What Really Matters

Today's sermon is from Galatians 6, verses 11 -18. See with what large letters

I am writing to you with my own hand. As many as are wanting to make a good showing in the flesh, these are trying to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they want to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh.

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.

For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And those who will walk in step with this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the

Israel of God. From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. And now for the sermon today from Bart Hodgson.

So this is Palm Sunday, it's a significant day that we celebrate as we approach

Easter. And I am looking forward to spending Good Friday with my family, the family of God, as we look into the crucifixion, as we pause and we remember

Christ and His suffering. And I'm excited because I need that.

I need that in my life. I need to reread the story and I need to be reminded of what

Christ has done for me. And we do that together. And what a great service that that's going to be.

I look forward to that and sharing that with you. This morning we're looking at the end of Galatians and we're wrapping up a series.

This morning, our first series that we have ever done together as a church.

So this goes into the history books as book number one that we've studied through.

And I come out on the other side and I've learned so much about this book, so much that I didn't know.

And this morning as we see Paul writing the conclusion, it's almost as if he reaches out with his hands and he takes the

Galatians by the face. Now, I do this with my son or my grandson, Beau, when

I really want him to understand something, I'll tell Beau, I'll say, come here, come close.

And I'll grab his face with my hands and I'll immediately, as I do that, his eyes go somewhere else, right?

His eyes go over here or over here. It's like it's too, it's uncomfortable for him. And I say, look at me,

Beau, I want you to hear what I'm about to tell you and I want you to remember this is very important.

Now, kids in here, have any of you had your parents do that for you, right?

Looking at some kids around here, when your dad or your mom takes your face and your hands and they look into your eyes and they tell you something, you know that it's important.

And I feel like that's what the Apostle Paul is doing this morning. He is saying, and he's saying to them, he says, see with what large letters

I am writing to you with my own hand. Now, I wonder, some commentators say that this is because Paul's eyesight was bad.

This is why that he was in Galatia. He had a problem with his eyes and they had to spend all this time rehabilitating the

Apostle Paul and that's in the story that we read. But I believe that he is rather emphasizing what he's about to say.

I believe that just like taking Bo's face in my hands and telling him, this is something you need to hear.

This is so important that he's doing what our culture does as we text to one another and write it all in caps.

You know, it's like, stop yelling at me, right? And I wonder if we were able to look at this letter, the original, to see the difference because Paul had an amanuensis.

He had a secretary, somebody who he would dictate to, and they would write what the Apostle Paul said.

And then he says in 2 Thessalonians 3, 17, I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand.

This is the sign of genuineness in every letter I write. It's the way

I write. I write to you and at the end of the letter, the person who's dictating, they give me the pen and I write out the final word.

And we see him doing that. So, he gets, he wants to get their attention.

He writes the final words and he says this, after all that I've said,

Galatians, you have a choice and you must choose, so listen carefully. And he begins with the first option.

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised and in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

So, I want to focus on in this next verse here on a couple of words.

The first one is their focus. They want to make a good showing.

They want to focus in on an outward expression. They're accomplishing something in your flesh.

They are doing something in your works. They're trying to get something. And what they're trying to get is they're trying to force you to be circumcised.

Now, this has been the whole issue, the whole letter, and Paul brings it to a conclusion here.

Now, circumcision is the cutting of the foreskin off of every male who is born.

This was the sign that was given to Abraham. It was a sign and seal given by God to His people.

So, it's not that it wasn't unimportant. It was very important. And yet, this symbol was also supposed to be an inward symbol of their hearts.

And somehow, Israel had lost that meaning and their hearts became stone.

Remember in Ezekiel and in Jeremiah, he says, I'm going to take your heart of stone.

I'm going to give you a heart of flesh because that's what your stones have become. They've become calcified. They've become hard.

You no longer can hear me. You no longer can respond to me. Your consciences have become seared and there's no more hatred for sin.

There's no more love for God. But still, because of this sign, because of this seal, they thought they still belonged to God.

They held on to it, even though there was a divorce between the sign on the outside and their heart on the inside.

Now, this can happen to us, church, right? There are things that we do as a church, like we'll take communion this afternoon.

After the service is winding down, we'll respond and we'll take communion together.

And this is important. This is an ordinance of the church. Christ himself said, remember this, do this in remembrance of me.

And yet, we can do this and we can divorce what we're doing on the outside, the ritual that is being performed and what is happening in our heart.

