Allen Jackson - Power for the Impossible - Part 2
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». And we yield to that, because we don’t have the strength or we don’t have the emotional fortitude and I’m not saying that’s not real. There are times I think our strength is too small to face the challenges that are before us, but at that point we have to understand there is a God in heaven and there are other resources available to us, and it isn’t completely limited to my ability and my strength and my resiliency and my determination. We’re not gonna outthink evil, we’re not gonna outwork evil.
The best we’re called to do is to resist that roaring lion. You see, if we will worship the Lion of Judah, we’ll have the strength to overcome the roar of Satan. It’s an important principle and we’re gonna begin there. We’re gonna unpack some other ones, but it’s a very important beginning point to acknowledge the needs of our lives so we can get on with the solutions. And the second component I would give you from our little narrative, our little case study, is that the solution is dependent upon God’s timing.
Now, that bugs me a lot because God is very seldom paying attention to Allen’s calendar. You know, when I recognize I have a need, I mean I would like a solution now. And if there’s a solution that is in the future, I’d just like to see a picture of it and how far it is in the future, and I’d like to understand the nature of the deliverance and what the after is gonna look like. I want the full picture now, please. And I’ll throw in some fits. You’ve been present in a public place where a little child throws a fit? Hopefully it’s not yours. You know, and usually when that’s happening and the parent is paying no attention, I try to take the high ground and assume that there’s some parental objective involved in that and it’s not just negligence.
But if it’s not your child and that child is persisting, it’s uncomfortable. Even though they just want their mother’s attention and Mom’s not answering, «Mom, Mother, Mom, Mom, Mom. Hey, Mom, Mom, Mom, look at this. Hey, Mom, Mom,» after all that you’re like, «Will you please answer your child»? You know, I’ll buy the child whatever it is. Can you just ask him to be quiet? We’re all losing our minds here. Well, I’ve done that with the Lord. I mean, I’ve just swelled up and go, «You know, if you’re not gonna answer me, I’m not gonna serve you».
Years ago now, I was in college. I was getting ready to graduate and we had a big snow and I appropriated some trays from the cafeteria to go sledding. Skipped class, I checked all the boxes, right? And I crushed half my face, with the help of a friend. And I went to the doctor and they said, yes, you know, the cheek was broken in multiple places and I needed immediate surgery and all this stuff.
Well, I just reoriented my life, changed my professional plans, and I was gonna do my best to honor the Lord with it and I thought, «No, I think the Lord will heal me,» so I checked myself out of the hospital. Didn’t go back to campus. So I got a hotel room and thought I would just, you know, I spent the weekend and I called home and said, you know, «I had a little accident. My face looks like an ashtray, but», then I spent the weekend and by the end of the weekend, with some wise counsel from my parents, it occurred to me that there was a God and it really wasn’t my privilege of telling him how he would bring health to me. I mean, I believe in healing.
When I was a boy, my mom was given a devastating diagnosis and God healed her and she lived to be well into her 80s. He only missed his diagnosis by about 50 years, but it’s not his fault. God got involved. And I wanted God involved in my life and I was telling him how I wanted to do it. I didn’t want to have to go through the medical procedures. I wanted God to do it. And by Monday morning I understood how arrogant I was, that there was a God and it wasn’t me, so I called the doctor’s office and with a great deal more humility said, «If I were to come back to the hospital, could you put me back in the queue»?
And he was a very kind person, and he did. And I had surgery and there was multiple options, and some of them were pretty scary, but they were able to repair my face with the simplest possible procedure. I still didn’t have any feeling. And he said, «We don’t know». He said, «It could be months, it may never come back, we just don’t know». And the first class I went to the day after that, the professor that was in that class said, «I had a similar accident a few years ago,» and he said, «it was more than a year before I had any feeling in my face».
I had a couple of little stitches that had to go out. By the time I went back to the doctor ten days later, the feeling was back in my face. Yay, God, and I’m happily paid the bill to the doctor in the hospital. See, it’s not an either/or proposition to me. I had a timeline and I wanted God to pay attention to my timeline. I like the opportunity for the testimony. And I’ve had many discussions with God through the years about his timing. When I read this story, there’s a famine that is so desperate that people are starving to death. People have starved to death. They’re eating their children. People have lost their lives, and God didn’t intervene. He does intervene, but the timing of when he intervenes is inscrutable. It’s really beyond my understanding. It’d be arrogant on my part to offer you a solution to that. I don’t know. I did bring you a couple of passages of scripture that I think speak to it.
