Allen Jackson - You Are Serving Someone - Part 1
I want to continue a theme we began in an earlier service under the title of «Who’s the Boss»? Well, let’s just all say it together. «I am». Now let’s repent. Therein is the tension, but it’s a very relevant question. It’s very important. Bob Dylan got it right: «You gotta serve somebody». And you better have clarity on who it is you’re serving. A lack of clarity does not make you more free. An unwillingness to acknowledge the authority over your life does not give you greater freedom. Choosing to rebel against the authorities over your life does not bring more liberty to you. It’s a very important question. Who’s the authority in your life? Fundamentally, it’s a discussion I suppose of spiritual authority, but it has very… any number of practical applications for every one of us.
My experience and understanding is that if you have to say to someone else, «You should yield to my authority,» it isn’t helpful. We have to choose for ourselves. The alternative to yielding to the authority over us is to choose rebellion. Well, we dress it up and we excuse it and we explain it and there’s a lot of things around it, but the question of who’s the boss, what’s the authority over our lives, will do more to determine your future than your nationality, your income, your education, your genetics. I’m convinced of that. And so I wanna walk through it with you a bit from a biblical standpoint. I think it’s relevant to the larger world in which we live. I think it has a great deal to do with the resistance to the gospel, to the message of the church.
You see, the church with its principles of a sovereign God and the imagination that that God who is the creator of all things and is involved in the affairs of people, which is the fundamental premise of our Bible, that there’s a Creator God and he didn’t just create the earth and wind it up and then step back and let it unwind, that he’s actually involved in the unfolding events of lives and nations and… well, that belief is a very significant barrier towards the ideological march towards globalism. Because in order to unite all the nations of the world and all the peoples of the world, you have to dismantle any authority structure that would have supremacy. And the God we worship demands that he be first. He will never accept a place alongside of Buddha or Allah.
So the practical outcome of that is a hatred for the church, a hatred that is cultivated. It’s not just systemic, it is very carefully cultivated. It has a great deal of spiritual formation behind it, but it demands that our faith be eliminated from the public square. And those calls are persistent and unrelenting. You should understand the reason for that. It’s not for greater tolerance; it’s an expression of intolerance. Too often, the people of faith in my observation have been willing to retreat to quiet, private spiritual lives and to disengage from public discourse. I believe that that sort of a segmented approach to faith is misguided both theologically and pragmatically. I think it makes us more vulnerable. I think we will continue to forfeit freedom and liberty if we allow ourselves to be intimidated.
There’s some very practical outcomes of a diminished church. You can see them all around us: in our schools, in our communities, in our attitudes towards authority. Personal expression and fulfillment are given a higher priority than concepts like duty or honor. Those ideas we’re told now are quaint. They’re a relic of some bygone era. Truth, we are told, is a very fluid concept because there is no authority to establish objective truth. And that’s true across almost every aspect of our lives these days. Each individual we’re told should determine their own truth, no matter what it is, whether it’s about biology or personal definitions of moral or immoral, or definitions of a family.
When everyone is left to make their own determinations of what is true, we very quickly find out we’re living in the midst of the theater of the absurd. It’s just bizarre because we have rejected authority. We also see the spiritual forces of darkness expressed with increasing boldness and frequency in very tangible ways, things like lawlessness. You don’t have to look very far. In fact, it is so prevalent, it’s so persistent, that we’re like the frog in the kettle. We become almost completely unaware of it. Our borders have been open for a lengthy season, not a political or not a Republican or Democrat issue. Both parties have had a hand in this. But tens of millions of people have poured into our country illegally to the point that we just look at it and go, «Well, that’s compassion».
That’s not compassion, that’s illegal. But we’re addled. We have a former director of the FBI, in a very direct way, calling for elimination of political leaders. I mean the expressions of lawlessness around us are so stunning, so overwhelming. For all of our talk about safety and security, we’re not more secure. Our children are not more secure. The weakest among us are not more secure. It’s an expression of spiritual darkness because we’ve cast off authority. As godliness is restored, and I believe we should anticipate that happening, certainly within the places where we have authority in our homes and our communities, I’m very much in anticipation of that, we’ll see human dignity increase. Every human being is an image bearer of Almighty God, not because of our appearance or our ability or our accomplishments, but because we’re created in God’s image. We will see principles like freedom and truth and justice and hope truly regain momentum, not language around them while they’re diminished, but true expressions of those things.
Proverbs 14:34, it’s not in your notes, but you’ve got enough. You can check on me. It’s in the Bible, I promise. It’s Proverbs 14:34. It says: «Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people». You have to decide what your voice is for. If you’ll stand for righteousness, if you’ll be an advocate for righteousness, you will enable God to bring exaltation to the place where we live. People say you’re a Christian nationalist. I just want God to bless the place I live. I’m not particularly sophisticated, but sin is a disgrace to any people. And the people of faith, the people of God, Christ followers, if we’re not willing to be a voice for righteousness, what makes us think we are Christ followers? The repetition of a prayer? A temporary stop in a pool? That’s a pretty shaky ground to me.
