It's a funny and peculiar thing
that I've noticed that a lot of us over the last three weeks
because we were in this little segue period before we get into
Thessalonians. And we've got this week and then
next week I'm going to talk about the call to ministry and the
purpose and calling of the pastor as we prepare to ordain Jesse. We've had a couple of things
to discuss and we've dealt with those things and we've talked
about those things and you might say, well, why are we doing this
little section out of Galatians? Well, because I think it provided
an opportunity for us to see how we ought to be in fellowship
with one another, what it really means. It also gives us opportunity
for us to take a look at what it means to bear each other's
burdens and actually to be involved in the work of the ministry.
how we're supposed to be serving one another through our time,
through our talents, through our tithes, through our treasures.
We even learned specifically out of 2 Corinthians chapter
9 what tithing and giving really look like. And ultimately today
we're going to look at how the church ought to live in the sense
of being purposefully alive for the sake of the glory of Christ.
And so we say often that we are a people by His grace for His
glory. And it's easy to say, it's easy
to do, and what I find a lot of times too in our Baptist and
rich heritage of our faith and our belief system is that a lot
of times we either do one of two things when we come to the
table of being Baptist. We either are just traditional
in our thoughts, we're traditional in our beliefs to the point that
we just do things that we think that we're supposed to do, like
show up to church, go to Sunday school, do the right thing, wear
the right attire, meet the right people, walk the right aisle,
and all these different things. And we don't ever give any fault
at all about what we believe and why. We never really operate
inside of an arena of truth, but rather we operate inside
of just this assumption, this unspoken, unknown, satisfied,
complacent theology. It's often been said to me that
people are are not to be taught theology. There was a pastor
years ago who actually on the phone, he's from this area, well
not this area but close, who told me that the church should
not be taught the depths of scripture and should not be taught theological
truths. This is an exact quote. Because
the sheep need to stay as dumb as they can so they'll follow
the leaders. Now, find that anywhere in the
scripture, and I'd love to see it, because it's not there. It
would suit me well to be the dictator of all of you, and to
tell you that you're not supposed to open your Bibles, you're not
supposed to pray or listen to anybody else, just do what I
tell you to do. My yard would always be done, this building
would be fixed up pretty nice, and you know, the floor would
be vacuumed. I mean, you see the point? It's
ridiculous to consider the idea that someone is a dictator over
the Lord's people. We are all sheep. The irony is,
too, we're all brides. And our husband is Jesus Christ.
The Scripture explains the fact that He purchased the church
through the suffering on the cross, through His death, through
His burial and the resurrection. His blood has redeemed a people
for His own glory. And that is why we're here this
morning. And I pray that is why each one of you assemble together
as often as you do, driving from Statesboro, driving from Pembroke,
driving from Savannah, driving from other places to come and
fellowship around the Word, is that you see the reality of what
the Scripture teaches about who we are supposed to be as the
church, and that you find a commonality and a unity around the Word of
God here together. Friends, theology is not just
an academic pursuit. It can be to a fault. But theology
is the study of God. Jesus Himself says in John 17
that this is, listen, this is eternal life. That they know
you, the one true God, and the Son whom you have sent. So if
you want eternal life, you must know God. Paul tells the Roman
church that faith only comes through hearing. John tells the
church that he speaks to, John tells us in his Gospel that no
man can choose salvation. God says through John that there
is no the will of man, nor the decision of the mind, nor their
pedigree, nor their birth, nor their bloodline, nor anything
that they do that can make them the children of God, but yet
by the will of the Father, He calls us to Himself. Listen to
those words. And now back to Romans. Paul
says to the Roman church, faith does not come through association. Faith does not come through lineage.
Faith does not come because you and your mama and your mama's
mama and her mama and every mama down below the line was in that
church. Faith does not come even to the
man who preaches in the pulpit except he by faith come to Christ. Faith comes only through hearing
the words of Christ. And faith comes, and hearing
comes. And friends, without learning
Christ, you cannot have eternal life. Now the sad reality for
many of us in our lives, and I say sad because it's sad to
contemplate the past. It's horrifying to contemplate
the possibility. But it's joyful to see the grace
of God in the midst of ignorance. But most of us, sadly, for a
long season of our lives, had a faith that was placed in the
action of belief and not the person of Jesus Christ. that
we had theology and doctrine that was just assumed, that we
never even considered who the Bible says that Christ is. We
never even considered what it is that the church should be.
Friends, anyone who contemplates the idea of the church as we've
seen, the nature of the New Testament church, and the necessity of
the New Testament church over the last few weeks, is that anyone
who is confused at the idea that the church is a place, has lost
the reality of what the gospel has done. And many of us have
been in that place before in our lives. Many of us have been
where we have mistakenly misunderstood that the church is a place that
you go rather than a people that you are. And so friends, if we
are a people gathered together, which is what Ecclesia means,
the gathered called ones. The word church means those who
are called out and gathered together for that call. That's what it
means. And so if we are indeed those people, That which we do,
that which we put our focus on, the theology and the doctrine
behind which we stand, that is what we are called to and called
from and called for. Why is it that so often when
sin enters a congregation, a fellowship of believers, that it destroys
that fellowship? Because the fellowship, the gathering
of most people who call themselves the church, is gathered out on
what they do in a community rather than who they are in Christ.
Did you hear that? And so, nothing would be better
than to reestablish what Paul's argument has been for the whole
time in Galatians. to the people of Galatia. Then
to see the close of this letter, when he talks about two specific
things. First, he gives a warning to
them in closing that he's already given to them in the beginning.
As a matter of fact, Paul takes several chapters of Galatians,
of this letter, and gives stark, stark, I mean just, let's just
put it, nasty rebuke to these people. It is borderline, had
he not been Driven by the Holy Spirit, if I were to say some
things that Paul had said, people could call me rude and disqualify
me, saying that I was an angry man. Paul tells them that they
are bewitched. Paul tells them that they are
fools. Paul tells them they have lost their minds because they
have believed another gospel. Paul even goes as far to say
if another, if an angel from God comes down and teaches something
separate than what I've taught you, he will forever be cut off.
if any apostle comes in and teaches you another gospel. Church, why
is he so stern with them? Why not just walk around in his
imprisonment, in his suffering? As he says in the closure of
the letter, I have the marks of Christ in my body, so there
will be no more trouble against me and with you. I don't want
to hear any more of you talking about how I'm not authentic.
