Allen Jackson - Lead With Faith, Holiday Edition - Part 2
It's a privilege to be with you today. Our topic is "Leading with Our Faith in the Holidays". You know, they tell us that faith and politics are not appropriate for polite company. I disagree. I think we have to bring our faith with us to our gatherings with our friends and our coworkers, our neighbors, wherever it may be. I'm not going any place that I can't take Jesus. We don't have to be obnoxious. We don't have to be over the top or intimidating. We want to be certain that everybody we gather with knows that we love Jesus of Nazareth and that we serve him as Lord, Christ, and King. It's an important time. Grab your Bible, get a notepad, but most importantly, open your heart to God's invitations to you this holiday season.
Now, one of the men that works with me has a saying, and it is stuck in my head. He's saying that the right tool makes every job easier. You know, and then there's so much truth in that. If you don't believe that, sometimes you try to accomplish a job just with brute force or strength. And I've learned a lot from that man 'cause I watch how he'll develop the tools he needs for the job at hand. And he's not ashamed to say, "I need better tools for this," or "There's tools that would make this job better". And then I watch how he cares for them, and manages them, and puts them in the place they're supposed to be. And I mean, it's a real deal.
Well, there are spiritual tools that make our assignments easier. And if we're going into this holiday season, I want you to imagine that there's a menu of things. There's some different things. And you'll have to know the ones that are more comfortable for you, that fit your hand better. And some are better in some circumstances than others. And there's no way I can put them all in one presentation, but I'll begin, and then we'll pick up a few more in the next session or two. But one of the things I think you could have in your toolkit is the willingness to talk about current events from a biblical perspective. We do that a little bit around here.
And the people who don't like it chirp and say, "You're being political". No, I'm really not. I'm trying to understand what's happening in our world in light of the scripture. And in the immediate season, one of the biggest things that's dominating headlines is what's happening in Israel. And there's tremendous confusion around it, even amongst the people who attend churches, because we don't understand, we're not that biblically aware. We've been told that the church replaced the Jewish people or something, but there's an opportunity to bring your faith to bear in a way that will help the people that you're interacting with find peace and hope in the midst of a tremendous amount of confusion and conflict.
I brought you two or three passages of scripture. If you've watched the previous two or three sessions, some of this is a bit repetitive, but I wanted to give it to you in a little more of an encapsulated way that perhaps you could take with you. In John chapter 4 and verse 22, Jesus is speaking to the Samaritans, and he said, "The Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews". So somebody said, you know, "Why does Israel matter? Why do the Jewish people matter at all"? Well, the reality is, as Christians, we have no salvation apart from the Jewish people. Our Messiah, our Lord, our King, the one to whom we have sworn allegiance, the one we call Lord, that we submit our will to, is a Jewish rabbi.
So, we are indebted to the Jewish people. Doesn't mean they're perfect, doesn't mean they're always right, doesn't mean when you go to Israel for a visit that you hear the flutter of angels' wings, because you don't. Every form of ungodliness and wickedness you can find in Nashville, you can find in Jerusalem. It's true. You don't have to go looking for it. All you have to do is ride in the car. Their traffic's worse than ours. You will lose the love of Jesus, trying to drive across Jerusalem. Romans chapter 11 and verse 1 says, "Did God reject His people"?
This is the apostle Paul, a Pharisee. "Did God reject His people"? That's the question. It's the one that the church has struggled with for almost 2,000 years, and often we've gotten wrong. Paul answers it: "By no means". It's the most emphatic way to say it that's available to us in the Greek language, which is the language of the New Testament. "God forbid," he said. "I'm an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin". Verse 2, he repeats it, "God did not reject his people, whom he foreknew". See, you've got a little conversation piece. "I don't know what's going on. I don't know why Christians care about that. God rejected the Jewish people".
Well, you know, I used to think that. I go to this goofy church now. The pastor's about half nuts, but he uses the Bible quite a bit, and he read it to us the other day. I think it was in Romans 11. I'm sure it was. Paul asked the question, "Did God reject his people"? And he said, "No, he didn't". So, biblically, I don't agree with you. I don't really think God did. That doesn't explain everything that's happening in the Middle East, but it does give me a responsibility to pray for the Jewish people. I'm indebted to them. There's a tremendous amount of latent, meaning underlying, resentment, hatred of the Jewish people. They have too much money. They control too many things. There's just all sorts of things that are deeply embedded in the hearts and minds of many, many, many people who fill our churches. The fancy word for it is anti-Semitism. And history bears that out.
That's not a theory on my part. History shouts that at us. The greatest persecutor of the Jewish people for the last 2,000 years has been the Christian church, period. There's not even anything that's a close second. In Psalm 122, in verse 6, it says, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure". But if you're having a conversation with somebody, and it's a new idea to them, and they're anywhere near receptive, have a let's pray moment. You've just got one sentence now. So, you know, whenever I can, wherever I've been able to this holiday season, I've been enlisting people to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Let's pray: "Father, I pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the inhabitants of the land. In Jesus's name, amen."
