Allen Jackson - Enemies We Face - Part 1
Today, to be completely candid about it is, is really about worship. I'm gonna invite you to something with me. Before we go this morning, I wanna, I wanna place a new tool in your tool kit. Worship is about learning to use our voice to acknowledge who God is and what he said he will do on our behalf. Music and musicians and vocalists, I'm grateful for all they do to facilitate that, but that's really not the essence of worship; that's an invitation. When you and I choose to use our words and voices and with God's help, we're gonna look at what the power that represents on your behalf and mine. It's just a component of this notion of the intervention, because, you know, I have benefited in my life from many interventions. They have changed my life.
Many years ago, when the church was small, the first building we built, it's Genesis Sanctuary now, but it looked much different back in the day. There was a handful of us here and it was a tremendous step of faith to do that, and we borrowed the least amount of money we could. It was just a steel building that we put up and there were no finishes in it, and it had a concrete floor, and steel beams, and steel walls. And as we could afford to, then we would buy two-by-fours and build another classroom for the kids. I'd go buy two-by-fours, 12 at a time at the lumber yard.
We just about had that original note paid off, but there was still some on it. And it was a weight on a small congregation and in the way it was in those days, and a businessman that lived in another city called, he was friends with my parents. And he said, "I've had a burden on my heart for your little church". And he said, "Do you, is there, is there still a debt left on it"? And they said, "Yes". And he said, "Well, I would like to see that paid off. Would it be ok if I wrote a check"?
And it wasn't an enormous amount of money. It wasn't a six figure sum or a seven figure sum, but it was a sizable number to us at that time. And that man wrote that check so that we were debt free, and it changed the vision of the church in that season. It was definitely an intervention that we hadn't imagined that God simply brought to us. It's fun, I can tell you now, that that man's great grandchildren worship in this place. So, God is faithful. But, you know, interventions come in a lot of different ways. They don't all feel spiritual.
I grew up around here, in Middle Tennessee, and I played basketball at Riverdale 100 years ago, back when dinosaurs still roamed along Stones River. And, you know, I always enjoyed playing. I wasn't an overly gifted athlete. I couldn't really jump that high or run that fast. I didn't have crazy quickness. I couldn't shoot. I was just mean and stubborn, and apparently that there's some place for people like that in the world of athletics. So, they'd let me on the teams and I would mean and stubborn my way through. And I wasn't a lot different then, in some ways, than I am now, my backup button didn't work very well.
And there were times that my mouth would write checks that my body couldn't cash. Not prudent, I understand that, I'm working on it. And so, I'd find myself where it looked like an altercation was unavoidable and I was clearly outclassed in strength and athleticism and, you know, the time or two I thought, "Well, this might just be the way I go see Jesus". But one of my dearest friends was just the opposite of me, he was a gifted athlete and strong as a horse, and didn't say much, and I mean, he really had some gifts from the Lord. And on more than one occasion, when it looked like I was just about to step into the black abyss, behind me, there would be a voice say, "Leave him alone".
God bless him because without that intervention, I wouldn't be here with you today. At least, not in the way I have benefited from interventions in my life. And most significantly, I have benefited from God's intervention. I didn't seek the Lord out, he sought me. I haven't changed myself, God has changed me. I pray that I'm learning to cooperated with him a little more fully, but I assure you that to the degree that there is something in my life that honors the Lord, it has been initiated and sustained by him in spite of me.
You know, as a young man, I thought God probably took a sigh of relief when he recruited me to the team. At this season in my life, I understand the tremendous liability he accepted when he welcomed me into his kingdom. I wanna start with maybe the most familiar verse in all of the Bible, certainly the New Testament, it's John 3, and verse 16 says, that "God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God didn't send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him".
That is the description of an intervention, "that God so loved the world that he sent his Son into the world that whoever believed in him could have eternal life". We don't earn it, we don't qualify for it, you can't buy it, you can't be good enough, you can't keep enough rules because we can't keep the rules right enough. God's standard is absolute holiness, purity, perfection; we're not. So, God initiated the ultimate search-and-rescue mission, of which any person who chooses can benefit. That's the beauty of the church of Jesus Christ: It's the first multinational initiative; it will comprise people from every nation, race, language and tribe.
