Boast In the Cross

Scripture: Galatians 6:11-18

Introduction:

I like idioms. - I often use idioms, more than I am aware

An idiom is a phrase, saying, or a group of words with a metaphorical (not literal) meaning

According to theidioms.com, TOP TEN IDIOMS in our culture:

hot potato

piece of cake

once in a blue moon

raining cats & dogs

bed of roses

when pigs fly

devils advocate

miss the boat

apple of my eye

zip your lip

How many of those do you use?

One I use, probably more than I realize : At the end of the day...

That particular idiom is used to conclude and sum everything up

And as I read these last 8 verses, that’s what Paul is doing

At the end of the day, when it’s all been said and done...

And Paul is concluding much like he started.

Galatians 6:11–18 ESV

11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 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. 13 For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. 14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. 15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. 17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. 18 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

Pray

The last paragraph carries the same principle as the first paragraph in chapter one.

They are bookends that encase the books.

Chapter 1: 9 - “If any man is preaching a gospel contrary to what we preach to you, let him be an accursed (anathema).”

You do not add to Grace.

Chapter 6 :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.”

The Judaizers had added to grace. Circumcision! But what was the motive?

What is the motive behind adding anything to the Gospel?

Self - importance.

When the gospel is not enough, by proxy, what you’re saying is that God is not enough.

This has been the lie from the beginning with Eve & the serpent in the garden - “Did God really say?”

It’s the same lie we believe today - The gospel is not enough.

Do you remember the false gospels that we face in the church today?

Permissive grace - God loves you just as you are and in spite of your rebellion

Social Justice - God doesn’t care so much about your personal holiness as long as you’re helping others

New Age Spirituality - You need spiritual experiences outside of biblically, doctrinally correct experiences

Sexual Preference - You’re allowed membership into the family and there shouldn’t be any correction whether it’s cohabitation, homosexuality or anything else outside the bounds of marriage

Universalism - This is the acceptance of anything and everything. Who are we to judge?

And the reason we have the breakdown in our families, in our churches and in our society as a whole, is because we have allowed anything and everything but the effects of the pure gospel drive our feelings, our actions and our thoughts.

And we’ve allowed these teachings to replace the truth of God’s Word.

God takes so serious His message to us that if we try to “improve” upon it we blaspheme His name and His message

Think about it, to add to His message is the most arrogant and egotistical thing a person could do

Because what you’re saying by that is that God’s plan is not enough.

That God is lacking in His will for us, so, we need to help Him out.

The most wonderful thing about God is that we are not Him.

And honestly He was doing just fine before we came along and He’ll do just fine after we’re long gone

He doesn’t need us to “fix” His message.

This is why it is important for a Church to have as its first fundamental truth, that we are saved by faith plus nothing

And Paul is going to call this idea in verse 16, those who will walk by this rule, he's going to call it a rule, an Apostolic command, that we do not add to the work of God.

And so let's look at this end product of all that he’s said to us in this letter.

He says in verse 11, kind of an odd verse: “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.”

Paul wrote with a large script from some kind of eye ailment or eye injury, apparently that he had, and he does this as a distinguishing mark.

Paul would have taught or given his letter through what was called an amanuensis, a Secretary.

And so Paul apparently in verse eleven takes the pen from this secretary and said, I want to write this last paragraph, that no one will doubt that this comes from me.

And so he says in verse eleven, see with what large letters I am writing,

This is his John Hancock, that this is a real epistle - “let’s remove any doubt”

And what Paul does in the next 5 verses is give us one more way to know if we’re walking by the spirit or walking in the flesh

For the last 2 weeks we’ve seen what it looks like to be spiritual - walking by the Spirit, exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit

Now he’s going to show us who we are by where we put our confidence.

This last point that Paul is going to make here really not only sums up everything he’s said in this letter but it really finishes everything he set out to say.

As if Paul is saying to the Galatians and us: At the end of the day, if you don’t remember anything else, remember this...

Avoid the False Gospel of Self - vs.12-13

Paul is for the last time confronting the cancer of false teaching that is beginning to infect this group of churches.

As we've seen, it was a cancer that replaced the grace of God with the Law of Moses and they were trying to twist Christianity to fit Judaism

And just as we have those false gospels that we’ve already mentioned, they find their root in the false gospel of self.

That’s really at the heart of what Paul is revealing about these Judaizers

These false teachers, these Judaizers were boasters.

What were they boasting about? They were boasting about the flesh of the Galatians.

But what exactly does that mean? It means they were bragging about how many Gentiles they had circumcised.

Now that may seem something odd for you and I to boast about

While we may not boast about how many people we have won over to circumcision, anytime we boast of our own accomplishments and in ourselves, we prove Paul’s point that we’re not walking by or in the Spirit but walking in the flesh

Years ago Toby Keith song - I wanna talk about me -

I wanna talk about me, Wanna talk about I, Wanna talk about number one, Oh my me my, What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see - I like talking about you, usually, but occasionallyI wanna talk about me

We laugh but there’s truth to those words - We’re generally and usually, revert to our old nature and we consume ourselves with us.

What we want, what we believe, what we think, etc...

