Pillars 5: There is a God, and He is…so good. (Ex 33.17-23)

Ex. 33:17-23   The LORD said to Moses, “I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.” Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!”  And He said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”  But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”  Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will take My hand away and you shall see My back, but My face shall not be seen.”

We’re looking at the truths that support and secure our faith.  There is a God, and He is infinite, eternal, and breathtakingly good.  The Bible is the Word of God - every bit of it is true.  Last week we saw that the God is the Creator of all things.  Out of nothing.  None of this is an accident…

Today we want to look at the nexus of our Creator God being breathtakingly good.  We sort of flew past God’s goodness the first time.  And it’s always unfortunate when we do that.  Because if there’s one thing the Bible is really serious about, it’s the goodness of God.  From the first chapter of Genesis to the final prophecies of Revelation - the message is, God is good.  God is so good.  We sing about it - cuz it’s true, and this pillar is a real game-changer.

Right out of the gate [Genesis 1] God’s Word tells us about His goodness.  Everything He made was good.  The light was good, the sun and [moon and stars] were good, the plants and trees were good, all the creatures He made were good, and it was all SO good, we read, “Then God looked over all that He had made, and He saw that it was very good!” Genesis 1:31.  Psalm 119:68  You are good and what You do is good.  And I would flip that verse: God does good, He makes things good, because He IS good.  Take-your-breath-away good.  Good begins with Him, and flows from Him, oozes out of every pore and fiber of His being, permeates everything He does.  

This Hebrew word for good means, that which is pleasing.  Think about the things that are pleasing to you.  Let’s get to that place in our hearts right now - what do you find pleasing?  Things that are pleasing to the eyes, to touch, to smell, to taste, to your heart.  How about this fall weather?  Or, the smell of [cinnamon].  Things that are pleasing.  How about a job well done?  Acing that test?  Nailing that shot?  Starting the guy who goes off in fantasy football this week?   Or, how bout a beautiful [sunset]?  Thanksgiving dinner.  Time with friends.  Even in a world full of chaos and brokenness, there is so much that is pleasing.  We can still see God’s unbelievable goodness in so much of what He's made - Psalm 19:1  The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.  And one way to think of glory is God’s incredibly pleasing indescribably great goodness.  Things that take your breath away.  And Just how good is the Lord?  Exceedingly great.  Mind-blowing, goodness on steroids.  And the better good it is, the harder it is to describe.  Pick any of your favorite experiences.  Your favorite foods.  And try to describe that to someone.  What was it like, they ask?  And you’re like, it was so good - I can’t even begin to describe it.  One of my favorite experiences is [downhill skiing].  When the snow is just right, and the slope is just right, not too steep but not a bunny hill, and you’re cruising down that hill, carving and cutting and hitting the bumps, spraying snow and maybe even catching a little bit of air here and there, a little spread eagle maybe - and if you’ve never experienced it, I really can’t begin to describe it to you.  Goodness is like that.  The better it is, the harder it is to describe.  I like the word, breathtaking.  The best things really do take your breath away.  And the Lord is better still.  SOOO good.  Infinitely indescribable.  And when He makes something, He makes it indescribably good [waaaaay better than Zaxby's, who use that slogan to describe their chicken].  

Now, from the beginning, not only did the Lord make every thing very good, He then blessed His creatures, He repeatedly showered extra heaping helpings of goodness on them so that they could be fruitful and multiply.  And fill the earth.  God does this throughout the Bible.  Even after the people He makes and the people He chooses rebel against Him, He STILL shows them His goodness [the Hebrew word is chesed, for grace and undeserved love and favor].  God delights to show His goodness to His people.  

So, back to our passage: Moses asks God, show me Your glory.  And what’s God’s answer?  I WILL make all My goodness pass in front of you.  He adds, you can’t see My face, for no one can see My face and live, so I will put you in this crevice and cover you up till I pass by, and then you can see My back, the backside of My glory.  All God’s goodness.  How much IS that?  Even just that backside glimpse was enough to bring Moses to his knees [Exodus 34.8 - Moses made haste to bow down and worship]. 

