Rick Warren - How Do I Know What’s True — Part One

You know, we really live in a world that's full

of competing beliefs and values and choices, and what you

believe shapes how you live and ultimately who you become.

But the good news is God hasn't left us to

figure it all out alone.

No.

In fact, today, on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, We're going

to continue our series Reframing Your Worldview, where Rick Warren

unpacks powerful truths from God's Word to help you see

life clearly and live it with confidence and purpose. All right, well,

I can't wait to hear Rick's message today. Here he

is with part one of a message called how Do

I Know What's True?

In a national Paul last month, seventy percent of Americans

express concern about the quote decline in moral values in

our society. I asked my researchers to do a little

research on it. They came back with about three hundred

and fifty articles on this issue decline in moral values

in society just written in the last year. There is

what we would call a crisis of credibility in our nation,

and that is you can find corruption pretty much everywhere.

You can find it.

In politics, you can find it in business, you can

find it in sports. You can find it in academics.

You can find it in entertainment, you can find it

in churches. You could probably give me an example of

a scandal in every major sector of our society. Now,

what is the cause of this quote decline in moral values? Well,

I can say it in two words, truth decay, truth decay.

Jesus said, you will know the truth, and the truth

will set you free. Right, freedom comes from truth. The

more you know the truth, the freer you are and

your spirit, in your life and your family. Whatever the

opposite is true. The more you give up on truth,

the more you forfeit your freedom. Now, I intentionally chose

this phrase truth decay because I think it exemplifies what's

been happening in our society for the last fifty years. Slowly,

little by little, imperceptibly at first, there has been an

erosion of the value of truth in our society. We

don't value truth like we used to. And if you

don't stop that erosion, just like on your teeth, when

it first starts, you don't know what's happening, you don't

feel it, you can't see it, But that tooth decay

is happening, and if you don't stop it, you lose

your smile, you'll eventually lose your teeth. And the same

is true. If we don't stop the decay of truth

in our society, all kinds of problems are going to happen,

even greater than the ones we're facing right now. The

fat past fifty years, there has been a shift away

from truth as the foundation of our society. Forty fifty

years ago, people genuinely agreed on what is right and

what is wrong. And if people didn't even do right,

at least they knew right. They knew what they were

doing was wrong. Now today many people claim they don't

even know the difference between right and wrong. A lot

of people even claim there's not even such thing as truth.

How to even know there's truth? Maybe truth for you,

but not truth for me, So there.

Is no right or wrong.

I was shocked this week when I read about a

jury that deadlocked and they had to dismiss a case

over a woman who cut off the arms of her

eighteen month old baby.

Shocking isn't in.

A mari and they deadlock the jury deadlock because they

said this woman didn't know the difference between right and wrong.

Can you imagine that even happening in America. I was

shocked when I read I just couldn't even imagine that happening,

that a jury with deadlock over a woman saying, well,

I don't know the difference between right and wrong. Now,

this idea that there is no such thing as truth

is called postmodernism or relativism. And here's the big idea

between behind postmodernism. What's true for you may not be

true for me, and what's right for you may not

be right for me. Now that's a very convenient philosophy

because it means I'm doing whatever I want to do.

It basically lets me off the hook. Says there is no.

Objective standard of behavior and I can do whatever I

want to do. Now, when Jesus said you will know

the truth, and the truth will set you free, he's

talking about the truth will set you free, not a

true not any truth, not the truth you make up

for your own agenda, and I make up my own.

That's not the truth that sets you free. It is

the truth that sets you free.

Last week we talked about when I began this series

on Worldview, about the sincerity myth. The sincerity myth says well,

you know, it really didn't matter what you believe. If

at least you're sincere, that's all it matters. And we

talked last week about this and pretty much detail that

you can be sincerely wrong.

I have been sincerely wrong many many times.

If after this service you decided to go out here

and get on the toll road and you went up

what you were thinking was the on ramp to the freeway,

but it was actually the off ramp, you could be

sincere about it, but you'd be sincerely wrong, and you

would head into traffic and inevitably you would cause a

collision and there would be damage to your car and

most likely to you because you were sincere, but you're

sincerely wrong. And if you were going up the off

thinking it was the on ramp to the freeway, you're sincere,

and some irate driver coming off the off ramp says to.

You, wrong way, don't go this way, wrong.

Way, it'd be kind of silly for you to say, Now,

who are you to tell me?

What's the truth?

I mean, it may be right for you, but it's

wrong for you, but it's right for me. See, postmodernism

relativism is built on the idea there are no absolutes.

Have you heard this one?

There are no absolutes. Now, that is absolutely a stupid statement,

because it's not only illogical, it's unreasonable. First place, when

you say there are no absolutes, you're making an absolute statement.

So it's illogical. Whenever somebody says there are no absolutes,

I want to say, are you absolutely sure? Because you're

actually stating an absolute It is an illogical statement. Not

only that, it's just unworkable, it's unusable, it's irrational because

the entire world operates on absolutes every single second of

the day. When you go into a pharmacy to get

a prescription filled, you know, oh, just give me anything,

and the pharmacist doesn't say, well, I didn't have what

you wanted, but this is kind of like it.

