First Sunday, End Times, NO. 110, Nov. 1, 1998, Trinity, Temple

Sermon by Pastor Robert Green, 1st Sunday End Times, 11/3/13, Yr. C, No. 1028, Ascension Evangelical Lutheran Church, Harrisburg, PA., W.E.L.S., based John 8:31-36 Has the truth set you free? The great goal of the Lutheran Reformation was a return to the certainty of salvation and the certainty of the Scripture as God’s absolute truth. The certainty of salvation had been lost for it was taught that salvation did not come through faith alone, but through work or self-righteousness. Work or self-righteousness is the idea that the soul can and must make itself right before God by doing enough good to earn God’s favor. Under this teaching no one could ever be certain he or she had done enough. That left little to the certainty of salvation through faith in Jesus. The certainty of God’s Word was lost at the time of the Reformation for no longer was the Word regarded as the final authority on what the Christian is to believe and cling to, for the church had long taught that whatever the church said overruled the Scriptures. The loss of certainty of the Scripture as the absolute divine truth robbed the soul of the Gospel message to believe in Jesus and be saved. The Gospel message is that God freely loves and forgives us only be of his grace, which is his undeserved love. The teaching of work or self-righteousness denies this and makes the soul a slave to the fear of not being sure of God love and a slave the fear that sins had not been fully forgiven for the soul had to earn both. Thanks be to God that Luther and the other great reformers restored the Scripture to its rightful place as the final authority on all it speaks about and so gives us the absolute certainty of Salvation based on the Gospel message that we are saved by faith alone, by grace alone, and by Scripture alone. After all, God caused his Word to be recorded and preserved for us so that we would know have no fear or doubt of his love and his salvation he freely gives to us through faith in Christ. God wants you to know you can trust the Scriptures so that take him at his Word. Thus, in this reading Jesus tells all who believe in him, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Freedom is a wonderful gift and most people cherish the thought of freedom. As Americans we relish the religious and political freedoms we have guaranteed in the Bill of Rights of our Constitution. Americans have the greatest freedoms in the world. We dare not take our freedoms for granted. That is why we have a government with the duty and responsibility to protect us and our freedoms. The freedoms we have as Americans pale in comparison to the freedom we have as believers. No government no matter how great can truly make anyone free nor can any government no matter how powerful truly enslave another, for the greatest enslavement of mankind is the slavery to sin and death. Such slavery captures every soul for each is conceived with a sinful nature that enslave all to sin. No government or earthly authority can free a soul from sin for only God can free us. Take to heart that no matter what oppression we may face in life, Jesus said, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The reading calls for each of us to answer the question, “Has the truth set me free? The events of the reading occurred during the last time Jesus was in Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles, which would have occurred in September or October of the year before his crucifixion. The Feast of Tabernacles was both a thanksgiving celebration for the harvest and also a time to remember how the LORD led the people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Jesus started teaching during the last half of the seven day feast and though the Jews were amazed at the depth of Jesus’ teaching the crowd was divided some saying he must be the Christ, with others saying he deceived the people. The reading comes from a conversation on the last day and greatest day of the Feast. In the words leading up to the reading, we are told Jesus told the crowd, addressing unbelievers, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come… You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.” Those who listened to Jesus would see their need for the Savior and the call to faith. Then just before the reading Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him. Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him.” This is where the reading begins as John tells us, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” To hold to Jesus’ teachings means to believe them and keep with all your power and might. Are you holding to Jesus’ teaching? The word disciple means to be a learner or follower of someone. Thus, he is addressing believers, those already saved through faith, telling them how to go beyond bare saving faith and to attain towards truly being his disciple. Are you truly a disciple or follower of Jesus? Take to heart that if you want to truly follow Jesus you cannot pick and choose what teaching you will hold to and which ones you will set aside as unimportant or not worth keeping. To hold to Jesus’ teaching demands that you know his teachings and you will know his teachings only to the degree that you study them, inwardly digest them, and make them your own. Jesus is God and God inspired the entire Scripture so to keep Jesus’ teachings is to keep the teaching of all Scripture. That is why Jesus said, on the night of his betrayal, that God’s Word, not just the red letters of the Bible, but all God’s Word is truth and you can be sure the divine Word of God is absolutely true. Has the truth set you free? How does the truth set you free? Consider that without faith you are nothing but a sinner, for you have no spiritual life that avails before God for you were born spiritually dead and thus a slave to sin, death and the devil. God’s truth, his Word, is what God uses to bring us to faith, Romans 10:17 (NIV84) “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Once God brings us to faith he sets us from sin for he removes all sin and guilt from us. God commands that we keep his law completely, but we cannot. Through faith in Christ, God sets us free from having to keep the Law, for Christ kept it perfectly for us. This is the heart of the true Christian faith which so aptly summed up in the reading from Romans 3 for today. Paul wrote, Romans 3:19-21, “Now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known … 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” This is the message that gave birth to the great Reformation; for once Luther came to correctly understand it he realized it meant that through faith God forgives all our sins and also credits us with the perfect righteousness of Christ. That makes us pure and holy in God’s eyes and sets frees us from the penalty of sin, from death and from the devil. In faith we have been born again and in the New Man or Spirit within we are free to say no to sin in any given situation. Sin is no longer our master. As Paul says in Romans 6:1–4 (NIV84) “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” In that new life Paul says, in Romans 6:18 (NIV84) “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Thus, the truth has set you from sin and death! But not all who were listening believed in him. John tells us, referring to the unbelievers, “They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” These Jews suffered from the false believer that DNA and bloodlines would save them. In their blindness to the truth these Jews seem to have forgotten that their nation had not been free for over 600 years and even then were under the control of the Roman Empire. In their blindness these Jews failed to see their spiritual slavery to sin and death. John tells us, “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus drove the truth of these words by using the form of an oath in saying “I tell you the truth.” He speaks not about a believer who falls into sin, as believers do on a daily basis, but to the one who sins all the time. The one who continues to sin all the time has no faith. So, has the truth set you free? Of course it has for you believe in Jesus who set you free from sin, death and the devil on the Cross. When God’s Son acts to set you free, you are free indeed. Jesus has made you free through faith to be adopted into God’s holy family and that makes salvation sure and certain. Take to heart that God did this not because you earned or deserved it, but only because of his grace, his undeserved love for you. Take to heart that the benefit of Jesus’ victory to make you free comes only through faith, for without faith you are forever lost. Take God at his Word that he has set you free through faith in Jesus. In this freedom God wants you to be sure and certain of your salvation by trusting that his Word is true and that you are free indeed! After all, this Reformation Sunday we celebrate the return to the sure and certainty of salvation through faith alone, through grace alone, and through Scripture alone. Therefore know that the truth has set you free; you have for God’s Word on it! To God be all glory, amen!