The Cross – Our Only Cause to Boast

Transcript

GRM 918
10/10/2004
The Cross—Our Only Cause to Boast
Galatians 6:14
Gil Rugh


I thought it would be fitting this evening since we’ve just observed the communion together, to look at what Paul wrote about the cross of Christ in Galatians chapter 6. Turn if you would in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 6. I mentioned in the context of the communion service, it is sad to see the church at Corinth being rebuked over the conducting of this memorial time, the meal that they had in connection with this memorial service. As Paul writes to the Galatian churches there is another tragedy taking place, and that is the very issue of the cross of Christ and its central role in God’s work of salvation is being undermined. The churches in Galatia are experiencing the impact of false teachers and false doctrine that is undermining the truth of the message of the cross of Christ. It serves as a strong reminder and warning to us as the church of Jesus Christ today how careful we must be for we are easily moved away from that which is foundational to everything. If you are confused on the cross, what is there? What do we have to offer to a lost world? Upon what are we basing our lives and our hope for eternity?

In chapter 6 Paul concludes this, which is generally recognized as the most harsh of his letters, the most severe. Began in the first chapter by speaking of those who are preaching a different kind of gospel than he preached being cursed to hell. Paul is worked up about this issue and, I take it, worked up in the Spirit because he goes on. He says I don’t care if an angel from heaven preaches any other gospel. If they do preach another gospel they’ll be cursed to hell. Such a basic foundational issue that anyone who is in error on this is in danger of being cursed to hell. How can the churches of Galatia be confused? You say well we may have differences of opinion on some things, but they are confused on the cross and the finality of its work.

Paul in verses 11 and following, verses 11-13 in particular, mentions three things that motivated the false teachers. I’ll just mention them to you before we look at the cross. He said these false teachers wanted to look good, in verse 12 the first part of the verse, those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh. They wanted to look good, and they were concerned about what other people thought, they wanted to be respected. Now what they are doing is not denying directly the work of Jesus Christ. These are Judaizers, remember. Acts chapter 15 speaks about them in a conference held in Jerusalem. They were Jews, and its strange but its insightful to see how the devil works. They were Jews who claimed to believe that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel and that His death on the cross and His resurrection were for the provision of salvation. Now that was a costly step for a Jew. But they didn’t stop there. They were willing to declare that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, He suffered and died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin but that was not sufficient. In addition to that you must also be circumcised. They had put into practice the law of Moses. You see they had left their old way, but they had not left their old way. They were willing to step out of the mainstream of Judaism in the denial of Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah, part ways with the mainstream of Judaism in declaring that the death and resurrection of Christ was part of God’s provision for dealing with sin. But they wanted to bring Judaism in by saying the work of Christ on the cross was not sufficient in and of itself. It was part of the plan. Now circumcision and the keeping of the law completes the plan. Paul said that is not the same kind of gospel that I preach at all.

Now you see how deceptive and deceitful it can be because the danger for the church is what? They focus on what they agree with. Look, at least we can agree that Jesus is the Messiah, that He suffered and died and was raised from the dead and you must believe in Him. Let’s focus on what we can agree on, and in a pagan world that would be a real temptation. But Paul says those kinds of teachers who add to that message of the finished work of Christ are cursed to hell. If you commit yourself to that following you’ve severed yourself from grace. That is not grace at all, that cannot be a way of salvation.

But these people wanted to look good. Because here you don’t deny what the Jews liked. There could be a certain acceptance that you’re preaching circumcision, you’re preaching the Mosaic Law. They wanted to look good. Secondly, the last part of verse 12, they wanted to avoid persecution. They try to compel you to be circumcised simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. The real offensive thing in the message of the cross is not preaching that Jesus Christ died for sin. I mean there are many people today as you are aware Protestants and Catholics alike say fine. It’s seeing that that way is so narrow and exclusive that if you add any of your good works, your baptism, your church membership, your good deeds to that message you have defiled it and you are condemned to hell. They wanted to avoid persecution, take the edge off the message. To the Jews they’re hearing what they want to hear. They preach circumcision and keep the law of Moses, that’s what we like. To the Christians we preach Christ crucified, that’s what we like to hear, and they avoided persecution.

They wanted to be successful. Verse 13, they wanted to brag about success. For those who are circumcised do not even keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh. It’s a conquest for them. They won you over to Judaism. You haven’t been won to Christ; you’ve been won to Judaism.

