Understanding Our Present Time [Things Are Changing, But Where Do We Stand?]

[Music] it's good to be with you again our topic today is understanding the present time the world has changed far more than a pandemic or lockdowns or quarantine or isolating or being non-essential or essential how we interact with our world is dramatically different than it was a year ago and we're not finished with this season yet you know in the past we went to church and studied our bibles in a theoretical sense we'd learned the names of the 12 tribes maybe where their territories were established who the kings were of israel or or of judah and we assimilated information now we need god's perspective we need to understand the word of god in light of the world we're living in so we don't just want to understand biblical times we want to understand god's perspective on today well that's our objective in this session we're going to open our bibles not just to understand what the bible has to say to us but what god has to say to us in light of his word and this current season i believe it'll be a help to you grab your bible maybe a notepad most of all open your heart god's moving and we're going to say yes the title for this session is understanding our present time no urgency about that at all um it seems to me in romans chapter 13 and verse one we have the instructions it says to do this understand the present time the hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed i couldn't think of a verse more accurate for the world we're living in we need to understand the time we're in we have to wake up we've been a bit of sleep not evil or wicked a normal part of the life cycle unless in proverbs it says it's a lazy son who disgraceful son who sleeps during harvest and i think from a biblical perspective it is harvest time so we want to wake up from where we have been because we are closer to our salvation than when we first believed forget prophecy forget the end of the age you're closer to your end than you were when you believed and people say to me do you think it's the last days i absolutely think it's our last days not trying to be morbid but you ought to live like it's the last days you're not getting to do over but we want to understand the time in which we live and then the beginning point for that is having a sense of our present location you know one of the the new toys that's changed how we do life or is gps anybody remember a paper map anybody ever used one we took a poll in the office today half of the people in the office had never used a paper map so they never had to pray for forgiveness when you couldn't fold that thing back up and you said things you shouldn't right because they don't go back just buy a new one wad it up throw it away give me another one that one's no good anymore but with the gps we don't even have to use those contraptions the way we once did but the the key to that whole system working is you have to know your present location that's why they tell us they track us all the time but we need to understand our present location spiritually because we're living in a disorienting time and season so i just made a quick list things that are accurate descriptors i believe of the world we live in today that perhaps were less so a year ago today coveted 19 is a very much a part of our reality our global reality it impacts almost every decision we make every day where we'll go how we'll get there how we'll walk how we'll dress who we'll gather with covert 19 quarantine a word we didn't think about much a year ago non-essential people i've never been lumped in that category before we heard about covet and along with that there's a whole host of things unemployment in unprecedented ways the closing of our schools and not because it snowed in kentucky we've been doing that for years lawlessness jesus said in matthew 24 that lawlessness would increase at the end of the age but i didn't expect it to increase at the speed at which it has it hasn't come up on us suddenly it's not just a 2020 issue looks we've had sanctuary cities major american cities that refused to acknowledge federal law they would take federal dollars and want federal support but ignore federal law we've tolerated that for years sanctuary cities poorest borders we have immigration policies and immigration laws we've chosen to ignore them to set them aside all of those things lead to every time we we have an acknowledged law and we ignore it we open the door for further lawlessness so we shouldn't be surprised that we see riots that our history is being destroyed so others can rewrite it violence is escalated in unprecedented ways the statistics are are abundantly clear look at city after city where there have been cries to defund the police or whatever the violence is escalating in an exponential way immorality in a brazen way we've never seen before blatant sexual immorality in perversion being celebrated as the best way to be censorship and something we never imagined in a nation where we imagined free speech to be a constitutional right of our founders and it's been set aside swept aside without apology or embarrassment or shame widespread deception a trampling upon our civil rights the closing of churches with hardly even a nod to the reasons they just need to be closed and the people don't need to be there orthodox christian views and values are mocked publicly and the list could go on and on most of them aren't new things they've just broken into the light in recent months but all of these have been distorted by whatever election perspectives you've held whichever side of that discussion you've been on it clouds how you see these things these things are really undeniable but your election political filters have clouded them there's much avoidance of the truth because of the political filter that we happen to select for ourselves well how did we get here well i don't think we got here in a day or a week or a year if i used a biblical metaphor i think while we were sleeping a strong man entered our house and while we were