Allen Jackson - Living In God's Blessings - Part 1
We’ve been doing a series under the theme of «God’s Plan, God’s Promises and God’s People». In this session, my intent is to bring a conclusion, at least to this segment of the study. The idea is that God has a plan for the earth. It’s not random, folks. Any more than the Earth’s orbit around the sun is random or the genetic material in your body is random. There’s nothing about creation that suggests it’s just the result of happenstance or statistical probability. It’s an expression of God’s plan. And that plan is communicated to us through God’s promises, through his covenants.
The objective of all of that is that God might have a people for himself. I mean, that is the big-picture view of this story, and we’ve looked at several of those promises and their implications for our lives and what it would look like to begin to address them in personal ways. And in this session I would like to do a bit of an overview to why I believe those promises are so significant and why they have the potential to change the trajectory of a life. It’s unfortunate that oftentimes the only promise we really take down or try to apply is that if we’ll confess with our mouth and believe in our heart, we can be saved. And while I believe that is a wonderful part of the promises of God and a part of the covenant that’s available to us, it’s by no means the fullness of that.
And I wanna see if I can put it in just a bit of a context. I can’t afford to get lost on this rabbit trail. But the why component of this, I think, matters a great deal. You know, if the world is stable and you imagine that the next three or four decades are gonna be a reflection of the past two or three decades, we have the luxury of something of a static faith. You know, a set of values that we hold and we can practice them as their previous generations have practiced them and we’ll be fully equipped for what’s next. But there’s very little about our experience that suggest that’s true. You know, for hundreds of years, the life skills of a grandfather were adequate for his grandchildren to succeed in life.
And while the values of the grandparents are still adequate, the life skills don’t meet the challenges of the current generation. My grandfather earned a living with a team of horses and mules. And while I like horses and mules, I’d have to be very creative to earn a living with a team of horses these days. The ability to harness a team of horses and hitch them to a wagon or some other implement is not in tremendous demand. And yet, that skill set had worked well for hundreds and even thousands of years. The world has changed. Well, because of that, it isn’t that our faith has to change, but understanding the time and season we’re in and how to live out our faith has to fit the demands of this generation.
That is precisely what Jesus was saying in the Gospels. He said, you have all of the information about how to worship God, but you’ve made the Sabbath about rules and not about God. And he was constantly in trouble because he was challenging Sabbath rules or kosher rules in the midst of the covenant people of God. Well, I would submit to you that we are watching a culmination of this age. I don’t know the timeline, I don’t know how that…I wouldn’t pretend to. But I can tell you the symptoms that the Bible gives us of what will happen as we approach the end of the age are escalating around us on a weekly basis.
Matthew 24, Luke 21, Jesus’s most lengthy prophetic passage, one of the characteristics Jesus said, for instance, was he said there would be a tremendous increase of lawlessness. How many have a sense that lawlessness is increasing exponentially? He gave more than a dozen signs and the ultimate sign, he said it was the gospel will be preached in the whole world. And then the end would come. You know, as a younger man, that required a completely different attitude than it does today. I was a supporter and an advocate and did a great deal to advocate for missions organizations like Wycliffe that did Bible translations. And it used to be an imagination from the time somebody raised their hand and said, «You know, I wanna go to an unreached people group,» it took years of preparation, language study, skill set, intercultural communication.
And I’m not telling you that it’s fully resolved, but now you can pick up one of those little portable handheld wonder devices and pull up Google Translate and you can talk to lots of people anywhere. Or we can have a little country church on the periphery of Nashville and turn on the digital tools and we talk to people around the globe on a weekly, daily basis. We’re watching the fulfillment of that and we’re also watching the demonic onslaught that’s trying to withstand it. So the practice of your faith needs to reflect an awareness of what’s happening. Lawlessness is increasing. Please don’t ignore it. We talked about an open border.
