Belief In An Age Of Unbelief [I Choose To Believe]

in this particular session i want to talk a bit about the choice we have to believe because understand this it's a choice and it's not a singular choice that may begin with a choice that you make around jesus as the son of god and the new birth or conversion or salvation which able to label you prefer for initiation into the kingdom but every day of our lives we are making choices about our belief whether it will grow and flourish or it will be diminished and we're going to unpack that in a bit more detail i want to talk for a moment about what's happening in our world and specifically i want to invite you to the imagination that you can make the future i spent a good deal of time in these recent months talking to christians across our nation some christian leaders some involved in christian media some that are responsible for congregations just the people of god and the question i'm asked most frequently is what can we do what can we do we feel so powerless and i'm here to declare we are far from powerless the reality is almighty god has empowered you and me to make the future not just to react to it or to respond to it i'm not overly interested in predicting the future i think there's a bit too much attention focused on that even within the church i'm committed to recognizing the changes which have already taken place and doing everything that i have the power to do to make the future it's a different posture we are all witnesses these days we've had front row seats to a season of unprecedented change a myriad a host of sweeping far-reaching changes have already taken place our behaviors are dramatically different than they were 15 months ago how we shop where we eat how we recreate how we gather how our children go to school how our universities gather or fail to you know in reality it's not so very difficult to predict the future but i would submit to you that it is for the most part pointless there are many futurologists who have pretty high batting averages they do a reasonable job of foretelling some things because some things with just a bit of awareness and intuition and thoughtfulness can be anticipated but always always and far more importantly are the fundamental changes that happened which were totally unanticipated and no one could have predicted and we've watched those happen over and over and over again in recent months you see we can't always make decisions for the future we don't have that power decisions are commitments to action you understand that a decision is a commitment to action and actions are always in the present and only in the present so actions in the present are the only way the one and only way to make the future so my question to you and to me is what future are we making if we look at our actions how we're behaving what we're engaged in what we're giving ourselves to what is that future that we are crafting and are we doing it with intentionality and focus and perseverance under the direction of the spirit of god are we simply lamenting the future that we're watching other people create the church is called to be a difference maker in the earth we're not passive observers of social trends we are children of the king on assignment as ambassadors of that kingdom to bring reconciliation between human beings and almighty god the creator of all things we are witnesses to a season as i've already said of remarkable change there are two or three things that i can identify that are describe our current reality in a way that they don't seem to have described it not too long ago first of all truth and trust are at critically low levels in our nation truth is not held in high esteem and as a result of that there's very little trust in many institutions that we used to hold in the highest of esteem and tragically even churches have fallen into that category people aren't staying away from churches because they're highly valued and trusted trust and truth are at critically low levels and our choices our behavior our attitude towards the truth our willingness to tell the truth our willingness to honor the truth are the actions that will change or shape the future secondly a free exchange of ideas is being systematically inhibited we all understand whether we say it out loud or not we understand intuitively it's not really safe to speak the truth of the public square anymore if what you say isn't approved somebody will label it with some critical label it'll be hate speech or sexist or racist or misogynistic or xenophobic or something else i can't spell and suddenly the free exchange of ideas is shut down and it becomes a shouting match and we've watched that with enough frequency on things that seem to be somewhat innocuous mr potato head dr seuss if they have been targeted and identified and pushed out of the public square or at least altered in the public square we all understand the messaging be quiet don't express your opinion do you understand the radical change that is with our history we have grown with the strength we have and the tolerance we have and the freedoms we have based upon the principle of freedom of speech we have defended the right to say the most hateful things in the most hateful places to the people most grossly offended by the hateful speech and we have defended it under the guise of free speech and now someone doesn't like what you've said they simply shout at you with great volume or label you with some hateful label and demand that you be silenced and we've watched it happen to the most powerful people in our culture we understand the message thirdly the dismantling of liberty and freedom in our nation is accelerating at a pace that we haven't seen in our lifetimes the intentional dismantling of liberty and freedom there are many ways you can unpack that perhaps one of the more obvious right now is that things like