These false teachers came into the church and they’re really preying on Christians by adding to the message of Christ and really trying to turn these people back to Judaism. Now Paul is going to draw a contrast between these false teachers and himself. He’s going to pick up the word boast as the connecting point. They want to boast in your flesh. Really, they got you to accept their system. You are a conquest for them.

But verse 14, there’s a contrast to me. We don’t translate it in our English Bibles but the first two words in the Greek text of verse 14 are but to me. The first word in verse 14 in the Greek text is temoi, to me but, putting that stress of the contrast to me. But to me may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. But to me. Let me step up and give you my testimony of where I stand. May it never be. That’s an expression, makoinoito, King James has it God forbid. May it never be is the literal translation. It expresses, though, in its form an abhorrence of what has been said or suggested. This thought is totally abhorrent and inconceivable to me that I should boast in anything except the cross of Christ. He’s the cause of my glorying, and He alone. God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This issue of boasting and you know we like to think how could the churches at Galatia get confused on this? How could this be an issue? But is it not an issue for us today? How big is your church, how many people are coming, what’s your budget? All these things we like to boast about. They are marks of success. You say I don’t want to be like these teachers he condemns. They wanted to be successful, they wanted to have something to boast about. Paul says I’m not in that. You know we find the growth of the early church from 3,000 to 5,000, and in the early portion of the book of Acts showing how the gospel spread. But you know we just don’t have any good figures given. How big was the church at Corinth which we referred to in our communion service? We don’t have any idea. Paul wrote two letters to them and never gave us any numbers. What about the churches in Galatia? I don’t know. The church at Colossae, Ephesus, Thessalonica, the seven churches of Asia that Jesus addressed in the opening chapters of Revelation? I don’t know. Why? Because that’s not the important thing. Now again we desire people to be saved, we’re willing to beg them to be reconciled to God. We are delighted that they come to know the Lord. I’m not minimizing that at all. But we need to be careful. We easily slide over. We say I wouldn’t want to be like the Judaizers. But we make our own adjustments. Paul says I only have one cause of boasting, and that’s the cross of Christ.

Back up to Romans chapter 3, Romans chapter 3. You see the unfolding of this. Same kind of issue Paul is dealing with, we’re going to be picking up with verse 21. How do sinful people, how can they be brought into a right relationship with God? How can they be forgiven for their sin? The Jews thought it would be through keeping the law. They tried to tell the Gentiles that there is no hope for you to be saved unless you keep the law. The Gentiles had their own ideas, just like people do today. In verse 21 Paul wants to talk now, in Romans 3, about the apart from the law righteousness of God. God has manifested His righteousness, but it doesn’t come to you through trying to keep the Ten Commandments, trying to keep the Mosaic law. It’s the righteousness, verse 22 of God through faith in Jesus Christ. For all who have faith, all who believe, same word we’re dealing with, faith and believe, nouns and verbs but the same basic Greek word. There is no distinction. The righteousness of God comes by faith for all Jews and Gentiles alike. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned. The wages of sin is death. That’s true of Jews, that’s true of Gentiles. We’ve all sinned and falls short of the glory of God, His perfection. Being justified as a gift by His grace, and you see the piling up of words. There is a certain redundancy. We are justified, declared righteous, as a gift, something you don’t deserve or earn. By His grace, something you don’t earn or deserve. It’s a gift and that undeserved gift was given by His grace, His undeserved favor. It’s through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, and He was the one displayed publicly as a satisfaction, a propitiation, in His blood through faith. The righteousness of God, the demands of a holy God are satisfied through the payment of Jesus Christ, His blood through faith. He died, when I believe in Him, I am propitiated, God is propitiated, He is satisfied, I am cleansed.

At the end of verse 26, this is done this way so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Those two things are absolutely essential, that God would both be just and the justifier. God cannot be just and overlook sin, just decide that it’s okay. He has to both be just and the justifier, maintain His righteousness while He provides righteousness for us. That He can do through the one who has faith in Christ, why? Because the penalty has been paid, Christ has died. He is the God of the Jews and the Gentiles because there is only one God, verse 30. Paul’s conclusion in verse 27 was where then is boasting? It is excluded, there is no room for me to exalt. The Jews were proud of what they did, their works. They looked down on the Gentiles who were not nearly so good, who did not practice the self-denial and the discipline that many of the Jews did, did not attempt to please God by keeping His law. They had things to brag about, but not before God. Boasting is excluded because salvation is by grace through faith. It’s a gift of God’s grace, given not because we worked but because we believed, and God gave it in grace.

