The Strength to Lead

for our prayer we want to pray for children and schools and teachers and all those people that work in the midst of that on a day-to-day basis children there's tremendous pressure on them and on families in general but the lord knows how to deal with that huh i wasn't too enthusiastic you better stand with me i believe prayer makes a difference and we've been doing offertory prayers through this coven season when passing things isn't so fun but the lord has responded to so many of those prayers that i have come to depend upon them so father i thank you for the children and the students i thank you for their lives lord for the enthusiasm they have for you that we have the opportunity of introducing them to you in a way that is personal and transformational to stand with their families and encouraging them to grow strong in you lord i pray that what they're learning and seeing and hearing will take root in their hearts that they'll become pillars in your kingdom and impact their generation with the good news of jesus christ i thank you lord for the the the blessings that you have showered upon our young people for the schools that they have and the health care that's available to them and the opportunities they have and lord i pray that in the midst of that you would give us an awareness show us how to use our voices and our influence so that the name of jesus might be lifted up forgive us for being distracted and having taken on other issues and looking away father when we should have been standing guard over our children lord we come in humility tonight to acknowledge our sin what we have been distracted we've cared about our own but we haven't been as watchful of of what was happening and we ask you to pour out your spirit once again upon our young people we thank you for what you will do for your faithfulness in our lives we praise you for it in jesus name amen hallelujah you may have a seat you should have outlines when you came in they gave you one most of the scriptures we will use are included there this session and the one tomorrow are really intended to go together the title is the strength to lead i take strength to lead leadership's not about a title or a position or an office or a desk it's about your influence in fact we all know some people who have titles and positions in offices and desks and have very little influence and we know some people who don't have those things but have tremendous influence and there's a desperate need in our nation and in our world for the christians to to to provide some leadership some influence not just to have a private opinion or a personal opinion but to make a difference in our world to make a difference in our communities and our cities and our states in our nation but i would encourage you to think about your influence as a christ follower beyond just a national basis i don't know what god will do with our nation it isn't clear to me yet what that outcome is going to be i don't think there's any question we deserve his judgment we have been indifferent towards those who are powerless there are many there's a little the list is lengthy i don't know yet what that outcome will be i know what i'm praying for and encouraging you to pray for and we're doing everything in our power to encourage anyone who will listen to seek the lord to lay down their ungodliness and i'm not talking about the wicked and the immoral i mean those of us that sit around church buildings i don't know what that outcome will be i'll tell you what i do know and what i'm focused on principally and that's seeing to it that i'm participating in the kingdom of god because i do know the future of that the king is coming back and he's preparing a church without spot or wrinkle and i intend to be a part of that and you don't want to confuse the two we have an assignment to our nation this is where god's planted us and i believe we're to be salt and light in this place and to use your influence as a christ follower to make a difference in this nation is is a part of your assignment as a christ follower i think it will be more than awkward when you have to give an account for your life if you have failed to use your influence on that agenda if you've achieved and become and and done the things that you wanted to do and you didn't do that i think it's going to be more than awkward but the primary assignment of our lives is to live with the awareness that we're participants in an eternal kingdom so that's the theme for these two sessions i want to start in romans chapter eight the first verse is it begins with a wonderful declaration that there is there now there's now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus hallelujah to be in christ is not about being in a church it's not about being in a religion it's not about being a part of a denomination it's a personal decision you've made around the man jesus christ that you've accepted him as lord of your life you believe he's the son of god the incarnate son of god you've acknowledged your need for a savior that you're a sinner you've forgiven those who have sinned against you and you've given jesus first place in your life it takes all of those components you can believe jesus was a historical figure you can believe he was the son of god but not have made him lord of your life and nobody else can evaluate that for you that's more than reciting the sinner's prayer you can recite the sinner's prayer with having no intent whatsoever making jesus lord of your life i believe in being born again i believe in the sinner's prayer i'm not trying to diminish those things to any extent but that's what it means to be in christ jesus is lord of who you are what you're doing what you're striving for your agenda your calendar your resources who you spend your discretionary time with what you dream about what you aspire to are all under the lordship of jesus