Boasting in the Cross (Galatians 6:11-18)

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Good morning church. Go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Galatians 6. Galatians 6, starting in verse 11. As we wrap up our series this morning, so as you’re turning there to Galatians 6:11, in 1942 a man named Clarence Jordan established an interracial farm, kind of communal farm, the Koinonia fellowship in Georgia, which is a bold move, of course, considering some of the racial tensions at that time. So no surprise, a lot of people were making trouble for him for the farm. About a decade later, they were in legal straits, and so he asked his older brother Robert to help him out. His brother Robert actually would eventually become part of the Georgia Supreme Court. So obviously a top legal mind said, Can you help us out? Provide some legal help. And his brother said, I can’t do it. You know, my political aspirations, I could lose everything, could lose my job, could lose my house. And his brother said, okay, but we could lose everything too, yeah, but it’s different for you. Well, how is it different? If I remember correctly, we joined the same church on the same day, and the pastor asked us both the same question, do you accept Jesus? I said, Yes, what did you say? Brother? Was a little offended at this point. Of course, saying I I accepted Jesus too. I follow Christ. I follow Christ up to a point. And so Clarence said, could that point possibly be the cross. And Robert said, Yeah, that’s right, I will follow him to the cross, but not on to the cross. I’m not going to get myself crucified. His brother said that I don’t believe you’re a disciple. You need to go back to that church, and you need to tell them that you’re an admirer of Jesus, but not a follower of Jesus. That was quite the conversation to have with brother. Of course, similar tone to Galatians, as we’ve seen. If you’ve been tracking with us throughout this series, Paul has some strong things to say as well, and really addressing the same issue. Are you all in on Jesus or not? Now we have a tendency, maybe even in our yearly Bible reading plans, things like that, to neglect the endings to letters greet. Epaphras Tychicus says, Hi. Now that’s always a mistake in every letter, because we know that all scripture is God breathed and is useful even the greetings at the ends of letters. But it’s especially a mistake in Galatians, because a little bit like the introduction, Paul was so stirred up by what was happening that he skipped over a lot of the polite formalities and letters and just got right to his point. The same thing really happens here. The urgency of the situation leaves Paul once again to abandon form and instead offer this strong statement of strong theology. You can actually see the strength right from beginning. Look at verse 11 with me. Paul writes. See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand. So he’s writing a personal note at the bottom of the letter that would have been customary at this time, you’d have a scribe write the letter, because papyrus was dear and most people weren’t great at writing. So you get somebody who could get all the little letters on one page. But here’s Paul, and he’s writing with large letters, probably because he’s not a scribe, sure, but also this phrase itself really has the same sense at this time that like bold and italics would have for us today in an email. So he’s like underlining it like you need to know this what I’m talking about. And so what is it not exaggeration to say that in these short verses, Paul restates the main ideas of this letter and really restates answers to the three questions that Galatians has sought to answer for us, that Paul has sought to answer for the Galatians in danger of falling away. The three questions are the question of salvation, the question of holiness and the question of authority. Let’s take them one at a time. We’ll start with the question of salvation. This is the big question, of course. Let me read verses 12 and 13 for us, Paul writes with large letters in his own hand. Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your Circumcision in the flesh. So the question of salvation, how can a holy God forgive people like you and me? How can a holy God forgive wretched sinners? How can we be restored to a right relationship with God the Father? And this is the question of questions, of course, and we’ve seen two possible answers to this question throughout Galatians. Could be grace, or could be law? Could be works that we do to earn salvation, so righteousness, that is our being made right with God, can either come through the cross of Christ or acts like circumcision, but not both. It’s an either or question. Now the agitators, Paul’s opponents there in Galatia, the Judaizers, who are trying to convince this group of Gentiles that they need to become Jewish in order to become Christian. That group is trying to compel circumcision. But why? Exactly, Paul indicts their motives, saying that they’re not acting in love, but selfishly, really, with these two selfish motives. On the one hand, they’re trying to impress people. That’s what a performance mindset always does. Anytime