The forecast today is calling for 10 km-an-hour winds. That’s just a light breeze – enough to feel the wind on your face but not enough to blow leaves across the yard. Not bad if you’re planning a picnic this afternoon. Current conditions inside this building, however, are not nearly as calm. There’s been a wind blowing at hurricane strength since we started the service twenty minutes ago. This wind is not caused by atmospheric conditions and so it hasn’t messed up your hair (or mine). Nevertheless this wind has tremendous power as it comes from heaven itself. I’m talking about the Holy Spirit. On this Pentecost Sunday I want to assure you that heaven’s wind still blows as it did on Pentecost over two thousand years ago when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples in Jerusalem (Daron Lindemann). And it’s especially my prayer for you, Davin and Jesse, that you keep harnessing this wind so that it may propel you all the way to heaven.
I’m referring to the Holy Spirit as heaven’s wind because when he came upon the disciples on that Pentecost 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection, he did so with a sound like a violent rushing wind. The noise was heard by many in Jerusalem so they came to investigate and the sound led them to a house where Jesus’ followers had gathered. What they saw there was incredible. On top of each of the disciples’ head flickered a flame. This was the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And as if that wasn’t enough, the disciples started to speak in languages they had never learned before. This enabled them to communicate with the non-Hebrew speaking pilgrims who had come to celebrate Pentecost, which was originally an Old Testament harvest festival.
But this was not the first time the disciples had been filled with the Holy Spirit. As our confirmands have already explained, no one can confess faith in Jesus unless the Holy Spirit has worked in their hearts (1 Corinthians 12:3). But the Holy Spirit does more than bring us to faith, he also keeps us in the faith and empowers us to serve Jesus. That’s why I’m encouraging you to keep harnessing heaven’s wind, Jesse and Davin. You’ve made a great start with your weekly confirmation classes. Whenever we opened our Bibles in class it was as if we were prying open God’s mouth. Out came his life-giving words and with them the Holy Spirit who blew away the dirt that had settled on us during the week threatening to block our view of what’s really important: making it to heaven. But if you don’t continue to open God’s Word and harness heaven’s wind, you’ll start to think that making MVP in football, or making a really cool robot in industrial arts class is what is important. It isn’t because no award you can win compares to what Jesus won for you through his life, death, and resurrection. He’s given you nothing less than eternal life!
Does the prospect of living with God in heaven forever get you excited? You know you’re supposed to say yes, but honestly, wouldn’t you feel more pumped if I told you that Jesus died to give you a sea-side mansion and a private jet? But that’s just how sinfully short sighted we are. Nothing on earth can compare to the endless joys of heaven. Take the best meal you’ve shared with your family, the best hotel you’ve stayed in, and the best time you’ve had hanging out with friends and multiply that by infinity and you still don’t come close to what Jesus has earned for us. So perhaps we should consider the alternative. The only other place we can spend eternity is in hell, facing God’s forever anger for having rejected Jesus as our Savior. Is it worth chasing the trinkets and the lame awards this world offers if it means letting go of heaven? No.
But it’s probably hard for you to imagine right now ever letting go of this prize of eternal life. And yet it happens. In our own church body four out of every ten confirmands stop attending church two years after they’ve been confirmed. Does this mean that they have given up on Jesus and stopped believing in him? Not necessarily. But what they forget is that if they’re not regularly being filled with the Holy Spirit, then they’re in danger of becoming like an empty Styrofoam cup that helplessly swirls around a trash can, tossed this way and that by the wind (Daron Lindemann). Such a wind blows from Satan’s foul mouth. He breathes lies when he says that it doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you try to be a good person. Ah, but heaven’s wind disagrees. The Holy Spirit clearly points to Jesus as the only way to heaven, for only he has given us credit for the perfection God demands.
“Fine,” Satan huffs. “If Jesus really always forgives, then it shouldn’t matter how you live!” But that’s another lie Satan loves to puff around this world with his fetid breath. And so for example when you meet a girl you like, the world will encourage you to enjoy her company and go ahead and stay overnight together with no one else around. And why stop there? Move in and set up house without the courage of pledging before God and his people through marriage vows that you are truly committed to each other ‘til death do you part. You know, however, through your study of the Sixth Commandment that this is not the way to lasting happiness. But you won’t remember that if you’re not constantly harnessing heaven’s wind to counteract the devil’s relentless blustering.
