Reformation 2008

TEXT: John 8:31-36
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.” 33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.

The year was 354 AD. A little over 300 years had passed since Jesus Christ had died on the cross and rose again. It was the year that a little baby boy by the name of Augustine was born at Tagaste in North Africa. His mother Monica was a devout Christian. But Augustine would have nothing to do with his mother’s religion. Augustine lived the life of a pagan… He had no regard for the Word of the Lord and disregarded all morality. In his youth he commited adultery with a young girl and fathered an illegitimate son.
Augustine was an excellent student and was at the top of his class. He grew up to become a famous teacher of Rhetoric. In Augustine’s day a teacher of Rhetoric was the vocation of the best and brightest men. Augustine at one point even tried reading the Scriptures, but they seemed dull to him.

But Augustine life was full of emptiness. He tried to fill the void in his life with wild and extravagant living. Eventually he came to realize that he was addicted to lust.
Augustine tried to rid himself of his slavery to lust by following the false religion of the Manicheans. The Manicheans were followers of an eastern Religion that blended Christianity with false doctrine. He sought answers in life from the most prominent teachers of the Manicheans but none of them could fill the emptiness of Augustine.

Finally Augustine met a devout Christian preacher named Ambrose. Pastor Ambrose was a preacher of the Gospel and Augustine came to revere him and the Word of God that he preached. From the Word of God Augustine came to realize that the emptiness in his life was the result of sin. He had been living a lie. Sin promises happiness and joy and freedom. But it’s a lie. God’s Word spoke the truth about sin to Augustine. That he was a poor miserable sinner who was a slave to sin. Even better, Jesus Christ had died for all of Augustine’s sin. Law and Gospel. Sin and Grace. That was the Truth. Pastor Ambose’s sermons preached faith right in to the very heart and soul Augustine. On Easter day, 387, Augustine was baptized, along with his illegitimate son. The prayers of his Christian mother, Monica, were answered. Augustine was a Christian!

Augustine left the life he lived as a prominent professor of Rhetoric and entered the monastery. In 395 Augustine became a pastor and served the same parish for 38 years. Augustine wrote over 1000 treatises many, if not all of them proclaimed the Truth about the slavery of sin and the true freedom from sin found only in Jesus Christ.

How interesting that some 1100 years later a young monk in a different continent in the land of Germany would come to revere the writings of St. Augustine. The young monk was Martin Luther. Luther had his own troubles but chief among them was that he was angry with God. The church in Luther’s day had taught him that the “righteousness of God” was God’s punishment to the unrighteous sinner.

Luther once wrote, “I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners…”
Luther had fallen prey to the lies of sin. Even while He had the Word of God, it was taught to him in such a way that it was all half-truths and concoctions. Luther was a slave to sin. And as a slave he hated God.

But as Luther continued to meditate on the Word of God, God had mercy on him and opened his mind to the Truth about the righteousness of God. No it wasn’t God’s punishment to unrighteous sinners, but rather it is “that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith… the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely the passive righteousness with which a merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous by faith.'”

Just as Augustine had fallen prey to the lies of the devil, the world and his own sinful flesh, so did Luther. And just as Augustine was set free from the slavery of sin through the Truth about the person and work of the Son of God, so was Luther.

St. John writes, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

This Truth cannot be found through the math or science or philosophy of men. It cannot be read on an editorial page of the local newspaper. The Truth can only be found in the Word of God. And that Word is a Word that declares to you that you are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. It’s a Word that teaches you that Baptism saves… that it is beneficial to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. The Word of the Son sets you free. Free from the slavery of sin. It sets you free to be sons and daughters of the heavenly Father.

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Amen.