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Welcome to Unpacking the Mass with Keith Nestor. On this podcast, we dig into the week's readings for the upcoming Sunday for the Catholic Church so that when you go to Mass, you are ready to hear what God has to say to you through the Scriptures. So grab your Bibles and let's get digging. Hey, friends, welcome to Unpacking the Mass. Today we're looking at the readings for the sixth Sunday, Easter, and of course, next week it's the Ascension of the Lord. We're just continuing to move through the fulfillment of the promises that Jesus gave to his church and seeing how they lived that out. It's all awesome. And I'm so excited to talk about the Holy Spirit today and the Sacrament of Confirmation and all this cool stuff. It's going to be great. You're going to learn something today, I think. I know. I'm certainly learning things as I look through this stuff. Let's begin with a word of prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, send your spirit so that we can come to the fullness of the experience that you have for us, that we receive in our baptism and in confirmation God, that we might glorify you, love you, and obey your teachings. We pray these things in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right, let's look at our first reading. It's from Acts, chapter 8. We're going to be reading verses 5 through 8 and 14 through 17. Now, before I read this, the context is right after Stephen is stoned to death, this persecution breaks out and the disciples are scattered. And then we see what happens with Philip. It says in verse five, Philip went down to a city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs which he did. For unclean spirits came out of many who were possessed, crying with a loud voice, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. Now, when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Our second reading comes from 1st Peter 3, 15, 18, and it reads this, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and reverence and keep your conscience clear. So that when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing right, if that should be God's will, than for doing wrong. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous, for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit. Our gospel comes From John, chapter 14, verses 15 through 21. Jesus says these words, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows Him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you desolate. I will come to you yet a little while, and the world will see me no more. But you will see Me because I live. You will live also. In that day. You will know that I am in my Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who. Who has my commandments and keeps them. He it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father. And I will love him and manifest myself to Him. So Philip goes to Samaria. And if you remember that what Jesus told them, you will be my witnesses from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. It's starting to happen. The Church is starting to branch out into these areas. And if you remember From John, chapter 4, Jesus in Samaria talking to the Samaritan woman at the well. And remember what she says. What are you doing talking to me? Don't you know that I'm a Samaritan? You can't socialize with me. And now look at what's happened. Jesus had given them the command and the promise to go into these places. And as the persecution begins and the apostles are scattered, which I think is interesting, that it's the very persecution that leads to the expansion of the Church. Those who intended to destroy the church ended up multiplying the Church because everybody went off to do what they were supposed to do. And when Philip gets their amazing things happen. Evil spirits are cast out and people are healed and people are full of joy. They're receiving the word of God with joy. And of course, when the apostles hear about this, what Are they thinking, oh, what are they doing? You're going to the wrong guys? No, they're already past that. Peter's already like, no way. God has done amazing things. And people who aren't supposed to be having this stuff happen to. It's all happening, my friends. So I love it. They send Peter and John, no coincidence there. And when they come to them, they pray that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen on any of them. So this is, you know, and I think it's interesting that says they had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, but then they laid their hands on them and the Holy Spirit comes. What's going on here, my friends? Think about this. This is a pretty powerful example of what God is doing here. Now, a couple things to know. The Holy Spirit comes to them as an additional event beyond conversion. They were already converted is my point. Now, this is important because this is what happened to the disciples. They were converted. And Jesus gives them this interesting promise that they would receive another powerful experience, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, if you've been around maybe charismatic circles, you've heard of this experience called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And we're going to talk about that a little bit. And it can be confusing to people because sometimes the way that the word baptism is used can. Can make it sound like it's an additional baptism or something completely different. And maybe we're not sure exactly what to make of this. I mean, if you think about what Jesus said to them, he uses that word in a couple different ways. So in Acts, chapter 1, verse 4 and 5, Jesus describes something different from the initial conversion, but he still calls it baptism. Here's what he says. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. Now, of course, that's a throwback to John the Baptist, where in Luke 3:16, John says, I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He, Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. So there's where this gets in people's minds, right? This fire baptism. You might hear it referenced that way sometimes. And he's talking to men who had already been converted. So they already had baptism, but now there's a different type of baptism. So we need to Understand something. This is an additional experience that we in the Church today refer to as confirmation. Confirmation is the sacrament where the graces received in baptism are completed. Because what we believe as Catholics is that in baptism you receive all of the graces for justification, sanctification, and you receive the Holy Spirit. So then what's confirmation all about? Confirmation is this additional experience where that grace is, in a way, completed. There's a different element of what's happening. It's like a maturation of saying, okay, I've been initiated into Christ through baptism, and now the work of the Holy Spirit is being fanned to flame in my life. And the power of God through the Holy Spirit is coming upon me when I confirm my faith. And really, there's an element in the confirmation process of obedience to God, which Jesus talked about too. Do you believe that everything the Catholic Church teaches is taught by God? Will you be obedient? Obedient to Christ? We say yes to those things. And that is a work of the Holy Spirit. So confirmation is the sacrament where the graces received in baptism are completed. And I'll read to you just a paragraph about this from the Catechism. This is paragraph 1285. Here's what the Catholic Church teaches. And then I'm going to read to you a quote from Cyprian of Carthage from the third century. It's really awesome about this particular text. But let's get to the catechism. Here's what it Baptism, the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the sacraments of Christian initiation whose unity must be safeguarded. It must be explained to the faithful that the reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. For by the Sacrament of Confirmation, the baptized are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence, they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed. So, yes, baptism is the initial entry into the Church, but the Eucharist and Confirmation are also part of that initiation, because it's really, when you get those three sacraments, now you're firing on all cylinders when it comes to being Catholic, because it's an entrance into the family. It's the eating and drinking of the body and Blood of Christ to have life in you and to be redeemed of that fruit of God. And then it's also this experience with the Holy Spirit that empowers and equips you to live out the faith. It's a beautiful thing. My Friends, and we have to understand these aren't all that while they're separate events in like linear time, they're all part of one big event. You know, we believe that this is all connected. We can't separate these things and think that, well, we don't need this because we already have that. No, my friends, all the sacraments like this work together. Now let's look at what Cyprian of Carthage has to say about this. And he's writing in this is some letters that he wrote in 253 A.D. and this is a little bit of a text, but I thought it was super cool. I'm going to share it with you. He writes this. It is necessary for him that has been baptized also to be anointed, so that by his having received Chrism, that is the anointing, he can be the anointed of God and have in him the grace of Christ. Some say in regard to those who were baptized in Samaria, that when the apostles Peter and John came there, only hands were imposed on them so they might receive the Holy Spirit. And, and that they were not rebaptized. But we see, dearest brother, that in this situation in no way pertains to the present case, those in Samaria who had believed and believed in the true faith. And it was by the deacon Philip, whom those same apostles had sent there, that they had been baptized inside in the church. Since then they had already received a legitimate and ecclesiastical baptism. It was not necessary to baptize them again. Rather, that only which was lacking was done by Peter and John. The prayer having been made over them and hands having been imposed upon them, the Holy Spirit was invoked and was poured out upon them. This is even now the practice among us. So that those who are baptized in the church then are brought to the prelates of the Church through our prayer and the imposition of hands, they receive the Holy Spirit and are perfected with with the seal of the Lord. So that quote, I took off a Catholic Answers website or an article, so just wanted to give credit to that. But how cool is that that we see in what we do in our church today, the roots of that go all the way back through the third century, back to this moment in Acts, chapter eight. Friends, the power of the Holy Spirit. And we're going to talk more about what the Holy Spirit is all about. We get into the Gospel, because when you go, well, what good is all this? What does this do? What does it mean to have the Holy Spirit upon you? We've all seen the craziness on tv, you know, with different preachers with their. With their suit jacket making people fall down and people getting slain and all this goofy stuff, you know, And I know that. Oh, wait a minute, you know, Catholic, Charismatic, all that kind of stuff. I'm not. Whatever. What I'm saying is this. We've all seen the abuses. I'm not saying that the Holy Spirit isn't