Alderwood Community Church July 20, Getting Relationships Right Part 4 It Does Matter What You Believe! John 8:31-36

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1 1 Alderwood Community Church July 20, 2014 Getting Relationships Right Part 4 It Does Matter What You Believe! John 8:31-36 Intro: How many of you were taught about the tooth fairy as a child? How many of you heard about Santa Claus? The Easter Bunny? How many of you were taught that you should always wear clean underwear in case you re in an accident? There are certain American Myths we have grown up believing. Most of them are harmless. But some myths aren t harmless. They have robbed you of happiness. They ve led you into guilt and shame. Some of the myths you ve learned from the world have caused worry and stress and fear in your life. Some of them have created nagging depression. The Great American Myth: It doesn t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere! Have you ever heard that myth. Now that sounds so good. It sounds so broadminded, so tolerant. It s politically correct. Different strokes for different folks. You believe that; I believe this. Fine, we re both cool. The problem is, it s absurd and irrational to hold that belief. There are some beliefs that are exact opposites of each other. It s not only absurd and naïve to hold this view; it s also self destructive. You can be sincere, but you can be sincerely wrong. The fact is, it takes more than sincerity to make it in life. It takes truth. Illus: The day I followed the wrong car Taking medicine in the middle of the night and swallowing nail polish remover rather than Robitussen Jim Jones- Waco, Texas *Read Text: John 8:31-36 (few comments on the meaning of this text) 1. Beliefs are my choice. Six things to consider regarding your beliefs: Nobody forces you to believe anything. If I don t want to believe something, I don t have to. If I want to believe in UFO s, I can believe it. If I want to believe in the Loch Ness monster, I can believe it. If I want to believe the moon s made of cheese, I can believe it. If I want to follow Islam or Buddhism or Scientology or Christianity or believe that God is dead, I can do that. You can t blame others for your beliefs. You can t blame your parents or your teachers because they re not holding on to you anymore. You can drop those beliefs anytime you wish. It is a choice. Even God gives you a choice as what to believe. Romans 1:25 says that man in his rebellion has exchanged the truth of God for a lie. One paraphrase words it: Instead of believing what they knew as the truth about God they deliberately chose to believe lies.

2 2 The point is: My beliefs are a choice and some of them need to be replaced! 2. Beliefs determine my behavior, affect my attitude and shape my outlook on life. (worldview) Proverbs 4:25 Be careful how you think. Your life is shaped by your thoughts. Everything you do has an unconscious or conscious belief behind it. When you sat down on that chair this morning, you unconsciously believed it would hold you. When you get into your car later today and drive through an intersection, you believe that the people crossing the intersection will stop at the red light so you can go through on the green. The problem is this: My beliefs determine the way I act, even when they re wrong! For instance, if you believe you re clumsy, how are you going to act? Clumsy. If you believe you re unlovable, you will act unlovable. If you believe people cannot be trusted, you ll tend to treat them with suspicion. If you believe that God is unconcerned about you, you ll never pray. If you believe that God is out to get you like many people do- you ll try to avoid God. In his book, Your God is Too Small, J.B. Phillips, he exposes 12 inadequate conceptions of God that prevent people from catching a glimpse of the true God, and then he suggests ways we can constructively view God properly. He calls one destructive view Resident Policeman and this is when we equate God with our conscience, that small voice within us that speaks up and makes us feel guilty and unhappy before, during or after we have done something wrong. Another image of God is what he calls Absolute Perfectionism, since God is perfect, it is assumed that God expects perfection out of us and this view takes the joy and spontaneity of life and creates a life of anxious slavery. Let me again quote A.W. Tozer, as I did just 3 weeks ago when he said, What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Listen: Even if your beliefs are wrong, they affect your entire life. So you need to examine them carefully! 3. The world is full of many false beliefs! One National Enquirer headline read: New discovery! Fat-burning prayers. Pray these prayers, and the pounds melt away. Magazines have all kinds of stuff like that. We laugh and say, That s funny, but a lot of these myths just aren t funny. Many of them really mess up our lives. Have you ever been sick in bed for a day and watched a day s worth of talk shows? That will make you sick. Here are Ten Talk Show Myths that really aren t funny: (1) All your problems are somebody else s fault.

