Allen Jackson - What Are You Afraid Of? - Part 2
I would submit to you that we learn to fear God. It’s a learned behavior. In the same way, you learn some physical skill by repetition and training muscle memory or you learn something academically. It’s a learned response. It begins with truth. The fear of the Lord emerges from truth and fundamentally the truth about ourselves. There’s many ways I could illustrate that from scripture. I’ll give you a simple one. In Revelation chapter 3, many of you know the book of Revelation begins with letters to seven churches. In order to get the message of Revelation, you had to be involved in a church. Just saying. That’s true. But to every one of those churches, the message begins the same way.
There’s seven unique messages. They’re different to the circumstances of each church. Every community faith was somewhat different in the challenges they faced and the pressures they endured. But to each one of them, the Lord said, «I know your deeds». Wow! And then he would give them an evaluation, a diagnosis along with a resolution. «And to the church in Laodicea,» it’s the one I put in your notes. It’s Revelation 3:17. He says, «You say,» this is their self evaluation. They turned this in before they had their evaluation. We’re rich. We’ve acquired wealth. We don’t need a thing. Wow! A little bit of swagger there. We got it all. Don’t eat anything. We’re good. Nothing else to see here. Let’s move along. And this was God’s evaluation of them. «You don’t realize that you’re wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked».
Well, there’s a little discrepancy between their self-evaluation and God’s evaluation. So here’s a prayer we can pray. God, help me to see myself as you see me. Holy Spirit, help me. I don’t wanna lead my whole life spiritually blind. I don’t wanna show up for my interview, my evaluation having spent my entire life every day of opportunity under the sun, completely ignorant, or refusing to look at the condition I had before you. Help me to see myself. Takes a little courage to pray that, but it’s a whole lot better to be aware. Wouldn’t you agree? God has made provisions so that we can be free or forgiven or delivered. He’s the God of redemption and restoration. But if you’re not aware, you might not even know you need forgiveness. So you wouldn’t even repent. We might be so blinded by our own carnal earthly self, our own whatever.
So we’re just motor along completely clueless. It happened to the church. It happened to the church, a church that made the book. This wasn’t the pagans in Laodicea. It wasn’t the immoral or the godless or the wicked or somebody, it was God’s people. He said you say you don’t need anything. And I’m telling you, you wretched, pitiful, poor blind and naked. Truthfully, you gotta be pretty messed up to be blind and naked and not know, right. I mean, I’ve been confused. I’ve been lost. I’ve been turned around. I mean, I’ve been some things, but I can’t ever say I just found myself blind and naked and didn’t know. Everybody’s looking, I’m not gonna even look. I’m just right here. I’m not going anywhere, they’re in a desperate place. In fact, the word that God used is it’s wretched, pitiful. I don’t want God in his evaluation of me writing down wretched and pitiful. Serious stuff.
So the fear of God begins with this sense of truth about who we are and that truth then will establish a response and this is what’s been buried a little bit. We know that sinners need to repent. We know the ungodly need to repent. A lot of us have been coached on altar calls and I believe in those. Again, there’s a legitimacy in that. I’m not saying there’s not, but the needs gathered amongst God’s people are great. A turning of our lives to the Lord. A sensitivity to where we have been less than what we might have been. So we have this brazenness that goes with my salvation is secure. Therefore, everything else is extraneous secondary, not particularly meaningful. It’s a very disrespectful way to live. It’s a very disrespectful way to live and it will create the opposite of the fear and respect of God.
So there’s a response that’s established amongst us and there’s a little window in John’s Gospel that I think is helpful. Jesus has gone to a wedding with Mary and some of his newly recruited disciples. It’s at the very beginning of his ministry. There’s been no public miracles yet. So there’s really no one that knows the uniqueness of Jesus beyond just a very closed circle of people. Mary knows. Elizabeth knows. Zechariah perhaps knows, Joseph. «They go to Cana in Galilee and Jesus' mother was there,» John tells us. «And Jesus and his disciples have been invited and the wine was gone. And Jesus’s mother said to him, 'They have no more wine.' And Jesus said, 'That’s not my problem, mom.'» That’s what he said. I mean, I just, and his mother said to the servants, «Just do whatever he tells you».
Well, that’s weird. Just do whatever he tells you. You know, there’s a lot we don’t know about Jesus’s life. We know the circumstances of his birth and we get a little window into Jesus, a very brief peek through a small window when he’s 12 at the temple in Jerusalem talking to the leaders and then we don’t see him again until he’s 30. So Mary has had this 30 year odyssey of parenting the Son of God, the Messiah. How many of you think there could be some stories in there? I mean, there’s some literature around an antiquity that hints at it, but it’s not included in the scripture. So it’s just left to us. So we don’t know what Mary knows. We don’t know what she’s processed. We simply know that her friends are about to be humiliated at a wedding. She says to Jesus, you know, you could help them. Well, has he been making merlot at home? I mean, how does she know?
