WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.660 Well, if you would open your Bibles with me this morning to the book of Galatians chapter 6. 2 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:12.210 Galatians chapter 6. 3 00:00:12.210 --> 00:00:34.000 I will begin reading in verse 11 and read to the end. 4 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:39.620 God’s holy and inerrant word. 5 00:00:39.620 --> 00:00:46.080 See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. 6 00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:58.120 Those who desire to make a good showing in the flesh try to compel you to be circumcised, simply so that they will not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. 7 00:00:58.120 --> 00:01:11.540 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. 8 00:01:11.540 --> 00:01:24.200 But 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. 9 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:31.600 For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. 10 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:39.680 And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. 11 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:46.720 From now on, let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear in my body the bond marks of Jesus. 12 00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:50.580 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. 13 00:01:50.580 --> 00:01:52.740 Amen. 14 00:01:52.740 --> 00:01:56.260 Let’s ask God to bless his holy word. 15 00:01:56.260 --> 00:02:04.600 Father, we thank you for the richness of your grace in Christ Jesus and your wonderful love for us that you have expressed on the cross. 16 00:02:04.600 --> 00:02:26.860 We thank you, Father, that this morning when we reflect especially on the resurrection of Christ, demonstrates your infinite power and it demonstrates the truth that took place a few days earlier on that Friday when Jesus Christ suffered for us. 17 00:02:26.860 --> 00:02:35.460 We ask, Lord Jesus, Heavenly Father, that you teach us through the work of your son by the power of your spirit. 18 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:43.540 Father, that you would teach us some of the grace that we have received. 19 00:02:43.540 --> 00:02:54.140 Help us to be able to see that day with more clarity, to understand the work that you have accomplished, and help us, Father, to know you better. 20 00:02:54.140 --> 00:03:03.860 We pray, Father, that you teach us who you are, that you guide us into your truth, and that you bless us as we study today. 21 00:03:03.860 --> 00:03:07.760 Open your word to us, we pray, in the name of our Savior. 22 00:03:07.760 --> 00:03:09.660 Amen. 23 00:03:09.660 --> 00:03:16.020 I will read verse 14 again in the King James. 24 00:03:16.020 --> 00:03:18.280 I stumbled into it as I was reading accidentally. 25 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:20.290 I am sorry. 26 00:03:20.290 --> 00:03:33.760 But Galatians 6:14 says, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” 27 00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:41.440 In order to understand this verse, we really need to understand why this book is written. 28 00:03:41.440 --> 00:03:45.420 The Apostle Paul had ministered to the people in the region of Galatia. 29 00:03:45.420 --> 00:03:53.280 This letter is going out to the Galatians, and that is not to one church, that is a series of churches. 30 00:03:53.280 --> 00:04:08.400 On Paul’s first missionary journey, he took the gospel message to them, and through much suffering, through much persecution that he endured, he brought the gospel to them and people came to faith in Jesus Christ. 31 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:10.220 They formed churches. 32 00:04:10.220 --> 00:04:14.940 They were true to his gospel. 33 00:04:14.940 --> 00:04:17.760 Time has intervened. 34 00:04:17.760 --> 00:04:31.120 In that time that has taken place, a group of people have come to these people, to these churches in Galatia, and they have begun to teach a false gospel . 