Staying True Beats Knowing It's True | Ears to Hear #24

I explore a vital but often overlooked truth: staying true to the gospel through daily obedience and faithfulness matters more for our salvation and growth than achieving complete intellectual certainty that it is true. 

Title Song: Nothing but the Blood of Jesus by Free As a Bird

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Staying true is greater than knowing it is true. What do I mean by this? With the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have what we know and believe in our heads, and we have what we know and believe in our hearts. I think those are two different. Those are places where different experiences cause different emotions within us. I can hear the objection to this. It's oh, it's important. You have to know. You have to know the Bible through and through. You have to know that Jesus Christ is your savior. You have to know that the resurrection is real. You need evidence. You have to be able to prove it. If you can't prove it, it's not real. It's not true. Fair. Sure, fair. One way to know if this is true is to put it to the test. I really think God is an advocate for here is the gospel, here are the steps, here are the commandments that I command you to follow. If you follow them over time and watch that trajectory of your life, staying true to that is gonna be way more beneficial to you than knowing it is true. The story of David. David, the David in the Bible, who wrote so much of it, who ultimately was chosen by God to do many great and important things, slayed Goliath. What happened to David in the end? He knew. If you could interview, if you could do a street interview with David today, hey David, what's up, bro? How you doing? Uh did you know the gospel was true? Did you know that God was real? Yeah, I did. Okay, well then what happened? Where's that gap? Because David fell. David fell in a very terrible manner. He had somebody killed over a woman. It was this whole thing. Not a good situation. David fell. So there's a gap there because I really think David knew God personally. That's a personal belief. I I just don't believe David went through his life and his his chosenness of being highly favored to the Lord and didn't actually know that the commandments were real and that they would keep him on the straight and narrow path to heaven. So what happened? And I think we know people who know they have the knowledge that Jesus is real, that the resurrection actually happened, that that is true, but are they true to that knowledge? I think there's lots of times, and often it's just due to our own weaknesses as humans, where we we falter, we fail despite what we know. I mean, how often is that a theme in our lives where God, why do I do the things that I do when I know the things that I know? Well, shoot, I'm just weak. That's just is the plain answer sometimes. I'm just weak. The spirit is willing, but the flesh isn't. Um, you know, I think about people with addictions who struggle, like they'll probably all tell you, yeah, I know this is bad for me. I know I probably shouldn't do this. They do it anyway. So we need to pray for our brothers and sisters who struggle in those ways. But let's get a bit more concise here. What about when we know? I'm not talking about like sins and weaknesses we commit, right? That's that's built into the plan. Repentance and the atonement of Jesus Christ succors us throughout that whole process as we continually utilize it, lean on the Savior, and receive his grace. We are healed. That's great. What I mean is, how do you prevent yourself from defecting from the faith? I'm not talking about just like predispositions, addictions, like general weakness. I'm talking about actually making critical errors, choosing incorrectly, so much so that you are jeopardizing your soul, your eternal welfare. You are spiritually dying because you continually choose despite the knowledge you've been given. I'm not talking about people, some people just don't know. Some people just don't know the difference. There's countries out there where Christ has never been preached to them. They don't know the concept of Christ. They're not going to be held accountable for that. That's not their fault. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you. I'm talking about you know certain things. You might not know everything. I hope you don't tell yourself that you know everything, but you might know certain things about God. Hopefully, you've had some experiences that have lent you to believe in God, the reality of Jesus Christ and his spirit. Now, do you stay true to that experience you've had or experiences? However small, however big, you know, if somebody was listening to this and they're 80 years deep in life, they probably have a plethora of spiritual witnesses that they've garnered over the years that they can really look at and go, yeah, like I I can't deny this. Not that they would, but they just, it's it's too much. There's too much of God's hand that they've seen in their life for them to not be true to the commandments of God. Versus somebody who's maybe early in their 20s, in their teens, who would listen to this, maybe has only had like a small handful, maybe one or two like spiritual experiences. And in the moment they're great, but as you go through day-to-day life and you don't get them very often, or so it seems, it's hard to like build a case for God. And so it'd be easier to choose to do things that aren't in line with the straight, narrow path that God has laid out for us. And so the scriptures are filled with admonitions. James 1.22. I went through and and this is a great one. Be doers of the word and not hearers only. What is this podcast called? Ears to hear. Because it's a predominant theme. It went with the whole podcast. You listen to podcasts. I thought it was cute. Play on words, religion, awesome. Um, but