Allen Jackson - Determining Our Identity - Part 1
Now, the topic for this session is "Determining Our Identity". You know, in a season like this, there's so much focus given to the segments of our society, it really becomes wearisome. You hear how this subset of our society will make decisions and how this group makes decisions and what this group thinks. You know, I think it brings some confusion to us on how we even understand ourselves, and that was a really, the genesis for this in my mind as I was praying for the church, not just our congregation but the broader church, to understand that the allegiance of our life is to the lordship of Jesus.
That supersedes all the other identifiers in our lives, that his authority in our lives, he sets the principles and the priorities. He establishes the boundaries, that's what it means to be a Christ follower. And the more I prayed around that and thought about that, that's really where this lesson emerged. So that's my target. And we're gonna try to answer three questions: what determines if you're Jewish, what determines if you're an American, and what determines if you're a Christ follower. We'll do that in some abbreviated way. At least the Jewish question was not one I'd ever really considered, to be candid, until my brother and I were at Hebrew University.
And we had a class with one of the most brilliant professors that I ever had the privilege of learning under. And he did multiple sessions on this topic, on how the Jewish people understood what it was that identified them. I guess Hebrew University was a good place to introduce that topic. And he said that it actually, the truth was that throughout history, the criteria had varied. It wasn't simple, it wasn't straightforward, it wasn't a single indicator. There had been three primary things throughout history that had been used to identify the people who were Jewish and who was not. It was descent, your genealogy; the second was location, where you lived; and a third was the faith, the religion that you practiced. And he went to some great lengths to try to help us understand that the emphasis varied at different times through history.
But I thought I would start with Exodus 19. This is God post-deliverance from hundreds of years of Egyptian slavery that, if you'll remember, the extended family of Abraham went into Egypt, not as a nation, just as an expanded family, Joseph and his brothers. And then in 400 years in Egypt, they multiplied to the point that the Egyptians were frightened of them, they enslaved them, and then God raises up Moses to deliver them. But they've never been a sovereign nation, they've never occupied a piece of territory. They had no history of civil authority, of internal government structures. They'd not had kings. There's not even a great record of how they practiced their faith. They were in the land of Egypt, I suspect they knew a great deal about Egyptian holidays and Egyptian gods and Egyptian forms of worship.
They're referred to as a mixed multitude of people that God delivered out of hundreds of years of Egyptian slavery and said, "I will make you into a nation". That's the point of the books of Moses, all those books you love to read, Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, all those rules and regulations and boundaries. He's taking this mixed multitude of people and fashioning them into a group of people that have a central focus that binds them together, an authority over their lives: I'm the God who feeds you every day. I'm the God who brings water to you in the midst of the desert. I'm the God who delivered you from the most power, social, economic, military force on the planet. I'm the God who parted the Red Sea. I will protect you. I'll lead you with a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. I'll give you Ten Commandments. I'll show you how to worship me. This is what a sacrifice looks like, this is what you're to bring. He is fashioning a people.
And in Exodus 19, verse 5, he said: "If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations you'll be my treasured possession". In order to be God's treasured possession, they had to meet the requirements, they had to fully obey him and keep his covenant. They couldn't be mildly interested. They couldn't say, "Well, we like your holiday structure, we like your HR plan, so we'll do some of it". "'Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you're to speak to the Israelites".
Again, God is fashioning a people, a nation. He's establishing a culture. And when we talk about understanding who the Jewish people are, we need to be aware enough to understand that the points of emphasis have varied at different times through history. There was a time that as God's covenant people living in the land which God had promised them as an inheritance, their location was a significant characteristic of the Jewish people. They're that people that were delivered from Egypt that occupy the land God promised them. That was the expression of the covenant they had with him. The period of the judges, they didn't even have a monarchy, there were no kings.
When there was an external threat that threatened the well-being of the tribes, God would raise up the leaders they needed, Gideon or Samson or Deborah. The whole period of the monarchy, you read that tension. We've just finished those books: godly kings, ungodly kings, the suffering that would come because of their wandering into ungodliness. There are other times in Jewish history, that location was not nearly as vital a component. After the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem in 70, living in Israel wasn't so important because the majority of their leaders didn't live in Israel. So location wasn't particularly relevant any longer. After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, location wasn't the primary factor in establishing a Jewish identity. For more than 2,000 years, there was no Jewish state.
In our current setting, the answer is more heavily weighted towards descent, your genealogy, your DNA. It's a matter of DNA more than location or even religious practice. In fact, today, you can live anywhere in the world and be Jewish. Maybe not safely, but you can live among the nations. You can be Jewish and practice any religion you want. We should be aware enough to recognize the distinction between being Jewish by birth and practicing Judaism as a faith. You can be Jewish and practice Islam. It's generally understood today that to be Jewish is a matter of biology more than location or faith. But again, it's noteworthy, it's significant, it needs to be a part of your awareness that the criteria have shifted through the centuries, depending upon a multitude of factors.
