Sunday: Rediscovers the Gospel CASKET EMPTY Sermon Series Kenwood Baptist Church Pastor David Palmer October 29, 2017

TEXT: Romans 1:16-17

REFORMATION SUNDAY

This morning is a special Sunday. It is special for number of reasons. It is special because we remember the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation or Re-formation of the church. This date in Christian history is associated with Martin Luther's posting of the 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Now, many of you as modern people feel like 500 years ago is too long to have an impact on us. Yet, let me say that at our house that's like a contemporary event. This action, though, 500 years ago, has shaped all of us in ways that we don't even realize, and it is in this event that Martin Luther rediscovered the gospel in the text of Scripture. This happens again and again when anyone is born again. It's a rediscovery of the gospel in the pages of Scripture. It is why the priority of Christian ministry is shaped around the proclamation of the Word of God. It is why we care so much that our children are instructed in the ways of Christ. It is why we place the weight of our authority to guide our lives on Scripture and why it is a call within this re-formation to worship God. I know some of you are rusty on this event and this time, so I found this Internet meme to help us. A meme of Martin Luther has this statement: “I don't always nail things to doors, but when I do, stuff happens.”

What I want to do this morning is to walk through the life of Luther in three main movements. You may be wondering why this matters. It matters because so much that we do the Lord used this man to reorient the church to: the priority of Scripture, the rediscovery of the gospel, and the righteousness that we have by faith in Jesus Christ. There are three movements I want to move through. In the first movement, I want to look at Luther's early biography to the point of his Reformation breakthrough. In the second movement, we will look at how his rediscovery of

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the gospel brought him into conflict with his world. Sometimes when you discover God's truth, it brings you into an adversarial relationship with your own contemporary moment. This reaches a climax in his famous encounter at the imperial assembly, the , which we will look at. Then, in our third movement, we will look at Luther's adult labor to recast what it is about when we gather together as a church family. I spent probably at least 100 hours assembling this message, and I have 28 pages of notes, so let's get started.

Father, we thank You for this gift to pause to remember where we have come from and to help guide where we are going. Lord, we thank You for using ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things. We ask, Holy Spirit, that You would come and You would guide us as we look at Luther's life and legacy and the illumination of Your Word. We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Martin Luther was born November 10, 1483 in , Germany. He was the son of Hans and Margaretta. His parents were devout and working-class people. His father was a copper miner and he earnestly desired for his son to become a lawyer. In 1502, at the age of 19, Luther received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Erfurt, and he ranked unimpressively 30th out of 57 students, so there's hope for us all. In January 1505, Luther received his Master of Arts and moved up in class rank, ranking second among 17 graduates. The summer after completing his Master’s degree was the first of three signal events that culminated in what scholars call “Luther's Reformation breakthrough.” On his journey home from law school on July 2, 1505, Luther was caught in a violent thunderstorm and he was hurled to the ground by lightning. In that single moment, he saw the drama and the frailty of human existence before the power of God, and he cried out in that moment to his father's saint, the patroness of miners. He yelled out: “Help me, St. Anne; I will become a monk” (Here I Stand, 18). He fulfilled this vow. He feared for his soul, and two weeks later, after graduating from law school, he vowed himself to God and entered the monastery, an Augustine monastery in Erfurt. He was accepted as a novice and entered into the regular rhythm of monastery life. Prayer took place seven times a day, spiritual exercises, and the regular confession of sin. He was 21 years old.

