Sanctified by the Truth
TCF Sermon
March 5, 2006
In what some commentators call His high priestly prayer, in John chapter 17, Jesus prayed for His disciples, and for us. One of the things he prayed was:
John 17:17 (NIV) Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth
Jesus asked our Heavenly Father to sanctify, that is, to purify or make holy and set apart, His disciples. And He asked God to do this “by the truth.” That is, to use the truth as a means to sanctify them, to purify them, to equip and set them apart for useful service. And just to be clear what the truth was, He added that God’s word, is truth.
I want to read an excerpt from a letter to the editor that appeared in the Tulsa World in January. When I read this letter, I had already sensed a direction for this morning, and had already been reading and studying things toward that direction, but this letter encapsulated quite well the problem that I want to deal with today, and it’s related to the passage of scripture we just read.
The letter happens to be about Carlton Pearson, and his preaching of universalism, but it could be about almost any “religious” issue. Rather than the particular issue which prompted this letter, I’d like to address the general attitude of this letter writer, because it’s a prevailing attitude in our culture today, and we even see it in the church.
Tulsa world letter to the editor, Jan 18, 2006
Several letters have been published regarding minister Carlton Pearson’s views and arguments for and against the religious universalism doctrine. Those opposed to Mr. Pearson’s beliefs usually try to defend their positions by quoting passages from the Christian Bible.
Matters of religious faith are just that, faith. They will never be proven to human beings, so I just say believe what you want and live your life accordingly. Do not criticize or try to prove a different faith wrong, because it cannot be done.
Any religion can make claims based on their bibles and texts. It solves or proves nothing to argue matters of faith because we will never know the answer. I think this was God’s plan all along.
Do you understand what this writer is saying? He’s saying that in matters of faith, we can never know if what we believe is really true. We can never know anything for certain in matters of faith. In other words, your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth, so believe whatever you want to believe. What’s more, this writer believes God intended it that way. He uses the word “proven,” so I guess we have to ask ourselves, what is the standard of proof in matters of faith, and are they significantly different from the standards of proof in other areas of life, such as in courts of law, or other matters?
What this writer has illustrated is exactly what Francis Schaeffer wrote about almost 40 years ago in his book The God Who Is There. He noted that our culture, and even some segments of the church, has accepted this dichotomy, this separation, which separates faith from reason. He called it the “two-story” view of reality.
In other words, on the bottom story are facts and reason. On the top story are faith and values. As long as they stay on their own floors, one upstairs, one downstairs, things are fine. The culture can live with that. But as soon as one begins to encroach on the other, conflict begins.
Now, before we examine these ideas more fully, it’s also important to note that there is a spiritual element to faith that’s much harder to define. That’s God’s grace, which enables saving faith. While we must choose to receive His grace and forgiveness, it’s also clear that we are saved by grace through faith, as it says in Ephesians 2:8,9, and this faith is not of ourselves, it is a gift of God. So, before we get into the meat of this morning’s message, let me be absolutely clear. We cannot come to the Father, unless He draws us. We cannot come based solely on our own reasoning. The Holy Spirit must energize our reasoning
for us to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
That said, Francis Schaeffer’s contention, which is also reflected in another book I read to prepare for this sermon, Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey, is that biblical truth is a one-story building. There is no conflict between faith and reason - in fact, faith is quite reasonable or it’s not true faith, and faith really is quite worthless unless its grounded in some sort of fact.
As Nancy Pearcey notes, biblical truth is total truth. She writes: “Christianity is not just religious truth, but the truth about all reality. It is total truth.”
One author summarized Francis Schaeffer’s life message like this:
Christianity is a total worldview based on truth that is rationally accessible and meant to be applied with authenticity to the whole person across every field of human achievement and creativity.
This is the kind of truth that Jesus prayed we would be sanctified in, in John 17:17. Think about this for a minute.
