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In the name of Jesus, amen.

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Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit.

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The Spirit gave him courage and a message to preach

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to his judges.

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The same judges, by the way,

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who had rigged the trial against Jesus

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and then insisted that Pilate crucify him.

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What we know of Peter from the gospels

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would suggest that when the Holy Spirit

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chose to make him bold, he was sticking to the script.

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This is what Peter likes to be.

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Now seasoned combat veterans will tell you

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that bravery only exists alongside fear.

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No man is brave all the time.

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Bravery comes in waves.

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Peter was brave at times and weak at others.

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But here in our text for today,

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the Spirit makes Peter brave

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and gives him an utterance borrowed from David.

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Jesus of Nazareth is the stone which the builders rejected.

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He has become the chief cornerstone.

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There is salvation in no other,

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no other name under heaven given among us.

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There are young men by which we must be saved.

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An unpopular message in Jerusalem,

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but it changed the world.

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It's not very popular these days either,

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not in St. Louis or in any of the 35 districts of the LCMS.

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Yet tonight, the Holy Spirit will direct some of you

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to locales near and far to preach this same message

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to change the world.

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Those preachers are sent out as lambs among wolves

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in the footsteps of Peter, the martyr,

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who according to legend was brave and full of faith

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and the Spirit when it counted the most,

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when he was bound upside down on the cross.

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Brothers and sisters, there are at least two ways

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to get the Spirit's role in tonight's festivities wrong.

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The first is to speak of the Holy Spirit

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in a way that denies the human agency of the church.

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If this view were correct,

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well then the education of pastors

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would be a complete waste of time.

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All they would do is repeat

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what they've been taught in scripture.

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That's wrong.

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The education of preachers is not a waste.

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It's necessary.

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Preachers must read and apply the word of God

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as real men to real people.

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Even as God became a man,

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so God uses men in their particularities,

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uses individuals' experiences, personalities,

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and the gifts of his preachers for His kingdom.

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He also uses their weaknesses.

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Peter wasn't perfectly bold all of the time,

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and the men receiving calls tonight won't be either.

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They are saints by grace, striving against sin,

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but they are sinners by birth.

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They all contend against the old man in themselves.

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And so it is that all preachers make mistakes,

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sometimes from ignorance, sometimes from laziness,

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and sometimes, sad to say, from malice.

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At some point, most preachers will face a crisis

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of conscience and faith.

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They will see their sins, their own failures,

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and they will be tempted to think

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that God sent the wrong man,

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that they are not good enough.

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That, my brothers, is a lie.

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Now, the second error is to go too far the other way.

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To be honest, it's probably more of a problem

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for a bureaucrat like me,

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district presidents and directors of placement

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than it is for most of you,

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to use the colloquial phrase,

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we've seen how the sausage is made, and it ain't pretty.

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The call process is a very human process.

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The Holy Spirit doesn't use spreadsheets,

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but Glenn Nielsen does.

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And those spreadsheets have more than names and places

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and pious prayers on them.

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They have numbers, numbers for salaries

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and numbers for benefits and numbers for how many bedrooms

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there are in the parsonage,

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and all of it as a point of comparison and measurement.

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Dr. Nielsen has, I'm sure, over the years,

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had to bargain and cajole congregations and candidates,

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district presidents and mission execs.

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He even had to work with Fort Wayne.

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The men called tonight in those same crisis of conscience

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and faith will likely be tempted to think that God

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had nothing to do with their calls.

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This is all Nielsen's fault or the DP's fault

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or the broken synod's fault.

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Now Nielsen does have agency and that is important.

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He has had the duty to pursue, to evaluate,

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to foster, to bargain.

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He was not simply allowed to cast lots for these calls.

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He had to work, and that required him to use the means

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that God has given, including his own judgment.

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But in the end, despite the means,

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it is the Holy Spirit's work, not his.

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You see, dear friends in Christ,

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the answer to both temptations,

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wherever and whenever they come, is the same.

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God filled Peter with the Holy Spirit.

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He didn't whip himself into that,

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nor was it just his imagination.

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What happens here tonight is outside all of us.

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Christ himself has instituted the office

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of the Holy Ministry.

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He calls men into this ministry through His church.

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Oh yes, the process is full of humans

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and therefore it's riffed with human error

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and human failure and even human selfishness.

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But this is the Lord's church.

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And the Holy Spirit is better at His work

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than Nielsen is at his.

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And so what happens tonight is part of a mystical reality,

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a supernatural event.

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It was instituted in the upper room by Jesus himself

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when he breathed peace into his disciples

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and then sent them out into the world with this message.

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Jesus of Nazareth is the stone which the builders rejected.

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He has become the chief cornerstone.

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And so it is that God provides preachers for His church.

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He calls them to serve.

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He gives them the scriptures to open, to teach.

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By the mouths of those preachers,

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the spirit enters the ears of hearers and faith is born.

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The word never returns void,

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even when we cannot see the results

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or it seems to us like we're sowing seed on trodden paths,

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on rocky weed infested soil.

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Whether we can see the results or not,

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it is the Lord's church.

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It is the Lord's spirit.

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It is the Lord's word.

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For the builders rejection of the stone

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did not stop the Lord.

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And so each of us is an ear

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who has received the spirit's word

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through the mouth of a preacher.

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If it weren't so, we would not be here today.

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And yet we are here by grace in faith for the word.

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God be praised.

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This is His church.

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He, His spirit and His word will see us through

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in times of plenty and of scarcity,

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in times of joy and of sadness,

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and in times of gratitude for this institution

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and love for our synod,

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and in times of annoyance and disappointment.

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For the Lord Jesus himself filled Peter.

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He set the cornerstone.

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He fills his preachers.

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He still speaks his word.

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Our ears still hear.

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He sends his men again tonight.

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This is the Lord's doing,

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and it is marvelous in our sight.

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In the name of the Father and of the Son

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and of the Holy Spirit, amen.