Sunday, August 27, 2017

A Quick Study: Reformation, Part 3, August 27, 2017

This quick study on Reformation History was given at the end of service at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on August 27, 2017. The text of the study is included and you may play the audio of the study here.



In last week’s study, we talked about how Luther ended up in the monastery and priesthood, and how tortured he was under the thought that God hated him so much because of his sin.  Remember, the idea in the Roman church is that your sins must be purged from you.  You only go straight to heaven when you die if you are perfect; otherwise, you go to purgatory.
In regards to Purgatory, Roman doctrine divides all people into two camps, as we do: those who will be saved and those who will not.  Those who are not saved will go to hell, but Purgatory is the place for those who will be saved but still have sin that isn’t atoned for.  Of course, we know that this doctrine is to be found nowhere in the Scriptures, but because the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope are supposed to be infallible by the adherents to the religion, the tradition of Purgatory stands.  It sounds like a confusing concept to us, but it’s essential to understand this to understand the Reformation.
In the Christian Church, we have the understanding that only saints will dwell in joy with Christ for eternity.  A saint is someone who is holy and righteous.  And actually, every Christian believes this to be true.  In our Lutheran tradition, and the historic Christian tradition, we understand that, through Baptism, through the giving of faith, Christ has made each of saints in Christ’s name.  We are made holy as Christ is holy, and He dwells with us.  Where Christ dwells, there is righteousness.
However, in the Roman Catholic Church, while you indeed must be a saint to go to heaven, while you must be perfect, this is not a perfection that all people in Christ have.  Rather, most people on the earth must go to Purgatory first so that their sins can be burned away from them, purifying them for the righteousness of heaven.  Only a very small few people go directly to heaven when they die in this life.  It is those people the Roman church calls “saints.”  These people, people like Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa, or St. Patrick, apparently achieved a level of perfection in this life that you haven’t.  All of their sins were atoned for by Christ, and they made up for the consequences of those sins on their own.  They went straight to heaven, even with extra good works that were not required.  Those extra good works were like extra credit.
You remember in class the kid who never got 100% on a test, but a 115%?  Imagine this: in the Roman church, a saint is a person who received a 2000%, but only needed 100% to get to heaven.  They skipped Purgatory completely.  In fact, since they only needed 100%, the other 1900% extra they scored gets put into a treasure box in heaven.  When the Pope wants to, he can ask God to open the treasure box and apply the extra credit to you, to a loved one, to one who is alive now, or one who is dead and is being purged in Purgatory.  This is a brief overview, and I simplified it a bit, but this is basically where Purgatory stands.
Now, Luther learned this doctrine of Purgatory and meriting salvation; every Catholic Christian did as it was part of the Church.  So, when he was so plagued with his sins, anyone who had preached the Gospel to him would have been rejected because he knew there were only two possible ends for him: hell for all he had done wrong or Purgatory, potentially for millions of years.  The God who would do this wasn’t a God he loved, but it was the God he served.
Imagine that, Luther knew of this God and knew that He was real and true, but he didn’t love God.  But despite that, because God was the Lord of all things, Luther still served Him because that’s what he promised St. Anne he would do.  Luther was so plagued with his sin that it became for him a terrifying prospect, never being sure of his own salvation.  Would he go to hell or would it Purgatory for a near eternity?
One day in 1510, the Augustinian Order of monks, Luther’s order, told Luther to go to Rome on business.  You almost can see the relief on their faces: finally, Luther would find a bit of penance in this thousand-mile journey over mountains and rivers, snow and ice.  Remember, good Catholics would have to make up for their sins, do penance.  And while Luther was in Rome, perhaps he would see the relics of the saints, crawl up holy stairs, do things to earn even more forgiveness and worry a little less.  Only good Christians would try to make up for their sins; wouldn’t this be an opportunity for Luther to prove to himself that he would be saved, even if it were through fire?  
So, looking forward to the destination, desiring greatly to partake of the holiness of the city, said to be the center of all western Christendom, a city almost as holy as the ground Jesus Himself walked, Luther and another monk left Erfurt, Germany in November and walked to Rome, arriving in January.  The journey was done, but Luther’s journey was just beginning.  Rome would be a turning point for Luther, and for the entire world.

