We're going to be in Second Corinthians, chapter 11. Would love it if you guys would flip there. And before we do that, before we really get into it, Ian talked about a significantly more important holiday coming up in a couple weeks. But if you look back on this last week, it's worth asking the question, did you have a good holiday? Anybody? Tuesday, April Fools. Anybody? Celebrate? Raise the hands if you celebrate it in any way, shape or form. Okay, let me take this a step further, and I don't say this to shame you, but is anybody so in love with April Fools that it's like it's the month of April? I can say April Fools whenever I want. Anybody? Okay, don't be that guy. Don't be that guy. It is a great holiday. I grew up loving it primarily because my dad was a prankster and was always in for something. Always open to an opportunity to laugh. I wish that I participated more than I do, but there's so many good pranks out there, right? I'm gonna just share with you guys one of my favorite that I came across this year. Put a picture up here for you. Anybody know what this is? This is called a cake pop. If you're not familiar with the cake pop, it is what you use to silence your children in the back of your minivan in the Starbucks drive Thru. It is delicious. It is a piece of cake in the shape of a popsicle. But the best part of the prank is this is not a cake pop. It is a Brussels sprout pop and it's taking the Internet by storm, right? It's like, man, it looks good. It's covered in chocolate, it has the sprinkles. But you don't know until you take a bite that it's not a cake pop, it's a Brussels sprout pop. And there's several of these that are just like, man, really good pranks because they look so believable. Also saw people that were, like, putting salt instead of sugar next to the coffee. Mix things up a little bit. Some people went so far as to dismantle Oreos, scrape out the cream and fill it with toothpaste, and put them back in the Oreo container so that as you would bite into an Oreo, you're getting a toothpaste cookie sandwich. And what we should know as we prepare to turn the corner this morning in Second Corinthians 11, is that the same thing that's true about the best pranks is also true about the best lies. They are believable. Right. The best lies are simply tainted truths. And while pranks are hilarious, lies are harmful. And we're going to talk about this topic of deception this morning in second Corinthians 11. And it's worth noting that today, in 2025, we are exposed to more lies than ever before in human history. There is an author by the name of Brett McCracken. He unpacks this in his book the Wisdom Pyramid. It was published in 2021 and he built his book upon this premise that we have more access to information than ever before, but we lack wisdom like never before. And he builds this wisdom pyramid, similar to the food pyramid, to talk about how we get wisdom. But on the front end of his book, he talks about how we have an issue with our diet, specifically our diet when it comes to knowledge intake. And he spoke to three issues. Number one, we eat too much. Number two, we eat too fast. And number three, we're prone to only eat that which tastes good. Here's what he means when he unpacked. The amount of data creation that is happening in our era, it is unfathomable. Get this, 5 exabytes of data are created every 15 minutes. And you probably have no idea what that means, because I didn't either. 5 exabytes of data is equivalent to all words ever spoken by humans since the dawn of time. And that amount of content is being created and published every 15 minutes. To make matters more interesting, it's in your pocket, at your fingertips, at all times. And we live in this fast paced world where we're constantly consuming an Amazon prime era, a doom scroll era, where we lack the time for critical thinking, we're on this dopamine rush of scrolling. And we also live in a your truth mindset that these tech companies actually build upon. Maybe you've heard of this before. It's called the filter bubble. This idea that these big tech companies are able to build algorithms that feed tech users exactly what they want to see. It actually reinforces confirmation biases. So much so that two people could search the same thing but get different results to reinforce what they want to see. And that should concern us. But if you're not concerned enough, I also want to call your attention to the reality of Jeremiah 17, which says the human heart is what? Deceitful above all else. Some translations would say the heart is desperately sick or desperately wicked. And it asks this question, who can cure it? And so we have these great threats of deception, not just out there, but but in here. And it forces us to ask this question how are we going to be on guard against deception especially? I think this is interesting. We call ourselves Veritas Church. The word Veritas means truth. If we're going to be Truth Church, how are we on guard against lies? That's what we need to know. We're going to look at this together in Second Corinthians, chapter 11. I want us to see two primary safeguards