And it'll do good. You know.

I know it's for your back, but this is a

good thing for your head. You know, you don't want

the pharmacists to give you absolutely the correct prescription in

the right dosage, and you don't want anything kind of

kinda true.

You want it to be absolutely true. When NASA shoots.

A rocket off, they don't want to go near the moon.

You know, closed, but no cigar. They want to hit

the planet, they want to hit the moon, and they

want to have it directly online. And there are thousands

of absolute corrections that have to keep it on course.

I mean, what if the law about stop signs was

you don't have to absolutely stop, you just stop when

you feel like it. Well, no, can you imagine what

traffic would be like if we had no absolute traffic laws?

What would that be? Total chaos?

The whole world, every single day of your life, operates

on absolutes.

I mean, have you ever had to.

Appeal to an objective standard.

When you were playing scrabble.

And somebody comes up and says, I'm telling you snicklfritzer

is a real word.

It's worth fifty.

Seven points, And you say, I'm sorry, I'm never is. Well,

it may not be true for you, but it's true

for me. It is a word. I use it all

the time. And so what you do is you appeal

to an objective standard called the dictionary, and if it's

not in the dictionary, it's not a word, no matter

how many points you thought you were going to get

for it. Now, in postmodernism and in relativism, what's happened

is that people now value tolerance more than they value truth.

The supreme value in our culture has become tolerance. It's

more important to be tolerant than it is to be truthful.

In fact, if you are truthful, then you are considered intolerant.

And how dare you say that something is always right

and something is always and wrong wrong, Because that's intolerant

and that's being judgmental. And actually, we have even redefined

the word tolerance.

Tolerance used to me.

We may totally disagree on something, but I still treat

you with respect because you're human being. You're made in

the image of God. And although we may totally disagree

on politics or morality or all whatever, we're still going

to treat each other, you know, politely.

That's tolerance.

Now, the word now means tolerance means all ideas are

equally valid. Well, that's nonsense. All ideas are not equally valid.

If I say the moon is made out of rock

and you say the moon is made out of Swiss cheese,

that is not an equally valid idea. And if I

say the Sun rotates around the Earth and somebody else

says the Earth rotates around the Sun, those are not

equally valid ideas. And if I say the Earth is

flat and you say it's round, those are.

Not equally valid ideas.

There are a lot of things in life that are

absolutely true, and there are a lot of things in

life that are absolutely false, and they will always be true,

and they will always be false. Truth is not new.

It has been around forever. Now we discover it, like genomes.

We now know that we're made up of DNA. But

that's not a new truth. It's just new to us.

God knew it all along. And so truth is I mean,

it is discovered.

But today if anybody dares to say this is always right,

then they are accused of being intolerant and judgmental. It's

not judgmental to tell the truth. If you're in an

accident and I come by on the car and I

see you, and you're laying on the side of the

road bleeding the death, and I walk up.

To you and I say, man, you need a doctor.

You're bleeding to death.

You're not gonna say, well, I don't want to hear

that you're being judgmental. That's not judgmental. It's just the truth.

You're bleeding the death. You need help. So today, as

we do part two in this series on Worldview, we're

going to look first at the damaging effect of truth

decay in our society, in our families, and actually in

our personal lives, what it does to our personal lives

when we let go of truth. And then we're going

to look at the five ways that you can know

the truth. So, what happens when we throw out truth

for tolerance, when all of a sudden we value tolerance

more than the truth. Well, all kinds of things happen.

Then there are actually six signs of truth decay. You

can see them in our culture, you can see them

in business, and actually you can see them in your

own life. These things happen when you start giving up

on truth. Number one, if you want to write this down, immaturity.

Immaturity happens when we give up on the truth and

we value truth more than tolerance, our tolerance more than truth.

You know, in many.

Ways, our society is getting more and more immature.

You can see it on television shows. And one of

the ways you can see it is we.

Are less willing to accept responsibility, which is a mark

of maturity.

You see, when there's no right and wrong when there's.

No standard of true and false, then we all act

in response irresponsible ways. I just be a kid. I

can act like a juvenile. I can blame other people

for my problems. There's no right or wrong. I can

be disorganized. I can put past the buck. I can

expect other people to take care of me, which is

what immature kids expect. I expect the government or anybody

else to solve my problems because I'm not responsible.

That's immaturity. And I can change my mind.

I can one day believe this, and one day believe that,

and the next day believes something else, because there is

no truth. The Bible says this in Ephesians four. Let

us be no longer like children, forever changing our minds

about what we believe because someone else has told us

something different, or has cleverly lied to us and made

the lie sound like truth. Makes you think of the

rumors you believed in junior high school. One person would

tell you one thing, and you believe that till somebody

else told you something else, and then you believe that

till somebody else told you something else, and.

The gossip went on and on and on.

Have you ever noticed how often teenagers changed.

Their minds even in just getting dressed.

Have you ever noticed the chaos and a nursery Have

you ever worked there?

Why?

Because they can change their minds all they want. All

you do is change the diapers. Do preschoolers automatically keep

their rooms in order?

No?

