Allen Jackson - The Main Thing
But I read a book many years ago by Stephen Covey. and the premise of the book was: The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And the redemptive work of Jesus is the main thing about our faith. Not the label of the church where we worship, or even the denomination that we would stand under, or the translation of the Bible we read, or the time of day that we think is most holy, or the day of the week, or the style of worship that we prefer. All of those things may have a place, but they are very much secondary to the centrality of the redemptive work of Jesus.
When I say the cross, I mean, his crucifixion and his resurrection. It is at the heart of our story. It changes everything for us. Apart from it, we have no story. But we don't simply want to know about it, we wanna understand how to implement the benefits of that redemptive work of Jesus in our day-to-day lives. And I wanna do my best to walk through that with you, not just for your benefit, but so that we conclude this year with that sense of an expanded toolkit in our spiritual lives. That's our target. We're gonna start in 2 Timothy 3... the reason I would submit it's so important, is it's an essential survival tool for the season that we're in.
Just as the seasons change in middle Tennessee. We're in winter, the way you dress to come to church today is a little different than the way you'll dress in August, I hope. But it's not frightening, you understand it's a season. You're not panicking 'cause the temperatures plummeted, you may be uncomfortable and you may prefer spring, but you understand it's a season and you know what you do in this season, you have expectations around that. Well, in the same way, there are seasons in God's timetable in the earth. And the season that precedes Jesus's return, Jesus's coming back to the earth. This time he's coming to establish a kingdom. But the season that will precede his return, we have quite a bit of information about.
In 2 Timothy 3, in verse 1, it says, "Mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days". My opinion, I think we are in those last days. Now I'm not suggesting it's a matter of weeks or even months, but I think we have entered a season that will precede the return of the king. And then Paul says to Timothy, "It's going to be exceedingly fierce". That's the most literal translation, terrible times. Don't get stressed by that. The wintertime temperatures are not as comfortable for most of us as the springtime temperatures. But we understand it's a season so we get our jacket out and we'll push through. It's a temporary season, it's gonna go away. And we have the hope of spring. Jesus used the analogy of birth pains. He said, "This season, well, is like birth pains".
But I've been to the hospital with dozens and dozens of families that were expecting new arrivals and the families are excited. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, all kinds of people, friends, they're coming with gifts and presents and making plans and talking about names. It's like a party atmosphere and one of them is in the other room miserable and they could care less. More drugs, there's a baby coming. Well, that's a little bit of the attitude of scripture. There's gonna be, the season is not going to be easy, but it precedes the arrival of the king.
So, don't wring your hands and withdraw and go, "Oh, I don't wanna". Yes, the king is coming. I get those calls occasionally from kind of excited dads. We're on the way to the hospital and he's not saying, you know, "Pray for my wife, she's in such pain. There's a baby coming"! Then she slaps him and he says, "Pray for my wife, she's in such pain". "Mark this: There'll be terrible times in the last days". And then Paul list for us 18 aspects of human character and behavior that will deteriorate in this season.
"People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. They'll have a form of Godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with them". He lists those 18 characteristics and included in that, are three primary expressions of love that will increase. He said, "Increasingly, people will become lovers of themselves, lovers of money and lovers of pleasure".
And there are two expressions of love that will diminish, he said. "People will be less and less lovers of the good and they will not be lovers of God". That's a pretty startling environment to see emerging. Sounds, to be honest, like a pretty accurate description of the world I'm watching. That seem right to you? Think of your own life, if your own life experience and nothing beyond it, would that list of things be increasing or decreasing? It'll give you a sense of the season we might be in.
And then in verse 5, he gives us some instructions. He said, "This particular group of people I'm describing to you, Timothy, 'Will have a form of Godliness but deny its power.'" He said, "I'm not talking to you about the pagans, about the ungodly. I'm not talking to you about the gentiles. I'm not talking about the people beyond us". He said, "These are the people standing beneath the tent with us". The word we've historically used for that is the church. I believe in the season ahead we're gonna have to have a bit more of a sophisticated understanding and not simply talk about church because the sign says so, or the building looks theological, or religious. I think we're gonna have to understand what the true church is. He said, "They'll have a form of godliness but deny its power".
