The New Birth. Trinity Sunday 2021

The Feast of the Holy Trinity

Emmaus Lutheran Church

St. John 3:1-17

May 30, 2021

The New Birth

Jesu juva!

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today is the Festival of the Holy Trinity, so it would seem obvious that today the sermon would proclaim the great mystery of our faith, that we worship one God in three persons—the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity.

But the Gospel reading for this Sunday, as you heard, does not teach about the Trinity, at least not directly.  Our Lord says to Nicodemus: If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?  (John 3:12)  Perhaps those heavenly things which Jesus had in mind here are how the Son was begotten of the Father from eternity, and how the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.  These are mysteries that we can’t begin to understand with our little minds.  How can the Son be begotten or fathered by the Father, and yet be eternal with the Father?  How can the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son, and yet be from eternity with both the Father and the Son?  That’s not how things work here in time, here on earth.  A man has a son—the son comes after the father, if not in intellect or wealth, at least in time.  But in heaven, the Son is begotten of the Father and yet is co-eternal with the Father.  This is not something we can understand about our God.  It can only be believed.

But Jesus tells Nicodemus He can’t tell him about heavenly things because Nicodemus hasn’t believed when He told him earthly things. 

And the “earthly things” that Jesus told Nicodemus are clear.  He told Nicodemus about the new birth, or regeneration.  Without this it is not possible to see or enter the kingdom of God.

Without being born again it is not possible to know the Triune God, or be saved, or have eternal life.

So today with God’s help I will proclaim to you this new birth or regeneration:

1. How and why it is necessary to enter God’s Kingdom

2. What it is

3.  And by what means it is brought about.

1.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus and says: Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.  (John 3:2)  It seems like a positive thing that Nicodemus comes to Jesus and says this.  He is a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council.   You would expect that he would know about spiritual things.  And he believes that he does know about spiritual things.

But it doesn’t take a spiritual man to recognize that signs and wonders like Jesus is doing come from God.  Pharaoh’s wizards and sorcerers, who practiced magic with the aid of demons, recognized that the signs being performed by Moses were works of God.  When God sent the plague of gnats on Egypt, and they were not able copy it by their witchcraft, they told Pharaoh: This is the finger of God (Ex. 8:19).  Recognizing God’s miraculous work does not make you spiritual. 

Neither does knowing there is one God.  Even the demons believe that—and shudder (James 2:19). 

Jesus doesn’t praise Nicodemus and the Pharisees for recognizing that His signs show that God is with Him.  He abruptly says: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).  Though you may recognize that I come from God, you are still outside of God’s Kingdom and outside of salvation unless you are born again, Jesus says.  There are many people today who see Christianity as a positive force in the world.  There are people who acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God and who formally profess faith in the Triune God, and yet they are actually ignorant of God’s Kingdom.  They can’t see it.  They don’t understand it.  They are outside of it.

We are not able to enter into God’s Kingdom or even to perceive it unless we are born again, reborn by the Spirit of God.

Why is this?  The Lord says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.  (John 3:6). 

That which is born of the flesh is flesh.  We were all born of the flesh.  We were born of the union of a man and a woman; our mothers carried us in their wombs.  They went into labor.  We entered this world as crying babies. 

We frequently say when a baby is born: “It is a miracle.”  And it is a great gift.  Life is a great gift from the Triune God. 

Nevertheless, that which is born of the flesh is flesh. A child that is conceived from Adam’s seed, according to Holy Scripture, is dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1).  His mind is hostile to God and unable to keep God’s law, according to Romans 8 (6-8).  A person in the flesh cannot please God.  So he can’t enter God’s Kingdom.

Not only that, but he is not able to understand the Word and ways of the Holy Trinity.  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor. 2:14). 

We are all born of flesh and blood in the natural way.  But by that birth alone, no matter how smart or how virtuous we may be, we are dead in sins, hostile to God, and unable to understand or receive God’s Kingdom.

Nicodemus was not spiritual because He recognized Jesus had divine power.  But since he was of the flesh, he could only imagine one way to approach God—on the basis of what he did.  A person who does not understand his sin may think that he is a relatively good person and therefore not be afraid of God’s wrath.  But a person who hears the Law of God exposing his sin and declaring God’s wrath and punishment against sinners will not draw near to God.  Instead he will run away.  He will think something like, “First I will clean up my life, and then I will try to come to God.”

But we can’t enter God’s kingdom in either of those ways.  We can’t enter God’s Kingdom in fleshly security, thinking our righteousness is enough to approach Him.  Nor can we enter His Kingdom when His wrath and judgment and the guilt of our sin is ringing in our ears.  But those two ways of thinking is all that we are capable of in the flesh—either the false security of thinking we don’t really have sin, or that it is something that we can deal with ourselves.  Or the despair of hearing God’s wrath proclaimed against those who do not fulfill the Law, and realizing we cannot ever fulfill it.

2.

That is why Jesus says, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.

What does it mean to be born again?  Nicodemus’ response to Jesus is touching.  He says, “How can a man be born when he is old?  He can’t enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” 

No, a man can’t be born of his mother again.  That happens once, and the life that begins in the mother’s womb proceeds in a line one way—from childhood and youth, to manhood, to old age, and then to death. 

But Jesus is not talking about a physical birth, but a new birth by the Holy Spirit.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.  A person must be recreated, reborn, by the third person of the Holy Trinity.

What is it?  Jesus tells us: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.  For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:14-16).

One is born again by the Spirit when He believes in Jesus Christ, lifted up on the cross.  Moses lifted up the bronze serpent on the pole in the wilderness before the Israelites who were being bitten by poisonous snakes.  The Lord had sent those snakes to bite them because they were grumbling against Moses and the bread God sent from heaven.  They said God had brought them in the wilderness to kill them.  It was a strict punishment, but a just one.  The Israelites were acting like a brood of vipers, like sons of the lying serpent, who told Adam and Eve in the garden that God had lied to them, and was holding back good things from them.  They were poisoned by the serpent and passed their fallen nature on to their children.  This is what the Israelites were behaving like—like people poisoned by the serpent, slandering God, saying that He wanted to kill them rather than save them.  So the snakes bit them and they died.

But when they cried for mercy and forgiveness, God told Moses to lift up the serpent on the pole, and whoever looked on it lived, even though he was being bitten by the serpents.

Jesus says, So must the Son of Many be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.

When a person believes that Jesus was lifted up on the cross for him and was made sin for him, so that the poison of sin and death at work in him may not hurt him, he has been born again.  He has been regenerated, reborn by the Spirit.  He has a new life in the Holy Spirit.

The person who believes that Jesus was lifted up like the serpent on the pole so that we might see Him bearing our sin and the poison of sin we feel burning within us and live—that person has been born again.

And as Jesus says, he has a new kind of life that those who are of the flesh can’t understand or judge.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.”  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.  (John 3:6-8)

When you believe in Jesus lifted up for you, you still have the flesh, but you are born of the Spirit.  You no longer live according to the rules and wisdom of the flesh.  You receive righteousness not the way the flesh thinks, but as a free gift from God.  You no longer belong to the world, but born of the Spirit you have been brought into the Kingdom of God and you have fellowship with the Holy Trinity.  Your life is hidden with Christ in God.  (Col. 3:3)  And the Spirit who has taught you to know God through His Son, lifted up, produces in your heart love of God and your neighbor.  That is impossible for those in the flesh.  They are enemies of God.   They live to please themselves.  And when conviction of sin comes to them, they do not love God, but are afraid of Him and flee from Him.

But you who believe that Jesus was lifted up with your sins, that He became sin for you, and therefore your sins will not condemn or destroy you—you draw near to God as your Father.  You have been born of the Spirit of God.

3.

But how does the Holy Spirit bring about this new birth in us?

Jesus says: Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

Water and Spirit are joined in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.  When we baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, according to Jesus’ command, the Holy Spirit is joined to the water.  Because Jesus’ word brings the Holy Spirit.

Baptism is not just ordinary water that pictures something.  Without the Word of God, the water is plain water and no baptism.  But with the Word of God, it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul writes in Titus chapter 3: He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal in the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, in order that, being justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.  This is a trustworthy saying.

In Baptism the Holy Spirit gave you the new birth so that you believed in Jesus and were counted righteous.

And what if we fell away and grieved the Holy Spirit, so that we became spiritually dead again?  The Holy Spirit wants to bring us back to the washing of new birth that we have received.

He reveals our unbelief, how we have hidden our faces from the one God lifted up for us.

Then He proclaims to us that Jesus has healed us by becoming sin for us on the cross.

That we have died with Him and been reborn in Holy Baptism.

That our life is hidden in Him and our conversation is in heaven with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  This is His promise to you in Baptism.

Amen.

The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. 

Soli Deo Gloria

Three Kinds of Preachers. Pentecost Tuesday 2021

Wednesday of Pentecost (Pentecost Tuesday Observed)

Emmaus Lutheran Church

St. John 10:1-10

May 26, 2021

3 Kinds of Preachers (indebted to Luther, Church Postil for Pentecost Tuesday)

Jesu juva!

In the Name of Jesus.

