Let's go again today to Galatians
chapter 6. Galatians chapter 6. I touched on this verse last time,
but I want to just look at this verse by itself. Galatians 6
verse 14. Paul says, 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. Now, do
you glory only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ? Do you
glory only in the cross of our Lord Jesus? Not the piece of
wood and not an image of a cross. Do we glory in Christ and Him
crucified alone? in Christ and Him crucified alone? Is Christ crucified all your
salvation? You know, you can answer this
if we've been given a new heart to ask, when I stand before God
in the day of judgment, what will my only hope of acceptance
be? What will my only confidence
be in that day that God will receive me. You know, when we first come
to Christ, we don't have anything to bring to Christ. We don't
have anything, we're just sinners coming to Christ for everything.
And that's how God's people never cease coming to Christ. You know,
it's sad after we've been in the faith a little while, we
can get turned to looking at other things. but we still have to be continually
made to glory only in Christ. Only in what He's done, who He
is and what He's accomplished. Glorying in something else, anything
else, except Christ alone, is offensive to God our Father.
Very offensive to God to glory in anything else or anyone else. And it's easy for sinners to
do. Very easy for you and I who have been called by grace to
do. Galatia had done this very quickly. And if they can do it,
we can do it. Look back there at Galatians
1, Paul said in verse 6, I marvel that you are so soon removed
from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another
gospel, which is not another. but there be some that trouble
you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an
angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that
which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said
before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel
unto you than that you have received, let him be accursed. Glorying
in something other than Christ is to glory in self. is to glory
in our pride. And God hates pride. If a man
thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceiveth
himself. How did Lucifer fall from heaven? The Lord said he was a murderer
from the beginning and a bow not in the truth. What was it
that made him fall and be cast out? It was pride. It was confidence and self. I
will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God. I will sit upon the congregation
in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. Confidence and
self. Pride. And as far as the child
of God goes, Paul had a lot of things to be, to glory in, didn't
he? A lot of things. He was used
of God to be the one through whom many of the early churches
were established. He wrote the majority of the
New Testament. God sure does have a way of keeping
his saints glorying only in Christ. I think it's just remarkable
that the majority of the scriptures in the New Testament that we
read that Christ wrote, he wrote from prison. He wrote from prison. He keeps us humbled. Everything
that Paul was used of God to do, he said, I labored more abundantly
than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with
me. Paul wouldn't glory. He would
not glory in any moral or civil and certainly not any legal righteousness
of his own. He wouldn't glory in any gifts
or attainments that God had given him by His grace. Paul wouldn't
glory in his faith. He wouldn't glory in repentance
or his patience or any fruit of the Spirit. He wouldn't glory in outward
subjection to ordinances. He wouldn't glory in anything
in the flesh, not his own and not in anybody else's. Why not? The Lord taught Paul he didn't
have anything to glory in. He used Paul to write this. Paul
said in 1 Corinthians 4, 7, Who maketh thee to differ from another?
What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst
receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hast not received
it? We can't glory in anything. That just takes it all away. It comes from the Lord. And it's
all through the blood and the righteousness of our Lord Jesus
Christ. So Paul says with the strongest language he could use,
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. Glorying in the cross of Christ
is glorying in Christ alone to the exclusion of all else. Glory in the cross of Christ
is glory in Christ alone to the exclusion of all else. Now let me ask you three questions.
How could we glory in any but Christ when we consider who he
is? is, who that was on the cross. How could we glory in anybody
of them? Consider who that is on the cross. That was the only
begotten Son of God who took flesh like to those he came to
save, like his brethren. The very Son of God. The whole
gospel is a mystery. Everything about the gospel is
a mystery. All the doctrine we preach is
a mystery. It has to be revealed by the
Lord. But the first and greatest mystery of all is this. God manifests
in the flesh. God manifests in the flesh. God created this world. He created
man. He breathed into him the breath
of life. He sustains man. He gives everything
we have. He sustains this world. He holds
it by the word of His power. And yet God came down and took
human flesh. to make His people one with Him.
He came down. That One who took flesh like
His brethren is the Son of God. Listen to this from Acts 20.28.
Paul told the elders at Ephesus, Take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers to feed the church of God. is the church of God
which He hath purchased with His own blood." The church of
God which He purchased with His own blood. I didn't think God
had blood. I thought He was a spirit. God
in human flesh had blood. That's who that was. God our
Father will have us glory in no other because that one crucified
is His own Son. God sent His own Son. And to
do it, to come down and to suffer and bleed and die in the place
of His people. That's why He sent Him. What
the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh,
we couldn't keep it, we couldn't obey it, we couldn't put our
sin away, couldn't make ourselves righteous because we were sinners. What the law couldn't do and
that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in
the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. He
had to come and do that for us. And He had to come and do that
for us that God might be just to give us the spirit of adoption.
and give us this privilege of being His sons. When the fullness
of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made under the law,
made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law so that God could give us the spirit of adoption
and bring us into the adoption of sons. No wonder God won't
accept anybody glorying in any but His Son. That's His Son.
