Sermon notes from 6/12/16 - Is there on true Religion

1. 1 Peter 3:15 says, “But sanctify Christ as Lord in you hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and respect.” 
2. The theme of this series is to be prepared not just for the trials of this life, but also to defend the Christian faith in which we believe.
3. As disciples of Christ we are called to defend our faith, persuade people to come to the faith and believe in Jesus, and to be ready to answer the tough questions. 
4. We are commanded to know and defend our faith, and unfortunately I know too many Christians that believe Christianity is a moral code by which to live and are not prepared to answer these type of questions.
5. In fact, statistics show that 70-75% of teenagers leave the Christian faith once they get away from home. Could this be because we have taught our children the moral code of Christianity and fail to answer the tough questions. And so when confronted by a professor with a PHD they walk away from the faith.
6. I would argue that Christianity is by far the most reasonable faith in which to believe. A quick study of world religions and examining the evidence of science and logic will only increase our faith.
7. In fact, the Bible tells us to study our faith. Acts 17:11 talks about the Berea's who were more noble believers than the Thessalonians, because they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul was saying was true.
8. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”
9. Let me illustrate this concept with this tool belt/box.
10. The Bible says that we are to put on the full armor of God and then explains what that looks like. The belt is called the belt of truth. Now I can put on the belt, put this belt will not help me until I have some tools. I look good, but I’m not going to do anything. Kind of like a government worker on the side of the road - or your pastor at the church work day. 
11. We stand here in do nothing. But I got the belt. This is like many Christians we have the belt, but we don’t have the tools to minister to people and help them.
12. In this series, I hope to give you some tools so that you will be able to minister to others. That you will be able to answer the tough questions. That you would be able to defend your faith - with gentleness and respect. 
13. Today, I want to start with the very first tool that we need to for our tool belt. The question we need to answer is - Is there really only one truth?
1. Objections: Is there one true religion?
1. Our culture preaches that there are many ways to heaven. And to say that there is only way to heaven… That is judgmental, close-minded and bigoted.
2. But there is something wrong here. We demand truth in every aspect of our life except when it comes to religion. For example…
1. We want our spouse and children to tell us the truth.
2. We want doctors to diagnose us correctly and prescribe the right medicines. 
3. We want our politicians to tell the truth
4. employers and businesses, etc…
3. Why is that? Why do we expect truth in every aspect of our life, yet then when it comes to God make it a matter of preference?
4. We are told that we need to be tolerant of all other people, yet tolerance is no longer means I put up with something you believe to be false. Tolerance today is you must accept every belief as true. 
5. That is not tolerance, instead that is pluralism. The belief that all religions are true is in itself a religious belief - that quite honestly is far from the truth. 
6. Pluralism is best illustrated with an illustration told on many college campuses today.
7. It goes like this - there are six blind man and an elephant. Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant and comes to a different conclusion. For example, blind man one feels the tusk and says this is a spear, the second blind man feels the trunk and says this is a snake. The 3rd blind man feels the leg and say this is the trunk of a tree. The 4th blind man feels the ear and says this is a fan. The 5th blind man feels the tail and says this is a rope. The 6th blind man feels the body and swears it is a wall. These blind man represent the world religions and the point is that no religion has the ultimate truth. The ultimate conclusion is that all Religions are simply different paths up the same mountain. 
8. And since we live in America where everyone has an equal opinion, this illustration appeals to the tolerant society we live in. You choose your religion based on where you are born, based on your parents upbringing, or what best appeals to your personality. 
9. Religion is just a matter of taste. You like Pepsi, and I like Coke. You like chinese food, I prefer Italian. You like Christianity and I like Islam. If Hinduism works for you, then it is true for you. And the worst thing we could possibly is tell someone they are wrong.
10. I believe the first tool we need is to determine there is truth.
2. Determine there is Truth
1. A quick study of world religions reveals that there is no possible way all religions can be true. 
2.  Every religion teaches the Golden Rule and have a similar moral code. But when it comes salvation, god, and dealing with evil - religions disagree on most accounts. 
3. The notion that all religions teach basically the same thing and that we all ought to love one another, demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of world religions. In fact, world religions have more contradictory beliefs than complementary ones. And that means not all of them can be true. 
