If you would open your Bibles to Galatians chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6, I'm going to begin with verse 11. 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 might not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Verse 16. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. For 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. Let's pray. If you want to voice a prayer, please do that, and I will close this in a moment. Father, we're thankful for your word this morning. You know that that we come to you empty-handed. We don't bring anything to the table in terms of our own salvation or even our own ability to understand the word. We come relying on your spirit and we ask that you would help us this morning. God, we know that that you are truly our Savior in all senses of that. And we thank you for that. We pray you'd give us the ability to glory in that and to boast in that. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. So Lord willing, we may finish the book this morning. I'm not sure what I'm going to do after that. I know that in not too long, Ron is going to be gone. He's going to go visit Tracy and Lindsay and the kids. And so I may be preaching some during Sunday morning. I may swap off with other folks sometimes during Sunday school. So I think At this point, what may happen is that I'm going to pick, do some topical things for the next several weeks. And then we'll probably end up when that's done in another Old Testament book. That would be my guess. begin with verse 11, see with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. I had always taken this as Paul, and this still may be the way it is, that Paul had had a scribe for his letters that he dictated the letter to and that at this point in the letter when he wants to finish it off he begins to write himself and that may be the way it is but I read another interpretation on it that I should share with you because it's one I hadn't thought of before. What he may be saying here also is that if you look at this whole letter, the whole of Galatians, you would be able to see that I wrote all of it with my own hand. Which for whatever reason, probably Paul's eyesight was certainly because of some physical ailments that he had, particularly diseases that he suffered, those types of things. But also we see in the last verse, the persecution by this point in his life that he had undergone was significant. And the body will only take so much of those things before it starts to break down and not work as well. And Paul, at this point, for whatever reason is going on here, he is writing very large letters. And apparently it's distinctive. You can tell when he's writing because he has to write bigger than everyone else. I identify with that. I don't hand-write unless I absolutely have to. And if I do, if you've ever seen it, you will know it's me. Whether or not you can read it or not is another thing. But you will know that it's mine. I have a specific kind of handwriting that comes on. And what he seems to be communicating here is, look, I care enough about all of this. I care enough that you understand that it is not in the external following of the law that people are saved. It's not because you look a certain way. It's not because you follow a certain set of rules. It's not because you are part of a certain group. None of those things are the things that save you. And it comes back down to what we've said over and over again, which is, God is holy, and I am not, and therefore I need to be rescued. And I don't have a part in my rescue. I can't rescue myself. And that's what this whole thing is about. Paul takes that seriously enough that he wants them to understand that it is he who is saying these things. And so in verse 12, he talks about these false teachers again. And he says, it is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised so that they might not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. That may be a little bit hard to get a hold of but let me try to help with it. For the most part false teachers are not interested in persecution. So what Paul is saying is false teachers will give you something to cling to for your salvation that is an acceptable thing to the rest of the world. Morality, some religion, even odd or eccentric religious practices are things that by and large the world is not going to kick against that much, right? They may think it's weird. They may think it's odd. Generally, though, even in some of the most liberal of people, a certain type of morality has to be acknowledged in order so that we can have a society at all. And so they will agree that we need that. And if religion, to some degree, provides that, then they're okay with it. What they are not okay with is a gospel that says, on the one hand, when a person is very liberal, who says, no, there is only one way, and the way is Jesus Christ, and there are no other ways, right? So on the liberal side of that, on the liberal side of thinking, that's the problem. On the conservative side of thinking, which is where perhaps a lot of us sitting here this morning are, it looks like this. It doesn't matter if you are a good moral person, and it doesn't matter if you've got all your ducks in a row and your life looks good. You are in the same boat as the person who has the liberal kind of thinking, apart from the gospel. That drives people who think in a conservative way nuts. And therefore the gospel itself is offensive. And so what these false teachers are doing. Is there taking the spotlight off of the cross of Jesus Christ off of the gospel itself. And that's what false teachers do. The gospel itself