Sermon from June 8, 2025

Sermon: “Peace in Christ through the Spirit”

Pentecost Sunday

Based on John 14:23-31 and Acts 2:1-21

Let us pray: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)

The text for our meditation this morning is the Gospel Lesson, along with thoughts from the Epistle. It was Maundy Thursday, and the Passover meal was over, and Jesus had washed His disciples’ feet. Now he predicted again what was soon coming, with His death and resurrection and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, which we celebrate on this Pentecost Day.

Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep my Word” - “keep it,” in the sense of listening to it, studying it, and seeking to trust and follow it and share it with others (John 14:23). For as Jesus adds, “The Word that you hear is not (just) Mine, but the Father’s (Word), Who sent me.” And Jesus gives the warning, “Whoever does not love Me does not keep My Words” (v.24).

Jesus knew that He faced much opposition from Jewish religious authorities and Roman authorities and many others under the evil influence of Satan, whom Jesus calls later, in our text, “the ruler of this (evil) world” (v.30).

Jesus also says, “He (Satan) has no claim on Me, but I do as the Father has commanded Me, so that the world may know that I love the Father” (v.30,31). And so Jesus went, later that Maundy Thursday, willingly to be arrested and condemned and suffer and die, to pay, in our place, the penalty for our sins and the sins of the whole world, that we might be forgiven and counted righteous before God. It is what Paul wrote about Jesus, saying that “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped (to be held onto), but emptied Himself by taking the form of a Servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:5-11).

This also helps explain why Jesus also says, in this passage, “The Father is greater than I” (v.28). God the Son was true God and even when he became true man, here on earth, He was still true God and could say in John 10:30, “The Father and I are One.” But He did not always use His Godly power. We hear in Mark 13:31-32 that Jesus says, while still on earth, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My Words will not pass away.” And then he says, “But concerning that day or that hour (when heaven and earth pass away), no one knows, not even angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Jesus lived with some such limitations while on earth. It is in that context that He says in this passage. “You hear Me say to you, I am going away… If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you, before it takes place, so that when it takes place, you may believe” (v.28-29).

That was always the goal of Jesus - to complete His saving work for the world, and in the process, to help His disciples grow in faith and understanding, in Him. Even on Maundy Thursday, there was much that they did not comprehend - that He, Jesus, had to suffer and die and rise again and return to His Father, to receive again, as John 17:5 says, “His full glory as the Son of God in His Father’s presence, the glory he had with the Father before the world existed.”

And Jesus, as true man, also needed to die and rise again and ascend to heaven to give the assurance and certainty of eternal life to all believers in Him, and since He continued to be true man, as well as the Son of God, in heaven, that meant that we, as real human beings, as He was, could also have eternal life in heaven, by His grace and mercy.

But Jesus knew that even His chosen disciples were not getting and understanding all this. And so he goes on to tell them about the next important part of the Triune God’s saving plan for them and for their calling to share the Good News of Christ with the world.

Imagine that after my sermon today, I asked you to write down everything I said. You probably wouldn’t do too well with that. Even I have my sermon written out word-for-word, to try to say it accurately. If I lost some pages, I would have some trouble saying what I intended, even after practicing it. If you look at John 13-17, you will find almost 5 chapters of what Jesus said, just on Maundy Thursday. How could these disciples understand and communicate all that?

Jesus says in our text, ”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” (v.25-26).

The Holy Spirit has always existed, as the third Person of the One True Triune God, together with the Father and the Son. He is mentioned already in Genesis 1, verse 2, the first book of the Bible, and in the Old Testament, He is mentioned working especially with leaders of God’s people and with the prophets who spoke and wrote God’s Word, preparing the way for the coming of the Savior Jesus. As just one example, hear 2 Samuel 23:1-2: “The oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; His Word is on my tongue.”

The Holy Spirit had been with Jesus and His disciples, all through their ministry, and Jesus told them, on Easter evening, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” but the Spirit appeared most dramatically on Pentecost, the account of Acts 2, when many Jews were in Jerusalem for a late Spring Harvest festival. The Holy Spirit was a “Spirit.” He did not have a flesh-and-blood body and could not be seen, and so he appeared in ways that God had shown His presence in the Old Testament - with the sound of a rushing wind and with fire - and with tongues as of fire, since the tongues of the disciples were being affected. The disciples were then filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them what to speak. These were not the normal languages spoken at that time in Israel - Aramaic or Greek or Latin or even Hebrew. These were the native languages of the hearers, from many different countries, languages that the disciples had never learned or spoken before. Clearly, this was a miracle from the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4).

And what were all these visitors from many countries hearing? They said, “We hear them telling in our own tongues (in our own languages) the mighty works of God.” Then Peter spoke, on behalf of all the disciples, and said that this was fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy of the Spirit of God coming upon many people, with the result that “everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved” (Joel 2:28-32).

And led by the Holy Spirit, Peter went on to speak of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, through His death and resurrection. And through that Word of God proclaimed about Jesus and the gift of Baptism, the Holy Spirit brought 3,000 people to faith in Jesus and salvation that day. This is sometimes called the birthday of the Holy Christian Church, as the number of believers went from about 120 to over 3,000, by the power and working of the Holy Spirit.

It was as Jesus had predicted, “When the Helper, the Spirit of truth comes, He will testify about Me; He will glorify Me - Jesus” (John 15:26, 16:14-15). “The Spirit will take what is Mine and declare it to you.” “For Jesus Christ has become the Cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven given among men, by Which we must be saved” (Acts 4:11-12).

The Holy Spirit then grew these early Christian apostles into faithful believers and teachers of God’s Word in Christ. As Peter later said, “Know this, first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:20-21). And it was not only what they said but what they wrote that is the true Word of God. Peter also said about Paul, “Our beloved brother Paul also wrote you according to the wisdom given him (not his own wisdom or ideas), as he does in all his letters” (2 Peter 3:15-16).

And Paul himself wrote of “the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God (inspired by God through His Holy Spirit) and is profitable for us” (2 Timothy 3:15-16). And John, as he recorded the very words of Jesus, said, “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have Life in His Name” (John 20:31). And Paul wrote, “Therefore, I want you to understand that… no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ (and truly mean it and believe it) except by the Holy Spirit”
(1 Corinthians 12:3).

We therefore praise the Father and the Son, but also the Holy Spirit, for His Work from Pentecost (and even before) to this very day, for bringing us to faith and keeping us in that faith, including the promise of Jesus, also in our text, “Peace I leave with you; My Peace I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” Amen. (John 14:27)