Martin Luther's Life Verse
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Introduction
Introduction
Greeting
Most everyone here probably has a particular verse that you can point to and say that this verse played a significant role in my salvation or life
Many of you knew Pastor Mike Madigan, and he made a name for himself by asking people if they had a verse for whatever situation they were talking with him about
I remember when he asked me if I had a verse for wanting to marry Rebekah Kotowski
It was in this very room - and I was ready (I’d been warned ahead of time to expect the question) and I ripped a verse out of context and gave it to him
Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
Mike, to his credit didn’t correct me, as that verse has very little to do with my beautiful bride or her need for protection and everything to do with the Gospel.
This year being the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation I thought we’d take some time to look at the verse that many would consider to be the life verse for the catalyst of the Reformation - Martin Luther
In 1920 Frank W. Boreham published a book of sermons on great Bible texts, linking each text with the life of a great Christian man or woman.
To Martin Luther he links the text that we’re going to look at today Romans 1:17 - we’re actually going to look at Romans 1:16-17.
Many of you who have been in the faith a long time probably wont hear too much that is new today and that’s okay - sometimes it’s good just to have the foundations refreshed in our minds and hearts
Some of you may hear these verses presented in a way that you’ve never heard before and it is my prayer that God will enlighten your spirit to see Him in a new way
And some of you have never heard this before but need to hear the beauty of the power of the Gospel and the eternal impact it can have for your life.
Preaching on this text, James Montgomery Boice said “In the 16th and 17th verses of Romans 1, we come to the sentences that are the most important in the letter and perhaps in all literature. They are the theme of this epistle and the essence of Christianity. They are the heart of Biblical religion.”
So whether this is the 100th time you’ve heard this text taught or the first, lets take allow the Spirit to open our eyes and hearts and see these truths anew, to allow our hearts to be refreshed in the power of what God has to say to us as we look into the depths of His greatest mystery.
If you would open your Bibles - I’m going to read Romans 1:1-18 just to place the verses in the context of what Paul wrote
Read Romans 1:1-18
Pray
Don’t Be Ashamed
Don’t Be Ashamed
Romans 3:16a; Mark 1:15; John 3:16; John 17:3; 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Ephesians 2:1-10; Galatians 1:6-7; Philippians 3:4-6; 1 Corinthians 1:21-24; Mark 8:38; 2 Corinthians 11:23-28
What is this Gospel? (1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Ephesians 2:1-10)
In order to understand why Paul wouldn’t be ashamed of the Gospel it is important to understand what he meant by the “Gospel”
The Gospel has become a popular term in the Christian church of late - with a resurgence in interest in the preaching and teaching of the Gospel.
There is the Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel
There have been books written like the Explicit Gospel; Gospel, Recovering the Power that made Christianity revolutionary; Gospel in Life; there’s even the Gospel of the flying spaghetti monster - not one I would recommend
There is the Gospel centered church movement
With all this talk of the Gospel - what do we really mean by it?
Let’s start with a few things it is not
Not the therapeutic Gospel - that you would really be fundamentally ok if you just cut this part of your life out
It’s like the smoker who has smoked a pack a day for years and finally quits - after 10 years the body has recovered from the effects so that it’s as if he had never smoked at all
The therapeutic Gospel says that if you would just modify this behaviour - you’ll be okay without ever really recognizing the fundamental broken core that lies beneath the behaviour
It places a band-aid on heart of a sinner rather than actually addressing the condition of the heart it is bandaging up
This is the gospel that says you are basically a good person and that you just need to submit to God and let Him correct this small area of your life - without ever confessing that you have made yourself the god of your life - and you’ll be okay
Not the moralistic Gospel - that we’re basically okay with God as long as we keep the rules
One of the core issues that the Reformation was based on was that Christ death only paid for the sins that we had committed up until the point of regeneration but that it was up to the believer to keep themselves saved after that
This is the gospel that says you’re really good enough to keep yourself saved - you just have to try harder. That Christ will wipe everything away and now it’s up to you to keep the slate clean.
