Is He the Teacher of Truth or the Truth to Be Taught - 16

What points we can addition a good teacher will inspire beyond the classroom today. Dr. David Jeremiah books exegesis gifted teacher.

In ancient Israel continues to teach his followers today listening is David she's a teacher of truth for the truth to be told we know the Bible tells us that Jesus was one of the greatest teachers who ever walked on this earth with the Bible also tells us that Jesus himself said I am the way and I am the truth so was he the teacher of truth, or was he the truth to be taught the answer that question is coming up right now we can envision turning teacher change lives and the lives of millions of people have been changed by a teacher.

They met in grade school, high school or college or Sunday school teachers leave a deep imprint in the American author Philip Wiley said one good teacher.

Lifetime can sometimes change is a liquid into a solid citizen. I'm sure all of you can think back over your lives. Remember one or maybe two particular teachers. The teacher who really made the first impact on my life. She entered my life. 70 years ago I was in the first grade and believe it or not. After 70 years. I remember her name.

Her name was Miss Kate L. She taught in the school that I went to when my father was a pastor. Toledo, Ohio. She encourage me and help me. I felt so out of place.

For some reason, like we all do schools a pretty rough place to be there for the first time she made an impact on my life and I'm sure you can remember somebody like that as well that America is full of godly professors and teachers.

I believe teachers share a noble profession and I believe that because if your teacher, you have chosen the same vocational opportunity as the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the master teacher.

He was often addressed not as Jesus or Lord, but his title of teacher in Matthew 819. Scribe came to Jesus saying teacher I will follow you wherever you go, the rich young ruler address Jesus and said to him, good teacher, what thing shall I do that I might have eternal life. Once the disciples were caught in the storm and they awoke Jesus saying teacher do you not care that we are perishing, James and John came to Jesus one time and said teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and he said to him, rabbi or teacher, we know that your teacher come from God that he would take a concordance, especially in unabridged concordant and look up the word teacher or rabbi. You'd be surprised. Jesus is called teacher or rabbi more than 45 times in the New Testament, Jesus is called teacher by the first person following the resurrection. Remember that story Mary Magdalene lean was standing by the tomb weeping when she turned around she saw Jesus and at first she thought he was the gardener, but then it came to her like a rush. It was Jesus in John 2016. She turned and said to him rowboat. I which is to say, teacher, Jesus also spoke of himself in this way. In John 1313 he told his disciples. You call me teacher and Lord, and you say well for so I am just as he is King of Kings and Lord of lords. He is also teacher of teachers. He's the supreme educator of the ages. Sometimes he talked to three people at one sometimes just one other times he spoke of thousands without the application or electronic projection, and even now he is our teacher and he speaks to us across the ages is a not through his words which find a foundation in our minds and in our hearts.J also Sanders pointed out that the teachings of Jesus were simple and vital and ethical practical and original psychologically correct and absolutely true. Indeed true in every way.

We know his teachings are true, because he himself is the truth. So before we look at the nature of his teachings.

Let's look at what it means for Jesus to be the very definition of truth. Jesus is the truth is both God and man as God is the source of the truth as man, he is the personification of the truth. Jesus said in John 14 six I am the way, the truth and the life.

He didn't simply say I will show you the way I will tell you the truth, I will provide you life. He boldly declared he was those things.

He said I am the way, I am the truth I am the life.

He was the very embodiment of those things.

This is a major theme in John's Gospel. As you study the fourth Gospel which is one of my favorites in the Bible, you can't help noticing how the subject of truth just keeps coming up again and again. John begins in chapter 1, telling us that Jesus Christ was the true light, and that he came to us from the father full of grace and truth and referred to himself as the true bread from heaven. Perhaps John's interest in emphasizing the nature of his absolute integrity was prompted by something. John heard when Jesus was on trial. Remember in this public exchange. Jesus told Gov. Pontius Pilate. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice and pilot smiled back at him with this question what is truth. You can see the smirk on his face that is the cynical cry of relativism today. Humanism and secularism pilots question has overtaken our age and most modern thinkers may reject the existence of ultimate truth or absolute values because Guinness points out in his book impossible. People that today's radical form of philosophy claims that all human knowledge is socially constructed and nothing more.

