Pastor Joe takes a deep dive into the Reformation, a little church history lesson, talking about the BIG split from the Catholic church in the year 1500 that created Protestant Churches (not Catholic) like Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal, etc. It is the incredible story of Martin Luther and how one man's faith challenged an entire religious system.
Here is what you will learn about in this message:
• The power of personal faith beyond church walls
• Why asking questions about the church is GOOD
• Your faith journey starts with a personal relationship with God
You will also hear about how the 5 Solas (this word means "only", so it is really, "The 5 'Only's' of Faith" that transformed Christianity and are still true today.
// Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone):
- The Bible is the ultimate authority for Christian faith and practice
- God's Word guides our understanding and life
// Sola Fide (Faith Alone):
- Salvation comes through faith, not works
- We are justified by believing in Christ, not by our own efforts
// Sola Gratia (Grace Alone):
- Salvation is a free gift from God
- We cannot earn our way to heaven; it's God's unmerited favor
// Solus Christus (Christ Alone):
- Jesus is the only mediator between God and humanity
- Salvation comes through Christ's sacrifice, not through saints or priests
// Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone):
- Everything we do should bring glory to God
- Our lives are meant to worship and honor Him
Key Takeaway:
The gospel isn't confined to a building - it's a living, breathing movement that YOU carry into the world! Watch the full message and discover how your faith can change everything!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Joe Liles (00:04):
Music. So we're continuing a series today
that is called church shopping,and it's really talking about,
what should you be looking forin a church home, but then also
discovering, really what itmeans that we are church on a
Sunday morning, and what we'relooking for in church on a
Sunday morning, when people saythey're going church shopping,
what it literally means is thatthey're probably going looking
(00:25):
for a church on Sunday morningto serve their needs or their
family's needs, or somethingthey're looking for in a
community. And last week, wetalked about the church is
really a community of faith. Ifyou are looking for a church
home, what we hope you're reallylooking for, if you break away
all the kind of the needs andthe consumer side of church. I
come to receive this and receivethis and receive this. What we
(00:46):
really think is that you'recoming into church because you
crave community. You craverelationship. You need a
community that surrounds you andis willing to walk through life
with you. And so we talked aboutthat all in week one of the
message, and this week we'retalking about different years of
the church. So we talked aboutthe early church and that we
still do the same things as theearly church in the year 100 is
(01:06):
kind of what we went through,that we still have the
gathering, we still have theword, we still have the meal,
and we still have the sending,which was kind of the makeup of
the early church, and then whenthey were sent, they went out
and served the needs of others.
This was what began the church.
It was not a building, it wasnot a time, it was the word. And
they gathered to hear the word.
They gathered to go out with theword, and they gathered to share
what Christ taught them to sharethat that was the start of the
(01:29):
church. And so we went throughyear 100 and now we're moving up
a couple years, 1500 years intoyear 1500 and this whole time
the church has been growing,right? And the church was
persecuted, right? So all theway up through the first three,
400 years, the church continuesto be persecuted. And then you
kind of get this, thisestablishing Catholic Church,
(01:51):
the Roman Catholic Church, theapostolic succession, which
means that these were the peoplethat succeeded from Christ,
right? These were the apostlesthat knew Christ, and now you
have this Roman Catholicismthat's growing and growing and
growing all the way through themedieval ages. And now you're
into, like, the 1500s and we getinto what's called the
Reformation. And the reformationis what started Protestant
(02:14):
denominations, and whatProtestant means is not
Catholic. And Lutheran was thefirst Protestant denomination.
So you had Roman Catholicism.
And there's a little spin off oflike Orthodoxy in there, like
Catholic Orthodoxy in there, butit's all this Roman Catholicism.
And then you have theReformation, and then the
(02:35):
Protestant split. Now, when Isay a Protestant split, you're
going to hear aboutdenominations that are
Presbyterian, Methodist,Episcopal, right? You start to
move all the way through theseother denominations that are not
Catholic, and that's what wecall Protestant denominations.
And so this, though, is not asingle year. If you were to take
(02:56):
the Reformation and say, Whatyear is it attributed to, they
would say 1517 and we're goingto get to why they say 1517, but
really what I want to tell youis that the story of the church,
if you're church shopping,there's a story to every single
church. Every single church thatyou go to has a story of where
they began from, what they'vetraveled through, and their
(03:19):
experiences of God together andwhere they're at now, and that
is the same is true for MartinLuther and the Protestant
Reformation and theestablishment of Lutheran, which
he did not want to establish adenomination when he started. So
that's part of the story. Butthere's also stories that are
true for every church you'veattended, and stories that are
true for the neighborhoodchurch. In fact, this past
weekend, or actually thisweekend, there are Synod
(03:41):
assemblies going on right nowfor the Arkansas, Oklahoma Synod
of Lutheran churches rightthere's about 51 Lutheran
churches in Arkansas, Oklahomaand north Texas. We're a part of
those 51 churches that make up asynod, S, Y, N, O, D, and the
bishop convenes us all for asynod assembly. So we go to
Tulsa, we go to a church. Weworship together. We hear about
(04:03):
the business of the Synod andwhat's happening. We hear
stories from other congregationsand what they're doing. And
you're allowed to bringcongregational representatives.
The pastor comes. You can havesome guests there. You vote on
different things. People bringup resolutions. It's very
businessy. It's very exciting.
And I didn't attend this year.
So that being said, Tom and acouple from our core team, and
(04:23):
Roseanne went on our behalf. AndTom texted me yesterday, and he
goes, Hey, they recognized us atthe Senate Assembly. And I was
like, Oh, that's amazing. And hesent me a picture of what they
recognized us, and he's heretoday, and brought this back.
They recognized the neighborhoodchurch. For 10 years of ministry
at the neighborhood church, wegot a certificate. That's
(04:45):
amazing.
All this work we got acertificate. Yes, that's
awesome. And yeah, they give usstickers with our certificate,
Jesus stickers. How many of youwant a Jesus sticker? Yeah. It's
okay. Tom will hand those out ofthe back after this. So I want
to let you know people aresaying, well, 10 years, what
does that mean? We've beenaround for 14 years. That is
(05:06):
true. But when we started, youdon't get to be a church until
you prove that you can be achurch. And so you start off as
like a synodically authorizedworshiping community, which is
also called a sock, S, A, W, C.
I don't think the alliterationis great, but like, here we go.
And so you're a sonoticallyauthorized worshiping community
or a cud congregation underdevelopment, right? And so, and
(05:27):
both those means, we hope youmake it right. That's what both
those means. Um, and sadly,there's a large failure rate of
new start congregations. NewStart congregations have an over
90% failure rate when they beginand and so when we started as a
church, we started in 2012 andplanted, right? And it took us
three years. It took us twoyears to be fully sustainable,
(05:49):
and a third year to be charteredand organized, which we we
became an official congregationunderneath the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America.
That's part of our story. And westarted out of nothing, right
when we got here, the fundsweren't raised for us, like they
said. They didn't have enoughfor my salary. And so we had to
make these choices as a familybeing here. What does this mean
(06:10):
for the sake of the church, andis God truly calling us here, or
the things that are taking usaway from this call here? And so
we drove around the city, and mywife and I got to moment where
the center was like, we don'tknow if this is for you. And
we're like, we don't know ifthis is for us. This is for us,
even though we've moved here andwe've rented a house here and
everything else, and we're a newfamily. We have a baby, right?
