H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
15 August 2004
JESUS’ GREATEST HITS: The Meaning of Life
John 14:6
A man confessed to me that he was actually relieved when his wife found out he’d been cheating on her. “The lies were
killing me,” he said. “The adultery itself was a kind of lie, and then I had to keep telling more lies to cover it up. My whole life
had become a lie. Even getting caught was better than living like that.”
A college student disguises her eating disorder with the pretense of having already eaten or being under the weather or
practicing the typically awful dietary habits of college kids. In the process, she also lies to herself, maintaining the illusion that
“keeping her weight down” was a healthy lifestyle.
Fortunately, she gets help before the lies kill her. She enters counseling and confronts the reality of her self-destructive
behavior and the inner demons that drove her to it. She says to me, “For the first time in my life, I’m figuring out who I really
am. Not who I pretend to be. Not what other people want me to be. I’m learning how to be the real me. If that’s not good
enough for everybody else, I’m sorry, but it’s just who I am.”
Lies kill us. Maybe not immediately or all at once, but lies lead to death. That’s why the Bible refers to Satan as “a liar and
the father of lies,” (John 8:44). Our Creator, on the other hand, is called “the God of truth,” (Isaiah 65:16) because truth leads
to life—true life, abundant life, eternal life.
In the New Testament—and in today’s world, as well—two different notions of truth come crashing into each other. One
vision of truth is articulated by Pontius Pilate, the other by Jesus Christ. When Jesus is on trial before Pilate, Jesus describes
his mission in this way: “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to
the truth listens to my voice,” (John 18:37 NRSV). Pilate responds with cynical skepticism, and asks, “What is truth?” (John
18:38 NRSV).
Pilate the jaded politician isn’t sure there is such a thing as truth, and even if there is how are we ordinary mortals supposed
to find it? Jesus, however, declares that truth is a rock-solid reality. Truth is not something vague and out of reach; the truth is
available to those who hear the voice of Jesus.
What truth does Jesus have in mind? The truth Jesus offers us is a coin with two faces. Jesus unveils the truth about who we
are. If we have eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus reveals to us the whole truth about ourselves—our sinfulness, our
inadequacy, our paralyzing fears, our determined plunge toward self-destruction. It’s not a pretty picture, and many of us live
our whole lives in denial. I’ve sometimes thought that we ought to borrow from Alcoholics Anonymous for our prayers of
confession. Maybe we ought to open every worship service by taking turns standing and saying, “Hi! My name’s Mike, and I’
m a mess. I never get it quite right, and I can’t save myself.” That would be the unvarnished truth.
But Jesus also opens our eyes to the truth about God. That’s the other side of the coin. Jesus reveals God’s love for us,
the divine love that says, “No matter who you are or where you’ve been or what you’ve done, I love you. Even when you
despise yourself, I still love you, and I’ve got incredible plans for you. Wait until you see what I can make of your life.”
Both are true, both our worthlessness and our infinite worth. We’re tempted to grab onto one piece or the other. Some
Christians wallow in shame forever, “Oh, I’m so awful, I’m so terrible, I’m such a sinner,” and they never get past it. And
some Christians just skip right to, “I’m OK, you’re OK, we’re all OK,” and they sidestep all that messy stuff about the cross
and repentance and sanctification. Half-truths are more dangerous than outright lies. It’s the whole truth we need, the whole
truth that leads to life.
Jesus once told a parable about two men who went to the Temple to get right with God. One man was a tax collector so
disgusted by his own sinful life that he dared not even raise his eyes toward heaven. Sobbing and pounding his chest, he
repeated one heartbroken prayer over and over: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
The other man was a super-righteous, ultra-religious Pharisee. Standing tall and proud before God, he congratulated
himself on his habits of fasting and tithing. “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers or even
like this tax collector,” (from Luke 18:9-14 NRSV).
Who do you suppose left the Temple set right with God? The tax collector, of course. The Pharisee remained wrapped up
in the lie of his own perfection. Unable to admit his need for forgiveness, the Pharisee didn’t bother to ask for forgiveness. The
tax collector, on the other hand, saw the truth about his own great need and he also found the truth about God’s even greater
mercy.
When Jesus told his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life,” he was making an altogether outrageous claim
(John 14:6 NRSV).
“Jesus, do you mean to tell me that there is a particular way God means for us to live and that other ways are not what
God intended? Do you mean that life has a meaning and purpose established by God? We don’t just make it up on our own?
I thought truth was whatever worked for me. Are you telling me truth is non-negotiable? That I just have to take it or leave it?”
The philosophy of Pontius Pilate is the guiding spirit of our age, friends. In our contemporary culture, many people assume
that truth is subjective and situational. Whatever I happen to believe is true for me, and whatever you choose to believe is true
for you. In that way of thinking, truth is soft clay we can shape to suit our particular preferences. No absolute standards exist;
everyone makes up his or her own truth.
This view of reality is impossible to defend. Ask the young fellow who jumped out of a second story window using a trash
bag as a parachute. He whole-heartedly believed that the black plastic bag would float him gently to earth, just the way he’d
seen it on television. The broken collarbone he suffered a few seconds later offered compelling evidence that gravity is true
regardless of beliefs.
Truth is not shaped by opinion or consensus. Truth is truth regardless of whether we believe it. Do you think the truth is
shaped by our beliefs? Just the opposite! Our beliefs must be shaped by the truth or else we are fooling ourselves. The
insistence that truth is whatever you make it leads us into a nightmarish quicksand where nothing is certain or solid. If every
opinion carries equal weight and every philosophy is equally valid, then truth is nothing more than the flavor of the month.
“You will know the truth,” says Jesus, “and the truth will make you free,” (John 8:32 NRSV). That’s right, truth can set us
free, but opinions cannot. Our false beliefs and self-deceptions are the very chains from which we must be liberated.
Friends, I’m not suggesting that we ought to put 1984 into place twenty years late. We don’t need any thought police,
thank you. As long as we don’t hurt each other, I’m all for a world in which everyone is free to choose his or her own beliefs.
Even if the church had the power to dictate the beliefs of others, we would be wrong to do so.
But tolerating different viewpoints doesn’t mean agreeing that each one is equally true. We Christians need to be very clear
that Jesus claimed to be the truth, and the meaning of life, and the way by which we come to God. If we do not accept those
claims, then we have made up some new kind of Christianity that bears no resemblance to New Testament teaching. And if
we do accept those outlandish claims, then we must also accept that the meaning of human life and the manner of human living
is to be found uniquely and authoritatively in Jesus. He is not one truth among many; he is the standard by which every other
philosophy and belief must be judged.
How does all this actually apply to our lives? Think of it this way. The finest precision-performance automobile filled with
the highest-octane gasoline is incomplete in itself. That car lacks life or purpose until a driver turns the key and sets a hand on
the steering wheel. Then the journey begins and the possibilities are endless. Cars don’t drive on their own, and people don’t
live on their own. It matters who sits in the driver’s seat, and we are going nowhere worth going until we yield to Jesus Christ.
We are incomplete until we welcome the presence of the risen Lord.
“We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves,” says the apostle Paul. “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if
we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s,” (Romans 14:7-8 NRSV).
And that is the gospel truth!
Soli Deo Glori