What does #TruthBeatsLove really mean?

     Chapter 8 - Truth Beats Love from A Rooster Once Crowed
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. —2 Timothy 2

It's been quite a week. The review I put out on the Adam Hamilton book generated a LOT of discussion which I tried to answer as graciously as I could. But a number of folks asked how Truth could ever beat Love. Rather than try and boil it down (and I know this is another departure from the great #nothingbuttheblood series that we're in), I know I can always use a refill of Love. This is a long post, but here's the entire chapter (with linked Scripture) for one of my favorite chapters in the book: Chapter 8 - Truth Beats Love.

Jesus brought us the truth that religion won’t save us, that our works aren’t sufficient, and our thinking they are sufficient negates them, anyway. Until we understand what God did to give us the opportunity to enter the Great Dance, even our works push us farther from Him. The Gospel is that God sacrificed His most Precious out of love for me and, therefore, it’s my absolute pleasure to . . .

obey.

The second thing that Jesus brought us was a truth.

Within the context of the Great Dance, in Chapter 1, we drew a line between the beat of the dance and love. Love, sometimes termed grace, with its warm and fuzzy consequences, seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum from truth, which is often associated with the law with all of its requirements and obedience. We must choose, mustn’t we, whether to enforce the law (truth) or to administer grace (love)?

No, in fact, we don’t have to choose. We will see throughout this chapter that when we choose between law and grace or truth and love, we diminish and end up with a poor version of both. Jesus connected them in the specific truth He brought.

To whom did Jesus bring this truth?
What is this truth?
How can truth, mishandled, diminish our love?
How can truth and love work together as our Fundamental, a concept that we’ve discussed briefly but will fully work out here.

In those days, JESUS BROUGHT THIS TRUTH TO two major groups: the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees were more liberal in their faith. They got along to get along, and were more willing to conform to the greatest power of the day. Because of that, they held most of the lucrative government offices and the best jobs in the temple. They were among the wealthy class and looked more Greek and Roman than the typical Israelite.

They believed only in the Law contained in the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and rejected any other oral Law proposed by the Pharisees. Because the Torah contained little mention of life after death, they disregarded eternal life completely. This played out in their lives, as they were more likely to make decisions based on accommodating their present circumstances.

The Pharisees were the faith conservatives of the day—sort of. They spent a lifetime memorizing and trying to live by each and every one of the 613 Laws in the Bible. They followed the rules.

When you get serious about following 613 laws, and you lay thousands of years of human interaction over it, you develop some well-thought-out interpretations that turn into laws themselves. These new laws compound on top of each other until an already impossible law can become an obsession. These guys were sometimes wealthy, but typically were from the working class. Some that took pride in their ability to follow the rules, excluded others or weighed down their brethren were regular foils in Jesus’ ministry. They would have looked extremely traditional.

They believed so strongly in a “world to come” and that the dead would be resurrected that failure to believe it as they did was one of the only three things that they thought would keep one from eternal life. Because of this, they were earnestly trying to earn reward and favor in this world to come. (A Pharisee didn’t quite see it as heaven so, for now, we’ll just refer to this as resurrection and eternal life.)

We have the same groups today. We may not be able to neatly stuff them into Republican and Democrat, rural or urban, lover or fighter—but we have pieces of each.

To be candid, I have been pieces of both.

I’ve been a Sadducee when I go along to get along—thinking that I’m doing good enough in this faith walk. I’ve changed my preferences toward the preferences of a client or a boss to make them like me. I have thrown out a coarse joke when it seemed appropriate or denied Christ when someone I want to impress also denied Him. I often looked, dressed and acted like those that occupy this world, rather than those whom I am called to love. And I have made decisions that are convenient to my present circumstances, even when they result in a resounding “Atta boy” from the deepest evil. Jesus criticized the Sadducees, but they weren’t his focus. His most scathing commentary was for the Pharisees.

I have been a Pharisee, too. I’ve been a student of the Word, which Jesus loves, but I’ve also been a rule follower. Jesus loves obedience, too, but when I’ve looked to others and felt superior to them or when God has asked me to help someone cut away something with a scalpel and I’ve used an ax, I’ve been a Pharisee. I have tried to earn God’s favor by obeying the rules I liked and failing to love. I’ve searched the Internet for a hair shirt. I’ve felt pride in things of God as if I’d been the one that initiated them. I have served others with a poor heart or hoped that others would see my labor and think better of me. I have judged others mercilessly.

Once you get outside yourself and begin to get serious about the Word, and start putting some action behind what you say you believe, there is an extreme risk of slipping into the trap of the Pharisees.

