Class Lesson December 22, 2019

THE BIBLE MEETS LIFE

We recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It’s amazing to think that our smartphones today have more computing power than the entire bank of computers NASA Mission Control had in 1969. 1 That doesn’t mean landing on the moon was an easy task. Some 400,000 engineers, technicians, and scientists were involved in this mission. Because critical calculations had to be precise, they were checked and rechecked. Everything had to go absolutely right for the mission to be successful. 2

As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin prepared to land the lunar module, it would’ve been disastrous if Mission Control had told them, “Execute the moon landing however you think best. Don’t worry about the calculations; just do whatever feels good to you.” Disastrous? Yes, because the truth—the precise science that would land them safely—was absolute and could not change at the whim of the astronauts.

We want this form of absolute truth in science and physics; yet, many believe truth is subjective and personal and doesn’t apply to behavior or religious beliefs. Jesus Christ shows absolute truth exists in all aspects of life.

John 18:36-38a

36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence. 37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. 38a Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?

Hours before His crucifixion and death, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate. Pilate had been appointed the governor of Judea, and he represented the most powerful figure in the world, the Roman Emperor Tiberius (14 BC–AD 37). Pilate could have seen Jesus as a rival, someone trying to usurp his authority, but Jesus made it clear: “My kingdom is not of this world.” Pilate saw that Jesus was not a rival king in the usual sense, but He was a king nonetheless.

As king, Jesus said He had come into the world for this: “that I should bear witness unto the truth.” Pay close attention to the subtleties in this passage. No more weighty or consequential definite articles may appear in the whole of Scripture than the definite article “the” in these verses. Jesus might have said the purpose of His life was to testify to my truth. Or a truth. Or some truth. Instead, Jesus referred to the truth.

Pilate had no interest in the truth and, with a skeptical tone he asked, “What is truth?” This Judean governor may have been the world’s first post-modern relativist, and he lived some two thousand years ago! Some commentators have attempted to impose a philosophical interpretation that Pilate was sincerely seeking truth. This is not the case. Pilate had neither time nor interest for truth. Jesus testifying to “the truth” was merely frivolous to Pilate.

Here was Jesus — “the truth” (John 14:6) — standing before Pilate, and yet Pilate could not recognize the truth.

We can know the truth; it is available to us because Jesus Christ is truth embodied. His mission and message is “the truth.” We can “know the truth,” and it will set us free (8:32). His Holy Spirit guides us in the truth (16:13), and His Word sanctifies us through the truth (17:17).

How can we know what truth is? Truth is what corresponds with reality; it corresponds to what we know to be accurately represented in the world around us. Truth exists whether we recognize it or not. Pilate did not recognize the truth in front of him, yet the truth was there. Truth is absolute—true for all people at all times and in all places—or it is not truth at all.

Absolute truth is from God. Jesus “dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (1:14). Jesus said, “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (18:37). The Source of truth is God and when we connect to the Source—God—we hear the voice of Jesus (truth). Therefore, we cannot know truth without God.

John 1:14-18

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

KEY WORDS: Grace for grace (1:16)—A phrase emphasizing the mercy of God toward His people. God’s grace finds its ultimate fulfillment in the saving work of Christ.

The first eighteen verses of the Gospel of John are a powerful prologue to the life and teaching of Jesus. John showed us that Jesus’ life did not “begin” at His human conception or birth; He is God Himself, who has always existed and is the agent of creation. But in the wondrous and amazing power of God, “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”

Hebrews 1:1-2 tells us, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” Through the prophets of old, humanity gained a glimpse of God’s revealed truth, but when “The Word” became “flesh,” truth came to live among us! Jesus has “encamped” and taken up residence among us; truth no longer came second-hand through the prophets; the truth came directly to us in Christ.

Because Jesus came from God full of grace and truth, “of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.” Because of Jesus we have received one blessing after another. By knowing the absolute truth in Christ and dwelling with Him, we go from strength to strength and receive grace upon grace. When we follow Christ we live in victory regardless of our outward circumstances.

Knowing Jesus Christ is the only way to know truth. Earlier, John wrote that Jesus, “the true Light,” came into the world, but “the world knew him not” and even “his own received him not” (John 1:9-11). The reason? “That light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (3:19). Our world is in trouble because it has not recognized or received Jesus Christ—the light and the truth.

