Sermon – October 25^th, 2026 – Reformation Day Observed
Hope Lutheran Church, Port Coquitlam BC
Text: John 8:31-36; Romans 3:19-28
Theme: “4 – The Truth that sets free”

                    Series: Re: Formation

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Introduction: I found a video on the internet that shows a guy who has a type of strength that is off the charts. Have a look!

(Video: A guy at a train station pretending to stop a train by pushing it, and also opening its doors.)

What? Do you see anything that I don’t in this video? Oh, I see, you think the guy is just faking it, right?

And of course, you are right.

My next question then is: how do you know that? Think about the reasons. You know, a person who knows nothing about how subways work may be lured into thinking this is true, especially because it is on video.

How do you know that it is fake? Because you have previous knowledge against which you can assess this video.

-Trains are machines weighing many thousands of pounds. A single human being’s strength can’t stop a moving subway train.
-Anyway, trains stop because they have braking systems.
-You know trains, and you know these doors open automatically. No one needs to pull them open, except in emergency situations.
-Trains start moving again under their own power, and no human has the strength to make that happen by pushing.

Because you have previous knowledge of what is true regarding physics, human strength, and trains, you have the grounds to judge whether the action in the video is real or fake.

1 – You will know the Truth

Capping off our Re: Formation series, today we think about what is at the core and at the centre of our proclamation. The Truth. Because Jesus said He is the Truth.

The Reformers were fighting and standing for the truth. They dove deeper into the Scriptures, and when they compared what they read with what they saw in front of them, they could spot what was true and what was false.

Just as the video illustrates. You can see that the guy is a real person and that it is a real train station. There are lots of elements you can recognize as real. But the fake elements jump out at you immediately. In both cases, because you had previous knowledge of the truth.

The Reformation was not, at its heart, an attempt to invent a new Church. It was an effort to bring the Church’s teaching and practice back under God’s Word alone. When you read the Augsburg Confession of 1530, you notice that the Lutheran Reformers were clear and straightforward in their purpose. They had not abandoned the historic Christian faith; they were correcting abuses that had become attached to it. The Reformers were not saying, “Everything we received is false.” They retained what they understood Scripture to teach, including Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, while challenging teachings and practices that were not aligned with the Gospel.

The theological criterion was not simply, “Is this old or new?” but, “Does this agree with Scripture and faithfully proclaim what God has given us in Christ?” The Reformation required discernment, not the rejection of everything from the past.

We see that the Reformers didn’t want to demolish the Church and start a new one. They knew from the Bible that there were many true and salutary things the Church was getting right. But knowing the Truth of the Scriptures made what was wrong jump out at them. Here are a few topics:

• Scripture is the sole source and final standard of Christian teaching.
• Salvation is received through faith alone.
• Salvation is an act of God’s grace.
• Forgiveness is received, not earned or bought.
• Christ gave both His body and His blood, with the bread and wine, for His people to receive in Holy Communion.
• The Church’s ministry is instituted by God, but no particular system of ranks above that ministry is commanded by Him.
• The Bible can be translated into the people’s language.
• The authority of the Church must be distinguished from the authority of the State.

The list goes on and on. But standing on the Truth of God’s Word, they were able to spot false teachings and abuses in the Church’s life and structure.

The centre of the Lutheran Reformation was justification: how sinners are saved, declared righteous before God. Article IV of the Augsburg Confession states that people cannot be justified by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake through faith, because Christ’s death has made satisfaction for their sins. The weight is not placed on how successfully we reform ourselves, or even on how much correct information we possess, but on what Christ has done for us. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

2 – Today

By standing on the Truth of God’s Word, the Reformers blessed only their own generation, but also generations to come. Including ours.  Because the same holds true today: Christ invites us to remain in His Word so that we know the Truth, are set free from sin, and receive eternal life.

Now, John 8:32 is often quoted out of context, much like “I can do all things through Christ.” Say “the truth will set you free,” and you may get a whole stadium, a whole province, a whole nation to agree and cheer. The moment you say, “Jesus will set you free,” for He is the Truth, things can change rapidly.

It is important to keep the movement Christ sets forth in John 8:31–32:

• Remaining in the Word.
• Being true disciples.
• Knowing the Truth.
• Being set free by the Truth.

How can you be a true disciple of Christ? By remaining in His Word. The Truth. And notice that this remaining isn’t something we accomplish by our own strength. The Spirit gives the faith that holds on to the Word, and through the Word He sustains us.

Let me do a quick test here, so we can see how knowing the Truth, both to stand firm in it and to spot what’s false, applies to us too.

Slide 1: True, false, or incomplete?