But it’s not just the devil we need to be concerned about is it? By nature our own breath is pretty foul too. We find it easier to criticize than to encourage. And when we do encourage it’s often only to manipulate – like when you flatter your mom and dad because you hope it will motivate them to say yes to a request you have for the weekend. And no matter how hard we may try to communicate in an unselfish, God-pleasing way, we’re always going to speak with an accent that gives us away as being from this sinful, self-centred world.
That’s another good reason for us to keep harnessing heaven’s wind. We need the Holy Spirit to keep turning us to Jesus the way a stiff wind keeps a weather vane turned in one direction. We need to keep looking to Jesus because he alone constantly sweeps away our guilt like an ocean breeze clearing a city of smog. Without him we would become overwhelmed with the guilt of our sins and give up on salvation altogether.
I’ve already said that one way to harness heaven’s wind is to keep cracking open your Bibles. But there’s another way to harness heaven’s wind isn’t there? In a little while you will for the first time receive the sacrament of Holy Communion. I hope you’re excited about this. The sacrament is like a sudden gust at your back during a grueling race. It will propel you forward with confident steps when you otherwise would give up. How does Holy Communion do that? It won’t be through a feeling you get by coming to Communion. Rather it will be with the bread and wine through which Jesus will also give you his very body and blood just as he has promised. God loves to encourage us in such tangible, personal ways. Just look at the events of that Pentecost 2,000 years ago. Wasn’t it enough that the Holy Spirit made his presence known through the sound of a violent rushing wind? Sure. But then he also appeared as little tongues of fire that rested on each of the disciples! There too God made his presence known in a personal, tangible way.
Of course Jesse and Davin you may wish that little flames would also dance on top of your heads during this service. Wouldn’t a miracle like that really prove to you and everyone else here that your faith in Jesus is not misplaced? But what effect did the sound of the rushing wind and the tongues of fire have on the crowds that gathered? It only made them confused and perplexed! It wasn’t until Peter started preaching to them and that the Holy Spirit entered their hearts so they could make sense of everything. The point is no amount of miracles would convince you better of the things you have learned in confirmation class. If God did bring people to faith through miracles, then the Israelites who left Egypt with Moses should have been the most faithful bunch of believers in the history of the world. They had seen God part the Red Sea and travel before them as a pillar of cloud and fire. They had eaten the manna that fell from heaven every day and drank water that miraculously gushed out of a rock. They had experienced all these miracles and yet they were probably the most faithless bunch of people on record because they rejected God’s Word given to them by Moses.
That brings us back to the beginning doesn’t it? If you want to stay a Christian your whole life, as you are about to tell us that you want to do with your confirmation vows, then keep harnessing heaven’s wind, Davin and Jesse. Don’t let school work, or work schedules, or anything else stand in the way of coming to hear and study God’s Word on a regular basis. You’ll never be sorry that you did, for when your ear is attentive to the Word it’s like turning a sailboat so that it catches the full force of the wind. A sailboat like that is going to skip across the water.
And that’s exactly the effect the Holy Spirit had on the Apostle Peter that first New Testament Pentecost. When some made fun of the disciples for what was going on, Peter, the one who had once cowardly denied Jesus, now stood up and boldly told the crowd of the coming end of the world and that the only way to escape God’s judgment was through faith in Jesus. How do you explain the change in Peter’s demeanor? That apostle had harnessed heaven’s wind.
The end of the world is much closer today. We see the signs all around us with violence and deadly disease like the measles hitting close to home. So when your friends try to make sense of it all you can help them. Tell them about sin and tell them about their Savior. When you open your mouth in this way you’re not just letting loose a wisp of information; you’ll be unleashing heaven’s wind - an eternally life-changing force in the person of God the Holy Spirit. May God bless you Davin and Jesse as you keep harnessing heaven’s wind not only for yourselves, but also for others. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
(For consideration at home.) Pentecost was originally an Old Testament thanksgiving festival. God-fearing Jews were to go to Jerusalem with their first sheaves of wheat. Why was this “Ingathering” festival the perfect setting for what happened after the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus’ disciples? (Hint: Read to the end of Acts 2.)
Why does the Holy Spirit have to bring us faith? Why can’t we just decide to believe in Jesus on our own? (Read Ephesians 2:1 and Romans 8:7-9.)
The theme of the sermon is “Harness Heaven’s Wind!” How exactly do we harness the Holy Spirit?
What will happen to us if we stop harnessing heaven’s wind?
What are Satan’s two classic lies about sin and salvation?
In what sense is our own breath as foul-smelling (spiritually speaking) as Satan’s?
Respond: The visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a pretty neat miracle. If only the Holy Spirit would do that and other miracles today, more people would believe in Jesus!
