It's going to be a magic. It starts to get to an affirmation of disturbances four times a year, just to have you come and play. How long have you been playing the pipe? A few years. Since you were three. You play it well. Thank you so much for me with this day. It's not enough you've heard about this. It hasn't been much media coverage of it, but there's an election coming up next Tuesday, a week from Tuesday. Last week I said it was nine days. I lost track of the week. You know I'm mathematically challenged. So you probably haven't heard much about it. There's an election coming up a week from this Tuesday. If you are, if you're a supporter, this is a pivotal election. I have, I hear these words a lot. I've never said these words before, but I will say I believe this is the most important election in my lifetime. And I have been around since the Roosevelt administration. Teddies. If you're a supporter of, this is my prediction. If it's over the Wednesday after, and I pray, please let it be over the Wednesday after, please don't let us hold it up down here in Florida. But here's my prediction for you. Okay, you can write this down. If you're a supporter of President Obama, and Mitt Romney wins, the words you didn't build that will be seared in your consciousness forever. And if you're a supporter of Mitt Romney, and President Obama wins, the words 47% will be seared into your consciousness forever. By the way, there's no charge for my political acumen. It's just, you can have that for free. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, the words we're about to read this morning, need to be seared into our consciences. We're reading from Romans chapter 1, verses 16 and 17, Paul writes, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written. The righteous will live by faith. Let's pray. Father, I am grateful for all you've done for us, throughout our long history, our heritage, right here in this church, right here for this congregation. Now I ask that by your mercies, by the power of your spirit, that you would speak through me, speak to each and every one of our hearts, myself included, sir, the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God abides forever, Lord, that you would speak that word to each and every one of us, so that when we leave this place today, we'll not only know more that we'd be more like Jesus, the living word, it's my prayer and Jesus name. Well, it's not only Friendship Sunday. Again, if you're here because somebody has made an invitation to you, thank you, if you did the inviting, thank you for doing that. It's great to see a lot of you. Well, some of you, it's okay. It's great to see a lot of you back here for the first time in a while. It's not only Friendship Sunday, but today is what we call Reformation Sunday. That's why we've done some of the things we've done this morning while we've invited Patrick here to play the Pipe Sources about our heritage, our heritage as a reformed people. Some of you will know this. This is ancient history, but let me just review a couple of facts for you. It was on October 31st in the year 1517, that a German professor by the name of Martin Luther went to the cathedral. Not yet, guys. You're ahead of me. Take it down, Ronald. You know, that a German professor by the name of Martin Luther went to the cathedral there in the little German town of Vittenburg, and he nailed a skull to the door of the cathedral in 95 theses, 95 issues he wanted to debate. He nailed that to the door of the cathedral there on October 31st, 1517, more than any one single event, and there were plenty of others, more than any other one single event. This act of Luther's was what put the match to the fuse that launched what we call the Protestant Reformation. It changed the course of church history, it changed the course of Western civilization, it changed the course of the world. 495 years ago, almost to the day, or about the same amount of times Chicago Cubs have been waiting for a World Series pendant, that's another story. 495 years ago, almost to the day, the Protestant Reformation began. Now we hear there were Protestant, most of us just rolls right by us, the protestant Reformation. What were they protesting exactly that makes it the Protestant Reformation? Well, and again, if you've heard this before, bear with me. I was not raised with this stuff. I was not raised with this, so when I go back through our history as a tradition, it's wonderful to me to know these things. So if you know this before, you know this from before, bear with me. To me, this is like going through my family genealogy and finding out that my great, great, great, great, great, whatever grandfather was a revolutionary war hero or something. So this is family history to me, and I find it exciting. I hope you will as well. In the early 16th century, the dominant church hierarchy had become terribly corrupt. Excuse me, they had a man in the authority of the Scriptures. They had a man in the authority of the Bible. And when you do that, some other man-made authority will move in to fill the vacuum. The Scripture moves out. Something else will move in to fill that vacuum. And other man-made authority, other man-made