David Asscherick: 500 and 5

our sermon today is titled 505 505 turn this on 505 let's see if this is gonna work for me there we go 500 years ago on October 31st 1517 a mighty Reformation exploded onto history's stage how many of you were aware of this last week that we had that we had passed the 500 year anniversary of October 31st 1517 how many were aware of that good good great to see all those hands going up I'd love to see every hand going up when we talk about a Reformation I just want to sort of orient you as to what's contained embryonic Lea and linguistically within the idea of a Reformation right you have the root word there to form you have the prefix re so contained within the idea of a Reformation are two other ideas and the first is formation and the second is deformation if something needs to be formed again reformed it must have initially been formed been created then been somehow deformed and now it cries out or calls out for Reformation how did this Reformation come about well in perhaps well very much so in unlikely way a very unlikely way a 30 31 32 year-old Augustinian monk by the name of Martin Luther began to say really radical really crazy really revolutionary things things like this a simple layman armed with Scripture is to be believed above a pope or a council without Scripture now you and I today we might say well what's so radical about that what's so revolutionary about that what's so countercultural about that but in the context social theological ecclesiastical context in which this young brave audacious Augustinian monk began to speak it was tectonic absolutely seismic in 1521 just about four years after the anniversary that we're celebrating here today Luther would stand before a council in a city called firms we were just there with our to group it was absolutely amazing and he would stand before not only a number of of electors of Germany he would stand before Charles the fifth right the the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire the man who ruled as far as most were concerned the the known world right Charles the fifth city sitting right there by all historical accounts there were so many people packed into the room that it was standing room only except for Charles the fifth the only one seated and in that context where Luther was on trial in his life is literally on the line his head is on the proverbial chopping block when he gets to the end of his defense of the great principles that we'll be talking about today he says these words here I stand I can do no other may God help me and so this young provocative ambitious and yet also humble monk starts a revolution that we today are the benefactors of we are the beneficiaries of this amazing revolution in fact so is the whole of Australia so is the whole of the world though it is astounding how few people probably today would understand just how great their indebtedness is to this amazing man that's what we're gonna talk about today when we talk about Reformation again contained within the idea that something needs to be formed again is that it was number one initially formed number two D formed and the number three we're sort of meeting the movie here halfway halfway into the movie or two-thirds three-quarters of the way into the movie here we're gonna talk today about the Reformation and what I've got here on the screen is a bit of a chart a bit of a chart that shows what you might call the shape or the trajectory of church history it starts off with the formation of the Apostolic Church by none other than Jesus Christ himself who said that he would build his church on a rock and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it we then get to the book of Acts and 3,000 are baptized on the day of Pentecost and many thousands more in the book of Acts and the church is on this amazing upward trajectory and it looks like everything's going to go great but in the third and fourth centuries for reasons that we won't go into today as such the wheels begin to come off of the apostolic purity apostolic simplicity the church and the church begins to make that difficult and terrible transition from formed to deformed as the church begins to plunge downward in its deformation phase we enter what what is referred to colloquially as the Dark Ages but we don't really use that language much anymore right certainly not in scholarly circles that's fallen out of favor but the language historically has been the Dark Ages now it's simply called the medieval period the medieval period is a period that begins about the 4th century and ends about the 15th century so a period of a thousand years just plopped right there in the middle of history just stuck there this dark period this medieval period in which is we're going to see the church became so radically deformed so totally deformed from the church that Jesus had established that finally there were voices that began to cry out hey hey hey hey hey this doesn't look like the church that Jesus had established and they began to cry out for Reformation now Luther was the catalyzing reformer he was the he was the rock star of reformers he was the superstar of reformers but he was not the first there were voices before his voices that we will talk about in fact on November 25th right here before pastor Wilson preaches I'll be giving a Sabbath School on with slides and be walking through the historical narrative and greater detail of the Reformation be walking through that's gonna be absolutely amazing and we'll talk about some of these pre reforming voices people like Peter Waldo and John Wickliffe and and Jorah Savonarola and others that began to raise these these concerns about the state of the church all of these pre reformers lead-up to the one that we're going to be talking about today and who we are celebrating right now in 2017 and that's Martin Luther and as the church begins that slow like turning the Titanic that that upward trajectory back on Reformation Reformation will happen just as d-formation had happened incrementally and cumulatively the church didn't go from apostolic purity to the middle of the Dark Ages overnight it took a thousand years it took a thousand years cumulatively of the the acquisition of human traditions and and superstitions just cumulatively creating a church that finally demanded Reformation but in the same way that it would take you a while to get really overweight to get really obese you wouldn't go to bed fit one night wake up obese it would take time it would be bad habits and too many chips and too many cookies and not enough exercise and over time you would begin to put on a lot of weight and that was the church in the Middle Ages right when we get to the 13th and 14th centuries that's a great big giant Jabba the Hutt of a church hugely obese well