I'm suffering. Are you? Wouldn't it just be
easy for Paul to say, well, you win some, you lose some. You
know, there's just some people in the church that are just not
going to stick with it. There's just some people amongst the
congregations who are just not going to stay the course. There's
just some people who are just going to be dumb and stupid,
and we'll just let them go. I've got more to deal with than
a little old church like this wanting to circumcise us. What's
the harm anyway? They've got right doctrine. Why
does it matter that they want to practice something different?
It would be easy for Paul to say that. Why does he not say
that? Because Paul loves these people with all the affection
of Christ. And just as the mind of Christ was that he would not
subject his enemies to judgment, but rather adopt them as sons
and daughters. The same love that Christ has
for His church, Paul has for the church of Christ. And it
should be the same love that you have for the church of Christ.
This is the reality of being the church. This is why preaching
is often offensive. This is why people who love their
children more than Christ, when they think of Abraham's call
to kill Isaac, they are offended by God. Who dare call Him to
kill the very thing that He loves? But Christ, the Son of God, was
killed for us. So that we might be the righteousness
of God, He became sin. And so in this text, in chapter
6 of Galatians, verse 11, follow with me here. The two things
that I wanted to show you in that little rant is that Paul
is warning them again. And secondly, he's telling them
how they should boast and in what they should put their power,
where they should put their, what do you call it, investment.
See what large letters I'm writing to you with my own hand. Now
it was very customary for Paul to write portions of his letters.
He never wrote them all. He would introduce them or write
the closing of a letter, but typically he would get it started
and close it, and then he would verbally tell a scribe what to
write, and the scribe would write. And so when you see Paul saying,
look, I'm coming back in here and this is out of my own hand,
I want you to see that I've written it. How would they see that?
Because they'd have the original letter. There was one letter sent to
the church of Galatia. And that letter was copied and
disseminated and processed and sent out and copied and sent
out and copied and sent out and read to every congregation that
could get their hands on a copy. And then it was taught much like
it's being taught today. Maybe not the same form, maybe
not the same format, certainly not in the same comfort. Pop,
surely not in the same comfort. For if they were caught, their
heads were taken from their bodies. Yet we've got them and we can
do it without that fear this morning. Paul says, this is written
by my home, see what large letters I am writing. Now, if you're
a commentary buff and you like to read commentaries, you're
going to get a lot of stuff. I guarantee you, if you read
commentary, you get a lot of stuff here where people would
say, oh, this is Paul talking about what a large letter that
the letter to Galatia is. And that's true, it's larger
than some of the pastoral epistles and some of the things. But Paul
never uses this word letter when he's talking about the actual
writing. He uses the word epistle there.
In this, he's talking about the characters. Paul is saying, see
with what large characters. So you know how we do today,
we're texting and we're online and we're doing something. There's
always been a general rule since 1996 when Robin and I first started
doing chat moderation and online forum moderation. There were
several rules. You know, don't be condescending,
don't be ugly, don't post personal information, don't curse, don't
threaten. And don't write in all caps because
it's considered yelling. You know? And so if someone texts,
now there are some people who text in all caps all the time.
That's just, they're just loud. You know? But ultimately, if someone puts
something in all caps, large letters, writes big, they want
to emphasize it, or they're angry, or there's a push there. There's
no different in the days of Paul. Paul's like, I'm going to write
the closing of this letter, and I'm going to write it big so
you can see I wrote it, number one. And number two, I want to
emphasize the reality that this is important. Please don't overlook
it. Don't overlook how I'm closing this letter. Don't say, oh, he's
done. Praise God. Let's just move on. How many
people fail to exposit this type of text? They go to the little
creme de la creme and then massage it into how it works for their
church rather than seeing what the context of the writing is
and make it apply to every believer. Guess what? There is no sermon
from Galatians 6 verses 11 through the end that should be much different
than what I'm preaching to you right now. Even the implications
and the application must, in some sense, follow a streamlined
reality. Because if not, then something's
wrong. Something's been twisted. Something's been changed. Friends,
we don't mold the Word of God to fit our culture. The Word
of God contradicts our culture. Jesus, the Living Word, said
these words, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword to divide
families, households, communities, governments, and everything.
Well, this isn't a very enriching message. It is an enriching message.
Because as you see how Paul closes this, he says, The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. So it is. Amen. Amen. And here Paul has written, he
wants to emphasize again what he's already said in several
chapters. Verse 12, it is those who want
to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to
be circumcised. Now let me explain some things.
There's some people that may not understand why would Paul
write about circumcision. And if you're not I don't know
what the word I'm looking for is. If you're not sort of invested
in the Old Testament at all, you may not understand it at
all. Maybe you're just new on the scene of understanding scripture
or reading the Bible or, you know, Israel's history, etc. But circumcision was a sign,
an outward sign of God's covenant. And so that God required the
Jews to be circumcised, and they were to be circumcised so that
as they traversed the world, that other people who knew the
covenant of God could see that they had circumcision, and thus
approve that they were actually Jews. Now I want you to understand
how that worked. How it still works today in some
regions of the world. You presented your circumcision
before people to prove you were in the covenant of God. Now that's
a little embarrassing, isn't it? Do you see the reality of
how costly it is to follow God? It isn't like I'm a Jew, I get
to wear those curlicues. It's not like I'm a Jew, I get
to just say that I'm Jewish. It's not like I'm a Jew, I just
get to have a... I'm a Jew and I have to prove it. Not only
do I have to prove it through the exercise of circumcision,
and if you're like Paul and others who were circumcised on the eighth
day, some men who came to the faith of Judaism were circumcised
in their adulthood. Matter of fact, circumcision
was used by the army of God often to disarm their enemies. But they would look. They wanted
to see. And nothing had changed in the
days of Jesus and the apostles in the first century church.
Jews still required people to prove their covenant, to prove
they were in relationship with Yahweh through the covenant of
circumcision. They still wanted to see it.
