The Truth Changes Everything | Kingdom

Truth Versus Living Your Own Truth

Welcome to the Kingdom Podcast. I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reform Church in Springhill, Tennessee, and host of Theocast, a podcast about Reformed Theology. It comes out every Wednesday.

Well, this is part two. We're picking up where we left off last week on living your truth, or what does that even mean? Man, when you think about manipulation, nobody likes to be manipulated, controlled by fear.

I mean, just think about COVID and how many people felt that, that they were controlled by misinformation, lack of information, lies. You know, it doesn't matter where you fall on the side of it, but everyone hates to feel like they've been manipulated.

And when you don't know the truth, it's easy to live in fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of danger. And so that we're gonna pick this back up and say we, we can have confidence in knowing what it is that God wants us to know about Him, about ourselves in the world, and how we interact with Him.

And I think that Satan has enslaved so many people by taking the concept of truth and manipulating it into living your own truth. Because then at that moment, you're a slave of your own passions, you're a slave of your own appetites.

And that means truth is constantly changing. I mean, how many, if you just pay attention even to the news, how people will transition between, you know, are they going to be heterosexual, homosexual, are they gonna be a male or a female?

Did their truth change? Because that's one of the things about truth is that it cannot change. And I'm not here to make fun or belittle or bash. These are serious issues. These are not, this is, these are not issues that, that we should just get on the internet and just make fun of people or self-righteously judge them.

I mean, who are you? Paul literally says in Ephesians, such were some of you. Meaning, if you're a believer in Christ, you were a slave to sin at some point in your life. It could even have been self-righteousness.

It doesn't matter what it might have been. So we don't, we don't want to do that. What we want to be is under the wonderful power of truth. And that's what we're going to talk about in this second episode, which is, there is a divine power that comes from truth because that truth is coming from God.

The Power of Truth in Spiritual Warfare

Paul talks about it in this way, in 2nd Corinthians chapter 10, he says the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but of divine power. And what he connects it to is the truth of God. And so we're, we're tearing down lies that enslave people.

And what are we putting in its place? Well, you have to, you have to contrast it with something, right? And that is with truth. So I want to talk about from a biblical standpoint, what truth does, like if you understand what truth does.

And so here's the first thing, according to what scripture tells us, is that truth protects us from fear. We know that we're told that we're not supposed to have a spirit of fear. But when you think about, if you understand the nature and power of God and the nature and the power of the gospel, there is nothing that could separate you from the love of God.

Now, when I say fear, some people are like, well, I'm not, I don't have anything I'm afraid of. Well, you know, we did this with my kids last night. It was a fun conversation. I said, what are you afraid of?

Like what, what legitimately causes you to be afraid? And it was interesting. A lot of it had to do with loss, like the fear of loss, losing the friends, you know, losing of possessions, losing the family members, but it was in relation to loss.

And we can make unbelievably bad decisions trying to preserve that which God tells us not to. I mean, he says in Matthew 6, to lay up our treasures where? In heaven, where moth and wrath cannot destroy and where thieves cannot break in and steal.

What's the opposite of that? Well, if you're trying to treasure things in this world, you're going to lose them, right? And then he says where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So that's one side of fear is, is God's liberated us saying, if you're my child, you have nothing to be afraid of because all that matters has been handed to you.

But here's a second part of fear. And this one really bothers me because it is a real problem in the Christian community right now. There are those who hear the gospel and hear it preached. And the conclusion they come to is, I am not a Christian because they cannot measure up to the level of obedience they feel is required.

Now, that is a lie. And that's not true because what we know to be true of the gospel is that the gospel leads us to confidence, right? Leads us to have no fear of death and no fear of life. This is why he wrote Romans 8, what can separate us from the love of God?

You know, if God is for us, who can be against us? That those aren't supposed to inflict fear, but yet people hear preaching today and they hear the gospel preached. And the conclusion is, I don't know if God loves me and they're afraid.

Let me just read to you Titus 3, okay? And the conclusion that Titus gives the believer, but when the goodness and loving kindness of our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

Mercy is to not receive what you do deserve. By the washing of the regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Lord, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

You are not in this equation. You're a dead person who is receiving mercy and grace. This is the point of the passage. Next verse, you know, if you're gonna have something written on your computer screen or in your car to remind you when you're having fear again, Titus 3 .8, this saying is trustworthy.

Why would he have to say that? Because there were people who are going against it. They were altering the truth. They were changing it. He says, this is trustworthy. Then he says this, and I want you to insist on these things.

The truth of Christ should liberate sinners, because they realize they're being saved by Jesus, not themselves, right? Truth keeps us from fear, and it breaks my heart that people who say they're a child of God are afraid of God.

There is nothing to be afraid. Jesus literally says, you who are not good fathers, who are sinful fathers, know how to take care of your children and give them good gifts. He goes, what do you think your father is going to do who is not sinful?

These are the truths that liberate us. So if you're in a church or you're listening to sermons, and your conclusion at the end of these sermons is, I don't think I've done enough works, I've done enough obedience, I've done anything enough to know if I'm truly saved, that is not the truth of the gospel, and that is not the truth of Scripture.

So that's one, is that truth truly does liberate us from fear. The second thing that truth does is that it prepares us for the fight. If you're not a very confident soldier, you don't even know if you belong in the war, you don't even know what side you belong on, you're not going to be ready to fight.

