Stop Lying to Yourself First

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[0:00] Thank you, George. Well, we're going to… this is part two of a two-part series on epistemology. Epistemology, so exciting. And our reading is from 2 Timothy 3, 14 through chapter 4, verse 5. Just a reminder, a little bit of recap, epistemology is the study of knowledge, and it asks these fundamental questions about how we know what we claim to know. It's concerned with the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge, including concepts like belief, truth, and justification, not in a religious sense, but in a sense of justifying an argument. In simple terms, it's the philosophical field that investigates how do we know? How do we know? Epistemology is sort of the study of knowledge. So last week, we looked at the idea that truth comes to us not through circular reasoning, at least truth in the Scripture, although it may seem that way to the people in the world. But it comes to us through trusted men. It comes to us through mentors. So this is how Paul speaks to Timothy. He says, you know this is true because some people that you trust have told you since you were a child.

[1:02] But we also have scientific and archaeological evidence that supports the authenticity of the Scriptures. And also, the Scriptures just ring true. And there's no other way to say that they ring true because they say things about us and about the world that are manifestly true, especially when they talk about our failings. And we're like, oh, that's absolutely true. The Bible has my number. The Bible really knows what I'm like deep down inside myself. And so it kind of verifies itself in that way. But in the end, whether you believe that all Scripture is God-breathed or not is actually a matter of faith because I can't prove it to you, really. I can give you a lot of evidence for it, but there's no definitive proof of it. This is an article of faith that comes to us, and I believe it comes to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes into our lives and says, this is true. This is how I want you to live. But that's a matter of faith. And I hope that faith is part of your faith. Now last week, we looked at how Christians should not participate in or spread conspiracy theories. This is the chasing after myths that the apostle Paul talks about in this passage because that invariably breaks the commandment about not bearing false witness against your neighbor.

[2:13] That's one of the Ten Commandments. Obviously, very important if it's in the top ten, right? And remember this parable of the Good Samaritan? Who is my neighbor? My neighbor is everybody in this world. My neighbor is particularly and especially my enemy. And so we can't spread conspiracy theories about those people over there because that's bearing false witness against them. We can't do that. Their honor, their reputation is in our hands when we speak. We have to be above reproach when we speak about other people. There's a high standard of truth-telling in Christianity, and I'm going to talk a little bit about that later today. And I'm going to tell you right now, just to sort of salt the mine a little bit, that high standard of truth-telling in Christianity, I think, is an opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity for the world to see that we're different. And also, it's a pitfall because if we don't do it, then we're just like the rest of the world. Because the rest, right now, the truth in the world is carnage, right? The truth is not really understood or well-defined at all. It's a mess with all the echo chambers that we have. So today, we're going to focus on the final part of this passage, which is about our constant

[3:16] desire, and this is the part where the Bible verifies itself, our constant desire to hear what we want to hear. It's powerful. It's seductive. It's like if you were a cat, it would be catnip, you know, this desire to hear what you want to hear. And then we're going to lay out some of the high standards of truth-telling that Christians are bound to. So let's go to our reading at 2 Timothy. I'll start in chapter 3 verse 14. The apostle Paul writes, 2 Timothy 3.14-15 But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. 2 Timothy 3.14-15 You have been taught the Holy Scriptures. You have been taught the Scriptures.

[4:00] All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. Chapter 4. 2 Timothy 3.14-15 I solemnly urge you in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he comes to set up his kingdom, to preach the word of God. Be prepared whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want. They will reject the truth and chase after myths.

[4:59] But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don't be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the good news and fully carry out the ministry God has given you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this word and thank you for your word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it today. In Jesus' name, amen.

[5:23] Amen. Well, just this is fun. We're going to do something a little different. Just maybe even close your mind. I want you to imagine two scientists, not evil scientists. You know, it always happens like the mad evil scientist. Just two scientists that could exist in this world. One of them though, I'm going to say, I'm going to tell you right ahead. One is a good scientist and one is a bad scientist. And they're both researching, just make this up in your mind, an extract from a plant to see if it improves cardiac health. This could happen, right? Just imagine they've got a lab, a bunch of beakers. And, you know, Bunsen burners and little bubbling things. And they're kind of titrating things and doing all sorts of things in their lab. They've got this extract and they want to do some trials and some experiments and some research to see if this improves cardiac health.

[6:11] Now imagine that the bad scientist has all sorts of motives that he may not even be aware of. For one, he wants to be the first to publish. He wants to be first out of the gate. He also wants public praise for his work. He's kind of in it for the praise that he might get.

[6:29] Or he owns shares in a supplement company and he hopes that they can sell this extract. He hopes that he can profit from this. Now what are the problems he may have in his research? Just think about this. I think the most glaring is his motivation.

