Sunday, June 29th 2025
Third Sunday after Pentecost, Series C (Proper 8C)
Text: Galatians 5:1, 13–25
Sermon Audio
As we gather… Oftentimes we may ask ourselves, “Who’s in charge here?” If the service at the restaurant is slow, if you’re unhappy with customer service, or whatever the case may be, you wonder who is running things. Paul asks, “Who’s in charge here?” as it relates to our hearts and minds. Are you driven by your fleshly desires or by the Spirit of God? Are you following your selfish desires, or God’s selfless desires for you? Since we have been justified by faith, we then live life by the Holy Spirit. We can tell we are living life by the Spirit as the Holy Spirit produces fruit in our lives, even if weakly in this life. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The life of a Christian is a continual reception of Christ’s forgiveness, and asking the Holy Spirit to control our lives. The Holy Spirit casts out the works of darkness and sin, and creates new hearts in us. Let us be strengthened daily by the Spirit’s power!
Pastor Jacob Eichers
A parishioner comes up to his pastor and asks him, “Pastor, can you be a Christian and still sin?” Dovetailing off of the Epistle Lesson, we will be talking about the Christian life, talking about “can a Christian still sin?” We’ll be unpacking this in terms of three myths and their accompanying truths.
First question first: Can you be a Christian and still sin? Myth #1: A Christian doesn’t sin. There are some Christians who say that, no, you can’t be a Christian and still sin. They claim the Holy Spirit takes hold of your life and then you stop sinning, or you get pretty close to it.
If you take a face value reading of this text from Galatians 5, you might say, “Yeah, that sounds about right!”| A pastor sat next to someone on a plane. This man claimed to be an upstanding Christian. The man said that it has been two years since he sinned. The pastor replied, “You must be proud of that.” The man said, “I sure am!” The pastor said, “Well, did you know the pride is a sin?” The man didn’t like hearing that very much.
At face value, this text may seem like, “Yeah, people don’t sin after they become Christians.” Look at the warnings in this text, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” We also read, “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.” Clearly, we can see that Christians are still going to sin after they’ve become Christians. We see this battle of the flesh against the spirit remains throughout the Christian’s life.
However, what some Christians do when they believe that they no longer sin is that they move the goalposts to make only the worst things sins. I haven’t sinned because I haven’t cheated on my spouse, murdered anyone, or stolen from the convenience store. They make it as easy as possible to fool yourself into thinking you’re okay. By fooling themselves they submit again to a different kind of yoke of slavery which falsely believes you can keep God’s law perfectly.
But we see that Paul writes, “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”” How hard that is, to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Anything short of that is sinning, and anything short of that is failure. We see how much we sin daily and are in need of forgiveness even as we confess that we are poor miserable sinners at the beginning of the service.
We will struggle against sin our entire lives. We will not stop sinning until we die, and the Lord raises us up with a perfected body that is powered completely by the Spirit who does not sin. Fact #1 3. A Christian will fight the flesh all the days of his life.
Moving on, then does sin not matter? If God likes forgiving our sins, then I should like sinning, and hey, that’s a pretty good deal, right? Not exactly. Our myth #2 Sinning doesn’t matter.
It would certainly seem pretty dire. There’s this laundry list of the works of the flesh. We read, “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.” Wow!
Sexual immorality, the Greek word is πορνεια from which we get the word pornography. Enmity and strife, we’ve never been at odds with other people, have we? Fits of anger, have you ever been angry and snapped out in frustration at others? Drunkenness, seven of the ten drunkest cities in the U.S. are in Wisconsin with La Crosse being number ten. “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Who then can be saved? Are our sins not forgiven?
Again, we see this reminder in Galatians 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” We think that when we’re sinning, we’re committing sin, but in reality, sin commits you. It commits you to a prison of suffering, a prison of guilt, and a prison that if left unchecked, will lock you out of the doors of heaven because sin seeks to snuff out the faith that the Holy Spirit kindled within us.
A better way to translate verse 21 is “that those who make a practice of such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Although we sin much daily, we are called to avoid making a practice of sinning. The drunk or the addict is called to fight his or her sinful addiction all the days of his or her life.
It’s not always easy, and it isn’t supposed to be. This is a fight to the death. But we have the good news in this passage: “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” That means the old self has been crucified and left behind, and that doesn’t mean the old self with its fleshly desires won’t keep coming back, but it does mean that Christ has won the victory.
The Christian walk is not a 500-meter dash, but a marathon. Medals aren’t given for the fastest, but for those who cross the finish line. God calls us to turn from sin daily, and receive forgiveness again and again for the times we’ve failed. When you struggle with addictions and sins that you just can’t seem to break, that’s the time to come to the Lord’s supper to be strengthened with Christ’s love. That’s the time to come to church to confess your sins, and receive forgiveness. Fact #2 2. Sin matters so much that Christ died for each and every one of them, so we suffer to put those sins to death.
Finally, what use does the law have? We have Myth #3: The law has no use in the life of a Christian. We read in verse 18 “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” We review the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” With this fruit there is no law. Do the rules no longer apply to true Christians?
Last Tuesday, I was heading down highway 14 westbound into Coon Valley. Traveling 55 miles going downhill, I saw a black lump in the middle of my lane. I could swerve around it to the left and risk hitting an eastbound car or swerve right and risk hitting the cliff wall.
Like that that metal rail on the right, the law acts as a curb to prevent something worse from happening. The Christian who struggles with a drinking problem might choose not to drink and drive not because of God’s law, but because he knows he risks getting in trouble with the police. This fear of consequences even works in the life of a Christian.
With seconds to make a decision, I thought I could let the car drive between the turtle. Saying a quick prayer, it was full speed ahead. I could look in the rearview mirror and see what happened.
The law as a mirror shows us where we’ve been and shows us our sin. It shows us the damage and the wreckage we’ve left in our wake. Moreover, it shows us who we are, which is sinful to the core. As long as we retain this sinful flesh, we need the law as a mirror to show us where we’ve been and we can correct course.
Finally, the law also acts as a guide. The Holy Spirit uses the law to show us how we are to live. This use of the law never goes away and will exist to all eternity. Even when we are perfect in heaven, we will still use the law as a guide.
Nonetheless, as Christians made holy by the Holy Spirit, the law may show us the way, but it is the good news of Jesus that works to get us there. The law may guide our way, just as road signs and median markers guide our driving, but we all know that reading signs and knowing how to drive are two different things when there’s a turtle the size of a basketball in your way.
And so it is through the Holy Spirit working in our hearts that we can portray the fruit of the Spirit, and it’s the law as a guide that shows us the way. Fact #3: 1. The Holy Spirit works through the law to guide our good works.
A Christian will still sin in this life, but He looks to Christ to provide him forgiveness not to make a practice of sinning, and the Holy Spirit sanctifies him. MADE ALIVE IN CHRIST AND EMPOWERED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE CHRISTIAN USES THE LAW TO ENGAGE IN THE LIFELONG BATTLE AGAINST SIN.