Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2003 : November 2, 2003
I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel
Reformation Sunday
Think of the worst nightmare you have ever had. My own worst nightmare happened when I was about 7 years old. I can remember having a high fever. As I was lying on the couch trying to get better, I slipped into a frighteningly simple dream. There were only two things in it -- a cloud far above me, and a huge boulder that was resting on the cloud. Then, as I looked, the boulder moved closer and closer to the edge of the cloud. I tried to cry for help, but no one was around to hear. Try as I might, I couldn't move from where I was. I waited helplessly for what seemed like hours, with the boulder getter closer and closer to the edge of the cloud. Then finally, the rock fell over the edge of the cloud, and came hurtling toward me. Then, just as it was about to hit me, I woke up. Even though the ordeal seemed so real, I was very happy to be able to say, "Ah, it was just a dream."
It sure is nice to wake up from a bad dream and realize that it isn't reality. But for many people in this world, waking up to reality is worse than the worst nightmare, and they might not even know it. Those are people who don't know the gospel of Jesus Christ. On this Reformation Day, we remember that Martin Luther was in that boat, but by God's grace he was led to discover the message of the gospel. That discovery has changed history. Now many besides Luther would wake up from their real nightmares to discover the very real gospel. As Luther came to realize what the gospel message was all about, he became ready to put his life on the line to make sure others knew about it as well. Just as the Apostle Paul before him, Luther was not ashamed of the gospel. Let those be the words we live by as well as we use them as our personal confession and as we see them as our most important mission.
Luther was born into a time when anyone who went against the power of the church was often killed for it. John Huss of Prague and Savonarola of Florence, Italy, were two reformers in the 1400s who spoke out before Luther did against indulgences -- the practice of buying a piece of paper that would assure you of forgiveness of sins and life off of purgatory. Both men said a person was saved through faith, not by works. Both men were burned to death for heresy and blasphemy. When Luther spoke out against these same abuses, he faced almost certain death as well for heresy and blasphemy. But Luther didn't die an untimely death. He lived to be a champion of the truth, one who was not ashamed of the gospel.
But it took a while for Luther to reach that point. God had to lead him to understand who he was first -- very certainly a blasphemer. Later in his life, Luther used that word to describe himself before he came to know the gospel. The word blasphemy is used to describe when someone shows utter irreverence toward God. Jesus was accused of blasphemy several times. After Jesus told a paralytic that his sins were forgiven, the teachers of the law said, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (Mark 2:7) When Jesus was asked point blank if he was the Christ, the Son of God, and so God himself, Jesus said, "Yes, it is as you say." Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, "He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy." (Matthew 26:64-65) Even though Jesus was and is God and had every right to say so, and so he certainly didn't blaspheme, he knowingly gave his enemies what they needed to put him to death.
In calling himself a blasphemer, Luther included himself with the Apostle Paul. In 1 Timothy 1:13-14 Paul said, "Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief." Paul had been the leading persecutor of the church. He had dragged off Christians to their deaths because he thought he was serving God. Really, he was serving a false god, the god of the self-righteous. But when he came to know Jesus as his Savior, he could say: "The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."
And as I said, Luther himself believed that before he came to know Christ, he was a blasphemer. In recalling how he came to know Christ and the gospel, Luther recalled how he hated God. When he was trying to figure out the book of Romans, he had so much trouble with verse 17 in the words before us which talks about "the righteousness of God." He was brought up to see God as an angry, wrathful judge whose law demanded righteousness of the sinner which he could not hope to fulfill. But Luther also was taught that the gospel did the same thing. He looked at this verse 17 and saw God as righteous and one who punishes all sinners who aren't righteous. Luther knew he wasn't righteous. As a result, he said, "I did not at all love this righteous and angry God, who punishes sinners, but I hated him, and was full of secret anger against him."
Do you see the similarity between Luther and the Apostle Paul? Both of them were self-righteous, not Christ-righteous. Paul thought he was earning heaven through his own righteousness, so he loved "God," when in actuality he didn't even know who the true God was. Luther also was brought up to think that the only way to get into heaven was to earn it. But instead of loving God for it, he hated God. Paul was the best Pharisee around. Luther was the best monk around, torturing himself daily, thinking that by doing so he was better before God. But they were wrong. Both of them had the jaws of death and hell right before them and were about to be swallowed forever. But Jesus led both to see who God really was. Paul needed the law of God to slap him in the face, so Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and said, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4). Luther needed to see the gospel in his despair. And Romans 1:17 is where he found it: "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.' " Like a thunderclap, Luther suddenly realized, as he recounted later in his own words: "By the gospel that righteousness is revealed which is valid in the sight of God and by which God, from grace and pure mercy, makes us righteous by faith." So the righteousness God demands, God gives freely.
Paul needed law; Luther needed gospel. These two blasphemers needed what only God could give, and God gave them what they needed. Now, because they could see their folly clearly in trying to earn heaven by their own righteousness, now they could rejoice in the gospel. Paul said, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ -- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith." (Philippians 3:8,9) Luther said much the same: "I immediately felt that I had been entirely born anew and had found a door wide open, leading straight into paradise."
Paul and Luther had found the gospel. It transformed their lives. It transformed the world because God used these men to transform the world, to turn it upside down with the gospel. Not only did they make it their personal confession, but they also made it their most important mission, as we do as well.
Most of us wouldn't call ourselves blasphemers, as Luther and Paul called themselves. But we were. Before we came to faith, we were in the same boat as Paul and Luther, drifting toward the neverending fires of hell. But Jesus reached out to us and pulled us from that boat. He created the faith in our hearts that looks not to ourselves for good works good enough to earn heaven, but the good works of Christ that have been credited to our accounts through faith which Christ earned for us. When we came to faith, the righteousness of God became ours because Jesus became ours. As Paul said, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That is the gospel. That is our most important mission -- to tell others, to dedicate our lives to sharing that message of salvation.
But if we are completely honest with ourselves, we have to admit that we aren't always ready to give our lives entirely to Christ and make that our mission. We might like the things of this world too much. Instead of surrendering ourselves and our pocketbooks completely into God's hands and trusting he will take care of us when we give generously to spreading the gospel, we might hold back, keeping some funds just in case we might need them. Instead of being willing to talk to our neighbors about what we know, we tend to get timid, waiting maybe too long for the right moment. Why does that happen in our lives? We've heard the gospel. We know Jesus as our Savior. You will never completely see how marvelous the gospel is, until you stand with Paul and Luther before the wide gates of hell itself, realizing how hopeless your situation is because you don't have any righteousness of your own and will die eternally because of it. Only when you have reached that point will you make the gospel of Jesus your most precious possession, your personal confession that you don't want to keep personal. Only when you see the Son of God himself dying on that cursed tree to take all your unrighteousness upon himself -- the times we didn't trust him fully, the times we didn't share him willingly -- only when you see that Jesus paid for your sins in full and that God accepted that payment and that through faith Jesus' righteousness is yours, only then will you understand fully what the gospel is all about. Then you will be able to say with Paul and Luther: " I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." That is your personal confession; that is your most important mission. Amen.
