We'll start our reading this
morning in verse 11. We're going to read down to verse 18. However,
we're probably only going to deal with verses 11 through 14
this morning. We're just about done with this
letter. Probably got another couple weeks
at least in here. Galatians chapter 6. Starting in verse 11, the Word
of God says, see how large a letter I have written unto you with
mine own hand. As many as desire to make a fair
show in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised, only lest
they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For
neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law, but
desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh.
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me and
I unto the world. For Christ Jesus, neither circumcision
availeth anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many
as walk according to this rule, peace be on them and mercy and
upon the Israel of God. For henceforth, let no man trouble
me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Brethren,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, amen. All right, brethren, we're going
to look here at verses 11 down through 14, Lord willing. Sorry
about my phone, I forgot to turn it off. We're going to look here
at verses 11 through 14 today and see how far we get. We may
pick back up at this again maybe next week if I don't get through.
But I want to save the last part, verses 15 through 18, for a separate
dealing, because there's some pretty rich things to talk about
in there, and I know that I wouldn't be able to get that all in in
one day, in one message. It says, see how large a letter
I have written unto you with mine own hand. Now, Paul is kind
of going into what we would call a benediction. He's going into
the closing of his letter, kind of the sign-off, you know, kind
of like the P.S., and then here's the sign, you know, Yours Truly,
Michael Smith, or, you know, Best Regards, Michael Smith,
or God Bless, Michael Smith, or something like that, you know,
like how you would a letter. Well, he's going into this benediction. A lot of times I've found we
often skip the introductions to these letters. and we skip
the benediction of these letters because it's like, well, it's
just Paul saying hello and Paul saying goodbye. And there isn't
nothing rich to glean from that. Remember, brother, the Bible
says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, that every
job, every title has been inspired by God, that every bit of this
is profitable to us. And there's some things that
we can learn, principles that we can learn, even doctrinal
things that we can learn through even the benedictions and the
salutations, the greetings and the endings. So we don't want
to skip over these things. I know we can get in the habit
of doing that because we want to get into the meaty part of
what's being written here. But we can find out a lot of
truth because of what is said in some of these areas. And verses
11 down through 18 is definitely one of these benedictions that
is chock full of things that we can glean that is very rich
for our understanding if the Holy Spirit would give us that
revelation of it. Now if you remember last week
we looked at the passages verses 6 through 10 And we've
seen that that doesn't necessarily, as most people preach it, and
I've preached it before, and there is some... Yes, please.
Thank you. I'm trying to get that out from my coffee, but
it ain't going away. We saw last week, the Bible says, Let him that is taught of the
word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things.
And I mentioned to you last week that while there may be some
place in there to teach about those who are being taught or
to take care of those who are the teachers as far as helping
out with anything material that they might need and everything,
that I think that the main thrust of this passage of Scripture
was speaking on a spiritual level. that we communicate with each
other, things that the Lord is teaching us by the person who
has been teaching. Yes, the Lord is confirming these
things. I posted a quote by Elder C.C. Morris this week. I was
reading some things from him several years ago, and had wrote
this quote down, and I think it's still true today, the way
that it hit me back then. Whenever we preach and convey
the scriptures, the gospel, whenever we preach and convey those things,
apologetics, which is basically defending the faith, kind of
what that's talking about, whenever we do those things, whenever
we talk and preach and apologetically teach the Word of God, and whenever
we say apologetically, we don't mean I'm sorry. That's not what
that word means. The word apologetic means, again,
a defense approving of the faith. Whenever we preach and teach
these things, it isn't so much to convince or to convert the
unbeliever as much as it is to confirm the believer. And so
what Paul is saying in verse 6 is those who are being confirmed
the truth by the one teaching ought to communicate with the
one teaching what the Lord is teaching them by the Holy Spirit,
and that yes, that confirmation of truth, and that we hear that,
and that we're learning, and that we are agreeing, and that
we are in unity in that. I've had a couple of brothers
here recently. As a matter of fact, I had one just yesterday
who contacted me, a guy that I didn't even know. I happened
to come across some stuff from the church, either from the church
or from my Facebook, and just reached out and communicated,
said, hey, I want to say thank you, appreciate your You know,
continuance in the Gospel, your preaching of the Gospel, your
defense of the faith of these things. I want to thank you for
that because it truly is, you know, a blessing in his heart
that he is believing the same things and things such as that. What was he doing? He was doing
just exactly what Paul was saying here. Communicating with those
who are teaching. We are bearing each other's burdens. Hey, I know that the weight of
the law is on me and that to preach the gospel of free grace,
to preach the message of Christ alone for salvation is going
to come at a cost to many people and that whenever that person
preaches and teaches, a message of Christ alone without any kind
of self-righteous acts or works, that whenever you preach that,
that you're going to be persecuted, you're going to be ridiculed,
you're going to be ostracized, you're going to be categorized
by people and put into all kinds of different groups. And so the
people that believe those things and see those things, they communicate
back to those who are teaching them for encouragement so that
we, by one another, we edify ourselves, and instead of devouring
ourselves and nitpicking ourselves together, we're building each
other up and not tearing each other down. And that's what Paul
has basically been talking about here in chapter six, is that
we are to bear one another's burdens and fulfill the law of
God. We are to work in love by serving one another in love.
We serve each other, and in doing so, we fulfill the law of Christ
And it says here whenever we are being blessed or whenever
we are being edified, being built up in the faith by those who
are teaching these things, that we should communicate with them
and that whenever we sow to spiritual things, we're going to reap spiritual
things. And so he's encouraging these brethren. He said, listen,
these Judaizers have come in and they've supplanted the gospel.
