of the reformation so bow with me in prayer father in heaven we thank you for what you are doing within Lord dismissed Lord we thank you that you are growing your church that you are the senior pastor of the church and you are growing this church and Lord we pray for all its new members and we pray for its Members now that Lord you'd use them mightily for the work of your ministry Lord be with us now as we look into what you have done For us in the past and Lord help us to look forward to the future. We pray these things in your son's name. Amen Well, it was the question asked by the most blameless and upright man in the land of us How can a man be right? before God Job, knowing full well of God's holy perfection, he wondered how a sinful human being could come into a right standing, a right standing relationship with God. And you see, church, this is man's deepest and most fundamental need. This is man's deepest and most fundamental question. How can a sinner like me come into full acceptance in light of a holy God? Well, this is the question that was essentially answered in the Protestant Reformation. It was in the 16th century. that the Christian church experienced its greatest rupture and divide. And it was not on the account of the infallibility of the pope, or the authority of tradition, or the role of the Virgin Mary, but the gospel itself. The underlying cause of the Reformation was not the discovery, and you might have heard this before, it was not the discovery of a new gospel, but the recovery of the biblical gospel. for which without God cannot be known and the sinner remains in darkness. The question is how does the objective content of the person and work of Jesus Christ translate to benefit the sinner? This was the reason for the protest. How is it that a wretch lays hold of Jesus Christ? Well, the answer is by faith and by faith alone. This sermon is a little bit different from the kind of exposition that you are accustomed to and that I'm usually giving. It's not really the exposition of a text of scripture, which we will get into the text of scripture, but rather, this is the exposition of a man. A man who became the catalyst or the lightning rod to the Protestant Reformation. I want to introduce to you a German figure by the names of Martin Luther. That's his name. Martin Luther. Martin Luther we call him. He grew up as a smart, educated young boy coming from a hard working class, middle class family. His father, Hans Luther, desired that his son go into law, into which he did at the University of Erfurt. Now, you might have had parents growing up telling you that you need to be a doctor. or you need to be an engineer, or you need to be a lawyer. This was the desire of my parents, a desire that the Lord crushed, and not much has changed. I actually went to electrical engineering, and I said, no, I don't want to do this. Well, young Martin, he went into law. He obeyed his dad. And he was not only an educated lad, but he was a very religious one who was constantly, constantly introspective of his soul. Historians, they tell us that Luther was by nature, he was reserved and he was quiet and that he was an extremely emotional soul. And they say that because throughout his life, he was subject to moments of acute depression and moments of high exaltation. But Luther, he lived the majority of his life in the low. And that because what terrified Luther was Christ. Luther's image of Christ stemmed from a 1511 Renaissance painting called The Last Judgment. And that the picture depicted Christ as the judge seated in the heavens with a lily protruding from one ear and a sword from the other signifying mercy to the saved and wrath for the damned. And what plagued Luther was the feeling of condemnation. The desire of Luther early in his life was not how to get to heaven, but rather how to avoid hell. And the prospect of the judgment day filled Luther with much anxiety, panic, it crippled him, even taking a toll on his health. Well, with such condemnation hanging over his head, what did Luther turn to? Well, he could turn to the only thing he knew what to turn to, the gospel of the Roman Catholic Church. Now in the context of the medieval Roman church, what was the message of salvation that was communicated to Luther? What was the message Luther was believing so as to avoid the torments of hell? How was the sinner justified or how was a sinner righteous before God so as to be accepted into heaven? to be made right in the eyes of God and fit for heaven or justification. Justification was a long and arduous and complicated process. You see, firstly, in order to be justified, a person had to be sanctified. and not the other way around. And as we go through this, you'll understand the difference. The message that was communicated was, you must be holy first, you must possess real righteousness within you first in order to be justified. And not just a small amount of righteousness, but a full level of righteousness, and then and only then can a person be justified. Well, so how did the process begin? The process of justification that began, it was initiated in the sacrament of baptism. At baptism, grace was infused, infused into the sinner, and original sin was removed. Baptism was necessary to remove original sin and to receive God's initial grace. And from that point, righteousness began to be created within the