Learning Truth in Jesus
Ephesians 4:20–21
Ephesians Lesson #159
July 31, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www.deanbibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Father, we are thankful that we have Your Word to go to, that Your Word originated in Your thinking from eternity past, that You revealed it through the prophets of the Old Testament and the prophets and apostles of the New Testament.
“That in the process of the inspiration by God the Holy Spirit that You also oversaw what was written, that it was without error in the original writings. And Father that we have this passed down through rigorous procedures of copying.
“We have Your Word. We can be confident that what we have as translations accurately reflects Your Word, what You have revealed to us. And that it is through Your Word that we learn Truth. We learn the invincible everlasting eternal Truth by which we can live our lives, shape our thinking, and live our lives for the future because we know, indeed, that this is true.
“Lord, as we study today and look at what is going on between the culture of biblical Christianity in the world around us, that You may give us greater insight into how we so often compromise Truth we know. That we may come to understand the world around us, not be conformed to it, and may be transformed by the renewing of our minds according to Your Truth. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”
Slide 2
Let’s open our Bibles to Ephesians 4:1–24, as it should be paragraphed in terms of the thoughts that are there. We’re just in the opening part of that section. As we get into Ephesians 4:20–21, our focal point is that we are to learn the Truth in Jesus.
What does that mean?
What are the implications here?
What is being said to us in terms of the contrast between the commands of Ephesians 4:17 to not walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, but that we are to learn Christ and we are to walk according to that Truth?
Slide 3
The section that we are studying begins with this conclusion, which comes from what has been said in Ephesians 4:1–16.
Ephesians 4:1 started with the primary command that we are to walk worthy of the calling—that is, of the high position that we have been placed in as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That we are adopted into God’s royal family, and have been entered into that new organism that was founded on the Day of Pentecost in AD 66, the Church.
There’s never been anything like this entity, the Church, in all of history prior to AD 33, and there never will be anything like it following this Church Age. As believers in Christ, we have been given privileges that are beyond anything that we could ever ask or think. That’s how Paul closes out the first three chapters in terms of his prayer.
This is our high calling. We are to walk worthy of that calling, that vocation, that position to which we have been called in Christ. The verses following that describe the nature, the characteristics, the character qualities that should characterize the life and the thought life of the believer.
The parenthesis in Ephesians 4:7–16 is the focal point on what Christ has provided for us in order that we can come to learn Christ. We don’t see that phrase until we get to Ephesians 4:20–21, “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him…”
It is through those communication gifts, those leadership gifts whereby the believer is equipped to do the work of the ministry, that we learn Christ. That puts all of this together for us in a conceptual framework, so that we can grasp that particular context.
Slide 4
The Command, Ephesians 4:17:
We are not to walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. Walking is a figure of speech, a metaphor for how we conduct our lives. It covers everything in our life from what we think, say, and do. We can summarize that command that we are not to think, live, or conduct our lives like the unbelievers around us.
We should not take our clues from anything that we do in life, from what is in the pop culture around us. We are to take our clues from what we learn in the Bible. There is an emphasis here that the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is supposed to be different categorically from the surrounding culture. There is that distinction: we are not to walk as the rest of the Gentiles.
I pointed out that that indicates, of course, that many in this congregation were Gentiles, but there were also Jews. That was a focal point in the last half of Ephesians 2 that now in this Church Age there is no longer this distinction between Jew and Gentile, but we are united together in one new entity.
It’s referred to as a new man, a new body, a new building, and a new temple: four different metaphors to describe this unity that we have in Christ. We are, as members of the body of Christ, to live in a different way.
As we look at that, one of the first ways that he talks about here in Ephesians 4:17 is not in the futility of their mind or the futility of their thinking, a purposeless way of thinking. It’s purposeless because only a person who is spiritually alive, who has been given a human spirit at the point of salvation, is regenerated, has a new component to his immaterial nature is able to share the life of God.
He is not spiritually dead or alienated from the life of God anymore, but spiritually alive, so that he can understand the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Corinthians 2:14.
The Gentile world around us cannot attain in their thinking the purposes that God designed for their intellectual activity. It may come to a lot of aspects of truth (lowercase), but it doesn’t have that overarching framework that enables them to fully and accurately interpret the details.