active in. In our lives today and that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not exercised in the church. I'm not saying that at all. But what I'm saying is people have had a tendency when it comes to this stuff with the Holy Spirit to turn it into some sort of emotional sideshow where these experiences that we've seen in other places are recreated in different gatherings so that people can say, wow, God really showed up and you're some sort of super Christian if you've had that experience, you know, are you baptized? Are you fire baptized? Are you born again in the Holy Spirit? Have you had the baptism? All these things. And it's like, that's like a special elite group of people who have a really cool relationship with Jesus, not just like the boring people who try to live good, holy, moral, you know, virtuous lives. Now there's like this extra level. And what we have to understand is that's for all of us, my friends, the extra level. God isn't withholding anything from us. No, my friends, you have as much Holy Spirit as you want because God wants to give you all the Holy Spirit. I'm getting ahead of myself. I got to talk about the second reading, which is super cool, too, right? So first, Peter, this is a classic verse. Be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks. The hope that you have, right? But remember that defense that you have to make that you should be ready to make first of all, are you ready to make that defense? Or when someone asks you about your faith, you're like, here on me. Send you a video instead. No, you need to be able to defend your faith, share your faith. Does that mean you have to be the next Trent Horn or Joe Heschmeyer? No, you can't be. I can't be. I've tried. I'm not that. Okay. And neither are you. You got to be you, though, and I got to be me. Doesn't that sound. I mean, you got to be you. I feel like we should, like, hold hands and sing Kumbaya right now. But the reality is this, God has made you unique. And the story that you have, the defense that you have the hope that is in you is. Is what you are supposed to share, my friends, not the hope that is in somebody else. So if someone asks you to explain why you believe what you believe, you don't just say, oh, well, let me tell you what I, you know, let me tell you what Trent Horn said or what Keith Nestor said or what whoever else said. You got to be ready to make a defense for the hope that is in you. And you don't have to be a theological wizard to do that. You don't have to know everything about the first seven ecumenical councils of the Church to do that. You just have to be willing to do it, willing to share the hope that is in you. But notice it's not just about what you say. You have to be willing to recognize that's going to invite persecution, and you have to endure that. See, that's what happened here, right? Philip and the others, they left because of the persecution, but they didn't shut down and hide away. No, they went out and proclaimed the gospel. And as we encounter persecutions, as we encounter things, the Holy Spirit will work within us. I remember what Jesus said. When they deliver you up, do not be afraid of what you will say. The Spirit will tell you what to say. Right. You will have God inside you, giving you the words to speak. You got to be ready, though. What does it mean to be ready? It means to be submitted. It means to be open and courageous, unafraid, unashamed, so that you can let people know who Jesus is. That's what was going on. Philip was ready to give that defense, and look what happened. Peter was ready to give that defense. John was ready to give that defense. So many others, even Stephen, and that's why they killed him. What about us, my friends? Are we willing to step into that? The Holy Spirit will guide us through those moments and give to our minds the things that we are to say and the way that we are to act. I noticed that Peter says, look, it's better to suffer for doing right than for doing wrong. You're going to suffer. That's a good thing. You shouldn't look at it as, oh, God, what's happening to me? Why are people coming against me? No, no, no. That means you're over the target. That means you're over the target. When I don't get criticized enough, I start to get worked up that I've become a sellout or that I'm not, you know, as bold as I need to be. When my comment section goes pretty, like, mellow and everyone's like, oh, yeah, good job. Then I start to get nervous. But when I start to get all this hate, when I have people just light me up from one reason or another and are just, like, incensed with rage at the Catholic faith that's being preached through this ministry, when that starts to churn up, then I go, whew, thank God. Because the more hated I become in doing this, the more I know that I'm over the target. But when it gets real comfortable and, like, I haven't been lit up by certain people in a while, I kind of get a little nervous. But that's a hard attitude to have sometimes, isn't it? Because we tend to run away from that. But you got to flip the script on that. Now, that doesn't mean that you just be a jerk for Jesus and then cry persecution when it happens. No, you have to be ready to give a defense for the. For the hope that's in you, not run around with the anger that's in you. See, a lot of people want to do that. They want to run around and be ready to give a defense for the anger that's in them. I'm mad about this guy or what this person said. And let me tell you why. YouTube channels with nothing but, hey, let me just talk about this person and that person. And my whole purpose of life is to criticize other people. No, get that out. You want to be people who share hope and why you have that hope. That's powerful. All