Reliable Truth

The most important thing that you bring to your marriage relationship, and really to any relationship, is yourself. And the healthier you are individually, the healthier your marriage will be, the healthier your relationships will be. Your character, your humility, your willingness to be transparent, to be honest, to be vulnerable, your ability to love, the wisdom that you attain, will all ultimately determine the quality of your relationships. You see, the person you are becoming is most significantly impacted by your relationship with Christ. As men, what do we focus on? We mostly focus on achieving and what we are experiencing through our work, sports, and our activities. Rarely do we stop and think about what God says is most significant. But in doing so, we are looking for something from our wives that only God can provide. In his book, Sacred Marriage, author Gary Thomas says,​​“I believe that much of the dissatisfaction we experience in marriage comes from expecting too much from it. We want to get the largest portion of our life’s fulfillment from our relationship with our wives. And they cannot provide it.”The deeper we go in our relationship with Christ, the greater the transformation that will take place in our lives. And consequently, the healthier we will be.What kind of man or woman are you becoming?

What is love? Dr. Mark Gignilliat from Beeson Divinity School, joins us today teaching on the book of Song of Solomon, also called Song of Songs.This book of lyrical poetry is a collection of 10 simple poems, where the couple speaking are freely describing their marital intimacy with joy and freedom. Song of Songs gives us a biblical example of God's beautiful gift of physical intimacy in marriage for a husband and wife. This kind of love is a foretaste of the eternal love we will experience in heaven.Medieval theologian Bernard of Clairvaux had this to say about Song of Solomon, "If anyone desires to grasp these writings, then he needs to love. For anyone who does not love, it is vain to listen to this Song of love, or to read it, for a cold heart cannot catch fire from its eloquence." Dr. Mark Gignilliat is professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, where he teaches courses in Old Testament and Hebrew, and also serves as theologian in residence at St. Peter's Anglican Church in Birmingham. Dr. Gignilliat is married to Naomi, and they have four children. Watch video on YouTube here

What would you say to Jesus if He asked you, "What do you really want?"Jerry Leachman of Leachman Ministries joins us today with a message to inspire you to get creative - to get off the sidelines and get onto the field. With the time you've got left, when you're around people - build them up. Give them a lift. Be a blessing. Point them towards Jesus Christ. Every great coach will tell their team during training, "You've got to want it - you can't just show up in a uniform, you've got to want it - love it, eat it, breathe it, drink it. You've got to want it."How will you spend the rest of your life?Jerry is a favorite speaker at The Center's events. Along with being an associate Chaplain in The NFL for many years, Jerry has done ministry in Guatemala, Scotland, Russia, Europe and Africa as well as all over the U.S.He and his wife Holly have been on Young Life Staff and continue to be involved with Young Life here and also internationally.

Do you find yourself in a game of comparison? Dr. Tim Keller says that we are the first culture in history where men get their sense of worth and significance based on how well they perform and achieve in life. It’s not that you want to be the greatest coach in America. What you find is that you just want to be a better coach than you, and you, and you, and you, and you. It’s a comparison thing. It’s a competitive thing. And, that’s where we get our sense of worth and value.This creates envy and jealousy. Do you know what envy is? Wanting somebody else’s life. If I want someone else’s life, that means I’m not content with who I am, what I have and what I’m doing. And yet, contentment is God’s will for your life - that we would be content with where He has placed us, with the abilities He’s given us.The question is: "How can I be set free from this trap of comparison that I’m in?”

In the work that I do, I have noticed a frustration in people’s lives. It usually starts in their 30’s and continues on for the rest of their lives. This is the frustration they express, ”Why is there such a gap between the life I’ve aspired to and dreamed of, and the life I’m actually living?”In evaluating my own life, I have asked myself, "Have I come, even partially close, to doing my very best in this life? And, in reality, does anyone ever really do his or her best? If not, why not?How can you change the course of your life? How do you achieve a life of excellence? Today I discuss the importance of learning to use the accumulation of time. Multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, and you can accomplish magnificent things. You can find that life of excellence. But it is crucial to remember this: the most important areas of your life require regular deposits of time as the years go by. If these opportunities are missed, they are lost forever.Since your final destiny has yet to be determined, starting today, why not live an exceptional life and leave a lasting legacy behind?

