The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Galatians 5:16-24

In Christ Jesus, who went to the cross to free us from our sin and free us for a life of service in His name, dear fellow redeemed:

Why do parents tell their young children they have to take a bath? “I don’t care if I’m clean,” a child might say. “But I care,” says the parent. “But why do I have to?” “Because you don’t smell very good right now. Don’t you want to smell nice?” Baths are good for a child’s own cleanliness and for the people in his general vicinity. That’s the main reason any of us wash ourselves. We want to look and feel clean, and we don’t want to be offensive to others.

That is something like the spiritual cleansing we have received through the Holy Spirit. We have been cleansed so that we stand righteous before God, and so that we can be a blessing to those around us. In today’s reading, St. Paul contrasts “the works of the flesh” which dirty us and the people near us, with “the fruit of the Spirit” which benefits our neighbors.

He says “the works of the flesh are evident”; they are obvious, easy to identify. He begins his list with sexual sin—“sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality.” The people to whom Paul was writing lived in a culture much like ours, a sexually permissive culture, where sexual sin was widely practiced and accepted.

Then he listed “idolatry” which could include the worship of images, objects, or people, and “sorcery,” the practice of magic through dark powers. The next eight sins are behaviors that disrupt unity and goodwill: “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy.” Then he added the sins of “drunkenness” and “orgies” and showed that this list could go on much longer by attaching the phrase “and things like these.”

There are countless sins that violate the holy Law of God. These are all “works of the flesh,” they all come from the original sin that we inherited from our first parents the moment we started to be. They all represent our rebellion against our God who made us to be holy and to do holy things. All the sinful things that Paul lists come from our desire to be served and not to serve, from our selfishness, pettiness, and pride and not from a self-sacrificing love.

When we try to justify our sins, we don’t sound much better than little children: “But what if I don’t care if I’m dirty?” “I can do what I want!” “She started it!” “Everyone else is doing it!” Even if 99% of the population thinks something is fine but God says it is sin, then we must pray for the courage to stand with the 1%. It is no overstatement to say that our eternal salvation is at stake. Paul wrote, “I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

You and I have done these things, but they are not counted against us, and heaven is not closed to us. How come? Because the Holy Spirit has rescued us from “the works of the flesh.” He did this by opening our eyes through the Law to see ourselves as we really are—separated from God, unable to please Him, full of darkness. He moved us to repent of our sins, to set them before God and beg for His mercy.

Then the Holy Spirit shined the light of Jesus’ forgiveness into our darkened hearts. He washed us clean with the holy blood of Jesus. He covered us in the perfect robes of Jesus’ righteousness. He did all these things for us in a simple ceremony involving water and the Word—Holy Baptism.

At your Baptism, you were rescued from the works of your flesh. Your sin was washed out of you at those waters, and you were filled with holiness. Everything Jesus did for you through His holy life, His atoning death, and His resurrection was applied to you, so you became what you were not before. You became a new creation of God (2Co. 5:17). Paul points to the effect of your Baptism with the words, “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

That was done to the sinful “passions and desires” of your flesh at your Baptism, and that’s what must continue to be done. Our sinful passions and desires must be crucified, destroyed. If they are not resisted and repented of, then we are saying that Christ was crucified for nothing, or that other bad people might have needed to be saved but not me.

We have an example of the temptation to get complacent, to forget who our Savior is, in the Holy Gospel for today (Luk. 17:11-19). Ten lepers cried out to Jesus from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” It sounds like they all had faith; they all believed Jesus could help them. But as soon as they received what they begged for, nine of them went on their way with hardly a look back. Only one “when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.” Only one showed his faith by his actions.

When you were baptized, you were cleansed by the Holy Spirit of something worse than leprosy—you were cleansed of your sins and rescued from eternal torment in hell. Jesus suffered and died to do this for you, and the Holy Spirit applied His atoning work to you. So you know what He cleansed you from, but what did He cleanse you for? You would be correct if you said, “He cleansed me for salvation and for eternal life in heaven with Him.” But He also cleansed you to do holy works of service in praise and thanks to God while you are here.

Paul urges us in today’s reading, “walk by the Spirit.” Walking by the Spirit means trying to live a pure life in an impure world. It means trusting God to provide all that you need for your body and life. It means helping, encouraging, and serving the people around you. This is not about following God’s Law so that He will reward you for your good behavior. It means falling at Jesus’ feet with thankfulness like the Samaritan who was cleansed and dedicating all your hours, all your energy, and all your abilities to His service.

If you feel like this is nothing more than a “have to,” you will go about it with as much enthusiasm and gladness as a pouting child taking a bath. But if this is a “get to” or a “want to,” you will give thanks for every task, every opportunity, even every trial that the Lord sets before you. Then you will be tasting and distributing “the fruit of the Spirit.” That fruit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

What do you notice about that list? It is not self-serving like the works of the flesh, and it does no harm to others. It serves for mutual good. It blesses you and those around you. These works of the Spirit are what you were created, redeemed, and called to faith to do. Delivering this good fruit is your purpose as a Christian in this world, and it is your privilege.

But as clear as this is, and as much as we want to display these fruits in our words and actions, we have to admit that it isn’t all joy with us, it isn’t all peace and patience and kindness, it isn’t all faithfulness and self-control. Paul acknowledged this struggle. He wrote: “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.”

This is a life-long struggle, so it is a daily struggle. When it is no longer a daily struggle, when it is just a once-a-week-on-Sunday-struggle, or an every-now-and-then-struggle, then we are in trouble. By how should we stay diligent about this? How can we keep our focus? This is done day after day by remembering and returning to our Baptism.

The Catechism teaches us how to do this: “Such baptizing with water means that the old Adam in us should, by daily contrition and repentance, be drowned and die with all sins and evil lusts; and that a new man daily come forth and arise, who shall live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

So every day, we drown the old Adam, our sinful nature, with its passions and desires. We acknowledge our sins with sorrow and repent of them. And every day, we put our confidence and trust in Jesus who died for our sins and credits us with His righteousness. We dedicate ourselves to walking by the Spirit, to honoring and thanking Jesus by everything we do, and to showing love to the people that God puts in our path.

The Holy Spirit gives us the godly desire to do these things. As our reading makes clear, He does not just walk beside us as though we are equal partners in righteousness. He leads us. He leads us through the Word. When the holy Word of God is preached, studied, or called to mind, the Holy Spirit is powerfully at work to increase our faith and the fruit that comes from it.

He has cleansed us, so that we no longer show off the filth of our flesh or carry the stench of sin. Now we pursue a humble life of service and give off the sweet-smelling aroma of salvation which Jesus won for us by His grace. This is what the Holy Spirit has cleansed us to be and do—to be holy children of God who produce the good fruit of righteousness in thankfulness to Him.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.

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(picture from stained glass at Redeemer Lutheran Church)