Christ Alone

Scripture Lessons: 1 Kings 3: 5-12 and Romans 9: 1-5 Sermon title: Christ Alone Preached on September 25, 2022 We’re in the middle of a sermon series today. “Christ alone” is the third of the Five Solas of the Reformed Tradition. When I say Reformed Tradition, I’m referring to a religious movement that changed the world about 600 years ago. It started with a monk named Martin Luther who had a bone to pick with the Roman Catholic Church. He wrote down his 95 complaints on a big piece of paper and nailed it to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. Why did he nail his complaints to a church door? Because Facebook hadn’t been invented yet, and there was no other place for him to vent his frustration. The church door was the place to make public notifications. If you wanted to make a grand announcement or get something off your chest, you nailed it up there for people to see, which was a bold thing for Luther to do because one of his chief complaints was about the pope. At that time or at any time, you can’t just go around complaining about the pope, yet he believed the Church was forgetting that the pope is just a man and that the priests are equally mortal and, therefore, fallible. That’s part of the reason why, in addition to saying that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, we now look to the third sermon in this series on the five “Solas” or “alones” of the Reformed Tradition: “Christ alone.” To say “Christ alone” leaves no room for confusion: It is Christ who is head of the Church and not the pope, the priest, or the pastor. Some congregations still get confused about that. Plenty of pastors do, too. However, there’s a Lutheran pastor I admire named Nadia Bolz-Weber, who serves at a church in Denver called the House for All Sinners and Saints. When new people come to the church and ask about joining, they hold a class as we do to help educate the new members on what the church is all about and what will be expected of them. The House for All Sinners and Saints is a church like ours. People are attracted to it because it’s warm, welcoming, and a little different from other churches. Many people join that church because they were hurt or rejected by a former church or disappointed by a former pastor. As they join the House for All Sinners and Saints, they’re full of optimism, thinking, “This place is going to be different. This pastor has so much integrity, unlike the last guy who got my mother’s name wrong during her funeral.” In many ways, they’re right. The House for All Sinners and Saints is a different kind of a church. This is a different kind of a church. Just as some restaurants are better than others, so there are different churches, some with more accountability and some with less. Some pastors have more integrity than others; still, all churches are full of flawed human beings, and all pastors are just mortals wearing fancy robes, so the Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber tells the new members something like this, “Who is good but God alone? You’ve come here, maybe because your last church disappointed you or your last pastor hurt you. I’m so sorry about that. Yet, sooner or later, I’m going to disappoint you. I’m going to say something you don’t like. I’m going to miss an important moment in your life. I’m going to reveal to you that I am human. When that happens, you may be tempted to leave this church as you left your last church, but I ask you to think long and hard before you leave, for in that moment when I disappoint you, you’ll see beyond me to the true reason you’re here.” That’s why the hymn goes: The Church’s one foundation, Is Jesus Christ, her Lord. The Church’s one foundation is not the pastor. The pastor is just a person. When the pastor takes center stage, everything gets messed up, especially the pastor’s ego. The leaders of the Reformed Tradition knew that, which is why today we remember that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for Christ is the head of the Church. The pope, pastor, bishop, and priest are all fallible human beings. When we forget that, people can become monsters, corrupted by power and followed without question. In every area of our lives, when the leader puts himself in the place of God, people suffer. Have you heard about those doctors who suffer from high self-esteem? They don’t listen. They think too highly of themselves. I’ve heard stories of patients being sown back up with surgical equipment still inside of them. I’m willing to bet that a nurse noticed she was missing some sutures as the patient was being sown back together, but she didn’t say anything because the doctor was in the bad habit of not asking and not listening. Therefore, I say that when we remember that Christ alone is the Perfect One, we are all better off because we more freely admit that we make mistakes and need a little help from time to time. The best teachers love students who ask hard questions because it makes them better to have to explain themselves. The greatest presidents know that, so Lincoln surrounded himself with his rivals, not his lackies because all our ideas get better through discussion, questioning, and debate. No human being ever gets it right the first time. Jesus is the Perfect One. The rest of us are still a work in progress. We don’t need to be ashamed of that. In fact, being willing