I prayed a lot while driving it. Lord, don't let me hit anybody. Lord, don't let me put this thing through the wall. You know, I prayed a lot, but over time, I got to be a better forklift driver until I got a certified for it, and that was my job. I could drive a forklift, and I became better. And if you pay a pastor a salary and he has time to study, time to read, time to work on sermons and prepare himself for preaching, prepare sermons for preaching, over time he gets better. So it's basically like an investment. This is how it is with parents and our children. We put a lot of money into our kids, don't we? Lot of money at the beginning, lot of money at the middle, then they get ready to go to college, you try to put some more money into them. And you know, if you, the Bible uses this terminology in Psalms 128 about children being like olive trees sitting around the walls of a family. You know how long it takes an olive tree before it reaches maturity where it produces fruit? What I've read is it takes 40 years. 40 years. And when you have, when you make an investment an investment in children or investment in people, sometimes that's not recouped until later in the future. And this seems to be what Paul's whole thesis here in verses 6 through 10. Now, verse number 10, he gives us this reminder that when you have opportunity to do good, Do it to all men, do good to all men, but especially unto those who are of the household of faith. And so verses 6 through 10 are all connected, one primary thought. But today we're taking our sermon from verses 11 through 16. 11 through 16. And we're talking about the fact that circumcision glorifies you before men, but not God. Circumcision glorifies you before men, but not God. Now let's pray together, and then we'll read this text of Scripture. Father, I pray for your help. I pray that you would help me to make plain this passage and to preach the truth and do as we heard testified to lift up Christ, the Savior of the world. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Verse 11, the scripture says, You see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand? As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised, only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision but a new creature. and as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy upon the Israel of God. Let's pray together. We'll pray again, I guess. Father, I pray that you'd help us now. I feel like I got a lot to say and I don't know if I have time to say it. I pray that you'd help us to accomplish the work you've given us to do. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Paul returns here, he's given us these practical implications of the teaching of the epistle in chapter 5 and chapter 6. He's talking about how to deal with brothers who sin and how to restore them, what our attitude should be with them, how to bear one another's burdens and love one for another. that we should compensate those who teach the Scriptures. And now he winds it down, and as he gets to the end, he goes back to the primary thought of the Epistle, and that is this devilish doctrine of legalism that has been taught in the Church at Galatia. Now, there are two ways to look at legalism in the Scriptures, the two ways that we look at them, the two ways that people think about them. Number one, when you hear legalism, it's the idea of keeping the law to be saved. I can be saved if I keep the law. Now, that's false. That's a false teaching. That is legalism. That's what you'll find most of the time. The second way to look at legalism and keeping the law is those persons who keep the law so that they can be called by others or known by others as being righteous or holy. That also is legalism. Brothers and sisters, we follow the Lord Jesus Christ. We live under His Lordship, not so that others can look at us and say what a righteous man we are, because here's what's going to happen to you. If somebody comes to you, four or five people come along and say, man, you're something. I hope that one day I can become a Christian like you. I hope that one day I can be as disciplined and diligent as you. People brag on your spiritual attainments. You know what that does? It goes to your head. And you can say it didn't go to my head. Well, you must not be a human being. Because when you get bragged on, it affects you. It changes you. It changes you. You can see that in children. You see a child and you brag on that kid and praise that kid, what do they do? They'll blossom. They'll swell up and they'll be more confident and they'll go on in life because praise is wonderful. It's a blessing to have it. And you see children who are criticized constantly, always nitpicked on and nagged on about all the little things that they do wrong and written hard, you know, and they shrivel up. They don't do well with that. They don't do well with it. And so praise is a powerful thing. Now Paul, when he talks about legalism here and this idea of the circumcision, he makes no distinction between the two because both of these things are awful things. Any kind of legalism is an awful thing and should be avoided by God's people. Both of these things ultimately lead to comparing yourself with others, and both put the focus on man and not on Christ. You become a legalist, you start looking at yourself, you compare yourself to others, and you say, I am wonderful, I am more wonderful than these people because I do what they don't do or don't do what they do. puts the focus on man and not on