is the thing that's unpalatable unpalatable to men and women. That is the thing that we. Are flesh cringes against. So the false teacher what that false teacher will do is take the spotlight off of that cross and what it means. and put it on something else. And in this case, external things. The external right of circumcision for these folks. And in Christianity, it can be a lot of different things that they put that spotlight on. We are the group that doesn't drink. We're the group that goes to church on Saturday because we have found in the scriptures that going to church on Saturday is the really the right way to do things. And if you don't go to church on Saturday, then there's something wrong with you. We are the church that we sing only hymns. We're the church that doesn't sing any hymns. We are the... I mean, it goes on and on and on and on, different situations. But what it all does is it takes the focus off of the gospel and off of Christ, and it puts it on some external thing. And when you do that, you're not a threat to the world any longer. You're not saying things that the world really cares all that much about and so therefore you're not going to be persecuted Jesus was not persecuted because of his moral stances on things He was persecuted because he said it was God. Not only that, he said that the religion of the day was wrong and that people who had spent their lives supposedly trying to know God really did not know him. You want to be persecuted, that's where you go. So they're ducking persecution for the cross of Christ verse 13 says for even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law. But they desire to have you circumcised that they might boast in your flesh. This is Paul's part of his last appeal before the end of the letter. And he says, look, it doesn't make sense that this external thing is going to make you right with God, because whatever external thing that we're looking at in this case, it's circumcision. But whatever it is, it still doesn't mean that you meet that standard of holiness with which every person that comes into contact with God must meet. You don't meet that. And circumcision or this external thing doesn't get you there. It doesn't make that happen. And so what he's saying is, look, and he summarized this about a chapter ago, he said, the law summarized in this that you love your neighbor as yourself. Loving your neighbor as yourself is an internal thing that results in external action. But religious practices and rule keeping such a circumcision don't get us there. And this is what he's saying. Look you're not going to be he's trying to he's trying to to hammer this one last time. You are not going to be any more acceptable to God if you do this. It's not going to change anything. OK. Now, we don't think like that. We tend to view victories in the Christian life, oftentimes we tend to view victories in the Christian life as behavioral changes, external changes. And the reality is they can be. but they're only progress if an internal change that has happened first. If something internal has occurred first. An external change in and of itself may be indicative of something that's good that's going on on the inside, but it may not. And let me give you an example so that you understand. We think, oftentimes, that people who would be willing to go to foreign lands, even dangerous places, in order to preach the gospel, that those people are probably some of the more spiritual, mature Christians among us. And so they should be. But let me remind you that there are groups and organizations that have nothing to do with Christianity that send people to very dangerous places to provide relief and aid to those places. So, do you have to have Christ to go and risk your life to go and help somebody? Well, ask the Peace Corps, if they do. You see, it's not the external. Because in most cases, I can find someone who is more moral than you are, who may not have anything to do with Christ. And I hear these statistics all the time, and they bear thinking about, obviously. You know, you hear the divorce statistics about the so-called church and the adultery statistics and those things. And we should think about those things. I'm not saying that they're irrelevant. But the problem is that a lot of times the way those things are talked about is like this. Well, we need to work harder. We need to teach better. No, what we're looking at is not that someone hasn't been taught that divorce or adultery or whatever it is is a bad thing. What we're looking at is that we've got a bunch of people who have not been saved. They've not been regenerated in general. Right. So what happens is is then we're saying, well, we just need to modify that behavior so it doesn't look that way in the church. That's not the issue. We're always, and we're bad about this, we're always looking at the external. We're always looking at the external. That's the thing. So. The people who are circumcised themselves don't keep the law. They're not acceptable to God. So then what's the purpose in your being circumcised in their mind? So that they can boast in your flesh. I am a great servant of God. If I can form a group of people that think and act like I act and think. That's what these false teachers are doing, and generally that's what a false teacher will do. They want to gather a group of people who think thoughts and act in actions the same way that they do. That's the thing. So that they can say, look at what great servants of God we are. We have created a legion of robots that look and act like I do. And I have taught them that this is how you're going to be saved. This is how you're going to be