Can We Talk? Truth + Love

I want to welcome you here.

My name is Tyler and the lead pastor here, and I'm excited to start this brand new sermon series called Can we Talk?

Addressing the uncomfortable.

We live in a world where truth is in decline and there's a lot of opposition to truth, that people don't have much room, though, for differing opinions, even though there is the devaluing of truth in our culture, but we believe that the truth is a person and his name is Jesus, and he wrote a book called the Bible, and in that book the truth is written down for us so that we don't have to wonder or be concerned or worried about it.

Most people have someone in their life, unfortunately, that has believed a cultural lie, something that the world is promoting as truth, that is in opposition to what God says is true, and so our whole hope in doing this series is to equip you guys and ourselves, as Christians, to be able to talk to people who have, who find themselves in one of those conditions where they are, where they're in need of truth, in love, you know, there's a combination of truth plus love is what we're after, right, and those are friends of each other.

There's a verse in the book of Psalms that talks about the fact that love and truth go together and righteousness and peace kiss each other, so they're actually friends, not enemies of each other.

And so in this series, we hope to engage truth in love on many different topics, including sexuality, identity politics.

We're going to talk about victimhood.

We're going to talk about addiction and several other topics.

So what could go wrong?

Right, these are things that are just so agreed upon as far as what truth is concerning these different areas.

But we're going to address it, not my brand of truth or your brand of truth.

We're going to address it from what God says about truth.

And then we're going to talk about, specifically, how do we engage the culture.

Right, cultures believing lies.

God tells us what is true, but how can we talk to the culture about truth?

So in the first two weeks we're going to be laying a foundation and the rest of the meetings will be building upon that foundation, and basically, there'll be four elements to each message.

One will be a devotional about the subject, and then we'll have a section where we'll talk about what culture says, what God says, and how do we talk about it with other people.

And all of that will be accomplished in 43 minutes and 56 seconds, by the grace of God.

So let's get started.

Second Corinthians, chapter four.

If you can turn there with me, we're going to start in verse one and read through verse seven.

Therefore, since God and His mercy has given us this new way, we never give up.

We reject all shameful deeds and underheaded methods.

We don't try to trick anyone or distort the word of God.

We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this.

If the good news we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing.

Satan, who is the God of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe.

They are unable to see the glorious light of the good news.

They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves.

We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord and we ourselves are your servants, for Jesus' sake.

For God said let there be light in the darkness, has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.

This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

Let's pray, father.

We ask that you would open our eyes to truth this morning, that you would speak clearly your truth from your word, and that it would change our lives so that we can be a benefit to others, so that we can speak the truth in love to those that are in the culture around us.

Father, help us to understand places where we're walking in deception and clear us and free us from those things, and we thank you that you are truth and we embrace you and the truth that you provide.

In Jesus' name, amen.

For more than 3,000 years, doctors used a practice called bloodletting.

Now, if you don't know what bloodletting is, it's where a doctor would attach something to a vein or an artery, even maybe using a leech or something like that, to take blood out of a person who is dealing with some kind of ailment or infection.

The whole idea was that if they took enough blood, that eventually the person would get well.

And how did they determine?

This is very scientific.

This is how they determined the right amount of blood had been taken as soon as the person passed out.

Then it was determined that was enough blood, and typically that happened when about 20 to 25% of a person's blood was lost.

Now we think about this now and we think that's crazy.

That's ridiculous.

They actually did that.

Yeah, they actually believed that that was the right way to treat the human body.

One of the most famous Americans named George Washington anybody ever heard of him.

George Washington had a very sore throat and a strong infection, and so the doctor prescribed bloodletting and they began to take blood from him.

George Washington was a strong human being because he got all the way to 50% blood loss, which was 80 ounces of blood that was lost before he passed out and subsequently died subsequently died, not of a sore throat, of letting too much blood out of his body, right, so it's?

Why do I tell you this story?

It's because the truth matters.

The truth absolutely matters, and if people had read the Bible in Leviticus, chapter 17, verse 11, it says that the life of a creature is in the blood, that the life of a creature is in the blood.

Leviticus 17:11

So even this particular thing that was practiced could maybe have been avoided or changed so that it wouldn't have been destructive as it was in so many people's lives.

Now, before we judge those people too harshly, I know that some of you have given yourselves a medical degree by researching WebMD for hours upon hours and you know the cure to every single ailment that anybody ever has.

