Paid In Full

by Pastor Johnson - Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Lexington KY

Text:   John 8:31-32  31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,  32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Romans 3:22-24  For there is no distinction:  23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  24 and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ...   INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ,  Today we celebrate Reformation Day. Almost 500 years ago today, an Augustinian friar and professor at Wittenberg University named Martin Luther posted 95 theses on the castle church door, the town bulletin board. And so began what we now call the Reformation of the western catholic church.  I’d like to begin our look at the Reformation with this story:  A park ranger was leading a group of hikers to a lookout tower in Yellowstone National Park. Along the way he pointed out some of the famous sites in the park. He was so intent on the stories he was telling, that he paid no attention when his two-way radio received a message. He turned it down. Later he and his party stopped to look at some flowers and view some of the birds in nearby trees. Once again his radio distracted the ranger, so this time he turned it off. As the group neared the lookout tower, they were met by a nearly breathless ranger who asked why the guide hadn't responded to the messages on his radio. From their viewpoint, high in the tower, some other rangers had observed a large grizzly bear stalking the group. They had been trying desperately to warn the hikers. Someone commenting on this near misadventure said that many times we are so involved in personal activities and pursuits in this life, we don't pay attention to the voice of God trying to get through to us. Sometimes we turn down the volume. Sometimes we don't pay attention. Sometimes we even turn Him off. Then the writer continued, "If God is trying to get through to us, we can be sure it is for a good reason."
I. But we ignore the voice of God because we are estranged from God. Before the Reformation the Church had the tendency to forget that.
	A. And that estrangement consists of being separated from God on at least two levels:     by our deeds and by our nature.
			1. Most of us, when we hear the phrase, "all have sinned" as from our text, we think exclusively of our deeds, usually our misdeeds are the things we have done that were wrong. And sometimes, in a moment of spiritual clarity, we may reflect also on our sins of omission, those good things we have not done. And certainly the volume of our misdeeds, particularly our sins of omission, is overwhelming.   2. But we are also sinful by our very nature.  There is a chasm that separates us from God and keeps us from the kind of peace, love and joy that God means for us to have.  That chasm is our sin.
				a. We sin in our thoughts, we sin with our words, we sin in our deeds. We sin by the things we do, and we sin by the things we haven’t done.   b. And that’s just scratching the surface. Those are the symptoms; because sin is inherited. It is the disease of disobedience and death that comes from Adam.
	B. Even from Adam—before we even consider all our other sins we are enslaved and captive to Sin and Death. We cannot free ourselves. We’re stuck.  When it comes to the condition of sin, we all are addicted.
			1.  And accordingly we are all rebels in our hearts. Luther said that it was like the birds of winter. Those that do not fly south try to gather up morsels here and there to survive until spring. Luther went out to feed the birds in his backyard once and instead of coming to him and receive the food, what did they do? They flew away. Pointing at the birds, Luther said, "That's me! God comes to me with goodness, life, and blessings to give and instead of eagerly accepting what God has, I fly away. I'll die without God's help but I am wickedly stubborn. God only wants to help and save and I flutter away."
			2. Then God sends the Law into our midst.  And on the surface it seems to make matters worse because we can’t keep it, no matter how hard we try.
					a. And When we look into the mirror of the Law we find that it’s a magnifying mirror. Even things we thought were OK, even those areas we feel good about, turn out to be riddled with sin. The mere fact that we sin – in our thoughts, in our words, in our actions – reminds us that we are slaves to Sin.   b. The purpose of the Law is to bring knowledge of sin, to give us the divine diagnosis of our condition.  You think you have problems? The Law says you are the problem. You think you have a few bad habits to straighten out? Think again. The Law says you are shot through with sin. You’re a terminal case. This is not going to get better by itself, and you can’t fix it.  Someone else, from the outside has to redeem you, pay the price and buy you back.   c. The Law is intended to shut us up so we can listen, because only in hearing are we going to be freed from this mess. As long as we are babbling over our works and how we’re better than the next guy, our ears will be deaf to the only word that can save us. The Law says in effect, “Shut up and listen” because faith comes by hearing and there won’t be any faith as long as your lips are flapping.
