Transcribed by AI. Please forgive the errors.

Today is Reformation Day, it's the day that Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses in Wittenberg, and it sparked a huge change. One of the things that people often get wrong about the reformation is that they assume Martin Luther was out to start something new. He wasn't. In fact, if you actually read the 95 theses, he spends a quite a bit of time defending the Pope and saying, oh, there's no way that the Pope would actually sell indulgences, the way these are being sold. He's still a pretty good Catholic at that time, with maybe just a few questions. Over the years, he never really wanted to actually start a new church. If you read his writings, he says that he wants to reform to have debates, to ask questions, to gather the church together to have a council even all the way up until he dies. What happened instead was that we got kicked out rather than leaving. And since then, the Lutheran church has focused on the idea that we are saved by grace through faith on account of Christ as the central understanding of the way God works in the world. That the gift of the Gospel through Jesus Christ is something that's given to sinners, for free. There is no work that we can do. No prayer that we can pray that will make God give us grace and nothing good in our hearts. That will save us it's only a gift from Jesus Christ. Today, I prepared a sermon from John chapter eight based on this text. Jesus says, To the Jews who had believed in Him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free and answered him. We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free. Jesus replied, I tell you the truth everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now, a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a sun belongs forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free. Indeed. It says, if you know the truth, the truth will set you free. today as we celebrate the Reformation, we have to ask what is the truth. The truth is that we live in a world that is filled with a lot of untruth. But that Jesus Christ, our Savior, has come to give us what we need to know, to be saved. These come down to die on the cross for you, to rise from the dead for you, to give you eternal life. All as again. The truth is also that this world was created by him. The very same guy who wrote the words I just read also wrote that the world came into being through this Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. And freedom is understanding that through him, we can truly have life and be set free from the error of our world. Jesus tells us that that is that there is slavery in our world. Not the kind that we see in history, but a slavery to sin. Because he says, Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. That's a challenging concept for a group of people who consider themselves free. We in America, we celebrate our freedom. We often say we are the freest country in the world. Were the land of the free and the home of the brave. But I don't know about you. But when I look into my heart, I don't always feel very free. Not because of political freedom, but simply because I see in myself a thing that wants to take control of my body and make me do all the things I don't like to do. It's the voice of sin. And, you know, you've got the same thing going on in you Sometimes it's quieter, sometimes it's louder, and sometimes it comes up and takes over everything. And I don't do what I like you know what happens in your life. I know it happens in mind. And I can know that because it happens in even the best of us. St. Paul himself. He wrote in Romans chapter seven, for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, or I have the desire to do what is right. But not the ability to carry it out. Or I do not do the good I want. But the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Don't know about you, but I am so used to being having sin, and a hovering there in my life, always ready to take over. But I can't even imagine what it might be like to actually be free. Do you imagine you run into temptation, and you don't even think about it. You wake up in the morning, and you're just generous with everything. There's no groaning, no complaining, no mumbling. No fear about the future. You're just accepting that God will take care of you. However, it sounds great as it comes out of my mouth. But I can't even understand what that kind of life would be like to actually be free from this doubt, and sin in my life. But what Jesus does, is he came down, to give us a taste of that freedom, none. And the promise of that kind of perfect freedom in the future. Parker got that today. You see, when she was brought forward to be baptized, Jesus came down to her and united himself with her. He made himself part of her. And so that the perfection that Jesus has the perfection of the Son of God became her perfection. And so while she will still be a sinner for the rest of her life, she's also a saint. Because Christ is in Christ is one with her, united with her. And that is freedom. And it's the same for you. Everyone who is baptized, has Christ united with you. There is a perfect saint, empowered by Christ in you. That is the only kind of freedom. And as we struggle with sin, we wait for the day that Jesus will return and banish the beast inside of us that wants to take control, and reveal who we truly are. Saints. So we can live with Him forever. And right now, he's destroyed that power of sin. So that we're no longer slaves, but we have the promise of freedom, true freedom by aligning ourselves in Jesus Christ. The challenge for us then, is that freedom doesn't often feel free, the way many people conceive of. When we think of the word freedom, we often think of different ways of talking about it. The world will tell us that freedom is having no rules, right? Do what you want, be who you truly are. Be your authentic self. No one can tell you what to do. probably heard that before. The more subtle version of that is look into your heart and see what you really want. And that must be good. Or perhaps the singer said it in my youth. If it makes you happy. It can't be that bad. Right. But the funny thing is, that's actually a trick isn't. When we tell ourselves having the freedom to do whatever we want. We actually know that's not true. Because when the rules aren't out there and explicit there are actually secret rules.

