Dear Friends in Christ,
A minister’s friend asked him how he built his church. The minister answered, “With an exercise class.” That worked so well, the minister said, “I added a bookstore, a coffee shop, and snack bar that led to cooking lessons.” “Before I knew it,” the minister told his friend, “I had my own denomination.”
The Holy Spirit’s coming to the church on the Old Testament festival of Pentecost is about building in a much different way, with a different objective, and with different visible marks of the church. Peter was not trying to turn the church into afirst century YMCA or Five Seasons Sports Club. Peter and the other disciples did not offer the crowds “bread and circuses” as the Romans offered their people.
Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth and to call, gather, enlighten and sanctify the holy Christian Church. With the Holy Spirit, Peter and the others fearlessly and truthfully shared God’s Word; especially the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ. They did not preach the wonderful works of men.They declared “the wonders of God.”
Peter and the disciples relied on the Holy Spirit. They relied on The Holy Spirit’s Work of Creating and Preserving the Church. The manner of his coming; the object of his coming; and the marks of his coming.
This past week the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference met in Lima, Peru for study and fellowship. This conference of confessional Lutherans consists of the WELS and 23 other Lutheran church bodies from around the world. Asians, Africans, Scandinavians, Europeans, and Americans came together to speak in many languages yet with one voice about God’s Word and Jesus Christ.
How reminiscent of Pentecost. Peter and the disciples spoke in many languages with one voice, prophesying, preaching, the risen Savior, Jesus Christ, and promising, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
This all fulfilled the words of the prophet, Joel. The manner of the Holy Spirit’s work of creating and preserving the church is the gospel in Word and sacrament. The Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to speak in languages they had not studied. The disciples declared the wonders of God-all God has revealed about himself in the Old Testament. The disciples pointed these “God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven,” to their sin of rejecting Christ, and then pointed them to Jesus’ resurrection.
The Holy Spirit continues to work in that manner on us. The law accuses us of sin and makes us guilty. Then, through the gospel, the good news that Christ took our sin and guilt on himself, the Holy Spirit converted our hearts and continues to keep us in faith. The gospel is the only means we are to use to create and preserve Christ’s church.
The object of the Holy Spirit’s work is to create and preserve faith in the heart, not to grow the church externally. May we use activities and programs in a ministerial role to the gospel? Sure. Dare we use those things in a magisterial role? Never. In other words, our reason and what we come up with in service to the gospel can be helpful. However, our reason and exercise classes and cooking lessons dare never be in a position in rule over and above the gospel.
Peter makes clear the object of the Holy Spirit’s coming in verse 38 of Acts 2: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
The object of the Spirit’s work is to call unbelievers out of the world and into the spiritual body of Christ. He gathers us together as those living stones we talked about a couple of weeks ago built on Christ, the living cornerstone. The Holy Spirit enlightens us to see the true God and Jesus Christ who bore our sins, guilt and punishment on the cross. He gives us and other believers around the world one heart and voice to declare Christ even though the words we use are in different languages.
The marks of the Holy Spirit’s coming are quite different fromoutward growth and success. There are so called mega churches with size and activities cruise ship lines would be happy to share and do share. If the Holy Spirit added 3,000 believes to the church by Peter preaching sin and grace, might he not have gotten 10,000 if he had avoided accusing the people of sin, and instead told them to keep following the law and they would enjoy worldly riches and prosperity?
Peter and the other disciples most likely could have built for themselves a large group of followers had they downplayed the marks of the church. The marks of the church and the work of the Holy Spirit are the means of grace. The marks of the Spirit’s work to create and preserve the church are the teaching of God’s Word and the administration of the sacraments according to Christ’s command.
The Holy Spirit does his work through us weak vessels. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” We see that so clearly on Pentecost. The disciples’ courage, knowledge, and actions all had the Holy Spirit behind them.
Every Sunday we pray in the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus taught us, “Your kingdom come.” We pray that through the gospel more and more sinners come to know Jesus as their Savior just as the Holy Spirit has called us out of death to life, out of darkness to the light. We pray that through the gospel in Word and sacrament the Holy Spirit keeps us in saving faith as members of the church.
I just read about a WELS congregation that when a member dies, they take the action of transferring that member. They officially transfer the member from the Church Militant to the Church Triumphant. This speaks volumes about the Holy Spirit’s work of creating and preserving the church. The manner is the gospel. The object is faith in Christ. The marks are the teaching and administration of God’s Word that brings the harvest of souls according to God’s will.
We find Christ in the church. We find the church by the Holy Spirit. We find the Holy Spirit in the Word of Christ. Amen. <SDG>