While the people in charge, the head of Homeland Security, I just ran the tape this past week, multiple times stood in front of cameras and large audiences and says our borders completely secure, hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people pouring across the border. And we’re still facing the residual impact of that. We have sanctuary cities and sanctuary states, cities and states that refuse to enforce federal laws while they demand federal dollars. Not a new thing. That’s been flourishing for decades. That’s not on a single administration or even a single party. It’s been tolerated for decades. It’s absurd, if you ignore federal law, you shouldn’t get a federal penny. That’s absurd. It’s like asking for scholarship money and I don’t go to your school.
I just want somebody to keep me in the manner that I’ve grown accustomed. I can give you some examples closer to home. A couple of weeks ago, Belmont was in the news because, well, the federal government said, «We won’t give federal funding to universities that promote and institutionalize DEI,» diversity, equity, and inclusion training. Belmont got caught on video tape saying, «We’re gonna rename it, but we’re actually going to expand it in our university». A Christian university openly acknowledging they’re gonna practice deception and dishonesty. They’re gonna transgress the federal regulations while they demand or request federal dollars. Well, it got even more personal this week at the University of Tennessee. Announces they’re in the same bucket.
«We’re just renaming it. We’re expanding the programming. We want the federal money, but we’re gonna relabel it». It’s lawlessness. In our universities where we’re training young people, theoretically, about integrity and character formation, in Christian and secular universities close to us, not in some part of the country that we consider to be troublesome, we have leading voices modeling for our students deception, dishonesty, and lawlessness. Gee, I wonder what that will produce when they gain positions of authority. It’s much easier to come in our buildings and do a Bible study on the first century and talk about the miracles of Jesus or Pauline theology or the circumstances in Ephesus or the moral content in the church in Corinth, but the awkward nature is that we’re living in a season of, in our lifetime, of unprecedented lawlessness. And you could expand that list far beyond the ones I’ve handed you.
So what’s the response of the people of God? Well, I would submit to you we need to understand God’s plan, what’s he going to do in the earth. You know why lawlessness is increasing? You know why lawlessness has to grow at the end of the age? Because the ultimate battle as we approach the end of the age is between the spirit of Antichrist and Christ, the Spirit of God. And ultimately, it will come down to the embodiment of that spirit in a person, who is the lawless one. And it will require the return of the King to thwart the lawless one, or he would destroy us all.
So you understand that God’s purposes are moving towards a conclusion, but they require God’s people to be aware and living in the full authority of the covenant, the promises he’s given us. The most binding word in Scripture for an agreement from God is covenant. There is no stronger commitment God can make to a human being than a covenant, and the promises are the application of the covenant. The promises are available to us because of the covenants that have been established. They’re not whimsical. They’re not arbitrary. They’re not casually extended. They shouldn’t be considered optional.
You will not complete the assignment for which you were created unless you by faith received the promises of God. The adversary will overwhelm you. You will not overcome evil. You’ll be overcome by evil unless by faith you appropriate the promises of God. So this isn’t arbitrary. I’m gonna move pretty quickly. It’s kind of a big picture, but I hope to put into context the promises we’ve been talking about. Whether I succeed or not will require the help of the Holy Spirit. We should pray.
Lord, help us. We don’t need to hear more words. We need to hear from you. Not the wisdom of a person, but truth from you that will bring freedom to us and hope to us and insight to us. Help us. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Let’s start with God’s plan, it’s important. If you want to get it, you gotta go to Genesis. That’s where we’re introduced to God. «In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth,» and it all unfolds from that. But in Genesis 1:26 says, «God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and the livestock and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground». You see, humanity is not just the highest rung on the evolutionary ladder, that’s not at all what’s described. God said, «We’re gonna create man in our image».
