You Don’t Have a Truth Problem. You Have an Abiding Problem.

Why knowing about the truth and actually being free are two completely different things

Imagine. You go to the doctor and the scan shows something serious. The doctor sits down and tells you what she found. Do you look at her and say: well, that’s your version of the truth. I have my own version, and mine says I’m fine.

Of course not. When it actually matters your body, your car’s brakes, a bridge that engineers have condemned you want absolute truth. You demand it. You need it to be real and not negotiable.

We are all, underneath the surface, absolutists about the things that actually count. We just apply that same absolutism selectively.

The Inconvenient Claim

Sunday I was preaching through John 8, where Jesus says something that doesn’t leave room for selective application. He tells the crowd: unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

That phrase “I am” is not accidental. The word he in most translations is actually in brackets . It doesn’t appear in the original Greek. Jesus just says: unless you believe that I am. The same construction God used when Moses asked his name at the burning bush. I am who I am. Jesus is making the same claim.

It’s either the most important sentence ever spoken or the most audacious lie ever told. There isn’t much room in the middle.

Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. That’s not a preference or a perspective. That’s a diagnosis.

The Costume Problem

A few verses later, Jesus says something to the people who already believe in him. Not the skeptics. The followers.

He says: if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.

The word abide is old-fashioned enough that it doesn’t land the way it should. But the image Jesus is painting is clear. He’s describing the difference between living somewhere and visiting somewhere. Between making a place your actual home and stopping by occasionally.

Think of it this way. Most of us treat our faith like a suit hanging in the closet. Monday through Saturday it stays there. Sunday morning we take it off the hanger, put it on, walk in, and it looks good. And then we hang it back up when it’s over.

We’ve been content making more Christians like we make Christmas cookies. Run the cutter along the dough, add some sprinkles, done. But Jesus didn’t say make Christians. He said make disciples.

A disciple is not someone who knows about Jesus. A disciple is someone who looks like Jesus. Who thinks the way Jesus thought. Who moves through the world the way Jesus moved through the world. That takes more than Sunday mornings.

Two Different Kinds of Knowing

And then comes the famous line: you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Most people have heard the second half. Fewer people pay attention to the condition attached to the first half. If you abide in my word, you will know the truth. The abiding comes before the knowing. The knowing comes before the freedom.

There’s a detail in the Greek that changes how this lands. There are two words for know in the New Testament. One is intellectual, head knowledge, the kind you get from memorizing things, the kind you can demonstrate on a test. The other is relational and intimate. The kind of knowing that changes you from the inside.

When Jesus says you will know the truth, he uses the second word. He’s not describing a theology degree. He’s describing a relationship close enough that the truth of who Jesus is becomes part of how you think, how you act, and what you want.

The word translated truth here carries the meaning of the revealed or unhidden reality. The thing that’s been right in front of you the whole time that you finally see.

Freedom, in other words, is not the result of knowing the right things. It’s the result of being close enough to the right person that his reality becomes your reality.

The Thing That Actually Unites

Near the end of the passage, things get personal. Jesus is talking to religious people. People who are doing the right things, attending the right services, tracing the right lineage. Then he says: you’re more focused on your heritage than on your freedom.

The application wasn’t abstract. Right now the Lutheran church body I serve in is in the middle of electing a new president, and the denomination is divided. People on different sides care passionately about things that are real. But something important transcends both “sides.”

If we truly understand abiding in God’s word, we’ll understand that something is more true than all the things that divide us. If we let the things that are preferences divide us, we bury the one thing that unites us. And his name is Jesus.

The same Spirit who hovered over the face of the waters in Genesis. Poured out in Acts. Given in baptism. Present in the bread and wine. That’s the one thread. Everything else is a preference about how to handle the thread.

The Practical Question

So here’s what Sunday came down to.

Are you skimming God’s word for content or abiding in it for life?

There’s nothing wrong with a daily Bible verse on your phone. But Jesus is calling you somewhere past that. The daily verse is the welcome mat. Abiding is moving in.

What would it look like for you to go one level deeper in your engagement with Scripture this week? Not as a religious obligation. As the practice of someone who wants to actually be free.

Because the freedom Jesus is offering is not freedom from inconvenience or difficulty. It’s freedom from the thing that actually has you, from the patterns, the shame, the identity built on the wrong foundation. That kind of freedom only comes one way.

Abide. Know. Free. In that order. Every time.