in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
Titus 1:2,3
Way back in 1968, when most of you were not yet born, everyone knew one fact. You didn’t need to be taught this truth. Everyone just knew it deep down in their soul. There was no debate. No need to even discuss it. We just saw it for what it was and agreed with the whole world. What was this universal truth?
Answer: cola drinks were the one and only soda you drank. Period. Yes, there were other kinds of cold carbonated beverages, but anyone with a brain would choose cola over all others. There was Coke, Pepsi, Royal Crown, and a few other smaller brands of cola to choose from. But who in their right mind would drink something else? Anything else?
Well, for some reason, not everybody understood this. Charles Grigg invented 7 Up and loaded it up with a mood-stabilizing drug that’s used to treat depression and bipolar disorders. They managed to scratch out a small place in the soda world, but nobody paid them much attention. That is until 1968.
They looked around and saw that there was no way that they were ever going to push out cola. So, how could they be different? That’s when the idea of 7 Up being the Un-Cola was born. Their ideas and commercials became famous[1]. They were the rebellious little guys fighting against the establishment.
You see, it was just so simple. All they did was to add “un” to the front of a word and it turned into the exact opposite. Everybody knew what cola meant. But un-cola was something new. Something unheard of before. Something that would get everyone to sit up and pay attention.
Paul does the exact same thing here with Titus. When Paul starts to describe God, what’s the first thing that he says? There are lots of things that he could say to talk about God. After all, he’s God. He’s eternal. He’s holy. The list could go on, and on, and on. But it doesn’t.
He starts describing God as the one and only one who doesn’t lie. Actually, he says something more powerful. It’s not just that God doesn’t lie, he can’t lie. It’s just plain impossible for God to speak anything but the truth. This is where the “un” part comes in.
Think about the word lie and add an “un” to the front. You get un-lie. That’s who Paul says God is. He’s unlie-able. He’s totally without any and all lies anywhere in him. There’s not a drop of falsehood in God. He doesn’t shave off some of the truth to make his popularity numbers go up. He doesn’t forget to tell us something important just so we’ll worship him.
God, the un-lying creator and sustainer of the universe refuses to hide from the truth. He’s not even afraid of the uncomfortable truth. You know what that is. The truths that you hid from your mom and dad. The truths you hid from your spouse. The truths you hide from your good friends.
God always, always, always tells us the truth. Period. And doesn’t that make sense? After all, what does he have to say about us? Does he just pat us on the head and tell us what nice and beautiful people we are? Does he open wide the doors of heaven and invite us in just as we are?
Not on your life. He describes us as wicked sinners[2]. Without hope and without God[3]. We’re not just sinners, we’re God’s enemies[4]. Any of our so-called good works are nothing but filthy rags[5]. There’s no a single person on earth that’s righteous[6]. Thit list could also go on for a good while.
Think about this for a minute. If you were an un-lying person and you came across someone that was totally evil, what would you do? Well, you’d do what the rest of us would do; we’d turn and walk away. Actually, we’d run away as fast as our legs could go. We’d hop in our car and burn rubber getting away.
But that’s not what God did. This un-lying God didn’t only tell us the truth about us, but he said something else. He told us the truth about himself. He said that he loved us enough to come running after us. That his love would pay the price we couldn’t pay by dying the death we couldn’t die.
So, the real question is what are we going to do with this un-lying God? Are we going to push him to the side because we don’t like what he has to say? Are we going to try and ignore him and the truth he keeps bringing to us? Are we going to dig a hole and bury our head in the sand so we don’t have to listen to him anymore? Now for us to start listening to this un-lying God. Why not start now?
Noodling Questions
Why is the idea of God not lying such a big deal? Explain.
How has someone who lied hurt you? Give an example.
Why does lying seem so right at the moment, but turn out to be so wrong?
[2] Psalm 1:5
[3] Ephesians 2:12
[4] Romans 5:10
[5] Isaiah 64:6
[6] Romans 3:10
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