you're not just gonna come out of that instantly either you didn't get into it in one step you're not gonna get out of it in one step and so just as with deformation the Reformation process will be cumulative that process will have been begun earlier than Luther but Luther will be the catalyzing voice he'll be the catalyzing figure and when we have enough accumulation of reformational steps we get to restoration the restoration of apostolic simplicity and puri purity that Jesus had established in the Apostolic Church this basic shape of church history this is something we have no time to talk about today was actually anticipated in Bible prophecy say Amen if you knew that do you know that did you know that this is the very shape that that daniel said church history would have this is the very shape that jesus said church history would have that john said it would have that that paul said it would have and so not only are we looking back on something that has been but even in the days of Daniel and of Jesus and of John and of Paul they could look forward and see what the shape of church history would be formation deformation Reformation and restoration if you want to attach rough dates to these four chapters the churches formed when when Jesus comes on the scene as Messiah 8027 we then get to probably apart from the resurrection of Jesus the single most significant event in church history and that's the conversion of a man named Constantine the Great I've divided church history here into four chapters but there are a number of church historians that say that's unnecessarily complex you can divide the whole sweep of church history into just two chapters pre Constantinian and post Constantinian before Constantine the church was a small politically powerless persecuted minority after the conversion of Constantine the Great the first Roman Emperor to ostensibly professed Christianity the church goes from being a persecuted minority to a politically powerful persecuting majority and so some historians say there's no need to talk about multiple chapters in church history you have before Constantine and after Constantine but for our purposes here today we go from formation to the post Constantine II in the beginning of the medieval period the Dark Ages that's the period are gonna be talking about today the defamation period and then the Reformation period right from 80 312 Constantine's conversion to 1517 that's the date that we're celebrating now the 500th anniversary the anniversary that we are living in the wake of okay then Reformation from 1517 to 1844 and then to the present this is a remarkable book great big huge book academic book published by Yale University Press read it in preparation for the series that light bearers just did and then read parts of it again in preparation for the tour that I just had the privilege of co-leading and in this historian and Roman Catholic historia and I might add Carlos Eyre says by the 15th century despite many setbacks and dismal shortcomings the Pope of Rome could claim universal jurisdiction he could claim what what are those two words universal jurisdiction over all of Christendom yea even over the whole world by the time we get to the 1415 centuries we have fully established a church that is so far removed theologically and methodologically and organizationally from the church that Jesus had established we are in the we are in the height of the Dark Ages and as protestant historian je a wiley said the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world when everything was going great for the medieval church it was going very bad for the rest of the world the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world back to Carlos air by the beginning of the sixteenth century that's where were introduced to Luther beginning in the fifteenth century he experiences his conversion in about 1502 right so airs right on point here by the beginning of the sixteenth century despite all the cries for reform the Catholic Church was as rife with problems as the world itself during the course of the fifteenth century the abuses and failings of the church became more conspicuous more openly discussed and more deeply resented by a wider spectrum of people also after 1450 the invention of the printing press we'll talk more about that in just a second the printing press not only allowed for the wider dissemination of information reforming ideas but also speeded up the process of conscious raising among both the lady and the clergy the information was getting out then air says at the very top in Rome the papacy itself seemed the epitome of corruption an office controlled by worldly men who seemed to embody sin rather than Redemption from it now I remind you again that air is not only a scholarly historian I mean he teaches at Yale University my good friend Geoffrey Rosario takes classes from dr. air he is himself a devout Roman Catholic but he's being very honest and very open with the facts here when we get to the 15th century you have a church that is so corrupted so worldly that there are necessary internal cries for reform say well we need reform there's clerical abuse there's clerical corruption right we need to reform this bad boy so today we talked about the Reformation and implicit in the idea of Reformation is the church was already formed and became grotesquely deformed in the medieval period well when we get right up to 1517 we are we are seeing we are encountering the church on the eve of Reformation we're right on the cusp of Reformation but in order for Reformation to actualize to to be catalyzed to become real you're gonna need four ingredients four ingredients for the Reformation to actually begin to cascade into the remarkable thing that it would be number one you need a mess you need the church that a mess and it was a mess a giant mess we're just touching the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg here this morning the church was a terrible mess number two you need a message and the message will be contained in two Latin words that Luther would coin he would also speak them in the German and they would become the battle cry the mantra of the Reformation 'el ethos and that is Sola scriptura Sola scriptura only scripture so not only do you need the church to be a mess if you're gonna cry for reform you need a message you need a standard on which to cry for reform and then you need a means you need a means you know what that is right there you know what that is right there for my teenagers you know what that is that is the Internet of the 15th century you are looking at the Instagram the Facebook the email the Twitter of the 15th century that device right there perhaps as much as any other device in human history changed the course of civilization because all of a