Peace from Christ Is Believed and Received, Not Achieved

(John 8:31–36)

Last Sunday we celebrated Reformation Day — the day when the Church remembers how the gospel of grace broke through centuries of fear and confusion to bring freedom and peace to God’s people again. But Reformation isn’t just history. It’s something every Christian must rediscover, again and again, because the human heart has a habit of drifting back into striving.

Martin Luther understood that struggle better than most. Before his breakthrough, Luther was a monk who tried harder than anyone to be right with God. He fasted, prayed, confessed for hours, and pushed himself to the limit, but peace never came. He said, “If anyone could have earned heaven by monkery, it was I.”

He didn’t need more effort. He needed the gospel.

Luther’s moment of discovery came while reading Paul’s words in Romans 1:17: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’”

For the first time, Luther realized that “the righteousness of God” was not something he had to achieve — it was something God gave as a gift. Luther wrote, “Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”

That discovery still stands at the heart of the Christian faith: freedom isn’t achieved. It’s believed and received.

What We Think Will Set Us Free

Most of us wouldn’t describe ourselves as monks, but we share Luther’s impulse. We want to be free — from anxiety, guilt, shame, and the feeling that we’re not enough. So we chase peace through achievement, control, or escape. We tell ourselves that if we can just manage life better or fix the parts of ourselves that feel broken, maybe we’ll finally rest.

But the harder we strive, the more trapped we feel.

Jesus said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

That promise comes right after He says, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” In other words, our bondage isn’t outside us; it’s inside us. We’re enslaved by our attempts to manage guilt, justify ourselves, or run from the fear of death.

Real freedom doesn’t begin with trying harder. It begins with trusting deeper — trusting that what Christ did on the cross really counts for you.

When Jesus took our sin upon Himself, He also took the guilt, the shame, and the fear that go with it. He paid the debt we could never pay and broke the power that kept us hiding from God. That’s what it means to be “free indeed.”

The idea of freedom includes freedom from things and freedom for things. There are innumerable ways to consider freedom, but here are three things Jesus frees us from and three things Jesus frees us for.

Freedom from guilt.

We often think guilt can make us better — that if we just feel bad enough, maybe we’ll finally change. We try to guilt ourselves into good behavior, to berate ourselves into healing. But guilt can’t make us whole. It only tightens the chains.

Paul writes, “Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

“Worldly grief” keeps us trapped in shame and self-punishment. “Godly grief” turns us toward grace. The moment we bring our sin to Christ, we discover that the price has already been paid. Forgiveness doesn’t excuse sin — it ends its control.

Freedom from self-justification.

We live as though we’re always on trial — trying to earn approval from God, from others, even from ourselves. But the verdict is already in. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

We don’t have to prove our worth because Christ has declared it. Paul says it plainly: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

That’s why Luther described justification as a “passive righteousness.” We don’t climb up to God. God comes down to us in Christ, wraps us in His righteousness, and says, “You are mine.”

Freedom from the fear of death.

Every fear we have — losing control, losing people, losing ourselves — hides the shadow of death. But Jesus entered death and came out alive. Hebrews 2 says that He did this “to deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

I like to picture it this way: death is a deep pool that everyone’s afraid to enter. Jesus sees our fear, dives in first, then rises up and calls out, “Come on in — it’s safe now.”

That’s the image of resurrection. The pool that once terrified us has become the place where fear is finally gone.

But Christ doesn’t just set us free from things. He sets us free for things.

Freedom for relationship.

Fear and shame make us hide — from God, from others, even from ourselves. But grace invites us back into the open. John writes, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear… We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:18–19).

In Christ, we can love without fear of rejection, forgive without keeping score, and show up as our real selves. That’s the kind of community God creates — a people who are free to love because they know they are loved.

Freedom for purpose.

Many of us live like life is a competition. We chase meaning by achieving, comparing, and performing. But grace turns competition into calling.

Paul writes, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

You don’t have to prove your worth. You get to live it out. Every act of love — every kindness, every unseen act of service — becomes sacred when done in Christ.

Freedom for release.

Forgiveness is hard, but holding on is harder. Resentment feels powerful, but it poisons the soul. The gospel gives us freedom to let go.

Paul says, “Bear with each other and forgive one another… Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13).

Forgiving others doesn’t mean excusing what they did. It means entrusting judgment to God and resting in mercy ourselves. It means refusing to live chained to the past.

Staying Free

Reformation Sunday reminds us that the Word of God is what keeps us free. The same Scriptures that broke open Luther’s heart still open ours.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).

Grace isn’t something we discover once and move on from. It’s something we return to daily. The Spirit keeps bringing us back to the Word — to hear again that we are forgiven, loved, and free.

True wisdom sees what’s true — that grace sets us free — and lives like it matters.

So stay close to the Word. Stay near the cross. And let your freedom show — in love, in forgiveness, and in the quiet peace of a heart that no longer needs to prove itself.