Rerformation Bulletin 24↓ Our Savior Lutheran Church, Grants Pass, OR
↓ Faith Lutheran Church, Medford OR
REFORMATION- “ABIDE IN THE WORD”
Gospel-St. John 8:31-36
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
WHY ARE WE LUTHERANS?! It’s not good enough for you just to
say “That’s what my spouse is” or “That’s what I and my parents have
always been.” That’s a lazy answer. Why should you be a Lutheran
now? You know, the big push these days is to break down all the barriers
that stand between church bodies and to unite, to come together, even if
there isn’t agreement on doctrine. It is said that we should all just get along
and agree to disagree. It is said that the only name we should call
ourselves is “Christian.” Why be Lutheran?
TRUTH SETS FREE The answer is referred to at least indirectly
in today’s Gospel, where Jesus says, “If you abide in My Word, you are My
disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free.” We desire to be Lutheran because what Martin Luther and the
Lutheran Church has historically confessed is the Scriptural truth. It’s
not because we want to be separatist or because we think we’re better than
anybody else. It’s because the truth of Christ’s Word is more important to
us than anything else. Christ’s Word of truth alone is what sets us free from
the power of death and the devil. It’s the only thing that can save a world in
bondage to sin. The reason I’m a Lutheran is precisely because I’m a
Christian. The faith confessed by the Lutheran church is the true Christian
faith. Other church bodies unfortunately hold to teachings or engage in
practices that conflict with God’s Word and that threaten saving
faith. That’s not to say that only Lutherans will be in heaven. People from
other bodies certainly can have saving faith despite the false doctrine they
hear, if they still cling to the truth. But the point is that it is out of love for
Christ and His Word that we desire to be and remain Lutheran.
ON THIS REFORMATION SUNDAY then, let’s take a moment to remind
ourselves what it means to be Lutheran in the light of the Reformation –
HISTORICAL INTRO. Roughly today, 31 October, the Eve of All
Saints, all Hallows Eve [=Halloween], but 507 years ago, an Augustinian
friar and professor at Wittenberg University Martin Luther posted 95
theses in Latin for theological discussion concerning the sale of indulgences
on the castle church door, the town bulletin board. And so began what we
now call the Reformation of the western Catholic church.
PRUNING & TRIMMING When you reform something, you don’t start
from scratch. You conserve what you can and you fix what you can’t.
Reformations tend to be conservative. It’s like pruning a perennial or
trimming a tree. You don’t dig out the whole plant and put another in its
place. Nor do you whack down the whole tree to the root. You prune
selectively, skilfully, carefully. Luther did not intend to split an already
fractured church. Nor did he intend to start a new church, as if such a thing
were possible. This was not about shaking a defiant fist at the Pope, though
he did do a bit of that later on, nor was it about breaking away from the big
bad Catholic Church, nor was it, as the radical reformation believed, some
pure church emerging from the impure Catholic. This was supposed to be,
and always is, about reformation. Correcting what is wrong, conserving what
is right.
ECCLESIA SEMPER REFORMA And so it is today. The Church is
always and ever being reformed. The Lutheran churches. Our [2]
churches. Every part of the church. It’s not simply a once and done deal
and then you can rest on your laurels. There is always error, always drift,
always a little sideways current or wind that blows the Church slightly off
course. That’s true for each of us justified sinners too. We are ever in need
of reformation. It’s not about once saved always saved or once confirmed
always Lutheran or whatever other false security blanket we try to wrap
ourselves in. Our Baptism is not a one-and-done thing but a daily thing, a
daily dying and rising, a daily justification, a daily reformation.
ONCE SAVED, ALWAYS/?… Jesus spoke to the Jews who had believed
in Him. The verse before spoke of many coming to believe in Him. Now we
learn of those who no longer believed. They used to, but not any more.
