Scripture: Galatians 6:11-18
Sermon Series: Galatians – Set Free, Live Free – Sermon 17

Our friend Paul writes,

“See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.”.

Not to brag, but I went into a room yesterday and remembered why I went in there. Not to brag or anything, but I’ve never lost in the Olympics. I don’t mean to brag, but cashiers are always checking me out. Not to brag, but I consider myself a mix between Rambo and Einstein, I have Rambo’s intelligence and Einstein’s muscles. Not to brag, but I’m on the “World’s Richest People” list, somewhere around the 6,700,000,000^th. Not to brag, but I just got a job as a fitness model. They hired me as the “before” picture. So, do you brag?

A study by Lancaster University revealed that 70% of men and 54% of women admitted to boasting about their achievements or accomplishments. Asked why they boasted, they had various reasons: to boost their self-confidence, win respect from others, impress colleagues at work, gain approval from friends or make themselves look good. Most though admitted to exaggerating and even lying to make their boasting more impressive.

What do you find yourself boasting about? Maybe what you’ve done academically, professionally, competitively? Maybe that you’ve won an award, a promotion and some recognition? Maybe you’re a name dropper?

If we thought hard enough, even the most modest among us, think of things we could or do boast about. In Galatians 6, Paul shocks us with what he boasts about. He says for him, There is only one thing worth boasting about – it’s the cross of Jesus and His death on the cross!

When you stop and think about it, that’s really bizarre. We’ve grown accustomed to this language if you’ve been in church for a few years, but step back and see it objectively. It is a very out there thing to say. Why would anyone want to boast about the shameful, humiliating, agonizing execution of an innocent man on a cross? Why is that worth celebrating? Why does Paul say it’s The only thing worth boasting about?

We’re in our last study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. He wrote this letter because the Galatians were drifting away from an accurate understanding of the gospel. After Paul had planted a number of churches in the region, false teachers—known as Judaizers—came after him and began teaching another gospel (Galatians 1:6-9). They taught that Jesus’ cross wasn’t enough. You had to obey the Old Testament Law. The bottom line is that you had to be good or moral and work your way to heaven.

It’s the same lie most people believe today. The next time you’re out with a friend, ask them why they think they’re going to heaven? Some will tell you because they’re a good person or that they’re moral.

That’s what these false teachers were saying. They said it’s Jesus +. They said the cross is great but it’s not enough. These false teachers wanted to subject these young Christians to circumcision (as a means of gaining favor with God), so Paul repeats this truth one last time…that it’s Jesus cross and His cross alone that gets us right with God. 

The end of Paul’s letter to the Galatians ends differently than any of his other letters. Most end with a benediction, or a prayer or a doxology. In Galatians 6 Paul takes one more shot at these lying false teachers.

This is so important that while up until now, Paul dictated the letter through a scribe, he took the pen to write the conclusion. “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand” (Galatians 6:11).

He often concludes his letters by signing his own name. That way the recipients know that the letter is from him. This time he writes a summary of the entire book, and he does it in large letters. Why large letters?

Some think it’s because of Paul’s bad eyesight. That’s possible. But I think Paul takes the pen in hand at the end of this letter to underline and highlight his central message one more time. It’s like writing an email or texting in all upper case. It sounds like you’re angry. Paul isn’t angry but he’s very intense.

What he says is vital. It will make or break our church. What he says in his conclusion will make or break your life. Believing it will make the difference in your relationship with God, your eternal destiny, between heaven and hell.

So, let’s get to what he says. If you’re taking notes…

1. Flesh-centered boasting…bragging about nothing, vss. 11-13. 

A number of years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported of a screaming woman trapped in a car dangling from a freeway overpass in East Los Angeles who was rescued that Saturday morning. This 19-year-old apparently fell asleep behind the wheel about 12:15 am. Her car, which plunged through a guardrail, was left dangling by its left rear wheel. A half dozen passing motorists stopped, grabbed some ropes from one of their vehicles, tied the ropes to the back of her car, and hung on until rescue squads arrived. A ladder was extended from below to stabilize the car while firefighters tied the vehicle from above to tow trucks with cables and chains. “Every time we would move the car,” said one of the rescuers, “she’d yell and scream. She was in pain.” It took almost two and a half hours for the crowd, law enforcement, tow truck drivers and firefighters—about 25 people, to secure the car and pull the woman to safety.

Here’s the best part. L.A. County Fire Captain Ross Marshall recalled later, “It was kinda funny. She kept saying, ‘I’ll do it myself’.”

That’s these false teachers in Galatians. They taught a “do it yourself salvation.” If there was any other way for us to be forgiven and go to heaven, God the Father would never have sacrificed His Son and Jesus would never have gone to the cross. What do we know about these false teachers?