as we march through the text together. I'll be sure to call those out for you as a note taker. But we're going to start slow by looking at 2 Corinthians, chapter 11. Just the first three verses. So if you would read along with me, here's what the word of God says this morning. Paul writes, I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me, for I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. The first safeguard that we need to see is covenant devotion to Christ. And we see that Paul is using betrothal or marriage language in these first three verses. And what you need to know is that in the Jewish culture, the father was responsible to protect his daughter's purity until her wedding day. And during this betrothal process, if the daughter's purity was stained, it actually qualified for a reasonable dismissal of the marriage right. Any form of impurity was seen as adultery. And what Paul is doing as he comes to this church in Corinth that he planted some three to five years before this letter is he's saying, I feel like your spiritual father and I feel indebted to you as a church, that I would be committed to your purity as the bride of Christ, that I would one day be able to present you to your bridegroom, namely Jesus Christ, when he returns. I care about your purity. But what's beautiful as you just look at these opening verses is that this theme of marriage is really just brought to light. Right? The Bible has a lot to say about marriage, and it's because marriage is a key theme of the Scriptures. Genesis 2, the Bible starts with a marriage, Adam and Eve. By the time you get to the end, Revelation 19 is the marriage supper of the Lamb, the blood bought redeemed church of Christ reunited with her bridegroom, Jesus. And then maybe smack dab in the middle, you get the first miracle of Jesus, which takes place Where? At a wedding. A wedding in Cana. Water into wine. Right? One of his best party tricks that we talk about all the time, but it's at a wedding. And it begs this question, what's the big deal? Why all the weddings? And I think the clearest text that we have is Ephesians 5. I'm going to direct your attention there. Verses will be on the screen. Here's what Paul writes to believers in Ephesus. He says, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. He's quoting Genesis 2, and he says, this mystery, namely that of marriage, is profound. And I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church, that marriage was created by God and for God, and it's ultimately all about God. It's meant to put on display this beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ. And one of the sweetest Old Testament prophets that talks about this theme of marriage and the covenant is the Old Testament prophet of Hosea. And if you're not familiar with Hosea, I'm going to give you just a brief overview. Hosea is called by God to prophesy to the northern kingdom of Israel because they are participating in spiritual adultery. They're worshiping baal. And he says, here's what I want you to do, Hosea. I want you to marry a woman named Gomer. And anytime God tells you to marry a woman named Gomer, you better put your seatbelt on, because life is going to get really interesting, okay? He says, I want you to marry Gomer. And here's what's going to happen. She will be unfaithful to you. But Hosea's obedient. He marries Gomer. And Gomer does exactly what God says. She goes and she leaves her husband and. And commits adultery. But by the time you get to Hosea 3, what is beautiful is Hosea pursues his adulterous wife and he buys her back. He takes the treasure of shekels of silver and he buys his bride back. And what God is trying to show Israel through Hosea, and what he's trying to show us this morning through Hosea is this is the picture of Christ in the church, that we are united unto Him. Not because we are pure in and of ourselves, not because we have great devotion to him in and of ourselves. No, but because he is devoted to us because of the great love with which God loved us, because of his great mercy. Here's what he did. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and for the church of Corinth. To be called a pure virgin is insane because 1 Corinthians 6, Paul is talking about, hey, here's people who will not inherit the kingdom of God. The idolaters, the adulterers, the greedy, the drunkards, the thieves. But then he goes on to say this. Such were some of you. Such were some of you. But here's this reality. You were washed, right? You were cleansed. You were justified. How? Through the finished work of Jesus, that we as the Church of Christ now come before God as a pure virgin, his bride. Not because we were bought with shekels of silver, but because we were bought with the precious blood of Jesus. This is what it looks like. This is what covenant devotion looks like. Primarily, God's love for us. And if you're like me, it's not hard to come to a text like this and be like, okay, give me the life hack, give me my next step. But before we get to life hacks and next steps, what you need to know is you will never know the truth and live by the truth. If