Reformation Sunday, October 26, 2025
Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
John 8:31-36 31So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. 32You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33“We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered, “and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be set free’?” 34Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. 35But a slave does not remain in the family forever. A son does remain forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.” (EHV)
Christ’s Word believed will set you free!
Dear friends in Christ,
A pious, guilt-ridden monk climbed the scala sancta, the so-called holy stairs in Rome that tradition claims were the stairs Jesus climbed to go before Pontius Pilate. Climbing these stairs, it was claimed, was a work one could do to free a dead relative from the tortures of purgatory. That monk climbed those stairs on his knees, stopping to kiss each stair and pray as he climbed. Yet, when he reached the top, he could only wonder if his efforts had accomplished anything at all.
Martin Luther was anything but free at that point in his life. He zealously lived the monk’s life, doing everything he could to deprive and punish himself for his sins. He was so guilt-ridden that he was sure that he even failed to confess properly. Luther was enslaved by sin because the teachings of the Roman Church failed to absolve his guilt. Luther was tormented by the mistaken idea that the righteousness of God was the righteousness God demanded of all people, and Luther recognized that he failed miserably at living up to God’s perfect holiness. Luther needed the message of the Gospel of our Savior, that Christ’s Word believed will set you free!
In contrast to the heavy burden of guilt Luther felt, the Jews to whom Jesus was speaking in our text were confident in their imagined holiness before God. Those Jews were ready to follow Jesus as the long-promised Messiah, but only for the wrong reasons and looking for the wrong results. Jesus recognized that their faith in Him was flawed by their own misconceptions about the Messiah, so He told those Jewish believers, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Their response demonstrated that their false assumptions were keeping them enslaved in sin.
Those Jesus weren’t ready to hear what Jesus taught. Instead, they hoped Jesus would be their king. They protested, “We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered, “and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be set free’?” The Jews’ reaction to Jesus’ words testifies to the foolishness of their self-delusions, for this was a nation of people living under the unwanted rule of the Roman Empire, whose forefathers had been carted off to slavery in Babylon, and whose more distant forefathers had suffered hundreds of years of bitter enslavement in Egypt. Still, in their deluded thinking, they claimed they had never been slaves to anyone.
So far, we have seen two examples of people enslaved by sin. The Jews of Jesus’ day were enslaved in sin because they relied on their bloodlines and heritage to make them right with God, and therefore, they failed to believe the truth of Scripture that teaches that all people have sinned against God and need a Savior. Martin Luther, on the other hand, heard the Law and trembled before it, but as a young monk, he remained enslaved by sin because the forgiving message of the Gospel was withheld from him. Both cases demonstrate the tragic result when the truth of God’s salvation is not heard. Both types of enslaved sinners need to hear that Christ’s Word believed will set you free!
As we look around our world today, we can find all kinds of people enslaved by sin. Many, like those Jews, don’t want to hear that they are sinners in need of a Savior, preferring, instead, to have their wickedness approved. Of course, no one really wants to hear that their guilt condemns them to eternal torment. Defensively, like the Jews, they want to cry out, “we have never been slaves of anyone.”
The same can happen to us if we grow complacent with our sins as we hear and read about all kinds of horrible transgressions around the globe. We may find it easy to think that, certainly, with such bad people in this world, we must compare favorably in God’s eyes. Therefore, many go merrily on their way foolishly confident that God’s wrath will not affect them, either because they think they compare well with others, or some perhaps hoping that God must be too nice to condemn anyone. But Jesus’ words deny this foolishness as He declares, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. But a slave does not remain in the family forever.”
Now, while some people deny their guilt, others feel their guilt, sometime desperately, so they look for ways to salve that feeling. Many try to relieve their guilty feelings through works, experiences, or even alcohol, drugs, or other vices. Some run into churches or cults that pretend to teach you how to live but make the mistake of imagining that your efforts to behave better will somehow make you right with God. Our human nature likes this type of philosophy because it makes us feel like God will have to reward us for our good works, but like the monk, Martin Luther, we are always left wondering if we have done enough.
