Not that one, this one!

What an unbelievable week last week was.  I had to go to a class in Mississippi for work and other than Basic Training, it's the HARDEST thing I've ever done in my career.  The hardest things I've ever done in my life are a post for another day.

Anyway, someplace in that week, I tried writing the message for the Rescue Mission.  They keep inviting me back once a month to lead a chapel service and I love talking about Jesus, so I keep going. 

Our flight left Biloxi at six a.m. yesterday.  That meant getting up at 3:30 to get to the airport on time.  That's 2:30 in the morning here.  I got home a little after one.  And I started to fine-tune the message I was working on, and I pushed something wrong on this little notebook thingie I have, and POOF, it was gone.

OK, must be the wrong message.  The Holy Spirit gave me a new one. 

After chapel service a man walked up to me and told me that he guessed what was holding him back was him keeping telling himself that he wasn't good enough to be saved.  He, in the moment, came to understand it's the enemy trying to get him to believe that lie.  He asked me how to stop it, and I told him this, after a moment of thought:

"You tell the devil that Jesus thinks you're worth dying for.  Every. Single. Time"

I'd like to share the message with y'all, if you'd care to read it.  It's not my message.  It was given to me, so God gets the credit and the glory.

Hey y’all.  Thanks for allowing me to worship with you tonight.  My name is Dale and I’m so blessed to be leading tonight’s chapel service.  I’m not a pastor or anything like that. I’m just some guy that loves telling people about God and Jesus!

As we start our service tonight, I want to just give a praise to God for providing the Mission and for raising up the folks that donate to keep the Mission going.  God can do anything; sometimes he uses regular folks like me to accompish His everything; and I just want to make sure that tonight we’re giving Him the praise and glory for this place!

I apologize in advance; I’m not as prepared as I’d like to be.  I had a message prepared but my laptop ate it for some reason. I’m guessing that among the reasons is that it wasn’t the message I was supposed to bring.  I was going to talk about wandering about in the wilderness.

Instead, I guess we’re going to talk about the lies we believe and the Truth we don’t.

I was forty-five years old when I read the Bible for the first time.  When I got to the end, I was surprised by the things I knew were in it that weren’t.  An example of this is this quote:

God helps those who help themselves.

Soudns scriptural doesn’t it?  But it’s not. It’s a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin.  It’s not scriptural. In fact, it kinda goes against what God wants us to do which is to trust Him and depend on Him.

That’s a Biblical principle, talked about all throgh the Bible.  

Anyway, I just returned from a work trip to Biloxi, Mississippi.  In Biloxi, you can find a handful of gigantic casinos; very much like the ones you’d find in Las Vegas.  We were driving by one on our way to work when the idea came to me about what lie those buildings tell.

They’re fancy.  Opulent. Well-landscaped.  The kind of place you’d like to be!  They’re that way for a reason: To get you in the door.  Then there are all the fancy machines you can win money playing.  That’s the second lie; the chance to hit it big!! But that’s the lure!  And then there’s the rush you get with every spin of the wheel; that feeling that the machine is going to start payng off any minute now.  

I got thinking about the lies these buildings tell; and the truth behind each and every one of them.  They exist to separate people from their money.

I was thinking about this, too.  How even the airplane I took told a lie.  It syas that if you sit in the first four or five rows you’re etitled to your own bathroom, extra benefits, perks, free drinks and hot mixed nuts.  You pay a lot extra for that treatment. The plane gets there at exactly the same time as the people in coach.

The airlines know that people like special treatment and to be catered to.  IT’s like the VIP line, but who are these very important people? Moive stars?  Musicians? Models? Successful business people?

And why do they or we think that they’re better than us?

More and more, I’m seeing things on the news that pit one group of people against another.  I have friends that think they’re superior because they’re conservative people. “Liberals” are stupid.  Liberals aren’t real Americans.

Even the advertisers tell us lies:  We’re not good enough if we’re fat. If we’re ugly.  If the Lord didn’t bless us with this color hair, or eyes.    

And the list of lies goes on and on.

So what’s the truth?  What should we believe about ourselves?  What should we believe about God? About Christ?  

In a universe where alternate facts abound, maybe we should look at the lies we believe and why we believe them.

What do you believe about God and why do you believe it?  Is what you believe about God based on some sort of truth?  Is it based on what you think or what you know? How do you know it?  What should we belive about God?

