What Is Truth?

What a fantastic question!  "What is Truth?" You will find that a lot of people don't ask it anymore. They think they know the truth already, like the Pharisees.  There are others like Pilate, who ask the question, but don't put in the work to answer it. They end up with a lot of uncertainly. And then there are those like Peter who do ask and answer but aren't strong enough to apply it when the time is right.  We can learn from all of these people. And we must learn from Jesus in John 18.  How we ask, answer and apply will shape or reshape our lives!

- Why did the Pharisees not listen to Jesus?

- Why did Pilate not sit down and learn from Jesus?

- What kept Peter from standing up to the crowds before the rooster crowed?

- How is TRUTH and our ATTITUDE towards it the answer to all these questions?

- How many things in your life would change if you approached Truth the right way?

Transcript

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Welcome to the Excel Still More Podcast. I am your host, Chris Emerson. I'm here to encourage you in your walk with God. Thank you for joining in. Today's podcast is sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John Cunningham is a friend of mine and a brother in Christ, and he can help you with financial decisions and future planning. He's been a big help to me and my family, and I commend him to you. You can reach him at 205-913-1720. I am so thankful you're here, so let's get started. In John chapter 18, Jesus has this fascinating interaction with the Roman governor, Pilate. And as a result of what Jesus says to him, Pilate asks this three-word question. It's the title of today's episode What is Truth? I love this question so much. I'm impressed that a Roman governor who knows so little about Jesus or Jewish culture was even willing to ask it. But I think what you will see today is that when it comes to truth, we need to be willing to do three things. First of all, we need to be willing to ask the question. Secondly, we need to be disciplined enough to answer the question, doing whatever type of research as is necessary. And then of course, finally, we must be willing to apply the answers that we find. As you will see today, that most importantly applies to your relationship with Jesus. I want to know what truth is. I'm willing to put in the work to discover it, and I will let it change my life. But what I hope you also see today is that this attitude towards what is true, this concept that maybe I don't have all of the answers, and maybe the reason I haven't gotten where I need to be is because there is truth yet to be discovered and applied. That attitude can absolutely transform your life because it opens it up to new possibilities and greater truth. So that's where we're going today. There are characters in this chapter that we will be exploring. I will be reading at least the section in just a moment where Jesus and Pilate are interacting. And while I will reference some of the other things going on in the text and some other passages, we won't have the occasion to read them today. But if you are interested in deeper Bible study, let me direct you to something. This episode will release on Monday, November 23rd. The day previous, on Sunday morning, November 22nd, Lord willing, I will be preaching this sermon, What is Truth? We will have the opportunity to read more of the chapter and introduce other passages. So if you'd like to do that, just remember you can always go to Lyndale Church of Christ.com or the Lyndale Church of Christ Facebook page and you can watch it there. Even if you are listening to this episode a week later, a month, or a year, you can always go to that website and look for November 22nd, and the sermon will be there. I should say it's only Tuesday the 17th, and I'm recording this, so I guess there is a possibility it won't get preached, but then I would probably go back and edit all this out. So I'm pretty sure it's there. Okay, before we do the read and get to the application, let me set the scene. It's late in Jesus' life. He has already been arrested at the garden. He has been marched before two Jewish leaders, Anna, the father in law of the high priest, and Caiaphas, the high priest at the time. They want him dead. The problem is under Jewish law they could not carry out an execution. Under Roman law, they could. So the next thing they do is they take Jesus before Pilate. Pilate is a Roman. Pilate is a Gentile. He doesn't know much about Jewish culture or the life of Jesus. He just happens to be the governor over Judea at the time. He certainly knows these Jews are angry at this man named Jesus, and to Pilate's credit, he's inquisitive as to why. So let me read John eighteen verses thirty three through forty, and you can see how their interaction goes. John eighteen thirty three. Therefore Pilate entered again into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered, Are you saying this on your own initiative? Or did others tell you about me? Pilate answered, I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation, and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore Pilate said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice. 