Good morning If you have your Bibles with you this morning, which I trust that you do Open them if you would to Romans chapter 1 to Romans chapter 1 I was hoping that that would come, it's a little bit of a shock to most of you, if you've been with us for any length of time, we've been working our way through the gospel according to Saint Mark, that is our normal practice here, that is to work through books of the Bible, verse by verse, paragraph by paragraph, and we will return to that practice next week, but we are going to take a quick detour this week. I would also just say as a preface that we are going to be going through this morning a handful of texts. So stretch out your fingers and warm them up because it's gonna take some energy to keep up this morning. So turn your attention, if you would, to Romans chapter one. We're gonna read this morning from verses 16 and 17. Romans chapter one, verses 16 and 17. Let's give our attention now to the word of the Lord. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. And thus ends this reading of God's holy, inspired, and inerrant word. Let's pray together. Our Father, it is our desire to enter into your presence, not just as individuals, but as a church this morning, and to feed upon you, to feed upon your word, to be nourished by the gospel of grace. But we recognize that we are desperately in need of you in need of your spirit to open our eyes, to open our minds, to open our hearts to the truth of your word. We do not want to hear this morning the voice of men, but we want to hear the voice of God. May you give us ears to hear this morning, we pray in Jesus's name. Amen. You may or may not know this, but we are actually on the verge of a holiday. This coming Saturday, six days from today, is October 31st, and October 31st is, in fact, a holiday for Christ's church. Now, if you were to quickly grab your iPhone and pull up your calendar and check October 31st, you might be a bit surprised. I say that because when I grab my iPhone and I pull up October 31st, the only holiday that I see mentioned is Halloween. And Halloween is a day that is rarely thought of as a holiday for Christ's church. But in reality, this Saturday is not just Halloween, but it is also Reformation Day. It is Reformation Day. Reformation Day began with a rather peculiar, and we might call him an idiosyncratic, Augustinian monk whose name was Martin Luther. Martin Luther was born in the year 1483. He died in the year 1546, which means that he lived to be 63 years old. And this Martin Luther, in his late 20s and in his early 30s, he began to struggle. He began to struggle with what he saw taking place in the church. He began to struggle with what he saw taking place in his own life, and he began to struggle with what he saw in the Bible. The reason is this, he was beginning to see serious errors and serious disconnects between what the Word of God taught and what the Roman Catholic Church taught. Well, this whole thing came to a head. when this young and ambitious Martin Luther walked up to the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany, and quite literally nailed 95 theses to the front door of that church. Now, a couple of things need to be said about how this whole thing went down. The first is this, it was customary in that time to post things on the door of the church. This was certainly not the first time that it had happened and it was not going to be the last time. So you need to think of the church door, at least at this time in history, as the church bulletin board. Okay, so don't hear that that Luther posted his 95 theses on the front door of the church and at the same time here Vandalism because that's not what is going on now if you were to post something on the front door of this church in that manner It probably would be vandalism, but that's not how it was in the 16th century The second thing that we need to understand about how this whole thing went down is that what Luther posted that day was written in Latin This is important because Latin was the scholarly language of the day and the bulk of the people, they did not read it, they did not understand it. So it's not like Luther nailed what you or I would call an open letter on the front door of the church for everyone there to read it. The intent, at least for Luther, was that he was going to engage in a scholarly debate between him and the church leadership. And third, just so that we understand, these 95 theses, they were basically complaints or issues that Luther had with the church. And these complaints or these issues, they revolved mainly around three big things. The first was clerical abuses. The second was extortion. And the third was the sale of indulgences. It was stuff like that. And if you have the time and the energy, Luther's 95 Theses, they're actually available online for free. You can read them with very little work on your end. And you can see that that was Namely the concern that Luther had So here's the point this all happened this posting of these 95 theses on the front door of the castle church it all happened on October 31st 1517 October 31st, 1517. It was nearly 500 years ago, and it was that event, that posting there on the front door of the church, it was that event on