They've come in and they've undermined me. At the very beginning, you
were very receptive of this gospel. You were very receptive. of what
Christ had taught, what Christ had done. You've seen that salvation
was not anything that had to do with your works or your acceptance
or your performance or anything like that. And you received me
as the messenger of Christ. You received me and you were
happy to hear these words. And we had great fellowship. And then all of a sudden, these
men come down and they supplant the gospel. They bewitch you
with their works, the self-righteousness that it speaks to the flesh,
and the flesh just loves to hear messages about, what do I need
to do? And that's what we like to hear,
because we can pat ourselves on the back if we keep that.
And the preacher who preaches those things, if he gets converted,
who can follow what he's telling them to do. And they're walking
in line according to what he says. He can pat himself on the
back for gathering all these people and setting them straight
and keeping them in a straight and narrow. And they can pat
him on the back for being such a good preacher to teach them
what they need to do and tell them how they ought to be and
all these kind of things. And so Paul here is saying, listen,
all this is happening. And that's not what the gospel
is all about. The gospel is not about self-building. It's about Christ-building. Christ
is the center of everything. And whenever you take a gospel
that says that you have to maintain a righteousness or keep a righteousness
for acceptance with God or keeping with God, that is not the gospel. That is looking away from Christ
and it's looking to yourself. It is a works gospel no matter
how you want to spread it, no matter how you want to convey
it, it's a works gospel. And so he said, that is not a
gospel. If you remember back at the beginning of this letter,
he said, anybody that preaches another gospel is not a servant
of Christ, that let it be a curse because it is not the gospel. And so here he says, if you're
going to sow to the flesh, You're going to reap the flesh. If you're
going to sow a ministry into teaching people about working
things out in the flesh, you're going to reap people working
things out in the flesh. And therefore, when people work
in the flesh, they're going to fail because the flesh profits
nothing. And those who are looking for fleshly works and those who
are expecting fleshly works, What are they going to do? They're
going to be upset. They're going to be let down. They're going
to be discouraged. They're going to be irritated
at each other. They're going to be devouring
each other because what are they going to do? You should be doing
more. You should be doing more. How come you're not acting right?
How come you're not doing right? How come you're doing this? How
come you're allowing this in your church? How come you're
allowing that in your church? How come you're singing those
songs and those songs? Now is there a right and wrong?
Yeah, brethren, there is some stuff. But there's also a learning
factor. There's a growing factor. There's some leeway and long-suffering
and meekness and gentleness that we need to be giving each other
in these things as the Spirit teaches us and brings us out
of these things. Remember, a lot of us has come
from underneath a lifetime of indoctrination in some kind of
a religious Christianity that is not a biblical Christianity.
And a lot of us have to unlearn a lot of the things that we have
learned. And by the Holy Spirit, who, by the way, we can't tell
him, speed it up, Chuck. We can't tell him to go any faster.
He goes at his predestined time. We ought to be a lot more long
sucker. Matter of fact, Paul said that
in verse one of chapter six, The problem today is there's
so many that want to tell other people how they ought to be and
they don't consider themselves because they don't feel themselves
even capable of being tempted. But Paul says here that those
who sow to the flesh will reap corruption and those who sow
to the Spirit shall reap life everlasting. He's saying let's
reap in those things which are spiritual, not in those things
that are Let's sow to those things that are spiritual. We're to
sow into the things of pointing others to trust in Christ, to
believe in Christ, to rest in His finished work, to rest in
His obedience to God, that His obedience to the law and keeping
all the law for you, rest in that. Not get out your law book
and get out there and start trying to be more holy. Now, brethren,
listen. We don't have to worry about
the child of grace and the work of the inward spirit in us bringing
out that whatever he wants to work in us, okay? That's not
my job to work that out in you. That's not your job to work it
out in me. Matter of fact, that's a lot of what Paul was saying.
whenever he said, bear ye one another's burden, and so fulfill
the law of Christ. And then later down he says,
let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing
in himself, not as another for every man shall bear his own
burden. See, Paul's basically saying, listen, it's my burden
to bear your burden, but it's not your burden to expect me
to bear your burden. Okay, it's not your job to expect
me to bear your burden. It's your job to bear my burden
and others' burden and to look to Christ. And it's my job to
bear your burden, so we're bearing one another's burdens, but I
don't have a place to expect you to do that. I'm to bear my
own burden. My thought is, I bear my own
burden, and I'm to help bear your burden. But I never have
an expectation of Hey, you should be doing what I, you should be
helping me. It's your problem. It's your fault. You should be
preaching better. You should be encouraging me.
