INTRO.- Truth. What is truth? Or where is truth to be found? That depends on the person to whom you are talking.
ILL.- For example, I recently read something about actor Morgan Freeman that caught my eye. It read: Morgan Freeman: I am God. He played the part of God in the comedy “Bruce Almighty.”
He was being interviewed and was asked, “Do you think there is a God?” Freeman replied, “Uh yeah,” but then he paused. He said, “I paused because I am God.” He said, “God is created in my image.” (instead of saying according to scripture that we humans are created in God’s image) Now where in the world did he get that idea? I don’t know but I suspect he conjured it up in his own prideful mind.
Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
I would also say that the fool says, “I am God.” I think there are many people who think they are God or are God-like in the sense of being intelligent, powerful, and rich. I think fame and fortune always cause trouble for people, in the sense of perhaps making them think they are smarter than other people. But here is the truth:
John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
I John 2:22-23 “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”
The truth is in Christ, not in Hollywood actors or anyone who think they are wiser than God. Truth is in Christ and in His Word but many people think they are smarter than the Bible.
ILL.- Like that little boy who told his mother he was 7 feet tall. She questioned him and he said, “I am because I just measured myself with my own little ruler.”
Many people have their own rulers in life as to what is good and what is evil. And there isn’t much of anything that is evil to many people in our world. Everything goes. Everything is ok and acceptable. I’m ok. You’re ok. Not so, according to the truth of God’s Word.
ILL.- I loved it when we heard that actor Brad Pitt’s mother disagreed with him about politics and some issues of the day. She wrote in their local Springfield, MO, newspaper.
She also wrote: "I think any Christian should spend much time in prayer before refusing to vote for a family man with high morals, business experience, who is against abortion, and shares Christian conviction concerning homosexuality, etc."
Why would Brad Pitt’s mother write about her opposition to Gay marriage and abortion? Because she is a Christian and is taking a stand on what she believes is the truth of God in scripture!
We all need to take a stand on the truth of God’s Word and even if we are accused of wrongdoing or are persecuted for it.
The problem in our world is that people have no sense of right and wrong or any standard to go by. We believe, however, in the truth of Christ and His Word!
PROP.- The truth is in Christ. And Paul spoke the truth in Christ in this text.
1- The truth of the Holy Spirit
2- The truth of anguish in the heart
3- The truth of separation from Christ
I. THE TRUTH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit.
ILL.- In West Texas is a famous oil -field known as the Yates Pool. During the Depression, this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates was not able to make enough money on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family like many others had to live on government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep, he wondered how he would be able to pay his bills. Then a seismograph crew from an oil company came into the area and told Mr. Yates that there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.
At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. Many of the early wells on the Yates Field were phenomenally productive; the first five wells, by spring 1927, together produced an average of 9,009 barrels per day, far more than could be stored or moved. Production from the field peaked in 1929, with a total production of 41 million barrels. The field has produced more than one billion barrels of oil, making it one of the largest in the United States, and in 2009 it remains productive, though at a diminished rate.
And Mr. Yates owned it all! The day he purchased the property he received the oil and mineral rights, yet he was living on government assistance. A multi-millionaire living in poverty! The problem? He did not know the oil was there. He owned it, but he did not know it! And the same thing is true for many Christians. We have unlimited supply of wisdom and strength from God for life and yet we often don’t recognize this and avail ourselves of this power. And I’m referring to God’s powerful Holy Spirit.
I’m talking about the truth of the Holy Spirit. There is a Holy Spirit who lives in us and is at work in us in this world.
John 14:15-17 “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
Without Christ there will be no Holy Spirit in a person’s life. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be with us and to help us in this life.
John 14:25-27 “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
How can the Holy Spirit teach us? Through scripture because He is the author of scripture which is the same as saying God is the author of scripture.
John 16:7-11 7 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10 in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
The Holy Spirit can convict the world of its sin, but how? When God’s Word is heard through personal reading or hearing it preached.
ILL.- Many years ago when Billy Graham was in his prime he would preach against sin but at the same time, he would always preach Christ as only escape from sin and people responded!
Thousands and millions of people responded to the Biblical message. Why? Because it’s the truth of God given by the Holy Spirit. And perhaps we need more preachers to return to some of that old fashioned type of preaching where people are told to repent of their sins!
The Holy Spirit is alive and well on planet earth and we need to let Him do His work by doing the Lord’s work. He does live within us and we need to let Him live and reign in our lives.
Galatians 5:16-18 “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”
II. THE TRUTH OF ANGUISH IN THE HEART
2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. What produces sorrow or anguish in your heart?
