Grace, Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Our text today comes from the book of 2nd Corinthians, chapter 4. “Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:1-6) Thus far our text.
Dear Friends in Christ, when I was a kid, my brothers and I used to play hide and seek. I am sure all of you have played it. Everyone goes and finds a hiding spot while another person goes out to look for them. I always liked to be “It” because it was easy to find my brothers. They would do there best to hide, but there was always something that gave their hiding spots away. There was always a way to find them. Maybe one of them would be partially visible, or maybe you could hear them whispering. In any case, it was impossible for them to hide perfectly. It was impossible for me the great hide-and-go-seeker to not find them.
Our Gospel lesson says the same thing, with a little bit of a twist. In our lesson, Satan is trying to hide the good news about Jesus. He is trying to cover it up as best he can and to prevent us from seeing, hearing, and believing it. He is trying to keep us from finding Jesus using deception, sin, pain and suffering. Through these things, it is difficult to tell if Jesus really is there or not. It is difficult to tell if Jesus actually existed or not. It is difficult to believe the Gospel.
In the world we see all sorts of other things besides Jesus. We see murder, and war. We see hunger and pain. We see sickness and death. We see these things as we watch the news. We see these things as we look at our own lives. Sin is everywhere, and at times it seems like the Gospel is nowhere like it is hidden.
With all of these bad things going on, we wonder, “Where is God? Where are all of those wonderful promises that God had made to us? Where can we look for comfort and hope when all we see is pain and suffering? Is God hiding from us?
Sometimes, it seems like God is hiding and we are only left with pain and suffering. Every where we look we see this pain and suffering. Many of us daily deal with this. Perhaps we have a loved one who is sick, or dying. Perhaps there is someone we know who has faced a terrible tragedy. In my time here, just over the last year, I have seen many who have to struggle with pain for a loved one. Almost all of us here have had to deal with some sort of physical struggle, one which leaves us asking, “Is God hiding from me?”
But God is not hiding himself. Instead it is our sin that takes our eyes off of him. It is our sin that separates us from him. Our text says: “the god of this age is blinding many from seeing the truth of the Gospel.” The god of our age is Sin, it is Death and it is the Devil. Those things are blinding our eyes from seeing the gospel clearly, from knowing where and how God works. It is those things that makes it seem like God is hiding.
This is all the work of Satan. He takes great delight in our suffering with sin and death. He loves watching us struggle. He loves it when we doubt that there is a god. Satan loves that we often times wonder if God is hiding from us, or that God doesn’t care about us.
He loves it when we have those doubts, because it makes it easier for us to trust in something else. When we doubt in God, when we think he is hiding from us, we think we have more authority in our lives. We think we can decide what is right and wrong for our own lives. When we think God is hiding from us, we think we are free to sin as we please. Millions of people today struggle with this. It leads to abortions, it leads to sexual immorality, it leads to idolatry. Most importantly, it leads us to the false assumption that we can do whatever, and not get caught! If God is hidden, we are free to be our own God.
This is what we want. We want to be in charge of ourselves. Because we want to be our own boss, we often times our selves hide from God. We are afraid of God, so we pretend like He isn’t there. We know that God is just, and that God is holy and that we are not. We don’t want to come into his presence because we know that we are incomplete. Each and every one of us has sinned. Each and every one of us has failed to fulfill what God wants us to do. Instead we are continually falling short of what he wants from us. We don’t love our neighbors. Instead we bicker and fight. Instead we complain about them to others. We don’t even love God himself. Instead we criticize him for the way He handles things. We hate him because we think He is making us suffer though this life here on Earth.
We don’t want to be in God’s presence. We want him to hide, it is safer for us if He is not around. We would rather be separated from him. But separated, where can we look for help? Where can we look for hope, in whom can we trust?
But God did not hide himself. There is hope. Even as Satan tries to hide God from our eyes, God makes such a loud and bold proclamation that we cannot miss what he has to say. We cannot miss the Gospel, because it is all around us. We hear this message here at Mt. Calvary. It is here and in other churches that the Gospel is boldly proclaimed to all who would hear it. And that message is this, as our text says. “Jesus Christ is Lord.” Jesus Christ, the man who came and lived among us was also true God. As true God he fully paid for all of our sins by dying on the cross. That is the Gospel, Jesus Christ Crucified for all your sins.