The risk is to get off the storyline of the Gospel—instead of curating it, we begin to interpret it and mold it around things that we can handle. We begin to say, “He couldn’t have meant that,” or “How can that be true?” God leveled His greatest criticism against those that calcify here—that became hard in their conviction that their own works made them acceptable and their religion would save them. In the end, Pharisees 2,000 years ago and today build the Gospel around a set of rules they hope to achieve and encourage others to do the same.

WHAT IS THIS TRUTH? The truth that Jesus brought us is that our works will never save us and, if you believe they will, you’re doomed. Throughout all history, no man except One has been able to accomplish works that stand up to the Law. The standard is too high. In the 21^st century, here’s how it plays out:

“Lord, I love You and I trust You. I obey all You tell me to do. I know that I take those additional deductions I didn’t earn and I know I yell at my _____________ and I know that I could have dealt differently with that person who’s against me, but hey. What else have Ya got? There is no one else in my _____________ that’s half as committed to You as I am. So, You’re welcome. And while we’re on the subject, I’ve got a few requests. I can’t wait to be with You and see You but, in the meantime, I need healthy _____________, and a good _____________ and how about throwing something in for me, too? You know what I like. Thanks. Amen.”[i]

But God, on the other end, says, “Wait wait wait wait wait wait. I have something I need to tell you…” Yet he’s met by that long, loud dial tone of someone who has hung up to run off to work or carpool or _____________.

Our response leaves the all-powerful creator of heaven and earth sitting on the other end with fewer options than He had at the beginning of the discussion. Lay months upon months there and what choice does He have but to shake our very foundations? We know something of this God by now, don’t we? We know that He had the ability to snap His fingers and clear our accounts, but to do so would have been an insufficient amount of love and grace to win our hearts. Instead, of the simple solution, He chose love. God chose love for us, for His Son and for the Holy Spirit in the way that love demanded it: the cross.

You know how this story progresses. Over time, because of our choices—choices that put other things in front of God in our hearts—we begin to lose these things (the healthy _____________, the good _____________ and the other pleasures). If your view of God is built on this—that I am accepted by God, because I obey—then whether you’ve actually drawn this out or not, you’re really saying that God owes you. It’s His end of the contract.

God owes you a good life, healthy kids, a loving/helpful spouse, a job, etc. And if He can’t (or doesn’t or won’t) provide those for you, then you’ll provide them for yourself.

I’ve taken a long time to get here, but the truth of Jesus turns this kind of thinking on its head. The truth is that He came to give us everything—to scatter His power, to become poor, to give up all glory, humbly—out of love for us. The truth is that when I recognize that, when that becomes my Fundamental, it is my absolute pleasure to obey.

When that truth goes deep into the center of our lives, things change.

I go from a guy ticking off 50 cents for every candy bar on a ledger like Ben Kingsley in a convenience store in House of Sand and Fog to Johnny Depp in Blow without the time to count transactions—I just weigh the money and put it in the spare bedroom. It goes from minutiae to Niagara. When the fact that the all-powerful creator of heaven and earth came down to climb on a cross to be shredded and torn for me becomes my Fundamental, it is my absolute pleasure to obey in everything—things big and small.

Instead of obedience being a chore that keeps me from what I’d really like to be doing, my love courses through this fundamental truth, drives my obedience and replenishes my love. Like a heart beats blood, my truth beats love, pushing it into all corners of my life.

But the truth doesn’t automatically work that way in our lives, does it? For most of us, our central truth (not God’s truth or law, but the laws by which we live) doesn’t grow our love and pleasure to obey. Our obedience is a furnace for which we earnestly search every corner of the house looking for any small bit of love to keep it running just a little bit longer. How can it become our pleasure to obey?

Before we look at this, let’s examine two parables Jesus shared to explore HOW TRUTH, MISHANDLED, DIMINISHES OUR LOVE.

Two men, a rich young ruler and a lawyer, approach Jesus and ask him nearly identical questions. They’re both weighing Jesus and trying to decide whether they should consider Him worthy to follow or instead begin a list of reasons to hate Him.

“What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

How you respond to Jesus’ answer to this question determines the tune your truth beats to. Does your truth beat love or does your truth beat hate, jealousy, comparison, rules, freedom, self….

Luke 10 is the only Gospel to report this incredible story of the Good Samaritan. It is so fundamental to our teaching that every child in Sunday school knows and can tell you the story.

