Rooted in Truth

[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Well, good morning, Cross Church Phoenix. How are you? Good. Good. All right. I am Pastor DJ, the campus pastor here at Cross Church Phoenix. And if I haven't met you yet, um, come find me afterwards. I love to meet and chat with you. Um, I want to invite in invite you to open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chap 11 this morning. 2 Corinthians chap 11. And if you don't have a Bible, there's one in the seat back in front of you. Feel free to use that one and you can take it home, make it your Bible. Uh we will gladly replace it. Uh, but I want you to walk away with God's word if you don't have a copy of it and uh use it and read it. And as you're turning there, I want to re-emphasize uh the invite to pizza with the pastor. That is our class for everyone who is new. And if you haven't been to one, uh you are welcome to join us. Even if this is your first Sunday here, um I've met a few brand new visitors this morning. You can join us for that. Um, I go over our mission, vision, statement of faith. We do this once a month. Uh, and and then we talk about membership. So, it's a it's a uh basically just a all-around class where I teach what we're all about here at Cross Church. And so, you're invited to that. I ordered some extra pizza just in case, but uh so feel free to come. It's in our kids wing. Well, let me open us up in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for your word, God. How it is truth because it comes from you who is the way and the truth and the life. And God, I pray that you would give us eyes to see, ears to hear what the spirit has to say to our church this morning, God, through your word. I pray that it would not be my words that are heard, but only yours and yours alone. God pray that you would help us to not only understand it rightly, which is very important, but then to see how it applies to our lives. God, help us in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. By a show of hands, how many of you would want to be married to a spouse who told you they will be faithful to you most the time? They'll only cheat on you one day a week. Six days out of the week, they'll be faithful. But once a week, they're going to be adulterous. Anyone up for that kind of marriage? Why not? After all, one in seven means they're faithful 85% of the time. That's a solid B in school. Why are we not up for that kind of marriage? No, no, no. What do we want in marriage? We want, we desire, we we we crave commitment, 100% dedication, loyalty, not partial. We want commitment. And if that's our desire from a human level, can you imagine how much more God desires that level of commitment spiritually for his bride, the church, on a divine level? It would be all the more. And maybe you're not married, but if is do you is that what you would want in a future potential spouse? partial devotion. One of the best ways to remain faithful to Christ is to be rooted in the truth. What Paul is going to call the church at Corenth to be and is calling this church at Cross Church Phoenix to be is purely devoted to Christ. We're going to read that this morning to and the way to do that is to be planted to plant our roots deep deep down in God in his word. That's how. And so that's what we're going to talk about this morning. The blessings of being rooted in the truth. If you'll read along with me, verses one, we're going to start with verses 1-4. Paul says, "I wish you would put up with a little foolishness from me." Yes, do put up with me, for I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy because I have promised you in marriage to one husband to present a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be seduced from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if a person comes and preaches another Jesus whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit which you had not received, or a different gospel which you had not accepted, you put up with it splendidly. Now, I like what Paul says. He repeats put up with multiple times. You put up with a little Could you put up with a little foolishness from me? Yeah, please do put up with me. You put up with false teachers. Could you put up with me a little bit? The first thing I want us to see is being rooted in truth guards us from spiritual adultery. Spiritual adultery. Throughout scripture, one of the common ways God refers to his people is as his bride. This began in the Old Testament with Israel when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt in the Exodus. It was a picture and an illustration of him being a loving and protective husband of his people. So when we get to the book of Jeremiah chapter 31, Jeremiah is looking back at the incident and God actually I should say is reminding them and looking back at the incident in Jeremiah 31:es 31 and 32 uh says God is God God saying behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah Not like the old, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. And if we look into Isaiah 54:5, Isaiah says this, "For your maker is your husband. The Lord of hosts is his name, and the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer. The