Reformation

The reformation, which is a church history event, and I don't know how good your history is. I don't know if you got A's at school for history, but this is a wonderful topic, and I'm so excited to be sharing it because in two days' time, we get to witness a wonderful event in the marking of five hundred years. Exactly five hundred years on October 31 of this year from the day the great reformer Martin Luther took a whole pile of notes that he had put together and nailed them to the doors of a church in Wittenberg in Germany. And thereby, unknowingly, started one of the greatest revolutions that the church had seen in its history. The reformation clicked into action.

It was in the last months of his life, however, in 1549, when this man, Martin Luther, sat down to write a preface. And so it was really just an exciting preface to a collection of Latin works that he was publishing. And it is in this preface that we find an interesting insight into what was happening in his heart and his mind in these early days. He was a man who wrote of having sacrificed so much. A man who we know very shortly after he actually wrote this final preface died very shortly afterwards, relatively young.

But we see and we gain an understanding of why he had so much urgency for this revolution that had taken place in the church. In this small preface to some general works that he had been writing on, Martin Luther looks back over the twenty-five years that had led him to this point and caused one of the greatest reforms in church history. And he meditates on an extraordinary moment where truth dawned on him and the power of Christianity took root in his heart. Now the irony, if you know the story of Martin Luther, is that he was a monk, an Augustinian monk when he made this revelation. He was also a professor in theology, a professor who taught other people about God's word.

And not only was Martin Luther a professor in theology and an Augustinian monk, he was regarded by some of his contemporaries as a living saint. He was the greatest Christian living in the time. A man who was known for his piety, his holiness, his determination to work for the Lord. He outstripped all his contemporaries in knowledge and in holy living, a living saint. Yet there was in Martin Luther's own heart a storm raging.

An expression, and actually a verse that we look at this morning, stuck with him and wouldn't let him rest. It gave him constant grief. It was the text from Romans 1:16-17, and we're going to read that this morning. Romans 1:16-17 and we'll put it up on the screen there for you. Paul the Apostle writes this: I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith." And what was particularly concerning for Martin Luther as he reflected on these words was the phrase found in verse 17. In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. Luther writes of this moment. He says, this I quote: "I greatly longed to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans and nothing stood in the way but that one expression, the righteousness of God."

"Because I took it to mean that righteousness, that righteousness whereby God is just and deals justly in punishing the unjust. My situation was that although an impeccable monk," he says of himself, "I stood before God as a sinner, troubled in conscience, and I had no confidence. I had no confidence that my merit would assuage Him. And then he says this incredible statement: "Therefore, I did not love a just and angry God, but rather hated and murmured against Him." A professor of theology, one of the best monks of his day.

Luther hated the idea of the righteousness of God and could not understand how the message of the gospel could be a message that God's divine righteousness could be anything good, because the way he understood it is that it would condemn him to hell. And then one of those incredible moments of illumination struck him. And it dawned on him that the righteousness of which Paul here was speaking is not a righteousness by which God condemns sinners, but the righteousness by which God saves those sinners. He says that he himself felt to be a man who had broken out of a prison cell. In fact, he put it in this way. He said that the gates of paradise flew open for me.

I felt myself to be born again. And he tells us his mind then immediately started racing to all the scripture passages that he had memorised in his time and he had studied as a monk and as a teacher and as a professor, and at last, this text helped make sense of it all. He discovered the power of God for salvation. From that moment onwards and the last of the story of his life, these twenty-five years, the motivation with the urgency that he went about reforming and standing against the worldwide church makes complete sense. He boasted and said with Paul, "I am not therefore ashamed of the gospel."

So this morning, we're going to reflect on this key verse for Martin Luther on this five hundredth anniversary of the reformation and understand why this was the key verse in this whole movement. What is it from these two verses that could fuel such incredible passion, that could move entire nations with such potency? Well, we see at least four things happening in this passage. Romans 1:16-17 is considered by scholars to be the summary statement to the entire letter. If there is one thought, and we all, you know, did high school English.

Right? We got taught about opening sentences in a paragraph or in an essay. Your summary statement. This is Paul's summary statement at the start of his letter. It comes right up at the start and it's his entire argument that he will be making in a nutshell.