ILL.- I had sorrow in my heart when I totaled my 1955 Chevrolet back in 1963. But I was thankful that I hadn’t been killed and that could have happened. THEN WHAT? According to scripture I would have had even greater sorrow in my heart. Why? Because I really didn’t know the Lord. I knew OF the Lord, but I didn’t know him personally and I hadn’t surrendered my life to Him.
ILL.- I had sorrow in my heart when my dad was hospitalized and nearly died. In fact, I thought he was going to die. My sister Sharon reminded me that dad had his kidney removed and he went into shock and nearly died. The doctor gathered us all together in his room. I don’t remember what the doctor said but it wasn’t hopeful. However, dad did pull through and lived about another 20 years after that. He was in his early 50‘s at that time.
I had an even greater sorrow in my heart when my died in December of 1982 at the age of 72, because I didn’t think Dad was spiritually ready for death. BOY, DID I SORROW THEN! I had/have seemingly unceasing anguish in my heart.
And there were at least two times in my life when I had an opportunity to say something to my dad about Jesus and I didn’t do it. And I have a great anguish over that as well.
My dad’s brother, Uncle John, died in February of 1975, dad and I were walking outside John’s house in Neosho, MO, and dad, “Well, it was just John’s time to go.” I should have said something at that time. I should have said something like, “Well, anybody can leave this world at any time and we all need to know the Lord in order to be ready to die.” BUT I DIDN’T. I didn’t have nerve or the faith to say those words.
I had anguish over not saying anything. Another time, mom, dad and I were in the living room of their house in Webb City, MO, and mom said, “I need to bring daddy up there (meaning where I preached) and get him baptized.” There was a short period of silence and then dad, “You got to get the head right first.” What did he mean? I assume he meant he was thinking right yet. And I never said anything. But I should have said something positive about the need to surrender to Christ. And I’ve had anguish in my heart ever since that time.
What produces the most sorrow in your heart? I know what should produce the greatest sorrow in your heart. It’s when you recognize that people don’t know Christ. That’s the thing that should cause anguish in our hearts the most, that is, to know that some loved one doesn’t know Christ or isn’t living the Christian life and is not prepared to die.
And if we have enough anguish in our hearts maybe it will cause to do something about it and speak to them about Christ.
III. THE TRUTH OF SEPARATION FROM CHRIST
3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel.
Many people are separated from Christ in this world. How does this happen? Here is how it happens.
Ephesians 2:1-3 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
Sin is what separates people from Christ and we need to be honest enough to admit it. Sin controls many people.
ILL.- This was how Susannah Wesley defined "sin" to her young son, John Wesley: "If you would judge the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of pleasure, then take this simple rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, and takes off the relish of spiritual things--that to you is sin." There is much in this world that does that.
ILL.- It's like a World Series of weeds, a Hula Bowl of herbicides, with agriculture students from U.S. and Canadian universities competing to identify problems in farm fields. One year, Iowa State took top honors in the Collegiate Weed Science Contest, which tests students' abilities to identify weeds and the right chemical to kill them and diagnose herbicide failure.
"They need to be able to recognize weeds when they are tiny," said James Worthington of Western Kentucky University, president of the North Central Weed Science Society. "When they get big enough that anybody can recognize them, it's too late to do anything about them." AND SO IT IS WITH SIN.
We need to recognize sin asap, when it’s tiny. How do we do this? We stack up everything in life against the Word of God. If the Word of God condemns it as being sin then we know it is and it must be nipped in the bud.
ILL.- It’s like that one and only time when I smoked my dad’s pipe and kept it lit for an hour. It made me horribly sick and that told me instantly that was no good for my good. And I quit. Don’t you wish we all would recognize sin that quickly or maybe even quicker and put it a stop to it before it grows in us?
ILL.- It’s like when mom and dad said, “Don’t play with matches. You’ll get burned.” If we believed them then we didn’t play with matches but some of us got burned anyway. But once burned, we stopped playing with matches and fire.
The truth is: Sin is what burns us in life and separates us from God and Christ.
CONCLUSION----------------
4 Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
Wow! It sounds like Israel has it made: the adoption, the divine glory, the promises, etc. Actually, that’s us because we are the new Israel or new people of God! And that’s the truth in Christ.
The truth in Christ is that we are His. His Spirit lives within us and His Spirit should produce some anguish in our hearts over lost souls! That’s the truth in Christ!
Steve Shepherd, Cape Girardeau, MO
shepherd111@hotmail.com
