Well, this morning we come to the end of our journey through Paul's letter to the Galatian Christians. We're looking at Galatians chapter 6, verses 11 through 18. We're gonna focus primarily on verse 15, but for context, let's read together verses 11 through 18 as we begin. Galatians chapter 6, verses 11 through 18.
See with what large letters I'm 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. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, we indeed need You now. We need You to open our spiritual eyes and give us understanding and faith concerning the Word that we've just read. I pray that our time meditating on the passage before us today will yield the fruit of guarding us from falling into the ditch of legalism on the one hand and lawlessness on the other. Lord, help us to come away from our worship this morning with a greater assurance of and appreciation for the salvation that's ours in Christ. In whose name I pray.
Amen. Several years ago, I was reading a book that brought up an interesting point about the Christian's relationship to the Gospel. The point was that the Gospel is not just something for lost people to hear, unbelievers to hear. It's not as if you preach the Gospel to an unbeliever until they get saved, and after that they can just dismiss the Gospel and, you know, move on to the deeper, fuller truths of Christianity. No, Christians, people who already profess faith in Christ, need to hear and be reminded of and meditate on the Gospel. We need to hear Gospel truth time and time again because we aren't in heaven yet, and there's still plenty of flesh in us that kicks and screams at the notion of grace and of our need for mercy and of our inability to rescue ourselves from sin's stranglehold. The Church needs to fortify her confidence in the Gospel by hearing it and meditating on it and believing it anew every day.
So what we're going to do this morning is spend just a few moments meditating on the Gospel, on God's gracious work for sinners. As we've learned, Paul has written the letter that we call Galatians to Christians, believers, professing believers in the first century. It wasn't an evangelism tract for unbelievers. It was a letter for Christians, and in it, Paul gives a Gospel presentation.
You could call it the Gospel for Christians, and it concludes this Gospel-saturated letter with the words that we've just read. I want to highlight three simple points that Paul makes in verse 15 of this closing chapter of his letter, and then we're going to apply these points to our lives today. The first point is that religion will not make you righteous.
Religion will not make you righteous. Paul says it this way. Circumcision does not count for anything. Now, as we've learned, there was a specific heresy that was spreading in Galatia that prompted Paul's letter. It was the heresy of some false Jewish teachers who were telling the Christians in Galatia that if they wanted to be saved, they had to keep the Old Testament law with all of its types and shadows, the very types and shadows that Jesus fulfilled through his life, death, and resurrection. Now, one of these Old Testament shadows of Christ was the practice of circumcision. Circumcision, of course, was an obligation placed on Abraham and his descendants. It was a religious ritual that signified participation in the covenant that God made with Israel, but it was intended to be a temporary sign.
It pointed forward to Christ, and when Christ came, things changed. Circumcision was no longer a necessary or even an appropriate sign, and so it was done away with as a requirement for covenant participation, and we read about the early church abrogating, doing away with the requirement of circumcision in Acts 15. So when Paul discovered that there were professing Christians in Galatia who were embracing the idea that a religious ritual like circumcision was necessary for salvation, he couldn't just sit by and let it go unchecked. Christians were falling prey to legalism of their sort, and Paul needed them to know that circumcision counts for nothing. Now, we don't have false teachers running around the halls of Grace Church demanding faith in circumcision, but human nature has not changed.
Every generation has its own version of legalism. When Paul speaks of circumcision not counting as anything, he's using circumcision to refer really to any religious right that we may participate in. So what are some of the religious rights and privileges that we participate in? Well, our religious rights include things like baptism.
Baptism is a religious practice that we do, and in fact it would very much fall into the same category as circumcision for these early church believers. It's a sign of participation in the covenant community, a physical sign with a spiritual significance. Attending a worship service like this one is a religious right. It's a ritual that we observe as Christians that is a very tangible, visible demonstration of our faith.
Prayer is a religious right, an activity that believers practice on a regular basis as an integral part of their faith. Paul was saying that these religious practices, which are not evil in and of themselves, do not make us righteous. You can be baptized, you can come to church every Sunday, you can pray and still be lost, still be in your sin.
Why? Because circumcision counts for nothing. Now, maybe we should make this a little bit more broad because I suspect that we all understand that things like baptism and church attendance won't save us. Maybe there are some sort of second-tier religious rights that maybe we're more prone to placing our confidence in, a little more susceptible to thinking of in legalistic ways. Maybe some of us feel that we carry some clout with God because we're the ones who set the Christian example in our spheres of influence. We're known as the godly person in the room, at home, in schools, at work. Maybe our badge of acceptance with God has to do with our emotional response to God. When we worship Him or when we pray, our emotions can't help themselves. We're easily caught up in the moment when we talk about God or when we sing songs of praise to Him. Maybe for us, the religious ritual that we're depending on is our consistent heartfelt quiet times, times of devotion alone with God. Every morning for the last 20 years, you've read your Bible and prayed to the Lord.
