Father, we thank You tonight that we can say, not us, but You, to be glorified, exalted, held up because of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself on the cross for our sins. We pray tonight that You would help us to seek more and more to exalt you, to exalt your cross, to exalt ourselves less, so that you may have preeminence in our life. Pray for the service tonight that you would be seen, that you would guide my thoughts, that you would guide my words. It may not be me standing up here, but we can see Christ tonight through your words. In your name we pray. Amen. Go ahead and take your Bibles tonight and turn to Galatians chapter 6. We'll be in verses 12 through 16. We'll get down and read that here in just a second. But I want you to think about one word with me tonight. I want you to think about the word glory. And what comes to your mind when you think of the word glory? You know, maybe you think of a great leader. You think of the president. You think of past leaders. You have the three men who were leaders of their countries at the Yalta Conference with Roosevelt and Stalin and Churchill. Or we think of Margaret Thatcher who just passed away recently. You know, maybe you think of a military man, such as the German fox, or the desert fox, the German military man, Erwin Rommel. Eisenhower, MacArthur. Or maybe you do like I do, when I think of glory, I think of sports. I think of Michael Jordan and six NBA titles. I think of Michael Johnson and his golden shoes. I think of Michael Phelps and his 22 medals and his 18 gold that he earned in the Olympics. And I think of Muhammad Ali, who proudly proclaimed, I am the greatest. And I know those are all examples that maybe a guy only thinks of. But there's a lot of places in our world where we get glory, right? And we think of people gaining glory for themselves. And Paul concludes his message to the Galatians in this epistle with a short little lesson about glory. And he warns against glorying in the flesh and calls for Christians to glory in the cross of Christ. And he contrasts these two ways of living. He gives reasons for both of those, glorying in the flesh and glorying in the cross. And he gives results when we do either one of those. And we're going to read that passage and delve into it. But before we do, I just want to give a short history, if I may, on the background of Galatians. Paul had written the book of Galatians to the churches in the area of Galatia. And he had written it with one purpose, and that was to correct a major doctrinal error that was going on in the churches of Galatia. You see, they had gotten away from the true meaning of salvation. Some false teachers had come into the church, and they convinced the people there that salvation by faith alone in Jesus Christ wasn't enough. You had to add works on top of it. Now, specifically, they pushed the idea of circumcision, but it could be anything. They said, grace is not enough. You must have law. Paul shows the Galatians, though, throughout the book, the proper place of the law. Which he says, it was given to convict men of their sin. It was never given to save men, because God commands perfect obedience, something we as people, as men, cannot do. It was given instead to show the need for a Savior. That was Jesus Christ. Paul talks about in chapter 2, he even had a confrontation with the Apostle Peter over the same issue. And all throughout the book of Galatians, one theme is clear, is that true freedom comes only through Jesus Christ. Nothing else can bring us spiritual freedom. Nothing else can bring us freedom to eternal life. In the first part of Galatians, Paul talks about freedom from the punishment of sin, which is justification, salvation. And then he makes a turn and talks about not only freedom from the punishment of sin, but freedom from the power of sin in sanctification. No longer does sin have to have the rule over your life. But instead, you can live a life through the Spirit of God that pleases Him. And in the last two chapters of Galatians, Paul sets his sights specifically on these false teachers in Galatians. And really in chapter 5 is where he hammers them the most. And he levels his sights on their heresy of legalism, which is keeping the law in order to keep God happy. He says that's not necessary, while warning at the same time not to fall into antinomianism, lawlessness, and saying that, hey, we can sin because God forgives. And he talks about the ugly war between the flesh and the spirit. And he gives the fruits of the spirit that come from walking the spirit. And in Galatians 5.16, that's where we find. The only way to live the Christian life, which is walking in the Spirit, and the word really carries the idea of walking every day, every hour, and every minute. It's not a one-time decision to walk in the Spirit. It says, be walking in the Spirit. And then we turn into chapter 6. And Paul, in this last chapter, gives some very practical Christian advice. The beginning of the chapter, he talks about restoring a sinning brother, a sinning believer. He then talks about the law of sowing and reaping. And then here, at the end, he talks about this last thing, which can be summed up in this question I have on the slide tonight. Where is your glory? Look with me at Galatians chapter 6, verses 12 through 14. 