Sunday Sermon

 Real Truth

Isaiah 50:11
But instead, some of you want to light your own fires and make your own light.  So, go, walk in the light of your fires, and trust your own light to guide you.  But this is what you will receive from me: You will lie down in a place of pain.

    We just finished Halloween and to be honest I am glad it is over.  For me the focus on the demonic and the things of the dead troubles me.  As a minister of the living God I have encountered more evil and hellish things then I care to think about and to take such things so lightly afflicts my soul in a way that I cannot even describe.  Most people believe that either those kinds of things are not real or that they are so far from them that they are not very scary and they are so wrong. But the evil that is behind the images is not like what people see on TV.  Yes, there are demons and they inhabit people but God tells us that the real evil does not need that.  Our God tells us that real evil and real demonic power sits in every human heart and we need to know that is true.  The reason God speaks to us about our sin and wants to teach us about how to live is because if we do not have God in our lives the only other option is evil.  If we don’t believe that humans are able to do remarkable evil then we need to revisit the twentieth century because the scale of human evil found there should terrify us.  Gasping this concept helps us understand why God becomes human and goes to the cross.  God knows how evil we as humans can be and He hates that.  The living God wants to deliver us from such dreadful things but we have to choose Him or the only other choice is to unleash evil into the world.  I want us to celebrate a God who stands against evil because it tells us about our God and how he works.  Over and over God calls to us and wants us to know that he is the answer to the evil that rules our hearts and God is desperate to save us from the evil that our sin brings into the world.  Think about this, we have a God who offers hope to replace the despair we feel and peace instead of the turmoil we have in our lives.  If we choose God we will find a new world that speaks to who we are and tells us how special we are to the God who created us.  Instead of evil we can have a life filled with purpose and meaning that celebrates life and teaches us how to be truly good people.  Let us learn about this God who offers such amazing blessings because it is the only real way to fight the evil in our hearts.  Knowing God will challenge us but it will also bring into our lives such wonder and delight that we will never want to move away from this God.  I know that confronting our sin is not easy and having God tell us how bad we are is not something we want to hear but God speaks the truth to us not to harm us but to save us and I like that.  Seeking a relationship with God is the answer to all the ills of the world.
    A great thing about God and the Bible and what He put out is that we find real wisdom about how to live our lives and how to get along in the world.  Best of all is that you don’t even have to believe in God to benefit from the wisdom God gives us.  Recently even a group of atheist acknowledged that the material in the Bible is filled with useful and helpful information and we should not throw out the Bible just because we don’t believe in God.  Of course the whole point of the truths that are found in the Bible are to point to the God who gives us the information we need.  We believe in a God who is Truth and so what flows from Him is by nature real truth and that is something to hope in.  Our God speaks truth to us because He loves us and wants us to know what is real and what produces lives of meaning.  The problem with God speaking the truth to us is that truth can be hard to deal with.  God tells us about our sin and often we don’t want to know we are in sin so we try and avoid God.  But God does not talk to us about our sin to make us feel bad.  God knows that sin is destroying us and if we don’t understand what sin does to us we will never be able to find the healing God wants for us.  The wisdom God offers to us is not about making us feel bad but about giving us directions that will make a real impact on our lives.  We live in a world that is confusing and often hard to deal with and the wisdom of God offers answers to our greatest needs.  What is really great is that the wisdom of God leads us to understand and value God and a desire to know more about Him.  Seeking the answers to life is a natural thing and our God offers those answers.
    In the book of Matthew were told that during the time Jesus is on the cross there is darkness for three hours.  Those words have always struck me as important but for a long time I could never figure out what those hours really meant.  Finally it dawned on me that God is the light of the world and if the light of the world is dying of course there would be darkness.   On another thought it occurred to me how much God hates sin and to see His son on the cross carrying all of humanities sin God just could not bear it and so looks away.  Whatever the reason for the darkness it tells us how terrible sin and the horror that dealing with sin takes.  In our verse God is warning people that they cannot make it in life without God and to ignore God’s truth and wisdom is to doom us as people.  But God offers to let us make our own choices and that intrigues me.  God knows the results of trying to live life without Him guiding us and yet He lets people make the choice.  Two things are going on here and we need to see them for that they are.  Humans are loved by God and God wants us to love Him back.  If God forced us to love Him that would not be love and so God allows people to make the choice of following God or not.  This verse is so wonderful and terrifying at the same time because God tells people go a head and try to make sense of life without Me and see what happens.  Let it be known God knows what happens and it troubles Him greatly but God will let us choose.  The next thing God does here is He speaks about the power of His light verses our light.  God’s light is so bright we can see the guidelines of life and we can see the dangers of life.  When we light our own lives it is dim and dark and does not help guide us in the way to go in life. The love of God is so great for us that He warns us about what happens even when we reject Him.  Yes, we are able to choose but we need to know the cost of that choice and so God does not hide it.  When we reject God’s authority for our own it only ends in bad things.  Just because we are believers does not exempt us from this issue.  Every human struggles with living by God’s commands and when we decide we know better then God we enter a road that is full of trouble.  Bowing down and accepting God’s authority in our lives will produce wonderful things but we have to make that choice everyday.
    A few years ago we bought a table and chairs from Ikea and I have to admit some trepidation about building the furniture because people had reported how difficult it could be.  In fact the instructions though cryptic were not hard to follow.   Instructions are such an important part of building things.  We have building plans with very detail instructions and then there are recipes that tell us how to cook and bake things.  So why would we think that there should not be an instruction manual about how to live our lives.  Everyone knows that it is much more complicated getting through life and all the ups and downs involved in it then building a house or baking a cake.  It is no wonder that we have so many people out there struggling with life because we as the church have not offered to show people the plan God has for people’s lives.  God wants to warn us that we are not equipped to live without Him and His teaching and that there is real blessing when we listen to God.  In our verse we have God telling us that if we want to live without God’s guidance God will let us.  One of the things about God that draws me to Him is that he let us choose what we want.  Instead of God telling people they can’t do something He says go and try.  But God also wants to warn us what the price will be.  Again God is not a threatening here He is just starting the facts and letting us choose the course of action we want.  It is so wonderful that God does not hide things from us but instead speaks the truth to us about how the world works.  The reality of the human condition is that we need God to guide is and God longs to give us that guidance.  Sin only brings pain and destruction and God knows this and does not want that for us.  As the church we need to call to people and offer the light of Jesus Christ.  Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount tells us that we are to be lights on a hill because we are to guide lost people to the living God.  It is not our job to make people accept Jesus but we must be the light and that means we need the light of God guiding us.  The whole point that God is making is that no one will make it through life without the guidance of God and so God offers to teach us and guide us.
    When I first came across this verse, it stunned me with the candor it showed and it made me think about the God I serve.  But as time has passed, I have become to really be drawn to this verse because it is so honest and true.  We learn so much about God and what He thinks and it exposes the broken nature of humans.  In short I find this verse so hopeful and filled with the wonder I have for my God.  The God who created there universe knows how broken we are and He warns us in such a dire manner that we need God or we will just suffer and die.  Why would God take the time and speak to us in this way unless He loved us enough to tell us the truth.  Those people who are going to choose their own light are going to do it anyway but we have a God who will not let us make a choice about life until we know the price of that choice.  This is the God I want to serve and the God who I want to guide my heart as I live out my life.