Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 7

Lord, I just, Preparing for this, for this lesson, Lord, it's just, amazing to see how powerful the gospel is. I'm just never I just never understand the the the places that it will go, the things that it explains. The things that it makes clear. And this morning, as we look at the topic of sharing our hope and beginning with the scriptures and doing that, Lord, just help us to understand the power of the gospel, Lord, there is no reason whatsoever to be ashamed of it.

Lord, it is the gospel that makes us truly human, it is the gospel that allows us to know you. It is the gospel that gives us true life. Lord, let us embrace that with confidence, and be willing to share that hope with others. In Jesus' name.

Amen. All right, I'm gonna break a rule of speaking, and that rule is you don't begin with apologies, but I'm going to begin with apologies. I was running around this morning and did not have time to make handouts. I see people picking up handouts, so someone may have created those for me and if someone did, I am eternally in your debt.

second of all, is that I'm going to do lesson 7, not lesson 6. when Mike originally asked me to do this, I predicted 123456, and I thought it was going to be 7. that changed a little bit and I'm not good at change. I need a long warm-up to get ready for something.

I'm not as quick as Mike. I don't know as much as Mike, so I have to get, it takes me a while to get ramped up for this thing. So, when things got shifted a little bit, unfortunately, I'm unbending. I had to stick with, with 7.

Actually, last year I did number 6. when Mike was absent, I guess this time of year, last year, I actually did lesson number 6 and I just, I just realized that the other day, great memory there. but, so anyway, we're gonna blast off with, lesson number 7 and I'm gonna skip this for right now. Be thinking about this.

This will come up a little bit later on. unfortunately, I, I've said this a number of times, Mike is trained in theology, which is a very good thing., I'm trained in something not so good. I'm, I was trained in philosophy and history. so, unfortunately with me, you get a little bit of philosophy and actually today, not, a little bit of history today too.

So we'll get into some of those things. So, be thinking about that, which of those best represents reality? We're gonna be talking about reality today. Philosophers like talking about reality.

Which one of those two images best represents reality? And more important than that, philosophers are always asking the question, how do? I think, I think Mike's used that fancy word epistemology, right? How do, right?

Which one is most Best represents reality, all right? So you guys think about that, keep that in the back of your mind or the front of your mind or wherever. We will come back to it. but I want to begin with the intro introduction.

This is adult equiping school, and we always want to keep our eyes on the prize. When I taught high school, I was, I was, I, I always taught was the idea of we're on a case, we're trying to figure something out and every day I would come back to what the case was we were on because people forget they're off trying to I've got to get this homework assignment done or that homework assignment done, and they forget why they're even there, that, that happens. So I want to keep our eyes on the prize.

What are we trying to achieve with adult equipping school?

And Mike has summed that up really well. The purpose of adult equipping school is to train our families. And that's the reason for the curriculum that we are using. It's, it's across age levels, we're equipping families, not just adults, how to know, live and speak God's word for His glory, that His glory part is a big deal.

a bigger deal than I really comprehend. I always realize when I start reading that his glory part is, is way, I always get a little bit more of an idea of it every time, I read through scripture and we're gonna be talking about that concept, a little bit today. All right, last week, I'm, I want to try to do a really quick review, very quick review and see how much you learned last week and I wasn't here for the whole lesson, actually I wasn't here for very much of the lesson.

But I hope this question deals with what you were dealing with last week.

And I had this experience at UCR, just, a couple of weeks ago. assume that you are over on the UCR campus or basically anywhere and you're talking with, one of the students there, and you're sharing the gospel with them, you open up your Bible and you read John 3:16. and the, the, the person responds, that is a very nice verse. I'm glad, that God, loves, like that.

But, that's from one of the gospels. And there were lots of gospels. Your Bible only has 4 of them. So how do I know that's really the real Jesus speaking there?

There are other gospels that say other things about Jesus. I heard about this in my, religions class, and, so how, how would you answer that? This guy is questioning whether you have the right books about Jesus. How would you answer him?

What's that? OK. Well, he says, how do this cannon is the right cannon? Right?

OK, I get the idea, there's a canon of scripture, but this was put together by human beings. Human beings chose certain documents and didn't choose other documents. How do I know they chose the right documents? oh.

Is this, is this what you guys talked about last? It was, was, was, was, was getting the how we, how we know we have the right books in the Bible. Apostolic authority. What does apostolic authority mean?

OK, so it wasn't just higgly-piggly choice. And it wasn't, because a lot of people are gonna claim it was a political choice, right? If you've, if you've seen the Da Vinci Code and stuff like that, right? It's a political choice.

