- Nov 5, 2024
- 1 min read
- Nov 5, 2024
- 6 min read
[John 8:31-36] So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”
34Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
The Way to Freedom
Once every four years, Reformation Sunday takes place shortly before a presidential election. This time of year, at best, there is much thought about core principals – freedom, liberty, justice – and their opposites – injustice, slavery, oppression.
These issues were not unfamiliar to the political landscape of first century Judea in the time of Jesus. God’s people lived in a nation ruled by another and hoped for freedom. It was on their mind all the time. Yet it is never what Jesus talked about.
Jesus, the Son of God made man, instead talks about a different, much truer, and more-necessary-to-address version of these issues – true freedom and slavery, true justice and injustice.
What are the concerns of freedom and justice, or injustice, on your mind? And can you think about what Jesus is talking about instead, even during an election year?
You are not first and foremost citizens of a nation. You are not first and foremost political beings who are freed or oppressed, or empowered, by laws and rulers. You are not first and foremost economic beings, freed or oppressed by finances and goods.
These things matter, but they have their place. They are not infinite. Their time is limited. These are important temporal issues.
You are a creature of God – first and foremost. You are a being created by God, in His image, as a moral creature – a creature that is accountable to right and wrong – and you therefore have issues that last forever. Eternal issues.
Eternal issues continue to affect you, for better or worse, even after you die, forever. As a created human being, you last forever, for better or worse, free or slave – eternal life or eternal death.
Jesus speaks of these eternal things which affect you most both right now and forever. He says, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever.” And, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
So what is freedom? Is freedom the absence of commandments or rules? Is it self-determination? Following my desires? Is oppression having a Ruler who tells me who I am, what I am, and what I’m to do?
The truth is, we all have a ruler. The absence of commandments or rules is only freedom like a bridge free of a guard rail. The possibility of falling rules over me. Whereas the rule of a guardrail gives me the freedom of safety.
Self-determination is free like being lost in the woods is free. No one telling you where to go or how you must get there. Free and lost, on your own.
Freedom to follow my desires makes me a slave to what those desires or appetites are, which are often not good, and desire always increases its demands.
Freedom which casts off God and His commandments is slavery. That’s sin, the true slavery. And the worst slavery is that slavery of casting God from His throne and putting myself in His place – the slavery of being my own God, my own Lord, and my own Savior.
So, what is true freedom? True freedom for a creature is being a creature. Living within our limitations as creatures and having God as our God. The true freedom is to have our Creator as our Lord – and to have His Son as our Savior.
At the core of Christianity – and the core of the Lutheran Reformation – is the answer to this question: How am I, a sinner, set right with God and made His again? How am I delivered from sin’s slavery and restored to freedom and life with God?
Yet, in every age, temporal issues – often, temporal politics – get in the way of the answer.
The Israelites Jesus was speaking to in our Gospel were off focus. The issue of Roman rule over their nation became the thing that their relationship with God was all about. So they lashed out and said, “We’re not anyone’s slave!”, and therefore missed Jesus’ point.
In sixteenth-century Europe, for those in power, a big purpose of the Church was unity in the empire –to keep the peoples united, and thereby their armies united, against outside forces. The truth of Scripture was not their top concern if it disrupted that political unity.
Today, in this nation, the Christian faith is commandeered by political movements – of both varieties, in different ways – and the purpose of Christianity and the Church seems to become that of making our country a good place to live.
But this isn’t the purpose of our Christian faith. Even if anyone fully accomplished it, it still wouldn’t free a single soul from slavery nor set any person right with God.
The freedom Jesus brought us come by His death and resurrection in the place of sinners and by what the Bible calls “justification by faith, not by works.”
Jesus, who by nature is free – holy, not a sinner, the Son of God – carried the sins of all mankind on the cross and made your sin His own. He is holy and righteous, but died as a slave to sin in your place.
Jesus’ death on the cross made “propitiation” for our sins – it was a self-giving offering and sacrifice that appeased God’s wrath, paid our debt, and satisfied the requirement of justice against our sins.
“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith.” [Romans 3:22-26]
To be righteous, justified, set right with God, is alone by faith in what Jesus has fully done for your salvation.
“By works of the law no human being will be justified in His sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin” – the ten commandments show our slavery to sin – “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law” – and all Scripture, the “Law and the Prophets”, testify to this – “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe… For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” [Romans 3:20-28]
“Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered; Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.’” [Romans 4:3-8]
This Biblical teaching, that you are counted righteous to God by faith in what Jesus has done for you and not by your own works – “just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness” – is the word and truth Jesus came for that frees you from sin’s slavery, because you are forgiven, and delivers you back to God to have Him as your Lord.
My sinful nature which wants me to be my own Lord and Savior – and one side of politics concerned with achieving social justice – and another side of politics concerned with preserving western culture – and those whose main concern is building a moral society – none of these have much use for this core doctrine of the Christian faith that sinners are made right with God by faith alone in Jesus apart from their works.
Liberal and conservative, justification by faith is the teaching that is not useful for temporal concerns. So, it goes by the wayside or, at times, is even hated. This is what happens in the church on this side of heaven again and again.
The continued purpose of the Lutheran Reformation is to put the justification of the sinner by faith alone in Jesus – this eternal concern – at the forefront.
