The scripture reading comes from the Gospel of John chapter 4, starting at verse 1.
Please follow along in the screen or in your Bible.
Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John,
although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples,
he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
Then he had to pass through Samaria.
So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.
It was about the sixth hour.
A woman from Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
Give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
The Samaritan woman said to him,
How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?
For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
Jesus answered her,
If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you,
Give me a drink, you would have asked him,
and he would have given you living water.
The woman said to him,
Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.
Where do you get the living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob?
He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.
Jesus said to her,
Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water,
welling up to eternal life.
The woman said to him,
Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.
Jesus said to her,
Go, call your husband and come here.
The woman answered him,
I have no husband.
Jesus said to her,
You are right in saying I have no husband,
for you have had five husbands,
and the one you now have is not your husband.
What you have said is true.
The woman said to him,
Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain,
but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
Jesus said to her,
Woman, believe me,
the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know.
We worship what we know,
for salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming and is now here
when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
God is spirit,
and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
The woman said to him,
I know that Messiah is coming,
he who is called Christ.
When he comes,
he will tell us all things.
Jesus said to her,
I who speak to you am he.
Just then his disciples came back.
They marveled that he was talking with a woman,
but no one said,
What do you seek?
Or,
Why are you talking with her?
So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people,
Come,
see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Can this be the Christ?
Amen.
Great.
Good morning,
everybody.
And it's wonderful to be with you again this morning.
Again,
if you're new to Watermark and you don't know me,
my name is Kevin.
I'm one of the leaders,
one of the pastors here.
And it's wonderful to be able to be with you this morning.
And to kick off our new series that we're starting called,
Why Christianity?
For the next couple of weeks,
we're going to be exploring some of the questions and the difficulties that we have
when we consider the claims of Jesus Christ in the Bible.
And so we're so glad that you're joining us this morning.
And we're looking forward to the next couple of weeks.
Now this morning,
we're looking at the question,
Isn't Christianity exclusivist and therefore arrogant?
Isn't Christianity exclusivist and arrogant?
You may have heard the story.
It's based on an old Hindu parable from many,
many years ago that says there were four blind men walking through the jungle.
They stumble across an elephant,
a very tame elephant.
And each one of them takes an aspect of the element and feels it,
trying to work out what it is.
And so the first blind man grabs hold of the trunk and he says,
This thing is long and narrow and bendy.
It feels a little bit like a snake.
The second man grabs a tusk and says,
No, no, no.
This thing is hard.
It narrows.
It's got a point on the end.
This thing feels like a spear.
The third man grabs the ear and says,
No, this is flat and wavy and it creates air movement like a fan.
And the fourth man grabs the elephant's leg and says,
No, no.
This is hard.
It's solid.
It's sturdy.
It feels like a tree trunk.
And so the parable says,
Well, they're all partly right,
but they're all partly wrong.
Wouldn't it be arrogant?
Wouldn't it be exclusivistic for any one of them to say,
I have the answer.
I am right.
I know what's going on here.
Sometimes when we think of religion and faith,
it can feel a little bit like that.
When somebody says,
I believe something to be true,
we tend to think that all religions are fundamentally the same,
superficially different.
They're all heading in the same direction.
And it's simply arrogant.
It's exclusivistic for one person,
one faith to say,
We believe this is how things really are.
This is the truth.
Sometimes when we hear people talking like that,
we can feel that those people have a sense of superiority about them,
as if they're looking down on anybody who believes differently from them,
and judges them with a sense of,
I'm right.
You're wrong.
I know what's going on.
You don't.
I'm better than you.
Isn't Christianity arrogant and exclusivist?
This morning,
what I want to put to us is that all people are of equal value and dignity and respect.
All people have freedom of religion,
freedom of worship,
freedom to believe what they want.
And yet not all beliefs or ideas are equally valid,
because not all ideas are equally true.
There's four things I want us to think about this morning as we think about this question.
I want to think about the nature of truth,
the challenge of truth,
the promise of truth,
and finally,
the person of truth.
So let's dive straight in.
Firstly,
the nature of truth.
We're looking at this passage that Betty read to us this morning,
this encounter in John's gospel in John chapter four.
