Alright brethren, let's go to
Galatians chapter 6. Now Paul, he wrote of those who
gloried in the flesh. He said in verse 11, You see
how large a letter I've written to you with mine own hand. 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. For neither they themselves who
are circumcised keep the law, but desire to have you circumcised
that they may glory in your flesh." And then Paul declares the believer's
rule by which we walk. He says in verse 14, 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. From henceforth, let no man trouble
me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Brethren,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. The subject is the believer's
rule, the believer's rule. The believer Glory is only in
Christ, only in the cross of Christ. It's through the cross
of Christ that we've been given faith to walk by faith. It's through the cross of Christ
we've been given love in our heart, constrained by the love
of Christ for us. So we glory only in the cross
of the Christ. We are motivated to good works
by the cross of the Christ, cross of Christ, by His love for us. We're called by His gospel, by
the preaching of the cross of Christ. We're strengthened by
it. We're moved by it. We're taught
by it. We're rebuked by it. Our rule is glorying only in
Christ of the cross, Christ and Him crucified. Our confidence
is not in the flesh. Nothing done in the body, nothing
done that's not done in the body avails. Circumcision nor uncircumcision,
that is anything done in the body is not availing. What avails
is to be found in Christ, to be made new by Christ, to be
entirely saved by the doing and dying of Christ our Redeemer. To be created anew is to be created
in His righteousness and His holiness which is in Him. It's all of Him, it's in Him.
And Paul said, as many as walk according to this rule, peace
on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God. That's the true
Israel of God who walk by this rule. Now our rule is to walk
by faith And that is glorying only in Christ, only in the cross
of Christ because Christ made us a new creation, a new creature. It's the only way we can glory
in Christ and give Him all the glory and look to Him and walk
by faith is by Him making us entirely new. It's by circumcision
in the spirit in the new birth that we're made new. And he speaks
of it as circumcision because it's what bodily circumcision
pictured. It pictured the putting away
of the flesh. It's circumcision in the heart, cutting away the
filth of the fleshly sin nature by the Spirit. And that brings
us to faith in Christ to behold that circumcision made without
hands by Christ, whereby He put away all the body of sin of His
people. He said in Colossians 2, you're
complete in Him, and it said, in whom you also were circumcised
with the circumcision made without hands. We're talking about a
spiritual work, salvation by Christ, whereby He put off the
body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.
We died in Him, we were buried in Him, and we rose in Him. And
the results of new creation, it's all of our Redeemer. All
of our Redeemer. We begin glorying only in the
cross of Christ. We begin glorying in Christ.
He really does become our salvation. And we begin glorying only in
the cross of Christ, the preaching of his gospel, trusting Christ
to work. Now Paul once was glorying in
appearance. He once gloryed in the flesh.
He once gloryed in appearance, not in heart. He once just had
carnal judgment. He just had temporal judgment.
He didn't have spiritual discernment. And he gloried in appearance.
He gloried in the flesh. He didn't glory in the heart.
Now he does. Now he's preaching Christ and
Him crucified because Christ is all his salvation. Now he's
resting in Christ. Now he wants to see sinners brought
to faith in Christ. He's willing to suffer. He's
willing to bear whatever he has to bear from the enemies who
hate the gospel. They call him whatever they want
to and treat him however. He's willing to bear that by
the love of Christ, by the power of Christ working in him. Because
he's experienced this gospel now. He's experienced this power
of Christ putting away his sin and bringing him to rest in Christ.
He wants that for others. He wants it for others. Now he's
suffering, he's being persecuted, he's being rejected. But he's
still, he's long-suffering, he's patient, he's waiting on the
Lord. Now Paul at the end of this letter, it seems like he
had gotten a little bit worked up by the end of this letter.
But he's still pointing sinners to Christ. He wants them to rest
in him because Christ's the only one that made the difference.
