Look backward! Move Forward!
Commentary
How things do change over time! There was a day when the occasion of Reformation Sunday was a banner hour in every Lutheran, and most Protestant, congregations. It was a time for getting out the Luthern Family Album and dusting off Brother Martin as our hero! It was the chance to preach great sermons about Luther as the clearest-eyed Christian who ever was, and how he, with a mighty arm and outstretched hand, led the true believers out of bondage to the Church of Rome into the promised land of religious freedom.
Or it was a time for patting ourselves on the back about how we differed from others who had lost their way after getting into that land. And we would point out the errors not just of Rome, but of every other denomination whose churches lined the streets of our towns! And the celebrations usually ended up with a kind of inner satisfaction in the hearts of the true blue that gave them a kind of exclusivism that set us not just apart from, but above, the rest.
Most of that has changed, thank heaven! Most of us came to see the arrogance for what it was. We slowly backed away from those practices until today, when like a bad memory, the celebration of the reformation has all but been buried. And yet, when the last Sunday in October rolls around, and the church calendars get flipped, there stands the title affixed to the square, "The Festival of Reformation!" Not just Reformation Sunday, mind you, but the "Festival of the Reformation," no less, the thrust of the name being that there is something to be celebrated, past excesses not withstanding.
And what is there to be celebrated on this morning? What God has done to bring us back to himself through the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that's what! By looking back to see God's long-suffering work in doing that gap-closing, we can be enabled to move forward to the new life that his children can live in joyful service to him and to one another as freed-up people. That gift only the Creator could make possible. And it was not done as a pay-off for any merit badges we had earned by super service or moral heroics. By God's grace it had been poured over us. His arms had been lengthened to reach over the distances we had run to escape him. The One who would make "a new covenant ... not like the one ... their fathers ... broke though I was their husband," God reminded Jeremiah, the One who "put forward" in the offering of his Son "as an expiation by his blood to be received by faith," the Father whose Only-Begotten could save all who were hopelessly mired up to their eyeballs in sin that was sucking them out of sight ... He would make us "free indeed!" That is what the celebration is all about, if this "Festival" is celebrated properly. And if it is, everything will be reformed, reworked ... the church and the world ... starting with us!
OUTLINE I
New day! New deal!
Jeremiah 31:31-34
A. vv. 31-32. What is new about the new covenant? The basic meaning of covenant in Hebrew, berith, is "a compact made between a pair of partners each of whom pledges to the other all he/she can give to serve the other and honor them." The focus of this old covenant was short and clear enough so that even children could remember it, "I will be your God and you will be my people." The specifics of that formula were spelled out so that each partner would see what it looked like in day-to-day behavior and loyalty.
Those specifics had been engraved in stone by God with his own finger. But as permanent as the description was they were bent, then broken, even by those who were saved by the hand that did the writing. It happened so often that it was clear to God that the old deal would not do! "I will make a new covenant ... not like the covenant ... which they broke."
B. vv. 33-34. Note that in the new covenant God does all of the giving! He will "put my law (Hebrew Torah, "teaching, instruction," not legal proscriptions) within them, and I will write it upon their hearts." (In Hebrew, the heart is the control center for human action, not the brain, as with the Greeks.) No human teachers will have to pour in or write out what is expected from the covenant partner. Each will know (Hebrew yada, "to experience the personal touch, a rubbing-up-against") the Lord. God will do whatever is required so that he can keep the bond with them open forever. The way was laid for love to fill the gap promises never could. The Maker of the new covenant was to lay out its formula succinctly, "I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10)."
OUTLINE II
When God picks up the tab
Romans 3:19-28
A. vv. 19-20. "You better, or else!" It sounds so promising as the way to get things done that threats like that often become the method of first choice for shaping many human relationships. Lay down the law, and follow it with threats for non-compliance. That should do it! The problem is that those of us who have tried it ... often repeatedly ... have learned that it never works for long. Even the strongest hobbles wear through with constant friction over time. The law only is fulfilled when love motivates the actors. The record shows that no human partner to the covenant has held up his/her end of the bargain in the long haul. "All have sinned (Greek hamartano, "to miss the mark") and fall short of the glory of God (3:23)...." That being so, when our debits are weighed against our credits by God we never can come out ahead, or even.
