Allen Jackson - Determining Our Identity - Part 2
But my time is slipping past. I want to come to the last question. It's the most important one. What determines if you're a Christian? Is it location, where you sit? Is it descent, because your parents and your grandparents were? What determines that? Well, the first part of this I suspect will be pretty familiar to you. They're often the most quoted verses in the Bible and the most practiced points of discipleship. We have a reasonably high participation rate at this entry level point. I'll warn you our participation rate plummets beyond this initial session 'cause we've fabricated all sorts of elaborate theological schemes that say if we get the first part right, nothing else matters.
And we sound a great deal like the 1st century scribes and Pharisees, when "you should not tell us we have faults or flaws, that we're not obedient, because we're the children of Abraham," to which Jesus said, "Well, just for the record, God can make children of Abraham out of rocks. He started with a little dust and got you". Then we find ourselves in the 21st century, tempted to say, "We are bulletproof. We're golden. It doesn't really matter what we do or how we do it, we can kind of sort of say, 'I'm sorry.'" But the pathway begins in John 3, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth". You know by now, right, big news coming. "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he's born again".
So it isn't about your genealogical descent. It's not because you were born into the right family and you're not excluded because you were born into the wrong family. So it does have nothing to do with the tracks and which side of them you were born on. It has to do with the spiritual birth. Same chapter, verse 5: "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he's born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to the spirit". Jesus is talking to a leader of the Jewish community. He didn't tell him his descent was sufficient. He didn't tell him that the religious practices he held were sufficient. He said you have to be born into the kingdom of God. If it was true for Nicodemus, I would humbly submit it's true for me and it is true for you.
The keys to the kingdom are not the purview of any particular denomination or any religious sect. It's not about Protestant or Catholic. It's not about a style of worship or a translation of the Bible. All of those things may have some place in the discussion, but they are not primary. Your participation in the kingdom of God begins with a birth. In the same way your participation in time begins with a physical birth, your participation in the kingdom of God begins with a spiritual birth. Romans 10 amplifies it a bit: "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it's with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it's with your mouth that you confess and are saved".
So that spiritual birth is triggered, initiated, by a physical choice. We believe in our heart and confess with our mouth. That's how we enter the kingdom of God. That initiates the greatest miracle that will ever touch your life: a deliverance from the kingdom of darkness and being welcomed into the eternal kingdom of Almighty God. It's not dependent upon a college degree or an IQ point or a balance in your bank account or your success or lack thereof in the marketplace or your physical abilities. Everyone is welcome. That's remarkable. I've studied in too many theological settings where they have this deteriorating theology that tries to re-invent God in our image. It's incredibly destructive and, tragically, it's infected the church now for decades. It's not surprising that the church is increasingly apostate.
We've been educating our leaders to ignore the Word of God. We're gonna have to find our voices, church. Like, I think we ought to just say that prayer together, whether you call it a conversion prayer, a profession of faith, the prayer of salvation, the new birth. There's a handful of labels that are used frequently. They're all synonymous. But if we will acknowledge our need of a Savior and be willing to admit that we are sinners and we will ask for forgiveness, we can be forgiven. But that bargain has a condition. To be forgiven we have to acknowledge Jesus as Lord, which means now he establishes the priorities. If you're the priority setter of your life, Jesus is not your Lord.
"But I sit in church". I'm happy that you do, but it doesn't make you a Christ follower. "But I keep some of the rules". Good for you. It doesn't make you a Christ follower. Jesus is Lord, and that means now we are in process for his Lordship to fully occupy our lives as we grow up in him. And then in order to receive that forgiveness, we have to forgive those who've sinned against us. It's not optional. If you'll do that, you can be a part of the eternal kingdom of God. Wow. Wow, there's an entirely new authority in your life, a new future. I think we gotta say that little prayer together. Why don't you just repeat it after me. Just close your eyes for a minute, forget who's around you.
You know, it's a problem when you've been in church a while and maybe Jesus really hadn't been Lord. You hate to say that in public. You know, it's like not knowing English. I studied English since I started school. And if I go back, they still work on my English. I learned more about English when I learned foreign languages. I didn't know there was such a thing as a pluperfect verb tense till I got to Greek. But if you've been in church, sometimes you're embarrassed to say, "You know, I really haven't served Jesus as Lord. I go to church occasionally. I'm a pretty good person. I kinda sort of keep the morals that go with the Christian faith. But I've never really made Jesus Lord".
