Reliable Truth

Today I'd like to start by sharing with you how I came upon this message.At The Center, we do a lot of one-on-one meetings. One of the guys that I meet with is in his mid-30s, a very sharp young man, well-educated and articulate. He shared with me that he struggles with fear in his life, and we’ve talked a lot about those fears. And there’s another guy that is a good bit older, and who’s very, very wealthy, and has done extremely well in his life. He shared with me how he wakes up in the middle of the night and he’s got all these fears running wild in his mind, and he that can’t sleep well. From these and other discussions, I’ve concluded that if you met either one of these men and interacted with them, you would never in your wildest dreams think that they had any worries because they seemed to be “so together.” I’ve concluded how easy it is for us as men to fake and pretend that we have no worries in life. You know, men aren’t supposed to worry. We’re supposed to be fearless, and yet, what I’m realizing is that, that’s not the case in most of our lives.You see, fear is a powerful emotion. Today I'd like to discuss the main four causes of fear in our lives. I pray that you will gain valuable insights from today's podcast!

Many scholars would agree that probably one of the most thoughtful books written in the last 30 or 40 years is Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, The Denial of Death. Becker wrote, “Every person seems to have a need for cosmic significance”. In other words, purpose and meaning in their lives. He says, throughout history, all the way up until modern times, people knew that they had value and purpose because of the transcendent, because of God. Becker said, throughout history people knew their place in the universe, they knew who they were, they knew their value and identity. He adds, but modern people have lost this. They’ve lost that sense of purpose. He said, “We have become secular.”So where do we find our meaning in life? Well, 3500 years ago, King Solomon said in the book of Proverbs, that our knowledge of God is where we get our understanding of life; our knowledge of God is how we interpret life. Dr. Tim Keller says, “How we relate to God is the foundation of our thinking. It determines our view of life in the world.”What keeps us from finding real meaning in life? If I believe in God, why doesn’t my belief really impact my life? Join me for today's podcast as I discuss the answers to these questions. 

Today I have a special guest, Drayton Nabers, speaking on the role of Christ in the life of business. When we’re doing business, we can think that spiritual things are to be done with nonprofits or in the Church, but not in the business world. When we’re in business, we’ve got to make some money. We’ve got to work hard. It’s a competitive marketplace out there. We gotta be tough. So, therefore, why Christ?Well, Christ has an important role to play in the life of your business. He’s there with you, and He wants you to succeed. And by His Grace, He wants to equip you and empower you, and give you the wisdom to practice whatever you do in the business world in a way that brings Him glory. So, what does the Bible have to say about the world of work and what does it have to say about God in the workplace? That’s what we’re going to talk about today. I hope you enjoy it!

How can I live a life that has purpose and meaning? That is the topic of today's podcast, Part 3.In Part 1, we talked about how many people see happiness as a feeling. We looked at all of the destructive tendencies that creep into a person’s life when they believe that pleasure is the source of true happiness in life. In Part 2, we considered the factors that lead to happiness, starting with God’s role. We concluded that God is the true source of happiness. But to really get this, I must ask myself: What kind of man do I want to become? We tend to focus on what we’re experiencing, but God is more interested in the kind of men we’re becoming. When you become a man of strong Godly character, then obedience to God becomes natural. So we talked about the importance of obedience. How does Christ play a role in helping you find purpose and meaning in life? Answering this question is critical. It’s the foundation of finding true purpose and meaning in life.This is Part 3 of my 3-part series. I hope you enjoy it!

*This episode has been updated to correct an error that occurred last week. Enjoy!What is it that satisfies the thirst of the soul? In Part 1, we talked about how many people see happiness as a feeling. We looked at all of the destructive tendencies that creep into a person’s life when they believe that pleasure is the source of true happiness in life.What is the role that God plays in the search for happiness? Why is He important in finding happiness? Let's start by thinking about the human desires of the body. When we enter into this life we have four basic desires - all physical desires. We get hungry, thirsty and tired, so we eat, we drink and we rest. Then we hit puberty and our sexual desire kicks in. These four basic desires of the body called the sensual side of life.Yet what is this desire that we have for joy and happiness, for peace, to love and be loved - not sex, but to love and be loved? It’s not a physical desire. It’s a spiritual desire. It’s a desire of the heart and the soul. Again, what satisfies hunger? Food? What satisfies thirst? Drink.So where I want to go with this today, guys, is to ask the question, "What is the role that God plays in all of this?" If he satisfies this thirst in our souls for joy and happiness and peace and love, how does that happen? What is His role in our lives? What is his role in this elusive search of happiness that people are having so much trouble with?This is Part 2 of my 3-part series. I hope you enjoy it!

