Allen Jackson - Spiritual Authority and Our Well-being - Part 2
You see, the reason that in the book of Corinthians, it tells us that a Messiah who was crucified is a stumbling block for the Jews because they were looking for a Messiah who was a political leader. You understand that? They were looking for a Messianic figure who would be a political leader, a military leader, King David, somebody that could defeat Goliath, that could defeat the Romans. And to tell them that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and he died on a Roman cross, that’s a stumbling block, because it meant that when the Messiah came, he’s not going to be a political deliverer in that moment. He could have been. If the people had embraced him, I believe it would have brought freedom to the nation, but that’s a different message.
So Isaiah is describing the Messiah, «He took up our infirmities and he carried our sorrows, but we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are,» what? «Healed». I’ve told you many times, and it’s not original with me, I learned it as a young man and a boy, that on the cross, there was a divinely ordered exchange that took place whereby the sinless, obedient, perfect Son of God took upon himself all of the punishment that was due by divine justice, my sin and my ungodliness, that in turn, I might receive all of the blessings that were due his perfect obedience. It’s the divine exchange of the cross, it’s what enables you and I through faith in Jesus to have standing in the kingdom of God, to be righteous and justified.
It’s amazing. Well, if you look at the language of Isaiah, remember, now this is hundreds of years before Jesus’s birth, he said, «He was pierced for our transgressions». Please note the pronouns: he was pierced because of my transgression, he was crushed because of my iniquity; and the punishment that brought me peace was upon him, and by his wounds I am healed. So the same sacrifice that makes provision for the forgiveness of my sin, my justification in the sight of God, makes provision for wholeness in my person, body, soul, and spirit. The Bible says God’s close to the brokenhearted, there’s a lot of wounds other than just physical wounds. Says he’ll never leave us or forsake us, we don’t have to suffer loneliness. That he was rejected so that we could be accepted, we don’t have to lead lives that are bent over by rejection.
Well, we all face rejection, broken marriages, family systems that spool into destructive places, business, all sorts of places and ways that rejection comes to us, you don’t have to be conscious of it for it to impact you, but if we understand that Jesus was rejected so that we could be accepted. And if the Creator of heaven and earth, if the name that’s above every name, before which every knee will bow, if he has said you’re accepted, you’ll be okay. But it comes back to wanting to be satisfied by the things of God. You see, if the longing of our heart is to know that we’re in relationship with God, then I will allow other relationships to be diminished that that relationship can grow.
Some of us want the approval of people who are ungodly, and we’re willing to diminish our godliness, thinking we can gain something by the approval of the ungodly. Don’t make that bargain. Don’t make that bargain. Don’t call it evangelism. You can show people kindness, you can encourage them, you can show them love, but don’t diminish, don’t deny your faith thinking there’s something to be gained if you will compromise with ungodliness. The greatest honor of our lives is being accepted by God. In Matthew 8, the Gospel writer uses an event in Jesus’s life to illustrate what we just read in Isaiah 53. It says, «When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Jesus, and he drove out the spirits with a word and he healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: 'He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.'»
And I still remember a conversation I had when I was in college doing undergraduate work. I was at Oral Roberts University, it’s a Christian school. Late night conversations in dorm rooms can spin to crazy places. And I don’t remember how we got there one night, but we were talking about whether or not God healed at Oral Roberts University, can you believe that? I mean, the man would pray for a fence post if it couldn’t get out of the way. And the consensus in the group I was with that night was that healing was no longer a part of the, what God was doing in the earth. And college students have a great confidence in what we know. You know, it’s most of that still in the ideas category because we haven’t wrapped enough experience around it, so to make up for the lack of experience, we use volume. And because my mom had been healed, I was kind of an outlier in the conversation.
And I believe God heals and I quoted them a passage from Isaiah 53, and one of my friends in the discussion said, «That’s not physical, that’s just spiritual,» and I wasn’t versed, well versed enough in my Bible at the time to know about Matthew 8, I wish I had been, 'cause in Matthew, Jesus said, when they brought to Jesus those that were demonized and those that were sick, and he cast out the spirits and he healed the sick to fulfill what Isaiah had said. So it wasn’t some spiritual revelation Isaiah was giving, he was giving us the character of the Messiah, and Jesus said he came, in Hebrews, the opening verses of Hebrews, he came to let us see the character of God the Father. Jesus gave us a revelation of the character of God the Father.
