The Feast of Pentecost                                                       31-May-2020
Sermon Text: John 14:23-31
Sermon Theme: “Keep Jesus’ Word!”

I.N.R.I. “Peace I leave with you” Our Lord Jesus promised His disciples on the night He gave Himself into the hands of sinners to be brutally arrested, abused, beaten, assumed guilty and worthy of death even before He was tried. Where is “peace” in the midst of this grave miscarriage of justice? It is found in the flesh and blood of Jesus - “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” The world’s peace means a cessation of conflict. Communism brings peace by violently silencing all opposing ideas. The abortionist brings peace to the pregnant woman by murdering her child. Jesus’ peace brings unrest. Our first father Adam was at peace with sin, Satan, and the Lie. Adam was content imagining that he was his own ‘god’ with his camouflage clothing covering his shame. Then the Word of God came seeking him.  Adam worldly peace is shattered and he tries to hide himself from His Creator seeking Him in His Word preached. The Lord shatters Adam’s peace asking him, ‘Where are you?” and “What have you done?” Then in cursing Satan - the Lord declares war on Satan - promising Jesus - who will bring peace by tearing us from the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh.
      Peace - our world cannot find peace. For months we feared death from a pandemic, now rioting has left many neighborhoods in our nations cities looking like a war zone.  News feeds exhaust, anger, and fill us with fear.  Where can peace be found? In Jesus alone! Jesus who blesses us with God the Holy Spirit - the Comforter - through His Word alone.  Dear Christian - “Keep Jesus’ Word!” “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
      A perilous pandemic and a nation tearing itself in a deadly property destroying revolt. Sounds like our recent news, it was also the crucible in which Dr. Martin Luther was called to care for his Wittenberg congregation.  What did Luther give his congregation in a world falling apart? Jesus and only Jesus.  Christ Jesus who saves sinners by grace alone through faith alone by the Holy Scriptures alone.
      How does Jesus win peace for sinful mankind? (Vs. 28) He wins us peace by “going away” for us.  He is the Lamb of God who alone bears the sins of the world in His flesh nailed to the altar of the cross.  He is the only sacrifice whose innocent blood is poured out to wash sinners clean of all their sins. Salvation was won once for all sinners in history when on the hill Death outside of the walls of Jerusalem the Lord of Life drank the full cup of the hell we deserved crying out in victory - “Paid in Full!” “It is once and forever finished!”  Then He gave up His Spirit and surrendered His body to death.  He so loved you giving up His life to vanquish the last enemy you will face - death.  Jesus went away into injustice, suffering, hell, death, and the grave for you! He paid the full debt of your sin with His Holy precious blood and innocent suffering and death.
      Jesus came back again. Three days later. Satan’s stronghold of hell and the grave were breeched.  Jesus descended into Hell as True Man preaching the good news - Satan is vanquished - all his right to accuse us of our sins before God’s judgment is washed away with Jesus’ living blood.  Then bursting the doors of death the tomb is opened and Jesus’ living fleshly wounds and words proclaim victory and peace to all cowering in fear.  Christ Jesus has forever reconciled sinful mankind to the Father.  What Satan, sin, and death tore apart - Jesus has reconciled by His perfect life, innocent suffering, death, and physical resurrection.
40 days infallibly establishing the fact of His physical resurrection our Lord Jesus physically “goes to the Father.”  True Man - is brought into the very presence of God the Father and enthroned to sit at His right hand filling and ruling over all things in Heaven and on this earth.  How can we not break forth into rejoicing that our Brother and Savior Jesus has been enthroned to prepare a place for us in God the Father’s House. That Jesus is coming again as our Brother to bring us Home - that we may be with Him forever.
        We have Jesus’ Word. (Vs.29-30) He has told us that we might believe, but we are captive by the ruler of this world. We are conceived and born dead in sin. Satan’s lies appeal to our fleshly thinking. The world’s promise of life by bringing death and destruction to others deceives us.  Dead things do nothing but rot. Learn from Jesus’ Word that there is no gray spiritual areas - either we live in Light or rot in the darkness of death. Either we belong to Jesus or we are captive by Satan.
