Sunday School | The Truthfulness of God

If you weren't here last week, we talked about the holiness of God, and it was great. I thought the lively discussion was good. Tim wasn't here last week either, but I promise you he's coming back. So don't say, "Oh, I'm gonna stop coming to this because Tim will be back next week, and it'll be a blessing for me as well."

There will be a couple times where I'll ask for you to turn to the people next to you. So if you're not sitting next to anybody, you can make friends and sit next to somebody if you want. I'll ask you to do that just so that there's participation from everybody in here. I don't know if you knew that was a strategy of mine, but most people in here don't talk. And by having you guys talk to one another, then everybody is engaged in that. So there's a reason why I do it.

The Truthfulness of God

Today, we're gonna be talking again about an attribute of God. It's an easy one. It shouldn't take that long. It's the truthfulness of God.

Here's where I struggle with this one in particular. For me, it's not a debate. I don't have to convince myself that this attribute exists and it is true of God—that he is true, absolute truth. And for most of us, I think that we would also probably say that God is true. And it's not up for debate. However, it's really important for God's people to remind ourselves of God's truthfulness in our own lives because I think it has great implications for us as his people.

If I told you something and I said it was true, would you believe it to be true? Why would you, Stuart? If I said something and I said this is true, would you believe it from me? Stuart and I go way back—even back to Fairfax. Stuart sort of knows me a little bit, but not that great because he would believe everything that I would say.

But let me ask you this. If I told you something—yesterday, I mowed my lawn—that's either a true statement or it's not a true statement. How would you know if it was a true statement or not? Why would you believe that or not believe that?

Well, you could look at credibility. You could look at evidence. You could go look at my lawn. But what if my wife mowed my lawn? What if you saw me limping around with a bad back? There are some ways for us to determine through evidence whether something is true.

But the biggest thing is the legitimacy of the source. If I lied all the time and you knew that was my character, then if I said something, you probably wouldn't believe me. The validity of the source really dictates whether or not something is true. And when we're talking about Jesus, when we're talking about the Lord, when we're talking about God the Father and God the Son as being the source, it's really of no question.

I debated whether or not I was gonna tell you this, but I have this friend—a normal guy. He has a normal job. He's married. He has kids. He loves Jesus a lot. He believes that the earth is flat. Now don't try to figure out who I'm talking about. You don't know who it is because this person does not live in Roanoke.

But it's very weird to me that he would believe this. Now there might be some people in here who believe the earth is flat, and this is not a salvific issue, so I don't care. But the idea of it is, he says, "Well, how do you know it's not?" I'm like, "Oh jeez. Well, I guess we could go through some evidence of that." But then he would say, "Well, have you ever been past the Van Allen radiation belt? Have you ever seen it? Are you just going on the evidence of other folks?" And I'm like, "Yes. I'm going on the evidence of a lot smarter people than us."

Again, I don't think that the earth being flat is a salvific issue, which means that your salvation is in question if you do believe that. But I think it leads to the question of what is really true. We live in a time where things don't necessarily appear to be the way that they are. We want to know the truth. And in our culture right now, true things are being questioned. Things that we never even thought to question before.

Things that we just believed when someone told us—we were like, "Okay"—but now our culture is telling us that there are things different than what we believed before. False things are really, really believable in our culture right now. We don't know if what we're being told is true or not. The deep fakes, I guess. The AI is making that even harder. Definitions of words seem to change, and that changes the way that we view truth and lies as well.

But is this really a new thing? Is this new? There is nothing new under the sun. This has been something that man has struggled with since man has been on the earth. We see this battle between truth and lies, something that goes all the way back to the garden. Adam and Eve questioned God's promise and his warnings in the garden. They believed that the fruit, which was good for food and pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom, they believed that was worth the risk.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator who's forever praised. — Romans 1:25

And the pattern has repeated over and over and over again. What is true, and do we believe the lies? But because we know the Lord—or it's assumed that everybody in here does know the Lord—we have the cheat code. We do have the cheat code. In a world that honestly doesn't recognize truth or deliberately skews the truth for its own benefit, we have been given the knowledge of the truth. But the question is, do we believe it?

God is Absolute Truth

Let's take a 30,000 foot view over this attribute of the Lord. God is absolute truth. It is impossible for him to be otherwise. It is impossible for God to be other than absolute truth. Not only is he true, the one true God, but everything that comes from his mouth is true. Everything he says is completely and utterly accurate.