you’re trying to earn anything but approval, especially, you’re gonna have to impress other people. This is when you go up to your classmate after you get the test back and say, what’d you get on the test? I got 92 Oh yeah, that’s good, man. I got a 98 right? That’s the attitude we have going on right here, like I’m good. Maybe even more importantly, and not just that, I’m good, but I’m better. I’m better than others. So that’s the first reason, trying to impress people. The second reason is just to avoid persecution, because there is a group of Jews who do not care for this new sect Christianity, and so they are actively persecuting Christians and Jewish converts to the Christian faith. And so if we could just, you know, like play make believe. Let’s just do the whole law thing. Let’s do the circumcision thing. Then we won’t be persecuted anymore. So you see, they’re not even genuinely devoted to the law. They just want an easy life. Not much has changed in the here and now. The Gospel of a crucified Christ, our Savior, crucified in our place still rubs people the wrong way and tells us unflattering truths about ourselves, like we much prefer to think that we’re just a few tweaks away from perfection, our good life is just around the next bend. So we don’t want to think that he had to do it for us, but that we can do it ourselves in this spiritually speaking, we’re like two year olds. If you had two year olds, you know, you put the tie shoes on, and they go, I can do it myself. And they tie their shoelaces. I don’t know how yours did it. Mine just would do this. It doesn’t work. It looks good, but it doesn’t work at all. That’s us again, spirit, like I said, unflattering truth, that’s us. Spiritually speaking, we’re not actually able to do it as much as we would like to think that we are. But one of the reasons we want to think that we can do it is because if we do it, then we’re still in control. God actually owes us. At that point, we put God under obligation because I earned it, and so it’s deserved it’s like going to the library saying I finished my summer reading I would like my coupon for free ice cream. I’m owed it, and so he’s in our power. Then we don’t need to follow Him onto the cross or die to ourselves there instead he owes us. So you can see how this just offends everybody. The Gospel of Christ, Jesus, it offends everybody. It offends the religious, because it tells us the only way is grace. It offends the secular, the liberal minded, because it tells us there’s only one way at all. And so we’ve got this constant pull back to works to the law, striving to earn it. But it’s absurd, because it never works, as Paul tells us, not even the circumcised keep the law holy. This has been a theme throughout Galatians, of course, and it’s a theme that Paul borrows from Jesus. Jesus says almost the exact same thing in Matthew 23 speaking to religious leaders, he says the teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you, but do not do what they do. They do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders. But they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them and then notice what he says next. Everything they do is done for people to see. They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long. They love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues. They love to be greeted with respect in the marketplace and be called rabbi by others. Same two accusations. Don’t do like they don’t do what they insist that others do. Do, and then they do it just so that others will be impressed with them, so they can pat themselves on the back on their way to heaven again. This is a lot like us. We love to earn admiration in the eyes of others because we’ve gotten our lives together. I think this is what a lot of us actually mean when it comes to putting on your Sunday best. There was a time, I grant that, that time is over, but a time when most people dressed up a little bit for church. Some of you probably still do. I know I do. I wear slacks on Sundays. I don’t the rest of the days, so we put on something nice, sir, when we come to church. I think there are good reasons for that, but it’s almost like a like a metaphor for what we’re trying to do with our lives, like we come into church trying to look like we’ve got our life more put together than we do. We put on our Sunday best paper over the cracks in our character, put on this facade of spiritual vitality, and of course, that raises the issue of boasting, then, right? Because we’re trying to look good. So in what will we boast? If we trust in our works, if we trust in our efforts, we will boast in those works, in those efforts, we will boast in the flesh, like it’s my labor, so it’s my glory. It’s like a graduate walking across the stage to get her diploma, and she’s going right like they should be clapping. I earned this. I deserve the applause, the accolade that I’m getting, and it’s so easy to bring that into church. God saved me because I deserved to be saved because look at my life. Look at how I’m doing. It is stolen glory. Now I think few of us, especially in this room, would admit to boasting in ourselves. So how can we tell if we’re actually boasting in our