And in order to understand what's going on here,
it helps to understand some of the backstory.
Jesus encounters this lady at a watering well in Samaria.
Now,
this lady that Jesus encounters is a lady who carries a lot of shame in her life.
And we know this for two reasons.
The first reason is the scripture tells us she's been married,
five times.
And the man she's with at the moment is not actually her husband.
And even in our modern day,
that would be quite a story.
But in ancient Israel,
this was nothing less than scandalous.
The village in which she lives isn't a big city.
It's not a mega city.
These are small villages.
Everybody in the town knows that this lady has had five husbands.
And everybody in the town knows that she's with somebody at the moment
who's not really her husband.
This was a cause for great gossip and scandal all throughout the town.
But the other reason we know this is because the woman is coming to the well at midday.
Nobody in the ancient world went to go collect water,
heavy buckets of water in the heat of the day.
In the middle of the day,
temperatures could get to 45,
50 degrees Celsius.
No one would go to the watering well then.
Everyone would go in the earliest part of the day
or late in the evening to avoid the heat of the day.
Why does this lady come in the middle of the day?
The reason is because she knows that nobody else will be there.
She's going there because it's the one time of the day
that she can get away from the scowls,
the looks,
the comments,
the mocking thoughts,
the jabs of the other woman in the town.
All those who know her story
and are judging her.
And so she comes to the watering well
in the middle of the day
hoping to avoid everybody else
for just a bit of peace and quiet.
And yet she encounters Jesus.
And as she encounters Jesus,
Jesus makes this radical claim
because Jesus makes the unashamedly
strong claim
that he's nothing less than the Messiah,
God in human form.
And yet as we're going to see,
this is not bad news.
This is good news.
Let's look firstly at the nature of truth.
Jesus, in his conversation with this lady,
makes some pretty big claims about himself.
They're at the watering well
and Jesus says to her,
everyone who drinks of this water
will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him
will never be thirsty again.
The water that I give
will become within him or her
a spring of living water
welling up to eternal life.
What's Jesus saying?
Well, he's making a pretty big
and binary claim.
He's saying,
to find what your heart
and your soul is looking for,
you have to come to me.
But if you reject me,
you'll never find
what you're looking for
in the deepest part of you.
Jesus is not saying
that he is a path
to meaning and satisfaction in life.
All the things
that that lady's been looking for
and the five men that she's married
and the man she's with now,
all the affirmation
and the acceptance
and the approval
and the love.
Jesus says,
I'm not just one path
to all of those things.
I'm the path.
Either you come to me
and find what your heart is looking for
or you reject me
and you never find
what you're looking for.
Again, Jesus says to her,
he says,
look, go and call your husband.
And she says,
well, I don't have a husband.
And Jesus so graciously says,
what you've said is true.
You're right in saying
I have no husband
for you've had five
and the man that you're with
right now is not your husband.
And then Jesus says
this amazing thing.
He says,
what you've said
is just,
is true.
Now that's an incredible thing to say
because let's be honest,
what she said
was technically true
but it wasn't really
the whole truth, right?
She's being,
what some people have called
is economical with the truth.
She's saying something
that's technically true
but it's actually misleading.
And rather than Jesus
calling her out
and saying,
you liar,
you're deceiving me,
Jesus graciously
challenges her
with what is really true
while not judging her
or exposing her
to more shame.
The tenderness of Jesus
is just amazing.
And yet,
Jesus doesn't brush over it.
He confronts her
with the reality.
Why does Jesus do that?
The reason is
because Jesus
doesn't want this lady
or any of us
to be confused
about the absolute,
even binary nature
of truth claims.
Jesus is unashamedly
challenging
the post-truth culture
by saying
that truth is real,
it's knowable,
it's absolute,
and it corresponds
to reality.
Jesus claiming
that what is true
is by nature exclusive
because what is
is distinct
from what isn't.
What's true
is distinct
from what's false.
And friends,
I want to put it to us
that we all actually
know this.
We all,
in order to function
in an ordered
and logical world,
we all need to believe
in the objective reality,
the nature of truth.
Imagine,
you're about to step
out of your apartment
and your housemate
or your spouse
says to you,
oh,
it's just started raining,
you better take
an umbrella with you.