traditions moved into that vacuum. And when that happens, corruption always follows always. And the center of the storm was, it was a big one, was the church's teaching that man could be made right before God, justified, in other words, justified, made right before God by his own efforts, that we could do certain things and not do certain other things. And those things would make you right before God. In other words, you could be made right by your works, your efforts. Do these good things, avoid these bad things, and that can make you right in the sight of God. The worst of it was, the worst abuse of that was that people were going through that Europe with pieces of paper that they called indulgences. And they were told that if you will spend some money on this piece of paper, the church can get your loved ones out of purgatory. Or you can shave some time off your purgatory for yourself. Just spend a little money on this piece of paper and we'll take care of that. People were ignorant at that time, not stupid, but ignorant. Largely illiterate, they could not read the Bible for themselves and so a lot of them fell for it. And here's the backstory. What was really going on was that in 1506, the construction had begun on St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. If any of you have been there, I envy you with a good Christian envy. I have not been there, I've seen the pictures, I understand this magnificent. They had begun construction in 1506 and even back then, building projects were expensive. So in order to finance the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, that's why these guys were going through that Europe and selling these indulgences. Well, the idea of having to fork over money to pay for somebody else's building project did not go well. If you really want to make a German mad, just try fleecing him for somebody else's form building project. And so the people were already unhappy, they were seething unrest over this. They didn't know their Bible, but they knew this didn't feel right. And so when Professor Luther, a monk, and I'll just didn't even monk, stepped forward and said, I'm challenging this. Not in my ballpark, I said it in German, but you get the idea. He said, this is not going to play here in Germany. And so he put the 95 issues, the 95 theses on that skull and the door of the cathedral. And people said, no, that's what I'm talking about. Again, they said in German, but that's the idea. They said, that's what we think. And now we have a champion. And so Martin Luther, a monk, a commoner, stepped up and challenged the powers of church and state because at that time they were one. Once again, it's a dangerous thing when church and state are one. It should not happen. He challenged the powers of church and state. One, the old commoner, one peasant, challenged the powers of church and state and lived to tell about it. And historians will tell you, this is when the modern era began, because this had never happened before. And one lone man stood up and confronted the powers of church and state. Luther and the other reformers, John Calvin, Philip Millington, John Knox and the others, they lived and many of them died for the truth of their cause. And they rallied around these five causes. Okay, these five principles, as you'd say. They're known by their Latin words, sola. It just means only. And the five rallying cries, the five principles. Now you see them on the screen. The five rallying cries, the five principles, five solas of the reformation were. Solas, scripture, only scripture. Solas, feeday, only faith. Solas, gratia, only grace. Solas, Christus, only Christ. Soliday, O Gloria. To God alone be the glory. Are you writing this down? Get this in your average Presbyterian church. And in no Baptist churches at all when you get this. Okay, I hope you're good in this. What was it that transformed Martin Luther and the other reformers from who they were? And frankly, Martin Luther. Martin Luther was raised by a very, very overbearing father. Today we would have called him abusive, very overbearing father. Martin Luther's mind, God was just a big, expansion, a big projection of his own father. And so even as a monk, he hated God. He thought God was an ober. God was going to with him for his sins. And calling to account, Martin Luther tried to love God, tried to serve him. Just hated him. Abused his body terribly, tried to show God how sorry he was for his sins. He would literally, on these cold, bitterly cold German nights, he would go outside and take the robe off and whip his back with brambles, and rolled in the snow to show God how much he was sorry for his sins, for which he accomplished the fact that he then hated God all the more, requiring that of him until he was studying the Book of Romans and the original language, the Greek language in his eyes fell on that verse I read you earlier, Romans 1, 16 and 17, the just or the righteous will live by faith. Verse 17, for in the gospel, our righteousness from God is revealed, our righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith. Those words changed Martin Luther's life, they changed the church of church history, they changed the world, the righteous