Our hearts can be stony and it's very dangerous. It's why Josh continues to harp on this time after time after time of going, this...

When you come to the table, be sure that your heart is ready. Do some heart work.

It's a time for confession. We're celebrating that Jesus has paid for our sins and that there is forgiveness.

So why wouldn't you ask Him in that moment and fully experience that?

It's not just for show. It's not just because everybody else is doing it.

It has meaning. And the Apostle Paul is saying this to the Galatians.

Circumcision has meaning, but it has lost all of its meaning. It has become only external.

And when that happens, when that happens in God's people, God tells us what

He thinks about that. When our actions become only external acts and there's no heart behind it that loves

God, that is doing it for God or for His glory, we read in Isaiah 1, verses 12 through 15, this response from God as He says to His people,

When you come and appear before Me, who has required of you this trampling of My courts?

Bring no more vain offerings. Stop it. No more incense.

Your incense is an abomination to Me. Your new moon and Sabbaths and the calling of convocations.

I can't endure the iniquity in the solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts

My soul hates. They have become a burden to Me, and I'm weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen to you.

Your hands are full of blood. That kind of response from God who has instituted and given all of these things to point to Him that we would use these things as a way of worshiping

God. He says, stop it. Please don't do that anymore because you've made it about something else.

It's not about Me anymore. He says that they would force you to be circumcised in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

Their motivation, their focus is on the outward, on the external. And their motivation is so that they won't be persecuted for the cross of Christ.

This is merely self -protection. Because to stand for Christ, to stand for Christ alone, you're going to get persecuted.

Because of the offense of the cross, which He has already explained to us. You can listen to that sermon.

Several weeks ago, we talked about the offense of the cross. But in that sermon, I said, here's the offense, is that Jesus alone can purchase our salvation.

You can't get it any other way. And that's offensive to our culture. They go, yeah, you know,

I know you say Jesus is the only way, but I'm sure I can do some things. I'm sure

I can figure out my own way to get to Him. And He says, no, there's only one way. And it's through Me.

It's through the cross. And that's offensive to people. Outside of that, you've got a call of sin, a revealing of sin, calling out sin that requires forgiveness.

And that is going to get you persecuted because man is corrupt, and our rebellion is against a holy

God. And in that rebellion, we hide our sin. We love our sin.

We cherish our sin. We try and justify our sin. We make our sin mainstream. And we say, everybody is doing it, so it's got to be okay.

And God's okay with it. No, the Judaizers, this is their mode.

They don't want any of that. They don't want to be persecuted. No, in fact, what they want is they want to be popular with the

Jewish leaders. But the message of the cross, the message of Jesus was not popular among the religious or political leaders in the

Roman world. In fact, Paul is going to say later that he is experiencing this, and the world has crucified him.

They've cut him off. It's like, no, Paul, you've gone down a road that we can't go with you.

In fact, we're going to stand against you. And this must have sounded great to the

Galatian church leaders. It must have been really tempting because in order to ensure the institutional survival of our church, in order to keep it around, let's not make ourselves a target.

Why be persecuted for the cross when a message of circumcision will make everyone happy? And this is a problem in our churches today.

We cease to be obedient to the one to whom the church belongs.

And I love quoting N .D. Wilson as he says, you know, the goal of the church is not survival.

The goal of the church is glory, the glory of God. And if that means that we blaze out in a blaze of glory at the gates of hell, then so be it.

That's what we're for. We're for God's glory. We're not to sit here and protect and dwindle, cut the message down, make it safe so that we can keep our church around.

This is our time. This is our time as a church. And what are we going to do with our time?

What legacy are we going to leave for our children to remember the things that we stood for and the glory of God that we lifted up in the name of Jesus?

He continues and he says, for even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law. We have a word for that.

What is it? Thank you. Thank you. But they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.

He's saying they're hypocrites, just like the Pharisees. Jesus called out the

Pharisees. He called out their hypocrisy. And he says this in Mark 7. He says, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written?

This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me in vain. They worship me, teaching doctrines, teaching as doctrines, the commandments of men.

You leave the commandments of God and you hold on to the traditions of men. And this is exactly where these

Judaizers are finding their glory. Their glory is the greatest act of hypocrisy that we can do as Christians, which is to say that we worship

God. But our motivation is to boast in the flesh or in the works of someone else.

