“Plug In to God’s Power”
Acts 2:37-42

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost—August 18, 2019

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Have you ever had to use jumper cables to give your car a jump start because your battery was dead?  Paul says in Ephesians, “As for you, you were dead in your trespasses and sins.”  We like to think of ourselves as being self-sufficient.  But spiritually, all of us need a jump start, from God.  We need God’s power because we are NOT spiritually self-sufficient, but sinners, spiritually dead.  In today’s reading from Acts we see how can “Plug into God’s Power.”

First of all, plug into God’s power through the Word of God. “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”  That was the reaction on the first Pentecost Sunday to Peter’s preaching the Word of God.  A good sermon has two parts: First, the Law, the bad news of our sin.  The purpose of the Law is to convince you that you, personally, are a sinner, in need of a Savior.

If a preacher does his job preaching the Law, you should NOT be sitting there thinking, “Boy, he’s really givin’ it to THEM.”  You should be thinking, “Boy, he’s really giving it to ME.  No one is righteous, not even me.  I have sinned and fall short of what God requires.”  Peter did his job preaching the Law: “When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”

After the Law has done its work then comes the Gospel, the Good News of our Savior.  “Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ FOR THE FORGIVENESS OF YOUR SINS.’”  In ancient times the Greek word used here for “forgiveness” wasn’t so much as a religious term as a business term, to forgive a debt, to wipe to the slate clean.  That’s what God does for you, because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Your sins are forgiven because God credits the holiness and righteousness of his own Son to your account.  As Peter says later in Acts, “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”  Like the first believers in Acts, plug into God’s power through the Word of God, by hearing and taking to heart the preaching of Law and Gospel. 

The first believers in Acts also plugged into God’s power by reading and studying his Word.  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.”  Do you have a Bible in your house?  If you had a Geiger counter that could detect spiritual power it would go off the scale when it came to your Bible.  Like the first believers in Acts, plug into God’s power by reading and studying his Word.  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.”

The Word of God is like the first wire on a set of jumper cables.  The second wire is the Sacraments, Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.  “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  Baptism is not just a symbolic act.  The Bible describes Baptism as having your sins “washed away” because God has chosen to work through this sacred act to bestow his Holy Spirit on you, to bring you to faith or strengthen you in faith.  Paul says in Titus, “When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”

Like the first believers in Acts, plug into God’s power through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.  Baptism is something you do only once, but its power and significance remains with you throughout your life.  As Jesus declares in today’s Gospel Reading, “‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”

Your Baptism means you have been spiritually “born again” as God’s child.  Living a Christian life is like living up to your family’s good name, remembering every day who you are, striving with the Holy Spirit’s help to live according to your Baptism, to live up to the name “Christian.”

The first believers in Acts also plugged into God’s power through the Sacrament of Holy Communion.  “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread . . . ”  Holy Communion is the other sacred act God has chosen to work through to strengthen you in the true faith unto life everlasting.

Finally, the first believers in Acts also plugged into God’s power through worshipping together, and taking it to the Lord in prayer: “They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”  As today’s Epistle Reading from Hebrews urges us: “Therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.”

Like a dead battery, you need God’s power for daily living.  Like those first believers in Acts, plug into God’s power with the jumper cables he provides: the Word of God and the Sacraments, worship in his house, and prayer.