Today, we celebrate the 507th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing 95 theses to the Wittenberg Castle Church door. The date – October 31, 1517 – marks the beginning of what we now call the Reformation.

The Reformation focused on a simple but important question, “How are we saved?” By the sixteenth century, the church had veered into answering the question incorrectly. Essentially, their answer was, “We are saved by our works.” Luther grew up being taught this incorrect teaching, and he knew he fell well short of being considered good enough to deserve God’s love and forgiveness. In fact, this is one of the reasons he become a monk, to try and curry favor with his dissatisfied God. However, instead of believing his works were earning him more of God’s favor, Luther began to fear that he was heading straight for hell.

Luther became so distraught his father superior became concerned. In order to help Luther regain a sense of peace, he had him study to become a teacher of the Bible.

Well, if Luther was going to teach the Bible, he had to start reading the Bible. And when he did, he discovered something truly amazing… God’s grace.

Luther began to realize that the church was answering the question of, “How are we saved?” incorrectly. He found in Paul’s writings that we are not saved by our works but by God’s grace through faith alone (see, for example, Romans 3:28 and Ephesians 2:8-9). In response, Luther wrote down 95 statements he believed needed to be discussed, resolved, and reformed in the church.

October 31, 1517 was 507 years ago. That means we have been preaching and teaching a clear, simple, biblical answer to the question of, “How are we saved?” for 507 years. And we can be very thankful for that! However, after focusing like a laser beam on this answer for 507 years, we have gotten a little fuzzy about how to answer a second question, “Why are we saved?”

We know HOW we are saved – by grace through faith! But WHY are we saved? To sit on the bench and run out the clock until we die and go to heaven? No. It’s much better and more fun than that.

The good news is that the Bible provides an answer that is just as clear and simple to the question of, “Why are we saved?” Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

God does all the work of gracing us, and faithing us, and saving us so that we are now able to be a way through which the good of God is experienced in the lives of people around us. God gives us His goodness by grace, then He prepares people around us to receive some of the goodness we have already received from Him.

From God, to us, through us, to the people around us who need God’s grace, goodness, and good news so badly.

We are saved by grace and for a purpose. Let the adventures with Jesus begin!