They were braggarts. They weren’t trying to win people to Christ or help believers grow in grace. Their main purpose was to win more converts so that they could brag about them. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised (Galatians 6:12a) and then They desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh (Galatians 6:13b). They wanted to be in the headlines. It wasn’t done for the glory of God or even for the good of these baby Christians.

Motives are tricky. We need periodically do a “soul check.” Why do I serve the Lord? Why do I share the gospel? Why do I do what I do? If it’s for self like these false teachers, it’s garbage. It must be done for the Savior.

They were compromisers.Why did they teach circumcision? Verse 12b, in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. They didn’t want to get on anyone’s blacklist, especially Jews, so they fudged the message.

We all face that same temptation, every preacher, every church, every Christ-follower. I don’t want to teach what the Bible says about hell any more than an oncologist wants to tell a patient that they have cancer and they’re terminal.

Paul preached God’s grace and salvation apart from works, and for it he was persecuted. The Jews wanted and attempted to kill Paul. When Paul trusted in Christ as Savior, he identified with the cross and took the consequences.

To those of Paul’s day, the cross wasn’t a beautiful piece of jewelry or something on a steeple. It was the worst form of execution. It stood for shame. The equivalent today might be a noose or an electric chair for death row criminals. Imagine if someone wore a little gold noose on a chain around their neck. “How insensitive,” you would say. For the Jew the cross was a stumbling block and for Gentiles it was foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18-31).

These false teachers didn’t teach the cross. They taught pop, feel good religion and avoided the shame of the cross. If they taught the cross alone, their Jewish friends would hate them. Not only that, but their Gentile peers would give them grief. Trusting Jesus and His cross would bring derision all round.  

It’s the same with us. Some of our friends just laugh at any thought of a life hereafter. If you’re dead, you’re dead. Religious friends tell us, “Yes, trust in Jesus but you also have to be good. You have to vote this way and do this and certainly none of that.” If we say, “I’m forgiven, I’m justified by Christ alone,” we’re going to get pushback. It threatens their house of cards. 

It breaks my heart that there are preachers in pulpits this morning who are teaching that if you’re a good person, do good things, care about the environment or are accepting of any lifestyle, God loves you and you’ll go to heaven. While it’s true that God loves you but if you want to go to heaven, you must come His way and it’s the way of Jesus’ cross. It’s the only way!

They were manipulators.Verse 12, It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised. The word for “force” is the idea of strong persuasion, although it doesn’t mean to force against one’s will. These false teachers were great persuaders. They had a “sales talk,” convincing the Galatians that good works would save them.

It was a lie. It’s not what the Bible says. Paul taught God’s truth and didn’t use fancy oratorical tricks. He reasoned with people and let the Spirit do the work. Folks, the unsaved may hate the message. They may hate us, but we must tell the truth and never manipulate them.

They were hypocrites. Verse 13, “For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh.” Paul outs their dishonesty. They had no intention of keeping the law themselves yet wanted the Galatians to obey it.

We hear about this over and over again. A politician who battles corruption passes new laws but within a few years is convicted of the very laws he enacted. A pastor rails against a certain sin. Eventually, it comes out that he’s secretly been practicing that same sin for years. The irony is that the very people who argue for self-salvation are the very ones who don’t measure up to their own standards…and none of us do. None of us can be good people without Jesus.

The greatest danger our church faces is that it will veer off, without even knowing it to some false gospel. Will Willimon said, Unable to preach Christ and Him crucified, we preach humanity and it improved.

We’ll be continually tempted to substitute a message of self-improvement and self-salvation for the gospel. The only thing that you and I contribute to our salvation is the sin that made it necessary. We have nothing but need.

These false teachers’ outward reverence for the Old Testament law was a mask to cover their real goal: winning more converts for their cause. They wanted better statistics; more glory yet cared little for Jesus and changed lives.

2. Cross-centered boasting…bragging about everything, vss. 14-16. 

Most of us boast about something. We see that among athletes. LeBron James is one of the most arrogant athletes of all time. He thinks he’s the best thing that’s happened in the NBA, better than Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. Paul reminds us that our boasting, our identity, should ultimately come from one place: the cross of Jesus Christ. 

