Allen Jackson - Let's Please God - Part 1
The title is, "Let's Please God". How many of you have heard one of the talks on "Let's Pray". I mean, we've had a let's-pray moment outside of church. What are the rest of you doing? And then we talked about, "Let's Do Difficult". And I know some of you heard that because wherever I've gone in the country, people come up to me, and usually they're scowling. And they go, "I heard you talk about, 'Let's Do Difficult.'" I'm like, "Well, it's good to see you too".
Well, this week, I participated in a seminar yesterday in Nashville with a group of leaders really from across our nation talking about what's going on in our world. And if you haven't been paying attention, if you've been busy or you've been on an island someplace or in a cave, we're in real trouble. I don't want to spend a lot of time this morning belaboring that. We talk about it from time to time. I think we have to talk about what's happening in our current culture. I don't understand that to be political. I understand that to be being salt and light. We're not pushing parties or agendas, the parties have published their agendas, they have platforms, they tell us what they're gonna do. You can decide, but what's going on right now is unprecedented.
If I were gonna give an analysis of our nation and its health, if midnight is the point in time where it's irreversible, it seems to me we're at about 11:58. I honestly don't believe we have a decade to sort this out. I don't think we have a half a dozen years. I think we will either make some significant course changes, or the judgment of God will be unleashed upon us. It isn't helpful to me to couch it in terms of the end of the age and the return of the Lord. The Bible says none of us will know exactly about that. But I can tell you that what we're doing is unsustainable. We will not sustain our sovereignty if we continue with the behavior patterns we have.
This experiment in self government was dependent upon a value set that bound us together, that was derived from a biblical worldview. We were not a uniquely Christian nation. We never have been. There was not a state sponsored church, but the values of that Judeo-Christian faith were understood to be the fabric that held this great experiment in self government together. It was never imagined any other way, that is abundantly clear. To say otherwise is either an expression of remarkable ignorance or intentional deception. You know, this week we had a former president charged and convicted. Irrespective of how you feel about that, that's the first time in history that that has ever happened.
And I assure you, former president Trump is not the first president who was perceived or believed to have been less than wonderful. The list of grievances is startling. I earned a degree in history. If I started you down through them, that we've never taken the justice system and weaponized it against political adversaries at that level, it has not happened and now it has. And I think it's, we've talked about a season of shaking that began in a unique way in 2020 was extended again in October of last year. And I believe this week will prove to be another one of those episodes. It'll take a bit of time for the impact of all of that to shake out. But it isn't limited to that.
I interviewed, as I said, some people that are very involved in the abortion discussion, and while they've had some victories and we have more than 15 states now that have got some limits on abortion, if not bans on abortions, we aborted more babies last year than ever. More than a million children. Did you hear that? You understand? We spend more energy protecting the nest of the sea turtles along the gulf coast. We do. And now the big pharmaceutical companies are involved and we're shipping abortion pills across state lines, and children, young people can purchase those. I mean, what we're doing it's just unbelievable.
We began yesterday Pride Month in our nation. From a biblical perspective, that's just unimaginable. I mean, the list of things, in fact, at some point this week, as all of this was unfolding, it to me, it just became almost overwhelming. And there was a heaviness in me and I walked around for a day or two saying, "Lord, I don't have words". You know, it seems to me if we can go on vacation, if we can get our summer plans and they're not interrupted, we're just good. We're kind of golden. We'll roll along. And what do we say? And I didn't even know what to say to the Lord 'cause this is our watch. This is our generation. We're gonna be evaluated. If not by historians, we're gonna be evaluated in the halls of heaven.
This is our generation. There are generations in scripture that are called exceedingly wicked. There's generations in scripture that uniquely experienced the judgment of God. I mean, this is a deal, and this is our time in the arena. And I didn't hear, you know, I didn't have a burning bush, and there no donkey approached me with a message, four legged or two. Don't be offended. That Balaam story gives me hope every weekend 'cause I know God wants to help his people so bad, he'll use a donkey. So I show up week after week, okay? But I did have on the inside of me a sense of an assignment, and it's really in keeping with "Let's Pray" and "Let's Do Difficult".
I have picked up a project for the summer. "Let's Please God". What can we do in the face of brazen expressions of evil? 'Cause I don't know another way to understand it when they target our children, when they'll mutilate our adolescents and consider it a profit center. When they wanna sexualize our small children with pornography in the libraries and our good citizens don't wanna do anything about it. We don't have to go to Washington to find these problems, folks, they're happening in our communities. So what can we do? Let's determine, let's make our focus: we're gonna please God. We can do that. We don't need a vote. We don't need a political party. We don't need a majority opinion. This is a decision that could start in my heart, in your heart and in our tables and in our peer groups. Let's please God.
You see, if we will make our great passion pleasing God, then God will address anyone and anything which opposes his purposes and his people. I believe that. That's the record of scripture. That's the story. It's the story of his people through the generations since the scripture. On the other hand, if we're ambivalent about pleasing God, there's no amount of effort on our part which will bring victory over those who oppose God. We're not gonna outwork the devil. We're not gonna out-plan evil, we're not gonna out-organize. We need the help and power of God. And the reality is, the awkward truth is we don't have the power to overcome evil. But God does.