Glory is that which is weighty, heavy, impressive.  Makes people bow down under/before it.  And God Himself is saying, what is most impressive about Him is His goodness.  He wants the whole world to see His glory, His impressive breathtaking goodness.  Numbers 14:21 Indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD. 1Chronicles 16:24,29  Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples.  Ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come before Him; worship the LORD in holy array.  That’s sort of the opposite of what we do tho, isn’t it?  We’re hard-pressed sometimes to see His goodness in our everyday lives.  We don’t hasten, we’re more slow to bow down and worship Him.  Lord, give us eyes to see, to recognize goodness.  Your goodness.  Give us knees that hasten to bow down.

Here’s a thought - the first time we see goodness, is when God creates light.  This light is inextricably tied to all of life.  John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The only thing God tells us was NOT good from the beginning was aloneness.  Living in a place of separation.  Genesis 2:18   Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”  Fast forward to Genesis 3, man rebels against the glorious God Who made him and showered goodness on him.  What sets in is this Ultimate Separation.  Disconnected from this oh-so-good God - and the light begins to dim.  Life - and now death.  Good - and now evil.  Rebellion.  And in this state of disconnection and darkness we struggle to bow down AND to see God’s goodness.  We fail to see God’s good hand.  The two are related.

See, the LIE comes in and says, God is not good.  The lie goes, because this doesn’t look good - or feel good - then God must not be good.  Or maybe He doesn’t see or doesn’t care, cuz this is not good, not at all pleasing, this current reality.  We blame God.  Yes, sometimes God allows things that don’t feel good.  That certainly extends to many parts of creation which are broken as a result of the fall.  We looked at this last time - that there is this brokenness about the world.  Things break down.  Good things get broken.  But failure to see God’s goodness is debilitating…  Psalm 27:13  I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.  Despair means, down from hope.  “Diseases of despair”: depression, substance abuse, suicide - are epidemic in our society.  Loss of hope.  Brokenness, and busy-ness obscure God’s goodness like a solar eclipse.  But my circumstances, my feelings, don’t diminish one ounce of God’s goodness.  The key is having eyes of faith that see the unseen.  That’s what got Joseph thru those long years, languishing in prison in Egypt.  Trafficked by his own brothers.  Genesis 50:20 “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.”  Do we believe this is true?  Romans 8:28   And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  Psalm 23:6  Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  Psalm 34:8  O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!  Psalm 118:1  Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.

That’s the starting point.  Give thanks.  Guess what?  This very week we have an entire holiday devoted to that!  Thanking God reminds us that God IS good, SO good, and it reinforces the truth that He does good.  That’s why the Lord tells us, In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1Thessalonians 5:18).

"Truth is the only safe ground to stand upon."

- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

And we talked about the importance of humility as we handle the truth.  About the danger of knowledge puffing us up, tempting us to think that we are better that the person who doesn’t know what we know (or think we know).  About the need for Christians to handle the truth with gentleness and compassion.  And love.

Because the world is sending us a message.  A world which increasingly insists on deconstructing the truth.  Insisting that truth is relative.  That there is no one truth, no absolute truth.  There are many truths.  There are even truths that contradict each other.  Here’s where things have really gotten off the tracks.  Some people today want to reject either/or thinking.  They want to reject the law of non-contradiction, which says p ≠ not p.  If you reject that, then you think you can say, the Bible is true AND the Bible is not true.  Well, which is it?  Postmoderns want to say, well, it’s not an either/or.  That’s just Western thinking, they insist. They say it’s a both/and - which more of an Eastern mindset.  And so they try to reject to either/or, literally by saying, it’s either the both/and, or nothing.  In order to reject the either/or, they need the either/or to be true.  But postmoderns also are fully vesting themselves in the illogic of contradiction.  Sadly, a person who keeps contradicting themself is someone who can’t be trusted.  Confusion.  Feeling lost.  Embracing contradiction means life becomes full of uncertainty.  No wonder so many more people today are wrestling with depression and anxiety and suicide.