As I said, that message is what is preached here at Mt. Calvary. That is the very reason that I have been here for the last year. To preach the Gospel to you, and to learn how to better preach it in the future. I have loved getting to know you, but more importantly I have loved telling you about Jesus. That is what Vicars and Pastors are supposed to do! St. Paul even talks about it in our text today. “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” As my time here comes to a close, that is what I pray has been proclaimed to you. I have loved being here, and will take many fond memories with me. But unless I did my best in preaching the gospel, none of it was worth anything. It is the gospel that unites us. It is in that Gospel that we put our hope.
And it is not only through the hearing of God’s word that we receive the Gospel. There are other means by which we get the good gifts of God. God does hide, but God hides right where he has promised to be. God hides much like my brothers, where we can always find Him. God is hidden in Bread and Wine, which when we eat it, we receive the very Body and Blood of Jesus Christ for our sins. God is hidden in water as a baby receives the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Baptism. There God is hidden right where we can find him. We have access to God, we can come into contact with Him. Satan cannot keep us away from Jesus.
Because we cannot be separated from Jesus our sin has been hidden, because it has been covered in the blood of the lamb. No matter how hard anyone looks, they cannot find a sin that Jesus will not forgive. Jesus Christ died, to hide our sins away for ever. Now we are free from them. No longer do we need to hide ourselves from Him, because we have forgiveness. As our text says, the God who said, “Let there be light” is the same God who says, “Let your sins be forgiven by Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Just as my brothers were never really hidden away from me, so too is God never hidden from us. He is always right where he promises to be. We know and we can trust in the ministry that God has given to us, Word and Sacrament. As I head back to Ft. Wayne tomorrow, I will take great joy in knowing that we all share in this Gospel message. We all have the promise that God will not hide from us, and that we cannot hide from God.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Series B-Trinity Sunday-"Who knows what God is like?"
Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today is from the book of Romans, chapter 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
Thus far our text.
Friends in Christ, today is Trinity Sunday. We sometimes dread this day of the year, because we know that church will be 10 minutes longer than normal. No not because of my sermon. On this day every year, we take the time to say the longest of all our creeds, the Athanasian Creed, and it is long, two pages in our hymnal. We say this creed to try and get an idea of what God is like. We always have the question, what is God like? People paint pictures of what they think the trinity looks like or even what God the father looks like. We can think of some of paintings. Perhaps we get an idea of God being like His depiction on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Maybe we even have another way of thinking about God. There are all sorts of books that attempt to describe what God is like. But does any human depiction really make sense? Can our limited understandings actually understand what God is truly like? Who is God?
When we think about God, often times we think that He rather mysterious. We have a difficult time understanding him, and there is good reason for that. If we were to glance at the words of the Athanasian Creed, we would see that it does make God out to be rather mysterious. With all the discussion there in about equal and coequal and begotten and infinite, it is difficult to understand what it is really telling us about God.
And we do struggle to understand God. As I said earlier, our minds are rather limited. When we think about the Trinity, it is impossible for us to understand. We can’t fathom how three persons could be one God. We can’t understand how one of those persons took upon Himself human flesh. It just doesn’t make sense. And it never will.
Our minds are full of sin, and being as such, they cannot understand something that is without sin. God is mysterious to us because He is without sin. He is mysterious to us because our limited sinful minds are unable to understand something that is not like us. It is impossible. God will always seem mysterious because He will always be holy. As our text says today, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”
God is also powerful. In fact, it is often times God’s power that we are more worried about. God is the almighty all powerful Creator of the universe and all that is in it. He is so powerful; He even did all of this with simply his word. He said “Let there be,” and there was. That is God’s infinite power.
God’s power can be a little nerve-racking for us, because we don’t have the same power, in fact we are completely at God’s mercy. He can do what ever He wishes to us at any time. Have you ever stopped to think what God’s awesome power really means for us? Especially as we are sinners, and He is not. God has almighty power, and we have disobeyed Him in our thoughts words and deed, by what we have done and by what we left undone.
Perhaps this illustration will help. Imagine that you are a cricket, and not just any cricket, but one that has been captured by a person, and is now firmly trapped in that person’s hand. As the cricket there are only two things you really know. First that the person has you completely and totally surrounded, and you can’t escape him. Secondly that with little thought, that hand could squash you completely and totally.
