all how we are to approach and
see one another when we're in sin. So let's just read the whole
of chapter six and then we'll close it out tonight. Brothers,
if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should
restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest
you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and
so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he's something
when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one test
his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone
and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his
own load. Let the one who has taught the word share all good
things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived. God is not
mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the
one who sows to his own flesh will reap from the flesh corruption,
but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal
life. Let us not grow weary in doing good, for in due season
we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity,
let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of
the household of faith. See with what large letters I'm
writing to you with my own hand. It is those who want to make
a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised,
and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross
of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves
keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised so that
they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast,
except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world
has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision
counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for
all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon
the Israel of God. From now on, let no one cause
me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers.
Amen. I say I might get all that tonight,
I don't know if I will or not. I might have to break dance into
the evening. Well, we see where Paul has really
taken the law and put it in its proper place. He said that the
law is a shadow of Christ. It's a shadow of the things to
come, who is the righteousness of God, who satisfied the wrath
of God on his elect people and restored them to right standing
before the Lord. We understand that righteousness
is an imputed thing. It's an alien thing. We are counted
righteous. We are not righteous. But one
day when our bodies die, that we will be reborn in the sense
of recreated with a new body as Christ is, and therefore we
will no longer be attached or tethered to the guiltiness and
to the wickedness and to the warring that happens in our flesh. Long for that day, I do, I promise
you. And so we continue to see and see how people love to satisfy
the flesh in the context of not just sinfulness like the world
would offer, but also in self-righteousness, which is the context of this
letter. It's interesting to note, too,
that self-righteousness is probably the primary sin of all the New
Testament letters. We see Paul talking to the church
of Corinth and we see Paul talking to to other churches and other
regions about errors and doctrinal problems and certain sins that
have creeped up and how they should love one another, etc.
And those instructions to the saints have a different tone
than when Paul deals with the sin of self-righteousness, which
he calls the sin of unbelief. A man who is regenerate does
not hold fast to his own fleshly righteousness. He understands
that it is something that is granted to him by the finished
work of Jesus, by the Father through the Spirit being heard
by the teaching of the Word. And that if we do see sin in
each other's life, we are to call it. We are to be humble.
We are to be spiritual, as I spoke last week. We are to restore
people in a spirit of gentleness. We are not to be haughty, thinking
that we're okay and they're not, just because our sins don't match. As we see Paul closing this letter,
we see that even those who took circumcision were lawbreakers,
even in the fact that they took circumcision. They broke the
law because they did not keep the rest of it. So Paul would
then say we bear one another's burdens and in doing so we actually
fulfill the law of Christ. We actually are doing that which
is deprecating to ourselves. We sacrifice our lives. We give
of our own gifts and money and love and affection and counsel
and labor for the sake of each other in the fellowship of the
saints. We who are the ones who are commanded to assemble as
often as we're able so that we may be taught to do these things,
so that we may be encouraged in this way. And we don't boast
in what we do. We don't boast in what our neighbor
does. We boast in the Lord Jesus Christ, as Paul closes this out,
but when you see that section there in verse 5, we can, in
one sense, have a reason to boast, not that we should, but Paul
uses this language to show if we're going to boast, let us
only look and measure our own selves, not measure how good
or how not good our neighbor's doing. Don't make ourselves look
good by looking at how poorly our neighbor lives or how sinful
he or she may be. Not ever. It should never be
that way because we each have to bear our own load. And that
is also the command of Christ. Then he goes on in the same context
there, verse 6, giving some instructions, and this is self-serving for
me as a teacher, as a shepherd of the flock, because I could
get on this verse and I could preach an entire hour and talk
about stewardship, but in the context here, it's helping the
church remember, just because you hear the shepherd teach you
how to bear the burden of each other, don't forget the man that
teaches you. He, as a command of God, is supposed
to make His living by the Gospel. And He is supposed to be available
to give us of His life, not have a vocation and a career that
sets Him up, but He must be taken care of. So let the one who is
taught the Word share all good things with the one who teaches,
so that those who receive the ministry of the Word, as they're
able, they should help feed the man who teaches it. They should
help house the man who teaches it. They should help undergird
the life and the family of the man who teaches it. It is the
command of God because it is part of the mutual benefit. We
all have a gift to give and we all have service to one another.
