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Absolute Truth - Do You Really Believe Series
55 Plays1 year ago
In Sunday's sermon, Ridley Barron preached on the topic of absolute truth, emphasizing the importance of earnestly seeking and upholding truth by scrutinizing biblical scripture and heeding the Holy Spirit. Through personal reflections and examples from the lives of Dr. Francis Collins and C.S. Lewis, he highlighted the peril of embracing falsehoods and the power of transformation through truth. Barron vehemently opposed the theory of evolution, advocating for a worldview based on intelligent design and divine purpose. He also introduced the upcoming "Do You Really Believe?" series, aimed at deepening the congregation's faith and understanding.
Timestamps:
00:00 Church fosters unity and faith through conversations.
03:55 Pharma agenda: Ozempic drug for children, $20,000.
06:21 Understanding personal worldview, essential for navigating life.
10:37 Genesis 1: importance of creation and purpose.
14:47 Life without absolute truth leads to chaos.
18:38 Romans explains exchanging truth of God for lies.
19:13 Worship only God, not idols or desires.
23:00 Believe with actions, not just words.
27:05 Atheist explores faith, turns to reason.
30:59 CS Lewis, an atheist, finds faith through events.
32:45 Authentic gospel, absolute truth, willingness to discover.
39:06 Enjoyed new season of The Chosen deeply.
39:54 Jesus teaches disciples at Caesarea Philippi.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Do You Really Believe?' Series
00:00:01
Speaker
If you got your Bibles, I wanna invite you to go ahead and turn to John chapter eight. We're gonna kinda be all over this morning, but I wanna start there. We're getting into a new series today, and as we do that, one of the things I wanna do is I wanna kinda talk you through the intentionality with which we are doing, what we're doing over the next few days and weeks and even months.
00:00:26
Speaker
So for the next eight weeks, I've got some bad echo up here, real bad echo, and I don't like hearing myself that much. Y'all are supposed to say, but we love hearing you. So John chapter eight, the series that we're about to start is entitled, Do You Really Believe? And for the next eight weeks, we're gonna be diving into some really difficult questions about the foundations of our faith. And the reason why we wanted to do that is twofold. Number one,
00:00:56
Speaker
I want you to be very confident in what you believe and knowing why you believe it. It's one thing to say, hey, I believe this, it's something entirely different for you to have a full understanding of what that means, so that as you are going out over the next eight weeks and inviting your friends and neighbors and co-workers to the Easter service, where we're going to have a thousand people at Forest High School, amen? Okay, it's not going to happen if you don't invite, right?
00:01:20
Speaker
But as you're getting ready to do that, you have confidence in having those conversations with them if they go, okay, why do you do this church
Unity through Faith and Upcoming Acts Series
00:01:26
Speaker
thing? Why are you involved in a church? You'll have confidence in what those conversations are centered around. The second reason why we do this is because on any given Sunday, if you know this about our church, we have former Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Methodists, unchurched people, and even some recovering Southern Baptists.
00:01:46
Speaker
And as that group of people comes together, one of the things that's increasingly apparent to us as leaders is we need to keep making sure we're centering each other around the unity of what we know to be true because of this word that we call the Bible, right? We want to make sure we're all on the same page. So today, we start that series, go eight weeks all the way up to Easter, and then the Sunday after Easter, we're going to start a series that may go the rest of the year into the book of Acts.
00:02:12
Speaker
We're going to be diving into what the church should look like, what the church should be about, what the church should be focusing on as the Holy Spirit works through it. We are a good church. We're not a great church yet. We'll be a great church the day Jesus comes back and says, well done, good and faithful servants, right? So we got work to do and we want to look to the example of the one true church as it got started 2,000 years ago and what they can teach us about being the church.
Critique of Societal Institutions and Healthcare
00:02:37
Speaker
You have been lied to.
00:02:40
Speaker
If you're not aware of it, I'm here to make sure you are aware of it. You've been lied to by politicians. That's not a Republican statement or a Democratic statement or even a libertarian statement. It's a reality. Government in our country is led by corrupt people. I am very proud of our country. I'm very ashamed of our government. You have been lied to by scientists.
00:03:03
Speaker
If you've been following the information that's been coming out ever since COVID for an entire couple of years, we were fed all kinds of information that didn't even line up with the facts that they knew at the time. They were lying to us in order to accomplish an agenda. You have been lied to by scientists and
00:03:20
Speaker
Teachers, educators, educators. This is not a knock at anybody that's in education. This is about a system that was created in order to push people in a certain way. It's an agenda that has been established, an agenda that is very secularized today. 40 years ago, it wouldn't have been nothing for people to hear a child play in a classroom today. That's become a battleground in our country. Why? Because we're being lied to. You've been lied to by healthcare.
