Sin Boldly...
At the risk of embarassing myself, here's Sunday morning's sermon:
October 15, 2006
Hebrews 4:12-16
“Sin Boldly” – M. Luther
Do you remember the news January 2nd? There was an explosion at the Sago mine in West Virginia. January , 1:29 AM CNN news online ran this headline: Family members say 12 miners found alive
DO you remember that? And then just hours later the miscommunication was corrected: 12 dead and ONE still alive. Joy turned to sorrow, people were angry and hurting and feeling lost. The pastor at the Sago Baptist church tried to encourage people to turn to God in their sorrow. One man yelled, swearing, “What do you mean? What can God do for us now?” And a woman cried out in her grief, “Where is God when we need Him? Is He really there?”
We may slip from our assurance that God is present with us – especially in our Job-like moments when we are hyper-aware of the struggle and the pain and the fallen world around us. But the Bible gives us a quiet assurance that God is here – that He has been there and knows our hurts and our pain. And we can be assured that God speaks to us and through us, even today.
We begin with the Bible. This is God’s word. This is inspired by God not just for teaching us or for encouraging us, but for our salvation. This is the Word of God, as we say after our readings. Not words from God. Not words about God. This is the Word of God.
In our reading from Hebrews, the writer says that the Word of God is living, a two edged sword that cuts deep and reveals our innermost being.
God’s word is LIVING. We never get to the end of the Bible. I don’t know how many times I’ve read the Bible but it seems like every time I do, I come across something new, something I hadn’t realized, recognized or connected before. The Bible is alive in us when we come to it with open hearts. It is true that where God’s word is internalized, things change – people treat one another differently, society changes, relationships improve. God promises in Isaiah 55 that His Word will not return to Him void – that there is power in the Scriptures.
One of the most dramatic examples of the Bible’s divine ability to transform men and women involved the famous mutiny on the “Bounty.” Following their rebellion against the notorious Captain Bligh, nine mutineers, along with the Tahatian men and women who accompanied them, found their way to Pitcairn Island, a tiny dot in the South Pacific only two miles long and a mile wide. Ten years later, drink and fighting had left only one man alive—John Adams. Eleven women and 23 children made up the rest of the Island’s population.
So far this is the familiar story made famous in the book and motion picture. But the rest of the story is even more remarkable. About this time, Adams came across the “Bounty’s” Bible in the bottom of an old chest. He began to read it, and the divine power of God’s Word reached into the heart of that hardened murderer on a tiny volcanic speck in the vast Pacific Ocean—and changed his life forever. The peace and love that Adams found in the Bible entirely replaced the old life of quarreling, brawling, and liquor. He began to teach the children from the Bible until every person on the island had experienced the same amazing change that he had found. Today, with a population of slightly less than 100, nearly every person on Pitcairn Island is a Christian.
From Signs of the Times, August, 1988, p. 5.
God’s Word is Penetrating – God’s word cuts deeply. Let’s face it, there are things in the Bible that make us squirm – we’re not comfortable with them. Someone once said, “People don’t reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts THEM.” The word of God gets right to our innermost being: the soul and spirit, joint and marrow. God has a way, through the Bible, of getting right into our hearts, right into our souls and revealing us for who we are.
“[The word of God] judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight,” the writer of Hebrews wrote. “Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.”
God’s word reveals US as it reveals God TO us. Our thoughts, our attitudes, our fears and hopes – God knows them all, nothing is a mystery to God.
And so, I want you to think about the quote that I used as the sermon title today. This quote really is from MARTIN LUTHER (not Mickey Luther, or Mary Luther, or Melvin Luther) and it’s probably his most famous quote – and most misunderstood and misquoted. Luther really did write, “Sin Boldly” in a letter of encouragement to his friend Phillip Melanchthon in the 1521. Luther was NOT suggesting that we sin with license, that we do whatever we want, he was NOT saying that anything goes. The context of the quote was this:
“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.”
Sin Boldly. Why? If Grace is true, Luther writes, then sin is real. In 1521 or 2006, if we don’t see that we sin, we don’t need Jesus. It really is that simple. Luther was saying what the writer of Hebrews is saying: we are sinners redeemed by a real and living GRACE. We need to be bold about owning up to our sin and entering into the Grace given to us by the Blood of Jesus Christ.
Sin separates us from God. I know everybody knows that – but have you ever stopped to wonder why? Why does sin put up this wall between me and God? Is it just that God has set up a bunch of rules and we better follow them or, like some kind of sadistic disciplinarian, God’s ready with the ruler to smack our knuckles?
Here’s the thing. God is relational – in the very Trinity is relationship. Sin is that which breaks relationship. It’s as true in our day to day relationships as it is with God.
