Good morning. What a joy it is to be back with you all this morning. We had a wonderful week in Orange Beach. Such a relaxing and refreshing time with family.

Anyone who has been in the surf, even the smaller surf of the Gulf of Mexico truly realizes the power of our God is beyond our comprehension. When you stand in the Gulf and look south and all you see is water and waves for as far as you can see it sure puts just how small and powerless you truly are. A great reminder of how big God is and how small I am!

Let’s Pray

Start OBS

Hopefully last week here at church or on our facebook page and for sure this morning before worship you saw that next week we are starting a new series called We Believe.

This series came about as I was pondering something my dear brother said in Bible study several weeks ago it was something to the affect of.....”we as Christians and the church do a terrible job teaching repentance.”

He was right. His words, God’s words through him, cut me like a knife. As I was praying and looking for what God wanted me to bring in regards to that I landed on this new series We Believe. As I thought I realized what if people don’t really know what they believe. What if someone asks one of us to defend or define our beliefs can we give them a strong statement.

Even more important than that, are we living what we believe and does that life match the Word of God.

The heart behind the We believe series is to ensure that everyone here at CCC and those who worship with us online have a strong Biblical foundation for their lives. God has laid alot on my heart for this fall. I believe, it may change, but I believe that following this We Believe series where we deal with our personal foundations that we will embark on a series on I Corinthians where we will make sure CCC has a strong Biblical foundation.

This morning as we prepare to start our series next week I felt God lay truth on my heart. To have a strong Biblical foundation one must understand truth so that is where we are starting this morning.

What is Truth?

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Let’s start by defining truth. I was reading a plan in my Bible app this week and God used it to help shape today’s message. It was on truth. The plan defined truth as “that which is consistent with the original.”

The world has many definitions of truth. In fact if I asked each of you individually away from anyone else, just you and me, if I asked you to define truth I would probably get many different definitions.

When it comes to Biblical truth I like the plans definition, that which is consistent with the original. Let’s look to scripture to see why

John 14:6

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“Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Jesus says He is the Truth. If that is true and it is by the way, then you may be thinking that our definition is in trouble as what original is Jesus consistent with?

John 1:1-2

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“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”

Jesus isn’t consistent with the original HE is the original!!!!!! That means for something to be true it must be consistent with Jesus!!!!

Now we will deal with absolute truth vs relative truth in our We Believe series but I want to challenge you here this morning to remove relative truth from your vocabulary and beliefs because of this next statement that is a direct quote from the plan I was reading this week on truth

“Truth is not relative it is relational.”

That statement hit me like a ton of bricks. God used that statement to shape and organize all that He had been laying on my heart this past week about the Truth

Truth is not relative it is relational means that based on scripture we know the Truth because of our relationship with Jesus!!!!!!!

The Truth is unchanging

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Hebrews 13:8

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“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Jesus is the Truth. Jesus is the original. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever!!!!!!! Therefore the truth is never changing.

If you are honest you know this is true. The world calls this truth many different things, wives tales, timeless principles, folk tales, the list goes on and one.

The world can’t admit the truth is Jesus and never changing so they have to call Jesus and Truth something different. If the Truth is Jesus and the Truth is never changing then many living of the world would not be able to sleep at night. They have to adapt the truth, change the truth because if the truth never changed they would then be wrong and the ones who needed to change.

Take abortion for example. You rarely hear it called abortion by those who support it. No it is pro-choice. It is reproductive rights. It is women’s health. It is a termination of a pregnancy. The problem for them is that is not the truth. The Truth is it is murder! It is ending a life that God created. Those who support abortion don’t want abortion defined as ending a life so they change it. Make no mistake about it abortion is murder. Abortion is a sin. If you support abortion you support sin. If you fight for abortion you fight for the devil.

The Truth is the source of life

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John 1:3-4

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“All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

Anything that has been made was made by Jesus

This again is argued against by the world. From the big bang to evolution they do all they can to discredit the truth of God.

For the lost the fact that Jesus is the Truth and Jesus is the source of life is not that big of a deal to them because they are already rejecting Jesus, however for those who are or claim to be Christians this is a huge truth to understand, believe and put in your foundational beliefs.

Since life is found only in Jesus, who is also the Truth, if one rejects the Truth they also reject life. Here is the scary thing about this, the decision to reject God and Jesus as the Author of Life and Truth of reality has devastating consequences.

Genesis 2 and 3

God created Adam and Eve to live in true, pure fellowship with Him. NO sorrow NO sadness No pain No hurt No sin.

However they rejected God’s Truth to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so they rejected God. The consequences of that sin still are being felt in your life and my life today!!!!!

For those who reject Jesus all together their ultimate consequence is eternity in hell not to mention a life here on earth without Jesus in it.