How can we be equipped for service in the Kingdom of God if facts and reason are totally separate from faith? How can we be sanctified or set apart? What good in purifying us is a truth that is restricted to the upper story, the top floor, and can never interact with facts and reason? The kind of truth that’s restricted to the upper story, is irrelevant to much of the world.
Schaeffer explained it like this:
Top floor: A blind optimistic hope of meaning, based on an irrational leap of faith
______________________
Bottom floor: The rational and the logical, which gives no meaning, but is at least reasonable
He further fleshed it out like this:
Top floor: The non-rational and non-logical – Faith as an optimistic leap without verification or content we can communicate
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Bottom floor: The rational and logical – the scripture full of mistakes – pessimism
Here’s another look at the same idea:
Top floor: Faith (nonreason, optimism)
________________
Bottom floor: The rational (pessimism)
As we explore these ideas, what we have to choose between are two different definitions of faith. Now, the biblical definition of faith is pretty clear, and it’s all on one floor, to use the two-story analogy.
Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith has substance, and faith is based on evidence. We’ll look at that in a moment. But the prevailing cultural definition of faith is almost the exact opposite. I found it interesting to compare the definition of faith in an older dictionary to one of a newer dictionary.
I have an old Webster’s Dictionary, copyright 1966. Here’s its definition of faith:
trust or confidence, belief in the statement of another, a belief in the truth of revealed religion.
Yet, if you find a modern day dictionary, like freedictionary.com, and it’s not unique in this definition, because I found similar ones elsewhere, what you read is this:
1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
OK, that’s similar to the Webster’s old definition, and it fits the Biblical understanding of faith, but listen to the #2 definition:
2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
Note the addition. That definition did not appear in the 1966 Websters. It tells us something about what the world thinks of faith in general, and how that’s changed in the last 40 years.
Yet, the apostle Paul knew that faith does have substance and is based on evidence. First of all, he himself was persuaded of the truth. Paul was convinced, or persuaded of the truth.
His faith was not a blind leap over a chasm of reason or rational thought.
Romans 8:38-39 (KJV) For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2 Tim. 1:12 (KJV) nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Persuaded means convinced by means of evidence of some sort: Prevailed upon; influenced by argument or entreaty; convinced.
Paul knew that this faith he preached would find no converts, would get no traction, in the world of his day, without some foundational, verifiable, historical facts to base it on.
That’s why he referenced eyewitness accounts.
1 Cor. 15:6 (NIV) speaking of Jesus, Paul writes, After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
It was as if Paul was saying – go ask them. Jesus was alive – he rose from the dead, and more than 500 men saw him. Paul understood that without this kind of reality, this kind of testimony, this kind of foundation to this new faith he was preaching, he and his fellow believers were in trouble – they couldn’t legitimately defend the faith they were preaching.
He also wrote to the Corinthians, later in the same chapter:
1 Cor. 15:13-17 (NIV) If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.
Paul was pretty clear here. If the resurrection of Jesus did not happen in time and in space, like we exist in time and in space, then our faith is futile… it’s meaningless. Christianity is not based in the ethereal, the sweet by and by. It’s based on a real, living Christ.
It’s based on what men, just like you and me, saw, witnessed, experienced.
Schaeffer wrote:
Christianity is realistic because it says that if there is no truth there is also no hope; and there can be no truth if there is no adequate base. It is prepared to face the consequences of being proved false and say with Paul: if you find the body of Christ, the discussion is finished; let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.
Here Schaeffer references this verse:
1 Cor. 15:32 (NIV) If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die."
Then Schaeffer continues:
It leaves absolutely no room for a romantic answer. For example, in the realm of morals, Christianity does not look over this tired and burdened world and say that it is slightly flawed, a little chipped, but easily mended. Christianity is realistic and says that the world is marked with evil and man is truly guilty all along the line. Christianity refuses to say that you can be hopeful for the future if you are basing your hope on evidence of change for the better in mankind. Christianity has a diagnosis and then a solid foundation for an answer.