Hebrews 6 and verse 12: «We don’t want you to become lazy, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised». You know, clearly there are times in scripture where God says wait. I don’t like that. «Abraham, I’m gonna make you the father of a multitude. Now wait a while. Wait until you’re so old it’s biologically impossible». I mean, it’s kind of fun to have a miracle when you’ve passed the window of opportunity and God enables you to conceive, but now you gotta raise a child and you don’t have the energy that you had decades ago. I mean, you’re the only one using Social Security checks to buy nursery furniture. You’re out of sync with all your friends. They think you’re weird. I mean, I understand there’s a miracle in that, but it’s not a convenient one.
Zechariah and Elizabeth, similar story. Gabriel, the archangel, shows up to Zechariah and says, you know, «You’re gonna have a child. You prayed for a child, you’re gonna have a child,» and Zechariah goes, «Wait a minute, I prayed that prayer 35 years ago. And I’m old, but my wife, she’s very old. You know, I never», the Gabriel said, «Because you questioned the Lord, you’re gonna be silent for a while». I figured out why he made him silent. He’s afraid he’d go home and tell Elizabeth she was very old and he wouldn’t live to father the child. It was for Zechariah’s survival that he was struck mute. You know, my most honest answer is that deliverance arrives in our lives and we’re capable of receiving it. God cares more about our well-being than he does our momentary exemption from discomfort.
You know, there are awkward times for deliverance all through the Bible. This one is awkward to me, but it’s not by any means unique. Most of us learn as children in Sunday school the stories of some of these, like Daniel and the lions' den. Daniel is given a death sentence. He’s condemned to capital punishment, to be thrown to the lions because of his prayer habits. And he won’t change his prayer habits, so he finds himself condemned to death. The means of execution happens to be a den filled with lions, and it goes all the way to Daniel being thrown into the lion’s den.
Now, it just happens he’s thrown into the den on a day when the lions aren’t hungry. But you know, if I’m Daniel, I’m thinking, no, there would have been a lot of places for God’s sovereign intervention before I got to the pit with the lions in it. How about a change of heart of somebody, my adversaries, I mean, somebody, the sultan, somebody? Or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, those three Hebrew young men who were thrown into a furnace because they won’t bow down to a statue of Nebuchadnezzar. They won’t commit idolatry. They won’t break the first commandment. They say, «We won’t do that. We may be slaves and you may have power over us, but we won’t do that».
And God delivers them. I mean, they’re condemned to death. They’re thrown into the furnace, heated higher than normal, throw them into the furnace, and it says that the heat didn’t bother them. Well, that’s a wonderful story and we teach it to our kids, but to be completely honest, if I’m living that out, I would much rather the king have a change of heart when we’re having the interview, right? I don’t wanna go all the way to the furnace. So they’re not just Bible stories, we’re learning something of the nature of what it means to be the people of God. And they’re not just Old Testament stories. They fill the New Testament as well.
Paul and Silas are in prison at midnight and God shakes the jail, the cells swing open, they’re gonna be free, they’re gonna get to leave. But they’re in prison at midnight and their backs have been ripped open by the Roman scourge. I’d have been just as happy if we could have gotten out of town before all the drama. Or Paul on board a ship that’s been driven before a storm for days and days, and then the angel appears to him and said it’s gonna be okay. Well, where you been for the last few days? I mean, the timing of God. I put a passage, it’s Daniel 3, it’s those three young men I mentioned. They say, «If we’re thrown into your furnace, God we serve is able to save us from it, but he’ll rescue us from your hand, O king. And even if he doesn’t,» even if he doesn’t, «we want you to know we’ll not serve your gods».
If I were looking for a response point through all the narratives that would be the most helpful, I think it’s that decision that «God, I know you’re able to deliver me and I believe you will deliver me. But whether I see the deliverance in the way I want it or not, I will not stop worshiping you». I wouldn’t abandon you to one of those wishy-washy timid, lukewarm prayers, «God, if it’s your will».
Find out what God’s will is. It’s in the Scripture. But I’m telling you, God, my choice to serve you is not because you give me everything I want. My determination to follow you is not because it’s always easy. I believe you’re real. And I know that I don’t always understand. Folks, there are many things in my life I don’t understand and I benefit from. There’s a lot of technology in my life I don’t even pretend to understand, but I’m grateful for it. Do you ever get mad at your technology? You’re convinced that your phone is somehow faulty. And then some random 5-year-old picks it up and fixes it. I want to send them to heaven.