You should be doing this. I don't know how many times I've
got up here to this pulpit and preached and whenever I get up
to preach, I feel, I feel worthless. I feel weak. I feel inadequate. I feel like I'm not ready. I
feel like I don't have anything to say. I get up here a lot of
times. I don't have anything. in my
mind and say, I get up here, look at the verses that the Lord's
laid on my heart for this week and pray that the Lord would
just give me some words to say. I don't look around and say,
well, hey, nobody's encouraging me. Nobody's calling me and helping
me. I don't have any preacher friends
that's trying to encourage me. I don't go around and just whine
about all those things. I don't expect that. That's not,
I bear my own burden. I don't expect others to bear
my burden for me. But yet, the Bible tells us that
we are to bear each other's burdens, our failings, our falters, to
help each other in these times. And as I said, I don't think
it just means in our weaknesses, but in our faults. As it says
here, whenever we're missing the mark, whenever we're not,
because he said here, those who are overtaken in a fault, someone
who's overtaken in a fault, So it has to do with sin, yes. It
has to do with weakness, yes. It has to do with burdens in
general, yes. What's the point here? A church,
brethren, the sheep that are gathered together here is to
be in unity. They're to be looking out for
each other. They're to be watching each other. And these men have
come down into the sheep pen and began to divide people. They
came down to divide them from Paul. They came down to divide
the people that was in those churches against themselves because
we've seen there were some who were spiritual and some who had
been overtaken in a fault. And so within churches, within
the church, there can rise up divisions, and these divisions
have to take place. The Bible said that heresies
must come, divisions must come. Why? So that it might prove who
are the people of God, that it might prove that might bring
it forward like whenever you refine something in the fire
and it boils off the dross and it leads to purity there. What
happens whenever we have this division and these things that
take place within the churches? It proves those who are spiritual.
It proves those who are the people of God. It proves those who are
truly His. And here Paul is saying, listen,
a church, whenever it gets together, it is to be in unity. It is to
love one another, to serve one another, to worship together,
to worship Christ as one body. And whenever we have divisions,
whenever we have false teaching, whenever we have false teachers
come into the church and begin to divide the church, then we
have chaos going on. We don't have unity. We have
disunity. And so he's encouraging us to bear with one another and
not cut each other off, not point the finger. But one of the reasons
that start these divisions is improper doctrine. Improper gospel. If we get away from the gospel,
then everything else is going to start having its issues as
well. And so he says here, let us not
be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap if we
faint not. Listen, it's hard. in a church
is hard. Dealing with other people is
hard because we're all sinners. We all still have the flesh.
We have not been made perfect in the flesh. And so we're going
to continue to have problems. I'm going to be an irritation
to you. And you're probably going to be an irritation to me at
some point. And there's going to be sometimes,
you know, I'd like to poke you in the eye and tell you to go
away. And you're probably going to
do the same thing to me. You're going to kick me in the rear end and say, get
out. but we're to bear with one another, and we're not to grow
weary in spiritual things. So it says here, as we have therefore
opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them
who are of the household of faith. We ought to do good to all the
brothers in Christ, especially those in the congregation that
the Lord has brought us to. Our responsibility, first and
foremost as a church, is here among our brethren. And as we
have opportunity, we can reach out to other brethren and do
good unto them. Now in verse 11, Paul, like I
said, begins his benediction. And this benediction isn't divorced
from what all he said in the past. It has a lot of bearing
on what he had been talking about. He's kind of going to sum up
some of the things that he has said. Now he says here in verse
11, see how large a letter I've written unto you. with my own
hand. Now, I'm not going to spend long
on this, but just to bear this out, because it might sound weird,
why did Paul say that? Well, Paul often, whenever he
wrote a letter, had somebody actually do the writing of the
letter for him. He dictated, they wrote. We know
that this is the case in Romans, that he had Tertius write the
letter for him, and But Paul, in every letter, signed off on
it at the very end himself. He was the one that dictated.
The Holy Spirit is the one that gave him the words to say for
the dictation. But sometimes he had people.
But here in this letter, Paul wrote it by his own hands. So
that's why Paul's saying that. It isn't some just weird thing
out of nowhere. Why did Paul say that? But this
actually happened in the Old Testament, too, in Jeremiah.
Jeremiah spoke and had a guy that would write that down for
him. So there was actually two people involved in the letter
itself, but it was Jeremiah who was the prophet. It was Paul
who was the apostle. It was Paul, the one who God
was speaking these things to for him to have written down.
It's just that Paul had somebody actually write it down for him
with their own hand and pen. Paul did take care of all that.
But let's look at verse 12. It said, Now let's look at what Paul's dealing
with here. He says, Now who's he talking
about here? Well, he's talking about those
Judaizers, right? He's going back and talking about
those Judaizers who had come in and began to tell them that
they needed to be circumcised. Let's go back to chapter 1. Look at verse 6. He says, I marvel that
ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace
of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there
be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from
heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have
preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before,
so say I now again, if any man preach another gospel unto you
than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now
persuade men or God, or do I seek to please men? Now here, that's
the key. Whenever you preach a gospel
that takes away the offense of the cross, Whenever you preach
a gospel that takes away the sovereignty of God, the predestinating
nature of election and redemption, that God before the foundation
of the world chose a people, that God before the foundation
chose a people to be saved and chose a people not to be saved.
That before the foundation of the world, God chose a Savior
who would come and save them. That God before the foundation
of the world predestinated everything that would take place to bring
to be everything that God wanted to take place for His glory in
this time period. Whenever you start preaching
those things, it's offensive to people. Whenever you tell
them you're not saved by your choosing, you didn't choose by
your free will to be saved, that's an offense. The cross is now
an offense to them. Whenever you preach the cross
biblically, You're going to preach election. You're going to preach
predestination. You're going to preach sovereignty.