Don't forget the elders. That's sort of what Paul's saying.
Don't forget us. And that's self-serving in some
sense. But by the Lord's mercy, as God
has called us and equipped us, we serve. I'll take food, flowers,
shoes. I received a nice pair of shoes
this year, or last year. Whatever it takes, the Lord will
do and will make all sufficiency in all things by His grace. Then
he says, do not be deceived. So he's talking about carrying
burdens and sowing and reaping and sharing all good things.
He's including the elders in that, the pastors, the teachers,
the overseers. And, of course, everybody else. We all have a
role. But he says, do not be deceived. Do not be blinded.
Do not be tricked. God is not mocked. For whatever
one sows, he will also reap." Now that is a proverb. That is
a wisdom literature there that just sort of bounces out. If
I throw out beans, they'll sprout up. If I throw out corn, it'll
grow stalks unless it's, you know, genetically engineered
not to. Or if I throw out whatever, if I plant a tree, it'll bear
fruit. But if I want apples and I put
rocks in the dirt, I'm not going to get anything. If I decide
I don't care if I eat or if you eat, and it is my job to help
feed you, and I don't sow anything for the sake of you, but consider
it myself, like we were talking earlier, the talents that came
up. We build a barn and store it all away, or if we bury it
in the dirt, we're wicked in evil service. We're not serving
the king in any way. We're not serving the king when
we're not serving each other. So don't be deceived. Reminding
us or the church here and also us in this teaching, whatever
we sow, we reap. So we will only get out of what
we put into. What does that mean in the context
of the verse 6? Well, what are we doing with
what we're hearing? What are we sowing with the Word
of God that we are receiving? Are we even concerned with hearing
the teaching of Scripture? Are we invested in it? If our
church goes away because there is no body to help minister to,
what is the big deal? Across this world, orphaned Christians
would give everything to be in fellowship with true gospel people. Yet in our culture, often we
bite at the very nature of what God has given us. We sometimes
don't even see the blessing because we're too close to it. So God
can take away things every now and then to show us just what
we have to lose. We will sow and we will reap. The one, as he says in verse
8, who reaps to his own flesh will reap corruption. Now what
does that mean in the context there? This is not a salvific
thing. This is a natural thing. This is a natural law. If I eat
a lot of fat, greasy food, I'm going to be a fat, greasy dude.
If I put crack in my body, I'm going to be a crack addict. If
I watch things that are not wholesome for my marriage and my life,
I'm going to be unwholesome. I'm going to defile my marriage
bed. If I am ruled by this or ruled
by that, if I watch violent shows, I'm going to be violent. You
put it in, it comes out. If I am considering my life more
important than yours, I am sowing for myself, I will never reap
a thing for you. And at the end, I am corrupted. I am alone. And here's the horrible thing,
when it's my turn to receive, I'm without. I remember a little nursery rhyme
or a fairy tale or something as a child that my grandmother
Tippins used to read to me. And it was about a hen who wanted
to make bread. And she went around the whole
farm and she asked for help and she asked for help and she asked
for help and nobody wanted to help grind the wheat. Nobody
wanted to help do this. Nobody wanted to help put it
all together. Nobody wanted to help bake it.
And so when it came time to eat it, everybody showed up. And
she said, no, you're not going to eat what you did not sow.
And I'm sure there's more to the story. It's been a long time
since I've heard it, but it pops into my head just now as I'm
thinking, and that is the point of the local assembly. There
are many people who are in the assembly of the saints and they
never consider how they might be a blessing to someone else.
They never consider, in the context of ministry, remember over two
decades I've been a pastor, there have been times, and it's rare,
but there have been times when groups of people have come and
they would treat me and the other pastors as if we were some type
of hirelings to do what they command of us, rather than a
servant to them. And they would hold things over
us or accuse us of not being available or doing it rightly
or how dare you be tired or, you know, something like that.
And I've seen things like that in the context of fellowships.
