Father, we give you thanks and praise that you used ordinary people to have your word written,
and that your word is true. We confess before you, Father, that it can be very hard for us to
actually even want to know the truth, that we can prefer our self-deceptions, our delusions,
our fantasies, our quest for power and ego and dominance, that we can, Father, just prefer
ourselves to the truth. Father, we know that you know our hearts, and we know that you not only know
us perfectly, but you love us, even as you know us perfectly. And we ask that you would be very kind
to us this morning, and that you would pour out the Holy Spirit upon us with might and power and
deep conviction, so that your word would be able to come into our hearts, and that we would know the
truth and be formed by the truth, to love the truth and share the truth and speak the truth with love
and gentleness. And we ask this in the precious name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So, I'm not doing this just to cause controversy, but I'm going to create some tension in the room right now.
Here's the tension. Imagine that you are watching me in a Starbucks or a Tim Hortons or a Bridgehead
or some other coffee place, and a young woman of color or a young First Nations person says something
about what's going on in our culture or something that's happened in history. And imagine for a moment
that I just put my finger up like this and said, I think you're wrong, and corrected the young woman of
color or the young First Nations woman. And then not only said, I think you're wrong, but began to tell her
why I think she's wrong. Now, that would cause a lot of tension for most Canadians, not all Canadians,
but for many Canadians. In fact, if I was to tell you that I was going to do a video, I'm obviously an old
white guy, and I was going to do a video on truth and reconciliation, or about some aspects of the
experience of African Americans in Canada. In fact, if I was to announce that I'd just done a video like
this and that I was going to be releasing it on Monday, there would be a lot of tension in the
congregation. And I would have a lot of people tell me I shouldn't do it.
The fact of the matter is that the gatekeepers of our culture
say that basically certain types of conversation are protected and are, in a sense, to use the
postmodern language, are privileged. And for an old white guy like me to say something to correct
certain types of classes of person would, in fact, be a great evil. In fact, there's the main theory,
which is taught in universities, critical theory, with all of its different offspring of critical
race theory, critical theory around gender and sexuality, very specifically says that guys like
me can't speak into certain types of issues. There was a very interesting columnist this week
who had a line in his column that when people no longer believe in the truth, all that's left
is fists, is fighting and punching and grasping for power.
Now, I say this because it's a bit of a, it creates some tension, and you can well imagine how much
tension you would feel if I said I was going to release a video or if you saw me talking.
Yet at the same time, we know that there's a lot of people in our culture who are very
uncomfortable with how many of the, there's things going on in our, things going on in our culture,
concerned to truth. It does seem as if, for a significant part of our culture, there no longer
is a concern for the truth. In a sense, critical theory has led to no longer being able to think
critically.
And to be woke, increasingly looks like you go to sleep, rather than being awakened.
It's very interesting if you have a conversation with non-Christians and they start to discover
that you don't necessarily agree with how our culture goes, and all of a sudden,
if they feel safe, they begin to talk, because we know how much we could be jumped on for just
considering some of these particular issues. So for those of you who I have not so offended
that if you're watching online, you've clicked the off button, and you're off to do something
else. And for those of you who still might be steaming, but are at least willing to listen,
but for others of us who acknowledge that there's some wisdom from this fellow saying that when you
no longer believe in truth, all that's left is fists. It's all that's left. Very Nietzschean thought.
The Bible, believe it or not, the text that we looked at today has a lot of profound wisdom to
offer our culture and for us as a congregation. So if you were turning your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter
2 verses 14 and following, we're going to look at this very, very old letter. 2 Timothy chapter 2
verses 14 and following. And very interesting enough, as I've shared in each of the last two
weeks when we've looked at it, if you're a guest here, one of the things we do at Church of the
Messiah is we preach through books of the Bible. That's how they're written. They're written as
books. The Bible isn't a compendium of quotes. It has a few things like the book of Proverbs that
have just sayings, but generally speaking, they're written as books. They have a beginning,
they have an end, a middle, etc., and it's best to look at them that way. And this actually was
originally a letter written from jail, a guy doing hard time in Rome during the height of the Roman
Empire, maybe the biggest time of the Roman Empire, close to it, if not the absolute pinnacle of the
Roman Empire. Nero is the emperor, and this particular fellow is in jail. And interestingly enough, he's in
jail because of the truth. He's in jail because he believes something happened, actually really happened
in history. And all the smart people and the powerful people and the popular people don't want that to be true.
