Sermon # 2 - Choose The Truth Series

We read in Philippians 4:8, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (ESV)

In the above mentioned verse Paul is giving us counsel on the things that we should fill our thoughts with. Oftentimes the importance we give to actions, we do not give to our words, and so also the significance we give to words, we do not give to our thoughts. Strangely our thoughts are reflected through words, and then one day it is evident through our actions. The word of God therefore cautions us that we must safeguard the kind of thoughts that we entertain.

Set your mind on things that are true

We must firstly decide to think about those things that are true. We live in a world that is so mixed up, that there is more falsehood than truth that is freely being circulated. Hence, most people end up believing these lies, rather than the truth. We need to be careful about the things that we accept, for when we trust these lies, they become actions that can have an adverse effect on our lives.

Our minds are constantly bombarded by so much of false information, and the world is constantly trying to vie for our attention. I will give you an example of how people often believe a lie, and are then cheated. Let’s say we go to purchase an item at a store. We may then check out the price online to find that the item is priced far less, and also appears the same as the one we have checked out in the store. The online purchase is then made and when we receive the product, sometimes it could be completely different from the one we ordered. Now that the item has been delivered to us, we may feel cheated, but may not be able to rectify our mistake. So often, we are get sucked in by lies and the decisions we take based on them prove detrimental to us.

We live in times when there are numerous advertisements, some of them covering entire pages of our newspapers which are constantly alluring us. Most of these commercials are aimed at our thoughts to make us desire to have these things that are being advertised. There has been so much of financial strain these days, but the announcements for sales in stores has not decreased in any way. The advertising agencies are willing to spend loads of money, which they know they will be able to recover from their customers through their sales, thereby making enormous gains.

The truth about creation

We read in Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” (ESV)

• Created in God’s image

God created man in His own image and likeness. God created the world and everything in this world and created man as the crown of all His creation. This is the truth that the bible declares.

Generally when a baby is born, those who come to visit will often notice the resemblance of the dad or mom and when this is mentioned to the parents, they feel elated. If we as human beings are so joyous about this resemblance we share with our children, how much more delighted and ecstatic should we be that God has created us in His own image and likeness. Not only did God create man in His own image, He also endowed Him with the authority to rule over all that He has created. We should never complain about our looks, or compare ourselves with others, but rather realize and rejoice that we have been created in God’s image. We were created to thank Him, praise Him and worship Him.

• Created to rule

Everything that is in this world can be brought under the control and authority of man. Any wild animal on land or sea that may be huge and wild, can still be brought under the control of man.

Oftentimes, many are unwilling to accept this creator God, and reject his Lordship simply because they want to escape the thought of having to stand before Him and give an account for their lives. In order to do so, they deviate others by the distorted theories they promulgate. Many scientists have been involved in this research as to the origin of the world and of human beings. One of these theories is the one that declares that human beings came from apes. If human beings evolved from monkeys, then the question is ‘why do we still have these monkeys and how come they have not all evolved into humans?’ There is no answer to this question, and so they try to justify the theory of evolution in various other ways.