Here’s an example. The first meal that my mother-in-law cooked for me was cavitini. Now, my mother in law is a great cook and the cavitini was really good, so I told her so. And for maybe two years every time we went to Lori’s parents, guess what we had? Yep. I bet I ate 100 pounds of pasta in those two years. Now, if Dottie had made cavitini with, say, lots of mushrooms and jalapeno peppers, well then I wouldn’t have liked her cavitini so much. BUT – if I would have said I loved it – well, for two years I would have had to either pretend to love her cavitini, or somehow fed the mushrooms and peppers to their cat… SO for two years I would have had to suffer through food that I don’t like for every meal. But even that doesn’t matter (you might even say, serves me right, eh?). When the truth came out – and you know it would have – imagine what would have happened to our relationship. You’ve been lying to me for TWO YEARS – every meal…a hundred pounds of sauce covered LIES? Would she trust me? Believe me? SHOULD she?
Oh, we say that they’re just “little white lies” don’t we? You know, I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings… But, the reality is – the lie is WAY more damaging to someone’s feelings than the truth.
Lies break relationship. Gossip breaks relationship. Envy (the OT called it Coveting) breaks relationship. Hate, envy, rage... Paul writes in Galatians, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft…” now you and I might be breathing pretty easy at this point, but “the word of God is penetrating…” He goes on, “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Do you get uncomfortable with some of that? I do. I joked with Lori the other day that I don’t get road rage, I get Walmart rage. I’m not kidding. Something about being in that store (and it seems to be EVERY Walmart) makes me a crazy man – I have no patience with clerks, customers, even my own family. And you know what? It’s not a joke. It’s a sin. Right after that list I just gave you (and there are others sprinkled throughout the NT) Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” In Walmart, I’m not kidding here, I blow it on all nine: no love,joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control… Not a one…
Sin breaks our relationship with God. It’s not because He somehow doesn’t understand it or is somehow just disappointed in us. It’s because of God’s character and essential nature. God is HOLY. Why does stealing separate us from God? Because God’s character is generous and giving, God is the one who provides. Why does lying separate us from God? Because God’s character is truth: Jesus said, “I am the Way and the TRUTH and the Life.” Why does hate separate us from God? Because God is love (James…). What about gossip? What about bitterness, and selfishness and envy and backbiting and the list could go on and on, right? But God is about truth and healing and selflessness and joy and openness and the list could go on and on…
God’s character is unimpeachable – our caricature of God sometimes is unimaginable…
But while sin breaks our relationship with God, God has made it plain, and in reality, easy for us to heal that broken relationship. John 3:16 we all know, but do you remember John 3:17? I think it’s every bit as beautiful a verse for us today: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.” Do you hear the good news? All of this isn’t to point the omnipotent finger at us and say “shame on you” but to open up us to salvation. That’s why Jesus came – that the world might be saved through Him.
And so the second part of the passage is crucial: Jesus understands.
Do you remember a song from the 80s – God is watching us, from a distance…? No – that’s just not the case. The Greeks and Romans had a view of their gods like that – indifferent, unwilling to get their hands dirty – unfeeling toward humanity (for the most part). But we worship a God who knows what it’s like to BE us – to live, and suffer, and struggle and face temptation – and the Bible affirms – right here but elsewhere, as well – that JESUS NEVER SINNED. And understand this – the devil loosed the full power of temptation on Jesus and He never gave in. The full reality of God is the realization that God is not indifferent to our temptations, God is not uncaring or unwilling to come to us – in Jesus, God KNEW our temptations, God suffered and struggles and came to us – BECAME us so that we might understand God all the better. Can you imagine it?
Jesus has been here – he understands us. A French proverb states, “To know all is to forgive all.” How true that is of God in Jesus Christ. William Barclay, the Scottish commentator, writes in his Hebrews commentary, “When you have been there, it makes all the difference. And there is no part of the human experience of which God cannot say, ‘I have been there.’ When we have a sad and sorry tale to tell, when life has drenched us with tears, we do not go to a God who is incapable of understanding what has happened; we go to a God who has been there. That is why – if we may put it so – God finds it easy to forgive.”
How many times have you heard – or even said – you had to be there? What’s it like in Buffalo this week with all the snow? What’s it like in Lancaster this week? In New Orleans a year and a half later? What’s it like in Tallmansville West Virginia 10 months later? Maybe we haven’t been there, but God has been there – and He knows. What’s it like in your home? What’s it like at work? What’s it like in your heart? I don’t know – the person sitting next to you today might not know – but God knows. He’s been there – and he loves you all the more for it.
Be quick to confess – sin boldly – and quicker to receive the blessing of the God who has been there. Luther added in his letter to Melanchthon a note of encouragement to his friend because Luther knew, too, the God who has been there. Hear this assurance:
“Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”
Pray boldly – the God who has been there hears your every word.