to learn from our mistakes only makes us better. Some say Steve Jobs of Apple knew that. A recent article about him offers powerful advice for every leader of any organization in just five words: Make a lot of mistakes. Mistakes lead to better ideas. Mistakes keep us humble. There’s only one person who ever lived who didn’t make any. I’m not Him. Neither are you. We are all better when we remember that. Still, many people are ashamed of their mistakes. Sometimes we sweep the mistakes of our leaders under the rug, though the Bible is terribly upfront in claiming that Jesus is the only One who’s perfect. The Apostle Paul, who wrote our second Scripture Lesson, was a persecutor of Christians. How do we know about his checkered past? The Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that when the disciple Stephen was stoned, Paul held the coats for those who stoned him. Not only that, but he wasn’t always a dynamic preacher. Like a lot of preachers, he didn’t always know when to end his sermon, so one night in Troas, he preached and preached until midnight. There were lamps in the room where they were meeting. I can imagine someone saying, “Let’s pretend we don’t have any oil, and maybe he’ll give it a rest,” but no one did. A young man named Eutychus, who was sitting by the window, finally fell asleep and fell right out, three stories down. It’s right there in the Bible: Acts chapter 20. Likewise, we read about King David in 1st Kings. He once looked down from his palace porch and saw a woman bathing. He sent for her, she became pregnant, and because her husband was away fighting in David’s army, David sent him to the front lines so that he’d never make it home to find out what had happened while he’d been away. The Bible doesn’t shy away from this horrible story but comes right out with it. It is a warning that decent people can become monsters, for power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Solomon, David’s son, knew that. He knew the story of how his father abused his power, so he prays to God this way as he becomes king in our first Scripture lesson: O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David, although I am only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern this your great people? He prayed for understanding and wisdom. He asked for these things because he knew that he didn’t have them, and he was able to ask because he wasn’t afraid to reveal his need. He knew he wasn’t perfect and didn’t pretend to be. That’s the beginning of wisdom. That’s the beginning of faith. We are in the right place when we recognize that we need Him. Christ alone. We say we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone because people are people. Christ is Lord. We are not. Even pastors are people. Some of us here have had to learn that lesson the hard way. My office upstairs was Dr. Jim Speed’s office when he was the Senior Pastor here. Back then, when you graduated high school, you had to go up to Dr. Speed’s office to talk about what you planned to do with your life. That was an intimidating meeting, but I went in there thinking he’d be so excited to hear that I was going to Presbyterian College to major in religion, in preparation for becoming a presbyterian minister. When I said it, he looked me in the eye and said, “I hope you’ll take this decision very seriously because being a pastor means being involved in every person’s most important relationship: between them and their God.” Right then, I changed my major to history. I didn’t want all that pressure and responsibility. Worse, while I was a student at Presbyterian College, the pastor who came after Dr. Speed retired got in hot water for preaching sermons he hadn’t written. The word for that is plagiarism. I know that because I had to sign the honor code at Presbyterian College. Plagiarism was an offence that resulted in immediate expulsion. Every freshman at Presbyterian College knew that, so when I heard about my pastor doing it, at first, I was just disappointed. Then, I had a crisis of faith. Why? Because Dr. Speed was right. Every pastor is getting involved in other people’s most important relationship: between them and their God. When the pastor here showed himself to be a human being, something inside of me got all mixed up. The one who had talked to me about forgiveness now needed it himself, and I was in a position, not to hear about forgiveness from him in the pulpit, but to offer it to him. My friends, we wear these fancy robes. We sit in big fancy chairs. When we come to people’s houses, they might dust off their Bibles and put them on the coffee tables acting like they were just having Bible study, but do not forget that what you all hear us talk about, we all are invited to live. We are called to live this Christian faith. One day, I may need you to preach to me. Certainly, the world needs to hear the sermon that Christ has placed on your heart. I want to hear it too, for we are not the only preachers here. I want you to know that we are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ, but more than know it, I want you to live it. Will you do it? This church is a hierarchy only in the sense that Christ is the head of the church. The rest of us are disciples, all called to live the Christian faith together. I want to follow Him beside you. Christ alone. Will you follow Him with me? Are you all in?