The Belt of Truth

Well, good morning, Greenwood Christian Church. Happy 250th birthday to our nation and the Declaration of Independence. And happy Lord's Day to you. So good to be back here at the Greenwood Christian Church. It's been several years since I had the opportunity to preach here, and every time I come, I remember how many friends that I have here.

I hope you know what a great church you are a part of and how highly esteemed this church is in the community and among other churches as well. So I'm just grateful to share with you here today. Well, it's fourth of July weekend, so perhaps it's appropriate to consider a burning political controversy and question your guard up yet? You ready? Here goes.

Did George Washington actually cut down the cherry tree? And how would we know? The George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, Virginia, would be a good place to find out. And here is their official statement on the matter. And I quote, the cherry tree myth is one of the oldest and best known legends about George Washington.

In the original story, When Washington was 6 years old, he received a hatchet as a gift from for his birthday, and he damaged his father's cherry tree with it. And when his father asked George what he had done, young George said, I cannot tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet. And supposedly, the story goes that Washington's father embraced him and declared that his honesty was worth more than a thousand cherry trees. See, actually, that famous anecdote was fabricated.

Fabricated by a preacher named Mason Weems to make his book on George Washington more useful to teach values to children. And then another preacher further promoted the story. In the 1830s, there was a preacher named William Holmes McGuffey, and he turned that tale about George Washington into a children's story for his textbooks. McGuffey was a Presbyterian minister who wrote about teaching morals and religion to children. First published in 1836.

McGuffey Readers, I have one at home. Remained in print for nearly 100 years and sold over 120 million copies. And it taught the myth of the cherry tree to millions of American students. So let's get this straight. A famous story used to help children develop honesty was based on a lie perpetuated by two preachers for 200 years.

Now, there's a little addendum to this. I recently read a news release about excavations under the floor of the cellar in George Washington's home. And here's what the article said. Archaeologists have excavated bottles from the basement of the first U.S. president's Virginia estate. And.

And what they found inside blew them away. The glass contained perfectly preserved fruit, gooseberries, currants and cherries. And the fruits are believed to date back to Washington's time. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Maybe George Washington really did cut down the cherry tree.

Can I just confess something? In this AI age today, when it comes to truth, sometimes I don't know who or what to believe. I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. At least I'm not an expert on some issues. And I hear all kinds of conflicting and persuasive voices.

I have my own certain biases and limitations. People who are much smarter and learned than me are sounding so confident, but they disagree with one another and I don't have time to figure it all out. And besides that, at the end of the day, nobody cares what I think anyway. So where can I determine truth? I think it's no coincidence that you started this series against the Darkness and we're going to look at the pieces of spiritual armor and I get the privilege of talking about that first piece.

And it's no coincidence that that first piece of armor is referred to as the belt of Truth. Matt read this for us last Sunday. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms.

Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground. And after you've done everything to stand, stand firm. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist. Now here's what I want you to know as we begin that well known description, the armor of God. It's not just some clever literary passage, it's not just a nice memory verse.

What it does is it reveals our deepest weaknesses, our greatest vulnerabilities, our most susceptible breaches of protection. And these individual pieces of armor, they direct us to areas that the enemy targets in our lives. And I heard someone say one day, and I agree, if you are in a war and you don't know it, you can get hurt real bad. Does that make a lot of sense? If you're in a war and you don't know it, you can get hurt real bad.

And when we're talking about armor, these aren't just chinks in our spiritual armor. When any of these things are missing, that we're going to talk about for these next few weeks. You have more than just a chink in your armor. You have a gaping hole in your spiritual defenses. And what this text does is it exposes Satan's favorite targets, shows us where the heat of the battle is, where the front lines are.

And Matt's sermon last week revealed several very intimidating realities. And I want to review them real quick. One is this text reveals that Satan has some formidable techniques. Says, we put this armor on so that we can withstand the schemes of the devil. That word schemes is the Greek word methodia, the methods of the devil.

See, some enemies attack by sheer force and brute strength, and they overwhelm with strength and power. But. But Satan's favorite tool is deceit. After all, he's the father of lies. He started it in the garden of Eden, didn't he?