It's only the grace of God in Christ. Turn over to 2 Corinthians
5. This is Paul's message in every
letter. And he'd been talking here in
2 Corinthians about the Lord's people being the epistle of Christ.
But there were still many enemies. They were, as much as Paul tried
not to to give any man reason to charge him, they still did. And he says here in verse 12,
2 Corinthians 5.12, he says, we commend not ourselves again
unto you. He had done that to some degree
in the first epistle of Corinthians. He said, we're not doing that.
What we're doing is giving you occasion to glory on our behalf. that you may have somewhat to
answer them which glory in appearance and not in heart." This is what
Paul was preaching against in the churches at Galatia, was
glorying in appearance rather than in heart. They accused Paul
of being too fanatical, they accused him of being beside himself,
and they accused him of being too sober-minded, too dogmatic,
too strict, because he preached Christ and Him crucified. But
he said, it's for your cause. It's for your cause. Verse 14,
here's why. For the love of Christ constraineth
us. He's talking here specifically
about the ministers of Christ, but this is true of all God's
people. The love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge. Here's
the discernment. That if one died for all, Christ
died for all his people, then we're all dead. We were all dead
in sin, in that he died for all his people, now all his people
have died in Christ. And that he died for all, that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto
him which died for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth,
here's the result of this spiritual discernment, this work of Christ
in the heart. Henceforth know we no man after
the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ
after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more after the
flesh. Now some think Paul knew Christ
when he was Saul of Tarsus. Some think he was the rich young
ruler. But now Paul knew Christ in spirit.
Now whether that's so or not, I don't know. But I was reading
this one commentary from one of the old writers, and he illustrates
this very well in what Paul is saying here about not knowing
after the flesh anymore, but now knowing after the spirit.
He said, when Paul knew Christ after the flesh, he considered
Christ, the leader of a new sect, the leader of a new party, a
menace to holy religion. He says we don't see him like
that anymore. We know him now in the spirit, by the spirit.
And that sort of illustrates what this thing is, this radical
change of having spiritual discernment. It's how believers regard one
another. We used to be religious. We used
to know men and women in the flesh, after the flesh. We used
to glory in appearance. The emphasis was on the outward.
The emphasis was on works of the flesh and hearing the preaching
of works. Now we glory in Christ alone
in the heart. In the heart. We have spiritual
discernment to behold Christ and we know him now in spirit
and in truth. And we glory in the heart. That
has some effect on us outwardly. It makes Paul do what he was
doing here. lay down his life and his religion and everything
he loved before and counted dung and risk his life and all this
cruel treatment he was getting to preach Christ. Our confidence
though is not in things seen with the carnal eye, it's in
things seen only by faith. Nothing of the flesh avails.
Nothing of the flesh avails. The things that we do bodily,
the fruit of the Spirit that we look at and we see in others,
it avails as far as helping one another and trying to preach
the gospel to one another. But these things don't avail
in our salvation. They're not adding to anything
Christ has done. Nothing done in the flesh is
going to take away from anything Christ has done. Our salvation
is in Christ, entirely in Christ. And not only does not the works
of our flesh avail in a positive way to help us in salvation,
but there's nothing done in the flesh of one Christ is made new
that's going to avail to change what Christ has made us by His
person and His work. And the Lord's not going to let
us be overly cast down by our sin and our infirmities And he's
just not going to let his child fall away in apostasy. He's going
to keep you crying out to him, coming to him, and having all
your confidence in him. It's just what he's going to
do. Now we thus judge. Now we judge because the Spirit's
given discernment. Now we use discernment. That's
what he's saying. Faith to see things not seen
with the carnal eye. Now the love of Christ is our
constraint. Now the love of Christ is our
constraint. We see this old man with his
deeds and ourselves, and we see the sin, the thoughts, and the
wrestlings we have with this sinful flesh daily. But we have
this good news that this old man, this body of sin, has been
crucified in Christ. Before God, he's dead. Before
God, he's been judged, he's died in Christ, and he's dead. And
we know that about one another. And not only that, but this earthly
tent that we live in, I've talked to my parents, I've talked to
other believers that are up in years, and you know, we experience
this a little bit throughout our life, but then as you get
older, this body, just one thing after another, starts breaking
down. It's just trouble, one after
another, one thing after another. But here's the good news. This
body is not availing in a positive way or a negative way. We're
going to put it off. We have a body awaiting that Christ has
made, a new body. And we're looking for that eternal
home in the heavens. That's what we're looking for.