One of the things human beings tend to do is fashion God in their own image instead of the other way around.  I was very guilty of this, and to know who God is, I had to read the Bible to learn what God has chosen to reveal to His creations about HImself.

The difference between who I made God out to be and who God says He is in Scripture was night and day.

So what does God say about Himself?  This is what He told Moses:

Exodus 3:

3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[d] the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,

   the name you shall call me

   from generation to generation.

Most of y’all know the rest of the story.  God did some miracles, Pharoah wouldn’t let the people go, then there was the Passover, where God struck down the first born everything in Egypt, but passed over the Israelites and their first born.  Then there was Pharoah chasing down the Israelites and God parted the Red Sea.

God used two words to describe Himself to Moses.  I AM. They were enough.

God further reminded the Israelites (and us today through His words to the prophet Isaiah)  From Isaiah 44:6-8

“This is what the Lord says—

   Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:

I am the first and I am the last;

   apart from me there is no God.

7 Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it.

   Let him declare and lay out before me

what has happened since I established my ancient people,

   and what is yet to come—

   yes, let them foretell what will come.

8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid.

   Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?

You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?

   No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.”

9

So there isn’t any other God but God Himself.  Yet, since the dawn of time, people have been making their own.  We do that in our own mind, too. We get ideas we believe to be truth, too.  Mine was figuring out I was good and that if the good stuff I did outweighed the bad stuff, then God was gonna bless everything I did.  I made God out to be the God I wanted Him to be, not the God of the Bible; not the I AM.

The Israelites did it.  They walked THROUGH the Red Sea.  Through IT! And a few chapters later, they’re having Aaron, who had been with Moses all through this, make them a golden calf to worship.  That happened just a few paragraphs AFTER God gives Moses the 10 commandments.

God also reveals to us in several places in Scripture about His character, which we’ll get into in just a bit.

We as human beings got into this whole mess because two people believed a lie.  Adam and Eve believed the lie the Serpent told them in the garden, ate from the tree God told them not to eat from.  From Genesis 3:3-13.

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LordGod among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Only two human beings on the planet!  TWO! And the evil one comes along and gets them to believe a lie; and look at the mess we’re in because of it.

So let’s talk about those folks that think they’re really something.  They’re not that hard to find. I used to be one of them, and before I was one of them I used to resent them because I wasn’t one of them.  And then I read the Bible and that’s when I learned that the man who was absolutely EVERYTHING, lowered HImself to come down here and exist with us and have absolutely nothing.

Jesus took a dim view of the self-important.  He talked about them a lot. Here are 3 instances from Luke chapter 18:9-27..

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The Little Children and Jesus

15 People were also bringing babies to Jesus for him to place his hands on them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17 Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

The Rich and the Kingdom of God

18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’[a]”

21 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.

22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

26 Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”

27 Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.

People sometimes think they’re better than other people because of who they are, what they are, the work they do, or the wealth they have.  All of those things can be status symbols. But to Jesus, He was on the side of the kids, the sinners, the tax collectors. The truth for the rich man was hard to hear.  The Pharisees thought themselves above those other Jews. Clearly Jesus shared a different view.

Which brings me to talk about the lies we believe about ourselves.  What lies are you sitting here believing tonight about you? That God doesn’t love you?  That you’ve done too many things for grace to save you? That you’re not good enough for God to love?

Let’s see what God has to say about that:  John 3:16-17

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

For God so loved the world…..that means you.  That means that of all the things this world needed, God thought it needed you too!  That’s the point of the cross. God knew we couldn’t pay the price for our sins. Jesus paid it for us at the cross and defeated the liar and father of lies when he rose from the dead.  

Tonight, I’m going to close with the truth about Truth.  When we start believing the truth set forth in the Bible, we start to see ourselves in a different light.  The lies and labels of the world start to disappear. We quit believing the lies and realize that we’re all in the same boat; we’re all going to die someday and we’re all sinners in need of a Savior.  This is what Jesus says about believing the Truth.

From John Chapter 8:31-32

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Being set free sounds pretty good to me.  When I started, I asked you to think about the lies you believe; about God, about Jesus, about yourself.  It’s my prayer and hope that tonitht’s the night you stop believing the lies and start hungering for the Truth.  Want to know who God is? REad the Bible. Want to know more about Jesus? Read the bible.

Want to know Jesus?  Ask Him into your heart.  Tell him you know you need your sins to be forgiven and that you believe that He is the Son of God.  

God loves you.  And that, my friends is the truth.