We concluded our series “God Is…” at Gateway Church in Austin.
Truth isn’t merely a concept; it’s a person—Jesus Christ. God’s truth is relational, not just informational. It’s not a set of doctrines to memorize but a life to encounter, and a God to know. To walk in truth is to walk in alignment with Him—His nature, His character, and His revelation through Jesus.
Digging Deeper
Work through the following questions and scriptures on your own or get together with your group, spiritual
running partners, or family to talk through what you are learning.
Message Video from Gateway South Austin:
Message Notes from Ross Sagehorn, Carlos Ortiz, Jr., Eric Bryant, and Hannah Ojeda:
Big Idea: Knowing the truth isn’t about knowing a bunch of facts. It’s about knowing a person: Jesus.
Have you ever thought you knew something only to discover you were wrong all along?
An easy and silly example of this is misheard song lyrics.
One of the first times I remember this happening to me was on a camping trip as a kid. We were singing along to Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Bad Moon Rising” There is a line in the song that says “There’s a bad moon on the rise.” I was convinced that the line was actually – “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
There are so many lines like this! Let’s play a little game and see if you know the correct lyrics or if you’ve been wrong this whole time.
Starship – “We Built This City”
Correct Line – “We built this city on rock and roll.”
WRONG Line – “We built this city on sausage rolls”
The Beatles – “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
Correct Line – “I want to hold your hand.”
WRONG Line – “I want to hold your ham”
Bon Jovi – “Livin’ on a Prayer”
Correct Line – “It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not”
WRONG Line – “It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not”
Johnny Nash – “I Can See Clearly Now”
Correct Line – “I can see clearly now the rain is gone.”
WRONG Line – “I can see clearly now Lorraine is gone.”
Eurythmics – “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”
Correct Line – “Sweet dreams are made of this.”
WRONG Line – “Sweet dreams are made of cheese.”
Elvis Presley – “Suspicious Minds”
Correct Line – “We’re caught in a trap,”
WRONG Lines -“Recording a track,” “They call it a tramp” and “We caught him a trout.”
The Monkees – “I’m a Believer”
Correct Line – “Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer.”
WRONG Line -“Then I saw her face, now I’m gonna leave her.”
Elton John – “Tiny Dancer”
Correct Line – “Hold me closer, tiny dancer.”
WRONG Line -“Hold me closer, Tony Danza”
Will Smith – “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It”
Correct Line – “Gettin’ jiggy wit’ it.”
WRONG Line -“Kick the chicken with it.”
I realize I am a bit older than many of you, so these previous examples may be before your time. Here are some more recent ones for those of you who are younger:
Selena Gomez – “Good for You”
Correct Line – “I’m 14 carat.”
WRONG Line – “I’m farting carrots.”
NSYNC – “It’s Gonna Be Me”
Correct Line – “It’s gonna be me.”
WRONG Line -“It’s gonna be May”
Perhaps you have seen this meme all over social media at the beginning of this month…
Here’s the question that emerges from a goofy example like that…
Have you ever lived your life believing something was true, only to discover it wasn’t?
That’s not always a fun moment either, right? When we run smack into reality?
Dallas Willard, an American philosopher and theologian—and a notable voice of wisdom when it comes to spiritual formation—put it this way:
I often define reality as what you run into when you’re wrong, and often that is an unpleasant experience.
– Dallas Willard
And most of us can look in the review mirror to the times in our lives when we experienced some pretty major reality checks, right?
And I’m not just talking about the times when we got a lyric wrong, or got someone’s name wrong, or got someone’s birthday wrong. I’m not talking about the time you got the address wrong on your GPS, and looked up, and were like, “How did I get here?”
I’m talking about the big stuff.
- We got that person’s motives wrong.
- We made the wrong decisions relationally, and it wasn’t long before things blew up.
- We let that small misunderstanding with that person turn into ongoing irritation, and that irritation went unaddressed for so long that now we’re just angry.
- We thought that thing—the bottle, the pill, the website—could give us something it couldn’t, and our curiosity turned to straight-up addiction.
- And there came a day, for many of us, when we looked up at what had become of our lives with the same question: “How did I get here?”
- The reality of our lives hit us in the face.
And if your story is anything like my story, I think part of the reason why this happens is this:
- We have a tendency to equate personal feelings with truth, and they are NOT the same.
- We felt like we could trust the person, which in our minds made him or her trustworthy. But he or she wasn’t.
- We look back at that misunderstanding and we feel justified, like we have the moral high ground.
- So we wrote that person off as unwilling or unable to understand our side of the story—no shot at reconciliation.
- We feel good when that little shot of dopamine from the substance or image hits our system, and it’s a little easier to say, “Yes” to the next one because we tell ourselves, “This is what I need to feel better.”
