Solus Christus

WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
Once again, everybody, good morning. Morning. You guys look great today. My name is Chris Paavola. I get the honor of being the senior pastor here at St. Mark and we are in a series right now called Certain where we are going through the certain truths that we’re really kind of uncovered or rediscovered 500 years ago in this time period called the Protestant Reformation. And we’re looking at these truths and talking about them and just letting them have their way with us because these ideas reformed the church and they reformed human history because they first reformed human hearts. And so we’re going to be looking at these things like these essential, these certain truths of the reformation and then just kind of unpacking them and applying to our lives. Last week we looked at this truth called sola fide. It’s a Latin word and it means faith alone.

And we talked about how we are saved by faith alone. That’s it. It’s faith that saves us. I can’t do good works to get close to God and my bad or avoid doing bad works. To get close to God is faith alone that saves me. And in the same way, I’m not condemned by the bad works I do or the good works I failed to do. It’s faith alone that saves me, Sola Fide. But this week we’ve got to add onto that like the rest of the sentence because even though it’s faith alone, it’s not just faith alone because it’s faith in something. It’s not faith and faith. It’s not faith that God is good and kind and doesn’t send anyone away from him for eternity. It’s not faith that heaven is real and all dogs go to heaven. It’s faith in something in particular. And in faith.

SOLUS CHRISTUS
It’s faith in Jesus. And that brings us to our second sola of the Reformation. Solus Christus, Christ alone, just Jesus, him, that’s it. That is the object of our faith. That is what we put our faith and our trust in Jesus, just Jesus.

THE WORLD DURING THE REFORMATION
And this idea, when Martin Luther posted this on the door of the church in 1517, and it’s so hard for us to understand just how consequential and frankly cataclysmic this moment was. This was a major seismic shift in human history, a major, major moment. And one of the things that we can do to kind of comprehend and wrap our heads around how freeing this idea was and how important this idea was, is to consider some of the other historical context of things going on at the time. So last week I talked about this to bring you up to speed, Martin Luther was born in 1483.

There he is a good-looking guy, 1483. Now, just based on history class growing up or if you’re in school right now, some of the other things that were going on at the same time, what year did Christopher Columbus discover the ocean blue or sail the ocean blue? 1492, right? So you know that nine years after Luther was born, Christopher Columbus made contact with the new world that happened and that set all of Europe and in particular Western Europe and all these superpowers on this mad dash to try to colonize the new world as they coined it, England and Spain and Portugal and France, they were all rushing to try to get there, right? You know this, okay? But that’s going on on the left side of their map, on the right side of their map. There’s also some major political things going on at the same time because the Ottoman Empire is expanding westward.

And this is a long history of Muslim conquest and then the Catholic church pushing back with the Crusades and like the fall of Constantinople and Vienna and the Turks are at the gates of Vienna. Maybe you’ve ever heard that before. But then in 1493, the Ottoman Empire laid siege and attacked the Croatians right next to Italy. So really close to Rome. And this was a big deal. So as much as they wanted to allocate resources west to colonize the new world, they were also terrified of what was happening on their eastern borders and what was happening to Europe because of this combat. And this a hundred year war that began in 1493. Now that’s all going on politically, but also at the same time there’s incredible things happening in the arts, the Renaissance, and really the height of the renaissance happens at the same period. DaVinci paints the Mona Lisa and DaVinci paints the last supper in 1495. And then right on the heels of that his contemporary, is it crazy to think these two guys lived at the same time? But Michelangelo sculpted the Pieta in 1496 and also David’s statue and he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, like all these guys hung out and Donatello and the rest of, never mind.

But it’s all at the same time. And then while all of these incredible advancements are happening in the arts, there’s incredible advancements in the science and technology. Copernicus makes his first astronomical observation in 1497. And then there’s incredible inventions that happened because of science. They invented the flushing toilet, they invented the pencil and they invented the toothbrush. It boggles my mind that for 1,498 years after the birth of Christ, they still haven’t figured out that they should scrub their teeth. This is so gross, isn’t it? I mean, and actually I think my kids still think it’s optional. They use a finger. People in the 13 hundreds, they use their finger to brush, not you, sweetie. Others in our household, they think it’s optional. And maybe that’s why people didn’t smile. And that’s why the Mona Lisa’s not smiling because she didn’t have teeth. That’s what’s going on.

