Allen Jackson - A Chosen People - Part 2
So, I’ll take a few minutes and explore with you a bit more about why I believe Israel matters to the people of God, why they’re significant in the earth. It’s not broadly understood. It’s not unique to me. I’m not suggesting it’s some hidden secret, but typically American Evangelicalism is not awake to the biblical role of the nation of Israel or the Jewish people. In fact, we’ve created some rather unhelpful views in that regard. So, let me just start with the notion that the Jewish people were chosen by God.
You see, I don’t like that, but he didn’t take a vote. It’s really about the sovereignty of God. In fact, this whole discussion has a great deal to do with the expression of the sovereignty of God. And the simplest way I know to understand is God can do what he wants when he wants, and he doesn’t need anyone’s permission. Now, I know that’s unsettling because there’s something in all of us that goes, «No, I’m in control». And God has given us free will, and that brings to us a certain amount of autonomy as opposed to the birds or the insects. We don’t just migrate, we have choice, but it does not make us the creators of the universe. We are not really the masters of our fate. A chosen people.
And here’s the reality, God has favorites. I got a little plaque in my office. It says, «God loves everyone, but I’m his favorite». Not suggesting it’s biblical, but on a bad day, it helps me. What you should know is when God chooses favorites, it’s not based upon appearance. It’s not about IQ, it’s not about resource accumulation. You can’t buy your way into the club. It’s not based upon our biological sex. Those things that we use to differentiate and discriminate. There are two primary qualifiers, as I understand it from Scripture. God considers the hearts of people. That lesson is reiterated over and over through Scripture that God does not look externally, but he looks at our hearts. That takes a spiritual awareness.
That the second qualifier is that God establishes covenants with those who are willing to engage. Covenant is the most binding form of agreement presented in the Scripture. In Hebrew, it literally means to cut a covenant. There would have to be the spilling of blood. There is no stronger agreement. God enters into covenants with people. And every covenant in the Scripture begins with the Jewish people except the ones that were issued before there was a Jewish people. So, to participate in the covenants of God, we have to reconcile this matter of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. I would just remind you in passing, the previous session will help if you didn’t hear it, it’s worth perhaps the time. That our Lord is an observant Jewish Rabbi.
So, anti-Semitism, hating the Jewish people will be awkward in his kingdom, all right? God identifies himself from the opening book of the Bible as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We know them as the patriarchs, and «patriarchs» has become a derogatory term. Particularly in academia and in some subsets of academia especially, but not so in God’s economy. In Genesis 17, and verse 3, «God says to Abraham, 'As for me, this is my covenant with you. You will be the father of many nations.'» God makes an agreement with Abraham, a Bedouin. Very improbable thing, he said, «From you, I’m going to make many nations». That’s something beyond the control of an individual.
In that same chapter, God goes on verse 7, «I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant,» if it’s an everlasting covenant, when does it terminate? It doesn’t. «As an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you». And it carries with it a territorial provision. «The whole land of Canaan, where you are now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God».
Now the contemporary version of the people of God, beyond the Jewish people, we didn’t get a territorial, we didn’t get a promised land. What we have, the provision we’ve been given is the land of God’s promises. That is our inheritance. Willing to explore that a bit more in a further session, but there’s an unfolding revelation taking place in these opening chapters of the Bible. Seldom in Scripture does a single individual see the entire tapestry of what God intends to accomplish. It’s one of the challenges you and I face. It’s a bit like we’re relay runners in some Olympic meet and we carry the baton for a season with great intensity and focus and understanding of our position and what’s around us. But it’s very difficult in that moment to see everything else that’s happening, what will happen after our turn because there are so many other factors.
And our decision as people of faith is to honor God with our lives in the season when we’ve been given the baton in time. All of us face death. It’s the one ticket everyone is assured of. You’re not going to avoid it, you’re not gonna pass it off, you’re not gonna skip school that day. And the counsel of Scripture is to be prepared for that because your spirit is eternal. And your destiny in eternity is determined by what you do with your brief visit in time. That’s 70 or 80, whatever the block of time you’re given is infinitesimally small compared to eternity, but your role in eternity is determined by your choices in time.
In Matthew 21, this isn’t just an Old Testament concept, Jesus is speaking. Said, «The resurrection of the dead… have you not read what God said to you, 'I’m the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He’s not the dead, the God of the dead but of the living». Well they’re not physically alive, obviously, but Jesus is acknowledging that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are very much vital and that the God of the Jewish people is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That’s where the covenant was made. We’ll look at it later, but the New Testament tells us that you and I have been grafted in to be a part of that.