unaware uninvolved and unconcerned because that's the condition you're in when you're asleep things happen and now we're awake in our circumstances we consider to be alarming and we're beginning to say well what is it we should do and how do we respond well it comes back to the fundamentals that we know we walk this path to this place and we'll have to walk the path out of this place jesus described it i think in a way that we can all relate to directly or indirectly in matthew 24 it's his most lengthy prophetic discourse it's it's the longest single presentation jesus made about the end of the age it's recorded in matthew 24 and luke 21 they're parallel passages and he begins to list some things that will be happening in the world then he makes this statement in verse 8 in that chapter he said all of these are the beginning of birth pains birth pains i've never given birth that's apparently pretty obvious but my dad was a veterinarian so i've been around a lot of things that delivered cat cows and horses and dogs and cats and various and sundry strange things that people would bring to the veterinarian and i was often involved in that process and and birth pains is kind of a polite word for that process just as an observer what it really is is a time of tremendous physical contractions almost violent muscular contractions if you prefer cramps with a purpose and those birth pains come in moments of tremendous intensity when the the muscles are cramping contracting and then there's a period of rest and then there's another contraction and the muscles clamp down again then there's a period of rest and once that process begins those contractions continue with with a couple of adjustments they will increase in intensity and they will come with greater frequency and i think it's a pretty good description of where we are i don't imagine we're returning to the world we knew before we stepped into the light a bit more awake as we are today it doesn't frighten me doesn't cause me grief i'm pretty anxious in anticipating what's ahead of us and i think there will be times of rest i don't think we'll be in one continuous contraction there'll be times again of rest not to scramble back to where we were previously to to gather ourselves and to prepare ourselves because we are moving towards a delivery now i'll tell you what i hear i interact with a lot of people and i listen to a lot of people and there are many people afraid and one of the dominant things driving that fear is a grief that they perceive as coming from a loss and initially last year it's because we were losing our vacation or graduation got interrupted or we didn't get to see march madness or i had tickets to a sporting event that got cancelled and there was grief around the interruption of what we wanted to do that's when we thought we would go home for two weeks and flatten the curve and we soon found that that really wasn't the reality we were living in and never was intended to be and and then as we began to wake up more and begin to see with a bit of light as the sun was breaking the horizon we realized that the things that we had imagined to be a part of our lives might might not be our immediate future the way we would imagine the beginning of a normal school year or conduct ourselves through college courses or whatever the next season of your life is and and those people began to talk to me and say help me to talk to my young people at home they're angry because they don't get to go to college like they want to and they said i got to go to college and college is being stolen from them and it's there's an i understand the source of that angst but i would point something out to you whatever life stage you're in there's something that's changing for you and if you're young and you think you're being robbed of something that someone else already experienced i promise you there's somebody on the other end of the the age spectrum that's worked all of their lives to get to a place of stability and peace and enjoy it and that seems like it's being taken from them that's not a happy place either but i don't think grieving about the the arrival of the change is the point i think the real opportunity is to recognize how far we had drifted from what god had asked us to be as a church we attended worship services as if they were an obligation kind of an intrusion we wanted to be somewhat entertaining the message to be you know relevant enough that we didn't go to sleep but we really didn't imagine that our relationship with the lord and our relationship with god's people was essential or central or meaningful and that's not about the nature of our churches that's about how we'd imagined our relationship with god because after all we could secure our futures if we worked hard and we saved well and we lived with some wisdom and we didn't get into the things that were destructive life would be okay and now we find ourselves where that paradigm seems to be threatened and less far less probable and it's left us with different stages and different approaches to agitation desperate for somebody to say we can return to that place well i think it's helpful to take a bit of time and look at a biblical pattern at the end of the day the bible is our greatest resource and here's my suggestion don't be afraid don't fret about forfeiting your future we are gaining a kingdom so i just began to make a list of the heroes that we know from our new testament that group of people that that were involved in the jesus story we really just have one generation to follow and so i'm going to just walk you through it some simple points i'll use some scripture but if i start trying to give you a reference for every one of them it would take weeks and i think it would be too difficult to grab the point or the objective but i'll start with this notion that jesus recruited young people so i don't want parents or grandparents or young people to think that it's unfortunate that the purposes of god would intrude on the lives of young people i happen to think it is a tremendous