New Congregation: Second Sermon (9-May-2021)

This sermon was preached at St Peter's Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am.

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

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. 

Today, I’m giving the second sermon in a three-part series, as we gather here together to lay the foundations of a new Lutheran congregation, here in Adelaide, which lights a candle and shines the light of Christ and his Word throughout our city, our state, our country, and to the world. A small group of people should never be afraid of shining their light too far, because we are with Jesus Christ, and he is the Light of the world.

So in this little sermon series, it has been my intention to outline some principles, under three headings, thinking about the picture of building 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. Last week, spoke about three foundations: the Scripture, sin and the atonement. Next week, I intend to preach about the life of the church together.

But this week, for lack of a better way to describe it, I’m going to talk about what I’ve called the frame or pillars of the house. And once again, like last week, I’m going to speak about three topics: the first, justification by faith; the second, the Lord’s Supper; and third, the authority of the Word of God in the church. Let’s pray to the Holy Spirit that he may strengthen me as I preach his Word, and to open our hearts and ears to receive it. Amen.

So, first, let’s think about

I. Justification by faith alone.

Justification by faith alone is considered one of the real pillars of the Reformation, the central teaching. We might say, it is the Reformation’s great gift to the Christian Church of all times. Last week, we were thinking about the atonement, the fact that Christ died on the cross to make a perfect, full and sufficient sacrifice for each and every sin of every single person in the whole world. Now, many Christians throughout history have all agreed that Jesus died for the sin of the world. But there has always been the question: how can we be saved? How do I know that this death, this atonement, applies to me? What exactly did this sacrifice of Jesus actually achieve for me?

Now, when we consider the whole question of “justification”, we are talking about things that have to with standing before God as our judge, and entering into his courtroom, as if we are on trial. We confess in the Apostles’ Creed, that at the end of time, Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. Jesus speaks quite a frightening parable about this, where he speaks about separating the people of all nations, putting the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. The sheep are the ones he has prepared for eternal life, and the goats are the ones that then depart into eternal death and darkness.

So, the question is: how can we be saved? How can I enter into eternal life? Can I even be sure of entering eternal life?

There are many different answers to this question, but only one that is true. Firstly, some people think that there’s really nothing wrong with us in the first place, and that there really probably won’t be a judgment. And if there is a judgment, we don’t really anything to worry about, because in the end, everyone will be saved. This is what we call “universalism”. It’s close to the truth, but it’s not the truth. It’s true, that Jesus died for everyone. It’s true that God wills that all people be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. However, we human beings have a sinful, corrupt will that goes in the opposite direction. We have hearts that have tremendous power to choose things which are evil. And actually, we are all born in this state, not even being able to choose that which is good. God is love, and he is the fountain of love, the beginning and the end of love. But also, he is just. If he weren’t just, it would mean that he doesn’t care about anything, or even about you. But he is also so loving that he wants to demonstrate that his justice has been satisfied.

The other answer to this question, is that some people think that if we want to be saved, we have to earn our salvation by our good works. We have to show to God that we have demonstrated sufficient love, that our hearts have sufficiently changed, in order to deserve to enter his presence. Instead of being confident in the blood of Jesus and his atonement and his sacrifice, we instead are pointed in direction of ourselves when it comes to our salvation. Every false religion in the world is actually a religion of works, a religion that does stuff in order earn stuff before God. The reality is that even the greatest works that we do in our own eyes are but a tiny drop in the ocean when it comes to God and his justice.

So, let me explain what this is all about. You and I and everyone in this world is on trial before God. God is the judge. And there is even an accuser in the courtroom, the devil. I am, you are the culprit. And all the accusations are true: even our hearts gives a testimony against us, and the Holy Spirit gives a testimony against us. The guilt which we bear is great, and the punishment which we deserve is endless. The Law by which we are judged by God, he gave with thunder and lightening on Mt Sinai.

But, into the courtroom, comes the Lamb of God, our High Priest and Advocate. His name is Jesus Christ. He presents before the Father his own life and his own blood. He offers himself in our place, and pleads for the criminal on trial. His atonement, his sacrifice, his work, has achieved our salvation, and the salvation of everyone in the whole world.

And so, God speaks his wonderful, powerful voice from his throne in heaven. Tear up the sentence! The guilty person on trial is set free and acquitted from all guilt and punishment because of Jesus Christ and what he has done. You are justified, and without price, completely and totally freely, Christ’s righteousness is given to you.

And, this whole matter is exactly what the church is here for. What God has spoken in heaven, is to be proclaimed on the earth. Jesus didn’t just die, but he rose from the dead, and sent out his apostles with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Why? So that what God has spoken in heaven, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, may be spoken on the earth. This is the forgiveness of sins on earth as it is in heaven.