October 31st that is typically understood as the birth of the Protestant Reformation. And over time, this movement picked up steam, and other figures began to join the Reformation cause. You see, we need to understand that this little German monk, this little Martin Luther, he was not alone. In fact, he was preceded by men like John Wycliffe and John Hus, or Hus, depending upon how you pronounce his name. While other men like John Calvin in France, Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland, Martin Busser in Germany, and John Knox in Scotland, they all followed him. Like a tidal wave, we need to see this, that God is raising up man after man after man in various parts of Europe to further his cause, and the cause is this reformation. Some of you at this point have already tuned out. You've tuned out because if you were like me in high school, you're not really interested in names and places and times and dates. It's just not your thing. And that's fine. I think you're wrong, but that's fine. But what you need to see and what you need to hear and what you need to understand is that the events leading up to the Reformation and the events that followed the Reformation is not just some old dusty history that has no bearing upon your life today. In fact, the exact opposite is actually true. And I'm gonna convince you of that right now. I'm gonna give you just a couple of examples. Stuff that you and I, week after week, take for granted, even here in this local church. Things like congregational singing. Who here is glad that we can assemble together week after week and that we can lift up our voices about our wonderful triune God? Every one of your hands should be up. And next week, you'll know to open to Mark. We're getting trained. Congregational singing. Also, how about this? Having a Bible in your own language. Having a Bible that you can actually read. That's a good thing, right? Also, we view here at Community Bible Church the preaching of the Word of God as central among the life of the church gathered. That means that it is our focus, it is our aim, it is our desire here week after week to be exposed to the word of God. And finally, interestingly enough, that we as a church actually partake of the Lord's Supper together. Catch this, both the bread and the cup, all of us, pastors, members, visitors. I'll come back to that in a moment. Why do I bring these things up? Why do I bring up singing and Bible and preaching and the sacraments? Why? What's the point? This is what we need to understand, folks, because every one of them was cultivated in the soil of the Reformation. It was the Reformers who gave song and music back to the local church. It was the Reformers who were the catalyst for printing Bibles in the language of the common people. It was the Reformers who set the bar for preaching sequentially through the various books of the Bible. And it was the Reformers, oddly enough, who returned to the congregation the Lord's Supper. I don't know if you know this, whereas before, the people, and in this context, that means all of you, you were prohibited from partaking of the cup. You understand that? It was reserved for the priests and the priests only. That's only four examples. That's only four examples of why Reformation Day is so important, not in just the year 1517, but even today. The gospel was taken from under a basket and allowed, excuse me, to shine brightly once again. And you and I are recipients of such a bright shining light. Just as an aside, I wonder, do you know what the word Protestant means and where it comes from? The word Protestant. This might be a shocker to some of you. Whether you knew it or not, by worshiping here with us this morning, you are identifying as a Protestant. You are a Protestant. So what does that mean? Well, the word comes from the Latin, and it means to testify publicly. To testify publicly, or simply put, to be a Protestant is to Protest. You understand that? To be a Protestant is to protest. You see, some of you had thought that you would always live this nice and quiet and peaceful life. You thought that you weren't one of those people that held signs on busy corners and protested, but I have news for you. Every Sunday morning, you are protesting. Every Sunday morning when we assemble and we gather, we are doing so to testify publicly, to protest. And what are we saying? What are we protesting? Well, we're actually saying two things at the same time. The first is this. We are saying that we are not Roman Catholic. We are not Roman Catholic. That is the first thing. We are saying this is what we are not. We are not this. And at the same time, second, we are saying what we are. You see, it's not enough in a protest to say what you were against. You also need to declare what you are for. So what are we for? What are we for? Well, there were several big ideas that emerged from the Protestant Reformation. And these big ideas were the heart and soul of the Protestant Reformation. And they have come down to us in what are called the five solas of the Reformation. The five solas of the Reformation. And they are this. Sola Scriptura, Sola Christo, Sola Fide, Sola Gratia, and Sola De Gloria. Now there's a word that stands out in every one of