So, when a letter to the editor says
Matters of religious faith are just that, faith. They will never be proven to human beings, so I just say believe what you want and live your life accordingly.
it begs the question: Just what kind of proof do you need?
If you think about it, we exercise faith each and every day, and not just in religious matters, but in our daily lives. But what kind of proof do we need to exercise faith in our day to day existence?
What kind of proof do you need to get into your bed at night and know you won’t plummet to the floor?
What kind of proof do you need to trust that the antihistamine you take will give you some relief from your cold?
What kind of proof do you need to know that the roof on your house will keep the rain off your head?
What kind of proof did the Bible Bowl kids need to know that we would really let them put pies into the faces of coach Paul and coach Bill?
What kind of proof do I need to sit in a chair here and know it will hold me up?
It’s not blind faith that tells me I can truly believe this chair will hold me. There’s a “preponderance of evidence,” to use a legal term, which is the standard of proof in a civil trial in our court system. In fact, there’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the higher standard of proof in criminal trials. I’ve witnessed you sitting in these chairs. In fact, in the past, I’ve sat in these chairs myself. Of course, I cannot absolutely, positively prove that this chair will hold me up, until I choose to take that final step of faith, and sit in it.
But at the same time, it’s not blind faith, it’s not a leap of faith that I’m basing my decision on. Preponderance, as in preponderance of evidence, means:
Superiority in weight, force, importance, or influence.
Reasonable doubt, in a legal sense, means:
…that the proposition must be proven to the extent that there is no "reasonable doubt" in the mind of a reasonable person (usually this means the mind of the judge or jury). There can still be a doubt, but only to the extent that it would be "unreasonable" to assume the falsity of the proposition.
So, where does that leave us in matters of religious faith? You’ve probably heard the term “leap of faith.” Francis Schaeffer proposes that this idea hurts our explanation of the gospel. He says that Dutch philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, perhaps unwittingly, fostered this idea when writing about Abraham and Isaac.
Schaefer adds that he thinks Kierkegaard would not agree with where this idea has taken the world.
Kierkegaard said (Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac) was an act of faith, with nothing rational to base it upon or to which to relate it. Out of this came the modern concept of a “leap of faith,” and the total separation of the rational and faith.
In this thinking concerning Abraham, Kierkegaard had not read the Bible carefully enough. Before Abraham was asked to move toward the sacrifice of Isaac (which of course God did not allow to be consummated), he had much propositional revelation from God. He had seen God, God had fulfilled promises to him. In short, God’s words at this time were in the context of Abraham’s strong reason for knowing that God both existed and was totally trustworthy.
This does not minimize Abraham’s faith shown in the long march to Mt Moriah and all the rest, but it certainly was not a leap of faith separated from rationality.
Do you see the difference here? Abraham, in being willing to take Isaac to the brink of sacrificing him, before an angel of God stopped him, had sound reasons to have faith in God. It wasn’t a leap of faith. Yes, it required a step of faith to once more trust God, in such a difficult request. But that faith was based on what he had seen of God, it was based on what He knew to be factual about God, it was based on God’s proven trustworthiness, his track record, if you will, because He was a God who had made promises and kept them.
Going back to our old Webster’s dictionary definition, we could say Abraham had trust or confidence, belief in the statement of another, in this case, God. This belief was strong enough to lead to the conviction that God was trustworthy.
What has this idea of the leap of faith led to in our culture?
Schaeffer writes:
As a result of this, from that time on, if rationalistic man wants to deal with the really important things of human life (such as purpose, significance, the validity of love), he must discard rational thought about them and make a gigantic, non-rational leap of faith. The rationalistic framework had failed to produce an answer on the basis of reason, and so all hope of a uniform field of knowledge had to be abandoned.
The idea here is that, on the basis of biblical Christianity, we can have a rational discussion, we can consider things with our reason, because Christianity is fixed in, based upon, the reality of history, things that really happened, things people saw, things people experienced. As we noted earlier, when Paul would be asked about whether Jesus was raised from the dead, he gave a completely non-religious answer. He said – there are 500 living witnesses, go ask them.