But why would someone want to embrace the both/and, the illogic that two things which contradict each other can both be true?  I think the world is sending a message.  Well, two actually.  The first message is an ancient one, that some people, many people just don’t want to believe the truth about God, because they want to run their own life.  That’s nothing new.  But I think there’s another message, and it’s partly in response to how the church has tended to handle the truth.  Many Christians over the years have come across as NOT humble, NOT compassionate, NOT gentle in how we handle the truth.  And I wonder if the world is saying, you know what, we’ve seen that, and we don’t like that.  We don’t want to be like that.  So if you disagree with me, if you believe something that contradicts what I believe, well, let’s just say we’re both right.  That’s certainly the easier/lower conflict way out.  What it really does is build the house of your life on the sands of illogic.  The "bedrock" people are seeking in relativism is nothing more than a sandy beach.  Feels good for a season maybe, but chances for surviving the storms of life are slim-to-none.  And in the end there’s no way to do it without appealing to logic.  You can't insist that there are no absolute truths without having that very statement be absolutely true.

There is a God, and He is SO good.  He showed it foremost by sending His Son to die for us so that we could experience His goodness forever, and He proved it by raising His Son from the dead.  Let's start with that truth...

Pillars 4: There Is A God, and He is… Creator (Is 45.18-22)

Is. 45:18  For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), “I am the LORD, and there is none else..."

There is a God.  He is eternal and infinite and perfect.  And He wants us to know Him, to enjoy His love and goodness today and forever and reflect that back to Him and to all the families of the earth.  And in sending His Son to die and pay the penalty for everything we’ve ever done wrong, He has accomplished everything necessary in order for us to know Him.  But the FIRST thing He accomplished is creation.  This infinitely good God is the almighty Creator and Sustainer of all things.  The very atoms and elements themselves, everything in the universe, all things owe their origin and their continued existence to Him.  Nehemiah 9:6  “You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, the heaven of heavens with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them. Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.  

God’s Word is abundantly clear: God created all things.  Every-thing, out of no-thing.  Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  Revelation 4:11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  Isaiah 66:2  “For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD. Romans 4:17 God… gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.

For centuries, there have been two schools of thought.  Either there is a Creator, this God Who created everything, or there is not, in which case it’s all random chance.  All this is the outcome of a long series of accidents.  But [accidents] generally do NOT produce something better, they usually make things worse.  Random chance does not produce order.  It does not result in beauty [bedhead].  Random chance typically results in disorder.  Chaos.  It's a defining characteristic of our present universe.  Newton’s Law.  Randomness increases.  Things break down - unless something or [someone intervenes].  And the more time you give it, the more brokennesss you can expect.  Everything breaks down.  They do NOT get better with time.  And yet - when we look around, whether through a telescope, or a microscope, or a zoom lens, what do we see?  In the midst of this encroaching chaos and brokenness, we see beauty to a breathtaking degree.  We see highly complex structures.  We see order of such a magnitude as to render the odds of all these things arising by chance to be so close to zero that it really takes way more faith to believe in The Accident than in the Creator.  Romans 1:19-20 That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.  For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

The LIE says there is no Creator.  So many people believe in the IMprobable accident because they’re so desperate to remove God from their equation.  Because the reality of a Creator means I'm dependent AND accountable.  No matter how smart or tall or strong or good looking or magnificent I think I am, I do not exist or take another breath apart from His provision.  My life is in the hands of this one true God.  And there IS a part of every person that is fully aware of this truth.  It’s evident.  It’s obvious.  We all know it, deep down.  It’s just that some of us are determined to attempt to suppress the truth [like our stubborn puppy Selah, who often is determined not to do what we ask].  This is the fundamental problem of man:  Romans 1:18b People suppress the truth in unrighteousness… No excuse.

