Before we read the passage, I want to review again the main point that Paul is making in the book of Galatians. It’s a very important point, a point that can’t be emphasized too much. It’s the difference between eternal life and rejoicing and eternal judgment and condemnation. Here it is: As much as the idea may appeal to us, we are not able to save ourselves by “being good”, by keeping the rules. We can’t do it. Only God is able to save us. He did it by his own sacrifice. We are not saved by our own “works” so that no one can boast. We are saved by God’s grace. We just have to believe it—and even believing it is God’s gift.

Three weeks ago I talked about the last part of Galatians 5. In that passage, the apostle Paul compared the “fruit of the Spirit” with the “works of the flesh”. The works of the flesh result when you are trying to make yourself righteous by being good and living according to the rules. The works of the flesh are everything rotten and corrupt. I’m going to read them from Galatians 5:19-21: “Sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar.” Paul says these things are obvious—and he also says that those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Paul says (the Holy Spirit speaking through the apostle Paul says) that if you walk by the Spirit (that’s God’s Holy Spirit) you won’t have the works of the flesh. If you walk by the Spirit, you won’t have the works of the flesh, but you will have the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Gal. 5:22, 23) To walk by the Spirit, you must allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in all your decisions and you do.

In the first part of Galatians 6, the apostle Paul gave us some of the practical things the Holy Spirit might lead us to do: Correct another believer who is caught in wrongdoing, restore him, but with gentleness and humility, knowing that you can be tempted, too. Carry others’ burdens. We are not designed by God to be independent of each other, but to need each other—and above all to need Christ. We are designed to help each other. Don’t become tired of doing good. You can become tired of doing good if you are doing good to make yourself righteous rather than because you are being led by the Spirit to do good. You do good because you are righteous, not to make yourself righteous. It’s Jesus Christ who made you righteous.

Paul also talked about sowing and reaping. What you sow, that’s what you reap. That’s also God’s law. If you sow to the flesh, you reap corruption. If you sow to the Spirit, you reap eternal life from the Spirit. Finally, Paul says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, we must work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith. (Gal.~6:10) The Holy Spirit points out the opportunities we have to do good—the good works that God has prepared for us in advance. And the power, the ability, any ability we have to walk by the Spirit—that comes from the Spirit, too. Pray.

Before we read today’s passage, I want to remind you as always that it’s the word of God. “All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God (or woman of God) may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim.~3:16, 17) We need to have the word of God in our hearts so that the Holy Spirit can remind us of it.

¹¹Look at what large letters I have written to you in my own handwriting. ¹²Those who want to make a good showing in the flesh are the ones who would compel you to be circumcised—but only to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. ¹³For even the circumcised don’t keep the law themselves; however, they want you to be circumcised in order to boast about your flesh. ¹⁴But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. ¹⁵For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation. ¹⁶May peace be on all those who follow this standard, and mercy also be on the Israel of God!

Verse 11 says, “Look at what large letters I have written to you in my own handwriting.” Paul sometimes had someone else write while he dictated. He did that with the book of Romans. (Romans 16:23, near the end of Romans, says, “I Tertius, who penned this epistle in the Lord, greet you.”) But Paul wrote Galatians himself (or at least the end of Galatians). He wrote with large letters. Apparently he had some trouble with his eyes. I think it’s likely that this was the “thorn in his flesh” that he talked about in 2 Corinthians 12—the thorn in his flesh that was given him to keep him from exalting himself rather than Christ.

You know, this is all about humility, all about depending on God, not on yourself. In fact it’s all about knowing and understanding that we really are powerless to help ourselves. The apostle Paul had received visions and revelations from God. He was caught up into paradise, into the third heaven, and heard inexpressible things. I’m going to read what he says about it. This is from 1 Corinthians 12:7b-10: “Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul also says, “Be imitators of me as I also am of Christ.” (1 Cor. 11:1) We all need to learn to do this day-by-day—imitate Jesus and be examples for those around us. Do we do it? Others are watching us.

