Kindle in Us the Fire of Your Love Gen. 11:1–9; Acts 2:1–21; John 14:23–31                                                                           

Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who together have given us the Holy Spirit.

Kindle in Us the Fire of Your Love, is our message, from our Introit, the ancient liturgical verse for Pentecost, Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love!

What a wonderful verse that is, and so well said. It’s no wonder it’s stood the test of time. Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love! 

Without the Holy Spirit, there would be no Holy Trinity, and no salvation for humanity.

Without the Holy Spirit, God wouldn’t have been able to breathe His Spirit into Adam, making in him in His own image, with an immortal soul… 

… and then creating Eve from Adam, again in God’s image, with an eternal soul. God could do that because He’s not just the Father and the Son, but also the Holy Spirit.

Now in Baptism, God sends the Holy Spirit into our spirit, to live in us, giving us the power to believe and love God and one another. 

And it’s by believing, by faith that we receive and hold on to the grace and life and blessings and salvation Jesus won for us by His death and resurrection.

And so on this day of Pentecost, we give thanks to God for sending us His Holy Spirit, the Helper from Heaven we all need, and were promised by Jesus in John 15:29: “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 bear witness about me.

The Holy Spirit is our Helper by whose power we believe who Jesus is, what He has done for us, and what He teaches us.

Jesus told His disciples in our Gospel today: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 

God will abide in us, and us with Him, in His love forever.

Jesus says, Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

That’s the unity of the holy Trinity which we’ll talk about next Sunday, and what that means for our life and salvation, and our love and faith.

We keep God’s Word by believing and obeying Him, but we can only believe and obey God with the help of the Helper, the Holy Spirit, because our human nature is fallen and opposed to God.

Our default mode of operation, if you will, is to disbelieve God and disobey His Word, to go against Him, deny Him, and contradict Him and His Word.

By ourselves, left to our own devices, by our own power and ability, our response God and His Word, would be to deny, doubt, and not believe, and not love, and not follow.

Thanks be to Jesus, He has promised to give us what we need to repent and believe, and follow Him, the very Spirit of God, from Him and His Father.

Jesus said to His disciples, and He says to us: “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 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 that I have said to you.”

Indeed, when the Holy Spirit arrived on Pentecost, the disciples were transformed into instruments of God’s power and grace, to proclaim His Word of life and salvation to the world. 

Their hearts and spirits were filled with courage and love, and their minds with godly knowledge and wisdom, to teach and share the words and deeds of Jesus with people who were from many different nations, and spoke many different languages.

God gave His apostles the ability to speak the Good News of Christ in the native languages of the people, and the people were amazed… but they were also amazed at the content of what the apostles’ said…

… they told the people about Jesus, His death on a cross for their forgiveness, and His mighty resurrection for their glory and salvation.

Some wouldn’t believe it, though; their old, fallen nature refused to believe what their ears were hearing, even though it was clear and irrefutable. 

Their stubborn hearts just wouldn’t believe what they had seen and heard with their own eyes and ears.  

So Peter rose up and spoke to them all, perhaps in Aramaic, which was the common language of Palestine at that time, or maybe Greek, which was the most widely spoken language in the Roman Empire. 

Translated into English, Peter said, “These people, the apostles, are not drunk… But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: 

“‘And in the last days, that’s the last era, which began with Pentecost, and will end when Jesus returns, it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

The promise of Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by signs, wonders and miracles, had come true; the prophesy was being fulfilled in their sight. 

They were the eye-witnesses of it, and many believed. 

3000 of them received the message and were baptized, Luke says, given the Holy Spirit, to kindle the fire of faith and love in their hearts.

Today, as His baptized children, gifted with faith and the Holy Spirit, we pray, as many generations have before us: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Your love!

We ask God to kindle a greater love within us, that we may better serve and worship Him, and better love and befriend each other.

This prayer is similar to our collects during Advent, when we pray for the Lord to “stir up” in us, His power, love, hope, joy, etc.

So we pray today that God would stir up and kindle and re-ignite the power and passion of the Holy Spirit in us…

… and the love of God in and among us… in our fellowship together, that our love and passion for the Gospel of Christ and the Word of God…

… and for the Church of Christ, and for the work of the Church, for our ministry and mission to know Christ and make Him known…

… that our hearts would be stirred up, and our faith kindled, to rededicate ourselves to the love of the Lord, and His Church, and His work, to serve with joy, that His good and gracious will would be done among us, to the glory of God, and for the good of all. 

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them, in us, the fire of Your love! 

May the fire of His love burn and increase in us…

… and may the peace Jesus promises us in today’s Gospel, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid…

… may this extraordinary peace which passes understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our ascended Lord, that we may always be on fire with His saving, healing, reconciling, amazing love. Amen.