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The second of these important events that shaped his life and search for right standing with God took place on May 2, 1507. Martin was invited to celebrate his first mass in the monastery, and at this occasion, on this moment, he came before the altar and began the opening words: “We offer unto You the living, the true, the eternal God,” and of that moment, standing in the presence of Almighty God, Luther himself wrote later what happened at these words: “I was utterly terror-stricken. I thought to myself, ‘With what tongue shall I address Almighty God, seeing that all men ought to tremble in the presence of even an earthly prince? Who am I, that I should lift up my eyes or raise my hands to the divine Majesty? The angels surround Him. At his nod, the earth trembles. And shall I, a miserable little pygmy, say “I want this, I ask for that?” For I am dust and ashes and full of sin and I am speaking to the living, eternal and true God’” (Here I Stand, 25). He was overwhelmed at standing in the presence of Almighty God, and this awe-inspiring transcendence of God strikes us as a distant note from another country, and yet it is one that we know to be true. How can we as human beings, how can we as descendants of Adam, stand rightly before Almighty God? Luther managed to get through this service, his first mass, but he embarked on a quest to obtain right standing before God. He pursued monastic discipline in earnest following the so-called “councils of perfection”: chastity, poverty, obedience, fasting, and mortification of the flesh. Whatever good works he might do to save himself, he was resolved to perform in earnest. Luther wrote about this later, He said: “I was a good monk, and I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out.” (Here I Stand, 30). In his search for righteousness and right standing before God, Luther also availed himself of the medieval doctrine of the merit of the saints. In medieval theology it was taught that sins were accounted for, but that there were certain people who had done more good than bad, and they had obtained a treasury of merit. The lives of the saints, Mary, and above all Christ had accumulated a treasury that could be transferred or applied, and this was bestowed through papal decree called indulgences, where forgiveness of sins was offered as a transfer of merit.

In 1511, Luther was transferred to the city of Wittenberg, and in Wittenberg he obtained a doctorate in theology in 1512 and then joined the faculty as the chair of the Bible department. It was this move that caused Luther to start reading and studying the Bible in earnest, and this is was a critical turning point in his life. One of my mentors told me: “As a pastor, all you have to do is con people into reading the text.” If you can just con people into reading the text, then

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over time the text will take you to the living center, who is Christ Himself. The job of the preacher is not to tell entertaining and motivating stories. The job of the preacher is to unfold the meaning of the Scriptures so that you are encountered by the living Jesus Christ, and that can happen at any age. When we are reading the text of Scripture and it is taking us to the Person of Jesus Christ, we are following in the footsteps of the journey of this man. He began to be a Bible professor even though he stood outside of saving faith in Christ. He begins preaching and teaching and lecturing on the Psalms. A first step in his breakthrough was that as he was studying the Psalms, he saw in Psalms, like Psalm 22, the suffering of Christ depicted—the righteous One suffering on our behalf. This was a clue for him. How could the most righteous One of all suffer in the Psalms? This led him closer to Christ. However, it was his course on Paul's letter to Rome that proved the decisive turning point. As he began to lecture on Romans in 1517, Luther reached the opening chapter of Paul's letter. He noticed Paul's eagerness to preach and proclaim the gospel. Paul writes in Romans 1:16 that he is eager to preach the gospel: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” He was not embarrassed by the gospel. Why? Because the gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. Paul has an earnestness to share the gospel because it is powerful unto salvation. Its power unto salvation is revealed in Romans 1:17. The power of the gospel is real unto salvation: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” This is the heart of the gospel, that the power of God unto salvation is made manifest. God's righteousness is on display in the gospel, and yet Luther was at a stopping point at this passage. These are his own words in the last writings that he ever did. In the preface to his assembled writings, which are 54 volumes in the English translation, he describes this moment of coming to this verse, this text, and this is why we read this passage this morning. Luther writes of Romans 1:17: “I greatly longed to understand Paul’s epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, ‘the righteousness of God,’ because I took it to mean that righteousness whereby God is righteous and deals righteously in punishing the unrighteous. My situation was that, although an impeccable monk, I stood before God as a sinner troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence that my merit would assuage him. . . . Yet I clung to the dear Paul and had a yearning to know what he meant. “Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the righteousness of God and the statement that ‘the righteous shall live by his faith.’ Then I grasped that the righteousness

