Today I wanted to draw, not quite
to a close, but nearly to a close, this book of Galatians. As I
get to the end of these books I feel like I'm leaving a close
friend and someone with whom I've become remarkably familiar. I love the way it finishes and
I think in some of these verses here are some of the most comforting
words. in all of Scripture. Paul had
great confidence, didn't he? He had great confidence in the
God that we sang about, the Eternal God, the Sovereign God, the God
who is a just God and a Saviour. Some remarkable words that I
saw this week, listened to and then studied at some length from
a sermon from Maurice Montgomery in this last Less than 12 months,
Maurice Montgomery has died and now Cody has died and Rupert
Reibenbach is no longer able to preach, he's so infirm. It's just, and it's been something
that weighs heavily on my heart that the Lord seems in such a
small group to have taken so many. And I often think that
Eglof has the best preparation for church of any of us. He goes to the cemetery and spends
a couple of hours or so in the cemetery before he comes. It's
a good thing to think about, isn't it? This life is but for
a little while. And we have a great and sovereign
God to proclaim, and we rejoice with our brothers and sisters
around the world who proclaim a God who is absolutely sovereign
and absolutely just and has, in the Lord Jesus Christ, finished
the work. What a great, great truth that
last hymn had in it, isn't it? Because the sinless Saviour died,
my sinful soul is counted free, for God the just is satisfied
to look on Him and pardon me." The world is very happy to hear
about a Jesus who does all sorts of good things. One of the things
that I picked up from this message of Maurice Montgomery is in John,
Mark Matthew 11, John's John and the Baptist disciples go
back, are sent by John to the Lord Jesus, and they have a question. Are they he that should come
or do we look for another? Matthew 11 verse 3. And Jesus answered. His answer
is remarkable. And I think we need to be mindful
that our friend John was doing at the end of his days, what
he began his ministry with, is that they heard John and they
followed Jesus. I'm not for one moment thinking
that John was then doubting. He was wanting these disciples
who were still clinging to him to go and see the Saviour that
John had borne witness to. He was full of the Spirit from
his mother's womb, John the Baptist. But Jesus answered. and said
unto them, verse 4, Go and show John again those things which
you do hear and see. And he said, the blind receive
their sight, and the lame walk, and the lepers are cleansed,
and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have
the gospel preached to them. And then the Lord Jesus says
these remarkable words in verse 6. He said, blessed is he whosoever
shall not be offended in me. It's remarkable, isn't it? You'd
never be offended by someone who cured the blind. Made the
lame walk. Cleansed the lepers. What was
the offence? The offence of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The offence of the cross that
Paul had spoken about earlier in Galatians that we are looking
at. The offence of the Lord Jesus is his declaration of who he
is. God is what he claimed to be and God is what he was. He was killed, not because of
his good deeds, he was killed because of who he claimed to
be. You, as they said, a mere man, make yourself out to be
God. How extraordinarily inverted
religious people get things, isn't it? You, a mere man, make
yourself out to be God. The reality was that he was God. who had made himself a man. He was always God, always sovereign,
always in charge. That's why the Gospel, the Gospel
that Paul preached, is a Gospel that's offensive to religious
people. But blessed be the Lord. There are chosen people in this
world who will find not only the works of the Lord Jesus glorious,
but they'll find what even makes them more glorious is that they
bear witness to who He is. They bear witness to the fact
that our great God speaks and reality comes into existence. Reality is what He says it is. And that's ultimately the hope
of all of God's children, isn't it? Our great hope is that God
speaks and He speaks reality into existence, that our God
has a will and a purpose and His will and purpose are done
always, in every event, at every moment of time, with everyone
in this creation. We are in His hands and the saints
of God love it that way. And of course the saints of God
love the work of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. We delight that on the cross in Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
you then see their and their best of all in all of creation,
all of the attributes, all of the glory of God shines on that
one particular moment in history. We see the holiness of God, we
see the justice of God, we see the sovereignty of God, we see
the glorious substitutionary atonement We see our sins dealt
with forever, gone. My soul is counted free, for
God looks on Him and counts me free. Wonderful, isn't it? Paul
says similar things, isn't it? He speaks of the religious people
in Galatians chapter 6. He speaks of what it is to be
bound up in religion, for as many as desire to make a fair
show in the flesh. That is just the most perfect
description of man's religion in this world, whatever variety
it might be. A fair show on 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." Anyone who says and puts
you under any bondage to do anything in spiritual matters regarding
the salvation of your soul and the glory of God, anyone who
puts you under any bondage is a hypocrite. Anyone who says,
look what I have done, is a hypocrite. That's what God says about them.
