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Sacramento Central SDA Church

Chris Buttery

Three Truths to Live By

Life support systems often fill people with a sense of dread and fear.

While they keep people alive, no 1 anticipates or wants to be hooked up to 1.

It was the same for a lady by the name of Sylvia I read about.

Everything about the life support machine, the dials, the tubes, everything filled her with horror.

And because of that, she dreaded visiting hospitals.

But she realized on this occasion she had to, so stealing herself, she went in to visit a friend.

But walking down those sterilized corridors in the hospital, it just got to her and she just had to get out.

She walked quickly to where there was an elevator, stabbed the button, waited for the doors to open and as the doors opened, Sylvia was confronted with her greatest fear.

Next to an attendant standing there on the elevator was a large metal machine with dials and tubes.

Politely decline getting on and wait for the next elevator or just confront her fears and get on.

Slowly she decided to get on, so she slowly with trepidation you'd understand, shuffled onto the elevator.

The door shut behind her in what seemed to be an eternity.

Sylvia was there facing her fears, perspiring, sweating.

Finally, the elevator came to a stop and the doors cracked open and with a sigh of relief, Sylvia blurted out to the attendant, sure would hate to be hooked up to 1 of those.

The attendant looked quizzically down at the machine and then up at Sylvia and said, so would I.

You know, life can often play tricks on us, can't they, can't it?

We run from pretty much nothing into the arms of the unknown.

Even the language we use, English language we use, can be tricky at times.

Ladies go to the hairdresser and they get permanence, but then they have to go back 3 months later.

I mean, there's nothing permanent about that, is it?

No, I'm hearing some men out there, oh yes, yeah, that's right.

Doctors study for a certain period of time and then they open their practice, but I'm not sure I want a doctor practicing on me.

And then, of course, during rush hour, no one's really in a rush, are they?

I mean, just really, it's bumper to bumper.

And then of course we have noses that run and feet that smell, and so we're all discombobulated.

We do have to ask the truth here, we do have to ask the question rather this morning, what is truth?

Perhaps life is really about our own personal perceptions, all perception is reality, right?

If this was so, then we'd have to live by the motto, well whatever works.

But can truth be determined by that standard?

Perhaps we could leave truth or reality to a majority of vote.

Sometimes we actually inherit our thoughts from seeing the obvious and consider that to be reality.

I remember when Aaron, and I got Aaron's permission, but Aaron was about 2 years old and we'd given him some cars to play with and Jen and I would notice that he would actually We would come into his bedroom or wherever the cars were and the cars would be lined up perfectly behind 1 another and we just got to thinking how that how we how we learned to do that or where he got that from and because when I was a kid I'd take the cars into the dirt and all through the...

But Aaron had his cars lined up perfectly and it dawned on us 1 particular day, this was when we were living in Toronto, there's a major freeway called the 401 and many times we found ourselves on the 401.

Many times the cars weren't going anywhere and the vehicles were bumper to bumper, literally lined up 1 behind the other and we realized Aaron thinks that's what cars do.

They line up 1 behind the other, you see.

Sometimes we gain our thoughts from seeing the obvious and then consider that to be reality.

I was introduced several years ago to a word and the word is quiddity.

It simply means what something actually is and it butts head with the popular worldview that says life is a buffet of choose your own realities.

You put your hand on a hot stove, you're going to get burned.

You run a red light, you're going to get into trouble in a variety of different ways.

You jump from a roof and the only way you're going is where?

The metaphysical or New Age view that perception is the only reality doesn't cut it, especially when we care about the end result.

Someone once asked, do we really want to know the truth that provides freedom and true happiness or have we gotten so used to our lies, our pains, our prisons that any light is blinding and all we want is the comfort of cold familiar shadows?

What is the standard by which we weigh thoughts and actions and experience?

Well, the standard for flatness, just bear with me for a moment, but the standard for flatness is measured mathematically.

The mathematical value of flatness is 1.000.

Do you want to know how flat a pancake is when compared to that standard?

A pancake is, well you know a flat pancake, is 0.957 flat when compared to that standard, that measurement of flatness.

Interestingly, Kansas, the state of Kansas is .9997 flat.

Had friends that lived in Manitoba, Canada for a little while and he said...

He said Manitoba was so flat that We could let our dog run for 6 days and we could still see it running, it was that flat.

The value of truth is stated plainly in the Bible so that none need be confused.

Turn with me to John chapter 8 if you would.

John chapter 8 and verse 32 to a familiar text.

Notice what it says here, to know the truth is the pursuit of life.

John chapter 8 and verse 32 Jesus is speaking and He says and you shall know the truth and the truth shall do what friends make you or set you free that's right knowing truth will make a person free free from worry free from guilt free from fear free from misconceptions about God free to follow the dictates of one's own conscience as it is guided by the truth you understand.

There are 3 things that are stated in the Bible that define what truth is.

You can read that in Psalm 119, 142, where it says, 142.

Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is truth.

Also in verse 151, Thou art near, O Lord, and all Thy commandments are truth.

Second, Jesus said in John 17 verse 17, Sanctify them through Thy truth.

And so we have the Bible that that is that is the standard of truth And then Jesus talking to his bewildered disciples He's about to be betrayed about to go to the cross and he states these very famous words in John 14 in verse 6 I am the way the truth and the life you understand.

Jesus you see so Here we have the value of truth.

The standard is God's law as expounded by his word and personified in the life of Jesus Christ.

The standard of truth is God's law is expounded in His word and personified in the life of Jesus.

There is nothing more complete or perfect than this.

Everything must be filtered through, put up against and checked by this standard, the law, expounded by the Word of God and personified in the life of Jesus.

And of course, admittedly, truth is not always easy to look at.

I read about a teacher who got tired of his pupils spouting off the number 1 billion as if the number just wasn't a significant number at all, a small number.

So he told his class if they could put 1000000000 dots onto paper by the end of the semester he would pass them no matter what grade they no matter how they did in a test or in an assignment didn't matter he would pass them if they could put a billion dots on paper by the end of the end of the school year now before they were to start their assignment he he wanted to warm them of the near impossibility of the task.

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Three Truths to Live By

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