So here's the assignment. "Let's Please God". This is very available to us. You don't have to have a PhD in theology. You don't have to fully form systematic theology. You don't have to know the original languages in Koine Greek or Masoretic Hebrew. You and I have some fundamental concept of what it means to please God. So let's say this summer, more than last week, we're gonna please God. When I'm together with my family, when I interact with my friends, when I plan my schedule, when I get up in the morning, what would it look like for me today to please God?
Let's stop acting like we have no clue. There's only two options here. We're either pleasing God or we're displeasing to God. Contemporary Christian, and we've created this new third lane that's kind of like, well, neutral. I don't believe that's a biblical option. We're either pleasing God or we're displeasing to God, and we're making a commitment this weekend as at least one community of faith, we're gonna please God. We're gonna turn up the volume. I think that's exciting. I mean, I'm gonna keep watching and listening and thinking and acting. I'm gonna pay attention to what's happening, but I'll tell you what's more powerful is our determination. We're gonna please God.
So what you see this week, I don't care. Turn up the light. I'm gonna please God. And you know, church is an important part of that, but I think it's even more important that we do that when we go to work and when we're with our friends. Stop doing things you wouldn't do if Jesus was coming. I mean to the gathering, I don't mean at the end of the age. If Jesus was at the party and you wouldn't do it, stop.
See, I don't think it's so much that we're ignorant. I just think we're disobedient. How did we get in this fine mess? I think for the most part, we said we were saved, and we felt so good about that. And then we added to that reality, common conversations about the grace of God, and I'm saved and God's gracious. And that we were like, we were good. The rest of it, I don't know. It doesn't matter that much to us. It's very, very similar, and we'll look at it at some point during the study, but when Jesus was here and he talked to his contemporary on this, they were the covenant people of God living in the land that he promised to them, with the temple that he allowed them to build, offering daily sacrifices that he had directed them to offer, gathering three times a year from across the nation for the pilgrimage feast.
I mean, they were all in, and they rejected Jesus, his message, and they said to him, "We're Abraham's kids. There's nobody else like us. We are Abraham's kids". And actually John the Baptist before Jesus got here, he said, "God can make Abraham's kids out of the rocks". Now, we don't say we're Abraham's kids. You know what we say? "Well, I've been born again". Now, please don't misunderstand me. I believe in the new birth. I believe in conversion. I believe in salvation. But I also believe you have to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And if the fruit of our lives is not godliness and holiness and righteousness, there is a very serious question about the nature of your spiritual condition. I'm not the judge of that, but by the time you see the judge, you can't revisit it.
So you should pay attention to the fruit. Again, this is so simple. We can all get to this. Whether you're a New Christian or a veteran Christian, you have some sense of what it would be to be pleasing to God. What we've lacked is the intent. To displease is a verb. It's to incur the disapproval of, especially, the dictionary said, by being annoying. Here's just a thought: don't annoy God. That will not work out well. So the questions you wanna begin to live with a little more in real time is what would please God today with what is on my to do list? What would this please God? And I'll start on your notes with just this very simple assertion that pleasing God is a better way.
1 Corinthians 1, and verse 21. "Since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him". The wisdom of this present age. You see things that presented to you and to me as being wise, apart from a God perspective, the Bible says are not wise at all. Now, our world is filled with messages and ideas that are given to us as coming from the the pinnacle of wisdom, and they lack a God perspective. In fact, we're told frequently now that our biblical worldview is out of date. It's not progressive enough. We haven't kept up with the emergence of culture, as if the Creator of all things is behind the learning curve. It's not a new thing. It was happening in the 1st century.
"Since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe". It pleased God to bring salvation to people who would believe in his Son. It made God smile. You wanna know one way to make God smile? Care about seeing people get to know Jesus. So if you wanna go to work this week and make God smile, talk about Jesus. Well, but they won't smile. Okay. Okay. Duly noted. When you go to the ball fields this week to watch the kids or the grandkids or wherever you're going, take Jesus with you. Like put him on your clothing, put him on a cap.
When you sit down on the bleachers, "I'm so excited about Jesus". It'll bring a benefit. You won't be crowded. There'll be lots of room. You put all your stuff around you because there are not many people gonna sit there with you. You could say all sorts of ungodly, immoral things and they'd move in. You can be chic. You know I'm telling you the truth. That's why we can kind of laugh nervously. Look at verse 22. "The Jews demand miraculous signs, the Greek look for wisdom, but we preach a Messiah crucified: that's a stumbling block to the Jews and it's foolishness to the non-Jews, but to those whom God has called, Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God. The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom". When God's just fooling around, he's smarter than we are. It pleases God to honor Jesus.
Look at Luke 12. "Don't set your hearts on what you'll eat or drink". This is Jesus speaking, "don't worry about it". Well, we do that almost every day. Some of you live with the market. They're up or down, you're panicked, you're anxious. You look at the debt, the leading economic trends. I mean, they're scary stuff, folks. What we are doing economically is unsustainable, do you understand that? As a part of this series, I wanna talk a little bit about how, what it looks like to please God with our resources and our attitudes towards resources, because our only hope of security is in God, 'cause what we are currently doing is a pathway to total collapse. I don't mean some downturn. It's not a recession.
