Allen Jackson - Opportunities Lost - Part 2
I wanna ask you a question. I want to impanel you as expert witnesses. You know something of the character of God, you know something of the kingdom of God. We’re told in the narrative that Pilate knows Jesus is innocent. He understands him to be an innocent man. He’s been warned by his wife, she’s had a dream saying, «Don’t touch this man». Pilate, knowing all of that, decides to condemn him to death. But his solution is a bowl of water. He has a bowl of water brought out. And he washes his hands in the bowl. And he makes a very feeble attempt. He said, «Now I’m innocent of this man’s blood».
Here’s my question. How many of you think pouring a little water on Pilate’s hands made him innocent in the halls of heaven? Think that’ll do it? If a little water would make you innocent, I’d have brought out a tub. I’d have gone to the Sea of Galilee or the ocean, the Mediterranean, or I’d have gone someplace for lots of water because imagine the attitude in heaven. Can you hear the silence? Jesus before the judgment seat of the Roman governor, he can free him, or he can condemn him to crucifixion. Pilate knows he’s innocent. If Caiaphas was guilty of self-righteousness, where did Pilate miss the grace of God? I would submit to you he made the choice that was expedient. It was the easiest. It was the one that satisfied his ambition for his career, for his future, for his retirement.
So he could overlook the innocence of an individual. After all, he was capitulating to the voices of the leaders in the community and it’d be better to be applauded by the community than to take a stand for what you know to be right. And he missed his invitation. Think how dramatically different Pontius Pilate’s life would have been if when Jesus said, «You’re right, I’m a king,» if he had knelt and said, «My Lord and my King». «Well, he would have lost his job,» no duh. But he would have changed his eternity. «Well, that’s not easy». Who said following Jesus was easy? I don’t intend to present a soft gospel and an easy path. Jesus said unless we take up our cross daily, we should not consider ourselves his disciples. It’s free, the ground at the foot of the cross and the entrance through that narrow door, but it’s not cheap.
Pilate declined his opportunity. And there’s no evidence that he ever was given another. There’s a third character I would point you to, you know this one. He’s a part of Jesus’s inner circle. Jesus recruited him. He spent 3 years with him. He traveled with him, they shared meals together. He saw Jesus walk on the water and speak to the wind and the waves. He saw him raise the dead and open blind eyes. You know his name, he’s Judas. Now we know he’s a traitor, but that’s an incomplete explanation. I’ve heard so many attempts to rescue Judas. That he betrayed Jesus because he wanted to accelerate Jesus’s acknowledgment as Messiah. Oh, bother. It doesn’t work for me. In Matthew 26 and verse 14, Jesus is speaking. Said, «One of the Twelve, the one called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priest, and he asked, 'What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you? ' So they counted out for him thirty silver coins, and from then on, Judas watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over».
Unbelievable. For 30 pieces of silver, he betrayed the Lord. Judas was the keeper of the money bag, he was the treasurer. There seems to be some question about his trustworthiness long before we get to the point where he actually betrayed the Lord. Jesus knew he would betray him. He told him he would betray him. He told him in front of the other disciples. I’m a bit amused at people who say that Jesus was always about kindness and a group hug, that he was never confrontational. Folks, he confronted the leaders in Jerusalem in public and in private within his own circle, he would say to Peter, «Get behind me, Satan. What you have in mind is not the purposes of God».
Sharing the Last Supper with his closest friends, he said, «One of you is a traitor, one of you is gonna betray me,» and he called Judas out in front of the others. That’s an awkward meal. In fact, he said to Judas, «It would have been better for you if you had never been born». Judas had an opportunity. He was recruited. He was in the inner circle. He heard the explanations for the parables. He could have chosen the path that Peter or James or John or any of the other disciples have chosen. He had a free will. I mean, God knows the ending at the beginning, but it doesn’t violate our freedom of choice. He simply knows what our choice will be.
