Pious Lutheran

The Pentecost, El Greco, 1600 The Holy Spirit Provides for His Church What the church is and where it is found The Spirit provides for His church The Spirit gives His church peace Happy birthday and a blessed feast of Pentecost to you dear brothers and sisters in Christ! Today the church of God celebrates the birth of the church, fifty days after Easter, ten days after the Ascension, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire in order that they may tell of the mighty works of God. From that day on the church of God has been proclaiming the Gospel of repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name throughout the entire world. Immanuel Lutheran Church, right here in rural Minnesota, is an heir, a beneficiary, and a part of this Spirit filled church of God. Today is a day to celebrate the mighty works of God, not just all over the world, but especially right here in these hallowed halls. The church of God exists where Christians physically gather to hear God’s W...

Pentecost, Gebhard Fugel, turn of the 20th Century The Work of the Holy Spirit The decline of church attendance is not a crisis The Holy Spirit makes and preserves Christians 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...

St. Peter Preaching in the Presence of St. Mark, Fra Angelico, 1433 Hearing the mighty works of God The Holy Spirit brings us God’s word We keep God’s word when we speak it to others When you think about Pentecost and the Holy Spirit working, what kinds of things do you think about? Perhaps you think about Pentecostals and them “speaking in tongues” or publicly weeping. Maybe you think about revivals, like Billy Graham’s crusades or that revival that was taking place down in Kentucky. Maybe you think about mass conversions, as is happening in some places in Africa. But the work of the Holy Spirit typically isn’t as showy as all of that and the Holy Spirit Himself is rarely ever even visible, since the Holy Spirit’s job is to point to Christ, that all might hear the mighty works of God. To be fair, the Holy Spirit was quite showy on that first Pentecost, 50 days after Easter. “ And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where t...

Peter Preaching at Pentecost, Benjamin West, 1738-1820 It’s a tragicomedy when Christian parents hide their children’s inheritance in a bible, reminding their children on their deathbed to read their bible, only for the children to never find the inheritance since they never read their bible. The children search frantically for their inheritance, yet the treasure is hidden right there in plain sight, if only they’d take the time to open the scriptures and read. Thus is God, our true treasure, hidden in plain sight. The question leading up to Jesus’ answer in the Gospel reading asks: “ Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world? ” Jesus replies: “ 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. Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words.” God hides Himself in His Word, available for all to hear and read and believe. God hides in plain sight so as to make Himself manifest to ...

"Pentecost Sermon" by Gebhard Fugel, 1863-1939   A blessed feast of Pentecost to you my friends in Christ! The word pentecost means very simply the “fiftieth” day after Easter. Today, the 50th day after Easter, we celebrate that the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles as tongues of fire, because the Spirit put into their mouths fiery tongues, which boldly preached of Jesus Christ in various languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. Pentecost was an exciting and thrilling day! Seeing the change within the Apostles after receiving the Spirit is remarkable! Previously these men were cowards. They’d been hiding in a house for fear of the Jews. Peter, the one who had spoken that mighty confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, was even a coward at Jesus’ trial. When he was confronted by a servant girl, he denied any acquaintance with Jesus. Peter, a grown man, was terrified of speaking the truth in front of a little servant girl! But now having received the Spirit...

At Babel, some thousands of years ago, the Lord cursed man by separating and dividing us from one another. “ Come ,” said the Lord, “ let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech. ” This curse caused man to disperse from one another, and it persists still to this day.  In some ways the curse of Babel is worse than the flood, since the flood only killed one generation, but the confusion of language has harmed man for every generation since Babel. It’s divided us into races and nations and cultures and states. Even among those who share the same language, and even the same house, our language has been confused and communication rendered difficult among even the best of relations. Many a misunderstanding has resulted in terrible feuds between friends, now rivals. This separation and division among man is not a good thing. As evidenced in the creation account, it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone, but he required the company of an...