Intro It’s lonely being a Lutheran. Of this, one of the true, 20th-century Lutheran theologians in Germany, Hermann Sasse, wrote:
As Luther once went the lonely way between Rome and Spiritualism, so the Lutheran Church today stands alone between the world powers of Roman Catholicism on the one hand and modern Protestantism on the other. Her doctrine which teaches that the [Holy] Spirit is bound to the means of grace is as inconceivable to modern people in the twentieth century as it was to their predecessors in the sixteenth. To be Lutheran is to travel a lonely road. Being Lutheran is more than affirming that our works and deeds do not cause us to be saved. It also recognizes and affirms where God chooses to come to us for our salvation. That’s where the Lutheran Church differs from the Protestant world. Main Body So, where does God choose to come to us for our salvation? Sasse said it well: “The [Holy] Spirit is bound to the means of grace.” The “means of grace” are where the Holy Spirit works with His grace, where God comes, not only to save us, but to keep saving us. They are the places where God comes to us with His forgiveness, life, and salvation to create and strengthen faith within us. The means of grace are how Jesus, the Word of God, comes to us with His life and salvation. Jesus, the Word, comes to us in the preached Word. He comes to us when the Holy Spirit joins the water and Word together in holy baptism. He comes to us in His body and blood, when the Holy Spirit joins Him to bread and wine, in His Supper. Now, at first, this distinction about the means of grace may seem foolish. For we know that God is omnipresent, that He is everywhere. But God’s omnipresence does you no good, at least when it comes to receiving His life-giving gifts for you. That’s why understanding that God binds Himself to the means of grace is so essential. It’s the “for you” part that makes the difference. Where does God come to you for you and for your salvation? If God is everywhere, I suppose I can go to a tree in my yard and wait there for God. But God doesn’t promise to come to me through the tree in my yard. I can wait my entire life, die from thirst and starvation, and never receive what God wants to give me. Now, CAN God come to me through the tree if He chooses to do so? But that’s the point. God doesn’t promise to come to me there. So, I don’t waste my time and effort going to where God has not promised to come to me. God calls us to be faithful. And part of that faithfulness is being where God has promised to come to you. So, again, where is that? Jesus told His Apostles to preach repentance into the forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47). Jesus only told his Apostles, one time, what the content of their sermons were to be. Preach the people into repentance and then preach them into the forgiveness of sins that God has for them. So, God comes to you in the preached Word. So, that’s where you go. You go to hear the Word, Jesus, preached into your ears. God promises to be where He comes to you in the spoken, forgiving Word. Jesus told His apostles to forgive the sins of others. Jesus told them, the Church’s first pastors, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them” (John 20:23). That’s why we have confession and absolution at the start of the Divine Service, for Jesus promises to deliver His forgiveness through the spoken Word of His pastors. And so we come to receive that spoken Word of forgiveness into our ears, for God promises to be there. God promises to come to us in the water of baptism, forgiving our sins and bringing us His salvation. That’s what the Apostle Peter preached on Pentecost. He preached, “Repent and be baptized … into the forgiveness of sins” (Acts 2:38). And Peter later wrote, “Baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21). And so we come to the waters of baptism to receive the salvation that God promises there. God promises to be in the Lord’s Supper. Jesus, said, referring to the bread: “This is my body.” Jesus said, referring to the wine: “This is my blood.” So, in the bread and wine, we receive Jesus’ body and blood. Jesus even tells us why: “For the forgiveness of sins.” And so, we come to the Lord’s Supper to receive the forgiveness, life, and salvation that Jesus gives us in His body and blood. Where does God promise to be for you? It’s not in or through the tree in my yard, or the tree in your yard, or in your garden, or anywhere else. He promises to come to you in the preached Word, in the spoken Word of forgiveness, in baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. That’s why, as God’s people, our lives revolve around, and center on, the means of grace, where God promises to be for us, for our salvation. Why does the Holy Spirit locate and bind Himself to work in the Word and the Sacraments? It’s so we can have certainty. So, when you hear the Word of absolution coming to you from the pastor, you can know that you are hearing God through the voice of your pastor in those words. When the water douses the one being baptized, you can know that God is there, working and acting. When God’s Word comes to you in bread and wine, you can know the bread is what Jesus says it is: His body. You can know the wine is what Jesus says it is: His blood. And you can know that what Jesus also says is true: “The one eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the Last Day” (John 6:54). When you look within your heart, thoughts, feelings, or emotions to sense the Holy Spirit’s working, you can easily become confused and filled with doubt. You can even be deceived. For feelings are like the wind; they can change from one moment to the next. Even more, the heart is an unreliable gauge for measurement. Here’s what God says about the human heart: “The heart is more deceitful than anything else…. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). In the New Testament, some people once criticized Jesus for not having His disciples wash their hands before eating. Jesus, then, taught that what was dirty and needed cleaning was the heart, not the hands. He said: What comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and that’s what makes a person unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts--murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, and blasphemy. These are what make a person unclean, not eating with unwashed hands [Matthew 15:18-20]. In your heart is a mixed-up hodgepodge of your sinful nature battling with the new self given you in your baptism. Your sinful nature is still there. And so your heart is in need of continual reformation--to be reformed in the image of God. That’s why it’s not good gauge to measure the Holy Spirit working in your life. And so we come to a second truth at the heart of being reformed in God’s image. A person is holy and righteous because of God’s doing. It’s as the Apostle Paul wrote, “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law” (Romans 3:28). Faith trusts and believes this reality no matter what the heart may be feeling. To be justified is to be made right. For example, if you try to justify something that you’ve done, you’re trying to get yourself off the hook from some misstep that you’ve made. Let’s say I show up late to work. I, then, may seek to justify my tardiness by mentioning the heavy traffic. And the older we get, the justifications we use become more twisted and tangled, and we deceive ourselves through them. Know this: In relation to God, we don’t have the ability to justify ourselves, to make ourselves right with Him. God’s Word cuts us no slack: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). You don’t measure up. You have fallen short of God’s standards and expectations. That’s the truth of God’s Word in His Law. But there is also another truth, which is at the heart and center of Jesus Christ: “A person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” That means that being made right with God comes from, not within you, but outside of you. For what comes from within you, from your heart, is tainted and infected with sin. Ah, but, outside of you, apart from you, stands Jesus, God in human flesh. Jesus becomes what you don’t have and could not be or do. He fulfills God’s Law for you. He takes your sin into Himself. God then takes Jesus’ perfection and holiness and gives that to you for your justification. And, yes, God gives that to you through the means of grace. So, the “for you” part makes all the difference, doesn’t it? That’s what’s at the heart of being reformed in God’s image. It’s God the Holy Spirit toppling our self-made idols within us and replacing it with Jesus Christ. That’s something we’ll never outgrow on this side of heaven. And, yes, that also happens through God’s means of grace. The early Lutherans had this saying: Semper reformanda ecclesia est. It’s Latin for “the church is always reforming.” And that is true: Each of us must always be reformed and changed into God’s image over our own. It’s God the Holy Spirit bringing us to repent and returning us to the righteousness that we have in Jesus. And, yes, this takes place by God coming to us in His means of grace. Conclusion The Reformation wasn’t just some historical event. It should always be a present reality. Baptism delivers Christ’s justification to and for us. Then, the entire Christian life becomes the living out of that justification--the forgiveness of sins in Christ Jesus. Indeed, “a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” That’s the truth that brings reformation to your troubled heart. That is the reformation--the re-formation of you in Christ Jesus. And that takes place during every Divine Service. Amen. -- Rich Futrell, Pastor Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Kimberling City, MO http://sothl.com Where we receive and confess the faith of the Church (in and with the Augsburg Confession): The faith once delivered to the saints, the faith of Christ Jesus, His Word of the Gospel, His full forgiveness of sins, His flesh and blood given and poured out for us, and His gracious gift of life for body, soul, and spirit. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