We have one on the way. Like, Imean, we're in it like, this is
(06:31):
all new. And when we drove bySouthwest Bentonville, by
Central Park Elementary aftermonths of searching, was a
stormy day. And literally, as wedrove by Central Park, the
clouds open and a rainbowappeared before us. No joke,
Rainbow appeared before us, andmy wife and I looked at each
other and we said, good enoughfor you. We're like, it's good
(06:52):
enough for Noah. I mean, like,yeah, it's good enough for me,
like, and that was truly thereason that we stayed and plant
the church because we felt wehad a sign from God that planted
this. There is a story to everychurch and how it began. There's
a story about the Lutheranchurch and how it began, and we
(07:12):
call that the Reformation. Howmany of you have heard of the
Reformation before? Like justjust in passing. Don't have to
know anything about it, justhave roughly heard about the
Reformation before. Okay, so Iwant to take you back a little
bit through a story, because thereformation is about a person
named Martin Luther right, whodidn't start as a Lutheran,
right? He started as a Catholic,and his family was a strict
(07:35):
Catholic family, and his familywanted him to be a lawyer. And
so he was born in 1483, and andas he came up through he went
through normal family, normalCatholic upbringing. Everything
was great. He went to study tobe a lawyer. Really wonderful.
So unlike the 1501 through 1505he's studying to be a lawyer,
and everything's goingwonderful. He's on the track.
(07:57):
Everything's great. And then oneday there is a thunderstorm that
appears. A thunderstorm appearsas he's walking away from the
university, and it's such athunderous and lightning rich
thunderstorm that he has to hideunder a tree. And he hides under
a tree, and he prays to God,prays to God, and said, If you
deliver me from the storm, Iwill devote my life to you. And
(08:18):
he prays this prayer, and Goddelivers him from the storm and
filled with this good Catholicupbringing. He has enough of
this kind of devout nature inhim that he literally shifts
from becoming a lawyer anddevotes himself to becoming a
monk. And he goes into themonastery an Augustinian monk.
And so he leads right away,leaves the lawyer call. I'm sure
(08:41):
his family was super happy withthat. Leaves the lawyer call,
and then goes into theAugustinian monk, right? To
become that in the monastery,becomes a monk, and studies as a
monk, and then two years later,is ordained as a pastor. So now
I'm in like, 1507 right? 1507 hestudies, and he's ordained as a
pastor. And then as you movefrom that, he gets into not only
(09:02):
being a pastor, but now he'sgoing to get his doctorate. So
he gets his doctorate right, andhe starts to teach at the
University of Wittenberg, right?
And so he starts to teachtheology to all the different
students that are upcoming inthe university, right, learning
to be pastors and learning to beteachers and different things
like that. And he startsstudying Romans and Galatians
and the Psalms, and he isgripped with his understanding
(09:24):
of sin, his understanding ofshame, his understanding of
guilt, and how to relate that toGod. How can we be saint and
sinner at the same time, andwhat does this mean in our
relationship with God? And so Heis literally teaching all of the
new Catholic priests. He'steaching all of the monks. He's
going through this. He's at theUniversity. He's teaching, he's
(09:45):
doing everything he should as apastor, as a doctor of theology,
he's in the university. Allthese things are going well, and
then we have the Catholic churchat the time. So now imagine he's
teaching everything from aCatholic viewpoint. The Catholic
church at the time, is growing,and they are starting something
that is happening right aroundthe year 1500 a little bit
(10:07):
before, but they start sellingindulgences in the Catholic
Church. And an indulgence is notnew to the Catholic Church. It's
a remission of sins in a time ofpurgatory before. So you can
basically get time out ofpurgatory before you went into
heaven. So if you had sins thatyou were forgiven for, but
needed to pay penance for inPurgatory, you could literally
(10:28):
have an indulgence which wouldrelease you from time in
purgatory to place in between,which doesn't exist in
Scripture, but it's a place inbetween before you got to
heaven. Now the indulgences,when they started, were based on
works, were based on prayer,were based on spiritual
disciplines, were based on actsof righteousness. They were
(10:50):
based on how you lived out yourfaith. So like, if you were
involved in prayer and you'reinvolved in reading the Bible
and you said you're at HailMary's and all these wonderful
things. What could happen is youcould have an indulgence that
would say, great. You don't haveyou've been forgiven for you
since you get now, time off inPurgatory. But they started
building St Peter's Basilica inthe 1500s and when they started
(11:12):
building St Peter's Basilica,what ended up happening is they
needed some funds for that. Sothey decided, what would it be?
What would it be if we soldthese indulgences and people
could buy their way out ofpurgatory? They could buy their
way from spending extra timebefore heaven? How many of you
would purchase that right? Don'traise your hands. No one raised
your hands. No just kidding.
(11:34):
What ended up happening ispeople raised their hands. They
said, Oh, hold on. Wait. You'retelling me I can purchase and
this is coming from the Pope.
It's coming from the priests.
It's coming from the Catholicleaders. And they're saying, you
can buy your way out ofpurgatory. This is great. And
they're saying, okay, great. Sothey're raising their hands, but
here's what's happening. They'retaking an advantage of the
(11:54):
people who have no other fundsto give, and they're giving
everything to get out ofpurgatory, which is not in
Scripture, in order to get thisremission of sins that they've
already been forgiven for. Butthey're being told by the priest
who they trust, that this is theway, this is how you get time
off. But, oh, hold on. Do youhave a family member that also
has sins? Do they need remissionof their sins in purgatory also?
(12:17):
Hey, you can pay for them too.
You can get grandma out ofpurgatory? Oh, I can do this for
family too. How many would youdo for family? No one for
family. Okay, wow. Okay, thatwas a moment, all right. Well, I
gotta talk about that in ournext series. Okay, but now they
could pay for themselves and payfor their family. You have the
sale of indulgences. Here's whathappens. Martin Luther is
(12:42):
teaching at the University ofWittenberg, in the small town of
Wittenberg, right? And he'steaching and things are going
on. And so part of thisteaching, all of a sudden you
have the most renowned personcoming in, right, which is a
Tetzel, right? Johan Tetzel,right. Johan Tetzel is a seller
of indulgences, right? And nowmind you is the basilica is
(13:02):
being built, the sale ofindulgences becomes a rampant
thing. And now it's not justselling for the sake of like a
faithful thing. It's sellingbecause they need the funds. And
so he comes and he says, Forevery coffer, when the coin
rings, a soul from PurgatorySprings was his line, and they
invited people forward, insidethe church, outside the church,
everywhere they're at, aroundMartin Luther. Martin Luther
(13:25):
goes, I haven't read this inScripture that I'm teaching. I
haven't seen a place that wecall purgatory. I haven't seen a
waiting place. I haven't seen aplace where you can pay for your
sins to be forgiven outside ofthe cross. And he goes, Oh,
what? What is happening? Andthis is happening, and it's
getting stronger and stronger,and now it's in his backyard in
(13:47):
Wittenberg, and it's coming moreand more and more. And so he
says, Hold on a second. If I'mteaching a theology about our
understanding of God, and Idon't see this as part of it, I
got some questions. So he tooksome time and wrote 95 questions
down, more statements, right?
