Sermon for October 10th (Noah)

Today you will be hearing a lot about a man named Noah who was made famous by building a big boat called an ark. But while it’s easy to focus on the animals and the logistics of 40 days and 40 nights of rain, I believe that this story is about something much more relevant to most of us. But first, how about a quick review from last week. The story about Cain and Abel. I know, I know, sorry to bring that back up again, but understanding that story makes a big difference in how we understand this story about Noah. Now, if you weren’t here last week, please feel free to go back and listen to the sermon online (off of our website) or read it on my blog as well at home. But for those of you who were here the pressure is on!

Why did God favor Abel and his offering and not Cain? Just to make it easier I’ll make this multiple choice: God favored Abel because: A. God likes sheep fat more than whole wheat grain. B. Abel brought the firstlings of the flock while Cain brought grain. C. Abel tried harder than Cain. Or D. God favored Abel because of Abel’s faith. The answer is: D. God favored Abel because of his faith. How do we know? That’s what the text in Hebrews 11 says. It wasn’t Abel’s offering that God favored, it was Abel’s faith that mattered.

So, it’s a new week and we’ve got a new hero of the faith to look at: Noah. Now, how did Noah find favor? (We always find a way to get confused at this point. We tend to forget all the lessons we learned from Cain and Abel.) There are two verses that we must line up, one against the other, to figure this out. First, verse Genesis 6, verse 5, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” Every inclination? Every inclination. All the time? All the time! Even Noah? Well, is he part of the earth? Yes. Wouldn’t he have the same inclinations, the same thoughts and the same heart? Yes. “All have fallen short of the glory of God.” Even Noah. So please don’t forget that part when you read what verse 9 says, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.”

“Noah was a righteous man”, correct, but before we ever hear that Noah was a righteous man, we hear that, “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” in verse 7. Noah found favor with God BEFORE we are ever told how righteous and blameless he is! And just like Abel before him, Hebrews 11 says this, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” It does NOT say that God picks the most righteous man on earth to build an arc. It does NOT say that there was only one good guy left on earth so God had to pick that one. “By faith Noah, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” God chose Noah just like he chose Abel.

Now, I am sure that Noah was a great guy because the Bible says it is so. “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time”. I hear about these people all the time! Well, sure he doesn’t believe in God, “But he is a great guy!” “I’m not sure if he believes in Jesus, but you’ll never hear anyone say anything bad about him!”

Martin Luther explained that we each have two different reputations. We look one way to the world around us, our community, our family and so on. And we look one way to God. We have one kind of righteousness in the eyes of the world. A “civil righteousness” he called it. So we are good fathers and mothers, or we are awful cooks, or we are shady businesspeople, or we are great athletes, or we are generous givers. “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time.” Good job Noah! But in God’s eyes, we don’t look good because of what we do, but because of faith in God alone. In God’s eyes, he saw that every inclination of the thoughts of people were only evil all the time. Bad job Noah and bad job all of us! “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” Not by how he acted, but by faith in God alone. And this is really interesting. After the text says that “Noah was a righteous man and blameless among the people of his time” it says this, “and he walked with God.”

For the next several weeks, I am going to be focusing on different aspects of your walk with God. Last week, I talked about trust. God favored Abel. Abel trusted in God’s choice. This week, I’d like to talk about another important part of your faith walk, a part that Noah was really good at. Listening. Noah listened to God.

Here’s an interesting tidbit about the story of Noah and the ark. Do you know what Noah said when God called him to build the ark? Nothing. Do you know what Noah replied when God told him that it was going to flood? Nothing. Do you know what Noah said when God made a covenant with him to never flood the earth again? Nothing. That’s because in this Bible story, Noah has no speaking parts. God does all the talking. Does that mean that Noah was mute? No. After they left the ark, Noah got drunk one night and passed out naked. When Noah found out that one of his sons had told his brothers about it, he spoke up very clearly and cursed his son. Pretty messed up, huh? But remember, Noah was not a perfect hero of the faith, he simply listened when God spoke to him.

