Our scriptures this morning bring us back to that letter to the Ephesians, which we heard a bit of in our adoration and confession. This is Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, and listen as God speaks to us through these words.
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Thanks be to God for his glorious word.
Well, welcome to Charlottetown Christian Reformed Church. It's a good name for a church. Lets folks know what they're in for and what kind of Christian church this is, in this case, of course, Reformed. But what does Reformed mean? We're in a series right now called Churchy Words, and one of those churchy words is the word Reformed. One of those theological words that we use without necessarily having a completely clear idea of what that word means. If we are Reformed, what are we reformed from, and when, and into what?
Well, a quick look at the history of the church shows that after a very promising first couple of centuries, the church began to lose its way. Over the years, and reaching a sorry peak about 500 years ago, the church could only be described as a deeply dysfunctional family. We had lost sight of our purpose. Concerned with maintaining financial and political power, the church had lost direction. Corruption had become endemic. We lost almost any resemblance to the communities of faith described in the New Testament, with the message of the gospel obscured and distorted. We forgot what we were about. We had lost our way.
Now, many in the church had tried, with progressively less success, to fix what wasn't working, but just as in any dysfunctional family, change was hard, inertia took over, and solutions fell by the wayside. But then one member of the family had enough. One member of the family started pushing for change and wouldn't stop until change had come. That person was Martin Luther, born in the little German town of Eisleben way back in the distant year of 1483.
Now, Luther was a professor, a pastor, a teacher and a monk. Unusually for the era, Luther had rare access to the Bible. And reading scriptures such as we read earlier, he recognized that the church was no longer what it should be. And he began to very effectively proclaim that the church, if it was to reflect at all what God had in mind, had to recover the values that had brought it into being. It had to regain its focus on Jesus Christ, which had somehow gotten lost in all of the ceremony, ritual, glitz and tinsel of church life.
To recover its relationship with Jesus, to reform itself back into that New Testament vision of what the church is meant to be, the church had to get back to the basics: that salvation is by faith alone, in Christ alone, through God's grace alone, revealed in the scriptures alone, to the glory of God alone. These are the so-called five solas, the five alones of the faith. And Charlottetown Christian Reformed Church is a Reformation church, a descendant of that 500-year-old revolution.
So, what are these solas? First, then, we'll look at sola gratia, by grace alone. That's a cornerstone of the Reformation, a foundational truth of the Christian faith. But what does it mean? After all, when we hear the word grace, we think of the prayer of thanks that we say before a meal. Or we think of graceful as someone who's elegant or polite, or has a smooth way, an elegant way of moving, like I do, for instance. But when we're talking about the grace of God, we're talking about something so much more than that.
The grace of God is the love and forgiveness of God that comes to us even though we have done nothing to deserve such love. As St. Paul put it, God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God, because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends with God. Friends with God. Not because we deserve such friendship, such love, but because of the amazing grace of God.
Now, we humans, self-concerned, self-absorbed, we frail, failing, foolish people, we who are lost, we who are wandering, who are dazzled and led astray by a thousand and one temptations, we creatures who doubt even the existence of our creator, let alone feel inclined to worship him, saving our admiration only for ourselves, we deserve only judgment. But God is merciful. More, God is a God of grace, and not only gives entirely of himself to forgive us our countless wrongs, but restores our relationship, that we might be called the very children, the very friends of God, the brothers and sisters of the one who died for us all.
How is this possible? Only because of grace. Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable. Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver. That's a great phrase. Grace is unconditional acceptance given to an undeserving person by an unobligated giver.
Do I deserve God's love? Have I done enough good in my life for God to take notice of me and say, "Hey, that Rollwage is really a superb guy. I think I'll love him"? The answer, no matter what you may think, is no. A resounding no. The love of God comes to me and to you not because we are so wonderful, but despite the fact that we are not. The love and forgiveness of God come to us not as God's response to our goodness, but as God's response to our brokenness and our need.
Now, Martin Luther 500 years ago read through the New Testament again and again, and wherever he turned, he found grace. The Gospels are filled with the stories of the grace of God revealed through the words and the interactions of Jesus, real moments of grace with real people in need of forgiveness and acceptance and love. And the letters of Paul are filled with reflections upon grace, including these words which changed Luther's heart when he read: "God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his love for us."
That is what grace means. That's what Martin Luther came to understand: that God's grace is for him, is offered to him, is God reaching out not to Martin the holy, blameless monk, but to Martin the sinful, broken man. Grace is God reaching out to sinful, broken you. By the grace of God, God cares for us, loves us, understands us, reaches out to us, responds to us and to our needs. God hears our prayers for help in the same way a loving parent hears the cry of their child.