right, now let's get to the gospel. This is so important. The promise of the Holy Spirit is connected to the love of God. You got to remember that. That's step one, which is connected to obedience. Look what Jesus says, right? What's the first thing he says? If you love me, you will keep my commandments. This is. This is the bottom line, you know, oh, faith alone, blah, blah, blah. No, if you love God, you're going to do these things. I know people argue, well, that's. You do them because you love. Okay, okay, let's agree what a Christian looks like. I think we will all agree on this. A Christian looks like someone who loves God and keeps his commandments. I think we can agree on that. Therefore, the inverse is also important to look at. If you don't love God, if you don't keep his commandments, then you're probably not a Christian. Well, those things go together. So if you don't keep his commandments, then you don't love God. You see what I'm saying here? You can't parse this out. And I've heard, like, some Baptist dudes that really, really want to parse that out. No, you don't have to love God. I even made a post a while back saying, is it possible for a Christian to be saved, for a person to be saved without loving God? And most people said no, but there were some. There were some that I've talked to that said, yeah, you don't. You know, where in the Bible does it say, you have to love God? And I remember someone said that to me. I said, the first commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, Right? You can't not obey the first commandment and call yourself a Christian and see how this is connected to the Holy Spirit, though. This is the point that Jesus is making. He's giving you this linear chain here. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. I will pray the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. The Spirit of truth. Jesus says, I will not leave you desolate. I will come to you. There's all this interplay, right? Who is this? Is it him? Is it God? And this is why we understand the Holy Spirit isn't just this, like, force or this power. The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is God. He who has my commands and keeps them. He, it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father. This is powerful stuff, my friends. The Holy Spirit is given to us for a multitude of reasons, but ultimately to help us love Jesus and obey Jesus. The Holy Spirit is not a sideshow or an emotional crutch designed to give you a cool experience. The Holy Spirit is God. And his role is to guide the church into truth and remind the church and the apostles here specifically, and then through them, the church, everything that Jesus had told them. But the Holy Spirit was not just for the apostles, but for all of us. But, and this is so important, this does not mean the Holy Spirit is your personal plaything. This does not mean that the Holy Spirit is your personal theological biblical decoder wheel. Because I hear this. A lot of times, people will treat the Holy Spirit as if it's their own personal intuition or inner voice. And I've heard the Holy Spirit gets a lot of blame for stupid stuff that human beings want to do. I remember talking to people, you know, who would say things, well, the Holy Spirit is leading me to stop going to church and just stay home and just do my own thing. And, you know, when I was a pastor, of course I Ran into that all the time. You talk to someone and they just want to do the craziest thing. And you'd be like, well, what are you doing? Well, the Holy Spirit wants me to do this. And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. And what's really fun is when the Holy Spirit is schizophrenic. And you got one person over here who says, well, I read my Bible and the Holy Spirit told me it means this. And the other guy says, well, I read my Bible and the Holy Spirit told me it means this. And they're contradictory things. So when you're talking to people about this whole thing and they want to just. You don't need the Church, you don't need the Pope, you don't need the Magisterium, you just need the Bible and the Holy Spirit. That all sounds great, but the problem with that is apparently the Bible and the Holy Spirit does not lead to Christian unity. Because in 500 plus years of Sola Scriptura plus the Holy Spirit, the Church in the Protestant side of things has only become more and more divided. It hasn't brought unity, it's brought division. Think about that. If that were the case, then the Reformers never would have broken off. There would have never been additional denominations or additional movements. There just would have been Protestantism, and it probably wouldn't have even been called that. It just would have been called Christianity. It just would have been called the Church. And what we know today as the Catholic Church would have withered and died because the Holy Spirit was leading in this other direction. But that's not what happened at all, is it, my friends? No. Apparently the Holy Spirit led Martin Luther to one conclusion and led John Calvin to another conclusion and led Erwin Zwingli to another conclusion and led the Anabaptists to another conclusion, and so on and so forth until ultimately now. And I know people argue about this and I don't name numbers, but we have a lot of different denominations and probably just about all of them would blame the Holy Spirit for that. Well, the Holy Spirit's calling me to do that. You know, I get so sick and tired of hearing people say that. Because if that leads you away from Jesus, we got a problem. Because the Holy Spirit was never given to each individual person as their personal interpreter of what God is saying. The Holy Spirit was given to the apostles, was