Pentecost Today! Acts 2:1-21

Whitsunday, The Feast of Pentecost                       19-May-2024
Sermon Text: Acts 1:1-21
Sermon Theme: Pentecost Today! I. King Jesus Fulfills His Promise! (Vs.1-4). II. God The Holy Spirit Breathes New Life Into The Dying! (Vs.5-11). III. Hearers Either Wonder or Wander! (Vs.12-13). IV. The Preacher Speaks The Father’s Word To Bring Us To Call On Christ By His Spirit. (Vs.14-21). by Rev. Nathan j. Rusert

I.N.R.I. Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Every Sunday is Easter Sunday in the Christian Church - the 8th day of creation - the first day of the new creation - wrought through the crucified and risen flesh of its Creator - Jesus of Nazareth - True God eternally begotten of the Father - True Man born by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. Rejoice!
    Alleluia! You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the earth. Alleluia!: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful: And kindle in them the fire of Thy love. Alleluia! (Psalm 104:30; Liturgical Text: Veni Sancte Spiritus.)   Every Sunday is the 10th day after Jesus’ physical ascension and enthronement at the right hand of God the Father to fill all things. Our Brother Jesus clothed in our human nature has been redeemed and exalted into the very presence of the Holy Triune God. Jesus now fills all things as True God and True Man. On the day of His coronation as the King of Creation - the historian Luke records, “Act 1:4-5 And being assembled together with them,[Jesus] He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me; (5) for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."   Today is Whitsunday - God the Holy Spirit is present applying the fruit of Jesus’ cross and empty tomb - all our sins are washed away with Jesus’ blood - we are clothed with the white garments of Jesus’ perfect life. Gal 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
    Whitsunday, or as many of us have come to call it Pentecost using the Jewish term for the 50th day after Passover, isn’t a past event. Every Sunday Christ’s Church gathers God the Holy Spirit is poured out upon those who gather to hear Christ’s Word. We don’t wait for a ‘revival’ to happen - Jesus doesn’t leave us orphans - He draws near to us through His Word by His Spirit to bring us Home to God our Father. In the Nicene Creed the Church confesses that God the Holy Spirit is “the Lord and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, Who spoke by the prophets.” Without the Holy Spirit all life ceases. Psa 104:29 You hide Your face, they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.”
    Rejoice! Be jubilant with joy! Every Sunday in the local Christian congregation - the Church - is Whitsunday! Be jubilant with joy! Celebrate: Pentecost Today! I. King Jesus Fulfills His Promise! (Vs.1-4). II. God The Holy Spirit Breathes New Life Into The Dying! (Vs.5-11). III. Hearers Either Wonder or Wander! (Vs.12-13). IV. The Preacher Speaks The Father’s Word To Bring Us To Call On Christ By His Spirit. (Vs.14-21).
I. Fifty days after Passover the Lord commanded His children through Moses to gather at the place He would choose for His Name to celebrate the first fruits of the harvest. They would bring their barley to wave before the Tabernacle at Shiloh, then later at the Temple in Jerusalem, praising the Lord of Creation, the Lord of the Harvest, for blessing them with their daily bread. Like our day of thanksgiving was intended to be, until it became a day for over eating, drinking, football, and bargain hunting. After the Babylonian captivity, the Jews also commemorated it as the day the Lord God spoke His Ten Words to His freed children from the thick black thunderous cloud on Mount Sinai. You can study it in Exodus 20 as God gives us His Ten Commandments.
      As Jesus sent 70 of His male disciples out to preach His advent, Luk 10:2 ... He said to them, "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” The Lord of the Harvest now answers the Church’s ongoing prayer for the Holy Spirit: (vs.1-4) The Church is gathered a small minority of 120 believers. Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” God the Holy Spirit was present from the beginning of creation. When our father Adam rebelled and by his sin plunged us into spiritual deadness, deafness, rejection of the Truth - enslaving us in sin, death, and Satan’s lie and rule of darkness. The Lord of Life called our first parents to repentance and faith in the promise of Jesus the Head Crusher of Satan. By the power of the Holy Spirit they clung to Promised Jesus and looked forward to His deliverance. From age to age the promise was passed down and preserved as the Holy Spirit called the hearts of the faithful to cling to the promised Savior Jesus.
      During Holy week Greeks came seeking to see Jesus as He taught in the Temple. Remember His answer..., “Joh 12:23-26 ....... "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. (24) Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. (25) He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (26) If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” Jesus honored the Father bearing our sin in His sinless body unto death and the grave. As a grain of wheat buried in the earth springs forth to new and full life - so He lay His flesh bearing our sin into our death and our grave - forever burying our sin and robbing our grave of our bodies - rising to life - bringing us new life and peace through His wounds as He breathes His forgiving Holy Spirit upon us in His Church.