you do not have a heart that is changed by Jesus. That is what you need. Not a life hack, but a new heart. One in which you could go to the Good shepherd and say, I belong to you. I recognize your voice and I'm going to listen. That's only possible because of Jesus. Finished work. Amen. But the call here in verse three is to be obedient, right? There is a call for us to practice, as verse three says, a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. And it's just worth asking the question, what does that look like? What does sincere and pure devotion look like? I love that we're given this word picture of marriage. And you can just think about man. What does sincere and pure devotion look like in marriage? It looks like commitment to be single minded and wholehearted. Which us before God would be. Us saying, God, you are the prize. There is no other. It looks like faithfulness in marriage, which before God looks like loyalty in obedience. It looks like intimacy with God, namely, that of close and frequent communication and passionate worship. Looks like transparency before God. That we would have nothing to hide, that we would bring our sin to him, that we would bring our cares to him because he cares for us. That we would be children of the light, walk in the light. And lastly, that we would trust as the bride entrusts herself to the bridegroom, as we look to Christ as our head, that we would say, God, I am confident in your provision and leadership of my life. And it's just worth asking the question, how's it going? How's it going? Like, how is our covenant devotion to Christ going? As we look back over the last week, maybe the last month or the last year, would we be able to say, man, God has been my prize man. I am growing in obedience to his word. I long for time with him in prayer. I am growing and expressing my love for him in frequent worship. I want to confess my sins before him and have transparency. I want to trust his plan for my life. I can stake my life in his sovereignty, in his kindness. This is what we're made for. Church. And before you get to the fall, this is what Adam and Eve were all about. Not just with one another, but with the God who so loved them. Genesis 2. Adam and Eve would not just experience this in their marriage with one another, but with God himself. That they would walk with God in the cool of the garden, that they would know his voice perfectly, that they would lean on him relentlessly, that he was at the center of their life. He was their prize. They understood that they were created for his good pleasure. But today, as we look at our lives, we have to ask, man, what went so wrong? That doesn't seem to characterize most of our lives. And what's true from verse three is we're given a clue what went wrong. The serpent deceived Eve by his cunning. And I want you to see just how the serpent deceived Eve by flipping over to Genesis 3. So if you would think flip over to Genesis 3. If you have a physical Bible, keep your hand in 2 Corinthians 11. We're going to come back to it, but I want us to see this together in Genesis 3. Here's what the Word says. It says, now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she Took of its fruit and ate, gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. And their eyes were both opened and they knew that they were naked. First picture of shame in the Bible. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths. I want you to see a few observations of how the serpent so deceived Eve. These are simple but profound. Okay? First, when you look at Genesis 3, this is the first time since Genesis 2:4 that the name Lord does not precede the name God. What the serpent has done is he has removed the name Yahweh and has only provided the name God to God. But let's be real, he still calls him God, right? The word Elohim means powerful one. He still is saying, did God really say. But what he did was he twisted the truth and he removed God's personal covenant keeping name Yahweh. He removed the relational name of God, but yet still called him God. It's a half truth. Secondly, the serpent draws attention to God's forbidding. And let me just ask you, did God forbid Adam and Eve from doing something? Yes, he did. He said, do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. But the reality is he had given them every tree of the garden to enjoy and to flourish. But there was one tree that they could not eat from. And what the enemy has done is he has zeroed in on this and he said, hey, God has forbidden you. He's holding back, right? He won't let you eat from the trees. He's exaggerated it so much so that Eve now is completely disoriented. There's a variety of theories of why, but now she is spitting back truths to the serpent. And before you know it, you get to the end of how the serpent is deceiving Eve. And he contradicts God, right? He gives this bait on the front end. He says, hey, if you eat of this tree of the knowledge of Good and evil, you're going to become like God. And there was actually truth in that, that Adam and Eve's eyes could be opened, that they would become their own moral arbiters to