The Fifth Sunday of Pentecost Äì 7/01/07) Sir, we would see JESUS!
Emmanuel, Asheville, NC Galatians 5:1
In the Name of JESUS!
"Stand Fast in ChristÄôs Freedom"
Now unto Him who has loved us and washed from our sin in His own blood and made us kings and priests to reign with Him eternally be all honor, praise, dominion and glory now and forever. Amen.
Beloved in the Lord, please pray with me:
Blessed Savior: What glorious freedoms You have graciously given us both as citizens of our beloved country and as citizens of heaven! Forgive us, dear Jesus, where we have lived out our lives in sin and transgressions unworthy of our high calling in Christ Jesus. Help us more faithfully to stand firm in the liberties with which You have set us free. To that end, bless our hearing of Your Word this day. Amen.
In the name of our all-sufficient King and Savior, Jesus Christ, dearly beloved:
In just three more days, the 4th of July, we, citizens of the United States of America, will be privileged to celebrate another Independence Day. Truly as followers of Jesus Christ we have a sure cause not only to celebrate this day with parades, family gatherings and patriotic assemblies and speeches, but to give thanks to our God and Father for graciously preserving our country and the precious freedoms we enjoy. David reminded us in Psalm 145 from whom and where all good things come. He wrote of our loving Lord, "You open Your hand and satisfy the desires of all living things." [Vs. 16] In Psalm 103 the Psalmist expands that thought further when He confessed concerning our Lord that He "satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagleÄôs." [Vs. 5]What is so amazing is that God graciously does all this in spite of our not being in the least worthy to receive such blessings. Our Lord clearly revealed to us in the Bible, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people." [Proverbs 14:34] When we hear Bible passages like that, our first inclination is to think about the scandalous headlines in the newspapers or stories about sordid crimes on the TV. But thatÄôs not the only place our loving Lord wants us to look for signs of our nationÄôs sin and rebellion against our holy God. Recall the clear directive of our Savior, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." [Matthew 7:1] The place to begin if we judge at all is by looking at our own heart, and souls, and minds.
For the smallest distortion of the truth on our part is just as evil as a whopping, big lie. Hatred and unjust anger in GodÄôs eyes are just as evil as murder. In mentioning these sins, weÄôve barely scratched the surface of our failings before our holy and righteous God. Then, too, every sin we commit is a form of idolatry, for it is an attempt on our part to dethrone our holy God. ThatÄôs why James was led by the Holy Spirit to write, For whoever keeps the whole Law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." [James 2:10] That may not seem fair to you, beloved. But this is GodÄôs standard of judgment, and it is He to whom weÄôll have to answer.
Thus, hopefully you see and are awed that it is solely by GodÄôs grace that we as individuals and a country have survived to this day. It is of the LordÄôs mercy that we have not been consumed! It is only when we as a nation and individuals acknowledge our sin and flee to Jesus for pardon that we can stand firmly in the liberty with which Christ has set us free. Surely for GodÄôs grace to us as a nation we have cause to pause this coming Independence Day to thank God for His mercy and to sing His praise for the freedoms we treasure.
However, in our text St. Paul is speaking about a freedom far greater than not being slaves under the rule of a foreign nation. It is not even about the Bill of Rights, as important as they are for our life together or how much those rights have enriched our lives as citizens of the USA. Throughout his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul is pointing those early Christian people and us to the glorious truth that in Christ Jesus we have been set free from slavery to GodÄôs Law.
The painful and scary thing to Paul was that false teachers had come to the congregations of Galatia. They attempted to destroy the saving truth after the Apostle had correctly taught the Galatians that Jesus Christ by His saving death and resurrection had done everything necessary for their sins to be forgiven and to be at peace with our holy Lord. Those heretics taught that more than JesusÄô death and resurrection were needed to be saved. They were insisting that male believers had to be circumcised as their Jewish counterparts. They tried to force these newborn Christians into worshipping on Saturday as their chief worship day rather than on Sunday, the Day of ChristÄôs resurrection. In fact, they mandated that the new believer in Jesus keep all the laws concerting the Sabbath Day. They were also demanding that the Christians in Galatia keep the Jewish dietary laws about not eating or touching unclean food, like pork as forbidden by the Law of Moses, and many other rules. Because our Redeemer fulfilled all the Jewish laws that pointed to the need for the coming Savior and therefore were no longer binding upon believers, Paul knew that if his new converts to Christianity gave in to these false teachings that they would completely lose the precious forgiveness of their sins and the salvation Jesus won for them.
The Apostle took seriously the revelation that "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." [Galatians 3: 10, Deuteronomy 27:26] The only way anyone could be saved by the Law of God is if he or she kept every single demand perfectly, and thatÄôs impossible. ThatÄôs why he wrote so forcefully at the beginning of this letter, "Ķeven if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" [Galatians 1:8} ThatÄôs also why Paul urged the believers to stand firmly in the freedom Christ won for them.
In our lives today Satan and his cohorts have become more subtle in their attempts to attack and destroy our trust in Jesus Christ alone as our only Savior. They still desire to push us back into slavery to sin and the Law. That crafty old demon and his fallen angels try to twist and distort our good works into what we view as something we do on our own rather than that which the Holy Spirit enables us to do.
Therefore our caring Lord, knowing us better than we know ourselves, urges us through the Apostle Paul to stand fast in the freedom in which Christ sets us free. You see, once we look to Jesus alone as our Savior from sin, death, hell and all evil, Satan, the Father of lies, and our sinful nature cunningly and craftily try to lead us astray. Let me try to uncover one of the evil foeÄôs strategies. Over the past 12 months I have periodically stated how desperately we all need to worship regularly and that all of us need to be actively involved in Bible Classes and daily meditation in GodÄôs Holy Word. In their sneaky ways our spiritual enemies take these very realities to undermine our faith. They begin to lead us to think that because we are actively and regularly in the Word that we are children of God, rather than it is only by being cleansed by JesusÄô blood that we are a part of GodÄôs redeemed family. In a similar way we could begin to believe because we belong to a church that proclaims the pure Gospel of Jesus as our only Savior that we are saved. Our trust can too quickly shift toward trusting in what we do and what we are rather than what God in His mercy has alone done for us in Christ Jesus that saves us. Bit by bit, tiny bit by tiny bit, our trust can erode from looking alone to the Lord to what we do and what we are. We indeed must be constantly on our guard!
Beloved children of the Heavenly Father, this is my final sermon as the Vacancy Pastor here at Emmanuel. I plead with you: With the aid of the Holy Spirit let these words forever be etched upon your hearts and minds,"But when the kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life!" [Titus 34:4-7] Indeed, "our salvation is from the Lord!" Therefore by the power of the Spirit, STAND FAST IN THE LIBERTY WHEREWITH CHRIST HAS MADE YOU FREE! For "Jesus, Jesus Äì only Jesus
Can (our) heartfelt longing still." (*) Amen.
(*) Ludaemilia Elizabeth, 1687"Jesus, Jesus, nichts als Jesus"
To God alone be glory!
© The Reverend Frederick A. Stiemke, DD
Vacancy Pastor
June 22, 2007