But when we allow our personal feelings to define reality, it’s a matter of time before what’s truly real catches up to us.
You can say to yourself, “I just don’t feel like I believe in gravity today.” And that’s fine, until you decide to try jumping down a couple flights of stairs. At that point it doesn’t matter what you feel or believe about gravity. Gravity wins, every time.
Multiply that idea by the dozens and dozens of voices in your life, all fighting for your attention and trying to get you to subscribe to the notion that this voice, this source of input, is the most real, the most true, the most important, the most urgent thing going on in your life right now.
Is there any way to know what’s really true?
We’ve been in this teaching series we’re calling God Is, where over the last several weeks we’ve been working through the book of 1 John to grow in our understanding of the character of God. We’re getting to know who God is.
When the Bible teaches us things like God is light, God is hope, God is love, we’re learning to associate these attributes, or qualities, of God with his character.
These aren’t just things God does.
This is who God is.
And if this is who God is, then the question becomes:
Who does God want to BE in my life?
Not just, what does God want to DO in my life? It’s about more than that. It’s about more than just what I can get from God, or what God can get out of me.
This is about so much more than a transaction. This is about a relationship.
We’ve mentioned this throughout the series; the author of 1 John is the same John who wrote the gospel of John (one of the four biographies of Jesus—Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). And in the gospel of John, Jesus teaches his disciples (and us) this fundamental reality when he says:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. – John 17:3 (NIV)
This might blow up some of our theology. Eternal life is not just something we experience on the other side of our funerals. It’s something that, according to Jesus, we can experience right now. And it’s all about knowing God, knowing Jesus, intimately, experientially, relationally.
So, these are important questions:
Who is God, who does God want to be in my life, AND is that how I see and experience him?
Because if the answer is “No,” maybe I’m wrong.
See, we can do the same thing to God that we do in all the other parts of our lives:
We define God based on how we feel about him.
If God is love, and this is what I think love should feel like, then that must be what God is like.
If God is hope, and this is what I think hope should feel like, then that must be what God is like.
And the reason why some of us get so disappointed in God is because we’ve built in our minds a God that isn’t real.
This is why John, in the final chapter of this letter we’ve been studying, in literally the second to last verse before the end, seems so intent on reminding his audience of this—1 John chapter 5, verse 20:
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. – 1 John 5:20 (NIV)
What’s interesting about this verse is that even though the word know is repeated, they’re actually two different words in the original text.
The first instance of the word know is the Greek word oida.
This is literally, “to know or understand something.”
Like, I know my name, I know two plus two equals four.
This is something you already know (or have learned).
The next instance of the word know is a different Greek word, ginōskō.
This word means something slightly different, “to come to know.”
As in, over time. Gradually. With shared experience.
John is literally saying, “We already know that the Son of God (Jesus) has come and given us understanding (he taught us, he performed miracles, he died and rose from the dead as payment for our sin).
Why?
So that we may come to know him who is true (God the Father).”
In other words:
If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.
And I wonder if as John was capturing this idea at the end of this letter, he was reminded of that one time toward the end of Jesus’ life when Jesus was giving his disciples (which would have included John) a sort of farewell message before he would be arrested, killed, and buried, and Jesus said this to his friends in John chapter 14:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:1-6 (NIV)
Thomas says, “Lord, we don’t know the way.”
And Jesus says, “Thomas, I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life.”
If you want to know what God is like—if you want to know who God is—look at Jesus.
These two passages of Scripture offer very similar thoughts. But, if you caught it, there’s another link between them. And it has everything to do with what we’ve been talking about:
How can you know what’s true?
John answers the question in both passages.
In 1 John 5: Jesus came so that we might come to know him who is true (God).
In John 14: Jesus says, “I am the truth!”
Here’s the takeaway for us:
Knowing the truth isn’t about knowing a bunch of facts. It’s about knowing a person: Jesus.
If you want to know God, if you want to know what’s true, look at Jesus. Listen to him. Watch him. Learn from him. We could say apprentice under him.
See, knowing the truth isn’t about intellectual capacity. It’s about relational intimacy. Knowing the truth isn’t just about winning a Bible trivia contest. It’s about knowing the one who inspired the Bible. Knowing the truth isn’t about having all the right answers. It’s about having access to the one who is your ever-present guide to what is right, and true, and best. If we’re living with a Biblical perspective, knowing the truth literally means knowing Jesus.
Truth isn’t a what. It’s a who.
And the question I’d have at this point if I were you is this:
What does knowing the truth, what does knowing Jesus, actually mean for my life, right now?