They don't keep the law. No law keeper has ever kept the
law. They're all hypocrites. Our Lord Jesus kept the law.
He alone of all that have walked this earth has kept it. but they
desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh.
They desire to have you doing things that they may glory in
your flesh. 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. And as many as walk according
to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy and upon the Israel
of God." Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we pray
that you would, by your Spirit's work, illuminate your Word and
that You would cause Yourself to be honoured by the way You
cause us to have revealed to us the things of the Lord Jesus
by Your Spirit's work in our lives. We thank You, Heavenly
Father, for Your Word which is true. We thank You for Your servants
who have written it and Your servants who proclaim it. And
we pray, Heavenly Father, that it would be a word of comfort,
as Paul designed it for these Galatian believers, a word of
comfort nearly 2,000 years ago and a word of comfort in 2016
here in Nauru. We pray Your blessing on us,
Heavenly Father. May Your Gospel shine from these verses in ways
that cause us to be so, so thankful to our Lord Jesus Christ for
who He is and for what He's done. We are in your hands to teach
us. We thank you that you have promised
to do so, our Father. So here Paul speaks of his glory,
the sole thing that he glories in. God forbid, may it never
be that I should glory save in the cross. May it be that I should
never boast. Don't let me boast. Don't let
me have confidence in anything other than the cross of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Salvation is all of Him. Salvation is all about Him. It's how God views His Son and
all those in His Son. Salvation is not about the things
that we achieve, it's not about our views of things, but it's
about Him, it's about Christ. Paul finishes this letter with
these wonderful words. He doesn't want any glory, he
doesn't want any boasting. You can't boast in Paul and his
works and his activities. You boast, you have your confidence
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I love how he attributes
the activities of the world being crucified to Him and Him to the
world, to the Lord Jesus. You see it says in verse 14,
by whom the world, not by me and not by my efforts, not by
my constraining or compelling, it's by Him. This is the work
of God alone, working and acting upon the new creature, Christ
in you, the hope of glory. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah
had to be taken, chucked overboard and thrown into the depths of
the sea in the belly of a fish to learn that wonderful, wonderful
lesson. Salvation is of the Lord. Every last little tiny bit of
it is of the Lord, including the weaning of us from this world. You've crucified to the world,
you no longer fear its threats, and God's children no longer
seek its allurements. It offers me nothing. and it
can't take anything from me if Christ is all in all. I love
what verse 3 of chapter 6 says, isn't it? If any man think himself
to be something, that's what man's doing all the time, thinking
himself to be something. I am owed something, I am worth
something, I am worthy of something, all the time. Maybe it's just
my flesh, I'll speak for myself. What a shocking thing it is.
If any man think himself to be something, when he is nothing. It's lovely to be a nothing,
isn't it? A nothing. A nothing in this
world's eyes. A nothing in my own eyes. And seated together with Christ
in the heavenlies right now. Right now. The child of God. loved everlastingly, seen by
God as someone who has never sinned. Ever. Isn't that remarkable? That's
what he says, isn't it? That's what he says in his word
about his children. But the word world here is always
a word in the scriptures that needs defining. It can mean this
great big globe that we spend our time in. But generally in
the scripture it's the world in opposition to the Lord Jesus
Christ. It's man raising up anything
in opposition to Him, and particularly the man-made religions of the
world. The world is crucified unto Me. I love how the Greek makes that
crucified to be a passive. See, the reality is that you
cannot crucify yourself. It's a physical impossibility.