we have offered ourselves as a living sacrifice to him and because of those things and because of that commitment there is no condemnation to you in spite of your flaws and your failures and your struggles we have been washed and made righteous we've been justified in the sight of god there is no condemnation now that's not permission to lead a sloppy life that's not a an excuse for a casual attitude towards holiness and purity because the scripture says without holiness no one will see the lord but it's a wonderful reminder because our enemy the adversary satan and his entire kingdom of darkness are focused on accusing you of handing you a burden of guilt and shame which you are not intended to carry reminding you of your failures and your shortcomings and your thoughts that are are not always focused where they should be of attitudes that stray from the places they need to be and we need to learn how to reject those attacks of the enemy because that if you're more conscious of your guilt than you are that there's no condemnation in christ you can be neutralized i know how the attacks come why would you pray for somebody else you can't manage your own stuff what makes you think god would listen to your prayer and then he'll remind you of some scenario in your journey where you were less than stellar and you need to understand that through the blood of jesus you have been forgiven of your sin there is no condemnation to those of us who are in christ jesus but the story doesn't stop there it says through christ jesus the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death and those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mindset on what that spirit desires the mind of the sinful man is death but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace the sinful mind is hostile to god it does not submit to god's laws nor can it do so and those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please god this is written to the church in rome it's not written to the pagans in rome and we're given these two after the statement's made that there's no condemnation in christ we're given these two pathways that we can live according to the law of the spirit of life what an amazing invitation that there's a law that can govern your journey through time and determine your outcome in eternity and that law is dictated by the spirit of life spirit is capitalized it's the spirit of god please don't accept the the the mistaken notion that honoring jesus that serving the lord that being a christ follower is a diminishment it's a lie and if you believe it you're deceived if you believe it you'll never give your life fully to the lord should be a christ followers to learn to yield to him to increasingly put our trust in him it's not our default position we're selfish by nature i am you are well standing behind a podium does not make you holier in fact it could have the opposite effect the alternative to the law of the spirit of life is the law of sin and death those are the choices there's not a third option one of those lives one of those laws is governing your life tonight either the law of the spirit of life or the law of sin and death and to understand which of those has the greatest influence is the point of the rest of those verses if you live according to your sinful nature your mind will be set on what that nature desires so what are the preponderance of your thoughts what captures your emotions what are you aspiring to what are you dreaming about and i know we're in church on a rainy saturday night so the answer is jesus but really if we looked at how you spend your your time and your resources what would the evidence be the things you look forward to what have you got circled on your calendar what are you making sacrifices for if our mind is set on what our sinful nature desires it's going to bring destruction but if we live according with our mindset on what the spirit desires it'll bring life and peace those are the options now that's good news for all of us lawlessness would be rejecting the spirit of life and we don't want to do that romans chapter 1 and verse 21 it's describing this downward progression of humanity he says although they knew god they neither glorified him as god nor gave thanks to him but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened why did that happen because they were living according to their sinful nature and again they're talking about people who are familiar with acquainted with god not them not the ungodly those of us that have christian vocabulary words and know the words to the choruses they knew god but they wouldn't glorify him nor give thanks to him we're not self-made well we have to work hard we have to give ourselves fully to the things of the lord god won't accomplish his purposes around us that's why the intention to use your influence for the kingdom of god is so important you'll use your influence to give your kids an opportunity you'll use your influence to to negotiate an opportunity in business you'll use your influence to to accomplish the things that you want will we use our influence for the kingdom of god you'll take risks in all those other arenas you'll be assertive are we willing to lead in the context of the kingdom of god use our influence for him are we willing to give glory to him he is worth the best effort of our lives now this is linked to a reality in our world see the gospel makes no sense in a vacuum it's not a theoretical discussion of who god is is trying to understand what it means to honor the lord in the midst of the world we're living in right now and that's not easy these days a lot of turmoil a lot of confusion a lot of frustration it's easy for us to imagine that the world is coming unhinged and it helped me i sat at my computer this weekend and made a list of some places where i have been engaged personally or if not directly indirectly with