DAY OF PENTECOST

“Gaining the Holy Spirit Knowledge of Christ”

John 14:26 NKJV “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”

Philippians 3:8-10 NKJV “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

My friends in Christ: It seems rather strange for Saint Paul who, under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote so much of our New Testament to state: “I want to know Christ!” We generally would attach this kind of proclamation to a heathen or a pagan who is searching for the truth and knows he is in need of salvation. Yet these are the words of Paul, the great missionary to the gentiles, who is now addressing fellow Christians of the church in Philippi. “That I may know Him (Christ) and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings...” Paul, here, is telling every Christian in Philippi and those gathered here today for the celebration of Pentecost to know Christ and the power of His resurrection!

It soon becomes evident in almost every congregation that once a person is placed on the church roster, either by confirmation, transfer, or affirmation of faith, that then he thinks he right away has the true faith and that's that. The church is then supposed to be present for these people on those special occasions dictated by polite society to hatch, match and to dispatch, which is to bury. But, dear friends, that is not so.

This is not the case. The pastor, the steward of the mysteries of Christ, is your called servant but not to do your every whim whenever you feel like you need him to fulfill some traditional ritual. The pastor is called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament in order to carry out the church’s business in helping people to continually seek Christ and to know Him and the power of His resurrection. But fake Christians think that they are exempt from the sufferings of Christ and have no real Holy Spirit knowledge of Him. Make certain you are not among their numbers but rather among the teachers of God’s Word that are Spirit filled with the knowledge of Jesus Christ and His teachings.

If the church and her pastor are treated as only to be present when you wish to have something done for you and your family, the result is almost guaranteed, namely, the mere ability to know a few good stories about Christ such as the Christmas and Easter stories. But they are still without the understanding that comes from a circumcised heart, the very place where Christ is to be ruler and Lord. They neither know nor desire to gain the Holy Spirit who will teach them and testify of Christ. Therefore, the person who truly wishes to know Christ is the person in whose heart Christ is already present. For Jesus cannot be found by the unbeliever. The Lord in Isaiah 65:1 says, “I was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me” and, as Paul tells the Corinthians, “Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:3b)

Is a person, therefore, just to wait for God to find him and not seek the true religion to perchance save him from destruction? To believe that would be tantamount for us to be denying the office of the Holy Spirit, which is to convince the world of sin, and of righteousness. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us directly through the written Word of God and is our ever-present Sanctifier in keeping God’s laws perfectly through the power of Christ's resurrection. No sir, we cannot deny that people are not to seek the righteousness of God and seek their own soul’s salvation when in the grip of despair; but if anyone wishes to know Christ, he must first know that Christ cannot be known outside of the revealed Word of God.

Sad to say that many who consider themselves good Christians fall into this category: They may come to despise what is commonly known as the “institutionalized church.” “I’m not as bad as Joe Blow down the street,” such as person says, “and, besides that, I’m pretty good as compared with all those hypocrites sitting in church Sunday after Sunday.” Or try this saying on for size: “I don’t need to worship inside a building and hear and study God’s Word because I am so spiritual that I already know all that stuff about Jesus anyway and I also do my good deeds.”

I’ll be blunt by explaining the difference between those who claim to know Christ and stay away from church and those who find themselves gathered together on the Lord’s Day and read the Bible at home confessing, “I want to know Christ.” Here’s the difference: Those who deliberately stay away are those who make themselves out to be super spiritual and righteous; and those who seek Christ and His kingdom have come to the realization that true righteousness and holiness, which is the meaning of the image of God, as stated in Ephesians 4:24, are attributed to them because of Jesus’ death and resurrection without any works or knowledge of their own. Each time you go to your house of worship you are making a confession to each other and to God that you wish to have as your own possession Jesus’ resurrection power; and, that you desire to also share in the sufferings of Christ.

Can you see the difference between these types of Christians and those other Christians who pooh-pooh the Christian faith because they themselves are ever so spiritual?

I had always asked each Jr. Confirmation Candidate for a true affirmation that they were now to speak what they themselves believed because they desired Christian fellowship. I wanted to be assured that they were seeking Christ and His righteousness and were not being confirmed because mom and dad expected it of them. Do they themselves desire the knowledge of Christ’s resurrection or do they like the attention they receive from the parties and gifts? Do they desire the Body and Blood in the Lord’s Supper or do they dutifully go to their first communion to drink some wine and eat a cracker only to stay away and later spread their impious conduct to their own children? Do they have the Holy Spirit knowledge of Christ, or do they even want it? To know Christ is to be a fanatic before an unbelieving world; it is not to be an ecumenical I’m OK, and you’re OK, or as the classic Gospel-Rock song testifies, “Jesus is Just Alright with Me”.