You're going to preach no free will. You're going to preach
that there is no law but grace, that there is no works, there
is no self-righteousness, that it is all objective from outside
of you, that salvation has absolutely nothing to do with what you do,
but everything of what Christ has done. That salvation is an
objective thing, not a subjective thing. It's not subjective to
whether I choose it or reject it. Salvation is not subjective
to my understanding of it or my fully embracing everything
that there is to know about it. It has nothing to do with my
acceptance or rejection. It has nothing to do with how
much knowledge of it that I have. Salvation is of the Lord. It's by the Lord. It's for the
Lord. So salvation in all of its aspects,
in every part, in every way, is dependent upon the work of
Christ alone. Whether that is the eternal legal
aspect of it, or whether that is the temporal experience of
it, it still was predestinated before the foundation of the
world. It still is carried out by Christ alone. How's that happen? The eternal legal aspect of it
is Christ is our substitute. He died in our place. He lived
in our place. All that is considered our work. And it is laid to our account.
We didn't do it. We're not involved in it. We
weren't there. Our bodies don't do any actions.
Jesus' body did the action. Jesus was the one who was faithful. Jesus is the one who was righteous.
Jesus is the one who died. I didn't die. Christ died. I didn't go down into the grave. Jesus went down into the grave.
But everything that Jesus did, whether it was His perfect life
that He lived according to the law, whether it was His death
and the condemnation of sin that was upon Him, He didn't do it. He did it for us. So I was there
in Him. Whenever He went into the grave,
it was me that was in Him. Whenever He rose from the grave,
I was in Him. Therefore, that was to my account. So substitutionary death substitutionary
obedience, that is what's counted for me legally in the eyes and
the courtroom of God. The justice of God has said it's
finished. The justice of God in that courtroom
says that these elect of God are all holy and righteous. The Bible calls us saints. But the experiential portion
of salvation, What we actually, as the people of God, experience
is the conversion of the mind and the heart to believe what
the Bible says about us and about salvation. Where God turns the
mind, that doesn't happen by ourselves. It isn't because I
keep teaching you and keep teaching you and my teaching gets better,
my words and my formulation of my sermons become so good that
it entices you and brings you in or enlightens your mind to
where you say, hey, that guy's right, man, that right there
is the best defense. So therefore, I can't find anything
wrong with it. It must be true. No, it's not
true because of the way that we formulate the words or present
the words or deliver the words. It's not true because that is
true, because it's true. And the only reason you know
it's true is because the Holy Spirit has revealed to you that
that's the truth. That doesn't come by the preacher,
that doesn't come by the listener. It isn't subjective, it's objective. Christ converted you. So your even experiential, temporal
understanding of things or you're this walk of Christianity, this
life of Christianity in time, even that in itself is not from
you. It's not subjective to what you
do. Once we're converted and our
mind has been changed and it is now believing upon Christ
and looking to Christ and saying, my hope is Christ. My salvation
is in Him, that there's nothing that I do. Now my daily walk,
how do I walk daily? The things that I do and the
things that I don't do. As Paul said, the things I want to do,
the things that I don't want to do. How is that determined?
Is that determined subjectively by what I do and not do? Absolutely
not. That too is because of Christ. The Bible says that Christ has
given us a measure of faith. that Christ is in us to will
and to do His good pleasure. The Bible says that it is He
that will keep us from falling, but that it is also that He that
is the one who turns the heart whichever way He desires it to
go. It is He the one who is walking, and the man may plan his steps,
but God's the one who directs his paths, directs his feet.
God's the one who tells him where to go and what to do. God's the
one who either gives him grace to restrain from sin, or withholds
His grace and the man falls into sin and experiences the flesh
and experiences the inability of him so that he might learn
Christ more. That too is not controlled by
me. It's controlled by Christ. It
has everything to do with Christ. My stick-to-it-ness My perseverance,
my longevity, my walk, my staying in the faith, my activity from
the time that I'm converted until the time that I die, that's not
determined by me either. That's determined by Christ.
He that has begun a good work in you will carry it out till
the day of the Lord, till the day of Christ, till he comes
again. So that isn't determined by me either. It's not subjective
to whether I do more good works or do less good works. It's not
subjective to how much I read this Bible or don't read this
Bible. Now, I encourage you, read your Bible. It's profitable
for you. I encourage you to do those things
that the principles of this scripture tells us to do because it's good
for us to do those things. It's profitable for us to do
that. But brethren, if I read more, I'm not going to be more
holy. If I read less, I'm not going to be less holy before
God. And I'm not going to lose my
salvation if I sin. Now, I'm not telling you to go
sin. That's OK to sin. So don't get that idea. What I'm saying is, whether it's
the legal aspect or the experiential aspect of our salvation, Christ
controls every bit of it. Christ is the one who is controlling
it all. He is the author and the finisher
of our faith. Whether it be the faith once
delivered to the saints, so now we have the faith once delivered
to the saints, the body of doctrine, He's the author and the finisher
of that. It's not man. Whether it's the faith that has
been given to us to trust in Him and what He has done, He's
the author of it. He's the finisher of it. Whether
or not it's the faith that justified us before God, which was His
life, His righteousness, His faithfulness to the law, He's
the author and finisher of that as well. Christ is all in all. So it says here, as many as desire
to have a fair show in the flesh, Paul here is saying, listen,
there are those who have come in who have divided your church
and they're trying to preach that there is a righteousness
that you have to keep before God whenever you keep these laws. And he said, listen, these are
people who, look at it, desire to make a fair show in the flesh.
Now notice he says there, a fair show in the flesh. He says, those who have a fair
show in the flesh. Notice that he didn't say a perfect
show in the flesh or even a correct show in the flesh. He says, many
desire to make a fair show in the flesh. By the way, these people who
want to make a show in the flesh, they want to outwardly show their
righteousness by what they do. That's what these guys are saying.
