 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
I wonder if you have had the same experience as me when it comes to talking to other people about your church. You happen to get into a conversation about religion with a coworker or friend. It’s often not too long before they ask you, “Well, what denomination are you?” or “Where do you go to church?” When you reply “Lutheran,” you usually get the same inquisitive reply. “Oh, isn’t that like Catholic?”
Well, we could say, it used to be and I guess in some ways it still is and in some ways it’s not. Lutherans have always held a strange middle ground between Catholicism and the other protestant churches. And truthfully, this is nothing new. Such thinking was present even as far back as Luther’s time when other Christian points of view began to surface.
Today, we commemorate the anniversary of the most important document ever written in the Lutheran Church. I’m afraid to ask how many of you haven’t heard of it for fear of how many hands would go up. Honestly, before I went to seminary, I hadn’t heard of it either. But having learned what it means, I can’t but help to tell you about it because it is what being Lutheran, as opposed to something else, is all about.
There’s a brief history about all this in the bulletin today. Back in 1530, the Emperor over all of Europe wanted all this religious bickering between Catholics and primarily Lutherans to come to an end. He wanted a united Christian empire to go and fight the Muslims, who were now conquering lands very close to the borders of his domain. So, in the month of June, he convened this special meeting and this is where, for the first time, the Lutherans defined how they specifically disagreed with the Catholic Church.
Back in those days, people debated about the truth.
It’s not like today where everyone just gets to have their own version or interpretation. No, in those days, you made a public statement of the faith – you specifically defined what you believed, and maybe just as importantly, what you did not. This became standard after the Lutherans separated from the Catholics because now the confessions of the two churches were different.
If you believed in Catholicism, you believed all the good things you do in life contribute to your going to heaven; you believe that the pope was God’s divinely appointed representative on earth; that he could introduce doctrines that may not agree with the Bible; that you could buy the forgiveness of your sins for money and that when you died, you would go to a place called purgatory to work off all of your mistakes and sins in life.
But if you were Lutheran, you believed you were saved only by Christ’s doing alone, you believed the pope was a humanly appointed leader and that he had no authority to introduce any doctrines that disagreed with the Bible. You believed that only Christ could offer you the forgiveness of sins and that when you died, you would only go to one of two places, neither of which was called “purgatory.”
And so, you confessed, or publicly proclaimed either one set of beliefs or the other. Now, no mixing and matching here. This is not a buffet. We’re talking about beliefs that disagree with one another here. You can’t really dilute them or piece them together into some kind of church mosaic. Now, I know today there is a desire by many to attend a church that does not have a denominational label.
And while a number of those churches are doing some really great things, there really is no way to be “non-denominational” because I’m afraid that in the years that followed Martin Luther, about every way you could interpret a teaching of the Bible was claimed by some denomination.
Now, a church can take its denomination name off the sign outside, but there really is no way to take the denomination’s beliefs away from the church’s confession. A confession is what a church teaches and believes publicly.
A number of years ago, a professor by the name of Kurt Marquardt said it like this, "The fact is that there simply is no neutral, undogmatic, generic Gospel, which may then be flavored to taste with denominational additives, say a dash of delicate Anglican mint sauce here, and hearty Lutheran sauerkraut or Baptist okra there.
Every confession of the Gospel is at once and inevitably dogmatic or ‘denominational.’ For no honest presentation of the Gospel can escape the necessity of saying yes or no to basic evangelical ingredients like the power of Baptism, grace alone, universal grace, the Gospel as means of grace or the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Holy Supper for our salvation.
And so to answer the question, what is baptism or what is communion or what is the role of the Holy Spirit today places your thinking in one denomination or the other. If you didn’t take positions on those elements or allowed people to believe anything they wanted, you might be called a non-Christian or, well, a member of the Unity church. But if you go on any church’s website that claims to be without a denomination, even there, you will find a statement of faith.
You will find a confession which articulates specific beliefs. And those beliefs categorize a church as a certain denomination even if it is minus the label.
Now, conservative Christian churches, regardless of denomination, agree certainly more than they disagree. We agree that the Bible is the Word of God, that it is without error, that Jesus Christ was the 2nd member of the Trinity who became flesh, lived a perfect life, died and then rose on the third day. Through faith in Him alone, we have eternal life.