For Christians, when you reject the truth…we all do by the way…it is called sin. Not only do you pay the consequences for that sin but also our family and friends. Your church family and even innocent bystanders all suffer from your consequences as well. From pain and heartache to addiction and sinful lifestyles that bring nothing but trouble into your and their lives.

The Truth is Freeing

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To understand this truth you have to understand the nature and fruit of lies. Lies imprison you

Back to Genesis 3

Adam and Eve had a perfect life tending to God’s garden and living in perfect fellowship with God

Then temptation came, a thought was born, it was not taken captive against God’s Word and they sinned and fell. The snake told Eve a lie. He twisted the Word of God and she bought it

Once the lie was believed and acted upon sin was committed then it led to a downward spiral. First Adam and Eve figured out they were naked and made clothes for themselves because of their shame. They were never ashamed before but because of sin they were ashamed. That led to them hiding from and lying to God. Lying leads to more lying. That is one of the problems with lying, one of the ways it imprisons you. What did I say to who? You now have to work very hard to cover up your lies, that is exhausting work. Covering up the original lie leads to more and more lying and that leads to stress and shame and isolation. That leads one to turn to the world instead of God because of the lie and the shame....you can’t deal with the fallout....it is overwhelming so it can lead to addiction and other dangerous, sinful lifestyles in an attempt to cope

John 8:32

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“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.””

Jesus…the Truth..sets you free from that prison

The Truth is not to be used to gain power or prestige or control

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In Matthew 23

we see this played out. Jesus drills the Pharisees for using the truth, the Law to gain power and control over the people.

Now pastor josh none of us here are Pharisees. Ever notice the sin in someone elses life but ignore the sin in your life? Ever try to get someone to live up to expectations that you yourself fail to live up to? The Bible says…Jesus says seeing the speck in your brothers eye while having a tree in your eye is wrong. We all do this. We all act like Pharisees at different points in our lives I pray the difference is when convicted of that you repent and give it to Jesus and walk with Him.

So the question now becomes

How do you discern the Truth?

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II Corinthians 10:5

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“and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Jesus.....that is how. Take every thought captive to Jesus. Look to and know the original so well it is easy to spot what doesn’t match. The Bible app reading plan said this in relation to thoughts or ideas

“If it’s inconsistent with Jesus it is inconsistent with the truth because they are one in the same!”

This is also why you should be a fruit inspector. When wrestling to discern truth think about the fruit it will produce.

What fruit will this idea, thought, behavior produce....worldly or spiritual???

Remember just because you want something to be true doesn’t make it true......only Jesus makes it true

To live in the Truth requires true humility.

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I have to be honest....I struggled here this week. I don’t know if you have ever driven 1977 miles in a week but there is a lot of opportunity to not be humble during those 1977 miles.

The world screams you do you

Do what makes you happy

Live your best life

Many justify this belief with statements like

God cares about me so I should do whatever makes me happy

I hate to break it to you. Jesus never said that. God never said that. It is not in the Bible so therefore it is not true

No matter how many falsebook posts claim it

No matter how many of your friends and family claim it

No matter how many of your “Christian” folks claim it

No matter how many false prophets at worse and ignorant at best pastors claim it

No matter how many secular, disguised as religious books and speakers claim it

IT IS NOT TRUE!

For those who truly believe and say things like you do you, live your best life, God loves me so He wants me to do whatever I want to be happy,

Those who believe and say those things are full of pride and a lack of true understanding of the Gospel and it breaks my heart. Justifying sin is what our nature wants to do. Humility in the light of truth is required for us to truly know and understand the Truth

Here is where true humility comes from

You are not your own

I Corinthians 6:19-20

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“Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.”

Jesus paid much too high a price for you to be in control. He bought you. You belong to Him.

You are called as a Christian to be humble

I Peter 5:6

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“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time,”

Philippians 2:3-4

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“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.”

When you stand and look at the cross. When you understand what God and Jesus endured to pay for your sin debt, to offer you the free gift of salvation there is no other response than to live humbly because you realize without them you are nothing.

You also realize Jesus died for all so who are you to choose who you will love and help and look out for.....Jesus died for all so you love all!!!!!

A true Christian takes up their cross daily

Luke 9:23

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“Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

A true Christian’s life is marked with humility. Choosing to mount your cross every daily....choosing to die to yourself everyday.......choosing to follow Jesus everyday requires humility!

The next 9 or 10 weeks are going to either review and strengthen your foundation based on Truth or completely shatter what you thought was your foundation and completely rebuild a new, truthful foundation.

Maybe you realized this morning that you don’t know the Truth. You don’t have a relationship with Jesus now is the time to come and accept Him because you have 0 foundation without Him.

I don’t know where you are right now but you do and God does and I invite you to come and take it to Jesus right now!