You can't nail the nails in. You can't get yourself up there
and nail the nails in. It's a passive thing, isn't it?
It's something that is done from outside of you. The crucified
person is held aloft by a power outside of himself. They're held
aloft between heaven and earth. They have but one destiny. They will never walk this earth
again. They are made to face in one
direction. They suffer. They suffer excruciating
pain. They have a long lingering journey
to death. They will suffer public shame
and be exposed. And such is the death that's
required of the flesh of men. They that are Christ have crucified
the flesh with its affections and lusts. I spoke earlier about
that self, self-righteousness and self-corruption is a bigger
cross for the saints of God to bear than so much of what the
world troubles us with. And it's a death. It is a death,
isn't it, in a sense. It's like a death of the cross.
In some sense it's not totally dead until the body is dead. There is, as Galatians 5.17 says,
there is a battle. The flesh lusts against the spirit
and the spirit against the flesh. These are contrary one to the
other and you cannot do the things that you would. And it's a necessary crucifixion,
isn't it, because The children of Adam are continually
looking for something in themselves to find comfort. They're continually
looking for some refuge in themselves instead of just looking to Christ
Jesus alone. We look, and are caused by the
religious world and our wicked flesh, to look to our faith,
to look to our regeneration, to look to our life, to look
to our experiences, to look to our joy in believing, to look
to our peace and the like, and those things, those things are
part of the experience of a heaven-born child of God, but they are the
fruits of His working in us. The glory of the Gospel is that
salvation is holy, is totally out of ourselves, and salvation
is totally holy in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where salvation
is. That's why the Gospel, the real
Gospel, is a Gospel which just declares Him and declares His
work and puts salvation in His hands and raises Him up to be
a sovereign, successful, substitutionary Saviour who saved these people
from the foundation of the world and saved them saved them through
covenant promises fulfilled in his death on the cross. And that's
why I love John 16, 14. I love the promises of God to
be the teacher of his people. He shall glorify me. To glorify
the Lord Jesus he shall receive of mine and he'll show it to
you. He'll show to God's children
the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect suitability
of Him. What a perfect Saviour for sinners. What a perfect Saviour. The Gospel
is a glorious Gospel for needy sinners. His suitableness, His
sufficiency, and therefore God's children, led of the Spirit of
God, they turn away from everything else, everything else in themselves,
and they look to Him, to Christ, to Christ Jesus and Him crucified
alone. You live on Him. You live on
Him now. You live on Him in eternity. Our friend Cody Groover is gazing
upon him now, and what a sight it is. Like the Queen of Sheba
said when she came and saw Solomon, she said, the half wasn't told
me. Cody had his time over again,
he'd come back and he'd said, I didn't do a good enough job.
God's servants, when they have proclaimed the Lord Jesus, As
best as time and circumstances will allow, they go away feeling
despondent, but they've never raised him up to be as glorious
as he is. No wonder preachers like Spurgeon
had their Mondays spent in depression. Preached him and we never preach
enough of him. We feed on Him. That's what the
Lord Jesus said in John 6 to that crowd when He declared His
glory and declared His sovereignty and declared the eternal purposes
of God in giving Him a people and Him dying for a people. He
said, You must live on Me. You must eat of His flesh and
drink of His blood. To have life in you, you live
upon Him. Crucifixion. Of course, for our
Lord Jesus Christ, it was not a defeat, but a triumph. It was a triumph. Colossians
2.13 says, And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision
of your flesh, He has quickened together, He has made you alive
together with Him, having forgiven all your trespasses. and blotting out the handwriting
of ordinances, what it was against us. The law was against us, wasn't
it? You look to the law of God and
all you see is, I've never done it, I have never done it, I have
never done it, I have broken every single one I gaze my eye
on or turn my thoughts to. And he's blotted it out, which
was contradictory, and took it out of the way, nailing it to
his cross. To get to the law of God, according
to Colossians 2.14, you have to take a ladder and climb up
on the cross, across the bloodied body of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and get it, and wipe it clean, and then apply it to the hearts
of people. No wonder Paul was horrified
that people might turn back to the law. Having spoiled principalities
and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over
them in it. Therefore, let no man judge you
in meat or drink or respect of a holy day or a new moon or Sabbath
day, which are shadows of things to come, but the body is of Christ.