Does anybody know Numbers 23:19? You might know it. You probably don't know the reference.

God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? — Numbers 23:19

The NLT says this:

God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through? — Numbers 23:19 (NLT)

Whatever he says is absolutely true all the time, always. Whatever he promises will always be fulfilled.

So this begs the question, and this is the time where you're gonna have to participate with the people around you. What has he said in scripture that is true? Now, I'm not interested necessarily in what he said to you that you think is true, like what school you should have gone to or who you should have married or if you're gonna be a major league baseball player or not. But what in scripture has he said that is true?

I'm gonna give you a couple minutes to speak to the folks around you to remind yourselves of the promises of God and the true things that he has said. This could be very interesting. So go ahead and then I'll have you guys share.

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Alright. Maybe one more minute. One more minute. I could probably extend this for another twenty minutes because he said a lot of things that are true.

But you guys just got quiet. Alright. I'd love to know, and so would the people in this room, what you guys came up with because I guarantee you there's some things that you guys came up with that other people did not come up with.

Yes. Why don't you start?

The first story where you said that the bad thing was like you were not supposed to eat them because bad things will happen. That was true.

Yeah. The very first story when God said don't eat the fruit because bad things will happen. Right? And that came true real fast. Yeah. Good.

Yes. Silas.

He promised Abraham many descendants like the stars in the sky.

Yeah. And what's crazy about that, which you know, and I'm not gonna go on this rabbit trail, but at the time he made that promise, it didn't make any sense.

No. Abraham was just so old.

Yeah. He was like a hundred.

Like that? Alright. What else? What else?

It's raining. Say it again?

Noah, it was gonna rain.

Yeah. He told Noah it was going to rain, and again, at the time he said that, didn't make any sense whatsoever. He told Noah it hadn't rained. There hadn't been any rain. You're in the desert. Praise God. That's right.

We can't hear you. Oh, yes. You can't hear me. He said—I will try to repeat it. Yes. You guys are yelling at me. I didn't say it. He said it. And he said it quietly. He told Noah it was going to rain.

Yes. Great. Stuart, the 10 Commandments. Will you expand just a little bit on that? On Mount Sinai, God spoke directly to Moses, inscribed it on some tablets. Great. The 10 Commandments. Awesome. Yes. He told the Israelites many times what was going to happen to them if they didn't obey it. And his promises always come true. Always come true. Great.

Yes. Way in the back. All the prophecies in the Old Testament about Jesus came true. Yes. All the prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament came true. Yes. God will never leave or forsake us. Gosh, that is beautiful, isn't it? Yes. It's probably the best one. You won this. God will never leave us or forsake us. What a sweet and wonderful promise if we believe it to be true. Yes.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Thank you, Lord. Gosh, ain't that a beautiful thing for us sinners? He forgives us our sins if we confess our sins, he will forgive us. Yes.

In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God.

That's absolutely right. John 1:1. And John does a great job of mixing in the idea of truth and light and life and freedom. Those four things are just weaving through John from the very beginning. He starts off and he says,

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was the light.

The light. You know, when you bring something from the darkness into the light, there's an aspect of truthfulness there. It's putting things in front and center.

Last night my wife and I were alone in our house. Our kids were gone and we went out into the front yard and poured gasoline down a yellow jacket hole to burn some bees. And when Becky wouldn't shine the light at the hole, I was freaking out a little bit. I was like, you gotta shine the light at the hole because they start coming out. So when she shined the light, I could see it was bringing everything to where I was. So light, truth, life, and freedom. John goes back and forth. Then he says,

In him was light, life, and that life was the light of all men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

And John then keeps going. And in verse 14, he says,

The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

Not just a little bit of truth, but full of truth. Yes. Scripture that says,

If my people who are called by my name will turn from their wicked ways and seek my face and cry out to me, I will hear from heaven and heal their land.

How have we seen that over the centuries with revival after revival? And even in our own lives, you know, when we repent. Yeah. For sure.

Yes. My problem is I don't always act like I believe that God says what he says is true. I live my life sometimes in a way like, did he really mean that? Did he really mean that? So, yes, sir. Want to know what God said that is true? Yes. Everything that God says is true. Everything that God says. And this is our source of truth. And we will talk more about the application of this at the end, of course.