3 3 (2) This world owes you happiness. (3) You ll be happy if you get whatever you want (4) There is never any reason to feel guilty. (5) Man is basically good and unselfish. (6) All beliefs are equally valid. (7) Pornography and perversion are innocent. (8) You can have it all. (9) You shouldn t have to wait for anything. (10) Because you re God, the answer lies within you. The Bible gives some very blunt advice about this, 1 John 4:1 says, Don t always believe everything you hear, for there are many false teachers around. Much like the foolish claim that it doesn t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere, is the claim that all religions are essentially the same or all roads lead to God. Really? Not even close. When it comes to salvation, Mormons believe that a person is resurrected by Grace, but saved (exalted to godhood) by works, including faithfulness to church leaders, Mormon baptism, tithing, ordination, marriage, and secret temple rituals. There is no eternal life without Mormon membership. Jehovah Witnesses believe that the only way you can be saved is to be baptized as a Jehovah Witness (but didn t the Mormons just say that?) Most followers of Jehovah Witnesses must earn everlasting life on earth by door-to-door work. Salvation in heaven is limited to 144,000 anointed ones. The 144,000 live as spirits in heaven. The rest of the righteous, the great crowd, live on earth, and must obey God perfectly for 1000 years or be annihilated. Islam teaches that humans are basically good, but fallible and need guidance. The balance between good and bad deeds determines eternal destiny in paradise or hell. At judgment day each persons deeds will be weighed on a scale. Recording angels keep a list of every deed, both good and bad Islamic teachers assign credits to deeds related to the pillars of Islam. Eternal paradise is only for those who believe in Islam. Eternal hell for infidels, those who reject Islam. Do these religions all seem alike? Not even close. Each one of these religions is exclusive and believe that you must be baptized in their churches or hold to their teaching or you will go to hell. Yet it is revealing that so many people say all religions are alike. Also, it seems Christians get a lot of opposition to our claim that Jesus is the only way to heaven but that is exactly what these other 3 religions claim as well. 4. False beliefs cause emotional and relational problems in this life and lead to spiritual destruction in the life to come! Illus: Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, wrote a book called A Confession in 1979, in which he tells the story of his search for meaning and purpose in life. He had rejected Christianity as a child. When he left university he sought to get as much pleasure out of life as he could. He entered the social world of Moscow and Petersburg, drinking heavily, living promiscuously, gambling and leading a wild life. But it did not satisfy him.

4 4 Then he became ambitious for money. He had inherited an estate and made a large amount of money out of his books. Yet that did not satisfy him either. He sought success, fame and importance. These he also achieved. He wrote what the Encyclopedia Britanicca describes as one of the two or three greatest novels in world literature. But he was left asking the questions Well fine so what?, to which he had no answer. Then he became ambitious for his family- to give the m the best possible life. He married in 1862 and had a kind, loving wife and 13 children (which, he said, distracted him from any search for the overall meaning of life!). He had achieved all his ambitions and was surrounded by what appeared to be complete happiness. And yet one question brought him to the verge of suicide: Is there any meaning in my life which will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death which awaits me? He searched for the answer in every field of science and philosophy: The only answer he could find to the questions Why do I live? was that in the infinity of space and the infinity of time infinitely small particles mutate with infinite complexity. As he looked round at his contemporaries he saw that people were not facing up to the first order questions of life ( Where did I come from?, Where am I heading?, Who am I?, What is life about? ). Eventually he found that the peasant people of Russia had been able to answer these questions through their Christian faith and he came to realize that only in Jesus Christ do we find the answer. Psychologist Chris Thurman wrote, Truth is the road map for negotiating the difficult challenges in life. Without it we get lost and we develop emotional problems that tell us we re lost. We often settle for half-truths or no truth at all because they are usually easier. But truth is the only road to emotional health. There is no other path. Now the good news is that truth is available to anyone who wants it. Jesus said, When you know the truth, the truth will set you free. Jesus said, Whoever believes in the Son of God has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son, will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. John 3:36 The Bible says that people go to hell because they have clearly rejected the truth that Salvation is found in no other name, than the name of Jesus. They perish [go to Hell] because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 2 Thessalonians 2:10 5. The only source of absolute truth is God. There is a fundamental question you need to ask yourself: What is going to be the authority for my life? What s going to be the basis for my beliefs and behavior? What s going to be the guidebook that I rely on? What s my North Star? What s my compass? When it comes down to it, you have only two options: You either have the World or the Word of God. You will either build you life on what culture says or what Christ says. Which of them do you think is more reliable? The problem with what culture says is that it just keeps changing. It s shifting every day. The therapy that works today isn t the therapy that was