[6:43] Nowhere on that list is his desire to actually measure if this extract is helpful. Although he's going to try to do that because he thinks it will help him. He's likely to ignore data that show the extract doesn't do anything or that it actually hurts something.

[6:58] And in his hurry, he may not be as thorough. He may not conduct enough trials. He may not wait long enough to see if adverse effects show up in his test subjects. And then when he's faced with data that undermine his preferred truth about this extract, he may get annoyed. His mind will find ways to minimize those data. Drop them from his data sets. Or blame them on some other factor that's going on. And then this is important. The last thing I think is he may do a lot of this without consciously realizing that he's doing it. Okay? So that's one. That's the bad scientist. Now imagine the good scientist. Think about him. And I promise this is going somewhere. Although it's fun to use your imagination a little bit. And I have somebody in my mind as to who the good scientist looks like right now. I have somebody in my mind. I really don't have anybody in mind as to what the bad scientist looks like. I just kind of have to supply the details.

[7:51] And then the bad scientist has different motivations. So one, he wants to help people. And so he hopes this extract will help the people that he's trying to help. And he cares more about the people who might receive this extract. So he never wants to hurt them with something unsafe. He would die before he put out a product that would hurt another person. In his own mind, he would wish he would die. He's okay if he's not the first. He's okay if he doesn't get credit for it because he's interested in something else. Because the thing he's really interested in is he's curious. He's curious about the world. He's curious about his field of study. He's fascinated by it, which is why he chose a career in science in the first place.

[8:30] So in the same vein, what issues might this good scientist have in his research? Well, one, I'm not going to call it an issue. Maybe these are features. So start by asking good questions and designing experiments that will give them useful data. This is just plain old science. We're not all scientists, but I think a lot of us are actually. Or if you're not a scientist, you're related.

[9:02] Right? Right? information that support our preferred views of things, and puts a lot less weight on information that challenges our views. He's at least partially aware of his own biases. And so when he encounters data that shows the extract doesn't do what he thought it would or hoped it would, he's not annoyed, but he's fascinated. He's excited. This is different. Something new and unexpected has come in. His knowledge is incomplete, and there's this new horizon for him to explore. This is a very different scientist than the other one. And even if the extract doesn't end up helping anybody, or even if it hurts, maybe they test it in a mouse first or before they give it to a person, he still thinks that this extract not being useful or even harmful is a good outcome. Because now he and the rest of the world know not to make a medicine out of it. So that's the good scientist. Do you all see where this is going? We're talking about knowledge. We're talking about how we collect knowledge and what we do with knowledge.

[10:17] And I just want to say that we're I think we're at a difficult time in this world when it comes to epistemology, when it comes to understanding what knowledge is, how we even agree on what reality is together. And one example is we could get on social media, whether it's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. I don't use Instagram, but I guess there's a lot of ideas exchanged there. I just thought it was pictures of your pets. But I guess Instagram has something going on. I have to check it out.

[10:43] I don't know if anyone's getting fired on Instagram, but if they want to expand their reach, they can fire some people. But have you noticed that there's all sorts of people in this world who basically don't agree on even what reality is? They're in such isolated echo chambers from each other that they're all convinced of completely contradictory things about the world from each other. And then we wonder, well, where is the truth in all of this? Where is the truth in all of this? So there's biases about politics. There's biases about morality. There's biases about civic life. It pulls people in all sorts of different directions. And there's a breakdown in just the social cohesion of our society, where people would, they're sort of isolated at home scrolling on their phones, instead of out in town hall meetings talking to each other, sitting on a bench in a park feeding pigeons, and talking to somebody that doesn't agree with them, and going, oh, I guess my brain got a little expanded today. That's not happening as much. And so I think there's somewhere along the line all of the people in this world, because our brains really aren't designed for this, will have to somehow say, OK, we have to put that echo chamber in its sort of,

[11:54] we have to isolate it from our own reality somewhat and say, well, that's interesting, but there must be other things in the world. Because reality is always going to break in, I think. And that's the thing about all these echo chambers, is they don't actually serve us very well, because they paint sort of a false picture of reality. They paint a preferred picture of reality. But they're not. But that's not necessarily always what reality is. And so I like to think of it as reality, as it actually is, always breaks in in the end.

[12:26] I remember, and this is really sad, and we might be tempted to laugh at it, but it's not funny, although it's strange, is there were some people who had COVID. But this is long ago, five, six years ago, five years ago, where even saying that COVID was real was somehow coded as a left versus right thing. Do you know what I mean by that? Like, we can't even admit that COVID exists because we don't like all the changes that COVID has brought to our society. So I'm going to live in this reality that COVID isn't real. And so there's records of people dying of COVID and with their last breath saying, this isn't real. But to the nurses and the doctors and the respiratory therapists, they're like, this is absolutely real, and you're about to die, and we can't help you. You know what I mean? And so they're saying, like, it's real. So reality always has the last word on these things, right? And so COVID is real.

