WEBVTT 00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:08.640 Well, tonight we've gathered to celebrate the Reformation, not just as a historical marker, but as a spiritual awakening. 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:15.279 And we've eaten together as a taste of that glorious eternity that we'll share. 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:23.440 And Isaiah 25 says that the best of meats, the choicest of meats, will be served in that eternal banquet. 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:28.960 Well, our brisket and ribs are only a little bit of a taste of what that's going to be like. 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:32.240 But we've sung hymns that delight in our Savior. 00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:34.079 We've listened to Scripture. 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:41.920 We've heard four of the five solas that continue to root and give us form as a body of Christ. 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:49.200 And I want us to turn this evening back to the Reformation, not from a particularly theological point of view. 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:54.799 Sometimes in our Reformation celebrations, we've had sermons on particular passages. 00:00:54.799 --> 00:01:03.600 We've had talks about the Reformation in Germany, for instance, from Christian Andresen, who came from Berlin for us. 00:01:03.600 --> 00:01:11.519 Tonight I want us to look at some of the effect of the Reformation in society, even in our society to this day. 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:19.519 And in order to begin to do that, I want to take you back to a quiet town in Germany, October 31st, 1517. 00:01:19.519 --> 00:01:29.760 And there a monk by the name of Martin Luther walked up to the castle church door in Wittenberg and with a parchment in his hand. 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:34.239 He wasn't trying to start a revolution. 00:01:34.239 --> 00:01:37.280 He wasn't looking to start a reformation. 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:43.920 He wasn't trying to be the head of a church other than the one that he grew up in. 00:01:43.920 --> 00:01:47.439 He wanted to call the church back to truth. 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:57.680 And he wrote in Latin 95 theses or 95 statements that were a call for debate among fellow scholars. 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:03.519 He wanted to talk to them about what he saw as the abuses of indulgences. 00:02:03.519 --> 00:02:05.920 He wanted a conversation. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:07.920 He wanted to bring clarity. 00:02:07.920 --> 00:02:14.000 And that request for debate was largely ignored by his fellow scholars. 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:17.919 But it did catch the attention of some people in the town. 00:02:17.919 --> 00:02:20.960 One of them, particularly, was a printer. 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:35.280 And that printer took those 95 theses, translated them into German, and began, without permission from anyone, to print them and distribute them around the town, and they took off. 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:42.960 And the match of Luther's call for reform struck a pile of dry wood and a fire began to spread. 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:52.000 And that moment, grounded in Scripture, born out of the conscience of one man, became the turning point of history. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:03:01.199 And the Reformation began as a theological awakening, but its influences reached and reacher still to our generation. 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:10.800 Its effects spread into education, into politics, into economics, into culture, as well as church reform. 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:17.280 It shaped people's spiritual understanding, of course, and we'll see how. 00:03:17.280 --> 00:05:18.160 And that's why Luther translated the Bible into German. 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:24.720 And that's why Tyndale risked his life to bring the scriptures into the English language. 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:32.319 And that's why Calvin, when he preached, didn't preach in Latin but preached in the language of the people. 00:05:32.319 --> 00:05:38.639 They believed that the authority of Scripture demanded accessibility. 00:05:38.639 --> 00:05:42.879 The accessibility required literacy. 00:05:42.879 --> 00:06:00.720 Tyndale once said in England to a clergyman, if God spares my life, before many years I will cause a boy who drives the plow to know more of Scripture than you do. 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:07.360 Now, Tyndale wasn't boasting there, and he wasn't trying to taunt this man either. 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:15.199 What he was was saying that he was determined for the Bible to take root in every strata of society. 00:06:15.199 --> 00:06:20.720 That it didn't need to stay in the towers, it needed to be in the trenches. 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:28.160 And it wasn't just the reserve of the priests, it was meant for all the people, including the plowboy. 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:36.399 And he had a determination to see a world where the word of God shaped the minds and the hearts of ordinary people. 00:06:36.399 --> 00:06:40.079 Farmers, mothers, merchants, children. 00:06:40.079 --> 00:06:47.120 Everybody needed the Word of God and needed to read the Word of God. 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:57.439 Michael Horton, a theologian, wrote the Reformation of the 16th century was founded upon the authority of Scripture, and it set the world aflame. 00:06:57.439 --> 00:07:06.720 And so their dependence upon Scripture was not a retreat from culture, it became a catalyst for the transformation. 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:12.639 And so the Reformation had alongside of it a literacy movement. 00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:15.040 Schools began to be founded. 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:21.360 Catechisms, which people in a lot of our day think are simply those in some denominations. 