Training
2 Peter
Mythbusters
Myths are cleverly invented stories. Adam Savage
and Jamie Hyneman have made a living busting myths on their popular TV show
“Mythbusters” on the Discovery Channel. Can a banana peel actually cause someone
to slip? If you’re out driving in your convertible and it starts raining, can
you stay dry by simply driving faster? Can jailbirds use dental floss or hot
salsa to cut through steel bars or use hair, bed sheets or toilet paper to lower
themselves from prison walls? Do all of those amazing things that happen in
James Bond movies or MacGyver shows actually work? These are all popular myths
tested on the show. Most of them are myths, movie magic, cleverly invented
stories.
The world is full of cleverly invented stories.
For example, there is a cat food that claims it has the natural beef flavor that
cats crave. I’m not an expert on cats. I confess my feline knowledge is limited,
but I’ve never seen a housecat stalking a thousand pound steer. Cleverly
invented stories. I’ve listened when a cell phone company told me it sends its
people over hill and dale endlessly repeating, “Can you hear me now?” I’ve heard
a green lizard tell me how to buy car insurance. Even though they are dead, the
white-suited Colonel Sanders wants me to eat his chicken and the bow-tied
Orville Redenbacher has tried to sell me his popcorn.
Cleverly invented stories. I remember a few years
ago a TV commercial that showed a woman who was shunned by her friends because
her husband had ring-around-the-collar. I thought, “Why doesn’t this lady just
tell her husband to wash his filthy neck.”
Cleverly invented stories. Myths. Untruths. Make
believe. That’s what many people believe about the Bible. They believe that God
didn’t really create the world or that there is no such thing as a world-wide
flood or that there is no heaven or hell. They discount the whole idea that
Jesus is true man and true God or that He really died and then rose again to
free humanity from their sins.
As Christians we believe all those central, core
teachings of Scripture. So maybe there are other myths that we believe. Even
though we know better, we still buy into the myths that a wicked world and our
weak sinful nature force on us. Maybe we believe in the myth that prayer is a
waste of time. We keep asking and asking God for help or healing or health and
it seems like our prayers are unanswered, falling on deaf ears. Or maybe we
suppose that gossip is harmless. It’s just talk. Everybody does it. We are just
making conversation, getting other coworkers or school parents to side with us,
never considering the harm that is being done to the reputation of the employer
or teacher or coach.
Or maybe we think that privately sinning isn’t as
bad as publicly sinning. After all, we aren’t hurting anyone but ourselves. It
is done in private, in the dark, away from prying eyes. If we are going to sin,
it is better that we do it privately. Or maybe we consider evangelism the job of
only the pastor. After all, isn’t that what we are paying him for? Or maybe
consider it possible that God doesn’t mind being number two in our lives. We can
put overtime pay, sleep, athletic tournaments, video games, vacations or
anything else ahead of God and worshiping, listening to and praying to Him and
He doesn’t mind at all.
This week at Training Camp we studied these kinds
of cleverly invented stories concocted by our wicked world and invented by our
sinful nature. They are all myths. Cleverly invented stories. The Bible predicts
this: “The time
will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their
own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what
their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away
from the truth and turn aside to myths.” (2 Tim 4:3-4)
Everything we believe really goes back to the
first day – not the first day of Camp, but what we learned that first day. We
learned about the very first day in time – God’s creation of the universe. Many
people want to discount the whole idea that there was a God who made the
universe and everything in it in six days and rested on the seventh. They
disbelieve that there were ever two people called Adam and Eve. They question
the whole idea that there is a God who created a tree that when our first
parents ate of it, plunged the whole world into sin. And they doubt whether God
put His only Son on another tree of the cross to save the whole world from their
sins.
What about you? What do you believe? Do you
believe in creation? Of course you do. You know the Bible passages and Bible
stories probably from memory. You believe that God took what was formless and
empty and gave it order and form. He cupped in His hands all the depths of
earth. He made the hills and the mountains high, the seas and the dry land. He
threw the stars into the sky and placed a burning hot ball of gas near the earth
– not too near so that we burn up or too far away so that we freeze. He gave us
the beauty of the
At Training Camp, he gave 89 campers and
counselors the beauty of
Why does God do all this? Because He loves us. He
cares for us. He made the awesome beauty of creation. But above all the seas and
stars, the moose and the mountain, the clover and the clouds, God made us to be
the crown of His creation. He created us to be His own. To be loved by Him and
to love Him in return. To be in awe of Him and His awesome creation. To be
called and chosen by Him. When Adam and Even ruined the perfection of God’s
creation, God sent His Son to save creation, to save the crown of His creation –
you, me, everyone.
