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They beheaded John the Baptist. They crucified Jesus. That's worse than being suspended from YouTube. Cancel cultures not new. The courage to identify as a follower of Jesus is demanded in every generation. Now, there's something liberating in that for me. Because when we see the contemporary challenges and the present day threats, you're tempted to think, oh, it's the end of the age. It's going to be horrible. I need a cave.
But just a little bit of awareness of history and the generations who preceded us, I'm going, ah, they've been using that tactic for a long time, bother. It'll be okay.
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Taking time to notice the good things and giving thanks for them is a consistent way to find hope and peace. That's why Pastor Allen recommends keeping a good news list, taking the time to write down the good things happening in the world and your life. Our new 52-week Good News notebook gives you a place to record your good news, prayers you saw God answer, and your current prayer requests. This simple practice will help you see how God is constantly at work all around you.
Request your good news notebook when you donate $20 or more today at allenjaxson.com or by calling 855-5772255. That's 855-572255. We're so glad you're here to listen. Today's program is part one of Pastor Allen's message called, Stormproof Foundations, Lessons from Matthew. Tune in tomorrow to Hear Part Two.
I started a new study in our previous session. I want to continue. I don't know how many we will link together. You should have received an outline when you came in. If you didn't, maybe somebody will let you look on. You'll need that. We're going to look at quite a bit of scripture today. If you're joining us digitally, you can download those same outlines from your apps or your website, web pages. The title of the study is Stormproof Foundations.
Jesus told us that storms would come to our lives. You really didn't really need Jesus to know that. But if he hadn't told you that, you'd be easy prey for some of those people that say, if you love the Lord right and your faith is big enough, you'd be storm free. It's a lie. It's a false gospel. It's not supported by Scripture. In fact, Jesus told us very clearly that the storms come to all of us. The differentiating factor is what our lives are founded upon.
He said, if our foundation is in place that when the storm comes, we will stand. If our foundations are inadequate or suspect that when the storms come, our lives and all about them will collapse. Now he has my attention with that. And so we're going to spend a few sessions looking at some things that will help the stormproof our lives. Then I'm gonna continue that in this session. We're gonna do some lessons from Matthew. We're reading through Matthew right now, wherever you are in the reading plan with us.
If you're on kind of the traditional venue, we're on Matthew chapter 10, and that's what I want to look at with you. I woke up New Year's morning. I love the beginning of the year. It's like the beginning of a semester. You know that first day of a new semester, I wasn't behind. Nobody was ahead of me. I didn't need the teacher to grade on a curve. Life was good. I mean, I was completely up to speed, and it would usually last until about noon.
Well, I've always enjoyed the beginning of the year and the fresh set of opportunities and the strength to meet a new year, and I woke up New Year's Day with the reports of a terror attack in New Orleans. And Kathnot turned on the television, and the first thing I heard was an FBI agent saying, this is not a terrorist attack. Not admittedly, I grew up in a barn in Tennessee.
But if someone drives a truck at high speed into a street crowded with people, then gets out of the truck and opens fire on police officers. And attached to the truck is an ISIS flag. You don't have to be deputy dog to understand that's a terrorist attack.
And I've been encouraging you for quite a season now to watch and listen and think and be prepared to act. Not in anger, belligerence, or violence, but we have to pay attention in a way we didn't in the past because clearly some of the people controlling the messaging just think you're stupid. It's offensive to me.
I mean, imagine that in any number of other contexts. It would be laughable if someone wearing a white hood with KKK painted on the back of it drove into a group of minority people. The first thing that people observing would say it would not be, this is not a racist event. Of course it is. Now, the motivations around all of that can be discussed and understood and
But I think what we have to acknowledge is because of choices, because of manipulation, because of a diminishment of free speech, because of a burying of so much truth, there is a tremendous deterioration of trust amongst institutions and offices which it is very, very important that we have trust in.
which means that we're at a very critical juncture. The reason it's a part of the community of faith is we're the conscience of a culture and we have to engage with what's happening in the culture or the deterioration will continue. It's like imagining there's no connection between your diet and your physical health. You can say, well, I'm a spiritual person, so it doesn't matter what I eat. I'll be healthy. You're confused.
