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Be Concerned, But Don’t Worry

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One of the greatest challenges of our faith is the balancing act between faith and fear. In the simplest sense, one is an act of our human nature, while the other is a spiritual response.

Sometimes we’ve been a little too assumptive in our assessments of those that claim Christianity. We’ve assumed that they really understand what it means to live a life of faith, so when trouble comes along, we tell them to call on something that they don’t understand.

With what we’re seeing from this current administration in the White House, the entirety of what they’re doing is based on fear. They want everyone running around with their hair on fire while they go about their true agenda. So, when the president and the media seem determined to stoke the fears of the people for their own purposes, how are people of faith going to respond? We know that our faith calls for us to trust God and not fear, but that’s a spiritual response. What do I do with that part of me that’s genuinely afraid?

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Recently on the prayer line at For The Kingdom Christian Church where I pastor, I brought Psalms 33 to the attention of our people. Not only did I want to reassure them considering what’s going on in the world and what’s no doubt being pushed through their phones and their televisions that was designed to make them worry, but I also wanted them to see what Scripture once again tells us about our God. I didn’t want to just tell them “don’t worry” because I didn’t want it to seem like another empty encouragement with no substantive reason why they shouldn’t worry. I wanted to challenge their faith by showing them what was written in the Bible that they say they hold dear.

Again, it’s human nature to be concerned, but it’s spiritual nature to not be worried. The only way that we can lean in to not being worried as Christians is to lean into our history with God, and lean on the Word of God. And if you look into your Bible, you will see both God’s history and His Word.

Psalms 33 opens with a call for us to praise the Lord, but pay attention to verses 4 and 5. In the NLT version of Scripture, it says:

“For the word of the Lord holds true, and we can trust everything He does. He loves whatever is just and good; the unfailing love of the Lord fills the earth.”

These verses remind us that God can be trusted and His love is found in the earth, even if it isn’t found in the hearts of every man. It’s there and it’s available for those who seek to find it and for those that wish to express it. These verses also tell us that God loves what is just, which lets us know that He isn’t co-signing anything that isn’t. I don’t know about you, but I find it reassuring that God is still against evil. But Psalms 33 isn’t done yet. Here’s what it says in verses 6 through 9:

“The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born. He assigned the sea its boundaries and locked the oceans in vast reservoirs. Let the whole world fear the Lord, and let everyone stand in awe of Him. For when He spoke, the world began! It appeared at His command.”

Scripture is reminding us that only one Being has ever simply spoke and the universe that He created had to obey. What God does doesn’t require an act of congress or a court order. He simply speaks and the world must obey. Even as the text speaks of fearing Him, it isn’t speaking in the natural. It’s speaking of a spiritual reverence for His awesome power.

As if what we’ve already seen isn’t enough to inspire confidence in God in the face of the evil that we see attacking this nation in the name of someone that wishes to be king, look at verses 10 and 11:

“The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations and thwarts all their schemes. But the Lord’s plans stand firm forever; His intentions can never be shaken.”

God has a way of confusing the plans of the wicked. Nonbelievers may tell you that it’s foolish to believe in God, but history and His story tells us different. How many times have evil regimes risen, only to end up in ruins? How many times has it seemed as if evil has perfected its formula, only to be brought down in the end, and often from the inside?

This is not written to be dismissive of our human concerns. This is being written to encourage those in the faith to remember who our God is. Every time evil makes a move, God ultimately brings evil to a halt. I know it seems as if this new version of evil is better prepared than those before it, but I also know that man once believed that not even God could sink the Titanic. We’ve always had an inflated opinion of what our hands do and not enough reverence for what God’s hands have done over and over again.

Consider verses 16 and 17:

“The best-equipped army cannot save a king, nor is great strength enough to save a warrior. Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory— for all its strength, it cannot save you.”

In the end, whether we’re facing evil in our government, our lives, or even in our churches, we in the faith must remember where we are to place our hope. The enemy always gets out of the gate fast, but we must remember that everyone that’s in front of us isn’t necessarily ahead of us. Things are being signed daily in our government and reported on just as often. If we insist on only believing what we see, then hopelessness makes sense. But people of faith aren’t called to just what our eyes see. This hope that we have was never physical. It was always spiritual.

I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about Christianity, however. It is our responsibility to call out what’s wrong and fight against evil oppressors when they come. Being faithful doesn’t mean being idle or passive. Being faithful means being actively engaged in the fight against evil, but even as we fight, we trust God with the outcome.

Be concerned because God never told us to ignore the things of this physical life. He encouraged us not to worry about them (Matthew 6:27-34). The enemy ultimately wants your life, but for right now, he’ll settle for your attention on things that he ultimately has no power over. Be vigilant, but be encouraged. Consider how Psalms 33 closes in verses 18-22:

“But the Lord watches over those who fear Him, those who rely on His unfailing love. He rescues them from death and keeps them alive in times of famine. We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for our hope is in You alone.”

The enemy is strategic, but he’s not invincible, and neither are his minions. Even when calamity is all around us, God has a way of protecting us. The text tells us that He is our hope and our shield. Even in this current season, with God’s covering, things might happen around us, but those things won’t happen to us. We must endure and we must persevere. Concern is human. Let’s lean into the spiritual.

