Good Morning Friends,
Entering a debate on the revolution or reformation issue and comparing Jesus and Martin Luther will probably get me into trouble, but here is the gist of what I want you to think about. Both desired to reform the religious community but the result looked more like a revolution soon enough. Here we are, around 500 and 2000 years later, and those things that prompted Martin Luther and Jesus to protest have been reformed in part. But we continue to reform and not just as visible religious institutions. And so today the rift between Catholic and Protestant and Jew is harder to define. We know we have different traditions; we know what our theological differences are, and we know what at least some of our failings are but if some Catholics will make it into heaven and some Protestants will make it into heaven and some Jews will make it into heaven, then what we need to focus on is what unites us rather than what divides us. And if God has truly anointed people in a community to be God’s representative to the body of believers, the outreach in ministry, I would think we must invest our time across denominational lines and focus on the love of the people with whom we live and work in community. Maybe that is what is happening in our culture as traditions change. Sure, we need to beware of false teaching, but woe to us if we too miss the mark in our role of honoring God through the unity of love. Still, we ask, even at the risk of rebuke, How Can We Glorify God Without Works?
Scripture: But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to show his righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over the sins previously committed; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus. Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded. By what law? By that of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.
Romans 3:21-30 (NRSV)
Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.” When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross-examine him about many things, lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
Luke 11:47-54 (NRSV)
Message: With all that is change that is going on in the world now and the pace of change increasing I was contemplating major events in world that have ushered in change and I began to think about the Protestant Reformation and its role in this regard. The Reformation began when an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther nailed Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg 505 years ago in response to abuses that he saw in the Catholic Church. His propositions sparked a debate that eventually gave us five key Reformation doctrines, that are usually referred to by their Latin names: sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), and soli deo Gloria (glory to God alone). But most people just do not care about theology. Sure, they may desire to go to heaven. Sure, they want to be part of God’s family. They just do not want to have anything to do with organized religion and divisive theologies. But friends, what transforms us and gives us eternal life is our affirmative response to the Gospel of God’s love and like it or not that includes the church, but perhaps not in the way we typically think of church on a Sunday morning. You see, we are to have a belief and faith in the gospel of Christ that strips us of foolish duplicity, heartless legalism, vain pride, false teaching, manmade religion, and false guidance. We are to have a faith in a gospel that enables to seek after and live as community into true godliness. Paul’s letter to the Romans was really the first work of systematic theology. It positions the saving work of our Lord in the context of a contest between what we know as faith and works. But the issue is confusing because we do not understand the two words very well. Perhaps Luther was right to call the letter of James an “epistle of straw,” because James says that faith without what he calls works is meaningless. But maybe we are missing something. Faith, above all, is a gift of God. And it is a gift that God pours out liberally on all humans. But not all respond to it.
And So, the real issue is that God loves us, and we need to figure out what we are going to do about it. God is already glorified so all we can do is honor that glory. We do not add to it, but we still can work to honor the purpose of our existence. God gives faith to see this purpose, but we must receive it and act on the gift. Still, if we do, we cannot boast about it because even our act of acceptance requires the grace of God. By faith we believe what we cannot prove by our reason alone. Maybe we are to reason in a way that helps us come to the realization that God exists and that we owe Him our existence. Friends, God incarnate and the Holy Spirit in us are gifts of great value that can transform us and empowered us to do the works of God here on earth that makes earth look more like heaven and us collectively look more like Jesus. Friends, that is why Jesus came and not to condemn us but to provide a pathway for us to be justified. So, maybe we need to be condemning less and justifying more in our relationships with others, for it is our justification by faith through grace that is indeed God’s answer to the most important of all human questions. Friends, God loves us so what are we going to do about it?
Pray we use our gifts and talents in service to one another.
Pray we are justified so that we can become right with God. Pray we believe as best we can that the source of our justification is the grace of God. Pray we affirm that the ground of our justification is the work of Christ, and the means of our justification is faith through the Holy Spirit. Pray we both rest in the finished work of Christ for our salvation and moved in the joy of service in good works as an affirmation of it. Pray we know we are loved and are moved to respond in love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 