The Father wants to become a Father to all sinners

Posted on May 31, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Trinity

Romans 11:33-36 + John 3:1-15

Last week on Pentecost Sunday, we saw the gift of the Holy Spirit being poured out on Jesus’ disciples, and then connected with the waters of Baptism by a solemn promise: Repent and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit didn’t only begin to work through Baptism on that day. In fact, He has always been working, since the beginning of creation, giving life to man in the beginning, and then giving new life to men who were dead in sins. But with the coming of Jesus—or, rather, with the coming of John the Baptist, who pointed to Jesus—the Spirit began to give new life in a brand new way, a bodily way: in connection with water, the water of Holy Baptism, that all men might be born again of water and Spirit, by the will of the Father, through the atoning sacrifice of the Son, so that God the Father might become a Father to everyone.

Let’s turn to today’s Gospel for Trinity Sunday. Most Christians are familiar with John 3:16, as we discussed this past Wednesday. Not as many are familiar with the verses leading up to it. Here we see an older man named Nicodemus coming to the young Rabbi, Jesus, in the dark of night to ask Him some questions. Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews, a member of the Jewish council called the Sanhedrin, and a Pharisee, too. He had been listening to Jesus for some time, and to John the Baptist even before Jesus arrived on the scene. And their message was not consistent with the Jewish faith as Nicodemus had always understood it, and as the Pharisees had been teaching it.

Rabbi, he said, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing, unless God is with him. He was exaggerating; most of the Pharisees didn’t believe Jesus had come from God. But Nicodemus was different. He saw the signs Jesus had been doing and drew the right conclusion: Jesus had come from God the Father. Now, to Nicodemus, that meant that God had sent Jesus as He had sent the former prophets, calling men into His service to speak for Him. The reality was much deeper.

But Jesus got right to the point, the main area where He knew Nicodemus needed to be taught: Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly I tell you, unless a person is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” What a statement! With that one sentence, Jesus wipes out every path to God that mankind has ever invented. Good works, good behavior, good morals? Tossed out. Offerings, prayers, sacrifices, religious practices—gone. Race, color, gender, ancestry—irrelevant. What a shock to a man like Nicodemus, who was a respected elder of Israel, a Pharisee who worked so hard at keeping God’s law, a descendant of Abraham. What an offense to people still today who think that there’s something they can do, or some inner goodness within themselves that will make them worthy of God’s kingdom (if they believe in God at all). No, the only way to enter God’s kingdom is by having something done to you. Someone has to give you a second birth.

But that someone isn’t the woman who gave birth to you the first time. Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he really enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly I tell you, unless a man is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Even if you could be born again by your earthly mother, it wouldn’t do you any good. Flesh gives birth to flesh. And flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Because the flesh of all men, born in the natural way, is corrupted with sin. “Flesh” here includes, not only the physical body but also the soul. The human soul is corrupt with sin, and there is no fixing it. What’s needed is a brand new spirit, by means of a new birth.

And that new birth is by “water and Spirit,” as Jesus says. In truth, the Holy Spirit gave new birth to people already in Old Testament times by having the Word of God preached to them and by converting them from unbelief to faith in the true God. The word of God has always been the Spirit’s tool for creating new life. But with the coming of Christ, the kingdom of God had come into the world bodily, and a new bodily Sacrament had been instituted by God called Baptism. Everyone in Israel knew that John had been preaching and performing a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Not just splashing water on random people, but preaching the Word of God to people, exposing the sins of his hearers, warning them of the judgment that was coming, and urging them to repent and be baptized, which now had God’s promise attached to it as the means by which His Holy Spirit wishes to wash away sin from a person’s record.

But the washing away of sin is only part of what baptism accomplishes. At the same time as the Spirit brings a person to faith and washes away his sins, the same Spirit also gives birth to a new man, a spiritual person who can and will see the kingdom of God.

