©2006 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

01-22-06

Transcendent Truth Pt. 2

1/22/06 Transcendent Truth Pt. 2

We are going to pick up our study this morning

where we ended it last week.

If you weren’t with us last week

it will be helpful if I offer just a little background on where we’ve been.

We spent our time last week

looking at some of the tremendous changes

that have taken place in our society during the past 40 years,

changes that have created a generational gap

that is far greater

and far different

than just fads,

and clothing,

and music,

and ear rings and hair styles.

The young people of today

see the world through very different eyes than I ever did when I was their age.

There have been cultural changes within our society during the past 40 years,

changes that have profoundly altered the way we as a society think,

the way the younger generation relates to the most basic concepts in life -

the concept of morality,

the concepts of truth,

and spirituality,

and honesty,

and authority,

and God Himself.

I grew up in a world

that recognized and accepted the concept

of an absolute moral standard of conduct.

But the world in which we now live

doesn’t even think in those terms.

Whereas my generation accepted the concept of moral right and wrong

as measured by an external universal standard,

the generation that now exists

does not even accept or acknowledge the existence

of any such universal moral standard.

It isn’t that we as a culture have lowered the standard,

it’s that we as a culture

have utterly rejected the idea of any universal standard even existing.

And here is the critical thing I want us to understand -

it isn’t that the generation of today has seen the standard and rejected it,

it’s that it has never entered their minds

that any such standard exists.

I don’t want to get side-tracked here,

but the most fascinating thing has taken place

in the thinking of our younger generation.

Whereas my generation thought in terms of a universal standard of conduct within society,

a standard that applied to all situations,

all relationships,

the culture of today thinks in terms of air-tight layers of relationships.

There is their peer layer

in which a clearly defined set of rules

define how those relationships are conducted.

Then there is their parent or authority layer

with a completely different set of rules that apply.

Then there is their school or teacher layer,

and their dating layer,

and their church or religion layer,

and with each distinct layer comes another unique set of rules.

Each layer is consistent within itself,

but the rules that operate in one layer

have no relationship with those that govern another layer.

You see,

it isn’t that they are without rules.

In truth, they live with an extremely complex

and highly refined set of rules for each group they have contact with.

But those rules change radically from group to group.

And the thought that there really might be

a universal standard of life rules

that applies to all situations, all relationships

is to them utter absurdity.

But it is also true

that their hunger for their God

and their need for His love

is every bit as real and intense

as it is has ever been within the human spirit.

Nothing any culture does or doesn’t do

can ever alter that.

And the thing that I’ve been wrestling with in myself recently

is trying to understand

how I can most effectively pass on the truth

without the message getting lost in the cultural chasm that exists between us.

I know that the answer is not

for me to simply refine my techniques

in my efforts to communicate that moral absolute mental framework I was raised with.

I’m certainly not saying that I am in any way rejecting those absolutes,

I’m just saying that, if that’s where I begin my communication,

the generation that now exists will simply not get it.

And, in a way I’ve never had to do before,

I’ve found myself sifting through the message I’ve been presenting,

asking myself what really matters,

and what really works,

and what truly communicates the reality of God,

and what is just part of my own cultural perspective.

And then we ended our time together last week

by looking at an event recorded for us in the 15^th chapter of Acts,

an event that possesses remarkable similarities

to the kind of generation gap that now exists within our society.

The first century church

was made up of two distinctly different groups of believers.

There were the Jewish converts,

those who came to Christ with an understanding of God

and of His ways that stretched all the way back to Adam and Eve.

They knew the moral law of God

and all that came with it.

And then there were those who came to Christ from the non-Jewish world,

the “Gentiles”,

most of whom had no exposure whatsoever

to any of the Old Testament teachings.

It wasn’t long before these Gentile believers

began to drive the Jewish believers crazy.

They simply didn’t know and follow the rules as they should.

And, in the 15^th chapter of Acts,

the Apostles all came together

to write a letter to the Gentile converts,

a letter outlining for them the minimum basic performance standards required of them as Christians.

And I told you last week

that the document that came out of that meeting

is, for me, one of the greatest wonders of the early Church,

and also one of the most powerful statements of the true nature of the Christian message

that we’ll ever find.

It read:

“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell." (Acts 15:28-29)

That was it!

Make a clear, clean public break with your old form of idol worship,

abstain from drinking blood and eating things strangled for the sake of your relationships with your fellow Jewish Christians, for they find these things offensive to the extreme,

and abstain from fornication - bring your sexual conduct in line with what our God has revealed to us.

So how about all the other stuff that so many of us

feel so strongly really should be on a list of things that good Christians should do?

Why aren’t they on there?

Well, the answer to that question is imbedded

in a correct understanding of what’s really involved

in the message about Christ

that we are called to communicate from one generation to the next

and from one culture to the next.

And it is this understanding

that has begun to alter my own approach

to what I offer those around me when I seek to present Christ.

That’s where we stopped last week,

and that’s where I want us to pick up our study this morning.

And before I share with you

the approach that I am finding effective in my own life,

let me first point out two goals that will not work.