This is the Gospel reading for Pentecost Tuesday.  At first it seems like a strange reading, since it says nothing about the Holy Spirit.

What does it talk about?  It talks about shepherds and robbers.  It talks about the true shepherd, His sheep, and false shepherds.  But the Holy Spirit is hidden in the reading.  The Holy Spirit is the One who calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.  So says the catechism.  The Holy Spirit gathers the church to Jesus.  When the Church, the sheep of Jesus, hears the voice of Jesus, that, according to the catechism, is the working of the Holy Spirit. 

Yes, the same Holy Spirit who mysteriously hovered over the waters at creation to bring forth life.  The Lord and giver of life.  When you hear the voice of Jesus, the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, and enlightens you, and keeps you with Jesus.

That is a mysterious thing, because we don’t see Jesus, yet the catechism says we are gathered to Him and kept with Him whom we don’t see.

And how do we hear Jesus’ voice if we don’t see Him?

According to the Lord’s own word today, we hear Jesus’ voice when someone enters the sheep pen through the door.  On the other hand, when someone enters the sheep pen some other way, we don’t hear Jesus’ voice; we hear the voice of a robber or a thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy the sheep.

When a preacher enters the sheep pen through the door, the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies us and gathers us to Jesus, and keeps us with Him.

Jesus explains to us in this text that there are three kinds of preachers:

1.  Thieves and robbers,

2.  The gatekeeper,

3.  And the shepherd of the sheep—or preachers through whom Christ comes.

1.

A thief and a robber is one who does not come in through the gate or the door.  He climbs over the fence, or breaks it down, but he does not go in through the gate.

True shepherds are known by the gate, and false shepherds are known by the gate. 

What is the gate or the door to the sheepfold?  The Lord tells us.  I am the door of the sheep.  All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  I am the door.  If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture (John 10:7-9).

First of all, a thief or a robber is not called by Christ.  People who want to put themselves forward as teachers and preachers but have not received a call from God through the Church show themselves to be thieves and robbers.  A faithful preacher does not presume to preach on the basis of his own talents or holiness or whatever it may be.  He preaches and teaches because He has been called by God. 

But a thief and a robber may receive a regular call through the Church, and yet may be a thief and a robber.  A thief and a robber doesn’t enter through the gate.  He comes preaching something other than Christ, the shepherd.  When Jesus came into the world, the good shepherd, He came preaching the good news of the kingdom of God.  He healed the sick and cast out demons and proclaimed that God’s kingdom had come near.  Both His miracles and His teaching were testifying to what He would do.  He would lay down His life for us, rise from the dead, and in so doing present us to the Father righteous.

But a thief and robber does not come in Christ’s name proclaiming the forgiveness of sins for His sake.  A thief and robber preaches something other than Christ.  The Pharisees in Jesus’ day preached that by wearing certain clothes, and fasting, and staying away from sinners, and tithing, the Jews would be righteous in the sight of God.  In Luther’s day the Pope and Bishops preached that by attending mass and by becoming a monk or a nun and a variety of other works people might hope to be saved.  These were thieves and robbers.  Anyone who believed this preaching was damned and lost, just as anyone today who trusts in his works cannot be saved.

Jesus is the door through which a person enters and is saved and finds pasture.  So a preacher who comes preaching some other door, who does not enter the door of the sheepfold, is a liar and a murderer.

We should be warned when we hear this.  Somehow, pretty much all of the Jews at Jesus’ time had been led astray by thieves and robbers.  Somehow, pretty much the whole church by the time of Luther had had the same thing happen.  We should be on guard against thieves and robbers in the Church and not be self-confident and imagine that we could never be taken captive in this way.

2.

The second kind of preacher is the gatekeeper.  Jesus says He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.  To him the gatekeeper opens.

Who is the gatekeeper?  The gatekeeper is the preacher of the law, the preacher of the old covenant.  When we hear this we think that the gatekeeper is bad, but actually God appointed gatekeepers.  He appointed preachers of the Law.  He called Moses to preach the Law, and John the Baptist.

To be sure, Moses did proclaim the coming savior, and so did John the Baptist.  But Moses and John preached the Law in a way that the thieves and robbers did not, the way God appointed the Law to be preached.  They preached in such a way as to lock up and pen up the sheep.  This is what St. Paul teaches in Galatians 3:23-24: Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.  So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 

So you see this in John’s preaching.  He preached that the Jews were a brood of vipers, that they should not imagine that they could say they were offspring of Abraham, but that they should bear fruit in keeping with repentance, because the axe was at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 

It was terrifying preaching, preaching that locked and bound up those who heard it, so that they would long for the Savior to come and deliver them.

But then when Jesus came, John opened the gate for him.  He pointed everyone to Him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

Faithful preachers today must also do this kind of preaching.  Pastors must preach the law in order to lock us up, pen sinners up.  This happens when we hear the Law declare that we are lost and condemned because of our sins of thought, word and deed.  This kind of preaching puts to death our self-confidence and the freedom of the flesh, which is not afraid to sin.  It locks us up and binds us in our sins.  And it also makes us hunger and thirst for forgiveness.  Whenever we are dealing with sinners who are not hungry and thirsty for grace, they need to hear the gatekeeper locking them up, saying, The axe is at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 

3.

The third preacher mentioned by Jesus is the shepherd of the sheep.  The pastor who faithfully preaches Christ’s word is given this honor—that the one who listens to that pastor hears Jesus.  Through Him Jesus speaks.  Through His preaching Jesus comes to His sheep.  And His sheep hear His voice and recognize Him.

Yes, and the Holy Spirit comes and gathers the sheep to Jesus, so that even as they are in this wilderness of a world, in which sin, death, and the devil roam around like the angel of death, they are saved, as the Lord Jesus says.  They are saved.  They go in and out and find pasture.

When you hear a faithful preacher, the Holy Spirit gathers you to Jesus and you are saved and you are safe. 

So how then do you know if your pastor is a faithful preacher?  He comes in through the door. 

He is rightly called by the congregation, of course.

And He comes preaching Jesus Christ.  He will of course preach the Law, as did John the Baptist.  But where John the Baptist and Moses preached Jesus as one who was coming, a faithful preacher’s preaching is Jesus.

He not only tells you that Jesus is true God and true man,  the Son of God, the King who comes to judge the living and the dead.  He proclaims Jesus as the good pastor who lays down His life for the sheep.  He tells you Jesus, and Jesus alone, is the door through which you enter and are saved.  He doesn’t say—Jesus, and also you must do this and that, you must wear this kind of clothing, eat this kind of food, vote this way, or sing this way.  He proclaims to you the good shepherd, who came into the world to give His sheep abundant, overflowing life.  Who lays down His life for the sheep.

When you are hearing this preaching, rejoice!  Because even if the preaching is halting, or not as eloquent as some other preacher—the shepherd of the sheep is coming to you.  The one to whom you belong, who purchased you with His death.

He is your shepherd, He comes to you to lead you into the pasture of His Word.  You will be safe for eternal life because He is with you and no one can harm you.  And you will also be well-fed.  Your spirit will be strengthened.  Faith will become strong, and you will become like the shepherd, learning love from Him. 

Luther says a wonderful thing about this.  He says, when the sheep have learned to recognize the voice of their shepherd that proclaims the joyful news of the forgiveness of sins, they rejoice in it and won’t listen to any other voice, no matter what kind of authority that voice may seem to have.  They won’t listen to any other because the Holy Spirit testifies within them that no other voice, no other shepherd, can give consolation and assurance like the voice of Jesus in the Gospel. 

What a true word and what a comforting statement!  When we look at the true visible Church, the confessional Lutheran Church, faithful Christians are often offended by the way it appears to tolerate bad practice and even false doctrine.  Some pastors have been led astray because of this and believed the lie that this is not really Christ’s Church.  They have gone elsewhere where liturgical practice seemed to be better, where authority seemed not to have broken down. 

That has not been the temptation of most of you here, yet you have suffered as a result of not having a shepherd, or having shepherds who were attacked by the evil one.  Some of you have said you went elsewhere and did not hear the voice of your shepherd.

When we hear the voice of the true shepherd, declaring the free forgiveness of sins, the Holy Spirit gathers us to Him so that we cling to Him and will not listen to anyone else.  Thanks be to God that this faith has been worked in you by the Holy Spirit!

And where does the shepherd lead us?  Out of the pen, into freedom.  Not that we become free to serve the devil and our flesh.  But we are led into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God (Rom. 8).  We receive a free and joyful conscience that tells us we are no longer under the condemnation of the Law, that we are righteous before God through our shepherd alone.  We receive the assurance that we belong to the new heavens and earth and that we will share in a resurrection like His.  And then we will be truly free, from sin and death, through our shepherd.

But we are already free.  He comes to us through the door; He comes to us announcing that our sins have been atoned for by His blood.  We have been baptized into His resurrection.  We are participants in all that He won for us by His death and the shedding of His blood.  So He pledges in the Sacrament of the Altar.

The Holy Spirit gathers us to Him and we are saved.