Why, they're immature, they're irresponsible. Well, when we become as

a society like that, here's what happens.

Look upon the screen.

The Bible says in Proverbs twenty nine, verse eighteen, a

nation without God's guidance is a nation without order?

Why? Because we're acting immaturely.

You see, the ability to know the difference between right

and wrong is a mark of maturity. It's what every

parent hopes for as you're growing up. Your parents wanted

you to learn the difference between right and wrong so

they didn't have to tell you, so that you, on

your own could make decisions going, I know this is

always true, and I know this is always wrong, and

so I'm going to make the right decision now in

each of these areas, I'm talking about society, but I

want to make it personal.

Too, So let me give you a question to write down.

This is a question about immaturity.

Ask yourself, where or when do I act childish? When

do I act childish? When do I tend to be irresponsible?

When do I tend to pass the buck? In what

areas of my life? Do I tend to blame other people?

Do you blame other people for your own unhappiness? The

truth is you're as happy as you choose to be,

and when you blame others, you are being irresponsible, and.

That is a mark of truth.

The number two, not only immaturity, but immorality is a

mark of truth.

To kay immorality. Now, when I say the word.

Immorality, most people think of sexual immorality, but that's only

one kind. Immorality just means no morals. It means I

do whatever I want to do, and if there is

no standard or right or wrong, then anything goes. The

Bible tells us back in the Book of Judges that

there was no king, there was no ruler in Israel,

and it's that everybody did what was right in their

own eyes. In other words, everybody did their own things.

Sounds like our culture today. If there's no standard or

right or wrong, anything goes, and with there's no truth,

then I become the center of the universe, and I

get very concerned about myself involvement. I'm preoccupied with me.

I'm self centered. I worry about my pleasure, my goals,

my getting ahead, and I don't really care about anything else.

The Bible says this, and Ephesians four nineteen. They don't

care anymore about right and wrong, and they've given themselves

over to immral ways. Their lives are filled with all

kinds of impurity and greed.

Say, I don't care what.

God says, if there's no right or wrong, I'm just

doing what I want to do. I mean, if God

says sex is only for marriage, well I'm sorry. God

says that, I'm going to make up my own truth.

I'll do what I want to do. See, here's how

decay truth. Decay works. When you do something wrong, every

time you do it, it gets easier.

I don't know if you figure that out.

First time you do something wrong, it really bugs you

and you feel.

Bad about it.

All kinds of warning lights go off in your life.

But the more you do something, it doesn't become it

becomes easier and easier, and all of a sudden, it

just doesn't bother you anymore that you're lying to your husband,

or to your wife, or to somebody else. It just

gets easier and easier. And the more immoral I means,

without morals the society becomes the more they make fun

of morality. Have you noticed this on television? I call

it the south Park syndrome. Nothing sacred. We make fun

of everything, including things that are true, things that are right,

things that are good. The Bible tells us this, and

proverbly fourteen nine it says up here on the screen, the.

Stupid ridicule right and wrong.

Now, how do you know when there's truth decay in

your own life?

You start rationalizing things.

Now, ay, you've heard me say this before that when

you rationalize, what are you doing? You are telling rational lies.

That's what rationalized means. Rationalize is when you make up

excuses in your mind what your heart tells you is wrong,

and in your heart you know it's wrong, but you're trying.

You want to do it anyway, So you rationalize. You

make up a rational lies, an excuse in your mind

to overcome what your heart is telling you.

Don't do this, don't do this.

So how do you know when there's truth k in

your life? Here's the second question write down what am

I trying to rationalize? What am I trying to rationalize

in my life? And I'm not talking just about you know,

you know, obvious sins, but just am I trying to

rationalize my lifestyle? That I'm too busy, that don't take

time to exercise, that I don't spend enough.

Time with the kids. What am I trying to rationalize?

And I do the yeah butts yeah, but that is

a sign of truth, the kay in your life.

Hey, thanks for joining us today on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.

What does it take to become more loving, live more peacefully,

develop patients have self control?

Well?

Pastor Rick says, throughout all the years he's been a pastor,

the number one question that he's been asked is wait

for it. Why can't I change? You know, people really

want to change, but they're stock and maybe you feel

that way too. So in his book God's Power to

Change Your Life, Rick lays out the groundwork for personal transformation,

and then he offers biblical insights and simple steps for

ten areas of growth that can take you from where

you are right now to where you.

Want to be.

This book really connects you with the power to actually

make the changes that you long to make. And as

you apply the truth of God's Word by the power

of His Spirit, your life will change and you'll get

on track with God's wonderful purposes for your life. So

be sure to request your copy of God's Power to

change your life when you give a gift to Daily

Hope to help take the hope of Jesus to people everywhere.

That's our way of saying thanks. Just go to Pastorick

dot com, or you can text the word hope to

seven oh three oh nine. That's Pastorick dot com and

that's got two rs in the middle. Or just text

the word hope to seven oh three oh nine. And

we thank you so much for your support. It means

so much to us at Daily Hope. We hope you'll

join us next time as we continue to look into God's.

Word for our daily hope.

And this program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

and your generous financial support.