He won't accept us glorying in anything else in us or in any
other. That's His Son. That's why men who glory in self
and they glory in their will and they glory in their works
and they preach other things and don't focus on Christ and
Him crucified and shut sinners up to Christ and Him crucified.
Why not? God hadn't made them know that's
His Son. When the Lord makes you know
that's His Son, that's the Son of God in human flesh that went
to that cross, that's when you glory only in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. That's who He is. Let me ask
the second question. How can I glory in any other
when I consider what He endured on that cross? How could I glory
in any other if I just think about what did Christ endure
on that cross? In place of His people, if you're
His, if He's called you, you think about this. Think of what
He endured on the cross in your place. The cross was reserved for those
that society deemed to be just the worst of the worst. Curse it is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. Just as far as the eyes of society
went, the Jews considered whoever was hung on a cross to be the
worst of the worst. Now usually they didn't hang
people on a cross to execute them. Normally they stoned them
to death and then after they died they hung them up on a cross
so everybody could see them hanging there and know this is a cursed
male factor right here. A heinous man, a treasonous man. But God of glory, the Son of
God, came down. He came to where His people are
and He went, laid down His life to be hung up on a cursed cross. What was He doing on the cross?
Why did He go there? There's more to it, the curse
of it, than just the fact that it's what people deem to be a
cursed thing. There's more to it than that.
Our Lord Jesus was made a curse by God. He made Him a curse for
us. He did so in the place of His
people. When Paul says, God forbid that
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, he's
saying, God forbid that I should glory save in substitution. Save
in that vicarious death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sinless Lord Jesus willingly
gave His body to bear the shame of the cross. He did it before the heavenly
host, before God His Father, before all the angels, all the
heavenly hosts, and He did it before men to bear the shame. It says He endured the cross
despising the shame. Try to enter into the shame.
Just think about it right now. If all of your sins was made
known right now to everybody, would you be ashamed? The thoughts,
the sins only you know and ones you don't even know, if they
were all just displayed for everybody to know them, would you be ashamed? Our Lord Jesus Christ willingly faced that shame and
bore that shame. He willingly went into that. God the Father who He loved,
who loved Him, when He was made sin for us and made a curse for
us, God the Father became His judge. And God the Father judged
him, and he knew the shame of having the father he loved to
be his judge, judging him. Not favorably, but judging him
as guilty. That doesn't, it just doesn't
register to us because we're sin. And we're just so accustomed
to sin. This is the sinless one. That
was no pretended shame that he bore. It was not just God treating
him as if he was sinned. There was some real shame involved
in that. Our sinless Redeemer experienced
the shame of sin in his conscience. He experienced the shame of those
who spit in his face and reproached him. He experienced shame so
much that he prayed to God that his people wouldn't be ashamed
of him for what he was bearing. Go to Psalm 69 and look at this. Psalm 69. This is Christ speaking this
whole Psalm. Psalm 69.1, Save me, O God, for
the waters are come in unto my soul. We're talking about real
shame here. I sink in deep mire where there
is no standing. I am come into deep waters where
the floods overflow me. I'm weary of my crying. My throat
is dry. My eyes fail while I wait for
my God. They that hate me without a cause
are more than the hairs of my head. They that would destroy
me, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restored that
which I took not away. Oh God, this is Christ praying
right here. Listen to this. Oh God, Thou
knowest my foolishness and my sins are not hid from Thee. I
know that He did not sin. He never committed sin. And He
knew no sin. But He owned our sins. Really
did. And look what he prayed. Let
not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for
my sake. Let not those that seek thee
be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because for thy sake
I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered my face. I become a stranger unto my brethren,
an alien to my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are
fallen upon me. How could I glory in any other
when I see the shame Christ bore in my room instead? How could
I shame others when I see the shame He bore on my behalf? So
I wouldn't have to bear it. You read the rest of Psalm 69,
that's a serious thing. Speak to the hurt of those he
has wounded. How can we glory knowing that
Christ not only bore the shame, he bore the fierceness of the
fury of God's wrath. He bore his fierce indignation
in place of his people. Listen to what Nahum said about
God. Who can stand before His indignation? Who can abide in
the fierceness of His anger? His fury is poured out like fire
and the rocks are thrown down by Him. That hurricane that came
a few weeks ago, they say the Mississippi River went backwards
for four hours. And that hurricane, you just
watch the track of it, it went all the way from the Gulf, all
the way up through central part of the South and up through Tennessee
and Kentucky, came all the way up here to us. And there were
still tornadoes and all that rain that fell, that flood. That's
just a, I mean just a glimpse of God's power. Just a glimpse
of His power. He made those houses down there
at Mullica Hill look like toothpicks. They looked like dollhouses when
he got through, like you just took the roof off a dollhouse,
and it's just standing with just a wall standing. But that's what our substitute,
he didn't bear just a little bit, he bore the full fury in
place of his people. Christ suffered that second death,
that living hell that his people would have had to suffer for
eternity. He suffered that. That fury was God removing the
smile of His countenance and the glory of His presence from
our Redeemer and leaving Him in darkness to bear whatever the devil was
throwing at Him and sinners were casting upon Him and He bore
that. This is what breaks my heart
over my sin. This is what does it. This right
here. This is what breaks my heart
over my pride. This is what breaks my heart
that I have high thoughts of myself and low thoughts of God. You know, when the Spirit When
the Spirit is going to grant repentance, when He's going to
strengthen faith, when He's going to make you mortify the flesh,
this is it. This is the power right here.