In John 18 and verse 1, it says: «When he’d finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went. Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus often met there with his disciples. So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons». Judas led them to Jesus, carrying weapons. He rejected his invitation because he imagined there was an immediate gain that he preferred.
Now in Judas’s case, he later regretted his choice. He brought the silver back and he said, «I’ve done something wrong,» and they laughed at him, they mocked him. But he was unable to reverse his course. The grace and the mercy of God as remarkable as they are, as extravagant as they are, they’re not infinite. There is an end to the grace and mercy of God, or else there would never be judgment. There would have been no Noah and a story of a flood or there would be no story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah. The book of Revelation would be very different if the grace and mercy of God were infinite, but they’re not. Don’t lead presumptive lives. Don’t look through the windows of our churches and imagine the people who need to be different. Let’s in humility begin to say to the Lord, «Is there any place where I have it wrong? Is there any opportunity that you have extended to me that I have declined, that I’ve rejected? I’m sorry».
Judas is pretty simple. I think it’s just greed. It’s just greed. I’ll give you one more and then I want to give you an invitation. In Matthew 27, we don’t have the names of these characters. It isn’t Caiaphas or Pilate or Judas. It’s just a group of people. We know them by their profession: they’re soldiers. They’re Roman, they’re not Jewish. In Matthew 27 and verse 27, it said: «The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and they gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. And they stripped him and they put a scarlet robe on him, and they twisted together a crown of thorns and they set it on his head. And they put a staff in his right hand and they knelt in front of him and they mocked him, 'Hail, king of the Jews! ' they said. And they spit on him, and they took the staff and they struck him on the head again and again. And after they mocked him, they took off the robe and they put his own clothes on him and they led him away to crucify him».
You know the story, you know about the crown of thorns and you understand the drama around that, but it’s a very insightful passage, for those soldiers to take Jesus. They’re in the crucifixion business. On the day that Jesus is crucified, there’s people on either side of him being crucified. Crucifixion was the Roman form of intimidation. If they came into a new community and they wanted to assert Roman authority, they would take the first 12 men they met in a new community and crucify them. It was a way of asserting an authority. These are hardened people. But they understand there’s something different about Jesus. They know his story, they know the narrative, they know what the crowds have said, they know what the reports are, because when they’re alone with Jesus, it says they went and got the whole contingent of the soldiers.
And they wove a crown and put it on his head. They put a purple robe on him, a symbol of royalty. They knew the Jesus story. He was not to them just another criminal. This wasn’t just another Roman flex. They mocked him. Think of how different their lives would have been if just one of them had said, «I won’t do that». «Well, he would have been made fun of, he would have been ostracized. It might have been a forfeiture». No kidding. Please understand there is a forfeiture to be identified with Jesus. There is. We’ve had too much cheap grace. I think the key to understanding the soldiers is they trusted in their strength. They trusted in the authority in which they stood. And they felt completely comfortable mocking Jesus. I could go on.
There’s a lengthy list of these characters, people who took adversarial roles with Jesus, but before he went to the cross, I believe there was given to them an expression of grace and mercy they could have chosen to have stood with Jesus. It might not have changed his fate. It might not have changed the outcome, but it would have changed their fate and their outcome. It’s very important, it’s significant. Jesus, before his torture began, was led to palaces, to judgment halls, to soldiers' quarters. He met with the powerful and he met with their enforcers.
I would suggest to you that our opportunities begin as invitations. Our opportunities begin as invitations to choose Jesus as Lord, to confront the conditions of our own hearts and our own lives. We can accept the privilege of joining in the movement of God. He’s moving in the earth today just as certainly as he was moving in first century Jerusalem. In fact, the lines of demarcation are just about as stark and just about as clear today. It doesn’t take a great deal of discernment to see the difference between godliness and ungodliness. Once that invitation is received on our part, we become ambassadors, salt and light in the midst of the darkness. And we have an assignment that comes with that, not just for an eternity in the kingdom of God, but an assignment to advocate for the principles of the kingdom we’ve been welcomed into. And if we deny the principles of the kingdom, please understand, we deny our King.
