Holding to the Truth

Introduction

Good Morning Church, how are we doing this morning? How well are we trusting our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, knowing that no matter what happens, He is not surprised and He is always working things out to His intended purposes? Are we trusting in that this morning? I hope you are, because it is the truth.

I want to start out this morning by throwing a statement at you to chew on for a moment or two. What is your response to the statement that:

All Truth is God’s Truth

What do we think? Does this make sense to us? Is this a correct or right statement? Is it factual? Is this true?

Well the first thing that we should probably nail down is a question that we find a man once asking Jesus. This was not a common man, because one of the decisions that he made, could be argued as one that changed the course of human history. This man’s name was Pilate, the governor who ruled over Judea in Jesus’ day.

To understand the thrust of his question we have to remind ourselves of the context. Pilate was a Roman Governor and the Romans hated the Jews and the Jews hated the Romans and nowhere was this tension more palpable then the place where this question was asked.

Jesus was standing before Pilate in the Capital city of Jerusalem. The Romans saw Jerusalem as the “armpit” of the Roman Empire. You were only stationed there if you were being punished for something. In stark contrast, every Jewish man and woman held the city in great honor, and they hated that Romans were allowed to rule here in their beloved city of their ancestors.

One of the biggest reasons that Romans hated being stationed in Jerusalem was because of their established creed: “Pax Romana”. It meant “Roman Peace”. Sounds nice doesn’t it. We like peace. But in reality this creed caused a lot of bloodshed.

The Roman Empire had grown so large that they could not possibly occupy all the land in their borders, so instead they allowed the native peoples to stay in their various regions and practice their various religions as long as they 1. paid their taxes and 2. did not rise up in rebellion. If they did not do either of these two things, and Rome heard about it, they would send in their military and violently remind the people of “Pax Romana” - Roman Peace.

The last thing you wanted to be was the man in charge when word got to Rome that your district was experiencing an uprising of some sort. It would probably cost you your career, maybe your life, and Pilate already had a couple of strikes against him when this mob, who was anything but peaceful, brought in this Jesus guy and demanded his execution.

Pilate was in a tough spot. He tried to reason with the religious leaders, but they were not open to reason. They wanted this man executed or things were going to get even less peaceful, and they knew exactly what that meant for this Roman governor. With this background in mind, we will read the rest of the story right from the text in John chapter 18. Starting in verse 33 it says:

“So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”

“Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king.

“For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” John 18:33-38

In a world so full of such Political maneuvering, this man of power and influence recognizes that “truth” is not something that he has any kind of a firm grasp on.

It is a fitting question for us right now, isn’t it? As we try and navigate our way through the current climate of new mandates, political agendas, and medical experts that don’t seem to agree with one another or even agree with themselves given enough time…how do we behave as Jesus’ people who are “of the truth” in a world that is saying along with Pilate What is truth?

Tension

When trying to understand a concept or idea, often it is helpful to begin with a simple definition of the word. A good dictionary definition of truth is: “That which is in accordance with fact or reality”. So the concept or idea of “Truth” is not some magical entity out there that we hope to be able to bump into or grab a hold of in some sort of “enlightened state of being”. Truth is something that is very grounded in reality. We could even say that the existence of truth is dependent on a right understanding of reality. A right understanding of that which is fact in our World.

And of course I am not trying to just get our heads spinning with all these philosophical or existential ideas, but only give us a framework from our own language to understand what God’s Word has to teach us about “truth”.

The New Testament only has one Greek word for truth and it is the word ἀλήθεια (a-lay-theia). This is the word that both Jesus and Pilate used in their respective declaration and questioning of truth. Along with truth, ἀλήθεια (a-lay-theia) carries the idea of sincerity or integrity. So it is not hard to see how a governor in a tight spot politically might rather dismissively propose the question, “What is Truth”

Looking through out Scripture, Bible scholars (much smarter than I) have listed out three distinct but interconnected senses of the idea of Truth as it used throughout Scripture.

Truth as a quality - the quality of something conforming to reality

Truth as a statement - a statement that is dependable in its conformity to reality

Truth as the Gospel - a message that conforms to (and answers) the nature of reality.

And when we move to the next slide we see a graph of how often each of these sense of the word for truth is used. 40% of the time we are talking about the simple quality of something being true. 37% of the time the Bibles talks someones statement being true and only 23% of the time that the Bible uses the word “truth” is it talking about the Message of Jesus the Christ.

So what is my point? Am I trying to say that the truth of the Gospel is somehow not as important as the other senses of truth? Of course not! Not even close, in fact I would say that it is by far the most important sense of the word in that all other truth finds it source in the truth of the Gospel...however...

