Galatians chapter 6, verses 11
through verse 15. The title of the message is,
In Whom Do You Glory? In Whom Do You Glory? The scripture
says in verse 11 of Galatians 6, See ye how large a letter
I have written unto you with my 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. 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, a new creation. The first thing that I want us
to see from this text is the affection of the Apostle Paul
again for this church at Galatia. You remember that this church
was founded by the Apostle Paul, and when he preached the gospel
to them, their hearts were knit together. He said, you would
have given your own eyes for me if you could. And he said,
I don't understand why you're so easily moved from the gospel
of grace to a legalistic gospel. And here again, he states his
affection. He says, see that I have written such a large letter
with mine own hand. Now, the Apostle Paul, we know,
wrote many of the letters in the New Testament. Matter of
fact, most of them are written by the Apostle Paul. But we also
know that these letters were not penned by his own hands,
save this one. Go ahead and look over at Romans
chapter 16. Romans chapter 16, look at verse
22. It says, "...I, Tartius, who
wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord." You see, this was
written by the hand of Tartius as he was being dictated to by
the Apostle Paul. And this is the same thing in,
we don't have time, but 2 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 16 and Philippians
4. All of those, you'll see at the
end of those letters, It is signed by those who wrote the letter,
but the Apostle Paul is the one that had to give his final signature. These epistles were not written
without his authority, but yet he was not the one that penned
them. And so he tells these Galatians,
he says, look, I love you. I love you so much that I couldn't
even wait for a scribe. I wrote this letter with my own
hand. My own hand. We know that this is not new,
how that the prophets were transcribed. We know that Jeremiah, he spoke
through a scribe. In Jeremiah 36, 4, it's Baruch,
B-A-R-U-C-H, if I pronounce that right. He was the one that God
said, you tell this to this man and he will write it for you.
Friends, this does not make any of the letters less authoritative
because they did come from the apostle. They did come by the
Holy Spirit unto him. And this letter was no different,
but this letter was different in that he wrote it with his
own hand to show his affection, to show his love and compassion
and zeal for this church. He desired the Galatians to know
that this letter came directly from his heart. I'll tell you, there's nothing
like a personal letter, is there? There's nothing like a letter
that's signed by someone you love. And the Apostle Paul, he said,
I wrote this with my own hand. And they knew it must have been
a great undertaking for the Apostle Paul to mention this. We know
that somewhere, somehow, the apostle was not always a well
man. He was a sickly man. And this
was possibly one of the reasons why he would dictate to others,
because it was difficult for him to write. But whether that was true or
not, we know this is important, to know that this letter was
a personal letter. because he loved them and would
desire them to return to the gospel. You know, I pray for
such love. I pray for such love for you
as the apostle had for this church. I pray that God, by grace, would
give us that love. For sinners, for those who err
in the faith, those who have gone away, that God would give
us that same desire and zeal to see them come and rejoice
with us again. The Apostle definitely had great
zeal and love for them. And even to the end, this Apostle
Paul, even though he loved them, he did not swerve from the truth. He did not beat around the bush. I know that sometimes we love
people and we think we love them so much that we just kind of
hee-haw around the truth. Well, that's not really love.
That's not love. Someone the other day had some
food in their teeth. Well, you know, I told them.
They were thankful. They were thankful that I told
them the truth. You know, let them go around
all day like that? No, that would be wrong. How much more wrong
is it to let people continue in the error of false religion? You know, the Apostle Paul, he
loved them, but he loved them enough to tell them the truth.