Come back then to Galatians chapter 6. God forbid that I should boast because boasting is excluded, except there is one area where Paul will boast. God forbid, may it never be that I would boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know the dramatic impact of that statement is lost on us today. The cross has been trivialized. People wear it as a piece of jewelry--the most pagan, unbelieving people, guilty of vile, open acts of sin, and you’ll see them with a chain with a cross around their neck. What are they thinking? The cross has been trivialized. For us to say we glory in the cross fine. A lot of people do, and rock stars wear their jewelry and with all their necklaces you’ll see a big, shiny cross. They’ll go to a jewelry store and pick it up and nobody says oh you must be a religious person. No, why? Because everybody buys it. But it wasn’t that way.

Let me read you what one writer wrote. He said, it is difficult after 16 centuries and more during which the cross has been a sacred symbol, to realize the unspeakable horror and loathing which the very mention or thought of the cross provoked in Paul’s day. The word cross was unmentionable in polite, Roman society. Even when one was being condemned to death by crucifixion the sentence used was a sort of euphemism. Hang him on the unlucky tree. They didn’t even talk about the cross. It was one of those vulgar words that would not be used in polite society. We don’t talk about it, it’s too disgusting, it’s too revolting, it’s vile, it’s a despicable way to die. Now today something of that has been lost and for us as believers, we come to appreciate it, but the impact in Paul’s day as he spoke that I boast in the cross. What? I mean I would prefer you don’t even use the word. This is what I glory in and the only cause I have for boasting. This is what the Judaizers were attempting to avoid—the stigma of the cross.

Back up to chapter 2 of Romans verse 21. Paul makes a startling statement, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. You see people who are preaching the necessity of keeping the law plus believe in Christ are nullifying God’s grace, they’re saying really Christ died needlessly. Because as soon as you add works, you’re saying the work of Christ was not sufficient. We have a failure to appreciate this even in the evangelical world. We don’t understand the huge chasm that separates us from everyone else, Protestant and Roman Catholic alike. It’s not enough to talk about salvation by grace through faith. There must be salvation by grace alone through faith alone. The Judaizers talked about salvation by faith, they’re part of the Jerusalem Conference in Acts 15. They are there with Paul and the others, not denying that salvation was be faith in Christ, but denying it was by faith in Christ alone. That becomes the crucial issue.

Look at chapter 6 of Galatians verse 12. We referred to this earlier. The last part of the verse, they want to compel you to be circumcised so they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. The cross stands at the heart of what God has done in Christ, satisfying the demands of righteousness. You cannot preach the cross of Christ without preaching sin. You cannot preach the cross of Christ without preaching that we are under condemnation. What’s the significance of the cross?

Back up to chapter 3 verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, according to the book of Deuteronomy. We’re talking about a curse. God forbid that I should glory in the cross, and it is a cursed way to die. Jesus Christ died there to become a curse for us. I cannot present the truth of Jesus Christ, the message of the cross without presenting the message of the reality of sin, guilt and condemnation. That’s what the cross is all about. The wages of sin is death. What is it about? The evangelical church is presenting its own form of prosperity gospel. We invite people to come to Christ, He’ll bring happiness to your life, He’ll bring joy to your marriage, He’ll bring……… There’s an element, He brings happiness and peace and joy. But you come to the cross, you’re coming to a place of cursing. You’re coming to the cross because why? Jesus Christ became a curse for you. Why? All I want to do is be happy. You need to be forgiven. He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him, II Corinthians chapter 5 says. There is no presenting the cross of Christ without presenting the awfulness of the cross. That’s where Jesus Christ became a curse.