Everything we believe as Christians also goes
back to the redemption of creation by Jesus Christ. Jesus went off by Himself to
pray, to speak to His heavenly Father in place of all the times that we fail to
“take it to the Lord in prayer.” Jesus always spoke “the truth in love” for all
the times we gossip, spread rumors, tattle, lie or deceive with our words. Jesus
was whipped, crowned with thorns and crucified for all of your sins – both
public and private sins. Jesus sent out His disciples and gave them the
privilege and responsibility to share and spread His gospel message throughout
the world. And Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty to be
number one in our lives and work everything out for our eternal good.
By God’s grace you believe all this. You believe
God created the world and you believe that God sent His Son to save His fallen
creation. This isn’t a myth. This is the inspired, inerrant, incontrovertible
truth.
Don’t succumb to the
arrogance of our age that says, “Those poor first-century sods would believe
anything. They believed that people walked between walls of water and walked in
a flaming furnace. They believed that city walls came tumbling down because of
marching, trumpeting and shouting. They believed in strong men who toppled
buildings, teenagers who slew giants, and people who were raised from the dead.
They’d believe anything.”
Don’t succumb to the
myth-makers, those who say the apostles or the church made these things up.
Peter and the prophets and the apostles were eyewitnesses to the glory of
Christ’s majesty and the power of the Almighty Creator. These were people who
told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them God.
People who had nothing earthly to gain and everything to lose, including their
own lives.
Don’t succumb to the
scientific materialism of our age that says, “Virgins do not conceive and dead
men don’t rise.” Yes, ordinarily this is true. But Jesus is no ordinary man and
His was no ordinary death. This is God in the flesh come to bear your sin and
conquer your death. This is the One who predicted He would do this at least
three times. This is the One whom the Scriptures foretold would rise on the
third day. His Word is vindicated. His mission accomplished, His sacrifice
accepted.
It isn’t a myth that
Christ died and rose from the dead. It is a fact attested to by eyewitnesses who
would not change their testimony no matter what you threatened them with. It
defies human experience, but Christ busted the myth of the resurrection from the
dead. The stone is rolled away. The sealed, guarded tomb is empty. The burial
cloths are folded neatly like a freshly made bed. Eye witnesses saw Him, heard
Him, touched Him, ate with Him, and they testified against – literally - hostile
cross-examination. Their testimony speaks to us even today.
We do not believe in a
liar or lunatic but we follow the Lord - the One who died on a cross and rose
from the dead. Christ is risen! The Word of God is vindicated.
God is your Creator!
Your faith is not in vain. Love Him. Adore Him. Praise Him. Sing loudly to Him.
The Son of God has
died! His sacrifice for sin is accepted. Your sins are atoned for and you are
forgiven.
Christ is risen! Death
lies defeated, the grave has lost its sting. And in Him all the dead will rise.
All this means that
spending a week watching and working with and training eighty kids at camp was
worth it because there is something amazing to watch and work for and train for
after this life. We trained at camp, not just for this life, but we trained for
the life to come.
Since God is our commanding Creator, since Jesus
is our resurrected Redeemer, and since the Holy Spirit is our soothing
Sanctifier, since it’s all true – then we were able to spend the week enjoying
the beauty of the trees and the lake and the pool and enjoying the food and the
four-square and the friends. As I overheard one camper say to another, “This
camp is well worth my parents’ money.”
One of our theme passages for Training Camp was
from 2 Peter 1:16 where Peter wrote, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Everything we’ve been taught; everything we believe; everything we get up early
for on a Sunday morning; this isn’t a myth, a cleverly invented story. This is
the story of creation, the story of the salvation of creation, and the story of
all creation offering God praise – last week, this week, next week and into
eternity. Amen.