Allen Jackson - Understanding and Revelations - Part 2
Well, I’d remind you one of my biblical heroes, and I hope he’s one of yours, is Daniel. Daniel led, in many respects, a tragic life. He spends his whole adult life as a slave in a foreign country. Jerusalem is destroyed, he’s never going back. The temple is destroyed, they can’t worship the Lord the way they’ve worshiped the Lord for hundreds and hundreds of years, no daily sacrifices, no annual pilgrimage feasts to Jerusalem. Everything about Daniel’s life is upended. The dreams that his parents and grandparents would have had for their children and their grandchildren are not available to Daniel. Daniel has to learn foreign languages in the midst of a foreign culture, and then he’s recruited because of his abilities to serve in the court of an ancient Near Eastern monarch, which means in order to do that, Daniel had to be tutored.
He’s a eunuch, so there’s physical suffering that goes along with the emotional trauma that Daniel suffered. And yet in the opening chapter of the book of Daniel, Daniel makes a very impassioned presentation, he doesn’t want to eat non-kosher food. He’s so concerned with honoring the Lord in spite of the ways that evil has touched his life, of his dreams being put through the shredder, of there no possibility of recapturing them. Everything he’s dreamt of, everything he’s hoped for. You see, we have such a fragile faith, if God doesn’t do what we want in the way we want, on the timeline we want in fulfilling our dreams, we start threatening him, «I’m not serving you». «There for a while, I thought there was a God, but he disappointed me».
Everything about Daniel’s life is a disappointment and yet he decides to serve the Lord, even to the extent of what goes on his fork. By the end of the book of Daniel, there are archangels bringing messages to him, saying, «You are highly esteemed in heaven». Now, there is an understanding I have gained, I don’t think I would say it’s a revelation, but that when God provides for you dramatic insight or messaging or direction, it’s because you’re going to need it. God won’t give you dramatic direction unless you’re gonna need dramatic direction. So if Daniel’s in a place where he needs an archangel to come to him and say, «You are highly esteemed in heaven,» I promise you there’s a battle raging in the heart of that man.
I tell you that to say I know our lives are touched by evil. Disappointments come to our lives, broken places, dreams get shattered, plans we make break up and evaporate and we have to decide. The context of this is men. And Daniel suffered physically, but still fulfilled the purposes of God. The church has been reluctant to talk about gender roles from biblical perspectives, and the reason we’ve been reluctant is we’ve been so divided in the buildings. It wouldn’t be hard to launch a church movement in America that stood united against poaching elephants, because there’s very little temptation in America for the people of God to poach elephants.
But if we pick up a topic like gender roles, we’re afraid to talk about it because we haven’t really yielded to the authority of Scripture, we’ve been so deeply influenced by our culture and by the aspirations that have come to us from godless sources. This notion of godly men, godly fathers, and godly husbands. You see, how we understand a good father has been redefined by our culture. We’ve allowed a secular culture to tell us what a good father is, not the Word of God. A lot of language in Scripture about it. I sat down with a… I have a habit, I’ll sit and make lists with a legal pad, and I started on a list of the things that define a good father, just in contemporary culture, and I’m not saying they’re wrong or evil, things like you’re there for all the ball games, don’t miss any. Or when your babies are born, you’re present. I don’t mean present in the hospital, you’re in the room.
I don’t really wanna say an active participant, that doesn’t seem quite fair, but you’re present. And it’s not uncommon for the invitation to be given now that soon after birth, you have an opportunity to have physical contact with that child, maybe let them lay their head on your chest so you have a physical connection. We’re told we need to be sensitive to the needs around us. Or we’re told that there’s nothing more important than my family. In my priority list, my family is number one. My children are the first priority, so I’m not making any decisions that would put my children at a deficit or my family at a deficit, I’m there for them first and foremost.