35 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:41.000 A gospel that mixes Jewish law with salvation, with the teaching of salvation. 36 00:04:41.000 --> 00:05:04.400 To get an understanding of the book, go back to the first chapter and let me read verses 3 and 4 to you, so that you can see how this book unfolds and so we can appreciate the verse and the words that I want to call attention to a little better. 37 00:05:04.400 --> 00:05:31.700 In Galatians 1, verses 3, 4 and 5, it says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. 38 00:05:31.700 --> 00:05:33.820 Amen.” 39 00:05:33.820 --> 00:05:37.660 That forms, those are not just an opening sentence. 40 00:05:37.660 --> 00:05:38.760 It is an opening sentence. 41 00:05:38.760 --> 00:05:42.260 It is the salutation to this letter. 42 00:05:42.260 --> 00:05:43.960 But it is far more than that. 43 00:05:43.960 --> 00:05:49.900 It gives the message that he is going to be talking about through this entire book. 44 00:05:49.900 --> 00:05:52.300 The book breaks down according to this. 45 00:05:52.300 --> 00:05:57.080 First of all, Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins. 46 00:05:57.080 --> 00:06:00.720 That is the doctrine of justification . 47 00:06:00.720 --> 00:06:04.020 We are justified through the work of Christ. 48 00:06:04.020 --> 00:06:09.280 Secondly, so that he might rescue us from this present evil age. 49 00:06:09.280 --> 00:06:16.820 So the first half of the book deals with our justification only through the blood of Jesus Christ. 50 00:06:16.820 --> 00:06:36.160 The second half of the book deals with our sanctification, which comes about completely and only because of the work of Christ and what he has done for us on the cross, what is accomplished by the life that we gain because of what Jesus did on the cross of Christ. 51 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:45.680 As we get to this end, he underscores this truth. 52 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:54.620 People had come to this church, these churches, and they had said, “It is a wonderful thing to believe in Jesus. 53 00:06:54.620 --> 00:06:57.520 In fact, it is necessary for you to believe in Jesus. 54 00:06:57.520 --> 00:07:03.580 You cannot be saved apart from believing in Jesus. 55 00:07:03.580 --> 00:07:09.640 But in order to be saved, you also need to be keeping the law. 56 00:07:09.640 --> 00:07:13.680 You need to adhere to the Mosaic law. 57 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:18.620 Believing in Jesus, you become a Jew and you need to keep all the laws of the Jews.” 58 00:07:18.620 --> 00:07:22.000 That was their idea. 59 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:34.580 Secondly, “The way we are made right with God, the way we are made right with God is through our obedience to God’s, to these Old Testament laws and practices. 60 00:07:34.580 --> 00:07:38.060 We have something to boast about. 61 00:07:38.060 --> 00:07:46.260 We have something to glory in before God if we are obedient to the law of Moses.” 62 00:07:46.260 --> 00:07:49.820 That is the teaching that they have. 63 00:07:49.820 --> 00:07:56.340 They said, “Your children must be circumcised in order to be right with God.” 64 00:07:56.340 --> 00:08:03.550 The Old Testament practice of circumcision had to be practiced with the sons, the people in the Galatian church. 65 00:08:03.550 --> 00:08:08.360 That is what they are teaching. 66 00:08:08.360 --> 00:08:25.960 At the end of this book, after dealing with this group of people in extremely harsh ways, Paul sees this false gospel as a terribly ugly thing, and he makes that clear through the book. 67 00:08:25.960 --> 00:08:29.840 He explains the motivation of these people. 68 00:08:29.840 --> 00:08:33.160 Why do they want you to be circumcised? 69 00:08:33.160 --> 00:08:38.560 Why do they want you to be converted to their way of thinking? 70 00:08:38.560 --> 00:08:45.280 He points out that even though they are talking all this about the law of Moses, they are not keeping it. 71 00:08:45.280 --> 00:08:47.660 They cannot keep it perfectly. 