And this was the truth that continued throughout this book. If you
would notice that this book is centered on this subject of grace
versus the law. that you cannot have both. They cannot be intermixed. Either it is all of grace or
it is all of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace
and work is no more work. We know that those definitions
must be true, and he says the gospels of grace cease from work,
cease from the law. And he shows this by a comparison
in verses 12 through 14. First of all, he shows the desire
of false religion. Look at that in verse 12. As many as desire to make a fair
show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised. They desire That these people,
these Galatian church, these false teachers came in and desired
that they follow one aspect of the law of Moses. Just one. These false teachers, they no
doubt mentioned Christ. They no doubt mentioned his blood,
his righteousness. They no doubt mentioned that
you had to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. But
there's the word of condemnation. But you also must be circumcised. You must follow this one law,
this one thing. And Paul says in previous chapters,
chapter 5, he says, Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, if ye be
circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. You see how vital
this matter of grace is? How subtle it would be to mix
works and grace? And yet this is what the church,
the false church, has always done. They desire to glory in
a fair show of the flesh, an outward expression of the flesh,
rather than preach the gospel and suffer persecution for the
cross of Christ. Now, this word glory, this word
glory we're going to be talking about in these verses, it means
to boast, to rejoice, to exalt, and to magnify. someone or something. That's what it means. It means
to brag, to boast, and to rejoice in. Now, all men glory in something. We all have things we love to
boast about. We have little things like our families. We like to
boast in our families. You like to boast of your grandchildren
and your children and the people that you love. You like to boast
of them and tell others about them. Sometimes we glory in our
academic abilities. Some people have great academic
abilities, and they worked hard for it. And they're able to rejoice
in that. And others would glory in their
work. They do a good job. They make a good product. They're
really industrious. And none of these things are
wrong in and of themselves. None of these things that we
should be proud of our work? Yes, you should be. You should
do a good job. You should love your family.
You should love your neighbor as yourself. There's no question
about that. But it is wrong to rejoice or glory
in anything above the gospel of the cross of Christ. It is
a wicked sin to place our families, our work, or our education or
anything above the gospel. The gospel should be the highest
glory there is. The gospel of God's grace in
Christ. We who are believers in Christ,
we may love our families, And they love our jobs, but I'll
tell you this, we will boast in none of these to save our
eternal, immortal soul. We will glory in none of them.
Why? Because all we do is sin. That's all we can do. Sin is
mixed with everything we do. Therefore, in our salvation,
We glory in nothing but Christ. We glory and boast nothing and
receive no glory of ourselves. The glory to save our souls rests
in Christ. And He's our boast. I boast of
Him. I want to brag about Him. I want
to point you to Him, because He is all my glory. He's all my rejoicing. But like
the church in Galatia, many false teachers and false prophets rejoice
in the flesh of others, a glory in the flesh of others. Look over to Second Timothy,
chapter two. 2 Timothy 2, it says, Thou therefore,
my son, be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ, and
the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the
same commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach
also others. Thou therefore endure hardness
as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man worth and entangle himself
with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who has
chosen him to be a soldier. And if a man also strive for
masteries, yet he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully. The
husbandman that laboreth must be first partakers of the fruit.
Consider what I say. And the Lord give the understanding
in all things. Remember that Jesus Christ, the
seed of David, was raised from the dead according to my gospel,
wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds. But
the word of God is not bound. Therefore, endure all things
for the elect's sake, that you may obtain the salvation which
is in Jesus Christ with eternal glory. It is a faithful saying. For if we be dead with him, we
shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign
with him. If we deny him, he also will
deny us. The Apostle Paul, in this letter
to this pastor, he's saying, you've heard the gospel. You've
heard the gospel. You've been given the gospel
of God's grace. Keep to that course. Keep to
that course. Rejoice in nothing but the gospel,
because that's the gospel that saved you. That's the gospel
that will keep you. Believers, we are to live, we
do live in perilous times. We do live in an age where men
desire to show religion rather than preach the truth. We live in a day where men Preach
a message glorying in the works of men. This is a false gospel. You who believe in Christ, we
need to stick to the gospel. Stay with the gospel. Believe the gospel. Glory in
the gospel of Christ. And leave them alone. Therefore,
these false religious men, they try to constrain men to follow
them because they want to be seen of men. I glory in the gospel
of Jesus Christ not to be seen of you. I'm not here to be seen
of you. I'm here because God called me
to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. You're here because you
desire to worship by hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We
don't glory in what we do. I'm nothing. I'm nothing. Christ is all. Christ is all. But in the false religion, it's
man is all. Man is all in false religion. And they desire to make a fair
show in the flesh. These legalists try to measure
themselves not by the message they preach, but by the works
that their congregation, or they themselves, perform. That's how
they measure success. By how many people they can get
into the pew. That's how they measure success.
