Pentecost Sunday

[00:00:01] Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our father and from our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:11] First thing I want to point out about the hymn is the end of the first verse. Since light awoke and life began, thou hast desired thy life for man. [00:00:25] It's not even our life that he gives us, right. It's his life that he gives us. When God created everything, it's not like he brought into existence things that have nothing in common with him. [00:00:41] He just simply is. And he brings things to be so. Everything that we have is his, and it's a gift from him. [00:00:51] Thou hast desired thy life for man. [00:00:55] Now, it's not even just our physical life that this is talking about. [00:01:00] It's talking about the good life. [00:01:04] It's talking about, you can think of the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. These are all things that characterize God. [00:01:18] And by the power of his spirit living in Jesus or following Jesus, these things characterize us as well as God works them in us by his spirit. [00:01:32] He desired his life for man. [00:01:35] Now, that was meant to be in the beginning. He desired his life for man, that human beings would. [00:01:45] Well, it would be in his image that they would be, that they would share in his nature by grace, not being him right, but receiving from him all that he has. Think of the gospel reading here. [00:02:03] He will glorify me. Jesus talking about the father, he will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. [00:02:11] Give you his life. [00:02:14] All that the father has is mine. Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. This is what we're talking about. God giving us everything that he has, giving us his life, his joy, peace, patience, goodness. Everything that makes up the good life, everything that God has, he graciously gives to us. [00:02:39] And then at the end of the hymn, it comes back to the same idea, but kind of after telling the whole story of falling into sin and being brought back through Jesus, the prince of peace. [00:02:57] Breathe on thy cloven church once more. Breath is spirit in Greek and Hebrew. Remember, breathe on thy cloven church once more. That in these gray and latter days there may be those whose life is praise, each life a high doxology, a giving of praise or a glorifying to father, son, and unto thee. So how does your life become a well, how does it become praise to God, becoming an embodiment of him, of the gifts that he gives to you? [00:03:37] All this is received by faith in Jesus. [00:03:41] All right. We could keep going with that, but we'll set that aside and turn our attention more fully to the readings for this morning. [00:03:53] So I'm looking at the gospel reading, and I'm going to start in verse seven. [00:04:03] Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. [00:04:16] And when he comes, the helper, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the father and you will see me no longer concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. [00:04:37] We're going to walk through those three briefly here. So the first, convict the world concerning sin. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. [00:04:49] Okay? [00:04:51] So if you are to receive a conviction from God because of sin, it's not because you have sin and there's no other way out. Or it's not because you haven't lived a good enough life or something like that, right? If you are convicted because of sin, it's because you haven't believed in Jesus, the one God has sent, concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. [00:05:21] You see, by faith in Jesus, we have the forgiveness of sins, and that's not a problem any longer. But if we reject Jesus, the one God has sent, well, then we're guilty of sin. This is a theme in the gospel of John. [00:05:37] So it starts with belief or unbelief. That's the way to have your sins forgiven or not believe in Jesus or not. [00:05:46] Next, concerning righteousness, because I go to the father. Now, righteousness, meaning maybe a life that's characterized by God's life or a life that's properly lived, living rightly, that's kind of what righteousness means. And that could mean a lot of things to a lot of people, right? There are maybe different kinds of righteousness depending on what perspective you're looking from. [00:06:12] The world would like me to live a certain way, you know, and sometimes that's pretty crazy, right? Looking from a christian perspective, the world would like me to live a certain way, and because I don't, I look foolish and. And maybe offensive, right? That kind of thing. Right? So there are different ways of saying, like, well, this is how you should live, obviously. [00:06:39] But what we know to live rightly is to live according to God's word, to hear his word and to let it shape us. That's how righteousness would come. And then Jesus, of course is the righteous man who lived a perfect life, who lived a life according to God's will, who, to the end, listened to God's word and let it shape him, his actions, his thoughts, down to the very end, where he obediently walked to the cross. For our sake, your will be done, not mine, he says, in the garden of Gethsemane. So Jesus is the righteous one, and it's by faith in Jesus. We just talked about that. The difference between being convicted for sin and not is faith in Jesus. Believe in Jesus, your sins are forgiven. Well, now, righteousness depends on him also. So he says concerning righteousness, because