The Truth That Sets Free (Pt. 2) | Total Truth Pt. 3 | Pastor Harrison Chokka

I want to start in the gospel of John today and this is an exchange Jesus is on trial about to be crucified and he speaks to Pilate and then John chapter 18 verse 36 says Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world if it were mine the servants would fight to avoid my arrest by the Jewish leaders but now my kingdom is from another place you are king then said Pilate Jesus responded you say that I am a king in fact the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify of the

truth

everyone who is on the side of

truth

listens to me pilate's answer 2000 years ago sounded like a modern philosopher he says what is the truth what is the truth I want to call this message today how Christianity changed the world and if you are a note taker, you were here last week, this is also the truth that releases part two, so can we give Jesus a big round of applause in this place?

Come on, can someone sit down, I'm very happy to be here today. If you're new or visiting, my name is Harrison and I'm so glad you can be here, we're in the middle of a series here at church right now called Toto Truth, Total Truth by Just Some Noise, can you let me know? who's been here for any part of the whole truth couple of people dating someone anyone online I've been watching some things come on Jake just got back from Palm Springs Kathy Anne, I'm so glad we've been on a series and, uh, just to give you guys a sort of First of all, a summary of the series.

I can't, so you have to go and watch parts one and two online, but it's the shortest, simplest sort of summary of what we've been doing, this exchange we just saw between Jesus and Pilate. from gives us an idea of ​​what this series is about Jesus has this idea, he literally says I have come to testify of the truth, so the premise of our series is that when you follow Jesus, you actually have a picture not just of a partial truth but what we have said is that Jesus gives us a picture of the

total

truth when I follow Jesus, he doesn't give me a picture of just certain parts of my life, it's not just like Sunday morning, he gives me a picture complete image that encompasses everything. of the world that sounds familiar to some people and that's why one of the things we did last week and again I give it because I think for today's purpose it is necessary to understand what we did last week and that's why I'm In fact, we He's going to give a recap of last week, but it's going to be like a three-minute recap and I preached last week for 51 minutes, so go back and watch all 51 minutes.

Here are three minutes to get us all on the same page. What we said last week was that each of us, no matter who we are, we all have a way in which we see the world. A Christian sees the world a certain way and an atheist sees the world a certain way. A new age spiritualist sees the world. world in a certain way we all have a vision of the world there is no one who does not have a vision of the world and what we said, we said that every vision of the world, whether they know it or not, consciously or unconsciously sees the world through the lens of three questions I called it the creation question the question of the fall and the question of redemption the question of creation where we come from the question of the fall what went wrong why the world is like this and then the question of redemption is how will this get better now if you can put them on I think I have a slide to explain it, these seem like very different Christian questions and a biblical way of looking at the world, but what we said again was that every worldview answers these questions and even more so if they don't .

They shouldn't, so last week we spent most of our time looking at what we call the biblical or Christian worldview, how does the Christian answer these three questions? What we said was that Genesis chapter 1, chapter 2 and chapter 3 actually answer these Questions for us, you remember in this ringing of some bells, if you remember, say yes, I remember a little, a little, a little, so the question about creation, where do we come from? Genesis chapter 1, verse one, in the beginning, God created, so we discover that he is. that as a Christian as a believer we really believe that God created humanity we do not come from nothing we are not a mistake we are not here by chance or a billion years of death and decay we are here because there is a creator who really created us and we said that The implications of that are many if you have a Creator automatically creation has value, purpose and beauty and what does that mean in the biblical worldview that we see Humanity, we see people as beautiful created in the image of God, but we all know that these Things look good sometimes, but the world is never completely good, so the question is what went wrong again in the Genesis story.

What we discover is that this happened in Genesis chapter 3, where sin is great. The world enters the world a big word and what we said was that God gave Adam and Eve a choice and each of us has a choice, we do not have to follow God, God will not make anyone follow Him, we have the option to obey or disobey Adam and Eve they chose to disobey and that's why there is a principle that we learn that the further we get from God the worse we become quite simple believers call it sin, sin is doing what God would call us not to do or move in the opposite direction from God and that is what we see in Genesis chapter 3 is rebellion, however, what we also see Genesis chapter 3 15 Genesis 3 verse 15 God was not okay with just saying hey, what you know, what that you rebelled.

