“Live Your Truth”: How Hedonism Leads to Chaos

“You shall be like God, knowing good and evil,” the serpent told Eve. Our contemporary culture loves to give us similar advice. Who can be sure what God really said? Better to choose your own identity, express your own personality, construct your own social media profile. Decide what’s right for you, what brings you happiness, peace of mind, security—a sense of flourishing. No one can judge you. “You will not ‘surely die.’” Such warnings are just the toxic voice of external authority trying to suppress your own inner voice. You be you. Live your truth.

This advice is not only wrong but cruel. No one speaks of “my truth” and “your truth” when it comes to matters of fact. We accept authority and objectivity on such matters. It would be cruel—even criminal malpractice—if one’s physician distorted or denied the evidence for a life-threatening diagnosis because it was considered toxic or disempowering to the patient. But the problem is that most people in our culture—and judging by surveys, many of us Christians—do not live as if the claims of Christ are matters of fact rather than simply personal value judgments. The heart is where my truth comes from. Consequently, my truth is that I am a decent person, deserving of good things in life, and I have every right to be deeply frustrated when those good things don’t come my way. There is nothing more offensive to our pampered Western selves than to be told, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).

Hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure above all, does not have to be expressed merely in grotesque antinomianism. It is motivating us whenever we think that the chief end of humans is to be happy. Even secular studies like The Trouble with Passion (University of California Press, 2021) by sociologist Erin Cech demonstrate the downside of the follow-your-passion message, showing that the pursuit of happiness as an end in itself leads inevitably to depression, anxiety, and anger.

The truth is that our hearts, as Augustine famously said, were made for rest in God. He is the only one worthy of our passion, and when we rest in him, he gives us callings to serve our neighbors, where we find genuine purpose and meaning—and yes, pleasure.

Our own “truth” leads to delusion, conflict, and despair in this life and destruction in the next. What we really need is the truth. We need the One who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Let’s live as if we really believe that it is the truth that sets us free.

by Michael Horton (Professor of Systematic Theology and Apologetic at Westminster Seminary)

Men's Ministry is Every Sunday Morning

If you do a Google search looking for help to do men’s ministry, you’ll find the preponderant emphasis is on pragmatism – doing stuff that works, that gets results. Like many churches, ministries to men have adopted and relied upon business and marketing tips, techniques, strategies, methodologies, and programs to attract and retain men rather than to teach, prepare, and equip men in the gospel for their life purpose and role.

I’m not trying to disparage or dismiss biblically grounded programs that can help build a culture of discipleship and manly servanthood, but they should align with and reinforce what is proclaimed on Sunday mornings.

What concerns me is that many churches and their ministries to men overlook the core discipleship program the New Testament prescribes: the corporate worship gathering. In fact, few churches see their men’s ministries as an extension and derivative of the Sunday assembly.

Sunday worship service is more fundamental to Christian growth than any grafted-on program. The Sunday gathering is the primary tutor and discipler of a local congregation, particularly its men because of what it proclaims and the pattern it sets.

The “gathering” is what gives fuel to anything else we do. It is the launching point. It must be prioritized that way. And if the gathering is done right, it makes far more than attenders.

We gather on Sundays to worship God and to be grown by Him through His Word—His life-creating, life-maintaining, life-sanctifying Word (John 1:3-4; Heb. 1:1; John 17:17; 2 Tim. 3:16). Scripture regulates the service as it is read, sung, and preached (1 Tim. 4:13; 2 Tim. 4:1–3), we proclaim its truths (Col. 3:16), pray its hopes (Eph. 6:18), visualize its message through the sacraments (1 Cor. 11:26; 10:21); and learn to see and savor Christ.

A Sunday morning gathering isn’t a production or show. It’s not marked by entertainment, pageantry or sophistry. There is but an audience of One – the only true God worthy of our praise, trust and allegiance. It is the place where we are served the most important, nourishing meal of the week.

In other words, the corporate worship gathering prepares and equips us to be ambassadors of God’s Kingdom called, empowered to disciple, evangelize and love one another. Other gatherings within the church during the week supplement and deepen what we hear, say, and do on Sundays.

Discipling flows from the pastors to the people from Sunday to every other day of the week. Every discipling conversation, every Bible study, every counseling appointment, and every evening of family worship echoes the Word as its taught and modeled on Sundays. This is the basic shape of biblical ministry: the church gathers and then scatters; the saints rest and then work; the pastors preach and then the people present, portray and protect the gospel. One discipling event leads to and orders the rest.

Prioritize the Sunday gathering. Read Scripture there knowing that God uses it to save souls and sustain faith, and model what ought to be done when they leave the building at home. Do multiple readings. Read whole chapters. Recite Scripture corporately.

Pray in your gathering. Pray knowing it increases our trust in God and intimacy with him. Pray with and for one another: praising God, confessing sin, pleading for the lost, lifting-up neighboring churches, and interceding for our brothers and sisters by name.

And preach. Preach knowing God speaks through His Word to raise the dead, stir the idle, encourage the weak, feed the hungry, and mend the wounded. Exposition of Scripture will leave us better equipped to teach one another.  Interpret Scripture with Scripture.

How does a church begin to make disciples? Through its corporate gathering. While the gathering isn’t sufficient to bring believers to full maturity in Christ, it’s the engine that drives all those other good, God-besotted efforts.

Adapted from Foolproof Discipling From Corporate Worship By John Sarver