actually doing the things that we're told and that we read from God are it's far more important. And here is the the key of faith. This is where the magic lies is the action that we choose to do when we're not sure, when we're actually unsure of what to do, and we don't really fully believe that we'll receive certain blessings or in what we're doing, but we do it anyway, that's where God can go, boom, you get it, you're doing it. You know what I mean? Excuse me. John 14, 15. If ye love me, keep my commandments. That is the only prerequisite to needing to do anything. Like, if God asked, um, you know, I have some commandments I want you to keep, and and then you go, okay, like what what do I need beforehand? Like, what's the resume you're looking for, God? He doesn't ask that we know that what we will do will lead to blessings. He doesn't, you know, it like I would want to know, like, if somebody's offering me um a job, like I want to know what skills they're looking for, so I can hopefully like develop those beforehand, assuming this is what I really want. Um God doesn't do that. It's just if you love me, keep them. Keep them. I mean, truly. So if we don't keep the commandments, do we not love God? Sorta. In that moment we don't. In that moment, we loved something more. We really did. There's been moments in my life I've loved something more than my than the love I had for God. That's hard to admit. I don't want to admit that. I want you know, I've always loved God, I've always just been like facing God in my life. But not in not 24-7, 365. That's not true. I can't say that. What does the trend look like though? Over time, do I keep the commandments because I actually truly love God? That's what we need to ask. Um, and I think it's important to note like this is a process, right? Staying true to the gospel doesn't mean you're not going to be shaken sometimes. It doesn't mean you haven't already had experiences where you weren't true to it. Maybe you went away for a while. Peter denied Christ three times. Um, it it's a thing that happens with some of the greatest believers of all time. And so that can be you. Maybe you're away right now, maybe you just recently got back, maybe you've been back for a long time. Whatever your situation is, it's important to know that's part of the process. What does your trend look like over time? And the point I'm making is you can know. Like, I personally, in my free time, I spend a decent amount of time when I listen to media, I listen to like two, three podcasts, and a lot of it is like biblical, religious related um information, media. And so right now I'm like deep in like biblical scholar YouTube and TikTok, where I get a wide variety of types of media, and I'm learning and I'm growing and I'm realizing how much I don't know, right? It's the it's the graph where like you think you know once you start learning, you're like, wow, like I'm overly confident, and then the more you keep digging, you like you understand you actually know nothing about the topic. As somebody who's who's read the Bible cover to cover, I've spent a long time preaching it in my life, and as I read it still every day, it's like, well, I actually don't know this as well as I thought, and I'm having like my paradigm shifted around it, and I it's the word of God, I love it, I always will. Um, but more and more, this is becoming a text that we each get to negotiate with. The text in and of itself inherently this is just words on a page, and we each clearly take different meanings from it. How many denominations of Christianity are there? How many offshoots has this led to? Um, this has led to zealots, people who do things that are wrong, using the Bible as their reason. Um, so clearly there's a negotiation happening individually with the Bible. And it doesn't matter how much I know about this. The the actual authors and the contradictions and the univocality, whether it exists or doesn't, and the Trinitarian notion not actually being biblical, like there's a lot we can learn to know based on data, and that's important. I think it's important to be a student of the religion that you choose to believe in. More important though, the basics that are preached by the Son of God when Jesus Christ came to this earth, more important than the knowledge I get from studying this, you know, these articles and the data and the research and what what this shows and doesn't show, is day to day, Monday through Sunday, as I go throughout my week, do I live the principles that Jesus Christ taught? Even if I don't know fully everything surrounding them, and and I'm unable to maybe explain them well to people who are non-believers, even if I don't know and have the knowledge of everything that's in here, because I don't, I really, really don't. When I go through my week, Monday through Sunday, and I abide by the principles and the commandments that are taught in here, my life is better. Objectively, my life is so much better. Not always, there's there's moments, but that trend that I'll keep referring to over time is so good. And I've lived times in my life where I don't fully do that and my life is worse. It is worse. I can look at you right now and say staying true to the gospel is number one most important thing you can do, even when you don't know what you should do. The answer is not on the other side. My brother has a friend, um, I believe it's a friend of his where this family is kind of defected from Christianity. And his friend, and this is one of those stories that's not sounding very reliable, but it's a story of a friend of a friend of a friend, whatever. My brother's really close friend had a brother who defected, who left for myriad of reasons, personal, whatever. And then when my brother's friend was kind of struggling and having having his own faith crisis, this friend of his said, Well, why don't you just try not following the commandments? Do the things you want to do, you know, commit the sins that you've been told were sins the whole your whole life, and and just do what you want to do. Like leave the faith and do what you do and see what's more fun. See where you feel better. Guess what? That guy hasn't been back to church. I don't know what his personal beliefs are right now, but he has no interest right now in living the gospel. I don't think that's that shocking. Because objectively, it probably is gonna be more fun. On the other side, the other side of the river, with everyone partying and drinking and having a ball, I'm sure they're having a good time. And objectively, it might be more fun. I might have more fun if I decide to start drinking alcohol. 