Is that how you feel about God? That He is inescapable no matter what you want or desire. Do you sometimes want to hide things from Him, even though you know you can’t? Are you in fear of Him, in fear that He will squash you without so much as a second thought? At times in our lives this is the way it seems. Our struggles seem so great that we struggle to come to any conclusion other than that God must be planning on squashing us, there is no escape, He is after us and we are doomed. God is powerful.
So God is Mysterious, and God is Powerful, and now, we also know from scripture that God is just. As I mentioned earlier, this also is truly scary thing for us. God is just. He cannot stand sin. He will not allow it to come into his presence. He will deal with it harshly and justly. He will destroy those in sin eternally. They will forever be apart from Him.
That is a scary prospect if we are honest with ourselves. We are sinners, we are not holy. We can tell this by the things we do, by the way we lust after all sorts of wicked things. What’s more, we often times pretend to have the same attributes as our Holy God. We pretend that we are mysterious, like we have some big secret that the world needs to find out about us. We pretend that we are powerful, that we can really make a difference in the world, and we pretend that we are holy. We pretend that we are not sinners and that we are not guilty, even though we are.
When we hear these things about who God is, there is little good news for our ears. But there is one more way in which we can know God: By what He does. And what He does makes those other attributes not bad news, but rather good news.
What God does is rescue. What God does is save. What God does is pour out mercy upon people. He loves His creation. We see that in the way that He sent His Son Jesus Christ for us. He gave His only begotten Son, the second person of the Trinity to die for your sins, and for the sins of the world.
Jesus’ name even means that, in the Hebrew original the name Jesus means “The Lord saves.” And that is what God does. That is truly how we know about God and about the Trinity. It is through Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified. As the Athanasian Creed says, “Jesus Suffered for our salvation.” There do we see the attributes of God clearly.
Yes we are sinners, but Christ dies for them. He washes us in His very own blood. There is not a single sin that cannot be forgiven. Jesus was served our punishment, He suffered in our place. He was killed because we fell short of what God wanted, and then He delivered that forgiveness to us. Christ has died for our sins, and now we are set free.
God is not just some cruel torturer from above, no, He is full of love. Through the death of Jesus, we better understand what this love is all about, and how the Trinity works. When we look at God through the lens of Jesus Christ crucified, we still see a Holy God, but now this Holiness is passed on to you and to me. Not by our own works, but instead by the work of Jesus. Through his death you have been returned to a relationship with God.
Through that same lens, we see God’s powerfulness, and it no longer is something to be afraid of, but instead something used to set us free from sin. God could have left us alone. God could have squashed us like a bug, but instead, He used His almighty power, to save. He did everything necessary, and everything imaginable to rescue you, not to punish you. He did this because of Jesus’ death.
And the mystery of it all is why? Why does God save us sinners? Why does He care about us when we turn away from Him every day? Because He loves us, and because Jesus suffered for us. It isn’t because of our own preconceived notions of God. It isn’t because we did something good, or are really smart. Rather it is the very nature of God, the nature of the Trinity to save sinners from sin. God the Father created you, God the Son rescued you from sin death and the devil, and God the Holy Spirit points you to that faith everyday of your life. God, Three in one, one in Three, loves you and has rescued you from your sin.
So what is God like? As our text says, “"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! He has rescued us from our sins. That is the important thing to know about God. Amen.
Our text today is from the book of Romans, chapter 11:33-36 “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
Thus far our text.
Friends in Christ, today is Trinity Sunday. We sometimes dread this day of the year, because we know that church will be 10 minutes longer than normal. No not because of my sermon. On this day every year, we take the time to say the longest of all our creeds, the Athanasian Creed, and it is long, two pages in our hymnal. We say this creed to try and get an idea of what God is like. We always have the question, what is God like? People paint pictures of what they think the trinity looks like or even what God the father looks like. We can think of some of paintings. Perhaps we get an idea of God being like His depiction on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Maybe we even have another way of thinking about God. There are all sorts of books that attempt to describe what God is like. But does any human depiction really make sense? Can our limited understandings actually understand what God is truly like? Who is God?
When we think about God, often times we think that He rather mysterious. We have a difficult time understanding him, and there is good reason for that. If we were to glance at the words of the Athanasian Creed, we would see that it does make God out to be rather mysterious. With all the discussion there in about equal and coequal and begotten and infinite, it is difficult to understand what it is really telling us about God.
And we do struggle to understand God. As I said earlier, our minds are rather limited. When we think about the Trinity, it is impossible for us to understand. We can’t fathom how three persons could be one God. We can’t understand how one of those persons took upon Himself human flesh. It just doesn’t make sense. And it never will.