Why don't we do that tonight? You can do that if you're watching me from someplace else. You don't have to be on campus for this one. Just repeat this prayer with me. "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 sin, and that you raised him to life again, that I might be justified, declared non-guilty, just as if I'd never sinned. Jesus, be Lord of my life. Forgive me of all my sin, and I forgive all those who've sinned against me. I wanna live for your glory with all that I am, all that I have, all that I'll ever be, in Jesus's name, amen," hallelujah. Pretty amazing stuff. For all of you unaware people that say you've never seen a miracle, yes, you have.
If you're a Christ follower, you are a walking miracle because, apart from Jesus, you were destined for an eternity apart from God. And because of Jesus, we are participants in the eternal kingdom. Come on now. Here's the challenge we face. Many, many people are willing to take that step. Many people. It seems so wonderful. But we've had very little conversation and very little instruction on what's next. And there's some very well-formed, very elaborate, very well-presented theological systems that says everything after that is secondary. Well, I mean, maybe you need to get baptized, probably not a bad idea to get baptized, but everything else gets treated pretty sloppily, pretty casually, 'cause we're told that our God is a forgiving God, filled with grace and mercy, and you can do almost anything you wanna do.
And then if you'll hesitate momentarily and kind of, sort of, perhaps a little bit, say, "I probably shouldn't have done that," that you're good to go again. You get to go right back to Go and get 200 more dollars, and you get a fresh start. And it's created a sloppy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it Men Without Chests. It's not really a biblical presentation. I don't want you to live in fear of your salvation. I'm not trying to dangle you by a thread over the pits of hell as Jonathan Edwards so famously did. I'm asking you to consider what the scripture says to us. 1 Peter chapter 1. This is Peter the fisherman. He said, "You've been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable".
It's not about your physical descent. It's about your spiritual descent. "Through the living and enduring word of God. For, 'All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fail, but the word of the Lord stands forever.' And this is the word that was preached to you. Therefore," therefore is a summary word. What I was taught as a young man, "when you read your Bible and when you find a therefore, you better find out what it's there for". It's a pretty good principle. "Therefore," because of what he's just said, "rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good".
The language is just as clear as the John passages. He said because you've been born of imperishable seed, not the decision of a human being, because you have something now that reaches beyond time that's more enduring than your physical body or the plants that grow around us. He said now we've got to make the decision to grow up spiritually. We have to rid ourselves, he says. It's not something God will do to us. "Rid yourself of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander. Crave pure spiritual milk, so that you can grow up in your salvation". My concern is this has not been a prevalent message. I don't wanna diminish the invitation to the new birth, conversion, salvation. But I would like to amplify the rest of the assignment to grow up as Christ followers. It's not some subtle hidden theme.
I'll go to that last section you have. The question's there: What are we doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? You see, what I find and the more broadly I listen, the more I'm aware, is that we have an imagination as to how Christians should behave. Even non-Christians know how they think Christians should behave. Have you ever bumped into that? Well, "I thought you were a Christian," said to you by someone who clearly doesn't intend to be. We have this imagination, but we often do not intend to abide by the principles. We say we hold them, but we lack the intent to honor them.
And I think the idea that's given rise to that is we've said, "Well, I've been born again and I can't earn my way to heaven. So why should I try so hard"? 'Cause at the end of the day, it isn't about trying. It's about training. We've had that discussion quite a bit. If the outcomes matter, trying is not enough, folks. If you've never flown a plane, I don't want you to fly the plane I'm on, even if you're gonna try really, really hard. When outcomes matter, trying is not the issue. The Bible tells us we have to submit ourselves to the authority of God.
Look at Matthew 7. Jesus is speaking. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who's in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" I don't know about you. He has my attention. You can cast out demons and do miracles and recognize the Lord. And he'll say, "No, no, you're not welcome". The criteria that he holds out to us is the one who does the will of my Father. So here's a suggestion, just an idea. I'm not bringing you the assignment. I'm giving you the concept to begin on a very regular basis to say, "Lord, I would like to do your will today. I'm going to work today. I have a family today. I'm gonna make choices about what I look at on my screens. I'm gonna make choices about how I interact with people. I'd like to do your will today".
Will you do it perfectly? Probably not. But if you don't intend to do it, tell me again the evidence that you're a Christ follower? Jesus said, "The one who does my Father's will". And this is not some rogue verse that I've ripped out of context. It is a theme. I'll give you one more example. Galatians chapter 5:19. Do you have that one? Good, okay. Paul's writing to a church. He's not writing to pagans or godless people. He doesn't have an arena filled with a mixed audience. He's writing to a church, and he says: "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious". Well, they're so obvious, he has to list them for them again, right? It's like, they probably wouldn't, I mean, so, "Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery".