We are image bearers of Almighty God and we’ve been given authority over all creation. You’re more important than a snail darter. You’re more important than a baby seal. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be responsible to creation. I believe we are stewards over God’s creation, but don’t worship it. It makes you an idolater. It’s a false god. Teach your kids. They tell us that our faith isn’t welcome in the public schools, and our schools and universities have built shrines to any number of idolatrous things. And we’ve just been numbly going along. It’s time for a change. «So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female». It’s worth noting there was two options. «God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground».
God’s intent, he created human beings, he gave them authority over all the earth. He said everything you need is here. It’s an idyllic environment. At this point, sin hasn’t intruded. You know, Jesus is coming back to the earth to rule and reign on planet Earth. Do you understand? There may be an interim. If your earth suit stops before Jesus returns, your spirit will go to be in the presence of God, but Jesus is coming back. Your earth suit will be resurrected, you’re gonna get 2.0, and ultimately we will reign and rule on this earth with Jesus. Well, the language of that suggests something has to be subordinated. See, I think we’ve thought of the return of Christ and his rule on the earth as something that’s casual and passive. The Bible talks about him reigning with a rod of iron. That’s beyond the scope of this discussion, but that’s God’s plan.
Look at Matthew 6, this is New Testament. Some of you get a little biased. You know, there’s no such, it’s not like a God of the Old Testament and God of the New, right? We understand that? God didn’t have some gummies when he finished Malachi and mellow out and write the New Testament. Ah, really? Well, I mean, I’ve heard people say in this building, «You know, I don’t read the Old Testament. It’s harsh». Well, you know, the one who put the Old Testament together when you see him is gonna be a little harsh, if that’s your attitude. Matthew 6, I’m sorry. This is Jesus, «This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'»
Jesus said this is your prayer. Let your will be done in all the earth. It sounds a lot like Genesis 1 to me. It’s God’s plan. «So, what’s God want me to do with my life, Pastor? If I just knew what God wanted me to do, I’d be doing it». Let your will be done on earth. Wherever he sends us, we’re to be a living expression of the will of God. God’s perspective, God’s truth, God’s attitude, God’s ideas, everywhere we go. It’s not about being a full-time professional whatever, butcher, baker, candlestick maker. Let your will be done in my life today. You can’t stand in the face of ungodliness and wickedness and immorality and lies and deception and be silent and pray that prayer and maintain your integrity.
That’s God’s plan. But we live in a broken world, a fallen world. Evil exists, unimaginable, even heinous, unthinkable, beyond what’s appropriate to describe in a setting like this. And to counteract that, God has given us his covenants, his promises. In Romans 2, verse 9 it says, «There will be trouble and distress for every human being, for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile; but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, and then for the Gentile. For God doesn’t show favoritism».
God has told us what’s coming. He said that evil exists and there’ll be human beings who are engaged in evil and, ultimately, it will bring trouble and great distress. But he said his will will be established. And for everyone who does that, there’ll be glory and honor. You got to decide which one you are. You’ve got a choice. There’s no third option, folks. No trans Christianity. You got a choice to make. I don’t mean to be funny. We’ve created too many gray areas. We’ve had too much sloppy agape. We’ve got to decide in our hearts if we’re gonna serve the Lord or we’re not. Near the end of the book of Revelation, there’s this remarkable statement made. It says, «Let the wicked be more wicked and those who want to be righteous be even more righteous».
It’s time to decide. The middle is disappearing. The gray area is evaporating. The little phrase, «To the Jew first, and then for the Gentile,» is a biblical pattern. The Jewish people have been a demonstration of God’s purpose and intent to form a people for himself, and they’ve demonstrated to us the responsibility of that. It comes with great blessings and it comes with great responsibility. God chose them, they didn’t choose him. The Scripture’s very clear: out of all the peoples on the earth, God said, «I choose that group of people. I have a purpose for them and a plan for them».