72 00:08:47.660 --> 00:08:49.060 They offend it. 73 00:08:49.060 --> 00:08:55.380 Earlier in Galatians , he says, “If you offend the law, if you break the law, then you are under the curse of the law. 74 00:08:55.380 --> 00:09:01.080 You are under the judgment of the law.” 75 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:03.020 He says, “They want this. 76 00:09:03.020 --> 00:09:04.120 They want your conversion. 77 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:13.720 They want to see your sons circumcised because then they have you as a convert that they can present before God as something to glory in. 78 00:09:13.720 --> 00:09:15.440 Look what we did, Lord. 79 00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:18.550 Look at all these converts that we have in your name.” 80 00:09:18.550 --> 00:09:21.600 That is the idea. 81 00:09:21.600 --> 00:09:24.660 Something to boast about. 82 00:09:24.660 --> 00:09:27.520 Let’s look at verse 14 again. 83 00:09:27.520 --> 00:09:33.680 “But may it never be that I would boast, that I would glory. 84 00:09:33.680 --> 00:09:48.500 May it never be that I would glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world.” 85 00:09:48.500 --> 00:10:01.580 What I want to do today, I will mention the resurrection at the beginning and maybe a little at the end, but I want us to look back to the cross of Jesus Christ this morning. 86 00:10:01.580 --> 00:10:10.280 The resurrection demonstrates that what happened at the cross in those dark hours is true. 87 00:10:10.280 --> 00:10:13.180 What happened actually happened. 88 00:10:13.180 --> 00:10:18.720 It is real, and we know it is real because he lives, as we were singing. 89 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:21.900 I almost did not want to preach after we sang those hymns. 90 00:10:21.900 --> 00:10:24.620 It was time to go home, it felt like to me. 91 00:10:24.620 --> 00:10:27.440 The whole thing, the message is accomplished. 92 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:41.520 What a glorious thing to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the hope we have in him, and the love that he has shown us on the cross and his resurrected life which we have received. 93 00:10:41.520 --> 00:10:48.740 I think it is important for us to think about this, think about the cross in a different way. 94 00:10:48.740 --> 00:10:57.960 We glory in the cross of Christ because through it we find forgiveness of sins, and that is wonderful. 95 00:10:57.960 --> 00:11:05.840 Usually, when I come to the cross and I am thinking about it, I am thinking about myself, and that is not a bad thing in this sense. 96 00:11:05.840 --> 00:11:07.780 It is not bad. 97 00:11:07.780 --> 00:11:09.400 But there is more here. 98 00:11:09.400 --> 00:11:11.480 There is more here for us. 99 00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:19.960 I want us to think about the cross, those dark hours when Jesus hung on the cross. 100 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:26.200 I want us to think about what we learn about God through that. 101 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:47.860 Because the cross of Jesus Christ in that incredible darkness, that most dark time on earth, is also one of the most glorious times on earth. 102 00:11:47.860 --> 00:11:52.040 This whole thing is filled with lots of conundrums that are like that. 103 00:11:52.040 --> 00:11:55.920 Lots of things that seem to conflict, but they are not. 104 00:11:55.920 --> 00:11:57.320 No conflict there. 105 00:11:57.320 --> 00:11:58.800 Both are true. 106 00:11:58.800 --> 00:12:13.340 It is helping us to understand what we learn about God that I want to do today, because if we learn more about him, I think we can appreciate him all the more. 107 00:12:13.340 --> 00:12:19.700 “May it never be that I would glory, except in the cross of Jesus Christ. 108 00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:21.120 May it never be. 109 00:12:21.120 --> 00:12:28.440 God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 110 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:34.840 I was thinking about this today, and I was thinking about that word glory. 