Sermon – Salvation by Grace through Faith – Luke 19:1-10

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard
Beaver Dam and Pitts Creek Presbyterian Churches
Sermon – Salvation by Grace through Faith – Luke 19:1-10
Reformation Sunday - October 31, 2010

Today we celebrate Reformation Sunday. This is the day each year when we remember the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century and our efforts to reform the church to glorify Jesus Christ. We are do things a little differently this morning so I can emphasize some of the reforms that were made in the Reformation. Let us begin with a prayer of Martin Luther’s.

“Lord God, You have appointed me as a pastor of Your Church, but you see how unsuited I am to meet so great and difficult task. If I had lacked Your help, I would have ruined everything long ago. Therefore I call upon You: I wish to devote my mouth and my heart to you; I shall teach the people. I myself will learn and ponder diligently upon Your Word. Use me as Your instrument, but do not forsake me for if ever I should be on my own, I would easily wreck it all.” “In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen”. (Martin Luther)

In the Middle Ages churches were filled with painting, statues, frescoes, stained glass windows and other ornamentation. The purpose of this was to help people who could not read to learn and remember Bible stories. But with the invention of the printing press and the rise of general literacy people could read the scripture for themselves. The reformers wanted to emphasize the written Word of God so they placed the Bible in an elevated position in the sanctuary and got rid of all other ornamentation calling it idolatrous. So I have removed the picture of Jesus that usually hangs behind the pulpit at Beaver Dam.

Also I have removed the cross and candles. These make our table look like an altar
where Jesus could be sacrificed each Sunday. The reformers pointed out that Jesus was sacrificed many centuries before and there was no need for a sacrificial altar in a church. Rather, there should be a table where we share in the Lord's Supper as Christ commanded us. My place, as your pastor, is with you at the table so today I only come up here to proclaim the Word of God.

Finally, I am wearing a black robe today because this is what kept teachers warm in the 16th century; take a look at the front of you bulletin today. This is not some type of clerical garb. And I am no different than you. I am not closer to God than you. I just have a little more education in theology. The reformers taught us that we are all priests and all of us can pray directly to God. So please pray with me a prayer that John Calvin used every time he taught from the scriptures.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (Calvin)

Luke 19:1-10 NIV Luke 19:1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner.'" 8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." 9 Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

This morning I will be talking about one of our protestant reformers, Martin Luther. Martin Luther was born on November 10, 1483. His father had started as a miner, but went on to eventually own a series of foundries. Luther was sent to school to learn Latin. His father hoped that Luther would go into Law or Diplomacy and be able to support the family.

The young Luther was torn between the emotion of love and fear. He feared going to hell. The medieval church painted a portrait of God with two heads: an angry wrathful God who sent people to hell, and a merciful God who let people into heaven. Luther worried about how to get past the wrathful God to the merciful one. The church taught that Jesus was an implacable judge. So people were afraid to pray to either God or Jesus. But people could pray to Mary hoping that she could influence Jesus' decisions. And if this didn't work people could always pray to Mary's mother, Saint Anne.

One day Luther was riding through a violent storm. A lightening bolt struck nearby and he fell off his horse. Fearing for his own life, Luther prayed to Saint Anne and promised to enter a monastery if she would save his life. His life was spared and within two weeks, at age 22, Luther entered an Augustinian monastery over the objection of his father. Luther went on to become a priest and celebrated his first Mass in May of 1507.

In November of 1510 Luther was sent to Rome as a legal representative. He remained in Rome for six months. There he found the Roman clergy to be ignorant and frivolous. Their masses were mass produced and sold for money. Greed, not faith, ruled the religion of the day.

Luther moved to Wittenberg in 1511 where he received his doctorate in theology. There he began a series of lectures on the Bible. He realized that righteousness was not something that we had to achieve. Rather righteousness was a characteristic of God which comes to all who believe. With God's righteousness, which we receive though Jesus Christ, we become righteousness. Or using the words of the Apostle Paul, we are justified by the grace of God through our faith in Jesus Christ.