You've implemented Windex olive oil.

I mean, there are so many different things that you're using.

I'm not saying that some of those things couldn't be helpful, but I am saying to you there's a possibility that some of the things that you believe to be true may not actually be true.

And also, if you do your research exclusively on Wikipedia, let's not even go there.

We'll save that for another message later on down the road.

I don't know if we're ready for that one yet or not, but in this passage in the book of 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul who was the one, remember who God got ahold of him after he had been resting and persecuting Christians, and God shown a light from heaven and spoke to him, changed his life just like that, and he became the apostle, a person who planted churches and ministered throughout the Greco-Roman world, planting many, many churches, and one of those churches he planted was in Corinth.

And in Corinth, after he planted the church, after a little bit of time went by, they started getting a little crazy.

That actually says that in the original group, you people are crazy.

It doesn't say that, but it should.

It could, because they really were getting.

They were very.

God was giving them spiritual gifts and they were using those gifts a lot, but they weren't allowing the character of God to be developed and the fruit of the spirit to shine forth, and so they were using the gifts in ways to actually attack each other instead of to be a blessing to each other.

So Paul wrote the book of 1 Corinthians, which the people quickly said this is not what we believe, we don't wanna hear this.

And they were angry with Paul.

So then Paul again, who started this church in Corinth, makes a visit to Corinth, and while he's there he addresses them again saying I'm serious, I'm here in the flesh, as a person, to tell you that what you're doing is not in line with God's character and nature and who he is, and you need to change.

And were they excited about it?

No, they were not excited about it, and so he left.

And while he was away, god began to work within the hearts of the leadership and those that were in the church of Corinth and they began to realize that what God was saying through Paul was actually right and true.

And so they began to humble their hearts and reach out to Paul and let him know that he was right and that they were wrong.

And so 2 Corinthians is a response that Paul gives to the church, and it's a much.

It's not friendlier, it's much less aggressive, I should say, but it's a powerful book as well.

So in this chapter, in 2 Corinthians, chapter four, he's writing to this church that he's had these issues with that.

Now he's in a place, they're in a good place with each other, and really it's not about Paul at all and it's not about the church at Corinth at all.

It's about Jesus Christ and the truth that he proclaims to be true.

Okay, so let's take a few points from this.

Paul begins and ends his thought with an attitude of humility.

Here's a man who has pointed out all of these different discrepancies and ways of doing things that the Corinthian church was involved with, that were wrong, against God's character and nature, and yet he starts by saying therefore, since God ends, his mercy, has given us this new way, we never give up.

Who gave it?

God in his mercy.

Paul understood, if anybody understood, what it's like to be wrong with God and then to be made right with God.

He lived that life himself and he concludes this section by saying we now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.

This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

Again, a man who could have leaned heavily on the arm of his own experience, his own gifting, his own nature, and yet he refuses to do that.

He says I'm just a clay jar, just a jar of clay that God has filled and is flowing through to be a blessing and a benefit to you.

We could learn a lot from Paul's stance, with truth and the humility that he showed.

James four teaches us that God resists what the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

He gives grace to the humble.

When we begin a discussion about truth, we must start where Paul starts.

Let's remain humble, understanding that we could actually be wrong as well.

So, secondly, paul avoided the temptation to try to trick people into believing what he was saying.

Don't you hate some of the tactics that churches and Christian Jews especially TV and internet, whether it'll say something like, if you give $100 today, god will give you $10,000 in the next two weeks.

It's a shame, and it's a sham and it's unfortunate.

Could God give somebody $10,000 when they give $100?

Of course God loves to give.

He said he will out give all of us every time, in every way.

He is a giver.

But he's not a formula, he's not a slot machine.

You don't put in $100 and pull the lever and get 10,000 out.

Right, we're blessed to be a blessing and so.

But this type of thought can be very rampant, this tricking, trickery that is used where people try to control others using the word of God, but it's really just twisting it completely.

So we reject all shameful deeds Paul says and underhanded methods.

We don't try to trick anyone or distort the word of God.

We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this he's saying my reputation precedes me.

I'm not here to speak my own truth, I'm here to speak the word of God.

How many of you recognize that in the culture that we're living in, the day and time that we're living in, there are a lot of grown people who are still acting like children?

I see you looking around at other people.