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 guilt in him, but you have a custom that I release someone for you at the Passover. Do you wish then that I release for you the king of the Jews? So they cried out again, saying, Not this man but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. So ultimately Barabbas is released, and Jesus is put to death. Okay, so there is more going on in this chapter than what I've exposed you to in this read. We have Pharisees and Jewish leaders who want Jesus dead. We also have the concurrent story of Peter, Jesus' disciple, who denied him three times in this same section. What we can find here when we look at all of these characters is that each one of them had a different attitude about truth. Pilate is the one who asked the question, but the story really doesn't start with him. So let me give you three things to think about. We'll focus our attention on Jesus, and in the last few minutes I'll broaden it out to some other things. I mentioned to you earlier that when it comes to truth, one of the things we must be willing to do is ask the question. So let me begin with the Pharisees. They were unwilling to do that. They were unwilling to consider that there might be truth about God outside of what they know. They believed they had all the truth. They knew God and God knew them. They had been following the law of Moses for fifteen hundred years, and it was all that mattered. They would not listen to Jesus. He provided them evidence over and over again. In their presence he healed the man who was lowered down from the ceiling. They didn't ask him what is truth. They rejected him. He gave sight to the blind man in John 9. He raised Lazarus from the dead in John eleven. And the Pharisees continued to outright reject him. They were so prideful that they couldn't even conceive of there being a truth that they had not already settled in their own mind. Does that start to ring a bell a little bit? There are people in our lives like that. Maybe we've been like that. No matter what evidence is being produced, even if it's biblical text, we can become so sure that our way is right. What we have always believed is the truth, that we would dare not even ask the question if there might be something left to learn. It's no wonder in John 9, Jesus said, You guys are the blind ones. If you knew that you were blind, I could show you the way. But because you believe, you already see, you will always be blind. I don't want to be like these Pharisees. You know, when it comes to topics like Bible authority, the work and worship of the church, the truth on how to become a Christian, any number of things related to Jesus and his message, it is very easy for people like you and me to say, I already know everything about that. What I believe is right, it's the way I was always taught, it's the end of the discussion, and we can miss out on things that God might be doing if we're unwilling to question our idea of truth. All right, so here is where Pilate comes into the conversation. He is not affected by the same hatred or self-interest or loathsome attitude that the Pharisees are affected by. He's just a guy hearing things for the first time. Things, though, that do not jive with what he's always believed. There's no way in Pilate's history he was taught about the Messiah. And yet right before him is a man who claims to be a king of a spiritual realm. And instead of being like the Pharisees and behaving with great pride, he asks the question, What is truth? I think Pilate is admitting that this is intriguing, but he doesn't know if it's real or not. I love that he did that. I've got to tell you, I have a short list of people who I don't know if they're saved or lost, and it really doesn't look good. But I hope that somewhere along the way they built a relationship with Jesus and they made it to heaven, and one of them for me is Pilate, the vitriol of the Jews, pushing him in a direction, his own ignorance, exposing him to weakness, and yet he's curious. But like the Pharisees, Pilate did make a mistake. He was willing to ask the question, but he was not willing to do the work, have the discipline, or pursue the discourse to find the answer. Oh, how different this story would have been if Pilate would have said, Jesus, let's go sit down, tell me everything that you've done, show me the miracles, lead me in the right way, I just want to learn. He wouldn't have come back out and said, What is truth? He would have said, Jesus is truth. But he didn't do that. After asking the question, he comes out and on multiple occasions throughout this process says, I find no guilt in him, which is good, I guess, but it's not enough. He's kind of telling them, look, I'm not saying that he's innocent. I don't know that. I haven't seen evidence of that, but I don't see any evidence that he's guilty either. And that way Pilate is in this dangerous place called ambiguity. He's not really of one mind or the other. He could have been, but he wasn't disciplined to pursue it. Listen, it's great if you get out of this episode and you say, you know what, I need to be willing to listen more. Maybe there are some things that I don't properly understand. Maybe there are changes I need to make. I'm going to quit being prideful and I'm willing to say, all right, so what is truth? But be careful. Here's what some Christians do. They start asking questions, which is good, but they aren't willing to put in the work to study the answers. They aren't willing to get in the book and study Bible authority and see what Jesus said and do their research and answer the question. And so people sometimes come away with, you know, maybe there's no way to know. Maybe it could be this or that. And then we live very weak Christian lives. I do think there are things that brethren think are true that when they study, they realize maybe it isn't as true as they thought that it was. But sometimes they end up saying, I guess I'll never be able to know. There are a great many things about Jesus and his church that