those, and it's the word sola, or some form of it. And what we need to understand is that sola is a Latin word that simply means alone or only. So that really, for the sake of simplicity and in English, the battle cry that emerged from the Protestant Reformation is this. Scripture alone, Christ alone, faith alone, grace alone, and to the glory of God alone. That is what we are for. That is what we are coming together and publicly testifying of. We are not Roman Catholic, and this is what we are. We are all about scripture alone, and Christ alone, and faith alone, and grace alone, and all for the glory of God alone. That is the heart and soul, not just of the Reformation, but of this church. And what we are going to do this morning in honor of and in recognition of Reformation Day is that we're going to briefly address each one of these solas in an attempt to try to better understand it and also to recognize why it is still important even to this day. So, stretch out your fingers. So we're gonna be going through a lot of texts. Turn in your Bible to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3. The first big idea that we're going to survey is sola scriptura, or scripture alone. Scripture alone. So look with me at 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. Familiar words? 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. That's 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. What is truth? That was the question that Pilate mockingly asked Jesus. What is truth? And it is a question that people have continued to ask down through the ages. But thankfully, lo and behold, we as a culture and as a people have finally reached an answer to that vexing question. If you were to ask the average millennial, of which I am one, who makes up roughly 27% of our country and is the largest generational group in America. Something like 85 million people in the United States are millennials. If you ask them, what is truth, they will give you an answer. There is no truth. That's the answer. We have finally figured it out, there is no truth. Instead, what's true for you may or may not be true for me and vice versa. Why? Because truth is what we make it. Truth is what we feel. Truth is what we experience. And after all, who are you to discount my feelings and my experiences? That's the answer, at least that my generation has given to Pilate's question to Jesus, what is truth? And into that cesspool of quasi-philosophy, which is trash, God speaks, doesn't he? God speaks. God answers the question, where does truth come from? And God answers the question, truth comes from me. Truth comes from me. And this is actually very good news. It is good news because it means that God has not left us in the dark. It means that, thankfully, God has not left us to our own devices. Instead, he has spoken into our world, he has spoken into our life, and it is truth. And it is in the Bible, or as 2 Timothy 3.16 calls it, the scriptures, where God has spoken. In 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, we learn several important truths about the scripture, four truths that I will point out to you this morning. Scripture is inspired, scripture is inerrant, scripture is authoritative, and scripture is sufficient. And the point that we want to make is that it is the scriptures alone that are those things. That is what we mean, again, by the first sola, scripture alone. When it comes to what we are to believe and what we are to do, we look not to ecclesiastical traditions, We look not to popes, we look not to vain human opinions or our own imaginations, but we look to the word of God and we look to the word of God alone. Why? For it alone is inspired, inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient. For it is the word of God that is inspired. That is what 2 Timothy 3.16 means when it reads, at least in the ESV, breathed out by God. breathed out by God or inspired. The words in the Bible, the words in your lap this morning, they are not merely human words. They are God's words. They are words that come to you from your Creator and from your Redeemer. They are inspired words. I'll make a quick comment here. It doesn't mean that they are always inspiring words, right? Like some cheesy Hallmark card. but inspired in the sense that they come forth from Him. And because they come forth from God, they are by definition inerrant. They are inerrant, that is to say they are without error. That is why, if you look at 2 Timothy 3.16, that is why God's words are profitable. That is why they are profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Why are they profitable? Because they are, unlike your words, without error. They are inerrant. We also need to understand that God's word is not just inspired, not just inerrant, but authoritative. God has spoken to us, and in so doing, God has not just made some suggestions. God has not just given maybe some good advice that we ought to pay attention to. Instead, God has declared, thus saith the Lord. We might say it this way today. God says, this is the way that it is. And therefore, you and I are required to hear and to listen and to obey and submit to the word of God. It comes to us as an authoritative word. And finally, the word of God is sufficient. The