be able to know good and evil. But it was sold on the deadly hook of the lie. You will not surely die because God promised you will die. But Eve gives herself over. 1 John 2 says that the ways of the world are the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life. And that's what Eve has given herself over to, right? It looks good. It might make me wise and before you know it, she listens to the serpent and does not experience exaltation, but exile. She does not grow closer to God in becoming like him. She actually experiences death. Her and Adam kicked out of the garden. The greatest form of death that we know, separation from God and church. What I want you to know is that the serpent is, and lies in general still work today the same way they did back in Genesis 3, which is to receive a gallon of punch with a gulp of poison. You know what I mean when I say that a gallon of punch with a gulp of poison, it means that lies are designed to taste delicious, but they're deadly. It was totally true for Eve and is absolutely true for us. And. And the same threat is out in front of the Corinthians and is out in front of us this morning. That these lies are not blatant and easy to detect, but are subtle and enticing. I think some of us give ourselves a lot of credit for being discerning because we're like, guess what? I didn't pay the toll that I got a text about this week. And I'm like, congratulations. There's not tolls in the state of Iowa, right? That's a blatant lie. I hope you didn't do that. But sometimes it's like, oh, yeah, I can tell a lie. I didn't pay the toll. And it's like, that's not how good lies work. Look how good lies work with me in verse four. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different Gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. Another Jesus, a different spirit, a different gospel. I love this quote from my study this last week. The late theologian Charles Hodge said, Satan does not come to us as Satan. Neither does sin present itself to us as sin. And the commentator goes on to say this. It is easy to be fooled. Being an idiot takes remarkably little effort. And to that I say, amen. Church. Our greatest threats are likely not messages or messengers calling us to shun God or the gospel, but rather messages or messengers that are selling us a subtle substitute. And we need to have a heightened awareness. The exposure is there. The question is, will we tolerate it? Because that's the problem in verse four. It wasn't that false teachers were present. That was to be expected. Paul's issue in Corinth is that they are putting up with it. Not just that they were exposed to it, but they were tolerating it because the longer they tolerate it, here's what they're doing. They're accepting it, they're giving themselves over to it. And it begs the question, what are these false Jesuses or false Gospels we might be prone to give ourselves to? I think there's several. I don't intend to give an all inclusive list, but I want to give you a few that are floating around in the world around us. The first is the Prosperity Gospel. Prosperity Jesus, Prosperity Gospel. Follow Jesus, everything in life gets better. You will have health, wealth, prosperity. You can gain the world. I mean, that's what was coming at the Corinthians, right? It's all around us. How about this one? The Political Jesus or the social justice gospel? Hey, go change the world and do it through elections and policy reform. Let's do that. How about this one? Advisor Jesus or the self help Gospel? Jesus was a great teacher. In fact, he has given us so many mantras and morals to live by now. Let's go be better people. Let's try harder and do more. How about Affirming Jesus or the Hyper Grace Gospel? Jesus loves you just the way you are. Just the way you are. Love is love. Live free and forgiven. And lastly, Enlightened Jesus or the New Age Gospel. I've seen a lot of this lately, this call to look within, to manifest to be a people marked by good vibes and positive thinking which has secretly given way to this heresy of universalism, that we all have this form of God within us and that as long as we look within, we will all die and go to heaven. And I want to say this is all a load of garbage. A load of garbage. But I think it's a lot like that Brussels sprout pop, right? There is something enticing and something that's like half true about these to be able to say, hey, God cares about your good. God will work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And we say, amen. Here's what that good is. To conform you to the image of Christ, to pick up your cross. And yes, Jesus has proclaimed, I have overcome the world. That only comes after he explicitly tells his disciples, in this world you will suffer. How about this? We are called to be ambassadors for Christ, change agents for the kingdom of God. Here's how you can do it. Here's your message. Be reconciled to God. We are called to simultaneously seek the good of the city and expect to live as sojourners. Yes, we are Called to keep God's commands, right? He says, this is how I know. If you love me, you keep my commands. But he