00:03:48
Speaker
Again, that's a little bit different subject, but not against nurses, not against doctors, physicians, EMTs, anybody of that nature. It's a system that's run by big pharmaceuticals, and what they want to do is they want to accomplish an agenda that produces more money for them. Take, for example, the Ozimpic drug that so many people are talking about. They are getting ready to approve the Ozimpic drug for children. The reason they want to do that is because once you're on Ozimpic, you cannot come off.
00:04:16
Speaker
They are now proving that Ozimpic paralyzes the stomach. And because of that, you're dependent on it the rest of your life. And if they can get kids stuck on it, then they're stuck on it the rest of their life paying their bills. By the way, do you know how much it costs? $20,000 a month. The latest estimates in our country are that somewhere between 50% to 75% of Americans are overweight. OK?
00:04:44
Speaker
50 to 75%, if you just take a 50% number, multiply that out, that's over $3 trillion a year being made by one company because of a drug that they're pushing on America. Healthcare's not interested in curing the problems because the problems produce money for them. They only want to treat the symptoms. And what are they doing? They're lying to us to get it done. Again, you've been lied to.
Truth in Christianity vs. Additional Teachings
00:05:11
Speaker
You've been lied to by the church.
00:05:14
Speaker
You've been lied to by the church. What do I mean by that? Any church that says that they have an additional word than this word is lying to you. Any church that teaches anything outside of this word or anything that compromises this word has lied to you and is continuing to lie to you because this book is truth, it's always been truth, it always will be truth, it's timeless, it's changeless, and we should be living our lives by it because anything else is living by a lie.
00:05:43
Speaker
And this is the importance of why we come to this subject first today. What is truth, and is there such a thing as absolute truth? And what does it mean for us? Why is it such an important conversation that we have? John chapter eight, beginning in verse 31, Jesus is speaking, he says, to the Jews who had believed in him, if you continue in my, what does it say there on the screen? My word, my word. If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the,
00:06:14
Speaker
truth and the truth will set you free. Jesus was saying if you want to know how to be free indeed it comes from knowing my truth. The more you know me, the more you know my truth, the more you feel the freedom that I offer you. The major issues of life, everything that we address, everything that we face in our life comes about the greatest clarity after we settle the question of whether or not God's existence is real.
00:06:40
Speaker
And when it's placed in the proper context, then we begin to deal with questions about whether or not life is a purposeful thing, if God created us intentionally. The question of God's existence is part of what we call world view. Have you ever heard that term?
00:06:55
Speaker
So if you have a worldview, that worldview begins to become a filter by which you process information that comes and goes out of your brain. That worldview is essential because it informs our personal, social, relational, emotional, and our political lives. It helps us to understand our purpose here on this earth.
Science, Evolution, and Belief Systems
00:07:15
Speaker
Another way to understand worldview is it's like a mental map
00:07:19
Speaker
that helps navigate life effectively for us, okay? So it's really, really important that you establish a biblical worldview. In fact, the truth is there's only two ways to look at this world. The first way you can look at this world is that it is a godless universe and we are a product of nature that has evolved over time.
00:07:42
Speaker
Most of you have heard this, if you went to public schools, it was probably all that you were taught this day and age, that somehow something, this big bang occurred out in space, and out of that big bang came this primordial ooze, and the primordial ooze was that with lightning numerous times that created cells. Those cells reproduced so that cells became fish, fish became monkeys, monkeys became truck drivers. That's evolution, right?
00:08:05
Speaker
And we're supposed to buy into that philosophy. We're supposed to shut down our minds and accept as fact what has been taught to us in that area. How many of you are familiar with something called the scientific method? If you went to public schools, you heard that. Do you remember what scientific method taught us?
00:08:20
Speaker
You start out with a theory, okay? You start out with a theory, an idea. You observe something, you create a theory. Then you create a hypothesis. If A is true, then B becomes a reality, right? You create a hypothesis, you take it into the laboratory, you try to reproduce what you have said is a reality, and then
00:08:39
Speaker
If it becomes true, then it's not a theory any longer. It now is accepted as a law of science. If it cannot be proven, then what we have is we go back to the laboratory, back to the drawing board, and we work on that again until we come out with something that can stand as a law. The theory of evolution has never been tested according to the scientific method. It can't be. You know why? Because you can't take dinosaurs into the laboratory and reproduce where they start off as a primordial ooze and wind up as a human being.
00:09:08
Speaker
It's just never been done. So a theory has been taught as fact in our public schools for generations. And even Darwin didn't believe the theory of evolution that we preach in our schools today. Did you know that? He said it wasn't even possible.