The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Soli Deo Gloria

All Jesus Said. Pentecost 2021

Pentecost

Emmaus Lutheran Church

St. John 14:23-31

May 23, 2021

All Jesus Said

Jesu juva!

In the Name of Jesus.

Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit to His Church on Pentecost came with great, visible signs.  There was a sound from heaven like a mighty, rushing wind, that filled the house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues like fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.  So as the disciples looked at each other they saw a visible, tangible sign that the Holy Spirit was being poured out upon them in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.  Then they all began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. 

Crowds formed around the disciples not because of what they were saying, but because they heard the disciples speaking in their own tongues.  They were Jews, but they had come from all corners of the world, from Mesopotamia in the east to Rome in the west.  Possibly some or even most of them knew Hebrew, but it would not have been their first language.  Just like today when people study the biblical languages, it is difficult work, and it never comes as easily as the language which we learned to speak as children.  So when they heard these twelve men from Galilee, from the northern part of Israel, speaking their native languages—and they name sixteen different languages—it was a miraculous sign to them, that whatever the disciples had to say they should hear.

And Peter says, What you are now seeing and hearing is what was spoken about by the prophet Joel long ago, that the Lord would pour out His Spirit on all flesh in the last days.  And Joel named other miracles that the Spirit would do.  He would cause not just special servants of God, the prophets, to see visions, dream dreams, and to speak prophetically.  People from every age group and sex of God’s people would see visions, dream dreams, and prophesy. 

Throughout the book of Acts, we see these miraculous signs of the Spirit’s presence that Peter spoke about.  When the apostles lay hands on people, they speak in tongues and give other visible signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence. 

But today in the Church we seldom see such visible, miraculous signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence among us.  I know that there are churches that claim to have such signs and who say that we do not have them because we do not seek them out, or perhaps because we are too sinful.  The truth is, however, the Holy Spirit does miraculous signs when and where He chooses.  And those signs are gifts, just the Spirit Himself is a gift.  He does not come to us because we are holy and good.  He comes to us while we are still sinners, solely through faith in Jesus Christ.  St. Paul wrote to the Galatian church:O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. ² Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? (Gal. 3:1-2)

We don’t receive the Spirit through any means except by hearing the Gospel with faith, which is also what happens when we are baptized as infants.  And the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit are also received without works.  If we do not have them in the Church today, that is not a sign that we have sinned, necessarily.  The Holy Spirit is not bound to give the same gifts to all people at all times. 

But we should not think the Holy Spirit is not present with power in His Church, even with us.  In the Gospel reading Jesus told His disciples: These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.  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.  (John 14:25-26)

Jesus is telling His disciples that His visible presence is not going to be with them forever.  He is going to the Father, but the Father will send them the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all that He said to them.

This mighty work of the Holy Spirit was not only fulfilled in the lifetime of the apostles, but it is continuing to be fulfilled in the Church today.  The Holy Spirit continues to bring to remembrance all Jesus’ words and teach us all things.  Why is this as mighty a work as the mighty wind, the tongues of fire, the ability to speak in other languages, the dreams and visions? 

Because Jesus’ words, as He says earlier in John, are spirit and life (John 6:63).  As Peter says, Jesus’ words are the words of eternal life (John 6:68).  Hebrews says that Jesus upholds the universe by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3).  Jesus says: Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.  Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.  (John 5:24-25)

His word raises the dead and causes us to pass from death into life.  It upholds the universe and keeps it in being.  On the last day Jesus’ word will judge the living and the dead.  And we heard Jesus Himself say in this Gospel reading: 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 (John 14:23).  In the next chapter He says His Word makes His disciples clean.  We could spend all day talking about the power of Jesus’ word.

His word is all we need.  When the Holy Spirit causes Jesus’ word to be remembered, He is doing a mighty work.  A work that gives life.  A work that releases from death and judgment, and a work that judges the world.  He is doing the mighty work of cleansing sinners.  He is bringing to us the word with the strength to uphold the universe and to bring in a new one, to make us a new creation now.

As we read, listen to, meditate on, sing, and preach the apostles’ words in Holy Scripture, Jesus’ promise is being fulfilled.  The Holy Spirit is “bringing to remembrance all that I have said to you.” 

But you remember how all through the Gospels Jesus tells His disciples things that they don’t understand?  The key example of this is how Jesus tells them three times that He is going to be killed in Jerusalem, but they can’t understand what He is saying.  They also keep worrying about food even though Jesus feeds the five thousand and the four thousand. 

The Scriptures tell us that they did not understand many things Jesus said to them until He had risen from the dead and especially until He had poured out the Holy Spirit upon them.  And even having received the Holy Spirit, it took them time to learn, for instance, that the Lord wanted to gather the Gentiles into His Church.

We are like the disciples.  We need the Holy Spirit to remind us of what Jesus said and also to teach us all things, to take the words of Jesus and apply them to us and make us understand them.  So this is what He does through preaching, through teaching the catechism, through reading the Bible.  He causes us to remember Jesus’ word and He teaches us through His Word so that we are not only sound and orthodox in the faith, but also so that we know and believe that we are righteous and have the forgiveness of sins, so that we know and believe that we have life, that we have passed over from death to life.

Now the very sad thing that follows from this teaching that the Holy Spirit reminds us of all that Jesus has said and that He teaches us all things is that we have to recognize and confess that we disregard this mighty work of the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit reminds us of all that Jesus has said, He is not merely telling us some facts about what Jesus said.  He is giving us everything we need.  In Jesus’ words that He said on earth we have everything we need.  Everything we need to know true doctrine.  Everything we need to have a good conscience before God.  We have everything we need of the forgiveness of sins.  Every trouble of soul and life is remedied by Jesus’ powerful word.

Because the One who spoke these words, Jesus, is God of God, light of light, very God of very God.  Yet He is also our brother in flesh and blood.  He became flesh and blood to carry our infirmities and our guilt.  He has the words of eternal life.  He knows the word that sustains the weary.

And the Holy Spirit brings these words to our remembrance—yet we disregard Him.  We neglect the Word.  We don’t read it, learn it, and hear it as befits such a mighty, powerful, comforting word.  Pastors neglect to study and meditate on it and set a bad example.  Hearers of the word do not give it their attention, nor do they support it as they should with their prayers and offerings.  We hear it and it does not immediately seem to solve the problems we think we have.  It doesn’t come with the appearance of power.  So we neglect it and don’t take to heart that the Holy Spirit who hovered over the waters at creation and who came upon the disciples with power—hovers over us as the Scriptures are read and proclaimed.  He fills us as really and truly as He filled the apostles when the Scriptures are read and proclaimed and taught—even if there is no mighty rushing wind and no tongues of fire. 

In Ephesians 4:30, the apostle warns us Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.  The Holy Spirit is grieved whenever we stubbornly and willfully resist Him, like the children of Israel.  But surely the most obvious way this is done is when we don’t keep the Sabbath day holy, which is to say when we despise or disregard preaching and His Word instead of gladly hearing and learning it. 

When we remember the great work God did in the Reformation of causing the pure Gospel of the free forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake to be remembered, we have to grieve that we have often lightly regarded this powerful work of the Holy Spirit of causing the Scriptures to be remembered and rightly understood.

However, the Holy Spirit continues His work in our day by causing the words of absolution to be remembered.  He reminds us how Jesus said to the paralyzed man laid before Him, and the woman who wiped His feet with her hair—Your sins are forgiven.

The Holy Spirit reminds us how Jesus gave that authority to His Church, and how the absolution spoken to us is Christ’s forgiveness, spoken to our failure to listen.

He reminds us of Jesus’ words on the night of His betrayal: This is my body, given for you.  This cup is the new testament in my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. 

And today He reminds us that Jesus promised the Spirit would be our helper and comforter, would teach us all things and remind us of His Word.  We have His promise that He will lead us to know the truth of His Word.

That is no small work in a world that is ignorant of God and His Word.  We will know the truth of His doctrine.  We will have life in the midst of death, righteousness in the midst of sin.

But He will also teach us to rightly divide His Word.  He will enable us to speak the word to others—to know when to speak the truth about sin and judgment, and when to declare the forgiveness of sins.  He will teach us how to speak His saving Word to others.

May the Holy Spirit continue and renew His gracious work in us this Pentecost!

The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

God’s Scattering and Gathering. Pentecost 2019

The Feast of Pentecost

St. Peter Lutheran Church

St. John 14:23-31 (Gen. 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21)

June 9, 2019

God’s Scattering and Gathering

 

Iesu iuva!

 

In the Name of Jesus!

 

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love.  Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth.  Amen.

 

They shall repair the ruined cities, it says on the sign outside.  Do you remember that?  It was the theme for the stewardship series last fall.  This is what God promises He is going to do through His Church.  They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations (Is. 61:4).  God creates, and He restores creation.  It has been His will since the beginning to restore man to his former glory.  And when the crown of creation, man, is restored, we then go out and repair the ruined creation.  The Holy Spirit works in and with us to restore the face of the ground (Ps. 104:30). 