But he keeps saying it actually happened, and so as a result of that, he now finds himself in jail doing hard time.
And as I've shared before, at the end of the book, he reveals that he believes that he's only going to walk out of
jail, this time to go to his execution, which is in fact what happened to him. And here's, now we're sort of
coming up to the, I guess we've been, we've been, this is our third look at it. Let's look and see what he says here.
So remind them, verse 14, remind them of these things and charge them before God not to quarrel
about words, which does no good but only ruins the hearers.
Now, some of you watching this are hearing this, okay, George, this is just really, really, really puzzling.
I mean, as soon as he says irreverent babble, as soon as he says ungodliness, a good grief, George,
he's talking about religion and spirituality.
George, how can a text talking about religion and spirituality possibly be helpful to our particular issue?
Don't you understand all the fights that come because of religion and spirituality?
Aren't you aware of the terrible history of Christians fighting each other over words?
And George, I mean, and why just the Christian faith? Like, don't, can't you just see that this is, like, what?
Like, some people go look at this, what, George, this, whatever you said about the beginning,
I am interested to try to figure out how you can have a concern for the truth and hear some wisdom about it.
But going to something like this, like talking about ungodliness, good grief, George,
that's not possibly going to be something that's going to lead us to anything profitable.
Now, I'm going to have to confess that Christians have often, in fact, it's interestingly enough,
you can't, in a sense, out-critique the Bible on this because what is the Bible actually warning you against?
It's warning about Christians fighting over words.
In other words, what you can say is that there's been a long history of Christians being hypocrites.
They don't read their Bible.
They don't read their Bible and understand that, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
you guys are getting into a huge fight over, whoa, whoa, whoa, time out, time out.
Let's read 2 Timothy 2, verses 14 to 16.
Let's take a chill pill and let's have a bit of a, you know, cool down about this.
So, I mean, in a sense, he's writing this because God knows our hearts,
how easy it is for us to forget this and to get into big fights over words, right?
So that's actually, you know, so have there been lots of Christians who've been very bad in the past?
Yes.
Am I a bad Christian many, many times in my life?
Yes, by the way.
I'm not up here trying to point the finger at the other Christians out there.
If I do that, I have three fingers pointing back at me.
But here's the big claim that's underneath this text,
which is a very, very shocking thing for our culture.
To become a Christian is to take the red pill.
To become a Christian.
This is the Christian message.
Some of you have heard me share a line by Spurgeon that Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.
And I've been thinking this week that maybe we could reformulate that and say Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to get the red pill and urging them to take it.
Now, those of you who aren't familiar with the language, it goes back to The Matrix, a sort of a culturally formative movie that was made about 20 some odd years ago.
And in that, this fellow Neo is given a choice.
He's given a red pill.
The person holds his hand out and gives a red pill and a blue pill.
And if he chooses the blue pill, then everything will just go back to normal.
But what we, the viewer, understand as normal is that he's actually not living the life he thinks he lives.
He's actually just in a vat being used as a battery to give energy to machines.
And he can either take the blue pill and just go back to a life of pleasant illusion and delusion, or he can take the red pill and he will be freed from that delusion and illusion and has to live with the weight of understanding what the world is really like.
And I understand that for most people in our culture, religion is just part of values.
It's part of like a hobby.
It's a type of therapy.
It's something that is understood just to make you feel more comfortable.
And if religion and all is just something to make you feel more comfortable, a type of therapy, something you just happen to like or enjoy, maybe for historic or family reasons, then to argue about the truth or falsity of it is just completely and utterly ridiculous.
It would be like, I don't know, arguing whether crocheting is better or a needlepoint.
It would be like arguing whether you should make pierogies as a family or cabbage rolls.
Like to get into a big fight over that is just a sign of immaturity and untamed egos.
And so for a lot of people in our culture to think that Christians would get into an argument about things is just like that.
It's an argument over whether you make pierogies or cabbage rolls.
But actually, the fact of the matter is, is that Christianity believes that when you receive the gospel, the offer of part of the offer of the gospel is that will you take the red pill?
That, in fact, Christians believe that if you accept the gospel and begin to be formed by the gospel and the word of God, that that's actually taking the red pill, that you will begin to understand that the world is very different than you think.