Let me set the stage:

In that time, a lawyer wasn’t like we might think of one today. His expertise was in Mosaic Law and so he acted kind of like an arbiter and judge for faithful men when they got into a dispute or when they just wanted to know how something should be interpreted.

Christians have gotten away from this today but, for centuries, those seeking to be faithful to God would seek out wise counselors like this lawyer, to tell them what is acceptable in a specific situation. The faithful Jew would lay out the facts and pose a question, then the lawyer would mine his extensive canon of mostly memorized Scripture and make a ruling.[1]

In this parable, the lawyer stands and asks the question perfectly. He doesn’t ask, “What shall I do to EARN eternal life?” No, he uses the word “inherit.” See the difference? Want to earn a fortune? Get an education. Get a job. Save a lot of money and then take some big risks—maybe six in a row—and then, maybe, you’ll earn a fortune.

Want to inherit a fortune? If this option is even available to you (by being born into the right family), then there’s one thing you’ve got to do: Don’t mess up. At this point, the lawyer’s looking good to the crowd—but Jesus sees his heart.

Jesus then turns the question back on him, but the lawyer was ready.

Perhaps the lawyer had heard Jesus’ teaching and just parroted it back to Him or it could have been a significant part of the teaching at the time. Either way, His response is profound, because it draws together two different scriptures from the depths of the Torah.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind,” is a close interpretation of the Shema.[2] The collection of verses called the Shema were of critical importance to Judaism by 100 A.D. and is still contained within Phylacteries (or Tefillin) and the Mezuzah outside Jewish homes today. They are the John 3:16 of Judaism.

“And [love] your neighbor as yourself,” is a little more problematic. It also comes from the Torah, but is buried in the middle of Leviticus 19 under the (much later given and only in Protestant Bibles) title “Sundry Laws.” Called the greatest commandment by Christ (Matthew 22:39 and Mark 12:31) and quoted by Paul (Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14) and James (2:8), it comes after some good rules for living and before guidelines on mixed breeding of cattle, seed and clothing fibers.[3]

This Law wasn’t written on a tablet and brought down the mountain. Jesus and this lawyer pick these two scriptures out as two that define all Scripture and a roadmap to inherit eternal life.

Don’t mess it up.

The lawyer got the answer he was seeking: Good job—do that and you’ll get eternal life. Yes. Thank you. But, instead of stopping there, he pressed on.

Justify.

Jason Lin suggested in a sermon that this addition to an already auspicious title was fawning, essentially trying to flatter Jesus—and He was having none of it. Jesus gave the same initial answer that He had given the lawyer: “Obey.”

If the rich young ruler had my Dad, he would have said, “Thank you. You are correct, sir” Jesus wouldn’t have let that stand, though, because, “looking at him, Jesus felt love for him…” Love.

This prideful ruler, who chased after Him, fell at His feet and begged that the question we all pose deserved an answer, so Jesus gave him a different one. While He had told the lawyer to go and care for neighbors that hate him (or at least that he hated), this time, He told the ruler to sell all he had.

Here in the stories of the lawyer and the rich young ruler, we have two who submit to the Law, but fail to connect it to their love. Instead of obeying because they love, they obey in order to be accepted. They hold their loves separate from the Law.

Let’s look at this a little closer and see HOW TRUTH AND LOVE CAN FUNDAMENTALLY WORK TOGETHER. How can we connect our hearts’ greatest love to fuel our obedience to the truth that Jesus affirmed?

First, notice how Jesus, in perfect wisdom, provided answers specific to each man, but also gave the same answer. The answer was to obey out of your love. Jesus told them to obey in the big things and to obey in the small things, but also to obey in the circle of things that each man considered impossible.

Both men were disheartened, because they were focused on themselves and didn’t see the others around them. When their obedience was fueled by their own needs, the level of obedience Jesus demanded was impossible. But when obedience is fueled by love, this type of obedience becomes a pleasure.

Let’s look just below the surface in the parable of the good Samaritan. The priest was headed away from Jerusalem into Jericho. The road is a 17-mile descent of about 3,300 feet—from the highest point in the area to the lowest point then known. It is treacherous and signifies a walk from heaven into hell. If the priest had touched that man, not because of nationality but because of his open wounds, he would have become ceremonially unclean. Since the ceremony would have happened in Jerusalem, it is not clear what relevance becoming unclean actually had to the priest, but it would have put him out of service for a period of time. The same goes for the Levite, but here, we’re given no indication whether the Levite is ascending or descending. He is just going.