Far too often when we read about “truth” in the Bible we tend to throw the idea into some file in our mind that is labeled “Spiritual Truths”. We are ready to defend the things that we read of in God’s Word to be very important “spiritual truths”…but they have to stay in their lane…they are not to be confused with “real world” issues and “real world” truths, but we come to Church each week to be reminded of these “Spiritual Truths” and work on our “Spiritual selves”, even hoping to forget all the “Material” or “everyday” issues that are out there. Those are for another day, those are based on a different kind of truth.

Hear me here Church, that is not the teaching of the Word of God, that is us... conforming the world around us.

Romans 12:2 ESV

2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Our world tells us that truth is relative to the individual and that one person cannot impose their “truth” on someone else. “That may be true for you, but it just isn’t true for me” kind of thing and the Christian Church is beginning to buy into this.

And I am totally including myself in this because I have caught myself thinking this way. I mean, I know it is true because I believe the Bible, but do I believe it is just as true for everyone else as it is for me? Even the person that answers my Biblically based truth statement with “Well I am really not a spiritual person, so...”

Do you see why it is so dangerous to isolate our understanding of understanding of truth to the moniker of “Spiritual Truths”? We would not nor could we impose our Spiritual beliefs on someone else, but that does not mean that they somehow exist in a world with a different truth.

I know I just set you to considering it at the beginning, but I hope you have realized by this point that I firmly believe that God’s Word supports the statement that: All Truth is God’s Truth

The reason that I have brought us into this discussion on truth this morning is not just because of the current events of the week. It is because in our study in 1 Timothy we have arrived at our theme verses for our entire series. At the end of Chapter 3, after the qualifications for leadership in the Church, we find Paul’s explanation for why he wrote this letter. He wrote the letter so that the Church may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress...of the truth.

So open up with me if you will to 1 Timothy chapter 3, it is on page 992 in the Bibles in the chairs. I’ll pray and we will dive into these next verses together, seeking the truth for us and for our world.

Truth

As we walk up to this part of Chapter 3, I wanted to remind us of what where Paul has just been. He has been explaining how the leaders of the local Church need to be people who have demonstrated that when it comes to faith in Jesus Christ they are people who “Get It”. They are people who are living in line with the truth, just like everyone of us should be.

To give us a greater idea of this I have three slides to quickly show you here, and I don’t expect you to read everything on them, I just wanted to use them to give you a big picture of how these qualifications apply to all of us.

Slide #1 So the first slide gives us the 15 qualifications for Overseers, that will work as our base line. These are to be the men who clearly get it and they alone are charged with the significant role of “teaching the truth” or “guarding the apostolic deposit.”

Slide #2 Now lets line up the role of Deacons, both the qualifications for men and women. There is a lot cross over in the themes here isn’t there? Notice that even though Overseers alone are charged to teach the faith, deacons are charged to hold it as it had been taught.

Slide #3 Lastly, this third slide takes the list from another Pastoral letter to Titus where Paul gives descriptive qualities for the older men, older women and younger men and women and look at all the cross over here in the blue. Lots of thematic similarities here in how the leaders of our Church are called to behave in ways that really all of us should be working towards. Whether we ever lead in these positions or not, we still have a role to play. The question is, are you playing the role that God has given you to play, or have you abandoning it for other callings.

And why does this matter? Why can’t we just ask for volunteers like every other organization and those that are willing or have time will just get the job done? Because the “job” is to be

...the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. 1 Tim 3:14b

What truth? The truth of the Gospel - Yes! And every other truth that corresponds to the ultimate reality that the gospel answers for us.

Do you understand what I mean by ultimate reality? Often times I have said “God is our ultimate reality” and most of us would agree with that because God is the ultimate…whatever. But what does that mean, that God is the “ultimate reality”.

To explain this I thought I would again go for a dictionary definition and was pleasantly pleased to find this explanation:

ultimate reality noun

:something that is the supreme, final and fundamental power in all reality

Then it said this, and this is just in a Webster dictionary not a Bible dictionary of some sort

//ultimate reality in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is God.

So among the other “Monotheistic” faiths in the world, the dictionary says that in Christianity the thing that is the supreme, final and fundamental power in all reality... is God. God is our ultimate reality. His view of the world is the true view. Every other view is tainted, obscured or just plain wrong. God is our ultimate reality.

So when a person come to faith in Jesus, and is “born again”, it is not just that his or her soul has been saved, but that their eyes have been opened to the Truth. The truth that is not just a Spiritual Truth, but the truth as it is in accordance with the ultimate reality in God.