 

The problem has always been that human beings always resist God’s promise to restore and gather them, because human beings want to repair themselves, gather themselves from where they are scattered.  In the Old Testament reading we have an example of this.  Noah’s descendants refuse to do what God commanded and spread out across the earth.  God’s will didn’t make sense to them, so they decided to stay together in one place and build a tower to make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth (Gen. 11:4). 

 

How it was that they thought a tower with its top in the high heaven would keep God from scattering them, its hard to say.  But then again maybe it isn’t so strange.  If we drive into Chicago we can see many towers stretching up into the heavens.  Many people gather around them because they indicate commerce, money, culture will be found there.  And in cities like it around the country similarly marvelous things have been accomplished.  In some they have mapped the human genome.  In others they have developed computer systems that have brought the whole world together.

 

People imagine that our skyscrapers and our airplanes, our computers and knowledge will keep God’s judgment at bay.  Many people even think that our striving, our knowledge that we accomplish by working together as human beings will enable us to return to the paradise from which we have fallen.

 

But it is folly.  No amount of achievement that we can build with our own hands can restore the glory we have lost.  We are born enemies of God, devoid of His love.  And since He who does not  love remains in death (1 John 3:14), human beings die and are dead even while they are alive.  And they remain in death forever.

 

When God scattered the people at Babel He was actually being kind to them.  As long as they were together, doing marvelous things like setting up a tower into the heavens, they were never going to be raised up to the glory God meant them to have.  They were never going to return to God that way, because their trust was in their own power and effort and skill and intelligence.  Their trust was in an idol.  God tore down their tower, confused their language, and scattered them, because until they lost these idols they could never know the true God.

 

God does the same thing today.  He shatters our idols through the preach of the Law so that we realize that they won’t save us. Those who do not believe in Christ have to give up the idol that they are going to go to heaven while doing what pleases their flesh, while following the world’s values and clinging to sin.  Those who truth their good moral life to save them have to be brought to confess that it is not enough for God.  God makes us give up these idols when He reveals His will in the Law and His judgment on sinners.  He destroys their work and scatters them, just as one day those who persist in their own works will perish with them, spending eternity alone in their anguish.

 

Churches often follow the way of Babel.  They are tempted to trust in the number of people they have gathered together, and they try to gather people into their buildings by any means possible.  They think that if there are a lot of people in church they will be safe.  They won’t have to worry about the church closing; they won’t have money problems.  They think having a big growing church is a sign of God’s presence and favor, and so they do whatever they have to to create that big, growing church.

 

It’s of course not wrong to seek to bring people to Christ and therefore into church membership—we should od that.  But it is idolatry to trust that God is with you because your church is growing.  The idolatry is imagining that you can gather God’s church and build it by your own strength, wisdom, and talent.  When we start doing that, we impose our own agendas on the Church which is the creation of the Triune God, and His dwelling place.  We oppose God and fight against Him.

 

 

Have you done this?  To the extent  that you don’t understand the will and the ways of God, you are sure to have done it, just as I have.  When we proceed by the wisdom of our flesh, we start building a tower of Babel instead of the church of God.  And God judges us.  He knocks down our idols and declares that we who build them will become like them (Ps. 115:8)—we become helpless, deaf, dumb, devoid of wisdom.  We perish with out idols.

 

But it is not God’s will that you perish.  His will is to raise you up to glory and have you united to Him as He repairs the ruined world.

 

He raises us up by proclaiming the good news to us by the Holy Spirit.  He tells us that HE is with us not because our church is growing in numbers but because He died for our sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.   And with this good news the Holy Spirit comes and raises us up so that we say, “Yes, Amen.  God is true and therefore my sins are forgiven.  God is with me and I have peace with God.”

 

What is true for an individual Christian is true for the Church.  God is with us not because we have no sin but by His Gospel that declares our sins forgiven.  The believers at St. Peter have sin, but it is forgiven.  There are also those who do not believe, but God does not abandon St. Peter because of the unbelief of some even of many.  He sends us His Holy Spirit who continues to tell us the good news, that we are raised up and restored to fellowship with God through the blood of our Savior.  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.  (John 14)

 

Jesus’ peace with God and His peace within came from His righteousness.  He always pleased the Father.  Jesus gives us that peace as a gift.  He covered our sins.  He sends us the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the Word and in the Sacraments to make this known to us and to strengthen us in the faith that this is so.

 

When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost He cam in the form of tongues as of flame.  The Holy Spirit raises up fallen sinners and gathers them into one church through speaking, through the tongue.  Through the preaching of the ministry of the church and the witness of its members.  But not simply through our talk; the Holy Spirit comes upon us and speaks through us in fiery tongues that scorch and purify but also transfigure and empower us.  God speaks through us.

 

And He speaks not in human eloquence, according to human wisdom.  He speaks divine wisdom.  He makes known Jesus Christ and His teaching.  That is how the Holy Spirit builds up the church.

 

Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (John 14:26).  He doesn’t say the Holy Spirit will teach you “some things” or the “most important things”.  He will teach the apostles, and the Church that follow them all things.  The church is not left to make up its own message to give the world.  The church does not say, “We have a message from God to bring you, but you’re free to not believe parts of it as long as you believe the main parts.”  It is not a human message you may accept or reject.  It is God’s witness when it shows your sin, God’s message when it declares you righteous—God’s message in all that it teaches.

 

Because we have been given the Holy Spirit we reach out with the Gospel to our neighbors with confidence that He works with us and through us.  And that He with His divine power will raise us up to glory, and through us repair the ruined cities.  Even if we cannot see how He is doing these things now we are confident that He is working among us and that in the world to come the work He has done through us will endure forever, and we will see it when we enter into the city of God.

 

But we do not merely trust; we ask God to continue to pour out on us individually and on one another this wonderful gift, the Holy Spirit, so that our lives and our work may not be our own, but God may be living in us and working in us.

 

This week our dear sister Eunice Frenk was called to the Lord.  Both she and her father and brother lived their lives in communion with the Triune God, who lived in them and worked through them.  Through them God brought many people to salvation.  Now they have gone to their rest from their labors.  Yet God has promised us the same Spirit.  Let us pray that God would pour out this heavenly gift upon this congregation, that He would gather many into His church and raise up many people to glory through us.

 

Come, holy Light, guide divine, Now cause the Word of life to shine.

Teach us to know our God aright, and call Him Father with delight.

From ev’ry error keep us free; Let none but Christ our master be

That we in living faith abide, In Him our Lord with all our might confide.

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  (LSB 497 st. 2)

 

The peace of God that passes understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

 

Soli Deo Gloria

God’s Breath. Pentecost 2018

The Feast of Pentecost

St. Peter Lutheran Church

Acts 2:1-21, John 14:23-31, Genesis 11:1-11

May 20, 2018

God’s Breath

 

Iesu Iuva

 

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,

And make our hearts Your place of rest,

Come with Your grace and heavenly aid,

And fill the hearts which You have made.  Amen.

 

“And suddenly, there came from heaven a roar, like a violent wind, and filled the house where they were sitting.”  Acts 2:2

 

The roar of violent winds is not foreign to us who have lived in the Midwest most of our lives.  They come every year, just about this time.  They break limbs off of trees.  Some years they tear roofs off houses, steeples off of churches, and some years they raze churches, schools, and whole towns to the ground, like one did in Plainfield when I was a kid.

 

But there are also calmer sorts of wind.  One kind of wind we need to live.  That is the wind going in and out of your nose right now.  It goes in and out of you without ceasing, this wind, for 70 or 80 or 90 years, with no rest, because when it stops going in, going out, you die.  When your breath departs, when your spirit departs, your body is dead.

 

And you need that wind for something almost as important as breathing.  You need it to commune with others, to love them.  You need it to talk.  When you were a baby you let out that breath to let your mother know you needed something.  When you got older you learned to let out your breath in the form of words, not just cries and yells.  But without this kind of breathing you would be cut off in the world.

 

On the Day of Pentecost, the promise of Jesus, the promise of the Father, was poured out on the believers, on the Church.  And to make people know it, there were signs; the sound of a roaring wind filling the house or room where the one hundred fifty disciples of Jesus sat, then tongues of fire dividing and resting on each one of them as they spoke in different languages.

 

Without the miraculous signs, people would not have paid attention.  But when the noise of a violent wind from heaven poured into that room, people looked up.  And when they heard the Christians speaking in a multitude of languages, they asked, “What does this mean?”

 

What does it mean?  It means that breath from heaven, God’s breath, had blown into the Church.  And the breath that entered the believers—God’s breath—now came out of them in God’s speech.

 

God’s breath had entered the bodies of the believers, and God’s speech poured out of their lips, doing what God’s speech and God’s Word does—creating, accomplishing what it announces, giving life.  Just as at the beginning of the world, God spoke, and it came to be.  Let there be light.  Let the water teem with living creatures.  Let dry ground appear.  Let us create man in Our image.

 

The breath of God still is in the Church, the believers, and it still comes from our lips, even though there is no noise like a mighty wind, and no tongues as of fire.

 

And even with no noise, no tongues of fire, no miraculous gifts of speech, the greater miracle still continues in the Church, among us.

