4/22/07 The Lighthouse of God

We are going to stay away from our study of John for one more week

because I want to take this morning

to talk with you a little bit

about some cultural issues

and the way they affect us as Christians.

We live in a unique time in the flow of history.

On one side,

we have more information,

more resources,

more available content about Christ and His life

than at any other time ever.

We have written resources, some of which go back to the very beginning,

back to those who were there when the events happened.

And then we have a great ocean of additional materials

written by countless men and women

throughout the past two thousand years.

And those of us who live in the U.S.

have absolute and unrestricted freedom

to access it all.

And yet, even with all of this material available,

and all of this heritage behind us,

we are in the truest sense of the word a pagan culture.

By that I mean that,

though there are still many within our culture

who have had some level of second-hand exposure to Biblical knowledge

gained through past church experiences or through radio or TV programs,

the truth is that most people

have no personal, first-hand Biblical knowledge whatsoever.

Of those of us who are here this morning,

there are some who have a tremendous wealth of personal knowledge from Scripture,

built up over years of careful interaction with it.

But there are also a number of you who have very little if any first hand knowledge

beyond tiny, unrelated and nearly always out-of-context bits

handed to you by our media, entertainment, and religious industries.

Remarkable as it may seem,

given the fact that we still pretend we are a “Christian” culture

with a strong “Christian” heritage,

most people in our culture today

have virtually no accurate, first-hand knowledge of the Bible.

Part of this ignorance is the result of the near total exclusion of Biblical references

from our public communication with one another in recent years.

It’s simply not proper.

But there is another, far more significant reason for what has happened,

a reason that is now so deeply entrenched into the mainstream of modern society

that it will sound strange to many of you that I even question it.

During the past 40 years

we have transitioned into a postmodern society,

a society in which our understanding of truth, morality, freedom, and right and wrong

are radically different than ever before in history.

And I know that what I just said,

and in fact what I’ve been saying for the past few minutes

has caused some of you to mentally glaze over.

You’ve already decided that I’m wandering into some sort of obscure academic gobbledegook,

and it’s clearly nothing that’s going to help you get through the next few days of your life.

But before you tune me out totally,

let me see if I can hang onto your mind long enough

to show you why this matters.

You see, some of you here this morning

are wrestling with some huge issues in your life,

questions that will have profound consequences literally for the rest of your life.

You’ve been trying to find what seems like the best solution,

but you simply don’t know which choice,

which direction is best.

And underlying all of the churning going on within you about the decision itself,

there is something else that troubles you even more,

something else that you haven’t even put into words to yourself,

something that you don’t know how to put into words

because to do so would sound ridiculous.

You see, underlying all of the confusion surrounding the decision itself,

is a sort of deep emptiness,

a feeling of hopelessness that’s grown out of the belief

that the only resource you have in this whole thing is yourself.

Several weeks ago I received an out-of-state phone call from a young man

who was wrestling with a difficult decision about his future.

I know him well.

He’s a deeply committed Christian,

and he very much wanted to know and do what was right.

He’d asked a number of his friends what they thought he should do

and he said that they all just told him he should “do whatever the Lord led him to do”.

But the truth was

he didn’t know.

One day one direction “felt” right,

and the next day exactly the opposite direction “felt” right.

And in desperation he called me

thinking that maybe somebody really, really old could help him make some sense out of it all.

Well, OK, he didn’t say anything about my being really, really old,

but I’m sure it must have figured into his thinking somewhere.

We talked through it for some time,

and in the end he did in fact find the answer he was looking for.

But as I looked back on that conversation

I saw so clearly

the cruelty in what my generation has done to his.

In the name of “freedom”

we have created a world in which there is no hope

because there is nothing solid,

nothing certain,

nothing upon which we can build our lives without fear or anxiety.

And it’s not just outside of the Church that we’ve done this.

In a remarkable way

the same basic flawed philosophy has infiltrated Christian thinking as well.

Let me offer a simple illustration

that may help better explain

what has happened in our culture.

Prior to the arrival of so much of the modern navigational equipment that we have today

one of the critical tools

that enabled ships to make it successfully into port

were the lighthouses along the coast.

Strategically placed along the coast line,

at night or during stormy weather

these simple structures provided those out at sea

with an absolute and certain point of light that,

if they followed it,

would bring them safely home.

If, during a storm at night, you would have been on board a ship that was trying to make it to port,

and as the captain fixed his eyes on that point of light in the distance,

and then did his best to navigate directly for it,

if you would have said to him,

“That’s certainly a narrow-minded way of approaching navigation!

What you really need is the freedom to choose your own way,

the freedom to just go with the flow of the energy around you.”,

he would have correctly looked at you as if you were insane.

And yet, during the past forty years,

in the name of freedom, and respect, and personal rights,

we have handed the next generation

a coastline along which we have smashed and dismantled all of the lighthouses.

We have subtly but powerfully redefined the most crucial

and most basic concepts of our existence,

and in the process

we have destroyed all of the secure foundations of our lives.

I mentioned a few minutes ago

that some of you are wrestling with difficult questions in your life right now,

and that your battle is greatly intensified

because underlying that battle is a huge sense of hopelessness.