The best known attempt today of course is Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.  And we need to be clear about one thing - this is still just a theory, (which Webster’s defines as) an idea that is suggested as possibly true but that is not proven to be true.  Darwin’s idea is about the origin of species (life?).  He observed that some species of birds can mutate, come out with a different color or a different shape of beak.  Fruit flies can and do develop different colors of eyes.  This is micro-evolution.  But macroevolution?  Nobody has ever seen plankton mutate into a perch, or a lizard mutate into a monkey, much less a tiny protein spring to life.  It’s STILL just a theory.  It assumes that if you have enough time, random accidents eventually will result not only in something completely different, but something viable, AND better.  But it’s only a theory.  And no one can prove Darwin’s Theory true, not scientifically.  We can’t stick it in a lab and make it happen.  Yet, in many places today, this theory is presented as indisputable fact.  And IF you dispute this idea, if you don’t bow down to it, you are disrespected, dismissed.  Literally.  There IS this kind of religious devotion to this idea, whose end goal is to explain away the existence of a Creator.  And that’s what it really is: an idea (one of many) that has been seized upon as part of the concerted attempt to suppress the truth about God.  It’s the religion of rebellion, the age-old rebellion against God, and Darwin’s Theory is today’s standard bearer.  Many have dressed it up in all kinds of flowery robes and tassels, but underneath, it’s all about a [roll of the dice].  An accident.  The LIE says, WE are an accident.  But rebellion is no accident.

Growing up in a family that never went to church or gave much thought to God or religion, I was only ever presented with Darwinism.  The Accident.  On TV.  In public school.  In fact, the notion that there might be a credible alternative to “The Accident” wasn’t even allowed into the classroom.  And I was fully bought-in to The Accident.  But let me share two reasons why I no longer believe in The Accident.  The first is what I call the [spark of life].  Life is a miracle.  The longer I live, and the closer I get to death, the more I realize how life on this [beautiful blue ball] is truly a miracle.  A wonderful impossible.  And once the spark of life is extinguished, there is no power on earth that can bring it back.  Squish a bug.  It ain’t ever coming back.  For all its posturing and theorizing, science has no ability to bring anything back to life once it’s dead.  MUCH LESS produce that initial spark of life.  Life from non-life is the stuff of science fiction.  Just because someone has an idea about how something could have happened doesn’t make it possible, much less probable.  That primordial soup they concoct in the lab trying to recreate the conditions where they so desperately want to believe that the first single-cell creature came to life (by accident)?  They can produce amino acids, building blocks of life, but the precious spark of life that would somehow give rise to even the tiniest, most primitive form of amoeba, they can’t do it.  And they never will.  Highly improbable.  That power/knowhow resides in no finite being.

Which leads to the second reason why I reject the accident, which is again, this whole idea of chance and complexity.  Whenever we see even the lowest degree of complexity, our brains intuitively tell us that there is intelligence behind that.  Somebody did that.  Somebody made that.  [Like when you see a forest full of trees which look random UNTIL you see the trees are all planted in long lines?  Long straight lines of trees are never random - there is intelligence behind the existence of that grove or forest][And how about the amazing complexity of the eye - it takes WAY too much faith to believe that such a level of complexity happened by any series of random mutations].  This truth is as plain as the nose on your face (or the eyes).  All God’s people see it - except those in denial, suppressing the truth in their heart.  And that’s the rub.  Once we allow for a Creator, you and I become contingent.  Entirely dependent.  We become accountable to Someone with all the authority and power in the universe.  We don’t even exist apart from Him.  Acts 17:28 In Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’  And some of us, we don’t want that.  We are seduced by The Accident, The LIE, the prospect of happiness APART from our Creator.  

But here's a truth - just as rebellion is not an accident, lasting love is no accident.  That’s what we really want, and true lasting love only found in a relationship with the God Who made us and loves us… 

There is one God, existing eternally in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  He is breathtakingly good, wholly perfect, and He is the all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of all things.

1Cor. 8:6 For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him. 

Isaiah 48:13  “Surely My hand founded the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand together.”

Pillars 3: "You Can’t Handle The Truth”

We’re talking about truth.  The pillars of truth that support and secure our faith. [1Tim. 3:15 but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.]  Paul here calls the church “the household of God”.  It’s the word, oikos.  A house, AND the people who live there.  A family.  And he actually says this family is the pillar and support of the truth.  The way this family conducts itself in accordance with the truth affects said truth is received by the world.  This is (or should be) a sobering responsibility.  And if we’re honest, it’s an audacious claim.  We have the truth.  We know the truth.  Paul warns us that knowledge can make us arrogant [1Cor 8.1].  It puffs people up.  "I know something you don’t know."  Right?  We get to thinking that we’re better than the poor ignorant chap who doesn’t know what we know.  There's a lot of that these days.  Conservogressives.  Calviminianists.  It begs the question - how do WE, how should God’s family handle the truth?  The words that we say, how we say them, the lives that we lead, these all either validate or (can seemingly) invalidate the truth.

