Ordinary Time 2026: Year A — Ephesians 4:11-16 — We Gather Here to Tell The Truth (Series: Virtues, Values, and Everything In Between: Becoming Holy People Again, Week 1)

(The following was first preached at the 8th Street Church in Oklahoma City, USA).

Every Sunday at 8th Street Church we begin worship with a simple declaration:

> We gather here to tell the truth.

We've said those words nearly every week for more than a decade. They are familiar enough now that I can recite them without thinking. But recently I've found myself slowing down and asking a question:

Why begin there?

Why not begin with worship? Or praise? Or service? Or mission?

Why begin with truth?

The older I get, the more convinced I become that truth is not merely a moral issue. It is a reality issue.

A number of years ago, one of my children asked me to tell a lie. It wasn't a big lie. Nothing that would have landed us on the evening news. Just one of those small lies that children assume adults should be willing to tell because it would make life easier.

When I refused, he was frustrated.

As we talked, I realized we were operating from two very different assumptions.

Children assume lies are bad because of consequences.

Mature people eventually discover that lies are dangerous because of formation.

I wasn't worried about what would happen because of the lie. I was worried about what would happen to us because of the lie.

Because every time we tell a lie, no matter how small, we participate in a world that does not exist. And eventually, if we are not careful, we begin living there.

This is why I think the church's work is far more radical than we often imagine.

Every institution teaches us how to see the world.

Advertising teaches us how to see the world.

Politics teaches us how to see the world.

Social media teaches us how to see the world.

The economy teaches us how to see the world.

Every day we are surrounded by competing stories about who we are, what matters, whom we should fear, what we should desire, and how we should live.

Most of us spend our entire week swimming in those stories.

By Sunday we arrive exhausted, distracted, anxious, angry, fearful, or simply confused—not because we're bad people, but because we've been living inside competing realities all week long.

And so we gather and begin again.

We tell the truth about ourselves.

We confess that we do not have our lives together. We confess that we cannot save ourselves. We confess that we are poor and hungry and thirsty for what we cannot provide ourselves.

We tell the truth about God.

That while we were still sinners Christ died for us. That God is faithful. That God is love. That resurrection is stronger than death.

We tell the truth about our neighbors.

That they are not obstacles, enemies, or problems to solve. They are people who bear the image of God. People whose flourishing is tied to our own. People to whom we belong.

The church is one of the last places left where people intentionally gather to practice reality.

The Apostle Paul seems to have something similar in mind when he tells the church in Ephesus to "grow up" into Christ (Ephesians 4:11–16).

Paul contrasts maturity with childhood. Not because children are bad, but because children are easily influenced. Children believe whatever story is loudest. Children struggle to distinguish appearance from reality. Children live by impulse and by whatever feels true in the moment.

Paul imagines something different for the church.

He imagines a community of mature people.

People capable of discernment.

People capable of seeing clearly.

People capable of living truthfully.

And that is where holiness enters the conversation.

For many of us, holiness has been reduced to avoiding bad behavior. But what if holiness is something much deeper?

What if holiness is learning to live truthfully within God's reality?

The earliest Christians believed that something fundamentally changed in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. They believed that God's new creation had already begun. A new age had broken into the old one. A new way of being human had appeared in the world.

This is why the first Christians proclaimed, "Jesus is Lord."

They were not merely making a theological statement. They were making a claim about reality.

A new creation had begun.

A new way of being human had begun.

A new way of loving, forgiving, sharing, welcoming, and flourishing together had begun.

And if that is true, then telling the truth is about far more than avoiding lies.

Truth-telling becomes a way of bearing witness to the reality revealed in Jesus Christ.

Truth-telling becomes a holy practice.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that language shapes the way we inhabit the world. The words we repeatedly speak become the world we learn to see.

I think there is wisdom in that observation.

Every ritual forms people.

Every repeated practice forms people.

Every liturgy forms people.

The stories we tell become the stories we inhabit.

Which means that every week, when we stand together and say, "We gather here to tell the truth," something deeper is happening than we may realize.

We are being formed.

We are practicing.

We are rehearsing reality.

The same way a musician rehearses scales.

The same way an athlete practices movements.

The same way a child learns language.

We are learning how to inhabit God's reality.

Perhaps that is what holiness has been all along.

Not perfection.

Not performance.

Not religious achievement.

Holiness is becoming the kind of person who can recognize, inhabit, and bear witness to the new creation God has inaugurated in Jesus Christ.

Or to put it another way:

Holiness is learning to live truthfully in the world God is creating.

And maybe that is why we gather every week.

Not because we have mastered the truth.

Not because we have arrived.

But because we are still learning.

Still practicing.

Still rehearsing.

Still being formed.

We gather to tell the truth about ourselves.

We gather to tell the truth about God.

We gather to tell the truth about our neighbors.

And in telling the truth, we slowly become the kinds of people who can live within the reality God has revealed in Jesus Christ.

Amen.