Do you know why that’s there?

It’s not because your society has not given you the freedom to chose,

because it has done that to the extreme.

It’s because our society has told you

that there really are no absolutes in life.

There really are no right or wrong choices.

There is no such thing as absolute truth,

there’s only what’s true for you.

There is no lighthouse,

no certain way home,

no foundation upon which you know you can build your life without fear.

I came across an article written by Josh McDowell recently

in which he took a number of words

and showed how they have been redefined within our society in the past 30 years.

In that article he said that

thirty years ago the word “truth” meant an absolute standard of right and wrong.

Today “truth” is whatever is right for you personally.

In the past “freedom” meant being free to do what you knew you ought to do.

Now “freedom” means being able to do anything you want to do.

In the past “tolerance” meant accepting others without agreeing with or sharing their beliefs or lifestyle choices.

Now “tolerance” means accepting that each individual’s beliefs, values, and lifestyle choices are equally correct and valid.

And exactly the same fundamental shift

has reshaped our thinking as Christians as well.

Do you remember that friend of mine who called me a few weeks back,

trying to figure out what he should do?

Do you remember the answers he’d received from so many others?

“Just do whatever the Lord leads you to do!”

Do you know what that is?

That’s a Christianized version of the basic philosophy of our society as a whole.

There really are no absolutes,

no certain points of right and wrong.

In the end it just comes down to you doing whatever the Lord “leads” you to do.

And, wouldn’t you know it!

Given the life philosophy handed to us by our culture,

most of the time

what the Lord “leads” the person to do

is whatever they happen to feel like doing at the moment.

I’ve had people tell me the most amazing things.

I’ve had people tell me

how the Lord led them

into all sorts of behaviors

and actions

and relationships

and choices that were clearly immoral by Biblical standards.

And the amazing thing

is that they obviously believed

it really was God who led them into it

and they simply couldn’t understand why things hadn’t turned out beautifully.

A number of years ago

I was indirectly in contact with a Christian man

who was absolutely convinced that “the Lord had led him”

to murder two men because they were involved in activities that he found offensive.

I believe he’s still in prison,

and probably still wondering why God didn’t rush to his defense

and vindicate him for his actions.

Sandee and I were talking a few days ago

about how little the reality of Jesus Christ actually affects our lives as Christians

and she said it’s just like we’re living atheistic Christian lives.

And she’s right.

The accepted mind-set of the culture in which we live

has so profoundly impacted all of us

that we must now consciously choose to reshape our thinking on a daily basis

or we end up living the same hopeless, confused lives as everyone else.

When that friend of mine called asking for advice a few weeks ago,

do you know what I did for him?

All I did was to share with him

a clear, simple principle from Scripture

that applied directly to his situation.

All I did

was to light the lamp in the lighthouse,

and as soon as he saw it

his spirit was at peace.

And I’ve spent so much time on this today for several reasons.

First, I think it’s crucial for our survival

that we understand the culture in which we live,

and especially the lies imbedded in that culture

that make if difficult both for us to hear the truth

and for us to communicate it to others.

We are immersed in a society in which there are no absolutes of any kind,

and to suggest that there are

is to speak words that sound absurd.

But second, I mention all of this

because it is this same lie

that can provide us with one of the greatest doorways into the lives of others we will have.

You see, this lie, just like all lies,

creates within those who believe it

huge unmet hungers.

In the case of our culture,

the belief that there are no absolutes,

rather than creating a joyful sense of freedom,

ends up creating a kind of hopelessness within our souls,

the same sort of hopelessness

that those on a stormy sea at night felt

when they suddenly saw the lamp in the lighthouse go out.

And as much as we have been bombarded

with the message that to accept the idea that there really is absolute right and wrong

is to forfeit our freedom in life,

in reality exactly the opposite is true.

Freedom does not and cannot come from wandering aimlessly through life,

with nothing more than our own fluctuating feeling to guide us.

Freedom comes from knowing the path that will take us where we want to go,

and then having the strength and the courage to follow that path

no matter what obstacles we may encounter.

And I will be the first to admit

that the church world that I’ve been a part of

has done a terrible job of correctly and clearly communicating that truth.

As I’ve already mentioned,

all too often all the religious world has offered our generation

is a Christianized form of the same philosophy the dominates the rest of society.

Instead of taking the secular stance of just being true to yourself

and trusting your own instincts,

and doing whatever seems right to you personally,

we Christians do “whatever the Lord leads us to do”.

On the surface it appears to have the element of submission to the absolute authority of the Lord,

but in reality “the Lord’s leading”

ends up being little more than our own feelings and emotions

along with an out-of-context passage or two from Scripture

that seem to support what our feelings are telling us.

So then where is our solid footing?

And what is it that our God really offers us?

Well, let me see if I can pull all of this together in just a few statements.

1. There is absolute truth,

truth that is true for all people, all cultures, all times.

2. God has revealed that truth to us through the Written Word of God.

3. Even though those truths are presented to us

within the culture settings of the times when the documents were written,

the truths themselves are universal.

