Truth

I'm pretty sure that's written by a sister in Primer Pres of one of our sister churches up in Atlanta. Great, great lyrics. You'll be hearing more that soon. Mexico City. Have you ever been there? Mexico City. I've traveled to a number of other countries have been in a lot of their capitals but for me Mexico City is I think the most fascinating big city. I've been in certainly in this hemisphere. I've traveled a lot in the other one but Mexico City is a number of things. First of all it's the biggest city in the world population of about 25 million plus and growing rapidly but it's also it's fascinating to me in this. Mexican history to me is fascinating. You had the Olmex and Aztecs and the Mayas and all their offshoots. What is now Mexico City was the capital of the Aztec Empire until Cortez and the boys came over and conquered Mexico with a small handful of men. When they got to Mexico City which at that time again was the Aztec capital. They went to the very center of town and then they raised the Aztecs headquarters or Empire if you will and built theirs right over the top of it. If you go to Mexico City now they very center the city is a center called the Zona Rosa and then the very heart of the Zona Rosa is the Soculo and in the Soculo that's where that Aztec Empire's headquarters were and you can see a lot of fascinating buildings. The National Cathedral is there. If you're ever in Mexico City something to see architectural it is magnificent. If you go inside that building it is huge. You could probably fit six or eight of this church's sanctuary in that cathedral. Maybe more. It's been a long time since I've been there. Probably six, eight, maybe ten of these in there. It is magnificent. It is opulent. It's gold everywhere in candles. Art work. It's just overwhelming. If you go back outside and go just to the south and look north toward that National Cathedral you'll notice something interesting about it. It leans. As you look at it from the south it leans toward the east. That magnificent structure took them 93 years to build it from 1573 to 1667. But Mexico City is built on a dried out lake bed. It used to be Lake Texcoco. Aztecs trained it and built their capital there. So that National Cathedral is built on a dry lake bed and it's sinking into that soft underbed. And if they don't do something to shore it up and I think they're working on it, it will crumble. What do I tell you this? Because I want you to know about the National Cathedral of Mexico City. It's interesting. The point is this, that magnificent structure was built on a foundation that is not sufficient to support its weight. That foundation is not sufficient for it. And I don't care if you build the biggest, baddest, boldest edifice in town or in the whole nation or in the whole world. If it doesn't have a strong enough support structure underneath it, it will crumble. Ask Bernie Madoff. Ask the folks at Endron, AIG, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae. Ask the leaders of what used to be the Soviet Union. You all in here under 20. You don't know what that is. Used to be a confederation of countries called Union of Soviet Socialists Republic. Ask the former leader. They built their empires individually, corporately and nationally. They built their empires on lies. And when the truth emerged, it became obvious that it had an insufficient foundation. So their houses of cards crumbled. Foundation upon which our faith is built is truth. It's not philosophy. It's not moralism. Certainly not wishful thinking. It's not even peace on earth. Good will toward men. It's nice that it is. No, our faith is built on a foundation of truth. And it is the only foundation sufficient upon which you might build a life. It's certainly a faith. Truth unchanged. Unchanging is Dr. Martin Louis Jones put it. Truth unchanged. Unchanging is the bedrock of the Christian faith. We're in John chapter 17. If you haven't been here in a while, it's your first time again. We're glad to see you. Did you all pass those red notebooks during the offering? Like I asked you, not shame on you. Pass them down. I'll wait. Pass those red notebooks if you don't sign in. But if you're not, if you haven't been here, we're preaching to the gospel of John. And we're at the point in John chapter 17, where Jesus, the night of his final supper, the Lord's supper with his disciples, the night that he would be betrayed. He has spoken to them. He prays for himself, and he prays for his disciples. He prays for his followers. He prays for the church. He prays for us. He prays for us. We're only going to look at one verse this morning. John chapter 17 and verse 17. Somebody says, one verse. All right. It's going to be a short sermon. Welcome, stranger. We're glad to have you here. John 17, verse 17, Jesus says, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. One of the marks of the true church is this. It's truth. A few weeks ago we looked at joy, and we looked at unity, and last we looked at holiness. This morning we looked at truth as the hallmark of the true church. We pray with me. Father, thank you for your word. Your word is truth. Your word is a lamp into our feet. It's a light unto our path. Your word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and pierces as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow. It's able to judge the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. There is no creature hidden from your sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him, with whom we have to do. Our Father, our hearts and our minds and our very souls are laid open before you this morning. We ask that you take this word and use it, or use it, to do that radical surgery in our hearts. Only you can do. You can do it through the ministry of the word, and I pray that you would use me now to accomplish that purpose. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Two politicians were overheard. They thought their microphone was off. One leads over the other and says, look, I know it's a lie, but just hear me out. Truth, folks, truth is in short supply. We all know the scandals are, you know, our trust in our elected leaders is at an all-time low. We understand why I think of the scandals that we have seen just in the last 10, 12, 15 years. The President Clinton, with senators Larry Craig and John Ensign, with representatives Mark Foley and William Jefferson, with governors, Elliott Spitzer, and Illinois Bagoyvich. Mark Sanford, with former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards, are elected and appointed leaders. You don't think of them as truth, but I know it's a lie, but just hear me out. Mark Twain once wrote, America has no distinct criminal class, unless, of course, you count Congress. Truth, folks, is a lightning rod. Truth is, it's a lightning rod. It's a watershed issue between the church and the culture. And, therefore, it used to be. It used to be for a long time that the church led the culture, and the church sort of was tolerated by the culture. But now, at a point in time where they no longer think what kind of, interesting, what kind of quaint, how nice did you believe in God, how nice did you believe the Bible, how nice did you think that Jesus is a Savior? I don't just tolerate this anymore, now they resent us. Our culture resents us, and they fear us, and a great deal of our culture would like for us to be quiet and to go away. They don't laugh at us, they don't dismiss us as silly, I think we're dangerous. They don't just disagree with our doctors anymore, they resent it. So, therefore, I would say, an application of John 17, 17, sanctified them by the truth, your word is truth, I would say, first of all, truth divides. Truth divides. A quick history lesson, Neil alluded to this, Neil, he almost preached my sermon for me, and you probably would have done it better in shorter. A little history lesson, three predominant worldviews about truth in the Western world, in the Eastern world they have a totally different view of it. In the Western world, there have been three predominant views about truth. The first was the biblical worldview, and that is that there is truth. It comes from God, and we can know it, we can know it both through special revelation, Scripture, and we can know it through general revelation that God has spoken in nature. The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse declares the work of his hands, Psalm 191 says. God has revealed Himself to us directly in special revelation, the Bible, the Scriptures, and He's revealed Himself to us in general revelation through nature. There is such a thing as truth. It comes from God and we can know it. When the prophets said, thus say, the Lord, the people of Israel, they didn't say, get serious, come on. Now what they said was, you have barely, has God spoken, has God spoken through this prophet? And if He hasn't, it was bad, it was bad for the prophet. But if He has spoken through the prophet, then we must listen to that word and we must ask ourselves, how now shall we live, now that God has spoken to us through the words of His prophets? Truth through revelation and through reason. When Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. They didn't look at Him and say, get out of here. What's its thing? If there is truth, it's out there, it's not you. They took Him very seriously, very seriously, deadly seriously. And they said, you think it's you. You think it's you. The biblical rule of you, there is such a thing as truth that comes from God through revelation and through reason, we can know it. Then there was the modern world view and this began really in the era of the Renaissance, roughly 14th through 17th centuries, flourished and culminated in many ways in the era of the Enlightenment, 18th century. And that's said, there is such a thing as truth, but it comes through reason. Truth comes through reason. Faith, that's for the private arena. That's for, that's for the arena of your own mind, maybe for the cathedral. But nowhere else, you need to keep it to yourself, you need to keep it private. It's truth through reason only. This mindset really helps weigh from about the 18th century on until pretty recently, this modernist Enlightenment mindset. Many of us, perhaps most of the adults in this room, we were raised with a modernist mindset. We are sort of a default drive of modernists, do believe the truth comes through reason, faith is for the private arena. We wouldn't put it that way, but we function that way. We don't know many of us. We don't know there is any other kind of mindset. We just think that's the way it is. So successfully has the modernist mindset taken hold in our minds, in our lives. There's the biblical mindset, truth from God, the reason and revelation, there's the modern mindset, truth through reason only, faith is private. And this is giving away now to something called the post-modern mindset. The post-modern mindset, what's the difference? Well, the post-modernists really began, you could say back in the 1920s, it really took hold in the 60s, when everything changed in this culture. In the post-modern mind, they say basically, there is no such thing as truth. There is no truth. And if there is, well, it's your truth for you, and I've got a truth for me, or maybe there's a truth for your tribe and your culture, but it doesn't apply to all people everywhere, who do you think you are? Francis Schaeffer put it this way, post-modern man has both feet firmly planted in midair. There is no such thing as truth. Robby's acuris, do you know that name, Robby's acuris? A great thinker and preacher when I say an apologist, that means someone who's extremely skilled at defending the Christian faith. Robby's acuris tells of speaking at Ohio State University a number of years ago. And his host took him around, he's special in the chapel. The chapel at Ohio State University says, the first truly post-modern building in the United States. And if you go into that chapel, I understand there are support columns that start on the floor, reach up to, short of the sand, they support nothing. There are hallways that lead nowhere, there are doors that don't open. And his host said, this is the first truly post-modern building in the United States. And Robby's acuris said to his host, well, I certainly hope the architect was not thinking post-modern when he poured the foundations.