sudden you had you had easy access to literacy you had easy access to knowledge you had easy access to education and information and the feudal system the the the ongoing system by which the world had been characterized for millennia where you have a ruling class and the ruled began to slowly topple began to slowly topple and you have the emergence of something that you and I take absolutely for granted in fact not only do we take it for granted most of us in this room are members card-carrying members of this phenomenon it's known as the middle class the middle class what does that mean the middle class it means the class between the rulers the royalty and the ruled the peasants well how do you get an emergent middle class not just an intellectual or academic or educational middle class how do you get an a financial middle class and a theological middle class and the answer is that machine right there Gutenberg invents this thing called the movable type printing press in about 1450 and from that point forward access to information access to literacy just begins to skyrocket and as people begin to get their hands on information the superstitious ruling powers of the day cannot keep people down you've probably heard before knowledge is power and so not only do you need the church to be a mess which it most certainly was at the height of the medieval period not only do you need a message Sola scriptura but if you don't have a means to get that message out it would be localized in fact on November 25th I'll tell you a story about an amazing Reformation that took place about 50 to 60 years before the time of Luther that could only go just as far as the borders of Florence Italy because there was no printing press there was no means there was no internet not only do you need a mess the message in a means you're going to need a man you're gonna need a person to stand up and speak truth to power and that's what Luther is and that's what happened on October 31st 1517 Luther in his famous protest in vermis when he stood before Charles the fifth and the other agust assembly he said unless I am convinced what are the next two words everyone unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason I do not accept the authority of the Pope's and the counsels for they have often contradicted each other my conscience is captive to the Word of God how many people in here today can say in their heart of hearts my conscience is captive to the Word of God whoa I put my hand up my conscience is captive to the Word of God but but this wasn't Luther saying this in front of 450 people that are his friends 450 church members 450 church members that have come voluntarily to hear him preach now this is Luther standing before the powers of the world including the emperor of the world and he says I'm sorry I'm not going to recant I'm not going to compete you late I'm not gonna acquiesce unless you can convince me by scripture and here we have the coining of these these two words in the Latin Sola scriptura only scripture in sort of academics speak what Luther was doing was is he was establishing a new epistemological foundation up to that point that the basis of knowledge that's what epistemology is the study of knowledge you would go to the church you would go to the priest you would go to the Cardinal and you would say what does God think what does God feel what is God doing and they would tell you so your epistemology or bedrock was the church the council's the Pope's the Creed's but what Luther is doing is something totally radical he's establishing a new bedrock a new foundation he's building a whole new structure over here and he says don't talk to me about the Pope's don't talk to me about the council's don't talk to me about the ecclesiastical assemblies show me from Scripture show me from the Bible and if you can persuade me from the Bible I will recant and if you cannot hear I will stand and I can't do anything else God will help me out of these two words it would not be an exaggeration and preachers let's be honest can be prone to exaggeration but it would not be an exaggeration to say that Martin Luther and Sola scriptura is the hinge on which the whole of Western civilization turns Martin Luther and these two words that that the great truth contained in these two simple words scripture alone all of Western civilization of which you are the beneficiary whether you know it or not hinges on one man standing up and speaking truth to power and saying I'm not gonna move I'm not gonna bend you can kill this body you can burn these bones but I'm going to stand on Scripture now I hope this kind of likes a little bit of a fire under you and you start to think man there must be something really powerful really important really really signally significant about this book maybe this book is more important than Instagram maybe there's book more is a little more important than NRL maybe this book is a little more important than HBO maybe this book is a little more important maybe it is Luther certainly thought so and I'm hoping that you and I will begin to think so as well out of Sola scriptura grows for other SOLAS that's why our sermon today is called the 500 that's the 500 years and the five the 500 and the five because out of the root of Sola scriptura grows grows 4 branches 4 branches that grow out of that solafeet a Sola gratia Sola scribsy and soli Deo Gloria each one of them in Latin meaning something very important let's translate it scripture alone faith alone grace alone Christ alone to the glory of God alone and these five are the foundation upon which the Protestant Reformation launched now think about that word Protestant the root were there is protest the protest against the excesses of the church the protest against the corruption of the church the protest against the power structures of the day and so these were Reformation 'el Protestants Luther did not believe that young Augustinian monk did not believe for a moment when he nailed his 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg and I just stood outside of that door Oh less than a week ago Luther did not believe for a moment that he would launch this grand thing called the Protestant Reformation he genuinely though naively believed that he would post his 95 theses to the door then it would begin a conversation a conversation within the universities and within the the sacred halls of the Roman Church and scholars and and clerics and Cardinals would begin to debate and he believed that slowly incrementally the church would begin to reform itself he was in for a surprise because in 1518 when he received the papal bull that means the papal letter of excommunication it was said to him you have 60 days to recant you have 60 days to turn this ship around you have 60 days or you will