Allen Jackson - Transformed Lives - Part 1
I think the greatest need for transformation is within the church. I believe that those of us who imagine ourselves to be Christ-followers, can cooperate with the Spirit of God, he would bring about the changes that would bring transformation to our world. And I think that will require the help of the Spirit of God and it will require a change of heart within us. I think, typically, our desire is to look through the windows and think, "If the other people would just be different, our world would be better".
That's not unusual. We think that in our homes. We think that about our children. "If the teachers were better, our children would be smarter. If the coaches that oversee our children were just more fair, our children would have better opportunities". We tend to bring that same frame of reference to almost everything we do, and it's unfortunate because at the end of the day, the only place we ultimately have the authority is over our own choices. I wanna start in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, in verse 9. It's a presentation of the end of the age and it's talking specifically about the emergence of this figure that the Bible tells us, will step on to the stage of human history as we approach the very end of the age.
We generally refer to him as the Antichrist. But Antichrist is a spirit that the Bible tells us has been prevalent in the world throughout the story of scripture, that there have been many Antichrists, many individuals, that were embodiments of that, but at the end of the age, there'll be an individual that will accept that bargain that Jesus rejected, "If you worship Satan," he said, "I'll give you the authority I have over all the kingdoms of the earth". That's the theme of the Book of Revelation, the battle between the beast and the Lamb. If the Bible describes that individual as someone who is beastly, I think it should have our attention.
Well, in 2 Thessalonians 2, it says, "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and to so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned, who have not believed the truth, but who have delighted in wickedness".
Its description of a very chaotic time, a very polarized time, a time characterized by great deception, by much, many perishing for a refusal to love the truth. It says every sort of evil will be widespread. The deception will flourish. Deception is when you believe something to be true that is not. You can be sincere and be sincerely deceived. When you see people that are struggling with deception, you shouldn't imagine you shouldn't question their sincerity; they've simply adopted something as being factual or truthful, which is not. And all of those things are said to be increasing as we approach the end of the age.
I could walk you through multiple passages that would highlight those characteristics we just read, and what Paul was writing to the church at Thessalonica. In the heart of it, he said, that "they would refuse to love the truth and they would reject salvation". Those of us who gather in churches, the unifying principle that should connect us is we've acknowledged that we are sinners and we need a Savior, that we cannot save ourselves, that only the redemptive work of Jesus of Nazareth is sufficient to enable us to gain access into the eternal kingdom of God. Otherwise, we stand apart from that, no matter how kind, or how generous, or how loving, or how benevolent.
We require a transformation that we cannot generate on our own behalf, and Jesus is the sole doorway into that transformation. It is the message that the church holds. It's one that, unfortunately, we've stepped quite a ways away from. In fact, we've added our voices to a large growing chorus of voices that there are many ways to solve the world's problems, but Jesus is no longer imagined to be at the center of that. Well, that's the description that's being given here, that we will refuse to love the truth, we will no longer accept God's truth. Like we say now, it's very fashionable to say, that "all truth is subjective that you can't know my truth". And you can't, I can't know your truth.
And here a truth, and there are truth, and everywhere, a truth, truth. And I agree that personal perspective certainly is a component of understanding the world and we should be mindful of one another, but there is such a thing as an objective truth; the truth isn't dependent upon my opinion. Gravity does not depend upon your opinion. If you step off the edge of the building, you'll still fall to the earth at 9.8 meters per second squared. Even if you say, "I don't believe in gravity," all the way to the point of impact. There is objective truth, and there is objective truth about our world, and there's objective truth about the end of time; it's the gift of the Word of God that we can understand it.
But when it's described as a powerful delusion and the result is condemnation, it should have all of our attention. I take a moment with that because I have said something to you repeatedly, and I'm gonna continue to repeat it, is that the great need we have is not for a political solution. We have a spiritual problem. The reason we see circumstances around us of escalating violence and declines and all sorts of ways of effectiveness and efficiencies that have defined us as a people previously, is we have, we are experiencing a spiritual deterioration that's unprecedented in our lifetimes.