October 15, 2006
Hebrews 4:12-16
“Sin Boldly” – M. Luther
Do you remember the news January 2nd? There was an explosion at the Sago mine in West Virginia. January , 1:29 AM CNN news online ran this headline: Family members say 12 miners found alive
DO you remember that? And then just hours later the miscommunication was corrected: 12 dead and ONE still alive. Joy turned to sorrow, people were angry and hurting and feeling lost. The pastor at the Sago Baptist church tried to encourage people to turn to God in their sorrow. One man yelled, swearing, “What do you mean? What can God do for us now?” And a woman cried out in her grief, “Where is God when we need Him? Is He really there?”
We may slip from our assurance that God is present with us – especially in our Job-like moments when we are hyper-aware of the struggle and the pain and the fallen world around us. But the Bible gives us a quiet assurance that God is here – that He has been there and knows our hurts and our pain. And we can be assured that God speaks to us and through us, even today.
We begin with the Bible. This is God’s word. This is inspired by God not just for teaching us or for encouraging us, but for our salvation. This is the Word of God, as we say after our readings. Not words from God. Not words about God. This is the Word of God.
In our reading from Hebrews, the writer says that the Word of God is living, a two edged sword that cuts deep and reveals our innermost being.
God’s word is LIVING. We never get to the end of the Bible. I don’t know how many times I’ve read the Bible but it seems like every time I do, I come across something new, something I hadn’t realized, recognized or connected before. The Bible is alive in us when we come to it with open hearts. It is true that where God’s word is internalized, things change – people treat one another differently, society changes, relationships improve. God promises in Isaiah 55 that His Word will not return to Him void – that there is power in the Scriptures.
One of the most dramatic examples of the Bible’s divine ability to transform men and women involved the famous mutiny on the “Bounty.” Following their rebellion against the notorious Captain Bligh, nine mutineers, along with the Tahatian men and women who accompanied them, found their way to Pitcairn Island, a tiny dot in the South Pacific only two miles long and a mile wide. Ten years later, drink and fighting had left only one man alive—John Adams. Eleven women and 23 children made up the rest of the Island’s population.
So far this is the familiar story made famous in the book and motion picture. But the rest of the story is even more remarkable. About this time, Adams came across the “Bounty’s” Bible in the bottom of an old chest. He began to read it, and the divine power of God’s Word reached into the heart of that hardened murderer on a tiny volcanic speck in the vast Pacific Ocean—and changed his life forever. The peace and love that Adams found in the Bible entirely replaced the old life of quarreling, brawling, and liquor. He began to teach the children from the Bible until every person on the island had experienced the same amazing change that he had found. Today, with a population of slightly less than 100, nearly every person on Pitcairn Island is a Christian.
From Signs of the Times, August, 1988, p. 5.
God’s Word is Penetrating – God’s word cuts deeply. Let’s face it, there are things in the Bible that make us squirm – we’re not comfortable with them. Someone once said, “People don’t reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts THEM.” The word of God gets right to our innermost being: the soul and spirit, joint and marrow. God has a way, through the Bible, of getting right into our hearts, right into our souls and revealing us for who we are.
“[The word of God] judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight,” the writer of Hebrews wrote. “Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.”
God’s word reveals US as it reveals God TO us. Our thoughts, our attitudes, our fears and hopes – God knows them all, nothing is a mystery to God.
And so, I want you to think about the quote that I used as the sermon title today. This quote really is from MARTIN LUTHER (not Mickey Luther, or Mary Luther, or Melvin Luther) and it’s probably his most famous quote – and most misunderstood and misquoted. Luther really did write, “Sin Boldly” in a letter of encouragement to his friend Phillip Melanchthon in the 1521. Luther was NOT suggesting that we sin with license, that we do whatever we want, he was NOT saying that anything goes. The context of the quote was this:
“If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true and not a fictitious grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.”
Sin Boldly. Why? If Grace is true, Luther writes, then sin is real. In 1521 or 2006, if we don’t see that we sin, we don’t need Jesus. It really is that simple. Luther was saying what the writer of Hebrews is saying: we are sinners redeemed by a real and living GRACE. We need to be bold about owning up to our sin and entering into the Grace given to us by the Blood of Jesus Christ.
Sin separates us from God. I know everybody knows that – but have you ever stopped to wonder why? Why does sin put up this wall between me and God? Is it just that God has set up a bunch of rules and we better follow them or, like some kind of sadistic disciplinarian, God’s ready with the ruler to smack our knuckles?
Here’s the thing. God is relational – in the very Trinity is relationship. Sin is that which breaks relationship. It’s as true in our day to day relationships as it is with God.