Take out your phone, turn your camera on and take a selfie, and then look at the look at the selfie and ask yourself is this person engaging in childish behavior?

Things like I know you are, but what am I?

We would never actually say that.

But, boy, some of those posts on social media sound like that.

Uh-uh, uh-huh, uh-uh, did not did too Time to grow up, folks, isn't it?

It's time to grow up and put away childish ways.

Trickery is Satan's MO.

Trickery and childishness is the way Satan operates.

Why would we want to stoop to using his nasty tactics?

Amen.

Next, paul understood that the people that he was speaking truth to were not the enemy.

The people he was speaking to were not his enemy.

If the good news we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing.

Satan, who is the God of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe.

They are unable to see the glorious light of the good news.

They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

There is something much more sinister at work than a failing government or than the Illuminati.

There is something that is much vaster in its scale and much more effective in what it does, and that is Satan himself and all of his evil hordes.

Satan was stripped of his glory.

He was a part of the worship of heaven, and he decided that he would make himself like the Most High, and one third of the angels agreed with him.

They were all kicked out of heaven, and Jesus observed this as they fell.

And so now all that Satan has in his life from motivation is a hatred for God.

He hates God in every form, way, fashion, anything that he—any way that he can, and so his attempts are to try to cause delusion, distraction, devastation.

Anything that he can do to cause us to be deceived, to turn our eyes away from what God says is actually true and from the God who is truth.

That is his job.

He will do anything within his power, and Ephesians 6, 12 tells us.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood.

Your aunt and uncle, your grandma, your grandma, your children, your coworkers, your boss, the students at school, your teachers they are not your enemies, they're not my enemies.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, if you think about Satan arriving on the scene in the garden.

Adam and Eve are enjoying God's presence every day and all of a sudden, this tree that God said is the only tree that they couldn't eat from, satan is all wrapped up in it as a serpent right, and he begins to speak to Eve.

And what does he begin to do with Eve?

He begins to get her to try to question who God is, what his character is, what his nature is, what he actually said.

So he says did God actually say that you would die when you eat of this fruit?

You will not, surely, die.

God doesn't want you to be like him.

He's holding out on you.

He has something that's great that he doesn't want you to experience, because he wants to control you.

And Eve took a bite, and Adam took a bite, and shame came upon this earth.

And all of us have been born in sin and shame, except for Jesus.

You see, there are two fathers to choose from.

There's the father of life and light and there's the father of lies.

Which one will you choose to follow?

And it's not enough for us to choose to follow, because what about our children?

What about our grandchildren?

What about people in our neighborhood?

What about people that we pass by in the grocery store on a daily basis?

So whenever we're out shopping at Walmart, wherever it is, what about those people?

Do they matter to God?

And if they matter to God, should they matter to us?

Paul focused primarily on one truth, and that is Jesus Christ is Lord.

Do you believe that this morning, jesus Christ is Lord?

You see, we don't go around preaching about ourselves.

We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus' sake.

For God who said let there be light in the darkness, has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

Have you seen the glory of God?

Have you tasted of it?

Do you know how great this salvation is that we've been provided?

Has the Father of lights illuminated your heart so that you can walk in the light, as he is in the light?

That's a good thing, but there are a lot of people who can't even wrap their minds around the fact that God is the God of creation.

But Jesus is the Lord of creation.

In Genesis one, in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

And God said let there be light.

And there was light In John one.

John takes us further to explain that Jesus is the Word of God.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made.

That was made In Him was life and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it and it never will.

It never will.

I do not care how dark it gets on this planet.

The light of Jesus Christ will never be snuffed out.

It will never be snuffed out and we do not have any control over it.

From the standpoint of what the light looks like in foreign lands when we are not there.

We can partner with people, we can pray for people, but we do have some say in what happens in our homes, in our lives, in our neighborhoods, in our workplaces.

We have the ability to shine the light in the darkness.

And yet I feel like at many times, in many ways, that we have covered up the light as much as we possibly can because we are afraid of the consequences of shining the light of truth.

What if we stopped worrying about the consequences toward us and started being concerned about the consequences of a person who never sees the light and passes from this life into eternal darkness, away from God?

Would that change something?

Would that change our perspective?

Not only is Jesus the Lord of creation, he is also the Lord of salvation, and Philippians 2, therefore, god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.

