REFORMATION SERMON NOTES/THOUGHTS 2010

At our textual study this week I shared my thought of contrasting what our lives would be like without the Reformation.  Working with this in light of the Epistle lesson (Romans 3:19-28) and the Gospel lesson (John 8:31-36), I gathered the following by contrasting of the reality of our condition, abilities, achievements and results under sin and the reality of God’s condition, abilities, achievements, and results in Christ for us.

Without the return to the Scriptures and the proper doctrine of justification that came out of the Reformation, we would be no better off than what is described in Romans 3:9-18, a people having the appearance of godliness, but denying its (His) power as we trust in our own.

Just my thoughts for your thoughts! 

- PL

Our reality – UNDER SIN – Romans 3:9-18

•         No one is righteous in the eyes of God and therefore in the eyes of men
•         No one understands,
•         No one seeks after the true God
•         All have turned aside
•         All are worthless
•         No one does good, not even one
•         Everyone’s throat is an open grave;
•         Everyone uses their tongues to deceive
•         The poison of the asps is under everyone’s lips
•         Everyone mouth is full of curses and bitterness
•         Everyone’s feet are swift to shed blood
•         Everyone’s path or way of life is ruin and misery/
•         No one knows the way of peace
•         No one is affected in their living by a fear or dread of God’s judgment.

In these verses, the Lord reveals

•         our nature or condition under sin (unrighteousness v.10),
•         our corrupted abilities under sin (no one understands, seeks God, no one does good, ignorance of the way of peace) and
•         the most we are able accomplish under sin (deception, curses, bitterness, shed blood, ruin, misery, and way)
•         with the result that the fear or dread of God’s wrath against sin and sinner alike, has no effect on them or us.

The Law can repeated say to fallen man, “do this or that” and “do not do this or that” but inasmuch as these verses (9-18) speak of our fallen condition, fallen man will never be able to do the “do’s” and “do not’s” the Law demands.

Jesus describes our fallen reality succinctly in the Gospel lesson:  “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits a sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34). 

Romans 3:19 – “Now” introduces an “over and against” this reality of our condition, abilities, achievements and results under sin, God has Paul reveal the reality of:  

•         God’s condition (righteousness),
•         God’s abilities (redemption in Christ by grace, to be just and justifier of the one who has faith),
•         what God can accomplish (to make propitiation by his blood),
•         with the result for all (justified by faith apart from works of the law).

Jesus describes our reality in Him as a result of the reality of God in the Gospel lesson:  “if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”