The Holy Spirit: Still on the Job!

[Below, you'll find the message presented at both worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church, Centerville, Ohio, and live stream video of both services. Today is the Day of Pentecost, the third great festival of the Church Year.]

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost already was a festival on the Jewish calendar long before the events described in today’s second lesson. That’s why there were Jews, both those born Jews and converts, from every part of the known world gathered in Jerusalem. It was a day of obligation, if you will, which every Jew would have expected to participate in at least once in their lives.

Pentecost had its roots as an agricultural celebration, celebrating the spring harvest. But for God’s people, the Jews, it was also a festival celebrating the giving of God’s Law at Mount Sinai.

God’s people loved God’s Law. “Oh, how I love your law!,” Psalm 119 says,  “I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me and make me wiser than my enemies.” (Psalm 119:97-98)

But for all the love God’s people had for the Law, they were no more successful at obeying it than you and I are. Paul, the Jewish Christian apostle, speaks not only for himself but also for God’s ancient people and for you and me (and the whole world) when he writes, “...in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.” (Romans 7:22-23) Whenever we resolve to love God with our whole being and love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we fail. Such love is foreign to our sinful nature. If we are to love God and love others as God commands us to do, that love must come from outside of ourselves.

The people gathered in Jerusalem had no idea what they were in for on that Pentecost Day! They were just there to be outwardly obedient to God’s Law.

The Jews gathered in Jerusalem didn’t know it even though nine hundred years before, God had foretold it through the prophet Joel. God said that when Jesus, the sinless Savior, paid for our sin with His life, the sun would “be turned to darkness and the moon to blood…” (Joel 2:31) (Sounds like Good Friday to me.) But at this, God would pour out His Holy Spirit in ways not seen since the Spirit moved over the waters to create the universe in Genesis. “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” (Joel 2:28) This describes what happened to the fearful disciples of Jesus in that upper room on the first Christian Pentecost. The Holy Spirit was poured on them, just as He is poured on you and me in the waters of Holy Baptism.

The 120 disciples of Jesus also didn’t know what they were in for as they gathered in the upper room either. This was true even though Jesus had told them what was going to happen. Just before He was arrested, He had said, “...it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate [the Holy Spirit] will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7) And He also told them why this was so. “When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he’ll expose the error of the godless world’s view of sin, righteousness, and judgment: He’ll show them that their refusal to believe in me is their basic sin; that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight and control; that judgment takes place as the ruler of this godless world [the devil] is brought to trial and convicted.” (John 16:8-11, The Message]

Jesus had told the disciples He would send the Holy Spirit so that they could share the Gospel, the good news, with all the world. The Holy Spirit would give Christ’s Church the power to tell and to share the message that “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” (John 3:36) By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church would be given the ability to tell the world that, “In Jesus Christ, all your sins are forgiven and you are free to trust in that truth!”

Because of this Holy Spirit, Jesus says elsewhere, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

Think of that, friends! Jesus says that with Him back in heaven at the right hand of God, after He has sent His Church the Holy Spirit, His Church–you and I–will do greater things than He had done in an earthly ministry in which He proclaimed good news to the poor, freedom for the captives, sight for the blind, (Luke 4:18), and everlasting life for all who are turned from sin and trust in Him. (John 3:16; Mark 1:15)

On the first Christian Pentecost, we see this happen. The Holy Spirit descended on those 120 disciples, giving them the power to speak plainly about the mighty works of God, including the mightiest of all, when God the Son took on human life, died on the cross to set sinners free from death and condemnation, and rose again to open eternity to all who trust in Him.

The Jerusalem crowd is stunned! They hear the sound of a violent wind from heaven, then hear these Galieans speaking to them in their own native languages about Jesus. It’s bewildering!

But Peter–of all people, Peter, impulsive, foot-in-the-mouth, brave-talking-but-not-always-so-brave-living Peter–explains everything. (If that doesn’t prove the power of the Holy Spirit, nothing does!) Peter recalls what Joel had said and realized that, despite his imperfection and sin, the Holy Spirit had come to him and the other disciples so that they could proclaim new life for all who turn to Jesus.