It's a choice to suppress women, it's, there's all kinds of theories. But a criteria that we use is that we're looking for books written by people who were either knew Christ or were were very close to people that did know him like Mark and Luke. Right. Mark was very close to Peter, Luke was very close to everybody, right?

He starts out with this thing, I'm gonna go talk to everybody and put together a good account of what happened. All right. Anything else, that's a really good answer by the way. That's a cool answer.

what other things might you say to him? I'm, I'm sorry. I, I, I got a hint, yeah. OK, so there's some consistency between God speaking in the Old Testament, and the, the books that are in the New Testament.

So that consistency is evidence that we probably have the right books. There are other books, but they don't show that same consistency. If you read, one of the Gnostic Gospels, it's a, it's a different God described in those gospels than you see in the Old Testament. So we're looking at that consistency, right?

Christianity comple Christ Christianity, claims to be and is quite honestly, a continuation of a grand, plan by God to redeem human beings and so you would, you would expect to see consistency as that plan is described through scripture. So that's a great, great, great, great answer. Anybody else one more and then I'm gonna move on, yeah. It got to the Holy Spirit.

Leave it up to Is one who led OK, so these, these were really not chosen by God. I oops, erase that, roll the tape back. these were not, these, these decisions were not made by men, right? God chose the canon and the, the men or whoever made these decisions, they were simply recognizing the books that God had already chosen.

now that's moving into a a different realm of answer. do you think he's gonna be as comfortable with that as the other answers? Yeah, from my experience, probably not. I've used that answer and what did, what, what, what was that person probably going to accuse you of?

Yeah, probably some form of circuit maybe possibly, if, if you go to explain yourself, there's a good chance you're gonna end up in some circular reasoning, possibly not. There are ways to handle that where you don't end up necessarily circular., how might, how might you respond to him though with, with, to give him, to, to make him think a little bit more about this. Do we have any evidence that there were certain books that were being held as scripture early on? Yeah, Early church writers quoted.

OK, so you get some people in the 1st, yeah, like 1st century or excuse me, 2nd century, early 3rd century who are quoting these people all over the place, all these New Testament documents as scripture. They are in different geographical locations, they are in different sometimes political situations, different cultural situations, and voila. Why are they quoting the same books? So early.

That seems to mess, mess with the political theory, right? Who's got their thumb on them? Really no one, yes. Yeah.

There's, there's, there's early evidence that these books, oh, I'm, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, we have to hold up a sign of flashing lights or something. Yeah, go ahead. Play devil's advocate Fire away.

We does. Yeah, that goes on. Thankfully. Because somebody's Well, that's asking a different, you're raising a good question, but a slightly different question than do we have the right books?

what you're arguing is the books we have probably don't have the, the accurate information about Jesus. Something got changed between the time Jesus said those things and that stuff got recorded. so that would be a, a, a different question. My argument that, that all this quoting is going on.

I'm not, I'm not using that argument to say that it's accurate. I could, but, I'm not using it to say it's accurate. I'm using it to say, I watch the clock, yikes, that I'm not saying that, that, that, I'm saying to say, to say that this is evidence that the books had been, were pretty much recognized over a broad range of Christendom, fairly early and you don't see these other books being quoted. to, to answer your question, I would probably, that would be another question, that would be in, how, how historically, is there evidence that these documents are historically accurate and that's another, another argument that I don't, I, I don't want to take the time right now to answer you, but there, but there is evidence for that.

Yeah, people are gonna say that. People say all kinds of things. C Mhm P Mhm Mhm That Knowledge that Mhm. Yeah, yeah, true.

Yeah, accurate information is important. you want, you want the things that you're saying to match reality and that, that's actually a, a cool a cool point that we're gonna get to a little bit later on is that what this person is asking you is they're asking you to show that your, your worldview, your way of seeing, actually comports with reality and that is a, that's a wonderful thing to bring up. that is a wonderful thing to bring up. That's my point of view comport with reality.

Now, this class is, this class is really not about, arguing from the scriptures whether they're valid or historically accurate or whatever. what I want to do is, is, is deal with how do we actually start with the scriptures. And why, why start with scripture? even before, why not start with making a case, a case for scripture's accuracy first.

Right. now I'm going to answer questions about those things, if somebody asked me, I'm gonna ask those things. Answer those questions, they're good questions, but why start with scripture just to begin with? Why start there?

and the reason for that is, for me personally, what I'm asked to do is give reasons for my hope. I'm actually moving away from the idea of, of saying I'm doing apologetics. This, it's, it's become a technical term and it's all kinds, there are all kinds of arguments within that discipline about what's going on and this is happening and whatnot and what forth. and I'm aware of all that, presuppositionalist versus evidentialist versus classical, whatever.