00:07:21.360 --> 00:07:27.839 But in the Reformation, they wrote these catechisms so that even the children might know the scriptures. 00:07:27.839 --> 00:07:31.360 And the printing press became a pulpit itself. 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:43.920 The idea that every person should be able to read was rooted not in civic life, but started out of a spiritual root, the route to the Reformation. 00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:55.120 Now we take it for granted now in our generation and in our society, an expectation that every child should be able to read, but that is a fruit of the Reformation itself. 00:07:55.120 --> 00:08:06.720 Martin Luther urged the political figures of his day, the magistrates, to establish schools so that children might be taught the scriptures. 00:08:06.720 --> 00:08:14.720 John Calvin formed the Academy of Geneva, which became a center for learning. 00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:21.759 Because the Reformers believed that literacy was not just a civic good, it was a spiritual necessity. 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:26.639 And their educational methods were reflected in their theology. 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:33.200 Sola Scriptura demanded that every believer be equipped to read and understand the word. 00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:36.799 And that meant children and lay people. 00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:42.320 And so for them, catechisms became key. 00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:48.879 For adults and church leaders, confessions of faith served as summaries and even for some standards of doctrine. 00:08:48.879 --> 00:08:59.120 Out of the Reformation grew Luther's small and large catechisms, Calvin's Geneva Catechism, the Westminster Standards in England. 00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:09.440 The Continental Reformed tradition adopted the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort, all tools that helped shape a generation of believers. 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:13.440 The Reformation also transformed universities. 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:20.399 Medieval scholasticism gave way to biblically founded theology. 00:09:20.399 --> 00:09:30.240 The translations of Scripture elevated all the vernacular languages and accelerated linguistic studies in Greek and Hebrew. 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:44.720 And so places that were already formed, like in Wittenberg and Oxford, became transformed, as did newer universities that grew up in Zurich and Heidelberg and Edinburgh. 00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:50.080 And when the Puritans came over to New England, they brought this educational vision with them. 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:53.519 And in 1640, Harvard was started. 00:09:53.519 --> 00:10:02.000 And a founding statement declared that they started it because they feared, quote, an illiterate ministry to the churches. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:06.399 They wanted the ministers founded in the Word of God. 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:10.639 And today, International Mission still carries that. 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:26.960 You can go to Wycliffe Translators, or you can even go to our mission wall and see Kevin and Sarah and Matt and Sharina, who are working to establish a school in the very place where they're preaching the gospel. 00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:40.879 And so the Reformers didn't just recover doctrine, they recovered a responsibility to hear the word as well as live it and know it. 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:50.960 Another aspect that reverberates into our age is the priesthood of all believers and the rise of conscience, a social conscience. 00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:53.840 Listen to these words out of 1 Peter. 00:10:53.840 --> 00:11:00.000 You're a chosen race, a royal nation, a holy nation, a people. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.720 Sorry, let me start over. 00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:16.639 You're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 00:11:16.639 --> 00:11:30.480 Now those words, chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, a people for his own possession, those verses don't describe a select few number. 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:36.000 They describe every believer, the whole church. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:47.039 Whether you're young or old, educated or untrained, if you're called to Christ, you have been made one of his chosen race. 00:11:47.039 --> 00:11:50.320 You've been made one of the royal priesthood. 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:53.279 You've been made a part of the holy nation. 00:11:53.279 --> 00:11:58.720 You have become one of the people for his possession. 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:02.960 And this truth was central to the Reformation. 00:12:02.960 --> 00:12:10.960 Luther taught that every Christian has direct access to God through Christ Himself. 00:12:10.960 --> 00:12:16.480 He did not and she did not need to rely upon a priestly mediator. 00:12:16.480 --> 00:12:23.039 There was no spiritual hierarchy that could stand between the believer and the throne of grace. 00:12:23.039 --> 00:12:28.480 And so this teaching didn't just change church structure. 00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:29.840 Think about it. 00:12:29.840 --> 00:12:33.919 What it transformed was how people saw themselves. 00:12:33.919 --> 00:12:38.559 I can go directly to God. 00:12:38.559 --> 00:12:40.720 Right? 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:50.000 And it gave dignity to the ordinary person, it gave weight to their personal conscience. 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:57.840 And it taught that every person was also accountable to God alone. 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:07.039 And that accountability also led them not only to careful responsibility, but also to courage. 00:13:07.039 --> 00:13:18.080 And so at the Diet of Verms, Luther stood before the emperor and said to him, My conscience is captive to the word of God. 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:22.960 Now that wasn't defiance, that was conviction. 