I go to the father, like, if you don't have faith in Jesus, then he's disappeared, and with him has gone the chance to be righteous. Okay, so not only forgiveness of sins comes through Jesus, but also while the restoration of our nature, right, our sanctification, our being made holy, is only possible in Jesus concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. [00:08:10] See, he's making a distinction there between being of the world and being of God. Remember last week? That's in the same, the same context here. You're of the world or you're of God, and Satan is the ruler of this world. Remember, the world opposed to God? That's the world we're talking about. The world opposed to God is ruled by Satan. And so we have a ruler. One way or the other. [00:08:37] The ruler, the will of the ruler is embodied by the people. [00:08:43] So remember, having God's life is hearing his word and being shaped by it, and he gives us all things. [00:08:50] He makes us like himself. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness. Okay, the opposite is true for, I mean, the same is true maybe for Satan, as the ruler of this world, right? If you don't believe in Jesus, then you're in the world and you have a ruler. We are. [00:09:09] Well, we all have teachers. [00:09:12] We all listen to a word. We're all shaped by a word beyond us and in spiritual matters, which are all beyond us. You know, this battle, this spiritual battle, we don't fight against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. This is a spiritual battle. It's way above us. It's above our heads. And if we think that we're acting independently by our own power, whatever side of it we're on, then we're fooling ourselves. But sometimes it seems that way. [00:09:44] So Luther and scripture and the fathers of the church, everyone would say, you've got a ruler one way or another. [00:09:55] Paul says in Ephesians, two, that we were all once following. The prince of the power of the heir. Right. The heir, this spiritual prince, the wrong kind, the devil, the ruler of this world. So, concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. [00:10:15] If you're not by faith following Jesus and having your sins forgiven and being made righteous in him by his grace, then you're still under the power of the devil. And that doesn't end well, because the ruler of this world is judged. [00:10:37] That's not where you want to be. [00:10:42] So here we are. There are two kinds of rulers here. There's Jesus, and there's the one who rebelled against Jesus, and each imparts different kinds of gifts to those who follow, good and bad. [00:11:06] One unites, the other scatters. Right? Just like a shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd. And then he talks about the hired hand or the wolf, I guess, that comes in. That comes in and scatters. [00:11:21] Jesus brings together, he pulls together. That's like the definition of peace. It's like everything being still. You know, you've got the wind and the waves and such are all calm. [00:11:32] Everything's harmonious, right? And then the opposite of that would be chaos, and that's the work of the devil. [00:11:41] So when we complain, we're. But we're uniting around a purpose, but that purpose is destruction to some degree. Like, if we complain to each other about things. Have you ever done this? I have. You go to somebody and you complain about something, and you're kind of hoping to win them over, and then they're kind of on your side against this thing, and maybe the thing needs to be overthrown. I mean, that's a reality sometimes, too, but maybe it doesn't. [00:12:15] Gossip is the same way. We can unify around tearing somebody down. [00:12:23] Have you ever done that? I have. So gossip about somebody. [00:12:28] That person's not there usually. Then you're uniting around a narrative that tears that person down. [00:12:38] So you're uniting. Right? But in order to scatter. And that's how the devil works. [00:12:43] He unifies people. [00:12:45] Right? There are lots of ways to be unified. [00:12:50] But that's not the way. [00:12:52] Well, that's not the way God does things. Right? He unifies in order to build up and to bring together. You see, he's the creator. God creates. He puts things together. And the devil, the devil tries to tear things apart. [00:13:10] That's the image we have in the old Testament reading, this lovely reading about bones rattling and coming together. What an interesting image. [00:13:22] So all these bones in the valley, they come to life. [00:13:27] So maybe this should be an Easter reading. [00:13:30] It's like resurrection from the dead. That's what it sounds like when you hear the end of it. [00:13:38] You shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, o my people, and I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord. [00:13:55] But he's not talking. Ezekiel isn't writing to people who are dead. [00:14:01] He's not saying you're all dead. You're in tombs, but I'm going to raise you from the dead and put you in your land. He's actually talking to the living dead. [00:14:12] He's talking to the people who have been scattered by the devil, the people of Israel, who have been so scattered by the seed or the word of the devil that they're like dry bones. Not even just bones, but dry bones that are all separated and lying in a pile. You look at it, and you're like, what is that? Like, oh, bones. I suppose this used to be some kind of creature, right? Or a lot of them altogether, but now it's just a mix of stuff. [00:14:45] They've been scattered. It's