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.
Paste Ephesians 5:6-8---to walk in light!
God is love--------we must love one another and this includes husband and wives.
God is holy------we must abstain from certain things.
Ill: I went to Abilene Christian College this past weekend. College has changed so much –the focus is not only on passing exams, but getting hands on experience. They have a program called the honors college and these young people have opened up a center in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Dallas. It is not all glitz and glamour of the Dallas Cowboys!
----How is your work ethic? ----Are you a good employee—call in sick, show up late, on facebook or texting? Do you milk the clock? Do you steal from your employer?
----How do treat the waiter or waitress?
----How well behaved are your children? Do they run the house?
----Can you be trusted to do what you promise?
---Can you keep a confidence?
---Do you curse and use vulgar language?
----How is your marriage?
---Are you ill tempered?
---Do you forgive and show grace to others?
---Do you spend time with your kids?
---Do you pay your child support?
---Do you pay your bills? Do you owe people money?
---Do you reach out? My bank, my pharmacy, CiCi’s Pizza always greet me and seem glad I’m there.
These are the practical things that others judge us by.
3.Third, we proclaim the truth of our faith by showing that it is personal.
“If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
If we have claimed we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
--As preacher we hear “those people needed to hear that!”
One of the distinguishing things about our faith is that we take Jesus as our personal Savior and we recognize that it for me that he died!
Many world religions teach that there is such thing as sin:
Sin, they say, has no real existence, it is a mere figment of the imagination, and all that is necessary to deal with sin is to correct your thinking. Also, it is widespread in non-Christian religions such that teach the concept that sin does not really exist, it is merely in the mind. Truth exists, and good exists, but sin does not have objective reality.
PRECIOUS BLOOD –A personal savior!
Several years ago in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, George and Vera Bajenksi’s lives were changed forever. February 16, 1989. A very normal Thursday morning. The phone rang at 9:15 a.m. "There’s been an accident..." It involved their son Ben.
As they approached the intersection of Adelaide and Simcoe Streets near the high school, they could see the flashing lights of the police cars and ambulance units. Vera noticed a photographer and followed the direction of his camera lens to the largest pool of blood she had ever seen.
All she could say was, "George, Ben went home--home to be with his Heavenly Father!" Her first reaction was to jump out of the car, somehow collect the blood and put it back into her son. "That blood, for me, at that moment, became the most precious thing in the world because it was life. It was life-giving blood and it belonged in my son, my only son, the one I loved so much."
The road was dirty and the blood just didn’t belong there. George noticed that cars were driving right through the intersection--right through the blood. His heart was smitten. He wanted to cover the blood with his coat and cry, "You will not drive over the blood of my son!"
Then Vera understood for the first time in her life, one of God’s greatest and most beautiful truths...why blood? Because it was the strongest language God could have used. It was the most precious thing He could give-- the highest price He could pay.
Through God’s amazing love we were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19). May we never treat lightly nor trample underfoot the blood of God’s Son (Hebrews 10:29).
"Amazing love! How can it be? That though, My God, shouldst die for me!" (Charles Wesley).
Source: --Victor Knowles, Peace on Earth Ministries, Joplin, MO. George and Vera Bajenski minister with Global Missionary Ministries, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.