word of God is sufficient. It does not need to be supplemented. You don't need to add anything to it. We are told in 2 Timothy 3.17, 2 Timothy 3.17, that for you and I to be what? Competent, equipped for some good work. Most good work. Nearly all good work. The text says for what? Every good work. Every good work then you and I must give ourselves to the breathed-out Word of God It is that is the Word of God is and it is alone sufficient to instruct you and I for Whatever God has for us for every good work This is important Scripture alone, sola scriptura, recognizes that the scripture is vested with authority. Authority that comes from God, and therefore authority that is unique. And because it is that, it cannot be rivaled by popes, or by church councils, or by your experience. or by tradition, or by feelings, or by impressions, or by liver shivers. The word of God wins every time. It was this conviction of scripture alone that provoked Martin Luther to make his famous speech in 1521 at the Diet of Worms. Now let me quickly explain to you what diet of worms means. Because let's be honest, that sounds like some kind of homeopathic regimen, doesn't it? The diet of worms. Diet. I don't know why they talked like that when they did, but diet simply meant a formal meeting. And I had to look this up. Worms, believe it or not, is actually a city in Germany. So the Diet of Worms in 1521 was actually just a meeting in the city of Worms in the year 1521. See, it's not all that complicated when we peel back the layers. And this meeting was basically a trial to either get Martin Luther to recant, or if he would not, it was a meeting or a trial that was going to convict him of heresy. And when they asked Martin Luther if he would recant, he famously responded in this way. Since then, your majesty and your lordships require a simple reply. I will not answer with horns, and I will answer without teeth, unless I am convicted by scripture and plain reason. For I do not accept the authority of popes and church councils, for they have contradicted each other. My conscience is captive to the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything. For to go against conscience is neither safe nor right. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen. He was convicted of heresy. Church, the fact of the matter is there is much that is vying for our attention today, isn't there? What is your foundation? Where will you stand? Scripture alone reminds us that there is only one inspired and inerrant and authoritative and sufficient source for you and I to know what we are to believe and what we are to practice. And it is the word of God. It is scripture alone. The question then is this, where does the scripture lead us, right? Where does it drive us? What is its message? Well, the answer, solo Christo, or Christ alone, Christ alone. Jesus himself said these familiar words in John 14, six, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me, which means, dear saint, that you are not to look to the church, you are not to look to pastors, you are not to look to priests, and you are not to look to sacramentalism for your salvation. You are to look to Christ and to Christ alone, for He is the only way of salvation. He is the only hope of salvation for you and I. He is the only way of salvation. Why? because he is the only Savior. He is the only Savior. As again, Jesus himself said in John 14, six, no one comes to the Father except through me. Peter himself essentially said the same thing when preaching in Acts 4, 12. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved. The scriptures teach Christ alone, that Jesus is our only Savior. And they do this by looking at his death from three different, though admittedly related, perspectives. I'm gonna share them with you very quickly. Here they are. This is why Jesus is our only Savior. Substitution, penal, and complete. I'll explain those. Substitution, penal, and complete. They all drive us, they all force us to solo Christo, to Christ alone. So let's look at them very quickly. First, substitution. By substitution, I simply mean that Christ died as a substitute. He died in your place. That is what texts like Mark 10, 45 are getting at. for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life, what? As a ransom. for many. Do you hear that phrase, and give his life as a ransom for many? We just slide by those texts. That's substitution language. That's Jesus himself saying that he's giving himself for another. That is to say, he's substituting himself. Second, penal. Penal has to do with the legal side of things. It means this, that when Jesus died, he didn't die merely as a substitute, but that he died to pay the penalty you and I owed for breaking the law of God. Jesus, you see, died a sinner's death because he died in the place of sinners to pay their penalty. That's what we mean by penal. Let me give you a couple of texts. Romans 4.25. Romans 4.25 says this, Jesus was delivered up for our trespasses. Other translations render that for our transgressions. Do you hear the penal focus or the legal focus? Jesus died for trespasses. Galatians 3.13 reads, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? By becoming a curse for us. So again, even in this