God of the whole earth he is called." And I had to narrow down my Old Testament references because the sermon was already getting a little long um in my notes, but there's many more where God declares that he is Israel's husband, so to speak. So the relationship between God and Israel was described as that of husband and wife. And the implication of that kind of relationship is what then? Devotion, loyalty, and faithfulness. And that's why when Israel was unfaithful to God, when they went after other gods and served other gods and made idols and did things that they were not supposed to do, when they were unfaithful to God, worshiping other gods and idols, the Bible, which doesn't mince words and uses vivid descriptions, the Bible describes it as Israel whoring after other gods. That's why that term is used because they're supposed to have an intimate relationship and Israel would break that going after other gods. Examples of this there's which there's a lot of as well. I had to pair these down. But if you were to look in the book of Judges, God would raise Israel's in rebellion. everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes. God would raise up judges and these judges would lead the people in righteousness and do good things and they would kind of get back on track with God with the judge until the judge died and then the judge would die and they would go right back to their sinful ways. In Judges 21:17, God is speaking and he says, "Yet they did not listen to their judges for they hoarded after other gods and bowed down to them. They soon turned aside from the way in which their fathers had walked who had obeyed the commandments of the Lord and they did not do so. And then after judges, God establishes kings in Israel. And very few kings actually did what was right in the sight of the Lord. Most of them did evil in the sight of the Lord. A few kings led well. Most did evil and Israel would continue to be adulterous against God. In Jeremiah 3 6 says, "The Lord said to me in the days of King Josiah," and this is God speaking, he's having this interaction with Jeremiah. And he says, God says, "Have you seen what she did? that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree and there played the What he's talking about is pagan worship and they would go and do these things under trees and on hills and stuff. And I thought, and this is God giving insight into a little bit of his thinking, right? And I thought Judges or Jeremiah 3:7, I thought after she has done all this, she'll return to me. But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. So if you know the history of Israel, they were separated into 10 northern tribes and two southern tribes. Israel was doing all this terrible things or no good kings in nor in the northern Israel. There's a few good kings in Judah, but they saw what Israel was doing and didn't learn any lessons is what God is saying. Her treacherous sister saw it. Verse 8, she saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one Israel, for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the So what God is saying is that both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom went and served other gods. And then he says, "Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree." How do you commit adultery with a stone and a tree? By worshiping other gods with it, which is what pagan nations were doing. And so God's people were allowing that into their lives. And they began to worship in that way, which was according to God adultery spiritually. Jeremiah 3:10. Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord. Now, we would be remiss if we didn't say and comment on the fact that this broke God's heart. In Ezekiel 6:9, God says he is broken over this. He says literally, God is speaking. He says, "I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me." God says, and if you've ever read the whole book of Hosea, what's the whole book of Hosea about? The whole book of Hosea is God telling the prophet Hosea to take a promiscuous wife, to go marry Goomemer, take on a wife of whoredom as an illustration of what Israel is doing to God. So the pain and the sorrow that Hosea would experience by having a continuously disobedient un unfaithful wife would be just a little taste for Hosea of how God feels about his adulterous people Israel. And I say all that to say that the standards for the New Testament church are no different. We are God's people. And as God's people, God desires his church, the bride which we are called the bride of Christ desires his church to be pure, to be holy and to be have complete devotion to him from us. And here in the New Testament, the church being described as the bride of Christ. Paul says, you read it. Paul betrothed the church to one husband, Jesus Christ. And now he's come and shared the gospel with them. But now he wants them to stay rooted in that truth. He doesn't want them to go astray. He wants to present the church as what? a pure bride, a pure virgin to Christ is what he's saying. But because they're putting up with false teachers coming in, they're being led astray. And Paul doesn't want them to take this betroal to Christ spiritually