By the power of the Spirit, Peter knew what he needed to say next: “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Acts 2:21)

Later, speaking in the passive voice about something only God could do to people who hear God’s Word coming from a preacher’s mouth, Peter would tell the crowd, “Be repented and baptized,” that is, “By, the Word of promise from God, be turned to Christ and receive new life in His name.” (Acts 2:38)

On that first Christian Pentecost, God used the disciples of Jesus speaking His Gospel Word to do greater things than Jesus had ever done: 3000 people were baptized into the Kingdom of God!

So, what about today? Is the Holy Spirit still open for business today?

Well, Christianity is the fastest growing religion by conversions in the world today. In places like Ethiopia and South Sudan, in underground churches in China and North Korea, and other places where people haven’t grown self-satisfied or self-righteous or jaded, as we see among people in North America and Europe, the Church is growing at a Pentecost Sunday-rate.

But it’s not just in places like these that the Holy Spirit is at work today. This past Thursday night, I was honored and happy to accompany Jim Lopez and Warren Mansfield to one of the monthly dinners of Whole Truth Ministries. Whole Truth helps those recovering from addictions to get new starts in life. If you ever want confirmation that the Holy Spirit is active and bringing people to new life in Christ, go to one of these dinners. The hunger of those people for Jesus is at least as big as their hunger for the great food Jim prepares each month.

And even here, even today, we know it is the Holy Spirit Who proclaims Jesus in God’s Word and in the Sacraments, the Holy Spirit Who claimed us in Holy Baptism and gives us the ability to call on the name of the Lord Jesus, Who saves us, Who gives us new and everlasting life with God!

Pentecost is still happening! The Holy Spirit is still on the march in our world, in our lives, and in the Church, in this church! May He give us the power and the confidence that He gave the first disciples to march in time with Him and share the good news of Jesus with a world still in desperate need of Him. Amen

[The painting is Pentecost by Titian (1488-1576)

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of Acts, Chapter 8

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study of Acts, Chapter 1

The Holy Spirit, Living Water

Below, you'll find online worship for yesterday, Pentecost Sunday, from Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Below that, is the text for the message presented during the service. Have a good week. God bless you!



John 7:37-39
When I woke up a few mornings ago, my mouth was so dry I felt my lips were cemented together. I couldn’t wait to get a drink of water! I screwed open a bottle of Ice Mountain and practically poured it down. It tasted so good! It was exactly what I needed.

When Jesus, truly God, but also truly human, lived on the earth, He did so in an arid land. Among His last words from the cross, hanging beneath the harsh Judean sun, were, “I thirst.” Jesus knows what it is to thirst, to crave the life that water gives.

That’s part of what gives such power to what He told the Samaritan woman at the well. She was tired of going to the village water source under the midday sun. Jesus tells her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)  

And in John 6:35, Jesus tells the crowds He has fed with a bit of bread and a few fish, “Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” 

In passages like these, Jesus uses the need we all have for water for life to talk about something we need even more desperately than mere water, now and in eternity.

Our short Gospel lesson for this Pentecost Sunday finds Jesus in Jerusalem on the last day of the Festival of Tabernacles or the Festival of Booths. It was one of the three great festivals of the Jewish year. It lasted, as it even does today among modern Jews, seven or eight days. In ancient times, it celebrated several things: the just-completed harvest, God’s provision for His people during the forty years in the wilderness, and the giving of God’s Law, the ten commandments, at Mount Sinai. 

The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish rabbinic oral traditions about the Old Testament, tells us that one of the most important temple rituals each morning of the Feast of Tabernacles was “the celebration of water libation.” Priests would circle the altar in the temple, carrying freshly drawn water from the pool of Siloam. This was done with prayers that God would provide the water needed for a good harvest the next season.

This helps to explain why Jesus expresses Himself as He does in today’s lesson. Take a look at it now: “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

When Jesus cites Scripture here, He seems to be referring to a number of different passages of the Old Testament that refer to life-giving water, life-giving wisdom, and even the life-giving Spirit. 

One place is Isaiah 43:19-20 in which the prophet quotes the Savior Who would come hundreds of years later in Jesus as saying, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen…” God promises refreshment and renewal--living water--to people born dead in sin, like you and me. 

And in Jeremiah 2:13, God tells ancient Israel: “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” In other words, God’s people had gone to their idols of choice rather than drawing life--living water--from its only true source, the God now revealed to all in Jesis.

