Allen Jackson - Walk Out of the Darkness - Part 2
There’s just no replacement for obedience to God. You can’t be generous enough to overcome your disobedience. You can’t be kind enough or… obedience is irreplaceable. Walk in the light of the truth that you know. In fact, I really don’t think there’s any significant opportunity for advancement in the kingdom of God until you’re willing to walk in the truth that you know. And so, if you’re not in the habit of practicing obedience, begin to make it a determined part of your daily life. Let’s decide to be obedient to the truth of God, to be courageous enough to speak the truth that we know, to not be manipulated by fear. So, what’s the challenge and how do we navigate it?
Well, the diagnosis isn’t particularly complex to me and this isn’t about the ungodly, it’s not about the people outside the church, it’s not about the professional class of political leaders, it’s about the people of faith. The diagnosis, it seems to me, is we have laid aside the knowledge of God. There was enough opportunity for prosperity and enjoyment and pleasure that we could rear our children and point them towards pathways that we thought would bring fulfillment and contentment and joy and we could celebrate the victories with them without necessarily trying to establish in them a foundation of obedience to fundamental biblical values.
Hosea chapter 4 and verse 1 says, «Listen to the word of the Lord, O sons of Israel». This isn’t for the pagan nation, it’s not for the Gentile, this is for the covenant people of God. «Listen to the word of the Lord, for the Lord has a case against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land. There is swearing and deception and murder and stealing and adultery. They employ violence, so that bloodshed follows bloodshed».
Gee, that sounds pretty accurate to me. I mean, the location is a little different, but it’s a pretty accurate description of our land. The case being made against us is the knowledge of God has been removed, it’s been inconvenient. We’re more interested in civic behaviors that are applauded. We don’t want to be offensive. Well, the resolution, I believe, is equally simple, it’s equally straightforward, we have to desire the knowledge of God. And you think, well, duh, but I think we tend to think, well, it’s not about me, it’s about somebody else. I mean, we’re in church on a Sunday and it stormed all night, we’re the best. I mean, we stayed home, there was a lot of water, but we’re livestreaming. Yes, you are.
Look at 1 Corinthians 15 verse 34, «Awake». And that word that’s translated there was the secular Greek word that was used for somebody who was recovering from being drunk, so come out of your inebriated condition. There’s been an influence in your life. There’s been something that has addled your ability to comprehend and understand. «Awake to righteousness, and do not sin, for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame». This is Paul writing to a church. He’s not writing to the ungodly, to the secular culture, he’s not writing to the Roman leaders who practice paganism, he’s writing to a church. «Awake to righteousness». Some of you don’t have the knowledge of God.
2 Corinthians, same church but another letter, «The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God». Wow, pretentious ideas that oppose God’s knowledge, our culture is filled with them and the church struggles with this, we do. We’re not sure if we should be kind, should we just overlook sin? We’ve been very good at that. For decades now, I would say we have majored in overlooking ungodliness, extending invitations to the ungodly.
Come stand amongst us, we won’t notice your paganism. The Bible has given us really a very different assignment, it’s that we’re supposed to overcome evil with good. That in the place of ungodliness and immorality and wickedness, we’re supposed to give demonstration to what God says is good and we’re told over and over, frequently, and we’re shown across many seasons of biblical history that when we give those expressions of good, those who don’t choose God’s good will be offended and oppose you. Jesus said it. He said you’ll be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. Is it possible that we have misconstrued, misunderstood? I don’t believe we should be angry or belligerent and certainly not violent, I think we are ambassadors for a kingdom with compassion for every human being with a very important message to deliver, there is an almighty God, he’s sovereign over all creation.
He delights in showing mercy, even to the ungodly. But you shouldn’t imagine that that mercy is infinite, there will be a point of evaluation, please be prepared. And the admonition of scripture is the preparation needs to begin with the house of God, so let’s start that in that place, in our own hearts, in our own homes, in our own ambitions, with our own children, with our own grandchildren. Are we willing to challenge every idea that sets itself against the knowledge of God or do we just want to overlook it? There’s a battle raging in the earth, warfare is being conducted not so much with traditional warfare, but spiritual warfare. There’s a purposeful opposition to the knowledge of God.
You don’t have to be very discerning to know this. Don’t pray in this place, don’t bring those values, separate the church from the state. You can put every other worldview into the public square, into the government, into the corporate offices, into our public education, into our college campuses, you can take every other worldview you want and let it flourish and proliferate, be institutionalized, departmentalized, be written into federal code, but if you have the audacity to bring the name of Jesus, someone begins to squawk and they start threatening lawsuits and we run, we back down and we hush. We abandoned the corporate boardroom because they said, well, one person was offended so you keep your faith out of it.