00:13:22.960 --> 00:13:40.399 It was conviction that God and God alone is the one to whom he should give his mind and his heart and his behavior, not to the dictates of men, even if it meant suffering. 00:13:40.399 --> 00:14:00.960 And it elevated the conscience not in the way that we have been taught in our day, as it is your truth and your conscience, and it is autonomous, but rather it is responsible to God who's made us all. 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:08.480 The conscience must be formed by scripture and bound by truth. 00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:14.879 Paul said in Galatians 5:1, for freedom Christ has set us free. 00:14:14.879 --> 00:14:21.360 Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:25.519 You see, freedom is not license, as we're told these days. 00:14:25.519 --> 00:14:28.799 Freedom is responsibility. 00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:42.320 But this doctrine, as it grew, helped people to realize that they had the freedom to live under God's authority and not to give themselves to human manipulation. 00:14:42.320 --> 00:14:46.799 And that bore fruit in democratic participation. 00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:53.919 It bore fruit in the insistence that governments must respect the agency of their citizens. 00:14:53.919 --> 00:15:02.639 And it also gave birth to the idea that truth cannot be coerced, it must be embraced. 00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:19.519 And so the reformers, in teaching this doctrine, also helped to see a change in society because believers began to live like they were, priests before God. 00:15:19.519 --> 00:15:28.399 They were able, again, to speak truth with conviction and to follow Christ with a clear conscience. 00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:44.559 Whatever you do, do it heartily. 00:15:44.559 --> 00:15:49.120 As for the Lord and not for men, Paul said in Colossians 3 23. 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:55.919 Paul, there, when he was speaking, wasn't just speaking to ministers and to missionaries. 00:15:55.919 --> 00:16:02.240 He was telling us that this doesn't just apply to the clergy, it applies to the carpenter. 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:13.279 It applies to teachers and nurses and accountants and parents and business owners and those whose realm of service is in the home in which they live. 00:16:13.279 --> 00:16:24.240 The reformers understood that work was not a distraction from spiritual life, it was the arena of their worship. 00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:29.200 Ephesians 2.10. 00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:38.480 We're his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God beforehand prepared, that we should walk in them. 00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:58.720 The effect of that, as it grew root into the churches that came out of the Reformation and move even to churches in our day, is for us to understand that our work and our labor is not random and it is not meaningless at all. 00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:03.279 Everything we do is a part of God's design. 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:07.920 And the Reformation helped us to recover that truth. 00:17:07.920 --> 00:17:17.039 The reformers rejected the idea that was common in their day that only religious work was sacred. 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:22.079 They saw all work as worship. 00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:31.440 Luther taught that the milkmaid and the magistrate both served God in their daily duties. 00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:39.839 And Calvin emphasized work as a calling and not just a career. 00:17:39.839 --> 00:17:52.720 Richard Sibbs, an English Puritan, wrote, the whole life of a Christian should be nothing but praises and thanks to God. 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:57.839 Work for God, talk for God, live for God. 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:03.759 And that vision reshaped how people approached their jobs. 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:18.079 What it helped them to understand was that in their work they were to be diligent, and in their work they were to show integrity, and in their work they were to act as stewards in all that they did. 00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:31.279 And it challenges this idea that somehow our success is measured by our status, or our success is measured by our bank account. 00:18:31.279 --> 00:18:38.319 It establishes the idea that our success is measured in our Christ-centered faithfulness. 00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:56.079 And so if you never get known or never get rich, but are faithful in the work that you do and you do it heartily as to the Lord, then you will enter into the glories of heaven with joy and not shame. 00:18:56.079 --> 00:19:11.599 This is the foundation of what some have called the Protestant work ethic, which is not meant to be a drive for wealth, but a commitment to excellence, a commitment to responsibility, a commitment to service. 00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:18.559 And so work became a way to glorify God and a means by which you could bless other people. 00:19:18.559 --> 00:19:34.000 And that quote echoes Luther's own imagery, doesn't it? 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:39.119 And it reminds us that God works through ordinary people doing ordinary tasks. 00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:42.880 And that truth still bears fruit today. 00:19:42.880 --> 00:19:54.160 I wish I could have stopped my car and written this down, but in 2011, I was driving my car in London, which demanded more than enough of my attention. 00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:57.440 And I was listening to the BBC. 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:12.079 And on the BBC was uh a talk, a radio talk about a documentary titled Civilization Is the West History by a man by the name of Neil Ferguson. 00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:19.279 And in that radio talk, uh Neil Ferguson was talking about some factories. 00:20:19.279 --> 00:20:22.799 And I, if you're from China and I say this wrong, please correct me. 00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:24.640 Winzhou, China. 