The Christian Virtues - Truthfulness

I think I remember how to do this, right? It's been a month since I've preached, and I know for myself, that's really been refreshing. It's been good for me.

It gives me an itch and a desire to get back, to get back into the Word, to teach it. And so I'm really looking forward to doing that today.

I'm also looking forward to two weeks from today, we'll start another series in 2 Thessalonians. So if you haven't picked up your scripture journal, maybe you can get one today.

And bring a friend, bring a new person. It's always a good time to invite someone when you know there's something new every week. But we're going to get back into a series, and I think that'll take us through most of the summer.

And this week, if you want to be praying for me and for Matt, your pastors, and for my wife, who's also going to go as a delegate, we have the Missionary Church National Conference happening.

That's something that happens once every two years. And it's actually right here in, I guess, right down there in Fort Wayne, Indiana, so we don't have to go too far.

But be praying for that. We've got decisions that will be made. We've got opportunities to be challenged and encouraged as pastors and leaders.

And we've got an important election for leaders in the denomination. And I think I mentioned before, Matt Kitsos is up for a possible role on the National Nominating Committee.

And we'd sure like to see him, if the Lord is willing, get him on that board. And I'll continue on at least one of the two boards. I'll come off on another one.

But I'm looking forward to the time this week. So if you'd pray for me, I've got a little bit of a load of work I carry for the four days, Monday through Thursday.

And maybe next week, I can bring back just a little quick report and let you know how it goes. Let's dig into the Word, right? Before we do that, or I guess maybe as a way to begin engaging in that, I'm gonna ask you if you recognize a few of these quotes.

I'm guessing you probably won't, but maybe I'm wrong. We're talking about truthfulness. And so these quotes all have to do with the truth. Maybe you've heard some of these.

So I think I got Luke ready. We're just gonna give the quote and not the name. And then we'll see who wins the prize. All right. First quote, you ready?

You don't look awake. Are you ready? Okay. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

Anybody? Shout out a name. Gandhi. You look impressed. Here's another one. Peace, if possible, truth at all costs. I'll give you a hint. Church history.

Anybody? Peace, if possible. Truth at all costs.

I heard some names. Say it loud. Luther. The great Martin Luther. Yes. Good job. Good job. Okay. Here's another one. In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

I don't think you'll get this one. George Orwell. George, I was thinking like a founding father, you know, 4th of July. But no, I tricked you.

Okay. And I know you will not get this last one. Here it is. Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a little while, but it ain't going away.

Okay. Okay. This one is the great philosopher, Elvis Presley.

Okay. Enough of that. So, we're talking about Christian virtues. We started with kindness, and then, what was it, about a month ago, we dealt with boldness.

Today, I want to talk about the truth. I want to talk about truthfulness, and as we've done before, I think structuring things today with a series of questions is going to be the most helpful way to do it.

So, if you're a note taker, I have three questions for you. I'll just throw them at you right away. Don't worry. We'll get to them one by one.

Question number one, we're going to ask ourselves, what is truthfulness? What is truthfulness? Question number two, why is truthfulness so important?

And then thirdly, what makes truthfulness challenging? Challenging. Before we dig in, though, let me ask you, let's just bow our heads again, and let's ask the Lord's blessing on our time.

Heavenly Father, we come to you, we look into your word, we're about to unfold it in a number of places, and we pray that by your spirit, you would illuminate, and that you would teach us, and that by your spirit, you would also empower us, Lord, to be the kinds of people that you have raised us to new life

to be in your Son. And we thank you for that life, and that death, that resurrection, and ascension, and we pray in his name, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Let's start with that first question. Question number one, what is truthfulness? And there's no other way to start than with a Greek word, right?

