Historical context and notes: I preached this message on Father’s Day, June 15, 2025, at Mount View Presbyterian Church. It was also “Trinity Sunday” on the Lectionary calendar, the Sunday after Pentecost. Culturally, this weekend also saw the parade/celebration for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, “No Kings” protests nationwide (thus a few extra references to God as our King), the onset of a conflict between Israel and Iran with the goal of degrading Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, and the politically motivated assassination of a Minnesota State representative.
Happy Fathers’ Day, and a blessed Trinity Sunday to all of you. I’ve had a busy three weeks traveling hither and yon. Two weeks ago, my brother and I took our third annual fishing trip to South Dakota and caught our limit of walleye both days. Last weekend, my wife and I went to Branson with our small group and saw the production of David at the Sight and Sound theater. If you ever go to Branson, the Sight and Sound theater is well worth the price of a ticket. The entire operation is a ministry that focuses on telling biblical and patriotic stories. They tie the biblical story to the message of the cross toward the end, and after the show some of the cast make themselves available to pray with people.
Now even though I had a very relaxing few weeks off and feel somewhat refreshed from a busy schedule, I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s been kind of tough to focus on writing a message this week with all the other chaos going on in the world. Nevertheless, I think perhaps the example of Jehoshaphat in the Old Testament can help us deal with the potential chaos some may be experiencing. When Jehoshaphat was faced with a nearly impossible battle in 2 Chronicles 20 against the Moabites, Ammonites, and Meunites, he had the people pray in the temple courtyard. The next morning, he put the men’s choir out in front of the army as they marched toward the Desert of Tekoa. As they sang, God set ambushes, and the three opposing armies wound up destroying each other. Israel never had to lift a finger to fight. God is the true King, and when we put him first, good things can happen.
In our Old Testament reading this morning, the first couple verses of Psalm 8 say this:
1 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger. [1]
If those two examples aren’t enough to show the power of praise, consider the story of the walls of Jericho which, by the Jews marching around the city, blowing their trumpets, and lifting up a mighty shout of praise, crumbled as a result of that sonic boom. God is the true King, and when we put him first, good things can happen. Psalm 22:3 in the English Standard Version says, “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.”[2] If you’re used to the King James Version, that verse is translated, “Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.”[3]
This demonstrates the point that our praise is mighty and effective against evil because the God who dwells in that praise as it goes forth from our lips and our lives is mighty. This is God Almighty, God the Father, God the King, the creator of all that is made, even life itself; the giver of breath; the author of wisdom and truth.
We see the might, power, and even the orderliness of God in the creation narrative, for example. On Day One, he begins with the “formless and void” rock we call Earth and creates “light.” We don’t know what that light is, because the things that make or reflect light aren’t created until Day 4. What is this Day One light then? Is it the light that emanates from God because of his spiritual nature? Is it the afterglow of a “big bang” that produced the formless and void Earth and everything else in the universe? Is it meant to have a more metaphorical meaning like moral clarity? Or is it a reference to someone who would later claim that he is the light of the world, and of whom John would make the claim that nothing in this world was made without him? Hmmm. More on that later.
On Day Two, God separated the waters below from the waters above, most likely a vapor canopy that created a greenhouse effect for the new life that was coming. The separation between the waters was called “sky.” On Day Five, he created the creatures that dwell in the air and the creatures that dwell in the sea.
On Day Three, he brought forth dry land and created the diversity of flora that grows on the earth today. I find it interesting that the plants that need the sun to photosynthesize and grow are created the day before the sun is created. Anyone ever notice that? That’s one reason why I think each of the days of creation represent a 24-hour time period. If the vegetation had been created thousands of years before the sun came to exist, it would not have survived. On Day Six, he creates all the creatures that would dwell on land, including his ultimate creation, Mankind.
With each day of creation, not only is God creating people and animals and plants and objects in the solar system, he’s also creating all of the physical, biological, geological, and psychological (and all the other “-logicals”) rules and principles by which all the natural, or created, world operates under. On Day Seven, God rested. He had taken the “formless and void” third rock from the sun and transformed it into a well-formed, orderly creation.
Not only was God mighty and powerful as our king, though. He was also the epitome of righteousness. In him there is no fault, no stain, no sin. Perhaps that is why his “light” is the brightest of all, so bright that no mortal, sinful man can stand in the presence of it. From the Fall to the Flood, God demonstrated great patience with the wickedness of man, but God had a built-in judgment plan. The vapor canopy had worked quite well to ensure the young earth would flourish and grow, but man’s wickedness had become too much for God to bear. He told righteous Noah to build an ark and brought Noah a pair of every kind of animal to rescue them through the Flood.
