So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in
my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will
know the truth, and the truth will set you free." They
answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never
been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will
become free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly,
truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.
The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son
remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you
will be free indeed.
Soli Deo Gloria
Abiding in the Word of
Jesus. That is our
privilege and high calling as those who have been redeemed through
His death and resurrection, and made children of the Triune God
through our Baptism into Christ.
To abide means to dwell, to stay put, to remain in one
place forever. No
straying, no wandering, no flitting about like a butterfly from
flower to flower in search of something better.
Sticking with Jesus. Sticking
with His Word. Indeed,
what better place for us Lutherans to be than to abide in the life giving
Word of Jesus Christ.
As children of the
Lutheran Reformation, God’s Word is our great heritage.
The question is, do we take that heritage lightly?
It’s easy for us sinners to do that, isn’t it?.
It’s so easy to get caught up in various activities and
other pursuits and priorities to the neglect of the Word of God.
That’s always a danger. The
history of the Church shows that.
Indeed, it’s always been easy for the Church to treat
casually the precious treasure we have in the Word of God.
The sad circumstances of the Church at the dawn of the
Reformation show just how easy it is.
The Church had lost the Word then.
It can lose it again today.
In the centuries prior
to the Reformation, the Bible had lost its preeminent place of
honor in the Church. Oh,
it was given lip-service; it was spoken of highly; it was carried
about in procession and ceremony.
But the Word and its message of salvation by grace through
faith in Jesus Christ were dreadfully obscured by human tradition
and the fallible opinions of men.
The Word of God was forced to the back of the bus while the
declarations of pope and council rode in the seats of honor.
If the pope said that by the purchase of an indulgence you
or your loved one could be freed from the temporal penalties of
purgatory, that was widely believed.
The pope said it, that settles it.
Never mind that the Scriptures say nothing about purgatory,
and nothing about the power of the Bishop of Rome to release by
papal decree the souls who supposedly languished in purgatory.
Human decree can’t
free us from the slavery of sin.
Only the truth that the Son of God suffered and died for
the sin of the world makes us free indeed.
The Word of God teaches us that.
But 500 years ago, that saving Word had largely been
covered up by sinful men who failed to honor it rightly.
I ask you: What honor
does it show the Scriptures if the Church does not draw its
doctrine from Scripture alone?
If we make it up as we go along, determining by fallen
human reason, or by popular vote, what we think the Christian
Faith should be, does that show respect for the Word of God?
If we fail to listen to the Scriptures and take them to
heart, fail to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, and
proclaim their message, what value do we really place upon the
Bible as the written Word of God?
This was the situation
in the Church prior to the days of Martin Luther.
Because of adherence to human tradition, to invented
doctrine that contradicted the clear teachings of the Scriptures,
the Church was failing to abide in the Word of our Savior Jesus
Christ. To abide in
Jesus’ Word is to be His disciple, our Lord says.
It’s to know the truth of the Gospel, the truth that sets
us poor wretched sinners free from the darkness of sin, from
temporal and eternal death, from the dread unending horror of
hell. But when the
Church fails to abide in the Word of our Lord, as it did in the
years prior to the Reformation, it is in effect saying to those
for whom Jesus died: I
don’t care. Just go
to hell.
Thanks be to God that
He raised up a man who recognized the critical nature of abiding
in the Word of God. Thanks
be to God that Martin Luther, by God’s grace, determined to
cling to the Scriptures alone, to preach and teach nothing but
what was in the Bible. Thanks
be to God that Luther was led to recognize that Christ alone, for
the sake of His Cross and vacated tomb, is the One who eternally
frees us from the guilt of our sin and the condemnation we deserve
on account of our fallen nature.
Luther recognized how
necessary it was for the Christian to abide in the Word.
Why else do you think he took the trouble to translate the
Scriptures into the language of the people?
Because he knew that all the Scriptures, from beginning to
end, bear witness to the crucified and risen Son of God, our only
help and refuge against sin and death and devil.
So Luther translated the Word.
He preached the Word. He
taught the Word. And
by God’s grace the Word of God was restored to the Church.
And the Church was restored by the life giving Word of
truth that sets sinners free.
Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ, the
Scripture says. We can
abbreviate that statement. Faith
comes by the Word of Christ, whether it be the written Word, the
Word proclaimed, or the visible Word of Holy Baptism.
That’s how precious and absolutely essential the Word is.
You no more brought yourself to faith than you made
yourself alive. Just
as the heavens and the earth and all things in them were brought
into being by the Word of God, so it was with your faith in Jesus.
In His first epistle Peter speaks of this creative power of
God’s Word when he writes: you have been born again, not of
corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God which
lives and abides forever. . . This is the Word, Peter goes
on to say, which
by the Gospel was preached to you.
As those who have been
graciously born from above by the Word of God, we are to cling to
that Word as our greatest treasure of all.
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that we are saved by the
Gospel proclamation, if we hold fast the Word that was preached to
us. That’s why we offer Sunday School for the children – so
they can be raised up and taught the importance of holding fast to
God’s Word their whole lives long.
That’s why we have adult Bible Class on Sundays and
Thursdays – not to keep me off the streets and out of trouble
– but because even as adults we never outgrow our need of
God’s saving Word in which we are always to abide.
God’s Word is
absolutely vital to our life as a Christian congregation.
That’s why I want to ask a favor of you, dear people of
Mt.
Olive
. I want you to demand
of me, your pastor, that I teach and preach nothing but the Word
of God to you. I want
you to demand of me that my ministry among you be completely
faithful to that inspired, inerrant Word of God.
When I visit our sick and dying members, demand of me that
I bring them the comfort of the Gospel Word of life and freedom
and forgiveness centered on Jesus Christ.
When I catechize your children, or you yourselves in our
Bible Classes, demand of me that it be a catechesis of the Word,
as summarized in Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.
And demand of me
something else, if you will. Demand
of me that I myself would abide in the Word, that I would take
time to read and study it, for the sake of my soul and for the
sake of my ministry among you.
Demand of me that I would show proper honor to the Word of
God by confessing my sins when God’s Word of Law condemns me,
and by believing that God’s Word of grace and forgiveness in
Christ Jesus applies to me also, even as your pastor.
Demand of me that I live by every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God just as I exhort
you to do.
And could I ask a few
things of you, dear people? Could
I ask that you abide in the Word of God?
That you rightly treasure that Word by studying it at home
and here in Bible class? That
you honor the Word of God by bringing your children to Sunday
School and instructing them in the Word at home?
You don’t know how to do that?
Ask me. I’ll
give you a Catechism if you’ve misplaced yours.
I’ll give you suggestions for Bible stories you can read
to your children. And
one more thing. Take a
look at the Catechism yourself.
Read it. See
how it shows that the doctrines we confess as Lutherans are
completely faithful to the Scriptures, drawn as they are from the
Word of God.
This
morning for the reading of the Holy Gospel you saw how the
Scriptures were carried out into your midst in the wake of the
Cross. That’s no
empty show and ceremony. It
means something. It
means that Christ our Savior is in our midst in His Word to
instruct us, to preach to us, to correct us, and to absolve us of
our sins. I
am among you as One who serves, Jesus says. The reading of
the Gospel in your midst means that He is present among you, His
redeemed people, in the Word and Water of Holy Baptism, and in His
very Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar for the
forgiveness of your sins. He’s
among you as one who serves, in love and mercy and grace, for as
the processional Cross reminded us, He died for the sins of the
World. He died for
you. He is your substitute to carry away your guilt and shame.
Your sins are taken away by Jesus.
You are accounted righteous before God for Jesus’ sake.
And you are given the assured hope of life everlasting,
because the One who died on the Cross for you rose again on the
third day for you in order to open your grave when He reappears in
glory on the Last Day.
It
is the Word of God, the message of Christ crucified and risen,
that assures us of these things.
That is why we Lutherans honor the Word.
That’s why we want to know the Word.
That’s why we should be convinced, through study of the
Scriptures, that the teachings of our Church are faithful and true
to the Word of God. And
that’s why we Lutherans – if we’re really going to be
Lutheran, not just in name only – abide in the Word.
God grant that we would never take our heritage of the Word
of God lightly. God
grant that we would always treasure the Word of our Lord for what
it is – the truth that sets us free.
In Nomine Patris. . .
