Just moments ago you heard Jesus say to his disciples, “If anyone loves me, he will keep (literally: hold tightly to) my word.” To hold tightly to God’s Word is to believe all that it teaches.

But what the law, which is part of God’s Word, teaches is that you were brought forth in iniquity and in sin your mother conceived you. Because of this, what you do is not the good you want to do, but rather the evil you do not want to do. And for this, you deserve to spend eternity with the devil and his angels in the blazing inferno that is hell.

Rather than hold tightly to that in faith, the nature of fallen flesh when it hears that is to reject it in anger. And when it hears the Gospel, which is the other great teaching of God’s Word, promise salvation through the merits of Christ, it is offended, because that takes all glory away from man and makes him totally reliant on the mercy of God.

Yet here you are, taking the Law to heart when it condemns you, and deriving comfort from the Gospel’s promise of salvation through Christ. Why is that? Why are you holding tightly to the Word, which your own sinful flesh rejects?

Many, listening to human reason rather than inspired Word, are convinced it’s because they chose to believe in Christ. I agree that a choice was made. But I strongly disagree that this was a choice you made, could make, or even wanted to make. So does St. Paul, who wrote under inspiration, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him.”

Still, a choice was made, just not by you. “In Christ God chose us before the foundation of the world,” St. Paul declares, “that we should be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will… And you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is a guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession (which of course is you), to the praise of his glory.”

What St. Paul wrote had been miraculously fulfilled on Pentecost Sunday, 50 days after our Lord’s Resurrection. According to Mosaic Law, on the first day of this eight day OT festival the first fruits of every grain harvest, which by law was one-tenth of that harvest, was to be brought to the Temple and presented to God as a thank offering.

And this pointed ahead to an even greater harvest, the harvest of souls into his Church. This harvest would take place, not by the actions of sinful men, but by the work of the Holy Spirit through his preached Word: Thus, this promise our Lord made to his disciples on Maundy Thursday, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

And so it happened on this Pentecost Sunday. As the disciples were all with one accord gathered together in one place, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, as evidence by the sound of a rushing wind (for the Holy Spirit is the Wind or Breath of God that breathes life into those who are dead in sin), and also by the tongues of fire (for as fire does created light, so the Holy Spirit shines the Light that is Christ upon those who walk in the darkness of unbelief). And with the power of the Holy Spirit now in and working through them, these men began to speak to the people who had gathered before them when they too heard the sound of the wind the wonderful works of God. For what could be more wonderful than for God to come down from heaven, take on our flesh, and be found as a man, than for him who is holy to bear our sin and who is immortal to die for those sins that we might be forgiven, than for him who is the Life to rise from the dead and in so doing, to conquer, not only death and the grave, but also sin and the devil, so that when we rise, it will not be to hell, but to everlasting life in heaven?

In giving his Apostles the ability to preach these wonderful works of God and in giving the Jews, who had come from around the world for the Feast of Pentecost, the ability to hear those words in their own language no less, the Holy Spirit was able to blessed them with faith in Christ. And 3,000 of them were baptized that day. Thus, began the harvesting of souls into his Church during the NT Age.

And you, dear Christian, are part of that harvest. Though it angered your sinful flesh, the Holy Spirit by the preaching of the Law convicted you of the sin you are, so that renouncing yourself, you asked what many in that Pentecost crowd did, “What shall I do?” Then, by the preaching of the Gospel, the Holy Spirit told you what to do, even as he through St. Peter did the crowd that had gathered before him, “Repent and be baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus, for the remission of your sins.”

Blessed with faith through the hearing of his preached Word, you were led by the Holy Spirit to the Font, whose Blessed Waters cleansed you of your sins and so, figuratively speaking, extinguished for you the fire to which you were condemned because of those sins. But the Holy Spirit’s work in you did not end there. Again, blessed with faith through the hearing of his preached Word, you are now led by the Holy Spirit up to this Altar, where you feast on the only Food of which a man may eat and live forever: the Food of Christ’s Body and Blood under Blessed Bread and Wine.

And though many other churches solely for the sake of popularity have exchanged preaching Law and Gospel for teaching lessons on morality, and have turned the life-giving Sacraments into nothing more than an outward show, the Holy Spirit has brought you into a church, where the Word is preached in its truth and the Sacraments are administered according to their institution, so that you can do what those Christians of old did after they were baptized: “Continue steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and in fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers.”

That is why you are here today. It’s wasn’t because you at some point in your life made a good choice, but because the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, blessed you with faith to keep - that is, to hold tightly to - his Word says, that life and salvation come solely through the merits of your Savior Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glory.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.