How Truth Works Series

Josh McDowell tells about a conversation with Amber, a 16 year old girl – a Christian from a solid youth group. “Is it wrong to engage in premarital sex?” “Well, I believe it’s wrong for me.” “But do you believe that the Bible teaches that premarital sex is wrong for everyone?” Amber’s eyes shift back and forth as she weighs her answer. “Well, I know it’s wrong for me, and I have chosen not to have sex until I’m married. But I don’t think I can judge other people on what they do.”

McDowell’s conclusion, Amber has been conditioned to believe that truth is not true for them unless they choose to believe it. That’s why over 80% of our kids claim that “all truth is relative to the individual and his/her circumstances.”

In two national surveys conducted by Barna Research, people were asked if they believe that there are moral absolutes that are unchanging or that moral truth is relative to the circumstances. By a 3-to-1 margin adults said truth is always relative to the person and their situation. Among teenagers, 83% said moral truth depends on the circumstances, and only 6% said moral truth is absolute.

People are left with philosophies such as “if it feels good, do it,” “everyone else is doing it” or “as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, it’s permissible.”

The decline of moral foundations among our young people has culminated in a one-word worldview: “whatever.” We ought to be alarmed!

Christians have increasingly been adopting spiritual views that come from Islam, Wicca, secular humanism, and the eastern religions. And because we are Biblically illiterate, we aren’t alarmed or even aware of our slide toward syncretism.

You say, “What is syncretism?” It’s a belief system that blindly combines beliefs from many different faith perspectives. You need proof that we’re sliding toward syncretism? 44% of adults in America contend that, “the Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon are all different expressions of the same spiritual truths.” Just 38% of Americans reject that idea. Among Christian kids, 63% say that all religions pray to the same God.

We are experiencing a full gallop movement away from biblical theology in favor of culture-based theology.

Josh McDowell, in his book Beyond Belief to Conviction, says that at the foundation of a person’s life we find his beliefs.

These beliefs shape his values,

and his values drive his actions.

Your beliefs will eventually become your behavior.

There are lots of reasons why people are rejecting the faith. Here’s the number one reason. People are rejecting the Bible and its truths because our lives are so ineffective.

Here’s why truth doesn’t work:

Who you are speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you say.

Do you know that # 1 reason people don’t go to church? “The church is full of hypocrites!” Usually I respond, “Come on and join us. There’s always room for one more!”

But it’s a shame that people reject the truth because they really don’t see much difference between how they live and how we live. In fact, they think that they are better than we are because they don’t even pretend to be holy.

Title: How truth works

Text: Colossians 1:1-12

Series: The Truth about truth in a “whatever” world

Bible scholars often talk about the “Colossian heresy.” It was a belief system that combined the Bible with pagan philosophy. The result? Christ was no longer Supreme. The system was a combination of Judaism and paganism, but it wore the mask of Christianity. It did not deny Christ, but it did dethrone Him; it gave Christ a place, but not the supreme place.

The point of this book is to unfold the cosmic implications of Christ’s absolute pre-eminence and to direct us to trust in the sole sufficiency of his saving work.

We are complete in Christ. Faith in Him rules out our need for any other powers. Nothing in the universe is outside the scope of His sovereignty.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope laid up for you in heaven,

We see here three sure marks of a believer – faith in Christ, love to all the saints, and hope of eternal life… If we don’t have these three, then we cannot rightly claim the name of Christian.

of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.