If you have your Bible with you this morning, we'll be turning to Galatians chapter six, the last few verses of Galatians. We're gonna read verses 11 to 18 this morning as we come to the end of our exposition of Galatians. But before we read God's word, let's pray and ask him to give us ears to hear what he has to say to us this morning. Heavenly Father, we thank you for triumphant Jesus. We thank you that Christ on our behalf went to the cross, died, was buried, and rose again for our justification, Lord. We thank you for the life that we have in Christ, and we pray that as you continue to form us and shape us to be more like Christ, that we would hear your word as your means of shaping us to be like your son. And so we ask that you would open your word to us this morning in Jesus' name, amen. As I said, we're in Galatians chapter six, and I'm gonna read beginning in verse 11 to the end of the chapter. After I'm done reading, we will sing a short verse, the Gloria Patri. 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 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, even 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 God's word. This past Easter, I was talking with my uncle about church and where we go to church. He loves the Lord and is a believer. And he asked me what I do for Trinitas. And I said, you know, give him a list of things. And I said, about every six weeks, I preach. And he said, oh, well, what do you preach? And I said, well, I've been going through the book of Galatians. And he said, so you preach a sermon on Galatians, you walk away for six weeks, and then you expect everybody to distract with you when you get up again in six weeks? And I said, well, yeah. He said, that's a lot to ask of a congregation. So I want to start this morning by saying that as we come to the end of our exposition of Galatians, thank you to Trinitas for being a church that we can ask a lot of, as we've been working our way through Galatians, I think, since sometime in 2022. So it's been quite a season. But we're wrapping this up, and we come to Paul's last words that he has to say to the people of Galatia. And I wonder if you have considered what you would write in this situation. I mean, imagine for a moment that someone very dear to you has moved away. They're living in a far-off town, and they've fallen into some bad practices and some bad company. And you've written a letter or an email warning them of the danger of the path that they're on. How do you end this letter? Not only that, but if you're living in Paul's day, where It is not out of the realm of possibility that this is the last communication Paul ever has with the Galatian church. Travel being what it is, communication being what it was, he may never speak to them again. What do you say when the souls of those who you have labored over and cared for are at risk? How does Paul end this letter? Well, Paul is gonna end this epistle by a series of contrasts between himself and his opponents. There are four contrasts that we get in these verses between a true Christian and true Christian ministry that Paul is conducting and the false teachers that have come to Galatia. And so what we're gonna look at this morning is these four contrasts of true Christianity versus the false teachers that Paul encountered in Galatia. And in a lot of ways, these verses summarize everything that we've seen in the epistle to the Galatians. You can look at a number of commentators and they will say that this is actually the key to understanding the entire letter, right? These are the themes that Paul has been highlighting all throughout the letter, you know, sort of get brought up again and crystallized in these last few verses. And so we'll look at each of these four contrasts today. And the first contrast is this, the true Christians embrace persecution for the sake of the gospel. Christ has told his disciples that in the world they would have trouble, and while this may not always be the case day in and day out, it is the requirement of the Christian who would follow Christ that there be a willingness to pursue him even in the midst of suffering. This is what contrasts Paul with his opponents. For the first time in this epistle, Paul is actually gonna address the motives of his opponents. Why are they doing all of the things that they're doing? Why are they spreading this false gospel? And before we even look at the details of what Paul says about their motives, I think it's worth pausing for a moment to reflect on the ethical importance of where Paul puts motives. Paul could have jumped right in at the very beginning of this epistle and said, look, My motives, pure, grounded in a love for Christ. Their motives, sinful, grounded in fear, and that's why you should listen to me and not to them. But he doesn't do that. It's not until the very end of the epistle, almost, you know, in his summation, that Paul mentions the motives of his opponents at all, and this actually teaches us a very important ethical lesson. Motives are important, but they are not all important. This is crucial because we live in an age that seems to assume that the only important moral consideration is our motivations. We even have a proverb in our culture, right? It's the thought that counts. And the