Today my guest is champion golfer Bubba Watson, who candidly shared about his victories and struggles over the course of his life at our recent Men's Breakfast.  Watson is a multiple major champion, with victories at the Masters Tournament in 2012 and 2014. In February 2015, Watson reached a career-high 2nd place in the Official World Golf Ranking.  Growing up in the small-town of Bagdad outside of Pensacola, Florida, Bubba Watson dreamed of being a champion golfer, and he has more than fulfilled that dream with twelve wins on the PGA Tour, including two Masters. A man of faith, he loves spending time with his wife, Angie, their two children, Caleb and Dakota, and his friends. Bubba is also a big supporter of his hometown, where he is part owner of the AA Pensacola Blue Wahoos baseball team, a car dealership, a candy store, and a driving range. But his family’s support of the Studer Family Children’s Hospital and the opportunity to help improve the community provides him the greatest satisfaction. Bubba Watson’s book Up and Down: Victories and Struggles in the Course of Life can be found on Amazon. Watch on YouTube here

Does it really matter what we put our faith in? If you’re going to really put your faith in something, it has to have a strong foundation to undergird it - otherwise it’s just blind speculation. Think about it this way: you can have very little faith in thick ice and it will hold you up just fine when you walk out onto it. On the other hand, you can have enormous faith in thin ice, and you can drown. It’s not the amount of faith you can muster up that matters. In fact, Jesus says that your faith may be tiny like a little mustard seed, but He says, you must invest your faith in something that is solid. Because the bottom-line is that faith is worthless, belief is worthless, your hope is worthless, if it’s built on that which is false and unreliable.If Jesus is the Son of God, and if Christianity is true, then there must be a uniqueness to them both that sets them apart from all other religions. You see, all the other religions of the world contend that a person comes into the world and gives us information about God and how we’re to live our lives. But in Christianity, God Himself came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ. John chapter 1 says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.” The apostle Peter adds in 2 Peter 1:16, “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”The central message of every other religion is that you are saved by what you do, but the teaching of Christianity is just the opposite. You are not saved by what you do but by what Jesus has done. You’re saved not by following His teaching, but by what He did on the cross. Jesus has entered history and lived the life we should have lived and died the death we should have died. Atonement has been made. If we are to be saved by grace, these historical events had to happen. Christianity is a concrete religion like no other. It is concerned about truth, reality, and the historical record.

We live in a time where the ideology of religious pluralism is becoming more and more dominant in our culture. A religious pluralist is one who believes that all religions are different paths that lead to the divine, and therefore, all religions are valid. In other words, it’s like there’s this one God out there but He just wears many faces when you look at the landscape of all the world’s religions.You see, all religions make certain true claims about spirituality, but the question is, "Are their claims true?" C.S. Lewis said that modern people don’t seem to care about whether it’s truthful or not. They’re only interested in how it appeals to you and how it makes you feel - how it fits into your life.A couple years ago I was sitting at a table with a guy who wanted to talk about the existence of God. We'll say his name was John. I suggested a good starting point is, that God either exists or He doesn’t. One of those statements is true and one of those statements is false. His response to me was, no, both of them can be true. Well, there was another guy sitting at the table and he was an accountant. The great thing about accountants is that they are very objective. He just spoke up and said, “No, John, Richard’s right. Either God exists or He does not exist. They both cannot be true. They both cannot be true statements.

How do we know the Bible is a divine book? What makes it different from any other ancient history book or book on philosophy? The answer to it is quite simple. Christians believe the Bible is the Word of God for one main reason. Because Jesus says it is. Think about that for a minute. Jesus puts His stamp of approval on the Old Testament. In fact, on 92 occasions, Jesus and His apostles supported a position they took by saying “It is written” and then would quote the Old Testament. And the reason they did it is because Jesus and His apostles considered the Old Testament scriptures to be the written Word of God and therefore the ultimate authority in life. Jesus' apostles were eyewitnesses to His glory. Clearly, as His representatives, they were to write out and approve the New Testament record. In effect, Jesus has confirmed that the written word in the past, the present, and the future, is God’s primary means of communicating with humanity. And therefore, the real question becomes not is the Bible the Word of God, but is Jesus the Son of God? Does Jesus have the authority to put His stamp of approval on the Old Testament? Does He have the authority to appoint men to write out the New Testament? I don’t have that authority. I can’t say the Bible is divine because I say so. Only God can do that. And so, today I close our this study with the big question - is Jesus God?

How can we know that the Bible is the inspired word of God? Amos 4:13 tells us, "Behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind, and declares to a person what are His thoughts, He who makes dawn into darkness and treads on the high places of the earth, the Lord God of armies is His name." You see, human speech that can be clearly understood, documented through the written word, is the model that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us down through the ages. So how did this written word come into being? In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah said that "the word of the Lord came to him", and in the New Testament Peter said in 2 Peter 1:20-21 that, "No prophecy of Scripture becomes a matter of someone’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God." English theologian John Stott says, “So Scripture is neither the Word of God only nor the words of men only, but the Word of God through the words of men,” and Stott goes on to say, “This is the double authorship of scripture to which we need to hold fast.” So biblical truth is inspired truth. Not only that, but it is also eyewitness truth. As 2 Peter 1:16, making reference to the Transfiguration, Peter says, “We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” So the apostles who authored and approved the New Testament books were eyewitnesses of the Risen Christ.I also will discuss the astounding fact that Jesus fulfilled every one of the Messianic prophecies. This is another powerful piece of evidence that points to the validity of the Bible.