Ours is a faith that involves the whole man, including our reason, our minds. Ours it not a faith that asks for a leap of faith, or as Schaeffer put it, “a belief into the void,” that huge chasm between the first and second story.
The answer of historic Christianity is that there is a personal God, and He made us in His image and likeness. He has communicated to us, His creatures, by His Word, by people, by events, and by Jesus. Consequently, because His communication to us involves facts, and history, we can consider the truth or falsehood of what He’s said with our whole being, including our minds.
The only way out of this dilemma of the two story view of truth, is to move back to what Schaeffer calls “the methodology of antithesis.” That is, there are things that are true, and there are things that are not true. There’s an antithesis in truth… things cannot be true for you but not true for me. The same truth that is true for me is true for you, or it isn’t true at all.
Schaeffer writes:
Our forefathers used the term systematic theology to express their view that Christianity is not a series of isolated religious statements, but that it has a beginning and flows on to an end. Each part relates to the other part and to the whole. God has set the revelation of the Bible in history. He did not give it, as he could have done, in the form of a theological textbook. Having set revelation in history, what sense then would it make for God to give us a revelation in which history was wrong? God has also set man in the universe, which the scriptures themselves say speaks of this God. What sense then would it make for God to give His revelation in a book that was wrong concerning the universe? The answer to both questions must be “no sense at all!”
It is plain, therefore, that from the viewpoint of the Scriptures themselves there is a unity over the whole field of knowledge. God has spoken in a linguistic, propositional form, truth concerning Himself and truth concerning man, history and the universe.
Here is an adequate basis for the unity of knowledge. The unity encompasses both the upstairs and the downstairs. The unity is there because God has spoken truth into all areas of knowledge.
Just a quick sidebar here: We must not make the opposite mistake of saying that because God has communicated truth concerning everything, including things like science, that all scientific study is wasted. To say that God communicates truth does not say that He communicates everything there is to communicate. Even in our personal interaction with one another, we never say everything there is to be said, even if, what we do communicate, is true.
Our knowledge is meant to grow. Because we are created in the image of God, we are rational beings, and because of this, I believe God intends for us to explore, and discover further truth about His creation.
I was thinking about this idea of a leap of faith, and I thought about one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, Thomas. You remember, he wasn’t with the other disciples when Jesus first appeared, and because he didn’t see Jesus then, he didn’t really believe that Jesus had risen from the dead.
John 20:25 (NIV) So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
Were the disciples asking Thomas to take a leap of faith? No, they were asking him to believe their testimony. They were asking him to remember the miracles that Jesus had already done, including raising Lazarus from the dead. They were asking him to trust the man who had already proven trustworthy. They were asking him to remember that Jesus told them he would die and rise again.
They weren’t asking Thomas to have blind faith. They were asking him to believe the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt. They were asking him to take a step of faith, not a leap of faith.
A leap of faith is blind, leaping across the chasm of doubt without sound reason for doing so, and with no guarantee you’ll reach the other side of the chasm. A step of faith is based on, founded, on something, based on evidence, on experience or observation, on history, on facts, or better yet, on all of the above.
A step of faith follows, consciously or not, previous steps that lead to a decision, lead to being persuaded, convinced. The Psalmist tells us that the Word of God is a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path. A lamp for our feet lights the way step by step, doesn’t it? And since His Word is truth, and we are to be sanctified in the Truth, it apparently happens step by step.
The point this morning is that there’s a solid foundation for Biblical faith. True biblical faith is not built on sinking sand, but on a solid foundation. We talked about the steps of faith we take every day. From driving our cars, to sitting in chairs. Are these blind leaps of faith? Or are they based on something?
