In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
What tries to enslave you? In your life, what are the things, the silly, the stupid, the outright wicked things, that try to trap you, that get their claws into you and you just can't get out of them? I'm not expecting an answer right now, and certainly not out loud – but just have this in the back of your mind as we start to enter on into this sermon today – what things control you, or drive you, or push you around? What enslaves you, because there's going to be something that does.
But more on that later. As we come across Jesus in our Gospel reading for this Reformation Day, He is having a conversation. Jesus had just proclaimed that He was the Light of the World, that He would be lifted up – and people are listening. They are getting interested. Sounds like a lot of neat stuff with this Jesus fellow, maybe this will be a cool crowd to run with. And so Jesus looks at these inquirers, and He says to them something interesting: If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Now, this is a packed, dense sentence – and it sets off a firestorm that seems odd to us on first glance. I mean, Jesus really ticks off people by saying this – so let's take our time pondering it and applying it, and then going through the text.
So, to start – If you abide in My Word. This is the premise, the set up for the point that Jesus makes – and we can miss the point. We hear that word if, and we think we're getting ready to hear something that is optional, something that is a maybe – if you want you, maybe we could, I don't know, spend some time in the Word or something. It's just a possiblity. It's “iffy” - not really. That's not at all what Jesus is doing here. Jesus uses what I call the Greek Logical If. “If” in Greek was used not to express a possibility but to establish conditions in logical chains – it's the if then statements. If you walk out in the rain without an umbrella, then you will get wet. When I say that, I'm not discussing whether or not you will go outside in the rain or whether or not should – I'm simply discussing the reality of the situation, what logically will happen. If you touch a hot stove, you will burn your hand. You set the situation, and then you describe what will happen in that situation.
So – here's the set up – If you abide in My Word. You guys have started listening to Me, you're hearing My preaching. Don't think that is just a casual, flippant thing with no impact. No – let's say that you abide in My Word – that you don't just dabble in it, that you don't just let it go in one ear and out the other, but you abide – if you stay in My Word with My Word continually going into your ears – there's going to be an impact you. Jesus' Word is living and active, and if you are in the Word, that Word is going to have an impact upon you – it simply will. And what is that impact?
… you are truly My disciples. Jesus' Word will turn you into a disciple. Being a disciple of Jesus happens only because of the Power of His Word, only because that Word hits you, and the Holy Spirit comes along, and you are made a disciple. Now, what does that mean, what's the implication of being called a “disciple”? Well, it means that you're a student – that you are going to be made to learn, made to grow, made to understand. And some of those lessons will be hard – and you'll end up learning things about yourself that you might not like to learn. And when one is a disciple, one is also under discipline – disciple and discipline are related words. God's Word will shape your life, establish boundaries, keep you in those boundaries, make you drop and give God 20 when you transgress them. And the Word will whip you into shape, make you a lean, mean love your neighbor machine – you're in the Lord's Army now and called to serve you neighbor. And the Word of Jesus is just going to do that to you whenever you happen to hang around that Word of God.
And that Word, that disciple-ing and disciplining, will do another thing at the same time – and you will know the Truth. Jesus isn't just talking about truth in an abstract way, like metaphysical truths or some fancy, high faluting gobbledegook. No, Jesus says later in John, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by Me.” By Jesus' Word, you will be brought into relationship with Jesus. You will experience Christ Jesus, you will come into the presence of God, or perhaps more accurately by His Word Jesus will come crashing into your life – and all the cards will be on the table. Jesus will be with you by His Word, and you won't be able to side step Him, or control Him, or pull the wool over His eyes, because Jesus is the Truth, and He knows you and you will be made to know Him by the Word.
And you know what Jesus comes to you to do, what Jesus is seeking to accomplish by sending you His Word and making you His disciple and barging into your life and establishing this relationship of Truth with you? And the Truth will set you free. Jesus comes to set you free, to rescue you and release you from the power of sin, from bondage to Satan and Evil, from the fear of death.
And yet, what's the reaction? They answered Him, we are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, “You will become free?” Do you hear how they recoil from this assertion that Jesus makes, this plan and pattern He sets forth? How dare You, Jesus – how dare You even insinuate that we need to be set free from anything. Why, we're good children of Abraham and have never been enslaved! Oh really? Well, our Sunday School classes have been going over the Exodus, which is all about how, oh, how does that go – oh, yeah, when God rescued the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. And the 10 commandments are prefaced with, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and out of the house of Bondage.” And the Passover is celebrated to commemorate when God rescued you from slavery? How do you people get off saying that you've never been enslaved to anyone? How do you say that when you've got Romans ruling over you instead of your own king?