The classic illustration of this is what happened in the Garden of Eden. After God created Adam, He then created the woman because he said it’s not good for man to be alone. There’s a divine purpose in marriage, and the purpose in marriage isn’t for companionship, the purpose in marriage isn’t for propagation of the species, the purpose of marriage is to glorify God.
The purpose in marriage for many people is to achieve all sorts of different ends. We know of couples that are married because it’s going to enhance their ability to achieve greater power, whether in politics or the media or Hollywood, so they compromise many things just so that together they’re going to achieve these other things, whether it’s wealth, recognition or whatever.
People get married for all kinds of reasons, but the reason Christians are to get married is to glorify God through their union in marriage. The purpose of marriage is to glorify God, not to make us happy, not to make us more fulfilled. All of these are just products of our self-absorbed sin nature.
The purpose of marriage is to get rid of all that self-oriented aspect and to focus on our mutual mission of glorifying the Lord. And that can take place in many different ways depending on how we our talents are and how our spiritual gifts are.
When we talk about the futility of the mind, the unbeliever cannot grasp that which organizes all of the facts and details of life.
Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply. Interestingly, that’s the first command—to be fruitful and multiply; the first command after it is stated that they’re created in the image and likeness of God.
When Adam is placed in the Garden, he is told to name all of the creatures. God also tells them that He has provided for all of their nutritional needs, and that they can eat from any fruit of the trees in the garden except for one: the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
All the information I just told you is the result of direct revelation from God. They knew these things. A lot of that they could derive through empiricism, through observation. I’m sure that Adam used a lot of empiricism as he identified, categorized, classified, and named the animals.
As they looked at the different trees in the garden and could categorize and classify different fruit in different flavors, they could understand a lot of things about their immediate environment. They could come to lowercase truth, just as unbelievers do every day.
But there was one Truth in the Garden that they could not learn through either observation or reason and logic, and that was that if they ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would die spiritually. They would be separated from God.
They could only learn that one Truth from revelation: learning that one Truth that organized everything else so that they could understand all of the other trees in the garden by how they relate to this one tree that was prohibited.
That’s the role of divine revelation in our lives. It helps us to correctly organize all of the other pieces of information, data, and knowledge that comes our way. Without using the Word of God and God’s revelation, then we are operating with an empty framework. That’s called “the futility of the mind.”
Slide 5
The Characteristics, Ephesians 4:18
Paul goes on to describe that in the next part; he says that because of the Gentiles’ rejection of God, the result is that their understanding is darkened; there’s no light. Light is always in Scripture an indicator of divine revelation. Apart from divine revelation they’re like blind men groping in absolute darkness, trying to figure things out.
Because they are also alienated from the life of God, they cannot understand the things of God because they are spiritually discerned. So, they have rejected God, and as a result their understanding is darkened and they are separated from the life of God.
The next two lines tell us that this is because of the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their soul. This is the result of their rejection of God and the suppression of truth in unrighteousness, taking that phrase from Romans 1:21–22,
“… because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts—same word—and their foolish hearts were darkened.” This is the same concept that we see here. Professing to be wise,—they have three or four PhDs, they have written 40, 50, 60 books. They profess to be wise, but without the Word of God—they became fools.”
It’s clear from these descriptions that each person is responsible for their own stubborn, obdurate heart. Brought out in Ephesians 4:19, they are “past feeling.” Because of the blindness of their heart, they have chosen a path of stubborn resistance to God. They are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.
Slide 6
The Consequences, Ephesians 4:19,
Who, because they are past feeling because they have hardened their heart: they are obdurate, they are stubbornly resistant to God’s revelation; they are past feeling. This callousness or scar tissue has anesthetized their soul to the revelation of God as a result of their own negative volition, their own rejection of God. And this leads to certain consequences.
If you understand all of the terms there, they basically refer to lawlessness. God’s character is a law unto itself. We are to be distinct as God is distinct. That’s the Old Testament, quoted in the New Testament as well.
We are to be holy for God is holy. The concept of holy does not mean morally pure. It doesn’t mean morally impure, but that’s not its focal point. The focal point of HAGIOS is the idea of separateness, uniqueness, or distinctiveness.
We have heard that holiness is a summation of God’s righteousness and justice. That preaches well, but it’s not exactly accurate. The words are used many times: Qadosh in the Old Testament and HAGIOS in the New Testament also describe inanimate objects, such as the vessels in the temple or the vestments worn by the high priest.