I'm going to die this is everything we learned about what was called the First Gospel Genesis 3 15 where God makes a promise that although humans have rebelled he will make it right the cross comes upon someone the cross of Jesus Christ was the ultimate demonstration of him doing is right and so what we said is that we, as believers, live in a place right now called the midpoint between sin and death, we have been defeated on the cross, but the midpoint is the time in which We live now before Jesus returns and everything will change. be

total

ly and completely redeemed Oh my gosh, I have to sit down after that recap, you guys remember this, it's not that I'm not that tired, calm down, but I have the chair because I'm going to take a teaching stance. later and I feel like this chair could help me while I do it, that sounds like anyone too.

I really want everyone to be on the same page. Now this is where I'm trying to go, our job as believers is to take in that world. seeing that as overtly scriptural language and being able to see and understand the events of the world around us using that particular lens and if you remember, we briefly looked at the story of Demar Hamlin and put it through the lens of fallen creation Redemption, but what I want to do today is go even deeper as we begin to build and understand what we call a biblical or Christian worldview, so a study was done at the University of North Carolina several years ago by sociologists and I thought this study was so interesting that it was all about Christians and then specific questions like questions like do you believe the Bible is true, etc., but there were two questions in this study that stood out.

To me, all of these answers are just different branches of Christianity, so the first question I thought was interesting was: have you committed your life to Jesus Christ? So, 97 evangelicals said yes, fundamentalists, 91 said yes. Mainline Protestants 82 percent Liberal Protestants 72 percent Catholics 67, so the percentage of those who said yes to committing their lives to Jesus is now a side note. Interestingly, people still consider themselves Christians or the denomination they are affiliated with even if they wouldn't commit to Jesus, just a side note I thought. It was interesting, but the second question, which is really where I want to go today, was in the same interview: How important is it to you to defend a biblical worldview in intellectual circles?

This is the percentage of people who said this is very important. we want to be able to stand up for what we believe in our evangelical circles 63 fundamentalists 65 said yes mainline protestants 46 liberal protestants 49 and for some reason I don't know Catholics weren't surveyed they just walked away from that question I guess so this is what's Interesting Committed followers of Jesus, yes, is it important to you to stand up for what you believe in intellectual circles? Now the majority said yes or at least close to the majority, but there were a handful of people who said: I believe in Jesus and I don't care. yes I have to defend it or make it make sense to everyone, but this is the part that I really want us to understand and lean on today, so for these people who said yes, it is very important when they were asked to articulate a biblical perspective on current events, not one person in the entire survey was able to do that, in other words, they are saying, hey, it's very important for me to see the world through the lens of the Bible, the surveyor says, "It's Well, do it, none of them could," which I think.

It's a little crazy, so here's why and where it's relevant to us because essentially what the survey did was bring up a particular issue that was going on in the culture, so for us in the last three years there has been a lot of current events, social things, political things that we've had in the last three years, like social justice, gender equality, very recently, the whole abortion, Roe v Wade, whatever the issue is, think about those issues. Now if someone were to ask you, can you? you explain these topics using a biblical worldview now in that survey every single person said no, no idea, so today and the ones I just mentioned are some of the types of hot topics.

I'm sure there are more we could mention. off because we live in social media culture, so there is always something new, whatever the current problem is in our life, our culture, the question I want us to ask ourselves today is: do I have a biblical framework to understand the world around me now? listen to me very carefully it is wrong it is not a biblical worldview you understand what I am saying there is a current event that is immoral that is not a biblical worldview to have a biblical worldview is to not see things in part now there are issues that may actually be incorrect or immoral, but that is not a biblical worldview because that is only seeing something in part.