II.  God is trying to get us to stop and listen because He wants to tell us something important.  Jesus is the reason God is trying to get through to us. Jesus is our help, our Redeemer.
		A.. Because Jesus is perfect under the Law.
			1. He fears, loves, trusts in God above all things. He rightly honors God’s name and Word. He is the obedient Son of His Father and His mother. He helps and befriends His neighbor. He does not steal, lie, gossip, slander or covet anything. He is perfect Man under the Law.   2. He has taken your sin.
				a. He is condemned humanity, one huge rebellious Man, covered with your sin. He is the drunkard, the adulterer, the murderer, the thief, the liar. He is damned with our damnation, cursed with the curse of the Law, receiving in His own body what you and I deserved. But He gets it instead. He does justice to our sins in two ways: He keeps the Law for us where we could not; and He dies under the Law for us as we deserve to die.   b. Jesus has redeemed you from slavery to sin.  He redeemed you not with gold or silver or money, but with His holy, precious Blood and with His innocent suffering and death. This is what  brought hope and joy to Luther and the reformers.   c. There is a great story about how Luther dealt with this long list of sins. Evidently, one night he had a nightmare in which the devil took out this huge book full of Luther's sins. They were itemized, numbered, and dated. The sheer size and numbers were overwhelming. The weight of the sins drove Luther to his knees in despair. As the devil completed his evidence against a nervous and contrite Luther, Luther suddenly realized something and said, "You forgot a few." With that he added more and more to the list provided by the devil and then wrote on the bottom, "Paid in full by Jesus Christ."  That’s what Jesus has done for us, too!
	B. An Augustinian friar named Martin Luther heard that verdict of “not guilty for Jesus’ sake” and dared to believe it.
			1. He believed it over and against the official teachings of his church, the opinions of his teachers, the popular religious notions of his day.
				a. He dared to believe that the apostle Paul was right when he wrote: We hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.   b. Luther dared to believe that Jesus his Savior had done it all for him, and nothing he did could add to that one perfect life and the one all-sufficient death.
			2. We dare to believe the same. We dare to believe that we stand before God right now, this very instant, justified for Jesus’ sake. It’s the most audacious statement in all the religious world, that a sinner is justified by faith in Jesus apart from anything he or she does. Justified in Jesus, for Jesus’ sake.
				a. The debt has been paid once and for all. The slate has been washed clean. The verdict has been read. The jury dismissed. No condemnation. God refuses to deal with you as your sins deserve. The entire burden of your sin was nailed to the cross in Jesus. He bore the verdict “guilty” so that you might hear the verdict “not guilty.” You are free.   b. If the Son of God, Jesus Christ, doesn’t set me free, I can’t be free. But when we are brought to believe in what Jesus has done He sets you free.
			3. What does the freedom He gives look like?
				a. It doesn’t look like an 18-year-old’s fantasies about freedom. It doesn’t look like me getting all of my selfish needs met while doing no earthly good for others. The new life in Christ doesn’t look like an MGM-style celebration of ourselves with all the materialism and pleasure we can grab along the way.   b. No, the new life in Christ looks like a cross – like the freedom to stick with this life by abiding in His Word, and by giving our lives away in service to others and in joyous harmony with our Master.    c. The freedom we receive looks a little like this too. There is that story told about Abraham Lincoln. "Lincoln went down to the slave block. He saw a young girl being sold. He took money out of his own pocket and bought her. When she was brought to him, he said, 'Young lady, you are free.' She said, 'Please, sir, what does that mean?' He said, 'It means you are free.' 'Does that mean,' she asked, 'that I can say whatever I want to say?' Lincoln said, 'Yes, my dear, you can say whatever you want to say.' 'Does that mean,' she asked, 'that I can be whatever I want to be?' Lincoln said, 'Yes, you can be whatever you want to be.' She asked, 'Does that mean I can go wherever I want to go?' He said, 'Yes, you can go whenever you want to go.' And the girl, with tears streaming down her face, said, 'Then I will go with you.'"