will live by faith. It's actually a quote from the little old Testament book of Habakkuk, I see a show of hands of all of you who are reading Habakkuk this morning, or this week, or this month, or ever. Habakkuk 2.4, the righteous will live by faith. Well, in the Hebrew language of Habakkuk, it's three words, and the Greek language, Martin Luther was reading it at the time, it's six words, it's six words in English, I have no idea how many in Latin. Three words, or six words, that change Martin Luther's life, that change the world, those words should be seared into our consciousness, ladies and gentlemen, the righteous will live by faith. The righteous, you've heard me say, the justified or the just, I will use those terms interchangeably. The righteous or the just shall live by faith. Let me just talk about that for a few minutes. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, Paul writes, because it's the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. The gospel message is the one way God has chosen to save the world, period. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity who became flesh, came among us, born as a baby, and Bethlehem's stable, grew up as a man, a common peasant Jewish carpenter, had a three year preaching career teaching and preaching and doing miracles, lived a perfect sin in this life, was crucified on a Roman cross beam, died, and was resurrected again, and he did all of that to pay for our sins, to open the gates to heaven, and that is the message, ladies and gentlemen, that is the one message by which God has chosen to accomplish his salvation in the world. That's it, that's the only one. There are no others. Somebody says, well, that's just a terrible narrow mind of you. That's just very rigid and intolerant judgmental. How could you say something like that? I have a good friend who's a teacher, a professor of literature, and she asked me at one time, she said, how can you believe there's only one way? That's been a few years now, and you know, I answered a question. The answer I gave her, I mean, it was okay, it made sense, but I thought about it, it was not a persuasive answer at all. And I thought, back, I thought if I could have that conversation over again, maybe one day I will. If I could have that conversation over again, this is what I'd want to say to her. Are you a professor of literature? Let's say you give your students an exam, and the exam goes like this, who wrote Macbeth? Okay? So the question is, who wrote Macbeth? And the first student writes down the name Jeffrey Chaucer. And the next one writes down Francis Bacon. And the next one writes down C.S. Lewis. And the next one says J.K. Rowling. And one says John Grisham. And one says Dr. Seuss. And one says William Shakespeare. And you say, well, what are you going to do then? You're going to say, well, you know, they're all sincere. They all mean what they say, they're all being honest. And what are you going to do if you have 100 of them? And 99 of them say it was written by Dave Barry. What are you going to do? Say everybody's right. Majority vote? Or are you going to say no? Macbeth was written by William Shakespeare. But that on the test, you pass everybody off fails. What are you going to do? I wish I had the wisdom to say that to her start with. Pray that I get another chance to have that conversation with her. See, brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, it's not that God is so rigid in narrow mind that He only made one way. It's that God is so merciful and so gracious that when there was no way, we didn't deserve a way out of our sins. He made a way that when there was no way, He made a way and that way was through the broken body and the poured out blood of His Son. He made a way at such a price, such a cost. Paul puts it this way later on in Romans, Romans 5.8. But God demonstrates His own love toward us and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Sinners. Not neutral. Not okay people who need a little mid-fight correction. Sinners. God made a way for us. The gospel is the power of God for salvation. Salvation from sin and death. Unto righteousness and life. From our sins and unto salvation. From our death and into God's life. From the darkness and the light and so forth. The gospel is God's power that accomplishes those things. The power of this world always tends toward destruction. Always tends toward this integration, disorganization decay, scientists call it entropy. The way of this world is one toward destruction. God's way is that toward uplift and toward life. It's the power of God for salvation. It's the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes everybody regardless whether you're culture or barbarian wise or foolish. Powerful, weak, rich, poor, educated, uneducated, gator, seminal, came. All of us. It's God's power of salvation for everyone who believes and faith is the key. Not works. Listen, if your works could get you there, if there are certain amount of things you could do or not do, in order to score points with God, he'd let you do it. Do you think he'd sacrifice his son for you? If you could get there on your own? The fact that there was a cross and that Jesus was