To have a biblical worldview is to see a subject as and through the lens of the whole, in other words, how does creation fall? Redemption help me understand the problem that I have in front of me and here is the interesting part and why, if you don't know, I told you that I love this kind of thing. I'm very excited because I really believe the Bible. It does not hang us on an island to drive, it gives us an answer to understand not only what happened two thousand years ago but what happens today, tomorrow and forever because the word of God is eternal and exists even though it was written in a specific time frame. it exists and it makes sense in all time periods, so I know that even though there are a lot of people, I said Harrison, I get it, the problems are great, but brother, you just gotta preach the work, just stick to the gospel, preach the good news we don't need. to get into these intellectual things we don't need to get into the weeds just talk about Jesus his death his resurrection now listen, I understand and I believe that my job is mainly to preach the gospel and save souls, but I love what Charles Malik the theologian and philosopher says who says this, says that the problem is not only winning souls but saving minds, if you win the whole world, look at this and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover that you have not won the world. important if I only get someone on a hard level but never connected with their mind, I will soon find out that I haven't actually won the world, you see, we live in a time like never before, literally, like never before, where we are being bombarded by information by statistics by facts by world views by people who sometimes maybe have something good to say other times it's just a person on Tick Tock who got into their algorithm and therefore for many of us we are being shaped every day for a whole. group of people different different thoughts and you know this and I know this whatever the current event appears, each of us exists in some kind of algorithm that tells us how to think the question is this makes how I think aligns with what What the scriptures say and more.

Do I really have a biblical worldview? Look what Jesus says, he says that I was born and came into the world to testify of the truth. This is important when Jesus came, he did not invent the truth. The truth has been there from the beginning. starting that's what he said what my job Jesus is saying is to testify to what has always been true the truth doesn't change why because it's true our job is to understand what is true he says everyone on this side of the Truth listens to me You see, this is important because many times we reduce the way of Jesus to strict morality.

The way of Jesus is not just a moral lens with thethat we see the world when we understand Jesus and his way in the true and proper way. Give us a complete picture of how you and I can flourish and live in this world and begin to experience the kingdom of it here on Earth today. I know that for many of us there is a fear, although I think there is a fear that prevents us from fully reaching out by relying on the truth that is Jesus and many times we mask that fear with ignorance and basically say something to the point that well, if I don't think deeply into these issues, if I could just let them go through the It's very sad that they just disappear, but like I said, that's not becoming an option anymore because we were bombarded every day and, as I'm going to show us today, you have a vision of the world, whether you know it or not, and that's why we are leaning toward the way of Jesus, but I really want to respond to Pilate's response.

Pilate says what is truth, what is truth and that's where I want us to go. Today, so last week again, if you missed it, we went deeper into the biblical worldview today, what I want to do is we start to understand our cultural worldview. I want us to understand how our world sees everything you are now saying to yourself. Well, Harrison, can I? Do you really like to distinguish a complete cultural vision of the world? That's why I brought the chair because we're going to learn today, but I think my job and our job as believers is that we need to learn to speak two languages.

I think we need to understand the language of Scripture and we also need to understand the language of culture; In other words, we need to learn to be bilingual, we need to be able to go back and forth between culture and the Bible, it's kind of like this I have a son his name is Judah I think he's great there actually with my mom he's a year and a half old or not a year and a half he's like 14 months old and he's so funny Judah loves Google we have a Google home you know like a Google home so I'm not lying like Judith knows five words like Mom, data cracker, Google, let's look at four, like I was always going to tell this story about Judy, but then something happened just to reinforce in case you think.

I'm lying their love for Google we were in the bathroom on Friday night and I wasn't they were um and like Judah does this thing where he just drowns um and so we always have to be around to save him and so the Friday he did it, I don't even know what happened, he did this, he literally just fell on his back right into the bathtub and he can't like it, literally, if there's no one there, he'll literally like drown, so he's underwater. It's scary but I quickly go and grab him um bring them closer I'm soaked I grab the towel he coughs he finishes crying I'm holding him close he looks me in the eyes we make eye contact and he just says Google a true story He's probably waking up right now because he's here in Google, but one of the things that Judah and I do at Google is we just sit it on my lap, we go to the Google home page and the language that, like my family speaks, is an Indian language called Telugu, so that we will sit in front of Google and I will say hey Google, how do you say "I love Judah" in Telugu and then Google quickly translates it as "Judah I don"?

I don't speak the language that's why I need Google so we just do this exercise or we just say sentences and then Google translates it and like Judah loves it for some reason but I love it too but the cool thing about Google is that has this. ability to very quickly input one language and translate it into another, so what I want us to be able to do is when the culture throws things at us when it's shoved down our throats when that person comes along and says, "Hey, stop scrolling, you know that person". Listen to me for a second.

Anyway, I hate those people when they show up on your screen and start constructing a worldview. I want us to be able to quickly understand that language and then filter it through what the Scriptures actually say. In other words, our job is. become bilingual so that we can begin to understand our cultural worldview. What I said last week was that there are two questions that everyone should ask themselves in terms of what they think and how they believe. The two questions number one is my view of the world. Logic; In other words, does it make sense? and number two, does it bring me peace?

So, again, we all have a worldview. We all see the world in a certain way. Two questions: Does it make sense? And this one is really important. Does it really bring me peace? What is the fruit? How do I believe? In fact, I like to listen to life, like when those difficult times come, those scary moments, those moments when you don't know what's next. Does my worldview really bring me peace? So what I want to do is look at the cultural worldview and again. filter it through these lenses and these questions and also creation fall into the Redemption, so again the question you're asking is like Harrison, how can you really understand a culture as a whole?

Don't we all think differently? Don't we all see? things differently, the answer is yes, but this is where we mix things up, especially in Canada. You see a lot of times we look at our brothers and sisters and think that we have, I'll call them macro differences, like we think we have. They are very different from Jimmy here and Susie here, but the truth is that one of the things that happens with culture and you, if you have been in my circle, you will have heard this before that culture is not taught, culture is captured . No one has to teach you culture simply by existing in Canada, you are part of the culture, right?

You take root by osmosis. The best example I can think of is that the longer you are in the Church of the Kingdom, whether you like it or not. at some point you're going to say, come on, someone, this is how culture works, like when you hear something enough, it just spreads into your bones and as Canadians, what happens is we understand this, we have micro differences in everyone. We are different in some ways but because of culture we have macro similarities and I am going to show us that we have all been shaped by our modern western mind and we are similar in our general way of thinking now. where I'm going to try it we'll see what happens I'm going to sit down for a second the question we're going to ask ourselves is as Canadians where did they do it and really this is Western the Western world the Western mine how and where does our vision of the world come from, so If you didn't know this about me, if I wasn't a

pastor

, I would be a comedian, if I wasn't a comedian, I would be a social studies teacher and very skinny.

For a second because we're going back to 8th grade social studies and I'm going to try to make sense of it in the Western mind, so I'm going to deconstruct a little bit, I'm going to show us like our culture, but first I want to show us the roots and how we got to where we are today and a lot of this stuff, like I said, all the series come from the book Total Truth by Nancy Piercy, which I highly recommend to anyone. So, there is a guy who several years ago was in the 18th century.

You may have heard of it, especially if you went to school here in Alberta. I'm sure you've heard of him, but there's a man named John Jacques Russo. Does anyone remember Russo? someone who some people are my teachers today you would probably have talked about Russo at some point now Jean-Jacques Rousseau if you don't remember he was a philosopher from Geneva, he was a writer of the Enlightenment era and is often considered as the father of the modern entity, in other words, is one of the reasons why, like the modern Western mind, much of our thinking comes from him.

He influenced thinkers like Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler and, most likely, his current professor at the U of A. anyway beautiful, this is what I chose from the professors, might as well be like the person who works at through Starbucks or yourself so Russo had this general thought and this is the one I hope rings some bells he says this he says man is born

free

but everywhere he is in Chains come on anyone remember this was his thinking, man is born

free

, but everywhere he is in Chains, so essentially he had this basic paradigm in this way where he looked at the world, he looked at humans, and he said that when humans are born, they are these free creatures and autonomous with unlimited and maximum potential, but he says that over time what happens is that they are absorbed by these groups, these social structures, things like the Church, the family, etc., and so on, and that is why he says that essentially all of these things take us and chain us and prevent us from the freedom we were born into, hence your statement, man is born free, but everywhere he is chained, so I want to show us because this is something I will get to in a second way.

We can begin to distinguish worldviews by understanding language and how people speak, so I want to take Rousseau's worldview and I want to put it through the lens of the Redemption of Creation because maybe you, as I went through this, you could see If not, I'll make it clear and show you again how all worldviews use this lens, so for Russo's creation, where do we come from? Basically, he had what was called the state of nature, which again was everything. Humans are born as disconnected autonomous individuals whose Soul motivating force is the desire for self-preservation, what he called self-love, so the last thing we all have is this innate thing where we are used to being with ourselves to persevere and be totally. disconnected, but obviously, as you all know, life is not like that, so for him this is his image of falling, what went wrong, he said social structures, the reason the world is the way it is is because it is full of artificial structures of confinement and oppression. the structures of all of society really limit our freedom and, therefore, for him, redemption likes how it improves, so he says that true freedom is found in the deconstruction of all societies and social structures.