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of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith” (Here I Stand, 51). This understanding of the gospel had been lost to the church; it became obscured; it was unknown, and looking into this verse, Luther realized that the righteousness of God is that righteousness which He gives to us as a gift by mercy and grace—undeserved righteousness. I am a sinner. Hallelujah, so are you! And the good news of the gospel is that the righteousness of God that is on display, is transferred to you and to me as a gift. You cannot achieve that. You cannot merited it. It can only be given to you, and it is given by faith. Luther writes: “Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise. The whole of Scripture took on a new meaning.” (Here I Stand, 51) This is the Reformation breakthrough that Luther described, and sometimes when you rediscover something glorious and true and wonderful, you think that everyone around you will rejoice in your discovery. In fact, Luther's discovery took him into open conflict with the world of his day because the rediscovery of the gospel means that we are right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, period. It means that forgiveness cannot be something that is for sale on the open market.

In 1517, Pope Leo the 10th of the house of Medici issued a special papal indulgence to raise funds for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Leo authorized Albert of Mainz and gave him the privilege of selling these for eight years. These indulgences offered a complete forgiveness of sins. We even have copies of this very indulgence. You'll notice this is an indulgence that had yet to be purchased because the blank areas on this indulgence have yet to be filled out. All that's waiting to be added is the date and the name of the person. Subscribers were given full remission of sins. The proclamation of this indulgence was entrusted to the Dominican Friar Johann Tetzel and others. Tetzel entered into the cities of Germany with an elaborate procession. As he approached a town, he was greeted by dignitaries, who then entered with him in solemn procession. A cross bearing the papal arms preceded him, and the bull (or decree) of indulgence was carried high upon a gold-embroidered velvet cushion. The

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cross was solemnly planted in the market place, and Tetzel would begin preaching: “Listen now, God and St. Peter call you. Consider the salvation of your souls and those of your loved ones departed. Consider that all who are contrite and have confessed and made contribution will receive complete remission of all their sins.” Not only was this possible for those living, but you could purchase forgiveness of sins for those who had died. Tetzel’s sermon continued reaching a fulcrum point: “Listen to the voices of your dear dead relatives and friends saying ‘Pity us, pity us. We are in dire torment from which you can redeem us for a pittance. Are you so cruel and hard that now you are not willing for so little to set us free. Will you let us lie here in flames? Will you delay our promised glory? Remember that you are able to release them.’” Then he came up with catchy jingles like this one: “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, The soul from purgatory springs.” This is one of the boxes that Tetzel used to collect the funds. Do not imagine for a minute that the church can’t lose the gospel just like this today. How many churches in our city gather without reference to the Word of God, without reference to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, distracted with construction of edifices, distracted with popular techniques to help move the heart of man?

Luther became embroiled in a conflict, and so he, in a signal moment in church history, posted 95 theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany, calling into question this entire system. These 95 theses posted in Latin were posted on October 31, 1517, and it is this event that we mark, 500 years ago this week. Luther's 95 theses called into question this system and highlighted the true treasury of the church which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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In Thesis 1 of the 95, Luther said: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” In Thesis 2, he said: “This word cannot be understood as referring to the sacrament of penance, that is, confession and satisfaction, as administered by the clergy.” In Thesis 27, he said, and this is bold: “They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.” In Thesis 36, he said: “Any truly repentant Christian has a right to full remission of penalty and guilt, even without indulgence letters.” In Thesis 62, he said: “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.” In Thesis 79, he said, and this is inflammatory: “To say that the cross emblazoned with the papal coat of arms, and set up by the indulgence preachers is equal in worth to the cross of Christ is blasphemy.” These 95 theses brought Luther into a head-on conflict with his world. The medieval church organized against him; the pope issued a decree of threatening him with excommunication. This conflict escalated over the next three years until Luther was summoned to appear before the Imperial Diet in the German city of Worms, an illustrious gathering before the Emperor Charles V and the seven electors of the Holy Roman Empire. Charles was 21 years old at the time; Luther was now 37. It is in this meeting, this assembly, that the works of Luther were spread out on a table. Luther was brought before the imperial assembly and asked two questions: Do these works belong to you? Yes or no? and Will you recant the teaching contained in them? Yes or no? Luther replied, eyewitnesses report, in a voice barely audible. He knew that if he were to be condemned that he would be burned. In a voice barely audible, he said: “The books are all mine.” His interrogator, Johann Eck, said: “Do you defend them all, or do you care to reject a part?” Luther was so stunned by the impressive setting that he asked for one day to think it over. He was granted a day. He knew that the decision to recant his teachings would put the rediscovery of the gospel on the line. He also knew that not to

