The
Day of Pentecost, One Year Series
Our
Savior Lutheran Church, Midland, MI (May 27, 2012)
Readings: Psalm 143
Genesis
1:1-9Acts 2:1-21
John 14:23-31
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Grace, Mercy, and Peace be to you from the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The text for today’s message will be from the Gospel lesson, from St.
John the 14th chapter, especially the following verses:
John 14:23-31 (ESV)
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my
word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home
with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the
word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. 25 “These things I have spoken to
you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will
send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all
that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as
the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let
them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will
come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to
the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before
it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much
with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, 31 but I do as the Father has
commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us
go from here.
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In
the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Today is the Feast of Pentecost – the Sunday when we focus on the
revelation of the Holy Spirit fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead and ten
days after He ascended into heaven. The
Sound of the mighty wind and the appearance of the tongues of fire were a call
to gather the faithful men of Israel – the faithful men who had gathered
according to the Law given to Moses so many centuries ago.
The Holy Spirit let His presence be known in a rare and spectacular way
on that day. Never the less, the
ultimate goal of this spectacular display of sound and light was to draw the
faithful Pentecost pilgrims together so that they could hear about the mighty
works of God. The proclamation of the
mighty works of God was so important that the Holy Spirit even gave the
disciples the ability to proclaim those mighty works in the native languages of
all the faithful pilgrims who arrived on the scene.
Jesus Christ died on the cross, but it was not possible for death to hold
Him and He rose from the dead. Now the
disciples were telling the faithful that they were witnesses of all these
things. These are the mighty works of
God that the disciples were telling to the faithful in their own native
languages.
The true work of the Holy Spirit is not in the tongues of fire or the
sound of the mighty rushing wind. The
true work of the Holy Spirit is in the proclamation of the mighty works of God. As Jesus said, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the
Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.” The sound was impressive and it drew a
crowd. Never the less, the main work of
the Holy Spirit witnesses about Jesus.
So, what does the Holy Spirit’s message sound like then? Jesus said, “When he comes, he will
convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”
Our own nature is inclined to think that good people go to heaven and bad
people go to hell. The difficulty comes
when we try to determine who is good enough to go to heaven and who is so bad
that they are definitely going to hell.
The Holy Spirit steps in and settles the argument. He convicts the world of sin. He tells us we are not good enough to go to
heaven and that I deserve to go to hell.
He comes to us and tells us that I have lost many opportunities. He says, “As a husband, you have not loved
your wife as Christ loved the church. As
parents, you have not brought up your children in the fear of the Lord. As a son, you have not honored your
parents. He tells a pastor, you have not
cared for my sheep. And ultimately he
tells us do not even begin to think that there is anything you can do to earn
your way into heaven.” He convicts us of
our sin and shows us that we are indeed totally helpless before God.
And, if the Holy Spirit left us in that state, we would be most wretched
– but He doesn’t. The Holy Spirit
convicts the world of righteousness. The
Holy Spirit beholds us in our helpless state before God and says, “There is a
righteousness that belongs to you. This
is the righteousness of the Son of God – Jesus Christ. The righteousness of His perfect life is
yours. The price that He paid is dearer
than you can possibly imagine. He bought
you with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. With this dreadful price He exchanged His
righteousness for your sin. Now He
offers salvation to you for free.” There
is sweet comfort in the Holy Spirit’s conviction of righteousness for it is the
righteousness of Christ unto salvation.
It is the Holy Spirit who makes the righteousness of Christ available to
us through faith.
Lastly, there is the Holy Spirit’s conviction of judgment. The world wants to stand in judgment over us,
and Satan thinks he is God Himself. They
take it upon themselves to judge between right and wrong – between that which
must be condemned and that which must be accepted. Even though the message of salvation through
Jesus Christ is for the entire world, Satan and the World insist that this
message is divisive, narrow-minded, intolerant, and bigoted. The world brings this thinking against God
and His Christians in an effort to exterminate the message of the Gospel.
The Holy Spirit fights the judgment of this world with his own conviction
of judgment. He draws our attention to
the fate of the ruler of this world – Satan.
Satan’s judgment is already sealed.
He is the one who brought God’s beloved creation into the state of sin
and for that he will suffer forever. As
the Holy Spirit reveals the fate of Satan to us, He assures us that judgment
and condemnation by the world is not the judgment of God, but that it is the
judgment of the devil who is already condemned by God.
God carried out His judgment against sin when He punished His son in our
place on the cross. Now the Holy Spirit
reveals God’s judgment. God looks at all
believers in Christ and says, “I see only the righteousness of my beloved Son,
Jesus Christ. There is no condemnation.”
The Holy Spirit could probably
introduce us to Christ in an infinite number of ways, but He has chosen to
introduce us through the Word of God. He
works and sustains faith in us through the Word of God that we hear with our
ears and read with our eyes. He works
faith in us with God’s Word of Holy Baptism as we combine the Word of God with
water according to Christ’s command. He
sustains our baptismal faith as we confess our sins to God our Father and hear
Christ’s Word of forgiveness on the lips of our pastor. He strengthens our faith as Christ Himself
comes to us as the living Word in His body and blood. In these ways, the Holy Spirit has chosen to
connect us to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
Now we might well ask, “How powerful
can words really be? Are words really
that important?” God commanded Ezekiel
to preach a sermon to a congregation of dry bones. Ezekiel preached according to the word of the
Lord and the dry bones became an exceedingly great army.
The Word of God is powerful – not
because we say it or use it – but because God stands behind it with His
promises. God has promised: “For as
the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water
the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread
to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not
return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed
in the thing for which I sent it.
The Holy Spirit works through the Word to put the finishing touch of
faith on our salvation. God the Father
sent His Son into the world, “in order that the world might be saved through
Him.” The Son has purchased our
salvation with His holy, precious blood, and His innocent suffering and
death. The Holy Spirit brings this
salvation to us as He calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, and
sanctifies us in the one, true faith. So
the work of justification is complete.
We do nothing. God does it
all. Because God does it all, our
salvation is secure and we shall live forever with Him. Amen
The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God
and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
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