And it's still his mode of operation. That's why scripture says, let nobody deceive you with empty words. Romans 16 uses the phrase deceiving the hearts of the unsuspecting. And first, John speaks of those who are trying to deceive the believers. And we get to the end of the bible in the book of revelation, what's Satan still trying to do?

Deceive the nations? Jesus once told the Pharisees, you belong to your father, the devil. This is John 8:44, you belong to your father, the devil. You want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and not holding to the truth, for there's no truth in him.

And when he lies, he speaks his native language, for he's a liar and the father of lies. He's always got an angle. He's always working a scheme. He has formidable techniques, but he also has formidable troops. Paul says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers and powers in heavenly places.

And I don't claim to understand all that, but I know there's stuff that's going on in spiritual realm that intersects with our realm. Just like you catch bits and pieces of other radio frequencies, Sometimes when the radio frequency strays, we catch glimpses of the activity in spiritual realms, both good and bad. So he has formidable techniques, he has formidable troops, and he has a formidable time frame. In fact, Paul says, you put on the armor of God so that you'll be able to stand when. When the evil day comes.

And it would be no exaggeration for us to look at the time in which we live and to admit that sometimes these are evil days. I don't even need to prove that to you, do I? You can get sick and scared and mad and depressed and discouraged all at the same time, watching the news. Politicians telling lies, extorting from citizens, terrorists killing innocent people, whack job preachers and fake Christians all over the world. A hypocritical government and media broadcasting to the world.

Economic turmoil, environmental disaster eroding religious freedom, poverty, disease, natural disaster, disintegrating families, personal lives in shambles, petty quarrels in the church. This is a formidable time frame. And so Paul says, you put on the full armor of God so you can resist when the evil day comes. So we start with the belt. Why the Belt of Truth first?

Well, a couple of reasons. One is the belt, especially in ancient times, was would free people up for action, because one of the most critical purposes of the belt was to secure any loose clothing. So the soldier was mobile and ready to fight. He wouldn't want to be stumbling or restricted by his outfit. It held everything else in place.

A friend of mine reminded me of how one Kings tells how Elijah, after defeating the prophets of BAAL on Mount Carmel, tucked his cloak into his belt and he ran ahead of King Ahab. You remember the Hebrew children, the children of Israel. As they escaped Egypt, they were instructed to eat the Passover with their garments tucked into their belt and their sandals on their feet, ready to go. The Bible uses this imagery of preparation in the New Testament as well. Luke, chapter 12, let your waist be girded and your lamps burning, and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master.

Peter says, gird up the loins of your mind so the belt frees you up for action. And the second thing it does is it holds other armor in place. A couple of years ago, I was out to lunch with a friend at a restaurant, eating, and we noticed a man walk up to the cash register to pay his bill. He was an older man with a bit of a belly, and as he reached into his back pocket for his wallet, he must have somehow dislodged the waistline of his trousers because his pants fell all the way down to his ankles. And he stood there in the restaurant helplessly in his boxer shorts.

And let me tell you, I have never seen an old man move so fast as he did, retrieving his pants off the floor and then acting like it never happened. And we pretended like we didn't see. We looked away to minimize his embarrassment, but the damage had already been done. And I noticed that my friend who was eating with me that day has worn suspenders ever since. It even happened in the Church.

One day we were expecting huge crowds for Easter, so we rented the high school gymnasium in Mooresville. And an old, sweet gentleman in our church was serving communion. He had a tray of bread in one hand, he had the tray of the fruit of the vine in the other. And as he was serving communion up in the bleachers, his pants fell down. He was unable to pick them up because both of his hands were full.

It was a moment of embarrassment for him. See, what the belt does is it holds other things in place, all the weapons you're going to look at. The belt helped to hold that in place, and it protected your midsection. The belt in ancient armor was meant to protect you from low blows. And Satan is an expert at low blows.

And it would give you confidence, and we want confidence that comes from putting on the Belt of Truth.

Truth and Lie were swimming one day. They had run into each other walking in the woods by a lake. And Lie suggested to Truth that they go for a swim together. And Truth thought that sounded pretty good. So Truth agreed.

And the plan is that both Lie and Truth would dive into the water at the same time. On the count of three, they stripped down and counted. One, two, three, three. And Truth dove in, but Lie did not. And Truth dove way down deep.