Jesus goes on, Do not be surprised that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes. Such is everyone who is born of the Spirit. You may remember that last Sunday we talked about the sound of that mighty rushing wind that filled the house where the disciples of Jesus were gathered on the Day of Pentecost, how one of the words for “wind” in Greek is the same as the word for “Spirit.” The same is true in Hebrew, by the way. So Jesus is comparing the Spirit of God to the wind, as we also did last week. Just as you can’t see the wind but can see its effects, so you can’t see the Spirit of God working through water and word. But you can see the effects of His work. The person who is born again now trusts in God with a firm confidence, where before, he wasn’t so sure about this “religion” thing. The person who confesses Christ as Lord, even when it will bring him trouble. The Christian who cries out to God in faith, with thanksgiving. The Christian who humbly serves, expecting nothing in return. The believer who faces troubles and even death itself with patience. The church member who faithfully attends a small church because he believes the doctrine that is preached there. These are the effects of the Spirit, and of the new birth that is given by the Spirit.

Now, Nicodemus was still not convinced, still not ready to accept the truth Jesus had spoken. How can these things happen? Jesus answered him, “You are the teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things? Truly, truly I tell you, we speak what we know, and we testify to the things we have seen, and you people do not accept our testimony.” “We” is Jesus and John the Baptist, who had both been preaching the same message of repentance and faith and baptism for the forgiveness of sin. Both John and Jesus had been sent from God with this message, and had seen the truth behind that message. But that message conflicted with what the teachers of Israel had been saying. “Keep the commandments and you will inherit the kingdom of God! Trust in your race as Jews and in your descent from Abraham, which makes you worthy of the kingdom of heaven!” No. Again, spiritual rebirth through inner repentance and faith, and now through baptism, is the way to God, but many in Israel still wouldn’t accept it.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? The “earthly things” are the things we can relate to on earth, such as birth and the how the wind works, and even repentance and faith and baptismal rebirth—the things John and Jesus had been preaching. The “heavenly things” are things such as the nature and working of the Holy Trinity, and His plan in eternity to save mankind by giving His Son into human flesh, and into death on a cross—the very things Jesus was about to mention.

No one has ascended into heaven, except for the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man, the one who is in heaven. How can anyone truly know heavenly things? Only by being in heaven. But no one had ever ascended into heaven and come back to reveal heavenly things. Except for Jesus, who didn’t have to first ascend into heaven, because unlike every other man ever born, Jesus started out in heaven, not as a man, but as the eternal Word of God, the eternal, only-begotten Son of the Father, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, who “came down from heaven” by taking on a human body and soul in the womb of the virgin Mary, by the working of the Holy Spirit, so that He is now, not only the Son of God, but also, as He says, the Son of Man. The Son of Man who, even as He stood there speaking with Nicodemus, “is in heaven.” How could Jesus speak of Himself as being in heaven at that moment? That’s one of those heavenly things, a mystery of the Holy Trinity, that Jesus is both true God and true Man, who has the attributes of both God and man.

We confessed the mystery of the Trinity today in the Athanasian Creed, with the best words that human language has to offer, based on God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture. But it still goes beyond our comprehension. And that’s okay. Because what we need to understand about the Trinity in order to see the kingdom of heaven is really quite simple. It’s what Jesus went on to explain to Nicodemus.

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. As a teacher of Israel, Nicodemus would have been very familiar with the story of the serpent in the wilderness. When Israel was wandering about the desert for forty years, being punished by God for their refusal to go into the promised land the first time, they often grumbled and complained against God. At one point, their grumbling was so egregious that God punished them by sending poisonous serpents into their camp to bite them and to kill many of them. When they finally repented of their rebellion, God told Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and lift it up on a pole, so that whoever was bitten by a snake might simply look up at the bronze serpent, and he would be healed from the venomous bite.

In the same way, God the Father sent His eternal, only-begotten Son from heaven, to become the Son of Man, so that He might be lifted up on a cross, as the sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, so that all men, dead in sin by nature, might believe in Him, so that all men might look up to Him in faith as the One who died for their sins, and not perish, but have everlasting life. And that truth, that promise of sins washed away through faith in the Son of God, is brought to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, and attached to Holy Baptism, in bodily form, so that all the baptized may know: I have been born again of water and Spirit. God has washed away my sins, as He promised. I shall not die, but live. That’s what you need to understand about the Holy Trinity, before anything else. God the Father wants to become a Father to every sinner, through the sacrifice of the Son, through the regenerating work of the Spirit. And if you believe and have been baptized, then you can be sure: God has already become a Father to you! Amen.

