Be As Thoughtful As Martin

Reformation Sunday

October 26, 2014

Matthew 10:16

Be As Thoughtful As Martin

†

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I.

Do your best. It's a piece of advice that you hear at school, at home, and at work: Do your best. But if Do-Your-Best is the advice you receive at church, then her pastor needs to repent and reform.

Do your best was the advice that Martin Luther and thousands of other Christians like him had been hearing their whole lives. Do your best. Do your best and God will happy with that. Do your best and God will not punish you for being the worst of sinners.

So Martin did his best. He had been told his whole life that the best one can do is to become a celibate poor man of God. So he naturally became a monk.

But then Martin wondered, now what? I'm a monk. But was that his best? A lot of his fellow monks seemed to be causal monks—they didn't seem to take their vows of poverty and chastity seriously.

Martin thought he needed to take being a monk seriously. So he set out to be the best monk he could be. And he seemed to be successful. He didn't eat very much. He didn't sleep very much. When he did rest, he slept rough in a cold stone cell. By any objective measure he succeeded in being the best monk ever. But Martin still didn't know if that was his best. And even if it was, he didn't know if his best would be good enough for God.

II.

Then one day the church made him a professor of the Bible, and so in his study of St. Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome, he read,

For in the gospel a righteousness [of] God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith." Romans 1:17

And he read it again. And he thought about it. And he read it again. And he thought about it some more. And he read it again.

At first this passage drove him more deeply into despair. "The righteous will live by faith." But he wasn't. He wasn't righteous. He had been taught that God's righteousness was something he needed to get by doing his best. And only then would he be certain that he would survive God's punishment.

And then one day after reading it again, God the Holy Spirit opened Martin's eyes to see that this perfect and full righteousness of God is something He gives you. For the rest of his life Martin would thoughtfully consider how receiving righteousness as a gift from Jesus changed everything.

III.

Over time Martin began to realized that paying money to be righteous undermined righteousness itself. So he nailed a piece of paper to the door of his church that questioned the buying of indulgences. People paid money to the pope to get a certificate that declared them to be righteous before God.

Indulgences were based on that old terrible piece of advice: do your best. If you had the time and inclination, you could do your best by becoming a monk and earning righteousness with your own rightness. If you didn't have the time or inclination, you could do your best by buying righteousness.

Martin thoughtfully saw the earning of forgiveness by your own monk and by your own money and asked the key question: where is Jesus? Where is Jesus and His cross in all this buying and selling and doing your best? Martin would go on to beautifully summarize that Christ,

He has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil, not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death. Small Catechism: Apostles' Creed

The suffering and death of Christ Jesus delivered to sinners through the washing of Baptism, the hearing of the Word, and the receiving of the true body and blood of Christ in Communion brings the righteousness of God down to lost and condemned creatures, since our best work and all our money is never enough. But Christ always is.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

Baptism now saves you. 1 Peter 3:21

Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

"Take and eat; this is My body." Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Matthew 26:26-28

IV.

Martin did his best, but it was never enough. Instead he was given forgiveness by the death of Christ delivered by the Gospel Sacraments. When it comes to giving advice to concert pianists, eye surgeons, and bridge repairmen, do your best. When it comes to the righteousness of God, run to Christ for He died for all sinners.

Sin is spiritual disease; the bad things we think, say, and do simply confirm the diagnosis. So the Great Doctor of Souls said,

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. . . . I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Matthew 9:12-13

He calls all sick and dying sinners to Himself. He calls sinful little babies in their mother's wombs and in their father's arms; He calls sinful toddlers and teens. He calls sinners in the prime of life; He calls sinners in their golden years. He died for all and paid it all and loves to forgive sinners of all ages and abilities. He sends away their sin by washing them, speaking to them, and giving them His own true body and blood.

And so by grace through faith all believers run away from our best as a means of saving ourselves. Instead we run to the righteousness that Jesus gives us.

Under His cross, do your best as a fruit of faith. Do your best to pray with your family every day: "Our Father, who art in heaven." Do your best to remember and even memorize the words that speak of God's great acts of mercy for you: "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Do your best to gather around the body and blood of Christ to receive His mercy.

And rejoice with St. Paul, and Martin Luther, and all your fellow believers in our confession of our trust:

The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 1 Timothy 1:14-15

In the name of the Father

and of the † Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.