There’s great indifference in Christendom today. We don’t want to be involved. Or even more frequently I hear us say that our personal behavior is stellar. We’ve checked the boxes, we’ve made a profession of faith, we’ve been dipped in a pool, we read our Bible some, we go to church when it’s convenient. Therefore, we should not be bothered with the behaviors of others, of our peers or our professions. Well, for the record, I disagree. I believe it’s an incomplete reading of scripture. I believe we are obligated by virtue of having received grace to be advocates for God’s truth. We cannot simply overlook evil. The biblical assignment is to overcome evil. I began a list. I don’t have much time. We’ll do this quickly. One that seems to have perplexed us is the notion of legal and illegal.
Any description that begins with illegal is probably not taking you someplace good. We have a great deal of national ambivalence, indifference, around illegal aliens, people that have come into our country without permission. It’s illegal. More than 20 million. Illegal technically means it’s wrong. If you take money illegally, it should be returned and repaid. We understand that, it’s called stealing. And if you enter illegally, you can’t just mystically be given status. And the church has to have clarity or we will plunge into a lawlessness that will rob our children of their future. The looting of America. This isn’t complicated or complex. It’s so apparent that it’s uncomfortable.
Many people I talk to say, «I’ve just quit listening to the news. I don’t like to hear it,» because we don’t wanna hear the truth. Fraud, brazen theft, has been so rampant that the reports are absurd. Absurd. And rather than celebrate the disclosure that truth is being told in the public square, there’s anger and resentment and bitterness and hatred, and we say, «You’re being political». No, no, no, they’re demanding of us money so they can use it fraudulently for their own selfish ambition. That is evil. We need clarity, church. It’s not a political issue, it’s a moral issue, it’s a biblical issue. We cannot be silent even if there is an opportunity to profit from the graft. I’ll give you another one. It’s not confusing. Biological sex is not confusing. It really isn’t. God created us male and female. Every cell in our body bears evidence to this truth.
Boys should not compete with girls in athletic competition. And I love you, but even if your daughter is a crazy gifted athlete, it’s not a good plan. The health care community shouldn’t be engaged in promoting gender reassignment or hormone therapies. It’s bad science. It’s ungodly and it’s immoral. It’s Easter weekend. Why would we talk about this? Because the church has to be the church. We can’t gather and celebrate history and not be the voice of truth in the present. Human sexuality, God established the boundaries for moral and immoral. If we ignore, rewrite, or assert our own opinions, you invite God’s judgment. It’s clear throughout scripture. It’s not compassion to encourage others to ignore God. That is not kindness. Family, the competing definitions for family. Folks, what has happened? God established the idea of family.
Now our reality is our families are broken and we struggle with our brokenness, but our imperfection should not be understood as the liberty to redefine or dismantle God’s intent for the family. The biblical assignment is to train your children in godliness before we train them in anything else. And I’m all for training our children to flourish in the world, to give them good educations and full experiences, and they’re all important things, but first and foremost is to train them in godliness. How have we become so addled that we have 12 priorities before that? Christian schools, Christian universities, no longer advocating for biblical worldviews.
How can this be? I growled today: a Christian school sponsoring or participating in a tournament, an athletic tournament, on Easter weekend. It’s unthinkable. It’s unbelievable to me. What are we doing? We have an opportunity. We have more liberty, more freedom, we have been shown grace and mercy. Can we turn our hearts to God, and let him write a future for us. There’s no better way. Our opportunity this Easter weekend is personal. Let’s not repeat the errors of the cast of characters who rejected Jesus’s invitations. Let’s humble ourselves and take our place in his eternal kingdom. I’m not making a recruitment pitch for joining a church, folks. That’s not the goal. It’s much larger than that. Please don’t imagine that your previous faith journey is sufficient, that you can point backwards and say, «I’ve done all the important things».