The biblical view, the enlightenment, modernist view, and the post-modern view, truth divides folks, truth divides the biblical worldview. That there is truth and it comes from God. It comes to us through special revelation and through reason. It sets us apart from the rest of the world. The rest of our culture says, it doesn't matter what you believe, just be sincere. Be a sincere Christian, be a sincere New Ageer, a sincere Hindu, a sincere Muslim, a sincere Buddhist, a sincere atheist. It doesn't matter, just be sincere. The only virtue we have left in our culture is tolerance. The only sin we have left is intolerance. And that means that tolerance has come to mean that all viewpoints are equally valid. And the impact this has had on our culture has been devastating. From the 60s on, from 1962 today, this is the impact in our culture, a 300% increase in violent crime. 400% increase in births out of wedlock. 400% increase in divorce. 300% increase in the number of children living in single parent homes. A more than 200% increase in a teenage suicide rate. Since 1970, unwed pregnancies have increased 87% among 15 to 19 year olds. Teen abortions have risen 67%. There are well over a million cases of HIV infection in this country alone, in spite of the fact that we have known for 20 years how this disease was really spread. One person between the ages of 13 and 21 is infected with HIV every hour in this country. And if you stand up and say as a Christian, hey, you know, something's really wrong here. Something is wrong. And I know a better way what's the first response you'll get from the culture. Who are you to tell us? Who do you think you are? You self-righteous, narrow-minded, intolerant, and the rest of it, I probably shouldn't repeat on a Sunday morning in church. If we stand up and say, there is truth. And the truth is something is terribly wrong in this culture. And we know what it is. We know how to diagnose this. We know the answer, and we'd be glad to share it with you. And to a large extent, our culture has said, sit down and shut up. We don't want to hear it. We'd rather die in our sins. Truth divides, folks. Jesus said, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. Two Sundays ago, I believe, I preached on unity. And remember, if you let me know how much you appreciated that. And I thank you for that, too. We preach that on notorious approval junkies. Don't let anybody kid you. We look tough, but we love to hear, great job, great job. Now, don't come out there afterwards today and give me that, okay? Martin Luther called the glorification of the worm after the service. Don't do that. But a couple of the number you said that the sermon on unity really struck home unity, yes, but not unity at any cost. Not unity at the expense of truth. We never sacrificed truth at the altar of appeasing some form of unity. Several years ago, Chuck Coleson, I'm a great admirer of Chuck Coleson, what he's done in his life from Nixon's hatchet man to the head of prison, to prison ministry called prison fellowship. What God has done through Chuck Coleson is an amazing thing. Several years ago, he won the Templeton Award to a private foundation that gives an award for progress and religion at his acceptance speech delivered before Buddhist leaders and Muslim leaders and Hindu leaders and everything else you can think of. Chuck Coleson said this in part. I speak as one transformed by Christ, the living God. He is the way, the truth in the life. He has lived in me for 20 years. His presence is a sole explanation for whatever is praiseworthy in my work. That is more than a statement about myself. It is a claim to truth. It is a truth that may contradict your own. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, reigns. His plan and purpose rob the future of its fears. By the cross, he offers hope. By the resurrection, he assures his triumph. This cannot be resisted or delayed. mankind's only choice is to recognize him now or in the moment of ultimate judgment. Our only decision is to welcome his rule or to fear it. Truth divides. Truth demands. St. Levi, by the truth, your word is truth. There are two different kinds of truths in the world. You know this. There is the intellectual out there kind of truth. Isn't that interesting kind of truth whereby a man would say, I work for such and such company. I make so much money. I work late a lot and I make so much an overtime. That is true. We might say, well, how interesting. And then there is a truth that goes like this. This is your wife speaking. You have worked late five nights in a row. You have been gone traveling so much that the last time you came home with the airport, your children and I had to hold up a sign with your name on it to make sure we got the right guy. Now, that's the kind of truth that calls for a response. That's the kind of truth that demands some sort of action. In John's Gospel, the word sanctify is always used in the context of a mission. sanctify means to be set apart, to be made holy for God's purposes. It is always in the context of your set apart from something, your sins, for something. God's purposes. sanctify always occurs in the context of mission. Those who follow Jesus are set apart for something. He calls this out from what we were into what we are and what we are going to be for something. None of us are called for decoration. None of us are called to be put in