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 day we
observe the Festival of the Reformation is taken from Matthew 11:12-19 and it’s
entitled, “Dancing to Our Tune or God’s Tune,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
No matter what the Christian Church teaches
and preaches, someone will object to the message and use it as an excuse for
not going to worship and being in fellowship with other Christians. John the Baptist fasted and stayed away from
wine. Because of this, some of the
religious leaders of his day said that he was possessed by a devil. Jesus went to the homes of his friends and
also sat down to eat with tax collectors and other sinners, and these same
people said He was a glutton and a drunkard.
By this text in Matthew 11 we learn that you can’t please everyone,
especially those who are looking for something to find fault with.
3. What should we do then? Nothing?
That would be the easier course.
But, that’s not a God pleasing way to face objection and criticism. So what should we do? Continue with patience and determination to
teach, preach and carry out what God has directed us to do in His Word. The rest we leave to God. We’ll never be able to please everyone. This Jesus experienced for Himself and He was
the sinless Son of God. Matthew 11:16-19
says,
16“But to what shall I compare
this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to
their playmates, 17“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not
dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ 18For John came
neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19The
Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and
a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by
her deeds.”
4. Jesus probably shook His head
when He heard the criticism of His opponents.
“To what shall I compare this generation?” we hear Him say. They act like
children who say you can’t play in our yard because you don’t play by our rules. We’ve played our music and you’ve not danced
according to our tune. This holds true
today as well. Many have played—they
want an easy Christianity with preachers who say “smooth
things.” (Isaiah 31:10). Many want sin condemned as long as it’s not
their own sin that’s being spoken about.
It’s fun to sit in the pew and hear the pastor shoot darts at those who
are absent from worship. But, he must
not say anything against our conduct.
It’s too much when the pastor brings up that we have spoken bad things
about our neighbor and tried to hurt his or her reputation. It’s too much when he brings up how we have
lusted after other people, desired things that don’t belong to us and how we
have hated our neighbor in our heart.
When he says these things this strikes too close to home. We want the pastor to dance to the tune we
play. In order better to
understand Jesus’ perspective on an unbelieving world, he likens the world to
children who refuse to play any game in the marketplace, whether they’re
invited to mourn or dance. Jesus Wants
to Move Us from Mourning Our Sins to Celebrating Our Salvation, but will we
mourn—or dance? (vv 12–17).
5.
We’ve mourned, but you haven’t lamented. This is another tune many play. They want an easy going Christianity. They come to worship to be entertained and to
be catered to. And yet, they never lift
a hand for anyone. But, let them have
some kind of problem, and they expect everyone to come to their rescue. We mourn, and when we do, we want the church. We look for an emergency device that will take
all the bitter pain out of our lives. In
sickness, we want the help of the church to be near to us. When death comes to our door, we want the
services of the church and the pastor to say nice things to us. Are we only looking for a church membership that
will bring the service of the church in times of crisis?
6.
On this day we observe the Reformation we remember Martin Luther’s
Ninety-five Theses that he nailed to the Castle Church at Wittenberg in 1517. These theses were a funeral song calling the
Church of his day to repentance. Rather
than face the total desperation of man before God, the need for a savior, the
Church was offering a save-yourself-for-cash scheme: indulgences. Luther declared this to be foolish, calling
instead for personal repentance and faith in Christ. But, the Church’s response was to
excommunicate Luther.
7.
We
can refuse to mourn when God sings the sad song of our sin, the Law. God’s Word sadly describes the brokenness of
our sinful condition (Rom 3:19–20). God
calls us to turn away from our sinfulness and to him in faith—repent. But so often we instead cling to our sins and
convince ourselves they can’t really be so bad. Surely we can make up for them
somehow.
8.
We can be like children who refuse to dance to
a flute (v 17a). God plays his happy
tune through the ministry of Jesus.
Jesus is the Lord and Messiah who has come (Mal 4:5). Jesus “plays a tune” of healing and good news
of forgiveness (Mt 4:23). But, rather
than believe and receive their Savior, the Jewish leaders condemned him (v
19a), finally condemning him to die on a cross.
9.
This beautiful Gospel of Christ was Luther’s
great discovery. There’s no need to
invent some save-yourself scheme, for Jesus has done it all for us by his death
and resurrection. Through passages like
Romans 3, Luther came to realize that we have eternal salvation by faith alone,
simply believing in Christ’s work of dying for us and rising again. But the Roman Church refused to dance to this
beautiful music, even condemning to hell anyone who says that we are saved by
faith apart from our works (Council of Trent).
10. We can refuse to dance when God plays the
happy tune of our salvation, the Gospel.
God’s Word clearly preaches the gift of salvation (Rom 3:24). God calls us to trust in Jesus’ person and
work for our eternal life. But too often
we take the good news of Christ as too simple to be true, thinking something
more must be necessary for our salvation.
11. God wants us to mourn and dance. It’s not enough for us simply to hear God’s
song and dance. “Wisdom is justified by
her deeds” (v 19b). We are saved by
faith alone (Rom 3:24–25). Genuine faith
will manifest itself in the lives of believers (James 2:14–26). God wants us to mourn our sins. He wants us to agree with him that we’ve
sinned and fallen short of his glory (Rom 3:23). He wants us to grieve over our sins so that
we leave them behind. He wants to wash
away our sins through Baptism (Mt 3:6). He
wants to forgive us through the blood of Jesus (Rom 3:25). God wants us to celebrate our salvation. He wants us to hear the good news. He wants us to receive the free gift of
forgiveness, life, and salvation (Rom 3:24).
He wants our salvation to manifest in our lives. He wants this message to go to every nation.
12. John the Baptist came neither
eating nor drinking, and he was faulted for his conduct. Jesus ate and drank with tax collectors and
sinners and He was accused of living a loose lifestyle. Some people can’t be pleased they want
someone to dance to their own tune and not God’s tune. No matter what the church does, it’s wrong in
the opinion of such faultfinders. “To
what shall I compare this generation?” Jesus says. The crowd is
critical. No matter what’s done, it’s
wrong. If we are joyful, then we are
taking our Christianity too lightly. If
we’re sad, then we’re told about the joy of the Gospel. But, these faultfinders of 2,000 years ago
didn’t harm Jesus and His Gospel. They
only closed the door of salvation upon themselves. We don’t want to make the same mistake today!
13. The gift
of the Reformation is the clarity of the good news through Martin Luther. Like
Luther, generations could hear the song and dance of God clearly and without
confusion. We can take comfort in the fact that we’re not saved by paying our
way into heaven or by the amount of good works we can do to earn favor with God;
we mourn for our sins, knowing God is leading us to celebration. We do not live
with the false hope that our amended lives of good works will earn our
salvation; we dance because Christ has already played the happy tune of
salvation as a free gift. We dance because Jesus has already lived a perfect
life, died for our forgiveness, and risen again so that we, too, will have
eternal life. We have a lot to celebrate! Now we can dance to God’s tune and
His gift of salvation through our Savior Jesus and not to the tune of our own
sinfulness. Amen.
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