The Gospel of Luke - Week 7

Action here. Okay. You need some interaction hear. What I want to do is I want you to raise your hand if you're an honest person.

Hi, what's your most Leonardo person? Most of the time I'm an honest person in general. I'm an honest person.

Cuz you didn't raise your hand. We'll talk later. Now that that is seriously that there's a problem with our society when comes to honesty what to do with it part of the problem is instead of a perspective. We have a right or wrong true or false lies or truth. Right? We have this arbitrary scale that we created. And one side there's this like horrible evil. And on the other side there's this. It's okay. It's alright, it's make people feel better. You know that make somebody laugh and it's not a big deal between these two things right that that we find ourselves trying to put our activities on a scale right over here on the horrible side of things you might think of when somebody steals a ton of money or like on a Ponzi scheme like maybe Bernie Madoff ride or even the Watergate scandal that's over here. That's horrible. Nobody should ever have done that and then over here to Turkey and we told him it was good cuz you don't want to hurt their feelings. Technically. We're lying both times, but it's on a scale to us. And what's frustrating about this scale is that it's different for every person is different for every person. So special to political scale right on the political scale. If somebody tells a lie and you're in their political Camp, you might even defend it even though you know, it's wrong right we'll defend their lives because you know, what's even though it's wrong because you're on their side, right and it's understandable was just a slip-up. Where is your view on the other Camp? It's the most egregious thing you've ever heard and you know babies are crying and Subs are crying because of the flyer that was told we can't find the space in between very well because every person has a different scale. Ultimately If we're honest we most of us are pretty good at lying right? Well, we're all pretty good at it. We buy recently where they took it took a bunch of people, right? And I said, I want you to try to make a little tick mark every time you catch yourself misleading somebody yourself misleading somebody I want you to make a landmark and Talia mop and will keep track found the average adult rise twice a day. In the context of that we should probably recognize that if the average adult life twice a day, then they may have lied about how many times they lied. Maven 5 and they're like and if you can't believe zero say to the average adult lies twice per day and this isn't really ethics like difficult. This is an issue of whether or not you're sparing somebody's wife because you chose to be dishonest. This is this is just choosing to mislead somebody right? And if you really think about it, we're kind of raised this way Hartley. I can invite you as a kid. It did not take me long to recognize that. I did something wrong. I was going to get in trouble for doing something wrong. But if I found a way to make it look like I didn't do something wrong, but I wouldn't get in trouble for that thing. And then also in my household, my dad was relatively strict, right and so on top of that there wasn't a whole lot of Grace given for telling the truth about doing something stupid. I did something stupid and I was honest about it. I'm probably getting the same amount of pain as I do if I try to cover it up and see what happens. I will be similar right right b a good job. I appreciate your honesty to lie to protect myself. right I just got back like it was. You got bad to the point where I'd like to add a frame my sisters, you know, I do something stupid and leave evidence that it was them, you know, just to protect myself even further and to see them in pain. That sounds horrible. I purposely get in trouble for something minor in the hopes to distract from something major, right and as I grew up and started to work in a prison works not live and they worked in the prison that's called a con Behavior as a kid. I was representing Behavior. The point of all this is that are parenting our schools are court system. Everything is designed with this principle that basically teaches if you can get away with it, you might as well try can get away with it. Why not directly just joking about this out front if you aren't cheating you aren't trying

One of my favorites a good score keeper never loses not cheating. You're not trying but we lied frequently get attention. We lie to cover up mistakes. We lie to sometimes save other people from some pain or harm, right? We lie to get a minor Advantage. Maybe you know, we're not going to go crazy, but it gives me a little step up or something else. I'll do that. We lie to make people laugh and most of The Lies We Tell and I'm seeing nodding with these ideas are the easy wearing. These are the ones that we are okay if I can save somebody from some harm maybe I should lie about it. Maybe I should just cover it up a little bit to make them feel better.