invitation and a blessing god broke into my life when i was a young person and totally changed my plans i complained i griped i fought it for a while but at the end of the day it's proven to be a blessing you know this to be true mary and joseph when they were recruited for the jesus story were young people and they had a plan that did not include jesus they were good kids with good reputations and they had good plans and were following all the rules and god stepped in and said nah and their reputations got trashed and they were talked about and they were whispered about and they got stretch marks and there was no one to really commiserate with them they're going to be on the outside in many ways for the rest of their story but god invited them into that and it doesn't stop with them when jesus began recruiting disciples john and james and peter and andrew they're young men most scholars think it's a high degree of probabilities at least some of them were teenagers so again parents and grandparents rejoice the young people have the privilege of seeing the light and they don't have to go sow their wild oats and spend years reaping a harvest of destruction because we cheered for their ungodliness we've done that for too long we have with a wink and a nod we've pushed them out the door to behave in ungodly ways and we understood but everybody's young well everybody doesn't have to be young and ungodly we can choose another path and i happen to believe what god is doing in the earth is a good thing for any of us that will participate in whatever season of life you're in secondly jesus invited them to a new kind of a life he didn't just say i'll make you better fisherman he didn't say to mary and joseph look it's a wonderful marriage counseling course i'm inviting you to [Music] we're going to learn couch time it's going to be wonderful [Music] now in fact the path he put them on i'm quite confident introduced to stress and anxiety and discomfort he invited them to a new kind of a life are you willing to allow jesus to invite you to a new kind of a life or do you still have your teeth created and your fist clenched because you want him to give you what you want jesus said follow me i'll make you fishers of men thirdly he asked him to leave behind many things he did it's plain read the book you know the stories it says when jesus said peter walked away from his fishing business he walked away from a business he'd established a means of supporting himself now he went fishing after that but he never went back into the business again to others he said you know one said i need to go conceit to the funeral i've got arrangements to make and he said let the dead bury their dead come follow me to another a young man that was godly jesus said it love you it says that jesus loved the young man and he said there's just one thing you need to do liquidate and come follow me and to get it's too high price [Music] too high price for me there's a leaving behind in following jesus there is so i happen to think that 2020 and 2021 is an invitation to follow the lord in a way we've never followed him before i don't want to grieve i want to say god where are we going what are we going to do what have you got in mind i'm in i'm a little jittery but i'm in number four i can tell you that the people jesus called and recruited they didn't seem very prepared they hadn't been to the right schools they hadn't accumulated the resources you would think they would need to abandon their previous life they don't have enough life experience but following jesus was their preparation that's the story you've read it dozens and dozens of times come follow me mary and joseph they didn't know everything they're going to need to know but but following was the preparation [Music] the same thing is true in the 21st century number five learning jesus perspective was clearly a struggle for them for every one of them they were having a hard time with it they couldn't get their heads around it they couldn't get their hearts around it it didn't line up with their previous experience and remember all the people we're talking about are the chosen covenant people of god they went to synagogue on the sabbath they celebrated the right holidays their diets were the right way they were the best of the best but but getting their head around this season when jesus was moving in a way that they'd never seen the messiah move they were expecting the messiah they just weren't expecting it to be like this and when jesus began to move they struggled and he really said are you really that slow don't you understand and now we don't understand oftentimes they're frightened multiple times these people that jesus called and are walking with him and doing life alongside of him they're frightened and uncertain and anxious we've lived these complacent lives where our faith didn't introduce any uncertainty to us i don't want to go back to that i don't want to live in that place with that smug self-righteous certainty that we know all the answers the only thing left for us is to accumulate bible trivia don't want to go there again number six there was help provided initially jesus was with them and when they'd get in trouble they would bring the the challenge to jesus and he would help bring a resolution or he would send them out on a short-term assignment and they would come back and he would download it with them and help them process it but when he was coming to the end of his time with him he said you know i'm leaving and where i'm going you can't go and they got way stressed that was not the bargain we walked away from our businesses we walked away from our families we're identified with you we can't go back we burned the boats and you tell us you're leaving and we can't come that is not what we signed up for and jesus said it's better for you because if i go away i'll send you a helper and he'll never leave you and he'll teach you whatever you need to know there's a lot you need to know but you can't take it right now you're on overload you feel like that are you tired