Try this for a moment. We are going to pray to God . . . in silence. We are going to ask God to speak to us and then we are going to listen to him. For all of you in Sunday school, you should know how this works. You’ve been learning about the prophet Samuel. When the prophet Samuel was just a little boy, he heard God’s voice and was told to say this, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” I’m sure that many of you pray and tell all your troubles to God, you ask him for things, you thank him for things, you praise his holy name . . . but have you ever taken the time to listen to what he might have to say back to you? This might be a good time to start. Let us pray, “Speak to us, O Lord, your servants are listening.”

Imagine if you took thirty seconds, a minute or more after you prayed to listen to what God had to say back. Maybe you would hear a still small voice, maybe you would simply have a feeling inside you pulling you in a direction that you couldn’t resist, maybe you won’t hear anything. Your God is a living God, a God who spoke the world into existence and continues to sustain you with his breath of life. He is still speaking. Are you listening?

Noah listened to God. He didn’t just HEAR God, he heard and followed—he listened. Some people worry that they might hear their own voice and their own ideas, or worse, the voice of an evil spirit, not God, when they pray. This is certainly a possibility. How might you know the difference? John 14, “Jesus said, The Holy Spirit will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” And again in John 16, “He will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Jesus and the Holy Spirit say the same things.

For example, if you ask God for guidance about staying faithful to your wife and you feel certain that you hear a voice say that you should have an affair instead, then you can be 100% certain that this is NOT the Holy Spirit. Why? Because God does not contradict himself by saying “Do not commit adultery” in one place of scripture and then change his mind later on. But when you are struggling with temptation, you may also hear a voice say, “I will not leave you or forsake you.” That might not be the answer you were looking for, but it might give you the strength to stay committed and the assurance that you are forgiven for even strong temptations. Noah was favored by faith alone. But when he listened to what God commanded him, he became a hero of faith.

The story of Noah’s ark isn’t really about animals is it—it’s about God’s mercy and Noah’s listening. How might you involve listening into your walk of faith? Besides having some silent time at the end of a prayer, how else might you listen? Coming to church and staying connected with the ministry of word and sacrament is important. When you hear the forgiveness of yours sins, when you are challenged or strengthened in the words of a faith talk, song or sermon, you are listening and walking with God in faith.

But reading the word of God, studying the Bible daily, might be the best way to listen to God. I don’t mean simply “skimming” the text, but expecting the words to speak to you. Whenever you open the pages of a Bible, you are in the presence of a living God who is still speaking and you have the opportunity to be changed. God loves to hear from you in prayer, but in the words of the Bible, God is speaking directly to you. Comforting you when you are distressed, judging you when you are sinning and warning you of times to come. Noah was favored by God, and God warned him about things not yet seen. That’s great. But I am also thankful that Noah listened. In holy fear he built an ark to save his family. God might have something to warn you about, but you’ve never listened to what he has to say. Take the time to listen.

Listening does not just mean hearing, but trusting and acting on the words you hear. Trusting God is an important part of faith, like Abel, but listening to the words God speaks might save you one day, like it did Noah. In the words of the prophet Nahum, “The Lord is good, a stronghold in a day of trouble; he protects those who take refuge in him, even in a rushing flood.” The Lord promises to speak. He has chosen to be your God and favors you because of faith alone. But remember the story of Noah. When God speaks, you have the chance to listen. It might make a really big difference for you and your family some day. Amen.

Sermon for January 17th

According to today’s Second Reading, the Corinthian church had been arguing about spiritual gifts. Paul writes that because we have only one God and his Holy Spirit gives all spiritual gifts, therefore, no one gift is any better than any other. In many religions, especially pagan religions, there are many gods. And each god gives different things. For instance, a rain god would give fertility, so if you wanted to get pregnant you would pray to that god for gifts. Another god would be a god of public speaking, I guess, so if you wanted to give a great motivational speech, you would pray to that god. However, for Christians, Paul maintains that every gift, no matter how little or big, comes from the same Spirit, the same Lord and the same God. There is no pantheon of gods to ask for various gifts from. There is only one God who gives all good gifts.

