Foundation of Reality

 

 Foundation of Reality

John 8:32; 14:6; 17:17; 2 Cor. 5:7; Hebrews 11:1

Theme: Authentic facts point to God’s truth; we must live by God’s truth and not mere facts…by faith and not by sight.

Relevance:

John 8:32, says, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Accepting and actively living by Christ’s teachings breaks the heavy chains of sin, fear, and spiritual blindness. God also delivers us from spiritual confusion when we believe Him instead of our circumstances. Facts are subject to misleading, but embracing God’s truth is freeing, liberating, and life transforming!  

Hebrews 11:1 states: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Rather than relying strictly on physical observation or human scientific measurement, biblical faith treats God, His word, and unseen spiritual truths as the ultimate foundation of reality.

Introduction:

God’s spiritual truth (His word and promises) supersedes temporary earthly facts (physical or biological realities or human observations). Again, selecting God’s reality over our mere visible or empirical world perceptions is the very meaning of living by faith (Heb. 11:1-6). While the exact phrase “truth over facts” is rather modern, the King James Bible explains that God’s eternal word overrides human circumstances, obstacles, and observations always. God’s statements in the Bible are not dismissed merely because some misguided soul says so. Bible teachings are not relegated to sheer superstition or nonsense just because some supposedly ‘intellectual,’ ‘highly educated’ person, or ‘vastly esteemed group’ demotes it to such status. I do not apologize for valuing God’s revelation over human education! 

Message:

Secondly, Truth Must Override Facts as a Standard!

Once more, God’s truth does not change with time, culture, or personal feelings, nor is it diminished in its real significance by an elite group of esteemed individuals. Truth always remains constant for all people, and abiding within truth (embracing complete reality) is the power of authentic spiritual freedom! Truth provides a correct foundation for reality. 

This Tendency to Select God’s Truth is a Recurring Thesis in the Word:

• John 17:17: “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” — God’s standard as always is absolute truth. Jesus in His ‘High Priestly Prayer’ is asking the Father to cleanse the disciples and separate them from worldly corruption so they can serve Him.
• “Truth” (the content and occurrence points to ‘what happened’ or ‘whole truth’) constitutes the environment God uses to make us holy—His word. His message and standards do not change. In a confusing world, His word is the ultimate, absolute stable reality.
• Now His second petition for them was for their sanctification. Sanctify means “set apart for special use.” A believer is to be distinct from the world’s sin, its values, and its goals.
• The means of this sanctifying work is God’s truth. The truth is communicated in the Word, which is both personal and propositional. As the message about Jesus was heard, believed, and understood, the disciples’ hearts and minds were captured. This change in their thinking resulted in changes in their living. The same is true of believers today. As they appropriate God’s Word to their lives, they are sanctified—set apart for God and changed in their living in order to honor God (cf. 15:3). God’s message set the apostles apart from the world so that they would do His will, not Satan’s.^[1]
• John 14:6: “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life...” Truth is a person, Jesus Christ, —a divine reality, not just data points, a collection of metrics, or a clear pattern for making informed decisions. Jesus during the Last Supper is telling His disciple Thomas that He is the sole path, ultimate truth, and source of eternal life required to reach God the Father.
• Beloved, Jesus literally embodies divine reality; He is God’s absolute standard. He represents the final, complete, and most accurate revelation of God to the world. God does not simply consider some data pipeline that directly drives operational performance and strategic growth. He relies on Jesus, the TRUTH and so should we!
• As the Father is Truth and Life, Jesus is the embodiment of God so people can come to the Father (cf. 1:4, 14, 18; 11:25). By His words, No one comes to the Father except through Me, Jesus stressed that salvation, contrary to what many people think, is not obtainable through many ways. Only one Way exists (cf. Acts 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:5). Jesus is the only access to the Father because He is the only One from the Father (cf. John 1:1–2, 51; 3:13).^[2]
• 2 Corinthians 5:7: “For we walk by faith, not by sight.” — This may be taxing for some individuals, but Believers are instructed to live by spiritual reality rather than physical evidence or observations.
• The word [faith] is not used actively in the sense of vision. Faith is contrasted with the actual appearance of heavenly things.^[3]
• To “walk” in the Bible indicates our daily life, habits, and the way we conduct our journey through life.
• “By faith” is literally trusting the truth of God and His eternal promises even without physical/material proof or verification.
• “Not by sight” is refusing to let temporary physical data, struggles, fears, or worldly-wise emergences control our hope or decisions.
• Beloved, by this strategy we can overcome difficulties by permitting this ‘truth’ when facing intense suffering remind us that earthly life is brief but rather hard at times. We MUST remember our eternal hope constantly! We are to look ahead to an eternal, perfect home with God after physical death, which cannot be seen now but is gripped by our faith.
• The fact that we walk by faith, not by sight is abundant proof that we are absent from the Lord. We have never gazed upon the Lord with our physical eyes. Only through faith have we ever seen Him. As long as we are at home in the body, we have a life that is less close and intimate than the life of actual sight.^[4]
• What sustained Paul was the realization that this was a temporary and transitory state (2 Cor. 4:18). He focused not on present but on future conditions, not on the seen but the unseen. To live this way is to live by faith, not by sight. It is to live in light of ultimate rather than immediate realities (cf. Rom. 8:24–25), to be obedient to God’s commands despite the hardships that obedience produces (e.g., 2 Cor. 11:23–29). Such was Paul’s life. If the choice were his, he would have seized the opportunity to depart this pilgrimage life and take up residence (be at home) with the Lord (Phil. 1:21–23). But the constraints of his commission caused him to press on (cf. Phil. 1:24; Eph. 3:1–13).^[5]
• Child of God, genuine believers are instructed to live according to spiritual reality rather than physical evidence. It is not that we forsake our ability to think, we conscientiously choose to ‘see’ things God’s way! We make daily choices by trusting God’s unseen promises instead of relying only on physical circumstances, the perceptions of human logic, or what our eyes can see…what seems extremely real. Remember, you must exercise your faith; your ability to reason will not give you all the information…only what’s tangible. We are called to steadily trust in the Lord Jesus always and especially during difficult times.

Truth always remains constant for all people and cultures, and abiding within truth (embracing complete reality) is the indisputable power of authentic spiritual freedom! Truth provides the only correct foundation for all reality. 

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^[1] Edwin A. Blum, “John,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 333.

^[2] Edwin A. Blum, “John,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 322.

^[3] Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887), 319.

^[4] William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments, ed. Arthur Farstad (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 1838.

^[5] David K. Lowery, “2 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 566.