And put them on the altar that we've built to ourselves.

Jesus says in Matthew 6 that we can receive our reward on earth.

We can gain our reward right here and right now in the applause of men. And he says, don't be like that.

What you need to understand is that as always during this time, people were trying to attain a position of power and authority.

And I think that Paul's rising career in the Pharisaic tradition, persecuting

Christians, that position was vacated. It was left open when

Christ met him on the road to Damascus. I think it left a vacuum that others went, oh, now's my time.

I'm going to try and fill that place. Now, Paul's approach to defend

Jewish tradition was to destroy the gospel message by just persecuting and defeating and jailing all of these

Christians. And what we see the Judaizers doing is taking a slightly different strategy, which was let's deceive new

Christians into adding all of the Jewish traditions to the gospel. Their motive, their purpose was the same, to prove their effectiveness to the

Jewish leaders and to rise to religious fame, to get those book deals, get those conference speaking slots, and by they were doing this by boasting in the fleshly works of the

Galatians, which they had accomplished. They're saying to the Jewish leaders, see what we got them to do.

We got them to be circumcised. So at this point,

I think Paul holding the face of the Galatians says, now listen to what it means to walk as a

Christian and learn from my example. He says, but far be it from me, may

I never, ever boast except in the cross of our

Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. Now of all people,

Paul had a lot to boast in. You could find the scripture where he could have boasted about all of his missionary work.

He could have boasted about his knowledge. He could have boasted about his graces and how patient he was and how loving he was.

He could have boasted about his churchmanship, all the church plants that he set up, all of his letters that he wrote.

He definitely could have boasted about his education and his heritage as a Hebrew among Hebrews.

But instead he says, I'm going to boast in the cross of Christ.

And what does that mean? What does it mean to boast in Christ? That is to glory in Christ as your greatest sense of accomplishments, your greatest desire, your greatest hope.

That's what it is. That is to be able to see what Christ has done, has accomplished for us on the cross, to realize that it's not about achieving or attaining something that I deserve.

It's realizing that I didn't deserve anything and he paid for my sin.

That I was destined for destruction. I was destined for judgment and he rescued me.

He chose me. He paid for my sin. He suffered and I bear all the benefits.

How is this not the greatest thing that has ever happened to any person?

Jim Elliott says, and I hope I don't mess up this quote, he is no fool who trades what he cannot keep to gain something he can never lose.

Paul understood that. Jim Elliott understood that and he gave his life to share the gospel with a bunch of natives who took his life.

And the apostle Paul says, this is where I glory. This is everything to me.

May it never be that I would boast in anything else. He says the world has been crucified to him.

Holding such a view of the cross and what was accomplished for him, the world has no appeal to Paul anymore because he's found it.

He's found the cross of Christ. But also Paul has been crucified to the world, like I said before, meaning the world counts him as nothing.

All the accolades that he had earned had been granted to him from his career as a

Pharisee have been revoked. They are null and void. Paul has become to them a fool because he's following Christ.

And I wonder and I ask myself, is that what's happening in my life?

Or is there still this desire to fulfill some dream of mine?

Something that I feel like I am owed in this world. Some fame, some success.

Paul says, it's more than that. And you're a fool if you're going to chase after that.

I hear that this morning. I also hear in 1 John 2, John say, do not love the world or the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life, it is not from the father, but it is from the world.

And the world is passing away with its desires. But whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Forever, Paul continues. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

As for all who walk by this rule or according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the

Israel of God. So here's the rule. This word in the Greek is where we get the word canon, the canon of scripture.

So this rule, this measure, here's what really matters.

It's not circumcision. It's being a new creation. That's all that matters.

How does that happen? It happens through the cross of Christ. Paul writes this in 2

Corinthians 5, 17. You know this verse. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old is passed away. Behold, the new has come. Now, this is a confusing concept, being a new creation in Christ.

When you come to Christ, sometimes you feel mostly the same.

Some things are different, but what he's talking about here is completely different. Talking about humanity.

Me as a human separated from God, an enemy of God being reunited with God so that I can walk with God as Adam walked with God in the garden.

The way that I was created, this was what I was created for. And finally, I get to realize and experience that again.

And how does that happen? How do I become a son of God rather than an enemy of God?

Is this just a status change or is this some sort of reality? Am I fundamentally different?

I can tell you one thing. Circumcision on the outside isn't enough to affect this change.