Amen.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of heaven and earth, he is the King of kings and he is the Lord of lords, and none of us can fully understand this truth without him shining the light of truth in our hearts.

This is not our truth, this is his truth, and we get the chance to shine the light of truth.

So what does the culture say about truth.

And I'm going to tell you right now there's absolutely no way that I can cover everything culture says about anything, because there's so much.

There's so much.

One of the reasons that we have a hard time sometimes speaking truth is because there's such a huge amount of lies and agenda and things that we face every single day.

Everywhere that we go, people are informed by what they're hearing, what they're seeing, what they're listening to, what they're talking about, what they believe, and it can seem completely overwhelming.

Am I the only one that experiences that?

Where do I even start?

What do I do?

How do I begin a conversation?

Well, let's first of all try to narrow down and talk about some of the concepts that culture says or believes about truth.

Culture says there is no such thing as absolute truth.

You know what they're actually saying.

There's no such thing as God, and behind that, you know what actually is being said.

I am God.

Does that sound familiar?

Almost like a scheme that Satan would come up with.

I'm not trying to be facetious.

I'm trying for us to really understand this and to know what the source of our trouble is.

The idea of absolute truth is too confining and oppressive.

It can't be good, it can't be real.

It puts me in a corner, it causes me to have to deal with something that I don't want to have to deal with.

So absolutely it cannot be true.

The only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth.

Do you believe that?

Yes, I do.

Well then, you believe in absolute truth.

You understand how cyclical is the circles.

It's confusing and chaotic and, in some ways, silly.

Others will say truth is what I feel and say that it is Because my feelings are more important than objective truth.

How many of you remember your teenage years?

Some of you are still there.

If you don't remember, let me just say it like this there were some very highs and there were some low lows, and some of that had to do with hormones and the changing of hormones and how things felt.

Particularly, you felt particularly affected by something in a tremendous way, or it didn't affect you at all.

Right Feelings lie to us.

How many of you have ever felt something towards somebody, only to find out later that it wasn't true?

So one of your friends said so and so said this about you, and so you're like oh well, I hate them.

I'm talking about this.

Is 50-year-olds doing this, not 15-year-olds?

I mean you wouldn't talk like that.

But this is real, guys.

This is where people live.

I hate them.

And then you find out later that they didn't say anything like that.

They didn't even.

Here's the worst part about it.

This really could hurt you more than actually saying something negative about you.

They weren't even thinking about you.

You weren't even on the radar.

Not only did they not think evil about you or speak evil about you, they don't even know who you are really.

Feelings lie to us.

We thank God for feelings that are in line with truth.

When we feel the Spirit of God moving upon us, the feeling that we get when we look at a newborn baby, the feelings that we experience because of love, all of those things are good.

But if we're led exclusively by our feelings, I promise you we will end up deceived, believing a lie and lies instead of the truth.

Others will say truth is what I learned on TikTok or Instagram.

They may not say that.

They'll say I read an article, but where did they read the article?

They clicked on a post on TikTok and they read the article.

We have an argument at my house.

That happens often.

It's when somebody will make a point and then we'll ask how did you find that out?

Where did you get that information?

And the person will usually say they said.

And then the next question is who are they?

And usually the person that we're quoting, as they are quoting somebody else that quoted somebody else that quoted somebody else, and six times down the line maybe it's not exactly presented as it maybe was originally intended to be presented.

The point is we need to know our sources, right.

We need to know that the truth that we believe is trustworthy.

Please, friends, let the Bible inform you.

Let the Bible inform you, first and foremost, 66 books that God graciously gave us to keep us in a place to where we can be walking in truth, and then he put the Holy Spirit on the inside of us to lead us and guide us into all truth.

It's really unfortunate and in some ways embarrassing for me having all of those tools at my disclosure and disposal when I still choose to believe a lie instead of the truth, but I do at times.

You must respect my truth, even if it isn't true.

If I say that I'm a woman who's attracted to women, but I'm actually born as a man, then my truth is something that you need to acknowledge and respect, and you need to allow me to follow that thought out as far as it will take me, including into a middle school locker room with other young girls.

Recently in the news there's been several examples of rapes that have occurred, with people that are proposing, supposing speaking out, that this is their truth.

This is their reality, and so they find themselves in a position where things are available to them from a sin standpoint simply because they're saying this is who I am.

