Just One Fact

Well, good evening everyone and welcome to Hope Home Education Graduation Ceremony. It's a real honor to be here with Desiree and Juliana. It's just tremendous to see all the families getting together to homeschool their kids and the effort and the dedication and the work it takes.

But the benefits and the fruit that come out of it are so, so important. So excuse me if I'm sweating a little bit. I had a scare about ten minutes ago when I wasn't supposed to be up here, but they thought we were.

No, it's okay. It's okay. So as a pastor at Hope Reform Baptist Church, my hope is that, graduates, your education will help you succeed in life. And I commend the graduates who have completed your schooling and are moving on to pursue bigger things.

Congratulations. You've both worked hard and you've both earned it. But here's my question for you, as well as to everyone else by extension here tonight. What is success? What is succeeding in life? Have you even thought about that?

How do you define that word success and pursue that goal will be crucial. If you don't know what success is, then you don't have a target or a goal and you'll hit it every time. Some of you will get that tomorrow.

So how you define that word can make all the difference. Is success making lots of money? Is success being an influencer or a person of high honor? Is success owning a nice car or house? Is success traveling or going on plush vacations?

Is success finding the job of your dreams or starting a family or just being content? How you think about and pursue success will determine your fate. And I know that's a heavy statement to make. And it will depend on if success is an inward reality that I can define any way I want subjectively.

Or if success is an objective reality that is really measurable. Did you ever play fact or opinion when you were in school? No. OK, this is going to be difficult. My kids, when they went to Grace Christian Academy, before we were homeschooling them, they played a game called fact or opinion.

And what we would do, we'd make a statement and the kids would say fact or opinion, depending on what it was. So I'm going to invite you, especially the students here, to play with me now. Fact or opinion.

So I'm going to give you a statement and you shout out. Well, I'm actually asking you to shout out. Normally it's be quiet, right? I'm going to I'm going to say a statement and I'm going to ask you to tell me is it fact or opinion.

OK. George Washington was the first U .S. president. Fact. Excellent. Rocky Road is the best flavor of ice cream. Fact. Right. See. All right. America declared its independence on July 4th, 1776. Fact.

Pastor Anthony is handsome. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Pastor Anthony is neither handsome nor smart for making this statement in public. Fact. Right. Sadly, we live in a time where some of the most basic facts that we've taken for granted are now being redefined and sadder, completely distorted.

What's worse is that if you challenge the new definition of the facts, you'll be labeled as a bigot, a hater, intolerant, an oppressor or fanatical. Some of the most basic facts we've built our society on are now being distorted.

Facts like life. Who knows what life is? When does life begin? The distortion of that word will have massive ramifications. For the unborn. Or the word person. Are all humans persons or is a clump of cells a person?

How about the word marriage? The sacred covenant between one man and one woman and is the building block of society. It's the way God ordained him to perpetuate humanity. Marriage is being redefined. How about the word man or the word woman?

There are people today who cannot tell you what either one are. They use the term birthing person. How about the word love? Love is love, right? However, love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, the scripture says.

What about the word truth? What's true for you is true for you and what's true for me is true for me. Truth is relative. Therefore, it's irrelevant. How about science? Science is based on facts, but more importantly, scientists use opinions.

They tell us things like evolution is true, climate change is real, and gender is fluid. So some of the most basic terms of life like marriage, man, woman, love, truth, science, have all been radically distorted based on the subjective opinions of some people.

The only thing that seems to be a fact is that nothing actually is a fact anymore. So where do we start? How do you come to define words? More importantly, how do we define success objectively? In other words, is there a definition or a standard not based on our subjective, ever-changing opinions?

So indulge me one more time. We're going to play fact or opinion. This is going to be my last statement to you. You tell me if it's a fact or an opinion. Jesus is Lord. Fact. If you get that one fact right, you get everything else that goes along with it right.

The fact that Jesus is Lord will define and shape everything else that you believe. And it won't change because God doesn't change. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The fact that Jesus being Lord will determine what all other facts are.

The Creator Who Defines Reality

Now, as Christians, we have a tremendous advantage over every other non-Christian worldview because we know the Creator. We know the one who created and defined all of creation. He has defined everything such that we can actually know things for certain and not be tossed to and fro by arbitrary opinions and ever-changing facts.

God is omniscient. That means He's all-knowing. God has perfect knowledge. And that's a really big deal for us for several reasons. If the God who knows everything perfectly reveals something to us, we can have certainty.

Because this is the God who has defined all things and knows all things. So when He reveals something to us, it's perfect knowledge. And because it's perfect knowledge, we can have certainty. No thing is a fact that Jesus hasn't made a fact.