In other words, reinvent truth we make up knowledge has no objective, absolute source, that's what's being taught, and that is what you hear if you enroll in many of today's university classes in philosophy, history, biology, or any other subject. When you send your children to a secular school best. Let them know they're going to hear this in the best be ready to respond to the snare of Pilate is echoing in the halls of our colleges across our screens.

The pages of her textbooks and the world tells us there are no eternal foundation. There is no truth, I have truth you have truth if you let me have my truth I let you have your truth even though they may be totally contradictory to each other so we don't believe in laws. We don't believe in standards.

We believe in whatever we create. This has a profound impact on everything that happens in our own lives and in the culture in which we live.

So here's the deal. We think that we have truth at our disposal that we can make our own truth, Randy Alcorn reminds us the truth isn't about her own perceptions or desires.

It's always about reality with the R a majority of us could get together and agree that we'd like gravity to be suspended tomorrow but our vote would have no impact on reality.

You and I can discover truth, but we cannot create truth. What's true is true and what's not is not for all of us all the time. Our culture views.

Truth is something inside of us, subject to revision. According to our growth and enlightenment, Scripture views truth as something outside of us, which we can believe or not, but never ever change.

I do not have the authority to change the meaning of the Bible. My job is to find out what the Bible really means what it really says and then help us all understand what that means to us.

Count me among those who will stand and shout that Jesus is the truth that Jesus is the author of truth.

Jesus is the communication truth.

Without this core axiom. There's nothing on which to build one's life. That's why there's so much chaos and confusion in our world today. Everybody's inventing their own set of truth, there's nothing but the kind of despair that eventually overwhelmed Pilate gone down in history as one of the greatest fools who ever lived, and stood face-to-face with the truth himself and rejected him. Had the truth standing in front of him and he asked the truth what is truth could have accepted Jesus so can you think about this meet. Jesus Christ is the incarnation of truth. We can have a personal relationship with the incarnation of the truth. We cannot only know Jesus. We can know truth.

The truth is absolute in its objective but it's also personal and knowable. That's why Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

Because this truth is a person you can know him and because he is Jesus he can set you free. Nothing more liberating than the truth no matter how hard it is. How many times I thought about this during my bout with cancer.

When I would take a test on a Monday and be told that I couldn't get the answer back for 10 days and all during that time, I would say to myself whatever it is is immaterial. I just want to know what it is I want the truth, and today in our culture. The greatest need. We have is for truth honest reporting for honest speaking for honest living Bible says there is one who can give us that truth that way that life and that one is Jesus Christ. You will never have a true moment of truth until you meet the truth himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. So Jesus the truth. The question is, is see the teacher of the truth or is he the truth itself.

He is the truth itself, but is also the teacher of truth.

All can learn about Jesus as we study his teaching Jesus true and Jesus the teacher.

The most effective teachers in life are those who model the truth that they teach and challenge their students to grow beyond what they think other possibilities, and that was truly Jesus was it not influenced his disciples not only by what he said but by how we live by the curriculum. He taught.

He had a vision of what disciples could be and he gave his life to teaching them would that look like in you. We don't have time to unpack all the essentials of his message. I want to share with you just three ways that Jesus teaching not only affected those who heard it when he walked on this earth but how it affects us today as well. As followers of Jesus. First of all, when Jesus taught his teaching challenged people in his teaching will challenge you Jesus. You may not know was a teacher who constantly challenged people and challenge their priorities, their potential there possibilities. For example, Jesus challenges the rich young ruler's priorities. Remember what he said to him, he said, go and sell everything you have and then come back and follow me.

He didn't really care what the man sold everything he had or not is what the problem was. This man didn't have his wealth as well have him. And Jesus wanted to find out if he was willing to walk away from that in order to put Jesus first in his life. Jesus also sent out his disciples to accomplish things that seem beyond their potential. Things like feeding 5000 people healing the sick and most of all casting out demons and remember, they fail, they came back and he said Lord what we do now.

