The Shepherd’s Voice

Readings for Sunday, October 31^st
Jeremiah 31:31–34
Psalm 46 – The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. (Ps. 46:7)
Romans 3:19–28
John 8:31–36

Dying To Be Made Free from Good Shepherd Lutheran Church on Vimeo.

Sometimes our texts for the day cover a broad range of folks and touch on a broad range of ideas that anyone can latch onto with significant meaning. This is kind of like you are trying to keep the blackbirds away from the corn and you use a shotgun. The swarm is big, in fact huge and you just point the shotgun in the general direction and you’re bound to make your point.

Today’s text however, at least the gospel text, is a little more like you’re hunting for weasels in the chicken coup and you need a 22 rifle. The message seems to be very direct, stop killing my chickens; you aim with precision and purpose. Now, don’t take this analogy too far I’m not calling anyone here a weasel…..

Jesus starts out talking to the Jews who had believed in him. In the early church this would have been the followers of the way, the Jews in the early church. This may have included more than just his inner circle of twelve; it’s likely this was directed at all His followers.

The key to Jesus’ message is in verses 31 and 32, where he says “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Jesus starts with a qualifier, “If you continue in my word.” Jesus wanted His followers to know that in order to be a disciple, a follower of the way they needed to know God’s Word. In the ancient world this meant studying with a rabbi, it meant being mentored by a person of faith, it meant even more than we take it to mean today.

In our day it means we must have a hunger for God’s Word, it means we need to read God’s Word; it means we need to study God’s Word, because the Word of God is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

When I offer a Bible study and only 1 or 2 people come out, out of a hundred, I feel like I’m letting God down. I feel like I’m not getting the point across, about how important it is to study.

Jesus said (Jn 12:46-47) “I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness. 47 I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”

Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples;” that’s the affirmative, but what’s the opposite. If you don’t continue in my Word you will not be my disciples.

Maybe, God’s Word doesn’t matter to us/you, but to Jesus it mattered and he told his followers to continue in my Word!

Jesus told them why it was important as well. He said they would “know the truth.” What
does knowing the truth mean to you? Is life just a series of birthdays, holidays, and workdays and then we die, is that life? What is your world view? Everyone has a world view.

{video coming}

Do you believe evil exists? What about right and wrong, is it all relative? What is truth?

Have you had an encounter with the living God? Do you know God’s truth?

When Jesus was on trial before Pilate there was this exchange between Pilate and Jesus, Jesus told Pilate in John 18:37, “I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

In Gene Veith Jr.’s book The Spirituality of the Cross he describes three primary ways people try to make sense out of life in terms of spiritual aspirations. (P25) He says they attempt:

• Moralism – using the effort of the will to be good, humanism, legalism
• Speculation – use the effort of the intellect to acquire knowledge, understanding
• Mysticism – using withdrawal to achieve perfection, one with God, becoming God

We can, even as Lutherans attempt to, try to find God, to know God, to be close to God in ways that are patterned after these methods to attain spiritual fulfillment.

Moralism is all about following rules, traditions, or methods to attain a goodness that God will surely love, that God will surely reward. The Pharisees attempted this sort of spiritual formation and Jesus called them a brood of vipers. (Matt 3:7)

Another time when the Pharisees asked Jesus why his followers didn’t follow all of the ritual laws (Mt 7:6) Jesus said, like Isaiah had said before him, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Following the law, going to church each Saturday Eve or Sunday morning makes one no more like a Christian than going to MacDonald’s makes one a hamburger. Although it could make one look a little like a hamburger, short squatty, and with a very round middle.

Moralism doesn’t do it and neither does speculation or search for that special knowledge that will once and for all connect you with God. The Gnostics were famous for their claim about special knowledge in connection with God. It didn’t work! Rom 3:20 – Law does not justify.

People who are in the educational community, in science, in all manner of intellectual endeavors seem to think they have a special knowledge of how this world operates. When I was in college studying physics, math, chemistry, and science lots of things could be explained. Now that I’ve been out of college a few years I have discovered that even the latest knowledge I had in college has dramatically changed. Electron theory has been morphed by string theory, the theory of relativity has been updated, areas of psychology and philosophy have all changed. In the 70’s people were talking about another ice age coming and now we have global warming.

Nothing in science has ever led to spiritual fulfillment. Learning is a good thing, but how much can science tell us about the feelings of the heart. How much can we say with confidence that we know about God, about God’s omnipotence or His omnipresence. There is a hidden side to God that we can never know. If people just believed in the simple truth of God’s love and grace our world would be a much different place, a less hostile place.

That’s perhaps why some of us seek God in mystical ways. We want that ecstatic experience of becoming one with God. We want to transcend life, to attain a direct communion with the divine, and leave behind everything in this world that is not spiritual or mystical. Many religions attempt this including many in the Christian faith. It doesn’t work!

For many chasing this pattern of spirituality find it’s a very short step from becoming one with God, to becoming God. The New Age movement talks about the God inside where you can invoke your own reality and of course then “you are God.”

Knowing the truth is NOT about us seeking God as much as it is about God seeking us, God finding us, God calling us, God loving us and most importantly God sending His one and only Son into the world to die for us. (Jn 3:16)

Martin Luther wrestled with issues of spirituality. In his younger years, his college days he was studying law, exploring intellect in a way he thought could satisfy his life. It didn’t work.

As the story goes one day he was on his way home when a storm came up. It happened to be a loud and blustery storm with lightning. The lightning was close to him and the thunder was ear shattering so he was afraid and as with many of us, when we are overpowered with God’s majesty we become afraid and look for a way out.

The story is that Luther said, God, if you spare me I will become a priest and so he did. His father was very unhappy with the decision, but Luther understood this strong call from God.

In his experience as an Augustinian monk it was part moralism and part mysticism because he feared a wrathful God; a God of law and judgment who was going to punish him for his many sins. From his upbringing he did not know a God of love and mercy.

It wasn’t until Luther was given a Bible and asked to teach Bible others in a classroom setting that he discovered God was NOT as he had been portrayed for so many years. Luther was transformed by the power of God’s grace through a living encounter with the Holy God.

What did Jesus say, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Luther’s understanding of baptism, his understanding of being washed with water and the Word created for him a dying moment. Each time Luther remembered his baptism the dying to sin and rising once again to new life in Christ was made real for him.

The celebration of baptism this morning was once again to remind us all that God comes to us through water and the Word. God fills us with grace and helps our faith once again grow in the Spirit of Truth. Dying to sin, claiming God’s truth of mercy and grace gives us new life!

Jesus came to testify to the truth that moralism doesn’t save, speculation or intellectualism doesn’t save, and mysticism doesn’t save; only God saves and it only happens through the gift of grace that Jesus gave us on the cross through His death and resurrection.

If you want to be made free today accept that gift, die to sin, and be renewed by the free gift of God’s grace in your life. Jesus said, “36So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

For Martin Luther as it was for Paul, and as it is for us today, if we know the truth we will be free by the gift of God’s grace.

Amen