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“Lutheranized!” John 8:31-36 The Observance of the Reformation October 30, 2016 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our text, Jesus says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, One of the basic rules of thumb in studying theology is to really study the verbs of the text… who is doing the action, and who is benefiting. In the theology of the Gospel, God is the acting agent, and man is the recipient of God’s acts / verbs of mercy. For example, the last verse of our text, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” It’s the Son’s effort, and his effort benefits you! Now, based on that simple premise, consider Jesus’ first sentence in our text: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” In that sentence of Jesus, we hear three verbal phrases… “If you abide”… “you will know”… “the truth will set you free.” These three verbs share for us the heart of the Gospel and the joy for us this day. At first, it may sound like man is the active agent – “If you abide”? Isn’t that what I’m doing? – But, to understand the whole phrase, let’s actually take them in reverse order… and once we consider them piece by piece, we can rejoice in hearing the entire promise of Christ. The first phrase to consider is “the Truth will set you free”… if you’ve had opportunity to be in Bible Class, you’ve heard me focus on this phrase “set free” already this fall. In the Greek, the phrase “to set free” comes from the word “” – you can hear that the root word sounds (and is spelled almost exactly) like the name Luther. Now, it may be coincidental… but how fitting!... for the Lutheran confession is all about the teaching that the Gospel “sets free” God’s beloved people from the fear and doubt and despair of works righteousness, penance, purgatory, and all those false teachings that led God’s people to wonder whether they had done enough to be saved and loved by Him. Indeed, you can hear the Gospel proclamation in this verb… Jesus desires to “set you free” in the certainty of your salvation… He wants to you - “Lutheranize” you, if you will. To be Lutheran is not about following a man named Martin, but the Godman named Jesus. It’s the joy that the truth of Christ’s Gospel sets you free from all the errors that have been added to and hoisted upon the Gospel, even as Jesus promises, “The truth will set you free.” It will Lutheranize – from your standpoint, this is a passive reality. It is happening to you; you are being set free. More correctly – it has happened for you; you have been set free – Christ died for you, and even in that hour, Christ cried, “It is finished.” He could 2 have added, “You have been set free” … or, paraphrasing the Greek, “You have been Lutheranized.” That’s what it is to be a Lutheran – to have God himself work for you, to have God himself take your place upon the cross, to have Christ himself as the atoning sacrifice that fulfills all the Old Testament prophecies and makes good on God’s gospel promise to pay for the sins of the whole world. Yes, and what’s more, to be Lutheranized is to have God himself deliver that cross-won benefit to you individually, to work upon you individually and “set you free” in the giving of those cross-won benefits to you… to have God himself baptize you (as Paul says to the Ephesians that it is Christ himself who baptizes… who this morning adopted little Charlotte in Baptism)… and thereby God in Christ has set you free from the condemnation the Law held upon you. (As Paul tells the Galatians, “For freedom you have been set free!”) To be a Lutheran is not to be set free from the need for Christ, it’s to be set free by Christ from the need to depend on one’s own righteousness before God… to set you free from doubt of works that aren’t sufficient or prayers supposedly only heard through a holy hierarchy … set you free from ‘decisions for Jesus’ that fade with emotions… set you free from the artificial assurance of an artificially “sanctified” life. The phrase upon which your ‘being set free’ is grounded is this one: “you will know the Truth” – We are set free as the Truth becomes ours… this verb is technically active, but in the same sense 3 that the word “learn” is active. True, you learn; but you learn by someone else teaching you, by someone else working upon you: Paul says it this way, “How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear unless someone preaches to them!” Thus, you know the Truth by the work that the Holy Spirit does in the Word and Sacraments of Christ. And you know the Truth, not only by intellect, but by experience… and ‘experience’ doesn’t mean that you always feel the truth – the human heart can flip and flop all over with feelings and can’t be trusted. Rather, you learn the Truth by “undergoing the medicinal work” of Christ in Word and Sacraments… the forgiveness of sins is objectively part of your life’s experience whether you emotionally feel it or not. Every time Christ’s absolution proclaims to you your forgiveness, the truth there and then becomes yours – You ‘experience/receive it’ even if you don’t sensationally ‘experience/feel it.’ You experience His teaching and the benefits of His Holy Supper – you experience it objectively and truly, even if you aren’t sensationally moved by it. And you experience and know it because it is the Truth. When Jesus says “You will know the Truth,” he doesn’t mean to say, “You will know the academic information that makes one a good student;” rather He says “You will know the Truth”… and the Truth is that God is actively at work in His Word and Sacraments, so that you “know/receive” the benefits of that as one whom He sustains and 4 keeps because He cherishes you as one whom He has set free from sin, death, and the power of the devil. This is what we cherish as Lutherans – if someone asks how we “know” the Truth of our salvation, we need not look to our own efforts, our own prayers, our own worth or merit or the strength/sensations of our faith; rather we may point that person to the object of our faith – to Christ Jesus, to His Word and Sacraments – and we may say “He has set me free, and I know the great Truth that He forgives my sins and carries me to the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. I know it because he baptized me into it; I know it because He proclaims it and fills my ears with it; I know it because He feeds it to me in His Holy Body and Blood. I know the Truth; because the Truth is, God is actively caring for me and providing me the benefits which Christ once earned by laying down his life for me.” Now, based on the two verbal phrases we’ve considered, we can better understand the first thing Jesus says: “Remain in My Word, and you are truly my disciples” – To depend on Christ’s Word might seem a given, but it’s more novel in our world than you’d think. How many who desire to be disciples today seek the advice of 10-step programs, how many appeal to philosophers and self-help gurus? And that was no different in Luther’s day; any young monk in the medieval Roman Catholic church studied more philosophy than theology, more Plato and Aristotle than Jesus and Paul. But the words of human wisdom fade away. Christ’s Word endures forever; it is the lamp unto our feet, the light unto our path. It is our mainstay 5 and our fortress; because it is not just a Word about God, but God’s Word to us. So, what does it mean to remain in Him and His Word? – for, yes, after we’ve been put into His Word – saved and redeemed by His work – “remaining in [His] Word” truly is a verb that we are actively doing. The Christian disciple does not desire to flee from God and His Word; rather, this phrase means that – because Christ has saved us – the one who trusts Christ (the Christian) simply desires to dwell where God safeguards us. He is our mighty fortress and our refuge. The psalmist says it this way, “The Lord is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble… The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (Psalm 46:1, 7). Think of the image of dwelling safely in a fortress. Luther knew that safety of a fortress as he hid in Wartburg Castle from a much stronger enemy. Does not every Christian have that assured safety… a fortress of the Church (we’ll call it ‘Zion’), built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the cornerstone? Yes, God and His means of salvation, God and His desire to save all people, God and His promise that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His beloved people… that is a mighty fortress, the stronghold of Jacob. And, think of what a mighty fortress looks like towering high on a hill, with the fields and plains sprawling out in nakedness before it… What safer place can there be as the enemy appears on the 6 horizon and crosses that exposed battlefield? What safer place than the walled fortress … as the kingdom’s army goes out to fight for the people, the people remain safely behind the walls, on the safe side of the moat, with the drawbridge lifted and closed. And, there the people dwell safely and await word from those who fight for them. For us fights the Valiant One, whom God himself elected and chose to fight for us (as foreshadowed with David/Goliath). And that Valiant One goes out to the plain for us, out to the battlefield, and he fights and fends off and defeats the enemy. He does it in a most peculiar way, crushing the enemy’s head by suffering death on a standard lifted high for all to see. “As Moses lifted the serpent on the pole in the wilderness, so is the Son of Man lifted up.” And, though dreadful to behold, it is the fulfillment of all of God’s strategy to win this victory and guarantee that He holds the field forever. And the news of that victory needs to be brought back to the fortress to tell the trembling that all is well and safe. And you know what that message from the battlefield is called? It’s called “gospel.” Literally, the word gospel comes from a military word that refers to the report that a messenger brought from the battlefield and relayed the good news that your army had won. And once you understand that image – that the messenger brings the battlefield report – then you understand this Word of God through the prophet, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news… who proclaim salvation, who reports to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” 7 Our God reigns. Our army of One on the battlefield has won the victory, and He holds the field forever. He has defeated sin, death, the devil, so that we need not depend on our worth (or the worth of others) before the judgment seat of God, but may depend on Christ’s worth and victory, and we may hear him say to us, “You have been set free from the enemy, set free from the evil foe that laid siege upon you, set free from the threat that – had your valiant one been insufficient – you’d have to fight by your own strength and might. You have been set free from all of that… Christ reigns forever… so that you may safely abide in the kingdom.” Thus, what privilege and grace is lavished upon you that you may there remain joyfully in that fortress, living in the Truth that Christ has won the victory on the battlefield, that Truth which sets you free from your fears, free to be the people of God who may joyfully and certainly say, “the fortress / the kingdom ours remaineth.” How comforting is this entire promise of Jesus!: “Remain in My word, you are my disciples. And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free.” In the Name of the Father And of the Son And of the Holy Spirit. + AMEN + Rev. Mark C. Bestul Calvary Lutheran Church October 30, 2016 8