111 00:12:34.840 --> 00:12:36.100 Glory. 112 00:12:36.100 --> 00:12:40.420 We use it a lot in our Christian circles. 113 00:12:40.420 --> 00:12:43.000 We use a lot of words. 114 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:51.200 We talk about words like grace, we talk about faith, we talk about glory. 115 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:56.940 Often, very often, we do not have a very clear understanding of what those words really are. 116 00:12:56.940 --> 00:12:58.640 We have a vague understanding. 117 00:12:58.640 --> 00:13:03.740 We know what it means, but we do not really know exactly what it means. 118 00:13:03.740 --> 00:13:07.920 Sometimes thinking about those words a little harder helps us. 119 00:13:07.920 --> 00:13:15.780 I remember when I was probably 18 or 19, struggling with what grace meant. 120 00:13:15.780 --> 00:13:20.900 I remember I knew a lot of things about it. 121 00:13:20.900 --> 00:13:28.520 I knew those sayings like “God’s riches at Christ’s expense” and all sorts of things. 122 00:13:28.520 --> 00:13:30.260 I knew generally about it. 123 00:13:30.260 --> 00:13:33.400 I did not understand what grace was, not really. 124 00:13:33.400 --> 00:13:38.640 I had experienced it, and yet I had not exactly fathomed it. 125 00:13:38.640 --> 00:13:40.420 I still have not fathomed it. 126 00:13:40.420 --> 00:13:45.120 But it was a vague idea. 127 00:13:45.120 --> 00:13:48.200 Faith is like that for a lot of people. 128 00:13:48.200 --> 00:13:49.380 They think they have faith. 129 00:13:49.380 --> 00:13:50.960 They think they know what faith is. 130 00:13:50.960 --> 00:14:00.740 But for many people, they really do not know what it means, what faith really means, what it means to have faith in Jesus Christ. 131 00:14:00.740 --> 00:14:01.700 They do not know that. 132 00:14:01.700 --> 00:14:05.360 They do not understand what the word faith means. 133 00:14:05.360 --> 00:14:08.600 That is true for this word glory. 134 00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:13.400 I think it is true for glory. 135 00:14:13.400 --> 00:14:29.000 The best way for me to describe glory gets me into trouble as well, because I think if you are thinking about the glory of God, we are going to glorify God, that means that we are responding to his glory. 136 00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:32.160 I think of the glory of God as beauty. 137 00:14:32.160 --> 00:14:45.330 I think it is perfectly legitimate to do that because I have noticed in the Old Testament words that are used that mean beauty are often interchanged with the words that mean glory. 138 00:14:45.330 --> 00:14:48.760 They are very closely related. 139 00:14:48.760 --> 00:14:56.100 The problem with saying that it is beauty, the glory of God is beauty, is that we do not really understand what beauty is either. 140 00:14:56.100 --> 00:15:00.320 We have our own ideas about what it means. 141 00:15:00.320 --> 00:15:04.380 That gets us into a kind of trouble if you think that I determine. 142 00:15:04.380 --> 00:15:06.800 It is up to me. 143 00:15:06.800 --> 00:15:09.780 People think that what is beautiful is up to them. 144 00:15:09.780 --> 00:15:11.960 They decide what beauty is. 145 00:15:11.960 --> 00:15:15.480 You cannot do that with God’s glory, can you? 146 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:18.660 So God is glorious. 147 00:15:18.660 --> 00:15:22.580 He has great beauty. 148 00:15:22.580 --> 00:15:34.560 The glory of God is when he acts in history in some way so that we learn something true about him. 149 00:15:34.560 --> 00:15:43.320 When something that is absolutely true of God is revealed in something that he does, it is a glory. 150 00:15:43.320 --> 00:15:45.380 It is part of the glory of God. 151 00:15:45.380 --> 00:15:48.880 In our heart, we should respond to that. 152 00:15:48.880 --> 00:15:50.160 We should respond to it. 153 00:15:50.160 --> 00:16:03.440 Humans, God created mankind in his own image so that we would be able to enjoy him, so that we would understand him and enjoy him. 154 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:17.000 Any expression of God’s glory should resonate in our hearts so that we understand him better, so that we know him better. 