In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today marks the end of the Easter Season that started 50 days ago. Last Sunday we celebrated Jesus’ Ascension and looked at how it was connected to his Resurrection. We saw that in the Resurrection of Jesus, God has given us a preview of coming attractions regarding his promised New Creation, the time when God in Christ will return and finish the redemptive work that he inaugurated in his death and resurrection. This reminds us that there is work for us to do right now. Since God thinks enough of his created order that he has promised to redeem it (and us), we who profess to follow Jesus should want to do likewise.

We also saw that the Ascension was necessary so that Jesus could assume his rightful place as ruler of the universe, which is what the NT writers meant when they talked about Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father. We know that Jesus has chosen us to help him bring about God’s promised New Creation and even now he is interceding for us to help us become the creatures he created us to be so that we can help him in that work.

And we talked about the fact that Jesus promised to send us the Holy Spirit after he went into God’s dimension (what we call heaven) so that he could be present with each of us in ways he simply could not be as God the Son. That, of course, is what we are celebrating today at Pentecost because it was on this day that the promised Holy Spirit came to be with his people. This morning I want to look briefly at what that might mean for us today, both as individuals and collectively as the Church.

Have you ever wondered what changed for the eleven disciples of Jesus between the time of his death and the day of Pentecost? What changed them from fearful and timid cowards to the bold men we read about in today’s lesson from Acts? It truly is a remarkable story that demands our careful attention because each one of us knows what it is like to be afraid. Whether it’s about our health or our loved ones or our present or future or even about making new disciples of Jesus, we know what it is like to be afraid. We realize that our fear and timidity can paralyze us into inaction.

Part of the answer to the question about what changed for the eleven surely is in Jesus’ Resurrection itself. The disciples became convinced that he was alive and he spent time with them to help them understand who he really is and what it means to be his disciple. But surely another part of the answer is in the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit himself. As Jesus had promised his disciples in the Upper Room, when the Spirit came, he would teach them things they had previously not been ready and able to learn. And then as Luke reports in today’s lesson, the Spirit came just as Jesus promised and he made complete their transformation. Now the disciples were willing and able to speak boldly on behalf of Jesus. Now they were bold and eager to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission to them—to make disciples of all the nations.

But here’s the thing. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not some esoteric gift. We don’t have to be an apostle or some super religious person to receive it. No, as both Paul and the prophet Joel make clear, the gift of the Spirit is available to anyone who is willing to accept God’s gracious invitation to have abundant life in Jesus. When we believe that God really does love us enough to die for us so that we can be saved from his wrath and holy justice, it changes us. We open ourselves up to receive the gift of his Spirit and when that happens, the sky’s the limit.

The Spirit gives each one of us gifts to help us fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission. As Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel lesson, he is sending us out to make disciples just as the Father had sent him to make disciples for the Kingdom. This is our call as Jesus’ disciples and if you want to be a follower of Jesus there is no escaping this responsibility. But here is where we get tripped up and let our fear take over because if you are like me, we typically think we have to be something that we are not before we could possibly make disciples of others. We think we have to be some kind of unreal, super holy person to be an evangelist. Or we think we have to be super knowledgeable or a gifted preacher. And of course the Evil One is only too happy to encourage us in our fears so that we shrink back from our primary duty as followers of Jesus.

“Not so fast,” says Paul in today’s Epistle lesson. “Why are you afraid when each of you have God’s very Spirit living in you? It doesn’t matter who you are or what stage of the lifecycle you are in. Each one of you who make up Christ’s Body, the Church, has been given at least one gift by the Spirit to help you make disciples of people and to love and support each other as you do, because making disciples is both an individual and team effort.”

“So how does that all work,” you ask? Good question! We make new disciples of Christ, not by what we say but by what we do. When we give our lives to Christ and receive the Holy Spirit, it changes and reorients us. We have a different set of values than the world does and we play by a different set of rules—Jesus’ rules. For example, with the Spirit’s help, we resist the urge to make life all about us. That’s what Jesus meant when he told us we had to die to ourselves. Instead, we elevate the needs of others and make them as important as our own needs, if not more so in certain instances. We choose to be merciful instead of seeking to exact revenge when someone does us wrong. We have a keen desire to help the least and the lost in society. We resist the urge to make power, security, and prestige our gods. We stop trying to play God and let God be God, humbly acknowledging that we are his creatures. We therefore take the time and make the effort to listen for our marching orders each day instead of issuing them ourselves. We become keenly aware that we are part of a group of people who believe likewise and one of our primary concerns is to look out for their welfare. I’m talking about being part of Christ’s Body, the Church, of course, and that means we do not gossip about each other or treat each other with disrespect because the Spirit reminds us we are as broken as our fellow believers are.

When, by the Spirit’s help, we use his gifts and start to bring Christ’s love to bear on others outside the church who desperately need it, we can expect the Spirit to help us make those whom he calls into his disciples. For example, Christ’s love through us for the least and the lost might lead us to fight against drug addiction or senseless violence and/or to help others improve their lives so that they don’t need our help anymore, at least with material things. Our actions may cause those on whom we bring Christ’s love to bear to wonder why we are so willing to forgive or to respect their human dignity when most others do not. Or because we care for the lonely and are willing to spend some time with them when it would be easier to ignore them as others typically do, the Spirit can use us and our actions to speak to those who are not yet believers.

These examples just begin to scratch the surface. The list is endless because the human need and the brokenness are massive. You don’t have to look very far to see and act in Christ’s behalf on it all. You just have to look around in the context of your daily life—at home, at work, and in your neighborhood. More importantly, neither do you have to be an ordained minister or a professionally trained evangelist to do any of this. You don’t have to be eloquent in your speech or an effective preacher. You just have to act on Jesus’ behalf and in the power of the Spirit, and then trust the Spirit to use you in ways that will make disciples of all the nations.  And if folks ask you why you are doing what you are doing, you can simply tell them that you are acting on behalf of the One you follow because that is the primary way to show him that you really do love him. William Wilberforce and his followers did this. Wilberforce was not a clergyman but he and his followers went on in the name of Jesus to get slavery banned in England and in the process bring the love of Christ to countless folks who were living without it.

What makes us fearful or reluctant to follow the Great Commission is because we often forget that we don’t have to make disciples on our own. But it’s not about us. It’s about allowing God to use us to expose others to his great love for them. That’s the one and only key to living a happy and meaningful life here on earth. We have God’s very help and Presence living in us and empowering us to do the work he calls us to do. That was the secret of the first disciples success and it is the secret to our own. We simply have to use our Christian freedom to be real with other folks as we bring Christ’s love to bear on them and then allow God to work in and through us to use us in ways that are pleasing in his sight. He will take care of the rest.

Being a Christian is more than personal salvation. Salvation is a huge part of our faith but it should not serve as an end in itself. Rather, God’s great gift to us in Jesus should serve to motivate us to use our God-given gifts to bring Jesus’ love to those who need it most, both inside and outside the Church. When we open ourselves up to his Presence in and through us, he will use us to make disciples of all the nations. As we have seen, we don’t have to go to another country to do this because there are massive needs right here in our own backyard. And as disciples of Jesus who live in the hope and promise of New Creation, we are called to meet both the spiritual and physical needs of those who are in want to the best of our ability. Whatever it is Jesus is calling you to do, remember that he is also present in you and has given you gifts to equip you for the task of making disciples of others in the context of your daily life. When you understand that he is calling you to be his Kingdom worker and has given you his very Power and Presence to help you do the work he calls you to do, you will discover that you really do have Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.