Are you “Spirit-led?” Are you “Spirit-filled?” Can you “feel the Spirit?” Have you been “baptized with the Holy Ghost?” Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Holy Spirit is a big deal. Flip through the channels and you'll see all kinds of Holy Spirit stuff supposedly going on. But these words and phrases are often misunderstood as is the Holy Spirit Himself. If you listen carefully to the Holy Gospel readings in these Sundays of the Easter Season, you will hear our Lord Jesus speaking Words that will straighten us out when it comes to the Holy Spirit. For Jesus teaches us exactly this: that the Holy Spirit is doing His job not when we hear about Him, but when we hear Christ preached and the forgiveness of sins delivered. “For,” says Christ, “He will not speak from Himself, but whatsoever He hears He will speak.” The Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters, is not the guy who flies around doing whiz-bang tricks and whooshing around makes us laugh or shake or fall on the ground. The Holy Spirit has this as His holy work, to direct us to Christ by the preaching of the Word and through that Word and the sacraments of the church to deliver Christ's forgiveness to us. The Spirit's work is to point us to Christ and to deliver Jesus to us. Therefore, the more you hear of Christ crucified and risen delivered in the means of grace, the more you can be sure that the Holy Spirit is at work. On the other hand, the more you hear about the Spirit the more you can be sure that it is not the Holy Spirit who is preaching. We learn this from Jesus words, which the Holy Spirit has written down through the pen of the Evangelist St. John.
“When that one comes, the Spirit of truth, He will lead you into all truth.” With these words, Jesus teaches us that the Spirit is of the Truth and He leads us into all Truth? What is the Truth? The Truth is Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. The Truth is that God does not count our sins against us but counts instead for us the righteousness of His Son Jesus Christ. This He does through the Word and in the Water and at the Supper. This is all laid out for us in the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures. Speaking through the apostles and prophets who wrote the Bible, the Spirit speaks and testifies of the truth, which is this, that in Christ, God is reconciling the world to Himself. Now you need to beware! Many people say that no one church has ALL of the truth. Every denomination, even every religion has a bit of the truth. “We're all on the same path to God” or “as long as we all believe in Jesus” are phrases that preachers like to throw around. Away from such thinking! The Spirit has been sent by Jesus to lead us into ALL truth. Not some of the truth or a bit of it. ALL of it. Never doubt, never fear, never think that the Word of God is not sufficient. It would be easy to think so in our day and age and especially in our own Synod. After all, how could we understand anything about God if not for the Synod and it's committees and bureaucrats to explain it? But what does Jesus say? The Spirit will lead us into ALL truth. You have the Holy Scriptures, brothers and sisters. They are not hard to read. The words of Jesus are not hidden. In the Holy Bible we have the Word of God which rescues us from our sins, delivers Jesus to us, and through which the Holy Spirit leads us into all truth. Let there be no doubt that the Bible is all we need to know the will of God, that is, our salvation in Christ.
Jesus goes on to say, “The Spirit will glorify Me because He will take of what is Mine and announce it to you.” Here Jesus' words teach us that the Spirit's job is glorify Jesus by delivering what is Jesus' to us. Jesus is not glorified if the Spirit preaches about the Spirit. If the purpose of the Spirit is just to promote the Spirit, then He has not carried out His work. How is Jesus glorified? When what He has is given to us. Jesus, the Son of God has come in the flesh to carry the sins of the world and to die for them. The Son became man and was born of the Virgin so that He might place Himself under the Law and be condemned for our sins, thus releasing us from the curse of the Law. By taking our place, Christ has conquered our sins and our death. By suffering on the cross, Jesus declares our salvation is finished. By rising from the dead, our Lord confirms that our sins have been paid for and our salvation is won. It is Christ who owns the victory over sin and death. It is the Spirit who teaches us this through the testimony of the apostles who wrote down what they saw and heard. Any preaching that doesn't preach THIS Christ, who is true God and true man, who suffered and died for our sins and rose again from the dead—any preaching that doesn't announce THIS Jesus is no preaching of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit directs us and points us and brings us to THIS Jesus alone.
Jesus then says, “All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine. Because of this I said that He will take what is mine and deliver it to you.” With these words Jesus teaches us that we have no access to the Father apart from Himself but that it is the Spirit who enlightens us and awakens us to faith in Christ. The Spirit does this through the means of Grace: the Word and Baptism and Supper. And the Spirit brings us to faith and keeps us in the faith ONLY by these means. Brothers and sisters, hear me clearly: Whatever is done or believed apart from Holy Baptism, the preaching of the Gospel and the Supper of Jesus is NOT from the Spirit. Reject any talk of Christ and the Spirit that is not anchored in your Baptism, grounded in the preaching of the Gospel or fortified with the body and blood of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar. This is for your comfort and confidence. You don't have to go looking into your heart or seeing how things are going in your life or trying to evaluate whether you're changing for the better or improving in your conduct to know whether you have God's favor. You DO in Christ. All that the Father has is Christ's and all that is Christ's is given to you by the Holy Spirit in the means of grace, the gifts of the church. Where Baptism is preached, Absolution is administered, Christ crucified is preached and the Supper of our Lord's body and blood are given, THERE you may be sure that the Spirit of Truth has led you into all Truth by delivering to you all that belongs to Christ.
And seeing how the Spirit does not glorify Himself but glorifies Christ, so then the Spirit, by the Word patterns our life in the same way. Because the Spirit does not glorify Himself, you need not glorify yourself. You can be all done with trying to look good to God and making yourself look holy to your neighbor. Rather, never mind YOU, but all glory to Christ. Take what is His and deliver it to your neighbor. Brothers and sisters, very often you will see the Holy Spirit used as a “trump card” to justify a person's actions. I can say and do almost whatever I want and then just say, “The Spirit led me to do it.” Such a faith and such a Spirit are of that selfish religion which believes that my salvation is only for my sake and has nothing to do with my neighbor. But the True Holy Spirit, the one who delivers us Christ in the Word and binds Himself and us to the Holy Scriptures and Christ, this Holy Spirit teaches us to live not for our own sake but the sake of the people in our lives who need us. Therefore, brothers and sisters, don't live this way: “I do what I want and I can just tell people the Spirit has led me to it.” Rather, learn from the Word of God what the Spirit is teaching you: to repent of your sins, to turn away from yourself, to rest in Christ and the certainty of His forgiveness while being busy and active to be a blessing in the life of the people around you.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, there is a religion which has some spirit that tries to get you all hyped up and “on fire.” That Spirit is all about speaking in tongues and falling on the floor and saying that whatever you think or do is OK because the Spirit led you to it. That religion is not the religion of the Holy Spirit but the Evil Spirit. The Holy Spirit whom Christ promises to send, He sends, not for His own sake, but for ours, that we might receive from Him all the gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation that Christ won for us. That true Holy Spirit points us to Christ. That true Holy Spirit teaches us to live in our baptism, to confess our sins and to eat and drink the flesh and blood of Jesus. That true Holy Spirit teaches us not to glorify ourselves but to humbly serve our neighbor. And it is that same Spirit who waits until that Last Day to give us that one last gift of Christ we don't have yet: the resurrection of our flesh from the dead. From birth to death to rising again, it is the Spirit of Truth who leads us into all Truth by bringing us to Christ and keeping us in Christ forever. Amen.