It isn't based on our height, or the length of our feet, or the color of our hair, or our IQ, or our bank balance, or our educational achievements; it's based on something that was done for us by another person, his name is Jesus of Nazareth. And if we will choose him, if we'll believe he's the Messiah, the Christ, and choose him as Lord of our lives and serve him as king, our lives can be transformed for time and eternity. It's the heart of the Gospel. There's no alternative to it in all of human history. There's no ideology, there's no new thing, there's no new thinking. It won't be replaced by technology.
I'm not opposed to learning, or technology, or science, but they are not a replacement for Jesus of Nazareth. He intervened on behalf of the human race and the destiny of this planet, and the church of Jesus Christ has the wonderful privilege of sharing that message with every generation. And we do better in some generations than others. Often the greatest way to nullify the effectiveness of the church, or at least to diminish it, is to let us prosper because the more affluent we become and the more options we have, the less focused we become on the goodness and the grace of God. My prayer is that the church in our generation can shake-off the sluggishness that comes from the muchness of our lives and give our very best to Jesus of Nazareth. Amen? He's intervened on our behalf.
Look, in Colossians 1, verse 13, "He's rescued us from the dominion of darkness and he brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins". He rescued us from the dominion of darkness. Be certain of this: apart from Jesus's intervention, we were slaves to evil. It owned us. It wrote our future. We were destined to destruction. Apart from the grace and the mercy and the kindness and the love of God, we were under the authority, the dominion of evil, and there was nothing we could do to rectify that circumstance. We were bound to it.
And God in his kindness sent his son to rescue us from that realm of authority and to bring us into his kingdom. For that, we are eternally grateful. We don't gather here on the weekends because we imagine we're perfect. We gather here on the weekends as an expression of gratitude for what God has done on our behalf in rescuing us from the dominion of darkness. I'm not looking for ways to incorporate more darkness into my life. I don't wanna be more deceptive. I don't wanna find ways to excuse it, or to tolerate it, or accommodate it. I wanna cooperate with the Spirit of God, and being delivered from every expression of the dominion of darkness in my life. Where you tolerate it, it will own you. You don't manage ungodliness, it will dominate you. I've had too many years experience and sat with too many people in that place.
Now, I wanna take just a minute and unpack a little bit further on this notion of the enemies that we face. When you become a participant in the kingdom of God, you inherit an adversary. You may say, "I don't like that," but, really, logic isn't the point here, or your preference. I read a book this past week about a British man and he was a participant in World War II. And he said when Great Britain entered the war, they didn't come to his house and say, "Would you like to participate in this conflict"? That based upon his citizenship in the UK, when Britain entered the war, he entered the war. And when you and I become participants in the kingdom of God, we inherit an adversary.
Now, frequently, in American Christendom, I find that we're a little awkward around that idea. Say, "You know, Pastor, I don't really know if I like to believe in the devil. I certainly don't like to talk about it. You know, I don't want to think about unclean spirits or demons or those kind of things". And I appreciate that, and if not believing in it or not thinking about it would deliver you from it. I would come sit with you, but that's about as effective as saying, "I don't want to think about calories. I don't really really believe in fat. Let's have two desserts".
Now, if not believing in it would deliver me from that, I would join you, but it wouldn't and it won't spiritually either. Look at Ephesians 6. It says, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms". The scripture says there are spiritual forces of evil that affect our lives. It says that we're in a wrestling match. The Living Bible says, "We're in a wrestling match with persons without bodies".
That's a pretty helpful image to me, that we are wrestling with persons that don't have bodies. So, you can't wrestle with them, you can't get him in a headlock, you can't put him in handcuffs, you can't tie them up. It's something else; we need another way of engaging, but it clearly establishes the idea that there are spiritual forces of wickedness, darkness, evil that impact our lives. Now, if that's the case, we need a plan and denial or saying, "Well, it's inconvenient for me to think about that," is not a great plan.
Look at the next passage. 2 Corinthians 10, "Though we live in the world, we don't wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ".
Before you turn the page, look at the language in that passage; it's militaristic. It says, "We live in the world, but we don't wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with not the weapons of the world, but they have divine power to demolish strongholds". That's assertive language. Warfare and weapons and divine power, demolishing strongholds if you're not familiar with the weapons. See, the purpose of a weapon is you have an adversary, an enemy, that strongholds, withholding from you, something. There's good news. It's not frightening. It's an invitation.