curse motif, Christ redeems us from the curse by himself being what? Accursed. And then finally, 1 Peter 3.18, which reads, Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. And again, we see in this text both the substitution and the penal nature of this whole thing. It is in our place that he dies, that is substitution, and the reason that he dies is to pay a penalty for our sin. mentioned here by noting that it is Jesus who is the righteous that dies for the unrighteous. First, substitution, second, penal, and third, what I call complete. And complete here has to do with the fact that the Bible over and over again describes Jesus' death as once for all. That is to say that Jesus does not need to re-die or remake atonement. Why? Because his death, what he accomplished, it is complete. It need not happen again and it will not happen again. And again, we know texts that speak to this. It was Jesus himself from the cross who cried out in John 19.30, it is finished. It is finished. That means that there is no more penalty to be paid for sin. It is done, it is finished, it was accomplished, it was completed by our Lord Jesus. Another passage worth looking at is Hebrews 10, verses 11 and 12. If you have a moment, I would encourage you to turn there. Hebrews 10, verses 11 and 12. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 11 and 12 puts it this way. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins, verse 12. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Now very quickly, I just want to point out the contrast that is just all over this text. I'll show you this really quick. First, Levitical priests stand. Levitical priests stand. Number two, they offer the same sacrifices. They're standing, number one, they're offering the same sacrifices, number two, and number three, as the passage says, their sacrifice is what? cannot take away sins. Okay, you got those three? Standing, same old sacrifices, can't take away sins, okay? Now verse 12, enter Christ. He's not standing, is he? What's he doing? He's sitting, which indicates not that he's lazy, but that his job is complete. Not only that, we are told in the text that he did not offer the same old sacrifices, did he? He offered himself. He offered himself, and this self-sacrifice is able to what? Take away sins. The Levitical priests stand, offer the same old sacrifices, can't take away sin. Jesus is not standing, he's sitting. He's not offering the same old sacrifices. He offered himself, and in offering himself, he did what the Levitical priests could never do, and that is take away sins. You know what Hebrews 10, 11, and 12 is telling you? It's complete. It's finished. It is done. Sin met its match on Calvary's cross. That's what Hebrews 10, 11, and 12 is telling us. And that is what it means by Christ alone. It means that He alone is the only way of salvation, that He is the only Savior. And it is simple. The reason that Jesus is the only Savior, the reason that Jesus is the only way of salvation is because that He alone is the one who died on a cross as a substitute for sinners. He alone died to pay a penalty for sinners. And his death alone was enough to completely take away sins from sinners. That's what we mean by solo Christo, by Christ alone. And this is all good news. This is all supposed to be good news. But how do we lay hold of Christ? How is it that you and I then receive the benefits that Christ won for sinners? And the resounding answer from Scripture, and the answer that was rediscovered during the Reformation era was, sola fide. Or again, by faith alone. By faith alone. Moving your Bibles to Romans chapter 4, I want to draw your attention to verse 5. Romans chapter 4, verse 5. The Apostle Paul made this statement in Romans chapter 4, verse 5. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Let's read that again. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Folks, this is amazingly good news. In fact, dare I say, there is no better news in the entire world than the news that is contained in the fifth verse of the fourth chapter of the book of Romans. Let me show you why I make such daring claims. Notice how you are described in verse five. Notice how you are described and how I am described. We are what? Ungodly. We are ungodly. And that means, in the most simplest of language, that you and I, and the whole world for that matter, that you and I are guilty before God. that what you and I deserve from God, what the world deserves from God, remember, the one who is utterly and completely and totally holy, what we deserve from his hand is judgment, a judgment which fully manifests itself in punishment and in hell. That's what it means to be ungodly. Sin in the Bible is not a boo-boo. It's not a mistake. It's not something that God winks at. The wages of sin is death, and death, again, climactically, comes to its own in hell. That's what it means to be ungodly. And yet, while all of that is true, the good news of this passage is that those who are described as ungodly can actually be what? Justified. Let that sink in. Those who are ungodly can be justified. Let me just very briefly explain that to you. If you and I were to stand before God's courtroom in all of our own glory and majesty, the declaration from