So what Jesus was doing in his ministry wasn’t a display for the 1st century, never to be lived out amongst the people of God again, he was showing us the character of God. Doesn’t deliver us from the vagaries of aging, doesn’t… we still live in a fallen world, a broken world, we still grapple with sickness and disease the same way we have to grapple with sin and carnal natures. And, you know, being a Christ follower and sitting in church doesn’t mean it’s all easy, but we believe in a God who heals. And I wanna empower you to pray for one another. We talk a lot about, «Let’s pray». And teach your kids, invite them into it. You don’t have to know everything. The most effective prayers I typically pray are often the simplest. «God, we need your help».
The requests come every week, dozens of them, with people with great needs and great challenges and great obstacles. If I didn’t have confidence that God changes destinies, I interviewed a man, today’s Wednesday, this week, Monday, whose father was told he had four months to live. He had a horrible disease, there was no treatment. He’d just fled the communist army in China, he’d fled to Taiwan. It was years ago. They told him he had a matter of weeks to live, and a missionary gave him a Bible. That’s all he did, he just gave him a Bible. And he said he was sick and dying, so he started reading the Gospels, and when he got to John, he understood Jesus and he asked him to be Lord of his life. By himself, no help. And not only was he transformed, did he become a living creature, a new creature in Christ, God healed his body. The man looked at me and he said, «My dad had his 100th birthday and he just flew from Taiwan to Orlando».
You know, the sovereignty of God in our lives, you want to be guilty of inviting him in, «God, be God in my life,» in the lives of the people that you care about. We’ll pray before we go, but I wanna tag one more idea onto that, and it has to do, it’s that next segment in your notes, I think it’s too important to just leave it out, because this whole notion is really linked to this idea of spiritual authority. You know, we know about political authority and we understand that there’s economic authority and military authority and state authority and federal authority. Some of you have jobs in places where you have little grants of authority, but we don’t think a lot about spiritual authority and you and I live under the authority of a spiritual kingdom.
Jesus said, when he was talking to the religious leaders in Jerusalem, we read it in a previous session, that he said, you know, he was under his Father’s authority and he’d been sent to do what his Father asked him to do. But he looked at the religious leaders in Jerusalem, not the pagans, not the godless, not the idol worshipers, the people who kept kosher, the people who offered daily sacrifices and kept Passover and did all the things, he looked at them and he said, «Your father is the devil». For all the people that say Jesus was all about love, you need to read the Gospels a little more carefully. Love was a part of the ministry that Jesus had, but he said some very direct things to folk. «You’re under the authority of the devil, even though you’re very religious».
And I don’t want you to sit in church and imagine that just because you sit in church, you’re under the authority of Almighty God, you have to choose Jesus as Lord of your life. And as important as that initial decision is and as transformational as that is, you wanna get up every day and say, «Jesus, I wanna live to honor you today». I don’t want you to live in fear of your salvation, I want you to live in the celebration of it. Do you understand the difference? Not presumptively, not arrogantly, not in some precocious, but with a sense of wonder and joy that the Creator of heaven and earth called your name and welcomed you into his kingdom, and you have the privilege of saying, «I’m with him». Are you one of those people? I sure am, and wouldn’t you like to be one too? He’s been so good to me, I expect he’d be good to you. «Well, you don’t know the life I’ve led,» no, but I know the one I’ve led, and if he’s helped me, he will help you.
There’s a passage in Matthew 8 that intrigues me, it has for a long time. Jesus is in Capernaum, it’s where he’s moved to begin his public ministry. It’s the crossroads of Galilee. If you wanted to make a strategic move, Jesus moved out of the hills of Galilee to a strategic location where there was more traffic than any place else in Galilee, the busiest Roman road on the largest freshwater source within miles and miles. It’s a desert country and it’s the largest body of fresh water, and Jesus sets up shop. And there’s a Roman centurion there, he should hate him, they’re enemies. Israel is an occupied country, it’s humiliating, it’s demeaning. I assure you that there were soldiers that mistreated the local population.
