The Voice Of Truth

And then the series we started last week called What About? And how life has a way of promoting great questions. Some of them that we talk about on Sunday mornings, some of them we don't cover all the time. And last week the title of the message was I Doubt It. And we looked at how doubt can come into our life and we think one thing on Sunday morning but life hits us in the face. And then in those moments we start going, I don't know what to think. And we're offered two different options in those moments. One is the bait of Satan. Now we know that doesn't go so well. And then the other is the grace of Jesus. And we have the opportunity of following Jesus' way and what he's saying for us and following him into the scriptures and he'll open our eyes and he'll join us in our doubts or in our questions if we give him an opportunity. And I love the one question or the statement that I think really sealed the deal last week was, it sounds like you're due to have a conversation with Jesus. When you hit those moments, it sounds like you're due to have a conversation with Jesus. And truly that's what this whole series is all about. The title of today's message is this, The Voice of Truth. Some of you have a Casting Crowns song

running through your head. Only the old school Christians are gonna know that one. Tells me a different story, voice of truth. Yeah, that one. Not gonna go any further on that song today. There's a new wicked scheme that fraudsters are using to trick innocent people and it's through AI cloning. I don't know if you've heard of what's going on, but advanced AI tools are being used to listen to the traits of our pitch, our cadence, and our accent to create a near perfect synthetic replica. And scammers are using as little as three to 10 seconds of a person's voice from social media, YouTube, and that means, come to think about it, my voice is out there quite a bit. Who knows what you're hearing. And they will clone a loved one's voice, often a child or a grandchild, call the relatives and claim that they are in urgent trouble such as a car accident, an arrest, or a kidnapping. And they use that frantic emotional feeling in the voice to pressure victims into sending money via untraceable methods like wire transfers or cryptocurrency or gift cards. And they work to steal money in sensitive data. Now, this is terrible and it can happen to anyone and I would dare say it's probably happened to people in our church.

It's happened through emails in the past, even with our staff where somebody reached out in my name supposedly and, hey, I need 10 gift cards, can you send them here? They're like, they wanted to please Pastor Nate and they were gonna go ahead and do it and some fraudster got the money. Now, by the way, there's a tip. Within your family, establish a code word that only your family knows that's not out there anywhere so that you can ask for it in a call. But we must all understand this, that if we're going to understand and discern what is true and what isn't in life, we're gonna have to be aware the enemy wants to AI fraud us. John 10, 10, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Now, these are the words of Jesus and when he speaks of the enemy, he titles him. He calls him a thief and when it comes to truth, the enemy wants to steal whatever you have put your hope and trust in. If it's in the name of Jesus and the word of God, he wants to snatch it out of your life and if we're deceived, we will lose. And worse, Jesus says it's progressive. It starts with stealing and it goes to killing and it destroys everything in your life. All of us have our own filter for how we determine right and wrong. The first filters are parents.

Parents are responsible to teach basic truth, right from wrong. Proverbs 22, six, start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it. This is the responsibility of parents. Let me just remind you, parents, it's not the school's job to train your children on right from wrong. It's not social media, oh Lord, help us. And it's not even necessarily the church's job. It's the parent's job to train them up. So when parents are training up their kids and they're investing in them, they teach them things like no and yes. Sometimes it's more no than yes. But as they learn to discern what right is from wrong, the voice of their parent is in their ear. And then when they're away from the parent and they have a choice to make, they hear the voice of the parent in their head. Let's be truthful, some of you, when you're away from church, you hear my voice inside your head. And so there's a voice attached to truth. There's a voice of trust in that. In our teenage years, peers gain a louder voice. Friendships, and I know what my parents say, but my friends are smarter than my parents. And they begin to listen to other voices.

I want you to not just think of the teenager in your life, I want you to think of your own journey. Who did you listen to and who was more important as you grew older and then by the time you become young adults, we have to figure it out on our own and it's a brutal world. Some of us have gone into academia and in academia, many places have deconstructed truth. The beliefs and they've replaced it with other things. In the modern era, social media algorithms also kind of direct what we should think right from wrong, what we should be outraged by and reels and how now AI has become an influential voice to the degree that people talk to their AI and their AI affirms them back. And now there's a different voice in people's lives. We question everything. We're taught to question everything from politics to wars to entertainment to banks to sports to everything and it's the blind leading the blind sometimes everyone is doing what's right in their own eyes. Our world has abandoned the timeless truth found in the Bible and we lack the peace that truth can bring. There's an ancient prophecy in Isaiah five where God says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, woe to those who are wise

in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. So dangerous. This slide that we've been on as we've moved away from the ancient voice of truth. This is why we need Jesus, come on. This is not a depressing talk today. This is an opportunity. Jesus told them in John 14 six, I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. Jesus says, I am the way, I am the truth. This is where it moves away from a list of rights and wrongs and laws to a person. Jesus says, I am the truth. His way has facts, it has boundaries, it has beliefs but primarily, Jesus is truth. And if we listen to the voice of truth, we won't be lost. Isaiah 30, 21 says, your own ears will hear him. Right behind you, a voice will say, This is the way you should go, whether to the right or to the left. I believe that no matter what about moment you're having regarding truth, Jesus is available to help us. He's available to speak. Some of us have many different questions, like what do we do with our bills? What do I do with my stage of life? What do I do with my family? What do I do with my business?

