Our scripture today is the end of the 3rd chapter of Galatians, Galatians 3:26-29. Since Easter we have been in the book of Galatians on this Sunday before the 4th of July we come to a very important passage that needs to be heard. I am going to read this passage, and then will go into an introduction of our passage of how this Scripture is important for us today in our nation. This is a very different message than I normally preach due to me venturing into very subjective waters of my own personal opinions that I normally do not venture into. If this sermon offends you, please talk with me. My goal is to provide a way of understanding what we are going through as a country using a Biblical worldview.
Galatians 3:26-29 reads – “26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
Introduction: This coming Saturday is July 4, the day that we celebrate as a nation the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. We mark that day as the birthday of the nation recognizing though that independence from England had to be fought for and won (the Revolutionary War). It was not until the surrender at Yorktown on April 9, 1783 that hostilities ceased with Brittan. That was the easy part. It took another 6 years to get everyone to agree on a constitution for this great nation. George Washington became president in April of 1789, almost 13 years after the signing of the declaration.
Since that time, 244 years to be exact, America has burned brightly in this world. As a country, we have fought against forms of global tyranny and terror, we have advanced the sciences, we have become home to the nations of the world, and have championed liberty. I love this nation and I do believe that the United States of America, according to the providence of God, has indeed been used, and continues to be used by God to be a blessing to the entire world and as a force for good. We have reason to hold our heads high as Americans today.
Unfortunately, today, this love of nation is not popular to express or to proclaim. In many places and within many ideological groups within this very country, America is hated. Current surveys show that patriotism and pride of country is at an all-time low. There is a shadow on that land that seeks to erase the history, culture, opinions and even freedoms of people or groups that do not tow a certain political line or ideology. This shadow upon the land is also seen in racism and in acts of senseless violence. We see this shadow when injustice is used to fight injustice, when power is abused, when people are feared because of what they look like. We see this shadow when race fight against race, party against party, urban vs rural, and the rich vs the poor. We see this shadow in the works of inequality and in the exploitation of the weak. We are in a shadow land tainted by sin unable to fully live in accordance to the longing of our national heart.
What makes our nation so amazing, the light that this shadow darkens, is what I am calling the longing of the national heart and soul. This longing is our core national identity enshrined in the words of our Declaration of Independence. Our country was birthed on the belief that there are certain truths defined by nature and by God, truths that define the role of government and when these truths are withheld, that government or its form should end. What are the truths? You know them, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is the heart of our nation. It is what makes us great.
Our nation is made up of people with different histories, different religions, different nationalities, different races, and different experiences in how they came to be citizens of this country. On my father’s side, using the website Ansectry.com, I can trace back an ancestor coming to this country in 1620 and dying in the Indian massacre that took place in 1622 in Jamestown. On my father’s side, there is linage that includes the full history of this country. Yet on my mother’s side, she did not become an American Citizen until about 20 years ago. She hung onto her Canadian Citizenship for most of her life, and her father immigrated to Canada when he was 16 to escape the communist revolution that created the Soviet Union. Some of you who are here today probably have ancestors that worked in the coal mines, lived in work camps, or fought in the civil war. Some of you may have ancestors who settled this rugged country, built log homes, cleared trees, and farmed it. It is possible that some of you may have ancestors who were slaves, stolen from their home country and brought to this land by force. Some of you may have as ancestors who were Cherookee or Shawnee, original occupants of the land. Unlike most nations of the world, we are a nation of people with different histories, different religions, different races, and different experiences. What holds us together as Americans is this belief “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” It is this belief that defines us as a nation, this is what makes us distinct, and what makes us exceptional. And I will go even one step further. I believe that it is this national defining characteristic as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal,” is what defines our nation as a Christian nation.
Many people like to say that United States of America is a Christian nation. Well, what does that mean?
- Does it mean that all the founding fathers were Christians? No, it cannot mean that because they were not. Many of them, though influenced by Christianity, were self-avowed humanist or deists.
- Does it mean that the official state religion of America is Christianity? No, it cannot mean that because central to our identity as a nation is the freedom of religion and the separation between church and state. People went to great lengths to not make Christianity a state religion.
- Does it mean that all the people who built this country were Christians? No, it cannot mean that because many who built this country did so through slavery. How can that define us as a Christian nation?
