At Grace we celebrated the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation in the way the Reformers would have wanted, by meeting on the Lord’s Day to worship God together. The first Protestants had a myriad of reasons for wanting to reform the Church, but at the heart of them all was a desire that God be rightly worshiped by his people. That we can pray to God through the mediation of Christ, sing praises to him from hearts made free by the gospel, hear the reading and preaching of God’s Word in our own language, and give thanks to God for his saving work for us in Christ – in short, that we can worship God according to his revelation to us in his Word and in his Son, is surely the greatest heritage the Reformers have given us.
My goal in the sermon was not to glorify the Reformers, as much as we admire them, but to glorify the Savior whom they loved and for whose sake many of them suffered and even died. So I preached on a truth that undergirded so much Reformation theology, the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Using Colossians 2:6-10 as the primary Scripture passage, I said that Christ is sufficient for our salvation, sufficient for our sanctification, and sufficient for our satisfaction. God has freely given us all things needful for salvation, life, and joy, in his Son Jesus Christ. We need add nothing to Christ and his grace to us – in Jesus the whole fullness of deity indwells bodily, and we have been filled in him with all the fullness of God (vs. 9, 10; see also Ephesians 3:19; 2 Peter 1:3).
After the service we enjoyed a fellowship meal featuring dishes from the countries where the Reformation took place.
Then we learned more about the people of the Reformation from those who gave a presentation on a particular Reformer. Below are presentations on the stool-tossing Jenny Geddes, and the 95 Theses-nailing Martin Luther. All who presented, young and not-so-young, did a fantastic job.
May the message of the Reformation – the message of Scripture! – live on: Soli Deo Gloria! To God alone be the glory!
Pastor Scott