What do I, how do I handle? What's right from wrong? How do I make a choice? And the promise of the scriptures that Jesus will be behind you going, this is the way, walk in it. Some people grow up and no one taught them the truth. You didn't have parents whispering in your ear. Learn the wrong things, and that's hard. But Jesus stepped into your life, and he has a voice available for you right now. Some people grow up hearing many different truths. All kinds of beliefs. In John 18, Pilate, when Jesus was, before Pilate, before he was crucified, Pilate said, so you're a king? And Jesus responded, you say I'm a king? Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true. What is truth, Pilate asked. And then he went out again to the people and told them he's not guilty of any crime. I love this moment because Pilate, Roman, citizen, soldier, thinks different. The Greco-Roman world was filled with philosophy, filled with different vantage points, had Greek gods, had a whole bunch of things, and here he has all these other truths around him, and in this critical moment that we know

as the moment, the high point of our lives when Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead, right there, Pilate is encountering and asking a real question. What is truth? Perhaps you've asked that question, even though you've been around church people or you've been in different, you're really wondering, honestly, what is truth? And right in front of Pilate is truth. He's right there. Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life. Many people try philosophies and religions in their search, and even for Christians, there are times that we wonder if the Bible, what it's teaching us, is really true. Some of us grow weary in believing or wondering, and the enemy will use lies to get us to question, and he really wants to get in with his AI cloning. And it sends us a different message a different message that sounds kind of good. And then, of course, many of us have our own voice in our head that causes confusion. Why am I so confused? And you hear yourself, for a moment, I want to challenge you to redirect your thoughts from the truth out there in culture and to redirect your thoughts to the truth in here. What's going on with the truth inside of you? What voice is leading you, influencing you right now? Because whatever you listen to will affect your life.

What you listen to enough will become your guiding truth. The words of God are life to your future if you listen to them. In John 8, 31, Jesus said to the people who believed in him, you are truly my disciples if, everybody say if, if you remain faithful to my teachings and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. It's not just the facts that we are to memorize and to learn, it's letting the voice of Jesus' teaching into our lives. It's not acknowledging that it's there, that you can access it, but it's receiving it in to our lives. When we listen or read the word of God and obey what it says, then in verse 32, Jesus said. then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. See, the opportunity is if we lean into Jesus and his truth, that not only can we get answers to our questions, but we can be truly free inside and not worry about the future or whether we're right or wrong, because we are safe and free in Jesus. Can I get an amen to that? Amen. David, talking to God, he said this in Psalm 51, six. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts. You teach me wisdom in the inmost place. You see, truth belongs on the inside, not out there, in here.

And truth requires honesty. When David said this, he had sinned with Bathsheba, and this is a part of a dialogue he's having with God. And he says, surely you desire truth in the innermost parts. What he's saying is, I don't wanna hide anything anymore from you. Truth equals honesty. Truth means I've gotta be connected to you and I'm not gonna fake it. I'm not gonna act like it. I'm gonna let it be in me. I'm gonna drop my guard. This is what confession is in the scriptures. It's dropping your guard and just saying, God, this is where I'm really at. That's truth to God. Now, it may not, you don't wanna remain there if you're in a bad place. You wanna be in a place where God then takes your honesty and he downloads his kingdom mentality, his perspective in your story, but it's gotta be on the inside. And whatever truth you follow is the one you really trust. So whatever truth you're actually following, that's the one you trust. Truth and trust go together. If you're listening to a voice and you like that voice, you are trusting in that voice. The more you listen to it, the more you trust it.

And all of us are at a crossroad in our lives about who we will listen to. In Jeremiah 6, the voice of God says, this is what the Lord says. Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls. You're at a crossroad and then we need to tap into the ancient truth that doesn't change with the 2.0 of the latest software download or the who's the most famous trending person right now. It has to be deeper than this moment. You know, there's a movement going on in our country right now of many young adults who are craving something that's not tied to the digital space. Tell me something that is bedrock strong enough that isn't tied to this digital space because they can't trust it. They've gone through, especially young adults that went through all of the things with COVID and a whole population of people that, how can you trust? What do you trust? The information that you see, whether it regards medicine or government or policy or anything at all. You can't trust all of that. And then they come to church and they look at religion and they're looking for something