Let no man beguile you of your reward in voluntary humility,
worshipping of angels, intruding into things which he has not
seen, vainly puffed up in his fleshly mind, not holding the
head. from which all the body, by joints
and bands having nourishment ministered, knit together increases
with the increase of God. Therefore if you be dead with
Christ to the rudiments of the world, Why, as they are living in the
world, are you subject to ordinances, taste, touch not, taste not,
handle not, which are all to perish with using after the commandments
and doctrines of men? Which things indeed have a show
of wisdom in will-worship and humility and neglecting of the
body?" That's exactly what Galatians 6 says about religion, isn't
it? A fair show on the flesh. not in any honour to the satisfying
of the flesh. Let me paraphrase that last verse
in Colossians 2.23, even though they have the appearance, all
these religious activities have the appearance of wisdom with
their self-imposed worship and false humility achieved by an
unsparing treatment of the body. A wisdom with no true value. And they, in reality, result
in fleshly indulgence. That's all they do. That's all
they do. Crucified to this world. Crucified to this world through
religion. Crucified. It is a crucified thing to us,
and we are a crucified thing to it. God's children always are counted
as worthy of that. And then in verse 15, I'd like
to spend the rest of our time here. It's a glorious verse.
It's a great comfort, isn't it? There is great comfort here for
believers and there is great hope here for those that we love
who at this time don't know the Lord Jesus. Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people, saith the Lord. Tell them their warfare is over.
They will receive double of the Lord's hands for their sins.
And what great hope here, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
avowed of anything, nor uncircumcision but a new creature." I was thinking
a little while ago about what it must have been like to sit
in that Galatian congregation having been beguiled by the religious
people from Jerusalem, the modern day reformed evangelicals, Calvinists. law-keeping Calvinists, and you'd
succumbed, and you'd succumbed to circumcision under pressure, thinking that you were honouring
God by obeying these people. And you'd read through this letter,
as this letter went on, The weightiness and weightiness of your situation
would have weighed so, so heavily on you. Frustrating the grace
of God. Christ's death's in vain for
you. And yet, here Paul, speaking
to his brethren, has these words, which must have been like a breath
of fresh air to those who are laboured. and burdened by the
debts of their sin. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." Circumcision
matters nothing. It doesn't exist effectively,
is what the Greek seems to say. It has no power availeth means
But it has no existence. Circumcision has no existence.