We're going to get into details on this in a few weeks, so I'm not trying to get into the weeds today, but I'm trying to tell you, 15 years ago, if you heard somebody say something like this, you would think you were watching Saturday Night Live or Mad TV, or that's old, never mind, or something that's just crazy, because there's no more common sense.

Not only is there no truth or truth is under fire.

Common sense has been flushed down the toilet.

To oppose my truth is to oppose me, and if you disagree with me, then you're dangerous and I need to warn everybody else about you.

You're a bigot, you're homophobic, you're intolerant, you're a jerk, you're oppressive.

I'm a victim because of you.

I wonder why people are quiet.

I don't say much.

But is that what we're supposed to be doing?

Absolutely not.

This is our moment, guys.

This is the time when the darkest of dark happens.

The smallest of lights can dispel it instantly.

This one's a hard one to get over.

I don't trust religion.

I've been heard in church.

I'm a good person anyway.

I'm a moral person.

I'm a good person.

The Bible isn't reliable.

Too many translations.

I like what Jesus said, but I don't like what Paul said, and the Old Testament have no clue what that's about.

These are things that the culture is crying out.

So what does God say?

God says that absolute truth is a person who wrote a book of truth, john 14.6,.

Jesus said to him I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

This is not a religion.

This is not something that's not true.

This is not something that's not true.

It's a religion.

This is not something that's just been passed down from generation to generation.

There was a person who stepped out into history, who was God and who was man, and who lived a perfect life, who took the sins of the world upon himself, who was nailed to a tree that he created, who breathed his last breath when saying Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing.

It is finished.

Who rose from the dead on the third day, who ascended into heaven not many days from then and who will return to this earth very soon to make all things right like the way they're supposed to be.

This is absolute truth and his name is Jesus.

Hebrews 4.12 goes on to say about the word of God.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart the word of God.

You know what is the saddest truth, in my opinion, in the culture and time that we're living in?

It's not anything that the world is doing or thinking about.

It's the fact that the church of Jesus Christ is basically biblically illiterate.

Very few people read the Bible from Sunday to Sunday.

Very few people can quote any portion of scripture.

Very few people take time to meditate on scripture.

Very few people are actively pursuing a relationship with God based on what the Bible teaches.

My friends, this is a ploy of the enemy and we must, if no one else, we must, choose daily to find ourselves hidden and buried in the word of God and I say that about myself first.

We don't get to tell our creator how his creation should work.

We don't.

It's insane to think that we, as creation, have a greater skill level or understanding.

It's been so many years since we were created.

Man has just evolved in such tremendous ways that we know better than God does.

It's not up for our interpretation.

I love what God said to Job.

Job a man, a righteous man, who suffered many things and had lots of questions for God.

And when God showed up to talk to Job, he was a little bit strong.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have the understanding I could.

If it were me, I could just add some sarcasm in this.

God's not passive, aggressive.

Aren't you thankful for that?

Who delivered its measurements?

Surely you know.

Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone?

When the morning stars sing together and all the sons of God shouted for joy, god is sovereign, he's the creator and he gets to make the rules, and it's our job to follow them.

By the grace of God, by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and to teach them to our children, to our grandchildren and to everyone that we have the opportunity and the privilege of speaking to in our lives.

Satan God also says Satan is the father of all lives and he is the promoter of cultural agendas that are in his opposition to God's way of doing things.

We are not, like I said before, we are not fighting against flesh and blood.

The agenda of this world and of this culture is not man-made.

It's not a modern invention.

If you don't believe me, go back through time and let's talk about Sodom and Gomorrah If you think things are crazy in our world, two angels come down from heaven and the people, the men of the town, want to sleep with the angels, and so Lot, wanting to hear the voice of God through the angels, protects the angels and sends his daughters out so that they can have their way with the daughters, which they don't really want to do because they're men wanting to have sex with men or angels or anything except for with women.

That actually occurred.

What about the day of Noah, where there was wickedness rampant throughout the whole earth?

It took him a hundred years to build the ark.

Because?

Why?

Because he took preach breaks.

All the time he preached like crazy.

He preached his guts out.

He preached and preached and preached until finally the day came when God said I'm closing the door.

We may have modern ways of portraying things and explaining things and actively being involved in sinful types of scenarios, and everybody can see it instantly whether it's real or not real.

But sin is sin is sin.

