Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity - September 6, 2026

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

There’s a common belief nowadays that I find perplexing, and it’s that everyone is basically good. Now, I don’t doubt that most people think that they are basically good or want to do things that are basically good. But there are plenty of problems and sins in this world—so where did they come from? We Christians have an easy answer: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). But non-Christians do not believe in the Fall into Sin or the idea of original sin. If everyone is basically good and wants to do good, then how do problems arise? The answer often is that they arise through ignorance or bad systems or power dynamics. If you educate and change the systems and give power to the right people, then world peace will flourish. Except that just won’t happen. All of us are sinners, no matter how much education you receive. Social systems can be good, and they can be corrupted. And both those in power and those out of power do wicked things. We must recognize that every single human being has a sinful nature to them that corrupts all of our desires and actions. The response of Christ is to give us the Holy Spirit who reminds us of our identity and helps us in our battle against the sinful flesh.

The truth is, there is a war going on inside of every Christian. We have the Holy Spirit who filled us when we were baptized. We also have the flesh, the old man, the sinful human nature that clings to us until the day we die. St. Paul reminds us of this battle: “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” (17).

The flesh wants to please himself. He despises the law, for it tell him that what he’s doing is wrong. He despises the gospel, for he doesn’t think he needs saving. The sinful flesh is his own lord and god. He cannot be reformed or converted. And he wants exactly the opposite of what the Spirit wants. He remains a part of us as long as we are living in these dying bodies.

So if you get discouraged because you want to do what is good but find yourself falling into sin, then recognize that spiritual battle inside of you and take heart. It’s a sign that you are a Christian. The Spirit and the flesh cannot tolerate one another. Walking in the Spirit means that we take stock of who we are.

We are Christians. We’ve been called out of darkness into the light of God’s truth. The law cannot condemn us because we have Christ, and He faced the condemnation of the law as our Champion. He went to the cross as the worst sinner of all, because he was carrying our sin. He died carrying that load of guilt. By his resurrection and our baptism, he gives us a new identity that is shaped by the gospel—the good news of salvation through Christ. We are no longer defined by the law. St. Paul puts it this way in our text: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (18). The law cannot judge you. It cannot condemn you. It cannot drive you away from God and expel you from the fellowship you enjoy with God’s Church. But what the law does do well is condemn the sinful nature that is still a part of you.

One thing I compare the law to are train tracks. Train tracks lead a train in one direction.  If a conductor decides to go in a different direction where there are no train tracks, then he will derail his train. It will leave the tracks and tip over. When we disobey God’s law out of pride, thinking that we can drive the train in a better direction than God, then we cause a huge mess and injure ourselves and others. So the law serves to point that out, and no one likes to hear it. Sometimes when a Christian might point out someone’s sin, they hear it as self-righteousness: “Oh, you think you’re much better than me?” But really, we’re just pointing out that you’re a mess because of your sinful choices. Your train has jumped the tracks and is wreaking havoc!

Repentance is saying sorry for what you’ve done and allowing God to put that train back on the tracks. But here’s the thing: we really shouldn’t be in control of this train. Everything works better when God the Holy Spirit is driving our train. In fact, we can’t even go forward on the tracks without the Holy Spirit. The train tracks—the law—can’t make you follow them. But the Holy Spirit leads you on and give you the reasons and the energy to follow the law.

This will not be perfect. Your sinful nature will always try to take over the train and be the conductor. Even the Christian is tempted by the works of the flesh. He can easily fall into them. When he falls, he repents and renounces his sins. But the works of the flesh cannot claim the Christian because the Holy Spirit lives in his children. Now this is an extremely important point. Falling into temptation and sin is one thing. But embracing sin and claiming it is good is something quite different. The Spirit fights against the flesh. When the Christian is no longer engaged in spiritual warfare it’s because he’s no longer a Christian. When you let your sinful nature run the train, it will never get back on the train tracks by its own volition.

What are the works of the flesh? Well, St. Paul gives us one of his “vice lists.” The first three are sexual sins, sins against the body: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality” (19). The body is treated as if it exists purely for itself. But God created us male and female. He established sexual intimacy and he placed it within the marriage of one man to one woman for as long as they both should live.

Next, the apostle lists sins against the true worship: idolatry and sorcery. The attempt to gain supernatural power or knowledge through various mediums is to offend against the name of God. Paul then lists one sin after another that displays the selfishness of our sinful nature: “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy” (20). This is the very opposite of love. Instead of caring for others, we devolve into these when we pursue what we want. Paul concludes his list by mentioning both “drunkenness and orgies,” (21) also translated as gluttony, both sins of excess. The flesh wants what it wants and is never satisfied. After listing the works of the flesh, St. Paul makes it crystal clear that those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Now you might ask, why would people do such things? One thing to consider is that sin looks fun from the outside, but getting caught up in it is actually soul-destroying. There are countless movies, for example, that portray the bad guys as having fun. It may look fun to rob a bank or sleep with whomever or to run a mob. The best movies do not just show the bad guys getting punished, but also the corruption of the soul that happens.

However, being good sometimes looks boring on the screen. Sometimes, the “good guy” is not always believable, and we find ourselves rooting for the cool bad guy. But even though being good sometimes looks boring, it really is life-fulfilling.

And so, St. Paul gives us those things that do make life good and full. They are called the “fruits of the Spirit,” because they are the gifts that the Holy Spirit is working in our lives as Christians. There are no works of the Spirit. There is fruit. The flesh works for what it gets. The Holy Spirit gives and gives and gives some more. The fruit of the Spirit does not come about by our hard work. It comes about by the gracious working of the Holy Spirit through the gospel. The fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (22–23). Love comes from being loved. The perfect obedience and vicarious suffering of Jesus is love. It is love for the Father. It is love for us, God’s children. When we receive through faith the love by which all our sins were washed away, we are also filled with love as a fruit of the Holy Spirit.

This love produces joy—not a shallow happiness that comes and goes, but the joy of being at peace with God and with our brothers and sisters in Christ. This peace produces patience. We don’t need to get what we want when we want it because we already have everything worth having. This patience leads us to kindness as we tolerate the weaknesses of other in imitation of our Lord Jesus. Kindness does not rejoice in evil but in what is good. Goodness is honorable and faithful and true. There is no deceit in it. Gentleness comes as fruit because the gospel doesn’t coerce. It woos and wins over the heart. The last of the fruits mentioned is self-control. Being filled with the Holy Spirit does not entail an obnoxious display of emotion as that was an indication of true spirituality. But the Holy Spirit makes us reverent. The peace in which we live enables us to control ourselves.

In this, God gives us examples to follow. Yes, Jesus can be an example, but so can many saints of the Bible. I find it interesting that Christians can believe strongly in original sin but also put forward models of virtue for what we can aspire to. One thing I have noticed in our society that no longer believes in original sin is that they don’t have many such real role models for good. Washington is torn down, Jefferson is lambasted, and Lincoln is despised. We tear down monuments to those we had honored in years past. But we do have one role model: a negative role model. People are told to not be like Adolf Hitler. But that is a low bar to hop over. Pretty much everyone passes that test, and yet it doesn’t inspire us to anything better. Only Christ and his gift of the Holy Spirit can do just that: give us the love with which we can love others, and the encouragement to “crucify the flesh with its passions and desires” (24).

Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.

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