CONCLUSION:  When the Son makes you free, you are free indeed! We can rejoice as did Luther and countless other believers who have been freed in the same way over the centuries.  And once we are brought to realize the great gift we’ve been given in Jesus we say to him, “Then I’ll go with you.” Amen

Wake Up Now

Sermon by Pastor Johnson, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Text:  Luke 16:30  "'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'  31  "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'"   INTRODUCTION: My dear friends in Christ, in an old Mel Brooks movie, "Life Stinks," Brooks plays wealthy businessman, Goddard Bolt. Goddard Bolt has the very best of everything money could buy. [Video    He rides in a chauffeur driven limousine. He's wealthy and his sights are set on making more. His plan is to tear down some old downtown buildings and construct a modern complex with luxury condominiums and a mall.]   "What about the people living down there?" one of his employees asks him. "What people?" Goddard Bolt asks, "There are only old deserted buildings." What he doesn't take into account are the homeless people living in those "old deserted buildings" and in the alleys.  Goddard Bolt doesn’t take into account anything beyond his money and wealth.
I. Jesus told a parable about a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in absolute luxury.   A first century version of Goddard Bolt.
	A. He is unnamed in our parable, but tradition has given him the name “Dives,” which just means rich in Latin.
			1. Perhaps Dives was there every Sabbath in the synagogue sitting in his place of honor as one of the pillars of the congregation. Perhaps he heard the Word every Sabbath because that’s where everyone else was and no one was doing business.   2. But, like the Pharisees to whom this parable was addressed, Dives didn't pay attention to the Word of God which teaches that God is our help, our only hope for salvation.
		B. At the rich man’s gate lay a beggar named Lazarus. Lazarus was covered with sores. He longed to eat even the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. He lay there day after day in misery.
			1. However, there came a time when the rich man did notice Lazarus. “The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.”
				a. The rich man also died but he didn’t go to Abraham’s side. Instead he found himself in hell. From this realm of torment, he looked up and he saw Abraham far away.   b. Then the rich man couldn’t believe his eyes. There at Abraham’s side was this poor beggar who had lain outside his gate, this man of no importance, this man of no consequence, Lazarus. But while the rich man languished in hell, Lazarus was in glory.
			2. Now this is a parable.  In this parable the rich man could look into heaven, And he could call out to Abraham, which he did. But this is a point made for the lesson being taught, not necessarily what we would experience.
				a. “Father Abraham, have pity on me,” he cried. “Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” The rich man still didn’t get it, did he? He still thought Lazarus ought to serve him. He was absolutely clueless about the way the kingdom of God works.  He still could not see that God is our help.    b. Abraham reminds the rich man that in this world he had many nice things while Lazarus had none. And besides, he says, there is a chasm between heaven and hell that cannot be bridged. In other words, it was too late for the rich man. His fate was sealed. He had turned his head too many times in ignoring the Word that said that God is our help.   c. The rich man still didn’t get it. “Then I beg you, father,” he cried, “Send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.”  Abraham replied, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.”  “No, father Abraham, said the rich man, “but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.” Abraham said, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”
II. You see, the Word is all we need to bring us to know that God is our help.
		A. But so often we are like that rich man, so distracted by all around us.  God in His Word, though, is always trying to get us to wake up to Him.
			1. Lloyd Ogilvie tells ... of a father who knelt down to tuck his little boy into bed. It was time for prayers. The little boy began his childhood prayer which he had repeated so many times before: "Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." On this night, however, the words got mixed up and the child inadvertently spoke words of the greatest wisdom he would ever know. He prayed: "If I should wake before I die. . . ." Then he stopped in embarrassment and apologized, "Oh, Daddy, I got all mixed up." Wisely, his father responded, "Not at all, son; that is the first time that prayer was properly prayed. My deepest longing for you is that you may wake up before you die." In a way this text is calling for us to wake up before we die for, indeed, some of us are asleep in some of the most critical areas of our life.   2. Through this parable Jesus is trying to wake us up to know that He reverses our common perceptions.
				a. For example, remember that the rich man is nameless. Even in our world rich people are known by name and by face. We see them on television programs showing off their luxury homes. We see their faces on magazine covers in the supermarket. We know who they are.   b. The poor, on the other hand, are often nameless. We don't know their names or their faces. In this parable the poor man ends up alongside of Abraham while the rich man ends up in Hades.   Why?  Because the rich man measured God’s favor by his comfort, clothes and food, he did not listen to the Word about his lack of true riches—faith and salvation. Because he was a descendant of Abraham, he saw no need to believe the Word that Abraham believed.  And the poor man measured God’s favor by His promises in the word.
