Sermon Tone Analysis

Freedom! What beautiful words.

As Americans the word “freedom” is music to our ears.

We have fought for it, shed blood and sacrificed tens of thousands of lives for it.

During the days of President Abraham Lincoln, he issued an emancipation proclamation declaring all slaves to be free.

Yet, even though free, many continued to live lives of servitude.

The slaves didn’t know any other way of life and/or, they didn’t really know what freedom meant.

In one of his earliest Reformation writings, Martin Luther wrote On the Freedom of a Christian Man.

Indeed, the Reformation was about the question “What does it mean for man to be free?”

In our culture and society, freedom is usually associated with choice; a person is free who has the right and power to choose as he wills.

We often, therefore, hear of the freedom of choice.

However, such freedom arises from the idea that man is free by way of detachment from persons and things; such freedom arises from the idea of the person as independent and autonomous.

The Bible knows of no such freedom of man.

The Bible rather reveals man as entrapped, dead in sin, and destined to death.

That man can live only if he is freed from that slavery and is reborn to the servanthood of love.

Introduction: In one of his earliest Reformation writings, Martin Luther wrote On the Freedom of a Christian Man.

Indeed, the Reformation was about the question “What does it mean for man to be free?”

In our culture and society, freedom is usually associated with choice; a person is free who has the right and power to choose as he wills.

We often, therefore, hear of the freedom of choice.

However, such freedom arises from the idea that man is free by way of detachment from persons and things; such freedom arises from the idea of the person as independent and autonomous.

The Bible knows of no such freedom of man.

The Bible rather reveals man as entrapped, dead in sin, and destined to death.

That man can live only if he is freed from that slavery and is reborn to the servanthood of love.

Illustration: At the beginning of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, being tempted of the devil.

The devil tempts Jesus to reject the way of the cross that the Father has given to him.

The scene climaxes when Jesus determines to follow the will of his Father and indicates that resolve by crushing the head of the snake with his foot.

Is Jesus, by submitting to the will of the Father, therefore accepting, settling for, resigning himself to slavery, or is he indeed free?

Just

The Judeans in today’s Gospel reading were interested and some even believed in Jesus, so our Lord said to them: “If you abide in My Word, you are My disciples indeed.

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

The concept of freedom escaped them because they linked it to their heritage — “We are descendants of Abraham.”

Clearly, Jesus is talking about different freedom than what they or we assume.

Introduction: At the beginning of the Reformation, Martin of Basel came to a knowledge of the truth, but, afraid to make a public confession, wrote: “O most merciful Christ, I know that I can be saved only by the merit of thy blood.

Holy Jesus, I acknowledge thy sufferings for me.

I love thee!” Then he removed a stone from the wall of his chamber and hid his words there.

The struggle for freedom—even spiritual liberty—is not new.

Five hundred two years ago many Christians in western European countries were waging a struggle for freedom from a huge institutional church that dominated their lives and told them what to believe and do.

We call their struggle the Reformation.

Martin Luther championed the cause for spiritual freedom made possible by God’s grace in Jesus Christ.

In 1520 he wrote The Address to the German Nobility, in which he attacked the church’s exercise of authority over governments.

Two months later in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, he attacked the church’s penitential system by which it controlled Christians.

Reformation Day (Observed), October 29, 2006

About the same time Martin Luther found the truth and said, “My Lord has confessed me before men; I will not shrink from confessing him before kings” (quoted in Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations by Paul Lee Tan [Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, p. 1272).

In Bondage to Freedom

Luther connected freedom with service to one’s neighbor and the extension of God’s kingdom.

In November 1520, he published The Freedom of the Christian, in which he applies his evangelical theology of freedom in Christ to the daily Christian life of service.

This “tract” echoes the words of Jesus in our text.

This morning then we will address freedom—the freedom of the Christian, but also the necessity for service and mission work—under the theme Free to Serve.

For generations leading up to the Reformation church teachings and doctrines drifted away from the Word of our Lord, to the point where the gospel of “Grace Alone” was hidden from the people.