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God’s plan for the salvation of the world

Posted on May 27, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the week of Pentecost

John 3:16-21

When I was growing up, practically every Christian could quote John 3:16—and even many non-Christians were familiar with it. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Do you still know it by heart? You should. Every Christian should. Because it summarizes the Gospel so well, in one simple verse.

God loved the world “so,” in the following way: that He gave His only-begotten Son. That’s how He loved the world. When did this love begin? It began in eternity, before the foundations of the world were laid. Knowing that mankind would rebel against Him and sin against Him and earn for itself His eternal condemnation, He loved the world. He devoted Himself to the world. To the whole world—every human being who would ever come into existence. He loved it in such a way that He made a plan to give His only-begotten Son, the Word, who was in the beginning with God and who was God. To give Him into human flesh, so that He could live under the Law for us and die under the Law for us, to redeem us all from sin, death, and the devil. God’s plan was the salvation of the world, through His Son.

That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So the plan was the salvation of the world through His Son, through faith. God did not intend the salvation of only a few. He didn’t intend for the road to life to be narrow, where only few people find it. He didn’t intend for the road to hell to be broad, with many people walking on it. No, God intended for all men to repent and believe in His only-begotten Son, so that all men might be saved. God the Father gave His Son into death for all men, so that literally all men might come to repent of their sins and to believe in Jesus, and so be made children of God and heirs of everlasting life. That’s how good God is. That’s how big His plan was.

He who believes in Him is not condemned. “Not condemned” is the same thing as saying “justified, declared innocent in the courtroom of God’s divine justice.” Through the Gospel, the Holy Spirit calls out to the whole world, “You’re all condemned by nature because you’re all sinners by nature! But God loved you in such a way that He gave His only-begotten Son into death for your sins! Repent and believe! All who believe are justified! No one who believes is condemned!” As Paul says in Romans 8, There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Even though God intended for all men to be saved through faith in Christ, He knew that not all men would believe. The only way to escape the condemnation is to believe in the only-begotten Son, to use Him as your Mediator before the righteous Father, to plead His merits, His works, His record of obedience before the Father’s throne. Of course, that requires humility. It requires owning your own sinful record, being horrified at your own sins, and also recognizing that even your good works fall short. And so you have to thrust them all aside, both your sins and your works, and claim only Christ, clinging to Him in faith. That’s how to escape condemnation. But where a person doesn’t do that, where a person comes before God with his own record, his sins and his works, condemnation is the only possible result.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. If God truly made a plan of salvation that encompassed the whole world, if He truly punished His Son for the sins of all sinners, if He has truly shined the light of Christ into the darkness of the world through the Gospel, that all men might see the path to God, then what a tragedy it is, what an affront to God it is that men don’t want Him for a Savior, don’t want Him for a light. And why don’t they? Because their deeds are evil.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. No one wants to get caught doing something shameful. And so they do it in the dark, in secret, hidden from the public eye. They hate the light, because the light exposes their shame.

Now, everyone does evil things, by nature. Man’s inclination is only to evil all the time, as God says back in Genesis. But to “practice evil” here, as in John’s epistles, is more than that. “Practicing evil” is choosing to continue doing what is evil, to be committed to it, to embrace it, to not want to be cleansed of it or forgiven for it. Even when such people hear that God is ready to forgive them for Jesus’ sake, they choose to remain in darkness, because they love their sin, and they don’t love the God who loved the world. No, those who practice evil hate the God who loved them. Those who practice evil reject His Law, and His Gospel, and His only-begotten Son.

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. The one who “does the truth” is the one who admits the truth that he has done evil, but who also believes the truth that is Jesus, and trusts that He will wipe away all the shame and disgrace of his sins. That one is born again, as Jesus just got done telling Nicodemus at the beginning of John chapter 3. That one is given the gift of the Holy Spirit. That one strives to walk according to the Spirit. The works he does as a believer “have been done in God,” in connection with His Spirit who works in you to will and to act for His good pleasure. Such works are acceptable in God’s sight, able to be exposed to the light without shame, because God Himself is responsible for them.