But you don't know you're broken until you get there. You don't know you broken until your heart feels guilty and crushed. Reminds me of dancing. Actually. There was a change in culture, about a dancing at some point in time, if you look back long enough, dancing was a very formal thing, right? Everybody knew their steps. And it was you, you just had these like ritual stuff. And everybody would turn and they would walk, and they put their hands together. And they, you know, do all those sorts of things, right? They had clear rules, and everybody could follow them. And you could teach everybody the dances. At a certain point, we felt that was too constricting. And the rule for dancing was just let them move the music move you. Which for guys like me means that I look like this when I dance.

That's because there are secret rules, to dancer rules that nobody tells you that you have to figure out on your own to be a good dancer, right? To be a good dancer, you have to understand that somewhere there are actual rules that you have to follow to look. And if there weren't, we wouldn't say, oh, yeah, he's a good dancer, and he's not. And when we have, when we think we can do whatever we want, what we end up doing is crossing the rules ourselves and breaking our own hearts and being pounded with guilt, and pain. Isn't it so much better, to follow Christ, to fight the beast inside us to follow the gifts that Christ gives us. Because what he does, is he frees us from not knowing what we're supposed to do, and helps us to see what the true good life is. So that we end up fighting against the sin in our hearts, to understand where there is true good and love and serve. But even then, because when he knows that we will fail. He forgives us when we say washes it away in the waters of baptism and frees us again every single day. One of the other kinds of freedom we often think about and wish for is economic freedom. The freedom to have what we need. Sometimes we call it the American dream. Right. And you know what the American dream is. It's the house in the suburbs with the white picket fence 2.1 children. It's a full 401 K. Retirement Plan. Insurance enough to protect you from every single problem so that you can have the vacations you want and live the dream. But that's not freedom either. Because no matter how much money you have in the bank, know how matter how much insurance coverage you have, or how many great vacations you can take, and still doesn't get rid of sin. It's just directing all of that economic power towards your own heart. What we need is freedom, true freedom. The kind of freedom that only comes from having a savior Jesus Christ, who unites himself with us to make us free, forever. And that is the great gift we celebrate on reformation. That we're not bound to our human understanding of goodness or choice or freedom. But we have an amazing gift. A savior who gives us freedom that lasts return. We'll come back one day. Destroy that power of sin in the world forever, so that we can live and be like him. In his name, amen.

Pay steal from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Happy Reformation Day. It's exciting to celebrate the joy of the Reformation. and the beginning of what happened that Martin Luther rediscovered the gift of the gospel as we understand it, he rediscovered the idea that God saves us not by our works, but by grace through faith on account of Christ, that there is nothing that we contribute to salvation. It's only God who does it through our Savior Jesus. To celebrate Reformation Day, I'd like to take a look at a passage from John chapter eight, it reads, to the Jews who had believed in Him, Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. They answered him, We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free. Jesus replied, I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now, a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. Jesus said, If you hold to my teaching, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. It's an interesting passage for us who liked the idea of freedom so much when we are in America, we think of ourselves as a free country, right? In fact, sometimes we will say that we are the freest country in the whole world, are we saying that we are in the land of the free and the home of the brave? When you hear these words, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, you might think to yourself, just like the Jews did, wait a second, I've never been a slave. I am an American, which means I am free. Or I make my own decisions, which means I am free. But what Jesus is trying to show us is that there's a different kind of freedom. The freedom of the gospel is not about political freedom, or the ability to to make your own decisions. What it is, it's about the freedom from sin. As Jesus says, I tell you the truth everyone who sins is a slave to sin. That means everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. I don't know about you, but I often see sin at work in my own life. Sometimes it's almost as if it's a creature on its own with its own will and mind and purpose. I hear it whispering in my ear. All right, I feel it stirring in my heart making me want something that I shouldn't. There's even times when it rears up inside me. And it's almost like thin takes control of my body. And I do something that I say, Why in the world did I do that? I bet you feel that way. Sometimes, too, right? Sometimes it can be so small as waking up on the wrong side of the bed in the morning. And you're just cranky all day. And you don't like that about yourself? Do I know I certainly don't. Or when that one sin that just keeps getting you over and over and over again. Still gets you even though you hate it. We all have that. And I know that because even the best Christians, perhaps the best Christian of all time, said he had that. As Paul writes in Romans chapter seven. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right. But not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. So sounds about right, doesn't it that's what it means to be a slave to sin. This thing inside you that takes over. And it's frustrating, isn't it? But what we have in Jesus is the savior who frees us from the power of sin. He does it by coming down to earth to be one of us to actually live under this curse of sin with us and die for us on a cross rise for us to give us eternal life. As it says in Colossians, and you who are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your class, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. When Jesus went to the cross, what he did is he took the power of sin, and He destroyed it there. Of course, we still feel sin in our hearts. But the great joy of Christ is knowing that the gift he has given us is that that is no longer our master, that we have something greater than sin in us. And that's Jesus. In the first service, it was my joy and pleasure to be able to welcome a new member of the family of God into the faith, we baptized Parker, she, she was great, it was awesome. I held the microphone up for the parents, and Parker reached out and grabbed it. I could barely make it through the apostles creed, I was laughing so hard. But what happened in that baptism is that Jesus came down and joined himself to Parker, so that Parker was united with Jesus Christ, and this amazing union of God. And this little girl meant that she was now free from the sin in her life. Now she's gonna grow up, and she's still going to sin, just like all of us. And she's still going to have the struggles that we all have to deal with. But the real her, the true Parker is the one who is united with Jesus Christ. And it's true for you also. The real you. The one that God looks at and loves is the one that's united with Jesus Christ in your own baptism. That because God shows you and became part of you, that is who you truly are. And on the last day, when Jesus comes back, he will come down from heaven, and the forces of sin will be totally gone from your life and all of the sudden, that's the only thing that will be left. The perfection that you have in Jesus Christ, the gift, and the freedom that you have, through this baptism. The struggle for us then is to figure out how to live as free people in a sinful world. Because for us, the word freedom often is very different from what it means to be freed from sin. Because freedom from sin and living in Christ often feels like being oppressed by rules, like we've got all these rules, we have to follow other words, God's will for our lives. So we've struggled with sin, it feels like we're being penned in rather than being freed. That's because the rest of the world thinks of freedom in different ways. Sometimes they think about freedom as being I can do whatever I want. Right? I make my own decisions. You can't tell me what to do. And nothing that you say can tell me that what I choose to do was wrong. And we have all sorts of examples of that. If you look at popular music, you'll find all sorts of people saying do what's in your heart. You are made perfect. Be yourself. In my youth, the singer said, If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad. Right. What they're saying then is that there are no rules. Whatever's in your heart, whatever blossoms out of there is really what's good.