How did God determine who his people were, because they offered sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem? That was okay until there was no longer a temple in Jerusalem where you could offer a sacrifice. It's a question you need to understand before it becomes too personal for you. In 1 Peter chapter 2, Peter is quoting really the idea of Exodus 19. And I didn't put it in your notes, but the letter of 1 Peter was written to both Jews and Gentiles. He labels them strangers or aliens in this world, that because of their allegiance to Jesus, he said that makes you an alien in this world.
Now again, Peter is an observant Jewish man writing to Jews and Gentiles. It's in your notes, 1 Peter 2:9. He says: "You're a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God," sounds a lot like what we just read, "that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you're the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy". Again, very similar language to Deuteronomy 7. God preparing a people for himself is the fundamental story of this book. And it isn't left to us to decide how much we will be obedient to God or how much of his truth we embrace.
If we intend the benefits of the covenant, we have to yield fully to his covenant, to his lordship. It was that way in the Exodus, and it's that way in the 21st century. I wanna answer a second question, and it may seem unrelated, but I don't believe it is. I think it is on point, it's certainly on theme. What determines if you're an American? If I borrow the criteria we used a moment ago, is it the location where you live? Is it the faith you practice? Is it your genealogy? I think we can understand pretty quickly that none of those would be the primary criteria. You can be an American living someplace other than on the continental United States or in one of the 50 states. You can be an American and practice any number of faiths, there's not a faith criteria, there never has been.
We wouldn't suggest it. We have been predominantly a Christian nation, that was the value set, the worldview, that was used with our founding documents and our educational systems and our legal systems. It has caused us to be one of the most prosperous and free nations in human history. It's caused us to become the envy of the nations. The reason we have millions of people pouring into our borders is not because we're systemically racist or economically unfair. There's no place else on the planet that provides the opportunities we have provided, and that has been because of the worldview. The church should be more aware of the value we represent to the cultures in which we live.
Now, I would submit what fundamentally has determined our role in this nation is our citizenship. We've come from the nations of the world, we're a nation of immigrants. We are the ultimate melting pot. We don't all look the same. We don't sound the same. We've had very many different faiths. We've come from very many different nations. There's not like a food that is uniquely American. It's our citizenship, which reflects an underlying principle which is very important, and the church has to be a voice in this. We have been a nation of laws, and it's that commitment to authority and laws that were derived from the law of God that has brought the freedom and the liberty to us.
Again, not saying we have to be exclusively Christian, I don't believe that's true. God gives all of us a choice and they should have the choice to worship however we see fit. But the great challenge before us, I would submit to you, is lawlessness. And I would point that back at the community where I've spent most of my adult life, I believe the lawlessness has arrived to the degree it is currently present because the voice of God's people has been so small. We've imagined that civil authority would protect us and keep us secure, therefore, we didn't have to be vocal about our biblical worldview. We didn't have to be advocates for the principles of the kingdom to which we belong because we thought the civil authority would protect us, until it won't. And if the church will be light and salt, not that everybody will be Christian, but the values that emerge from that will bring freedom and liberty to all the people in a greater way. There is much evidence through history to support that thesis.
So this challenge of lawlessness, I gave you some verses because it is very much a biblical principle. We are warned about this with the same kind of frequency and intendancy, the frequency that Jesus warned his disciples about what would happen to him, ultimately, in Jerusalem. The question is: Are we paying attention? Do we understand our role? In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 1, it says: "Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ". How many of you know that Jesus is coming back to the earth? The timing of that is beyond our purview, we don't know that. The very best we could know would be something seasonally, but you understand how difficult seasons are to anticipate. This is November, and you can wear shorts in Tennessee. Seasons are not precise things, they give us some awareness. The leaves are turning colors and falling off the trees, it's not that the world is dying, the season is changing.
And the best, the Scripture says, we can know about the return of the Lord would be seasonally. That is less than precise, but he is coming back as certainly as he was born in Bethlehem, and we'll be gathered to him. "We ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come". There have been religious clowns, prophetic manipulators for as long as there have been people of faith. It's not new. Paul's addressing the church that he helped bring into existence, warning them, and it's beneficial to us two millennia later. "Don't let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion or the apostasies," either way, the Greek word is apostasia, "occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction".
Paul is warning the church at Thessaloniki that Jesus's return will be preceded by the emergence of a man of lawlessness. With some of the rest of the material in the New Testament, we know him to be the antichrist, this global leader, who will set aside those biblical principles, that biblical worldview, that Judeo-Christian worldview, and will be the most beastly leader that the world has ever known. It's not a small thing to push those values aside. I won't do the word study 'cause I don't think you've had enough caffeine to stay awake, but the word for lawlessness that's used in the passages I've given you refers specifically to the rejecting of or the breaking of God's laws, the idea that we live under the law of God.