Clothes cannot be morally pure or impure. Dishes, various things that were used to serve the sacrifices in the altar, can’t be morally pure or impure. Morality is a secondary idea.
Context adds to the word “holy” in some places like Isaiah 6, but that’s not the core meaning of the word. The core meaning of the word, when it says be holy as God is holy, is to be set apart to His service.
Secondary ideas come into play, and holiness involves moral purity. We will talk about this more and define it. Morality is really for everybody. Unbelievers can be quite moral. A lot of cults and a lot of legalistic Christians have a high level of morality, but they have no spirituality.
Spirituality always includes morality. Spirituality does not work with immorality. Immorality causes us to be out of fellowship; therefore, we cannot be spiritual, and we cannot walk with the Lord when we are immoral.
But we live in a culture not unlike the culture of the Greco-Roman civilization. There were elements of that culture that were moral, but there were also many elements of that culture that had lowered immorality to depths that had not been seen before, not unlike what we see in our own postmodern culture.
In postmodernism absolutes of morality, absolutes of any kind, are rejected. In the irony of their statement, there are no absolutes. Well, is that an absolute? Yes! So at the core of postmodernism is irrationality, but that is because in postmodernism they rejected the conclusions of rationality in modernism.
That take us in directions that we don’t have time for. But the essence I’m pointing out here is that the results of rejecting God leads to a resistance to God’s absolute standards of right and wrong, God’s absolute standards of righteousness and justice. It produces immorality and lasciviousness—in essence it produces lawlessness.
Can you think of a better word to characterize the nature of what we see going on in our own culture today not only outside the church, but inside the church? We see increasing antinomianism—a fancy word for lawlessness, against the law. This is the consequence that happens.
Slide 7
The Contrast
Ephesians 4:20, “But you have not so learned Christ …” That’s a strong contrast. On the one hand there is the way the unsaved Gentiles live and think and conduct their lives.
But in contrast to what is culturally and socially acceptable, what may be normative in the culture around us—your family culture perhaps, the culture of the place where you work, the culture of where you go to school, the culture on Facebook or other social media, God has a different set of standards, and you did not learn Christ according to the standards that you see in all of those examples I just listed.
Slide 8
This takes us back to Ephesians 4:19 which says the Gentiles are “past feeling.” They have hardened their hearts in stubborn obdurateness. They have given themselves to antinomianism, which is immoral relativism. In a word, relativism is immorality, so our lives are to be in contrast to that.
Slide 9
Their lifestyle is described:
Ephesians 5:3, “But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for the saints.”
Colossians 3:5, “Therefore put to death your members which are on earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
2 Peter 2:14, a different but similar list, “… having eyes full of adultery—this characterizes the false teachers—and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children,” which brings us to this contrast.
Slide 10
There are three keywords in these two verses that we need to understand.
The first is translated “so” in Ephesians 4:20, “But you have not so learned Christ.” This is the same word in a very well-known Bible verse, John 3:16, “But God so loved the world—it is translated ...”
Slide 11
“So” is a somewhat weak way of translating HOUTOS which means “in this way” or “in this manner.” It is used often to refer to that which precedes, so having described something then a writer or speaker would say something along the lines “but not in that manner,” “not so,” “don’t do it in such a way.”
Sometimes it refers to that which follows, but primarily it’s what precedes which we have here, “But you have not learned Christ in this manner.” What manner would that be? The lifestyle, the thought life, the way of thinking that characterizes the Gentiles.
He’s again drawing a sharp dichotomy between the way the world around the believer thinks and lives and conducts their business and their lives and the way a believer should. He says you did not learn Christ in this manner.
Slide 12
When we look at the rest of that verse, the verb is MANTHANO, which is from the noun “disciple,” which means a student or learner. MANTHANO means to learn something; Paul says, “You have not learned Christ in this manner.”
Slide 13
Ephesians 4:21, the third keyword is DIDASKO, used for teaching, for instruction. That is the role of the pastor-teacher: he is to teach. That’s how he leads and feeds a congregation.
If a pastor is not teaching and only motivating, they don’t know what they’re being motivated for if they are not taught. The primary role of a pastor is to give instruction, to teach the Word, and I believe it should be taught verse by verse.
Ephesians 4:21 tells us, “If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus.”
Just a couple of things that we have to think through:
Slide 12
In order to learn something, you have to be taught. We can be taught in various ways. We can be taught by example, we can be taught through giving of principles and instruction, but we have to be taught before we can learn.
