[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints of God, Christ has died, Christ has risen,
Christ has ascended and seated at the right hand of the Father,
and Christ has sent forth his Holy Spirit as he promised.
Now this is good. In fact, Jesus has been telling his disciples and us for the
last few weeks and right before his crucifixion
that it’s good for him to go away because, because
when he leaves a greater gift will follow and that gift is the gift of the
Holy Spirit. Jesus says wait in Jerusalem and not many days from now the
Holy Spirit will come upon you with power and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and all the way to the ends of the earth. In fact
in the gospel lesson we just heard Jesus says that all who thirst should come to
me and out of their hearts will flow rivers of living water and he spoke this
about the Holy Spirit but then John tells us the Holy Spirit had not been
given because Jesus had not yet been glorified and so we rejoice on this day
Pentecost that the Holy Spirit is given to the church to you to me and we
consider what that means the work the person of the Holy Spirit and the work
of the Holy Spirit.
Now the first Pentecost happened on the feast of Pentecost,
which was already a Jewish feast.
In fact, this Jewish festival was 50 days after the Passover
and it was in the Old Testament,
a commemoration of the giving of the 10 commandments.
It was 50 days after the first Passover,
when they put the lamb of the blood on the door
and the angel of death passed over
and the people escaped out of Egypt.
it was 50 days later that they arrived at Mount Sinai, and the Lord covered the mountain with
fire and smoke and gave to Moses and to the people the gift of the Ten Commandments.
Now, this is a marvelous thing to celebrate. And think about this in the Old Testament,
these two great feasts, the gift of the Passover and the gift of the Ten Commandments.
Every year, the people are remembering these great works of God.
God. But just like Jesus takes the preaching of the Passover and brings it to its fullness
in his own death and resurrection, so now Jesus takes the gift, the Feast of the Passover,
the Feast of Pentecost, and fills it up with the great gift of the giving of the Holy Spirit.
Now does this mean that the Holy Spirit wasn’t around before Pentecost? Does this mean that
in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit was locked away in heaven? No. In fact, as we
read through the Old Testament, we see the Holy Spirit working. In Genesis 1, the
Holy Spirit hovered over the waters. In the Old Testament lesson, the first
lesson that we heard today, the Holy Spirit came upon the 70 elders and they
prophesied. In Psalm 51, David says, take not your Holy Spirit from me. In fact,
Peter, the Apostle Peter, tells us that the prophets spoke as they were carried
along by the Holy Spirit. So we confess in the Creed that the prophets spoke by
the Spirit. And think of it like this, just as Jesus himself was at work in the
world even before his incarnation in the womb of the Virgin Mary, even before his
life and his death, even before that Jesus was at work, so the Holy Spirit was
at work from the beginning of time to the end of time. But just as Jesus in his
incarnation comes into the fullness of the work appointed for him by God the
Father, so the Holy Spirit at Pentecost comes into the fullness of the work
appointed to him, the work promised by the prophets. For example, the beautiful
text from Joel that Peter preaches on that first Pentecost when he says,
the day is coming when I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.
In fact, in one way, in a beautiful way,
Pentecost is the restoration,
a part of the restoration of the fall.
Adam and Eve had lost the Holy Spirit,
but now in Christ the Holy Spirit is given back to us.
Now we want to make sure that as we consider the Holy Spirit
that we confess first the full divinity
of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is co-eternal and
co-majestic with God the Father and God the Son. Perhaps the clearest passage in
the scripture that describes this is in the book of Acts when Annias and Sapphira
had sold all their stuff and they they brought a big portion of it to the
apostles but they held back some for themselves and Peter knew it and he says
why have you lied you have not lied to men but to God why have you lied to the
Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit is God and and just like God the Father and
just like God the Son the Holy Spirit loves you I don’t know if I have heard
that preached, at least it hasn’t struck my ears, but I think it’s important for
us to say this, that God is love. The Father loves you, as he loves the world
and sent forth his Son to die for you. The Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, loves you and
gives up his life for you, and the Holy Spirit loves you, and his work is all
directed towards your salvation, towards your eternal life.
Now what is that work of God the Holy Spirit?
A few, maybe the best, there’s a lot of texts here,
but perhaps the best is the gospel reading
we heard a few weeks ago from John 16,
where Jesus simply outlines the work of the Holy Spirit.
