Sunday, October 30, 2011

Reformation - E - 2011 - Grace Alone, Faith Alone, Christ Alone


Reformation Sunday Joint Service 9:00 am
10/30/2011
46
Revelation 14:6-7
Romans 3:19-28
Matthew 11:12-19

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.