A, Pentecost Sunday - Acts: 2:1-21 The Forgotten God: Honouring the Holy Spirit's Work in us

Acts 2:17,18,21 (ESV) “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Cited from Joel 2:28-32)

Because I am a poor lowly sinner, with a human heart that needs every bit of help it can get, I thank our Heavenly Father, and our Saviour Jesus Christ for sending the Holy Spirit.  Yet because of my nature, the Holy Spirit seems to be relegated to fourth place behind me, God the Father, and Jesus Christ. Whereas in reality I should happily be standing in fifth place behind God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and everyone else whom God calls me to help.

Throughout the history of Christendom, it seems the Holy Spirit continually has suffered just as much rejection inside the church, as He does outside the church. 

On might expect this outside the church, but inside!  Surely churches who worship the triune God know the Holy Spirit and let Him do what He was sent to do! 

So, what is it that the Holy Spirit does? Why does He need to do it within us!  And are you allowing Him to do, what He does, within you?  We’ll return to these questions in a moment.

Firstly, why was the Holy Spirit sent at Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection from the dead?  Ten days after Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father the Holy Spirit was given.  We know that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, to call alongside us to be our help after He was raised. But before all this occurred the Holy Spirit first rested on Jesus at his baptism.  Why, did the Holy Spirit rest on Jesus?  Why did Jesus need the Holy Spirit to rest on Him?

John the Baptist was baptising the Jews with a baptism of repentance, preparing Israel as the last prophet, before Jesus came.  To John Jesus was, “one whose sandals he was not worthy to carry.”  Who would, “baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Mattew 3:11)  But when Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptised, He demanded of John to be baptised, saying, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15 ESV)

John the Baptist was not expecting this, he was expecting to be baptised by Jesus with the Holy Spirit and fire.  Yet Jesus expected John to function in what he was called to do, baptise!  And Jesus was baptised along with all the other Jews who came to the River Jordan.

Why would this be?  What was this” all righteousness” that Jesus was fulfilling?  Our answer comes from God’s Word, as the Holy Spirit rests on Jesus and God says, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17 ESV) The Son of God was baptised to please God.

Whereas the Jews were being baptised in preparation for a saviour, Jesus was baptised into his three-year ministry to be the Saviour and please God the Father. 

Now one might think that since Jesus is the Son of God, sent from the Father to be the Saviour of all people, He should have been able to do this by himself!  Instead, we hear He receives the Holy Spirit.  This was an essential part of God plan since Jesus, born into the flesh of humanity, had to put aside His divinity as the Son of God and live in the flesh as we live in the flesh. (Philippians 2:1-11)

Jesus had to experience all the garbage and filth of sinful humanity and pay the price of that sin, while being without sin to please God the Father.  And the Holy Spirit rested upon Him as He went through all the rot—we face and fail—in His faithful walk to the cross. This pleased God the Father.

Two things need to be highlighted here!  One, this is God the Father’s work of preparing us to receive a helper in the Holy Spirit, and two, through the Son of God receiving the same Holy Spirit as His helper!  Why?

Hear what Paul says to the Philippians encouraging them to be like Jesus who emptied himself to become obedient to death on the cross.  Paul teaches all who want their lives to be worthy of the gospel of Christ, saying, “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:1-2 ESV)

Paul lists five things here in chapter two, calling the church, the body of Christ, at Philippi into full, “co-spirited love” and “the mind of Jesus Christ”.  The worthiness of the gospel is worked within by the five things that make us the body of Christ, that make us one with Him our holy Head!  But it’s the Holy Spirit that works these five things, the human spirit cannot do it because of its fallen flesh.

The first is encouragement in Christ trusting you and I are being called alongside of Him.  The second is comfort and true realisation of God’s love.  In other words, believing we’re brought alongside God the Father who is steadfast in His compassion and love towards us.  The third is participation in the Holy Spirit, the same fellowship enjoyed amongst the Godhead of the Trinity, in heaven, and on earth during Jesus’ ministry .  This is more than fellowship over a cuppa, although it can happen over a cuppa too, but it’s seeing with the eyes of faith that we too are included in God’s fellowship as the body of Christ, the second member of the Trinitarian fellowship.  Then there is affection or compassion; that is to have a Christ-like desire to help as we have been helped.  And sympathy or the desire to be merciful as you and I have received God’s mercy. 

Here we come back to the initial questions: What is it that the Holy Spirit does?  Why he needs to do it within us!  And, are you allowing him to do what he does within you?

It’s the Holy Spirit that works the five within us, he works any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy.  

If Jesus received the Holy Spirit to continue the Trinitarian fellowship of heaven while He fulfilled his ministry at the cross in “all righteousness”, how much more do I need the Holy Spirit to help me since unlike Jesus I am full of “all unrighteousness”?  As we have just sung in the last hymn, and confessed in Psalm 25:11, “For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.” (Psalm 25:11 ESV)

Most of us are flat out remembering our forebears much past our great grandparents.  If we didn’t have photos or pictures of them, we would long forget what they looked like, even when we had opportunity to live at the same time as them.  Yet two thousand years after Jesus ascended into heaven we not only know Him who was seen, but we also know the Father whom we have not seen.

This is not the work of the human spirit; it’s not found in the minds of a faithful humanity!   This is the work of the Holy Spirit who calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps us in the one faith as God’s church and as individuals of it.  Individually or collectively, none of us have the ability or knowhow to do it because of our humanity, sinful that it is in being or doing, nature and deed! 

Jesus is the only human who has done it and He did it perfectly!  Even so, He still did it with the fellowship of the Holy Spirit as a man who put aside his Godly divinity!  Therefore, no one can say, “Jesus is not like us because He relied on his divinity to be the perfect man.”  No!  Rather we hear in Hebrew chapter two, “ He [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:17 ESV)

So, the Holy Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps Christ’s church in the faith.  His work is one of giving us encouragement in Christ; bringing us alongside Jesus. He gives us comfort in receiving God’s love.  The Holy Spirit gives us the eyes of faith, so we see our fellowship or participation in the oneness in Christ with His hidden church on earth and His church in heaven where the angel, archangels, and the whole company of heaven worship around the throne of God.  And the Holy Spirit works outward affection and sympathy that otherwise would be forgetful, cold, and heartless.

So let us worship the Holy Spirit whose is sent from the Father and the Son, by allowing Him to do his work of bringing us before the Father and the Son, to receive and believe the forgiveness of our sins.  The Holy Spirit works within to make us holy when we hear his Holy Word preached and when we repentantly receive the Holy Sacraments as the holy body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.