a trophy case. We are called out for purpose, for mission. The truth is a sword for battle. It's also a scalpel with which God does radical surgery in the heart of the disciple. The truth of the gospel demands a response. I would say the truth demands that we embrace it wholeheartedly, whatever it costs us and it will cost us. For serious about it, it will cost us. We got to cling to it tenaciously. I had a friend who told me his grandmother helped raise him in the faith and she used to say, just you hold on to it if it skins you all over. And it will. The truth of the gospel will skin us all over. Jesus compared the gospel to a pearl of great price for which a man will sell everything he has so he can go and purchase that pearl. You have heard me use this analogy before. A man standing with one foot on a dock, one foot in a boat that is getting ready to pull away from the dock and the engine is driving. That boat is pulling away from the dock. You got one foot on the dock, one foot on the boat. Something is going to happen and soon and you better make up your mind. Embrace the truth wholeheartedly. Proclaim it fealously. Proclaim it fealously. Good brother of mine and another denomination doesn't matter what it was. They're really dealing with the women's ordination issue. You should know that in the PCA our stance is that God calls men to the office of elder. It's not a show business thing. It's not a sexist thing. It's just the PCA's stance. The God calls men into church office. I'm thinking of getting teachers. You see those t-shirts that say it's a fill in the blank thing. It's a black thing you wouldn't understand. It's a cane thing you wouldn't understand. It's a gator thing you wouldn't, you know all that stuff. I'm going to get one that says it's a biblical thing you wouldn't understand. Our stance is not emotional. It's not psychological. It's not cultural. It's biblical and so I said to my friend and this other denomination is going through the wars over women's ordination. I said listen they're not going to understand you. They're not going to agree with you. They're not going to like you. So just stand by the truth and let the chips fall. You have no place else to go. Stand by the truth and let the chips fall. The gospel is counter-cultural folks. It always has been. God always has been counter-cultural. Let's not try to shave off the roof or smooth off the rough edges or pretend otherwise. They're not going to understand. They're not going to agree with us and meaning them are not going to like us. We proclaim the truth, fear listening and the less. We embrace the whole heartedly, proclaim it fearlessly. We submit to it unreservedly. I want you to listen because many of you are in the same boat I was. I have been a Christian for eight or nine years. Seriously believe this stuff was involved in a ministry. Before I really came to terms with the fact that when the Bible says one thing in my life or my prejudices or my preferences say another, what has to give is not the Bible. I don't get to shape it into morph it into massager so that it fits me. No, I have to change. Not the Bible, me, what I do, my life, my attitudes, my words, my actions, that's what has to change. I have to submit to God's truth unreservedly. Let me say this. What if the dolphins who are playing the Jets tomorrow night? What if the dolphins are playing the Jets and it's a really close game and late in the ball game? Kosh Burrano calls a timeout, brings the team over and says, look, I've seen something guys and he diagrams a play. He tells each eleven men on the field, here's what you need to do on this play. You do this, we're going to win. He diagrams and he shows them the the winning play and then when they get out on the field, all eleven of them just do whatever they think they want to do. They just go out there and all eleven of them freelance. Well you know what's going to happen. The play is going to be blown. It's not going to work and they're going to lose the ball game. May I suggest you respectfully, lovingly? That's what the church is like when we get away from the Bible. When we leave behind the authority of the scriptures, when we don't submit ourselves to it unreservedly, we're just like ancient Israel in the time of the Judges, where every man and woman and young person does that which is right in his own eyes or her own eyes and the result is disastrous. Truth demands a response, not just an intellectual okay, I see the point that's interesting. You know it demands a response, a heart, soul, mind and will, it demands obedience. Truth divides, truth demands and truth stands. It stands. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. I hope when you leave your today, you will know a verse by heart, John 17, 17. It's a foundational verse for me. I echo something the late Rich Mullins wrote 15, 20 years ago. I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am. I did not make it. No, it is making me. It is the very truth of God and not the invention of any man. Truth stands and it stands alone. The God whose calling card reads, I am that I am. He does not have to be in comparison with, or even in relationship to anything else. He just is. His word abide, his truth endures forever. Jesus said, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall never pass away. Heaven and earth will pass away. My words never will. My words are eternal. In the prophet Isaiah, 700 something I used before that said, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Truth stands and endures, his word endures forever. Do you know the name Bishop John shall be spong? I have spoken to you about him once or twice before. He is or was anyway an Episcopalian bishop. I do not know if they are still allowing him to call himself that. Bishop Spong, and I say that to you because he is very public, it is not like I am outing him here. Bishop Spong believes, and I quote, he believes the 10 commandments are sexist. He does not believe in the virgin body. Virgin birth or the bodily resurrection of Christ doesn't believe in the virgin birth or the bodily resurrection of Christ. He believes that the church should ordain openly unrepentant homosexuals into the industry and should perform same sex marriages. He wrote a book called Living in Sin. He is for it. He thinks the church should have a liturgy for divorce just like it has one for marriage. He writes or wrote, I do not know, online sex advice column for Penn House magazine and he believes all roads lead to heaven. This is a man who has made his living off the church for many, many years. Now listen, don't waste your time or your emotional energy getting outraged at a lightweight tweet like John Shelby Spong. He will learn the truth someday, and I hope it is not too late when he learns it. Don't waste your time. Heretics come. Heretics go. Truth remains. Truth abides. When we let go of the authority of the scriptures, folks, when we let go of the authority of God's word, everything else recognizable as Christianity goes with it. You wonder how some denominations and some, let me say quote, leaders, unquote, you wonder how they go so far a field. It's not hard. They let go of the authority of the scriptures. Truth stands with or without us. It is wisdom for us to stand with truth for us to stand on the truth. Now let me say this, in our denomination, one thing you know about us, wherever you go if you find a PCH church, it may not be the most exciting church in town. It may not sing music you like or even recognize. It may not be the biggest church in town. One thing you know, the guy that stands up here like me, he will believe the Bible. He will proclaim the Bible is God's truth. He will know the Bible is God's truth. You can count on that. That's good. Here's a caution for us. Because we know the truth and we know it pretty well. Because we know it, there is a temptation for us to get arrogant about it. Why don't you see this? Why don't you see this truth? Why don't you see this truth? There's a temptation for us to get arrogant about it, to get smug about it. To be intolerant of those poor wretches who don't get it, we need to have confidence. We need to have certainty with humility. Folks, we didn't always get it. I certainly didn't. I was not raised with this stuff. And even those of you that were, God had to turn the lights on for you or you wouldn't have gotten it either. Paul writes this in Ephesians about how we were in darkness. We were orphans. We were without hope, without God the world. We were dead in our sins. A bleak picture of who and what we were. And then Paul writes in Ephesians 2 verses 4 and 5. But because of his great love for us, God who was rich in mercy, made us alive together with Christ. Even when we were dead in our transgressions, it is by grace you haven't saved. Did you get it? Did you get the truth of the scripture? Did you understand the doctrines that Neil teaches in the Westminster Confession? Great, wonderful. Remember it's a gift of God to you. It's God's mercy and God's grace that you've been allowed to see the truth. The truth divides. The truth demands, the truth stands. It's not up for debate. It's not up for a majority vote. I get to kick out of these denominations that survey their people every now and then. People say we want more say and what the church believes. It's not up for debate. It's not up for surveys. It's not up for a majority vote. It's not how do we feel about it? How well does it fit in with our preferences and our proclivity and our life stuff? It's not even how attractive it is to the outsiders. The only question is where do we stand in relationship to the truth? Are we building our lives upon it? Are we allowing the truth of God's Word to sanctify us? To cause us to be that which we would not be without it, to inform our lives and our choices and our relationships and our attitudes, to inform everything about us, are we building our lives on God's Word? Any other foundation, any other foundation, is adequate if you just want to put up a little shack, but if you want to build something as big and bold and magnificent and worthy of our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is only one foundation on which we can build and know that it will support the way to that kind of an edifice. The Word of God, Your Word is truth, Jesus said, sanctify them, sanctify us in the truth. On Christ, the solid rock we stand. Our other ground is sinking sand, let's pray together. My Father, I pray very simply and very humbly. A prayer of thanksgiving for the Word of God, for the written Word, Your Word is truth. I ask that You would continue to sanctify us in the truth, and I thank You especially that Your written Word points us to the living Word. Who is Jesus? And I pray these things in His name. Amen.