That, in fact, there is a devil.
That there is a last judgment.
That there are demons.
That there are angels.
That there is, in fact, revealed truth from God.
That, in fact, it's not just that every view of God is correct, but that the real God, the true God, is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Three persons, one God.
That there is a Savior.
That there is something about the human condition that can't be fixed by the human condition.
And that part of the journey of being a Christian, of the quest of being a Christian, is to begin to be formed more and more and more about the truth so that you can see and understand the world as it really is.
This is, in fact, the claim of the Christian faith.
But some of you might push back and say, okay, George, good grief.
How on earth could you possibly know that, George?
You can get up on your hind legs and make such a claim.
Well, interestingly enough, Jesus, there's a very famous story in one of, in three, I think it takes place in three of the ancient biographies of Jesus.
Ancient biographies, either written by eyewitnesses or written based on eyewitness testimony.
When many, many, many, many, many eyewitnesses were still around and could say, no, no, that's wrong, that's wrong, we need to fix this or whatever.
And in three of these ancient biographies, there's a very, very powerful story.
And it's a story, some of you here will know it, where Jesus is teaching and he's in a room and some fellows have a friend who's paralyzed and they want to see if they can get Jesus to maybe heal them.
But people won't get out of the way, they can't get in.
And so they go up, they knock a hole in the roof, which is pretty rude.
Hopefully they're all carpenters and could fix it later or whatever, however you could fix roofs back in those days.
They never tell you that part of the story, but I'm sure something like that happened.
And they drop the guy and they have ropes or whatever, they lower the guy in.
And obviously they want Jesus to heal this guy.
And Jesus makes this very, very, very shocking claim.
He says, son, your sins are forgiven.
Now, people back, you know, we are such, Canadians in 2021, we are such chronological snobs.
We think that just because back then they didn't have TikTok or flush toilets that they were stupid.
There's a very good argument to be made that using TikTok makes you stupid, by the way.
Or Instagram or Facebook might lower your IQ.
And that maybe a time before that they were actually smarter.
But those people back then, they weren't dumb.
They said the exact same thing a group of Canadians would say.
If it was Tim Hortons, all of a sudden the roof came down and Jesus was there and they asked Jesus to heal the guy.
And Jesus said, son, your sins are forgiven.
All of them said, who can forgive sins but God alone?
Talk is cheap.
You know, Jesus can say whatever he wants.
But they're smart people.
They say, well, that's just a ridiculous thing to say.
So what does Jesus say to them?
Jesus says to them, well, listen, what is easier for me to say?
Son, rise up and be healed?
Or son, your sins are forgiven?
What's easier?
Well, of course, you can't just have somebody just perform a miracle.
All of a sudden, a man like Jesus just says something.
And what goes on inside the body is that if there's like nerve endings or whatever that have been broken or blocked,
or there's a blockage that those in a sense are removed,
that if there's things that aren't connected, that there's an act of creation that will join nerves,
that the muscles that have atrophied will all of a sudden be firm enough that they could walk,
that this is like a mighty thing.
If I just speak that and all of a sudden these acts of creation and negation that create health,
if that just comes, that's impossible.
And so Jesus says to show that I have the authority to forgive sins,
the implication is I'm going to heal this guy,
but he says to show that I have the authority to do this,
son, rise up and walk.
And three of the ancient biographies say that that's exactly what happened to the young man.
You see, the fact of the matter is,
is that in the history of religion and spirituality,
all sorts of claims are made.
But the fact of the matter is,
is that when you just respond to me that, George,
to make this claim that to become a Christian is to receive the red pill,
that's just you talking.
That's because you're used to the fact that,
generally speaking,
religions and spiritualities don't provide any evidence.
They just make claims.
But that's one of the reasons why out of all of the religions and the spiritualities that exist in the world,
the historic and great ones that bespoke and chosen ones of the day,
that what is completely and utterly unique about Christianity is not only that,
like, gospel doesn't mean good rituals, good morals, good advice.
It means good news.
And the good news is that God has actually done something in history in such a way
that you can examine it and see whether or not it's possible to be true.
Because, you see, that's exactly the claim that's made by Jesus.
And it's very, very interesting that in the context,
in the context of profoundly wise writings,
and profoundly wise writings that is out of the writings of what we call the Old Testament,
our Jewish friends call the Tanakh.