works instead of in the cross of Jesus Christ. And one way that I would point out to you is confession, and I do mean public confession. How vulnerably honest are you about the sin struggles in your life before others? And I just want you to catch the seriousness of that question, because think how the the Sunday best posture, like pretending that you’re better than you are. Think how that can keep people from the gospel. Can keep people from Salvation like we are, in effect, condemning those around us when we do that, because it means that people who really need Jesus are going to come into this place and there they’re going to see that church is for people who have their lives together. Church is the place you come after you’ve gotten your life together, which means it must not be for me, because I messed up and I am a mess still. I don’t belong here. It’s a place for good people, and I’m a wretch. Do you feel the seriousness of this boasting in our works encourage you to check your life now, like, what are your conversations sound like in the lobby after the service, when a sermons hit hard as the word of God often will. What do your conversations look like in community groups, not going to mention journey groups, because you’re not doing being real and honest in Journey groups. Like, what are you even doing there? That’s the whole point of that place. Of course, you can see we want to answer the salvation question. Well, like we have to get this one right, how can a holy God forgive sinners? The answer is four words. They’re right there in verse 12, the cross of Christ. The cross of Christ, what we couldn’t do, he did for us and in our place, he took the punishment that we deserve. He paid the price, the debt we owed as a result of our sin, so that we could be restored to God, not on the basis of our works, but by grace alone, through faith alone trust in Jesus. That then raises the next question, of course, as we saw, as we track through Galatians, that shift from Galatians four to Galatians five, even we’re saved by grace alone. So that means our works don’t matter at all. We can do whatever we want, right? That’s the next question, question two, the question of holiness. We read verses 14 to 16 for us, may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified. To me and I to the world, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is the new creation, Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, to the Israel of God. So Paul won’t boast in his flesh. He will only boast in the cross of Christ because He knows that’s his only basis for his salvation. I mean, he knows that he’s looking at his works going well. It can’t be because I earned this. We saw this back in chapter one, when he said, you remember my former way of life like I was persecuting the church of God. So of course, I didn’t earn this. So he’s going to boast in the cross of Christ alone. And we think, amen, love that Paul, because we love the cross. We got one hanging on the wall behind us. Y’all are wearing crosses somewhere on you, probably right now. And those of you who have a former way of life might even have a cross tattooed on you somewhere, which is okay, by the way, because we love the cross, we can miss the power of this statement. How absolutely shocking it would be for Paul to say this. And the Roman statesman Cicero, said, you’re not supposed to talk about the cross and polite company. This isn’t dinnertime conversation. And sometimes people will say that this is like, you know, getting, like, needles for a lethal injection tattooed on you or something. But it’s not so much worse than that, because this was the torture piece. This is like getting a tattoo of Abu Ghraib, or like somebody getting waterboarded at Guantanamo. That’s what I boast. And you’re like, that’s insane. What do you mean? You’re boasting in this. And yet, Paul boasts in it. He has to why? Because that instrument of torture was the means of his salvation. I’m boasting in this because he’s not my labor. So it’s not my glory. All Glory to him alone. The words the old hymn. Have it exactly right, based very much on this passage, when I survey the one just cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain, I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride, all my works, all that, oh, I got my life together, nonsense. I pour contempt on that so that everybody who meets me knows it’s only because of Jesus. But does that mean works? Don’t matter? Well, of course not. So how do we become holy? How do we become more like Jesus? If it isn’t by scrupulous law keeping. Paul says our identity changed when God saved us, we got plucked up and placed somewhere else. We’re in a in a new realm. Now, Paul says, I’m no longer part of the old world. I was crucified to the world, and the world was crucified to me. Now, real quick, just want to make sure we’re clear on this. That doesn’t mean we separate. From the world. We go live in a monastery somewhere, because we’re called to reach the world with the gospel, because God so loved the world. That’s why He sent His only son, and he sends us into the world to speak on his son’s behalf. In truth, if you can’t be in the world without being