How many of us
would feel
that our housemate
is being arrogant,
exclusivistic,
to impose upon us
their version
of the truth?
How many of us
would say,
that may be true of you,
but that's not true
for me.
Don't impose
your worldview upon us.
Now,
you can say that,
but if you don't
want to get wet
while walking in the rain,
you have to conform
to the reality
that walking in the rain
without an umbrella
is going to render you wet.
You see,
truth is not a social construct.
It's not something
people came up with
to control
or manipulate people.
Truth corresponds
to reality.
Here's another example.
I know this is
a little bit hypothetical,
but just bear with me
for a second.
Just imagine for a second
that the airports are open
and that you're actually
flying on an airplane
to go on holiday.
I know that hasn't happened
for any of us
for a very long time,
but just imagine
that the airports are open
and you're flying somewhere.
How many of us
want to fly on an airplane
when the co-pilot
says to his pilot,
look,
in order to land safely,
you need to drop your speed,
tilt the wings,
and drop your altitude.
How many of us
want a pilot that says,
don't impose your truth on me?
Don't be so arrogant
as to tell me
what is your version of truth?
That may be true for you,
but that's not true for me.
None of us want that,
right?
In order to function
in an ordered
and a logical world,
we all actually believe
in the objective nature
of truth.
We believe that truth
corresponds to reality.
A few years ago,
the atheist astrophysicist
Neil deGrasse Tyson,
a very famous astrophysicist
in the US,
said this.
He said,
the good thing about science
is that it's true
whether you believe in it
or not.
Well,
that's absolutely true,
right?
Whether you believe
in gravitational forces
or the earth is round
or not,
doesn't really matter.
Those things are real.
That is reality.
But if you think about it,
that's not just true
for science.
That's the good news
about all truth.
Truth is truth,
and it's real
whether you believe in it
or not.
As Os Guinness said,
truth is truth
even if nobody believes in it
and falsehood is false
even if everybody
believes in it.
And what that means
is that truth
by nature
is exclusive.
It makes a claim
about the world.
It says,
this is the way the world is.
This is the way
the world is not.
It separates what's true
from what's false,
what's real
from what isn't,
what's dependable
from what is faulty.
And this is the case
for all truth,
not just religious truth.
Anything that claims
to be truth
by nature
is exclusive.
And so when someone says,
there's no such thing
as absolute truth,
all religions
are just the same,
well that is actually
a truth claim.
That's a propositional claim
about the way
the world is.
That's saying that
the world is this way,
it's not this way.
I believe the world
is like this.
That is a false view
of religion
and who God is.
Even the belief
that there's no such thing
as objective,
exclusive truth
is an objective truth
claim about the way
that the world is.
And so if you think
about the story,
the parable of the elephant,
the only way,
the only reason
that it seems
to make sense
is because that story
is told
from the vantage point,
the viewpoint
of the narrator.
Somebody who claims
to have absolute
perfect perspective
on the world,
somebody who says,
let me tell you
about how the world is.
This is what
the world is like.
It's like four men
that stumble across
an elephant.
The only way
you can possibly claim
that no religion
can see the whole truth
is if you yourself
have superior,
comprehensive knowledge
about spiritual reality,
the very knowledge
that you've just claimed
nobody really has.
You see,
all truth claims
by nature
are exclusive.
They make a claim.
This is the way
the world is.
Secondly,
the challenge of truth.
Now,
why do we struggle
with this nature of truth?
Why do we struggle
with the idea
that this is the way
the world is?
And we push back
and we like the idea
of living in a post-truth culture.
Part of the reason
is because the character
of truth
is that it's confrontational.
It's challenging.
It challenges us
to say,
this is a reality.
You need to align your life
to reality.
In other words,
it calls us
to surrender
and submit
to the reality
of what the truth is.
There's an old story.
It's a bit of a folklore story.
But there's an old story
of a U.S. battleship
sailing somewhere
along the coast
of Central America.
And it's twilight.
It's going into the evening.
There's fog all around.
The weather's very bad.
Nobody can really see
much around them.
