For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery…. For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5:1, 13-25

            This week will witness our annual celebration of one of the greatest earthly gifts God has given to us.  It is our liberty and our freedom which we remember especially on the Fourth of July.  All throughout American history a huge emphasis has been placed on the word “ Liberty ”.  “Give me liberty or give me death” was one of the mottos of the Revolution.  In our Constitution the famous phrase exists about “Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness”.  Abraham Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War penned the Emancipation Proclamation whose demand for freedom for all men and women gave the moral reason for that war and the loss of life some had to pay to make its dream come true.  Our fathers and grandfathers fought in the Second World War to bring freedom to people under the rule of tyranny.  We have the most famous statue of all in New York Harbor holding a torch of liberty to all who see her and at least for now we still pledge allegiance to a nation which is under God – with liberty and justice for all.

            God talks a lot about liberty too.  He did in our text today from Galatians.  But even though the Lord is the creator of earthly freedom and for that reason we all pray a prayer of thanks to Him this Wednesday our Savior is not just talking about political freedom in our text.  He is speaking about something far greater which you and I have.  “Christ has set us free.”  That is the awesome truth for which we thank the Lord today and every day.  He freed us from guilt and shame and death and hell.  And like all liberty it came at such a price.  Martin Luther said it so wonderfully in his Small Catechism when he reminded us that Jesus did not free us with silver or gold but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.  Many of you have often said to me that you have wondered how people make it through life without a faith in God.  These are the people who have no answer to tragedies and disasters and to death.  When they hear the same bad news we sometimes hear as Christians they have no God to fall back upon.  Death looms over them and it always has a chilling grip on their hearts because they are reminded every day that this one could be the last one where the person they are exists.  So they “eat, drink, and are merry, for tomorrow they may die”.

            Jesus freed you and me from all of that.  He made it possible for you and me to see life as something beyond the seventy years or so we are given if we are lucky.  This life is just the beginning for you and for me.  And the guilt that seizes people and often puts them in psychiatrist’s offices or even in the hospital has no hold on you and me.  I look at those suicide bombers overseas who are so willing to give their lives and to take lives in the process.  Why do they do it?  They tell us why every day- it is because they have an all consuming need to rack up points with their god.  They are desperate to prove their worthiness of something beyond this life and they are told that if they take the life of as many infidels as possible God will smile on them and assuredly will let them into heaven.  Jesus freed us from the need to placate God and appease God; He has done it all by the holy life He led and by the death He died for you and for me.  As the Bible says in Acts 13: “through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” (Acts 13: 38-39)   Even the last book of the Bible, Revelation, starts with a reminder to you and me of Jesus: “who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood (Revelation 1:5) The result is that anything we do for God we do out of love and thanksgiving, not because it is something owed.  Christ Jesus has set us free.

            However, He has set us free for something.  That something is a new life that is different from the old one where we were chained to sinful habits and patterns of living that made God sick and often made us sick too.  The text says: “For freedom Christ has set us free.”  In other words Jesus freed us so that we could live a life of liberty. He did not free us just so we could go on sinning and He certainly did not free us so we could go back to the sinful lifestyle we once led.

That is the big question I have as I saw the recent release of the famous Paris Hilton from her three week stay in jail.  Miss Hilton’s face has adorned the covers of numerous People magazines and supermarket tabloids and rightly so for her many and wonderful contributions to society.  Among those are a notorious lifestyle and a narcissistic attitude to life which is a role model to millions of young people across the nation.  But now she has had a debt to pay for that lifestyle.  And she has as of this week paid it.  But now that she is free again what is next?  Is it merely a return to the lifestyle she led before her time in prison?  Has she been freed only to go back to the very things that got her in trouble in the first place and for which she admittedly shed many tears and voiced many regrets?  Will she change?  Can she change? 

            Jesus says in our text that we can change.  In fact, He urges us to take the freedom today that He offers us from slavery to sin and guilt and lifestyles that bring no blessing but ultimately a curse – and do not return to it.  Do not go out the door of St. Paul ’s today as the forgiven child of God that you are and simply return to the sin Jesus took away today.  That was the entire problem of the Galatians.  Paul had visited them on his first missionary journey in the book of Acts.  They joyously accepted the message of the Gospel and they became believers in the Lord with gratitude and eagerness.  But by the time Paul is writing this letter things have changed.  In fact, in the opening words of this letter he wrote: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ” (Galatians 1:6) Later on St. Paul wrote them: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? (Galatians 3: 1-3)  That was the problem.  The Galatians having been freed from their sinful lives and the lusts that drove them which are the same ones around today; they slipped back into those sinful and destructive habits.  And one of the worst results was that they reverted to a spiritual life dominated by guilt that said they had to earn God’s favor and earn His love.  You see, that is one of the worst problems of living a life dominated by sin.  It not only brings you guilt; it robs you of the Gospel and the freedom that is yours in it.  You go back to all the old ways of thinking about God and the consuming need to prove your worth and your holiness which the very sins you are committing show you is a horrible impossibility – and yet you try and try and try and in the end you feel worse about God and about yourself.  That was what the Galatians were experiencing and which prompted this letter Paul wrote to them.