And now Jesus is saying there is no circumcision. Paul, who
was Part of the Sanhedrin is saying there's no need for...
it was all a shadow and now it has no bearing. The pride of
these people who put their stock in the outward expression of
their faith, now all of a sudden we're told it was worthless,
that it had no bearing, that it was a shadow, and it was not
to be practiced anymore. And then they saw they could
not fight against the Church of Christ. So what did the Judaizers
do? The Judaizers said, let's have
best of both worlds. Let's stay in good graces with
the zealots. Let's stay in good graces with
the Pharisees. Let's stay in good graces with
the Sadducees. So we keep our place in society. Let's keep
our place in society. And as we share the gospel of
Jesus, which we really believe is true, it's not a faith, it's
not a saving faith, but we really believe it's true. As we do these
things, then what we'll do is we'll get these Greek converts
to practice circumcision and everybody will be happy. And
then we could say, oh yeah, well they're not against us, they're
with us too. So they follow Christ and they're
also practicing circumcision. See, it's the best of both worlds.
Friends, it's another gospel. Paul says anathemas, anathemas,
forever cut off. Now to make the bridge in the
theological principle of circumcision for that day, and what it does
for us today, is that these people boasted in their outward fleshly
appearance, in the outward fleshly work of their ministry. They
boasted. They had confidence in the flesh. Does that remind
you of what he taught the Philippians? And these so-called Christians in Galatia were being Confused. And some genuine Christians were
being confused. And they began to say, well,
Paul, who is the highest pedigree Jew that we know, told us that
it was no consequence. And the Judaizers said, well,
Paul is in prison, and Paul is a criminal, and Paul is not preaching
a true gospel, and Paul is worthless. Just let Paul go. Let Paul go. And that's the point. And now Paul says, they don't
want you to be circumcised because it is good for you. Look at verse
11, I mean verse 12. 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. Did you hear that? We believe
in Jesus, but we don't want the heat. So we're going to follow
suit in our culture. There's your application. We
believe in the gospel. We believe in the truth of the
gospel. We believe in sovereign grace.
We believe in the gospel of Jesus to the fullest degree. We believe
that God doesn't need our permission to save us. We believe that Jesus
is an explicit Savior, an absolute certain Savior. He's not a possible
Savior. We believe these things. But,
you know what, I'm not going to lie myself with Grace Truth
Church because they don't really get along. The community doesn't
look at them too well. They're meeting in an old gas
station. It's not high church. It's not
society-driven church. Are you going to be persecuted
for the cross of Christ? Guess what? It's not up to you. Our
persecution for following Christ is not up to us. It will happen. If we're not being persecuted
for our faith, we're not in the faith. You got it? Where do you
get such things? All throughout the New Testament,
but specifically in the second epistle to Timothy, Paul says
these words. Here it is. All who desire to
live a godly life will be persecuted. Did he mean possibly? No, he
said will be. Where's the evidence of that?
The entire narrative of the entire Bible shows that everyone who
follows Christ, followed Christ in the Old Testament before they
even knew He was Christ, followed God, in obedience was persecuted.
Abraham lost, Noah lost, Moses lost, sometimes they're the same
person, depends on who you are. You know, all this, they lost,
they lost it all. Joshua lost, all of them lost.
The world, they lost all the world, they lost their pedigree,
they lost the prestige, they lost the power, they lost the
authority, but they gained everything. Because they gained Christ. They
gained everything. Church, do you want everything?
Or do you want nothing? If you want
the world, you want to be looked at in a good way, you want to
be esteemed by those who don't love Christ, you want to be looked
and patted on the back. Friends, you can't follow Christ.
You can't even study the Bible. You can't walk around with a
Bible in your hand all over town without somebody thinking you're
some weirdo. Beware those who speak well of
you, Jesus says in Matthew 26, isn't it? For they also spoke
well of what? The prophets and others, and
then what happened to them? They killed them. We see in Acts
chapter 6 where Stephen preaches that very message. All the prophets,
all of them, they all pointed to Jesus, and you killed them,
and you killed Him. You stiff-necked, what did He
call them? Uncircumcised hearts, minds, deaf ears, You're done. And what do they do? They heard
the truth of God's word through the mouth of Stephen, and they
knew it was true, and in order to overcome the conviction of
their soul, they ramped it up with anger, they suppressed the
truth by unrighteousness, Romans chapter 1, and they closed their
fingers in their ears. The Bible says they covered and
closed up their ears and yelled. Now imagine, see kids, imagine
that. Your mom and dad are getting on to you, and you know they're
right, but you don't want to hear it, you just go, That'll get some young'uns knocked
out. Some parents might run out in the yard crying. But that's
what these people did. They screamed and covered their
ears and gathered up stones and they hit him in the head as hard
and as fast as they could with big rocks and they pounded on
him stones and they covered him up. and they killed him, and
they felt good. Finally, we killed that voice
of God. The same voice that they heard
when Noah, Moses, Joshua, Zechariah, who was it? Moses was on the
mountain. The same voice that they begged
never to hear again. The same voice that we see the
writer of the Hebrews say, never to let us hear another command
come from the mountain. That even if an animal touches
the mountain, it should be stoned. They heard that same voice in
the person of Stephen. They heard that same voice in
the preaching of Jeremiah. They heard that same voice in
the 100 years ministry of Noah. They heard that same voice in
Moses, they heard that same voice in Joshua, they heard that same
voice in Isaiah, they heard that same voice in John the Baptist,
and they heard that same voice in Jesus the Christ, and they
hear that same voice today when His Word is proclaimed to their
ears, and they hate it, and there's nothing that they want more than
to silence it. You will be persecuted if you
follow Christ. And the only way out of that
is for you to placate the cultural norms, to give up that which
you know you should be doing, to not allow the Word of God
to regulate not just your life and your living, but your church
and your ministry. so that you can be at peace with
all parties. You can't be at peace with all
parties. For what good does light have
with darkness? What good is there with lying
down with evil when you are good? There is no possible way that
that will ever give glory to God. And we who are in Christ
Jesus, even if we try that route, even if we try like Abraham,
and Sarah did to go to Hagar. Friends, we will never live it
out in its fulfillment because it will never give us peace,
it will never give us satisfaction, it will never produce the mercy
of God in our lives, and we will be miserable until we come back
to our first love who is Christ. That's the truth. These people want to make a good
show in the flesh. There's a good title of the sermon,
isn't it? I don't know about you, but I've
been a part of churches where it seemed like everybody in charge,
all they wanted to do was make a good show of the flesh. At
the cost of loving me, at the cost of caring for my problems
and differences, at the cost of being concerned with others
who are lost and others who are downtrodden, I've been told in
my tenure in ministry before, that I was not part of the church. One woman even said, this is
my church. To which I responded, am I not part of it? She did
like that. We hired you, is what she said
to me. You better get to firing. That's part of it. Somebody may
not like you, And friends, sadly, there's nothing we can do to
keep this from happening in the body of Christ. There's going
to be tears and shafts amongst the genuine article. There's
going to be dogs and pigs and wolves amongst the sheep. And
sometimes we get a little doggy and can smell a little like dogs
if we're not careful, but we clean up. Because at the end
of the day, what's more important? That I have a role or the honor
in ministry? Or that I love you as a sibling
in Christ Jesus, as Christ loves you? Don't make a good showing in
the flesh, Paul would say. These people would force you to be
circumcised so that they can not be persecuted for the cross
of Christ. Look at verse 13. For even those
who are circumcised... Now look, who's he talking about?
