Show Notes
When is dividing a church the right thing to do — and when is it just what we wanted anyway?
In April 1521, a 37-year-old monk stood in front of a 21-year-old emperor and refused to take back what he'd written. He knew what had happened to Jan Hus a hundred years earlier under the same promise of safe conduct. He said it anyway.
In Week 4 of The Story of Jesus' Church: From Acts to Today, Brad Sarian covers the Reformation from AD 1500–1700: Luther at Worms, the recovery of justification by faith, the printing press, the Council of Trent, and an honest account of what Protestants and Roman Catholics actually share and where they part.
In this class:
-What happened at the Diet of Worms — and why "Here I stand" isn't in the earliest transcripts
-Why reform was necessary: indulgences, simony, absenteeism, and a system with no way to correct itself
-Why 1517 and not 1417 — printing, Erasmus' Greek New Testament, and a Germany ready to move
-Rome's own reform: Trent, the Jesuits, and the end of the sale of indulgences
-Why Brad remains Protestant
-What he admires about Roman Catholicism, and what Protestants should learn from it
-The whole of Luther: the courage and the ugliness, both named
Division is a last resort, not a default. Scripture gets the final word over our beliefs and our lives. God's use of a leader does not validate everything that leader does.
And Jesus keeps His promise: "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18).
More from Restored Church Los Angeles
Technology is changing almost everything about how we live, but some things about people haven’t changed at all. We still love money, and our relationship with sex is still broken. Hebrews 13 speaks directly to both. After twelve chapters on who Jesus is, this message takes up the first practical commands of Hebrews 13 about love, sexual purity, and contentment, and asks why God cares about these parts of our lives at all.
Following Jesus for a season is one thing. Following him for decades, through suffering and stretches when everything feels difficult, is another. Some of us are barely hanging on, and others are just starting out and haven't hit the wall yet.
Many of us find the idea that Jesus had to die as a sacrifice hard to accept, even barbaric. Why would forgiveness require blood? Hebrews 9–10 answers that question directly. This message looks at why the old sacrifices were never enough, what Jesus' death accomplished that they couldn't, and what it means for how we live now.
Nobody has a hard day and thinks, "What I really need right now is a high priest." To modern ears, needing a go-between with God can sound offensive. But Hebrews says Jesus is the great high priest we needed. He stands in the gap and brings us into a better covenant with complete access, renewed desires, and complete forgiveness.