The church exists in grace as the gathered family of the children of God, a place where we might grow and learn, might receive encouragement and comfort, might celebrate together the love that God has for us all. All that we are, all that we shall be, all that is provided for us, comes as a free gift of the grace of God. Not because we deserve it, but because God, in infinite mercy, freely offers it to us. Grace is love that seeks you out when you have nothing to give in return. Grace is being loved when you are unlovable. Grace is God loving you, giving himself for you. Grace is God calling you and welcoming you home. Sola gratia, by grace alone.
Now, we apprehend this astonishing grace of God, we make it our own, through the second sola: through faith. That people are put right with God by faith alone meant that you no longer had to go through an elaborate series of rituals to achieve forgiveness of sins. Visiting or possessing a particular religious relic was not the answer. Climbing the steps of the cathedral on your knees wasn't the answer. Carrying a medallion of some saint or other wasn't the answer. Donating richly to the church wasn't the answer. But don't let me discourage you from donating richly to the church. It may not be the answer, but it is part of the response. The path to God was and is through faith in Jesus Christ.
As with grace, though, I'm not sure whether or not we have a clear concept of just what faith is. First of all, faith is belief. In fact, in the New Testament, the words faith and belief are often used interchangeably. Depending upon which translation of the Bible you happen to be using, the same verse which in one says faith may in another say believe. When the Bible talks about believing in Jesus, it's talking about more than simply believing that someone named Jesus lived in the land of Israel a couple of thousand years ago, in the same way we might believe in the existence of John A. Macdonald or Julius Caesar.
After all, simply believing in the mere existence of Jesus doesn't make you a Christian, any more than believing in the existence of John A. Macdonald makes you a Tory, or believing in the existence of Julius Caesar makes you a Roman. When the Bible talks about believing in Jesus, it means believing that Jesus is who Jesus said he was, and is who he was revealed to be. I'll let the Bible demonstrate what I mean by a series of scriptures.
Beginning in John, we read, "Simon Peter answered Jesus, 'We've come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.'" Or in the Gospel of John again, Jesus said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes, Lord," she replied. "I believe you're the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world."
Or in Romans: "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved." Or again, back to John: "These words are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
Notice that in each of these examples, and there are many, many more, belief in Jesus means more than acknowledging the fact of his existence. It means believing something very specific about Jesus: that he is the Holy One of God, the Messiah, the resurrected Lord and Saviour, the very Son of God. But faith means more than that. Again, in the same way that acknowledging that John A. Macdonald was the first Prime Minister of Canada doesn't make you a Canadian, it may surprise you to know that acknowledging that Jesus is the Son of God doesn't make you a Christian. It's an important first step, but there's more, because faith means more than belief.
Jesus' brother James makes this very clear in a rather shocking statement in his letter, which we find in the New Testament. He says, in a rare bit of New Testament sarcasm, "You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you. Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror." Faith means more than belief, says James. Faith also means trust.
Faith as trust means not only to believe who Jesus was, but to place your trust in Jesus as Saviour and Lord. It means to give your allegiance to him, to place your life in his hands. It means to follow. After all, it's one thing to call Jesus Lord, to believe he is who he and others said he is. It's another thing altogether to trust him as Lord. As your Lord.
To call Jesus Lord does several things. First of all, it acknowledges who Jesus is: the Lord Jesus Christ, God among us. Not just the historical figure of a prophet in long-ago Israel, not just a good man, not just a profound teacher, but in fact Lord. The Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God. He's not just one among many good moral teachers. He's not just one among many religious figures, on par with the Buddha or Muhammad or the Dalai Lama. He's Lord. The Lord.
And the second, and perhaps more important, thing we're doing when we call Jesus Lord is we're declaring a relationship. We say "the Lord," but we also say "our Lord." We say "my Lord." There's a big difference between saying "the Lord" and "my Lord." "The" recognizes Jesus' status. "Our" and "my" describe that status as affecting and impacting us. When we say our Lord or my Lord, we're acknowledging that we are in relationship with Jesus as Lord. We're declaring our allegiance to him and placing our trust in him.
That's been the most fundamental distinguishing characteristic of Christians since the inception of the church. This is what has defined us. A Christian is one who enters into relationship with Jesus Christ. Not just one who acknowledges who Jesus is, but one who enters into relationship with, who places their trust in, Jesus as Lord. When you say my Lord, you are saying that Jesus is the Lord to whom you have opened your heart, with whom you've set your priorities, with whom you share your life. Because faith is more than belief, it is relationship, and it is trust.
But faith is even more than that. Listen again to the words of Jesus: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Or again, further, he says, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I say?" Faith is belief, faith is trust, and faith, says Jesus, is belief and trust put into action. It's acting in faith, the living out of that relationship of trust, that makes our faith complete. That's what makes us Christian. That's what makes Jesus Lord.
Acknowledging the title alone, argues James, is largely meaningless. Our faith, he writes, is made complete by our actions. To call Jesus Lord and mean it means to call Jesus Lord and live it. Belief, trust and action. This is the faith we profess, the faith we have in Jesus as Lord, the faith by which we live. Sola fide, by faith alone. That's how we apprehend the grace of God and make it our own.