And they actually come to a point. We are watching brain games on my kids yesterday that I should come to a point. But lately he thinks it's scientifically lying as a child is a necessary point in human development. But if your children if your children don't know how to lie by the age of five there mentally. Backwards, right? They're not they're not as far along as they should be. This is where our society has come. I did not develop the right kind of scary thought is a parent and this is really interesting because we know that we shouldn't lie, right we know that we should not bear false witness right going to be all religious about it, but we know that we're supposed to tell the truth and what's most interesting is that we expect it out of other people. Write an average interaction even with somebody. You don't know you expect them to be honest with you until the truth. The mark of a good human being and so most of us to physically speaking draw our imaginary line as to whether or not it's a good liar or a bad life at the weather or not. We've intentionally hurt somebody I can we kind of agree with that. We're mentally there's not really a conscious thought if I'm not purposely hurting someone and it's probably okay. Let me get hurt so big deal. Where is once it crosses that line of purposely hurting someone now, it's at the problem, right?

and that's why we lie about the things that we lie about and this is ultimately this issue of our propensity to just lie without any real cars is where we find ourselves now and the question of the beginning kind of becomes one more difficult right by the mine honest person. Kinda and it becomes all the more difficult until even then instead of changing our Behavior to be more honest. We change the way we ask the question right that have an honest person. That's mostly a lot of space to operate on.

And if this is important to listen to it to this one key part, I didn't have any kind of hit on this video this morning out if you saw it on Facebook, but I lied to myself more than I like to other people. Right on this is integral to why we do the things that we do right? I lie to myself more often. Then. I lie to other people and God made our brain to recognize reality from fantasy, right truth from false god made our brain recognize that and the brain uses all the sensors to put together the reality of a situation and we decide what about we think it's true or real? You never watched interrogation like a lie to me. You seem kind of piece together a little tails that people give when they're lying. I've been searching the room all sorts of stuff that they're doing cuz their brain knows it's not right until in order for us to learn to lie and get good at it. We have to lie to ourselves just to get our brain to believe what we're telling other people was is mostly true in order for us to get away with it. So to speak

And we have to get rid of our tails and ultimately end up convincing myself of a reality before I try to convince you of its I'll change dates. I'll change timelines. I might even change the people involved in the story to make it more believable. right kind of kind of scary when you think about it, right?

And all the while tell myself, it's okay because I'm not really hurt anybody. I'm just making myself a look a little bit better. I'm embellishing my story of touch. I'm I'm not hurting anybody and don't look at me like that. I know I'm not the only one in this room that does this. Okay, if you looked don't judge me.

We've already established that we all kind of agree that the line is it for hurting somebody right? So so ill in this exchange of Truth for a lie, I end up hurting someone. Is it wrong now? Is that when it becomes wrong? If you look at our text today, like everything to be Luke chapter 3 and look at that text pay attention to what is said about John the Baptist because it's pretty compelling. So it's lit dive in chunk this down a little bit to pull out our contact. So Luke chapter 3 verse 1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilate been governor of Judea and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of a teria and recognizes a Mercedes tetrarch of a bellini during the high priesthood of Addison Caiaphas. So if we remember likes for the first two chapters of Luke Wright Luke is giving us a historical representation of what's happened. And he's also building an argument for it to be the truth. Right? He's trying to convince somebody that what they were told about. What happened with Jesus is the absolute truth, right? And so what we see here is this pretty impressive historical context. We got five people that are named from the governing Authority in that area to give us an idea of when this actually happened and then we've got two from the religious governing Authority in there is only supposed to be one high priest there were two at that time. So we got seven people that are names to give us this context for when this is happening. And then if we keep going and diverse to the word of God came to John the sign of Zechariah in the wilderness. We got our geographical and geographical play Swing John's in the wilderness. He separated from society both the governing authority of the Roman Empire and the religious Authority as well write John didn't go to Seminary John wasn't educated by the church in the wilderness.

And the word of God came to him there and he's a glamping.

Glamour camping John wasn't chilling in his huge RV by a beautiful mountain river like sitting in a hot tub with steaks grilling in the background, right? Listen to the birds. Chirp. This is like desolate Wilderness. Okay, the best contacts we have for this is that is the combined Death Valley with the Sahara Desert. As the Wilderness is limping and not a cool place to be not a fun place to be and it's from here. John the Baptist receives the word of God right with me. It's been calling from God.

As you keep reading starting up in verse 3, and he went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the Forgiveness of sins as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight every Valley shall be filled Every Mountain and Hill shall be made low and the Crooked shall become straight and the rough places. She'll become level waves and All Flesh shall see the salvation of God.

