SPEAKER_00: Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: The text for this day's meditation is drawn from the text in the Old Testament from Numbers.
SPEAKER_00: Taylor's illustration, sports illustration, reminded me of an old pep rally shout.
SPEAKER_00: You remember it?
SPEAKER_00: We've got spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And we do.
SPEAKER_00: By God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: Luther said that the miracle of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit creates faith in Jesus by the preaching of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It was on Pentecost that Jesus, our Savior from sin, sent his Spirit to His disciples in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Pentecost happened fifty days after Jesus' crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2 brings attention to Jesus' completed work as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: Our thoughts today are drawn from the Old Testament lesson in the book of Numbers, coupled with complimentary verses throughout the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Let's begin by hearing Moses' words to the church in Numbers 11 29.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and the Lord would put his spirit on all of them.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit came in fullness on Pentecost Sunday, just as Moses hoped and as Joel prophesied.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit has been at work in the church throughout history, and he came into the lives of these confirmants the day that they were baptized.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is upon them, and he's upon all who known Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: One of those being confirmed today is our granddaughter Zoe.
SPEAKER_00: Her name is drawn from the Greek word for life.
SPEAKER_00: John 8 12 tells us that we who have been baptized in the name of Christ, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have the light of life, which is spiritual life in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit has seen to it that we have an abiding union with God, who is the essence of life.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 11 13 says, How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask him?
SPEAKER_00: In Acts 2 forty two and verse forty seven we read, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved.
SPEAKER_00: Conversion is the change from death to life, spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Regeneration is to be born again.
SPEAKER_00: Christians are twice born people, first according to the flesh and secondly according to the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: What if someone asked, How old?
SPEAKER_00: How old are you?
SPEAKER_00: According or in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now please don't try to be little saviors and try to find credit for your eternal destiny through your own personal decisions and your lifelong legacy, however you may view it.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot contribute one iota to our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: John four ten says, In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: Every sinner saint rightly prays, O Almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto thee all my sins and iniquities with which I've ever offended thee, and justly deserve thy temporal and eternal punishment, but I am heartily sorry for them, and sincerely repent of them, and I pray thee of thy boundless mercy, and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter suffering and death of thy beloved son Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.
SPEAKER_00: A man eighty four years old was asked how old he was.
SPEAKER_00: He said four years.
SPEAKER_00: Four years.
SPEAKER_00: How was that?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Four years ago I became a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I was regenerated, newborn.
SPEAKER_00: So I am only four years old.
SPEAKER_00: King David prayed in Psalm 51, 10, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is willing to work faith in everyone who hears the gospel from beginning to end.
SPEAKER_00: Our salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Now you may never recall a time when you were not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: That is the case for many Lutherans.
SPEAKER_00: If so, thank the Lord for his kindness, that you were baptized as an infant.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit called us to faith by the preaching of the cross and in the water of baptism.
SPEAKER_00: He enlightens us at home, at our mother and father's knee.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian day school that we have, Sunday school, throughout confirmation instruction, church attendance and Bible study, and the Spirit sanctifies us that our faith may flower and bring forth fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Good works are whatever we do out of love for God and by faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Only through the grace of God and the work of the Holy Spirit are we kept in the true faith until the end of life on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father sent the Son.
SPEAKER_00: God the Son completed the work of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: God the Spirit brings the gospel to the world by the preaching of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Another of our many beautiful Pentecost hymns teaches us to sing, Creator Spirit, by whose aid the world's foundations first were laid.
SPEAKER_00: Come visit every humble mind, come pour your joys on humankind.
SPEAKER_00: From sin and sorrow, set us free, may we your living temples be.
SPEAKER_00: What if someone asked how old you are in the Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: An excellent response would be to find your baptismal certificate and number the days from your baptism until now into eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6 3 says, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
SPEAKER_00: We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
SPEAKER_00: What if someone asked how old you are in the Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: The best answer is the answer that's found in the life of Jesus, as the Holy Spirit reveals him to us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, as we confess in the Apostles' Creed, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary.
SPEAKER_00: By inspiration, the Holy Spirit, in Old Testament passage, Isaiah 7 14, said, Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
SPEAKER_00: In Galatians 4.4, we read, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law.
SPEAKER_00: Now you've been, as confirmation students, you've been examined and you've been asked repeatedly about your knowledge of Scripture and your knowledge of the Lord Jesus and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You've studied everything from the Ten Commandments to the Creed to things concerning baptism, the office of the keys, the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: You've been examined.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's your parents' turn today.
SPEAKER_00: And the rest of the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: What were the words that Jesus spoke to his mother that she treasured in her heart?
SPEAKER_00: Luke 249.
SPEAKER_00: Did you not know that I must be in or about the things of my father?
SPEAKER_00: How old was Jesus when he was baptized, then led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for forty days, then began his public ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He was thirty years old.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' own baptism is described in Matthew three sixteen, with the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on him.
SPEAKER_00: Of Jesus John the Baptist proclaimed, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' first response to Satan in the wilderness of temptation was a quote of Deuteronomy eight three, spoken also in Matthew four four.
SPEAKER_00: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_00: Luke 9 22.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Peter wrote, For Christ who suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: How many days after Jesus' death at Golgotha did Jesus rise from the dead?
SPEAKER_00: It was three days.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Paul writes by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 to 4, for I handed down, I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: When did Jesus go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: After the ascension.
SPEAKER_00: At the ascension, we read Jesus' promise to his first disciples and to us.
SPEAKER_00: In John 14, two.
SPEAKER_00: Peter explained the miracle of Pentecost in Acts 2.33.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father used his power to give Jesus the honored position, the one next to him in the heavenly throne.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has also received and poured out his Holy Spirit as the Father had promised.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what you're seeing and you're hearing on this Pentecost day.
SPEAKER_00: Well, dear confirmants, the Lord has called you by name in your baptism, and you're here to confirm your confidence in his promises to you.
SPEAKER_00: And what a year to be confirmed.
SPEAKER_00: You're being confirmed on the year of your Lord's 100th anniversary.
SPEAKER_00: What a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And your parents and your family and your friends are rejoicing with you today.
SPEAKER_00: As the 100th anniversary class, I think you may remember your classmates, perhaps years from now.
SPEAKER_00: You may even wonder what path of life your friends may have taken.
SPEAKER_00: I know I've thought about that concerning those who were confirmed with me at St.
SPEAKER_00: Peter Lutheran Church on Palm Sunday a couple years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I'll ask you specifically once again, what if someone asked how old you are in the spirit?
SPEAKER_00: You may respond by saying, Well, I'm a young Christian, and my parents have helped me get started on the right path in life.
SPEAKER_00: Now we try to my wife Terry and I try to say something memorable about the Lord to our grandchildren when we see them.
SPEAKER_00: And they respond in kind with memorable thoughts of their own.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday I quoted the first half of Psalm 11824 to one of our grandchildren.
SPEAKER_00: I said, This is the day that the Lord has made.
SPEAKER_00: And the immediate response was, I will rejoice and be glad in it.
SPEAKER_00: The other day another grandchild said to me, I got you, grandpa.
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus spoke through King David in Psalm sixteen eleven.
SPEAKER_00: Peter quoted him in Acts 2 28, You make known to me the path of life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has got you.
SPEAKER_00: You are his.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.