The world is crucified to us and we to the world. Everything
about ourselves that we once had confidence in, we don't have
confidence in it now. Confidence is Christ. And all
the things of this world that enamor us and that are so often
pulling us and trying to get us to put confidence in them,
we're learning little by little. The Lord's gonna see to it we
get this, that those things don't avail. They just don't. It's
interesting when you read, our Lord said, no man can serve God
and mammon. That word mammon, it's treasure,
it's anything carnal is a treasure to us that we put our confidence
in. But that word's an Aramaic word,
originally, and the word means confidence. It's confidence. We just can't have confidence
in Christ alone and have confidence in some carnal thing. Be it in
us, done by us, or be it money, or the world, or whatever it
is. You can't have confidence in
two places at once. And the Lord's gonna, he's made
you in your inner man to have all your confidence in Christ.
And he's gonna keep teaching us, keep teaching us that we're
worshiping in spirit, rejoicing in Christ, and we have no confidence
in the flesh. And He's going to keep weaning
us and teaching us this. Christ, by His life and His death
and His resurrection, has made all God's elect a new creation
in Him. He's done that. And by His Spirit,
when He creates a new man within us, there is really a new birth. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. We still can't glory in the new
birth. The new birth doesn't make you
glory in yourself. No fruit of the Spirit makes you glory in
yourself. That's contrary to the fruit
of the Spirit. Fruit of the Spirit keeps you glory only in Him.
The purpose of all the exhortations and all the things Paul had to,
he had to stop preaching and he had to write and deal with
these things because the purpose of all of them is to have us
looking to Christ, just like the brazen serpent, looking to
Him. and away from everything else,
away from ourselves, away from our brethren, away from this
world, seeking those things which are above, having our affections
set on things above. And the end of every trial, every
exhortation, everything is this. It's the end purpose for which
we preach this gospel. That law sheet that He first
creates anew inwardly and makes you hear the gospel, makes you
see there's nothing in yourself but whereby you can be saved,
brings you to Christ to rest in Him. That's the end that we're
striving for. You're brought to Christ and
you have all your confidence in Him. Well, throughout our
life, the rest of the time, if, you know, Paul's goal in Galatia
here, when he was preaching to the Galatians, his goal, he was
not trying to get them just not to be circumcised. That wasn't
his goal. Whether they were circumcised or not, that didn't avail. That
wasn't his goal. His goal was to have them shut
up to Christ alone. To be restored to him alone.
He knew that was the only way they were going to put away the
biting and devouring. And this is why from the beginning
of it, he started the letter saying, Christ has come and he
saved us by his blood from this present evil world. And all through
the epistle, that's what he kept pointing them. He kept pointing
them to what Christ has done. And his whole point through chapter
5 and through chapter 6 is this is not going to be done by compelling
and coercing. It's not going to be done by
strength of hand. It's not going to be done by
the preaching of precepts and law. It's going to be done by
glorying in the Christ and Him crucified. preaching of the gospel
and it's going to be done by the Spirit of God because it's
the Spirit of God that wrestles against our sin nature. We don't
overcome our sin nature. It's a capital S he speaks about. If you walk in the Spirit, you
won't fulfill the lust of the flesh because when the Spirit
of God turns you to Christ and truly just fills your heart with
the glory of Christ to see that you're really there with Him,
this thing is really accomplished, you're really saved by His righteousness,
you're really holy in Him, You really separate it out. God doesn't
receive sin anymore. He doesn't remember it anymore.
