Thank you, ladies. If you would,
go back to the book of Galatians, and I want you to go to the 6th
chapter. And I'm going to be speaking
out of the 6th chapter from verses 11-14. Our subject this morning
is glory in the cross of Christ. The Lord, in His mercy, had established
several churches in the country or province of Galatia. Certainly He used this great
apostle to establish those churches and further instruct them in
the gospel of God's grace, and the Lord was very merciful to
that area. And he had solid, solid churches
established. men and women made up of Gentiles
and Jews who loved the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
loved the sacrifice of the Savior and loved to hear of salvation
by faith in the Son of God without any works of the law. And so he writes this letter
to them to speak to them, first of all, of the things of our
Lord Jesus but also to actually make some corrections of some
things that they were listening to that greatly disturbed the
apostle. He was a faithful minister, you
see. He was a faithful steward of
God. In fact, he makes mention of that in an earlier book. He's
a minister, and that literally means a servant. One who, instead
of the owner as a servant, yet governs other servants. That's really what a preacher
of the gospel is. I'm a servant of the Lord Jesus
Christ, certainly not an apostle as was this man and the other
men that our Lord ordained as apostles. And yet, preachers
of the gospel, God puts them in various locations where they
rule or govern or guide the congregation in the things of God. He said
he's a minister of the Lord, and being a minister of the Lord,
that means attending to the needs of the people that were near
and dear to him. And on this occasion, of course,
the people of the churches of Galatia. He also refers to himself
not only as a minister, but as a steward. a steward, as one
who is an under-rower. That's what the word literally
means. One who's kind of out of sight, but yet doing a vital
work. And that's what the preacher
of the Gospel is. The one that we put up front, the one that
we want to be seen and observed and looked to and listened to
is our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we preachers of the
Gospel, we want to try and hide behind our Lord Jesus. And this was the desire of the
Apostle Paul. But always, always seeking to
exalt God, and always enabling or prayerfully asking God to
enable him to be of help to the people to whom he wrote. He's
a faithful minister of the gospel, and he's a steward of the mysteries
of God. And so he writes this letter
to the churches of Galatia. And as you read through all six
chapters of the book, and I would advise you to do that at your
leisure, it doesn't take long as you get into the book to find
out he is bothered by something. And that which is very troubling
to the apostle is that there were people who came in, Jews,
who insisted that these Gentiles, and of course, Galatia was a
country or province of Asia Minor, and so there are lots of Gentiles
in the congregation, but also some Jews, and there were some
of the Jews who insisted that the Gentiles to be really saved. to be really right with God,
they needed to go back and keep the law of God like the Jews
did. And specifically they talked
about the right of circumcision. But that was just one issue because
really when they mentioned that, they would put all of the Galatian
people under the law of God. And this greatly bothered Paul. Because salvation and sanctification,
they're not by works, they're not by the deeds of the law,
but by the grace of God given to us as we believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. God saves us and God sanctifies
us in the Savior. Make sure you understand this.