They didn’t all like it, they haven’t all wanted to cooperate. But some have. And when they lived in rebellion, when they rejected God’s invitations, they faced his discipline and they have suffered a great deal. You shouldn’t imagine there’s anything different for you under the New Covenant. God chose you. You think you chose him? I assure you, he chose you before you chose him. And once you come to the awareness that he’s chosen you, you have to choose him with your whole heart. Not just once, not just in response to an altar call, some emotional plea, those are okay with me, I’m not opposing that. But you have to make a choice for the Lord every day of your life.
My Bible says in Hebrews that God disciplines those he loves. If he doesn’t discipline you, you’re an illegitimate child. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants, God’s covenant was about a Promised Land. It’s Genesis 12. «The Lord said to Abram, 'Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I’ll show you. I’ll make you a great nation, I’ll bless you; I’ll make your name great, you’ll be a blessing. I’ll bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I’ll curse; all people on earth be blessed through you». It’s an amazing promise. «All people on earth blessed through you».
That might fuel your ego a little bit. No, you gotta be a bit more sophisticated. You have to know more than one verse. The only verse in the Bible you know is God said he’d bless those that blessed you and curse those that cursed you, your faith is incomplete and inadequate. It’s not that simple because there are times God has used any number of Gentile rulers, Gentile leaders to bring discipline to his people. God called 'em his instruments, his agents, his servants. So, I believe that we have an assignment. I believe we owe a tremendous debt to the Jewish people. But there, again, there’s a lot of casualness in the way Christians approach this.
But God promised them clearly a piece of land, Genesis 15. «Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. And he also said to him, 'I’m the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.'» There’s a piece of territory at the end of the Mediterranean Sea that God promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a part of his covenant with them. And he could care less what the UN Security Council thinks. It’s a point of tremendous consternation in the earth these days. Lately, there has been almost weekly some new public diatribe against the Jewish people. It’s illogical, it’s irrational.
The only way I think it can be understood is with a spiritual motivation. Again, that’s a little beyond the scope of this particular lesson. God’s promises, first of all, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a part of that covenant, they got a Promised Land. In the New Covenant, God gives to his people the land of his promises, not a place on planet Earth. He didn’t say Middle Tennessee is unique to a group of people. But what he has given us is a life defined by his promises. The understanding of his covenants, his provision for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was complete, total, and entire. His provision for your life and mine is complete, total, and entire. Christians quibble about this.
«Well, I don’t know if I should pray that God will bless me or if God will heal me or if God will provide for my needs». All that is expressing is a lack of awareness of Scripture. You can’t evaluate the depth of your spirituality by those things, but they’re a part of the promises of God. Look at 2 Peter 1 in verse 3, «His divine 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».
Who wrote that passage? I mean, directed by the Holy Spirit, but it was Peter, the fisherman that Jesus recruited, an observant Jewish man. He keeps kosher, he celebrates the Jewish holidays. He’s kept the law of Moses since his youth. And yet when he’s writing this, he said, «God’s divine 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». He’s not just referring on the covenant. He’s not ignoring the New Covenant. «Through these he’s given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires».
Can we agree that there is corruption in our world caused by evil? I think we can agree on that. There’s two things in those two verses stated in perfect tense, which means they have already been done, they’re complete. There’s nothing to be added to them. There’s no amendments coming forth. It is a fait accompli. It’s done. The first, it says he’s given us everything we need for life and godliness. He’s not gonna give you something else. You say, «God, I need help».
Well, his help is in his promises. We have to understand how to believe them, how to appropriate them. The land that God gave to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they had to occupy it, they had to fight for it. And you’ll have to occupy the promises of God. They will not fall on you like so much ripe fruit. We have a lot of language in amongst us that isn’t helpful. You know, whatever God has for me, I’ll receive it. I’m just open to whatever the Lord wants, whatever God, I would do, just, you know, with all my heart is on it, I just want… stop it. Do you understand you can go to hell with that attitude? The Bible very clearly says, unless you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you’re not saved. So saying out of your mouth, «Well, I, you know, I’m just open to whatever,» that doesn’t help. You’ll miss the promise.