acceptable to God. And because of that, they are, I can boast like the Pharisee did with the tax collector. Look at me, God. Look at what I have done for your kingdom. Look at all of these people. Notice how people central all of this false teaching thing that we've gone through is. The gospel itself is centered on people in a sense, but it is primarily, first of all, centered around God. You can usually tell in your own life, and in someone else's teaching, if you listen to them carefully and pay attention, and don't just suck down everything that somebody gives you, you can usually tell whether or not that person, at least over a period of time, is more interested in themselves, and in people being like them, and in what God can do for people. rather than in God himself and his glory and his character. And you can tell by listening, and you want to listen for that. You want to listen for that. Now, one sermon might not be enough as a guy hits a topic on a specific thing. But over the life of reading this guy and listening to him, over several times, you should be able to tell where his focus is. And if we boil that down, then you should be able to tell where it is in your own life as well. Do I do this Christianity thing predominantly because of the benefit that I derive from it? That's the issue. When in reality, what should be happening is that my heart has been so changed that I don't, it's not that I think so much about, well, I don't need to derive benefit and it just doesn't need to be about me. It's not that, it's that I don't think about me at all. I'm so captured by the glory and the majesty of Christ that me doesn't enter into it much. That's the thing. So they're boasting. They want to boast in these people's flesh, these converts that they've gotten. Paul says in verse 14, in this classic verse, Far be it from me, God forbid, that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. There's a great deal here But we need to deal with this word boast a little bit more since it's been dealt with already. And what we need to say about the word boast is this. I need to ask myself a question regularly. And the question that I have to ask myself is my identity. Who am I? What makes me who I am? And then another question that goes right along with that is, if I believe that I am saved, if I believe that I have a right relationship with God, why do I believe that? And of course, some of those questions we think, well, those are really easy, and we give sort of the textbook answer that we've been taught. But what I'm talking about is actually looking down deep within ourselves and asking the Lord to help us search our hearts in order to answer that question honestly. Because if the cross is a nice thing, like a piece of jewelry, that is an aid to my salvation, but I still have to change, and I still have to be a certain way, and I still have to engage in certain behaviors and look a certain way, and I have to do this and not do this in order to achieve it, then, number one, I don't have it. And number two, the gospel is not central. Christ is not central in it. It's nice that he did that. We'll accept that. But if my understanding of Christianity is how much I still have to perform in order to be in a right relationship with God, then I don't have Christianity. See, the gospel itself, and then this verse is talking about the cross, and we can use those interchangeably. I'm going to make a statement and then I'll clarify it a little bit. But if you listen closely to it, I think it's correct. If the cross is understood by a person rightly. If the cross is understood by a person rightly. It really only will produce two reactions. Only two. If it is understood rightly. The first reaction that it will produce is that it will be embraced and it will be taken in as a person's identity and love. And it will become the basis more and more for a person's life. Sure. The cross will provide, will provoke two reactions. The cross will provoke two reactions, if it is understood rightly. The first is that a person will embrace it. A person will love it for what it is. It will become the basis for that person's life. Yes, right at first, but over time, as they come to know it more. See, in the Christian life, this is an aside now, so I'm going to get to the second person, but this is an aside now, but just to help you with the understanding of the first way that a person takes the cross, if it's understood rightly, is this. When you're first saved, sometimes you think that that cross is huge, right? Sometimes you think that cross is, like, huge, and you're all excited, and you're giddy, and those things, and God's doing work, and that's a natural reaction, and it's true, in a sense. But if you really came to Christ at that point in time, what happens is, ten years from that point, that cross is much bigger in terms of the way your life is shaped than it was before. You just didn't understand the depths of who you were apart from it. But as you've lived with the Word of God a little bit of time, and if you've dealt with what that cross actually means and what it costs, that cross becomes all-encompassing. That gospel becomes all-encompassing. So they'll embrace it if it's understood rightly. The second way that a person will respond to the gospel, if it is understood rightly, is that it will be repugnant to them, and they will hate it. Now, I keep saying, if it is understood rightly, And you got to hold on to that peace. Because in your mind, you're running through all of these people who seem to not have the understanding that way. I mean, let me rephrase it. They don't seem to respond to the cross that way. The cross