Now folks, this is rampant in our world. A form of godliness. You can sing religious songs, you can gather on religious days, you can celebrate religious holidays, you can carry your Bible, you can do all of those things but, "Deny the power," it says. Well, what does he mean by that? One of the most ungodly individuals that will ever stand on planet earth, the Bible describes as the AntiChrist, he's a world leader that's still ahead of us. And the AntiChrist is going to be a very religious leader. In fact, one of his most trusted associates will be a prophet, a false prophet. And the false prophet life will be characterized by remarkable expressions of the supernatural and the miraculous.
So when Paul says to Timothy, "They'll have a form of Godliness, but deny its power," I don't believe he's saying that there's gonna be a deficit in the supernatural. Don't chase phenomena. Don't let phenomena in your heart or your mind be the markers of spiritual maturity. It's not the manifestations of the supernatural, it's the fruit of the spirit that is evidence of the indwelling presence of the spirit of God. So, what does Paul mean when he says, "They'll have a form of Godliness, but deny its power"?
Before I answer that, let's look at that last phrase. He says, "Have nothing to do with them". That's an odd direction. It almost seems at odds with the larger directions of Jesus. Jesus gathers disciples and he said, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Now go into all the world and preach the good news to all creatures". Go into every man's world. People of every nation, race, language and tribe. Introduce into those cultures, into those world views the good news about Jesus Christ. It's an assignment, it's a commission that's never been rescinded. And yet Paul here is saying something seemingly different to Timothy. He said, "Timothy, in the last days, the times are gonna be exceedingly fierce and there will be amongst us, large groups of people with a form of Godliness, but deny its power. Have nothing to do with them. Step away from them, Timothy".
And to fully understand that, we need to go back to the previous question, what's it mean to deny the power? Well, fortunately, this isn't the only writing of Paul we have. So, across his writings we can gain some other insight. He also wrote 1 Corinthians. And in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul writes, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God". In Paul's thought, the cross of Jesus Christ and the power of God are synonymous. It was through the cross that the power of God was expressed towards humanity.
Same chapter, 1 Corinthians 1, look at verse 23. He says, "We preached Christ crucified". Christ is a title attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. It's the equivalent of the Hebrew, Mashiach, Messiah. "We preach a Messiah crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to gentiles foolishness, but to those who were called, both Jews and Greeks, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God". He said, "Jesus crucified is the expression of the power and the wisdom of God". One more, Romans chapter 1, he said, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it's the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew and then for the Gentile". "I'm not ashamed of the gospel".
The gospel is the good news about Jesus. What's the good news? That he was born in a stable in Bethlehem? No. The good news is that he died on a cross and was raised to life again. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. Now, let's go back to the 1 Timothy pass...2 Timothy passage, I'm sorry. A form of Godliness, religious behaviors and religious holidays and religious activities, but they will deny the centrality of the cross. They'll deny the necessity of salvation.
Now, this is not something to anticipate in the future, this is very descriptive of the season we are currently living in, in American Christendom. I've had the privilege of studying in some of the most celebrated academic theological institutions in our country. And I have sat in those environments when if someone said something about being saved, they would mockingly say, "From what"? I had correspondence this week from a young man studying at one of the finest, most celebrated universities in our nation and their in their PhD program for theology. And he was sharing with me some of the things they were speaking and it was focused from their perspective, the fraud of the cross.