155 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:20.770 I know this seems, I am hoping this does not seem abstract to you. 156 00:16:20.770 --> 00:16:21.660 It is not abstract. 157 00:16:21.660 --> 00:16:26.740 This is part of reality, and it is relational. 158 00:16:26.740 --> 00:16:33.500 I pray that by the power of God’s Holy Spirit that he makes this relational to us. 159 00:16:33.500 --> 00:16:35.400 Let me just do this. 160 00:16:35.400 --> 00:16:38.440 The question is, do you know God? 161 00:16:38.440 --> 00:16:40.220 Do you know him? 162 00:16:40.220 --> 00:16:47.340 The question is not, do you know that God exists, because everybody knows that God exists in this world. 163 00:16:47.340 --> 00:16:51.620 They may repress that and push it down, but nature teaches that, Romans 1 says. 164 00:16:51.620 --> 00:16:55.040 Do you know him? 165 00:16:55.040 --> 00:16:56.650 Do you know God? 166 00:16:56.650 --> 00:17:03.080 That is an important thing to really know him. 167 00:17:03.080 --> 00:17:09.900 If you think about that in terms of a relationship, what does that mean? 168 00:17:09.900 --> 00:17:16.600 If you are in a relationship with someone, do you not need to know something about them? 169 00:17:16.600 --> 00:17:19.580 You certainly do. 170 00:17:19.580 --> 00:17:21.140 We have a relationship with God. 171 00:17:21.140 --> 00:17:22.860 We think we have a relationship with God. 172 00:17:22.860 --> 00:17:24.260 We have a relationship with God. 173 00:17:24.260 --> 00:17:27.880 Is that relationship about him? 174 00:17:27.880 --> 00:17:33.350 Does it center on him or does it center on us? 175 00:17:33.350 --> 00:17:39.650 What is the nature of our relationship with him? 176 00:17:39.650 --> 00:17:42.400 It is pretty important. 177 00:17:42.400 --> 00:18:00.710 Just before Jesus went to the cross and went to that dark hour, he prayed to the Father, and part of his prayer is, “ This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God , and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” 178 00:18:00.710 --> 00:18:03.300 Do you want to know what eternal life is? 179 00:18:03.300 --> 00:18:06.260 It is knowing God. 180 00:18:06.260 --> 00:18:16.540 Eternal life is coming to truly know God. 181 00:18:16.540 --> 00:18:19.600 Paul says, “That is the most important thing. 182 00:18:19.600 --> 00:18:24.880 The most important thing for me is that I am not going to boast. 183 00:18:24.880 --> 00:18:32.460 I cannot come before God as I did once before in my life and boast of all the achievements that I had made.” 184 00:18:32.460 --> 00:18:54.200 Saul, the Pharisee, Saul, the son of Benjamin, Saul, the man who was on his way to such excellence in Pharisaism, took great glory in all of his accomplishments. 185 00:18:54.200 --> 00:18:58.210 He says in the book of Philippians that it is just like, it is just like trash. 186 00:18:58.210 --> 00:19:01.150 It is the stuff that I throw away now. 187 00:19:01.150 --> 00:19:01.640 It is worthless. 188 00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:03.460 It is pointless. 189 00:19:03.460 --> 00:19:13.950 The only thing that is worth glorying in, taking pride in, taking before God is what took place by Christ himself on the cross. 190 00:19:13.950 --> 00:19:20.140 It is what Jesus did for us. 191 00:19:20.140 --> 00:19:21.340 Why should that be? 192 00:19:21.340 --> 00:19:25.160 He says, “I am only going to boast in the cross, and that is it.” 193 00:19:25.160 --> 00:19:27.740 Why should the cross be our only boast? 194 00:19:27.740 --> 00:19:39.420 I said before, the very darkest moment in history is also the brightest , because it reveals God’s glory like nothing else does. 195 00:19:39.420 --> 00:19:59.240 In those moments from 12:00 on Friday to 3:00 when he says, “It is finished,” in that blackness which fell on the earth, when you could see nothing, God was revealing himself to mankind in a way that he had never, never before. 196 00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:02.220 Never before, and never again probably. 