And also they invented at the same time the portable clock, we call it a watch today. Up to that point, they were using sundials that were fixed to the ground, but some guy was like, I could wind this and carry it with me. Amazing. 1502. Then really just tragic things happened in 1510, the slave trade started. And so that triangle, maybe you remember hearing about this, the triangle from Africa to the Caribbeans and then sugar and other exports going from the Caribbeans to Europe and then Europe down to Africa. And they had this triangle going on and that started in 1510. But at the same time, Ponte Leon makes contact with Florida. Cortez makes contact with the Aztecs. A guy named Balboa is the first European to lay eyes on the Pacific Ocean west of the Americas. And then the Portuguese sail around and make contact via the ocean with China. The world is just opening up. And then in 1517, Martin Luther nails the 95 theses on the door of a small church in Wittenberg, Germany. And in that 95 complaints against the Catholic church, he talks about sola fide in Solus Christus.

Now that’s all going on at the same time, but to give you an idea, go back, please, that’s all going at the same time. But to give you an idea of how cataclysmic, how monumental seismic this moment was, whenever you can google this for yourself, but whenever they’ve done lists of the most influential people in human history, there’s like Time Magazine, Wikipedia, Reddit, chat, GPT. It doesn’t matter who it is. When they list the most influential people in history, Martin Luther is listed ahead of every one of his contemporaries that I just named. He’s head of Copernicus, he’s head of Columbus, he’s head of Cortez. His influence and the way it has changed your world is massive. He’s always listed somewhere between 15th and 20th, most influential person in human history just after Einstein and just ahead of Lincoln. That’s where Luther ranks. It’s amazing.

And the reason his idea changed the way our maps look is because he looked at millions of people in bondage to this idea that you could earn God’s favor by what you do. Make your pilgrimage to Rome, make your penance for your sins, give us your pennies to get out of purgatory and the Pope will forgive your sins. And people were under the bondage of the law for centuries and he liberated them with the idea that you are saved by sola fide and Solus Christus. And it freed them from bondage. And it didn’t just reform the church, it didn’t just reform human history, it reformed their hearts. That’s why he’s so influential, this idea of Solus Christus. And now think about it, these people 500 years ago, they hear this message of Solus Christus and they’re called to place their faith in Christ, his work on the cross and his life and his teachings. Put your faith in him, not in anything else. And now you understand the context of why that mattered. Don’t put your faith in the armies because what if the Turks are stronger than us? Don’t put your faith in medicine and the advancements of the science. What if another plague happens that’s greater than our science?

You can look at, and it’s beautiful to look at the Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It’s beautiful, but have you seen how ugly your sins are? And so people put their faith in Jesus in spite of all of these great things. Now, don’t hear what I’m not saying. I’m not saying you shouldn’t appreciate Michelangelo and the works they do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pursue the arts and the sciences. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have care about what happens with our government, but I’m just saying that it’s not the foundation of your faith. Don’t put your trust in it. That’s what they did 500 years ago.

And when Luther looked, okay, so just a reminder, most people were illiterate and if they could read, they read in the vernacular of their day, whatever the language they spoke, the Bible was not written in any other language than Latin, Greek and Hebrew. That’s it. So if you wanted to read the Bible, you not only had to learn to read in your own language, you had to learn to read in another language that was now phased out by all practical matters. So this is something reserved for monks, scholars, and priests. And so they would read the Bible and then they would tell the people what it said. And it was a message that had again been tarnished and compromised. The Pope was like, this is about me. This is about what we want to do. And it was a bondage of guilt on people. And Luther opened the Bible and he saw this message again and again, again of Christ alone. Christ alone, Christ alone.