And that's what Christ does. He comes and He fulfills the law for us.

He comes and He does what we cannot do. He comes and He changes us.

The change that I needed was not just a remodel. It was a teardown and a reconstruction.

And I think about that. I love how Paul Washer talks about the, he gives an illustration of a pig.

And if we had a pig and we brought him in here, I'm sure Chad could probably preach this part better than I could.

But if we put some slop in the corner, that pig would go straight to that slop and he'd just start eating.

But Paul Washer says when Christ comes and saves a man, he takes that pig and he turns him into a person.

It's that big of a change, that big of a change in his nature. And though he might stick his head in that slop again, he's going to pick his head up and he's going to be disgusted and he's going to spew all of it out.

And he's going to look in shame and he's going to say, why did I, why am I attracted to that?

Why do I want to eat that? And he goes through this process of learning, I'm not that thing anymore.

I'm something completely new. And if you've never experienced that kind of transformation in your life, where God changes you, changes your nature of who you are, man, there's going to be a time today that I hope that you respond to Christ.

Say yes to him. Say, God, I need that. I want that. Would you do that in me?

Now, he says at the end, he says, peace and mercy be upon these people. These people who walk according to this rule, these people who realize that it's being a new creation, not just circumcision that matters.

And he says, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. Now, this is the most difficult part of this text.

Israel of God summons up thoughts of the covenant, the

Old Testament covenant that God made with Israel. The part that we have to rightly understand is the and.

In the Greek, that is a preposition and Greek prepositions often mean many different things.

So, figuring out which one is the correct one is always the challenge of someone who is trying to interpret.

So, what does the and mean? Does the and mean and or does it mean even? Because it can mean and or it can mean even.

It can also mean but, but that one's right out. So, it either means peace and mercy upon them and upon a different group and upon the

Israel of God. So, peace and mercy upon them. He's talking to the Galatians. So, he's talking to Gentile believers.

It's either upon you Gentile believers and including the Israel of God or it can be peace and mercy upon you

Gentile believers who are the Israel of God.

You are part of that covenant. And I think

I would go with even and this is the reason why because to go with and would imply that there are two ways to get to God.

There's an Old Testament way to get to God and there's a New Testament way to get to God. And I think there is, no

I don't think, there is one way to get to God and it is through Christ.

Okay. So, as I interpret that and I get to that even the Israel of God, it's you and me.

Gentiles by birth redeemed by grace and faith. So, let me summarize.

Paul has the Galatians in his hands. He's saying, this is so important. You've got a choice here and here are your options.

Who are you going to follow? Will it be the Judaizers who focus on outward religion?

They want to force you to be circumcised but not for your benefit, for theirs because they're hypocrites and they're using you as a way of getting worldly or religious standing.

Or you can follow my example and I'm motivated only to glory and boast in the cross of Christ.

The world means nothing to me and I've ruined my standing, my reputation with the world because of how great the cross of Christ is.

My message to you is that circumcision and uncircumcision is the wrong question and the right question from a heavenly perspective.

The only thing that matters is that you are a new creature in Christ Jesus. So, praise...

So, I'm sorry, peace and mercy belong to those who live by this principle, live by this rule.

This is the way of those who are the covenant people of God, the true

Israel of God. At this point, I believe

Paul begins his benediction as he says, from now on let no one trouble me.

The word there is toil or labor, bother. And the

Galatians have become the troublers of Paul, right? At the beginning it says, who has troubled you, right?

Who's come in among you? And those people who are preaching a different gospel, let them be eternally condemned, right?

These troublers. But because of their influence, you then began to trouble me. You began to say, hey,

Paul, we think you're kind of a man pleaser. We think that's your motivation. We think,

Paul, that maybe you didn't even learn this stuff on your own. You're just copying off the apostles.

Paul, we're really questioning your motives in even coming to us and preaching the gospel to us.

And Paul has to do all of this work, all of this work to defend himself and his ministry.

The accusations, they were what Paul was saying, let no one cause me trouble.

For I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. Now, the word in the

Greek there for marks is stigmata. We get the word stigma from this word, stigmata.

In the Catholic tradition, there was a vision or a sign, people would start bleeding from their hands and from their side, and it was a sign of God, you know, either confirming their ministry or giving them some powerful vision in kind of conjunction with that.

The word stigmata in the Greek refers to a physical mark.

It refers to many times a slave would be marked by his master.