It's a discipline and those are good things, but when I'm talking to someone else, I'm not doing that apologetics. What I'm doing is I am sharing the hope that they see within me. I am sharing my hope. And for me, my hope began when I opened the New Testament and began to read about Jesus.

Those words were very impactful on me, regardless of whether they are were historically accurate or whatever, I wasn't even thinking of those questions. The words, I, when I saw Jesus, I saw a person who was talking about a human being that was absolutely amazing and I had no chance of ever being. Super appealing. And impossible to achieve.

Initially very depressing. And it was. I have a tendency towards depression. and that was a good push, right?

This is crazy stuff. Christianity is impossible. This can't be done. eventually, thankfully, I began, to read more and find out that this guy who gives this incredible, I describes this incredible way of being human, actually died so that I could be that.

Being that is a gift. Right? I can be given righteousness so that I can know God. Oh my goodness.

And that's where my hope is. Right, my hope is in the gospel. It is in the gospel of, of, of Jesus Christ. And the gospel is powerful.

it's actually very powerful. It's powerful theologically. It's also incredibly powerful philosophically. It's a very powerful thing, which hopefully we'll see some of today.

So I'm making no apologies for starting with the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? Because it is the power of God, it was the power of God in my life. Now, when I became a Christian, I was somewhat concerned that I had simply had a psychological experience. Right.

And when I went to college, I decided to put my toes to the fire. So where do you go to college to put your toes to the fire? Well, you go to a parasitic discipline that feeds on other disciplines. It feeds on destroying and ripping and gnarling other ideas, right?

In this department, ideas are all over the floor, ripped and torn and bleeding. What department is that? Philosophy. Yeah, philosophers rip and tear and whatnot.

So that's where I went and I spent, 4 years with ripping and tearing and all kinds of good stuff and what got me through that. The power of the gospel. None of this ripping and tearing had any way to explain to me how to be really human. None of them could explain all of reality to me.

I had desires and whatnot that none of those systems could explain. Even though they, I was reading books that were going on for thousands and thousands of pages. all this stuff, Hagel, Kant, all these guys, They could not give me the big picture. The gospel remained powerful even in the ripping and the tearing, so I did not, I didn't lose my faith.

God was just really gracious to me during those four years, and I came out thinking, wow. Not losing my faith but saying, wow, the gospel is amazing stuff. So our hope is based on what God has revealed in the scripture about himself and the reality he's created. we're gonna tell this a little later.

God is the only one who can really describe reality accurately. Amen. Yeah, anyone could do it. Human beings cannot do it.

there's a, there's this, there's a story that people always, this is, this is usually told to say that there's no objective truth. You, you heard the story of the elephant? Where you've got 3 blind men. and they're, they're, they, they come in contact with this elephant and they're, they're feeling around the elephant, and one guy feels the nose and I forget what his conclusion is, right?

What we have here is, a nose or I can't remember. The other guy is feeling around and he feels the foot, he comes to a different conclusion about the elephant. Another guy feels the tail and comes to a different conclusion and people will say, what's the conclusion from that? Truth is relative, right?

It's a matter of your perspective. True. Absolutely true for human beings. But God sees the whole elephant.

Reality is there is a whole elephant. That, that story cuts, people are using it to, to argue for rela relativistic truth. I'm sorry, it is a great argument for real truth. Like cause there's a real elephant there.

All these guys have it what? They, they're all wrong. They all have partial truth. I spent a lot of time in the philosophy department.

I came to the conclusion, these guys are really smart guys. They're really cool. They've got, they, they, they really are, it's really great stuff but it is what? It is partial truth.

Partial truth, the whole truth, right? So the gospel is, the gospel is really powerful. OK, I got to get off that. Oh, I'm, oh I'm, I'm really in trouble.

So let's actually look at scripture and see what scripture says about talking about our hope. And let's look at one of, one of my favorite passages and it's the, the passage always given when we talk about apologetics or talking about our hope and that is 1 Peter 3:14 through 18 and I'm going to go ahead and read that and I'm actually going to start in verse 13. Just because I like verse 13. who is, I love this, who is there to harm you?

If you prove zealous for doing what is good. Hm. Who is there to harm you? But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed and do not fear their intimidation and do not be troubled.

Right But do what? Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, being always ready to make a defense. Basically to give an explanation or, tell people what, how it works and we should be able to do that, we should be good at that. to everyone who asks you to give an account of the hope that is in you.

Yet with gentleness and reverence. And here's where it gets interesting, and keep a good conscience, so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. Right, then it gets a little complicated, for it is better if God should will it so that you suffer for what's doing right rather than for doing what is wrong. And here's the really cool part, verse 18, which normally you only get the one verse, right?

