Sermon for the Feast of the Reformation (Observed)
That We Should Be Saved From Our Enemies
Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ!
Amen. Jesus speaks a great promise to you and to your fellow Christians in
today's Gospel: "If you abide in My Word [that is to say, if you live in My
Word and My Word lives in you, if you are continually connected to My Word
and nourished by it], you are truly My disciples, and you will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free." After saying this to you, your Lord
Jesus adds a second great promise to His already-great promise, assuring you
that "if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
Dear Christian friends,
The congregations of the Carrolton Circuit invited me to preach at
their Reformation service this afternoon. The pastor who sent the invitation
told me that they would like me to address "some of the dangers to Biblical
and confessional faithfulness that we face in our day, even in our own
circles." That seemed like a good topic also for you. (Plus, it meant
writing only one sermon instead of two!)
I. There Are Too Many Dangers to Count!
I am able to speak only about SOME of the dangers to your faithfulness
because the dangers are too many to count. One way of looking at your life
in this world is that you live in the middle of a minefield. You "walk in
danger all the way" (LSB 716); "the foe. madly seeks your overthrow" (LSB
666.1). "The gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction .
[T]he gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life" (Matthew
7:13,14). It would not be unfair or inaccurate for you Christians to think
of yourselves as being like Gideon and his little band of three hundred men
(Judges 7). If you were compared to Gideon, "the dangers to [your] Biblical
and confessional faithfulness" would be very much like the armies of the
Midianites and Amalekites. Gathered together against Gideon, the Midianites
and Amalekites were "like locusts in abundance, and their camels were
without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance" (Judges
7:12-13). So, too, are the dangers to your faithfulness that you face every
day.
II. The Small Catechism Summarizes Every Danger for You
If we wanted to boil down these many dangers to a manageable size,
I suppose we only need to inquire with the youth confirmation class. Every
student of The Small Catechism knows that all the dangers to your
faithfulness fall into three groups: the devil, the world, and your sinful
nature. As you learned to pray in the Third Petition of the Lord's Prayer,
"The devil, the world, and our sinful nature. do not want us to hallow God's
name or let His kingdom come." Stated another way, the devil, the world and
our sinful flesh do not want us to remain faithful to the living Word of God
and to the confession of faith that rises from it.
II.1 The Devil
You might not personally feel that much of a threat from the
devil. Many people-including many who are called Christians-regard the devil
nothing more than a figment of the Church's imagination, the product of
unenlightened and superstitious thinking. This should not surprise us. The
devil is "a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44), present among us from
the very beginning and well practiced in the art of deception. Whether you
will believe it or refuse to believe it, "your adversary the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). That
is to say, your adversary the devil is a hunter, and the hunter does his
best hunting when his prey will not believe the hunter is around.
II.2 The World
The dangers of the world are probably more obvious to you than the
dangers of the devil. You may have noticed the enticing dangers of the world
at work in the lives of your fellow Christians, including your children or
your grandchildren. After you pull that log out of your eye (Matthew 7:3-5),
you might begin to see the same dangers in your own life. Everything that
falls under the Fourth Petition of the Lord's Prayer-that is, "everything
that has to do with the support and needs of the body" (Small
Catechism)-also threatens to become your god. Everything can become that one
thing in which you place your trust. Even the food you drink and the
clothing you wear and the children you tuck into bed at night: when viewed
wrongly, these all can warp into "dangers to Biblical and confessional
faithfulness that we face in our day."
II.3 Our Sinful Nature
The devil and the world are truly formidable enemies who can
easily overtake us. But these enemies attack only from the outside. It may
be that your sinful nature-your inside enemy-is your most dangerous enemy of
all. After all, neither the devil nor the world tells you anything that you
do not already want to hear. The problem with your sinful nature is that it
feels so right and it looks so much like you, just as my sinful nature looks
so much like me. When He speaks about your sin, Jesus does not lay the blame
on the devil or the world. He lays the blame on you: "For out of the heart
come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false
witness, slander. These are what defile a person" (Matthew 15:19-20a). Out
of the heart comes your inclination to think that not all ten of God's
commandments necessarily apply to you. Out of your heart comes your desire
to justify yourself when you have treated your neighbor harshly. Out of the
heart comes your tendency to avoid the hard work of hearing and learning the
Scriptures. Out of the heart comes your temptation to think that Christian
doctrine might not be all that important to you, to your faith, and to your
eternal life. Your own heart poses a great danger to your "Biblical and
confessional faithfulness."
III. Jesus Promises to Free You from Your Enemies
In His living and life-bestowing Word, your God promises you great
comforts and mighty defenses against your all enemies. Yes, the devil still
prowls about like a roaring lion, but the book of Revelation declares that
he has also been bound with a great chain (Revelation 20:1-2). That is to
say, when your Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose victorious from
the grave, He clapped the devil into irons for you. It is good news to know
that Satan has been bound in this way. It is somewhat like walking past a
vicious dog on a leash. Yes, the dog can still do great damage, but only if
you get too close. The dog's handler will keep you unharmed. In the same
way, your Lord Jesus has so severely curtailed the devil's power that you
have nothing to fear from that particular mutt. He might snarl and foam, but
his leash is strong and his handler-your Lord Jesus-is stronger yet.
