Message 1: What Is Truth

Message 1: What Is Truth? John 18:33-38

John 18:33–38 NLT

33 Then Pilate went back into his headquarters and called for Jesus to be brought to him. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him. 34 Jesus replied, “Is this your own question, or did others tell you about me?” 35 “Am I a Jew?” Pilate retorted. “Your own people and their leading priests brought you to me for trial. Why? What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.” 37 Pilate said, “So you are a king?” Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.” 38 “What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.

The world of Jesus’ day was under the influence of Geek philosophy articulated by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their students—a world in which people worshiped the philosophers’“cleverness of speech” (1 Corinthians 1:17).

1 Corinthians 1:17 NLT

17 For Christ didn’t send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News—and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power.

MESSAGE GOAL: in talking about this subject of truth today, I swant us to understand the ways in which truth is being “put to death” in our culture— where decisions are now being made based on feelings. And it will explain why it is so crucial for believers as the people of God to be people of truth who are not ashamed to proclaim and live boldly for Jesus Christ, the standard and embodiment of truth.

You See Today we are witnessing the “death rattle” of truth.

It’s as if truth were lying on a hospital bed on life support. Gasping with each inhale and struggling with each exhale, truth’s strength is diminishing before our very eyes.

We stand there watching, waiting and wondering if truth will somehow pull through. Because after all, our culture has already proclaimed that truth is dead.

The demise of truth in our day has led to a breakdown in our cultural immune system. The devastating confusion that has taken place as truth is being put to death is seen in at least six very critical areas. 1. There is psychological confusion. People’s mental trajectory is off because there is no truth to define it. The result is that no one can come up with any answers to the problems that haunt the human psyche.

2. There is also philosophical confusion as people doodle with ideas and theories that take us nowhere. The Bible calls this “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”

2 Timothy 3:7 NLT

7 (Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.)

It’s amazing how dumb the educated among us are becoming as they stand at the graveside of truth.

3. We also have scientific confusion. Paul told Timothy to avoid “the opposing arguments of what is falsely called ‘knowledge’” or science

1 Timothy 6:20 NLT

20 Timothy, guard what God has entrusted to you. Avoid godless, foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge.

Today scientists are revered as the repositories of reliable information. But instead of defining themselves as discoverers of truth, they want to be determiners of truth, only to find themselves having to reverse it.

4. Another area of vast confusion is entertainment. The talk shows pour out babble by the hour, as confused people lead a confused audience in endless discussions of everyone’s opinions. You don’t know who to believe, who to listen to or who to follow.

5. There is also mass communicative confusion today, especially on social media. Everybody has thoughts and wants to share them. So, we find yourselves following and being followed, friending and being unfriended, because truth is dead on social media. The Bible says of these people, “Professing to be wise, they became fools”

Romans 1:22

Romans 1:22 NLT

22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.

6. Finally, and most devastatingly, we are living in a day of spiritual confusion. We have “crickets” in the pulpit chirping noises without biblical truth or clarity. Given all this confusion, what our nation needs most right now is a return to Christian character and kingdom values. But to do this, we have to start building at the foundation where values are formed, and that foundation is truth.

Without this, Christian character and kingdom values carry about as much weight and consistency as the wind. So let’s start with the question of the ages, which Pontius Pilate asked Jesus in our passage for this study.

What is truth SERMON POINTS: 1. THE WORLD IS ALWAYS PUTTING TRUTH ON TRIAL (V. 33A, READ VV. 28–32 FOR THE SETTING) • Truth will always be up for debate among people who think they are qualified to decide what is and isn’t true.

Mankind’s feeble attempts to define truth have taken many forms throughout history. Three of the most popular today are rationalism, pragmatism and relativism.

1. Rationalism says that truth is only what you can logically and intellectually perceive. Truth is that which your mind can know and makes sense to you. This is the view of many in the academic, learned world.

2. Pragmatism defines truth in terms of what works. So if something works for you today, that’s truth. But if something else works tomorrow, then truth changes.

3. Relativism and post-modernism both identify truth according to the way reality is viewed by each person (relativism), or even how each person would prefer to view it (post-modernism).

We hear these views today being expressed as “my truth” and “your truth”—and if your truth conflicts with mine, then I am free to ignore yours.

This is so because truth is a Person, not a philosophy or proposition.

CHANGING DOCTORS The climate in our culture today reminds me of a story about a man who went to a doctor, this man had gotten older in years and was struggling with a sickness.

When asked if the medication the doctor had prescribed was helping him, he replied, “No.”

When asked why, he went on to say that he didn’t like that medicine.

When asked what he did about it, he said “I changed doctors,”

Too many people today are changing pastors, teachers, news outlets, social media influencers, authors and even friends when someone says something they don’t like or disagree with.

Cancel culture has risen to a whole new level in that families are even canceling each other over disagreements on what each person believes to be true. What we’ve got today is people bouncing around until they find somebody who will tell them what they want to hear.

2. TRUTH EXISTS DESPITE THE WORLD’S DENIALS (V. 33B–37) Truth is that absolute standard by which reality is measured, no matter how we feel about it. Because truth is absolute, it is the same in every generation and every culture. Truth is a powerful force that can set people free from the lies of the devil

John 8:32 NLT

32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE? A professor told his class one day that they were going to start off the year with his opening philosophical statement, “There are no absolutes.” The professor went on to share that you cannot come to a fixed position on anything at all. One of the students in the class raised his hand after had finished making his introductory remarks. The student sought to clarify from the professor that he had just said there are no absolutes. Once the professor affirmed this to the student, the student followed up with a pause, and then a question, “Professor, are you absolutely sure?”

3. THE SOURCE OF TRUTH IS FOUND OUTSIDE OF HUMAN IDEAS AND OPINIONS (V. 38) • The contamination of sin has rendered human beings incapable of discovering truth on their own.

• We also have an enemy, Satan, who deals in lies and seeks to blind people to the truth.

• The only reliable source of truth is God’s eternal Word.

• So the question on any subject is, What has God said about it?

BIG BEN

If you were to travel to London England one of the sights you would most likely visit is the clock tower at Parliament, famously known as Big Ben. Big Ben towers over the other buildings nearby, offering the precise standard for time. In fact, men in three-piece suits pull out their pocket watches or their wristwatches, and then look up at Big Ben. They are looking up to the source of the most accurate time in order to align their watches with it. If someone’s pocket watch differs from Big Ben, They adjust their watch. You don’t see them climb up the tower in order to adjust Big Ben. Big Ben doesn’t adjust to anyone. When the person’s watch differs, then the person’s watch must adjust. Likewise, when it comes to our lives and decisions, God wants us to look to Him as the source of what is true. As our culture descends into even greater chaos with each passing day, it is high time for those of us who name the name of Jesus Christ to return to the truth.

“As our culture descends into even greater chaos with each passing day, it is high time for those of us who name the name of Jesus Christ to return to the truth.”

“What in the world is truth? It’s hard to know if you have it if you don’t know what it is, or who it is, and where it originates.”

“Truth is an objective standard that is absolute in its origin.”

“Today, we’ve got people walking around feeling who they are, and abandoning any objective standard of truth.”

“If you want perfect truth, it must come from a perfect source, who is God and God alone. Everything else is guesswork.”