And He bears witness to this in your spirit. Those are some
sweet, sweet time. And you can't think about the
flesh. You can't worry about the flesh. You can't pamper the
flesh. All you're concerned about when
He does this is Him. Just Him. And that's the goal, that's where
Paul wanted to see sinners brought to, to walk by faith, not by
sight. And he says, 2 Corinthians 5.17,
he says, therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. And this is what he means. This
is exactly what he means. We're not glorying in appearance
anymore. We're worshiping God in spirit
now. This is what it is to be new. A new creation. Flesh don't
do this. Flesh does nothing but glory
in appearance. Flesh does nothing but is just
concerned about what others see. That's it. But a new creation,
it don't want others to be offended, but it's what God thinks. That's what matters. And God
knows the heart. And God looks on the heart. And
this is why you can just open your heart to God and confess
everything to Him. And do you not find this, brethren,
that you constantly, constantly pray, Lord, please save me. Please save me. Don't let me
be deceived. Don't let me be walking after
my flesh. I don't want to. I don't want
to sin. I hate sin. Lord, give me strength, give
me power to look to Christ and to behold Him and to walk after
Him. But Lord, whatever you do. view
me in Christ, find me in your son, robed in his righteousness. This is what a new creation does. You wholly cast upon God, you're
wholly dependent upon his mercy, you're wholly dependent upon
his power. You look into the head, to Christ
the head, who gives all nourishment into the new man, who makes you
to grow up into him. Therefore, if any be in Christ,
he's a new creature, a new creation. Old things are passed away. These
old things of going in appearance and judging after the flesh and
putting confidence in the flesh, availing in some way. Behold,
all things have become new. And look at this, and all things
are of God. who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ and given to us the ministry of reconciliation. Who gets the glory in this new
creation? God in Christ gets the glory.
Who got the glory in the first creation? We weren't anywhere
around, were we? Who got the glory for making
the heavens and the earth and all things that are in them?
First verse of the Bible, in the beginning, created the heavens
and the earth. And this new creation is entirely
the work of our Lord beginning to end. He's the life of it,
the holiness of it, the righteousness of it. He's the perfection of
it. Our completion is in Him, the triune God in Christ. God
forbid we should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The work is all of Him. Whenever John saw New Jerusalem,
the new heaven, the new earth, when he saw, he saw Christ sitting
on the throne, the Lamb. And he that sat upon the throne
said, Behold, I make all things new. Ephesians 2, look over there
with me. Whether we're Jew or Gentile,
this new man is to be in Christ. It's to be everything that was
done in and by Christ. And the new man in you is Christ
in you. We can't glory in the new man
within us. The righteousness and holiness
of the new man is Christ. Look here. Ephesians 2 13 We
were separated, we were alienated, Gentiles cast out, and he says,
but now in Christ Jesus, you who were sometimes far off are
made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he's our peace, who made
both, his elect Jew and Gentile, he made us both one. He's broken
down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinances, for to make in himself of two one new man. See that? That new man is, he
made us in him one new man. So making peace, and that he
might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross. See, we weren't around when this
new creation was being made. Christ on the cross, having slain
the enmity thereby, and then he came and preached peace to
you which were far off and to them that were nigh, for through
him we both have access by one spirit to the Father. He said
over in Isaiah 65, 17, I create a new heavens and a new earth.
That new heavens and new earth are His people. It's His people. He will create a new heaven and
a new earth, but He's creating His people anew, entirely anew
by Him. The former shall not be remembered. God doesn't remember the former
in you, His people, now. He says, I don't remember your
sins. And He's going to make it so we don't remember. It won't
come into mind, but be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which
I create. For behold, I create Jerusalem
rejoicing in her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and
joy in my people. And the voice of weeping shall
be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. It's Christ
by His blood, it's Christ by By coming down and burying the
sin of His people and putting that sin away and making us righteous
in Him. It's all of Christ. Face confidence
is Christ alone. It's not my flesh. It's not your
flesh. It's Christ alone. Christ's power
and His wisdom and His righteousness. Christ redeemed His people. Christ
robes us in His righteousness. Christ sanctifies us by the washing
of water by the Word. Christ keeps us and Christ shall
present us to Himself without spot and blemish. It's all in
Christ with this new creation. So the rule we're walking by
and the love we're with, we love sinners, is Christ. It's the glory of Christ. It's
the Gospel of Christ. It's Christ Himself. We preach
Christ. We preach Christ. We hear of
His faithfulness and His great love for His people in laying
down His life. That's the constraint. Ain't
that the constraint? Ain't that what makes you want
to walk after Him? Is hearing how He loved you when
there was no cause in you? Works of faith are worked in
us by His love for His people. Not by any other constraint.