197 00:20:02.220 --> 00:20:09.680 It is the greatest moment in the history of mankind, what took place in those dark hours. 198 00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:15.480 We know that it is all real because Jesus rose from the dead. 199 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:18.020 What did he accomplish? 200 00:20:18.020 --> 00:20:27.660 First of all, God proved and demonstrated on the cross that he is a just God, that he is perfectly righteous. 201 00:20:27.660 --> 00:20:32.600 He demonstrated his righteousness on the cross. 202 00:20:32.600 --> 00:20:42.000 You remember when God created Adam and Eve, and he told them, “In the day that you eat of the tree of life, you will surely die.” 203 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:50.040 They ate of the tree, and they were separated from him with a spiritual death, but they did not die physically, did they? 204 00:20:50.040 --> 00:20:51.140 Not immediately. 205 00:20:51.140 --> 00:20:55.000 They eventually died. 206 00:20:55.000 --> 00:21:04.740 Then a couple chapters later, you have Cain and Abel, and Cain murders his brother Abel. 207 00:21:04.740 --> 00:21:11.500 He murders him, and God confronts Cain, and Cain continues to live. 208 00:21:11.500 --> 00:21:17.280 When I was reading that when I was a kid, I read that story, and I thought, “Why did he get away with this?” 209 00:21:17.280 --> 00:21:19.500 That is really what I thought. 210 00:21:19.500 --> 00:21:21.280 “Why did he get away with it? 211 00:21:21.280 --> 00:21:27.020 Why is it that he, God did not just put him to death right there? 212 00:21:27.020 --> 00:21:31.360 He killed, he murdered his brother.” 213 00:21:31.360 --> 00:21:37.860 Then you have all the people in the Old Testament sinning in various ways. 214 00:21:37.860 --> 00:21:51.600 Those who trusted God put their trust in him by doing what he said, by bringing sacrifices before him. 215 00:21:51.600 --> 00:21:54.880 God did not judge them for their sin. 216 00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:58.480 They were not judged for their sins. 217 00:21:58.480 --> 00:22:11.800 It tells us, in the book of Hebrews , it tells us in chapter 10 that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. 218 00:22:11.800 --> 00:22:19.940 That passage goes on to say, Jesus says, and it quotes from the Old Testament, but it puts the words in Jesus’ lips. 219 00:22:19.940 --> 00:22:23.160 It is what Jesus is saying as he comes into the world. 220 00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:27.010 He says, “Sacrifices and offering you would not.” 221 00:22:27.010 --> 00:22:29.410 Falling back to King James again. 222 00:22:29.410 --> 00:22:34.140 “You would not, but a body you have prepared for me.” 223 00:22:34.140 --> 00:22:41.390 Prepared a body for Jesus so that he could do the will of God. 224 00:22:41.390 --> 00:22:43.900 That is what the passage came to say. 225 00:22:43.900 --> 00:22:48.360 So that he could carry out God’s will perfectly. 226 00:22:48.360 --> 00:22:50.380 What is ugliness? 227 00:22:50.380 --> 00:22:54.940 If beauty is the revelation of God and his will, what is something that is ugly? 228 00:22:54.940 --> 00:23:04.760 Ugliness is when God’s will is violated, when we do something that messes it up, that twists it in some way. 229 00:23:04.760 --> 00:23:15.300 Proverbs says, “Like a jewel in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.” 230 00:23:15.300 --> 00:23:23.760 Does that mean that she is not beautiful, and that God, God created beautiful people, and it is a glorious and good thing. 231 00:23:23.760 --> 00:23:24.620 That beauty fades. 232 00:23:24.620 --> 00:23:28.400 We are not to trust it because we live in this sin-cursed world. 233 00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:29.860 It fades away. 234 00:23:29.860 --> 00:23:32.620 There is nothing wrong with the beauty there. 235 00:23:32.620 --> 00:23:35.540 It is that that beauty is not complete. 236 00:23:35.540 --> 00:23:45.820 No, not by a long ways, because the lack of discretion twists that and makes it something that is really rather ugly and terrible. 