Allen Jackson - Time to Lead - Part 1
The message tonight, it's really on leadership. I think, you know, just watching the events as they've unfolded in these last few days and the last couple of weeks, I think it's abundantly clear that... how important it is to have leadership. You know, it's true in our homes. I did an interview recently with a man who works with children who didn't have fathers in their homes and the statistics are just overwhelming the difference that it makes if there's a dad in the home with the children.
So from the beginning levels of our lives to the highest levels of government and authority, leadership makes a difference. And for a long, long time, I thought leadership was a secular word and something that we should probably just steer away from. But I don't believe that to be true any longer. I think leadership is really, at the end of the day, about influence, and we need godly influence at every level of our culture. And, you know, we tend to say, "Well, I'm not a leader. I don't have a title. I don't have a brass plate on my desk. I'm not at the top of somebody's ORG chart," but those things don't make you leaders. We all know people who had all of those things and nobody cared.
I assure you that every one of us have been given the opportunity for influence. There are people who care about your opinion. And the question of the day is, are you using the influence to which you've been entrusted for the sake of the kingdom of God or for something else? And in this time together, I'd just like to give you some very simple ideas for elevating your influence for the sake of the kingdom of God. And I believe that when your days under the sun are completed and you step out of time, you'll be most grateful for every expression of influence you have used on behalf of the kingdom of God. And I believe you will regret every time you failed to do so. So this is really intended to be about preparation for what's next, more than it's about changing what's now. Amen, Pastor Allen.
So I'll start in Ezekiel chapter 22. I'm a little ahead of our required reading, but we'll be there in a few weeks. God, through the prophet Ezekiel, said, "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land". The language is a little blind to us. At the time when Ezekiel was alive the primary point of defense would be a walled city. If you lived in the city, the wall was your protection. If you lived near the city and an enemy approached, you would flee to the closest walled city. That was your safety. They didn't have air forces and marines and great aircraft carriers to sail the ocean.
So the walls on the city were your point of defense. And Ezekiel is using that familiar analogy to his audience. And God's just saying there's a breach in the wall, they're defenseless, they're vulnerable. And I looked for someone who would build up the wall, stand in the gap, provide protection for my people. And he said, "So I wouldn't have to destroy it". And then one of the more unsettling statements in scripture, he said, "But I found none". You might expect the next phrase to say, "So I took mercy on them," but that isn't what the Lord said. He said, "I'll pour out my wrath on them and I'll consume them with my fiery anger, bringing down on their heads all they have done, declares the Sovereign LORD". It's a very clear presentation that we can stand in the gap. We can stand on behalf of the broken down walls of our cultures and cry out to the Lord.
Now, that's not a message that is overly stressed. Typically, our messages begin primarily with, and oftentimes end with, our personal relationship with the Lord. Now, I believe that is essential and necessary. Once you've entered the kingdom of God, there are responsibilities that come with that. We stand on behalf of our families, we stand on something on behalf of more than that. That's often overlooked in our current culture. We think, "Well, if I love God and I love my family, I'm done". No, that's not the biblical presentation at all. God says we're to have influence across our culture, to have influence in the earth.
Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature". He didn't say, "Go home". The assumption is you'll influence the people under your roof. The assignment is to influence the whole world. Proverbs 29 is a pretty good snapshot, I believe, of our current landscape. Said, "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law". I think it's a pretty accurate description of our current culture to say we have cast off restraint. We don't want any limits. We don't want any moral boundaries. We're deeply offended if anybody suggests there's an Almighty God, a higher authority that could define for us even marriage, let alone things like boundaries for our sexual behavior or how we would conduct ourselves.
We have truly cast off restraint and it says that emerges where there's no revelation, where there's no vision. Is one translation where we haven't held up a presentation of Almighty God. So to arrive at a place with no restraint means we have fumbled the opportunity to use our influence to say there is a God. You and I have to bring that into every conversation, into every interaction, into every place we go. Revelation chapter 2 gives us a window into a circumstance.
The book of Revelation begins with messages to seven churches. Back to the opening chapter of Revelation, it says that Jesus is standing in the midst of his churches. The message of Revelation is delivered to the church. If you're not engaged in the church, you're outside the message. That's another lesson. So this is a message to one of the churches in a city called Thyatira. They're all today in modern-day Turkey. "These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. I know your deeds. I know your love and your faith, your service and your perseverance, and that you're now doing more than you did at first".
That's a remarkable to every one of the churches, God gives a little diagnostic. He says, "I know what's happening where you are". In every circumstance, he acknowledges the things they're doing that are helpful or positive and he acknowledges the places where there's a deficit and there's something that needs to be corrected. Do you live with the imagination that God pays that kind of attention to your life, to our life together? That God would say to us, "I know the things you're doing well, but there's some things I need to talk to you about"?