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recant” would put his life on the line. We have the recorded words of his prayer that night. He prayed: “O God, Almighty God everlasting! how dreadful is the world! . . . O God! O God! O thou, my God! help me against the wisdom of this world. . . The work is not mine, but Thine. I have no business here . . . I have nothing to contend for with these great men of the world! I would gladly pass my days in happiness and peace. But the cause is Thine . . . And it is righteous and everlasting! . . . I will not let thee go! no, nor yet for all eternity! And though the world should be thronged with devils - and this body, which is the work of thine hands, should be cast forth, trodden under foot, cut in pieces, . . . consumed to ashes, my soul is thine. Yes, I have thine own word to assure me of it. My soul belongs to thee, and will abide with thee forever! Amen! O God send help! . . . Amen!” The following day, April 18, 1521, Luther was brought before the imperial assembly again. The same questions were asked. He acknowledged the works were his. When he was asked to recant them, he said he could not. His works were of three different types, and he warned in a speech about 10 minutes long about how dangerous it would be to recant any of them. Finally his interrogator became impatient and focused in the charge. He said: “Martin, how can you assume that you are the only one to understand the sense of Scripture? Would you put your judgment above that of so many famous men and claim that you know more than they all? I ask you, Martin—answer candidly and without horns—do you or do you not repudiate your books and the errors which they contain?” And here before the imperial Diet of Worms, Luther responded with these words:

“Since then Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture and plain reason—I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other—my conscience is

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captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”

In Luther's speech before this imperial assembly, he took his stand on the Word of God. His appeal to conscience in this expression is not an appeal to the inner conscience of our self. It is an appeal to the plain, clear-sense reading of Scripture. In other words, what he's saying is that no matter when all the world seems to be going one way, if the plain, clear-sense of Scripture says to go this way, we must go this way. Though the world offer you 1000 ways to be right with God, the Scripture offers you one—faith in Jesus Christ, so we must go this way. Charles V and the imperial assembly met and condemned Luther. The whole document of Charles’ decree is very long. Charles says of Luther: “He denies the power of the keys and encourages the laity to wash their hands in the blood of the clergy. His teaching makes for the collapse of Christendom. We have labored with him, but he recognizes only the authority of Scripture,. . . Luther is to be regarded as a convicted heretic. No one is to harbor him. His followers are to be condemned. His books are to be eradicated from the memory of man.” Luther was told to return to Wittenberg in 21 days; his life was on the line. On the way back to Wittenberg, a group of armed horsemen surrounded his party and dragged Luther to the ground. They placed him on a horse and led him for a whole day by circuitous roads through the woods, until at dusk they reached the Castle. As things turned out, Luther thought he had been kidnapped, but in fact, he had been kidnapped and his life spared by Frederick the Wise who had engineered Luther’s rescue through this kidnapping. Luther was in exile at the Wartburg Castle.