Depravity is no different from day one to day, whatever we're at right now, because it's a wicked devil, satan, who is behind it all, and his agenda is the agenda that culture is embracing.

It's not man-made, it didn't come from California, many of you would say it did.

This is an agenda of Satan and his whole attempt.

He cannot get to God and so he attempts to mess with his creation, to in some way take something from God Cannot wait until the day when he is sent away forever.

We were all slaves to sin before Jesus and it's only by the grace of God that we can experience love, truth and freedom.

Before we cast stones of our own, we better remind ourselves that it is by grace that we've been saved through faith, and this is not our own doing.

It is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

That's the truth, and the truth makes us free.

John 8.31,.

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Greek there actually indicates an aggressive word.

It will make you free.

A new creation, old things have passed away and all things have become brand new.

How many times in a week do we display the new creation in our lives?

And if we're not, why not?

But this isn't about us, right, it's about them.

It's about the culture.

It's about the way that we address the culture.

So let's talk about how to talk about truth.

First of all, god has helped us in so many ways.

We can appeal to a person's conscience.

Although all of us have been born in sin, which is true you do not have to teach a child to throw a fit.

And if you who have babies in your life understand that fits happen, don't say you do not have to teach them to say no, you do not have to teach them to throw their spoon on the floor a thousand times while laughing maniacally.

I'm sorry.

It's been a few years.

I've been to counseling, but I'm not sure you'll do that.

No, I mean, it's true though, isn't it?

We're all born, and yet there's this conscience that God has given each person that, basically, on a basic, very basic level, you can understand.

This is right and this is wrong.

It's called a conscience, and in Romans one.

It tells us about this, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse.

People say all the time God isn't fair, god is just, god is right, god is perfect and he gives every person a chance.

You look out, you wake up in the morning, right before daybreak, and you step outside with your cup of whatever it is you're drinking, and you look around you and you listen to the sounds of creation in the morning as they awaken each day to a new day.

You don't hear songs of sadness or sorrow.

Typically, you hear songs of the morning from birds and bees and all kinds of creatures and the wind in the leaves, as the leaves change colors.

God is beautiful and he's created a beautiful world that is tainted so much by sin, and yet what remains tells us there is a God.

There's got to be something greater than I am that's in control of this, because there's no way that we can simulate this whole thing, the way that it happens on a daily basis, weekly, monthly, you know seasons, all of the stuff that happens.

How in the world do you continue to breathe without thinking about it?

There is a God and creation.

It's called general revelation.

That's a theological term.

Our conscience and creation scream out there is a God.

And if we will lift up our eyes and ask that God to reveal himself to us, do you know that there are tribes around the world that missionaries have arrived at and nobody has preached the gospel there?

And yet somehow they know about Jesus?

They may not have the full truth or full knowledge of who he is, but creation.

They cried out to God, show us.

And Jesus revealed himself in dreams and visions and in ways like that.

Creation itself tells us there's a God.

We're without excuse, but we also must rely, especially those as we talk to people about the gospel.

We must rely on the Holy Spirit to make Jesus fully known to a lost person.

Pray, pray with everything that you have, especially when you know you're gonna have a conversation with somebody that could be confrontative because of the fact that you're having to say something that's truth, when they don't want to hear it or not ready to believe it.

This is called special revelation.

When God opens the eyes of someone who's blind John 16,.

And when he comes, holy Spirit, when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

We are not salesmen and women.

We don't have to convince anybody of anything.

You know what we are.

We're gardeners.

We are gardeners in the kingdom of God.

Sometimes we're raking the dirt, sometimes we're throwing rocks out of the dirt, sometimes we're pulling weeds, sometimes we're sowing seed, sometimes we're watering the seed.

But there's only one who can ever bring the increase, and that is God himself.

He's the one that causes all of that work in the garden of life in people's lives to produce anything that is worthy.

Can you imagine if there's nobody to pull the weeds?

If that's your job, pull them to the best of your ability, pull them from the root.

Personal testimony is also a powerful tool.

How many of you have, in the last three years, have shared your testimony about how Jesus transformed your life with anybody?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Share it, share the truth.

Sometimes people will not allow you to speak the word of God from the Bible to them, but they will listen to you telling them a story about your life Revelations 12, 11,.

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives, even unto death.