00:09:23
Speaker
You're gonna hear more about those kinds of things today, but guys, that's the worldview that we are being asked to accept. Now the second option, the option I think probably most of us accept in this room is this. There is a supernatural intelligence who gives the universe order and gives our lives meaning.
00:09:39
Speaker
It gives our lives meaning. You know, for the longest time, for centuries, people didn't really question much about the beginnings of the universe, or they didn't talk about it very much, because there wasn't much that they knew. Then the Hubble telescope came along, and the Hubble telescope discovered something amazing. That when they looked at stars that were way off in the distance, there was a red light that was emitted from them. And if you know anything about science, I don't. I just know how to explain it. The red light proves that these stars and these planets are moving away from the Earth.
00:10:07
Speaker
which meant immediately they understood this to be true, the universe was expanding. That's where we got the idea that there was something called the Big Bang. The boom, everything's spreading out this way. Not one light headed back towards us, they're all headed out those directions because of this Big Bang. Well, who do you think created the Big Bang? In the beginning, God.
00:10:31
Speaker
He spoke and it happened. But what they can't do is get from the big bang to you and I sitting here today. There's no link, there's no chain other than the book of Genesis chapter 1 where it describes in detail how God created the heavens and the earth and he got to the end of it all and said, let me create man and woman and it will be the pinnacle of my creation. Now here's just the beginning of why this is so important.
00:10:54
Speaker
If you accept theory number one and that becomes your worldview, then everything, everything in this world is an accident and by chance. And the minute you begin to accept that, the value of every human being disappears. Because if you're an accidental clump of clay, and I'm an accidental clump of clay, and everything that goes on in this world is just chaos, then I'm gonna dog eat dog you and you're gonna dog eat dog me so that we can get to the top and protect our own.
00:11:25
Speaker
But if you accept theory number two that there is an intelligent design and there is purpose to life, then I don't have to fight to get what's mine because I know there's a God who provides my every need. And I can look out for my brother and sister and not have to bring them down in order to elevate myself. Because at the end of the day, the only one elevated is God.
00:11:44
Speaker
See how different those worldviews are and how they make a drastic difference in how you and I approach life.
Aligning Life with Biblical Truths
00:11:49
Speaker
And here's a sad truth, guys, I'm gonna help you understand this. Many of us have tried to start out with option number two and sneak in option number one a little bit. Number one, maybe the planet is a billion years old. Maybe, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe. The Bible is very clear and has given us truth that is unchanging. Accept it, don't try to work around it.
00:12:11
Speaker
And if you can't come to peaceful resolution about what the Bible says, the Bible's not what needs to change, it's you. So when you get to that place, you look at it and go, I just don't understand, I cannot comprehend this. Don't look to the Bible and go, oh, it must be wrong. Look to God and say, show me where I am wrong so that I may be reconciled to what the Bible is teaching me. That's the only way to approach this life. You with me? Okay. You're not convincing me, but here we go.
00:12:40
Speaker
So, look at this, this is a quote from John Lennox, famous English mathematician. He says, what divides us is not science, but our world views. No one wants to base their life on a delusion, but which is the delusion? Christianity or atheism? Well, that's the question I'm gonna help you answer today. Which one is a delusion? Which one leads us down the wrong path? Let's talk about how we discover truth. Truth, defined, is factuality,
00:13:08
Speaker
faithfulness, reality, or reliability. And though the nature of truth has been debated for centuries, postmodernism has turned this debate on its head. Most arguments in history, if you go back and trace them and look at these arguments about truth, if you go back and you look at them, it's different claims about what truth is and what truth is not.
00:13:31
Speaker
But postmodernism rejects the very notion that there is anything such as absolute truth that is fixed, universal, objective, or absolute. Okay, before you fall asleep, follow me on this illustration. We'll see if it makes sense to you, okay? So what they're saying is this. Somewhere along the way, science began to be discovered. We began to do great work in science. We began to uncover things about the earth and natural laws and things that God had put into place. Somewhere along the way, somebody decided, according to science, there was something
00:14:01
Speaker
that was up and something that was down. And we know from science, because of research and the scientific method, that what goes up must come down. Now, are there exceptions? Yes. If an outside force works on the object, it will hold it up. Helium, a motor, whatever, OK? So the science is that there's an up, there's a down. Don't know when that was decided. Some day some caveman walked out and went, uh. And some other caveman went, uh, uh.
