In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the defining characteristics of our time is widespread skepticism. While in times past there was an overall consensus, at least among members of Western Civilization, that certain things were right and certain things were wrong, and that truth was actually something that could be known, nowadays even the concept of truth itself is under attack. Many people assume that it is impossible to know the truth and that there is no such thing as objective or absolute truth at all. Case in point, how often do we hear people say things like “well that’s just your truth” or “I’m just living my truth,” as if two things could be true at once even if they are contradictory to each other? Sadly, by today’s standards, claiming to know the truth is not only considered to be arrogant, but in many cases, it’s almost seen as immoral: “Who are you to tell me what’s true and what isn’t? What makes you so special that you think you have the truth all figured out? Don’t you dare impose your truth on me.”

That is the situation that we find ourselves living in as twenty-first century Christians, and it is very serious problem that we as the Church need to address. We especially need to address it today, because today at St John Lutheran Church we are celebrating Confirmation Sunday. Three of our young people are about to stand in front of this congregation and make certain vows about what they believe and how they intend to live their lives. Among other things, one of the questions that they will get asked is this: “Do you confess the doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, drawn from the Scriptures, as you have learned to know it from the Small Catechism, to be faithful and true?” To which the confirmands will respond, “I do.” 

That is what we Lutherans think about the truth. Not only do we think that it can actually be known, but we also believe that by God’s grace, and His grace alone, we actually have it. We believe that what we teach in this Church is nothing other the pure, unadulterated truth. So, in today’s sermon, on the basis of our Gospel lesson from John chapter sixteen, where Jesus talks to us about this exact thing, let us consider together how we know the truth.

The first and most fundamental thing that everyone must recognize when to comes to knowing the truth is that ultimately all truth comes from God. As Jesus says very clearly to His disciples in our reading, “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” According to Jesus, the way that a person comes to the knowledge of the truth is not by his or her own intellect and abilities, but by the intervention and revelation of the Holy Spirit. The truth is not something that we establish, it is something that we receive. It is something that God gives to us. It is something that the Holy Spirit makes known to us.

We are not the source of ultimate truth. Despite what so many people teach these days, truth does not come from inside of a person, but from outside of them. Just because we feel like something is true, or think that something should be true, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is. The Disney corporation might make some very entertaining and enjoyable movies, but they are dead wrong when they teach little children to follow their own hearts. Listen to what the prophet Jeremiah says about the human heart in Jeremiah chapter 17. He writes, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” And then there are the words of Jesus from Matthew chapter 15. There our Lord tells us, “Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander.” Far from being the source of truth, God’s Word teaches us that our hearts are the source of sin. And that is why if we want to know the truth, we must not listen to ourselves, but to God. We must listen to the Holy Spirit.

And yet, simply saying that we must listen to the Holy Spirit if we want to know the truth, is, of course, not enough to actually know the truth. We also have to know how the Holy Spirit speaks to us and where He wants us to listen for His voice. Often times, Christians today will claim that they have direct access to the Holy Spirit. Since the Bible teaches us that when we get Baptized, we receive the Holy Spirit, and that now He lives within us, many people think that means that now the Holy Spirit speaks to them directly. When they have a certain strong feeling about something in their lives, they will say that “God laid it on their heart to do it.” Even if that thing is not something that is talked about in the Bible, and sometimes even if it is directly spoken against in the Bible, people will ignore it on the basis that the Holy Spirit told them otherwise. This is literally the exact argument that every liberal congregation which has deviated from God’s Word because of popular culture trends in the last fifty years has made. Why does the ELCA ordain women to the pastoral office and say that it’s okay for two men or two women to be married to each other even though the Bible says otherwise? They do it because they say that the Holy Spirit led them to that conclusion.

But this is no different from those who claim that we should simply follow our own hearts. Just because the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts does not mean that everything that we feel in our hearts necessarily comes from Him. We are still sinners after our Baptism. Even though the guilt of our sins has been washed away by the water and the Word, our sinful nature remains. Yes, we are being made new in the image of God our Creator, but our regeneration is only begun. It is not complete. And that is why simply saying that the Holy Spirit told you to do something as a Christians because you feel strongly about that thing doesn’t mean that it’s true.

Where does the Holy Spirit speak to us? Where does He Himself tell us to listen for His voice so that we can know the truth? He tells us to listen to the Bible. The Bible does not just contain God’s Word, the Bible is God’s Word. Every bit of it is the inspired and inerrant Word of God. Listen to what we read about the Bible in 2 Timothy chapter 3. There the apostle Paul, who spoke with Jesus in person, and saw Him in His resurrected state with his own two eyes, says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” The word in that passage for breath is the same word for Spirit. You could just as easily translate it as “All Scripture is Spirit breathed,” as in, all of it comes from the Holy Spirit. Or think about what Saint Peter writes in 2 Peter chapter 1. This is a great passage to bring up when someone claims that the Bible is just the opinions of certain Christians and not really the opinion of God Himself. Peter writes, “For no prophecy was every produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