sinner. And in order to develop that righteousness and to increase that righteousness, a person had to perform good works. And the reason a person had to perform good works is because with each sin, with each sin, there was a loss of grace. And so the more a person sins, the more grace he or she loses. Venial sins or lesser sins resulted in an incremental loss of grace. But mortal sins, mortal sins or greater sins brought an instantaneous loss of all grace. And if a person died after committing a mortal sin, he or she went directly to hell. which is why the Roman system created the sacrament of extreme unction or last rites. You might have heard about that. So as to prevent a dying person who committed mortal sin in being directly sent to hell. But what if a person didn't die after committing a mortal sin? Well, he or she would have to replace all the grace that was lost by participation in the sacraments. And it was through the sacraments that grace was then infused back into the sinner. Grace that was necessary to produce righteousness. And the sacrament that took the primary role of producing righteousness was penance. And that through the Catholic priesthood. The sacrament of penance, it has several parts to it. Confession and satisfaction. Confession and satisfaction. When a person participated in confession, the priest would offer absolution, which removed the eternal punishment of sin. But then there remained the temporal punishment of sin in which the priest would prescribe a good work, like the giving of money, or the giving of alms, or you need to go on a pilgrimage, or some meritorious act which would take away or satisfy the temporal punishment. I told you, it's very complicated. And so if a person died after having committed mortal sins without any confession, he or she was dedicated to hell. And if a person died having completed the process of justification, he or she was then propelled to heaven. But if a person died still in the process of completing justification, he or she was headed then to, can you guess where? purgatory where a soul was purged or cleansed from any unforgiven venial sin or sin that was forgiven but not made up for. And once sin was fully cleansed in purgatory, the soul was then ready to make entrance into heaven. And you see, a person who was alive was able to help loved ones in purgatory, to shorten their time by offering prayers, attending masses on their behalf, but more notably, by offering money, by faith, to the church. It was Johann Tetzel who said, as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs. And so Luther, he could do what every good religious Catholic young man could do, participate in the sacraments. And Luther, he did this until the age of 21 while studying law. Luther, he found himself providentially in a crazy thunderstorm. Sensitive and emotional, Luther, he cried out. He said, Lord, save me. But then of all the people to cry out to, he begged Saint Anne to save me. Save me, Saint Anne, and I will become a monk. Well, who is Saint Anne? According to apocryphal tradition, Anne was the mother of the Virgin Mary, and hence the grandmother of Jesus Christ. And so when the storm subsided, Luther, he held true to his vow, and he decided to become a monk. Now, this is what's really funny. The monastery was right down the street from the college where he studied law. The house of the Augustinian monks of Erfurt was literally a stone's throw away from the University of Erfurt. It's like if you're in Los Angeles or if you are from Los Angeles, it's like going to Caltech to be an astrophysicist and then deciding to go into art at the art center or going to Cordon Bleu to become a chef. It was just like that. And so can you imagine the response of his fellow students from studying law to now becoming a hermit? The monastery, it was the way to heaven. The par excellence, because the monastic life, it shielded a person from all distractions, all the complications of the world, so that the religious could intently pursue the most meritorious virtues. Well, what do you think his father thought? Hans, do you think Hans was cool with this? No, absolutely not. He paid for his education. But you see, there was something that his dad, his father, actually, there was nothing that his father could really do because Luther, he told his dad, I invoked the name of Saint Anne. Well, what can I do? You must become a monk because you cannot interfere with the grandmother of God. Well, nevertheless, the monastery was reserved for the elite, no goods, no wife, No. Things to help you in life, but only poverty and celibacy. Roland Baten writes, he has a biography, but he writes in his work, The Reformation of the 16th Century, he writes, the monastic vow was therefore regarded as a second baptism, washing away all intervening sins. And so Luther was a good monk, excelling in his priestly duties, denying worldly comforts. For example, he would purposefully sleep on the hard, cold floor, with much fasting and waking up every day at 3 a.m. for his first hour of prayer. You know, in the year 2020, Right before kovat hit I had planned to go to Germany and you can actually sleep in the monastery It has become a hotel of sorts And so I was really excited because I was like, I can't wait to go to Germany. I had my plane ticket I had everything I want to go and sleep there and I want to sleep on