00:14:30
Speaker
Somewhere they came to an agreement that uh-uh was down and up was up and we've been working on that ever since, right? Postmodernism comes along and says there is no such thing as absolute truth. You're up is whatever you choose it to be You're down wherever you want it That's you're up. That's okay. That's how you live life And so we've removed The measurement of absolute truth and the reason that becomes a problem is because when you take absolute truth out of humanity We get nothing but chaos
00:15:00
Speaker
nothing but chaos. Because if there aren't certain things that we can hold on to and build our lives around, then we have lost our sense of purpose, our sense of meaning. We'll talk more about that in just a second, but I just want you to understand that postmodernism undid what was centuries of just regular conversations about right and wrong, truth and untruth.
00:15:23
Speaker
So let me just go rapid fire through some verses that help establish that this is truth for us, and then we're gonna pick apart some thoughts going on forward. Exodus 34.6, the Lord, this is God, passed in front of him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God. He's slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth. Psalm 26.3, for your faithful love guides me and I live by your
00:15:51
Speaker
Guys, this is just a sampling of all the verses in scripture, okay? Psalm 86, 11, teach me your way, Lord, and I will live by your truth. Give me an undivided mind to fear your name.
00:16:03
Speaker
Catch this one. This is the longest chapter in the longest book of the Bible. And the reason it is the longest book in the Bible is because it's the psalmist talking about this book that we call the Bible. It was his Old Testament at that point, his scripture that he knew, and he could not find enough words to tell you how precious this book was. So he goes on for over 160 verses talking about the word of God. And this is one thing he says, the entirety of your word is truth.
00:16:31
Speaker
each of your righteous judgments endures forever. So we flip over to the New Testament and the Apostle John writes this. He says, the word became flesh.
Jesus as the Sole Path to God
00:16:40
Speaker
Who is the word?
00:16:41
Speaker
Jesus, yes, the Word became flesh, He dwelt among us, we observed His glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and? So what the Apostle is saying, that Jesus is not a second standard of truth, He's not an alternate truth, He's not a compromised truth, He is the same exact absolute truth that has existed forever in the person of God. They are one. And so what He's doing is He's leaping from the Old Testament to the New Testament to say, here's the truth that you and I can live our lives by.
00:17:11
Speaker
Let me keep going. John 14.6, famous passage. Jesus told him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Notice he said he is the truth, not a truth, not a possible truth, not an option for the truth. He is the truth. Everything that Jesus says and everything that Jesus has done has been truth.
00:17:30
Speaker
He's never compromised that, okay? No one comes to the Father except through me. Now that's really important for me to take a little bit of a side trip and tell you this. If Jesus says, I am the only way that anybody gets to my Father and there is another possible way, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, whatever, then Jesus is a liar. We can burn our Bible and go home. Does that make you uncomfortable? It should.
00:17:55
Speaker
because you live in a world that tells you all the time, there are multiple ways to God. Liar, liar, pants on fire. There is only one truth, that truth is expressed right here out of the mouths of Jesus Christ himself, and out of his mouth he said, there is no other way you get there.
00:18:15
Speaker
And if there is even one possible way somewhere in the remote jungles of Africa for somebody to find God outside of Jesus, Jesus is a liar and we can ignore everything else he says. But he's not. And he has been proven true for 2,000 years plus because of his faithfulness and his integrity and because of his character.
00:18:37
Speaker
Let me keep going. The next one, Romans 1.25 explains a little bit of what's happening here in our culture today.
True Worship and Avoiding Idolatry
00:18:43
Speaker
They exchanged the truth of God for what? John chapter 8 verse 44, a little bit later in the chapter, we were just reading a minute ago, Jesus says these words. He says, you are a liar and the father of all lies, talking about Satan. Every lie comes out of Satan because he's doing everything he can do to counter who God is.
00:19:03
Speaker
So if God is truth, Satan is going to throw out as many lies as he can. But look what it says. It says, and they worship and they serve what had been created instead of the Creator. Here's another truth you need to take away from here today. If you are worshiping anything else but God, you are wrong. And you're going, well, of course, that's why I'm here today. I'm here to worship God. Are you really? Are you here really to worship God?
00:19:29
Speaker
because worshiping God is not singing a song. It's not sitting in a chair for an hour and listening to a pastor and listening to some music. Worshiping God is full and total submission of your desires to his. It's saying, I won't accept anything but what God wants for me. I won't settle for any compromise in my life. If you are worshiping any other thing at any other point, at any other place in your life, you have set up your life around an idol and you are in disobedience. That's truth.
00:19:59
Speaker
That's truth. And you're going, I don't know what idols you're talking about, your job, your success, your financial security, that nice home, that nice car, the popularity at work. If your children are more important than God, if your wife or your husband's more important than God, that's where we start getting a little uncomfortable, right?
00:20:25
Speaker
because it's not wrong to love our children. It's not wrong to make our spouse a priority. It's just that they can't be above God. God must be the total focus of our priority in life. Let me keep going. Ephesians 6, 14, it says, stand therefore with what? Truth around your waist. This is the spiritual armor of God. You and I literally every day when we wake up, we step into a world full of spiritual warfare.
