What Large Letters You Have

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Turn our Bibles to Galatians chapter 6.
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And Lord willing, today we are going to finish this book.
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I have been teaching through Galatians now here for a little over a year, I think.
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So I've been looking forward to ending.
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Yes, sir? I'd like everybody to kind of bear with me because I don't have a Bible that I'm able to read.
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But y'all pray for me and give me strength so I can carry on.
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Yes, sir.
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What's your name? Jermaine Thompson.
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Jermaine, nice to meet you.
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I'm Keith.
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Alright, Keith.
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I see some of y'all have new faces.
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I want to give you a little heads up about something while you're turning to Galatians 6.
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This is our last study in Galatians.
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Like I said, Lord willing, we're going to finish today.
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And then in the beginning of September, I'm going to start a new 12-week theology course.
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And it's going to be a rotating course.
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I talked to Brother Mark about it several weeks ago and I've got it written out.
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It's going to be a little different.
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I'm going to come in.
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I'm going to have handouts.
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I'm going to do each week.
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Because my main expertise, I don't know if that's the right word, the main thing that I teach is systematic theology.
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And so I've created a miniature systematic theology that I'm going to be going through.
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But I don't want to start until September because I take a couple weeks off in August.
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Every August I take a sabbatical.
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The church gives me time off.
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And I don't want to start it and then stop it.
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So today if I end Galatians, I've got about three weeks or four weeks that I don't have anything planned.
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So if you have a subject you would like me to address, if you have a topic that you would like for me to teach on over the next four weeks, two or three or four weeks, I don't remember how many it is, please come and see me.
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Bobby, you mentioned about the history of the New Testament text.
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That's another area that I've taught on church history.
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But I know you've been teaching on that so I don't want to necessarily do that if that's something you're doing.
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So come and see me if you're interested, if you have a topic that you want me to address that would be helpful for me because I want to know what you feel like you need.
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Everybody understand? Yep, we're going to erase pride.
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Alright, well let's read the last paragraph of Galatians.
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And this is going to take us from verse 11 to verse 18.
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See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but a new creation.
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And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God.
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From now on let no one cause me trouble.
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For I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers.
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Amen.
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Let's pray.
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Our Father and our God, we come to You in Jesus' name.
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For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
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And at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
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So Lord, when we come in Jesus' name we know that we are coming in that name which is above every name.
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And Lord, we are grateful that You have given Christ to us, that we have His Gospel by which and through which to live.
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And I pray now that as we seek to close this book of Galatians, and over the last year we have seen the powerful words contained therein, Lord, that You would keep me from error as I finish out this book today.
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Lord, keep me from cowardice.
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That I would preach with boldness and under the power of Your Spirit.
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And I pray for those who hear.
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Lord, for the men who are here.
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God, that You would open their hearts to believe that the Word of God would not simply reach their ears, but that it would penetrate their ears and go down into their very hearts.
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And Lord, that they would be moved toward a closer walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And for those who do not know Christ, that today would be a day of reckoning.
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Lord, that they would understand that there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved than the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And it is in His name we pray, Amen.
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Alright, now I missed the last two weeks.
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And you guys watched the videos, I assume? And you noticed in those two videos that in the first part of chapter 6, Paul provides us with two admonitions.
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The first one is in verses 1-5.
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He gives the admonition of restoration.
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He says if your brother is caught in a transgression, restore him.
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And that gives us a command to love our brother even when he fails.
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Then we have the admonition of generosity, which is what I gave last week.
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The admonition of generosity is that we ought to share all that we have with others, especially those who labor in the teaching of the Word of God, that the ministers of the Word of God are to be able to be supported through the ministry.
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And again, this is Paul writing.
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He's writing to the church that he founded.
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He planted this church in Galatia, which is in the southern area of the world that we would now call Turkey.
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He planted these churches on his missionary journey.
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Galatia was a region, and so this would include the churches if you remember from the book of Acts.
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It would include churches like Lystra and Derbe and Iconium.
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These are places where Paul had planted churches.
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These are all in the Galatian region.
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And after Paul planted these churches, a group of people came in and distorted Paul's teaching.
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They began to teach another Gospel, a false Gospel.
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And their false Gospel included the argument that if you were going to be a Christian, you had to first be a Jew.
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Before you could follow Christ, you had to follow Moses.