These very people. He's talking about the religious
leaders of the day. And friends, you might think,
but this seems a little anti-Semitic. This is sort of anti-Jewish.
No. Listen, being pro-Christ is anti-everything that's not
Christ. It's not an issue of ethnicity. Paul wasn't down on
his own ethnicity. He loved the Jews. He even confessed
to the Romans that he'd give up his own salvation in order
for them all to be saved. But it was in the hand of God,
didn't it? It's not about their ethnicity. It's about their faith. A misplaced faith. It's a misplaced
gospel. It's not true. There's no good
news. The word gospel means good news.
The Greek word there, evangel, which is where we get evangelism.
We go out and ism the good news. We go out and do it. We share
it. The good news is that you are saved by the power and the
grace and the mercy of God because God loved you with such a love
that He gave you eternal life which is effectual through Jesus
Christ the Son. Do you believe that, beloved?
Do you believe that, sinner? Do you believe that, children? Is your faith in Christ or is
your faith in all sorts of other things? Are you okay with the
Lord because you're in the church today or among the church today? You can be close and never be
in. You can be a member and never have eternal life. But these people didn't keep
the law themselves, Paul said. They kept that law. They wanted
to give a good... Why that law? Because it was visible. Like
Jesus would talk about the Pharisees who get up and say, look at me
tithing. Or like the story that he tells about the woman who
gave just a couple of cents. And the other man who came up
and boldly put that offering in the plate where everybody
could hear it and watch him. Oh, look at all that gold he's
putting in there. Can you see the picture? So like churches that I've sat
in the audience before, they were doing fundraisers and then
somebody would come up on stage with a big fat check. Look at
what so-and-so is giving. Wow! And then they get a big
fat check printed and put it up. You know, and I'm thinking,
there's your reward. And the mealy old widow comes
up and throws a dollar in the plate. And Jesus says that that
dollar is worth more than all those millions because she gave
everything. See, that's the heart of Christ.
Christ gave everything and subjected Himself to harm, subjected Himself
to to rebuke, subjecting himself to be treated as a common criminal. But these very people who are
asking you to do this physical thing, this outward thing, this
fleshly thing, hey, you know what, just do this, just come
here, just believe this, just do this study, just believe this,
just give up this other stuff, just give up. How many times
I've been told in the last four years of being here to give up
my doctrine? By mentors of mine. Used to be mentors. Just give this up. Don't do exposition. I had somebody tell me that last
year. Stop preaching through verse by verse. Nobody wants
to spend 40 sermons in a text. To which I responded, well then
I'll just die. Because the Bible commands that
it is preached to the full council. And if I pick verses that I like,
friends, I'm starving you and I'm sinning before God. We don't need to boast in our
flesh, and we surely need to be careful to understand that
there are many who would like us to do certain things. Can
you imagine? I mean, let me give an example
to help bring it home. And nothing that I'm talking
about is bad, per se, in itself. But imagine what would happen
if Grace Truth, if we organized, a couple of us in here organized a halfway house. And we bought this property and
we built a big condominium back there with about six apartments.
And not a bad idea, is it? It's probably needed. But let's
just say we organized and we did that and we bought the apartments
and we built them up and we started putting abused wives, abused
mothers in there and their children and we got them help, got them
out on their feet, got the protection they needed. That's a noble task,
is it not? Noble task. There's nothing wrong
with doing that. But let me tell you what would
happen. All of a sudden, the tables would
be turned with perception. People would go, oh look, Grace
Truth Church, man, those are awesome Christians. They're great
Christians. What about that makes us great
Christians? Nothing. Worldly people do that. Listen, the richest people in
our world give more to charity and more to people who are down
than the church ever could. Doing those things don't make
us good Christians. Failure to care makes us a poor
Christian. But see, the popular thing, the
showing in the flesh would be, wow, they've got a great clothing
minister, they've got a great housing minister, they've got
all this kind of stuff. Oh my gosh, they've got this, they've
got that. Man, they even do a service for lost people so they can worship
God. How can a lost person worship?
They can't. It's impossible. Jesus tells
the woman from Sychar, you've got to worship in spirit. Well,
if you're worshiping in spirit, that means the Spirit of Christ
is in you. So, you can't just worship in
truth. And if you worship in the knowledge
of truth in your mind, you're not worshiping the Spirit, which
is no worship at all. We don't want to get there. But
we don't want to make a good show of the flesh. These people
only wanted these Galatians to be circumcised so that they could
go back to town and say, the people would say, all these Christians,
these Galatian Christians, these Greek people, they're really,
they're coming against us. And these Judaizers say, no,
no, no, no. They're with us. They're with us. They're just
like us. They're doing just what we do. They're acting just the
way, they've got a little bit different doctrine, but that's
okay. We're the same. Much like that broad stroke denominationalism,
people saying that Romanism and Evangelicalism is compatible. 78% of Evangelical pastors who
were polled last year say that they count the Pontiff as a brother
in Christ. Baptist preachers Sixty percent, I think is what
I read yesterday, of Baptist or evangelical pastors believe
that he is the model Christian, the Pope. Why? Because he speaks to the cultural
norms. He speaks to a majority. But he preaches no
gospel. Well, that's offensive. It is
offensive. It's offensive to me that someone can claim Christ,
claim to be Christ, preach another Christ, and that Christians don't
care. It's going to happen. John says
many, many antichrists. Charles Spurgeon stood in his
pulpit 14 times and said that anyone who sits in the office
of vicar is anathemas. Charles Spurgeon. Not to count the countless, countless
martyrs whom the Roman Catholic Church took their heads and burned
their bodies because they refused to recognize the Pope as Jesus.