00:20:53
Speaker
Paul's encouragement is don't do it without the truth. Don't you dare do it without the truth because guess what? You're going to be lied to all day long. The estimates are that somewhere around 20,000 to 30,000 advertisements a day that you see. What are all of those attempts to convince you with a lie? Right?
00:21:13
Speaker
convince you that this is who you need to be, this is what you need to wear, this is what you need to look like. First Timothy 2.4, who wants everyone, God speaking, I mean speaking of God here, who wants everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the? When you come to know truth, you come to know who? God, Jesus. Yeah, you can put the little slash there, God, Jesus, Jesus, God. Yes, you come to know the divine.
00:21:38
Speaker
Truth takes you closer and closer and closer and closer to who God is and what he wants for your life. And this is why it is so critical that we get this part of
Cultural Myths vs. Biblical Truth
00:21:47
Speaker
this right. If we don't accept and adopt the truth that God has given us, we are already on the wrong track. Lastly, 2 Timothy 4 for again, speaking of our culture, they will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to miss.
00:22:04
Speaker
They will turn aside to miss. Here's a truth that you need to know. Truth itself is discovered. It is not invented. It is not invented. You discover truth. You begin a journey to look for truth. You seek truth. And when you seek truth, God's promises and Jeremiah tell us, when you seek me, you will find me when you seek me with all your heart. When you come after me with everything you've got, you will find truth. We must base beliefs on sufficient evidence we have diligently investigated.
00:22:34
Speaker
beliefs influence a person's actions. So what I'm saying to you here, and I hope you hear this, is you can tell me what it is that you value, but I will know for sure what you believe by the way you behave. You can confess that you believe in God, that you believe in Jesus, that you trust the church. You can confess those things all day long, but I'm going to watch your behavior, and I'm going to know what you really believe.
00:23:01
Speaker
If I were to take Chris Smith on top of this building and look at him and say, Chris, do you believe you can fly? He could tell me with all the earnestness in his heart that he believes. But until he jumps off this roof and soars, which he's not gonna do, until he really puts actions to what he professes with his mouth, then he really doesn't believe it. Do you believe what this Bible tells you? Do you believe this word and what it's been given to you?
00:23:27
Speaker
So we have a moral obligation as humans to believe responsibly and accurately based on evidence that we've been given. Nobody's been asking you that. You hear this thing, blind faith all the time? God hasn't asked you to use blind faith. That phrase isn't even in the Bible. God has said, look at the evidence for me. Look at my faithfulness. Remember what I've done. He's not telling you to blindly accept him. He's saying, I've given you all the proof you need to know I'm here. You just refuse to see it.
00:23:56
Speaker
Problem is that most people make decisions about spiritual reality based on subjective preferences. Pascal, the philosopher, said that most people arrive at their beliefs not based on real evidence but based on what they find to be attractive to them.
00:24:11
Speaker
One of the great flaws in human character is we stubbornly hold on to our beliefs because they generally reflect how we want life to be rather than how life actually is. So in other words, our biases, our preferences when we come to search for God have an undue influence on how we see things. I mentioned this book to you a few months ago when I was reading it. Really good book. If I was a school teacher, I would assign it to you for necessary reading.
00:24:39
Speaker
It's called Reflections on the Existence of God. I want to take a second and read a little bit from you. It's a story of a guy by the name of Dr. Francis Collins, okay? Super intelligent guy. Just so you can get an idea of how smart this guy was. Some might say how dumb this guy is, but how smart this guy is. He went to the University of Virginia and got a degree in chemistry.
00:25:01
Speaker
Then he left and went and got a PhD in chemistry at Yale. Then he decided for good measure to go to medical school at the University of North Carolina. From there he decided to go back to Yale for a little while and then finally ended his college careers at the University of Michigan. So this guy is educated beyond education, right? Got all the training and one of the toughest fields there is.
00:25:22
Speaker
You might recognize his name because under the Obama administration, he was under what was known as the Human Genome Project. He was actually in charge of that. He was the chair of that project. And the goal of that committee was to bring together 2,000 scientists who were sequencing the human genes.
00:25:38
Speaker
so that we begin to understand and study them a little bit better. He began his journey as an atheist, and he was in his third year of residency at a medical school, and while he was working in a hospital, he came across a woman who he was attending to, who had exhausted all her options for life. They knew she would be dying. From here, I want to read what is said about him. She had a strong faith, and she shared it with him. She said, you know, I'm ready to go, don't worry about me.
