Ultimate Truth is Available to all who Seek it
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Lloyd Gardner
In today’s world truth is like a feather floating in the winds of confused society. With the assault of political acrimony and the theological disunity we are experiencing in Christian circles, it is difficult for many people to discern what is truth and what is fake news. In this message I will present the evidence from God’s word that ultimate truth is available but we must seek it to find it. Many will reject this evidence because they don’t believe the Bible is a source of truth and they probably don’t believe in God, the ultimate source of truth. On the other hand, genuine seekers of truth will find God’s word to be trustworthy in unveiling truth to the seeking heart.
Jesus set the tone for this principle saying, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matt. 7:7). He said it three ways — ask, seek, find. In each case the seeker of truth is assured that He will find what he is looking for. God is not playing games with us, keeping us in the dark about His truth, but is ready to provide a pathway to truth for anyone desiring it. During Jesus’s ministry on earth He made Himself accessible to anyone and freely answered their questions unless, like the hypocrites, they asked questions trying to trap Him.
He was bold to tell us He was the only source of truth. He said of Himself, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). He is the way, the truth, and the life, not merely one of many pathways to truth. Reaching God is only possible through Him because He was God manifest in human form.
The people who witnessed His earthly life and ministry had this to say about Him: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). When truth stares you in the face and expresses itself in your domain of life it is hard to reject. He lived among His followers and they had three plus years to evaluate the validity of His claims. They became convinced and many more were convinced when they saw them transformed into people who lived in and proclaimed the same truth. Thus, the body of Christ came into existence.
But Jesus didn’t leave them in the dark when He left. He promised them “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). The Spirit did come and He began to unveil more truth to and through them which they were led to record for us in the Bible. The truth from the eye witnesses of Christ is now available to us in book form and it continues to ring true in the hearts of many.
All of this produced the living, breathing, real earthly expression of Christ, the body of Christ. The body of Christ is the corporate manifestation of the way to truth on earth. Christ did not come to create robots who simply parroted what He said but sent the Holy Spirit to continue to help people find truth and then He birthed the body of Christ, His church, to continue seeking and finding truth and proclaiming it in the midst of the world’s many inventions of fake news.
We see this truth expressed in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Eph. 4:15, 16).
We see here that expressing truth in love is the context in which individual people grow up spiritually and truly begin to express Christ individually and corporately. As truth prevails in an atmosphere of love people grow like a tree with its roots grounded in healthy soil. In this body of Christ each member has a vital part to share with the whole and as this begins to happen the whole body grows spiritually in this atmosphere of love. The church is not a human program but more like a spiritual family where love is present and everyone has a part to play in the whole progress of the family members.
This is why church gatherings of the early body of Christ were not large, programmed institutions of men but small family groups meeting throughout the cities for the purpose of encouraging this life of the body of Christ. Without this dynamic inner work of truth prevailing in love, church is just another human program aimed at its own survival instead of a context for life-giving participation on the part of each member.
Unlike many of today’s “church services” the body of Christ meeting together is to be a place where objective thinking takes place as matters considered in the gatherings are tested by all who are present. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thess. 5:20, 21). In other words, let people speak what’s in their hearts but let everyone test what is spoken in the light of His word and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. There were few gatherings where one gifted person preached regularly to the rest who remained passive. Where church gatherings are mentioned there is an emphasis on the corporate seeking of truth (1 Cor. 14:26–32; Eph. 5:18–21; 1 Thess. 5:20, 21; Acts 2:42; 17:11, 12).
Truth from God exists and is attainable by those who seek it together with others who seek the same thing. Truth is the rock that Jesus spoke of in the parable of the houses built on the sand and the rock. The house built on the sand speaks of people building on something other than God’s word. The rock, of course, speaks of those who build on something solid and reliable that the storms of life cannot move us from. Jesus concluded “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock” (Matt. 7:25).
In today’s fake news environment in society and the church, our only protection is to be standing on the Rock. It is truth and truth is Christ Himself. It is no wonder that truth is so allusive in today’s world. We are building on the sand of weak human ideas instead of the strong, rock-solid word of the living God. Truth is available. Seek and you will find it.
