Allen Jackson - I Choose God's Promise - Part 1
We’ve been doing a series on God’s promises, really, «God’s Plan, God’s Promises & God’s People». It’s important to know God has a plan for your life and that the expression of that plan is revealed in his promises. And all of those things when you choose to take them by faith, then you give evidence that you’re the people of God. Faith has to be demonstrated. It has to be lived out or it’s just a theory. And we don’t want to be the theoretical people of God. We want to be the living evidence that there is a God. And so to do that we’re studying his promises.
See, we’re watching something, we’ve talked about current events from time to time, but there’s something across our country that has been pretty pervasive, and it’s biblical. There’s hope in that. But in Matthew 24 and 25, it’s Jesus’s most lengthy prophetic discourse. It’s echoed in Luke 21 and in Mark as well, but one of the characteristics Jesus gave is that human character, begins to deteriorate is that lawlessness would increase. And he said it would increase to the point that the love in the hearts of God’s people, it’s clear in the language, would grow cold and cause many to turn back. And you know, I don’t think we’re seeing the full expressions of that, but there’s evidence of that all around us on such a regular basis now, that perhaps the most pronounced is the mayors of most, many of the major American cities refusing to enforce the federal laws.
You know, as long as the behavior begins with illegal, we shouldn’t encourage it and support it. That’s not compassion, that’s lawlessness. Now, it’s not a surprise. It’s been in place for quite some season and we’ve all either conveniently looked away or yawned or said there’s nothing we can do. So we’re really dealing with the consequences of years of lawlessness. But it is unsettling to see leaders of the most powerful or some of the most powerful cities in our nation determine boldly, brazenly, unapologetically saying they’re not going to recognize federal laws.
Imagine if the Christian church were doing that. I mean, the part that is to me completely absurd, inappropriate, honestly, is if you’re going to reject federal law, then I don’t believe you should have federal support. But pray, because lawlessness is not a sign of the Spirit of God, and we have allowed lawlessness to flourish amongst us for so long that now the consequences are very difficult. And the church has a role in that. It is not compassion to encourage lawlessness. It really isn’t, and you’ll know that when the lawlessness touches your life directly. You will not like that.
So it’s an important time. God is moving. It’s amazing what he’s doing. I don’t know that I, in my lifetime, I’ve ever seen him move as, at the pace at which the Spirit of God is moving, the doors that are being opened to give opportunities and liberty to the people of faith. The truth that’s being told, the protections for children and families, the things that are being established could only come from God. And in fact, when you watch what happens, you have to say only God could do that. It makes you smile. You’re like, that’s kind of right. It’s kind of like Gideon, if you’re reading Judges with us, are you reading Judges? Why not? You should be reading Judges. We just read about Gideon, you know, he takes 300 people and routs an army of thousands and thousands. When you see that, you go, «Oh, God did that». And we’re watching one of those seasons where the only real answer is God, so I’m grateful for that.
Now, back to your outlines, God’s promises for this session, it’s «I Choose God’s Promise». I keep giving you some little snippets into this notion. It’s not just about what can I get, but God’s promises are the incentives to follow God’s path. He tells us, if you will follow me, this is what will happen. This is what will come to your life. He’s incentivized obedience. It’s an expression of his grace and kindness. He doesn’t have to do that. The truth is we’ve been created with a free will. We can choose good or evil. We’re different from all the rest of Creation. We’re not left just to follow our instincts. We’re not left preprogrammed, just to like the swallows that return to Capistrano. We’re given free choice. We have a free will and the invitation from the beginning of the book to the end of the book is to choose God.
Generation after generation, it’s presented differently, it’s presented creatively. Joshua says, «As for me and my household, we’ll choose the Lord». That’s a very poignant statement because everybody Joshua graduated high school with was dead, except Caleb. He was not amongst a generation of people who said wholeheartedly, «We choose the Lord». So, near the end of his life, he’s looking at the next generation. I knew your parents, I knew many of your grandparents, and you’ve got to choose what you’re going to do, but he said, «As for me and my household». It’s in generation after generation after generation in the scripture. Some did not choose God. You’re reading Judges now. It says repeatedly, «But this generation went their own way».