be excommunicated condemned to hell for eternity you know what he did with that papal bull he threw it in the fire he could see that even though he had naively and perhaps optimistically started off on a small what he hoped would be an internal Reformation as he began to bathe himself in Scripture and began to read in the original language the Hebrew of the Old Testament the Greek of the New Testament not going to Cardinals not going to priests not going to popes not going to councils but going to the text he began to see that there was this giant tottering edifice known as the medieval Catholic Church and he said whatever that big thing is that monument to human tradition and ingenuity whatever that big thing is it's not what scriptures teaching and he had a choice to make he could be a loyalist or he could speak truth to power and he chose to speak truth to power and when he received that papal bull of threat and communication excommunication he threw it in the fire and he said Sola scriptura and out of that grew so la fille de Sola gratia Sola screws and soli Deo Gloria now let's walk through each one of these because whether you know it or not if you are today a follower of Jesus who takes scripture seriously and who takes the fact that you have a Bible in your language in your language sitting on your shelf or on your phone if you take that for granted if that's important to you if that's precious to you if that's valuable to you then whether you know it or not this is your see this this is your story this isn't just Luther story this is your story if you today are a Christian a follower of Jesus somebody who takes scripture seriously if you today are a Protestant or perhaps even more specifically you're a seventh-day adventists here today we know that we have many that are not seventh-day evidence that visit us if you are a Protestant believer in Jesus today or maybe you're just a seeker I want to tell you today your story is rooted in the protest and in the bravery and in the audacity of a young Augustinian monk named Martin Luther let's walk through these SOLAS in 1302 this guy here his name was Pope Boniface the eighth released a document called unum sanctum unum sanctum in Latin means one holy there's one church one Holy Church and this was at the height of as we said earlier the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world this was at the height of the medieval church's power and listen to what Boniface says listen to the temerity hear the audacity the the absurdity it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman pontiff yea rubbish is exactly right it's rubbish it's rubbish and people began to call it what it was again the noon of the papacy was the midnight of the world said J Wiley now think about if you have midnight that's when it's dark that's when it's dark and one of the prevailing themes in Scripture hear me church one of the prevailing themes in Scripture is that God speaks light into darkness can somebody say Amen God speaks light into darkness through Luther God was once again speaking light into darkness it would know this the very opening line the first line that God speaks and all of Holy Writ is let there be what let there be light right this is Genesis 1 1 2 3 in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth the earth was without form and void and darkness cover thee so so the first action that we have of the god of scripture the first thing he does is he speaks light into darkness we fast-forward from Genesis 1 to the 2 Gospel of John chapter 1 and John says in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God in the Word was God he goes on to say that this word was the light he's the word that was spoken he's the light that lights every man that comes into the world and so both for Moses and for John when God is gonna shape things when he's gonna reform things when he's gonna when he's gonna destroy and build up new things he speaks light into darkness that's what God does the only particular text that we will turn to in our Bible today is 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 we'll have a lot of text up on the screen but join me in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 if you can 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 if you've got your paper viable great if not pull out your phone hopefully it's on airplane mode so you're not tempted to be distracted my things have lesser importance 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 by the way I don't think I'm important I think Scripture is important I think the Bible is important I think God is important that's what I mean when I say something of greater importance look at 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verse 5 it says for we do not preach ourselves I take this is one of my mantras as a preacher I do my very very best not to preach david asscherick right i am david astrick and so when i preach a little david asscherick is gonna leak out right that's gonna happen but paul says when i preach i don't preach paul I don't preach myself verse 5 but I preach Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves as your bond servants for Jesus sake now verse 6 I'm not preaching David I'm not preaching Paul Paul says I'm preaching Jesus verse 6 for it is the God who commanded light to shine out of Darkness who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God we're in the face of Jesus then in verse 7 he says and we have this treasure in Jars of Clay in earthen vessels that the excellency may be of God and not of us let me translate that for you what Paul says is the same God who in the beginning said let there be light in Genesis 1 said in Jesus let there be light the darkness that had come upon the world in the time of Jesus was not a litter oral darkness it was a theological darkness it was an intellectual darkness it was a spiritual darkness people were confused about who God was and so Jesus comes to bring clarity and he brings such clarion pictures of who God is that Jesus could say with total humility and yet complete accuracy if you have seen me you have seen the father so Jesus brings light into the world and that's what Paul says that same God who who spoke light into darkness has now spoken into an equally dark equally void equally vacuous place into the human heart he has spoken into the human heart he spoke in lights where there was darkness and so we find that when when there is darkness as Isaiah says in Isaiah chapter 60 behold darkness covers the earth and gross darkness the people I want to tell you right now friends I know the sun is shining outside and the water is warm and the waves are good I got all that I want to tell you the earth is covered in gross darkness today Australia the United States of America and