And the statements were areality of, here's what I think
(14:08):
about the church, and I'm justgonna pin them on the church
doors so everyone who walks inand everyone who wants to know
about the Catholic Church cansee these 95 things I don't
think we're in line with andwhat he did not mean to do was
to start a revolt or start areformation. He meant to start a
conversation. That's what hemeant. He meant to start a
(14:31):
conversation with the churchthat says, hey, I'm not seeing
this, and I think things need tochange. And there's going to be
a couple things that we learnfrom the Reformation, but here's
the first thing that I want youto know from the Reformation,
going to church is not the startof your faith,
a relationship with God is itwas not the 95 theses posted on
(14:56):
this church door in Wittenbergthat started faith. Faith that
started the Lutheran church. Itwas an experience of God in a
storm where he cried out andsaid, I will devote my life to
God. That experience was thebeginning of his faith. That
experience was the extending ofa life that he was raised in the
Catholic faith. So you have thatyour experience of God is truly
(15:17):
the start of your faith, notgoing to church. And I could ask
anyone of you how many of you,how many of experiences of God
have you had outside of church,outside of Sunday morning? And I
want you to think about that,because we tie so closely our
faith to Sunday morning. Let'sremove that a little bit. Let's
remove that back just a littlebit. Here's the second thing. As
(15:37):
we're going about to look intoscripture, I'm going to take you
through what Martin Luther kindof described in his 95 theses.
And what Martin Luther wastrying to do is he was trying to
say, I want to start aconversation. He went into the
Word and said, I have aconversation for you. And I
think we need to do the samething today. The second thing I
(16:01):
learned from the reformation is,if you have questions about the
church, ask them the church ismeant to be a conversation. Now,
this is kind of scary. Can Ijust name it out loud, it's kind
of scary for pastors, right?
When I say, Hey, if you gotquestions about the church,
don't ask them. Now, please, ifyou got questions about the
church, ask me at any time, butyou can shout them out now, that
(16:24):
would be great. I'll not writethem all down. I'll get to em
eventually in the next coupleseries. Um, what's going to
happen is that this is kind of ascary moment for pastors. There
was a moment actually, I waslistening to a podcast, and it
was saying, hey, wouldn't it bewonderful to have a coffee with
a pastor, just be an open callto society and an open call to
community, where you could sitdown at any moment and meet with
the pastor and talk to themabout the life in the church.
(16:44):
And I was like, that's great.
That's also highly scary,because everything comes up. But
should the church be anydifferent? Shouldn't that be who
we are? I've always said thatthe neighborhood is a
conversation Church, which meansif you have questions, ask them,
(17:05):
we have to enter into thattogether. We have to figure out
how we move that. And that'swhat Martin Luther was doing. He
was taking this word, thisscripture, and he was saying,
this is the moment where we havequestions for what's going on
with God. This is the momentwhere we have questions about
how we're going to be the churchtogether in culture and in
community. And so when he'staking this moment, that's the
(17:27):
third thing that we learn fromthe Reformation, is that
scripture sets a foundation forall of our conversations. It
begins here. So if you're goingthrough life, and you're
wondering where to begin. Itbegins in the Word. It always
begins in the Word. So I want totake you through what Martin
(17:50):
Luther called the Five Solas,the five onlys, right? This was
the five, basically beliefs,doctrinal things of the
Reformation that led into the 95theses, right? That kind of
described everything that wasgoing on. And we're going to
walk through these. So do wehave anyone out there who knows
what the five Solas are? Thefive Solas from the Reformation?
(18:12):
Has anyone heard of thesebefore? How many of you have
heard of them before? The fivesouls? Okay, just a couple. All
right, that's great. We're goingto walk through them because
they are, they are paramount inthe foundation of theology,
especially for Lutherans. And sothere are five of them. Do we
know any? Does anyone? Solascriptura, okay, that means only
scripture, right? Onlyscripture. That's great. What's
(18:32):
another one? Okay, it's great.
Let's start with scripture. Howabout that? We're gonna start
with scripture, and then we'regonna work it through and
understand because that is thefirst one, sola scriptura. So if
you got your Bibles, we loveBibles in the church. We're
going to walk through each versethat is attributed to each one
of the SOLAS, right? So we canlearn that. So if you got your
Bibles, we love Bibles in thechurch. Raise them up. Raise
(18:52):
them up if you got them.
Wonderful. Yes, wow. Man.
Reformation Day bringing theBibles. That's great with that.
If you're not have a Bible withyou. We got Bibles in our Bible
boxes around the church. You cancheck those out. But in addition
to that, we also are on theBible app. So there's a church
apps card in front of you thatsays the Bible app. You can scan
that. There's a link in thedescription on Facebook and
YouTube. You can go up to there,to the Bible app and get that.
(19:14):
So there are some great thingsthat you can do with this, but
we're going to open up intoSecond Timothy. Second Timothy
and we're going to be in chapterthree, verses 16 and 17. And
Martin Luther used this verse tosay, hey, if you're going to say
that this is true and validindulgences, and that the power
of the Pope and the priests canbe to forgive people in
(19:37):
Purgatory, something that onlyGod can do. All you have to do
is show it to me in Scripture.
That's what he said. He goes, ifyou can show it to me in
Scripture, I will removeeverything that I've said. Only
scripture is his guide. Solisten to this. This is Chapter
Three in second, Timothy.
Second. Timothy is in the NewTestament. So you can keep on
going through Matthew, Mark,Luke and John. And then you get
(19:57):
acts in Romans. First andSecond, Corinthians, Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians,Colossians. Keep on going First
and Second Timothy, right? Andyou'll kind of get through
there. So you have SecondTimothy, chapter three, verses
16 and 17, and it says this, AllScripture is inspired by God.
All Scripture is inspired by Godand is useful for teaching, for
(20:21):
reproof, for correction and fortraining in righteousness, so
that everyone who belongs to Godmay be proficient and equipped
for every good work allscripture. Martin Luther used
this because he believed that ifyou are going through life
(20:44):
without being in the word, thatthere's an emptiness there, that
you have to be in the word as afoundational part of your life,
to be in the stories of JesusChrist, to follow in this word,
to talk about your Christianliving, and how you move through
faith, and how you trust in Godand all that's happening said,
Walk through Scripture and youwill discover the depth of your
faith. And what he realized isthat what the priests were doing
(21:07):
is that they had trans they hadtranslated all of the liturgy
into Latin, so anyone who didn'tknow or understand Latin didn't
follow any part of the service.
That would be like me coming inand speaking the whole service
in a different language, andyou're like, I kind of knew the
tone of that song, but I didn'tknow what we were singing or why
it was said. And then the priestwould preach, but they would
(21:29):
follow through just on their owntheology, and you could never
back up what they were saying,Because the Scripture wasn't
written in a language that theycould understand. So the only
word that you were hearing werepriests. And now let's go back
to it. Priests were selling theindulgences. So now you have
this moment where you trust thepriest above everything, right?
And this priest has an authorityover the church, and now all
you're saying is that, oh,whatever the priest says must be
(21:50):
true, because we trust this. Andthis has been our faith. Church
has been our faith. And MartinLuther said, Hold on. If this is
about Scripture. Shouldn't thepeople be able to read the
Scripture? And so when he wasbrought forward after posting
the 95 theses, here's whathappened. It was the first
social media of the day. So 5500years ago, they are doing social
(22:13):
media. You know what happened?
The printing press same time?
Coincidence? I think not. ThanksGod, right? A really wonderful
moment, but the printing presshappened. So they took the 95
theses and the printer who wasprinting off Martin Luther
sermons and doing differentthings like that, took those 95
theses and copied them. Withintwo weeks, it was all over
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Germany. Within two months, itwas all over Europe, and it was
being copied by other printers.