I truly believe that many adults experience great unhappiness in life. A lot of them experience depression, which is not something that people want to admit, particularly men. We’re supposed to be on top of things, we’re supposed to be competent, together, and to acknowledge our unhappiness is something that we’d rather not do. This is a fascinating topic and I've found that it really is resonating with so many people that I’ve been sharing it with.So, the question is, where is happiness found in this life? Over the next 3 podcasts, we’re going to explore this. In our search for happiness, does God have a role to play? Why is He important in finding happiness?I believe that happiness is a byproduct of living in the center of God’s will. You see, God never intended for happiness to be the object of life. It’s a byproduct of living our lives in the center of God’s will. When we seek to be in the will of God, we will find we are living in harmony with our design. We’ll be living the life that we were meant to live.This is Part 1 of my 3-part series. I hope you enjoy it!

So much has been written on the issue of evil, but today I'd like to take all that I have read over the last six weeks on evil and try to distill it down into a 45-minute presentation. I pray that it will be enlightening to you. If at any point you get hung up with anything I’m saying, just hang on with me because we’ll keep going.I've taught a two-part series on “Why Does God Allow Pain and Suffering?” where I discussed evil in a general way. There’s a difference in natural evil, like a natural disaster or physical disease and what I want to cover this morning, which is human or moral evil.  The issues that I raise this morning about moral evil are crucial for any thinking person to understand. I ask you to hang with me as I go through this, and I think when we get to the end, you will see that there is a critical application to every single one of us. My prayer is that each of us would be open to see what God would show us about our own hearts.

Today I'd like to talk about something that's very important to me - I call it the Great Paradox of Life. The apostle Paul addresses this in I Corinthians 1:18-24, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Paul is contrasting the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of men to the wisdom of God. I am sharing this with you because I believe there truly is an art to living this life, and because life is governed by certain principles. Wisdom is seeking to live your life in harmony with these principles. So many of God's important truths are foreign to the world because they are counter-intuitive. Yet the truth and the wisdom of God is often paradoxical.

The topic that I want to address this morning is fascinating.  And, I believe that it will be of real benefit to you. One would think this concept is just common sense.  Unfortunately, many modern people don’t seem to use common sense. I'd like to start with some words that I know you’re familiar with: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  These are the opening words of the Declaration of Independence.  Of course, that was 1776.  From those words, we in America as a nation seem to have this foundational belief that there truly is a connection between liberty, or freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, and finding happiness. Now, fast-forward 13 years from the signing of the Declaration to 1789, when George Washington gave his first inaugural address. In that inaugural address, he added a little something to that thought.  Washington said, “There exists, in human nature, an indissoluble union between freedom, virtue, and happiness.”  He threw in that word virtue.  So here, 13 years later, Washington realized that in order to have a free society, there has to be a certain character quality in the people.  There has to be an ability to have self-restraint.  He says, “This is necessary for any culture to flourish.”  But, as you know, we seem to have lost this understanding of what it really means to be free.

What is it about the human condition that causes us to want to “one-up” someone else all the time? What is it that causes us to, and it makes us feel superior to others? What causes us to always compare ourselves to other people and why is it we’re always worrying about what other people think about us? This is what’s called the pride of life. C.S. Lewis says that each of us have this great flaw within, and though we see it in other people, and we loathe it, we have a hard time seeing it in our own lives. He says it’s like a spiritual cancer that eats up our souls. It keeps us, he says, from being able to love, or ever find any real contentment in life. You’re probably thinking, isn’t there a positive side to pride? Yes! There are two definitions. The first is, “justifiable self-respect”. It’s the idea of taking pride in what you do. Seeking to be the very best you can be in what you do, and that’s a positive definition of pride. But what I’m going to be talking to you this morning about is, the simple definition of pride as arrogance or self-conceit - the Greeks called it hubris. To have a too high view of yourself. And Lewis goes on to say that pride, if you really want to get to the heart of it, is really kind of, it’s competitive, so to speak. He says it’s rooted in comparison, where a person wants to be better and superior to you. We all face this dilemma deep within our souls. So, what does a person do? What am I supposed to do?Tim Keller says that all of us are starved for glory because we have this deep sense in our souls that our lives just don’t really matter. He says the worst thing for a human being is not to be disliked, or to be vilified. He says the worst thing for us, particularly for us as men, is to be ignored. To be overlooked. To feel like my life is just not very significant. And he says, this is why, in the deepest recesses of our hearts, we are seeking for glory out in the world. Out in our sphere of influence. And this is why so many men have instability in their hearts because they are desperately seeking to impress and win the approval of others. And, for this reason, and we see this often in our work, we as men are constantly looking for ways to convince the world, and ourselves, that we matter, and that our lives are really important.