Honestly, when the Augsburg confession was written, the church didn’t even agree on all that. But the “AC,” as it has affectionately come to be called, was written so that there would be no misunderstanding about important matters of faith. Because articulating your beliefs about Jesus and God’s grace and how to be saved really are that important.
In our Romans reading for today, Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” You see, belief in Jesus has a public expression and articulation. No one sneaks into heaven by standing before Jesus on Judgment Day and saying, “Oh yeah, I really did believe the whole time, I just never said anything about it before now.”
What a Confession does, is it publicly identifies your beliefs. It verbalizes the convictions of the heart. It’s one thing to attend a church, it’s something much more to say, I believe what this church teaches. I believe that the confession they’re making about the Bible and Jesus is true and accurate. I believe it because it is also my own.
To confess Jesus is to take a stand for Him. It means that you run the risk of being persecuted or ostracized or looked at in a certain way. In an age of tolerance and open-mindedness, it is sometimes hard to even be the kind of Lutheran who still makes a confession. Yes, it is hard to be a confessional Lutheran.
But the confessions of the Lutheran church ensure that the understandings of Scripture embraced by our church are handed down to the next generation. The confession of our church has not changed in nearly 500 years. There have been several splits in which those who did not wish to honor the confessions left, but there is still a Lutheran Church on earth that holds to the Augsburg Confession.
Now, some of you may walk away today thinking that this morning’s sermon was about being Lutheran. That’s part of my point, but the real focus today is being a Christian who makes a public confession of your faith. In the age of anything goes, it’s hard today to be specific when it comes to religion. But Jesus is the one changeless truth in a constantly evolving world. And there are a lot of opinions out there about who Jesus was – from a revolutionary, to an enlightened teacher to a charismatic leader.
And people can use the Bible to come up with any of those sorts of conclusions. This is why our church makes a specific confession about Jesus – to define Him as the Son of God who was crucified for us on the cross and raised on the third day. This is the Jesus put forth in the Scriptures, believed by the church through the ages and confessed in the Augsburg Confession and by all those who subscribe to that confession to this very day. In His Name. Amen.
Well, we could say, it used to be and I guess in some ways it still is and in some ways it’s not. Lutherans have always held a strange middle ground between Catholicism and the other protestant churches. And truthfully, this is nothing new. Such thinking was present even as far back as Luther’s time when other Christian points of view began to surface.
Today, we commemorate the anniversary of the most important document ever written in the Lutheran Church. I’m afraid to ask how many of you haven’t heard of it for fear of how many hands would go up. Honestly, before I went to seminary, I hadn’t heard of it either. But having learned what it means, I can’t but help to tell you about it because it is what being Lutheran, as opposed to something else, is all about.
There’s a brief history about all this in the bulletin today. Back in 1530, the Emperor over all of Europe wanted all this religious bickering between Catholics and primarily Lutherans to come to an end. He wanted a united Christian empire to go and fight the Muslims, who were now conquering lands very close to the borders of his domain. So, in the month of June, he convened this special meeting and this is where, for the first time, the Lutherans defined how they specifically disagreed with the Catholic Church.
Back in those days, people debated about the truth.
It’s not like today where everyone just gets to have their own version or interpretation. No, in those days, you made a public statement of the faith – you specifically defined what you believed, and maybe just as importantly, what you did not. This became standard after the Lutherans separated from the Catholics because now the confessions of the two churches were different.
If you believed in Catholicism, you believed all the good things you do in life contribute to your going to heaven; you believe that the pope was God’s divinely appointed representative on earth; that he could introduce doctrines that may not agree with the Bible; that you could buy the forgiveness of your sins for money and that when you died, you would go to a place called purgatory to work off all of your mistakes and sins in life.
But if you were Lutheran, you believed you were saved only by Christ’s doing alone, you believed the pope was a humanly appointed leader and that he had no authority to introduce any doctrines that disagreed with the Bible. You believed that only Christ could offer you the forgiveness of sins and that when you died, you would only go to one of two places, neither of which was called “purgatory.”