They've been measuring that success for hundreds, even ever since
the Lord left. They've been trying to measure
the success of the church by how many people they trick into
coming. I remember hearing a story about
Henry Mahan. When he was converted, they had
that same year a slogan in the Southern Baptist Church, a million
more in 54. They were trying to get people
in. And you know what? They're still
trying to get people in by the message. No, not by the message. Entertainment. Excitement. Motorcycles jumping, hoops, fire
rings of, you know, circus performers, singers, music. That's how they try to get people
in. Friends, we do not measure our success of the gospel by
those means, by outward, visible signs. The false church does. That's what these Galatians were
doing. They say, oh, look, another one circumcised. Woo, I did it
for Jesus. No, you didn't. You gloried in
that man's flesh. You took glory in what you did. And they desire for you to take
glory in what you did, so that you both can glory in
yourselves. That's false religion. There is no glory in that gospel. There is no glory in that message.
There is nothing to boast in. But these men These legalists,
they will be fully manifest and they will be revealed. How? How do you know who is a
false prophet? You'll know them by their message.
Don't look at the sideshows. Hear the message. Is it grace
or is it works? There's only two religions. You
don't need to be confused by all of the names. There are only
two works and grace. Works and grace. There's no other
religion. And they glory in the cross plus
something. All false religion glories in
the cross. plus something you've got to
do. They've made faith nothing more
than a work of the flesh in our day. Well, if you will, if you
just will, if you just make that decision, then Christ's work
is effectual to you. They're glorying in their own
will. It's not the gospel. It's not
the gospel. I heard of a pastor that was
confronted with this gospel of God's grace, that God chose a
people, Christ redeemed those people, the Holy Spirit will
call those people and keep those people unto eternal glory. He heard the message that salvation
is of the Lord. And he said, oh, I believe that.
And the man said, why don't you preach it? He said, well, if
I preach it, then I'm going to lose the people. I'm going to
lose them. They're going to go away. You
see, he refused to suffer persecution for the gospel of Christ. He's
not sent of God. He's not sent of God. That's
what these men... Look back at your text. Look
at your text here. He said, they constrain you to
be circumcised only unless they should suffer persecution for
the cross of Christ. People are willing to do anything
for Jesus except Preach and hear his gospel. They'll do anything
for him. Anything. The problem is, he's
not asking those things. He's not asking you to lift weights
for Jesus. I read that nowhere in Scripture,
do you? You see, I need Christ's righteousness. And if I add anything to his
righteousness, I've defiled the sacrifice and it's no good to
me. I glory in Christ alone, no matter
what men think. I'm not here to please men. I'm
here just to tell the truth of the gospel of God's grace. That's
what we glory in. They glory in the flesh. They
glory in the outward manifestations of religion, but we glory in
the cross of Christ. And it will be made evident.
I'm so grateful for the times that we live in. I'll tell you,
I was thinking about this the other day. We live in such a
dark time. It seems like overnight that
the world is turned topsy-turvy. It seems like everybody is calling
evil good and good evil. It's just so easy for us to look
at that and say, ah, what are you saying? That's evil. Oh, no, that's good. But that's
all right, because in darkness, the light is made more bright. It's made clearer. There is a
clearer line of distinction today than there was 50 years ago.
There's a great line of distinction. The gospel makes a distinct sound. And we will not compromise with
the world. We will not compromise with false
religion. This is why we don't join their
organizations. Because if we did, we would consent
to their doctrine. And we don't. We only consent
to the grace of God. in Jesus Christ alone. If we would hear men preach,
we must first desire to see who they glory in. Is it
the cross? Is their message centered around
the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ? Or do they try
to mix in something that you've got to do? There is the line of distinction.
We glory in the gospel of Jesus Christ and we are saved by his
grace alone, not by the works of the flesh. We glory in God's
cross. Now, this is the second point.
What we glory in. We glory in the cross. Paul says, but God forbid that
I should glory, save, in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, false religion glories
in the outward exercise of religion, in the number of people and in
the things that they do. But Paul says, of us who belong
to Christ, but God forbid. This is one of the strongest
expressions in Scripture. God forbid! Lord, by your grace and by your
mercy, keep me from such a thing as that, glorying in myself. I read this the other day. Self-righteousness
is very septive, isn't it? We can even be self-righteous
in the gospel, can't we? Well, look what I know. Look
at all the things I understand. Oh, you worthless Arminian. No, that's self-righteousness.
