Contend For The Reformation Gospel

“Contend for the Reformation Gospel” The Festival of the Reformation – October 24th and 25th, 2009 Jude 3 Mike Tyson, James “Buster” Douglas, Evander Holyfield, Ray Mercer, Riddick Bowe, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Ray Jones Jr.; you might recognize those names because of their association with the world of boxing. Each one of them, at some point in the last 20 years was a boxing world champion, holding at least one world title. Of course, after some time, each one of the champions I listed for you lost their title, because they were unable to withstand the onslaught of contenders, whose goal was to rip glory away from the champion. In the world of boxing, it’s inevitable that the title holder is going to lose at some point, because they have to constantly face the most difficult challengers, because they must always fight off foes that are gunning for their demise. Eventually every boxing champion, no matter how good of a boxer they are, no matter how great their technique is, no matter how hard they’ve trained, will get knocked out and lose their titles, their fame, their glory, and their identity as champion. What is the Reformation all about and why do we have a yearly commemoration of it in our Christian Church calendar? I can assure you that it isn’t about a man, Martin Luther, nor is it about political upheaval, or a supposed socio-political David vs. Goliath uprising between the small group of Lutheran confessors and the humungous corporate conglomerate of the Roman Catholic Church. The Reformation is about the ongoing struggle for the truth, the ongoing defense of the Holy Scriptures, the ongoing fight to retain the eternal prize of everlasting glory in heaven, a struggle that, yes, saw a peak in the days of Luther and the reformers and confessors, but hasn’t stopped. Every day, the great adversary, the devil, continues to find new and clever ways to distort the truth, to inconspicuously mix the Bread of Life with the yeast of falsehood with the intended goal that we loosen our tight grip on the only gospel that saves, with the hope that we will eventually let go of it altogether. The fight for the truth of salvation continues today, fellow children of the Reformation. And on this Reformation weekend, the Holy Spirit by the hand of Jude is in our corner, coaching us, the embattled warriors of Christ with shouts of encouragement: “Contend for the reformation gospel!” Heroically defend the gospel of Jesus Christ against every adversary, and passionately struggle for the ultimate prize –the glory of life in heaven, the eternal prize given to all victors in Christ. I.

Heroically defending against every adversary

We are in a fight, an intense struggle for the faith and for the eternal prize that the body of Christian doctrine in the Scriptures guarantees. Jude, the brother of James and the ½ brother of Jesus uses strong language in his small yet profoundly important epistle to describe the struggle that we are heavily engaged in: “I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that once for all was delivered to the saints.” Contend! The original word in the Greek is often used in ancient Hellenistic literature to denote an athletic contest in a stadium. It has the idea of a champion struggling to defend something that they possess, exerting energy, all possible energy to retain their greatest possession, being involved in such an intense battle with an

