October 21, 2007 Sermon

Truth
I Timothy 1:1-11

Defend truth boldly, but humbly.

Our culture has fragmented. American society has no core of shared beliefs or philosophy. We have embraced the idea that each person can create his or her own truth. Oprah tells us it’s okay. The Princeton Center for Ethical Studies tells us it’s okay. It feels fair. It seems nice. I will not challenge your truth if you will not challenge mine. We all need to learn somehow how to get along without fighting. Right?

Wrong. Defend truth boldly, but humbly. Last week the New York Times reported that staff at the King Middle School in Portland, Maine, has considered dispensing birth control pills to students. The staff sees this as an expansion of a program that has handed out condoms to boys at the school since 2000. Let me count the problems with this proposal:

1. These students range in age from eleven to fifteen. While some of their bodies have matured enough, not one of them can possibly have the necessary emotional or spiritual maturity to become sexually active. Not one. Why support them doing so anyway?
2. Birth control pills require a doctor’s prescription, yet the school proposes to hand them out without one. A pharmacy that tried this would get shut down immediately—and it would deserve it.
3. The schools in Portland are taking yet another piece of the responsibility that belongs to parents. The fact that some parents cannot or will not do their jobs does not justify chipping away at all parents’ authority and accountability.
4. Taking away the consequences of stupid actions also takes away part of the fear that keeps us from trying them. I do NOT mean that girls who get pregnant deserve it. I do mean that when the thing that can get you pregnant loses its power to do so, more people will engage in that behavior. And that is an awful thing to contemplate amongst young teens.

But my most fundamental objection to this proposal comes straight from my truth, which is not, strictly speaking, my truth but God’s. According to God’s word, the Bible, sexual activity must occur only in a marriage between a man and a woman. In America today we have almost lost our ability to speak that truth out loud. Defend truth boldly, but humbly.

We just read important verses from the Bible. They urge church leaders to teach the truth. From the very start Christianity had to battle with competing truth claims. In New Testament times two opposing world views were especially threatening: legalistic Judaism, and pagan religions that often encouraged wild sexual practices. Our passage refers to both of these threats. Since legalism and loose living still threaten the truth of the Gospel we can profit from studying this word from the Lord.

I Timothy 1:8 tells us that “the law is good if one uses it legitimately.” This refers to the Jewish Law from the Old Testament. The Apostle Paul loved the law of God and tried to follow it. He believed God meant it as a guide for right behavior, and as a way to prove that we sinners cannot obey all of the law all the time. Does that make this law a cruel joke played by God on weak humanity? No! It makes the law an uncompromising standard by which to measure ourselves. Keeping the law cannot earn us God’s love because we cannot keep it. Yet even when we fail to keep the law, God saves us when we turn to Jesus Christ in faith.

But legalists try to force all people to obey God’s law. Often they add an unbiblical warning: if we fail to obey the law, we are damned. Usually these legalists do not mean to communicate this last, false message. Usually they do, anyway. Well-meaning, deeply committed Christians have told me that unless I tithe, unless I give the church at least one-tenth of all my income, God will send me to hell. Legalistic Christians have told me similar things about how and when I got baptized, whether I believe in a literal six-day creation of the universe, and the fact that our denomination ordains women to become pastors, elders and deacons.

Legalists lack mercy and grace. Thank God that God does not suffer a similar lack. The words of I Timothy make it clear that while we must do our best to obey God’s laws, God saves us precisely and only because we believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior: “The aim of (God’s law) is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith.” Praise God that our purpose is love, not obedience; faith, not fear.

Loose living and legalism threaten us just as surely today as they did the early Christians of New Testament times. We must therefore guard the truth of the Gospel. We must preserve it against competing claims to truth. We must defend The Truth boldly. At times it seems that if we Christians must choose between nice and right, we prefer nice. We go to movies that mock our faith. We pay good money and then just sit there and take it instead of walking out of the theater. In this age of the Internet we have no excuse for not knowing whether a movie will offend our faith. The same goes for television shows, video games, and Internet content. We could stop watching things that intentionally take aim at Christianity. We could stop patronizing advertisers who support them. But mostly we just take it.

Defend truth boldly, but humbly. Stand for your faith. We need not become strident or argumentative. We need only refuse to go along. We need only to spend our money and our time on things that support our faith. A quietly assertive letter to an advertiser that says, “I will not buy your product until you stop promoting (fill in the blank with the outrage against the faith in question),” will do wonders. Shouting at people will not. Threatening people with hell will not. Oh, a few fence-sitters might come back into the fold, but the unchristian world out there (and even our part of the world has become largely unchristian) will only laugh or shout back. Take care how you stand for your faith.

Defend truth boldly, but humbly. Live your faith as best you can. Try to keep God’s law. Do it because it is the way God wants you to live. Do it because a sincere attempt has great credibility in the eyes of any unchristians who may be watching. Just make sure you don’t try to keep the law for either of the two worst reasons for doing it: so you can convince yourself you’re better than those poor slobs who aren’t even trying, and so you can try to earn God’s love. Both of those strategies fail every time.

Defend the truth of the Gospel. Learn it first, so you can defend the correct version of truth. Read your Bible. Come to Sunday School and Bible study. Live the truth as best you can. Refuse to go along with the parts of our culture that mock the truth of the Gospel. Speak when invited, witnessing to what God is doing in your life. But do all these things with the profound humility that comes from being truthful with yourself. Admit your sin; beg forgiveness; forgive others.

I spoke to a sports team not too long ago. The week before the pastor of another area church took his turn. He cracked jokes and told stories. He spoke with passion and energy. The boys on the team listened to his every word. But he said nothing memorable or true about faith. His main point was that he had spoken to that team eight times over the years and they had never lost a game after his talks. He kept warning them that they had better not ruin his record. Later that night, they lost. But he had already lost—lost his chance to communicate at least some piece of the truth to an audience that contained a number of unchristians.

Only God knows whether I did any better when I stood before that team. But I tried to speak the truth and I based my talk in my faith in Jesus as my Lord and Savior. My topic? Lying. Do not lie to yourself and do not lie to the unchristian world out there. We serve a loving God who saves us when we believe in His Son, our Savior. We must defend this truth against every assault our culture levels against it. We must defend it with humility, yet with courage. Defend The truth boldly, humbly.