Third Sunday after Pentecost

The Holy Trinity, May 26, 2024 God’s Definite Plan

Text: Acts 2:14a, 22–36

Other Lessons: Isaiah 6:1–8; Psalm 29; John 3:1–17

Sermon Theme: There was nothing random about your salvation; God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have a definite, gracious plan for you.

Sermon Goal: That you will recognize the work of all three triune Persons in your salvation and receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving.

Based on a sermon outline by Dr. Steven P. Mueller, as printed in Concordia Pulpit Resources

Sermon: Roll the dice and take your chance. When your number’s up, it’s up. Do you feel lucky? Well, do you? Is that how we live, how God operates?

Is life random, or does God have a plan? . Many people think life is a collection of random events and chances. They see no plan or direction for things that happen. Life is what you make of it. Without God, science proposes that despite amazing improbabilities, life evolved from millions of random events. Where we are born, what our life’s circumstances are, whom we meet and know and love? These may be seen as just random events or lucky circumstances. If the world is really nothing but randomness, there is no inherent purpose to anything. Meaning, if there is any, is what we create ourselves. And many people struggle to create anything of meaning or significance. But if everything is random, then that self-made meaning is an illusion. This is a tough way to live!

There’s nothing random about God. Christianity teaches that God doesn’t deal in luck or random chance. We belong to a God of purpose and significance.

This God reveals himself and his gracious plans to us.

That’s very much the point of this Trinity Sunday we observe today. On Trinity Sunday, we remember that God has revealed his nature and identity to us. Since he is God and we are creatures, we struggle to understand a being who is infinitely greater than we are. Comprehending him is beyond the abilities of our limited minds. If we could fully understand God, that would likely be a sign that we made him up. He would fit into our thoughts and ideas. But the true and living God is greater than us, and a mystery. Yet, God reveals himself to us. We confess everything that Scripture teaches about God. There is only one God, and that God eternally exists in three coequal Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

There are many ways for us to consider God and his revelation, but today, following Peter’s sermon in Acts, we consider him through his works. Peter reveals the incredibly gracious work of God in his Pentecost sermon. He shows us that There Was Nothing Random about Your Salvation; God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit Have a Defined Gracious Plan for You. In God’s work, we know him and his character, and we see the three persons of the Trinity in action, because God did have a definite plan. The need for this plan was sin. The Old Testament Reading shows how a sinner reacts to God’s holiness: in fear. So God came to us in a way that need not terrify, the Second Person of the Trinity in Jesus Christ, but, Peter proclaims, “you crucified and killed [him] by the hands of lawless men” (v 23). Because of that and every sin, we deserved death and an eternity separated from God. But God had a definite plan. Peter proclaims a wonder: God knew what was going to happen. He knew that we would sin, and he knew what redemption would cost. Yet he still went forward. He created. He redeemed.

God had a definite plan for our redemption! The entire Trinity was involved in God’s plan. The Father: Foreknew and sent his only begotten Son. Attested to Jesus’ identity with mighty works and wonders and signs done through Jesus. Allowed Jesus to be crucified. Preserved Jesus from corruption (v 27) and raised him from the dead (v 24). Exalted Jesus to his right hand. Jesus’ saving work was complete (v 33). Declared Jesus both Lord and Christ, Master and Savior (v 36).

The Son: Submitted to the Father’s will and came to earth. Took on flesh, assuming our nature and sharing our weakness. Did the mighty works and wonders and signs, attesting his identity. Resisted all temptation and sin, and yet willingly took our sin upon himself. Became obedient to death on a cross. The Lord of all became the subject of all. Shared in God’s definite plan and faithfully carried it out.

The Holy Spirit: Was poured out on Pentecost, the day this sermon of Peter was first preached. Gathered the crowd to hear Peter’s message in their familiar languages.

Testifies to Jesus through the Gospel. We are born again of water and the Spirit. Speaks to us in the apostles’ preaching, God’s Holy Word. Continually calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, and keeps us in the true faith. This is God’s definite plan. The Father, Son, and Spirit are one God, and each person works in grace and mercy to make us his own. We do not fully understand the mystery of the Trinity, nor can we fathom the depth of the grace of God, who chooses to redeem like this. But we know our God. We know his grace. We marvel at his goodness. There is nothing random in our salvation. So, we worship the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, now and forever. Amen.

5-19-2024 Pentecost Sunday : Restoration through the Spirit

Sermon Theme: The Holy Spirit works through preaching to bring restoration. Text: Ezekiel 37:1–14 Other Lessons: Psalm 139:1–12 (13–16); Acts 2:1–21; John 15:26–27; 16:4b–15

Goal: That you see that true life and restoration come from the ministry of the Holy Spirit delivered in repeated, habitual reception of the Word and Sacrament. Sermon ideas based on a sermon in CPR by Rev. Jacob Eichers,

Sermon: What would you do if you saw a valley full of skeletons? The Old Testament text read to us on Pentecost is quite odd. What do dry bones have to do with the Holy Spirit?