Here’s an example. The first meal that my mother-in-law cooked for me was cavitini. Now, my mother in law is a great cook and the cavitini was really good, so I told her so. And for maybe two years every time we went to Lori’s parents, guess what we had? Yep. I bet I ate 100 pounds of pasta in those two years. Now, if Dottie had made cavitini with, say, lots of mushrooms and jalapeno peppers, well then I wouldn’t have liked her cavitini so much. BUT – if I would have said I loved it – well, for two years I would have had to either pretend to love her cavitini, or somehow fed the mushrooms and peppers to their cat… SO for two years I would have had to suffer through food that I don’t like for every meal. But even that doesn’t matter (you might even say, serves me right, eh?). When the truth came out – and you know it would have – imagine what would have happened to our relationship. You’ve been lying to me for TWO YEARS – every meal…a hundred pounds of sauce covered LIES? Would she trust me? Believe me? SHOULD she?
Oh, we say that they’re just “little white lies” don’t we? You know, I just didn’t want to hurt her feelings… But, the reality is – the lie is WAY more damaging to someone’s feelings than the truth.
Lies break relationship. Gossip breaks relationship. Envy (the OT called it Coveting) breaks relationship. Hate, envy, rage... Paul writes in Galatians, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft…” now you and I might be breathing pretty easy at this point, but “the word of God is penetrating…” He goes on, “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Do you get uncomfortable with some of that? I do. I joked with Lori the other day that I don’t get road rage, I get Walmart rage. I’m not kidding. Something about being in that store (and it seems to be EVERY Walmart) makes me a crazy man – I have no patience with clerks, customers, even my own family. And you know what? It’s not a joke. It’s a sin. Right after that list I just gave you (and there are others sprinkled throughout the NT) Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” In Walmart, I’m not kidding here, I blow it on all nine: no love,joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control… Not a one…
Sin breaks our relationship with God. It’s not because He somehow doesn’t understand it or is somehow just disappointed in us. It’s because of God’s character and essential nature. God is HOLY. Why does stealing separate us from God? Because God’s character is generous and giving, God is the one who provides. Why does lying separate us from God? Because God’s character is truth: Jesus said, “I am the Way and the TRUTH and the Life.” Why does hate separate us from God? Because God is love (James…). What about gossip? What about bitterness, and selfishness and envy and backbiting and the list could go on and on, right? But God is about truth and healing and selflessness and joy and openness and the list could go on and on…
God’s character is unimpeachable – our caricature of God sometimes is unimaginable…
But while sin breaks our relationship with God, God has made it plain, and in reality, easy for us to heal that broken relationship. John 3:16 we all know, but do you remember John 3:17? I think it’s every bit as beautiful a verse for us today: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him.” Do you hear the good news? All of this isn’t to point the omnipotent finger at us and say “shame on you” but to open up us to salvation. That’s why Jesus came – that the world might be saved through Him.
And so the second part of the passage is crucial: Jesus understands.
Do you remember a song from the 80s – God is watching us, from a distance…? No – that’s just not the case. The Greeks and Romans had a view of their gods like that – indifferent, unwilling to get their hands dirty – unfeeling toward humanity (for the most part). But we worship a God who knows what it’s like to BE us – to live, and suffer, and struggle and face temptation – and the Bible affirms – right here but elsewhere, as well – that JESUS NEVER SINNED. And understand this – the devil loosed the full power of temptation on Jesus and He never gave in. The full reality of God is the realization that God is not indifferent to our temptations, God is not uncaring or unwilling to come to us – in Jesus, God KNEW our temptations, God suffered and struggles and came to us – BECAME us so that we might understand God all the better. Can you imagine it?
Jesus has been here – he understands us. A French proverb states, “To know all is to forgive all.” How true that is of God in Jesus Christ. William Barclay, the Scottish commentator, writes in his Hebrews commentary, “When you have been there, it makes all the difference. And there is no part of the human experience of which God cannot say, ‘I have been there.’ When we have a sad and sorry tale to tell, when life has drenched us with tears, we do not go to a God who is incapable of understanding what has happened; we go to a God who has been there. That is why – if we may put it so – God finds it easy to forgive.”
How many times have you heard – or even said – you had to be there? What’s it like in Buffalo this week with all the snow? What’s it like in Lancaster this week? In New Orleans a year and a half later? What’s it like in Tallmansville West Virginia 10 months later? Maybe we haven’t been there, but God has been there – and He knows. What’s it like in your home? What’s it like at work? What’s it like in your heart? I don’t know – the person sitting next to you today might not know – but God knows. He’s been there – and he loves you all the more for it.
Be quick to confess – sin boldly – and quicker to receive the blessing of the God who has been there. Luther added in his letter to Melanchthon a note of encouragement to his friend because Luther knew, too, the God who has been there. Hear this assurance:
“Do you think that the purchase price that was paid for the redemption of our sins by so great a Lamb is too small? Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”
Pray boldly – the God who has been there hears your every word.
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