I was just talking to a Jewish friend the other day,
and once again we had that very, very same little dance.
I refer to it as the Tanakh,
and he referred to it as the Old Testament,
and I joke that that's like,
that's what you do if you want to be friends.
I use the Jewish term,
and he uses the Christian term,
and we're both talking about the same book.
But, you know,
but it's out of these writings that human rights have developed.
It's out of these writings that are notions of,
the best notions of justice have developed.
It's in fact out of these writings that the notion that powerless people see things about the powerful,
that the powerful don't understand about themselves,
that comes out of the Old Testament and the New Testament.
I mean, that's the grounding that I have to be careful challenging a young Aboriginal woman,
or a young woman of color about what she said.
Because the fact of the matter is,
it's a constant theme of the Bible,
that the powerless often see things in the world about the powerful,
and about the world that the powerful just don't see,
because it's very easy for the powerful to become blinded by power and pride.
That is a biblical idea.
It wasn't invented by French intellectuals in the late part of the 1900s.
It's in the book of Ecclesiastes.
It's in the Psalms.
It's in the Proverbs.
And it's in the context of these profound writings of psychological depth
that have done much good in the world.
It's in the context of this overriding narrative
of creation that's good and of fall,
and that explains the presence of good and evil in the world,
and our divided nature.
It's in the context of this overarching story
of God promising that someday He would send a deliverer
to do what human beings cannot do for themselves.
It's in this context of this overarching story,
of this profound wisdom,
that Jesus comes and walks amongst us and says,
the Romans are going to crucify me,
and I am going to die,
and on the third day I'm going to rise from the dead.
And you're going to know it's true.
And that's what happened.
That's a claim about history.
It's a claim about history
because we would have to say,
good grief, remember the story about the man healed by paralyzed?
Well, if something like that happens,
then maybe he can forgive sins.
That's a very reasonable thing to believe.
But you see, if that's true,
and if, in fact, Jesus really did die and rise from the dead,
if Jesus...
Oh, have I just lost...
I've never turned my mic on?
I've never turned my mic on.
Let's just take it off.
It's irritating.
If Jesus really died from the dead,
died from the dead,
rose from the dead,
if He really did this,
if there's things like miracles that have happened,
it means that the way the Globe and Mail and the CBC talk about the world is not true.
And that maybe to know and hear the good news of the Gospel
and to receive it and accept it
is to take the red pill
and to begin to be led by Jesus
into what the world is really like.
in a world where there is science,
a world where there is truth,
a world where truth should be valued,
and that we should basically try to understand
that using fists to solve issues of truth
is never going to lead to the truth.
The way you come to a leading of the truth
is a moral quest
that the living God,
the true and living God,
desires for you to embark in,
to know the truth,
and to be formed by it.
See, the fact of the matter is,
and this is,
the way the sermon is structured,
I really want to talk a lot about this.
I might just read the rest of the text very quickly
to draw out a couple of points,
but here's the big idea behind this.
Not only is it that Christians understand
that to become a Christian
is to take the red pill,
and it's a red pill
that isn't just to lead you into a...
Here's the other thing.
I think it's going to be on the screen.
The Lord created and launched
a movement of truth and love
that builds communities of truth and love
for the glory of God and the good of people.
See, that's what's sort of behind this text.
It's behind the entire New Testament.
It's behind what our Jewish friends call the Tanakh
and what we call the Old Testament.
The Lord created and launched
a movement of truth and love,
not just of love and not just of truth,
but of truth and love
that is to build...
It does build communities of truth and love
for the glory of God and the good of people.
That's what the Lord's doing.
That's the context behind this advice that he says,
don't quarrel about words,
don't pay attention to irreverent babble,
learn to handle the word of truth.
Learn to handle the word of truth.
You see, because since the truth matters,
words and how you use them matter.
And since the truth matters,
words and how you use them matter.
And if I was to add another thing,
I'd say since people matter,
words and how you use them matter.
Because we all know that we can use the truth
in a cruel and heartless way.
We can use the truth to beat people up,
to belittle them, to diminish them,
to rob them of hope, to make them ashamed.
And I bet every single one of us here in the room
could tell you a story
of how a person has used the truth
in a way against them
which has been brutal, heartless, vicious.
