Truth

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
(John 16:12-15, NIV, Bible.Logos.com)

The week prior to Trinity Sunday was one full of unique moments of God's grace and presence as I prepared for the Sunday worship service and the sermon I needed to deliver. I was lead a month ago to deliver a sermon on the passage at the top of the page, John 16:12-15. The passage discusses how the disciples are not ready as of yet to hear everything Jesus has to teach them. Part of hte reason (I believe) is because of what is about to happen to the followers of Jesus with the crucifixion and the doubt of who Jesus really is. Jesus proclaims a Spirit of truth to be given as a teacher to the followers. The remarkable part of the past week is the conversations and moments of focus on truth I had this past week.

The first experience of truth was a book I read (amazingly quickly) on the discipleship of men in the church. I read The Map: The Way of All Great Men.The author, David Murrow, presents a journey of men that is three fold. This journey resembles the life of Christ and comes from the Gospel According to Matthew. The journeys revolve around men traveling in a direction surrender to God's desire and willingness to follow His will. The second journey is one of strength. This is where my other conversations came into a focus.

The second encounter was with leaders from another church who I was meeting to work on projects of the regional body of my denomination. Over lunch we discussed many of the issues facing our denomination and the churches' we work with. As we discussed, I was asked how we can keep and get people into the church again. The other leaders were able to spend time in churches not of our denomination on a regular bases and look at what they are doing to teach and reach people for the Kingdom of God. I stated that we leaders (lay and ordained) need to make a solid deceleration in what we believe. We need to state that the Bible is God's instruction and we need to live according to those standards. Many of the churches and religious groups who are growing and receiving new followers are those who are putting a consistent message of beliefs and expectations of the followers. Jesus demanded the same from His followers. They were expected to learn and live the life He called them to accomplish. The demand was so great that many people did not come and follow because of that demand.

I was challenged even further on this point in respects to putting forward too strict a lifestyle. I followed that with the fact that we must teach God's grace. We cannot live this life demand of us on our own. If we could, there would be no reason for God to send His Son. We need the grace and the Spirit that is sent. I believe we must teach the truth of what Christ has accomplished and is accomplishing in the lives of His followers. We also must teach that Christ came to offer grace to live the life that He called to live.

In my sermon, I challenged all the listeners, myself included, that we must teach the truth that the Spirit is teaching us. We also must teach the grace that Christ has bought us. I also challenged the young people to hold our feet to the fire that we teach these great truths to them. We cannot fail. Their future and our demands on our willingness to answer the call of Christ. I hope that I cannot answer the call and stand firm on Christ's truth.