1.
Please pray
with me. May the words of my mouth and
the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and
our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word this morning we
celebrate the Festival of the Reformation is taken from John 8:31-36. Here our Lord Jesus tells us that through Him
we are freed by the truth of His Holy Word (vv. 31, 32), freed from slavery to
our sins (vv. 33–36), and freed for service to our neighbor (v. 36). The message is entitled, “Free at Last!” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
The cry
from many quarters today is for freedom: freedom from political oppression,
racial freedom, the freedom of sexual equality. Our own society pushes for the
individual freedom of self-expression. People fight for the freedom to choose
their sexual lifestyles, to print pornography, to set their own standards of
right and wrong. These freedoms that
people claim are merely a license to sin. All such striving for “freedom” apart from God is really
self-delusion. To be free to do what you want is no freedom at all. It’s
slavery! We’re our own worst masters! Real freedom, the source of all other
freedoms, comes from Jesus.
3.
John 8:31–36 says, “31So
Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you
are truly my disciples, 32and you will know the truth, and the truth
will set you free.” 33They answered him, “We are offspring of
Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You
will become free’?” 34Jesus
answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave
to sin. 35The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son
remains forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free
indeed.”
4.
Sin is the
greatest of tyrants. That’s why the
Bible again and again refers to those who are still in the power of sin as
being slaves—bound in cruel bondage by a wicked taskmaster. You have heard the expression, “He’s a slave of drink.” In a similar sense, all men are by nature
slaves of sin; they’re sold under its power and incapable of purchasing their
freedom.
5.
Sin
traps us and stops us from doing anything good. Sin stops us from showing God’s
love to others, and even keeps us from believing in Jesus. And Jesus says in
John 8 that we can’t do anything to free ourselves from it. A long time ago in
Martin Luther’s day almost 500 years ago, people thought they could do things
to get rid of their own sins. They thought if they said the right kinds of
prayers the right number of times, or if they gave enough money to the church,
those things would get rid of their sins.
In fact, the Roman Catholic Pope at the time had issued something called
an indulgence. It was a piece of paper that promised those
who had bought it that they could free themselves and their loved ones who had
already died from years spent in purgatory, a place which the Catholic Church
believed purged away your sins before you could enter into heaven. There was a man in Luther’s day named John
Tetzel who would go around selling these indulgence. In fact he had a saying that went like this,
“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,
a soul from purgatory springs…” Do you thing it worked? No, and it still
doesn’t.
6.
No
matter how much we try, we can never do enough to pay for all the bad things we
think and say and do. In our Gospel today, Jesus said, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave
to sin” (v. 34). We’re
stuck in our own sins, and we can’t get away.
So too, the Apostle Paul writes, “Do you not know that if you present
yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you
obey?” (Romans 6:16). From this bondage there is only one escape,
and that is through the redemption that has been won for us by Jesus Christ,
our Savior. That’s why Jesus says here in John
8, “If the Son sets you free, you will be
free indeed” (v. 36). And who is the Son? Jesus, of course!
7.
Martin
Luther was upset that the church of his day would make such a claim that a
person could pay money or do something through their own merits and works to
earn and pay their way to heaven and bring about the forgiveness of their sins. That’s why Luther writes in his explanation
of the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed, “I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from
eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has
redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins,
from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with
His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may
be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting
righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead,
lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.”
8.
St. Paul says, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born
of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that
we might receive adoption as sons.” (Gal. 4:4-5). Christ assumed our human nature, says the
writer to the Hebrews, in order to “deliver
all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”
(Hebrews 2:15). “He breaks the power of canceled sin; He sets the pris’ner free,” we
sing in the well known hymn (LSB 528:4).
And that’s the claim that Jesus now makes for Himself here in John 8,
that He, the Son, sets us free at last.
9.
Christ
took on all your sin, your lust, your greed, your selfishness, your death, and
in exchange, he gives you his life, his wisdom, his peace, his joy, his
righteousness, his glory, his power. You abide in Christ, and he abides in you,
just like a branch on a vine. As Paul declares, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Ga12:20). With Jesus
living in you, you are a new creation; you are free from sin and death.
10.
And
while we’re united with Jesus through faith, we also live in relation to our
family, to neighbor, to millions of unbelievers, to a great variety of human
cultures. It’s here that our faith is put to work. We freely become obedient
slaves to please God, without thought of gain, in love that’s not forced. Through Jesus we’ve been freed from our sins
so that now we can freely serve our neighbor in love.
11.
And, the
good things of God shouldn’t only flow into you, but from you to your neighbor
as you empty yourself, not abusing your freedom, but taking on the form of a
servant to your neighbor, as you cover
their sins and failures and pain, and also labor for them as if they were your
very own. That’s what Christ did for you.
12.
As Christians
we no longer live in and for ourselves.
It’s not me, myself, and I any longer.
No, as Christians we’re not selfish belly button gazers. Instead we live in and for Christ Jesus, and
for our neighbor. You live in Christ through faith, and for your neighbor in
love. By faith you are caught up beyond yourself into God, and are freed from
sin and death. By love you move out of yourself, toward your neighbor to serve,
but you always remain in God’s love in Christ. Through God’s Son, you are free at
last! Amen.
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