Esther, in Persia, in a hard time, the Jewish people are exiled, they’re slaves, there a lot of pressure, many reasons to be disgruntled. And Esther says, «I’ll stand up. If I perish, I perish, but I’m gonna do the right thing». Daniel did something similar. Jeremiah, I mean, we can go through the list, you get to the New Testament, our heroes. Folks, we have been given the ability to choose. So the invitation in this session, and we’re gonna do some practical things, is choose God’s promises for your life. God’s love for us results in the expression of his promises. He cares about us, so he says, «Listen, choose me, and this is what will happen». And our typical answer, if we answer from our kind of carnal, ungodly, unredeemed part of ourselves, says, «Well, I’d like that outcome without being godly».
Well, you know, we do. I’d like to eat M&Ms and lose weight. I’m gonna write a book, it’s the ice cream diet. You know, if you just want to lose small amounts of weight, eat vanilla. But if you just want weight to melt off of you, put caramel and hot fudge, Heath Bar pieces, three times a day. I bet I’d sell a million copies, before they figured out the whole thing was a sham and then I spend the rest of my life with lawsuits, but the appeal would be amazing. And we’re a little bit like that in the church. We want godliness, we want the benefits of godliness, but we’d like to hire somebody to be godly for us. Also included in the presentations are the consequences of rejecting God’s invitations. In fact, often we’re offended. I’ve had this conversation many times in a variety of settings. «If God is love, why doesn’t he use his power to make me perpetually happy? Why do I have to face seasons of unhappiness»?
Well, happiness in scripture is not the ultimate objective. Holiness, righteousness, are more significant. Now here’s the awkward part and I know we’re in church, but we frequently prefer happy. Things like holiness and righteousness feel like intrusions, burdensome. «Is there a short, I thought it was a free gift». It is. I want to start in 2 Peter 1. I gave you a little bit of an expanded passage. I think the context is very helpful. The first couple of verses, I hope we’re familiar with by now, it says: «His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness».
It’s in the perfect tense, it means it’s already been accomplished. It’s not something that will happen. Everything that’s to be done for you and me to enjoy life and godliness has been done. What remains is our choices. God has done his part. «Everything, his power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he’s given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature». «You may participate» means we’ve been given permission to participate. But it requires again our choices, our determination, our willingness, our enthusiasm. Even our effort. «And escape the corruption in the world caused by the evil desires».
There’s that dichotomy. Those are the choices. Those are the two options. There’s no real third one. If you don’t want godliness, understand you want… what you’re voting for is the expression of evil desires and the consequences that come with them. That’s it. See, the gospel, the good news about Jesus can’t really be understood unless we understand the consequences of evil. Without the Ten Commandments, we don’t know the character of God. We don’t even know we’re transgressors.
The church has struggled in recent years because we want to talk about the grace of God and the mercy of God and the good news of the gospel and God is love, but we don’t want to talk about God as judge. And if you don’t have one, the other doesn’t feel necessary. It’s not a downer. It’s an awareness. I choose God because I don’t want to be without him. I choose godliness because ungodliness is not a good place to land. I choose righteousness because unrighteousness is bitter and will decay your bones. And if we only take one half of that, we’re robbing people. You see, the gospel has to be presented in total, and you and I have to live with that awareness. It’s our motivation to choose the Lord.
You know, I don’t have a sweet tooth. I have a head full of sweet teeth. I mean, you know, I wanna say God made me that way. I’m sure I had some role in it. But I have some desire. It’s fleeting and intermittent, but occasionally it’s like a shadow across, a cloud across the sun. I have a desire to eat healthier. And I’ve learned some of the language. Green things are good for you. So I try to eat green gummy bears. It’s like a compromise. You know, and I learned some of the language, but I still recognize that tension between older habits that are not as helpful and the ones that would be better for me. And that’s the tension of godliness. And if we don’t recognize the destructive part of that, there’s no motivation for doing something healthier. And we’ve had a gospel so filled with grace and mercy and love and blessing, that there’s been very little motivation for righteousness or godliness or holiness.
Why would we choose God? We’re born again. We can’t lose our salvation. Everything’s good. Well, the Bible gives us a little broader picture. The corruption in the world caused by evil desires. Very next verse, I separated it a bit in your notes, but it’s one passage. It says: «For this very reason». Everything we just said, «For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness». Make every effort. You ought to circle those three words. It didn’t say when it’s convenient, when you’re in the mood, if you feel like it, if somebody preaches a good sermon. «Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness».