So, there was a time within my lifetime, if you participated in a main line evangelical denomination in our nation, you didn't really pay much attention to this stuff because the orthodoxy was held broadly across the systems. And you might find aberrations from that, but as a whole, we held to an orthodox position of the cross and the role of what Jesus did for us with his redemptive work. That is not true today. So, when Paul says, "Take note of this," there's gonna be terrible times and you're gonna encounter people who have a form of godliness, but will not embrace the necessity of the redemptive work of Jesus. "Have nothing to do with them," Because you won't thrive in that season without the power of God. A form of religion will not be sufficient to enable us to flourish.
Well, in the same way you learn what it means to be human physically, you and I grow up in what it means to be a spiritual creation in Christ. The fact that you've been born again doesn't mean you fully understand the implications of that or that you fully understand all of the potential that you hold any more than a young child reflects fully the potential that they hold. We want them to grow and mature and you and I wanna grow up in the Lord. And our whole journey is linked to a new birth. To participate in the Kingdom of God, we have to be birthed into it. We don't become participants by joining a church, or by keeping a set of rules, or by adhering to a moral code. We are born into the kingdom of God.
The Bible says that, "If you confess with your mouth," in the book of Romans, "And believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be," what? "Saved". It's available to every person, regardless of your education, your social status, your height, the length of your nose, the color of your hair. If you will believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, you can be saved. That amazing? I can't think of a better way to conclude 2017 than by making that profession of faith together. If you've done it 100 times, a hundred and one won't hurt you. You've never prayed it and meant it, it'd be a good day.
Don't begin a new year standing on the outside, hiding in the church. You know you could do that. I go to the gym occasionally to work out. Some days I go to work out and some days I just go to make my conscience feel better and I don't really intend to work out. I know it's filled with people. I could walk around the gym and talk to people, never move a weight. Never turn on a treadmill, never sweat a drop. I just walk around, be friendly. I can pray for 30 people, walk out and go, "That was such a spiritual time". You can hide in church and have no intention of being godly. Don't do that. Wanna invite you to say a little prayer with me, everybody. We're just gonna make a profession of faith in Jesus. Okay, buckle up, we're gonna pray a handful of prayers this morning or at least I'm gonna invite you to. So, this isn't the last, all right? Let's just bow your heads and close your eyes. Forget the people around you, it's not about them anyway. They got their own problems. All right:
Almighty God, I'm a sinner, and I need a savior. I believe Jesus is your Son. That he died on a cross for my sins and that you raised him to life again for my justification. Forgive me of my sin. Jesus, be Lord of my life. I forgive anyone who has sinned against me. Jesus, I wanna honor you. With all that I am. All that I have. All that I become. And I thank you now, that I belong to the family of God. The most remarkable family in the universe. I'm a child of the king, in Jesus's name. Amen. Hallelujah.
Now you don't have to be in church to do that. You don't have to do that at the altar at the end of the sermon with the choir singing, "Just as I am". You can help somebody do that in the produce section of the grocery store. You can do that in the plumbing section of Home Depot. You can do that in a classroom. "So I can't do it in my", yes, you can just be quiet. Don't go announcing on the intercom. You can do it in the halls of the hospital or in the corridors of the courtrooms. You take your faith and let that loose. Don't let people who know you not know you belong to a different kingdom. And don't fail to give them that invitation. What will they think? Do you care?
If you're a Georgia fan, you don't care if you're hurting the Oklahoma people's feelings tomorrow afternoon. If you're an Alabama fan, you intend to hurt the feelings of the Clemson people tomorrow afternoon. We forgive you, it's okay. I've told you many times that on the cross, a divinely ordered exchange took place. Something supernatural happened. Not accidental, God did it for us. He took all of the judgment, the punishment that was due my rebellion and my ungodliness and placed it upon Jesus. He exhausted the curse of sin that in turn I might receive and you, the full blessings of his perfect obedience. It was a supernaturally ordered exchange.