There’s a third lesson from this little case study, and that’s that there’s always voices ready with discouragement. There’s always gonna be people around who say it can’t be done. «You shouldn’t trust God. You know, I tried trusting God. I did that church thing. I did that for a little while and the buildings are filled with hypocrites». There’s some truth to that, but I’ll tell you what, we’ll move over, we squeeze one more in, come on. In 2 Kings 7 and verse 1, these are just the verses preceding where we started.
«Elisha said, 'Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the LORD says: About this time tomorrow, a bit of flour will sell for a shekel and two of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria.' And the officer on whom the king was leaning,» his personal guard, «said to the man of God, 'Even if the LORD should open the floodgates of heaven, could this happen? ' So Elisha answers him, 'You’ll see it with your eyes, but you won’t eat any of it! '» The most revered messenger of God amongst the people says, «The famine’s over. Tomorrow we eat».
And the most imposing military character under the service of the king says, «That’s impossible». And my experience would support that, that there’s always people around who say it can’t be done. And usually the message will emanate from some place that carries some authority in your life, someone who it would be easier if they would affirm. And you and I will have to decide if we’re gonna choose the Lord. Don’t let discouraging voices keep you from saying, «God, I’ll follow you. Even if I end up in the furnace».
Don’t be stubborn and don’t be foolish. You know, we talk about this a lot, and this is a single message and we can’t do it all, but being weird does not make you spiritual, right? We’ve established that principle. I need to put that on something. I meet too many people who think because they’re weird, you’re not spiritual, you’re just weird. You know, if you live in America and you’re out of gas, you don’t need a miracle, you need cash and a filling station. Or a charging station. I mean, but in this particular case, the discouragement, it seems to be prolific. In our culture right now we are so divided, there are so many voices for ungodliness.
And you know, discouragement oftentimes comes in a permissive note. It’s permission to be ungodly. Please understand all the discouraging voices that come to you aren’t framed in «God won’t do that». Many times the voices of discouragement come in the sense of questioning God: «You don’t really believe that, do you? Why would you adhere to that behavior? Take off the shackles that you’re holding in trying to honor God». You may think it’s a voice of release, but it’s a very discouraging voice trying to discourage you from honoring the Lord with your life. In a culture as divided as ours, those messages cascade over us every day. There’s a fourth component in this little narrative, and that’s that help comes from the most unlikely candidates.
My experience is God often uses underdogs, unlikely circumstances, things I didn’t expect. I’ve learned I can’t anticipate how God will bring deliverance, but I can anticipate he’s the deliverer. I see it over and over and over again. It’s remarkable to me. Sometimes he does it through the processes of science and medical science and all those systems, and he brings outcomes. I had an interview with somebody recently and they had a diagnosis that was very intimidating and God supernaturally intervened and the oncologist said, «Spontaneous remission».
Works for me. And yet they had another family member who had to walk through the whole process, but God delivered them and brought them through as well and, you know, it’s not under our control. What we can decide is we believe God is a deliverer. But I can tell you that God frequently uses unlikely candidates. In this particular narrative, he uses four gaunt leprous men, and they decide to lead the march. They’re gonna be the advance unit. They’re the blitzkrieg on the enemy. It wasn’t pretty. I’m quite confident they’re so weak with hunger, the people are starving to death. I’m quite sure that those with uncurable diseases are in a more heightened weakened condition, so it isn’t hard for me to imagine that they’re stumbling towards that camp, one painful step at a time. They fall.
You know, some people imagine that following God is pretty and it’s neat and it’s pristine. You know, we have a little prayer gathering and we say a few words and all the problems melt away and I’m filled with joy and I go skipping down the path to victory. That is not my experience. And I don’t believe it’s an accurate portrayal of following God. It’s not a portrayal derived from scripture. God uses unlikely candidates. Look at 1 Corinthians 1, it’s in your notes. «God chose the foolish things of the world».
You know God chose you? I’m just saying, it’s all in there together. You need the whole counsel. «To shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. And he chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are». God will use the most unusual vessels, the most unlikely people. I’ve had the Lord deliver a message of encouragement to me in the most unlikely, unusual ways. The next piece from our little case study is the significance of movement. There’s a lot of ways to frame this and more than we have time for, but the simplest idea I know is that if you’re expecting God to bring freedom and deliverance and you want to do things the way you’ve always done them and get a different outcome, you’ve missed the point.
