Well, Randy read for us. I want
to look in verse 14. Galatians chapter 6 and verse
14. But God forbid that I should
glory, save in the cross, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto
the world. I want to look at this one verse
with you just for a few minutes, and let's look at it like this.
Simply three questions concerning this verse. First one is, I think
we must ask this question and know this, what is the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ? I glory in the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then secondly, what does
it mean to glory? I glory in the cross. Then thirdly,
let's see if we can answer this question, what does it mean to
be crucified? By which I am crucified unto
the world, and the world is crucified unto me. Now I think we can all
agree on this, we must agree on this, and we do, of what the
cross is not. There are some things the cross
is not, and it's not that piece of wood. It's not the cross that
our Lord Jesus hang upon. I would imagine that somewhere
in the archives of Catholicism, they've got chips and pieces
of this cross, don't you? We've seen them up on hills,
you know, as we travel the road. I saw one man one time pulling
one down the highway and that's, I'm not here to judge any of
that, but that's not the cross that the Apostle Paul was speaking
about. And neither is it a crucifix. We see people wearing crucifixes
around their Necks. Sometimes we see them hanging
on their rearview mirrors and so on. The little cross that
they stamp out and people wear. That's not the cross. That's
not the cross. The Apostle Paul would have been
horrified if we set any of these things up as the cross of Jesus
Christ. And it's not gestures. It's not
any gestures that we make with our hands. That's not the cross
that he was speaking of here. Some would tell us these things
are helps. They're aids in the worship of
God. But God is a spirit. And He's not given us these aids. He's not given us things that
we can see to aid us in His worship. He's a spirit and they that worship
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. He's given us two
ordinances, we call ordinances, that we can touch and feel and
see to help us in our service and worship and profession of
Him. One is water baptism. We show forth the death of Jesus
Christ by burial and resurrection. We can see the water, we can
feel the water. He's given us the cup and He's
given us the bread that we can eat, get it into our mouth and
our system. That's the only thing He's given
us that I'm aware of that we can feel and see and taste, that's
physically. But the cross is nothing that
we can see or feel or taste. What is it? Our glory in the
cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to consider it with you
quickly from three perspectives. As you read the commentaries,
most of them agree on these three things. So I'm pinning it down
to one. And I think that's the wonderful
thing about the Scripture. You can look at it and you can
say, well, that's so. And then you look at it and say,
well, that's so too. So all three of these things
will fit into this one passage and the context will prove it.
First of all, the cross is this. When a believer suffers for the
sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, for His name's sake, that's the
cross of Christ. That's bearing the cross of the
Lord Jesus Christ. When a believer begins to bear
witness of Christ the Savior, it won't be long until this world
begins to hate him. I have given them Thy Word, and
the world hath hated them, and the world begins to persecute
them." Listen to what the Lord Jesus said. He said, "...blessed
are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate
you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your
name as evil for the Son of Man's sake." For my sake. He said, "...leap you for joy."
Rejoice, for great is your reward in heaven. When Peter and John
was taken into the Sanhedrin and they beat them, the Scripture
says there in Acts chapter 5, they departed from the council
rejoicing. Rejoicing. That's what that word
glory means. To rejoice. They rejoiced that
they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His sake. Bearing the cross of Christ.
glorying in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said
we glory in tribulations, didn't he? We rejoice in hope of the
glory of God, but I tell you, we rejoice in tribulations, too,
if you know that it's for His sake, for the cross of Christ's
sake. Those men never rejoiced merely
in shame. They never gloried that they
beat Him. That hurt, didn't it? They didn't
say lay another stripe on me, that's feeling good. They were
glad when they finished. But what they gloried in was
this, they were suffering shame for His sake. For His sake. We do things sometimes when we
suffer for it and we're ashamed because of what we've done. I've
done that and you've done that. But when we suffer for Christ's
sake, When we've done nothing but love Him and believe Him
and profess His name before our citizens and they hate us for
it or they cast out our name for it, we can glory in that
and leap for joy because it's for His glorious namesake. Paul
said it like this, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches,
in necessities, in persecutions, in distress for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake were killed
all the day long. And that's the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And here in verse 12 of our text,
these false prophets, these false apostles, they didn't want to
suffer. They didn't want to suffer. And
Paul says here in verse 12, "...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." The
reason he said they won't preach Christ, of course they don't
know Him. They don't know anything about His free and sovereign
grace. But He said, here's one reason they won't preach Christ
and His grace and justification by faith is because they despise
to suffer. They don't want to suffer for
Christ's sake. There's a cross, isn't there?
There's a cross. I don't know why we think this,
but all of us think this. When the Lord saves us, we think
the world is going to love us. The world is going to really
speak highly of us and pat us on the back, but it's not long
we find out different. We had friends that loved us
to death and wanted to spend time with us until the Lord saved
us. And then what did they do? They
separated us from their company. That's what happens. That's what
happens. That's the cross. That's the
cross. Why didn't they preach Christ crucified for our eternal
salvation? They saw that in these apostles.