In today’s gospel lesson, Jesus tells us that it’s God the Holy Spirit Who quenches our greatest thirst. It’s a thirst that every human being has...

• a thirst for hope and peace amid the suffering and uncertainty of our world, 
• a thirst for life where death seems to have the final say, 
• a thirst for forgiveness for the sin with which, we know--deep down--we’ve broken God’s heart and harmed ourselves and others, 
• a thirst for the meaning that every busy day seems sometimes to drag right out of us. 

In a clip from the classic movie, Key Largo, that I shared with our weeknight Facebook Bible study this past week, Edward G. Robinson plays a murderous thug named Johnny Rocco. When asked by another character what he wanted, he admitted that he wanted, “More! Yeah, that’s it. I want more!” 


This desire for more that we all have has its roots in two human desires, one legitimate and one illegitimate. 

On the illegitimate side of the ledger is the desire, like Adam and Eve, to “be like God.” We think that if we take on more experiences, more money, more financial security, more health, that we’ll be gods unto ourselves: independent, strong, self-sufficient. If we don’t learn the futility of this fantasy when we’re young, growing older has a way of forcing the lesson down our throats. Yet we're born with this desire to be like God.

But the legitimate side of our desire for more lies in the fact that it makes us realize that there’s something missing in our souls, a yawning need, that persists no matter how much money, security, health, acceptance, or strength we have, no matter how many amazing experiences or friendships we attain in life. Saint Augustine expressed our common human yearning for more in this way: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in You.”

It is God the Holy Spirit Who fills the holes in our souls. 

The Holy Spirit quenches the thirst we all have, the emptiness that can only be filled by the God Who made us and Who saves all who trust in God the Son Jesus from the sin, death, and futility that marks the lives of those Who don’t trust in Jesus. 

It was the Holy Spirit Who emboldened the praying, but still frightened, first disciples of Jesus to speak the Gospel Word that all who repent and believe in Jesus have everlasting life with God on the first Christian Pentecost. 

It’s this same Holy Spirit Who enables us to believe, despite the horrors of a world dying in sin displays each day, that God is with us and will have us with Him for all eternity. 

It’s the Holy Spirit Who gives us God’s Word in the Bible and Who creates and sustains faith in Christ through the humble witness of loving parents, children, friends, co-workers, and even inadequate, ineloquent preachers. 

The Holy Spirit is living water for souls dying of thirst for Jesus, even for the souls of those who already know Jesus and realize with special clarity just how desperately and constantly we need Him!

In 1 Corinthians 12:3, the apostle Paul tells us, “...no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” 

If you can confess that Jesus is your Lord, even on the days when you’re not feeling it, then you know that the Holy Spirit is filling you with the Living Water, with life with God through Christ. 

And if that’s so, you also know that each day, whatever your circumstances, whatever you’re feeling, you can turn to the Father in Jesus’ name and be filled again and again with the Holy Spirit Who brings you all that we confess the Spirit brings in our Creeds and Confessions: 

• the Word of God, 
• the life of God, 
• the Baptism by which God claims us as His own, 
• the Communion by which we abide in God and His people and they in us, 
• the assurance that Jesus, God the Son, is with you always, the resurrection of the dead from God, and
• the life everlasting with God. 

Each day, bring your thirsty soul to God in the name of Jesus and the Spirit will fill you again with Living Water! Amen

Tonight's Weeknight Bible Study on Romans, Chapter 8

Tonight's Weeknight Study of the Gospel of John, Chapter 16

Lord, Fan the Flame in Me

[This the journal entry for my quiet time with God this morning. I use a simple format for my personal time with God. I stop to repent for sin and pray about known needs in my life and the lives of others; I look at God's Word; I listen for what God might be telling me in that Word; I respond in some way.]

Look: “For this reason [Timothy’s sincere faith and the tears he has shed because of his work for the gospel] I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” (2 Timothy 1:6-7)

These verses are highly encouraging to me and, I would think, could be encouraging to any believer in Jesus, whatever their calling in life.

This is a message of encouragement written to the young pastor Timothy. The encourager is the apostle Paul, then in prison for preaching the gospel of new and everlasting life through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. Paul might seem an unlikely person to be encouraging Timothy to keep faithful in sharing Jesus with others despite the persecution: Paul’s perseverance landed him in prison!

