Galatians 6:11-16

Now would you open us in prayer? Oh, yes, absolutely. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for another chance to come, a privilege to come open your word and be taught the holy scriptures,

Lord. We pray for our brother John, Pastor John, that you would give him the words to say, help him along as he goes,

Lord, and help us to understand your word, that you would grant us understanding of the truth, that we would live by it, and protect us from any

Judaizers of the gospel, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Saul, we know him as Paul.

Let's just talk for a little bit about him, if we could. So I need your help in filling out a profile, if you would, before the road to Damascus, after the road.

Who was Paul before? What did he do? What motivated him?

How did he see God? What was Paul like before the road? Well, he was a child of Christians.

He killed Christians. Yes, he did. He did. The same with Saul.

Well, how educated. He knew the scriptures inside out.

Yes, he did. The Old Testament. He didn't even know what they knew. Well, it wasn't the New Testament, yeah. No, but he knew that if there was

God the Father, he was gonna protect God the Father at any cost. Sure, absolutely.

He was a small little guy with a crooked nose. No way.

How do you know about the nose? I don't know. I heard some pastor once say, you're not all that bad.

He made that up. He made that up. You believe everything a pastor says. Is that the pastor you heard it from?

No. No. Not from these guys. I might have a bit of a crooked nose, but I don't talk about false noses.

He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Yes, he was. A Pharisee of the Pharisees. Would you say that he knew about God?

He knew God the Father. So, my question was very carefully worded.

Did he know about? I didn't say, did he know God? I said, did he know about God? Yeah. Yeah.

Definitely, you would have to say that. As a Pharisee of Pharisees, he not only knew of the law, but he knew of all the other laws that were out there.

He was very zealous. What was he zealous about? About what was he zealous?

Sorry. I've been watching some old

TV shows, and they never leave that part of something at the end. They always say it correctly.

Anyway, about what was he zealous? More zealous than all.

What was he trying, what was he zealous about? About circumcising. I'm sorry? About circumcising the

Jews. I don't, that very well could be, but Paul was very zealous about the

Jewish traditions, the Jewish teachings, the

Jewish way of doing things, because you had this individual,

Jesus, who was saying other things, and people following him, and so their power structure was definitely being challenged.

And so he was very zealously trying to eradicate. First thing you guys said was he was killing believers.

So who was he afterwards? After that, who was

Paul? What did he do? What motivated him, and how did he see God?

He was still zealous, I think. Yeah, he was. How was that different?

It was a different direction. Excellent, yeah. So God used how he actually made him, and what characteristics he placed inside him, and used him for good.

So if you're a believer, and God has equipped you, say you came to know

God later in life, the things that you learned before, you don't just erase them, they're now used for a different reason.

What else about Paul? Well, he was on his way to go kill some more Christians.

Lo and behold, the Lord Jesus Christ. That was a very pastoral way of saying it.

And lo and behold, the Lord came down. You know, that's interesting.

I don't think I've ever heard anybody in a sermon preach about, what about the other guys? Scriptures don't talk about the other guys.

Not much, yeah. It was only Paul that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke. How did

Paul know God after? Well, after that, it would be like right now, if the

Lord Jesus Christ would come in here and tap you on the shoulder, or you, or me. I mean, the reverence that we would have at that particular time and point.

Okay, and then the directions that he gave Paul. And Paul, then, after that, followed every commandment and followed the

Lord Jesus Christ. He was, like he said, zealous for the Lord Jesus Christ and his word, and he wrote all these epistles.

You know, that we can study these scriptures right now. I think, too,

Jewish people today, we wonder, they know the

Old Testament. They know the law. Why can't they see Jesus as the fulfillment of that?

Yeah, and today, they perhaps don't really acknowledge Isaiah 53, but yeah.

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. That very well, they may be.

Let's put it this way. Paul, at this point, at the writing of this letter, he has been on missionary journeys.

Clearly, he has a zeal for the word of God. I think Paul would have made a great e -freer because he did not, except just because somebody, some tradition said it was so,

I think he wanted to know what God had to say. And because of that, he is going to preach, and he's even gonna stand up and challenge those who go to, well, tradition says it must be

A, B, or C. A significant part of the New Testament is comprised of letters that Paul wrote.