Every aspect of salvation, it doesn't matter what you're talking
about. You may be talking about election, or redemption, or regeneration,
revelation, preservation, justification, glorification, all of those words
that we love to use. The Lord Himself is the one who
saves us, so all of those things are of God only. and they're
only to be located in, they're only to be found in, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Do you need salvation? It's in
the crucified, buried, risen Savior. You say, I want to be
a sanctified person. It's in the same place where
salvation is because sanctification is holiness. And you see, there
were people who got into the church of Galatia. They got into
these assemblies and they said, yeah, you know, we talk about
the grace of God, we talk about the blood of the Lord Jesus,
but if you want to be really saved, if you really want to
be sanctified, it's works that will do it for you. And I'll
tell you, the apostle, he is upset. He is upset. You know, you read the rest of
his letters from the book of Romans all the way through, and
if he wrote the book of Hebrews, and it's the only one he didn't
sign, but perhaps he did. Most likely he did. You read
all of those, he kind of eases into his subjects, into the subject
of our Lord Jesus, His person and His work. And he does it
in a very in a soft and soothing way. But as he writes this book,
this letter that went to all the churches in Galatia, he quickly
gets to his subject that he was shocked that they forsook the gospel
of grace, the gospel of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, and they started
believing another gospel which he says in chapter 1 is not a
gospel at all. It's not good news at all. Listen,
it is not good news that you must do something to either save
yourself or sanctify yourself. You can't save yourself, and
I've got news for you, you can't make yourself holy. Now, as children
of God, we want to live godly lives. There's no question about
that. We want to live believing our Lord Jesus and doing those
things, conducting ourselves in a manner that is honoring
to our Lord. Not out of a legal principle,
but out of the principle of love and thanksgiving. We're not here
this morning, we're not gathered together this morning because
the law of God demands it. We're here gathered together
this morning because we want to gather together and we need
to hear the Word of God and we want to honor our Lord Jesus. We're here out of love for Him
and thanksgiving for all that He's done for us by His bloody
sacrifice. We're here to join our voices
together in praise to Him, and then read His Word, and seek
His face in prayer, and listen to special music, and all the
while, we're honoring our God. We're thanking Him for all that
He's done for us, and all that He does for us is necessary for
salvation. You can't save yourself, and
you can't sanctify yourself either. Some of you will understand what
I'm saying on this next statement that I'm going to make. Some
of you may not, but there are people who believe in what they
call progressive sanctification. That is, you're progressively
growing in holiness. That is absurd. You either are holy in Jesus
Christ or you're unholy. You don't grow in holiness. Just
like you don't grow in justification. You don't grow in righteousness.
You're either right with God or you're not. And you're either
holy before God or you're not. And you see, these Jews who had
come into the churches of Galatia, they said, to really be holy. Now, you've got to obey the laws
of Moses. And this certainly upset the
Apostle Paul. And so he writes this letter.
And you know, it's interesting. Notice what he says in chapter
6 and verse 11. He says, you see how large a
letter I have written unto you with mine own hand. Now in all
of his letters, with the exception of the book of Hebrews, he certainly
signs his name to all of them. having been inspired of the Holy
Spirit as to exactly what to write, but with most of the other
letters, and maybe with all of them, he dictated then what God
gave to him to a secretary or to some scribe. But he starts the letters by
identifying himself. He's Paul. And as he wrote, he
said, I'm Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ. And some of the
letters, like Romans, Tertius was the secretary who wrote down
what Paul told him to say. The Spirit of God came upon Paul. The Spirit of God gave him the
words to say. And then Paul said to Tertius,
write this now. You got that? Read it back to
him because it's got to be word for word because this is the
Word of God. And so he used a secretary or a clerk or a scribe of some
sort who recorded his words and then wrote them down. But he
says this in verse 11, you see how large a letter I have written? And then he says this, with mine
own hand, He wanted them to know that he is so very much concerned
with the false teaching that many of them were kind of embracing. He wanted them to know that he
took the time himself to write with large letters, perhaps as
an indication again of his poor eyesight, which many people think
that was one of his issues. But he wants them to know, I
wrote this myself. And maybe he didn't have the
best penmanship, I don't know. Maybe he didn't write as good
as Tertius or some of the other secretaries that he used, I don't
know. but He wants them to know these
words that I write to you in this letter and the letters distributed
to the churches in Galatia, He wanted them to know I wrote this
with my own hand. That's how much I love you. That's
how much I care about you. You see, real, real love will
be honest with people. He's not trying to write a soothing letter that
it really doesn't matter what they're hearing from the pulpit.