God Wants Us to Know the Truth

That's perfect. Do you think that God wants you to know the truth? Yes. Where in, specifically the gospels, do we see that God wants us to know the truth? I'll give you a minute because I want to ask the question, where do we see in scripture that God wants us to know the truth? Alright. I already kind of cheated a little bit here and gave you a little hint. But where do we see in the gospels that God wants us to know the truth?

John, specifically, Stuart? In the beginning was the word. John 1, of course. John 8. Which is? After he healed the blind man, he says,

Anyone who holds to my teaching then is truly my disciple. Then he will know the truth, and the truth will set him free.

Yes. John 8:31-32. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. There's that freedom. That truth, the freedom. John's weaving these things together throughout this. Yes? John 17:17. Which is? The upper room discourse that he prays for his disciples, sanctified them in the truth. He is the truth, that your word is the truth. Yeah. John's ironic. Pilate asked, "The truth?" Yes. The truth. Yes. So if you haven't caught on, John—John's one of my favorites. I love the gospel of John.

There's this thing called Johannine irony—there's a lot of irony in John's gospel. If you read it, there's some really funny stuff in there. There's a scene—this is a rabbit trail, but I'll tell you—at the end where Peter and John are running to the tomb. John's writing this, telling you the narrative of what happened, and he mentions how they both started for the tomb, but John was faster than Peter and got there first. He says it three times.

But there's a scene in the Pilate encounter where Pilate and Jesus are having this conversation. Jesus says something beautiful here. Let me open this up because this is perfect irony.

You are a king then, said Pilate. Jesus answered, you are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me. — John 18:37

And then Pilate asks, in perfect irony, "What is truth?" He's standing in front of the guy who is the truth—who is the way, the truth, and the life. Pilate asked this question, and it's a question that we, and I think all people, want to know the answer to. We want the truth, but we can't handle the truth.

Where else do we see this? Jesus said:

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. — John 14:6

If we really believe that, it changes everything. It changes everything. We walk out of this church, if we really, really believe that, our lives are changed because of it. Every interaction we have, every thought we have, everything we do from this point on changes if we believe that.

There are a few other places. In John 5, Jesus is teaching the Jews and he says, if you believed in the words, you believe me, because he wrote about me. But if you don't believe what he wrote, how will you believe my words? It's a beautiful picture where Jesus is giving testimony about himself using Moses as the example. He's like, if you believe Moses, you believe me, because Moses was talking about me.

Also, in the upper room, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the spirit of truth. That ultimately is our cheat code—the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth.

The Spirit of Truth

In John 6, Jesus says that he is the true bread from heaven. He gives life. There's that truth and life and light and freedom that threads through John. In John 8, the truth will set you free. And then a little bit later, if the Son sets you free, then you are free indeed.

In John 12:35, the light and truth are linked:

Then Jesus told them, you're going to have the light. Just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he's going. Put your trust in the light while you have it so that you may become sons of light. — John 12:35

There's also the armor of God—the belt of truth. And where he says the spirit of truth will come and will lead you into all truth. That's the perfect transition. We're going to talk about the spirit of truth right now.

I will ask the Father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, and that counselor's name is the spirit of truth. — John 14:16-17

When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will guide you into all truth. — John 16:13

That is our cheat code. Because sometimes we're going to be given things that aren't true. But because the Spirit of God lives in us, if we have relationship with the Lord, if we trust him, if we've surrendered our life and our heart to him, he lives in us. And he will guide us in all truth.

There are some things that it's really important for us to believe to be true. What does it mean to us that God is absolute truth? It means that we—this is gonna sound really simple, like I'm talking to my kindergarten kids—what does it mean that God is absolute truth? It means that we can believe everything he says. We can believe it. I know it's very difficult for us sometimes to believe it, but in these examples that were given about Noah and Abraham and all of these folks that came before that were spoken to by the Lord in times when it didn't make any sense. Sometimes the Lord speaks to us and it doesn't make any sense, but what he says is true. It means that his promises are true.

A lot of the problems that we get into in our life are because we believe false things about who we are. Not only does he reveal true things about us, he reveals lies that we believe about ourselves. We think those things are true, and that affects our behavior.