Verse 18, he's given the reason why this all works. What does he say? He says 4. Right was forming.

This is, this, this is what it's based on. What's it based on? He says 4. Christ has also died.

For what? For sins, once for all, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us all to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit. What is that? We're in a lot of trouble, OK.

You should be shouting this, right? What is that? That's the gospel, right? That is the gospel, right?

All this works because of the gospel. So let's ask a couple of questions of this passage. What do we observe about sharing our hope? What are some observations you can make from this passage about the way in which when somebody asks you about the hope that's within you, why you believe what you believe, and I hope what you believe gives you hope.

If it doesn't, where should you go? The gospel, the gospel will, will deal with that. but anyway, what are some things you observed in the, in this passage? Should be ready OK, we should be ready, we should be thinking about it.

Yeah Yeah, we should expect that, that people aren't gonna see things the way we see things, that the way we see the world is not going to be the way other people see the world and they're not going to be. Very nice about it They're going to, they're going to distort you. Right, that goes on and does that happen? That's ever been distorted.

Oh my gosh, I've been destroyed it's just, just everywhere. what else do you observe? L Oh, the attitude part is really cool, right? yet with gentleness and reverence.

Why the reverence part? Yeah, one of the cool things about the gospel is the gospel says you can live your entire life in the presence of God. And it's not based on what? It's not based on anything you do.

Wow. It's a crazy concept, right? It's an amazing concept. What does Milton always say it's a scandalous idea and it is, right?

And, and it's, it's not going to be particularly popular out there but the passage also says what do you not want to be slandered for? Yeah, doing something that's not cool, right? That's it, it, it, it, it, this, this cuts both ways, right? It's, the passage is also saying that the hope that's within you should be doing what to you?

It should be changing you. It should be changing you. It should be changing you to a degree where people look at you and say, what is the deal with your hope? What is the deal with that?

What they, what they should begin to see in you is somebody who's transforming into a real human being. A real human being. So what do you want to spend your time doing? Becoming a real human being, right?

You want, that's, that's the journey, right? The journey is towards what does it mean to be all that God has created me to be. He's created me to be a real human being, not a partial human being. And we're gonna go ahead and move on because I'm looking at the clock and, I'm not doing well, mostly because I took too much time, on the, OK, what is our hope?

our hope is an intimate relationship with the true God through Jesus Christ. And we now can see the world in a different way. We see the world through Gospel. Glasses.

With gospel glasses, we can walk through this world with God at our side as children of God. Is that an amazing way to walk through the world? It's a killer way to walk through the world. using the, the metaphor of glasses really does not do it justice, but I'm gonna use that metaphor and I'm gonna beat the metaphor to death, right?

So you're gonna get tired of this metaphor of glasses by the time we're done. And, and it doesn't really capture the whole idea, but we should walk through light with gospel glasses. Those gospel glasses allow us to see God walking right next to us. And when our glasses get dirty, what do we use to clean them?

Gospel, yeah, gospel cleaner, right? You put gospel on gospel glasses. Our problem is we normally try to do what? We find something else to clean them with, don't we?

I know I do. I'm gonna do better. What does that do to my glasses? Just smudges them all up, right?

Just pushes everything around. I, now I see God even less clearly because I'm trying to do something to please him. My, my vision, I, I, I now can't see reality because the reality is that God exists. The reality is that God loves the, the, the, the, the, the, the reality is that God has sacrificed immensely to make human beings really human beings.

That's the real truth and it comes completely out of him. It's not based on me. That's just radical, radical stuff, OK? So we see the world through gospel glasses.

So here's some gospel glasses, Pretty cool. so gospel worldview and our reasons for hope. All right, now, let's, let's go back to our, our picture. I told you we'd get here.

Which one best represents reality? The one on the left or the one on the right? Let's take a vote. OK, we, we just gonna sit there and I'm, I'm not gonna say anything.

How many people think the image on the right is the best representation of reality? Raise your hand. Really? Wow.

OK. How many people think the image on the left is the best representation of reality? OK, this is interesting. I've got the same people raising their hands for both images which I'm sure has some, that probably has some very intense philosophical or theological backing to it, yes.

actually, this, what, what, the point I want to make here is not really about gospel glasses. It's about being human. Which, as a human, if, if I were to walk into a room of let's say 1000 college students, and I put this one up and I said, which one best represents reality, right or left, what are they gonna say? OK.

They are not both reality of who's. I'm just gonna be a mean teacher, cause I'm, I'm running out of time. When I get, when I get, when I start running out of time, I get mean. I, I stopped this, this Socratic thing.