And I believe that if we have a spiritual change, it can be reflected in the political arenas, but we shouldn't imagine that the political arenas will be the leading edge of the changes. I can illustrate that I think pretty clearly and offend everybody in one fell swoop. That's not easily done. But in the last two national elections we've had, we've had both primary parties represented, they gained power.
Mr. Trump was elected and implemented a set of policies that many people agreed with, and by the time when he was out of office, within six weeks of exiting the office, the majority of the changes he implemented were undone, and Mr. Biden was elected and chose a pretty dramatically different course, with an open border and different policies regarding energy, and different policies regarding immigration, and different policies regarding international relations.
And it seems, to me, that no matter which party you represented, we're angrier than we've ever been. We're more dissatisfied and we're in the midst of another election season, and there's a group of people that desperately want Mr. Trump back in the office, and there's another group of people now that are desperately advocating for Vice President Harris, but both of those sets of policies have been fully expressed, and we still have overwhelming problems before us.
Now, I believe it makes a difference who you vote for, and I'm completely in agreement with elections have consequences, and you definitely need to participate in the process, but you need to have the awareness to recognize no matter which side wins, they have not demonstrated the ability to fix us. There are deeper problems afoot and your anxiety around it is misplaced if you're not leaning into the spiritual changes that will be required. We should be able to choose between political parties or political candidates that share a worldview.
That's where our greatest health is, and the church has to believe that. This nonsense that we don't talk about those things in polite society is because we don't have the courage to say in the public square what we truly believe. And we're gonna have to grow up, folks, or the judgment of God is gonna come on us. We have to have a spiritual change, a change of heart, those of us that gather in churches and sings hymns and choruses and recite prayers. We're watching things we've never seen. It's an Olympic year; the Olympics are underway. It's been a, for my lifetime, it's been celebrated as an expression of cooperation, a global celebration of human achievement, and many of the best aspects.
Now, there have been some tragic events at Olympics, but this year, the organizers of the Olympics decided that they should begin with a mockery of the Christian faith. I mean, just as brazenly and clearly as it could be expressed. And then, they followed up with athletic competition that, in my opinion, has taken us backwards in the way we deal with one another with dignity. We have men fighting women. Now, the nuances of that we can talk about, if you prefer, but they're not particularly relevant. We've been told all of our lives that it's wrong for a man to use violence against a woman, that there's no justification, there's just a hard stop at the end of that; I think it's an appropriate lesson.
And we celebrate the Olympics as a global expression, and we're gonna award medals to men who fight women. What man thinks it's a good idea? "I can't really compete with the guys". And again, you know, they say, "Well, there's ways we can monitor this. We'll monitor testosterone levels". Folks, every cell in your body identifies this as male or female. This isn't complicated. And the Olympics are just an expression of a much larger dialogue that's taking a place around the world. It is the theater of the absurd. Who thinks it's a good idea to mock 2 billion people in what they believe? It's just nonsense, irrespective of what you think about Christianity; we have lost our balance.
We're conducting a national election right now, and we're told that one party thinks the pathway to consolidating power in this nation is promising the right to kill your children up to the point of delivery. And there's really no voices going on, "I don't think that's a good idea". Quite to the contrary, they're saying, "Nope, that is the path to consolidating power". And then, Christians say things, "Well, I'm not, like, a one-issue voter".
Hypocrite. If the issue is brazen enough to you, you're a one-issue voter. We're confused, we are addled; it's as if we have lost our balance. And in the midst of this, is the church; and perhaps, the church is in more trouble than any political institution or any political party. The churches in whole scale measures are rejecting the authority of scripture, saying that "We have to emerge and evolve along with culture". We're setting aside objective truth in order to be applauded by contemporary culture. That's not a new temptation, that's as old as human civilization.
On the other side, we find churches that are unwilling to engage our culture. We prefer to be experts in the culture of the first century. We can explain in great detail, the culture from which the Sadducees emerged or the Pharisees, or the Essenes. We can talk ad nauseam about the Roman government and the influence they had over Judea. But if we start to talk about our spiritual influence in the 21st century, we imagine that's inappropriate; it shouldn't be talked about. We prefer to discuss blessings in so many of our churches rather than to grapple with the demands of holiness.
