This is a talk I gave a church this month, on the topic of “To Stand for Truth or to Abandon it.” I’m sorry to have been MIA for so long…I’ve been working on the talk, and on some other writing. I thought I’d share this, although some of the talk is specific to where I live I think it’s food for thought wherever you may be.
Part 1: The Jelly Donut Gospel
What is Truth? Society would like us to believe that truth is relative, different for everyone. But we know this is not the case! God has put the desire to live in truth in our hearts. There is an abundance of evidence for that throughout time and around the world. I feel that I would be remiss if I did not outline the truth for you, in case there is someone here who’s never heard it. I know that I never get tired of hearing it, and I know I get weary and need to hear it often…especially when I think I’ve got it sorted in my own mind. So in a nutshell here it is: God is perfect. He is infinite and His plan has been in place forever. God created the universe, he created the world and he invented men and women, and everything he created was good perfect and right. Through his perfect will and his perfect plan, God gave us free will, and from the beginning we’ve messed that up. Humans chose to sin.In the garden, sin entered the world and tainted creation. We humans can’t help but sin, we’re born that way. Nobody who is 100% human can be 100% good, it just isn’t possible. Even if you’re 99% good and 1% evil, you are tainted by sin.
God is perfect, God’s righteousness cannot be in the presence of sin. Here’s an illustration as to how being 99% good is still not enough. If I take a donut, a really good-looking nice fresh donut (this one is plain, so just project your favorite type onto it. For me, it would be a jelly donut):
and I dip it in the toilet….
Would you eat it? What if I just dipped it in really, really fast? What if you were really hungry? Let’s face it, even it I just waved it around in the bowl and it never touched the water, and even if you hadn’t eaten all day, you wouldn’t eat that donut. If you and I wouldn’t eat a donut tainted by toilet water (even a very small amount of toilet water!), how much more would a perfect, holy, righteous God not tolerate a soul tainted by sin?
That’s the bad news.
The good news, the reason why we’re here tonight, is that God loves us and He doesn’t want us to be lost to him. God is our loving father. Maybe you had a wonderful, loving father? He’s even better than that. Maybe you had a father who wasn’t there, or one who hurt you instead of protected you? God is waiting to fill that void. He knows each and every one of us, our likes and dislikes, how we like our eggs in the morning, our deepest thoughts, our wildest dreams, our darkest fears. He knows how many hairs are on our heads and he created every one of us, by hand, one-of-a-kind, knit stitch by stitch. He knew what we were going to be like before our great-great-great grandmothers were born. We are his precious daughters, his most treasured children. Each of us is of infinite value to him (way, way more precious than a jelly donut!). He wants us to be with him, he longs for us, he desires us. He wants us home with him in heaven forever.
We are sinful, and God is perfect. There is a divide between us deeper than the grand canyon, wider than the ocean. Back to the jelly donut….what could I do to a jelly donut that’s been floating in the toilet, to make it acceptable for you to eat? Wash it? Drench it in hand sanitizer? Microwave it? No amount of washing will get it clean. What could I add to it to make it more appealing? Wrap it in bacon? Cover it in chocolate? Add a mountain of whipped cream with a cherry on top?
There’s nothing that you can add to the donut, no whistles and bells, no upgrades, no sweet sugary topping that’s going to make it OK for you to eat that donut. Even if your mouth is watering for it, even if it’s your deepest desire, even if you are longing to eat it. But God is God! He can do things that we can’t do. He can take the jelly donut and make it new again, as though it just came out of the oven.
What God offers us is a bridge across the grand canyon, a first class ticket on a cruise boat across the ocean. God’s plan to bring us back to him was in place before Eve even considered snacking on that apple. His plan was to come to earth himself, to become human like you and I. What we cannot do by washing or adding toppings, God did through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who could save us, because he is the only jelly donut who never took a dip in the toilet. He lived among us, loved us, saw and felt and smelled and heard every broken, beautiful element of the world. He knew what it was to be tempted, yet he did not sin.
And he willingly took our sins upon himself, upon his perfect being, as a sacrifice to purify us from the sin we were born into. Jesus….perfect, holy, beautiful Jesus….became sin itself for our sake. He was broken, forsaken, rejected, and hung on a cross, and every sin that had ever passed and every sin that was yet to come was hung on him on that day. Jesus spent it all for you, for me. . But he rose again three days later, conquering death itself! And he left each of us with an open offer, a simple question: Will you accept him? Will you take the gift that Jesus offers, believe that through Jesus, all your sins, all your faults, all your shortcomings are forgiven, you are a new person and God welcomes you with open arms? The truth is that we cannot reach God on our own, but He has provided us with a way to start over, to become acceptable and lovely and pure and holy and beautiful in his eyes. He’s given us Jesus, and by giving ourselves to him we are not only made pure and new…a jelly donut fit for a king…but I believe that we also make God very, very happy. His longed-for children, safe in his arms again.
That’s what Truth is: Trusting fully in Jesus and accepting his gift of salvation is the only way to bridge the gap between us and God and to finally be home one day, in Heaven with him, where our hearts long to be.
God made it simple, friends. He didn’t want it to be hard or confusing or to require a lot of study or a list of requirements and hoops to jump through; he’s not trying weed people out based on whether or not they can grasp difficult theological concepts. He made it so simple that a child can easily understand. All we have to do is pray to him, tell him that we’ve made the decision to belong to him. If you have questions about that, please talk to somebody today because we’re not just talking about jelly donuts here, we’re talking about heaven and hell and where you will spend eternity. And I want the chance to hang out with each of you in heaven, over coffee and donuts!
Facebook
Twitter
GooglePlus
Flickr
Pinterest
toilet water!
what a lesson, complete with applicable object demonstrations!
blessings.