deficit spending and aggregate national debt no longer seem to matter just spend whatever for whatever give some money to somebody we don't have to be physically responsible folks it's an unsustainable practice it's unsustainable in our homes we understand that intuitively and it's unsustainable for us as a people the government has no money they only have hours but every time they print a dollar for a new project they're promising us it diminishes the value of those things that we hold we're careening down a course that is completely unsustainable another thing that's happening in unprecedented levels is our open borders they're not compassionate they truly aren't open borders are cruel they express a complete disdain for american citizens they're not relegating global poverty there are ways that we can speak to that and engage that but our choices are not creating a better future for those gathering at our borders for the nations that they're coming from or for ourselves a dismantling of liberty and freedom so what do we do it's the question i'm asked over and over and over again what do we do we can't just wring our hands being filled with worries not helpful jesus said don't being angry is not helpful embittered isn't helpful resentful isn't helpful violent isn't helpful what are we to do i want to make four suggestions that will dramatically improve our futures again understanding that it's our actions that make the future so we'll have to act along these lines the first is persuade as many people as possible to serve jesus of nazareth as lord and king amen so is that all you got if i understand correctly it's why jesus came it's the point of the initiative now the skeptics will say pastor you're just trying to grow a larger church and you're trying to shrink the body of christ i understand they're not all coming here thank god they're not all coming here but we are advocates for seeing the church of jesus christ expanded its influence its voice its ideals its values they would be a good thing for our world for our businesses for our schools for our universities we will not be silenced secondly we want to do everything we can to strengthen the nuclear family that biblical idea that the best possible way for human beings to dwell together is with a man and his wife and their biological children now the truth is we're broken people and none of us adhere perfectly to that ideal but it's still the objective we don't change the standards because of our brokenness we strive for the designer's intent and the simplest way i know to act on behalf of that that you can impact personally is to embrace a biblical worldview regarding sex and marriage if the church would stop the immorality forget the pagans of the ungodly and the people that you disagree with that you think are the cause of the problem if the church would stop our immorality it would change our world there's a third thing i would suggest pray every day every day for the church for our nation and the nations that jesus name would be exalted say that's just prayer it's not just prayer it's crying out to the creator of all things the one who sustains all things by the strength of his power we're inviting him to be engaged in our world it's powerful and the fourth and the last thing i would suggest is grow in your own beliefs and actions don't remain static grow in your faith grow in your faith james chapter 2 and verse 18 james says some may well say you have faith and i have works show me your faith without your with the works and i'll show you my faith by my works you believe that god is one you do well the demons also believe may i make a suggestion you want your belief level to be at least as high as the demons and they shudder but are you willing to recognize you foolish fellow that faith without works is useless folks we don't earn our way to heaven we don't earn the blessings of god or the grace of god or the mercy of god but what we choose to do with our time energy talent and resources is an ex-greater expression of faith than any systematic theology you may craft and put on a shelf expressions of faith are biblically informed again i think we're a bit confused our culture has diminished these has tried to appropriate these i'm not just talking about random acts of kindness those are good things to do but biblical acts of faith are more than just paying it forward you see a gift which costs us nothing is a slight gift in fact it's hardly a gift at all if you give away something you don't care about or you don't attach value to there's not much gift there expressions of faith are actions that we've been called to things like serving reallocating your time and your attention sometimes even at a sacrifice fasting and praying for someone other than yourself or your family investing time and energy and physical attention on the spiritual well-being of others faithfulness in your attention to seemingly small tasks the one when no one else is watching when there's no cheers arising because of your faithfulness in those assignments standing up for the truth we've got to stop being silent when ungodliness is celebrated or christianity is maligned we've got to find our voices i've been missing my friend the last few days charlie daniels charlie went to heaven but i was reminded of a couple of lines from a song of charlie some of those live in my head if you'll allow me to borrow it i won't sing it that you that would require healing he said well you know what's wrong with the world today people done gone and put their bibles away they're living by the law of the jungle and not the law of the land there's a lot of truth in it in acts 26 and verse 28 the apostle paul is on trial for his life he's in caesarea his his case is being heard by a visiting king named agrippa and paul doesn't use his moment in the dock to try to defend himself or his choices he tries to influence