Our minds are full of sin, and being as such, they cannot understand something that is without sin. God is mysterious to us because He is without sin. He is mysterious to us because our limited sinful minds are unable to understand something that is not like us. It is impossible. God will always seem mysterious because He will always be holy. As our text says today, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!”
God is also powerful. In fact, it is often times God’s power that we are more worried about. God is the almighty all powerful Creator of the universe and all that is in it. He is so powerful; He even did all of this with simply his word. He said “Let there be,” and there was. That is God’s infinite power.
God’s power can be a little nerve-racking for us, because we don’t have the same power, in fact we are completely at God’s mercy. He can do what ever He wishes to us at any time. Have you ever stopped to think what God’s awesome power really means for us? Especially as we are sinners, and He is not. God has almighty power, and we have disobeyed Him in our thoughts words and deed, by what we have done and by what we left undone.
Perhaps this illustration will help. Imagine that you are a cricket, and not just any cricket, but one that has been captured by a person, and is now firmly trapped in that person’s hand. As the cricket there are only two things you really know. First that the person has you completely and totally surrounded, and you can’t escape him. Secondly that with little thought, that hand could squash you completely and totally.
Is that how you feel about God? That He is inescapable no matter what you want or desire. Do you sometimes want to hide things from Him, even though you know you can’t? Are you in fear of Him, in fear that He will squash you without so much as a second thought? At times in our lives this is the way it seems. Our struggles seem so great that we struggle to come to any conclusion other than that God must be planning on squashing us, there is no escape, He is after us and we are doomed. God is powerful.
So God is Mysterious, and God is Powerful, and now, we also know from scripture that God is just. As I mentioned earlier, this also is truly scary thing for us. God is just. He cannot stand sin. He will not allow it to come into his presence. He will deal with it harshly and justly. He will destroy those in sin eternally. They will forever be apart from Him.
That is a scary prospect if we are honest with ourselves. We are sinners, we are not holy. We can tell this by the things we do, by the way we lust after all sorts of wicked things. What’s more, we often times pretend to have the same attributes as our Holy God. We pretend that we are mysterious, like we have some big secret that the world needs to find out about us. We pretend that we are powerful, that we can really make a difference in the world, and we pretend that we are holy. We pretend that we are not sinners and that we are not guilty, even though we are.
When we hear these things about who God is, there is little good news for our ears. But there is one more way in which we can know God: By what He does. And what He does makes those other attributes not bad news, but rather good news.
What God does is rescue. What God does is save. What God does is pour out mercy upon people. He loves His creation. We see that in the way that He sent His Son Jesus Christ for us. He gave His only begotten Son, the second person of the Trinity to die for your sins, and for the sins of the world.
Jesus’ name even means that, in the Hebrew original the name Jesus means “The Lord saves.” And that is what God does. That is truly how we know about God and about the Trinity. It is through Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified. As the Athanasian Creed says, “Jesus Suffered for our salvation.” There do we see the attributes of God clearly.
Yes we are sinners, but Christ dies for them. He washes us in His very own blood. There is not a single sin that cannot be forgiven. Jesus was served our punishment, He suffered in our place. He was killed because we fell short of what God wanted, and then He delivered that forgiveness to us. Christ has died for our sins, and now we are set free.
God is not just some cruel torturer from above, no, He is full of love. Through the death of Jesus, we better understand what this love is all about, and how the Trinity works. When we look at God through the lens of Jesus Christ crucified, we still see a Holy God, but now this Holiness is passed on to you and to me. Not by our own works, but instead by the work of Jesus. Through his death you have been returned to a relationship with God.
Through that same lens, we see God’s powerfulness, and it no longer is something to be afraid of, but instead something used to set us free from sin. God could have left us alone. God could have squashed us like a bug, but instead, He used His almighty power, to save. He did everything necessary, and everything imaginable to rescue you, not to punish you. He did this because of Jesus’ death.
And the mystery of it all is why? Why does God save us sinners? Why does He care about us when we turn away from Him every day? Because He loves us, and because Jesus suffered for us. It isn’t because of our own preconceived notions of God. It isn’t because we did something good, or are really smart. Rather it is the very nature of God, the nature of the Trinity to save sinners from sin. God the Father created you, God the Son rescued you from sin death and the devil, and God the Holy Spirit points you to that faith everyday of your life. God, Three in one, one in Three, loves you and has rescued you from your sin.
