Introduction: Pentecost is the annual Christian festival commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of Jesus after his ascension from earth to heaven on Ascension Day. It always falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter. Pentecost means “fiftieth day”, as it is celebrated on Pentecost Sunday, the 50th day of the Easter season (including Easter Sunday, the first day, in the counting). Some Christian denominations consider it to be the birthday of the Christian church and celebrate it as such.
Main Point: More than anything, Pentecost Sunday is a celebration of the Holy Spirit as the spirit of excellence with us, that demonstrates in our lives as love, beauty and moral goodness.
Led by the Spirit
There is something pulling you around, leading you from here to here, there to there. A motivation, a fundamental drive, a power. Material possessions, social status, good health, Mamma, personal ambition. Could be any number of things. And those things pulling you have their value. But Paul says that the most powerful, transformative and ultimately fulfilling pull to respond to is that of the Spirit. Because led by the Spirit we become children of God.
Children of God
To be a child of God means that, in the Spirit, you are no longer a slave. And defines a slave is fear. Fear is a powerful emotion. Name three occasions when you came upon a cute cat. Name the time and location. Now name three occasions when you came upon a snake. Name the time and location. Chances are you can name with great detail the occasions you came upon a snake. Fear grabs us and has a powerful sway over us. It can grow and grow in influence over us, so that we are led by fear rather than by the Holy Spirit. So that we become slaves to fear rather than liberated children of God.
In Spirit, received status as child of God through adoption
What happens when we are led by the Spirit and not by fear?
No longer slaves, as we just said. Jesus said to his disciples in John 15:15, “15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
Not only friends, Pauls says, but a child of God who has an close, intimate relationship with God. So much so that we address God as Abba, which means “my father.” It signifies not a stoic, distant relationship from one’s father, but a personal, intimate relationship.
Jesus uses the term in Mark 14:36 as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prays, “ ‘Abba Father, all things are possible for You. Take this cup away from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what You will.’” We have that same relationship with our Heavenly Father. We can all unto his name and he will hear our petition, our cry.
The Spirit testifies with our Spirit that we are God’s children. The Holy Spirit becomes embedded in our mind, body and soul. We begin to think more and more like the Spirit, taking on the mind of Christ. We begin to communicate divine thoughts – excellence – from our soul. We begin to speak Christ’s ways, his kingdom, with our body. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” So then we should strive for excellence in all thing, spiritually, physically, morally, in our work product, in our manner of speak. It has become hip to not take care of one’s self, to speak in casual, crude language, to be slovenly, to be common, to be one of the herd. But I don’t find that in the Scriptures. In find that we are temples. That we are called to the highest spiritual, moral, physical and ethical standard. We are called to excellence. Our society and the people you encounter mirror a society that no longer strives for excellence in the Spirit but instead has a spirit of defeat, of indulgence, of nihilism. And unless we begin to awaken to this fact that we are children of God and begin to live up to that high calling, our society will continue to decline, become more and more decadent if that is even possible, become more cynical, slovenly and be satisfied with a democratic rush to the lowest common denominator. Let me say this, when Paul says the Spirit testifies with your spirit, the Holy Ghost is not testifying to mediocrity, to cynicism, to crudeness, to self-imposed poor health, to a nihilistic impulse that nothing matters.
If children then heirs of God and with Christ
Paul writes in his epistle today, if we are children of God than we are heirs of God with Christ. We are inheritors of all the power, goodness, grace and excellence of God if we are led by the Spirit. We do not find anywhere in the Scriptures where God is defined as mediocre, crude, slovenly, morally decadent, less than excellent. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
Share in his sufferings and in his glory
How do we become perfect as our Father in heaven in perfect? Paul says this: “we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Perfection, growing ins sanctification, in holiness is always accompany by suffering. Let’s call in struggle. Let’s call it, putting yourself out there on the life, willing to take a chance, willing to put in the time and work and risk in order to produce something strong, beautiful, lasting, uplifting.
Conclusion: If we follow the logic from our Scripture today, it says this: Be led by the Holy Spirit. If you are, you will no longer be controlled by fear, which leads to tentativeness, cynicism, lack of motivation and mediocrity. Instead, you will be guided by the interior knowledge that you are a child of God, inhabited by His all-knowing, all-loving Spirit of excellence. This Spirit of excellence – which demonstrates as love, beauty and goodness – will testify with your spirit and produce together a beautiful life of excellence. But it will involve struggle, discipline, even suffering. The result will be to share in divine glory.
I will close with a parable of two seeds to take with us. Two seeds lay side by side in the fertile spring soil. The first seed said, “I want to grow!” I want to send my roots deep into the soil beneath me and thrust my sprouts through the earth’s crust above me. I want to unfurl my tender buds like banners to announce the arrival of spring. I want to feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the blessing of the morning dew on my petals!” And so she grew? The second seed said, “I am afraid. If I send my roots into the ground below, I don’t know what I will encounter in the dark. If I push my way through the hard soil above me, I may damage my delicate sprouts. What if I let my buds open, and a snail tries to eat them? And if I were to open my blossoms, a small child may pull me from the ground. No, it is much better for me to wait until it is safe.” And so she waited? A yard hen, scratching around in the early Spring ground for food, found the waiting seed and promptly ate it.
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