Allen Jackson - The Jesus People
I want to continue the theme that we began last week talking about our need for a Savior. Folks, we need a Savior. And if you don't know, his name is Jesus. The Bible says he's the Savior of the whole world. Not the originator or the initiator of a religious system, not a church planter, he is the Savior of the world. We need a Savior. The good news is we have one. I mean, that is really, really, really good news. You know, one of the most consistent, remarkable expressions of arrogance that ever emerges from humanity is this notion that we can get it right, that if you leave us alone long enough, we will cooperate, live together in tolerance, in brotherly love and charity for the betterment of all.
We keep pushing that idea forward as if there's some expression in our history that suggest we would achieve that. Apart from the intervention of Almighty God, we won't do that. We need a Savior. There's a fundamental flaw in us. The good news is we have a Redeemer. Not only do we wrestle with our own frailty, there is an adversary to the purposes of God in the earth, God's purposes being goodwill towards men. That was the Christmas announcement, was it not? Human beings are the image bearers of Almighty God. We are created, the scripture says, in God's image, and in the earth is an adversary to the purposes of God. So he hates the image bearers of Almighty God. Satan's intent, the scripture says, is to steal, to kill, and destroy. He's unyielding and unrelenting from the opening chapters of Genesis to the conclusion of Revelation.
So with our own frailty and the existence of an adversary who stands opposed to us simply because we are image bearers of God, we have a very real need for a Savior, every one of us. It's not an accusation or a condemnation. It's a realization. But the wonderful message, the good news of Christianity is that we have a Savior. His name is Jesus, and he will change our lives and impact our world for good. Jesus will not diminish your life. He won't diminish your opportunities. He will increase them. Don't ever apologize because you believe in Jesus. In fact, I want to begin with this notion that our identity is that we're the Jesus people. I'm grateful for that, thankful for that, enthusiastic for that. I wanted to be the primary identifier of my life. Whatever else you may be able to say about me, first and foremost, I want it to be said I'm one of the Jesus people.
Before you put any other descriptor to me as a human being or any accomplishment or achievement, I want to belong to the Jesus people. It's the greatest gift of my life, amen? I'm having little more fun with this than you, but I've done this a couple of times. So I'm warmed up. I brought you some scriptures. Look at Psalm 100. Says, "Know that the Lord is Himself is God; It is He who made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture". It's a very poetic verse, but it isn't just well-constructed, it reveals to us some principles that are important to understand. It says know that the Lord himself is God. There is a God. You need to know him. He is knowable. He is not beyond us. He has revealed himself to us. His desire is to make himself known. That is a powerful idea.
If God did not intend to be known, he would remain a mystery. But we don't simply serve a God who is a higher power or a benevolent force for good. His will, his character, his purpose can be known. He has made them known to those who are interested. And then it says it is he who is made us. The God that exists is our Creator. The Bible opens that way. It shouldn't be too big of surprise. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and we're invited in the plainest of language to understand that God has created us. That's a struggle in our world today. Many will say you're a bit out of touch, a bit old-fashioned, a bit naive, a bit behind the times, a bit intellectually-limited if you believe in God as Creator. I reject that notion. I don't think it diminishes you in any way to believe in a Creator God.
I began my academic career in the college level in the basic sciences. I know the pushback that comes. Folks, there's not a plausible explanation other than an intelligent design for our world. The idea that you and I exist because billions of years ago out of the primordial ooze a blob of something washed up on the beach and it was struck with lightning so many times that I emerged. Really? That's the best we can do? It seems far more reasonable to me to imagine that there was intelligence behind my design and creation. I drove a Nissan to work today, to church today, work today, both. I work at church. Parked that rascal in the parking lot. When I walk out after church, imagine if I stopped and looked at that Nissan vehicle.
You know, it's built just down the street. They do a really nice job. I have visited the plant. It's an amazing place. But imagine I looked at that vehicle and go, "Isn't it amazing what just happened"? Wonder how many years you'd have to leave that parking space empty until another vehicle emerged. Well, if I told you I believed that, you really would tell me I was foolish. And the vehicle I drove to the church today is far less complex than any one of us. God created us. God created us. There may be a process in place that helps us identify his thumbprints on that creative emergent, but God created us. It's an important note. And the Psalmist isn't walking past it. He said it's he who made us, and not we ourselves. We need that over in opposition to that idea. God made us.
We did not make ourselves. Say, "Pastor, I'm an industrious, hard-working, focused, self-sacrificing, persistent, unyielding. I'm well-educated. I'm a self-made, I have bootstrapped my way into everything that I am". Really? And I'm an advocate for all of those characteristics I just identified. I believe in hard work, and diligence, and perseverance, and education, and doing everything you can to elevate the opportunities you're given. Folks, we didn't make ourselves. Almighty God oversaw us. The Bible says he knew us when we were knit together in our mother's wombs. He gave us gifts and abilities. He chose the time of our birth, the place of our birth, the circumstances that have defined us. Whatever may describe my life is a reflection of the grace and the mercy of an Almighty Creator God. Not to be passive, not to sit down and say he should do more, but I understand God has been involved in the story that defines who I am.