Bible says, well, sort of. You know, we watched some politician launch a program to help people group A, and this program runs its course. And by the end of the program, this people group is actually worse off than when things started. But nobody blames the politician because he had the right intention, and so that's all that really matters. But the Bible says that a good motive is only a part of a morally correct act. See, here's the thing about motives. A bad motive can make a good action bad, but a good motive can't make a bad action good. Let me take an example of helping the poor. If you were to give half of your income to the poor, That is a very generous thing, generally commendable. But if you did it because you wanted other people to see you doing it, and you wanted to be praised by your neighbor, right? The New Testament says, well, this is no longer an act that is pleasing to God, because your motive was corrupt. So a good act was made bad by a bad motive, but the opposite is not the case. If you really love the poor, you had a profound heart for helping those in need and all the right motives, and so you went out and robbed a bank, Guess what? Your good motive didn't make that anything other than an act of theft. We cannot excuse our sins because we think that somehow we had the right motive in doing them. Lord, I know it's embezzlement, but if I embezzle the money, I'll have more income to tithe to the Lord with. Lord, I know she isn't my wife, but if she was in my corner, I would be much more effective in all of the things you've called me to do. No, brothers and sisters, our good intentions can never create an excuse for sin. And that's why throughout this letter, Paul has largely ignored the motives of the false teachers in Galatia. Because even if they had had the best of intentions, their false teaching is wrong and a danger to people's souls. But even so, Paul doesn't want to leave you with the impression that these people did have the best of intentions. In fact, the false teachers in Galatia were motivated by some very questionable intentions, namely the desire to escape persecution from the Jews. If you recall when Paul is writing this epistle, probably sometime after Acts 11, where we get an account of Paul's first missionary activities and where we think he probably went and founded the church in Galatia, and before Acts 15, where there is the big, what is known as the Jerusalem Council, which settles the issue of whether or not Gentiles have to be circumcised. Paul is probably writing somewhere in the middle of that. And if you were to read the book of Acts, up to that point, you would see that the primary persecutors of the Church of God were Jewish leaders who did not believe that Christ was the Messiah. In Acts 4 and 5, the apostles are arrested by the Jews and charged with no longer preaching the gospel. In Acts 6 and 7, you have the narrative of the first martyr, Stephen, who is arrested and killed by the Jewish leaders who don't like what he is teaching. Paul himself, in his capacity as an unbelieving Pharisee, persecuted the Church of God and tried to destroy it. Acts 10 records how the Jews tried to capture and kill Paul once he began preaching the gospel. And in other words, if you were a Christian believer at the time that Paul writes this letter, the greatest danger that you face is Jews who reject Jesus as the Messiah. Not only that, but there's a growing movement known as the Zealots that is sort of gaining traction around Jerusalem. You might recognize that phrase because one of Jesus' disciples was known as Simon the Zealot. He probably came out of this group, the Zealots, as they were sort of beginning. But they would really reach their peak in the mid-60s A.D. as the gospel was really taking off as Peter and Paul end up in Rome. But here's what the Zealots were. They are essentially anti-Roman terrorists. By the end of the 60s AD, they would be carrying out an assassination campaign against the Roman occupation and their allies. The Jewish historian Josephus notes that it was not uncommon for you to be in a crowded marketplace and there to be some Roman passing through and suddenly as the crowd is pressing in on that Roman, somebody would stab him and then disappear. Right, this is a terror campaign against those who are compromising or seen as compromising the integrity of Judaism. And so, if you are in the Christian church, if you are part of this growing movement, by this point in Paul's ministry and by this point in the history of the church, the established authorities in Jerusalem are the threat. And the thinking of the Judaizing Christians then seems to be this. If we can impose circumcision and various other ceremonial regulations of the law on the Gentiles, then we can pass off Christianity as simply another branch of Judaism. Remember, Judaism, even in Jesus and Paul's day, is not a single entity. There are a variety of groups. You see this in the New Testament where there are conflicts between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. And they're not trying to kill each other because they recognize that both of them are legitimate branches of Judaism, even though they disagree. It's those who are undermining Judaism that are the target of persecution. And so the