The Truth Unchanging

LHM Sunday – “The Truth Unchanging”

Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

The sermon for LHM Sunday, The Truth Unchanging, is based on a text from John 16. I’m going to read it here.

Jesus said:

“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you. And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see Me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you.”

So the Spirit is going to come and testify to the truth.

Pilate famously, when confronted with Jesus, asked Him, “What is truth?”

And that question has hung in the air ever since Genesis chapter 3.

We live in an age that a lot of people like to call a post-truth era. How can you know what is true, right? Descartes: I think, therefore I am. That’s the only way he could know that he existed—because he thought. Which I guess means that this pulpit doesn’t exist, because this pulpit doesn’t think. It’s an inanimate object.

People have wondered whether we live in a giant simulation, a la The Matrix movie—which, if we do, can we reset it back to the Garden of Eden, please?

And then you have the idea that truth is relative. My truth and your truth are different. What I believe is true; what you believe is true. And if they disagree, then we’ll just agree to disagree.

We also have a lot of voices that claim to know the truth. And we live in a time and place where we are often told the commentary on events before we even see the event. So much so that we get isolated—especially on social media—into these echo chambers. Two people can watch the same event, but because they are getting their information from two different sources, even though they live in the same household, they will have vastly different conclusions about what happened.

And so people like to declare that we live in a post-truth era, because who knows what the truth is? There’s too much information out there for you to really know what is true and what is not true. “Who are you to judge?”

Which is great—up until you have a court proceeding. What’s the job of a court proceeding? To figure out the truth. The prosecution and the defense—or the complainant and the defendant—offer evidence to support the truth.

Or file an insurance claim. You call up your insurance company and say, “I need a new roof.” What’s the insurance company going to do? They’re going to come out and inspect your roof to see if you truly need one. And only then will they agree to do anything.

When I lived in Kansas, we had our basement flooded. You want to know how much money the insurance gave me—how much they thought it was worth to fix? Because they have a standard of truth.

And boy howdy, I think we all want our engineers to know what is true when you drive over a bridge. If something says it can hold so many tons, you want that to be true. Because if it can’t hold that many tons, guess what’s going to happen when you drive over that bridge?

But it turns out there actually is truth out there. There is absolute truth. It’s not relative. It’s not up to interpretation.

Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit, who will lead us into all truth. Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

We live in the midst of a world suffering from sin. We are sinners. Scripture—the Holy Spirit—convicts us of our sin.

Luther famously called himself a “measly worm” in the sight of God. But Scripture and the Holy Spirit also testify to the salvific work of Jesus Christ. And even though we are sinners, God shed His blood for us, blots out all our sin, washes it away, and makes us holy in His sight—set apart unto Him.

And so we are also saints.

Those two truths are absolute, because they come from Him who is true.

And God continues this good news proclamation—both His Law and His Gospel—here today, through you and through me, as we go out to our families, our communities, our neighborhoods, and we proclaim that all are sinners, but Christ died for all people, so that all might be saved.

Jesus is telling this to His disciples: that He is going to the cross, that He is going to die. He has to go—to pay for all sin—and He has to go so that He can send them the Holy Spirit.

And they are filled with sorrow. Wouldn’t we be? If you were one of those disciples and Jesus said, “You know, this has been a really great three years, but I’m going to go die now,” wouldn’t you be like, “Hey, can we pump the brakes on that? Let’s keep this good thing rolling”?

But He responds to their sorrow with the promise of the Holy Spirit, who comes to them at Pentecost in power—and, as we read throughout Acts, comes to us today in Baptism—giving us saving faith. Faith to believe in Jesus as our Savior. Faith to hold on to the promise of God that He died not just for the whole world, but that He died for me. That the depth of my sin does not outmatch the grace of God—that the blood of God is greater.

So the Spirit leads us to the truth. He leads us to the foot of the cross, to the empty grave. He leads us to the font. He leads us to the Supper. He leads us to the preached Word. He leads us to Christ, who has redeemed us and who is Lord over all things.

And not only that—He promises to come again, when sin and death will be overthrown, and we will live with Him in eternity. Our sorrows will be turned into eternal joy with Him.

In a world that often seems short on truth, we can hold on to the unchanging promises of God: that He is greater, that He loves us, that He has overcome the world, that He is faithful and trustworthy, that He cares for us, and that He draws us to Himself.

And this message is not only proclaimed here in this pulpit, in this church, by these members. It is proclaimed around the world. And one of the ways it is proclaimed is through Lutheran Hour Ministries, going back to the early days of the 1900’s.

CBS was looking for a radio show. Lutheran Hour Ministries approached them, and CBS said, “We can give you five minutes.” LHM said, “Thirty.” And it became the most-listened-to radio program on CBS for a number of years—a thirty-minute religious broadcast.

And it hasn’t stopped there. Streaming programs, podcasts, online resources.

Last week, when weather forced us to cancel services—because even though we cleared the parking lot Saturday, it was already covered again by Saturday night—we posted that we’d have a service available on Facebook and YouTube. I got a number of messages saying, “Hey, by the way, Lutheran Hour Ministries is on this TV station at this time,” or “on this radio station here in Oklahoma City.” You could have listened or watched it.

And that program goes out around the world so that all might hear the Gospel.

Lutheran Hour Ministries also provides Scripture in creative ways. You know those emergency radios—the ones you can plug in or crank? They put the Bible on those. I know that because—longer ago than I care to admit, over a decade and a half ago—I went to Russia for my cross-cultural module. We had six or eight boxes of those radios, and we spent four hours in customs because the Russian authorities thought we were importing something illegal.

That was really fun, because they don’t speak English in Moscow—they speak Russian, believe it or not—and I don’t speak Russian at all. So there were three young twenty-year-olds wondering if we were ever going to make it back to America.

They provide the Bible. They provide the life-giving Word through our partnerships—just like LWML does, so does LHM. They provide Bible studies, daily devotions, and Christian resources for you and for people around the world—both in the United States and in more than sixty countries, in native languages—so that the life-saving truth to which the Spirit bears witness goes out.

The truth may not be popular in our world, but God’s truth is unchanging.

We are called to proclaim it here—in our homes, in our neighborhoods—and yes, around the world. I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan to get on a plane to Russia anytime soon. But LHM is there, and I can support LHM.

They stand with us in this Gospel proclamation, pointing everyone to the truth, the hope, and the grace of Christ Jesus.

So let us continue to walk in the unchanging truth of God’s saving work in Christ Jesus. Let us continue to proclaim His forgiveness and redemption to the ends of the earth. Let us continue to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the truth unchanging.

And may it continue to bring salvation, hope, and transformation to a world so desperately in need of it.

We thank God today that He has given us not only this church, but also the organizations with whom we can partner, so that our small work here can affect people all the way around the globe—in Christ’s name.

Amen.