Just love one another and love God, and we'll all wind up in
the same place. No. He wants them to know, I
wrote this myself. And all of the criticisms that
I've made are made for a good reason. First of all, for God's
glory, and for your welfare. You're either saved by grace
or by works. Which is it? You're either sanctified
by grace or by works. Which is it? And of course, he
insists that it's by the grace of God. Now look what he says
in the next verse, verse 12. As many as desire to make a fair
show in the flesh, He says they, here's what they do, they constrain
you to be circumcised, to go under the law of Moses. They
want you to keep God's law. And it wasn't that they didn't
mention the grace of God. They did that every once in a
while. And it wasn't that they failed to mention the Lord Jesus
Christ. They certainly did that. And
I feel certain that even these Judaizers, and that's a good
name for them, these legalists, they talk about the blood, probably
talk about the blood, the book, and the blessing of hope, like
a lot of preachers do. But, mixing into that was works
of the flesh. And he even says this, the reason
that they want you to go under the law is for this. Look at the latter part of verse
12. Only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of
Christ. These Jews wanted to save face
before other Jews. So yeah, they talk about grace
every once in a while, use the name of Christ every once in
a while, but they had to preach the law
of Moses lest people persecute them, especially the other Jews
would persecute them because they preached the cross of Christ.
It wasn't that they didn't mention grace, cross, blood, things like
that. But that wasn't the very thrust
of their ministry. Their ministry was really, their
message was really, works, works, works. And you know, I've been preaching
45 years. I've heard a lot of preaching.
I still listen to preaching on sermon audio. There are many men who will use
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They'll mention the word grace. They'll talk about the Bible.
They may even occasionally talk about the blood. but their message
is how you should be obedient and live your lives in obedience
to God's law and to look within, look within to see if your faith
is real being evidenced by your works, your works, your works. You say, well, what's wrong with
that preacher? Well, I'll tell you this, when I look within, all I see is a sinful man. That's what I see. And really,
I see no goodness in me at all. If you look within, you're looking
in the wrong direction. And this is the issue with a
lot of preachers and even some grace preachers. They always
have people looking within. But you see, assurance of salvation
does not come to you by looking within. If you want to feel horrible,
if you want to be convicted, if you want to be stripped, of
all supposed goodness, go ahead and take a look within. Because
there is no goodness nor soundness in you by nature. The only hope
we have is outside of us. It's our Lord Jesus Christ and
His work of redemption. You see, and I was talking with
somebody about this just the other night. To preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified is not to just drop His name every once in a while.
Well, he really preached Christ this morning. Did he? Did he
preach the gospel of Christ? Did he preach the good news of
substitution and satisfaction? Well, I tell you, our preachers
all the time mention Jesus. Well, lots of false prophets
mention the name of Jesus Christ. If they didn't, people would
run them out of the churches. And they'll talk about the Bible.
They don't much preach out of the Bible, but they'll talk about
the Bible. You see, there's a big difference
between preaching what you must do, how you must live, where
you must go, where you must not go, how you're to use your time,
how you're not to use your time. There's a big difference between
preaching those things works and preaching Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. With the glory only in the Gospel. And listen, we're not under the
works of the law in any way, shape, or form. That's what Paul
says. He says in Romans 8, you're not
under law, you're under grace. Let me tell you something, grace
is a much more powerful motivator to live right, and to do right,
and to talk right, than law is. But you see that's the way preachers,
a lot of preachers, that's the way they use the law. They use
it as a whip. Or they dangle before you rewards. If you keep the law, you'll get
more when you get to heaven. The more you do, the more you'll
get. Well, let me tell you something. If God has saved you by His grace,
He has given you Christ Jesus and all things in Him. He can't give you any more than
Christ. He's redeemed you. He's saved
you. He's justified you. What does
that mean? He made you righteous. He established
righteousness for you by His substitutionary sacrifice upon
the cross of Calvary. You see, with these Judaizers,
they would drop the name of Jesus Christ every once in a while,
but only to avoid any persecution from the other Jews. In fact, as he says in verse
12, they desire to make a fair show in the flesh. They want
to look good before other Jews. Yeah, look good before other
Jews. And the reason they did it was,
well, first of all, that they would gain more followers. More followers. More disciples. And the more disciples they gathered
around them, the other Jews said, good job. Good job, you brought those heathen
Gentiles, those heathen dogs, you brought them in and you have
put them under the law of God. We applaud you for that. That was their goal. But they had another goal too.
