Sermon - Pentecost 2024 - John 14:23-31

Pentecost, Gebhard Fugel, turn of the 20th Century

The Work of the Holy Spirit

1. The decline of church attendance is not a crisis

2. The Holy Spirit makes and preserves Christians

3. We do not need to panic, but we trust in the Spirit

It’s a fairly common marketing strategy to create a crisis, or a sense of urgency in the hearer, to get them to buy something without much thought. For example, Casey’s is advertising for the summer BBQ pulled pork pizza, with the note: “Savor for a limited time.” They’re not trying to convince you why it would be good to buy this pizza, they’re just instilling a sense of urgency, and that if you don’t buy it now you won’t be able to buy it later, thus creating in you a fear of missing out. This often results in you buying the pizza before you bothered to really think about whether you even wanted pulled pork on your pizza.

Now, that’s marketing, but there are times in life where there is a crisis and you need to have a sense of urgency, where you don’t have time to think about the situation, you just have to take decisive action. This is what happens, for example, when a deer runs out in front of your car. No time to think, you just have to act. Maybe you make the right decision, maybe you don’t, but you have to do something.

However, not every situation or problem is a crisis which requires you to act with immediacy. The deer in front of your car is a crisis, you need to hit the brakes; the limited time offer on pizza is not, you can keep driving down the road without stopping. But what about the decline of Christianity in our country? Is this a crisis which requires us to act without thinking, to just do whatever it takes to fix the problem? Or, is it a problem, but not a crisis, which allows us time to consider the situation before we act? 

For a long time the decline of Christianity has been treated like a crisis, in which we don’t think too much, we just do whatever we think it takes to make the church grow. This was the Church Growth Movement in which many churches slammed on the brakes of what they were doing before, and made tons of huge changes in order to try and grow their church. This is where things like screens and praise bands came into churches, and the pastors got rid of the vestments and wore skinny jeans, and gave TED talks instead of sermons. 

These changes were made thinking that the situation was a crisis and we were just doing whatever it took to make the church grow. But the church didn’t grow. Decades after we tried all of those things, the data is out, and it turns out that those churches which didn’t slam on the brakes and adopt the Church Growth Movement mindset, by and large, fared better than those churches which did. There’s data from both LCMS churches and Roman Catholic churches and Eastern Orthodox churches which show that traditional churches have more converts to Christianity than contemporary churches.

But we don’t need statistical data to make that point. The simple fact is that we will never grow the church. The church grows by the work of the Holy Spirit. As it says in the 3rd article of the Small Catechism: “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. 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. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.”

The work of the Holy Spirit, which we celebrate today on Pentecost, is that He creates Christians and He preserves Christians. How does this happen? Through the written and spoken Word of God. Jesus said, “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.” God dwells within a Christian through His Word. Which word is this? This is the word that the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles and evangelists to write: “The Holy Spirit, whom My 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 Scriptures are not written just by men alone, but are written by men who have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, and have been reminded of all that is necessary for a Christian to know and believe. The Holy Spirit makes and preserves Christians by calling us through the Gospel.

The temptation for us is to think that this is too boring, and that God needs us to spice it up a little bit in order to grow the church. Since we’ve convinced ourselves that this is a crisis, we think we need to see immediate results, and just talking about the bible seems to be too slow and boring. We want to see some showy results like in Acts 2, where at the end of Peter’s sermon 3,000 were baptized and saved.

We’re kind of like Naaman in the Old Testament. Naaman had leprosy and went to Elisha to be healed, but Elisha didn’t even talk to him in person and just told Naaman to wash himself in the Jordan river. Naaman was upset because he wanted Elisha to wave his hands around and do something really showy, but all he got was Elisha’s servant who told him to bathe in some lousy dirty river. But as it turned out, the simple message from Elisha’s servant and bathing in the dirty Jordan river was sufficient to heal him. 

Like Naaman we too often want to see something exciting instead of the simple and ordinary words and means by which the Holy Spirit has promised to work. For this lack of trust in God and His care of His church, we must repent. Because God does care for His church, and what the Lord does for His church is far from boring! The Holy Spirit has brought millions of people to faith here on this continent in a very short span of time. A few hundred years ago there were no Christians living here, and today there’s a Christian church in probably every town! 150 years ago there were no Lutherans living here in this town, and today there are Lutherans here and we have a beautiful building! This is all the work of the Holy Spirit! It is not boring in the slightest! “It shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That is incredible!

Thus, what we’re currently experiencing in America is not a crisis in which we must do whatever it takes to keep the church from closing. The Holy Spirit will create and preserve Christians through the Gospel just as He has done since Pentecost. We can’t improve upon the Gospel. What God has given to us is already perfect, all that remains is that we speak it.

Today is a joyous celebration that the Holy Spirit continues to work among us to create and preserve Christians. Don’t panic when things don’t seem to be going as well as you think they used to be going. After Pentecost those first few Christians never saw the same kind of miraculous growth again. It was household by household, it was slow to grow. They had setbacks, people fell away, they had controversies, they were hated by unbelievers, they weren’t popular. It truly is a miracle that Christianity spread in the first few centuries, and it’s only by the miraculous working of the Holy Spirit.

We still live in the season of Pentecost today, and the Holy Spirit is just as active in making and sustaining Christians in 21st century Iowa as He was in the 1st century Mediterranean. “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” The devil has not and will not ever prevail against Christ’s church. There is hope for the future, and there is a plan for the future. It’s not complicated, although it isn’t easy either, but there is hope. That hope and peace is a gift of the Spirit who dwells in your hearts. 

This isn’t a crisis, no need to panic, the Holy Spirit has this under control. When Jesus was arrested in the garden, the apostles panicked and Peter struck with the sword; they acted without thinking and did whatever they thought they had to do to keep Jesus alive. But as it turned out, God was in control of the situation, there was no crisis, the apostles weren’t supposed to do whatever they had to do to protect Jesus, they were just supposed to trust His Word. What appeared like a crisis, Jesus’ crucifixion, turned out to be for their salvation. Perhaps what appears to be a crisis today, with the  alleged decline of Christianity in America, will reveal itself in the end to be for the greatest good. It’s not a crisis; be at peace and unafraid, the Holy Spirit is at work through His means to create and preserve Christians.