00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:26.160 Is that close enough? 00:20:26.160 --> 00:20:27.279 Anybody? 00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:37.759 And there was some there was a factory work, a factory owner there who noticed that there were some differences among a particular group of people that were working in his factory. 00:20:37.759 --> 00:20:44.000 They were unusually honest, they were unusually diligent, and they were unusually cooperative. 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:47.519 They were giving more than the others were giving. 00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:51.200 And he was curious as to what was going on. 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:58.480 And he approached these particular uh workers in his factory and found out that they were Christians. 00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:02.880 And found out that they were reformed Christians. 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:12.559 And their work ethic that was marked by integrity and also by joy stood out clearly among the rest of the workers in the factory. 00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:21.599 And he found out that as these men worked and these women worked, that the factory was actually producing more. 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:26.079 And there was for him some residual benefits, profits. 00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:32.799 But he wanted to know what made them so different. 00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:44.160 And Neil Ferguson in this radio broadcast went on to say that some government officials began to discover that this one factory was producing more than other factories were. 00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:58.480 And that factory owner and those government officials went to Europe with this question: tell us more about the Reformation, because we want to know what it is that made that make these workers do this. 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:00.960 They saw a difference. 00:22:00.960 --> 00:22:22.240 They saw the fruit of the gospel and how these people valued productivity, about how they found meaning in the midst of their labor, and how they approached their jobs, not just as a duty, but as an expression of their discipleship before the Lord. 00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:32.880 Royal and I have sung it for years, and uh it's probably best it's kept to just Royal and me when we sing it. 00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:36.160 But little is much when God is in it. 00:22:36.160 --> 00:22:38.640 Labor not for wealth or fame. 00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:44.400 There's a crown, and you can win it if you go in Jesus' name. 00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:55.519 The fourth way the Reformation has affected our society today is through political realignment and the rise of religious freedom. 00:22:55.519 --> 00:22:57.759 Let me begin with a verse. 00:22:57.759 --> 00:22:59.599 Romans 13:1. 00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:09.519 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there's no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:16.880 Now, this verse reminds us that government is not a human invention, it's a divine provision. 00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.200 God has given it to society. 00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:26.319 He gave it to society so that we might live an ordered and peaceable existence in this world. 00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:32.880 But it also raises for us a question and creates for us a tension. 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:40.000 What happens when the earthly authority contradicts the divine authority? 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:45.039 The apostles answered that in Acts chapter 5 and verse 29. 00:23:45.039 --> 00:23:48.720 We must obey God rather than men. 00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:52.240 And that's a tension, isn't it? 00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:56.319 It's a tension between submission and conviction. 00:23:56.319 --> 00:24:02.400 And that was attention not only in our day, but back in the Reformation itself. 00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:11.279 And when Luther stood before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, he wasn't just challenging church doctrine. 00:24:11.279 --> 00:24:21.440 He was standing against a system in which religious authority and political power were intertwined. 00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:37.279 And his refusal to recant was based in his theological fidelity, but it also began to fracture this political connection to the religious authority of his day. 00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:48.400 And what it began to do is it began to allow nations to redefine and to define on their own their religious identity. 00:24:48.400 --> 00:25:05.759 That the rulers would be able to choose for themselves the realm's religion. 00:25:05.759 --> 00:25:14.559 And beyond that, it began to breed the idea that dissenters, even of that religion, had rights. 00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:25.279 And so out of the Reformation began the beginning, began religious pluralism as we know it. 00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:31.200 It's part of the very fabric of our nation's beginning. 00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:44.400 It was the idea that a conscience should not be coerced, that faith shouldn't be demanded but embraced. 00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:52.160 That governor governments and governors must respect the spiritual convictions of their citizens. 00:25:52.160 --> 00:25:57.599 One historian, Alec Briy, wrote this. 00:25:57.599 --> 00:26:09.359 He said, The Reformation taught people to think for themselves, to challenge authority, and to take personal responsibility for their beliefs. 00:26:09.359 --> 00:26:25.359 We see the fruit of that doctrine in our day in constitutional democracies, in the principle of religious liberty, in the conviction that the church is not to be a tool of the state, but rather a witness of the truth of the gospel. 