237 00:23:45.820 --> 00:23:51.780 A beautiful thing that is twisted becomes something that is terribly ugly. 238 00:23:51.780 --> 00:24:05.140 The precious gospel of Jesus Christ, which came to the Galatians, is picked up, and that same gospel is twisted and turned into something destructive and ugly. 239 00:24:05.140 --> 00:24:08.540 That is what ugliness is. 240 00:24:08.540 --> 00:24:09.910 It is sin. 241 00:24:09.910 --> 00:24:14.470 It is sinful thinking, and it is all the things that sin leads to. 242 00:24:14.470 --> 00:24:19.980 It is terribly ugly. 243 00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:26.860 God passes over sins for thousands of years. 244 00:24:26.860 --> 00:24:33.440 Thousands of years he passes over the sins of mankind, accepting these offerings, even though it does not satisfy. 245 00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:34.840 Why? 246 00:24:34.840 --> 00:24:49.240 Because he holds back that judgment for thousands of years, and then pours it all out on Jesus Christ in that dark moments, the dark moments of the cross. 247 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:55.070 Jesus Christ came there submissive to the will of the Father, being completely obedient. 248 00:24:55.070 --> 00:25:02.580 That is part of the beauty of the cross, because he is submissive and he is obedient to the Father through this. 249 00:25:02.580 --> 00:25:07.660 He willingly entered this world for that purpose. 250 00:25:07.660 --> 00:25:17.240 So he endures that. 251 00:25:17.240 --> 00:25:39.440 It tells us, I had planned on reading a portion of Romans, but in Romans 3 it says, “ For the demonstration ,” why was Christ, why was he hung on a cross? 252 00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:43.510 Why did God so publicly display him in such humiliation? 253 00:25:43.510 --> 00:25:53.870 “ For the demonstration ,” Paul says, “of his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in him.” 254 00:25:53.870 --> 00:25:55.520 That is what this passage is saying. 255 00:25:55.520 --> 00:26:07.160 He passed over the sins of people for generations, for years and years, but he is satisfied with the wrath that is poured out on Jesus Christ. 256 00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:08.420 Jesus took it. 257 00:26:08.420 --> 00:26:16.720 He took all the sin for all those centuries and all those years and all those to come. 258 00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:26.320 It was placed on him, and he paid that debt, and God’s justice is satisfied. 259 00:26:26.320 --> 00:26:31.140 Paul goes on to say, “Where is the boasting? 260 00:26:31.140 --> 00:26:32.980 What can we boast of? 261 00:26:32.980 --> 00:26:38.090 If we are saved purely by this work of Jesus Christ, what can we claim?” 262 00:26:38.090 --> 00:26:40.800 “ It is excluded ,” he says. 263 00:26:40.800 --> 00:26:42.520 “By what kind of law? 264 00:26:42.520 --> 00:26:43.340 Of works? 265 00:26:43.340 --> 00:26:46.780 Can we boast in what we have done?” 266 00:26:46.780 --> 00:26:54.460 “No, but only through our faith, only through trusting what Christ has done.” 267 00:26:54.460 --> 00:27:00.230 When you look at the cross and you look at what took place, it is a horribly ugly event. 268 00:27:00.230 --> 00:27:04.060 It is hard to comprehend it. 269 00:27:04.060 --> 00:27:06.260 Just our side of it. 270 00:27:06.260 --> 00:27:10.200 What was visible to people? 271 00:27:10.200 --> 00:27:27.860 Jesus, after he had been beaten, and all of the humiliation that he experienced, and the scourging, and the crown of thorns, and being nailed to a cross, he was marred unbelievably. 272 00:27:27.860 --> 00:27:29.080 It was horrible. 273 00:27:29.080 --> 00:27:30.380 It was a horrible scene. 274 00:27:30.380 --> 00:27:39.170 If you look at Renaissance paintings, the Italian Renaissance paintings, Jesus, it is a beautiful picture of Jesus on the cross. 275 00:27:39.170 --> 00:27:42.360 He is floating there with a halo over his head. 276 00:27:42.360 --> 00:27:45.100 It was not like that. 277 00:27:45.100 --> 00:27:47.060 It was horrific. 278 00:27:47.060 --> 00:27:51.780 His body was marred more than any man, it says in Isaiah . 