And then David goes on and says we're his people. We're his people. We belong to him. We're not self-made. We're God's people. We're the Jesus people. We're the sheep of his pasture, it says. We're not only his people, we're in his pasture. Now, I get pasture. I grew up on a farm. My dad was a vet. I was responsible for the pasture in a season of my life. Our pasture was filled with horses. My job was to feed them, see that they had adequate water. I did an inspection every day to see if anybody had played unfairly. If there were bumps, bruises, cuts, if somebody was lame, wasn't walking normally, if there was a need in the pasture, I was responsible to pass the information along. I knew who was supposed to be in the pasture and I knew who didn't belong.
If I came out in the morning and there was something in the pasture that I hadn't put there, it was a problem. And I either had to find out who was responsible and see that it was removed. I knew the vet. He could have it treated so that you'd drug it out of the pasture. We are the sheep of his pasture. He's watching over us. There's some freedom in that. We are the Jesus people. We're not just church attenders, rule keepers, moralists, ethicists. We are Jesus people. Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is watching over our lives because we're living in his pasture. There's some freedom in that. Look in 2 Samuel 22. "The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock! Exalted be God, the Rock, my Savior"!
King David understood he needed a Savior. For all of his strategic genius, and his physical abilities, and the men that he'd marshaled, his followers, and the accomplishments of his life, he recognized he needed help. So do we. John 4, some of you prefer the New Testament, says, "We know that this man (Jesus) really is the Savior of the world". That's the pronouncement from a Samaritan village. The Samaritans hate the Jews, and the Jews hate the Samaritans. And in the 4th chapter of John's gospel, very early in the narrative, the Samaritans are announcing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Savior of the world long before they're ready in Jerusalem to grapple with that discussion. The Savior of the world. Our world needs a Savior.
Folks, the church has a message that the world desperately needs. As much as we may appreciate Google or the technological advances that we have or the digital communication tools that you prefer, Jesus is a better solution, a more important part of the resolution to the problems that face our world. And a church that understands who our Savior is and are grateful for that is a church with a message, it's important for you and for me. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21 says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God". It's a rather technical explanation. Righteousness, it's a big religious word, is the ability to stand in the presence of God without fear, guilt, or shame. That's important. In the presence of Almighty God, a God who is pure and holy, sinless, to stand in that place with no fear, guilt, or shame.
You may not know, but we all have an appointment for that meeting. Every one of us will stand before the Creator God. So righteousness becomes important. What are you going to offer when you have that appointment? Your credit card limit? My Riverdale diploma? What do you think is going to bring peace to you when you keep that appointment? The right answer is the ability to stand there without guilt, shame, or fear. The Bible calls that righteousness. So how do you secure that again? Well, we just read it. It said God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us.
Jesus took my punishment so that I might be recognized with his perfect obedience, so that in him, it says, we might become the righteousness of God. When we stand before God, if you've chosen Jesus as Lord of your life, if you have served him as Savior, you'll stand before the Creator God and he will see the perfect innocence of his Son. That's a good deal. You can never earn that, qualify for that, establish it on your own. It's not about joining the right church or reading the right translation of the Bible. It's not even about perfection of a moral code. It's about belief in Jesus of Nazareth. He is Lord of our lives. That is at the heart of the message of Christianity. It's what makes possible the transformation of our lives. What a wonderful story. We are the Jesus people.
Grace comes with responsibility. You know, Hezekiah, he was a king in Jerusalem. I bet you talk about him often, don't you? Hezekiah was a good king. And that may seem normative to you, but it really isn't. Israel only had a handful of good kings. After King Solomon died, there was a civil war. The nation was torn in two. The northern half of the nation became Israel. That nation never had a single godly king, not one. The covenant people of God living in the Promised Land never had a single godly king. The southern nation was Judah, and Judah had a handful, just a handful, a sprinkling, of godly kings. Hezekiah is one of them, godly man, led the nation towards godliness and righteousness and obedience to the Word of God. Hezekiah is probably most well-known today for a tunnel in Jerusalem that bears his name. Some of you have been there. It's Hezekiah's tunnel.
The spring for the city of Jerusalem was outside the city walls. There was an enemy coming, and if they could cut off their water supply, the city was easily defeated. So Hezekiah launched a plan to cover the spring and dig a tunnel that brought the water from outside the city inside the city wall. They started digging from opposite sides to meet in the middle because time was of the essence, the enemy was approaching. They didn't dig a tunnel that was linear. It's a serpentine tunnel, lots of curves and bends in it. To this day, they don't know how they accomplished it. Maybe a fisher in the rock through which water seeped. They don't know. How do you dig a serpentine tunnel and meet in the middle? They know they met in the middle because there's a little misalignment in the middle and there was an ancient plaque cut in stone that the archaeologists found.
In ancient Hebrew it signified the celebration when the two digging teams met in the middle. It was such an efficient plan that the tunnel, over time, they forgot about it. They thought the spring was in the bottom of the pool of Siloam that was in the city. And it's really only in recent history when the archaeologists uncovered it and they recognized the spring outside the city, and they started to invite the tourists to go through Hezekiah's tunnel. You can do it if you visit the city. Now, apparently the folks that worked for Hezekiah were not as big as Pastor 'cause for Pastor to walk through the tunnel, I gotta stoop over, and it seems to me the majority of the tunnel, I have to turn my shoulders sideways 'cause they were not only as tall as me, they apparently weren't as healthy as I am.