But up ahead,
the battleship sees
a light flashing
in its direction
and realizes
there's a ship
in its way.
And so the captain
says to his radio man,
get on the radio
and tell that ship
to adjust their course
by 20 degrees,
otherwise we're going
to collide.
And so the radio man
sends this message across
and the message
comes back saying,
no,
we're not adjusting.
You change your course.
The captain's
a bit irritated.
He says,
listen,
tell them
they better change
their course quickly,
otherwise this is going
to end up in a collision.
The message comes back
saying,
we're not moving.
You adjust your course.
The captain grabs
the radio
and he says,
listen,
this is the captain
of the U.S. destroyer.
I command you now
to immediately
adjust your course.
The message comes back
saying,
this is the keeper
of the lighthouse.
I suggest
you adjust
your course.
It's a silly story,
but it illustrates
the point
that reality
and truth
are confrontational.
It challenges us.
When we're confronted
with the reality
of truth,
we can't just
carry on
as if life
is arbitrary
or has no reality.
Truth confronts us
and says,
what are you going
to do
with the truth
that you've just
been told?
In this exchange
with the woman,
after Jesus
has revealed
her situation
with her various
romantic partners,
the woman replies
and says,
sir,
I perceive
that you're a prophet.
And she changes
the conversation
to spiritual matters,
things that she thinks
are a little bit
more ethereal.
And she says to Jesus,
look,
our people say
that you should
worship on this mountain.
Your people,
the Jews,
say that we should
worship on this mountain.
Who knows really
what's right
and what's true.
I guess they both
kind of work.
And Jesus replies
in effect
and says,
look,
it doesn't matter
where you worship
or how you worship.
What matters
is the condition
of your heart.
What's Jesus saying?
Jesus is saying,
look,
you can do it here,
you can worship there,
you worship in your home
or a schoolyard
or a cathedral.
That's not what's important.
What's important
is that if you want
to know God,
if you want to know
the truth,
you've got to
encounter God,
you've got to be truthful,
not fake.
You've got to be surrendered.
You've got to come
to Him
and let Him
confront you
with the reality
of who He is.
And then she says
something very interesting.
She says,
well,
I guess,
who knows how
these things work out.
I hear the Messiah's coming.
When He comes,
He'll tell us reality.
And Jesus says to her,
lady,
the man that speaks
to you
is He.
I am
the Messiah.
Jesus is confronting her
with the fact
that He's not only
someone who's bringing
the truth,
He claims to be
the truth.
And throughout the Gospels,
Jesus is constantly saying
these confrontational,
these challenging things.
Jesus is constantly
challenging the people
who are listening to Him
to saying,
this is a reality.
What are you going
to do about it?
Jesus says things like,
whoever holds on
to His life
will find that He loses it.
But if you're willing
to lay down your life
for my sake
in order to know me,
you'll actually find life.
Jesus says things like,
nobody can come
to the Father.
Nobody can discover
the reality of who God is
unless you come to me.
At one point,
some people are debating,
should they follow Jesus
or should they stick
with the family business?
And they're oscillating
a little bit
between the two.
And Jesus says,
either you're in
or you're out.
You can't be in two camps.
Either you believe
I am who I say I am
or you reject me,
but you can't just
admire me.
You can't sit on the fence.
Jesus is constantly
making statements.
Things like,
I am the door
to reality.
I am the gate.
I am living water.
I am truth.
And what He's saying is,
you can't just admire Him.
You can't just tolerate Him.
Jesus doesn't allow us
just to consider Himself
a good moral man
that had some wisdom.
He lays down a claim,
a binary claim,
an exclusive claim.
And He says,
what are you going to do with it?
How are you going to respond
to my claim
that I am the way to truth?
Os Guinness said it like this.
He said,
there's two people in the world.
Those who conform their lives
to the truth
or those who try
and conform truth
to their lives.
And again,
we actually know
that this is self-evident.
That when somebody says,
this is the way the world is,
this is reality,
we either conform to it
or reject it.
But you can't sit on the fence.
Imagine your doctor comes to you
and he says,
listen,
you are in an unhealthy state
unless you lose some weight,
you start eating healthy
and you take this medication,
you're going to be dead
in six months' time.