I've seen one person be upset with another because of something
that is not what they want. And the whole congregation fall
apart and the church shut down. And I don't even want to get
on the philosophy of that. Moreover, I don't want to get on the theology
of the idea that a church can shut down. It is an impossibility. There is no such thing as a shut
down church because there's no such thing as a church that's
open. We are the body of Christ assembling or we are not. Whether
it be here or on the ashes of this building, we are not a program,
we are not a place, we are not a purpose, we are a people. So
do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever
one sows, one will also reap. For the one who sows his own
flesh from the flesh will reap corruption. If we live for ourselves,
we will have nothing. If we give to ourselves, if we
take and never share, we will have nothing but the one who
sows to the Spirit. Will from the Spirit reap eternal
life. So now we see that there is a rule here that's being played
out. This wisdom that Paul points
to, which is obvious, now has a spiritual sense, now has a
salvific sense. Of course, we can be believers
and we can be caught in the context of just sowing for our own flesh.
But we who are believers in the fullness of all things in this,
as he's closing out this, he's reminding the reader, do not
forget that if you think circumcision works for you, it doesn't. If you want to be circumcised,
all you're going to do is be in pain. And in the end, it's
not going to give you a ticket to anything. but by the Spirit. And how is it that one sows to
the Spirit? This is a figurative language. We don't have the Spirit to plant
for us. This is the figurative language. We give into, we live
into, we believe into all of these things. We're striving,
we're holding fast by the mercies of God and the gifts of the Spirit
to us in a divine way. We are holding fast because we
are being held fast. And sometimes those little bumps
in the road are short-lived, and sometimes they're like chasms,
and sometimes it's like the Grand Canyon we're trying to skip across
with a jump rope. But we will never be lost, because
we who are in the Spirit, we are the ones who are the righteousness
of God by the imputation of this perfection of Christ. So that
when we are working and we're hard at it, we're serving each
other and we're hard at it. We're failing on all those counts.
We're never doing enough. We're never doing it good enough,
but it doesn't mean that we don't stop striving. We don't put our
hearts and minds on measuring ourselves on how well we're doing.
We put our hearts and minds on the one who has accomplished
it all perfectly. And that is Jesus the Christ.
This is what it means to live in and by the spirit. And when
someone else is weak, we who are spiritual, we hold them up. We carry them. We come to them. We rescue them. We care for them. And we know that when we are
together, we can do so much more than when we're apart. I said
early in the week, might have been last week, that the assembly
is much more than just preaching. The preaching here is for you.
It's for your joy so that what happens when the lights go down
and the microphone's off and we're in a different station,
it's now for the living out and the application of what the gospel
has done for us this day. That first and foremost, we might
worship together in some affinity that is beyond the comprehension
of the world. That we aren't just saying, oh,
we're so happy the life is good. Life sucks. Can you say that
as a pastor? It is 2020. I don't know what
the old cuss words are anymore. I said it. I'm sorry if it offends
anyone. Please forgive me. Really, I'm
sorry. But life is terrible. It stinks. And it's always going
to stink. But Christ, who is my life and
who is your life, doesn't stink. His flesh is not corrupted. He
did not stay in the ground and decay. He was raised and He is
alive and He is glorified. And the promise of who He is
has been given to us in the day of His coming. We, therefore,
should not grow weary in doing good. We should not grow weary. We should not give up. For in
due season, if we do not give up, we will reap. What will we
reap? Some people look at all this,
just a season of reaping, a season of harvest. No, it's not. It's
a season of damage. It's a season, most of the time,
that seems like we're just now getting the crop up, it's going
to be great, and then a flood comes, or an earthquake comes,
or a virus comes, and we think, oh wow, now what? What did I
do wrong? Where did I misstep? You did
not. God has never misstepped. God created every tremor. God created every spark. God
created every molecule of carbon. And when He put them together
with hydrogen and floods the earth, that is His doing by the
work of His hands. He created every cell of cancer
that has ever invaded the body of any human being. He created
every plague. He created every wind. He created
every scorching heat. He created every famine and every
molecule. of any virus that has ever existed,
and He put it where He wants it, in the people that He wants
to have it, and He does it for His glory, and we, as the church,
labor together, assembling for the sake and the glory of the
name of Christ, and we do not give up, no matter how hard it
is. And even when we stand there
and think, I'm at the end, what have I reaped? We look to Christ,
and we see what we've reaped. Eternity. This world is not ours. This world belongs to God and
he is going to destroy it. He is going to destroy our nation.