Their role within society is critical for these two characters. They were seen as the manifestation of piety and religious duty—their actual job was to serve God. If they were coming and going—whether ascending to or descending from Jerusalem—it was implied that they were in service to God, and yet their service lacked any love for this man.

How many times have I been en route to a Bible study and passed someone homeless or stranded on the side of the road? Does my obedience drive my love or does my love propel my obedience?

Said another way, in my heart, does the Law give me a way to prop up what I really love, or does my love push me to greater service through obedience to the Law? One leads to burnout, comparison, hatred and standing outside of your father’s party, cursing him. The other may look to the world like the same thing but, instead of obedience diminishing you, feeling like a chore, or draining you, it becomes a spring of love that replenishes—a veritable fountain overflowing with water that runs through the streets and quenches the thirst of a city.

When the lowly Samaritan comes, everything changes because, “he felt compassion.” He picked up someone that hated him and sacrificed his time and his provisions for this stranger. He proved to be a neighbor.

The Samaritan’s truth beat love—his truth, obedience and the law of his heart didn’t run on rules and wasn’t built to sustain another set of hidden loves. His truth was powered by his love. To the lawyer, Jesus’ request, in that moment, was impossible. The lawyer’s hate for his neighbor was so great that he couldn’t even say the name Samaritan—he called him, “the one who showed mercy toward him.”

Sa-ma-ri-tan. It’s pretty easy to say, but his truth beat a hatred so strong or he’d grown a pride so large that he couldn’t even name the hero of this parable.

The rich young ruler, who Jesus loved, got his answer—a true answer, which was evidence enough that his truth beat luxury or wealth or security or significance. In the presence of the Lord of the universe, he chose his stuff.

I’ve been there and I can tell you, when you get back home and look around at all that things you put in front of Jesus, it all looks like junk, anyway.

These parables are ironic twists in a much larger Gospel story. Jesus was asking these two men to do the same impossible things that He was actually doing in their midst. This ancient story is one of an extremely wealthy man with centuries of reasons to be angry and with the ultimate credibility.

He travels across the universe into the land of those who hate Him. He reduces Himself by epic proportions in a Great Dance of Service. He keeps the commandments—all of them—perfectly in the Spirit that they were given and He is very good. He gives His time and treasure to the poor, but what He gives them is so much more than that—at a cost that is unspeakable. He loves God with every fiber of His being and exceeded Leviticus 19:18—finding the one narrow path toward loving His neighbor more than Himself.

And as this man ascended toward Jerusalem, Jesus was there before the priest. When the robbers lunged for the man, Jesus stood in his place, and took the beating. And as the man scurried away, and the priest moved to the other side of the road and the Levite passed by, Jesus knew that even though each one hated Him, it was His absolute pleasure to endure. Jesus’ truth beat love like a heart beats blood.

Jesus didn’t throw these parables around lightly. These parables told His great story, the Gospel story, to men who were reading from their own story, the wrong story. These parables were an opportunity for the scales to fall from our eyes and see the man that stands before them.

These parables aren’t just examples. They were being lived out, in real time by Jesus Whose truth and love connected seamlessly into acts of service.

So how can this connection become our Fundamental?

Keller told a story[iii] pretty soon after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, when the news media was full of pundits suggesting the real problem with the world was religious fundamentalism. Keller said that one night he heard his wife, Kathy, answer the pundits, “Well, it matters what your Fundamental is.”

Your Fundamental is that thing at the center of your heart around which everything else orbits. It is the thing that you think about ten or a hundred times a day. It is that thing that you write books about in the form of checks and calendars. It is that thing that you plant and sow and, eventually, reap in your life. If that happens to be hatred and a feeling of superiority, then it’s not too big a leap to consider flying a couple of planes into a building.

What is your Fundamental? You probably have a good idea what it is, but here’s a way to confirm it. Think about the last time you walked into a room and felt less than everyone else there. They might have been richer, prettier, better dressed, more powerful, better athletes, or thinner. Hold that picture in your mind. Or, think about the last time you were in danger. Maybe you were in danger of losing your job, your house, a loved one, a child, your retirement—or maybe someone literally put a gun in your face.

Where you go next is your Fundamental. If you say, “Yeah, but I’m from a better family than all these folks,” or “I’m OK, I’ve got a nest egg socked away,” or “Yeah, but I drive a Mercedes.”

Where you go next when your significance or security are threatened is your Fundamental.

And when that Fundamental is that the all-powerful creator of the universe came down from heaven at an unbelievable cost to break and tear His greatest love, because He loved you—when that becomes the center of your heart—then your heart switches over, love compels your service and it is your absolute pleasure to obey.