Humility! People cannot be taught if they are not humble and willing to learn. Humility goes hand-in-hand with teachability, and we have to be teachable in order to learn.
We “learned Christ” a certain way, which implies that there was a way in which this was taught.
Slide 13
It was taught contextually by a pastor-teacher. In this era, which was the Apostolic Era, the Ephesians five years earlier had two to three years of instruction from the Apostle Paul himself. He knows exactly what they were taught and what they learned, and he knows that he did not teach an antinomian Christ.
Many Christians think that grace means that you can just sin with impunity, do whatever you want and use 1 John 1:9 as a license to sin. Well, God in His grace is always going to forgive us whenever we confess our sin, but some people think that 1 John 1:9 is just a revolving door, and they just keep going around and around and around in a circle.
If you had a revolving front door in your home, the object of the revolving door is what? To enter into the house and to live or abide in the house. Jesus said, “If you abide in Me and My word abides in you …” Abiding is being in that house. The revolving door is the door of 1 John 1:9.
As baby believers we often just stay in that revolving door because we haven’t grown or learned enough to deal with the sin in our life. All we can do is confess sin and we’re restored to fellowship for a nano second. But as we learn the Word we spend more time staying in the house.
Staying in the house is walking by the Spirit, abiding in Christ, walking with the Lord. It’s where real life takes place. But if we’re just stuck in that revolving door using 1 John 1:9 as a license to sin, saying, “I don’t really have to do anything about the sin in my life. I’ll just confess it and keep going,” well, you just keep finding it over and over again, and it takes time.
Even when you’re an older believer and you’re maturing, you still sin; we just recognize the depths of that depravity a lot more. We didn’t realize how sinful we were when we were a young believer. But as we grow and mature in the faith, whole new panoramas of our own sinfulness are revealed to us.
Sometimes we think that we’re never going to make it. Well, the fact that you are more aware of all the different dimensions of sin in your life is a sign that you’re growing and maturing, and that we have the grace of God who forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. So by keeping short accounts we can continue to grow and mature.
Paul uses this phrase in Ephesians 4:21, “If indeed …” What’s interesting about this particular phrase when we look at it in Scripture is it’s a combination of two words, which I didn’t put up on the slide.
The first is the particle EI, which is translated “if.” But this construction is a first class condition. In Greek there are three ways to state a condition that are used in the New Testament. There’s actually 4 or 5, but in the New Testament it is primarily these three.
The first catches the idea “if,” and that first clause is called the protasis. I always remember that because PRO means first. If you have this certain construction in the first clause, it’s assumed to be true. Then he adds the second little word GE—so it’s EI GE—and that second reinforces the first and makes it more certain.
He is not just stating “if,” but “if with certainty.” It can be translated “if indeed” or “if and I know.” He knows that they have heard Christ and have been taught by him because Paul was the instrument by whom they were taught. He understands the reality of the fact that yes indeed, they have heard him and have been taught by him.
Slide 12
This leads us to an interesting question: what does it mean to learn Christ?
In the process of learning something, we go through various stages. The first stage is we learn basic facts. If you think back, perhaps if you’re married or even if you aren’t, you have probably dated. And over the course of getting to know someone, you begin by learning facts about them: What do they like? What do they dislike? How old are they? Where were they born? What’s their background? What do they like to do?
Those are learning facts about someone. You can’t learn about someone if you haven’t learned facts about them. But simply learning facts about someone doesn’t mean that you have come to know them. It just means you know some things about them. When we are learning about a person, we begin by learning some things about them.
Then as we spend time with them, we learn a lot about who they are. We learn about the nature of their soul in many ways. We learn their likes and their dislikes, we learn how they react or respond to different things. And as a result of that we come to have a deeper and more personal relationship with them.
Slide 12
We find this in the phrase “to learn Christ,” an interesting phrase in the Greek because you have the word for learning followed by a person who is the object of learning. This is unique in Greek literature.
Whenever that happens, Paul is trying to get across something that is probably more than the sum of the parts. He’s talking about developing a rich, intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that only comes about not just by learning facts, but you must learn the facts.
I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to people talk about how they love Jesus, but if you asked them anything of depth about Jesus, they know nothing about Him. You cannot love someone you don’t know. You can love your parents when you’re six months old, but it is an infant’s love which is mostly gratitude for getting fed and cleaned amongst other things.