We should be so fortunate. It is totally and completely unsustainable. And Jesus said, "Don't set your heart on what you'll eat or drink; don't worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom, these things will be given to you. Don't be afraid, little flock". I love, I almost imagine myself in the crowd and Jesus looking at this pretty good, big group of people. He says, "Don't be afraid, little flock, but your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom". It pleased God to welcome us into his kingdom. How much do you care about that?
See if we talk about pleasing God, what we're really saying is I'm gonna order my life and my behavior and my patterns and my friends and how I think and what I do and the boundaries that I have. I'm gonna order all of those things as an expression of my desire to be a part of the kingdom of God. But somehow we've come up with this kind of segmented life where we don't really have to think about the kingdom of God until we're dead. And then we'd like to get in, please. I mean, down here, we would like to be fully engaged in the kingdom of this present age. We don't wanna keep up with the Joneses, we wanna annihilate them, in a God-honoring, Jesus-loving sort of way, right? I mean, we ask questions like, well, how far is too far? How much is too much?
Stop. There is a kingdom that transcends time and it pleased God to enable us to participate in His kingdom. So then Jesus gives us some counsel. "Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that won't be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". Jesus is giving, its very plain language. He gives us this contrast. He said, we're either pagan or we're God-conscious. He said, don't set your heart on this stuff. That's what pagans do. So we either acting like the pagans do or we're gonna be God-conscious. He said, seek my kingdom. There's benefits that will come with that. Attach value to what God has given you. It pleased God to give this to you.
Now act like you care. Jesus is actually coaching us to express effort directed towards God's kingdom. He said provide for yourself purses that won't wear out. He didn't say God will provide them for you. He said your behavior makes a difference. Let's please God. Let's decide this is gonna become a new mantra in our lives for us as a community. We wanna please God. 1 Corinthians 10 gives us a contrast. Pleasing God is a better way. It's talking about the Exodus generation. No generation of people, perhaps, maybe that 1st century generation that were here when Jesus was here, but beyond them, I don't think there's any, not even closely approximates that Exodus generation in living in the power of God.
They ate manna every day, they walked through the Red Sea that he parted. They were led by a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. They saw God on Mount Sinai. I mean, they lived in the supernatural provision of God. There were no sick people amongst them. So it was a remarkable group of people. And this is the commentary, and it's repeated both in Old and New Testament. This is 1 Corinthians. It says, "They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ".
Did you know Jesus was in that group? When the water came out of the rock or the manna was there every morning, Jesus was present, overseeing it. He was caring for his people. He'll care for you and me. We don't have to be filled with anxiety about what's going on in our world, about the wickedness and the perversion and the ungodly stuff. We can't be silent because if we're silent, we are condoning it. We have to do our part. But the outcome, the changes, the deliverance, that's God's part. God delivered the Hebrew slaves, not because they had a military that threatened the Egyptians, not because they had a plan that was better than the Egyptians.
By a very clear presentation of the power of God, they were set free. And Jesus was with them. "Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; and their bodies were scattered over the desert". So here's the options. You remember, we said, there's only two. This third lane really doesn't exist. We either please God or we displease him. And here it says, God helped them. Miracle after miracle, manna every morning, he did all these things for them, but he was displeased. He was not pleased with them and their bodies were scattered. The language is very intentionally disrespectful. We don't scatter dead bodies. We treat them with respect and dignity. That's why we have burials.
That's why cemeteries are maintained. It's an expression of respect for those who have preceded us into eternity. But that's not the imagery here. It says their bodies were just scattered. And look at the next verse. "These things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did". They set their hearts on evil things. They didn't want to please God. It wasn't a lack of...they believed in God. They were eating God's food every day. But they just thought, you know, he's gonna feed us no matter what we do. I can do what I wanna do. I don't have to please God. It would be difficult to find a more accurate presentation of contemporary evangelicalism in America.
We don't have to please God. We've done our God business. Then he gives us some very plain coaching. And remember, he's writing this to Christians, to a Christian community of faith in the city of Corinth. "Don't be idolaters, some of them were. We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did. We shouldn't test the Lord, as some of them did. And don't grumble". What would happen if you couldn't come in the building if you've been immoral or you grumbled or you tested God? We'd have small groups at church. Well, I didn't call your name. I'm here with you.
Look at verse 11. "These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come". We don't wanna be in that group where God is displeased. They set their hearts on evil. Let's not do that. Let's not give our time and our energy to competing with people who we know are pursuing ungodliness and they go, "We're just gonna do it in a more Godly way". Let's not do that.
Hey, before we go, we wanna pray.
Heavenly Father, I pray you'll give us the boldness to stand for you in the midst of this most significant season. I thank you that through the blood of Jesus, you have delivered us out of the hand of the enemy. That you've given us everything we need for life and Godliness. May we live in such a way that you're pleased with us and your purposes break forth in the earth. In Jesus's name, amen.