While Luther was lecturing on scripture the Pope was looking for a way to pay his bills. A Dominican preacher, named Johann Tetzel was a master marketer. He had the ability to make money, large amounts of money. And this is just what the Church of Rome needed. The cost of building St. Peter's was running too high, Michelangelo’s bill for painting the ceiling of the Sistine chapel was due, and the church needed money quickly. So they hired Tetzel to do fundraising throughout the Holy Roman Empire.

Tetzel's fundraising centered on the selling of indulgences. He told people that the church was like a bank. Saints had made deposits of righteousness over the centuries. These righteous deposits could be used by sinners today to placate an angry God. All a sinner had to do was to buy an indulgence from the church for money and the righteousness of the saints would balance the sinner’s account with God. Tetzel promoted this scam all over Europe and raised a mountain of money for the church.

By October 31, 1517, Luther was finally fed up with what Tetzel was doing. Luther wanted to start a discussion among Christian scholars on the topic of indulgences. So he invited them to a debate in the usual manner. He wrote 95 Theses and attached them to the door of Castle Church. In these 95 Theses Luther said that repentance is an act of the faithful not a sacrament of the church. And the Pope had no right to remit guilt and the just penalty for sin. Therefore the preaching of indulgences by the church was in error. He argued that Christians should be taught that salvation comes only from the mercy of God, and he stated that Christians should be instructed that it is better to give to the poor than to buy indulgences from the church. He argued that preachers should focus not on preaching indulgences to raise money, but on the Word of God and the grace of God that promises us the inheritance of heaven.

Luther began writing prolifically. He supplied the printers with much new material which was purchased by people who had just learned how to read. A concerned Pope Leo X tried to get him to stop criticizing the church. When this did not work he declared Luther's writing heretical in 1520 and finally excommunicated Luther in 1521. Emperor, Charles V then summoned Luther to appear before the Diet of Worms to get him to recant his teachings. When this didn’t work, Charles issued the Edict of Worms which banned Luther's writings throughout the empire. Luther, once again fearing for his life, fled to the safety of his friend Frederick III and Warburg Castle. There, Luther translated the New Testament from its original Greek into German so that the people could read it for themselves. In 1522, Luther returned to Wittenberg and married a former nun, Catherine von Bora. They had six children. In the 1520's Luther's literary output was extraordinary. The Edict of Worms was found to be unenforceable and a decision was made to allow local princes to have whatever religion they wanted. Southern Germany remained Catholic, but northern Germany became Lutheran. The Protestant reformation spread to surrounding countries. Luther continued to shape it through his writings. He argued that worship services should not be in Latin, but rather in a language that people could understand. And he participated in the Reformed discussion regarding what happens during communion arguing that since the risen Christ is everywhere he must be with us in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Luther continued to write until 1545 and died on February 18, 1546.

The central thesis in Luther's thinking was salvation by grace through faith. We see this in today's scripture. Zacchaeus, was a tax collector, and as we saw last week, tax collector are sinners. He showed his faith in Jesus Christ by climbing a tree. Jesus told him that by the grace of God he was adopted as a child of Abraham. And in gratitude for all that God has done for him Zacchaeus was gracious to the others whom he had cheated. Jonah was a sinner running away from God. He showed his faith by praying from the belly of a fish. And God saved his life by having the fish spit Jonah on dry land. In gratitude for all that God had done for him, Jonah followed God’s commands and became a missionary to people who did not know God. Both Jonah and Zacchaeus were saved by God's grace through their faith.

So when we die we will approach the throne of God. We will have to answer for all we have done. And Jesus will decide if we go to heaven or hell. What will you bring with you? Will you bring your statement of giving to the church? Will you bring you attendance record at worship, Sunday school and early morning prayers? Will you bring your record of the volunteer work you did serving the poor? Well, it would be good to bring all of these things with you when you meet Jesus. All by themselves they are not enough to convince Jesus to let you into heaven. But taken together they are evidence of your faith in Jesus Christ. And through this faith the promise of scripture is that a gracious God will forgive you all of your sins and will invite you into his presence in heaven.

So I urge you today to believe in Jesus Christ. Believe that he died for your sins on the cross. And as a result if you believe this then a merciful God will forgive you, your guilt will disappear, and you will enjoy eternity in heaven. The choice is yours, but I exhort you to have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.