The Bible says the rain came down and the flood gates of the earth were opened. Sounds to me like a giant meteor pierced the vapor canopy and all that water condensed and fell to the earth. It also may have broken up Pangea, the not-so-hypothetical single continent that once existed on Earth and started what we know today as plate tectonics, the movement of the continents, and all the fun stuff that comes with that, like earthquakes and volcanoes. This shows the enduring power of God’s creation, but it also shows that he is a God who expects the praise we give him for his righteous judgments.
The signature expression of God’s righteousness is the Ten Commandments. The first three commandments are specific to our direct relationship with God: Don’t put anything above God. Don’t make an image of God to worship. Don’t misuse the name of God. I think we all get that. The next two are positive commands that have to do with what God expects from us: Keep the Sabbath day holy. Honor your parents, who represent God’s authority over you on earth.
The final five commands have to do with our relationships with one another. They are prohibitions against committing violent acts. According to Merriam-Webster, “violence” not only means committing a physical act of aggression like murder, assault, or rape, but it can also mean “injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation” and gives the synonym “outrage.” Even coveting is not just a thought crime about desiring someone else’s property. When Jesus summarizes the Ten Commandments in Mark 10:19, he uses the Greek word translated “defraud,” “cheat,” or “rob” in the New Testament (ἀποστερέω apostereō). Coveting is violence, because its goal is to obtain something by illicit means.
Because the Ten Commandments are God’s foundational laws, and because they addressed fundamental issues of our relationships with God and with others, a violation of any of them could have resulted in the death penalty, were it not for the provisions in the law for blood sacrifice and the forgiveness of sin. But God knew from the time of the Fall he would need another way to address mankind’s sin. That’s where the second person of the trinity is introduced to the world.
Of course, this is Jesus, the son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. He would come to walk among us as a human being and learn, through his fully divine nature and insight”, what it was like to live as a mortal among mortals. Hebrews 4:15 says: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”[4] This Law is good because it shows us what sin is, but the Law itself is not able to provide forgiveness, righteousness, or salvation. Only perfect obedience can do that, but no one is perfect, at least, no one who is fully mortal.
Romans 10:4 says: “Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”[5] That word “culmination” (τέλος telos) doesn’t mean the Law is no longer relevant. It means that what the Law was intended to accomplish, imperfect as we are, is now accomplished through the faithfulness of Christ in his death on the cross and our faith in acknowledging Jesus Christ as our risen Savior. This is what John means when he calls Jesus “the word.” What we call “the Ten Commandments” in Hebrew is just simply “Ten Words” (עֲשֶׂ֖רֶת הַדְּבָרִֽים ʿǎśě·rěṯ de·ḇār îm). Jesus’s death on the cross paid the penalty for all time for violating God’s Law. All we need to do is trust in his grace and mercy and live faithfully for him. He is, after all, declared to be Lord of Lords and King of kings in Revelation 19:16.[6]
This is where we meet the third person in the Trinity. I’m not sure what passage your speaker addressed on Pentecost last Sunday, but if it was John 14, you would know that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would come and teach us what we would need to know to live faithfully for Christ. We do have the Bible, but without the Holy Spirit to help us spiritually understand, discern, and apply the words of the Bible, they are ultimately just words on a page. The Holy Spirit is the divine presence in our lives. The Spirit is the fulfillment of the promise Jesus made at his ascension that he would be with us always even to the end of the age.
The words of our gospel reading this morning bear repeating here:
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”[7]
In a world hounded by chaos and strife in these days, I find it comforting that we have a God who loves us and has provided the way of salvation for us through Jesus’s death and resurrection and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. It is through the Spirit that we can also lift up songs of praise and worship, which brings us full circle this morning. God inhabits the praise of his people by virtue of the Holy Spirit dwelling in our lives. This is our powerful weapon to confront the evil around us. The Spirit also brings comfort, healing, and restoration to our lives.
The words from last week’s gospel passage are appropriate to repeat here, and I’ll close with this.
27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”[8]
May the peace of God go with you today. Amen.
[1] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2016. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
[3] The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2009. Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version. Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
[4] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[5] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[6]See also 1 Timothy 6:15b and Revelation 17:14.
[7] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
[8] The New International Version. 2011. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
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