And the list could go on, my list was quite a bit longer, I don’t need to belabor that. I’m not saying any of those things are necessarily wrong, in and of themselves, I would submit to you that our grandfathers, most of us, would not understand that list. It would not be clear to them, and they would reflect, for the most part, the attitudes of men and husbands and fathers for many generations. Something’s happening, there are different voices, there are different objectives being expressed. Again, I’m not saying those things are wrong, but I can pull a block or two out of the foundation. The notion that nothing in my life should stand between me and my family, that they’re my first and foremost, if that were true, you know that… have you ever seen the image or the memorial in Washington of those young men on Iwo Jima raising the American flag?
That wouldn’t exist if those men said that, because hundreds and thousands of men died to make that possible. We have a battlefield here in Murfreesboro where tens of thousands of people died in a very short period of time trying to change the direction of our nation for the better. I’m not suggesting your family isn’t important, I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t have a priority in your life, I’m telling you we have hidden behind our children like cowards. I believe we should protect them. I believe we should be their advocates. I believe we have some responsibilities, which I’ll touch on in a moment, it may be briefly, but I’ll touch on them, but I don’t believe we have the luxury of hiding behind them to excuse our own adolescent behavior.
And that idea is far too prevalent in our culture. We have been fed a self-centered approach to life, it’s taken root and grown with the enthusiasm of kudzu in the South. Our selfish attitudes are expressed too frequently in cowardice, we won’t speak the truth. I mean, we’ve had a struggle in our own community removing books that are filled candidly with just smut from our school’s libraries, and we’ve talked about procedures and the fear of lawsuits and all this stuff. Or what you want the preachers to do or the pastors to do. I’m thinking the men should say, «No, you’re not gonna take our first and second and third graders and sexualize them in our public schools, not in our community».
I don’t want you to be angry, and I certainly don’t want you to be belligerent and definitely not violent, I want you to be present. And the people that ask for permission to provide leadership in our community should know that the men in the community won’t tolerate that, it’s beyond the pale. It’s not about banning books, it’s about age-appropriate learning. This isn’t rocket science. Everybody that thinks second and third graders should be sexualized about trans issues, raise your hand, we’d like to know who you are, make our community a better place to understand these things. But our silence is because we don’t want anything, any stigma to come back, because it might impact my family or… yeah, not nearly as much as the impact on our families if we’re quiet.
Men, husbands, and fathers under God are all expressions of our faith. The role of father is one of the great revelations of Scripture, that God reveals himself to us as our Father. When Jesus’s disciples asked him to teach them to pray, you know the prayer, some of you come from segments of the church where you call it the Our Father. So you know it, it’s Luke 11:2, Jesus said, «Pray this way, 'Father, hallowed be your name.'» Jesus introduced God to us as a Father, it’s a very significant revelation.
People say, «Well, I have a hard time doing that because my earthly father was a very unpleasant, ungodly, evil person». I get that, I’m not saying it’s always easy, but it doesn’t diminish or change the reality that God chose to reveal himself to us as Father. And it’s not helpful for the women to imagine that to be a diminishment. You have to understand how systematic, how intentional, how pervasive, how unrelenting this attack has been. When I went to graduate school, in theology training, I didn’t do any undergraduate work in theology, I had to wait for graduate school to do one of the first documents I was given, in a very celebrated school, was an inclusive language document and they said you couldn’t refer to God with a male pronoun. And if you did it in a verbal presentation in a class, they’d shut you down. If you put it in a paper, you’d be failed. If you said it out loud, you’d be silenced. And they followed it up with an inclusive language document, that «we’re inclusive of a very diverse set of opinions,» just not mine.
Look at John 8:42, this is interesting. Jesus is teaching, and he’s talking to religious leaders, that’s noteworthy. He’s not talking to Roman pagans who have a pantheon filled with gods, he’s talking to people steeped in the law of Moses, they spent their lives studying Scripture. «And Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. And I’ve not come on my own; but he sent me…You belong to your father, the devil.'» That’s the people that offer daily sacrifices, they keep kosher with their food, and Jesus said, «You belong to your father, the devil».