So this message had gone farbeyond Wittenberg. Had gone far
beyond the castle church doors,which is just a bulletin board
for the community. It went toeveryone, and everyone said,
Wait, if this is Martin Luther,who teaches in the university
and who's a monk and a priestand a Doctorate of theology,
(22:56):
asking these questions about thechurch, shouldn't we ask be
asking these questions aboutchurch. And so they took this
moment, they went and they theysee all these things that are
happening and all these printingpress that's going on. And so
you have this moment where nowpeople are going, hold on. And
so Martin Luther was calledbefore in the council called the
Diet of Worms, right? It'sreally weird, but that's what it
was called, because it was inworms, and don't worry about it.
Don't overthink it. And so whatwas happening is they called him
(23:19):
forward and said two things.
One, are all these yourwritings? Two, recant
everything. Tell everyone it'snot true. And famously, Martin
Luther said, yes, these are mywritings. And then he took a day
because he knew what it wouldmean if he said he can't recant
those. He took a day and he cameback and he said, famously, here
(23:42):
I stand and I can do no otherunless you prove it to me
through scripture, and you showme through Scripture. And that
was the start we use that here Istand. First thing he said is,
if you can prove it to methrough scripture, I will recant
everything I've said. But here Istand and I can do no other. And
then he was shuffled off becausehe was considered a heretic,
(24:02):
which, at the time, gave themfree freedom to anyone to kill
him without having to be broughtto law for it. That's the
church. The church has someissues. Can I get an amen? Well,
don't say it that loud or stillget me gosh, but it's true.
Can I say it out loud? There isno church that's going to be
perfect. We are a people of God.
And what Luther saw is that weare sinners and saints. And what
(24:26):
he saw is that the pastors, thepriests, the Pope, was having an
authority over the people thatwas not established by God. In
fact, they were trying to reallysupersede God in some things
that only God can do. And hesaid, if we're in Scripture,
prove it to me throughscripture. But he said, my my
theology, though, is that thereare more things here that we
need to understand. And that'swhere you get into the other
(24:48):
solas. So right here, I want youto turn to Romans chapter one.
So if you're in there, soMatthew Mark, Luke, John, right
acts in Romans. So Romans,chapter one, verses 16 and 17.
Nine. And listen to this, forI'm not ashamed of the gospel.
It is the power of God forsalvation to everyone who has
faith, to the Jew first and alsoto the Greek. For in it, the
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righteousness of God is revealedthrough faith. For faith, sola
fide, only faith, therighteousness of God, the right
relationship with God, is onlyrevealed through faith. For
faith, as it is written, the onewho is righteous will live by
faith. So what he told them, isonly faith. That's the second
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FIDE, the second sola sola fideonly faith, we discover that we
are justified by our faith inGod, not by works, not by things
that we can pay for redemptionfrom sin. Is not something
bought outside of the cross.
That is a theology of the cross.
Christ paid that for us. It isnothing that we can do to pay
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that for ourselves. Christ hadto pay that for us. It is only
faith in which we live as aresponse to the cross that's how
we live. He said, This is aparamount theology for each and
every one of us. Only faith. Butthen it goes on. I want you to
turn to Ephesians, two, eightthrough 10, Galatians,
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Ephesians, Philippians,Colossians, you can find that if
you keep on turning now, this iswhat I would call the Lutheran
verse. If you want to understandour Lutheran theology in one
verse, just like the reformationis not one year, our theology is
not one verse. But this is agreat verse to understand kind
of the tenant of what webelieve. Ephesians two, eight
through 10 says this, For bygrace, you have been saved
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through faith. And this is notyour own doing. It is the gift
of God, not the result of works,so that no one may boast my love
10 is like everything that Ilove in Scripture. For we are
what He has made us. If you justtake that for we are what God
has made us, created in Christ,Jesus for good works, which God
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prepared beforehand to be ourway of life. If you take that
prepared for good works, and yourealize that there is nothing
that we can do. It's not theresult of our works. It's a
response of faith by grace. Youhave been saved through faith,
sola gratia, only grace. It is agift of God. In response to that
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gift, we have faith, and becauseof our faith, we do good works,
but those good works do notimpact our place in heaven. It
does not impact what Jesus didon the cross. It does not impact
purgatory, which is not a thing,right? None of those are true.
It is only by God's grace thatwe have received this gift, and
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is a free gift for you, preparedbeforehand to be your way of
life. Beautiful, he said, Onlyfaith, only grace, only
scripture. And then it goes on.
I want you guys to turn to FirstTimothy chapter two. So keep on
going back in. We're in SecondTimothy to start first Timothy
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chapter two, verses threethrough five. Say this. This is
the right. This is right andacceptable in the sight of God,
our Savior, who desires everyoneto be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth. Forthere is one God. There is also
one mediator between God andhumankind, Christ, Jesus,
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Himself human, who gave Himselfas a ransom for all this is our
theology of the cross, onlyChrist. Christ is the only
person who can stand and mediatefor us between God and humanity,
between what is the Kingdom ofHeaven and the kingdom of Earth,
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which is our sin, and one who issinless. Only Christ. We cannot
find that any other way, outsideof the grace of God, and we
cannot respond in any other waythan through our faith. Do you
see how all these are tyingtogether now? He's responding to
all these indulgences beingbought, where people believe
they can buy their faith, wherethey can come in and they can
feel better about and the churchis telling them it's okay. And
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I'm here to tell you today as achurch that your faith is what
matters, your discipleship iswhat matters. You not here on a
Sunday morning, living out yourfaith out there is what we need
to be doing. Our faith outsideof these walls is what God calls
us to. It's an everyday life.
And that's what Luther wastrying to get into when he was
talking about the SOLAS. Andhere's the fifth solo one that I
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love deeply. And this is inFirst Corinthians, chapter 10,
verse 31 so you can turn all theway back towards the Gospels,
and here's what it says. Sowhether you eat or drink or
whatever. You do, do everythingfor the glory of God. So
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whatever you eat or drink orwhatever you do, do everything
for the glory of God. This isonly to the glory of God. This
is where our selfish desires andour pride put us in front of
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that solo, everything that wedo, everything that we say,
should only be for the glory ofGod. This is what Luther was
looking at. This is what Lutherwas talking about. What we learn
from the reformation is that thepastor is never above the
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people. The priest was neverabove the people. The Pope is
never above the people. What itmeans is that the pastor should
be with the people. And whatLuther was trying to do is
trying to say, hey, take us awayfrom this moment of where you're
saying that your excellence isabove everyone else, and that
you can command us to do thesethings, that only God can do,
that we have a response in faithonly through the grace of God,
and yet you're telling us thatthe church is what matters most,
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that your position is whatmatters most. And he said, The
pastor is never above thepeople, always with the people,
and that's what he was gettingtowards. But his real command
and his real movement was this,is that the gospel cannot be
contained inside the walls of achurch or a denomination. The
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Gospel is a living, breathingmovement and experience of God.