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Before you could follow after Jesus, you had to be circumcised and you had to obey the dietary laws and you had to be willing to submit to the Sabbath laws and all of those other restrictive ceremonial laws of the Old Covenant.
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And Paul had not preached that.
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And now these Judaizers, and that's what we call them, the Judaizers, have come in and they have told the Galatians that Paul did not give them the whole story.
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So Paul is writing Galatians to them as a rebuke.
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Do you know what a rebuke is? It's a correction.
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It's a statement of error.
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You have made an error.
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And in this final paragraph, Paul reminds us that this is coming from his own hand.
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And he uses this portion to give us two final reminders.
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One is of the error of the Judaizers and two is of the centrality of the cross.
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That's what we see in the final paragraph.
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A reminder about the error of the false teachers and a reminder about the centrality of the cross.
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And I want you to notice something.
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I know you guys do a lot of Bible reading.
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I want you to notice how different the end of Galatians is when you compare it to the ends of Paul's other letters.
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If you look at the end of Galatians, you'll notice that Paul gives no greetings.
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Think about at the end of Romans.
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How many greetings he gives to all the people.
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Think about the end of other books that he gives commendations.
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I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church of Centuria.
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So we have these commendations that Paul normally gives.
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And they're all throughout his letters, but this one doesn't have that.
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You'll also notice there's no elaborate benediction.
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Usually, Paul breaks out into a prayer.
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And now to the Lord who is able to give us all good things and all blessings, he breaks into long benedictions in Romans and Ephesians and others.
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He does not do that here.
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This book has an ending that is short and abrupt.
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There's only one mention of grace, and it is a short mention in the very final verse.
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And you say, well, why? Because this is in keeping with the tone of the whole letter.
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Paul is writing this letter straight to the point to a group of people who are in danger of straying from the Gospel.
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Paul does not have time for chitchat.
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Paul does not have time for simple sentiments.
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Paul has one thing in mind.
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Correct the fallen.
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Correct the mistaken.
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Correct the erroneous.
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So this letter is a letter of correction.
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This is no mere correspondence.
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This is a correction.
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And I think we notice this in verse 11.
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See with what large letters I am writing to you.
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Did you know Paul didn't normally write his letters? The Bible tells us that in general, Paul dictated his letters.
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There was something called an amanuensis.
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An amanuensis was like a secretary.
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We see this in Romans 16.
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Tertius was the person who wrote Romans.
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If you want the text, it's Romans 16.
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It says, I, Tertius, who wrote you this letter, greet you in the Lord.
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But Romans didn't come from Tertius.
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It came from Paul.
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But Paul dictated it.
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Tertius wrote it.
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He was the amanuensis.
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But in Galatians, we see Paul say, see with what large letters I am writing to you.
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This letter is coming from his hand.
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And either one of two things has happened.
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Either an amanuensis has written up until chapter 6, verse 10, and then Paul picks up the pen and he starts writing in big letters.
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Hey, it's me, Paul.
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Or he's written the whole letter and it's all been in big letters.
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You ever use text messaging or email and you type in all caps? Yeah, what does it mean? It means you're yelling.
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When you type in all caps, it means this is serious, you need to pay attention.
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If you see somebody who sends you a message...
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If I get a message from my wife and it's all caps, I don't want to go home.
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Something happened.
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Or somebody from the church messages me all caps.
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I know, oh boy.
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Something has happened.
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So when Paul says in verse 11, see with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand, he's pointing out the fact that either he has written this whole letter in that way, or he has now picked up the pen and he is finishing the letter that way.
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And some people say, well, the reason why he wrote with large letters is because he had bad eyesight.
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And Paul did have bad eyesight based on a few other particular things that he mentions in Galatians and in Acts and a few other places.
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People say, well, the reason why he wrote so big is because he had bad eyes.
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Other people say he wrote so big because his hand was deformed because he'd been beaten so many times.
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He'd been stoned.
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And he probably didn't have as dexterous a use of his hand because of having been beaten.
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Some people even believe he was crucified though not dead.
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So he might have had a nail through his hand.
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There's all kinds of speculation.
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I don't know.
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I know this.
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He wrote big.
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And he mentions it because he's saying this is important.
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So it might not have anything to do with his eyes.
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It might not have anything to do with his hands.
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It might have something to do with the fact that he wants to get their attention.