 

The breath of God is in those who believe in Christ.  The Spirit of God is in us, having been poured out upon us in our own individual Pentecosts, when we were baptized into the body of Christ, the community in which the Holy Spirit dwells.

 

Whoever has God’s Spirit has God’s breath within him.  He has God’s life dwelling in him, the same way that a normal human body has normal human breath in it, ceaselessly going in and out until he dies.  But this life never ends; this breathing is meant to continue forever.

 

You have God’s breath in you.  You breathe it in when you hear the Word of God preached purely, taught purely, or read, and you believe it.  You breathe out His Spirit filled Word when you speak it to God in confession, in prayer, when you speak it to one another and to the people in your life.

 

The mighty, rushing wind, the whirlwind of God’s breath, rushes into us through the Word of God, proclaiming Jesus, God in the flesh, crucified for our sins, raised from the dead for our justification.  And like a person who has been resuscitated, we begin to breathe in God, believing this message.  We go on breathing it in, breathing it out.

 

The roar of a tornado is too much for us.  We can’t stand in its presence; it destroys homes and lives.  But God, who is a consuming fire, who speaks out of the whirlwind, comes to dwell in us with His life and Spirit.  Jesus promised: 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.  John 14:23

 

In the time after the flood, the people of the world began to build a great tower out of bricks and asphalt.  They wanted its top to be in the heavens.  Then all kinds of people would be in awe and would rally to that tower in great numbers instead of spreading all over the earth, as God had commanded them to do.

 

Human beings love to do things like that.  To build monuments and towers and business empires; to make a name for themselves that will make themselves and others believe they have accomplished something great, to fight off the awareness of death and emptiness that people have within them.  The gnawing hunger that something is missing, that we need more.

 

But these monuments and towers are futile gestures.  At Babel, God confused their languages.  Other times, wind, weather, and age tear down our monuments.  But even while they stand and people marvel at them, they have no breath in them.  They are dead and lifeless, just like the stone idols that the nations used to worship.  Just like the world itself, which is filled with many evil spirits, but has no place for the Spirit of God or His living breath.

 

God’s works are not like ours.  They are living.  The masterpiece of His first creation was Adam, who was created in God’s image when He breathed His breath into him.  And the master work of His new creation is the Church—all who are baptized and believe in Christ alone as their righteousness and salvation.  In this building God Himself dwells in each brick, in each room, in each human member.

 

He breathes His Spirit into the Church, and makes it a living temple and dwelling place for the Triune God.  Through the preaching of the Gospel He breathes His eternal Spirit into us so that we are alive to God, and then the Spirit breathes out through us as we speak His living words back to Him in prayer, and as we proclaim them to those who are dead—families, friends, neighbors, co-workers.

 

The Holy Spirit also speaks within us.  He tells us that through Jesus alone; through His death for us, and His resurrection from the dead, we have peace with God.  Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you.  Not as the world gives do I give to you.  Do not let your hearts be troubled; neither let them be afraid.

 

When you have been scared to do something, what do people tell you to do?  They say, “Take a deep breath.”

 

We are scared about our future.  We are scared about what will happen to us in the future.  We are scared about breathing out God’s Word to our family and friends that appear to have rejected it or forgotten it.  Knowing ourselves, our weakness, our sinfulness, we have a million reasons to be scared.

 

So, take a deep breath.  Breathe in the Holy Spirit.  Listen to the Holy Spirit preach in Church.  Come and listen to His Word be taught.  Read it.  Meditate on it.  Learn it by heart.  Take a deep breath.

 

Because in it, the Holy Spirit teaches you all things and gives you Jesus’ own peace.

 

The peace of God, that passes understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

 

Soli Deo Gloria

 

 

 

You Have The Holy Spirit! Pentecost 2017. Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost

St. Peter Lutheran Church

Acts 2:1-21

June 4, 2017

“You Have the Holy Spirit!”

 

Iesu Iuva!

 

1. Introduction: You have the Holy Spirit!

 

A few years back I went to hear a speaker named John Kleinig, a professor from the Lutheran Church in Australia. Some of you have heard of him because he wrote a book on Christian spirituality called Grace upon Grace that I have recommended many times.

In that book, Dr. Kleinig emphasizes the gift of the Holy Spirit in teaching us to pray, etc.; how prayer, meditation are received from God rather than obligations we have to fulfill

I went up and talked to him during a break and told him about the difficulty I had in some part of living the Christian life. Maybe difficulty with being faithful in prayer.  Maybe it was difficulty in knowing how to effectively do the work that needed to be done as pastor at St. Peter.  I don’t remember. What I remember was his response: “That’s why you have been given the Holy Spirit!” he said.

It silenced me.  At first, it seemed like he was dismissing me with too easy an answer.  Of course I have been given the Holy Spirit, I thought.  But that hasn’t solved my problem.

But as I thought about it more, I realized how foolish it was to think so little of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  After all, the Holy Spirit is God.  He lives in me.  He has all wisdom and knows how to solve every problem.  He is the Lord and giver of life; He is able to create, and raise the dead.  Surely He has the power to make me holy and overcome sin.

Our Savior’s name is Jesus Christ.  The second part of His name, ”Christ”is a title that means “anointed one.”  The catechism published by our Synod says that Jesus is called “Christ”, anointed one, because he has been anointed with the Holy Spirit without limit to be our Prophet, Priest, and King. If I have received the same anointing of the Holy Spirit as Jesus did, how can I worry that I don’t have what I need to live like Jesus and participate in His work?

This Pentecost, in the 2017^th year of our Lord Jesus, in the 500^th year of the Reformation, I know that you at St. Peter have the same kinds of worries I spoke to Dr. Kleinig about. Today, by the power of God the Holy Spirit, I would like to remind you of the same thing Dr. Kleinig reminded me.  Don’t be afraid.  You have been given the Holy Spirit.

2. History of Pentecost: How Peter Received Power to Speak

The reading from Acts tells us how the Holy Spirit was first given to the disciples of Jesus.  It tells us that when the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in a house.  Pentecost was one of the 3 holy days that God commanded the Jews in the Law.  It was fifty days after Passover, when Jesus had been crucified and buried.  In the Old Testament it is referred to as the Feast of Weeks or the Day of Firstfruits, because the Israelites were commanded by God to bring the firstfruits of the wheat harvest to the temple on that day.  It was also the day when they remembered how God had given the Law to Israel on Mount Sinai.  After the first Passover and God delivering the Israelites from the Egyptians through the Red Sea, Israel was led by God through the desert to Mount Sinai.  That journey took about 50 days, a little over a month and a half.

On that Pentecost after Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension into heaven forty days later, a sound came from heaven like a mighty, rushing wind and filled the house where the disciples were.  Divided tongues that looked like fire rested on each one of the disciples of Jesus, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages, each one speaking the language the Holy Spirit gave them to speak.

The record from Acts tells us that there were people in Jerusalem from all over the world who had come up for Passover.  They had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover at the temple, and they had stayed for Pentecost. A crowd of people heard the sound and came to see what it was.  And when they arrived, they heard the disciples of Jesus declaring the marvelous works of God.  They were amazed because the disciples were by and large uneducated men from Galilee, the north of what had been Israel, and yet every person who gathered heard the disciples speaking in the language in which he had been born and raised.  So they asked, What does this mean?  There were also people there who sneered and said that the disciples were drunk with new, sweet wine, the wine that had just been made at the recent grape harvest.

Then the text says, Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words (2:14). 

There is something for us there.  See how Peter speaks: Let this be known to you; give ear to my words.  Peter speaks like he has authority over this crowd! Where does Peter get this bold speech?  Did Peter speak that way fifty days ago, when some serving girls asked him if he was one of Jesus’ disciples?  No.  He was afraid.  He swore an oath that he did not know Jesus.  Now he speaks to the crowd like a man who has authority, and is confident that he should be heard.

And notice: Peter was standing with the eleven.  Before he denied that he knew Jesus.  He didn’t stand with the disciples of Jesus.  When he thought his life was in danger, he denied being one of Jesus’ disciples.  He didn’t stand with the other disciples.

But now St. Peter stands with them, and speaks for them.  He tells the crowd that no one is drunk, but that this is what was prophesied long ago by the prophet Joel.  God promised that in the last days He would pour out from His Spirit on all flesh.  In the days of old, only the prophets were given the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit enabled them to proclaim God’s Word: to prophesy.  Sometimes the Holy Spirit gave visions and dreams to the prophets.  But in the last days, God foretold that He would pour out His Spirit on all His servants: male, female, young, middle aged, old.

That is what is happening now, Peter tells them.  And he goes on to tell them why: because Jesus had been crucified for our sins, raised from the dead, and seated at God’s right hand to reign.  You crucified Him, Peter said.  But everyone who believes in Him, calls on Him, will be saved and will receive the Holy Spirit.

3. The Holy Spirit Gives Knowledge of Christ

What we see learn from this is this: the Holy Spirit makes us new people.  He gives the knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. And He makes us, who are naturally weak and selfish, like Peter was, different beings: bold, faithful, courageous.  He gives us the power to speak and proclaim Jesus to others.