You see, fatherhood establishes our character, and from our character come the characteristics of our lives, the behaviors which emerge from your character. And he said, «Oh, you have religious language and you have religious jobs and you work in a religious building and you know religious rules, but,» he said, «your behavior suggests the devil is your father». It’s concerning to me when I talk to you about the absence of influence of the American church. There are more people in Rutherford County today who don’t frequently participate in church than in the history of Rutherford County. Hard stop.
So, well, the county’s grown, okay. We built more restaurants, we’ve added apartments. Haven’t added enough roads, but we’ve added a lot of cars. Then the whole notion of fathers and mothers, it’s an essential pairing, it’s God’s idea, it’s biblical. We’ll talk more about mom’s roles, but we need men to be godly, to be godly husbands and godly fathers. I’m gonna give you the fundamentals. You know, at the end of the day, we wanna know what to do, but Matthew 15, Jesus again, he said, «God said», this is Jesus, «God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'»
What do you think God’s attitude is towards people that curse the notion of fathers and mothers? This is so grounded in Scripture, it’s so fundamental, but we don’t wanna talk about it, we don’t wanna hear about it. How is it that we stand in a public place and say the men and the women should compete in athletic competitions because they’re the same. What are you thinking? I like sports. I don’t have a lot of time, and I’ve had too many birthdays to do much but watch. We just finished the college basketball tournament, and I watched some of the men and some of the women, tremendously talented athletes, but they’re very different. I mean, you really have to not pay attention at all to go, «Oh no, they’re the same». No, they’re really not! They really aren’t! I’m not saying they’re greater or lesser or better or not talented or not gifted.
What has happened to us, Church? Well, you want your daughter to have an opportunity to play with the guys, so I’m gonna say she has a right, no, it’s not about rights! I’m gonna suggest there’s three roles that God has for us as men and that we can’t pass them off. You know, one of the real challenges we have is we haven’t done well with the transition from children to adult. Many cultures have formal ways of recognizing that transition from being a child to adulthood. I lived in Israel, I studied there. In the Jewish community, they do this pretty well. They have, for the boys predominantly, from centuries and centuries of bar mitzvah, at 13, there’s a formal recognition that the boy becomes a man. Current culture being what it is, and predominantly driven by American culture, the parents wanted their girls to have an equal opportunity, so now they have a bat mitzvah.
I’m not saying it’s evil, but a formal recognition, but that isn’t just a part of a Judeo-Christian worldview. I was in Africa some years ago, the Masai tribe, for many, many years, they had a very formal part of the transition. When a boy was ready to become a man, the assignment was to give him a spear and he had to go out and kill a lion. The current attitudes towards conservation have changed the practice, but for generation upon generation upon generation, it described the Masai tribe. Most cultures, no matter how sophisticated or how agrarian, had formal recognition of transition from childhood to adulthood. Contemporary American life has made a tremendous amount of effort to blur that.
In fact, we’ve introduced a third category, we call it adolescence. That’s not really been a historically defined category. We’ve given some definition to it, it’s that season in your life where you have the physical strength of an adult, but you don’t have to carry the responsibility. We give expression to it, it’s a time of self-fulfillment, a time of self-exploration. You get to sow a few wild oats, enjoy yourself. Soon enough, you have to be an adult. So we’ll tolerate from you childish behaviors and childish decision-making, even though you have all the physical and mental capabilities emerging of an adult. The expansion of that adolescent category and the encouragement of adolescent behavior has resulted now we have 30- and 40- and 50-year-old adolescents. It’s why we’re struggling so much with what it means to be a man, because it’s been encouraged by our family systems.
Well, we don’t want the people behind us to have to make the sacrifices that we had to make. We don’t want them to have to endure what we had to endure, so we’ll deconstruct all of those things, and we will let them have the protection that comes with being a child when they’re far beyond childhood. I put a verse of Scripture, and you know this isn’t just an opinion, it’s 1 Corinthians 13. Paul’s writing, he said, «When I was a child, I talked like a child, and I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me». There’s no other way to explain the apostle Paul. Read that passage in Corinthians where he said, «Five times I took forty lashes minus one».
