Jailbreak!

Eric Lemonholm

October 30, 2010

Reformation Sunday – with alternate First Reading

First Reading Jailbreak!  Acts 12:1-19

Psalm Psalm 46

Second Reading Romans 3:19-28

Gospel John 8:31-36

 

Today is Reformation Sunday.

Reformation Sunday is a time for us to remember that the church of Jesus Christ is always in need of re-forming.

Reformation is not something that we do—Reformation is something God does in our hearts and in the heart of God’s church.

Five centuries ago, Martin Luther did not set out to reform the church.

Luther did not set out to re-form the church himself—instead, he prayed for God to Re-form the church, the world, and us.

 

As a young man, Luther thought that you could earn your wings in heaven—and that, if you were not good enough in this life, you were doomed to hell.

That is why he became a monk—so he could work on his personal salvation all day, every day.

It is as if the monastery where he lived was a jail where the young Luther did time to earn forgiveness for his sins and a place in heaven.

Here’s a story: A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence: he’s allowed to say two words every seven years.

After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words. “Cold floors,” he says. They nod and send him away.

Seven more years pass. They bring him back in and ask for his two words. He clears his throats and says, “Bad food.” They nod and send him away.

Seven more years pass. They bring him in for his two words. “I quit,” he says. “That’s not surprising,” the elders say. “You’ve done nothing but complain since you got here.”^[ii]

In the monastery, Luther realized that if his salvation depended on his own efforts, he was lost.

He knew he was a sinner.

He knew that, no matter what he did, he still violated the Ten Commandments every day.

When you go through the Ten Commandments, the first is this: “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other Gods before me.”

With the first commandment, we know we’re sunk, because every day and in many different ways, we let the things of this life come between God and us.

None of us can “love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our strength” perfectly.

It is the same with the other commandments.  Even if we do not violate them literally, we violate their spirit.

If being saved is based on our decision, then we are in trouble, because we cannot, by our own strength, decide 100% for God.^[iii]

Even if we keep a vow of silence for 7 years, we can’t get closer to God by our own strength.

So, are we doomed?

Are we all going to hell in a hand basket?

The answer is no, by the grace of God alone.

Luther spent time reading the Bible and rediscovered the good news of God’s love, the free gift of forgiveness and salvation through faith in Jesus the Christ.

 

Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

The truth will make you free.

Like Peter in prison, Luther had been in chains, imprisoned by the decision theology that is still so common today.

The Truth shattered his chains and set Luther free!

Being a disciple, a follower of Jesus, a Christian, is about emancipation, freedom.

• ·         It’s not about following rules.
• ·         It’s not about trying to be good enough for God to accept us.
• ·         It’s not about losing our individuality, what makes us unique people, as we are absorbed into the body of Christ.
• ·         It’s not about blind, mindless assent to what someone else tells us.  We are free to think.

Being a follower of Jesus Christ is about the promises of God.

We do not make ourselves free.  We cannot free ourselves from the power of sin and evil.

It is the Truth of God that makes us free.

Here’s Paul writing to the Romans 3:23-24 (from the Message Bible):

Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity [God] put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. [God] got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where [God] always wanted us to be. And [God] did it by means of Jesus Christ.

That is the message of the Reformation: salvation is God’s work, God’s gift to us. 

This week’s memory verse is Ephesians 2:8 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

There is nothing we can do to save ourselves and all creation, so God has stepped into the fray, destroying the hold that sin, death, and evil have over us.

That is the truth that makes us free.

Jesus says, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

The Son of God has made us free.

We are free from the sting of death, because we know that death is a doorway, not a wall, a beginning not an end.

We are free from the power of evil, because there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love.  The power of evil was sapped on the cross and at the resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

We are free from the hold of sin on our lives.

In the name of Christ, our sins have been forgiven this morning.

Philoxenus of Mabbug was a Christian in the sixth-century, who wrote: “Monks [Christians] ought not judge each other, because God judges us much more leniently than human beings are able to do.”

It is amazing but true.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Think about all the times you have messed up in your life.

Now remember that each sin is a sin against God; each and every time you sin, you damage your relationship with God.

It is as if every time you hurt someone else or yourself, you were hurting God.

Yet, as we turn from our sin, turn to God, and ask for forgiveness, God forgives us.

God’s love is bigger than our sin.

If I were in charge, I would probably have a hard time forgiving the sins of all of us in this room – especially my own sin.  It is hard to forgive ourselves, isn’t it?

God’s heart is bigger than any of us could ever be—big enough to forgive all of our sin.  God washes us cleaner than fresh-fallen snow before the Industrial Age.

 

Jesus says, “Continue in my word and follow me.” 

Jesus says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me.”

When we don’t focus on ourselves, but follow Christ—that is when we are most truly ourselves, that is when we have joy and peace and a rich, deep, abundant life.

We are children of the new covenant that Jeremiah proclaimed.

Jeremiah gives us this image of the new covenant, which we believe was inaugurated in Jesus and will be fulfilled when the kingdom of God comes in its glory:

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

That is an image of the kingdom of God.  God will write God’s teaching on our hearts, and we shall know God personally, intimately, even as God knows us.  Our sins will be forgiven and forgotten once and for all.

The Son of God welcomes us into God’s family.  We are God’s family members, adopted children of God, because the Son has set us free from sin and death.

“So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.” (MsgB)

You are truly free.  Free from sin, free from the power of the evil one, free from the fear of hell.

You are also free for a purpose.  You are free to love, free to serve, free to live an abundant, joyful life.

Do you know that your chains have been loosed?

Do you know that the prison doors have been opened?

Do you know that you are free?

 

Let us pray:

God our God, You have broken our chains.

You have opened our prison doors.

Thank you for setting us free from the power of sin, death, and the devil, not by our own strength or decision but by your gracious mercy. 

Thank you for adopting us into your family. 

Re-form us, heart and soul, in the image of your Son Jesus the Christ. 

Guide us by your Holy Spirit to live out our freedom in a life of love for you and service for our neighbor.

We pray that the work you begin in us today be sustained throughout our lives and completed when your Kingdom comes in its glory.  Amen.