Now as we saw last time, truth is eternal.  It is unchanging.  Ps 119:89   Forever, O LORD, Your Word is settled in heaven.  Truth will always be true no matter how someone handles (or mishandles) it. [1+1 will always equal 2, whether my 5yr old understands that or not].  Jesus Himself was convinced of this [Jn 8.32, 14.6, 16.13a, 17.17, Mt 24.35].  But there can be challenges when it comes to relating truth to others.  Truth is NOT easy to handle.  What if I have questions - can I ask them?  Or what if I’m wrestling with doubts - is that ok?  What if I’ve messed up?  Or how do I relate to my friends who don’t believe?  What about areas where science seems to contradict some of these truths?  Or, why should I believe these truths when so many who say they believe fail to practice the truth they profess?

The Barna Research Group has found that roughly 3 out of 5 young people are disconnecting from church life either temporarily or permanently after age 15, many of them citing 1 or more of these issues.  But I wonder - why are young people in particular walking away from this family?  Cuz family is forever.  Or it’s supposed to be.

Sadly, too often, I think for many people, church has NOT been a family.  It’s an institution.  Or it’s a meeting, a show.  You zip in, you zip out, take it or leave it.  Or it’s a place we go to punch our spiritual time card.  I’m supposed to do it.  It’s good for me, like medicine.  Or it’s a building.  But we don’t “go to church”.  We don’t watch church - we ARE the church.  We’re a family.  Only we’re not born into it - we commit to it, to one another.  We need each other.  We journey together, in community.  But in many places the church IS failing to teach and live into this truth.  More on this in a few weeks...

Having said that, there are ways we don’t handle the truth well.  Sometimes we are too defensive (like we don’t feel it’s okay to allow the space to ask questions or even to have doubts).  Sometimes we’re complacent - we accept the truth but then we assume the truth.  Especially in the Bible belt.  Church leaders and teachers and parents take the truth for granted and try to pass it on to the next generation without the whys behind the truth.  We just assume that folks will hold onto what we’ve accepted.  But then the next generation doesn’t know why we believe what we believe - and when the storms of life come, obstacles and opposition, some go through this time of disconnecting, falling away.  Increasingly so.

One way this is playing out:  People who grow up IN the church, they find themselves with a friend who is choosing to live a life that is NOT what God designed, and when push comes to shove, these young people choose to support their friend rather than the institution.  Sometimes shelving their faith altogether (at least temporarily).  Why are they doing that?  Why would someone shelve their faith in favor of a friend?  What would bring someone to the point of saying, these truths I’ve been taught, and this community up in which I’ve been brought - I’m done with it.  “The rise of the dones.”  I’m done with church.  There are different reasons - but I think the church is complicit in how we mishandle the truth, in several ways:

Again, I think much of the time, this person's “church” hasn’t been much of a community.  It’s just been a meeting.  Or like a spiritual country club.  Everyone “has their act together”.  “Nobody struggles”.  Nobody is allowed to ask questions.  “No messy people allowed”.  At some level, the church has failed - to live into the truth that, we are a family, and family is messy.  I’m a mess, and so are you, and that’s ok.  And we (are called to) love each other in spite of our messiness.

Another reason is that perhaps they conclude that the truth just isn’t true.  Again, this can happen when we just assert that something is true but fails to reinforce the why’s.  Mom/Dad/Pastor, why do we believe this, why is this true?  Too often, the answer is, "Well it just is."  When we don’t understand why we believe what we believe, then we can’t pass it on effectively.  And the next generation will not hold on to it.