adversary that if they let their guard down for one moment, they would find themselves knocked out, defeated, and their greatest possession, their prize seized from their hands. “Contend,” commands God the Holy Spirit, “Contend for the faith.” In other words, “Defend the faith,” the body of Christian truth revealed in the Bible. Defend it because the gospel of Jesus Christ is our greatest possession. Defend it with all your strength because the inspired and inerrant Word of God is our great heritage. In the Holy Scriptures, and nowhere else, do we learn how we are given access to the holiness and righteousness of God – through the merits and sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ – not through any form of personal contribution. In the Word of God, we are shown the only way to heaven, the only way into God’s eternal and glorious presence: By grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ our Lord. That’s exactly what St. Paul says in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this – not from yourselves = it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” That’s the truth that sets us free from sin. That’s what we are to contend for, to defend...the unchanging faith given “once for all to the saints.” The question that we have to ask ourselves is this: Are we properly prepared to defend the faith? Can we possibly defend that which we do not hold up as essential and important to our own lives? Can we possibly contend for the body of doctrine in the Scriptures and for the eternal prize promised through them if we ourselves are not firmly grounded in God’s Word, if we are wobbling about in Biblical illiteracy? There was a survey done a few years ago by George Barna that identified just how Biblically illiterate people are nowadays. 60% of the people surveyed could not name more than five commandments. 58% of adults didn’t know who preached the Sermon on the Mount (most thought it was Billy Graham). Almost 50% of high schoolers though that Sodom and Gomorrah were husband and wife, and 12%, which is actually quite a bit, thought that Noah’s wife was Joan of Arc. (You laugh.) But understand the point. The Bible is not to be treated as a mere a collection of Mother Goose stories that have nice moral lessons. The Bible is not to be used simply as a book of social improvement meant to show us how to live the most fulfilling earthly life possible. The Bible is the very Word of the Almighty God, the only Word which gives eternal life, apart from which there is no eternal life. Think back to creation, to the very first verses of Scripture - God spoke and life was created. Still today, he speaks through his revealed Word, and spiritual life is created and sustained! His Word is powerful, it is effective, it reveals the Savior Jesus in all his glory, it saves! Yet, the more we are distanced from God’s powerful and efficacious Word, the more difficult it will be to defend it in the face of falsehood, the more difficult it will be to fend off all the adversaries that question its truth, its legitimacy, and its power to save, and the more vulnerable you and I will be to Satan’s elaborate schemes and his clever “alternate gospels” which are really no gospel at all, and just some new manifestation of old lies meant to turn our dependence away from the cross of Jesus to ourselves. Be ready for those attacks. Be ready to heroically stand up for the truth and defend the truth as the apostles did in their era, as the early church fathers did in their day, as Luther and the confessors did, by diligently studying and inwardly digesting God’s divine Word. That’s the only way that you and I will be able to stand firm to the end in this spiritual battlefield, only with a full dependence on the grace of God in the pure and unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ, in which there is unconditional forgiveness for all sins, and eternal life for all who believe. II.

Passionately struggle for the ultimate prize

And finally, isn’t that why the “faith given once for all to the saints” is worth struggling for? Isn’t the ultimate eternal prize of heaven worth exerting every bit of energy to retain? When professional athletes compete, it is expected that they are going to compete at the highest level, that they are going to give everything they’ve got to achieve victory in the end. For the Christian, victory over the adversary has already been achieved. Jesus withstood the temptation of the devil, stood firm in truth and purity every moment of his earthly life, and then, as he was ordained and appointed to do, he as the unblemished Lamb of God offered himself to sacrifice on the cross to nullify the accusations of the devil, to serve the full sentence for sin, all so that we, the guilty ones would go free. That is true victory – victory over sin (because its ultimate sentence, hell, has already been served), over the devil (because the devil has no accusations left against us) and with his glorious resurrection from the dead, Jesus also secured victory over death (because death has been made a gateway to glory), all the while giving to us a glimpse of our resurrection on the last day when our Lord Jesus will break open our tombs and raise us up, body and soul, to live before him in his eternal kingdom. Paul says in 1 Corinthians: “Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Everlasting victory already belongs to us. We already are winners, victors because the glory of Christ has become our possession through faith. Is that not worth fighting to retain? Is that not worth a passionate exertion of energy? Our life in Christ leaves no room for apathy, for laziness, for indifference, lethargy or passivism. Like a fighter who is in the ring against his strongest challenger, be passionate about holding on to the gift of faith and the eternal prize that it promises. Be passionate like Luther was, who spoke of faith in bold terms: “Faith is a living and daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and so certain that a man could stake his life on it 1,000 times!” In this world, people fight for all kinds of things – for property, for money, for trophies, for honor, for glory, and the like. But for us, for the children of the Reformation, there is truly only one thing worth contending for – worth exerting every bit of energy for, worth defending to the very end, worth fighting for even unto death itself, and that is the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Never tire of its beautiful message. Never grow weary in defending its truth in the face of harsh adversaries and inconspicuous falsehood. Never stop proclaiming it in all its power and grace, for where the gospel of Jesus Christ is, there is life, strength and salvation, gifts worth contending for! Amen.