Well,
we can philosophize
all we want
about how arrogant that is,
how exclusivist that is.
But the reality is,
if you want to live
longer than six months,
you have to conform,
align your life
to the truth
of what the doctor said.
You see, friends,
in our post-truth culture,
we may be tempted to say,
well,
why can't I pick and choose?
I'll take a bit of Jesus,
the Sermon on the Mount
that's about turning
the other cheek
and forgiving your enemies.
I'll take a bit
of Eastern meditation.
I'll blend my own fusion
of what I believe
is to be true.
But friends,
when we do that,
we form a God
in our own image.
We make a God
who looks just like us,
a God who never challenges us,
but ultimately,
we make up a God
that doesn't have
any connection
to reality.
The challenge of truth
is that it calls us
to submit,
to surrender.
Now,
why is this so important?
Well,
thirdly,
because the promise
of truth.
You see,
the stakes
couldn't be higher.
Truth promises
nothing less
than freedom.
In the mid-20th century,
philosophers
like Michel Foucault
and others
came up with the idea
that truth
and reality
is relative.
It's not really
a real thing.
Michel Foucault
taught that
truth and reality
is a social construct,
something that
those in power
have created
in order to
oppress
the powerless.
And so,
Foucault and others
were saying that
when somebody,
especially those in power,
claim that something
is right
or something is true
or use things
like divine decree,
God has said so,
actually,
that's a social construct
to manipulate
or control
those that
oppose them
or their opponents.
The great example
of this,
of course,
is the Crusades
in the Middle Ages,
right,
where the church
was saying,
we need to impose
the reality of Christianity
on the rest of the world.
And they went
in their army
and try to
oppose and oppress
their opponents.
Remember the famous saying,
religion is the opium
of the masses.
It's used to
oppress and suppress,
manipulate and control
people.
And of course,
one of the great examples
of this is Nazi Germany.
Hitler claimed that
Jews and homosexuals
and gypsies
were the scourge
of Germany.
They were the problem
of everything.
They were the source
of all Germany's problems.
And for Germany
to really be
the nation
it was meant to be,
we need to get rid
of the scourge
of Germany.
Hitler propagated
this truth
that these people
were stealing
the jobs
of hard-working
German nationals
and we need to
eradicate
such people
from our nation
so that we can be
a pure
and a wholesome
country again.
Michel Foucault
said,
people like Hitler,
people like the Crusaders,
were constructing
truth.
Truth isn't really real.
It was a social construct
to impose their will
upon others
to control
and manipulate them.
But is this really true?
As we discover,
the problem
is not actually truth.
The problem
is the contortion
of truth
or the manipulation
of truth.
In fact,
the greatest problem
is half-truths.
Any authoritarian regime
or dictator
has found
that truth
is so powerful
that if you can
take something
and dress it up
as truth,
if you can make
something look
like truth,
it's a powerful weapon
that you can use
to control others.
But the problem
isn't actually
the nature
of truth itself.
It's the contortion
and the distortion
of truth.
One of Hitler's
great ministers
in parliament
was a man
by the name
of Joseph Goebbels
and he was
the minister
of propaganda.
Joseph Goebbels
said this.
He said,
if you tell
a lie
big enough
and you keep
repeating it,
people will eventually
come to believe it.
Now just pause there
for a second.
What does that sound like?
That sounds like
fake news, right?
If you can come up
with a lie
big enough
and keep repeating it,
people will eventually
come to believe it.
It thus becomes
vitally important
for the Nazi state
to use all
of its powers
to repress
dissent
and the truth.
For truth
is the mortal
enemy
of the lie
and thus
by extension
is the greatest
enemy
of our state.
You see what Goebbels
is saying?
He's saying
the problem is
we've come up
with a version
of truth,
a half truth.
We've come up
with a hypothesis
and we better
not let anybody
find out
what the truth is.
There's a
fascinating documentary
on Netflix
at the moment
called
The Social Dilemma.
I'm not sure
if you've seen it.
In this documentary,
the creators
interview a whole
bunch of
previous VPs,
presidents,
top executives
of a bunch
of social media
companies
from Silicon Valley.