00:26:07
Speaker
And then she said, Dr. Collins, you've been so kind to listen to me and care for me and listen to me share with you about my faith. Tell me about your faith. Tell me what you believe. Collins later wrote in his diary, nobody had ever asked me that question before. Not like that, not in such a simple, sincere way. I realized I didn't know the answer. I felt uneasy. I could feel my face flushing and I wanted to get out of there.
00:26:35
Speaker
The ice was cracking underneath my feet. All of a sudden, this simple question, by this simple question, everything in my life was muddled. Collins began to wonder if he was an atheist because he had chosen the position of reason or because it was the answer that he actually wanted. Finally, it came to him. As a scientist, I had always insisted on collecting rigorous data before drawing conclusions. And yet, in matters of faith, I had never collected any data at all.
00:27:05
Speaker
I didn't know what I had rejected, so I decided that I should be a little better grounded in my atheism. I better found out what this is all about. So I challenged a patient of mine who was a Methodist minister, and after listening to my questions and realizing that I was not dealing with a very full deck of information, he suggested that I read the Gospel of John, which I did. I found the scripture to be interesting, puzzling, and not at all what I had thought faith was about.
00:27:33
Speaker
Then I began to read C.S. Lewis and realized there was a great depth of thinking and reasoning that could be applied to the question of God. C.S. Lewis convinced him that reason and faith go hand in hand, though faith has the added component of revelation, the Bible. Collins had previously believed that Jesus and the stories of the Bible were nothing more than mere myths.
00:27:56
Speaker
As he studied the historical evidence, he was stunned at how well documented and how historically accurate the Bible was. He became a believer.
00:28:07
Speaker
It's just another example of what happens when we finally take our subjective reasoning and set it aside and approach truth with an open heart and begin to look at it. A philosopher by the name of Douglas Gruthias says, truth is a daunting, difficult thing. It is also the greatest thing in the world. Yet we are chronically ambivalent toward it. We seek it and we fear it. Our better side wants to pursue truth wherever it leads. Our darker side balks.
00:28:37
Speaker
when the truth begins to take us anywhere we do not want to go. So what am I saying to you? What am I trying to tell you? This is the truth. The evidence of God is of little use if a person does not want him in their life.
Seeking God with Questions
00:28:51
Speaker
I can try all day to stand up here and reason with you, but if you don't want the idea of God to be a part of your existence, it never will be. So that should take some pressure off of you. You can go home and delete all those social media posts where you think you're gonna lead people to Jesus.
00:29:06
Speaker
Okay, you're not gonna do that by social media. You're not gonna do it by trying to argue truth with people. Your feistiness, your sassiness, your snarkiness is not gonna lead somebody to know the Jesus that we know. But your prayers might. Your integrity might. Your faithfulness might.
00:29:31
Speaker
British philosopher and former atheist, Antony Flew, saw how easy it was to let preconceived theories and beliefs shape how we view evidence, instead of letting evidence shape our theories and beliefs. So he adopted for the balance of his life and principle. Follow the truth wherever it leads. This is what I wanna encourage you to do. I don't know where you are in your journey of faith today, but here's what I can tell you. God is not afraid of your questions. He's not afraid of your questions.
00:30:00
Speaker
Feel free to challenge him. Feel free to come at him with questions. If you read the Bible carefully, you'll see that David challenged God, asked him where he was in his sorrow, asked him where he was in the middle of the night. Job questioned God, and God showed up and had an answer for him. He said, where were you when I started the earth, big boy? Solomon questioned the existence of God.
00:30:27
Speaker
If you read Ecclesiastes carefully, he says, life is meaningless. There's no purpose to it. And by the time it was over with, he goes, oh, duh. Yeah, there is. There is a God and he does give life purpose and meaning. And it was only through their searching from an objective point of view that they were able to come face to face with the God who was waiting to meet them there. If you are in a search in a journey to find truth, God is waiting to greet you and to give you all the answers you need.
00:30:56
Speaker
Don't be afraid to ask him. Don't be afraid to challenge him. Even C.S. Lewis, one of the most familiar atheists, or at least a former atheist that we know of, said that there were two events in his life that changed his position on faith. One of them was reading a book called Everlasting Men, which was a book by G.K. Chesterton, the famous British pastor and author. But the second event was this. A pushy member of the Oxford faculty where C.S. Lewis attended university,
00:31:26
Speaker
He was also a fellow atheist, confided in C.S. Lewis one day that he believed that the gospels were authentic and true. So, C.S. Lewis began to ponder and take a closer look at this. C.S. Lewis, if you don't know this, was a literature major who specialized in ancient writings, everything from the Nordic writings all the way through the Jewish writings all the way up to present-day history.