And so, in the church, we speak this Word of God to the world. We preach it to you, we give it to you, we bestow it upon you, we apply it to you. We say: I forgive you all your sins, I baptise you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And when we speak this message, and tell you what Christ has done for you, we actually apply it to you and put it into your hands, so that you can believe it, and when you believe it, apart from anything that you have done, or anything that you have achieved, it is yours. It is a free gift of God, given freely. The cost was Christ’s life, but you take it for free.

And so, it is not a prideful thing, to trust in God’s forgiveness, to trust that the words he spoke to you in your baptism are true, that you are his forgiven, precious child. It is not a prideful thing at all to trust confidently and certainly and surely in these things. No, it is the greatest humility to take God confidently at his Word, and to believe what he has said and declared.

Now, I could talk about justification all day, but I’d like to move on to our second topic, which is

II. The Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is at the very heart of the church. Not only did Christ die for us, and rise from the dead for us, and send his apostles and his church to preach and bestow the forgiveness of sins, but he also gave to his church a wonderful, precious inheritance if you like. You might have been in a situation where someone close to you died, and then you gathered to hear the person’s will read, and then different people receive various things from the dead person’s property.

Well, on the night when Jesus was betrayed, on the night before his death, he gathered his disciples and gave to them his will, as it were. But it’s quite a different will from any other will: we read a person’s will when they’re no longer here. However, Christ is alive, he is risen from the dead, he walks and guides and leads his church, and so we read this will of Christ, and we share his gifts, not in his absence, but in his presence.

You see, Jesus ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God. And this doesn’t mean that he is stuck up in heaven for the rest of the world’s history. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. He promises to be with his church, personally, physically, in his flesh and blood, right up until the end of the age. Nothing we do as Christians is done without Christ being here. We preach in his presence, we sing in his presence, we pray in his presence. And so the wonderful gift that Jesus gives to his church is his actual body and blood, hidden and concealed under bread and wine. And he gave these wonderful gifts for us, to strengthen us in all of our weakness, in all our weakness of faith, of mind, of heart, of body even, as he wills. He says: This is my body, given for you. This is my blood shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.

It is not the case at all as if we just have bread and wine here, and that we simply eat bread and wine to remember Jesus. No – he, the Lord of heaven and earth, who created you and everyone, descends in all his glory into our very midst to feed us with the precious gifts of his own body and blood. And it is eating his body and drinking his blood, in his holy and living presence—that’s what we do in remembrance of him.

I would love to speak for hours on the Lord’s Supper, but there’s plenty of time for that in future sermons, and on future occasions.

But I’d like to speak about our third topic, which is:

III. The Authority of the Word of God in the church.

Now, there was a wonderful teacher in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, who also spent some of his ministry here in Australia, in Toowoomba, by the name of Pastor Kurt Marquart. And I heard a recorded talk that he gave, where he said that there are two great pillars of the Lutheran Church: Justification by faith, and the Lord’s Supper. And I think he is totally right.

However, I think there is a third doctrine which may also have a similar weight or standing in the church. That is, that the only authority in the church is the Word of God, and any other authority is simply not God’s authority.

Now, what does this actually mean? There are only two kinds of authority that we can have in the church: we can only have divine authority, which comes from God’s Word, or we can have human authority, which comes from people. Now, sometimes, we might think, “Yes, there’s a lot of politics in the church.” And yes, where there are people, there are personality issues, and all kinds of things. Even Paul the Apostle and Barnabas had a disagreement where they decided that they had to work separately.

But, human authority cannot be enthroned in the church, because it always seeks to dethrone Christ and his Word.

Now, what I’m about to say, I want to say not in order to point fingers, but simply to let what I say be a warning, that we can all receive in a spirit of repentance and with a humble attitude.

This was what was going on at the time of the Reformation with the pope. It was taught that the pope has supreme authority in the church, and that all Christians must submit to him. No pope, no church. Now, it was not the case, that Luther or Lutherans simply were rebels who did not respect proper authority. No, the issue was that this was an authority that did not belong in the church, and that was not from Christ’s authority.

You see, if we actually believe that Christ is here in and with his church, we believe that there is no need for anyone to represent him in his absence. When we speak the word of God, and administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, this is not our human work. This is Christ himself ruling and guiding and leading his church. Christ is not absent from his church, but he is present with it. So we cannot simply replace his authority with human authority, because it works against him.