Turns out, the key words in this text are spirit and prophesy. The word Spirit we’ll have a bit of fun with. Prophesy—well, that too. Okay, maybe not fun, but prophesy in our context means preaching. From those dry bones, we’re going to see how The Holy Spirit Works through Preaching to Bring Restoration.

First, how the Spirit comes through preaching. Ezekiel has a problem in today’s text, and it’s that big pile of bones. “There were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry” (v 2). Is what he was seeing real? At the very least, these bones represented real people—moms and dads, grandpas and grandmas, and sons and daughters. People with real stories, real triumphs, and real sorrows. It would seem as though all of that was brought to nothing. Death is the great equalizer. And that is absolutely real.

The Lord’s solution for Ezekiel is for him to preach to these bones. “Prophesy,” preach.

And so you are gathered together here in this place on Pentecost, waiting for the Spirit of God to touch your life. The dry bones are all around us. Those made dry and brittle by the sorrows of this life, the sins that warp us, and the years wearing on us. “Then [God] said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off” ’ ” (v 11). We are the dry bones.

The Lord’s advice to Ezekiel is the same as to us today. “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord” (v 4). We believe, teach, and confess, “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of preaching, giving the gospel and the sacraments. Through these, as through means, he gives the Holy Spirit who produces faith, where and when he wills, in those who hear the gospel” (AC V, Kolb-Wengert, 1–2).

Keep on showing up to church to hear God’s Word. Bring your kids, even if they don’t seem to be listening. If you don’t get the sermon, listen to it again on YouTube. Check out our website and download the sermon manuscript. Call the pastor and ask what he meant if you don’t understand a certain segment of it. Why? Because the Spirit comes through preaching.

We see this same thing in the reading from the Book of Acts, the Feast of Pentecost. Once the Spirit comes with the sound of the rushing wind, the flames of fire, all those foreign languages, almost immediately Peter gets up and addresses the crowd. He preaches. He preaches to the dry bones of those who have not yet come to faith in Jesus.

But why care about the Spirit? Look at the amazing things happening in our Old Testament text. The Spirit brings restoration.

The message of Christianity is that God sent his Son, Jesus, to this earth to live a perfect life and redeem us. The world is broken, lost in sin and hopelessness. We die, we become frail and brittle like these dry bones, but Christ has died for our sins, and he rose again on the third day. Jesus Christ came to redeem the world, and his death and resurrection is a sneak peek as to what will happen to us. Jesus came to redeem the world, and we see what the redeemed creation looks like in the perfect, sinless, resurrected Son of Man.

But we care about the Holy Spirit because if Jesus Christ is the blueprint for restored creation, the Holy Spirit is the builder. The Holy Spirit is the one who delivers that life, that perfection, and that restoration.

We are now living in the fulfillment of this promise. The Lord God has placed his Spirit in us, and we are living. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to dwell in the hearts of believers, so that we may be restored from dry bones to living, breathing creatures. That is, those who have been restored and made alive in Christ.

Maybe we have friends who are on the fence about joining a church, or maybe they’re part of a church but they’re only nominally involved—only participating every once in a while. I think the devil tempts us to believe that being involved with the Church—participating in fellowship, worshiping here each week, attending Bible studies, doing family devotions in our homes—the devil tempts us to believe that these things will turn us from living creatures into dry bones. What’s more boring than your local church?

Perhaps that’s the temptation of young people. Maybe even adults! A Saturday night party, a weekend camping trip, Sunday morning brunch, Netflix, all of these are more entertaining and fulfilling than what goes on here on Sunday and throughout the week.

But the Spirit is in the restoration business. Ezekiel must preach twice to the bones for them to become living again, and so for us; it takes lifelong applications of the preached Word and Sacraments to have the Spirit work in us to restore us and finally put that meat back on our bones, so to speak. The end result will eventually be that the Spirit raises us from our tombs; we will be dry bones no longer.

And so we find that as the Spirit keeps on presenting this preached message of Jesus dying and rising for us, we are restored little by little every day. We find that our lives are restored bit by bit. Those relationships we thought we might lose are deepened as we grow closer to family—not only as biological family, but also as brothers and sisters in Christ. The hours we spend in prayer and study of God’s Word are given back to us as the Spirit is able to multiply our time and help redirect our priorities to the most needful things. The Spirit uses the preached Word to come to us and breathe into us new life. The final product being a life that has meaning, and a life that’s worth living. “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord” (v 4). Celebrate the Holy Spirit, the great restorer, who restored those dry bones, who enlivened the disciples at Pentecost, and is here present even now, making all things new. Amen!