the floor like Luther, you know but Luther after all of his efforts it only proved to give him temporary relief. His fear of Christ continued to recur, and Luther became all the more panic-stricken as he continued entertaining thoughts of God, God as exalted and majestic, as holy, sitting upon the circle of the earth, in whose presence the angels bow, at whose nod the earth trembles. Luther thought, as long as man is evil, there is no peace. Even with his utmost effort demonstrated in the monastery, he felt this is not enough. The very best that he could do fell short of giving him any assurance of standing before the very eyes of God. And this is where Luther began to realize the weakness and the failure of the penitential system. It dealt with individual sins. It dealt with offenses, venial sins, and mortal sins, small offenses and large offenses. But here's what Luther said, it does not deal with the heart. It doesn't deal with the heart. In Luther's mind, it wasn't just his certain sins that needed to be forgiven, but that he himself from the inside out needed to be changed. That there was something inherently wrong in and of himself. That the very nature of man is so perverted that he needs to be drastically, he needs to be remade. And so Luther, he personally concluded, since no act, however good or meritorious, is able to sufficiently address the hard issue, he said, there's nothing I can do to change my heart. So there must be another way. There must be another way. At that time, Luther held the Catholic view that there were Christian saints that were so superior that their extra deeds, their surplus of merits, were stored in a treasury, which could only be dispensed by the church. And so upon being ordered to take a trip to Rome, he went with the new intention to receive these merits. He thought to himself, well, if I can't do it myself, I need to get it from another person. So he went to Rome to get these merits. to also maybe give some merits to his loved ones who had perished, residing in purgatory. And so he went to Rome. He went to Rome with a renewed and refreshed vision of his Catholic faith, hoping to find answers. And there he would see the best of relics, the rope in which Judas hanged himself, or a piece of the burning bush from Exodus, or the chains of Paul, or one of the coins that was used to betray the Lord Jesus. Well, is it actually those things? No. But there was only one place Luther really wanted to go. The Basilica of St. John Lateran. For the Lateran Church boasted of the most precious relic. The sacred steps that were brought over from Jerusalem by the Crusaders to Rome. The steps that Jesus climbed in the midst of his trial the night he was betrayed. And it was claimed that if a person crawled up all 28 steps on hands and knees repeating the Lord's Prayer, Our Father, and Hail Mary at every step, a soul would be released from purgatory. And so Luther did this. He got on his hands, he got on his knees, and upon reaching the very top, he stood up, and he muttered these words to himself, how do I know if this is true? And he returned back home to Germany, to Erfurt, disappointed, even in more despair. For Luther, it wasn't good news. It was horrible news. Luther had thought, how is it that I have given myself to the cause, completely participating in most of the sacraments, entering the monastery, witnessing relics, performing all that is required, yet there was no peace. Luther gave all of himself to this process of being made righteous before God, but yet no peace, why? Because he saw himself not as an offender with a number of particular sins. but as a depraved sinner from the inside out. It is to say with Isaiah, and you know this verse, all our righteous deeds are like what? Filthy rags. He said, if I have to wait until every blemish on my soul is eradicated, if I have to wait, I'll never get there, I'll never get there. Eternity is not long enough for me to be in purgatory. All that Luther saw from the Roman Catholic system in regards to grace and faith in Christ was something that helped him to receive this justification. But what Luther needed was not to be helped, But he needed to be saved, you see. That's our problem, church. It's not that we need help, we need to be saved. And Luther, he began to despise God. Who can love such a God? Love him, said Luther. He said, I do not love him, I hate him. Those are some really strong words. And there, Luther, he spoke the words of blasphemy. The supreme sin directed against the highest of all beings, against the majesty of God. I hate him. Well, what did Luther do? He took his questions and his anger to his confessor, his disciple of sorts. And his confessor, he couldn't answer. He said, I don't understand. And the confessor told Luther, you know what, rather than this morbid self, self-morbid introspection, he encouraged Luther, why don't you go start living for others? Why don't you go become a spiritual blessing for other people? And maybe that will do something for you. And then Luther, he said, okay, I'll become a Bible teacher. And so he pursued a doctoral degree to study the word of God, and he became a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg. In other words, Luther was now forced to give himself to the study of the scriptures. You see, this is why sola scriptura church is so important. The Reformation began and was