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See with what large letters I am writing to you.
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I, Paul, have the pen.
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You need to listen.
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This is the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God and he's finishing the letter and he's saying listen up.
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So we begin with his condemnation of the false teachers in verse 12.
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He says, 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.
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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.
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Some people consider that verse and this final section to be the interpretive grid for the entire book.
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Because what they say is that if you read the whole book, you really don't know the main issue Paul is dealing with until you get to this last chapter.
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I'm not sure if that's true because the issue of circumcision does come up several times throughout the book.
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But this does remind us, at least brings back to our mind, who the enemies of Paul were in this book.
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And we call those people Judaizers.
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Now that's not meant to be offensive.
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It's meant to identify who they were.
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The Judaizers were demanding that Christians can't be Christians unless they become Jews first.
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In chapter 2, verse 12, Paul calls them the circumcision party.
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Why does he call them the circumcision party? Because they are of those who would demand circumcision.
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Now I know for us, that's not a big deal.
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I imagine many of you are circumcised because when you were a child, that was the standard practice in the hospital or the family from which you came.
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So for us, circumcision doesn't really have a religious designation.
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It's unhealthy.
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Yeah, for some people, it's a health issue.
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For some people, it's tradition.
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But most people, especially in America, most people are just for the sake of tradition.
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They do it and they are circumcised.
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But the point that's being made here is that at this time in history, circumcision was a statement of your belief.
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Circumcising a child was a statement about what you believed about your relationship with God.
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And some people believed that because they were circumcised, they were right with God.
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And people who were uncircumcised were not right with God.
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Because circumcision was the sign of the covenant that God had given to Abraham.
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And therefore, if you wanted to be in the same right standing with God as Abraham was, you had to be circumcised.
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And if you weren't circumcised, you can't be right with God.
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So that's the argument of the circumcision party.
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Now you might think that they were motivated by good intentions.
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Isn't it a good intention to want people to be right with God? I mean, I want you guys to be right with God.
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I hope you want me to be right with God.
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I have a good intention towards you.
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I hope you have a good intention toward me.
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I want you guys to be right with God.
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And that's why I come and preach every week.
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So somebody says, well, the motivation of the Judaizers was just that these people be right with God.
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That's not what Paul says.
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Paul says their motivation was to avoid persecution and to build a name for themselves.
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Read it again.
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Verse 12, It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised and only in order that they may not be persecuted.
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That's their motivation.
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One, they want to make a good showing for themselves.
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And two, they want to avoid persecution.
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How would that be making a good showing for themselves? Well, they're people who believe that becoming Jewish is necessary for salvation, so they're going out and they're proselytizing or evangelizing with this gospel, this false gospel, that you need to be circumcised.
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That's their message.
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So if people listen to their message, it grows their following.
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Therefore, they make a good name for themselves.
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Make sense? So they're going out, they're sharing their message, and their gospel is circumcision.
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Remember what Paul said in chapter 1.
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If anybody comes to you with a gospel that's different than the gospel that you received from me, let him be accursed.
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He's talking about these people.
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Because Jesus came with the gospel of Christ, they came with the gospel of circumcision.
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You understand the difference? One says follow Christ.
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The other says get circumcised first.
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And so Paul says, and the reason why they're doing that is not because they really care about you.
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It's because they want to make a name for themselves.
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You see, it's not a pure motivation.
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It's about building their own cause.
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It's about building their own following.
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They want to make a name for themselves.
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They don't care whether you're right with God.
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They care whether or not you listen to them.
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How many ministers are like that? They don't care about you.
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They care about whether or not their churches are filled.
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How do you know that? Because they'll tell you whatever you want to hear to get the church filled.
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You know what Jesus began? You hear about the church growth movement? Jesus taught the ungrowth movement.
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Because every time Jesus preached, people left.
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Angry.
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In John chapter 6, Jesus started with thousands of people listening to Him.
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By the time the sermon is done in John chapter 6, He had 12 people left.
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And He looked at them and He said, Are you going to leave too? This is the Son of God, the Lord of glory.
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He preaches one sermon and thousands...
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You read it.
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Thousands of people were there.
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It's the same group that He just fed.
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He fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.
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And He had thousands of listeners.
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He preached a sermon, and at the end of it, the only ones still there were the disciples.
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And He said, well, you leave too.
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And Peter says, where should we go? You're the only one who has the words of eternal life.
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Jesus was the anti-church growth pastor.
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Because He preached the truth, and people left.
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You always, always, always know the false teachers.
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Because they will preach what people want to hear, and they will fill their buildings with people who do not know Christ.
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And they're satisfied with people who don't know Christ because the preacher is more concerned that they know Him than that they know Jesus.
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The Judaizers were more concerned with making a name for themselves than they were for lifting up the name of Christ.
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That was their motivation.
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They wanted to make a name for themselves.
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And they wanted to avoid persecution.
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Now you say, well, how does that work? Think about who persecuted the church early on.
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It wasn't just Rome.
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In fact, for a while, Rome didn't care about Christians because it was such a small minority sect.
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They didn't care anything.
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Who was it that was persecuting them? Yeah, the Jewish people.
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The Jewish leaders, right? Yeah, yeah.
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So what could you do to avoid persecution? Well, become one of them.
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Get circumcised.
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So not only was the motivation to build up their own selves, the motivation was to avoid persecution.
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You blend in with the Jews.
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Yeah, they wanted to play both sides.
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Be on both sides of the fence.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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And I know you haven't been here, but those who have, remember what I talked about, you've got the law or Christ.
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You can't have both.
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You've either got to go try to find your salvation over here, and you can't because the law does not save.
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It only condemns.
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Or you follow Christ.
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But if you try to have both, if you try to reach from Grace Mountain to Law Mountain, you're going to fall off.
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You can't have a foot on each side.
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Remind me of that? I'm sorry.
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Yeah, he's talking about this group of people right here.
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Yep.
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Absolutely.
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Yes.
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And creating confusion, leading them in the wrong direction.
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Paul is not happy.
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If there ain't nothing you learned through this series of lessons, know this.
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This is not a happy letter.
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You want a happy letter? Go read Philippians.
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Paul's pretty happy in Philippians.
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He's happy with the Philippian people.
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He's happy throughout the letter.
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It's all about joy.
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It's a great book.
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But you want to read a letter of a man who's hot under the collar? Read Galatians.
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Because Paul is not happy.
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He planted a church.
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False teachers have come in.
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And they have misused and mistreated the people.
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Paul is angry.
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And he's not just angry with the false teachers.
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He's angry with the Galatians.
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You know, he calls them stupid at one point.
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And most of our Bibles translates it foolish.
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Oh, you foolish Galatians.
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Who has bewitched you? English translation, the more modern, maybe more curt, is you stupid Galatians.
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How could you let somebody come in and fool you like this? You say, Paul would never be so crass.
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Y'all know Paul.
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Paul was serious.
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This is a serious business.
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This is life or death.
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This is heaven and hell.
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This is gospel or no gospel.
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And there is no room for effeminate men in the pulpit.
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There is no room for men who lisp with the gospel.
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You speak not with a forked tongue and not with a female mouth, but you speak like a man.
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And you tell it like it is.
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And that's what Paul is doing.
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That's right.
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Yes, indeed.
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See, these people have added to the gospel.
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That's the problem.
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They've added to the gospel.
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And I want to mention this to you.
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I think I've said this in the weeks past, but I want to remind you.
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Heretics will always add something to the gospel.
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Think about the guys who come to your house on Saturday morning.
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Usually dressed pretty nice.
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Usually a man and a woman.
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Maybe two women.
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Two older women.
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They have an awake magazine to give you.
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And they want you to believe in their teachings.
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But they deny the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ and they deny justification by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone.
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And they add to the gospel works which the Bible does not command.
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They do not have the gospel.
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They are heretics.
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And they are following a system which leads to hell.
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The two boys on the 10 speeds with the nice white shirts and the name tags that say Elder whatever, they are bringing you a message of damnation in a nice pretty package.
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Because they're usually good looking young men.
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They're usually very polite young men.
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They're willing to do good things.
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And you say, I can't accept that those are heretics.
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You don't think the Judaizers were probably nice people? Good looking people? Probably people who were winsome? Heretical movements will always be the enemies of the truth.
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And the enemies of grace.
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I'll tell you what I do when they come to my house.
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They don't come much anymore.
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I think I'm on a list.
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But when they come to my house, I have one question.
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I open the door.
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If it's them, sometimes I have to go get them.
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Because sometimes they pass my house.