That’s not a fun list. I mean, really, I mean, the outcomes are amazing, but I mean if you’re gonna put it, like, on a fun to do. Let’s all get together and practice perseverance at 4 a.m. Years ago we were doing a men’s retreat. And we’d invited a man to come speak to them. He was a Marine colonel. I should have known. And I’d written the agenda for the retreat. I picked him up at the airport and we were driving to the park where we were having it. He said, «I’m gonna write an agenda». I was much younger and I said, «I’ve done that». He said, «Uh-huh». And his agenda was 24 hours, around the clock. Like, everybody praying, every hour. It’s like he was a Marine or something. I thought, well, you know, I thought a retreat, it was like we’d play a little softball, eat some pancakes.
And I read what Peter’s writing. This is 2 Peter. He’s near the end of his life. He’s not the young man, not the brash young guy we meet in the Gospels. Tempered by a lot of life experience: «Perseverance, godliness; godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. And if you possess these qualities increasing measure, they’ll keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ». How many of you knew you were supposed to be effective and productive? Peter just gave us the way to not be ineffective and unproductive. I don’t even think we live with the… who said we’re supposed to be productive and effective? We prayed the sinner’s prayer. I got baptized. I sit in church on Saturday night sometimes. «But if anyone doesn’t have them, he’s nearsighted and blind, and he’s forgotten that he’s been cleansed from his past sins».
He’s writing clearly to Christians. He said if you’re not doing the things to enable you to be effective and productive, you’re nearsighted and blind. And you have forgotten what has been done for you. So the premise, it’s my introduction, and it’s gone too long, is we have to choose the promises of God. They’re not automatic. They don’t accrue to you like some sort of compound interest. We have to accept God’s promises. We have to choose God’s way. And those are typically choices in the midst of a conflict. There are alternate perspectives. When we choose God’s way, there are other ways to choose. We’ve got to be honest enough to acknowledge that. There are other desires within us than godliness. There are other options in the culture around us. There are voices speaking to us in our peer groups. There are choices in the midst of the conflict. There are alternative perspectives.
We know that in the world, and there’s Russia and Ukraine. Lots of opinions. There’s Democrats and Republicans, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Satan. I’m not equating any of the above. Romans 7, Paul says this: «I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against my mind and making me a prisoner of the law at work within my members». He’s describing this tension. Well, I make up my mind to do this, but he said, I’ve got these promptings. It’s like I’m hardwired. He goes on to say, thank God, I triumph over all of this in Christ Jesus. But you have to stay in Christ Jesus to get the triumphant part. You’re not a broken model. You’re not a B grade Christian. You’re not like some sub… we’ve got to recognize that tension and we have to say on a very regular basis, I choose God. I do.
I want to honor the Lord in this decision. I wanna honor the Lord in this, whatever’s unfolding. In fact, I like to think of it as a progression of faith, rather than a faith accompli, rather than something that you put in the past tense. Oh, I’ve done that. Think of your journey with the Lord as a progressive learning to trust God and to be obedient to God and to grow in your faith. We’re reading through the books of Moses right now. We’ve just ground our way through some of that exciting literature in Leviticus and Numbers. So you’re well aware of that generation of people who have been slaves in Egypt, like generations for hundreds of years.
Think of their journey, that one generation of people, they are working in the brick pits of Egypt when this scruffy fellow comes in out of the desert and says, «My name is Moses, and I have a divine message». They have to decide what they’re gonna do with that. Will they believe it, accept it, reject it? And it wasn’t clear to them. And if they accept Moses, then they have to be willing to believe that leaving Egypt is a possibility. They don’t know anybody that’s left Egypt. Their families never left Egypt. They’ve never been to this place Moses is talking about. It wasn’t enough to say God sent Moses, they had to believe God sent Moses so they could leave. And it didn’t stop there. If they could leave Egypt, they had to be willing to believe they could, the crossing of the Red Sea was achievable. They didn’t have a navy. I mean, they’re having to take steps of faith.
