Now will you turn with me in your Bibles I believe for the final time in our series through Galatians this morning to Galatians chapter 6 if you are a visitor amongst us we encourage you to follow the reading in your own Bible or the one you'll find in front of you Galatians chapter 6, reading from verse 11 to the end of the chapter, these seven or so verses. And we are reading this section, as you are aware, for the third time this morning. It has been a very rich section indeed. Galatians 6 verse 11, see what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand. Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. not even those who are circumcised obey the law yet they want you to be circumcised but they may boast about your flesh may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God. Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. And may God once more bless richly to us the reading of his own inspired and holy word. Now as you are aware we have been engaged for several months in a series of studies and expositions in one of the great letters of the New Testament the letter of Paul to the Galatians and we have come I believe this morning to the final the last of this long series of preaching through the book of Galatians. You will remember that on the last two Sundays indeed we took a close look at certain parts of the closing paragraph of Paul's letter and epistle in chapter 6 as we saw the reason for his writing to them as it were in capital letters and emphasizing the great truth of glorying in the cross of Christ as opposed to glorying in anyone else or anything else in the Christian life. And particularly last Sunday we looked at the nature of glorying in the cross of Christ and its meaning. And you may have thought that indeed last Sunday was the closing exposition of the whole series. But you will notice with me in our reading this morning that before the apostle comes to the final and gracious benediction to those Galatians who had caused him so much trouble as he addresses them there as brothers and prays for the grace of the Lord Jesus to rest, yes, even upon them, before he comes to this He gives to us a very personal, almost we might say a very private statement in verse 17. Finally he writes, let no one cause me trouble for I bear in my body or on my body the marks of Jesus. Now we should notice before we come into the substance of this great text, this great passage, that the Apostle often uses the word finally. Sometimes indeed he uses it almost in the middle of one of his letters when he has still a considerable amount to say to those to whom he is writing. and so very probably his use of finally here in verse 17 means in essence for the rest or for the remainder or more particularly for the future as though he's saying to the Galatians for all the rest of my life and time on the earth let no one trouble me because I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. Now I need to remind you for a moment the background to this great statement that is so significant at the end of his letter. you remember that he had sustained much verbal abuse from these Galatian Christians the church that had been infiltrated by false teachers whom we know as Judaizers who taught essentially another gospel who said that in addition to faith in Christ and the grace of God in order to become a Christian you need an extra, you need a plus you need those of you who are Gentiles to be circumcised in order to be truly and fully saved and in so doing they had cut at the very roots and foundations of the great apostles ministry to the Galatian churches and you remember we saw in chapter 1 verse 10 that they had questioned his motives and suggested that he had become a man pleaser in chapter 1 too they had questioned his integrity and he had to reassure them that he was telling the truth and was not lying they questioned his consistency over the matter of the circumcision of Titus in chapter 2 and they questioned above all else whether the apostles' ministry was really of God and maintained that their ministry, the Judaizers' ministry, was what the Galatians should really be attending to. So you see, in this church there had been much verbal abuse of the great apostle and his ministry and all through this letter as we saw he powerfully and effectively defended himself from these false charges until he comes to the very end of the letter and he says now from this time forth let it end let it finish for the future I want you Galatians to know one thing as far as I am concerned I bear in my very body the marks of Jesus and let no one trouble me anymore and he ceases you must understand therefore to plead with them and moves to finalize all the aggravation and criticism that he has received in one great final response. Now as we come to it brothers and sisters you might well ask what would be the one thing that would finally silence Paul's detractors and critics? what would it be? what would he call upon as evidence to silence them finally? and you might well imagine it would be his success everywhere in the Roman Empire as he had been the instrument under God of building many Christian churches in Corinth, in Ephesus, in many parts of Greece and of the Roman province of Asia and so forth. Because we live in days don't we when success speaks more loudly almost than anything else. and he might well have said, look at the success that God has given me and don't you dare say another word of criticism about my ministry. But do you notice that instead of that he gives one of the most extraordinary statements in the New Testament. He points them not to his success nor to the great and evident blessing of God upon his ministry that was undeniable nor to his service in which he abounded but to his broken and scarred body