So what do you do if you are reforming the church, if you have re-discovered the gospel, and you have been put in a self-imposed prison in an isolated spot? Well, you do a couple things. First, you grow out your beard. Luther grows out his beard as a disguise, and during this time was known as Junker Jörg, meaning Knight George. He was given access in a room deep within the castle, and no one except one other man even knew he was there. While he was there, what did he do? He translated the New Testament into German. God used this prison time to get the Scriptures out in the language of the people. In Luther's preface to the New Testament,

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he wrote these words: “God’s evangel, the New Testament, is a good piece of news, a war-cry. It was echoed throughout the world by the apostles. They proclaimed a true David who had done combat with, and gained victory over, sin, death, and the devil. In so doing, He had taken all who were enchained by sin, threatened by death, and overpowered by the devil. Though they had merited no rewards, He redeemed them, justified them, gave them life and salvation, and so brought them peace and led them back home to God. For these reasons, they sing thanks and praises to God. … No poor fellow chained in sin, dead, and bound for hell can ever hear anything more comforting and encouraging than this precious and lovely message about Christ; the sinner cannot help exulting from the bottom of his heart and rejoicing over it when he accepts the truth.” Do you know this truth? Luther says you cannot be unmoved by the glory of the gospel. No poor fellow can ever hear anything more comforting and encouraging than this.

Upon his return from exile to Wittenberg, he married Katherine von Bora, who had fled and who was a former nun. Luther wrote to his friend this astonishing development, that a former monk and a former nun were to be married. It was in his pouring over the Scriptures that he realized that the monastic system that he knew needed desperate reformation. He wrote to a friend and said: “The rumor of my marriage is correct. I cannot deny my father the hope of progeny, and I had to confirm my teaching." To another friend he wrote: “God likes to work miracles and to make a fool of the world. I am to be married on Thursday. Katie and I invite you to send a barrel of the best Torgau beer, and if it is not good you will have to drink it yourself.” He was married on June 13, 1525, and he referred to her as “my Katie,” “my rib,” “my beloved wife.” On October 21, he confided to a friend: “My Katherine is fulfilling Genesis 1:28.” On May 25, he wrote to another: “There is about to be born a child of a monk and a nun. Such a child must have a great lord for a godfather.” On June 8, Hans Luther was born, and five more children followed in the next eight years. Martin and Katie also brought up four orphaned children and housed a number of students at the University. At times, their household grew to

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as many as 25. One of the most voluminous sources of Luther's words comes from the dinner conversation around this bustling home. Luther loved to see the dinner table as a time to talk theology and about the Lord. After a while, as he talked, people would say: “That’s really good what he said there,” and they wrote it down. There are 6,596 entries of what are called “Luther's Table Talk.” Some of these are very vivid and give us a picture of the man. But let me just tell you that your dinner table conversation should also be about the Lord.

What did Luther talk about around the table? I’ll take just a few. On the night of a big rain, Luther said: “Praise God. He is giving us one hundred thousand gulden worth. It is raining corn, wheat, barley, wine, cabbage, onions, grass, and milk. All our goods we get for nothing. And God sends his only begotten Son, and we crucify him.” On another occasion he said: “I am the son of a peasant and the grandson and the great-grandson. My father wanted to make me into a burgomaster (lawyer). He went to Mansfeld and became a miner. I became a baccalaureate and a master. Then I became a monk and put off the brown beret. My father didn’t like it, and then I got into the pope’s hair and married an apostate nun. Who could have read that in the stars?” On another occasion, he said: “Printing is God’s latest and best work to spread the true religion throughout the world.” Luther's greatest labor after the Reformation discovery, after the history-making stand at the Diet of Worms, the last decades of his life, he set about the Reformation or re-formation of Christian worship. For many of us, we take these things for granted without recognizing their source, and I want to use these four elements as a way of applying the life of Luther to us today. These elements must be central to us, and they can easily be lost.

