Allen Jackson - Power for the Impossible - Part 1
We are walking through a series under the title of «Lions & Lambs,» and the foundation of that really comes from our New Testament. There’s two presentations of lions in the New Testament. One is from Peter, the fisherman that Jesus recruited, and Peter says «to be sober and alert because our enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour». And he says resist him. Then in the book of Revelation, there’s an alternative. There’s a lion. John has this revelation of the throne room of heaven. And the book that contains the scroll that contains the message of the end of the age is presented, but there’s no one worthy to open the scroll and John begins to weep.
And a voice speaks up and said, «No, there’s someone worthy to open that. He’s the Lion of the tribe of Judah». And the premise is that our lives are aligned with one of those two lions. There’s no third option. And we’re given very clear instructions when we hear the roar of the satanic influence in our own heart or in our world. Peter said, «Resist him, standing firm in the faith». And when the Lion of the tribe of Judah was revealed in Revelation 5, everybody present began to worship him. So we have to resist Satan’s roars, and we want to learn to worship the Lion of the tribe of Judah.
Those are both expressions of God’s power necessary in the earth for us to lead triumphant lives, and so that’s kind of the foundation of this series we’re walking through. Right now, if you do the Bible reading with us, we’re in the book of 2 Kings, such a happy book. God got up on the wrong side of the bed, and they wrote 2 Kings. Not really, but I try to read a bit ahead of what we’re doing as a group, but I thought 2 Kings was worthy of at least one of our sessions. So just some excerpts from that.
I’ll start in 2 Kings chapter 1 and verse 1, says: «After Ahab,» and Ahab in the Bible is the gold standard for wickedness. I mean, Ahab rang the bell. Like, if you want to be wicked, he went to the top of the hill. I mean he just… but «after Ahab’s death, Moab rebelled against Israel. Now Ahaziah had fallen through the lattice in his upper room in Samaria and he injured himself». Wouldn’t that be awful? You have a clumsy moment and they put it in the Bible forever. Huh, I mean, that’s worse than social media. I mean, I don’t know whether he tripped. I don’t know what happened, but he made the book.
«So he sent messengers, saying to them, 'Go and consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, to see if I’ll recover from this injury.' But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, 'Go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, „Is it because there is no God in Israel that you’re going off to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron“? Therefore this is what the Lord says: „You will not leave the bed you’re lying on. You’ll certainly die“! '» That’s the message God gave Elijah. To which Elijah responded to the Lord, «Well, I don’t want to be political». No, actually it says, «So Elijah went».
I think sometimes we think the Bible only delivers good news. It only delivers blessings and I’m grateful that the overwhelming majority of the time it seems to, but there’s another aspect of the character of God that’s hinted here. God said, «You know, you could have called on me, but because you chose not to, you’re on your own and you’re not surviving». And he sent the prophet to tell him. I mean, it was one thing for that to have been the opinion in heaven. But it’s a whole different thing when God says, «No, I’m gonna send a messenger to tell you you’re toast». So in the midst of that, in the midst of getting Elijah to the meeting, they send a contingent of soldiers.
Same chapter, verse 8: «They said, 'He was a man with a garment of hair and a leather belt around his waist, ' and the king said, 'That was Elijah.' So then he sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men. And the captain went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of a hill, and he said to him, 'Man of God, the king says, „Come down“! '» Wicked king. «And Elijah answered, 'If I’m a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men! '» You know, I’ve studied pastoral care in a variety of settings. That was never a response that I was coached towards. «Then fire fell from heaven and consumed the captain and his men».
And if you’ve read this, if you read the narrative, the passage’s already, you know, it’s repeated again. And the king just keeps sending groups of 50. He apparently doesn’t care too much about his men. The third captain’s wiser, he approaches a bit more cautiously. You know, we read our Bible and people always, you know, «What’s the explanation»? I don’t always have good explanation. Sometimes I read my Bible to understand the character and the nature of God. There are ways the Bible is a revelation for us. And that doesn’t offend my intellect. I love to learn. I like to study. I’m happy to have explanations, but I don’t stand outside the Bible and try to explain it. I try to let the Bible speak to me. I’m not the judge of the Bible.
The Bible judges me. And there’s something of a revelation of the character and the nature of God in here that is largely lost in contemporary evangelicalism. You know, the 21st century church has fallen prey to a completely different kind of faith than this. Like, it’s not uncommon to hear Christians that many of us would know of great influence, say, you know, «I just don’t read my Old Testament». Like, wow. That’s like leaving half a recipe out. I don’t wanna eat with you. And if you’re not willing to accept the truth of the Old Testament, to be honest, I don’t wanna worship with you. We can’t pick and choose the parts of the Bible we pick up.
I don’t understand them all. I wouldn’t pretend to. But the truth is we have largely removed the power of God, the sovereignty of God. The aspects of God’s character and his engagement with human beings that result in awe and wonder and even uncertainty, to a great extent, have been minimized. We’ve tried to kind of just remove them. Godliness has been reduced to a moral suggestion where the edges are soft because we’ve had a primary emphasis upon the grace and mercy of God, so we could soften those edges. Compliance with God’s truth, we are told, is voluntary, even for those who imagine themselves to be Christian. We shouldn’t think of God’s directives as being mandantory or real boundaries. After all, God’s a God of love, and he said he would forgive our sins and that he loves us.
So I have a question I just want to pose. Do you imagine that God loved less in the book of 2 Kings? No, I don’t. Is the Gospel of John less intimidating than Genesis? I don’t think so. To live with the power of God, I would submit to you that we also must learn to submit to the sovereignty of God. And to live without the power of God simply makes us another philosophical society, a civic group, some kind of a social club. The church cannot be understood and certainly can’t represent the kingdom that we say we’re a part of without demonstrations of the power of God.
Doesn’t mean our lives are always perfect or easy or without incident or without challenge, but in the midst of all of the messiness that comes with our journey through time, we are desperately in need of the power of God. It’s true. I don’t have simple explanations for those passages other than I can tell, you know, the first commandment is you can worship no other gods. Hard stop. That was the first boundary God drew. He said, «Listen, I’m intolerant. You can’t have a plethora of gods, you can’t have a pantheon like the Romans did with a whole building full of all the gods and you can pick the one that suits your moment». He said, «I won’t tolerate that». And we find it throughout the scripture, both Old and New Testament.
We’re gonna step into the narrative. It’s a story familiar to many of you. Says: «There were four men with leprosy at the entrance of the city gate, and they said to each other, 'Why stay here until we die? If we say, „We’ll go into the city“, the famine is there, and we’ll die. And if we stay here, we’ll die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.'» They don’t have a good option. They got three options and all three of them appear to end in certain death. One of them, maybe it’s not certain. So that’s their best choice.
«So at dusk they got up and went into the camp of the Arameans. And when they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there. The Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, 'Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us! ' So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and their donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives. The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. And they ate and drank and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. And they returned and entered another tent and took some of the things from it and hid them also».
They did come to their senses. It’s a part of the record. After a few trips of hiding their treasure, they said, «You know, it’s probably not kind of us. Our friends are starving to death, and there’s an abundance of food». So they report to the city that’s hiding that «the enemy has left». Then they plundered the enemy’s camp. It’s a simple little story. We’ve read it, I’m sure if you have been in church much you’ve heard it many, many times, but I think it provides a template for you and me. It’s something of a case study of understanding that there is a power of God for the impossible places in our lives.
I don’t want you to suspend logic or reason. I’m not suggesting you can sit on your good intentions and God will bring all of his deliverance to you, but I’m suggesting that God’s engagement in your life writes a new future. That is the story of scripture, that being a Christ follower is not simply intended to be a ticket to a better place in eternity, it’s intended to bring freedom to your journey through time. So we’re just gonna walk through it in some real simple ways. I’m not a complicated guy. I grew up in a barn in Tennessee. But the story begins with a great need. There’s a great need in the city. They’re starving. They’re so desperate they’ve been plunged into depravity.
What’s happening is unthinkable. It’s uncivilized. All the boundaries have been broken, so they’re beyond desperate, and the heroes in the story are gonna be these four leprous men who aren’t even welcome in the city. So as horrific as it is in the city, their condition is such that they’re not even welcome in the midst of the depravity and the desperation. So I think it’s an understatement to say there’s a great need. But what I would introduce to us is amongst us today, and more than likely within all of us today, there are needs present. Sitting in church does not remove us from that arena. It just doesn’t. We have tensions and temptations and fears and anxieties, and we’ve made bad choices and we’re stuck with guilt and shame.
We’ve faced rejection from the brokenness of our world. We have physical challenge. It’s an endless list. We have great needs and we have a choice to make whether we’ll believe that God can deliver us or whether we’re just gonna surrender to our current situation. The overwhelming majority of the people in this narrative surrendered to the situation. They’ve been plunged into despair within the city, but these four broken people make another choice. You know, the question that most often comes to the surface is «Why me»? I really, honestly, I think it’s the wrong question. I like what’s modeled here. At some point, we have to get up and begin to exert with the faith that we have, what we can do. I mean, if nothing else, we can get up and begin to thank God.
I’ve shared this with you before: At the darkest points in my life when I thought despair might completely overwhelm me, when my faith seemed to be hanging by a thread so thin that the slightest breeze would have broken it, the only response I was capable of was to thank God. And I couldn’t thank him for my circumstances because they were making me miserable but I could thank him for his character. Because at the end of the day, I believe God is faithful. I believe God is just. And I would simply begin to say those things. I didn’t feel like it.
In fact, it made me angry to think it. But I understood the seriousness of my condition. And I didn’t want to remain there, so I would begin to thank God for who I knew he was. And I can’t explain how, but time and again, I’ve watched that break the stranglehold over me, the emotional heaviness in the darkness. I could get up and begin to thank God and take those steps towards him. «Why me»? When that starts going through your mind, you know, typically we can’t answer that question. It isn’t even a productive one. But I do believe we can help with a brand-new start. To those who say today they’ve got a great need. Maybe the more important group to me would be those who say, «I have no need. I’m pretty good, Pastor. I’ve been a Christian since I was a little tyke. I’ve served in this, I’ve done that. I volunteered at the hoedown. At Easter, I park in another county and I walk to church. I’ve checked all the boxes. Haven’t done any of those big moral sins that people like to talk about. I’m pretty good. I’m not really sure I’ve got any needs».
Well, that may be the greatest need amongst us: a complete lack of situational awareness. This is our generation, folks. This is our time in the arena. Have you looked around us? They’re mutilating our children, our families are unraveling. We have a level of debt that will be a burden to our grandchildren. And we just keep plunging ahead. Well, there’s a passage of scripture I put in your notes.
It’s Revelation 3, there’s a message given to seven churches with a correction for all seven, but the one that is the most desperate correction is the one I’m sharing. It’s the church at Laodicea, and then, and God says to them, «You say, 'I’m rich; I’ve acquired wealth, and I don’t need a thing.' But you don’t realize that you’re wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes you can wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent».
It’s a pretty sobering message. It’s a church, it’s a group of God’s people. People that have yielded their lives to the Lordship of Jesus, they’ve done all those things that we talk about, and they say, «You know, I don’t really need anything. I’m good, I’m golden. Rock on». And God says to them, «Well, in actuality, you’re blind, pitiful, naked, in need of all things». That’s pretty, when you’re so messed up that you’re blind and naked and don’t know. You know, some of you here are never lost. Do you live with somebody that never gets lost? No matter where we are in the car and how far we are from our intended destination, I’m not really lost. I’m just on an adventure.
You know, GPS has kind of intervened on that. They keep redirecting us, but after a while I just turn that off, you know, hush. I know exactly where I’m at. We have kind of that same attitude towards our faith journey sometimes, you know, «Nothing really wrong with me. I mean, I may be not all I could be, but…» We gotta fit that description and God says rather soberingly, this is every bit as harsh to me as what we just read from 2 Kings. God said, «Listen, you need everything. You have nothing. I’m not interested in your gold. We use it to pave the streets where I live. You don’t have enough self-awareness to know you have nothing on».
But then he gives them some counsel: «Be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. And if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I’ll come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne,» and to turn the page, «just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches». So it isn’t a rejection, it’s a rebuke. But in order to receive what is being promised, repentance is required, and a willingness to overcome. You see, one of the challenges when problems present themselves is there’s a great temptation just to yield and go, «Well, it’s just more than I can bear; it’s more than I want to deal with».
How many of you have at least one place in your life where God’s help would be a good thing? Yeah, you know, almost everybody I know has a circumstance that the only acceptable resolution would require God’s involvement. And I want to be guilty of extending those invitations. I don’t believe that’s presumptuous or arrogant or demanding. How God brings the resolution is up to him. The timing of that is certainly in his hands. But I want to have raised my hand and said, «Help, please».
