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Sin Boldly
Matthew 25: 14-30
I want to start tonight by telling you a story I read the other day
about a conversation between Philip Melancthon and Martin Luther.
Melancthon was a professor of Greek and systematic theology at the
University of Wittenberg in the 1500’s. And as you may know Martin
Luther is credited for starting the great reformation of the church.
It was Luther’s 95 Thesis that he nailed to the church at Wittenberg and
his teachings against the gross apostasy of the Catholic Church’s
practices of selling indulgences, and ruling the Roman Government that
ruled the world that lead to a great religious reform.
Anyway the story goes Melancthon was struggling with some questions
about personal sin and some choices he had to make. It seems that there
were no black and white answers to his questions and as this great
teacher struggled he turned to his friend Luther for advice. I want you
to notice tonight Luther’s advice to his friend.
"If you are a preacher of grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious
grace; if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin.
God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner
and sin boldly, but believe more boldly still."
I don’t know about you but the advice is a bit shocking to me. The same
guy who wrote the song in our books “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, who
stood up to the abuses of the 15th century church, who led a religious
revolution that shook the foundations of civilization, counseled someone
to sin boldly? Yes, sin boldly!
Over the past few weeks that advice has stuck in my head. And I have to
admit to you tonight that the more I think about Luther’s advice I have
come to realize that he was exactly right.
I bet that you are glad you decided to come back tonight. You can tell
your children that you were here when the preacher lost his mind. But
before you turn me off let me explain to you what I think Luther was
really saying to his close friend.
If I could modernize his advice I believe that it would be something
like this: "Look, you preach grace. So live it! Here you are spending
endless time worrying about a decision you have to make that is a pure
judgment call. Since the scripture does not teach one way or another
about it, then use your best judgment, bathed in prayer, and step out in
faith and go for it. If later you discover that you made a sinful
choice, then rely on the gift of God’s grace that you so boldly
proclaim. Trust that God will restore you, forgive you, and cleanse you,
but until you get to that point quit worrying and start living. Sin
boldly but believe even more boldly."
You see church tonight I want to talk with you about our need to start
living and quit sitting in the corner afraid that we are going to offend
someone. Too many churches are so afraid of doing something wrong that
they do nothing at all. And I don’t believe that we have been called
into a life of safe quietness. I believe that we have been called to
make some waves, and effect some changes. I think that it is high time
that we sin boldly, but believe more boldly still.
Turn with me tonight to our text in Matthew 25:14-30. Jesus told a story
about this very subject once and we need to hear it. (Read Text)
When I read that text I have to ask myself, you, and this church as a
whole what is it that makes us hide our talent in the ground? What are
we so afraid of that we justify doing nothing. We are probably a lot
like the servant who answered to his master "I knew you to be a hard
man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no
seed, so I was afraid,”
Now we might not vocalize those words. My lips can say God; I trust you
and I know that you are a God whose grace is overflowing. I know that
you love me and you want me to love You in return. God I know that you
have done so much for me through the cross that I can rest at ease every
night. But is that what our lives say?
All too often we Christians live our lives and say God I am so scared of
you that I can’t do a thing. I know that you want me to, I know that you
need me to be active, but I live in this fear that I am going to mess it
all up. God what if blow it? So I think that it is better if I just play
it safe and do nothing at all.
I understand Scriptures so I won’t read them during the week, because I
might come up with a strange doctrine.
I won’t tell others about you because they might ask me a question and
if I give them a wrong answer I know that they will burn in hell and
then I will be responsible for what I said and probably be in hell as
well.
I know what You desire of me but God you are a hard God and I am afraid.
I know that some of us live that way all the time. We even bring that
kind of thinking with us to church. We think that if we make a mistake,
God will get really angry and we'll end up in hell. So we're paralyzed.
It's called perfectionist theology.
You've got to be perfect or else. If you worship wrong, if you
evangelize wrong, if you are one step away from perfect we are all
toast. We have to have perfect doctrine. You have to pray perfectly. You
have to have the perfect church organization.
And where do we get that theology? Well it comes from a great little
text found in Leviticus 10:1-2. Turn with me to the text and see if it
sounds familiar to you.
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put
fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before
the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before
the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.
You see we learned at an early age if you get worship wrong God will get
you. Now I agree that here is a pattern for worship, but there is so
much that is a matter of opinion, why do we use this passage to prove
that we have to worship on Sunday nights at 5:00, sing 4 songs than have
a 20 minute sermon, then a song of invitation, then one more song then
closing prayer?
But that’s not the only one. What about Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6. God says
don’t touch the ark, but Uzzah did and God zapped him.
And then there is Lot’s wife in Genesis 19. God tells Lot to leave the
city, and make haste. Don’t stop to rest, don’t stop to talk, don’t even
turn around. But we know that story, Lot’s wife did and God zapped her,
she is a pillar of salt.
I was wondering why is it the only Old Testament worship stories that we
get to count are the ones where people did it wrong and were flamed by
God? Mention that the Old Testament pictures people worshipping God with
raised hands or shouts and someone is always ready to say, "Yes, well,
that was under the Old Covenant."