Today’s Christian churches have their own problems understanding spiritual gifts even though they usually are not exactly the same problems as the Corinthian church had. While we are aware that there is only one God who gives gifts, we don’t realize that God blesses every person with gifts, not just a few religious leaders. Notice some of the words Paul uses when talking about spiritual gifts: everyone, to each, to another, to another, to another, to each one individually. My point is that in many churches, including this one, we often act like some spiritual gifts are better than others or, worse, that only some in the church have been blessed with the proper spiritual gifts. In some churches, people get so confused that they start looking to their pastors or priests as the giver of gifts, rather than to God alone.

For example, I, as your pastor, am not the only one blessed with gifts. I have them, this is true, but only because God promises to bless all who believe in him with these gifts. I didn’t receive them at seminary, I didn’t receive them at my ordination, I received my spiritual gifts at my baptism. What does this mean? That each and every one of you have them as well. And you don’t have to go to seminary to find them. And you certainly don’t have to be ordained to receive them. You received them at your baptism. Do you believe it?

Well, if you believe it, then what are your spiritual gifts and what are you doing to use them? Suffice it to say, while we may SAY that we have spiritual gifts, for all intents and purposes many Christians, just like many of you, ACT like they don’t have them. But before we go any further, let me make sure that you understand the difference between a natural gift and a spiritual gift. They both come from God, but they are different.

I went to college to become a double bassist in a symphony. I was a good musician and believe that, in many ways, I still am. When I was asked whether or not I had thought about going to seminary, to become a pastor, I didn’t think that I had a call (even though God was using these people to call me there). Furthermore, I didn’t think that I would be very good at it, especially if I’d have to visit people who were sick. I didn’t want to do that.

While being a musician is certainly a gift, I wasn’t using my music to serve others, only to serve myself mostly. Music can be a spiritual gift, but I wasn’t using it as such by practicing 6-8 hours a day just in order to get a job that I wanted. When God finally got through to me and called me to seminary to start training to become a pastor, I began working on my spiritual gifts and discovered that they were much different than what I thought they would be. Remember that I said that I didn’t think I would be a good pastor because I didn’t want to sit with sick people; however, when I started visiting the sick as a chaplain in a hospital during seminary, I actually found that I loved doing it and even started realizing that it was a gift. It didn’t come naturally maybe, but it was a spiritual gift. When I was focused on serving others, on listening to their needs, on caring for their suffering, it became one of my favorite things to do—we might call this a gift of counseling.

Of the short list of spiritual gifts mentioned in the passage today, the one that I’ve noticed the most in my life is the gift of healing. Now, I don’t believe that I have ever seen a dramatic physical healing in anyone I have prayed for . . . yet . . . but I believe every time I pray that it could happen. However, people have sometimes told me that when I pray for them, they experience a healing of their spirit, knowing that God really does forgive them or that they experience inner healing. You see, as Paul says, “there are a variety of gifts” they don’t all have to look the same. Just because you have the gift of healing, doesn’t mean that it will look the way you think it should look, or how it looks on the movies. You may have it to a lesser or greater degree than someone else. Not everyone will become a famous televangelist, but you may still have the gift of evangelism. If you never try to use your spiritual gifts, how will you ever know? The gift of healing seems like a great spiritual gift to have, but it is by no means the greatest or the worst.

I believe that for many of you there are two obstacles to using your spiritual gifts. The first is that you don’t know what a spiritual gift is, or you don’t know what gifts you might have. This obstacle is mostly about a lack of familiarity with scripture or the failure of spiritual leaders, like myself, to do a good job teaching you about them. The second obstacle is one of faith. This means that even if you know what your spiritual gifts are, that knowledge stays up in your head and never moves to your heart.