what's going on in our world over the last few years and it helped me put what's happening in our world in a little bit of a context i heard a friend this week make a presentation he grew up in china and it reminded me a bit of the history of china and you know we don't have to go to ancient history well depending on how old you are you may think it's ancient history but you know the reality is the chinese people have suffered greatly for many many centuries but let's just stay in the in current history the great leap forward have you ever heard of that it was an idea that mao seitang unleashed chinese premier communist communism is a failed concept in our world it's been tried in many places by many societies and it always ends in the cold brutal tyranny that's really not a debatable point from history but mao organized the great leap forward it was launched in 1958 it resulted in the deaths of more than 50 million people in china 50 million people died many of them starved to death you prefer a little more contemporary history my friend was telling us that he lived through the cultural revolution in china it was a 10 year period from 1956 1966 to 1976 66 to 76 he said they closed all the high schools they felt like education was a threat so they closed all the high schools and they sent the young people to the most remote rural parts of china and forced them to do hard manual labor to minimize the threat of their education 20 million young people in china were denied the opportunity to go to school that's not ancient history folks that's in the lifetimes of many of us philip and i lived in israel we studied at hebrew university they were having a lot of economic turmoil when we were there inflation was just completely out of control we were we were students we were there on temporary visas so we weren't highly invested in their economy but we woke up one morning and they devalued their currency ten percent that's hard to do financial planning in an environment that crazy that caused a lot of suffering i spent a summer in the philippines the first time i went ferdinand and amelda marcos were still in power well he was elected president and then re-elected but he liked it so much he declared martial law so he could never be removed clever fella when i was there he and his wife owned the beer company the soap company the soft drink company they controlled the military and the media it was not a good place if you were a dissenting voice you needed to sing the party line and sing it with enthusiasm or you could disappear there's a lot of islands in the philippines where you could get lost the filipino people suffered greatly because by the time his reign was done they were economically devastated i have friends in rwanda you may have heard of it it's an african country we haven't heard of it enough more than a million people died in rwanda in a genocide that only lasted a hundred days a hundred days it was a tribal conflict predominantly between two tribes between april and july of 1994 a million people were murdered brutally and the estimates are as many as 500 000 women were raped sudan another african country are you familiar with that they've struggled through a civil war in recent history they've had some others but in the most recent history in the late 90s they estimate that more than 2 million people died as a result of that civil war and more than 4 million people were displaced most of them multiple times that's not an inclusive list that's just a handful of places i could quickly sit down and make some notes about that i've had some personal experience or interaction with individuals involved in those places so suffering didn't start with covid disrupted lives didn't begin last spring they've been filling our world for a long time first peter chapter five and verse eight says be self-controlled and alert your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour you know we've been so blessed we've had so much so many opportunities so many freedoms so many liberties we just had so much we actually have debates on whether or not the devil exists you live in some of these other places in the world they believe they've got front row seats for evil resist him peter said standing firm in the faith because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of suffering the message is that suffering is universal it's a mandatory part of the human experience nobody gets through life without it nobody gets through life without it life under the sun is not just human beings don't treat people with dignity and respect there's no suggestion in human history that we have done that it's a great farce it's a great forest being perpetrated by pseudo-intellectuals in our country trying to hold up our history and it it's not a perfect record by any means of the imagination but if you don't understand the larger scope of human history you would imagine that there's something uniquely abhorrent about ours human beings don't treat people well the ones that are telling you the darkest stories from our past are trying to consolidate power so they can write their own stories of control don't be easily deceived verse 10 gives us a response it says the god of all grace who called you to his eternal glory in christ after you've suffered a little while will himself restore you and make you strong firm and steadfast to him be power forever and ever amen that last phrase is not just some religious rhetoric it's not like the concluding line of a song we're trying to get to someplace else the beginning sentence in that discussion that passage says to be aware to be sober be vigilant your adversary is prowling around whom he can destroy and then we're told to resist him so it's no accident that the last phrase is to him the one who watches over us the one who will restore us be power forever and ever we need his power church we've been conducting bible