So I'm going to give you the Greek word for truth, truthfulness, and that word is aletheos, aletheos, or aletheia, and you're going to find it in various forms all over the New Testament, and it's translated as true, or truth, or when Jesus says truly, truly, or truthfulness, if it's an adjective,

and what it means is true, as in corresponds to reality. It sometimes gets translated as sincere or genuine. Over in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 22, we read,

Hebrews 10:22

let us draw near to God with a true, some translations say, sincere heart, a true heart. And what's the opposite of truthfulness? Lying, of course, deceitfulness, being false, to speak falsely, or really,

to be false. But I want to get us past this basic idea of truthfulness, and what I really want to do this morning is try to push us as people who know who the ultimate source of truth is, and that, of course, is God himself, and think a little bit more deeper, at a deeper layer, about truthfulness.

So we know that God is the source of all truth. There is no truth that is not consistent with God, and who, and what he is, and that's why throughout the Bible, and especially the New Testament, we hear things like God's word being equated as truth.

The gospel itself is sometimes described or referred to as the truth. And when it touches us and transforms us as God's people, as it should, we ourselves will have an inner quality about us and what we really are.

We will be truthful, or better, truth-filled people. What that means is that God's truth is meant to penetrate your inner being if you're one of God's people.

It's meant to shape who we are so that we are truth people. We are people who are all about the truth. We are truth lovers, we're truth clingers, and we are truth doers and dealers.

We deal in the realm of truth. That's how we operate. You say, is there a doctrinal aspect to it? Yes, yes, of course there is. And that's why you have passages everywhere from Galatians to Colossians to Ephesians, 1 Corinthians, talking about the truth of Christ or the truth of the gospel,

the word of truth. 1 Timothy chapter 3 even describes the church, us, as what? The pillar and foundation of the truth. And that means that what we do as a church is we hold it up and we hold the truth out

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

and we support the truth, right? We don't make it up ourselves, we don't get to tinker with the truth and change it to our liking. No. The Bible tells us that we have been given a deposit of the truth and so we hold it, we support it, we live it out,

we proclaim it and we share it. So this past week I was looking at scripture for a story that might help illustrate this for us. I thought, well I could tell you a story from my life but that's not nearly as helpful as a story from God's word.

And I don't know if you've heard of this one, it's a relatively famous Old Testament story. It's about a man named Joseph, the patriarch Joseph in the Old Testament.

Are you familiar with this story? This man who was a young boy was betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery? Book of Genesis talks about it.

And yet, where I want to go today, it's a little bit later in his life, all the way later as in chapter 42 of Genesis, and this is after his tragic betrayal by his brothers, after all that unjust suffering that he went through, after his, if you remember, his faithfulness to God even in the darkest of times,

it's after he experienced the blessing of God and had that meteoric rise all the way up to second in command of Egypt just under Pharaoh. So I'm in Genesis 42.

If you want to turn there, you can, but I'll have the scriptures for us, at least most of them on the screen. Here's how it opens up. Genesis chapter 42.

Genesis 42 · chapter mention

You've got the patriarch Jacob. This is Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, grandson of the great Abraham. He's old. And what he does, he's been living in Canaan, and there is a severe famine, we read.

And so he and his family, they're starving, and what he decides to do is to send his boys, the 11 that are left anyway, send them to Egypt. He doesn't send the 12th one, the new favorite, Benjamin, since Joseph's gone.

He keeps him back. He sends them down to Egypt. Here's what he says in verse 1. When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look at one another?

And he said, behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt. Don't you like how relatable the Bible is sometimes? Sometimes, you know, it's like Jacob's looking at the boys, and they're looking at each other, and he says, hey, knuckleheads, you just stand around, you're going to do nothing?

Go down to Egypt, buy some grain. And they do. And the 11 brothers, they show up, and who has been promoted to, again, second in command over all of Egypt, and who happens to sit in charge of this entire grain operation?

And that's a whole other story. It's Joseph. Long lost brother Joseph. Only, he's all decked out Egyptian-like. He's got that eye makeup, remember?

And he's got the headdress and all that, and he's grown up, too. He was a teenager when they sold him, and they do not recognize their brother.