I don’t know and I don’t mean that disrespectfully, but obviously, Mary is aware of something that is not included for us as backstory. And so, she simply says to the servants, you do whatever he tells you to do. And she has enough authority in that setting that the servants will take instructions from her and they have to draw a lot of water and carry a lot of water and fill multiple stone jars with it. And then Jesus says, take some of that water you drew out of the well and take it up to the master of ceremonies. And that’s weird. And you know, the outcome, the miracle. What intrigues me is that the response in Mary’s heart. He can do whatever he wants to do, cooperate with him.
That’s what I wanna build into my heart with the Lord. I’m not looking for the minimal daily requirement. You know, when it’s time to take your vitamins, how much vitamin D do I have to have? Well, this is your minimum. You have to eat. How much broccoli do I have to eat to get that much? 'Cause I don’t wanna eat any extra broccoli. I don’t want any brussels sprouts that I don’t have to have. Don’t you wish you could get your vitamins from pop tarts with chocolate sauce? All right, so I don’t want any extra, but that’s kind of the way we treat the Lord. You know, okay, how much righteousness do I have to have? How often do I have to go to church?
Okay, I have to give something, but how much? And nobody can tell me how much. And that volunteer. I’m not a volunteer. I don’t like kids. I’m not a social person. We got our whole menu built out. Oh, I love Jesus. I just don’t like his people, right? You see, as we learn to fear God, it will change the responses of our lives. We’ll behave differently. We’ll invest time and energy and effort and thought and resources in the things of God with greater enthusiasm than we did before. If you imagine you’ve been a Christ follower for 30 years and you’re still excited about things away from God more than you are about things with God, you need to begin to talk to the Lord a little bit. Lord, I’m a lot happier when I’m not thinking about you, but I got this little fuzzy ringing at the periphery of my awareness that that might not be good. Could you help me understand?
The fear of God. How do we arrive at a place we’ve sacrificed millions of children. We’ve redefined marriage. Our schools libraries are filled with obscene vile material and we really don’t care that much. How do we arrive at a place like that? We’ve lost our fear of God. So our choice has become really important. Choices around things that we all understand. Things that God would bless. Things that God created us with the ability to either enjoy or gather to marshal to use for his purposes. Money is one of those. We’re not taking up another offering. There’s no pledge cards taped to your chair, but we’re given some instructions about how we interact with material possessions 'cause they’re a big part of our journey through time.
In Hebrews 13, it says, «Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will. I forsake you.'» See, if you have a great respect for God, the fact that God’s presence is abiding presence is a part of your journey through time would provide tremendous comfort. If you don’t have much respect for God, if you don’t have a great reverence for him, you’d rather be sure you can take care of your journey through time. Again, I’m not opposed to things. It isn’t evil. Money isn’t evil. Money isn’t the root of all evil. The Bible says, «The love of money is the root of all evil».
So letting inviting God into your life, your work. Work is an expression of worship every bit as much as singing with a band when they’re playing your favorite chorus or singing your favorite hymn. How you work is an expression of your character. Well, I’m meddling now. Sex, God’s idea. We live in a culture where we are so far away from biblical values regarding human sexuality that now we’ve arrived at a place that we say it’s just confusing, that the basic biology of our lives is so confusing. We’re not sure whether we’re male or female anymore. You understand, that’s very close to the description of the Laodecian church. We don’t need anything and God says, you are wretched. You are blind. We have arrived at a place where we’re spiritually blind and the church seems addled to speak to it. We’ve lost our battles, we’ll be canceled. People will be mad at us.
Well, I’m not saying that there aren’t people that struggle that there aren’t individuals that are confused, but being confused about something that foundational about your life is a desperate place, not something to be encouraged and trained to talk to our children. Romans chapter 1 gives a lengthy explanation of it. We don’t have time to go into that in detail. I put a portion of it in your notes. It says, «The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven». As much as he’s a God of love, he’s a God of wrath. «Against godlessness and the wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness». You should understand that the suppression of the truth of God is wickedness. It’s not tolerance, it’s not inclusivity, it’s wickedness. And we have been arbiters of this, the church, the church. I’ve been trained in this stuff in some of the finest theological academic settings available. It proliferates amongst the people of God.
«Since what may be known about God is plain because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood by what has been made, so that men are without excuse». The Bible teaches this principle that we’re accountable based on the revelation that’s made available to us. We’re not gonna be accountable in the same way. God said he’s revealed himself to every human being and he will judge them in fairness, justly based up what’s been presented to them. You and I have had the opportunity that very few people that have ever lived on this planet have had. If you wanna be a serious student of scripture these days, it requires you to learn the English language to get to the material that’s available.
That could change very quickly and certainly technology is making those thresholds much simpler 'cause languages are not the barrier they were just a few short years ago. But you should recognize the great privileges we’ve had. We have so many translations of the Bible available to us. We argue around which one we should be reading. We break fellowship over translations of the Bible. That’s clever. We have Christian television, Christian radio, we have an abundance of information available to us so much that we like, stop. I don’t know. God said it’s been, we made plain to us. So our accountability level is different. To whom much is given much is required. Then he goes on in verse 21, «For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him».