Very prolific at writing letters. We're at the end of Galatians.

We're in chapter six. Jeff, you started us out last week in chapter six.

Actually, we both have been in chapter six already, but now we're into it. And paragraph headings in your

Bible are not part of 2 Timothy 3 .16. Okay, all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

Paragraph headings are not. But on mine here, it says final morning and benediction.

And it's interesting what's gonna happen here in verse 11, and then it actually is going to,

I think, be the preamble to the remainder of this chapter. So give me 11 through 15, please.

See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 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.

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.

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.

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

Who knows the word amanuescence? Amanuescence. Anybody ever heard the word amanuescence?

The pastors are gonna love it. That's when you mess up how to pronounce the various names of God.

Emanuelscence. That could very well be Emanuelscence. That's a good one, man, he's got a shirt.

Nobody's got anything better. Jeff does, what is an

Emanuelscence? It would be someone like a scribe who would write for the author. A secretary, if you would.

And for Paul, especially later in life, Paul says he had a thorn in the flesh.

There are those who perhaps think, well, his eyesight had gone bad and that was his thorn in the flesh.

Others have different interpretations of what that thorn in the flesh may be. But it is clear that at later in life and as he continues to write these letters, his eyesight is pretty bad.

And so he uses a secretary to record the words. An Emanuelscence.

Now, I want to make a couple of observations that are so important, because we strongly hold that this is

God's inspired word. And so at this point in time, we have God, we have

Paul, we have an Emanuelscence. So now there's several people involved.

First Timothy 3 .16 teaches us what about scripture. Anybody who knows it, what does it teach us about scripture?

It's all God breathed. All God breathed. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

It is profitable and it lists it. So we believe that everything that's in here was given to the heart of an individual, whether it's

Paul, Peter, James, Moses, Isaiah. His actual words that he wanted to be expressed are given into the hearts of an individual and then that individual records them.

That's 2 Timothy 3 .16. And so we often see, especially in the letters, in the introduction, at the beginning of Galatians, verse one,

I Paul, the servant of God, and then it goes on, eventually it says, to the churches in Galatians.

So the identification of the author, except for the book of Hebrews, is pretty obvious as to who

God breathed the word into of what actually had to say.

Romans one, Judy, I'm gonna ask you to get to Romans one. And Barbara, if you would have

Romans 16 ready. Give me Romans one, verses one and then verse seven.

In Romans one. One, verse one. Yeah. Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ.

And then seven. Seven, okay. To all God's saints, praise to you and peace from God.

So this is, and this is very common in especially Paul's letters, I Paul, sometimes the servant of God, sometimes an apostle called to be, et cetera.

And then there'll be some greetings and then to the church of. So it's very clear that at the beginning of this chain, it's

God breathed, but it's Paul describing the very words that God gives him to describe.

In 16, verse 22, Barbara. I, Tertius, who wrote down in this letter, greet you in the

Lord. So, Sandy and I were fairly newly married.

I was in the Navy. And I worked in what was called the engineering department, all the heavy machinery.

And we were getting ready for a big inspection. And with that inspection, they were gonna look at all of our procedures and policies, as well as our equipment, our maintenance records.

They were gonna look at everything. And I was in charge of the engines and fire rooms, and our instructions and policies were inadequate.

So I had time to write all of the instructions and policies and get them to books so that they could be used.

At that time, that's how I would type.

I, since then, have learned to type. Tim, you've seen me type. I've learned, but at that time, I couldn't do it. You used two fingers, and peck.

This one, and this one. Hunt and peck, all right? So, when

I would have duty overnight, I would have Sandy come in at dinnertime, and she would spend three hours.

And I would go into the office, and I would write out an instruction, and give it to her, and she would type it.

Back in the 70s, before computers, what did secretaries do when their boss gave them something to type?

What did they include on the letter? Their initials. And so, if you looked at letters back in that time, you would see the person who wrote it, the person who it's to.

But then up here, somewhere in the header would be J .K., Jeff Kleeman.

Somewhere in the ship were a pile of instructions with S -A -L. My wife's initials was there.

This is what Tertius is doing. He said,

I'm writing this letter. I am writing these words. He is an amanuensis, and very commonly, his letters, the actual words, because he couldn't see well, he couldn't write well, there would be an amanuensis.

