Reformation Sunday                     28 Oct 2007                                  Preached at ULC

Text:  Romans 3, John 8             Title:  God’s Unmerited Favor

Main Message:  I want hearers to understand “grace” and “justification”

Portions of this sermon are taken from esermons.com

There was a woman by the name of Florence Littauer who was speaking to a church group in Georgia about grace.  She began by asking, “Does anyone here know what grace really means?”  In the front row was an elementary school girl, all decked out in a little white dress because that’s how you dress for a church meeting in the South, and she stood up from her chair and raised her hand and said, “I know, Miss Littauer, I know!  Grace is unmerited favor from God.”

Well that’s a pretty impressive answer from an elementary school girl, so Littauer invited her up on the stage and said, “You’re absolutely right, sweetheart.  Where did you learn that?”  The girl answered, “From my Sunday School teacher.”  Littauer said, “And did your teacher teach you what that means?”  The girl said, “Sure.  She said it means I get a piece of candy for answering the question right.”

Before I let you leave today, you will all be ready to earn a piece of candy from your Sunday School teacher.  Today we’re going to talk about this verse from Romans -- All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and now are justified freely by his grace.  And we’re going to talk about what grace and justification really mean, not just to define these words but to understand them, here (point to head) and here (point to heart).

500 years ago, Martin Luther found a Christianity that was knocked off track and floundering in its own errors, and he turned that church right side up with his insistence on this simple phrase:  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and now are justified freely by his grace.  This message was at the heart of the Reformation we celebrate today, and it was in Martin Luther’s heart because it is the heart of the entire New Testament.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and now are justified by grace. 

I don’t want a show of hands, but how many of you can define what the words justified by grace?  And if you can give me the official definition, which is God’s unmerited favor making us righteous, how many of you can define that in your own words? 

Here’s where you have to begin.  First of all, it means we are all sinners.  You are sinners.  I am a sinner.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

If you read the Lutheran magazine, there’s a page in each edition called “The Light Side” with a bunch of jokes and bloopers from various churches.  For example, there was an ad from the Austin Daily Herald saying that people of all ages were invited to participate in the St. Olaf Lutheran vocal and handball choirs.  Don’t you think that’s the kind of excitement we need here?  Full contact Bach, with lots of sweating and running into each other.  Augsburg fortress published a bulletin about world hunger saying, “Many hunger for a slice of bread or a simple bowel of soup.”  I don’t even want to touch that one.

Then there’s one from Sharon Lutheran Church in North Carolina that says, “As we begin our Lenten discipline in the coming week, a sheet is available in the narthex for those who wish to sin up for the Rite of Individual Confession.”

What kind of response do you think we’d get if we had a sin up sheet in the narthex?

What if I told you that all your names are already on it? 

The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  When we say that, you have to know that we are talking about BOTH our actions and our nature.  Many of us, when we hear that all have sinned, think about a couple of bad choices we’ve made.  Sometimes, in a moment of clarity, we think about the things we haven’t done.  Sin is about our actions and our lack of action.

But it’s also about our nature, about who we are even before we act.  Sin is a condition as well as a choice, a condition that keeps us from being right with God no matter what choices we make.  Part of me hates to say that because the experts tell you that as a good parent, you’re supposed to tell your kids that you are disappointed in their actions, not the kids themselves.  You’re not bad kids, but you made a couple bad choices, right?

The Bible says that sin is deeper than our choices.  We are captive to sin, we are prisoners, we are inflicted by its disease; sin is a part of us and we make bad choices because on some level we are bad kids.

You might want to protest, “How can you say that, Pastor?  These are some of the best people in Red Wing right here in these pews!  We didn’t roll ourselves out of bed, fight to get the kids all dressed up, and park 4 blocks away to come hear about how we’re bad people.”

My only answer is that you can’t understand grace unless you understand your need for it.  Sin is the ultimate addiction, that we can’t cure on our own.  I spent all day yesterday in Moorhead with my soldiers from Iraq, and our reintegration training for the day was all about behavioral health – alcohol abuse, drug addictions, anger management, gambling and pornography addictions, all real dangers for soldiers trying to deal with what they’ve seen and the stress of trying to get their lives back after 2 years gone.

We had dozens of the state’s best experts on these topics, sharing their experience with soldiers in groups of 20 and 30, and two themes kept coming up from every presenter.  First was the need to recognize when there is a problem.  Nobody can get better until they realize they have a problem that needs fixing.

All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.  Yeah, that includes you.  And if you’re honest, I think you’ll admit it, at least to yourself if not to anyone else.

But here’s the second theme from yesterday.  Help is available.  Whatever the problem is, there is help available.  I walked away with dozens of websites and phone numbers and personal contacts of these people who are willing to help soldiers get back their lives in a healthy way.

When it comes to sin, there is help available, too.  That’s the theme for today just like yesterday.  Help is there -- but only from one man.  There is only one who can help us find a cure for this deadly addiction of sin, and that is God himself, as he reveals himself to us in Jesus Christ.

All have sinned and fall short, but you are now justified freely by God’s grace.  That means in spite of making bad choices and having sin rooted deep down in us, God favors us anyway.  Grace is God’s unmerited favor, God’s love and care and actions on our behalf.  To do a favor is to do something out of goodwill rather than because you owe something.  To have favor for someone is to show them approval, high regard, even preferential treatment.  You are on God’s preferred customer list even though you stiffed him on your last bill.  God favors you, even when you don’t deserve it.  That’s grace.

How about justification.  What does it mean to be justified?  Any dictionary worth its salt will tell you that it means to be declared in the right, to show that no one has a claim against you.  We want more than just the dictionary today, so let’s add this version from a slightly more redneck dictionary of theology:

Justified.  No matter what bad I done, God looks at me justifI’d done nothing wrong.  Justified.

You won’t find that quote in the Harvard book of theology but I don’t care, just as long as it helps you remember it.  No matter what bad I done, God looks at me justifI’d done nothing wrong.  You confirmation kids can even put that as the main point of the sermon today, bad grammar and everything.  To be justified means that God looks at me like I’ve done nothing wrong, even though I have, because of the grace with which he favors us.

How does this all hit home?  It hits home when you understand what it means to be justified by grace both here (point to head) and here (point to heart).  Do you admit that you’re a sinner?  Do you know what it’s like to have something in your life you’re ashamed of, something destructive and you know it and you don’t like it but there it is?  Do you know what it’s like to look for a scapegoat for your sin, to blame other people and even blame God?  Do you know what it’s like when God himself says, “I will take the blame for it?”  It was your sin; now it’s mine, and I will pay the price to atone for it.  You are free from the guilt and the shame and the gray taste of death that goes with that forbidden apple.  I already died for you.  I already paid the price.  You are free.

That’s what it means to be justified by grace.  It’s like having a disease in your lung, and there is no cure and no chance of recovery.  Then just when all hope seems lost, one man comes along and says, “I can help you.  I’ll give you one of mine.”  When you understand what it means to breathe free again, when you know the value of having a future when you thought you had none, then you know what it means to be justified by grace, and all that God has done for you in making it happen.  Amen.