So what is God like? As our text says, “"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! He has rescued us from our sins. That is the important thing to know about God. Amen.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Series B-Pentecost-2009-G- "The Holy Spirit Testifies About Jesus"
"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. "Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all 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. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you."
Friends, the Holy Spirit works the same way. The Holy Spirit is always pointing something out to us, Jesus. On this great church holiday, Pentecost, we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit, but even then, it is not just the Holy Spirit that we need to think about, but instead we need to know what the Holy Spirit does. How the Holy Spirit points not to Himself, but instead to Jesus Christ and Him crucified for all of our sins. Our text today makes that clear, as Jesus says, "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me.” The Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus, and Jesus alone. He is like a giant road sign that says “Hey Jesus is this way! Follow me to Jesus”. But sadly, we as sinful human beings sometimes struggle with this. We don’t always understand or listen to the Holy Spirit. And when we misunderstand the Holy Spirit, we misunderstand who He is testifying about, Jesus Christ.
To know how we misunderstand who the Holy Spirit is testifying about, we have to know how it works. Jesus promises in today’s text that He would send a helper, a counselor, who when He comes will guide you in all truth. This promised helper is the Holy Spirit, and even today He does the will of Jesus. He convicts of our sin as we hear God’s word, and He pours out forgiveness through both Word and Sacraments. We call these the Means of Grace, where God works with us poor sinners today. These are the ways that we get the forgiveness of sins earned for us by Jesus on the cross.
But often times today, we ignore the work of the Holy Spirit. We ignore the means by which He is a helper and counselor to us. Instead we neglect and ignore His work, and end up looking for God in all the wrong places.
Take the first of the means of grace, God’s word. How often in our lives do we neglect hearing God’s word. Yes, we come to church, but do we always pay attention to God’s Word outside of Church? I know that for myself, a vicar at a church getting ready to return to studies at the Seminary, it is very difficult to keep in God’s word every day. Sure I look at it, and I study it for sermons, but it is difficult to get into God’s word for the purpose of devotion. There is always something else to do, rather than read a few chapters of scripture. I can watch the television. I can clan the house. I can go for a jog, or a walk. I can find hundreds of different things to do to avoid God’s word, to ignore the work of the Holy Spirit pointing me towards Jesus.
What about you? Do you sufferer from the same excuses that I have? Do you too avoid God’s word? Even today, people struggle to believe whether or not the Bible is the truth, or if it really means what it says. When this happens, we begin to doubt God’s word itself, and when we doubt God’s word, we doubt whether or not the Holy Spirit works through that word or not.
With this the other two means of grace, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper also suffer. It is the very word and promises of God themselves that make those two things so valuable to us as Christians. In Baptism we believe that we are connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus. But if we doubt God’s Word, we can’t really believe that to be true. If we doubt God’s word, Baptism becomes just a nice symbolic act. And the Lords’ Supper is where we eat the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, but if we doubt God’s word, it is a nice little post sermon snack.
With these doubts, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit who Jesus sent, is no longer connected to God’s word. And if it is not connected to God’s word, it isn’t really a help at all. Yes, we may look for the Holy Spirit elsewhere. Perhaps we try to find him in other places, maybe in how we feel, maybe in how we think, maybe in what we “do” for Jesus. But He has not promised to be there. The Holy Spirit promises to work through God’s word, and so it is there that we must find him, even though, that is not where we often times look for Him.
If we ignore the Holy Spirit, it would be like hunting with my dad’s pointers and when they went on point by a bird, searching the next field over looking to scare up the birds. No longer would we actually find any birds to even shoot at. No longer would we be trusting our helper, or our counselor. In the same way, when we ignore the means of grace by which the Holy Spirit work, we ignore who they point to.
But that is not the way we hunt, and it is not the way that Christians find the Holy Spirit. Today on Pentecost, we heard in the Epistle lesson how the Holy Spirit was poured upon the apostles like tongues of flame. How the Holy Spirit came upon them and caused them to go out and testify that day, not about themselves, but instead about Jesus Christ. You see the Holy Spirit isn’t out there pointing at himself, but instead is always telling us about Jesus.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit that tells us today, “Even though you are a sinner, even though you are guilty, Jesus has died for you.” Jesus was beaten and bloodied, for you. Jesus was mocked and ridiculed, for you. Jesus was nailed upon a cross and left to suffer there until death, for you. And then Jesus raised from the dead on the third day and now lives and reigns for all eternity, for you. All of these things were done for you and for your sin. This is the message of the Holy Spirit. And it doesn’t end there. Instead there is more good news in the message of the Holy Spirit. He proclaims now that you are directly connected to that suffering and death.