But Paul insists that persecution, hardship, and even death aren’t the end of the story for those who remain faithful to God Who blesses us with eternal life through faith in Jesus. I need to always remember this!

Paul remembers the faith of Timothy and urges him not to allow anything to cause either his faith or his assurance that God has called him to go cold. Instead, Paul says, “fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of hands…”

He then reminds Timothy that the Holy Spirit imparted to Timothy with the laying on of hands is “not a spirit of fear, but of power and love and self-control.” I love that reminder!

Listen: As I read Paul’s words, I remember that the Church, Christ’s people in the world, uses the “laying on of hands” in many ways.

When a person is baptized, the pastor makes the sign of the cross on the forehead and says that this person has been marked with the cross of Christ and, by virtue of what God has done in their baptism, sealed with the Holy Spirit forever.

When a person is confirmed, the presider will place hands on his/her head or shoulder and pronounce a blessing.

When a person is ordained, clergy will join in the laying on of hands, invoking God’s name to bless the ordained person.

When Christians pray, often groups will gather around the one for whom they pray and place their hands on their heads and shoulders.

At the conclusion of worship, the presiding minister will pronounce a benediction with a hand over the congregation, figuratively “touching” those being blessed. “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace.”

These aren’t mere gestures. The laying on of hands is connected to God’s Word. And what God sets His Word out to do brings results. Isaiah 55:10-11 says: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

When Christians lay hands on others, invoking the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, something actually happens.

Paul apparently recalls ordaining Timothy with the laying on of hands and reminds Timothy that the younger man had received the Holy Spirit’s empowerment. (All Christians do at baptism.)

He then tells Timothy to fan the gift of the Holy Spirit within him into flame. I don’t believe that Paul is telling Timothy to “get psyched” or “get woke,” or as my grandparents’ generation would have said, “work himself into a tizzy.”

On the first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to the praying Church on the rush of a mighty wind and then “divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” (Acts 2:3-4) The fire of the Holy Spirit empowered the first Christians to be disciples and to make disciples, to live in the confident hope of life with God no matter what, without timidity, but with power, love, and self- control.

Sometimes let my life, not just its adversity, but things like the next item on my to-do list, my agenda, my inborn indifference to God and others--to get in the way of the fire of the Holy Spirit. I fail to repent for sin and trust in Jesus. I fail to spend time in God’s Word. I run from accountability to God or to others in Christ’s Church. The flame can become a flicker. When that happens, even little things can overwhelm me.

So, I need--I need today--to fan the flame that God has already set within me, at my Baptism. It’s His fire, His flame. I need to open up the flues so that He fills my life more fully. The furnace will do the world; I need to open up the vents.

My experience makes pretty clear how that needs to happen: I come back to Christ and His Word. I spend time in His Word. I spend time in prayer in Jesus’ name. I ask God, in Jesus’ name, to keep me walking close with Him and to watch for opportunities to honor Him and help others in His name. I make regular time to meet with others around His Word beyond Sunday worship.

Fanning the flames of the fire of faith is about turning back to Jesus. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,  are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

I fan the flames of my faith and the gifts of the Holy Spirit within me when I turn to Jesus with helplessness and trust. When that happens, whatever my call may be in life and whatever challenges I may face--even imprisonment for Jesus’ sake or death--I can face them (including possible persecutors) with power, love, and self-control: Without fear and with the confidence that nothing can separate me from the love of God given to us in Christ Jesus.

I turn to Jesus. He fans the flames.

Respond: In all the things I face today, Lord--and you know them better than I do, help me turn to you. Fan the flames of my faith and the Holy Spirit You have already given to me so that I can bring You to others: my family, fellow church members, people I encounter as I go about my day. In Jesus’ Name. Amen

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Knowing God: More Than We Imagine

[This was shared during worship with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio, earlier today.]

Luke 11:1-13
I have a feeling that one reason that so many people today claim no religion is that they might like to know God, but don’t know that, through Jesus, they can know Him. 

And even we followers of Jesus, Who know Him through the Word and the Sacraments, also want to know Him better. And like lovers obsessed with their beloved, it's because we know God through Jesus that we want to know God more.

