Festival of the Reformation – John 8:31-32 (NKJV)
Almighty God, merciful Father, who made the light to shine out of the darkness, we thank You,
that You have shown mercy unto us and our spiritual fathers, and by means of Your servant Lu-
ther You have restored the pure light of Your Gospel: keep us, we beseech You, in sound doc-
trine, that we may steadfastly believe and worthily follow Your saving Word, and finally, by its
holy comfort, depart in peace and joy; Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and
reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
On October 31, 1517, an Augustinian monk posted 95 statements for discussion on the door of
the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Dr. Martin Luther hoped that posting his thesis
would bring about an academic debate regarding repentance, the sale of indulgences, and other
matters of concern within the Roman Catholic Church. However, Rome eventually excommunicated
Luther, judging him to be a heretic and an outlaw of the church. Luther’s reforms centered
on the teaching of Scripture that a believer is justified by grace ALONE through faith ALONE in
Jesus Christ. These reforms took place not only in the German states but also in many other Eu-
ropean countries, including the Scandinavian countries from which most of our ancestors came.
We owe God praise, appreciation and thanks for using His servant Luther to restore the pure
light of the Gospel.
The teachings which we continue to uphold in our church and in our church body (our synod)
are not devised by the doctrines or teachings of men, but are plainly taught in Holy Scripture. As
the Apostle Paul instructed pastor Timothy, so also, I instruct you today, “But you must continue
in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have
learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to
make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good
work.”
Let us rise and sing our Exordium Hymn, God’s Word is Our Great Heritage (Hymn 583)
Our Sermon Text is from the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John, which reads as follows in Jesus
name.
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. This is Your word, O Lord, and therefore it is the truth; sanctify us by the truth; Your word is truth. Amen.
Dear people loved by God,
The 16th-century Reformation was about returning the Church to the words of Scripture and away
from the words of church leaders or the traditions of men which led the church astray. The cen-
terpiece and key to understanding all of God’s Word was to understand that mankind can only be
saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, and that Scripture alone is the
sole authority concerning God.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches a form of God’s grace, but sometime during the first mil-
lennium through the time of Luther grace was a substance poured into you so that you could
work out your salvation. In essence, the grace which you received in your baptism was just
enough to get you started in doing enough good works by which you would merit eternal life.
The problem though, was that there was never any certainty that the Christian had ever done
enough to be certain of one’s salvation. The teaching of the Catholic church to this very day
leaves its adherents in doubt because it directs them to their works and if their works are lacking,
which they always will be, it then directs its members to pray to Mary, the mother of Jesus, or
one of the countless number of saints to appease Jesus, who is viewed as a stern and righteous
judge. These so-called “truths” of the catholic church were not setting anyone free, but actually
keeping them in the bondage of sin. For Martin Luther, it seemed that the harder he tried to rid
himself of sin, the more acutely aware of his sinfulness he became.
Luther rightly understood the false teaching of the Catholic church to be lacking the fullness of
God’s word. Their emphasis was on making a person more morally upright in the eyes of the
world, but it did nothing to ease one’s conscience when he or she found that regardless of how
hard he or she worked to be good, sin still remained. To make matters worse, the damnable doc-
trine of indulgences put people’s faith in a slip of paper signed by the church, which could be
purchased for money.
Suffice it to say, that the church had strayed from the Word of God. Jesus’ admonition, “If you
abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free,” was disregarded. They were no longer abiding in God’s Word. In fact, they were
slaves to sin because they were abiding in the false traditions of men. And the truth of the matter
is this: our hearts are in constant need of reform. Ever since the fall of mankind into sin, our
hearts and minds have been perverse, wicked, and deceitful. King David wrote by inspiration of
the Holy Spirit in Psalm 14, “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To
see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, They have to-
gether become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.” Ouch! In another place Je-
sus said, “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false
witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man.” (Matt 15:19-20)
In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul also says, “For there is no difference; for all have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” God levels the playing field between the self-righteous
Pharisee and the tax collector or between lifelong Christian and the unbeliever. If God were
to judge us based on our ability to keep His law, we are still sinners, just like the unbeliever.
There is no good work one can do to undo the sin we have committed in the past or will commit
in the future. To make matters worse, Jesus goes on in our text to say this, “Most assuredly, I say
to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” Since every one of us has sinned, we are slaves to
such sin. If left to ourselves, we can never free ourselves from the hamster wheel. The harder we
try to sin less, the more aware we become of our sin. WE are, as our text says, slaves to sin.