founded upon sola scriptura, scripture alone. And he began to teach on the Psalms. And as he was teaching through the Psalms, he came to Psalm 22. And he read these words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And for all this time, Christ in Luther's eyes was a terrifying judge, but Christ was this harsh executioner. But what did he discover there in Psalm 22? A new picture of Christ, not as one to condemn, but one to save. Well, when his study of the Psalms concluded, he then moved to teach through the book of Romans. And every time Luther read the words, the righteousness of God, he hated it. He was afraid. He hated it because he felt as if that phrase provided the divine mandate by Christ to condemn him. God's righteousness, in other words, was a condemning righteousness. Yelling at Luther, you cannot become righteous. You cannot become righteous over and over and over again as he read through the book of Romans. The righteousness of God for Luther always meant God's holy and pure and condemning righteousness. Well, turn in your Bibles with me to Romans 1, verse 16. If we don't get into the Bible, I will be accused of blasphemy. Romans 1, verse 16, Luther, This verse was pivotal for him. For I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Luther realized that this was not God's condemning, punitive, or punishing righteousness for which he damns sinners, but he found that this was a perfect righteousness which God freely grants to sinners by his grace on the basis of what Christ has done, and that which sinners receive by faith. Luther found in Romans that righteousness is given freely, that a person can be justified without working. Can you imagine the discovery for Luther? What do you mean without working? You mean no more monastic life, no more searching for relics, no more sleeping on hard floors, no more what I've been doing for the entirety of my life? How then, Luther asked, how then is a person then justified? How then is a person able to receive God's righteousness? First of all, Luther found that justification is by grace alone. Grace as a definition is the unmerited favor of God. And so it means that the sinner is justified solely on the basis of God's unmerited favor. Look with me in Romans chapter 3 verse 21. Romans 3, verse 21, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified, here it is, by his grace as a gift. through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. The sinner is justified by his grace as a gift. There is no cost. You don't have to pay for it. It is a free gift, which means nothing I do can earn his grace or else it would be merited. Neither does that grace fluctuate on the basis of my performance. That when I fail, he takes away grace. And when I succeed, he gives me more grace. No, his grace comes to me irrespective of me. His grace comes to me apart from me. It comes alone and not with my works. It comes alone and not because of my works. You see, Luther grew up understanding that grace was only given through, through the sacraments. That grace came with a condition. No participating in the sacrament, then no grace. But Luther found that God gives his grace as a free gift without any of his participation. And it's not he shows me grace because I've done something like baptism or penance, but he shows me grace simply because he is gracious, and not on the basis that I have done something for him. And this is really important to know, church, God is not gracious to me, even because Jesus Christ died for me. You hear that? God does not become gracious to me when Christ dies for me. But rather, Christ dies for me because God is gracious to me. And there's a big difference there. If I think God is gracious to me because Christ died for me, then I'm going to be inclined to think that what Jesus did on the cross was to persuade an unwilling God to become gracious to me. But that's not true. God does not love me because Christ died for me. Listen to John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. You see the grammar, do you hear the order? God's grace towards me does not begin at the cross of Jesus Christ, but rather his grace comes to me, it comes to me at its climax at the cross of Jesus Christ. It's because of His grace that He sends His Son for me. It's because of His grace that He puts forward His Son as a propitiation by His blood for my sin. It all flows from His grace. This is the free gift of God. This is why John Newton, as you all know this hymn, could say, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved not a hardworking Catholic who has participated in the sacraments like me, But that saved a no-good wretch like me. That's how the song goes. and when he gives me his grace. It's not that his grace then cooperates with my works. It's not that grace is infused into me when I do this or when I do that. This is what Luther struggled with. Luther saw himself as not simply needing grace to assist him in alleviating his particular sins, but Luther saw himself as spiritually dead, spiritually unresponsive, with no heartbeat. And so Luther, he needed not a passive grace that would come and help him, but he needed an aggressive grace that would altogether save him, an irresistible grace that would absolutely transform him, a performative grace that would do all the work for him. He needed a grace. that came without notice, fully