There’s no once believed always believing security here. You dare not take
the gift of faith lightly. What went wrong? Did God fail? Did the Word fail to
do its faith creating, sustaining, enlivening work? No. They refused. They
turned from the Word and you are free to do that. Faith is born of the Word,
fed by the Word, sustained by the Word. And without the Word, faith dies.
STAY CONNECTED “If you abide in my Word you are truly my
disciples.” Being a disciple is not like being a member of a political party or
a member of the local gardening club. We can claim any sort of affiliation
we want. We can call ourselves “Christian” or even “Lutheran.” But to be a
disciple is to abide in the Word of Jesus, i.e. to be connected to Jesus by
hearing His Word and having His Word have its way with you. The same
word “abide” is used in Jesus’ saying of the vine and the branches. A
branch abides in the vine and draws life from it. Cut off from the vine, the
branch is fruitless and dead. Cut off from the Word, faith is fruitless & dead.
THERE IS A PROMISE for those who abide in the Word of Jesus. “You
will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Jesus Himself is the
Truth. His Word is Truth. To abide in the truth is to abide in Jesus, which
is the only place in which a sinner may abide and live before God. The truth
is that we are sinners. Not simply ones who commit sin, that is, do bad
things, think bad thoughts, say bad words. It goes much deeper than that.
We are slaves to Sin with a capital S. “Whoever sins is a slave to Sin.”
SLAVE vs. FREE The truth is no, you are a slave to sin, just
as Israel was once a slave in Egypt, a fact that the Jews seem to have
conveniently forgotten. That’s how it goes. You’re freed from slavery, and
then pretty soon you forget you ever were enslaved. “We are offspring of
Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.” How soon we forget.
That’s pride talking, and an unusual form of pride. The worst kind – spiritual
pride. It’s receiving a gift and then acting as if you’d earned it all along. Or
forgetting entirely that it is a gift, and so also forgetting the giver.
MAGNIFYING MIRROR We are born enslaved, captive to Sin and
Death. We can’t free ourselves. And any attempts at self-liberation only
make matters worse. When we look into the Mirror of the Law we find that
it’s a magnifying mirror. Even things we thought were OK, even those
places where we felt self-justified turn out to be so riddled with sin that we
barely recognize the good. If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves and the Truth is not in us. The mere fact that we sin -in our
thoughts, in our words, in our actions- reminds us that we’re slaves to Sin.
A WHILE vs. 4EVER A slave remains for a while, a son remains
forever. The Son came down to us. The Son joined us in our humanity. The
Son stood side by side with the slave to free us. He paid the manumission
price. He redeemed us. He did the Law flawlessly and without Sin. He was
not enslaved by Sin, He was Lord over Sin. And as Lord, He came under
the Law that accuses us, that gives our consciences no rest, that kills us.
He took up our Sin and our Death and nailed it all to His cross. The Son
became the slave so that the slave might become the son[s & daughters].
And if the Son sets you free, you are free as free can be. …forever.
LAW DRIVES TO GOSPEL That’s what Martin Luther discovered
when He looked at the Cross of Jesus and for the first time in his life saw
mercy rather than merit. Undeserved kindness rather than an example to
follow. When he heard that phrase “the Righteousness of God” and
recognized that this was not something you worked for but something
given as a gift through faith! In his fear and despair, he finally heard that
the Law of God, no matter how holy and good and just it is, cannot save. It
can only drive you to Jesus seeking mercy, which is what it’s supposed to
do. The Law is there to shut every mouth so that no one can boast before
God. Through the commandment comes knowledge of sin.
FREE AT LAST But the Good News that propelled the
Reformation is that God declares the unrighteous to be righteous. In Jesus
you are free. Free from the Commandment. Free from the obligations of
the Law. Free from the Law’s condemnation. Free from enslavement to
Sin. Free from Death. Free to live before God as a justified sinner. Free to
serve your neighbour in love. The slave is made a son, a child, an heir.
Should you doubt this and wonder if it applies to you, remember you are
baptized. You have a permanent place at the table in God’s House.