So the question is «Who’s the boss»? and I’m gonna see if we can bring some clarity to that that will unify us in purpose to a greater extent. I wanna start in Exodus 20. It’s a very familiar set of boundaries. It’s actually the designer’s guidelines. We’re reading the book of Exodus right now if you’re doing the Daily Bible Reading with us, and it’s the beginning of the formation of a people of faith. You can’t really talk about there being a people of God until we get to the book of Exodus. Prior to that, God dealt with individuals: Abraham, and then his son Isaac, and then his son Jacob, and by the end of the book of Genesis, there’s an extended family, but there’s no sense of a group of people, a broader group of people. They’ve never been a nation. They’ve never occupied a land or had a central form of government.
In fact, the Bible describes the group that participated in the Exodus as a mixed multitude. And God accepts the assignment to begin to make of them a nation, a people of faith, a people with a covenant with Almighty God. There are many expressions of that, but in Exodus 20, he gives them the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. They’ve shaped Western civilization or they had for many years. He said, «I’m the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You can have no other gods. You cannot make for yourself an idol. You can’t misuse the name of the Lord. Remember the Sabbath. Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery, don’t steal. Don’t give false testimony. Don’t covet anything your neighbor has».
Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with these things. They used to be a part of public life until we found it inconvenient. We took the Ten Commandments out of schools and we put in metal detectors. That was not a good swap. But I would submit to you that these are the designer’s guidelines. If you want to flourish, let those things inform your decisions. Design guidelines matter. You know this in every other aspect of your life. You know our friend Angus Buckin from South Africa? He introduced us to a young man when we were there. He was a young man that they discovered living in the woods. No family. They couldn’t identify any parents. He was a teenager when he was discovered. And it had had an enormous impact upon his learning abilities and… as you can imagine. Phenomenally strong young man, but they embraced him and adopted him and gave him a place in a family and a role and he’s a part of the community there.
And Angus was telling us that as he matured, the one thing he wanted above everything else was a cell phone. And whenever he got some money he wanted somebody to take him to the store so he could get a cell phone. And he says, «So we took him and we helped him get a cell phone,» and he said, «As soon as he got dust on it, he was determined to wash it». And then he said, «I don’t know how many cell phones he’s had. Every time he gets the money he wants another cell phone. And every time it gets dusty he washes it». Well, the motives are all right across the board. There’s nothing in there that’s inappropriate. There’s nothing wicked, no expression of evil. The intents are very good, but he’s using it in a way that it wasn’t designed for. And it disrupts function. Well, when you and I attempt to live beyond the designer’s intent, it disrupts our lives.
Now we may wrap it up and call it something else, fulfillment, you know, self-determination, whatever. But God loves us enough to give us a design guide and say, «You will flourish if you’ll cooperate with this». But we’re so cottonpicking stubborn, we’ll use the Bible to try to tell God his guidelines don’t apply to us anymore. I can illustrate that for you very quickly. Some of you, when we read those, you went, «That’s the Ten Commandments, Pastor. That’s Old Testament. I’m a new covenant believer. Not under the law. I’m under grace». Well, bless your heart, Obi-Wan. I brought you a verse of scripture. It’s from the New Testament. It’s Romans chapter 10. Arguably the greatest theological treatise that’s ever been presented, the Book of Romans. Says: «Not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God».
Now he’s talking about that first covenant and how they refused God’s righteousness. They wanted their own, but then he says, «For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes». Now we repunctuate that. You know, language has gotten very casual. A lot of things have contributed to that. There’s much of it that I regret. I think we’re losing clarity, and clarity matters when outcomes are significant. My dad was a veterinarian. You want clarity if the veterinarian’s gonna do surgery. He’s gonna cut something off. «Well, I don’t know, they just said cut something off». I’d like more clarity, please. And if you look back at that last sentence, it said that Christ the Messiah is the end of the law. There’s no period there. It’s the end of the law for righteousness. They were no longer made righteous before God by keeping the rules.
The righteousness comes to us by faith in Jesus of Nazareth. That’s a gift of righteousness. The alternative to receiving that gift of righteousness is to try to establish your own. The word for that is self-righteousness, and there are many ways that we try to make ourselves righteous, not just biblical rules. We try to do it by being generous or being kind or being open-minded or by refusing to acknowledge sin. Now our culture wants a voice in what makes you righteous. But what that passage in Romans says was that Jesus was the end of the law as a means of righteousness. It’s not the end of the law. God’s character didn’t change. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, God didn’t say, «Oh no, worship some idols, commit some adultery. Steal a little bit until DOGE gets there».
Ohh, he didn’t say that. Jesus is not the end of the law. He’s the end of the law as the doorway to righteousness because the point of the law is none of us can keep it. And the law showed us that we needed a savior. But it also shows us the character of God. And we will have a better outcome in life by complying with the character of God. We will either submit to God’s righteousness or attempt to establish our own. And spoiler alert, you cannot take the coaching of a godless culture and imagine they will help you establish righteousness. You’re gonna have to be willing to be different. So there are realms of authority in your life whether you’re conscious of it or not. You don’t have to be conscious of it for it to have an impact on you, you don’t have to have any consciousness or awareness of a bacteria or a virus for it to influence your life. You don’t have to be conscious that a behavior is self-destructive in order for it to have an impact upon your life.