I will send the Holy Spirit,
and he will convict the world of sin
and of righteousness and of judgment.
it. That’s probably the best summary of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit does convicting work, that is teaching work or enlightening work. The
Holy Spirit brings the things that Jesus said to remembrance. The Holy Spirit
works through the Word to show us and to teach us what we could never know and
see on our own that we are sinners who deserves God’s wrath. He convicts the
world of sin, that God is a gracious Heavenly Father, that Jesus’ death on the
cross atones for all of our sin. He convicts the world of righteousness and
that Jesus’ death has trampled under his feet the power of the devil. He convicts
the world of judgment, that the ruler of this world has been judged.” Now the Holy
Spirit has a number of names or maybe we say a number of titles that are given to
him in the Holy Scripture. In these texts that we’re looking at, John 16 and 17 and
14, the Holy Spirit is given the name Comforter, which is wonderful, Advocate,
Helper, Paraclete. He’s called the Free Spirit, sometimes simply the Spirit of
God, but by far the most common title of the Holy Spirit is that word, holy.
And this is an important thing to describe his work.
The Holy Spirit makes us holy.
And he does this in two ways.
First by the gospel, and second by his strength for good works.
First, the Holy Spirit makes us holy by bringing to us the benefit of the death and resurrection
of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is appointed this work of bringing the atoning work of Christ, which
happened in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago, that he brings that all across the world,
right to us, and he presses it into our ears and into our hearts. The Holy
Spirit is who brings us the gift of baptism, the washing of water and the
Word. The Holy Spirit brings to us the power of the absolution, the forgiveness
of sins. The Holy Spirit works so that the Lord’s Supper is a sanctifying gift
where all of our sins are forgiven. The Holy Spirit, in other words, brings the
benefit of the work of God, the work of Jesus Christ. He brings it right to us
and he gives us, in that word, the faith to believe it. The Holy Spirit not only
gives us the promise but he gives us faith to believe the promise so that we
rejoice that we are saved by God’s grace through faith and that’s not even
of our own, it’s the gift of God. If you believe in Jesus, it is because the Holy Spirit has
worked through the Word of God to give you that faith. And that faith, by that faith,
you are accounted to be righteous, to be holy, to be perfect in the sight of God, to be clean,
to be absolved, that the Lord looks at you and there is no sin to condemn, there
is no sin to judge. God has reckoned you to be perfect, as perfect and as
righteous as Jesus. And that is what it means to be holy, to be sanctified. That’s
the first work of sanctification that the Holy Spirit does, and it’s done, it’s
complete, it’s finished. There’s nothing, there’s nothing lacking in this. You, who
believe in Jesus, will stand before God on Judgment Day and there will be nothing
to judge, nothing to condemn. There’s no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Jesus. You’ve passed already from death to life. You belong to God, the Holy
Spirit. That is why the Holy Spirit calls you holy ones or saints, because by his
work you are completely sanctified. And there’s a second work of sanctification.
This is probably normally what we think about when we talk
about sanctification, the growth and good works that’s inspired by the Holy Spirit.
And this is also an incredible gift, that God the Holy Spirit works in us and
works with us so that we might manage to do a good work every now and again.
So the Holy Spirit is inside of you fighting against your flesh.
The Holy Spirit is taking all of those things that you want to do, I mean this is one of
the big problems of sinful humanity is that we’re born wanting to do all of the wrong
stuff, desiring the stuff that kills us, desiring the stuff that hurts our neighbor, wanting
all of these things for ourselves, we’d rather have an easy life rather than suffer.
We have these crooked desires and the Holy Spirit is inside of us fighting against our
flesh, fighting against the wrong things.
He makes those things repulsive to us.
And the Holy Spirit gives us the strength to begin, to begin to love our neighbor, to curb
our sinful flesh and to manage to be useful every now and again to the kingdom of God.
Now it’s important when we talk about this second sanctification that we talk about it in the way
that the scripture speaks about it and that is that it’s always beginning but never finished.
The first sanctification is complete. The second sanctification is only just begun
and it won’t be finished until the resurrection. We’re just beginning to
love God, we’re just beginning to love our neighbor, we’re just beginning to
fight against our flesh, we’re just beginning to do something good and
helpful, but at the same time we are completely perfected. You are completely
forgiven. You are completely holy. You are holy ones because God the Holy Spirit
has brought the word of the death and resurrection of Jesus and he has pressed
that holy word into your ears and into your hearts forgiving all of your sins.
So, God, be praised for this Feast of Pentecost,
for the gift and the work of God the Holy Spirit.
And we pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to come
and to fill our hearts with his joy and his peace,
and that he would continue to do his sanctifying work among us.
Amen.
Come, Holy Spirit. Amen.
And now, may the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