4. The Christian belief is that anyone who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior have instead chosen to spend eternity in Hell. In the same regard, the Islamic faith teaches that if you’re not a Muslim then you’re headed to hell as well. and Hindu’s believe that everyone, regardless of beliefs, is caught in an indefinite cycle of reincarnation based on how they live their life. This contradictory beliefs can’t all be true. 
5.  Jews, Christians and Muslims all believe in different versions of a theistic God. While most Hindus, Buddhist and New age religions believe that everything that exists is part of an impersonal pantheistic force they call God. 
6. Hindus believe that evil and suffering are an illusion, while Muslims, jews and Christians believe that evil is real. 
7. Christians believe salvation is by grace through faith, while other religions teach that salvation is a result of good works. 
8. So how do we deal with this. Well, we must determine is there is one that is right and one that is wrong. What many have done is come to the conclusion that there is no truth. And they come up with their own truth. 
9. Think about that statement for a minute. To say there is no truth is a self defeating statement in itself. That statement claims truth, but if there is no truth what do we say.
10. So what do we do - we must determine there is truth!! In other words, We must come to the conclusion that Truth about reality is knowable.
11. There are six statements about truth that we must believe!
12. First, truth is discovered, not invented. Long before Isaac Newton discovered gravity it was there. The fact of the matter is gravity was always there - but we didn’t accept that truth until Newton discovered it. 
13. Second, truth is transcultural. If something true, it is true for all people, in all places, at all times. 2+2 = 4 is true in America and in China. If I’m visiting KZ and get hit by a bus I will feel pain just like I would if I got hit by a bus in America. 
14. Third, truth is unchanging. Our beliefs about truth may change, but the truth never did. At one point in history we believed the world was flat. We were wrong. the truth never changed, but our beliefs did.
15. Fourth, beliefs cannot change a fact, no matter how sincerely they are held. I can believe all day that the color of my shirt is orange, but that doesn’t change the truth that the evidence says my shirt is blue.
16. Fifth, truth is not affected by the feelings of the one professing it. Just because I’m arrogant, rude and obnoxious that does not make my statements more true. And likewise, just because I am a humble person does not make the error I profess to be true.
17. Finally, truth is absolute. This is where pluralism gets it wrong. Pluralism says that truth is relative. But that makes no sense. Truth is absolute. For example, if I say, “I think steamed crabs are the best food ever” that may appear as a relative truth. But it is still absolute to everyone here that Pastor Sean thinks that steamed crabs are the best food ever. 
18. As I already mentioned… to say that truth is relative is a self-defeating statement in itself. Let me explain…
1. when someone says truth is relative the proper response to him is - “Is that a relative truth.” 
2. If they say there are no absolute truths. The proper response is - are you absolutely sure.” 
3. And if they say - that is true for you, but not for me - the proper response is - Is THAT STATEMENT true for you, or is it true for everyone?”
19. Do you see where we are going? To say there is no truth is a truth statement that can’t be accepted b/c it just claimed there is no truth. 
20. What society wants to do is kill the concept of truth. If you can kill the concept of any true religion or any true morality then what is left is a bunch of close minded thinking people who have no clue what to believe anymore.
21. Not to drag this point into the dirt, but If you think about it, this is the education system we have in America and several other cultures today. Our educators teach us that truth is whatever you want it to be, except when you claim something different than what they believe. 
22. In the process, are kids are confused and have no morality. It’s not just taking God and prayer out of school, it’s educated them to a mindset that is devoid of truth. 
23. Adolf Hitler said, “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” 
24. Well our society is now full of post modern thinkers who want everyone to believe there is no truth and literally want to hurt people who disagree with them. When their belief themselves falls to the ground with one question - Is that true for you or for everyone?
25. So… we must determine there is truth, and then our job is to Discover the truth.
3. Discover the truth
1. We now know that truth is absolute and can be known. In order to discover the truth we must know what is wrong, in order to find what is right. Or better said, once we know what to find what is right, we can discover what is wrong. 
2. The question though is - Can there really be just one truth? And if there is how do we discover that one truth?
3. I believe there is a process that we must use - it’s called common sense. Just kidding - It is the idea that we are willing to give up subjective preferences in favor of objective facts. We discover these objective facts through logic, evidence and science. 
