Can I trust this?

Introduction

Start off with prayer.

Good morning everyone - thank you for having me Ps Tom and Ps Ev. I thoroughly enjoy whenever I get the opportunity to come preach at Southside.

I was so sick this week and was almost tempted to pull out because I was bedridden for the first half of the week but then I thought about how much I missed preaching here and pushed through. It’s so good to be with you all today (and also please excuse me if I seem a bit low on energy too.)

So I have been told that we’re going through a series here called Faith without a filter. And I understand Tom has covered the first 2 segments of this topic which were about Can Christianity be true? and Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Both incredibly important questions that really any Christian should be able to answer.

The topic I’ve been given today is, in my opinion, also one of the most important topics for any Christian to be able to understand.

And strangely enough - it’s actually the subject of 2 of the most lifechanging questions I’ve ever been asked in my life.

Segment 1: The Challenge - is the bible real?

ILLUSTRATION: Pt 1 - High School

For those of you who may not know, I grew up in a Christian household - the only son of two Christian parents. I’m what you would call a “second generation” Christian, so called because my parents were the first generation of Christian in my family - making me the second generation.

One of the things that second+ generation Christians struggle with is ownership of their faith. There comes a point in the life of every second-gen Christian where they have to decide whether this faith they’ve been born into is ACTUALLY their faith or not. And so all second generation Christians will go through a moment, or a season where they truly test whether their faith in God is their personal belief which they are going to take seriously, or they choose to either hold it loosely and not take it seriously/depart from it.

My moment came in year 11, high school. By this time all my friends knew that I was a Christian, they all knew that I went to church, and they were ok with it for the most part. But one day as we were sitting around our usual staircase like wannabe gangsters eating lunch, one of my friends began to ask me about a topic that was very crude which I can’t repeat here but safe to say involved a girl I was seeing at the time (before Sharon). When I gave my answer which involved the phrase “because I’m a Christian” the entire group went a bit quiet.

And my friend asked me the first of TWO questions that completely changed the trajectory of my faith. He said: “Wait - You don’t actually believe that the Bible is real right? You can’t trust that book; Why would you base your life on something that isn’t real?”

I wanted to defend my faith… by punching him in the face. But something far more shocking happened. I realised I didn’t have an answer. I realised that actually - I had nothing to say to defend my faith, that I had no acceptable response to him that would even remotely satisfy that question.

I started to doubt absolutely everything that I knew about faith, why do I believe in God? Why did I choose this faith?

Here’s the thing that we have to realise as Christians - If the Word of God can proved to have been altered, changed in any significant way, then everything from the creation account to the resurrection of Christ can be questioned.

And just like Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14 “14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”

If the validity of Scripture can be genuinely questioned then Christianity’s claim to truth would be vastly compromised. Every portion of wisdom, every story, every truth, how would we know if any of it was true?

We don’t get to lose the Word and keep Christianity as we know it - they’re the same target.

And yet when I began my search, asking people, friends who were Christians - I realised something profoundly disturbing.

No people that I asked at the time - had an adequate response. I asked people in church, I asked friends who were Christian in school - nobody had an adequate answer to this very simple yet profoundly important question: Can I trust the bible? How do you know it wasn’t just written by a random guy a couple of hundred years ago? How do you know it hasn’t been changed?

And this to me was shocking - how could you hold so steadfastly to a belief that was so inexplicably tied to scriptures that you didn’t even know were real?

And so I went on a journey of discovery that lasted for the next 3 years, starting with scriptures themselves - eager to answer this one simple question: Can I trust the Bible? Is the Word of God truth?

Can I share with you the three things that I found? I promise I won’t turn this into a lecture - but it is truly shocking how few Christians know how to answer a question as simple as this.

(If you want the full version sign up for the next FORGE foundations)

Segment 2: The Three Reasons

The first thing that any Christian needs to know about the word is most importantly - that Scripture ITSELF validates that it is God’s Word. Because if Scripture itself does not teach us that it is from God then regardless of whether it’s true or not, it remains powerless.