He had four that he thought were the worst, in particular, marriage, family, church and life. In the workplace these four things are the most oppressive and prevent us from achieving True Freedom. Now this is just a random thought, but you may ask, from Rousseau's point of view, how can we achieve this Society? He simply tells the state in which each citizen would be completely. independent of their peers and absolutely dependent on the state now. I think it is extremely ironic that he hated social structures and yet he believed that government was not a social structure anyway.

If you understand history and social studies, you will know. Hopefully, if not, we. I can talk later why and how he influenced guys like Karl Marx Mussolini Hitler etc., but that is not the purpose of today. Now some of us are saying that Harrison is a great history lesson, so clear, so concise, but how and really why are you? telling us this, how does this have anything to do with me in Canada in 2023? Now, if you couldn't, as I was going through this and describing it, I hope that you at least started to hear and see things that actually sound very similar to how we think about 2023 and everything and a lot of it was really born out of this era of the Enlightenment and what we now call the modern Western mine, but we are not totally Russian, however, there is something in our culture that has permeated from the Enlightenment. was more than anything when it comes to what we as Canadians value is this and you can tell me if I'm wrong, but one of the highest values ​​that we have here in the West is what I'm going to call personal autonomy, also known as our freedom. culture places great value on personal autonomy and freedom.

Now what I said is one of the ways you can understand what the values ​​of a culture are. Start analyzing and listening to how a culture speaks. If I know how a culture speaks, then. You'll know what they value when I say, come on, someone. I'm talking about something, but I want you to answer why, because I value feedback, you understand that you say, oh, that's why it says, come on, someone, oh, you can answer now. The way a culture talks gives us a framework for how a culture thinks, so I just want to give us three.

I think these are things we all hear in our culture every day and they really point toward a culture that places a high value on freedom. number one is this you all have heard this you do it I will do it to me or your cousin what is right for you is not necessarily right for me you heard that if you didn't know the background of that statement is this idea of ​​personal autonomy Also known as Freedom look, you can do it I listen to you I have no problem if you do it but don't tell me what to do you understand that listen I was dissecting myself a little you remember when I talked about seat belts a few weeks ago, the reason why I didn't like seat belts it's because I'm Canadian in 2023 and I felt like it was infringing on my personal autonomy because like I said, we're all shaped by culture, right, you do it, I'll do it? what is right for you is not right for meYou all heard it right, I'll give us two more, you guys heard this one, my body, my choice now, in general, it's been used for female bodily autonomy, but we heard it too. during the coven, the correct vaccines, my body, my choice, which again is directly this idea of ​​personal freedom, no one and nothing should be able to tell me what I do with my body, no one, nothing could regulate me, now again I am providing social commentary.

I don't really give an opinion I'll get there later because I want us to understand how our culture thinks so the last one is this one and this one is really when it comes to probably more sexuality but you all have heard that love is love and the idea behind. This fairly simple paradigm is that no one and nothing should tell you how who or what you should love. Love depends totally on you. My freedom. My choice. All of these things. This worldview and this idea of ​​personal autonomy. That's why I spoke. about Rousseau number one, I love history, but number two, I want us to understand what, how and where it came from in our culture, because culture does not arise by accident, thoughts come, they are formed, they are built and that is how we live. in a culture that now places a huge emphasis on freedom, so I want to take the typical Canadian mind and throw it through the lens of creation.

Redemption. I can do that? I'm going to show you everyone uses Paradigm, a pretty simple build and this. It's very similar to Rousseau but I would say it like this for we are created as free and autonomous individuals that's what perfection is total freedom now I'm going to criticize this worldview in a moment but one of the things when it comes to creation No You can just tell us what we are, you also have to answer where we come from, so I'll come back to that later, but generally today the average Canadian would believe that we are free and autonomous individuals and that's the best, so what went wrong, well, ultimately it is anything that restricts freedom, if there is something, if there is someone telling you what to do, how to think it is wrong, right, and this is unlimited, it could be the church, it could be your neighbor, it could be your friend, could be your husband, better not be your husband, but if someone tells you what is wrong, it is automatically and quite intrinsically evil because it is infringing on what is most important in your personal life. autonomy is that everyone follows me.