Hey, you need to keep the Law of Moses. You can't be right with God,
continuing in righteousness before God, if you don't keep these
laws. If you don't keep these laws,
that shows outwardly that you're not a child of God. But if you
keep these laws, that will outwardly show that you are a child of
God. Salvation isn't nothing about
what we do outwardly in the flesh. And they wanted to make a show
in the flesh. And they desired to make this
show in the flesh. But, brethren, listen, the Bible
says that nobody is keeping the law. These men are not keeping
the law. As a matter of fact, look at verse
13. It even says that. For neither they themselves who are circumcised
keep the law. These men who are circumcised
in themselves to keep the law of Moses is not keeping the law. So even if they would keep that
law, they're not keeping the law. So if a preacher's up here
and he gives you a list of these are the things you've got to
do to be right before God, if you do all those things right
there, guess what? That's not keeping the law. Remember,
what's keeping the law? Keeping every law always and
never breaking. That's keeping the law. The law
isn't keeping number one, number three, number five, number 10.
That's not keeping the law. You're not keeping the law by
doing that. Keeping the law is number one, number two, number
three, number four, number five, number six, number seven, number
eight, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, 700,
800, 10,000, however many there is. That's keeping the law. You have to keep every one of
them. Because the law isn't broken up into this portion, this portion,
this portion. It's all one thing. God says
you either keep it or you don't keep it. It's not a partial keeping.
And these men who are doing this, they think they're keeping the
law by keeping some of these things. And they're not. No one
can keep the law. Besides, anything that's done
in the flesh is sin. Them keeping those laws in the
flesh is sin. It's corrupted by our flesh.
It is not acceptable to God. And so he's saying here, and
I probably almost say he's probably saying this in a sarcastic or
a laughing jest. Listen, these guys here, they're
making a fair show in the flesh. And they constrain you to be
circumcised. But look what it says at the
end of verse 12. Only lest they should suffer persecution for
the cross. The only reason they're preaching
this is because if they preach what I preach, they're gonna
suffer persecution for that. Matter of fact, if you remember
back, Paul, I think it was back in, was it back in five, chapter
five? Well, I forgot what verse it
was in. But Paul, remember Paul said,
you know, I have been persecuted because of this. You know, if
I was preaching the message that they're saying that I'm preaching,
then why am I suffering persecution? Why am I suffering persecution?
Now, if you remember, Paul counted all these things that these men
were talking about, this fair show in the flesh, What did Paul
call it? Well, he calls it dumb. Turn
with me to the Philippians chapter 3. Start at verse 1. Remember, these men are trying
to make a fair show in the flesh. Hey, at least try your best to
make a fair show in the flesh, you know? Give a good try here
at least, you know. You're not going to be able to
keep it perfect, but at least try to do what you can. Well,
again, you're not accomplishing righteousness by doing that.
Now, that doesn't mean that our desire in our heart is not to
do that. And we try to live by these principles
in Scripture the best that we can, but brethren, to think that
we are either gaining or falling behind in righteousness before
God because we keep it or don't keep it, that is not what the
Scripture said. But look here, verse 1 of Philippians
3. It says, Finally, my brethren,
rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you,
to me indeed, is not grievous, but for you it is safe. It says,
Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
There's that word, those who preach circumcision. Okay, beware
the ones who are preaching the law. That's basically what the
word concision was a reference to those who are preaching the
law. Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the circumcision,
or the concision. He says, for we are the circumcision. We are the law keepers which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. See, Paul's saying those who
are saying, to make a fair show in the flesh, keep doing this
stuff. And they're doing this so that
they might make a fair show in the flesh. Paul's saying, listen,
the real true circumcision, the true people who are keeping the
law, who are living by the law, are not the ones who are doing
it outwardly in the flesh, but the ones who in the spirit are
looking at the law or following the law of Christ. The ones who
are the law keepers, the ones who are the true concision, are
the ones who worship God in the spirit, not by the works of the
flesh. And so many people, it's just
the opposite. They really don't worship God in the heart. They
don't worship God in the heart. They don't look to Christ. They
don't rejoice in sovereign grace. They may not even acknowledge
sovereign grace. Most of them don't. They may
even acknowledge sovereign grace. But yet that's not the heart
of the matter for them. The heart of the matter for them
is how do I look to everybody else? Am I making a fair showing
in the flesh? Am I proving my salvation by
my outward words? And Paul here says, listen, the
true circumcision, the ones who worship God in spirit and in
truth are the ones who worship in the spirit and rejoicing Christ. These men were rejoicing in those
who were keeping the concision. Their rejoicing was in others
following their list of commands and duties. But our rejoicing
is in those who have no confidence in the flesh. Listen, brethren,
do I like it whenever men act right? Yeah, that's nice. I don't
like to be hit in the face. Be kind one to another. That's
a good principle of Scripture. Thou shalt not kill. That's a
great principle of Scripture, right? That's a great law that
God gives and everything. But listen, it's good because I don't want
to die. I don't want to be killed. A lot of those things are great
principles to live by. But it's not what makes us righteous
before God. It's good to live by them because
they're good for us. But listen, I rejoice more over
somebody who has been given to see and to believe that it doesn't
matter how hard I try, I never can perform a righteousness before
God, but Christ has done it for me. My hope is in Him. My hope is in Christ alone. And
I look to Christ alone, and I believe Him. I believe that He said that
that's enough. What He did was enough for my
salvation, and I believe that. And the Spirit bears witness
with my spirit that I am His, and that every promise that He
has made to His people, that that promise is as much as mine
as it is anybody else's that Christ died for. Listen, we rejoice in Christ
Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. I have no confidence
in my flesh. I have no confidence that I can
keep up a righteousness before God. I have no confidence that
I can become more holy before the end of my lifetime. I have
no confidence that these laws that God has given me, that I
can perform them in such a way that the Lord is going to say,
well done, my good and faithful servant, well done for doing
all those good things. I have no confidence that my
flesh can attain those things. And I have no confidence that
your flesh can do those things. And as a pastor and preacher
of the gospel, I have no confidence that you can do that, therefore,
my job And I don't mean that in a job job. My place as a pastor
and a preacher of the gospel is not to encourage you in law
keeping, but encourage you in looking unto Christ Jesus. Of preaching the gospel, not
preaching Moses. But look what he says there.
