The Moral Polaris - A Sermon on Truth

Bancroft, Ontario, Canada

June 2023

1. What is Truth?

John 18:33-38

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

Truth is a statement, proposition, affirmation or judgment that accurately corresponds to reality.

John 4:16-18

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

John 7:28

So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know.

John 17:17

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

2. Absolute and Relative Truth

Problems with Relative Truth

It is _____________.

Doesn’t follow the _____________________.

Equates the __________________ as truth itself.

Equates belief with ____________.

It is incompatible with ________________.

3. Can We Know the Truth?

___________ Truth Can Be Known

____________ Knowledge of the Truth

____________ Knowledge of the Truth

4. Relevance and Responsibility of Knowing the Truth

Pertains to me _____________.

Pertains to me _____________.

_____________ Pertain to me.

John 19: 6-11

When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” 7 The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

5. The Truth Revealed