of change and disruption and deception and you think what there's a lot you need to know but but you don't need to know it right now and you've got a helper that will help you and number seven there was some clarity that began to be gained you see it as you read through the narrative in the gospels and then particularly in the book of acts on the day of pentecost up until acts chapter 2 the disciples look more like keystone cops than apostles it's like clowns they're arguing about who's the greatest they're arguing about did they bring enough food jesus is mad at us because we don't have enough bread and by this time they'd fed two multitudes with a happy meal and jesus looks at him with some disgusting how many people did we feed with that little boy's lunch thousands and that second time how many with thousands more and you're arguing about bread yes we are but in acts chapter 2 on the day of pentecost peter stands up and explains the jesus story with such clarity that thousands of people say i want to be born again what do i need to do [Music] and the the the temple area in jerusalem is turned into a baptismal site for thousands of people they got clarity when they began to need it which leads me to number eight information is clearly being provided to them on a need to know basis they didn't get the whole story peter going to cornelius's house peter being sent to a gentile city a pagan city to the home of a roman soldier was not in his original training manual he had no clue about that he's years into this thing he's heard jesus himself say i came for the lost sheep of israel i didn't come for those people and now this same holy spirit is sending peter to cornelius house clearly there's information being given to them on this need to know basis i mean simpler things water walking that was a component that was not revealed at recruitment when jesus said follow me i'll make you a fisher of men he didn't say oh and by the way you've got to walk on this lake again you and i have tried to bundle our faith into this tidy little thing tell me the prayer i need to say tell me the beverage to change in my beverage list so i can get on with my own life and eliminate god why would we accept that kind of an empty way of life for the privilege of walking with the creator of heaven and earth god is waking us up and that begins with our recognition that we have a need [Applause] a year ago we didn't know we had any needs the economy was cooking and things were we thought we don't have any needs life is good i mean yeah we're killing babies and we're immoral and things are ungodly but we're doing pretty good today we're a little more awake number nine and you need to know this because it really has never changed persecution was a part of the assignment and i don't believe you should accept the assignment i don't believe you should imagine you're going to walk the path if you're not willing to contemplate what that would mean for you jesus said if anybody would be my disciple you have to take up your cross and follow me you didn't say you got a preferred parking place and it was an assigned seat he said you need a cross acts chapter four acts chapter two is acts chapter one jesus goes to heaven acts chapter two is pentecost acts chapter three there's a miracle in jerusalem and the whole region is stirred by the the power of god we thought we'd killed jesus and now these grubby little followers of him or still doing jesus stuff and they're embarrassing to us and we want them to shut up so by acts chapter 4 it says they called the disciples in and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of jesus but peter and john replied now this is peter and john that could not be found when jesus needed a friend a few weeks earlier peter and john replied judge for yourselves whether it's right in god's sight to obey you rather than god for we can't help speaking about what we have seen and heard and after further threats they let them go all they did this they gave this is the group that condemned to jesus to death so this is a serious deal high stakes but in this particular instance they just threatened them and sent them back out next chapter acts chapter 5 says they called the apostles in again and had them flogged we've raised the stakes now they took out a bull whip or something that resembles it they ordered them not to speak in the name of jesus and they let them go folks they've been telling us not to use the name of jesus since the church idea stepped into the public square to our embarrassment we've complied what made us so timid what caused us to think we could deny jesus in the workplace and on our college campuses and in our schools and that the blessings of god would continue to reign upon us not our bibles we don't need to be angry or judgmental or critical we are advocates for our king says the apostles left the sanhedrin rejoicing because they've been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name they're disgraced they've been publicly arrested that would be as humiliating in the first century as it is today pictures on the front page of the paper talked about your friends don't want your kids playing with your kids anymore business deals drying up all those same characteristics would have been present that's acts 5 by acts chapter 6. it says now stephen we're introduced to stephen a young man second generation now not one of the original 12 a man full of god's grace and power he did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people but opposition arose wait a minute opposition arose because of wonders and miraculous signs members arose from where from the roman soldiers no from the synagogue and the men began to argue with stephen and they couldn't stand up against his wisdom or the spirit by whom he spoke so you know what they did to stephen they murdered him in the streets of jerusalem that's acts chapter 6 we didn't get very far into the narrative they arrested them they threatened them they let them go they arrested them again they had them beaten now they're murdering