is a nice thing that they do every once in a while. The gospel is a nice thing that they're glad of, but it doesn't seem to impact how they live. And that's why I continue to say, if it is understood rightly, And what do I mean by that? What do I mean by that? Well, it comes back to this boasting thing. And it comes back to our little statement about how God is holy and I'm not and I need to be rescued. I continue to harp on that because the reality is if I boil it all down, that's where it is. But sinful men in their sinful flesh cannot live with that. You understand that? We want to do something. We want to be something. We want to work up to something that would make God come and say, we are good people, and we are worth saving. And this is why I'm in a relationship with you, is because I did this, this, and this. And yes, the cross is nice, but also, I need to do these things. I need to be this way. I need to dress this way. I need to go to these meetings. I need to read these certain books. I need to do all of these things. I've seen it in a lot of different ways. You know, you get in the upper echelons and you sit around and talk with guys. Well, if you want to be a real Christian, you got to read the Puritans, right? If you haven't read the Puritans, you just don't, you're not quite there. Reading the Puritans is helpful, but the Puritans themselves, if God would allow them, would come down here and get you if you looked at their writings that way. They don't. Their whole thing was pointing to that. Look at all God has done for me, and look at what I was unable to do for myself. That's the way they look at it. And we don't want to let go of doing for ourselves. We just don't. Or we may baptize it with some spiritual language, but that's the issue. So understood rightly, we are helpless sinners that must be rescued. People are going to embrace that and live on it or they're going to hate it. This is why the false teachers wouldn't teach it. This is why they had to change it. This is why they had to add circumcision and the Jewish festivals and ceremonies to it because we can add that you can still be part of the group and we can tell who's who. Right. You learn the secret handshake whatever it is. they would change it. No, what is central is not the gospel. It is not that Christ came and became a man to rescue men and women from their sin and he died as a perfect sacrifice and then rose again in order to prove that that sacrifice was sufficient. That's not what's centered on. What's centered on is, hey look, I got the same patch on my shirt that you got. Therefore, we can save ourselves. That's the thing. We all want to have this sense of belonging. Now, when Paul says, I don't boast in anything except the cross, that is what he is saying. The cross has become everything to me. And when he says, I am crucified to the world, and the world has been crucified to me, what does that mean? It doesn't mean what a lot of people take it to mean. So let me work on this a little bit. I've seen little kids sometimes, heard stories about, well, little kids from church, they go to school, and kids doing bad things, and they're not going to participate, and they want them to participate. Well, that's worldly, and we're not of the world. We're not in the world. So you sort of missed the point at that level. It's really easy to turn what Paul is saying in terms of his boasting of the cross being everything and then taking that last little bit about the world and saying oh look there's rules I can keep now. But if you do that you'll miss the point. When Paul says that he is crucified to the world what he means is this. Because of what Christ has done for me, I don't have to care about what they think about me anymore. The only way in which you will have a healthy mindset toward people in the world and their sinfulness and all of those things is in Christ. You can not care what people think about you outside of Christ. People can do that. But if you do it that way, what happens is that you have an apathy and a cynicism and you just get to where you just hate everybody. Right? But in Christ, there can be the real sense that I can actually love someone because I'm not tied to what it is that they think about me. And therefore, I am able to speak into their lives, or not, as the Spirit might lead through the Word, in a right way. Because I don't have to care about what they think. That's being crucified to the world. The other thing about being crucified to the world is this. The cross, the gospel, is so central to my identity that the things that God has given me to enjoy in the world have been redeemed for me so that I might enjoy them. So that when I step out of the door of my work in the afternoon to take a break and I look at the thunderclouds over the mountains I don't think of it as well there's water vapor and there's air and there's electricity and that's what makes that happen. But I think Look, there's the God who gave himself for me. He did that. And it centers itself in the cross. I'm crucified to the world. It's not that I don't do the things that the world does, though certainly that's a part of it, but it's bigger. It's way bigger than just that I don't do the bad things that the world does. It's way bigger than that. I'm crucified to the world and the world is crucified to me because I have been saved from my sins and through that given a relationship with the creator of the universe as his son. And so the world, the things of the world, none of that, the people, it doesn't have the pull on me that it had before. When God chooses to give me things around me that I can enjoy, praise God. When I start to take those things or those people in as my identity, that's sinful because I need to be crucified to those things, right? This is what Paul is saying. And as I said before, it would be a lot more... It would be more simple and more easy if we could just say, well, Christians do these things, and the world does these things, and as long as you're doing these things, then you're doing a good job. Sometimes it kind of starts maybe in that place, but ultimately the issue is it's a matter of internal motivation. It's a matter of regeneration of the heart. God doesn't save people. Listen to this. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. God does not save people so that they can spend their whole lives doing things that they hate. He just doesn't. That wouldn't be much of a salvation. He doesn't save you so that you can not do all of the things that you really, really wanted to do, but you can't because you're a Christian. That's not Christianity. It's an internal motivation. The heart has been changed and it desires things that it did not desire before. So that the gospel of the cross, the personage of God, the Lord Jesus Christ becomes everything. Sometimes some discipline enters into our Christian life, and I recognize that, but as a whole, we need to be able to gauge what we do based on our want-to's rather than our have-to's. Do I read my Bible? Do I pray? Do I come to services? Because I would rather do that than about anything else. Do I talk to people about the Lord Jesus Christ? Not because I have to, but because I love Him first of all, and I love them because He loves them. You see the difference, right? The difference is huge. And that is how the world is crucified to us. You cannot be a minister of the gospel. You cannot be a Christian that is any good for anything if the world is not crucified to you. And that doesn't mean that you don't do all of the bad things that everybody says are bad. It means that your identity is all wrapped up in the Lord Jesus Christ and the world doesn't matter very much. That's what it means. And Paul says, that's the only thing that I can boast in. So again, we'll ask ourselves the question before we move to the latter part of this, what do you boast in? Well, I'm a guitar player. I can stand up in front of people and talk. I have a master's degree. I work in the medical field. I have some mind left, though it's going. Thank you. There are lots of things that I can say that I am that would make up my identity. I am this, I am that. Paul says, the one thing that I'll boast in, the only one thing that brings me joy in the final analysis is that I am his. He has bought me, and I am His. And everything else in the world, I'm perfectly able to play the guitar. If God would choose for me to stand up here and teach, that's fine, I can do that. God wants me to continue working my job, that's good. Scripture speaks to that. All of those things. But everything is informed from that core of my identity. And when it is not, and when I sense that it is not, then that's part of sanctification because that's what we want to get to. Jonathan Edwards wrote a book that's called All Together Lovely. And what he was talking about is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's language that macho men don't use very much. But the reality is this. When I see him as all together lovely, everything that is desirable, When I see Him as that, it will inform how I do everything else. And it becomes who I am. So the negative of this is also true in terms of being crucified to the world. What it means is that if my identity is there, that you can take the other things away from me. And it will not destroy me. It was a time in my life where if I had broke my hand to the degree that it would not operate anymore and I was no longer a musician, it would have taken a big chunk of my identity away from me and that would have caused depression and other problems. I can say today by God's grace, I believe this to be true, that if I never pick up that thing again, I'll be fine. I'll use it as long as that's what it's been giving me to do. At the point at which it's not been giving me to do anymore, then I'll let it go. And that's just one example. But let me tell you something that some of you, perhaps who are a little younger, haven't thought of yet. And it is this. By the time you get to the end of your life, most of those things that you wrapped your identity in are going to be gone anyway. Because if we get old and we can't do stuff like we could do it before, I mean, John's back there. Amen. He's got it. But even me, and I'm a lot younger man still than him, but I can't do the kinds of things I could do when I was 18 years old. I just can't. My elbows are shot. My knees are shot. Even in terms of being a guitar player, my hands hurt. Lots of things like that. They're going to be taken away anyway. So don't wrap yourself up in your ability to be able to have or do these things because you're going to get to the place where you can't. And what's going to be left? That's the thing. Some people wrap their value up in their looks, their ability to manipulate people, their status, their morality. Whatever it is, eventually, those things will be torn down. And this is why Paul boasts in the gospel. He boasts in the cross. Because he who has promised is faithful. And what he says can never be shaken. It doesn't matter who I am, or what I can do, or what I can't do, because he has done it all already. And I want to live there. I want to live there. Verse 15 says, for neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And he just keeps hammering the same thing over and over again. He