Allen Jackson - When Kingdoms Collide - Part 2
In the current environment, I keep this kind of running list in my head between the theater of the absurd and the truth of God’s Word 'cause they seem to be in focus all the time depending on the messaging you listen to and how they spin what you’re watching. And I need the balance. I need the foundation of God’s Word to help me sort through the releases of the theater of the absurd because oftentimes they’re released with some very impressive credentials. Very notable people signing off on them. I’ve come to the realization that people who serve the absurd typically do so for purpose. They do it to gain profit, to gain pleasure, to gain opportunity. So, they endorse things that if you step away from them with any clarity oh, it’ll look absurd, but they endorse them because there’s some personal benefit 'cause they choose the pleasure or they choose the gain or they choose the opportunity presented.
People who choose the truth oftentimes the gratification is delayed, which means it’s not always the easiest choice. It’s always easier for me to say yes to M&M’s than no. After all, they’ve got a candy shell, so they melt in your mouth, not in your hand, right? I mean, I always feel that when there’s an opportunity to interact with an Oreo Double Stuff, that the grace of God has emerged in my life once again. I don’t have that same compulsion with broccoli. Choosing the truth often is about delayed gratification. That doesn’t mean it’s less valuable. In fact, typically it means it’s more valuable. I can give you some examples from things that are just a part of the current public discussion; a line that we’ve lived with now for quite some time, but it’s been challenged recently. The absurd was there are a limitless number of genders determined by personal feelings.
Now, I had an interview with a psychiatrist that works in a state system, not this state, and on their evaluation form there were more than 30 choices. I’d have to go back to graduate school just to process that list. We’ve heard recently from a political leader that there were only two genders: male and female. Now, I’m grateful for that expression of authority in our lives, but I’m very concerned that it didn’t begin with a groundswell from the churches. That should not have been first and initially a political declaration, that should have been so obvious and so loudly reiterated from the churches. And when I say church in this little section, I mean church. I don’t mean just institutional, organizational, professional Christians; I mean the believers.
Folks, if you work in a profession that has acknowledged multiple genders and you didn’t have the courage to say there’s two, don’t talk to me about pastors using their courage. «I assure you I have spoken the truth when I deal with my professional group». Limit your opportunities. But this issue has to go beyond our ability to be critical and complain about places of worship. If you sit in a place that doesn’t tell the truth, why? On this topic I believe the churches, the believers had failed to teach biblical truth regarding gender roles for so long, but we arrived at the point that men and women were competing in athletic contest because we’ve spent decades avoiding the clear teaching of Scripture that we’re not the same and we preferred to tell our daughters that they could do anything a boy could do.
No. We’re different. We’re not lesser or greater, but we’re not the same. That’s not my imagination. It comes from the Word of God, and we’re going to have to have the courage to come back to that. And we’ve found our culture so absurdly off-kilter on this point that we have absurd statements like it’s always wrong for a man to use physical violence against a woman. I don’t object to that statement. I think it makes perfect sense. And then we have the international Olympics, and we have men boxing with women.
Now, you can’t reconcile those two. They’re irreconcilable. It’s absurd. But the church, the believers have avoided the truth so long because we imagine there was something to be gained if we just ignored the truth. I’ll tell you another absurd statement we’ve heard for some season, that an open border is an expression of compassion; followed very closely by the statement that our border is secure. Well, the truth is an open border is dangerous to all citizens. Securing the border is a first responsibility of government, and a failure to do so is a complete capitulation upon the responsibility of those who have leadership over us. The really uncomfortable part is because of sloppy grace the church has failed to teach about the sovereignty of God. We have no imagination of boundaries, or borders, or thou shalt not. We’ve had so much sloppy grace that anything goes and everything’s okay.
And so, when someone comes to us and uses grace or compassion as a lever of manipulation, we’re unprepared to think our way through it. I’ll tell you another statement that… it’s absurd, but it made its way into the realm of truth recently. More than 90% of federal employees don’t work full time from the office. Just think about that for a moment. More than 90% do not work full time from the office. Now, it’s hard to imagine that as an efficient anything. Suppose I told you that I wanted to continue to do my job, but I just want you to know 90% of the next several years I won’t actually be in the house. I’ll be with you in spirit. And, I mean, I’m going to Zoom some.
Those of you watching the stream, you’re going, «That works for us. Just whatever works for you, pastor. Keep the lines open». It’s so absurd when you say it out loud. You think, «Well, who’s watching over that»? Well, clearly it wasn’t us. The truth is work is an expression of character and work from a biblical perspective is inherently good. In fact, I don’t think it’s a stretch of Scripture to suggest that when you go to work you go to worship every bit as much as you do as when you walk into a sanctuary to sing a chorus. In fact, when we meet God in Genesis chapter 1, he’s working, and just for the casual observer he’s working a six-day week. «Well, well, well».