But on the other hand,
we also know people who,
out of a mistaken notion of love,
will not speak the truth.
I remember many, many, many years ago,
there was somebody who told me
they thought that they were called
to the ordained ministry.
And I hate conversations like this.
I'm very Canadian.
Eh?
Yeah, I'm very Canadian.
And so I, you know,
Canadians always prefer passive aggressiveness
over just, you know, being direct.
And so anyway, I said to them,
I didn't think God was calling them
to be ordained.
They were upset with me.
And then they told me
two or three other people in the church
who all thought they were called
to be ordained.
And then a week later,
one of the other,
a couple of the other people
came up to me and said,
I hear that you told Bob
that you didn't think
he was called to be ordained.
And he's really mad.
And I said, yeah.
And they said to me,
we don't think he's called
to be ordained either,
but we didn't want to hurt his feelings.
And we're really glad you told them.
Now, whether I told it
in a gentle way or not,
I don't know.
I'll find out maybe I was too harsh,
you know,
with a particular person.
But we understand
that since the truth matters
and since people matters,
words and how you use them matter.
And see, once again,
if you understand
that the Christian faith
is trying to communicate
about what the real world
is really like,
like,
I'm very simple-minded.
At the beginning of the service,
at the beginning of the sermon,
when I say to you
that ultimately
God caused the scriptures
to be read,
like,
I actually think
that's what happened.
I'm very simple-minded.
I think that's what
actually happened.
And when I pray
that God would pour out
the Holy Spirit upon us,
I actually believe
I'm talking to my Father
in heaven
and that Jesus
is interceding for me.
And I actually believe
when I talk to God,
I ask him to pour out
the Holy Spirit,
that he will,
because that's something
he asks us to pray for,
that he will do
what I've asked,
what we've asked him for,
and that he actually does
pour the Holy Spirit
out upon those of us
in the room.
I actually believe
that's what's happening.
And I don't just say this
because I'm weird,
although many of you
now maybe think I'm weird.
I do this because
I believe that Jesus
really did rise from the dead,
that the tomb was empty,
that they never found the body,
that he appeared alive
to many, many witnesses,
that the miracles he does
in the Bible
actually happened,
that you can't say
that Jesus was
a great moral teacher,
because if he,
the Bible very clearly shows
that Jesus claimed
to be God
and you can't claim
to be God
and be a great moral teacher,
he either knew
that he wasn't God
and therefore he was lying
and therefore he can't
be a great moral teacher,
or he actually,
he wasn't God,
but he thought he was,
and then he's insane.
He's like the,
he's like many of the mental
people who are off their meds
that we see wandering
around the streets
of Ottawa,
poor,
demented people
that need our mercy
and we should pray for them,
and that's Jesus.
Or he really did rise
from the dead
and the grave is empty,
and he did claim
to be God,
and he did claim
to come to save us,
and that means
he's the Lord.
And that the world
is different
than the way
Ottawa U
and the CBC
and the Supreme Court
of Canada
and Hollywood
and Bay Street
tell us.
And we need
to be part
of a community
of truth and love
to learn
how to love better
and love the truth better
and not live
by hatred
and not live
by fear
and not live
by lies.
And that is
what Jesus calls us to.
And you see,
this is why
when Paul says here
that you need to,
you know,
don't get into
quarrels
and infighting
and don't just
listen to irreverent babble
but learn to handle
the truth rightly
because if there
really is this news
that there is a God
that does exist
who loves you
and loves you so much
that he died upon
the cross for you
so that if you accept
what he's done for you,
God does in your life
what you can never
do for yourself.
He makes you
right with himself
and the Holy Spirit
actually lives in you
and you actually
at a spiritual level
become changed.
Your emotions
might not change
right away.
Your body might not
change right away.
Your finances
or any of these things
but at a spiritual level
who you are
at the level of your
of the depths
of who you are
that now actually
is completely
and utterly changed
as if you have
become born again.
If you were to hear,
if you were to get
an email tomorrow
saying that
dear sir,
dear madam,
we regret to inform you
that we've now done
an audit
and discovered
that the Pfizer
and Moderna vaccine
that was given to you
had been mishandled
and hadn't been kept
at the proper temperature
and so therefore
was completely
and utterly worthless
and we administered it
to you,
every single one of you
who received an email
like that
would feel sick
and angry.
Why?