God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Know that verse. Know it, believe it, and cling to it. Praise the God who loved the world and planned its salvation, and praise His Holy Spirit for calling you through the Gospel to believe in the Father’s only-begotten Son, that you should not perish, but have everlasting life. Amen.

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Know the Spirit by what He does

Posted on May 24, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-41 + John 14:23-31

Today we give thanks to God for fulfilling His promise to send the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples. Now, whenever we talk about the Holy Spirit, things seem to get a little fuzzy, don’t they? It’s hard for us human beings to understand the Person of the Holy Spirit. We can picture a Father easily enough. We can picture Jesus as the Son of God. But how do you picture a spirit, much less THE Spirit of the Creator God? He appeared once in the form of a dove at Jesus Baptism, but that doesn’t really help. The Spirit isn’t a bird. He’s more like the wind, which is what the word “spirit” actually means—“wind” or “breath.” So, like the wind, we know the Holy Spirit, not by how He appears, but by what He does, by the effects He has on the things He touches. Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard Jesus talk about the Spirit, how He will convict the world when He comes. That’s one of those effects of His work. In today’s Gospel, we hear of that, and of another effect the Spirit will have, on Jesus’ disciples: He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all the things I have said to you. We see both of those effects in today’s account from the Day of Pentecost. And so we come to know the Spirit by what He does.

What do we see the Spirit doing in the first part of the Pentecost Gospel? Well, we see three miraculous signs.

There was the sound of the loud, rushing wind. Only the sound of it, not an actual gust that toppled trees or tables; the Spirit isn’t blowing air. But that sound of a powerful wind pointed to the arrival of the powerful Spirit whose name means “wind.”

Then there were the tongues as of fire that divided and rested on the heads of Jesus’ disciples. That makes us think of the burning bush that Moses saw long ago on Mt. Sinai, the bush that didn’t burn up but that signaled the presence of the LORD God. Fire also points to the burning lamps in one of Jesus’ parables, signifying living faith. The fact that it took the shape of tongues that rested on the apostles points to the fact that the Spirit works through human language, through the preaching of those men, and would move through the earth like wildfire, wherever the Gospel would be preached.

Finally, the apostles suddenly started speaking the praises of God in foreign tongues which they had never learned, in the languages of the people who were gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks, or “Pentecost”—Jews and converts to Judaism who lived in all the countries surrounding Israel and had journeyed to Jerusalem, as the Law of Moses required. That miraculous speech was the work of the Holy Spirit, teaching us that the Spirit of God intends to call people from every nation, land, and language to hear and believe the Gospel of Christ, starting with the Jews, but then moving on to everyone else. There are no language barriers, race barriers, or ancestry barriers to the Gospel. All are included. All are invited, to be saved through Christ, and through Christ alone, as Peter would preach in his Pentecost sermon.

But first, notice another effect of the Holy Spirit’s arrival. Notice what He did, not only among Jesus’ disciples, but among the crowds in Jerusalem. He used the three miraculous signs to draw their attention to the disciples, to hear the Word of God being preached by those disciples. The Spirit works in the world, not to ramp up people’s emotions, or to whisper truth into their ears, but to draw people to the preaching of the Word of Christ.

Now let’s focus on that preaching, where, first, we see what the Holy Spirit did with Peter himself. Remember, Jesus promised His apostles that the Spirit would teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all the things He had said to them. That’s how the Evangelists were later able to write down the words, actions, and teachings of Jesus with perfect accuracy, through the inspiration of the Spirit—the same inspiration that drove the Old Testament prophets to write down the very words of God. On the Day of Pentecost, it was this work of the Spirit that enabled Peter to put together, on the spot, that perfectly worded sermon and to be able to preach it with power to a crowd of total strangers.