The first is to attempt to return our nation once again

to the kind of thinking that existed in our society 50 years ago,

returning us as a nation

to the acceptance of and submission to the revealed universal moral standard of God.

Apart from a sovereign, supernatural, national work of God

we will never go back to that again.

We may choose to continue our legal battles

to keep the Ten Commandments posted in our courts and our schools,

but even if we win, it will change nothing.

It’s like fighting for the right to publicly display

the picture of a close friend who has died,

believing that, if we win the right to display his picture,

our friend will then miraculously come back to life.

In our own lives

we both can and should conduct ourselves

within the moral framework given to us by our God,

but we should have no illusions about our being able to reverse what has happened in our society during the past 50 years.

And the second goal we do not want

is to attempt to exactly duplicate ourselves in our children.

If our adult children end up looking exactly like us,

thinking exactly like us,

reproducing our exact social values in every respect,

then something has gone terribly wrong.

I mentioned last week

that we must never forget

that our children are being prepared by God

to communicate Him and His truth

to a world we will never see.

Of necessity

their voice must sound different than ours

because they will be communicating to a different audience.

The basic message does not change - new life, real life through Jesus Christ,

but the social clothing we rap around that message

will change dramatically from generation to generation.

If it does not,

then we will cease to communicate effectively.

And for this to make sense,

let me now go ahead and share with you

the approach I have been finding effective

in my attempts to communicate Christ to this generation.

And let me begin first of all

with just one follow-up statement

to that passage we were looking at in Acts 15 last week.

Do you know why there were so few things included on that list

that the Apostles sent to the Gentile Christians?

It was because they knew how God goes about transforming our lives.

They understood how He changes us,

and they also understood

that there is no list ever written by either God or man

that has the ability to transform our lives.

Either God does it from within,

or it doesn’t get done.

And this is the way it works.

When we come to Him

all we have to offer Him is US - our lives just as they are.

We offer Him our thankfulness for Christ taking on Himself our sin

and for His making the payment in full for those sins.

And we give Him the right

to recreate our lives in any way He chooses.

We are not promising Him that we’ll be good.

We’re not promising him that we’ll try harder.

We’re just giving Him permission

to do whatever He chooses to do inside us.

From there,

He responds by placing within us a new heart,

a new spirit center to our lives.

HEB 8:10 "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people.

HEB 8:11 "And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, And everyone his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' For all will know Me, From the least to the greatest of them.

HEB 8:12 "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And I will remember their sins no more."

Those are not just poetic words,

they are the literal description

of the redemptive work of God that He accomplishes within each of His children.

I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them on their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people.

And when the Apostles wrote that letter to their Gentile brothers and sisters

they knew that God alone brings real, enduring change into our lives.

And if He doesn’t,

any attempt on our part

to paste a religious facade onto either ourselves or others

will accomplish nothing.

And the first century Jewish believers understood

that their responsibility to the non-Jews around them

was simply to point them to God,

to explain what God was offering them through Christ,

and then to see what the life of Christ within them looked like

as Christ began His work from the inside out.

OK, now, let me share with you

what I see as the most effective approach we can take

in our efforts to bring this generation to Christ.

It begins by simply building a friendship with the people God gives us.

And I need to explain that a little bit

so that you understand what I’m trying to say.

I believe very strongly

that God gives each of us certain people.

In a special way

He entrusts them into our care.

I don’t know how He does this,

I just know He does.

Sometimes He does it simply by placing them next to us in some way for an extended period of time.

Sometimes He does it

through giving us the ability to see their pain,

or their fear,

or their need,

or some other inner turmoil going on inside them.

We feel it with them.

Sometimes we will see in them

struggles that we’ve gone through ourselves.

But in a way that only His Spirit can do,

God will place them into our lives

and then place within us a genuine caring for them.

When He does that,

the first thing we need to do

is simply to build the best friendship with them we can build.

We don’t pass judgement on their lives,

we don’t try to “convert” them,

we don’t discuss religion with them,

we just love them.

In my experience

this process takes months and frequently years.

And from here on I will present what I want to share with you

from the perspective of adult to teenager

because that’s what I understand best,

but with small adjustment in approach

I believe the same basic principles work in adult-to-adult relationships as well.

As I build the friendship

and as they begin to trust me enough

so that they let me see more honestly

the struggles going on in their lives,

the only thing I want to do at that point

is to let them know that what they’re really looking for

and what their spirit is really longing for is their God.

And the only way things will ever begin to make sense

is if they choose to place their life into His hands.

I’m not offering them a religious system of any kind.

I’m not trying to get them to change their behavior.

I’m certainly not trying to offer them rules they should follow.

All I want to do is to point them to a very real God

who loves them

and wants just one thing from them - their willingness

to place their life into His hands.

I don’t push.

I don’t preach.

I just keep it as simple,

and as uncomplicated as possible -

God is really there,

He doesn’t want you to try to change anything,

He just wants you to place your life into His hands

and then let Him do with it whatever He chooses.

And then I pray, and I pray, and I pray.