We noted earlier how the different definitions of faith have changed in the past 40 years. The thinking of our culture has undergone a radical shift. Francis Schaeffer spoke to a generation that at least had a memory of biblical thinking, biblical truth. When he wrote The God Who is There, at that time, it was still enough to argue the existence of God, and the reliability of the Scriptures. Belief would follow the evidence. Today, that’s often not true anymore. We live in a biblically illiterate culture. Our culture doesn’t believe truth exists anymore. Hope is fantasy. Truth is what you want it to be. Religion is a preference.
We live in a culture that cares about self more than anything else. We live in a culture where the things we’re talking about this morning no longer seem relevant.
I found a very insightful article by a Christian singer and writer named John Fisher. He wrote:
Not that the truth is no longer true, it is just that the postmodern mind does not possess the thought-forms necessary to grasp truth as absolute. Announce the God "who is there" today, and people will want to know which God you are talking about. On which channel? Representing which ethnic group? Which religion? And if he is "there", just where is he? Is he out on video? For whether God is, or is not there, the operative question is, what can belief in God do for me?
In this article, Fisher compared two book titles, 30 years apart. He compared Schaeffer’s The God Who Is There, with Bill Hybels’ book, The God You’re Looking For.
Noting the shift in cultural thinking. Fisher said that The God You’re looking for is an appropriate title.
There is simply no other way to address a postmodern mind except by way of the expressed needs, longings and desires of people. But in doing so, are we not now facing a new dilemma for ministry? What if the language and thought-forms of a generation are inept at holding the kind of belief systems necessary to sustain a relationship with God over the long haul? Then we will have to teach people to think in thought-forms that are foreign to them-that are outside their cultural experience. To some degree then, in teaching people how to follow God, we must now teach them how to think all over again.
He goes on to note that we keep hearing about how the postmodern mind cannot grasp the idea of absolutes. If that’s the case, he realizes that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the postmodern mind is incapable of grasping the idea of God. If that’s really true, something has to give here. Either the postmodern mind, or the God we preach.
I don’t think God is very interested in making too many adjustments in his nature or his character in deference to our inadequate minds. People, in order to grow in their understanding and relationship with God, are going to have to somehow graduate from a God they once met on one level, to a God who demands they stretch their minds in order to meet him in ways they have never thought of before.
If you think about it, this process is not unlike what all of us must do. We all begin our relationship with God on a subjective level through our own personal salvation. But, as Fisher points out, our growth, or our sanctification, is the process of discovering that God does not exist for us; we exist for Him.
New believers come to God because he has met their need; mature believers come to God regardless of their need. They come because He is God, and He is worthy of their worship and allegiance.
If we convince people to come to a God who is relevant and contemporary, will these people still love God when sometimes this God can also seem irrelevant and old, and sometimes difficult to follow? What do we do when the God who is there is not the God anyone wants? Do we still preach Him? Or will we be tempted to continue giving people a God they are looking for, when the God who is there no longer holds their interest?
These things are why addressing our culture today about the truth, is a significantly more difficult task than it was even 30 years ago, about the time that many of us came to Christ.
The challenge is teaching and challenging our friends, those we are trying to reach for Christ until God forms a new mind in them. We know that Paul told the Romans to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
So, the God You’re Looking For might be a good starting place. But at some point, the God you’re looking for has to become the God who is there, the God who sanctifies us in His absolute truth. Of course, we know that he’s always been there… and will be forever. Whether or not the world can conceive in their minds the absoluteness, the reality of God, He is still the God who deserves our praise.
John Fisher writes:
Somewhere in me, I hear God saying to us all today, "If you are looking for God, I am the God you get, because I am that I am." May we not shrink from telling the whole truth.
Let that be our closing prayer today. May we not shrink from telling the whole truth. The total truth. May we not fall into, but instead challenge, the world’s thinking, maybe even our own thinking that there’s this two-story view of truth,
that it takes a leap of irrational faith to believe in the God of the Bible.
Let’s study to show ourselves approved, so we can explain just how faith is a step by step process, instead of an irrational leap. Let’s be sanctified in His total truth, set apart and useful for service in His Kingdom.
Amen?
pray
