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Reformation Sunday Joint
Service 9:00 am
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10/30/2011
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46
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Revelation 14:6-7
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Romans 3:19-28
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Matthew 11:12-19
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Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
Amen. Our text today is the Epistle
lesson just read, especially these words, “For we maintain that a man is
justified by faith apart from observing the law.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ. Our world is a world of
law. Everywhere we turn, there are laws
that govern our lives. If we want to
receive a paycheck, we had better go to work.
If we want to avoid speeding tickets, we better go the speed limit. We spend millions of dollars every year in
elections to determine who will write our laws, and who will not. Laws make us pay taxes, help us build roads,
help us stop crime and more. Laws are
everywhere.
But these laws,
are merely human laws. They can change
at almost any time. And these laws are
ones that most of us don’t worry about too terribly much. We know we shouldn’t speed, but we do
anyways. We know it is illegal to not
pay our taxes, but we only worry about that every April. Most of the time, we just live our lives
without any fear of worldly laws.
But there is
another set of laws, a set of laws that we must obey, a set of laws that are
always around us, a set of laws that always displays its terrible
consequences. These laws are God’s laws,
laws that we are expected to keep perfectly, laws that tell us how we ought to
live our lives – in love towards God and neighbor. These laws of God are demanding and
difficult, for if we disobey them, we receive the just punishment of
death.
But we don’t obey
God’s law do we? We don’t even come
close, for obedience involves perfection, something none of us, not a one, can
fulfill. For, hear again the words of
our Epistle lesson today, “no one will be declared righteous in his sight by
observing the law” No one will obey
God’s law, for they can’t. No one will
perfectly love God, for they are sinners.
No one will care about all their neighbors, for they are too
selfish. Yes friends, even me, EVEN YOU,
“sin and fall short of the glory of God.”
Look at your life,
look at your hate, your anger, your shortcomings, your selfish deeds, your pride
and false piety. You too have
sinned. You too have fallen short of
God’s glory. You have become a slave to
a law that you just cannot fulfill. And
to be honest, we don’t always want to fulfill God’s law, we don’t want to
always obey what God teaches, because frankly sometimes the sinners are just
more fun.
The problem is
that all these laws of God we break, all these sins we commit, all this sin
does lead to suffering for us. We have
friends and family who are sick and dying.
We have people who we will no longer speak to because we are angry. People call us names behind our back and we
return the favor. We sin daily. We are sinful to our very core, there is no
good left inside of us.
And God is a just
judge. Just as if we broke the speed
limit enough times or stole a car from someone we would go to trial and be
found guilty, so too does God judge us. He
looks at our care for others and say, you have fallen short. He looks at the acts we do alone in the
privacy of our homes, and says you are guilty.
He tells us that we have not lived up to his perfect expectations, and
so we deserve the just punishment for those sins. We deserve death. We deserve an end. We deserve what we fear in our lives. Sickness and punishment, for we have turned
against the God who gave us all that we have.
And yet, we hear
in our text today, that not only have all fallen short of God’s glory, but that
we have also been justified freely by His grace through the redemption that
came by Christ. In other words, though
you are guilty, God declares you innocent because of Jesus. Instead of us standing before our God and
Judge as guilty sinners, we stand before him in the Righteousness of
Christ. It is that righteousness that
has won us away from our sin, won us away from death, and now gives us eternal
life. It is that righteousness that was
given to us as Jesus hung on a cross, suffering and dying for the very sin that
we committed. And so when God looks at
you he doesn’t see you sin, he sees Christ’s forgiveness, Christ’s blood,
Christ’s holiness.
For God presented
him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to
demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins
committed beforehand unpunished-- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the
present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith
in Jesus. In that we are made God’s
children.
Today we celebrate
that hope and good news. Today we remember
that it is our faith that looks to Jesus that saves us, that we are justified
or declared innocent by his grace.
Reformation Day is all about that message, of remembering that Jesus
face God’s wrath so that we might not have to.
Reformation day is about boldly declaring that I cannot by my own reason
or sense come to Jesus my Lord, but that he has called me by the Gospel, the
good news that he took away my sin on the cross, so that I may be his own and
live under him in his kingdom. Reformation
day celebrates the fact that because of Jesus, your are free. Because of Jesus, you may enter heaven. Because of Jesus you are saved.
By Grace alone,
through faith alone, have you been saved.
And these through Jesus alone. In
Him, you have your salvation. Amen.