First, he cites the prophecy from the prophet Joel, which foretold this special outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God had always been active in the world, but this was something special. In the last days, says God, I will pour out of My Spirit on My menservants and on My maidservants, and they shall prophesy. Notice that the Day of Pentecost marks the beginning of “the last days,” the last era of history which began on that day and lasts up to the coming of Christ and the end of the world, when, as Joel says, the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. Throughout this whole New Testament period, the Spirit works through the preaching of the Gospel, convincing people to call on the name of the Lord in order to be saved.

Then Peter connects the name of the Lord with that Man named Jesus. He reminds the crowds, many of whom had also been there two months earlier for the Passover, how Jesus was attested by God through all the miracles that He did, and yet was also delivered up to death—”by God’s purpose and foreknowledge,” on the one hand, but “by your lawless hands,” on the other. In other words, God had always planned for Jesus to die on the cross, but that didn’t remove the guilt from those who wickedly crucified Him for their own wicked reasons.

But He didn’t remain dead. Peter goes on to prove from the Spirit-inspired words of the Old Testament Scriptures that the Christ, the Son of David, would not only die, but would also rise from the dead. His resurrection was foretold in that Psalm that Peter quoted, You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. And now, not only has God the Father raised Jesus from the dead; He has also exalted Him and seated Him at the right hand of God, from where He has now poured out His Spirit on His believers, from where He now reigns over all things.

And then comes the climax: Know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Now, no one could see the Holy Spirit for even moment as that sermon was being preached. No one could “feel” the Holy Spirit moving through the air. Even the outward signs had stopped by that point. But you know the Spirit by what He does, and what He did through that preaching says it all. It says that those who heard Peter’s sermon were cut to the heart. That is, they took Peter’s words and Peter’s rebuke to heart. That’s contrition. That’s sorrow over sin, combined with fear. That’s conviction and the sting of a rebuke that hits home. Which is exactly the work Jesus said the Spirit would do: He will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

In their Spirit-worked contrition, the people then asked, Men, brothers, what shall we do? Peter answered, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. And, as you heard, some 3,000 people did repent that day, by the working of the Holy Spirit, and were baptized for the forgiveness of their sins.

Now, we’re not told if any of those 3,000 spoke in tongues when they were baptized. They may have. But that wasn’t the main gift of the Spirit that Peter was referring to. The chief gifts of the Spirit are faith and love, peace and joy, patience and perseverance, and the indwelling presence of God, and the understanding of His Word, and the guidance of the New Man that has been created in the believer, to love God and His Word, and to walk in the way of His commandments. None of these gifts of the Spirit are perfected in this life. But where the Spirit is, there will certainly be a beginning of all these things, and an ongoing growth in all of them, too.

So, where you see these things, in combination with the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, know that the Spirit is present. Where the Gospel of Christ is preached, calling sinners to repentance and faith and baptism, there the Spirit is present. Where there is Christian faith and love, there the Spirit is present. Where there is Christian patience and perseverance, there the Spirit is present. Where there is boldness to confess Christ and a willingness to bear the cross for His sake, there the Spirit is present. Where Christ reigns as King in a person’s heart, there the Spirit is present. And where the Spirit is, there is hope. There is joy. And there is life. Amen.

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A prophecy of justification & sanctification for Israel

Posted on May 20, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the week of Easter 6

Ezekiel 36:25-27

Israel’s return from captivity in Babylon is prophesied in Ezekiel chapter 36. God promises to return them to their land. But He promises to do much more for them than that. This chapter points to some literal fulfillments, but mostly to spiritual fulfillments, talking about sin, and grace, the expansion of Israel in the New Testament era, and all the way into the perfection that awaits after the Day of Judgment. Here, in the three short verses before us, God’s plan is revealed—His plan to turn Israel, finally, into the people they were always meant to be. His plan to justify them, and to sanctify them, by His Son and by His Spirit.

The Son of God, the promised Messiah, is not specifically mentioned in Ezekiel’s words. But He’s there beneath verse 25, together with the Spirit of God: Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. The whole picture of sprinkling unclean people with clean water in order to cleanse them comes from the Law of Moses. That’s how a ceremonially unclean person was to be ceremonially cleansed. If, for example, a person touched a dead body, the Law considered that person ceremonially unclean until he was sprinkled with the water of purification. And if a person wasn’t sprinkled with that water and tried to approach God’s tabernacle in his unclean state, he was to be cut off from Israel, permanently excluded from the people of God.