Our participation in the Kingdom of God is not linked to something we have done beyond receiving by faith, the gift of Jesus. It's not something we can earn or qualify for it. I brought you nine specific aspects of that exchange and we're gonna move through 'em really quickly and we're gonna give application to a handful of them. I wouldn't suggest that the exchange on the cross was limited to nine things, but I think into those nine ideas, we could take all of the aspects of that exchange. If we can understand this and give it expression in our lives, it will transform the way we lead our lives. The first one we'll look at is Jesus was punished that I might be forgiven.
Isaiah 53 is kind of our text for this general discussion. It's a Messianic prophecy. Isaiah wrote hundreds of years before Jesus came describing the Messiah when he would arrive. In Isaiah 53 in verse 3, he said, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering". Now, we read that and we think, "Okay". But I would submit you to you, to a Jewish audience that's a very difficult sentence to understand. The Hebrew Bible is a book of deliverers because our God is a delivering God and he uses people. David, the greatest Israelite king was a warrior king as a shepherd boy, as a teenager. He defeated the most powerful Philistine warrior they had, Goliath. And the list is long. Samson with his great strength and Gideon with his great leadership and person after person, God uses to be a deliverer.
Well, the deliverer of all the deliverers in the Hebrew Bible is the Messiah. He is the long awaited deliverer of Israel. And Isaiah is describing him under the direction of the spirit of God. And he says, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering". That's a struggle for a Jewish audience. "Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted". Verse 5, begins to describe this exchange. Note the pronouns, "He was pierced for our transgressions".
If you'll make the pronouns personal, you don't disrupt the meaning. "He was pierced for my transgressions, he was crushed for my iniquities; the punishment that brought me peace was upon him, and by his wounds I am healed". It's a remarkable set of statements. The first is that Jesus was punished that I could be forgiven. Verse 5 said, "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him". The punishment that brought me peace, my peace came from his punishment. If He wasn't punished, I'd have no peace. The peace that I have with God comes from what Jesus accepted. Ephesians 1:7, if you prefer the New Testament, "In him," in Christ, "We have redemption".
Redemption has a technical meaning. It means to be bought back. The Bible says that we were bought back from slavery to sin, that we were enslaved to sin. We were powerless. We did not have the resources or the strength to liberate ourselves. And Jesus walked into the slave market and said, "I'll pay the price for that one". And we were redeemed. "In him we have redemption through his blood". His blood, purchased my redemption, not something I did. "The forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace".
What's the exchange? Jesus was punished that I might be forgiven. That I don't have to bear the weight of my ungodliness. Not because God shrugged his shoulders and said, "No big deal". Not because God changed the test scores, or decided to grade on a curve, or he dumbed down the exam. God in his integrity required that the righteous requirements of his justice be fully met. And Jesus met those requirements. He offered himself as a sacrifice on our behalf that you and I might be forgiven. We received his forgiveness because he took our punishment.
Now, here's the invitation, let's not conclude 2017 with willful disobedience, rebellion, ungodliness in our lives. Let's not excuse it or justify it. Let's confess, repent and receive forgiveness. Let's not begin a new year dragging behind us the weight of our past failures. You're not honoring God with that. Your holding on to that sense of guilt doesn't honor the Lord. When we refuse to turn loose of that guilt, what we are saying is, "What Jesus did was not enough".
We want God to do something more. We're gonna add to it a little bit. That is fundamentally offensive. Besides that, it's too much effort to hide sin. It's too much work to figure out what you said to whom and who knows what and what you can talk about here and what you shouldn't talk about there. It's exhausting. It isn't helpful to excuse sin or to try to justify your ungodliness. You'll never mount an argument that is so convincing, God will agree with you and justify your wickedness. The biblical prescription is repentance. So, I wanna invite you to say a little prayer with me and let's appropriate that first exchange. Would you like to do that? All right, then you just close your eyes, forget the people around you. You can repeat this with me:
Heavenly Father, I choose to turn away from anything which hinders my relationship with you. I give you first place in my life. Forgive me of my sin, I receive your forgiveness. And I thank you now that I am clean. That you're not holding my sins against me. That I am free in Jesus's name. Amen.