16 We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we to, have put our faith in Jesus Christ that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.
Galatians 2

In the reading we just heard from Galatians, it’s everywhere in the New Testament, it’s littered everywhere. But we just heard from the Apostle Paul in the letter to the Galatians, Galatians two, verse 16, “we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith,” say it:

Response: in Jesus Christ.

Pastor Chris Paavola: “So, we too have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ.” It’s everywhere and not by the works of the law, not by whether or not we defeat the Turks, not by whether or not we colonize the new world, not by whether or not we understand the heavens. We’re not justified by those things because by works of the law, no one will be justified. And then look what he says in verse 20. He takes it out of just the spiritual my relationship with God and applies it to all of our life.

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2

 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith, God and the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” But it’s not just the Apostle Paul.

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3

We see it in the Apostle John famous words of John three 16. “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him has faith in him, shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

11 Jesus is “the stone you builders rejected which has become the cornerstone. 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
Acts 4

But it’s not just the apostle Paul and it’s not just the Apostle John, it’s also the Apostle Peter when he is making his speech to a group of people in Jerusalem, he says, “Jesus is the stone you builder’s rejected, but he has become the cornerstone.” And then he goes on to describe the alone aspect. It’s Christ alone because salvation is found. Say it:

Response:  In no one else.

Pastor Chris Paavola: “for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

11 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God, have faith also in me.
John 14

But it’s not just the apostle Paul, it’s not just the Apostle John. It’s not just the apostle Peter. Jesus himself said it. John 14, “don’t let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God, have also faith in me, faith in me.” Put your trust here.

JESUS PLUS
This is the appeal of scripture like a hammer beating over and over. It’s like a chorus that rings out again and again and again. Put your faith in Jesus. And the Catholic church had made it faith and the reformation, Luther wanted everyone to know it’s Christ alone. It’s faith alone, not faith and or Christ.

JESUS + NOTHING = EVERYTHING

And as one author put it, it’s Jesus plus nothing equals everything. That’s what Solus Christus means. Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Jesus plus something else is what our hearts want to do. The reason scripture says this over and over and repeats this message over and over, one because we’re not very smart repetition, we need to hear things again and again. But also because we’re so easy to forget it. Our hearts are idol making factories We love if there’s semblance of some control that we can have over our salvation. And so we try to wrestle it away from Jesus. It’s Jesus and my church attendance that earns God’s favor or keeps God’s favor. It’s Jesus and how much I give it’s Jesus and how much I read the Bible Jesus and how much I pray and scripture tries to get it through our thick skulls. It’s Jesus alone that earns your salvation and has made you find favor with your heavenly Father, just Jesus. But it’s also, it’s not just limited to our relationship with God where we do this like addendum and we make it Jesus plus something else equals everything.

We try to remember the words of Apostle Paul. He says, the life I live, I now live by faith in the son of God. Every aspect of my life has changed because of Christ alone. I put my trust in him alone. And this is an affront on our sensibilities. This is insulting to us because we want our life to be about Jesus. I’m good with God and my bank account or Jesus and my job title or Jesus and how well my kids do in school. I want to put that stupid bumper sticker that says my kid is an honor student on my car. Or Mike can beat up your honor student anyway on my car.

But so is Christus. It doesn’t let us do that. And I know that’s insulting because I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pursue a job title that you shouldn’t work hard for your money or that you shouldn’t care how your kids do in school. I’m not saying that, but I am saying that shouldn’t be your identity. Your identity if you follow Jesus is in Jesus the life you live. You live by faith in the son of God. It’s Jesus plus nothing is your everything. And actually on the surface it seems insulting that we have to lose all these things that they don’t mean anything. But now think about it though. Push in on it because it’s actually incredibly liberating. What happens if your life is built on how much money you have and then you get sued or you have some kind of medical crisis and it just bleeds you dry and you now have no money?