Sermon Audio: Romans 11:33-12:8, August 27, 2017

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on August 20, 2017 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Sermon Text: Romans 11:33-12:8, August 27, 2017

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from Paul’s letter to the Romans, the 11th and 12th chapters:
Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. 
Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,
     Life is difficult; this is true and it may be an understatement.  But, life is also joyful.  So often, I think, we’re tempted to think of the good things and thank God for them, but when it comes to that which we see as evil, we complain, we roll our eyes, we curse.  Now, what I’m about to say may be hard to think about, but it also is true.  We know that every good thing comes from our Lord, but we also must recognize that even those things which are not good to our eyes, challenges, hardships, sufferings, these also come from the Lord.

     I suppose that’s not always a pleasant thing to think about, but the Scriptures tell us that this is exactly what God does.  Now, I don’t think that the Lord takes delight in the fact that we are suffering.  Rather, the Scriptures make clear that Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, and certainly the Father and the Holy Spirit as well, took pity in suffering, cried in anguish, was moved towards compassion.  Your God cares for you.  But, what we may perceive as evil, and it may not be a whole lot of fun, is always done for our good, that we might be transformed even more fully into the image of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

A Quick Study: Reformation, Part 2, August 20, 2017

This quick study on Reformation History was given at the end of service at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on August 13, 2017. The text of the study is included and you may play the audio of the study here.



Last week, we talked a bit about church history.  Remember that the church of God on earth was broken.  While they wanted to a unified Church, it wasn’t in the cards.  Abuses of the Church began to run rampant.  Martin Luther was born into these abuses.  There were many.  The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the church that dominates the western world, even still today, are well-known.  The people of the Roman church would seek after relics of the saints, tokens from their lives, or at least they pretended to be.  They would pay to have sins forgiven.  They would pay to have a mass said in their name and think that the forgiveness of sins would come even if they weren’t there.  They would pray to the saints.  The pope was infallible speaking from his chair.  There were, and are, so may errors, but the worst of them is this: God is angry at you for your sin and you must purge the sins from your life, otherwise He’ll do it for you in the fires of purgatory.
This was the worst for Luther.  As a monk, he couldn’t get over the fact that he knew God was angry at Him.  He confessed his sins so often, trying to think of the least of his sins, so that there was nothing that would pass from God’s forgiveness.  Yet, for all of the times that he worked himself into a frenzy, he never could escape the feeling that God hated him.
Luther was born in 1483.  It was a turbulent time, not even just in the Church, but in the entire world.  The Turks, we would call them Muslims today, had just conquered the city of Constantinople, once the jewel city of the eastern church in Turkey.  They were marching across Europe, with their sights on everyone submitted to Allah or dying.  The Spanish Inquisition was occurring, where people would be killed or exiled if their beliefs didn’t fall in line with Catholic dogma.  Yet, there was also some amount of hope and excitement.  In nine short years, Columbus would reach the Americas.  Books and pamphlets were more readily available due to the invention of the movable-type printing press.  And the art of the Renaissance was about to kick off.  That was Luther’s world.
He was born to Hans and Margarethe, a mining family who expected more from their son.  The intention was always for Luther to go and be a lawyer so that he would make enough money to care for his parents and his younger siblings.  His upbringing was fairly inauspicious.  He seemed to have always had a sharp mind, and when he realized, after entering the university, that law just wouldn't be for him, he wandered a bit aimlessly in his studies.
However, in 1505, an event would happen that would focus his mind and heart so sharply that there would be no turning back.  As Luther made his way back to school after visiting home, he was stuck in a thunderstorm that shook his soul as much as the trees.  As the lightning struck around him, he cried out to Saint Anne that if she would help him, he would become a monk.  The storm soon went away, and Luther looked upon that promise as something he never could break.  It was for life.
This incredibly disappointed his parents.  In fact, it seems that is was nearer to his father’s death that Luther and he finally were able to somewhat reconcile.  Hans looked upon Luther as a disobedient son, abandoning the command to honor his parents for his own selfish reasons, the ability to get closer to heaven through religious obedience.  This, I think, helps explain how Luther saw God.  His father seemed to despise him for abandoning him, and Luther learned, rightly, that all sin is an abandoning of God.  If his father hated him, how much more did a holy and righteous God hate him?
So, Luther became a monk in 1506, he was made a priest in 1507, and it was after that he began to study theology.  I know that seems a bit different than what we’re used to, but that was the way it went.  The priest never needed to say anything other than what the mass said, in Latin, and it didn’t matter if he or anyone else understood it.  Yet, as Luther began to study theology, he began to get more and more worried with that idea and many others.  He started to realize, even as his conscience was plagued with his sin, that things were not quite right.
The weight of it all began to kill him, literally.  Many doctors and professionals today believe that the later health problems Luther would suffer in his older age were due to the conditions of his monastic days.  He would freeze himself, he would whip himself, he would scream in agony, he would punish his body, all to try to bring his flesh into submission to the word of God.  This is how tortured he was by his sin.  In one way, it’s almost admirable that he realized the depth of his depravity.  Yet, because the freedom of the Gospel was not to be found, Luther suffered all the more.

