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What is truth? I’ve been asking various people this question all week. And everyone I asked gave me the same quizzical look. What is truth? (Jn 18:38) Pontius Pilate’s famous rhetorical question of our Lord Jesus moments before he ordered his crucifixion is still being asked by the world today. They question what is truth. But I am confident you actually do know what is truth because, as Jesus said in our Gospel reading today from John 16 ... THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUTH WILL GUIDE US IN ALL THE TRUTH 1. Before we tackle this theologically, let’s answer the question with the world’s definition.  Webster’s dictionary says truth is a conformity to fact ... a state of being ... the alignment between a belief or a thought and the way things really are.  Philosophically, our world says, there are at least four kinds of truth: 1) Objective, 2) Subjective, 3) Normative, and 4) Theological. Objective truth comes from facts that remain true regardless of personal belief or emotion. 1 + 1...

[And Jesus said,] when he comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will guide you in all the truth, for he will not speak on behalf of himself ... whatever he hears, he will speak, and the things coming, he will announce to you. He will glorify me, for he will receive [it] from me and announce [it] to you (vv 12-14). Just a few minutes ago, we all confessed together, I believe in the Holy Spirit . That is to say, we all confessed that we are convinced there is only one Truth. We all confessed that the Holy Spirit speaks that one Truth. We are convinced, as Jesus says, that he is not just “a” Spirit of Truth, or the “Spirit of Truth,” but the Spirit of “the” Truth. This is our confession. Our world bristles at the idea that there is only one truth, just like they bristle at the idea that there is one Triune God. They don’t like this truth at all. Instead, the world is largely agnostic to it. So they try to change the truth to a truth that fits their worldview, that suits their needs and desi...

Preached to the saints at Mount Olive Lutheran and Grace English Lutheran Churches in Bovey and Marble, Minnesota on Cantate Sunday, May 2, 2021: I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. But when the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you in all truth, for he will not speak on behalf of himself, but as much as he hears, he will speak and will announce to you the things coming. He will glorify me, because he will take of mine and announce it to you. Many things happen in our lives and in the world, it is sometimes hard to make sense of them all. Some things bring happiness and excitement; and other things bring difficulty and sometimes even pain. So much of it is confusing, frustrating, and troublesome. Who can understand it all? With everything changing all the time, it is difficult to navigate this sinful world and follow after the things of God’s good pleasure. Even when you open the Holy Word of God to gain some semblance of the truth, someti...

But I, the truth I tell to you. It is to your advantage that I, I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And having come, he, he will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment. We don’t like to ask for help. We think it’s demeaning. That’s why children insist on tying their own shoes and picking out their own clothes. What’s wrong with pairing green and orange, and plaids and stripes, they say. I don’t need help being myself.  We don’t like to ask for help. We think it’s demeaning. That’s why it’s so difficult to be forced into a nursing home or a hospital bed. We don’t want someone to take care of us. It goes against our entire lives as caregivers. We pride ourselves in being able to feed ourselves. We don’t want someone to wash our back, let alone to watch it. I can do it myself, we say.  We don’t like to ask for help. We think it’s demeaning. That’s why we don’t l...