Christ. If you start to examine yourself very severely and very strictly, you will always come up disappointed. And if you begin to look at your brothers and sisters in Christ and you examine them and judge them constantly, you will find imperfection after imperfection. You know what the Lord Jesus Christ says in Hebrews? He says that we should look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Look on Him. Keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah 26 3 says that will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee on the Lord. I want to give you I think I got 17 points for this sermon. Just for you lucked out just for number one. Paul pulls back the veneer. He pulls back the veneer. These false teachers have come to Galatia to teach them the full gospel, to teach them the better way, the fuller way, the more mature way of living, living by the law of the Old Testament. In chapter 6, verse number 12, the Apostle Paul says that all they want to do is make a fair show in the flesh. All they want to do is praise. All they want to do is be seen and noted for their attainments. They want to be recognized as holy. They want to be called holy people by others. They want to be declared righteous by their brothers and sisters. They want to be lauded and bragged on. Now these persons, they would deny it. They would never say, oh yeah, that's why I'm living this way. That's why I'm keeping the law. But the Holy Spirit here pulls back the sheet and reveals that these persons are really proud monsters that feed on recognition. They're hungry for it, and they want to be known and marked down as exceptional followers of Christ. Now, the issue here of circumcision is an important thing. Now, circumcision is a specific act. It is the removal of excess skin from a person's body. If you need more information than that, you can ask your parents or talk to me about it later. But it is a specific act. But circumcision is not just the removal of excess skin It is symbolic of an entire way of life. Old Testament Judaism, living under the Mosaic law. It's a symbol word, it's a word that says all the law. And I say, why do you say that? Well, because circumcision was the token of a person's entering into a covenant with God. entering into a covenant with God. And that covenant is called the covenant of works. The covenant of works. In the Old Testament at Sinai, God said to Israel, He had given them the token of the circumcision, the token of the covenant. And He said, now, since you've entered into covenant with me, this is what the covenant, this is what, here's what you're supposed to live by. And the law that God gave to Israel was very strict. Very strict. The law of God was so strict that God knew man could not keep that law. God knew man could not keep that law. He knew that no man would ever keep that law. You know how we know that? Because right after he gave the law, the very next thing he gives to Moses is the plans for guess what building? the tabernacle, the place of atonement. Because God knows man cannot keep the law. The law is too high, too severe. And Israel as a nation, they entered into a covenant with God. We call it the Mosaic Covenant. And they said, we will live this way. And this law consisted of rigid, rigid worship. Now some people may think that we might be, we might seem rigid to people sometimes. We are kind of set in our ways, aren't we? You know how we know we're setting our ways? Because we never change anything. We're very rigid in what we do. In fact, we're kind of strict about some things. But these people were very strict. Their religion was not only rigid, but it was also bloody. It required the constant bringing in of sacrifices to be slain and their blood applied to the altar. The covenant they entered into also consisted of strict dietary rules. Strict dietary rules. When you read the Old Testament, you find out that catfish are forbidden for God's people in the Old Testament. No catfish. Now friends, that's no way to live. No way to live. No pork, no bacon. Life without bacon? Everybody worships bacon nowadays. Strict dietary rules. Strict things. They had meticulous rules for dress. No blended fabrics. They had strict rules for sexual relations. Strict rules for work. Very rigid. This covenant they entered into affected every part of their life and distinguished them from all other people. It made them the unique people of God. It called them a peculiar people. And the act of circumcision was the statement that a person made by proxy, mind you, that you would live by this rigid code. And if you did live by the code, with certain levels of compliance, you would enjoy the blessings of living by this code. If you keep the law, there was blessings in it. If they profaned the law, there was cursings in it. Now all of these acts, all of the laws that God laid down for Israel in the Old Testament, summed up in the word circumcision, all these things were external and had nothing to do with a person's eternal state. Now listen to me carefully. These persons who are living under the law of God in Israel were living by a strict code of life. A very rigid lifestyle is what they were living. But even though they lived by God's law and by God's order and kept his commandments that did not make them a Christian. The Bible refers to this congregation as a mixed multitude consisting of persons who were saved and not saved, but all keeping the same list of rules. If you're here today and you think you're going to go to heaven, or you're