The first one was Moses is legit. That sparked some conversation around the table. Then do we really think we could leave this place and what we would do if the army were to pin us down? And suppose we escape Egypt and we get across the Red Sea, they had to believe they could survive in the wilderness. Costco wasn’t open yet. Hundreds of thousands of people with no supply lines and no food chain, no way to grow crops to sustain them. There’s not enough. I mean, they are being pushed day after day. Then they have to be, they’re asked to believe they could conquer the Promised Land. They have this inheritance, this piece of terra firma, but it is occupied by some powerful people. And the group of people that said, «We believe Moses, and we believe we can escape Egypt. We even believe we could cross the Red Sea and we’ve seen God feed us every day,» when they got to the Promised Land, they said, «No, we’re not believing that».
A part of this series is an invitation for you to choose the promises of God. I’m grateful you’re born again. I’m grateful for all of your experience. I’m grateful for your impressive spiritual resume. I truly am. It’s filled with miracles and building tabernacles and churches and, sir, it’s amazing. Me too, we’ve made a lot of the journey together. But I’m very interested in saying yes to the Lord today. Now, I want to take the balance of our time. Have you ever watched a YouTube video to learn how to do something? You know, if you catch me, I’m desperate. Like, I’ve tried everything. I’ve already thrown away the instructions. I didn’t read them and I’ve got extra pieces left. And they’re pieces that apparently matter because it isn’t working.
And it doesn’t look right and Kathy’s gonna notice and so I’m desperate enough, I’m like, well, maybe somebody on YouTube. And then you get mad at YouTube because they can’t make it work the way you want to. So you have to go find somebody 10 or 12 years old and say, «Could you help me»? And they pull up the video and it’s a 7- or 8-year-old doing the video to show you how to do what you can’t do. Me too. Well, I wanna do a YouTube video with you because it’ll end up on YouTube, on applying one of the promises of God, because it’s not enough to talk about them, folks.
What’s it mean to choose a promise of God, to make it yours? How do you live that out? See, I don’t, I could give you 30 promises from scripture that God says belong to you. But I’d be much more interested in walking through the process one time because then you can apply it to all the promises you find. And not all the promises of God begin with, «I promise». Sometimes God will say something like «The fear of the Lord will bring wealth and honor and life». I’m like, wow. Maybe I should figure out how to cultivate the fear of God. Because I don’t have to chase those things, it’ll bring them to me like Amazon. It’s a promise. «Well, I don’t believe that».
I know, that’s what I’m saying. You could choose that. But you’d have to choose the fear of the Lord. So not all the promises come like with a neon light going, «Hey, this is the promise,» but I chose a promise, John 16:33, because I’m making the video. This was Jesus speaking, and he said, «I’ve told you these things,» he’s talking to his friends, «so that in me you may have peace. In this world you’ll have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world». Jesus told his friends, we could lead lives of peace. Wow, that’s a promise I’m interested in. We live in a world filled with turmoil and confusion and anger and bitterness and division and everybody with a computer that can find a parent’s basement to put it in has got a loud opinion.
Now, Jesus’s peace is not an absence of conflict, because he didn’t lead that kind of a life. Jesus’s peace is a calm assurance of God’s abiding presence. Even if you’re in the midst of trouble, if you’re in the midst of a storm and the fishermen wake you up in the boat, you can say to the wind and the waves, «Oh, hush». You can stand before the Roman governor that has the power to condemn you to death, and you can say, «Actually, unless my Dad gave you the Jews, you wouldn’t even have a job». Jesus said, «My peace».
Now, that’s a promise. It doesn’t mean it fills our lives. So how do we appropriate that promise? Well, there’s some facts that Jesus put in the record that I think are worth noting. I can tell you this, at least in my experience, the promises of God don’t come to my life casually. I mean, the one most of us are familiar with, Romans 10:9-10, you can confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you can be saved. You can do that in a moment, but to live that out is not a casual thing. Is that fair? Takes some intentionality. You have to cooperate with the Spirit of God. It’s a lifetime.
Well, there’s some facts that Jesus put in record in that verse that I think are worth noting. He said, «In me you may have peace». You can have peace and peace is a little open-ended. You can have peace with God in Jesus. In Christ, you can have peace with God. In Christ, you can have peace with yourself. You don’t have to live in turmoil and torment. You don’t have to live a rejected life. You don’t have to lead a life that is scarred by the existence of evil. In Christ, you can have peace.