You are a spirit. Your spirit is created in God's image. Your spirit is eternal. You are a spirit. You have a soul, your mind, your will and your emotions, and you live in a body; but your body is temporary, it's on a countdown clock. But when your body is done, when your heart quits beating, you're not finished. Your spirit steps into eternity. And life is challenging. Have you noticed that? I mean, even for Christians: good, godly, Bible-carrying, church-attending, hymn-singing, "Bless your heart" Christians; life's more challenging than I'd like it to be.
Loving Jesus doesn't take the challenge out of your life. And those challenges come to every aspect of our person. We have physical challenges; sometimes, you get sick. You know, I like to tell that it's come to pass, it hadn't come to stay. We face diseases. We live physically with the impact of aging. Being a Christ follower does not remove you from the impact of aging. Sorry. We still get tired and weary, our bodies grow weary. I don't like that. I don't like to get tired. I just wish I could switch, to flip a switch, and renew, right? We face all kinds of physical challenges. We're tempted to take our fork and do destructive things to our bodies. The Bible calls it, "gluttony". It's a physical challenge.
We have more food to eat than we need, and it's a problem. Or we drink the wrong things and it's destructive to our body. The Bible calls it, "drunkenness". They're physical challenges. We have emotional challenges to our soulish self. They come to all of our lives: things like discouragement, disappointment, despair, fear, worry. If those things aren't real to you, it doesn't mean they're not real. There are many people here for whom those are very real, tangible, adversarial things in their lives. It's not your imagination, not your imagination at all. We have challenges for our thought life, for our minds. Temptation. Temptation is an idea. It starts in your mind.
Oh, it may have a, it may be linked to something physically that you've experienced, but the temptation starts in your mind. The Bible talks about being, "dead to sin". When you're dead to something. It has no attraction to you and it elicits no reaction from you. I like chocolate, I confess. You know, if yours is bothering you, bring it to me. Alright, but I got a feeling when I'm dead, you could float me in a vat of M & M's and I'm not gonna be tempted. It will hold no attraction to me and elicit no reaction from me. I'd be good to go. And the Bible says, we "have to learn to reckon ourselves dead to sin".
Temptation starts as an idea inside of me. Selfishness, envy, jealousy, lust; those are all thoughts. So, some of the challenge in our lives, the doorways that evil tries to exploit, sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's in my thought life, doesn't mean you're a bad person or a failure as a Christ follower because we face challenges in those arenas, but God has given us help. Alright? The simplest one of the ways that helps me understand it when God created you and me, he designed us, that one of the things that enabled me to serve the Lord was when I saw the the beauty of science.
Science made me wanna worship the Lord. The human body to me was one of the most remarkable things. God designed you with an immune system, a multi-layered set of defenses against things in this world that would diminish your health and well being. And it happens involuntarily, you don't have to sit around and think about it. You didn't get up this morning and think, "Make white cells, make white cells". And I doubt, on the way to church, you said, "Boy, I hope my epidermis holds up". I mean, there's multiple layers to your immune system and it protects you day-in and day-out, 24/7, keeping you strong and healthy. You're even designed so incredibly, that if you break something, it'll heal. You break your finger, you immobilize it for a little while, see to it that you get proper nutrition, and that rascal will get better. We act like that's normal.
Do you know how freakish that is? I dropped my cell phone the other day. You got that little spider web thing going on the screen. So, I'm an optimist. I rinsed it off with cold water like I would if I'd cut my hand. Okay, laid it in the sun because sunshine makes you feel better. I thought maybe it'd just heal itself. I don't have any luck at all. Do you know how remarkable it is God made you and me to heal? We act like that's normal. He did that for us. I always smile at Christians when we have debates, "I don't know whether it's appropriate to pray for the sick".
Let me give you a clue. The designer made you to heal. So, when I pray for somebody, when I pray for me, like I did this morning, "So, God, I know you've given me all the things I need to fight this infection. Let my body respond supernaturally. Let the sniffles go, and the congestion go, and the cough, in Jesus's name. Amen". This has not come to stay, it has come to pass. Well, just as he's provided for your physical wellbeing, he's provided for your spiritual wellbeing.
So, you don't have to read those passages in Ephesians 6 or 2 Corinthians 10, and respond with fear or anxiety because the Holy Spirit is the power behind your spiritual immune system. The Holy Spirit is the power behind your spiritual immune system. And to the degree that we learned to cooperated with him, he's the one who orchestrates our protection against all the intrusions intended to disrupt what you were created for. He is your friend. You don't have to be afraid of him. You don't have to limit his involvement. He'll never make you roll on the floor, bark like a dog, give away all your stuff.