That is, until a Priest That is, Remain loyal to a set of true doctrines; Use the Scriptures diligently; Cling to the Gospel; Do what God commands.

That’s what it means to “abide in My [Jesus’] Word.”

Introduction: In one of his earliest Reformation writings, Martin Luther wrote On the Freedom of a Christian Man.

Indeed, the Reformation was about the question “What does it mean for man to be free?”

In our culture and society, freedom is usually associated with choice; a person is free who has the right and power to choose as he wills.

We often, therefore, hear of the freedom of choice.

However, such freedom arises from the idea that man is free by way of detachment from persons and things; such freedom arises from the idea of the person as independent and autonomous.

The Bible knows of no such freedom of man.

The Bible rather reveals man as entrapped, dead in sin, and destined to death.

That man can live only if he is freed from that slavery and is reborn to the servanthood of love.

Illustration: At the beginning of Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane, being tempted of the devil.

The devil tempts Jesus to reject the way of the cross that the Father has given to him.

The scene climaxes when Jesus determines to follow the will of his Father and indicates that resolve by crushing the head of the snake with his foot.

Is Jesus, by submitting to the will of the Father, therefore accepting, settling for, resigning himself to slavery, or is he indeed free?

Just

On this Reformation Sunday we are going to talk about: (1).

Jesus — The Son; then we’ll contrast that with the Unsaved Sinner who ironically is a true son; and finally (3).

Saved Sinners: a blessed case of a true son.

Today we celebrate the Reformation, made possible by the outspoken confession of Martin Luther.

The Reformation is considered by most to have begun 502 years ago, on October 31, 1517, when Dr. Martin Luther, professor of theology at Wittenberg University in Germany, nailed his 95 theses to the door of the castle church in Wittenberg.

These statements protested the Roman Catholic teaching on indulgences, which proclaimed a false way of salvation—that you could in effect buy your way into heaven.

The Reformation movement spread like wildfire.

So, do you want to be free indeed?

Then abide in the Word of the Son, for “if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed!”

Luther states two powerful principles.

The first is:

Sermon Theme: Who is this man?

A slave or free?

A Christian is free, lord of all, subject to none.

Jesus — Is The True Son

Amazingly, “Luther took no steps to spread his theses among the people.

He was merely inviting scholars to dispute and dignitaries to define, but others in a stealth-like manner translated the theses into German and gave them to the press.

In short order they became the talk of Germany.

A Swiss theologian by the name of Karl Barth said of his own unexpected emergence as a reformer of the 20th century could be said equally of Luther, that he was like a man climbing in the darkness a winding staircase in the steeple of an ancient cathedral.

In the blackness he reached out to steady himself, and his hand laid hold of a rope.

He was startled to hear the clanging of a bell” (Here I Stand, by Roland Bainton [Nashville: Abingdon, 1950] p. 83).

At the beginning of the Reformation, Martin of Basel came to a knowledge of the truth, but, afraid to make a public confession, wrote: “O most merciful Christ, I know that I can be saved only by the merit of thy blood.

Holy Jesus, I acknowledge thy sufferings for me.

I love thee!” Then he removed a stone from the wall of his chamber and hid his words there.

Text:

A covenant of the heart (vv 31–33)

About the same time Martin Luther found the truth and said, “My Lord has confessed me before men; I will not shrink from confessing him before kings” (quoted in Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations by Paul Lee Tan [Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, p. 1272).

I can explain this with a remote but obvious point, namely, that you have a two-fold nature, an outer and an inner self.

Other Lessons: ; ;

In Jesus said, “If you knew me Me you would know My Father too.”

In Jesus said, “I and My Father are one.”

In the Nicene Creed we confess the equality of Jesus with God, His Father: “being of one substance with the Father...”

(1) I recall visiting a family with a newborn child.

All the relatives were gathered around and identified the parts.

“He’s got his mom’s nose and his dad’s chin.

There is his grandpa’s forehead.”

Inside, however, was a unique human spirit, a unique self that was really in bondage and slavery.