Alvin. OK, that's a good point. That's a good point. it's actually not, the, the one on the right is not very well focused on either one of them, but yeah, that's a good point.

What are you trying to see? might have something to do with it, yes. Both reality. perception Can Themselves nearest Themselves.

OK, yes. OK, that's a really good point. The problem is you, you guys, you guys are getting great answers, but you're being way too good about this. You guys, you, you guys know way more than, than I'm trying to deal with.

if I walked into a class, a classroom of 1000 students, I said which one better represents reality? They're going to say the one on the left. Why are they going to say that? Because there is a reality out there.

Wake up and smell the coffee. Yeah, there is a reality out there. It, there just is because what is a worldview trying to do? A worldview is trying to be an explanation of everything.

All of Reality Worldviews don't create reality. Worldviews must comport with reality. They must explain all of reality and reality is out there. It is a blunt.

Facts. when I was talking to my high school, I cite my high school students, everybody's a relativist. and the only place rela relativism does not, the, the jackals in the philosophy department. They will eat that alive.

Philosophers love to eat relativists. Because it, it doesn't, it, it's, it can't explain all of reality because you can't live according to it. No one lives according to relativism. it, it doesn't, you can't explain all of reality relativistically.

Reality is out there. Right? It's not just a matter of your perspective on it. It's out there.

if I'm seeing a mirage, my perspective, I see a mirage, that mirage is not there. I'm sorry, it's not reality. I don't care about your perspective. We good with that?

Yeah, it, it best comports with reality. Not relatively speaking, OK? Not relatively speaking. Now in a sense, relatively speaking, we could say this one represents reality better than that one.

This one doesn't fully represent reality, but it represents reality better than that. But that assumes that there's a reality with which you are trying to see accurately. Right? That is the human adventure we are on.

We are on this adventure to understand reality as it actually is. At least I hope we are. And so are people who are relativists. They don't live consistently with that belief.

it's, it's a worldview that leaves things. Nancy Percy talks about worldviews are building boxes in which you live. Right? I'm gonna live in a box that explains reality and relativism, which is, which can come from a number of different worldviews, but relativism leaves a lot of things hanging outside the box.

There are things that you don't, you can't get in the box and explain with relativism and one of those things is the raw fact of reality. Right? And I don't want people to get, let anybody get away with that, right? There is reality out there.

In fact, I'm gonna make the 0.0 dear, now I'm really in trouble. Let's look at God's word and see what God's word says about reality. Does God think there's a reality? Does the word of God say there's a reality?

I'm gonna go to another one of my favorite scriptures, OK. Oh, the other thing I want to mention too is that there are a limited number when you put on glasses. There really are a very limited number of things out of which you can make your glasses. It's limited.

Right? There's a limited stuff that the basic junk of a worldview. Right? Philosophers call this metaphysics.

There's a limited set of stuff out of which you can make your worldview. Right. Limited set of glasses. Now you can smudge those glasses up in different ways.

But the material remains the same. And so one of the questions you really have to get in in this is get people down to the ground floor. Of what is the stuff out of which their glasses are made. Is the stuff their glasses have made purely physical?

Is it materialistic? Is it purely mind? what are their glasses made out of? And there is a limit to that.

There is a limit to that and the wrong material in your glasses causes problems and Paul talks about that in Romans, right? If you have the wrong material on, gospel glasses are cool. Now gospel glasses get smudged too. It's because they'll get, people get really cocky.

I go, I got gospel glasses. I know better than the heathen. Historians, I can. Gospel glasses don't work that way, right?

Right? Just by the way you're talking, right? I know your gospel glasses have a smudge on them. That's messing up the way you're seeing things, right?

Just by your attitude, right, about this whole thing, that you got a smudge. Hope, hope I'm not getting in trouble here, but, but our gospel, because you have gospel, gospel glasses are cool. They're the glasses I wanna have because they're, because gospel glasses are my hope. I mess up all the time.

I see things incorrectly all the time. The only way, the only hope I have of getting, of seeing things truly are the, are my gospel glasses because my gospel glasses give me the absolute freedom to say I am wrong. I am badly wrong. Right?

Right? I am badly wrong. The gospel glasses allow you to let go. Christians are the most free people in the universe, well, on the earth.

Most free people anywhere. We're free, we're free to be wrong. Being free to be wrong is an amazing thing. It really makes your glasses really clear.

That, that ability to be wrong. If you, if, if you're not able to be wrong, you've got a really bad smudge on your glasses. And they might not really be, they might not really be gospel glasses either. You may, you may have picked up some other material that you did not really knowing it.

gospel glasses allow you to say you're wrong, which is really cool. I used to have my, when I was a teacher, I used to have my students chant. No, no kidding, chant, I could be wrong. over and over again.