And so what Joseph does is he proceeds to play a ruse with his brothers. He treats them gruffly. He accuses them of being spies. Verse 9 tells us that he vividly remembers what his brothers did to him all those years ago,

and he also vividly remembers that dream that he had about his brothers one day bowing in front of him, which is exactly what they're doing.

And so he pushes them. He says, You are spies. You've come to spy out our land. Here's their reply in verse 10. No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food.

We are all sons of one man. We're honest men. Your servants have never been spies. Honest men, so you say. Well, that's not what they were all those many years ago when their young brother begged them for his life from a pit they threw him into.

That's not what they were when they likely lied to those slave traders and sold Joseph to them. He's crazy. He's not our brother. He's just a guy.

You want to buy him? And they were certainly not honest men when they cooked up that lie and that story about some wild beast killing Joseph out in the field, showing a bloody robe to their father.

They were not honest men. Joseph knew there was no truth in them those many years ago. And so it appears that really this is what Joseph is after.

Not revenge. You shouldn't see this as a power play for the sake of fun, for Joseph's amusement, sort of get you back, how's it feel? No. What he is after.

Well, he tells them very plainly what he's after in verses 15 and 16. He says this, Genesis 42, 15. By this you shall be tested. By the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here.

Send one of you and let him bring your brother while you all remain confined that your words may be tested to see whether there is truth in you.

Truth in you. Did you get that? He wants to test their words, yeah, allegedly to see if they're spies or not, which he knows they're not. He knows who they are.

But what Joseph is really after is finding out something much, much deeper about them and their character. Have they changed? Are they qualitatively different men?

Would they, if given another opportunity to abandon another brother, would they do it? Would they sacrifice again that new favorite son, youngest brother Benjamin, who's back home?

When Joseph says it's to see whether there is truth in you, this is what he means. And I want you to understand this is what he's after. And funny enough, he goes on to give them multiple opportunities or multiple tests, you could say, through his own tricks and schemes.

Here's the first thing he does. Read on in verse 18, Genesis 42, 18. On the third day, Joseph said to them, all right, do this and you will live, for I fear God.

If you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine for your households and bring your youngest brother to me so your words will be verified and you shall not die.

And they did so. So Joseph proceeds to take Simeon into custody, lets the other ten brothers go back and he wants to put a little pressure on them too and so he wants to see how they're going to react.

So what he does is he secretly instructs his servants to put their money that they brought, that they paid for the grain, put it back in the sacks on the donkeys.

And they have no idea, not until they stop for the night and they reach into their sack for some grain and each brother is mortified to find that their money is right there.

Oh no! It looks like we're thieves! They get all the way back home to Canaan, to Jacob their father in verse 29 and they relay their whole situation to their father.

He of course refuses to send Benjamin, no way. And time goes by. The family feeds off the grain while poor old Simeon rots in prison in Egypt, right?

And then finally at the beginning of the next chapter, chapter 43, we read that the grain has run out. And again, they're begging their father, you have to send Benjamin with us this time as proof of our truthfulness because the man won't so much as even see us, let alone sell us any grain, if we show up

without little Benji coming along with us. Finally, a very desperate old patriarch, Jacob, he relents and he allows them to go with his beloved Benjamin.

By the way, parents, don't have favorites. It's never a good thing. The 11 sons show up down in Egypt and they're very desperate now to convince Joseph, see here he is, here's Benjamin.

Hey, by the way, that money that we somehow strangely got back in our sacks, we did not steal it, we brought it and new money too. We are honest men.

And Joseph stays in disguise, stays in character. He tells him, don't worry about it. He throws them a big feast and even seats them according to their birth order at the table, giving Benjamin extra portions, just a little way to kind of throw

a little extra out there on the favorite. You see what he's doing? And just like that, he enters into what you might call phase two of the big test to see, again, whether there is truth in his brothers.

Obviously, we know this is more about their identities or their truthful speech. What Joseph is doing is he is delving into their character.