of the world, then the world still has power over you. The only reason to separate from it is if it hasn’t been crucified to you yet. No, what Paul’s saying here instead is the what the world offers. No longer has that pull on us any longer, because we’ve been freed from it. It’s like that. The cords have been cut. Go back to the issue we just talked about. I don’t need to impress people any longer because I don’t need their approval. I’ve got God’s approval in Christ. Take another issue, like money. I don’t need to hoard money or be anxious about money because I trust God’s provision. How could I not he provided Christ the blood of His Son to meet my deepest need. How will he not, along with him, graciously give us all things also I don’t need to insist on my own way. I can happily die to self as I remember the one who died for me. That’s what it means that the world has been crucified to us and us to the world, and that does something, then, to our outward Acts. Paul says, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, means anything. The merely outward, the merely formal, just doesn’t matter anymore, which is why he could say, well, not going to have Titus get circumcised, but later on, he will have Timothy get circumcised. Doesn’t matter. So it’s a question of in that case, mission is really the issue. But this is important that outward, formal and some of these decisions we make, like circumcision, uncircumcision, because we are tempted to boast in both like, take an example from today. You’ve got people who would boast in the fact that they’re teetotalers. You can tell I’m a better Christian, because I would never let alcohol touch my lips. And then you get people who would boast in their freedom, in Christ, their willingness to enjoy a good craft IPA. So you see, we can boast in boast. And in both cases, it means we’re off belt. The world hasn’t been crucified to us, we haven’t been crucified to the world doesn’t matter anymore. Stuff doesn’t matter anymore. I think here too, these words circumcision and uncircumcision. Of course, you got to think Jews and pagans when you hear those words. And so there would be a little connotation to it. I think part of what Paul’s saying, then also, is that our religious successes and our religious failures no longer mean anything our law keeping our previous brazen law breaking. When we boast in the cross, we boast in our salvation by grace alone, it means we can never feel superior to or scornful toward anyone else with this attitude of, look what I did, look what they did. But it also means we won’t ever feel inferior to or intimidated by anyone else, look what I did, look what they’re doing. That’s all part of the old order. That’s all part of the world, but we’re not we’re part of the new creation. What are we talking about here? This is the age to come. We learned all about this about a year ago. We were in Revelation. We saw what the new creation was going to look like. And Paul’s point is, the new creation is already breaking into the here and now. This is where Paul began his letter. It’s where he closes his letter. This is actually the most important theme in the whole letter of Galatians, and arguably in all of Paul’s theology, anywhere but here’s how it began, way back in chapter one, verse four, Jesus gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age. That’s the world. It’s over. We’re done with that. The time is coming when sin and death will be cast out forever. And the good news is that if you’re in Christ, you get to participate in that new age, even now, that’s what the church is. We talk about this in our membership class always the church is an Embassy of the Kingdom. You’ve been in an embassy before. You know it’s kind of a weird thing. It’s like a different place is brought into your midst. So we lived in Colombia. We went to the US embassy, and was like, Okay, now I’m in the US, Colombia. US Colombia was very weird. That’s what Paul says, The church is like, the only difference is it’s not a different place that’s being brought in. It’s a different time. It’s the kingdom of the coming age. You step into church, you’re stepping into now I’m in heaven, earth, Heaven, Earth. That’s how the church works, and that’s how our lives work as well. We’re already living eternal life if we’re in Christ. Jesus said, John 17, this is eternal life to know God and Jesus whom He sent. Do you know God? Do you know Jesus whom He sent? Welcome to eternal life. It’s yours today already, and though all that’s happening is we’re steadily growing towards that perfect end. It’s like watching the fall in reverse, like in rewind. You ever seen one of those stop motion films where, like the Apple is just sitting there, and then it like decays, gets mushy and moldy and stuff. That’s us, that’s our hearts after the fall, and once we get to know Jesus, it goes like this until the apple’s back. That’s we’re working towards that perfect end. That’s how we become holy. Then we live in light of our new reality. Live in light of a transformed world. Means you’re gonna live a transformed life. Gospel frees us to do that. In fact, I think this is another way of saying the phrase we looked at two weeks