Sermon Audio: Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32, August 20, 2017

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on August 20, 2017 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Sermon Text: Romans 11:1–2a, 13–15, 28–32, August 20, 2017

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, the 11th chapter:
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew…
Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? 
…As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all. 
Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,
     So, if you’re paying attention to the readings for today, you find this familiar theme that the Lord welcomes into His salvation, into His mercy, the foreigners, the Gentiles, the dogs, even those who were idolaters at one time.  Yet, He does all this, not to the exclusion of those who He loved and made His covenant with, but including them, on their backs, so to speak.

     After all, we have to remember that it was the Israelites whom God chose to make covenant with, not because they were the greatest, but because they were the least.  Through what the world would deem unworthy and lacking glamor or size, God would provide for the world the Savior of all mankind.  God had chosen this people group to bring about His salvation, and all that He would then do would be for them, through them, so that Jesus would come into the world as He had ordained.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

A Quick Study: Reformation, Part 1, August 13, 2017

This quick study on Reformation History was given at the end of service at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on August 13, 2017. The text of the study is included and you may play the audio of the study here.



Any discussion of the Reformation and how it, and we, came to be, has to begin with the Church.  The Church is the Bride of Christ.  And just as a bride is expected to be chaste, which is to be true only to her husband, for the husband is to also be faithful forever, so is the Church only to seek after the things of Christ in all of His truth and purity.  The Church is never to seek after the idolatries and falsehoods that would creep up in her, but to reject them completely.

So it had been for centuries prior.  Since the Early Church, faithful Christians met to discuss the heresies that had risen up within her.  There is no heresy that comes from outside the Church; they only come from within.  Over the centuries, the Church would come together by sending all of her bishops to a single place to discuss great matters of importance.  These meetings are called the Ecumenical Councils, meaning that they were all the congregations of the Church together, deciding whether to follow the Word of God or their own hearts.  So, in 325, the Church met together in the First Ecumenical Council in a town called Nicaea to discuss the new belief that almost the entire body of Christ believed: Arianism.

Arianism was named for a man, Arius, who taught that Christ was the first creation of the Father, being a similar substance as Him, though not the same substance.  If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, it’s because the Nicene Creed was composed after much debate and we end up with the familiar formula: “…one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father…,” the same substance.

Most of Christianity fell into Arianism at that time, but through a thorough study of God’s Word, through debate, through prayer, but most of all, through the guidance and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, the Church prevailed, Arianism was rejected, orthodoxy was returned, Jesus was confessed to be true God, not a creation.  There were six other councils that met throughout the centuries.  They would discuss things like did Jesus have a rational human mind, was there only one person of God or three, how did the humanity of Christ and the divinity of Christ interact, was Mary the mother of God, do we cooperate with God in matters of salvation, will all creatures, including the devil, return to God, and can we have images of God and the saints in the Church.  We won’t get into all the councils.  They’re important, but what is most important is the dates.  These happened from 325 AD through 787 AD.  That was the last of the ecumenical councils.  After that, the Church would never be the same.