idea seems to be that if we could just establish Christianity as one more branch of Judaism, then we would be shielded from persecution. In their minds, making Gentiles into Jews is a small price to pay to be saved from persecution. Not only is there a desire to escape persecution, but Paul also hints at the desire for boasting present in the Judaizers. Recall that in the Old Testament, it's not impossible for a Gentile to become a part of the nation of Israel. They simply have to undergo the ritual of circumcision, commit themselves to Israel's God, and then they can participate in the life of the nation. By forcing the Christians of Paul's day to be circumcised, they were not only avoiding persecution, but they could also boast of the role that they had played in bringing new converts into the nation of Israel. Persecution avoided and a measure of glory among the Jews, the result of their work. But Paul condemns these motives as a compromise of the gospel. There may be times in the history of the church when God causes his church to prosper and to receive the protection of the civil magistrate and to be somewhat respected by the populace at large and praise the Lord that this is something we have experienced in the United States to a great extent. Something that we ought to pray for and that we ought to be thankful for. But the fact that we desire these things and long for these things does not mean that we should be shocked or despairing if we enter into a season of persecution. And it does not mean that we are to compromise the truths of the gospel in order to avoid persecution at all costs. After all, persecution was the law of Christ. We must never forget that for the majority of his ministry, the authorities were trying to discredit or kill him. And so in Paul's mind, the suffering of the church becomes actually a way in which they walk in the footsteps of their savior. Paul therefore paints a contrast between the false teachers who are willing to compromise the gospel in order to escape persecution and the true Christian church which is faithful to the gospel even in the midst of suffering and persecution. Now, none of us, I don't think, Lord willing, are in danger of being arrested for the sake of the gospel. We live in a country where we are free to gather together and to worship and to sing and to testify to the name of our savior. But are there areas in your life where you are tempted to downplay or compromise the gospel to avoid ostracism or other forms of persecution? How many of us feel the desire to downplay the exclusivity of the gospel or its high ethical standards at some family gathering in order to avoid the awkwardness or displeasure of our relatives? When we do these things, we are governed by the same motivations which possess those wanting to undermine the gospel in Galatia. We need to be on our guard against such temptations because Paul tells us that the Christian church is called to testify to the truth of the gospel even in the midst of suffering. I will add only as an aside that such compromises which threaten the gospel are ineffective. It's not like those who have been at the vanguard of the sexual revolution are flooding into churches which have now accepted and embraced homosexuality. Let's not be deceived. The world is not eager to enter the church if only we would adjust one or two of our principles. The world, and by this term we mean the evil sway of the present age, wants to destroy the church. They demand compromise and concession, not so that they can enter into fellowship, but so that we will cease being the church. And so even if, you know, we were tempted to embrace that kind of route to engage people and bring people into the church, we should be very aware ahead of time that this is an ineffective tactic. And it's condemned by Paul. Now, having said all that, we must not make the mistake of moving in the complete opposite direction. Simply because we are not to compromise in the face of persecution doesn't mean that we need to go looking for it. There's a type of Christian who thinks that if they are obnoxious enough and if they get in people's faces and get a reaction, which is not actually a reaction to the gospel, but just a reaction to sort of their abrasiveness, then they are suffering persecution for the sake of the gospel. The apostles wrestled with the same issues in their own day, right? Peter had to warn his readers, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer or as a meddler. In other words, if I can put it this way, not all suffering by Christians is Christian suffering. And we have to be aware of this. Early on in the Reformation, right, there was really only one movement. Everybody who was against Rome were known as Protestants. But very quickly they began to divide over the issue of what happens in the Lord's Supper. And in order to try to reach a compromise on this issue, they put together a conference between Martin Luther, who was pioneering in this, and a reformer by the name of Ulrich Zwingli. And they got these guys together in order to sort of hash out their differences. If you guys could get on the same page, then we could have a united front against Catholicism. That was the idea. And Luther, true to his views on ecumenical dialogue, began the conference by telling Zwingli that he was of another spirit, which in 16th century language means you're of the devil, which is a great way to begin open dialogue, right, when you want to reach a compromise. And the conference, you know, they get really close. Zwingli makes a lot of concessions, and finally Luther says this is no good, right, and he walks away. And for the remainder of his life, right, Luther has this idea that basically, like, Zwingli doesn't like me because Zwingli hates the gospel. And you kind of wish someone had sat Luther down and said, it's not that Zwingli hates the gospel, it's that you're kind of a jerk. Right? Like, if you had toned it down a little bit, we might not have two different branches of the Reformed faith, or Lutheranism and Reformed. But that wasn't the case. And so I think it's a good reminder that as Christians we are called to stand firm on the truths of the gospel even in the face of persecution, but we are to do it in a way that is winsome and that makes the gospel attractive. Now the second and third points of Paul's contrast kind of go together. Paul notes that the true believer is one whose old man has been crucified with Christ and who has now been made a new creation. Typically in talking about the doctrine of sanctification, theologians have spoken of mortification, which is putting to death of our old man, and vivification, which is bringing to life of the new man in Christ. And this is essentially what Paul is getting at when he talks about dying with Christ and being made a new creation. And so we're gonna look at each of these in turn. First, the believer is one whose sinful nature has been crucified with Christ. Everything Christ did on the cross, he did in our place. It was in order to put to death our sinful habits, our sinful way of life, and more fundamentally, our sinful nature itself, that Christ went to the cross. When he was crucified, we were crucified. The cross of Christ then marks the beginning of our permanent separation from the old world. It is a great divide on the one side of which we are enslaved to the principles of the world and enslaved to our sin and on the other side of which we are members of the new creation. So what does that mean? To be crucified to the world and to be a part of a new creation? Well the first thing that it means is to realize that we are dead to the habits and patterns of our old way of life. It is important for us to grasp that the life of sanctification does not end with the death of our old man. It actually begins with it. Our battle with an indwelling sin begins with the realization that the body of death and sin which we inherited from Adam was crucified on the cross of Christ. The old man was crucified in order that it might be destroyed. That's the point of crucifixion. Crucifixion is not designed to weaken someone. give them a setback. It is actually designed to put someone to death for their utter destruction. And Paul says here that that is what happened to your old man. It has died. This was necessary because as long as the old man had life, as long as the old man had breath, we were enslaved to the power of sin. We were in bondage. But the purpose of the cross is to put to death that old man and to crucify the life which is in bondage to sin. The cross of Christ therefore stands as a testimony to what is due to sin. Destruction and death. And this destruction and death happens either in Christ or in ourselves for all of eternity. But one way or another, God demands that sin meet the penalty of death and the testimony of the gospel is that in Jesus Christ, those of us who have believed have met that penalty. to be crucified to the world means that all the old things we could have been tempted to boast about are dying and dead. Things that are weak and dying actually don't generate boasting in us, right? And when they do, it's kind of awkward and embarrassing. We've all met that person who was an impressive athlete in high school or college, and now that's the only thing they can talk about, right? The good old days. And when you're around them long enough, right, you're like, this is actually kind of embarrassing to witness. Brothers and sisters, that's what the world is to us. It's dying and whatever glory it may have had is infinitely superseded by the glory of the new creation. And when we as Christians place our identity or try to find our boasting in the things that are dying, we are like that old athlete who is chasing after lost dreams which are rapidly fading away. How foolish would it be to invest all of our hopes and dreams in what is dying? But having been crucified to the world also means that believers have passed through the final judgment. There's a teaching out there known as final justification, which says that you're sort of kind of justified right now, but you will not be finally justified until the last day. future justification is actually an unbiblical assault on the gospel. Because our justification is rooted in, based on, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that life, death, and resurrection is complete. We're not waiting any further work of Christ to justify us. And if you read the book of Revelation, right, what you find at the end of, in Revelation chapter 20 and 21, you find that there is the final judgment, and then there is the new creation. So if Paul can say that we are a new creation in Christ, then what it means is that we have already passed through the final judgment. When we come before Christ on the day of judgment, it will be with the confidence that we have already passed through this trial of judgment because we have already been put to death with Christ on the cross. The curse that sin deserves no longer hangs over us and we have instead passed into the blessing and bounty of the presence of God. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. And all of this has a very practical result, which is this, that if we have passed through judgment, and our old man is crucified and being put to death, then we are no longer to be slaves of sin. We are no longer to offer up our bodies, our minds, our wills to the habits and practices of sin, because that way of life is dead. And we must not live in it any longer. But following on the heels of our crucifixion with Christ is the reality that as a result of our death, we are a new creation. As we rose with Christ, we have become a part of the new creation. The problem with the debate over circumcision is not that God had never commanded circumcision. In fact, circumcision played a very important role in distinguishing God's people from unbelievers in the context of the old age, in the context of the old world. As long as humanity was still looking forward to Christ, circumcision and the observance of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament was actually the height of holiness. To be uncircumcised under the old order was ungodly. But with the death and resurrection of Christ, we have entered into the new creation. This is why Paul can say that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. He's not saying that one is bad and the other is good. He'll say somewhere else, those who have been circumcised don't have to seek to try to remove the marks of circumcision. Because it's not that one or the other is better. It's that they have both become irrelevant. What Paul has now in Christ so greatly surpasses the old age that the debates of the old age have become irrelevant. Let me give you an analogy. Anybody here a bus rider when they were young? Got to ride the bus to school? And I will bet that when you were a frequent everyday bus rider, you had very strong opinions about where the best seat on the bus was. And my guess is most of you were probably people who wanted to sit in the back, because that's where teenagers want to sit when they're getting on the bus, as far away from the bus driver as possible. And I would bet that you would fight for those seats. You're going to rush to the front of the line. You're going to be the first one to get on the bus so that you can go to that spot. And if you're the last one to get on the bus, and you're sitting right behind the bus driver, throws off the whole day. The whole day is bad, and you're like, why are you in a bad mood? Well, I had to sit behind the bus driver today. OK, and? And then you all hit. some age, probably 16, at which this miracle happened where you received a driver's license. And you no longer rode the bus, okay, because you could just drive yourself wherever you wanted to go. I bet that if we sat you down six months after receiving your driver's license and said, where's the best seat on the bus, front or back? You would probably say, I couldn't care less. I don't have to ride the bus. What does it matter to me where the best seats on the bus are? That's not my problem anymore. We've begun something totally new and something so much greater than having to ride the bus that all the old debates just feel a little bit irrelevant. Paul says that's what happened to you in Christ. New creation life so far surpasses the ceremonies and regulations that we are now, it makes the old debates irrelevant. Now don't misunderstand me here. Those who were living under the old covenant experienced salvation and renewal in Christ, looking forward to the cross. Okay, we must never make the mistake of thinking that they were saved somehow differently than we are saved. But the point is that the fullness of all of the promises of God had not been ushered in yet. They were still looking forward to the new creation, which would come in Jesus Christ, even though they had received the promises and the salvation that God would bring through Christ. And Paul's whole point is that when the new creation comes and the old is fading away, the debates that came with the old are also fading. So how do we become participants in the new creation? When the Holy Spirit operates in our hearts, he creates in us the response of faith. We look outside of ourselves, outside of any works we may or may not perform and look exclusively to Jesus Christ. By faith, we are united to Christ and all that he has becomes ours. Elsewhere, Paul is gonna talk about this with the analogy of marriage. When two people get married, everything that they have now belongs mutually to one another. There is union. The same is true of us. When we believe in Christ, we not only participate in his dying on the cross, we also participate in his new resurrection life. Paul highlights this at the very beginning of the epistle when he describes Christ as the one who rescued us from the present evil age. Paul is not talking about, or he's at least not only talking about the Roman era in which he lives, he is not making a point that somehow the first century world was particularly evil. Rather, the present evil age is the entire sweep of history which has held sway since Adam pulled the fruit down from the tree. It is the death of Christ which rescues us from that age and ushers us into a new age which is the new creation. What does that mean for the Christian life? It means that the power of the Christian life is grounded in our transfer into a new age and a new creation. We live lives of holiness. We grow in our sanctification by recognizing that we no longer belong to the present world, but we have been brought to the future world of holiness and righteousness where Christ dwells. To be a new creation is to live in a new way. It is to have the power to live in a new way. The same power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead is the power that is at work in us, creating in us lives of holiness and sanctification. This means that we need to think in new ways about ourselves. Paul's approach to sanctification and to holy living is basically, here's what you are in Christ, now act like it. It's the same sort of conversation that we have with our kids, right? You're, in my son's case, you're three years old. Act like it, right? Or you're 10, or you're 16, or you're 20. Act like it, right? This is the kind of conversation that we have. Well, Paul says that that's exactly the conversation that we need to have with ourselves. You are a new creation. Act like it. You are living in a new age, the age governed not by the prince of the power of the air, or by the power of sin, but by Christ, so act like it. We would be much better at fighting our sin if we made a habit of thinking of ourselves as new creation individuals. As people who are already living eternal resurrected life, even if we have not the full experience of that life yet, and yet it is still in us. We have to keep this at the front of our minds, not only in our own fight with sin, but also in our interaction with others. Husbands, do you interact with your wives not only as mortals here on earth, but as those who, being in Christ, have already begun to live as members of the new creation? Wives, is that how you treat your husbands? Are we teaching our children to find their contentment and hope in the temporary things of the old creation, Or in the hope and the joy of the new creation? Or even take a political participation? This is not unimportant. But do we participate in politics knowing that the world and its lusts are passing away? Do we use our possessions, our wealth, knowing that it is not eternal? There's nothing wrong with enjoying the good gifts that God has given us, but we must always enjoy them as those whose true identity is rooted in the world to come and whose true possessions are eternal. The fact that believers have crossed from death to life by new creation also speaks to us in how we evangelize. And it speaks to the unbeliever. There's an abundance of good ways in which we can improve this world, right? We can care for the sick and the poor, and we can reach out to the outcast. We can vote and be politically active in ways which will make the world a better place for our neighbor. But if what fundamentally rescues us from the domain of sin and darkness is a new creation, then what our neighbor needs more than anything is not social reform or self-help, but the miracle of a new creation. They need the Word of God speaking and creating life in them in the same way that Word spoke and brought life to creation at the beginning. This is why Trinitas Church, the Reformation made the preaching of the Word center to the worship service. Because it is through the preaching of the Word that the Spirit of God shines in the heart of the unbeliever, transforming a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. It's not something that we can affect in them, or that they can affect in themselves. It requires the supernatural work of God's Spirit to change hearts, and to bring about a new creation from the old, dead, sinful heart we were born with. This is why the preaching of the gospel is central to our worship, and it is central to the various missions organizations that we support, from Hope Russia, to the House Church Movement in China, to Sacred Road in Yakima. And if you're here this morning and you have not believed in Jesus Christ, understand that there is nothing in you that can bring about change and freedom in the way that you desire it. And there is nothing in this temporary feeding world which can pierce to the depths of your heart and soul and make you a new creation. The power of that new creation is found only in the triune God and only in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is only by fleeing to Him that we can find life, not only a short and fading life, but an eternal and unshakable life. So if you are with us today and you've never believed in Jesus Christ, flee to Him today. Find life in Him. But finally, the fourth contrast that Paul makes is that he says that a believer who is in Christ is the Israel of God. Paul's closing benediction in verse 16 is for all those who walk according to this rule. The rule in question is what he has just said in verse 15, namely those who understand the irrelevance of circumcision and uncircumcision and have embraced by faith the new creation. This means that only those who have put their faith in Christ and have become members of the new creation are included in the blessing upon the Israel of God. This is exactly what Paul has been arguing for in the entirety of the epistle. You have a little bit of a translation issue here in verse 16, right, where Paul says, peace and mercy be upon all who live according to this rule, and then your Bible probably says, and upon the Israel of God. That word is usually translated and in most contexts, but that's not the only way it can be translated, and I would suggest that that translation and really makes no sense here. Because Paul's entire point for this entire epistle has been that the true children of Abraham are only those who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That every promise made in the Old Testament is found in Christ and those who are in Christ. And so for Paul to get to the very end of his epistle and say, blessing upon those who are in Christ, but also blessing upon this other group, who is not in Christ would really make no sense. So that word and there is probably better translated as either even or I prefer namely. In other words, what Paul is telling us here is that those who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon the Israel of God, those, I'm sorry, those who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, that group is the Israel of God. The promises given in the Old Testament are all the inheritance of those who are in Christ. Not only this, but the specific order in which Paul actually invokes the blessing here, peace and then mercy, is a reference back to the book of Isaiah. You can go back to Isaiah where he uses this combination and says, for the mountains may depart and the hills may be removed, but my mercy shall not depart from you and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion upon you. Right? Mercy, peace, peace, mercy. These are things that God had promised to his people in the old covenant to the nation of Israel saying, this is what will happen to you in the coming days. And Paul says, these are the blessings that are upon the church. In other words, Paul is reemphasizing that the promises God made to Israel in the old Testament are inherited with the church because the church is the Israel of God. What are the implications for this fact? First, it should make us aware that the story of the Old Testament is our story. And the scriptures of the Old Testament are our scriptures. Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians that whatever was written was written for our instruction. All of the Old Testament was written looking forward to the Messiah. All the promises of the Old Testament are fulfilled for us in Christ. And therefore, if we are in Christ, those promises belong to us. So I would challenge us, Trinitas, do we make it a habit to be people steeped in the Old Testament, to see them as Christian scriptures, to know them the way that we know the New Testament, because they are the story pointing forward to Christ. Secondly, referring to the church as Israel brings not only the blessings promised to the Israel of God, but also the responsibilities given to the nation of Israel. When God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, he declared that its purpose was to be a kingdom of priests. In other words, the life and primarily the worship of Israel was to be a light to the unbelieving world. The purposes of the ceremonies, the rituals, and the temple sacrifices in the old covenant was not simply for the people of Israel to solidify their identity as a unique people, although it did that, but it was to testify to a dark world that Israel's God was the true God, the God whose presence had delivered them from slavery and bondage, and that those promises were held out to the nations if they would forsake their gods and give themselves wholly to the one true God. The worship of the Israelites and their obedience to the laws of God testified to the wisdom of their creator and drew the foreigner in to join in worship. The people of Israel were to remain separate from the nations, not so that they could condemn them, but so that the nations would see the glories of redemption and seek after it themselves. And this, brothers and sisters, is our calling. God has called us to be a light to the nations, to make disciples of all the nations by engaging in life and worship as he has prescribed it in his word. I'll stop there for a moment. The evangelistic nature of the nation of Israel came when they were truly being Israel and they were living according to the way that God had prescribed to them. When Israel starts worshiping the Baals and worshiping the false gods that all of their neighbors around them worship, and they start doing the same practices that all of their neighbors around them practice, they are no longer a light to the nations. And you can read throughout the prophets that God declares time and again that he's gonna restore true religion in Israel and true worship because the result will be that the nations would look to Israel as a light, that it would be an evangelistic witness. As Presbyterians, we believe in something called the regulative principle of worship. How many of you have heard that term before? We've talked about it in church. You've heard that term? Okay. The regulative principle of worship means, it's very simple this, we only do in worship what God has commanded us to do in his scriptures. And I wonder if any of you have ever considered that we believe in the regulative principle of worship for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons we believe in it is because it is actually a tool of evangelism. Okay, here's why. The problem with worshiping God according to our own will and desire, and with doing whatever we think God would want in worship, is that what we think God wants in worship ends up looking exactly like our unbelieving friends thinks a God would want in worship. This is why you can look at some churches, right, and I know you've all seen these clips on Instagram, where you're like, that doesn't look like a church service, it looks like a rock concert. Well, the reason is, is because that a rock concert is exactly what we would design if we wanted to be entertained. When we adhere to the regulative principle we are actually making a proclamation to the world that our God is real. There is a real person, three real persons, a real God who makes demands on us as a community. Who has told us how he wants to be worshipped and because he is real we are obligated to worship him as he's commanded. is when we say sorry, we can't have a play on stage on Sunday morning because that isn't how we've been called to worship, that the world stops and says, who are these people and why are they acting this way? We believe in the regulative principle because we believe in reaching the nations. Well, Paul ends by calling on the brothers in Galatia to cease troubling him because he bears on his body the marks of Jesus Christ. Paul is again making a contrast with the false teachers who emphasize the mark of circumcision born in the body. Paul's marks, by contrast, were probably the scars and wounds that he carried as one who had suffered persecution for the gospel of Christ. The physical suffering Paul had undergone pointed to the only thing which really mattered, which was his union with Jesus. Remember that Paul had been beaten and stoned. In fact, in Lystra, the abuse he suffered was so brutal that the Jews thought that they had actually killed him and so they just left him there and they went away and then he wasn't dead. But Paul knew what it meant to be marked for Jesus Christ. And even though he's probably referring to the abuse he suffered at the hands of his persecutors, the word he uses here for marks was a common one in the ancient world for the mark a slave would receive upon being committed to a master. And in that sense, you too have been marked. In our baptism, the Lord Jesus Christ marks us out as his own, declaring us to be his servants. So not only is it foolish for us to pine for the old creation which is fading away, we are also not permitted to. Because we have been bought by our master and he has placed the mark of baptism on us as a declaration of his interest in us. This means that as we go about in the world, we interact with our neighbors and our co-workers as those who bear the marks of Christ. That is both a high privilege and a high calling. It is this mark which we as members of the church bear that is our calling to unity with one another. You recall Paul says elsewhere, one faith, one Lord, one baptism. Paul says no one is to trouble him because he bears the marks. Trinitas Church, we are called to avoid being troublers of the church because we bear in our body the mark which has set us all apart together for Christ. Therefore, as a church, we ought to be characterized by our unity with one another. The last verse of the epistle brings us back to what is central to the Christian life. It is grace which comes from Christ which flows through his work on our behalf. It is this grace which brings salvation, and this grace which brings all the blessings of God to us. As we say goodbye to Galatians, we must never forget that its central message is the tremendous grace which has come to us in Jesus Christ. God has not required of you works of obedience in order to earn your salvation. He does not require Gentiles to become Jews in order to be accepted, but through faith in Jesus Christ, he has given you new life and called you to walk in it. So nothing else I could say would be better than ending with Paul's closing benediction, and so here it is. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace to us in Jesus Christ. We thank you for new creation life that you have given us. Lord, we ask this week as we go out and we interact with our neighbors, with our coworkers, with our friends, Lord, that we would bear in mind who we are as having been created anew. Lord, as we come to the table and taste the first fruits, the promises of new creation that are to come, Remind us all, Lord, of the joyful expectation that we have of eternal life with you. Lord, we ask that you would bless the remainder of this service in Jesus' name. Amen.