You're going to be pointing the gun in the wrong direction. You're going to be more concerned about self-preservation than you are about freeing and liberating others. Man, when I think about the lies that Satan has done, he has Christians who are self-introspective constantly.

It's self-preservation that like their whole life is designed about saving themselves or proving their salvation. Self-examination. Listen, the Bible talks about that, we'll do an episode on it coming up soon, but this concept of self-examination has nothing to do with whether he was worried about someone being a Christian or not.

We'll deal with this, we've dealt with it in the past if you want to look at the episodes on Theocast, but when we're talking about preparing for the fight, God is trying to create, not trying, God creates confidence through his truth so that we are able to withstand the most powerful force outside of God in the world, which is Satan and his army.

This is why Ephesians 6 says, stand in the strength of the Lord so that you may fight the schemes of the devil. Literally spiritual warfare, and how do we do that? He starts with the belt of truth. Truth is what we surround ourselves with because lies are what we're being told.

1 John describes Satan as the God of this world. Jesus himself describes Satan as the God of this world, meaning that his influence is worldwide and he does influence all, he goes, the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.

If you think you're going throughout this world and you're not receiving the constant onslaught of subtle lies, then you have believed, you believe the lie because the exact, this is what scripture teaches, the truth liberates us and if we don't surround ourselves with the truth, the lie will, it will attach itself to us.

So when we think about truth, it's what prepares us to be effective. One, it sets us free from fear, so we don't have to worry about am I God's child or not, and then it makes us effective. And if you don't think this is an issue just in the world, it's an issue in the church.

Listen to this, this is Acts chapter 20 verse 28 and following, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Take care for the church of God which he obtained by his blood.

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

So we have a war not only outside the church, but we have a war with inside the church, people twisting the scripture. This goes back to people wondering whether they're even saved or not. That makes them completely ineffective soldiers for Christ.

Last verse, 2 Timothy 4, 3 and following, 3 and 4, it says, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, having itching ears. They will accumulate for themselves teachers that suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

Satan, you know, at times we think it's, we're gonna be able to identify it like a child's lie, you know, they walk up to you and they got chocolate on their face and like, I didn't eat a cookie. We think it's that easy to identify it.

We're gonna be able to just point it out black and white. If people, he says, it's their own passions he uses. He uses your own passions, your own flesh, your own appetites to draw you away. And what is he doing?

It says from the truth, from listening to the truth. So we need to hear the constant preaching of the gospel, the constant preaching of God's Word to remind us to not give into the flesh and to say yes to the Spirit.

Walk by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. To fight the one, this war within our own flesh, but also be a part of this war of taking the light of the kingdom into the kingdom of darkness, that the truth is what does that for us.

So where do we get truth? Where do we get this from? We get it from the constant preaching and teaching of God's Word, encouraging one another to build one another up and to strengthen one another. And if we are abandoning this, we're not making this our priority, we will become weak, our flesh will take over and we'll start believing in myths that, oh I need this instead of the gospel, I need this instead of Christ.

Truth Points Us to Our Future Hope

Which leads us to our last point, which is that first of all it prepares us against fear, secondly it prepares us for the fight, and lastly it points us to our future. Man, if I'm just going to be vulnerable with you, I am like any other human, I like to be comfortable, I like to feel safe, I like to know that every single one of my kids is going to graduate, have a job, get married, be safe, I'm going to be a grandpa until I'm 90.

Everybody wants to believe that. And so where am I putting my hope? I'm putting my hope in the safety and security of a world that is sinking. You know, the illustration being we're handing out cocktails while we're watching the Titanic sink, instead of throwing out life vests, you know, that's what we're doing.

And what we know about the truth is that God says you're under the wrath of God, the gospel puts you under the care of his son, it changes your name and your identity, you have a whole new birth, you're a whole new person, and then he hands you this thing called supernatural power, the gospel, and he says it becomes who you are, like the kingdom of Christ becomes who I am.

I'm a part of his kingdom, I'm here to spread that kingdom. And what I love about the way in which the Bible describes this current world, your life is expendable. It's supposed to be spent. See, this is how the world presents it to us.

You have one life and then it's over. So live it now. Live your best life now because this is all you got. You know what the truth of the Bible tells us? You have one death and then you live forever. You only die once.

If you're under the wrath of God, you die twice. A physical death and a spiritual death. And you do not have anything to hope for. You have nothing good to look for. This is why you'll notice that the world believes that we kind of just go off into like nothing, like you just kind of go out of existence.

So yeah, it becomes a fearful thing to think, like I'm just gonna go off into existence, like I'm not gonna, no one's even gonna know who I am anymore. But we don't have that, right? Our hope is we can literally die for the gospel.

We can lay it down knowing that all of the joy, all of the satisfactions, all of the hope, it's already waiting for us. And you know, this, if you just look at Peter, when he says, he goes, be sober minded, be ready for action and put your hope fully.

What? On the hope that is to come, on the grace that is to come. So I just want to end right here and encourage you with this. If you're feeling in a constant state of fear, if you have no energy to fight for the kingdom and there's no hope for the future, I've got good news for you.

You just need the truth of the gospel and you can remove the fear, have purpose and meaning for your life, and have a hope that's far beyond your bank account, your waistline, and the protection of your children.

Because you can't guarantee any of those, but God can guarantee all of them in his new home underneath his power. So let's be people of the truth. Let's be desiring the gospel, just like we have been set free from our sin and we are now people of the truth.

Let's make that our priority. We'll see you guys next week.