It didn't work and it was a teaching moment for Jesus and his young men, and when Jesus gave the great commission. It was physically impossible for them to completed but he used it to expand the vision and get them started planting churches around the world and were still following that teaching and still feeling the impossibility of it all, but because of the teaching of Jesus, we continue to take the gospel to the whole world. Perhaps the most challenging part of the teaching of Jesus, and the most famous by way is found in Matthew five through seven. This is what we know as the sermon on the Mount. These chapters prove that Jesus was more than a carpenter more than a preacher and more than a mere man from his first word he spoke as if he were the author and interpreter of Scripture's words and their tone amazed the crowds as they astound us today and in the sermon of the Mount. We have a set of ethics that has never been better set of images that have never been forgotten and a set of instructions so relevant and challenging for us today as if they were written just for us. There are 107 verses in the sermon on the Mount, and here we have not listen to this in the sermon on the mount. We have this the Beatitudes the Lord's prayer. The golden rule the city on a hill salt of the earth. The narrow gate and the wise man who built his house upon a rock here in the sermon we discovered the eternal dimensions of morality and spirituality and we discover how to deal with anger and lust in divorce and retaliation and anxiety" and hypocrisy.

All of those are taught in the sermon on the mount, and we know what to do when we read them in Matthew five through seven. We have the greatest advice ever given in the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest man who ever lived. The sermon on the Mount provides evidence for the truthfulness of Christ and Christianity and Jesus were any less than a claim is message would have been less than it was how otherwise do we explain the here we are over 2000 years later, talking about a sermon that was preached by a man outside on a mountain to a group of people who don't have anything to do with us or our culture today, that sermon is still the greatest sermon from the greatest preacher who ever lived, and it is also regarded as one of the most famous speeches in world history, and the greatest message on practical ethics and moral psychology that has ever been delivered by anyone.

The secularists say that not religious people. This great sermon which was preached in Matthew five through seven was only the beginning of our Lord's instructional ministry, for the sake of time, let me just give you a few little tidbits of what he said just in the verses. This is some of what Jesus taught in his great sermon.

Matthew 516 let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven, 544, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. Matthew 66 but you, when you pray going here Roman.

When you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place. Matthew 620 lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Matthew 625. Do not worry about your life. Matthew 633 seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Matthew 634. Do not worry about tomorrow. Jesus said that in his great sermon in Matthew 712 therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them for this is the law and the prophets. Can you imagine having that kind of incredible truth packed into one sermon given by one person at a specific time and place in history. Herbert Taylor was a Chicago business leader who salvaged a nearly bankrupt company called club aluminum in time. Taylor made a small fortune and invested most of it in Christian causes was a deep and dedicated Christian, he became the major financial backer for many of the great student ministries that shape the last half of the 20th century.

Once during an illness. Taylor felt God wanted him to memorize the sermon on the Mount, and while bedridden, he did it. While he couldn't do anything else he could work use this time he was sick to memorize the sermon on the mount hundred and seven verse and he recited the sermon on the mount to himself every day, and those who knew him said his life increasingly began to take on the truths which Jesus spoke, so let me make a suggestion. All of us normally can ask you to memorize the sermon on the Mount memorization for most of us is like you want me to do what take a few minutes though in the next few days. Perhaps during your daily Bible reading time and just work your way through Matthew 567 sermon on the Mount use a colored pencil to highlight any command you find there.

Make a list of them on a tablet. Choose one of those things you read that strikes you in a special way and asked the Lord to pump that into your bloodstream until the obedience of your life reflects the truth that came from the lips of our Lord. You will never have a more interesting experiment than to experiment on the sermon on the Mount and learn the truth that is there and apply to your life to this teaching will challenge you and is teaching will change you Jesus teaching inspires us to change to be different to be better when we read about his life and study his words. We want to be more like him. The perfect picture of what it means to be a holy healthy human being only one person ever successfully live the Christian life and I was Christ himself when he returned to heaven he sent his Spirit to live within us, so that his spirit could form the personality of Jesus in our hearts and that's why you read in second Corinthians chapter 3, but we all, with unveiled faces. Behold, as in a mirror the glory of the Lord and we are being transformed were being changed into the same image from glory to glory is by the spirit of the words Paul told the Corinthians, when God brought Jesus back to heaven. Jesus and his Holy Spirit down here and when you accept Jesus as your Savior is Holy Spirit comes to live within your heart and one of the things the Holy Spirit does one of his key job is ministries is to convict us of sin and help us to grow into the likeness of Jesus is not that we become religious windows, but that would just become the client. People of God who live out the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ in our life. And as we notice him doing that is that begins to happen in our hearts. We are often surprised by ourselves because we ourselves are not ourselves. We're surprised because we seek the Lord Jesus doing things in us that we never dreamed we would ever do we stop and say where did that come from another words as we keep our eyes on Jesus, the Holy Spirit transforms us into the very person that Jesus himself. As we become more like Jesus.