I haven't asked you guys yet, we are good, so how can we improve? Because, again, we are not Russo, but many people, whether they know it or not, say: yes, man is born. Free but chained like get me out of this marriage so Redemption like how does this get better uh what does the average Canadian say again pretty simple do what's best for you the best way the way to redeem the world do what's best for you right care personal sleep around leave your spouse drugs alcohol the list goes on you have to figure out what is good for you now next week because I have realized that each message builds on each other so you have to come back next week because Really I'm going to criticize this idea and really why God gives us limits, so you have to come back next week for that, but how that paints a Canadian's cultural worldview and where this age of Enlightenment comes from, um.

I hope maybe you felt like there was something missing like he was part of a Canadian, but he's the full Canadian Harrison because I feel like there's something else that we value and if you were paying attention, you're right because he would. Let's say that as Canadians we probably value two things. I would say that we value the freedom of personal autonomy, but I would also say that there is great value in being justice-oriented. Do you agree with that? In the West we are very justice oriented and I have seen this in recent years, social justice, whether it is a marginalized group, racial minorities, sexual minorities, disabled women, whatever it is, there is a strong cultural emphasis on this idea that Everyone should be treated with equality, dignity and respect, that is something we value.

The guys agree and so the question we need to ask ourselves again is where does this come from and why do we value this as a culture. Now we can look at Rousseau in his worldview and I hope I don't have to explain it to you, but his worldview doesn't really make sense to a culture that also strongly values ​​equality in justice. Where does this come from? Well, I'm happy to tell you that our culture is influenced, I think, by that Western liberal mind, but it's also heavily influenced by someone called Jesus of Nazareth and whether we know it or not, and that's why I called the message message how Christianity changed the world and you can investigate this, you can prove it, the idea of ​​equality is literally strange, it doesn't exist until Jesus. coming, I meant I was out of time.

I have a fantastic quote, if I can find it next week I will share it with you, but he was an atheist and he essentially said this, he said the idea of ​​equality, he said that 100 is a Christian idea and he is an atheist, he literally says the same thing to me For my belief system, it is as if equality has no meaning, we borrow it 100 from Christianity, and so on in our culture, because our culture is not immoral, there is no liberal God. The culture is not like the roots of North America because there is a strong Christian influence, if you understand, but right now we live in this culture where we have these two competing ideals, we have self-autonomy and we have Justice and the question that we have.

Asking us for the typical Canadian how they see the world makes sense. Can I have that water goal? Thank you so much. I'm going today. So Nancy Piercy puts it like this. She says that in evangelization our task is to bring people. face to face with the contradiction between what a person says he believes and what his entire life tells him. I love this, essentially what he's saying is because we can all say this is what I believe. This is what I think is true, but secondary. The question is this, what does your life really tell you?

What do you tangibly see when you see and understand the world? So what I want to do is deconstruct the modern view. Deconstruction is a buzzword. I'm going to deconstruct the modern view. I do it very quickly so essentially we have to work backwards and ask ourselves if what I believe matches what is around me so you may have heard of Rousseau and that man is born free wherever he is chained maybe Be a classic Canadian liberal like hey you already know what it's about Freedom I don't need anyone else you ask me the question is this is what the world does and what we see around us confirms it with that idea in other words this understanding that I was born autonomous and free and that's how I need to be that really aligns with reality well I'm happy to announce that I think the prophet Tupac Shakur said it best he said it like that he said we all came. from a woman we got our name from a woman we got a game from a woman so here's the question and as if I'm in the middle of this, I have three children under the age of three, it's us as humans, we were really born as free and autonomous . individuals who don't need anyone what does reality tell us okay no, from the moment you come out of the womb you need someone there is a principle that I want you to understand you can write this our design helps reveal our destiny and when we can If we begin to see how God has designed us, we will begin to reveal what and how we are supposed to live, so from the moment we are born we are totally dependent on someone other than ourselves and most of us grow up with this belief which is actually a lie that says that as I grow up I should become totally and completely independent now you should probably move out of your mom's basement.

I'm not saying stay there forever, but what I'm saying is the truth is the more disconnected we are the worse we actually become, it's just facts, it's just statistics. I shared with you some facts about mental health in the first week of this series, but there is this empirical evidence as it continues. Kova gave us great stats. The more alone we are, the more disconnected we are. We become the worst that we end up being and then again we have to start asking ourselves, well, what I say is true, align with reality, so when it comes to the Redemption model again, well, what is Redemption?