4. Apart from the written Word of God

it is impossible for us to accurately distinguish between the voice of God,

and the voice of Satan,

and the voice of our flesh in our lives.

5. God’s basic plan for the Christian is remarkable for both it’s simplicity and it’s power in our lives.

And here’s how it works.

First, when we come to Him,

He recreates us at the heart level,

placing within us a longing to live a life that pleases our Lord.

Second, He gives us His Spirit within us

as our own personal Guide and counselor

to show us how life is designed to operate.

Third, through the Written Word

He clearly, simply reveals to us the basic protective moral framework for life.

No matter how strongly we may feel otherwise,

or how many other voices around us seem to counter what He has said,

He will never ever “lead” us into any behavior or action outside of that moral framework.

And if we think He has,

then it simply means we have believed a lie.

Fourth, God’s Spirit then seeks to accomplish two major works within us.

First, He seeks to rebuild our lives in such a way as to bring us into that protective moral framework.

That’s always where He starts

because until that foundation is established within us

there is no solid footing for anything else He wants to build into our lives.

That’s why in the first chapter of his second letter,

when Peter outlines for us

the 7 progressive steps of growth in our Christian lives,

the very first thing he says is,

2PE 1:5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence...

And then, second,

once that foundation is established,

God’s Spirit then guides us through the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute process

of knowing how to apply the basic moral framework

to the countless unique situations, relationships, and changing cultural settings of life.

It is one of the most exciting,

demanding,

remarkable aspects of our daily life with Christ,

a process that will at times lead us into the observance of remarkably strict specific behavioral guidelines

for the sake of the relationships involved,

while at other times leading us into lives that drive our critics crazy

because they see in us lives of absolute moral integrity

yet at the same time lives without any apparent rules.

God’s Spirit literally shows us what it means to effectively love

each person we are with.

Sometimes that means speaking clearly about some specific moral boundary given to us by God,

while at other times it means simply, deeply loving a person right where they are,

saying nothing whatsoever about their actions or conduct.

Once we begin to understand what He’s doing

it will profoundly affect

every aspect of our lives.

But the critical key in this whole remarkable work of God in our lives

is our unwavering trust in the lighthouse.

And let me say it again.

Without the written Word of God

it is impossible for us to tell the difference

between the voice of God,

the voice of Satan,

and the impulses of the flesh.

The truth given to us by our God through His Word

provides us with an advantage in life

that is every bit as huge

as the difference between a ship on stormy seas without a lighthouse

and a ship on stormy seas

with a clear, strong beam of light showing him the way home.

And I do understand

how difficult it is for us to believe

that we really cannot tell the difference

between the voice of God

and the voice of Satan

without the written Word,

but I want you to know

that I am in no way exaggerating when I make that statement.

When I was in my mid twenties

I worked as an interim pastor at a small church outside of Seattle.

During the months I was there

a young man in his late teens ended up rooming with me for a number of weeks.

His parents attended the church,

but the boy had been living away from home

in one of the many Christian communes that sprang up in the early 70's.

When he first came to me

he did little more than sleep,

and eat,

and sit and stare for long periods of time.

But as we built a friendship

he began to share his story with me.

He was a young Christian who was filled with a longing to know more about his Lord.

He had quite a remarkable Bible knowledge for his age,

but he shared with me that, a number of months before I met him,

he began to have vivid visions that, at the time,

he was certain were given to him by God.

This direct spirit communication happened more and more frequently,

and it wasn’t long before it was revealed to him

that he had been chosen to receive a very special gift.

He was granted the ability to see the spirit world.

And he than described for me some of what he had seen.

And though at the time he didn’t think it was strange,

all of the sudden he discovered that he could in fact see spirit beings,

but the only ones he could see were demons.

He described for me

their massive power and majesty,

and his descriptions left me with no doubt whatsoever

that he was being absolutely honest and accurate in what he was sharing with me.

But then he led me through a progressive series of visions he’d received

in which he was shown the tabernacle in the Old Testament

with all the different parts of that Tabernacle and what they meant.

He was shown the outer courtyard where all the people were allowed to enter,

and then holy place within where only the priests were permitted.

And then he was shown the holy of holies in which was the very presence of God Himself,

and the thick veil, the curtain that walled off the presence of God from common people.

And then finally it was revealed to him

that this veil was actually the written Word of God.

He was told that it was the written Word that kept most people from being able to enter into pure spirit communication with God Himself,

but that he had been chosen to go beyond the veil, beyond the written Word,

and to enter into the very presence of God.

Over the course of a number of months

we talked through what had happened to him,

and he came to see the lie clearly,

and to realize that from the very beginning of his visions

it had never been God, it had been Satan.

That’s obviously an extreme case of Satanic deception,

but Satan takes the same basic approach with all of us.

And whenever we find ourselves thinking or saying,

“Well, I know the Bible says...but that doesn’t apply to me now,

or to our culture today,

or in my special situation...”,

we’ve simply bought into the same lie -

that the written Word is walling us off

from the real, deeper truth God’s Spirit has for us.

All of which is to say

that as Christians we can and in fact our health and survival depends upon

our choice to trust that lighthouse.

It is our only clear path to both freedom and safety.