He is going to destroy our hope in it. And our hope will be in
him. So, because we will reap eternal
life, let us not give up. So then, verse 10, as we have
opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those
who are of the household of faith. Look at this emphasis. It's amazing
to me, this hard doctrinal gospel grace, free and sovereign against
the law and the demands of righteousness that are impossible for men,
and that even though This is so hard a fight, what we need
to do in this life is to help each other, need to help each
other. We need to be involved, we need
to be accountable, we need to be giving our gifts. So that
we might bless each other. And that's the part of the shepherd.
That's part of what we do as elders, is to watch, and to care,
and to learn, and to grow, and to talk. And God gives elders,
true called elders, who can rightly divide the Word of Truth by His
Spirit, He gives us the ability to see your gift, sometimes long
before you can, and we are matching people together. We go, OK, now
I know what you're going through. I know another brother who's
done it. I know what another sister can help you. I know what you
need right now. I know someone who has it. It
is our administrative oversight. And then the deacons of the church
put it all in action. That's from the book of Ephesians,
the narrative also in the book of Acts in many places. So we do good to everyone, especially
to those who are the household of faith. They're part of this.
Let me make some application right now in our world. We need
to take care of our bodies. We need to be careful. As the
CDC has told us in the context of this viral infection, if there
are outbreaks in your community, avoid contact. If not, keep washing
your hands. That's what they've said. They
are the ones who we should listen to, not fearful men and women. Be prudent, be wise, don't fear. No one should judge you if you
decide, I'm gonna be in my house for three weeks. No one should
judge you if you decide to bathe in hand sanitizer, but they're
gonna blame you for there not being any on the shelf, because
you filled your bathtub up with it. And if you've got a thousand
rolls of toilet paper, please share some with those in need. Simple things, sometimes like
that. We should do well, but especially
to those, we should do good to everyone, but especially to those
who are of the household of faith. Beloved, we can't serve if we
can't see each other. Then he closes out, and these
last verses here, I really could just take some time, but for
the sake of continuity, let's continue it. Let's look at how
Paul closes it. He says, see with what large
letters I am writing to you in my own hand. Now, let's just
take this at face value. I think Paul wrote in bold and
large as he writes this so that they will know he wrote it. I think he wanted them to see
very clearly, I want to write this to you. Was it this section?
I think it was probably this section. I don't know. It doesn't
matter. The point is he wants to emphasize
the fact that this is important. All caps on the blogosphere or
whatever is like shouting. I think Paul, in this way of
making these Greek letters larger, he's saying, I'm shouting this.
I want to emphasize this. And this is what he's wanting
them to see. It is those who want to make a good showing in
the flesh who would force you to be circumcised. And the reason
that they do it is so they're no longer persecuted for the
cross of Christ. Now what have we already learned?
They want to boast in you. Remember what I said? Self-righteousness
is the largest focus sin of the New Testament. Self-sufficiency,
morality, nothing wrong with it. It is commanded of all men
to be moral, to be upstanding, to do good, to obey the law. But no man can ever do it, and
even if he did, he'd still be disobedient because he's guilty
in Adam. So we're not judged by the law, for the law was a
shadow of the one to come. And so he's saying here, the
only reason they're forcing you to do this, the only reason they're
doing that, because if you get circumcised, then they'll stop
being persecuted by the Judaizers. They'll stop being persecuted
by the people in Jerusalem. They'll be an affinity now. with
Judaism and the way of Christ. And Christ will be molded into
Moses. Moses will be equal to Christ.
But Hebrews says, Paul says in Hebrews, he wrote that, he says
that Christ is greater than Moses. Christ is greater than Melchizedek.
Christ is greater than the law. Christ is greater than the angels.