That’s a problem. But not if your identity is found in Jesus alone or your job title. You work hard for your job and you pursue and you ascend the ranks. And then what happens if you get demoted or you get fired, no longer do you lose your meaning, your worth, your value or identity because your identity is found in Christ alone. Or what if your kids disappoint you or your grandkids don’t quite turn out the way you want them? What if they make choices you don’t agree with? What if your kids move away and you’ve built your identity on being their parents or being their grandparents and now they’re gone. But not if your identity is found in Christ alone, Solus Christus, it’s so liberating, it’s freeing. You are free to fail because Christ won. You are free to be nobody, everything. You’re free to be weak because he is strong. And now you live your life, you can race to the back of the line. Give up your seat of preference and privilege. Serve your enemy because your identity is not found in where you sit or who you sit with, but it’s in Christ alone.

A STORY OF CHRIST ALONE
I remember when I first began, it took me a long time to get through this through my head, but when I first started to scratch at the surface of this understanding of what it means, Christ alone, soles, Christus, that Jesus plus nothing equals everything. I was right out of college and I went to college in Texas and I got a job as a youth director in Pflugerville, Texas. And the pastor, his name, I’m not kidding, his name was Delton. If you’re wondering what I said, his name is Delton, but he was Delton. So anyway, so Pastor Delton in Pflugerville, Texas, he is a mentor in faith for me. Let me cut my teeth. I learned a lot from him. I’m grateful for him.

Honestly, incredibly formative of my life. But I was the youth director for a few months and then tragedy struck because life happens. But one of the young men in my youth ministry was a man named Brian, a kid named Brian. And he lost his life when a drug deal went sideways, tragic stuff, wrong place, wrong time, a moment of indiscretion and accost him his life. And we called the family and it was just difficult as you can imagine, and agonizing as you can imagine as we’re talking to them. And then the next day, Delton and I were going to visit with a family. We were going to their house to be with them. And I’m riding in the car with Delton and I told him, I’m like, man, I don’t even know what to say right now. What do you even say to something like this? And he’s like, well, you don’t say anything. You just say I’m sorry, and you grieve with them. And I’m like, yeah. And he says, because the only thing that matters now is Jesus.

And he said it and you could feel it in the car. It kind of rang with us and we were both like, okay, we got to their house. And I remember this about getting there. It was most of the lights in the house were off, which was kind of surreal to be in a room full of people in a dark house. But even turning on the lights felt inappropriate. That’s the mood. You know what I’m talking about, right? Bright lights felt wrong. And there was a couple of lamps on and you had the curtains in the window drawn and sunlight was kind of coming through the curtain. So there was kind of this brownish color to the room and it was just, I’ll never forget it. It was just a moment. And we walk in the door and we see the family there and I go up and I hug the mom and she cries and then she hugs Delton and she’s just wailing. And she didn’t plan on what she was going to say when she hugged him, but she asked him What’s going to happen to Brian?

And so Delton told her again what he said in the car. And he told her The only thing that matters now is Jesus. And the rest of the day we spent a good amount of time with them. And then a few days later was the funeral and we had to rent out another church because our little church wouldn’t hold all of these people. And the service was crazy, man. It was floor to rafters with high school students. It was just kids everywhere. It wasn’t an incredible opportunity to share the gospel with these kids. And in that sermon, I remember Delton talking about it doesn’t matter how many cross country trophies are in Brian’s room right now, and it doesn’t matter what kind of grades Brian made, and it doesn’t matter if he lived a good life. And it doesn’t matter if he had a moment of indiscretion in the mistakes he made at his life’s end. And then he said it with this cadence that just echoed through this stone church. And he said, the only thing that matters now is Jesus.

TITLES OF CHRIST
That is sola Christus, just Jesus Christ alone. Jesus plus nothing is everything. And when we begin to understand the power of solace Christus, it reforms our life and suddenly the titles of Jesus start to make more sense. We call Jesus the cornerstone. And when we call Jesus our cornerstone, because he’s the only one who guides us and we call him our rock and our foundation because nothing else can shake us. And we call him the way because no one else, we are lost without him. No one else can save us. We call him the truth because we are a bound without him. We call him the life because we are dead without him. We call him the light of life because we are blind without him. We call him the water of life because he’s the only thing that cleanses us. He’s the bread of life because he’s the only thing that sustains us. He’s our king, our savior, our redeemer, and our God. That is solace Christus.