ago, keeping in step with the Spirit, which is the key to holiness, of course. But to keep in step with the Spirit just looks like keeping in line with the new creation. Every now and again, somebody who’s preparing to go on the mission field will make some radical choices before they go. They’re going to start living in light of where they’re going to be moving. So I knew one person, for example, they were moving way up in the Himalayas, and you’re at 500 feet right here. So that’s not a good transition. So he would go jogging, breathing through a straw, which sounds awful, doesn’t it? But I tell you what, you’re going to produce some more red blood cells when you do that, which means when you get to the Himalayas, you’re not going to want to die all day, every day, or other people more common one, of course, is that you just get a married couple getting ready to go on the mission field. They go look at home. We’re just speaking Uzbek. That’s it. We’re just we’re living in light of the future. So that’s the picture of what we do now. I know where I’m going. I’m just going to live that life in the here and now. That’s exactly what Paul means when he says that we follow this rule. And you go, what rule? Especially because the word. Rule sounds like law. What law are we following? No, it’s not rule. The word there is actually ruler, like measuring stick. You actually have heard the word The Greek word is canon, like the canon of Scripture, because that’s the measuring stick by which we measure all truth claims. So what is that ruler? It’s what he just said, Life in the new creation. So the measuring stick we hold up is, does this belong to the new order? And if the answer is no, we don’t do it. If the answer is yes, we lean in, okay, should I boast in myself? Let’s bring up the measuring stick. What does the future look like? Again, we saw this in Revelation. For eternity. We’re going to look at Jesus on the throne, and we’re going to worship him. We’re going to worship him as the Lamb who was slain because we couldn’t do it. So, yeah, we’re not going to boast in ourselves. Instead, we’re going to worship Jesus. Now, what about lying to cover sin, Sunday, best kind of stuff. Well, let’s see what happens in the future. In glory, everything is exposed. And better still, if we’re in Christ, everything is erased. So no, we’re not going to pretend to be something that we’re not, because we know that every sin will be found out in the end, judged in the end, either in Christ or in our selves. Do you see how the coming age directs our steps, even now, because the new creation is breaking in, it is already here, just not yet fully here. Now we can certainly see how living like that, especially with the reassurance of how eternity will be would bring peace. Verse 16, right? Peace to all who follow this rule. Now, got to get into the weeds for a moment here, because this reads literally peace to those who follow this rule and mercy to the Israel of God. And so there’s this big question, are we talking about two different groups or not? Is it the people who follow this rule that would be the Gentiles and then the Israel of God? That sure sounds like it could be the Jews. Grammatically possible, absolutely, maybe even likely grammatically but it doesn’t fit the argument of Paul’s letter at all. I mean his whole letter, he’s been breaking down the barrier between Jews and Gentiles in Christ. That’s all of Galatians three. And it wraps up with There is therefore now no longer Jew or Gentile in Christ, Jesus, but we’re all one in Christ, Jesus. So that can’t be. It would be so odd for him to rebuild the barrier that he’s torn down. You can actually even see that in the odd phrase, the Israel of God. You can read the rest of the New Testament. You will never see that phrase again, the Israel of God. You just say Israel. You don’t say Israel of God. But I think Paul is subtly distinguishing between Israel, the nation, and the Israel of God, the true Israel, which, again, as we learn in Galatians, three are the true children of Abraham, those who’ve received mercy. There’s the other word peace and mercy. Received mercy because they came humbly, because they boast in the cross. They boast in the cross alone. Again, that’s the answer to the Salvation question through which they and we have been crucified to the old world raised into the new creation. There’s your answer to the holiness question. There’s a later verse to when I survey the wondrous cross that we don’t sing as often. I’m not sure why, but it ends like this, his dying crimson like a robe spreads o’er his body on the tree, then I am dead to all the world, and all the world is dead to me. That’s the holiness question. Third question then is the question of authority. Let me read verse 17 for us from now on. Let no one calls me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. This this is the question with which Paul began the letter, speaking of bookends, so he spends really all of chapters one and two answering these questions, the questions that the the Galatian agitators, the opponents the Judaizers were asking in an accusatory tone of Paul, did Paul get his gospel wrong. Isn’t he under Jerusalem’s authority