Finding Truth - The Source

This week our youth group will be using Francis Chan’s series “Finding Truth” for our weekly discussions.

Today, it seems like, more than ever, we are indeed being lied to. Each day during this COVID Quarantine Era we wade through a plethora of contradictory news briefs, blog post, viral videos, and scientific studies. One doctor says the opposite of the other. The accepted scientific studies contradict each other. Even religious leaders seem to have differing statements.

The truth about these reports, social media posts, and viral videos is that they all can’t be true. But what is right? With all the access we have to information at our finger tips, you would think we could decipher it better. And this struggle is only dealing with our current circumstance. The problem is much deeper.

Constantly we are being bombarded with messages that are contradictory to God’s Word. Messages that try to undermine our faith in God, in the Bible and in the person of Jesus Christ. Blatant attacks on the “incompatibility of faith and science” or the absurdity of believing in an ancient book by leading atheists or pop culture scientists. More subtle attacks on the finish work of Christ coming from so called Christians promising health and prosperity if you have enough faith.

Finding the truth in this dark world is so hard if you do not have an anchor. From the beginning of time, the enemy of our souls attacked our first parents with the question, “did God really say…” He began to plant doubts about God, His loving kindness, His provisions, His character, His power, and even His existence from the very beginning of human history.

With thousands of years of practice, he is still up to the same devices. Make it difficult for people to see and recognize the truth. Elevate man’s wisdom and distract from the truth of God.

Yet, the Creator God is also the God who speaks! He has spoken through His written Word and His incarnate Son. His Words bring life and truth to those who hear and receive them. When we listen to His Words juxtaposed to the media milieu we live in today, we clearly see that His ways are different than this world’s.

Isaiah 55:8–9

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Not only are His thoughts different and higher than the world’s thoughts, they are higher and different then our own thoughts. In reflection on this verse years ago, I regularly remind myself that a good starting point for my thought process is, “Brad you are wrong, you need to go to God for what is right.” In my pride, I want to assume my point of view is always correct, but Isaiah 55:8-9 defies my arrogance and reminds me that I am not God.

I’ll admit, at first I was a little frustrated with that truth. I want to control things, and I want to understand things, and to believe this verse I have to surrender those “rights.” Yet, as I have grown in my understanding of who God is, what He has done and what He promises to do, I find these verses such a comfort. I don’t have to have it all figured out, God already has it figured out.

So the comfort I find when wading through the murky waters of this fallen world’s message is the truth that I don’t have to figure it all out, I just have to be faithful to what God has already revealed in His Word.

His Word teaches us that there is truth, and that our Creator is the source of truth. Within the pages of Scripture we encounter our Creator and read about His redemptive plan. We learn about who we are and why we are here.

Acts 17:26–27

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.

The world says you are an accident, but God says you were intended. Listen to that truth, God determined when and where you would be born and live. Not only when and where, but He gives purpose to everything that happens to you as He allows things to draw you to Himself.

One thing I know for sure, is that God is still working during the COVID Quarantine Era. He is not social distancing Himself from us, He is not limited by a virus, He is very present and wanting to conform us into the image of His Son daily.

2 Corinthians 4:4

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Yet it feels like we are fighting an uphill battle and every time we turn around there is another argument against our beliefs. That’s because the enemy of our soul has blinded people from the truth of Jesus Christ. That is why, as believers, we need to hold fast to the truth of Jesus Christ and live in such a way as to draw the blind to the light (Matthew 5:16).

It starts with shutting off the noise, the many contradictory voices around us, and listen for the Spirit of God through the Word of God. We need more time with God and with humble hearts asking for Him to reveal wonderful things from His Word.

It means not allowing our fears to follow the rabbit trail of posts and videos. It means reigning in the desire to follow the conspiracy. It means recognizing that God is bigger than any virus, government or human power.

As a believer in Jesus Christ, our future is secure, our hope is in the risen Lord and our confidence is in the Sovereign God who holds us in His hands. We need not allow fear to rule while Christ is on the throne.

Romans 12:1–3

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

God’s desire for us is that we will not conform to the pattern of this world, one of fear and selfishness, to one of confidence and selflessness. Don’t allow your own thoughts to become a god to you, for your thoughts are not God’s thoughts, nor your ways His ways. Rather we are to think with a clear mind and understand that we are not God, but God is God. Seek to be faithful in the everyday things that God has revealed and trust that He will care for you today and every day until Christ returns (Philippians 1:6)