So now what? It sounds like I am damned if I do and I’m damned if I don’t. We are judged as
sinners because we inherited Adam’s sin. In Psalm 51, David confesses it this way, “Certainly, I
was guilty when I was born. I was sinful when my mother conceived me.” Before a child is
born, that child is a sinner in God’s sight because of inherited sin. Our Epistle lesson from Ro-
mans 3 says, “19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the
law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before
God. 20 Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the
law is the knowledge of sin. Neither God’s law, nor our obedience to it can make us righteous in
God’s sight, but God’s law is still good because like a mirror it shows us our sins and like a
guide it also shows us the way in which we should walk.
This is why, when we as God’s people gather in his presence do so in repentance and faith. As
we confess our sins in the beginning of every service we say, “O almighty God, merciful Father,
I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess to You all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever of-
fended You and justly deserved Your temporal and eternal punishment. But I am heartily sorry
for them, and sincerely repent of them, and I pray You of Your boundless mercy, and for the
sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be
gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.” Like the tax collector in the parable of the
pharisee and the tax collector, we bow down in humility before God and cry out, “God have
mercy on me, a sinner.” In God’s eyes it doesn’t matter if we have only one sin to confess or a
thousand sins to confess, one transgression makes us guilty of breaking the entire law.
This is what the grace of God is all about. Grace Alone is about us receiving his undeserved love
without any worthiness on our part. God loves mankind. This entire creation was made for us to
enjoy. God wasn’t withholding something from Adam and Eve when he told them not to eat
from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He was protecting that which was rightfully His,
but Adam and Eve stole from that tree and ate, contrary to the will of God, and all mankind was
cast into sin and death. And yet, even in spite of that great transgression God promised that one
day a child of the woman would crush the power of the old evil foe.
In the fullness of time, God fulfilled that promise, in and through the divinely conceived off-
spring of the virgin Mary. The angel said to Jesus’ mother, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Highest will overshadow you, and that Holy One who is to be born will be
called the Son of God.” And 30 some years later this, Jesus, the Son of God, would be put to
death as our substitute and receive the pain and suffering of hell for that which our sins deserve,
and in doing so He destroyed Satan’s power over us.
Only Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection from the dead can free us from the slavery of sin, “if the
Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.” This is such incredible news for us. Jesus won sal-
vation for me, and for you, and for all of mankind. When Jesus breathed his last on the cross, it
was finished!
But just what exactly does that freedom mean? If Christ has made satisfaction for my sins, can I
freely sin without consequence? Can I leave undone those things God requires me to do without
repercussions? Of course not! But we often think, say, and do those things that are contrary to
God’s Law and we act as if we have no control over it? Is our sinful nature so strong that we
have to let it behave like a child throwing a temper tantrum or do we lean into the power of
Christ’s Word by reading it ourselves and by taking the opportunity to be admonished and
trained by others who speak God’s Word which is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc-
tion, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped for every good work?
There was a time as a pastor when I wasn’t regularly engaging with the word of God for per-
sonal benefit. Obviously as a pastor, I have always engaged with the word of God, but to my
shame, I did so almost exclusively for the sake of the people I serve and for the sake of my fam-
ily. But something changed when a daily commitment was made to read God’s Word, a devotion
or two, and several minutes a day with God in prayer. It wasn’t always easy. I had to set a re-
minder on my phone as a general encouragement to sit down and just do it. And some days I
could barely keep my eyes open as I tried to read God’s word or pray. Sometimes I was pretty
sure it wasn’t doing me any good at all and other times I felt like my time would have been bet-
ter spent sleeping in bed. I imagine that many of you probably have had similar thoughts about
spending time in the word or in prayer, but I have to give God’s Word credit where credit is due.
Through the study of His word, he has given me an eagerness to share and preach the Word of
God to you.
I know it’s hard sometimes to take on new things. Some say, It takes at least 90 days to make
something a habit that will stick. The excuses I used for not making the reading of God’s Word a
more important part of my life were shallow at best and they are extremely easy to make. But
God’s Word is more powerful than that for which we are willing to give it credit.
A predecessor of Martin Luther by the name of John Wycliffe translated the bible from Latin
into English during the 1300’s, Wycliff, known as “the morning star of the reformation” was
forced to retire from his teaching post at Oxford University and later died of a stroke before the
full weight of the catholic church could be brought against him. At the Council of Constance in
1415, which also ordered John Hus to be burned at the stake partly for preaching in the language
of the people instead of Latin, also ordered that Wycliffe’s bones be dug up from their grave,
burned into ashes and to be scattered to the four winds. Faithful Christians throughout history,
bled and died, fighting for the word of God to be available to Christians in their own language.
Luther finished his translation of the bible into German in 1534 and set the stage for the bible
being printed in the language of the people. And today we have several copies sitting on our
shelves at home, collecting dust. Dear people loved by God, realize today the treasure God’s
word has in store for you, hear and read it regularly and it will never ever let you down. To God
alone be the glory. Amen.