I could be wrong. I could be wrong. I, I said tell him, he says the only way you're able to find truth, capital T truth. you got to be willing to say you're wrong.

Somebody's wrong, and there's all kinds of beliefs out there. Somebody's wrong. And if you don't take the position that could be me, you're never gonna find truth. You have to, you have to believe that you could be, you could be wrong.

So let's see what scripture says and we're gonna hit one of my favorite passages. I go to this passage all the time because it kicks me in the teeth. Sorry about that, every time I read it. It's a killer passage.

We're gonna go to Romans. And, so we're gonna, we're going to start in verse. 16. I love this, right?

This is often quoted passage. I'm just gonna read through, I must, because I'm running out of time, I'm gonna read through the whole passage. for I am not ashamed. Of the gospel, yes.

For why? He says 4 because it is what? The power of God for salvation. Everybody's looking for salvation.

Everybody's looking for how they can become, everybody knows they're not a real human being, right? Everybody knows that and they're, they, and they want to be that, that's what they want to have happen, they're searching for something. The gospel is the power for salvation to everyone who believes the Jew first and also to the Greek. So it's not some secret thing that only a few people can have.

It's available to to everyone for in, for in it, I want you this is putting on gospel glasses, right? The power of God. I am now saved. Right?

I'm not saying I had gospel glasses on. OK. That's what I'm gonna ask you is what do, what do gospel glasses allow you to see? For in it.

It is what? The gospel, for in it, when you got gospel glasses on, when you're in it, I told you that I, I was gonna beat this guy, this glasses thing to death. It doesn't really, everybody's going, this doesn't really capture what it really means to believe it, to really believe. Why is he using this stupid, this stupid thing?

Cause it, it's, it's, it's helpful I think. Anyway, so I got my gospel glasses on. And it said for in it. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written.

But the righteous shall live by faith. I put on gospel glasses, what do I now see? What's revealed What do I see? I go wow.

When, when you, when you first believe, when you first put on gospel glasses, think back to that time. For some of us, it was a long time ago. You first put on gospel glasses. What did you see?

I saw reality, but in this verse, Paul's describing a part of reality that you see that's amazing when you have gospel glasses on. Didn't see anything? Yes To the You see the real God. You see a God who's absolutely just.

Absolutely loving, absolutely. The words here are righteous, no messing around. No relativism, it's a matter of perspective and stuff at all, right? He is who he is and when I put on gospel glasses, I can see him and I, because I don't have to hide, I don't have to hide from any aspect of him, any aspect of God's holiness, his beauty, anything is now mine because now what do I have?

He gives me that same righteousness to be with him. Oh my gosh, this is great stuff. And now I can live with him and trust him. I can walk side by side with God and trust him by faith.

Gospel glasses allow me to see the real, true God and to live with him. Right, let's go on because it gets scary. Here, in verse 18, What does God say about other lenses. So that's what gospel lenses do.

What do other lenses do? I've beaten this thing to death anyway, for the wrath of God has revealed from heaven against all ungodliness in unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. OK, verse 19, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God has made it evident to them. What's the problem with other lenses?

Yeah, the material out of which they are made. Right. What they are, what the, the actual material out of which they are made. Right.

Cannot see what? Yeah, it can't see reality, can't, it can't see truth, it cannot see truth reality, and it suppresses truth. Because the and what truth does it suppress? Truths that are too painful to, to, I would, I, I would say for me when I became a Christian, I had a, I had to face truths about myself and I still, it's still part of the gospel.

The gospel still causes me to face truths about myself that I do not want to face. When my glasses get smudged, the gospel comes and says, Bill, I probably should introduce myself at the beginning, shouldn't I? Anyway, he says, Bill, You have the freedom to face that thing, you don't have to suppress it. Because I'm with you regardless.

Let me clean your glasses. Gospel cleaning. I don't have to do anything. It's free.

Wow, it's like, it's like, it's like Costco. Flee OK, Nobody's laughing. Nobody's laughing at my job. At Costco, they give out the free stuff to clean your glasses and get the bottle and OK, never mind.

OK, bad joke. Where am I at? Verse 20 right? OK, verse 20 for, for since the creation of the world, Now the other thing about this is, is God expects, does God expect people to see reality?

Yeah, he does. Right? God expects people to see reality. That's why this matter of perspective stuff is not cool.

My kids and my kids all the time were into that stuff, man. High school kids, they like breathe that stuff. I don't know where they get it. I know where they get it, but anyway, it's, it is what the God expects you to face reality.

He says I've created a reality. It's real. Face up to it but wrong glasses, you can't face up to it. Mm, because God, is evident within them for God made it evident to them.

