Allen Jackson - A New Beginning - Part 2
The devil is a tactician. Now, if he has a strategy for you, if he has game-planned for you, I would humbly suggest perhaps you should have a plan of your own. Now, we’re given one. I gave you Luke 4 just as a little support for that. It says, this was Jesus in the wilderness, «He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry». Did I put that in your notes? Yeah, just on the other side. Okay. Turn the page. Jesus ate nothing for 40 days. At the end of them, he was hungry and the devil said to him, «If you’re the Son of God, make bread». That seems pretty strategic to me. He didn’t come to him when he’d finished the buffet.
And then the fourth thing from that passage, it says our battle. It’s just stated as a matter of reality that we’re engaged in a conflict, in a battle; that our battle is against spiritual forces of evil in the heavens. I can’t tell you how many times I interact with tenured Christians, people who’ve been in church forever, been in this church for a long, long time. «You know, I just, I don’t know how I feel about all that». Doesn’t really matter. Like you get up every morning, turn your face to the sun, and say, «I don’t believe in the devil». And he will still believe in you. It’s amazing to me how we think the assertion of our will or the declaration of what we think changes reality, and qualify you for politics. That was snarky. I repent.
Verse 13, Paul says you must take up the armor of God. This is why you must take up the full armor of God. It’s not a suggestion. It’s not an alternative. There’s not some people that take up the armor and some that don’t. The only ones left standing are the ones that armor up. On that same verse, he gives us the objective. He said you must take up the armor of God so that you may be able to resist. The language intrigues me. I checked more than one translation to be sure I wasn’t missing something 'cause my language skills that could happen; but the word may is intentional, that you may resist.
Now, that sticks in my heart because may has a very specific meaning. May is a request for permission. The word that we think is a synonym typically: can. Can is not a request for permission, can is about ability. Well, the statement here is about permission. It’s permissive. So you may be able to resist. It’s not so you can resist. Go back to the beginning of the passage. It’s talking about the Lord and his vast strength. The only opportunity we have to stand against evil is to stand in the strength of the Lord. We won’t stand in our physical determination or our self-control or our vast understanding or our affiliation with the right group. We will have to understand the authority that we’ve been given and then know how to be strengthened. It is God’s permission that enables us to stand.
Wow, that’s not a done deal. Now we’re back into trees and good fruit and a desire to be living, vital, vibrant. You don’t bear good fruit because you were really lively 8 years ago, you’re fruitful because you’re healthy now. It’s our assignment to resist. It’s not an option to consider. There aren’t some of us tagged as high-level special ops resistors. If you’re a Christ follower, we’ve been told to take up the armor so that we may be able to resist. You must take your stand. You must resist.
You say, «Well, pastor, I just don’t like that. You know, I’m a more of a passive. I’m kind of a get along and go along kind of a person». I would invite you to be more of like a Bible person. Then in verse 14 we get this ultimate. It says stand, therefore. And then he gives us some of the specifics about the armor and he says that the necessary foundation for standing is to have your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace, and we’ll talk more about the gospel of peace in the next session. But the beginning point of standing, I would submit to you that it’s illogical to think you can stand unless you get your feet planted in the right place. Is that fair?
I mean, I grew up in a barn in Tennessee so, you know, I’m not… but it seems like to me if you’re going to stand, having your feet sandaled up in preparation is a part of the deal. If you’ve tried to take the gospel into our culture, into your schools or the hospital, you know it takes some determination, right? Right? Good, I thought for a minute I had the wrong group. It takes some determination to see awful books taken out of libraries. I mean, it’s just about any expression of goodness or kindness or godliness you think in our current environment takes some determination to stand.
Now, I want to see if I can give expression to this. If you’ll humor me for just a moment, I want to give you a couple of scenarios of the standing we see taking place in Christendom. My opinion, you could disagree with me and we could both still go to heaven, but I want to see if I can portray it in the way that I kind of see it. And so I’m going to get, I want to get the right shoes so I got slippers. And I have traveled a bit and I’ve been to museums and I earned a degree in history once and I know a little bit about armor. I’ve seen… have you ever seen a coat of armor? Doesn’t look comfortable. You know, the truth about the knights from the Middle Ages, you know, with all the armor, they make movies about them, it was most common if a knight was traveling alone and for any reason he lost his seat on the horse and he fell they would die of exposure 'cause they couldn’t even rise to stand again with all that armor on. True story.