We see this relationship between the un-separable nature of the physical and spiritual realms beautifully presented in the next verse. I say beautifully because of it’s poignancy and because of it’s poetry. Now I have openly admitted that I never really paid good attention to the poetry units in literature class so I am no expert on these things, but I do know that some of the beauty of poetry is that sometimes the form of the poem carries as much or more meaning than the words themselves. That seems to be the case here in verse 16.

This verse, which we have read in previous weeks is presented as a poem that was sung as a hymn and follows a poetic form called “Chaistic”, after the Greek letter “Chi” which looks just like our X.

To give you an example, I’ll quote from former president JFK, a democrat. Last week I quoted a cabinet member of Reagan and here we are on the other side of the aisle. Not trying to play partison politics here, just fighting for the truth.

President Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country”. You see how one leg of the Chi or X is about “the country”. The two ends are marked with the letter “A” and the other leg marked with B is about “you”. That is a Chiastic structure, and we find it many places in Scripture including here in verse 16.

We can lay out this next verse in a double “Chi” structure that looks and reads like this:

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was...

A. Manifested in the flesh B. Vindicated by the Spirit

B. Seen by Angels A. Proclaimed among the nations

A. Believed on in the world B. Taken up in glory.

Do you see how the legs all line up to travel along the similar themes? In this case the connection is the two realms. What Theologians call “The Lower Realm” and “The Higher Realm”. Or in other words, “The Spiritual Realm” and the “Material Realm”. These two realms are intricately woven together in such a way as to reveal the mystery of godliness.

Godliness is reverence for God and a life of holiness in this world. It is not just a Spiritual endeavor, but it manifests in our material world as well.

Gospel Application

No where is this more evident then in the person of Jesus. He was the “God-Man”. You can’t get more mysterious than that. How can someone be fully God and yet fully man at the same time? Jesus was no ordinary Man, but he was a man, subject to the same physical struggles toward holiness in this world that we all are. If this was not the case, then his death and resurrection would mean nothing for us.

But what is so cool about this “Chiasm” is that it is about Jesus…and the Greek Word Christ is Χριστός (Christos) and it begins with the letter X (Chi). So in the life of Jesus we see both realms intimately intertwined with one another, and this is exactly the way that everyone who believes and knows the truth should live their life. With reverence for God AND a life dedicated to pursuing holiness in this world.

So where is all this going? Why is Paul laying out this poem about Jesus and how he interacts with the two realms? Well all of this was to equip Timothy’s church and by extension us to be the “Church of the living God, the pillar and buttress of the truth”

Just as there are today, there were many false teachers in Paul’s day and one of the most popular heresies, or wrong teachings, was that the two realms were completely separated. So this meant that I could do whatever I wanted with my “Physical Self” and it could have no affect or bearing on my “Spiritual Self”, because they are completely seperate. We may laugh at this in principle, but in practice this heresy is alive and well today. It eventually came to be called “gnosticism” based on the Greek word “gnosis” which means knowledge. So as long as my “Spiritual Journey” has led me to the right understanding of “Spiritual Truths” it doesn’t matter what I do with my old Physical self.

This heresy played out in opposite directions. On one side people would go ahead and enjoy indulging in any kind of ungodly, sinful, selfish, deceptive act because those actions were only done by our “Physical” self and they did not affect my Spiritual self. On the other side it was taught that we should not indulge in anything that brought us enjoyment, because the Physical world did not matter we should abandon it completely, to dedicate our lives to the Spiritual world. These people would deny themselves any and every pleasure in this world. So laughter, good food, exercise, time with family and friends, marriage relationships anything that someone might enjoy they called evil - because all that mattered was the “Spiritual”.

This second brand of gnosticism is what Timothy was dealing with in Ephesus. Starting in Chapter 4 verse 1 it says:

1 Timothy 4:1 ESV

1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,

“Spirits and demons” - Engaging in the “Spiritual Realm” brings this affect in Physical one...

1 Timothy 4:2 ESV

2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,

These liars are people, who have been blinded to the truth, look at what they say about the Physical Realm. These “liars are people ...

1 Timothy 4:3 ESV

3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

God has not given up his sovereign rule of this world. He created it. He is sustaining it by His Word and according to His good will. He is working everything out to His intended purposes in His intended time. He is the Ultimate reality, and ALL truth is based on how it aligns with that reality. ALL TRUTH IS GOD’S TRUTH.

Landing

And you might say, yes but what about sin. Hasn’t sin destroyed our world so that God’s good created purposes are no longer being realized? There is some truth to that, but less so for those who believe and know the truth. God has given us tools of redemption in this world, where we can…at least to a degree…receive a taste of the good world that God designed for us to thrive in.

1 Timothy 4:4–5 ESV

4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

He didn’t send Jesus so that we would abandon the Physical World and get lost in our Spiritual selves, He sent Jesus so that knowing the Truth we would . He desires us to wo