Thankfully - this is not hard to point out biblically. Important scriptures point to the fact that the Word of God is from God and that it is foundational to Christianity even today.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

This point on its own would be circular logic - I get it, you can’t answer how do you know the bible is true, by answering because the bible said so.

But it is still incredibly important to know that the Word of God DOES claim to be exactly that, Words of God.

The second thing that I discovered in this period of searching, is that contrary to popular knowledge, the New Testament Scriptures are among the most authentically preserved ancient documents in the world.

One of the biggest arguments against Scripture is that it’s changed - that it’s not authentic. That we have no way of knowing if what was written back then was what was written now. Well take a look at this table.

This table shows notable historical documents which are highly regarded in not just academia but in society. You might recognise some names from this list like Plato, and Caesar, Aristotle, Homer.

The most important thing to note is the originality % which just means how similar the copies are to a reference document. The higher the % the more authentic a document is - it shows there is little variation between copies which means accurate transcription.

As you can see - Scripture is in a league of its own. With the time span between the original and the copies being less than 100 years apart, and the sheer volume of copies that were found - the originality rating is at over 99.5% with differences accounted being small things like use of conjunctions and errors in grammar.

There can be no doubt cast on the originality and authentic transcription of Scripture without casting doubt on any one of these other famous historical writings or more.

To further confirm this we have the advent of the dead sea scrolls which were discovered only in 1947. Which contained some of the oldest known copies of OT biblical texts. When these manuscripts were compared the texts that we use NOW; they were found to be incredibly consistent, with minor differences not affecting meaning or doctrine at all. This demonstrates that the Scriptures we have today closely reflect original writings.

And Finally, the third thing I discovered is that Scriptures are historically accurate.

This is important following the last point. Just because you have an authentic document that has been passed accurately down millennia doesn’t mean that it is about a real story. It could be about something fabricated - like Homer’s Iliad involving mythological creatures.

And again, this is not a lecture so I just want you to take a look at this table, which I won’t go to in detail even the nerd part of me really wants to.

These are just 10 incidents where Scripture has been proven to be historically correct.

(maybe go through a couple of examples very briefly)

On top of this I know that ps Tom has also been preaching the last 2 weeks about the reality of Jesus and the resurrection. Which I know would have given plenty of great insight into how not only historically verifiable but even just how logical, the person of Jesus and the resurrection was.

These three reasons: Scripture validates ITSELF as the Word of God Scripture is authentic (and thus remains unchanged) Scripture is historically accurate

(THERES MORE BUT I DONT HAVE TIME)

After years of searching for an answer - this is where I landed. The Bible CAN be trusted, it IS an authentic, historically verifiable document that our faith can lean on.

I told you that in my life there were TWO questions that completely changed the trajectory of my faith. This was the first one of them answered - Can I trust the Bible? Yes I can.

And at this point in life, I was overjoyed - my faith took a leap, my confidence in Scripture grew and I resumed my faith walk with great delight.

What I didn’t realise was that I was about to encounter the second question that would change the trajectory of my faith - in a very fundamental way.

Segment 3: The next question

ILLUSTRATION: Pt 2 - Uni/Mum

The second question came in a very dark season of my life. It had been a couple of years since that realisation that I just talked about - and I was now in uni. My mum had just passed away, cancer. She fought it for 10 years.

My faith was on weak territory, I was struggling. I was around 19 years old at this time, and it was the first real faith struggle that I had ever had to face. And I was running a youth group at the time so I carried myself well around others but inside, there was a war going on, a war of faith. I didn’t care if scripture was “historically accurate” or “historically authentic” that didn’t do anything for me.

In a moment of desperation I remember meeting up with my old youth pastor - who’s known to some of us, a lovely brother by the name of Victor Moe. And I shared with him my heartache and how it was hard to carry on with the faith.