It is the good news of JesusChrist. It is through the word
that we hear about the grace ofGod that we respond to in faith,
that we know it is throughChrist alone that we receive
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that grace of God, and then weknow that all we can do in
response is give all glory backto God. Do you hear the church
anywhere in there? I think thejoy of Sunday morning is the
fact that we get to gathertogether. I think the joy of
Sunday is realizing that we dohave a community of faith, and
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this is our life together. Ithink the reality is is that we
each have a personalrelationship to God, and that's
what we learn in theReformation. You are going to
carry the gospel outside ofthese walls, and the most I can
give you is right now walkingwith you. And the hope I have
for you is that you will bringothers to Christ, just like the
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church hopes to do. And allGod's people said, Amen, let us
pray heavenly and gracious God,we come before you today knowing
that our life with you issomething that we live and it's
something that we don't alwaysget right, Lord, we want to come
to you in a way that know thatour life with you is meant to be
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lived in a way that we respondin faith, in everything that we
do, giving you all the glory. SoLord, in the times where we are
prideful and we take it uponourselves to control our own
stories, let us humble ourselvesin prayer when we don't take the
moment to share our experienceof you. Please convict us to
have a testimony, and Lord, letus carry this message beyond
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these walls, knowing that thisis a place where we can engage
one another, in a community,where we can respond as
disciples, where we can growdeeper in the word, where we can
study the Word. But it is notmeant to be contained here. It
is meant to be carried out ofhere to so many people for the
sake of bringing people to knowJesus Christ. So Lord, let us
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continue to make disciples eachand every day, and we pray these
things in your holy and preciousname. And all God's people said,
Amen, you can join us and joinour series.
Music. So we're continuing a series today
that is called church shopping,and it's really talking about,
what should you be looking forin a church home, but then also
discovering, really what itmeans that we are church on a
Sunday morning, and what we'relooking for in church on a
Sunday morning, when people saythey're going church shopping,
what it literally means is thatthey're probably going looking
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for a church on Sunday morningto serve their needs or their
family's needs, or somethingthey're looking for in a
community. And last week, wetalked about the church is
really a community of faith. Ifyou are looking for a church
home, what we hope you're reallylooking for, if you break away
all the kind of the needs andthe consumer side of church. I
come to receive this and receivethis and receive this. What we
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really think is that you'recoming into church because you
crave community. You craverelationship. You need a
community that surrounds you andis willing to walk through life
with you. And so we talked aboutthat all in week one of the
message, and this week we'retalking about different years of
the church. So we talked aboutthe early church and that we
still do the same things as theearly church in the year 100 is
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kind of what we went through,that we still have the
gathering, we still have theword, we still have the meal,
and we still have the sending,which was kind of the makeup of
the early church, and then whenthey were sent, they went out
and served the needs of others.
This was what began the church.
It was not a building, it wasnot a time, it was the word. And
they gathered to hear the word.
They gathered to go out with theword, and they gathered to share
what Christ taught them to sharethat that was the start of the
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church. And so we went throughyear 100 and now we're moving up
a couple years, 1500 years intoyear 1500 and this whole time
the church has been growing,right? And the church was
persecuted, right? So all theway up through the first three,
400 years, the church continuesto be persecuted. And then you
kind of get this, thisestablishing Catholic Church,
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the Roman Catholic Church, theapostolic succession, which
means that these were the peoplethat succeeded from Christ,
right? These were the apostlesthat knew Christ, and now you
have this Roman Catholicismthat's growing and growing and
growing all the way through themedieval ages. And now you're
into, like, the 1500s and we getinto what's called the
Reformation. And the reformationis what started Protestant
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denominations, and whatProtestant means is not
Catholic. And Lutheran was thefirst Protestant denomination.
So you had Roman Catholicism.
And there's a little spin off oflike Orthodoxy in there, like
Catholic Orthodoxy in there, butit's all this Roman Catholicism.
And then you have theReformation, and then the
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Protestant split. Now, when Isay a Protestant split, you're
going to hear aboutdenominations that are
Presbyterian, Methodist,Episcopal, right? You start to
move all the way through theseother denominations that are not
Catholic, and that's what wecall Protestant denominations.
And so this, though, is not asingle year. If you were to take
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the Reformation and say, Whatyear is it attributed to, they
would say 1517 and we're goingto get to why they say 1517, but
really what I want to tell youis that the story of the church,
if you're church shopping,there's a story to every single
church. Every single church thatyou go to has a story of where
they began from, what they'vetraveled through, and their
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experiences of God together andwhere they're at now, and that
is the same is true for MartinLuther and the Protestant
Reformation and theestablishment of Lutheran, which
he did not want to establish adenomination when he started. So
that's part of the story. Butthere's also stories that are
true for every church you'veattended, and stories that are
true for the neighborhoodchurch. In fact, this past
weekend, or actually thisweekend, there are Synod
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assemblies going on right nowfor the Arkansas, Oklahoma Synod
of Lutheran churches rightthere's about 51 Lutheran
churches in Arkansas, Oklahomaand north Texas. We're a part of
those 51 churches that make up asynod, S, Y, N, O, D, and the
bishop convenes us all for asynod assembly. So we go to
Tulsa, we go to a church. Weworship together. We hear about
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the business of the Synod andwhat's happening. We hear
stories from other congregationsand what they're doing. And
you're allowed to bringcongregational representatives.
The pastor comes. You can havesome guests there. You vote on
different things. People bringup resolutions. It's very
businessy. It's very exciting.
And I didn't attend this year.
So that being said, Tom and acouple from our core team, and
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Roseanne went on our behalf. AndTom texted me yesterday, and he
goes, Hey, they recognized us atthe Senate Assembly. And I was
like, Oh, that's amazing. And hesent me a picture of what they
recognized us, and he's heretoday, and brought this back.
They recognized the neighborhoodchurch. For 10 years of ministry
at the neighborhood church, wegot a certificate. That's
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amazing.
All this work we got acertificate. Yes, that's
awesome. And yeah, they give usstickers with our certificate,
Jesus stickers. How many of youwant a Jesus sticker? Yeah. It's
okay. Tom will hand those out ofthe back after this. So I want
to let you know people aresaying, well, 10 years, what
does that mean? We've beenaround for 14 years. That is
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true. But when we started, youdon't get to be a church until
you prove that you can be achurch. And so you start off as
like a synodically authorizedworshiping community, which is
also called a sock, S, A, W, C.
I don't think the alliterationis great, but like, here we go.
And so you're a sonoticallyauthorized worshiping community
or a cud congregation underdevelopment, right? And so, and
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both those means, we hope youmake it right. That's what both
those means. Um, and sadly,there's a large failure rate of
new start congregations. NewStart congregations have an over
90% failure rate when they beginand and so when we started as a
church, we started in 2012 andplanted, right? And it took us
three years. It took us twoyears to be fully sustainable,
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and a third year to be charteredand organized, which we we
became an official congregationunderneath the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America.
That's part of our story. And westarted out of nothing, right
when we got here, the fundsweren't raised for us, like they
said. They didn't have enoughfor my salary. And so we had to
make these choices as a familybeing here. What does this mean
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for the sake of the church, andis God truly calling us here, or
the things that are taking usaway from this call here? And so
we drove around the city, and mywife and I got to moment where
the center was like, we don'tknow if this is for you. And
we're like, we don't know ifthis is for us. This is for us,
even though we've moved here andwe've rented a house here and
everything else, and we're a newfamily. We have a baby, right?