and go marry up with false teaching and false gods. That's why Paul can say he has godly jealousy, right? He says, "I have a godly jealous for you." How can he say that? Because he feels the same way about the church of Corinth going astray from Christ committing spiritual adultery as God does when Israel did it. He's saying that my heart and desire for the church is just like God's heart and desire was for Israel, even though Israel went astray. So he says,"I have this godly divine jealousy for you. I want you to stay devoted to Christ." In a Jewish wedding, the father of the bride would take great care that his daughter remained a virgin until her wedding. This was a big deal, and it should still be. When she was betrothed to a husband, his goal remained the same, right? Protect and keep her pure until the wedding day. And when the wedding would be consummated, there would be great joy and celebration over the fact that she was truly a virgin. I don't need to go into more detail. You guys know what we're talking about. But if on the other hand, this is traditional first century Jewish weddings. On the other hand, if it was found on the wedding that she was not a virgin, great shame would come upon the whole family. That's why fathers would take great care for that. And so we see this picture, right? In first Corinthians, Paul describes himself as what? He became a father to the church in Corinth through the gospel. So he sees them as their bel his beloved children, the church. He cares about their purity and devotion because they're betrothed to use this marriage language. They're betrothed to Christ and he wants them to stay pure until they are taken home to be with him forever. Don't be led astray. Be devoted to Christ, nothing and no one else. The last thing Paul wants is for them to be led astray into spiritual adultery. So how do we as cross church then remain purely devoted to Christ? How do we do that? I would say that the church as a church we need to be protected both externally and internally. What I mean by externally would be false teachings outside the church. Right? Examples of this would be Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, um, Islam. These are these are other religions that have an impact in our community. Maybe they come knocking on your door, for example. They preach another all of them, all false religions are are false, right? They all attack the deity of Christ and salvation. But I'm just going to give you the three major world religions to kind of help us out. So for example, they all preach another Jesus. Muslims believe Jesus is a prophet, a very important prophet, but a prophet. He is not God. They do not believe Jesus is God. And their way to salvation is purely worksbased. Right? You got to keep the five pillars of Islam and hope for the best. Maybe you're in, maybe you're out. There's no assurance. And if you read the Quran, which you do so discerningly, right? But if you were to read the Quran, not even Muhammad knew what Allah would do with him. He didn't even know if he was going to make it. He had no assurance himself. Jehovah's Witnesses believe only the father is God, not Jesus. Jesus is a powerful, strong, he's the first created being, but he's not God. And they have works-based salvation as well. It's Jesus plus, right? Jesus plus works or Jesus plus obedience. And you have to maintain your salvation on your own as well. So you have no assurance. You can lose it. Mormons believe Jesus is a god, not the eternal son of God in the trinity. He's one of many gods. And they also have worksbased salvation. It's Jesus plus good works that gets you into heaven. Now, if you notice, there's a trend, right? Two things always characterize false religion. If you want to just kind of break it down, DJ, give it to me simply. I want to equip you with this, right? Two things attack the deity of Christ and add works to salvation. Simple as that. Only Christianity believes Jesus is eternally the son of God. And we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. Right? That's only Christianity. Every other religion, the number one I would say is attack the deity of Christ. Deny he's God. And number two add works to salvation. And that is another Jesus another gospel. And we must steer clear of those things. We have to protect the church from that. But we also have to protect the church inside. Right? False teaching can come from well-meaning Christians or something like that. Just confusion. But if you remember Matt's sermon a while back on biblical leadership, what must a godly leader according to Titus be? He's one who holds fast the trustworthy word as taught. Why? So he's able to refute those who contradict it. So if someone in the church decided to get a little crazy and teach something that's contrary to scripture or teach their own thing that's not in the Bible, our job, my job, yes, but our job collectively as brothers and sisters in Christ is to lovingly correct that. But we can't just like let it go. If someone comes in preaching, teaching another gospel or another Jesus, my job is to stop that immediately. But why? For the sake of the church, but it's also good for them, right? We want them to have an accurate understanding of God's word. But it's also so it doesn't spread. Like if somebody came in and said, you know, guys, Christians and Mormons are bas are the same. They are exactly the same. Can I let that stand? I can't, regardless of whether or not I hurt their feelings, I have to protect, shepherds, protect the flock, right? We don't want false teaching to permeate the church and cause people to stumble, which is what's going on in Corenth. So, being rooted in truth guards us from spiritual adultery. Let's continue verses 5 through uh 11. Now I consider myself in no way inferior to these super apostles. Even if I am untrained in public speaking, I am certainly not untrained in knowledge. Indeed, we have in every way made that clear to you in everything. Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by taking pay from them to minister to you. When I was present with you and in need, I did not burden anyone since the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my needs. If I have kept myself or he says, I have kept myself and will keep myself from burdening you in any way as the truth of Christ is in me. This boasting of mine will not be stopped in the regions of Aaya. Why? Because I don't love you. God knows I do. So number two thing, being rooted in truth guards us from being taken advantage of by false teachers. Taken advantage of by false teachers. Now remember, first century Corinth is full of Greek philosophers, high and lofty talkers, right? And one of the things that would go on is you would pay for them to teach you, right? pay for knowledge. And the more you pay, the better the knowledge must be, right? $20 knowledge must be better, higher, more valuable than $5 knowledge. That's kind of the mindset here. The more you pay, the better teaching the teaching must be. Or so they thought. Paul addresses that head on. That's verse seven. Was it a sin to preach the gospel free of charge? So false teachers come in and they charge money for their teachings and Corinth is putting up with it. You're tolerating. You're paying it. You're doing this. You're engaging in this because they're assuming that if it's information they got to pay for, it must be good, right? This costs money. There's got to be quality here. You know, wow, this teaching is heavy. It must be better because I had to pay for it. And here comes Paul preaching the gospel for free, not charging for this. He goes in and preaches it for free. And they begin to think, hm, this not may be very important or as important as what philosopher so- and so did because philosopher so and so charged me 20 bucks to hear him. Paul isn't charging me a dime to hear him. This information and teaching must be a lower standard than what I have to pay for. And I think that still happens today. There are people that will say that they have like special knowledge about God in the Bible, right? But they're only going to give it to you if you pay it, right? Like I really want to tell you this guys, but for only $19.99, you know, but wait there's more, right? If you call today, I'll add on a special piece of knowledge. But there's people out there and they even come into under the banner of Christianity and say that they have a special revelation, but you have to pay for it to get it. And I know you might be thinking, "Well, DJ, you get paid to be the pastor." And that's true. The difference is I don't charge people to preach and teach the scriptures. And if I could share a little of my heart with you, I consider it a blessing, honor, privilege, and a gift to dedicate my life to pastoring and preaching without having to maintain a second job to support my family. But if it came down to it to having to be bivocational, I absolutely absolutely would preach for free and work somewhere else to support myself. And I can stand before you and say that with my whole heart because I believe that from the bottom of my heart. But what this is talking about is people coming in charging for knowledge and teachings and it's captivating Corinth and it's luring them. Remember we're talking about this spiritual adultery kind of theme. It's luring them away from the gospel, from Christ, because somebody came in with a new expensive teaching. So, when we're rooted in truth, we can keep ourselves from being taken advantage of by false teachers in it for the money. Let's read verses 12 to 15. Paul says, ' But I will continue to do what I am doing in order to deny an opportunity to those who want to be regarded as our equals in what they boast about. For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no great surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will be according to their works. So the third thing I want us to see is simply this. Being rooted in truth guards us from satanic deception. We could say demonic satanic same thing deception. What we need to understand is that Satan is far more subtle than we realize. I shared with first service and I can't really expand much upon it but if you've never read uh Screw Tape Letters by CS Lewis I highly recommend it. It's a little it's a cool little it take by CS Lewis on how demons operate and it's very insightful. But notice in the text