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If I see them passing my house, I'll go out and catch them.
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One time I stopped in my neighbor's yard.
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They were talking to my neighbor down the street.
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And I just stopped and got out and walked up there.
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My neighbor's like, what are you doing? I'm here to talk to them.
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I preached outside the Jehovah Witness Convention a few years in a row.
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There's a big convention downtown that Jehovah Witnesses meet every year.
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And Brother Mike and I went and preached outside.
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We were nice.
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We were just preaching grace.
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A lady came up and says, why are you doing this? I said, because I don't know where you live.
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You've been to my house a thousand times.
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I'm going to come to your house, but I don't know where you live.
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I'm not lying.
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Here's what I say to them.
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They come to the door.
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If I have to go catch them or whatever, I say, okay, before you give me your speech, before you tell me about a wake, before you tell me about the watchtower, before you tell me about the end times, because Jehovah Witnesses always want to talk about the end times.
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I say, before you go there, I want to ask you a question.
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I want you to imagine that you came to my house today and the door was slightly opened.
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And you came to my door and you looked in and you saw that I was laying down on the ground.
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I had been stabbed and I'm bleeding and I'm dying.
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I have two minutes to live.
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And you have two minutes to share with me the message of salvation.
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Go.
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That's right.
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They say, what do you mean? I say, do you have a Gospel that can save a dying man? No, you don't, because you have a Gospel of works.
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You do not have a Gospel that will save a dying man.
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Your Gospel is a false Gospel.
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And I want to share the true Gospel with you.
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That's it.
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Because I remember saying that to a guy.
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He says, what kind of life have you lived? I said, obviously a bad one.
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Somebody stabbed me in my house.
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And he said, well, those who endure to the end shall be saved.
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I said, buddy, it's the end.
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I've got two minutes to go.
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I said, you don't have a Gospel, you don't have a message, you don't have something that a dying man can preach to dying men.
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You don't have free grace.
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You don't have Christ.
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And I don't say that because I hate you.
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I say that because I love you.
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And I love my neighbors.
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And you are bringing a false message to my neighbors.
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That's important.
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Paul cared enough to make this the centerpiece of his first letter.
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And by the way, we believe Galatians was probably the first letter Paul wrote.
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So not only is this letter a letter of rebuke, but it's the first letter that Paul is sending out.
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So verse 14, he reminds them of the Gospel.
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He's condemned the false teachers.
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Now he reminds them of the Gospel.
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Far be it from me to boast in anything except the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.
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Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You see, the point is, the Judaizers wanted to boast in their circumcision.
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They wanted to boast in their covenant.
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They wanted to boast in their relationship with God through the sign that God gave to Abraham.
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But Paul condemns them because they are boasting in something other than Jesus.
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When Paul came to Jesus, he crucified himself to the world and the world crucified him to itself.
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And by that, what he means is he cut himself off from the world and the world cut himself off from him.
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Think of it like this.
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What was Paul before he became a Christian? He was a murderer, but before that? He was a Pharisee.
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He says, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees.
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He says, I was a Hebrew of Hebrew, a Pharisee of Pharisees.
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I learned at the feet of Gamaliel.
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Gamaliel was one of the greatest teachers of Hebrew and Jewish tradition at that time and Paul was his disciple.
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Paul was like, if you think about like a ninja, Paul was like the ninja apprentice.
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I don't know if it makes sense to you.
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You know, somebody like, he's like the, you got the master and the apprentice, like the Jedi.
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That's Qui-Gon Jinn and you know, the other one.
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Paul is, Obi-Wan, thank you.
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Paul is the, Paul is the Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Pharisees.
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So, so having said that and having wished I hadn't, Paul, Paul had, this is, oh by the way, have you ever seen the movie The Case for Christ? Lee Strobel's movie? It's a live story of Lee Strobel.
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He was a journalist who tried to make the case against Jesus because his wife became a Christian and he was so upset that his wife became a Christian that he wanted to prove her wrong.
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So he began an investigative report about the life of Jesus trying to prove that Jesus was false.
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Trying to prove that the message of the Gospel was false.
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And through a long series of research and interviews and studies, he became a Christian, he's now a pastor.
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When he was a journalist trying to disprove Christ, well they made a movie about his life called The Case for Christ.