believers in the streets in acts chapter 8 saul was there when they murdered stephen giving approval to his death and on that day a great persecution broke out against the church at jerusalem and all except the apostles were scattered they ran them out of town they left their homes their property their businesses their playstations their hoverboards godly men buried stephen and mourned deeply for him but saul began to destroy the church going from house to house he dragged off men and women and he put them in prison are we listening saul is destroying the church i'm thinking wait a minute acts chapter one seven chapters ago jesus was there and he ascended back to heaven and saul is destroying the church in jerusalem god would you would you let your church endure something like that we've crafted a theological narrative that allows us to have zero imagination of suffering well god wouldn't let his people suffer really which bible did you read [Music] and in the midst of all this god is working that's acts 8 acts chapter 9 jesus comes for saul jesus himself back on planet earth puts the boy's face in the dust what do you think you're doing people would not challenge our boss if they knew him better i promise acts chapters 10 and 11 god sends peter to cornelius's house and now the game's on because this is no longer a jewish jesus story jesus is going to the non-jewish world acts chapter 12 it's about that time that king herod arrested some who belonged to the church intending to persecute them now it's made it into the political realm he had james the brother of john put to death with the sword he cut his head off and when he saw that it pleased the jews his polling numbers got better he proceeded to seize peter also and except for a contingent of angels that some days later go to release peter from prison peter would have died at the hand of herod so i think we have to say with just a casual reading of our bible that that persecution's a part of the assignment and if and if you're not willing to be persecuted for your faith maybe we're not going to have to be in prison i'm not suggesting that i'm not suggesting that you'll die in the streets or you'll be beheaded but i am suggesting we have wanted a comfortable faith and a convenient faith and an easy faith and we didn't want anything being taken away from us because of our faith what makes us think we can stand next to our lord with that attitude not our bibles number 10 in these recruits that jesus is folding in there is a continual realignment i can identify with this we have to admit they didn't learn it all at the resurrection they were witnesses they saw him crucified they saw him arrested they had the last supper with him i mean they've been along for the ride some of them at the transfiguration but they didn't have it all at the resurrection what made us so arrogant and pompous to say to one another we know the important stuff baloney it's a greek word it means i disagree a continual realignment i just pulled some highlights this list could have been pages long jerusalem the center the epicenter of the church the place where jesus was crucified and resurrected the city to which he's coming back and will rule and reign on planet earth jerusalem became too hot for the believers they were driven out i promise you they didn't see that coming i promise you on the day of pentecost when they're baptizing those thousands of people and when they begin to bring the sick and the lame from the surrounding communities and put them in the streets so that peter's shadow can fall on them and some of them are being healed they never imagined they were leaving town they thought the acknowledgement of jesus in jerusalem was just beginning they get driven out of town they go to samaria an outlying city in a neighboring region so the church breaks beyond jerusalem and then gentiles are welcome and that's a big drama it takes two chapters in the book of acts for them to get their head around the fact that non-jews are going to be a part of this story we've been god's chosen people for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years what do you mean those filthy people are coming in on this initiative with us it took all kinds of supernatural things for that to happen then saul is recruited by jesus and the apostle said no he's not sitting with us we don't trust him he's been killing us this constant churn of of realignment and rethinking and and taking what worked yesterday and going wow that's not going to work today we need a new paradigm that it shifted again there's a new group in or there's there's a new voice in we haven't been open to that kind of growth and change oh we're learning just a little bit just a little bit then the jesus story goes global they never saw that coming i mean jesus told them you'll be witnesses for me in jerusalem and judea and samaria and to the other most parts of the earth but but they didn't imagine what that meant my brother and i studied at hebrew university one of the classes we had in at the university there in jerusalem was the jewish background of christianity the professor was brilliant we had to write some papers for class he said we could turn them in any one of six languages i chose southern i mean he was brilliant and he was just as quick-witted and i remember the day he did two lectures on jesus and one of the verses he read was that commissioning verse in acts that you'll be witnesses for me in jerusalem and judea and samaria and he looked at the class and he said i promise you that his audience thought that the boundaries of israel were the uttermost parts of the earth two thousand years later he was an orthodox man his hands were chapped because he washed them so consistently his the the tassels from his prayer shawl would hang out from under his sport coat when he taught classes he's an orthodox jewish man and two thousand years later he still didn't have an imagination that the jesus story would break beyond the jewish people [Music] continual realignment then there's friction between the jews