What Is Truth?
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John 18:33-38 (NKJV) Then Pilate entered the Praetorium again, called Jesus, and said to Him, "Are You the King of the Jews?" 34 Jesus answered him, "Are you speaking for yourself about this, or did others tell you this concerning Me?" 35 Pilate answered, "Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered You to me. What have You done?" 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here." 37 Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?" Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." 38 Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, "I find no fault in Him at all.
Just prior to Jesus’ crucifixion, Pilate, asks a rhetorical question, "What is truth?" He said this in response to Jesus’ statement, “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." So what is truth? In Russia there is a well known newspaper called Pravda. Pravda in Russian means “truth”. It was a joke during cold-war times because Pravda almost never told the truth, it was mostly fabrication and propaganda. In this confusing time of people defining truth in so many ways, What is true, really? I was amazed the other day that the National Geographic was doing a major program to scientifically prove whether King David and King Solomon actually existed in Jewish history. This seemed silly to me but then I remembered similar programs are regularly done questioning whether Jesus actually lived even though there is more reliable evidence that Jesus lived, died and was resurrected than there is that Abraham Lincoln lived. So, how do we know for sure what is truth.
John 14:6 (NKJV) Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Jesus is the truth. What does that mean? One way to look at it is that Jesus is called The Word. To state it another way, He lived and demonstrated to us what God has says and revealed what His Father is like. Last time I shared, I spoke on having a Firm Foundation. Jesus is the Word of God given to us in the Bible and directly through listening to Him in our Spirit. He reveals the book He wrote through using humans who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. As we allow our feet to be planted on “The Rock”, Jesus The Word, we will be steady, unmovable because we are basing lives on the Truth. When the world system in which we live can put all kinds of spins on what truth is, we are not deceived nor or we moved. We keep going back to the “more sure word of prophesy” mentioned in 2 Peter 1:19-21 (NKJV) And so we have the prophetic word confirmed (We also have the more sure prophetic word-margin), which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; 20 knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Of course we believe that God still speaks today, but we also believe that the written Word (logos in the Greek), is the more sure prophetic word by which we judge all things especially what we hear in our spirits from the Holy Spirit. When the environment all around us is seemingly spinning out of control, we go back to foundations and we are steady, unmoved by what Eph. 4 refers to as “every wind of doctrine” that blows through our culture. Ephesians 4:11-16 (NKJV) And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head--Christ-- 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
When some today are calling falsehood, true and good, evil, we need to be a part of a community of believers like this that can continue to “Speak the truth in love.”
There Is Only One Way To God. We read, John 14:6 (NKJV) Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. This is not accepted very well in many places today. Many say, “All religions worship the same god or “higher power”, so it doesn’t really matter which religion you are.” Jesus said, No one comes to the Father except through Me. Is the world right or is Jesus right? I am sticking with Jesus. How about you?
Gay Marriage Debate: In the last few days, there has been a lot of dialogue and discussion about the new law passed by the Indiana House & Senate and Governor Pence signed into law. Now on Thursday of this past week because of the furor and reaction, another clarification law was passed and signed by the Governor. A lot of the discussion has centered around whether this law allows discrimination and bad treatment of gays and lesbians. Other aspects of the discussion have centered around the 1st Amendment rights of freedom of religion. I am not here today to clear up all this disagreement but to use the dialogue and the kairos moment to help us navigate this as believers in today’s culture.
This past Thursday, John Stonestreet on Breakpoint which is carried by Moody’s WGNR Radio locally said this:
I keep hearing that if we stand for truth, we’ll alienate people from the Gospel. But today reminds us we need not choose between truth and love.
“You’re on the wrong side of history.” “Not fully affirming LGBT rights is unloving.” “Jesus loved everyone, why do you hate gays and lesbians?”
These are the sorts of things that proponents of one-man, one-woman marriage keep hearing. To oppose gay marriage is to be relegated to history’s ideological dustbin along with those who resisted civil rights for African-Americans or the vote for women.
And since 2014, more and more self-identifying evangelical voices have joined the chorus. Pastor Rob Bell boldly recently proclaimed on Oprah’s network that churches that reject same-sex marriage will soon be irrelevant. He even chided “the church” for “quoting letters from 2,000 years ago” to defend traditional marriage. Wow.
And the media continues to highlight any and every church who declares it has “evolved” on the issue of marriage and has become “an affirming congregation.”
Among the most common reasons offered by these Christians for endorsing same-sex marriage—or at least for not resisting it—is that it’s too contentious and so unwelcoming. Taking a stand for marriage, they say, gets in the way of the grace of the Gospel. It excludes people from church. We have to reach out, and strong opinions about sexuality and marriage are only distractions, and therefore unloving.