The first Reformation of the church was in worship, and Luther is credited with reintroducing congregational singing. At this moment, only the choir sang, and Luther said we all need to sing. He was a great hymn writer himself. He wrote 37 hymns. Luther said:

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“Music is to be praised as second only to the Word of God because by her are all the emotions swayed. … This precious gift has been bestowed on men alone to remind them that they are created to praise and magnify the Lord. He who does not find this an inexpressible miracle of the Lord is truly a clod and is not worthy to be considered a man.” I love that. If you don't like worship music, you’re a clod. We were created to praise God. Luther cared that people learn to sing in church and at home—songs filled with truth and light. One of Luther's enemies lamented that Luther's hymns had made more Christians than his sermons. What are you listening to? What are you singing? Are the lyrics exalting Christ and celebrating truth that will reshape you? It will reform you. A second way the church is reformed, and we are reformed, is in the preaching of the Word. Luther held that faith comes by hearing the Word preached. He told his friend that “the world was conquered by the Word, and by the Word, the church is served and rebuilt.” Luther preached 7,000 sermons in his life, and 2,300 of them are preserved. Luther's preeminence in the pulpit came in part through the earnestness with which he regarded the preaching office. He believed that the primary task of the pastor is to expound the Word, and with the Word preached, we hear God's instruction and we find healing for life’s hurts and the balm of eternal blessedness, and the gospel is known and celebrated. Luther reoriented the structure of the service away from the taking of communion as the high point of the service to the preached Word and gave more time and space in the worship gathering to this than any other. Luther cared not only about the preached Word to shape us and to build the gospel deep into us, but he cared also, thirdly, that children be taught. Though Luther had a doctorate in theology, his most widely read work is The Small Catechism or Luther’s Little Instruction Book. Luther wrote this to be a model for how parents were to instruct their children. This Little Instruction Book was built around the 10 Commandments, the Apostles Creed, and the Lord's Prayer, simple words of instruction in the truth. How many of us as parents or grandparents, when we think of our central responsibility toward children, think our central responsibility is to teach them the great truths of the Lord? Luther believed that and tried to equip the church for it in simple words. I’ll give just a couple of examples. In teaching about the Lord's Prayer, he says: “The Our Father, The Simple Way a Father Should Present it to His Household. ‘Our Father, Who is in Heaven.’ Q. What does this mean? A. In this introduction, God invites us to believe that He is our real Father and we are His real

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children, so that we will pray with trust and complete confidence, in the same way beloved children approach their beloved father with their requests.” What a beautiful exposition of the opening phrase of the Lord's prayer. “The first petition, ‘May Your name be holy.’ Q. What does this mean? A. God's Name is holy in and of itself, but by this request, we pray that He will make it holy among us too. Q. How does this take place? A. When God's Word is clearly taught and when we live holy lives as God's children based upon it. Help us, Heavenly Father, to do this!” Luther cared that the church be reshaped around worship that exalted Christ. He cared that the church in our life together would be reshaped around the preached Word. He cared that children would be taught in ways that the truths of Scripture would be accessible to them and that parents would be seriously engaged.

The last truth of his re-formation of the church was an emphasis on the priesthood of all believers. Luther came to see in Scripture that all who believe in Christ are righteous through faith, that they are all called to be holy ones or saints, and that together, the church, each one of us, is to be a missionary-minded, mobilized, movement in the world that changes society. The task of ministry is not reserved for the pastor or the priest. It is for all. Again, in his preface to the New Testament, Luther said: “If he have faith, the believer cannot be restrained. He betrays himself. He breaks out. He confesses and teaches this gospel to the people at the risk of life itself. His whole life and all his effort are directed towards the benefit of his neighbor.”

I often think about how Kenwood is called to shape our society. The older I get, the narrower my own bandwidth seems to be in terms of scale, and sometimes I think: “Oh, Lord, how will we touch the city? How will we touch our neighborhoods? I can't even get to everyone who needs a pastoral visit. How will this take place?” Then I am reminded of this truth: there is not one of us; there are hundreds of us. If you have faith in Jesus Christ, then I believe that you too cannot be restrained; you will betray yourself, and you will break out. You will talk of Christ with your neighbor; you will talk of Christ with your coworker; you will risk your reputation to make Christ known in the lives around you; you will intercede with needs that I will never know, and the Word will go forth.