and the non-jews by the time you get to the book of romans there's a fight in the church in rome the non-jews have gained a little power they don't want to give the jews a place at the table again what you see is this continual churn a lot like what we haven't has anybody built a plan in the last year that's lasted more than two weeks you can't even plan where you're going for dinner and it'll last for but i think we have to say number 11. it's an amazing journey there on they see the dead rays the purposes of god breaking forth the supernatural presence of god accompanying them on a daily basis and perhaps as poignant as anything in the list they've got no regrets to express we've got some samples of their into the life perspectives and they have no regrets to express john is imprisoned on an island jesus closest friend his peer group has been executed they've all been martyred and john's left alone and in revelation 1 17 he said when i saw him i fell at his feet as though dead and he placed his right hand on me and said don't be afraid are you kidding he's an old man he's made the run with you [Music] and his relationship with the lord still brings him to places where his adrenaline just goes nuts and jesus said you don't have to be afraid i'm the first and the last i'm the living one i was alive and i was dead and now i'm alive forever and i have the keys of death in hell you don't hear john saying get away from this kook you don't hear him saying saying sell your stock in the church peter the fisherman that jesus recruited we have two letters one he writes very near the end of his life he said i think it's right to refresh your memory as long as i live in the tent of this body because i know that i'll soon put it aside he said i know i'm about finished i'll put it aside as our lord jesus christ has made clear to me i'll make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things he said i'm leaving i'm about done but i'm going to make every effort i can make so that you don't forget anything i've shared with you what's absent there is regret you don't hear him saying ah if i just kept that fishing business do you want to you know i own two acres of prime real estate on that lake you don't hear that or paul i mean he is riding the fast track to the top of rabbinic judaism best teachers best sponsors he's got permission across to all of the middle east i mean he is headed towards a power position and he meets jesus and in second timothy paul is in a roman prison and now his life is spent his hair is gray he bears in his body he's been beaten he's taken 39 lashes 40 lashes would kill a man he's taken 39 multiple times his back is so riddled with scar tissue i promise you he couldn't stand straight the first time you're beaten like that you might heal reasonably well but you tear that scar tissue apart time after time after time and he's disfigured by it so we got a little message from him at the end of his life and you'd expect him to say timothy get out while you can ii timothy 4 9. do your best to come to me quickly demas he loved the world he's deserted me crescens is not here and titus is not here luke is with me luke's the physician get mark and bring him with you he's helpful to me in my ministry when you come bring the cloak the coat i left at carpus my scrolls especially the parchments alexander he did me a lot of harm the lord will repay him for what he's done you too should be in your guard against him because he strongly opposed our message there's no boisterousness there at my first defense no one came to my support but everyone deserted me may not be held against them the lord stood at my side and he gave me strength so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed i was delivered from the lion's mouth and the lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom to him be glory forever and ever amen again no regret no remorse no warnings to this young man greet priscilla and aquila listen to the names in this this is the fun part to me greet priscilla nikila the household of vanessa forest erastus he's in corinth i left trotham is sick he's in melitus he keeps working through helpers do your best to get here before winter ubulus greets you and so do putins and linus and cloudy and all the others the lord be with your spirits grace be with you hurry timothy i need your help we got work to do no regret folks i don't believe you will ever regret what you invest in serving the lord you would be you should be comforted right now that you don't have my notes you'd be anxious i'd like to take seven or eight minutes and wrap this up can we do that can you stand it like you can say no right i know don't play it's okay it's not fair but i i think there's there's a piece that i want to give you alongside of that because we have misunderstood our faith but in second timothy paul gives to timothy his instructions i read you just a little portion of it but it's really what paul is doing is training a new generation of leaders he's first generation he didn't walk with jesus over the hills of galilee but but jesus himself recruited him and paul knew firsthand peter and john and and the crew and they knew him not always pleasantly but they knew him but now he's at the end of his life and he knows it and he's training the next generation of people you know i think it's worthwhile for you and for me to listen to what he's saying because we're one of those generations that are being trained up and i i've been a part of the church my whole life so i'm not throwing stones at anyone i've been a part of this journey but our training hasn't been sufficient we've tried to figure out how we could get enough god business done so we didn't have to do any more god business and that's not the assignment so i'm going to start this i'll stop in a just a bit what time's lunch i've got a friend he brought his mother to an easter service one year we were still doing easter at murphy center she's gone to heaven but he brought his mother up and introduced her and i tell he was a little anxious and she