4. As we look at nature and how things work we begin to discover simple laws or principles that help us discover truth. 
5. For example, let’s explore the Law of Non-contradiction.
6. The Law of Non-contradiction says contradictory claims cannot both be true at the same time. For example, the opposite of true is false.
7. So when investigating something you take into account this law and come to a logical conclusion. For example, If you sit down and talk to Chris and say is your wife pregnant and he says no. Then you go up to Dora and ask are you pregnant and she says yes. You would logically conclude that Dora probably hasn’t told Chris yet that she is pregnant and that Chris is blind - because Dora is about to pop. But there is one thing for sure is that they both can’t be right. 
8. The same is true with God. Either there is one true god (Jews, Muslims, Christians claim), many gods (Hindus and Buddhist claim), or no god (atheist claim). But all three of these groups can’t be right. 
9. Most reasonable people have no problem agreeing with this law of non-contradiction. There are a few exceptions though.
10. Immanuel Kant is one of those who has tried to deny the Law of Non-contradiction. He states that we can never truly know any reliable knowledge about what the world is really like, much less what god is really like because our mind is forming sense data. So in other words, we don’t know the tree in itself, we only uno the phenomena your mind categorizes about the tree. 
11. I like what C.S. Lewis said about this type of philosophy. He said, “good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, b/c bad philosophy needs to be answered.”
12. The problem with Kant is he claims that no one can know there real world or anything about God, but yet in His own mind claims to know more than the rest of us. Kant says the data that gets into our brain is nothing but phenomena, but in order to know this, he would have to be able to see more than just the phenomena. 
13. In essence, his own philosophy falls to the ground based on his own philosophy and violates the Law of Non-contradiction.
14. The second law that we must understand is the Law of the Excluded Middle. This law tells us that something is either is or is not. For example, either God exists or He doesn’t. Either Jesus rose from dead or He didn’t. 
15. Logic can tell us that an argument is false, but it cannot tell us by itself which premises are true. 
16. We need more information to discover the truth. WE get that information by observing the world around us and then drawing general conclusions from the observations. 
17. As you observe something over and over again, you come to the conclusion that some general principle is true. You may remember this principle is science class is called induction. 
18. But there is still a problem, that is most conclusions based on induction cannot be considered absolutely certain only by high probability. For example, are you absolutely sure that gravity makes objects fall to the ground. NO, because you haven’t observed all objects dropping. 
19. So can we trust our inductive reasoning? Yes to varying degrees of certainty. We usually have enough information to make a reasonable conclusion to most questions in life. 
20. Since most people have died, we can reasonably conclude that all men are mortal. 
21. The same inductive reasoning can be used to discover if God exists, who God is, and which religion is truth.
22. In the weeks to come, we are going to add more tools to this belt. We are going to be able to answer if God exists, and how the world was created. We will look at the reliability of the Bible and if Jesus really is the Son of God or just a prophet. 
23. But today, we start with the hammer. And the hammer is determining there is truth, discovering the truth and finally declaring the truth. 
4. Declare the truth
1. I Peter 3:15 says we must learn to defend our faith and speak with gentleness and respect. We must speak out and share the truth!
2. 2 Timothy 2:24-25 says, “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.”
3. As Christians, we are taught to be tolerant. We love people where they are without imposing our beliefs on them, but we must learn to speak out when their belief is not in the truth. In other words, we are not trying to force everyone who lives in America to be Christian.  As Christians we know the dangers or religious intolerance. We strive to accept and respect people who have different religious beliefs than we do. 
4. But… And that is a big but, that doesn’t mean we embrace the idea that all religions are true or there is no truth. We must learn to speak up when truth is compromised.
5. As Christians we believe that anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus will spend eternity in Hell when they die. That they only way our souls go to heaven is to believe in Jesus. 
6. Therefore, it is important that we say something. If we don’t question someone’s religious belief than we are literally allowing them to believe in a false god or false religion. In our attempt to be accepting and tolerant and not offend someone we are literally Air conditioning our neighbors, co-workers, family and friends to an eternity in Hell. 
