“Christ alone” is a fundamental Christian confession that emphasizes the exclusive reliance on Jesus Christ as the means of God’s grace, and it’s a Lutheran buzzword. This confession underscores a core theological principle: salvation and God’s love don’t depend on our human effort or ability, but are solely on God’s unmerited love through Jesus. It confesses the belief that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, his resurrection, and his atoning work are sufficient for our reconciliation with God. This confession is rooted in the Bible, particularly in Ephesians 2—“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.”
The words “Christ alone” compress the essence of this truth—that salvation is God’s gift, not something we earn. It stands in contrast, almost offensively so to our sense of propriety and popular wisdom, to the idea of salvation through our own efforts, that God helps those who help themselves. But it reminds us—who as the gospel today alludes to, who claim to believe in Jesus—that our hope and trust should rest solely in Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our whole lives, and in whom we find the endless grace of God. Keep this in mind as we go forward today, and every day for that matter.
Let us pray. May words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Bulwark never failing. Amen.
If you’re at all like me, things happen in your life that cause you stress. It’s a pretty universal human experience—stress. Now, the question is what we do with stress when it hits. If you’re at all like me, stress sometimes snowballs, or as I like to say, stress can go into a death spiral. A death spiral happens when you can’t think about anything other than the stressor, and pretty soon you find yourself all consumed by it, and the more you think about it, the worse it gets. And you keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper into that grave of stress—one more round deeper, another round deeper, another round deeper. Spiraling deeper into the death spiral of stress…
Stress can happen cataclysmically. An emergency visit to the vet with its unplanned expense. Someone calls off work last minute and your shift, which you were counting the minutes til it ended, becomes suddenly that much longer. You chop your thumb making dinner and end up at the urgent care for five stitches. A diagnosis. The death of a friend or family member. On and on. These things are “big,” and they cause us stress.
But sometimes things that cause stress just jump into our lives unexpected. Not that we expect stress to happen—no one plans for it. What I mean by jump into life unexpected is that you can be happily, merrily going about your day and all of a sudden, you think of something, see something, realize something, or even just have a glimpse of an idea pass through your mind momentarily, and a wave of stress, a wave of anxiety rolls over you. And then you start to think…You ponder it. These can be things that have been hovering around as well, that you’ve lived with, but have continued going on, dealing with them, but then they sneak in and get a hold on your mind, for no explained reason. Will this month’s bills exceed this month’s income? What if I get sick and can’t end up making it for Thanksgiving dinner? Did I really turn off the stove when I left the house? What if my cancer comes back? What would my life be like if my sister dies? On and on. These can be little things, but they can be existential things. And the more we think about them, the bigger they become.
If you’re at all like me, stress is something that you try to manage yourself. And thinking about it and creating a plan to deal with things, either things that are right before you or are perceived, potential problems, is part of the way you try to manage it. The thing is, that oftentimes, this doesn’t work. Sure—we can deal with problems as they arise, but dealing with things is never done well when stress moves to anxiety, worry, depression, or simply, fear. It’s good for us to recognize problems for what they are—problems. Things that aren’t going well. It’s delusional and out of touch with reality to say that chopping your finger making dinner isn’t a serious problem that needs dealing with, dealing with seriously and immediately. But panicking, becoming overcome with fear about it will not help.
And it’s especially true for the “what ifs” of life. Allowing negativity to overtake us about all the things that could happen or allowing negative thoughts about things that have happened isn’t at all part of the full and abundant life God designed for us. Put simply, constant, persistent negativity is not part of God’s plan.
Today Jesus speaks of freedom, freedom from sin—that is freedom from whatever, everything and anything, that would stand in the way of good relationship with God, with the fullness of life God envisions for us and all creation—not just this or that bad thing you do. And Jesus speaks of this freedom particularly coming from abiding in God’s Word, from being set free by the truth.
But what does that mean? And how practically does that work for us? Let’s look today at a part of God’s Word to see…
Psalm 46:10, open your bulletin up to it if you want. The first line of this verse really contains everything we need to understand what Jesus is saying today. “Be still and know that I am God.” These are the words of King David, sung as a prayer, but they are also the Word of God, in Scripture, and inspired by God, useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. In other words, useful for living a life of faith, a life lived in relationship with God, as God intended. So let’s look at those words: “Be still and know that I am God…”
First, “be still.”