Because as they brought people to live under the authority of
and the bondage of the Law of God, they would undermine the
ministry of the Apostle Paul. If they get enough following, they'll
say, now listen, what we're preaching to you about obeying the Law,
Is that apostle preaching the same thing to you? You don't
need to listen to him anymore. You better be listening to us.
We'll tell you how to live. We'll govern your life. We'll
lay down for you rules. We'll tell you what to eat, what
not to eat. We'll tell you what day that
you should not work and the other days it's okay if you work. We'll
take care of all those things. In fact, we will run your life. And you know, there are people
who they will bow down to, cow down to that kind of preaching.
And I say, you know, oh, it really beats me up, but I need that.
I need that. I guess this is the way I'm going
to be more holy. And then they say, well, I can't
live up to that. Well, confess your sin and try
harder. Try harder. And here comes this
man of God. And he says, don't listen to
these people. I read to you there out of chapter
three, he says, oh foolish Galatians. You've been bewitched. It's like
somebody's cast a spell over you. I came to you, I preached
Christ crucified, buried, risen again. I preached the blood of
the Son of God. Redemption. I preached salvation
by grace. I preached we're righteous with
God only because of the Lord Jesus and His work. That He is
our righteousness, He's our sanctification, He's our holiness. And He's our
redemption. I preach to you, Christ is all. But you listen to these people,
and they're in essence saying, the Lord Jesus Christ is not
enough. He said, you're so foolish. You're
a bunch of fools. That's plain talk, isn't it?
Plain talk. Let me tell you something. When
it comes to your salvation, And when it comes to the things of
our God, that calls for plain talk. That is preaching that
can't be misunderstood. Not of works, Paul said in Ephesians
2, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that knowledge
of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works. But you
see, these Judaizers says it is of works, at least partly.
And in essence, they were saying, if you really want to be a Christian,
if you really want to be saved, oh, I really want to be saved,
preacher, then you got to fall in line and do these things that
we tell you to do. But he says this in verse 13.
He says, for neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the
law, In other words, the same men who are telling you to keep
the law, they don't even keep it themselves. He says, they desire to have
you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh, that they
can brag about how many more followers they've got. And by preaching the law works,
They avoided the persecution of the cross of Christ. These
men didn't have any real interest in the law of God. They're looking
for results. And as I look at religion today,
and it's always been this way, false religion. It's a numbers
game. That pretty much sums it up.
It's a numbers game. Y'all got more people in Sunday
school than you had last year? Are you growing over there? Somebody
asked me that the other day. Are you growing over there? I
said, I hope we're growing in grace. In how much we need grace,
and in how thankful we are for grace, You see, growing in grace. People talk about progressive
sanctification or growing in holiness, and they say that is
the same, that's equal to growing in grace. No, it isn't. That's
not right. You're wrong. To grow in grace
is to grow in appreciation and gratitude for God's sovereign
grace given to you through the Lord Jesus Christ. It's growing in understanding
that apart from the bloody sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, you'd have
been lost forever. It's growing in the realization
that if the Spirit of God had not quickened you by His mighty,
mighty regenerating grace, you'd still be dead in trespasses and
sins. And this leads to more thanksgiving
and appreciation to the Lord. You see, these so-called, I would
call them, self-appointed guardians of the law, they were looking to make a name
for themselves with their legalism. And listen very carefully. Legalism
is very subtle error. It's very subtle. It's sneaky. Suddenly, you'll find yourself
doing things to be accepted by God. Wait a minute. You better hold the phone. Our acceptance before God is
in the Beloved. Ephesians chapter 1. We're accepted
in Christ Jesus. And really, nothing you do or
don't do will affect your acceptance or non-acceptance before God. Our acceptance is based solely,
solely upon the obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ who was
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He's our
only hope. Beware of legalism. I talked to a man not too long
ago. He said the preacher preached
morality, Hey, I'm all for morality, but that's not Christianity.