We have to grow in our knowledge. When you’re 25 years old and you say you love your parents, that means something completely different, because you have come to know them, and you have come to develop an intimate relationship with them. It takes time and it takes involvement in order to produce that mature relationship.
Paul used this unusual phrase to bring that to our focus: coming to know who Jesus is.
Slide 14
That indicates that they have been taught by him, so the learning is a result of teaching and learning leads to knowing.
Another problem that I’ve pointed out many times. If you’ve been listening on Thursday night, you’ve heard this, but not everyone here has been paying attention to that. We live in a world where in evangelical Christianity there are a lot of idioms we use that are not biblical. “Oh, say it isn’t so!”
One of those idioms is “Do you know Jesus?” That has become an evangelical shortcut for “Are you saved?” But the Bible doesn’t use the phrase “to know Jesus” as equal to believing in Him for salvation. Knowing Jesus is something that only occurs after you’re saved as a result of spiritual growth. How do I know that?
Slide 15
Thomas said in John 14:5–7, “Lord, we don’t know where You are going [just prior to that Jesus is said He was going to the Father], and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.’”
Well that just went right over their heads.
Philip’s response in John 14:8, “Lord, show us the Father, and it’s sufficient for us.”
Jesus’ response to Thomas was, “If you had known Me,” which implies that they didn’t really know Him. Are they saved? Yes, indeed. It’s very clear all the way through John that all of the disciples except Judas were saved. Here are disciples who are saved, but they don’t know Jesus.
Philip said, “Show us the Father, and it’s sufficient for us,” and Jesus said to him, John 14:9, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me. Philip?—You have not come to know me, Philip. You believe I am the Messiah, but you haven’t come to know me yet.”
In other words, there’s no spiritual growth based on that more intimate knowledge of who Jesus is, what He came to do, and a development of that rich fellowship.
Slide 16
John, who was present when Jesus said that in John 14, expands on this concept of knowing Jesus, 1 John 2:3, “Now by this we know that we know Him …” He’s writing to believers. He’s trying to help these believers understand the importance of their walk in the light, their walk of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
How do we know that we know Him?
Example #1, 1 John 2:4, “He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
He’s not saying you’re not a believer, because remember, Jesus told Philip he didn’t know Him, and Philip was a believer. John is saying, “You may be a believer, but you haven’t come to know Christ, to have that intimate walk with Him if you’re not obeying Him.”
Example #2, 1 John 2:5, “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is [it’s not ‘perfected’ because it’s not the idea of lawlessness, it’s] matured [completed is the idea of the Greek word] in him. By this—by what? By keeping His Word—we know that we are in Him.”
He’s talking about the fact that knowing Christ comes as a result of spiritual growth and is evidenced by our walk of obedience. When we have come to know Christ, we have been taught by Him and have come to understand this truth that is in Jesus.
Slide 17
Both clauses, “have been taught by Him” and “the truth is in Jesus,” have the same phraseology in the Greek: being in the sphere of Jesus, or listening to Jesus, what He has taught. It’s not instrumental. He’s not saying “taught by Him” in terms of being taught by Jesus. It is being taught in Him as the truth is in Jesus.
Slide 18
In conclusion, I will point out a few things about Truth because Truth is in Jesus.
That is a harsh statement to postmodern ears. We live in a culture that is dominated by postmodernism, but the reality as a culture that has rejected absolutes, we’re not simply postmodern. In a recent study by Arizona Christian University conducted by the Barna Research Group, the conclusion was that a small portion, maybe 10 or 15%, of Christians are truly postmodern.
The rest are eclectic. That means they’re going to be modernist this way, they’re going to be naturalist this way. They’re picking bits and pieces from all of the different anti-biblical worldviews and just choosing what they like. Today it’s one set of values, tomorrow it’s another set of values, all of which reflects that postmodern relativism is part of it.
For the Gentile world in our context today, they reject the idea of any kind of universal truth, including the fact that there is no universal truth. Because that’s a universal truth—that’s how irrational it is!
People ask me, “Can you explain this?”
I say, “No. The concept of explaining something to you assumes a rationality that can be explained.” You cannot logically explain irrationality, and that is the world around us.