In the same way, a church that's weak and anemic and not engaged and not watching and listening and thinking, not standing our posts, not being light and salt, we diminish a culture to deterioration and ultimately collapse. There's a tremendous deterioration of trust in the FBI. I don't doubt there's good people there. I'm waiting to see them find their voices and be given opportunities because for a good while they have not been leading.
The Justice Department, the Center for Disease Control, churches, churches are as guilty on this front as any of those organizations that begin with letters. Big tech, social media. I know they entertain us and we spend way too much time on those platforms, but they are filled, not only with ungodly things and cooperating with ungodly things, but they practice censorship of the values that we hold as a part of our Judeo-Christian worldview.
Thank you for listening to Alan Jackson Ministries. We'll be back to the message in just a moment. But first, Pastor Alan wants to tell you about a new resource from the ministry.
You know, the two most critical junctures of any enterprise are how we begin and how we conclude. So the beginning of a new year is a tremendous opportunity. We've prepared a tool we want to share with you. It's a good news journal. We want to help you set a habit this year to do something with a bit more intention than perhaps has been our pattern in the past.
We want to start our year with an attitude of appreciation and gratitude for the blessings of God in our lives. So we've designed this journal so that you can use it as a part of your devotional. It's something you could include the children, the grandchildren. You can take it to work and create a good news journal for the people you work with.
Wherever that may be, let's start our year out purposefully, intentionally, saying thank you to the Lord for His goodness to us. I know there's challenges and we have places where we need God's help, but we're gonna begin with gratitude and walk into the blessings of God in this year. I think you'll enjoy the journal. God bless.
a warm home when it's cold outside, a surgeon who knows how to fix what's wrong, a stranger who stops to help. We have so much to be thankful for. When we turn our focus away from what's wrong with the world, and instead give attention to what's good, we find a path towards hope and peace.
That's why we created our 52-week Good News notebook. It gives you a place to record good news in your life and the world around you. You can also write down prayers God answered and your current prayer requests. Over time, your Good News notebook will become a personal record of God's faithfulness to you.
Request yours when you donate $20 or more today at EllenJackson.com or by calling 855-5772255. That's 855-5772255. Now, let's get back to Pastor Allen as he reps up part one of his message called Stormproof Foundations, Lessons from Matthew. Tune in tomorrow to Hear Part 2.
And I thought maybe just to add a bit of momentum with that, I would take a chapter from Matthew. It's part of our reading for this day if you started the year with us. If you haven't, you can listen to the lesson when you get to Matthew chapter 10. Now I know we all read the Bible differently. I don't really read my Bible in that daily plan, imagining that I'm gonna get divine direction every day. Those people make me anxious. Do you have one of those friends?
Every time I see them, you know, the Lord has spoken to them again. I mean, we read the same passage and they heard angels singing and they found things in the original language. I'm like, I just read Matthew 10. And then they make me a bit worried, but there are times when I'll pick it up and it feels far more personal. So I don't want to put on you the burden of reading it the way I'm going to read it to you today. I don't think that's appropriate.
I have a bit of an advantage. For on most of you, I have a few years head start. I had some technical training. I don't know how helpful it is, but I had some. I have the same kind of opportunity that the color commentators on a ballgame have. They've been engaged perhaps more frequently than those of us who are just casual observers, and they give us the benefit of that. I believe that's what I can add, but my opinion didn't come down from the mountain carved in stone.
When you read your Bible, it's not always about having the definitive explanation. It's about presenting yourself to the Lord and say, I would like to know you better. But with that, let's step into Matthew 10. It's an amazing chapter to me. But most of the chapters you would hand me, I would tell you were amazing. Some of them are a little less dynamic when you get to Leviticus. But we'll work on that when we get there, I'll help. Matthew 10, he, Jesus, called his 12 disciples to him and he gave them authority.
to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. And these are the names of the 12 apostles. And then they're listed, Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Thomas, and Matthew, and James, and Thaddeus, and Simon, and Zella, and Judas, who betrayed him. I think the punchline in there is that introductory line. It's the thesis statement for this opening paragraph. Excuse me, Jesus called his 12 disciples to him.
And he gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. Now, when I read that, I recognize there's a decision that has been pushed at me. And I believe it's very intentional on both Matthew and the Holy Spirit's part. I have to decide what I believe about that assertion. Was that something Jesus did in the first century? Or is that something Jesus is still doing in the 21st century? Because that's gonna change everything.