Certainly that ought to carry some weight. Maybe your sense of assurance of salvation comes from a stellar track record of effective evangelism. Beloved, circumcision in this verse represents anything we do that we think makes God love us more. Anything we do that we think makes God love us more. And Paul says it counts for nothing. Religion, no matter how zealous or sincere or even necessary, because a lot of these things are good things, right, cannot make us righteous. But there's a second point Paul makes, and in many ways, I think this second point is even more applicable for believers today, at least in our culture. Paul's first point was that religion doesn't make you righteous. His second point is that avoiding religion will not make you righteous. Avoiding religion does not make us righteous. Paul says for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision. If circumcision is participation in religious practices, uncircumcision is excluding oneself from religious practices We generally don't seem to have a problem recognizing that being religious won't make anyone righteous. But what we often do with that truth is go to the opposite extreme, don't we? And we devalue religion altogether.
We may not say it this way, but we sometimes act like the less religious a person is in their spiritual walk, the more real and honest they must be, the more godly they must be. When we think like that, we're acting as if uncircumcision counts for something, but Paul says it doesn't. So what might uncircumcision represent? What does uncircumcision represent in today's landscape, this religious self-exclusion? Well, I think first it often shows up in the tendency to practice a very individualistic kind of Christianity. We could call it the Marlboro Man Christianity.
I'm gonna be my own man. I'm gonna do it myself, just me and God. We may hide it behind biblical statements like I want to be a Berean Christian and search for myself to see if these things are so, but sometimes I wonder if that kind of statement isn't just a smoke screen that we throw up to conceal a very unhealthy and in fact unbiblical individualism in our Christian walk. We want to keep a safe distance from anything that smacks of organized religion because we see it as perhaps diluting the authenticity of our walk with God, but then we subtly begin to put our confidence in our lack of participation in the group, in the covenant community. Paul says there's no benefit in that.
There's no advantage to or virtue in uncircumcision. It doesn't get you anywhere with God. Neglecting the assembly of believers or looking down on historic Christianity or not taking to heart the counsel and wisdom of fellow believers doesn't make you a more genuine believer or a more spiritual believer any more than devoutly practicing all of the external and visible religious rights of Christianity makes a person more acceptable to God. So if neither being religious nor avoiding religion makes us righteous, what does make us righteous? Let's look at our verse again. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Paul's third point then is that righteousness comes through regeneration.
Righteousness comes only when the Holy Spirit of God takes someone who is spiritually dead and makes them alive. The boys' bedroom in our previous house had some termite damage or something in the wall. I think termites had eaten away at the drywall from inside of the wall, and the wall had become very brittle, so whenever the boys would bump up a wall would bump up against the wall wrestling or horse playing, which seemed to be a common thing, little pieces of drywall would flake off, chip off. Periodically I would get some spacklin' and fill the cracks and paint the wall, but then a few weeks later there'd be more chips missing.
I was trying to cover the symptom instead of dealing with the root, and eventually I had to just tear out all the old drywall and put an entirely new piece in its place. People who are born in sin don't need to patch up their ruined lives with a little religion here or a little spirituality over there. No, they need a whole new life.
They need a miracle. They need to be remade from the inside out. The theological term for this process is called regeneration, new life, rebirth. When God regenerates a person, He does something supernatural in them that gives them life where there was once death. The Bible describes man's starting point in this life as one of spiritual deadness. We're all born dead to the things that please God. Listen to this description of man's heart prior to God's regenerating work in him.
Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 3. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. So man's starting point in this life in terms of his relationship to God is one of spiritual deadness. And if a person's relationship to God is to ever change, that state of spiritual deadness must change.
Dead people cannot respond. So this change from spiritual deadness to spiritual life is called regeneration, new life, new birth. And it's the first thing that God does to effect change in the life of a sinner. Ephesians 2, 4 and 5 goes on to say, But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Titus 3, 5 describes the same thing when it says, God saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, not because of our circumcision or uncircumcision, but according to his own mercy.
How? By the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. So the process by which an individual is made a new creation is called regeneration, and it's a work that God does, a work that takes someone who is spiritually dead, makes them spiritually alive.
