` Easter 4 - 2007

Easter 4 - 2007



Todd A. Peperkorn, STM
Messiah Lutheran Church
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Cantate Sunday, Easter 4 (May 6, 2007)
John 16:5-15; James 1:16-21
For an audio MP3 of this sermon, CLICK HERE

TITLE: “Led to Truth”


Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.   Our text is from the Gospel lesson just read, When the Spirt of Truth comes, he will give you into all the truth…Let us pray:

Lead me in your truth and teach me,
   for you are the God of my salvation;
   for you I wait all the day long. (Psalm 25:5)

Pretty much everyone considers themselves truthful, honest people.  It is a mark of good character, a sign of a person who is okay to be around, someone you can trust your children with, someone dependable and upfront.  Truth is a part of the American Dream after all: truth, justice and the American way. 

Yet the truth is not as common or as well regarded as we would wish.  Winston Churchill once said:

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Most of us believe we know the truth, or that we recognize it when we see it.  Yet in our lives truth often plays second fiddle to the pragmatic, the convenient, and what we believe is a higher cause.  How many times have you lied to your children?  How many times have you lied to yourselves about your children’s behavior?  I don’t want to deal with this behavior, so I’ll act as if it didn’t happen.  Or children, how often have you lied to your parents.  How often have you tried to cover up some fault or something you knew you weren’t supposed to do?  
Of course, lying is not limited to parents and children.  Lying is as common at work as coffee and lunch breaks.  You may lie to your boss, to your clients, or to yourself, all in the hopes that things will work out best in the end, or that it will serve you better at work.  Every time you deceive yourself into believing things are better or worse than they really are, you are lying to yourself.

Lying is as much a part of who we are and what we do every day as breathing.  Satan, the father of lies, has breathed his poised air into our lungs, so that all that can come out is distortions, a twisted view of the world that is neither completely true nor completely false, but somewhere in between.  In your family, in your marriage, at work, at home, as play or with friends, we all try to hide our sinfulness by lying in word or deed.

But that great liar, the father of lies, continually tries to convince you that lying is really what is best.  If I tell my spouse the truth, they will worry more than they should.  Or keeping the truth from them is really what is best for them.  I don’t want to overburden them.  You know the excuses you make to yourself.  They go on all the time.  But Satan has beguiled us into thinking that lying is somehow okay, if we can convince ourselves it is for a good cause.  Satan, however, is called the father of lies because all lies flow from him, and not from God.  Repent.
This is what is so strange and wonderful about a text like today.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, just as Jesus called Himself the way the truth and the life.  Truth is reality.  Truth is the way things really are.  Truth is not just about information like a mathematical formula that all equals out just right.  The truth is a lens for looking at the world, understanding yourself and understanding everyone and everything around you.

Jesus says that when He ascends into heaven, that the Holy Spirit, the Spirt of truth will come and will lead you into all truth.  Jesus then says that the Holy Spirit will convict or convince the world of three things: of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.  These three great realities are what make us who we are as the baptized children of God.  But what do they mean?

The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.  This one is straightforward.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit to show you that you are a sinner and that you are lost apart from the mercy of God.  This truth does not come naturally to you.  You want to lie to yourself.  But the Holy Spirit, through the Law of His Word, and through the Law that plays itself out in our lives every day in death, sickness, hardship and suffering, shows you who you are, a sinner in need of the Gospel.

Second, the Holy Spirit will convict the world of righteousness.  If it is difficult to believe that you are a sinner, it is even harder to believe that you are righteous and holy before God’s sight because of His Son, Jesus Christ.  Yet it is true.  God has forgiven you all your sins.  You are free, holy, and righteous.  But This wonderful truth does not come to you through a sunset or a pretty picture.  No, the Holy Spirit preaches to you, baptizes you, absolves you and gives you the Son’s body and blood so that you will be convinced that you are righteous, recreated, whole and new in God’s sight.

Finally, the Holy Spirit will convict the world of judgment.  This isn’t Law, dear friends, even though it has the word judgment in it.  The point that the Holy Spirit teaches you here is that Satan is judged.  He has been convicted and sentenced to hell forever for HIs rebellion and rejection of the God of mercy.  Satan has no hold over you.  You are baptized.  You are in Christ, and when you are in Christ, there is nothing to fear.

These three things that the Holy Spirit gives us or teaches us are sweet.  They are the truth, and truth truly is stranger than fiction.   It is strange and wonderful and glorious.  It is a gift beyond all gifts.  It is why we sing unto the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things (Ps. 98:1).  He has brought you forth by the word of truth (James 1:18), and you are His forever.

Luther summarized this wonderful work of the Holy Spirit in his great hymn, Dear Christians One and All Rejoice:
 
9 “Now to My Father I depart,
    From earth to heav’n ascending,
And, heavn’ly wisdom to impart,
    The Holy Spirit sending;
In trouble He will comfort you
And teach you always to be true
    And into truth shall guide you.  
 

The truth is not something to hide from, distort or reject as something that will harm you.  Jesus says that the truth will set you free.  You are free.  Free from sin.  Free from lying and the deceptions we play upon ourselves.  You are freed by the one who has freed you from sin, death and hell.  The Holy Spirit has come, and he comforts you in all your times of need.  Come and breathe the free air, the true air of the redeemed, bought by the blood of the lamb, washed clean in His font, and lead into all truth by His Spirit.  Amen. 

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith, unto life everlasting.  Amen.
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