New Congregation: First Sermon (2-May-2021)

This sermon was preached at the Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am. 

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

My dear Christian friends, we have gathered here together today to begin something new: to lay the foundations of a new congregation (and with God’s grace and blessings, of new congregations, and possibly even a church body or synod), a congregation which is Lutheran, and yet is independent of the Lutheran Church of Australia. 

And so, as we begin this task and venture, if you like, it’s worth our while to think and study how we might go about it. What will be the same? What will be different? Whatever we do, we should do it with God, with the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and in accordance with his Word. We should do it with the apostles as our teachers and not simply according to the spirit of the age. It’s a sign of a healthy fish when it swims against the current. With this task will come the cross, will come trials and temptations and attacks, but also with this task, despite all of that, will come great blessing, and peace, and unity, provided that we walk with our Lord according to his Word. 

So over the next three weeks, it’s my intention to give three sermons outlining some fundamental principles which we should take into consideration now and into the future. Where I live, I often drive past some houses that are being built, and it’s always a marvellous thing to see the work of the builders achieve a new milestone in their work. So I’m going to talk about these things under three headings, as if we are describing the building of a house: first of all, we lay the foundation, we pour the concrete. Then, we build the frame, the skeleton of the house, which holds everything together. Then, we make the house itself. This week, I’m going to speak about the foundations. Next week, the frame, the pillars. And the third week, the life of the church together.

And so, this week, I’m going preach about three topics: first of all, the Scripture. Secondly, the doctrine of sin. Thirdly, the atonement, that is, the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray to the Holy Spirit that he may give great strength to me as I preach his Word, and to open our hearts and ears to receive it. Amen.

I. The Holy Scripture.

The Holy Bible is a book which is totally unique in the history of the world. It is unique because it is the only book which has been simultaneously written by human authors, and also by God himself. We believe that the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Now, we might ask, how come there is only one book like this? How come other books are not like this too? Actually, the Bible is a single book because we recognise in it the single authorship of the Holy Spirit. But also the Bible is made up of 66 individual books, which are separate because of the human authorship. There are many different human authors which the Holy Spirit used in bringing to us the Bible.

Because of this inspiration which the Holy Spirit gave in producing the Bible, we believe that the Bible is the Word of God. As a result, we believe that it contains everything that is necessary for salvation, and also that it is the sole authority in the church.

There’s a few of characteristics of the bible, though, that I’d like to mention particularly. The first is, that the bible is clear. Of course, sometimes because we are separated by many centuries and also by differences in culture and such like, sometimes many things in the bible don’t appear clear to us. But the problem is not with the Bible, but with us. The Bible doesn’t need a light to shine on it, to make it clear. St Peter says that we the Scripture is a lamp shining in a dark place. We don’t need a light to shine on the Bible to make it clear. Rather, the Bible, because it is God’s Word, shines its own light, and makes everything clear. This is also what the Bible says about itself. Your Word is a lamp to my feet, and light to my path. The unfolding of your words gives light. And there’s many other things that say the same thing.

But the second characteristic is that the Bible is what we call “inerrant”, which means, it is without mistakes, and without errors. When we say this, we are saying nothing less than what the Bible actually says about itself. For example, in Proverbs 30:5, we read: Every word of God proves true. Also, in John 10:35, we read where Jesus says, that the Scripture cannot be broken. Also, right at the beginning of St Paul’s letter to Titus, he says, that God is a God who does not lie. There are many other passages that I could cite which deal with this matter.

Many people, actually, think that the Bible is full of contradictions and mistakes. We know, for example, that God used human authors: like Matthew, Mark, Luke, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so forth. And so, sometimes people think that because human beings were involved in the writing of the Scripture, it must have human mistakes in it. This is not the case. There is an old saying, which says: “To err is human”, which otherwise means, “every human being makes mistakes”. However, not every human being made mistakes. For example, our Lord Jesus Christ became a true human being, he became a man. But, in Hebrews, we read the Jesus was without sin. In the same way, because the Scripture is God’s Word, even though he used human authors, we can also say that just as Jesus was without sin, that the Scripture is without errors and mistakes.