Both of these gospels are missing the point and are something Paul, and we, should be ashamed of
So what is the Gospel that Paul is talking about?
I remember at one church that I went to I had an interview to enter in to their church planting residency program
During the interview I was asked to define the Gospel
I tried to apply my best Seminary training and come up with a deep theological answer
But the answer they were looking for was as simple as the Sunday School song we all sang as kids
Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so,
little ones to Him belong,
they are weak but He is strong
What does the Bible say about this Gospel?
Jesus first recorded words in the book of Mark tell us to believe in His Gospel
and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Jesus comes presenting the Gospel - essentially telling the people that to believe in the Gospel is to believe in Him
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
And that eternal life is to know Him and His Father
This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
His Gospel is revealed at the cross and the empty tomb - this is the Gospel that Paul preaches
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
Paul makes four statements about the Gospel that are critical to our understanding
Christ died for our sins
He was buried
He was raised
He appeared alive to the believers
Now that we have a good idea what the Gospel was that Paul proclaimed
Why would Paul have to qualify that he is not ashamed?
It would seem that by the time Paul writes Romans there are plenty of people who have become ashamed of the Gospel and are trying to qualify it and amend it to fit their ideas of what the Gospel should be
I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
This would be a battle that Paul would fight for the rest of his life - the perversion of the Gospel that he preached
Because Paul should have been ashamed
This gospel that he proclaims makes no sense to the world we live in and it made no sense to the world that he preached in
In Jerusalem he was mobbed for preaching the Gospel, in Athens he was called a “babbler” and in Rome he was deserted.
In the book “The Gospel According to Paul” John MacArthur writes
“Of all the apostles, the Holy Spirit chose Paul, the profound scholar, to defend the gospel’s simplicity against any hint of academic elitism or philosophical gentrification.”
Paul should have known better
After Christ and Solomon, the Apostle Paul’s mind was probably one of the sharpest the world has ever seen
And he had the credentials to preach the kind of gospel the world could put its faith into
although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.
But Paul himself says that he puts no faith in these things - counting them as loss - literally dung - for the sake of Christ
Yet even Paul recognizes that his message is foolishness to the world
For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
There is a deeper element to Paul’s admission that he is not ashamed by the message of the Gospel
What he is saying is that he is not afraid of the consequences of speaking up on behalf of the Gospel
This is the same message Christ was alluding to in Mark 8
For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
And if there’s ever been anyone who could say that he was not ashamed of the consequences of speaking the Gospel it was Paul
During his journeys he was constantly in peril for speaking the truth of the Gospel
Are they servants of Christ?—I speak as if insane—I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
Yet he not only stood up but sought more opportunities to preach the Gospel
He even essentially allowed himself to be arrested in order to gain access to Caesar’s court to preach the Gospel
He was warned in advance of his final trip to Jerusalem that he would be arrested and yet he went anyway knowing that God would use even his arrest to further His Gospel
Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel,
We live in a world that is increasingly hostile to the Gospel - the true Gospel
They will make plenty of room for the prosperity gospel (although even that has started to be revealed for the sham that it is) or the therapeutic or moralistic gospel
But the true Gospel that calls them to repentance the world wants no part of
Yet I wonder how we have revealed ourselves to be ashamed of the Gospel - choosing not to speak to that co-worker or neighbor because of what their reaction might be
We may not get beaten for it or imprisoned but we might be left off an invitation to lunch or included in the office super bowl pool
I have a friend who travels overseas to train pastors in some of the most closed nations in the world
He told me about how on a recent trip three soldiers burst in to his training and took his papers and he thought he was going to be arrested
We don’t see that happening here - yet but I wonder where will we be if and when it does?
Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel because it is the dynamic, unharnessable power of God to effect salvation and all it’s temporal and eternal benefits for everyone who believes.
