It’s Not Our Church

October 28, 2007
Reformation Sunday

Romans 3:19-28; John :31-36

Preacher: The Rev. R. Bruce Todd

If any of you are involved in spending money, still using cash, you can’t help but notice that our currency has changed. The President’s picture is larger and off center. The coloration has changed slightly. There are metallic strips in the paper. Sophisticated, hi-tech resources now available to the average citizen have become real problems to the Treasury Department.

With the introduction of high quality ink jet printers, computer scanners and other office equipment into homes and offices across the nation, the amount of counterfeit money almost doubled in the years between 1992 and 1997. Counterfeit money became hard to distinguish from the real thing. So in 1998 the United States Treasury introduced a new weapon--a new twenty dollar bill--because this was the most widely counterfeited bill. This new twenty contained a few new wrinkles that made it almost impossible to reproduce.

Today is Reformation Sunday, the day we commemorate Martin Luther’s act of nailing the 95 Thesis to the Wittenburg Chapel Door. Luther realized that there was too much counter-feiting going on. Fake Doctrines, such as the selling of indulgences. Counterfeit Christianity was a problem - people thinking that, for a price - you could buy your way into heaven and sin all you wanted.

Luther wanted to bring some authenticity back to the Church. Like our government who realized that in order to avoid counterfeiting, there had to be a change. Luther realized, there had to be a change. He did not want a new Church. He just wanted a more authentic Church.

There was an old comedy routine about a famous athlete receiving a telephone call from a distinguished advertising agency requesting that he pose with a bottle of Gordon's Gin for a billboard campaign. The athlete replied: "Because of my religious beliefs I simply cannot do it."The executive said "You will receive $1 million for your efforts." There is a pause--then the athlete says, "Let me think it over." He goes to his Bishop for some advice. The Bishop says, "It would set a bad example and message for our young people to see. Don't do it." So the athlete calls the ad executive and says, “I just cannot do the ad." Two weeks later he is driving down Hollywood Boulevard and he is shocked when he sees the Bishop on the billboard holding a bottle of Gordon Gin with the words, "It has a divine and heavenly taste."

I don’t think any of us would think it’s right that the Bishop would go and do what he told the athlete not to do. Luther was having a problem with the fact that the Bible said one thing, while the Pope was saying something else.

The Bible says, in today’s lesson from Romans, that we are saved by God’s Grace through our faith in Jesus Christ. The Pope was saying you could be saved by buying this piece of paper called an Indulgence. Quite often it is easier to hand over a few bucks than to live a life that’s in keeping with the Bible. Basically it was coming down to the fact that people with money would be considered sinless - while the poor would have to carry their sins. But again, Luther read in Romans that “There is no distinction since ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are now justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

All of Us Are Equally Sinners. I didn't say that we sin equally, but that we are equally sinners. Does the disease of sin infect all of us? In verse 10 that was not included in today’s reading: "None is righteous, no, not one." Down in verse 23 we read: “...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..."

I was sitting in a Wendy’s restaurant some time back. The manager was conducting a training session over in the corner for some new employees. He didn’t think the customers could hear what he was saying, but he was wrong. He made this comment: "McDonalds used to have better fries than us, but then they started messing up, and now their fries are no better than ours." Now there's a line that will never be heard on commercials. “Buy ours - because now theirs is as bad as ours.”

Counterfeit Christians say, it doesn’t matter if I’m as good as the Bible says I should be, as long as I’m not as bad as some other Christians are. Like fast food restaurants, all of us have had our share of messing up. All of us are equally sinners. Therefore, all of us stand in need of the Reformation that only the grace of Christ can provide. Today we are going to see a lot of kids going from car-to-car in our parking lot, dressed us to look like something they are not. It’s all in fun and they know they are not really Witches or Wizards or any of the other factitious characters.

Christians often think they need to be something else. That’s not true! We can be just who we are - because that’s how God created us. We Are All Loved Equally By Jesus Christ.

Paul had a fondness for long sentences. Listen to this one: "...since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith."
Our salvation is a gift. Sometimes I think that receiving a gift is one of the hardest things on earth for us middle class folks to do. We know how to give. We like to trade favors.

But it's so hard for us to just accept a gift and say a simple thank you. An elderly lady walked slowly into a Life Insurance office in Minneapolis during the worst part of the Great Depression. No one had ever explained to her how Life Insurance works. She wanted to know if she could stop paying the premiums on her husband's life insurance policy. "He's been dead sometime now," she said, "and I don't believe I can afford to make the payments any more." The agent looked up her husband's policy and discovered it was worth several hundred
thousands of dollars. This poor lady was wealthy and didn't even know it. Millions of people don't understand all the spiritual riches of the Lord Jesus Christ are available to them--his love, his forgiveness, his salvation, his power, and his joy. He paid the Life Insurance premiums on the cross. We are the beneficiaries if we simply endorse the policy with faith. That is what Luther was trying to point out to the people. Accept the gift! The free gift!

The Church hierarchy of the time knew that people couldn’t believe that their Salvation was a free gift, so they wanted to exploit that fact and let them pay money for it if they are willing to. The Pope and leaders of Luther’s time wanted to take the Church in a different direction than Scripture said it should go. Luther was just pointing out that it’s not our Church!
 

It is the Church of Jesus Christ! And it’s not our Kingdom - it’s God’s Kingdom. No amount of money can gain us entrance. We cannot wear a mask to cover up our sinfulness. There are no Tricks - only Treats - FREE Treats - already paid for by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is no need to be a Counterfeit Christian. We are only called to be faithful Christians. Faithful Christians who form the Church of God. Amen