Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Tomorrow marks the 506th celebration of Reformation Day, commemorating the October 31st when Martin Luther fearlessly published his Ninety-Five Theses, mailing one copy to the archbishop and posting another copy on a prominent church door. Whether it was dramatically nailed to that door with a hammer, or more likely glued to the door with a paste brush, Luther’s document set in motion a wave of reformation that we honor half a millennium later.

But given how much time has elapsed since this event, we can find ourselves questioning what exactly we’re celebrating. Is it the profound recovery of the truth of justification by faith alone in Christ alone? Is it the liberation of the Bible into the language of the people? Is it the end of indulgences? The rejection of papal authority? The dismantling of the priest class as mediators between God and man? Or perhaps is it all of these things, all combined? Pastor John, as you honor the enduring legacy of the Reformation, what’s your primary cause for celebration?

Let me fudge on the word primarily. I’d like to replace it with five other words, but I couldn’t think of five other words. I did think of five other questions; I just couldn’t think of words to go with them. I thought of two, but I gave up on five words. So I’m going to replace your question with five, but I will — at the end I think — answer exactly what you’re asking. So here we go.

1. Ultimate Celebration

First, what am I celebrating ultimately? That is, what’s at the top as the goal of all things when I celebrate the Reformation?

“What am I celebrating ultimately? The answer is the glory of Jesus Christ.”

The answer is the glory of Jesus Christ. In Calvin’s response to the Roman Catholic Sadoleto, he said, “You . . . touch upon justification by faith, the first and keenest subject of controversy between us. . . . Wherever the knowledge of it is taken away, the glory of Christ is extinguished” (John Calvin: Selections from His Writings, 95). I think the same point could be made on issue after issue in the disputes of the Reformation. So ultimately, we celebrate the exaltation of the glory of Christ.

2. Foundational Celebration

Second, what am I celebrating most foundationally? So the first one was most ultimately; the second one is most foundationally. That is, what’s at the bottom, as the ground of all things, when I celebrate the Reformation?

The answer is the free and sovereign grace of God. When Martin Luther came to the end of his life, he regarded his book The Bondage of the Will as his most important work. And the reason is that he regarded the issue of human autonomy versus sovereign grace as the key underlying issue of the Reformation. He said,

I condemn and reject as nothing but error all doctrines which exalt our “free will” as being directly opposed to this mediation and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. For since, apart from Christ, sin and death are our masters and the devil is our god and prince, there can be no strength or power, no wit or wisdom, by which we can fit or fashion ourselves for righteousness and life. (What Luther Says, 3:1376–77)

Which means that as long as someone insists on ultimate human self-determination, they fail to grasp the depth of our need, and they obscure the greatness of the free and sovereign grace of God, which alone can give life and faith. So I’m going to celebrate that as bottom. That’s the bottom.

3. Celebrated Achievement

Third, between the glory of Christ at the top and the free and sovereign grace of God at the bottom, what am I celebrating in between as the greatest achievement of God — flowing from grace, leading to glory?

The answer is the decisive achievement of the cross of Christ in providing peace with God for guilty sinners. Four times in the book of Hebrews, the author underlines and emphasizes the work of Christ in the forgiveness of sins as “once for all.” I love this phrase and the way he uses it in Hebrews 7:27; 9:12, 26; 10:10.

This is the first one: “[Christ] has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself” (Hebrews 7:27). So I will be celebrating that the finished and complete work of Christ — in providing imputed punishment for our sins and imputed perfection for our righteousness — was once for all and cannot be reenacted in the Roman Catholic mass so as to become a necessary point of transfer of that decisive grace. It was purchased once for all for us and given to us through faith in Christ alone.

4. Celebrated Scripture

Fourth, between the glory of Christ at the top and the free and sovereign grace of God at the bottom, what am I celebrating in between as the decisive means of my enjoyment of peace with God that Christ achieved?

Answer: the inspired word of God in Scripture — read and known by every Christian. The church of the Middle Ages cut people off from the word of God. They had done so intentionally. It was a capital crime in the 1400s in Britain to translate the Scriptures into English so people could read them. They burned people alive for reading fragments of the English Bible — even children.

They believed that God did not offer his fellowship to be enjoyed through a personal encounter with him in his word, but rather through the ministry of priests and sacraments. This was evil, and the chasm created between Scripture and the people of God has not been closed to this very day.