        How can we free ourselves from Satan’s tyranny? Spiritual death is peaceful. His lies promise me what I want - that life is all about “ME!” The world cheers me on lauding me as successful as I grab as much learning, wealth, and people to serve me. Truth is we don’t want to be free of the LIE - it is comfortable.  King Jesus breaks our comfort by speaking His Word - The Truth.  He establishes a Kingdom - not of this world - where everyone who is of the Truth will hear His voice! (Vs.23-26) This Kingdom was sealed on you with Jesus’ Word and water - “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In that moment you were rescued from death and the devil, washed newborn forgiven in Jesus’ blood, and proclaimed forever saved a beloved child of God the Father.  God the Holy Spirit breathed into you the breath of Life - faith in Jesus.
	Salvation was won for you in Jesus sacrifice on the cross. Salvation is applied to you by God the Holy Spirit within Christ’s Church - the local physical gathering of a community of saints.  It is never by our own reason, our own thinking, our own intelligence that we  come to Jesus Christ our Lord.  We are in too love with self to “love” Jesus and keep His Word. We are certain that our “words” are wiser than God’s Word. Like Satan we become very good at twisting God’s Word to justify our sin, cover our rebellion, and perfume the stench of our death.
    Thanks be to God that our Father doesn’t abandon us to our self-delusion.  He loves us even while we were sinners and from eternity elects to save us through the flesh and blood of His only begotten Son.1Jn 4:9-13 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  (10) In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  (11) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  (12) No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.  (13) By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.”  We are made alive, restored in God’s love through Jesus’ Word.  The Triune God creates, claims, and restores us through His Word.  Jesus breathes out God the Holy Spirit through His Word making us alive by His cross won peace.
    At Babel man’s sinful selfishness tore humanity apart. Instead of trusting God’s Word to fill the earth, they lusted to “make a name” for themselves. The Triune God confused their languages and they split off into different people groups. Depending on the climate in which they settled some people groups skin would grow darker brown for protection in sunny areas, while other people groups skin grew lighter brown where the sun light wasn’t as intense.  Truth is that all belong to the one human kind - all are of one blood - all are created by God in His image. All sinned and fell short of the glory of God. All were redeemed by the One Man Jesus Christ upon the cross. All are dead in Satan’s lie and sin until made alive by God the Holy Spirit through the Word of Christ Jesus.
This is the truth of Pentecost - the birth of the Christian Church - when God the Holy Spirit gathered a congregation of sinners who had crucified Jesus. He washed them alive in Holy Baptism - forgiving them - clothing them with Jesus - declaring them to be “saints.” Feasting them at the Lord’s Table. The Lord didn’t remove the language barrier. He didn’t change their skin color. He knitted them together in the Truth of God the Father’s saving love in Christ Jesus’ cross and the Holy Spirit’s comfort of daily and richly forgiving us our sins within Christ’s Kingdom - the local congregation of sinner/saints.
      God the Holy Spirit teaches us all things that Christ Jesus has said and taught.  He teaches us Jesus’ Word.  Jesus’ Word that He breathed into Holy men of God as they spoke and recorded His Word in the Holy Bible. The Holy Spirit doesn’t invent a new teaching - He teaches us Jesus’ doctrine. Jesus’ doctrine recorded by the evangelists in the Gospels and taught by the apostles in the New Testament.  This doctrine is the Truth - it binds us together from every tribe, nation, and tongue as one Holy people of God - created and cared for by our Heavenly Father, redeemed and ruled through the forgiving blood of Jesus, made alive by God the Holy Spirit receiving all by faith in Jesus.  Freed from the prison of self idolatry - we live in love towards our fellow sinful human being -1Jn 4:19-21 We love Him because He first loved us.  (20) If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?  (21) And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”  This is the peace that surpasses all understanding - the peace of forgiveness - life and salvation - given into the injustice of the cross for you - to forever free you through forgiveness to live as God’s beloved child by the power of the Holy Spirit working through Jesus’ Word and Gifts.  Listen to His promise to you in baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper this day: Joh 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Amen.