The word of their testimony, the way that they lived their lives and the words that they spoke about the transformation of their lives.

Truth must always be shared in humility and motivated by love, and we're gonna spend the whole time next week talking about this.

Matthew seven says why do you see the speck that's in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that's in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother let me take the speck out of your eye.

When there is a log in your own eye, you hypocrite.

First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly.

To take the speck out of your brother's eye.

Isn't it easier for us to point out other people's sin and problems?

I mean, if we could just sit down and have the world come in front of us and us explain to them what they needed to do, we could fix everything in about five minutes.

There's some people that I think actually believe that that's called narcissism.

Okay, that's another whole thing that you need to avoid.

But it is absolutely true that God is the only one who can do the work that needs to be done, and if we're not being careful, we will judge other people for something that's actually God's dealing with in our life, that we haven't allowed him to touch.

You know, the greatest example to somebody else is not just that I avoided something, but it's that I went through something and God was with me.

Why does God allow suffering?

That's a big question that we don't have time to answer.

One of the reasons is because, when we go through the darkest of nights and God is with us, we can say to somebody else God can be with you, just like he was with me.

And just on a practical note, I'll finish with this If you're talking to somebody and they're becoming aggressive in their tone toward you, it's probably not gonna end like you want it to.

So there's a couple of things you can do.

You can back up a little bit I don't mean back up from what you've presented as truth, but you can take a break and say can we talk about this again next week?

I'd love to get together with you again next week and talk about this.

There's a couple of questions you could also ask people.

One is can you explain what you mean by that?

Because sometimes, when people are presenting an opinion, they're actually just speaking a talking point, something that they've heard somebody else say and they don't actually know what it means.

So ask some elementary questions, not like you're playing a mind game with them, but just ask them.

Can you help me to understand what it is that you mean by that?

That's one question.

Another question that you could ask is how did you come to that conclusion in your own life and you know nine times out of 10 what it is.

It's not a testimony of God intervening in their lives it's.

I had a professor at college and he began to talk about these things and it seemed right to me.

Or I grew up in a household where I was abused by my dad or by my uncles, or whatever.

The case is right.

So when you ask those kinds of questions, it gives you an opportunity to speak to actually what's behind the truth that people are embracing, because unless God fixes the root cause, they'll just go on to something else Another lie, another lie, another lie.

The truth of Jesus Christ is the only thing that will make somebody completely free from the lies of Satan and from the deception that he intends to wreck this world with.

I believe that we're in one of the greatest days in human history and I, for one, wanna be a part of watching God do his thing through all of you and your neighborhoods and your workplaces, at your schools, at the grocery store, and here's what how about?

Around the Thanksgiving dinner table?

In a month from now, you'll be sitting across the table from people who have different values and different views than you do, and here's an opportunity to speak the truth.

In love, in love.

Let's pray, father, we're so excited about the fact that you haven't left us alone or so easily tossed around by the feelings that we have or thoughts that are put in our minds by Satan or by our flesh or by the culture of this world.

Lord, we thank you that you've given us answers for all things to live in godliness, to be light in the darkness and to be representatives of your great word and great truth and great nature and just your glory.

Lord, we get a chance to represent you to the nation, so help us, lord.

We confess before you that there are areas in our lives that we are not prepared to stand for truth the way that we need to, and so work on us.

Don't leave us alone, don't let us have deafened ears or even muted ears.

Lord, help us to be hearing you and listening to you.

Give us a new desire for your word that's greater than we've ever experienced in our lives before this time, and, lord, give us opportunities even this week.

We expect from moments in time for us to be able to express to people the goodness of God in our own lives and the truth that is found not in ourselves alone, but in who you are, jesus, and what your word says.

We thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.

Now, each week we'll be providing a slide that has a bunch of different resources that we've researched and that we trust.

It doesn't mean that everything that they say, that every one of these, says that we completely agree with, but it means that, from an overall standpoint, that these things are things that we find ourselves in pretty much in close agreement with.

So if you would like to take a picture of the screen, it will also be available as a tab on our media tab under the sermon series.

So if you don't get it today, if you don't get a picture of it today, you can also research there, and we have some of these that will be available in our library.

We've got some on order, but also you can order any of them that you would like to If you want to really gain more information on the different subjects each week, because of the fact there's no way that we can cover every single thing.

We want to equip you to take this information and to let it grow.

Let it grow.