It's all made effectual and it continues by the Spirit of God.
It's all through the preaching of this glorious gospel of our
Redeemer. Paul said, as many as walk according
to this rule. There were some in Galatia who
weren't walking according to this rule. They were wanting
to, you're going to have to conform to us or else. And that is not
a true willingness. When you're compelled by others,
it's not a true willingness of the heart. Love is what makes
you willing in your heart. And Peter experienced that. You
know how Peter got up from the table and went over to the other?
Why did he do that? Just what Paul said, why do men
not preach Christ crucified? They're fearful of persecution. Why did Peter get up and go to
that other table? He was afraid of the persecution, the rejection
he'd get from those Jewish fellows that came down. So he got up,
moved over. That can affect us. He gonna make his people stand
with Christ and rejoice only in Christ, and use only the gospel
of Christ. And he's not going to let us
turn back to the old leaven of the Pharisees and start using
the law and that spirit of the law. And this is the believer's
rule of life. He said, as many as walk according
to this rule. We're walking by faith in Christ,
glowing only in the cross of Christ, working by love, by Christ's
love for us. It's through the means of the
gospel. This was Abel's rule. Scripture said Abel obtained
witness that he was righteous. This was Abel's rule. This was
Enoch's rule. He had the testimony that he
pleased God. Only one way you can please God.
Without faith it's impossible to please God. He had the testimony
he pleased God. This was Noah's rule. He became
the heir of righteousness which is by faith. This was Abraham
and Isaac in Jacob's rule. They were heirs of promise. This
was Sarah's rule. This is how she walked. She judged
him faithful who had promised. And not one of them had the Ten
Commandments given at Mount Sinai. People will say the Ten Commandments
are the believer's rule of life. Paul's saying here, the gospel
of Christ and Him crucified is a believer's rule of life. It's
being made new by Christ so that you walk by faith in Christ,
constrained by His love, not by law. Paul gloried in the cross
because it's only in the person and work of Christ Jesus that
we behold the full display and character of God. Folks will
say that you read the Ten Commandments, that's the character of God.
I beg your pardon. It's not. It's not. The law's holy, the law's just,
the law's good. But there's no mercy in the law.
There's no mercy in the law. God's merciful. God's mercy is
beheld in Christ on the cross, dying in place of His people.
That's where you see the character of God in Christ. God is love. There's no love in the law. Love
is the fulfillment of the law. But God is love, but if you come
to God in the law, you're not going to experience love. It's
cold and unyielding and unbending. It's just going to pour out justice.
Greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his
life for his friends. It's Christ crucified where you
see the character of God's love. Here in His love, not that we
love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sin. It's that love right there Beholding
His love, it constrains us to love. It is the love of the heart. If God so loved us, we ought
also to love one another. What'd He do? He laid down His
life for us when we were ungodly. That's what we ought to do for
one another when we're ungodly. That's the constraint of His
people. There's no grace in the law. There's no grace in the
law. Come to God in the law, you won't
find grace. Oh, but in Christ fulfilling
that law and satisfying His holy justice and honoring and justifying
His people freely because He loved us by His grace. There
you see the character of God. See, we learn these things looking
to Christ. Look into Christ. All God's glory
is seen in the face of Christ. In that beginning of that old
creation, He said, let there be light, and there was light.