And you have to know something about my pastor - he is a gentle man. So he patiently heard me out, listening to every complaint that I had and every disappointment that I aired towards God.

I got to the point that I shared with him about scripture - about how I believed in the Word of God and that it was real. And then he stopped me. And if you know Vic, he never interrupts. But this time he did. And he asked me, “But do you, Jon?” And I was like “huh?”

And then he asked me the second question that changed the trajectory of my faith completely. He asked me, “You say that you know the Word of God is real - but how come you haven’t let it change you?” When I asked him to explain he simply said.

“Well for the last hour you’ve been telling me how God is not good - but Scripture tells us that God is. You’ve talked about how God doesn’t act for your good, but Scripture tells us that He does. If you believe that the word of God is real - then what are you going to do about it?”

That right there - is maybe the most important question a person will ever hear in their entire life. And one I only wish that Christians themselves would spend their time pondering more.

When you decide, friends, that Scripture is real - and that you can trust it. You’ll find that Scripture throws a question back at you: What are you going to do about it?

James 1:22–25 ESV

22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James covers pretty much this exact question in this passage where he talks about two people - one who hears the Word and does not act on it, and another who hears the word and acts on it.

And his analogy is brilliant: Mirrors are used to spot imperfections in ourself that we can then tend to. Which is why he describes the first man as “looking intently” in the mirror.

In other words he sees what he looks like in the mirror, he sees the problems, the issues, the flaws - but he does absolutely nothing to fix them.

And this is futile because the entire point of looking into the mirror IS to fix the problems, IS to trigger a correction.

And so what James is saying to the readers is that hearing the Word of God, even believing that it is real and authentic - and not having it change your life, transform who you are, speak into your sin, influence your character - is futile. There’s no point in doing that.

There’s no point in looking in the mirror if you aren’t actually interested in changing something about yourself - There’s no point in hearing and knwowing scripture if you aren’t going to allow it to change you.

In other words: Seeing Clearly isn’t the same as Being Changed

And I wish the church would sit on this point more - because there are far too many Christians stuck in a place where they say they believe in the Word of God - but they don’t allow it to affect their lives, they don’t allow it to speak into their lives.

I think we have to be so careful that we don’t read the word and treat it like the man in this passage. We open it - and read it and have NO intention to allow it to change our lives. We aren’t reading it for it to speak into us - we are reading it just “because we need to.”

To believe in the Word of God, family - is to treat it AS the Word of God. That’s why James’ analogy is that it is a mirror - it reveals to us the things we need to change, the sin in our lives, the areas that glorify God, and the ones that need to be changed for His purpose.

That means we treat it with FINALITY. Scripture gets the final say in our lives! Scripture becomes the largest voice in our lives - IN every area and OVER every area

That means over culture, over experience, over marriage, over work, over school, over friendships, over love, over everything!

The warning that James gives to the person who reads and knows Scripture but does not do it is stark in v22 - deceiving yourselves. Have we ever asked, deceiving ourselves of what? What does it mean deceiving ourselves?

It means that we deceive ourselves into thinking that CONTACT with the truth is the same thing as RESPONDING to the truth.

It means that we deceive ourselves into thinking that knowing ABOUT God is the same thing as KNOWING God.

Make no mistake today friends - they are not the same thing. The person who reads scripture, or even knows scripture but does not act on it, whose life remains unchanged by it - that person is deceiving themselves. Merely hearing the Word does not mean that you are in right standing with God!

This is a deception, and one that is plaguing the church. That we can hear the Word week in and week out and yet our lives bear no change according to it.

Segment 4: The Proof is the Power

Here’s the thing - there is no point in us acknowledging and defending the authenticity of the bible if we do not allow it to change our lives - because then it really is just another book with no power. It really is just another story. Authentic - sure. But just another story.

In fact I would say that above the authenticity of Scripture, above the historical accuracy of scripture - the GREATEST proof that you can trust Scripture is in its Power to change lives today.