Look at verse 20: "Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. And by her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols". Do you believe it would be appropriate to say the contemporary church in our culture, if our assignment is to be salt and light, if we're to be watchmen on the walls, if we're to be gatekeepers, if we're to be the ones who stand in the gap on behalf of the people, is it appropriate to say that we have tolerated sexual immorality and wickedness and a tremendous intolerance of God's people? At least in my lifetime, it seems that all of those things have increased. We can walk it back to several points in the last decades where there have been pivot points. But in each case, it seems like we have become far more tolerant.
You know, the Bible calls us to be overcomers. That is the theme of the book of Revelation. You know, we typically get bogged down in the questions about what's gonna happen when and the sequence of what's gonna unfold and when the Rapture will take place; if it'll be before this or after that and who the Antichrist will be and who will be engaged in those stories. But the truth is the presentation of the book of Revelation is fundamentally about overcoming. Every one of the seven churches is told that they will have to overcome. And at the end of the book of Revelation, the promise, the reward, goes to those who have overcome.
If you ask for my perspective on the contemporary church in our culture, we're not overcomers, we're overlookers. Well, you know, we wanna be kind so, rather than acknowledge there's a God and he has a perspective or a boundary, even in the influence of our homes, we just kinda overlook it and we go along to get along, and we pick and choose the places. And I believe that what God said to the church at Thyatira is pretty appropriate for us. We have tolerated some things that I don't believe should be tolerated. We don't have to be angry or belligerent or hate-filled. But telling the truth, acknowledging that there is objective truth, that everything isn't subjective, everything isn't just subject to my opinion or my feeling or my perspective.
There is truth that is true, whether I choose to believe it or not. Gravity doesn't change when I deny it. The impact of too many calories on my physical body doesn't change if I say I don't believe in fat. You chuckle because you know it's true. But we have a culture that wants to tell us we determine what's true, that no one can define my truth. That's simply an irrational statement. And I think when we talk about this topic, it's important to highlight that when we choose to do nothing, we have in reality, made a choice. Silence in the face of evil is to co-operate with evil. It's to capitulate.
So as much as we'll acknowledge that leadership is required, I think it's worth noting, at least in passing, and I'll take a moment with it, that in every generation, I believe God recruits volunteers. Now, I don't believe in every generation people respond, but I believe the Spirit of God consistently, throughout history, and I can support that biblically, recruits men and women to stand on his behalf and use the influence of their lives for the purposes of God in their generation.
So, what I've really come to do with this session is to issue a recruitment call, not for something we're doing here within our own congregation, but to invite you to purposefully become a stronger influence on behalf of the kingdom of God in this generation. No matter your age or your life stage, no matter of what your peer group is, no matter what your day job is, in every one of those settings. You see, I believe we could see our schools once again become places that are welcoming to the name of Jesus. I believe we could see our professional organizations, so many of which today are woke and godless, I believe we could see them transformed once again to be places that were sponsors of the biblical principles.
That is the notion of scriptures, the redemptive purposes of God, the power of God to transform hearts from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. But it requires men and women to say there is right and wrong, to use our influence, to talk to our friends and our family members, to invite people into the kingdom of God, to acknowledge our own needs for repentance, to tell our own personal stories of transformation, not from a platform of self-righteousness that we know all things or we've been delivered from all things, but to be honest about the struggles of our lives and how wherever we have cooperated with God, it is bringing better things to us and then inviting the people around us to participate.
That is completely different than capitulating to a secular culture and not wanting to agitate or annoy or to say, "I don't agree with that". It seems to me we've capitulated long enough. God is recruiting. God is recruiting. In Isaiah chapter 6, it's not a new thing. Says: "In the year that King Uzziah died". That's just a chronological tool. Isaiah is a young man. He said, "I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple". It's this majestic picture, very poetic picture of the throne room of God that Isaiah is given and it describes these heavenly beings that were there.
You know, there are beings that you and I are not familiar with, beings very much involved in the purposes of God. We become so limited, we're so grounded in time and culture and the things that influence us, that we often lose sight, almost completely and totally, of the kingdom of God and the spiritual realm around us and beings of incredible power. In the book of Revelation, it talks about angels that have power over the oceans and angels that can withhold the wind and angels that pour out judgment upon the earth. It talks about mighty angels, and angels of great power, and angels that know what is to come in the ages to come.
And we think all the power in the world rests with social media or the tech gazillionaires or wherever. And I'm not denying that those are legitimate expressions of power, but there is power far beyond them. And we want to begin to orient our lives to cooperate with the kingdom of God so that all of those expressions of power become a part of our journey. The Bible says that we entertain angels and that our situational awareness is so lacking that we're completely unaware that we've been in the presence of an angel.
There's some fun prayers you can start to pray: "God, open my eyes. Help me see the people in my neighborhood that are seeking you. I'd like to know who those people are, God. Right now, they just annoy me. They make too much noise or they don't move their trash or they don't do something. God, help me to see the people I work with, that you have chosen for your purposes, that I might be an encouragement to them. Right now, they're just kind of a nuisance to me. God, help me to recognize the angels that you have put around me lately, the places you've intervened in my life that I was completely unaware of".