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In the movie, I remember specifically one of the people he interviewed, one of the Christian scholars, and he said the number one, number one best evidence for the truth of Christianity is the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who we call the Apostle Paul.
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He said because there was nobody in Israel who was least likely to believe the message than him.
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There was nobody who was least likely to believe that Jesus rose from the dead and was the Son of God than Saul of Tarsus.
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So much so, that he was willing to kill people over it.
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That he was willing to hold the coats of those who stoned Stephen.
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That he was willing to go have people arrested.
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That's who Saul of Tarsus was.
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And on the road to Damascus, God saved his soul, changed his heart, and that is a testimony to the power of God.
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Because when Saul of Tarsus became the Apostle Paul, his whole life got severed.
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He was no longer a Pharisee.
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He was no longer a Hebrew of Hebrews.
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Now he was an outcast.
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Now he was one that the groups of the Jews did not want anything to do with and the Christians were scared of him.
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Because this is the guy who was persecuting us.
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Right? So the Jews didn't want him and the Christians were afraid of him at first.
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So Paul makes the point, I was crucified to the world and the world to me.
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Why? Because Christ is worth it.
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The truth is worth everything.
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And Christ...
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Let me tell you something.
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Christ is worth losing all.
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But most people aren't willing to give up anything for Christ.
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Christ is worth losing all, but most people are not willing to give up anything.
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Paul gave up everything.
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I count it all as rubbish for the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord, he said.
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You know what that word rubbish is? The word Greek skubalon.
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It means dung.
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I count it all as dung for the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus Christ.
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I have been crucified to the world and the world to me.
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And that's okay, because Christ is worthy.
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Turn in your Bibles to Matthew 10.
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So hold your finger in there.
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We're just going to glance over Matthew 10.34-39 real quick.
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This is Jesus.
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Matthew 10.34 This is Jesus speaking.
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He says, Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth.
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I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
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For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
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And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
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Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me.
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And whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
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And whoever does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.
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Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
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Understand this.
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Christian satisfaction is only found when you realize that Christ is enough.
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Christian satisfaction.
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Christian joy is only found when you get to the point where Christ is enough.
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Paul believed Christ was enough.
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I've been crucified to the world, and the world's been crucified to me.
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But that's okay.
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Christ is enough.
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I've lost everything.
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I've lost my reputation.
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I've lost my family.
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I've lost my income.
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I'm having to live now off of the sweat of my brow making tents and off of the generosity of believers.
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But that's okay.
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Christ is enough.
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I've been beaten 40 times minus one.
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I've been stoned almost to death.
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I've had to be run out of town on several occasions.
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But that's okay because Christ is enough.
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That's really...
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If I had to put the book of Galatians into one short sentence, it is this, Christ is enough.
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Christ is sufficient.
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I count it all as rubbish if it means knowing Christ.
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And then he says in verse 15, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
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We're back in Galatians now.
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I'm sorry.
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I jumped back without saying it.
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But that's Paul's point.
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Because remember who he's talking to.
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He's talking to the Judaizers.
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You say circumcision is necessary.
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I tell you Christ is enough and circumcision or uncircumcision doesn't matter.
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And understand that would have been a scandal to the Jews because they would say what separated them from the world was their circumcision.
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What separated them to God was their circumcision.
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This is why in 1 Corinthians 1.23, Paul says we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.
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Why is Christ crucified a stumbling block to the Jews? Because Christ on the tree dying for sin would have been offensive to them.
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And trusting in Him alone was the greatest of all offenses because they had a law to keep.
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Paul says circumcision counts for nothing.
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It doesn't add one iota to your salvation.
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Whether or not a person is circumcised does not make them saved or unsaved.
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It does not count.
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But what does count according to verse 15 is a new creation.
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When a person comes to Christ, he comes because he's been born again.
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That spiritual rebirth results in a new life.
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And Paul tells us that we become a new creation in Christ.
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You guys remember 2 Corinthians 5.17? What does it say? If anyone be in Christ, he is a new creation.
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Old things have passed away.
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Behold, all things have become new.
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You want to have a new life? You want to have eternal life? It's not by cutting something off of your flesh.
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That's what Paul's saying.
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Getting eternal life doesn't come from taking a knife and cutting off a piece of your foreskin.
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Eternal life comes from submitting to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Unifying with Him by grace through faith alone.
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By going from somebody who hates God to somebody who loves God.
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By having a new nature in Christ.