So if you're walking through Hezekiah's tunnel, you're bent over and your shoulders are turned sideways, it's not the most comfortable place. And the spring is still active. So about this deep in the water. You got cold water. And did I mention it's a serpentine tunnel? So the light at the other end of the tunnel is not visible. It's pitch black. And oh, by the way, the spring of Gihon, it's a pulsating spring. From time to time it releases more water, and the water rises. So the water is kind of sloshing and coming and going, and you're in the dark, bent over and your shoulder is turned.
Folks, if something had grabbed my ankle, there would be a new tunnel in Jerusalem. But if you're a tourist and you want that blessed experience, you help yourself. Hezekiah, godly king, he gets sick. It's in your notes. I'm going to give it to you in the shorter version. He gets sick, and he's not getting better. And God sends Isaiah the prophet, the same Isaiah who has a book that bears his name in your Bible, to see Hezekiah. Now, imagine you're sick and God sends the most high-profile Christian leader on the planet to see you. How many of you would think that's good news? You'd be a little excited. If you knew he was coming, he's made an appointment, how many of you would call your friends? You'd tweet it out. I don't know who that leader is, but I mean, the most high-profile leader on the planet is coming to see you. They've heard you're sick. He has a God message for you.
And Isaiah gets to Hezekiah's room. And you know what he says to him? "Hezekiah, get your house in order. You're going to die". Oh, you talk about a buzz kill. I guess there was grace in it. "Hezekiah, prepare. You're done". And Isaiah left. It's not great pastoral care. And the Bible says, you can read it, Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and wept bitterly. He said, "God, I have honored you. I have been faithful". And he listed some of the things. And before Isaiah got out of the building, God spoke to him and said, "Go back and say to Hezekiah, 'I heard your prayer and I will extend your life 15 years.'" Hezekiah got the extended warranty. We've been talking about prayer this year, but we've been talking about prayer for several years. May I ask you a question? What would have been Hezekiah's outcome if he hadn't prayed? They would have had a funeral.
Folks, when we fail to pray, we leave God opportunities unexplored. It's important that we have the courage, the boldness, the willingness, the humility to pray. How God intervenes, the timing of God's interventions, the method that God chooses to bring deliverance, that's not up to us, but our willingness to invite God into the circumstances of our lives is important. A praying church is an empowered church. It's a church that makes possible the opportunities of God in the earth in a whole new way. Hezekiah got 15 more years. It was an expression of the grace of God, his mercy. The king of Babylon heard about Hezekiah's remarkable recovery and he sent emissaries with letters of acknowledgment and gifts, international relations. We understand that even today.
And Hezekiah was so overwhelmed that a foreign king of the power and the importance of the Babylonian king would acknowledge him and his physical condition that he threw open the doors to the nation. He showed him the innermost parts of the palace. He took and showed him the temple and everything in the temple, the store rooms in the temple because in that point in history the temple was the National Bank. He showed him the wealth of the nation. After all, he made a difficult journey to celebrate Hezekiah's life. And then Isaiah came to visit again. He said, "Hezekiah, have you had a visitor"? "I have, from the king of Babylon". "And what did you show him, Hezekiah"? "Everything I have". "Even the temple"? "Yes, sir". "Even the store rooms"? "Uh-huh".
And Isaiah said, "Listen to what the Lord says. Everything you have, the king of Babylon will take. He'll destroy that temple. He'll plunder the gold. Hezekiah, you shouldn't have done that". Godly king. We celebrate his life until today. We still slog through his tunnel. But I could make a pretty convincing argument that Hezekiah's legacy would have been better without the extended warranty. He had an expression of grace, and he didn't respond as well as he might have. See, my prayer for myself and for you and for our nation is that we will not take the grace of God and treat it inappropriately, but that we will in humility seek God's best for every one of us, that we will recognize that God is our Savior, that he has blessed us with liberty and freedom and justice for all.
But that those things will only be recognized to the extent that we recognize Almighty God's sovereignty over us. Not everyone has to choose to worship the Lord, but the values of godliness have defined us as a people from our inception in the degree to which we prayerfully imagine that to continue forward we will know the blessings of God. We have a season to make a difference. What a wonderful opportunity. I thank God for you. My intent this evening is to talk about this in a little more detail from a biblical perspective, but for this morning I brought you a prayer. It's at the very end of the outline that I didn't do, but I will. If you'll stand with me, I'm going to ask you to pray it with me. Let's read it together:
Heavenly Father, thank You for expressions of grace and mercy. You have shown us kindness we do not deserve. Give us wisdom to choose Your pathways, grant us receptive hearts and listening ears. Only Your power and grace can bring life to us. We rejoice in our God and Savior. May the name of Jesus be exalted, the fear of God grow within us, and your kingdom be extended in the earth. In Jesus's name, amen.