Were you watching when Budweiser made transgenderism their corporate platform? They weren’t unique or alone. Everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. Strongholds established to diminish the knowledge of God. Please don’t imagine that people we elect to office are tasked with the assignment of bringing spiritual transformation. At the very best, at the very best, the highest opportunity they could achieve would be to enact a policy that maybe reflected a biblical worldview, but their assignment is not. That’s the assignment of the church. That’s our voice. That’s our platform. That’s the neighborhoods where we live and the schools where our children go.
We can’t sit quietly in the community where schools teach ungodliness to our children and imagine that we will avoid God’s judgment. We can’t look quietly upon a culture that doesn’t value the life of children and think that God’s response will not impact us because we gathered in the right building for a few minutes on a Sunday morning. There’s a battle unfolding. I do believe COVID was a wakeup call. We saw the links to which limits could be expressed, at least the beginning of that. Look at Romans 11, «All the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever! Amen».
The depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. You know why I think we’ve been silent? Because we haven’t really believed that the goodness of God and the wisdom of God was real in our heart of hearts. We have bent our knee to contemporary educational theories. We’ve embraced things like CRT and DEI and SCL and alphabets. We got all kinds of alphabet things, all kinds of acronyms, most of them directly pointed at displacing the authority of the Word of God. And we’ve wanted the approval that comes with that because we see the opportunities and the things that go with that and we truly haven’t believed that God’s ideas were better. We didn’t think he was wiser. I mean, we might have language and liturgy that says we acknowledge the sovereignty of God and the Creator of all things, but in the practice of our lives, in the choices of how we carry out and conduct ourselves, we have bent our knee.
Look in Colossians 1, «We pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way, bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God». That’s it, church. We want to grow in the knowledge of God, not just Bible studies. I’m over theoretical Bible studies. I love to learn, I like to study, I’ve spent my life studying, but the point of learning is that we might give expression to the truth. What’s the outcome of our learning? If it isn’t more godliness, it’s fruitless. The audience that Jesus addressed were experts in scriptural compliance. He said, you tithe, you know what a tithe is? The first tenth. We understand tithing to be the first tenth of your income, I believe it’s a biblical principle. I believe it belongs to the Lord, I don’t even think it’s mine. But the audience that Jesus spoke to in the gospels, he said you are so fastidious, you are so occupied with legalistic compliance that if you buy spices in the marketplace, you buy spices in very small quantities. You even tithe of the spices you purchase in the marketplace, but he said your hearts are far from me.
See, the purpose of learning about God is that we might cooperate with God, that we would lean in to his wisdom, that we would become increasingly compliant, that we would be brighter lights, more intentional in our faith. And our messaging has been almost the opposite. We’ve said if you could check this box and this box and perhaps this box, you’re pretty much good to go, just ride it out. And if you were to transgress or step aside or take a detour, you know, God’s merciful, just kind of say, oh, I’m kind of sorry. And we’ve lived with so much sloppy agape.
Look at Proverbs 2, «My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, if you turn your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding, if you call out for insight and you cry aloud for understanding, if you look for it as for silver and you search for it as hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God». I don’t really like that passage, I would like to have the understand the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God because I raised my hand once. Well, I’d like that. That’s not really what’s described there. It says, «The Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding». Wisdom comes from the Lord. «He holds victory in store for the upright. He is a shield to those whose walk is blameless. He guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones».
Then, you ought to circle that little word, «then». «Then you will understand what is right and just and fair, every good path». It’s not easy to know these days. Powerful people, influential people, people with lots of views, lots of likes, lots of stuff trying to define for you what’s good and right. I don’t want you to take my word for it, I want you to know God well enough. There’s seven things there that the proverb says we should do with regard to God. Accept his words, store up his commands, turn your ear to wisdom, apply your heart to understanding, call out for insight, cry aloud, look for it as silver, search for it as hidden treasure. If you’ll do those things, he said then you will know and understand the fear of the Lord.
That’s our goal, not just heaven, not just salvation, not just eternity, but now the knowledge of God. So, I wanna give you a little homework assignment. Take that passage, scale of one to ten, take those seven things and evaluate how are you doing? Be honest with yourself, how are you doing with accepting God’s Word, with storing up his commands, of turning to his wisdom, applying yourself to understanding, of crying out, looking for it, searching for it? The benefits, they’re worthwhile, better than anything any market I know of promises and far more secure. It says that God holds victory in store for us. He’s a shield for us, he guards our course, he protects our way, and he will grant us understanding of what is right. Sign me up.
So, my question to you, we gotta wrap up, if we’ve been in this five-year wakeup call, we keep hitting snooze, what have we learned? Don’t answer out loud, what have we learned? I’ll tell you how to get to that. The question then is what have we changed? If we learned anything, we made course adjustments, course corrections, we modified behavior, habits, patterns. Most of the data suggests that the modification of our habits and patterns has not been towards more public expressions of our faith. There have been some wonderful expressions of truth breaking into the public square. The legalization of abortion is a right in our nation was walked backwards and the response of the people of faith was almost silence.