Luther, towards the end of his life, lived this way. Even in his early 60s, he went as an older man making a long journey back from Wittenberg to the place of his birth, Eisleben. Though he was

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62 years old and his health was starting to fail, Luther went on this journey because two brothers were having a conflict over mining rights and some interpersonal conflict, and they said the one who could settle this would be Luther. So he went, and he took his three sons with him. It was January, and he suffered from exposure to intense cold and crossing the swollen, icy Saale River. He reached Eisleben and made great progress in achieving reconciliation of the estranged parties. He preached four sermons at St. Andrew's Church on January 31, February 2, February 7, and February 14, each of these final messages focusing on the central message of the gospel—that God in Christ offers Himself freely to us while we are still sinners. His last sermon, as he felt his strength failing, ended with these words: “This and much more might be said concerning this Gospel, but I am too weak and we shall let it go at that.” On February 17, he was too weak to attend the final negotiations of reconciliation but retired to have dinner with his companions, and the subject over the meal turned to whether friends would recognize each other in the next life. Luther believed that they would. Following dinner, he had serious chest pains and coldness. He was rubbed down with hot towels and rose up and prayed in the hearing of all from Psalm 31:5: “Into Your hands I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, God of truth.” At 1:00 AM, he began a cold sweat. They sensed the sign of impending death. Family surrounded him; physicians gathered, and he prayed: “‘To the God of all comfort, the Father of Jesus Christ,’ thanking him that he had revealed to him his son, ‘whom I have believed, whom I have loved, whom I have preached, confessed, and praised.’” And he prayed the words of Psalm 31:5 three more times and then fell silent.

The local pastor and his longtime friend knew that the report of Luther's death would be soon known over all of Europe. To die in agony was interpreted as a sign that the dead man had not gone to reward but to everlasting punishment, and so they shouted loudly so that someone even on the edge of eternity might hear: “Revered father! Are you ready to die trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name?” Luther heard them because our hearing is often the last sense that we possess. He heard them to the very end, and then he rolled over in his bed and out of his mouth came his last spoken

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word to this question. He uttered a loud and distinct Ja, “Yes” in German, and breathed his last. They found a paper in his pocket, and his last words spoken of priority of the Scripture. He said: “Lay not your hand on the divine Aeneid, the Word of God, but bow before it, and adore its every trace!” Below this were written his last words in German and then in Latin: “Wir sind Pettler. Hoc est verum.” (We are beggars. This is true.) We are beggars before Almighty God, and we receive a righteousness that is not our own. I can give you no more encouraging words than this: We have nothing with which to stand before Almighty God of our own righteousness, and you cannot receive the gospel unless you can express that true state of your soul before God. But knowing that we bring nothing to the cross but the sin that necessitates it, when you say, “We are beggars, this is true,” the glory of the gospel is that the righteousness of God is then given to all who believe. Luther, in his preface to Paul's letter to the Romans, said: “Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace.” The greatest legacy of Luther is the priority of the Scripture where we rediscover the gospel and that we stand right before God through this living, bold trust in God's grace. Would you stand with me and pray together?

Dear Lord, We thank You for the gift of grace. We thank You this morning for a living, bold trust. We thank You, Lord, that You are a Mighty Fortress for us. We thank You, Lord, that You are never failing, that You are our Helper. We thank You, Lord, that if we trusted our own strength, our striving would be losing. Lord Jesus, we exalt You this morning, and Lord, as we look back to a critical moment, our faith is stirred afresh, and we pray that we might follow in such footsteps and walk in faith today, that we might be a people that worship You, that give attentive ear to Your Word, that communicate the truths of our faith to our children and grandchildren, and that we might be a people, Lord God, on mission with You. Oh Lord, help us to break out and be zealous in sharing You. Oh, we magnify You Lord. A mighty Fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Lord, we exalt You. We praise You.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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