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 the desire to have you circumcised, so that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it for 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. We'll divide the passage up tonight. We'll cover the first two verses here, and then we'll cover the last four. And first we'll talk about tonight is glorying in the flesh. And there we go. Okay. Glorying in the flesh. And Paul, first of all, gives us reasons for glorying in the flesh. Why, specifically, do these false teachers glory in the flesh? Why do we, as Christians, glory in the flesh? And he tells us, first of all, is to have something to show. To show for what? To show for salvation. That first part of the verse again. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised. And it's kind of a reminder of the lesson that Paul taught in chapter 5. He says, those who are teaching these things, such as circumcision, or keeping the law in the church, these false teachers, are doing it in order that they have a good showing in the flesh. They're not interested in grace alone for salvation. They're not interested in solely leaning on Christ. They have to have something to show for their salvation. And we know that salvation is based on one thing and one thing only, and that's Christ's atonement for our sins. How that He came to earth to live the life that no one else could live, in order that He could die the death that no one else could die to pay for our sins. And God saved us because of His love when we were unlovable. Think about how unlovable we were before God. We were going through life not caring what God, our Creator, the One who gave us life and breath, who gave us the world that we live around us, we didn't care what He thought. We didn't care about his loss. We didn't care about pleasing him. But yet, he still sent his son to die for us. Now, I know that the thought that comes to the mind of many, if not all of you here tonight, because I can understand, I have the same thought almost. I wasn't really that bad of a person before I got saved. Well, I grew up in a Christian home, and I was a good kid, and I got saved when I was five. And so I hadn't murdered anybody. I hadn't gone out and shoplifted. OK. See where you're coming from. I mean, I've been there. I grew up in a Christian home. But then think about this. Think about so many times after you're saved, when you're supposed to be living for God, and you don't. And yet, God, who is omniscient, who knows everything before it happens, still loves you and still saves you. You know, if you were going to save someone, You know, maybe they were drowning, or they were in a car wreck, and you knew, before you went and saved them, that after you saved them, they'd turn around and stab you, and might kill you. Would you save them? If you knew that your spouse, before you married them, would cheat on you, would you still marry that person? God, who knew that we would turn around and stab him in the back with our sins, who knew that we would cheat on him with our sins, and not serve him fully, still offered us the free gift of salvation. But yet, we struggle, we want to have a reason that God saved us. We wanted something, we want some spiritual accomplishments, right? Even as we're Christians, to pad the spiritual resume a little bit. To say, yeah, God saved me, God's doing great things, see? Because I did this and this and this. Nobody was ever saved because they were extra spiritual and God couldn't stand to send them to hell. They were saved purely out of God's love. And we quickly forget the words of Isaiah 64, 6, where he says, we have all become like one who is unclean. And all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. And even the good things we do, Isaiah says, are like filthy rags, are like polluted garment. Because in these good things we do, they're tainted with pride. They're still tainted with that sin in our lives. And anything that God has done in our life, or continues to do in our life, is only because of His grace. But yet we glory in the flesh, because we want to have something to show. But Paul gives a second reason. Because not only do they want to have something to show, they glory in their flesh, they do these things that add law to grace, to have something to show, but also to avoid persecution. Back in that same verse, the second half. They would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ." These people were enforcing this, the Jewish right of circumcision. They were adding to the salvation by grace, or adding law to it, so that they would not be persecuted. Because if they knew that they taught something different from what had been taught, if they started teaching salvation by grace alone, this was a new concept. This is a new thing. And they started striking on their own, such as people like Paul and the apostles had done. They would suffer persecution. So in order to avoid persecution, they began living under the old law, saying, yeah, that salvation by grace, that's a great thing, but you might want to add something to it. You know, just to make sure it sticks. And so they wouldn't look like the complete weirdos. You know, they were still teaching, they were still teaching the law. That's not to say that doing things a certain way is always wrong. We know that Paul and Timothy, had Timothy followed this Jewish rite of circumcision, Acts 16.3, but it was only to further the ministry of the gospel in the early stages. It was not to avoid persecution. The Christian life is not easy. Ask the Apostle Paul. who ends up saying at the end of this passage that he bears the mark or the marks of the gospel. Paul was persecuted. And the Christian life is