that this isn't as easy as distinguishing light from darkness. That's easy, right? Light turn it on. Darkness turn it off. Oh, that's easy distinction. Or this isn't distinguishing righteousness from unrighteousness. Look at it closely. This is distinguishing light from light. It doesn't say Satan disguises himself as an angel of darkness. It says he disguises himself as an angel of light. and his servants. Do they present themselves as servants of unrighteousness? No. They present themselves as servants of righteousness. What does that mean? Not only are we trying to discern light from light, but righteousness from righteousness. Well, we should be saying really what I should say is true light from false light and true righteousness from a fake righteousness. That's awesome. Love it. love hearing children in the in the room. They they know what's up. But this is why knowing scripture well, church family, is so important because Satan knows scripture, too. You know that. Does Satan know scripture better than you? Yes, he might. He might. He quoted it. He could probably quote it better than we can. And he did quote it to Jesus Christ tempting him in the wilderness. Right? Is it not written that the angels will carry you on their wings and you won't you won't get hurt if you jump off the pinnacle of the temple? Right? Quoting a psalm. Satan knows scripture, but he takes it out of context and twists it. Right? That's the key. It's not like Satan came to Jesus with the Book of Mormon. He came to Christ with the word of God, trying to use it against him. Satan's attacks are not as overt as we might think. It's subtle. Little deviations from error or I'm sorry, from truth. Little slight little lies. These are not outright denials of the deity of Christ. Even demons when he was casting him out say, "Who are you, oh holy one of Israel?" Demons know who they're dealing with in the scriptures. If you read the gospels, they're aware that this is not overt. This is subtle. I'll give you an example. In 1 Timothy 4:es 1-5, it says this. Paul is talking to young Timothy and he's going to describe this and I want you to listen very carefully. Now the spirit expressly says that in the later time some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and listen the teachings of demons. What might those teachings of demons be? Verse two, 1 Timothy 4:2. through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. And Paul says, for everything created by God is good, nothing and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. What I want you to get from 1 Timothy 4 is notice what Paul calls the teachings of demons. It is the teaching of forbidding marriage and requiring abstinences from food that God created. This is not well the teaching of demons he doesn't say is the denial of Christ as God which is a teaching of demons but this is a little more subtle right Christ is God Jesus Christ is God yes what about this forbidding marriage and and and eating certain foods is more subtle than denying the deity of Christ or salvation by grace through faith this is subtle. This is, hey, Jesus is cool and all, but hey, check this out. If you really want to be close to God, if you really want to get right with him, don't get married and abstain from certain foods. This is like the secret way. And what Paul is ultimately alluding to is what's called nasticism. And I don't have time to explain that to you, but nasticism in short is this. Spirit good, flesh bad. So they deny the incarnation. They deni they would deny Christmas, right? That God became flesh in Jesus Christ because flesh is all bad. Flesh is all evil. So what would they teach? Sex even in marriage is evil because it involves humans. Uh food because it's physical. Food is evil because it involves physicality. It's physical. Everything physical, the chair is evil because it's physical. And so they would never for a minute think that God would become something that's physical. And so they say if you abstain from marriage and food, you're ultra spiritual because you're denying the physical world. And Paul basically just says no, like you can get married. God created marriage. You can get married and you can eat food. God created it. But we actually see this in a modern way surprisingly in Roman Catholicism. 1 Timothy 4 describes Roman Catholicism. There there are articles actually written and even um studies done on the requirement of celibacy for Catholic priests contributing to the sexual abuse problem that they have. What are they doing for their Catholic priests? Forbidding marriage, right? Well, they're all sinners and some of them can't control themselves. Right? Now, I'm not painting a blanket picture of every priest. I'm not saying that. But what am I saying? I'm saying that they've forbidden they've unbiblically forbidded forbade marriage which actually led them to more sin than less of it because of their desires and struggles with the flesh. This is the reason part of the reason that they have this problem in in in in that. So what is the source of all of this? Paul says the source of that kind of teaching is demonic. Why is it demonic? Let me tell you. It's demonic because it's restricting people in