studies without the power of god for too long we need to begin to invite his power into our lives i don't know how to do that you can do it in a simple way god i need your help in my family god we need your help in our schools god we need your help in our churches forgive us god for imagining we can manage this we can organize this god we will submit to you remember the the law of the spirit see the power of god comes where his spirit is invited where men and women are yielded to the authority of jesus it's not about our congregation or our building or the style of worship or whether the kids are young or the worship team's old or we all have preferences and personal taste that's okay but that doesn't define the outcome then it shouldn't define our participation suffering is mandatory restoration is optional hebrews 12 and verse 11 no discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful later on however it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it if you know the larger context of that passage it says endure hardship as discipline it says no discipline is pain is pleasant nobody thinks discipline is pleasant at the time you're walking through it god is disciplining us justly he's disciplining us with tremendous grace and mercy and kindness he's not disciplining us according to what we deserve dave ramsey's made that famous we're doing better than we deserve thank god but we want to be we want to learn from it in fact the message is that we want to be trained by it so it's an appropriate question lord what is it you want me to pay attention to discipline usually has to do with a lack of awareness or a lack of cooperation isn't that right so somebody's trying to get our attention to to heighten our awareness to change a behavior god is there anything in my life that you'd like to bring an adjustment to is there any attitude you want to change is there any goal that i'm striving for that that you would have me alter your lord of my life it's not my life if you're bent out of shape because god isn't meeting your agenda i would encourage you before you go to sleep tonight to say lord i'm sorry i'm mad at you because you're not doing my business is there any place where i've been ignoring your business are there any dreams you had when you thought of me that i haven't cared about well i've been trying to convince you to pay attention to my dreams i want to be i want to learn from this discipline whatever the outcome for our nation is i want to be certain i'm participating in what i was created for in the eternal kingdom of god it's not always pleasant doesn't mean god has abandoned you if you've been threatening god because he's not making you happy i've done that i have done that and i can tell you from firsthand experience god can withstand your rage about his poor job performance but at some point you've got to reconcile that and say god whatever you want wherever you want me whatever that looks like amen one more verse second timothy two verse three endure hardship with us paul's writing this to a young man that he's coaching mentoring endure hardship with us like a good soldier of christ jesus i think we all understand that if you're serving in the military that you're under the authority of someone other than yourself that it's not a self-directed initiative and that oftentimes the assignments aren't a matter of being pleasant or fun oftentimes they come with risk and typically if you're serving in the military you're serving on behalf of someone else it is a self-sacrifice a willingness to put yourself at risk for the opportunities to be gained by someone else do you have that imagination for your faith we have built a an alternate gospel in american christian and where the goal of our faith is to get us what we want it's not really a biblical idea it's about offering ourselves as a living sacrifice according to scripture to put our lives on the altar so that god's purposes can come forth in the earth and other people benefit from the fact that we laid our lives down isn't that what jesus modeled for us didn't his closest friends and followers model something similar to that after jesus returned to heaven we've drifted a long way from that huh you know our current state of confusion and if you're fortunate enough to be busy or have enough distractions not to notice i need to you need to understand we're living right now in the midst of a time of the most remarkable confusion we're unwilling to even identify the sex that we were born with we're institutionalizing we're so confused we can't establish the most fundamental basic things our current state of confusion chaos deception immorality has resulted in a lot of people having an awareness of christianity if you have if you've got some affiliation with christianity what's going on in the world right now is causing lots of people to say jesus is coming jesus is coming because the disruption we're walking through is new to us we've never seen confusion at this level and i don't entirely disagree there's enough biblical suggestions that we're approaching the end of the age that that i can accept some of that discussion but i think it can also be a distraction because the part of our reality is we're tired our lives have been disrupted many of our businesses have been disrupted our children's habits of school and recreation and what they look forward to in their life their their calendars have been disrupted and we're tired of it many have suffered significant hardships many have lost their life savings many have lost people they loved many have been frightened by a disease those things are all real anyone that's awake at all i don't mean woke but spiritually awake can see the deteriorating stability of our lives they're less stable this year than they were a year ago in spite of all the promises all the money that's been spent all the research trust in public institutions