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Becoming a new creature in Him.
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Martin Luther said this in his commentary.
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He said a new creature is one in whom the image of God has been renewed.
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Such a creature cannot be brought into life by good works, but by Christ alone.
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Good works may improve the outward appearance, but they cannot produce a new creature.
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A new creature is the work of the Holy Ghost who imbues our hearts with faith, love, and other Christian virtues, grants us the strength to subdue the flesh, and to reject the righteousness of the world.
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Listen to that last sentence.
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To reject the righteousness of the world.
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You see, the righteousness of the world is not true righteousness.
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We need the righteousness of Christ, the only true righteousness, and that comes by grace through faith, not by works.
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You say, well, I'm a good person.
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I do good works.
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Do you do works good enough to get you to heaven? You say, well, my works are pretty good.
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But do you do works good enough to get you to heaven? You say, well, my works are pretty outstanding.
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But do you do works good enough to get you to heaven? You say, well, my works are really almost flawless.
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Well, the problem is with the word almost.
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The Bible says all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags when compared to the righteousness of Christ.
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You've all heard me talk about the scale.
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If you imagine Jesus Christ is on this side of the scale, and you go over here as far as you want to go, and you say, the worst person in history.
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Who's the worst person in history? You come up with it on your own.
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Some people would say Mussolini.
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Some people would say Genghis Khan.
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Some people would say Hitler.
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You go over here.
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Worst person in history.
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You put that person over there.
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So you've got a scale now.
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The scale is worst person and Jesus.
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Where are you? A lot of people say, well, I'd be right in the middle or I'd be closer here over to Jesus.
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And the truth of the matter is you would be hip to hip with that person over there.
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Not because you're here at set free, but because you're a man.
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And when men compare themselves to the divine, there is no comparison.
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Isaiah was the most righteous man in all of Israel.
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And in Isaiah chapter 6, when he saw the Lord seated upon His throne, the Bible says He covered His mouth and He said, woe is Me.
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For I am a man of unclean lips.
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And I dwell among a people of unclean lips.
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And my eyes have seen the King.
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I know who I am only when I see God for who He is.
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I know my deficiency only when I see His sufficiency.
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And when you start to think that your works are good enough, you stop thinking Christ is sufficient.
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Your works are not good enough.
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If you are trusting in yourself, you are trusting in the wrong person.
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And that's what the Judaizers were teaching.
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You've got to do it yourself.
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Verse 16.
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I want to start drawing to a close.
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And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God.
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What rule? Well, the rule that Paul just mentioned.
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We must be a new creation.
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That's a command.
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A new creation is a command.
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Ephesians 4.24 Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in the true righteousness and holiness.
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Put on the new self.
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That's in the imperative.
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Put on the new self.
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That's the rule.
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Somebody says I follow Jesus, but my life is just as it was.
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I follow Jesus, but I have not turned and taken up my cross and followed after Him.
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But I believe in Him.
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I say you really don't believe in Him.
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You say I have believed in Jesus, but my life has not had any confirmation to Him.
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I say you really don't believe in Him.
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You say are you saying I'm saved by what I do? No, but I'm saying that if you are saved, what you do will be different.
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Because you'll live by faith and not by your commitment to yourself.
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And you'll have a new master, a new king, a new captain.
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I lived 19 years as the captain of my ship.
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I was the standard by which all things were measured.
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I was the rule against all things.
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I was the king.
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It was the United Republic of Keith and I was in charge.
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And there was only one representative, me.
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And there was only one person seated on the throne, me.
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And I did what I wanted to do.
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God saved my soul at 19 years old and He became the captain of the ship.
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Now I have not always been the best of followers of that captain.
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And I have failed every day that I have had that captain, but He's the captain of the ship.
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That's the rule that we live by.
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That's the new creation.
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And it says, for those who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God.
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Now, I could take a whole other sermon, and I'm not going to, but I could take a whole other sermon and explain that phrase because the Israel of God is an important phrase.
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But let me just very quickly give you what the meaning of this is.
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Because a key component of the new covenant is that there are no longer Jews and Greeks, but that we are all one in Christ Jesus.
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And because we are all one in Christ Jesus, we are all part of the new Israel.
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We are all part of the Israel of God.
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So when He says the Israel of God, He's not talking about ethnic Jews.
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He is talking about those who believe in Christ.