So, it’s not obsolete, it’s not out of date. It hasn’t passed away. God chose a people for himself and identified himself with that people to be a testimony to all the other peoples. They’re referred to as a treasured possession. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking if you made the book, you know, Jerusalem has mentioned dozens and dozens of times in the Scripture. Imagine if Murfreesboro was. Well, yeah. And then somebody that lives on the other side of the plane will go, «Murfreesboro is not very important».
Well, how many times did your town make the book? We should at least understand. We haven’t cared because we’ve been given this bogus understanding of Scripture that if you’ll repeat a little prayer and maybe take a dip in a pool and then you can go on your merry way and not really have to read your Bible and not really care about biblical counsel. You just kind of wanna sort of have a moral code that maybe makes you better than the person across the street. That’s a broken gospel. It’s not new to the 21st century. It’s been a challenge as long as God has had a people of faith because we’ve shared the common adversary. The fancy word for it is syncretism, the plain word for it’s compromise. We don’t reject God, we just incorporate some other stuff in that kind of lightens the load a little bit. It’s as prevalent today as it’s ever been in the earth. God said that Israel is his treasured possession.
Look at Exodus 19. Says, «'If you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you’ll be my treasured possession. Although all the whole earth is mine, you’ll be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you were to speak to the Israelites». Not to the Tennesseans. Not to the English speakers. To the Israelites. He said, «You’ll be for me, out of all the nations, you’ll be my treasured possession». Can you imagine?
You’ll be my most treasured. He said that, «The earth and everything in it is mine, but you’ll be my most treasured possession». You’ll be more valuable than Niagara Falls. You’ll be more valuable than Victoria Falls. You’ll be more valuable than any of the wonders of the world. «You’ll be my most treasured possession». People matter to God. You know why God hates sin? He’s not trying to limit your good time, sin destroys, every time. The outcome of sin is the destruction of a human being. So, God hates it because it destroys the pinnacle of his creation.
The New Testament says, «Don’t you understand that friendship with the world is hatred towards God»? We have been so confused. I’m beyond grateful God is awakening us. You know, it wasn’t incumbent upon God to begin the shaking. If God hadn’t begun in 2020 with the things he had begun, we could have spent the balance of our lives in the haze, in the mist, and the confusion. And God is an expression of his grace and his mercy has begun shaking. And if we’re willing to see and hear and look, we can understand. It’s an exciting time God is moving in the earth. God repurposed the discussion, repositioned the discussion on the Jewish people this week. I don’t know what the outcome will be. It could spin in many directions.
I can tell you this, if we impose a plan to divide the land of Israel, God’s judgment will come on us. Hard stop. I can give you one verse. I’ve got to stop because I’m not gonna forget Communion. In your outlines, God provides a very… it’s letter F. God gives very attentive concern to the covenant he made with Israel. I think of it in my own imagination as kind of that parental awareness. The parents in church are phenomenal. You know, if I hear a child cry, it’s noise. If your child cries, it’s a message. And you can pick that out of a whole host of sounds. Well God is attentive to his people. And there’s many ways we could understand that, but in Joel chapter 3 says, «In those days and at that time,» which suggest a unique point in history.
So, understanding the times would matter but, «when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,» so there will be something that looks like an uptick in the history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, «I will gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. And there I will enter into judgment against them,» judgment against the nations, «concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people amongst the nations and they divided up my land. They cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes: they sold girls for wine that they might drink».
I watched the videos of what happened on October the 7th. What they did to the children is unspeakable. What we have been advocating for in the land of Israel is just unscriptural. The dividing of the land. It is not the head… has not had the best interest of the Palestinian people at heart. There’s been much suffering. And anything like a genuine concern for those people would have to ask for a different solution than what we have been pursuing for 70 years. And I believe God has introduced a new idea. Again, I don’t know where it will turn. I think it has a great deal to do with the prayers of God’s people and our willingness to use our voices.
I wouldn’t submit to you that the Jewish people do everything right or the nation of Israel does everything right. Far from it. They’re subject to all the frailties and the ungodliness and the wickedness that the rest of us are subject to. But God chose them. And you may not like it. And when you see the boss, you can take it up with him if you’re of a mind to. In the meantime, I understand the best way to serve the king is to try to like the things the king likes and to value the things the king values. And if it means that I have to orchestrate some changes, I will do my best. I’ll put a prayer in your notes. I’m not gonna use it with you, but I’ll commend it to you.
I think it’s a wonderful prayer for the nation of Israel and the people of the land. That the Lord longs to be gracious to them and to us. But I think it’s appropriate for our Communion prayer to go back to that verse from Luke. It’s where many of us are reading right now. And Jesus chided, criticized, called names the religious people in front of him, not the drunkards. Wasn’t the people that were blatantly practicing some sort of sexual immorality. He said, «You are so obsessed with what you want that you study the weather patterns so you can do what you want. But you are clueless about what God is doing». And I think that is not an inaccurate description of much of contemporary American Christian.