00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:29.839 And so the reformers rediscovered a principle. 00:26:29.839 --> 00:26:33.039 Yes, that Christ alone is Lord. 00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:42.400 He alone is Lord of the conscience and Lord alone of the church, and no earthly power should ever take its place. 00:26:42.400 --> 00:26:53.039 The last one, and we looked at this a couple years ago, so I'll keep this one rather brief, is the cultural renewal of music. 00:26:53.039 --> 00:27:06.960 Let the words of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:09.359 Colossians 3 16. 00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:24.480 A people who are shaped by the truth, a people that are gathered in worship, a people whose voices and hearts together are lifted up in song. 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:36.319 You may not know this, but prior to the Reformation, singing in church was largely confined to the clergy or to trained professional choirs alone. 00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:41.440 The laity were silent. 00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:48.960 Worship was something they watched, not something they participated in. 00:27:48.960 --> 00:27:58.319 The music was in Latin, the melodies were complex, and the congregation was at a distance. 00:27:58.319 --> 00:28:03.680 The Reformation changed all that. 00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:13.039 The first congregational singing in centuries happened because of the Reformation. 00:28:13.039 --> 00:28:15.119 What we did this evening. 00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:17.279 Happily singing. 00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:27.279 They believed that the church worship was the activity of all of God's people, not just a select few. 00:28:27.279 --> 00:28:38.880 Martin Luther himself, a gifted musician, composed hymns in the language of the people with simple melodies that all the congregation could sing. 00:28:38.880 --> 00:28:49.759 He wanted the truths of scripture to be carried by the church, not just in their minds, but in their hearts and in their mouths. 00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:55.119 And he wrote this: he said, Next to the word of God, music deserves the highest praise. 00:28:55.119 --> 00:28:59.119 He called music the handmaiden of theology. 00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:05.759 And so his hymns were not just beautiful, they were, but they were also doctrinal. 00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:16.559 They taught the gospel and they gave voice to faith and they helped people to know that they shared the act of worship together as God's people. 00:29:16.559 --> 00:29:24.720 And the Reformation moved the congregation from passive listeners to active participants. 00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:36.640 And it allowed the people to take these melodies to their homes and to sing them among their families and to sing them in the fields in which they worked or walked. 00:29:36.640 --> 00:29:41.519 And it also took them to the places where they suffered. 00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:59.759 The Reformation, this renewal of congregational singing, also brought into our society the rise of scripture in our poetry and prose, our literature peppered with the word of God. 00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:10.880 Because the word of God spread as literacy spread, and people began to read and to learn to read the Bible as they learned to read. 00:30:10.880 --> 00:30:14.480 And as they sang, they sang the scriptures. 00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:33.920 And so when they began to think and to write and to give it, whether be it poetry or prose, the language that was there from their earliest awareness was the language which they put into the things that they themselves would bring to other generations. 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:53.039 We've walked through five ways, very briefly, mind you, of how the Reformation has shaped our world: conscience, vocation, governance, culture, and worship. 00:30:53.039 --> 00:31:00.319 But at the heart of it is this one conviction the word of God is alive and active. 00:31:00.319 --> 00:31:04.640 Let me remind us of what Luther said. 00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:09.440 I simply taught and preached and wrote God's word. 00:31:09.440 --> 00:31:11.839 Otherwise, I did nothing. 00:31:11.839 --> 00:31:14.559 God's word did everything. 00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:20.240 It is the heartbeat of the Reformation because the Word did the work. 00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:22.799 And it's the heartbeat of who we are. 00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:27.039 The word is central because it reveals to us our God. 00:31:27.039 --> 00:31:34.079 And it reveals to us his plan and purposes for this world and for eternity. 00:31:34.079 --> 00:31:48.000 Reveals to us that he is a God who graciously saves the undeserving, receives them to himself because of Christ who gave himself up for sinners. 00:31:48.000 --> 00:32:03.759 The Reformation wasn't meant to be more than just a conversation among one scholar to a few others, but it lit a match that has flamed all the way into our day. 00:32:03.759 --> 00:32:08.720 It was a movement of truth and a movement of grace and a movement of renewal. 00:32:08.720 --> 00:32:11.279 And we don't want to just remember that. 00:32:11.279 --> 00:32:13.759 We want to reconnect to it. 00:32:13.759 --> 00:32:24.079 We want to connect to it by affirming ourselves that the only authority to which we bow is that of Scripture alone. 00:32:24.079 --> 00:32:29.680 That the only Savior that we count in this world is Christ alone. 00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:36.559 That the only means by which we might have hope is by grace alone. 00:32:36.559 --> 00:32:44.240 And that the only response to God is one of faith and faith alone. 00:32:44.240 --> 00:32:50.240 And that we do so for the glory of God alone. 00:32:50.240 --> 00:33:00.079 And so we're a church that will sing that truth and live that truth and speak that truth with courage and joy until the Lord calls us home. 00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:01.519 May it be so. 00:33:01.519 --> 00:33:06.720 Let us uh now hear a scripture reading Solido Gloria.