He says, Though I might also have confidence in the flesh,
if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he mightest trust
in the flesh, I more." He said, if it did come down to things
in the flesh, he said, listen to this, I probably can boast
about that better than anybody can. He said, I will circumcise the
eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, A Hebrew
of the Hebrews as touching the law, a Pharisee. He was a Pharisee. Verse 6, concerning zeal, persecuting
the church. Listen, I was so zealous for
the law of God that I was out killing those people who were
doing things contrary to what we thought the law was about.
I was out there doing it. Touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless. So as far as Paul was concerned,
he was keeping all those laws. He thought he was keeping all
the law of Moses. But look what he said. But what
things were gained to me, all that religious life, all of that
hard work to keep the law of God, all that zeal for God, what
does he say? I count it. loss for Christ. He said, I did all that stuff,
but I never gained Christ. He said, I gained a religiousness,
but I never gained Christ by doing that. You can never gain
Christ by works in the flesh. You can never gain Christ by
your own self righteousness. Paul said, listen, I was the
most righteous among all of them. And he said, but in all of that
righteousness, and I had zeal, brother. Listen, brother, we
know brothers and sisters. We know aunts and uncles. We
know mamas and daddies. We know grandmas and grandpas.
We know friends and neighbors. who have a great zeal for God,
but if they have not believed on Christ alone for their salvation,
that it had nothing to do with them, and that they're not kept
in this faith by what they do, and that they are producing an
outward righteousness of their own. If they're not believing
these things, they are not believing Christ rightly. They are not
believing the gospel. And therefore, if they are not
believing the gospel, if they are not believing on Christ,
if they are believing in the works of the law, if they are
believing in the works of the flesh, if they think that they
have a zeal for God, and because of their zeal and their effort
for God, that shows that they have been saved and are being
saved, then that right there is another gospel. And therefore,
they are not a believer. At least at this point, they're
not a believer. At one time, they might become a believer,
but they're not a believer now. They're believing something else,
just like Paul said. And if they continue in that
course of unbelief, in that false gospel, or false gospels, if
they continue in that belief, he said, let them be a curse.
They're not a servant of Christ. And Paul says, here, listen,
I was following in that, I had the zeal, I had the works, I
had the law, I had everything, I was following everything to
the iota. But he said, I never gained Christ
out of all of that. He said, yea, doubtless, I count
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord. He said, listen, Whenever the
Lord revealed His Son in me, I count everything, everything,
everything as lost. Everything that this flesh is
going to ever experience in this life, I count it all lost except
for the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. The
only thing that is not lost is what Christ has done. Everything
else is temporal and it's lost. Everything else is temporal and
it will burn up. Listen, all your good deeds that
you do in the flesh, they're going to burn up. The only thing
that's going to be anything is what the Spirit of God has done
in our spirit. The only thing that is of any
value that is lasting in eternity is what Christ is and what Christ
has done. And so often we get so caught
up in all these things and the Judaizers keep barking at us
to keep the law. And you have to keep up. You're
a Christian, you don't keep the law. Do you just want to live
the way you want to live? No, that's not what we're saying.
The love of Christ is constraining us. You have more confidence
in your flesh to keep yourselves from sin by keeping the law than
you do when the Holy Spirit put it in the heart of somebody,
don't do that, don't do this. The Holy Spirit can do all that
work. That's His job, is to constrain
us. That's His job, is to grant us
repentance and to bring us to repentance. It's the Holy Spirit's
job to work in us and to do His good pleasure through us. It's
His job, not ours. Paul says, For whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and do count them but dumb, that I might
win Christ. He said, listen, I count everything
as loss. He said, matter of fact, all
those things that I did, all they amount to is a pile
of poop. He said, it's just a pile of
poop. He said, I count them, but dumb. I don't even look at them as
anything that is acceptable. How many of y'all would like
to say, we don't have cats, we used to have cats, but we don't
have cats anymore. But a cat has a litter box and
a cat goes in its litter box, what do you do? Do you just leave
it in the litter box? Do you gather around with everybody,
whenever you have somebody come over to your house, do you gather
around with everybody? Hey, look what Fifi did. Look
at that one, that's a big one. Good job, Beep Beep. Oh, you
covered it up so well. Do we sit around and look at
turds and just say how great they are? Do we take them out,
present them to all the people? Say, look. Do we go out and pick
up our dog and say, what a great job you did there, Wookie. Goodness gracious. Do I take that thing and cover
it with gold and put it on a little plaque and send it on my shelf?