also says this, apart from me, you can do nothing. Nothing. And he means nothing. Yes, we are created for good works which God prepared before him that we would walk in them. But first and foremost, we must understand that we have to be saved by grace through faith. It is not a work of our own. We cannot boast in ourselves. When you flip the script on this hyper Grace Gospel, it's important to know, yes, we are forgiven and Jesus loves you too much to leave you as you are. He loves you where you are, but he will not leave you as you are. That's why he frequently says something along the lines of, see you are well, you are forgiven, stop sinning, consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And put to death the deeds of the flesh. He is Savior and Lord. He is full of both grace and truth. And on this topic of the New Age Gospel, I will be abundantly clear. If you are in Christ, you have been given the promised Holy Spirit who is inside you. And God is so kind to give us the counselor, the helper and the Holy Spirit. But that does not make us void of Proverbs 3, which tells us, do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. The call is not to look within, it is to look to God, even if it is the spirit of God within you, to not look within for your own truth, but to look to God as your source of truth. And I want to be abundantly clear. Universalism is a lie because Jesus has explicitly said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me. And he means that Christianity is an exclusive religion. We believe that you can only go to heaven through the finished work of Jesus Christ. But hear me, hear me. Christianity is also the most inclusive religion on the face of the planet, because anyone can come, anyone. You cannot out sin the grace of God. And I think we see this most clearly. We're coming up on this Easter season, right? Holy Week. And when you look at the crucifixion of Jesus, what a more clear example of this than the thief or the criminal on the cross next to Jesus, who is likely being crucified because he is one of the worst criminals of the day. But yet on his deathbed, he looks at Jesus and he expresses faith. He says, hey, when you are with your Father in heaven, remember me. He acknowledges Jesus is the Son of God. And here's what Jesus says to him to today you will be with me in paradise. Whoa. Guy had lived his entire life in rebellion against God and in a moment Jesus says my grace is sufficient. You are saved. We cannot out sin the grace of God. And the reality is I know these things because I know my Bible. You don't need a theology degree and you don't need to be a pastor to know your Bible. But what freaks me out, what is scary church is as you look at statistics among self reported evangelicals is most churchgoers do not know their Bibles. They are much like the Corinthians. We are much like the Corinthians that we are often misinformed and we are left to take other people's word for it. Which leads us to the second safeguard careful discernment. We must practice careful discernment specifically in two areas. I want us to see these together. Careful discernment when it comes to the message and careful discernment when it comes to the messengers. Let's look at the first one together. Verses 5 and 6, 2 Corinthians 11. Here's how our text this morning continues. Paul writes, indeed I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles. These false teachers says, even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge, indeed in every way. We have made this plain to you in all things. Here's what you can think of when it comes to discerning the message. We are called to be a people who prioritize truth over tickling. Truth over tickling. I take that language from 2 Timothy chapter 4, where Paul writes to his young protege Timothy in the ministry, likely on his deathbed, and he tells him, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, the tickling of the ears. And they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. What Paul is trying to help the Corinthians see is this is not about how cute the message is, but how true it is. It's not about how comfortable the teaching is, it's about how true the teaching is. And what the Corinthians were prone to do with the super apostles is to go to these men who would tell them what they wanted to hear. And they were easy to Listen to. They were easy on the ears. Paul, not so much. It says he was unskilled in his teaching, meaning he wasn't eloquent in his delivery. But you know what? He was not lacking in knowledge. He knew the truth, and he knew how to present it to them in a way that was plain or able to be understood by everyone who calls themselves a Christian. And I think there is a huge issue for us today when it comes to are we listening to truth or are we trying to fit our preferences? And it comes back to this wisdom pyramid principle of us eating only that which tastes good. How many of you guys are familiar with the show My 600 pound life? Anybody? Okay. It's such a sad show. The reality is these people who are morbidly obese are trying to qualify for a weight loss