One more field trip to the gospel of John, this time we’re in John chapter 8—Jesus says this:
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will [come to] know (ginōskō) the truth, and the truth will set you free.” – John 8:31-32 (NIV, notes added)
That word truth is also the exact same word Jesus uses in John chapter 14 to describe himself. Jesus is saying,
“If you hold to my teaching—like, watch what I do, listen to what I say, learn from me, then practice it, over and over—you are putting yourself in the best possible position to get to know me (the truth), and when that happens, I’ll set you free.”
Free from what?
Free from the power of sin in our life.
Free from the inevitable results of our continuing to choose our way and our defining what’s true on our terms (the Bible would call that death).
Free from addiction.
Free from the wounds of sexual brokenness.
Free from the death-grip anxiety and depression might have on you.
Maybe not immediately, but eventually—knowing the truth, knowing Jesus, leads to freedom in even the most broken parts of our lives.
So, we have a choice to make. We can choose to walk in our own definition of truth. We can choose to let what feels right guide our lives (and that might work for a while, until what we thought was true comes face to face with reality). OR we can put ourselves in a position to come to know the truth, more and more. His name is Jesus.
And when we put ourselves in a position to, as John Mark Comer would put it, be with him, become like him, and do what he did (which isn’t always easy, by the way) Jesus says there is freedom waiting for us on the other side.
This is what we’ve been doing as a church lately, by the way: We’ve been incredibly prayerful in letting Jesus define our reality, which includes showing us where he wants to take us in the future.
Rather than hear it from me, our Senior Pastor, Carlos, took some time to shoot a video with vision for the future, as he’s seeing it and hearing it from God, and as he’s discerning alongside our Board, our Spiritual Overseers, and our Executive Team.
So how does this affect us?
We are moving from a staff led campus to a volunteer led campus.
Some of you have already embraced this idea, and you are enjoying your ministry and the support you receive from us as staff.
This means more opportunities to discover and live out your calling and giftedness.
This could be no less than a spiritual revolution!
The South staff and I could not be more excited about what’s to come and doing this together! This is something that we have been praying for and working towards for several years!
You might remember how in 2023 I invited you to go through the New Testament with us, and I filmed an overview of every single chapter in the New Testament as we went through it together. That was part of this shift.
Last year I confessed how we had robbed you of the joy of ministry by doing so much of the work that all followers of Jesus are called to do!
I want you to come to know God as the loving Father, the One who is closer than a brother, the One who can meet the deepest longings of your heart, the One who has a beautiful plan for your life as you walk with Him!
But part of the process means rearranging our staff and adjusting to our new level of giving which has decreased. Some of those who give have moved away. Some have lost jobs. Some have retired. Even as we have more coming and giving, we need to adjust our spending to what we are giving together.
So our executive team and board of directors came up with a unique way to move forward – to right-size our staff.
One of those who had that supernatural experience as we have been praying about our future was our very own Hannah Ojeda. Would you thank Hannah for her 8 years of serving with us so faithfully and effectively?
Hannah, would you share with us what happened in your time with God?
Hello, Family
A couple weeks before Easter the Lord spoke to me as I was reading through John 15, particularly through verses 10 and 14:
“When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” “You are my friends if you do what I command.”
He revealed to me that He desired my obedience above all else – that this was my worship offered in this season not because I have to, but out of my deep abiding love for Him.I have been blessed to have been a part of Gateway Church since my teen years and it has been a community that has given me spiritual moms and dads, who poured their wisdom and love into me, a safe place to wrestle through hard questions about God, and friends who ran alongside me in my journey and helped sharpen and refine my faith. God was so kind and faithful to place me on staff at South Campus 8 years ago and it has been my great privilege to lead worship and be a part of this amazing community over the years. Through it all, there has been no better friend, confidant or comforter than Jesus. So last Thursday when I sensed Him once again reminding me of His desire for my obedience in this next chapter and then asking Him directly about my role on staff and hearing Him say “it’s time to go”, I had to give Him my “yes.”
“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8
This verse is what God closed my time with on Thursday… and I was so encouraged that even though I have NO idea what is next for me, He has called us to be born of the Spirit – A people of the wind. We may not know where we are going, but we can trust the One who leads us, our Good Shepherd, who is sure of the path ahead and who will bring to completion the good work he has started in each of us. He is trustworthy and I know He has the words of eternal life, so where else would I go?
I am grateful for my time on staff with all of you, and will be treasuring these next few weeks where I get to do ministry alongside you, and what a gift and honor it has been to do ministry alongside you. If you would like to hear more deets about this process or have questions, please feel free to reach out – I’ll take any excuse to grab coffee and chat with y’all! Love you all so much and I pray that God will continue to guide and bless Gateway Church!
-Hannah Ojeda
Change is hard, but when God is in it, change can also be so beautiful.
I cannot wait to see how God works in us and through us in this next season!
I cannot wait to see you experience more of God’s peace and presence in your life!
I cannot wait to see the people in your life that you love come to know God through your life!