Now, of course, sometimes we come across passages in the bible that present us some kind of problem, and we don’t know necessarily how to reconcile it. IF we say that the Bible is without mistakes, it doesn’t mean that we are too naïve or dishonest to recognise these problems. We shouldn’t just throw up our hands and say, there’s a contradiction, there’s a mistake, it must be a myth. Rather, we should assume that the problem is with us and with our understanding. Sometimes these problems can be easily resolved if do a little bit of research, or look something up in a dictionary or a grammar book, or we don’t have access to these things ourselves, we can ask someone who does for some help. This whole question has to do with our attitude towards the Scripture. And if in the church, we don’t have this common attitude towards the Scripture, we can’t really do anything, and we can never really solve any problems in the church, because we end up enthroning our own reason and intellect and book-smarts, and such like, instead of God’s Word.

So, when I was ordained as a Lutheran pastor, over 12 years ago, I said publicly in my ordination vows that the Scripture is inerrant. Now, I always thought that inerrant means inerrant, that is, either the Bible has mistakes or it doesn’t. Sometimes, some people say: What the Bible says about theology is without mistakes, but what it says about geography or history, or whatever, is sometimes wrong. This is a bit dangerous, because if we read and confess the Apostles’ Creed, for example, most of the things we say there are things that actually happened at a particular time and in a particular place. They have to do with history and geography. For example, the central claim of the Christian faith is that Jesus Christ died on a certain day at a certain place, and three days later he walked out of the tomb, risen from the dead. This is a claim about historical facts. Many people don’t want to believe it, because it has consequences which change your life. But Christians believe that this is a fact of history. So once again, we want to say: let’s always ask ourselves, is the problem with the Scripture, or is it with us? Is the problems without lack of understanding? Is the problem with our presuppositions, that creates a bias against what God is saying to us? Even we read the whole life of Jesus: most of the things we read about we don’t see happen down the street on an everyday basis, like lepers being healed, blind people seeing, deaf people hearing, dead people being raised from the dead. But just because we haven’t seen it happen in our own lives, doesn’t mean that what the Bible says happened at a certain time in history isn’t true.

One other thing: sometimes people say, “The Bible says that Jesus is the Word of God. Therefore, we shouldn’t say that the Bible is the Word of God. When we talk about the Word of God, we’re really talking about a person.” Now it’s true: In the Gospel of John, Jesus is called the Word. He is the Word who was with God, and who was God, the Word who became flesh. However, Jesus is not the Word of God in such a way that he doesn’t speak. He is not a silent Saviour. Rather, we read in the Bible all kinds of things that Jesus, the Word of God, actually said. And then he told his disciples to preach and teach, and they wrote all these things down for future generations, and Jesus says: I am with you always. Whoever hears you, hears me. Jesus promised that the words of his apostles and evangelists, and even the prophets who were before him, are also his words. So, the Word of God in the Scripture is the words of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, because Jesus Christ is the God of heaven and earth, who inspired these writers by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if the Bible is God’s Word, it means, that we should study it, that we should learn it, that we should immerse ourselves in it as best we can, because these are words of life. Maybe you’re not much of a good reader: well, do your best, and don’t be discouraged. You don’t have the read the whole thing in a day. There are also good recordings of the bible today which can listen to, and which are easily accessible too. It’s not just important for pastors to study the bible, but also for laypeople too, because you need to keep your pastors to account, and test them, and challenge them if there’s anything wrong, or doesn’t sound right. And pastors should always be humble enough to receive questions and criticism about things, because you never know when God sends a person to correct a person for the benefit of everyone.

Of course, if you do study the bible, and read it, and try to learn it, it will change your life. And sometimes, this is a frightening thing. Hebrews says: The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. But also, we say with the Apostles, just as they said to Jesus: You have the words of eternal life. We say with the words of Psalm 19: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord, enlightening the eyes. So when we come to the Scripture, to learn it, to hear it, to understand it, to digest it and to even devour it, the whole purpose is the Scripture is to encourage us, to show us our Saviour, and to point us to heaven. Be encouraged, and let your soul be revived, let the Scripture make simple people like you and me become wise, let your heart be made to rejoice, let your eyes be enlightened. All these things are promised to us in the Scripture, because it is the living and active Word of our Holy God.

Now, I’d like to come to the second part of our sermon, which is about

II. Sin.

If we have this kind of opinion about the Scripture, then we can allow the Scripture to show us the truth about ourselves. And if we didn’t have the Scriptures, we might get some idea, some kind of inkling that there’s something not quite right about us humans, about the human race. But we will never be able to put our finger on it. For example, in Hinduism, people believe that everyone is divine. Christians believe the opposite: we believe that we are fallen. None of us really understands what sin is: only God knows, and only God reveals in his Word the full extent and the full scope and full weight and force of sin.