00:31:52
Speaker
And because he was familiar with that, he reasoned that if the Gospels are true, then all other truth doesn't matter. It will fade in significance. So later he would write this, whatever the Gospels are, they are not legends. I've read a great deal of legends and am quite clear they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. For an imaginative point of view, they are clumsy. They don't work.
00:32:19
Speaker
Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, and no people building a legend would allow that to be so. So in case you missed what he's saying, he's saying this. If you read the gospel closely, you notice that from the age of 12 years old to the age of 30, we don't know anything about what happened in Jesus' life.
00:32:38
Speaker
Lewis is saying if you were sitting down to build a myth, to build a legend, to create a superhero for people to believe in, you wouldn't allow that to happen. You would start at birth and go to death and you would put all kinds of incredible stories in there to build the character, the legend, the myth of who this person is. That didn't happen because what these guys were doing were writing down eyewitness testimony of what they had seen and experienced by walking life with Jesus.
00:33:04
Speaker
That in itself proves the authenticity of the gospel as it was given to us. So I've done a lot of philosophers at you, mathematicians, science. What does this mean? What does this mean for us? Well, there's five things I want you to take away
Exploration of Absolute Truth and Faith
00:33:19
Speaker
from here today. Number one, there is absolute truth. There is absolute truth. The question is, are you willing to do what it takes to discover it?
00:33:29
Speaker
Are you willing to dig in? I quoted Jeremiah just a minute ago. It says, you will find me when you, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. So when you begin your journey, begin to write down questions. Begin to search topics that don't make sense to you. Begin to look up passages that maybe you've never looked for and cross reference those passages. And if you get to the end of the day and you're going, I still have questions, go to your life group, go to your D group. So let's talk these things out. I'm still unsettled about this part of it.
00:34:00
Speaker
If they can't answer those questions, come to one of your staff members and see if we can't dig it out for you. One of the groups that was applauded in the book of Acts by Luke as he wrote was the Bereans. Why? Because the Bereans didn't take anything at face value. They explored it, they tested it, they tried it, they dug out the scriptures for themselves, they checked out the word that was given to them. Why? Because they wanted to find out the real truth.
00:34:27
Speaker
to make sure that they had the real truth. I encourage you, do that. Dig in with all that you have, but don't be surprised if it takes you places that you may not be prepared to go. If it confronts you in ways that you maybe weren't ready to be confronted. Number two, truth is discovered in the triune existence of God. Again, it is not invented, it is discovered. There is no such thing as new truth. Did you know that?
00:34:55
Speaker
Whatever's true out there that you discover has always existed. Two plus two has always equaled four, right? Lightbulb just went on for some of you. Some of you math scholars. You take two items, set them next to two more items, you're gonna have four items. That's an unchangeable truth. It's always been that way.
00:35:16
Speaker
There is no such thing as new truth. We don't have to invent it. We don't have to compromise to come up with it. We don't have to formulate it. That truth has always existed. It always will exist because truth is unchanging. Okay? Number three, the only safe way to arrive at truth is by following the evidence. Set your biases aside. You ever heard of the phrase proof texting? Any of you? Proof texting is when you take one passage of scripture and you try to make it say what you want it to say.
00:35:46
Speaker
There are 66 books with thousands of verses in here. And as your pastor, I can make this Bible say anything I wanted it to say. I could even get up here and go in John chapter 8 verse 42. The Greek word originally there is not what was intended to be there. You can look by the evidence and you would buy it and hook, line and sinker. Because the minute I say Greek, y'all think, oh, he knows what he's talking about. Let me remind you where we started the sermon. You have been lied to.
00:36:14
Speaker
And if you've been lied to, then what do you do? You go back to the source and get the real truth. Don't take my word for it. Go back to the Bible. I'll get it wrong sometimes. I know that may shock some of you. I will get it wrong sometimes. Because I am a human being who's coming to the word just like you are. I rely heavily, heavily on the Holy Spirit to help me get this right. You should do the same. Don't trust your pastor. That's not true. Trust your pastor. Always trust your pastor, right?
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, trust and verify, there you go. That's a great way to put it. Number four, follow the truth wherever it leads you. Follow the truth wherever it leads you. If you're like me, there are seasons in my life where I'm sitting around, maybe it's in my quiet time, maybe it's while you're driving to work, maybe just one quiet evening after dinner, you're just sitting at the table drinking coffee and your mind begins to wonder,
00:37:12
Speaker
you begin to think about where you stand before Christ. And if you're honest, there are points in those times of reflection where you are confronted by the truth that you still have areas of your life that are not under his control. You're lust, out of control. You're jealousy, not under his authority. Your gossip, told you I was gonna get to meddling here this morning.