B. vv. 21-26. God's righteousness (Greek dikaiosune, "to be fair, even handed, an act, or person, motivated by inner strength," has its counterpart in the Hebrew tzedakah, "to be fair, good hearted"). It is what saves us from our sinful imbalance. Nothing we do can buy that! All that is required is that we hang on for dear life to the proffer of that gift God has made to us, as incredible as that seems!
C. vv. 27-28. The situation being what it is, no human being has any pedestal on which to stand to boast, "I did it!" How could that ever happen when it was God who "did all of the doing" to rescue us from the eternal disaster we had, so persistently, built for ourselves? Christ picked up our tab!
OUTLINE III
Thank God almighty, free at last!
John 8:31-36
A. vv. 31-32. Notice how Jesus links continuing in my word with being disciples. The word continuing (Greek meinete, "to live with, to endure, stay with") embodies vigor, endurance and staying the course, amidst challenges and reversals. Jesus expected that effort from his disciples. Doing his word, his bidding and instructions, was a quality which was to imprint those who named him as Lord. The benefit from doing so was freedom for them ... a freedom that only those who have tunnelvision, or uncompromised dedication to a person, or ideal, or goal, that governs their lives. To be double-minded, with competing commitments pulling one this way and that at the same time, is immobilizing and ultimately paralyzing. Such individuals end up locked-up and despairing.
B. vv. 33-34. The problem with being double-minded is that it usually is bundled with having double-vision. You cannot see clearly where you are going, where you have been, where you are, or even who you are. Inner and outer both vision are impaired! You get the distinct impression that you are free and unimpaired ... when actually you are trapped and incapacitated. Sin is vision-distorting. Good looks bad and bad looks good. What you need in order to get straightened around is for someone who has perfect vision to do some correcting for you. And a Someone came to do just that!
C. vv. 35-36. The only One with perfect vision came to do the work of freeing us from the prisons we constructed, stone by stone. Slaves were set free, the blind were given their sight, and the prisons were opened for good ... for those who will trust the Son enough to accept the gift, and follow him as he leads them to eternal life!
Or it was a time for patting ourselves on the back about how we differed from others who had lost their way after getting into that land. And we would point out the errors not just of Rome, but of every other denomination whose churches lined the streets of our towns! And the celebrations usually ended up with a kind of inner satisfaction in the hearts of the true blue that gave them a kind of exclusivism that set us not just apart from, but above, the rest.
Most of that has changed, thank heaven! Most of us came to see the arrogance for what it was. We slowly backed away from those practices until today, when like a bad memory, the celebration of the reformation has all but been buried. And yet, when the last Sunday in October rolls around, and the church calendars get flipped, there stands the title affixed to the square, "The Festival of Reformation!" Not just Reformation Sunday, mind you, but the "Festival of the Reformation," no less, the thrust of the name being that there is something to be celebrated, past excesses not withstanding.
And what is there to be celebrated on this morning? What God has done to bring us back to himself through the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that's what! By looking back to see God's long-suffering work in doing that gap-closing, we can be enabled to move forward to the new life that his children can live in joyful service to him and to one another as freed-up people. That gift only the Creator could make possible. And it was not done as a pay-off for any merit badges we had earned by super service or moral heroics. By God's grace it had been poured over us. His arms had been lengthened to reach over the distances we had run to escape him. The One who would make "a new covenant ... not like the one ... their fathers ... broke though I was their husband," God reminded Jeremiah, the One who "put forward" in the offering of his Son "as an expiation by his blood to be received by faith," the Father whose Only-Begotten could save all who were hopelessly mired up to their eyeballs in sin that was sucking them out of sight ... He would make us "free indeed!" That is what the celebration is all about, if this "Festival" is celebrated properly. And if it is, everything will be reformed, reworked ... the church and the world ... starting with us!
OUTLINE I
New day! New deal!