Look what Wookie did. Then why do we parade around
our sinful fleshly works as though they were something acceptable
to God? See, that's what Paul's trying to convey here. He said
whenever we take our religious fleshly activities and try to
present them as something that's even acceptable to God and something
that should be an encouragement to everybody else. Whenever we
put that up to everybody else and say, hey, listen, you're
trying to live up to this. Look what I did, man. You're
trying to get up here. Now you have, you have turned to lift up. All
the same, listen, it's not going to be lifting up down because
he said that is not acceptable to God. He said he counted everything. as lost, and that it is all done,
that he might win Christ. And look at verse 9, and be found
in him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law. So Paul
is saying, what I'm looking to, what it means to be found in
Christ, that I might win Christ, that I might know Christ, what
does that mean? Me not having my own righteousness?
and being found in Him, and having a righteousness that's not my
own, but a righteousness which is not of the law, but is a righteousness
that is from Christ, that which is through the faith of Christ,
the righteousness which is of God by faith. That's what Paul
says that we should strive for. Look to, we strive to know nothing
else but Christ. I'm not going to sit up here
and glory in how much Mike does. I'm not going to sit here and
glory in how much you do. Now, we like to be encouraging.
I'm going to say, We ought to encourage one another.
We ought to encourage each other. Because in our flesh we do get
depressed. We do get down. We do get our
feelings bunched up and hurt. Okay? We do have those problems
and we ought to encourage one another. The Bible even says
that we ought to encourage each other in the faith. That we ought
to push each other in the things
of God and those things. I'm not saying not do that. But
listen, if your whole performance is based upon whether or not
you get the accolades or not, or whether or not someone's always
patting you on the back and telling you how good you're doing, or
whether or not you're even being acknowledged as being doing good.
Hey, listen, I've been a pastor now here since 2017, and it's
not always been a bed of roses. You guys have not always been
a bed of roses. I know I've not been a bed of roses. You guys
have not been a bed of roses either. And sometimes, somebody
wants a little pat on the back, a little acknowledgement for
what they have done. Well, that's just the flesh wanting
to be recognized. That's why it goes back to bury
one another's burdens, but each man will bury his own burden.
Listen, we ought to do that towards each other, but don't expect
it. It's not your place to expect
it. Don't expect law keeping from
everybody else because we're all sinners. But bear one another's
burdens. Go alongside of that brother.
Encourage that brother. Don't hit him over the head.
Don't be impatient with him. Don't kick him out just because
of one instance or something like that. Long suffering. in
the spirit of meekness. That's what it says, verse 1. But what does he say here? He
says, but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ. What's my message going to be?
The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. What's my encouragement going
to be? The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Comfort ye, comfort
ye my people. Unto my people, tell them what the Lord has done. That their sin has been taken
and has been completely done away with. That Christ has fulfilled
everything on their behalf. We comfort each other with the
gospel, with what Christ has done. We don't comfort each other
by, keep the law, go back to Exodus, go back to Leviticus,
Go back to Deuteronomy. Go back to the Old Testament.
Start judging up all those laws. We don't encourage each other
by that. How do we encourage one another? We encourage each
other to trust Christ. Trust Christ. Look to what Christ
did. Christ lived, He died, was buried,
was resurrected. Every bit of that was on for
you, if you're His. It's for you. And that's enough. God forbid that I should glory,
saved in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world
is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Now what does he
mean by that? By whom the world is crucified
unto me? Well, by the world, he includes
everything that I believe is opposite of Christ. He said,
by whom, meaning Christ Jesus, the world is crucified unto me.
So everything that is against Christ, by Him, I am now dead to all those things. Paul was basically saying the
same thing that he was saying in Philippians. He said, whenever
the Lord revealed Himself into me, everything that I did, that
I thought I was doing, that I in this worldly system of things
of religiosity was doing, I count as loss. It's done. And the only thing that I know
is what Christ has done. That's what Paul is saying here.
He says, I have been crucified unto the world and the way the
world preaches that righteousness is obtained. They say the righteousness
is obtained by us being obedient to God, by us being obedient
to the law, by us doing good things, doing righteous things.
That's how we are saved. That's how we are kept saved.
They believe that it is a performance thing that we do outwardly. That
is the world's way of thinking. Go to every religion. I don't
care what name it is. I don't care what leader it has.
I don't care how long it's been in existence. Go to every religion
and even modern day quote unquote Christianity and you're going
to find the same thing. At the heart of every bit of
it is number one, free will to choose to do it or not to do
it. And number two, that it's based upon your performance.
Either accepting it, rejecting it, or maintaining an activity
within it. And if you don't do that, then
you're not saved. If you're not doing that, you're not righteous.
You're not holy. You're not good. You're not Zen.
Whatever you are, you're not that because of your performance.
Every religion in the world, except for the true religion,
the true Christianity, the true gospel that says it's not about
you, it's what Christ did. Everything was done by him and
for him. and that you are the recipient
of that. You are blessed and the recipient
of what Christ has done. You don't have anything to do
about it. It's not subjective. It's objective. And Paul said,
God forbid that I should glory saving that. I'm not going to
glory in the way the world says that we ought to do religion.
I'm not going to glory in those things. I'm going to glory in
the cross of Christ. So shouldn't we as preachers
of the gospel only glory in that which is of Christ and not the
law? But yet we are castigated. I've
mentioned to you before a preacher that used to be in Kansas City,
Missouri, who was telling people not to come to our church because
I was an antinomian and I preached that we were not under law, that
we didn't have to keep the law. And he's right, I do preach that. I don't have a problem being
called an antinomian, depending on what you call an antinomian.