Jesus’ first followers, the disciples, seem to have felt the same way. 

That’s part of why, even though they didn’t completely understand that Jesus was God in the flesh until Jesus had died and risen again, in their hunger for God, they followed Jesus for three years. 

That’s also why it’s no surprise that when they saw Jesus praying one day, seeing the intimacy with God the Father He had, they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray. 

Our gospel lesson for today, Luke 11:1-13, tells us how Jesus responded: Jesus teaches them (and us) what we call the Lord’s Prayer. 

It presents a pattern for prayer for those who want to know God deeply and personally. 

It also gives us a prayer that we can offer to God regularly when we realize that we don't know what to pray or when we pray together in worship. 

Let’s take a look at it.

“Father,” Jesus begins. Being a Christian is not about being religious. It’s about having a relationship with God. God is our Father and not an earthly father, one who, no matter how good or devoted, can let us down. God is the Father Who made us and stands ready to hear us whenever we call on Him. We begin the prayer by acknowledging that incredible fact!

The next petitions remind us that everything is out of place in the world and in our lives if God isn’t given first place. And so, Jesus teaches us to pray: “hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.”

For God’s Name to be hallowed means for it to be held as unique, special, set-apart, holy. God’s Name is not a sitcom punchline or a phrase for stupid people with limited vocabularies to use in the place meaningful speech. God’s Name is a precious gift He gives that allows us to call on Him, as Martin Luther puts it in The Small Catechism, for “prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.” Here, we pray that God’s Name will be revered and used properly, not just by the whole world, but by us as well.

God’s kingdom is what Jesus came to bring. He brought God’s kingdom into this dying world through His life, death, and resurrection. All who, incited by the Holy Spirit to heed the gospel message of new life through Jesus, turn from sin and believe in Jesus for forgiveness and new life with God, are part of God’s kingdom, today, at this moment. We live under the reign of God. Here, we pray that God’s kingdom will invade every human life--including our own, so that we and all who believe in Him will not perish in hell, but have life with God forever!

It isn’t until the petition in verse 3--”Give us each day our daily bread”--that Jesus gets around to teaching us to pray for ourselves. This is pretty counter-cultural! How often are we advised by pop culture or even by so-called friends to look out for ourselves instead of putting God or others ahead of ourselves? And even in this petition, we don't pray entirely for ourselves, as Jesus teaches us to pray for not me but us!

A woman told me that after she’d shared with a friend that she and her husband were having minor disagreements on money and child-rearing, her friend said, “Better do what I did. Better get a divorce. You deserve to be happy.” “My friend,” the woman told me, “obviously had no concern about what might make God happy, or our children happy, or my husband happy, or, in the end, what might make me happy.”

Jesus doesn't teach us to defer praying for ourselves because we ourselves aren’t important. Obviously, every human being is important. That’s why Jesus Christ died and rose for every human being who has ever lived or ever will live. And that’s why He teaches us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

But it’s only after we’ve learned to put God and His desire to reign over the whole world with His love at the top of our priorities, that we’re ready to pray this petition rightly. So, He teaches us, “Give us”--all of us, from the people in my family to the people in places like China, Syria, and Afghanistan ”our daily bread,” not the luxuries we want or to which the advertisers say we’re entitled, but the things we need.

We pray that all people will be provided with the things they need--nutritious food, clean water, medical care, basic justice. 

And this prayer is no pipe dream! God’s earth produces sufficient abundance for every inhabitant of Earth to have exactly what they need. The fact that so many go hungry or die unnecessarily is not a supply issue, it’s a share issue. 

God gives daily bread and in praying this petition, we acknowledge that every good and perfect gift comes from God and we ask that God will help us share His bounties with others. The words of the hymn, Praise and Thanksgiving, are true: “Where all obey You, no one will hunger; In Your love’s sway You nourish the land.” 

Jesus then teaches us, in verse 4, to pray that God will forgive our sins and to keep us from blocking out His forgiveness from our lives by refusing to forgive others. 

Is there someone you need to forgive this morning? Someone who has wronged you or who you think has wronged you? 

