The Word
Reformation Day
John 8:31-36
† In the Name of Jesus †
Does Familiarity breed contempt?
Grace and peace is yours, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ!
Three Journeys.
On any given Friday, people leave the greater Los Angeles area, in search of great treasure. They will travel for nearly six hours, maybe more, across the rugged southern Mohave desert, across the border into Nevada, and eventually end up in a city, where nothing is real. They will often leave, disappointed in their search for treasure, insistent on the date of the next excursion, sure that on that trip, they will find the great treasure that they seek. Millions of people make this journey, but few are ever satisfied.
Four hundred and eighty nine years ago from this Tuesday, a man who had re-discovered a treasure that he had never seen before, stood at a door, with a invitation that he was going to post to all who were interested. The treasure was not just for him, but for all that would hear. A treasure that would change lives, that would change his country, and eventually change your life and mine. His journey, was not measured by miles, but time, and persecution. And those who heard, millions in the nearly five hundred years, have received that treasure.
The last journey happened last year, when for as many hours as it takes to drive to Las Vegas, people walked through the mountains. To celebrate the arrival of a great treasure. We have seen pictures of that day, and read of the great celebration, as the Kobon people received Bibles, for the very first time in their language. They came in great expectation, and left fulfilled. Two men were their that day, and celebrated along with the Kobon. One was from the Haruai, the other from the Ti peoples. And both while celebrating for the Kobon people’s great treasure, longed for the day when they too, would have the precious gospel, the good news of Jesus the Messiah, in their language, for their people.
Which journey shall we take?
I often think that in today’s culture, the concept of familiarity breeding contempt is too often applied to our faith. Would we value the Bible, and spend more time devouring its message, if we had to travel to Las Vegas to get “a” Bible? Would we spend more time in church, and at Bible studies, if we had only just discovered that God loves us, like He loves the people in other areas?
Or would we still be like the disciples in today’s gospel story? Who thought themselves free, but who didn’t have a clue to the life that was waiting for them?
Perhaps, in looking at their situation, in seeing what Jesus taught them, we can develop in us, the fire and desire for God’s word, that seems to be prevalent in those people, who would travel six hours, to see a Bible in their language for the first time…
The Word ignored, the road to slavery
The nature of sins bondage
Without knowledge of sin’s weakness how can we escape
The disciples of Jesus had a very unique advantage over us, and those who have received Christ since. They knew He was coming, and they knew the prophecies that told of Him, and how He would restore the people of Israel, how He would free them from the bonds of sin. It was a prayer of the young women of Israel, that they would be the one, through whom the savior would be born. Young men often spent a lot of time, looking for the Messiah, investigating every person who claimed to be Him.
How did they miss the treasure? How could they not see that Jesus would free them, as He revealed the Truth of who He was?
How do we miss it? I mean, how many people in this room, have their own Bible? Some of us have more Bibles than we have televisions! Side note, I do have to wonder what the Kobon, Haraui, and Ti people would say, if they could see my office, with three bookshelves of different Bibles.
How often do peopel abide in that word of God? How often do people read Old Testament books like Ezekiel, which is cram packed with references to Jesus, or the Book of Philippians, which tells us of Christ’s great love for us? There are opportunities, great opportunities to study God’s word together!
We live in a world, that like the disciples of Jesus, are captive to sin. They are not free to live, but are slaves to temptation, to sin which scripture describes as that which would ensnare us. That would enslave us, and imprison us, and use cages of guilt and shame to wreck our lives, both now, and eternally.
And yet, these Bibles, these pages which have more value than all the gold and cash in Las Vegas, give us, give the world the keys to escape our captivity.
When Jesus tells the disciples that they are captive to sin, because they have sinned, He pictures a reality that they just don’t see, because they do not know life any different.
Imagine for a moment, that you spent your life, from the day of birth, until today, in a prison. You know no other life, so how could you really understand what incarceration is? That is the place where these people are at. Like the rest of the world, born into sin, trapped in a cell of our own making.
The most incredible thing is, that the prison door has been unlocked the entire time.
How then, as the writer of Hebrews asks, what hope do we have, if we neglect the great salvation we have been given?
The Word Indwelling, the road to freedom
The gospel, the power of God to salvation
The message reinforced on every page
The Scalpel
That is what so many do, for the door to our prison of sin, was unlocked by Jesus, when He died on the cross. That is truly the gospel, the message discovered last spring by the Kobon people, as they hear the God’s Word in their own language. It is the message that Luther discovered, buried under traditions of men, but still there, and found in the Bible. The door has been open – we have been delivered from the power of sin.
For as Paul tells the Roman Church – the gospel is the power of God for salvation. This book, and what it contains, is the greatest of treasures, because it tells us, that we are indeed free! That we have been made free in Jesus’ work for us on the cross. That we are no longer captive to sin.
It is the key in the lock of our prison doors, and the door is standing wide open. There is no cost to us for this great freedom, for as prisoners, there was no way we could have paid anything, for our sin owned us. Yet now, we live free of that prison, freed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In so many ways, the Bible tells us of this freedom, using the analogy of being freed from jail, using the analogy of the slave freed from his chains, the analogy of the word of God, sharper than any two edged blade, being careful and skillfully wielded by the Holy Spirit, separating us from our sin and healing us. Of the great master, who forgives us every debt, and then makes us not his servants but his adopted children. Oh the ways in which the Bible ensures us, that we are free in Christ.
It is no wonder that the Kobon would travel so far, to get a copy of this gospel.
It is no wonder that Luther, having rediscovered this knowledge, would endure threats of death, to make sure that people knew that they had been given this great freedom, this great blessing.
Yet Jesus urges his disciples to live in His word, to abide in it, to dwell in it. To let it, quite appropriately, have a place in our life. To treasure it, because it tells us we are truly free.
My friends, this is the last thing that the devil wants us to know. He would have us abandon the word, to put the Bible on the top shelf of our book shelves, or on the lower shelf of our coffee tables. Enough to convince a passer by, that we are religious, but not enough to change our lives.
Friends, I do not ever want to be religious, if it means that I do not know that I am free of the power of sin, and of Satan, and live free of the fear of death. Nor do I want that for you. There is no reason to live behind bars of guilt, in the prison cell of shame. Satan might try and deceive you, by telling you that you have to earn your way out, or that Christ didn’t died for you, or that you cannot be forgiven. But those are just lies, lies easily defeated by the word of God. Lies that are easily seen false, as we realize the promises given to those who believe and are baptized. Forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the incredible promise of eternal life, with God.
So take your bibles, and clean off the dust, (or the ashes from the Esperanze fire that settled on it this week) and know and trust in this.
Christ died for you. That He has given to you the gift of faith, through which we know that we have had our sins forgiven. This gift is fully and completely yours, and defined and illustrated in hundreds of ways in the scriptures. The scriptures that Luther celebrated having for his people, that the Kobon, and Haraui and soon the Ti people will celebrate as well.
That we have. For they contain Jesus words, the words of life. The words of life for us.
May those words, reinforce in us the faith that we have the peace of God, that surpasses all understanding, that guards our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus.
Amen?
AMEN!