Not my opinion. In John chapter 8 in verse 42, you do have this verse. Jesus is speaking and he’s speaking to a group of very religious people, Jewish people, with a covenant with God, very engaged in religious activities and daily sacrifices and they eat the right foods and they go to the right… they do all the stuff. «And Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I’m here. I haven’t come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you’re unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil.'» For all those people that say Jesus was all about love: Exhibit one. If Jesus stands in front of you and said, «You belong to your father, the devil,» I don’t think you will go, «Oh, thank you, sir». He doesn’t stop there.
«You want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies». Your life and mine are under either the authority of Satan and his kingdom or the authority of Jesus of Nazareth and his kingdom. There’s no third rail. There’s no gray area. And we can evaluate that far better by our behaviors and a review of our activities than we can by our words. It’s a very important thing. I collected a few snapshots of these realms of authority and how we can understand them.
In Luke chapter 4, Jesus is being tempted by Satan. It’s just following Jesus’s baptism. He’s just had this message from heaven say, «This is my Son. I’m pleased with him,» and the Spirit of God leads Jesus into the wilderness and now he’s being tempted. And Satan said to him, «I will give you all the authority». He showed them the kingdoms of the world. «He said, 'I’ll give you all their authority and splendor, for it’s been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you’ll worship me, it’ll all be yours.' And Jesus answered, 'It is written: „Worship the Lord your God and serve him only“.'»
Jesus doesn’t challenge Satan’s assertion. So he’s not countering Satan’s declaration that he has authority over the kingdoms of this world. He’s simply saying that what he’s offering him is an illegitimate bargain. Before Jesus is done, before he leaves the Earth, he will have been given authority over all things, but the pathway he’s gonna be asked to walk is far more difficult. It requires a submission to the authority of God. We looked at it in the previous session, the multiple places where Jesus said, «I didn’t come to do my will, but to do the will of the Father».
If God required his Son with his journey through time to give expression to the will of God, not his own will, do you think he will require less of you and me? If you’ve imagined your faith, the objective of your faith, the purpose of your faith, is to help you get your way more fully with the power of God, you have embraced a perverted gospel. The point of the cross, Jesus said, no one can be my disciple unless we take up your cross and follow me daily. It’s a call to lay down our lives.
Now, it’s not loathsome or burdensome; it’s the designer’s intent. It will give us a better outcome. But it requires a willingness to yield to authority. In Matthew 28, we get the fulfillment of the bargain Jesus made by obedience to God. He came to his disciples. This is post-resurrection, and he said, «All authority in heaven, on earth, has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit». He said, all the authority’s mine now.
Now that has implications for us. If we belong to his kingdom, there’s no power that we’re confronted with that’s greater than the authority that the one we call Lord owns. That’s really important to know. That’s why we’re trying to learn to pray. That’s why we’re trying to learn to cooperate with the Spirit of God, because there’s an authority available to us that’s greater than any expression of authority that’s a part of this present world order. I’m not denying that there are powerful forces in our world. I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m telling you there’s a greater authority, a greater power. And the church needs to believe that. It’s a necessity. In Luke chapter 9, Jesus shares his authority: «He called the Twelve together, and he gave them power and authority to drive out demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God».
I’m always amazed at how we will do our best to find excuses in the Bible to escape the assignments. «Well, Pastor, you know, he gave that authority to the 12, but he didn’t give it to anybody else. It was just to those 12, those 12, them, no more. Done, finished, stop». I can take you to dozens of passages where we’re given the assignment to stand in the authority of our King and his kingdom. In Revelation 2, we’re told that we’ll be given authority over the nations, «To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations». For those who still are struggling with the notion that our faith is only about spiritual outcomes in heaven or hell, and it should not be engaged in culture or voices of what’s happening in our world, this is a message to one of the churches in the book of Revelation. Very much engaged in the outcomes of groups of people.
Jesus gives us a pattern with regard to authority, says: «During the days of Jesus’s life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death». You ever thought about Jesus in that way? We know Jesus that made wine at a wedding. We know Jesus that spoke to wind and waves and said, «Be quiet,» and the storm was still. We know Jesus that stood outside Lazarus’s tomb and said, «Lazarus, come here,» and dude walked out. We know Jesus that stood before Pilate, the Roman governor, and said, «You’ve got no authority over me unless my Dad gave it to you». We know Jesus that stood before the most powerful Jewish leaders of his generation and said, «You’re a bunch of whitewashed tombs, a brood of snakes».
Most of us like that picture of Jesus. We step next to that pretty quickly. The author of Hebrews is offering us something different. «During the days of Jesus’s life, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death». What initiated this response from Jesus? The awareness of the imminence of death. And then clearly he’s responding to that. Look at the next phrase. It’s fascinating to me. «And he was heard because of his reverent submission». He was heard because he’d seen the glory of God. He was heard because he could quote the prophets. He was heard because he was sinless. No, he was heard because of his reverent submission. I think most of us imagine that yielding to God is somehow an expression of weakness. When you’ve done everything you know to do, pray.