Sometimes we know who it is, sometimes we don't. But then frequently, at the end of a letter, 2

Thessalonians 3, 1 Corinthians 16, Colossians 4, at the end of a letter, you will see, this is me,

Paul, and this greeting I am writing to you. See it in the large letters? I'm writing this greeting with my own hand.

And he would do that at the end of this. But one of the things that was important with many of these, in 2

Corinthians 10, 1, I, Paul, urge you, and usually, him including his own hand or writing these letters, he communicates an important significance to what he has been writing, what he has been teaching.

I need you to take this very, very seriously. Philippians 19,

Philemon 19. There was a gentleman by Philemon who had a slave named

Onesius who ran away. And if Philemon were to get him back, he was justified in putting him to death.

But Onesius ended up in Rome with Paul and ended up hearing the word and became a brother in the

Lord. And so Paul sends Onesius back to Philemon with a letter saying, he is now a brother in the

Lord and I urge you to take him in that light. So Paul's greeting and his message, there's a sense of urgency, there's a sense of significance and importance.

And so when Paul goes above and beyond, just at the end saying, this is my greeting in my own hand, but he includes a level of teaching,

Paul is saying, this is very important. I want you to hear what I have to say.

Now the entire book of Galatians is taught so that we would know the significance of salvation by faith, not by works.

We would know the dangers of trying to introduce a false gospel, the Judaizers who say you must be circumcised to complete your salvation.

The messages that are given are so and so important. But now here at the very end of this letter, he says, see with what large letters

I am writing to you with my own hand. And he's gonna go on with some words to have to say,

I think this is important stuff. After all that's been written, after all that's been taught,

Paul has one more urgent warning and then he's gonna give them a benediction. Give me 12 to 15 again.

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.

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.

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We'll stop there.

The first thing I want us to look at what he has to say is we need to understand motives. And there are gonna be a couple of motives, a couple of venues of motives.

One of them is gonna be the Judaizers and the other is gonna be those who are circumcision, the motive of hypocrisy.

And finally, there's a motive of believers and what motivates them. So let's look at verse 12.

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh. What's motivating these individuals, these

Judaizers, is my self -value and my self -worth needs to be put on center stage.

I want to make a good showing in the flesh. I want it to be recognized.

I did a little bit of Googling and searching out and I came up with these quotes about self -worth and self -value.

Having a sense of self -worth means you value yourself and having a sense of self -value means that you are worthy.

Do you see the emphasis on me, me, me, I, I, I? It has the emphasis of placing self -worth because I am a significant and the world needs to see

I am significant. What's missing from that proclamation?

Who's missing from that proclamation? Christ is missing. Christ is missing. It's about me.

Absolutely. I think. It's about me through him. I'm sorry? It's about me through him.

That would be a good thing, God working through me, but in this particular case,

I want a good showing of my flesh. This is a very, very bad one.

I think of Geno Jennings. What was Geno Jennings like? He's an interesting character, that's for sure. Long subject for another day.

He had his own teaching. It was apostasy, but man, he could put on a show.

He had this guy who sat next to him and the two of them, they had it so well rehearsed. He was charismatic, but he didn't have truth to teach, but he was charismatic.

He had crowds. They loved his teaching. John, I have a question.

It says the only reason they do this, do this meaning compel you to get circumcised, the only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.

How does circumcision and the cross come together? Back then, if I'm an uncircumcised

Christian, is that a bad thing? I'm gonna get to that. That's gonna be my third point under the

Judaizers, so hold that thought. Let me continue to build this thought. There was another item on the website.

11 simple ways to value yourself more. I'm all over that one.

This is the world. This is the world and these are the Judaizers who are going to be all of that.

Psalm 139, 13 to 14 is gonna confess a very important thing. Carol, I'm gonna ask if you would get

Psalm 139 because if you're considering making yourself valuable, making yourself worthy, there's a definite emphasis missing

Psalm 139, 13 to 14. You gotta have that. You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous. How well

I know it. It is not a bad thing to recognize that in the providence of God, he has blessed me and made me wonderfully able to do things.

It is not a bad thing to say the deep things of scripture,

I can teach those things. As long as you're saying, I can do these things through the power of Christ.