and leaders is all but gone we are both economically and morally bankrupt but we're still demanding more license and less responsibility it seems like no matter what moral boundaries are taken down or what resources are made available we're not satisfied we're not content we don't become more stable more willing to lean into an outcome well if you have imagined if you've been of a mindset if you've been a christ follower or a church attender a religious person and you've imagined that suffering and trouble are not a part of life's journey because of your christian faith that's a very prominent idea before things get difficult we'll get airlifted out of here a very prominent idea and if you're imagining that suffering and trouble are not a part of your journey under the sun i would submit that you're either uninformed of what's going on in our broader world or you're willfully ignorant i gave you a handful of things that i have personal experience with we could spend hours going over the suffering of the human condition we're instructed by scripture not to become too enmeshed in this present world order we're supposed to be in the world but not of the world that our hopes and dreams should be dramatically different from the people who don't know the lord our instructions are to imagine ourselves on assignment that we have a temporary residency under the sun but it's temporary it doesn't define our existence it begins with a physical birth and it will end with a physical death but because we've been born of the spirit and we're participants in an eternal kingdom we have an inherited assignment for our brief journey under the sun we have been dubbed ambassadors for a splendid kingdom from another realm that's exactly what jesus said to the governor the roman governor of judea he said you're right in saying i'm a king but my kingdom isn't from this place he said if it were there would be many fighting for me and he didn't say but you could read between the lines and you'd have a different attitude pilate couldn't help himself don't you understand i have power to to free you or have you condemned and jesus said well in reality you wouldn't have any power unless my dad gave you a little bit we're warned that becoming overly engaged in the present world order can result in the forfeiture of our citizenship in the kingdom of our lord but that's an uncomfortable fact so we don't think about it we diminish it we set it aside and we talk about our new birth and again i'm an advocate for the new birth but you see i think it's important to know that jesus reentry into time and he will re-enter time physically it will take place strategically the scripture says that he came at the first when jesus came the first time when he was born in bethlehem it says that at just the right time god sent his son and at just the right time he's going to send him back it'll be when the advancement of his church will have so threatened the present world order that the church will no longer be tolerated that jesus followers will be banned from the public square they'll be refused the privileges of buying and selling there'll be many with the facade of faith that are going to be way too busy in the activities of this age they'll have no significant awareness of jesus impending return the scripture is clear on all of those points we could walk through many passages supporting them see the church is going to be so effective in advocating for the person of jesus that the spiritual force is behind this present age and we have to stop this we have to shut this down your influence your leadership for the kingdom is not optional you can't hire me to do that on your behalf that's not the system we just need to find a pastor that's so zealous so committed that's not the system the specter of difficulty should not be allowed to diminish our strength and courage but quite the contrary i believe the more we recognize difficulty and challenge and resistance it should embolden us to use our resources and our freedoms to relentlessly advocate for the uniqueness of jesus of nazareth and the good news of his grace for all who will accept it your leadership your voice and advocacy for jesus he's changed my life he's put my feet on a path it was impossible to me apart from him he's brought a meaning to my life and a purpose to my home he's enabled me to overcome things that were driving me to places i didn't want to go and i was powerless to stop them but through the power of the blood of jesus i've been set free i've been forgiven and i've been delivered and whatever he's done for me he'll do for you wouldn't you like to know him too everybody has a god story god's done something for you now you're not finished yet we're all works in progress but don't allow the things that aren't done to keep you from giving glory to the lord about what he has done don't rob the people who know you of your enthusiasm for the kingdom of god don't come into church and be enthusiastic for jesus and go into the marketplace and act like you can't spell his name in matthew 24 it's jesus most lengthy prophetic passage and it's prompted by a couple of questions from his disciples what will be the sign of his return at the end of the age and jesus in answering them begins to list what's going to happen in our world now i want to call your attention to one statement he made and then i want to use matthew principally because because matthew held the theme of this notion of the specter of lawlessness lawlessness jesus answered and said to them see to it that no one misleads you if jesus warns us that we can be misled we know that's going to be a very common thing many will come in my name saying i'm the christ and we'll mislead many many people will be misled in giving allegiance to their lives to something other than the true christ you'll be hearing of wars and rumors of war see to it that you're not