You’ve all been in a room that was stuffy, damp, or moldy, and someone said, Let’s let some air in here!  They opened windows, and fresh air came into the room.  You could breathe; the room became more liveable.  That is something like what God did at Pentecost with the disciples; but the air, the mighty rushing wind, was His Holy Spirit.  “Wind” could also be translated “breath”.    God’s breath breathed into the disciples with power, vehemently.

And what does breath do?  Breath gives life.  In the beginning, when God created Adam, He breathed into His nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  Through the Holy Spirit God breathes His life into us. Without His breath we do not have life before God.  We live physically, but spiritually we are dead.  We don’t know God.  Our attempts to serve Him only drive us farther from Him. But He breathes on us in the Gospel, and we believe that Jesus our God, who died for our sins and took them away. The breath of God that makes us alive to Him by faith also renews our minds, hearts, and bodies.  We start to have confidence in God’s Word.  We start to fear God instead of human beings.  We start to have joy in the face of suffering.  We start to rely on God instead of our own strength.  We start to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Breath also does something else.  Breathing in gives us life. Breathing out is how we talk.  God’s breath, His Spirit within us, enables us to speak His Word.  It enables us to do what Peter could not do fifty days ago: confess faith in Jesus, even when we might have to suffer or lose something to do so.  The Holy Spirit also gives us wisdom and skill to speak the truth about Jesus to our neighbors for their salvation.

On Friday, the group that is working on revitalizing our congregation’s outreach with the Gospel met. One of the things we talked about was how we have a small percentage of the congregation that engages in the work of the church.  And someone said, I think what keeps a lot of people from volunteering is the fear that they aren’t really qualified. I think that is true.  People have also said that about other things.  Some people don’t come to bible class because they are afraid that they won’t know enough and will look foolish.  They are intimidated.  And I think nearly all of us worry that if we try to tell our neighbors about Jesus, tell them the Gospel, we might not say it the right way. We might say it in a way that offends people.  Or we might be challenged and will not be able to answer their questions.

Brothers and sisters, I promise you: if you are a Christian, you are qualified to speak and to serve in the Church. You have been given the Holy Spirit.  You had your personal Pentecost when you were baptized.  The Holy Spirit will speak through you and work through you to benefit the church and your neighbors.  And the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, leads us into the truth and reminds us of what He has said; the Holy Spirit teaches us to speak Jesus’ words and not our own.

4. The Holy Spirit is Received through Keeping Jesus’ Word

One thing remains to be said, about how we receive the Holy Spirit.

You notice what the disciples did to receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  They didn’t do anything. God simply poured out His Spirit upon them.

The Holy Spirit, God in us, is not a prize that is earned.  He is given freely as a gift, the greatest gift that can be given.

In the Gospel reading, Jesus tells us more about how the Holy Spirit is given.  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. (Jn. 14:23)

The Holy Spirit is given in and through the Word of Jesus; and He remains where Jesus’ word is received and kept by faith.  When you hear a sermon that proclaims Jesus alone as our Savior, His blood alone as our righteousness, the free gift of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus, the Holy Spirit is both offering the gift of Jesus’ death for your sins, and the gift of Himself.

So whenever we hear preaching that is faithful to all that Jesus said to the apostles, that is the Holy Spirit, the breath of God.  Whenever we receive the Lord’s Supper, when it is celebrated according to His institution, we are receiving the Holy Spirit along with the body and blood of our Lord.  Whenever we are absolved, forgiven, according to Jesus’ command, by His authority, the breath of God is rushing upon us, letting the breath of God into our bodies and souls, rooms that are naturally closed, foul and corrupted.

But we are not given the Holy Spirit all at once. It’s a gift that God gives as He wills. Jesus says that as parents know how to give good gifts to their children, even more the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.

But we need to ask for the Holy Spirit, and receive from Him.  Neglecting to do that means we try to get by on our own power as we carry out the work God has called us to.

We need to keep His Word.  That means: learn it, and go on learning it.  Read the Bible.  Learn the teachings of Jesus, not only in a 20 minute sermon once a week, but also making sure we know what we were taught when we were confirmed, that we not only stay where we were when we were fourteen, but that we grow to maturity in God’s teaching, asking God to make it alive in our hearts by His Spirit.

That is why Christians often lack the Spirit’s power and wisdom.  We try to improve our lives or reform the Church or build the church by our own wisdom and strength.  That is so hard, and it doesn’t work.  The Holy Spirit enables the church to live and to confess and to speak and to believe in Jesus, of Jesus.  We wear ourselves out trying to do what the Holy Spirit alone can do.

That’s what Luther supposedly said about the Reformation; he said, we didn’t do anything.  The Holy Spirit did it all.  We just preached, wrote, and drank good Wittenberg beer.  The Spirit worked through His Word and reformed the Church.

Oh, may God grant us to be able to say this!  That God would teach us to be like children at Christmas, eager to receive the gifts given by our Father!  That we would see the chief task of our Church to be to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit through hearing, reading, and learning the Word of our Lord!

May the Holy Spirit also teach us to focus on receiving Him through God’s Word and Sacraments; to receive the good news of Christ.  Then our speaking and working will not be in vain, because He will be speaking and working in us.

Amen.

The peace of God, which passes understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Soli Deo Gloria

The Holy Spirit’s Mighty Work–Pentecost 2015

Pentecost

St. Peter Lutheran Church

St. John 14:23-31

May 24, 2015

“The Holy Spirit’s Mighty Work”

Iesu Iuva

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to remembrance all that I have said to you. St. John 14:26

 

Christians aren’t followers of a philosophy or special religious principles or morality. Christians are believers in Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus is God in human flesh, that He came to earth, preached the Gospel, died for our sins, and rose again on the third day. What is unique about Christians is that we believe in Jesus. We believe Jesus is God. We believe His words to be the true words of God.

But what happens when those who are called Christians no longer believe and teach Jesus’ word? That is a tragic situation. Because among such people Jesus is no longer the authority, the Teacher, the Lord, even though they are called by His name. Instead the world’s wisdom reigns among them, and they have deserted their Lord. The only way we have Jesus is through His Word. Jesus teaches us this in the Gospel reading. “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. 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.”

On this festival day of Pentecost we rejoice and give thanks to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus poured out on His believers after He ascended to the right hand of God. The Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life, the third person of the Holy Trinity, equal in divine majesty and power to the Father and the son. He comes to the church to do a mighty miracle, although it is not one the world or our flesh regard as great. We think the Holy Spirit’s great miracles are like the ones He did on Pentecost, when He came with the sound of a mighty wind and appeared in tongues of fire on the heads of the apostles. We think it is a great miracle that the Holy Spirit made the apostles speak in various languages, or when, later in the book of Acts, He enabled people to prophesy or picked up the deacon Philip in one town and carried him miraculously to another. Those are indeed great miracles, but these are not the main work of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord tells us the Holy Spirit’s great work in the Gospel reading: “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.”

 

The Holy Spirit’s great work is to bring the words of Jesus to remembrance. That may seem like a small thing but it is not. The Holy Spirit keeps alive Jesus’ words in this world. He calls and gathers the Christian Church so that we hold fast to Jesus’ word and not the wisdom of the world. And through the word of Jesus the Holy Spirit gives us communion with the Father and the Son.

First of all we need to remember that the devil, the world, and our flesh do not want the words of Jesus to be remembered. The devil, world, and flesh—all the powers of this age—want Jesus’ word and teaching to be buried, just like they wanted Jesus to be buried. Why are they so opposed to Jesus’ word? Because Jesus’ words are powerful. They are not merely human words but the words of Almighty God. They have power to create and power to destroy. They have the power to bring death and the power to give life. When you hear the Scripture read you are not receiving ancient dead letters from a page, but the word of the Lord who created the universe by speaking. The devil, the world, and the flesh want Jesus words to be forgotten and not heard because these words destroy this present age and bring in a new world. The devil, the world, and the flesh do not want this present age to be destroyed so that a new world can come in. So if they could help it they would try to make Jesus’ words be forgotten.

But the Holy Spirit does not allow this to happen. He causes Jesus’ words to be remembered. He brought to the apostles’ minds everything Jesus had said to them, and He inspired them to write the words of Jesus in the New Testament scriptures. Since then He has caused Jesus’ words to be taught and preached and read in all the world. When Jesus’ words had largely been buried in the church under the traditions of men, the Holy Spirit caused the pure Gospel to be proclaimed again from the Scripture alone by Martin Luther. And in our day when the world wants to edit the words of Jesus so that He says nothing politically incorrect, the Holy Spirit causes the words of Jesus to be remembered and proclaimed in churches that are faithful to His Word. But if the Holy Spirit had not been given to the church, Jesus’ words would have been forgotten—not because they are not powerful, but because our human nature is too weak to keep the word of Jesus without the Holy Spirit.