Because they didn't
handle the drugs properly.
They didn't handle
the vaccines
properly
to your harm
and it's because
we're talking
of the real world
that the Bible
says what it says.
But some of you
might say,
George,
and this is a very,
very valid pushback,
you'd say,
George,
well how do you know
the difference
between quarreling
over words?
How do you know
the difference
between irreverent babble
and rightly handling
the word of truth?
Like, George,
how on earth
do you know that?
I mean, George,
you've been involved
in controversies,
I know you have
and so how do you know
when you're doing that
or what?
Like, what's going on,
George?
And if you have
that question,
that is the world's
best question
because, you see,
that's part of the point
of verses 14 to 16
because I have to come
to God and say,
God, is it I?
In this case,
is it me?
Like, which one
am I here, God?
I shouldn't come
to the text
arrogantly presuming
that I'm only
always rightly
handling the word
of truth,
that there's no ego
ever in me,
that I never want
to win an argument,
that's what other
people do,
that's not...
Time out, George.
Part of the point
of the mystery
of the text
is on one level
we all understand
the distinction
between this,
we all understand it.
What we don't
always understand
is which side
of the distinction
we were just on
three minutes ago.
And so this text,
you see,
I have to watch
the time,
this text is calling
for you and me
and us as a church
to constantly have
moments of moral
reflection about
our own lives.
Jesus warns us
about seeing specks
in other people's eyes
and not seeing
the log sticking
out of our own eyes.
The book of Psalms
warns us about
the problem we have
of flattering ourselves
too much to detect
or hate our own sin.
And so a text like this
is to call me,
not to say that
I'm never going to
try to actually
defend the truth.
It's not that I'm
never going to
actually try to
be careful with words,
but to always come out
of it and say,
okay,
you know,
Lord,
was I...
What was going on
there in my life?
Like,
was I just...
Did I cross a line
at some point
in there?
Was I doing something
to manipulate
the other person?
Was I doing something
to belittle
the other person?
Was I doing something
to shame them?
Was I just coming
on so heavy
that I...
Was I stopping...
Was I stopping listening?
Did I stop listening?
Did I just listen
to the first three words
they said
and then close my ears
as I formulated
my rebuttal?
Have I walked away
thinking how proud
and wonderful I was
with my cutting word,
my telling word,
that I got you word?
Is that what went on
in me?
Lord,
did I just leave
that conversation
as a bully?
As an arrogant person?
You see,
here's where the gospel
is very important.
The word Christian
doesn't mean good.
The word Christian
means a follower of Jesus.
Why do I need
to be a follower of Jesus?
Because I do wrong things
and I can't fix myself.
I need a savior.
And that's part of the profound
and wonderful news
of the gospel.
Is that Jesus
doesn't weigh my merits.
He doesn't say,
oh gosh,
George is so brilliant.
He's so articulate.
He's so winsome.
He's always gentle.
I'm going to bring him
into my kingdom
because boy,
is he ever going to add value.
No,
that's not how the gospel works.
I was a person
completely and utterly
caught in self-deception
and I needed the Holy Spirit
to pierce the darkness
and blindness of my mind
and bring the red pill
into the center of who I am
and I need the grace of God
to take my anger,
my pride,
my vanity,
to pierce all of that
and bring me that red pill
of the gospel
that I would know
my savior
who saves me
and saves you
not weighing my merits
but pardoning my offenses,
who saves the angry,
who saves the timid,
who saves the proud,
who saves the weak,
who saves the person
who has no backbone
and the one
who's just completely
and utterly encased
in armor,
who saves the indigenous
in the First Nations
and the black,
the people from the Caribbean
and Africa
and Singapore
and China
and the Middle East
and Afghanistan
and Canada
not weighing our merits
but we need a savior,
I need a savior,
you need a savior.
There is a savior.
Hallelujah.
You see,
this tells us
another important thing
is to know the truth
about God,
the world
and yourself
is a moral quest.
To know the truth
about God,
the world
and yourself
is a moral quest.