Moving on. They desire to have you circumcised
that they may boast in your flesh. Now let me give you some thoughts
as we think about boasting in the flesh. What's it look like? I mean just boasting in the product
of our service. Boasting in the outcome of our
ministry. This is how I was taught. You do the work, you write down
the numbers, and you talk about it. Wow, we had 653 baptisms. Wow, we had 35 rededications. Wow, we had 900 in Sunday school.
Hallelujah. Today is, in the Baptist community,
high attended Sunday school day. It is. Nothing wrong with that.
But if I were going to push for high attendance Sunday school,
then we'd preach the gospel so hard in Hunt Sunday School, that
next week would be a record low. Why? Friends, you may not get
but one opportunity to share the truth of Jesus Christ. The
gospel of Jesus starts with the good news of God, the goodness
of His holiness, the goodness of His authority, the greatness
of His supremacy. He is the only thing that matters
and everything that exists, exists for Him. John or Paul says in
Colossians 1 that everything that was created was created
by Christ and for Christ. so that if there is a grain of
sand in your eye, or if there's a mountain on the hill, that
God created that, Jesus Christ the Son, so that He could do
with what He wants to do with it. Our God is in the heavens. He does as He pleases. This is
the beginning of the gospel, that God is holy, righteous,
just, good, and supreme, among many things. And the good news
then goes to the bad news. Starts with the good news of
God, then the bad news of man. That God created man in His own
image, but man in the freedom of his will fell from grace,
fell from righteousness, fell. Adam and Eve purposely rebelled
against the goodness of God and what was best for them, and because
of that, death entered the world. Do you know that's why the Bible
was written? Everything in the Bible, every
single jot and tittle, every comma, every period, every word,
every breath mark, everything that was ever written in the
Bible starts with that because of that. God gave revelation
of Himself through this Word because man is wicked. And if he were to save a people,
he had to show himself. They must know him, the one true
God. There it is. And it's not just
the knowledge of Him in mind, but it's the absolute work of
God in power. And that's why God, at the fall,
in Genesis chapter 3, said that there was already a plan in place
to redeem His people whom He made for His glory. And it is
Jesus Christ the Son, the seed of the woman who would crush
the head of the enemy, giving eternal life to all who He pleases,
by faith alone they might receive eternal life. That's the gospel. And friends, if that's not good
news to you, I beg of you and plead of you to please hear the
gospel. Because there is no smug, there
is no historical, there is no traditional, there is nothing
inside your conscience that you could pull out right now and
lay on the table of God's reflection that could do anything or say
anything that could change that truth. All mouths will be silent. all mouths, there will be no
one giving an account to God except the saints of Christ.
And we shall say, by His stripes, in His power. You can't argue your way into
eternal life. Boasting in our outcome of our
ministry, boasting in our appearance, how we look, I thought about
having some postcards made up that had a tie on it that says,
many things you might not ever see at Grace True Church. I have to catch my humor sometimes.
Send it out to people who visit and then don't come back, but
we'd hope to see you again. I guess you couldn't send that
to people who came in a tie. Come without your tie. Anyway,
I digress. But both in our appearance. I
mean, there are factions of Christianity who believe that there's a certain
style of clothing that actually honors God more. And you see
this very rampant in the continent of Africa, some of those very
deprived and poor countries in Africa, where Western missionaries
go there and people get saved, and now they've got to get them
to wear our clothes. Now, I'm not saying taking off
the regalia of their idolatry. But why is a pair of khaki slacks
the Christian outfit? If everything we knew blew up
today and what we're wearing is all we've got, it ain't going
to look too good in about two weeks. So are we still dishonoring God?
That's why I always had a problem with some of the schools that
we've had our children in who on chapel day, they had to wear
ties and dresses because they'd say, you've got to give God your
best. That's another comment for another
day. Most of our actions, our attitudes,
our authority, our affluence. Look how influential we are. Look how influential we are. Look at what we've done. You
notice how you never really hear some of the larger churches in
our country who are passionate about exposition? Like Capitol
Hill Baptist Church. You don't hear anything in the
news about them. Yeah, they probably produce more pastors and more
church planters than any other church in the nation. But you're
not going to see it. They're not going to print it
on a magazine. They're not going to put it out on our newsletters. They're not
going to put it on the internet. Look at all the people we saw
today. Look at all the people we saw come to faith. Look at all this.
Look at all these pastors. You don't do it. It's bragging. It's
boasting in the outcome, in the outward appearance, in the fleshly
things. Even when it's the work of God, we boast in what? Christ. Boasting in our approval
of men, or vice versa, in their approval of us. Sometimes that
boasting feels better than the persecution. Boasting our righteousness. Man,
I'm glad I don't live like that. Man, I'm glad I don't live like
that. Did you hear about Brother so-and-so? Like Pastor Saeed, have you seen
the news? You know, he was incarcerated
for a long, long time and he got released. And his wife came out last week
and put a statement, a public statement that their marriage
is in shambles and she felt like that his imprisonment might help
the marriage, but it's not. Her quote was, our marriage needs
a miracle. My marriage needs a miracle. Your marriage needs
a miracle. Friends, if it weren't for the
grace of God and His miracles, our marriage would be a mess.