It matters nothing. It's absolutely irrelevant. And
uncircumcision matters nothing and it's absolutely irrelevant. But a new creature. It's the
only thing that matters. The only thing that matters is
a new creation. The only thing that matters is
a new creation. Your works don't matter. your good deeds, your
bad deeds, your history. It doesn't matter. One thing matters, a new creation,
a new creature. So we must ask the Lord to help us and guide
us through this. Nothings, as Galatians 6.3 says,
nothings. The word new there means something
that was recently made, something of a new kind, something unprecedented. It's not referring to some time
or some sequence of events. It's saying something that didn't
exist before, something that was not there. No wonder the scriptures speak so
often. about new birth, about regeneration,
about being born from above. The flesh gives birth to flesh,
but the spirit gives birth to spirit. It is a creation, and
creation is one of the remarkable prerogatives of God. We puff
ourselves up thinking we're extraordinarily clever when we play around with
the clay and the things that He's made, and we play around
with the life that He has made. And we can play around with it
and do some remarkable things. Just remarkable things. Hume
was telling me the other day, there is more technology, more
computing power in that little thing there, than there was that
took the men to the moon. Isn't that remarkable? Whether
it's true or not, I don't know, but nevertheless, it just shows
you, doesn't it? Man puffs himself up with what
he can do. Creation is God's. It's God's. And His new creation, the new
creature, is created and designated that way that we might see the
fundamental things about their creation. The Genesis 1 story
is very familiar to you, but I love how the scriptures begin,
In the beginning God, In the beginning God created the heavens,
the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and
void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit
of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said, the
first words of God are, let there be light. and there was light. Literally in the Hebrew it's
glorious, isn't it? It says light be and light was. When God creates, that's how
He creates, doesn't He? And God saw the light and it
was good and God divided the light from the darkness. So God's
creation, God's original creation is exactly exactly done that
way so that we would see what the new creation is like. The new creation has exactly
the same author, in the beginning God. Not in the beginning man,
but in the beginning God. And the creation comes about
by a word, just a word spoken. He creates reality by speaking. That's why this book is so precious,
isn't it? This is the word of God. He creates
reality. He spoke a universe into existence. And the more we study it, the
bigger it gets. And the more we study it, the
more complex it is. And the more we study it, the
less we know about it. He creates. He creates this new
creature by speaking a word. Of his own will begat he us by
the word of truth. And so his children are called
the first fruits of his creation, being born again not of corruptible
seed, but incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and
abideth forever." 1 Peter 1.23. I love the fact that the seed
is incorruptible. Born again by incorruptible seed. So it's a spiritual creation.
It's a spiritual creation by a word spoken. And in the original
creation, what did he have to work with? What were the raw
materials for God's creation? Nothing. What are the raw materials
for God's new creation? Nothing. Nothing. And he did it, he did it alone
and unassisted. He didn't need any help from
the rocks and the trees and the fish and the others. He did it
all by himself. He just speaks and creation comes
into existence. He speaks. And His creation comes
into existence and it's a purposeful creation. It's ordered. It has a goal and an aim. And as we read in Genesis chapter
1, in the creation there is a separation, isn't there? There's a separation
between light and darkness. It creates and separates. And when he sees his new creation,
he passes judgement on his new creation, on his original creation
and his new creation. What does he say? Again and again
in Genesis 1 he says, it's good, it's good. And when he made man,
he said it's very good. And this creation, is sustained. The reason we are standing here, the reason this little ball of
dust is turning around and that other big ball of dust up there
is keeping us warm, is just for one reason according to the Word
of God. It is sustained, upholding, Hebrews 1 through 8, upholding
all things by the Word of His power. And when he says enough,
just as easily as he upholds it by the word of his power,
all he has to do is say a word and it will collapse according
to his purposes. It's sustained. So it's a new
creation, isn't it? This old creation that we live
on now is here designed by our God so that we will understand
the new creation. And it's the only thing that
matters, a new creation. It was done effortlessly. No
wonder he describes the new man again and again in the scriptures.
The new man, Ephesians 4.24, created in righteousness and true holiness. That's how the new man is created.
God says that. That's how God sees the new man.
And when God sees it, He sees perfectly clearly all the time. In Christ, a new creation, all
things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5.17. 8 to 10, he says, for by grace
are you saved, through faith, and that's not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, it's the creation of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, the
word means masterpiece, we are His masterpiece, created created
in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them." A new creation, a radical creation,
the creation of something that didn't exist there together,
the all together. It's a new heart. It's a new
life. It's the life of God in the soul
of men. Now under David says to God after
his great fall, he says, create in me a clean heart, oh God,
create in me a clean heart. So this new creation This new
creation now sees. This new creation has light to
see things that it could never see before. Things exist in the
new creation that never existed before. There is in the new creation
a completely new understanding. There is a new mind, isn't it?
