The Apostle Paul has repeatedly warned the Galatian churches about getting caught up in legalism. The danger is not only because of what they will do to others or get caught up in with regards to their own lives but there is a danger in what they will truly MISS OUT ON that God has to offer each one of us.
IS YOUR FAITH IN CHRIST A FAITH THAT IS ROOTED IN THE CROSS.
Billy Graham’s favorite verse is verse 14: He has it posted all throughout his home.
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
What do you boast of? Not kids or grandkids, houses or cars but what do you boast about when it comes to your relationship with God? Your church membership, attendance? Giving? What you believe? What you know?
OR DO YOU BOAST ABOUT THE CROSS?
I have to admit that in the last couple of months I might have told more people about the OSU Cowboys than I did about the Cross. I feel comfortable boasting about certain things. I like to boast about family things, our church, Texas or Oklahoma, my friends.
Boasting about the cross is not always so easy: To do so I have to tell the world I am a sinner. To do so I have to tell the world they are sinners. That means to tell myself and others that they do wrong things by nature, things that are offensive to others but especially to a holy God. That is why Jesus had to die on the Cross. People don’t enjoy hearing that about themselves and I don’t enjoy saying it about myself.
Paul finishes out his letter to the Galatian churches by giving a personal sense of what the Cross is all about. Three statements about the Cross.
LIVING OUT A FAITH THAT LEADS TO THE CROSS:
Paul had been faithful in spite of some personal health issues that he had struggled with. His letters were often dictated to others who did the actually writing but in a time like this Paul actually signed the letter with his own hand.
Rom 16:22 I Tertius, who wrote [this] epistle, salute you in the Lord
Earlier in chapter 4, verse 15 Paul stated, ‘For I bear witness, that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me’.
Paul must have struggled with eye problems that made his signature more like ‘John Hancock’s’ in that he signed it larger than normal.
This would keep the Judaizers from making the claim that the letters were not genuinely from Paul.
11 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.
You can contrast that kind of sacrificial, committed faith of Paul to the self-centered intentions of those who had a faith not rooted in the Cross.
12 Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 For those who are circumcised do not even keep the Law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.
What things are true about a cross less faith:
I think we are seeing a day where churches are running from the Cross. Instead of seeking to imitate Jesus and risk being rejected by the world many churches are seeking the world’s acceptance by trying to imitate what the world will respond favorably towards.
The result is congregations of weak wheat and strong tares.
D.L. Moody: Would not allow hymn ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ to be sung at his crusades. He said, ‘I cannot imagine any group less like an army than the church’. That was then so what would he say about the church today?
“Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Written in 1862, during the dark, bloody days of the Civil War, the original words contained this line: “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.” In modern versions, the second “die” has been changed to “live,”.
That is much like how we try to live the Christian life today. Cut out the real cost and compromise for something much less demanding. We say we will live for Him when He accepts nothing short of us dying to ourselves. Jesus said to follow Him was the way of the Cross. Paul said to follow Christ is to die to ourselves and then live for Him(not vice-versa)
You will never grow a church by the CROSS but you will never grow the kingdom of God without it.(you can put people in seats but not be truly saved without the cross)
1)They desire to make a good showing in the flesh: The seek to put on a good religious show which they want others to applaud. They seek to pressure others to participate in their own personal convictions instead of seeking to live obediently to Christ themselves.
a) ‘Good show’ literally means ‘good’ and ‘face’. It is the only usage of this word in the NT. It is a perfect opposite of what the cross is all about.
I run with a GPS watch that traces every step I take on the track. Sometimes I forget to stop it and get in car and drive home. By the time I stop it my average pace is better than a world record. Fooling myself to tell people how good I did when it is not real.
2) They try to compel others to do things that will keep them from personal difficulties: try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ
The best way to avoid the cross is to do things that others want and expect of you. Circumcision was something that was being pressured upon those in the Galatian church. It was also being pressured upon those who were pressuring those in the Galatian churches.
Adoniram Judson: Sent out to India as a missionary by the Congregational church. While sailing he took time to study many things including what the Bible teaches about baptism. He came to believe that the Bible taught that baptism was to be by immersion and after a personal commitment to Christ. He wrote back and shared this new conviction and his support was quickly dropped. William Carey sought support for Judson from the American Baptist because of his new ‘Baptist’ convictions. It would have been easier for Judson to have just accepted what the church that sent him accepted instead of risking personal conviction.
a) I wonder how many things people just go along with in the church because they don’t want to stir up a controversy. IT is just easier to AMEN something they don’t personally believe in or see as taught in Scripture.
I don’t want to start listing things lest I stir up controversy.
b) But Paul was ready to stir up controversy and go to blows over the Cross and its sufficiency to save without the addition of something like circumcision.
It might make life easier with the legalists to just AMEN when they preached on circumcision but it would undermine the truth of the gospel and directly attack the sufficiency of Christ’s death on the Cross.
I was amazed to discover that the first 600 black legislators after the Civil War were all Republicans(party of Lincoln). Many of the state Republican parties in the south were started primarily by African Americans. The Klu Klux Klan was formed to combat the freed slaves now voting Republican and becoming rulers over the then Democratic South. The Republican convention of 1868 held in New Orleans was attacked by the Klan killing over 30 Blacks and over 20 Whites.
The documentary I watched explained that the thought was that all this violence would go away if they just voted another way and that was the beginning of blacks becoming primarily in the Democratic Party.
3) They fool themselves about their own righteousness: do not even keep the Law themselves.
In order to believe in such a way they have to have some level of ‘blinders’ on themselves to not see their own personal failures.