Christian Schwarz, the director of Natural Church Development, has written a book about spiritual gifts. In this book, I believe that he has compiled a good list of possible gifts that Christians might have. You each received this list in your bulletins this morning. This list is taken from scripture, but there is no doubt that you could argue about the titles he gives some of them. The point of this exercise is to simply give you some ideas about what possible spiritual gifts you might have. Remember that the gift of healing isn’t always going to mean that people with cancer are suddenly cured . . . though it might. And the gift of counseling doesn’t mean that you are a great psychologist, but that perhaps people feel refreshed and joyful after talking to you. There are a variety of gifts and a variety of how those gifts are manifested. I encourage you to read this list when you are at home this week and pray about how God might use you at Saint Peters and everywhere you go.

These gifts came through your baptism, not through some secondary education. But what about that second obstacle: your faith.

Why is it, do you think, that you have not used your spiritual gifts? I’m sure that some of you have realized, before today, that you have had at least some ability in some of these areas. I know that you have served others. But in the life of this church, many of you either leave your gift under the Christmas tree unopened or leave your gifts at home and never use them. Why?

When Martin Luther talked about how faith is given through the Holy Spirit, he wrote, “I believe that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel.” I believe that these words are an excellent witness to the words of scripture. It is not our work to find God, but God’s work to find us. In fact, we tend to run from God—we are bound and determined to make it as hard on Him to find us, to love us, to empower us and to save us as possible.

Thankfully, being the creator of heaven and earth, he knows what he needs to do to get through to us, and it is not by motivating us to great acts of spiritual power. Scripture says he kills us in order to make us truly alive. He brings us down to raise us up. He condemns us and then he forgives us. So that we might know who exactly gets the glory. He says that we have sinned because we have not used our spiritual gifts. This is simply the truth. People have suffered, churches have suffered, even we ourselves have suffered because of this. We have left the work of the ministry in the hands of others. We have not served others with our gifts but have used them only to increase our own selfish interests. God has given us gifts—the most amazing spiritual gifts!—and we have squandered them. We are not acting like the people God created us to be, the people God saved us to be, the people God empowers us to be.

So, since you and I are unwilling to use our spiritual gifts, God does something new. He forgives. He forgives you. He gives you and I a clean slate today. Those months and years of not being involved in the life of the church, God has set them aside and now looks at you as a new creation. No longer shall you be termed Potential, but now you shall be called Useful. No longer shall you be called Uninformed, but you are called God’s delight. For God has placed in your hands the most wondrous gifts in all creation—gifts to serve others for the sake of the kingdom of God. Your forgiveness is free. The gifts are yours. What might happen when take them out for a spin? Amen.

Sermon for January 10th

Have you got the Spirit? Is one baptism enough? Have you been baptized in the Spirit? As human beings, we always want more. More glory. More power. More gifts. More assurances. Sometimes we just KNOW that we must be missing something. As Christians, we wonder—maybe God is holding out on us—with all the suffering in the world, maybe there is something more that he could give us that would make life a lot more glorious.

The part of the Trinity that always seems to get co-opted into our schemes for glory is the Holy Spirit. God the Father always seems too in accessible. Jesus the Son is just a little too much like us, so the Holy Spirit seems like a good possibility. According to scripture, the spirit is the one who hands out the gifts such as healing or miracles, speaking in tongues and prophesy. But how do you get them? How can you find the Spirit? What must you do to become “spiritual” or “sanctified”? Or is it simply beyond your control?