In a society held together by the Judeo-Christian ethic, the principle of absolute truth holds sway. Even those who are not ardent followers of Christ have an understanding that absolute truth exists. But as society has pushed further away from the tenets of Scripture and has driven Christ ever further out of the people’s midst, moral relativism has crept in and is now taking over. Without the light of Christ and the truth of Scripture He gave us, culture has joined Pilate in questioning what truth is.

Surely, we’ve all seen what happens when businesses and leaders come up with their own standards for morals and ethics. Many of us have been personally affected by their poor decisions and hurtful actions. But our top business leaders are no longer getting courses in ethics. Harvard Business School is considered one of the premier schools for leaders, but they dropped all their ethics courses. In response Chuck Colson said (in 2008), “They are all about diversity and sensitivity, not inculcating character based on moral absolutes. We are now paying the price.” 3 Michael Anteby, a former professor there, echoed that in his book titled Manufacturing Morals: The Values of Silence in Business School Education:

“I grew up in France where there were very articulated norms …. Higher norms and lower norms. Basically, you have convictions of what was right or wrong, and when I tried to articulate this in the classroom, I encountered … silence on the part of students. Because they weren’t used to these value judgments in the classroom.” 4

Truth—absolute truth—exists. The laws of science and math teach us that. Moral and ethical truth also exists—and we know that when we encounter Jesus who is the truth.

John 8:30-32

30 As he spake these words, many believed on him. 31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; 32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Truth is not merely something we can know intellectually; we also can experience truth in Christ! “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” But Jesus included a condition with that knowledge. We cannot exaggerate the importance of the word “if” in verse 31. We will only find freedom and be saved if we continue walking with Christ. It is not enough to know the truth in our mind. Truth is holistic; we must live it out. 

Moral relativism falsely claims it is possible to live outside of defined truth and still be free. Actually, living outside of Jesus’ truth and teaching confines us to a prison of our own making. We will know the truth and be set free only by consistently obeying God’s Word and continually walking with Jesus. Ye shall know means that as we pursue truth by following Christ, truth will be obvious.

We do not believe in some abstract or metaphysical truth. Jesus calls us to “continue in my word.” My word—the truth and teaching of Jesus Himself. We will not have spiritual freedom, moral clarity and lasting fulfillment without the word of Christ; therefore, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16).

The truth of Christ imparts great freedom! But from what exactly are we set free? Slavery in any form is wrong and evil, but the worst kind of bondage is the slavery of sin we bring on ourselves. Earlier, Jesus referred to sin and said twice that the religious leaders would die in their sins (John 8:21,24). We might also see this freedom in other ways in the Gospel of John: freedom from condemnation (5:24-29), freedom from darkness (12:46), freedom from the power of the evil one (17:15), and freedom from death (5:24).

I have found the freedom and joy that comes from living in the truth. A few years ago, when my wife was expecting triplets, our maternal-fetal physician specialist told us, “I recommend a fetal reduction.” Two of our triplets were sharing a placenta, a serious condition called Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. Fetal reduction. That’s nothing more than a euphemism for aborting one of our babies.

Years earlier we both had made the decision to follow Jesus and live by His truth. But what happens when that truth we’ve committed to live by is on a collision course with the truth of a dangerous situation? In our case, truth was a matter of life or death. It didn’t matter. God’s truth is absolute. My wife told the specialist, “We will trust God. There will not be a ‘fetal reduction.’”

God lavished us with “grace for grace.” Three years later, our sons are in complete health. And Ryder James, the most high-risk of the triplets, has the most amazing ear-to-ear smile. What if Audrey and I had followed a different standard of truth and had ended his life? Instead, we chose to follow Jesus. The truth of Jesus set us free.

LIVE IT OUT

In referring to the gospel, mathematician Blaise Pascal said we should “make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is.” 5 The scales of truth always tip in our favor as believers, but the responsibility does too. What will you do to point to the truth revealed in Jesus?

Know. Because the Bible teaches us how to live and points to the truth in Jesus, commit to read it through. Discover what it says about matters of faith, ethics, and morality.

Read. Learn more about our need for truth in the book Unimaginable: What Our World Would Be Like Without Christianity by Jeremiah J. Johnston (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2017).

Engage. Talk with a friend who is not yet a believer. Listen to his or her views on absolute truth and share how you found the truth in Christ.

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Hope to see everyone this Sunday!

In His Love,

David & Susan

Teacher Notes:

Answers to Tough Questions: Defending What You Believe

DOES ABSOLUTE TRUTH EXISTS?