Jesus Himself says in John 6:63 “63 The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”

the Words of God are not just words on a page, they breathe a new Spirit they impart a new Life.

The author of Hebrews writes Hebrews 4:12 “12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Scripture’s greatest proof is not how true it seems to an individual but in how its truth CHANGES the individual

The Word of God, and the Gospel in particular is still changing hearts and lives TODAY it is still bringing people into encounter with God TODAY, it is still breaking chains TODAY, it is still setting people free TODAY.

The Word of God is not written about a dead God, it is written about a God who is very much alive - and still at work!

I think that for any individual - especially any Christian who wants to know whether the Word of God is true and whether it remains true today -

The best way to test it will be to apply it to your life and see what it does to you. Don’t just hear it, do it.

I guarantee that you will see it move and shape your life in ways that you never thought were possible - bringing you into an encounter with the Almighty God, and bringing your life in line with the purpose and plan that He has for you.

James says at the end of that passage in James 1:25 “25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

This is what we need to take note of today church - that the blessing isn’t in the hearing - it’s in the doing.

That God does not bless just your hearing of the Word - He does not bless even the knowing of the Word - He chooses to bless the DOING of the Word.

Truth alone won’t change your life, Truth APPLIED will.

ILLUSTRATION: The Little Pink Bible

You know I grew up around physical bibles because I’m not a baby. And I was very blessed to grow up around my parents who both had a very healthy reverence for the bible, and mentors like pastor Benny who also had a profound respect for the Word. They would carry these huge old bibles around to preach, pray. My dad would always scold me for putting my bible on the floor at church. “Don’t treat the Word of God with such contempt” (ooOOOooO whatever). But I never caught it, I just never really understood. UNTIL -

One day I was caught in the most violent deliverance case I had ever witnessed as a leader before and still, up to this day. One of our kids had started manifesting violently at camp and even when he got home he was manifesting powerfully. Our entire leadership team was over at his house praying over him, casting out the demon - the works (mind you we didn’t have much experience with this stuff at the time). But no matter what we did, he was still violent, we couldn’t hold him down, we couldn’t hold him back. We were desperately freaking out.

So the family called in a deliverance minister - a big african pastor who swaggered into the house and walked up to the boy. The first thing he asked for was a bible. Unfortunately none of us had one. So we searched everywhere in the house, and finally we found one. It was a small, bright pink bible with a gloss cover. I was like oh man we all gna die today.

To this day I’ll never forget this. The pastor walked into the room with the bible - and this boy who had been violent and unperterbed up until this time froze in his tracks. He stopped thrashing, stopped yelling and screaming and for the first time in his voice, there was - fear. He started to violently threaten the pastor, “I’ll kill you if you come near me.” you know what this pastor did? He opened this little pink bible - and put it on his face. The boy collapsed onto the floor immediately, this pastor knelt down next to him and left the bible on his face. and he screamed and thrashed. I mean it was quite a sight - this huge boy couldn’t escape from underneath this little pink bible.

The pastor finally picked up the bible - and read Psalm 34:7 “7 The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.” get OUT in the name of Jesus. Boom - delivered. I was fearful of many things that day, but the greatest fear I developed that day was of the Word. The most haunting image I had that day was of a tiny pink bible tormenting a grown man. Since that day I have never placed my bible on the floor.

Even the physical Word of God has power.

The Word of God remains real, true, and powerful up til today. And my friends - you can not only trust it to be real, but you can trust it to change your life.

Altar Call

You know why the Scriptures are so powerful though? One particular story inside the Scriptures of a man named Jesus, the son of God. Sent down to earth to die for our sins so that we could be forgiven by God the Father and enter into a relationship with Him again.

Scripture tell us that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and saviour will be saved.

Scripture tells us that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we can be saved. Only through Jesus can we be saved and enter into a relationship with God again.

SALVO ALTAR CALL

Anyone wanting prayer to come forward for prayer.