But how do we know this? How can we be sure of this? How do we know that what we're being taught about God is correct? Well, sola scriptura, said Luther. By scripture alone. The Bible is the sole authority for faith and for life. If the church tells us one thing and the Bible tells us another, the church is wrong. Popes can be wrong, church councils can be wrong, ministers, with the exception of myself, can be wrong.
The scriptures are in a special and important way God's word to us, the timeless, true witness and testimony to the teaching and person of Christ. The church cannot and must not do what the scriptures do not teach, and the church must ever and always evaluate, and continually be formed and reformed by the standards not of the world, but by the word of God. By the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, God speaks to his people through his word. And because this is so, people need to have access to the Bible in a language they can understand, and churches need to teach their people how to read and understand the scriptures openly and honestly.
Now, Luther, despite the threat of death, translated first the New and then the Old Testament out of the Latin that was understood only by the scholars of the day into the common language of the market and the street. And he inspired others to do so in many languages around the globe. All the wonderful Bible translations which we have today are descendants of this breakthrough. All of us have the freedom and the privilege to access the word of God as revealed in the scriptures. The power of God's word was very firmly taken out of the hands of the hierarchy of the church and put back into the hands of the people of God, for the good of all and for the glory of God.
By faith, by grace, by scripture, to the glory of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. Back to those basics. And the windows and the doors of the church were again open, and the light came flooding in. The family, that dysfunctional family, began to heal. But tragically, it also began to fragment: Protestants on one side of the divide, Roman Catholics on the other. Why, if the scriptures are so clear, didn't the whole church reform? Why the split?
Well, Luther never had any thought of founding a new church. That wasn't his goal or his intention. He was hopeful that change would come from within. Unfortunately, many of the leaders of the old church, locked within their tradition and unable to break the old patterns they were used to, viewed these revolutionary changes as a threat to everything they knew and thought and understood. Change is hard, and not only for medieval bishops and popes.
There's an old joke about Presbyterians which works in most churches. I'm not implying that it would work here. I'll have to leave that up to you to decide. It goes like this. How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb? The answer: "Change?" Or there's this answer: one to change the bulb and nine to complain about how they liked the old bulb better.
Locked into this attitude, the hierarchy of the church responded to Luther's challenges by condemning him to death, and many times over at that. As with a truly dysfunctional and divided family, there was no alternative, it seems, but to split. People wanted change. They needed change. And so, to prevent reform from simply taking the form of rioting in the streets and burning down big cathedrals, Luther had no choice but to establish new churches.
Church services were simplified and changed into the language of the people. The clergy and monks and nuns began to get married. The authority of Rome began to diminish throughout Germany, and with the help of the printing press, the Reformation spread throughout Europe, into Holland, Scandinavia, England, Scotland and beyond. The Protestant church was born.
Eventually, reforms were enacted within the Roman Catholic Church as well, and there has been tremendous progress in Roman Catholic and Protestant dialogue in the last number of years. It would be astonishing and gratifying to Martin Luther and his compatriots to see how much agreement now exists between these once bitter and estranged sister churches.
The blessing of the Reformation is that it recovered the central idea of faith in Jesus Christ: by faith, by grace, by scripture, all to the glory of God. But the recovery of this gift has come at a cost, and that cost is the division of the family and the splitting of the church. Denominations within Protestantism abound, and the family is hopelessly fragmented. Unable to live under the same roof, the family has separated and is now trying to keep innumerable houses going, existing often in competition rather than in cooperation. The result is the often pointless duplication of effort in trying to do the work God would have us do.
Just think of all of our churches in Prince Edward Island: Baptist, Salvation Army, Anglican, United, Presbyterian, Christian Reformed, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and more. Just think of what we could accomplish if we truly joined our hands and our resources and our energies in the common cause of bringing Christ to our communities and to our world. Joint efforts like the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, in which this congregation is so instrumental, are making a tremendous impact in our world. Just a taste of what we can do when all the various denominations join hearts and hands together in service.
Someday, maybe someday, we will again all be worshipping together, all churches joined as one by the grace of God to do the good work God would have us do. After all, it was Jesus who prayed, "Father, I pray that my followers will all be one, just as you and I are one. As you are in me, Father, and I am in you. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me."
Followers of Jesus Christ, a functional family together, united by faith, by grace, by scripture, all to the glory of God. It seems like an impossible dream, but by the grace of God, I pray it is on its way. May God help us to see how we might be reformed and yet always reforming, separate and yet united in love and purpose. Truly the church catholic. Let's live up to our family name of Christian and reach out to our brothers and sisters in the faith, joining hands in common effort, pulling one another up out of our pews and into the good work of grace, together to do the mighty acts of God. May it be so, we pray in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.