We have one on the way. Like, Imean, we're in it like, this is
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all new. And when we drove bySouthwest Bentonville, by
Central Park Elementary aftermonths of searching, was a
stormy day. And literally, as wedrove by Central Park, the
clouds open and a rainbowappeared before us. No joke,
Rainbow appeared before us, andmy wife and I looked at each
other and we said, good enoughfor you. We're like, it's good
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enough for Noah. I mean, like,yeah, it's good enough for me,
like, and that was truly thereason that we stayed and plant
the church because we felt wehad a sign from God that planted
this. There is a story to everychurch and how it began. There's
a story about the Lutheranchurch and how it began, and we
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call that the Reformation. Howmany of you have heard of the
Reformation before? Like justjust in passing. Don't have to
know anything about it, justhave roughly heard about the
Reformation before. Okay, so Iwant to take you back a little
bit through a story, because thereformation is about a person
named Martin Luther right, whodidn't start as a Lutheran,
right? He started as a Catholic,and his family was a strict
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Catholic family, and his familywanted him to be a lawyer. And
so he was born in 1483, and andas he came up through he went
through normal family, normalCatholic upbringing. Everything
was great. He went to study tobe a lawyer. Really wonderful.
So unlike the 1501 through 1505he's studying to be a lawyer,
and everything's goingwonderful. He's on the track.
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Everything's great. And then oneday there is a thunderstorm that
appears. A thunderstorm appearsas he's walking away from the
university, and it's such athunderous and lightning rich
thunderstorm that he has to hideunder a tree. And he hides under
a tree, and he prays to God,prays to God, and said, If you
deliver me from the storm, Iwill devote my life to you. And
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he prays this prayer, and Goddelivers him from the storm and
filled with this good Catholicupbringing. He has enough of
this kind of devout nature inhim that he literally shifts
from becoming a lawyer anddevotes himself to becoming a
monk. And he goes into themonastery an Augustinian monk.
And so he leads right away,leaves the lawyer call. I'm sure
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his family was super happy withthat. Leaves the lawyer call,
and then goes into theAugustinian monk, right? To
become that in the monastery,becomes a monk, and studies as a
monk, and then two years later,is ordained as a pastor. So now
I'm in like, 1507 right? 1507 hestudies, and he's ordained as a
pastor. And then as you movefrom that, he gets into not only
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being a pastor, but now he'sgoing to get his doctorate. So
he gets his doctorate right, andhe starts to teach at the
University of Wittenberg, right?
And so he starts to teachtheology to all the different
students that are upcoming inthe university, right, learning
to be pastors and learning to beteachers and different things
like that. And he startsstudying Romans and Galatians
and the Psalms, and he isgripped with his understanding
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of sin, his understanding ofshame, his understanding of
guilt, and how to relate that toGod. How can we be saint and
sinner at the same time, andwhat does this mean in our
relationship with God? And so Heis literally teaching all of the
new Catholic priests. He'steaching all of the monks. He's
going through this. He's at theUniversity. He's teaching, he's
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doing everything he should as apastor, as a doctor of theology,
he's in the university. Allthese things are going well, and
then we have the Catholic churchat the time. So now imagine he's
teaching everything from aCatholic viewpoint. The Catholic
church at the time, is growing,and they are starting something
that is happening right aroundthe year 1500 a little bit
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before, but they start sellingindulgences in the Catholic
Church. And an indulgence is notnew to the Catholic Church. It's
a remission of sins in a time ofpurgatory before. So you can
basically get time out ofpurgatory before you went into
heaven. So if you had sins thatyou were forgiven for, but
needed to pay penance for inPurgatory, you could literally
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have an indulgence which wouldrelease you from time in
purgatory to place in between,which doesn't exist in
Scripture, but it's a place inbetween before you got to
heaven. Now the indulgences,when they started, were based on
works, were based on prayer,were based on spiritual
disciplines, were based on actsof righteousness. They were
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based on how you lived out yourfaith. So like, if you were
involved in prayer and you'reinvolved in reading the Bible
and you said you're at HailMary's and all these wonderful
things. What could happen is youcould have an indulgence that
would say, great. You don't haveyou've been forgiven for you
since you get now, time off inPurgatory. But they started
building St Peter's Basilica inthe 1500s and when they started
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building St Peter's Basilica,what ended up happening is they
needed some funds for that. Sothey decided, what would it be?
What would it be if we soldthese indulgences and people
could buy their way out ofpurgatory? They could buy their
way from spending extra timebefore heaven? How many of you
would purchase that right? Don'traise your hands. No one raised
your hands. No just kidding.
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What ended up happening ispeople raised their hands. They
said, Oh, hold on. Wait. You'retelling me I can purchase and
this is coming from the Pope.
It's coming from the priests.
It's coming from the Catholicleaders. And they're saying, you
can buy your way out ofpurgatory. This is great. And
they're saying, okay, great. Sothey're raising their hands, but
here's what's happening. They'retaking an advantage of the
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people who have no other fundsto give, and they're giving
everything to get out ofpurgatory, which is not in
Scripture, in order to get thisremission of sins that they've
already been forgiven for. Butthey're being told by the priest
who they trust, that this is theway, this is how you get time
off. But, oh, hold on. Do youhave a family member that also
has sins? Do they need remissionof their sins in purgatory also?
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Hey, you can pay for them too.
You can get grandma out ofpurgatory? Oh, I can do this for
family too. How many would youdo for family? No one for
family. Okay, wow. Okay, thatwas a moment, all right. Well, I
gotta talk about that in ournext series. Okay, but now they
could pay for themselves and payfor their family. You have the
sale of indulgences. Here's whathappens. Martin Luther is
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teaching at the University ofWittenberg, in the small town of
Wittenberg, right? And he'steaching and things are going
on. And so part of thisteaching, all of a sudden you
have the most renowned personcoming in, right, which is a
Tetzel, right? Johan Tetzel,right. Johan Tetzel is a seller
of indulgences, right? And nowmind you is the basilica is
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being built, the sale ofindulgences becomes a rampant
thing. And now it's not justselling for the sake of like a
faithful thing. It's sellingbecause they need the funds. And
so he comes and he says, Forevery coffer, when the coin
rings, a soul from PurgatorySprings was his line, and they
invited people forward, insidethe church, outside the church,
everywhere they're at, aroundMartin Luther. Martin Luther
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goes, I haven't read this inScripture that I'm teaching. I
haven't seen a place that wecall purgatory. I haven't seen a
waiting place. I haven't seen aplace where you can pay for your
sins to be forgiven outside ofthe cross. And he goes, Oh,
what? What is happening? Andthis is happening, and it's
getting stronger and stronger,and now it's in his backyard in
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Wittenberg, and it's coming moreand more and more. And so he
says, Hold on a second. If I'mteaching a theology about our
understanding of God, and Idon't see this as part of it, I
got some questions. So he tooksome time and wrote 95 questions
down, more statements, right?
And the statements were areality of, here's what I think
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about the church, and I'm justgonna pin them on the church
doors so everyone who walks inand everyone who wants to know
about the Catholic Church cansee these 95 things I don't
think we're in line with andwhat he did not mean to do was
to start a revolt or start areformation. He meant to start a
conversation. That's what hemeant. He meant to start a
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conversation with the churchthat says, hey, I'm not seeing
this, and I think things need tochange. And there's going to be
a couple things that we learnfrom the Reformation, but here's
the first thing that I want youto know from the Reformation,
going to church is not the startof your faith,
a relationship with God is itwas not the 95 theses posted on
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this church door in Wittenbergthat started faith. Faith that
started the Lutheran church. Itwas an experience of God in a
storm where he cried out andsaid, I will devote my life to
God. That experience was thebeginning of his faith. That
experience was the extending ofa life that he was raised in the
Catholic faith. So you have thatyour experience of God is truly
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the start of your faith, notgoing to church. And I could ask
anyone of you how many of you,how many of experiences of God
have you had outside of church,outside of Sunday morning? And I
want you to think about that,because we tie so closely our
faith to Sunday morning. Let'sremove that a little bit. Let's
remove that back just a littlebit. Here's the second thing. As
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we're going about to look intoscripture, I'm going to take you
through what Martin Luther kindof described in his 95 theses.