They're talking
about the challenge
that the social
media age
that we live in
presents
and particularly
the challenge
of the smartphone
and what this
is doing
for our civilization.
One of the
people that they
interview is a man
by the name
of Tristan Harris,
a former executive
at Google.
Listen to what
Tristan Harris says.
He says,
if we don't agree
on what is true
or that there is
such a thing
as truth,
then we are toast.
This is the problem
beneath all other
problems because
if we can't agree
on what is true,
we can't navigate
out of any
of our problems.
Do you see
what he's saying?
He's saying
the problem
of fake news
in our age
is rampant
and actually
what's at stake
is nothing less
than the freedom
of our civilization.
The answer
is not to suppress
truth.
The answer
is not to deny
truth.
It's to come
to a comprehensive
understanding
that this is truth
and unless we can
agree on that,
we are toast.
We are finished.
Friends,
the ramifications
of truth
are so vitally
important because
what's at stake
is nothing less
than freedom,
both for individuals
and nations
and entire civilizations
because even though
truth demands
your submission,
your alignment,
even though it claims
certain things
are always true
and certain things
are always false,
when we align ourselves
to what's truth,
the result is always
freedom and liberty.
And it's not only
true socially
or nationally,
it's equally true
personally and individually.
I'm not sure
how many of us
have ever been
in this situation
where maybe
you know something
or you've been
sworn to secrecy
something that
you cannot tell
or maybe
you've done
something that
you're so ashamed
of,
embarrassed about
and you swear
that you're going
to go to your grave
and nobody's going
to find out about it.
Friends,
how are you ever
going to be free
from the burden
and the weight
of such responsibility?
The only way
is to speak the truth
because truth
leads to freedom.
That's why
anyone who's engaged
in Alcoholics Anonymous
program
or another 12-step
program knows
that the very
first step
is to acknowledge
reality
because the denial
of reality
never leads
to freedom.
In order to be free
you have to face
the reality
that is before you.
The ancient Hebrews
had a proverb
that said this,
buy the truth
and do not sell it.
It's so simple
but it's so profound.
Whatever it costs you,
whatever the cost
involved,
buy the truth,
obtain the truth
and no matter
what it costs you,
never ever sell it.
Never give up on truth
because to give up
on truth
will always cost you
more
than holding on
to truth.
Truth is costly,
it's true
but it's liberating
and it's free.
And Jesus
in one of his
most famous teachings
says this,
if you listen
to my teachings
you'll be free.
You will discover
the truth
and the truth
will set you free.
Earlier this year
I was listening
to the story
of a man
by the name
of Michael Ramston
and he was telling
the story
of how he became
a follower of Jesus.
He said he grew up
in a family
that wasn't religious
at all.
He grew up in Lebanon
and as a teenager
he had big questions
about life
and faith
and meaning
and purpose
and what is true
and in Lebanon
he discovers
this old missionary
and he starts asking
this missionary questions,
big questions
about life
and eventually
some of his brother
and his friends
they join this bit
of a group
and they hang out
with this missionary
asking him
these questions
of life
and this missionary
one day says
listen,
let's arrange
a weekend away
and you can ask me
all the questions
that you want
and we can debate
and talk about
the nature of truth.
So they go away
for the weekend
and on the Friday night
Michael Ramston
realizes that the claims
of Jesus are true
but for him
that's a problem
he didn't want
them to be true.
Listen to what he says.
He says,
I've come to the realization
that Christianity
was true
but I didn't want
it to be true
because I thought
it would make
my life miserable.
I was debating
how long
can I hold off
making this decision
because I thought
that becoming
a Christian
would be the end
of my happiness.
So on the Saturday morning
he wakes up early
he's wrestling
with the decision.
He knows it's true
but he doesn't want
to follow Jesus
because he thinks
it'll be the end
of his happiness.
He goes up
onto a mountainside
and he smokes
40 cigarettes.
Chain smokes
two packs of cigarettes
wrestling with this decision.
He eventually comes down
and he gets his brother
and his best friends together
and he says,
guys,
I've got some bad news.
I've decided
tonight's the night
I'm going to become
a Christian.
And this is what he says,
tonight I'm going
to sacrifice
my happiness
on the altar
of truth.