You don’t need to make a grand show of it. You don’t have to smugly tell that other person, “I forgive you.” In your heart right now, you can release others of the debt you feel that they owe to you. Just tell God, “Lord, I want to release so and so of my grudge. I want to release myself from it. In Your Name and by Your power, I forgive them.” 

You can do that every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer. And you need to do so because Jesus makes it clear that until we let go of that grudge, we can’t take hold of His grace, His forgiveness and His charity toward our sins and our shortcomings.

Finally, Jesus teaches His disciples--including us--to pray that God will steer us clear of temptation and that the evil one--the devil--won’t be able to get a toehold in our lives. 

Now, Jesus knows that it may be hard for us to believe that God could care about our prayers. More than one person in the years I’ve been a pastor has told me, “I never pray. I just don’t want to bother God.” In teaching us this prayer though, Jesus is saying, “God does care about you. You will never be a bother to the One Who made you and Who went to the cross for you!"

To underscore this fact, Jesus tells a little parable about a man who has a late-night visitor at his house and has nothing to feed the visitor. Wanting to treat the visitor right, the man runs to his friend to ask for something to set before the visitor. But it’s midnight. The man lives in first-century Judea, meaning that he sleeps on the floor with his kids, and that getting up to answer the friend’s knock or to fetch the food and drink he could serve his visitor will be a hassle, maybe even waking up the little ones and the animals and depriving him of a good night’s sleep. But, Jesus says in verse 9, even if the man doesn't want to help his friend, he'll throw off his covers, walk around the kids, open the front door, and get the things his friend requests.

The careless reader will think that Jesus is here saying that God is a reluctant friend who, if you’re persistent, will answer your prayers. But God isn’t reluctant to hear or answer our prayers. Look at how Jesus closes out His words for us in Luke 11 today, verse 13, after saying that even sinful, "evil" parents will give good things to their children: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

The God we know in Jesus Christ isn’t a reluctant friend telling those who come to Him, “Go away!” He is our Father and He wants to answer when we call out to Him. That’s why Jesus tells us, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you...”

But here’s where Christian maturity and a willingness to defer to the greater wisdom and love of God comes in. 

The first two or three-hundred times I read Jesus’ words in Luke 11:13, in which He promises to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask God, I wanted to scream, “But what if I don’t want the Holy Spirit!” What if I asked for my loved one to be healed of cancer, or that my friend’s marriage would be restored, or that, as I really have prayed, the 40% of my heart damaged by a heart attack would be restored? What good is the Holy Spirit to me then? How is the Holy Spirit the answer to the cries of my heart? I’ve had thoughts like these. I still do.

But here’s the thing: The Holy Spirit is exactly Who we need when we face things like crosses, and griefs, and relational discord, and war. 

He's also Who we need when we are successful, happy, and comfortable because it's in circumstances like these that we are most at risk of forgetting God or deluding ourselves that all of our blessings come from us and our goodness, power, or talent.

The Holy Spirit is the Comforter, the One Who gives us the strength and courage we need to face the pains that come to us in this imperfect and fallen world. 

The Holy Spirit is the Truth-Teller Who will tell us the truth about Jesus, about ourselves, about our need for the forgiveness and new life Jesus died and rose brings to those who believe in Him, about how deeply and eternally we are loved by the God Who makes us, redeems us, and, in Jesus Christ, calls us to Himself.

The Holy Spirit is the very life of God. 

He’s the One Who gives us faith in the face of the darkness of this world and the One Who will raise us up to come face to face with Jesus after we’ve drawn our last breaths on this earth. 

Every time you pray, ask, seek, and knock at the Father’s door, He will send the Holy Spirit to you. You will know God. 

You will know God is with you. 

You will know that God is for you. 

And you will be filled with the life of God that nothing and nobody can ever take from you.

We come to God the Father in the Name of Jesus, asking for the things we think we need or think we want and He gives us more than we could ever ask for or conceive of needing.

He gives us Himself.

People want to know God. 

Christians who know God through the Word and the Sacraments want to know Him more deeply. 

Pray in Jesus’ Name and you will know Him as surely as you know your parents, your children, your spouses, or your friends. Even more surely and well.

As we pray to God the Father in the Name of Jesus, we know that no matter what happens in this world, we have the Holy Spirit, Who will give us the very life of God and stand with us from here to kingdom come. Amen!

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
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