But you don't have to be a Bible scholar in reading this to understand what he wants to talk about. He is talking about what? The gospel. He's talking about and explaining the gospel. The good news of Christianity.

But like I said, there are four things in these two verses that we need to unpack. He begins firstly by saying that this is good news. This is fantastic news, and it is something of which he is not ashamed. Paul says he is not unapologetic about this at all. This message he holds out with bold confidence in verse 16.

He says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel. Why? For it is the power of God for salvation." If you lived in Rome, if you lived really in the Roman Empire and you played one of those word association games, you know, if someone says black, you might say white. If you asked someone in that day, if you say horse, they'll say chariot.

If you asked someone in Rome and said power, they would say Rome. Rome. Of all nations, of all empires that had arisen over the years, Rome was the nation. Rome was the power of the day. It had utterly crushed every culture which it came into contact with.

The Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote about the Romans a way of conquering nations in this way. He said, "They make a desert and then they call it peace. Destroy, devastate, and then we own them." Rome epitomised power. And the Roman emperor of Rome, Caesar, stood at its head.

And yet, over and against this, Paul writes to the church in the heartland of this empire, the city of Rome itself, and says that there has been another power that has been unleashed in the world. Another power. And this power lies in the gospel. But this power, like the power of Rome, has enormous efficiency, but its efficiency is not to crush. Its efficiency and its effectiveness is not to subjugate. It is to save.

The power of God for salvation. The power of this gospel will, Paul will later go on to say, is the power that saw what was devastated and dead and turned it into life. And for this reason, Paul writes in his letter ahead of his anticipated trip to see them. He sends this letter before he gets there. He says he looks forward with great confidence and absolute certainty and an incredible sense of expectation that when he arrives in Rome, the message that he will share will bear immense fruit.

It will change lives. It will carry power even in the seat of power in Rome. Incredible confidence that this message will change lives. And friends, this is one thing we need to know this morning. This is one thing we need to know as we, as a church, go out and do our picnic and try to engage with people as we've invited people and our confidence in this message that we hold so dearly to is that it is powerful.

It changes lives. This gospel has in and of itself, regardless of my ability, the power to transform. And it's not referring here to a supernatural healing as some people might say, the gospel has this power to heal. It's not referring to that, although it is supernatural. It's not referring here to a gift of the spirit, the power of the spirit.

Although the spirit of God is involved here, it is referring to the miracle above all miracles, which is God takes a dead heart and transforms it to life for Him. The miracle of all miracles. Who needs to be healed when you can be saved for eternity? The miracle of all miracles. It is the power to call someone who is dead in their sin and make them alive to God.

My youngest brother, some of you may know him, four years ago became a Christian. And he will attest to this. I actually asked him for permission to share part of his testimony this morning. And he grew up his whole life in a Christian home. One of the cornerstone Christian families of a church.

The brother as a pastor. And he grew up and he didn't believe. He resisted with dogged determination anything surrounding Christianity. He went and he studied psychology and learned at university that Christianity is a drug for the masses meant to subdue and keep everyone in place. A soothing ointment for people with troubled conscience too weak rationally to deal with their issues.

My brother had all the answers. Until he started to work with a man who was a paraplegic and had become a paraplegic by trying to commit suicide because of his paranoid schizophrenia that told him that he wasn't worth living, that he needed to die. And my brother became his carer. And at one point, some Christians started talking with this man, shared with him the gospel, and he became a believer. And he changed overnight.

And hope and peace was his character. It marked who he was now. And my brother testifies that this man's life was radically different. He was not healed of his paralysis. He's still, in fact, lying in bed today.

I saw him only a few weeks ago. But he was more liberated than ever when he had both legs. He was more free than he was ever before. And my brother saw all of this play out in front of his eyes. And then one day, he just had to fall to his knees and say, "Lord, forgive me.

Accept me. I believe." And the reason was he told me, he knew all the answers. He could explain and try to justify away schizophrenia, but it was the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ dying in that man's place that changed his life. My brother said, "It was real.

It was the only thing that was real." Friends, we have nothing to be ashamed of. We have nothing to fear. Those friends of yours who politely ignore your faith, they need to hear this message. And those that don't, that means we don't have to fear their resistance.

It is not our ability. It is not our persuasiveness. It is not our clever messaging that reaches them. You need to keep sharing this faith. I mean, what hope did those few Christians that met with this man have?