You didn't just pray for the Jewish people. About 9 million people live in Israel, about 7 million are Jew and almost 2 million are Arabic. You prayed for the inhabitants of the land. Now, you've got a little tool, little current events based. I can add to it a little bit of history. I think a little history would help. I've done it in a good bit of detail in the last couple of sessions. I don't want to go back through all of that. And with just a little bit of awareness, you could have a dialogue. You don't have to know all the dates. You don't have to know the succession of the kings. But you can understand that there hasn't been, King David selected Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish people, 1000 BC.
Muhammad was born in the sixth century AD. More than 1500 years before Muhammad was born, Jerusalem was the capital of a Jewish state. It was the second century, I told you a moment ago, it was in the 130s AD when the Romans named the region Palestine. Muhammad wasn't born until the sixth century. So more than 300 years before Muhammad was ever born, before there was any discussion of Islam, the region was known as Palestine. So it isn't as if from antiquity, Palestine has been the eternal home of a people group. It was a region of the Middle East, not a country. It's like talking about the Midwest in the United States or the Southeast or New England. They designate regions of the country.
What has been consistent from the biblical time when Queen Esther was in Persia, and there was an edict to eliminate the Jewish people, until today has been this illogical, persistent, unrelenting hatred of the Jewish people. And again, currently we see it being reflected in the Muslim world, but it shouldn't be understood to be unique to them. Europe did their best to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe. Now, we would say, "Well, the Nazis did that". Well, the Nazis may have been the ones calling for the construction of the death camps, but Europe offered up their Jewish population from city after city after city. That's just a matter of history. And tragically, in case you don't know, that was Christian Europe. I had those awkward conversations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem when they would find out I was a Christian. And they would turn around on the class and say, "Why have you hated us"?
I had to go learn my history before I could even talk about it. So what we're watching in the world today really isn't fundamentally about Islam. It's about a spirit, a spirit of antichrist. It hates the Jewish people. And what you should understand with clarity that's not quite as immediately apparent is the hatred of the Jewish people and the hatred of people who say Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah is fueled by the same spirit. It's the spirit of antichrist. And what you see being expressed towards the Jewish people, tragically, from too many of our elite universities, is the same spirit that will hate you. So when we stand on behalf of the Jewish people, we're standing on behalf of a worldview and a covenant that God has made with them, of which we have benefited, from which we have benefited. So, one way to take your faith to your holiday gatherings is to know three or four sentences about what's happening in the Middle East, so that you don't just have to repeat what's happening in the news.
Completely different topic, not current events. There's some prayers you can pray before you get to your gatherings, before you get to your meals or your parties or your neighborhood whatever. They're prayers that prepare you. So often, we think about the prayer we're going to pray with other people. I think a far more significant prayer is the prayer you and I pray in preparation to those gatherings. In Mark 11:25 it says, "When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him". That suggests to us that forgiveness doesn't take long 'cause you can forgive while you're standing there. It says, "If you're having a standing prayer, you remember something that you need to forgive, forgive it". Don't talk about it. Don't debate it. Don't think about it. Don't make a case for why you're filled with anger and bitterness and resentment. Forgive them.
Hebrews 12 says, "See to it that no bitter root grows up in you". And one of the reasons the holidays are difficult for us is we have tolerated unforgiveness and resentment and bitterness. We have let bitter roots exist in our hearts. Every family has challenges. There are no perfect families. In fact, most of our families are the ones that put fun in dysfunctional. And one of the ways you can prepare to make a spiritual impact, to lead with your faith in the holiday season, is to begin now to pray for the people that you know you're gonna interact with. Some of us need to forgive. Some of us have been holding accounts due. We have accounts receivable, and until we receive whatever it is we're expecting, an apology, something, we're not gonna release those people from the resentment that we're holding. And we want them to feel the hard edge of it when we're together. They don't think I'm gonna be nice to them, I hope.
And one of the things we can do, one of the tools we can implement, it will bring far more freedom to you than to anyone else, is to forgive, to cancel those notes, to tear up those markers. Don't take your anger and resentment, you'll be so different, they'll wonder what happened to you. You won't have to say much. Your attitude will be different. The Holy Spirit will help you. Now, I'm not suggesting this is easy, because if it's something that you've held for a long time, it's not an easy adjustment. And I'm not suggesting that what happened to you was appropriate. I'm not suggesting that you should accept it nor get back in line for further abuse, if that was the nature of the offense. I'm simply suggesting to you that biblically we have an assignment to forgive, that we will release them from any sense of obligation. They're not getting away with anything. You're entrusting them into the Judge of all the earth.
What you're doing is you're practicing obedience so that you can receive forgiveness. You know, the bizarre part about unforgiveness and anger and resentment is it puts us in bondage, not the person we're mad at. Have you ever been mad at somebody that didn't know it? How annoying is that? "Don't you even know I'm mad at you"? "No, didn't know". And you've been miserable and torqued up and angry. So if you want to prepare, if you want to take a step to lead with your faith during the holidays, ask the Lord if there's any prayers of preparation you need to make. I like the passage from Jude a lot. It says, "Build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit".