agrippa to become a christ follower to the point that agrippa is somewhat i believe convicted he grows uncomfortable with the silence and just listening to paul and he blurts something out that speaks to us across almost two millennia he said paul you almost persuade me to become a christian you almost persuade me i mean i mean just almost paul there's no record in scripture that agrippa ever had another opportunity he had arguably the greatest advocate for jesus that the non-jewish world has ever known before him making a case for the divinity of jesus and personal salvation and agrippa's best response is you almost got me there for a moment i was a little emotional i thought maybe there was a tear coming to my mind i had a little glimmer of a conscience you almost got me how many times in the context of our spiritual journey have we thought lord you almost had me i almost committed to that step i almost volunteered i almost did whatever i almost laid down whatever that may have been almost i was persuaded think how different agrippa's life and eternity would have been if he had responded to paul's invitation that day well there was a cost involved there would have been some humiliation for a king to accept a message from a prisoner i'm sure there was some fear of loss of status or stature or position maybe even some fear of resource diminishment do any of those matter compared to the opportunity that was before him you see our adversary will remind you of what the cost of saying yes to the lord is what believing is there's always a cost belief is not cheap belief is not easy i'll tell you the people we think belief is easy for is the people that you know that believe in a way that you don't you think it's just easier for them they like to read their bible they like going to church they've been vaccinated they've got some reason they're not afraid they're not as vulnerable they're not as at risk you know people you think well you know they're just wired differently than i am no they're not they've made different choices i used to watch people that were thinner than i was and i thought you know they just got better genetics and we just take care of horses and if you had a horse that stayed really healthy on minimal feed we used to say they were good keepers because some horses you could feed the same amount of food to and they you couldn't seem to keep weight on them well i decided god just wired me to be a good keeper doesn't take a lot for me to be a little fluffy and eventually i had to face the awkward truth that those people that i was looking at were more committed to their diet and their exercise and their health than i was i think we tend to make those same assumptions sometimes about faith and faithfulness almost persuaded you remember the the rich young ruler that came to jesus and jesus said follow me you can be one of my disciples you can take your place with peter and james and john and the rest of the crowd he was a devout young man a religious young man a faithful young man he knew the commandments and he said i've kept him since my youth and there was no dissenting voice to say no he hasn't and jesus said well there's just one more thing just liquidate you got a lot of stuff liquidate come follow me what was he holding that was worth more than standing close to jesus nothing but his value system was a little bit out of a lot of alignment can you believe that just having your value system out of alignment could keep you from a god invitation have we even invited the spirit of god into our lives to help us with our value system or do we simply repeat the lines i've said the sinner's prayer and i've been dunked in a pool don't talk to me folks we're making a future and we can't allow those that are engaged in ungodliness and immorality be more committed to their actions and creating a future than we are to creating one of godliness in righteousness and holiness it's our assignment let's take a moment with this concept of a bridge of belief because we have to cross it over and over and over and beneath the bridge is the doubt and the questioning and the fear and the uncertainty and the anxiety the verb to believe there's several words particularly in greek it's a parent that emerged from that word it's not quite as obvious in english just because of spelling but the verb is to believe but from that we get faith in the opposite of unbelief see the opposite of faith isn't just a lack of faith it's an intentional refusal to believe then we get faithful the practice of faith staying faithful expressions of faith are not bold or bizarre or radical or dangerous expressions of faith are behaving in a faithful way that's how your faith is made evident the opposite of that would be to be unbelieving or unfaithful erratic inconsistent they all come from a common root this bridge of belief jesus in luke 16 and verse 10 said he was faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much and he who is unrighteous and a very little thing is also unrighteous in much so you don't want to wait for the big opportunities for the large crowd for the stadiums or the arenas or the the high dollar moments faith is expressed in those small places the insignificant places the decisions you make that most would overlook that most wouldn't say anything to you about but you choose to be faithful in those places i have hope for the church in this season because there's a generation of god's people gathering together these days demonstrating a faithfulness and a courage and a confidence that we weren't demonstrating 18 months ago it gives me great hope when you're presented with an invitation from god and you're conscious of it accept it you don't have to fully understand it you don't have to be able to balance both sides of the equation i love logic i like to see the plan at the beginning and i like to have the the objective clearly