Saturday, October 29, 2022

Reformation Day Sermon

 

Reformation Day Observed – October 29th and 30th, 2022 – John 8:31-36

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +

So, what are you a slave to? Well, Pastor Brown, that's an awfully harsh question to start a sermon with! True, even Jesus doesn't just start off the conversation He's having in the text right there, so let's tone it down just a little bit. What is trying to enslave you? Because that's what's going on – sin, the world, and the devil are trying to enslave you. What sins, what idols are demanding more and more of your time, warping your priorities, robbing you of joy, and trying to make you disdain the good gifts God gives you? And I know that this is a heavy topic – but did you hear what Jesus said, the language He used? Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. Jesus is blunt here, and He doesn't leave exceptions. Everyone. All the people who are doing a sin are slaves to sin. And frankly, given that you and I commit sin, we're included in this.


So why is this a text for Reformation Day? In part it is because in the Reformation the idea of the enslaving power of sin was once again taken seriously. Over time, in the normal course of the history of the Church, sin began to be ignored, poo-pooed, downplayed. Works began to be praised – sure you sin, but just do some good stuff and that will get you out of it. Sure, you didn't turn the homework for the entire semester in, but maybe the prof will let you turn in extra credit. Or slip them a bribe and you can buy your way out of it. Surely, surely, there can be someway that we can work our way out of our sins, our misdeeds. No – because everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. You and I, we're enslaved to sin. We fight against it, we strive to discipline ourselves, we can and ought to try to make amends afterwards... but we still sin. Even if you make “amends” you're still mending something you had no business ripping apart in the first place.


And there are all sorts of sins that try to enslave us. One of the great standard ones that we'd harp on in the past in the idea of Greed – how many people were slaves to the almighty dollar. Some of you know this yoke – where the work calls and calls and demands more and more, and family and friends are pushed off into a corner – and for what? Cash to buy a new doo-dad that you're too busy working to enjoy? Perhaps other sins take the fore today – we see the enslaving and twisting power of lust all around us today, whether it's the proud displays in the world, the deviance that would have us mutilate our own bodies, the bored flings that rip marriages apart, or even just the flickering lights of phones or computers behind closed doors where no one else can see. Do you see the enslaving power there? Leisure and entertainment enslave, too – I can't come to work today, I have other things to do – I can't come to church today, because look at this other thing over here. Our hobbies so often drive us with cruelty where they take more and more time and money, where they become chores that we fool ourselves into thinking that we still enjoy. And what other things are out there that are enslaving – screens, social media, our food and diet (and sugar), all sorts of addictions, politics turned into a spectator sport of tribalism instead of service to the public, making sure we “support” the right causes where our support isn't actually doing anything to help but simply yelling at people who don't virtue signal properly. Do you see how we could go on – we could spend an hour just touching on these things, and not even going into detail about them.


Jesus wraps them all up this way – Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. And the worst of it is, as much as we will decry sin, as much as we will shake a fist that the sins that don't call to us... there are ones that call to us, and even as stupid and enslaving as they are, we like them. We make excuses for why we do them. We run back to them again, We like them. We love them, we choose them. And the Reformation begins with the acknowledgment of this blunt, harsh reality. We sin, we're stuck in sin, and we ourselves can't work our way out of it. It's verse three of Luther's Dear Christians One and All Rejoice. My own good works all came to naught, no grace or merit gaining. All the penance, all the pilgrimages, all the things I do don't change the fact that I sin. They might be good for my neighbor, but they don't fix me, they don't fix my problem, they don't rescue me or deliver me from my sin. Free will against God's judgment fought, dead to all good remaining. And let's not even talk about how maybe there's a spark of goodness in me – I know myself, I see how my mind will repeatedly make excuse after excuse to not only allow my sin, but to justify, to praise it. My so-called free will freely and happily sins because everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. I am stuck and trapped in sin and thus trapped in bondage to death and the powers of Satan, and despite all the blather otherwise, there's nothing I can do to change that.