That's not salvation. Telling people how to live, running
people's lives, a lot of preachers like to do that. I'm very content to stand before
my Master. and say upon the witness of my
own ministry and messages, I have endeavored though as a sinful
man, I have endeavored with all of my heart to brag on Christ
Jesus and Him crucified for sinners. That's the only thing that a
preacher is to do. We're to preach the gospel of
our Lord Jesus. And then he says this in verse
14, but God forbid that I should glory, verse 14, except in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he uses a very strong expression,
God forbid. You see, He's talked about these
Judaizers in verse 13. They want a glory in your flesh. They want a glory in more followers. They want a glory in having more
this Sunday than we had last Sunday. They want a glory in
their numbers. He said, God forbid that I should
do that. And you can just hear in His
writings here how stern He is here. He's very adamant about
this. God forbid. That's not the way
we are. He said, that's not my ministry. I only glory in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Glory. What is glory in? I only
boast in. I'm only satisfied with. I only
delight in. I'm only thrilled by. Our Lord Jesus Christ and His
cross, that is, His substitutionary work. You see, the legalists,
they boasted in, they were happy about, they were delighted by
the number of followers that they got. And that's why they
kept on preaching the deeds of the law. And here's what Paul is saying.
What they boast in, I absolutely refuse to boast in. I don't know whether God's purpose
for 13th Street Baptist Church is for us to grow or to shrink. I don't know. But whatever happens to us, We will glory as long as I'm
here, and as long as the other two preachers were here, we glory
only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And God will do
His work. We leave it at that. And he says this, He says, the
latter part of verse 14, he says, by whom the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world. Now I think this can be the secular
world. So I don't have any use for the
world. But I think he's talking about
the religious world. He said the religious world doesn't
have any use for me. He said that's alright. Because
I don't have any use for them either. They don't approve of me and
my message. That's alright. I don't approve
of them and their message. And in the end, when we stand
before God, He'll sort it all out. Who spoke for Him? Who magnified His darling Son? And who didn't? He boasted in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ. What does he mean by cross? Well,
he means the substitutionary, effectual, redemptive work of
our Lord Jesus Christ. He's not talking about a wooden
beam upon which the Lord hung. He's not talking about a sign
that people make. He's talking about the doctrine
of the cross. The gospel of the cross. Here's
the good news. A Savior has died. He died for
the sins of His people. He died that God might be just
and justify the ungodly. He died to bring in everlasting
righteousness. He died to put away all the sins
of all of His people for all of time and all of eternity.
And that's the Gospel that this man, the Apostle Paul, preached.
And we glory in that Gospel. We boast about it. We brag about
our Savior and His redemptive work. That's what we're supposed
to do. That's what we're all about here. The doctrine of the cross. And
as far as these Judaizers, These worksmongers, they'll speak
ill of us. That's okay. I'm not trying to
get along with everybody. I'm not trying to be a friend
and a brother in Christ to everybody who professes that they know
Jesus. My job is to be a true minister and steward of the mysteries
of God. I'm not trying to win friends
and influence people. I'm trying to tell people the
truth about God, about ourselves and our neediness, who Christ
is and what He did for sinners. And I say, do you need Him? Do
you need Him for salvation? And do you need Him for sanctification,
for holiness? And I say with all honesty from
the bottom of my heart, I need Him for everything. I'm the most
needy person in this building. But I'll tell you what, in Christ,
I am complete. I hope you can say that. There's
a wonderful hymn in our hymn book. Turn to 118. It's called,
When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.