What does 1 Corinthians 2.16 say? We have the mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ to
see this world, to see ourselves as we really are. We have a new
knowledge and new understanding to see who Christ really is,
to see who God really is, to see what this Word of God really
says, to see the wonder of the Gospel. Paul's a great example
for us, isn't he? He says that he's a pattern to
believers. Paul thought he had an understanding
of who God was. Paul thought he had an understanding
of who the Christ of God was. Paul thought he had an understanding
of who Jesus of Nazareth was. Paul thought he had an understanding
of the law of Moses and how it applied to his life. Paul's understanding
and attainments which is completely inverted. He thought he was serving
God. in killing Stephen. He thought
he was serving God in persecuting the church. He thought that the
Lord Jesus Christ was an imposter, a fake and a fraud. He thought
that it was impossible for the Christ to die the death that
he died on that cross outside Jerusalem. And then, how does
he describe it if we read it earlier in 2nd Corinthians chapter
5, for God, chapter 4 verse 6, for God who commanded light to
shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts. To give what? To give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. All of a sudden
Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, was Christ of God. But how did
Paul come to that understanding? He did meet him, but listen to
what verse 6 of 2 Corinthians 4 says. For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, he is there talking about God's
creative activity. So it is almost a parenthetical
statement in this verse. Because you can read it, you
can read it as it really says. For God has
shined in our hearts. to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God shined in
his heart. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. That's the new creation, isn't
it? We have a new knowledge of God. Paul not only saw God remarkably
differently, but Paul saw Saul of Tarsus in a completely different
light. There he was, religious and zealous,
clean, clean as a whistle he was. He was a shining star, wasn't
he? And he took his rightful place
in the dust at the feet of his God. a new knowledge of self. But there is, in the new creation,
a new knowledge of God's salvation. In God's salvation, God gets
all the glory. Christ gets all the glory. And God's children love the way
God saves. They love the way God saves,
because there's no other way of saving them. They are much,
much bigger sinners than they possibly think they are, and
all of their best deeds are so, so, so tainted. No wonder he says, doesn't he,
that I may be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of
my own. He had those desires in Philippians
3, didn't he? He had that desire to know Him
be found in Him to attain to the resurrection
of Christ. New creation has new light and
it has new eyes to see through the new light that's shone. Now,
just imagine Paul in those days after his awakening. All of a
sudden the Old Testament would have just shone so brightly. He knew it off by heart. And
he had no clue until he met the Lord Jesus what Isaiah 53 was
saying, what Psalm 22 was saying. All of a sudden everywhere he
looked in there he would have seen the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. There he would have seen all
of the promises of God just wrapped up in that one life and that
one event and all of His salvation. All of his righteousness wrapped
up in that one event. Before all he saw was do, do,
do, do. Do this and be good and God will
reward you. And now he saw Gospel everywhere. Everywhere he saw Gospel. Everywhere he saw a new relationship,
a remarkable relationship of union and marriage with the Lord
Jesus Christ. He had smelt, didn't he? It's amazing,
isn't it, how God often talks about smelling. There is a sweet
fragrance of Christ. And as much as there is a fragrance
of Christ and Him crucified, there is now in Paul's nostrils
a terrible, terrible smell. the rotten, putrefying stench
of salvation by works. He has new eyes to see. He has a new mind, new life to
see with. He has, as I said earlier, he
has just a whole new book. He only had the Old Testament,
but what a glorious testimony it is to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And it would have just shone with him. He would have spent
so many hours just almost dancing for joy as he read things in
the scriptures about the Lord Jesus and him taking away his
sins. And Paul experienced that remarkable
thing that happens when people meet God in the Gospel. God and was commissioned to a
new life. He met God. To meet God and live
is the greatest blessing that can come upon any child of Adam. points us to something else which
is remarkably new in the children of God. For in Christ Jesus neither
circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision but a new
creature. See Paul had a whole new history,
a whole new personal history. All of that meant nothing and
Christ now is everything to him. He came to see that even in his
wicked, wicked, horrible rebellion against God, God still loved
him. And God still saw him as his
child. And God saw him, and this is
what it means to be justified, God saw him as one who had no
sin. God saw him as one who had a
perfectly righteous, holy standing before the law of God. That's
the history of all of God's children, isn't it? That's their real history.