We have irrational fears around the person of the Holy Spirit. We've got to become better at distinguishing between the Holy Spirit and unholy spirits. Then I'll give you a big rock idea on that: The Holy Spirit will convict you. He'll make you ill-at-ease with an attitude, with a behavior, with the practice, and he will show you a way out of that place. He'll invite you, he'll prompt you, he will never dominate you. He never will. I have had appointments, I suppose, through the years with hundreds, thousands of Christians, and I've never had someone show up and say to me, "Pastor, I need your help. I can't stop being holy. I've been trying to dial back the purity a little bit. It's becoming intimidating to all the people I work with and there's just something taken over me, I can't stop being better and better".
Never had that appointment. On the other hand, I've taken meetings with dozens and dozens of individuals and families who will say, "I know this behavior is destroying me. It's gonna cost me my health, my family, my resources, and I feel powerless to stop". An unholy spirit intends to dominate you. And when you invite it in and you think you can manage it, you can control it, understand you have unleashed something whose intent is your total destruction. So, you don't have to be afraid of the Holy Spirit. He will not dominate you. He just won't. Isn't that good to know?
Now, I want to take a minute and see if we can highlight, I do it, I'm okay, the audacity of evil. Let's define evil in the simplest way, is that spiritual force, but it's expressed through people, that stands in opposition to the purposes of God. If it stands in opposition to the purposes of God and the wisdom of God, I wanna define it as "evil" because its objective is destruction. You can't negotiate with it, you can't reason with it, you can't out argue it, you won't outthink it. The only thing that evil will yield to is a power greater than itself. What is stunning to me is the audacity of evil to continue to assert and demand. I earned a degree in history.
And if you look across the span of human history, you cannot find a place where evil has produced good. It hasn't brought betterment of humanity, there's no record of that. There's no history of positive outcomes, there's no story of improvement, yet, evil insists until this day, in the public square, to insist on controlling, manipulating, and dominating. Again, standing apart from with no intention of cooperating, with God's perspective or his truth. It demands its way, it demands control and domination. Again, it's a way to recognize something that is ungodly. Please don't be naive. The season has changed, we have to be more informed consumers in many, many ways.
Well, there's a, there's a story in the Gospel of Luke. It's not a story, it's an event in Jesus's life, and I wanna look at it with you very briefly. Jesus, the verses immediately preceding, Jesus has been baptized. And at Jesus's baptism, you'll remember, that the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and then a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son. I'm pleased with him". I'm thinking if that's me, that's a red-letter day, right? We're gonna do baptism tonight. 30 plus people. Imagine if 30 times a dove descends on the baptismal candidate and a voice comes through the ceiling, "That's my child".
How many think that'd be a good baptism? I bet you'd be at the next one. I'll be getting in the pool. Well, Jesus comes away from that triumphant day, Luke 4, verse 1, "Full of the Holy Spirit. He returned from the Jordan," where he was baptized, "and he was led by the Spirit in the desert where for forty days he was tempted by the devil".
Now, wait a minute. He's led by the Spirit to a place where he's tempted by the devil. Do you have a room in your portfolio of godliness for the Holy Spirit to lead you to awkward places? Because when I get in an awkward place, the thing that goes off on the inside of me, "Well, you must have missed it. You must have veered off the path. You might have gotten selfish or something". But the Holy Spirit leads Jesus to this place where he's gonna be tempted for 40 days. He fasts and Luke says, "At the end of forty days, he was hungry". No kidding.
And then, when he's vulnerable, if you'd have tempted him the day after baptism, he's still pretty fired up from baptism. 40 days later, he's hungry, and the devil comes, he doesn't play fair. He's evil. He exploits us when we're emotionally underdeveloped as children. We're not prepared to push back on him. It's why honoring God in our homes is so critical. We have a spiritual line of defense for those young people. And if your children are grown, we still hold a spiritual line of defense for the children amongst us. That's our as Simon is why we stand for godliness in a culture because it protects the people who don't yet have the maturity to defend themselves.
Hey, let's pray before we go:
Lord, we say, "Yes" to you; "Yes," to your invitations; "Yes," to walking uprightly; "Yes," to living out the faith you have placed in our hearts, in Jesus's name. Amen.