I can do these things for the glory of God. I can do these things for the furtherance of his church, not

I can do these things for me. 11 ways to make your value yourself more.

If you can go into it, Psalm 139, 13, 14, and take that into your heart and totally buy into that, you don't need to be self -valued anymore because you're already valued.

Luke 23, 923 is gonna tell us to deny ourselves. Take up my cross, take up your cross and follow me.

Don't take up your soapbox. Don't take up your pedestal and put yourself on it.

Take up your cross and follow him. James 4, 6, Joe, if you would get that one out and read that for me.

And he gives grace generously, as the scripture says. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

What does he do to the proud? What does it say?

He opposes the proud. He opposes the proud. So if your reality of who you are and the fact that you have something that needs to be heard, and it's all making yourself more valuable, it says that God opposes the proud.

The other thing that I see here is, it is those who want to make a good showing in their flesh and would force you to be circumcised.

They wanna control others. The motivation for these Judaizers is to have control over others.

Acts 15, 1, do you got that one, Father? Acts 15, 1.

Some men came down from Judea and Antioch and were teaching the brothers, quote, unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved, end quote.

See, what had happened was Paul was going from village to village, and believers were hearing, and churches were being formed, and these

Judaizers were upset. And so they came down and said, man, dude, unless you're circumcised, you can't be saved.

They're controlling the other people's lives. This is a motivation of a false gospel and a motivation for these

Judaizers. And now, Bob, we get to your question. Stan, if you would go to 1 Corinthians 1, 18 and 19.

I'm gonna read it now. Please.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, for it is written,

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. The intelligence of the intelligent

I will frustrate. So your question was, why are they feeling threatened by the cross?

Well, they're feeling threatened by the cross for two reasons. One, they don't get it. They can't get it.

The message of the cross is that Christ went to the cross for my sins. The message of the cross was to tell us that.

And to tell us that means Christ died, it was finished. The message of the cross is you can't add to it because it was finished.

And for the Judaizers, this is foolishness because they gotta have you adding circumcision so that their value can be validated and they can control.

They don't want it. And then I've often quoted 1

Corinthians 1, 18, but 1, 19 is important because it says,

God destroys the what? The wisdom of the foolish. If you think you're all of that, you don't get the truth of the message and God is gonna take even what you think you believe and he's just gonna cut the legs out right from underneath it.

That's why they can't accept the cross because it's a threat to them. It's foolishness.

They have to have something to justify their piety, to show off and say, they're different from others.

And that thing that they have to have is this detailed requirement that comes out of the pharisaical laws.

You must be circumcised. Give me verse 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.

Do you see the hypocrisy in that? Okay, you say you're a believer, you better get circumcised because circumcision is good.

When at the same time they're circumcised and they can't keep the laws, the hypocrisy is crazy.

How's having fun with the internet? Here's a quote from a guy by the name of Quentin R. Bufogel.

He bufogled me. He is a self -proclaimed atheist.

His quote, I believe that all religions, including yours, are crazy. No, you think that because you think the message of the cross is foolishness.

You think that because you think you must be doing all these things when nobody can do them.

Of course it looks crazy. How many people come out of a religious environment, not a believer, and leave the religious environment because those who lead that particular religious movement are hypocritical and they don't do what they say?

And so you get quotes from Mr. Bufogel. He says, your religion is crazy. And sure it is.

If that's all that it is is a religion, sure it is. Acts 15 is going to say that the

Pharisees were challenged and they required that circumcision must be there.

They must, you must, must circumcise. Now, we've already read this in Galatians 2.

Who's next to read? Ken, I guess you are. Galatians 2, 11 to 13.

Hypocrisy is something that can destroy... All right, if we consider the evangelical free church to be a religion under a broad definition of it, hypocrisy will destroy that religion because it will turn out to be man -designed, man -identified actions and directions that you must take.

You must have women pastors. Did I just go down that trail? I did.

But Paul even stands up to Peter, these two pillars of what we have. You want to give me 11 to 13?

Sure. Now, when Peter had come to Antioch, I would stir him to his face because he was to be blamed.

For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision.

And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

The hypocrisy of saying this but doing that, it not only damages the heart, but it influences other hearts into accepting this false teaching.

To be saying you must do this, I don't remember who we were.

