Today is Reformation Sunday.  Not just here at Reformation Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, but in churches all over the world. Today is the day every year when we remember the work of Martin Luther, the monk who made it big in 16^th century Germany, and the subsequent “reforms” that occurred in the church.  Martin Luther caused a lot of changes – reforms to occur in the Church, and that’s what we remember on Reformation Sunday.

     Look up in your Bibles, Romans 3:23-24.  Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”  The Romans lesson for Reformation Day is one of the great texts of the Reformation tradition.  It is one of those passages that had so much influence on Martin Luther. As a monk, when he was struggling with how he was ever going to get right with God, God spoke to him through these words in Paul’s letter to the Romans.  God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ.  God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all, all have sinned and are far away from God’s saving presence.  But by the free gift of God’s grace, they are put right with God through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.

     This doctrine is called JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH.  Some call this the “Lutheran doctrine.”  If somebody asks you, “What is a Lutheran?” tell him or her that Lutherans are people who believe in justification by grace.  Of course we’re not the only people who believe this.  This doctrine is central to all of Christianity, but Lutherans talk about it a lot.  We are put right (justified) with God as we accept the gift of life that God offers us. By the grace of God, righteousness has been set loose in this world.

     When Luther rediscovered this great Biblical truth, he didn’t keep it to himself.  He told everybody.  It wasn’t supposed to be a secret.  He started out with writing his ideas down on a piece of paper and nailing them to the door of the church in Wittenberg, so that they could be debated.  Everywhere Luther went, he talked about the grace of God.  Luther was a prolific writer, publishing hundreds of books and tracts.  You couldn’t keep the man quiet!  He translated the Bible and the worship service into German so that his people could understand them.  He had a passion to spread this Good News.  God loves you!  Period!  That was the message.

     We know the same truth about our relationship with God, and we can’t keep quiet about it either. When you hear some good News, you’ve got to tell other people about it.  We want others to know.  God loves them!  Period. 

     The missionary Paul was sent out by God for a purpose.  What God sent Paul to do was to tell other people the Good News, and Paul was especially sent to outsiders, to people he didn’t know, people all around the Mediterranean, he  went out and taught them the Good News that God has saved them.  That was his mission. The Bible has a word for this kind of mission, and the word is “Evangelism”.  Now, one thing Christians and non-Christians have in common is neither of them like that word “evangelism” because it makes you think of guys with really big hair who shout real loud on ‘TV and say “You’all send me your money!”  But that’s not what evangelism is.  Evangelism is just the Greek word for “good news.”  That’s all it means.  It means good news.  And so the Bible says that once I know the Good News ---- that God loves me, has a purpose for my life – God wants me to pass it on, sharing the Good News with others.

     In “The Purpose Driven Life” Rick Warren talks about Evangelism.  He says that we were made for a mission.  And he is using the concept of mission to mean the ways in which God sends us to outsiders. We’ve been talking about these previous weeks about how we worship together and about how we come together for fellowship and about how we serve each other, but God also has a purpose for us to reach out to people who are on the outside. Warren says that our mission is to be evangelists.  To share the Good News. To let other people know about the love of God.  This is part of our purpose in life.  Not to keep the Good News to ourselves, but to share it. That’s called evangelism.

     There is a school of thought in our country that says that religion is a private matter.  You should never talk about it.  How are you not going to talk about the most important thing in your life?  How are you gong to keep the loves of God quiet?  I know, I know there are evangelists who spread the word of God in ways that are unnecessarily offensive.  They pester you with it.  They beat you over the head with it.  They yell it out to you on bull horns.  Our mission is to spread a message of love,  but if you don’t spread it to others in a loving way, they’re never going to get the message. So we have to find loving ways to do it, but we have to do it.  We can’t keep it to ourselves.  This is too important.  God is sending us to do something.  Part of our purpose is to spread the Good News. That’s what evangelism is.

       Everything we’ve been talking about for the last 40 days, God says, “Once you understand it, I want you to pass it on to other people.  I want you to share the Good News.”

     Where am I supposed to share it.  Look at a very important verse from the book of Acts (1:8)  You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.   Now when Jesus told this to his followers, do you know where they were? There were in Jerusalem.  So here’s the point. He is saying, I want you to start at home.  I want you to start with the people closest to you, right there in your own house, in your own family, in your own city, your own community.  Then he says I want you to go to Judea and Samaria, that’s like the country next door, and Samaritans happen to be different culturally and different ethnically.  So he said, I want you to go to people nearby, but people who are different form you.  Then he says, I want you to go the ends of the earth. I want you to go reach everybody else.

      There is a story where God is in heaven and an angel comes up and God says, “My plan is to give the Good News to my children on earth and ask them to share it.”  And the angel says, “What if they don’t? What is plan B/” And God says, “There is no plan B.”

     We’re it!  Sharing the Good News is one of our purposes in life.  God puts us here so that we can do some things and one of those things is to share the Good News with others.

     So let’s get started on this part of our purpose.  Get started by sharing with the people who are closest to you.  There’s a guy whom Jesus healed.  And after Jesus healed him he wanted to travel with Jesus and Jesus said, “No, I don’t want you to do that.”  In Luke 8, he said this, “Go back home and tell people how much God has done for you.”  So that man went all over town telling how much Jesus had done for him. The man wanted to follow Jesus, but Jesus told him in order to do that he had to go back home. Jesus says the same thing to you.  You know where your mission starts?  Right at home; it starts in your own neighborhood, in your own community. God wants you to go to your friends, your family, your coworkers, your neighbors, anybody who crosses your path, the person you met in the store, the one who helps you in the market.  God says “I want you to share with the people first in your Jerusalem, with the people in your home.” 

     I know this is hard.  We are reluctant.  There are a couple of reasons for our reluctance.  One reason is because we believe the myth that people aren’t interested in spiritual issues.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Every single poll and every single survey says Americans are more interested in spiritual thins now than they were ten years ago.  Not less, but more interested in spiritual issues.  George Gallup did a survey and discovered that 65 million Americans have no church home, but 34 million of them said they would attend if somebody would just invite them.  34 million just waiting for an invitation!   A lot of those people are people you know.  That’s where you get started.  God has put you here for a purpose: to share the Good News with the other people in your life.

     We have a goal of reaching 100 new members this year.  We’ve been doing fairly well, but we still have a ways to go.  We could still reach this goal.  Members of this congregation know thousands of other people.  Witness to them.  Tell them about what God is doing in your life.  And invite them.  Tell them you have a church who believes in the Good News that God loves us even though we are sinners.  Invite them to come and hear the Good News.  What we know is too good to keep to ourselves.  I’m telling you, this is what God wants you to do.  This is our purpose, our mission.  Thanks be to God!

©2005 Reformation Lutheran Church.http://www.welcomeplace.org/
last updated 10/31/2005