frightened for those things must take place but that's not yet the end nation will rise against nation the greek word for nation is ethnos from which we get ethnic ethnic conflict it's growing seemingly day over day isn't it nation against nation kingdom against kingdom in various places there'll be famines and earthquakes but all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs then they'll deliver you to tribulation and they'll kill you you'll be hated by all nations because of my name being a christ follower is not the pathway to popularity you know that intuitively makes you a bit reluctant makes you a little reluctant to do something as simple as putting jesus's lord on the back of your car it makes you reluctant to put on a shirt or a boy or clothing take a bible to a public place you understand that and we live in a nation at least theoretically where freedom and liberty for all but many many places in the world there'd be great physical threat if you identified publicly with jesus many will fall away they'll betray one another and hate one another you mean like they'll go through your social media and try to find something you said 20 years ago many false prophets will arise and will mislead many because lawlessness is increased most people's love will grow cold but the one who endures to the end he will be saved the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached and the whole world is a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come all those things will not stop god's people from proclaiming the gospel to the whole world now we've got to decide what kind of people we're going to be what we're going to use our influence for what is it we're becoming but the sentence i would draw your attention to is the the increase of lawlessness because if there's anything to me that seems to have broken into the open in these last 18 months or so in our nation is an increase in lawlessness matthew chapter 7 jesus is speaking he said not everyone who says to me lord lord will enter the kingdom of heaven but only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter so knowing jesus and talking about jesus and being aware of jesus is not adequate for participation you'll have to do his will that means you have to know his will you'd have to have enough interest in it to give time and energy and resources to the pursuit of his will many will say to me on that day lord didn't we prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name performed many miracles jesus doesn't dispute those activities but he said i'll declare to them i never knew you what's the characteristic depart from me you who practice lawlessness you're not yielded to the spirit of life you refuse to acknowledge god to give glory to him you reject his righteous government over your life matthew 13 the son of man will send this is the parable of the wheat and the tares remember that and jesus the disciples have asked him to explain it privately he said the son of man will send forth his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness and he'll throw them into the furnace of fire in that place there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth it's a sobering passage it says the angels at the end of the age as a part of that ultimate judgment out of the kingdom out of his kingdom will gather the stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness i think we've been a bit presumptive a bit arrogant i'll be getting dismissive we've pointed to our curriculum vitae in the context of the kingdom it seems to me the invitation is on a daily basis to yield ourselves to submit to the spirit of life to use our influence for his kingdom matthew 23 jesus is speaking to the religious leaders what are you scribes and pharisees your hypocrites you're like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful but inside you're full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness outwardly you appear righteous to men but inwardly you're full of hypocrisy and lawlessness it's again it's a theme in matthew you can be very religious keeping all the holidays going to the right buildings sitting in the right meetings wearing the right kind of clothing and eating the right kind of food and drinking the right beverages but be filled with lawlessness now understand when you reject the the spirit of god we refuse to cooperate with him to yield to him to allow him to begin to establish our agenda and set our boundaries and help prescribe the path of our lives exactly what it is we're cooperating with second thessalonians 2 that no one deceive you for the day of the lord's return will not come unless the apostasy comes first apostasy means a falling away and the man of lawlessness is revealed it's a description of the antichrist he'll be the ultimate lawless person he will not submit to the law of god be a very religious character he's one of his closest associates will be a false prophet with all sorts of miracles and supernatural signs and wonders but they will reject the righteous government of god they won't submit to it first john 3 everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness romans 1 describes it in verse 28 they didn't see fit to acknowledge god any longer that's the essence of lawlessness we just don't have to acknowledge him we're self-made you watch that struggle play out in our culture every day it's awkward to be reminded of it's uncomfortable so god gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper you know our nation was a nation that has been founded upon and built upon laws it's made us distinctive in the world we're not bound together by our ethnicity or of common language we've come from the nations of the world we're a mixed multitude we share because of our laws a goal of equal protection under the law it hasn't always been realized perfectly or effectively but that's our system it's not normal