I pray that God’s Spirit will give them ears to hear

and a heart to respond to Him.

From there,

I just keep renewing the same offer

whenever it seems to right.

“I know it probably seems like you have a lot of struggles going on in your life right now,

but to be honest,

there’s really only one big struggle going on inside you -

it’s that struggle between you and your Creator.

All He wants is your life.

If you ever want me to help you figure out how you can place your life into His hands, let me know.”

Now, I know that’s really basic stuff,

but sometimes the hardest part for us

is keeping it as simple as it really is.

We are not here to tell others how they should live their lives.

Our calling is certainly not try to change them.

All we can ever do

is to let them know that God is really there,

and that all He’s asking from them

is their willingness to place their life into His hands.

And then, if they respond to our offer,

if they reach out to their God

and ask us how they can place their life into His hands,

we keep our message to them at that point as clear and as simple as possible.

“Jesus, thank you for dying in my place for my sins.

I want to give you my life,

and I ask that you will make me into just the person you want me to be. Amen.”

And what then?

Then we resist the urge to go religious on them.

Having led them to Christ

we do not then try replace Him

with our own preferred list of things every good Christian should and should not do.

And we wait,

and we watch,

and we see what God begins to do inside them.

And when we see changes taking place within them,

when we see their attitude changing in some area,

when we see in them a sensitivity to sin,

or a new hunger for truth,

or a desire to do right where it never existed before,

we tell them what we see.

“Do you know what that is, my friend?

Do you know what’s happening?

That’s God inside you.

That’s Him doing what He promised He would do -

beginning to change you from the inside out.

It’s part of His freeing and redemptive work in your life,

an act of love on His part

that will continue as long as He chooses to leave you on this planet.”

Oh Dude! It worked!!

And then right here, at this point in the life of a new Christian

there is one crucial piece of doctrine,

one truth about our life with Christ as Christians

that it is essential we communicate to a young Christian.

And the easiest way for me to do this

is simply for me to say to you what I say to them.

“It is clear that God is making changes inside you,

doing just exactly what He said He would do.

What’s happening is happening because He has placed a new heart inside you

and given you His Spirit

Who is beginning to change you from the inside out.

That’s why Paul says, "... it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me...” (GAL 2:20)

But I need to prepare you for something

so that it doesn’t throw you.

Even though you now have a new heart within you,

this new heart has taken up leadership of a mind and emotions

that know nothing about God or His love.

And there are going to be lots of times

when you’re going to find thought patterns,

and emotional responses,

and attitudes and feelings and habits from the past

that war against that new heart of yours.

When you see that happening,

don’t be afraid of it,

don’t think you’re failing somehow in your Christian life.

Just face honestly what’s going on

and then ask God to remake you so that you can bring those things

under the leadership of the new heart within you.”

Let me say it more simply.

“You’ve got a new heart inside of an old body

and your old body isn’t going to like it.”

Now there is one more step in this whole thing

that I want to share with you next week.

It concerns how we can most effectively

pass on moral truth

without passing on a list of moral decrees.

How do we offer moral absolutes

to a generation that doesn’t even think in such terms?

And we’ll get into that next week.

But before we close this morning

I just want to touch on one additional point.

What if we point a person to Christ,

and they appear to place their life into His hands,

and then nothing happens?

I mean, what if there are no evidences

of changes taking place within them?

Well, let me say first of all,

that we need to be looking in the right place.

If we’re expecting God to change those externals that bug us so much,

the way the look,

the way they dress,

the kind of music they like,

the problem is not with them,

it’s with us.

But if there really are no evidences of inner change -

if there is no apparent new hunger for truth,

no personal conviction of sin,

no new desire for right choices,

don’t pretend

and don’t feed them “doctrine” that is inconsistent with reality.

God changes the human heart!

That’s what He does.

No human being has ever entered into a true Father/child relationship with God

without having that relationship profoundly, deeply alter their lives.

We have worked so hard in the religious community

at creating systems

that cover up for what we believe to be God’s failures.

I am a strong believer in the truth

that once we enter the body of Christ

we never leave it.

But I also believe

that our transition into His family

does not always line up with our systems

as neatly as we would like.

And I also believe that there are many in our church world

who have given themselves to the Christian religion,

but who have never placed their lives into the hands of God.

And it is no act of love on our part

to offer them a doctrinal hiding place from their God.

To say to a person who has no evidence of the life of Christ within them,

“Well, you prayed this prayer

so you are a Christian”,

when they know that nothing has really changed within them

is no act of kindness.

In truth

it robs them of the hope that there really is a God

who cares enough to reach into their life and change them.

And I need to be careful

that I’m not misunderstood here.

I am in no way suggesting

that when a person comes to Christ

their life is suddenly, totally transformed.

Our flesh will put up tremendous resistance against Christ’s presence within us,

and many of those battles will continue in some form for the rest of our lives.

But it is also true

that when Jesus Christ enters our life

He will make His presence known,

and if the person has no evidence of His presence

it is far better for us to take them back to the beginning

rather than trying to pretend

that something has changed when it has not.

Next week we’ll finish this whole thing off.