The Spirit of Truth (Trinity Sunday / Father's Day)
By Rev. Heidi L. Barham | June 15, 2025
Click here to listen to the service
Read John 16:12 – 15 (NIV)
According to the traditional calendar, today, the third Sunday in June... is the day we set aside to honor fathers and the father figures in our lives... those still with us and those who have gone home to be with the Lord.
It has often been said that fathers get the short end of the stick on Father’s Day in comparison to mothers on Mother’s Day. This is likely something that fathers are more prone to say than anyone else... but that does not mean it is not true.
Just the other day, I was at a meeting and they shared some Fun Father’s Day Facts that I thought you might find interesting.
For example, did you know that this year, it has been estimated that roughly $24 billion will be spent celebrating Fathers? That’s billion with a “B” ...which sounds like an awful lot of money. However, it pales in comparison to the estimated $34 billion that was expected to be spent on Mother’s Day.
And would you believe that after all this time, socks and ties are still near the top of the list of the most common gifts given on Father’s Day?
And speaking of ties, here is another fun fact... the first Father’s Day tie is said to have been designed in 1953 by a man named Harry Roth. I wonder if he trademarked his designs?
Now, the list of fun facts about Father’s Day that I found is fairly long, but I will stop with this one that drives home the point of fathers getting the short end of the stick...
Although the first Father’s Day is believed to have been celebrated in 1908 in Fairmount, WV, in a special service to honor fathers who had lost their lives in a mining accident... it did not officially become a national holiday until 1972 when Richard Nixon was President... fifty-eight years after Mother’s Day became a national holiday under President Woodrow Wilson.
And, while it may have taken more than six decades for Father’s Day to be recognized as a national holiday... we want to pause right now to recognize and say thank you and honor all our fathers and those who have stood in the gap as fathers in our lives. Thank you ALL!
Now, I want to shift our focus to our New Testament lesson for the morning and call our attention to the fact that today is not only Father’s Day... according to the liturgical calendar, it is also Trinity Sunday... which is observed on the first Sunday after Pentecost to honor the Holy Trinity—the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And it is with that as our backdrop that I want to invite us to reflect on the subject: THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.
Now, before we dig deeper into the text from John’s Gospel, I want to invite us to listen to these verses again as they are found in the Message Paraphrase:
“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t handle them now. But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is. He won’t draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said. He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I’ve said, ‘He takes from me and delivers to you.’Now, I have to be honest... when I read the first verse of this text, what came to mind was a line from the 1992 movie, “A Few Good Men.”
You probably know the one I am talking about... when Tom Cruise’s character, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, questions Jack Nicholson’s character, Colonel Jessup, on the witness stand... telling Jessup that he wants the truth... and Colonel Jessup responds with that now infamous line, “You can’t handle the truth!”
Ironically, some sources say that was not the way that line was originally written... Nicholson actually made a spontaneous change that resulted in what has become an iconic line.
But let’s get back to the text... in the verses preceding this passage, Jesus had been telling the disciples things that would have likely been difficult for them to accept... for example, that He would be persecuted and would no longer be with them. But not only had Jesus told them about what would happen to Him... He had also given them an indication of how difficult it would be for them to follow Him as His disciples.
And because Jesus knew His disciples so well... He knew they would not be able to handle everything... at least not yet... not until THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH came to show them the way... guiding them into the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
And if we are being honest... that is something that the world needs now more than ever... THE SPIIRT OF TRUTH to guide us into the truth of who Jesus is and who we are called to be as His disciples.
Now, in preparation for today’s sermon, I did a search on that word “truth” using the online reference tool, Bible Gateway. Would you believe the word “truth” appears 137 times in the New International Version of the Bible? And out of those 137 appearances of that word... 102 of them are in the New Testament.
Would you care to take a guess as to which book of the Bible uses that word “truth” more than any other?
The very one which our text comes from today... the Gospel of John. The word is used 23 times in John’s Gospel and another 19 times in the letters of John (1 John (10 times), 2 John (4 times), and 3 John (5 times)).
So, I think it fair to say that the concept of truth was keenly important to John... and it ought to be just as important to us. And while I will not go through each verse of Scripture where that word “truth” is found... there are a few key verses that bear mentioning.
The first verses I want to highlight come from John 4 (verses 23 and 24). It was in response to the Samaritan woman at the well’s statement about worship that Jesus said:
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.Or as those verses read in the Message:
It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.The fact of the matter is that the truth of who we are becomes evident in all that we say and do... wherever we may be. So, it is incumbent upon us to ensure the love of God shines through us as we worship God with all of who we are... honoring God in both word and deed...
And one of the most basic and honest ways we can do that is by showing our love for God in the ways we show love to our neighbors and ourselves...
We worship God in THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH when we are intentional about fulfilling the Greatest Commandment in the way that Jesus taught... by loving God and the people of God with all of who we are (see Matthew 22:34 – 39).
Now the next verses I want to highlight that speak to this concept of truth come from John 8 (verses 31, 32 and 36),
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. ...So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”Jesus is the truth, Himself, and it is through Jesus that we have been set free from the things of this life that keep us bound up... or as Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you” (Galatians 5:1, Message Paraphrase).
We find confirmation of this in John’s Gospel in chapter 14 (6), where we find these words of Jesus, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Now, for some people the concept of slavery can be seen as something from the distant past that has no real relevance for us today... but in John 8:34, Jesus informs us that, “...everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” And Paul tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
I will be the first to admit, it is not comfortable to think of ourselves as sinners or being slaves to sin... but there are many things in life that have bound us up and hold us captive... bad habits that we convince ourselves we can’t break free of... like binge watching shows on Netflix instead of working or eating those sweet and salty foods that we know are no good for us... or more serious addictions like drugs and alcohol or gambling or pornography...
There is no shortage of things in this world that the enemy would have us believe we simply cannot get away from... so we might as well just keep living by that 1960s mantra, “If it feels good... do it.”
But we do not have to fall for the lie... and while the process might not easy... Jesus has given us THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH and promises us that we can be set free.
We find assurance of this in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans (6:6 – 7):
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
And that brings me to the last verses about truth that I want to highlight this morning. Looking at chapter 14 of John’s Gospel... in verses 16 and 17 we read:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.Or as these verses read in the Message:
I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!Simply put, we have been given a gift that the rest of the world does not have... which is THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.
And what a gift that is!
It far exceeds even the best Father’s Day gifts we could ever give our earthly fathers... It is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving... generation after generation... It is the gift that we have received from our Heavenly Father through THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH so that we have the assurance that we are indeed the sons and daughters of God.
In his letter to the Romans (8:14 – 17), Paul said it like this (reading from the Message Paraphrase:
God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!And as we contemplate what is next for us on our spiritual journeys... what a blessing it is to know that even when we face the hard times which are inevitable in this world... we do not have to face them alone... for the Lord has promised to be with us always, even to the end of the age (see Matthew 28:20).
Now, this passage from Romans gives us the assurance that it is not just the hard times that we must face... praise God, we get to share in the good times as well... because we have THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH to lead us... and that is some really good news that I think we all can use.
Amen.
Hymn of Discipleship: Faith of Our Fathers #635
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