Listen to the holy apostle Paul himself who says: “I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” If anyone had self-esteem, it was Paul! Yet all his achievements and all his former works Paul called trash since he came to know Jesus as his Lord. In other words, since he was found by Christ and through faith alone, apart from works, he came to be made by Christ a new creation found to be in a righteous relationship with God. Paul believed it; and so Paul confessed it.

Only one thing is needful in this life: Christ and His righteousness that He has gained for you. Everything else is trash. As Jesus Himself teaches about the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:44-46): “Again the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

From this, one thing is clear: If you want to know Christ, you will have to know Him through His cross and suffering. If you don’t want to know Him in this way, then your alternative is to continue puffing yourself up about how worthy you are and how good you are and how you don't want to associate with those hypocrites who confess their sins on a daily basis.

Addressing this attitude, Luther argued against those who claimed him to be a heretic because he believed that “the just shall live by faith alone”:

“He who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore, he prefers works to sufferings, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and, in general, good to evil. These are the people whom the apostle calls ‘enemies of the cross of Christ’ (Philp.3:18), for they hate the cross and suffering and love works and the glory of works...God can be found only in suffering and the cross...Therefore the friends of the cross say that the cross is good and works are evil, for through the cross works are dethroned and the old Adam, who is especially edified by works, is crucified.

“It is impossible for a person not to be puffed up by his good works unless he is first deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil until he knows that his works are not his but God’s. (Luther’s Works, Vol.31, p.53)

Romans 1:17 makes this claim about the Gospel of Christ, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” Therefore, to know Christ is to live by faith in Him, a faith that should be ever growing, a faith which wants you to become more and more like Christ. And that can never happen if you see the process of confirmation in the church as a graduation exercise instead of a continued commencement in your life with Christ in fellowship with His church. That is exactly what St. Paul is speaking of in Philippians 3:12-14, the whole process of pressing toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus because as long as he is in the flesh he has not yet attained to perfection even though Jesus has attained it for him by His resurrection power.

Do you want to know Christ? Then learn from His sufferings. He wasn’t one of those good old boys who went along with the perverted religion of his day. He spoke the truth about works and faith; He spoke the truth about the way to heaven when He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life!” My works, not yours dear fellows, are the only works pleasing to My Father in heaven. And then those good old boys had Him killed.

Each time we consider other things more important than learning about Jesus and worshiping Him, the God of our salvation, then we place ourselves along with those good old boys and whatever faith we had is diminished more and more. We become so complacent with our religion that we no longer want to know Christ. This should be a reminder to us that we should never wait until it is socially acceptable to be seen going to church, to go through the routine of “hatching, matching, and dispatching.” Your own baptisms and confirmations should remind you of your Savior’s love for you, and the testimony the Holy Spirit gives of Christ. Jesus will always be your Elder Brother and friend. Jesus is the friend of sinners who seek God and His righteousness. Jesus is your Brother who was not ashamed to become one with you in human form yet without sin.

There was a certain pastor who received a call to a church but next to nobody showed up for his first sermon. That week he spent his time making visits on all the people that were listed on his church roster. The following Sunday didn’t fare much better in attendance. The pastor therefore took out a notice in the local newspaper announcing the death of a church and invited all to attend the funeral the following Sunday. Morbidly curious, a large crowd gathered for the “funeral.” In front of the pulpit was a closed coffin arrayed with flowers. After a short sermon, the pastor invited the congregation to come forward to pay their last respects for the body, as the lid of the casket was raised. Filled with curiosity as to what was the body of the dead church, everyone eagerly formed a line to look in the coffin. Each mourner peeped into the coffin as they passed by and turned away with a guilty, sheepish look. What they saw in the coffin, tilted at the correct angle, was...a mirror.

Show your respect, love, and friendship to Jesus by becoming closer to Him. Worship Him with your fellow believers, lifting up the cup of Salvation and calling upon His name. Make it your own goal to be able to speak as did St. Paul: “…that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” Amen.