crucified on it should tell you that it was absolutely necessary to accomplish something that we could not do on our own. Faith, the grace of God to faith in Christ alone is the message of salvation. Paul says, first is for the Jew and then is for the Gentile. See, the seeds of the gospel, they were planted in the soil of Judaism. If you hear from a Jewish background, God bless you. I thank you so much for what your people have given everybody else in the world. Thank you for our scriptures, thank you for our traditions, thank you for civilization, thank you for our Messiah, who is Himself a Jew. So, it's for the Jew first, but also for the Gentile. It was planted first in the soil of Judaism, but they've yielded fruit. The seeds of the gospel yielded fruit in every nation. See, the Jews, they were a model or a reminder of God's faithfulness, His truth and His fidelity to His covenant promises. The Greeks, the Gentiles, everybody else. We're a model of, we're a reminder of God's mercy and His proactive love for the lost. His faithfulness, His promises, His mercy and His love for the lost. Trust who within His faithfulness, mercy and love. Dr. D. A. Carson is a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity Seminary in Chicago. Dr. Carson tells the time of a time when he and a friend of his were taking some time out, some much new time out, come spend an afternoon at the beach. Father, we're going to be there for some peace and quiet when they got there. They found a hoard of high school kids were their celebrating graduation in the way the high school kids do. Loud music, drinking, lots of public displays of affection. Dr. Carson said he was just ticked off that his peace and quiet were being disturbed. He started to express his moral outrage to his professor friend. Instead of that, he stopped when the man said, high school kids, what a mission field. Let me ask about how you see our culture. Do you see it as a battlefield or a mission field? Battlefield or mission field? Let me tell you, I see both. I see both. There's a battle raging for the soul of this nation, for the soul of our culture. There's a battle raging for our soul's period. There's also a mission field. If you forget either one, you're in trouble. One of the most beautiful passages in all of scripture is this one from Matthew 9, where Jesus says, or Matthew writes first, Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching and understanding God, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the labor is a few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field. Some of you know, I am a recovering youth pastor, and every time I would be in the hallway of a high school or a middle school, I didn't go to middle schools too often, they're scary. But I'd go to the hallways of the high schools and the bell would ring and I'd see these kids flooding out of their classes and flocking to their next class, and I would think the passage right there from Matthew like they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. So many hand-reaching out to them. Most of them are predatory. Thank God for people like Mike, for people like Gail, for the others of you who volunteer your time, and you reach out to these kids, these young people with the gospel of God's grace. God's faithfulness to his covenant people, his mercy, and his redeeming proactive love for the lost. That's the gospel message that changes people's lives today. Listen, if you're here this morning, you've never heard of this before. Let me just wrap it up for you real succinctly. God made you in his image. That means so much we could spend months talking about that. You are made in the image of God Almighty. That means a lot of things, but one of the things it means is that you are made to know him. God made you to know him, to be in a relationship with him. If you've got a sense of disconnectiveness and emptiness, a vacuum avoiding your heart, maybe because you don't know the one who made you. The reason that you're disconnected from him is because of your sins. Your sins in mind have built this barrier between our holy God and his fallen, simple creation. Your sins have put a barrier between you and God, and you are powerless to overcome them. Some of you will know that language. Your sins are your problem. You're powerless to overcome them. If you could do it, God would let you, but you couldn't. That's why I sent Jesus. You could never get out of that pit you were in. So Christ climbed down into that pit and said, like, just get on with me and I'll raise you up, bring out that pit myself. I did it because perfect sin in this life has a toning sacrificial death line across, and he extends the offer to each and every one of us. If you will place your trust in me and me alone, then you can know the God who made you and be in a relationship with him now and forever. I mean, you stand before God and he says to you, huh, why should I let you into my heaven? You don't have to say, well, I was a really good guy. I tried not to commit a lot of sins. You can say because I've placed my trust in Christ and Christ alone. If you've never done that, do that today. Here on Friendship Sunday, Reformation Sunday, the