Well, I think today of all the days in Holy Week is the time to confront this repeated refrain. Why? Because the Thursday before Easter is known as Maundy Thursday, the day set aside on the Church calendar to remember the Last Supper.
The word “maundy” comes from the Latin word for “mandate,” or “command.” At this first celebration of communion, Jesus gave His disciples what He called “a new command,” to love and serve one another. And He demonstrated what He meant by washing their very dirty feet.
Now to fully appreciate this command, we have to remember that at this supper Jesus and the disciples were obeying God’s original command to the Jews to remember the Passover. The Passover meal celebrated God rescuing His people from Egypt, as described in the book of Exodus. For Jesus to have the audacity to offer a “new” command when the old one was such an important part of Israel’s history, is astounding enough. But Jesus went even further. Rather than remembering the redemption of their forefathers from Egyptian tyranny and the way the angel of death “passed over” the homes with lamb’s blood on their doorposts, they were now to remember His broken body and His shed blood. In Christ’s death, death itself is not just avoided; it is defeated.
Since the mid-twentieth century, the American Church has been divided over whether it should be primarily about proclaiming truth or about serving others. But the Lord’s Supper reminds us that this is a false dichotomy. These two things can never be separated. On the same night that Jesus commanded us to remember His broken body and shed blood that rescues us from sin (that’s the truth), He commanded us to demonstrate our new life by loving and serving others (that’s the grace). So we don’t have to choose between speaking truth and showing grace. They always, always must go together.
Thus we can and we must offer both the truth about marriage and the grace of God to all of our neighbors, including those with same-sex attraction…
We need not choose between truth and love. After all, the embodiment of Jesus of both in the event we commemorate on this day, was proven true once and forever by the event we commemorate on Sunday. He is truth. He is love. And, He has risen. Indeed.[1
Truth requires courage. Courage to believe it, speak it and live by it when it may be uncomfortable to those around you. Most of us don’t face prison or beatings for standing for Jesus, The Truth, but many of our brothers and sisters in Christ in other parts of the world face torture, beatings and prison. Some are being martyred. May we let the persecuted church inspire us to be courageous in the opposition which may come to us.
Yet speaking the truth in love is crucial. We win more people with honey than vinegar. Believers, as John Stonestreet said, are commanded to love as Jesus loved. We hate discrimination and bigotry. We love and accept everyone as God’s creation. Christians respect others as valuable and we never condone or allow someone to be put down or attacked because they are different than us in some way. Jesus’ Word calls us to be gentle with others, kind and compassionate.
Anger and Frustration: It is easy to become upset when we see things we hold dear stomped on and treated with contempt. We can become angry watching the news. We can allow our hurt and frustration to take control of our thoughts, attitudes and actions. If you realize this is true, don’t justify it as “righteous anger” but repent and ask God to help you stand for truth and love! (There is a righteous anger that motivates us to work for change, but it is not to viscously attack individuals just because they disagree with us or attack us.) James 1:19-20 (NLT) Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.
Allowing Evil To Triumph: Nonetheless, all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing. There is a real God and He has gone to great lengths to give us His word and how He expects us to live. If we say we believe in God but choose not to respect nor read nor believe His word, then when we do appear before His great White Throne for Judgment, It will be a frightening thing. “But I thought there wasn’t really a hell nor a lake of fire.” Too late at that moment. God does love you, but He has a way He requires. If we ignore Him and go our own way then we will find it is a very fearful thing to fall into the hands of our living God! Hebrews 10:30-31 (NLT) For we know the one who said, “I will take revenge. I will pay them back.” He also said, “The LORD will judge his own people.” 31 It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (NLT) Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Love Your Lost Friends and Family: Perhaps you have heard the statement: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. It is also true that friends don’t let friends die in their sin and fail to inherit eternal life. Galatians 6:1-2 (NLT) Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. 2 Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ.
Those who practice these things will not inherit the Kingdom of God:
1. Those who indulge in sexual sin,
2. who worship idols,
3. commit adultery,
4. are male prostitutes,
5. practice homosexuality,
6. are thieves,
7. greedy people,
8. drunkards,
9. are abusive,
10. cheat people
I didn’t write this, God did. This isn’t the unforgiveable sin. But it is speaking of those who “practice” these things. Some of us in the church were like this but we were cleansed and made holy. Jesus has won the victory over every bondage and sin. He will set those free who come to Him, admitting their sin and repenting and turning to follow Truth.
What Is Truth? Jesus, The Word, The Way and The Life. Truth and Grace together are necessary, Truth and Love work hand in hand. Love the truth, live the truth and give the truth to others!
[1] Maundy Thursday and the Marriage Battle, Grace and Truth, By: John Stonestreet Published: April 2, 2015 8:00 AM