So I thought about that. I thought, «I don’t know. It’s going to be single digits this week. I don’t want a lot of cold armor so I’m going to armor up in a little more convenient way». Wait a minute. I’ll tie it. And I have ridden horses and taken care of horses. I suppose if it was urgent I could do something with that, but this is better. I’m sorry for the chair you have, but I have a deluxe model. And that helmet thing, I’ve had to wear helmets for various and sundry things and most of them were far more aggressive than I wanted to be. So I thought I could pick a helmet. Not that one. And then I picked up this one. I thought, «This works». This is Make Education Great Again, and I thought, «I could wear that helmet». Then I thought, «Not today». And then I picked this one up and it said David Citadel Jerusalem and I thought, «Now I’m okay with that».
Now, if you want my best adaptation of the current contemporary landscape in evangelical America, I’m standing. Oh, come on, I spent my whole life in that group of people so I’m not throwing stones any place beyond the glass house where I live, but particularly, oh, and I brought some goodies, too. They told me that there were some copyright issues if we put Dr. Pepper on camera. So I have such an amazing team. I have Dr. George, established 1936. This is vintage. And I have cheese doodles for everybody. I really was going to bring you all some, but that much yellow dust in the building would never have gotten clean. But, you know, particularly this weekend with what we are imagining over the next few days, this felt like the appropriate posture.
I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had lately where people said to me, «I’m so happy the election’s over. I’m exhausted with all the bickering. I’m tired of all the snarky comments, tired of the commercials. I don’t want to think about it anymore. I’m so thankful that there’s a new administration going to Washington and they’re going to fix all our problems. Bobby Kennedy is going to make us healthy, or Kash Patel is going to make us more honest, or Pam Bondi is going to make us more just. Oh, it’s so good. I’m so glad they’re going. I mean, I know they’ve disrupted their lives. I’m glad Governor Huckabee is going to Israel. I appreciate him making that sacrifice». 'Cause if they’d have called me, it would have been real pain.
I mean, I had routines and habits. I’m really grateful that he got to blow his life up 'cause I’m standing and you know, if you just took a snapshot, you would think that our primary commitment for standing was comfort and convenience. I will stand wherever you ask me to if it’s comfortable and it’s convenient with my schedule. Praise the Lord. You know, we prayed for months about that election. I’m glad it’s over so I can get on with my life. I need to be able to think about something else. I’m tired of thinking about culture and immorality and ungodliness and illegal and legal and I want somebody else to think about it. I want to get back to what I want to do. I mean, I stood. But they’ve even got a deal for the hostages. Hallelujah?
I don’t know if you’ve checked on it at all. I pray it holds together. I desperately pray it does. But they’re not releasing all the hostages Monday. They’re releasing them in a slow trickle, week over week over several weeks. What’s the chance you think Hamas will keep their word for several weeks? But I’m standing if I can stay awake. I like standing where I can DoorDash. I like standing where I’ve got an app with a doorbell camera and I can see who’s ringing the doorbell 'cause I don’t want to get up to check. But you could dial any form of communications you want and it’ll, on my schedule, I don’t have to know what time the programs would come on anymore. I just watch what I want to. Me and Dr. George, we are standing.
Now, this image in light of what we read together, if I can’t get out of the chair we’re in trouble, to be honest frightens me 'cause I’m pretty certain I can’t bear much fruit with this attitude. I don’t know that it’s inherently evil, but I know that if I maintain that posture, evil will be unchecked and it doesn’t sound like the heroes I have in my Bible. I’m not opposed to comfort and convenience. I prefer to worship indoors when the weather’s like this. But when we couldn’t, we’d worship outdoors. I don’t want my life to be dictated by comfort and convenience, and I don’t want the church in my generation to be imagined that those are the criteria that drive us.
I grew up in Middle Tennessee. Most of you know that. My dad was a veterinarian. Pretty normal. But the day I graduated, the day I finished my freshman year in high school; I don’t remember the details, I just remember that my mom picked me up from school, which was not normal, and she said to me, we lived on a little farm. We had about, I don’t remember, 26 acres, but because of my dad’s job it was filled with broodmares in the springtime. And my mom picked me up from school and she said, «The man that manages the farm, take care of the horses and the barns broke his ankle today. It’s your job». Now, I still remember. I’m thinking, «No, I’m good. Don’t need a job. I got plans». But it really wasn’t presented to me as a suggestion. «You have a job».