Why, you might be wondering to himself, why did it take so long for them to come back? I've been holding our brother Simeon. Joseph might have thought, you know, if I put the screws to the new favorite, will they also turn on him like they did me?

And so his next part of the scheme is this, Genesis chapter 44, verses 1 and 2. Then he commanded the steward of his house, fill the men's sacks with food as much as they can carry, and put each man's money in the mouth of his sack and put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth

Genesis 44:1

of the sack of the youngest with his money for the grain. And the steward did as Joseph told him. The brothers don't get too far and Joseph immediately sends a force to overtake them.

The brothers swear, no, we would never do that. Not, I don't know how this could happen a second time. We would never. In fact, if you find any of us guilty, they should die.

They bolt their way back to Joseph once the cup is founded in Benjamin's sack and Benjamin is arrested and they come now to Joseph back in Egypt and they plead for mercy.

We even read that Judah cries out, God has found out the guilt of us, your servants. They seem to be talking about what they've done to Joseph all those years ago and what the brothers proceed to do is they proceed as a whole group to offer themselves to go into custody, to literally swap themselves out

for Benjamin's freedom. But Joseph says, no, I only need one. I only need the guilty party. I'll just keep your brother Benjamin. The rest of you are free to go.

And this is where the climax happens. The big reveal, right? Because as Judah steps forward and tells Joseph, hey, hey, listen, if we go back without Benjamin, it will bring our father's old gray head down to the grave in mourning.

It will kill the old man. We cannot go back without Benjamin. And he heroically proposes this in verse 33, Genesis 44, 33, Now, therefore, please let me, your servant, remain instead of the boy as a servant to my Lord and let the boy go back

with his brothers.

And there it is. Just like that, it's been found. Right? The truth. The truthfulness and character Joseph has been waiting to see because the kind of truth and the level of truth Joseph was after was not merely in a true statement

of facts or true words or simply accurate testimony. He was looking to see if they had changed. To see if there was indeed an inner quality of truthfulness in these men that had done him so, so wrong

many years ago. Were they true in their character? And the answer is now yes. I hope that gives you some idea, maybe a deeper picture, an illustration of what real truthfulness in God's people will look like.

So that's a basic understanding of truthfulness, but let's get on to our second question, right? Number two. Question number two is one where we're going to take a much broader overview of Scripture and look at a lot of different Scriptures.

Here's that second question. Number two, it's the question of why. Why is truthfulness so important?

Now sure, being truthful people is consistent with God and who He is and He commands us to be truthful. It's consistent with the gospel. But you know, the Bible actually teaches us that there are several things that truthfulness does for us.

Here's the first thing truthfulness does for us. Letter A, truthfulness sanctifies us and is a part of our holiness. Our holiness. Here's Jesus in His famous high priestly prayer over in John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

What's He say? John 17, 17. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. The truth. He's telling us that it's part and parcel to growing in holiness.

To be holy, of course, means to be set apart, to be different, to be like God because God is ultimately holy and the source of all holiness.

And of course, we know that back in the Old Testament in Scripture, holiness, for the people of Israel, meant avoiding certain behaviors and pagan customs and ordering your life a certain way.

For an ancient Israelite, it meant living by a very specific code, commandments about how to dress, how to eat, how to be clean, all prescribed in the Mosaic Law.

But that was the Old Covenant and for us today, we're under a New Covenant which means that the ceremonial and legal aspects of the Mosaic Law, they no longer apply to God's people.

The moral features of His Law do. You could say the principles apply. And so we maintain our holiness today by living uprightly, by being morally pure, by being kind to one another, by treating our brothers and sisters and really everyone

with grace and consideration and generosity and love. In fact, there's a passage where the Apostle Paul throws out a whole list of what it's going to look like to be holy.

And wouldn't you know what the first quality is on that list? It's in Philippians. Philippians chapter 4, verse 8, he says, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence,

Philippians 4:8

if anything is worthy of praise, think on such things. First reason that truthfulness is so important in our lives is because it's part of how we are sanctified.