using a list of rules to be the evidence that you're going to heaven, You're not going to go to heaven. If you're trusting in your works, in your righteousness as compared to others, you will go to hell. The only righteousness that you and I have or ever could have is the righteousness that is given to us by God through Jesus Christ. That righteousness is imputed to those who are trusting in His Son as their Savior. And these persons, both saved and lost in Old Testament Israel. They lived with these marks upon their bodies. They lived under a theocratic government with God at the top. Their life revolved around the worship of a single God, but all these things were external. So when Paul refers to circumcision, he's referring to Judaism. And Christianity is not Judaism. And Christianity is not a modified form of Judaism either. Because Christians are not under law. Paul says this so plainly. Christians are not under law. They are under, guess what? Grace. Grace. We're not under law. We're not ticking off things on a list. We are guided by the Holy Spirit through the Holy Scriptures and we live under grace. You say, what does that mean? Are you saying that I can, this is what the old preachers would say, that I can cuss and damn and swear and live like hell any old way I want to and go to heaven? Well, Paul answered that question. Shall I continue in sin that grace may abound? You know what Paul said? God forbid. It's not even worth refuting because all those persons who have been saved by God's grace, all those persons who have the Holy Spirit living within them, you know what they want to do by nature? You know what they want to do? Well, think of it like this. I got a dog. I mean, you guys got a dog? Dogs are nasty. I've had dogs my whole life, and I remember when I'd take my dogs hunting, and you'd come up on some nasty pile of something, and you know what that dog would do? If it didn't eat it, it'd roll around in it. And I remember having some dogs, what they rolled around in was so nasty, I didn't want to bring them home. I just wanted to shoot them and leave them out there, because you want to put them in the truck. They're just nasty. You know why they do that? It's their nature. Proverbs says that as a dog returneth to its vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. It's in their nature. God's people have been made partakers of the divine nature and without any kind of law laid down in their inner man, they want to be different. They want to live clean. They want to live pure. So all these persons who you and I know who are out there, got Jesus on their lips, but hell in their heart and in their life, that says something about their nature. About their nature. And we're not talking about perfectionism here, we're talking about a person's desire. The new nature, as Peter says, you've been made partakers of the new nature. God's people. are not a people who live by an incredible list of rules. God's people are those persons who've been made alive, those persons who've been born again, those persons who've been made new creatures in Christ Jesus. And the false teachers at Galatia, what they're doing is they have come to the church, and I'm reminding you of what we've already talked about, and they want the church of Christ, a church under grace, to live by law, to live by this code, so they could be seen as unique, so there could be a fair show made in the flesh. And Paul is saying here that these guys, these false teachers, these legalists, they are in it for the praise of man, the praise of man. The second thing here, as you can notice, there's more to it. There's more to it than they just want to have a fair show in the flesh for their own recognition. He says they also do it so they can avoid persecution for preaching the gospel. Look at verse 12, last phrase. They are constrained to be circumcised only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. By emphasizing law, they actually avoid the most polarizing element of the gospel. Do you know what the most polarizing element of the gospel is? It's the cross of Jesus Christ. It's the cross of Jesus Christ. Take your Bible and look with me at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 17. 117. This is what the Apostle Paul says, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where's the wise? Where's the scribe? Where's the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. The foolishness of preaching what? Law or the cross? cross by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe for the Jews they require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom but we don't do either one of those things we don't give a sign and we don't try to reason them into the kingdom of God we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, how though not many wise may have their flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things which are of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea, things which are not, to bring to naught things that are. Look at verse 29. That no flesh should glory in his presence. Law always brings you to glory in the flesh. Look what I have done. Look what I have achieved. Look what I have become, is what he's saying. But no flesh glories in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Our glory, our rejoicing, our security, our attainment, our confidence is not in us. It is in Christ and what Christ has done. And this is what Paul said to a people who are highly educated, affluent, and pagan. And if you tell people you