John 8: 31-36

(Sermon by Pastor Michael D. Schultz 11/04/07)

INTRODUCTION:

Today is Reformation Sunday.  Of all the things that people in Lutheran churches could say or do today, from being careful and tactful about how we talk about the Catholic church to being joyful and grateful about the heritage that has been handed down to us through 490 years of Lutheranism, I would submit to you that there are powerfully compelling reasons for all of us to fall to our knees today, to shed both tears of sadness and joy, and to cry out to God from the bottom of our hearts, “How can I thank you, Lord, for all your loving-kindness!”

Reformation Sunday - A Day To Humbly Praise The Lord

It is madly insane, but it is a statement that expresses an attitude that is as old as dirt. “How can you say that we shall be set free?  We have never been slaves of anyone.”  It’s the human condition.  We think that way.  “I’m not chained up and I certainly don’t need to be set free!”  People have always thought that way, and we are not the exception.

I suppose we could label it “Nametag Religion.”  “We’re Israelites.  We’re descendants of Abraham.  We’re fine!”  If you have the right name tag or you’re in the right group, you need not worry.  The church with its headquarters in Rome has been saying that for centuries – no salvation outside the church.  If you hold membership in that group, you’re good.  To be fair and honest, let’s not pretend that our church is immune.  What are the two magic words?  Confirmed Lutheran – card-carrying member, good to go.  But a slave?  Needing to be set free?  Please!

Of course, the human condition is a man of many faces.  One of its very best, most long-standing manifestations is our opinion of ourselves.  There’s nothing so horrible about me that God would shut me out of heaven.  There’s nothing that wrong about me, at least not so wrong that it can’t be fixed.  Without any effort at all, like swallowing one of those chocolate covered cream puffs from Sam’s Club, we are naturally at ease with operating according to “Payment Plan Religion.”  Pay to play, and pay as you go.

Forgiveness was for sale in the early 16th century.  Buy an indulgence and you have your get out of hell free card.  The 21st century indulgence – do something for the church or give something to the church and all is well.  Repeated recitations of the Lord’s Prayer to make up for mistakes?  There’s a new penance in town, which is really the age old penance – pouting.  Mope around after you’ve messed up and sulk and feel bad about yourself for long enough and you’ll finally get to the point where you can forgive yourself.  Or if you go for a long enough period of time without doing the bad thing again, that’s progress.  That counts.

We could touch on every false teaching of every church and every religion in world history, but we might as well stop here and say what has to be said.  Every error of any and every church beats in this sinful heart, in my sinful heart, because the human condition knows only one language, the language of denial.  “How can you say that we shall be set free?  We have never been slaves of anyone.”  Nothing in us wants to say, “I am condemned.”  Nothing in us wants to sing, “Enslaved by sin and bound in chains, Beneath its dreadful tyrant sway, And doomed to everlasting pains We wretched, guilty captives lay.” 

Reformation Sunday is not the story of God pulling the Lutheran church out of the Catholic church.  It is the story of what God has always done throughout all of time, the story of how God once again took action to counteract the human condition.  People like us and people including us have always felt a need to tell God, “Put that Savior of yours back in the box and seal it up and find someone who actually needs him.  I’ve got things covered.”  And yet that has never stopped the Lord from doing his divine work of changing our minds.  In the Israel of the Old Testament, in the Palestine of Jesus’ day, in the Germany of Luther’s day, in America in our day and everywhere on earth, God’s good work goes on.  He saves us from ourselves.  He knocks us out of the damning denial we’re in and lets us hear Jesus say, “More than anything, you need to be set free, because whoever sins is a slave to sin.”  Reformation Sunday is a day to humbly praise the Lord because whatever century or country you live in, God knew that he needed to save us from ourselves.  So he did.  HE did.

He had his Son set us free.  Bruised and bloody standing before Pontius Pilate, Jesus said, “For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”  The truth from Jesus sets you free.

It’s a crippling, paralyzing, condemning truth.  You were dead in your transgressions and sins.  It’s an all-inclusive, universal truth.  There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”  The truth from Jesus is at the same time fascinating and liberating and exhilarating.  Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.  It is a truth of sheer grace.  All are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

The approximately seven billion people who now inhabit the earth, standing shoulder to shoulder, would circle the earth 88 times.  There’s not a good one in the whole lot.  Add in the people of all times and there’s a lot more people and still not a good one in the whole lot.  One pure person came from heaven to earth.  He was not a slave of sin.  He was the Son of God.  He never sinned.  He did nothing but good.  All the sin of all those people was placed in him.  All your sin, past, present and future, was placed in him.  The God of heaven damned him to hell as payment for all that sin.  The torment of hell enveloped his soul.  His anguish was unspeakable and unknowable.  But so is his love for you.  He rose from the grave because, as far as God is concerned, all that sin and all your sin do not exist.  You have Jesus’ sinlessness.  You wear his holiness.  You bear his name.  By no action or merit or choice of yours, God has adopted you as his child and given you his Spirit.

If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed... You are free!  You are free from the guilt of sin, free from the grasp of the devil, free from the control of sin, free from the punishment of hell, free from the fear of death, as free as free can be.  Five centuries ago a monk in Germany learned about that freedom. .In this century it’s been given to some people in Georgia and many other places.

Since I work here, there are a fair amount of times when I’m in this building alone.  Every once in a while, in the solitude and silence of this building, those blue cushions for communion are a place where I can kneel and pray and thank God for his grace.  Find yourself such a place and rediscover what it feels like to be on your knees and listen to Jesus’ words and know what it means to feel  the thick, oak, heavy yoke of sin snapped and broken in two and fall to the floor.  Free.  This is a day to humbly praise the Lord.

(Top Of Page)

(Back To Archive)

(Current Worship Page)