In the second reading today from Acts, two apostles, Peter and John, visit some newly baptized Samaritans, but, once they arrive, they find out something strange, “as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of these Samaritans; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” the text says. So, Peter and John lay their hands on them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. You see, a baptism without the Holy Spirit is really no baptism at all, is it? Two out of three ain’t bad, as the pop star Meatloaf famously put it, but when it comes to your salvation, it seems pretty important to have all of the Trinity working on your side. The question that always comes up after reading this text from Acts is: why wasn’t that one baptism enough? Is there something else needed? Some Christian groups have maintained that, yes, something else is needed. They say that if you’ve only been baptized with water, in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, then you may have been forgiven your sins, you are still missing something.

According to R.A. Torrey, second president of the Moody Bible Institute, “The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is an experience connected with and primarily for the purpose of service . . . It is not primarily intended to make believers happy or holy, but to make them useful. It has no direct reference to cleansing from sin. It has to do with gifts for service rather than graces of character.” According to Francis MacNutt, “John the Baptist’s prophecy about the coming of Jesus indicates the primary purpose and significance of Jesus’ time on Earth: to baptize us in the Holy Spirit.”

Scripture talks about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but not all Christians have even heard of it. Why might that be? Perhaps it is because we don’t really believe anymore in miracles, or healing, or prophecy or speaking in tongues and all those things come through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the early church, these activities were commonplace. Both Peter and Paul even raised people from the dead in the name of Jesus. But now, we figure those times are past.

Being baptized in the Holy Spirit is for the purpose of God showing his power through you. If we stop talking about the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and stop expecting that powerful event to take place, we forget about the power that God has to work in our lives, we stop praying because we stop believing our prayers could ever be answered. To put it simply, we lose our faith in the power of God and in God’s promise to use us as His witnesses.

However, there is also a great danger that Christians have created in their explanations of this baptism in the Holy Spirit. By emphasizing the importance of this event it is very easy to set it up in opposition to a baptism with water. Then, rather than expecting the Holy Spirit to fill a child or an adult with spiritual gifts to be used throughout their life, we start wondering if they might be missing something. We end up trying to separate the Holy Spirit from Jesus Christ.

Have you got the Spirit? Have you been baptized in the Spirit? Saint Paul says, “Yes, you have.” In his first letter to the Corinthian church he points out that all believers in Jesus Christ have been baptized in the Spirit for spiritual gifts don't come naturally, but come only through the Holy Spirit. Paul writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” You don’t need to be re-baptized in order to use your spiritual gifts, God has already empowered you to use them.

As R.A. Torrey puts its, while baptism with water is a onetime deal, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit, can happen numerous times, as many times as God has need for “each new emergency of Christian service.” In the book of Acts, the apostle Peter was filled with the Spirit three times. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a sacrament, it is just a description about how God works in our lives so that he might serve the needs of others through us.

In today’s reading from the gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. Does that mean that the Holy Spirit wasn’t truly a part of Jesus before this moment? Of course not! Not if we truly believe that Jesus was born God in the flesh. God cannot be separated into divisible parts or else he is no longer one God. The Holy Spirit can never be separate from Jesus Christ just as the Holy Spirit can never be separate from God.

So what does it mean then when the text today says, “they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”? Did God suddenly separate himself so that, for these people, the first baptism didn’t take? Could the same thing have happened at your baptism? This text tends to create doubt in all of us about our baptisms. But the most important words in this little section come at the beginning of verse 17, “for as yet the Spirit had not come.” Instead of saying that the Holy Spirit DID NOT COME when they were baptized, the text says that the Holy Spirit DID NOT YET COME—in other words, it was expected to come. Why? Because where Jesus goes there goes the Holy Spirit.

The biblical scholar Andrew Das explains that, in the book of Acts, baptism with water and being baptized in the Holy Spirit, are always connected. The baptism of the Spirit usually takes place at the same time as the baptism with water as the apostle Peter points out in Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” However, there are two times in Acts when the Holy Spirit surprises us.

The first is in our text today when the Samaritans have, as yet, not received the Holy Spirit after being baptized. The second is in chapter 10 when the Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit first and then are baptized. Jesus promised his disciples that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria , and to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts explains how the Holy Spirit accomplishes God’s missionary activity.