ways the Bible does not restrict them. There is no prescription for pastors. We could talk about being whether or not they should even be priests is a whole separate conversation, right? But even if we just want to say church leader, pastor, there is no there is no prescription in scripture that a pastor must be single or not married. They've added that in. If you're going to be a Catholic priest, you have to be celibate. It's adding to God's word, placing extra restrictions where God has not restricted. Ultimately, what is this? Legalism, right? This is adding to God's word. And we as a church, we are we would be violating God's word and being deceived by Satan if we add extra biblical legalistic things to God's word that it doesn't teach. But that's the subtlety of Satan. Sprinkle a little bit of lies in there, right? Sprinkle a little bit of of untruth. sprinkle just a little bit like like have them believe in Jesus, but like have them, you know, add a little bit of like I don't know um abstinence from marriage when the Bible doesn't say it and then it just watch them watch it ruin their lives. So if we tolerate a little false teaching or a little bit of legalism, the Bible says a little levan what? Leavenvens the whole lump. And so if we're loose on scripture or misinterpret scripture, if we teach things that are not consistent with scripture, we will venture way off course, which is what has happened. There is a bunch of ways that Roman Catholicism has deviated from scripture, but forbidding marriage is just one of them. There's a lot. Nowhere in the Bible do we ever pray to Mary. Why do they pray to Mary? Cuz they've added it in. That's why. Plain and simple, extra biblical requirements. It's not true. So what am I saying? What I'm saying is being rooted in truth, God's word, the scriptures guards us from spiritual adultery, being taken advantage of by false teachers, and satanic deception. So here's our closing thought. Are you rooted in truth enough, God's word enough to discern and defend the truth of God from error? Staying in the word of God is how we remain faithful to Christ. And I pray may we as a church be dedicated to 100% devotion to Christ. And I do have to say this, if I don't, it would be disobedient for me between me and the Lord. American Christians have no reason, zero excuses to be biblically illiterate. None because we have the scriptures. We have it in so many English translations, we've lost track, right? Right? We have the CSV, the ESV, the NIV, then we have the KJV, the ENKJV, then we got some other stuff that's going on. We got paraphrases, we got kids Bibles, we got everything. The only way an American Christian doesn't know the Bible is by negligence. That's why we wouldn't know scripture is because we neglect to read it. We all either a have a dusty Bible on the shelf or have it on our phone. There's no reason we shouldn't know it better. And I pray my prayer for our church is that we would know the word of God. And yes, I understand there's confusing parts. We're not God. We don't know everything. We're not omnisient. I get all of that. I understand completely. But we should be stood studious. Paul told Timothy, "Study to show yourself approved of God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed." What would bring shame to Timothy? Being ignorant of the word of God as the pastor of Ephesus. But that's not just for pastors. It's for all of us. Do we know God's word? Are we studying it? Are we asking questions about it? Are we in it at all Monday through Saturday? Are we the opposite of a faithful being faithful to Christ? Are we the opposite? Are we one in seven? Are we spiritually adulterous six days a week and on one day on Sunday, hey, let's go be faithful to God, but then six days a week, let's not. I pray that that's not us. I'm going to invite the worship team back up and close in prayer. Father, I uh in con am convicted myself um Lord, and I pray that you would use use this to uh stir in our hearts pure devotion to you, Lord. We're not perfect and we're not going to get it right every time. That's not that's not what I'm saying. But Lord, you do have a high standard, a lovingly high standard for your church, Lord. But you know what's best for us. You know that pure devotion to you is what's best for us. It's for your glory and our good. God, I pray that we would be purely devoted to Christ. And if there's anyone here who's listening to my words, who is a Christian, who says, "I've been walking with God for a little while, but I don't know his word." There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. May they not feel con at all. No condemnation, but be encouraged, encouraged, and equipped to study and to know your word better. And God, I also pray for the person who might be listening who's has no relationship with you at all, who doesn't know you as their personal Lord and Savior. I pray God that today would be the last day that that's true about them and that they would come to you, come to Christ. Help us Lord in Jesus name. Amen. Um, if if anyone wants to find me and come chat with me um during this last song or after service, I'll be in the back. Let's stand as we sing our last song.