What does it mean to us that God is absolute truth? It means that we can believe what he says. It means that his promises will always come true. Is he coming back? Yes. Well, how do you know? He said so. He said he's coming back, and his promises always come true. So guess what? He's coming back. He is coming back. But we live like he's not.

How Do We Know the Bible Is True?

Step back to the 30,000 foot level. We've been in John talking about truth in John. Ask, how do you know John is true? Look at all of the references and the archaeological findings that have been based on what is found in the Bible. There's been nothing that has been disproved by what the Bible says, by what they find in archaeology. Archaeology and other writings that aren't in the Bible confirm it, and the internal evidence that the Bible has of itself being true.

The fact that it was written by dozens and dozens of people over the course of hundreds and hundreds of years on three different continents in at least three different languages. But it all comes together in this beautiful, seamless, non-contradictory way.

All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.

God is here. He's not dead. God is alive.

Freedom in God's Truth

What does it mean that God is absolute truth? It means that we can be free and live as he intended. We really can be free and live as God intended. We don't have to live these lives believing lies about ourselves. It means that we have the anchor of truth in a lying culture.

Do you know that our culture has to lie to us? Our culture has to lie to us to get anything from us. We live in a lying culture and it means that we have the anchor of truth in a lying culture. Do your decisions demonstrate that you are fastened to that anchor? Or is it easier sometimes just to believe the culture?

Growing up, young people in school, we don't know who we are and we spend so much time trying to look like, smell like, walk like the world, and believe that that's the way we ought to be. When we become a believer in Jesus Christ, he sets us free, makes us fully who we really are beyond anything that culture could give us. It's beautiful.

It's just beautiful what you just said. Of course, before we know the Lord, we try to mimic this culture that is lying to us. And because the Lord loves us and frees us from that, now we're free to live as he intended. It's beautiful. Gosh, thanks for saying that. I'm so glad I heard it. Yeah, it was the best thing that's been said. You guys, I swear, truthfully.

Are we consistently spending time discovering God's truth in his word? This is where we find all this stuff. Are we spending time in here discovering God's truth for our own lives? Are we just, hopefully, through osmosis, getting it from a twenty-five-minute sermon every week if we come?

Conclusion

Here's the conclusion for this morning, and we could have gone a thousand ways. Honestly, when Tim gives these subjects to speak about, we literally could spend ten, fifteen, twenty weeks just talking about the truth of God. And it went to this place.

Years ago, Tim had me read this book. Probably had you read this book too. Humility by Andrew Murray. You guys familiar with that? And in it, he talks about this motif of the gospel being explained through the idea of humility. That's just the setup. The motif of the gospel can also be explained through this idea of truthfulness.

That God is absolute truth and the source of all truth. And he made us truly to trust in him and rely on his truthfulness. That's how he designed the world. But what did we do? We hated that truth. We exchanged that truth for a lie. And we started to worship created things rather than the Creator.

God, because he is true, his promises and his covenants are never broken. He came to us and manifested that truth to us again in the person of his Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, who is the Word, and his word is truth.

Now because of the truth of God and his unbroken promises of redemption through his Son, we've been given the right to know the truth, to be filled with the Spirit of Truth, and to flee from the father of lies and be set free.

It's really important for God's people to know the truth, to discover the truth on our own accord as well. And the Spirit of Truth who lives in us will illuminate this, remind us of how great and wonderful that God is and how true and wonderful his promises are to us. It'll change our lives. That's all I have today.

Prayer

So let me pray. Next week, Tim will be back, and he's gonna have to clean up this mess. I was supposed to do four things in the last two weeks, and now he's gonna have to go back and do them. Just tell him we're slow. Well, you know what? Why rush it? Why rush what we're doing? This is beautiful stuff—to be in God's word and to talk about how wonderful and glorious the Lord is. This is a great, great hour to spend.

Lord, thank you for being the Truth. Thank you for being the Way, the Truth, and the Life, for setting us free, for bringing us light to a dark, dark world that wants to lie to us. Lord, you do not want to lie to us. You are not a man that you should lie, nor a son of man that you should change your mind. What you say is always and forever going to come true.

And I pray that we would be men and women who would not just believe that intellectually, that we would live that out and that we would be agents of truth in this lying world. Lord, thank you for your word. I pray, Lord, that you would help us find the time to flip the pages and to read about your wonderful truth. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Alright, you guys have a little bit of time before the 11:00. And we love you, Andy. Love you too. I love you too.