      King Jesus promises, Mat 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." He is still present as believers gather in one place in the local congregation - the Church - around His Word. The faithful are sitting in one house, perhaps it is John Mark’s parents house where Jesus had celebrated the Last Passover with His apostles. Sitting is the posture of hearing and learning - one of the Apostles is preaching - telling them of Christ’s Word, work, promises from the Old Testament - God the Holy Spirit rushes upon them. The Ruach Elohim - the Breathe of God - as a mighty rushing wind - filling the gathered church with His presence. Jesus taught Nicodemus of baptismal regeneration, Joh 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Last week a windstorm tore through Houston, Texas causing much damage - not so the Holy Spirit - He rushes in to fill the Church - not to destroy - but to fill the faithful with a new heart - a fearless heart - a clean heart.
    Sinful forgiven King David teaches us to pray, “Psa 51:15 O Lord, open my lips, And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.’ King Jesus pours out His Holy Spirit forgiving all our sins within His Church and opening our lips to speak His Word to the world around us. The believers that first Pentecost opened their lips to speak of Jesus in languages they had never learned. He opens your lips to tell your neighbor of Jesus in your own mother tongue. The curse of Babel is undone - tell others. Repent - our forefathers at Babel rebelled against the Creator’s command to fill the earth with many children and His promise. They wanted to stay in one place and make a name for themselves - if we only speak of Jesus in these four walls - aren’t we doing the same? Hear your Creator King Jesus: Mar 16:15 , "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” He still fulfills His promise here!
II. Behold the power of God the Holy Spirit! (Vs.5-11) Who are these people whom the Holy Spirit gathers by His thunderous entrance? They are devout men, Jews from every nation, who lived in Jerusalem. They were the faithful elderly who had returned to Jerusalem to spend their last days and die. They were the old, tired, weak, worn, wanting only to spend their last days in the House of the Lord. Learn! Don’t loose heart! King Jesus still chooses the weak confounding the strong, the foolish to confound the wise - through the message of His cross.
    See the Church through the eyes of God the Holy Spirit as He gathers those who will be saved through the preaching of Christ’s Word. He alone works faith when and where He chooses in those who hear the Gospel, - “that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.” God the Holy Spirit breathes new life and hope into our hearts through our ears - we hear the mighty works of God in our own mother tongues.
III. Does God the Father force all to believe in Jesus by His Holy Spirit? (Vs.12-13) Some in the crowd ask the question seeking to be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, ‘What does this mean?” Others following Satan the lying spirit mock the preaching of the cross, “They are only a bunch of drunks!” You will be mocked for speaking the Truth of Jesus in love by some, others ears will be pricked to ask, “What does this mean?” We rightly confess, “I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” It wasn’t your decision to follow Jesus - the Father choose you in Christ from eternity and the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel - not once, but every day. Think of it this way - how often do you have to breathe to live? Once a week? 12 times a minute? If you stop breathing you begin to die - if you stop hearing Christ’s Word within His Church, every day in your home, you cut yourself off from the life giving Holy Spirit breathing you alive in Christ! How often does a bride need to hear her husband say, ‘I love you”? Once every 50 years? Read God’s love letter to us sinner daily - The Holy Bible - ask what does this mean - let the Holy Spirit teach you of Jesus every Sunday in the divine service, Sunday school, Bible class, every day in family devotions.
IV.   How does God the Holy Spirit continue to keep us in His Word and Faith until we die? In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. Listen! (Vs.14-21) Christ’s Church is a mouth house - we gather to hear the Father’s Word preached! Peter doesn’t follow his feelings or speak from his heart. No! He preaches the Holy Spirit’s Word spoken by the prophet Joel fulfilled only in the flesh and blood of Jesus. Now in this last epoch of the history of this world - the Holy Spirit has flooded upon creation making all things new through the sacrifice, resurrection, enthronement, and the promise of Jesus’ visible return in glory to judge all humanity. He has created a new heart within us. He fills our hearts with the joy of this salvation. King David is not known as the adulterer, liar, murderer - but as the forgiven beloved child of God....and so are you! The Holy Spirit makes you new again, In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. “ Joyfully sing with David, Psa 51:12-13 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. (13) Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You.” Invite you neighbor, come hear, live - call on Jesus Name - be saved! Rejoice Pentecost is Today! Amen.