Embracing Truth: Foundations for Integrity and Freedom

1. "But I'm here to convince you that I believe that God, in the long term, he wants us to be truthful. And that's the best path forward, that we would be people of honor, people of integrity, people of our word. Just like he says in Exodus chapter 20. Exodus 20, verse 16, which is our scripture reading today. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Now, bearing false witness, this is from basically the courtroom setting. If you want a good society, a society that runs... well you have to have courtrooms where the truth is spoken because if the truth isn't spoken there then people can take advantage of other people the whole culture the whole society the whole civilization really can break down because there are disputes from time to time between persons and then there are persons who are caught doing things they shouldn't do and so telling the truth especially in that courtroom setting was especially valuable." [01:14] (73 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "We want to be people of the truth. You know, one of the things that's confusing today though is what is the truth? And we hear this saying, speak your truth. How many of you have heard that saying? Speak your truth. This saying became popular with movements over the last couple of decades, really. The feminist movement, the social justice movement, especially in all the self-help movement, especially in the context of self-expression and genuineness. We want to be true to ourselves. I think what they're trying to say and what we're trying to say is, we want to be true to ourselves. We want to be true to ourselves. What would be better to say is, this is my experience. This is what I've experienced." [05:27] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "There is a truth and that truth is not determined by us. It's not discovered by us, but it is revealed to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is truth. And so I want to share with you how to be truthful and trustworthy. How can you be truthful and trustworthy? How can you be a person of integrity, a person of your word, a person who can be dependable to other people? How to be truthful and that also means aligning our life with the truth as revealed in Scripture." [06:53] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Instead of over-promising and under-delivering, what we want to do is under-promise and then over-deliver. That's the pathway to being trustworthy. Another way that we can be trustworthy and be truthful to others is speak the truth in love. This is especially true in the church, where we need to be people of the truth. We need people who aren't deceptive. We need people who aren't deceptive. We need people who aren't with one another, who don't let bad behavior slide, who are ready and willing to be able to stand in in love and gentleness and gracefulness, bring some correction when correction is needed." [08:43] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "We need people that are willing to speak truth into your life, to offer correction, to challenge you when you need to be challenged, to confront you with the truth of the gospel when you've gotten off course. Because every one of us, every single one of us, there's not a person here who doesn't get off course, who doesn't get off the path. We talked about the life preservers and thinking about them as guardrails, keeping us on the path, the way that leads to life, the way that leads to abundance, the way that leads to life." [13:18] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "He knows your secrets. He knows your destructive desires. He knows your sin. That's kind of scary. Isn't it? There's a being in the world. And it's not my spouse. It's not my kids. It's not my co-workers. It's not the folks I sit next to in the pews. Not my neighbors. There's a being in the world that knows everything that there is to know about you. And it's not even you. It's God. He knows the good, the bad, and the ugly. And yet He loves you. He chooses to love you. Because when He looks at you, He sees a person of eternal value and infinite worth, worth sending His Son to die for you. That's how much God loves you." [14:39] (58 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "We want to be honest with ourselves, and especially when it comes to our spiritual life. Because if we're not honest with ourselves and not dealing with the actual truth about ourselves, then God's going to have a harder time of getting us where He wants us to be, to grow and mature in our faith, in our faith journey, to move past those besetting sins that have been plaguing us, and to move into that abundant life and that joy-filled, fulfilling life that He has planned for us." [16:34] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "To confess is to say the same word. To say the same word. To say the same word. To say the same word that God already knows about you, but that which you most likely have been in denial about is to come to your senses, to come to yourself, to realize that I have something I need to get off my chest, that I've been carrying with me, that I've not been honest with myself about, and I've tried to not be honest with God about, but you can't fool God. So, it's saying that same word." [21:45] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "Friends, truth is not a set of propositional assertions. Truth is a person. Jesus said to his disciples, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. He, Jesus, is the truth. He is the embodiment of the truth. He is the foundation of truth, of which you can build upon that foundation of God's truth embodied in Jesus. You can trust Jesus, because he is the truth. Who's the most authentic human being that's ever lived? It's Jesus. And he came to show us what it means to be that truthful, that real, that most authentic human being, a creature. That is created in the image of God." [27:44] (63 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)