that is not just momentary or only emotional. They want their lives embedded into the rock solid word of God and we're seeing a revival amongst the next generation because they are tapping into eternal truth. So let me give you how to listen to the voice of truth at the crossroad. How to listen to the voice of truth at the crossroad. Number one, ask Jesus to teach you. Ask Jesus to teach you. You're like, okay, this sounds super elementary. Yep. If you're sitting down and having a conversation and you don't know what the truth is and you're at a crossroad, it starts with going, okay, I'm gonna look to you. Psalm 86, teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to your truth. Now there's a lot of voices and a lot of opinions about a lot of things. Some of my sons can school me in all the conspiracy theories that are out there, whether it's about 9-11 or people landing on the moon or whatever it might be. And I can go, well, what's your source? And I can ask those kind of questions. But when it comes to truth, and if you wanna tap into the voice of eternal truth in your story, it's gonna start with going, all right, I'm shutting those other voices out, I'm coming to you. And I need to hear what you have to say.

Choose to listen to his voice. Jesus, I want to learn your ways. You may need to say, I'm sorry for listening to other voices but in every age, in every situation, he will guide you if you call out to him. And this is the coolest thing. Jesus has already been praying for all of those that follow him as disciples all along in this regard. In John 17, 17, Jesus praying for his disciples, he says, make them holy by your truth. Teach them your word, which is truth. There is something that can happen when you know that Jesus is waiting, he's already been praying for this moment, for revelation, for truth to come to your life. And he's already prayed for you. And the cool thing is in that entire prayer in John 14, 15, 16, 17, Jesus is talking to his disciples. It's like his famous words before he left the planet. And when he's talking, he also says, the spirit will come. And he titles the spirit, the spirit of truth. And when you talk to Jesus, you can say, Jesus, I trust you with my life. I want the spirit of truth to guide me. I want your spirit to be involved in this story because everything else, it doesn't make sense. Number two, at the crossroads, listen to the words of the Bible. You're like, Pastor Nate, you are going so basic here today. But I'm talking to first-time Christians

and long-term Christians. I'm talking to people that maybe you're not even a Christian yet. And you're like, well, how do I even figure this thing out? Well, listen to the words of the Bible. Psalm 119, verse 160 says, the very essence of your words is truth. All your just regulations will stand forever. I believe that we need to actually study and actually read what the Bible says. Not soundbites, not out-of-context quotes. And it's super obvious when public leaders don't know and haven't read and don't study it. And they throw around phrases. You're like, that's not even a scripture. That's from a song. Or you're like, really? That sounds nice and super spiritual. But actually, if you're gonna know, you gotta study the word. Listen to what the Bible says. And this is the coolest thing. Many of us are not readers. But nowadays, you can listen to the Bible. Get the Bible app. You can pick a good translation or version to listen to. You can listen to the words of God every single day. And then if you're like, I don't understand the Bible, I don't understand what to do with it, then you can listen to teachers of the word.

There are people, I'll try to do my best to teach on Sunday morning. And by the way, even my voice must be measured against the word of God. If I go sideways, call me out. No, I'm not asking for that today, actually. No DMs in my whatever. But my point is this. There are people that are gifted to teach us the word. It's on the student to pursue the word. If you're gonna study it and read it and listen to it and find reliable people who will help you hear, you'll begin to grow and understand the voice of truth. And it's not just one verse, one chapter, one book. It's keep going through the Bible. You know, our founding pastor used to say, read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation every January to December. I believe that if we keep it going, revisit it, even those of you that have been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Listen, when it becomes distant and you haven't been reading it, you lose a grasp on the Bible. The truth. Lee Cummings, one of our advisory elders, he said this, a generation without teaching becomes a generation vulnerable to deception. It can't just be, I'm gonna sort of listen on Sunday morning and think I'm actually knowing the word.

You gotta dig a little deeper. Turn to the person next to you and say, you need to dig a little deeper. You could do this. Number three, at the crossroad, don't lie to yourself. If you want the truth, and when the truth is revealed, it will heal. If it's denied or discarded, it will convict and judge. The word kind of reveals your heart. And if you keep lying to yourself, and you know the Holy Spirit has been saying something, at some point, you'll kind of pull away. At the beginning of the year, I was praying, I'm like, Lord, give me a word for the year, and we talked about going the extra mile with the church, and we're talking about what God can do in the 52-week miracle of our church and all of that. But personally, I was like, Lord, what are you saying to me? And I was expecting like, God's gonna bless you, and you know, some scripture that would just be really awesome. And the phrase came to me from God, don't lie to yourself. And it was specific, so I'm gonna get really honest with you. I've talked about being an accordion, my gain weight, lose weight, all that kind of thing over time. But the Lord had been speaking to me about what I eat. And many people can diet and lose weight.