Again, church and believers have capitulated to culture. See, it’s easier for us to think we can be enhanced or enriched by affluence and we’d rather turn our attention to elder places, and too often in contemporary culture we use our children as an excuse for our avoidance of work. We do. «Well, I need to spend more quality time with my children». Now, I’m an advocate for that, I believe it’s important; but I would submit to you, men especially, that we have three primary assignments in the sight of God. One is to introduce our children and teach them about the kingdom of God. Not the church, not the Sunday school, yours. Church and Sunday school can be a help. They can be an assist. That’s why you can’t sit in the church that dishonors Jesus or the authority of Scripture. You make your children incredibly vulnerable.
And then we have to protect them and provide for them, and those things lead the discussion. The Scripture says that if you don’t provide for your family you’re worse than an infidel. We’ve lost that message in the contemporary. I read the literature. I read the articles. I know what we’ve been pumping out for quite a season now. It’s how we arrived in this place where 90% of the federal employees can work from home. Sure. One of the other absurdities of our current environment is just the unbelievable, frivolous waste of money. I saw a stat come out in the last few days. It was difficult to believe just 'cause I know a bit more about that part of the world. Our Department of Defense was preparing to send $50 million to Gaza for condoms. Maybe, just maybe an expenditure that could be put under review.
The truth is we’ve lost sense of the stewardship of time, talent, and money; and from a biblical perspective, we’ve already glanced at it in Luke 16. It’s an expression of our character. It’s as much an expression of our faith. It’s how we pray and how we worship. Contentment is the biblical value. The Scripture says that godliness with contentment is of great gain. The Bible says don’t take what you don’t earn. There are values that we have to reintroduce to our families and through our families into our communities and into our culture. We have lost sight of them. We have embraced a whole host of imposters, absurdities. We’ve been watching a national debate for the last few days around DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
John spoke to that last weekend. I cannot improve on what he had to say, but the essence of it is that we’ve made hiring decisions regarding imposed future employees based upon their appearance, not their competence. That’s absurd. The truth is we’re one human race, one blood; that our character and our heart is far more significant than our appearance and the awkward reality, again, is the capitulation of the church. Again, church and believers have preferred cultural acceptance and avoided the conflict. I’ll give you more uncomfortable category. We’ve listened to the absurdity that it’s my body and my choice.
The biblical perspectives are out of date on human sexuality. «My body my… nobody can tell me what to do with my body». Unless they decide to tell you to get vaccinated and then that’s a mandate. The truth is the sanctity of human life and God-defined boundaries for sexuality should shape the lives of his people. Church and believers have ignored biblical presentation of sexuality and because of that we’ve had to capitulate on the sanctity of human life. We’re not confused. We’re not unaware. It’s not that we don’t understand. It’s just inconvenient and we think God’s going to grade on a curve and that grace thing is going to come into play, so we can fudge around the edges and somehow it’s going to be okay.
We mock God. Reason our culture found ourselves in this place is because the church had lost our voice. There have been voices crying in the wilderness. I want to close with an example. I’m going to get almost through your outline. Just a reminder that the authority of Scripture, a biblical worldview, a Judeo-Christian worldview is so important. And when you hear a messaging or ideas or principles that are leading you away from the fundamentals of the character of God that you know from reading your Bibles, there should be a warning light that begins to flash at a very high intensity even if there’s a promise of gain, profit, pleasure, opportunity for yourself or your children or someone you love.
Well, I was reminded of something recently and I wanted to share it with you. You know, the Word of God, I have said frequently lately that the Word of God thunders against sin, that there’s a moral authority in Scripture. And then when you will align yourself with the Word of God, there’s an authority that comes to your perspective that far exceeds your position, your stature, your wealth; all those things that the world uses to evaluate us. Martin Luther King Jr. brought a message of civil rights to our nation, but the authority for which he delivered his message was the Word of God and the outcome reflected far more than anything he could personally mash up.
Well, at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on February the 5th, 1994, I couldn’t believe it. It had been 30 years. I just remembered the event, and when I went to look it up it was been almost 30 years. Mother Teresa stood before President and Mrs. Bill Clinton and Vice President and Mrs. Al Gore, along with 4,000 others in attendance, and she called abortion murder. Now, I would remind you, if you don’t remember, that at that point President Clinton had vetoed a partial birth abortion ban multiple times, and should you not remember a partial birth abortion was delivering a child to the head crowns and then puncturing the head, vacuuming out what was there to collapse the head and make an easier delivery. We vetoed that multiple times. We didn’t want to stop that.
And this is Mother Teresa, a little person that chose the truth of God standing in that setting without many allies, «I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us.
So the mother who is thinking of abortion should be helped to love; that is, to give until it hurts her plans or her free time, to respect the life of her child. And the father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts». She went on with one of the most eloquent presentations of the truth. It didn’t bring change that day. It didn’t bring an immediate reversal. We’ve had changes in our laws, but we’ve yet to have a change of heart. More than 70% of Americans still say they’re in favor of abortion. We don’t say it that way. Usually it begins with limits. You know, we’re opposed to abortion after 12 weeks or 16 weeks. Well, 80% of abortions take place before 16 weeks.