not a walk in the park because it is a battle between the flesh and the spirit and against the world. And people in the world today, they see Christians, they see something different. Or at least they should see something different. You know, they see these people that go to church on Sunday mornings. They get up and miss the best golfing day of the week and go to church. They don't come and hang out in the clubs on Friday night. They don't go watch the same movies that we watch. They don't post the same things on Facebook and Twitter. They don't listen to the same kind of music. And they see that and it's just a little weird. And sometimes that turns into persecution. And Paul, in 2 Timothy 3, 12, told Timothy that, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And our lives as believers should be different. But we should not do things or say things or listen to things that are like the world. And yet, we convince ourselves it's OK. Because, you see, we don't always do things that are exactly what other people do. We just kind of do things that are kind of like that. Right? Because we would never, ever, ever say that. But this is okay. And we'd never, ever, ever, ever, ever take God's name in vain. But we might say this, and that's kind of close, and it's not really sin. So, yeah, I could say that. It's close. We'd never, ever, ever watch this movie, because it's rated for this. But we could watch this, because it's only rated for this. And we try and we try to not really sin, but just see how kind of close we can get. Because if we were too far apart, they'd look at us and say, yeah, what a weirdo. Look at that holy roller over there. He's so different. Yeah, we're going to be persecuted for our faith. But in reality, what is our persecution in light of today's standards? You might lose a friend on Facebook. The guy you eat lunch with might not want to eat lunch with you anymore. They're not lining the streets of Greenville with the burning bodies of Christians. They're not crucifying anybody up on Paris Mountain. We will face persecution. But yet we choose the glory in our flesh, so we don't. And we say, why? Everyone else does it. Everyone else wears it. Everyone else watches it. Everyone else listens to it. Why can't I? Well, you can. You have a free will from God. But should you, as a changed believer? I'm not talking about tonight that we all go out and say, yes, because. Someone gets up in church and stands up here and says, hey, we ought to not do these things and these things, that we do this. God's not interested with us following the good Christian checklist for our life. You know, read my Bible, took sermon notes, gave a testimony. He's interested with our heart attitudes and a heart that's seeking to become more like Christ. The free gift of God's grace and his salvation is more than a get out of jail free card. so that we can pass by hell, get to heaven, and just do whatever else we want in life. Salvation is a call, a commitment, and a commission to a new lifestyle in Christ. And it's a lifestyle that's consumed with honoring and imitating our Savior. And only an attitude of wanting to please God in all that you do. And looking at everything in your life in light of that, pleasing God, And weaning out that which does not bring honor and glory to your God results in living a Christian life that pleases God. You know, Ken Carter always says, just two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self. Do we glory in ourselves or do we glory in our God? And so, Paul gives these two reasons. This is why we glory in the flesh. We want to have something to show. We want to say, look, this is why God saved me. This is what I have done. And we want to say, look, I just want to do this. I want to kind of do this so I don't get looked down on. And I can have a better witness that way if people don't look down on me. And Paul says the result, then, of glorying the flesh is this. Look back in verse 13. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. And Paul reminds the Galatians that there's a hypocrisy here of the false teachers. Sure, they enforced some of the law, but they didn't enforce all of it. And the Bible tells us, and Paul tells us, that if we're going to keep some of the law, we better keep all of the law, because that's what God commands. So not only were these people, these false teachers, were they cowards for not wanting to be persecuted for the cross of Christ, but they were hypocrites. And the result of glorying in the flesh is we make ourselves hypocrites, misrepresenting the holiness of God. Because we're called to be people who are different from others. Holy, set apart. You know, we're talking about that on Sunday nights with pastors here, being different, set apart to God. And when we as believers live a life that says we're the same as everybody else around us, we make ourselves a hypocrite, we misrepresent our God, our Savior, and our King. Paul closes out a passage on separation with a quote from the Old Testament in 2 Corinthians 6, 17. He says, Where to be separate? Where to be different from the world? When we make ourselves not different from the world, or not that much different from the world, we make ourselves to be hypocrites, and we misrepresent our God who is different, who is holy, who is above the world that He has created. So this is glorying in the flesh, and this is the result of that glorying in the flesh. But Paul gives a contrast. He says you can glory in the flesh, and this is why people do it, and