And he thought the water felt good and refreshing. But when Truth came back up to the surface, he realized that Lie had tricked him and Lie hadn't jumped into the water at all. Lie was nowhere to be seen. And to make matters worse, Lie had taken Truth's carefully folded clothes and headed back to town without leaving Truth without his clothes, leaving him totally naked. So Truth had no other choice.

He climbed out of the water without his clothes and he went back toward town looking for Lie so he could get his clothes back. And he found Lie in town. And sure enough, Lie was wearing Truth's clothes. And people start gathering around as Truth confronted Lie and they argued and demanded that Lie give his clothes back. And Lie denied stealing Truth's clothes.

And all the people watching them argue had to decide what and who to believe. Would they believe a lie wrapped in Truth's clothing, or would they believe the naked truth? There are various versions of that famous centuries old legend, and the dilemma is still real today. We're faced with with Truth and falsehood every day, and it's often difficult to tell the difference. And when you are a disciple of Jesus, the stakes are even higher.

So for the next few minutes, I want to talk about something we must all consider. You know, there are dozens of references reminding us repeatedly that Jesus loves truth, that he tells truth, even that he is the truth. The Bible says he cannot lie. It says grace and truth came through Jesus. In fact, before Jesus spoke, he would often say, verily, verily or truly, truly, double verily.

You can trace it through his life, his birth, age 12 in the temple, his baptism, temptation, trial, crucifixion, resurrection, the sending of the Holy Spirit. But I want to pull just two powerful statements from something that was said as Jesus stood on trial before pilate in John 18:37. Pilate said, you're a king then. And Jesus answered, you say that I'm a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth.

Did you hear him? The reason I came into the world, Jesus said, is to testify to the truth. And then he added, everyone on the side of truth listens to me. So we get our first clue there on how to buckle on the belt of truth. You put your ultimate trust in the truth of Jesus.

You go to the source that is better than any fact checker. You ever wondered about all this fact checking? Oh well, this has been fact checked. Listen to these titles of articles that are actually written about fact checking. Fact Checkers Lie Who Fact Checks the Fact Checkers How Political Fact Checkers Distort the Truth Checking the Fact Checkers Fact Checking Under Fire When Fact Checkers Lie the Limits of Fact Checking the Truth About Fact Checkers Confessions of a Former Fact Checker Dishonest Fact Checkers in my favorite Pants on Fire, one author claimed fact checking is code for burying a story that counters the accepted narrative.

And we can find self proclaimed fact checkers to confirm any narrative that we want to believe. Now that doesn't mean that fact checking shouldn't happen. It's still needed. It can be very helpful when it's done responsibly. But you can't just look at all fact checking that you don't like and say it's not true.

So maybe we should outlaw misinformation. Well, that's a great idea. Who gets to determine what's true and what's false? Who gets and what's misinformation? Well, according to Jesus, he does.

Ultimately, truth comes from Jesus. In just one section of John 5:31-47, Jesus refers to five or six testimonies establishing the truth about himself. He referred to his own testimony about himself. He referred to the testimony of John. He referred to the testimony of his works.

He referred to the testimony of his Father and the testimony of Moses and. And referred to the testimony of Scripture. In fact, he once said to the Pharisees, the religious teachers, his word doesn't dwell in you. This is John 5:38, for you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.

And these are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. In other words, he was saying, you're in the Word, but the Word's not in you. Then you remember. At his temptation, he countered each of Satan's clever lies with Scripture. Matthew 4.

Jesus answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God. Can I just say it this way? As we think about buckling up this belt of truth today, either Jesus and Scripture will be the lens through which you view the world, or the world will be the lens through which you view Jesus and scripture. Let me just say it again. Either Jesus and Scripture will be the lens through which you view the world, or the world will be the lens through which you view Jesus and scripture.

Ultimately, one or the other will be your authority. So if you want to buckle up the belt of truth, this spiritual piece of armor you put your ultimate trust in, in his truth. We have a couple of missionaries at Mount Gilead from Pioneer Bible Translators. Their name are Mac and Caitlin. They had an interesting experience.

They're missionaries to Papua New guinea, and they provide these little devices that will play the recorded New Testament for people to listen to scripture in their own language. They're called proclaimers. And one of their team members had a suitcase loaded with about 100 of those Proclaimers. And evidently the plane had a bit of a rough ride and a rough landing, and all 100 proclaimers went off at the same time. And they couldn't turn them off.