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Galatians 3.28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
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Galatians 3.7 Know then it is those who are of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
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Ephesians 2 says, for He Himself is our peace and has made us both one and broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace.
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You see, the Jews were convinced that there was Jews and Gentiles and they would never be brought back together.
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The Bible says they are brought together in Christ.
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And those who are in Christ are the Israel of God.
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Some people want to use the term messianic Jew.
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You might have friends who are part of messianic Jewish churches or maybe you might know a friend who is a person who calls himself a messianic Jew.
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I don't like that term and I don't say that to be ugly and I'm certainly not opposed to people living by their convictions.
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But I will say this to a person who says, I'm a messianic Jew.
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I say, why do you want to make a distinction? Why do you want to make a distinction between you and me? Why do you want to make a distinction between your Christianity and my Christianity when we are all one in Christ? You say, well, I have Jewish roots.
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I don't care.
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I have British roots.
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My family was from Britain.
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I used to think it was Polish.
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But then I looked it up and it's British.
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So I'm about as white as you can get.
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White on white.
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And that's it.
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I'm very, very British.
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The Foxcoats is where the Foskey name came from.
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They were fox pelt traders and they were British.
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So no, I'm not Jewish by descent.
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But Jesus Christ is the same Savior for me that He is for the Jew.
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And in Him there is neither Jew nor Greek.
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We are all one in Christ Jesus.
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The Israel of God are those who are in Christ.
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V.
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17, From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Christ.
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I don't know if you see it or not, but I notice a little bit of frustration in this verse.
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I think there's indignation in Paul's words.
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And I'll give you the example of why I say that.
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The Judaizers have watered down the Gospel.
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The Galatians have perplexed Paul by listening to their message.
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And he is saying, I have had enough of this.
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Let's read it again.
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From now on, let no one cause me trouble.
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Stop this.
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I bear on my body the marks of Christ.
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What is he talking about? Some people think he had a tattoo.
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I really don't think that that's right.
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Reading that into the text doesn't make sense to me.
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The marks of Christ that he had were the marks from beating, the marks from stoning, the marks from being torn up and thrown into jail and being kicked out of town.
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Those were the marks that he bore.
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And he bore those marks for Christ.
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And he called them the marks of Christ.
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And again, think of what he's saying.
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He's saying stop this.
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If you're going to listen to anybody, listen to me.
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Look at my body and know this.
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I came to you in the name of Jesus Christ and I bear the marks of Jesus Christ.
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Don't listen to those false teachers.
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Listen to the One who gave you the Gospel of Grace to begin with.
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And then he ends with the short benediction.
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be on your spirit, brothers.
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Amen.
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He does call them brothers.
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He has not given up on them.
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He has not consigned them to being unbelievers.
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He calls them brothers.
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And he reminds them of what the whole letter is about, grace.
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This whole letter is about understanding salvation by grace.
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Again, Martin Luther says this.
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He says, this is the apostle's farewell.
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He ends his epistle as he began, by wishing the Galatians the grace of God.
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We can hear him say, I have presented Christ to you.
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I have pleaded with you.
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I have reproved you.
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I have overlooked nothing that I thought might be of benefit to you.
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All I can do now is to pray that our Lord Jesus Christ would bless my epistle and grant you the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
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That's what he's saying.
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Grace be to you.
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So brothers, we end this book now.
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This has been a fruitful study for me.
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I pray that it's been a fruitful study for you.
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The most important part of the message though, and we'll end with these words.
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We are saved by the work of Christ alone and not by what we do.
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We are justified by faith alone and not by works.
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Salvation is a gift and not something that is earned.
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All we ever earn is our place in hell.
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The Bible says the wages of sin is death and that's what we earn.
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But what we receive as a gift is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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For the wages of sin is death, but the gift, unearned gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
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That is the message of Galatians.
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I hope this study has been fruitful for you.
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Let us pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I pray that this has been useful for these men.
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And I pray that in the days to come as we look at a new study that You would bless that study as well.
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Lord, help us to truly understand Your Gospel.
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And Lord, for those who are here and have submitted to the Gospel, I pray that You would help to grow them in faith daily by the power of Your Spirit.
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And those who have not, I pray that Your Spirit would overtake them, would grant them the gift of life, and that they would come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Lord, this is our prayer in Jesus' name.
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Amen.