If touching a dead body made a person ceremonially unclean before God, how much more did idolatry make a person truly unclean! There’s nothing morally, inherently wrong with touching a dead body. That was a ceremonial picture God used to teach Israel about uncleanness. The true uncleanness that makes a person unable to stand in God’s presence is sin, and idolatry is the chief sin from which all other sins flow. And the Israelites had been guilty of it in spades. So the people didn’t only need to be purified for ceremonial purposes. They needed the forgiveness of sins.

That forgiveness could only be purchased through a true atoning sacrifice. Not by the ceremonial sacrifices of animals, but by the actual sacrifice of the Substitute that was worth the lives of every sinner. Only the sacrifice of the Son of God could actually atone for their sins.

And only the preaching of the Gospel and the purifying waters of Holy Baptism could apply Christ’s atoning blood to those who needed God’s forgiveness. As the writer to the Hebrews says, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. That pure water that actually cleanses our consciences is the water connected to God’s promise, He who believes and is baptized will be saved.

So Ezekiel’s words are a prophecy both of the sacrificial death of the Son of God and of the Holy Spirit’s working, through the Word and through the water of Baptism, to cleanse the Israelites—and all people! —of their idolatry, and of all their sins. It was a prophecy of justification, which would be brought about by the Son of God and by the Spirit of God. Not the justification of the whole nation of Israel, but of those in Israel who would be brought to faith in Christ Jesus. Not of believing Israelites only, but of all sinners who would hear and believe in God’s promise of justification through faith in the Lord Jesus.

That’s what the next verse is talking about: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Israel’s old heart, and your heart and my heart by nature, was made of stone. It didn’t listen to God’s word. It was determined to believe what it wanted to believe, to worship how it wanted to worship, and to pursue every sinful pleasure and every prideful thought. But God promised Israel that He would give them a new heart and a new spirit. Not magically, not by zapping it into them, but through the preaching of His Word, of His Law and His Gospel, He would bring them to repent of their idolatries and all their stubborn rebellion, and to become new people, with new desires, and with a new love—a love for the God who gave His only-begotten Son into death for their sins. In other words, He would create a new man within them.

And that new man who would be created in them would no longer walk according to the flesh, would no longer turn to idols for help, or ignore God’s word and God’s commandments, but would truly love the Lord, love His word, and be eager to walk according to His commandments, as we see in the third verse of tonight’s lesson: I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. What Ezekiel is describing here is what we usually refer to as sanctification, the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work of turning believers into people who lead holy lives, who walk according to God’s commandments. Sanctification always begins simultaneously with justification, and it must continue throughout a person’s life. If it doesn’t, if you don’t want to walk in God’s statutes, if you don’t struggle against the Old Man and his evil desires, if the Spirit of God is not working within you to keep God’s commandments, then you don’t have justifying faith, either. But if you now view sin as something detestable, because God Himself detests it, that’s the work of God’s Spirit within you. If you are determined to please God and not yourself, that’s the work of God’s Spirit within you. If you love the word of God and are eager to submit to it, even though your flesh pushes back against you, that’s the work of God’s Spirit within you.

Again, this is not a promise that every Israelite would be justified and sanctified. Those who didn’t want God’s Spirit dwelling in them would not be forced to become temples of the Holy Spirit, just as those who didn’t want to be baptized wouldn’t be forced into Baptism. What we have here in Ezekiel is a gracious Gospel promise that would be extended to Israel, and beyond Israel, in connection with the coming Christ. It’s a promise of spiritual deliverance of those who were once bound in sin, and of Spirit-worked godliness in those who formerly were ungodly and idolatrous.