And what Martin Luther wastrying to do is he was trying to
say, I want to start aconversation. He went into the
Word and said, I have aconversation for you. And I
think we need to do the samething today. The second thing I
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learned from the reformation is,if you have questions about the
church, ask them the church ismeant to be a conversation. Now,
this is kind of scary. Can Ijust name it out loud, it's kind
of scary for pastors, right?
When I say, Hey, if you gotquestions about the church,
don't ask them. Now, please, ifyou got questions about the
church, ask me at any time, butyou can shout them out now, that
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would be great. I'll not writethem all down. I'll get to em
eventually in the next coupleseries. Um, what's going to
happen is that this is kind of ascary moment for pastors. There
was a moment actually, I waslistening to a podcast, and it
was saying, hey, wouldn't it bewonderful to have a coffee with
a pastor, just be an open callto society and an open call to
community, where you could sitdown at any moment and meet with
the pastor and talk to themabout the life in the church.
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And I was like, that's great.
That's also highly scary,because everything comes up. But
should the church be anydifferent? Shouldn't that be who
we are? I've always said thatthe neighborhood is a
conversation Church, which meansif you have questions, ask them,
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we have to enter into thattogether. We have to figure out
how we move that. And that'swhat Martin Luther was doing. He
was taking this word, thisscripture, and he was saying,
this is the moment where we havequestions for what's going on
with God. This is the momentwhere we have questions about
how we're going to be the churchtogether in culture and in
community. And so when he'staking this moment, that's the
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third thing that we learn fromthe Reformation, is that
scripture sets a foundation forall of our conversations. It
begins here. So if you're goingthrough life, and you're
wondering where to begin. Itbegins in the Word. It always
begins in the Word. So I want totake you through what Martin
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Luther called the Five Solas,the five onlys, right? This was
the five, basically beliefs,doctrinal things of the
Reformation that led into the 95theses, right? That kind of
described everything that wasgoing on. And we're going to
walk through these. So do wehave anyone out there who knows
what the five Solas are? Thefive Solas from the Reformation?
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Has anyone heard of thesebefore? How many of you have
heard of them before? The fivesouls? Okay, just a couple. All
right, that's great. We're goingto walk through them because
they are, they are paramount inthe foundation of theology,
especially for Lutherans. And sothere are five of them. Do we
know any? Does anyone? Solascriptura, okay, that means only
scripture, right? Onlyscripture. That's great. What's
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another one? Okay, it's great.
Let's start with scripture. Howabout that? We're gonna start
with scripture, and then we'regonna work it through and
understand because that is thefirst one, sola scriptura. So if
you got your Bibles, we loveBibles in the church. We're
going to walk through each versethat is attributed to each one
of the SOLAS, right? So we canlearn that. So if you got your
Bibles, we love Bibles in thechurch. Raise them up. Raise
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them up if you got them.
Wonderful. Yes, wow. Man.
Reformation Day bringing theBibles. That's great with that.
If you're not have a Bible withyou. We got Bibles in our Bible
boxes around the church. You cancheck those out. But in addition
to that, we also are on theBible app. So there's a church
apps card in front of you thatsays the Bible app. You can scan
that. There's a link in thedescription on Facebook and
YouTube. You can go up to there,to the Bible app and get that.
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So there are some great thingsthat you can do with this, but
we're going to open up intoSecond Timothy. Second Timothy
and we're going to be in chapterthree, verses 16 and 17. And
Martin Luther used this verse tosay, hey, if you're going to say
that this is true and validindulgences, and that the power
of the Pope and the priests canbe to forgive people in
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Purgatory, something that onlyGod can do. All you have to do
is show it to me in Scripture.
That's what he said. He goes, ifyou can show it to me in
Scripture, I will removeeverything that I've said. Only
scripture is his guide. Solisten to this. This is Chapter
Three in second, Timothy.
Second. Timothy is in the NewTestament. So you can keep on
going through Matthew, Mark,Luke and John. And then you get
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acts in Romans. First andSecond, Corinthians, Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians,Colossians. Keep on going First
and Second Timothy, right? Andyou'll kind of get through
there. So you have SecondTimothy, chapter three, verses
16 and 17, and it says this, AllScripture is inspired by God.
All Scripture is inspired by Godand is useful for teaching, for
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reproof, for correction and fortraining in righteousness, so
that everyone who belongs to Godmay be proficient and equipped
for every good work allscripture. Martin Luther used
this because he believed that ifyou are going through life
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without being in the word, thatthere's an emptiness there, that
you have to be in the word as afoundational part of your life,
to be in the stories of JesusChrist, to follow in this word,
to talk about your Christianliving, and how you move through
faith, and how you trust in Godand all that's happening said,
Walk through Scripture and youwill discover the depth of your
faith. And what he realized isthat what the priests were doing
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is that they had trans they hadtranslated all of the liturgy
into Latin, so anyone who didn'tknow or understand Latin didn't
follow any part of the service.
That would be like me coming inand speaking the whole service
in a different language, andyou're like, I kind of knew the
tone of that song, but I didn'tknow what we were singing or why
it was said. And then the priestwould preach, but they would
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follow through just on their owntheology, and you could never
back up what they were saying,Because the Scripture wasn't
written in a language that theycould understand. So the only
word that you were hearing werepriests. And now let's go back
to it. Priests were selling theindulgences. So now you have
this moment where you trust thepriest above everything, right?
And this priest has an authorityover the church, and now all
you're saying is that, oh,whatever the priest says must be
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true, because we trust this. Andthis has been our faith. Church
has been our faith. And MartinLuther said, Hold on. If this is
about Scripture. Shouldn't thepeople be able to read the
Scripture? And so when he wasbrought forward after posting
the 95 theses, here's whathappened. It was the first
social media of the day. So 5500years ago, they are doing social
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media. You know what happened?
The printing press same time?
Coincidence? I think not. ThanksGod, right? A really wonderful
moment, but the printing presshappened. So they took the 95
theses and the printer who wasprinting off Martin Luther
sermons and doing differentthings like that, took those 95
theses and copied them. Withintwo weeks, it was all over
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Germany. Within two months, itwas all over Europe, and it was
being copied by other printers.
So this message had gone farbeyond Wittenberg. Had gone far
beyond the castle church doors,which is just a bulletin board
for the community. It went toeveryone, and everyone said,
Wait, if this is Martin Luther,who teaches in the university
and who's a monk and a priestand a Doctorate of theology,
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asking these questions about thechurch, shouldn't we ask be
asking these questions aboutchurch. And so they took this
moment, they went and they theysee all these things that are
happening and all these printingpress that's going on. And so
you have this moment where nowpeople are going, hold on. And
so Martin Luther was calledbefore in the council called the
Diet of Worms, right? It'sreally weird, but that's what it
was called, because it was inworms, and don't worry about it.
Don't overthink it. And so whatwas happening is they called him
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forward and said two things.