Matthew 7:23, Jesus is speaking: "I'll declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'" If you reject God's boundaries, if you don't uphold those biblical principles, you shouldn't imagine you belong to the kingdom of God. This isn't a political discussion at all. The lawlessness that is growing amongst us is growing because we're stepping further and further away from a biblical worldview and how we understand family, human sexuality, marriage, the sanctity of human life for the very young or the very old. And we were told, Matthew 13 is the parable of the wheat and the tares. Jesus is speaking: "Just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, they'll gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and he'll throw them into the furnace of fire".
You cannot reject the principles of God and imagine you can participate in his kingdom. Matthew 23: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you're hypocrites! You're like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside you're full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Outwardly you appear righteous, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness". He's talking to the religious leaders, the biblical scholars, the conveners of religious services, the interpreters of Scripture. And he said, on the outside, you look mah-velous, but, he said, on the inside, you're full of corruption, you practice lawlessness. You hand burdens to other people that you yourself will not make any attempt to carry.
Matthew 24. "Many false prophets will arise and mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold". In the Greek language, there are multiple words for love. In English, we don't have that, we just have love. You can love your dog and love your kids. There's a little bit of a language break there. You understand? if your dog makes a mess in the house, you can put him outside. If your kids make a mess in the house, don't do that. But in the Greek language, there are multiple words for love. There's a love for physical love. There's a love for the love of God, which is the word that's used here. That most people, people's love, it'll be the love in the hearts of God's people will grow cold. Why? Because of the great increase in lawlessness. "But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached to the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come".
There's this contrast. We've seen that in the gospels of late, where at the time where lawlessness is ratcheting up and the love of many in God's community is growing cold, the gospel of the kingdom is preached in an unprecedented way. We have a choice to make, we have to decide where we will stand, who we will become, what we're gonna use our voice for. We don't want to be encumbered. We don't wanna be encumbered with attending church. We don't wanna be encumbered with serving and that we don't want to be encumbered. No one can tell us, we say. God can, he is sovereign. We have today an open border, the refusal to enforce the boundaries of our nation. It's handed to us under the guise of compassion, asylum, or sanctuary status.
Hundreds of thousands of children being trafficked into the sex trades, don't tell me that's about asylum, it's evil, and our silence, we will have to give an account for. The lawlessness has flourished to the point that I think we're almost numb to it. It's a callus that we have developed, we don't feel it. We hardly recognize it. It's inconvenient, we prefer not to notice. It isn't about politics, folks, it's about the heart of our people and the silence of the church. Our current president, we have witnessed significant cognitive decline. There's no joy in that. If you've ever had someone you care about suffer that kind of decline, it's horribly painful, but it's also painfully obvious. It progressed to the point that he was removed from the ballot, even though he was elected by the people to run again for office. Those are just facts on record.
Now, we don't know who is making the decisions on his behalf while he's been in office. Those individuals have never been identified, they never raised their hands. They never said we're the group that are the proxies helping. We don't know who was responding on behalf of his office. We don't know who determined the affairs of our nation. Those things are not clear. All that was clear was that there was enough decline that it wasn't appropriate to continue in spite of the votes of millions of people. That is the picture of lawlessness in a nation of laws. We're not bound together by our ethnicity, by our language. We're not bound together because we look the same or we sound the same. We've come from the nations of the world. What has bound us together was our commitment to the rule of law, and it's being set aside in the most egregious ways, in the most profound ways.
Now we have a candidate for the presidency that hasn't received a vote. We don't know who the selection committee was. We don't know who determined that our current president would not serve a second term. There's been no medical report. There's been no mental evaluation, just set aside by someone somewhere. There's a complete lack of clarity on obligations which can be attached to the candidacy. We don't know who the sponsors are. So why should we be surprised now that there are broad calls for people who aren't citizens to have the privilege to vote? That is the talking point. We recognize that the idea represents the dismissal of the rights and privileges of current citizens.
If non-citizens are given the rights and privileges of those who have been formally, legally processed as citizens, either by birth or choice and acceptance, everyone forfeits their rights and privileges. We have become lawless. Now, we've been warned about it, but it doesn't mean that we have to submit to it. We're to be light and salt in the midst of the darkness, to use our voices to stand up for the children. Marriage isn't left to the state to define, God did that, and we as the people of God have to use our voices. The lives of the children are not the property of the state, they're not the property of a school board. We have to use our voices.
Jesus was a living revelation of Almighty God. That's my prayer for us today, that we would have more than a religious experience or some experience of reciting a prayer. We need a revelation of Jesus, it'll change our lives. Let's pray:
Father, I thank you that you love us so much that you sent your Son, that you sent him in a package that we could relate to, that we could understand and that he could understand us. I ask you now by your Spirit to give us a living revelation of Jesus of Nazareth, not a historical figure or a religious leader, but the living person of Jesus. I thank you for it. It's in his name we ask, amen.