God created us, right? There's, there's something about us that only the gospel can explain. And it's evident to us. Remember before you're a Christian, the Holy Spirit began to work in you, what you begin to realize?

There was some really bad stuff going on inside of you, right? It became even before I was a Christian, I can remember doing things that were Really evil. Really evil. And I always had in the back of my mind this idea that I know this is wrong.

Yeah, I know this is wrong. and, and, and most people tell you that, that it's just a, that the reality is that, that young kids have some sense of God, generally, of some God, some thing beyond them that, that makes sense out of what's happening. I did. I grew up, I grew up in a family, we never talked about God and my family, we never, but as a kid I had a sense of it.

I, there was, where did I get that? God made it Evident to me that there was a way to know right and wrong. Anyway, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his internal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so they are without excuse. So there's, there's an inward reality and a Outward reality, inward, outward, and there's, I'm just gonna tell you, this is one of the great things about, about, about the gospel is there is nothing else in the world other than the gospel that allows you to make sense out of both of those realities.

Every other worldview will leave something hanging outside the box, inward or outward. If you're an empiricist, if you believe the material world is all that there is, and your senses are the only way to have access to it, you cannot explain you. And I, and quite honestly, our job is to help people face that truth, to help them face reality, the reality that God wants them to know. God wants them to know, hey.

You don't have to hide from that reality. you don't have to hide from it. OK, 21, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God. Or give thanks, there's a lot in there, we're gonna not deal with that, but they became foolish in their speculations and their foolish heart was Darkened, their glasses are made out of the wrong stuff and they're now getting what?

They're getting all messed up, right? Now I'm gonna skip down to what eventually happens. verse 25, and they exchanged the truth, they exchanged knowledge of reality for what? A lie.

I'm gonna exchange reality for a lie. truth is from my perspective, that's a lie. It's a really ridiculous lie. Right, And they worshiped and served what?

The creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever and that creature, really what it's dealing with is, is created things. What they do is they take some part of reality and they make it what? Ultimate reality. Right, it's like the elephant.

Right? Without gospel glasses, You can't see the whole elephant. And so you're gonna take part of reality, the foot. And you're gonna make it.

All of reality. If you're a materialist, is there, is there, is, is, is the universe made of material stuff? Yes, it's part of God's creation. You're going to take part of the creation and make it.

Everything You're going to make it your Idol, we often think of idols as people often in the jungles have idols. Idols are way more complex than that, idols are anything that you worship other than God. idols are what you think is ultimate reality. Is that making sense?

It's like everybody, everybody has, there's idols all over the place, OK? Gospel reality. the only way to know God, the ultimate reality is through the gospel, know the real God. Without the gospel, we will suppress the truth of who God is and we will not be thankful.

The gospel is the gate to the narrow path of true life and it is the path itself. I'd like to say more about that, but that's a different metaphor. I got to see with the glasses, so. Idolatry, what is idolatry?

Idolatry is taking part of the created reality, God's good gift, and making it what? Ultimate reality, like the elephant. That's idolatry. Taking part of reality and making it ultimate reality.

So anybody who's taking something in In this and putting it ahead of God. Right, is an idolater. Idolatry, and idolatry is very sophisticated. I won't take too much time with that.

OK, worldview glass is made of the wrong material and if you remember I said that ultimate reality must be the god of the biblical gospel. It is the only reality that makes sense of the world and let me just skip ahead. well, we'll talk about metaphysics. Metaphysics is what you believe is ultimate reality.

Just a very simple, big word, epistemology, big word. Mike has used that word several times. That's how what, that's the way. metaphysics is what you believe is ultimate reality, what is the ultimate thing out there?

and for us, what is ultimate reality? The gospel, right? And the gospel really allows us to see ultimate reality, which is the God that we see revealed in scripture, right? It's not to see God, it's to see the real God and that real God is revealed in scripture.

There are things that God expects us to know from seeing his creation. But you can't learn, I think Mike said this several times, you really cannot learn everything about God from creation. It's pretty hard to get the gospel out of creation. That's, that's revealed by him.

Yeah. OK. Now, I said before that there are limited things out of which reality can be made. And I'm gonna hit this real, real quickly.

you can have, a creator God and, or some other stuff. Those are two basic choices. Either there's a God out there who's ultimate reality or something else is ultimate reality. What are your choices for what the other reality can be?

It can be mental. Or spiritual, sometimes you can put, I probably have a third category that it says spiritual. The force be with you, right? it can be mental, spiritual, or physical is ultimate reality.

