Dear fellow children of the Reformation:
3400 years ago an 80 year old man armed with a wooden staff stood on the banks of the Red Sea with water in front of him and an army behind him. The Israelites and the promised of the line of the Savior were threatened by an angry Pharaoh and his army. A short time later that army was dead, and God’s people survived.
400 years later God sent a young man—little more than a boy—on a mission he had no business accomplishing. The Israelites and the promised line of the Savior were threatened by a giant who had nothing but contempt for God and his people. David was armed with five smooth stones, a slingshot and all of the promises of God that he had learned as a child. When he walked off that field, the giant was dead and Satan’s threat was thwarted.
499 years ago, God led a 34 year old monk up the steps of a Roman Catholic Church in Wittenberg, Germany on a mission that from the world’s view had little chance of success. God’s people were threatened by a giant institution that had lost its love for God’s true Word and had perverted the sweet message of the gospel. Martin Luther was armed with a hammer, a few nails, some sheets of paper and the promises of God that he recently discovered in the Bible. This morning, those of us who bear the name “Lutheran” are living testimony to the success of that mission.
I believe it’s fair to say that parting of the Red Sea, the slaying of Goliath and the Lutheran Reformation are miracles. Can a man with a staff defeat the most powerful army of his time? Could a young shepherd boy’s slingshot defeat the enemy’s superstar? Could the arguments of a Catholic monk trigger a movement strong enough to overcome the top two powers of Luther’s day: The RCC and the HRE?
The answer to all three questions is yes…yes through the power of God’s Word. Moses didn’t succeed because of the right staff. David’s victory wasn’t due to years of training with a slingshot and because he knew how to choose stones. Luther wasn’t successful because he was a well-educated eloquent scholar backed by a printing press. They were successful because they were armed with God’s promises. “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23) God took these jars of clay, armed them with his Word, and marched them out against enemies they had no business defeating except for the fact they were going about God’s business.
Our theme for this festival of the Reformation is
God’s Word stands forever.
- God’s Word is powerful
- God’s promises are eternal
In our text God says The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Throughout history Satan has rallied peoples and nations to conspire and plot and take their stand against God—opponents that most would have said were invincible, but in God’s eyes were no more than grass that withers under the breath of God. Throughout the pages of scripture God proves that neither man’s wisdom nor strength are a match for the wisdom and power of his Word. At the tower of Babel, on the banks of the Nile, the banks of the Jordan across from the Promised Land, outside of Jericho…the breath of God’s Word blows on them and they whither and fall.
1400 years after the last page of scripture was written, Satan had once again rallied forces against God’s kingdom. And on paper, Martin Luther stood no chance against a corrupt church and a Holy Roman emperor who was only concerned about political strength and success. Yet in the face of such opposition and his own many doubts, Luther knew that the kingdom is ours forever, because the grass always withers and the flowers always fall.
But it’s all too easy to allow today to become a celebration of history at the expense of the present. We rejoice in the Reformation’s success 5 centuries ago, sing “A Mighty Fortress” as Christians proud of our heritage, and then walk back out into our everyday lives and struggle to fully appreciate what the Reformation means in 2016.
A reformation today? Where does the Church today need a reformation? That would be a topic for a reformation lecture, not a reformation sermon. Christian churches that embrace alternate lifestyles, churches that deny creation, churches that claim you can be pro-life while still supporting abortion, churches that still dilute the gospel of salvation by faith alone in Jesus. But look back again 500 years. Who needed a Reformation? The church of Luther’s day? Certainly. But the Reformation of a church began with the Reformation of one man’s heart. “The Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” Long before Luther realized the Church needed a Reformation he knew that he was a spiritual mess. The sweet sound of the gospel—God’s powerful word—broke Luther’s fear of the law and the fear of his Savior.