this is what happens. But we have glorying in the cross as well. And first of all, we have the reasons for glorying in the cross. Look at verse 14 here. Paul says, but far be it for 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. And Paul starts this verse with one of those great words, but, showing contrast. And the reason, first of all, we glory in the cross is because it gives freedom from the world. And I love this verse. This is the verse I've taken as my life verse, Galatians 6, 14. And it says, it should be far from him. Paul says, it is far from me to boast in the cross, except in the cross of Christ. And really think about that. If anybody had any reason to boast, it was Paul. I mean, he was a learned man. He had studied in the synagogue. And he had been a great Jew by their religious standards. And he had been very, very zealous. He had persecuted the church, those who were teaching something different. He went after them. He oversaw the stoning of Stephen. But he had no interest in being accepted by man because he had done certain things. He had no interest in avoiding persecution. Instead, he welcomed all of that because he gloried in the cross to Christ. And Paul lists out his accomplishments in life in Philippians chapter 3, but he ends the list with a statement in Philippians 3, 7 and 8. He says, but whatever gain I had, I counted this loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. Paul reveled in the finished work of Christ on the cross, and he credited everything done in his life to the work of Almighty God. Because this Almighty God had saved him, and brought him along the journey of life, and turned him into the greatest missionary to the Gentiles that the world has ever seen. And more than that, Paul counted anything that he had accomplished with his life before then, he counted as loss. Because that's what kept him from knowing his God. And the more we get caught up in our accomplishments, and the more we get caught up in the things that we've done, The less we credit to God, the less we know our God. And Paul, he said, it's worth nothing to me because it brings me no closer to my God. And we have no merit of our own to hold up and say, look what I've done. But we look and say, look what Christ has done. And Paul gloried and he reveled in the cross because it was by that work on the cross that he had been set free from the world. This world system, the cosmos, He was freed from the world's simple pull on his life and the internal death that it incurred. Paul, if anybody, as well as have the accomplishments in life, he could have been haunted by his past as well. How much he had persecuted the church. All the things he had done. Someone once painted the picture to me just recently. Can you imagine Paul? He dies there in Rome, and he goes to heaven, and he walks into heaven, and the first person he sees up there is Stephen. And Paul walks up and says, hey, Stephen. Hey, Paul. And they stand there, and Paul goes, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't even know what I was doing. Paul could have been haunted by this, right? Of these people he had persecuted, he had killed. But Paul says it's because of the Christ, because of Christ's cross and his death there, that the world was crucified to him. Paul reminds us that we are to glory in Christ's work on the cross, and we crucify our old ways. We crucify the way we used to act. We crucify the things we used to listen to. We crucify the things that we would watch if we were a part of the world. We crucify on and on and on. And it should lose its appeal to us, because we have a higher calling. And we welcome, as Paul did, any persecution we may suffer Because we glory in the cross. Because we are changed and we're renewed in Christ. That leads over into the second point. Not only that we glory in the cross because it gives freedom from the world, but because it alone grants God's acceptance. Verse 15. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Paul says that no religious rituals, no keeping of the laws, no anything that we do can change our status before God. We're all sinners. Those who accept Christ as their Savior are still sinners, but sinners saved by the grace of God. There's never been a person in this world who needs to be less saved than someone else. And Paul says that only a new creation is what's acceptable to God. And how does one become a new creation? By gaining the acceptance of God. Through trusting in Christ's work on the cross, His death, His burial, and then His resurrection from the grave. And not only is a new creation, then, acceptable to Christ, just being recreated, but a new creation implies new actions as well. Those who accepted Christ and His gift of salvation, not only glory in the cross of Christ, they revel in it, They live it out in their everyday life. And this is not, as we said, to curry favor with God, or to gain things, or keep our salvation, or even to fulfill robotic new creation duties. But it's because there's a new purpose for living, to become more like Christ and glorify Him in His work in your life. We're to live it out every day to glorify God. Why do you live your life as a changed believer? To glorify God. Why do you do this and this to glorify God? Why do you do it to glorify God? That should be the answer to everything we do in our life. Why do we do it? To glorify our God. To lift up the name of our Savior. So, Paul gives these two reasons for glorying in the cross. But then, of course, he's going to give us