Sometime when you’re having lunch with someone and you see they have a piece of jewelry on that has a cross, a charm or a necklace or something, ask them, I see you’re wearing a cross. What does that mean to you? Let them tell you why. Then you have an opportunity to share with them, do you know what the cross really meant? Do you know what the significance of the cross is? Do you know how terrible that is? Do you know what that cross you’re wearing says? It says you are a sinner condemned to an eternal hell. That’s what it really means. That cross you’re wearing around your neck; do you know what it’s saying? You are a sinner under God’s condemnation, cursed and doomed. I just thought it was pretty. No, that cross also tells you there is one hope for you because the reason we find the cross important and significant is the Son of God came and died on that cross. They are wearing a sign of their own condemnation if they don’t believe in Christ. The Son of God became a curse, but for them it’s a piece of jewelry. They don’t understand the significance of the cross. If it’s no better for those who don’t do that but they’re trusting Christ plus their baptism. That’s a denial of the cross. God forbid that I should glory except in the cross. I Peter 2:24 says He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross. What’s the cross all about? Sin, its curse, its penalty, and the Son of God stepping in to be my substitute, to take my place, to pay my penalty.

Turn back to I Corinthians chapter 1. We want to present the gospel to people today without the offense of the cross. It is not possible. I Corinthians chapter 1 verse 17, Paul writing, for Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech. Why? So that the cross of Christ would not be made empty, void. What a terrible, terrible indictment that Paul would have preached the gospel in such a way that the real message of the cross would have been nullified. How could that have happened? Well, if he had stood up and said you don’t have to believe that Christ died on the cross to be saved, if he had added human wisdom to the message concerning Christ and His death. That would have made it null and void. For the word of the cross is foolishness. We’ve noted before that word translated foolishness; we carry over in English is moron. It’s stupidity, moronic. The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. That is the difficulty of the cross. That is why those false teachers of Galatia wanted to be thought well of. Wanted to be viewed as successful. That does not happen when you make yourself a fool and become an emblem of stupidity, because you preach the cross of Christ. So, to avoid that embarrassment, we can’t deny the cross, but we want to embellish it. We’ve learned ways to be more effective, and one of the ways we can be more effective is not to concentrate on a message of sin and condemnation and hell, which attracts no one. We have these clever little statements; you attract more with honey than you do ………… What’s that got to do with anything? We’re talking about the cross of Christ, we understand what that is. I mean it is a repulsive message in that sense, because it’s a message I’m cursed. Who wants to hear it?

Let me talk to you about the message of the cross. Can I really talk about the cross and not talk about the curse? What’s the cross about? He became a curse. Any wonder the world says that’s foolishness. I believe we all are making our own way; my religion is as good as your religion; my beliefs are as good……. Paul tells the Corinthians; this is serious business. Look at verse 23 of I Corinthians 1, we preach Christ crucified. The Jews want a sign, the Greeks want wisdom, we don’t give either one of them what they want. We preach Christ crucified. To the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness.

How are you going to build a church? I mean, you want to go to Paul’s church growth conference? Let me help you out. I want to share with you something which will make all the Jews stumble that come to your church and make all the non-Jews that might be potential to come to your church think you’re stupid. Paul says I have one message—we preach Christ crucified.

Chapter 2 verse 2. Verse 1 of chapter 2, when I came to you brethren I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. Oh, I can’t share the gospel, I just don’t have a way with words, I’m just not good at talking to people. Well, you’re just like Paul then. He said I didn’t come to you with superiority of speech or wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God. I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Do you know Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Then you know everything you need to know to speak to the most educated person in the world. Don’t get caught up, how would I present the gospel to them? Present it to them the same way you present it to anyone else—the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Don’t take the power out of the message by trying to mix it with human wisdom and think we’ve been clever. Everybody comes, everybody likes it. I determine to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

This cancels out all boasting. This is the way God has done it and that’s what Paul talked about in verses 26, 27, 28. God chose the nobodies, the people that seem like they don’t have any potential, the people that don’t seem to have the kind of abilities and brilliance, that doesn’t mean there are no brilliant people saved, no smart people saved. But that’s not the pattern that God is using, because even those people have to be humbled to the point that what they present is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. All of this is verse 29 of chapter 1, so that no man may boast before God. Let’s face it, there is no room, there is no jockeying for position here. The problem with the cross is it’s totally humbling, totally humiliating. I’m nothing but a hell-deserving, hell-bound sinner. Can’t make you feel good about yourself, can’t build your self-esteem. When this is all done there’ll be no room for boasting. That’s what people don’t like about the cross, it is humbling. There is one room for boasting and only one area of boasting—the cross. I boast in my God and what He has done, the marvelous grace He has bestowed in providing His Son to be the Savior.