		B. At the end of his life Luther said “We are all beggars, this is true.”  We are all Lazarus – helpless and hopeless in our poverty, sick unto death, longing to even eat the crumbs that fall from God’s table. Lazarus is each of us, and unless we see ourselves in him, we cannot be saved. We won’t want to be saved.
			1. Unlike the rich man in the parable, Jesus comes to us in our poverty. “Though He was rich, yet for our sakes, He became poor that we through His poverty might become rich.” He came to us in the poverty of our sin and death. He came to us, we who are condemned to an eternity in hell. He came to us when we were unable to help ourselves. He took on our weak and diseased and fallen humanity, and He lifted us up from the curb and brought us to His house and washed our wounds with His Baptism and gave us a seat at His table:
				a. not as pathetic beggars but as beloved friends, b. not as strangers but as one of the family, c. not to eat the crumbs that fall from the table but to feast on the abundance of salvation that Jesus has won for us.
			2. In our movie example Goddard Bolt made a wager he could survive 30 days in the slums among the people he didn’t see as worthy to be noticed.  [Video]  Goddard Bolt was changed by his experience in the slums, but we are changed by something more sure, God’s word.
				a. We have the sure prophetic Word. We are blessed to live in the last days. Now we not only have Moses and the prophets, but we have the apostles and evangelists. We know how this whole thing comes out. We know how Jesus died to bear the sin of the world; how He became the least and the loser for all of us, losing His life to win us.   b. And the good news is that Jesus has joined us here, among the dogs, the outcasts, the losers. A beggar to save the beggars.  We have the Word made flesh. Yes, certainly faith comes by hearing the Word of Christ. Hear it. Our sins are forgiven in Jesus. Your death is destroyed in Jesus. Hell has no power over you in Jesus.
III. And this text warns us of that which would distract us from the Word. It warns us not to trust in our comfort level, our labels or what we see. It bids us to hear the Word of God and believe it. That Word points us to our Savior who will not fail us.
		A. Are you afflicted? Troubled? Worried? Sick? Most uncomfortable?
			1. Old Adam will use these things to convince you that God has no love for you. Your sinful nature will use your exhaustion, hurt and circumstances to say that the Lord does not know you. But we are not to listen to Old Adam, our circumstances or our fatigue to know God’s will.   2. Instead, we are to  listen to His Word. His Word tells us this: That God certainly does love you and He does know you. Why? Because of Christ.
				a. Out of love for us, our Savior was afflicted, beaten and troubled. He bore our sins, sicknesses and infirmities to the cross for us, in our place; there He died with them, taking them to the grave.   b. He rose conquering death for us – so we like Lazarus will one day see heaven.
		B. Learn about Him from His Word. Cling to His promises, all the more when you are afflicted.  Look to the altar, because there He gives you His body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.
			1. Look to His Word because There the Lord gives you forgiveness and faith and eternal life. And because there He promises, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”   2. God’s Word opens our eyes to see the treasures of the kingdom of God. It helps us see how rich we are with God’s love for us in Jesus his Son. God’s Word is the only way to open the hearts of people and lead them to believe and accept these treasures.
CONCLUSION: We are all Lazarus – whose God is our help.  God has noticed us and helped us through Jesus.  He has brought us to wake up and to know our help in in Him.  He has brought us into His house and fed us with heavenly food.  Now He has made us like Him – He has made us to notice others and to give out His Word to them, so they know how He notices them, too.  We are brought to give out the treasures of heaven for others.  We are brought to be servants as we have been served by Jesus.  We are brought to be changed men and women in a better way than Godard Bolt.  Now we are brought to resist being overly distracted by the stuff and concerns of this world and to notice His Word and our fellow beggars.  God is our help and we become the help for other beggars.  Amen.