the bench would be, Guilty our sin would condemn us and thus God would condemn us now this is where justification is so wonderful and so exciting because guilty and ungodly sinners just like you and just like me we can actually enter into God's courtroom and hear a different declaration from the bench and we might imagine that that declaration would sound something like this. Innocent. But even that does not do justice to justification in the scriptures. You see, to be justified is to have the gavel drop in the courtroom of heaven and to hear from a holy and almighty God, righteous. Do you hear the difference between guilty and innocent and righteous? Guilty is a negative declaration. Innocent is an even or a neutral declaration. Righteous is a positive declaration. When God announces you and I justified, He is saying that you and I are actually positively righteous in His sight. There is no better news in all the world for a guilty sinner like you and I. If you don't understand that, then I don't know that you've been awakened to the truth of the gospel. If you do not find that to be the most majestic and beautiful news, then I fear for your soul and you ought to fear for your soul. You have not been awakened by the Holy Spirit. You are still in your sin. There is no better news in all of the world. So the answer, of course, the question is this, of course. What do I need to do, right? What do I need to do to be justified? What do I need to do to hear that good news? That is our human tendency, isn't it? What do I need to do? Give me the rules, give me the list, I can do it. I wanna hear righteous. But as Romans 4, 5 says, justification, this declaration of righteous, it does not come about by doing or working, does it? But it comes about by believing and by trusting. That is the good news of the gospel, that God in Christ has done something so that you and I can be saved from our sin and from God's wrath against us. and that we lay hold of such promises, not by slavishly adhering to a list of do's and don'ts, but by faith and by faith alone. That is what is meant by the Reformational cry, sola fide, that our righteousness and our salvation and our justification, it does not come about or rest upon any good works that you or I do. but rather by clinging to Christ and the promises of the gospel through faith and through faith alone. It's not enough to say Jesus is enough. Jesus is all you got. Jesus is all you got. The great reformer Martin Luther argued that justification by faith alone is the article by which the church stands or falls. John Calvin wrote that justification by faith alone is the principal hinge on which all of religion turns. Why do these great reformers say things like that? Because you've got two options. Because your standing before God is either by faith or by works. And the good news of the gospel is that it is by faith and by faith alone that you and I will hear the gavel drop and hear righteous. Now we want to be careful here when we say that faith saves us because sometimes that is sloppy language and sometimes it can be misunderstood depending upon the crowds that you run with. As we have already seen, I hope, it is actually Christ who saves us, right? It is his life, his death, his resurrection. It is Christ who saves us. And we lay hold of such immense and wonderful and saving blessings through or by faith, not because of faith. I'm not trying to get into a semantic argument here. We need to understand that faith is not the grounds of your justification. Christ is. Faith is merely the instrument by which we receive it. Again, as the Reformers taught us, faith is merely open hands held out to God, receiving from God. This is so important because we do not want to unintentionally communicate that faith somehow acts like a work. Because it doesn't, it can't, because in the Bible, always, true faith, saving faith, biblical faith, it looks away from self. It looks to Christ, it looks to God, which is where our salvation comes from. That is what is meant by our fourth sola, sola gratia, grace alone, grace alone. I would invite you to turn to the classic text in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, and we will read it together. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. This is what God's word says, for by grace, you have been saved notice through faith. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. If there is one thing that this passage is teaching you and I this morning, it is that you and I being saved rests ultimately in and on the grace of God, not our own human achievement. It is the triune God of Scripture who takes the initiative in rescuing us. He saves us, we don't save ourselves. And why would he do that? Well, he does so because of his grace alone. This is actually more than apparent when you recall the context of Ephesians chapter 2. Now, we don't have the time to work through it here and now, but I would encourage you to read it on your own this afternoon. And what you will find is that leading up to Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, what you will find is that you and I are actually dead, we are defiant, and we are doomed. We are dead in sin, we are defiant to God, and we are doomed to destruction. That's