Well, you would think then that a change this foundational would have a profound effect on a person, and in fact, it does. With this change comes the capacity to exercise saving faith in Christ, the capacity to repent or turn away from sin, the capacity to obey God. All of this comes as a result of regeneration. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 says, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. This new life that the Holy Spirit brings gives us new abilities, new passions, new desires, new capacities to love God and trust God and follow God. Ephesians 2 goes on to describe what God has planned for those whom he has regenerated.
Verse 10 says, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So a very prominent effect experientially of regeneration is this new desire and ability to obey God. Now, I want to go down a rabbit trail with you for just a minute because this idea of regeneration leading to obedience might create some confusion.
In fact, it often does in people's minds. I want us to ask, is this notion of regeneration that leads to obedience inconsistent with Paul's entire point in Galatians 6, 15? If Paul is trying to get across the point that keeping the rules doesn't save anyone, why are we talking about regeneration leading to an ability to keep the rules?
Is there an inconsistency here? Does salvation involve obedience or doesn't it? Is Paul speaking out of both sides of his mouth when he says on the one hand, circumcision won't get you anywhere, and on the other, we're created in Christ Jesus for good works, which is it? Is obedience necessary or isn't it?
Let me give you the answer, and then I want to try to explain it. The answer is this. Obedience is not necessary for justification, but obedience is necessary for salvation. Obedience is not necessary for justification, but it is necessary for salvation.
The danger we tend to run up against is thinking that just because something lacks the power to justify us, it is of no value, but this wrongly assumes that justification is the only thing. It assumes that justification is the ultimate blessing, the ultimate purpose of God in saving sinners, but it's not. We have been justified in order that God might sanctify us, make us holy, and we're sanctified in order that God might glorify us. That is usher us into his very presence one day as holy, sinless saints. So justification is just one link in the chain, a chain that will ultimately lead to our sinless perfection in the new heavens and the new earth, but that process begins now. Obedience to the revealed will of God is an obligation for Christians. The point of regeneration is that for the Christian who has been recreated, given a new nature, the obligation of obedience is something he delights to do rather than something he's merely compelled to do or forced to do. You know, it's very interesting that when Paul was writing to the church at Corinth and was addressing an entirely different problem there, he makes a very similar statement that he makes here in Galatians 6 and 15, but with a striking difference.
Listen to this. It's 1 Corinthians 7, 19. Paul says, for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. That's the Corinthians' instruction. The only way we can put these two verses together without seeing any inconsistency is by acknowledging that Paul is addressing two different issues. In Galatia, the issue had to do with a misunderstanding of justification, and so he said to the Galatians, it's not about keeping certain religious rules. It's about Christ giving you a new nature.
That's how you're justified. But in Corinth, the issue had to do with a misunderstanding of sanctification, and so he said to the Corinthians, it's not about keeping certain religious rules. It's about obeying God's rules. So Paul's not inconsistent.
He's not speaking out of both sides of his mouth. He simply recognizes that even believers are vulnerable to misunderstanding the salvation that's theirs in Christ. Sometimes we need to be reminded that circumcision won't get you saved. Religious rituals won't get you saved.
God has got to do something radical and miraculous in your heart. But other times, we need to be told that circumcision is not obedience. Obeying man-made rules is not the same thing as obeying God's rules. Even Christians need to hear the gospel.
Well, what's the point of all this? What difference should it make in our lives? I think to answer that question, it's helpful to remind ourselves what it was about the Christians in Galatia that made them susceptible to misunderstanding the gospel. And Paul actually highlights a couple of problems right here in the immediate context of Galatians 6. First of all, the false teachers in Galatia were afraid of being persecuted and looked down upon for believing the gospel.
In Galatians 6-12, Paul 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. When we're afraid of what others think, when we're fearful of being ridiculed and misunderstood or even persecuted for the sake of Christ, we're in danger of misapprehending the gospel. We've put ourselves in the position of taking our cue from other people's reaction to us rather than from the truth of God's Word. Meditating on the gospel and on what's at stake in eternity has a way, I think, of releasing us from the prison of what others think. Yes, it's true that all who desire to live godly will suffer persecution, and that's maybe a frightening reality to us, but it is equally true that if God is for us, who can be against us? So we don't need to fear man.
What can man really do to us? The Galatians feared man, and as a result were susceptible to misunderstanding the gospel. But there was a second issue influencing those in Galatia, causing them to misunderstand the gospel, and the second issue was pride, and we've seen this time and time again in the letter. They wanted to reserve some right to boast about their salvation. Verse 13 says, 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.