I bear in my body the marks of Jesus his sufferings his scars And this is what is now before us. Now as we come to this great statement congregation, there are really two questions that arise from our text. The first is, what is the meaning of these marks? And the second is, what is the message of these marks? Now look at the text with me as you have your Bible open in front of you. I trust. First what is the meaning of these marks in verse 17? Well let me say straight off that the Greek word is a somewhat unusual word that really doesn't occur very much in the New Testament. In the original Greek it's the word stigmata and I say that because I know one or two of you this morning probably have an interlinear English and Greek New Testament in front of you. and all of us realize from the very pronunciation of that Greek word stigmata that it gives us in origin our English word stigma but you see in the original Greek that word used here in the plural of course meant something that was really ugly and revolting even it would often be applied for instance to the feared in scar that was left as the burning red hot brand was applied to the skin of slaves or even criminals to mock them and identify them so long as they were ever in the body and they bore these repulsive scars as marks of being the ownership of someone else now of course in our English language the word stigma doesn't really mean that at all when we speak of a situation that has a stigma or a person that has a stigma we usually mean that someone has a stain on their character or reputation they've done something at some point that has marked them for life but it's not a physical repulsive mark in their actual body Now what we need to understand is this that when the Apostle essentially says I bear in my own body the stigmata of Christ he is speaking of the physical marks and scars in his own body that he had suffered for in the cause of his Lord and Savior even Jesus Christ and that they were the authentication for him that he was a true servant of Jesus Christ and they should therefore be the authentication for the Galatians as well that he was a true messenger and servant of the gospel of grace now that's the meaning you see of this text and he's evidently setting it out in the background of what the Judaizers were saying they were saying we want you Galatians to have marks in your bodies that we can boast in the flesh about you that we can have something carnal and fleshly to say look how many circumcisions I've made in this past year because you are bearing the mark in your body that you belong to our party and Paul says if you are saying that falsely then listen to what I am saying truly but I bear the real marks in my body that authenticate the true gospel and meaning of being in Christ the marks and scars that I bear are the marks of Jesus. Now of course what he was meaning and I think you will grasp and realize this very easily is the time after his conversion you remember that in Acts 9 he's pictured there as that great and cynical persecutor of the Christian church arrogant, determined to destroy it and wipe it out from the face of creation yet within the space of three days once he'd reached the outer gates of Damascus he was a changed man you recall and Ananias God's servant in Damascus was sent to the apostle because the Lord told Ananias and here it is you see He is a chosen vessel to bear my name before the Gentiles kings and before the Israel the nation of Israel for I will open his eyes and will show him now listen to this what great triumphs what great service what a great future he will have as he becomes mine oh no I will open his eyes the Lord said through Ananias and show him what great things he must suffer for my name and we only need to read on congregation into Acts chapter 13 and 14 when the Apostle was ministering God's word in these very regions of Galatia as you know to see how that word was fulfilled in the Apostle's life in Lystra he was stoned and dragged out of the city as though dead in act 16 in Philippi he and his companion were publicly stripped and flogged in front of the great crowd or if we turn to 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 verse 24 and onwards He surveys the whole catalogue of his great sufferings in the cause of the Lord Jesus. As for instance, he received not once but five times the Jewish form of punishment of 39 stripes that literally would have ripped the flesh from the apostles back. So you see the once unmarked body of the proud Saul of Tarsus became torn and scarred and broken by his sufferings for Christ. And he says to the Galatians, do you see, let no man trouble me with these questions that are so foolish about circumcision and all the rest of the keeping of the law as being necessary to salvation. For I bear the authentication in my very body that I am the true servant of the Lord Jesus. We always carry around, he says in another place, in our body the death of the Lord Jesus. And you see the scars that he bore and the battering of his body was not the suffering of a criminal, nor of a slave from the slave market, but of a Christian for the sake of Christ and his gospel. And you all must wonder, you know, as you read verse 17 Did the amanuensis, the secretary, as Paul penned these, as Paul gave these words out, suddenly look up and see there on Paul's arm some of the scars that he had received in the whipping and beating, and say to himself, why, how true that is of the apostle. What a history of anguish and suffering he has undertaken for our sake. Now what it says to us, congregation, is this that the true mark, you see, of belonging to Christ still, for every Christian, is the same Do you bear in your body the marks of the Lord Jesus? That's the meaning you see of these marks