And so, you confessed, or publicly proclaimed either one set of beliefs or the other. Now, no mixing and matching here. This is not a buffet. We’re talking about beliefs that disagree with one another here. You can’t really dilute them or piece them together into some kind of church mosaic. Now, I know today there is a desire by many to attend a church that does not have a denominational label.
And while a number of those churches are doing some really great things, there really is no way to be “non-denominational” because I’m afraid that in the years that followed Martin Luther, about every way you could interpret a teaching of the Bible was claimed by some denomination.
Now, a church can take its denomination name off the sign outside, but there really is no way to take the denomination’s beliefs away from the church’s confession. A confession is what a church teaches and believes publicly.
A number of years ago, a professor by the name of Kurt Marquardt said it like this, "The fact is that there simply is no neutral, undogmatic, generic Gospel, which may then be flavored to taste with denominational additives, say a dash of delicate Anglican mint sauce here, and hearty Lutheran sauerkraut or Baptist okra there.
Every confession of the Gospel is at once and inevitably dogmatic or ‘denominational.’ For no honest presentation of the Gospel can escape the necessity of saying yes or no to basic evangelical ingredients like the power of Baptism, grace alone, universal grace, the Gospel as means of grace or the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the Holy Supper for our salvation.
And so to answer the question, what is baptism or what is communion or what is the role of the Holy Spirit today places your thinking in one denomination or the other. If you didn’t take positions on those elements or allowed people to believe anything they wanted, you might be called a non-Christian or, well, a member of the Unity church. But if you go on any church’s website that claims to be without a denomination, even there, you will find a statement of faith.
You will find a confession which articulates specific beliefs. And those beliefs categorize a church as a certain denomination even if it is minus the label.
Now, conservative Christian churches, regardless of denomination, agree certainly more than they disagree. We agree that the Bible is the Word of God, that it is without error, that Jesus Christ was the 2nd member of the Trinity who became flesh, lived a perfect life, died and then rose on the third day. Through faith in Him alone, we have eternal life.
Honestly, when the Augsburg confession was written, the church didn’t even agree on all that. But the “AC,” as it has affectionately come to be called, was written so that there would be no misunderstanding about important matters of faith. Because articulating your beliefs about Jesus and God’s grace and how to be saved really are that important.
In our Romans reading for today, Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” You see, belief in Jesus has a public expression and articulation. No one sneaks into heaven by standing before Jesus on Judgment Day and saying, “Oh yeah, I really did believe the whole time, I just never said anything about it before now.”
What a Confession does, is it publicly identifies your beliefs. It verbalizes the convictions of the heart. It’s one thing to attend a church, it’s something much more to say, I believe what this church teaches. I believe that the confession they’re making about the Bible and Jesus is true and accurate. I believe it because it is also my own.
To confess Jesus is to take a stand for Him. It means that you run the risk of being persecuted or ostracized or looked at in a certain way. In an age of tolerance and open-mindedness, it is sometimes hard to even be the kind of Lutheran who still makes a confession. Yes, it is hard to be a confessional Lutheran.
But the confessions of the Lutheran church ensure that the understandings of Scripture embraced by our church are handed down to the next generation. The confession of our church has not changed in nearly 500 years. There have been several splits in which those who did not wish to honor the confessions left, but there is still a Lutheran Church on earth that holds to the Augsburg Confession.
Now, some of you may walk away today thinking that this morning’s sermon was about being Lutheran. That’s part of my point, but the real focus today is being a Christian who makes a public confession of your faith. In the age of anything goes, it’s hard today to be specific when it comes to religion. But Jesus is the one changeless truth in a constantly evolving world. And there are a lot of opinions out there about who Jesus was – from a revolutionary, to an enlightened teacher to a charismatic leader.
And people can use the Bible to come up with any of those sorts of conclusions. This is why our church makes a specific confession about Jesus – to define Him as the Son of God who was crucified for us on the cross and raised on the third day. This is the Jesus put forth in the Scriptures, believed by the church through the ages and confessed in the Augsburg Confession and by all those who subscribe to that confession to this very day. In His Name. Amen.
Presentation of the Augsburg Confession
Romans 10:5 - 17
All Rights Reserved 2007 Holy Shepherd Lutheran Church