And it’s important to notice who is in charge of all this. It’s not you, or I. It’s God who does it to you and for you. It’s God who justifies, on the basis of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. It’s God’s Spirit who converts unbelievers and changes them into believers, who takes sinners and turns them into saints. As for those who remain unconverted and unbelieving, they have only themselves to blame. Because, as Ezekiel prophesies in tonight’s reading, God offered purification and a new spirit to everyone, on the basis of Christ’s atonement, which would also be for everyone. Don’t let God’s promise pass you by! Embrace it, and rejoice in it, in God’s plan to justify you and to sanctify you, by His Son and by His Spirit. Amen.

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Holding out the testimony of the Spirit and apostles

Posted on May 17, 2026 by Rev. Paul Rydecki
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Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension – Easter 6

1 Peter 4:7-11 + John 15:26-16:4

For forty days the Paschal candle was lit during our services here, until it was extinguished this past Thursday when we celebrated Jesus’ ascension into heaven. As I said after the service, it seems a little strange, not having it lit anymore. Imagine how Jesus’ disciples felt, watching Jesus leave them, knowing that they wouldn’t see Him again for the rest of their earthly lives, and then waiting for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit, the Helper who would testify, and also waiting to testify themselves, as Jesus told them they must do—oh, and also waiting to be hated, persecuted, and killed for their testimony, as Jesus told them they would be.

That testimony of the Spirit, and of the apostles, now belongs to us, to the Christian Church that’s built upon it and that still holds it out to the world. Of course, that means that the world’s hatred will also belong to us. But, then, so does the help of the Helper!

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me, Jesus says.

Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit after His ascension. He would send Him “from the Father,” because that’s how it works in the Holy Trinity. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, but also from the Son, as we confess in the Nicene Creed, in the sense that the Son is responsible for sending Him into the world from the Father. The Spirit’s work is to testify. But this is important: Notice what the content of His testimony is: “He will testify about Me.” The Spirit’s testimony is about Jesus. The Spirit bears witness to what He has seen and heard about Jesus, and, as a Person of the Holy Trinity, the Spirit knows Jesus perfectly. He has testified about Jesus throughout the Old Testament and throughout the New. When He spoke by the prophets in the Old Testament, the focus was always on the coming Christ. Now it’s on the Christ who has come. Any supposed testimony of the Holy Spirit that doesn’t focus on Jesus, or that doesn’t tell the truth about Jesus, isn’t coming from the Holy Spirit, but from an unholy spirit.

How would the Spirit of truth testify about Jesus? He would do it in three ways. First, through signs and wonders and various miracles, starting with the miracles of the Day of Pentecost which we’ll consider next week. It was about Jesus, because those signs were always connected to the apostles’ preaching about Jesus, the message that He was the promised Christ, that He suffered for our sins, that He was raised to life for our justification, that He has ascended on high to reign as King over all things at the Father’s right hand, that He will return one day for judgment. This outward testimony of the Spirit was important as the apostles began to spread the Gospel throughout the world. But it was temporary; that testimony has already been entered into evidence. It’s done.

There is another testimony of the Spirit, in the hearts of the apostles, enabling them to teach (and to write!) about Jesus correctly. He guided them into all truth, as Jesus said He would. He emboldened them to preach the Gospel of Jesus with new-found courage and conviction—just as He had done, by the way, with the Old Testament prophets, as Peter writes: the Spirit of Christ who was in [the prophets] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

Then there is the testimony of the Spirit in the hearts of the hearers of the Gospel as He works through the preaching of the Word, enabling the hearers to believe and understand the Gospel about Jesus. As Paul writes, No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And again, The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, enabling us to cry out to God as our dear Father. In the hearts of those who believe the Gospel, the Spirit continues that testimony on a daily basis, urging you to know and to follow Jesus more and more.

But the Spirit doesn’t testify alone, separately from the preached Word. His testimony is always connected with that preaching. Jesus goes on in our Gospel, And you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. These words aren’t spoken to all people. They’re spoken to the apostles who were literally “with Jesus from the beginning.” Theirs is the eyewitness testimony, the testimony on which the Church is founded, together with that of the Old Testament prophets. And, just like the Old Testament prophets, the apostles recorded for us the very words that the Holy Spirit gave them and has faithfully preserved for us in the holy Bible.