APPLICATION
And that is what I want for you so desperately. It’s the 11 o’clock service. It doesn’t matter if I go long, so I’ll, I got one more thing I want to say. And it was a late addition to the sermon. You can blame daylight savings time. I had too much time to think about this. So anyway, there’s one other thing I wanted to say. So is Christus. There’s actually a little experiment you can play, I think to discover. Can you put that formula back up? If you don’t mind, Blake, Jesus plus nothing equals everything. There’s a little experiment you can do to find out if you’ve got a something there. Jesus plus something is everything to you. And there’s a few ways you could do this, but this one I think is pretty instant application. Okay, so here’s the game I think you can play on.

Two weeks ago I was getting lunch with our church president, Nate Cares, and we were at the restaurant and the waitress started, I’ve there several times. So she started sharing her life story with me a little bit with us because there was some familiarity there. And she just started laying out all these tragedies and I didn’t even really plan it. I interrupted the conversation and I asked her what she thought about Jesus. And it changed the whole temperature, the whole direction, the whole mood of the conversation. And I won’t share her story. That’s her story to tell, not mine. But it had an incredible impact. It reformed formed our conversation because I dared to say soles, Christus, I dared to say Jesus in the conversation. When we talk about God with people, I’ve heard the way we talk as Christians, we do this all the time.

If we dare to talk about God with our friends, coworkers, family, whatever, we’ll say the name, God, because it’s safe. It’s milk toast, it’s vanilla, right? You say the name of God and you’re likely not going to offend people. Maybe you’ll offend an atheist. But most people aren’t atheists. They’re out there. But most people who have questions about God, I would put them in the agnostic category rather than the atheist category. But when you say God, even the agnostic will agree with you. The Buddhist will agree with you. The Hindu will agree with you. The Mormon will agree with you. The universalist will agree with you because is God we’re talking about. We say, God bless America today. You’ll watch football and you’ll see football players say, I give all glory to God because God is not offensive. I dare you. The next time you’re talking about God with your family, your friends, your coworkers, say the J word. I dare you to say Jesus. And watch what happens to that conversation. Try saying the name of Jesus, like the apostle Paul says, I am not ashamed of the name of Jesus. I’m not ashamed of the gospel for it’s the power of God unto salvation. See what happens when you say Jesus. And by the way, if you have a little reticence to that, if you have a little bit of a, Ooh, I don’t know if you get a little uneasy about, be curious about that. Why does it make you uncomfortable? That’s your something.

That’s the identity you’re wrapped up in. That’s the thing you value above or along with Jesus. That’s the thing you’ve built your identity on. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid will happen? That’s your something. It’s kind of an indirect way of coming about this, but I want you to try this little experiment. I can’t do it for you. Just try it. Just try it. Next day, week, month, whatever, say the name of Jesus and see what idol it smashes in your life. And when you do, you will reform your heart around this idea of sous Christus. You’ll reform your heart around Christ alone. You’ll reform your heart around this idea that Jesus plus nothing equals everything. You’ll reform your heart around this idea that the only thing that matters now is Jesus.

PRAYER
Lemme pray for you guys. Heavenly Father, first of all, we hear a message like this. We should start by confessing that we have Jesus plus something equals everything to us that we have added on to Jesus alone by making it Jesus. And our finances are Jesus, and our job title are Jesus, and our accomplishments and our trophies and ribbons. And we are sorry. Forgive us Lord, we thank you God, for the work of Jesus that is sufficient, all sufficient for us. Help us to build our life on that, that we may say with the apostle Paul, that our life is hidden with Christ and the life we live. We now live by faith in the Son of God.

And even right now, this prayer that we pray is a prayer that we pray in the name he gave us, and this prayer that we’re going to pray together as a prayer he gave us. And so as people crying out for you to come reform our hearts around soles, Christus, we pray, the prayer he taught us to pray, saying our Father, who hearts in heaven, Hollywood be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.