How’s your bucket list? My fear is that you’ll check off “Watch the Cubs win the world series” and “Watch Donald Trump be inaugurated as President” and you’ll be done this week because nothing else in life could outdo that!
We launched this new series about bucket lists, and about making sure your bucket list is written with some important items that Scripture says we need to get right before we kick the bucket. Last week laid the foundation for it – we need to invest in what matters. Already, I’ve heard from a couple groups about their plans to engage in some investment that will last forever – a project that a small group or SS class or other group is taking on. What’s your project? Remember get that going this week, so that on Feb 26 we can share some reports with the church family on “Kick the Bucket Sunday.”
Today I want to go to the 2nd item on the list – “Figure out what’s true.”
We have just survived a presidential campaign. There are few things in life that confuse what’s real and what’s true more than an election year! I figure this subject is pretty timely right about now! How can we be sure of what’s true?
Both John and Peter were fishermen by trade until Jesus called them to follow Him. On the same day, they both left their occupations behind to become preoccupied with following Jesus. It changed everything. Only a few years later, both of them were standing in front of crowds of people testifying that Jesus was the Son of God Who had risen from the dead. And both of them wrote what would become parts of the NT. I want you to hear from them both today as we consider how to figure out what’s true. Just hear how both of these followers of Jesus believed the story of Jesus, and why they thought you should believe it too…
1 John 1:1-3
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
2 Peter 1:16-18
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.
These men had good reasons to believe in Jesus, and they knew that helping others believe in Him was important. In other words, they would tell you that you need to figure out what’s true!
You really need this on your bucket list!
This is something you really need to get done while you’re still above room temperature! Too many people approach their time of death unsure of what’s true, and even more people face life with the same hindrance – they’re hindered by their worldview. Figuring out what’s true is something you really need on your bucket list, because it really affects the way you live.
Adolph Hitler’s worldview included the emergence of a super race, so he arranged for the extermination of all the people he thought interfered with that and tried to take over Europe.
Dylann Roof’s similar worldview caused him to draw a gun and kill 9 church members in Charleston, NC in 2015, because they were African American and at a church meeting.
Most people aren’t like that, but the ones who are become that way because of their view of the world. It shaped their decisions. The good thing about this is it works in the positive direction too!
Richard Wurmbrand was in Romanian prison for over 13 years because of his faith in Jesus. He and his fellow prisoners were beaten regularly. It was all he and the others could do to survive – except, they were Christ followers. He writes about it in his book Tortured for Christ. "When we were given one slice of bread a week and dirty soup every day, we decided we would faithfully 'tithe' even that. Every tenth week we took the slice of bread and gave it to the weaker brethren as our 'tithe' to the Master." That’s what a person’s worldview does for them in extreme circumstances.
9 days ago, when a gunman opened fire at the airport baggage claim in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, one of the potential victims was a mother and school teacher named Annika Dean. She dropped to the floor as the shots rang out and the shooter started her direction. Then, a 70yr old man from NY covered her and whispered, “I will protect you.” Tony Bartosiewicz. Bullets flew above him, but both survived. There are other hero stories like that from crisis situations. What compels a person to do something like that? It comes from a person’s view of the world.
How your life turns out, your choices, will be driven by what you believe is true.
The Apostles are a good example of that. They went from being ordinary scared men to boldly announcing that Jesus was the Son of God. They all suffered, and all but one died for preaching and teaching about Jesus. They were driven by their belief.
The book of Judges in the Bible is a negative example of the same thing. Twice it says,
Judges 21:25 In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
When that’s what people accept as the foundation for their society, you end up with the mess that you can read about in the book of judges.
If you believe that the earth kind of formed itself, and that mankind is just some kind of parasitic presence here, it will affect what you do. If you think that people are supposed to each decide for themselves what is right and wrong and somehow then just coexist peacefully, it will affect what you do. Bill Nye, the science guy, was asked how, in his secular worldview, he can determine what’s right and wrong. He said, “Based on what I feel as a member of the human tribe.”
Is it true that there’s such a thing as evil? Is it true that people should obey the law? Is it true that terrorist groups need to be appeased or reasoned with, rather than stopped? Figuring out what’s true is really important, isn’t it?
I have to admit that over the past few decades, as the definition of the word “truth” got lost somewhere, I began to pull my hair out. But rather than blowing a neck artery because a 19yr old has been raised and educated to think that truth means “whatever you believe in,” I want to simply show what truth is, how truth actually matters in your life, and how the Bible view of truth is really the better view.
One common characteristic of the 2 most recent generations (Millennials and Gen Z) is a longing for authenticity – authentic relationships; no false fronts, no hypocrisy…at least, not from other people! Isn’t that essentially a search for truth in life? As a general rule, they’re cynical and skeptical of anyone who claims to have a handle on truth. They’re used to an internet full of urban legends and fake headlines just trying to rope you in and sell something. It’s not a new thing – it’s just multiplied now by 10,000 compared to a few years ago. So, when you’re online and you see the photo of the “weird trick that will make you lose 20 pounds and raise your IQ 20 points,” you don’t believe it. Not after a few times of trying, anyway.
I think these 2 most recent generations, who largely have been raised and educated no longer to accept such a thing as absolute truth, are mostly engaged in a search for truth, even though they may not name it that.