1. Be a good person and you’ll go to heaven.
2. The Bible contains the Word of God.
3. Jesus is the only way to the Father.
4. Money is the root of all evil.
5. All have sinned and need God’s grace, including children and newborns.
6. God created man and woman.

Slide 2: True, false, or incomplete?

7. God won’t give you more than you can handle.
8. Jesus didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword.
9. All religions basically teach the same thing.
10. On the last day, tombs will be opened and all people will come back, bodily alive.
11. Jesus died to show us how to love.
12. The Bible is inspired by God, word by word.

We could even explore other points, less central to our faith and salvation, but still part of biblical revelation:

Not stated in the Bible—or requiring qualification

• Adam and Eve ate an apple. The Bible does not identify the fruit’s species.
• Three kings visited Jesus. Matthew describes Magi and three gifts, but does not call them kings or specify their number.
• The Bible identifies exactly what kind of creature swallowed Jonah. Jonah says “a great fish”; some translations use “whale” in Matthew 12:40, but the species is not specified.
• Delilah personally cut Samson’s hair. The account says she called for a man to shave it.
• God changed Saul’s name to Paul at his conversion. Acts instead calls him “Saul, who was also called Paul.”
• The Bible explicitly says Satan was originally an angel named Lucifer. Some translations use “Lucifer” in Isaiah 14, but the passage directly addresses the king of Babylon; identifying the figure with Satan is an interpretation.

In the Bible

• Pray for the people who persecute you. — Matthew 5:44.
• Giving to the poor should be secret, not a way to gain recognition. — Matthew 6:1–4.
• Prayer should not be a performance to impress other people. — Matthew 6:5–6.
• Following Jesus must take priority even over loyalty to your family and your own life. — Luke 14:26.

3 – Truth is not a score

If you got some, or many of them wrong, welcome. I did too, once. Nobody is saved by a high score on a Bible quiz. Jesus fulfilled God’s Law perfectly for you, and His righteousness is yours through faith. Forgiveness and grace are for you too. Not knowing all the answers doesn’t make you less loved. But knowing the source of the answers can make you wiser and stronger in His Word. (2 Tim 3) This test, then, becomes a reminder of all the opportunities we have to continue to learn the Truth from His Word.

When we look at the Reformers’ work, we see that they were not merely correcting answers on the Church’s theological quiz; their confession directed burdened consciences away from their own achievements and toward Christ’s sufficient saving work. Knowing which answers are true matters, but the freedom we proclaim is a gift from the Son, not a reward for getting those answers right.

Listen to Paul in Romans 3. The Law speaks so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world held accountable to God. No one is justified by works of the Law. What the Law gives us is knowledge of sin. Not freedom from it. And Jesus says it plainly in our Gospel reading: “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” Not merely a student who needs more information. An indentured servant of sin.

Notice how the people in John 8 react. “We have never been enslaved to anyone.” These are people who knew their Scriptures. And they still couldn’t accept what Jesus was telling them. We do the same. “I’m not that bad.” “I know my Bible.” But merely knowing a lot of true facts never freed anybody from sin.

And here is where “remaining” comes back. Jesus says a slave doesn’t remain in the house forever, but a son does (v. 35). Our own efforts cannot secure our place in God’s household. We have no claim to that place on our own. Again, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Paul says it too: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Redemption. He paid for it.

The Truth that sets you free is not merely an idea, an ideology, a way of life, or a better score. It is a person, Jesus, who comes to you through His Word. And He is for you. Through Him, you are made a son, a daughter of God. And by His grace, you remain. 

Conclusion: Back to that video, it reminds me of something else. The guy in the video looks like he’s stopping a train, but he’s actually doing nothing to stop it. And that’s what it looks like when we try to save ourselves. Be a good person, say the right prayer, get a high score. It’s all the same: pushing against something we can’t stop. The weight of sin and death is heavier than any train, and nobody stops it by pushing. Christ defeated sin and death through His cross and resurrection, for us.

This is the centre of the Gospel: salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, for Christ’s sake alone. Does that mean our works are fake? No. Our works are real, and our neighbours are really helped. We live our faith, we do good works, we try to be good people and loving neighbours. But these works were never what saves us. It is the Holy Spirit who works in us to produce good thoughts and deeds. By His power, we remain in the Truth that has set us free from sin for new life.

And that’s why we conclude this series by saying the same as Bach, one of the most famous Lutherans in history, who marked many of his musical works with the initials S.D.G.: Soli Deo Gloria. To God alone be all the glory.

Lutheran answer key

 Slide 1: True, false, or incomplete?

Slide 2: True, false, or incomplete?

Not stated in the Bible—(Traditional details the Bible does not specify)

In the Bible

Summaries of the teachings, with the corresponding passages.