can work your way to heaven, you will be accepted by society because that makes sense to society. If you want to have a bigger house, a nicer car, cooler clothes, and a bigger bankroll, what's it going to take? It's more work. More work, more diligence, more discipline, more sweat, more toil. And when you say to people, and if you want to go to heaven, you better buckle down and get to it. That makes absolute sense to the human mind. It makes sense. And when you go to people and you say, no works, you don't have to do anything to go to heaven. Salvation is free. Christ has came and paid your way. The society, the world out there, listen. Listen to me now. When you go out to the multitudes and you say to multitudes of people, Salvation is free. Christ is Lord. He is Savior. The majority of those people, you know what they say? I'm hungry. I gotta go. They say, I don't believe it. But if you go to those same people and you say to them, if you'll make your way down here to the front and eat this wafer and drink this wine, if you'll devote yourself to rigid living, they'll flock to it. People want to work their way to heaven. People want to. It's not really that hard to get people to recognize that they are sinners. It's really hard to get people to admit that they are unrighteous. Unrighteous. So by teaching works, they avoid persecution. They avoid the persecution of pagan religions because paganism is all about works. And by preaching, teaching works, instead of free and sovereign grace, the Jews, they don't get mad either. Because they like living by law too. When you go in there with these Christians, when the Apostle Paul would go to the synagogue and teach and preach Jesus Christ, you know what the reaction of those Jews were? They wanted to kill him. Because he was saying to them, the law cannot justify you. The law cannot justify you. and it incensed them. Listen, all who preach the cross of Christ are hated by the world. All who preach the cross of Christ are hated by the world. Hated by the world. When you're into legalism, you'll be loved. You'll be respected. You'll be tolerated. But those persons who preach free grace, the world hates them. The religious world hates him. And when you're into legalism, and I've been around legalistic stuff my whole life, maybe that's why I have such antipathy for it. When you're into legalism, you won't hear the gospel priest very often. What you'll hear is a whole sermon about why you shouldn't do this. And when the preacher gets to the end, he'll say, like Joel Osteen, we don't like to end the service without giving anybody a chance to call on Christ now. If you're here today and you're not saved, put up your hand. All right, I see the hand. Now when the piano plays, you come. You come. You come. And they add it to a service that has nothing to do with the gospel. It's just a tag, something to throw in there at the end. It's kind of like our radio broadcasts we have. Because the radio broadcasts are just sermons, I just clip them down to the right size and put them on the radio. And I know sometimes the ending probably is the beginning of something. And it comes in with a little outro. People probably go, that's kind of unusual. When you're in illegalism, you're more concerned about getting people to live right instead of be right. The gospel makes people right. Now the third thing I'll say to you, we're running out of time. The third thing is Paul says these persons, they glory in themselves and not Christ. And this is the most stinging thing that Paul can say. Look at the end of verse 13. that they may glory in your flesh. Paul says these people are into it totally for selfish reasons. They just want to glory in what they've got you to do. They want to glory in where they have led you to by looking at how they've brought you deeper, by looking at how they've led you to higher heights of obedience to the law. They say, I'm special. I'm quite a leader. People brag on it. I was a member of a Baptist church where every man in the church wore a tie to church. Every man wore a tie to church. Every man. And every boy, I mean every boy. Where's Matt? Matt, you down there? Little guys like Matt wearing ties. Everybody wearing ties, everybody wearing church pants and every service, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, everybody wearing a necktie. And visiting preachers would come to this church, I was just a member. Visiting preachers would come and they would get up in their pulpit and say, wow, all these people wearing ties, what a beautiful sight. Boy, you don't see that very often. This church must have a pastor who knows how to lead. You can tell that this pastor has made his mark on this congregation. At an ordination service, I heard a visiting preacher after hearing the ordination prayers of the men of the church over one of the preachers. He got up there and said, boy, this church knows how to pray. Your pastor has really taught you how to pray. All praise and glory went to guess who? Went to the teacher. Went to the teacher. And I'll tell you what we heard very little of when I was a member of that church. Very little gospel, whole lot of law. Whole lot of do, do, do! Not too much done. And when you pull back the veneer of that church, you know what it was underneath the facade? A seething mass of iniquity. Because they were all checking the list. The pastor was like Santa Claus. He was checking the list twice to see who was naughty and nice. If you had a lot of check marks by your name, that meant, you