best gift we could give you as our friend is the gift of eternal life. This one of the services over today. We're having lunch in the fellowship home. You're all welcome. But there'll be an elder or two back here, and we've got a room. We call the inspiration. If you need to know for sure how you can know God, or if you're not sure where you stand with him, get with one of us. We'll be happy to spend some time with you and explain to you how you can know Christ. You can enter into a redeeming relationship with God. Verse 17, for in the gospel of righteousness, this is from God's reveal, the righteousness that is properly God's. His righteousness is the kind that justifies the ungodly. It makes saints out of sinners. Justifying guilty sinners is part of God's righteousness, not just his mercy. God does not look at us and say, all right, I feel sorry for you. I'll make everything okay. This is not a sympathy date. He says, it glorifies me to justify you. I am well pleased to justify you to make you right. It glorifies me. It makes me look good to call you to be my own. It is perfectly consistent with my righteousness to confer that righteousness upon you. The news bulletin, this is not about you. It's not about me. Well, it is secondarily. I'm sure about God and his glory, and how he is glorified in our redemption. The righteousness that is front by faith and first to last, the righteous will live by faith. That's what liberated Martin Luther. So many countless millions and now billions of others. Realizing there is God's power for righteousness to save you, not his own. Let me make this simple. Righteousness in my faith means there's nothing I can do to earn my salvation. There's nothing I can do to lose my salvation. Everything I need to get and to keep my salvation has been done for me in Christ Jesus' period. I get to respond. My good works are simply, I thank you, know to God, but they add nothing to and they take nothing from what God has already done for me. See, outside of Christ, I'm not neutral. I am estranged from God. I'm estranged from God without Him. My life, outside of Christ, without Christ, my life is a declaration I don't need you, God. It's when I come to Him knowing that I need forgiveness. I need as a tone, I need redemption. I need the cross. I don't just need a few mid-flight corrections. I don't just need to iron out a few wrinkles. See, that's the Great American folk religion. We're all pretty good people. Oh, yeah, boys will be boys. We make a few mistakes here and there. We just need those little nudges, those little mid-flight corrections. And that's what religion is for. Brian, chapel says there's a six, so lot, so lot of bootstrapsa. Just pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. God helps those who help themselves, right? No, that's the anti-gospel. God helps those who are willing to know us. We can't help ourselves. Picking yourself up by your own bootstraps. Just try that sometime. You grab all those bootstraps and pull for all your worth. And let me know how it works. God helps those who know we can't help ourselves. You all remember Dennis Rodman, the bad boy of the NBA. He got the tattoos and the multi-colored hair. He wrote an autobiography called Bad as I Want to Be. His ex-wife came out with another one that says, it's called Worst than he says he is. Jack Miller puts it this way. You're more simple than you have ever dared to imagine. But the good news is you're more loved than you've ever dared to believe. Bad news. You're more simple than you've ever dared to believe. Good news. You're more loved than you could have ever, ever hoped. There's nothing I can do to earn my salvation. Martin Luther tried. Oh, man, he tried. His pilgrimage. He was going to be a lawyer. Instead, he wanted to be a lawyer. He was on his way to be a lawyer. He was in his terrible thunderstorm. He thought he was going to die. So he cried out, saying, and protect me. And if you'll get me out of this mess, I'll go be a monk. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So he survived. And after that, he checked himself in the monastery and became a monk. And that's when he tried. It's so hard to show God how sorry he was for sin. It's so hard to be righteous. And again, as I told you all, he got out of it. He hated God. It was just a big version of his own father to him. So you can understand maybe you can read the Bible in the original language. And you came upon those words, for in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written. The righteous will live by faith, not works faith. By faith from first to last. This is by faith from beginning to end. Brothers and sisters, it's not about works. I can't earn it. I can't lose it. Because it's not about me. It's about God and his glory. And he's able to hold on to me. So I said, well, that's true. There's nothing I can do to earn my salvation. Then I can go out and raise all kinds of hell. I can go out and live all kinds of sinful life. You could. You could. Let me ask you something. Somebody loves you like that. You want to go out and spit in the space. Somebody shows you that kind of love. You want to go out and bring shame on that person? I don't think that's your reaction if you really encounter the love of God. Somebody said to Luther one time, he's preaching grace, grace, grace, it's all about grace. Somebody said, but professor, if that's true, then I can go out and I can live any way I can do whatever pleases me. And Luther said, that's right. Now, what pleases you? And if your answer is, I'm going to go and live like hell. And I think it's fair to ask, have you really encountered the saving grace of God? And the person of his son, Jesus, really? That's not my reaction when I'm telling my loves me like that. We're free, ladies and gentlemen, Paul and on the right, and that great letter of the Galatians went on the right. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. I can't earn it. I can't lose it. Everything I need to receive and to keep my salvation is all I've been done for me. Paul also said to the church in Galatia, we know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus. We may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. I do not set aside the grace of God for righteousness could be gained through the law. Christ died for nothing. Once again, the cross is the end of any illusions I have that I can do this on my own. If I could do it on my own there would have been no cross. I was not about to sacrifice his son needlessly. You're trying so hard to be good. You're religious to do the right things. That's great. Just understand. That's not the gospel, and you're never going to make it. Can I give you a real news, Bolton? Yeah, I did it. You can do enough good things, and avoid enough bad things to earn guys approval. That's called Islam, ladies and gentlemen. That's what Islam is about. The gospel is about you can't do enough good things, you can't avoid enough sins. Jesus has come, hallelujah. When our middle daughter, Alison, was a baby, by the way, I do have her permission to tell this story. I think I've told you before, but anytime I tell stories about my family, I always ask her permission first. If they don't give me permission, I won't tell it. Unless it's really funny, and then I might risk it. No, I had their permission. I mean, Alison was a baby, and she didn't like to go to sleep even then. She thought to sleep. Some of you know what that's like, and this was pre-illness days, and so I can remember putting her in a crib and waiting until she fell asleep, and when she would wake up again, she would let me know in certain terms, if I was the one who was home at the time. I am now ready to re-emerge into the world, and when she would let me know that she was ready, I'd go to her crib, where she would be standing, and before she could really communicate, as well as she does today, and she'd let me know that she'd ready to get out of the crib, and I'd just stand by her crib, and I'd just look at her, yeah? You called me? Something you want? It's a therapy today, because of what? Not hardly. So she'd let me know if she wanted to be taken out of the crib, but I wouldn't do it until she'd raise those beautiful little arms up to me. I'd say like, there was a month ago. She's 16 now, I can't believe it. I'd wait until she'd raise those little arms up to me, and then I'd reach down that picker up. Why? Because I couldn't pick her up until she raised her arms? Heck no. That's perfectly capable of doing it. I just waited to do that for her until she told me. She showed me she wanted me to pick her up. Brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen and friends, that's perfectly capable of doing everything you need him to do. He's just waiting for you to say you want it. He's just waiting for you to show him that you're willing. Let's pray together. Father, we're grateful, and we're just amazed. We're astounded at the logic of the gospel. We really think we ought to do this on our own. We really think we ought to try hard, be good, and avoid sins. That's what the world thinks. Where creatures of this world, Lord, the logic of the gospel turns it all on His head and says, you can't do it on your own. Just lift up your heads and your hearts. Just raise your arms up. I'm so ready to come alongside and do what you need me to do. Just show me you want it. Just show me your willing. Lord, we're willing or we want to be. Do a work of grace in our hearts this day. For the one who's never said yes to Christ, Lord, let this be the day, for this Reformation Sunday, that he or she opens his heart, her heart, her soul, to Christ, to Savior. And for the rest of us, Lord, just remind us again, if you're goodness to us through the centuries, you're goodness to us through our lifetime. You're goodness to us this day. I just want to show you the life of faith. Faith in Christ, His name, I pray. I'm here with us today. If it's your first time with us, we hope it won't be last. Come on back and join us. If you are here for the very first time, I'm going to be here in the lobby just for a very few minutes. I'd love to get a chance to meet you. We have a gift we'd like to give you. We receive now the Lord's benediction. Go now in the love of God, the Father, the grace, the mercy of God, the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God, the Holy Spirit, and live the life.