Song: Voice of Truth – Casting Crowns

Give each group member a sheet of paper and a pen. Play the song and encourage them to listen carefully to the words of the song and write down what it teaches them about truth.

I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth

After the song is over, allow a few volunteers to share their responses. Discuss.

• Emphasize that the song portrays truth as a person—Jesus Christ. So, this is important to remember because when we deny absolute truth, we are denying Jesus.

Would you consider this quote – truth? (my dad always quoted) St. Augustine / William Penn

“Right is right even if nobody is right, wrong is wrong even if everybody is wrong.”

How would you define absolute truth?

Absolute truth is something that is true at all times and in all places. It is something that is always true no matter what the circumstances. It is a fact that cannot be changed. For example, there are no round squares.

DISCUSS: Which of the following are true for all people, for all places, and for all time: “Do not steal,” “No right turns on red,” “Love your neighbor,” “Do not murder,” “Eat all your vegetables”? Why?

I. There are many that wonder if we can really know the truth.

John 18:36-38a

36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” 37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” 38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.

Hours before His crucifixion and death, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate. Pilate had been appointed the governor of Judea, and he represented the most powerful figure in the world, the Roman Emperor Tiberius (14 BC–AD 37). Pilate could have seen Jesus as a rival, someone trying to usurp his authority, but Jesus made it clear: “My kingdom is not of this world.” Pilate saw that Jesus was not a rival king in the usual sense, but He was a king nonetheless. As king, Jesus said He had come into the world for this: “that I should bear witness unto the truth.” Jesus might have said the purpose of His life was to testify to my truth. Or a truth. Or some truth. Instead, Jesus referred to the truth. Pilate had no interest in the truth and, with a skeptical tone he asked, “What is truth?”

How does our culture answer Pilate’s question: “What is truth?”

• Pontius Pilate once asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Society answers that question today by saying truth is whatever you want it to be. Even as many people deny the idea of absolute truth — “truth that applies to all people at all times”—science reveals the reality of absolute truth. Does absolute truth also apply to moral and spiritual matters? Yes! Because only one God rules the universe, only one standard for truth exists, and He has revealed that standard in Jesus Christ.
• Many people today believe that truth is relative — that what’s true for you isn’t necessarily true for me. We are expected to tolerate, even condone, everyone’s choices because perceptions and opinions are valued as the highest measure of truth. However, this is illogical. According to the very definition of truth, the idea of relative truth is itself a contradiction. Aside from this, the most important fact is that Jesus is Himself the truth.

Where are some different places that people search for truth? What are some ways you filter or screen for truth?

• Here was Jesus — “the truth” (John 14:6) — standing before Pilate, and yet Pilate could not recognize the truth.

Lasting truths from John 18:36-38a?

• Jesus is King.
• Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world.
• Jesus came to bear witness to the truth of God.
• To know Jesus is to know the truth.
• His mission and message are “the truth.”
• His Holy Spirit guides us in the truth (16:13), and His Word sanctifies us through the truth (17:17).

How can we know what truth is?

II. We can know what truth is because Jesus has revealed it.

John 1:14-18

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. (grace for grace) 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

How are grace and truth demonstrated in Christ?

• KEY WORDS: Grace for grace (1:16)—A phrase emphasizing the mercy of God toward His people. God’s grace finds its ultimate fulfillment in the saving work of Christ.
• Knowing Jesus Christ is the only way to know truth.

What did John mean when he said Jesus was “full of grace and truth?”

• Because Jesus came from God full of grace and truth, “of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.” Because of Jesus we have received one blessing after another. By knowing the absolute truth in Christ and dwelling with Him, we go from strength to strength and receive grace upon grace. When we follow Christ, we live in victory regardless of our outward circumstances.

In a society held together by the Judeo-Christian ethic, the principle of absolute truth holds sway. Even those who are not ardent followers of Christ have an understanding that absolute truth exists. But as society has pushed further away from the tenets of Scripture and has driven Christ ever further out of the people’s midst, moral relativism has crept in and is now taking over. Without the light of Christ and the truth of Scripture He gave us, culture has joined Pilate in questioning what truth is.

What are some lasting truths from John 1:14-18?

• Jesus, the Word, came to dwell as God with us.
• Jesus makes known God’s glory in the fullness of His grace and truth.
• We know what God is like, receive His grace, and know His truth only through Jesus, God’s Son.

