“The Work of the Spirit, Part 1: The Gift of the Spirit” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, April 19, 2026, Year A / Easter 2 – Psalm 139:1-7 ¨ Acts 2:14a, 36-41
THEME: The Spirit changes us from the inside out to align our lives to God’s purpose.
Peter is preaching during the Jewish harvest festival 50 days after Passover. We call this festival Pentecost. The Pentecost event that we know from the book of Acts has just happened. The Holy Spirit has descended on dozens of believers with the sound of rushing wind. Although they are all Galileans, the Spirit has given each one the ability to speak in different languages, so that all those outside, no matter where they are from or what language they speak, can understand the apostles’ words of praise. We will have more to say about the Pentecost event itself when we get to Pentecost Sunday.
Today, as we begin this 5-part series on the Holy Spirit, we are focused on how we receive the Spirit, how we experience it, and how it changes us from the inside out. To do that, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of those in the crowd. They are amazed. They marvel at what they have just witnessed. It is clearly a sign – a sign of something momentous and divine. Like them, we ask, “What does this mean?” Peter steps forward and explains the significance of what has just taken place. First, he says, this is not some one-off miraculous event. The experience of Pentecost is the fulfillment of God’s promise through the prophets. In the last days, God will send his Spirit to all humankind, men and women, young and old, those nearby and those far away. Peter connects the Pentecost promise to Jesus’ death and resurrection. This is the fulfillment of God’s plan to redeem humankind through Jesus the Christ. As Peter tells the crowd, “let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made Jesus both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
The crowd are cut to the quick. But Peter is not concerned here with casting blame. After all, he is as complicit in Jesus’ death as they are. The real question is what do they do now? Peter gives them a direct answer. He calls them to repent and be baptized. When they do, they, too, will receive the Holy Spirit, whose power they have just witnessed. That is how God redeems us.
Folks, the same is true for you and me. These are the essential steps in salvation. When we baptize children here at SSPC the parents are the ones who hear the call and respond by repenting of sin. They do this on behalf of their child, who will one day, with their parents’ guidance and our help, be able to confess their sin and claim their faith for themselves. When we baptize adults, they respond to the call by repenting of their own sin and proclaiming their own faith.
In either case, two things are certain. First, no matter how or through whom we hear it, the call to repent always originates with God. Second, the newly baptized Christian always receives the Holy Spirit, and it too is a gift from God. In other words, God always moves first, even before we recognize it. When we have responded by repenting of our sin and being baptized, God always gives us his Spirit. These are certainties. But this is where the certainty ends. Because the Spirit works in ways that are both mysterious and unpredictable.
This is what Jesus means when he tells Nicodemus, the wonderfully curious pharisee, what it means to be born again from above, through water and Spirit. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it chooses. You hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from, or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” That begs a question. How do we know we have the Spirit within us?
The answer is that we feel it. We experience the Spirit’s presence, the experience of God within us. Christians often speak of feeling a profound peace, a sensation of warmth, an overwhelming wave of love, and, above all, the joy that comes from knowing that God loves us. Have you ever felt that? I think we have all experienced the inner warmth of God’s love, which is the sure sign of his Spirit within us. But as the old saying goes, God loves us just the way we are, and too much to leave us that way. That is why he calls us to repent and be baptized – so that he can give us his Spirit which changes us and leads us to live in a Christ-like way.
Over the next 4 Sundays we are going to explore what Spirit-inspired living looks like in practice. Today, we are focused on how the Spirit engineers the internal change that propels us to live as Christ intends us to do. We start by acknowledging that without the Spirit, we lack the inclination and the power to change our own lives. To put it plainly, we cannot redeem ourselves. God’s Spirit enables us and even compels us to realign our wills, hearts, minds, and desires to his purposes. This internal transformation is what leads us to change the way we live. The Spirit alters the things we seek, and the things that give us fulfillment.
Does that sound like a recovery program to you? If so, it is not a coincidence. Harnessing the power of God’s Spirit is also the wisdom behind the most successful recovery program of all time, Alcoholics Anonymous. Most of us know that AA was founded by a man named Bill Wilson. Bill was a successful Wall Street professional who lost everything because of his disease. What you may not know is that Bill Wilson was inspired to develop the 12 steps of the AA program by an organization called the Oxford Group. You have probably never heard of the Oxford Group. I had not either. It was a Christian evangelical movement founded in 1921 by a Lutheran pastor from Philadelphia named Frank Buchman. In the years leading up to World War I, Frank was a campus minister at Penn State. In his 5 years at State College, Frank developed a program of personal spiritual transformation based on 4 principles: 1) Sharing our sins with another Christian as a witness to help others acknowledge their own sins, 2) Surrendering our life to God, 3) Making amends to all whom we have wronged, 4) Seeking God’s Guidance, and carrying it out in all we say and do.
As a result of working with Frank, hosts of students began to publicly confess their sin, proclaim faith in God alone, and make amends for past wrongs under God’s guidance. Even fraternity presidents – if you can such a thing. Not long after his time at Penn State, Frank Buchman founded the Oxford Group on these same four principles. A decade later, Bill Wilson himself became one of its members. These four principles are what helped him get sober. When he split off to form Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935, he sat down and wrote the first draft of what would become the famous 12 Steps. They all evolved from the principles of recovery he learned in the Oxford Group.
Here is a brief summary of the initial steps:
First, acknowledge the problem and our own helplessness to do anything about it. Second, acknowledge God’s higher power and turn our lives over to him. Then comes rigorous self-examination. Identify the specific ways we have fallen short of what God wants from us and confess these shortcomings to others. From this comes the commitment to amend past wrongs and change our way of living.
Just like the Oxford Group, AA is based on the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us on the inside in order to lead a new life with others. Where is the Holy Spirit evident in your life? How do you experience it? How has it changed the way you think and feel? Where is it leading you? Friends, we are all in recovery. Our disease is sin. When we confess it and receive God’s gift of the Spirit through baptism, we are on the road to recovery. But remember this: When the Holy Spirit gets into your car with you, it does not just sit quietly in the passenger seat. It cleans your carburetor, upgrades your engine, and takes over your steering wheel.
Only then does it stomp on the gas pedal. When it does, hang on. You are going on the ride of a lifetime. The ride of new life.
May it be so.