circled but sometimes following god means i say yes in the moment and i'll take that next step again not foolishness or presumption or arrogance not selfish ambition wrapped in religious words but a willingness to say yes to the lord let's talk for just a minute about unbelief and how you understand it unbelief is a refusal to believe it feels physical to me it's not theoretical or ideological it's just if you physically push belief away i will not believe don't try to get me to believe i don't want to believe that i want the license to continue on the path i'm on doing what i prefer to do we wall off the invitation to cooperate with god or we can do it in many ways we can do it with distractions or energy or other voices or other friends but behind that refusal to believe there's something more destructive it's our selfishness our selfish ambition our love of pleasure we don't want to be bothered with obedience to god in a new way we kind of like the routine and the circumstance hebrews 3 and verse 12 says take care brothers that they're not they're not being any one of you an evil unbelieving heart that falls away from the living god you can't fall away from god unless you've been standing close to him you've had to draw near first of all and we draw near with a choice to believe there's some invitation some cooperation some yielding some saying of yes but in order to continue to walk close to the lord we have to continue to believe and the author of hebrews reminds us that unbelief when we say no i won't believe he says it's evil in acts 19 paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly it says for three months arguing persuasively about the kingdom of god now he's in the synagogue it's a rough analogy to gathering in the church today and for months he's speaking persuasively about the kingdom of god not in a boring fashion not in a way without illustration or authority he's speaking persuasively and he says some of them became obstinate and they refused to believe and publicly maligned what paul was saying you see this is a hard check this isn't about somebody else today the question i'm asking myself and the one that i would pose to you is is there any place in us where we're responding to god in an obstinate manner no i won't you do what i want before i'll do anything that you want folks we don't bargain with the creator of all things it's not a good posture in luke 16 jesus is telling the story of a man who died and it squandered his life and he's awaiting god's judgment and he realizes that his brothers are destined for the same fate of torment that is before him and he's interceding asking for someone to be sent to his brothers jesus is telling this he said i beg you father send lazarus to my father's house for i have five brothers let him warn them so that they'll not also come to this place of torment and abraham replied they have moses and the prophets they had the scriptures let them listen to them and he said no father abraham if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent and he said if they don't listen to moses and the prophets they'll not not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead please do not underestimate the destructiveness of saying i will not believe there's several variations on that sometimes we say it this way well this is how i believe well i appreciate that everybody has a right god's given us a free will you can choose to believe however whomever but my opinion and my will is not the standard god's word is and if what i believe deviates from what god has said it's incumbent upon me to bring alignment with my belief in god's word amen your life is filled with changing how you believe when i was 16 i didn't believe there was any correlation between what i ate and how much i weighed it didn't make any difference a pound of baker bacon was an hors d'oeuvre that was just a starter set and i could change it with a half a gallon of ice cream but i was good to go if i behaved in that way dave i believe that were true about me today my time with you would be abbreviated we change how we believe in many ways we've got to grow in our belief with the lord we get to now observing god's responses i want to take the last moments i have and unpack this idea with you in a little detail there are lessons we can learn from watching how god has responded to his people in different times and seasons it enables us to flourish in exodus chapter 3 we have the introduction to the greatest deliverance story in all the bible until we get to jesus the hebrew people are slaves in egypt and they've been there for hundreds of years and god steps into the desert to recruit a failure a murderer a man with some rather unique qualifications but with an unbridled temper and now his life is labeled by shame and failure he's a fugitive and god steps in to recruit that man the most unlikely of candidates that's exodus 3 and verse 7 his name is moses you know his story the lord said i've indeed seen the misery of my people in egypt and i've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers i'm concerned about their suffering so i've come down to rescue them from the hand of the egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good land a spacious land a land flowing with milk and honey so i'm sending you it's a really interesting passage to me moses has this encounter with a burning bush and god identifies that he's aware of the suffering of the hebrew people and he said i've come down to deliver them at that point if pharaoh was clever he would have opened the gates he would he could have emptied the treasuries of egypt and handed the egyptians the silver and gold and been in a far better place because god said this is what i'm going to do i'm engaged in ministry today because that verse in matthew 16 where jesus said i'll build my church became real to me and i said god