The Truth That Sets You Free: Trust Jesus

These are great. You know, the technology that that's coming along is so amazing. So many different ways that it's helping us, translation being one of them. But the reason why I have these up here today is I thought it was a really good reminder for me that I think sometimes I wish our general public had glasses like this that would help them hear and see spiritual truth. [00:29:24] (27 seconds)  #SpiritualGlasses

Because one of the things that I say all the time is that whether you believe anything that I say or not today, one thing that you need to know, there's an absolute truth that for you, you are as much spiritual as you are physical. So everything that you experience physically, there's also a spiritual side to it. And our world, a lot of times, won't acknowledge that, or they'll they'll acknowledge it and say that we're spiritual people, but they won't identify Jesus. They won't talk about Jesus. They won't connect him to anything. And so I wish we had lenses for all of us to see that there's so much spiritual stuff going on. [00:29:50] (38 seconds)  #SpiritualAndPhysical

And what I wanna do today, I wanna talk specifically about the literal truth and how you identify something that's truly true and something that's false. You know, in the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus said this phrase, I tell you the truth over 70 times. And I feel like back in that day, it was important. I think it's exponentially now more important that we know the truth. There's so much content that we don't know what's true and what's not. And so what I wanna do is literally this morning, help us define and separate truth from what I would say would be a lie. So here's where we're gonna start. We're gonna be in John. [00:30:29] (44 seconds)  #SeekLiteralTruth

And part of Christianity is accepting that there's spiritual truths to everything. That even though you're experiencing a very physical thing currently in your life, you need to know there's a spiritual side to it. And what Jesus is saying is sin is real, and sin affects other parts of our life. And we can't take everything at face value. [00:37:22] (23 seconds)  #SeeTheSpiritualSide

Like, people will say, man, I I have marriage issues or friend issues or substance issues. And sometimes we treat that issue. But what Jesus is saying is that's a symptom, but it's not the cause. There is a cause to the evil and the humanity of who we are. And we wanna, like, fix our marriages, fix our lives, fix our addictions, fix all these things when the reality is there is another side to everything that we do. [00:37:45] (31 seconds)  #AddressTheRootCause

And the reality is we have to believe in sin to believe what Christ did. And we're in a world where that will define sin and say, no, it's not sin. Or we don't believe in sin in general. Or sin is defined on what you think or what you feel. And for us to really acknowledge and experience the real freedom that we want, we also gotta acknowledge and experience what Jesus did for that sin. [00:38:43] (28 seconds)  #DontRedefineSin

So this is an important question. Is your heart open to the truth? And Jesus is really coming to a powerful moment. He's saying there's no room in their hearts for his truth, his real words. And so I I think we flip that question for ourselves. Is there room in our hearts for God's truth? [00:39:32] (26 seconds)  #MakeRoomForTruth

``And so I wanna get a little philosophical with you this morning. Break down what our current culture is at and where our lives and our faith is currently coming in contact with. There's two types there's two definition of truths that I believe we all know. Here's the first one. Absolute truth. And it's defined this way. Principles that are unchanging and independent of personal feelings. And I think that's important. Independent of personal feelings. And then now, we live in a postmodern era. Postmodern truth is this, truth that is contingent on language, culture, and power structures and is derived from, most importantly, different perspectives. [00:39:58] (50 seconds)  #AbsoluteVsPostmodern

So what that means for you and for I, you might have heard the statement in our world. You might have heard this said by somebody else. That may be true for you, but it's not for me. That might be true for you, but it's not for me. And I I want us to understand something today. This is really important. That's a problematic statement. [00:40:47] (26 seconds)  #NotJustYourTruth

if we're like, no. It's not about my feelings. I wanna follow what the law says. Well, we all know the laws are constantly changing. So it goes back to this idea of what do we consider truth. Now absolute truth is principles that are unchanging and independent of personal feeling. So the scriptures, we believe to be absolute truth. Now this isn't a Bryan thing. This isn't a Compass City thing. This is a Christianity thing. We believe the scriptures tell us what the truth is. [00:43:01] (37 seconds)  #ScriptureIsAbsolute

And what the scriptures say is that Jesus is our god, and the scriptures were given to us so that we can have guardrails in our life. Now here's the problem for you and I about this. The scripture is really offensive. You ever ever you ever realize that? You get into the bible, and there's these verses that pop out and stick out, and it's a little offensive, and it challenges me and my ideas and my thoughts and how I live my life. This is what we wrestle with. [00:43:38] (32 seconds)  #ScriptureWillChallengeYou

Now I think God's big enough that we can bring all of our questions, all of our research, all of our doubts. But I think it's important that we understand that Jesus being God gave us this to help us and not to hurt us. And so when it comes to aspects of the Bible that you wanna say, I don't like that. I don't believe that. We must say, do we trust God enough to walk us through that? [00:44:10] (31 seconds)  #TrustGodWithQuestions

There's a big, big road that our culture is walking down right now. And it's the road of this is my truth. It may not be your truth, but this is my truth. Well, what is the truth? In a series called not gonna lie and in a series where Jesus said, I tell you the truth 70 times, we ought to know the truth. [00:44:42] (26 seconds)  #TruthOverRelativism

Are we open? This is really the question I think I'm asking. Are we open to God's word trumping our opinion? Are you open to God's word trumping your opinion? [00:45:08] (15 seconds)  #OpenToGodsWord

Well, there's a difference between hearing and listening. Listening is when you follow and do what the father says. And so Jesus is saying, those that do not hear my words and don't follow are not my people. It's this, like, really, like, cutting it to the truth moment that Jesus has. [00:47:17] (25 seconds)  #ListenAndFollow

And for me, this message is really not even about truth. When I was really, like, thinking about this message, the message is this. Do I trust that god knows the best for me and the world? Because if I if there's a part of the bible that I disagree with and I don't think that's not God's truth, what I think I'm saying is I don't believe that God knows best. Like, God must have got this part wrong. [00:47:42] (35 seconds)  #TrustGodKnowsBest

And so it comes back to this understanding of, is God big enough for all of my doubts? Is God big enough for all my concerns? Does God know everything? Can I really, really trust God? Well, I wanna encourage you today in your wrestling with God, you can trust him. And he did give us the truth, and it wasn't to bind us, but to free us. [00:48:17] (25 seconds)  #BringYourDoubtsToGod

And part of that process is trusting that the absolute truth is God's truth. It hasn't changed. It won't change. There's gonna be a lot of people that tell you it does change. But I'm telling you, it won't change. God's truth has always been the truth. And God's love is the truth that will really set you free. [00:48:41] (25 seconds)  #GodsUnchangingTruth

You ever realize in your personal life you're kinda stuck in a moment until you really get honest with a person? Maybe you gotta confess something or you gotta you you really can't grow and move on until you're really honest and free. That's what Jesus is saying. Like, unless we're really willing to be honest and trust him, that's where real freedom comes. The truth will set you free. [00:49:06] (26 seconds)  #TruthSetsYouFree

And so maybe today, you gotta accept God's truth in your life. Maybe there's an aspect to your life you have not wanted to let go to God. Because, again, truth is just a trusting. Maybe it's a person that's hurt you. Maybe it's somebody that said something. Maybe it's a part of your heart that you haven't wanted to let go. Well, I wanna invite you today to let go of that and trust God in that. [00:49:32] (24 seconds)  #LetGoAndTrustGod