PENTECOST
May
22-24, 2021
Pastor
Timothy J. Spaude
Text:
John 14:25-27
1.
The
Holy Spirit provides the teachings we need.
2.
The
Holy Spirit provides the teachers we need.
John 14:25-27
(EHV) “I
have told you these things while staying with you. 26But the
Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach
you all things and remind you of everything I told you. 27“Peace I
leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to
you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.”
Perhaps you have had an experience
like this. You are in a class or a presentation for work or school. The teacher
or presenter fills you with loads of information. As the class wraps up the
teacher says, “OK, I hope you took good notes. You can use them for the test
tomorrow.” What? Why didn’t you let us know that at the beginning? I would have
taken notes. Your heart sinks. To be sure, you should have taken notes whether
the teacher told you to or not. That is your responsibility. But at that point,
it’s too late! Now if you have had that
type of an experience or feeling I’d like you to try to imagine being one of
Jesus’ disciples in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday evening. You have been
following Jesus for nearly three years. You have seen things that have
astonished you. You have heard things that confuse you. Clearly He is the
Messiah, the Promised one from God. He is the Anointed one. He will rule Israel.
Yes, He has talked before about being put to death and leaving you but you
never really believed it. Here in the Upper room, on this night, things are
different. Jesus speaks bluntly, clearly, about betrayal, death, and leaving
you to go back to the Father. “Oh, there’s one more thing, dear disciples,”
Jesus says. “You will take over teaching the people everything I have told you.”
What? Why didn’t you tell us that at the beginning? We would have taken notes.
To be fair if they had tried to do that, they would have had a wagon load of
scrolls to pull around. I imagine their mouths agape. How are we going to do
that?
No worries! Jesus swooped in. He
promised to send the Holy Spirit. Today we observe the church festival of
Pentecost. It celebrates the 3rd person of the Triune God, the Holy
Spirit, and the gifts He brings to believers. That reminds us of our secondary
emphasis this weekend as we say good bye to one retiring teacher and four
teachers who will be leaving to serve God elsewhere. No worries! No worries for
people moving to a different place. No worries for one finding new ways to
serve. No worries for St Jacobi congregation. Why? The Holy Spirit provides
gifts for believers, gifts we need.
He provides first of all the teachings
we need. That’s what was promised. “I have told you these things while
staying with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of
everything I told you.” It’s like that dreaded test became an open book
test! “No worries disciples. You don’t have to remember everything I taught
you. The Holy Spirit will take care of that for you.” And that, my friends, is
exactly what happened and how we got the New Testament of the Bible. As you
heard in the Acts reading the Holy Spirit filled these disciples now called
Apostles. They received special gifts to rapidly spread the Good News that Jesus
is Savior for all. They knew how to speak languages they never studied before
so when they went to different countries they could speak God’s truth in the
language the people would understand the best. They were given the ability to
do miracles to authenticate that God was behind these teachings. And they were
given total recall, the ability to remember the teachings and even exact quotes
of Jesus. And they wrote them down. Matthew, Mark and John’s Gospels. Or told
them to someone else, Luke’s Gospel. And the Holy Spirit continued to work in
them and through them inspiring the words of God that we now have in the Bible.
Do you understand what this means? No
worries! We have the teachings we need. There are all kinds of things that you
and I may want to know about heaven or resurrected bodies or why God let the
Devil continue to exist, but we don’t need to know them. We have what we need.
We need to know we are sinners who can’t save ourselves. So you will find as
you read your Bibles, the laws of God that are absolute, no matter what the
laws of our country say. Murder is murder whether you pull a gun and shoot
someone who cut you off driving or tear apart a little baby in its mother’s
womb. Sexual sinning is sinning whether it involves heterosexual or homosexual.
Trusting first in anything other than God who has revealed himself in the Bible
is idolatry. Thinking you can do anything yourself to get to heaven is arrogant
blasphemy that denies that Jesus is the Christ, the only way to heaven. We need
to know those things so we repent in our own lives. And then you have the Good
News, the Gospel, that tells you God loves you anyway. That He has sent His
only Son Jesus who is your Savior. Your sins are forgiven. While you can’t get
yourself forgiven or to heaven Jesus already has. So no worries. Don’t worry
about questions you have that aren’t answered in the Bible. You don’t need
them. Do concern yourself with understanding what’s in the Bible.
Which takes us to our second Holy
Spirit blessing. Not only does the Holy Spirit provide the teachings we need.
He provides the teachers we need too. A few weeks ago you may remember we had
the reading from Acts about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Remember the guy
was riding in his chariot and reading from the book of Isaiah. He could not
understand who it was talking about. Do you remember what happened next? The
Holy Spirit sent Philip to explain it to him. That’s what the Holy Spirit does.
He provides the teachers we need, teachers of God’s word.
Listen again. “I have told you
these things while staying with you. 26But the Counselor, the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all
things and remind you of everything I told you.” YOU! Over
and over again Jesus was speaking directly to the disciples. They would be the
teachers that time needed to teach God’s people God’s holy will. To help them
keep their eyes fixed on Jesus no matter what. To remember that their true
purpose in life was to be witnesses for Jesus wherever they were at and whatever
they did. The disciples called apostles did just that. They started in
Jerusalem and then went further and further out, guided by the Holy Spirit.
They were the teachers that were needed so they were provided by the Holy
Spirit to teach the people back then. Over time these disciples called Apostles
died. What then? The Holy Spirit provided more teachers.
And He has been doing the same thing
since, also here at St Jacobi. Those of you who have been at St Jacobi a long
time have seen a relatively few pastors. Some remember the first Pastor Eckert
and then of course the second. Some remember Pastor Henning and then all of you
know who you’ve been stuck with lately. On the teacher side you have seen many
different teachers as we have a large school. If you are relatively new to St.
Jacob and you heard throughout the school year that teachers were leaving for
various reasons you may have been a little worried. No worries! The Holy Spirit
provides the teachers we need and he has. We are ready to go for next year.
Thank you, Holy Spirit!
Just like the teachers who are leaving
were the ones we needed at the time. We thank, Kari Falck, Paul Frisque and
Jeff and Sarah Roloff. You will be going to new places where the Holy Spirit
has provided you to serve others. We thank you for your service here and pray
for God’s continued blessing on your new endeavors. Mrs. Sue Saatkamp, you have
chosen retirement which means you get to do work without getting paid! We thank
you for your service over the years. The Holy Spirit provided you as a gift to
us. So now what? Are you worried what you will do, how you will feel next
school year when you won’t be going back to school? No worries!
Listen to the voice of your Savior! “Peace
I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to
you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.”
That’s another one of those teachings we all need. Jesus gives peace. Not like
the world’s peace which only lasts until the next crisis. His peace is a
calmness we get to have because He is with us always through thick and thin,
good times and bad, working or retired. Jesus is with you. The Holy Spirit provides
what you need. Always. No worries! Amen.
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