Turn back to the book of Jeremiah, put so eloquently and clearly by Jeremiah in chapter 9. This is not new material that Paul is sharing. The clarity of the cross obviously is something that is not seen so clearly. Isaiah 53 presented it with a clarity of the message of the cross. But the fact that there was never, salvation has always been by grace through faith, there was never any room for boasting on man’s part. Look at Jeremiah chapter 9 verse 23, thus says the Lord, let not a wise man boast of his wisdom and let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not a rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts, boast of this—that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth. For I delight in these things, declares the Lord. There’s room for only one place of boasting, and that is boasting in the Lord, who He is. How honored I am by His grace to know Him. That doesn’t even give me room to boast, because I know Him by His grace and salvation that was bestowed on me as a gift. You know I can’t even say, look how valuable I am, how much worth I have to God—He had His Son die for me. No, the marvelous thing about His grace is that He would have His Son die for one such as me, totally undeserving, totally unworthy.

This is Paul’s testimony. Go to Philippians chapter 3, it’s after Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians chapter 3. We’re not going to do the whole of Paul’s testimony here, but you’ll note in verse 7, whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things. Count them but rubbish, dung, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. Everything else, all that I had accomplished, all that I had done, all that I had acquired—all had to go on the dung heap. I don’t count any of that a loss, because I have Christ. We see that attitude. One put it this way. The truth is that we cannot boast in ourselves and in the cross simultaneously. 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.

Come back to Galatians 6. God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. That’s what happens to the cross of Christ. When I believed in Him, I was crucified with Christ, the world was crucified to me, I to the world. This world system, its values, its orientation is alienated from God, what John described in His first epistle that all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. When we believed in Christ there came a total break with the world, its way of thinking, its power, its influence. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still attempt to draw me, but its power over me has been broken. We’ve been made new in Christ, we’ve been crucified, the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. That word, the world has been crucified, that verb is a perfect passive, perfect tense—something happened in the past and its results continue. I’ve been crucified with Christ. That changed me forever, changed my relationship to the world forever. That’s why Paul could look at all the things the world values and he lost, when he came to Christ, he said they’re all rubbish, none of those things are worth anything. Christ is worth everything to me.

Here’s what another person wrote, Paul leaves his readers in no doubt as to the wholeheartedness with which he gave himself to the crucified Christ. His acceptance of the crucified Christ was not simply an interesting episode, it was a death to a whole way of life and a rising to a new mode of existence. That’s what true salvation is. Paul fond of this picture of crucifixion. In this verse the world is crucified; in chapter 5 verse 24 of Galatians, now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Romans 6:6, the old man is crucified, which is the same thing as the flesh referred to in Galatians 5:24. Through the death of Christ the devil is rendered powerless in Hebrews 2:14. The cross of Christ is the focal point of our justification and our sanctification. It changes everything. Death does that. The cross of Christ is the focal point of everything for us as God’s people, because in that cross we have found salvation. In that cross, strange as it seems, we have found life. For I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Earlier in Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, the life which I now have is the life of Christ in me.

That’s the message that we can identify with Paul. Is it true for us that everything the world has to offer, all that the world would hold as important and valuable, we can say it is nothing to me. Christ is everything. I’m not ashamed of the cross, Paul wasn’t ashamed. Am I ashamed, am I embarrassed, does my life evidence there is a person who has made a break with the world? What happened to them, they’re not the same person? Usually, the world will look at it, I like the old one better. Because we’ve been made new in Christ. But isn’t it marvelous to have that new life? That’s the power of the cross, that’s what we glory in, and that is what we have to present to the world. Let me tell you about the cross, let me tell you why the cross is important to you, why you ought to be interested in the cross. Do you know what the cross stands for? Do you know what it meant? Do you know what it means to you today? The cross is their only hope, it’s our only hope. Thus, God forbid that we should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the cross of Jesus Christ. Father, while we talk about it, while our hearts are thrilled with the privilege of glorying and boasting in that cross, Lord in our hearts and minds we are grieved to realize how often we are ashamed, embarrassed by the message of the cross. Even in the ministry of our church we are sometimes embarrassed. We like to present a message that is more appealing, more interesting, more inviting, more soothing. Yet, Lord, the message that is the most soothing, is the most wonderful, the most beautiful is the message of the curse of the cross, because in the cross we have salvation. Focus our hearts and minds on the significance of the cross. Give us boldness, a singleness of focus in our lives and in our testimony that others might hear the message of the glory of the cross, why it is the sole cause of our boasting and glorying, why it is the sole hope of the lost world. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.