the whole of Earth is covered in a deep thick spiritual darkness not everyone but many so what's God gonna do well what did he do in Genesis what did he do in John what's he alluding to in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 what did he do in the days of Luther he speaks light he speaks truth into the darkness through Luther God was once again speaking light into the darkness and in every case in every case what is the light that God speaks into darkness it's his word in Genesis it's his word let there be light in John 1 it's in the beginning was the word what does Paul say he speaks the word what did Luther say Sola scriptura the word if there is darkness in your life you don't need more YouTube if there is darkness in your life you do not need more HBO if there's darkness in your life you don't need more NRL if there's darkness in your life you need the word you need light Sola scriptura out of Sola scriptura grew ii to the great SOLAS sola fee they only faith faith alone Luther would say not works not works Plus faith we just had the last sermon that I preached in this church was on this faith that faith that not faith and faith that let's talk about faith alone what does that mean Matthew chapter 4 verse 4 actually I'm not in faith alone I'm still in Sola scriptura Mathew chapter 4 verse 4 it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God now I here today am a seventh-day Adventist ok I don't believe that seventh-day evidence are the only people of God I don't believe that for a second I think God has his people everywhere in every Communion and in every faith and even in every religion I think God has his people everywhere those are living those that are living up to the light that they have however as a seventh-day Adventist pastor on the Sabbath in a seventh-day Adventist Church I want to quote for you a few passages from one of the founders and most pivotally important people in the founding of the seventh-day Adventist Church a woman by the name of Ellen White I'm gonna give you several quotations from her and here's the first this one from a book that I'm going to talk about when we get down to the end called the great controversy that's the book by the way that I'll be talking about tomorrow and my little lecture that I'm doing it prophetic ax titled the punk the parsley and the Prophet that's the book that I'm going to be telling the story of in that lecture and that's the book that I read is a 23 year old purple haired tattooed punk rocker that turned me from punk rock and skateboarding is the most important things in life to Jesus and his word as the most important thing in life that's the book that's the book the great controversy that got me on the straight and narrow thank you Jesus and look at what it says in the great controversy Ellen White one of the formative pivotal members of the founding members of the seventh day of his church but God will have a people upon the earth to maintain the Bible and the Bible what's the next word only sounds like loser God will have a people on the earth it will maintain the Bible and the Bible only as the standard of all doctrines and the basis of all what's the next word reforms so what Luther began there in 1517 by the coining of this simple really pissy phrase Sola scriptura is something that extends right down to the present right down to today and then Ellen White she says that there will be a people on earth that will say you know what not the Creed's not the counsels not the church not science not philosophy what does scripture say light into darkness now Sola fidei faith alone Ephesians chapter 2 verses 89 - the best known verses in all the New Testament in all of the corpus of Paul for by grace you have been saved what are the next two words every one through faith not through works not through my own righteousness for by grace you have been saved through faith and this faith is not your own doing can somebody say Amen oh I hope that you need to hear the gospel today Church Martin Luther famously said people need to hear the gospel every day because they forget it every day so we're gonna preach the gospel today it is not your own doing it is the gift of God not as a result of works so that no one can boast I love the way that Paul says it in Romans chapter 12 verse 3 he says that this faith is a faith that God has given us even your faith is a gift from God even the faith that we present to God as an act of belief as an act of surrender is not our own faith it's God's faith that he extends to us as a gift now this is really cool back to one of the founding members of the seventh-day - church again Ellen White and her little book education amazing book I know it's one of Paul Foos favorites principle of TVA see notice what it says here and I've purposefully oriented the the the the statement the sentence this way and I'll show you why in just a second she says faith that enables us to receive God's gift is itself a gift now I've already entered it this way purposely because that enables us to receive God's gift is what's known in English grammar as a prepositional phrase a prepositional phrase is a modifying phrase right a phrase that tells us a little bit more about the thing that we are speaking up for example I might say that is my Bible on the table right that is my Bible there's your sentence on the table modifies you know in English grammar if you're dealing with a prepositional phrase if you can remove the prepositional phrase from the sentence and the sentence maintains its basic thrust and structure okay so I could say that is my Bible period or I can say that is my Bible comma on the table there is your prepositional phrase on the table I've marked out the prepositional phrase for you here Michelle I hope I get this right if I get it wrong I apologize in advance faith that enables us to receive God's gift is itself a gift so what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna drop out that prepositional phrase I'm just gonna drop it out not because it's unimportant but because it's a modifying phrase so that we can get to the kernel or the embryo of the very point that's being made here and notice when we put it together what we have is why don't you read it with me faith is itself a gift can you say Amen faith is a gift it's the faith of Jesus not just my faith in Jesus it's the faith of Jesus she says there is not a point that needs to be dwelt upon more earnestly I hope I'm earnest today repeat it more frequently I'm gonna repeat myself several times today or establish more firmly in the minds I can't do that for you only you can do that for you and the Spirit can do that for you so I hope you're paying attention there is not a point that needs to be dwelt upon more earnestly repeated more frequently or established more firmly in the minds of all than the what's the underlined word impossibility of fallen man meriting anything by his own best good works and then this sentence this crucially important sentence right here salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone now here again I've organized this sentence with the prepositional phrase right there sort of in the center in Jesus Christ now that's that's implicit for us that are believers in Jesus so we're gonna lift that phrase out not because it's unimportant but so that we can get to the kernel of what's being communicated here so we lift that part out in Jesus Christ and we're left with this salvation why don't you say it with me salvation is through all you need to say to live with a little more enthusiasm than that salvation is through what what what so laughy they not faith and works salvation your salvation your eternal right standing with God is through faith alone say it with me if you would just one more time through faith alone I know that could be hard especially for generational seventh day evidence to say they say salvation is through faith I know it starts with an A and and and there's a struggle that's going on in their mouth and in their mind it's through faith say it with me what's the word alone the next one is Sola gratia through grace alone not only faith alone but grace alone back to Ephesians chapter 2 for by grace by means of grace grace is the conduit grace is not the conduit grace is the grace is the catalyst faith is the conduit for by grace you have been saved through faith and this faith is not your own doing as we've already said it as the gift of God not a result of works so that no one may boast back to Luther the statement that really resonated and began to ricochet and reverberate around in the mind of Luther was this statement the just the righteous shall live by does anybody know it faith the righteous shall live by faith and in that book there that I mentioned earlier the great controversy the story is told of Luther going in 1510 to Rome he went there to deliver a message and also on a pilgrimage and when he went to Rome he was going to various sites and performing his pilgrimage duties and acquiring some relics and one of the sites that I mean it's a 1500 mile walks like a 2500 kilometer walk he walked from Vinton burg to Rome that's a long walk it took him almost two and a half months to walk it all right he might have hitched a ride on a few wagons here and there but he walked that under his own power and when you get there you got to go to the various pilgrimage sites and one of the key pilgrimage sites that you had to go to was what's called the Scala Sancta the Scala Sancta otherwise known as pilots staircase pilot staircase was was the supposedly there are a lot of these relics in Rome but supposedly and there is some reason to believe it might be the case supposedly the very staircase that Jesus had walked up and down when he received the judgment condemnation from Pilate and supposedly Constantine's mother Helena had transported this staircase from Jerusalem to Rome brought it to Rome and US and set it up there and so what pilgrims would do is they would go to the Scala Sancta and they would get on their knees and they would climb up the stairs as an act of penance and as an act of pilgrimage that staircase is still in Rome Scottie and I went Lynn and I went we went there we went to the staircase it's still there and there are still pilgrims today going up on it on their knees so you know me I'm not gonna let that go right I'm in Rome and I'm gonna go up that staircase on my knees and so I got I got there not as an act of penance not as a Catholic but as a bible-believing spirit-filled seventh-day Adventist pastor I said man if it was good enough for Luther if that's where Luther got his revelation the just shall live by faith I'm gonna go up that thing on my knees and on every step I'm gonna pray God show me what it means the just shall live by faith and so I had a nun on this side and a priest on this side and a nun up there and I was surrounded by Catholic pilgrims and I took me about 25 minutes and my knees were killing me at the top of those stairs praying on every stair God show me what it means that just shall live by faith I put that up on my Instagram account and I had a few very conservative seventh-day evidence accused me of becoming a Catholic that's all right I don't mind I don't mind I knew it would be a little racy but I wanted to do it anyway I mean I thought I even as I was going up I was thinking was this the stair that Luther had his revelation on was this the stair that he had his revelation was this the stair that he had his revelation for me that revelation would have happened on about the second stair because it hurts it hurts it's not happening on stair number 22 it's happening on stair two so Luther is written he's reflecting back on that experience of the just shall live by faith knocking around in his brain there from Romans one quoted from Habakkuk to the just shall live by faith the just shall live by faith here he is a dutiful obsessive-compulsive and overly conscientious monk and he's just rattling around in his brain we'll talk more about on the 25th rattling around in this rain that just shall live by faith that just shall live by faith that just shall live by faith and it was on that staircase as he was making his way up in an act of a penance God are you happy that are yet my knees really hurt are you happy yet God what more do I have to do I'll do it again I'll do it again and again and it was somewhere on that staircase when the knee pain went shooting to his hip and he said wait a minute what am i doing on my knees the just shall live by faith and this is a more mature Luther reflecting back he was a he was a voluminous writer and this is him reflecting back and he says night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the Justice of God and the statement that just shall live by faith I pondered night and day I pondered night and day then I grasped that the Justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy oh I love that through grace and what everyone sheer mercy God justifies declares righteous through faith thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise as this giant load of righteousness by works this giant load of guilt this giant load of shame this giant load of a millennium of the accumulations of medieval Christianity fell off of his neck and he said the gospel is that the just live by faith that is itself a gift from God night and day he says he pondered it through grace alone back to Ellen White again I want you to be rooted today not only in your Protestant heritage but in your seventh-day Adventist heritage for those of you that are seventh-day