That was the mark that they use this word for. So it was a physical mark.

Now, you know, as we've translated that into English, we say something has a stigma.

We're more talking about its reputation or maybe its character, you know, it just doesn't have a good vibe to it, right?

But in this context, it is very physical. And these scars that Paul is talking about are physical scars that he bears for the gospel.

He bears within him the marks of Jesus, and they're marks that preach a message of self -sacrifice.

Not self -preservation, not self -promotion, self -sacrifice.

We read in 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 29, exactly what Paul is talking about.

He says, are they servants of Christ comparing himself to his opposition?

He says, I'm out of my mind to talk like this. He says that parenthetically. He says,

I am more. I've worked much harder, been in prison more frequently. I've been flogged more severely, been exposed to death again and again.

Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one.

So the Jews had this rule, you can beat a man 39 times.

But 40, that's the line. So Paul was beaten by them five times this way.

He said, at once I was pelted with stones, which is... Can we... I need to go back and re -look at what that's constructed.

Because this is... He's talking about Acts 14 when he was, I believe it was the town of Lystra, that they took him outside the town and they stoned him to death.

They thought he was dead, so they left him alone. And Paul gets up and he walks back into the city.

Now, that's got to leave some marks. There's got to be some blood involved in that. Those stones were not just little stones that we get onto our kids for throwing, you know, when they're in a gravel parking lot.

These were big stones and they were meant to do damage, to break skulls, to break bones, to kill somebody.

He said, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

I have been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow

Jews, in danger from the Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger in the sea, in danger from false believers.

I've labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep. I've known hunger and thirst and often gone without food.

I've been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressures of my concern for all the churches.

Who is weak? And I don't feel weak. Who is led into sin and I do not burn inwardly because I'm just like you.

Look at my life. Look at my life, Galatians.

This is what it means to bear the marks of Jesus. Now, you and I don't know what that's like.

At all. At all. I mean, if we bear any marks, they're of the other kind of stigma.

Maybe there are a reputation or our character has been questioned, but none of us can take off our shirt and show the scars on our backs from how we've suffered as a

Christian. There are people in this world who are suffering in that way. And Christians, we need to pray for them.

And we need to take advantage of this time as well as we experience lots of comfort. This should be a time like when my plants in my yard, they don't experience a lot of storms or there's no more frost anymore.

They can grow. They can grow because the conditions are right. Hear me.

The conditions are right for us, church, to grow in Him, to kill the sin that is in us and to live godly lives.

This is the time. Are we wasting it? Because there is a day that is coming.

And I believe it's true when we will bear scars that are physical. Paul says this, even after saying all of those things, now

I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh, I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ afflictions for the sake of His body.

That is the church. This is why I do this. It's not just because I have some high tolerance for pain.

It's not because I want to brag or boast about all my scars because that's a manly thing.

No, it's because of Jesus. It is because of the mission that He's put me on.

And because of that, Paul is broken and he is scarred. Did he walk with a limp?

Maybe his eyesight's because somebody chucked a rock and hit him in the face. Maybe. Maybe that's why he had to write with such big words.

And he finishes saying, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. This, he says the grace, because this is a letter of grace.

It is a gracious plea to a church that didn't deserve to see the beauty of God's gracious act of salvation and sonship, but Paul brought it to them.

They didn't deserve it then, they don't deserve it now. And this is a gracious call for them to come back from the foolish self -reliance and self -sufficiency.

He's saying, come back. Now, at the beginning of this,

I have to say, I doubted the Galatians' salvation. There were some things that Paul said that was like, maybe they aren't saved.

But I think if there was any doubt whether they were saved or not, or they were in the faith,

Paul corrects me right here because he doesn't reveal any doubt in this. He calls them brothers. And he says, the

Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, right? As he proclaims the grace of Jesus Christ to be in their spirit and calls them brothers, he adds his amen.

It is the let it be, or be it so. The Hebrew root for this word that we use at the end of our prayers is consistent with words like faith, words like belief, and trust.

So saying amen is saying, I believe, I have faith in what I just offered up, and I trust that this is what

God is going to accomplish. And it's a powerful way to pray. I think we do it often without knowing what we're saying.

So how do we apply this? How do we wrap up the book of Ephesians? Oh, sorry,

Galatians. Ephesians is for another time. I think for us, we as a church have to choose.

We have to choose which option we're going to take. We choose between truth or deception.