In fact, God is the Father of all facts. Listen to this. If you take an omniscient, all-knowing God out of the picture, you cannot be certain about anything, because certainty will depend on the miniscule knowledge of mankind.

And the knowledge of mankind is tainted. It's depraved, limited, finite, prone to error, and ever-changing. Out of all the knowledge there is in this world, how much of it would you say you possess or actually know?

Probably a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction. If all you have is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of all the knowledge there is in the universe, then another fact that you don't know about may come along and could completely change your understanding of something.

It'll falsify your original understanding. If God is not your starting point and ending point, all your knowledge becomes mere human opinion and speculation. The fact that Jesus is Lord changes everything.

And I'm going to illustrate it to you real quick. Okay, I know the past, I don't want to say it, okay. You guys know what this is? You guys are smart, you're graduating. What is it? It's a what? Butter knife?

Butter knife, okay. So my question for you is, how can you prove this to me? How do you prove it's a butter knife? I thought you might grab it and spread butter on the bread or toast or something. But I've been in some of your houses and I've seen some of you guys using this as a screwdriver, right?

And some of the guys, when they're putting things up on the wall, they get attacked and they take the back of this and they hammer it into the wall. And then some women, when they're trying to open cans, they use this as a pry bar, right?

And then some of you kids, I saw you draw a circle on the wall and you're trying to throw it and get into the middle of the circle. So this really isn't a butter knife. This is an all-purpose tool. I can use it for whatever I want.

Now is that true, that this is an all-purpose tool? No. But how can you prove it to me? I just gave you empirical and rational evidence that this is a screwdriver, a pry bar, a game, and a hammer. The only way, the only way you can prove to me this is a butter knife is if you introduce me to its creator.

The creator tells you this is a butter knife. You may be able to use it for all different things, but that was not its intended purpose. When you abandon the creator who created humanity, there are going to be other people who are going to use other human beings as slaves, as other things, because they don't have an objective point of view.

They have not consulted the creator. So when the creator defines something, that's what makes it real. That's what makes it true. Human opinion is going to sway. It's going to change. They can take a butter knife and tell you that it's a pry bar.

The bottom line is it's a butter knife. All the words that society is trying to redefine have been defined by the creator already. Society has all but taken God out of the equation. And their goal is to remove him completely.

And we see the effects of it today. Life is not life. A person is not a person. Marriage is anything you want. Men can be women. Women can be men or birthing persons. Love is hate. Truth is relative. And science is whatever I decide.

When you remove the only thing that doesn't change, which is God, and the only one who has all knowledge, you are left with endless change, continual irrationality, and ceaseless confusion. You end up with a society with no foundation.

Humanity's Futility Without God

The apostle Paul will tell us in Romans,. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. They became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals.

Therefore God gave them up in the lust of their heart to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Like Doug Wilson says, it's Christ or it's chaos. God is the creator and author of reality. He is the one who defines his creation and he is the one who is sovereign over it. The words life, person, marriage, man, woman, love, truth, and science have all been defined by him already such that you can know them with certainty.

God is the father of all facts. So how do you define success? You don't. God does. God will tell us in Proverbs 7,. Proverbs 2 tells us,. And finally in Colossians 2,. Success is found in Jesus Christ, the source of all wisdom and knowledge.

And being united to God the father through him, walking in reality of the world created through his lens of scripture. Please notice that all of the ways that the world defines success are absent of God.

That's why God has informed us that to be friends with the world is to be at enmity with God. It's only in Jesus Christ that you can correctly use your talents and gifts that God has given you and begin to use them to perpetuate his kingdom.

To perpetuate his truth so his will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. Don't make the mistake that so many others make. Don't use your Bible in church. The pastor just said don't use your Bible in church.

Yep. Where do you use your Bible? Everywhere. Not just in church, but in the public square, in your home, at your work, in school. Everywhere you are, you use your scriptures. You stand on the Bible. Don't make the mistake of using it in the church building only.

God called us to take dominion over the entire earth. Do you think he expected us to do it apart from his scriptures? We sing Christ shall have dominion. That means you have to submit to him as Lord and bring that to the places that don't know him as Lord.

Abraham Kuyper once said there's not one square inch of creation where Jesus does not scream mine. So to the graduates, congratulations once again. Fact. Jesus is Lord. I pray that you would take the knowledge that God has given you and use it to make this world beautiful like the Garden of Eden.

And fear not, little flock, it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Be bold for the Lord. The righteous are as bold as a lion. And to all the other students and parents and family and friends, Jesus is Lord.

Fact. Let your entire life reflect that one simple fact and see glorifying God with your life as success.