I do remember who it was. Antoinette was at our house on Sunday, and we were talking about some of the, some of the ridiculousness of things that have been.

You can't dance. Don't you dare hold hands on campus if you're a boy and a girl.

Today, boys and boys can even hold hands. Bob Jones University, girls' skirts must be halfway down to their ankles.

All of these ridiculous, ridiculous rules, but apparently Peter got -

Six -inch rule at Bob Jones. If you get any closer, I can turn you in, and you will be campus to Senate House.

I didn't know the six -inch rule. Oh yeah, I was there. It's very tough.

If you wanted to walk the grill to the mess hall or home from the mess hall, you had to be that far apart.

So here's the thing, and it's being identified here, is, and he's using circumcision as the talking point, but how often do people come up with these you musts, and they don't even follow them themselves?

And it says, even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law.

But they want you to do it, and they demand that you do it. It's hypocritical.

But then there's a beautiful counterpoint in the beginning of verse 14.

So give me the first part of verse 14 again. But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our

Lord Jesus Christ. You got that great word but, and often in scripture you see but.

A lot of times it's but God. In this case, we have on one side all of the ridiculous motives, the way that people are insisting you must do this, you must do this, and they're boastful, and they're all that.

They want to control, but. I love this because there's just a change of direction.

See, believers find a reason to boast, but it's in the cross. And there is nothing wrong with boasting as a believer when your boast is in the cross.

You see, they understand things that the non -believer either chooses to not understand or can't understand.

Hebrews 12 .2, Rick, you got that? And then 1

Peter 2 .10, you're gonna get that. And then, Bob, you read,

Romans 6 .6, we're gonna have those three. Go ahead. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Do you see such a contradiction to what we've just got done reading about how the Judaizers, it's having this focus on Jesus who's the perfecter of my faith.

Not me who performs these acts so that I can be perceived as perfect, which

I can't. I have Jesus who's the perfecter of my faith. And Jesus who went to the cross. By the way, at the cross, he said to Telestai, and where is he now?

He's at the right hand of the Father. This is the focus of boast, is

Jesus who did all of these things. 1 Peter 2. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious.

He is the one who is there. Is that 1 Peter 2? Yeah, 1

Peter 2 .4, that's what you wanna hear. 224. Oh, 224. It's a great verse. I tried to make, I really tried to make a word.

Okay, 224. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds, you have been healed. I don't have to be circumcised. I don't have to follow a whole nother set of rules and regulations.

He took me, he took my sins to the cross. By his stripes,

I am healed. Oh, by the way, let's not forget the other side of this coin. Because he has done this,

I want to obey him. Because of this, I want to live according to this.

But because of this, anything I boast, it's him. It's not me.

Romans 6, 6, up. Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should be no longer slaves to sin.

If I were to come into the church and I were to go up to say, to Pastor Jeff, to the elder, say, listen,

I've been to seminary. I have my Master's Divinity, and I've been teaching

Bible for a long time. You guys really want me here to be part of your team and everything else.

I would hope that you would push back at that or just say, there's the door. If my request is,

God has chosen to work through me and I'm totally unworthy of it, but who

I used to be has been placed on a cross. Tim, I would love to be able to interface with your peeps from six, eight years ago.

And who you are today, was it two Sundays ago? Some of the feedback

I've heard about you taking the word and expositing out of Luke 2, was it?

Not Luke 2, Mark 2. Mark 2? Okay, you probably could do Luke 2 if you wanted, but. Thank you.

Not real Christian for me. Right? That's true. John? Yeah.

You're talking about works and faith. The fellow that came in off all of himself.

I just shared with Stan, he gave a good reaction. You get a person like that that wants to serve, tell them to go get circumcised and then go.

Okay, there you go. There you go. Believers actually boast.

We should boast, but we boast in the cross. And we boast because my old self has been crucified and he did all that work.

And by the way, the perfecter of my faith, he's sitting at the right hand of God right now.

And I'm looking forward to that day. Give me the rest of 14 and 15, please.

By which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

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

And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the

Israel of God. One of those fun words is efficacy. Rick, what is efficacy?

Effectiveness. Thank you, very simple, very concise. There are things that seem to be grabbed a hold of because they're gonna be effective.

