Let's come before God in prayer. Let's pray. Lord God and Heavenly Father, as we open your word, we'd ask for your spirit that we could understand it, that you would speak through your word being preached, and that we would know Jesus Christ and him crucified, and that we would rest in the assurance of abiding in Christ. and our union with him. Lord, be with the words of my mouth, be with the meditations of our heart, that your name would be magnified and glorified and honored. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Turn your Bibles to Galatians chapter six, Galatians chapter six. In Galatians chapter six, we'll read the whole chapter. Our passage this morning will be from verse 11 to 18, but we'll start in Galatians chapter one, or Galatians chapter six, verse one, and read to the end of the chapter. Galatians chapter six. This is the word of the Lord. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Let each one test his own work and that his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load. Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good. For in due season will we reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, Let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. And this will be our passage this morning. See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. From now on, 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. This is the word of the Lord. When I was in seminary, my Greek professor, not when I was in seminary, I was in my undergrad. When I was in my undergrad, I had a Greek professor, and we would be doing an exam, and before the exam, he would pray. And his prayer would be something along the lines of this. You'd say, dear God, be with these students as they go into this exam. May you bless the work that they have done. May you reward the efforts that they have put in. But, Lord, if they have not studied, if they have not put the hours into their work, May they not be blessed in this exam. And I'm sitting there hearing this prayer, listening, and I'm thinking, oh boy, I could have done more work. Lord, please be merciful. At the end of Galatians, Paul closes off this letter with, peace and mercy be upon them. On all who walk by this rule, he says. Upon the Israel of God. Paul, in a way, is praying a prayer like my professor, in a way. peace and mercy be not on everyone, but on those that abide by this one rule. And what is that rule? Well, like my Greek class, I'm thinking this rule, I must have to obey this rule. I must have to do something for this rule. So what is this one rule that Paul says? Well, boasting in the cross, that is the rule, boasting in the cross of Christ. You do not have to be circumcised. You do not have to be uncircumcised. The rule is boasting in the cross of Christ, which counts for everything, which is the new creation. Paul prays for peace and mercy on those who cling to Jesus and no one else. So this is a lot more comforting than hearing that prayer of my professor thinking, oh, I could have done more. We just have to cling to Christ. Cling to Him and the cross and what He has done for us. Paul's prayer is based on not what I have done, but what Christ has done. Based on clinging to Jesus and what He has done. Paul closes this letter off emphasizing the cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the point in history where the new creation begins. This evil present age is only temporary. Lift our eyes to Him from this world, to Him, to the new creation. Let's look at this passage now with this idea in mind of boasting in Christ alone, boasting in the cross. And we're going to look at this passage here this morning. We're going to go through it verse by verse, and we're going to see two themes coming from it. Two themes having to do with salvation, of Christianity, is inward. Christianity is not outward. And we'll get into that more. Christianity is also divine. Christianity is not human. So first we'll see in verse 11. We'll go to verse 11 first. Paul's maybe running out of parchment paper. His scroll is coming to an end. And he has said where his authority has come from. He has said what he wants to say about salvation, about our service With his last sentences, Paul wants to make sure we know what is important. So Paul grabs the pen from his secretary. A lot of the times, Paul used someone else to write his letters, whether he spoke it to them. Well, he grabs the pen from his secretary, and he makes sure that he has our attention. He makes sure that he has his reader's attention. And he writes himself, and he writes in bold letters, big letters. And Paul is pleading with the Galatians, listen to this. In verse 11, he says, see with what large letters I am writing to you, with my own hand. Now maybe Paul, it has been interpreted that Paul has been writing with large letters because he had bad eyesight, so he has to write with large letters. Paul's writing with large letters now because he's emphasizing a point. He wants to make sure that we understand. Throughout, Paul has argued for the essence of what the gospel is. At the beginning, Paul called the Galatians out. He says, you are turning to a different gospel. So with these last few lines of space, Paul says, listen, this is me, this is the Apostle Paul. I speak with God's authority, because I'm not speaking my message, I'm speaking God's message. What I say is important and is not to be confused. And he's making his letters big, emphasizing. It would be like us underlining something, emboldening it, italicizing it, maybe increasing the font. It'd be like a speaker shouting out loudly, listen. So what are we listening for? What are we to listen to? And as we move on, verse 12 and 13, Paul says, let's contrast these false teachers. He's talked a lot about these false teachers throughout this letter. He's given us a clear perspective of what they're teaching, and they are selfish. They're proud, if I could summarize it like that. They care about themselves. They do not care about the gospel. They're willing to thwart the gospel to make themselves look good. They're not preaching what Christ has done. And that's exactly what Paul says here in verse 12. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. And maybe you haven't been here throughout Galatians and have been preaching. Well, these false teachers have argued that one had to be circumcised to be saved. That they had to obey the law. obey the dietary restrictions of the law, obey the whole law to be saved. And Paul says, they teach this, why? Because they're afraid of being persecuted. So there is persecution in the church at this time for believers, and it's persecution because of the cross. These false teachers have put aside the cross, that's why they're being persecuted. That's why they're trying to put aside the cross, so they're not persecuted. The false teachers claim you must be circumcised, you must obey the law. Taking the cross out of the mix is taking pressure from the world off of you. So you're not being persecuted. So the false teachers are seeking to make life easier. Blend into the world by not talking about the cross. So they don't have to explain Jesus, so they don't have to stand out and be different. And it says they're making a good showing in the flesh. So outwardly they're appearing like they have it all together. And that's all they're concerned about. These people are not looking inwardly. They're making it look like outwardly. If you could take in that time, you had the Jews, right? And the Jews had their own system. They were understood by the Romans to be a distinct people. So once you started separating yourselves from the Jews, then you were starting to put yourself into unknown territory, not being able to be classified. So if you were to abide with circumcision, abide with Old Testament law, appear like you're Jewish, disregard the cross, disregard what Jesus has done, disregard what the apostles are telling you, what the cross means, then you could fit in with the category of being Jewish. That is what these false teachers are seeking. Fit in with the status quo, be Jewish, we don't have to stick out. Once you start going into Christianity, Christ, what he has done, following him, then you're starting to be different. Then the world sees, ah, these people are a little odd. And that's how Christians were seen back then, odd. These false teachers are saying, just fit in. We don't want to be persecuted. Be circumcised, obey the Old Testament law. That is what you need to be saved, so that the church cannot endure hardship. So they're making a good showing in the flesh. Outwardly, they're looking like they fit in. And Isaiah speaks about people like this in chapter 29, verse 13. This people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me. And their fear of me is a commandment taught to men. Jesus rebuked people like this, you hypocrites, you honor me with your lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship a teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees because they take the law and make obedience to the law a requirement of salvation. And Paul is saying in bold letters and italicized letters, this is not right. It is selfish. And it's an outward showing, it's fake. It's seeking just to make themselves look good, like they have it all together, and yet they're not believing what is necessary. Verse 13 says, these people don't even keep the law themselves. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but the desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. These Jews claims You have to do so-and-so, you have to be circumcised, you have to obey the law, you have to eat certain things and not eat certain things. And Paul's already pointed out in Galatians chapter 5 verse 3, if you fail in one part of any of the law, if you fail in one part, you've failed the whole thing. And these Jews have failed the law. They failed in one part. They can't even keep the law. I think there were 613 commandments in the Old Testament. There's no way that they could keep every single one of those. They failed in one. And if you failed in one, you failed in them all. Their outward showing in the flesh is a facade. They can't even keep the law. And it's always so easy to point the finger at the self-righteous person, the one who thinks they have it all together and that they're perfect. You can always find one crack in them, right? When you have to have everything outwardly perfect, well, you can't. It's impossible. And thank goodness Christianity is inward, that it is a conviction, that it's a belief, that it's a trust, a submission to Christ, that it's faith in what He has done, rather than, first of all, an action and an obedience. And verse 14 gets into this. because Christianity is inward faith, it's not outward action. We boast not in our actions, but in something outside of us, in the cross. Verse 14 says, but far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. If Christianity is inward, meaning it's a belief, that it's a faith, not in yourself, but in something else. Paul makes it very clear throughout Galatians, our faith is grounded in a specific event and a very specific person. It's grounded in Christ. And it's grounded in what Christ has done on the cross. Human nature wants to earn things. We want to merit things, we want to be rewarded. We compete in sports to earn first place because we're the best. We at least try to be the best or better than somebody else. We work hard at our jobs to earn a big paycheck to be promoted above others maybe. We work hard in our