surgery so that they can extend their time here on Earth. And I will note, there's a doctor on the show by the name of Dr. Now. That dude is a savage. And, I mean, he has some lines on his show that you're like, this guy is unhinged. He is not full of grace and truth. He is strictly full of truth. And he's looking at his patience, and he does not let any excuses fly. There's one particular episode where this woman comes back and after two months, had not lost enough weight to satisfy doctor Now. And he says, what's going wrong? And she's like, it's just so hard. The cravings are so hard. I just had this record playing over and over in my head. And he says, what's the record saying to you? And she says, I want chocolate. I want chocolate. I want chocolate. I want chocolate. And then Dr. Now says this to her. So chocolate is more important to you than living, apparently. Ouch. You have to believe as a loved one of this woman. You feel the weight of that statement that you want chocolate more than you want life. And I have to believe that is the burden that Paul brings to this church in Corinth. He says, you want your ears tickled more than you want life. And the sad reality is the only way that you can have life and life abundantly is to live according to the truth. And it's not comfortable. It will confront you. It will correct you. You will feel reproved and rebuked. But will you prioritize truth over tickling? And one of the greatest passages that I've seen this lived out is Acts 17. This group of believers in Berea, Paul and Silas, got chased out of Thessalonica by a mob and here's what Acts 17:11 says. These Jews in Berea were more noble than those in Thessalonica because they received the Word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. The Bereans listened to Paul and Silas preach. They were easily edified. They said, man, I want to be challenged and conformed to the image of Christ. But here's what else I'm going to do every time. I'm going to go back to this word and I'm going to see if what they teach lines up with what God teaches. And let me just tell you, you ought to be doing that every Sunday. Every message you hear, whether it's in a church or on the Internet, I don't care. Don't take someone else's word for it. Take God's word for it. And personally, don't take my word for it. Take God's word for it. He is the God who never lies and always speaks truth. Get in your Bible. But Paul does not charge the Corinthians just to discern the message. He calls them to discern the messengers. We're going to close out the text this morning. Look at verses 7 through 15. He says, or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached God's Gospel to you free of charge? And then he uses hyperbolic language here in verse 8. I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. What he's telling the Corinthians is, I lived off of other churches financial support to give you the Gospel for free. He says, and when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained, and will refrain from burdening you in any way, as the truth of Christ is in me. This boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. And why? Because I do not love you. God knows I do. And what I am doing I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim in their boasted mission that they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder. In other words, go figure. Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, so it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. Here's what Paul is calling the Corinthians to when it comes to discerning the messenger, prioritize character over charisma. Prioritize character over charisma. Because these false apostles, these super apostles, they were easy to listen to. They, they were passionate, they preached a really compelling message, and they fit the cultural narrative. Specifically in Corinth. To fit the cultural narrative was to set up a platform and to charge a fee. Cause that showed that you had something worth listening to. But Paul does not do that. He goes against the cultural grain. He humbles himself. So much so to the point that he offers the Gospel free of charge, which, number one, made his life really hard because he was poor. But number two, he was open to cultural disdain. He was almost opening himself to be viewed as someone not worth listening to. It'd be like the idea of if you saw a tattoo shop that said free tattoos, how many of you would go in there? Probably not many. You probably shouldn't, right? And that was. I mean, it's a hard line to cross. But to think this is what people thought of Paul's preaching. If he's preaching for free, he must not have anything worth saying. And Paul says no, here's the problem. Don't just look on what's on the outside, look what's on the inside. Don't just look at the drama out in front of you. Look at the deeds of the speakers. Right? Verse 15, he says they will be judged according to their deeds. They might look the look. But the question is, are they just charisma or do they have character? For even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. In Matthew 