the context of Ephesians chapter two, leading up to verses eight and nine. But God, but God. You see, it is despite our sin, that God intervenes in our lives, grants us the gifts of repentance and faith. He causes the scales to fall from our eyes. He takes out our heart of stone and he grants us a heart of flesh and it is God who ultimately saves us. And all of that, the gifts and the scales from the eyes and the wax out of the ears and the tongue loosed and the new heart, it all flows to us. It all comes to us from the grace of God. It is not because of works. It's not because something you have done. God is not responding to your goodness. And the reason for that is absolutely simple on two levels. One, you ain't good. And two, if you were, then you would boast about it. Right? Then you know what heaven would be populated with? Varsity quarterbacks. That's what heaven would be populated with. I went to public school, I know these guys. They're not here. This is what would be said in heaven. God did this for me because I first did this. You understand that? That's boasting. But that is not how this whole thing works. Here's the point. The only thing that you and I bring to the table with respect to our salvation is sin. That's it. People want to know, what do I contribute to my salvation? You want to know what you contribute? You bring the evil and the wickedness and the treachery and the rebellion. You bring all of that. That's your contribution. Way to go. And God does the rest. God saves us. That is why the battle cry of the Reformation rested upon this fourth sola, sola gratia. It is by grace alone. If you even have an inkling of spiritual life in you, if Jesus is even remotely beautiful and wonderful to you, if you even think sin is distasteful in the slightest, It's not because of how good you are. It's not because of how spiritual you are. It's not because of your upbringing. It's not because of the TBN crap. It's because God has done a work in you, and he's not responding and reacting. He's initiating. He's doing the work. And if those things are not happening in your life, then all you can do is fall on your knees and beg and plead God that by His grace, He might do a work. That's what we mean by sola gratia, by grace alone. Well, this all inevitably leads us to our fifth and final sola of the Reformation, doesn't it? Soli Dei Gloria, or God's glory alone. God's glory alone. The Reformers rightly recognized that according to the pages of Scripture, all of life, not just Sunday for an hour and a half, maybe an hour and 45 the way things are going, that all of life is to be lived for God's glory and God's glory alone. So after extolling the beauties and the wonders of the gospel, the apostle Paul erupts in Romans chapter 11, doesn't he? He erupts with praise and glory over God and his glory. This is what Romans 11, 36 says. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen. The Westminster Shorter Catechism gets at this in its very first question, doesn't it? What is the chief end of man? The answer? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. You and I exist. We were created to give honor and glory to God, and in so doing, to enjoy and delight ourselves in him. Catch this. That is why you have air in your lungs right now. It is for no other reason than to give glory to God. That is why we were created. That is why we exist. It was these five solas that we have just scratched the surface of that were, in fact, the heartbeat of the Protestant Reformation. As I have said, a battle cry, if you will, of Scripture alone, of Christ alone, of faith alone, of grace alone, and all to the glory of God alone. I've been thinking about preaching this Reformation Sunday sermon for actually quite a while, and it has been my prayer up to this point and my prayer after this, that this battle cry will continue to sound loudly and to be heard clearly. As we remember this morning and as we celebrate Reformation Day this day, I do sincerely hope and pray that such rich and God honoring truth would be the heartbeat of your life and of your family and of this church. And that by God's grace, we as a church can continue to carry on the reformation here in this place, in this city and in our communities and all for the glory of God alone. Let's pray together. Our Father, we recognize now, perhaps more than ever, that we stand on the shoulders of giants. We stand upon the shoulders of men whom you have raised up, and we are grateful. We are grateful for the work that you have done in the 16th century and following, and yet we also want to recognize that we are not content with the reformation in the 16th century, we plead and cry and beg and wish that you would bring reformation even now in our own lives and in this church and in this community and in our land. I pray for any who are here that you would open eyes, that people would see Jesus and all his glory and all his beauty and all his saving-ness. I pray for this place, I pray for us, I pray for Community Bible Church as a church, that we would keep the main thing, the main thing, that we as a people would be determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ. God, help us. Help us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.