So this is what John did are you prepared the way of the Lord not sounds? Like a pretty big job right after we start looking at this making a path straight every Valleyfield Every Mountain made low every rough Place made level All Flesh shall see the salvation of God. There's no hiding from the coming Messiah. Write the very mountains are brought down. The very valleys are filled up. You can see the great expanse of all things. There's no hiding from the coming Messiah. And John prepare the way of the Lord by simply telling the truth. The objective truth of what was happening verse 3 and he went into all the region around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the Forgiveness of sins. I don't want to diminish John the Baptist. ER Jesus had some pretty good things to say about John the Baptist and my goal is not to diminish this my goal is to help. You see that bringing the truth out is the most important thing that we can do, right? This is what John Deere does. He spoke the objective truth of the reality of repentance and forgiveness of sin, and that was his message that was preparing the way of the Lord. He spoke the truth.

And the fact of the matter is our propensity to lie that we discussed earlier. I'll rephrase that my propensity to lie. To maintain my comfort most often has leaked into and compromise my willingness to speak the truth of the Gospel.

My propensity to lie as leaked into and compromise my willingness to speak the truth of the Gospel unashamedly. I twisted walking toward it right I'll change details right just like everything else to make myself more comfortable to make it more maybe more appealing. I'll try to make somebody want to connect to the message a little more ugly stuff that it doesn't sound very good and make it more friendly. And I'd be willing to wager that I'm not alone and that right you willing to wager that if we take a step back and we were to honestly assess our hearts that we would find some commonality in how easily we come to making minor changes to the gospel to make it a little more comfortable to talk about. And this is the problem right? It's like we talked about our scale before this is absolutely hurting people. Hurting myself. It's hurting. The people I talked to it's hurting the image of the almighty. God not something we should play with lightly. I'm not making someone feel good about over cooking a turkey and making somebody feel good about being dead.

Rice making somebody feel good about being dead. Not a good place to be. Why the Bible tells us that were dead in our transgressions right that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We're all dead without Jesus. And while we were yet sinners Christ died for us while we were enemies of God Christ died for us. And all who believe in Christ all who have faith in Jesus are saved right there born again. Not Jesus live the life. I should have lived died the death. I deserve to die right in his death. He defeated sand in his resurrection. He defeated death. Another Pawn saving faith. I experienced this exchange. Why should we call it the Great Exchange where my sin and the wrath of God for that is taken upon Christ never seen his righteous.

and in that when God looks at me, he sees the righteousness of Christ. He sees the Perfection of Christ and not my sim.

My sins are as the Bible tells us is far from the East is from the West. NeverEnding expanse is how far Jesus Takes our sin from us and if at the depths of the ocean and that God chooses to remember it no more. You got a perfect God that knows all things that chooses to remember your sins no more. Price we don't need to change the gospel to make it more appealing. We don't need to change it to make it more comfortable because in doing so we lose the greatness of our God chooses to remember our sin no more. Lose it and we find ourselves having to labor in vain to try to hold on to the righteousness that we think we have to work for.