homes so people can compliment us on the home we have that is put together, that our family has put together. I mean, even we go early to earn our place in line to beat lineups. We leave early to the airport. We leave early to work in the morning when we work in a city to beat traffic. We've earned that, right? This is the way the world works, reward. You don't pay for a job until it's done. You don't tip the waitress. You don't tip the waiter until you can assess the job that they have done, and then you pay them. And you figure out how much. We want to earn things. Human nature is we want to earn things. But this is not how the gospel works. And Paul has laid it out for us in Galatians, and he brings us back to it again in these closing verses with an emphasis, with an exclamation mark. This is important. The essence of the gospel, of relationship with God, is not based on what we have done. If it were, we would be in very big trouble because we hate God. We hate our neighbor. That's naturally. Before Christ has worked in us, that's naturally what we believe. It's naturally what we think. Now we can bluff outward action and maybe we can fool some people into thinking that we are good people, that all the things that we've done are good. But if anybody gets close enough to us, they know we have wrong motivations, often. They can see And if we look at our hearts, we can tell in our hearts of hearts that we have not loved God with our whole heart, soul, mind, strength. We've not loved our neighbor as ourself. All of our outward actions are mixed with sin. And thank goodness salvation is not based on our actions. The essence of salvation is based on God divinely stepping into this world and acting before we earned it. You could use the analogy of waiting a table. If we were waiters and waitresses, we did not deserve any tip. We hated God, despised Him and His ways, yet God gave us love, gave us mercy, gave us grace and abundance, and He did this at the cross. We can see His grace and His love at the cross. Galatians 3, verse 13. tells us Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For as it is written, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. The cross is where we put our faith, where we put our hope. If you were a terrible waiter, terrible waitress, maybe you went to serve food and spilled it all over the person, and it was the wrong food, and it was really late, I don't know why somebody would be sticking around for that long, But you're a terrible waitress, waiter, and yet this person that has been dumped food upon and had been waiting and got the wrong food and gave you a huge tip. You wouldn't think, man, I really earned my tip today with this person. You'd think, this person is very generous. This person is very gracious. This person is very merciful. When we look at our relationship with God, it is undeserved. And that is what Paul is saying. Far be it from me to boast, Paul says, in anything in himself. Why? Because he told us his testimony in chapter one. God interrupted him and took him from a church destroyer to a church builder. Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The cross is where God took our sin, punished it in Jesus. The essence of salvation is divine. The essence of salvation is something that God has done, not something that we have done. It's an act of God. That God became man, bore our grief and sorrows and died. These false teachers in Galatia are seeking to make salvation a human act. If you obey the laws, do this, don't do that, then you'll be saved. And Paul says, no, salvation is an act of God. Salvation is outside of human action and it is in God's hands. as Jesus' hands were nailed to the cross, and He stayed there, allowing Himself to take the curse of sin, allowing Himself to die for us who believe. We boast in the cross. And this is a hard thing. If you've grown up in the church, maybe you know it, and you can express this doctrine of grace accurately, that Christ died for our sins. But living it, practicing it, this is hard. How many things in life do we base merits on? That we earn this. I work hard for this or I work hard for that. Someone else did not work for this. They did not deserve that. Our human nature craves this. Craves to be rewarded for the good things that we have done. And the cross challenges this. That is why the cross is offensive. The cross is a reality check on what we deserve. Society says we deserve so-and-so. just for being who we are. Or that you're valued for who you are. No matter who you are, no matter what you've done, you deserve to have everything. And the cross challenges that. The cross says you don't deserve anything. It says you do deserve one thing, and you deserve death. That's what the cross says. The cross says you should have been here. Why? Because you're a sinner. The Bible says we are all sinners deserving of death. The wages of sin is death. Romans 6.23, for all of sin fall short of the glory of God. That means we all deserve death before Christ. There's no one special in here exempt from that mark, that stain of sin in our nature. When we come to the cross, you have to face, why is Jesus there? The Bible's very clear, Jesus is God. The Bible's very clear that Jesus is perfect. So why is Jesus, the Son of God, perfect Son of God, on a cross, allowing himself to die? Well, The Bible's answer for that is because sinners had no other way, no other way to salvation, no other way to live. You and I were dead in our trespasses and sins. But even when we were dead in our sin, Ephesians 2 verse 1, verse 4 and 5 say, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, God made us alive. How? When Christ rose from the grave, we rose from sin's sentence of death. Colossians 3 verse 1 says, you have been raised with Christ. The