looked at me she said preacher i got a ham in the oven you better not burn it i didn't but in second timothy chapter three i really want to look at the whole chapter i'll just take a couple of highlights this is what paul is saying to this young man now that he's mentoring a next generation of leadership he said mark this there'll be terrible times in the last days and that word terrible you could translate just as easily fierce or perilous it's going to be difficult he said people will be lovers of themselves he's going to list 18 character aspects of the human character people be lovers of themselves lovers of money boastful proud abusive disobedient to their parents ungrateful unholy without love unforgiving slanderous without self-control brutal not lovers of the good treacherous rash conceited lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of god they're going to have a form of godliness have nothing to do with them well the root problem that he's describing is the deterioration of human character he said it's going to get fierce and at the root of it human character is going to deteriorate you're not imagining that you are watching and seeing and hearing things done without shame or embarrassment that a few decades ago would not have been tolerated in the public square and there's a whole host of people with lots of names at the end of their lots of letters at the ends of their names and some of them with great power and great influence that are trying to say to you oh that should be accepted as normal don't lose your balance human character is deteriorating and once that begins there's a couple of things you should know it's progressive it will continue and it's irreversible don't walk it back you can slow it down but you can't reverse it that's the whole notion of refrigeration your refrigerator at home doesn't stop food from spoiling it just slows the process down and if something's really spoiled you can't stick it in the refrigerator to rehab it we understand that well i may i may i submit to it again i've been a part of it for too long church has been like a refrigerator the biblical solution is a new birth a total new creation a lot of hiding of the problem or denying the problem or finding a phd that embraces your problem it's coming to god in humility and repentance and becoming a new creature that's the message we have for the world and it transcends politics and politicians it transcends nations it transcends borders again we've been embarrassed we've allowed the pressure to tell us we shouldn't be mission minded every culture should be celebrated i'm not denigrating cultures but there is one god and we want everybody to know him now these 18 characteristics are identified i think if there's two groups of three that really give us the root contrast in this passage it says people will be without love without self-control and not lovers of the good sound right and then it says against that they'll be lovers of themselves lovers of money and lovers of pleasure sound right we're watching it in unprecedented ways and one of the things that is is making it all possible is money the love of money is the momentum behind this whole thing around globalization everything has to be set aside so we can get to a global market nationalism our history as a people our faith our values our founding documents all of those things they need to be set aside we don't want to be encumbered with the uniqueness of jesus we want a bigger market how we live we even call pornography these days a billion dollar industry excuse me i heard an elected official recently in a plea to legalize prostitution they said well prostitution's just sex work a form of godliness but denying its power we have a new set of religious terms we worship them with the same solemnity and the same sense of self-righteousness that we used to attribute to the christian faith things like inclusiveness or we'll bow our need of that we turn off our brains social justice environmental justice forms of godliness without god's power they're false gods now we have an assignment to care for the environment god gave us that all people need to be treated equitably i'm not arguing that but we've elevated these things to a place of worship we see some of our most celebrated athletes i saw a shot of the nba athletes kneeling at midcourt recently in the last few days as a sign of a protest against our nation in social injustice their lives are fueled by a billion dollar industry built on the back of much of what happens in china nations where social justice isn't even imagined amen well they're not awake enough to protest that paul's training timothy what's the nature of our opposition in verse 8 to that same chapter he says just as janus and jamboree's opposed moses so also these men oppose the truth same passage now men of depraved minds who as far as the faith is concerned are rejected janus and jambrace were the magicians of egypt remember god when he recruited moses burning bush remember the story moses was a little reluctant he said look i got a good thing going sheep goats wives kids i tried egypt it didn't fit very well i'm good i like mutton just leave me here until god said no and he said well if i go back i don't you know who am i going to say sent me they weren't at the bush and my video player is not working my phone's not charged and god said what's in your hand a staff and he throws it out and becomes a snake moses is smart he runs away and god says go pick it up he's faithful he goes back and picks it up and it becomes a staff again nice trick but still i like my job my life's good i got a plan put your hand in your coat moses and it becomes leprous and put it back and it gets healed so it goes so moses accepts the assignment imagine his surprise when he walks into pharaoh's chamber and says you need to let these people go god sent me and he throws his staff down it becomes a snake don't you know he's standing there going [Music] i've already bought tickets for the whole crew and pharaoh says come here and janice and jambres