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Location: Hattiesburg, Mississippi, United States

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Reformation Sunday 10/30/05 Text:John 8:31-36 Title: The Truth Will Set You Free.

Reformation Sunday
October 30, 2005
Text: John 8:31-36
Title: The Truth Will Set You Free.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from out Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen
My sermon for this morning is based on our Old Testament reading for today, Jeremiah 31:31-34. Freedom is a word that all American’s hold dear. Freedom is also very near and dear to the hearts of every Christian, for it is one of the great themes found in God’s Holy Scripture.
Usually on Reformation Sunday we use words like grace, and justification. Today I am going to use the word freedom, for I believe that it is a much more understandable word and accurately describes the Lutheran Reformation, which we are celebrating today. Even though freedom, that is freedom from condemnation for one’s sins, was a new discovery for Martin Luther, the good news of freedom from the punishment of sins had already been proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah thousands of years earlier, as he told about the coming freedom of the new covenant.
This freedom stood in stark contrast to the bondage of the old covenant which was made with the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. For that covenant was a covenant of laws and regulations that governed every aspect of the Israelites’ lives. There were regulations on the food they could eat, the types of sacrifices they needed to make, and where and when they were to worship God.
It did not take long before the Israelites broke the covenant with God. The Old Testament is full of stories showing their broken promises and open rebellion against God’s commands. The yoke of the old covenant, especially as more and more laws and regulations were imposed though the years by the priests, proved to be a yoke that the people were not able to bear. Even those who remained faithful to the LORD were led to despair when they looked at how often they had broken God’s commands. Their history was a constant reminder of their sin and their inability to be at peace with God.
As we jump ahead several thousand years to the church of the early 16th century, that period of time Martin Luther was born into. We see that it is much like that of Jeremiah’s day. The church had once more burdened the faithful with the heavy yoke of laws and regulations.
The church by this time had set up a system of work righteousness, where one had to perform certain acts or buy certain indulgences in order to receive forgiveness of sins. Indulgences were like a free “get out of jail” card in monopoly. You buy an indulgence, a sin is forgiven. You buy more indulgences, more sins are forgiven.
The selling of indulgences worked out well for the church, for the more indulgences they sold the more money they made so that they could finance its grand buildings and growing bureaucracy. It was good for the church, but terrible for the faithful, especially for those with extra money. They did not have to worry about how sinful their lives were, all they had to do is buy forgiveness.
This corrupt system, which by the way even Roman Catholic scholars today acknowledge its corruption, led Luther to pray for hours, spend endless time at the confessional booth, and on occasion to even beat himself as he tried to please God.
But no matter how many good works he did, no matter how much he abused his body, no matter how much he studied, prayed, or confessed his sins, real and imaginary, he could not escape the condemnation of the law.
This was a time of despair in Luther’s life. There seemed to be no way out and no matter what he did he remained trapped by the shackles of the church’s teaching of work righteousness.
But that was some five hundred years ago. People surely could not still believe in work righteousness today, could they? I am afraid that for far too many people the answer is still yes. I say that because the concept that we have to do good in order to go to heaven is rooted deep in our hearts from the day we were born.
On occasion I get the opportunity to ask the question of a person I am talking to about God, “If you were to die today, and God asked you why he should let you into heaven, what would you tell him?,” I almost always get the answer, "I’m a pretty good person. I’ve been nice to people. I go to church. I work hard at my job, and so forth."
Now you might think that only someone that does not know of Jesus’ salvation would respond with that answer. But unfortunately, and it saddens me to no end, too many times, I get that same answer from those who profess to know about Jesus and his saving work.
You see deep within each of us there is always a part of us that believes, "Sure I’m going to heaven, because I’ve been pretty good. God has got to have some type of reward for good behavior.”
Besides that answer just being plain wrong, if someone is sincere about their religion, that way of thinking will eventually lead to despair because we all know deep down that we really haven’t been good enough to meet the demands of a perfect God, who can accept nothing less than perfection from us. We know that for every day that we’ve been kind and generous, there have been probably five days when we’ve been selfish and unloving.
I don’t think there are too many of us here this morning that have the problem of feeling good about ourselves because of a work righteous attitude. I think that most of us struggle with feeling bad about ourselves because of our work righteous attitudes.
We look at ourselves and see how completely unworthy we are and how we keep falling into the same sins and we think to ourselves "How could God possibly let me into his heaven?" We end up overwhelmed by feelings of guilt and shame, trapped with no relief in sight.
It is at times like this, that we need to remember the wonderful message that Jeremiah told the Israelites so long ago. Just think how glad they must have felt when they heard him say as he spoke for God, "I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel." This new covenant meant freedom for God’s people. It meant that they would be free from the rules and regulations that came with the old covenant. But, more importantly, it meant that they would be free from the guilt and power of sin in their lives.
Jeremiah, as we see in our text for this morning goes on to describe the heart and soul of the new covenant as he tells them, "For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." The new covenant means forgiveness and life instead of sacrifice, Laws, and regulations. All those who felt burdened and trapped by the laws of the old covenant that day knew freedom was coming.
It is the same freedom that Luther found one lonely night in his study at the monastery. It was there that Luther made the connection that the righteousness God demands from us is fulfilled by the righteousness that God has given us through faith in Jesus Christ.
Luther found out that he did not need to do all the things he was dong to deserve God’s forgiveness, for God offered his forgiveness freely through Jesus. Luther for the first time saw God as a merciful God.
That moment was the turning point in Luther’s life. Listen to what Luther wrote about his experience. “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that ‘The just shall live by his faith.’ Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise.”
It was truly a liberating experience for Luther. He spent the rest of his life writing about the freedom that is found in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Of course, personal freedom always comes at a price. The freedom we have was given to us because of the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. When he said, "It is finished" on that bloody cross, he sealed the new covenant for us, for all people who put their trust in him.
It is because of his death and resurrection that God has forgiven our wickedness and remembers our sins no more. But I don’t really need to tell you that, for each one of you had it written on your heart when you were baptized.
But God did not stop there, for continues to write it on your heart as you hear his Word spoken to you, and participate in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper each Sunday.
Listen to the words of the new covenant as Jesus speaks them in his supper, "This is my blood of the new covenant!" The new covenant means forgiveness. The new covenant means freedom.
As Christians, we rejoice in that freedom, for we have been freed from the demands of the law, freed from the curse of sin, freed from the power of death. We have been freed to serve others, why we are even free to make mistakes as we serve them. This is not an oppressive service, a service that we have to do. This is service that we are to do willingly, because we are thankful for the freedom Christ has won for us.
As Lutherans, heirs of the Reformation, we are privileged to now carry this cry of freedom out into the world to all those who are enslaved by sin and guilt, Laws and regulations. For all those who are searching for a truth they can trust to never change, we come with the words of the new covenant, "I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more." Good News indeed. Amen.