The reason he gives it that way is 40 lashes was believed to kill a man, and he said, «Five times, they beat me within one stroke of the whip of being dead». I mean, it’s a lengthy list of the things he’s endured and yet he persevered. And he says this in 2 Timothy to the young man, he said, «I’m not ashamed». «I don’t want you to be ashamed of me. I’m not ashamed of the gospel because I know the one I have trusted is faithful». We gotta grow up. We gotta grow up. And yes, the men need to make that decision, but it will make a tremendous difference if the moms and the grandmoms and the wives are willing to encourage that behavior in their husbands and children and grandchildren. The three roles that I don’t believe are optional for us as men are the priest, protector, and provider.
My time’s gone. Next service is 8:30, we’re pretty good, much golden. I’ll pick those up with our next service because whether you’re here or not, you can watch. But I don’t understand those to be optional roles. Priest isn’t about an assignment or a title or a place in an org chart, priests are representatives. The priestly assignment in Scripture is to represent people to God, it’s the whole notion of the implementation of the priesthood. I’m not saying women don’t have a role, stop the competition, but I believe as men, we have a responsibility to be spiritual leaders in our homes, in our businesses, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, on the ball fields. Simple stuff, don’t make this rocket science.
«Well, you know, I don’t read Greek and I don’t read Hebrew and I don’t know my Bib», I’m not talking about that, let your family see you read your Bible, let them know it matters to you as much as whatever your favorite sports thing is. Let them hear you pray. If they’ve never heard you pray, don’t go home tonight and say, «Pastor told me to pray». Let me give you kind of a starter set. When you come home at the end of the day and you pull in the driveway, and it’s been a difficult day and your nerves are kind of frayed and you’re tired physically and emotionally and you think, «But I gotta walk in the house and the kids are gonna be jacked and», before you go in the house say, «God, I thank you for my family, they’re a gift in my life,» then walk in the house.
Do that for a week and on week 2, before you leave in the morning, just walk up to your wife, put your hand on her shoulder, take her hand, whatever, and say, «God, thank you for my wife, amen». Just hush while you’re ahead, don’t pray a lot, just shut down right there, all right? Don’t try to get eloquent, you’ll mess it up. I’m just telling you, it’s like a 'let’s pray' moment, don’t stand there and watch her to see if she gets teary, you know. You’re not working for some objective, «God, thank you for my wife, in Jesus’s name, amen». Try that for a week, now you’re getting a little bit of a muscle going around your prayer time, maybe you get your kids, «God, I thank you for my kids, in Jesus’s name, amen».
Start to bring your faith home. If you love the Titans, your kids know it. If you love UT, they know it. If you don’t, they know that. Let them know you care about God. What has happened to us? What has happened to us? See, I know it’s the hardest place in the world because you’re gonna pray for your family and they just saw you kick the dog. Don’t look at them, close your eyes, go, «God, thank you for these people. Maybe they have big hearts and short memories, in Jesus’s name». We are living in a period where the truth has been pushed so far back in the corner that the absurd is front and center and celebrated, and we’re gonna have to have the courage to come back and say, «I’m gonna stand with the biblical perspective». I’ll pick this up next.
I wanna close with a blessing. I’m so grateful for the church, Christ in you is the hope of the world, folks, bunch of crackpots that we are. Why don’t you stand with me? Telling you God is moving. This may be the most pronounced blessing through Scripture and history, it’s certainly worth one knowing. I gave you the references in your notes, but I’d like simply to say this over you if you’ll allow me. It’s a blessing you can take to your family. It’s a blessing you can say for your neighborhood. You don’t have to announce it. Don’t go jump up on the top of your car and blow a trumpet and go, «I’m about to pronounce a blessing over this neighborhood because I’ve decided to be a godly man». If I were you, I would not invite that, I’d take a quiet walk around that neighborhood and pray for my neighbors. «What are you doing»? «Just exercising a little bit. I tried hiring somebody to do it for me and that didn’t work, so now I’m walking». «The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace,» amen, God bless you.