i'll do anything i can in any way i can to strengthen your church and the earth at the time i didn't particularly like the church and i certainly didn't like christians i had to change how i thought and how i behaved and what i valued and what i would do with my time i have heard the cries of my people then i've come down to deliver them it's the last phrase that captures my attention so now i'm sending you whoa big fella i was with you right up till that last phrase because i too have seen the suffering of those hebrew slaves i did a little something about it it didn't turn out so well and you want to send me back into that pit i've already failed miserably the last place i ever imagined i would do ministry was in the community where i grew up thank you for not shouting amen in numbers 13 it says the lord said to moses send some in to explore the land of canaan which i'm giving to the israelites from each ancestral tribe send one of their leaders you know the story the plagues the red sea parts the manna the water in the wilderness they've made their way down to the jordan river they can see the promise the inheritance their future is tangible it's close enough that they can send people in to explore the land they're on the verge of receiving they're investigating what god has had it seems like a slam dunk there's no way now they've made it there's no more big obstacles there's no more great barriers there's no more particularly threatening adversaries in that same chapter numbers 13 the spies come back you know the story they reported to the entire assembly of the leaders of israel what they found they said it's a land that does flow with milk and honey and they brought samples of the fruit so that people could see but there are people who live there and they're powerful and their cities are well defended we saw really powerful people there and compared to them we seem very small and powerless we can't do this and then caleb one of the spies silenced the people and he said we should go and take possession of the land for we can certainly do it but the men who'd gone with him said we can't attack those people they're stronger than we are and there was some truth in that the walls of jericho defied any technical way that the israelites had of conquering that city there were armies with better training with technical advantages they were at a deficit if you didn't account for god's presence with them but there was no way of explaining their existence apart from god's presence with them so they were ignoring their reality and choosing unbelief just an evaluation of their present circumstance would have sparked their ability to say yes to accept the invitation but they presumed arrogantly that somehow they had defended themselves delivered themselves provided for themselves they weren't paying attention to the goodness and the graciousness of god thankfulness is so so important we've had so much liberty and so much freedom and so much abundance we have denigrated into a grumbling disobedient church we are so blessed we have had freedoms and liberties we've had health care and schools for our children we took them for granted we didn't stand watch over them and see that godly world views were maintained in those places we gave ourselves not through the worship of a golden calf we gave ourselves to the worship of comfort and convenience and ease and god is shaking us he's asking us if we will make a future if we'll once again stand for truth if we will act in such a way that let's his truth be our future the hebrew said the challenge is too hard the way is too difficult our strength is limited the possible cost it could be really really high i think we can empathize with those feelings those that stand in opposition to a biblical worldview seem pretty powerful they have lots of authority and many channels of communication tremendous resources numbers 14 gives us the sad conclusion it says that god was angry with them god was angry with them you see the invitation to believe is not a value-neutral invitation there's been a tremendous price get paid so that you and i would have the privilege of believing of saying yes to the lord and when we choose unbelief and we hold up that hand and say i won't believe i won't repent i won't yield i won't cooperate it's not just neutral in god's sight it's not incumbent upon god to give us 15 more opportunities to wait until we're another in another life stage or another life season or we feel more inclined god was angry with that generation and he said in numbers 14 23 not one of them will ever see the land i promised on oath to their forefathers no one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it folks i don't want to treat the lord with contempt i don't get it right every day i don't always joyfully say yes to the lord i don't always with a heart filled with gratitude responds to the challenges in front of me with a sense of happy anticipation but i do pray that the holy spirit will continue to bring me back to places of humility and repentance and remorse that i can say lord i will follow you and i do want to walk with you i will pay the price i will use my voice i will follow where you ask me to see the reality of that exodus story is that if i had scripted it the journey is not what i would have anticipated imagine with me if you will for just a moment imagine you were a part of that great multitude that walked out of egypt you gathered your possessions and you gathered your family you've celebrated the passover meal and the the blood of the passover lamb was on the doorpost of your home and and the next morning imagine the emotions of walking out you've been slaves in that land for hundreds of years and you've plundered egypt you're leaving with the gold and the silvers of your slave masters tremendous emotion through the red sea tomorrow where the water was bitter and that