the result of glorying in the cross. He says in verse 16, And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. And Paul says that real joy and peace in life, there's real joy and peace in life through salvation. Those who accept the finished work of Christ receive, Paul says, peace and mercy. When we lean on Christ for salvation, we find true peace. A peace that comes from the inside, of knowing where we spend eternity when we die. If you meet somebody who's working their way, trying to work their way to heaven, And you say to them, hey, do you think you'll go to heaven when you die? They look at you and say, what? I hope so. You know, when I die and God, He looks at my good things and my bad things, and if I have more good things than bad things, I'll go to heaven. Or, you know, whatever the percentage is. That's not peace. I can't imagine living life that way. A real peace is for those who have accepted this gift of salvation. It's the peace of God in the hearts of believers. And secondly, Paul says they received mercy. Mercy. God not giving us what we deserve. Because when we accept Him as Savior, we no longer have to pay the price for our sins that we earned. We earned hell. Right? Romans 6, 23, the wages of sin, the payment for our sin, is death. Eternal death. And it's coupled all the time, not here in this verse, but it's always coupled with God's grace. God takes away what we earned and gives us what Christ earned. Makes the exchange. Our sin for His perfection. And we find true joy through this. Right? We find real joy. Joy in knowing Christ. in knowing who we can glory in and knowing where we spend eternity. And all who accept Christ as Savior, Paul says, become part of the Israel of God. And while we may not be direct descendants of Abraham through blood, we are in a spiritual sense, we're true children of the promise and spiritual descendants of Abraham. And just as Israel is God's chosen nation, as Christians, we are God's chosen and special and set-apart people, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. So tonight, as we look at glorying in the flesh and glorying in the cross, just ask yourself this, who has the glory in your life tonight? Who's getting the credit for the things that occur and the improvements that might be taking place in your life? You know, it doesn't have to be pre-salvation, you know, getting the credit for your salvation. It can be as you become, sometimes we say, as we become a better person, as we become a more spiritual believer, as God changes us from the inside out. Are you glorying in the flesh, hoping to have something to show for your efforts in the area of salvation and Christian growth? Or are you glorying in the flesh just hoping that, you know, if you keep your head down enough, that nobody will notice that you're a little bit different? That you go to church? You know, if I do this and this, well, nobody will really know, and nobody will give me a hard time. We want to avoid judgment by the co-worker, by a relative, by a friend. Glorying in the cross is the only way to live the Christian life, for it is by the cross alone anyone is accepted before God. Give the glory and honor to Him with your life, and live a changed life. The story is told of a mouse and an elephant. They were friends. You know, I don't know if he stepped on his toe, or it's a flea. It was a mouse and an elephant. And they were friends, and they were walking down the road one day. And as they were walking down the road, they came to a canyon. And they had to cross the canyon. And the only way to get across the canyon was this suspension bridge. But it was a pretty nice bridge, so they decided they would just go on. As they walked across the canyon, they took a look back at this bridge, and it was shaken up and down. And the mouse looked at the elephant, kind of bumped him, and said, hey, look what we did. Did the mouse do anything? If the mouse walked across the bridge by himself, would the bridge even move? No. It was the elephant that shook the bridge. And how many times do we go through our Christian life And we look back at God and say, hey, look what we did. Or hey, we talk to our friends and say, look what I've done. Look what God's accomplished. Look what I've done in my life. Look what I've done with my life. We should look back and say, look what God has done. What God has done to change me, what God has done to make me not what I was back then, but what I am today. A sinner, saved by grace, who can glory in the cross of Christ. Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you that we can glory in your cross, that we can glory in the salvation that you have given, that we can look back on our lives and say, look what you have done. Look how you have changed us. Thank you for being willing to save us. Thank you for being willing to not only save us, but then to change us, to give us victory over our sins, to give us real power through your Spirit. that we never lose sight of the gift of salvation, of how great it is, how great your mercy is, how great the exchange was, that you took our sin upon you and gave to us your righteousness. And may we live lives that seek to please you, that seek to glory in you, that we would live it out before others, so they may see something different in our lives. And when they ask us, we say, not I, But Christ be honor, love, exalted. And we ask that you would be with us this week as we go out. And you help us to make these truths a reality in our lives. In your name we pray. Amen.