Adventist in the book God's Amazing Grace she says divine grace is needed at the end when his divine grace needed it's needed at the beginning divine grace is needed at every step of advance that's what we call the middle and divine grace can complete the work of salvation just let that settle into your souls let that settle into your brains let that settle into your past into your present into your heart into your fears into your failures into your struggles just let this great truths settle upon you right now you need to vine grace at the beginning of your journey you need to vine grace at every step in the middle of your journey and it is only divine grace that will complete your journey toward God its grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace no wonder the Reformers insisted Sola gratia only grace only grace the church had established a very complicated and and superstitious ceremony of sacraments and rites and rituals and it was impossible to know what your standing was with God and if you didn't get it all quite right you could go to purgatory for several thousand or even million years ah phooey on all of that said Luther away with all of that gobbledygook and poppycock the truth is the just live by faith faith alone grace alone Solus Christus Christ alone one of the greats one of the great tragedies of the medieval church was the obfuscation that means the clouding the fogging the clouding the fogging of Jesus and his high priestly ministry you couldn't just go right to Jesus oh no no no no no no you had to go through Saints through patrons and if all else failed through Mary herself the idea that you could approach God directly was considered absurd you had to go through the local priest and the confessional you had to go through the sacraments there were seven sacraments and medieval Christianity and yet work your way through the sacraments work your way through the ceremonies work your way through the pilgrimages and again there is no assurance in this there is no certainty in this there is no confidence in this you're never quite sure of your standing have I done enough and the answer is no you have not done enough but Jesus did more than enough hallelujah Christ alone from the great controversy I actually read you this the other day but it's so good I had to read it again I actually read you this in the last sermon I preached to you but I couldn't resist back to that book the great controversy describing the conversion of 1 John Wesley born in 1700 having this experience somewhere around 1730 on his return to England from the United States Wesley under the instruction of a Moravian Pete preacher how many of you remember this I told you the story they were in a ship and they thought the ship was gonna sink remember this and Wesley was concerned nobody was afraid to die from the Moravians not the men not the women not the children under the instruction of a Moravian preacher Wesley arrived at a clearer understanding of Bible faith he was convinced that he must renounce how much dependence on his own works how much dependent all dependence on his own works for salvation and okay well then what must I do if I'm renouncing all trust in me I must put all trust wholly in the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world at a meeting of the Moravian missionaries Society in London a statement was read from Luther oh man I'm gonna talk about that on the 25th how a baton or as you Aussies would say a baton was handed from person to person reformer to reformer decade to decade century to century and it had been handed on beginning before Luther through Luther and then now it's placed in Wesley's hands by the writings of Luther even though Luther's been dead for more than 130 years he goes and he sits down in a meeting and Luther there's so much power there's so much light in what God was doing through Luther that Wesley sits down he hears the writings of Luther describing the change which the Spirit of God works in the heart of the believer as Wesley listened faith was kindled in his soul and he says this is quoting Wesley now I felt my heart strangely warmed I felt I did trust in Christ what are the next two words Christ alone Solus Christus he says man I I finally felt that I trusted in Christ Christ alone for salvation and when you trust in Christ alone what is given to you what was given to Wesley and assurance was given to me a confidence a certainty and assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins even mine and saved me from the law of sin and death through long years of wearisome and comfortless striving years of rigorous self-denial of reproach and humiliation Wesley had steadfastly adhered to his one purpose of seeking God man he was he was earnest but now he found him Jesus and he found that the grace that he had toiled to win by prayers and fasts and offerings in self-denial was a gift it was a what everyone what was it it was a gift without money and without price after he received that gift he had the same experience frankly that I had or that Luther had and that many of you have had I hope all of you once he was established in the faith of Christ his whole soul burned with the desire to spread everywhere a knowledge of the glorious gospel of God's free grace once you've received the good news of salvation through grace alone and faith alone and Christ alone you want to tell people and and Wesley wanted to tell not just his neighborhood Wesley wanted to tell the world and the guy was an absolute hero traveling some two hundred thousand miles either on foot or in the back of a horse or a donkey two hundred thousand miles preached in excess of 40 thousand sermons his brother Charles his brother Charles Wesley wrote 5,000 hymns these guys were were prolific to say the least and look at what Wesley says I look upon the world as my parish my church is not just the local kingscliff church my church she says it's not just this local assembly people of people here in in London the world is my church the world is my congregation and he was particularly passionate about England his homeland in whatever part of it I am I judge it meet and right and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear the glad tidings of salvation wherever I am I'm gonna preach the truth of salvation I stood in this man's bedroom just a few days ago I stood I stood in the pulpit that this man preached thousands of sermons from just a few days ago this is myself and dr. Nicholas Miller he's the head of the church history department at Andrews University at the seminary he and I Co led the tour with another Waldensian pastor named Esteban there were three of us Co leading this group of 103 people and here we are standing in front of Wesley's Chapel and that's the statue of John Wesley and it's