that they identify you with the cause and the kingdom of Christ and though we are living in an age when physical persecution at least in this country is not common if it occurs at all we are living in a world where this kind of persecution and suffering where men and women may literally bear in their bodies in this generation the marks that identify them with Christ this is common in other countries all too common in many of them But do we in our own bodies know something at least of that stress and costliness of confessing him before men? But there are times we are in mental anguish, even in physical anguish for the cause of the kingdom of Christ. But we are disturbed as the apostle was when men and women come before us in this age and in this country and proclaim another gospel that is not a gospel. but is a lie and they are beseeching men to believe it and to follow it. Are you in anguish over these things? Does it affect your mind and your heart and your spirit? and are you disciplining the body and its appetites because you realize that you are a citizen not really of this world and of this country but a citizen of a better country and of a world that is to come. We should bear in some sense the marks in our bodies that we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ Some of you I know are reading Pilgrim's Progress. I wish all of you were. In the second part of it, as I've often reminded you in that great account of the deathbed experience of so many of the pilgrims that accompanied Christiana and her children toward the Celestial City. In that account there are the words of valiant for truth as he came to the river of death and prepared to cross it on the summons of his royal lord and this is what he says remember he was the one that had delivered the pilgrim band from so many exigencies and trials by the power of his sword and his great faith hence his name valiant for truth and he now says as he faces the last enemy my sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage and my courage and skill to him that can get it and listen my marks and scars I carry with me to be a witness for me that I have fought his battles who now will be my rewarder What a glorious testimony that is my marks and scars I carry with me into that world to come to be a witness for me that I have fought his battles. who now will be my rewarder are you dear Christian believer fighting your Lord's battles the meaning of these marks now secondly the message of these marks and there are three of them Three messages that arise from our text in verse 17 as Paul thought of them as a powerful word that would silence his critics once and for all that would close their mouths forever And the first thing that these marks were evidence of, I suggest to you, is Paul's vital union with Christ. You know, one of the great cardinal truths of the New Testament that Paul teaches everywhere in his letters to the Christian churches is that if we become a Christian, we are, it's so facto, united to Christ. One of his great phrases, one of his most popular phrases is the term in Christ to the saints who are in Christ Jesus at Philippi together with the elders and deacons. to those who are in Christ in Ephesus and so forth. Because personal faith unites us in a very real way to the Lord Jesus. And Paul refers to himself in one place as being a man in Christ. It's the very essence of what Christianity is all about. But what is one of the great marks of being in union with the Lord Jesus? Well undoubtedly it is the mark of suffering with Him. You may remember the apostles teaching in Romans 8 and verse 17 particularly where he gives three marks for the believer to test whether he is really in Christ. He says first we are heirs together with Him, with Christ. and then he says we will be glorified together with Christ but the third thing he says in Romans 8 17 is this and it's conditional the first two things will come about if we suffer with him Now isn't that so significant? There are many Christians today that want to glory in the fact that we are heirs together with Christ and sitting with him in the heavenly places and still others glorying in the fact that one day we will be fully glorified with him. But there are far fewer Christians who will connect the first two with the third if we suffer with him says the Apostle. The vital element, the guarantee of the other two if we suffer together with him And so you see the message of these marks is that if we bear them they are evidence that we are truly in union with him and heirs to all these other promises. you remember how Paul puts it in Philippians chapter 3 when his great longing desire is to know Christ and to know him more fully he says that I might know not only the power of his resurrection but the fellowship of his sufferings and be made conformable to his death Oh my friend this morning is that your desire as a Christian man or woman or young person because you cannot travel very far in the Christian pathway and pilgrimage before you will come up against that great truth that if you are to know the power of his resurrection in your life you must also begin to know the fellowship of his sufferings because he leads us, you see, not in a primrose path in our obedience. He takes us through troubled waters. Our faith is tested. Our hope is tested. Our love is tested. Our relationships with others are tested. And against us always range other powers of evil and of darkness. And our Lord through these and many other means leads us in a path of very real suffering that we might partake more fully of his grace. So the great evidence of our union with Christ is the evidence that we are willing to suffer together with him and if necessary even to bear in our bodies the physical marks that show that we are