00:37:42
Speaker
Those are not prayer requests, it's gossip. You can call it whatever you want to, God knows it's gossip. Okay? You start to look at those things and God says, are you willing to follow me as I lead you to truth? Because if you're not willing to follow me, if you're not willing to seek out the truth, then you'll never be changed the way I want you to be changed. You will never have your mind transformed and renewed the way it needs to be. You've got to let truth have its way in your heart.
00:38:11
Speaker
So follow the truth wherever it leads. And lastly, always remember that truth is your friend. Always remember that truth is your friend. What do I mean by that? Truth is always gonna take you closer to God. It's always gonna take you closer to what you want to be in Christ Jesus. And by the same token, a lie is gonna take you further away from you. Whether it's a lie you believe or a lie you give out.
00:38:42
Speaker
Both are equally damaging. Quit trying to excuse your lies with, it's just a little white one. Quit trying to excuse your lies with, I'm just trying to compromise, or I didn't lie, I just didn't tell them the whole truth. We use those excuses, but a lie is a lie is a lie, and a lie comes from the father of all lies, and that's Satan. So if you're gonna pursue truth, know that truth is gonna be your friend.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yesterday, my wife and I had the opportunity to go see The New Chosen that's out at the theater, season four. As usual, they did a good job of their telling of the story of the gospels. I have enjoyed it, watching it unfold. Yesterday, they did the first three episodes of season four.
00:39:34
Speaker
And there were some powerful moments in there as there have been with every season. I lost it when Jesus healed the blind man. It was just a powerful, powerful thing. And then in the moment when Jesus encourages Peter to forgive Matthew and those two guys, embrace and forgiveness, I cried like a baby. I was like over here doing this thing while my wife's sitting next to me.
00:39:59
Speaker
But there was one scene that really caught my attention more than any other, and when it came, literally for the next two or three minutes of the movie, just was stuck in that moment, reflecting on it. It's that part where Jesus takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi, and right outside the city there was that cave that was known as the Gates of Hell, that's what they called it. And there were kinds of temples and altars to all different religions there. And so Jesus literally is standing in front of that
00:40:24
Speaker
that place, that cave, and it's like a visual lesson for them, this illustration. Here's everything else the world offers you, here's me. And he looks at his disciples and he says, who do they say that I am? And the disciples one by one continue to give him some answers. They think you're Elijah or John the Baptist or whatever. And then he turns and he looked at Peter and he said, Peter, who do you say that I am? And Peter said, I believe you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
00:40:54
Speaker
And if I had not been laid back in a recliner in the theater, I'd have been up on my feet going, yes, yes, that's it, that's it, that's what the world needs to know. But instead, the next few minutes, I had to stop and think about something because Jesus next looks Peter in the eye with absolutely the love of the universe. Says to Peter, you won't be called Simon anymore. Your name is now Peter, the rock.
00:41:24
Speaker
and on this rock I will build my church. And the reason that got my attention is because I was thinking in that moment, I want to be the rock. I want to be like Peter. I want to be so steady, so steadfast in following Jesus Christ that when I walk through the gates of heaven, Jesus walks over with Peter, puts his arms around me and goes, here's my two rocks.
00:41:52
Speaker
I don't care about the rest of y'all, I want to be the rock. Seriously, that's what I want to be. You know what rocks are so important? They just don't change. They're steadfast. You ever heard a rock apologize for something it did? No apologies.
00:42:16
Speaker
Rocks are rocks, will be rocks, were rocks, always steadfast. I want to be that steadfast and immovable in my faith. So when the world continues to change around me and it exchanges the truth of God for a lie, I can't answer for the rest of you. I want to be the truth standing in the middle of it, pointing in the different direction.
00:42:42
Speaker
The one who's saying to the rest of the world, please don't go that way. That's not what he designed for you. I want to be that guy. And if that's something you desire to, you must know there is absolute truth that guides you, that will change who you are, but you must submit to it. Will you pray with me this morning?
00:43:13
Speaker
God, as we wrap up another message today, I pray it's not just words. I pray that I have done an adequate job of taking a timeless truth and making it real here today. Forgive us for trying to live without your truth, or trying to create our own truth that's more acceptable for us.
00:43:46
Speaker
Forgive us that we haven't fought harder for our families to protect them against the lies of this world. Forgive us that sometimes we've been the one inviting the lies into our homes, or even bringing it in on our backs. Forgive us that we haven't been rocks. Unshakeable, immovable. Something different in this world than everything else in this world.
00:44:20
Speaker
I can't help but believe there's somebody else in this room who feels the same way. Somebody who wants to make a stand now and quit letting the culture take us on the road, we don't wanna go. So I pray that today is the heart of somebody who has been encouraged in that direction. Thank you for your word that guides us. Now help us to embrace it. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.