Think about that when it comes to our spiritual lives

Our greatest danger, our greatest mistake, is that we look to ourselves and our obedience rather than to Jesus Christ.

And when we do, we’re no better then these Judaizers and I’ll tell you why

They were only interested in how they looked.

As Paul put it in verse 12, they wanted “to make a good showing IN THE FLESH”.

There's “flesh” again. They wanted to present themselves as successful Gentile converters.

They were “trophy hunters” who wanted to put more notches on their belts. And do you know why was this so important? Well...

Because they were only interested in being liked.

The whole point of looking good is so that others will see you, right?

So that others will be impressed with you.

As “trophy hunters” among the Gentiles, they wanted to win the admiration of their fellows Jews.

But Paul expresses this in the negative at the end of verse 12.

These Judaizers were doing what they were doing in order to avoid persecution from their fellow Jews.

Even though Jesus promised his disciples that there commitment to Him would mean persecution from others, especially the Jews, and even members of their own families, these men wanted to find a way to straddle the fence and make everyone happy. But they were only interested in external goodness.

Look back at verse 13.

I think what Paul is saying there is that these teachers were not truly interested in helping the Galatians walk in obedience to God through the Law; for in fact, they were not even doing this themselves.

Their commitment to the Law was not about love for God and a desire for inward change.

Their commitment to the Law was about conforming outwardly to the Law and then boasting in persuading others to the same.

But we don’t do this do we?

It’s an easy trap to fall prey to

It’s easy to look at the numbers from VBS and boast about how many we had

It’s easy to look in the offering plate at the end of the service and boast about how much was brought in

It’s easy to look around and see how many we have in the morning service and try to impress others

And it’s also easy to look at others and assess how spiritual or righteous we are compared to others

Because we too want to look good to others and we want to be liked

And we want to avoid persecution from others on the outside

But when we do these things have we honored and glorified Christ? Or are we honoring and glorifying ourselves?

At the end of the day, If we’re walking by the Spirit, we won’t be boasting in ourselves, our accomplishments or perpetuating that false gospel.

Instead...

Boast Only In the Cross - vs. 14-16

The only boasting that Paul was interested in was cross-centered boasting.

Just as he showed us what it looks like to be spiritual in the first 10 verses of this chapter, now he wants to show us a couple of ways we can boast in the cross of Jesus Christ.

He tells us at the end of verse 14 that...

1. Cross-centered boasting comes from accepting how we look on the inside.

In chapter 2, verse 20, Paul has already talked about how he has been crucified with Christ.

In verse 14, Paul returns to that same idea.

Crucifixion was a shameful death.

To boast in his own spiritual crucifixion was to admit that he was a man worthy of death; that the old Paul had to be killed.

Paul was not interested in trying to look good on the outside because he understood how bad he looked on the inside because of sin.

Listen to how Paul states the importance of this in

2 Corinthians 12:9 - "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

· How many of us could say the same – we’ve died to ourselves

· Like 5:24 says – Those who belong to Jesus crucify the flesh with its passions and desires

· And when you crucify the flesh, your message becomes more about Him and less about you

2. Cross-centered boasting is about living for an “audience of one”

We also find in verse 14 that Paul is explaining more about the implications of what it means to be “crucified with Christ”.

To be “crucified with Christ” also means being “crucified to the world”.

That means the part of us that only wants to lives according to the world's system is put to death with Jesus.

But at the same time, we learn that in the death of Jesus, “the world was crucified to me”.

Do you know what does that mean?

It means that world system no longer has any claim on or any power over us.

A true follower of Christ doesn't live to be liked by others.

The world's opinion should not be what drives us.

If it is, then like these Judaizers, we will be tempted to compromise.

This certainly wasn't the case with Paul. Look at verse 17: From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

Paul is making the same point here that he made in 1:10 -

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

The “marks of Jesus” mentioned here are the visible scars Paul had received from suffering for his faith.

They were clear proof that Paul was living for an “audience of One”.

CONCLUSION:

Paul wants us to get this.

At the end of his letter he takes a pen in his hand. He wants us to get what matters most.

And this is what he says: At the end of the day, don’t you ever think it’s up to you to measure up.

Put all of your confidence, all of your boasting, in what Jesus has done for you.

If you’re going to brag about anything, brag about Jesus and his saving work.

This is all that matters.

From now on, for those of us who are in Christ, there should not be any confusion about the gospel.

The Gospel is not about us but for us.

And when we’re confronted with a gospel that is contrary to the true Gospel we’re to call it out

And we’re to live it out, by walking in the Spirit, exhibiting that fruit of the Spirit

And when you do, you can boast in the one thing that made it possible for you to walk in the Spirit - The cross of Jesus Christ

Do you believe that?

Paul did - look at the end of vs. 18 - The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen

In the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you walk in the Spirit , He is with you.

And that final word there? Amen? We take that word for granted but do you know what it means?

It means “I believe it.”

In all of the 13 letters that Paul wrote that we have in our Bible, only about three end with that word.

But that’s where we’re going to end it

All that we’ve been through and learned from the letter to the Galatians

Amen, we believe in this word inspired from God Himself, because we belong to Him

Amen!