Can I Trust the Church?
one
We follow our conscience when we apply our knowledge of right and wrong to concrete situations
a. And we’ve said that our own private judgment isn’t enough to go
b. That for our consciences to be truly formed, we have to make use not only of our own experience and reflection, but also seek the counsel of wise and holy persons, and, most of all receive the revealed truth given to us from Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church
c. Now that’s hard for a lot of us to accept. After all, it’s our conscience that steers our life. So if we’re going to allow our consciences to be formed by the truths of the Church, that basically means we’re trusting the Church with the direction of our lives
i. Do we trust the Church that much? Should we trust the Church that much? What assurance do we have that the Church will give us truth that’s so reliable we can depend on it when we decide how we’re going to live?
two
The first step in trusting the Church is to recognize that you can’t trust yourself
a. We know, we know, that we’re not smart enough, knowledgeable enough, reflective enough to know everything we need to know for living rightly.
i. Most of us have a hard enough time trying to figure out the right tip to leave the waiter.
1. How are we supposed to know – on our own – how to be good husbands, good wives, good parents, good citizens, good human beings?
2. We’re over our head trying to figure out our taxes, and we’re supposed to come up, on our own, with the ultimate answers to the mysteries of human life?
a. Please.
b. God didn’t design us to come up with the ultimate solutions to human life on our own. He knew we just weren’t equipped to handle it.
i. And the Christian message is that, instead of leaving us stranded in confusion, He came to our little planet Himself and told us what His plans for us were.
1. He came Himself and told us how to live.
three
There is only one religion that claims that the designer of the human race actually came to Earth to give us our design
a. Other religions have founders who claimed to have insights about the human condition – Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, Mohammed, – but none of those people was actually the designer of the human race
i. They never claimed to be the Creator.
ii. They were creatures, they were products of the design, not authors of the design
1. Which means they were all in the same boat as the rest of us.
2. Fallible, imperfect folks just doing their best to figure it all out.
b. The only way to really know how something is supposed to work is to ask the person who originally made it
i. The only way we could ever truly know how we are supposed to work is if God Himself told us
1. And in Jesus Christ, that’s exactly what He came and did.
four
But how do you know what Jesus said?
a. Well, the only way we can really have any certainty about what Jesus told us about human life and human morality is if the Scriptures are reliable.
i. If the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life are merely human, cultural products – well, then how can we know what Jesus really taught and what was just added in later on?
1. And then - what good would it have done for Him to have come to earth in the first place?
2. Why would God come down to earth and reveal the truth about the human condition, if that truth was just going to be hopelessly garbled as soon as Jesus ascended?
b. No, God must have made sure that the teaching of Jesus about how to live rightly would be reliably, securely preserved. That we could be sure we know what Christ said, and how to understand it.
i. And the way God made sure of that, was He gave us the Catholic Church
five
It’s the Catholic Church that has given us the written record of Christ’s life and teachings – and it’s the Catholic Church that has given us a consistent interpretation of that record for two thousand years
a. You see, you can’t know Jesus or His message if you don’t trust the Bible; and by the same token, you can’t trust the Bible unless you trust the Catholic Church that gave us the Bible in the first place.
b. So if you have a love of truth, and if you want to live your life well, here is some good news.
i. God has come to us, and revealed the fulness of truth and goodness in Jesus Christ
1. And we have access to Him and His teachings through the Scriptures and the Church, which God instituted so that we would not be left in doubt and uncertainty about what He has revealed to us.
c. So we don’t have to try in a fumbling bumbling way to figure it out on our own.
d. We know the truth;
e. now we pray for God’s grace to live it out.