We have a distorted grace, which obscures the necessity of the cross. We talk far more about the grace of God than we do the consequences of sin. Our churches have, unfortunately, become in far too many instances, advocates for a false gospel. We talk about justice without submitting to God's righteousness; there is no such thing. There is no justice for human beings apart from the righteousness of God. Churches spend more time advocating for DEI or CRT than talking about the holiness of God. We're confused and unfortunately, we gather far too often in too many places, just unaware, blissfully ignorant that the barbarians are at the gate, that in reality, that may very well be the judgment of God being released upon them.
I think we have to talk about church in some more specific terms. Once upon a time, we could just identify by denominational group. It said something to our musical preferences or our worship styles, whether they were liturgical or more casual. Nothing wrong with that; You're allowed preference in how we worship the Lord to a degree, but those distinctions are no longer helpful; there's too much diversity amongst the communities. And tragically, they're no longer unified by the authority of scripture or the redemptive work of Jesus.
We have multiple expressions, false church, false gospels, flourishing amongst us. Maybe the most prevalent is we have a gospel, now, that really has no consequences. We've highlighted the forgiveness of God, a God of love. We've celebrated that to the point that the idea has taken pretty deep root amongst the evangelical community, that sin has almost been rendered irrelevant. Grace is all encompassing, that you can live any way you want to, and you can do whatever you choose, and you can take any deviation you want from what you know, to be right and wrong, because at whatever point you choose to reconcile with God, you can come back and rather casually or flippantly go, you know, "I'm kind of sorry," and imagine that the forgiveness of God is such that there's absolutely no consequence.
So, we have a gospel without consequences. I don't believe that's an accurate portrayal of scripture. I think we purposely forget a generation that, we're told in The New Testament, was written down to help us learn, a generation who crossed the Red Sea, a generation who dined on manna and drank water from a rock. And then, when they refused the invitation of God, they died in the wilderness. I think we overlooked them. I think we look past Moses, one of the most remarkable leaders in scripture, but God said to him, "You cannot go into the Promised Land. You will not enter the Promised Land. You were disobedient".
And Moses pled multiple times. I mean, Moses, if you've forgotten, came down Mount Sinai with Ten Commandments, spent so much time in the presence of God, his face glowed in the dark, and God said, "There's a consequence to your stubborn behavior". Or David, the ultimate king of Israel. The Bible says, "A man after God's own heart". And David desperately wanted to build a temple for the Lord; it was his legacy he wanted to leave. And God said, "You cannot do it. There's blood on your hands that will not allow you to do that". And some will say, "Well, that's Old Testament, Pastor". You're right, Obi-Wan.
But we have similar patterns in the New Testament. You know, Ananias and Sapphira, they forfeited their lives because of selfish ambition. I mean, they were giving a gift, they were making an expression of generosity, but they had ambition for recognition for something that they hadn't done and it cost them dearly. There is a consequence for sin. I'm not diminishing the forgiveness of God or the power or the authority of the shed blood of Jesus. God forbid, but I'm telling you we shouldn't treat it casually or sloppily. You shouldn't lead presumptive lives.
The Bible tells us, "God is not mocked," and it seems, to me, we've encouraged a lot of mockery. We have a social gospel that's been received, that we would focus our attention and our efforts on helping those less fortunate than ourselves, and we were kind of free to create those categories, and we're free to direct our resources and our time. If we're doing something that the culture would applaud and say is good, and we're being open-minded and generous of spirit, well, I'm an advocate for benevolence and generosity and compassion and all of those expressions and even understanding of those who don't know the gospel, but there's a very fundamental difference between a civic club and a church.
Churches begin with the premise that we are sinners and we need a Savior. Churches begin at the cross and the necessity of a cross, that God determines right and wrong. I'm not opposed to civic clubs. I'm grateful for what they do, but that is not the church's assignment. And if we don't have the courage to say to the world in which we live and exist and do business, that "There's a God, and we have to make peace with him," then we've forfeited our assignment as the church. There's another gospel that's pretty popular. It's a happy gospel: God wants you to be happy.