and teaching a slightly different gospel than Jerusalem? Why should we listen to him instead of to the Judaizers? Now he doesn’t address it head on here again, he already did that in chapters one and two, but he certainly makes a strong case in just this one verse, yeah, you should follow Paul, because Paul is following Jesus, so you’re gonna get behind him. You’re gonna be behind Jesus, and that’s where you want to be. How does he make that case? All right, he says, Let no one cause me trouble. How would they cause him trouble? Well, by burdening him and then also sabotaging his gospel. Minute. History with requirements from the old order. So Paul is saying again, no, the new has come, the old has gone. There’s no going back. This is like a little bit after graduation. You graduate in May, and in July, your teacher emails you and says, I got one more assignment for you. What are you saying? Yeah, no, thanks. You got no power over me. I’m not going back. You can’t make me. That’s what Paul’s saying here too. Now, how does he know, though? How do we know that Paul belongs to the new order, and Paul says it, just look at the marks on my body. Just look at the marks on my body. That’s how you know marks on a body mattered a lot, because that’s what circumcision is. Circumcision is a mark on your body. It was a mark of the old order. Was a mark of law, but Paul has marks on his body because of the cross of Christ, and that’s part of the new order. Now, what marks? It’s interesting. The word here, Greek word you all know it already is stigmata. So this whole legend developed about the stigmata that would be like you actually get the wounds of Christ. The nail pierced hands and feet. The thorn pricked brow, even the spear pierced side. St Francis of Assisi is alleged to have had this as well. Not what Paul’s talking about at all, though we got no indication of that. What is he talking about? He’s just talking about the marks of persecution. Paul got beat up for Jesus a whole bunch of times. He got beat up because he preached the cross. He says this second Corinthians, four, eight to 10. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down. He means that literally struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. Read Acts, read Second Corinthians 11. You get the catalog of what happened to Paul. He was whipped, beaten within an inch of his life, multiple times. He was one time stoned and left for dead. That’s gonna leave a mark. Gonna leave a lot of marks. In fact, that’s what he’s saying. His persecution proves his commitment to the true, truth in marked contrast, pun intended in marked contrast, to the compromise of the Judaizers who were preaching what they were preaching to escape persecution, as we saw in verse 12. So, yeah, there’s some authority. There authority that comes with, I believe this message enough to die for. It reminds me of Richard Vermbrand. He was persecuted in Romania under the Iron Curtain. Bore on his body the marks of Jesus. Absolutely ended up founding Voice of the Martyrs here some years later, but at one point he was being threatened with death by the communists there in Romania. And he just said to them, having been beaten many times, like, it’s fine, like, just go ahead and kill me, because here’s what’s gonna happen if you kill me. You got all these back then it was cassette tapes. You can find them in antique stores and stuff. But the cassette tapes of his preaching, and he said, all that’s gonna happen is, if you kill me, people are gonna go, I should listen to those tapes. This message must be important, because he died for it, like it’s baptized in His blood, and that’s what Paul’s saying here. Like, you know, I’m committed to this truth. You know, there’s no self interest in this. Because if I was self interested, I probably wouldn’t have gotten myself stoned so many times. But it’s even deeper than that, because the word for Marx in Greco Roman culture refers to the branding that slaves would receive by their masters. It’s a terrible analogy, I grant, but what it looked like is what they do to cows out west, like cattle, you know? You go, oh, okay, there’s a wandering bull or something like that. It belongs to the triple o ranch. You can tell it’s got its mark on it. That’s what Paul’s saying you can tell that I belong to Jesus because I’ve got his marks on my body, which, again, is really important, because that was the whole point of circumcision. It was an identity marker. You know, I’m part of the Covenant because I’ve been circumcised. And so Paul’s just throwing that whole argument on its head. I love the way one commentator kind of summarizes like the message paraphrase almost here. It’s like Paul’s saying you want something to brag about. You want identity markers. I’ll give you identity markers. You see these scars I’m branded for Jesus. Become like me, like you can see Paul belongs to Jesus. You can see that the false teachers don’t belong to Jesus. They don’t have his mark. Which one are you going to listen to? That’s the authority question. That last part is important too. Though, in the paraphrase, they become like me. We really should become like Paul. Here, it is worth asking. Do you bear the