That’s why you have heard so many people for the last decade or so say, “What’s going on in the world? It’s so crazy; it’s irrational!” That’s because the world has rejected reason as a means to finding stability, order and meaning, and they are swimming in the pool of irrationality.
The Bible confronts that head on. That’s when we’re going to apply what Paul says here about not thinking or walking like the Gentiles around us. We have to understand that we are, as products of this culture, as infected by postmodernism and this secular eclecticism as anyone.
However, if we’re growing in Christ, then that’s going to change. But if we don’t understand what the characteristics of truth are and what the characteristics of postmodern eclectic irrationality are, then we’re going to have trouble not being conformed to it.
Slide 19
A few things to start us on the road to understanding; let’s go to the Old Testament.
1. The Hebrew word for truth is emet, a cognate to the word amen, and that means to believe something, to trust in something as true and absolute.
The concept of truth has the idea of that which is eternally valid, eternally true and also implies dependability and faithfulness.
A cognate of this word was used to describe the foundation stones that went under the two pillars in the front of the Solomonic temple. It’s indicating that this bedrock on which those pillars was placed was a solid foundation, unchangeable, that it would hold in the midst of the storms that would come.
Slide 20
This word is used to describe the character of God.
Exodus 34:6, “And Yahweh passed before him—Moses—and proclaimed,—God is proclaiming this to Moses—‘Yahweh, the Yahweh El,—I added that. The English says, ‘Lord, the Lord God,’ and it’s confusing. The Hebrew words are important: Yahweh emphasizes the covenant role of God with Israel and El identifies that Yahweh is God—“… merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding—notice that word, abounding in two things—in goodness and truth.”
Truth exists in God. That’s why in the Essence Box Diagram, there are 10 different attributes of God. The second to last is “veracity:” it is Truth; God is Truth.
Slide 21
Deuteronomy 32:4 focuses on the stability, the dependability and faithfulness of a God Who is Truth, “He is the Rock,—That phrase is used many times in the Old Testament. In fact, sometimes it becomes another name for God: Rock. Moses said, ‘Our Rock is better than their rock,’ and he is not talking about geology—His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice,—in order to find justice—social justice or any other kind of justice—you have to go to the ultimate reference point, which is God. God is Justice; it flows from being absolute Truth—“… a God of truth and without injustice”.
Notice the contrast: because He is the God of Truth, there is no injustice in Him. How can a postmodern culture that has bought into the atheistic Marxism as their worldview framework even talk about justice? It’s a relativistic concept for them. It’s irrational for them. Only if you have a God of Truth can you have justice; “Righteous and upright is He.”
Joshua 24:14, “Now therefore, fear Yahweh, serve Him in sincerity and truth—we have to serve God by means of Truth—and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side on the other side of the river and in Egypt.”
Paul is saying the same thing in Ephesians 4: you cannot walk like the rest of the Gentiles walk. You can’t have some of their gods, some of their worldview, and a Christian worldview.
There has to be a harsh breaking point between the two. Postmodernism produces its own view of spirituality, which has infected most evangelical churches today, because they have lost sight of the Bible as the exclusive realm of Truth.
Slide 22
2. The Hebrew Scriptures affirm that there is only one Truth and that is God’s Truth.
Psalm 25:5, the psalmist prays, “Lead me in Your truth …” Truth is God’s Truth because He is Truth.
Psalm 30:9, “What profit is there in my blood,—David said—when I go down to Sheol? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth?”
The implication there is as believers we are to declare the Truth of God. It is God’s Truth.
Slide 23
We are to live and walk, to conduct our lives, both in how we think and what we think, on the basis of God’s Truth.
Psalm 26:3, “For Your loving kindness—Your loyal, faithful, covenant love—is before my eyes and I have walked—conducted my life on the basis—in your truth.”
Slide 24
God’s Truth is the only basis for stability in our lives.
Psalm 40:11, “Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, oh Lord, let Your loving kindness and Your truth continually preserve me.”
Truth preserves us. It gives us stability in the midst of all the changes that take place in life.
Psalm 43:3, “Oh, send out your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacles.”
God provides guidance through the light of His Word. If you don’t know God’s Word, you do not know how to follow God, and you do not know God’s will for your life.
Slide 25
Psalm 45:4, “And in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness; and Your right hand shall teach You awesome things.”
It is God’s Word and God’s Truth that gives us soul prosperity, stability, happiness, and joy in life.