invading the heart to remake him. A grace so effective, a grace so powerful, a grace so overwhelming that it produces faith. Look at Romans chapter three, verse 25. whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. Well, what is faith? People always ask me that question. What is faith? Are we justified by grace alone? We are justified by grace alone, but what does it mean through faith alone? What is sola fide? Well, according to Rome, faith is something that lies inherent in the sinner. It is the sinner's faith, meaning that faith originates in the sinner. Faith, then, is a work. But Luther said this. Before those words broke upon my mind, I hated God and I was angry with Him. But when by the Spirit of God I understood those words, the just shall live by faith, the just shall live by faith, then I felt born again like a new man. I entered through the open doors into the very paradise of God. Well, what does it mean that we are justified by faith or through faith? It means that faith is simply the instrument of our justification or the channel by which we receive the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Faith is the outstretched empty hand that receives righteousness by receiving Christ. which means there is nothing inherently meritorious about faith. Faith does not save us. Faith does not save us. Christ saves us. Faith simply operates as the means by which we receive Christ. Faith is not a work. There's nothing valuable about faith, but rather, it's all about the object of faith that matters. You see by, by, By grace, God gives the gift of faith, that empty hand that can turn nowhere but to turn to Jesus. And faith is not called a hand because it works or merits justification in any way, but because the hand God gives is one that receives, one that embraces, one that clings to Christ. And so faith then is not a creative hand. but it is a receptive hand, the means by which we receive Christ. Faith rests on Christ and his righteousness alone, so that justification would be your work, but completely God's work from start to finish. Look at verse 27, and we're almost done here. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By law of works? No. but by the law of faith. Faith does not earn us our justification, but rather faith unites us to Jesus Christ. We are not justified because of what faith is. but because of what our faith lays hold of, namely Christ. Faith is what links us to Jesus. It is the means by which all the benefits of his life, death, resurrection are given to you, given to me. So you see the difference? The reason why Luther found no peace is because grace was not grace, but rather it was grace plus Luther. And faith wasn't faith because it was faith plus Luther. And for Luther, he couldn't do it. He couldn't achieve it. Because if it, if grace, faith has anything to do with me, it will never be grace. It will never be faith. God needs to do it all. And so what Luther had formerly believed was, I need to continue to work to build my righteousness that I may be acceptable to God. But what did he find in the gospel? That before any righteousness inheres in me, the very second, the very moment that I trust in Christ alone, despairing of my works, knowing that my works don't add to any single part of my justification, the very second that I look to Christ with the empty hand of faith, God declares me righteous. Which is why Paul says in Romans 5-1, since we have been justified by faith, remember what he says? We have peace with God. The very second I have real faith, all that Christ is, all that Christ has accomplished, it becomes mine, which means I am pronounced just in the eyes of God right now. And all of my sins, past, present, future, are remitted. They go away. They are no longer fatal to me the minute I put my trust in Christ. Heaven is guaranteed. Well. Why does this matter to you? Because if you're not a Christian, if you're not a Christian, this very second, if you have no righteous standing before God, you can have it right now by simply looking to Him, trusting in Him. You know, to close, the real difference between The gospel, and the gospel of Rome is that in the gospel, God declares me just before he makes me just. And that's huge. And that's sort of the opposite of that theology is whereas in Rome, he will only declare me just after I am just. And here's the thing. I will never be just if it has any part of me in it. And I think for us as Christians, this is a good reminder because we often, we believe the gospel, we confirm and we confess all of the gospel statements, but when we live our lives, we live our lives as if we have gone back to the gospel of Rome. If I don't do this, God will not accept me. Or if I do this, he will accept me. Our lives, that's not how our lives ought to be lived, but rather our lives are lived by looking to Christ and looking to him alone. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we thank you for the gospel of your grace, which comes down to us freely. and that found in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that we would continue to look to him and not to ourselves, that our dependency would be not upon self, but upon Christ. Lord, we believe, but help our unbelief. We thank you for our time. We pray these things in your son's name, amen. As we gather this morning for the Lord's Supper, it's an opportunity for us