But there's more. Here's another reason. Letter B. Letter B. Truthfulness is required to worship and approach God. To worship and approach God.

Another New Testament story. Maybe one you're familiar with. We won't turn there or get into it, but in John chapter 3, there's an encounter that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman at the well.

John 3 · chapter mention

And if you know the story, he has conversation with her before things take a very personal turn and Jesus proceeds to reveal her heart. Isn't that what he always does with people?

Go to the heart. And when she diverts the conversation a bit by asking about the proper place to worship or approach God, is it on your mountain in Jerusalem or is it on our mountain in Samaria?

Here's what Jesus says to her. John chapter 4, I'm sorry, it's John 4. John chapter 4, verses 23 and 24. He says this, The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

John 4 · chapter mention John 4:23

For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Truth. We must worship God.

The only way we can approach God in worship is by doing it in truth. And what's this mean? It means we can't do it from a posture that's fake.

We can't do it hypocritically. We can't go to some service and go through a routine or mouth certain words and not really mean it. We've got to do it with a heart that's true.

So that means if we have unconfessed sin piling up in our lives, we come, we confess those sins. That's how we worship God in truth. Out of a true and sincere heart.

Not a perfect heart, but a cleansed heart because we've come and brought that to our Lord. And the great news is that when we do this, when we draw near to God, whether on a Sunday morning like right now or really any time at all, when we come with a heart that's true and that's rooted in the good news of the gospel,

trusting in what Jesus has done and taking on our sin and giving us His righteousness, then the Bible tells us that we can and should approach Him with confidence.

Confidence! Here's what Hebrews chapter 10 verse 22 says, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Hebrews 10:22

Truthfulness is required for you to approach and worship God. We cannot run around fooling ourselves into thinking that we're fine, that everything's cool, we've got no problems.

In fact, we have another apostle who warns us about this. It's the apostle John. And this is what he writes in his epistle, 1 John chapter 1 verse 8.

1 John 1:8

He says this, If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. You know what? Fortunately, John goes right on in the next verse and says something incredibly encouraging.

1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that really brings us into what I would call the third reason, letter C.

A third reason for truthfulness being so vitally important. Letter C is truthfulness saves lives. Truthfulness saves lives.

I don't know if you've ever heard of this phrase. They did a pretty good job making it popular years ago when all the seatbelt laws went into effect.

I mean, that's a long, many years ago. Some of us remember bouncing around the backs of station wagons before the seatbelt laws. So, they made this phrase, seatbelts save lives, right?

Seatbelts save lives. Well, I don't think literally a piece of whatever that is, vinyl or nylon, I don't think it actually saves somebody's life.

What they mean is that it prevents greater injury, right? And it's like that with truthfulness too. because without truthfulness, here's what Scripture says in the Psalms.

Psalm chapter 5, verse 6, talking about the Lord. You destroy those who speak lies. The Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. If only this were a verse that a certain couple in the early church would have remembered.

Psalms 5:6

Acts chapter 5, their names were Ananias and Sapphira. They were a couple who got excited about God's work in the early church. They were impressed with a big generous gift from a man named Barnabas who sold the field and brought all the money to give to the early church.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

And then what they did is they tried to fake like they were more generous than they actually were. This couple tried to literally pull one over on the Holy Spirit who was working mightily in the early church and it literally cost them their lives as they each one

stood before Peter and lied. Is this the full price? Yes, they both said. And that was the last word they ever spoke. Truthfulness saves lives.

And that's why you find that there's a salvific theme with truthfulness running throughout so many of the Old Testament prophets. It starts in the wisdom literature actually.

Proverbs chapter 12, Proverbs chapter 14, verse 25 says, A truthful witness saves lives, but one who breathes out lies is deceitful. It's all over the prophets, this theme of truthfulness being life-saving.