To make you see Christ on the cross in your room instead. This
is it. This is it. That's why Paul said,
God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord
Jesus. Now let me ask this third question. How could we glory in any other
when we consider what Christ accomplished? Paul said, verse
14, by whom? By Christ. The world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world. Now in Christ, that's done perfectly. That's the only place it's done
in perfection. In Christ, His people died and rose again so that in Christ
the world is crucified unto His people and His people unto the
world. Where's Christ now? The world
doesn't think anything of Christ. He's gone. He's seated in glory.
That's where His people are. In Christ we really died so that
the world died to us and we died to the world. But in ourselves,
because He's created a new man in His people, in ourselves,
the elements of this world, the rudiments of this world, the
old covenant law and the ceremonies and any thought of coming to
God by any works of our flesh is dead. It's dead to us and
we're dead to it. Paul said in Colossians 2.20,
if you be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, from
the law of the carnal commandment, if you are dead to the rudiments
of the world, why as though living in the world? Why are you acting
as though your life is in the world, Paul said? And so that
you make yourself subject to ordinances, touch not, taste
not, handle not, which all are to perish with the using after
the commandments and traditions of men. And he said, but you
are dead and your life is in Christ at God's right hand. That's
what Paul is saying here. He is speaking to the Galatians
who were looking back to these beggarly elements and trying
to say that was a necessity to come to God, and he says, he's
saying the same thing, that God forbid that I should glory in
those beggarly worldly rudiments. Because I'm crucified in Christ.
I'm dead in Christ. I'm dead to the world and the
world's dead to me. Christ is our righteousness. He's our free
justification. We have no sin in Him. Those
that are brought to faith in Christ, this is what God says
of you, believer, He looks upon His Son, and because you were
in His Son, He says you have honored Him perfectly, you have
walked your life, fulfilled His law, never broken it, honored
it in every way, with no sin, from a perfectly holy heart,
and there is no record of sin on you at all. You are perfect,
and God's well pleased with you, and you're seated there in His
presence. That's what He says of His people in Christ. Paul had a lot of things he put
confidence in before. He said, though I might also
have confidence in the flesh, if any other man has confidence,
I more. If he thinks he can trust in
his flesh and glory in his flesh, I more, Paul said. I was circumcised
the eighth day. Of the stock of Israel, of the
tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the
law, I was a Pharisee. Concerning zeal, I persecuted
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law blameless."
Talk about an outwardly moral man that you couldn't have found
a fault with him. Paul said, but what things were
gained to me? He was glorying in all that. He thought that was giving him
acceptance with God or making him something good for him with
God. And he said, those things I thought
were gained to me, I count them lost for Christ. I count all
things lost for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and I don't
count them lost, he said, they're just done. that I might win Christ
and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which
is of the law, but that which is through the faithfulness of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. When we're
brought to rest in Christ and truly believe on Christ and trust
Him as all our righteousness, when behold our life is there
in glory at God's right hand, Christ makes the confidence we
had in beggarly elements And if we were already in Christianity,
whether it's we would trust in our faith, or we would trust
in our repentance, or we would trust in our church membership,
and our church attendance, or we would trust in some good deeds
we've done, and how we don't do these bad things, and all
of that confidence, we can't confide in that anymore. Because
that's glory in itself. Christ has got to be the only
confidence we have. And yet every believer knows
this too. You know this too. Because we have a sinful nature,
we are constantly in a warfare not to look at something we've
done and put confidence in it. Constantly. It's there all the
time. It's only the cross of Christ
that modifies that. It's only being turned to Christ
and beholding that Christ is our fullness of acceptance and
completion and righteousness with God, that that sinful... When you behold Him and what
He endured on the cross in the face of so much opposition and
how He did not sin at all, but was completely obedient bearing
the wrath of God for His people to the full obedience of that
final moment when He said it's finished. And you behold in Him
perfection right there. That's when you say, why did
I put any confidence in anything I've done? Why am I looking at
anything I've ever said or done and put any confidence in it
whatsoever? When I would do good, evil is
present with me. That is my confidence. Him alone.