Do you see
what he's saying?
He's saying
I've discovered
the truth
and it's demanding
that I align
my life to it.
Even if it costs me
my happiness,
my freedom,
my joy,
I've come to the realization
I have to sacrifice
my happiness
on the altar
of truth.
Except that's not
how it turned out.
This is how
he finishes the story.
When I eventually
became a Christian,
the thing that totally
surprised me
was that I didn't
sink into some kind
of depression
as I had expected.
But unexpectedly,
I actually discovered
this inexplicable joy.
I got the opposite
of what I thought
was coming my way
as a result
of coming
to Jesus.
He thought
that he was going
to sacrifice
his happiness
and his freedom
and his joy
as he aligned
himself to truth.
But what he found
was the opposite.
That coming to the truth
actually gave him
freedom.
It gave him joy.
It gave him
a happiness
he never expected
and had never
anticipated
in his life.
And that leads us
to the fourth point
which is the person
of truth.
The person of truth
is Jesus Christ.
You see,
we said earlier
that every worldview,
every claim
is binary.
It claims
that some things
are true
and some things
are not.
Even the objective
worldview that says
there's no such thing
as truth
is a truth claim
in and of itself.
But Christianity
is distinctive
in this way.
Every worldview
whether atheistic
or theistic
every worldview
says this is truth.
Here is the truth.
Jesus Christ
comes along
and says
I am truth.
I am the way.
I am life.
Everything we've
spoken about
this morning
comes to final
fulfillment in Jesus.
We spoke about
the nature of truth
that it's binary.
It claims
that certain things
are true
certain things are not.
Jesus comes along
and he doesn't say
I am a version of truth
or a part to truth.
He says
I'm the part to truth.
Either you accept me
or you reject me
but you can't sit
on the fence.
We spoke about
the challenge of truth.
It confronts us.
It calls us
to align ourselves
with reality.
Jesus comes and says
either you reject me
or you accept me
but you can't
just tolerate me.
You can't just admire me.
If you're going
to follow me
your whole life
has to come into alignment
and you have to surrender
and give your whole life
to me.
I demand wholehearted devotion.
We spoke about
the promise of truth
liberty and freedom.
Jesus comes along
and says
if anyone listens
to my teaching
they will know the truth
and the truth
will set them free
because I am truth.
But there's more
to Jesus
than just his claim
to being true.
You see
just because Jesus
claims to be truth
and exclusivist
how does that
stop Christians
from being judgmental
and arrogant?
Tim Keller
helps us here.
Listen to what he says.
He says
you cannot avoid
truth claims
and binaries.
The real issue
is which kinds
of truth claims
lead you to embrace
people who are
different from you
even those who
believe differently.
Which truth claims
lead to community?
Which truth claims
both humble
and affirm you
so that you aren't
afraid of people
who are different from you
nor do you despise
and judge them.
You see what
Tim Keller is saying?
He's saying
how do we find
a truth claim
that contrary
to contemporary culture
it doesn't just say
well everything's true.
It actually believes
this is true.
But how do we find
a truth claim?
Where do we find
a truth claim
that contrary
to traditional religion
isn't judgmental
and arrogant
towards those
that are different
from them?
That can even
be gracious
and welcoming
and loving
towards people
who even believe
differently?
Where are we going
to find such
a truth claim?
Friends the answer
is the gospel.
The gospel.
I don't know
if you picked up
in the story
in John chapter 4
that Betty read
to us earlier.
This lady
experiences
the truth claim
of Jesus
and yet doesn't
experience
judgmentalism.
She starts off
coming to the well
at the middle of day
to avoid the other
people in the village
because she's tired
of their judgmental
attitudes.
And yet at the end
of the story
after discovering
Jesus
she puts down
her jars of water
she runs
into the village
and she tells
everybody
come to me
listen to me
I've just met
the man
who told me
everything about
my life.
For her whole life
she's tried to hide
the story of her life.
She's tried to
cover up her shame.
She's tried to
let people
not find out
what's going on
her life
because she's
tired of the
judgmentalism.