They extorted money from them, they took advantage of the women. No question. And the centurion is in this, the centurion says he has a servant who’s sick and he wants Jesus to come heal him, and Jesus says he’ll go, it makes people mad, «Why would you go with the centurions»? Nevertheless, so the centurion comes and said, «Lord, I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed». That’s astounding. How does he know? There’s no explanation offered. I mean, he offers a bit of an explanation of his understanding. He said, «I’m a man under authority,» look at it, I’ll read it. He said, «I’m a man under authority, with soldiers under me: I tell one to go, and he goes; and that one to come, and he comes. And I say to my servant, 'Do this, ' and you better believe he does it. If he doesn’t, I’ll flex».
And when Jesus heard this, when he heard this man’s explanation, it says, «He was astonished». Astonished, Jesus is astonished! I’m thinking it’s pretty hard to surprise the Creator. He’s astonished, and he said to those who were following, «I tell you the truth,» and you know by now he’s about to drop a bomb, «I tell you the truth, I haven’t found anyone in Israel with such great faith». Not amongst the priests, not amongst the Sadducees, not amongst the Pharisees, not in the synagogues, not at the temple, in fact, anybody that has faith like this Roman pagan soldier, «Lord, you don’t need to come to my house. I don’t deserve to have you come to my house».
You see, in our arrogance, you want him to come to your house 'cause when you tell the story, you wanna lead with, «You know, Jesus came to my house». Well, we get our priorities so out of whack, the Lord can’t answer our prayers. We get our pride and our ego and our selfish ambition and we want it the way we want it and we want it to happen the way we want it to happen or we won’t accept it, and this Roman soldier rolls up and said, «Listen, I don’t deserve you». He could have had Jesus brought to his house in chains at the point of a spear. He could have made Jesus crawl to his house. He’s gonna take some real heat from his fellow soldiers, «Did you actually go out to that itinerant rabbi and grovel? Did you really do that»?
You see, he’s put his own self in jeopardy. Now, the fuel for it, I suppose, is his compassion for the person who needs healing, but «I don’t deserve to have you come to my house, but if you will just say the word,» that man’s had a revelation, he understands something about spiritual authority that the majority of the people that fill our churches have no clue about, «If you’ll just say the word, my servant can be okay». And then he tries to explain it a bit. He’s, «Look, I understand, I have some authority». He said, «I got physical authority. I got authority over soldiers, I’ve even got authority over some people who aren’t soldiers. I,» he said, «I got a little bit of clout, I’m on an org chart, but you have authority over sickness and disease».
Now, I don’t know, I don’t know if he’s been on the periphery of a crowd where Jesus had ministered. I don’t know if he had a friend. I don’t know how he knows, but somehow he knows, and he has believed. See, what I’m really inviting you to is a different attitude towards belief. Not an arrogant one, not a boisterous one, not a demanding one. This man doesn’t come with any of those characteristics, he comes with tremendous humility and he says, «I believe». «I believe if you would just say the word,» and Jesus is astonished. He goes into the synagogue, Jesus, on the Sabbath, and he heals someone who had a physical issue for more than a dozen years, and the leader of the synagogue is mad at him, remember that? «You shouldn’t have done it today».
I’m pretty sure the person that got well didn’t care. But the centurion has such a different attitude. Remember I started with «Guard your heart above all else»? Be careful what you let in your… some of you are mad at God, and you’ve been carrying that for a long, long time because there was some circumstance in your life that didn’t emerge the way you wanted it to emerge and you think God didn’t treat you fairly. And so you didn’t renounce your faith, you’ve just chosen to sit in the seat of a skeptic, and it’s a very destructive position. I read every day, I wanna learn every day. I wanna grow a little bit every day, particularly in my awareness of the kingdom of God, which means one of the lines that you don’t want to get instilled in your heart is, «Well, that’s not how I believe». You can say, «That’s not how I used to believe,» or «You know, that wasn’t something I understood until not too long ago, but God began to help me gain some understanding and now honestly, I believe it. And I can’t really fully explain why I believe it, it’s almost like a revelation, I just know it’s true. No, I can’t explain to you».
