intellectual and
spiritual fulfillment. Some students were given as their speech's text
the story of the Good Samaritan. Others were asked to speak on the
relevance of a religious vocation. And the third variable was that some
students were told they were already late to the lecture and needed to
hurry.
Most of us would think the people who were in ministry to help others
would be the most likely to help the moaning man. Also, it's hard to
believe that somebody who just read the story of the Good Samaritan
wouldn't stop to help. As it turned out, the variable that made a
difference was whether people were in a hurry or not. Those in a hurry
didn't stop. Those who weren't in a hurry did stop.
What this tells us is that even someone who is committed to helping
people in ministry, and has even just read the story of the Good
Samaritan, can under certain circumstances act in a way-when presented
with a certain situation-that does not allow them to express their
fundamental humanity.
I don't doubt that all of these students were decent, honest, spiritual
people. But at times, even good people have their goodness frustrated
by circumstances. External circumstances are incredibly powerful; they
can thwart even the most profound set of beliefs.
WHEN IT COMES TO MAKING CHANGES IN AN ORGANIZATION, LIKE THE CHURCH,
WHAT IS A KEY FACTOR?
There seems to be a kind of tipping point in human organizations at
around 150. When groups get larger than that, all the personal ties
begin to break down. You can no longer know everyone's name.
Time and again, churches form with a charismatic, effective leadership
and committed people. And because they are so successful, they grow,
and at a certain point they grow so large that all the things that made
the church wonderful in the beginning begin to fade. Unless you do
certain things to promote the same level of intimacy, closeness,
involvement, and humanity in a large group as you have had in a small
group, something is lost. And when churches start to exceed that 150
level, they need to break up the group into smaller pieces. One of the
things that made the early church so successful was that they created
small cells, pockets of community where people had close ties.
THIS HAS ALSO BEEN A KEY TO THE SUCCESS OF MANY INFLUENTIAL CHURCH
MOVEMENTS IN HISTORY. IN THE BOOK, YOU MENTION METHODISM.
The genius of early Methodism was in setting up structures, not just
churches, with rules that held the group together until people were able
to build up a much stronger set of personal bonds and greater attachment
to their faith. John Wesley spent his life traveling on horseback,
seeding all these groups, visiting one after another, giving them an
injection of energy and inspiration. The interesting thing about him is
not that he managed to create a religious movement in his lifetime; he
was able to create a movement that has lasted hundreds of years after
his life.
YOUR MESSAGE IS HOPEFUL: MAJOR SOCIAL CHANGE CAN BEGIN WITH JUST A SMALL
GROUP OF PEOPLE.
Absolutely. A message or idea doesn't have to have status, power, and
money behind it, but it does have to have the right kind of
personalities. These people - Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen - aren't
interested in furthering themselves; they're just doing it because
that's who they are. It's as natural as breathing to them.
*
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