Because the Holy Spirit causes Jesus’ word to be remembered He also gathers Jesus’ church and keeps it in the one true faith. By nature human beings are in darkness. They know there is a God but do not know how they can be at peace with Him. They know there is a God but they do not know how to become free of their sins so that they may have God’s favor. But Jesus came into the world to give knowledge of salvation and eternal life. He says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32). And Peter said to Jesus, “You have the words of eternal life.” Wherever Jesus’ word goes, the Holy Spirit causes a little flock to be gathered that believes Jesus’ word and holds on to it. Through the words of Jesus the Holy Spirit convicts us that we are by nature sinful and unclean, that our hearts are full of evil thoughts, murder, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander (Matthew 15:19). Through the words of Jesus the Holy Spirit convinces us that Jesus died and atoned for those sins on the cross. He gathers a church that believes in Jesus and listens to His Word and confesses it before the world. Without the Holy Spirit the words of Jesus would not be remembered and there would be no church, because the church lives by Jesus’ word, is called into being by Jesus’ word, and is preserved in the faith by Jesus’ word.

“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.” (John 14:23) This brings us to the final point about the work of the Holy Spirit and its greatness. The Holy Spirit causes Jesus’ word to be remembered. He gathers a little community that believes Jesus’ word and keeps it. And where He does that, the Holy Spirit creates a little community of people who are the dwelling-place of the Father and the Son.

Think about what an amazing, awesome thing it is to have God make His home with you. Is that something that happens for everyone? Not at all. God is not dwelling with the person who does not believe in Jesus, no matter how good that person mighty appear in our eyes. But God the Father and God the Son do dwell with the person who holds on to Jesus’ word. They make their home with him. God, whose throne is on high and who is attended by host upon host of angels, dwells with the person who holds Jesus’ words. In these frail bodies, doomed to die, stricken by sin, the all-glorious Father and Son are pleased to make their abode. All this happens because the Holy Spirit causes Jesus’ words to be remembered. He caused the apostle John to remember and write Jesus’ saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.” (John 5:24) He causes preachers to preach that word, and assure sinners that on Jesus’ authority their sins are forgiven. He causes them to hold on to that word and to continue in that word.

When we receive Jesus’ word and hold on to it, god the Father and the Son come to dwell with us. In the midst of suffering and temptation we have the assurance that God is pleased with us and not angry with us. When our sins accuse us we have the assurance that God has not forsaken us in anger but is dwelling with us and making everything work for our blessing. How do we have this assurance? Not in our feelings, but in the words of Jesus, which the Holy Spirit brings to remembrance. He assures us with the name of the Triune God put on us in our Baptism. He assures us with the words of absolution which are spoken to us in Christ’s name; “I forgive you all your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He assures us by bringing to remembrance Jesus’ words in the Holy Supper: “This is my body, given for you. This is my blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” With the words of Jesus the Holy Spirit brings us into communion with the Holy Trinity, who dwells with us. He dwells with us because through the Holy Spirit we receive His grace; we believe the good news that our sins are forgiven through Jesus’ blood.

So the mighty work of the Holy Spirit is not that He makes people speak in other tongues or heal, or do other mighty signs. He may distribute those gifts as He wills. But the truly mighty work of the Holy Spirit is that He causes Jesus’ words to be remembered. These are the words of the living God that set us free from sin and death’s power. They are the rock on which is built a certain hope of salvation and everlasting life. Through these words of Jesus the Holy Spirit bears witness to the world of sin’s power and our salvation from it. Through the words of Jesus He gathers the church and keeps it in His word to everlasting life. And through the word of Jesus the Holy Spirit gives us communion with the entire Trinity. The Triune God makes His dwelling place with each one who believes in Christ and comforts us in every tribulation until we come to everlasting life. For this work of the Holy Spirit in bringing Jesus’ words to remembrance we give thanks on this festival of Pentecost, because through the Spirit’s work we have become Christ’s church and each individually the dwelling place of God.

Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria

Sermon for Trinity Sunday 2014

Trinity Sunday

St. Peter Lutheran Church

St. John 3:1-17

June 15, 2014 (Fathers’ Day)

 

Iesu Iuva!

 

Isaiah was a priest.  The day he saw the Lord in the temple he was probably on duty.

 

When he saw the Lord, all the confidence you might expect a priest to have before God went up in smoke.  “Woe to me!  I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the Lord.”

 

What made Isaiah’s lips filthy?  Did he swear a lot?  Tell dirty jokes?

 

That’s enough to make your lips unclean and filthy in God’s sight.

 

But there are other unclean things that can pass through the lips that are even more unclean.  Especially the lips of a priest.

 

The lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and the people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts, said the prophet Malachi to the priests of his day (2:7-8).  But you have caused many to stumble by your instruction.

 

This is the worst kind of uncleanness to pass from the lips of a priest.  To speak false things about God.  To set up or strengthen the worship of idols.

 

And likewise it is the worst kind of uncleanness that can be in the heart to worship idols.  To believe false things about God.

 

This kind of uncleanness was in the heart and mouth of Nicodemus.  He didn’t know the first things about how we come to God, and yet he was a teacher of God’s people.  Jesus exclaimed, “You are the teacher of Israel, and you don’t know these things?”

 

What things?

 

Very basic things about who the true God is and how we come to Him.  Nicodemus thought the way the flesh always thinks.  He knew what the pagans know—there is a God, He is powerful and righteous.  So you find God where there is power and other good things that we like.  And you please God by doing right things and rejecting immoral things.

 

Jesus says, “No.”  You don’t find God where the flesh expects to find Him.  No, you don’t draw near to God by doing good works.  “Flesh gives birth to flesh and Spirit to spirit.”  You cannot even see God’s kingdom unless you are born again.  And you cannot enter it unless you are born of water and the Spirit.

 

Nicodemus found this impossible to accept. He rejected this testimony of Jesus.  How could it be that all of his theological training and all of his moral striving left him with nothing, that he knew God just as little as the Gentiles and the sinners?

Nicodemus was a churchgoing, bible-reading idolater.  He didn’t know who God is.  God stood in front of Him, and Nicodemus recognized His power, but thought that God must be somewhere else.  Because God doesn’t come in such humble clothing.  God doesn’t come in poverty, in rejection, with only a few disciples, with the holy and great people of the world rejecting Him.

 

Does it sound familiar, Nicodemus’ thinking?  Because it is the same thinking that you have in the flesh.

 

In the flesh you expect to find God in power and glory and earthly good things.  When those things are missing you also think God must be somewhere else.  This uncleanness is constantly cropping up in our hearts.  We don’t recognize the true God visiting us in lowliness, weakness, and suffering and we despise Him in favor of the gods of success, power, prestige, comfort.

 

And then you too expect to stand before God on the basis of your moral life.  You can’t believe that your attempts to be good count for nothing in God’s sight in the question of your justification before Him.

 

This is the worst kind of uncleanness to be on one’s lips or in one’s heart.  The uncleanness of lifting up our souls to a false god.  And this is what we do in the flesh.  We believe that we can know who God is by our own reason and senses.  Then we try to please God with our works and win His favor.  We refuse to believe that our nature is so corrupt that neither we nor anyone else can know the true God or enter His kingdom unless we are reborn, born again.

 

But thanks be to God!  You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but imperishable.  Not by the will of man, but born of God.  Not of the flesh, but of the Holy Spirit.

 

For all of you who have been baptized have received “the washing of rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit.”  (Titus 3)  You have been born of water and the Spirit.  It wasn’t your will that accomplished this, but Christ’s, who instituted Baptism, commanding His disciples to make disciples “baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  It is Jesus who “loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word” (Ephesians 5:25-26).  It is Jesus who made baptism the means by which “we were buried with him…in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”  (Romans 6:4)

 

Even though most of us were little children when we were baptized, without understanding, Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven belongs” to little children and insists that we allow the little children and infants to be brought to Him, because “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall never enter it.”

 

How do little children receive the kingdom of God?  Those who deny that infants should be baptized say little children do not receive the kingdom of God.  But Jesus says they do.  And how do they receive it?  Passively.  They don’t bring themselves to Jesus; they are brought, carried.  They don’t use their reason to come to Jesus.  Jesus comes to them and opens their eyes so that they see and enter the kingdom of God through baptism into Him.

 

In the same way our reason and understanding leads us astray.  We look for God in the things the flesh trusts in—comfort, wealth, beauty, power, fame.  We will not find God there.  God is only found in Christ.  And Christ is only found in His word and Sacraments, not with earthly splendor, but proclaimed as crucified in weakness and raised by the glory of God.

The Holy Spirit has opened your eyes and caused you to see what the flesh can never see.  Jesus is God.  The One who was crucified and who comes to us in His flesh and blood under the bread and wine is the Lord of the Universe, the Son begotten of the Father from eternity.

 

The only-begotten Son  of the Father, who was with the Father in the beginning, came in our flesh and blood, in the image of our weakness, fallenness, corruption.  He came down to us.  We did not rise to Him.  And because there was in us no power to make ourselves pleasing to God, since everything in us was corrupt, the eternal Son fulfilled the commandments of God perfectly in your place.  And then the Father allowed His Son to be offered up for your sins, and lifted up on the cross and the preaching of the cross so that everyone who believes in Him might have eternal life.