it was turned to something that you could drink but imagine in all of that as the emotion begins to yield to the reality of the daily chores of picking up the manna and building a tabernacle and following a pillar of cloud the temperatures are hot and the nights are cold imagine you're a quiet soft-spoken cooperative member of the group leaving egypt not boisterous not reckless just a good quiet solid citizen the journey's not what i anticipated there's constant rebellions there's groups that don't believe moses is the right one there's there's another segment that says we've taken the wrong path there's always dissenting voices we have enemies that challenge us we're always learning new lessons we've never seen manna before we're tired of manna can we have an expanded diet this is not what i thought it would be folks following god is not what we thought it would be what is is parenting how about marriage even the dog's answering on that one following god is a grand adventure i quite confident they didn't envision mara and bitter water or sinai and their peer group building a golden calf and descending into pagan revelry i'm quite confident they didn't anticipate leadership woes and a consistent complaining about moses and thousands of people being swallowed up in the fear that would wash over the camp only to find new complainers in the morning and then they get to the promised land and there's challenges there walled cities and giant people i'm just tired i don't want to make the future i don't want to make the future i want to caution you i can identify with that group of people i'm tired too i'm tired of the rules changing three times every week i'm tired of there being very little consistency and when they're telling me to follow the science there's no science in what they're telling me to follow i'm tired of deception i'm tired of a lot of things but i don't want to shrink back i don't want to turn around i want to complete the course and i want to encourage you to make a determination in your heart let's make the future the message they gave to jesus was show us a miracle they said if you'll just show us a miracle we'll believe i feel a little bit like that some days god i need a miracle water to wine wouldn't be bad something god in matthew 12 and 38 it says the pharisees and the teachers of the law said teacher we want to see a miracle from you and he called him wicked and adulterous and said they weren't going to get a miracle in luke 23 herod calls for jesus jesus has been arrested he's on trial for his life and herod the governor of the northern part of israel wants an audience he's heard about this man and it says in in luke 23 and verse 8 that herod hoped to see him perform some miracle they were interested in the show of jesus not following him there's a difference in our hearts we follow jesus not because he does miracles for us not because he solves our problems or causes our checking accounts to flourish we follow him because we believe he's the eternal son of god and because he bore the punishment for our sin and we have yielded our lives to him whether he intervenes for us or not we are his people miracles will not convince you if you remain obstinate and you choose unbelief miracles will not convince you jesus by this point in his life had performed many miracles he'd healed a man born blind he'd raised lazarus after he's been entombed for four days he walked on the water in reality there were a limited number of witnesses to those miracles some witnessed by dozens some by a few hundred but the internet was spotty in the northern part of israel and not everything got posted in the social media so the stories were related and told from person to person and every individual was faced with a choice whether they would believe or not we're still there in that we're choosing whether we will believe or not so my last suggestion to you is the journey is better together join with friends in believing encourage one another you'll find courage for yourself in mark 6 jesus sent his disciples out and he sent them out in pairs and he gave them authority over unclean spirits they needed the reinforcement of one another in ecclesiastes 4 it says one may be overpowered but two can defend themselves a court of three stand strands is not quickly broken and in hebrews 3 13 encourage one another daily as long as it is called today so that you won't be hardened by sin's deceitfulness folks we need one another not so we can sing together not so we can just stand in a room together and endure a sermon but there is strength we encourage one another we're not alone we're not naive or simple-minded we're not a a relic of the past we're not as it's so fashionable to suggest committed to some idea from antiquity that hasn't kept up with the changes of contemporary society that's not a new lie it's a very old one and it's a deception i gratefully and proudly am an advocate for jesus of nazareth he's changed my life and he'll change the life of any person who will entrust themselves to him but the call for us is not to be angry at our culture or resentful or embittered it's to be advocates for a king if he's changed us he will help change anyone else amen hallelujah

Channel: World Outreach Church

Views: 3,252

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Keywords: World Outreach Church, World Outreach Church Murfreesboro, Pastor Allen Jackson, Pastor Allen Jackson Sermons, Online church service, live church service, christian sermons, Belief In An Age Of Unbelief, I Choose To Believe, Unbelief, God’s Response, Improve Our Future, Belief In An Age Of Unbelief [I Choose To Believe], Spirit of God, actions and attitudes, shape a future, Jesus Christ, refusal to believe, tell the Truth, honor the Truth, Season Of Change

Id: hfrazjkrNkg

Length: 39min 54sec (2394 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 12 2021