I've done it hundreds of times. But the Lord was speaking to me about every day, hey, listen, make it a holy thing, what you put into your temple. Consider what you're eating. Now, I'm in no way, I'm not getting up here as a testimonial today of I listen to God every day this year, and praise God, I've lost 30 pounds, and I feel the best I have in my life. I haven't lost a pound. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I work out, I keep working out. I love working out, that's easy for me. But I will hear the voice of truth tell me a different story when I'm standing there at Culver's, and I hear the Holy Spirit remind me, don't lie to yourself. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. First John chapter one, verse six. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God, but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all sin. The truth teller is the scale, right? Jump on it in my bathroom. The devil is a liar, I rebuke you in Jesus' name.

It doesn't work. No, we must respond to the voice when he speaks. Don't ignore what he's been prompting you with. If you need to change, do it. Some of you have been living together and you're not married. And you know the Spirit's been talking to you. Get married. We'll do it this next week. Call the church. We'll perform the ceremony for you in the lobby if we need to. But don't push it off anymore. Some of you have been thinking about tithing. Don't ignore the voice of truth. Number four, concentrate your thought life on truth. Concentrate your thought life on truth, Philippians 4. And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and righteous. and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about, everybody said think about. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me, everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. Some of us don't have peace because we haven't been thinking about the right things. What goes in repeatedly becomes what you trust in. What do you repeatedly listen to or watch?

Or in the car, even kind of absent-minded moments of the day, whatever it does, it takes you. It's like music, I've always said it's like a car. It's a vehicle that takes you somewhere. Whatever you're thinking about, it's having a cumulative effect, and you're wondering, why am I confused and why do I lack peace? It's because your thought life has been thinking about the wrong things. And so Paul says, fix your thoughts on what is true. When you're overwhelmed or worried, ask yourself, is what I'm focused on Jesus' truth? Is it true? Is it honorable? Is it right? Is it pure? Is it lovely and admirable? Who taught me to think the way I do? Do I know what God has to say about this moment? And if I don't, I need to seek the truth. If you deal with a condemning thought about yourself, if you know it's not the voice of the Father, it's coming from some other source. The Father would say this to you, and this is what you may need to memorize, Romans 8.1. So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit

has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. If you're feeling it, thinking it, negative thoughts, and the enemy is using those thoughts to get you to have wrong actions, harming, self-harming actions, those thoughts are coming from someplace that's not God. So you need to redirect your thoughts to what God is saying about you. He says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made in your mother's womb, that He's a Father that has an everlasting love, that He doesn't give up on His kids, and surely He'll be with us to the end of the age. He doesn't give up on His kids. Today, we're gonna hear the voice of truth and respond to it. Would you stand with me? I would like this to be a moment where the Spirit of truth prophetically speaks to every one of you, to the questions of your mind and your heart, and that He'll begin to speak to you, guide you. You've gotta redirect your thoughts to things above in order for Him to speak to you. And I want you to do that. You've gotta redirect your thoughts to things above in order to hear what He has to say. We're gonna sing a song in a moment in our locations, and there's gonna be an opportunity for you, while we sing, to put your thoughts on things above,

to meet with the Spirit of truth. But I'm asking God, let there be prophetic moments right now, this morning. So we're not living in confusion when we leave church. You're worried about your children, you're worried about your life, you're worried about what's going on, how can I make it? And you're beginning to wonder. Redirect your thoughts to the truth. And say, Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me? Guide me. I want that voice behind me saying, this is the way to walk in it. God's voice will bring you closer to His guidance. To have truth in the inner parts means that you aren't hiding anything or masking anything. You're not just hypocritical and acting on the outside, or you're not giving God access to the inside. But you're saying, Lord, I want truth in the deepest, innermost parts of my heart. Jesus said, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. If you're willing to bring it to the light, you can be free. I believe that God wants to break the enemy's hold on. people's minds and hearts today, starting right now. I believe that he can and he will do it. If you would with me, church, I'm gonna pray. We'll turn it over to locations here in a moment,

but I'd just like you, in each of our locations, Lakeville, Elk River, Maple Grove, Spring Lake Park, those at home, just open up your hands before the Lord right now. You're not covering up anymore, you're not hiding anything, but I wanna pray over your life. I wanna pray something that God is speaking to me and I ask Lord that you would now begin to speak to the children of God. You said that your sheep know your voice. So I pray, oh God, that you would awaken in the children of God a desire to lean in to what you are saying. That you would break the voice of the world in our ears, our dependence on other voices that are not truth, that are shaky, that Lord, that you would end the work of the thief in families, in businesses, in individuals, in schools, that you would end the work of the enemy and that you would come that we might have life and the voice of truth would shatter all of the things that are causing us to have frustration and anxiety and worry. And Lord, instead, you would step in and as we're with you, there is no better place to be than with you right now. We thank you, Jesus. Amen, amen, amen.