How? Through those means mentioned above. It is in these means that God gives by the work of the Holy Spirit we are brought to and sustained in faith. In these things, the Holy Spirit shouts, “Jesus died for you,” and now you hear that message with your ears. The Holy Spirit shouts, “You have died and risen with Jesus, because you are washed in the waters of Holy Baptism.” You now partake in that very body and blood of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ at the Lord’s Supper. These things all point us directly to Jesus Christ.
Yes sometimes in our lives we struggle with what we believe about them. Yes sometimes we even ignore them, or mistreat them, but they are always there pointing and directing us back to the cross. Even when we turn and stray away, the Holy Spirit returns us to the correct path.
On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and now He testifies about Jesus Christ crucified.
Friends, the Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus, and how Jesus saves you from your sin. You are now forgiven, because Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit tells us about it. That is what Pentecost is all about. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which far surpasses all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord unto Life everlasting. Amen.
I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. "Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all 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. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you."
-John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
Grace Mercy and Peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text today is the Gospel lesson; especially verse 26 “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in Christ, I like to go hunting every fall. I enjoy getting out doors and spending some time out in God’s beautiful creation. I especially enjoy it when I got to go pheasant hunting with my dad. My dad owned 2 Britney spaniels, pointing dogs. These dogs would run in huge circles wherever they wished, sniffing for birds. Upon finding some sort of bird, they would come to a perfect stop instantly, and point to where the birds were. They would stay there pointing until we could get up there to flush the birds, so that we, hopefully, could hit them. The dogs loved this, they loved the opportunity to run and to point birds. That’s all they did. They would point the birds and wait for you to flush them. And if you missed, the dogs would be sure to give you a sideways look, as if saying, “I pointed them out to you, and you couldn’t even hit them?
Dear friends in Christ, I like to go hunting every fall. I enjoy getting out doors and spending some time out in God’s beautiful creation. I especially enjoy it when I got to go pheasant hunting with my dad. My dad owned 2 Britney spaniels, pointing dogs. These dogs would run in huge circles wherever they wished, sniffing for birds. Upon finding some sort of bird, they would come to a perfect stop instantly, and point to where the birds were. They would stay there pointing until we could get up there to flush the birds, so that we, hopefully, could hit them. The dogs loved this, they loved the opportunity to run and to point birds. That’s all they did. They would point the birds and wait for you to flush them. And if you missed, the dogs would be sure to give you a sideways look, as if saying, “I pointed them out to you, and you couldn’t even hit them?
Friends, the Holy Spirit works the same way. The Holy Spirit is always pointing something out to us, Jesus. On this great church holiday, Pentecost, we celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit, but even then, it is not just the Holy Spirit that we need to think about, but instead we need to know what the Holy Spirit does. How the Holy Spirit points not to Himself, but instead to Jesus Christ and Him crucified for all of our sins. Our text today makes that clear, as Jesus says, "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me.” The Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus, and Jesus alone. He is like a giant road sign that says “Hey Jesus is this way! Follow me to Jesus”. But sadly, we as sinful human beings sometimes struggle with this. We don’t always understand or listen to the Holy Spirit. And when we misunderstand the Holy Spirit, we misunderstand who He is testifying about, Jesus Christ.
To know how we misunderstand who the Holy Spirit is testifying about, we have to know how it works. Jesus promises in today’s text that He would send a helper, a counselor, who when He comes will guide you in all truth. This promised helper is the Holy Spirit, and even today He does the will of Jesus. He convicts of our sin as we hear God’s word, and He pours out forgiveness through both Word and Sacraments. We call these the Means of Grace, where God works with us poor sinners today. These are the ways that we get the forgiveness of sins earned for us by Jesus on the cross.
But often times today, we ignore the work of the Holy Spirit. We ignore the means by which He is a helper and counselor to us. Instead we neglect and ignore His work, and end up looking for God in all the wrong places.