5 5 so popular five years ago. Why? Because man s knowledge is increasing, and they find things don t work. God s knowledge is ultimate, and it s always true! In a world where something s changing every day, you don t want to put your faith in something you can t depend on tomorrow. Luke 21:33 says, Though all heaven and earth shall pass away, yet my Word shall remain forever. God s Word has stood the test of time. You can trust it as your guidebook, as your authority, as your basis. Why? Because it is based on God s character. It is impossible for God to lie. If you want something to build your life on that s solid, you d better build it on God s truth. 6. Building my life on the foundation of God s truth is the key to emotional, relational and spiritual fulfillment. In Matthew 7, Jesus says that building your life is like building a house. You ve got to have the right foundation. You can build your house on the solid rock, God s unchanging truth. Or you can build you house on shifting sands, the constantly changing opinions of the world! Jesus went on to say in Matthew 7:24, Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Do you want to be emotionally stable? You need to hear and practice the truth in God s Word! Listen, Romans 12:2 instructs us, Do not conform to the standard or beliefs of this world, but let God transform you inwardly, by a complete change of your mind. God can transform your mind and replace the old myths with a new system of beliefs based on the truth. But there is one key to having that transformation happen in your life. The verse I just read in Romans 12:2 says that you must let God transform your mind. A simple three letter word that unlocks to key to emotional and spiritual freedom. Now, the wonderful thing about God is that he wants us to know the truth because it does make us free. He s given us the Bible. But He also came to earth two thousand years ago and took the form of a man. The Bible tells us that, The Word [Jesus Christ] became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14 Jesus modeled the truth. He incarnated the truth. In John 14:6 Jesus said, I am the truth. Some people say, I believe Jesus was a good person, but I don t believe Jesus was God. He s either who he says he is, or he s a liar or a lunatic. That forces a decision. He was either who he claimed to be- God- or he was not. And you bet your life on what you believe about it. *Listen, make sure you get this because this is my main point: What you believe matters because it not only shapes your life, but it determines your eternal destiny! Three foundational truths that God wants you to understand:

6 6 1. Your sin has alienated you from God and you need to be forgiven! The Bible states that humans were created by God. The man and the woman were made in God s image. God intended for them to have communion with him, to converse and interact with him. They were also given dominion over the reset of creation, to supervise it and develop it to its intended potential. But they were expected to obey God. Disobedience to God proved to be their downfall. They were allowed to eat of the fruit of every tree of the Garden of Eden except one: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As a result of the temptation by the serpent, Eve was deceived and sinned. Then she encouraged Adam to do the same. He did, and they came under God s curse for their disobedience. They deserved God s punishment for that sin, which was death. What Adam and Eve did, all of us have repeated in our own lives. If we think it was unfortunate that Adam sinned, we must realize that, given the same situation, all of us would do exactly the same thing. The sin of Adam, however, did not affect Adam alone. Adam s sin affected the entire human race. The Bible says in Romans 5:12, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all have sinned. All sinned, all of us are sinners, and all receive the consequences of sin death. So we are all guilty before God. The nature of God, would not permit God to give up on humans. He still loved them, and he wanted to regain the relationship that he originally had with man. Although under no obligation to do so, he would give the another chance. God could have simply overlooked man s sin. But that would not be in keeping with God s nature. God is holy. So, just as God cannot sin, so he cannot ignore sin, nor can he allow sinful persons to enter his presence. Another solution would be for a person to alter his or her own personal behavior to become pleasing to God. This requires some payment to compensate for the wrong done by providing a positive goodness. But this creates another problem. No one is capable of living perfectly, and not human can do enough good to compensate, because we continually fail God s standard and are repeat offenders. God solved the problem by coming into our world as Jesus of Nazareth; he became a human, without ceasing to be God. As the God-man, Jesus was subject to all the normal conditions of human existence, with the exception of sin. He lived a perfect life and fulfilled the law perfectly. He met all of God s requirements, for he was genuinely tempted, yet did not sin at any point. Because he did not sin, he was not under the judgment of death. But by dying, he could offer something to God that he was not obligated to give, and thus provide atonement for human sin. This he did and the Father accepted it as equivalent to the death of all humankind. Now human beings can potentially have the status of being righteous with God. But this righteousness accomplished by Christ doesn t fulfill its purpose unless it is accepted by faith. As

7 7 a gift it is free, but it is never forced upon anyone. It is necessary for each individual to turn from his or her sinful and independent ways and to respond to God s offer by faith. We all have sinned and come short of God s glorious standard. Romans 3:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life [Heaven] in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 2. God has sent his Son Jesus Christ to die on your behalf and forgive you of your sins. It is through Him [Jesus Christ], at the cost of his own blood that we are redeemed, freely forgiven through that free and generous grace which has overflowed into our lives. Eph. 1:7 We are not used to receiving grace. We are accustomed to work for and earn most of the things we receive in life. Grades, First String on the team, Job promotions, etc Another way to help you understand God s grace are these two statements: There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more! There is nothing you can do to make God love you any less. Because God s love for you and his relationship with you is not based on what you do for him, it is solely based on what Jesus Christ has already done for you. 3. All you have to do to receive his gracious gifts of forgiveness and eternal life is believe and confess! If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with the heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Romans 10:9-10 More than 200 times in the New Testament, salvation is said to be conditioned solely on the basis of faith faith that has the Lord Jesus who died as our substitute for sin. For further study: More Than A Carpenter by Josh McDowell The Reason for God by Timothy Keller Special thanks to Rick Warren for his printed sermon by the same title found in Preaching Today