Debauchery means excess. It's kind of a fun word for me. It's like there's excess letters in debauchery and it just means excess, so. "Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like". It's not an inclusive list. He goes, "You know, there's, and you," he said, "you know the rest of the stuff". "I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God". You can't do that. That stuff cannot be a part of your practice. You know, if it only said sexual immorality and fits of rage and orgies, we might go, "Phew," because I think you kind of look at the list and you grade them, "Really bad; whoa, way, way bad; mmm, not so". But God said those things cannot exist. You can't be filled with envy and inherit the kingdom of God. You cannot practice envy.
Now, we have to make a distinction between the struggle with sin and the practice of sin. We are carnal creatures. We still have all those tendencies towards ungodliness. That's the reason we have to have warnings like this. But there is a power and authority present to help us overcome every expression of our carnal nature. My time is about gone, but I'll give you this one caveat. If you choose to give license to your carnal nature, you will get the support and help of unclean spirits. And if you do it long enough, you will lose much of your own volition. We call those addictions. We call those habits that become destructive. We've all had personal experience with that, directly and indirectly.
So the challenge here is to say, "I will not practice those things". Now, the good news is you're not typically tempted on that whole list, but there are points that are more of a struggle for you, and know the places where you're vulnerable and do your very best not to give license in those places. Why? Because I wanna grow up spiritually. I don't wanna get to that point of evaluation that awaits me and hear the Lord say, "No". "Well, I was born again". "Yeah, I know, you called me 'Lord.'" Now, here's the challenge. You don't get a laminated card in the mail when you make that profession. Well, you might get one but it comes from the church or some, you get a name tag and, I mean, that's not what they'll be looking for at the Pearly Gates. "Do you have a lanyard"?
And so you don't have that kind of license. The evidence that you have entered the kingdom of God and you're growing up in your faith is the fruit of your life. So it makes it relevant when they say there are tens of millions of evangelical Christians in our culture and we're losing millions of children. It seems that our fruit is small. They aren't political issues, they're the fruit of our lives. And we've got to become the church again. We've got to find our voice and say there's a God and you can know him and you can be clean and delivered and set free. It's not oppressive, it's not limiting. Let's get busy serving the Lord. Let's focus our attention, set our objectives, prioritize our time, direct our resources. Let's begin to align our hearts as never before with the purposes of God.
We're not earning our way towards anything. We're demonstrating our determined affection for our Lord and his kingdom. We want it to be the overriding expression of our existence. I'm happy that you're an advocate for a sports team or the hobby of your choice. Oh, it's okay, it's not wrong, but it shouldn't be the defining characteristic of your life or it's an idol. We wanna lead with, "We are ambassadors for the kingdom of God. Have I told you about my best friend? His name is Jesus. He came from Nazareth. Do you know him? I'd like you to know him. He's brought good things to my life. He'll bring good things to your life".
I know you don't feel worthy, neither do I, but I want to serve him. I'm gonna give him my best. I will not stop under threat or bullying or tirade or censorship or whatever else. We'll be advocates for the King. Church, we have a role to play. We have a role to play. I want to pray for you. May I do that? Will you stand with me? Thank you for investing the time to pray over these next 2 days. I know it's a sacrifice. If you've got a family still at home, it takes the whole family making a sacrifice. Thank you for doing that. God responds to his people. He does. He does. Why don't you join hands with somebody new? Tell them your name. You know the drill. They won't talk to you, don't bother. You know, if you've stood by 'em several times and they've never talked to you, move. I mean, not right now, but.
Father, thank you for your Word, for its truth and authority and power in our lives. I thank you that you called us to this very unique point in history, that you called us out of darkness, and through the blood of Jesus, we've been forgiven, sanctified, justified, delivered, that we might declare the praises of our God in our generation. And I ask you now for a new boldness, for a new courage. Forgive us for when we've been timid or distracted or ambivalent. But, Lord, we offer ourselves tonight as living sacrifices. We want to conduct ourselves in a way that's pleasing to you, that you deem trustworthy, that whatever assignments you would have fulfilled, that you would consider us trustworthy with those assignments. We praise you for it tonight. I thank you for the privilege and honor we have of naming Jesus as Lord of our lives, that we can affirm that and declare that in public. We praise you for it, Lord. May that freedom grow, may that liberty increase. May your church grow. May our voice be strengthened. May your people be awakened. Reveal yourself to the children and the young people with a clarity beyond anything we've ever seen. May they know there's a God in heaven and that Jesus is his Son. We thank you for it. We praise you for it. For it's in Jesus's name that we pray, amen.