Crazy thing about deception is though, if you're deceived, you don't know that you're deceived.

It's what Josh talked about last week. So how do we stay in the truth?

And I believe it's us, right? It's bearing one another's burdens. And when someone is caught in a sin, when they are deceived, we gently restore them, right?

We're holding each other in the truth. Our choice is also between self -preservation and self -glory as a church.

Is that our focus? Or are we solely and keenly focused?

Have we set our face like Jesus set His face on Jerusalem, setting our face on self -sacrifice in the cross?

That's what we're about. That's what we proclaim. That is what we rejoice in. I believe that we need to hear the exhortation in the example of Paul and examine our hearts, examine our deep motivations to realize how easily we continue to be deceived as a people and how easy it is to focus on performing outward religions and denying the truth and reality of the gospel because it's just natural.

It feels so natural to do those things. I can be deceived without even thinking.

I don't even have to try hard. And hopefully, as we've gone through Galatians, we've seen something that we cannot unsee.

We see something we can't unsee and it bothers us. And we say,

I can't settle for that. I need to boast in the cross and the cross alone.

It is my salvation. So what does it look like when nothing matters but a new creation?

What does it look like for us as people to walk in the Spirit, to test our faith by the presence of the fruit of the

Spirit and also being wary of the works of the flesh?

What does it look like for us as a church as we bear one another's burden in a way that is loving and gentle, that restores and brings life, that doesn't cut off and discard when we're caught in sin?

And it's not if we're caught in sin, it's when we're caught in sin. What does it look like when we as a church boast in the cross of Christ and not in our flesh?

What does it look like when the church is promoting, not promoting itself, not marketing itself?

What does it look like when we realize how vain and meaningless our efforts are at self -promotion?

And then there's the question of persecution and discomfort because there will be pain, there will be tears, there will be tears, there will be undeniable marks that are left on our life.

Religious standing, a position in the church is worthless if it's not recognized by our

Savior and if it's not done in love. I think one of the great myths of the evangelical church in America is that being a

Christian is easy. And we just want to make it easy for you.

We want to make it easy for you to enter into the kingdom and easy to live out your life. We're going to take care of your kids.

You don't have to disciple them. You just come, come give money, go watch football.

It's easy to be a Christian, but that's a myth. That is a lie.

If you read the Bible, it's obvious. Let me do it for you.

I'm not in no particular order. First Peter 4 .13, listen.

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange is happening to you.

It's not strange. He says, but rejoice insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

Second Timothy 3 .12. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Philippians 3 .10. Oh, man. Paul says, here's the purpose of my life, that I may know

Christ and the power of his resurrection, and that I might share in his sufferings, becoming like him, becoming like him in his death.

I'm not going to go to that one yet. Save that one for the end. John 15 .20. Jesus, remember the word

I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

Matthew 5 .10. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And then the one that I wanted to share at the end, Romans 8 .18. Paul, again, for I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Yes, it is hard. Yes, if you commit yourself to boasting only in the cross of Christ, you're going to have some scars.

It is not the way to avoid persecution. But church, there is future glory.

Future glory ahead. Can we be man enough as a church to put off that desire to meet my needs right now?

Can we as a church just say, you know what? That self -gratification,

I'm going to delay that because there's glory. There's glory involved.

Boasting in the cross of Christ, I'll say it again, creates scars for Christ. And they preach a message.

And that message is that we belong to Christ. Those scars will preach that we love

Christ. And those scars will show that in some ways we are like Christ.

So if you are new to this whole Christian thing and you hear me talking about this book and talking about this guy,

Paul, and going, how can he say things like that? Or maybe you're a

Christian and you've just been on the fence. You've been undecided for a long time. Not really pulling the trigger on this thing.

Not really signing the dotted line. You can be a new creation in Christ today.

I want you to hear that. Today is the day. It's the only thing that matters in this life.

Do you desire to seek Christ? Do you desire to surrender your life to him today? Do you desire to cry out to him that he would make you new?

And if that's your desire, I would say don't waver in unbelief. Don't pause.

Don't wait till tomorrow. Turn from your own way. Believe in him with all your heart today.

And if you do that, man, talk to Josh. Talk to me today. We would love to talk to you about the journey that you're setting out upon.

We would love to pray with you. We'd love to give you the next steps and help you grow in that. So if you'll do that, man, it would be a joy to our hearts.