Do you see what has happened here? The people grousing against Jesus – they aren't seeing reality. They are denying reality. And why? Well, Jesus spells it out for them. Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. You can't see reality, you fight against the Truth, you recoil from Jesus because of sin. You do sin, you do sinful stuff – and you're stuck in it. You're so stuck in it that you can't see reality in front of your face. Sin warps and twists your perception of reality, of the world, of yourself so that you can't actually see what is real and right and true. And sin keeps you trapped, enslaved, bound in those delusions. Sin binds you to vice like an addict, sin distracts you and never lets you what is good, sin tells you that you can have it all if you just do a bit more bow down and worship sin and all the while sin spreads you thin and grinds you down to nothing. And there are other analogies we could use but Jesus wraps them all up neatly - everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.
You too, O people of Trinity. All of us here in this room – this applies to all of us. What tries to enslave you? In your life, what are the things, the silly, the stupid, the outright wicked things that try to trap you, that get their claws into you and you just can't get out of them? Because that's the reality of sin – that's what it means to be sinful. That there are things that enslave you; there are vices that call you to, there's wicked emotions that dominate you and how you see things, there are frailties and weights that simply hang on you and wear you down. There are things that enslave you. And on the one hand, they're different for all of us. Each of us have different sinful chains wrapped upon us, and what tempts you might not really tempt me; and something that blinds me you might see right through. There's wide variety. But on the other hand – it's all just the same damn (literally) thing. Satan messing with you, messing with me, and trying to wreck us.
The slave does not remain in the house forever; the Son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. We don't last, and the things we get tempted towards, they don't last. Sin brings with it death and decay, and the false promises that we are enslaved to, especially the ones we actually enjoy... they all fall apart. Sometimes we'll hit bottom and see it; sometimes we'll stay happily in sinful delusions. “With might of ours can naught be done, soon were our loss effected.” That's what we just sang a few minutes ago describing this reality. But Jesus, Jesus is free from Sin. Jesus has conquered over sin and death. Jesus strides to the Cross and He dies, and then He rises – all those tricks, all those lures, all those chains of Satan that wreck us don't do a thing to Jesus. He remains forever. His Word remains forever. And Jesus does something wondrous, something amazing. Jesus comes to you with His Word, and Jesus Himself sets you free. Jesus sets you from from sin with His forgiveness; He sets you free from temptation by giving you life; He sets you free from death by giving you His resurrection so that you too will rise from the dead.
And all of this happens whenever Jesus comes to you with His Word and makes you live, abide, remain in His Word. It happens when He baptizes you with water and His Word and the Holy Spirit makes you His temple, a temple of Christ's Truth over and against the power of sin. It happens when the Word abides with you when He places His very Body upon your tongue, His Blood upon your lips. And this is a wondrous thing, a powerful thing – something that wrecks our sinful delusions, even the ones we like. Something that is so far beyond our control, because it is God Himself at work for you and in you, and we don't get to control God.
This is our text for Reformation Day, because the story of the world, of the church, ever since the fall is people running away from Jesus and choosing slavery to sin. It's people trying to squash and ignore the Word of God and grasp vainly for control. A little over 500 years ago the Scriptures were literally chained up and in a language most people couldn't understand. “But for us fights the Valiant One, whom God Himself elected. Ask ye, who is this? Jesus Christ it is, of Sabaoth Lord, and there's none other God. He holds the field forever.” None of that stops Jesus. He comes in with His Word, because Christ and His Word cannot be contained, and over and over He breaks into the world with His liberating truth – and He even breaks into your life, even when there are times you run away from Him – and He puts you squarely in His Word, and He makes you His disciple, and He makes you know His love, His true love for you, and He frees you now from sin even until you are fully and finally freed from sin eternally in the life of the world to come. Because Jesus finds you, lost, batter, enslaved to sin, and He reforms you, makes you into His new creation, His baptized brother, His baptized sister – and He prepares and pulls you unto life everlasting. Jesus wins – and He frees you. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit +
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