Still, we cannot avoid the message of what Jesus says, “Everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. But a slave does not remain in the family forever.” It is clearly true that even one sin makes the sinner ineligible to dwell in God’s house. That sounds scary, but it is meant to terrify the defiant. Thus, when I look back on my life, I can see why Luther was afraid. He knew that no one ever lives up to the demands of God’s righteous Law. My own conscience reminds me continually that even as I try to be good, I often do things that hurt people, and I am reminded that I find it impossible to be perfectly obedient or perfectly reverent. If I am being honest, I could never be perfectly obedient or perfectly reverent, and neither will anyone else.
Thus, when we acknowledge this shortage of self-righteousness, and tremble in fear for our future, we really need to hear some good news. But guess what, Jesus is there for me, and He’s there for you. Jesus told those Jews “a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” Wow! That sounds really good. We know the Son of God. So how does the Son set us free?
My friends, Jesus already answered that question earlier in this text. He said, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” That’s a very simple answer, isn’t it? True freedom is found in God’s Word, but not because of any of our vain attempts to obey it; rather, because it tells us how Jesus lived and died to earn our place in His family which the Holy Spirit grants to us through faith in Jesus.
Now someone may say, “But isn’t God’s Word just a bunch of laws?” Today, you and I, and Martin Luther, and Jesus Himself can shout out a bold “NO!” Whoever thinks God’s Word is just Law is only reading part of it. And really, this is what the Reformation is all about. God used Martin Luther to return the church to the truth of the whole Bible—not just the Law, but the Gospel as well. God gives all of His Word to proclaim the truth that salvation is given through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone. When Jesus says, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples,” He isn’t telling us to pick and choose what parts of the Word to believe. He is telling us to believe all of it, and to make all of God’s Word the very center of our lives, because Christ’s Word Believed Will Set You Free!
God gives His Law to show us how in our fallen state we have failed to be holy. He gives that Law so that we know that our failure to obey brings death. That curse began in the Garden of Eden, and we see that curse again and again throughout the Bible. Yet, the truth of Jesus’ Word also tells us of God’s great love for us. The Bible follows its Law with the promises of the Gospel. The promises began immediately after the first sin as God condemned the serpent, saying, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. [also immediately God declared the promise of the Savior] He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.” (Genesis 3:15)
The promise of a Savior was repeated again and again throughout the Scriptures: to Abraham, God promised a special descendent saying, “All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.” (Genesis 12:3) The promise was repeated to King David, that his descendent would reign forever, and again through various prophets even as Israel was punished for its rebellion against God. Finally, to Mary, the angel, Gabriel, came from heaven saying, “Listen, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:31-33) Likewise, an angel brought a message of assurance to Joseph saying, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
“If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We live in an era when truth is often qualified—truth, it is claimed is only what is true for you—the opposite, it is imagined may be true for someone else. But dear Christians, we can be confident that in God’s Word we have the rock solid, absolute truth, because it comes directly from the perfect God who created us and loves us, Who sent His only begotten Son to rescue us from our disobedience.
Jesus’ true disciples put their confidence in God’s Word alone. They trust Jesus’ words, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John 14:6) They rejoice in the promise of the Holy Spirit that turned Luther’s fear into confidence and joy: “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Jesus’ disciples take God’s Word as a whole and believe it in its entirety. Though we don’t know everything Jesus may have said or did, we are confident in the Biblical record because Jesus’ faithful disciple assures us that “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31)
My friends, do not despair at what the world might think; rather put your confidence in all of God’s Word. The power of that Word has washed away all your sins in the water of Baptism and transformed you from slaves into God’s dear children. The forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for you on the cross is brought to you, again and again, each time He serves you with His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.
You and I were born bound in the same chains of sin that bind the devil to everlasting torment in hell, but those chains were thrown off of us when Jesus entered our world as “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) By His perfect life and innocent death on the cross, Jesus, The Son of God Almighty, paid the ransom price that set us free from everything that would have kept us out of His Father’s house.
Once, we were at war with God, but that war is over, because God’s love for us never changes. Jesus said, “If the Son sets you free, you really will be free.” See your Savior on the cross and hear Him cry, “It is finished.” (John 19:30) See Him again after Easter morning, arisen from the grave, announcing to the whole world that God has accepted His sacrifice as full payment for all the sins of the world.
Jesus, God’s own Son, set you free from sin, death, and the power of the devil. Jesus set you free from the guilt of your sins. Walk boldly and faithfully through the trials of this world, holding firmly to the truth of all of God’s Word, for Christ’s Word Believed Will Set You Free! Amen.
May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and in His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and establish you in every good work and word. Amen.