Christ is greater than creation. Christ is greater than all things
for all things were made for him and through him and by him
all things exist. And Paul continues that type
of language, and he writes to the church of Colossae, and he says
that he holds all things up by the word of his power. And he
finished the work of redemption, and he laid it down, and he,
to the uttermost, has saved his people forever. So when people
come along and they try to confuse us, when they try to enforce
some type of action, some type of of in of just real infused
righteousness through some sense of work. Paul says are condemned. But
they haven't been shown the gospel. Because when the sheep who starts
to think that way, when a true regenerate person who starts
to get inundated with those things are shown the truth of the Bible
in context, the Spirit of God speaks to them and they go, I
see it. I see it. And then the false
gospels that are so prominent in our world begin to fade, begin
to fade away. And they begin to come so obvious.
It's like being at an orchestra and listening to classical music
being played. And somebody put some hip hop
in the middle of it. Or worse, some honky tonk. Off
beat, off key, different things. Somebody comes down clicking
the heels. Yeah! In the middle of Beethoven's
5th. It doesn't go there. That's how all of this law keeping
looks. And Paul's not saying we don't
have anything to do. We're supposed to love each other. We're supposed
to serve each other. We're supposed to share all things
that we have. The word fellowship in the Greek
is koinonia, which means having all things in common. That means
if you don't have a TV and I have a TV, you have a TV. And that's
a superficial, stupid example. If I have food and you don't
have food, you have food. If I have clothes and you don't
have clothes, you have clothes. John says it this way, if we
see our brother in need and we close our hearts to them, that
we lie. And we don't practice the truth. What is the truth? Christ laid
down his life for us. We ought to lay down our lives
for each other. But we love stuff. We love comfort. We love our
own little domain. It's the disease of humanity.
And in the same way, the disease of unconverted religious people
in the context of this writing, which is why he wrote it. So
we're not going to impose any other purpose for it. Any other
occasion. This is the word of God, as it
is intended to be understood here in Galatians. Just like
we love our own domain and our stuff and all of our comforts
and all of our niceties and all of our health, and we don't like
anything to infringe upon that as human beings, not as the church,
but even though we struggle with it. We don't like when anybody
tells us that our righteousness is something that we can't control.
That our hope and our eternal destination is something that
we have no say in. So it's very comforting to the
flesh, to the old man, for somebody to come along with a pair of
scissors. And you know it's powerful. Because a grown man submitting
to circumcision is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. So they
thought it was good. But it wasn't. They only wanted
them to do it. They knew it wasn't holiness.
They knew it wasn't righteousness. They knew it wasn't truth. They
would rather not see persecution. Because there's something to
be said when we can get all the Christians to line up behind
us and go, see, we're all together. We hold our hands together and
we say we're all worshiping the same God. We're all in the same
faith. We'll be careful of that because
when the world bonds together in unity around the faith, they're
worshiping the devil. See, we forget, and I say this
a lot, so it's probably like a broken record for those of
you who listen to me all the time. But the satanic worship of the
world is not the weird looking Dante ideal of Satan and monsters
and blood and blackness and, you know, cat eyeballs and the
church of Satan. That's just silliness. That's
silliness. That isn't a threat to the cross.
Debauchery is not a threat to holiness. What's a threat to
righteousness is The devil who is an angel of light. He masquerades
as Christ. He masquerades as the truth.
He masquerades by using 99.9% of the scripture for his own
purposes. It's the very thing that he did
with the Lord of heaven. With God. He said, I know what
you said. Trying to twist the very words
of God the Son in the wilderness. So it is so strong, Paul says
to the Thessalonians, that the delusion that God sends is so
strong, that means it's so close. It's not even the cults. It's
not the LDS or the Russellites. It's evangelicalism. Evangelicalism
of today is the Romanism of the Reformation, is the Judaism of
the first century. It's the dominant orthodox position
of what is Christian or godly. And the scripture says that if
it were possible that the delusion and the deception is so close
to truth that it could deceive the very elect, but it's not
possible for the elect to be deceived. It doesn't mean we're
not enamored. It doesn't mean we're not inundated.