Proverbs 12 · chapter mention Proverbs 14:25

Isaiah talks about it. He says to the people, You've got to lean on the truth because the Lord deals with the truth. You need to approach God in truth, he says in Isaiah 48, verse 1.

Isaiah 48:1

And you need to know that when truth stumbles in your public squares, everybody suffers. Isaiah 59, 19. I think Jesus said it the plainest. Because according to Him, if you live and base your life on lies, if your beliefs

are all riddled with lies, He says that it associates you with someone who's going to meet destruction. Here's what He said to some of the hypocritical religious leaders of His day who were attacking Him.

He said this in John 8, verse 44. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in Him.

John 8:44

When He lies, He speaks out of His own character for He is a liar and the father of lies. Jesus is saying that those who speak and live by lies are aligned with the devil.

He's their father. And they will end up sharing His same fate. Destruction. That's what we mean when we say truthfulness saves lives. And not only can it save your own life, do you realize that the Scripture says

it could save the life of someone else? Your truthfulness. Here's what 2 Corinthians chapter 6 says. We looked at this passage weeks ago. 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 3 and 4.

2 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention 2 Corinthians 6:3

This is the Apostle Paul writing. He says this, We put no obstacle in anyone's way so that no fault may be found with our ministry. But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way.

We commend ourselves. Paul's talking about witnessing to unbelievers. Commending ourselves to unbelievers. And he goes on and he lists a number of virtues, doesn't he?

Virtues that when present in our lives, remove obstacles to the faith. He even calls them weapons. Weapons of righteousness for the left hand and the right.

And you know what he includes in this list down in verse 7? 2 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 7? Truthful speech. By truthful speech and the power of God with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left.

2 Corinthians 6:7

And it just reiterates what he said two chapters earlier in 2 Corinthians 4 when he talked again about commending ourselves to people with what?

With the truth. Truthful speech. Speaking the truth with people. Speaking the truth to people. Rather than it present an obstacle, you should trust God's word when it tells you that truthful speech actually removes obstacles to the faith.

An open statement of the truth, 2 Corinthians 4.2, open statement of the truth is how we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience. Maybe you need to remember that the next time you're in a situation and somebody wants you to speak things to them

that are not true or avoid the truth or even tell them things that you know are false.

Truthful speech saves lives. Open statement of the truth of course spoken in love. And it's going to manifest in your words and the things you say.

That's why Ephesians 4 calls you and I to put away falsehood and speak the truth with our neighbor.

1 John 3.18 John writes this. He says, Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. He's not saying don't love.

He's saying here's how to love. Here's how to properly love. You don't love people when you're just flapping your jaw and not saying things that are true.

Or when you're just nodding your head and agreeing with things that you know are wrong. That's not love. You love in deed. You prove that every day by what you do.

And you love in truth. Because John will go on to say if your actions routinely go against what you claim that you believe he says there's a word for that.

Liar. That's lying. He says, and if you do that the truth is not in you.

Alright, so we've looked at what truthfulness is. More than just true statements. It's a deeper inner quality of having truth in us. And we've also seen why truthfulness is so critically important for sanctifying us, for approaching and worshiping God, and even for saving lives.

But there is a last question for us to consider and this one gets very, very practical. And our last question, number three, is this. What poses challenges to our truthfulness?

What poses challenges to our truthfulness? See, the reality is if you and I lived in a world that was still the way God created it to be, living truthful lives, would not be hard.

It would not be a challenge. But that's not the world we live in. The fact is we live in a world where the truth is opposed and where truthfulness does face a lot of opposition thanks to the grip of sin and the work of the enemy in our world.

So the truth does get opposed. And here's the thing, a lot of us don't like being opposed. Do you like being opposed? Do you like opposition?

If you do, make an appointment. We need to talk about that. Do you like when people are mad at you? When people you care about or have to work with are upset with you?

When people think poorly of you, think less of you? And I'm telling you that that is a challenge to our truthfulness. we have to remember that those without Christ don't think properly on these things.