You see, just with your prayers, your simple, short prayers, you can begin to invite God into your life to raise your awareness. I would love to kind of break you loose from this rather smug notion of, you know, I've done all of my spiritual business. There's really no heavy lifting left. God help me. There's so little I know about you. I'll give you what I'm praying about right now. It's pretty fresh. I hope I can say it. When my mom transitioned, and she was one of the most persistent intercessors that I have known in my life. I mean, over decades. And she stepped out of time into eternity.
And I have a gap in my theological formation and please don't try to fix it for me tonight because I know that what she gave hours and hours and hours to is a very significant part of what we have seen God do. But I don't believe in God's economy, stepping out of time into eternity creates a deficit overall. I have the imagination there's something significant that continued with that transition, but we don't have a lot of definition about that in scripture. I know there's some hints, but I'm very conscious that in time we don't want to leave that portion unaddressed.
See, we've got to raise our awareness of the kingdom. We spend way too much time focused on this kingdom. You know what's fashionable, you know what music is good, you know which colors, I mean, whatever your expertise are, if it's sports or your hobby, that's not wrong or evil. But, I mean, would you allow me to suggest that we wanna be more engaged, more aware of what's relevant spiritually than anything that's happening in our current culture? And that doesn't make you weird or strange or bizarre. It means you acknowledge, "I believe that's true. And so I'm gonna give time and energy and effort to behave as if that were true".
Now, certainly coming to church is a wonderful expression of that. But please don't imagine that's the conclusion of that. So you can begin saying, "Lord, I would like to be more aware of you". And there are some things you can do. You can read your Bible, you can pray, you can talk to your friends, bring your faith into your conversations. And then you ask the Lord to begin to help you. "Holy Spirit, help me. Some days I feel so unaware. Or I got so busy today, I didn't talk to you at all. Lord, I'm sorry". Or maybe just stop and say thank you. When you get really grumpy, stop and start saying, "Thank you".
Folks, we can do this. I promise you, this is doable. What we have lacked is the intent. What we've really lacked is we thought, "You know, I'm not that interested. I'm born again, and I'm good". I would like to submit to you that when you see the Lord, you will not want to say to him, "I was looking for the minimum daily requirement". God is recruiting people who are willing to be an influence, not to get your name on an ORG chart, but to make an impact for the kingdom of God. I got all of that from the seraphs in Isaiah 6:2: "And they were calling to one another". This is what's being said in heaven: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD God Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory".
Folks, that message is not because God's ego is so fragile, he needs it to be affirmed frequently. It's a message for us that the God we worship is holy. Where else do we see holiness? Nowhere apart from God. "And the earth is full of the glory of the Lord. The sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook, the temple was filled with smoke". And Isaiah has a moment of self-awareness. "He said, 'Woe is me! I'm ruined! Because I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King.' Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand. He touched my mouth and he said, 'This has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for.'"
There's a difference in an atonement for your sin and being redeemed from sin. Atonement is a covering. Before the redemptive work of Jesus, the sins of humanity were atoned for. They were simply covered. A deposit, an expression of humility before the Lord that we recognize our sin and we would offer a sacrifice for it. The book of Hebrew says that the blood of bulls or goats was not capable of removing our sin. That's the reason we needed Jesus, and Jesus came and offered himself as the sinless Son of God to redeem us, to purchase us out of a kingdom of darkness, that we might be set free.
It's why we say, "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And he said, 'No one comes to the Father except by me,'" because Buddha or Allah or the generic higher power was not capable of that redemptive work. "But the angel says to Isaiah, 'Your sin has been atoned for.' And then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And Isaiah said, 'Here am I. Send me!'" That transition from "Woe is me. There's a power greater than myself," to "Here I am". That's the transition I'm inviting you towards. Not because we're perfect, not because we're competent. God has done something for us, not just to atone for our sins; to redeem us.
And it is our reasonable service, the New Testament says, to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. It says if we will do that, we might know the will of God. I don't believe, absent offering yourself as a living sacrifice, I don't believe it's realistic to imagine you will know the will of God. You might know the rules of God. You might know something of the character of God, but to know God's will for yourself requires you to be willing to offer yourself as a living sacrifice. That's described in Romans 12 as our reasonable service. Not something extraordinary. That's not like hyper faith or super disciples. That's just a reasoned response to the grace and mercy of God.
We're gonna pray before we go. But at the beginning of this year, we wanna be certain that we've invited God into the midst of our lives. You know, we're still living in the midst of a lot of confusion and frustration and turmoil. The messages are more than just mixed. They reverse, almost 180 degrees, it seems, from one week to the next, and sources of trust are difficult to find, but God hasn't changed. His perspective hasn't changed. He is trustworthy and steadfast and faithful in the way he watches over our lives and we can trust him with this year, no matter what happens around us, God will bring us through. Let's pray:
Father, I thank you for your abiding presence, that you are a rock and a strong tower, that you are the stability of our lives and that you secure our futures, not the US Government or Wall Street or the strength of the dollar or the Federal Reserve, but Almighty God himself is watching over us and we trust you with this day, with this week, and this year, in Jesus's name, amen.