And so that’s our objective this morning. Why don’t you stand with me. If you’re at home, you can stand with us too. Put down your bagel, your pop-tart. I learned a prayer years ago and I learned it as a Quaker prayer. I don’t know if the Quakers had anything to do with it, to be honest, but it works for me. It’s a prayer where we start with our palms down. You know, and even if you’re one of those people who won’t raise your hands in church, this is safe, it’s only waist level. You know, you could excuse that you were just stretching your shoulders a little bit. It’s not like you’re not doing anything really weird, but we start with our palms down to release to the Lord all those things we need to give him.
And I can identify those categories. Those are the things that bring anxiety and stress and fear and real worry, you know, that can completely occupy our hearts and our minds, that can immobilize us, neutralize us. It can be anger or resentment, bitterness, hate. You can be mad at God because you don’t like your circumstances or evil touched your life and why didn’t he stop that? I mean, it can be a myriad of things, but carrying them doesn’t help. It imprisons you, emotionally and spiritually, and we want to lay those at the foot of the cross. And then we’re gonna turn our palms up and receive what God has for us: his life, his health, his peace, his forgiveness, his freedom, whatever that may be.
And when we turn our palms up, I’m gonna ask you to help me do something. I know you’re used to listening to me say a prayer. But what I wanna ask you to do with me is just begin to say thank you to the Lord for the things you’re conscious of that he’s done in your life. You know we’re blessed people. I know that our lives have undone places. I’m not suggesting that everything is okay, but I am suggesting that we have many, many blessings. You know, most of us have more food to eat than we need, so there’s more of us than there should be.
Most of us have so much stuff in our homes that we have to rent places to put stuff because there’s not enough room for it in our homes. Most of us, our families are so busy we have a hard time ever sitting at the same table for a meal. We eat in our cars. Does that sound right? All of those are symptoms of overwhelming blessings. And so what I wanna ask you to do with me when we’ve given to the Lord what we wanna give to him and we’re ready to receive from him, that we collectively offer just a quiet chorus of thanksgiving. He gave us the health to come to church today. I have friends that would desperately like to be able to be here, but their health prevents it. Can we just say thank you to him?
Now for some of you, you’re thinking, «You know, that’s just chaotic. We’re all gonna be talking at once,» you know. Well, I would submit to you that any given moment in time there are exponentially more people than in this room or on this campus that are praying to the Lord at the same time. And so far it hasn’t broken the Internet in heaven. So I think we’ll be okay, all right? Then I’ll close the prayer, but I want to take just a minute and let all of us offer a quiet thanksgiving, chorus of thanksgiving. Could you do that with me, you think? So, have you got two or three things in mind you can be thankful for? You can be thankful. I’ll hush in just a few minutes. We’re halfway through service. You have hope, okay? Amen, let’s pray.
Father, we come this morning, grateful that you watch over our lives, that there’s a God in heaven who’s interested and concerned and cares about us. And Lord, we pause this day to lay at your feet, to lay at the foot of the cross, those things that plague our thoughts, that occupy our hearts, that distract us from your goodness in our lives. Lord, we have worn them and carried them and wrestled with them, and this morning we want to lay them before you. Lord, others of us have habits and behaviors and emotions that we’ve carried. We’ve been angry and resentful and bitter and hate-filled. Lord, evil encroached on our lives, and we have responded, but it’s left us with a residue and we want to lay that at the foot of the cross today. We don’t wanna carry it beyond this moment in time. Others of us have struggled with questions and fears, uncertainty and concern. And Lord, we wanna lay those before you. You promised that you would never leave us or forsake us. And as we lay those things down, Father, we turn our hands and our hearts to you to receive all that you have for us, to say thank you. Thank you for your goodness to us, thank you for your abundance in our lives, thank you for our freedoms. Thank you that we can gather in a public place to worship Jesus of Nazareth. We thank you for the schools for our children, for medicine that’s available to them, for health care that’s accessible to us. We praise you today, Lord. You have blessed us. We have Bibles to read. You’ve given us the strength to be present. We praise you this morning, for you are worthy. You are worthy above all things to receive glory and honor and praise. We take off the spirit of despair and heaviness and we put on, Father, the robes of righteousness and are standing with you today. We bless your name. May the joy of the Lord fill our hearts. May the hope of heaven fill our souls. Where there has been heaviness and despair, may it go. Where there’s been fear, may it yield to a confidence and a trust in a living God. I thank you that you’re the author and the completer of our story. We trust you today, in Jesus’s name, amen.