Instead of looking at church bodies or institutions today, we need look no farther than a mirror. Who needed a Reformation? We did. We were sinful from the moment of our conception, destined to appear before a righteous God and face his just wrath. But then through a miracle as powerful as the miracle that God struck through the hammer blows of the Reformation, God reformed our hearts—for some of us through the power of God’s word on the day of our baptism, for others through the power of that same word later in our lives. The apostle Peter says, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”
Yet in spite of our adoption as God’s children, Satan refuses to surrender. Where do you find the Egyptian army? Not on the banks of the Red Sea, but just beyond sight in the dark shadows of our minds, leading us to question whether God really knows what he’s doing as we face an uncertain future. 500 years after the Reformation, where does John Tetzel set up shop? Not on a street corner selling indulgences that supposedly forgive sins, but right here in my heart…lying to me and trying to convince me that while it’s true that Jesus died for me, my church attendance, or my call or my outward behavior must certainly help my cause in God’s eyes. And better yet, I can use my church attendance or my offering statement as an excuse to sin.
No matter what weapon Satan uses against us, the solution is always the same…the same as it was in the garden of Eden, the same as in the days of the Israelites, the same as Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, and the same as in the days of Luther. All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” God’s Word stands forever, and our comfort is that not only is it powerful, but its promises are eternal.
The prophet Isaiah isn’t just reminded that God’s powerful word will outlast any threaten from the world or Satan himself, he’s also told to deliver the news of God’s promises: You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!”
Before God opened Luther’s eyes to the true meaning of the cross and opened Luther’s ears to the sweet sound of the gospel, there was no good news. Luther had faced his own Goliath: not out in the desert in his little town of Wittenberg, but in his own heart. Luther never doubted that God was more powerful than all of his enemies. What terrified him was his belief that he was one of those enemies. Luther struggled to find any good news—any true comfort in the pages of scripture. Instead, during the early years of Luther’s ministry, every time he read about the righteousness of Christ in the pages of scripture: for example in Romans 1:17: “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,” he believed that through his own effort he had to match Jesus’ holiness in order for God to forgive him. His Goliath was his own sin that he could never overcome. After hours of studying God’s promises in the Psalms and the book of Romans Luther was led by God’s Word to an understanding of God’s grace in Jesus that not only changed his life, but changed history.
For the many of us here who for as long as we can remember have had faith in a Savior who has done everything for us the terror that Luther felt might at first seem quiet foreign. But dare I say that we’ve each faced our own spiritual Goliaths? Two Goliaths…the same two that David faced? Not the giant on the plain of Judah. And not David’s affair or the murder contract he put out on Uriah. But this Goliath: the Goliath that whispered in David’s ear and said, “Sin isn’t a big deal if you never get caught.” And the second Goliath…the one that’s far more dangerous: “After you’ve done that, why would God ever forgive you? You and I have faced those same two Goliaths. And Satan keeps sending them after us, day after day, year after year.
Well, what did God do when his shepherd David believed that lie? When, as he wrote in Psalm 32, “When I kept silent my bones wasted away with my groaning all day long.” God reminded him of his need for his Good Shepherd, and David confessed “Surely I have sinned against God.” And what did David discover 300 years before the words of our text were written? That he had that good shepherd, that as Isaiah says: 11 He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. God’s promises have no time limit. God in his patience forgave the bitterness of Jonah, the doubts of Thomas, the anger of Job, and the spiritual obstinance of David. It took Martin Luther over 30 years to discover the truth about God’s Word. And then armed not with a hammer, nails and a piece of paper but these eternal promises of God, Luther took on Goliath, and as always, God won.
God’s Word always wins. It really wasn’t the sound of a trumpet blast that brought down the walls of Jericho or a smooth stone that defeated Goliath. It was through the power of God’s Word, the same eternal word of promise that still triggers miraculous reformations today: the miracle of forgiveness. What would a Reformation sermon be without a quote from Martin Luther. And so we conclude with two: “So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: ‘I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know the One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!” There I shall be also. Luther said it, and we confess it. Not because Luther said so, but because God says so. What a miracle. The miracle that gives us the faith to also confess with Luther: “He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and with his innocent suffering and death. All this he did that I should be his own, and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence and blessedness, just as he has risen from death and lives and rules eternally. This is most certainly true.”
This is most certainly true…not because Martin Luther says so, but because God says so, and God’s Word stands forever. This…this Word is most certainly true. And because of this, the kingdom is ours forever. Amen.