[Machine transcription]
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, looking at St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, this morning is the text. Please be seated.
I doubt that anyone likes to have unnecessary burdens put on them, and that’s what was going on in the Galatian church that Paul writes this letter to. Their leaders were teaching that more than just faith in Jesus was needed to be accepted by God and to be forgiven of your sins. The people also had to obey religious rules like not eating certain foods, observing holy days, and that men had to be circumcised.
First, verse 1, Paul calls that teaching a yoke and likens it to slavery. A yoke, of course, is put on an animal to pull things; it’s a burden, it’s like slavery. And this kind of burden that they were teaching, the Christian worldview, we call that the law—things that God requires of us to be accepted by Him, to be forgiven of our sins. But fulfilling the law is not required because Jesus has fulfilled that law. He obeyed the law perfectly by not breaking it, not sinning, and giving His life on a cross to pay for our not keeping the law and to forgive us, and to free us from that law requirement. The Christian worldview, we call that the gospel.
And Paul writes to the Galatians pretty angrily in his letter about this law teaching because the people were actually falling for it. Again, he calls it a yoke of slavery. And isn’t that what the law really is? It’s authority and control and restriction and something impossible to obey completely. In other words, a burden. That’s what the church was trying to be; the leaders were trying to put on the people.
Before we get too critical of the Galatians, I mean, they were falling for it. They were falling into this obedience of the law and not on the gospel. Before we get too critical of them, really, there are times that we can be no different than that. I mean, sometimes people actually like the law. We like it because we think that by following it we have some control, we have some authority. It doesn’t seem like so much of a yoke if you think that you’re obeying the law or not doing too badly at it anyway.
I mean, look at the list in verse 19. You can look at it and say, “Yeah, I take a couple of hits, you know, on some of those things here, but overall, I’m not too bad. I mean, at least I haven’t murdered anybody. I mean, there’s other people that are worse than me; I’m not so bad. In fact, I’m doing pretty good.” I mean, you look at that other list there in verse 22—love, joy, peace, yadda yadda yadda. Hey, I’m doing pretty good with those, and I love my neighbor; I’m not so bad.
The law can make us proud, and we can point to ourselves and say, “Look God, I’m doing what you want me to do; I’m doing what you want.” I mean, doesn’t that count for something? I’m doing the law. That should help me get into heaven, right? Yeah, Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and my faith in him gives salvation, but I want some control. I want to be part of the process.
I mean, after all, hard work is often rewarded, and people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they’re admired today. We like the law because we like the idea of being involved in our salvation, having some control in it, having some say in it—the idea that by keeping the law we can contribute to our forgiveness from breaking God’s law and sinning against him.
I like to call this shake-and-bake theology. Okay, now some of you know what I’m talking about. Baby boomers, you know what I’m talking about, with Shake and Bake. It’s a product for cooking chicken. Basically, it’s this coating; you put it in a bag with the chicken, and you shake it, and then you bake it. That’s what the name says here.
Well, in the 60s, the 1960s, there was a TV commercial for Shake and Bake. It had a little girl and her grandma who were making some, and they serve it to the family, and the family loves it; they praise grandma for it. The little girl proudly proclaims, “And I helped!” Yeah, it’s on YouTube, actually. “And I helped!”
You see, but trying to help in salvation by keeping the law—it just means doing more and more. See, trying to help in your salvation by doing the law, it’s like this: to be forgiven for breaking God’s law, you have to keep the law and then you have to try harder to not break the law. It’s an endless cycle of do. That’s how you can really sum up the law in one word: do. It’s a yoke of slavery, Paul calls it—trying to help in your salvation by thinking you could obey the law. It’s just an unnecessary burden on yourself.
Don’t do that, Paul says. And somewhat angrily, again in his letter, he’s saying God has something better. Jesus sets you free from that. I mean, again in verse 1 where he says, “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Don’t submit again to the yoke of slavery.” Salvation is not in keeping the law, but in Jesus keeping the law.
Verse 13 is what he said there. He said, “For you were called to freedom, brothers,” and in verse, where is it there? 24—”those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires.” See what you do in the law has been crucified. You’ve been set free from that. Don’t do that, Paul says. It’s not in you keeping the law; it’s in Jesus’ keeping the law. It’s in His suffering. It’s in His crucifixion. It’s in His death and resurrection and His ascension. It’s in His paying the price. It’s in His forgiveness. It’s His doing, not yours.
That’s the gospel. Paul says, don’t focus on the law. You need the gospel of Jesus. The gospel is the good news of salvation. Obeying the law and that burden and that yoke and that slavery, that’s bad news. It’s an endless cycle of do when, in fact, you can’t do it and you don’t have to. You don’t have to help your salvation. In fact, you can’t because Jesus has done it all.
In fact, that’s one way we can describe the gospel in one word: done. It’s done—done by Jesus. In the gospel, we don’t proudly point to ourselves; we proudly point to Jesus and say, “He’s done it all for me.”
And Paul wanted the Galatians to see this and get their focus off of the law and get it onto the gospel. He says, “Don’t let yourselves be yoked or burdened.” He says the burden of salvation—it isn’t on you; it’s on God; it’s on Christ. We can’t perfectly obey the law, no matter how much you try or how much you do, it ain’t enough. But Jesus can. He did, and He does.
Look at the law like this: there’s nothing that you can do that can make God love you more than He already does, and He did that in Jesus. It’s not in the law; it’s in Jesus keeping the law and dying because you can’t. And that could be a burden of trying to keep the law, but maybe that’s not your burden. Maybe more of your burden is not keeping the law. You’ve broken it. Maybe you’ve broken it pretty hard, pretty bad.
And that yoke of guilt and shame over your sins that you committed can be really heavy. You look at that list in verse 19; you don’t look at it and say, “Yeah, I’ve just done a couple of those.” You look at it and say, “Man, yeah, guilty as charged.” And you feel like you’re pulling this yoke, dragging that guilt and shame all through your life. Well, there’s good news for you.
I mean, really, you’re better off than the people who are trying to obey the law because the good news is for you: there’s gospel. Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says some beautiful words. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I’m gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” He says, “For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” In Jesus, He takes the yoke off of you. He’s taken that yoke of your sins on himself. The burden of sin isn’t on you.
I like to say it this way; it kind of sounds funny and a bit, I guess, quippy, but the yoke’s not on you. Every time I try to be serious, this is what happens. The yoke’s not on you; it’s on Jesus. He took it from you, died with it on the cross. You don’t have to drag it around. Your sins are forgiven. He’s taken them on Himself and died with them.
No matter what you’ve done, no matter how guilt- or shame-inducing they may be, think of it this way: there’s nothing you’ve done that will make God love you less because of Jesus. Paul says, “Don’t be burdened by that yoke. Jesus doesn’t want you to carry it. He can.”
Does Paul say, “Don’t be burdened by that yoke. Don’t submit to that slavery. You don’t need that burden; nobody’s putting it on you except you.” Paul says, “Get rid of it.”
And speaking of Paul, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Jesus Deaf Lutheran Church—here we are today, not feeling burdened but joyful, welcoming a new shepherd today who will proclaim law and gospel for us. We end our vacancy as we started—joyfully Lutheran—as we move into a new time, a new era of great opportunities for sharing the law and gospel with people in this city, people you know who are burdened by the yoke and slavery of sin. Let’s do it. Amen.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