What hope? They couldn't offer him anything. They couldn't offer him his legs. They couldn't offer him and promise him freedom from schizophrenia. They could just say, "This is what Jesus has done."

We need to keep bringing this message to people over and over and over again, and then we need to wait and see the power of that gospel work. And we don't need to be ashamed, and we don't need to fear. Secondly, Paul is not ashamed of this gospel because of its relevance to all. Paul says, "It is the power of God for salvation to who? To everyone who believes."

He says to the Jew first, but then also to the Greek. Or in another translation, to the Gentile, the non-Jews. And we see and we understand this was Paul's real passion, don't we? We, if we read the Book of Acts, we see that Paul in his missionary travels would go to a new place and he would go and find the Jews first. He would go to the synagogues and would preach there.

And he would explain how Jesus Christ is the Messiah, that the prophecies of Him are fulfilled in Christ. And then he would explain the wonder of the cross. And then whether they believed or not, the Jews, he would move on to the Gentiles. We see that as a pattern. To the Jews went first and plead with them with urgency this gospel, and then he would go to the Gentiles equally because he understood.

He understood that this is available to all. He was the apostle who understood better than all the other apostles. We see that this command Jesus gave to go to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth with this message. This was for Paul. This was for the church. It was meant to be shared.

The gospel therefore is not limited. It is not limited. It does not belong to the Dutch. It does not belong to the South African. It does not belong to the Australian.

It does not belong to the Jew. It is powerful and therefore effective for all people. And particularly today, we need to be very mindful of this. The apostle Paul understands that there is only one salvation through Jesus Christ and faith in Him. There are not two ways of salvation, one for the Jew and one for the Gentile.

If we pray for the Jews, and I know there are people in our church that do pray urgently for them, but we don't pray necessarily for them to have their temple back because that temple is useless for them. We don't pray for them a government that can save them or protect them. Only Jesus Christ and the gospel can save them. There is only one way of salvation and that is through Jesus Christ and faith in Him. That is something we need to be mindful of, especially if we start talking about end times, eschatology, and so on.

There is only one name by which man can be saved. But then the second thing is, and the nice part of this is, we can delight in the international flavour of the gospel and the church, don't we? It means that South Africans and Dutch, Sri Lankans, Australians, Jews alike worship the same living God together through the enabling power of the gospel. But again, for our church, it then means that there is no particular culture that understands it better than the other one. There is no skin colour that makes us closer or further from God, or indeed, why there is no culture or language or skin colour that can be the cornerstone of our identity.

These things are not the cornerstones if we understand the gospel. None of those things, culture, language, skin colour, were hindrances to God saving us. He didn't look at the Gentile and say, "I'd rather go for the Jews." It's not a hindrance to God saving us nor does any of those things bring us closer to God. The gospel is both for the Jew and the Gentile, for all who will believe.

So Paul wants us to understand the power in the gospel and the power of the gospel is for all who believe, but then it raises this big question, the third point. How? How is it that the gospel has saving power? How is the message of Jesus Christ, His death, His resurrection actually able to save me? Paul says, "It is in the righteousness of God that we are saved because of this righteousness."

Now what Paul means here when he speaks about the righteousness of God is of course, in the first instance, a characteristic of who God is. Righteousness is the character of God that He is eternally right, eternally fair, eternally consistent in the perfect pursuit of His honour and His majesty and His glory. To be righteous, God is absolutely consistent with all that is right and true. That is what righteousness means. God is absolutely consistent in all that is right and true.

But this is what Martin Luther feared about the gospel as well, isn't it? Because for God to be absolutely righteous, it means when His creatures, mankind, who are created to be righteous alongside Him, when His creatures become and do what is unrighteous. God then must do something about that. And God must cast away because He is righteous. Every act and every person who has broken away from this righteousness.

Unrighteousness cannot exist with righteousness. And this is the problem that the gospel highlights. This is the problem that we hear. The problem is that none of us by nature is right with God. Paul will go on to underline this.

In fact, he spends three chapters on this. From the very next verse, verse 18, right the way through to chapter three verse 20, Paul goes on to make the case that none of us are righteous, not even one, he says. But that is why this gospel is glorious. Because right here at the beginning of this letter, a God who is shown to be holy and righteous is also shown to provide a goodness and a rightness for sinners when they come to believe. This is where Luther was blown away when he realised what the righteousness of God had done.

