For those who are wondering where we
have been over the last decade or so, I have preached 6 years from the
lectionary (12 years could include the entire Bible), 1 year topically
exhorting the Confession of Faith, 1 year with Paul’s letters, 1 year in the Parables
of Jesus, and the most recent 2 years applied a topical approach.
Topics have been: Love, Love & Action, Peace, Rest, Faith,
and currently Hope. We will finish this
church year (through November) with Truth and Mercy. As we continue into Church Year 2020, we will
address the topics of Repentance, the Kingdom of God, Grace, and Life. I will maintain my streak of preaching the
Parable of the Talents at least twice each year, and will have a message or series
on Living in Response to God’s Grace.
Don’t forget that in March 2020 we
will study the Book of James on Sundays and Wednesdays and hopefully be talking
about it on the days in between.
We will of course, make adjustments
for VBS and campers. By that I mean that
the message for those Sundays will be tied to something our youth learned
during the preceding week.
All of this said, remember the message
is not your meal for the week. It should
spur you on to love one another, give you a hunger to search God’s word more,
and prompt you to put the words of God that you know into practice.
That’s where we’ve been and where we
are going. This morning, we begin the
topic of truth and we begin with a prayer that Jesus gave in his last days with
his disciples before he was crucified.
This prayer follows an explanation of
what is to come. Scattering, grief, joy
and so much more. Then Jesus gives his
disciples these
words.
I have told you
these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have
trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
He prayed for his disciples, not that
they be taken out of the world, but that by the name of Jesus, they be
protected as they accomplish their mission.
He prayed that even though the world
hates them, they will know the full measure of joy that Christ did as he did
the will of his Father.
Jesus notes that his disciples are not
part of this world. Think to the
church. The church is made up of people
called out of the world, set apart from the world to be made holy, and sent
back into the world with the gospel.
He prayed that his Father will
sanctify them by the truth. Sanctify is
to set apart and make holy. We are made
holy not by some ritual but by the truth.
The word in the original text for
truth is alétheia (al-ay'-thi-a). It
means truth but not just truth as the opposite of a lie. Consider the full meaning of the original
word.
Truth, but not merely truth as spoken;
truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth
revealed to man, straightforwardness.
The truth that Jesus speaks of is
reality. For some, that may be a
paradigm shift. What Jesus says is not
some lofty goal. It is reality as
defined by the one who created reality.
What does that say about what the
world presents as truth? So much of it
is deception.
We are set apart from the world by the
truth. The truth comes through the word.
It’s interesting that the Greek word here is Logos. This is the word that we find in the
beginning of John’s gospel that we understand to be Jesus, as nothing that was
made was made except through him.
It also means the words themselves but
unlike common words these are of divine utterance—every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God.
So how are we sanctified? By Jesus and by every word that proceeds from
the mouth of God. We are different than
the world.
We not only believe God’s word, we are
shaped, transformed, and configured into the likeness of Christ Jesus by God’s
word.
We are transformed by the truth.
We cannot be transformed while we
remain in the world’s deception. Paul
wrote that the god of this age has blinded unbelievers. They do not have the truth.
We do and if we will put the words of
our Master into practice, we will be transformed and sanctified. We will not be a part of this world but dwell
in our Master and he in us.
Isn’t that what we say we want? Don’t we say we want to be like Jesus? But if sin is still governing our lives, if
the world’s model is our model, if we believe the lies, then the truth is not
in us.
As we begin this topic of truth, let
us ask ourselves, do we want the truth?
Are we comfortable the way that we are?
I think of the movie A Few Good Men
and Jack Nicholson belting out, “You can’t handle the truth!”
We can’t dabble in the truth. It’s an all or nothing deal. And if we are all in on the truth, it will
change us. It will sanctify us. It will make us more like Jesus.
We are not part of this world any
longer. It owned us once but not anymore and so we must embrace the truth that can come only from God.
His word and his law are good for us.
His grace exceeds any sin we have committed.
His Spirit dwells within us.
But somehow, we miss the truth time
and again. Which brings us to the Moody
Blues, well at least to Nights
in White Satin.
Nights in white
satin
Never reaching
the end
Letters I've
written
Never meaning to
send
Beauty I'd always
missed
With these eyes
before
Just what the
truth is
I can't say any
more
'Cause I love you
Yes I love you
Oh how I love you
Just what the
truth is, I can’t say any more. Love—romantic love—sometimes blinds us to the
truth.
Ambition sometimes blinds us to the
truth.
The desire for uniqueness or the other
extreme—the desire to fit in—sometimes blind us to the truth.
The god of this age has blinded
unbelievers to the truth, but sometimes we blind ourselves to the truth.
Once upon a time, we saw the world in
black and white. We may have been right
or we may have been wrong, but we were sure about so many things. Then life happened. There was love and ambition and desires for
so many things of this world, many of them good things but they became first in
our lives and in the process, we found
so many gray areas.
“Yeah, I know what God says about this
but…”
The truth gave way to our truth. God’s truth gave way to our version of God’s
truth. Just what the truth is, I can’t
say any more.
Except, that I can say what the truth
is. It may disturb our comfort
zones. It may affirm us in our
difficulties. It may sound like a foreign
language if we have been away from it for too long.
The truth is that God is love and God loves
us.
He has good plans for us.
His word and his law are good for us.
His grace exceeds any sin we have
committed.
His Spirit dwells within us.
We have spent some time on faith,
hope, and love and many think, “Man, I wish I lived that way, but I have to
live in the real world.”
Today, I tell you that what God has to
say is the real world. This upside-down
mess that claims to be reality is as real as a reality TV show.
You want to see reality TV, video you
kid’s baseball game then pan the stands. That latter part is reality TV.
Jesus prayed that his Father would
sanctify his disciples by the truth.
What is it to be sanctified? It
is to be set apart and made holy before God.
We do not belong to this world.
This world does not define our reality.
We are to bring the world to
Jesus. Jesus prayed that through his
disciples, the world would come to know the Father.
Remember where we started.
I have told you
these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have
trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
So what is our reality?
Is it the trouble of the world and the
world’s coping mechanisms?
Or is it the peace that we have in
Jesus? Will we receive the truth that
comes from God which is reality?
What do we choose, trouble or truth?
I pray we choose truth. I pray that we receive peace in Jesus.
I have told you
these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have
trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
The truth is in Jesus. The truth is Jesus. The truth not only sets us free but gives us
peace.
Amen.
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