Well, Redemption is total freedom, do what you want. unfettered, follow your appetite again, what does our design tell us about that belief system? And again, man, I just think study little kids and you'll become a great person because they give you a lot of life lessons. Here's the thing again. I have three minor children. three will soon be four less than four, come on someone, we don't sleep, one of the things I know is that if I let my kids do whatever they want, you know what they want to do, they'll want to eat popsicles for every meal. sugar diet and the things that are terrible for you, if I let my children do whatever they want, they will be diabetic at four years old, that is the reality and this is a principle, it looks different when you are a child, but it is exactly the same no matter how old you are, if you finally tell yourself that I can and do whatever I want and that is what is right for me, that is what will give me freedom, what you will find, come back next week. that ultimately that will put you in bondage freedom is not found in the absence of restrictions, but is found in finding a healthy understanding of them, that next week I will preach the truth that hurts, that's what it's called, come back next week , that also makes sense again, not when it comes to worldview, I hope they make sense, but the general worldview doesn't align that much with reality, but here is the biggest contradiction of all, which is the strong emphasis we have on Justice and as a believer understands this, we should always be at the front of the line when it comes to justice and equality and be for all because that is clearly an idea of ​​Jesus, however, here is the question, if I don't believe in Jesus I think maybe we came from nothing billions of years of death Decadence that eventually became an ape that became me the question I have to ask myself is where and why could I care about someone other than myself and that's something we really have to struggle with, so I told you guys for As a modern Canadian we are left with the question of where we come from.

We can say that I am a free being, but hey, where do you come from? Basically, I think you have two types of ideals about where we come from. Number one, you can have the correct Darwinian evolutionary worldview, which developed from a long line of evolution, sell the Big Bang, all that up to today, fast forward a couple billion years, so You have that worldview totally fine, but the question you have to ask yourself. is that if I have based a survival of the fittest worldview on this idea that everything that is not good or excellent will eventually disappear with genetic mutations, etc., the question I have to ask myself is why would there ever be to do it?

Being inclined towards someone who has something that would be classified as less than a Darwinian naturalist. You have to ask yourself this: why would I ever care about a disabled person? That's a question you need to ask yourself as a Darwinian naturalist. You must ask yourself this: Why? Would I ever care about a homosexual who has no chance of reproducing, who has no chance of carrying out precisely what life requires and so you are forced to look at these things and ask again if what I believe matches everything what's happening inside me now number two why you say no, Harrison.

I am a Christian because I believe in God, but I also believe in freedom. Amen, so if you believe in God, where did you get the idea of ​​one hundred percent personal autonomy regardless? What did it come from? I can tell you this 100, it didn't come from Scripture and I'm going to share a verse in a moment of what I think it is to follow Jesus and here's what we can call ourselves whatever we want. We want to call ourselves, the labels don't really matter when I look at the statistics, you know, the 70 that follow Jesus, but the 30 percent, whatever the numbers are, follow Jesus, but you haven't committed to him as can.

Call yourself whatever you want to call yourself is the point I'm trying to make. The question is how do I live? What do I really believe in? So what I want to do is really, quickly, understand again like in the Bible. worldview like how does the biblical worldview help me understand what is happening around us? So again, when it comes to Christianity, it's pretty simple, what do we believe? Well, we believe that we are made in the image of God, every person has intrinsic value no matter what. you believe that it doesn't matter your sex your gender your ethnicity you are valuable if I agree with you I disagree with you if I think what you are doing is morally immoral you still have value life and human life all human life has intrinsic value From the womb to the tomb, human life has value.

That is what we believe as followers of Jesus and that is why when we look at the world, it helps us understand.because my design determines my destiny that's why when something scandalous happens like when a video comes in where someone is being drowned for seven minutes that's why I can't watch it and not be moved by it when I see oppression inequality I hate slander something inside me doesn't agree because We are created in the image of God and each human being has value but how we look at those things because Harrison said well why those things happen we have the answer is because we live in a fallen world because in this world God has given each person listen to this God has given us autonomy, the question is, what are we doing?