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14). While today we think of the cross as something noble or beautiful. In Paul’s day, it was the ugliest thing possible. It doesn’t have a contemporary cultural equivalent. One that might be close is from The Cotton Patch paraphrase: God forbid that I should ever take pride in anything, except the lynching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

People find it insulting to face that they’re too weak and sinful to do anything to earn their salvation. The gospel is offensive to liberal-minded people who charge the gospel with intolerance because it states the only way to be saved is through the cross. The gospel is offensive to conservative-minded people because it states that without the cross, “good” people are in as much trouble as “bad” people. Ultimately, the gospel is offensive because the cross stands against all schemes of self-salvation. The world appreciates religion, but is offended by the cross, so believers in the cross are persecuted. 

Yet Paul keeps coming back to the cross of Christ. Jesus was a “marked man.” The wounds at Calvary marked Him. Those wounds mean freedom to anyone who trusts in Him. False teachers boasted of their circumcision. Paul boasted in a crucified Savior. Why would Paul boast in the cross of Christ?

He Knew the Person of the Cross.Jesus Christ is mentioned some 45 times in this letter. The person of Jesus captivated Paul. It was Christ who made the cross glorious to him. False teachers and unbelievers don’t boast in the cross because they don’t really know the person of the cross. We must encounter the person of Christ if we want to have our lives transformed.

He Knew the Power of the Cross.The cross was a symbol of shame. Jews believed—correctly—that anyone who died on a cross was cursed by God. Deuteronomy 21:23, Cursed is anyone who is hung on a tree. Before Paul was converted he couldn’t believe that the Messiah would die on a cross. It was preposterous! Yet he experienced the power of the cross and realized that Christ was cursed, but not for His own sins! He was cursed for Paul’s sins and the sins of the world. The cross became the foundation of Paul’s message.

Martin Luther said that Christianity is a religion of personal pronouns. What he meant was that we shouldn’t say, “Christ died for sins” but we should say, “Christ died for my sins.” My friend, can you say that?

He Knew the Purpose of the Cross.The cross reconciles guilty sinners to a holy God. It’s God’s method of reconciliation. Sinners receive forgiveness and a new life when they come to God through the cross. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation (Galatians 6:15). Paul wouldn’t have had difficulty with the legalism of his day if he’d presented the cross as a competitor in the field of religions.

Let me illustrate. Suppose we developed a new brand of soap. We advertised it and say that it’s better than any other soap on the market. We’d be competing with all of the other brands. However, if we said that our soap is the only soap on the market that will get anyone clean and that none of the other soaps work, we could find ourselves in a lot of trouble.

That’s what Paul was claiming for the gospel. If he had said, “Judaism is good, but Christianity is better,” he wouldn’t have had much trouble. It’s what advertisers say today—our product is better than other soaps on the market. That’s competition. But Paul says that Judaism and all other religions are nothing. The only thing that counts is a new creation. All other religions are false, and the only true religion is Christianity. It’s exclusivity. How do we know Christianity is true? Because three days after Jesus was buried, He rose again from the dead. Christianity is a religion of the cross with an empty tomb!

John Stott writes: “The truth is that we cannot boast in ourselves and in the cross simultaneously. If we boast in ourselves and in our ability to save ourselves, we shall never boast in the cross and in the ability of Christ crucified to save us. We have to choose. Only if we have humbled ourselves as hell-deserving sinners shall we give up boasting of ourselves, fly to the cross for salvation and spend the rest of our days glorying in the cross.”

We must lift up the cross because it’s the only message that will solve this world’s problems. If we talk about politics, we may get a new man in the White House, but it won’t change people’s hearts. All around us people carry a heavy weight of sin. They’re sick in their hearts from the burden they carry. You can see it in their eyes, read it in their faces, hear it in their voices. They long for something better and wonder how they can be free of their sin.

The cross of Christ is the only answer! When Jesus said, “I am the light of the world” and “I am the door,” He was speaking of the cross. You can’t go to heaven unless you enter by way of the cross! No wonder Paul gloried in the cross. It is God’s plan to save us from disaster.

Let me ask a personal question. What sin is keeping you from God today? Is it anger? Is it lust? Drunkenness? Is it adultery? Is it pride? Is it greed? A heart of unbelief? So, let me tell you the best news you’ve ever heard. It doesn’t matter what “your” sin is. It doesn’t matter how many sins you’ve piled up. It doesn’t matter how guilty you are. It doesn’t matter how bad you’ve been. It doesn’t matter how many skeletons rattle in your closet.

The cross is God’s answer to your deepest needs. It’s what theologians mean when they talk about the “finished work” of Jesus Christ. It’s not a slogan; it’s a profound spiritual truth. When Jesus cried “It is finished” (John 19:30), He meant that the penalty for all sin had been paid in full. What Jesus accomplished in His death was so awesome, so complete it could never be repeated, not even by Jesus himself. There’s nothing more God can do to save you. There is no Plan B because the death of Christ was more than enough.