I believe God invites us to change, to grow, to learn about him in new ways. In this particular story, the progress was very halting. I’m sure they had to help one another up. They would fall and climb back to their feet and give one another a hand, and there was great fear. They’re not sure what awaits them, but they’re going forward nonetheless. They didn’t have faith for a complete victory. That’s nowhere described in there. They didn’t say, «If we’ll walk towards the camp, God will rout the enemy and we can feast until we’re stuffed or we can plunder them,» that’s not there. They didn’t have faith for that. They simply said, «If we walk, we might survive. We might find a way through this,» just enough faith to stumble forward.
And I believe every one of us today, God has given us enough faith to begin. God will help you finish. Say, «Pastor, I can’t see the finish. I can’t imagine an outcome. I don’t know what it would look like». I understand, but let’s go. Let’s go. Sometimes, movement in your thinking is as important as your physical activity. We get locked into patterns of thought and habits of thought and routines of thought and ideas that hold us captive and they become strongholds in our lives and God loves us enough to break us out of those and we find ourselves in desperate places and we’re mad at God and most of the people around us.
Look in 2 Corinthians 10: «Though we live in the world, we don’t wage war as the world does». We don’t have missiles and rockets. «The weapons we fight with aren’t the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds». Strongholds in kind of a spiritual stronghold, a fortress of resistance to the purposes of God. «We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ».
Sometimes the movement is in how we think. I will not forgive. I will not excuse that behavior. I am owed something. I am due something. We all have our own forms. But an idea can hold you prisoner. You know, years ago I used to train young horses. And they’re much stronger than you are. You’re not gonna out-muscle them. And one of the first lessons in learning discipline was that they couldn’t move every object so you had to tie them to something that was, a pole that was, or something that they couldn’t pull out of the ground. And they would inevitably pull back until they realized they couldn’t get away, and they learned to stand still. And you and I get ideas that chain us to a place. After they learned that lesson, I could drop the lead line and they would stand there. Well, they were quicker than I was and strong enough to pull away from any grip I could exert, but they came to the conclusion that they couldn’t break that force that was holding them, and you and I come to those conclusions, and we fail to invite God into our lives. You’re not a victim of your circumstances unless you surrender to them. We can overcome.
I give you one other verse, 1 Peter 5: «Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand,» we gotta go, «that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, he cares for you». One of the places we have to change our thinking is we give fear and worry and anxiety such a place it immobilizes us. And then finally, the last piece of this case study is God’s inexplicable help. There’s no way to explain what God did. I mean, the scripture simply says that he caused the enemy to hear the sound of an approaching army, and they all ran for their lives. They didn’t even finish their meals. They didn’t take any of their weapons. They didn’t take anything. They just ran for their lives. They left their phones. They ran for their lives.
You know, I don’t think we have any imagination of what faith in God in the heart of a human being sounds like to the devil. I believe it’s a far more powerful force than we imagine. In this particular narrative, four leprous men started forward and God stepped in and unleashed the host of heaven. The earth shook with force. The air was thick with the sounds of the battle. The four leprous men, they had no idea what was happening. They were simply trying to take one more step and God intervened. God is a deliverer. If we will choose him, he’ll bring deliverance to our lives. We are not victims of our circumstances or victims of our culture. Let’s decide to be the church.
There’s a God in heaven. He deserves our honor and our glory. He’s worthy of our worship. It’s time to change. I brought you a prayer. Why don’t we stand together? You know that little Quaker prayer we started our day with? Is if we’ve had this message together, there may be something in your life you want to go back and revisit that prayer, things you need to give to the Lord and then you’re gonna give thanks to him. All right, don’t be passive. Patient doesn’t mean we’re passive. There are time God’s asked us to be still. It’s not time to move. Usually when I’m being still, he’s completely rerouting how I’ve been thinking, changing my attitudes and my patterns of thought so that when it’s time to move I’m ready with the right heart. You found your prayer? Let’s read it together:
I am a child of Almighty God. Jesus is Lord of my life and the Holy Spirit is my helper. God himself has called me for His purposes. He designed me to make a difference in my generation for His Kingdom. I choose God’s path with my entire being. May God give me the strength I need to complete the course He has chosen. Amen.