But how do we do that? What does it look like to begin anew? Start with three things: a request, a warning, and a burial.

Start by asking God to increase your love. Earnestly pray for it and repent of those things that have muted it in your heart.

Remember the story of our trip to FAO Schwartz? We wanted to get our children a special toy there, but they needed to want it, too. This is like that. If you ask God for love, He will give it to you, because He’s dying for you to have it. In fact, He has already paid for it and all you have to do is choose it—to want it more than whatever your hand is clutching right now. With all the poetry you can muster or even with a groan, reach up to God and ask Him to send His Spirit into your heart and to increase your love. Then, as you rise from prayer, walk out into the world as if your love has been exponentially increased. Even before you can see that it has, assume that God has loosened a wellspring of love within your heart.

C.S. Lewis talks about this at length:

Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already. That’s why children’s games are so important. They are always pretending to be grown-ups—playing soldiers, playing shop. But all the time, they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits so that the pretense of being grown-up helps them to grow up in earnest.

Now the moment that you realize, “Here I am, dressing up as Christ,” it is extremely likely that you will see at once some way in which at that very moment the pretense could be made less of a pretense and more of a reality. You will find several things going on in your mind, which would not be going on there if you were really the Son of God. Well, stop them. Or you may realize that, instead of saying your prayers, you ought to be downstairs writing a letter, or helping your wife to wash up. Well, go and do it.

… There are lots of things which your conscience might not call definitely wrong (specially things in your mind) but which you will see at once you cannot go on doing if you are seriously trying to be like Christ.

This prayer, assumption and acting requires a warning: Jesus’ truth to the lawyer and the rich young ruler were extremely costly to each. Jesus’ love to us was costly. Any parent’s love, if properly gifted to a child, is extremely expensive.

Yet somewhere along the way, we have decided that personal responsibility is our neighbor’s job and doesn’t have to cost us a thing.

This even applies to the church, which is often outspoken about issues for which their stand on truth costs them little. Earnest churches have campaigned against accurate readable translations of the Bible, women’s suffrage, abolition, civil rights and other issues today for which their stand on truth cost them nothing while overlooking their own contribution (read-sin) to the issue entirely.

Society is no better. In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, those with no interest in owning or having a firearm see a solution in gun control. Those who own firearms but have no immediate connection to anyone who is mentally ill believe all can be solved by focusing on mental health. And those with children dealing with anti-social behaviors say we should not be too quick to point to a certain type of child as the problem. Somewhere along the way, we have decided that personal responsibility is our neighbor’s job.

When we look past our own obvious sin to shine a light on the sin that we will never commit, we manipulate the Gospel. When we develop solutions to problems that lay the burden of compliance on our neighbors, we choose the lesser love of the lawyer. When we choose to focus our congregations on issues that do not affect our lifestyles in any way, we choose the rich young ruler’s wealth over God.

The antidote to this is God’s love letter to man. Sold more than any other book in history, the Bible is now universally available—and nearly unread in most of the developed world. Christians purport to build a life on it, but don’t even bother to read it.

The Bible is the window to God and steady plodding through it, a chapter a day to start, will provide the protection and wisdom you need to avoid trouble as you move out into the world with love.

Finally, you must bury the cross deep within your heart. Read and work though the Gospels and this sacrifice until it melts you. Imagine what it must have been like to stand in Jerusalem. How did the blood of Jesus, mixed with dirt and sweat, smell? How did it feel to stand by and see 400 pounds of wood and flesh drop nine inches into the groove that had been cut to hold it?

There are innumerable ways to make this real to you, but draw close to the image of Adam, lifeless but held tenderly, and then the hot breath of God entering into His nostrils. It took days for God to create the world, and thousands of years for Him to fix it. From that first breath to Jesus’ last, the creator of the universe loved you in the most costly way anyone has ever seen. And the truth is that, even if everyone else had been spotless, He loved you enough to make the same choice of sacrifice, even while you waged rebellion against Him.

When the fact that an all-powerful God of heaven and earth became a seed and was torn for you—when that becomes your Fundamental truth, then it is your absolute pleasure to obey.

I love you.

#truthbeatslove

This was Chapter 8-Truth Beats Love printed in its entirety from A Rooster Once Crowed: A Commentary on the Greatest Story Ever Told. This book is available in a number of formats and has a Leader's Small Group Study Guide available, too. For more posts on #truthbeatslove, click here. Still not sure, well, how about another few minutes. Hear the Gospel Story Lesson Heard Around the World that started it all by clicking the player, below: