We're turning back to the Word of God today, to the book of Galatians, Galatians, and the chapter 6, and the central part of the chapter will be verse 14. We'll read that again, although we're looking at verse 11, right down to the verse 18. But verse 14 is fundamental and central, and we'll read that again now. But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." the Word of God open before us, we'll bow together in a further word of prayer. Our Heavenly Father, again we call upon Thy name. We pray for Thy blessing upon the preaching part of this meeting, that Thou would open up our hearts to the Word, our minds to understand it, our affections to grasp and to love it, and then our actions May they come into play and be in tandem with the thoughts of our mind and the love of our heart. May we reach out to others around with this wonderful gospel of redeeming love and grace, and may it be that by our lip, supported by our life, we will be effective witnesses to the cross work of Jesus Christ among those that we circulate each day and each week. Come on, answer prayer. Pour out Thy Spirit upon us, we ask, in the preaching and in the hearing of Thy Word today. We pray for Jesus' glory and our good. Amen. We live in a culture that is hugely illiterate regarding the Bible. And in such circumstances where the Bible isn't known, then virtually anything can pass as the about Christianity. Even those ridiculous falsehoods were popularized by Dan Brown in his The Da Vinci Code. One of the lies that Brown peddled in The Da Vinci Code concerns the number of books that are in the Bible, and he makes this allegation. More than eighty Gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John among them. The Bible as we know it today was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Now, if Dan Brown appears to be correct, then what we have today is multiple missing books from our Bible. We have four Gospels. He's saying we should have 80 plus. Dan Brown is not correct, of course. Contrary, To what this Da Vinci Code alleges, Constantine did not convene the Council of Nicaeum in A.D. 325 to determine what books should be included and what books should be left out of the New Testament canon. It's a fact of history, you can check it out, that not one of the resolutions of that council deals with the issue of the Bible canon. So Constantine was neither the editor of the Bible, nor was he the man who came along and eradicated all of the spurious texts. We talk today about fake news. Somebody says something, they're nearly branded immediately as a purveyor of fake news. Back hundreds of years ago. Let's go to the time of the Apostle Paul here. In the days of the early church, there were many items of fake news, spurious, forged documents in circulation. And because a man writing the book wanted to get a bit of credibility, wanted to get a bit of traction in the evangelical church at that time, they came along and they claimed that these spurious documents, it was actually written, you know, by one of the apostles, and they tagged onto it an apostle's name." Now, Paul flags up this process of deception when he warns the believers in Thessalonica not to be soon shaken in mind or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, 2 Thessalonians 2 and 2. And he's saying, don't be concerned. by these books that are coming your way, pretending to be letters from my pen." Paul was keen that the children of God scattered through the Galatian churches would not understand what he was writing, but that he was the one who was writing this letter to them. And so he says in verse 11 of Galatians 6, I have written with mine own hand." This isn't fake news. This is no spurious document. This has come from my pen. Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand. I don't know if you've got a margin in your Bible, but the margin running down the center of mine indicates that you could well read these words as Paul was writing with large letters, not just how large a letter, but written with what large letters. Maybe the old Greek unsealed type, and that's a kind of a, well, capital letters is what we would do. If we're looking emphasis and trying to stress something and maybe make a line stand out from all other lines in a document we send, we'll put it in capital letters. Or we'll choose today a different font, a more expressive and dynamic font that will stand out from the more regular fonts we have. So we could say Paul is telling us here, because of my poor eyesight, I have a difficulty there, you all realize how hard it is for me to write this kind of epistle. However, What I have to say to you is so vital, it is so urgent that I want to have this letter into your hands as soon as possibly can, and I'm putting it as large as I possibly can make it. This last paragraph in the letter, beginning in verse 11, Going down to the end of the chapter, verse 18, is really Paul's parting salvo against the false teachers that were in Galatia, those Judaizers that we've heard a lot about on our way through this book. Paul is highlighting here the huge difference between his preaching and their falsehoods, and he's bringing the people back to what is the central core of the gospel of the grace of God. Some who were here this morning may be able to catch in their thought processes somewhere around the year 1992 when there was a presidential election in America. Bill Clinton was challenging George H. W. Bush. Clinton took a tagline and he pulled it right through the whole length of that presidential campaign. It got traction and it profoundly damaged President Bush. Clinton's campaign line was this, it's the economy, stupid. What's this election about? Any of the interviews going forward, presidential debates, I don't care about what you say on the war, and about this, and about that, and about the other thing. It's the economy, stupid. That was the core of the election, manufactured by Bill Clinton. And of course, he was well aware, as we are well aware, that most people, when they come to a vote, they like to vote about the economy, and Clinton focused on that, and it caught the imagination of the people, and many people kept repeating it. Paul, in bringing this letter to the Galatians to a close, zeroes right back in on the primary focus of the entire epistle. He wraps up the letter with a paragraph that in many ways summarizes all that he has said up until this point. What do you churches in Galatia need to know as I sign off this letter? Time and again he's reminding them, I brought you face to face with the grace of God as your only hope of salvation. I have taught, I have exhorted, I have warned, I have pleaded. Now this is an emergency letter. written under great pressure to a church that was in danger of leaving Christ altogether. So as I sign off this letter, what is true Christianity all about? And Paul concludes, It is all about the cross. When you boil down essential Christianity to its bare basic element, this is what you come to. It is a message of the cross, which is why we have 1 Corinthians 1 and 23 emblazoned over our pulpit area. we preach Christ crucified. It's why Isaac Watts came up with that significant hymn, when I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died. My richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast save in the cross. Of Christ my God, all the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood. The cross of Christ, it is the core of the book. Galatians is the gospel of grace. But think of the enmity. The enemies are the enmity. against this glorying in the cross. Look at verse 12 and 13 as well. As many as desire to make a fair show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised, only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. Verse 13, for neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. Paul is saying these Judaizers, false teachers, they're bringing to you this spurious, man-made message of salvation, not only by grace, but by works added into the mix. And that's contradicting God's pure gospel of salvation by grace alone. In terms of their message here, these two approaches to salvation are the only ones that exist in all the world, are the only two forms of religion man has ever known. There is grace, faith, spirit religion, Bible Christianity, and there is law and works and flesh, religion, that sweeps every other category and every other religious brand up into the one lump. God's way is a way of grace, enabling man to turn from his sin and turn only to Christ. All other ways all other religious labels, no matter how different they appear to be from one another on the surface, they are all just man's attempt to gain salvation by the fleshly works of the law. One preacher said, it is as if on the market shelf of world religions. There are hundreds of attractive packages with a great range of shapes and sizes and labels and claims and prices, but inside all of them is the same tasteless, nutritionless, sawdust of works righteousness. Standing alone unattractive, repulsive to the natural man is the gospel, which alone contains real food." You see, God's way is the way of divine accomplishment. All other ways rely on human achievement. And those who follow the religion of divine accomplishment say, I can't do anything through my own power or looking to my own goodness. I simply and only can throw myself on the mercy of God in Christ, trusting in that all-sufficient sacrifice that Jesus made for my sins. We say, as the hymn writer did, for nothing good have I. were by thy grace to claim, I'll wash my garments white only in the blood of Calvary's lamb. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow. But those who were stumbling along on the path of human achievement, no matter how varied the outer label might be on the tin, they are saying, on my own merit, Through my own power, I can make myself acceptable to God and worthy of a place in His heaven." Paul's opposed to that message. But it's not only their message that Paul identifies them by as enemies of the gospel of grace. He sees them in rebellion against the cross of Christ in terms of their motivation, not only their message, but in terms of their motivation. Verse 12 and 13 again, as many as desire to make affairs show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised, only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh." He's saying, and we can see it there, you are motivated by pride. These people are braggarts. They desire to make a fair show, and they're not only braggarts, they are bullies. They constrain you to be circumcised. They're putting pressure on you to come their path. They weren't concerned with pleasing God by the display of inward holiness lived out in regular society, but they were concerned about impressing other men by just their outward performances. It didn't matter what was going on in the heart. And our Lord repeatedly warns against these displays of religious pride. Think of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through to Matthew 7. Take one example, Matthew 6 into verse 1. He says, "'Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them. Otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in heaven.'" And He goes on and He extrapolates His point, and He brings it out into the realm of praying, don't be doing it. so that you can catch the public gaze. Fasting, don't be doing it to a public audience so that you can gain their applause. And again in Luke 16, verse 14 and 15, our Lord says, "'Ye are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts.'" No matter how many claims it makes to be Christian, No matter how much it tries to be bona fide biblical religion, no religion that depends on man's flesh and promotes religious pride has any part in Christ. Christ accomplished a perfect and complete work on Calvary. No act, no ritual, no ceremony, no deprivation of the body, no self-inflicted sacrifice can add the smallest value to what Jesus has done. It's pride. Another motivating factor with them, he saw it as being cowardice. Cowardice. They were terrified of being persecuted, of paying a price. Only, he says, in verse 12, lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. Oh, we're not going to line up with Jesus Christ and self-identify as one of His disciples and get into the front line and cop some of the bullets coming in from the enemy. We are not going to take any persecution or pay any price. They were happy, as many are today, to use Jesus' name and to come along and trot into the pews of the church and all the rest of it, only if that doesn't impact upon their material welfare, and only if that doesn't dent their fleshly egos. They don't want the offense of the cross. And Paul says about these persons in Philippians 3 and 18, they are actually enemies of the cross of Christ. This book of Galatians has been called the crucifixion epistle. That's because you'll find the cross or crucifixion directly mentioned seven times. Chapter 2 and 20, 3 and 1, 5, 11, 5 and 24, 6 and 12, 6 and 14, twice over there, the crucifixion epistle. But it's especially because the great theme of the epistle, which is God's redemptive purpose and God's grace, is mediated to man only through the cross of Christ. And when we talk about the cross today, We're not talking about pieces of wood attached together in whatever fashion. We're talking about the work that our Savior accomplished by His death on Calvary. And this offense of the cross, it doesn't come from the fact merely that Jesus hangs there as a common criminal in the eyes of the loam, but it comes, this offense, through this fact, in that crosswork We see the truth of the substitutionary atonement. And what does that do? Jesus dying for me, it squeezes my works out. It squeezes my pride out. It doesn't give room for my status. It doesn't give room for my achievement. It doesn't confer honor or glory on me. It takes it all away, gives it all to Him. So Paul says in terms of motivation, They were full of pride and cowardice and hypocrisy, because you'll notice that he says here very clearly in verse 13, "'For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.'" In other words, they're taking you down a path that they are not willing to walk. They won't perfectly fulfill the law, but they're pressing on you to do the very thing they won't do. It's a sham. It's pretense. It's hypocrisy. And do you know something? Hypocrisy is never more easy or more dangerous than in the Lord's work. And nowhere does hypocrisy arouse His wrath more intensely than when it's practiced in His name. That's why He reserved all of those censures for the Pharisees. You read down the whole chapter in Matthew chapter 23, and He's telling us, don't be a hypocrite. Don't have alternatives. to the cross. So we have the enmity against this glorying in the cross. But then coming to 14 and coming to verse 15, you have the explanation of this glorying in the cross, the explanation But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," verse 14, "...by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." His only boast was in the cross of Christ, in Christ crucified. Now think of that for a moment. The cross was the Roman instrument of execution. So, to update the language, imagine we were saying, I boast, I glory, I take joy in the electric chair. I boast in a syringe. I boast in a hangman's noose. I boast in a guillotine. Other methods of execution. The second century piece of graffiti. now housed in the Carcharion Museum in the city of Rome, was discovered on the Palatine Hill in Rome, and this graffiti had a cartoon-like figure of a man being crucified. The man had the head of a donkey. Underneath were the words, Arx Aminos Cubete Theon. Latin means arximinos, worships God. It's a cartoon, a caricature, it's mockery. It was a second century way of saying that somebody who worships a crucified man like Jesus Christ, that man is a donkey. He's a fool for doing that. Now aren't there plenty of people who today think exactly that? But Paul looks to the exclusiveness of this cross. For him, there is only one thing worthy of his first focus, but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. I don't care what the world says. I don't worry about its caricatures. I don't care about its cartoons. I can take all of its criticism. To me, nothing else matters. My family background, my religious heritage, my education, even my morality that other people can talk about, that's nothing compared with the glory of knowing Jesus personally. Where's your boast today? Is your boast centered on money, education, family pedigree or line? good connections, winsome personality, the ability you have to get things done, your good exam records, your popularity with powerful people, building in society, your portfolio, your family, your children, your personal achievements, even your good looks. The list is endless. It could go on and on. But Paul's list is single, one thing. It's exclusive, only in Christ's cross. will I ever make my boast. But God forbid that I should glory seethe in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." In 1825, John Bowering watched as the morning light bathed a cross, standing in the middle of a lot of dilapidated buildings near the entrance to the harbor at Hong Kong. Later he wrote the words of a hymn that we have in our hymn book and we still sing today. In the cross of Christ I glory, touring over the wrecks of time, all the light of sacred story gathers round its head sublime. Little wonder the great Baptist preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, found a special appeal coming from Galatians 6 and verse 14, and he has several different sermons that he preached from this text, and one is entitled, The Cross, Our Glory. It was the climax of our Savior's life. Of course, He would be subsequently resurrected, but the cross was the climax of His life. He had come to die. It was for this reason that he was in the world. His whole life had been one act of obedience unto his Father that culminated in him laying down his life. Remember what Paul wrote in Philippians chapter 2. Verse 5, "'Let this mind be in you,' which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the like And then Paul goes on, charting this downward trajectory that our Savior took in His path here on earth. Philippians 2 and 8, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And what Paul is emphasizing there is this, that our Lord kept on humbling Himself until He reached the point of death, until He arrived at the cross. It was always His focus. Others were saying, don't be going near Jerusalem, it's too dangerous. Jesus said, Matthew 16, 21, I must go to Jerusalem. In Luke 12 and 50, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and high am I straightened until it be accomplished. And he's speaking again of the cross. But how do you glory in it? How can you boast about this? Isn't it something we'd rather run away from? Well, Paul ran to it because simply he had a doctrine. of the cross. He understood the cross. It meant redemption and other essential things for Him, the exclusiveness of it, the essentials in it. But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." What's he saying? The cross redeems. It propitiates. Verse 15, this circumcision. There was always the talk of the false teachers, the Judaizers. It's a reliance on the flesh. It has no valuing for salvation. But the cross deals with the problem, the problem of the sin of man over against the holiness of God. degree of issue, that the wrath of God is targeting us because we are sinners in defiance of His authority and way. But on that cross, the unmitigated wrath of God descends upon His Son instead of us. The wrath of God that was my due upon God's Lamb was led. and by the shedding of His blood for me the debt is paid." This cross has power to make a man or a woman a new creature in Christ Jesus, and that's what Paul is saying is the vital thing here. It's not circumcision. It's not uncircumcision. That's not where the discussion is. That's not the key thing. It is, end of verse 15, a new creature. That's what it produces. We've got Nicodemus coming for that midnight or nighttime interview with Jesus, and our Lord addresses him very straightly. In John 3, in verse 3, I accept a man be born again. He says to this religious man, accept a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. This whole life that you're living, it can't simply be remodeled. Man needs regenerated, an entirely new life, a new birth, a new creation. I glory in the cross, Paul says, because it propitiates. My sin, though red like crimson, can never rise up again and be an obstacle to fellowship between myself and God. Not only does it regenerate here, it reconciles, it pardons. God the Father looks to what His Son has done, hanging as a substitute, dying as a sin-bearer in my place, and because of what His Son has done for me. reconciles God to me. It rescues. It prioritizes. God forbid that I should glory save on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. What's Paul saying? The world's crucified unto me. I'm set at liberty now through this cross. set at liberty from slavishly following the world's evil and its emptiness. Paul's saying here, you know, the world can offer me nothing, nothing of value in comparison to what I get at the cross. He's not saying I can't look at anything that's beautiful in scenery and everything else and see transparently the glory of God. He's not saying I can't appreciate items like music and art and architecture and all the rest of it. That's not what he's saying. What he is saying is what the preacher said back in the book of Ecclesiastes, life under the sun, life without God, it's vanity, it's emptiness, it is hopelessness. The creature, Paul says in Romans 8 and 20, was made subject to vanity. Jesus questions, Mark 8 36, what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? And you know, this morning it's time for some maths that we should engage in. Put it like this. Here's the scenario. You have the world. You've everything now, everything you've ever dreamed of, but you don't have Jesus. What have you got? Nothing. Nothing. Do the maths again. You have Jesus, but precious little else, even nothing else. What have you got? Everything. You've got everything if you've got Christ. You spend your minutes and hours and days and months and years, and all you're doing is really envying the world and the people enmeshed within the world and what it's got, and you're striving and you're struggling and you're planning and you're scheming with all of your energies just to be like the rest of all the world around you. That's foolish. I say that because the Bible says that. What profit will you have if somehow, someway you should win the whole world and lose Christ? You will have gained nothing, and you will have lost everything. The world is crucified unto Me." And notice that next phrase in Galatians 6.14, and I unto the world. That could speak of his consecration, I'm dying to the world. It may have more to do with criticism rather than consecration, more to do with what the world thinks of Paul than what he thinks of the world. Well, just answer that question for a moment. What did the world think of Paul? Oh, here's an incredibly intelligent man with a type A personality. He's a real go-getter. He can really stir a crowd. Just look at him in action. This man, Paul, could really have been anything that he wanted to be in the world. What did the world think of him now, though, now that he had sold out to Christ? The world treated him as somebody who himself was crucified, as, in their eyes, a non-entity. as unimportant." And I'm sure some of them walked away having heard him in full flow and thought, what a waste. That man could have gone places. And that's what the world will say of you if you don't climb up its ladder. What a waste. But that's not how Paul viewed it. The hymn writer, I think, sums it up, I had nothing but heartaches and troubles. I was seeking for fortune and fame. I had nothing but doubts and confusions, but now I have everything. I was making big plans for my future. I was living in sin and my life in vain. Then I prayed for my life's only meaning. And now I have everything. I have everything I need to make me happy. I have Jesus to show me the way. He has saved me and gave me life eternal, and now I have everything. I am happy that the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. The enmity against this glorying in the cross, the explanation of this glorying in the cross, And briefly and finally, the effects from this glorying in the cross, the effects from. There's a negative. There are positives as well, but one negative, if you view it as that, is in Galatians 6.17, it is buffeting. Paul is saying, from henceforth, let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. He's saying, you know, you Judaizers, false teachers, you can take your little circumcision club and you can go somewhere else. Don't bother me anymore! Don't bother these churches anymore! You like to make marks on the body and call yourself holy. Here are my marks. See my scars. Look where I was beaten. Here's where I was scourged. I got these marks when I was stoned and left for dead." Can you imagine for a moment Paul, the apostle, on a church excursion, and he head for the coast? And maybe the teenagers are saying, Paul, come on in, into the water here, let's go swimming. You know, no jellyfish here today, blue warm water, let's go for a swim. And Paul takes off his shirt and there are gasps from those teenage men of horror. because they look at His back, and there's the evidence of thirty-nine lashes on several occasions that have etched deep scars into the tissues and the muscles of His back. I bear in my body, He says, the marks of the Lord Jesus. I'm happy to go where the false teachers will never go, and I will pay the price of persecution that they will never pay. But there's more to consider. The word marks was sometimes used for that line that was put on a slave's body, that brand to show that he belonged to somebody else. Pole scarves could be interpreted that way. They were the marks of divine ownership, that he belonged to Christ. Where are your marks today? Is it clear to the world as it looks on that you were a child of God, sold out to Him? There was that negative buffeting, but then there were blessings in verse 16 and verse 18 of Galatians 6, and as many as walk according to this rule, verse 16, peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God, this word rule. It actually launches right back to the opening sentences today when we talked about how many books are in the Bible, canon, how many gospels, canon being the measurement or the rule. The word rule here is canon in Greek. It has the basic idea of measurement, points out a principle, points to a standard, something you measure by. Those who walk according to this rule, that is those who accept the gospel of divine accomplishment through Christ's sacrifice on the cross, who walk by faith in the power of the Spirit rather than through the energy or the iniquity of the flesh, that's the rule. Am I glorifying the Lord? Am I making much of Calvary walking by this rule? Am I telling others? there is peace on them and mercy. We were telling people at the tour yesterday, and the tour went extremely well, maybe 50 or 60 people in, many from the locality, telling the story about Bishop John Taylor Smith, and he had become the chaplain general of His Majesty's forces in World War I. He had counsel for chaplains. He said to them, here's what I want you men to tell, Because there are men dying in the field of battle that need to hear about Christ and need peace within their heart before they launch out into eternity. Tell of His birth at Bethlehem, Emmanuel, God with us. Tell of His death at Calvary, God for us. Tell of His heavenly gift at Pentecost, God in us. And there was an applicant one day, and he came, and he wanted to be a chaplain in His Majesty's forces, serve overseas. He came into the chaplain's office, made his application. Bishop Taylor Smith looked at him narrowly, pulled out his pocket watch, and he said to him, I'm a soldier dying in the field of battle. I have three minutes to live. What message have you for a dying man? And he could produce nothing at the end of three minutes, only fumble in his pocket for a book of common prayer. The bishop says, no, not that. And he said, I would tell him of Christ crucified, because that's the only message a dying man needs to hear. And you and I, we may not be sprawled out with life ebbing away in the field of battle, but we are dying men and dying women. And here's the message we need to hear. Glory in the cross, where it brings peace. Galatians 6.16, as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, brings mercy as well, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God, peace, the new relationship a believer has with God, mercy, the removal of his sins, peace, the positive side of salvation, if you want to put it like that, that establishing of that right relationship with God, mercy, more the negative side, the forgiving, the blotting out of the believer's sin, the removing of him, from under judgment, and grace as well. Notice that put in again in verse 18, "'Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Here are the blessings, peace and mercy and grace.'" And Paul is hammering home the same message right to the end of the epistle, the necessity of God's grace. Everything God will ever do for us, is on the basis of grace, is because of the cross that stirs us up to say, forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the cross of Christ my God, all the being things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood. Or as sometimes we tag on to a medley of hymns and choruses that we sing here, Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah for the cross. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. It will never suffer loss. This is the critical core to glory only in the cross. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before Thee. We thank you for Paul's repeated emphasis, for how he signs off with his own hand on this epistle, and how he brings the people back again to the cross. Help us, Lord, if we do nothing else with our lives, we can do nothing better than this, to point sinners to the crosswork of Jesus Christ May that be our ambition. May that be our action, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.