Jeremiah 31:31-34
A. vv. 31-32. What is new about the new covenant? The basic meaning of covenant in Hebrew, berith, is "a compact made between a pair of partners each of whom pledges to the other all he/she can give to serve the other and honor them." The focus of this old covenant was short and clear enough so that even children could remember it, "I will be your God and you will be my people." The specifics of that formula were spelled out so that each partner would see what it looked like in day-to-day behavior and loyalty.
Those specifics had been engraved in stone by God with his own finger. But as permanent as the description was they were bent, then broken, even by those who were saved by the hand that did the writing. It happened so often that it was clear to God that the old deal would not do! "I will make a new covenant ... not like the covenant ... which they broke."
B. vv. 33-34. Note that in the new covenant God does all of the giving! He will "put my law (Hebrew Torah, "teaching, instruction," not legal proscriptions) within them, and I will write it upon their hearts." (In Hebrew, the heart is the control center for human action, not the brain, as with the Greeks.) No human teachers will have to pour in or write out what is expected from the covenant partner. Each will know (Hebrew yada, "to experience the personal touch, a rubbing-up-against") the Lord. God will do whatever is required so that he can keep the bond with them open forever. The way was laid for love to fill the gap promises never could. The Maker of the new covenant was to lay out its formula succinctly, "I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly (John 10:10)."
OUTLINE II
When God picks up the tab
Romans 3:19-28
A. vv. 19-20. "You better, or else!" It sounds so promising as the way to get things done that threats like that often become the method of first choice for shaping many human relationships. Lay down the law, and follow it with threats for non-compliance. That should do it! The problem is that those of us who have tried it ... often repeatedly ... have learned that it never works for long. Even the strongest hobbles wear through with constant friction over time. The law only is fulfilled when love motivates the actors. The record shows that no human partner to the covenant has held up his/her end of the bargain in the long haul. "All have sinned (Greek hamartano, "to miss the mark") and fall short of the glory of God (3:23)...." That being so, when our debits are weighed against our credits by God we never can come out ahead, or even.
B. vv. 21-26. God's righteousness (Greek dikaiosune, "to be fair, even handed, an act, or person, motivated by inner strength," has its counterpart in the Hebrew tzedakah, "to be fair, good hearted"). It is what saves us from our sinful imbalance. Nothing we do can buy that! All that is required is that we hang on for dear life to the proffer of that gift God has made to us, as incredible as that seems!
C. vv. 27-28. The situation being what it is, no human being has any pedestal on which to stand to boast, "I did it!" How could that ever happen when it was God who "did all of the doing" to rescue us from the eternal disaster we had, so persistently, built for ourselves? Christ picked up our tab!
OUTLINE III
Thank God almighty, free at last!
John 8:31-36
A. vv. 31-32. Notice how Jesus links continuing in my word with being disciples. The word continuing (Greek meinete, "to live with, to endure, stay with") embodies vigor, endurance and staying the course, amidst challenges and reversals. Jesus expected that effort from his disciples. Doing his word, his bidding and instructions, was a quality which was to imprint those who named him as Lord. The benefit from doing so was freedom for them ... a freedom that only those who have tunnelvision, or uncompromised dedication to a person, or ideal, or goal, that governs their lives. To be double-minded, with competing commitments pulling one this way and that at the same time, is immobilizing and ultimately paralyzing. Such individuals end up locked-up and despairing.
B. vv. 33-34. The problem with being double-minded is that it usually is bundled with having double-vision. You cannot see clearly where you are going, where you have been, where you are, or even who you are. Inner and outer both vision are impaired! You get the distinct impression that you are free and unimpaired ... when actually you are trapped and incapacitated. Sin is vision-distorting. Good looks bad and bad looks good. What you need in order to get straightened around is for someone who has perfect vision to do some correcting for you. And a Someone came to do just that!
C. vv. 35-36. The only One with perfect vision came to do the work of freeing us from the prisons we constructed, stone by stone. Slaves were set free, the blind were given their sight, and the prisons were opened for good ... for those who will trust the Son enough to accept the gift, and follow him as he leads them to eternal life!