For me, what defines America as a Christian nation is this idea that all people are created equal and the long battle fought to make it so. The reason I call this Christian is that this truth and longing of our nation is the natural outgrowth and trajectory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are a Christian nation because the heart of this nation aligns with the work of God accomplished in Jesus Christ. I know saying that is not popular, it will not fly in the press, and I will be probably scorned and ridiculed. Yet this understanding of equality is the supernatural work of the gospel in this world.
The very first story in the Bible after Adam and Eve are sent out from the Garden, separated from God, is the story of Cain murdering his brother Abel. Brother killing brother. This simple story is a template for the history of humanity and is a part of the original shadow of sin that has covered all of creation. This template of brother against brother grows into nations against nations, tribes against tribes, one group against that other group. Wars are fought, territory won, villages destroyed, nations gather power, people rebel. It is the story of our Bible and it is the story of our world covered by this shadow of sin.
Then Something happened 2000 years ago, a light dawned in this shadow-world. That light of course is God the Son, very God and very man. Jesus came and lived and taught and died and rose again. His life and his death pushed on that shadow of sin in such a way that sin was dealt with in the lives of those that trust Him.
- In Christ I am counted as righteous, my sins are forgiven, and I am reconciled to the Father.
- In Christ, God’s very Spirit lives in me.
- And in Christ, I am brought not only into a fellowship with God, but also into a community of people who no longer lives in the shadowlands of sin, but instead live immersed in the truth and reality of God. This community of people that we call church is not defined by race, or nationality, or background, or social standing, or age, or gender. Rather this community is formed around a citizenship in Heaven, it is formed around a common savior, Jesus Christ, and through this savior a brotherhood and sisterhood is realized over and above all other distinctions.
This is what Paul is talking about in Galatians and is the meaning of our text this morning. “26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” It is a remarkable passage. It is remarkable in all of history. And we see this remarkable passage play out in the early church.
- People who were rich and powerful worshiped with the poor. Erastus, the city treasurer of Corinth followed the poor preacher called Paul and is often traveling the countryside with a man named Timothy who is has a Greek father and a Jewish mother. What’s up with that?
- People who were slaves worshiped with the citizens Rome. In the book called Philemon Paul writes about a slave, Onesimus, who is a champion for the gospel.
- Men and women worship together in a world where that did not happen. When I read books like 1 Timothy or 1 and 2 Corinthians where Paul talks about women, I have to keep reminding myself they are trying to figure out what does it look like for men and women to worship together because it was not done before.
The world was changed by the gospel. I am not just talking about individual lives being changed, but the world was changed. Now clearly, as we read through the New Testament and the various letters from Paul, this new reality where there is no Jew nor Greek, no slave nor free, no male and female, but being one in Christ Jesus was very difficult to realize and live out. There are glimpses in the Bible of this new reality in Christ being actualized but it was never easy. The best picture that we have of people being one in Christ over above race, or nation, or wealth, and even gender is seen the book of Revelation. There at the throne of God we read, “9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:9–12 ESV).” This is heaven. This is God’s desire. This is where all of creation is moving towards. This image in Revelation is a world without the shadow of sin on it. This is the gospel lived forward.
And I believe that our nation came into being as a glimpse and longing of the gospel lived forward. That is what I mean when I say that our national longing for equality is the gospel at work in this world over the course of hundreds of years. As Americans, we are a nation that at the heart of our identity is for a reality that is only realized through the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to stress that last part again. The Real American Dream of true and lived equality is realized through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Which means that as a nation, as people are drawn to the Lord, encounter His Grace and trust in Him through faith, we as a nation will draw closer to that equality longed for. Conversely, if the gospel is ejected, if the gospel is silent, if the gospel is ignored, we as a nation will never realize our heart’s dream. This is what I believe is happening now in our country and is (I believe) the greatest danger that our country faces.
Today I feel that the gospel of Jesus Christ and all of what that means, has been pushed out of the public square by either silencing it or trying to make it irrelevant. Today, many people are spiritual, and religious, and many do believe in Jesus, but just like the Galatians that Paul is writing to, it is Jesus plus; Jesus plus the law, Jesus plus politics, or Jesus plus wealth and power. We as a nation keep trying to change people’s hearts through the force of law, and it just is not working. That is the message of the book of Galatians. Law is good, it is important, but it can only take us so far, it just cannot do what we long for, which is changed hearts.