chaos. It's chaotic. [00:14:50] And that's how God describes the life of Israel. At that time, Israel had turned away from God. [00:14:59] They were not receiving God's word and being shaped and built up together as his people raised up to heaven, like we saw a few weeks ago. Right? [00:15:11] God saying that he bore his people, Israel, up on wings like eagles. Is that in a different context? I don't know if that was a Sunday sermon or not. Oh, well, in Exodus, he says, I remember how I raised you. I bore you up on wings like eagles and brought you to myself. [00:15:28] That's like shaping people and building them up to embody his own nature. Love, joy, peace, patience. Think those things, okay? [00:15:39] The people of Israel have been receiving from a different ruler and are scattered as a people because they're not united in worship of the true God and individually, because internally, they're scattered. You can think of a pile of bones, this chaotic mess, in terms of the group, more than one person, or you can think of it as a person, because we're made up of lots of. Lots of things. We have fears and desires. We have thoughts, we have actions, and sometimes we do things that we don't want, or we've got this inner conflict. And if you don't have peace, then you're conflicted. You're divided in yourself. [00:16:26] And a kingdom divided can't stand. Jesus says, not a kingdom of Israel divided, not a person divided. [00:16:40] The people feel like their bones are dried up. So verse eleven. Then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are dried up and our hope is lost. We are clean cut off. [00:16:58] But God has hope for them. He's going to unite them again so that they don't feel like their bones are dried up. They're going to have true life, which is to say, they're not going to be scattered in rebellion against God, but they as a people, and they as individuals, are going to be united. [00:17:20] I was thinking about a verse. I can't remember where it is. [00:17:25] Unite my heart to fear your name. Sounds like it's from a psalm. It's probably in the liturgy somewhere, I don't know. Unite my heart to fear your name. [00:17:34] God is going to unite. [00:17:37] Unite them again by his spirit. Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, which are what connect bones together and will cause flesh to come upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you, and. And you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. [00:18:00] He will give us life. [00:18:03] God has done this for us in Jesus. Right? Jesus has, while he's broken into the prince of peace. This is from the hymn, he's broken into the house of death that the devil held us in. He's broken into it and given us life. And who better to do it than our creator? Our creator who knows us. He's the one who pulls all the pieces of us together. How does he do it? Well, it's kind of inexplicable in a sense, right? We don't know how it works. How does God give us peace or joy or love or patience or anything like that? In Jesus, it's, you know, it's not something just to be described. It's something to be received by faith. Faith that looks to Jesus in order to receive from him. Faith that brings you to church to hear God's word. Faith that brings you to pay attention to God's word in a humble way, ready to receive his word and be shaped by it. [00:18:59] And God entering us through his word works on us by the power of his Holy Spirit. [00:19:08] He who knows us, truly he knows us. We don't even know ourselves. How do I fix myself? [00:19:18] That's the constant question here. I find myself in confusion and in broken relationships or worried or angry or whatever. I don't even know my problem. Help me. [00:19:32] In psalm 139 that we said today, you know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path, my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Thank God. Even before a word is on my tongue. Behold, o Lord, you know it altogether. [00:19:49] You're my boundaries. You hem me in behind and before you define me and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high. I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? [00:20:08] Thank God. And so here we come to Pentecost. We've got a couple weeks focusing on the actual story of Pentecost. From acts. [00:20:19] God sends his spirit. [00:20:22] His spirit who gives life. His spirit who unites his spirit who raises up all the bones and brings them together and gives them true life. His spirit that he breathed into us in creation when he breathed into Adam the breath of life. And he became a living being. No longer a chaotic mess of dirt, right? But put together, defined, hemmed in, behind and before given true life, made in God's image. That's the spirit that God gives to us on Pentecost. And that spirit spreads through his word on Pentecost, more than 3000 people believe and are united in faith and then are living together communally and united as a people. [00:21:07] That's the same spirit that he's given to us by faith and through baptism. He's given us the forgiveness of sins and he's promised to be working in us, to be bringing all the parts of us together in Christ so that they're harmoniously combined, I don't know. Brought together harmoniously, right. To reflect God's nature. God restoring us in his image through Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God. [00:21:39] This is the gift of Pentecost. And he gives us his spirit and life through Jesus. Not because we deserve it, but by faith as a gift. Thanks be to God. In Jesus name. Amen.