They saw them suffer. And they said, man, I don't want
anything to do with that. If I throw away my circumcision,
if I throw away my ceremonial law, and I throw away the law
for justification and works religion, and I start talking about this
grace of Christ, And the Savior put in my sins away and did everything
for the salvation of my soul. They're going to hate me. And
I'm going to suffer. So they were afraid of this cross. False teachers don't want to
suffer shame and reproach. They want the world to speak
well of them. They don't want to be whipped. They want to be
patted on the back. They don't want God's favor.
They want the praise of men. They'll go to any length to keep
from suffering. They'll do that. I've seen that.
I don't want to mention this guy's name because I've always
mentioned his name before. And I'm just, you know, after
a while it gets useless to do that. But I've seen him on television
doing interviews. And he keeps saying, oh, that's
a controversy. I don't get into controversy.
The whole problem with him, it's not the controversy. He's afraid
he's going to suffer. He's going to get some calls from the bigwigs
in his church. And say, man, you keep doing
that, you're not going to get enough money to run this place. So he
won't suffer. That's the first thing. It's
suffering for the cause and the name of Jesus Christ. Secondly,
Paul gloried in the doctrine of the cross. He gloried in the
persecutions that come with professing the Christ of the cross. But
he gloried in the doctrine of the cross. He said, we preach. Christ and Him crucified. And we preach all of those glorious
truths that sprang from Christ and Him crucified. What is the
doctrine of the cross? One of them is forgiveness. We
have forgiveness through Christ and Him crucified. Through this
man is preached unto you, through His blood, through His sufferings,
through His death, the forgiveness of sins. By Him all that believe
are justified. Through Christ in Him crucified,
we preach reconciliation. That's the doctrine of the cross. When we were yet sinners in due
time, Christ died for the ungodly. And He's reconciled us to God
by His blood. There's no such thing as preaching
reconciliation apart from the cross. That doctrine springs
out of the cross. I was out west one time and a
fellow told me to watch this and I started watching it. Out
there in some area out there, they got really caught up and
it was just like a mushroom. They were all talking about having
a relationship with God. You need to have this relationship
with God. But nobody told them how. You
just start having this relationship with God. Well, listen. Here's
what is necessary to have a relationship with God. You must be reconciled. And that comes out of the cross.
It's a doctrine of the cross. He hath reconciled us to God
by His blood. By the blood of the cross. Through
a crucified Christ, the doctrine of life eternal comes. He that
believeth on Him hath everlasting life. All the blessings that
God has in store for poor elect sinners come to them through
the cross. It is always through the cross. He has blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. In Christ. And we can preach that now because
of the cross, can't we? That's the doctrine of the cross.
There is nothing outside the cross but sin and condemnation
and death and judgment. It's only in the cross of Christ
that we can preach the blessings of God. The preaching of the
cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which
are saved it is the power of God. We preach Christ crucified
unto the Jews, a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness,
but unto you which are called." The cross, the preaching of the
cross is the power of God and it is the wisdom of God. And
Paul said this was the cross, a glory in nothing but the cross,
suffering for that cross, the doctrine that comes out of that
And thirdly this, what does the cross mean? The person. The person. The very person of
Jesus Christ. Paul said, I was determined to
know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. When we preach the cross, we
preach a person. A person. I count all of us for
the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. The knowledge of Christ. What
about that knowledge? My goodness, who He is in His
two natures? His real human nature and His
divine nature? What He's done? What He's going
to do? Where He is now? We preach Him,
don't we? We preach Christ and Him crucified.
To know Christ the prophet to teach us, Christ the priest to
represent us before God, and Christ the King to rule over
us and subdue our iniquities. Oh, to know Him, Paul said. To
know Him. So that's what it means, the
cross. The suffering that springs out of it as we confess Christ. The doctrine that springs out
of it that we preach, the doctrine of salvation, and the very person
who died upon that cross, we preach His person. That's the
cross. Secondly, what does it mean to
glory? I glory in the cross of Christ. This word glory means, it's a
difficult word to translate, And you see most places just
say that it's to boast in, it's to trust in, it's to rejoice
in, that which we have a sincere regard and high esteem for, a
real affection for, that which deeply interests us, that which
is the object of our joy and comfort, our glory in the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I tell you, Paul could
have gloried in so many things, couldn't he? You know what he
said about himself. He said, I speak with tongues,
I speak with languages more than any of you. But he didn't glory
in that, did he? He said, I'd rather speak five
words, ye must be born again, with my understanding, than ten
thousand words in an unknown tongue. He could have gloried
in worldly wisdom because He was wise. But here's what He
said about that. The wisdom of this world is foolishness
with God. And I bet you He could have been
a rich man too. He knew some rich folks. He could
have collected up a lot of money if He wanted to be rich. But
you know what He said about riches? They that will be rich fall into
many foolish and hurtful lusts. He could have gloried in His
might. He's a pretty powerful guy, some of the things that
He did. But He said, you see your calling,
brethren? Not many mighty people after
the flesh are called. He could have rejoiced and gloried
in worldly honor, but He knew Christ had already said, how
can you How can you receive the glory of God and how can you
worship God and honor God that receive honor and praise one
of another? Self-righteousness? Boy, he could
have gloried in that, couldn't he? Did until the Lord opened
his heart. He said, I labored and I strove
and I kept the law more than anybody. If anybody else thinks
they could glory in the flesh, I more. But what did he say? Those things that were gained
to me, I counted them lost for Christ. Eminent gifts! Man, he
had them, didn't he? He had the gifts. But he said,
I have nothing apart from the grace of God. I am what I am
by the grace of God. He could have rejoiced in his
privilege as a Jew, But He said, I have proved before both Jews
and Gentiles that we are all under sin. I mean, He just cut
it all off. Everything that you could have
gloried in, and He said it comes right down to this. God has forbid
that I glory in anything, that I worship anything, that I worship
anything or trust in anything but the cross of the Lord Jesus. That's my glory. That's my glory. What does it mean to be crucified?