7, Jesus tells us that these false teachers, these false apostles, here's what they're going to show up as ravenous wolves in sheep's clothing. They're going to look a lot like sheep. They're going to smell like sheep. Here's the problem, though. Their deeds won't match up. And that's why Jesus tells his disciples to do look at their fruit, examine the fruit of their lives. And we are called to do the exact same thing today, pastorally speaking. I will say there are a lot, a lot, a lot of gifted speakers, writers out there, people who can present a much more eloquent message than myself and, and the majority of our pastors on staff here. And they will go viral on the Internet and they will sell tons of books. But we must not confuse giftedness with godliness. And though we live in 2025, we are not exempt from prioritizing local church leadership. Hebrews 13:7 still applies to us Today which says this. Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of the way of life and imitate their faith. The local church is given to you, is given to us as a place where we can gladly submit to humble authority who is tested, time tested, observable fruit in their life. And when you consider what does it take to be a pastor, it's not business acumen. It's not really a list of giftedness. In fact, there's only one gift in more than a dozen qualifications. It's the ability to teach. Can you rightly handle the word of God? The other 12 or more all character. If you don't believe me, you can look this up yourself first. Timothy 3, Titus 1 All observable character traits. And hear me this morning, there are a lot of places where people will give you advice, give you counsel. And I'm not even telling you that they're all necessarily bad though there is a lot of junk out there. What I am saying is as a follower of Jesus Christ, you have been given the local church and time tested character, proven elders for your benefit. And the call is to lean into them as the primary shepherding voice in your life more than any other author, speaker on the Internet or other cultural source to lean into local leadership. And so I'm going to try and land the plane for us here quickly. The big idea for today is to guard against deception by practicing covenant devotion to Christ and careful discernment. Covenant devotion to Christ and careful discernment. Underneath this, you don't have to look hard for the application. I'm just going to fly by them quickly. Enjoy intimacy with God. Stay close to him. Church. Confess your sins. Sit at his feet daily. Worship him passionately. Take your obedience seriously. Cling to Jesus Number two. Examine the Scriptures. Be much more quick on a daily basis to ask this question, what does God's word say and run to the Scriptures. And lastly, embrace local leadership. Prioritize the voices of trusted shepherds with proven character. Lean into what it means to be a member of a local church that God has given qualified elders over your care. And I'm going to end my message the same way. I started with food. Anybody else in here a foodie? Amen. Come on, you're on my team. As I've thought about what it looks like for us to live this out as a church, really, I started by saying, man, I hope that we would begin to enjoy the real Jesus, the real spirit and the real gospel. So much so that we would not tolerate any counterfeits. And it made me think of my mother's lasagna. Julie Howell makes the best lasagna in the world. I won't die on that hill, but I'll fight really hard on it. Okay. It's delicious. And you know what you will never find me doing? Eating Stouffer's. I won't do it. Right. The idea of eating freezer lasagna is detestable to me. And if someone even just put it in front of my face, I would be able to detect it, too. And I think this word picture is pointed for us. Would we be the kind of church that when it comes to truth, we do the same? That we so savor the gospel, the real Jesus, that we can detect and despise every false substitute because we have the real thing? And would we do this all by God's grace and for God's glory? Amen. Let's pray to that end together this morning. Father, I pray over your church here in Cedar Rapids, Veritas. Church. Truth, Church. God, I pray Romans 12:1 and two over us. That by the mercies of God, because of the beautiful reality of the gospel of grace of Jesus, because of your great love for us, not our great love for you, that we would simply respond by placing our lives as living sacrifices on the altar. That we would throw ourselves onto you, Jesus, and say, we need you. We love you, we want you. That you would increase our affections for you. That you would help us look into the perfect word of truth, your word. Not just to learn more information, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. That we would know you, that we would love you. That we would follow you, Jesus, so that you would be glorified in us through us. That your name would be made great in Cedar Rapids and Lord willing, to the ends of the world, to the ends of the earth, because you deserve to be worshiped. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.