There’s a Mad TV skit with Bob Newhart from several years ago wherein he plays a counselor, Dr. Switzer. It’s a spoof of Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, counseling type shows. A woman comes into his office for some help. She is an uncontrollable fear of being buried alive in a box.  She tells him about her problem and he tells her that it will only take 2 words for him to solve her problem if she takes it and applies it to her life.  He says to her, “Stop it!” The woman says she doesn’t understand, so he repeats himself again and again. This seems to be his answer to all her problems, “Stop it!”

Now, this maybe not the best counseling technique around, but there is some validity to it. St. Paul writes in the first verse of Galatians 5, “For freedom Christ has set us free.  Therefore, do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” In other words, stop it!  The Galatians had this nasty problem of rejecting that we are saved solely by faith apart from our works. They kept falling back into their old sinful habits, their idolatry and immoral living, and acting as if the Gospel of Christ was not enough for them. And so St. Paul gives them a stern warning, “Stop it!”

“For you were called to freedom brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Faith in Christ is the mother and source of works that are truly good and God pleasing. As Christian we are led by the Spirit of Christ, not by coercion of the Law, not by piling up more rules to follow by simply trying harder. Motivation to be good, to do good, comes from the freedom that we in Christ because our sins are forgiven as we are led by the Spirit in the truth of Christ.

That means that we are not enslaved to sinful thinking and ways. “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.” We are involved in lifelong struggle with the old Adam. A spiritual war is waged inside of us every day and it spills out into our relationships with others.  And this should not be! St. Paul warns again, “But if you devour and bite one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” Why don’t many of you want to stay around for voters’ meetings? To serve on this or that board or committee in church? My guess is because of what this verse says.  Biting and devouring. Arguments and insults. If you makes you feel any better, it’s not just here, but this is problem that exists within the church as a whole.

The solution isn’t just to “stop it.”  That is just piling up more Law for us to try to do in order to be good. The solution is that Christ has put a stop to it.  He died upon the cross to put an end to such things.  That happens only through repentance and faith in Christ.  By the blood of Jesus, enmity, division between God and man is reconciled. Because of that, enmity between one another is as well. We have been set free from petty bickering and quarreling. For Jesus’ sake, we are freed from the burdens of jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, division, envy and the like.  Because you, who have been baptized, belong to Christ. You have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Baptism entails a daily crucifixion, a daily putting to death of the sinful flesh so that we have peace with God and with one another.

Another Lutheran pastor in Colorado (Bryan Wolfmueller) recently said that a particular temptation we face as Christians is that of the emergency. It is the temptation to fear the future, to despair and lose hope, to panic. The devil takes whatever we see as the biggest trouble in the world and turns it into an emergency. “The church is small. Emergency!” “There aren’t enough resources. Emergency!” “The world hates the church. Emergency!”

Here’s the truth: the church has always been small. There always been tension between what we want and what we need in order to be faithful. The world has always hated the church. And Jesus, who sits on the throne at the Father’s right hand knows all about it, and He continues to keep His promise that all things work together for the good of those who love Him. Because of the Ascension of Christ, the church is emergency-proof. Because Jesus is at the Father’s right hand the church is panic-proof. Because we, by faith, cling to the promises of Jesus, we recognize the devil’s temptation to coerce us and put us back into the slavery of the Law, leading us to we have to emergency thinking because we don’t have control.

And thank God that we don’t. When left to ourselves, we act like slaves to our passions and to the whims of the devil. We fall back into the old sinful habits of the flesh. Look at the world around us. The works of the flesh are still as evident in today’s world just as they were 2000 years ago. Sexuality immorality, impurity, sensuality.  Our culture is awash with these evils, rebellion against God’s order of creation of marriage and identity. Enmity with the world, squabbles within the family of God.

 These things have no place among us, yet they plague us to no end in this life. But we are not without hope. The ground ahead of us is good; not necessarily easy, but good. In the confidence of the ascension of Christ we go about our vocations, fighting sin and doing good in the place where the Lord has placed us. That doesn’t mean we don’t take things seriously, nor bury our heads when faced with hard decisions. It means that we do these things by the grace of God, led by His Spirit, in the freedom of the Gospel, with the healing from enmity, and the bond of unity in Christ.

So let’s not gratify the desires of the flesh. Keep your eyes, our hearts, our lives focused on Jesus.  Love our neighbors as ourselves, let us be marked by the fruit of the Spirit. And when we stray, and we have and we will, we heed the Word of God that condemn our sinfulness and draws us back into the freedom of the Gospel.  Its only in this freedom that we can pray for and do the will of God. It’s only by His grace that we can make godly decisions and do good works. For Christ has put a stop to our sin by His blood shed upon the cross. He has put a stop to our death by His resurrection. He has put a stop to our slavery and given us His freedom through the forgiveness of our sins, life, and salvation. Let us rejoice