Reformation
Day, October 31, anno + Domini 2021
Our
Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer
and Hill City, South Dakota
What Becomes of Our Boasting? Romans 3 and John 8
questions of a German priest and monk named Martin Luther led to the recovery of the pure Gospel, the true and joy-filled teaching of Jesus Christ. Martin Luther started a great storm, without meaning to. He sparked the great uproar we call the Reformation on October 31st, 1517, a momentous day of which we may take understandable pride.
It feels right to boast about our church and our faithfulness. We feel good about this pride. Unless of course we bother to actually listen to Paul, and Jesus, as they speak to us this morning. If you are feeling proud of yourself for being a Lutheran this morning, I have bad news: your boasting is excluded. Paul is explicit. After gloriously declaring the free gift of salvation by God’s grace, through faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, Paul asks: “What then becomes of our boasting? It is excluded.”
In this rejection of boasting Paul is only following Jesus, who goes right after the pride of some Jews who had believed in Him. These people want to follow Jesus, which you might expect would please the Lord. But instead of coddling them with praise and thanks, Jesus calls them slaves. Not true heirs of God, but rather sinners in need of being set free. Jesus tells His new followers they are slaves who need to be set free, by the Son, by Him. These proud Jews can’t accept being called slaves. They respond by boasting in their freedom as descendants of Abraham. Jesus rejects their boasting, and calls them slaves to sin. If you read on in John 8, you’ll see that it gets worse. Jesus says they are not only slaves to sin, but children of Satan. Jesus bursts their bubble, their pride in being biological descendants of Abraham. Jesus, just like Paul, excludes the very idea that we should boast about ourselves.
We can celebrate and rejoice and give thanks for the Reformation, and even more for the profound blessing that God has preserved His pure teaching for us, in the 21st century. But take care, lest your celebration of the gifts you have received should turn into a prideful boast.
No boasting allowed. But why is our boasting excluded? Well, first of all, boasting about ‘our faith’ and ‘our church’ is excluded for Christians because such boasting implies that we have something to take credit for, that we have contributed something to our salvation. This we cannot, we must not claim, because it isn’t true, and we need the Truth to set us free. Remember, the Reformation, and more importantly the True Gospel, is all about salvation by God’s grace alone. A free gift, received not because of anything we have done, but rather the salvation of sinners is God’s great work, received by faith alone, by simply believing the promise of forgiveness in Jesus’ blood.
Luther’s great rediscovery was that salvation is entirely God’s work, not some uncertain mixture of God’s grace and our response, our love, or our works. When it is taught that salvation depends in some part, great or small, on what we do, we sinners are left in doubt, doubt of whether we have done well enough.
The Truth is God saw our sin problem, and the sad fact that we are powerless to solve it. So, God designed the solution, which was to save us, by the exclusive work of the Son, Jesus Christ. Drawing on the work of Christ, the Holy Spirit saves us by His Word, making us believe, and also maintaining our faith in God’s forgiveness. And it is even God who generates good works in us. Soli Deo Gloria, to God alone be glory.
The bad news is there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. The Good News is there is nothing we have to do to save ourselves. God must do it. God has done it, and God is doing it. So all the credit, all the glory, all the boasting goes to Him.
Our boasting is excluded because of the Truth that salvation is entirely God’s work. And there’s a second reason to shut our mouths. Remember the old saying: Pride goes before a fall. Doubt about the truth of God’s Word was the first problem that came before the big Fall, the original Fall, back in the garden of Eden. But then, after planting the seed of doubt, the carrot that Satan used to tempt our first parents over the edge was pride. “You will be as gods!” the serpent lied. Adam and Eve’s egos took the bait, and pride and the boasting it engenders have been among our biggest problems ever since.
