The Reality of Truth

 

You may have heard this on T.V…..

Hello, my name is Ronnie Rulez and are you tied with your job?

Why let me show you how you and many like you can make over a $1,000,000 in real estate!

 

Click

If you want to be saved from all the troubles of the world—let Jesus do it! Give Jesus a chance! Just make your tax deductable contribution to us and watch the Lord enter your life.

 

Click

For a little more then a dollar a day, you can take this pill to reduce your appetite and you can start loosing those unwanted pounds now.

 

How many of you have heard thing like these on the TV?

So do you-- like me, at times feel poor, unsaved, and obese?

 

We hear so many claims from time to time. 

We hardly know what to believe.

 

This morning we hear from the gospel, Jesus telling us about the Holy Spirit of Truth.  We are promised the truth from the Holy Spirit. 

 

Where is it? 

What is it?

How do we get it?

 

Jesus says that the Spirit of truth will guide us in the truth and speak of the things he hears from Jesus and declare them to us.

 

Ok, my vision of this is a dove up here at the pulpit reading the declaration from Jesus to us.  Here is the truth, chapter one.

 

We get a sense form this reading that there is a direct transfer of Jesus truths from him to the Holy Spirit to us. 

A mind to mind download of sorts.

That this transfer would be distinguishable and direct. 

We will know that the truth is from the Holy Spirit and from Jesus.

 

I don’t know about you, but I have never had such a direct encounter. 

 

But I do not think that this means that the Gospel is false or that the Holy Spirit is late getting the information to us.  I just think it means that the Holy Spirit is not direct.

 

This morning it would be helpful to understand what is truth and how the Holy Spirit gives truth to us.

 

For the last 2000 years, for reasons completely unknown to us, God in the Holy Spirit has been less then direct.  He has even been passive by allowing wars and all sorts of crimes against humanity.  

 

However, there have been many people--over time and even today-- that have been influenced by the Holy Spirit.  They will tell you so. 

They will tell you of his presence in their lives. So for us there is testimony that the Holy Spirit is here. 

 

So how do we get tuned into the Holy Spirit and hear his truth?

 

A noble prize winner Andre Gide said, “Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.”

 

It just so happens that Jesus said a similar thing: Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.  So, he who seeks God is a person of truth.

 

The trick is to seek the truth. 

To seek the truth is more then having someone else tell you their truths.

How do we know that what they are saying is right or truthful, how do we know that they have found it to be true?

So we can’t simple rely on what is said.

 

Can we rely on what is written?

What is written –even in the bible—is someone else’s truth. While we believe it is truth to all people, how do we know?  What separates it from other writings?  How come some are lead to faith by it and others are not?

 

Can we rely on what we have been taught—after all truth stays the same over time, doesn’t it?

While we are influenced by what other’s say, what is written or what we have learned, we still need to seek the truth for ourselves.  It must become our truth.

 

The bible is just a book if it does not become truth to us.

 

The Pharisees were taught the truth and it changed on them.

Answer this: If God is revealing himself to us all the time, then isn’t their more truth to learn?

Doesn’t the Gospel have more to share with us each day?

Doesn’t the Gospel have something new for us?

 

So regardless of where we are in faith, it is important to continue to seek the truth, because there is more truth to be revealed to us.

 

Seeking the truth involves one’s heart.

Braise Pascal, a famous scientist and mathematician in the 1600’s said, “We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.”

 

And we hear in Psalm 15:2, “those whose walk is blameless do what is righteous and speak the truth from their hearts.”  

 

What we believe comes from the inside of us—our hearts.  It should have some connection to the outside reality.

 

There is objective truth and subjective truth.

Objective truth is reality.  The sky is blue.  We can believe anything we want but it doesn’t change the objective truth that the sky is blue.

 

Subjective truth is what we believe.  If we believe that the sky is green, then for us, the sky is green.

 

The point is that we continue to seek the truth so that our understanding of truth resembles objective truth ---or what is really truth.

 

This is easy to understand with tangible things like the sky.  But what about faith?  Is the sky of our faith green?  It may be if we don’t keep seeking the truth with our hearts.

 

We believe in Jesus Christ as our truth. A Moslem believes in Allah as his truth.  We could stand on our head and do all sorts of things.  But if that person’s heart is closed, he will never hear anything that would change his truth.  With a closed heart, one can choose to keep their green sky.

 

We can have the best preacher, teacher, Pastor, scientist, a philosopher, or even Jesus, but if our hearts are not open, we will not be influenced by the truths they share.

 

We, at times, confuse truth with facts. 

Truth can be fact and fiction, story and report, emotion and thinking, being and living.

In fact, if we get all hung up on facts, we can miss the truth.

 

Alfred North Whitehead, a 1900 century British mathematician and philosopher once said, “There are no whole truths: all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.”

 

The problem with facts is that we need to have all the facts to be sure we have truth—everyone of them.  

 

If we miss one fact, the missing fact could change the truth.  

So a quest for truth via facts becomes a unending search for proven information while during the search we could be mislead by the incomplete information in hand.

 

Facts don’t make for truths because they cause us to stop seeking information—the cause us to stop searching,

 

Have you ever said, I know that is not true but I can’t prove it? We are missing facts as we are unable to connect the facts with the truth we believe.

 

Facts take our heart out of the process.  It also takes the Holy Spirit out of the process too, since the Holy Spirit quit dealing with facts 2000 years ago.

 

Especially after this sermon, seeking truth can be confusing.  But we, as humans, are equipped with minds and a hearts and the ability to share thoughts and ideas that form us and shape us—and our truths.  God gave us the great tools of our minds and our hearts and community to lead us in seeking the truth that the Holy Spirit gives.

 

Seeking truth is not an easy process. 

The connection of the Holy Spirit come in many ways—but we will not get it if we are not seeking him with our hearts.

 

We need to crave and seek truth.

We need to listen. 

We need to think.

We need to figure it out.

And we can never think we got it all.

 

Because there is only faith in God—not knowledge of God.

Because there are always questions that need answers.

The pursuit of God’s truth to us is never done.

 

Because, unlike the promises on TV, There is no Try “my way” schemes to the truth.

There is no donation that you can give that will make truth known to you.  

There is no easy pill to take to open your eyes to the truth.

 

It is that we need to seek the Lord—have the desire—to know him in our hearts.

We need to want the truth form the Holy Spirit.

 

And if we do,

We may acquire more faith—even if we have our doubts.

We may learn to slow down, even if we are a workaholic

We may learn to forgive ourselves, even if we never do anything right.

We may begin to look at everything differently.

 

Jesus says in Matthew, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the other things will be given to you as well.

 

Remember the men on the road to Emmaus “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was opening the scriptures to us?” “Didn’t our hearts hear the truth?”

 

May we all be as fortunate as we all seek with our hearts the Holy Spirit that is promised to us.

Seek first.