You see, the false church, it says, hey, come up with us. God's true church says, come
down with us. I want you to bow before Christ
with me. I want you to humble your souls
before the Lord and believe on Him alone. That's our hope. God forbid that
we should glory, that we should boast in anything but the cross. People have taken this and abused
this scripture as they've done many. This is not talking about
a wooden emblem. The cross of Christ is not just
some piece of wood put together like a Roman crucifix. Some people
put it around their neck. You might as well put an electric
chair around your neck. It was a device, a cruel device,
by which men administered justice in that day. Cruel. God forbid that we should glory
in some crucifix and bow down to some idol. We don't glory
in those things. There's no glory in that. The
apostle is speaking about something greater than something that's
sentimental. Everybody gets sentimental about
something. I mean, your grandparents, they pass this little emblem,
this little cross down, and you know, oh, it's so sweet. This
is my grandma's. Throw it in the trash. Throw
it in the trash. We don't worship such things.
We don't glory in such things. Those things are meaningless.
I'm not talking about a sentimentality, not emotionalism. That's not
glorying in the cross. Glory in the cross. is the glory
in the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said,
I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. That's it. The gospel. The gospel. True saints of God,
this is our one boast. Our one object of rejoicing and
the source of all our glory. The gospel message of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, and woe is me if I preach not the gospel. The gospel of God's immutable,
unchangeable love. Woe is me if I preach not that
gospel. Woe is me if I preach not the gospel of God's electing
grace by which He chose us before the foundation of the world,
God's redeeming grace in sending His only begotten Son that He
should die for them on the cross and redeem them, accomplish redemption
for them. God forbid that I should glory
in anything but God the Holy Spirit coming in grace and power.
by the preaching of the gospel in the salvation of his elect. I'll tell you, if there was not
a promise of God to save his people from their sins, I would
not do this. I wouldn't do it. It would be
a vain waste of time. But God said this. He says, If
you can stop the sun from coming up and the moon from running
its course, then you can take away my covenant. That'll never happen. God says,
I have sent my righteous branch and his name is the Lord, our
righteousness. We boast in a person. Not a creed. not some confession, we boast
in the person of Christ, the glorious person of Christ. He is our glory. He is our boast. In Him we trust. And therefore, in Him we glory. If we glory in this gospel, we will suffer persecution. There's no doubt about it. I'll
tell you what, if you've witnessed the world and everybody's just
getting along, something's wrong with your witness. Something's
wrong. Either they're not getting it
yet, or you're not saying it right. Because I'll tell you,
the gospel is a very divisive thing. Jesus said, I came to bring a
sword, not peace. I came to bring a sword to call
division. The gospel divides. And I'll
tell you, there's nothing angrier than a religious man who understands
that you are saying he's lost. There's nothing in the world
that would make a man more angry than that. Well, I'm a deacon. I don't care if you're a deacon.
That makes no difference. Do you know Christ? Have you
been saved by his grace or are you still trying to work out
your salvation? If you're working, if you're
trying, oh, I'm trying to be a good Christian. You're not
a Christian. If you're trying, you're not a Christian. And when we do this, Paul said
that I am crucified under this world and this world to me. I'm dead to this world. We should
be dead to this world. In other words, a dead man would
not care in the least if we kicked him, spit on him, and punched
him. He wouldn't care. He's dead. He has no care what men do to
him. That's how dead we should be
to this world. and fix our eyes only on the
glory of Jesus Christ, only looking to Christ by faith, not wavering.
And this world, he said, this world is crucified to me and
I unto this world. And friends, this world will
hate you. This world will hate your gospel and it will hate
you because it can't get to him. Jesus said, know this, they hated
me before they hated you. And Paul says in verse 15, for
Christ Jesus, neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but a new creation. It matters not what you've done. Has God resurrected your soul
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? A new creation. It's a miracle. It's not a decision. It's a miracle. The willingness comes after. And I'm so gratefully willing
to come to Christ. And I praise God for His power
and His mercy. In Him we should glory all the
day long, regardless of this world and what it thinks. I pray
that God blesses to your heart we're dismissed.