or typical in our world our laws are intended to protect us from the government historically throughout human history those who gain control of governments seek to secure their power over those they govern and our founders inexplicably had the wisdom to understand that the people need to be protected from the government that's the point of our laws in the last several months we have seen a frenzy of lawlessness it's been building for some time it's not new it didn't arrive with an election it's not about a political party or a politician please don't be that narrow-minded but it is accelerated exponentially in this current season again just a casual review of what's happening tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring across our southern border and it's being encouraged by our leaders in washington dc leaders on both sides of the aisle tens of thousands of people pouring into our country illegally illegally is the operative word we have a process for legal immigration we're ignoring it and every one of those persons comes with with tremendous responsibilities for those of us who are currently citizens and it's not about compassion for global poverty a picture i saw today was thousands and thousands of people gathered under a bridge in texas from haiti they're no longer just coming from mexico and central america they're coming from all over the world it's lawlessness a couple of weeks ago the cdc if you're not familiar with the acronym it's the center for disease control they issued a directive regarding the u.s citizens the the center for disease control extended the suspension on paying rent the center for disease control they had no legal authority to issue such a proclamation the president acknowledged they didn't have the authority but he didn't do anything to interrupt him he said it probably wouldn't withstand the legal challenges that would come but we would wait and see the supreme court stood up and said it wasn't right lawlessness more recently osha that's the occupational safety and health administration it's a regulatory agency of the department of labor they issued a nationwide mandate for vaccinations in businesses with a hundred employees or more osha the department of labor dictating health care such a mandate should come from the executive branch or congress not from unelected bureaucrats they don't have the legal status standing to do so lawlessness we have three equal branches of government in our nation to the judicial the executive and the legislative the supreme court is at the highest rank of that judicial branch they're being openly threatened with court packing if you haven't been paying attention the idea is like this they're if if they don't vote in the way that the power brokers want them to they're telling them they'll place a new majority of justices on the court based upon their ideology and not their commitment to the constitution it's bullying at the highest level lawlessness we abandoned our citizens in afghanistan and our allies there and those who orchestrated the withdrawal took microphones and celebrated their implementation of their strategy they admitted it was their strategy to leave the taliban in control with multiplied billions dollars of weaponry lawlessness and the list goes on and on and on our cities are more violent our economy and our monetary policy is unstable as citizens we have more than we are less content than we've ever been we have more liberty and more license than anyone on planet earth and we're convinced we're oppressed the leadership we receive is increasingly unbalanced you need a vaccine card in many places to participate in whatever is being offered in that place but you can vote for the leaders of our nation without any identification our schools are struggling to avoid chaos our moral perspectives are cloudy at best we're more divided than we've ever been we're less tolerant we search through one another's past to see if we can find something in our past no matter how far distant it may be to disqualify us from participating in the present lawlessness once it comes back to the church do we have the strength to lead do we have the courage to lead it's not about our nation it's about a kingdom the only hope for humanity is the kingdom of god and to the extent that our nation will cooperate with the principles of those kingdom of that kingdom we'll see liberty and freedom extended if we don't they'll be set aside completely but your participation in the kingdom doesn't change don't live presumptively so what can we do judges 21 it says in those days the book of judges there was no king in israel everyone did what was right in his own eyes it didn't work very well proverbs 29 says where there is no vision the people are unrestrained unrestrained is a pretty good world word for contemporary american life the contrast is happy is he who keeps the law hebrew poetry is written in couplets two ideas put together to get the full meaning you need both ideas the lack of restraint doesn't bring happiness happiness comes from keeping god's law the law of the spirit of life hebrews 12 we have had human fathers who disciplined us we respected them how much more should we submit to the father of our spirits and live again it's not about an entry point into the kingdom it's about a daily basis of submitting to the father of our spirits who are you submitted to who's establishing your agenda what are you striving for so it seems what can we do it starts with some personal choices submit ourselves to the law of the spirit submit yield your will humble yourself cultivate the fear of the lord have higher respect for god than anything else want his approval more than you want the approval of anyone else i want his blessing more than anyone else's blessing that won't be easy there'll be times you'll have to stand they'll be pushed back you don't have to be condemning or angry