We believe though that things weren’t always like this. The first chapters of Genesis speak about a time when human beings were perfect and good, and lived in peace and harmony, with no fighting, no disease, no death, no sin. But then there was a fall, where the human race fell into sin. And because we are descended from those first parents, we all come from the same tainted loaf, we are all cut from the same soiled cloth. As Psalm 51 says: Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and sin did my mother conceive me. And when we know just how wonderful things were in the Garden of Eden, it is such a tragedy, such a terrible, awful thing that we are in the condition we are now. We come into this world without the fear and love of God, and what is worse, we even desire and want to sin, in such a way that our whole heart and nature now inclines and directs itself in that way.

As St Paul says: Let God be true, though everyone be a liar. Genesis 6 says about the human race that every intention of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. St Paul makes a list of passages in Romans 3: None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.

Even we Christians, who believe in Jesus, who strive to live a holy life, still have this sinful flesh which we carry around with ourselves. It is shocking thing to look at the great evil of our world and of history, and then to realise that each one of us is completely and totally capable of all of it. That is the sinful human heart that we all have. By virtue of the fact that we are all part of this sinful human race, that we have a sinful human heart, means that we are born into this world totally lost and condemned.

Now, this brings me to the third part of our sermon, which is about

III. The atonement.

When we talk about the atonement, we are speaking about the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. We worship a holy God, who is completely perfect, and just, and good. And it is a frightful thing to enter into his presence, because nothing sinful, such as you and me, is allowed to stand before him, without being completely consumed. But in we in Romans 5, that God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. We believe that Jesus Christ, the true Son of God and true man, is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He took the weight, the guilt, the shame of every single sin, every single sinful action, thought, gesture, every sinful look in a person’s eye of every single person who has ever lived from the beginning of the world to its end. He took all of that upon his own shoulders, and died for it. He made the one, true, perfect sacrifice for your sin, my sin, everyone’s sin, and the sin of the whole world. He offered his life, his breath, his body, his blood, as a sacrifice for sin. And when he did this, he won a wonderful and glorious victory over sin and death and hell, and paid the price that we owed for our sin, and satisfied the wrath and the anger of God. God sent his Son into the world, because he is righteous, he is just, but he is also good and merciful. When Jesus died and rose again from the dead, he won the forgiveness of sins. And this forgiveness of sins belongs to you, simply when you believe it. And so, we read in John’s Gospel: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

This is the centre of the Christian faith. And we become right with God, justified in his sight, not because of our works, or because we earn it, and do something, or love someone, or whatever. God gives it to you freely as a gift. Luther says in the Small Catechism: I believe that Jesus Christ…has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, death and the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and his innocent suffering and death, that I may be his own and live under him in his kingdom.

So, when we speak about sin, we call this the preaching of God’s law. The law drives us to despair of ourselves. It always finds us, and kill us. But when we speak of the atonement of Christ, when we speak of Christ’s death and resurrection, when we speak of the forgiveness of sin, and the promise of eternal life, we call this the preaching of the Gospel. The Gospel drives us to Christ, and to trust in him. It makes us into new people, into holy people, saints, who are born anew and afresh, because we become clothed with the purity and the holiness and righteousness of Christ.

Now, all these things go together: the Scripture, the Law (or the preaching of sin) and the Gospel (or the preaching of the atonement). If we lose the Scripture, we start to assume that we really are all okay after all. We start to put ourselves in the place of God, we desire to become like God, and we think that our words and our ideas are so important and so holy and so valuable. We start to think we are gods, little gurus. Then we forget the atonement, we ignore it, we despise it, we hate it, because we don’t need Jesus anymore, when we’re doing quite well by ourselves.

No—turn everything on its head. The complete opposite is the truth! The Scripture is perfect! The Law convicts us of our sin right to the depths! The Gospel shows us the wonderful grace and mercy of God in sending his Son to atone and make payment and die for each and every single one of our sin. Let us take heart, learn the Scripture, repent of our sin, and trust in our wonderful Saviour, Jesus Christ, who died and rose from the dead.

Amen.

Heavenly Father, sanctify us in the truth: your Word is truth, and let the blood of Christ, your Son, cleanse us from all sin. Amen.