At the cross we have the promise of peace and mercy. Aren’t they the longings of the human heart? They’re purchased at the cross, promised for the new creation. Peace and mercy are found in salvation and in Christ alone.

3. Paul carried the brand of Christ, 17-18. 

“From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen” (Galatians 7:17-18).

Literally, Paul carried the “brand marks” of Jesus. His body had scars from suffering for Christ. Paul saw his scars as signs of ownership that identified him as Jesus’ slave. Christ had bought him from the slave market of sin.

Do you want to be free from the pressure to perform? Free from worrying what others think? Be like Paul, boast about the cross, about what Christ has done for you. Because it’s only as you boast about the cross that you find peace and mercy in your life. If you want to be truly free, don’t seek to impress others with yourself. Instead, just be impressed with what Christ has done for you.

Paul had scars that marked him as being owned by Jesus. Do you belong to Jesus? Do others know it? The Bible says at salvation we no longer belong to ourselves but belong to Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Often we hear people refer to the crosses they have to bear, a cranky mother-in-law, a lousy golf swing, an overbearing boss. Personal disappointments aren’t the marks of Jesus. Personal sacrifices that involve suffering are. The marks of Jesus Paul refers to are tangible reminders of how he suffered for Christ for the glory of God and the advance of the gospel.

Do we have the marks of Jesus? Is our identification with Jesus, so vibrant it’s become costly? If we look at our bank accounts, would we see the marks of Jesus? If someone perused our calendar, and the way we prioritize our time, would they see the marks of Jesus? Or if someone talked to our friends or coworkers, would they testify of seeing Jesus in us?

Understand then because the Christian life is sacrificial, it will be painful. If it’s not, it probably isn’t Christian. Or at least not cross-shaped and patterned for Christ’s own life. The Jesus’ way is not a safe and sanitized life.

Why did Paul call them “the marks of Jesus”? He was implying that the scars on his body gave him a powerful point of contact with the wounds of Jesus.

Roman soldiers mutilated the back of Jesus. I suspect Paul was thinking about that every time the cat-of-nine-tails cut into his flesh. In Philippians 3:10 Paul expressed his life goal. That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death (Philippians 3:10). How many of us want to know Jesus and the power of His resurrection? Me too! How many of us will admit we also want to experience sharing in His suffering? Yet, it’s in suffering that we truly get to know Jesus.

So, Paul comes to the end of his letter and closes the way he began: Grace! Not the Law of Moses, but grace. Grace, not goodness or morality. He closes with, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen (Galatians 6:18). Nothing more needs to be said. That doxology says it all.

Conclusion

Adoniram Judson and his wife were the first American-born missionaries sent to a foreign field. They went to Burma and endured terrible hardships for Christ. For seven heartbreaking years they suffered hunger and other wants. Adoniram was thrown into Ava Prison, and for 17 months was subjected to inhuman treatment. As a result, for the rest of his life he carried the ugly marks made by the chains and iron shackles. Every night the fetters around his ankles would be lifted up and placed on a bamboo pole so that he slept with only his head and shoulders on the ground. When he went to prison, his wife was pregnant and so she was left alone in a hostile society to look out for herself and her child. Undaunted, upon his release, Judson asked for permission to enter another province where he might resume preaching the gospel. Burma’s ruler indignantly denied his request by saying, “My people are not fools enough to listen to anything that you might say, but I fear they might be impressed by your scars.”

Paul had the scars of Christ. Do you have scars for Jesus?

Two concluding thoughts…In our do-it-yourself society, salvation by grace is rejected. Our culture teaches we must earn our own way; hard work will get us where we want to go, anything worthwhile is achieved with lots of sweat.

Then we’re told in the Bible that the greatest prize of all begins, by simply believing in the sacrifice of another, the sacrifice of Christ. This message assaults a do-it-yourself mindset. But as Paul made so plain, the only thing we gain by working for our own salvation is being separated eternally from God.

In God’s plan the only way we are saved is through Christ’s finished work on the cross. Jesus achieved what we never can. He completely paid our sin debt to God. He’s provided for our release from the curse and demands of the law. He’s made it possible for us to be free to serve the Lord.

All we must do to receive these incredible benefits, is accept Christ by faith. Believe in Him. That’s all there is to it.

Have you put your trust in Him yet? If not, what are you waiting for? Heaven rather than hell can be your destiny if you’ll simply place your life in Christ’s hands. Please don’t put it off any longer.

This morning, are you ready to accept Christ as your personal Savior? The decision to come to Christ in faith is the most important decision that you’ll ever make. It carries not only eternal hope but significance for day-to-day living as well. If you haven’t made that decision, please make it today.