Does Truth Matter?

Message for Feb. 03, 2013

“Does Truth Matter?”

1 John 1:1-10

Introduction: Recent US TODAY article about all of the scamers, cheaters and liars that are part of the news..

Lance Armstrong is a cheater. Manti Te’o is a liar. And Beyoncé, it seems, is a pretender. Heck, even Storage Wars is staged.

Is anything for real these days?

From sports heroes to superstar performers to reality TV, we’re deluged by deception. We’ve become obsessed with who-knew-what-when and did-she-or-didn’t-he debates, passionate about recent pop-culture crimes and insistent about how important each is or isn’t.

"It’s so unexpected," explains Gabrielle Adams, assistant professor of organizational behavior and an expert in the area of deception at the London Business School. "It takes us by surprise because we want to believe that they are perfect."

While "who cares?" is a common chorus, and many grump about there being more important issues to cover, the stories are hitting home. They are feeding the national conversation, from the morning TV shows to late-night monologues to round-the-clock social media chatter.

Does it really matter? Who really cares?

There are some Christians who adopted the same attitude towards what we believe. Several years ago a leader of what was called the emergent Christian asked the Christian world if it were found out that Jesus was not born of a Virgin would our whole faith unravel?

Many believers hold that position that can still hold on to their faith without accepting the truth of anything miraculous –including the resurrection. This may be easy if you plan to keep what you believe to yourself. However if you plan to share your faith with others you better be convinced that what you believe is the truth!

There are three main ways in which John the Apostle teaches us to proclaim the truth!

1. Our faith is historically based!

2. Our faith is practical.

3. Our faith is personal.

1. The First way John reminds us to proclaim the truth of is to let us know that it is based in historical fact rather than mythology, our faith must be historical!

John is combating a false teaching in the church called Gnosticism.

---He wants his audience to know that what he is proclaiming is truth because he was there!

---We heard Jesus speak and we saw, we looked upon and we touched!

--John wants his readers to know that he did not make up this religion!

--He did not have a dream!

WE saw Jesus heal the sick and raise the dead.

I was there when he kick over the tables of the money changers.

I sat next to him the night he arrested!

I knew Judas was a thief.

Peter and I ran to the tomb.

Thomas touched his scars.

I saw blood and water flow down from his side.

I was there when he ascended to heaven and gave us the Great Commission.

Ill:: THEY SAY….

Jesus said, “ you have heard it said…..but I tell you the truth.

Peter ----2 Peter 1:16-----We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Ill: When John the baptizer was in Herod’s prison preparing to be assassinated he asked his disciples to go to Jesus and make sure he was the promised Messiah and Jesus told them to go back and tell John about the miracles you have seen! The lame walk and the blind see.

II. A Second way to proclaim the truth is by showing the world that our faith is practical.

John was writing to many groups, influenced by Oriental or Greek pagan philosophies, taught that the soul is the only important part of the human being.

It made no difference what you did with your body –only your soul mattered. They Bible, however, teaches that it is important to honor God with our spirit and our physical bodies.

God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live in the truth!

What does he mean to walk in light verse walking in darkness?

Ill: --Some of you remember a picture I took of a huge rattlesnake I killed in Los Fresnos! These snakes crawl out in the darkness to hunt. You do not want to step on them. We must walk in the Spiritual light of God!

Ill: I heard that a certain men’s magazine nominated Texas Christian (a school that was affiliated with the Disciples of Christ as one of the top ten partying schools in America. Now I’ve never been there, but I hope they do not believe that God approves of a lifestyle that stumbles home trashed or fornicates on Friday nights and then goes to church on Sunday.