Family Matters (Galatians 5:16-24)

Grace and peace to you from God our Savior through Jesus Christ, our hope.

All.

Last week we heard a lawyer put Jesus to the test saying, What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Jesus responded by asking him, What is written in the law?

How do you read it?

The lawyer answered by giving the exact same summary of the law that Jesus gives in another place.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

So Jesus said, You have answered correctly.

Do this and you will live.

But the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?

Because while he knew what the law said, he also knew how hard it is to keep.

He'd probably convinced himself that he loved God with his whole heart.

But he was clearly looking for a loophole when it came to fulfilling the second greatest command.

No doubt he was hoping to hear something like, Well, your neighbor is anyone you feel like loved him, so long as it's convenient to you.

Instead, Jesus told a parable about a Samaritan helping and supporting a Jew in his bodily need, in spite of their deep-seated religious, racial, and political differences, and said, You go and do likewise.

In other words, there is no report.

The law says what it says.

Do this and you will live.

Except he had it.

And he wouldn't.

And that's the point.

Jesus wasn't giving this man advice on how to keep the law and be saved.

As we heard Paul say last week in Galatians 3, that's not even possible.

For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

There is nothing you must do to inherit eternal life.

There is nothing you can do.

Eternal life is a gift.

It's not earned but freely given.

It's been bought and paid for by another.

The Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for many.

No mere mortal can give God the price of his life.

It's too costly.

Even our best efforts can never suffice.

For as much as we may think we've done, the truth is we've all lived as if God did not matter, and as if we mattered less.

We have not honored his name as we should, but our worship and prayers have false.

We have scorned his love, and so our love for others has failed.

There are those whom we have hurt and those whom we have failed to help.

Our thoughts and desires have been soilless.

If anything, we deserve eternal death, not life, to go down to the pit and never come back.

But in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son to redeem us, to purchase and win us from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil.

And the price he paid, the blood he shed, being holy and precious, was sufficient.

He has atoned, we're satisfied for the sin of the whole world.

And having gone down to the pit himself and come back, he has promised to raise us and all the dead and give eternal life to us and all believers in Christ.

For we are God's children.

Adopted into his family the church by grace through faith.

We have been clothed with the robe of Christ's righteousness that covers all our sin.

And so when he comes again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, we will stand without fear.

Not because we'll think we've done enough to inherit eternal life, but because we'll know we haven't.

But that eternal life is ours anyway, through him who loved us.

So, there is nothing you must do to inherit eternal life.

But the warning Paul gives in today's epistle is that there is something you can do to disclaim it.

Writing to the churches of Galatia, he says, 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 this.

I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Note first of all that this warning is for them, not for unbelievers, but for the baptized and redeemed.

I warn you as I warned you before.

They have or have received adoption as sons through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, but that didn't mean that they were free to live as if they didn't know God.

They did.

They were part of the family now.

And being part of a family comes with certain roles and responsibilities.

There are expectations for how members of a household should behave.

Didn't your dad ever say something to you growing up like, that's not how we act in this family?

Or in this family we do X, Y, and Z.

Use kind words, help each other out.

Well, God's family is much the same way.

There are expectations that our heavenly Father has of his children, that they will conduct themselves in a certain way.

Not to earn their place in the family, but because they already belong to it.

Here, Paul gives a list of behaviors that Christians are to avoid.

Sexual immorality, which is the word ornea, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery as in a witchcraft or satanic arts, which is a real thing.

Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries or selfish ambition.

Dissensions, divisions, envy, bouts of drunkenness, orgies, or I prefer the translation wild partying, and things like these.

So it's not even an exhaustive list.

But you've got sins against the sixth commandment, the first and second commandments, the fifth and eighth commandments, and everything in between.

It's as if he's saying that's not how we behave in this family.

Besides the fact that it's against the rules, there's something even bigger at stake.

He says, I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

They will forfeit their inheritance.

I think that's the part where we get a little nervous.

Because looking at this list, we all recognize sins we've done.

Every single one of us is guilty of one or more of these things.

Slightly more, maybe all of them.

And so what do you do with that?

Does that mean we're all going to hell?

That none of us has any hope of eternal life?

Not exactly.

This is a warning.

But there's an important distinction to be made here, and it's a grammatical one, so hang with me.

Paul says those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Not those who have done.

The word he uses is in the present tense, which in Greek usually indicates ongoing action.

So it's not one sin, but a life characterized by continuous sin that Paul has in mind here.

It's what the Apostle Paul describes in his first epistle as making a practice of sin.

This is not someone who laments of his sin and wants to do better, like Paul says in Romans 7, I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

No, this describes one who loves and practices falsehood, so that they are rightly called by that sin, whether an adulterer, a murderer, or an idolater.

We often speak this way.

Someone who loves Taylor Swift is called a Swifty.

Someone who loves Star Trek is called a Trekie.

In the same way, someone who loves sin is called a sinner.

And so long as they do not repent, they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If, however, you have sinned and are sorry for it, thanks be to God, for the living and active word of God has done its work, then that's another matter entirely.

You may be sinful, but you are not a sinner.

That's not what defines you.

Rather, having received the Spirit of God in your baptism, having been marked as one redeemed by Christ the crucified, having been buried with him by baptism into death, you belong to him now.

Your sins are washed away, and you are being led by the Spirit to produce good fruit.

As Paul says in another letter of his, do not be deceived.

Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, etc., will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

That's who they were now.

Baptized into Christ, called to faith by the gospel, declared righteous for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of God's beloved Son Jesus Christ.

And dear saints of God, that's who you are.

You're a Christian, loved by Christ and called by His.

We remembered that first thing this morning when we made the sign of the Holy Cross in the name of the triune God, with the same words spoken over us at our baptism.

We confessed it moments ago when we spoke aloud the timeless truths of the Christian faith to which we have been called.

And soon at this rail we will receive it when we taste and see that the Lord is good in the meal of his true flesh and blood for our forgiveness and strength.

All of these things point to the reality of who we are, not who we were.

Who you were deserves death.

Who you are in Christ has the blessed hope of everlasting life.

So be who you are.

Walk by the Spirit.

That doesn't mean you'll never sin.

It just means that when you do, don't shrug it off like it's no big deal, but confess it.

Bring it to the light that it might be exposed for what it is.

For if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, to remove them far from us, and to drown them in the depths of Christ's life.

All is not lost.

You still have an inheritance.

Eternal life is still yours in Christ Jesus.

And be on guard against future temptations.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, Solomon says to his son, for from it flow the springs of life.

The Holy Spirit Himself, who works in you to enlighten, sanctify, and keep you in the one true faith.

Know yourself where you are particularly weak and put up appropriate defenses.

Pray God, as we do in the service of evening prayer, to set a watch before my mouth, O Lord, and guard the door of my lips.

Let not my heart incline to any evil thing.

Let me not be occupied in wickedness with evil doers.

Even if nine out of ten should fall away, you return to Jesus, who alone has the words of eternal life.

Turn your eyes toward him and take refuge in him.

That's what we do in this world.

In Jesus' name.

And now the peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus into light everlasting.

Amen.