Now, I had had boy jobs. I mowed the grass sometimes if it was convenient, and I didn’t have a ball game or something I wanted to do. I’d chip in, do my fair share. I’d mow the grass. I’d take the trash out sometimes if the weather wasn’t too bad. I mean, I was respectful. Now, I didn’t really understand yet, but apparently with the boots came a whole set of responsibilities. Like I was supposed to be ready to be in the barn by 6 o’clock a.m., every day. I didn’t laugh, and I tried to explain that my friends didn’t do that. It did not seem to matter at all. But I spent that summer learning lessons that have informed my life ever since, that I had to be present in the morning. No matter what the weather was, no matter how I felt, that there were some responsibilities and if I weren’t there the horses wouldn’t have water and they wouldn’t have anything to eat.
And if I didn’t give attention to the rest of it, the problems would accelerate. I didn’t always like it. In fact, a lot of days I didn’t like it. But I look back on it and it’s been a year or two since I was 13 and the lessons I learned about how to take care of those animals and the responsibility that went with it, that if I didn’t water them they had none. But I couldn’t just call in 'cause I got an invitation to go to the lake with some friends that I’d rather go to the lake with. I wasn’t chained to a pole in the barn, I still had a life for clarity. I still remember there were days when because I was tired or behind or it had been a really busy season of work that I would get to the barn and, I guess it was my dad, there really weren’t any other options, somebody would have done a big chunk of my work before I got there that morning. And he was already really busy.
In the same way the Lord says he will strengthen us, I was very conscious that my dad loaned a good bit of his strength to a 13-year-old boy that was trying to make a transition. He gave me a pair of gloves. I didn’t want gloves. People who weren’t tough wore gloves. And he said, «Oh, it won’t stop the blisters. It’ll just make it more bearable». I thought, «What has happened to me»? So years later those lessons still in play. I’m not taking care of a barn full of horses anymore, but every place I look I see sheep and the responsibilities that go with that. Mean that the recliner is not the best option. I want to ask you to think about your life and how you treat the Lord and how you imagine your faith and if you have really sandaled up so you can stand or if your shoes are more of a fashion statement or they’re more about comfort or convenience or, «What will my friends think»?
Most of my friends were not wearing Red Wing work boots that smelled like manure. I believe that what is before us will require the people of God to stand. We want to build a foundation that will enable us to flourish in the storm. I brought you a couple of verses. I’m not going to dwell on them. We got to go, I know. I can’t turn my notes with my gloves on. Don’t mock. Proverbs 10:5 says, «He who gathers crops in the summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son». So my question, and it’s personal. You don’t have to agree with my analogies, you don’t have to like my illustrations, but you’ll have to answer this question ultimately. Are you awake and engaged or are you asleep? One, we’re told, is wise and the other is disgraceful.
And then in 1 Corinthians 13 it says, «When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me». I can tell you I didn’t understand it at the time or I would have screamed far more loudly. When I was given that first real job, you know, not the kid’s job, I mean, I had chores and assignments, but when I got that first real job I had to put childish ways behind me. So here’s my question. Have you accepted your most recent assignment to serve the Lord? I understand the majority of you are born again and baptized.
Many of you have read your Bibles. I get it. You’re engaged. You’ve got a lengthy resume, a significant curriculum vitae. I’m not opposed to that. Are we going to bear fruit this year? Are we going to make an impact? Are we just going to fold our arms and say, «Boy, I hope Mr. Trump’s up for the challenge 'cause we need somebody to fix this mess»?
Folks, we’re the church. We’re light and salt. And if the darkness is going to be dispelled, it will because the church turns up the light. I brought you some verses of scripture. I think, I couldn’t write a prayer that was any more articulate or any more impactful than what the ones who preceded us had to say. So I thought maybe we could close with this proclamation over our lives. Would you be interested? Why don’t you stand with me? Acts 4, some of the apostles have been arrested and threatened and their friends are anxiously awaiting to see what will happen because the last time their friend got arrested they beat him, they tortured him to death and it wasn’t a clear outcome.
That’s Acts 4, says, «Now, Lord», let’s read it together, «Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus». The next time they were arrested, the physical violence started. They received a beating and the group that had denied the Lord when he needed them the most left that very difficult meeting bleeding, in pain.
It’s Acts chapter 5. Let’s read this together. «The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ». And now maybe with Isaiah, God was recruiting. He still is. He’s searching the earth for men and women. Have you got that verse, Isaiah 6, good. Together, «Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? ' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me.'» Amen. In Jesus’s name, here we go.