we can know, but asking the question isn't enough. We need to be daily Bible students. We need to be searchers and seekers of the answers that Jesus provides. This brings us to our third person in the story. The Pharisees were not willing to ask the question. Pilate wasn't willing to do the work to answer it, but Peter was better than that, wasn't he? Peter was someone who from the very beginning wanted to know what Jesus had to say. For three years Peter watched Jesus say and do incredible things. He knew the truth. In fact, Peter was the one in Matthew sixteen who made the great confession, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. So he gets a ton of credit. He went way past the Pharisees and even Pilate. But it turns out those are actually the easier steps. Step three is the hardest, actually applying the truth when all of the blind people and culture around you are pushing back. I'm talking about how Peter denied Jesus under pressure by the society questioning him and failing to let truth do its greatest work, and that is living in our decisions. Now, like me at least, and maybe you, I falter here. There are times when I open myself up to the truth that God might reveal, admitting that maybe I don't know, and I start reading the word, and there it is, staring me right in the face, and I know it's true, and I know I need to change. And I commit to change. And then here comes the world, here comes the internet, here comes culture, and I cave. Speaking of the internet and social media and its pressure against us applying the truth, I'm committed to talking to you about that next week. So be sure and check that out. But back to Peter, he really messed that up. Jesus knew that he would. But I have to say this about him. He felt sorrow. He didn't abandon the truth. He didn't say, Well, that's too hard. I'll go back to the way things used to be. He repented, he gathered more evidence, which I think is something people overlook. Sometimes maybe you need to go back and answer the question more thoroughly. Maybe if you think you believe the truth and you're unable to apply it, you don't really believe it like you should. And Peter hadn't seen Jesus raised from the dead, but after that he was a different guy. He still made mistakes. He still failed to apply the truth in every situation. Galatians two is a good example. But he never gave up on trying. He never gave up on the direction of living what he had learned. And I hope that's true for you. You know that's the difference between someone who will be in heaven and someone who won't. Maybe they both know the truth. They both certainly fail to apply it at times. But only one keeps pressing forward, editing their surroundings, reevaluating their knowledge until they can do what pleases God. So there you go. What is truth? Are you humble enough to ask the question? Are you disciplined enough to research and study for the answer? And are you convicted enough to go counterculture to do what is right and to keep pushing for that result even after you falter? So in these last few minutes, let me give you a few applications to think about. In the sermon that I'm intending to preach, we're going to talk about Bible authority. I preach on that quite a bit, following the pattern of scripture. And maybe every time I do, there are some people in the room who are traditionalists, who perhaps are binding things they have no right to bind. And maybe there are people in the room who are too loose with their convictions and need to get back to what the scripture says. And unfortunately, not a lot of people change. But what if we came in with a different attitude? What if I was the kind of person who said, I believe I know the truth on that? But maybe I don't. I'm willing to ask the question, is this right? And I'm willing to listen to what the Bible says and learn, and even if it's the opposite of what I've always believed, if I see it in the scripture, I will do it. Can you even begin to imagine what kind of unity we would have? That's what the word does. It is the truth that unifies if we are willing to ask the question, answer it, and apply it. Now I have to say, the application here is boundless. What we see with relationship to Jesus and the truth is true of all kinds of other things. The convictions that people have on politics and how outrageous they are about it. The position that people have on their money and how they spend it, on their body and how they care for it, on their family and how they behave in it. Everybody walking around thinking they already know the answer. There's nothing more to learn, like the Pharisees. There are some who are like Pilate who say, Maybe there is a lot to learn about that, maybe I don't know. I guess I can never know. So I'll just walk through and see what happens. And then there are those like early game Peter who knew and just wouldn't do it. How much better would we be? How much more unified would we be if we were all humble enough and studious enough and disciplined enough to learn and live factual truths, absolute truths that we can all agree on and strive for. So look, have your convictions, stand up for them, but be careful. Sometimes the secret to a better life is asking the question: what is truth? Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed the program, please remember to share with your family and your friends. Also, you can go to excelstillmore.life to sign up for emails, order the three month journals, or just catch up on old episodes. So until next time, let me leave you with this whatever you choose to do today in the name of the Lord Jesus, excel stillmore.