To order Pastor Jackson’s latest work Follow Me: Bringing the Person and Teachings of Jesus Back to The Forefront of Christianity, visit www.krjpublishing.com/bookstore

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Read An Excerpt from “Follow Me: Bringing the Person and Teachings of Jesus Back to the Forefront of Christianity”

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Check out this excerpt from Pastor Kelly R. Jackson’s upcoming book. Official release date is Friday January 24, 2025. To preorder a copy, visit http://www.krjpublishing.com/follow

Keep Building On Christ

One of the things that I’ll often hear from the church is our lamenting about how strong the church used to be and how people aren’t as committed as they used to be anymore. However, when I hear people say those things, I always hear them talking about how we can move forward by making even more changes, but I rarely hear people talking about studying our past successes.

Something that I think that our young people struggle with most these days, especially in the Black community, is knowledge of history and historical figures. We’ve convinced them that nothing can be gained from the past because we now have all of these new tools and gadgets, and we have access to much more information than those before us.

We’ve failed to help them to understand that because they have these tools to access information, they can actually access more information about what happened before them and learn from the past. They can learn what worked and what didn’t work. But most importantly, they can learn to tweak as opposed to seeking to destroy everything that they deem outdated. Some things you need to make wholesale changes to, but some things just need an upgrade.

If we go back into the history of our churches and see them full, vibrant, and strong, why wouldn’t we study why that was? We’ve implemented so many new things, and yet, there still seems to be a great falling away, as the Bible said there would be. If we’re so much better than our predecessors, why were they so much more committed than we appear to be? If our ideas are so much better now, why are we struggling to stay connected to the truth of what Christ called for? If we’re so much more educated about Scripture now, why are we failing to stay connected to Scripture in our approaches in the church?

I’m just convinced that God didn’t make better ways for us to be educated in the church just so that we could flex our muscles every week by showing how smart we are. I’m of the belief that God gave us new avenues for learning of Him so that we can make the church stronger, not rip out its foundations. One of the struggles between Peter and Paul in Scripture was in their coming to the understanding that God was using both of them in different ways to speak to different groups of people, but all for one common purpose.

I feel as though at times, some have decided that all that we’ve introduce in the church that’s new in the ways of preaching and teaching must be used to eliminate what’s already there, but I don’t believe that’s what God intended. It’s my belief that God may have called for a new delivery, a new way of educating, a new way implementing, and even new voices, but I don’t believe He ever wanted us to abandon the basics. No matter how we may evolve or grow, there are some things that we can never go away from if we intend for our churches to stay strong.

Consider the narrative of Paul and Apollos. We see Apollos in Acts 18:24-28 and the Bible says that he was eloquent in his speaking, and he knew the Scriptures well. He preached with enthusiasm, spirit, and accuracy, but his accuracy was based only on what he knew to that point. He still didn’t have the full picture concerning Jesus. The Bible says he only knew of the “baptism of John” which spoke of the coming Messiah, and while Apollos believed that Jesus was the Messiah, his preaching hadn’t fully changed to reflect the fullness of what that meant until Paul’s co-laborers, Aquila and Priscilla, explained the way of God to him more accurately.

By the time we get to 1 Corinthians Chapters 3 and 4, Paul has to address Apollos’ rising popularity in the church because the people had begun to “choose” Apollos over Paul, or Paul over Apollos. Paul doesn’t have to address Apollos because this appears to be the nature of the people, not the nature of the preacher. According to Scripture, Apollos is just preaching the Gospel, but as it is in human nature, people have their preferences and will often choose presentation over principles.

In this discourse, Paul makes two points that should stay with the church until the Lord returns. The first being that the ONLY foundation that matters is Christ, and building on anything else won’t last. The second being that the builder doesn’t matter because ONLY God will give the increase. No matter what our hands do, no matter how eloquent of speech we are, and even if we are the “expert builder” that God allowed to participate in the laying of the foundation, our intellect is no match or substitute for God’s involvement.

The point that Paul, and thus, Scripture makes is that the foundation has been laid by God through Christ. We can’t lay another foundation over the one that is Jesus Christ. The builders will be judged by how they added to what was laid, not by what they built themselves. The builders will be judged by their work because they were never responsible for laying the foundation. God took care of that. As builders, we’re responsible for furthering the Gospel. We’re simply workers. I know we don’t like to hear this, especially as pastors and preachers, but we don’t matter nearly as much as we think we do. If the people grow, it will be because of what God does. It doesn’t matter who planted and it doesn’t matter who watered.

As we’ve grown and gained more knowledge, we have become too dependent on ourselves. We have great ideas, but those great ideas need more than just our intellect. We’re trying to major in the spectacular while minoring in the organic. Every strong relationship got that way over time and with natural growth. The spectacular bang has never been sustainable. True sustainable church growth and the true making of disciples takes time, and I fear that we’ve started to see our great ideas as shortcuts to growth. The spectacular may get them to the building, but will it get them discipled?

It seems that we’re in constant search of the membership explosion that we saw in Acts 2:41 where 3000 were baptized, and we have no desire for the type of one-on-one encounter that Phillip had with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40 where the Gospel reached just one person in a moment in time, but he was saved and that encounter impacted a nation. It seems these days that we’d rather have a conference, convention, or workshop, as opposed to just having regular and consistent Bible class so that the people can grow organically.