But if you mean by antinomian that I'm against the law for
righteousness, absolutely I am. I am totally against the law
for righteousness. We cannot obtain a righteousness
by the law. And Paul said he couldn't. He
tried, but he couldn't. what he tried to do and it was
the best of anybody that he knew. And by the word, by the spirit
of God, he wrote down what he wrote down. And so I at least
got to think that what he wrote down was truth. He said, hey,
out of all of them, I was blameless. I was the better Pharisee than
any Pharisee that was there. I did it. And he said, all that
was poop. Think you're any better? Think
we're any better? So whenever Paul says, by the
world here, he means not just the pleasures of the world or
the persecutions of the world, although those are going to come.
But I believe that what he's talking about here is he's talking
about self-righteousness. He says that he is crucified
unto me, the way of self-righteousness. I'm dead to self-righteousness. I'm thankful that the Lord has
given me and by His grace He continues to keep my mind in
this place that I'm done with self-righteousness. I'm done
with trying to be pleasing to God by a righteousness that I
perform Him in the flesh. I'm done doing that because it
becomes a burden, a heavy load, a yoke just as Jesus, just as
the apostles, just as everybody has said in the past that this
is a burden. It's a yoke that no man can can
bear. And so I pray that the Lord continue
to give me a mind for that and I pray that he gives you a mind
for that. That you no more will look to
self-righteousness. Why does he say that it's crucified
unto me and I am crucified unto the world? Well, brethren, if
you know anything about crucifixion, crucifixion is a long and grueling
death. It's a long and grueling death.
Whenever they were nailed to those crosses, they didn't just
die immediately. What you see with Jesus Christ,
with Him, the time that He hung on the cross, it was a short
period of time, considering crucifixions. You know, that was still a long
time for some people, I would say, well, for anybody, I would
say, to hang on the cross from the middle of the day till evening
time. That's a long time to be on a
cross. But a lot of times these people
would haunt on a cross and they were on there for several days
before they died. The only reason the two beside him died quick
is because they broke their legs, they couldn't push themselves
up, they suffocated to death, and the reason they did that
is because the Sabbath was the next day, the High Sabbath was
the next day, and they couldn't be on the cross according to
Jewish religion. They couldn't be on the cross
on the Sabbath, so they had to take them down, so they had to
kill them quick. If it wouldn't have been for that, the Romans
would have left him on that cross and it would have took days for
them to have died of thirst and suffocated themselves to death
by pushing themselves up and down, up and down until all kinds
of bacteria and crap got in their wounds and all that stuff. I
mean, it was a slow agonizing death and it was meant to be
such. That's why he uses this word crucifixion. I've been crucified,
the world's been crucified unto me and I unto the world. This
fight with self-righteousness, the flesh and the spirit warring
against each other is also, we use it as a warfare, but he's
using it as a illustration by crucifixion. It's a long agonizing
death. We struggle with this our whole
entire life. It's a bitter struggle that we
have to struggle with of the flesh wanting self-congratulation. We have to deal with our self-corruption. The inner man has to bear with
the fact that our outer man is corrupt and will continue to
be corrupt until the Lord comes. So it's indeed a death like the
cross. So Paul here says, but God forbid
that I ever look to that self righteousness that I ever look
to that ability or that inability of the flesh to perform a righteousness
and present that up to either God or my brothers in Christ
as something that we should obtain to. But what should we preach
to them? We should preach the cross of
Jesus Christ our Lord. We should preach the fact that
He has walked for us, that He has died for us, that everything
that God requires in His justice, in His holiness, in His being
God that will not let the wicked go, this God who expects holiness
and righteousness, that everything that is demanded of God was given
to you because Jesus Christ did it for you. and to then turn around and to
put your hand to it and say, well, I'm going to try to do
this so that I can make it pleasing to God so that God will smile
on me, bless me, accept me, keep me, not turn away from me, made
me a better person or anything like that is blasphemy against
the Lord Jesus Christ who gave his life for you. It's blasphemy
against the Lord Jesus Christ that you could provide a holiness
equal to or better than his. Don't ask Him against Him. So may we be mindful of those
things, brethren, and may we look to Jesus. We preach Jesus
and Him crucify. Let our Gospel be filled with
what He did, not what we do. May we count all of our righteousness
as filthy rags. May we count all of our religious
zeal as dumb and just look to Christ. Preach Christ. Trust
Christ. for our salvation, and may He
give us the Holy Spirit to do so. Anybody have any questions
or comments that you'd like to add to this? All right. No? That's great. Father, we thank you today for
your wonderful gospel. We thank you for Christ Jesus
and the glorious life, death, resurrection, and intercession
that He makes now even for us. Father, we thank you for grace,
for mercy. We thank you, Father, for all
that you have given to us that we do not deserve. Father, we
don't know what else to say other than thank you. Lord, I just
pray that today that these things that have been said have been
pleasing to you and that it has been the truth as contained in
the Word of God. Lord, that if I'm in error that
you would convicted to bring me to right thinking on these
things. And Father, Lord, I pray that
you'd be with these brethren and that you would just teach
them the truth, confirm the truth to them. Lord, I pray that we
might continue here at this church by your grace to defend and to
preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, Lord, I just ask now
that you'll be with these brethren as they leave this place. Lord,
I ask that you would give them safety and that you would be
with them, that you might minister the gospel each and every day
to their heart and to their mind. And Lord, may they may even be
a testimony of Christ to those that they're around. In Christ's
name we pray.