says something similar in chapter 5 and verse 6. He says circumcision doesn't avail anything. It's faith working itself out through love. He says that, which is just another way of saying this is a new creation. I don't care if I can get the people that I am trying to disciple to be moral, ultimately. Now if they're not, after working with them a while and they make certain truth claims about Christ, then I have to be concerned about that. But I don't care, first of all, if I'm trying to get, if they're moral. Right? I don't care about the externals. We don't disciple people so that they do a bunch of really special things outwardly. A new creature. Right? And you can always tell. Let me help you. You can always tell. We're going to be done shortly. But you can always tell because I've seen this over and over again. The new creature thing. The person who's been changed. You want to know how I tell about that a lot of times? And in my own life. So in my own life and in other people too. New creatures that only boast in the cross are really hard people to offend. You can tell them they're doing wrong things. You can tell them that they need to do something else. You can forget to shake their hand when they come in the door. And they don't get mad and leave and never talk to you again. You can't run these people off with a stick. You can't. Now, God may lead them to some other place, some other fellowship, some other ministry, whatever. That's different. But they don't get offended. Because they're not wrapped up in what you think of them or what other people think of them. It's a new creature. It's a new creature. Paul is saying the external thing is not the thing Now at the same time we know Jesus said that people will be known by their fruit and that external actions are necessary for Christians But we don't get that backwards, right? We don't ever get that backwards It starts with I'm a new creature. I've been changed the heart of stone has been taken out and I've been given a heart of flesh and What happens, let me describe it this way, in salvation is that that heart that was in me that couldn't respond to God, that couldn't understand the things of God, and didn't even want them, what it could get a hold of, it rebelled against. That heart was taken away and a new heart was put within me that can respond to divine stimuli. It can respond to conviction of the Holy Spirit. It can rejoice in the testimonies of the Scripture. Even in the things that it doesn't understand or the things that chafe against it. Even when it finds out that the world is not like they thought it was. And everything is different. When things get turned upside down. When people are not what I thought that they would be. When relationships don't turn out. When finances are not good. When people that I thought were a certain way turn out to be another way. I can't be shaken. Because I've been made a new creature. And the world has been crucified to me. So the external is not the issue. And then Paul ends this little bit in this way. He says, And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. What is he saying? It's interesting that he uses the word rule. What he means is, I think it's almost like a play on words. Right? Here's your rule. You have to be a new creation. That's what he's saying. If you understand that what you do doesn't make you acceptable to God, but what he has done makes you acceptable to God. If you live by that rule, not just in the beginning of your salvation, but all through your life, who I am is based on what he has done and not what I do. My status with the Lord Jesus Christ is based on what he has done and not what I have done. And if you live according to this rule, the result of that will be peace and mercy, regardless of circumstance. And so Paul is just wishing this for them. And he is saying, upon the Israel of God, and what that means is that, we won't develop it now, most of you know this, but those who approach God in faith are all children of Abraham. And that's what he's saying. Let me be clear with one more thing before I deal with the rest of this and it is this. Sometimes I think there is a category in some of our minds for people who hang around the church or maybe don't but claim to know Christ. and know some Bible and some things and there's a category that we have for those folks in our minds that are not where they need to be but still Christians, right? Well, we can't judge people's hearts and would be the first to say that we need to be careful about that. But on the other hand, If you spend very much time with someone, you have to begin to see what their motivation in life is. You have to. I have been around people who encouraged me in the faith because of their walk. and because of that new creation thing, and because their boast seems to be in the cross, and that helps me, that encourages me, and that inspires me. And I have been around some who would rather talk about football, or mechanics, or those things, and not that those things are inherently wrong, but if they are the sum total of our conversations, and I have to force them into a conversation about Christ, or if someone has to force me into that, that's a heart problem, right? There was a famous theologian who said, and maybe this is overstated, but it wouldn't help, that every conversation that does not have Jesus Christ as its center is absolutely crazy. doesn't make any sense. What does that mean? Does that mean, well, we always have to have the name Jesus Christ in it? No, it doesn't mean that. It means that this is the focus of it. This is the bent of where I'm going. So if I'm changing the water pump on my car, there