By which the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.
Well, let me ask you this question. Who did they crucify? Who did
the governments back then crucify? For the most part, it was criminals.
You crucified criminals. That's why they crucified those
two men with Christ. They were criminals. Paul said,
I'm crucified to the world. He looked upon this world as
being criminals. A world full of criminals. Is
this world criminals? They sure aren't. Criminals against
God. Now that's why the world don't
like us, and that's why it didn't like the Master. He said, I testify
to this world that they're evil. The works are evil. This world
is criminals against God. Look at all the people around
you when you go to work and you go to ball games and you see
all the people in the bleachers. And you know who most of those
people are? Criminals. They're on the run. They're hiding
out. And God's going to catch them.
They're criminals against the Son of God. This world crucified
the Lord of glory. They're criminals against the
gospel. They're criminals against the church. They're criminals.
Its character is condemned because they believe not the gospel of
Jesus Christ. They are guilty before God. Its
judgments and its carnal reasonings and opinions are condemned. Do
you care what a condemned criminal thinks? Who cares what a... He's going to the electric chair.
He's going to the gas chamber. They're going to put a needle
in his arm. And he's a criminal against God and humanity. And
he's going to give you his opinions? What's it worth? Nothing is it. It's just the opinion of a condemned
criminal. It's teachings. It's traditions. It's commandments. They're all
criminal. What authority can a crucified
man have? Paul said, this world is crucified
unto me. All its opinions, all its doctrines,
all its religions, it means no more to me, he said, than a criminal
that they've hung on a cross to crucify Him. Its works are
evil and worthy of death. Its threatenings and its persecutions
and its hatred means no more than a criminal who is hanging
on a cross. The world is soon to die and
pass away just like a crucified criminal. You and I are scared to death
of it sometimes, aren't we? We're worried about ISIS coming
and cutting our heads off. We're worried about religion,
false religion, how they're mad at us all the time. You can't
talk to any of them unless they get upset. And it just bothers
us then. Falsehoods don't bother me. No
more than a criminal hanging on a cross. They're crucified. This world is crucified to me.
And He said, I am crucified to the world, or by the world. The
world looks upon me just as I look upon Him. I tell the world they
have no peace with God, and they'll never have apart from the cross.
And they tell me I'm a disturber of their peace. And they want
me arrested and crucified because of it. Look what they did to
this man. You think they didn't hate this
man and count him a criminal? They whipped him. They stoned
him. They put him in prison. They
falsely accused him, defamed him, said he's a disturber and
a destroyer of peace. He's not fit to live. And they
thought of him as the filth of the world and the off-scouring
of all things because he crossed the religions.
and their ways, and called them evil. And they said, He's nothing
more but a setter forth of strange gods. And they said, We've condemned
Him to death. He's not fit to live. Let Him
die. Ain't that what He said? And you know something, brothers
and sisters, that's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way
it's supposed to be. The church in this world never
meant to be friends. There's this difference between
them. The earth is of the earth and
the church is from heaven. And there's supposed to be this
conflict. Don't worry about that. If you have a loving and merciful
attitude, you talk to people that way and speak to people
in love. Don't be hateful and mean. But
I'm telling you, don't hold the truth back because you're afraid
it's going to offend this world. It's supposed to offend this
world. My soul is the cross. If the offense of the cross ceases,
then what do we have? That's when the world and the
church makes peace, isn't it? Oh, we're crucified. What are
we glorying? We're glorying the cross. That's
what we trust. That's what we hold up in esteem. And we suffer because of it.
We're crucified to this world. I don't care a thing about this
world's doctrines, do you? It's just worldly doctrines.
Who cares? Who cares? We spend our time trying to beat
them out of it. The power of man's free will? We spend our
time trying to beat them out of that and turn them to God's
sovereign will. God forbid that I should glory
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.