And that's true freedom. And of course, that's actually a lie. It's a trick, really, because there is not freedom in that big cuz whenever somebody says, Oh, there are no rules, just do what's in your heart, what they're really doing is saying that there are secret rules that you have to figure out on your own. And I know this because there are secret rules everywhere. I think the best example, in my life is dancing. If you go back long enough, all of the dancing were these folk dances, right? They had prescribed rules, you had to do all sorts of things. And everybody did it the same way and put your hands up, and you'd kind of do the thing. And you've seen movies like that, right? Or maybe the ballroom dancing, where they have all these rules, and there's a little improvisation. But there was something that happened when they found that all of that too constricting. And they just said, Well, when you dance, just let the music move you. And everything's fine. But we know that's not true. There are good dancers, and there are bad dancers. And you just have to figure out the secret rules. And I can't figure out the secret rules, which is what why when I dance, I look like this. So you can you can see I don't dance much. And when society and morality has secret rules, we think everything's fine until you crossed that secret rule in your own heart. I can do whatever I want until you're aghast at yourself. What do you do then? Well, what you need as a savior, can actually free you from sin. Free you by giving you forgiveness, washing away your sin in the waters of baptism, on the forgiveness you hear in the absolution. You need to Jesus who comes to you. And then you can actually realize that following Him, LISTENING to His will, and maybe even following his rules is more free than the freedom to do evil and the sin that's in our hearts. Another way that we conceive of freedom is often in economic terms, the freedom to be able to do and make choices. Right? That is the American dream. After all, we we have this American dream is that you get a good job, you get this nice house with the white picket fence and the 2.1 children. Freedom then is having money in the bank, insurance coverage, right doctors, the ability to take the vacations that you want, do the programming for your kids that you think is necessary. But I have to ask, do you ever feel free? At that point? Is it ever enough? Is there enough health insurance to make you feel safe all the time? Is there enough money to make you feel totally secure? Or enough that it can never be taken away? Oh you end up doing then is the sin, the fear in our hearts that says what God has isn't enough for me and focusing on gathering it together. And then it never actually brings freedom. True freedom is knowing that nothing of this world can actually protect us. The things that we chase, don't save. It's only the Savior who died for you, who rose for you and gives you eternal life. Because he will come he will come on that last day. And he will get rid of all the forces of evil in the world. He will raise you from the dead and then and there you will be truly free in a way that we can't even imagine now. Free to live in righteousness and perfection forever with our Savior Jesus Christ. In his name, amen.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai