Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : October 31, 2004
The Key to Eternal Life
Reformation Sunday
Pretend for a minute that you are a treasure hunter, on a hunt for something worth more than the hope diamond, more important than the cure for cancer, better than something that will ensure world peace. It will change the lives of millions and billions of people. But before you can find this greatest of all treasures and reveal it to the world, you have to get through a locked door. And here's the problem -- you don't know where to find it. Some have found the key to untold riches in this world -- developing computer software that almost every computer needs to run would be one key to that door of untold riches. But, even after finding that key and unlocking the door and walking through the door, you'd find that riches can't buy you happiness. Scientists think that it's just a matter of time before some researcher finds the key to the cure for cancer, as well as a whole host of other diseases, maybe through stem cell research or gene therapy. But, even after finding that key and unlocking that door and walking through that door, you'd find that other diseases will come, many worse even than cancer. Some actually even think that we already hold the key to world peace -- we just have to understand each other and accept alternative worldviews. But, even if the majority of the world discovered and used that key to world peace, the reality is that no matter how much we understand and tolerate one another in this world, there will always be horrible wars and horrible death as a result of horrible sins committed by horrible sinners.
But remember, you are a treasure hunter, hunting for something better by far than all those other things -- you are in search of eternal life. The only problem is that by nature not only do you not hold the key to eternal life or have any clue where it might be found, but you don't even know where to find the door.
Back on October 31, 1517, a young monk showed that he had found the door to eternal life, as well as the key that opened it. The people of Wittenberg, Germany, were used to seeing black-robed monks walk their streets. They probably paid little attention to the two who hurried away from the Black Cloister around noon on that day as they made their way to the northern door of the castle church. They didn't think much of him pounding a nail into the door of the church because that was the town bulletin board. But they would soon learn what was written there -- 95 theses, or sentences, describing abuses in the Church especially with regard to the selling of indulgences, which were pieces of paper you paid the church for that supposedly got a person time off of purgatory. This determined monk wanted to make his thoughts based on Scripture known. He had believed in indulgences along with the rest of the people until he came across these words in the book of Romans: "The just, or the righteous, shall live by faith." After he understood that verse, he said, "At this point I immediately felt that I had been entirely born anew and had found a door wide open, leading straight into paradise." What is the key, and what is the door, to eternal life that Martin Luther found and wanted to proclaim to as many as would listen? Let's join Luther on that same quest this morning, the quest for eternal life.
Our quest begins in another portion of the book of Romans, chapter 3, that explains more fully what Luther found in chapter 1, that the righteous will live by faith.
In verse 23 of chapter 3, we read the words of God through Paul: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Martin Luther knew what those words meant all too well. He knew that he was a typical sinner with nothing good to bring before God. But he didn't actually understand that fully until later in his life. Because as Luther was growing up, he believed that he was sinful, but that after the Fall into sin every person still had a spark of goodness in them which could make them acceptable to God. And if that spark of goodness could be fanned into a fire by God's mercy, then that person could earn the merit he needed to get into heaven. It would be like being in a race and getting one of those carbohydrate-loaded bars that would give you the energy you needed to get to the finish line.
For much of his life, Luther struggled under that idea of meriting salvation with God's help. He even became a monk so that he could live a better life than others and earn God's favor by starving himself and beating himself. But Luther found no peace that way. The question that always came into his head was this: "Even though I am living the best life I can, are my works good enough to earn heaven?" The more he read the Scriptures, the more convinced he became that he hadn't done enough to get to heaven. The law told him, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and "the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) The law told him that he had impossible obligations toward a perfect God, and he could not hope to perform them. But Luther's idea of the gospel was no better. At that time in his life, Luther thought that the gospel spoke of God's righteousness by which he would judge all people guilty of sin.
Have you at times in your life felt that the gospel message of free forgiveness of sins through Christ was just too good to be true? Maybe you committed a terrible sin in your life, and you thought that you were so bad that God could not look at you and be happy with you. Maybe you feel that way right now, and your conscience gives you no peace. Then you might say to yourself, "I better start doing better in my life in order to be forgiven." So you go to church every Sunday; you live a better life than you had been living; you try to make up for your sin so that God will accept you. But let me ask you: Is there any peace there? None. Our sinful nature tells us that it makes sense to live a better life, to do good things, so that God will look favorably on us. When you were growing up and broke one of mom's good dishes, didn't you want to make up for it by being really good, by doing your chores extra well, by doing everything she said right away so that, when she found out you had broken one of her dishes, she wouldn't be very mad at you? But what if mom had a bad day at work? No matter how good you could be, it wouldn't make up for what you did. You'd still be grounded or have to wash dishes for a month, or some other horrible punishment.
But with God it's different. God won't come home after a good day or a bad day. God will simply judge you by what he tells you his demands are. And he tells us that very clearly in the Bible: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Have we done that? Maybe for a few hours at a time. I'd even grant that someone could do that for a few days. But not for your whole lifetime -- and that's what God says is the only way you can get into heaven -- with a lifetime of perfection. But God sees something very different than perfection. He doesn't even see a spark of perfection. The Apostle Paul tells us that very clearly just before our text. He says, "As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.' " (Romans 3:10-12) Then he continues in our text, "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." In order for the full and free forgiveness of God in the gospel to make any sense at all, we need to understand that we are sinners through and through, that we have nothing good in us before God. When Luther finally understood this, he described God's law as a hammer and an anvil that smashes us down and crushes us until we can see nothing good in us. We have to see that the key we have fashioned with our good works and best of intentions only opens the door to eternal death. When we see that, then we are ready for the gospel which points us to the door to eternal life.
Often we remember Romans 3:23: "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," but it keeps going in the next verse: "and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." The whole world is justified, or declared righteous, through Christ's redemption. That was the door to eternal life Luther was seeking. Jesus was the door, as Jesus himself said, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved… I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:9-10) Luther already knew Jesus was his Savior, the door to heaven. The problem was that he had no idea how to open that door. He thought it had two keys -- faith and works. He was taught that faith in Jesus forgave his sins by paying for the eternal punishment of sins -- that was the faith key. But he was also taught that he needed to live a good enough life to pay for his worldly punishment. If he didn't, he would live in purgatory for hundreds or thousands of years. And he had no peace.
In reading Romans, he finally understood the gospel. Luther had thought that the gospel was talking about God's righteousness by which he judges sinners. But that isn't the gospel; that's still the law. The gospel says that God's righteousness is ours through faith in Jesus Christ -- and only through faith in Christ. Jesus was the door to eternal life because he paid for every sin when he died on the cross. Faith was the key that opened that door because faith simply accepts Jesus as Savior. Through that faith, Jesus gives us his own perfection. No other key is needed. In fact, any other key that a person holds onto and tries to use to get through the door won't work. We are saved by Jesus, the door to eternal life, through faith alone in Jesus Christ, the key to heaven's door. Faith was and always has been the key. Paul wrote in verses 21-22, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe." Finally Luther understood. Luther had been living with the idea that he had to do something to earn the forgiveness of sins, never realizing that when Jesus said, "It is finished!" he had already earned salvation for Luther and every sinner. Luther finally simply believed it. Eternal life was his.
We, like Luther, also need to look to Christ as the only door to heaven, and we need to use key that opens that door, faith in Jesus, as the only key to heaven. When we have committed a terrible sin and our conscience gives us no peace and we think it is too great a sin to forgive, look to the cross of Christ and the open tomb to see that God has accepted Jesus' sacrifice. Your sins are forgiven. God's righteousness is yours through faith in Christ.
So here we are at the end of our quest for eternal life. We have found it. Heaven is ours because Jesus is the door and the Holy Spirit gave you the key that opens the door -- faith. So now that you've found what you were looking for, will you just sit back and live for yourself? How can you? Now you know that God has given you eternal life by leading you to Jesus, the door to eternal life, and has given you the key to open that door, which is faith to believe in him as your Savior! Use the time you have on this earth to show your love to God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. Use your time to give others the key to eternal life as well, as you tell them about their crucified and now risen and victorious Savior. Amen.