Now let's go back to the beginning of our Gospel lesson – hear again what Jesus says. If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free. Oh, Jesus knows that you aren't able to free yourselves from sin, that you cannot change yourselves. And in fact, He doesn't expect you to – no more than I'd expect any of you to rip one of those trees out of the ground with your bare hands. Jesus knows what is beyond you – and He knows what He must do for you. Jesus will act – He will act through His Word. And whenever you abide, whenever you remain, whenever the Word of God comes upon you, something happens. Several things, actually. First, You are truly My disciples. My disciples. You're not just left and abandoned to sin, you aren't just left to your own devices. You are tied to Christ. You belong to Him – Jesus claims you by the Word. No, you're not merely a slave to these stupid vices – you're Mine. You belong to Jesus – and He disciples you, He turns you into a student, to one who is learning, who is beginning to see. Beginning to see the power and weight that sin burdens and entraps you with – but also seeing and learning something else even more important.


And you will know the Truth. Truth is a big word in John's Gospel. John records for us Pilate dismissively saying, “What is truth?” during Jesus' passion. We'll hear all about truth today, about My Truth – which is really just my opinion that you aren't allowed to object to it no matter how unattached to reality it is. But when Jesus says that you will know the Truth, Jesus isn't speaking about random ideas or facts, and He's certainly not talking about my lived experiences. Jesus later in the Gospel says, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Truth. With a Capital T. Jesus. In hearing Jesus' Word, not only are you tied to Jesus, made to learn the reality of sin in the world, but you are made to know Jesus, to know He who is the Truth. By the Word of God, the Holy Spirit pulls your sin-trapped, enslaved eyes off of your idols that torment you, and He puts them squarely on Jesus. Quit looking at yourself, quit looking at what you do, whatever good you think it will do – and look at Jesus. And you will know Him, you will experience Jesus at work in your life.


And what is that work of Jesus? And the Truth will set you free. This is what Jesus does. He sets you free. With His Word, He breaks the power of sin – He curbs you and pulls you away from sin with the law, He shows you your sin to break your pride and love of sin – but more than that, Jesus comes to set you free. The whole point of God becoming man, the whole reason Jesus is born and lives is simply to set you free. Set you free from sin, death, and the devil. And everything that Jesus does in the Scripture is driving at your rescue. Is there sin? Jesus forgives it! Is there guilt? Jesus pays for it! Is there death? Jesus takes it up and rises again, and so shall you! All the powers of sin that work upon you, Jesus is breaking them down in your life now. And we don't always see this now, and we don't see it in full yet – the Truth will set you free. There's a fullness to come that you will see, that you will know only come the last day and resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.


But this salvation that Jesus has won for you does impact you now. You are granted faith, faith which clings to Jesus Christ alone. You're thrown upon Jesus and freed from the useless burden of trying to justify yourself. You're given forgiveness now, over and against your sin. And where there is forgiveness, there is life and salvation. You do have life now, you do see what sin does, you are made to fight against it, Jesus brings forth in you good works that serve your neighbor and supply the proof that faith is living. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me! And Jesus keeps coming to you in His Word – the Word that the faithless couldn't care less about – and that Word brings you forgiveness and life, that Word brings you Jesus. He's by your side even in this battle you see against sin and all the other junk that constantly seeks to mess with you. And because Jesus is with you, there is confidence. God Himself is on your side, God Himself fights for you. He will not abandon you to this slavery to sin – because before you were a slave to sin, you were His. He made you, and He Himself will redeem you, will rescue you from sin and restore you to the living beings you were created to be.


By the Word, we hear this. By the faith the Holy Spirit works in us, we see this. And so we see the world more fully and broadly – see sin in all its power and terror – don't soft sell it out there or in your own heart... but see that Christ Jesus and His love for you is even bigger than sin, bigger than Satan, and conquers over them all. For you, for your good. So if the Son sets you free [and He has, O baptized child of God] You will be free indeed. Amen.

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