So, let's just not finish the sermon and everybody will be happy. That's not the church you're in, so buckle up. No. No. And for the record, I'm not opposed to happy, but it's not the greatest life goal because it's driven by your emotions and they're transient. There's a socialist gospel that's popular in many settings. This one has pretty deep roots in academia and tragically has influenced the training of many of those who lead in ministry. It flourishes in our theology schools, has deep roots in liberation theology, which really originated in South America and was influenced strongly by feminist theology, and it has been a an invasion.
It leads us to a rather socialist gospel, which diminishes the cross and the need for the redemptive story of Jesus and gives more attention to inclusive language than it does the pervasiveness of sin; it's a false gospel. We have a universalist gospel. You hear this one espoused by many of the celebrities and many voices because it's very popular. It's wildly popular because it enables you not to exclude anyone. It denies the centrality and the uniqueness of Jesus. I mean, who would dare to say, "There's only one way to God"? Well, I mean, like, other than Jesus. When he said, "I'm the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except by me," and in a world that says, "perhaps the greatest sin you can commit is to be exclusive on anything about anyone".
A Universalist gospel is very popular and allows every individual to define God according to our own preferences and understandings. Folks, those gospels are not random, they're not hidden, they're not influencing small numbers of people. In many, many respects and the most celebrated expressions of the church and the public arena, they are the order of the day. Romans, chapter 1, and verse 16, I would remind you says, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, it's the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew and then for the Gentile".
That's the message we have: there's a power of God, available to every human being, to transform our lives. There's a power available to us that it can orchestrate a change of heart and may that change of heart begin within those of us who gather in the church. 2 Timothy 3, in verse 5, Paul is describing a lengthy set of characteristics of human character that will deteriorate as we approach the end of the age. He's warning Timothy and he makes a rather startling statement at the end of this list of 18 attributes of human character that will unravel. He says, "They'll have a form of godliness".
They're not gonna claim to be irreligious. They will have, be a very religious group of people. They'll have religious services in religious buildings and recognize religious holidays and use religious language. They'll have a form of godliness, but to deny its power. He said, "Don't have anything to do with them". And Paul's thought, the power of God is evidenced in the cross of Jesus Christ. He said, "I decided when I was with you," to the Corinthians, "not to know anything except Christ and him crucified". He said, "It's the power of God for the salvation of anyone who would believe".
You see, the cross is a rather ugly declaration that humanity cannot save itself. If global cooperation would elevate the lives of humanity, we would have accomplished it long ago. The cross is a very powerful reminder that we need a solution that we cannot provide ourselves. We needed God's intervention, so he sent his Son, through a supernatural intervention, the divine circumstance around his birth, and the message of the gospel is that he placed upon his Son, the punishment that you and I deserve for our ungodliness, that we, in turn, might receive all the blessings that would do his perfect obedience. It was not a just death, but it was a just resolution to the problem that we had of our ungodliness.
So, when it says that "they'll have a form of godliness," lots of religious words and lots of religious language, but let's not talk so much about that sacrifice thing. Folks, that gospel is too prevalent. And then, we've majored on the, the focus on our conversion, and if we believe we've made a profession of faith and been baptized, perhaps we don't have to talk anymore about that. I would submit to you, there's a change of heart that extends beyond conversion in the same way. There's a life that is intended to exceed beyond a physical birth. There's a spiritual life that's intended to continue beyond a spiritual birth. And I'll celebrate with anyone at any time that spiritual birth that comes at a professional phase.
It's not about joining a church or embracing a morality. It's the acknowledgment of Jesus of Nazareth as Lord Christ and King and giving him that first priority in your life. If he isn't your first priority in your life, there's a legitimate question, a serious question about the authenticity of your spiritual experience. But once we've made that decision, our lives have to be transformed more than by sitting in his church on the weekend. If we sit in church on the weekend and we're indistinguishable from the people who don't the rest of the week.
It's a fair question to what degree is our live, our lives affected by our faith. It's kinda like watching the Olympics and calling yourself an international athlete. You may even know what needs to be accomplished. You may know that they didn't perform the gymnastics move appropriately or the swimmer didn't come in first. It doesn't mean you're qualified to step into the arena. Well, there's no such thing as Christian spectators. We're either in the arena of the spiritual conflict that defines our generation or we're in the bleachers and the ones who are in the bleachers are qualified as either having stepped out of time or they're not engaged.