Foundations of Faith: Objective Reality

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Myths and legends are common to mankind. They're inventions of human speculation and imagination without historical context.

In other words, they have no correspondence to reality. So when it comes to the matter of faith, you might have heard it said, I don't trust faith, I trust facts. The truth is that faith and facts are not mutually exclusive.

Belief without foundation is mere credulity, not faith. As Peter calls us to live as people who remember, he points out the foundation of information provided through revelation and history. He makes it clear that our faith has solid footing in objective reality, the life, works, death and resurrection of Jesus.

The scripture reading for today comes from 2 Peter 1, verses 16 through 21. For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty for when he received honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory.

This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Knowing this first of all that no prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Let's pray now and invite God's blessing on the message to follow.

Dear Father, thank you for the encouragement that you bring us through your word and by the reassuring way in which you have given it to us. We are comforted that Peter, who we know had a start as a boaster and a bumbler and who is far from the one to author cleverly devised myths, should be the one to deliver the message here. We are amazed to contemplate what is happening here between this passage and the parallel accounts of the transfiguration that Peter witnessed.

We recall how on the holy mountain Jesus's appearance was altered and his clothes became dazzling white as he spoke with Moses and Elijah. But remarkably we have Peter, James, and John are described as heavy with sleep only moments before. We should be astonished to realize that the Holy Spirit through that very same mouth of Peter's is now here now calling to us to take care in our own state of relative slumber. Your message both to Peter and from Peter that you are with us now too while we are yet in relative darkness that you have given your word a lamp unto our feet while we are now seeing only in part as through the gloom or through a glass darkly as we await your full dawn, the morning star, and Jesus's return. Please use the words and work of Pastor Rich to heighten our vigilance to your word. Give us a vigilance that is as the author of Psalm 130 described, more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Please encourage us and admonish us according to our need and your desire.

We pray in Jesus name. Amen. I want to acknowledge this morning we have in our presence some dear loved ones, Ken and Debbie Greenman. If you're looking around, I think they're out in the gathering. Oh, I'm sorry.

Hey, I heard you were going to sit out there. I'm so glad you're here. You guys are loved and prayed for.

You're part of the family. So you have your copy of the scriptures open to Second Peter. This mini series within the letter of Second Peter, the whole series is called live as people who remember. Because if you forget who you are, if you forget what the truth is, you're not going to live the truth. We have to live as people who remember. And if you don't live the truth, you're going to be living what? Lies.

In all of chapter two, Peter warns us about the lies that are hurled at us day in and day out. It was true back then. It's true today.

And so we have to live as people who remember. In this series, the text that Nathan just read for us, chapter one verses 16 to 21, I'm calling this Foundations of Our Faith. There's a lot of systems, faith systems out there that claim to be true. And they would say that they are true.

But are they? What justification do we have for believing what we believe? And this, I am absolutely convinced, is in the arena that sets Christianity apart from any other faith system. This foundation of faith that we're going to talk about today, last time we looked at verses 16 to 18, where Peter was referring to that Mount of Transfiguration recorded in three of the gospels, where Jesus' vision was changed, brilliance. It was a glimpse of his glory. The glory that he had from eternity and the glory that he will have for eternity. He is God. He is God among us.

He is God who came to us. And Peter, James, and John got a glimpse of that together in community. And so the first foundation of our faith is, as we covered last Sunday, objective reality. Objective reality. In other words, real stuff that happened in real space and time with real people.

Objective reality. In other words, a very well-known song. We don't sing it a whole lot here. So it's on, so it must not be picking it up. I'm sorry. You have to use the pulpit mic.

Do I need to start over? Well, let's just keep going. Where was I? Oh! He Lives, He Lives. Great song.

I remember saying it all the time growing up. You ask me how I know he lives? What?

That doesn't work. I'm sorry to burst your bubble. That is not the basis of our faith. He Lives Within My Heart is a subjective experience. Now, it's true, okay?

It's true. There is a necessary subjective element to Christianity and biblical faith. But if that's all there was, it would be a system not worth believing.

Because there is such a thing as objective reality. This Jesus who walked on earth, who died and rose again and ascended and is coming again. That truth, that person is the object of our faith, not my subjective believing.

Okay? The second one is, we're going to talk about today, confirmed prophecy. Verse 19, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed to which you will do well to pay attention as to a light lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Confirmed prophecy. That's the second one. There's two more, written authority and transcendent truth.

Those are coming next. Written authority and truth. But today is confirmed prophecy. God is a living God. He is the creator of all that is. He is person. He is alive. He is living God. He created us in his image. He is active and he is communicating. So a personal God.

By personal I mean personally for me. He is God who is person. Okay? Now in that communication that he has given to us, I'm starting today with what we call biblical continuity. What does continuity mean? It's one story that continues all the way through.

A continuation. That is the nature of scripture. It's not just a bunch of stories that have been compiled and somehow deemed sacred.

No, it is the historic record of what God has done wherein he reveals himself, his character and his purpose. God makes himself. That's the nature of revelation. God makes himself known. In other words, had God not made himself known, there are many things that we could not know about him. Now we can know about a divine being just by looking at revelation, his eternal power and Godhead, according to Romans 1. But it takes special revelation from God to know what he is like, his character, and what he is about, his purpose.

That takes divine revelation. This is what God has communicated to us. That's the nature of revelation, to reveal, to make known. So this making known to us is beyond creation and it would be otherwise unknowable. Remember what the writer of Hebrews said, God, who in times past spoke to us in many different ways through the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us what? In his son. God came to us in person.

So important to understand. This is not myth. This is an actual person that walked on this earth in history. Now, some people would say Jesus is the founder of the Christian faith.

I disagree. The Christian faith is the natural outflow of everything that was foretold in the Old Testament. That's the whole purpose of the Old Testament. The Old Testament points to Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The Messiah, the Christ, was foretold throughout all of the Old Testament.

You have the Old Testament narrative, the history of the Old Testament, the wisdom literature, the poetry, and the prophecy, all of that. And then it points to Christ and there is a track record there. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in Him. The one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.