Daily learning to die to myself and live like Christ? That's
not innate. Submitting to me? Come on, guys. Who would do that? Someone whom Christ is growing
and working miraculously in. We all need miracles. But that's what they're boasting
about. That's what they're talking about. They want to be approved
by men, they want the attention. You know why? Because he got
praise for being such a martyr. Now, they want the truth to be
known. Boasting our efforts, boasting
our programs, boasting so that our backs will be patted and
people will give us thumbs up. Listen, we ought to be appreciative
of each other. We ought to be joyful of each other. To not
give appreciation is un-Christlike. Paul himself would even say,
as we'll see in the Thessalonians, man, your testimony is fabulous. I'm excited. Paul would even
say to the Philippians, I want to boast in you. Who gets the
praise for that? Christ gets the praise for that.
That's why I don't understand when people say, I'm so proud
of you for what you said or what you preached or I'm so proud
of how you're following the Lord. Why are you proud of me? Because
if my flesh were not compelled by the Holy Spirit, I would be
a wicked tyrant. Well, that's just, I can't believe
that. Come on, look in the mirror. And if we're not going to be
wicked tyrants, we'd just be depressed. Pity party people,
whatever it might be, whatever the extreme would be there, boasting
in our efforts, boasting in providing a good show of faith, or even
a good show of holiness, but we're really not caring about
one another. Sometimes people would feel superior.
They like to find fault with everything. You know, I don't
know if you notice whatever version of Scripture you use today, but
I guarantee if you use the King James or the ESV or the NASB,
I change the text. Did you hear it? I do that often. When I think the Greek is really
misaligned with the English, I change it and then I tell you
about it when I get there. But the word and, when it talks
about Israel, is really bad. Because it doesn't make sense
in context. I'll show you that. But boasting. People like to find fault. Expecting
perfection. I talk to many people about why
they're not in church. Well, I just can't find the church
that's right. A bunch of hypocrites. You know,
it's always the same. to which I respond, why is one
man's hypocrisy an excuse for your disobedience? Why is one
man's sin an excuse for your rebellion? So, bad doesn't make
bad right. What do you mean? It is a command
to be in the church. It is a command to be a part
of the body. It is a command. It is the first and foremost
place that we actually can obey Christ above all things. Anybody
can obey Jesus in the living room. Anybody can obey Jesus
without troubling neighbor that you don't have to see but once
a month. You want to learn how to obey, forgive, forbear, get
married, and join a church? You'll learn. I promise. And if you don't, you will. Some people like boasting, standing
in the easy place. It receives worldly glory and
honor to prevent persecution. This boasting is sort of like
walking the line of culture, appealing to things such as nationalism,
politics, political correctness, hatred, false piety, right eating. What do you mean? Listen, when
we were vegans, we thought we were the holiest things that
walked the earth. Nothing wrong with it. You should... It's a
temple. It doesn't make you better. It doesn't make us better because
we strive to be healthy. See what I'm saying? But yet
there are whole congregations that that's their thing. Vegan
Baptist Church. I say, come over for a hamburger. I'm not making fun of them. I'm
just saying if we boast in these things. dressing rightly, eating rightly,
talking rightly, but if one's heart is far from the salvation
of grace, there's nothing to boast in. Boasting can sometimes
be not wanting the world to leave you by. Well, I know I've got
to follow Christ, but I really want this, and I really want
that, and I really want this, and I really want that. And friends,
if we're honest, we've all got that list. We've all got that
list. We want to get our finances in order. We want to get our
home in order. We want to get our cars running. You know, we want a
little cash at the end of the week to buy a cheeseburger or
the bread if you're a vegan. I don't even know if you can
eat bread. I don't know. Probably not. The carrot. Or whatever
it is you want to do. There's, you know, there's nothing
wrong with having some stewardly mindset. Nothing wrong with having
a little worldly desires, but not that they're an affection.
It's a worldly desire to go buy a pair of shoes that you don't
need. Now these shoes, I've had them a while, they still work,
they still look fine, but let's go buy a new pair because that
pair looks good. That's called the lust of the eyes. Just don't
make light of it. Recognize it. We've all got it.
Walk in the line of culture in the sense that we don't want
the world to leave us by. Sometimes that means that we
love the world, we mold our affection, and we say that it's in Christ,
but we mold it to fit the culture. We create Christ in such a way
that we jam Him up in a little hole so that He looks like the
rest of humanity. We forget that Christ is not
just the man and the model, but He's the Messiah. He's God with
us. He's Emmanuel. He's God come down from heaven.
He's the Creator of the universe. He is supreme and omniscient
and omnipotent. He's immutable. He's just. He's righteous. He's
merciful. He's not just a man. He's God-man. Sometimes this boasting is sort
of being glorying in the production of other, what I like to say,
little me's. You know? Oh, look at all these guys that
hang out. Look at my entourage. I've got friends like that who
are in the ministry who have all these people that hang around
with them. One of them gets picked up by
a brother every Sunday and sits in the back seat of the car,
not the front seat with the guy, sits in the back seat of the
car and drives him up. And then another guy gets out
of the front seat, passenger side, and opens the door for
him so he can get out. Then he goes up to his office at the
church right before service, no lie, and then massages shoulders
and his hands. And I just want to walk in there
and sneeze on him. But when I first saw it, I thought.
I went back to my church. I told that little mod squad
of misfits I had. I was like, there's 14 of y'all.
At least five of you can rub on my shoulders every day. Maybe
rub my feet, you know. Like a half sense of jealousy.
I'm thinking, what are these people doing there? And I'm like,
this is ridiculous. But that's glorying in oneself. And if I
preach the right gospel here and shepherd you from a verbal
position but live differently, I'm worldly. Accolades come by the droves
when we ease the masses into chairs of complacency. Dependency
and heresy. They love us because we show
them that they alone are worthy of the grandest honor. But, verse
14, what does Paul say? 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. Now let's talk about
that a minute. Paul is saying He's already, what does he say
to the Philippians? We've just got through this. If anybody can
boast, I can. Doesn't he say that? If anybody
can boast, I can boast. I'm born of the tribe of Benjamin.
My parents were devout, zealot, circumcised on the eighth day,
named after the greatest king that Israel ever knew. And that's very subjective. Saul
took the name of the king. Hebrew of Hebrews, part of the
Sanhedrin, according to the law, I am blameless, he says. So Paul says, for me to boast
in me, these people are boasting, and they're ridiculously subpar
in comparison as Jews. I am not boasting except in the
cross of Jesus Christ. Now think about that for a second.
