Word of Salvation – Vol. 33 No. 03 – Jan 1988

 

Are You Reformed?

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. De Graaf on Lord’s Day 23

Reading: Numbers 21:4-9; John 3:14-18; Romans 5:1-8

Singing: P.H.234; BoW.H.304; BoW.H.803; P.H.389; P.H.325

 

Dear Congregation,

Sometimes our non-church-going friends ask us questions about our name: ‘Reformed Church’.  They think of prisoner rehabilitation or of people kicking drug habits or alcohol enslavement.  “Reformed… from what?” they ask.  Yes indeed, reformed from what?  What is the heart of faith, the new song which the Reformation rediscovered?  It is the gospel!  And what is the gospel?  Not what we do for God, but what God did for us who could not do a thing!  The gospel is the finished story of the doing, the dying and the victory of Jesus Christ.  There is no other gospel!

The only letter of Paul that does not start with a thanksgiving for what a church did right is the one to the Galatians.  And in that letter Paul goes to town against people who bring a false gospel.  And he curses them!  These pious counterfeiters!  Time and again that false gospel proves to be our proud way in which – with our strict laws, our high achievements and our refined “religion” – we try to get right with God and earn His approval.  But that does not make a human being a Christian!  That he is so nice and so courageous and does his best… does not make him a Christian!  Never mind what they say about you at your funeral!  And it does not make you Reformed that you have such sturdy principles or do so much for church, state or society!  Time and again we have the strong temptation to replace what Jesus did by what we (must!) do.  But Paul says that then you rape God’s truth, and exchange faith for religion.  As if our religion can ever build the bridge into God’s presence!  All we can build in that way is towers of Babel!  The obedience that pleases God is only possible for saved sinners who cannot for a moment forget who Jesus Christ is for them.

What’s the use of believing all this (asks, Catechism)?

Well, what is it again that this Apostles’ Creed keeps talking about?  What is the heart, the core of it?  What else but what God did in Christ.  What none of us could do or can do himself!  Sola Gratia – By Grace alone.  How humble are you?

Now and then you can hear people – who have heard this message of the rich Christ for poor sinners all their life, from the time they were small kids – say that “it does not turn them on”.  That the sermons are dull and the church services too long.  It leaves them all so cold.  How is that possible?  How come?  Could it be that they no longer see clearly (if ever they saw it) what they were saved from?  The door into the shiny show-room of God’s tremendous riches is a very low little door.  You only can get through it on your knees.  And you have to go like that through that door quite often, really!

Remember, it is long after Lord’s Day 2 to 5, long after that chapter on “How great my sins and misery are” that this Answer 60 of our catechism takes us through that door again as it says: “my conscience accuses me – and rightly so! – that I have sinned against all the commandments of God – enough to earn me everlasting hell!”  None of these commandments I have kept!  I still have it in me to do all that evil!  Miserable man, miserable woman that I am…!  Below God’s standard!  For all my -looking down on others!  I am full of filth and rotten to the core!  Under that polished outside that people see, I am a liar and a thief, an adulterer and a hateful murderer, money is a god I love and I care more for my pleasure than my God!  I am darkness, I am death.  I am no better before God than the bloke who assaulted his little kids.  Νο worthier than the woman who sells her body to get drugs.

Oh sure, we do not like “hell and damnation” sermons!  We do not like to have the stress laid on sın.  In fact the word is highly unpopular.  We prefer the preachers that say: “You’re OK, I’m OK.”  I do not like preaching like that either.  I live in a glass house myself, so who am I to throw stones?  But small is the eye of the needle.  How can I get that camel through?  Narrow is the gate and hard to find the path.  Jesus says the gospel is for those who are poor in spirit.  The comfort is for those who mourn.  If you reckon that the preaching of the message of Christ is all “old hat”… could it be that that little door must be lowered for you still more until it is on your belly, on hands and feet, that you must learn to crawl through?  By grace alone you can be saved.  Grace: a stay of execution.

Christ alone… tell me: are you a Christian?  No I am not asking if you’re a good Christian?  In a way there are no “good” Christians.  There is only a good Christ.  And He went His Way alone… no one was with Him.  No one could assist Hım as He went and paid the terrible price.  A Christian is not a person who lives a nicer life than his neighbour.  A Christian is someone who has seen Jesus carry his load unto death and can’t ever quite get over it.  A Christian is someone who humbly says: That alone is my life, that He died in my place.  “Lord,” says the Christian, “I thank you for your doing everything for me.”

A Christian is someone who sees with amazement that Jesus is his righteousness and his holiness.  His whole holiness: not 90% of it… while I have to add my 10%.  A Christian is someone who accepts that Jesus’ obedience is his own; it could not be otherwise.  A Christian is someone who looks up in wonder when he hears God call him “Blessed” and knows that all that blessing comes from Jesus.  He never quite gets used to it that Jesus swapped with him so completely that He carried off my death and now God sees me as if I were Jesus Himself.  So clean, so beautiful, so whole!  I didn’t do that.  Jesus did it all.  That is a glorious message but also a very humbling one.  And we do not like to be made that small.  So we come along with our “programmes” and our “challenges”, our “tasks” and our “laws”.  Preach the laws of what we must do and that still fills the churches.  Ha!  Now I can get cracking!  But the Reformation message is: “Jesus alone!”  It still is.  Paul says: there is no other gospel.

Finally: By faith alone…!  How child-like are you?  The problem of sinful man is, time and again that he wants to show off as it he is bigger than he really is.  But to believe is child-play.  Child-like acceptance of a Gift.  God says it, so it is true.  God calls me His child because of what Jesus did.  Because He said, “It is Finished”, I cannot sin myself to death any more.

Not that my faith is so magnificent, either!  God does not talk about big faith or small faith here.  A child does not look at his little hand stretched out at the giver of that Big Present.  That little hand is not important.  The present is!  It is given in love.  Do I accept it in wonder and gratitude?  Do you know now?  Let’s say it together then: “How are you right with God?”  Only by true faith in Jesus Christ…!

Even though my conscience accuses me of having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants and credits to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.

All I need to do is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart.

AMEN.