And it's easy to talk about this in a group of like-minded people just say it but the fact of the matter is it uncomfortable at best to speak this truth and lies of people that don't know Jesus. Best uncomfortable you challenging someone's entire worldview to tell him about Jesus. And it's not here like other parts of the world dangerous to even speak the name of Jesus. You might be executed and if we look at the context of John the Baptist, it wasn't a friendly environment that he was taking his message either right there was persecution. The church was relatively corrupt you had to high priest that were doing things to make money, right? They were aligning themselves with the Roman Empire to have control and Power Authority and therefore To get the money right wasn't a comfortable safe place for the message of the coming of the Messiah to be preached. But in order for the good news of the Gospel to be seen for what it is. It has to invade a dark space. We don't know how good the gospel is until we come to an understanding of how much we deserve God's Wrath right now become more and more aware of our inability to keep the law and his perfect Justice requiring wrath that good news becomes much better as we become more and more aware of those things. and ultimately if we look at Forests in our culture and in our context right? We're called to do the same thing that John the Baptist. Just tell the truth. I didn't doing so amazing things happen when the truth is preached. The mountains are brought down. The valleys are brought up. The pads are made straight. Like that's all a product of the truce in the work of the holy spirit in the lives of the people. But hear it. You can't save yourself. But we do worship a God who is mighty to save my worship a God who is mighty to save and the sign of that salvation is repentance. The Holy Spirit regenerated my heart regenerated Your Heart Right. And God saved me. The Holy Spirit seals me for the last day when the trumpet sounds and Glory comes. And repentance is the sign of a soul saved by God. It's the continual surrender of the heart to Jesus, right? It's not a one-time thing. It's not this. Hope I've repented. I'm good. I'm Golden's right? It's not not that night if it's a regular daily occurrence, if we live twice a day and that's honest and we got to be repenting at least by repentance is a regular regular thing and it doesn't happen, None regenerated heart. A heart that has not been awakened by the Holy Spirit to the power and identity of the almighty. God does not repent. They might feel remorse. I might feel bad for some natural consequences that come from their behavior, right but it's not repentance. Repentance is the mark of the life of a Christian regular. Joyful repentance is the mark of the life of a Christian Charles Spurgeon rights repentance is the discovery of the evil of send a morning that we have committed it a resolution to forsake. It. It is in fact a change of mind of a very deep practical character which makes the man love which once he hated and hate with once he loved Writing Paul kind of cheeses that out when he says he does that what she doesn't want any doesn't do that what you should write. It's this progression that occurs if we become more and more like Christ j i Packer writes that repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God repeat that is 10 kind of a little cyclical that right repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God and as our knowledge grows in these three points, so must our repentance. right as I grow in what I know of sand I turn more and more away from it as I grow and what I know of myself in my heart, I more readily surrender it to God cuz I know I'm lost in love myself and as I grow and what I know of God of the almighty God cuz of me to want to surrender to more and what turn from sin more to Jesus. This is the progressive work of the Holy Spirit. 9 semi life should be marked by this process of repentance a joyful earlier. This may not sound like a very joyful process. That is joyful. Because I worship a God who is done everything necessary for my salvation. I worship God said it is finished. My salvation is secure that makes this whole thing pretty joyful because this is a product of God changing me but not as a prerequisite for my salvation right as a product of the spirits work in my life. And this repentance is the ongoing sign of the Holy Spirit in-dwelling and me are we talked about the Holy Spirit in-dwelling us the sure seal of the spirit of God testify with my spirit that I am here's is this drawing to repentance like this this fact that I want to stop sinning. I have a desire to desire more of what God would want have a desire to leave these things is the mark That's joyful. repentance and that's how John the Baptist prepared the way of the Lord. Did he preach the truth Surrender Your Heart? He preached repentance and forgiveness of sin.

And your ability to say as Paul said in Romans not ashamed of the Gospel. Ride my ability to say I am not ashamed of the Gospel praise the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes is rooted in my believing in Jesus and repenting and surrendering my heart. I have to stop lying to myself and everybody else. You have to stop lying to yourself and everyone else and it has to start with yourself. Right because we lie to ourselves and then lie to others we convinced herself or something being okay to communicate mostly true tweets a little bit but still basically the same thing we convinced ourselves first and then others if I'm preaching the gospel to make it more comfortable for myself to present it to somebody that doesn't know Jesus. I believe that to be true. I've lied to myself to the point where I believe it right? I have to stop lying to myself and I have to tell the truth that there is one name given under Heaven by which we must be saved. I think there's one named Jesus were called to repentance Never Surrender to Jesus never saved, right? I don't know where you're at. Right some of us really struggle with it. I'll be blatantly honest. This is what I struggle with. I struggle with wanting to make the gospel just a little bit more approachable right because there's some there's some dark stuff in there that telling someone their dad is generally a I have a rough way to start a conversation right until I struggle with this but others of us will struggle on the other side where we feel so burdened by I do things that we have done or things have been done to us right that we believe that maybe this is true for everyone else, but it sure is Century for me. We lie to ourselves in that way.

I may struggle with twisting the gospel to make myself more comfortable or I may struggle with believing that the promises of scripture are not for me. Anyway, I'm lying to myself. right

I don't know where we're all at that I do know that we all grow and repentance in the same way. We were all found in the same position dead in our we're all brought to life by the grace mercy of Jesus right by his work on the cross. We are now alive again in Christ a new creation. We're all in the same boat. Sure, we we we struggle with things differently. We lie to ourselves differently doesn't matter all in the same boat.

Does we pray? I want you to consider what it is that you lie to yourself about.

Search your heart for that because that's what's going to bring you. Peace is to figure out. How you lying to yourself and it can be pretty minor deceitful ways. osprey

Can I pray that you would give us Faith Lord? I pray that you would your spirit would.