As a Jew, what it means to boast in the cross of Jesus Christ.
It means to take everything that Judaism was and flush it down
the toilet. It means to take every boast,
every ministry, every precept, and just throw it all away. These
aren't my words. These are Paul's words. I count
it as rubbish. For the countless price of knowing
Christ. Gain everything. Christ. So I boast in the cross of the
Lord, Lord Jesus Christ. By which, the cross, the world
has been crucified to me. The world is inclusive of the
religion of Judaism. Did you see that? so that the
world is inclusive of any policy, program, procedure, product of
anything but the preaching of the cross of Christ. Paul would
say then to the Corinthians that I do not come to you with grandness,
I do not come to you with authority, I do not come to you with all
this great eloquence, but I come barely able to stand, barely
able to speak, I shiver in my shoes, I quake in my soul, I
stutter with my mouth, and I preach nothing but the cross of Christ
and Him crucified, lest the cross lose its power." Isn't that what he says? Far be it for me to boast except
of the cross of our Lord Jesus. This is a death sentence. This
is a death sentence in the day of the apostles to boast in the
cross of Christ. It's to say that the grandest
scheme of all of history is the apex of history is that Jesus
the God-man came from heaven and came and lived upon the world
and He lived and He grew and He obeyed and He was perfect
as a human being and then He died on the cross, a ridiculous
death. He died a death that He He did
not deserve. He subjected Himself to the shame
and the ridicule and the horror of crucifixion by the will of
the Father and that there is nothing left to boast in but
that. You hear it said a lot sometimes
at Easter time when people describe the cross. Well, this just, I
invited my grandmother to come here and you talked about a man's
body being torn apart. When is it ever inappropriate
to quote Christ Jesus? When is it ever inappropriate
to say the words that give people eternal life? When is it ever
inappropriate to show the horror of crucifixion when God Himself
bore the sins of His people on His flesh? It's never. Oh, young Timothy,
be prepared. Preach the Word. In season and
out of season. Friends, the Bible's out of season. The Bible has been out of season
a long time in the Bible belt. The Bible belt's not even tightening
anymore. They've pulled it off. The world has been crucified
to Me, and I to the world." The cross is a stumbling block
to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks. It's a mockery for you
to say you boast in the cross of Jesus. It's easy to say, I
believe in Jesus. But it's hard to say, and I'll
follow Him to the death. Because for most people, friends,
we can turn off our Christianity when the time is right. Oh, we're
hanging out with the guys? Put the Jesus thing up. Put the
Bible under the seat. What you been up to? Nothing.
There's never a time to say that. Somebody says, how's it going? There's never a time to say I'm
up to nothing as a Christian. And I say that as we eat the
Word of God, as we pray, as we focus, as the season comes for
us to be revived in our soul, we will have a Gospel Word for
every year that comes. Which makes sense to what Jesus
says in Matthew 28, which says, as you go, make disciples. That's
the command. Make disciples as you go. How
do we do that? Teaching them to obey everything
that I've taught you. Jesus says, do not love the world
or the things of the world, for those who love the world are
not from the Father, for the love of the world is dying. The
world and everything in it is decaying. Oh Father, give me
a living affection. for living things and take away
this living affection for dying things. I don't know who said
that, but I heard it years ago and wrote it in one of my journals
and I go back to that reality several times a week. The cross is a stumbling block,
but friends, it is the only means of boasting for the church of
Jesus. The cross, boasting in the cross, shows and proves and
establishes the effectual grace of Jesus Christ that the world
is dead to me and I do not love it anymore. That there is no
other lover that I need but Christ. There is no other hope that I
could put my feet upon but Christ. There is no other salvation that
comes. Boasting means that I am dead
to the world. It is no longer mine. I am no
longer of it, even though I'm in it. Circumcision, he would
say then in verse 15, says, counts for nothing. Neither circumcision
counts for anything, nor uncircumcision counts for anything. You see
that? He said, so these people are wasting their time preaching
stupidity, practicing the same. And for those of you who now
are not going to take circumcision, are not going to follow the world's
ways, are not going to deal with the worldly honor, don't boast
in that either. You see? We don't boast in doing
this and we don't boast in not doing this. We boast in Christ
alone. Because in Christ alone are we
new. There's nowhere in Scripture,
anybody, let me tell you something friends, anybody who teaches
from this Bible, or say they teach from this Bible, and teach
anything that talks about how you can change your life in any way, how you're supposed
to transform by your will, or by your determination, or by
your efforts, or talks about pragmatism to such a way that
it becomes a disease that supersedes the cross of Christ. These people
are ignorant of the truth The Bible says that we who are in
Christ are not changed little by little, though we are sanctified
little by little in our current state. We become new creation
at the moment of salvation. We are made new. Do you see that? It's not these people that like
to juggle justification by faith, that we're standing right before
God just because we believe in Christ, which is true. And they
like to say, but our works are important too. And we got to
work to stay in it, or work to please Him. Listen, we work because
He's at work. Our stance is a stance, don't
hear what I'm not saying, is a stance of passive resting and
believing on Christ. But works are not absent. Faith is not, our works are not
absent from faith. but they have no bearing. You
see that? And that's really the point.
Quit boasting in all that you've accomplished. Even if what you're
doing is good, it's not the point. It's going to be washed away.
The point is that Christ is working in you. So if you're ministering
to great success, praise be to God. If you're ministering with
no fruit of that ministry, but you're faithful, praise be to
God. Guess what? They're equal. They're equal. But why is it
the faithful minister that doesn't have the visual fleshly outward
fruit is not praised as much as the one who has all this other
fleshly fruit? Because that's what we want.
We drive up to the window, we give our order at the speaker,
we drive around, exchange the wealth of the world to get something
that's consumable and perishable, and then we complain about it,
and we want it now. Friends, that's not the way the
Lord works. God will bring the fruit in His
time. So let's boast in Christ. Boasting in anything but the
cross is vain, empty, and worthless. Christ, through His cross, recreates
His people. We become a new thing. Not a
warmed-up, cold thing. Not a half-living, dead thing.