And this sort of pride is present in every human being. We are all prone to taking credit for things we had nothing to do with, things like the regenerating work of God's Spirit in us. God's grace is amazing, but God's grace demands that we die to ourselves, that we admit circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. It demands that we are totally and utterly dependent on God's ability and willingness to recreate us into new creatures. So fear and pride both make us susceptible to embracing a misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This morning, as we seek to correct our own imbalances and extremes, let's do a little bit of self-evaluation. Let's compare ourselves for a moment to the Galatians. In Galatia, people were running to rule-keeping, legalism, to avoid persecution, and to gain grounds for boasting in themselves. In other words, circumcision was the in-thing, keeping the rules was the expectation. In our day, it seems to me that people run not so much to rule-keeping as to lawlessness to avoid persecution and to have grounds for boasting.
Think about it. Our culture has a natural bent, I think, against restraint. In general, we favor freedom and license over moderation. If you want to fit in, if you don't want to be ridiculed, you'd better loosen up. To be acceptable, relevant, admired, part of the in-crowd in our day usually demands setting aside taboos, throwing off restraint. Moderation and discipline are thought of as outdated and trying to live a virtuous life comes across as being inauthentic or disingenuous. Our culture isn't pushing for stricter rules like Paul's Galatia. It's pushing for no rules.
Don't tell me what to do. Don't limit my freedom. So in our cultural context, it would appear that uncircumcision is the in-thing. But now notice that both the Galatians and we are prone to worry about what people think of us. They live strict lives in order to be cool.
We live carefree lives in order to be cool, but we both want to be cool. This is fear of what others think. Both the Galatians and we are prone to boasting.
They bragged about their strict disciplined lives. We brag about our freedom from the yoke of hypocritical, old-fashioned morals, but in doing so, we're both boasting about our own virtue. The point of Galatians 6.15 is that a biblical view of regeneration corrects both the fear of what others think and the pride of boasting about our own virtue. God's work of regeneration in us frees us first from the fear of what others think in that it so fundamentally changes our nature that we're no longer imprisoned to the opinions of others. People who are spiritually alive are not intimidated by people who are spiritually dead.
At least they shouldn't be. We often sing that wonderful hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God, which concludes with this liberating confession of faith. Let goods and kindred go. This mortal life also, the body they may kill, but God's truth abideth still. Kings are not scared of paupers. Eagles don't feel threatened by chickens, and regenerate children of God don't cower before the gods in the opinions of this age.
If God is for us, who can be against us? Regeneration then fixes our fear of man problem. But it also fixes our boasting problem. Our pride problem. To understand regeneration is to understand that God's grace in me is something that's been done to me, not something I've done for myself.
And this brings an end to our boasting. I can't brag about something God has done in me. Understanding regeneration frees me up to obey without being legalistic. And it frees me up from looking down on others who obey better than I do.
It delivers us from the fear of man, and it delivers us from pride. So I want to ask you today, are you caught in a self-righteous trap of trying to please God in your own effort? You're like the hamster on the wheel, forever running but never getting anywhere. Folks, the gospel, when it's understood correctly, delivers us from this trap. You can stop striving because circumcision avails for nothing. Are you caught in a fear trap of trying to gain this world's approval and acceptance? You, too, are like that hamster on the wheel, the wheel of man's approval. And again, the biblical gospel delivers you from living in the fear of what man thinks.
You can stop striving because uncircumcision avails for nothing. So what does avail? What does count? Church, what counts is the work of God's grace in your life that can only be accomplished by God Himself. Paul ends in verse 16 with these words, And as for all who walk by this rule... And what rule is that? It's the rule of absolute dependence on the only one who can give new life, the only one who can make you into a new creation. As for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and the Israel of God. I think the essential message of the book of Galatians is rest.
Rest for the legalist, rest for the lawless. Stop striving and rest in the work that you could not have done anyway, the work that Jesus has already done perfectly and completely. Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, but He washed it white as snow.
Let's pray. Lord God, we cannot have enough quiet times or evangelize enough people or sing enough hymns to make ourselves worthy of Your love. We cannot be real enough or authentic enough, sincere enough to make You have pity on us, because at the end of the day, all we are, if left to ourselves, is self-absorbed rebels who are caught dead in our own sins. But Jesus, You came and You did everything that circumcision and uncircumcision could not do. You did everything that our attempts at obedience could not do. Where we were hypocrites, You were authentic and real. Where we were full of pride and self-sufficiency, You humbled Yourself in an unimaginable way and then credited that humility to us. And now we can come to God not as debtors to a creditor, but as children to a father. Oh God, may these truths deliver us from boasting about our own goodness. May they deliver us from the prison of fearing what others think of us. May they flood this church with boldness that's tempered with humility and with a humility that's tempered with confident faith. You are an amazing Savior to save the likes of us, and we thank You in Jesus' name. Amen.