One, are all these yourwritings? Two, recant
everything. Tell everyone it'snot true. And famously, Martin
Luther said, yes, these are mywritings. And then he took a day
because he knew what it wouldmean if he said he can't recant
those. He took a day and he cameback and he said, famously, here
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I stand and I can do no otherunless you prove it to me
through scripture, and you showme through Scripture. And that
was the start we use that here Istand. First thing he said is,
if you can prove it to methrough scripture, I will recant
everything I've said. But here Istand and I can do no other. And
then he was shuffled off becausehe was considered a heretic,
(24:02):
which, at the time, gave themfree freedom to anyone to kill
him without having to be broughtto law for it. That's the
church. The church has someissues. Can I get an amen? Well,
don't say it that loud or stillget me gosh, but it's true.
Can I say it out loud? There isno church that's going to be
perfect. We are a people of God.
And what Luther saw is that weare sinners and saints. And what
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he saw is that the pastors, thepriests, the Pope, was having an
authority over the people thatwas not established by God. In
fact, they were trying to reallysupersede God in some things
that only God can do. And hesaid, if we're in Scripture,
prove it to me throughscripture. But he said, my my
theology, though, is that thereare more things here that we
need to understand. And that'swhere you get into the other
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solas. So right here, I want youto turn to Romans chapter one.
So if you're in there, soMatthew Mark, Luke, John, right
acts in Romans. So Romans,chapter one, verses 16 and 17.
Nine. And listen to this, forI'm not ashamed of the gospel.
It is the power of God forsalvation to everyone who has
faith, to the Jew first and alsoto the Greek. For in it, the
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righteousness of God is revealedthrough faith. For faith, sola
fide, only faith, therighteousness of God, the right
relationship with God, is onlyrevealed through faith. For
faith, as it is written, the onewho is righteous will live by
faith. So what he told them, isonly faith. That's the second
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FIDE, the second sola sola fideonly faith, we discover that we
are justified by our faith inGod, not by works, not by things
that we can pay for redemptionfrom sin. Is not something
bought outside of the cross.
That is a theology of the cross.
Christ paid that for us. It isnothing that we can do to pay
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that for ourselves. Christ hadto pay that for us. It is only
faith in which we live as aresponse to the cross that's how
we live. He said, This is aparamount theology for each and
every one of us. Only faith. Butthen it goes on. I want you to
turn to Ephesians, two, eightthrough 10, Galatians,
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Ephesians, Philippians,Colossians, you can find that if
you keep on turning now, this iswhat I would call the Lutheran
verse. If you want to understandour Lutheran theology in one
verse, just like the reformationis not one year, our theology is
not one verse. But this is agreat verse to understand kind
of the tenant of what webelieve. Ephesians two, eight
through 10 says this, For bygrace, you have been saved
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through faith. And this is notyour own doing. It is the gift
of God, not the result of works,so that no one may boast my love
10 is like everything that Ilove in Scripture. For we are
what He has made us. If you justtake that for we are what God
has made us, created in Christ,Jesus for good works, which God
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prepared beforehand to be ourway of life. If you take that
prepared for good works, and yourealize that there is nothing
that we can do. It's not theresult of our works. It's a
response of faith by grace. Youhave been saved through faith,
sola gratia, only grace. It is agift of God. In response to that
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gift, we have faith, and becauseof our faith, we do good works,
but those good works do notimpact our place in heaven. It
does not impact what Jesus didon the cross. It does not impact
purgatory, which is not a thing,right? None of those are true.
It is only by God's grace thatwe have received this gift, and
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is a free gift for you, preparedbeforehand to be your way of
life. Beautiful, he said, Onlyfaith, only grace, only
scripture. And then it goes on.
I want you guys to turn to FirstTimothy chapter two. So keep on
going back in. We're in SecondTimothy to start first Timothy
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chapter two, verses threethrough five. Say this. This is
the right. This is right andacceptable in the sight of God,
our Savior, who desires everyoneto be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth. Forthere is one God. There is also
one mediator between God andhumankind, Christ, Jesus,
(28:36):
Himself human, who gave Himselfas a ransom for all this is our
theology of the cross, onlyChrist. Christ is the only
person who can stand and mediatefor us between God and humanity,
between what is the Kingdom ofHeaven and the kingdom of Earth,
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which is our sin, and one who issinless. Only Christ. We cannot
find that any other way, outsideof the grace of God, and we
cannot respond in any other waythan through our faith. Do you
see how all these are tyingtogether now? He's responding to
all these indulgences beingbought, where people believe
they can buy their faith, wherethey can come in and they can
feel better about and the churchis telling them it's okay. And
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I'm here to tell you today as achurch that your faith is what
matters, your discipleship iswhat matters. You not here on a
Sunday morning, living out yourfaith out there is what we need
to be doing. Our faith outsideof these walls is what God calls
us to. It's an everyday life.
And that's what Luther wastrying to get into when he was
talking about the SOLAS. Andhere's the fifth solo one that I
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love deeply. And this is inFirst Corinthians, chapter 10,
verse 31 so you can turn all theway back towards the Gospels,
and here's what it says. Sowhether you eat or drink or
whatever. You do, do everythingfor the glory of God. So
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whatever you eat or drink orwhatever you do, do everything
for the glory of God. This isonly to the glory of God. This
is where our selfish desires andour pride put us in front of
(30:25):
that solo, everything that wedo, everything that we say,
should only be for the glory ofGod. This is what Luther was
looking at. This is what Lutherwas talking about. What we learn
from the reformation is that thepastor is never above the
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people. The priest was neverabove the people. The Pope is
never above the people. What itmeans is that the pastor should
be with the people. And whatLuther was trying to do is
trying to say, hey, take us awayfrom this moment of where you're
saying that your excellence isabove everyone else, and that
you can command us to do thesethings, that only God can do,
that we have a response in faithonly through the grace of God,
and yet you're telling us thatthe church is what matters most,
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that your position is whatmatters most. And he said, The
pastor is never above thepeople, always with the people,
and that's what he was gettingtowards. But his real command
and his real movement was this,is that the gospel cannot be
contained inside the walls of achurch or a denomination. The
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Gospel is a living, breathingmovement and experience of God.
It is the good news of JesusChrist. It is through the word
that we hear about the grace ofGod that we respond to in faith,
that we know it is throughChrist alone that we receive
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that grace of God, and then weknow that all we can do in
response is give all glory backto God. Do you hear the church
anywhere in there? I think thejoy of Sunday morning is the
fact that we get to gathertogether. I think the joy of
Sunday is realizing that we dohave a community of faith, and
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this is our life together. Ithink the reality is is that we
each have a personalrelationship to God, and that's
what we learn in theReformation. You are going to
carry the gospel outside ofthese walls, and the most I can
give you is right now walkingwith you. And the hope I have
for you is that you will bringothers to Christ, just like the
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church hopes to do. And allGod's people said, Amen, let us
pray heavenly and gracious God,we come before you today knowing
that our life with you issomething that we live and it's
something that we don't alwaysget right, Lord, we want to come
to you in a way that know thatour life with you is meant to be
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lived in a way that we respondin faith, in everything that we
do, giving you all the glory. SoLord, in the times where we are
prideful and we take it uponourselves to control our own
stories, let us humble ourselvesin prayer when we don't take the
moment to share our experienceof you. Please convict us to
have a testimony, and Lord, letus carry this message beyond
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these walls, knowing that thisis a place where we can engage
one another, in a community,where we can respond as
disciples, where we can growdeeper in the word, where we can
study the Word. But it is notmeant to be contained here. It
is meant to be carried out ofhere to so many people for the
sake of bringing people to knowJesus Christ. So Lord, let us
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continue to make disciples eachand every day, and we pray these
things in your holy and preciousname. And all God's people said,
Amen, you can join us and joinour series.
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