are several different attitudes with which I can approach that. Thank you, Lord, that I had the money to buy the water pump. Thank you, Lord, these bolts are coming loose. Lord, this one is not, and I could really use some help here. And if it doesn't come out, I'm going to trust you anyway, and I'm going to pray, and maybe I can get a brother to come help me. All of these ways. Or I can say, stupid car, stupid water pump, poor me. I don't understand why it is that I have to deal with all of this garbage all of the time. It's just a waste of my precious time when I could be sitting on my duff, on my couch, not doing anything. Do you see the difference? Right? I tried to draw that line as hard and fast as I could draw it because that's the difference. Wherever God has placed you, you don't have to worry about it because Christ has died and he has risen and you are his child and so therefore it doesn't matter because the world is dead. And the water pump is just a thing and a month from now nobody's gonna remember. Okay. 17. For now, I'll let no one cause me trouble, for I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. Unlike the false teachers, Paul taught the true gospel, and it cost him. And it cost him. Physically cost him. And what he is saying to these people is, when you compare me with this message that these false teachers are giving you, understand that I'm the one with the scars. Let me carry this forward for you since most of you haven't been beaten up for Christ that I am aware of. But there's more to it than even that. I can say even in my limited experience with the gospel, and in dealing with people both inside and outside the church, and family and all sorts of things. There are scars. There are scars. They inform how you walk with Christ. If the gospel, see we always talk about it making us comfortable or not comfortable and that's a good discussion to have, but when it doesn't make you comfortable and when you follow that thing to the end, you can get beat up sometimes, right? In fact, a lot of times, I'll just be honest with you, a lot of times. Because this doesn't work a lot of the time, right? You go to somebody and you say, look, Christ is wonderful, can't you see it? And they say, no. And you say, look, Christ is great, can't you see it? He's saved for your sins. You say, I'm not a sinner, I'm a good person. And then pretty soon the relationships cut off and they start saying bad things about you. And they tell other people who you care about what a bad person you are. And pretty soon there's a scar there. And are we going to walk with Christ or are we not? You will bear some of that and more and more as you live this life. You will not come out unscathed. Paul didn't in a physical way and you may be called to deal with it in a physical way. But I can certainly tell you in terms of your emotional well-being and in terms of your mind and in terms of relationships you cannot come out of this unscathed if you're talking about the true gospel. It costs. Paul uses the analogy in another place about being a fighter, about being a soldier, about being a farmer. If you engage in those occupations, let me just tell you from the little that I have engaged in some of those things or known people that have, you come out of those things with marks, right? Cut up, calloused hands, sore backs, bad knees. and a mind that's bent in a certain direction. And that's what happens with the gospel. And that's all Paul's saying. If this was just some frilly thing where let's all come join this religious crowd, that won't cost you anything and there won't be any scars for that. But if it's throughout the true gospel, you'll take the marks for that. And there are blessed marks. Every one of them, when you hold it up, when you see it after it happens, it's almost like a trophy of grace. God, you worked me through this situation and this is what happened and you got glory and I've got this mark and I thank you for this mark and I wouldn't ask you to take it away from me because this mark reminds me every time that I look at this bad situation or good situation or good situation that turned bad that you are gracious and you are kind and you are wonderful and you are altogether loving and that you are holy and I'm not and you rescued me. Paul ends his letter just like he starts it. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirits, brother. Amen. And even in his closing, he uses the word grace. to remind them that the power of God in his unmerited favor is the thing that makes us acceptable to God and not anything that we could do. And to walk in grace means that I'm constantly sensible of that fact. And that not only am I constantly sensible of that fact, but that I love it. And he is reminding them, again, Grace be with your spirit. Walk in grace. Let all this other stuff go. Don't get carried away with this worldly religious stuff. So we'll end Galatians and we'll pray. Lord, we thank you this morning that the work of our redemption and the sense in which we have been made a new creation in Christ is because of what Christ has done and not because of anything that we could have done. And we pray now that you would work in our minds and our hearts so that Your grace would be the thing that we value in the gospel. That it would define us as people. That then we would be free to let go of the worldly entanglements about what people think of us or our status, but we could just cling to that. Lord, I thank you for that birthright that you gave your children. And I pray that none would come and steal it from us. That you would give us discernment. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.