You see giving thanks to God is really not an option. If you’re gonna cultivate a respect for God or a reverence, you say thank you. I watch parents, the effort they invest in teaching their children to say things like thank you, please. Expressions of respect. Trying to conquer that hard wiring in us towards rebellion. The parents just have to say one time to their children, you should say thank you. And after that, they’re always thankful, only at my house. No, that’s a difficult battle to win. It has to be reinforced. It takes authority in a child’s life to teach them that and it takes authority in your life and my life to teach us to be thankful to the Lord. Otherwise we’ll think we’re self made. We’ll think the blessings we have and the privileges we have and the opportunities we have are the result of our hard work, our discipline, our right thinking, our correct doing.
Folks, we don’t want what we deserve. We need the grace and mercy of God, but we don’t wanna to live presumptively upon it. We wanna be conscious that every day we’re planting our future, we’re writing a future for ourselves and we want to do the best we can with that. It’s a sobering passage. «Their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened and they claimed to be wise, but they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal men and birds and animals and reptiles». You can worship the planet these days and be celebrated. It’s courageous forward thinking. We protect the turtle nests on the beach with greater tenacity than we protect our own unborn children. That’s fundamentally wrong.
And I’m not opposed to protecting the turtles, but it says in verse 24, «Therefore,» therefore is a concluding word. God says because of that trend, because of that downward progression, «God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another». And he goes on to describe in significant detail that degradation, that collapse of human character, that plunge into increasingly immoral behavior. You don’t have to have much discernment to see the degree to which it’s taken root amongst us. The headlines are filled with it from Jeffrey Epstein to Diddy. It’s ingrained in our culture. There’s been very little sad about it. We kind of stepped back.
In my opinion, it’s because it’s so widespread. We just kind of shrug our shoulders and go, yeah. It’s very visible in our behaviors towards our children. Children are always the targets of evil. They always suffer disproportionately. We’ve said little about abortion because the lives of our children are cheap. We’ve said little about trafficking because children are perceived as something for pleasure. If you haven’t sexualized them in that way, they fulfill your life. You can’t be happy unless you’ve met the quota that you’ve determined you should have. We’ve made children into something of pleasure. We’ve separated children from parental authority. We have people now that who without any apology or any reluctance will blare into a microphone that they have the right to tell parents what to do with their children. I object.
Children are subjected to language and coaching in immersion and gender confusion and alteration. We’re told because there’s profit in it. They’re being sexualized when they’re very young. Folks, that is the definition of perversion. And all of those things are not happening in some distant place. They are happening amongst us in the culture in which we currently live, but we’re busy with other things. Money, sex, and the third one is power and I’m done with this one. Jeremiah 5, says, «Like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and they have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor».
You see, God has given us the opportunity to benefit from wealth, from physical pleasure, and from power. But in each of those places, he has also given us boundaries to provide us with the greatest opportunities. And when we cast off the boundaries, those things become pathways to destruction. And if we don’t have a respect for God, if we don’t have a reverence for God, if we don’t cultivate the fear of the Lord, we will not accept those boundaries. We’ll say they’re antiquated. They’re out of date, they’re old-fashioned. They’re a bit too restraining. We prefer to be more enlightened. We want more freedom. And it’s a destructive path.
I would submit to you, I wanna go back to the verses where we started. Men who fear God, trustworthy people, people who hate dishonest gain. May they be appointed with authority over us. Those are the attitudes we want in our homes. They’re the attitudes we wanna bring to our schools. They’re the attitudes we want to flourish on our college campuses. They’re the attitudes we need in our churches. They’re the attitudes that have to begin within our heart. If we don’t value them, we won’t respect them when we see them. The respect and the reverence for God will emanate from his church. It won’t start someplace else. It’s our assignment. But with that, I believe we can see the blessings of God, the freedoms that come from God, the joy and fulfillment and contentment that comes from God. It’s our best future.
I brought you a prayer. Why don’t we stand together? It’s a prayer you can take with you. Please don’t leave it at church. Make it yours all week, share it with your friends. It’s a simple prayer. You know, I’m amazed at how God responds to our invitations when we open a doorway. If we say God, «I believe Jesus is your Son, save me from my sins,» he does. He changes our destiny. Imagine the joy it will bring to his heart when we begin to say to him, God, I wanna walk uprightly before you. If there’s anything hindering that help me to see it. God, I’d like to please you today or maybe at the end of the day, God, I’m sorry for all those places I was displeasing to you. Imagine. I brought you pray, let’s pray it together.
Almighty God, we submit to Your authority and power. Forgive us for our rebellion and stubbornness. Grant us now, understanding hearts and open our eyes to see Your majesty that we might walk uprightly before You. May the fear of God grow within us, may the fear of men diminish, give us a boldness to honor You in all we do and say. In Jesus' name, amen.