cross is a symbol of human weakness, of human incapability, of human insufficiency. The cross is where weak, broken, and helpless people go. And society does not want to tell anyone that they are weak, that they are helpless. or at least it wants to give them the answer to that. This is how you help yourself. This is what you can do to lift yourself up. Society doesn't want to say somebody is helpless without hope. I mean, we don't like to be told that. You don't like to be told that you're not good enough. If your boss were to come up to you and say, you're not good enough. Like, not that you just have not a good job here, that you're not good enough. Like, you can't do it. Maybe you're driving a tractor and he says, no, no more driving a tractor. You're just not good enough. You can't do it anymore. That'd be pretty deflating. We don't want to hear that. But that's what the cross tells us. You're not good enough. We all know that on the playground, hearing that, As you're picking up lineups, you get last. No, we don't want you. This is the reality we face in sin. And don't think we can separate these two as though throughout the week, we're really good. We're really good at our job. We can work really well and we can provide. But then when we come to church, we realize, yeah, no, we're not good enough. We need the cross. We come to Christ. And so we separate the week into the week and then Sunday. Think we're good enough. provide for ourselves all week and yet come to church and realize, no, we need Jesus. It's a hard-fought battle. It's a spiritual reality that Paul says is our reality. Spiritually, we are not good enough. And the cross of Jesus says, this to us, that you are not good enough, and it says you need help. But it also says, in the same occasion, the same cross says, I have helped you. I've given you what you didn't have. I've given you righteousness. And we can embrace this. And we can boast in this. And it's boasting not in your flesh, not in anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. This message is for the proud. Do you have to justify yourself to the world? Prove your worth, your value, maybe in your work, in your home, in your family. The people of God, the cross corrects us, corrects our prideness, our proud hearts, and gives us More value. We don't have to prove our value, prove our position in this world. Our value is not in ourselves. It's not in how good of a worker we are, how good a provider we are, how good of a child we are. Our value is in what Christ has done for us on the cross to save us. The matter that Jesus would love sinners like you and I. Magnificent. The cross means that we are highly, highly valued. But not because of us, purely just because Jesus would love us, sinners. Love us enough to give us what we desperately need, life. And it's through the cross that we can see that the world has been crucified to us. And as Paul says, I to the world. Chapter five talked a lot about the battle within us waging over sinful desires and it called us to not conquer it in our power, but it says to walk by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit. The cross is where our sinful desires are defeated, and we can look to the Spirit to fight sin and temptation, and we can expect victory. Brothers and sisters, Jesus' death on the cross means that you are not alone in sin. You can resist it, you can fight it, not in your power, through the Spirit, though. This doesn't mean that you don't need anyone else, that just you and the Spirit can defeat sin, you need to ask for help. We have the church for a reason, we have the church, the body of Christ surrounding us, so that we can fight sin as a body of Christ, together, to help one another. We've spent a lot of time on verse 14, boasting in the cross, Move to verse 15. Obviously, verse 15 is connected to what Paul's just said. We can ask ourselves, where are we right now? Well, Paul's emphasized what he will say by verse 11. Put in bold letters, verse 12 and 13, he's showing the selfishness, the pride, fearful disposition of these false leaders. They want to look good. They want to avoid persecution. And how do they do that? By outward action, appearing like they fit in. outwardly making it look like they are law abiders, that they are God followers, but they pose no threat to the present status quo. Yet they boast in their flesh in what they do. Their religion is outward, and it's human. It's action, actions that they do, and it's human actions that they do. Verse 14, Paul boasts in nothing but the cross. Paul says the Christian faith is a faith not grounded in outward obedience, not grounded in human action, but grounded in inward faith. Inward faith of a divine action, faith in what Jesus has done. The only way to boast is in Jesus Christ and the cross. Jesus did for me what I could not do, and all I do is believe. Believe in the cross, and Paul is unveiling God's ushering in of a new age. Verse 15, for neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Since through the cross of Jesus the world has been crucified to Paul and all of us believers as well, the act of circumcision or not being circumcised is pointless. Why? Because of the new creation. Paul's drawn a line, and you could say he's drawn a line in history, the old age and the new age, the new creation. And this new creation was inaugurated, was ushered in at the cross, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 16 and following says, From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh. We regard him no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Christ has risen from the dead. He has got a new body. We look towards that age. When Paul looks at the cross, he's not looking at a crucifix. You know, with Christ hanging on the cross. He's looking