If you believe the Bible is a collection of tales and ideas of things that may or may not have happened in antiquity, but they have very little relevance for you today, it presents one set of things to you. If you imagine it's addressive literature and everything in it is becomes a manual for our engagement with life today in the midst of the world we're facing, it becomes a very different thing for you. I'm of the opinion that what Jesus did for those 12 disciples, he's still doing in the world.
Now for full disclosure, there are schools of theology that disagree with me. They have a fancy label for that. It's called cessationism from the word cease, meaning to stop. So there are people who have given their entire lives to studying the Bible that said that the supernatural, miraculous activity of God stopped with the apostolic age when the apostles died.
Now personally, I wouldn't give my life to studying a book that didn't have the dynamic relevance that it once did. So you understand, you have a choice to make. Will you believe that God still does miracles? This gets really personal very quickly. That's why we read our Bible. And the point, maybe the first day you pick it up, you say, I'm not sure I believe that. I'm good with that. Keep reading. Keep reading.
See, I would suggest to you that conversion, new birth, that entry into the kingdom of God is such a remarkable supernatural event that nothing more dramatic than that will ever happen to you. Not the rapture, not the resurrection from the dead. They pale in significance to the magnitude and the scope of the new birth. So it feels bizarre to me to see people that believe in conversion, salvation, the new birth, and then they say God doesn't do miracles.
Well, he doesn't do him in the way I want. He certainly doesn't follow my timeline. But the fact that I can't control God doesn't make him less God. In fact, it's an argument to the opposite. If I could control him, he wouldn't be God. I'll give you one verse.
to kind of support my perspective and I typically don't argue scripture. So I would invite you not to do that either. I don't think it's, you can prove anything you want with a handful of verses. I'll give you an example. I read a story from man that was looking for guidance. So he opened his Bible and he put his finger down. He said, God, I really need to know what to do today. And he looked and it said, Judas wouldn't hang himself. Not funny.
And he said, well, that couldn't be God. So he closed his Bible, he opened it back up, and he put his finger down, and he said, go thou and do likewise. If you let me pull three verses from the Bible, I can prove anything I want to. Context makes a difference. That's why reading your Bible is so impactful, so important. But in Acts chapter 10,
Peter threw a series of supernatural events, dreams, visions, angelic visits. I mean, there's a whole collection of things that caused Peter to arrive in a place Peter would have never have gone. A Gentile town dominated by Romans into the home of a Roman centurion. I mean, everything about it goes against the grain.
And when Peter arrives in that place, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the Gentiles, the Romans, Centurion, and his household in an identical fashion to what happened in Acts chapter two on the day at Pentecost.
And Peter gives us his deduction from that, his conclusion from watching all of these supernatural things. And then he recognizes that God is doing something far beyond what he can do. And this is what he said, it's in your notes, it's Acts 10. Peter began to speak and he said, I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism. But he accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right.
The older, some of the older translations, it says, God is no respecter of persons. Well, I would submit to you that what God would do in the first century, God will do in the 21st century. And that's a very important component as you're building your foundation. God still hears the prayers of his people. God is still engaged in some very dramatic ways in the midst of the people of faith. We depend upon that.
I'm very grateful for the medical community. I'm very grateful for science. I don't want to diminish them. I depend upon them. But I don't want to trade the power of God for a scientific formula because God knows things that the scientists haven't figured out yet. I want to come back. That passage really leads us into a discussion about the Jewish people and anti-Semitism. When Peter says God doesn't show favoritism,
But I don't wanna take my time. Next session, God willing, I wanna unpack that whole idea in some detail because one of the greatest proponents, some of the greatest fuel for the hatred of the Jewish people has come from people standing under the umbrella of Christianity. And you need to understand why, if we're gonna deconstruct it. And I believe we need to, we need to understand why. But not today, next session, God willing. Verse five, these 12.
who Matthew just introduced you to, Jesus sent out with the following instructions. Don't go among the Gentiles, fancy word for people who aren't Jewish. Or enter any town of the Samaritans, go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message. The kingdom of heaven is near, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons, freely you've received, freely give. Jesus is very clearly sitting them out with an assignment that looks a lot like the ministry. They've been watching him do.
Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it. If it's not, let your peace return to you. If anyone won't welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet. When you leave that home or town, I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
I think one of the challenges we face is we understand intuitively, not everybody's going to be receptive to the message about Jesus. Not everybody's going to want to read the gospels with us. Not everybody's going to be happy that we read our Bible or we want to be identified with God. And because of that, we think, well, maybe I should be quiet, maybe I should be respectful. We think it's something that's just emerged.
And the clear presentation from scripture is what we face is not new. It's not unique to the 21st century. Cancel culture is not new. They beheaded John the Baptist. They crucified Jesus. That's worse than being suspended from YouTube. Cancel culture is not new. The courage to identify as a follower of Jesus is demanded in every generation.
Now, there's something liberating in that for me. Because when we see the contemporary challenges and the present day threats, you're attempting to think, oh, it's the end of the age, it's gonna be horrible, I need a cave. But just a little bit of awareness of history and the generations who preceded us, I'm going, ah, they've been using that tactic for a long time, bother. It'll be okay. The Matthew pushes on, in fact, on that topic.
In verse 16, Jesus said, I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves. Excuse me? Excuse me. Jesus said that. He said, I'm sending you like sheep amongst wolves. That's a fancy way if you're lunch meat. You got no hope. Sheep have no protection against the wolf. It's why you need a shepherd.
They can't outrun them, they can't outthink them. They don't have any defensive weapons that will protect them. They are absolutely vulnerable if there's not an intervention. And Jesus said to his friends, his friends, I'm sending you out like sheep amongst the wolves. Some of you say, you know, I work in a place where it's difficult to be a Christian.
Or I live in this neighborhood and it's filled with godless people. Or my kids go to a school and it's not, yeah. I'm sending you out like sheep amongst wolves, therefore. So now he's gonna give us a response. Be a shrewd as snakes in as innocent as doves. Be shrewd and innocent. That will take the leading of the Holy Spirit. Because I typically think I can even be shrewd or innocent, but it's hard to bundle that.
be shrewd and innocent," he said. Verse 17, be on your guard. Be watchful. Listen. Think. It's like biblical. Be on your guard against men. They will hand you over to the local councils and they'll flag you in their synagogues. On my account, you'll be brought before governors and kings.
as witnesses to them into Gentiles. We know from the larger story of Scripture, that's true, but they're typically brought in chains. It's not a speaking to her, they're not collecting a fee, but when they arrest you, don't worry about what to say, or how to say it. At that time, you'll be given what to say.
for it won't be you speaking but the spirit of your father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death and to father his child and children rebel against their parents and have them put to death. This is Jesus speaking. I've never met anybody that said Jesus was all about love. This message was happy.
Well, much of it was, and Jesus did come to show us the love of God. But he did it with such integrity that he also talked about the difficulty of the journey and the reality of the world in which we live. He does more than give away participation trophies. He said, there'll be betrayal within families. Children will rebel against their parents. Gee, it's hard to imagine that.
Have them put to death. All men, verse 22, all men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I don't like that sentence. See, if I were writing it, I'm not saying it's inspired, I'm just saying if my old carnal mean Allen self wrote it, I'd say when you're persecuted in one place, hit him in the mouth. And God will break their neck.
And all of your enemies will see it, and they'll be sorry, and they'll have a parade, and they'll give you cake." That's Allen's translation. It's not inspired by the Holy Spirit. So I would point you back to what Jesus said. He said, when you're persecuted in one place, flee to another.
I tell you the truth, you'll not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. The student is not above his teacher nor a servant above his master. It's enough for the student to be like his teacher and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Elzebub, it's a title for the devil. If the head of the house has been called the devil, how much more are the members of the household?
That's a pretty sober little paragraph. Jesus said, I'm sending you out. But I'm telling you, I'm sending you out in a pretty vulnerable way. You're going into a highly contested arena and you need to be shrewd and innocent and you need to be on your guard.
Our new 52-week Good News notebook gives you a place to record the good things God is doing in your life and the world around you. Write down prayers you saw God answer in your current prayer requests. When you keep these lists consistently, you'll create a personal record of God's faithfulness.
Request your good news notebook when you donate $20 or more today at alanjaxon.com or by calling 855-5772255. That's 855-5772255. That's all for today on Alan Jackson Ministries. Thanks for listening. Tune in next time for another encouraging message. This program is sponsored by Alan Jackson Ministries.