It's the same in His new creation. He says, let there be light,
and He shines the light of Christ, and it's in the face of Christ
that we behold the glory of God. That's where you see the character
of God. So the believer's rule is the
law written on the heart in the new birth. What is that? What is that law written on the
heart of the new birth? Paul said in Romans 2 that fallen
sinners have the law written on their conscience. They accuse
and excuse one another. People know as soon as Cain committed
murder, he didn't have the law of murder, but he knew he had
done wrong. He tried to hide it. What's the law God writes
on the heart when he saves you, when he gives you a new heart?
Paul called it the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. It's the new covenant. It's the
gospel. It's the everlasting covenant of grace. It's the law
of faith whereby we believe God. It's the law of righteousness
whereby we behold Christ is the only one who ever fulfilled the
law and he's our righteousness. It's the law of liberty whereby
you see Christ your redeemer has freed you and you'll never
again be brought into slavery He won't permit it. It's the
law of love, the law of Christ, Paul called it in this chapter,
where He bore the burden of our sin and restored us to God. That's
the law of Christ. And He said, as many as walk
according to this rule, peace be on them. And it is. It is. Christ makes His child walk by
this rule and His peace is on us and His peace rules our hearts. The peace of God rules our heart.
Christ has made peace for us, and this is the peace that rules
our heart. How does it rule your heart? Because you know, if somebody's
warring against you, you'll war back because you're flesh, but
God's going to speak, and He's going to turn you to Him, and
He's going to bring peace in your heart. He's going to settle
you down, and He's going to make you to remember, if He brought
peace for me when I was just an ungodly rebel, And he's kept
peace in my heart all this time. Whatever my brother, my sister
needs, he can work peace in their heart. And he can rule their
heart in peace and make them rejoice in his peace. He can
do that. So what am I going to do? I'm going to glory in the
cross of Christ. I'm going to speak the gospel
of Christ to them, pray for them, wait on Christ to work in their
heart, and look for every opportunity I can to show them, I love you. I want peace. I don't remember
anything past yet to today. Just like God said, I remember
your sin no more. And He said, and mercy be on
them. And it is. We need mercy every
day. And His mercy is on us continually.
They are new every morning and they never cease because He delights
in mercy for Christ's sake. And He makes us delight in it.
And Paul said, these are the Israel of God. The Israel of
God is not that nation over there, brethren. The Israel of God is
no particular nation in this world. The Israel of God are
those God chose in Christ, Christ redeemed, the Spirit of God regenerates,
and God's going to save everlastingly in His Son. The Israel of God,
he says, are those who walk according to this rule, finding all their
glory in Christ alone. Christ alone. That's the children
of Abraham by faith. That's what he said in Galatians
3.29. You're all the children of Abraham by faith. What does
that mean? He's not a Jew, which is one
outwardly. Circumcision is not that outward in the flesh. Circumcision
is in the heart, in spirit. Not in the letter, in spirit,
whose praise is not of men, but of God. And so Paul said, from
henceforth, let no man trouble me. Don't let any man try to
stop the progress of this gospel, don't let any man try to rail
on me and throw accusations at me and try to turn my brethren
from me. From henceforth let no man trouble
me." Paul said, I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
He bore the marks that Christ bore. Why did Christ bear the
marks of the cross as far as men are concerned? Because they
hated him. And Paul bore some marks like
that in his own body because men hated him because of Christ
who he preached. From scourging and persecution
and whips and all of that, he bore that. But he bore something
else that all his people bear. He bore that Father's name in
his forehead that we saw. He had the mind of Christ. We've
been given the Spirit of God so that we freely know, we know
the things that are freely given to us of God. so that we have
discernment to glory only in Christ and walk after Christ.
You have faith, you have hope, you have charity. And this is
all owing to the glory of Christ. Nothing we can boast in. It's
all of Him. That's our rule, brethren. Christ
Jesus, our Lord. We glory in Christ, walk by faith,
constrain by love. Amen. Look at that last verse there,
brethren. He knew he had brethren there at Galatia. And he said,
brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what's
going to do it. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Be with what? Be with your body. Be with your
spirit. Be with your spirit. Amen.