But they are always the first to remind us of Nadab and Abihu, and Uzzah,
and Lot’s wife. Church we have got to get out of the mindset that God is
type of engineer with a slide ruler and a calculator who is calculating
how close to plumb our lives are. God knows that he is dealing with
people, and as long as we have free will, we will be free to mess it up.
Once again I need to tell you that I understand that God has given us
rules and commands with the expectation that we will choose to follow
Him. But that has never meant that we have to be perfect or He's going
to get mad and cast us into outer darkness. If that was the case then
why did Jesus have to die at all?
The wicked servant in Jesus' story wasn't condemned because he did it
wrong. He was condemned because he didn't do anything. He was afraid.
And fear paralyzed him. And it paralyzes Christians, and deacons, and
elders, and preachers, and even whole churches.
Someone once said that there are 3 kinds of Churches:
First there are Undertaker Churches that are stuck in the past. They do
what they do because that is how their saintly mom did them and if it
was good enough for her then 50 years later it has to be good enough for
me.
We say that these are undertaker churches because they are either dying
or dead. The best it was going to get was 10, 20, 30 years ago and we
still love to sit around and talk about how great it was back then.
Then there are Caretaker churches that are comfortable.
This Church is determined to maintain the status quo. We have done it
this way for years and we all like it. I know that if we were to try
something different someone here would get uncomfortable and then they
would complain, and then they might leave, and then what would we do.
This type of church forgets that those who are called to carry their
cross daily are not real interested in comfort.
Finally there are risk takers.
Risk taking churches are no less concerned about God's will and God's
word than any other church. But they never sit back and think that they
have arrived. They want to believe right and live right, so they
constantly search to see what they can do to make better disciples for
Christ and His church.
This type of Church reads the story in Matthew 25 and has no idea why
anyone would ever consider hiding their talent. The idea of being afraid
of God is so foreign because they are deeply in love with God. So they
are willing to do whatever is within His will and Word in order to bring
Him glory.
It is the risk takers that are making a difference in the community
where they live. They believe so much in God and His Grace that they are
willing to sin boldly. They are willing to be wrong, knowing that if
their limited human understanding and weak human will put them on the
wrong side of God's law, their repentance and His Grace will bring them
back.
Risk taking churches and risk taking Christians believe that our failure
invites His forgiveness. Now I need you to hear me say a second time
that in no way does that mean that we should play fast and loose with
the Bible. If there is a clear "Thou shalt," or "Thou shalt not," it is
not an issue. We do it the way God said do it. But if God didn't specify
one way or another, risk taking churches and Christians are willing to
pray, listen for his guidance, and go for it. They understand that
failure isn't final.
The great writer John Ortberg tells the story of a university ceramics
teacher who divided her class into two groups. One group would be graded
solely on the quantity of work they produced -- fifty pounds of pottery
would be an "A," forty, a "B," and so on. The other group was to be
graded on quality. Students in that group had to produce only one pot --
but it had better be perfect.
Amazingly, or perhaps not, the highest quality pots came from the
quantity group. While the quality group spent their time worrying about
perfection, the quantity group just kept churning out pots. With each
failure, they learned what did and didn't work so that the next pot came
out better than the one before it. To the quantity group, every mistake
was one step closer to an "A." To the quality group, a mistake was
deadly. So they were paralyzed.
If the death of Jesus on the cross means anything, if his resurrection
holds any promise at all, if the assurance of grace is worth the blood
it was written in, then God is not a God to be feared, but a God to be
trusted. He gives us his gifts and tells us, "Go, put my gifts to work."
I am fully convinced that if the one talent man had come back to his
master and said, "Master, I took the one talent you gave me and, after a
careful study of the market, invested it in what appeared to be a very
safe and profitable company, but the CEO had inflated the value of the
company and lied about company losses and the whole thing went belly up.
I lost your money," the master would have said, "Well done, good and
faithful servant."
You see it’s not about success. It’s about faithfully using the gifts
the master gives us. So as we begin this New Year I am left wondering if
we are a five, two or one talent church. It's okay to be a one talent
church. It's okay to be a five talent church. There is no shame in the
one, no glory in the five. The abilities, gifts, blessings and talents
we have as a church all come from God. I just want you to think about
what kind of church we are; 1, 2 or 5 talents?
Don’t think for one moment because we are small in number we are limited
in any way. When you look at the resources available to us, the talent
among us, the opportunities around us, our history, and the vision of
our future, you can’t reach any other conclusion than we are not just a
one or two talent church. We aren't even a five talent church. We have
an abundance of gifts from the Father.
So what does he expect of us? Paralysis? Or action. Caution? Or courage.
Does he want us to be undertakers, caretakers, or like the two faithful
servants in Jesus' story, risk takers?
Tomorrow will wake up to a new day. The old will have gone, the new will
have come. It is time to, in the words of Luther, sin boldly, but
believe more boldly still. Let's always do everything we can to know and
understand God's will then do it, exactly as He told us. But when God
hasn't made the choice for us, when the choice about how to be the
church of Christ in this time and place is ours, let us choose the way
of faith and confidence and risk.
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