Take the first of the means of grace, God’s word. How often in our lives do we neglect hearing God’s word. Yes, we come to church, but do we always pay attention to God’s Word outside of Church? I know that for myself, a vicar at a church getting ready to return to studies at the Seminary, it is very difficult to keep in God’s word every day. Sure I look at it, and I study it for sermons, but it is difficult to get into God’s word for the purpose of devotion. There is always something else to do, rather than read a few chapters of scripture. I can watch the television. I can clan the house. I can go for a jog, or a walk. I can find hundreds of different things to do to avoid God’s word, to ignore the work of the Holy Spirit pointing me towards Jesus.
What about you? Do you sufferer from the same excuses that I have? Do you too avoid God’s word? Even today, people struggle to believe whether or not the Bible is the truth, or if it really means what it says. When this happens, we begin to doubt God’s word itself, and when we doubt God’s word, we doubt whether or not the Holy Spirit works through that word or not.
With this the other two means of grace, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper also suffer. It is the very word and promises of God themselves that make those two things so valuable to us as Christians. In Baptism we believe that we are connected to the death and resurrection of Jesus. But if we doubt God’s Word, we can’t really believe that to be true. If we doubt God’s word, Baptism becomes just a nice symbolic act. And the Lords’ Supper is where we eat the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, but if we doubt God’s word, it is a nice little post sermon snack.
With these doubts, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit who Jesus sent, is no longer connected to God’s word. And if it is not connected to God’s word, it isn’t really a help at all. Yes, we may look for the Holy Spirit elsewhere. Perhaps we try to find him in other places, maybe in how we feel, maybe in how we think, maybe in what we “do” for Jesus. But He has not promised to be there. The Holy Spirit promises to work through God’s word, and so it is there that we must find him, even though, that is not where we often times look for Him.
If we ignore the Holy Spirit, it would be like hunting with my dad’s pointers and when they went on point by a bird, searching the next field over looking to scare up the birds. No longer would we actually find any birds to even shoot at. No longer would we be trusting our helper, or our counselor. In the same way, when we ignore the means of grace by which the Holy Spirit work, we ignore who they point to.
But that is not the way we hunt, and it is not the way that Christians find the Holy Spirit. Today on Pentecost, we heard in the Epistle lesson how the Holy Spirit was poured upon the apostles like tongues of flame. How the Holy Spirit came upon them and caused them to go out and testify that day, not about themselves, but instead about Jesus Christ. You see the Holy Spirit isn’t out there pointing at himself, but instead is always telling us about Jesus.
It is the work of the Holy Spirit that tells us today, “Even though you are a sinner, even though you are guilty, Jesus has died for you.” Jesus was beaten and bloodied, for you. Jesus was mocked and ridiculed, for you. Jesus was nailed upon a cross and left to suffer there until death, for you. And then Jesus raised from the dead on the third day and now lives and reigns for all eternity, for you. All of these things were done for you and for your sin. This is the message of the Holy Spirit. And it doesn’t end there. Instead there is more good news in the message of the Holy Spirit. He proclaims now that you are directly connected to that suffering and death.
How? Through those means mentioned above. It is in these means that God gives by the work of the Holy Spirit we are brought to and sustained in faith. In these things, the Holy Spirit shouts, “Jesus died for you,” and now you hear that message with your ears. The Holy Spirit shouts, “You have died and risen with Jesus, because you are washed in the waters of Holy Baptism.” You now partake in that very body and blood of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ at the Lord’s Supper. These things all point us directly to Jesus Christ.
Yes sometimes in our lives we struggle with what we believe about them. Yes sometimes we even ignore them, or mistreat them, but they are always there pointing and directing us back to the cross. Even when we turn and stray away, the Holy Spirit returns us to the correct path.
On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and now He testifies about Jesus Christ crucified.
Because of the Holy Spirit’s testimony, the apostles testified about Christ Jesus, and that message through the Holy Spirit has come down over thousands of years, and now the Holy Spirit testifies that same message to you. Jesus Christ has died for your sins. Jesus Christ suffered for you. Jesus Christ loves you, and will be with you always, even to the very end of the age. “There He is in the hearing and study of God’s Word. There He is in the receiving of the Sacraments.” The Holy Spirit is there to point and guide us, so that we cannot miss Jesus.
Friends, the Holy Spirit testifies about Jesus, and how Jesus saves you from your sin. You are now forgiven, because Jesus died for you, and the Holy Spirit tells us about it. That is what Pentecost is all about. Amen.
Now may the peace of God which far surpasses all human understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord unto Life everlasting. Amen.
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