marks of Jesus on your. Life. If you were wandering alongside the highway, could people look and go, oh yeah, he belongs to Jesus. You can see his mark. Are you so committed to Jesus that it cost you, that it goes on, costing you so that others can see you belong to him, like if people were to audit your bank statements, would say, see the marks of Jesus. They look at it and go. He drives what kind of car with that salary? I’m impressed. He should be driving something much nicer. Why is he driving that clunker? He’s making sacrifices for Jesus. They should be in a much bigger house than they are. They didn’t take a vacation last year because they gave sacrificially to Kingdom work. What about if they checked your calendar? They see the marks of Jesus on your calendar, and you are making costly decisions so that you have time to live on mission and in community. If we were to talk to your neighbors, would they testify to the times that you counted the cost of following Jesus? Maybe they wouldn’t put it that way, but they would go, I know there’s something different about them, because I see them doing this and this and this, that word cost is important because remember, these were painful marks, like a brand that hurts, getting whipped and beaten and stoned. It hurts. Jesus did not promise us an easy life. He said, You want to be my disciple. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. The world is going to hate you in the same way that it hated me. Are you bearing your cross, bearing the marks of Jesus, or like Robert Jordan, with whom we began, are you admiring Jesus from afar? Nice, little, sterile lab of Christianity? Don’t want to risk the nails or the whip, just easy believing. So you can start to see, by the way, the authority question is not just a question of, who are you listening to, but are you listening to Jesus and actually doing what he says in these verses, Paul has once again answered the questions for us, salvation, holiness, authority, questions takes us to our Big Idea, because he has answered them decisively. How in the cross? That’s the big idea. The cross of Christ answers life’s biggest questions. So boast in it alone. Just keep going back to the cross of Christ for all your answers. And then Paul closes with this benediction, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen. Now he usually closes with a benediction, but this final prayer on behalf of the Galatians brings all three questions together again in even briefer form, and we’ve got the authority question To whom will we listen? Will we listen to our Lord Jesus Christ, speaking through his apostles, the men that you can see are following him bear on their bodies the marks of Jesus. That’s the salvation question, the holiness question, how do we or sorry, the salvation question, how can a holy God forgive wretched sinners? Well, it’s right there in the benediction as well, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, not the works of those who are trying to earn their salvation. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ through his cross, in which we boast alone and then the holiness. Question, how do we become holy? Well, Paul says, May His grace be with your spirit, that’s how we become holy. His grace transforms us inwardly. And of course, we hear that word spirit, and we think of the other word spirit, the one with a capital S. That’s how God’s grace is applied to our lives. And so we keep in step with his spirit as he gives grace to our spirits. I love too. There’s just this subtle reminder in that benediction, this is a hopeful prayer. Paul has said some hard things to the Galatians, like he’s I worried I run my race in vain, because you guys are walking away from the faith, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you like are you even a Christian? You got people around you are preaching another gospel that’s no gospel at all. Those sorts of people are damned. Paul says, what about you? But no. Paul has every confidence, so he prays this hopeful prayer, yes, the Galatians need to turn Yes. This is a warning meant to wake them up. But he trusts God will hear this prayer. He trusts that they are part of the Israel of God. You can see it, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. We’re family. I know you belong. I know you belong. Paul has every confidence, and so he ratifies his prayer with the A men so. So be it, Lord, what I have asked, I have asked according to God’s will, and so I know it will be done, and that prayer is what I would leave with you with today to the end of our time in Galatians, truly, my prayer over each and every one of you listen to His word that’s your authority. Receive grace, boasting in the cross and not in your efforts. That’s the only ground of your salvation, and then walk with His Spirit. That’s how you become holy. Another old hymn, also based on Galatians six, that says this, it’s what would happen if this prayer were true in our lives, content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss, my sinful self, my only shame, my glory, all the cross. Boast in the cross, the cross of Christ, which answers life’s biggest questions. It’s a boast in it alone, we pray, Amen.