What do those all lead to? They all lead to a form of idolatry. If you begin with that as your glasses, if your glasses are material, if your glasses are only mind. or your glasses or, or get some, some idea of spiritual.

you're going to create what you're going to create. Idols, and you're gonna do that. On the other side, you can say the world is created and by the way there's lots of people who believe the world was created. It's not an unusual position out there.

A lot of people believe the world is created. And there, there are two, but, but there's still a problem here. One is, God is relational, and the only way God is relational is through the what? The gospel Right.

the gospel says that God is relational throughout all eternity. And, God, God sacrificed his Son, it's about relation. The gospel, the gospel is just, is just killer. when I, when I, when I first became a Christian, I understand a few things and every time I, I get a little bit more, it's just like this explains so much, right?

Or you can have a non-relational God, that means no gospel, no gospel, you're going to have some form of idol. And that idol will not be able to explain all of reality. The God of scripture, the God of the gospel, the God revealed in the Bible can explain all reality. Now, what does this mean for sharing our hope?

I'm gonna skip over this stuff and I'm gonna say, here, here's this, I stole this from Nancy Percy and I'm gonna hit it real quick and then I'm gonna get done because I'm already right on time. I'm gonna go maybe 1 or 2 more minutes. What do you want to do? When you're talking to someone, you're sharing your hope.

One way of doing that is to find out what their idol is. Find out what their idols. What do they think ultimate reality is? Just ask some questions, find out what their, what their idols are.

2, identify the idol's reduction. What are the things the idol can't explain and usually they make human beings something other than what they are. By the way, I'm, I'll, I'll, I'm gonna email this. This, this whole PowerPoint to you if you're taking pictures of it and stuff or trying to write it all down, I'll email the whole thing to you, along with the information about Nancy Percy's book and some other books that are really cool.

But identify, identify the reductionism, how does it reduce people to be less than human, then you can test the idol. Does it contradict what we know about the world or the reality? And it will, it will contradict reality at some point. There really is a reality out there and you gotta get people to face up to that.

Where does it contradict reality? And then you can test the, the idol, does it contradict itself? Most idols will eventually contradict themselves. When somebody says, all truth is relative.

It's self-destructive. Philosophers love to, to point that out. It's self-destructive, it eats, I don't even have to mess with you because you just ate yourself. Right?

Your statement eats your statement. This is even hard, right? so the, the, a lot of idols will be self-contradictory in some way. Either won't match reality or a lot of them are self-contradictory.

You just got to find where they're self-contradictory because they usually eat themselves in some way. Very typical. And then you can replace the idol with the hope of the gospel, right? You want to explain.

Now if you want to see this done, say what does this look like practically? I was gonna do this in class but, I'll talk about the apostle Paul. A really good example of this, one of my favorite sections of scripture. I read this all, I don't read as much now as I did when I was in college.

When I was in college, I read this passage all the time. Because what it is you got Paul going to people with different idols, right? You've got Paul going to the, the Jews, all right, who have a non-relational God and their idol is what? The law Right?

And Paul preaches to them to basically show them, how this doesn't match reality and how this contradicts itself. You can't keep, he just basically, he hammers away at people who have that idol. He just hammers away at the idol and explains how the gospel deals with that. Then he goes over to Greece and he starts talking to Greek philosophers.

remember I told you, there's two things. He's talking to the Epicureans, for them, their idol, all reality is mental and for Stoics, their reality is only physical. It's, it's, it's just stuff, right? so there are many idols that come out of this, right?

Wrong glasses it creates a lot of idols. Look at how Paul deals with them and you'll see it. How does he start off? He says I perceive that you are very religious.

I've been walking around your town and I see all these idols. And by the way, Paul is, is really, torn up by their idols. He's, he's emotionally, because when you, when you really start thinking about the gospel and what it allows you to see and be You really want to go out and start doing what? Smashing people's idols.

You see the hurt and the pain which those idols are crea are, are creating and you want to do what Paul does. You want to go out there and start exposing people's idols and sharing with them the power to know reality which is the gospel. So I'm gonna end with a really cool picture, and I'm not gonna end with Star Trek. that's a really good clip by the way, I'm not gonna show it though but I'll send it with the video.

take the hope of the gospel worldview to the marketplace. This is a bunch of philosophers, mental philosophers, all these philosophers are, are, are, are making their glasses out of very similar stuff. There's not a lot of things to make your glasses out of. Right?

And then, but once you put them on, what you create are idols. So let's go into the world. With compassion And help people smash their idols. And understand the power of the gospel.

OK, let me go ahead and pray. Lord, thank you so much for the gospel, that you have allowed us to see the world as it actually is, that you allow us to know you, which is really what it's all about. Jesus says that the, the scriptures, point to him, and I thank you that you've helped us to see that and you've brought us to yourself. Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.