difficult to see even with these excellent projectors but just below John Wesley there's a little plaque there and it says the world is my parish the world is my church oh it's so amazing in fact if you're on Instagram you can go and see I went into Wesley's bedroom and probably against the better desires of the people that were curate the Wesleyan house I put on Wesley's week it looked terrible on me I look like a silver-haired rock-and-roller but it looked great on Wesley it looked really great on Wesley man I wish that would come back and style those big long wigs it would be so much better for those of us that are losing our hair right just these big silver wigs and long black robes man it looked great look great on him would look absurd on me of course she continues he continued his strict and self-denying life not now as the ground but the result of faith not the root but the fruit of holiness the grace of God in Christ is the foundation of the Christians hope and that grace will be manifested in obedience iclickers not manifesting itself in obedience just give me a click there Nate if you would next one jump through friends I want to say this to you just to simplify this idea of in Christ alone believers do not work for salvation we work from it all of your good works all of your offerings all of the things that you do are not on the side working toward in the equation of salvation you're not working towards salvation there on the other side of the equation we work from salvation not toward it and not for it nextslide works are not a condition of salvation they are a consequence of those that have truly been saved can the church say Amen okay so there we have it back one Nate thanks mate so there you have it only scripture only faith only grace and only Christ and therefore it was demanded the Reformers it was just it was just essential that they say well wait a minute if it's all faith and it's all Christ and it's all grace and it's all Scripture then it can't be - David Astrix glory it can't be - the church's glory it can't be - the priests glory and it certainly can't be - the Cardinals or the Pope's glory it has to be soli Deo Gloria it has to be to the glory of God alone can the church - amen that's why that's why when we see Jesus there on the sea of glass in eternity when it does opening moments of eternity or beginning and are placed on our heads we take the crowns off of our heads and we put them where we are confident certain they belong at the feet of Jesus and we sing again and again worthy worthy is the Lamb that was slain all the glory all the praise all the honor goes to God and Christ Ilana next slide there so I want to close on this last like two minutes here friends there is the Reformation that we've been talking about historically in theological II there is the Reformation but there is also the me Reformation in the reforming and the forming God speaks light into darkness this is not only an historical reality right we're not only celebrating a 500 year anniversary here we are celebrating the ongoing spirit of reform the principle of reform friends there's one it's one thing to believe in and have confidence in and to know a little bit about the Protestant Reformation but at least as important for you is not just thee but the me Reformation and friends if you're gonna be reformed if you're gonna be transformed if you're gonna be renewed the root were they're new you're going to have to have the same thing that God always uses to form and reform light the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus at some point is gonna have to be more Scripture and less YouTube more Scripture and less television more Scripture and less NRL more Scripture and I'm not saying none of the other I'm just saying put it in the balances weigh it out and just ask yourself if if my priorities reflect the fact that that I need light in my life in fact we said there were four essential ingredients for the Reformation I want to tell you there are the same four essential ingredients for the me Reformation if your life is a mess which let me just let you in on a little secret right now it is apart from Jesus did you hear what I said your life is a mess apart from Jesus so you got the mess covered the message is always the same God speaks his word into darkness and so it's Sola scriptura it's the text you've just got to be in the text means I don't mind it means you can have paper you can have a phone you can have a computer you can have an audible but you've got to be getting the word in your life if the whole history of Western civilization can turn on the word then your simple little wonderful little life can turn on the word as well if God can move nations if God can move a whole civilization by the word he can move your life through the word and then you need a man but notice that I've capitalized it here because you don't need just a man lowercase Martin Luther you need the man the same man that Luther himself needed and that is the Lord Jesus Christ friends your life is a mess you need the message of Scripture you need whatever means it takes to get scripture into your life and when you do that the man Jesus Christ becomes not just an idea not just a concept not just an historical figure he becomes your Savior and you will have the Lutheran the the Wesleyan experience of being able to say I felt that I entered when that guilt and shame fell off of my shoulders into the very doors of paradise friends today we are believers in Jesus today we are Christians and today we celebrate that we are Protestants protesting the deformation and crying out in our own lives for the Reformation of Christ in us the hope of glory how many today I want to say with me I need I mean I my family me I need [Music] Reformation father in heaven we bow our heads here and we raise our hands and we confess that we are formed yes but we are deformed in our actions and our attitudes and our words and our thoughts in our habits in our spending in our recreation in our lusts father we are not all bad but there is enough bad in us that the deformation and the mess is overwhelming so father we need to be reformed and we pray that you would speak a light into darkness we claim the promise of second Corinthians chapter 4 for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness as shown in our hearts our hearts our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ in whose name we pray let all of God's reformers say amen amen happy Sabbath

Channel: Kingscliff Church

Views: 14,361

Rating: 4.7977529 out of 5

Keywords: Kingscliff SDA Church, Kingscliff, Seventh Day Adventist, David Asscherick, martin luther, reformation, 500 and 5, Church, Sermon

Id: N09Eb3NUoCk

Length: 57min 10sec (3430 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2017