you're threatening it's your choice i want to honor the lord with my life i don't intend to be engaged with things that are dishonoring to him i don't want to give my approval to things that are dishonoring him that's a personal choice then ii corinthians 5 if anyone's in christ he's a new creation the old's gone the news come this is from god he's reconciled us to himself through christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation gave us the ministry of reconciliation god gave something to us he gave a ministry to us to see people reconcile to him they're just like us they were broken and godless and sinful and rebellious with our own selfish nature driving everything as we barrel down the path of life and god in his mercy interrupted us and he's begun incrementally bit by bit day by day to help us understand what it means to yield to the lordship of jesus and he's given to us that ministry tell others what god is doing in your life folks we can't secure our future we can't secure our health we can't secure the future for our children only god can do that we need his power that we have to stand we have to use our voice we'll have to resist look at the last line he's committed to us the message of reconciliation if being reconciled to god is not here heard broadly enough or completely enough it's because the message isn't being delivered and he's been committed that doesn't say he's been committed to pastors people discount pastors they think we get paid to say that stuff they're not even sure we believe it you're not sure you believe the salesmen believe what they're telling you you just think they're trying to move their product well i assure you the skeptics think we're just trying to move our product there are people who trust you who believe in you who have confidence you in you who are interested in your opinion perhaps because of your professional expertise but perhaps because of relationships you've established do you have the courage to lead to use your influence for the kingdom of god you have the courage to say to them i wouldn't keep engaging in that behavior i love you but that path you're walking on it's not going to land in a good place i love you either way but i walked a path not too different from that and it didn't work out well for me but i'm having fun i got it i understand it feels pretty good i when i walk that i ran that way for a while but i don't want to see you pay the stupid tax do we have the courage the only hope i have for our nation is god's people i don't have a political hope i don't have an ideological hope or an economic hope or a military hope all of those things will be supported by what happens to us spiritually or not your influence matters you are of incredible importance i want you to stand with me my time's up it sure is i want to give you an opportunity for a little response and i don't know exactly how to do this because the kobe we don't want to get too crowded but i think we need to be on record with the lord if we're willing to lead for his kingdom that means using your influence using your voice that you won't stand and watch ungodliness and say nothing don't be angry you don't have to be obnoxious you don't have to be critical means that we'll use our voice if i'm your friend i wouldn't sit in a conversation and listen to someone denigrate you criticize you say things that were false about you and not use my voice if i did i wouldn't think i was your friend i don't want to do less than that for jesus so maybe rather than coming forth maybe just if we raise our hands and say lord that's me i'm in i'll accept that assignment that ministry of reconciliation tonight whatever that means i trust you i want to follow the spirit of life i don't want to give the spirit of sin and death any place in my life or in my future in my home i want to honor you father thank you for your word for its truth and its authority i thank you that you called us to this unique season in history lord i believe you intend for us to be salt and light and to make a difference you've called us out of darkness you rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your son and we thank you for it tonight we praise you for it the lord we've raised our hands and our voices and our hearts to you to say we accept that that message of reconciliation lord use us in our neighborhoods and with our friends and our communities and where we work wherever you take us lord give us the courage to lead not to be quiet not to be undercover christians not to be covert operatives but to take our place give us a spirit of grace and wisdom to know what to say and when to speak when to be silent lord lead us to those people that you've prepared that are ready and receptive and and open i thank you that we will see a harvest of souls a change of lives that we'll see jesus welcomed in our schools again in our courtrooms and our classrooms and our college campuses in our operating suites we praise you for it lord we thank you that you're a god who restores and renews and redeems we have hope in you we praise you for it tonight lord that it's not the the intensity of the darkness that determines our future it's the power of the god we serve and we praise you for that we give you glory and honor and worship let jesus name be lifted up let jesus name be exalted let jesus name be exalted we praise you for what you will do because it's in his name we have prayed and we believe amen hallelujah give the lord a hand huh

Channel: World Outreach Church

Views: 1,666

Rating: 4.9473686 out of 5

Keywords: World Outreach Church, World Outreach Church Murfreesboro, Pastor Allen Jackson, Pastor Allen Jackson Sermons, Online church service, live church service, christian sermons, Murfreesboro TN, Jesus Christ, Interdenominational Church

Id: z_-Yz9RYGUs

Length: 54min 11sec (3251 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021