what we are. Now the second evidence that Paul sees I think in these marks is of love for Christ it's a logical deduction really isn't it that if we suffer for him and are united to him in that evidence then it speaks of much love for the Lord Jesus People don't go out into the teeth of the devil's opposition and deliberately run against the stream of this world. They don't go out into the darkness of the world's persecution and obloquy for nothing. They do it because there is a powerful motive of love for Christ that overcomes every other consideration. Now remember that Paul has already told us in Galatians 6 verse 12 that the Judaizers want you Galatians to be circumcised because they want to avoid persecution for the cause of Christ. But here is a man with the opposite attitude who boasts openly that he bears in his own body the marks that identify him with Jesus and authenticate his ministry. Why does he do it? When the easier course is open to him as well because he loves the Lord Jesus Christ dearly. as he says in Galatians 2 verse 20 I am crucified with Christ it is no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me and as we saw already in Galatians 6 he will glory in nothing save the cross of Jesus by which the world is crucified to him and he is crucified to it Now again my dear friends, are these marks in your life? Are they in mine? Have we given our bodies in the light of Romans 12 and verse 2 as a living sacrifice to him who has loved us and given himself for us? And do we view it, as the Apostle says there, as our reasonable service. The scars may manifest his union with Christ. They may manifest his love of Christ. And thirdly, they make manifest his likeness to Christ. Remember what I said about Philippians 3 verse 10. I want to know him, says the Apostle. You ask me what my great ambition is in life. You Philippians say to me, what are you really living for Paul? And I tell you, I want to know Christ. and the power of his resurrection becoming like him being made conformable to his death that I might know the fellowship of his offerings. Isn't it amazing? You see the way into likeness to the Lord Jesus is not to be out there as the great leader of successful movements and great works normally. but the way to great likeness to Christ is to begin to bear in our bodies the marks that show that we are willing to suffer for him and to serve him whatever the cost may be did not our Lord say if they have persecuted me they will persecute you as well it is enough that the student, the disciple be like his teacher all men will hate you because of me but he who stands firm to the end will be saved when you are persecuted not if you are persecuted when you are persecuted flee from that city to another and so forth the mark of true discipleship and likeness to Christ is sharing in his sufferings and being willing to do it though it may be manifold and multiplied in its nature. These are the royal insignia of service. Now in summary How do we apply this to ourselves today? You may well say to me, but we don't bear that kind of bodily suffering that he did in the first century for the cause of Christ. But what about the stigma of being absolutely faithful to him in a godless society? Or what about the stigma amongst colleagues who pour scorn on any profession of the Christian faith and malign you and speak against you because there in the workplace you are clearly and evidently and transparently a follower of Jesus what about the thousand agonies that we may go through because God is determined in our own lives to make something out of us that we are not at the present the work of sanctification to deepen his grace in our souls to use suffering to make us men and women more like Paul and above all more like the Lord Jesus. What about the pain of a thousand inward scars we may bear still in evidence that we have progressed in the Christian life from the city of destruction toward the celestial city to which we journey. That's how we apply it to ourselves this morning. I don't usually care too much for the writings of Amy Carmichael, but in one of her books she says this. Hast thou no scar, no hidden scar, on side or foot or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land. I hear them hail by bright ascendant star, Hast thou no scar, no wound, no scar, Yet as the master shall the servant be, And pierced are the feet that follow me, But thine are whole. Can he have followed far, who has no wound, no scar, and so in conclusion let me say this will you come to the end of your life dear Christian professor when all your days will be exposed before the eyes of the world and the universe and will you be able to say like valiant for truth I bear in my body these marks and scars in token that I have been in his service who now will be my rewarder marks of union with him marks of love for him marks of likeness to him now we may know that these are the royal insignia of service but then in a much more glorious way we will see them to be just that and worth every pain that we have ever borne for his name's sake let's pray Our Father in heaven we are thankful for the Apostle's boldness as in this passage he proclaims without any lack or hindrance the authentication of his own ministry that should have been evident to the Galatians when he was among them in the very physical marks and scars of his body. And from this we have learned, I think, this morning, O Lord, in some measure, what is our task and responsibility and privilege in this day and generation when we, like the apostle, would be the authentic representatives and messengers of the same Lord Jesus Christ. May we be able to say like the Apostle that no man trouble me anymore for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus for his namesake. Amen.