Strictly speaking, selfish pride is excluded for Christians in all of life. The farmer should give all the credit for the bountiful harvest to the Lord, who makes the grass to grow and the sun to shine. Parents who want to take credit for the successes of their children are forgetting that they are merely placeholders for God, who is the One who truly gives and guides all the good growth and development of their children. The star athlete ought to acknowledge that her skill and the will and opportunity to use it are gifts from God. The businessman should acknowledge that the unseen hand that provides the opportunity for his buying and selling is the very hand of God.
But we are not like that. Humility is not popular. We do not easily give up our pride of self. We want credit for what we do, and to make ourselves look as good as possible. It is the way of the world. Every group develops a pecking order, every relationship has a measure of competition, and every ego loves to be stroked. We consider the opportunity to boast to be precious. And so we have Facebook, and coffee shops, and ever nicer cars and homes.
Our pride creates trouble throughout our lives, but it is downright dangerous in the Church. Boasting of ourselves puts salvation at risk. This is what happened with many of the Jews who heard Jesus call them slaves to sin. In reality, Jesus was speaking the truth in love. He was trying to separate them from their pride, which was blocking their salvation. But many of them, their pride insulted, left Jesus when He proclaimed their slavery to sin, and their need for a Savior. Their desire to boast of themselves excluded them from Jesus and His saving love. Pride went before their great fall.
It may seem harmless to be proud of your faith, or to be proud of your church body or congregation. I mean, it’s not like we’d ever forget that the real center of everything is Jesus Christ and His forgiveness, would we?
Be careful. Pride in yourself gives Satan the opportunity to make you fall in love with yourself, with your knowledge, your goodness, your faithfulness, your piety, your contributions to the Church. The Evil One will tempt your heart to run off with whatever you boast in. This could be good things, like the Reformation, or our church, or our good works. Satan hopes that you will learn to love and desire the things that you boast of, more than you desire the grace and mercy of God.
Boasting of ourselves is dangerous. Puffing oneself up can put salvation at risk. And, I am sorry to say, pride and boasting are very hard for us to overcome. Really we can’t do it, not in any complete way. God must overcome our foolish pride.
And so I declare to you again this morning this truth. There is no distinction: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Our pride, our boasting, our evil desires exclude us from God, the source of all good. We all fall short. And that’s nothing to be proud of.
But at the same time, in the mystery of God’s love, in Jesus, all are justified. Everyone is declared righteous before God, by His grace, as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God put forward Jesus as a propitiation. Propitiation means the seat or the place of God’s mercy, and it means Jesus Himself is the sacrificial payment for our sin. A payment made with His precious blood. And there is only one way to receive this gift; it is received by faith. It’s true! Believe in Jesus, crucified and resurrected, for you!
This is good news for you: Jesus Christ the Son of God is perfectly righteous, and He shares His righteousness with you. He has removed the guilt and paid the debt of all sin, on His Cross. His resurrection is proof of His victory, a declaration from heaven that Jesus is eternally righteous, sinless, perfectly just and holy. So, in and through Christ Jesus, God is the justifier. That means, God is the One who declares every soul that believes in Jesus to be not guilty, innocent, welcome to enter God’s heavenly presence.
It’s all God. Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. But who cares?
Looking hard at the tremendous saving work of Jesus on the Cross makes it clear that we have nothing to boast about. But who cares about being able to boast? God gives Jesus and His salvation, to us, for free. God has forgiven all sin, in Jesus Christ! What amazing Good News. What a relief. Rejoicing and thanking and celebrating are in order, and glorifying God for His grace. In the light of Christ, boasting in ourselves would really just be silly.
Boasting is excluded, that is boasting in anything we do, however churchly and good it may be. Pride of self is excluded as contrary to the reality of our sin and God’s grace. But we can boast about something. We can boast of God and His Truth. We can brag about Jesus. We can boast in the Cross of Christ, the Cross which eliminates our pride, yes, but gives us forgiveness and new life in exchange.
And through our boasting about Christ, the Word of His free forgiveness gets out, and will save even more souls. So go ahead! On this Reformation Day and every day: boast about Jesus. He is truly your Savior, and the Savior of the world, Amen.
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