walk over and they throw down their staffs and they become snakes too that was not in the recruitment video now moses snake swallows theirs i have to smile he walks out of that chamber that day and his staff is thicker but the but the first plagues that he demonstrates to pharaoh the magician's copy now there's a point to this we can laugh a bit but the opposition to moses and those people leaving was fundamentally spiritual the magicians the sorcerers the occult it was expressed in a political venue before pharaoh and with a scruffy shepherd from the desert but the real battle the real conflict was spiritual so paul is bringing timothy back to that he said just as janice and jambrace opposed moses so this character the deterioration of human character that you will see it has behind it a spiritual motivation folks what we are i've been saying it to you and with you for weeks and months now we're in a battle but it isn't political it's not about political parties or supreme courts or elections it's a spiritual battle it's what makes the church so important it's why prayers matter it's why the fact that we've been asleep is so devastating we haven't learned to pray we haven't valued prayer and paul is bringing timothy right along moses victory was gained by spiritual power is that true can we agree the victory of delivering the hebrew slaves was orchestrated by spiritual power god did things moses couldn't do the hebrew slaves better organized couldn't do better schools wouldn't have enabled them to do that it was a demonstration of the power of god now it was expressed in a political venue in a political system there was a political change that came about as a result of a demonstration of spiritual power but we need the church to be the church not more political and then in verse 12 he said paul says to timothy in fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in christ jesus will be persecuted oh i just thought maybe that was in the book of acts this is paul remember he's training next generation he said everyone who wants to live a godly life in christ jesus will be persecuted while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived deception's not a new thing and then he gives him a personal reminder and i'm done he said as for you remember he's writing this from a prison and he says timothy you better hurry they want to kill me and i'm cold timothy can you bring me a coat i'll tell you it's heart-wrenching to me i've been in rome when i looked in the prison where they they think they held paul and it was not a pleasant place they didn't have wifi and when i read ii timothy it's emotional to me continue in what you've learned and what you've become convinced of because you know those from whom you've learned it and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in christ jesus now listen to what he says all scripture is god-breathed and useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training in righteousness so that the man of god may be thoroughly equipped for every good work what's our best defense against deception hearing and doing the word of god knowing facts is not sufficient all scripture is useful even the prophets even leviticus for teaching and for training and rebuking and correcting are you willing to let the word of god rebuke you we cannot be thoroughly equipped for every good work unless we know scripture the god willing and he gives us the opportunity this next week i'm going to share some tools with you on how you can be better grounded in the bible some things you can do to take the mystery out of it god didn't give you an unknowable book and then tell you to know it if he's told us to know it he'll help us do that folks we're living in an exciting season i know there's a lot of confusion i know there's a lot of voices i know there's a lot of stuff jesus is lord and he's coming back for his church and what whatever is between here and there he will walk with us just like he walked with his people through the book of acts and through the pages of your new testament his spirit is within you now it's true we've been asleep we'll continue to repent for that we forfeited too much while that was happening we were attending ball games and doing stuff we wanted to do they weren't paying any attention and i'm not opposed to a ball game but we're in a new season and the lord will help us don't be frightened be excited the king is coming now i brought you a prayer once you stand with me we'll read it together [Music] there we go can we pray this together whichever sanctuary you're in if you're outside i'm done you can go warm up real quick i promise heavenly father in your great mercy and wisdom you have called us out of darkness and welcomed us into the kingdom of your son now see the threats which surround us and grant us the boldness to complete our assignment give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation that we may know you better open our hearts to receive all that you have for us lead us away from temptation and deliver us from evil let jesus name be lifted high and his glory fill the earth amen hallelujah god bless you hey this is pastor allen thank you for watching this video if you enjoyed it like it and most importantly share it with your friends if you want to be notified when there's new content we post new material if you'll just subscribe to my channel and hit the bell you'll get the notification most of all i pray god blesses you as you continue on your spiritual journey and open your heart to the lord god bless you

Channel: Allen Jackson Ministries

Views: 29,699

Rating: 4.9099998 out of 5

Keywords: Pastor Allen Jackson, allen jackson ministries, world outreach church, alan jackson, sermons, preachers, how to be saved, Finding Jesus, pastor allen jackson sermons, Understanding Our Present Time, THis Day in Age, Things are changing, what are christians supposed to do, Christian Worldview, Christian Values, Scripture

Id: r969W9pkJM0

Length: 56min 29sec (3389 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 03 2021