You and I cannot offer that kind of testimony. We were not eyewitnesses to everything Jesus said and did, or to His death, or to His resurrection. We can testify only to the faith that each of us has in that testimony. We can and should tell the world that we have been convinced that the apostles’ testimony is true, that Christ is risen, that Christ is King, and the Christ is returning. But when we invite people to church, we’re not inviting them to come and hear our testimony. We’re holding out to them the testimony of others—of the Holy Spirit, and of the apostles (and prophets). And that testimony is not without power. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

But, it comes at a cost for those who testify and for those who hold out their testimony—a cost that Jesus Himself willingly paid, a cost that He was not about to hide from His apostles. In fact, the persecution of God’s faithful people is actually part of God’s plan for this time in between Jesus’ ascension and His coming at the end of the age, a plan which Jesus revealed ahead of time.

They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming, when whoever kills you will think he is rendering service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me.

The Spirit of God who testified in the Old Testament about the coming Christ is the same Spirit who would testify about Christ after He came. That means that the Old Testament Church is really the same Church as the New Testament Church. But, as Jesus predicts here, most of the Jewish people would depart from the true Church by rejecting Him and His apostles after Him, proving that they never really knew God the Father rightly, that their version of the Jewish religion was a sham. And they would keep up the sham. They would keep their synagogues and their temple even after Christ’s resurrection and ascension. They would hold onto the customs and rituals and traditions of the Old Testament. But their Christ-less religion would not tolerate the preachers whom Christ would send out. The synagogues in Israel and in every nation should have naturally turned into Christian churches when the Spirit and the apostles testified there, but instead, the Christ-less Jews would excommunicate the Christian Jews from the synagogues. And they would go further than that. They would persecute and execute the apostles and many who believed the testimony of the apostles, thinking they were serving God as they did it. That’s why, in the book of Revelation, Jesus refers to them as “synagogues of Satan.” Because they weren’t serving God by rejecting Christ or by persecuting His witnesses. Jesus says, They have not known the Father nor Me. They were serving Satan instead.

Now, you and I can’t be put out of the synagogues. We didn’t grow up attending one like the apostles did. (Like Jesus Himself did!) But the testimony about Jesus that we believe, the testimony about Jesus that we hold out to the world still draws hatred from Jews and Gentiles alike.

Are you prepared to be hated? Seriously prepared? Are you ready to say no to your boss when he demands that you speak or act contrary to the word of Christ? Are you ready to lose your job? To lose your possessions? To lose your reputation? To lose your freedom? To lose your life? If not, then you should stop calling Jesus your Lord and your King, because you can’t be His disciple if any of those things come before Him. If you are unwilling to be persecuted and to lose all things for the testimony of Christ, then you have already denied Him before men, and will be denied by Him before His Father in heaven.

Or, are you prepared to lose all those things, but you struggle against the weakness of your flesh that fights so hard to avoid suffering like that? Then be assured that you will have help on the day of decision, when you must give a testimony of your own, knowing it may come at a great cost. The Helper, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit of God Himself lives within every believer, and will be your strength and your help in the day of trouble. Oh, you may still lose it all for Jesus’ sake. But in losing your life for His sake, you will find it! And you will gain far more than you ever gave up.

Who would willingly do such a thing, knowing the consequences that will follow? Only those who believe that Jesus rose from the dead and lives and reigns forever at the Father’s right hand. Only those who believe that heaven is our home and that even death can’t rob us of our eternal life with Christ our Savior, who suffered the loss of everything for us, that we might be saved from sin and death. Only those who know that the consequences of not holding out the testimony about Jesus are far worse than the consequences of holding out that testimony. Because if we don’t hold it out, who will? And if no one does, who can be saved?

It’s a lot to ask, a lot to expect. But you are not alone. You have a divine Helper to guide you, to strengthen you, to comfort you through it all, to testify along with us and to shore up our confession. The Helper has come, and He is still here. And next week we’ll celebrate the day of His coming. May the Helper, the Spirit of truth, grant you all the help you need, to believe in the testimony about the Lord Jesus and to hold it out to the world, with the boldness and confidence of those who truly believe it. Amen.

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