But, anyway, why do you think Paul mentioned the fact that he was writing to the Galatians in his own hand in large letters? I’m going to read from chapter 4, verses 14 and 15: “...and though my physical condition was a trial for you, you did not despise or reject me. On the contrary, you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself. What happened to this blessedness of yours? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me.” Paul was reminding them again about how much joy they had had when they first received the message of God’s grace and mercy and how that joy had evaporated when they began to try to be saved by “works”, by living according to rules rather than walking by the Spirit—and not only that, but how their willingness to live lives of sacrifice to help others had turned into living lives of selfishness. We must keep all these teachings in our hearts.

Now let’s look at verses 12 and 13. Paul’s going to bring up again those who have been trying to get the Galatians to be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses. Here’s what he says: “Those who want to make a good showing in the flesh are the ones who would compel you to be circumcised—but only to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even the circumcised don’t keep the law themselves; however, they want you to be circumcised in order to boast about your flesh.”

These are apparently believers, Jewish believers, who want to avoid trouble from unbelieving Jews. They want to make a good showing in the flesh and avoid persecution. The apostle Paul sure was persecuted because he was preaching the gospel. There were plots to kill him. He was flogged and beaten. He was stoned and left for dead. They hated him because he was preaching the truth, the truth that we are saved by God’s grace through God’s own sacrifice on the cross, not by the works of the law—not by works of the law so that no one can boast. People don’t like it when you take away their ability to boast. It’s humiliating. (It’s funny that we think that being humiliated is bad but being humbled is good. What’s the difference?)

Paul says, “For even the circumcised don’t keep the law themselves; however, they want you to be circumcised in order to boast about your flesh.” The Lord says (in Deuteronomy), “The person who does them (keeps his statues and ordinance) will live (that is, stay alive) by them.” (Deut. 20:11) But even the circumcised don’t keep the law themselves. Paul has made this point more than once in Galatians. If you understand this, you will understand that your only hope is in Jesus Christ—in his death for our sin and his resurrection from the dead. And that is the reason that God’s grace is so great! The Jews who were trying to get the Galatian Christians to think that they needed the works of the law (in particular, circumcision) to be saved were doing it so that they “boast about their flesh”. I think that means that they wanted to be able to tell those who were persecuting, “See, we are teaching them to keep the law.” In any case, let’s examine ourselves to make sure we are not watering down the truth of the gospel to avoid being persecuted (which, in this country where they isn’t much serious persecution, translates to “avoid offending anyone”. Let’s examine ourselves.

Let’s look at verse 14: “But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” You know, Paul was able to boast quite a bit before he was a believer. He was able to boast about his ancestry. He was able, in fact, to boast about the fact that he was circumcised on the eighth day according to the Lord’s command to Abraham back in Genesis. And he was able to boast about how zealous he was about keeping the law. He was able to boast about these things until he was finally humbled while he on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there—until was humbled by Jesus, himself. Now Paul says, “I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Paul would boast about the cross of Christ. What is the significance of the cross of Christ? (And by the way, the word “boast” doesn’t necessarily mean what we take it to mean in modern English—to brag about. It means to “glory in”. It can mean to glory in your own achievements or it can mean to glory in what God has done for you, what God has done for you that has nothing whatsoever to do with your own merit or achievements and everything to do with God’s love and grace and mercy. Paul was talking about glorying in the cross of Christ? What is the significance of the cross of Christ?

Well, a large percentage of the population here in the United States works for a living. People have bosses, supervisors, employers. Some are easy to work for and some are hard to work for. In the majority of cases, if you work and do a good job, you will be treated well. If you don’t work hard and do a good job, you probably will not be treated well. You may even lose your job. But it’s relatively rare to find a boss or an employer who will bend over backwards to help you if you are not doing a good job. That involves sacrifice on his or her part. And how many bosses do you think there might be who would do anything for you if you were actually working against them and trying to sabotage what they were trying to accomplish in their business? Think about the apostle Paul and what he was trying to accomplish before Jesus corrected him. Jesus—Jesus through whom God made all things—Jesus who was God who took on a human body—made an extreme sacrifice for Paul and for each of us by suffering and dying on the cross for our sins. We were all like Paul in our own way. We were God’s enemies. But he had mercy on us. Jesus went to the cross. And that’s what Paul was glorying in—that Jesus went to the cross. That’s what he was boasting about. That’s what we can glory in, too. We have every reason to do it!