She discovers
Jesus and she
says everybody
I've just met
a man
who knows
everything about
me and told
me my whole
life
you've got to
come and
discover him.
Why?
Because though
she discovered
the truth of
Jesus
she didn't
encounter
his
judgmentalism
she discovered
his grace.
Friends
in typical
religion
says that
you're accepted
and you're
affirmed
you're in
because of
what you do
because you've
met the grade
you've obeyed
the teachings
you've fulfilled
the commandments
you've done
everything that's
required of you
you've observed
the rules
but in the gospel
Jesus says
you can be
accepted
you can be
affirmed
you can be
welcomed into
his family
not because of
what you've
done
but because of
what he's
done
because he
died on the
cross to
take our
sin
and our
judgment
and our
shame
upon himself
friends
Jesus died
on the cross
to welcome
those in
who were once
on the outside
and that means
that there's no
room for arrogance
there's no room
for judgmentalism
Christians certainly
don't always get
this right
and if you've
ever been judged
by Christians
I am so sorry
but friends
the more truly
we get the gospel
the more we
understand the
nature of the
gospel
that the only
thing that I
contribute to
my salvation
is my sin
and my shame
that the reason
I'm included
is because of
Jesus grace
and his mercy
and his forgiveness
there's no ways
I can be arrogant
there's no ways
I can be judgmental
there's no ways
I can look at
those of other
religions and
look down my
nose at them
and think I'm
better than you
because when I
look at the gospel
it tells me that
I'm a sinner
I'm broken
that I'm in deep
trouble
that I need a
savior
that it's only the
mercy and the
forgiveness of
Jesus
that welcomes
me in
friends the gospel
tells me that I'm
incredibly loved and
accepted by God
not because of my
pedigree
not because of my
culture
not because of my
moral performance
but because Jesus
went to the cross
for me
but the second
thing is this
the gospel tells us
that rather than
being exclusive
Jesus is the most
inclusive man
that ever lived
in the previous
chapter to John
chapter 4
and John chapter 3
Jesus meets
another truth
seeker
a man by the
name of
Nicodemus
and Nicodemus
comes to Jesus
by the cover of
night in darkness
and at the end of
that exchange
Jesus says one of
the most famous
words in the
entire world
he says
for God so loved
the world
that he gave his
only son
that whoever
would believe in
him will not
perish
but experience
eternal life
friends
look at what
it says
who will get
to experience
eternal life
who is welcomed
by Jesus
it's whoever
whoever
whoever will
simply come to
him
friends it doesn't
matter what your
background is
what your culture
is what your
ethnicity is
it doesn't matter
what your race is
it doesn't matter
what family you
were born into
it doesn't matter
the size of your
bank account
it doesn't matter
whether you live
up on the peak
whether you live
in student housing
or whether you live
under a bridge
in downtown
Hong Kong
friends it doesn't
matter whether
you have a PhD
in astrophysics
or whether you
dropped out of
high school
it doesn't matter
friends who your
family is
what your background
is it doesn't
matter whether
you've committed
some heinous crime
of which you're
deeply ashamed
or whether you
followed all the
rules perfectly
Jesus stands
with open arms
and he says
whoever
if anyone
would come to
me
irrespective of
your age
your culture
your language
your background
anyone who
will come to
me and
believe in
me
anyone who
will align
their lives
to the truth
of me
is welcome
to experience
my kingdom
of life
my kingdom
of truth
my kingdom
of joy
my kingdom
of freedom
let's pray
together
heavenly father
thank you so
much for
the truth
of the gospel
for many of us
we have discovered
that the gospel
is not just
good advice
it's good news
it's true
and because of
that we've
experienced the
freedom and
the joy
the inexplicable
and unexpected
happiness and
freedom that
comes with it
Jesus I pray for
us as a church
watermark
I pray for those
that are looking
in those that
are exploring the
claims of Christ
I pray won't you
help us to
discover the gospel
won't you get the
gospel deeper
into our hearts
won't you undermine
any sense of
judgmentalism
won't you remind
us God we've got
no reason to look
down at others
to be arrogant or
bigoted because
your gospel says
that we are saved
by grace and
grace alone
Jesus thank you
so much for your
freedom your truth
we love you
amen