From Acts 2 Church [Pentecost]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 11:1-9

• Acts 2:1-13

• St. John 14:23-31

 

Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (Titus 1:4)

 

Who speaks to you today, saying:

“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.”

 

The peace that Jesus leaves this world would not be peace, if He left it in our hands or if He gave it as the world gives us things, perishable. God gives us His Word that Peace will be His alone to give and His alone to create and secure. So we should trust His Word over our own and not put our confidence in anything other than that. Thus we should not base our faith on our actions, which we can see, but on God’s actions which require faith to see.

 

You see, popular, false teachers today, love to stop reading the Book of Acts at the point our Epistle reading stopped. They love to stop at “whoever calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved”. This is because, if they stop their teaching there, they have something to do: call on the Name of the Lord. Then, when they do that, they will be saved. 

 

This then becomes their core doctrine that stands above all the rest. Any Church history or other doctrines are insignificant compared to the power of human will and reason to call on the Name and nothing else is needed except that call to Jesus. I guess its just one call, though the psalms speak of many calls day and night. It doesn’t matter. If I call, then I can get saved.

 

However, calling on the Name of Jesus contains the same amount of weight and belief necessary as does praying in Jesus’s Name, which we spoke of a couple Sunday’s ago. Because, what does it mean to call on the Name of the Lord? What is His Name, even? Is once good enough? Does He take collect calls…? What is a collect call?

 

Nobody called the Holy Spirit to the Feast Day of Pentecost, that day, yet He came. Nobody was calling on the Name of the Lord before St. Peter preached this sermon in Acts 2, yet he preached. We begin to see clearly God’s work, when we quit focusing on our own.

 

In this first part of Acts 2, we only get to the Old Testament reading part of the Service that the Holy Spirit is conducting in the midst of all these men on Pentecost. From the Book of Joel, St. Peter proclaims Jesus, as he says in verses 23 and 24: “this same Jesus” delivered up according to God’s eternal plan, is the vision, dream, and prophesy of all believers. 

 

This God-man, Who is the vision, dream, and prophesy of God, was crucified and raised up, St. Peter preaches. “Let all the house of Israel be certain”, he concludes in verse 36, “that God has made Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

 

At this point, the entire Pentecost crowd forgets the rushing wind, forgets the tongues of fire, and forgets calling on anybody, because the condemnation of the Holy Law has fallen upon them. By these words, God has accused every last Pentecost congregant of the sin of killing Him on the cross. 

 

They understand exactly what St. Peter is saying and are cut to the heart. They cry out, “Brothers, what shall we do??” (v. 37). So much for calling on the Name of the Lord. They know calling on anything won’t save them from their sins and they don’t know what to do, even though they heard it directly. We shouldn’t think we can do any better than them when everything about us is revealed by God.

 

Repent! Let your heart be cut by St. Peter’s sermon as well!  Hear and tremble at the fact that your sins, no matter how insignificant they may be, have nailed God to a tree. 

 

What sins, you say? Your life choices don’t hurt anybody. If they would all just mind their own business, everything would be fine. I don’t have to explain myself to you. That’s just how I am and I ain’t never gonna change. Guess I’m going to hell for that one. And the like.

 

How else do you excuse yourself in front of God? You think its only big, public sins that matter?

Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments: Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done any harm?

 

Sin is a lot closer and more of a threat to you than you usually understand it. No one is making it out of here alive, for the wages of sin is death.

 

Let’s continue on in Acts 2:38-39:

St. Peter proclaims, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

 

Is there salvation in you calling? The Lord God calls to Himself. Did you hear that? What does He Call for? The forgiveness of sins. How does He Call? Through His Gospel and Sacraments, in this case, Baptism. The Lord God Calls you, and you are saved. Everyone who has his name Called upon by the Name of the Lord, shall be saved.

 

This is the true meaning of the Call. But first, Jesus must make a way for that Call for you are dead in your sins and dead people don’t hear very well. A cry to God for mercy must go out first. A cry that darkens the sun and bloodies the moon. A cry that causes the earth to quake, split open, and cough up the dead, alive again. Thus, “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up His Spirit” (Mt 27:50).

 

Jesus cries out on the cross, inflicting His Holy Spirit upon all who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. In that cry, are heard more than inarticulate syllables. In that saving cry of Christ are the names of those upon whom the Call of the Lord has fallen: every sinner, for Christ has come to secure the preaching of the forgiveness of sins in His Church.

 

What moves the almighty God of all things, outside time, outside human needs, to forgive sins? The only thing that moves God to forgive sins is His mercy and because of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sinners. That’s it. Without our prayer, without our calls, and without our vote; God acts. 

 

And He acts according to His person, that is according to His Love and Mercy, as He has told us from the beginning. He acts on His own, becoming obedient unto death, not for His own sake, but for you. He is obedient in order to unleash His Gospel unto the world, which makes the Way straight and the rough places plain. 

 

The forgiveness of sins is only offered in the Gospel, the good news that we are freed from the guilt, the punishment, and the power of sin, and are saved eternally because of Christ’s keeping the Law and His suffering and death for us.

 

And it is in that Gospel alone that we receive the forgiveness of sins by faith. That is, belief in the work God has done and the Son Whom He has sent in the flesh. “to the man who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom 4:5). 

 

You can be sure of this, the forgiveness of your sins, because it is a promise made by Him Who died and rose again. For now, since neither life nor death nor anything in all creation can hold Jesus, He is certainly able to guard what we have entrusted to Him, this forgiveness (Rom 8:38-39; 2 Tim 1:12).

 

What we need to make certain, to confirm, is that our name is on the Roll Call. This sinful fear comes out when we hear of the Book of Life in Revelation, “And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:15). 

 

Fire again. Fire goes before the Lord (Ps 97:3). It is the mark of our Lord’s Passion, that is that we also bear our crosses in our lives, as He did, so that we are more like Him. The Call comes from the Lord in His Church. Not from the sky, not from dreams, and not in any sort of fire. 

 

Acts Chapter 2 concludes in this place and you hear it every week. The bells tolling. The hymns sounding. The prayers and praise rising as incense. Indeed, the Lord has “hidden” His Gospel Call within His Church of Word and Sacrament. Where the Word, Jesus Christ, is received, there is salvation. Where the Sacraments are administered, there is forgiveness.

 

“And they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ doctrine, the Communion, the breaking of the Bread, and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). The Call only goes out from Christ, through His Holy Spirit, by the Word of His Apostles. Anything outside of this is outside the Book of Life.

 

But the Book of Life is opened by the Lamb of God and written by the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world. He has opened heaven to receive us sinners under His righteousness. In the righteousness of Jesus, St. Paul is inspired to write Philippians 4:1-2, “Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved…[with] the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.”

 

This is the true story of Pentecost: your story in Church. It is your story in faith and it is your story because it continues with you. We know life doesn’t end at the conclusion of the Divine Service. We know that once we exit, we will once again have to face our demons and the demons of all sinful humanity.

 

Life doesn’t stop.

But neither does the Lord. Acts 2:40, “Be saved from this perverse generation”. The Lord’s salvation continues through our own perversions, our own returns to sin, because He cannot help but hallow His own Name, keep His promises made, and be merciful.

 

In Christ alone has the Lord shown His mercy and He makes it available in His wounds, to those Who are Called. To those who are Called Saints. To those who are called by the Name of the Lord: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To those who hear their names and are weary and heavy laden with sins. 

 

“Come”. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Rev 22:17). Come and “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.” (Isa 43:1).