Their real history happened 2,000 years ago before men and before
God and before the law of God. and my activities, circumcised
or uncircumcised, count for absolutely nothing. The only thing that
matters to the new creation is the one who created it, the one
who sustains it. God does it all. We are made, we are created,
In Colossians 1.12 we are created and the word there is moulded
and shaped. It's a carving term from carpentry
where you actually take something and you shape it perfectly to
fit together. He's made us meet, we're fitted,
moulded to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
life. That's the history of all of
God's children. God only sees us in His Son,
brothers and sisters, in Christ. And for you, like no doubt many
in the Galatian Church, have every reason to look back on
things that you have done after you had been awakened And you
can look at times with horror, and yet this verse gives great
comfort, doesn't it? It means nothing. The only thing
that matters, the only thing that matters is the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the one who sovereignly
directs the work of his people. He says, I will direct their
work in truth, says God, and I will make an everlasting covenant
with them. He instructs His people, doesn't
He? He never leaves them without a guide. He never leaves them
alone and untended for. God's children don't have to
wander, wandering through this world. We walk in the light,
as He is in the light. We're not walking around in a
fog. What does He say? I will instruct
you and teach you in the way that you shall go and I will
guide you with mine eye. I will bring the blind by way
that they know not. I will lead them in paths that
they have not known. I will make darkness light before
them and crooked things straight. These things I will do unto them
and not forsake them." The Lord God in the new creation, He says
He teaches them to their prophet. He teaches them to love Him. They are taught of God, 1 Thessalonians
4 and 9. They are taught of God to love
one another. All the children of God shall
be taught of the Lord, and great shall be the peace of thy children. There is a glorious liberty for
the sons of God. God looks nowhere else than to
his son for everything that he requires of me. And he keeps
saying, doesn't he, this is my beloved son. Hear you him. Listen to him. The grace of God
in this new creation that bring us salvation teaches us to deny
ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly, righteously
and godly in this present world. The children of God are guided
and directed by God Himself. The new creation is the only
thing that matters. God does it of His own will. for His own glory. He does it
by speaking a word. He speaks the word of the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And He speaks that to the hearts
of His children. And they don't need to be put
under any bondage whatsoever to get them to perform. The love
of Christ compels them and constrains them. The love of Christ rules
in their hearts. the journey that we've had through
Ruth and how wonderful a picture of grace it is that there she
is, typifying us. She's born a Moabitess, a cursed
woman of a cursed race, a stranger, a stranger from God and the promises
of God. And she's brought by grace, she's
brought by grace and brought by painful trials, Bethlehem. She's brought by the
sovereign hand of God into the field of Boaz. She's brought
ultimately by the sovereign hand of God into the arms of Boaz
in marriage. There she is, a cursed person
from a cursed race, and she's brought has a beggar to glean
in his fields, but she's brought by God to marry him." Can you
imagine what would have happened if after that marriage Ruth had
been back in the fields and one of the men who had charged as
the reapers now said to Ruth, now look here Ruth, this is what
you must do today, you do these things. It's exactly what happens
with the children of God when they're put back under the bondage
of the law, isn't it? She's now married to him. She
has a new name. She has a new life. She owns
the field. But what controls her and what
constrains her? What moves her relationship with
her kinsman-redeemer? It's His love, isn't it? He's
won her over by His love. We love Him because He first
loved us. We don't need the bondage of
the law, the whipping of the law. We don't need those things. They are profoundly unhelpful
because they take our eyes off He who is all and He's in all. He's all there ever is. He's
all there ever will be in salvation. Eternity is full of Him. May He consume our lives now. Let's pray.