Yeah, there's common grace. I'm not saying there aren't genius, smart, wonderful people. Well, they're sinners. Genius, smart people that do great things in our society.

Yeah! But you know, 1 Timothy 6, verse 5 tells us that people without Christ are depraved in mind. And he goes on to say that the depraved in mind are deprived of truth.

1 Timothy 6:5

Most of the time you see a word play, it's with the original language, but somehow in English it worked out pretty well here. Depraved, deprived.

Depraved in mind, deprived of the truth. In 2 Timothy, Paul mentions those classic villains, taking us back to the Old Testament again, there's these two magicians that served under Pharaoh and who opposed Moses when he first showed up to free the people and the text even names them.

Janus and Jambres and in 2 Timothy, it says that these men opposed the truth and that they were corrupted or depraved in mind. Again, when someone is depraved or corrupted in mind, it means they don't think properly.

There is something warped and oftentimes, here's how it manifests. They think that the beauty of the truth is ugly and they will think that the ugliness of sin is something beautiful to be celebrated and embraced.

What makes it challenging to deal in truth, to speak the truth, to be truthful people? It's the fact that the truth gets opposed and we don't like to be opposed.

Quite frankly, a lot of us struggle with this thing that we call the fear of man or woman, the fear of people, the fear of our peers, our friends getting upset, the fear of having a family member get upset with us and maybe breaking off a relationship.

And so what we do is we relax our grip on the truth or we lose our stance on the truth out of these fears. But this is not a new thing. I want you to understand, this is not exclusively a 21st century thing.

It was going on back in the Old Testament in the days of the prophets. I want you to hear what Amos chapter 5 says. Amos 5 verse 10, he and his people face the same thing.

Amos 5 · chapter mention Amos 5:10

He says this, they hate him who reproves in the gate and they abhor him who speaks the truth. The gate was nothing more than the public square back in that day.

The public sphere and the trouble Amos faced is no different than the trouble many of us are going to face and are facing in our public lives.

I mean in our schools, in some circles of healthcare and medicine, in various other professions. I'll have to tell you these days, challenges, challenges to the truth meet us in just about every sphere of public life from your local library

to a town hall meeting, sadly, even in some of our churches. They abhor those who speak the truth and deal in truth. They oppose those who are truthful.

And if you ever, out of truth, try to offer any reproval or correction in the public square, what's Amos say? They hate him who reproves in the gate.

But we still speak it in love because we know truth saves lives. And perfect love casts out all fear, even the fear of man. And we continue to deal in truth

and love in all of our deeds and actions and words, true words, because again, God's people remember what Proverbs 14.25 says. A truthful witness saves lives.

A truthful witness saves lives.

I don't know what opposition you're facing in your life right now or where it will appear tomorrow, but here's what I do know. I know that God's word is truth and it is truth you can trust and it is truth that saves.

And this salvation is made possible by the one that we have the opportunity to celebrate as we come to a close today. I'm going to ask those who are going to be serving us at the Lord's table if they would make their way out of their seats and come forward.

The worship team, I'm going to ask them if they'll come and take their places as well. And as we prepare to come to the Lord's table, I'll just offer just a couple of instructions for us.

If you're new with us today, we want you to know that we welcome every believer to join us at the Lord's table. Our only requirement to take communion today is that you follow Christ as your Savior and Lord.

We're going to send the cups around to the seats as the music plays. And as those cups come, I'm going to ask you if you would hold on to them.

They're going to come stacked, one on top of the other. And you can remove the two cups and wait until we're all served so that we can participate in this together.

So as you prepare your heart, will you bow your head with me and let's pray.

Jesus, you are the way and the truth and the life and we love you and we thank you for your sacrifice. Lord, as we come to this moment right here where we get to orient our heart again, we don't come as perfect people, we come as sinners touched by grace.

And so Lord, if there's anything that one of us needs to deal with, Lord, just hear our prayer.

And we pray this in his name.