A long time ago before I met the most beautiful woman in the world I met a young lady who worked at a Christian bookstore. We got to know each other just before I left for Seminary. She happened to belong to a church that believed a person could lose their salvation.
We had some discussions about that particular belief.
She and they believed that when a person fell into sin that they would lose their salvation and have to be saved all over again. I asked her what would happen if I died in a car wreck in which I had been breaking the law by speeding and thus having sinned and lost my status of perfection and not been able to get saved again before dying. Her answer was that there was sin and there were also things considered ‘mistakes’. That would have been a ‘mistake’ on my part and I would not have been lost over it. To me it was obvious there was a disconnect with reality and a denial of what the death of Christ on the Cross truly accomplished for us.
J. Willard "Bill" Marriott made Marriott Corp, founded by his father as a root beer stand in 1927 into a company worth billions. He was asked once: How else do you measure your service?
We have a program called the "Phantom Shopper." Imagine an inspector, posing as a customer, visiting a unit and rating the service he's received. Then he pulls out his ID card. If the service has been good, he turns over the card and hands the server a $10 bill clipped to the back.
If the service is bad, there's no $10 bill. On the card it says, "Oops!" If someone gets the "Oops!", we send him in for retraining. We believe an employee deserves three chances to retrain. SIN IS NOT AN ‘OOPS’, Jesus didn’t die for ‘OOPS’. The Cross is not about ‘OOPS’.
4) They boast in making others like themselves and not more like Jesus: desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.
There are so many in the church that are locked in on making others as much like them as possible. They must believe that Christianity has found its greatest expression in their lives and the closer you can be and believe like them that the more God will be happy with you.
a) These Judaizers were just wanting to add a few more notches on their belt or a few more stamps on their copy of the OT law.
I heard one man describe those whom Paul was speaking of in this passage by four words. He said they were ‘braggarts, bullies, cowards and hypocrites’.
I think I would rather be called an OU SOONER than any of those four words(Maybe not).
LIVING A LIFE THAT BOASTS IN THE CROSS:
14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Think of all the things Paul could have boasted in: Paul shares them with the church in Philippi:
3:4-6 although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews ; as to the Law, a Pharisee ; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.
2 COR 11:18 Since many boast according to the flesh, I will boast also. 22-28 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ?-I speak as if insane -I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.
You’ll either boast in your achievements or in the cross!
People will naturally boast about a lot of different things:
1) Boast in the INTELLECT: The cross is foolish to them. They are smarter than to believe that.
When his plane the Spirit of St. Louis, was midway on its flight between New York and Paris, Charles Lindbergh began to think of the smallness of man and the greatness of God’s universe.
“It’s hard to be an agnostic here in the Spirit of St. Louis when I am so aware of the frailty of man’s devices. If one dies, all God’s creation goes on existing in a plan so perfectly balanced, so wondrously simple and yet so incredibly complex that it is beyond our comprehension. There’s the infinite magnitude of the universe, the infinite detail, and man’s consciousness of it all—a world audience to what, if not to God.”
2) Boast in their GOODNESS: I am a good person, honest and kind to others so how could I not get into heaven?
a) We can’t even begin to imagine how far the best person on earth is to the holiness of God’s character.
b) We can’t even begin to rightly see our own sinfulness and often make constant excuses and acceptations to our own faults.
c) Paul said in Romans 5 that God saved us not only while we were yet ‘sinners’ but while we were ‘enemies’.
“Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.” C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity
If you could get into heaven by being a good person – then why did God send His only Son to die for your Sins?
CHURCHES will boast also in various things:
1) Membership or # of people who attend:
2) Their wonderful programs or beautiful buildings
3) Their great music or exciting worship services
When was the last time one boasted about the CROSS
Paul could have bought into this Legalistic movement and had one of the best pedigrees going: brilliant, religious, Pharisee, Hebrew, zealous….
Phil 3 says Paul counted all those things as DUNGhings we
When we boast in the CROSS we are really boasting in something more. The cross represents many things worth glorying in.
1) A beautiful combination of God’s justice and mercy side by side.
2) A beautiful demonstration of the greatest sacrifice ever made:
2 Cor 5:21 For God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
3) A beautiful result in not only removing our sin but our guilt. We are not just forgive and pardoned by the cross but also declared righteous
½ the patients in MENTAL HOSPITALS could be released today if they could be rid of their guilt. Guilt is like a constant tape playing in our heads to keep us from forgetting our mistakes. You have probably struggled with guilt sometime today. The cross has set you free of that. The mistakes you see God doesn’t. When He looks at you He only sees the righteousness of Christ because of the cross.
Rom 5:1-3 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
4) A beautiful rest by providing and ‘it is finished’ to all that separated us from God.
Heb 4:9-10 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
LIVING A LIFE THAT IS TRANSFORMED BY THE CROSS: New Creation
15 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 16 And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.
17 From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus.
Brand-marks is related to our English word ‘stigmata’ which can refer to marks on the body that mimic something of significance. Paul compares the marks he has suffered as being related to the suffering Christ experienced.
2 COR 11:23-25 …beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned….
I think Paul is making a comparison to the marks of circumcision to those left on a life truly transformed by the Cross. They are a NEW CREATION.
Remember Adoniram Judson (missionary to Burma). For 7 years he was imprisoned, and kept in leg-irons and handcuffs for preaching the Gospel. His wrists and ankles bore the scars. Upon his release he asked the king of Burma if he might be granted permission to preach Jesus.
The king responded, "My people are not fools enough to listen to anything a missionary might SAY, but I fear they might be impressed by your SCARS and turn to your religion."