Now, I would like to say in this pulpit, in the presence of Almighty God as my judge and witness, that this is one of the reasons why I felt compelled to leave the Lutheran Church of Australia. The Lutheran Church of Australia for many years has had a lot of difficulty in trying to balance between a more conservative faction and a liberal faction. But, when I was ordained, and when pastors are installed, they are asked to “submit to the pastoral and doctrinal oversight of their bishops”. This vow wasn’t always there—the older pastors never had to take it. But when I wrote my Open Letter to the bishops at the beginning of February, I renounced this vow. Actually, even Anglican priests make a vow to submit to their bishop, but only insofar as the bishop speaks the Word of God. The vow I was asked to take had no caveat like that. We all made our excuses, and we all had our own ideas about what was meant by it, but at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what we actually said in public. One lady contacted me and said that she thought that this was the most significant thing I had written, because I had put myself under the authority of Christ and his Word, and put away the authority of men. And I think she was right. Today I hereby reiterate and emphasise this renunciation of this false and troubling vow. I made this vow in public, and I now renounce it in public.

In the church, it’s okay to have senior pastors and bishops. And there’s nothing wrong with them being showed respect. That’s okay. However, like pastors, the only authority a bishop or senior pastor might have is the Word of God. We can’t submit to human authority at the expense of the Word of God.

Let me put it this way. On Easter Sunday, in the evening, Jesus went and breathed on his Apostles, and said: As the Father sent me, even so I am sending you. What he did not say on that occasion was: When you go and preach in the temple, remember that the High Priest is put there by God, and if you and he have a disagreement, you must do what he says.

Now, it’s true, the High Priest, was put there by God. Even before Jesus died, the High Priest Caiaphas prophesied that it was better that one man die for the people than that the whole nation should perish. He didn’t probably know the full weight and significance of his own words, but he was still the High Priest, and he was put there by God.

However, after the Day of Pentecost, when the apostles went out and preached the Gospel in the temple, the High Priest and the leaders of the Jews, prohibited, forbade, the apostles from speaking about Jesus. Could you imagine if the Apostles at that time had a bad conscience about it all, and said to each other: Well, we really must do what we’re told. The mission of the church would have ended there!

Instead, they said: Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. They said: We must obey God rather than men.

The reason why they said this is not because they didn’t respect people in authority, or that they wanted to thumb their nose at them. They were very clear about what their authority was, and what they were to do. It was actually one of the first obstacles they encountered on their way in their mission.

Now, we might say: but Christ didn’t send the High Priest, in the same way that he did send the apostles. But Jesus does speak about this. There is an occasion in the Gospels, where the mother of James and John came to Jesus and wanted her sons to sit at Jesus’ right and left in his glory. Now, Jesus tells her that it is not his to grant. But then he teaches his apostles something very important. He says: You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great one exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant. Jesus teaches that there is no exercising of human authority in the church over people. Of course, we have pastors, who have authority, and of course, these apostles, whom Jesus was talking to, had authority. But it’s not their authority, it’s the authority that comes simply from the Word of Christ.

I pray that one day the Lutheran Church of Australia would take away that terrible vow, because it takes away from pastors the real confidence in the face of all difficulties and troubles to be able to speak the clear word of God. Of course, we know that there is a problem with the liberal, modernist, progressive, false spirit in the church. And this spirit doesn’t have the Word of God—it only has human power. If there comes a day when they decide to remove this vow from the ordination and installation rites, it will be a wonderful day for Australia and its Lutheranism. People have criticised me for leaving the Lutheran Church of Australia and its ministry, but the only way I could serve a parish again was to violate my conscience and submit to an unclear, undefined, unbiblical human authority which I could not accept. This vow taught me to fear man rather than God. At the end of the day, at worst, it means that the Word of God does not rule the church, but only humans, and merely sinful, human ideas.

In saying all this, I don’t do this to pat myself on the back. I lived under this vow myself for 12 years. It took me a long time to see that this is not what the bible teaches, that it is not what the Reformers fought for, and it took me far too long a time to do something about it. Luther and the Reformers didn’t come out from under the pope, just so that they would end up with another one.

Luther said in the first of his 95 Theses: When the Lord said, “Repent”, he meant that the whole of a person’s life should be one of repentance. Let this be our attitude: not one of smugness, of self-righteousness, of pride. Let’s take upon ourselves the Holy Spirit’s gift of humility, and go forward with repentant hearts, with vigilance, with watchfulness, so that this kind of human authority would not take root in our midst as well, but that the Word of God would have full effect and full power and full authority and free course in the church as we speak it to our sinful and fallen world. 

Let’s cling to our Saviour, Jesus Christ, trusting in his righteousness alone. Let’s taste and see that the Lord is good in his Holy Supper. And let us praise our risen and ascended Lord, as he rules and guides the church through his holy and precious Word. Amen.

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.