In each case where the Holy Spirit either is delayed or presumes water baptism, the spirit ends up bringing two separate groups together who were once hostile toward one another. In the first instance, the spirit reunites two separate bodies, orthodox Jews and Samaritans, and brings them together into one new Christian community. In the second instance, the Holy Spirit overcomes the human prejudice of Jews against Gentiles by having some Gentiles speak in tongues before they were ever baptized. As Peter says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” Why? Because baptism in the Holy Spirit and water baptism are expected to be connected.

Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Yes. It happened when you were named and claimed by God himself in the waters of baptism. In those same waters you were forgiven for your sins, even though you hear the forgiveness again each week in the absolution. So, also, you were filled with the Holy Spirit even though you can expect to be filled again with that same Spirit whenever you have need to use your spiritual gifts. You are not “missing” anything for God has given you all that He has, withholding nothing. What does this mean for you? You received the Holy Spirit once at your baptism and God has promised to fill you with that same Spirit again and again as you live out your vocations in service to others. You are free to go forth today in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon for May 11th (Pentecost)

The Holy Spirit is often talked about as if it were the hippie flowerchild of the Trinity. You know what I mean, the child no one likes to talk about in respectable company. The one that goes to the beat of a different drummer. Floating here and there, where it wills. Blowing in and out like the wind. The Holy Spirit always sounds much more “spiritual” than to show up at church, especially at a Lutheran church. It always seems like it’s easier to be spiritual somewhere off in the mountains than sitting in a pew.

How many of you have gone in search of “the Spirit”? What did you find? Where did you go? Going in search of the Holy Spirit is like going on a snipe hunt, where everybody, but you, seems to know where to look and what is going on. So why then did Jesus make it so difficult to get the Holy Spirit, to find it and to keep it?

Well, he didn’t. He didn’t make it hard at all. The problem is not that the Holy Spirit is so hard to get, but that, in some ways, it is too darn predictable for us. We’d much rather go on a treasure hunt than to find it sitting in our laps one day apart from any effort of our own. The Holy Spirit in contemporary society appears to be the sexiest of the three parts of the Trinity, but it’s function, while quite wonderful, is often seen as, well, a little boring and domesticated. What does the Holy Spirit do? It creates faith. That’s it. The Holy Spirit creates faith. And by this faith alone, you are made righteous in God’s eyes.

Perhaps that doesn’t seem very spiritual at all to you. It certainly hasn’t made anybody stand up and say “Praise the Lord!” so far this morning. However, I maintain that being given faith is the most “spiritual” thing that could happen to you. Martin Luther said in the Small Catechism, “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel.”

Remember bread makers? Maybe you still have one. Everybody seemed to want one years ago. But then, all of a sudden, they became quite boring. Why? Because all they did was make bread. Just bread. Big deal. My uncle had the same problem with a juicer he bought. He was so excited when he got it, telling us all about how wonderful it was and everything that it would do. But finally, he found that all it really did was make, well, juice. And it wasn’t even juice he could get out of the fridge, but he kept having to buy the fruit to make the juice. It never became anymore than a juicer.

The same holds true for the Holy Spirit. People often get kinda bored with it. Faith alone never seems like enough, so we try to spice it up a little bit. Having the Spirit starts to mean jumping up and down at church to the sounds of a contemporary rock band. Having the Spirit starts to mean doing something radical, different or spontaneous whether the Bible condones it or not. But the problem is that the Holy Spirit can’t be pimped like this. It never becomes more than a faith maker. It creates faith. That’s it.

