Not Flesh But Spirit
Galatians 5:15-24
September 5, 2021 anno Domini
Last Wednesday was not a good day in my garage. Sometime between Sunday and Wednesday our deep freeze lost power. I should have known something was up because Libby the Labrador always headed for the freezer instead of heading outside. I was not there when Val made the discovery, but I got a text that we had a stinking mess on our hands. Thankfully the freezer wasn’t very full. The meat we had was mostly venison, so Libby and I are sad, but Val did not consider it a great loss. The good news is that the freezer is empty and deer season is only two months away, but this week our garbage will be full of refrozen rotten meat.
When Saint Paul says, (read vs. 17) you should be thinking about rotten meat when you think of the flesh. The flesh is not your body. The flesh (as Paul uses it here), is your old sinful self. His desires and his deeds are rotten. They stink. Listen to this list of rot (read vs. 19-21). I think Paul is so disgusted by the list that he just cuts it off with “and things like these.”
Let’s just take a look at one word, the eleventh piece of rotten flesh on Paul’s garbage list, dissension. It can mean a party spirit dividing a congregation or raising an issue simply to pit people against each other. It is making two groups where there should be one by causing one to hate the other for an ungodly reason.
This was happening in Galatia over the practice of circumcision. The Jewish Christians were insisting that the Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised to be truly Christian. Paul had to correct the Jews because they were adding something to the Gospel – Circumcision. They were making a mountain out of a foreskin. By saying that Gentiles were not fully Christian the church was filled with dissension.
Have you ever caused dissension by making nothing into something at church? You raised a little opinion or event or action to such a high level of importance that you separated yourself from someone else. She didn’t make coffee the right way. The pastor chants too much. I don’t like new hymns. I don’t like old hymns. They require masks. They don’t require masks. I’m going to leave my church if they build a new building. What are those new people doing in my spot?
Dissension encourages division because you don’t get your way. You want to win people to you and that just leads into a whole host of other sins Paul mentions – enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, divisions, envy … and the like. You might win, but in the end you and everyone else loses.
The works of the flesh never satisfy because they aren’t good. One of my pastor friends said they are like Doritos. Doritos aren’t good for you. You can’t just eat one or two – half the bag is gone and you’re still hungry and now you don’t feel so good. The flesh always hungers and desires more and worse. If you worship the things of the world you’re an idolater and you’ll always be upgrading your idols because this year’s idol will be next year’s junk. Drunkenness always requires more drinking. Sexual immorality always demands more perversion.
The works of the flesh stink, but to your old sinful self they smell wonderful. Idolatry is fun. Dissension is self-justifying. Sexual immorality is pleasurable. Your old sinful self delights in sin. My dog Libby would probably have enjoyed eating all that rotten meat because it smelled wonderful to her and perhaps the canine gifts that God gave could have stomached that food. But I’m a little smarter than my dog, so that rotten meat isn’t going in my stomach.
Saint Paul warns us that the works of the flesh are deadly and damning. Those who do such things, who practice such things, who work at such things, who want to win and excel at such things, who can’t get enough of such things –will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
The opposite of practicing the works of the flesh is to walk in the Spirit. To walk in the Spirit is to follow Christ, to believe in Jesus. We believe the Son of God became a man. He took on our flesh and that not only means He was born a little boy with a complete human body, but that in His baptism He also took on our rotting sinful flesh. He who never lusted took on our sexual immorality. He who worshipped His Father alone absorbed our idolatry. He who loved every human to death swallowed up our envy, jealousy, and strife. Jesus took into His body all our rotten putrid sin and buried it deep in the dump called hell. That’s what He suffered on the cross. We deserve to be thrown out by God. He is disgusted with your sin, but He loves you by means of His Son. The Son was thrown out by His Father on the cross. He felt the burning wrath of God at our sins. You will never be satisfied with sin, but God is satisfied with Jesus and that means your sins are forgiven. They have been cut loose from you and thrown away. Your flesh is good again because you are forgiven.
That is what faith believes. That is what baptism does and faith receives. A new man is created and raised up in you by Baptism. That new man walks by the Spirit. That new man hates the stench of self-serving sin and loves the aroma of sacrificial love, good works, offered to God. (Read vs. 24). Christ was crucified for your sin, now, you walk in His steps. You crucify your old sinful desires because you are heading for the resurrection.
How many of you are going to dumpster dive at my house this week when I put out my garbage? How many of you want some rotten stinking meat for your Labor Day BBQ? Do you have that same disgust for sin? Do you have the same desire to walk in the Spirit as you have for your health, for keeping safe, for your finance well-being?
I have said this before and it is as much my own confession as it is my concern for you. We look too much like the fallen world. We act too much like the world. We complain too much. We play the victim too much. We watch Fox or CNN for hours and just let our old sinful self be fed a feast of rotten meat that leaves us hungry for even more envy, division, anger, and strife. If we look and act just like the world what does that say of our faith? Of our Jesus? Why would anyone look to us for an answer to this rotten mess of sin and suffering if we continue to consume it?
I need your help and you need mine. There should not be a single complaint against our President within our walls, but we should pray for him every week. We ought not worry about COVID because we have Jesus, and He has us. Do what you must for your own health and life and according to your conscience, but don’t bring your division in here.
We love by speaking the truth. We have joy and should not be disheartened by the failures of men. We have peace with God our Father through His Son Jesus, and the world cannot destroy that. Be patient with each other as you remember how long suffering God has been with you. Be kind and do not demean each other. God created all, desires to save all, and Jesus died for all. Be good which means doing what God says and loving what God loves. Don’t make a diet of the rotten and stinking flesh of the world. Be faithful to Jesus and His Word, and gentle with each other, not beating each other up over coffee, masks, vaccines, hymns or pastors. Practice self-control. Don’t voice your opinions as if it is God’s way and thus dividing people over nothing that matters to our Lord.
Walk by the Spirit and it will be more satisfying for you and more nourishing to your neighbor. This is what we do because we belong to Jesus and we are inheriting the kingdom of God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.