            Why is this so?  It is because you and I as children of God really do have two natures.  We have a spiritual side that is alive in Jesus and lives for God.  But we still have this side to us that St. Paul called “the flesh.”  Please know that Paul is not condemning the physical world as if all material things are evil.  That is what the New Age idiots are all about – forsaking the physical world and moving on to some higher spiritual plane of existence.  What Paul is talking about is the real situation that you and I live in a way in two worlds. We have one foot in heaven with the Savior and we have one foot still bound to this earth.  The sinful side to life competes with the spiritual side as long as we live this side of heaven.  And if you don’t believe there is a war going on within you then read Romans 7 sometime as Paul describes the battle that rages within between a nature that loves God and a nature that loves sin.  He said it concisely and with brutal honesty when he wrote today: “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other.” (Galatians 5:17)

In fact, even though Paul doesn’t need to do it because it is kind of obvious, he lists for us the characteristics of both sides for us.  The works of the flesh he rattles off against us like a machine gun strafing us with reminders of what can lay within you and me: strife, jealousy, fits of anger, divisions, envy, drunkenness – and he could go on and on if he wanted to.  But the fruit of the Spirit, and notice he did not use the word “Works” here because you do not work for these but rather they are fruit that blossom in our lives under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,” and the rest. 

But Paul by the grace of God doesn’t just give us lists to describe the problem. He gives us Christ Jesus’ solution.  First, he reminds us that passions and desires that spring out of our sinful nature have been crucified with Christ.  Every single sin of yours is forgiven today and is entirely covered by the blood of Jesus.  I assure you that in the sight of God you could not exist any more purely or more holy in His sight.  Jesus has set you free.

But it continues with the fruit of repentance.  Repentance doesn’t just mean being sorry for your wrongs.  It means a changed attitude and a new mindset – and that comes only from God.  Today, I ask you not just to go to the Lord and tell Him you are sorry for your wrongs and those things that ruin your life.  I am asking you to go to Him and promise Him that those things are done today.  If you have a problem with swearing or filthy language tell the Lord today before His altar: “As of today that is finished for me!”  If it is an addiction to pornography go to the Lord as the forgiven child of God you are and say before Him: “This day that sin is done in my life, Lord.”  If it is an inability to control your temper today you lay your temper at the altar of the Lord.  If it is the horrible way you treat your wife and children then today you tell the Lord that you are through being that man.

            Now the Gospel surely tells us that you and I cannot change ourselves.  But the good news is that Jesus can.  Look at all the exhortations in our text that tell us this truth:  “Stand firm, therefore… But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  Live by the Spirit… also walk by the Spirit.”  What it means is strengthening the life of the Spirit instead of strengthening the life of the flesh.  Up til now you may have been feeding the wrong side to your life.  In Christ Jesus reverse that trend.  Like the old native American story about a man who described life as two wolves fighting within against each other – one side was the good and the other was the bad and the hurtful.  The question was posed: “Which wolf wins the battle?”  The answer: “The one you feed the most.”

            Today, make that commitment before the Lord Jesus that with His help, for again nothing can happen without Him, you start feeding the right side.  If in the battle that means you change then do it.  If your problem is the sin of overeating then resolve with the Lord to change and go to Weight Watchers or something that helps.  If it is drinking then go to AA – but I am not just talking about physical changes which are fine and good.  I am talking about feeding the Spirit.  Open that Bible today and resolve to read it every day.  Start that prayer journal and keep a record of your conversations with the Lord.  Make that commitment that Sunday is not a day where Church is one option among many but the only option for the morning hours.  Come to Holy Communion today and when it is offered not as an afterthought but as that encounter with the Lord that strengthens you and feeds your faith.  Go to that Bible Study you resolved to attend. Join that group at Church as an outlet for serving one another. 

            For Paul did a pretty good job today of reminding us who we are.  He said, “We live by the Spirit.” You and I are alive in the Lord Jesus now and forevermore.  But Paul did not end there.  In fact, he put it this way: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”  Or if you and I need to hear it in a language that perhaps is simpler to understand but is every bit the meaning of that phrase:  “If you are a Christian, then act like it.” Amen.