It doesn't mean that we don't question it and go, oh, pastor,
what in the world? I saw a man tell me today that because I
had lust in my heart, I was going to hell. And where do we go? We go to the cross. We don't
set the table for our flesh. But as a brother, then we sit
down and we go, you know what? Let's help you with that. Let's
show you the freedom that comes in Christ for that fleshly fight
right now. And let's be together and let's
pray and let's equip. And let's ask the Lord to lead
us not to that temptation. And there's a lot more to say. But he says, they want to boast
in your flesh, verse 14, but far be it for me to boast except
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this, what he says
right now in this sentence, it's not new, is it? He says that
in a lot of his letters. I boast in the cross. I boast
in the cross. It's all I know is the cross.
He tells the Corinthians, he says, I know nothing but the
foolishness of the cross. Because if I preach anything
but the cross of Christ and the cross loses its power, if I come
in here and try to instruct you in righteousness that's not Jesus
Christ, I'm belittling the cross. If I say, oh, Jesus saves, but
now this, I'm teaching you out of sync. But this is what's beautiful.
I boast in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by which the cross
is by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the
world." That's great stuff. It's great stuff. There's so
much here. See, I want to preach an entire sermon on that. Maybe
the Lord will let me do that in the future. But the world
is crucified to me. I mean, it's dead to me. I don't
look at it. I don't want it. I don't care.
I don't need, and it's not talking about loving people who are the
world. It's talking about the world
and its sinfulness and its desires. And beloved, he's not talking
about the bar down the street, though I would include it in
that. He's talking about this continual fleshly self-righteousness. That is the only context of this
writing right here. The world, my Judaism, Paul says,
is gone. It is dead. Christ died for me
and the world died to me. It died to me. I no longer care. about my retirement. I no longer
care about my niceties. I no longer look out. And I have
to be careful here. I become a heretic if I'm not
careful. Because if I close this letter out with this emphasis,
what do I do? I might incite you to some guilt or either passionate
zeal who will make you go, I've got to sell everything. We're
going to go in the woods for Jesus. I mean, that's not the call of
God here. I've got to be careful. As a shepherd, I have to make
sure that what I say with my mouth is exactly what Paul is
saying in the letter. And that when I express it, I'm
careful and I'm rested and I'm prayed up that I don't interject
things sometimes in humor that may even come across and offend
your conscience. So, if the world has been crucified
to me and I to the world, that means not only is it dead to
me, but I'm dead to it. I no longer have a place in it.
What does Paul say? He says, it is not I who live,
but Christ who lives within me. Paul never even said he was alive
anymore. He said he was dead. And there was an old man dead
there that constantly warred against the Spirit. Romans 6,
7. But Romans 8, he stands firm. The wretched man that I am, I
am not condemned because I am in Jesus Christ who died, who
gave himself for me, who loved me. Of course, I know I'm mixing
two books there. But this is what the world looks
like. Beloved, I think right now, today,
I can see the world for what it is. I see it. I see it. You know what it is? Weak and
nothing. You know what the government
is? Pathetic. I don't care how strong things are today, tomorrow,
God could just And he doesn't even have to do
that in a context of supernatural things. He can just say, there's
a virus and the world's markets fall apart. He can just say,
hey, there's an opening and somebody invade every country that we
know. He can just say, I'm done. He
can do what He wants to do with everything for it is His. No
one tells Him what to do. No one can stay His hand. He
is God. There is no other. And He does
all that He wishes. He can cause a bird to fly from
one side of the world to the other, or a man to go anywhere
He wants him to go. He can make a man turn into a
cow and eat the grass nude in the wilderness. Yet He's still
a man. He can make a king call out for
a census. He can cause a high priest to
prophesy the death of Jesus Christ. And yet, even in his sovereign
power and his divine work across this land, humanity is still
guilty with every breath, with every thought, with every action,
for it is of their own volition, of the essence of their existence,
which is depravity. And man only does that which
is true to his nature. Paul says that that which is
true to the nature of humanity has been crucified to us and
I to it. So it makes no sense about being
a family in the faith. It makes no sense about assembly.
It makes no sense to the world and to the self-righteous of
the world. It makes no sense to the loss of the world. It
makes no sense anywhere in the context of the world that people
would even care to be together under the Word of God in these
circumstances. What a better time. Because I'll say this again,
I will not preach to a camera. That's silly. That's like feeding
a paper doll. But I pray that our brothers
and sisters who cannot come and who don't feel confident that
they can assemble as they can. But I can thank God every day
that we have technology that they can at least stay abreast.