So, we send people to Washington. We want them to fix this mess. We don’t want to pay attention to our school boards. We don’t want to pay attention to local universities. We don’t wanna pay attention. We got things we wanna do except we’re salt and white. And if we use our voices, somebody’s not gonna like us. Yeah. But if you please God, you can be his treasured possession. And if you don’t want to please God, have the courage to say it. If you really don’t have the intent to be pleasing to God, stop the charade. It would be better for you. We need a realignment. So, we’re gonna come to the Communion table as a first step. Jesus put this in place. It’s not new to Christianity. We get some weird ideas. You know, our whole baptism process is really borrowed from a cleansing in the Jewish faith.
Communion, as we understand it today, is emerged from the Passover meal. If you didn’t get Communion when you came in the sanctuary there’s ushers in the aisles. If you’re at home, you can go grab some saltines and a glass of water. Before the Hebrew people left Egypt that last night, death was coming. To every household in Egypt, death was coming. Imagine that. Death to every household. Can you… I can’t imagine. What if death was coming to every household in the county where we live? Morning would be horrific. The only exception was the houses where the family took a lamb according to the instructions they’ve been given and they slaughtered the lamb and they captured the blood in a basin. They roasted the lamb, they had a hurried meal. But then they had to take the blood they captured and put it on the doorpost of the house.
Do you think there were any families amongst the Hebrews that maybe even slaughtered the lamb and captured the blood and roasted it, but they didn’t put the blood on the door posts. I promise a hundred percent compliance is unimaginable. Well, we’re not putting the blood physically on our door posts, but in the book of Revelation says, it says that, «The believers on earth overcome Satan by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony». Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for our sin, but for its application to have authority in our lives, we have to use the spiritual authority of our words to acknowledge Jesus is Lord. That’s how we defeat Satan. When we say what God has said about us.
So, we come to the Communion table. Jesus took this, gathered his disciples. It’s before the cross, so they’re still a little fuzzy on what’s unfolding. They can’t get their heads around it. And he takes bread and breaks it and says, «This bread is my body broken for you as often as you eat this, do this in remembrance of me». Now in a few hours, that’s gonna make a whole lot more sense to them. And so, you and I are given a tangible expression of the grace of God that we can come to the Communion table. So, for those places where we have been indifferent, we’ve been way more focused on the weather than the things of God, we’ve been purposefully, willfully ignorant, so we didn’t have to use our voices. Perhaps today we could say to the Lord, «We’re sorry. We’ll choose a new path».
I’ve come to the conclusion. The reason we don’t read our Bibles is we don’t want to know. I spent years of my life encouraging people to read their Bibles. I was slow to this conclusion. I think we don’t read them because we understand somewhere innately that we’re not really complying and we don’t wanna be reminded. Let’s come to the Communion table and say, «Lord, we’re sorry. It just hadn’t mattered to us. But today, forgive me. I choose a new path». Jesus gave us the instruction. Let’s receive together. Then he took a cup and he said, «This cup is a new covenant. It’s sealed with my own blood. As often as you drink it, you proclaim my death until you see me again».
Let’s receive together. Yeah. If you’re the one that glued mine closed, I forgive you. Let’s pray. Why don’t you stand with me for this prayer. You know what an honor it is to be able to receive Communion in public without fear? Probably most of us don’t know wars have been fought over the privilege of receiving Communion. Lives have been lost, great persecution. We’ve arrived at a point where we quibble about when we take it, how frequent we take it, what kind of juice we use. Folks, don’t confuse the point with those expressions. Let’s pray:
Father, thank you. Thank you for your great love for us. For your grace and your mercy towards us. I thank you that you sent your Son to intervene that we might be delivered from the kingdom of darkness. And Lord, we come today to acknowledge those times and places where we have been indifferent. Whether we were frightened or distracted or just uninterested, Lord, whatever reason. We stood apart from your invitations, put on our robes of self-righteousness and imagined ourselves whole apart from you or whatever the position, it separated us from you and we ask for your forgiveness today. Holy Spirit, we wanna welcome you into our lives. We want to cooperate with you fully and completely in every arena where you’ve given us influence. We want to be a light for you, a voice for you, an advocate for you. We want to honor you in our words and our actions and our deeds. Thank you for your church and the Earth and that you have made it possible for us to be included. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We pray for wisdom for those who are leading in that nation. I pray for our nation that we would not make decisions that would bring your judgment upon us. Give us leaders who fear your name. Awaken your church to be what you created us for. That our children might know the freedoms and liberties that have filled our lives. We thank you for it in Jesus’s name, amen.