Romans 829 says God has chosen us to be conformed to the image of his son, and Ephesians 415 tells us to grow up in all things under him who is the head, Christ as we grow up in Christ, our lives become more intrinsically truthful, for we are becoming like the one of whom we speak to stop a moment and say that in the world.

You can have a job and unless you do something really really bad what you do on your own time will never become an issue. In fact, in many places you can go to work 8 to 5 or whatever the hours are and would like a demon outside of that time, nobody finds out. Nobody cares makes no difference at all, but that is not true.

If you're a Christian. If you're Christian and you name the name of Christ, and you claim him to be your Savior.

Somewhere along the way it has to start making a difference in the way that you live you cannot live like you'd ever met Christ and then come to church on Sunday and so yes, I'm a Christian, Christian, and one of things we have here is a school district. We have some the greatest teachers you ever meet your life teachers that are truly making a difference in the lives of the kids who sit on their ministry.

I've had four children and now all kinds grandchildren go through the system.

I'm so grateful we asked the people who take care to sign a lifestyle agreement that basically deals with some things that are part of our culture today that don't belong in the life of the person who's teaching children. We want men and women here who not only teach the truth but live the truth to be perfect.

We all know that we make mistakes, but if were out in the world living as if Christ did not exist in our heart we are actually doing more damage to our students that if we didn't teach at all for the worst thing that can happen is to say with your mouth. This is who Jesus is and then to live your life in such a way that you deny everything said if you don't believe what you teach, you shouldn't teach teaching is not a career it's a calling.

We don't expect to be perfect because were not perfect, but we do expect you to live for Jesus because if you don't live for Jesus. You can ever persuade your students deliver Jesus either an teaching is not just about more information. Teaching is about a life that changes. Finally, this teaching will challenge you his teaching will change you and is teaching will cheer you up, it will cheer you. I love to read the words of Jesus one time his disciples got wind of the fact that he was going back to heaven. They didn't know what that all men, but they been with them for three years and they love them and so they started asking him questions and here's what Jesus said. He said geysers: let not your heart be troubled you believe in God believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions I go to prepare a place for you and if I go to prepare a place for Ella come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

I love that passage of Scripture as I can get into what disciples were feeling. Jesus is leaving something is going to another world when we can do. Jesus stepped right into that moment of despair with his comforting words was Jesus who said let not your heart be troubled. It was also Jesus who said, peace be still, and it was our Lord, who reassured us for your heavenly Father knows that you need all of these things Jesus was a teacher. All of us were teaching somebody outweigh weather just as parents were teaching our children current teacher retention. Our Sunday school you'll never find a better model for what it means to be a true teacher than to go to the teacher himself, the Lord Jesus Christ and discover how committed he was, not just to communicating truth, but the changing lives. Here's what I know men and women, you can't walk with Jesus. The way you're supposed to walk with Jesus and not the changed Jesus will change you.

So let me tell you what you need to do is really easy.

How many of you know that in many Bibles. Maybe you have one, is how many of you have a red letter edition of the Bible miss your hands on so many now you know that means is in the Bible and the New Testament.

You have all of the words of Jesus in red right can I tell you something that's way better than a red letter edition of the Bible. It's an READ Bible is more important to have it already 85 so if you want to grow in your faith don't go by a red letter Bible. Go get a Bible and read it and if it's red letters. That's great agreement with greatest resource we have is this book and it's the most neglected resource for all of us.

If were honest, the devil has done a huge task on many of us to push the Bible to the circumference of our lives so that it cannot make an impact on us. My challenge to us all is we have this book and it's primarily a book about Jesus. And when you read this book.

It makes you different and it makes you better and it makes you the person you really want to be. I pray that for all of us today.

We hope you enjoyed today's Turning Point, weekend edition with Dr. David Jeremiah this and other programs and get more information about how ministering by downloading the free point mobile. Final table by visiting our website and David Jeremiah don't/David davidjeremiah.org/radio. You can save you point television channel 72 Sunday mornings and I CCTV Sundays at 6:30 AM and Fridays at one. We invite you to join us again next week is Dr. David Jeremiah and she is another powerful message from God right here on Turning Point, weekend edition