Allen Jackson - Funerals Worth Remembering
I wanna do a couple sessions. I struggled a bit with this title. In fact, I wanna pray because the Lord put something in my heart and I pray he will help us to…
Father, I thank you for your Word. It is living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword. Holy Spirit, I ask for your help tonight as we have these moments together to give us understanding beyond ourselves. May it be more than the words of a message or scriptures that are presented. May there be life in it that brings freedom and hope to us, in Jesus’s name, amen.
The Lord put something in my heart in a unique way, really. And it isn’t that it’s profound or new, it just came alive inside of me. And I wanna share it with you and I hope to, candidly, to re-purpose a bit how we imagine our faith and our role in that faith. The title that I landed on, and it may change three times before it gets posted someplace is «Funerals Worth Remembering». You know, our faith is really centered in a death and a resurrection. And I was out of town for a few days this past week and I called the office and I said, «I’ve got an idea for the weekend. I need you to do something. I want to fill the building with caskets».
And they did that. And I called back the next day and they said, «We’ve been talking about this and I», they said, «We’re not sure». And very uncharacteristically, I said, «Well, okay,» which I think made them think I wasn’t well. One of the most frightening statements around here is if I say I have an idea, it’s like, «Oh jeez». So there’s no caskets in the building, but this notion of resurrection, it’s not just about Jesus, it fills the pages of our Bible.
There are many individuals who were raised to life again. It’s really the demonstration perhaps of the power of God in the most personal way to humanity. There are greater miracles perhaps with the sundial going backwards or the Red Sea being parted or the manna in the wilderness, you know, we can find these… there’s these remarkable expressions of the supernatural power of God, but it’s hard to imagine anything more personal to a human being than a body who’s no longer has life in it being brought back to life again. And it’s a consistent theme in our Bible.
Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, Elisha and the Shunammite woman. The young man who was hastily thrown to a tomb, and he fell on Elisha’s bones and he was resurrected. I don’t even know his name. I mean, it follows into the New Testament with Jairus’s daughter, with Lazarus. He was dead for several days to the point that decomposition had begun. He was already a bad odor, and he was raised to life again. But it follows beyond Jesus’s resurrection to the disciples. Peter raised a young woman to life again. Paul had a young man who went to sleep while he was preaching and he fell out of a window from an upper story.
See, preachers have been putting people to sleep for a long time. I mean, if Paul did it, I’m in good company, so just have a nap. We’ll put the camera on you, we’ll show the world. But the theory to me, in my imagination, is I can’t imagine that anyone would remain the same if they’d ever been brought back to life. I don’t think Lazarus was ever the same again, do you? I can’t imagine how you could be. But we don’t even know the young man’s name, we just know his mother lived in the little village of Nain, and she was a widow and her son died, and Jesus raised him to life again as an expression of compassion for the mother. I can’t imagine that home was ever the same again.
Do you think they were indifferent about Jesus? I doubt it. Well, they sent me a compilation of some interviews I’ve been privileged to be a part of over these last few weeks and months. And they were people that you know, people mostly from our congregation and their stories, and they were resurrection stories, some literally, of people who had lost life and God brought them back. Others were people who had found themselves in some places where it seemed like death was overwhelming, and God brought them back. And I watched that compilation of those stories and I thought, you know, we’re living in the midst of this remarkable thing happening. It’s not just something from antiquity or from history. There are some remarkable expressions of the life of God. There’s some funerals worth remembering.
In Revelation chapter 1 and verse 18, I made it to your notes. There’s hope. I have no idea how far I’m gonna get in these notes, so. But I promise we’ll just keep going. So, I mean, not tonight, but in Revelation 1 and verse 18, John is an old man by this point. His peer group were almost all gone, they’ve all been martyred. We don’t have those accounts listed in Scripture. We know them through the traditions of the church, but they seem relatively reliable. Peter asked not to be crucified. He was condemned to be crucified, and he didn’t want to die in the same manner that his Lord had. He didn’t feel worthy, so he asked to be crucified upside down. But John’s an old man now, and he’s been banished, imprisoned on an island, most likely working in a copper mine, and on the Sabbath, he says, John, it simply says that he was in the spirit on the Lord’s Day and Jesus appeared to him. And he turned around and he saw his friend.
And he describes him in the most majestic poetic language, and he 'said, ' «I fell at his feet as though I were dead. Then he put his hand on me». And this is what Jesus said to John: «I’m the Living One; I was dead, and behold I’m alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and hell». I was alive and I was dead. And I’m alive for ever. And I got the keys. There’s a pattern in there for you and me, and if the Lord is gracious to us and we’ll let it take root in our heart, I believe it can change how we understand our faith. I feel like we’re pushing against some ideas that have taken deep root in the church that are not helpful.
You know, we’re standing in a place where we… I think we understand we’re in desperate need of change. If the trends of the last few years continue, we will forfeit our freedoms and liberties. There have been tremendous encroachments upon those things: freedom of speech, freedom of thought. For all the language around it, it’s been severely limited. And the part that’s been confusing and the church has seemed completely addled about, is we’re really the guardians of those things. Those emerge from the authority of Scripture; they don’t come from governments. Governments don’t bring freedom. Governments don’t bring liberty. Governments don’t bring peace. Those things come from the prince of peace. They come from the authority of Scripture. And when the church imagined that we should be disengaged from culture, we abandoned our culture to the demonic encroachment of tyranny.
This is not about political parties or candidates, folks. Those things will change. They will vacillate wildly. They’ll fight like children. They’ll do all those things, but a healthy vibrant church is what brings freedom and liberty to humanity. And because of the weakness of the church and because of the, to be honest, because of the corruption of much of the formal education of the leadership in the church over the last few years, we began to present a gospel of salvation, that the primary goal of our faith was simply to recite a prayer and imagine you had a ticket to heaven and then we could lead our lives on our own terms. We’ve talked about that a great deal.
I believe in the conversion and the new birth and however you label that kingdom initiation. I don’t want to diminish that; it’s essential. But there’s something about our faith that’s been lost. It’s plain in the Scripture, and I wanna step back into that and I think it’s connected to this idea of a funeral, of a death and of a resurrection. In Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 1, it says: «As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler,» excuse me, «of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who’s now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. And like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath».
Let’s pause there for a moment. Paul is using some language and it isn’t confusing, but it requires just a moment of thought. He said you were dead in your transgressions and sins. Not physically dead, but you were spiritually dead. You were walking, you had a heartbeat and a pulse. You had neural impulses and your systems function, but you were dead. And the dominant characteristic of your life is you were walking in ungodliness. In fact, he said, you were following the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air. Your life was dominated by a spirit of disobedience. And he said, all of us have done that. We’ve all been the walking dead.
And then in verse 4: «But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ». He made us alive. We were physically alive but we were spiritually dead. «He made us alive with Christ,» watch the transition, «even when we were dead in transgressions, it’s by grace you have been saved. God raised us up with Christ». That’s not some spiritualization of what’s going to happen when Christ returns. It’s an accurate description of what happens when we gain entrance into the kingdom of God. «We’re made alive with Christ. We’re raised up with him, seated with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus». For what purpose? Well, «In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace».
The Bible talks about time in a variety of ways. One of the classification is it talks about ages. Ages are comprised of long blocks of time. The Bible talks about there being ages of ages. So in the ages to come, in the unimaginable span of… time is something God created for us. God’s eternal. It’s a way for us to reference our journey. He’s given us a brief window in time to make a journey under the sun, but in the ages to come, we will see his inexpressible glory for us, his grace to us, distributed as we understand the fullness of his kingdom.
Verse 8: «For it’s by grace you’ve been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it’s the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we’re God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do». We were dead in our sins. And we’ve been made alive in Christ.
Here’s the idea. I want to submit to you that it’s back from the dead we’ve come. We weren’t buried in a tomb like Lazarus with a stone rolled across the entrance. We weren’t placed in a casket. But we were dead, and we have come back from the dead. And I believe the presentation of scripture, and it’s not subtle. This is not some hidden, and it doesn’t need great insight. It shouts at us from the pages of Scripture that once you’ve been brought back to life again, you’re never the same again. Go back and listen to the stories that those people are telling about what God is doing in their lives. They’re not the same. Their perspectives are forever altered. And we’ve had kind of this, it’s been reverse engineered for us.
We’ve been told, «Oh, why don’t you say this prayer with me? And then we’ll begin to, little by little, bit by bit, decide if we want to honor the Lord with our lives a little bit». And we just go, «Well, you know, I don’t know if I wanna do that. Do I have to go to church? Do I have to read my Bible? Do I have to pray with somebody? Do I have to talk about my faith»? It’s as if we don’t understand. I was dead, and now I’m alive. «Oh yeah, I know, I walked the aisle and I said that prayer, but I don’t know if I want to be baptized». You were dead. I want to add a couple more scriptures to it because the picture gets filled out a bit more. I don’t think you’ll be able to maintain your decorum quite as much.
Look at Colossians 2: «When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ». Remember what Jesus said in more than one occasion when they would bring somebody to Jesus, he would say, «Your sins are forgiven,» and it would anger the people around him. They’d say, «Well, who does he think he is»? He said, «Do you think it’s more difficult to heal a body than it is to forgive sin»? He said, «The spiritual transformation is a much heavier lift than the physical one, but that you can understand that I’ve got the power to say your sins are forgiven,» he said, «watch this,» and their bodies would be restored.