First of all, what is the world? The world is what Satan the devil has been in charge of since the fall back in Genesis chapter 3. Jesus called Satan the ruler of this world (John 12:31, 14:30 and 16:11). Satan himself, when he was tempting Jesus, told him that the world belonged to him, it had been given over to him. I’m going to read from Luke 4:5 through 7: “So he (Satan the devil) took Him (Jesus) up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. The Devil said to Him, ‘I will give You their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, and I can give it to anyone I want. If You, then, will worship me, all will be Yours.’” That should give you an idea of what the world is. It’s really what human ungodly society is all about.

And I’m going to read one more passage about the world. This is from 1 John 2:15, 16 and 17: “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. Because everything that belongs to the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one's lifestyle—is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does God's will remains forever.”

And, by the way, “lust” just means “desire”, nothing more. Don’t desire anything that belongs to the world. Do you want example of the things that belong to the world? Just look at 90 percent of the stuff they try to sell you on TV (or maybe it’s 99 percent)—maybe a big-screen TV or a nice new car or a fancy house. It has to do with coveting what your neighbor has and wanting to boast that you have something better.

Mooma was telling me the other day about someone years ago who bought a new car. Someone asked him why it was blue because he thought he liked red. This person answered, “Well the new model looked pretty much like the old one and if he had bought a red car, no one would have known it was a new car.”

Back in the ‘70’s I bought an airplane. It was a rather unusual airplane. Only around 500 of them were in existence at the time. I bought a tie tack that was a model of the airplane and wore it proudly to church several times. Then one day I took my tie off and laid it on top of my car before I got in. I forgot about the tie and the tie tack and drove off. My tie tack was gone. I was really bummed.

Anyway, it’s a really serious thing to love the world or any of the things that belong to the world. (And the world, by the way, is the world system where you strive to get the things that belong to the world—possessions, prestige and power—human glory.) It’s a really serious thing to love the world or any of the things that belong to the world. If you love the world or any of the things that belong to the world, the love of the Father is not in you.

And, by the way, when Jesus was tempted by the devil to just worship him in exchange for all the kingdom of this world, his answer was, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’” (And, you know that all of it belongs to Jesus now, anyway.) Loving the things of this world is idolatry. We must worship the Lord our God and serve him only. And the apostle Paul says that all things are ours, too. (1 Cor. 3:21-23)

Well, if you have been crucified, you are dead. If you are dead, nothing has any effect on you. If you are crucified to the world, the world has no effect on you. Similarly, if the world is crucified, it can’t have any effect on you. Paul is saying that, because of the cross, because of Jesus, the world no longer has any effect on him—really, no appeal to him. If you walk by the Spirit, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. Pray for God to teach us day by day to walk by the Spirit. Let’s pray for each other, too. (If you already can say, “I always walk by the Spirit,” well, you can go directly to heaven. But, by the way, the apostle Paul says in Philippians 3:12-14, “Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” That should be our thinking.)

Let’s look at verse 15 in today’s passage, “For both circumcision and uncircumcision mean nothing; what matters instead is a new creation.” The point is that it’s not circumcision that Paul is condemning, but the idea that it somehow makes you more holy or godly if you have it. What matters is that you belong to Jesus. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away, and look, new things have come.” (2 Cor.~5:17)

Verse 16 says, “May peace be on all those who follow this standard, and mercy also be on the Israel of God!” The standard we are to follow is our faith that we are saved by God’s grace through the cross of Christ and not by our own merit or goodness. The Israel of God is all those who believe in Jesus.

Verse 17 says, “From now on, let no one cause me trouble, because I carry the marks of Jesus on my body.” Jesus was crucified. He had the nail holes in his hands and feet (or maybe in his arms and legs, according to some people) and the hole from the spear in his side. Paul was flogged and beaten and had the marks in his body as well. He was willing to suffer for Christ. How much are we willing to suffer? (But I have to think that if the Lord calls us to suffer in the way Paul did, we will be able to do so. He will give us the power.)