We are a nation of laws, of good laws, and our laws have brought many needed protections. I am grateful for our laws and I have no problem for implementing new laws if it can be shown that they will add necessary and important protections for people. But the law can never change the heart of a person and trying to get law to do so causes the law to be a burden, oppressive, and a bondage maker. This error is a part of Paul’s message to the Galatians, and is the error that I think many in our country are making right now. Trying to change people through law, through force, through scare tactics, or through social pressure. What changes the heart is the gospel.
- It is the Gospel that opens the eyes of a person blinded by pride through the grace of Christ.
- It is the gospel through which I find true forgiveness of sin and healing.
- It is the Gospel that defines our family through faith in Jesus Christ. A family that all are welcomed in to. This truth has been brought home to me so many times. I remember riding a bus in the back country of Kenya, and it breaking down late at night. Having nowhere to go that evening, my friend and I asked, “are there Christians in this town?” We were directed to a house, knocked on a door, and were welcomed in as if we were family.
- It is the gospel that makes our heritage that of Abraham. Notice what Paul says in our scripture today, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” The stories of the Bible are mine. They are my heritage, they are my people, they are my history. Through Faith, I am an offspring of Abraham.
- It is the gospel that turns us, changes us, moves us to become not only a people who receive grace, but live it.
- It is the gospel that declares that all of life is sacred, that all of life matters, because the Holy one of God, my savior, died for that life.
- It is the gospel that God pours out His Spirit upon all who believe, so that that life, through His Spirit, is changed.
This is why I believe that the hope for this country is found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We, people of faith, people of the church, people who have been grasped by God through Jesus Christ need to live, and proclaim, and trust, and hang onto the gospel of Jesus Christ.
There are four questions that I want to ask you as I close out this morning, or rather, four questions that I would like you to ask yourself.
1. Has your heart been changed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Jesus changes lives. That is what I believe. Have you been confronted by your sin, confessed it, and been changed?
2. Has God’s grace and forgiveness filled you in such a way that you are a person of grace and thus see the beauty of God’s creation in all that you meet? When you see the homeless person, the stranger on the street, the person who looks differently than, can you see in that person that he or she is loved by God, called into being by him, and at work in that person as He is at work in your own life?
3. Are you baptized into Christ and have put Him on? This question comes from vs 27 of our text. Being baptized into Christ is about putting on a new identity and living immersed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. What is your identity? How do you see yourself?
4. Are you living and proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ where God has placed you? Do you love this country, do you want to see healing in this world, do you desire the nation to be great? Then live the gospel and proclaim it to the people where God has placed you.
I do believe that it is when we do these things; recognize and confess our own sin, recognize and affirm God’s love and gift of salvation to all people, and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through love and grace, that true revival will happen in this land.
Let us stop here, and close out this time praying for our nation.
Almighty and merciful Father, hallowed be your name. May your name be glorified and honored and lifted above every name. May your name be lifted up, and glorified, and honored in every place. In this church, in this city, in this state, in this country. May your name be praised and honored in halls of our schools, in the halls of our government and in the homes of people.
And Almighty God, may your will be done. May your will be the greatest treasure of our lives. May we seek it, pray for it, and live in its reality.
And Gracious Father provide for that which we need, and today we need much. We need protection and healing from the virus. We need patience and trust in the divisions that we face in our country today. We need wise and compassionate leaders. We are grateful for the many ways that you have provided already. We pray that our country will see and witness miracles of your gospel at work, bringing true peace, reconciliation and a changed heart.
We are mindful to give you thanks for people who serve hard jobs at this time. For the police, for the first responders, for those in the military and those in our schools. We ask that you form in them a just and good heart. Protect from discouragement at this time.
We also come to you to ask forgiveness. We do so through the invitation and the work of your eternal, divine Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord who was crucified for sin, risen from the dead, and reigning forever. Forgiven our blindness, forgive our wickedness, forgive our arrogance, forgive us when we think we can do without you, forgive us in our greed, forgive us in our pride. Oh Lord we confess our sins to you because we know that you alone belong forgiveness and healing.
And as we seek forgiveness we also ask for your strength and power to truly forgive those who have hurt or wronged us. May your grace work through our lives so that not only can we speak the truth of the Gospel into the lives of people but that through forgiveness our own souls are protected from the evils of bitterness and anger.
Lord God Almighty, there is nowhere else we may turn, thus to you alone do we pray. To you alone belongs all power and majesty. To you alone belong true healing, and to you alone belongs all glory and praise. We thank you in the name of the Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Preached by Pastor Trent Eastman at New Baptist Church on June 28, 2020.
Concerning the Word of Life 