The Word of Truth

​8th Sunday after Pentecost – B (Proper 10)                                                   LSB #’s 650, 545, 746
Text – Ephesians 1:13
 
In [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, & believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. 
 
THE WORD OF TRUTH
 
 
A highway billboard, near a casino, advertised, “A good clean place to get filthy rich!”   It’s a clever slogan with a nice play on words.  In some respect it’s even true, although the average odds of winning are stacked against you 37 to 1.  In other words, out of every 37 tries, you should win one time, & there’s no guarantee that one will make you filthy rich. 
When it comes to gambling, far more people walk away broke than those who walk away filthy rich.  Is that the kind of truth you feel comfortable relying upon?   In baseball, an excellent batting average is 300.   37 to 1 odds have you batting 27.   In the realm of sinful human beings, truth, & not just beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. 
You have your truth & I have mine is how our culture likes to speak of truth.   Two thousand years ago, in His trial before Pontius Pilate, Jesus stated, “For this purpose I was born & for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth.”  (John 18:37c ESV)  To which Pilate replied, …“What is truth?”  (John 18:38a ESV) 
Truth has been a complicated issue for human beings since Adam & Eve agreed with Satan that God was not being entirely truthful with them.   During an election cycle where lies are broadcast every day as news, in a world where it’s impossible to know the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth, God sends His Holy Spirit to us with the Word of truth. 
And what is that word of truth?   Some religions teach that you find truth through meditation.   Some believe that you find truth in the unspoiled expanses of nature.   Every single human version of truth finding is centered in the heart, mind or soul of human beings.  In other words, it’s a very self-centered, self-absorbed & therefore very narrow-minded truth.  When someone says, “You have your truth & I have mine,” they are not telling you the truth.  Truth is not something you are able to discover on your own.   Sin has utterly destroyed our ability to discover truth anywhere,     anyplace,    or anytime. 
If you struggle to accept that, just look at the human track record.  Look at all the lawyers & judges & courts that are overwhelmed with work.   Look at the biological men competing in women’s sports.  Look at the lie of evolution & imagine that every single thing in the universe came into being by accident & random chance.  Sin has cut us off from truth. 
Only God, who created us, can reconnect us to Himself.  That’s why the heavenly Father sent His Son to be born at Bethlehem.  God became man to reconnect the human race to its Creator.  After living the perfect life in our place, never committing a single sin, Jesus suffered, died & rose from the dead to pay the penalty that you & I can only pay in hell for eternity. 
That good news is the gospel of your salvation.  That good news is God’s Word of Truth.  All sinners have been reconciled to their Creator.   He is no longer angry with us in any way.  That good news of our reconciliation is our compass.  That Gospel is our anchor.  The Word of Truth is our hope, & it is an everlasting hope. 
That is the message St. Paul brings to the people of Ephesus.  Prior, they had only the chaos of false religion with gods powerless to bring hope & peace into the tragedy of life in a broken,   sinful world.  We should relate to that in our time.  More & more, the young people of our nation are being raised with nothing but false gods, that fail to bring peace or hope. 
Yesterday, a man only 20 years old, tried to assassinate Donald Trump.   It’s a high-profile version of many of the shootings going on across our nation.  From our distance, the chaos seems to be random, often with no apparent rhyme or reason.  All we see is the anger & the hatred.  It is into that scenario that St. Paul speaks to each of us today, here & across our nation.  Will the men, women & children of our country listen to the Word of truth?   In spite of the tragedy of all the shootings, there’s been no obvious movement of people returning to the Lord.  It appears more like our people are growing numb & insensitive to the brutality. 
Make no mistake, that is Satan’s desire for every one of us.  Whether it’s a violent person with a gun, or a very kind & sincere person who is leading others into false teaching, Satan’s goal is always the same – steal, kill, destroy.   In light of our frailty, how are we to confront our fears of the devil’s destruction?   St. Paul gives the answer:
“In [Christ] you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, & believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”  (Ephesians 1:13 ESV)   The last phrase is the key – “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”   In baptism, the Creator of the universe claimed you as His own.  He put a spiritual mark on you to prove His ownership. 
However, it’s not ownership as people used to own slaves.  Paul wrote in Galatians 4: “So you are no longer a slave, but a son, & if a son, then an heir through God.  (4:7 ESV)   In the rite of baptism, that’s represented as the pastor says to the candidate:
“…receive the sign of the holy cross both upon your forehead & upon your heart to mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.”   Are you listening to the Word of truth?   It is nothing less than the good news that God has redeemed you from sin, death & the devil.  It is not something you can discover on your own.  It has to be revealed to you by God Himself. 
Everyone of us is powerless to save ourselves, & powerless to bring order out of chaos.  Behind every assassination attempt, or mass shooting, lies a human soul, twisted & corrupted by sin.  All the human big talk is about eliminating guns.  You almost never hear about the human soul behind them that Jesus came to save.   That is where the problem lies.  That is where the Word of truth needs to sink in & take root.  Nevertheless, “…the gate is wide & the way is easy that leads to destruction, & those who enter by it are many.”  (Matthew 7:13 ESV)  Our culture no longer wants to consider why so many souls end up wanting to commit murder, because our culture wants nothing to do with the solution, which is the good news of our salvation in Christ. 
If we know nothing else as children of God, we can know Jesus Christ as our Savior from all the lies of this world, as well as from all the lies of our own heart.  God sent the Word of truth to us that we might find peace & joy even in this life, & perfectly & forever in the next. 
In fact, the only truth that exists in this world comes from the heavenly Father, & He offers it to us freely as a gift.  We need that gift to counteract all the destruction caused by sin.  The Word of truth is the antidote to the poison of sin.  Through that Word, Yahweh is constantly at work reuniting His children with the perfect kingdom of God.  In that you can rest.  Amen. 
 
 
 
Word that caused blind eyes to see, speak & heal our mortal blindness; deaf we are:  our healer be; loose our tongues to tell Your kindness.   Be our Word in pity spoken, heal the world, by sin now broken.     Word that speaks God’s tender love,  one with God beyond all telling,  Word that sends us from above,  God the Spirit,  with us dwelling,  Word of truth,  to all truth lead us;  Word of life, with one bread feed us.  Amen.  LSB 545:3-4.