at an empty cross, because Jesus lives. He's risen from the dead. When we talk about the cross, we're always remembering an empty cross, with nobody on it, because he's risen from the dead. Philippians 3, verse 20, says, Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, because Jesus is in heaven, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body. by the power that enables him to even subject all things to himself. The physical sign of circumcision, the bloody physical sign of circumcision, or just not being circumcised. It doesn't matter. What matters is faith in Jesus Christ. Do you believe what Jesus has done? That Jesus has accomplished? That he has ushered in a new age? That he has defeated death and sin? And He has risen from dead, so His body is alive forevermore, never to die again. That's the beginning of this new age that Jesus is ushering in. Not an era of obedience to law, but of faith. And of Jesus' fulfillment of the law. Christ's love for us is manifested in that point at the cross. And Paul is eschatological here. Remember what eschatological means. It means looking to the end times. Paul is looking to the end times when Christ will come again and believers and even creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption. And this is where our hope ought to be in Christ. The sinful nature in us has been crucified. put to death with Christ on the cross, and through the Spirit we are welcomed into God's presence. And what does this mean? Well, verse 16 says it means that we have peace and mercy. Verse 16 says, and as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. What is this rule referring to, as we said in the beginning? It's referring to the rule that Jesus brought us into this new creation by the cross. And who is a member of this? All believers, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you are a member of this. And Paul unites people under the new creation, under one tent that cling to Jesus, but that also were Jewish descent, children of Abraham. We're all children of promise when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. Everyone that believes in Jesus as their savior, believe that Jesus has taken their sin away, nailed it to the cross, that he's risen from the dead, defeating death, Peace and mercy be to you. So if you do not believe that Jesus brings about the new creation, or if you do not believe that Jesus saves you from your sin, from death, you do not have peace and mercy. Peace is only found in Christ. There is evil in this world. There is evil inside of us. And there's no running from that evil apart from Christ. that evil cannot be judged in any other place than the cross. The cross is the place where we find the judgment for sin. The cross is the place where we find mercy. We place our guilt and our shame on Jesus on the cross and trust him to deal with it. So do you want peace and mercy? Turn to Jesus, if you have not already. In the last two verses here, verse 17, Paul puts into practice what he's laid out concerning the new creation. Paul suffered for the cross, he suffered in his flesh for what he has believed, and he counts these marks as proof, as proof for his belief in what is to come. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 23 through 25 tell us of Paul's physical hardship because of his faith in Jesus. Literally, he was scarred. I say that lightly, that he was scarred. He was probably very, very scarred. 2 Corinthians 11 tells us Paul received the 40 lashes minus one five times. It was 39 lashes because they thought that 40 would kill you. And he got that five times. He was beaten with rods three times. He was stoned once. He was scarred. And these marks, at least he thought of them, as marks of a slave. A slave to Jesus. So he was proud of these marks. Paul began off this letter proving he was an apostle. That his message wasn't his message, but God's. And Paul finishes saying, look at my body. If I were preaching my gospel, I wouldn't look like this. But, he says, I preach Christ crucified, folly to the world, salvation to those who believe. Therefore, I bear the marks of a slave, and he wears them proudly. Verse 18, we come to the last verse. Paul closes off this letter with a blessing. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Brothers, we can say sisters as well. Amen. The whole of Paul's message, which is God's message, has been grace. Grace from beginning to end is grace because sinners have God's favor when they don't deserve it. Paul's emphasis here that I spoke on in verse 11 to 18 is grace. God gave us what we did not deserve, eternal life. Grace is at the core of the Christian life, at the core of the Christian faith. That's what this letter is about. The Christian faith is not about what you have done, but about what has been done for you, about believing in what has been done for you, to believe in Jesus. We gather here every Sunday to celebrate the cross of Jesus Christ. We do not celebrate how amazing or how spectacular we are. We celebrate that Jesus loves sinners, that Jesus died for sinners like us, and we celebrate of what is to come in the new creation. So don't pray like my Greek professor, blessing for those who try, blessing for those who have put the effort in and worked hard, and a cursing for those that have not. We pray for blessing and grace because of what Jesus Christ has done. And we have it, we have peace because of what Jesus Christ has done. So let's pray now. Lord God and Heavenly Father, we ask that grace and peace would be to us not because of what we have done, but because of what you have done. And Father, we ask that you would give us this peace that would pass understanding. And Father, that we would rest in you this week, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.