Look around. People are starving for something that’s sure, solid, unchanging, dependable in life – they want contracts that aren’t broken, relationships that don’t betray them, jobs that don’t disappear. Isn’t that what they mean by “true”? Or, isn’t that at least what they would latch onto if they thought something like that really existed? We just know from the Bible that “thing” is called “truth” and that the source of it is God. Let’s see if that works. First of all…
You already have a theory of knowledge
I was summoned to serve on jury duty a couple months ago, for the first time. Carrie had been summoned 3 times already! So, I made it all the way to the swearing in and then the screening for jury selection. Screening is where the attorneys for both sides get to ask the jurors questions and have them dismissed, if they want to. Basically, they ask questions that will reveal your worldview. Here are 12 people, all from our county, all from different walks of life, but every one of them has a worldview.
Every one of them has some way that they decide what they believe is true or not. That’s what a court is supposed to be all about: finding out what is true. This case I was called for was a DUI. So, the defense attorney asked us if we all had personally experienced the effects of alcohol. He asked if we had any friends or family members involved in law enforcement, or who had been in trouble with the law. And sometimes he asked if we would be able to think and render a decision without being influenced by those things. Somewhere along the way, I revealed something about my worldview that got me dismissed from the jury. The attorney heard something that made him think my decision as a juror would be influenced by my view of truth. He was right. All of us already have some set of criteria we use to determine what we believe.
John encouraged readers of his first letter to check up on teachers to see whether or not they were teaching the truth in…
1 John 4:1-3 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
He also adds in…
1 John 2:4
The man who says [about Jesus], "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Now, just look at those verses again. Without spending the day on them, we can see at least that we should be able to figure out some things about what’s true and what isn’t.
I want you to think for a moment why you believe what you believe. What does it take to convince you something is true? Or do you think that you can even be sure anything is really true anymore?
Some people would say, “If I can see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, or smell it, I believe it.” That’s empirical evidence. That definitely helps, but our senses alone can also be tricked. For instance, are these horizontal lines going left to right all parallel and straight, or not? And this elephant – how many legs does he have? How about this picture – what do you see? Besides that, if you believe only what you personally can verify 1st hand, you’ve just cut your list of believable knowledge by about 99%!
Some people might say, “If I hear from enough people that something is true, then I believe it.” That helps too, but have you noticed on Facebook, on other places on the internet, and on the mainstream TV news, that even though thousands of people might say something is true, it sometimes isn’t?
Some people might say, “What I believe is just what I really feel strong about.” That’s fine, but if you really feel strong that the law of gravity is unfair, it’s still the law; it’s still true! Your feelings, no matter how strong, don’t change reality.
Think of all the different influences that cause you to decide if you believe something or not. (graphic on screen). Some are good sources. Some just play with your emotions or appetites. Somehow, you decide which ones you should listen to, and that’s how you decide what you believe. Choosing which influences you’ll listen to varies from person to person.
Ill - There was a movie a few years ago called “Life of Pi.” You follow the story all the way through it, and at the end, the teller of the story raises some doubts about it. Is the story about what really happened, or is the whole thing a metaphor of something else that happened? And the conclusion is: it doesn’t matter. Just believe what you choose to believe.
That’s the very message this era is marketing to us. “What’s true doesn’t matter nearly as much as what you believe is true.”
But what if there really is an all-powerful, all-knowing God Who created us? And what if that God has communicated truth to us? What if that God has told us that He’s supposed to be at the center of our thinking, rather than ourselves? What if He says that He is the source of truth, and the Authority regarding our choices?
Then I’d like to pay attention to what He says about figuring out what is true – especially what’s true about Jesus Christ.
You’re invited by God to look at the evidence and believe
God doesn’t ask us to just close our eyes and believe in His Son. Before Jesus came to earth, God had already given evidence about His claims through prophecy. Jesus said to His critics,
John 5:39-40
You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life
Peter, preaching about Jesus in Acts 10 said,
Acts 10:43
All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
Jesus also pointed to the miracles He worked as evidence that what He claimed about Himself was true. Then, He predicted His own death and resurrection, and afterwards He was very deliberate to show Himself to lots of people – over 500 of them at one time – to prove it was true. When Thomas struggled with believing it was true, Jesus appeared to him and invited him to examine the evidence.
So, from the day that the Church first begins, there’s a group of 12 men who say over and over that they are eyewitnesses that Jesus rose from the dead.
Acts 2:32 This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this.
Acts 5:32 And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.
Acts 10:39 We are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem…
Acts 13:31 …for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people.
God put together a large number of credible evidences to show us that the Scriptures are true; that the words of Jesus recorded there are true. We don’t have to accept it blindly. We don’t have to check in our brains at the door. The reasons we have for believing in Jesus as the Son of God are the same kinds of reasons we have for most of what we accept as true in life.
You need to figure out what’s true.
I want to give you something to do this week to act on what we’ve been looking at here.
Write out your strongest convictions in life
This is where the bucket list part comes into play.
It may be that up to today you never really tried to identify what you really believe to be true, or you never thought you really had the right to think that way. It’s time to change that!
Today or tomorrow, take a piece of paper, allow yourself some time, and write out your strongest convictions in life. Write down the most basic and important things you believe to be true. As you do, review why you believe them. Put them to the test. Go back and examine the reasons for your beliefs. Rework the list if you need to.
Are they true? Do they pass the test? Are they more than just strong feelings?
Jesus said,
John 8:31b-32
If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
Ill - There have been a few times in the past when Carrie’s dad or her grandparents were having some health issue, sometimes serious ones, and they didn’t contact us to let us know, because they didn’t want to stress us. Do you ever do that or have any family members who do that?
Then, when we finally learned a few days later that Dad had a heart attack, or a surgery, it stressed us out twice as much because we feel less confident that we know what’s going on.
Jesus said that knowing truth from Him would make you free. Truth isn’t something to be afraid of. Not having the truth is something to be afraid of.
You need to figure out what’s true. Jesus has spelled it out for us: continue in His word, and follow Him.