Even in election years – and other years – and on Sunday mornings – and Monday through Saturday – faith in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation is the issue of the day for each of you. For you, and for your neighbor who doesn’t yet know or understand what Jesus has done for them. And for those who need consolation.
This one issue is what makes the difference for you and them for the better, forever. Amen.
- Oct 13, 2024
- 6 min read
[Mark 10:17-22] As [Jesus] was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
God Alone Is Good
A man ran up to Jesus, knelt before him, and asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” He’s not asking insincerely or as a trick, as some did. This man runs up – showing desperation – and falls on his knees before Jesus – much like those many others who had desperate need, leprosy, or loved ones in peril.
This man is not in physical need. He’s not sick or poor. In fact, he’s doing quite well for himself. And, it seems, he hasn’t fallen into any obvious vice or great outward sin. He’s not among the sinners and prostitutes who, in great numbers, found their hope and peace in Jesus.
This young man is a good kid who’s doing well. A good life. Yet there’s something wrong. He lacks the peace that, as far as he can tell, he should have. His life is in order, but his soul is in peril. “What is it that I lack?”
So, he runs to Jesus and asks that question, “What must I do?” “Good teacher, what must I do?” Jesus responds strangely, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone?”
Which brings up this question: If God alone is good, can I look to my own ‘good life’ for peace? Will the list of what I’ve done right ever be enough? Will the comparison of what others have done wrong ever be enough?
The man asked what he must do. Jesus presents him with the list. “You know the commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and mother.”
The tax collectors, notorious sinners, and prostitutes would have found their answer right away: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” [Luke 18:13]. But this man doesn’t see in himself that he’s fallen short: “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.”
But certainly, he has fallen short. You all heard from the Sermon on the Mount last Sunday: “You’ve heard it said, ‘You shall not murder’… But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment… and to the hell of fire.”
“You’ve heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” [Matthew 5:21-30]
All the commandments, including “Do not steal, do not defraud, don’t bear false witness, honor your father and mother”, command not just your outward behavior but your heart and soul, mind and thoughts, desires, intentions, and words – spoken and unspoken.
God is judge of the whole person and His commands apply to your whole person. Certainly, each of us – each of the thirty people in here this morning – fall short. “You know the commandments”, and the list doesn’t help any of us. It accuses us.
You have looked with lust at someone else’s wife or husband, or someone not your wife or husband. You have been angry with your brother or sister, and you have not been peaceful in your heart.
You speak of the faults of God’s other children – with your excuses to justify such talk – as if life is a courtroom and God has called you as witness. But it’s not and God hasn’t. If that kind of talk isn’t gossip, what is? Our excuses don’t excuse us.
Lust is adultery, anger is murder, gossip is false witness, and falling short of using the blessings God has given me in life – blessings of money, ability, time for words, care, attention – these forms of wealth – falling short of using and giving your forms of wealth for those God has placed around you who would benefit from you, this is stealing.
There are many people God has provided for by providing them with you, but you’ve kept these goods for yourself. God calls this fraud and stealing. Defrauding God’s house, defrauding brother, sister, or neighbor, by not doing or being what we should be to them.
“All these I have kept from my youth.” No, I’m sorry, but you haven’t. But Jesus didn’t get angry at the young man. Listen to this. It says, “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” Jesus loves him and is determined to show him his need for the Savior he has right in front of him.
The man can say he’s kept all the commands – or that he’s kept them well enough – but he cannot deny the false idol that he’s holding right in his hand once Jesus shows it to him. He has great possessions. And he can’t let go of them because in them he has placed the fear, love, and trust of his heart.
Perhaps he’s kept the other commands, but he’s not keeping the first: “You shall have no other gods” – because that good life he has has become his god.
So Jesus says, “If you would be perfect” [Matthew 19:21] – if you would be good – “go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” That is the measure of being good, and he lacks it. He is confronted with what he cannot do, and he goes away sad and disheartened. For now.
“Who then can be saved?” the disciples will ask next week. “With men”, Jesus will say, “it is impossible. But with God all things are possible” [Mark 10:26-27]. “God alone is good.”
When Jesus says, “No one is good except God alone”, He is talking about Himself. Jesus is God who has become Man. He alone is the Good Man. Jesus is the Good Man who has done for you, His poor neighbor, the very thing He commanded to the rich young man. Jesus gave it all.
God is Good, and He became “God-with-us” in the person of Jesus [Matthew 1:23].
God became Man and looked upon you, His poor neighbor, and expended all the wealth of His righteousness and goodness upon the cross – and paid with His life, offered in place of yours for what you lack – to save you and make you a rich inheritor of His heavenly kingdom.
On the cross, Jesus gave all to pay the price for poor sinners, those who are not good enough. With God, it has become possible for you to be saved, and you are.
Why am I still making that list then? Why am I still telling myself, or others, that I do this and do that good thing – that I haven’t done wrong, it wasn’t me – I’ve done the right things, and therefore… What? And why do I still make that negative list about others?
When I’m still making that list, it’s because my heart is set on “What I must do” mode instead of “What my Savior has done for me” mode. What Jesus has done for sinners is what gives peace.
So, put your lists away. Set your eyes always on what Jesus has done. Your Savior alone is Good. What He has done, not “what must I do?”, is the basis and foundation every day of a life together of seeking His commandments and doing His will.
Not “What must I do” but “What Jesus has done” calms the troubled mind and is the beginning of new life every day. Thanks be to God who alone is Good. Amen.