I’ve mentioned before my experience in Europe where a nun was converted at eighty years old and had never read the Gospel of John. A Roman Catholic professional religious woman never had read the Gospel of John. That is symptomatic of a deep evil in cutting people off, historically and today, doing things that subtly discourage the personal encounter with God through Christ in his word. So, I will be celebrating the personal preciousness and access to the word of God for my daily means of enjoying personal fellowship with my Father in heaven.

5. Celebrated Truth and Experience

And the last question: What great Reformation truth will I be celebrating concerning how I experience the living Christ through his word?

“Faith is the decisive, primary way I enjoy what Christ purchased and what the word makes possible.”

Answer: I will be celebrating the truth that faith — acted directly on Christ through his word, not mediated by priestly sacraments — is the decisive, primary way I enjoy what Christ purchased and what the word makes possible. Here’s what I read this morning in my devotions that made my heart sing. I was reading in Ephesians 3 that unspeakably great prayer, where Paul says, “[I pray] that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16–17). That’s amazing. Christ dwells.

Now, this is a prayer for Christians. This is not a prayer for conversion. We think, “Oh, that means Christ knocks on the door and then comes in.” That’s not it. He’s in; we are Christians. He’s praying for saints in Ephesus, that Christ would dwell — that is, consciously, alive, present, at home, experienced. How? Through faith: “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” He’s praying for Christians who already have Christ. This is a prayer for real, authentic experience of the living Christ.

So, when I embrace the crucified and risen Christ as my supreme treasure — alive, present, at home in me — that very faith, that embrace, is the sufficient instrument for the enjoyment of his fellowship. That will be my primary, daily celebration.

Some sentences can change your life. One written four hundred years ago changed mine: “There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us” (Works of Richard Sibbes, 1:47).

The author was one of the greatest preachers of the Puritan age, Richard Sibbes (1577–1635), and the sentence is found in his greatest book, The Bruised Reed, in which he “scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands,” as Charles Spurgeon put it (Lectures to My Students, 778). That sentence, and that book, ignited in me a passion to spend time every month reading dead pastors, like Sibbes, who point me to the living Christ. The Bruised Reed just might do the same for you.

‘Sweet Dropper’

Sibbes was born in Suffolk, England, in 1577, and grew up in a Christian home. He began his studies at Cambridge at the age of 18. After he was converted to Christ in 1603, he began to faithfully minister the gospel to others. Over the next three decades, those who heard Sibbes preach in Cambridge and London often called him “The Sweet Dropper,” because of his tenderhearted gift of “unfolding and applying the great mysteries of the gospel in a sweet way” (Works, 3:4).

After receiving his doctorate of divinity from Cambridge in 1627, he was often referred to as the “heavenly Doctor Sibbes,” on account of his heavenly minded life and doctrine. A couplet was written about him upon his death on July 6, 1635, at the age of 58: “Of that good man let this high praise be given: Heaven was in him before he was in heaven” (Meet the Puritans, 535).

Sibbes regularly wrote out his sermons, leaving behind over two million words on paper. But The Bruised Reed is far and away his best-remembered and most-treasured book. It’s considered a classic of Puritan devotion, a paradigm of practical divinity. It’s easy to see why.

The book is a Christ-exalting exposition and application of Isaiah 42:3, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” Following Matthew’s lead (Matthew 12:18–20), Sibbes understands this prophetic text about the servant of the Lord, the one in whom God delights, and upon whom the Spirit dwells (Isaiah 42:1), to be fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

Over the course of sixteen brief chapters, Sibbes unfolds his argument in three parts: (1) Christ will not break the bruised reed; (2) Christ will not quench the smoking flax (or “burning wick”); (3) Christ will not do either of these things until he has sent forth judgment into victory.

Balm for Weary Believers

Why might Christians today read this book written by a preacher in London nearly four centuries ago?

For this reason: since its initial publication in 1630, countless weary Christians have found The Bruised Reed to be full of encouragement for the downcast and full of strength for the weak — because it is full of Jesus Christ, the merciful and mighty Savior of sinners.

In his book Preaching and Preachers, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “I shall never cease to be grateful to Richard Sibbes who was balm to my soul at a period in my life when I was overworked and badly overtired, and therefore subject in an unusual manner to the onslaughts of the devil. . . . The ‘Heavenly Doctor Sibbes’ was an unfailing remedy. . . . The Bruised Reed quieted, soothed, comforted, encouraged and healed me” (Preaching and Preachers, 186–87).