But we have to go the extra mile, beloved, and we have to get on
the phone and we have to visit and we have to take care of one
another because being in the body is not just about what I
do here. It's so insignificant in the percentage of it all. In verse 15, 16, 17, 18, he closes
out by saying, four, neither circumcision counts for anything.
So the world that says circumcision is the way to go, it counts for
nothing. And for those of you who didn't
take it, it counts for nothing either. Don't esteem yourself
because you didn't. And even on this sense, someone
who's circumcised, someone who's not circumcised, what difference
does it make? It counts for nothing. It counts for nothing. But a new creation. A new creation. That which I've been explaining
for the last ten minutes. Who we are in Christ and what
Christ has promised us. And as for all who walk by this
rule, what rule? That only the grace of God who
creates us in Jesus Christ matters. That rule. Peace and mercy be upon them.
and peace and mercy be upon the Israel of God." I love the fact
that Paul uses this phrase with Gentiles. He calls them the Israel
of God, the chosen of God, the people of God. And he reminds
them very clearly of the state in which he's in. He's not sitting
high on the hog, enjoying a lush and luxurious work of ministry. Paul in today's culture would
be looked upon by the ministers of the evangelical church and
the protestant denominations as a fluke, as a farce, better
word. He'd be a joke. Oh, you know,
that dumb guy is always getting locked up and he's always doing
that. He's always he's been beaten and shipwrecked and in prison,
you know. Gosh, can you believe he's an apostle? I mean, look
at our church. Look at our circumcised people.
Look at our whitewashed tombs. I mean, it's just it's disturbing. But it is truly a miracle that
we sit here able to see it. For all who walk by this rule,
peace of God, mercy of God be upon them. And upon the Israel
of God. From now on, verse 17, 18, let
from now on, let no one cause me trouble. Somebody wants to fuss with me.
Somebody wants to accuse me. You know what, I've got circumcision,
but it counts for nothing. But you know what I do have?
You know what mark they don't have? I've got the marks of Christ
on my body. If these people want to avoid
persecution, beloved, I'm enduring it. And if we want to boast,
and Paul's not being arrogant here, he's being, I don't even
want to say that word, he's being real. He's saying, listen to
who I am and look at my body and understand that these people
who were circumcised on the eighth day, what have they suffered?
And now they're causing you to suffer by bringing you back under
slavery? You're the children of the promise. You are not the
children of slaves. You are free. You are the Israel
of God. Live like it. Walk in that freedom. Stand in the glory of God in
the face of Christ and behold, you can see it. And now you can
see the world for what it is and you can see the Lord for
who he is. I have the marks on my body of Jesus. What does he
mean? The 40 minus one. As Jesus' body and His back was
ripped and His flesh was ripped and His meat and bones and all
were showing because of the destruction of His body, ripping His body
39 times in a row. So Paul had those scars for the
sake of Christ. And Paul's saying, if you're
going to listen to somebody, listen to me. Because I am, as
we've already seen, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I didn't get
my credibility through the other disciples. I affirmed them and
they affirmed me. Moreover, he said, we affirmed
each other's message. We affirmed each other's message. So, the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ Be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. Let's pray. We thank you
so, Father, for the truth of the gospel of grace, for the
blessings of life in Jesus Christ, Lord, for so many lessons here
in this text, Father, that we just don't have time tonight
to deal with. Help teach us through the hearing
and through the reading. And Father, we labor for our
brothers and sisters across this nation, across the world, who
are suffering fear, some who are sick, some who have lost
loved ones, some who may have died. But Lord, help us not to
fear death. Help us not to fear the economy.
Help us not to fear the loss of property. For as you show
us through the writing of your servant, Paul, that we could
joyfully and gladly accept the plundering of our property because
we knew And we know this day that we have a greater and an
abiding reward. Jesus Christ. Our great high
priest and our Lord and our Savior. And it's in his name that we
stand and it is in his power and authority that we are righteous
because he gave us his own perfection. That one day we may be like him.
But now we stand before you perfect. In his name we pray. Amen.