It's not just
an intellectual quest,
it's a moral quest
to believe
that there is
a way of solving
difficulties
that doesn't involve fists,
that there is a truth
that does exist,
that you can have
a conversation,
that you can listen,
that you can hopefully
enter into in a way
which is gentle
and respectful
of the other person
and that you can
pursue the truth,
that you as Christians,
because we have
a father in heaven,
that we can pray
that people who
disagree with us,
that they will come
to know the truth,
that we can pray
that if we are blinded
about this particular issue,
if my privilege
or my skin color
or my power
has blinded me
to privilege,
that Lord,
have mercy upon me
and deliver me
from my blindness
that I might know
the truth,
that I might be
humbled by truth,
mastered by truth
in a way
which is always
loving of you
and loving of your creation
and loving of other people.
Lord,
have mercy upon me,
have mercy upon us.
May we be a community
of truth and love
for the glory of God
and for the good of people.
Just,
it's the time I just,
let's just read
the rest of the text
so you hear it.
Verse 17,
or verse 16,
but avoid irreverent babble
for it will lead people
into more and more
ungodliness
and their talk
will spread
like gandrine.
Among them
are Hymenaeus
and Philetus
who have swerved
from the truth
saying that the resurrection
has already happened.
They are upsetting
the faith of some.
What's probably
going on there
is if this idea
that somehow or another
I've just,
whoa,
I'm resurrected.
I'm already living
in the heavenlies.
Well,
what my body does
doesn't matter
and how can you say
that I lied,
that I,
like,
it's a way to actually,
it's a way to make you
sound religious
and spiritual
while it pardons
the crap
and the lies
and the anger
and the violence
and the evil you do.
That matters.
And then it goes on
and says in verse 19,
but God's firm foundation
stands bearing this seal.
The Lord knows
those who are his.
You know what,
I don't have the time.
I shouldn't say that.
Go back in your devotions
and read the rest
of this text.
But here's the point
about the text.
Since people,
and it's already been covered
in the stuff
that's going on,
you'll go back
and you'll see
that the fact
that the truth,
knowing the truth
is a moral quest,
it means you have
to flee certain things
and pursue certain things.
And pursuing things
like faithfulness to God
and being right with God
matter if you want
to know the truth
because it's too easy
for my pride
to make me hurt people
and for my pride
to no longer
want to know the truth.
It's too easy
for that to happen.
To know the truth
isn't just a matter
of the mind,
it's also a matter
of a moral quest.
And here's the thing,
since people matter
to God,
people should matter
to you.
Therefore,
seek to win
the person for Christ,
not the argument
for your ego.
Since people matter
to God,
people should matter
to you.
Therefore,
seek to win
the person for Christ,
not the argument
for your ego.
And in the secular world,
if you're in the business world,
if you're in the scientific world,
if you're in the media world,
I mean,
to seek to win
the world for Christ,
you can't maybe
always try to win
them for Christ,
but you can win
for the good
of the culture,
the good of the people,
because the truth
is good for you.
Don't live by lies.
Don't live by hatred.
Let's be people of truth
and people of love.
Please stand.
I invite you to stand.
Father, we give you
thanks and praise
that you continue
to do this wonderful,
miraculous work.
You've done it,
Father,
for very powerful people
where you've pierced
the darkness
and brought the gospel
home to them.
You've done it for addicts
and you've done it
for alcoholics.
You've done it for housewives,
for soccer moms.
You've done it
for politicians.
You've done it
for working class people,
Father,
that you continue
to desire people
to know Jesus,
to know that he is
the way,
the truth,
and the life,
that he loves them,
that he is the Savior,
that he is the one
that can fit them
for heaven,
that to make them,
to begin to form them
to be a person
of the truth
and a person of love.
And Father,
we thank you
that Jesus is still
the Savior,
that you are still
bringing him to people.
And we ask,
Father,
for our loved ones
and our friends
who do not yet know Jesus,
that you would bring
Jesus home to them
and that they would
take the red pill
of the gospel.
And if there is anyone
here who is present
or watching this online,
Father,
that the Holy Spirit
would move in their lives,
that they would take
the red pill
of the gospel.
And Father,
we ask that the Holy Spirit
would so form us
by the gospel,
so form us
by your word,
that your Holy Spirit
should be so real
and active within us,
that not only that each one
of us as individuals
will be a person of love
and a person of the truth,
but that we,
a Church of the Messiah,
that we will be
a community,
Father,
of love,
a community of the truth
for your great glory
and for the good
of our city,
the good of our nation,
the good of our world.
And we ask this
in the name of Jesus
and all God's people said,
Amen.