God here is reminding us that our striving, our worrying, our complaining, our bickering with each other about what’s right is opposed and even in conflict with a life free from sin. We delude ourselves into believing that we can better our own selves by creating a plan or worse, by getting ahead of someone else, by backchanneling or backbiting, figuring out how we will finally succeed when we disagree with someone—thinking that will put us in a better place.
But this is a delusion because it becomes all-consuming, and we lose sight of the big picture. And the work we do to place ourselves in a better position ends up not only robbing other people of fullness of life, but us as well. And this is motivated out of fear…fear that we won’t be in a good place, well positioned. When we are still, when we recognize things for what they are, not donning rosy glasses to ignore problems but also not seeking to control or outsmart, we are truly free from sin.
Second, “know.”
God’s Word has never once failed. We heard earlier this morning from the Prophet Isaiah, and I tell you again now, God’s Word doesn’t return to God empty, but accomplishes that which God purposes, succeeds in the thing for which he sends it. It’s natural for us to have questions about what we believe, but the foundation of our relationship with God is a promise that we who are made in the image of God, made to be like God, just a little less than divine, as David sings in Psalm 8—nothing will ever separate us from God’s love. And that’s God’s Word, given to us, and that Word does exactly what God wants. It always has, and always will. Knowing that truly free from sin.
Third, “I am God.”
Here we have the promise of this verse—a promise for us. But this promise comes with a sharp edge. When God is God, we are not. We don’t control circumstances. We don’t set ourselves free from sin. We can’t finagle ourselves out of every problem ourselves. We aren’t the end-all-be-all—no matter how much we plan or believe we have things under control. The solution to our problems, our issues, our anxieties, our worries, our depression doesn’t come from going deeper and deeper into ourselves or looking out for ourselves more or figuring out how we can better position ourselves. Truly living a good life, a life as God intends, recognizes that it’s not all about us, but that it’s about something far bigger than us, something outside ourselves—includes us, but is not all about us.
We are not God…but God is. God is the creator of all things. God controls light and darkness, life and death. God is in all places at all times, everywhere and anywhere, at every moment. God is at the bedside of a dying woman while at the bedside of a woman in labor. God is in the courtroom during a trial while in the classroom. God is in Fitchburg, and God is in Ukraine, Yemen, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Argentina, Russia, Australia.
And God is with you. God is with us, in word, keeping us steadfast in his promises. God is with us in action, reminding us that his promise creates life that is full and abundant. And God is with us in person, in the Word made flesh in Jesus, who through his death and resurrection has made each and every one of us part of him. We are the face the face of Jesus, the hands of Jesus, the feet of Jesus, the mouth, eyes, and heart of Jesus in the world today. God is present where we live lives of goodness and truth, not confined by ongoing, constant worry, anxiety, and concern for ourselves alone, but with patience, kindness, generosity, and ultimately love toward each other and anyone.
Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord—this is God’s promise. And when we truly believe this, when we abide in this word, there is no room for fear. There is no place for negativity. Perfect love casts out all fear, and the God who created all things and called it very good has no tolerance for persistent, ongoing negativity that refuses to look forward with hope and looks back with only longing or regret.
When we truly fear, love, and trust God above all things, we abide in God’s Word, we abide in Jesus, and we are free—most certainly truly free. For Jesus, the Son of God himself who came down from heaven so that we would at last get it that God desires, beyond our comprehension, a good relationship with us, a relationship with no beginning and no ending, this Son of God himself, Jesus—he is the Word of God in whom we abide. He is our God. He is the one God sends to accomplish his will, and he succeeds in what God sends him to do—to make us free, free from sin, free from anxiety, worry, depression, negativity, and fear, free from whatever, everything and anything that would stand between God and us…Jesus breaks down that barrier and makes us free.
When we are still and know that God is God, we truly experience for ourselves this truth, this freedom—because Jesus, the Son of God, full of grace and truth, the very Word of God himself made flesh among us, makes us free. And if the Son sets us free, we are most certainly truly free.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 