given to the Church to lead the church. Now, like I said earlier, the Holy Spirit is for all of us because we're all called into this relationship with God and You can't be in a relationship with. With two thirds of God, the Father and the Son. No, you get all of God. And the Holy Spirit will guide us and manifest in us and empower us. To do what? To obey Jesus, to do the work of the Kingdom of God, to perform his mission in this world. It's not for us, it's for Him. And that's where a lot of people get sideways with this Holy Spirit stuff. They think the Holy Spirit is given to them so that they can feel good. Oh, it's so awesome the Holy Spirit showed up. How do you know? Oh, well, people were laughing hysterically and, you know, jibber jabbing and falling over and claiming to have words of God. All this. Oh, great. Okay, well, you know what? I think this. It takes more Holy Spirit for you to sacrificially give thanks than it does for you to run around and act like a maniac. You know, when the Holy Spirit is showing up, when you are empowered to love God and be more obedient to Jesus and to sacrifice yourself to be ready to give a defense for the hope that you have, even in persecution, that takes Holy Spirit. You can't do that on your own. You can get yourself worked up into an emotional frenzy all you want. You don't need God for that. What you do need God for is to endure, to be faithful and to love the way that Jesus loved. We need God for that and to stand in courage. Think about what happens at Pentecost. These guys are terrified and the Holy Spirit comes upon them and now all of a sudden they can get up and they can proclaim the truth. Yes. And speak in tongues. Praise God. They didn't do that on their own power. No. So we got to stop with this whole thing about the Holy Spirit is just to give us a fun time. Let me tell you something. You follow the Holy Spirit, it ain't going to be a fun time. It's going to be a hard time, and it's going to be a holy time. That's important, my friends. That's important. If you want more of the Holy Spirit, then love and obey Jesus. That's what he's come to do. You know, my old pastor at Calvary Chapel, I love the guy. Pastor Joe, he used to say this, you know, and I think he was quoting Chuck Smith, but I like it a lot. Talking about the Holy Spirit. He said, the steam is in the engine to move the train, not just blow the whistle. You get that? The steam is in the engine to move the train. To move forward with the mission, not just blow the whistle. The thing that everybody hears and goes, ooh, yeah, the train's coming. In the same way, if you want the Holy Spirit power, focus on Jesus, because that's what he's doing. The job of the Holy Spirit is to guide you to Jesus. Jesus himself said he will testify unto me. Think about it. We're not supposed to just go, oh, well, you know, you think about God the Father and the, you know, intellectual side and Jesus, you know, our redeemed. But I'm going to go over here with the Holy Spirit where it's fun. No, no, no. You don't separate God like that, my friends. It doesn't work that way. So if you've been baptized, if you've been confirmed, then you have the Holy Spirit. And if you want that additional fanning into flame the gift of God that is in you, you want that power made manifest, then ask God to bring that to you. But understand the motivation for that and the purpose of that is to help you to love and obey Jesus. See how that all works together. It's not so that you can get all emotionally worked up. Now, I'm not saying our faith isn't emotional or that it's not an experience and it's not exciting. Of course I'm not saying that. But sometimes we turn those things into the litmus test to whether we're really with God or not. We used to call it something like, well, did God show up? And, you know, we would judge that based on how we felt emotionally and how other people felt emotionally. And I remember as a worship leader, I felt like it was my job to bring that emotional experience to people in a way that they could connect with God. And that was really ultimately kind of the, you know, the measure of whether it happened or not. We didn't say, well, did God show up? Yeah, I was motivated to repent of my sin and become more obedient to Christ. But did God show up? Yeah, I felt good. Friends, understand this. The power of God is in you, but it's in you to move you to move the train of your life towards loving Jesus, not just to create a bunch of hype. Power of the Holy Spirit, my friends, given to the church because God loves you and because it helps us to love God more when we have his power inside of us and he wants to give you that gift. I remember what Jesus said, that even if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does God know how to Give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. Ask him, my friends. Ask for the Spirit's power in your life and what is already within you will be awakened in a new and exciting way so that you can love God more. So that you can be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within you. So that you can obey Jesus commands. Awesome stuff today here on Unpacking the Mask. Are you ready for the Ascension? It's going to be incredible, my friends. I can't wait for it next week. Thank you for taking time to be here. If you need to get caught up on unpacking the mats, check out this card here. You can click on it. We'll take you to a playlist where you can find other things or just go to the playlist. Maybe sometimes I forget to put that card there when I edit this thing later, but you can go to it. These episodes are here forever for you, so go back and get caught up. God bless you my friends. I'll see you next week. Take care and have a great day.