 

There are many religions in the world and many people claiming that they believe in one God.  But no one has the Father unless he believes in the Son, because the Son is the radiance of the glory of the Father, the exact imprint of His nature (Hebrews 1:3).  The Son is begotten of the Father, distinct from Him, yet equal in glory, of one substance with the Father.

 

And no one has the Son unless he has been born again of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit is equal to the Father and the Son, one substance with them.  But the Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son.  He proceeds from the Father and the Son.

 

And through the Word He opens our eyes so that we see the Son lifted up for us on the cross.  And there we learn to recognize God and His kingdom.

 

We see that God is not only omnipotent and righteous and glorious, but that He is the God who justifies the ungodly and has mercy on the lost and helpless.  Because the Son is the exact image of the Father, and He suffers for us on the cross.  Through the Son we come to know the Father, that the righteous God is also the Father of all mercies, who gave up His Son to save those who were bound to perish.

 

It is the Holy Spirit who leads us to the Son.  We would never come to Him on our own.  We would be like Nicodemus—so close, yet so far away.  Still clinging to our own righteousness.

 

The Holy Spirit shows us our complete uncleanness and idolatry; He also shows us the Son of Man made an unclean thing for all the uncleanness of our hearts.

 

Today is Father’s Day.  Your Father in heaven has given you every good and perfect gift in Christ.  One of his gifts to you in Christ is your earthly father.

 

Many of us may not feel like our earthly fathers were good gifts from God.  Others have fathers who are gone from their sight.  But others have fathers on earth that they thank God for.

 

Whatever your situation is, be sure to thank your Father in heaven for your father on earth.  It’s your Father in heaven who gave the commandment “Honor your father and your mother.”  Your father on earth is not a good gift of God  because he seems like a good father to you, but because God the Father honors him with his commandment and by letting him have the title “Father.”  And if God gave you a father you think is good, how much more honor and thanks do you owe to him and to your Father in heaven?

 

Fathers, look at the love shown by the heavenly Father toward sinners.  You will never be able to equal His patience and kindness.  But receive the kindness of your Father in heaven toward you.  Receive painful experiences as the loving chastisements of the heavenly Father.  Receive His Son, whom He gave up to adopt you as His child and heir.  Receive Him in the Word, in your Baptism, in His body and blood.  And as you receive His Son He will form you into the image of His Son, who is the exact imprint of His being, and you will become a father who is a witness to the heavenly Father.

 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

 

Soli Deo Gloria

Peace like a river. Holy Pentecost 2014.

Holy Pentecost

St. Peter Lutheran Church, Joliet, Illinois

St. John 14:23-31

June 8, 2014

“Peace Like a River”

Jesus

There was a river that had its source in the garden of Eden.  From there it branched into four different rivers.  Because of this river, Eden was well-watered, lush with fruit and blooms bursting with scent.  It was the garden of the Lord.

Into this paradise God placed man.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God.  It has its source in the throne of God and the Lamb, and it flows through the middle of the Holy Christian Church, clear as crystal.  It is the river of the water of life.  It makes the city of God bloom with spiritual, heavenly blossoms, fruit, spices.  It produces rich crops of gladness, joy, and peace.

We are planted in this paradise when we are baptized.

The water of life proceeding from the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit.  He is living water that becomes a bubbling spring welling up to eternal life in everyone who drinks of Him.  He streams from the Father and the Son to us in the word of Jesus. Through the Holy Spirit the Father and the Son make their home in everyone who keeps Jesus’ word.

What is this word that everyone who loves Jesus keeps?  It is His word of peace.

 

Jesus preached peace.  Mary’s relative Zechariah prophesied about Him before His birth that He would “guide our feet into the way of peace.”  At His birth the angels sang, “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.”  Simeon, when He took up the newborn Jesus in his arms said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace.”

 

Jesus came to preach peace with God.  He is “wonderful, counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

 

Jesus sends peace to the city of God like a river; He sends the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit brings to remembrance Jesus’ word of peace.

 

“The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit,” St. Paul writes in Romans chapter 14.  But often righteousness, peace, and joy seem to be in short supply in the Church.

Do people lack peace in the church?

 

Do you?

 

What is it that causes the restlessness and anxiety that seems to characterize so much of our lives?

Exalted to the Lowest Place. The Feast of the Holy Trinity 2013

The Feast of the Holy Trinity^{Baptism of Anniversary of Cong., Mem. Day}

St. Peter Lutheran Church

St. John 3:1-17

May 26, 2013

Exalted to the lowest place

Jesu juva!

INI

 

A happy ending?  God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world?

Here comes one of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus—a ruler of the Jews.  A Pharisee.  What the disciples hoped would happen seems to be happening.  Sure, Jesus was opposed and they had some hard times.  But everything will turn out right in the end.  It has to be, because He’s the Messiah, the King of the Jews.  So the rulers hate him now, but look, they’re already starting to come around.

 

Nicodemus says, “We know you are a teacher from God.  Otherwise how could you do all these miraculous signs, unless God was with you?”

Who would be more likely to know whether someone was from God than the students of Scripture, the teachers of God’s Word among the people called by God’s name?

 

Jesus didn’t deny that the Jews were the people called by God’s name.  Gentiles worshipped idols.

 

We also don’t look for God everywhere.  He can’t be found apart from His Word other than as a God of wrath.  So all other religions are not the same.

 

But despite being a teacher of the people of God and a student of the Word of God, Nicodemus didn’t know God at all.

“We know you are a teacher from God…”  To say that is not enough to know Jesus.

 

To say that is not enough to know God either.

 

Muslims say that Jesus was a teacher from God, that HE ascended to heaven, etc.  They believe in one God, and as they will tell you, they believe in Jesus and they love Him.

 

Most Americans are not atheists.  They believe in God.  Most of them probably believe that Jesus is God.

 

But they still do not know God nor Jesus.

 

No one is able to recognize or perceive God’s kingdom, His reign which is here and which is coming, in which sin and death are destroyed, unless he is born again or born from above.

 

If Jesus had simply come to have people “accept” Him in the sense of recognizing that God sent Him, or His teaching was true, that He should be obeyed, Nicodemus would have already “accepted Him.”

 

But recognizing Jesus as a prophet or one with God’s authority is not enough.  It is useless.

 

And no one can perceive God’s salvation and enter into it unless he is reborn from on high, from God.

 

It doesn’t matter how wise you are, how knowledgeable of Scripture, how pious you are, how long you’ve gone to church or how much you’ve served there.

 

Nicodemus was the teacher of God’s people.  But He didn’t know God and could not recognize God’s kingdom of salvation even though it had come.

 

Israel’s teachers did not know God and could not see His kingdom because they thought they already knew God and were part of His kingdom.

They had the Scriptures, didn’t they?

 

They had God’s promise, didn’t they?

 

God had taken them as His people and dwelt in the midst of them in the temple, didn’t He?

 

They had circumcision, which marked them as people of the promise.

 

But without being born from on High or reborn by the water and the Spirit, these things profited nothing.  They did not understand the Scriptures or believe them; they did not recognize the Lord who dwelt in the temple when He came in a new house—human flesh.  They did not believe in the one who was promised to them in circumcision—Abraham’s offspring.

 

Nicodemus thought that he was already holy, and now this teacher from God would unfold heavenly wisdom to him—add to what he already had.

 

You are just like Nicodemus and most of the people of Israel.

You have the Scriptures.

 

The Lord is present with you in His body and blood.

 

You are baptized—NT circumcision.

 

But like Nicodemus and most of the people of Israel, we think that we can come to God without being reborn—dying and rising again.

No.  You must be born from above, or you cannot recognize the kingdom of God coming to you and you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

 

Like Moses we want to see God’s glory.  But no one has ascended into heaven except He who descended from heaven.

 

Only through Him can we know God.  He alone knows the Father, and whoever He chooses to reveal the Father.

 

He reveals God not by being exalted and lifted up on a throne, in majesty.

You see how that affected Isaiah!

You see Him and know God when you see Him exalted and lifted up on the cross of shame the way that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

 

That is what Baptism is

It is coming as a sinner who is unable to know God by nature or see or enter His kingdom

 

God’s mighty Spirit is poured out on you, brings you into the kingdom of God.

 

You see Jesus as the one who became sin and is held up before our eyes to save us from deadly poison of sin.

 

To live in Baptism is to come to God this way—not as someone who knows something and is already holy, but as one who has nothing, knows nothing, except sin and death.

 

We are baptized into Him who is all-glorious but descended into the depths of sin for us and cancelled it.

 

All of the church year leads to today, the feast of the Trinity.

The only God who shows mercy like this is the Trinity.

 

He gives all of Christ to us in Baptism, all that we’ve heard about during the festival portion of the year.

 

The world does not know where you come from or where you are going.  But you are born of the Spirit, which means you are united to Jesus the Son, who came from God and returned to Him.

 

That is the glory that fills St. Peter now for 156 years—not our own knowledge, wisdom, holiness, but that God lifts up His Son in our midst like the snake on the pole and baptizes us into Him, and He adds another to us today.  Let us give thanks for Anthony who today is born again of water and the Spirit.

 

The peace of God, which passes understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

SDG