So 70% of Americans are okay with abortion. One out of five people, one out of five women statistically have been involved. Abortion touches every one of us directly or indirectly. I didn’t come to bring shame, I came to do my best to tell you the truth. There’s a debate. There’s a conflict taking place. There are kingdoms in conflict. And that diminutive woman from Kolkata stood in front of the most powerful person in the planet and held up the truth about life. I would submit to you she chose the more narrow path. I’ll contrast that with something we watched recently. An Episcopal bishop in Washington, D.C. who presides over the National Cathedral chose to scold the current administration, encouraging them and urging them to have mercy upon communities across the country who are scared, including the LGBTQ people and migrants, and she went on to advocate for positions that are clearly against the authority of Scripture.
And, again, she’s a bishop in that organization. I checked just to be sure. As a matter of law, the Episcopal Church is unambiguously supported a woman’s right to choose an abortion since before anyone had ever heard the term Roe v. Wade. So in between Mother Teresa and an Episcopal bishop we have a kingdom conflict, we have a clash of world-views and we’re left to watch and to listen and to think and to act. I know you want to put your fingers in your ears and whistle and go, «Ah, it’s not my issue. I don’t want to be involved anymore».
Folks, we’re not called to be salt and light when it’s convenient. Those are assignments you give to children. «Mow the yard if you have time. Pick up your room if you can». Those are children’s assignments. Adults have assignments with consequences, and if you fail the assignment the consequences are typically unpleasant. We have a choice. We’ve been called to the stage, remember? God is searching the earth for men and women whose hearts are right towards him. Folks, it’s not our achievement, or our accomplishments, or our platforms, or our resources. What’s about our heart? What about our heart? This isn’t about age. You can be young and have a heart, that God could tap you and say, «I’ve got an assignment that’ll change the destiny of many».
In fact, that tends to be his pattern. It’s very seldom he recruits us old curmudgeons. Moses had a little mileage when God came for him. I could argue that God used Samuel in the most powerful ways when he was at the end of one of his careers. He’s done as a judge, but God said, «Samuel, the people are making a boneheaded decision and I need you to shepherd them into what’s next». And Samuel said, «I will do that». He could have been so angry, so enraged, so embittered that he said, «I’m not anointing anybody for anything».
So whoever you are on the spectrum, I wonder if we could say to the Lord tonight, «I choose the truth. I choose the truth. For my life, for my home, for the people that I’m doing life with, I choose the truth. I choose the truth». Are you ready? That’s the best way to limit the theater of the absurd. Politicians can’t do this, folks. They’ll initiate their changes and they won’t last until the ink dries if we don’t have a heart change amongst the believers. This is our watch. Will you stand with me? I know we got to go. I put you a wonderful proclamation in your notes. You can use it later.
I want to pray for you. I don’t like messages without an opportunity to respond. If I just wanted to do lectures, I would have gone to the university. The hours are better. I want you to reflect with me for a moment. Are you willing to say to the Lord, «I’ll choose the truth»? We get so heated up about other people, what they should be doing. «And I don’t like that choice, and I don’t like», stop it. God knows your heart and my heart, and if we’re hiding he knows it. Some of us need to start this prayer for the truth with a repentance that we’ve stood in the shadows and tried to act like we didn’t notice. You’re not unique. Peter did that. Boy, did they get it turned around. So can we. That’s what they were singing about. Let’s pray:
Father, thank you for your Word, for its truth and authority and power. I thank you that we’re not left alone, we’re not left just to our opinions or our feelings or what seems prudent to us but that you have given us guidance and direction and instruction and, Lord, tonight we choose the truth. We choose your truth over our lives. We choose the authority of your Word over our lives. Lord, we choose the more narrow path. We want to honor you. Jesus, be Lord of our lives. Forgive us when we have equivocated. Forgive us when we have been indifferent. Forgive us when we have denied what we knew so that we could gain an opportunity or an advantage or a profit. Lord, forgive us when we’ve pursued pleasure over what we knew to be true. Lord, we come tonight in humility to repent; to repent of our thoughts, to change our minds; and to repent of our actions and to choose a new path. We want to be pleasing to you. Holy Spirit, help us. If there are things that need to be addressed, bring them to our awareness. Bring voices around us to encourage us. Show us the people around us with whom we can use our voice to be an encouragement. Thank you for what you’re doing. We praise you that you’re moving in the earth, that we see you moving in our nation. We see the light being expressed in unlikely places from unlikely sources. Now, awaken your people to be salt and light as we’ve never seen before from coast to coast, and border to border, and community to community, and congregation to congregation. May the name of Jesus be exalted and your truth lifted up. We praise you for it. In Jesus’s name, amen.