In 1054, the Great Schism occurred.  Through a confluence of circumstances, the Pope of the Church of the West, which is Rome and most western European churches, and the Patriarch of the Eastern Churches, which includes Asia, most of Africa, and some eastern European churches, ended up excommunicating each other.  This separated the Church for the first time in a way that would never really be rectified.  The whole of Christendom was injured that day, and the Church prayed for its reconciliation, they hoped for it, but it would not come, or at least, it hasn’t yet.

The two churches then developed on their own for what is now a thousand years.  That’s why the western churches still look so different from the churches of the east.  If you walk into either one today, you’ll see the artwork is different, the space is different, the music is different, and even the theology is different.  That’s because the Church was not united, it was not ecumenical, and there was no council that would bring it together.

That was the world of Martin Luther, the world leading to the Reformation, a world where the Church did want to be united, but couldn’t find the way there.  Their theology had become too different, their disagreements too deep, and there was no way to have any more ecumenical councils because the congregations could no longer agree on anything.  They each wanted their power, they each wanted the other to submit to them, they wanted to be in charge.  Neither one would submit to each other because neither one would submit to Christ.  And that was why so many abuses of the Roman Catholic church began to happen in the west; there was no one there any more to hold them in check.  They could do whatever they wanted and because the pope and the mini-councils of the Roman church were supposedly infallible, there was no one who could do anything to stop them.  Enter Martin Luther.

Sermon Audio: Romans 10:5-17, August 13, 2017

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on August 13, 2017 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Romans 10:5-17. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Sermon Text: Romans 10:5-17, August 13, 2017

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the 10th chapter:
For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down) “or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. 
Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,
     This week, Paul is continuing his thought from last week, that the Jews had a special relationship with God that no longer exists, and how anxious he is to save them.  He writes that, for them, that relationship was revealed to them through the standard of righteousness.  What is righteousness?  It means to be perfectly holy, blameless in every way, according to the standard of Christ’s life and obedience, even to death on a cross.

     Now, to the Jews, before Christ has revealed Himself to the world in the flesh, that righteousness seemed to be found through what the Law of God told them to do.  And you know what they said when God gave them that Law?  They didn’t equivocate.  They didn’t stumble.  They didn’t make excuses.  They gave the right answer when you’re scared to death before a Lord who has the power to wipe you from the face of the earth: they said, “All You have said, we will do.”

     Now, when you consider this statement, it may seem like a no-brainer.  Follow after God?  Sure.  Listen to Him?  Sure.  Make sacrifices for my sins?  Sure.  Not cut the corners of my beard?  Weird, but sure.  It seems easy enough.  But, what seems easy has so much more meaning and thus is so much easier to break.

Sunday, August 6, 2017

Sermon Audio: Romans 9:1-13, August 6, 2017

A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on August 6, 2017 at St. Peter–Immanuel Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, WI, on Matthew 13:44.-52. The text of this sermon may be found by clicking this link and you may play the audio of the sermon here.

Sermon Text: Romans 9:1-13, August 6, 2017

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The text this morning is from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, the 13th chapter:
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” 
Thus far the text.

My dear friends in Christ,
    Once upon a time, God made a special covenant with a chosen people, the Israelites, that if they kept it, if they sought after the fulfillment of the Law, they would inherit eternal life.  Now, the Law was never given so that one could fulfill it completely; just the opposite, the Law was given to make one despair of their lack of holiness, the lack of righteousness that plagues humankind in their sin.  Yet, to look to God to forgive the sins of those who had gone astray from absolute perfection is the entire point.  And if the Israelites had sought after that, they would have been welcomed into everlasting life and eternal righteousness in Christ.

     It’s true.  Even those Israelites who were born before the incarnation, before the Son of God came to earth and put on our flesh, would have been made righteous through the Christ who was to come.  For a group of people who had seen God part the Red Sea, seen Good open the ground to swallow a group of people inciting rebellion against Moses, seen the glory of God following them as fire and cloud, seen the presence of God in the Tabernacle and later the Temple, you would think this would be easy.