What to do with that, whether we know it or not, we have autonomy and God allows each person to do what they want, but what we know as Believers and what the Bible lets us know is that the further we move away from God, the better we become. It's the worst, so listen to this as Christians when we look at the world, we look at things like how can it be improved, what can be changed, what can be improved, but I'll tell you this, we don't blame social structures for why the world is. like that's not a biblical worldview now sometimes structures need to change sometimes they need to improve but this idea that they're just systems and structures and if we educated ourselves better than everyone would love that's not a biblical worldview worldview the worldview biblical is that there is a God who came down in the midst of our sin in the midst of madness and said I am offering a way out I am offering something better and on the cross he finally showed how he felt about his creation that the Bible tells us why God loved us so much who gave his only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have eternal life and so how does this improve?

How does it improve our world? It is believing and if you didn't know this our church is called the Church of the Kingdom because we believe that Jesus is a command in the Scriptures that the Kingdom of Heaven is not far away the Kingdom of Heaven believes lives and begins Here and Now and so the world it gets better not by looking at the government, not by looking at the people, but by looking inside the church and wondering how we can begin to bring the Kingdom of Heaven here and if you didn't know that, don't believe anything you hear because a lot of people say, well Christians do nothing.

The false Christians around the world are numbers. I shared these hats. A few weeks ago we gave more to causes in 2022 than any other organization in the world. The Christian churches surpassed the government. Because? Because it is our biblical mandate to make the world a better place to announce the Kingdom here and now. we live in the middle we live in the middle we live between Redemption and finally glorification where God will take us home and so our job is to close the gap and give peace to people and I think hearing this is a way of looking at the world. that makes sense, it really makes sense and this is just an overview and maybe you want to go deeper and we can talk later, but I think following Jesus is the most logical worldview there is and it explains the deepest parts of my soul and it explains my inclination towards Justice, my inclination towards equality and explains why I do not and cannot sit and look at the world and believe that it is what it should be because God has ordained that we improve it Claire, can you?

Come here for a second, thank you, but this is what I know to be true and this is what I want to close. I know there are a lot of people here today and ultimately this message is a good one. You're like Harrison. I have a little more. ammunition as I go out into the world, but I know that many of us here today, being true to ourselves, the reason we don't follow Jesus is not because of logic or because we don't think it makes sense, it's because most of us all know intrinsically this truth that when I follow Jesus I must come face to face with a decision and the decision is quite simple.

Am I lord of my life? Do I determine what I do? How do I think? What is right or what is wrong? ultimately I will bow my knee to the King of kings and the Lord of lords and say, Jesus, do whatever you want in me and I know there are people here today who have been on the fence because you know the cost, it's like Harrison. I know that yes I completely followed Jesus I can't go back to the way I was I can't think that way I can't live that way Harrison some places I can't go There are some people I probably shouldn't be around for a while and I know that There are people who have counted the cost and said, "You know, it's too high, it's too high, but today I want to make a plea that, at the end of the day, it's not a question of how much it will cost me if I Follow Jesus, so It's what my whole life looks like if I leave behind the one who truly makes sense of everything, the only one who can promise me peace, the only one who can give me logic, understanding, and ultimately freedom, which is why Jesus has an appeal in Matthew. chapter 16, if you can get up, I just want to invite you to this because Jesus is also inviting us to this.

Matthew chapter 16. If it is on the screen, we will see, oh, here we go, Jesus said to his disciples who should follow him. who were called apprentice believers he says that if someone would come after me and this is the part that should have a knife in the Canadian mind that denies himself, takes up his cross and follows me for whoever would save his life, he will lose it, but he who loses his life for me will find it, what will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul, so with every head bowed and every eye closed if you are here today and you don't even need to know the full picture or understand everything, but if you see a picture, you feel this inside of you, that's a calling, it's urgent, I mean, hey, there's a better way, there's a better way, it's Jesus' way, if that's right. you today with every head wrong every eye closed could you show me your hand are you saying Harrison I want to bow that way thank you thank you as a church can we raise our hands for a second I just want us to agree with what I'm going to pray, can you open them, you can lift them up high, whatever it is Jesus, we agree with your word God, you are the truth, so Lord, I just pray for anyone who is wavering. the fence God that they pass towards life and abundant life God do what only you can do make a way in a hard heart in a broken heart in a broken place we pray for hope we pray for healing we thank you for what you do in God we love you in your name amen amen come on let's applaud