When we read the Bible, it is not just men who are speaking to us. It is God who is speaking to us. Even when Jesus was being tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, how did our Lord respond to his attacks? He responded with the Bible. Jesus quoted the written Word back to Satan thereby showing all of us just how reliable it really is. As Jesus also tells us about the Bible in John chapter 10, “the Scriptures cannot be broken.” And as He says in John chapter 8, “If you continue in my words, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

Not only is the Holy Spirit the source of ultimate truth, and not only does He reveal that truth to us in the Bible, but He also guides us into all truth by using the Bible to do it. Sometimes when Christians quote the Bible to try and prove a point they are met with the response of, “Well, that’s just your interpretation.” I can still remember one time when I was in college and I told one of my roommates that we shouldn’t be getting drunk because the Bible tells us not to, and he dismissed my rebuke by claiming that what I said was just my own interpretation of the text. Of course, when I asked him how he interpreted the text differently so that it meant the exact opposite of what it plainly said, he didn’t have any response.

If we approach the Bible with the intent of looking for the answer that we already want to hear, then we will never be able to find the truth there. No, the right way to read the Bible is to let the Bible speak for itself. As the Old Lutherans used to say, “Scripture interprets Scripture.” When you come across something in the Bible that is confusing or hard to understand, you go back to the basic truths of the Bible and you let those guide you in your study. That is what Jesus is talking about in our reading from John chapter sixteen when He says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Those are the basic teachings of the Bible.

First, there’s what the Bible teaches about sin. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” – “We are conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity” – “All sin is lawlessness.” You know what is sinful and what isn’t by looking at the Ten Commandments, and those commandments show us that we need a Savior. 

Next, there’s what the Bible says about righteousness. “No one is righteous, no not one” – “Abraham believed in God and it was credited to him as righteousness” – “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” According to God’s Word, true righteousness, or the kind of righteousness that gets us into heaven, doesn’t come from us, it comes from Jesus. Christ is our righteousness, and we receive His righteousness through faith alone. We get it not by doing a bunch of good deeds, but by believing in the promise that for His sake our sins are forgiven.

And lastly, there is what the Bible teaches us about judgment. Jesus will “come to judge the living and the dead” – “After death comes judgment” – and “My Word will judge them on the last day.” This life is not all that there is, and the time is coming when Christ will bring it to an end. We need to be ready, and the only way to be ready is by feeding our faith with God’s Word and Sacraments so that it doesn’t die out before we die.

These are the truths that the Holy Spirit leads us into. They are the basic teachings of the Bible and the tools that we use to read the Bible correctly. When we come across something that we don’t understand in the Scriptures we look at it through the lens of those passages that are very easy to understand. Then the other passages become clearer and clearer.

Yes, it is true that that the Holy Spirit does not teach us everything that we might want to know in the Bible. But He does teach us everything that we need to know. He teaches us everything that we need to know to be saved. As we read in 2 Timothy chapter three, “the Scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation.” That’s why God gave us the Bible. And that’s how He wants us to use it. He wants us to listen to it and let the Holy Spirit guide us into all truth. 

Confirmands, now I am speaking to you directly. I can assure you without a doubt in my mind that you are going to be bombarded by all kinds of different messages in your life that will try and pass themselves off as the truth. I know it because I’ve lived it. I went to public high school. I went to the big college. I remember what things were like fifteen years ago for me, and I can’t image what they are going to be like for you. People will tell you things and expect you to believe them without any consideration. They will make ludicrous claims about all kinds of nonsense and pretend that what they’re saying is common knowledge. Outside of the church you will be told that all truth is relative and that you can’t be sure of anything expect for the stuff that is popular at that particular moment in time. And inside of the Church you will hear from many how the truth is given to us directly and that the Holy Spirit talks to us apart from the written Word.

I’m telling you all of this not to scare you, but to prepare you. As you will soon confess in your Confirmation vows, the source of all truth is the Bible. That means that you need to know the Bible. That means that you need to keep coming to Church to hear the Bible read and pay attention when the meaning of the Bible is explained by the pastor. Just because you learned the Catechism once doesn’t mean you can’t forget it. Even Martin Luther said that he recited the whole Catechism every single day. God’s Word isn’t just for kids. It’s for everyone. And the older you get the more responsibility you need to take for yourself. Be in Church. Be in your Catechism. Be in your Bible. 

Because even though all of that might sound like a burden, you know that it is a blessing. Having access to the God’s Word is the greatest blessing of your life. It is the greatest treasure God has given you, because in giving you access to the Bible, you have access to Jesus. You have access to the One who is the way, and the truth, and the life. You have access to the one who lived and died for all of your sins so that you can have access to your Father in heaven.

So, do not grow tired of listening to the Bible. Let your heart and your ears be opened to the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit who wrote them will guide you into all truth through them. He will guide you to Christ your Savior. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.