[13:21] But I understand why they didn't want to admit COVID was real, because their tribe told them COVID wasn't real. And if I said COVID's real, I'm going to get kicked out of my tribe, and that's super important. Or it's coded on the opposite side of the political spectrum, and I'd rather die than agree with them. And then you do die before you agree with them, and that's kind of prophetic. So reality has a last word. And so we think about our scientists, right? If the bad scientist rushes a bad product out, he feels good about it. He makes a little bit of money with his share of the company. But reality has the last word, right? What if people start getting sick? Oh. Well, he could say, well, there must be other factors. They're taking other supplements, too. We can't really say it's my product. But then more and more data comes in, right? And then some other people start reviewing his research, which you're supposed to be able to do. And they go, oh, I think you made a few mistakes here.

[14:15] I would like to do better. would be trying to get rid of the product out there, right? And the product's going to be recalled. His reputation is worse than ever. And the strange thing is, he could go to his grave, he could go to his grave saying, I was right. I was right. Everybody else was wrong. Wouldn't that be sad?

[14:31] I remember using our imagination. Could you all imagine that would actually happen? Yeah, it could. It could and it does, right? He could go to his grave, thinking that the recall of his product was just a conspiracy theory by the people who didn't like him. When in actuality, reality broke in to his bubble, and people were hurt, and he had to do the right thing. But he didn't. Maybe, or maybe he did. You never know. Now when I think about the good scientists, and I think about a lot of people here who are scientists, but I think about Stan. I think about Stan Eklund, because he struck me as somebody who would, if he ever was doing an experiment and he got some data he wasn't expecting, or maybe wasn't hoping for even, because you want something to go well, potentially. Although a good scientist shouldn't even want those things, I assume. He would go, oh, that's fascinating. Am I right, Craig? Is that more or less? I mean, I'm guessing. But he just had this way of processing reality that I thought was really healthy and really good. And I miss Stan. And I miss people like Stan. In the world.

[15:51] Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? That's a higher standard than the world. The world is not good at truth telling. The world does a lot of things. And we have to start by not lying to ourselves. That's the first lie. So we can lie to ourselves. And once we've done that, we can tell any other lie. So you have to stop lying to yourself about whatever it is you're lying to yourself about.

[16:19] And I think one of the things I'm seeing a lot is a half truth, right? If I tell a story of some event that happened, but I only tell half of it. The part that benefits me, right? The part I want to be true. And I leave out the part that I don't really want to be true, but it actually is true. And I know it's true, right? You know what I'm saying? And I'm telling somebody the story, and I'm representing that this is the whole story, but I'm only telling this much of it.

[16:50] In the world, somebody might say, well, that's technically true. Technically, you told the truth. Our standard has to be much higher than that. A half truth equals half truth. A half truth equals a lie. A half truth is a lie, because you're actually attempting to deceive somebody by doing it. Do you see what I'm saying? This is a higher standard. I think you can extend that to all sorts of other conversations and all sorts of other kinds of truth telling that Christians need to do. We have to tell. It's just like when you are a witness in court. You promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That's the Christian standard.

[17:30] That's the Christian standard. And that's still part of our jurisprudence. You wonder how long that will last, but that's like daily living. It's not just when you're on the stand that you should do this as a Christian. This is your life. And this is hard. This is a high calling as Christians. The other calling is to say, sometimes things I don't want to be true are true, even though I don't like it. And sometimes I think some things I wish were true, because it benefits me somehow, aren't true. And I don't like that either, but it's reality. And to name that, to be open about it, this is that transparency about our own lives.

[18:16] So I always love how each Narnia book ends. I'm going to ruin it for you. You know the lion is Jesus. I already told you this. But the lion is Jesus. At the end of each Narnia book, the major, sort of, conflict gets resolved. The good guys prevail.

[18:32] The protagonist has gone on a journey of growth and self-realization. It's just a novel, right? You know, we're talking about. But these are different, because at the end, the lion shows up. And he says, yeah, we made it through. Good job. Well, all well and good. But to the main character, he always says, but here's where you failed in an important way. There was one important thing I told you to do, and you didn't do it.