I can count on them. They're going to matter. They're going to make a difference.

For the believer, efficacy is the cross. And the rest of it is reaction to the power of the cross.

I find my redemption and my release from the clutches of the world.

The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

Do you realize how much control the world had on you before you were saved?

And do you realize how aggressively the world pursues getting their clutches back on you again?

I confess I do watch TV and it just, shame on me.

You don't need to be circumcised. Too much information. But it is,

I find myself disgusted on how commercials emphasize homosexuality these days.

Oh, it's amazing. It's just so subtle in the beginning. I started pointing it out to Sue. Just pay attention to this little, this little whatever it is at the end of some of these commercials.

You'll hear them go, do -do -do -do. That is, that's a hidden sign of homosexual and trans identification.

Okay, I had not picked that one up. Really, that sound. Listen for it. Nah. Only a couple.

I'm gonna say that for the world who is not saved, albeit subtle, and Satan is the master of deceit, right?

And he is going to take even somebody who maybe had a moral background, a moral upbringing in the home, and he's gonna, the frog in the pan, he is gonna slowly take you off to his side.

You are in the clutches of the world. But Paul is gonna say in his own hands, in large letters,

I want you to see this. The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

There is efficacy in the cross, which has made a difference. We talked about who

Paul was, and then he had that inner counter, and who he was. It was nothing but the cross, but Christ that made that difference.

First Peter 1 is gonna say that we are redeemed by the precious blood of the

Lamb, and not by perishable stuff. The religions of the world are perishable things.

The blood of the Lamb is not. He said, I have been crucified.

Ephesians 2, you know, this is my favorite go -to chapter in scripture, not that the rest of it is any less, but because Ephesians 2, verses one, two, and three says how bad

I was, and then those two powerful words, which,

Judy, you're gonna read Ephesians 2, verses four and five. Start over.

But God. Start over. But God. A little louder. But God. Thank you. Was that Gino Jennings -ish?

A little bit. Okay, go ahead. Do it again. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved. But God, even when I was so bad,

I was dead in my trespasses and sins, he has raised me up in heavenly places in Christ Jesus by his love.

The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

I find my complete release from the clutches of the world through the cross.

And works, by the way, aren't going to do it for me. Nothing in the realm of works can do it, including circumcision.

Romans 4 .16. You okay? Bussy. He's punctuating that thought.

Thank you very much. But God. But God. Romans 4 .16, Barb, if you would get that. Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all

Abraham's offspring, not only to those who are on the law, but also those who are on the faith of Abraham.

He is the father of us all. The solus. Sola gracia, by grace alone.

Sola fide, by faith alone. The solus of the reformation are included within that very passage.

And by the way, the promise is for all. It's for all. By grace through faith in the cross.

Titus 3 .5, not by works of righteousness, which you have done, but by his mercy, he saved you.

Things changed for Paul. Give me verse 15 again.

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

And Bob, I'm gonna ask if you would give us 2 Corinthians 5, 17 to 19, please. 17, 17, it's six or five.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come.

All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation that God was reconciling the world to us.

To himself in Christ. Not counting man's sins against them. He has, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

This is our God, and this is how we boast. And this is what Paul is rejoicing in.

He is a new creation. All of this comes from God, and we are now reconciled to him.

I, Paul, write this in large letters with my own hand. My thoughts coming off as we're coming to the end.

As a changed man, made new by the grace of God, Paul understood the difference between works and faith.

Brothers and sisters, this has to be our understanding too. The difference between works and faith.

And so at the end of his letter to the churches at Galatia, he's giving you a call, he's giving you a challenge, and he states clearly out of 615.

Read that please for me. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

Do you wanna pray for us? Yes. Father, we thank you so much for your gospel. We thank you for protecting us from the

Judaizers, the hypocrites, those who would pervert the gospel of Jesus Christ and add works to it,

Lord. Protect this church, Lord, we thank you that you have. Help us always to be a people that are all about grace and not about works,

Lord. But then, Lord, let us work as a result of being new creations, that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, that these works are not what justify us,

Lord, but that we would go forth doing these works for your glory and out of gratitude. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Amen, so where we're at, Jeff, I think you're gonna have to do three verses next week. Yes. And you're gonna summarize the book.