know, you're probably giving up your TV and everything else and probably giving up wearing socks. I mean, just that kind of crazy stuff. I don't want to get off into that because I can feel myself getting angry as I think about some of that stuff. I want to vent, but I shouldn't do that because you won't remember anything else I'm saying. People love to glory in their efforts. If you've got a camera phone, say amen. That's probably everybody that owns a phone, a cell phone that is. You know, people love to be recognized. People love the glory in their efforts. Social media has showed us that. Social media is married to the camera phone. Social media wouldn't be what it is if people didn't have phones to take pictures of themselves, because you get tired of reading words, you want to see pictures. Look, when you were a kid, did you want to read a history textbook, or did you want to read a comic book? What did you want to read? Comic book, man, every time. When you get a guns demo magazine, it's mostly pictures, not a lot of text. Mostly pictures. That's why I like to get, that's why when I was a kid, I saved up my money to buy this Bible, it was a comic book Bible, the whole Bible in a comic book form. I remember carrying it to church. I was like, this is the greatest Bible reading ever. I wish I still had it, I don't know what happened to it. That's the first Bible I bought. I paid like $37 for it. It's crazy. People love pictures. Here's what people take pictures of. People take pictures of things they've done. You get done with some project at home, if you're on Facebook or Twitter, you get something done. Is that right, Miss Kathy? You get that purse made? Take a picture of it. Get done painting a bedroom or fixing the ceiling, take a picture of it. Send it to your friends. Take a picture of what I did. You can say, well, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not trying to say there is something wrong with it. I'm just saying that people like to be recognized for what they've done. When you get your hair all fixed up just right, every once in a while you have a hair day that, you know, good hair days don't come along that often. But you get one where you look in the mirror and you think for a second, oh, Tom Cruise is standing there looking back at me. And I've got to freeze this in time. and you send it to your friends, what do you want them to say? Yuck or ooh. You want to be recognized for your beauty. Listen, people want to be recognized so much that they take pictures of their food at a restaurant. Look what I'm having for lunch. Look what I made. What is that saying? Look what I have done. People want to be recognized for what they have done. Look at this. And these false teachers, they are leading these persons into law and saying, be circumcised, live by the law, have a special diet, observe special days, dress this way so that people will see and know that we're different. Paul in verse 14, he totally annihilates them. Look what he says in verse 14. God forbid. that I should glory save. In what? In the cross of Jesus Christ, God forbid. God deliver us from glorying in anything other than Christ, our Savior. Look at verse 15. He says, circumcision, these works are nothing. They availeth nothing, there's no advantage, there's no benefit in circumcision or in uncircumcision. The advantage. The blessing. Is in a new creature. A new creature. Now, look. How can you become a new creature? My grandpa, McKenzie, lives in Arizona. When I was a kid, he bought a 1955 Oldsmobile Holiday Coupe, two-door car, red and white. He bought it. It was rusty, all tore up, just looked terrible. Well, he put that car into his garage, and he started like a two-year process of restoring it off the frame. all the way out, original brakes, motor, paint, interior, every single piece of chrome they had on that car. And by the time he was done, it was prettier than a 55 Chevy. I mean, just beautiful car. Beautiful car. Now that car, it became something new. It was made new again. Now did that car make itself new? Or did somebody with superior power and knowledge make it new? Did that car make itself new? No way. I'm gonna tell you this, you can't make yourself new either. You can keep all the law, you can give yourself to keeping the law nonstop. You can quit your job and devote yourself to self-denial and law-keeping and you will never make yourself a new creature. Only Christ can make you a new creature. And that's where the prophet is. That's where the prophet is. Now let's look at Psalms 40 and we'll be done. We're about five minutes over time, We started on time, which is kind of unusual for us, so. Look at Psalm 40. I waited. I waited patiently for the Lord. And he inclined unto me and heard my cry. And he brought me up. I also have a horrible pit out of the miry clay. He set my feet on a rock, and he established my goings, and he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. You know who makes you a new creature? God does. He lifts you up. He sets you on a rock. He establishes a way. You've got nothing to do with it. Look at the words David says in the first phrase of verse number one. What's he doing? He ain't doing nothing. Nothing. God does it. God saves, God justifies, God sanctifies. That's what Titus 3, 5, and 6 are saying. That's what Ephesians 2, 8, through 10 are saying. Salvation is by the grace of God. Holiness is by the grace of God. Who can make a new creature? God does, God does. Let's pray together. Let Steve and Miss David come and lead us