26 years, never had a sip of alcohol. I might have more fun. If this weekend I just decide, you know what, to heck with it, I'm I'm gonna try this out. I might have a lot of fun. It's possible. I might have a lot of fun if I decide like chastity and and you know intimacy with women isn't something I want to wait to do till marriage. And I want to just start doing that. Just just freely go start having intimate relationships with women. That might be fun. That might like objectively be a good time. That's what the world tells us it is. I mean, you can't look anywhere without some sort of degradation of women and their bodies and men and sex. Probably more fun. How does that trend look? Well, we know how it looks. We know that that doesn't leave to peace. That does not leave to happiness. It just plain flat out doesn't. It might be more fun to lower my morals and start making a lot of money doing things that are just a bit unethical, maybe lacking integrity. Maybe I start slinging drugs on the side. Maybe I do that, and there's a rush, and all of a sudden, oh shoot, I'm making good money. Or maybe I start committing fraudulent acts at work. I couldn't do that if I wanted to. But you know what I mean? That might be fun and exhilarating, and there's a reason, right? We we like we love movies. Um what are those casino movies? Oceans 11. You know, there's something about that. It's like, oh man, they like robbed the casinos, like that's or the you know, whatever museum. We we like watching that because it's like cool and fun, and there's like a weird, you know. Let it be in the movies. That will not lead to a life of peace and happiness and just like steady joy. It just won't. You can be like my brother's friend and go try it out, and you'll probably stay over there. Just know that's what you're choosing. You're choosing that. And if you're okay with that, cool, cool beans, bro. Enjoy yourself, have a ball. I'm gonna stay true to these principles, even though maybe they're not the most fun. But like, honestly, it it's lit over here. Like, Christianity is sick, it it's it's sick because I feel like I have all the major questions in my life answered already. Like Christ has already given me the peace for life's biggest, most complicated questions I could have. Not all, and I might go through some really hard things in my future that I I don't know how to deal with. But that's again where Christ in that moment will be able to succor me because I'll be able to take those emotions and that grief and whatever pain I might be going through and like offload that to Christ who has already done that for me. It's not all about sins, sometimes it's about more than that. All the emotions in depth that we feel, Christ stepped into that for us. So, overall, the peace of living the gospel is far and away better, even if I don't know, even without the the crystal clear knowledge that this is all legit. I didn't see Christ get crucified on the cross. Oh, well, it's actually extremely documented. That's great. I've I've done the research, I've seen the documentation of Christ in his life as a historical figure. Yes, he was a historical being, and and there's so much up for debate, and we can go back and forth all day on the reality of Christ, but then a step further, okay, well, great, sure, he might have been historical, but homie didn't arise from the tomb. Like that just nobody's ever done that. So he didn't do that, and nobody's ever done that, nobody ever will do that. I choose to believe in that because believing in that and following the principles that stem from that belief have significantly blessed and changed my life so much. Staying true to Easter morning when he rolled the stone over and said, What's up? That's not historical. Um but staying true to that is is all that matters. I don't think that's cowardly. I don't think that's a cop out. I don't think that's you know, weak people, I have probably said this before, but you know, I like I've had uh conversations with people who are like, man, you really believe in that? I had somebody online recently like you you really mean to tell me you believe in X, Y, and Z? And it's kind of like, yeah, it's crazy, right? But I got my questions answered to you. Like, how do you feel about death? Like, actually, how do you feel about dying? I'm cool with it. I I remember. I remember when I became like totally at peace with the concept of dying. 18 years old in Ghana, in Africa, and I started catching hold of the the vision which is Christianity and the reality of it all. And something just clicked for me, and it was just like, you know, death like doesn't really scare me or affect me. Not that it's not hard, not that it won't be for me, for any loved ones. But the resurrection has given me that. Staying true to that gives me so much more. So I'm not tripping. But are you? Stay true to the gospel. It's so much better than just knowing it's true. You can know it's true, it doesn't mean you're gonna make it. Doesn't mean you're gonna secure your place at the right hand of God at the last day, as we're invited to do. So thanks for your ears as always. Chat next week.