Bottom line: we can’t handle the truth [In "A Few Good Men" - the young lieutenant didn’t want to face the truth - cuz was messy].  But God’s truth isn’t messy, people are messy.  We’re all messy, so much brokenness.  And God’s family is called to love messy broken people - but the narrative has become that the church is afraid of messy people.  The church hates messy people.  And we protest and say, no we love messy people.  But is there any evidence to prove it?  How do we handle the truth?  How do we bring the Gospel to bear in the lives of people who are messy and broken - just like us?  The truth is, WE can’t.  We CAN’T handle the truth - not on our own.  We’re messy and broken too.  And THAT is what makes the Good News so good - it’s for everyone.  We all need to be forgiven.  None of us is any better than anyone else.  THIS is the starting point: Humility.  Colossians 3:12   So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  God didn’t choose any of us cuz we were cleaner, or better.  We all need Jesus to clean up our mess just as much as that person in that ditch over there.  Humility says, we ALL need grace.  [1Pet 4.10]  And humility fosters gentleness and patience.  2Timothy 2:24-26 The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

We must handle the Truth, God’s Word, with A LOT of gentleness and patience.  And humility.  But we also need compassion.  We need the heart of Jesus - Mt 9:36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.  And Jesus is the One Who needs to grow His heart in our heart.  We're not able to love messy people in our own strength.  And humility owns that, but then Compassion moves us past ALL the I can’ts.  Lk 7:34 “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’  Jesus wasn’t participating in their dark deeds.  But He found a way to be their friend.  [Casting Crowns, "Jesus Friend of Sinners"]  And He lives in me…!  

Finding the balance isn’t easy.  We don’t want to compromise on the truth.  AND we don’t want to come up short on love [1Tim 1.5].  We’re called to serve up a heaping helping of both (Truth AND Love).  

“I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner. ...I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life -- namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

It’s attainable - but we can’t handle it.  Not in our own strength.  It’s a super-human calling.  And it’s getting harder.  [2Tim 4.3-4]  It’s hard to love people who don’t believe, who are different.  Who don’t want to be loved.  Who are hard to love.  Humility says, I’m not better.  I can’t do this - but with Christ, all things are possible!  And then humility prays: Lord, help me/us (stay true to You, and give me Your heart, to love the hard2love…)

I love how Casting Crowns puts it:

You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast

For the leper and the lame; they're the reason that You came

Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast

But You died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet

Jesus died for sinners.  Just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet.  May the Lord give us grace so that, THAT truth, we can handle...

Pillars 2: The Stuff of Pillars [Is 40.5-8]

If you noticed for our first Pillar, where we looked at the truth that there is a God, and what this incomprehensible infinite eternal God is like - most of what we discussed was based on the Bible (16 verses last week).  This God speaks [Gen 1.3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.].  All these pillars, these truths we believe, these truths that undergird and support and secure our faith - they are based on, they are embedded in the truths of Scripture, the truth that God’s Word, the Word He has spoken, is entirely true.  It doesn’t only contain truth, but it is totally true.  Completely trustworthy.  I remember, as a brand new believer in Christ, even as I was beginning to understand the life changing truths of the Gospel, these pillars, I remember this awareness that basically EVERYTHING I was learning was based on the Bible.  I knew I needed to understand, how is it that we can trust that the Bible is true?

Earthquakes and barbarians.  Not to mention gravity.  Wind and water and time.  Lightning.  Forces of erosion, corrosion, decay and corruption. Given enough time, these forces are powerful enough to cause mountains to crumble, the sturdiest pillars to slowly wear away, to become entirely irrelevant.  [When we studied through the book of Ephesians, we talked about the great Temple of Artemis - which today is worn away to rubble].  In the end, entropy wins.  Stuff breaks down.  It's the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.  Where can we find something, or is it even possible to engineer something that will never break down?  Something that will last forever?  That will withstand the sands of time?  Is that humanly possible?  Cuz we sure don’t need any help with the whole breaking down thing.   Everything breaks down - UNLESS acted upon by an external force, but usually BECAUSE it is acted upon by an external force.  That is the observed order of the natural world.  With one HUGE exception - Is. 40:8  The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.  It stands up, remains standing.  Forever.  Unlike all these other manmade pillars.   

Matt. 5:18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Psa. 119:160  The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.  

Psa. 119:152  Of old I have known from Your testimonies that You have founded them forever.  