In a similar way, you may find the ways of the world to be
enticing, but the world truly has no more power over you than the devil
does. This is true because your Lord Jesus has sworn to you, "I have
overcome the world" (John 16:33). Jesus does not say, "I will someday
overcome the world" and He does not say, "I am in the process of overcoming
the world." Jesus promises and assures you, "I have overcome the world":
done deal; perfect tense; action completed in the past with ongoing
consequences for the present. On the value of your Lord's powerful Words,
the world and its vanities no longer have any true power over you.
That leaves the last and most difficult enemy of all: our sinful
nature. We need a strong defense against this enemy because this enemy does
more than wage its own war against us. This enemy also finds itself charmed
and attracted to the other two enemies, like bugs to a porch light. The
devil may be on a chain, but our sinful flesh still wants to try to pet the
dog. The world may be fully defeated, but we love to go picking through the
ruins.
Perhaps Jesus is speaking primarily about this third and most
difficult enemy-our seductive sinful nature-when He says to you in today's
Gospel, "If you abide in My Word [that is to say, if you live in My Word and
My Word lives in you, if you are continually connected to My Word and
nourished by it, then] you are truly My disciples, and you will know the
truth, and the truth will set you free." Where we have no defense against
ourselves, God's Word in our ears sets up a strong defense for us. Where we
cannot wriggle free from our own fleshly desires, the living Words of our
Lord Jesus grasp those desires and break their knuckles. We continually move
toward self-centeredness and unbelief, ever drifting toward hostile waters.
Your Lord Jesus, risen from the dead, powerfully takes the wheel for you. He
steers you against both wind and current, navigating you to the freedom that
He gives to you through the forgiveness of your sins.
IV. Freedom IS the Reformation of the Church
The pastor who invited me to preach this afternoon suggested that
I address "some of the dangers to Biblical and confessional faithfulness
that we face in our day, even in our own circles." That the last phrase,
"even in our own circles," probably means that they want me to comment on
the state of our dear Missouri Synod today. What can I say? Most observers
would say that our Synod is in rough shape. Outsiders seem to think that
fighting is the only thing we Lutherans are good at. Insiders are usually
too busy fighting to argue the point. Synodical elections have become
triennial chariot races of us against them, whoever "us" and "them" might
be. I have lost count of how many colleagues have departed the ministry.
Some have left for the seductive shores of Eastern Orthodoxy or Rome. Others
have headed in the opposite direction. They dance with the American
Evangelicals and the Pentecostals, even while they continue to serve
Missouri Synod parishes and spill poison into the pews. Still other pastors
have become the victims of their own sin and/or the sin of those whom they
once served. Cheeky bloggers cannot resist suggesting that the whole synod
seems Ablaze! Who knows? Maybe we will all go up in smoke.
It would be easy for us to declare that we are in need of a
reformation, just like in the old days. Most of our problems can probably be
traced to what Luther called "the erosion of doctrine" (Klug, volume 3, p.
96). "Erosion of doctrine" might also be called "boredom with teaching and
hearing God's Word." Certainly none of our struggles are so great that a
dose of Luther's theology wouldn't cure them, steeped as he was in the
health-bestowing Word of God. But people have been saying such things about
the struggles between Lutherans for many years.
It would be easy to declare that we are in need of a reformation,
just like in the old days. It would be BETTER for us to believe that God's
reformation continually takes place among us, without falter, without end,
and without our best efforts. When Jesus says to you today, "abide in My
Word," He is speaking about the living Word that our church body hears
preached every Sunday from pulpits just like this one. When Jesus says to
you, "abide in My Word," He is speaking about His Holy Communion, where the
Word of God Himself flows into your mouth and body, cleansing you of your
sins and robbing your of your death. When Jesus says, "abide in My Word," He
is speaking about your ever-present Baptism and the powerful rescue this
Baptism daily gives to you. The old Adam of your sinful nature may indeed be
a good swimmer, but your Baptism will never tire of drowning him again.
I love to hear Janis Joplin rasp out the lyrics, "Freedom's just
another word for nothin' left to lose." Taken totally out of context, these
words always make me think of our dear Lord Jesus. All that needs to be
taken away from you has already been entombed in Gethsemane. That which
remains is now safely guarded, "kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4).
Freedom means that nothing can be done to you in this life-synodically or
otherwise-that really matters in the end. Jesus came to us and Jesus still
comes to us, in order "that we should be saved from our enemies and from the
hand of all who hate us" (Luke 1:71). This means that Jesus has set you free
from the devil, the world, and yes, even from yourselves. "If the Son sets
you free, you will be free indeed."
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