Daniel 9:13, Daniel praying, “As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.”
Because they did not understand God’s Truth, it led to disaster; it led to the judgment of 586 BC because of their idolatry and their rejection of God.
Slide 26
God’s Truth is what He uses to rule mankind.
Psalm 89:14, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; mercy and truth go before Your face.” That comes out from God’s throne.
Slide 27
God’s Truth protects us.
Psalm 91:4, “He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; his truth shall be your shield and buckler.”
Slide 28
God’s Word is eternal and unchanging.
Psalm 100:5, “For the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endures to all generations.”
In postmodernism truth is relative and it changes from one generation to the next, from one culture to the next, from one nation to the next, from one subculture to the next. Everybody has their own truth.
Slide 29
3. When we come to the Gospels, Jesus is identified with the God of Truth in the Old Testament.
John 1:9, John describing Jesus, “That was the true light which gives light to every man coming into the world.”
Light relates to revelation.
John 1:14, “And the Word became 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.”
John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ ”
Slide 30
In order to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus tells us what that means in John 17:17, praying to the Father, “Sanctify them by means of truth. Your Word is truth.”
Slide 31
4. It’s the normal practice of unbelievers to reject God’s Truth for personal truth.
“Well, that works for you, but that doesn’t work for me.” “It’s true for you, but it’s not true for me.” It’s all relativistic.
Romans 1:18, “for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
Truth suppressors are calling for the judgment of God. What have they done? Romans 1:25, they “exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature—or the creation, actually—rather than the Creator.”
Think about the whole environmentalist movement. They’re serving the creation rather than the Creator.
Slide 32
5. To those who live according to the lie, because they reject the gospel, there are consequences.
Romans 2:8, “but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth,—that is a characteristic of our whole unbelieving generation out there: they are self-seeking and don’t obey the truth—but they obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath.”
Slide 33
6. But God has given us the Scriptures, the Word of Truth.
At the beginning of our study of Ephesians, Ephesians 1:13, Paul said, “In Him Christ] you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth ...”
God’s Word is the Word of Truth, so we are challenged that we are to live on the basis of God’s Truth.
Ephesians 4:21, “if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus.”
The confusing thing is that most of us have grown up in a postmodern relativistic world, and we don’t realize the depths to which we have been affected by that and the way the evangelical church has been affected by that.
When Jesus makes the statement, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” there’s only two options: He’s either lying or He is telling the truth. If He’s telling the truth, then nothing else matters in life than to understand Who Jesus is and to trust in Him for our salvation.
Closing Prayer
“Our Father, we’re thankful for the clarity of Scripture. From the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden and their fall into sin, the human race has sought to redefine reality, to reshape reality according to their own thoughts, their own ideas, and their own values.
“Thus sin is nothing more than rebellion against You. All aspects and kinds of sin are just acts of rebellion against You and a rejection of Your Truth. Yet in Your love, You have provided a perfect solution for us, a solution that took care of the sin problem.
“You sent Your Son Jesus Christ to come to earth to take on humanity. He lived a sinless life, thus demonstrating He was qualified to go to the cross, and there He paid the penalty on our behalf for our sins.
“So the issue now is what do we think about Christ? Do we trust in Him for our salvation or are we trusting in ourselves? If we are trusting in ourselves, then we are leaning on a very shaky reed, for it will not hold us up. The only thing that will sustain us is faith in Christ and a realization that He died for our sins. The instant that anyone trusts in Christ, they are given new life in Him that can never be taken away.
“Father, we pray that this would be clear to anyone who is here who’s never trusted in Christ as their Savior, who has never understood that we are all born spiritually dead, separated from the life of God, unable to do anything in order to save ourselves.
“But You have provided everything and all that is necessary is simply to trust in Christ, to believe that He died for our sins, we are given new life in Him, and we are given eternal life.
“Father, we pray that anyone listening today, anyone here, anyone who listens to this message in the future, that if they have never trusted in Christ, that this great news, this good news of Christ dying for our sins that we might have everlasting life is very clear to them.
“Father, for those of us who are believers, we pray that this will challenge us, that we are not to think, live, and conduct our lives and our businesses like the rest of the Gentiles do. But there is to be a contrast between the believer and the way of life and the way of thinking of the unbelieving culture around us.
“We pray that You would open our eyes to the areas where we still need to work and we need to grow and we need to trust You. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.”