Through customs, through the airport, everywhere, 100 unsynchronized declarations of truth in the Apar language. That particular model of proclaimer is called the mega voice. Jesus and his Word are the mega voice of truth. Scripture says, let God be true and every man be be a liar. So we have to determine to put our ultimate trust in his truth.

And the second thing we have to do is to cancel out the noise that drowns out truth. Lies are the native tongue of Satan. Deceit is his language. When you lie, you are speaking in the language of Satan. You can't trust anything he says.

And so we have to become proficient in the language of truth. And I might just mention you have one of the biggest lies with you at all. Time fits in your pocket, it's about 3 by 5 inches. You can find some true stuff on it, you can find some good stuff on it, but you can find some whopper lies.

Too many of us are drinking from the cesspool that is social media and we get sucked in. It will disciple you. It will. It will fill you with deceit or despair and your righteous soul will be beyond vexed and you'll be shaped by it. People who are claiming the name of Jesus or cursing the name of people Jesus died for.

People who don't know anything about love are lecturing you about love. People who don't value life or making policy about life. People who are most intolerant are screaming for tolerance. And people who are most closed minded are calling Jesus followers closed minded. And people who tout law and order and the rule of law are ignoring it.

People who claim wisdom and intelligence are defined based common sense. People who are invoking history are ignoring history. People who decry racism are practicing it. People who are self enslaved are defining freedom. People who say trust the science but reject the science when it doesn't fit their narrative.

People who are boasting the moral high ground and yet crawling around in the sewer. I have a pair of earbuds and I can press those earbuds and turn on active noise canceling if I want to until I need to hear something good from the outside like my wife's voice or something like that. We have to cancel the noise that drowns out the truth. And number three, we have to practice discernment of his truth. You know what Hebrews 5:14 says?

Hebrews 5:14 says solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves. One translation says, who by practice have trained themselves to distinguish between good and evil. And so what I want to do just in these next couple of minutes is give you four quick truth detectors. This will be the most important thing that I say. If you don't write anything else down, if you don't hear anything else, hear this.

Because truth is in Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life. And here's four truth detectors to help us to determine lies from truth and to buckle up the belt of truth. Number one, what did Jesus say? If Jesus is truth and he came to testify of the truth and everybody who is on his side is on the side of truth, then a big question becomes what did Jesus do say because his words are the acid test of truth, but it's not just what did Jesus say, It is, what did Jesus do?

That famous WWJD thing, it's a wonderful thing, but it's not enough by itself. We ask, what did Jesus say? But we also look, what did Jesus do? And the third question we ask is, what was Jesus character and essence? What was he like?

How did he respond? What kind of a person was he? And truth is found in Jesus himself, in his character and his essence. What he said, what he did, who he was. And there's one that often gets left off.

Who did Jesus commission? Who did he endorse? I hear people sometimes saying, well, I'm a red letter Christian. And that sounds good. You're paying attention to the words of Jesus.

But Jesus also looked at his apostles who he had trained for several years, and he said, the Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth. And he did. And they wrote it down for us. And so we find out truth not just from the red letters, not just from the words of Jesus, and not just from the actions of Jesus, what Jesus did, and not just from who Jesus is, his character. We also find truth from who Jesus commissioned and endorsed to make all of his will known to us.

So for review, the way to buckle up the belt of truth is to put your trust in his truth. To cancel the noise that drowns out the truth. To practice discerning the truth by looking at the truth that is in Jesus. And then number four, to determine to personally traffic in his truth. So believe the truth, live the truth, traffic in truth.

That's why Jesus once said, as he did in the Sermon on the Mount, all you need to say is yes or no. Anything beyond that comes from the evil one. When you forward something that you don't know for sure, did he really say that? Did he really do that? Is that viral video really true?

Did that really happen? Is this AI generated? Is that really him? Is this in context? Is the video doctored?

When you forward something, you don't know whether it's true or not, you think it might be true. You're not trafficking in truth. I've heard my own voice, read my own article that I wrote out loud, even though I've never read that article out loud. They took recordings of my voice to have an article that I wrote read aloud in my voice. Followers of Jesus have a higher responsibility to traffic in truth.