Like the One Who has spoken it, God’s Word is eternal.  Everlasting.  But there’s more to it.  What is this that we hold in our hands?  The Holy Bible.  The word “Bible” means “book”, but this is way more than just another book.  Holy means something set apart.  A book set apart.  Of course, most religions have “holy books”.  What is it that sets this Book, these words, apart from the rest?  What makes this Book so special?  5 points, and a 6th:

The Divine Inspiration [dozens of authors… agreement/unity]

Isaiah 40:5  “Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Is. 40:8  The word of our God stands forever.  The Hebrew word there for that which is spoken is davar.  It’s both a verb and a noun.  That which God davars is the davar of God.  The sacred writings of our faith…  2Tim. 3:15-17 From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.  God-breathed.  Of course this is an [internal claim]…

The Immaculate Reception [readers recognizing this inspiration]

2Pet. 1:20-21 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

[The Miraculous Predictions] [of which there are hundreds, and many have been fulfilled]

Is. 7:14 “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel."

The Singular Prescription (not religion/works, unlike all other books - the Bible prescribes Grace)

Eph 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

The Incomparable Provision (Jesus - Who was witnessed by hundreds!)

1Cor. 15:3-6   For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time.

[The Great (Protestant) coMission-aries] Research shows that the most good for the world has been effected by Bible-believing missionaries who have gone to the ends of the earth not only with the Good News of forgiveness/eternal life by trusting in Jesus, but also bringing with them hospitals and schools and justice that has cured countless physical and social ills.

The grass withers, the flower fades.  To what is the prophet referring there?  People.  Isaiah 40:6-7 All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass.

The things we do, the stuff we make and dream up, the things we say - all our pomp and circumstance, all our lofty ideas and so-called progressiveness, all these pundits.  We are as fading as the grass we walk on.  The irony is that so many people, here today and faded tomorrow, hang that accusation on God’s Word.  God’s Word has faded.  It’s no longer relevant.  You can’t trust it.  The LIE comes in and specifically doubts the Word of God.  Did God really say that?  Gen. 3:1  Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” [Many try to compare the Bible to what results from the old "Telephone game", where the original message gets entirely corrupted.  Sincere seekers don't have to look far to learn that the Bible has in fact been meticulously transcribed and translated by serious scholars.  It's is entirely reliable.]

The real truth is: People want a free pass. We want a [get out of jail free card] - well, we just want to get rid of the jail altogether.  Cuz really, who likes the existence of that jail?  Most of us would just as soon change those rules, so that you don’t have to [not pass go]. We want to collect that $200.  That is why we resist this idea of truth.  Rom. 1:18   For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.  The LIE comes in and says, there is no truth (is that true?).  There is no absolute truth, they insist (but is that true?).  Truth is relative, they say (but is that absolutely true?).  There is no eternal truth, they declare (but is that eternally true?).  You can’t even refute the idea of truth without truth.  All you can do is try to ignore it or dismiss it somehow.  So we suppress the truth.  We hold it down.  We give it the heisman, try to run around it, or run away from it.  Or maybe try to run over it.  Throw some shade on it.

Because the truth is, we just want to get rid of truth we don’t like.  Just because we don’t like it doesn’t make it less true.  But the real question is not, do we like it (or not).  The bigger question is, do we trust the Source?  The One speaking it.

Mom tells us don’t touch the hot stove. There’s truth behind that: the hot stove will burn us.  We need to decide in that moment, and in all the moments to come - do we trust the source?  Do we trust Mom enough to listen to her?  Do we believe that she cares for us enough to tell us what’s true, and that her commands protect/provide for us?

When God tells us to love Him with all our hearts, it’s because He loves us.  He knows that to love anything else more than Him separates us from Him - something NOT good.  He also knows that life is most good when we put Him first.  So the question becomes, do we trust God?  Do we trust that He does care for us? Are we willing to trust that He knows (has told us) what is true? [Jn17.17]

(some verses on The Nature of Truth)

Matt. 7:24   “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and ¹acts on them, ²may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. 26 “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell — and great was its fall.”

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

1Cor. 13:6 Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.

Eph. 4:15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.

PILLAR 2

The Bible (the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments) is God’s Word, all of it inspired by the Holy Spirit, inerrant in the original writings, entirely true and trustworthy to this day.  It is the only infallible source of truth and guide for living.