And by Christ this is something else. The applause of this world
and the criticism of this world is dead to us. The applause and the criticism. They are charging you with great
things or they are charging you with bad things. The world is
crucified to me and I to the world in Christ. Now our sinful
nature loves the applause of men and hates to be criticized
by men. People that act real humble,
all you've got to do is just sincerely say something offensive
to them and you'll find out just like that, they ain't humble.
They'd be really offended because they're full of pride. Me too. You too. And this is a warfare
we have in us to the day we die. How is it mortified? Looking
to Christ on that cross. And the Spirit of God bringing
you to see that He really died to this world and this world
died to you. And you're there with Him in
glory. You know, it's so sweet times. There are sweet times
when the Spirit fills your heart and has your affection set on
Christ and you don't consider whatever good or bad the world
has said, it goes away. All you can think of is Christ
and what you have in Him. That's what true mortification
of the flesh is. When you don't even regard your
flesh or this world. The Spirit brings us there and
He's sweet when He does. You can't fulfill the lust of
your flesh when He brings you there. But a little while goes
and we have to work, we have to do things in the world, we
have to take care of responsibilities in the world. And somebody says
something that crosses you that's not flattering and find out real
quick, we still got an old man that's not dead to this world.
The new man is, that new man is, that new man is one with
Christ. And by Christ the lust of our
eyes and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life is dead
to us. And we're dead to you. Only in
Christ. In Christ it's perfect. In Christ
it's perfect. In Christ, we perfectly overcome
the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of
life. Our old man is crucified, our new man's risen, and we perfectly
overcome. But with Christ formed in us,
brethren, between our sin nature and our new man, there's a warfare.
Who's going to save us from it? Who's going to save us from this
flesh? who are going to save us from the lust of the eyes
and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Anybody that
doesn't say they don't have a struggle with that, they either deny they
are sinning and have sinned or they haven't been made a partaker
of the divine nature, one of the two. But those that have,
in that new man, Peter said, that new man is not corruptible.
The incorruptible seed has birthed him. And there's no sin in Him. He is united with Christ inseparably. And it's in this new man that
we worship the Lord. And the same thing happens. How
is it we stop glorying in our flesh? And looking, worrying
about what other people see in us. And lusting that they see
only good things in us. And the pride of this life. And the lust of other things.
What's going to modify that? when He turns you to Him, makes
you behold Him, makes you see that in Him you're complete,
and that old man is crucified. That's when He brings you to
cry out to Him. And truly, in a heart of faith,
to be so afraid of this world's applause, to be afraid of this
world's criticism, to be afraid of this world's prosperity, I'm
scared to death of riches. And I'll be scared to death of
riches for any of my brethren. Scared to death of it. Scared
to death of abject poverty for you. There's only one way we're going
to be kept, only one way we're brought to cry out, That's when
he turns you to him, to behold him, and you just... It's like he's standing right
there in front of you. And you call on him and say, Lord, don't
leave me to the lust of my flesh. Don't take your hand off me. Keep me looking to you. Keep
me walking after you. Keep me trusting you. Don't leave
me to myself. Grow me in grace and knowledge
of Him. Make Christ my only confidence.
Make Christ my only treasure. Make me glory only in Christ. And then we get to feeling strong. We can take care of this flesh.
We can put some restraints on him and we can take care of him.
Spurgeon said the more constraints he put on himself, the more lawless
he was. The more he found himself breaking
his restraints. Who's going to get the glory
for mortifying this flesh? Who's going to get the glory
for that? It ain't going to be me and it ain't going to be you.
It's Him. Be it that I should glory, save
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is
crucified unto me and unto the world. It's Him. It's Him who
is our peace. It's Him who is our righteousness.
Him who is our holiness. Him who is our all. That's who
we glory in. And in those times when He makes
you to see Him and really enter into these things, you know there's
nothing of us. You know there's nothing you
have contributed to this thing whatsoever. What do we have that
we didn't receive? Nothing. Strive against your
flesh. Strive against sin. Mortify your
flesh. Bring your body into subjection.
Pray to God you don't do it on your own. Pray to God he don't
let you think you did it by yourself. You'll be proud as a peacock,
won't nobody be able to be around you. Pray God keep you at his
feet, glory only in Christ to do it. God forbid that I should
glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the
world's crucified to me and I unto the world. Let's go to the Lord. Father, thank you for this Word.
We ask you to bless it. Lord, make us glory in Christ,
only in Christ. Make that sweet, sweet union. Make it stronger. Make us behold how inseparable
it is. Make us see Him, truly see Him. Lord, fill our hearts with that
love. Root us and ground us in it.
Save us from ourselves. We ask it, Lord, in Christ's
name. Amen.