The second reading from 1st Corinthians talks about the gifts that the Holy Spirit brings with it. The Holy Spirit creates your faith and then gives you gifts, so it can create faith in the hearts of others. Now gifts like healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues, even the gift of faith make it appear that Paul is trying to spice up the Holy Spirit or something, but all of these gifts are given by God for one reason and one reason only. For the sake of faith. To create faith in Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul makes it very clear that everything he does is for the sake of faith in Jesus Christ. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” That means that the Holy Spirit doesn’t suddenly become more interesting, more necessary or more spiritual than Jesus. Everything Paul says about the Holy Spirit must be viewed in the shadow of the cross. Every gift the Holy Spirit gives finds its goal in service to faith in Jesus Christ.

The thing is that a lot of people see the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ as being very different. Often, Pentecost is seen as the “new age” of the Holy Spirit making a break with the “good old times” of Jesus. But Jesus says, “The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.” You see, the Holy Spirit doesn’t do or say anything different than what Jesus did and said.

Jesus said, “When the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.” The Holy Spirit is still speaking today, but this isn’t as novel as it might sound. It is only testifying again and again for you to what Jesus said before, “Repent of your sins, and believe in the good news of God.” And through this message spoken today, the Holy Spirit creates faith.

I have spent a great deal of time in conversation with God about the ministry at Saint Peters through prayer, reading the scriptures, hearing the spoken word and having conversations with others. What God keeps pointing me back to again and again is that whatever we do here must be for the sake of faith. To create faith in the hearts of each other and in those who have never believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

When I look at the communities we serve, I see people who are hungry, hurting, oppressed, depressed, abused and lonely, but I believe that God is not calling Saint Peters primarily to social work. How can this be you might ask? I believe that God is not calling us to social work but to faith work. When we are called to do anything, even something as important as feeding someone who is hungry, for instance, it must always be in service to that person’s faith. We cannot just give a person a fish and let them eat for a day. I believe that we are being called to give people faith so that they might live for eternal life.

At Pentecost, God poured out his Holy Spirit on Jesus’ disciples so that they might prophecy and speak in tongues for the sake of creating faith in their listeners. How do we know that this was the goal? Because by the end of the passage, scripture says that three thousand people repented of their sins and received forgiveness through baptism. Now that is quite wonderful; however, if giving faith is the goal, then that means that Pentecost isn’t really about one particular day or event at all. It is about something that God has promised to do again and again and again. God gives the Holy Spirit as a faithmaker whenever he gets us to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior for the sake of creating faith.

God gave the Holy Spirit to his disciples after his resurrection when he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any they are retained.” Where there is forgiveness of sins, you can be assured the Holy Spirit is there giving faith to believe in the promise. God gave you his Holy Spirit at your baptism when he washed you clean in the eyes of God and created faith in your heart. God gives you his Holy Spirit day after day when you repent of your sins and believe that your sins are forgiven on account of Jesus Christ alone.

Now, today, I will reenact Pentecost for you again. It might not be flashy, but I will show you exactly how the Holy Spirit comes so you know where to go looking if it is taken away from you. I announce to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. You may trust in these words as the truest vehicle the Holy Spirit rides upon to go into your ears, into your heart and out your mouth again in your confession of faith.

And as if this faith that makes you right with God was not enough, he gives you more stuff. The gifts I talked about before. Why? Because he wants more faith. Not more faith from you, he has given you what you need. He wants others brought to faith as well. So he has given you each gifts for the sake of faith. As the congregation of Saint Peters, I believe we are being called into service toward each other and toward our community. Each of us using our gifts not as an end to themselves, but as a vehicle for the Holy Spirit to create faith. Not to feed someone for a day, or entertain them for an afternoon, but to give them faith for eternal life.

What gifts has God given you? Is it wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues or the interpretation of tongues? I mean, I don’t even know exactly what some of those look like really, but I bet some of you do amazingly enough. And so I’m just going to let you all know this right now: God is going to use you to create faith in the hearts of others. Not through your own choices, or abilities, but by the power of the Holy Spirit that God has given to you. Not just to feed someone a fish for a day, but to give someone faith for eternal life. The one who calls you into faith is faithful and he will do it.