If you pray in the Spirit, it's a great way to spend some time in these next few weeks preparing for these opportunities. They're gonna be at work, they're gonna be in your neighborhood, they're gonna be at school, they're going to be with family. There's gonna be some unexpected opportunities. There'll be some you look forward to and some that you don't. But we want to lead with our faith for these next few weeks. We want to make a kingdom difference. It's not up to the church to provide entertainment for you during the holiday. We'll create some opportunities that you could use as a bringing and including event for friends or families or an ice rink, or whatever it may be. But for us to lead with our faith, we'll have to go into our spheres of influence as ambassadors for the kingdom, as if God were about to make an appeal all over Middle Tennessee and across our nation through us this holiday season.
How many of you are willing to be a part of something like that? A kingdom initiative for the next several weeks, lives being changed one at a time, families being transformed one at a time. You say, "I don't feel adequate". You're not. That's the exact right response. If you think you're adequate, you make me anxious. 'Cause on your best day, you can't heal a gnat's wing. We are not adequate. We can't change people or change families. We don't know have the wisdom often to know how to help people whose hearts are broken and they're desperate. We just recognize the need and we say, "Lord, I don't know what this is going to look like, but I'm going in your name today. And if I can share a piece of pumpkin pie or, well, maybe not that, Lord, but however you want to use me". Are you willing?
We're going to keep working on this toolkit a little bit. I can give you some more tools that will help, I think. But if you'll be willing, we'll start with that commitment tonight. We're gonna raise our hand and say to the Lord, "I'm in. Here I am, send me". That was Isaiah's transformative moment when the Lord said, "Who will I send? Who will we send on us"? And Isaiah said, "Well, I could go". And that's what I'm asking you tonight, if you'll say to the Lord this holiday season, "You can send me, you can send me". I used to go buy a dozen or so boxes of chocolate, keep them in the back of my car. And I said, "Lord, if there's somebody that needs encouraged, show me who they are".
You can give chocolate to a stranger at this time of the year, and they won't call the police. You try that in April, you'll get an interview. I'd buy a few poinsettias and keep them around, 'cause I found if I saw something, you could share a poinsettia with somebody. Lord, bring somebody to my mind. I'd think, "Ah, I hadn't thought of them in a long time". I'd go knock on a door and just say, "I just wanted to say, 'God bless you.' You've been a light in my life". You can do this. We can do this. Why don't you stand with me? We're going to raise our hand to the Lord. You know who'll be changed the most, right, right? Never knew God could use me driving along the road, gesturing at people in traffic to deliver a poinsettia. Who knew?
Before I could get out of the car, I had to tell the Lord I was sorry. True story, we used to do gift wrap at the mall. For years, we had a booth. We wrapped thousands and thousands of packages at Christmas time for free. I was in and out of the mall a lot. Well, there's a little bit of traffic at the malls at Christmas time. It was one of those Tennessee winter days. It was gray and rainy and cold and dreary and it was dark. I was in my car, I don't remember if I was trying to get into the mall or get out, but there was somebody in front of me that needed saved. Because every strategy I found to get out of that parking lot, they blocked. And just because the Lord loved me, something happened so that they had to turn around. They were going to pass my window.
So I was getting ready. I wanted to show them my approval of their driving. So, I had wiped off the fog of my window. Right? I mean, I was prepared. And when they got right abreast of me, and I could see into their car, it was somebody that came to church. So, I tried to turn that glare into an expression of holiday cheer, but on the inside, I knew. And, you know, in spite of our brokenness, God will use us. What I'm asking you to do is to say to the Lord, "I would be willing". You won't get it right every time, but you'll recognize when you didn't, and you'll say, "Lord, if I have another opportunity, I could do that better. I'll be more ready the next time".
Father, thank you for a season of the year we can pause to give thanks and celebrate the birth of Jesus and welcome a year of new opportunities, Lord. There are so many things in front of us in these next few weeks. And Lord, we recognize how desperately we need your help in our own hearts, in our own families, in our own homes, in the offices where we work, in the schools where our children go, in our neighborhoods. Well, Lord, we offer ourselves. We offer ourselves to you. May we be ambassadors for your purposes during this holiday season. May your appeal be made to the people around us with the influence you've given us, with those with whom we'll interact, with those with whom we will gather, those we'll speak to. Lord, give us wisdom to know what to say and when to be quiet. May we have the courage to speak with kindness and love and grace to the people that you put before us. Forgive us when we've been too disinterested or too busy or too afraid or whatever. Lord, we offer ourselves, and I thank you that in the weeks ahead, we'll begin to celebrate week upon week, story upon story of how you have intervened. And, Father, not only will we see others changed, we'll be transformed. In Jesus's name, amen.