That's true even around the local church and the narratives that sometimes spread. Because a lie is a lie, even if your side tells it, a lie is a lie, even if you don't realize it's a lie. A lie is a lie, even if it sounds reasonable. A lie is a lie even if lots of people believe it. A lie is a lie no matter who tells it.

A lie is a lie regardless of how many times it's repeated. And a lie is a lie even when you make that lie for a higher cause. And a lie is a lie even if you wish it were true. But truth is truth no matter who contradicts it. Truth is truth even when you don't like it.

Truth is truth, regardless of the outcome. Truth is truth even when it doesn't help my agenda. Truth is truth even when important people deny it. And truth is truth even when everyone else rejects it. Now, this might tell you something about my age, so I kind of hesitate to do it.

Well, I'll just tell you. I'm 64 years old and I still love the Andy Griffith Show. And I love that Andy Griffith episode where some rough characters are setting up a fruit stand within the city limits of Mayberry. And Barney Fife comes along in his authoritative self important way, screaming something to these guys that set up this booth about violating City Ordinance 412 B. And the vendors see through his false bravado immediately and they send him running scared with his tail between his legs.

And Sheriff Taylor finds out about it. He forces Barney to go back and run the men off. And Barney's about to have a heart attack with his one bullet in his pocket. And he calmly walks up to the offenders and he looks them in the eye and he points to his badge and he says quietly, you both may be bigger and stronger than me, but this badge, it's bigger than either one of us. And it represents hundreds of people in this town.

And it is on that authority that I must insist that you leave. And they left. And poor Barney almost collapsed in his fear. Folks, to be real honest, sometimes I feel a little bit like Barney Fife. There are people who are more intelligent and articulate than I am.

There are people who are more learned than I am. There are people who are more sophisticated and more confident than I am. But I must calmly take my stand on the Jesus truth and lovingly remind them and myself that he's more powerful and more authoritative and much wiser than all of us put together. And so what I'm asking you to do as you begin this series on the armor of God, is to buckle up, buckle up and buckle in. Put on the belt of truth, because it holds everything else in place.

And let me just say all of my eggs, all of my eggs are in the Jesus basket. My worldview, all of my eggs are in the Jesus basket. He came to testify of the truth. Everyone who is on the side of truth listens to him. He is the one who said, I am the way, the truth and the life.

So buckle up that belt and put your trust in him. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for today. We're grateful for this scripture that is revealed to us, Lord, of how we can be strong in you and strong in the strength your might. And I pray that be true of the greenwood Christian church.

Lord, we're grateful for your truth and we're grateful for your son Jesus. And we ask these things today in his name. Amen.

Just looking at my notes, we always want to lead you or give you the opportunity to take a next step. And as I was writing down as Jeff was preaching, just thinking, what could be some practical next steps for us? This morning he asked that question, are we filling ourselves with his truth, something you could do? Maybe a next step for you is to add more reading of scripture to your daily diet. Meditate on it, maybe even memorize it.

Maybe you could add some songs of worship to your playlist and take out some songs that maybe feed you with more of the lies of this world. Maybe it's replacing some of your doom scrolling or social media consumption with more time in his Word and the list could go on and on. But we all have a next step. And as we hear God's word taught and preached, he wants us to hear it and obey it. We have a Next Steps team that's available every week at the front of the room.

And as they make their way down at this time, we invite you to take advantage of that. They want to pray with you, they want to hear from you, they want to start a conversation with you about what it looks like to be obedient to the ways and the truth, the teachings of Jesus. In addition to that, we offer Next Steps classes every single week. They're different, they're unique. The first week of the month is Next Steps Discover.

And this is the first Sunday of the month. And so at 11am in room 502 out in the commons, you'll see a Next Steps banner. It's our Discover class and that's designed for those of you who want to see how your story matters to God, discover how your story is a part of his story, and how Greenwood Christian Church can be a part of bringing those stories together. And then next week at 11am we have next steps. Follow Jesus.

It's a great step for those of you who want to know more about what it truly means to trust and to follow Jesus. And you can always text the word next to 317-707-9997. We're grateful for you. May we be men and women, young and old, who put on the belt of truth. May you go in peace.