1.
Sanctify
us in the truth, O Lord, Your Word is truth!
The message from God’s Word for this Sunday in which we observe the
Festival of the Reformation is taken from Matt. 4:12-25, but specifically from
Matt. 4:17 where our Lord Jesus says, 17From
that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand.” The message is entitled, “Reborn, Repent, Reform,” dear brothers
and sisters in Christ.
2.
In 1973
psychiatrist Karl Menninger published a book with the title, Whatever Became
of Sin? His point was that sociology and psychology were beginning to
avoid terms like “evil,” or “immorality,” and “wrongdoing.” Menninger
then detailed how the theological notion of sin became the legal idea of crime
and then slid further from its true meaning and became nothing more than the
psychological category of sickness. Now,
it’s gone even further. We’re not
sinners at all anymore. As many have observed, we’re just “mistakers.” And we’re even starting to lose that. Lately, we don’t even want to call a sin a
mistake. We want to turn everything we do into a virtue. So lust
becomes “sensuality,” and anger just
means being honest with your emotions.
Even when we apologize, we say things like, “I’m sorry you were offended at what I said or did.” No
admittance that we did anything wrong – just sorry that the other person wasn’t
mature enough to handle it. The latest edition of the Oxford Junior
Dictionary for children went all the way and made it official.
They removed the word completely. They don’t even have the word “sin” in
the dictionary anymore. As a result,
morals are seen as almost entirely relative. There are no absolutes when
it comes to right or wrong. If it doesn’t hurt anybody else, and it makes
you happy, then it’s okay. Morality has become a personal choice.
3.
With
this world in which we live of moral relativism, where everyone is doing what
is right in his or her own eyes, we hear our Savior Jesus say to us in Matt.
4:17, 17From that time Jesus
began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” We also hear John the Apostle say in 1
John 1:8-10, “8 If we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he
is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. 10If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his
word is not in us.” Living today in
this 21st century morally relativistic climate we are all the more
in need of the Reformation of the Church.
We are proud of the Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, who is the namesake
of our church body. Reformation Day marks the day in 1517 that Luther posted
his 95 Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. "The eternal gospel" (Revelation 14:6) issued from the very
first stroke of the pen when he wrote, "When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, 'Repent,' He willed the
entire life of believers to be one of repentance." So this day we celebrate the entire life of
believers by proclaiming the eternal gospel of repentance of sin and faith in
Jesus Christ. Luther reminds us that we are reborn through our Lord Jesus, we repent
of our sins, and we reform our lives according to His Word.
4.
Luther
has taught us that repentance
is the life that is lived in our baptisms.
Just as Baptism immerses us in the clothing of Christ, so repentance
returns us to the blessings of the font. It must be a way of life. It’s a complete self-denial. It’s even a hatred of our sinful selves. It’s a recognition that I am nothing in God’s
presence apart from God’s mercy. Martin
Luther writes in his Small Catechism on Baptism, “What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old
Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with
all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to
live before God in righteousness and purity forever. Where is this written? St
Paul writes in Romans chapter six: “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.” [Rom. 6:4] When repentance is lived in connection with
Baptism it is certainly a transformation of the self. These are the means by which God does His
work in our lives.
5.
Unfortunately,
many modern churches confess a God who is not wrathful, but tolerant of everything,
and teach a salvation without the cross of Christ. We need to hear the call to repentance, along
with the self-denial that it implies once again. Our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, still says
to us, “Repent!” This is how to live in
our Baptism. St. Ambrose says, “Repentance is good. If there were no opportunity for it, everyone
would defer until they were old the grace of cleansing by Baptism. A sufficient reason is that it is better to
have a robe to mend than none to put on (Gal. 3:27)… And the Lord has given a sufficient warning to
those who put off repentance, when He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). We do not
know when the thief will come. We do not
know whether our soul may be required of us this night. God cast Adam out of Paradise immediately
after his fault; there was no delay. At
once the fallen were severed from all their enjoyments so that they might
repent. At once God clothed them with
garments of skins, not of silk (Gen. 3:21, 24).
And what reason is there for putting off [repentance]? Is it that you may sin yet more? Then because God is good, you are evil and
‘you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience’ (Rom.
2:4). But the goodness of the Lord ought
rather to draw you to repentance.”
(Ambrose, On Repentance,
2.11.98-100).
6.
But, again
some people may say, “I’m a good person,
I don’t need to repent of my sins. I’m
not a sinner.” It’s for this reason
that no book reports more horrors of sin than the Bible. The first report of
man’s activity in the Bible is of the Fall that had consequences of sin and
corruption for the entire human race at all times. It goes on to relate that the first son of
the first parents murdered his brother and that people’s wickedness increased
from generation to generation. It became
so great, in fact, that finally at the time of the Flood, God had to wipe out all
the millions of wicked and unrepentant people who then lived on the earth. Only 8 souls were saved in the universal flood. Even after this divine judgment, the Bible
doesn’t present an encouraging picture of the world. Even among those who called the Scriptures as
holy, there were almost none who are not reported to have fallen into one sin
or another.
7.
Many
people have taken offense at this. They
think that any book that dwells so much on sins, describing them so
graphically, can’t possibly be the holy Word of God. Any book that has been given by God Himself
for the betterment of mankind, they believe, must concentrate solely on the
lives of virtuous people whose behavior is worthy of imitation. Such thoughts are absurd. In great wisdom God sketched a dark picture
of humanity in His Word. All of Holy
Scripture was written to bring people to faith in Christ, the Savior of the
world. Jesus even says of the Old
Testament, “You search the Scriptures
because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear
witness about Me” (John 5:39). Paul wrote
to Timothy in 2 Tim. 3:15, “From childhood
you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you
wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15). Peter preached, “To Him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him
receives forgiveness of sins through His name” (Acts 10:43). The Bible calls us as sinners to be reborn,
repent of our sins, and reform our lives.
8.
No one
needs a passage to prove that the New Testament has this same goal, but to give
just one example, John reports, “These
are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31). If the Holy Scriptures preached only how
godly people were, would we be led to faith in Christ and to repent and lament
over our sins? Wouldn’t we conclude,
instead, that people are good and that they could surely be saved by their own
works, without the help of a Savior?
Without a doubt. That’s why we
should never be offended by the fact that the Bible presents even the holiest
of people as sinners. King David was an
adulterer and murderer. The Apostle Paul
was a persecutor of Christians. Lot
committed incest. Jacob was a liar and
deceiver. We must recognize God’s great
wisdom in portraying them in this way.
By revealing the sins that have flourished among the people from the
beginning of the world, God shows us that human righteousness and worthiness
are nothing but an empty dream, that every person is a sinner, that even the
most godly can’t stand before the Heavenly Father in their own righteousness,
that free grace in Jesus is man’s only refuge, and that there is no salvation
and no blessedness outside of Christ.
The ones whose horrible sins are related in the Bible should be a mirror
for us, a mirror in which we learn to examine our own life and heart so we
humble ourselves before God and flee to the cross of the Lamb of God who bears
the sins of the world. And so we who are
reborn through Holy Baptism in Jesus,
daily repent of our sins, and reform our lives according to the Word
of God trusting in Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our salvation. Amen.
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