Are we more committed to faith and obedience than ever before? It’s an important question, or do we imagine we were pretty good to begin with? We could not have been the problem, it was the other people. And we know they desperately need to change. How have we given more attention to God? No, really, how have we done that? Have we changed our patterns of cooperation with him? In what ways does our life today reflect a new relationship with the Creator of all things? Are we still waiting for those other people? Have we grieved over the hardness of our hearts? To what extent have we wrestled with the condition of our lives? I know the response, I understand, and I don’t mean to dismiss it lightly because, you know, we have problems.
It’s a crazy year, there’s crazy stuff going on, turmoil. Everything seems more difficult than we want it to be. There’s struggles in our lives, surely you don’t expect me to initiate new responses to God in the midst of the problems of this year. When everything’s going the way I prefer then I’ll be ready to seek God in new ways. Well, I think the most important time to seek God is when it seems like everything is in turmoil. Are we training our children to respect God, to respect his Word, his people, his Sabbath? Have we really made any changes with that? I remember the discussions when the lockdown started and family after family said it’s been transformational for us, we’re together. Did we learn any lessons? Have we taught the children to respect those places where we worship God? What about personal morality? Have we made meaningful changes to our behavior?
Ephesians 5:3, I think you have it, it says, «Among you there must not even be a hint of sexual immorality or of any kind of impurity or of greed». Wow, you put greed and sexual immorality in the same sentence? Awkward, maybe there’s some Greek word that lets us out of that loop, huh? «Because these are improper for God’s holy people». Are we more truthful? Have we been shaken from the slumber of deception? Have we embraced integrity in new ways, again in our own lives, in our private lives and how we do business? What have we learned?
The evidence of what we have learned is in how we have changed. Well, I have a suggestion and an invitation for you. It’s Easter season, where our attention, those of us who worship the Lord, are focused upon a cross, the redemptive power of God released on our behalf. I’ll say it again in a couple of weekends, but on that cross Jesus exhausted the curse of our sin that we might have… he deserves a hand for that. That we might have the blessings that were due his perfect obedience, so I think it’s appropriate to consider an Easter reset for us. We’ll work hard on Easter weekend to invite people for whom church is a rare experience. We’ll put our best foot forward and we will smile and we will present the gospel to them as clearly and as concisely as we know how, but in preparation for that I wanna talk to the people of faith.
Would we consider an Easter reset? Would we invite the Spirit of God into our life to say if there’s anything in me that limits what you could do, what you would do, is there any place where I have preferred the approval of others more than the approval of God? Could you help me to see that? I would like to align myself with you. If you would be willing to submit yourself for that Easter reset, I’m just gonna ask you to stand, whichever sanctuary you’re in, wherever you’re watching from. If you’re in Waffle House you can stand right up there, they’ll probably refill your coffee cup while you’re having prayer. You know, at the end of the day, the only person I have real influence over is me.
Folks, we don’t have to be the majority. There’s an authority in truth, and if the people of God will choose God’s truth, he will change the destiny of nations. It’s the best possible future for our children and our grandchildren. Do you remember the list of fundamentals we talked about as we began? Fasting, a prayer watch, obedience, these are not complicated things, you’re familiar with them, time in your Bible? Put those simple practices back in place. You know, it’s like good health. Good health really isn’t a mystery, eat better food and move more. Don’t buy the diet book, just send me the check. I’m kidding, but it really isn’t that we lack the awareness of the fundamentals, we would prefer a workaround. And I think in most instances we have a sense of what God is inviting us to, we’re just pretty stubborn. An Easter reset, that will make it a triumphant time. Let’s pray:
Father, I thank you for your Word and it’s truth and its authority, that you love us, that you delight in showing mercy to your people. Father, we have benefited from your mercy. You have shown us kindness and love and grace. You have made provision for our failures, for our rebellion, for our ungodliness, you even sent your Son, and you placed upon him the punishment that was due us that we might in turn might receive the blessings that were due his obedience. And we pause today to acknowledge Jesus as Lord of our lives, to establish him as Lord and King. We stand in your presence to signify our desire to honor you in our lives, in our behaviors, in all that we do. Forgive us when we have been cavalier. Forgive us when we have been indifferent. Forgive us when we have been embarrassed or we have desired the approval of those who have spurned your counsel. Our desire is to walk uprightly before you. Holy Spirit, help us, awaken us, help us to see as you see and hear as you hear and see as you see. We thank you for what you will do. As we approach this Easter, we thank you for an awakening within ourselves, that your love will be more real to us than any challenge that we face, any deficit that is before us. I thank you that fear is not our master, that we have been delivered through the blood of Jesus and the authority of his name to walk confidently and boldly in the fear of our God. I thank you that your mercy and your grace and your power surround us. In Jesus’s name, amen, hallelujah.