Caiaphas was an expert on scripture. Judas had 3 years of personal training with Jesus. He was in the boat when he walked on the water. He picked up basketfuls of leftovers when he fed the multitude. He had a very impressive resume. God is moving in the earth. Let’s begin this weekend with a new sense of searching, of cooperating, of wholehearted obedience. I’ll repeat what I began with: you are of tremendous value to God. It’s impossible to understand your worth. He offered his Son as a sacrifice to open a possibility for you and for me. Let’s not neglect the grace of God. Let’s not treat it shabbily.
I wanna offer a prayer. I wanna invite you to say a simple prayer with me, and then we’re gonna take Communion together, and then we’re gonna worship the Lord, and while we worship the Lord, I want you to receive from him. But I’m gonna ask you to say a simple prayer with me. It’s a simple prayer of acknowledgement of God and acknowledge that I’m a sinner and that I need a savior. I’m not asking you, this has little to do with anything with World Outreach Church, but it has a lot to do with the kingdom of God. Will you pray this prayer out loud with me? Will you use your outdoor voice? Last night, they whispered. All right, let’s pray. Just close your eyes, bow your head, forget the people around you for a moment. If we can, let’s just be still for half a second. This is important. It’ll change destinies. Say 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 sins. And that You raised Him to life again that I might be justified. Forgive me of my sins. I forgive all those who sinned against me. Jesus, be Lord of my life. All that I am, all that I have, all that I’ll ever be. I want to live to give honor to Jesus, amen.
Hallelujah. Now in that bag, you’ve got the elements of Communion, one more step. Jesus himself put this in place. It’s not a church tradition or a ritual. It’s grounded in Jesus’s sacrificial death, offering himself as a sacrifice for us. If you didn’t get a bag when you came in, there’s ushers in the aisles there. Apparently, they’ll share those with you. If you’re at home, go grab a cup of water and a saltine. You don’t have to have one of our handy dandy little kits. But this is important. Through Jesus’s redemptive work, he made provision for your sins to be forgiven, but he also made provision for the power of God to transform our bodies to bring life to us, peace to us, hope to us, God’s provision for us.
Through the cross, Jesus accomplished a complete, total, and irreversible victory over Satan and his kingdom of darkness. What’s left is for us to receive it by faith, and so we’re coming as disciples to the Communion table tonight. It’s grace, folks. We don’t earn it, we don’t deserve it. How will God do it? I don’t know. In fact, he continues to amaze me at what he does. But I wanna believe. Are you ready to receive? Jesus himself put this in place. It’s the night he was to be betrayed. Before they went to Gethsemane, they gathered in the Upper Room in the upper city, and they shared a Passover meal. At the beginning of the meal, Jesus took bread and he said, «This bread is my body broken for you. As often as you eat this, do this in remembrance of me».
Let’s receive together. And then he took a cup, and he said, «This cup is a new covenant,» literally, a new contract, «sealed with my own blood. As often as you drink it, you proclaim my death until you see me again». Let’s receive together. Now if you’ll stand with me I wanna pray with you. You can just drop those cups right back in that little bag. Or give them to your neighbor to put in their pocket. We’re gonna receive from the Lord. Maybe you wanna turn your palms up. You certainly wanna turn your heart up. Your belief matters. Jesus has given you a measure of faith, the scripture says. Let’s use it. Whatever may have brought you here, whomever may have brought you, whatever the motivation, you’ve got an opportunity and an invitation from the Creator of all things. Let’s receive:
Heavenly Father, I thank you for your great love for us. That you care for us, Lord, nothing’s hidden from you. You know the details and the circumstances of our lives and our existence and as we have received the bread and the cup tonight, we receive your life into our lives, your forgiveness, your hope, your wholeness, your life in our bodies, your peace in our minds, your provision for us. I thank you that you have accepted us, that you have chosen us, that you looked across the span of human history and you called our names for this unique time. That we’re not accidents, that we’ve not been overlooked. I praise you for it. We give you glory tonight. As we have received from you, we turn our hearts to you and our hands to you, bring life to our bodies and peace to us. We praise you for the victory that is ours, in the matchless name of Jesus of Nazareth, amen.