The seventeenth-century Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, reflecting upon his childhood, said that God used The Bruised Reed to effect his own conversion to Christ. It “opened the love of God to me and gave me a livelier apprehension of the mystery of redemption, and how much I was beholden to Jesus Christ” (Richard Sibbes, vii).

Christ, Strong and Tender

According to Sibbes, Christians encounter spiritual trouble by failing to consider “the gracious nature and office of Christ,” which is “the spring of all service to Christ, and comfort from him.” In other words, in The Bruised Reed Sibbes labors to help forgiven sinners behold afresh the “wonderful sweetness of pity and love” found in the merciful heart of Christ (Works, 1:38). “What mercy may we not expect from so gracious a mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), who took our nature upon him that he might be gracious. He is a physician good at all diseases, especially at the binding up of a broken heart” (Works, 1:45).

Sibbes wrote this book for “bruised reeds,” for heartbroken, distressed, and discouraged Christians. He shows from God’s word that Christ will neither break them nor quench them; instead, he cherishes them. Sibbes beckons the hurting and weary Christian to look to Christ for comfort and strength, knowing that since he has finished his work for us, he will most certainly finish his work in us. By looking to Christ, “we see salvation not only strongly wrought, but sweetly dispensed by him” (Works, 1:40).

In the prophecy of Isaiah 42:3, Christ is described as a tender Savior who gently loves and mercifully bears with the failings of the weak. And at the same time, in this text God also promises to provide omnipotent grace in Christ to bring forth victory on behalf of his people (Works, 1:40).

“We are weak, but we are his” (Works, 1:71).

Prayers of the Exhausted

Any careful reader of The Bruised Reed will notice how consistently Sibbes focuses on looking away from oneself to the God of all comfort. God “would have us know that he sets himself in the covenant of grace to triumph in Christ over the greatest evils and enemies we fear . . . and that there are heights, and depths, and breadths of mercy in him above all the depths of our sin and misery” (Works, 1:39).

“Our sins are the sins of men, but Christ’s mercy is the mercy of an infinite God.”

Our sins are the sins of men, but Christ’s mercy is the mercy of an infinite God. The blood of Christ cries louder than the guilt of our sin (Works, 1:89). This gracious heart of Christ is what Sibbes seeks to show to his readers on every page. When we see this merciful and mighty Christ, revealed in the wondrous grace of his gospel, we find strength to serve him for his glory.

But Sibbes is quick to admit that Christians often fail, and become spiritually exhausted. Listen to how he applies the glories of Isaiah 42:3 to the believer who feels weary and heavy laden in the discipline of prayer:

The Spirit helps our infirmities with “groanings which cannot be uttered” (Romans 8:26), which are not hid from God. “My groaning is not hid from thee” (Psalm 38:9). God can make sense out of a confused prayer. . . . God accepts our prayers, though weak, because we are his own children, and they come from his own Spirit, because they are according to his own will, and because they are offered in Christ’s mediation. . . . There is never a holy sigh, never a tear we shed, which is lost. (Works, 1:65–66)

God of Pure Grace

According to Sibbes, Christ is “pure grace clothed with our nature” (Works, 4:519). And because he has committed to “bring forth judgment into victory” in our lives, by his grace we ought to respond by using the means of grace he has made available to us in the local church. “When we draw near to Christ (James 4:8), in his ordinances, he draws near to us.”

“Faith prevails because faith unites the sinner to the Savior of sinners.”

We fight and strive by grace, but Sibbes reminds us that the victory, ultimately, lies not with us, but with Christ, who conquers for us and in us. We strive to be “strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might” alone (Ephesians 6:10). “Christ will not leave us till he has made us like himself, all glorious within and without, and presented us blameless before his Father (Jude 24). What a comfort this is in our conflicts with our unruly hearts, that it shall not always be thus! Let us strive a little while, and we shall be happy forever” (Works, 1:98).

Faith prevails because faith unites the sinner to the Savior of sinners. It is not the strength of our faith that saves; it is weak faith in a strong Christ. “A little thing in the hand of a giant will do great things. A little faith strengthened by Christ will work wonders” (Works, 1:84).

Why read The Bruised Reed? Because you need to be reminded that there is more mercy in Christ than sin in you.

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