Truth—absolute truth—exists. The laws of science and math teach us that. Moral and ethical truth also exists—and we know that when we encounter Jesus who is the truth.

   

III. When we trust and follow Christ, we discover the truth and experience life and freedom.

John 8:30-32

30 Even as he spoke, many believed in him. 31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

How would you describe the connection between truth and freedom?

• Truth is not merely something we can know intellectually; we also can experience truth in Christ! “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” But Jesus included a condition with that knowledge. We cannot exaggerate the importance of the word “if” in verse 31. We will only find freedom and be saved if we continue walking with Christ. It is not enough to know the truth in our mind. Truth is holistic; we must live it out.

Lasting truths from John 8:30-32?

• Salvation comes through believing in Jesus.
• Authentic discipleship is evident in abiding in God’s Word and living by it.
• Those who are faithful to God’s Word will know Him and the truth only He provides.

Moral relativism falsely claims it is possible to live outside of defined truth and still be free. Actually, living outside of Jesus’ truth and teaching confines us to a prison of our own making. We will know the truth and be set free only by consistently obeying God’s Word and continually walking with Jesus. Ye shall know means that as we pursue truth by following Christ, truth will be obvious.

The truth of Christ imparts great freedom! But from what exactly are we set free?

• Slavery in any form is wrong and evil, but the worst kind of bondage is the slavery of sin we bring on ourselves.
• We might also see this freedom in other ways in the Gospel of John: freedom from condemnation (5:24-29), freedom from darkness (12:46), freedom from the power of the evil one (17:15), and freedom from death (5:24).

What are some ways you have experienced freedom through the truth of the gospel?

• I have found the freedom and joy that comes from living in the truth. A few years ago, when my wife was expecting triplets, our maternal-fetal physician specialist told us, “I recommend a fetal reduction.” Two of our triplets were sharing a placenta, a serious condition called Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. Fetal reduction. That’s nothing more than a euphemism for aborting one of our babies. Years earlier we both had made the decision to follow Jesus and live by His truth. But what happens when that truth we’ve committed to live by is on a collision course with the truth of a dangerous situation? In our case, truth was a matter of life or death. It didn’t matter. God’s truth is absolute. My wife told the specialist, “We will trust God. There will not be a ‘fetal reduction.’” God lavished us with “grace for grace.” Three years later, our sons are in complete health. And Ryder James, the most high-risk of the triplets, has the most amazing ear-to-ear smile. What if Audrey and I had followed a different standard of truth and had ended his life? Instead, we chose to follow Jesus. The truth of Jesus set us free.

LIVE IT OUT

We end where we began. “What is truth?” The Bible does not explicitly address the issue of absolute truth. Nevertheless, Scripture, such as the passages we have examined, does readily connect truth to God, and it naturally presumes it is absolute truth, meaning it applies to all people at all times. Therefore, absolute truth exists because God exists. It is fully grounded in His standard and ultimately and fully made known in Jesus Christ.

THE POINT: Truth is found in Jesus Christ.

Dec 21, 2019 From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham

Q: Why does it matter whether people believe in evolution over Biblical creation? -- E.B.

A: The entire educational system is rampant with evolution. Universities that were founded upon Scripture now teach atheistic or theistic evolution, producing skeptics, agnostics or atheists with little or no regard for God. Biblical creation is the only answer that has stood the test of time because it is founded on the absolute truth of God's Word that never changes.

Jesus Came into the World to Bear Witness to the Truth - Christmas Day

Resource by John Piper Scripture: John 18:37    Topic: Truth

Every year Christmas poses a question to the world—and to you this morning—namely, why did Jesus come? Or what is the meaning of Jesus Christ? Or, more personally, what difference should this man make in my life? In my marriage, in my work, in my leisure, in my thinking, in my emotions?

When he was on trial for his life Jesus gave us an answer to this question. He said in John 18:37, "For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice."

The words were spoken at the end of his life, but they are about Christmas. "For this reason, I was born . . . " For this reason there is Christmas. Christmas exists because Jesus came to bear witness to the truth.

So, what I would like to do on this Christmas morning is to think for a few minutes with you about these words of Jesus. I suggest that we focus on two implications of this verse, or two implications of Christmas, and then close with an exhortation.

1. Christmas means that there is truth—truth that everyone should believe.
2. Christmas means that Jesus came to testify to that truth—He is the key witness.