7. Don’t forget that these friends who don’t believe in Jesus, think you are wrong. They are as dogmatic and close-minded as anyone else making truth claims. In fact, I guarantee they want everyone disagrees with them to see things their way… Sooooo, why not speak up to share the truth of what the Bible says. 
8. The Bible is the truth document for Christians. Now in weeks ahead we will look at the questions can we trust the Bible. But for now, we must speak the truth in love - with gentleness and respect. 
9. So, how do we speak up in this situation. Quite simply we have to question someone else’s belief if it contradicts the Bible.  We need to ask people what they believe and why? And they can’t give a good reason as to why they believe what they believe, then first and foremost we have to oppose that moral position they put on us. 
10. Finally, the Bible commands us to question others beliefs. 1 John 4:1 says, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; b/c many false prophets have gone out into the world.” 
11. By a pluralist own definition they uought to accept the Christian belief to speak what they believe. But ironically, they don’t. They only tolerate beliefs that agree with them. Are they willing to accept a child sacrifice of one religion as being true. Are they willing to accept that a muslim terrorist belief to kill anyone who disagrees with them. 
12. You see we respect the right of others to believe what they want, even when they are foolish, and sometimes unloving. But it is unloving of us to not suggest that their religious belief is wrong. So we must declare the truth we know. 
13. We must not remain silent, but speak up to say there ins one truth. That means if the Bible is true then anything that contradicts the Bible is false. And likewise, If the Koran is true than anything that contradicts the Koran is false.
14. Now i’m not advocating us to go onto the boardwalk and start a street preaching ministry. I’m advocating you to love people so much that you are preparing yourself to answer the tough questions when they ask you. 
15. That when your neighbor, co-worker, or relative comes to you and ask you about why are a Christian you will share with them what you believe to be truth. When your friend goes through a hard time, you can be there to answer their questions about God. You are ready to speak the truth in love with gentleness and respect. 
5. Conclusion
1. So what???
2. I want to leave you with this question for you to ask yourself and also to ask a friend who is not a believer in Jesus.
3. If I could prove to you without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is God and that Christianity were true, would you become a Christian???
4. Now think about that for a minute. 
5. There are three main reasons why someone might reject Christianity and Jesus Christ.
1. Intellectual reason - many atheist give scientific evidence for why they don’t believe in Jesus. I actually believe that the Bible and science as well as history with archaeological evidence proves makes Christianity seem very reasonable. But there are objections that some intellects will never accept.
2. Norman Geisler said it this way, “It’s virtually impossible to know everything about a particular topic, and it’s certainly impossible when that topic is an infinite God. So there has to come a point where you realize you have enough information to come to a logical conclusion, even if unanswered questions remain.”
3. That is what we deal with when it comes to intellectuals seeking God. but that is not the only reason people reject Jesus and Christianity. 
4. Emotional reasons - some will not accept Christianity to be true because they have emotional roadblocks. For example, I like Jesus, but I don’t those Christians. Some don’t like the doctrine of Hell that the Bible teaches or the problem of evil - etc… 
5. Finally, there is volitional reasons why propel reject Christianity. They don’t want to worship God b/c there are to many rules that would restrict them from living the life they want to live. 

1. So the question to ask is - If I could prove that christianity was true would you become a Christian. The fact of the matter is some people will say no. Then you know that you are dealing with an intellectual problem - your dealing with an emotional or volitional problem 
2. The Bible says that most people have emotional and volitional problems with God. 
3. It says no one seeks God.
4. Romans 3:10-11 -  As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away,
5. That is why we must ask that one question if I could provide enough reasonable evidence to the most significant questions and objections you have would you become a Christian. 
6. If the answer is no then you’re not open-minded at all and the great thing about God of Christianity is you’re fee to reject it. 
7. But if you are an honest intellectual, or a Christian wanting to grow in order to defend your faith - then make it a goal to come every week this summer as we explore Christianity and all the questions. 
8. In the meantime, feel free to study on your own.
1. C.S. Lewis, Norman Geisler, Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, and Frank Turek.  Check out 
2. www.crossexamined.org or www.reasonablefaith.org
9. John 8:32 says, You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. 
10. Seek Truth it is discoverable. And once you find it - declare it with gentleness and respect.