There Is Power
There Is Power
Romans 1:16b; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 1:27; Romans 10:14;
During the Reformation the purpose of God’s power in salvation was very much in debate
There are two primary ways that God’s power is demonstrated on the behalf of the believer
The first is through justification - and this was the pre-Reformational teaching regarding God’s power
This would make the power of God in Romans 1:16 merely about the forensic nature of our salvation - simply about the payment for sin that would remove the penalty of God’s wrath for all sins committed prior to your conversion
Much like the moralistic gospel that we looked at a few minutes ago, this explanation of His grace would make it about the moment of repentance
And surely there is an element to His power and grace that is certainly about that moment or else there is no salvation
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
But His power doesn’t stop there - God isn’t merely concerned with justifying us and then leaving us as we are
The power of the Gospel is also the catalyst that matures the Christian life
The power of God in the gospel signifies both the effective and transformative power that accompanies the preaching of the Gospel
This is the beauty of the Gospel - that it is not only the starting point, but it is the middle and the end of the Christian life
Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
The Puritan preacher Richard Baxter puts it this way
I like to hear a man dwell much on the same essentials of Christianity. For we have but one God, and one Christ, and one faith to preach; and I will not preach another Gospel to please men with variety, as if our Saviour and our Gospel were grown stale.
It is impossible to come into contact with the Gospel and to walk away unchanged - you will either be converted by it or condemned by it
It is also impossible to separate the Gospel from preaching
Despite the oft attributed quote to St. Francis of Asissi “Preach the Gospel always, when necessary use words.”
Paul makes no allowance for sharing the Gospel in this manner
The power of the Gospel not only makes salvation possible but it actually effects salvation in those who respond.
How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?
Now two things need be said - first is that this does not excuse us from living a virtuous life that would demonstrate the changes being wrought in us by the Gospel - otherwise Paul’s statement in Philippians 1:27 makes no sense
Second is that you do not have to be an ordained pastor to share the Gospel - Matthew 28:19-20 or the Great Commission makes it the responsibility of every believer
Paul doesn’t shirk from toeing the line of Divine sovereignty and man’s responsibility
He confidently states that it is God’s power that effects salvation through the Gospel but also states that it is for everyone who believes
Paul says that the Gospel is for the Jew first and then for the Gentile to reveal the universal nature of the Gospel
This is also a nod to his missionary practices of going first to the synagogues and once he was rejected there to take the Gospel out to the Gentiles
The power of God is both for the saving and the transforming of the believer
Imagine the very power that created the universe finds it’s greatest expression in providing for the salvation of those who ruined the pristine condition of that creation
And it’s all for God’s glory first and then our good
God declare’s sinners who place their trust in Jesus to be righteous for the glory of His name. At the cross both the saving and judging righteousness of God are manifested.
It is through faith that our justification is manifested within our souls
Through Faith
Through Faith
Romans 1:17; Ephesians 2:8-9;
The righteousness of God in Romans 1:17 is not God’s inherent righteousness but that righteousness which the judge imputes to the criminal when faith is placed in Christ.
It is said to be from faith to faith - this simple repetition highlights the central nature of faith in the salvation of individuals
The fact that the righteous man shall live by faith was crucial to Martin Luther’s awakening and development in the faith
Above all else Luther feared death so, when he entered the convent in 1505, he applied himself heavily to the Augustinian order trying to atone for his sins
He spent so much time in the confessional confessing menial sins that one frustrated priest told him to go away until he had committed a sin worth confessing
On the advice of a mentor he began to study the Bible and as he looked at Romans it began to dawn on him that the righteousness we need to stand before a holy God is not a righteousness we can attain.
It could only be found through faith in Christ
And even this faith cannot be found within ourselves
If Paul had simply written the righteous shall live by works or efforts everything would be easier
But it is through faith that we find our righteousness
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
This is the hardest and sweetest part of the Gospel - that it is not what we can do for ourselves but what God does for us.
Conclusion
Conclusion
The fundamental, foundational truths of our faith are taught in these two verses
The Gospel is the truth that Jesus Christ came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross to pay for our sins and was resurrected from the dead to ascend to Heaven