«When we were dead in our transgressions, when we were dead in our sins, God made us alive with Christ. He forgave us all of our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, it was against us and it stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And he disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross». He forgave all our sins. He canceled the code that was written against us. He nailed it to the cross. I heard it described this way once that if you could look behind Jesus’s hand on the cross, you would have found the listings of my transgressions. They got nailed to that cross, that I can be made alive again, that I can be brought to life, that I can have spiritual life and spiritual vitality and spiritual insight and spiritual understanding.
Look at Galatians 2: «I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me». See, I’m not just forgiven. I’m not just trying. I was dead. And I’ve been made alive in Christ and now Christ lives in me. Oh, I know I look like Allen, and some of you knew dead Allen. I’ve been in the community a while. Thank God there wasn’t social media. We barely had cameras, black and white. But now I’m alive in Christ. I’m gonna take those verses and just give, I’ve bundled it into a little bit of a summary. It’s a before and after picture. Before I was made alive in Christ, I was dead. I was actively opposing God. That defined me. I might have had a veneer of being polite, I was a Southerner. I might have asked how you were, but I didn’t care. I learned to say yes ma’am and no ma’am, but it was only because my parents beat me regularly.
I’m kidding. We didn’t know it was wrong back in the day. Before I was made alive, I followed the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the ruler of this present age. He owned me. That was my circumstance. The best I could do was put a facade around it, but that was what was in my heart. I was committed to it. I was fully sold out to gratifying the cravings of my sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. I was destined, my destiny was understood as a recipient of the wrath of God. No matter what I achieved, no matter what I accumulated, no matter what degree I earned, no matter what success I could mark on the board, the reality was my future was defined as someone destined for the wrath of the Creator of heaven and earth.
And then God intervened. And he by his grace, his mercy, unearned, undeserved, by his choice, he made me alive with Christ. He called me back to life just as certainly as he called Lazarus out of that tomb. It’s amazing. And he raised me up with Christ. As remarkable as what he did for Jesus, he did for you and me. He seated us with Jesus in the heavenly places, it says. We’re no longer bound to the ruler of the kingdom of this present age. Jesus is our Lord. We call him our King. He defeated the principalities and the powers and all the spiritual forces of wickedness. So the one we call Lord transcends the one who used to be our Lord. There was a power change. I was made alive. I changed kingdoms. I’m described now as God’s workmanship.
I’m an example of what Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth can do, something more dramatic than the flowers in the spring or the trees when they come to life, or the wonders of all of nature, is what God does in the life of a human being when he moves us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his Son. We’re made alive in Christ, back from the dead we’ve come. We’re not just going to church. «Well, you know, I used to swear a lot. Now I only swear a little. I used to drink a lot and now I just drink discretely». No, I was dead and now I’m alive. And then God’s provision in the midst of that, he forgave my sin. He took away all the charges that were leveled against me. They were legitimate. I was guilty. And through the blood of Jesus, I’ve been justified. And not only that, he disarmed our adversary.
Now if you’ll accept that premise of scripture, it takes all of humanity and puts us into one of two categories: dead or alive. I’m not talking about physically. Dead or alive. There’s no third lane. There’s no gray area. You’ve either been made alive in Christ, or you’re dead. I mean, you may have a heartbeat, but you’re under the authority of the ruler of this present age. He owns you. You can sit in church and he owns you. You can read your Bible and he owns you. You will receive the wrath of God. All of us fall into one of these two categories. The little expression that’s prevalent is you’re just, we’re just dead men walking. We have no life, we have no future, we have no hope. Again, a very prominent biblical idea.
Look at Ephesians 2: «Remember that at one time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world». You’re in the world, you’re going to school, you’re going to work. You’re involved in activities, you’re raising families, you’re buying and selling, marrying and being given in marriage, you have dreams and aspirations, but you’re dead. Colossians 1: «Once you were alienated from God and you were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior». Alienated from God, enemies of God.
Imagine being an enemy of the Creator of all things. Imagine having the God that spoke this world into existence, say, «I stand in opposition to you». I don’t really think it matters which degree you earn, which promotion we get, how many resources we accumulate, what accolades we receive if we are dead. See, I think we have undervalued, underestimated, overlooked the significance of being made alive in Christ. It’s back from the dead we have come. We have a story to tell. There’s a completely new orientation that comes with that. The things that were important to you when you were dead would be very different when you’re alive again.
Look at Ephesians 2: «All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires. We were by nature objects of wrath». In John 8, Jesus is speaking to the religious leaders in Jerusalem, and he said, «You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires». They’re very religious. They know the scriptures, they’re students of Scripture. They keep dozens and dozens, they keep hundreds of rules. They’re in the synagogue, they worship at the temple, they offer sacrifices. They do all the things, and he said, «You’re dead. You’re dead».