Not a rearranged sinner. A new saint. In verse 16, I could preach an hour on this,
but I won't. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them,
even so upon the Israel of God, your verse, your scripture might
say, and upon the Israel of God. What does he mean there? What
is this rule? This rule is boasting in the cross. This rule is boasting
in the cross, and this boasting in the cross is being saved by
faith. So then Paul gives a pronouncement.
Those who are living by faith in the Son of God who loved me
and gave Himself for me, you can hear Paul's words in that.
He says this. He pronounces, peace and mercy
be upon them. He isn't asking God to put peace
on him. He's not asking God. He doesn't say, Will you Lord? When you see peace and mercy
be, the verb be, it is. He's pronouncing it. May the
peace of God be with you. It's not a question. It's not
a hope. It's not a wish upon a star.
It's a pronouncement. It's a proclamation. We who walk
by faith, we who live by faith in Christ alone, we who suffer
persecution because of Christ and the cross of Christ, we have
the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. We have the
mercy of God that gave us the faith for Christ of Christ to
begin with. Romans 5, 1, there, since we
have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Peace
has been said is the serenity of heart for all who are in Christ
by faith. And for we who are in Christ,
we have received all things from God. Friends, you know what that
means? That means that there's nothing else we could ask for.
that God could pull out from His sleeve to give us. And Ephesians
1 says, we have all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. That
means that we who have peace and have mercy, they come together
or they're neither there, have a super spiritual richness that's
beyond all wealth. Beyond all wealth, what else
do we need? Mercy is the active agent of
God's peace. You ever thought about that?
What do you mean by that? Peace comes because of God's
grace. If God's grace is given you,
beloved, you have peace. Now, it wanes. Why? Because our
flesh is at war. But it's there. And even upon the Israel of God. Why do I change that to even?
What does he mean? Paul just got through saying
that those who practice circumcision are cut off. And people like
to take this and take it out of context and like to say, oh,
see, God's going to save all Jews. No, He's not. Paul just
said three or four times out of his mouth that Jews who follow
anything but Christ will suffer what? Damnation. Anybody who does not follow Christ
is condemned. Anyone who follows Christ will
be persecuted. So, in the context of this, then,
Paul is saying that those who are in Christ, who have the mercy
of God and peace of God, are Israel. Did you hear that? That true Israel are those who
are in Christ. We haven't preached the whole
text. But in Galatians 3.29 it says, and if you are Christ's,
hear this conditional statement, then you are Abraham's offspring. What? If you are in Christ, you
are Israel. That's the point. Don't like
that? What about Romans 9? We're not going to get there
this morning. It's a good place to go though if you want to see
that. Specifically in verse 6 where it says, "...but it is not as
though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended
from Israel belong to Israel. Those who are in Christ are Israel." So there is no dual blessing.
Once for this ethnic group, once for the Christian. It's either
all in Christ or nothing. Friends, that doesn't really
ring to us unless we're really into some Old Testament studies
or prophecy. But I want you to understand
that we don't have to recognize the application of being Jewish
and circumcision to apply this to our lives. If we put our hope
in anything but the work of Christ, we are in danger of being cut
off. Do not stand in the mirror of
your soul. Listen. Do not stand in the mirror
of your soul and say, I have peace with God because... and
start listing things that you see in your own life. Start listing things that you've
accomplished. Start listing theologies that you hold to. I have peace
with God through Christ alone. Through His life, through His
death, through His resurrection, through His power, through His
supremacy, by His grace, through faith. It's about Christ. Christ. And Christ alone. Really quickly, in 17 and 18,
he says these words, "...let no one cause me trouble from
now on, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." You see
that? He said, I don't want to have
another report from anybody in your area that questions the
gospel that I've preached to you. These people are trying
to circumcise others. My friends, I have the wounds
of Christ on my body to show that following the cross cost
me. I was circumcised already. I
didn't need all this. But I've got it. Don't ever forget
what I'm suffering for your sake. And he would tell the church
of Colossae, I pray that I may fill up what is lacking in the
suffering of Christ. in my flesh." Paul has true marks on his body
to show his faith in Christ results in the boasting of the cross
of Christ. Had Paul placated to the cultural norms and the
necessities of his communities, he would have never been whipped.
He would have been in heated debates, but he'd never been
imprisoned. He would have never been given a death sentence.
He would have never, ever seen the power of Christ change one
person. But he refused to back down.
He refused to say, yeah, but we're doing our Christian thing
over here. Y'all, you do y'all's Christian thing. He says, I'm
doing the only thing that is Christian and that is following
Christ. and preaching Him crucified. And it cost Him His very life. And He's saying to them, stop
listening to anybody who preaches differently. I warn you, stop
listening to anyone but Christ. And He says, the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. This grace This mercy, this peace,
this hope, this Christ is with us in our spirit. This moment,
this day, this hour and forever. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing. Nothing can take us out of the
hand of our God. Nothing can take anyone away
from Christ because the Father has given us to Him. Are you
in Christ? Are you hoping in Christ? And
I assume that most of you, if not all of you, are. Friends,
be strengthened by the grace of God which is yours in Christ
Jesus this moment. Don't wing it on yesterday's
meal. And don't look forward to the
day tomorrow when you can sit down to the banquet of Christ.
Feast upon the Gospel today. Let's pray. Father, we're glad that You love
us. And Lord, we've gone long But
I pray that it would be filling for us to reflect on Your goodness,
on Your mercy, on Your grace toward us in Christ. Lord, there's
much truth and much theological depth in the words that we use
and in the phrases that Your Word gives us. But Lord, let
us not dig so deep that we bog down, but Lord, let us be able
to see perfectly with simplicity the reality of Your goodness
toward us, of Your love toward us, of Your kindness and mercy
and grace toward us in Christ. and in turn continue to work
in us that which You prepared for us before the world began.
That we would become the product of Your glorious grace, so that
You get the praise, that we boast in You, that we boast in Your
love, and we boast in Your power, and we say without any reservation,
I stand this place, I stand justified, I stand perfect because of Christ. and help us to never stop praying
for You to work in us sanctification each moment. Give us a desire
to be Your people. In Jesus' name, Amen.