[18:59] And despite that, this all worked out. And you grew. Praise God. And so there's that truth telling at the end of every one of those books, which I think is just so great. And when I was a kid reading those, I didn't like it. I didn't like those endings, because I was like, wait, this could just be like a happy fairytale ending, and they all lived happily after after. No, the fairytale ending in the end of the Narnia books is they were confronted, and they grew. And they became stronger. And they became smarter people at the end. But it wasn't without a little bit of pain. It wasn't without the lion giving a tiny bit of a growl when he said it all. And I think that's how we need to live, is to go, I could be wrong. I may have made some mistakes. Naming our own failures, naming our own mistakes is a really powerful truth telling thing. So this is the challenge for Christians. And I think we need to start being like that good scientist. We need to look at our own motivation. Right? Or do we want to be great? Do we want to be first? Or do we care about people? Do we care about truth in itself? Right? Are we curious about the world? Or do we not want information about the world that won't advantage us, or will actually

[20:12] pop some of our bubbles? Do we want to be curious about the world? I think we need to be. God made the world in this beautiful way. He told us to conserve it and take care of it and be good stewards of it. I think that means being curious about it. It means being curious about other people, too. too, right? He wants us to love people. You can't be, you can't love somebody that you're not curious about. You can't be indifferent to them. We need to be aware of our own biases, our own desires to lie to ourselves, and our biggest desire, Paul says, to hear things that we want to hear. Our itching ears want to hear. We all do it. We all do it. And when we find, we find a fact about the world that we wish weren't true, not to treat that as an annoyance, because I could. Oh, that's annoying that that's true. You could go, no, that's fascinating. Wow, this is the more complexity to this than I realize. This is excellent. I have to, I have to dig into it, and I have to change some of my own perceptions, as hard as that can be. So here's the opportunity. Here's the opportunity for us. I think there's more than just doing this for ourselves, but I think this, this is the advertisement in a good way for what Christianity can be. Reality always breaks in,

[21:22] even if people don't believe it. Don't admit it. Sometimes medicines are bad for you. People are complex. You can't understand all their motivations, or neatly group them into categories. That's very tempting, but it's not always accurate, because people are more complex than we understand. And sometimes your enemies are right, and sometimes your enemies do the right thing. What? It's true. I hate that. I hate it when that happens, but it's true. Sometimes your enemies are right. Sometimes your enemies do the right thing. It's crazy, but it's true. So I believe that if we're the truth tellers, if we practice this sort of healthy, healthy epistemology, that could be a tongue twister, healthy epistemology. We practice a healthy epistemology, I think people will notice. Friends, relatives, people who don't know Jesus, we have a call on our lives that is a different kind of truth telling than the world has gotten us used to. And this is what I want.

[22:23] I want us to be the people that other people trust. Because we're telling the truth. Because we're straight shooters. We'll tell the truth even if it's an unwelcome or uninviting truth, but it's a real truth, right? We'll kind of be like the lion at the end. Like, this is a reality, but I'm glad we can move on to the next stage. And they come up to us and they say, hey, I noticed you didn't go in for the latest movement, which turned out to be a tongue twister. I want us to be the people that are toxic in the end. You know, you didn't join, why didn't you join up? I was kind of worried about you. You didn't join the latest movement. I thought you were, I thought you were a suspect. Now that that movement turned out to be totally toxic and weird, I kind of admire you right now. I wish I hadn't got on. I wish I had held back like you, right? Why are you different? And the answer is, I try not to lie to myself. I try not to listen to things I want to hear. I try to be open to the world. I try to be open to the reality that the world is complex more than I want it to be, right?

[23:21] So that's why we're different. And I think that's, that can invite people into at least conversation with us and say, what's different about those people? They handle truth in a different way. Now, finally, this is the last thing. This is how God comes to us, right? God comes to us with this great truth. And it's, it's, it's something that we can, you know, like, I love what Victoria said, you know, we could take parts of the Bible and just cut them out because we don't want to hear them. Thomas Jefferson did that. He took his Bible and he took a, he took a scissors to it. Do you know which parts he took out, right? All the parts about slavery being bad, you know, oh, you're gonna get rid of those, right? All the parts about the slaves getting freed from Egypt. And that was true of slaveholders too, in, in the old days, they would give, they would give the Bible to their slaves, but they cut out Exodus. You know, we can't have you reading that book. That's, that's, you know, that's too much for you. So God tells us things we don't want to hear, but they're still the way they are. And that's why we're different. Words of life. Isn't that something? It's not a fairy tale. God tells us things we don't want to

[24:29] hear, but they're still the words of life. And Jesus tells you, you know what? You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And I would say in this case, it's free from the prison of an echo chamber because an echo chamber may seem great. It might seem fun. Everybody agrees with me. It's a trap. It's a prison. You're cutting yourself off from reality. You're cutting yourself off from all sorts of interesting people you could meet if you're in it. I'm speaking to myself. Okay. I'm, I can read too much of just one view and it's not good for me.

[24:59] You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Free from the prison of the latest movement that's asking you to get on. Just wait, just see what happens. And then really free to see the world as it really is and free to receive what God has for us. So that's,