Once upon a time, I was introduced to all the chemical equations from the point where the energy radiates from the sun, it’s absorbed by chlorophyll in the earth and green grass and it’s eaten by a black and white cow who gives white milk from which we make yellow butter and strawberry ice cream. I can’t reproduce all those chemical equations any longer, but I believe it, and I don’t think it violates my intellect. I don’t know why we’re so stubborn in believing the Lord. You’re under spiritual authority, be certain that every day you purposefully choose to yield to the authority of God in how you conduct yourself at home, in how you conduct yourself at work, in how you conduct yourself with your friends, with your discretionary time.
You’re in the world, you’re not out of it, you’re gonna hear words that you probably don’t wanna say, and you’ll be exposed to circumstances that will bring grief to you. I don’t think we should avoid that, I think we’re in those places to be light and to be salt and to be a voice and to have a different response and to model something. So if God’s got you in one of those places, it’s not simple and it’s more difficult than you would like, he trusts you enough to be a dark in a light in a really dark place. Don’t complain, say thank you. When God recruited Moses, he gave him a really difficult job, «I want you to go find the most powerful man in the world and tell him to let release his most prized possessions for nothing, and tell him if he doesn’t do it, I’ll punish him».
I mean, it wasn’t even a friendly invitation. And even after Moses managed to secure the freedom of the Hebrew slaves, he’s got one grumpy group of people to spend the rest of his life with. They’re in the desert and there’s no food, and he prays and God provides food, and then they tell him they don’t like the menu. Then he charts a course that includes the parting of the sea, and they don’t like the direction in which he leads them. So God gets mad and the earth swallows a few thousand of them, and the next morning there’s a complaint line, for real! And I complain 'cause you go to work and not everybody likes me. Welcome to the story. I wanna pray for you, it’s time for me to be quiet. I brought you a blessing, but I wanna pray.
If you’re here and you need healing, I don’t mean you know somebody, this is, I wanna pray for those who are here tonight. If you’re at home, I’ll count you in on that, but it’s for you. If I ask, you know, if I ask you to stand for everybody that knows somebody, we’d all stand 'cause we’ve all got somebody we care about. But I wanna pray for those that are here, and then you go away and you’ve got a prayer to pray for the rest of those. So if you’re here and you need a God event, just real quickly stand, it’s time for me to hush. It’s senior night for the teenagers tonight, they’re all celebrating with families just down the hall. If you weren’t here Sunday night to see the Children’s choir, you missed it.
I’m telling you, they blessed me, I’ve been riding on that all week long. Hundreds of those kids honoring the Lord, wow! We do need God, don’t we, folks? Well, the four of you that aren’t standing might as well join the rest of us, it’s okay. Why don’t you take somebody’s hand near you? We don’t have to make a circle, I just don’t want you by yourself. You know, this is a group exercise. You’ll stand alone before the Lord, but you won’t make that appointment unless you travel in community. You won’t make it by yourself, the Bible says maturity comes in community. And if you’re not mature, you can’t survive in a world where the devil prowls around like a roaring lion. It takes maturity to survive in the jungle, and to find that maturity, we need one another.
Father, I thank you for your Word, for the truth that it brings, the revelation that it brings to us of your character. Lord, all of creation reminds us that you’re a God who restores and renews and refreshes and heals, I thank you for that. And I thank you for the insight that Jesus on the cross exhausted the curse of sin, that he carried the punishment for our rebellion and our godlessness, that we might have peace with you, that we might be made righteous and justified, that we may be made not guilty in your sight. Lord, I thank you that in that, your power is available to bring life to our mortal bodies, to bring peace to our souls and hope where there’s been despair. And I pray for those tonight that have listened and have stood and acknowledged their need, I pray that you bring life to us. Lord, you’re the healer, whether you bring it through the medical community or you bring it supernaturally, we turn our faces to you now and ask for your life in our bodies. We praise you for it, the greater is the Spirit in us than the spirit that stands in opposition to us. That just as you have made us a new creation in Christ, that you will give us the strength to complete our assignments, to fulfill our days, that not one day, not one portion of the assignment will be taken from us. Give us a joy in serving you that will cause our strength to be renewed day by day. We praise you for it, and we thank you for it. We receive it by faith in Jesus’s name, amen.