Not simply who He was, but what it had done. Yes, it was true. Luther realised he is a sinner. It is true that his, that God is righteous and must condemn sinners, but in the gospel, and this is why it's good news, God in His grace solved my ultimate problem with His final solution by sending His son Jesus Christ to die in my place.

In this way, God was shown to be so righteous, so incredibly righteous because on the one hand, He maintained His absolute justice. And on the other hand, the God of love could show mercy. With these two aspects, His justice and His mercy poured out at the same time in Jesus Christ on the cross, He was shown to be righteous, acting consistently, rightfully, and in truth. And so for the Christian, if you believe, if you are willing to take it on and trust in it on that cross, a great exchange took place. Your sin was punished on that cross.

And in the same moment, Christ's perfection and His righteousness was given to you. So that when Christ, when God sees us, He sees Christ. That's why Paul can say we are clothed in Christ. We are clothed in His righteousness. Not just a pardon therefore for sin, but a perfect record.

This is the light that dawned on Luther. This righteousness didn't condemn him therefore. It had saved him. God acted in perfect justice and perfect mercy and at the same time, hallelujah, it was available to him through faith, through trust, through going to God and asking for it. And so Paul says, yes, and we come to our fourth point here.

I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for my salvation to anyone who would believe. And he says in verse 17, "from faith to faith," or a better translation probably is "from faith to faith," meaning it is all based on this thing called faith. It is all based on a trust. He quotes and he reaches back actually to the Old Testament scripture in Habakkuk 2, and he says, "As it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith.'" To those who have been made righteous by God through Christ's sacrifice, those people will continue living because of faith.

And Paul here explains that this hope is not new. It existed all along. Paul says, "I missed it. It was all in, it was all in the Old Testament. It was there all along."

And he goes on in chapter four of Romans to say, "Abraham knew it. Abraham believed in God. He simply believed and it was credited to him as righteousness." It was always there. Today as the Christian church, as we celebrate the world over the five hundredth year since the reformation, where this truth, this simple claim, the gospel is powerful, it is available to all, and it can be entered and received by faith.

We can celebrate this not in the person of who Martin Luther was, and we have to be careful that we don't put him on some pedestal for this, or John Calvin, or those who would come after them. This morning, we find it right here that our hope is in nothing and no one less than Jesus Christ. Exalted, Luther concluded in this preface. "I exalted in the sweetest word of mine, the righteousness of God. And I exalted now with as much love as before I had hated it with hate," he writes. "This phrase was for me, the very gate of paradise."

Friends, one of a pastor's greatest dangers is to assume that everyone knows and everyone believes this. I want to encourage each one of us to ask ourselves, do we truly believe this? Do we truly believe this is for me? Not for the really nice good person sitting next to me, but for me. And do I believe it in such a way that I am humbled and brought to a life-transforming relationship with God.

Believe it. Pursue it at all cost. Treasure it. Reflect on it. Remember it.

And I tell you that you'll enter the gates of paradise when you understand it. So let us come and receive this forgiveness. Let us take up this new life. Let us believe that our souls have been cleansed white as snow. I wanna finish with that the words of that great hymn that says, "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

Righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but holy trust in Jesus' name." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for this wonderful reality, this wonderful truth. And God, sometimes for some of us, this may seem too wonderful.

It may seem too simplistic. It may seem too incredible to believe. How could You save me? How could You love me? The God who is perfect.

The God who wants perfection for my life. The One who I've disappointed so greatly. And yet, Lord, this is true. This is true for me. This is true for everyone who would be willing to accept it.

Our Father, I pray for everyone of us here and nothing in our life, no philosophy, no teaching with a Christian or otherwise, or nothing will take the truth away from this. Nothing will rob us of this. Thank You that we may see Your righteousness and not fear it. We may see Your righteousness in the work of Jesus Christ, that You are perfectly true to Your character, the character of love and the character of justice.

Thank You for this wonderful exchange. Thank You for this wonderful truth, God. We pray that our lives may be strengthened, our faith may be emboldened by this, and that we may all say together, "I am not ashamed of this gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation." Amen.