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Pentecost 3 2025
Immanuel Lutheran Church, Hamilton, Ohio
Pastor Kevin Jud
June 29, 2025
1 Kings 19:9b-21, Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62
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This coming Friday is a big day in America. July 4, 2025. The 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. July 4th marks the beginning of our freedom with the signing of the Declaration in Philadelphia, but the revolutionary war, was not over until September 3, 1783 with the treaty of Paris.
America won its freedom. No more king, no more tax on tea, no more putting up with the Redcoats. We are free! What does this mean?
I think you can sometime think of freedom as being able to do whatever you want to do. But that is certainly not what it means. America won its freedom, but then the work really started. Being a free American is not about getting to do whatever you want, it is about working together as citizens for the good of all.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The people, the governed, establish a government to secure these rights. Freedom is about working together for the good of all. It is kind of a paradox.
A paradox is two things that seem to be opposites and yet are perhaps both true. American freedom is a paradox; you are free, but you are obligated to your fellow citizens to work together for the common good.
July 4th is Independence Day for American citizens. Every day is Independence Day for Christians. Galatians 5:1 (ESV) 1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” You have been set free by Christ and yet the devil hates your freedom. The devil is always going after you to make sin look like no big deal when he tempts you, but then, after falling into sin, the devil accuses you and makes the sin seem so great that God could never forgive you. The devil tries to bind you with long chains made up of all the links of your past sins. He oppresses you with guilt and shame and helplessness. The devil wants to destroy you with guilt, and convince you that you are no good and have no future. The devil is wrong. The devil is a liar. You are forgiven. You have been set free from bondage to sin, death and the devil. You are set free from guilt and shame to live a new life as a baptized child of God
Jesus opened the padlock binding the chains of your guilt and they fell off -- setting you free. Jesus took the punishment for your sins. He bore your guilt and shame upon Himself. He is the sacrifice on the altar of the cross to redeem you. The devil has nothing to accuse you of because you are set free in the blood of Christ.
Every day is Independence Day because you have freedom in Christ. You are free! What does this mean? Christian freedom is also a paradox. In, “On the Freedom of a Christian”, Martin Luther writes, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone…”
In our reading today from St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians he explains how to live out Christian freedom. Paul knows that it is so tempting to try to use Christian freedom as an excuse to sin. To think, Jesus freed me from guilt and shame so I can sin more. I can just roll in the mud of sin like a pig in filth. St. Paul clearly teaches, No! Galatians 5:13 (ESV) 13 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.”
You are free from the condemnation of the law, in order to delight in God’s will and walk in His ways. Galatians 5:14 (ESV) 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
As a Christian set free from bondage to sin but still, by nature sinful, you live a life of struggle. You are by nature sinful and unclean, but you have been cleansed from sin by the blood of Jesus. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who fills you with faith in Jesus and His Word and encourages you to selflessly love and serve your neighbor. The Spirit calls you to selfless service, but, in this life, you will be pulled toward selfish indulgence of the desires of your flesh -- encouraged by the devil and the world.
Another paradox is that you are, at the same time, a Saint and a Sinner. You are saint of God made 100 percent perfect in Jesus and you are, at the same time, a sinner, deserving God’s wrath. Like the old cartoon depictions of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other each trying to encourage you, you are locked in an ongoing struggle between the Holy Spirit of God and the desires of your own sinful flesh.
Paul writes, Galatians 5:16–17 (ESV) 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh…” It is a battle every day.
Galatians 5:19–21 (ESV) 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 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.”
The sexual categories stand out, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, orgies. You live in a world that is proud of immorality and celebrates it. Folks literally have parades and festivals to celebrate sexual immorality. And it is easy to think well, those folks are really messed up, but I am not like them. I fear that this kind of thinking can be used to mask your own struggles. It is so easy to fall into the world’s ideas about God’s gift of intimacy. It is far too easy to adopt the world’s practice of intimacy while dating and intimacy during engagement and justify it because everyone is doing it. There is great danger lurking. You are only a few clicks away from engaging in immortality online and excuse it because it is easy and everyone does it. Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 6:18–20 (ESV) 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
The sexual categories stand out in the list, but there are only four of them. There are two categories of false belief, idolatry and sorcery. In this world that wants to believe that all religions are true and that any way is a good way to God, you must keep the Word of God as your authority because if all ways are true, then none are true. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. Cling to the Word of God. Cling to the promises of God.
Paul warns against drunkenness which leads to no end of trouble and other sins.
And then you are left with eight categories that are the ones that you are tempted to dismiss as not being real sins like sexual immorality and false belief and drunkenness. These are sins of the flesh that are so natural…so common…and they affect you from early childhood until the day you die. Galatians 5:20–21 (ESV) 20 … enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy…”
This list is convicting. These are eight different ways to damage other people; to damage relationships. Eight different ways that the devil tries to tear people apart…tear families apart…tear churches apart. These are so condemning because they come so naturally and are such a normal part of life. You love to bicker and fight. You are naturally cruel to one another. You naturally tear others down in order to build yourself up. You excuse anger as just who you are.
These come so naturally, but this is no longer who you are. You are a new creation in Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit. Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Repent of these sins and cry out to God, Psalm 51:9–12 (ESV) 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
And, in the Spirit, you will bear good fruit… Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV) 22 … love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control…”
And aware of your own shortcomings, beware of the devil’s accusations. The devil will try to slip in the charge that you are not fully walking in the Spirit, that you still are tempted by the works of the flesh. You are not good enough. Of course, he is correct. 1 John 1:8 (ESV) 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” You will struggle with sin until the day you breathe your last. If you could become perfect, Jesus would not have had to die. When the devil accuses you, tell him that you know you are a sinner, but Jesus died for your sins and has forgiven your sins. Tell the devil to get lost and walk by the Spirit. Read the Word, hear the Word, remember your baptism, and receive the Body and Blood of Jesus to strengthen you for the struggle.
You are free in Christ. Stand firm. Amen.