The LCA provides this sermon edited for lay-reading, with thanks to the original author.
Reformation
John 8: 31-36
Set Free!
Dear people of the Reformation Church,
The seed of the Reformation of the Christian Church in the 16th century was that common human
longing: freedom from slavery to self and others. Luther and the other Reformers desperately wanted
to live life beyond the slavery to their own dark tendencies within. They also wanted to seek a way with
God beyond slavery to the loveless and countless rules and laws the Church had found itself loading
upon the people.
For Christian people in these times, God was an angry God. Being a Christian was all about trying to
figure out how to make God happy and how to get him to look kindly upon you. The “special” people,
the “holy” people in the monasteries and the priesthood spoke all the “holy words” of worship in a
foreign language that was somehow meant to appease God and make him happy for everyone. If a
Christian paid enough money or went to church frequently enough and even viewed from a distance
the holy things of the Lord’s Supper, that might just make a sinner okay – at least for that day, until the
next morning, when this distant and holy God would have to be appeased again. It is easy to see that
this was absolute slavery to sinful human desire and a distorted law driven teaching and practice.
This situation sounds so much like the days of Jesus! He lived with people locked into the same kind of
slavish obedience to oppressive and numerous rules of cleanliness, holiness, acceptance before others
and maybe before God. You might be blessed by God if you did all the right things that the Pharisees
and lawyers said you must do to keep God happy and earn his favour and blessing for your family, work
and home.
Some of those who were making the rules and oppressing the people with this distorted view of God
actually followed Jesus around. John tells us that these members of the Pharisee party told Jesus one
day that they didn’t need him because they were already in God’s family because they carried the right
genes and because of their hard work. They were descendants of Abraham and they kept of the law of
Moses.
Jesus says that he has better genes than them! He actually is THE SON of God. As the Son of God, he is
not a slave who has no permanent place in God’s family, (like they are!) but has the highest place of
honour in God’s family. Jesus says that if these followers hold on to his teaching, they will receive the
truth about who they really are before God and who Jesus is for them, and this will set them free from
all the false teaching they had been slaves to, and will make them true members of God’s family. They
didn’t agree!
Still, Jesus says that his teaching is the thing that sets people free because he is the Son of God and
because his teaching is the truth.
Jesus says that he is God in human form and has come to set people free from slavery. Slavery to what
or to whom? Am I a slave to someone or something? If I am, then what does that mean for me?
Jesus’ Word says that all who sin are slaves of sin. Do you sin? Well, you must be a slave to sin in some
way. This is the truth about us. We are slaves to sin and the way we know that is because we sin. Jesus
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says that anyone who sins is a slave to sin. Our inner rebellion against God, our desire to be top dog
among others and all the words and actions that we do and say as a result of this sin shows that we are
slaves to sin living in us and around us. The end result of this sin is death – being separated from God,
being incomplete and lacking fulfilment, being afraid of God and ourselves and the world we live in.
This slavery goes on within and among us because when we try and deal with our fear, our lack of
fulfilment, our lack of ability to control our harmful desires, words, thoughts and the actions that come
from them, we might become arrogant and say like the Pharisees, ‘We are genetically children of
Abraham so we must be in. We are related to God and that is enough!”In other words, we may live in
the lie that we don’t need Jesus, just a long standing family tradition, the right Lutheran pedigree, or
our wife’s faith, or our children’s faith, or our parent’s faith.
Or, we may become totally enslaved to trying to make God happy. Doing all the ‘right’ Christian things,
saying all the right Christian words, helping people, serving others, even being a doormat for others so
that might get God to like us.
Either way, we end up a slave.
But then those magnificent words of Jesus :“If the Son set you free, you are free indeed!”
Yes! If Jesus sets us free, then we are very free: no longer slaves to trying to keep God happy, no longer
slaves to our own warped thinking, no longer slaves to trying to keep all our darkness inside so no one
can see it!
Yes! Jesus has set you free! He has been “lifted up” on to his throne of glorious freedom – the cross.
And there we were all freed from all the sin and evil that once oppressed us. Jesus’ resurrection day
was our emancipation day. Living in a wonderful relationship of freedom and trust with God is now
possible for you because freedom and trust are a gift: not from an angry God, but a God who sent his
Son not to condemn the world but to save the world (John 3:16).
John says later that God has lavished his love upon us and we are called children of God – sons and
daughters of God – with a permanent place with Jesus in the family forever (1 John 3:1)! So, we are
really and truly related to God - not by genetic ancestry, but by God’s grace revealed in full measure for
sinners, in the death and resurrection of Jesus. We are saved by God’s grace, through faith, for Christ’s
sake!
This was the great rediscovery of Luther and the Reformation. Slaves to sin are freed from sin’s power
by the gracious love of God in Jesus Christ. Sinners can come to this gracious God and speak their
darkness, receive the truth from God about their sin and leave their sin at the cross of Christ. People
can live beyond their inner darkness and trouble and live beyond the oppressive sins of others by faith
in Jesus’ teaching. Sinners can have a permanent place in the family of God. God loves sinners and frees
them from a life of endless drudgery always trying to keep others and God happy.
God gives his favour, his righteousness, holiness and complete life to sinners – through faith in Jesus first in Baptism where sinners are reborn and given a fresh start and placed in the family of God by
God, and then over and over through the teaching of the gospel – the good news of Jesus’ forgiveness
preached and given in the meal of Jesus over and over again.
Luther was able to see the sheer grace of God for sinners…
Although out of pure grace God does not [credit] impute our sins to us, He nonetheless did
not want to do this until complete and ample [fulfilment] satisfaction of His law and His
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righteousness had been made. Since this was impossible for us, God ordained for us, in our
place, One who took upon Himself all the punishment we deserve. He fulfilled the law for us.
He averted the judgment of God from us and appeased God's wrath. Grace, therefore, costs
us nothing, but is cost Another much to get it for us. Grace was purchased with an
incalculable, infinite treasure, the Son of God Himself. Martin Luther, Daily Walk, May 5,
1992.
We are the first church of the Reformation, sons and daughters of God and brothers and sisters of
Jesus Christ. We Lutherans occupy a special place in the Church and we surely have a responsibility to
live this new life of freedom in the gospel of Jesus among all the churches and especially among sinners
who don’t know or have forgotten the truth about their slavery and about God’s freedom in Jesus’
cross.
Yes, the struggle with sin goes on inside and outside of us, for we are always both sinners and saints
until Jesus returns or we go to be with him. Yet we are called today to live in constant Reformation as
church and families and people. We are called to live in the grace of our emancipation day – our
baptism - everyday where we live as we hear the truth that Jesus speaks about us in his Word, repent
of our sin, trust his grace and receive his forgiveness.
We are called to be the church of the Reformation as a congregation. Surely this means encouraging
each other with the Word of God’s law and gospel, forgiving each other with the forgiveness that
comes from faith in the cross, calling each other to live our freedom, bearing with people when they
are weak in faith, when they are struggling to believe and trust. Not deliberately offending people, not
always getting our own way in this congregation but deferring to each other and listening to each other
and walking together with each other and the rest of the Christian family where we can.
Children of the Reformation, rejoice today for the Reforming work of the Spirit continues among us for
the sake of those still in slavery. We rise up and live our freedom in the gospel and live out the heritage
of faith that has been passed on to us by the Spirit through the Word, our Confessions of faith, the
wonderful means of God’s grace in the Liturgy that we have received from many and ancient Christian
hands, and the encouragement, care and love we share as fellow members of the great household of
faith called the holy, catholic and apostolic church of all time.
May our church be a Reformation Church that lives in the freedom won for it by Jesus. Amen!
And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
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