279 00:27:51.780 --> 00:27:55.760 The idea, the abuse was so horrible, no one wanted to look at him. 280 00:27:55.760 --> 00:27:58.640 His appearance was marred more than any. 281 00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:05.300 “Like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him.” 282 00:28:05.300 --> 00:28:06.260 It was ugly. 283 00:28:06.260 --> 00:28:09.840 It was horribly ugly. 284 00:28:09.840 --> 00:28:17.110 Yet it was in that moment that it is the most beautiful moment in history . 285 00:28:17.110 --> 00:28:24.280 It is the most beautiful moment in history because grace and mercy is poured out, revealed. 286 00:28:24.280 --> 00:28:26.460 The grace, something that is true of God. 287 00:28:26.460 --> 00:28:38.210 God is gracious, and he is merciful, and he pours out his mercy on us by taking that debt himself that we owe. 288 00:28:38.210 --> 00:28:39.870 That is just pure mercy. 289 00:28:39.870 --> 00:28:42.030 That is unbelievable. 290 00:28:42.030 --> 00:28:45.820 It is beautiful. 291 00:28:45.820 --> 00:28:49.580 Ugly though it is, it becomes incredibly beautiful. 292 00:28:49.580 --> 00:28:50.140 You know why? 293 00:28:50.140 --> 00:28:52.950 It is the opposite of what we talked about before. 294 00:28:52.950 --> 00:28:54.970 We are looking at redemption. 295 00:28:54.970 --> 00:29:07.380 We are looking at God coming down and taking the thing that is the most ugly, the most ugly thing that has ever happened, taking the ugly and changing it into something beautiful. 296 00:29:07.380 --> 00:29:10.940 That is what takes place on the cross. 297 00:29:10.940 --> 00:29:20.060 That ugly moment when Jesus takes all the sin and all the ugliness of the world, and he transforms it into something beautiful. 298 00:29:20.060 --> 00:29:21.370 It changes us. 299 00:29:21.370 --> 00:29:28.020 We are changed through what he has done for us on the cross. 300 00:29:28.020 --> 00:29:33.420 Paul writes, “Through the cross I have been crucified to the world.” 301 00:29:33.420 --> 00:29:49.040 He says earlier in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, who gave himself for me.” 302 00:29:49.040 --> 00:29:53.100 God changes us through the redemption that he gives us. 303 00:29:53.100 --> 00:30:00.350 What he accomplished on the cross is an outpouring of his grace that gives us life, that changes us. 304 00:30:00.350 --> 00:30:02.330 We are transformed. 305 00:30:02.330 --> 00:30:10.080 We are changed from being an ugly people, made to a beautiful people before God. 306 00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:12.470 That is why this work is beautiful. 307 00:30:12.470 --> 00:30:21.360 It is beautiful because he is taking, it is a miraculous work of God to make the ugly beautiful. 308 00:30:21.360 --> 00:30:29.420 The church becomes the bride of Christ, and it is beautiful, reflecting Christ’s beauty. 309 00:30:29.420 --> 00:30:42.400 The work of sanctification, the working of the Spirit of God in us, based on the cross and what Christ has accomplished, works in us so that we are able to reflect the beauty of Christ. 310 00:30:42.400 --> 00:30:54.100 “So that he might present himself, the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.” 311 00:30:54.100 --> 00:31:03.640 The cross separates us because of our identification with it from the sinfulness of this world. 312 00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:07.420 It changes the way we think. 313 00:31:07.420 --> 00:31:16.920 It helps us to understand, know what we were created for. 314 00:31:16.920 --> 00:31:27.980 The cross of Jesus Christ, those dark hours, is an example of the greatest hatred that has ever expressed, but it is also the greatest example of love ever shown . 315 00:31:27.980 --> 00:31:41.720 The many verses, Peter’s preaching, told how Jesus, the Jews put Jesus to death with wicked hands, had wicked hands putting him to death. 316 00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:43.960 It was pure hatred. 317 00:31:43.960 --> 00:31:48.960 You cannot imagine the hatred people have before God until you look at the cross. 318 00:31:48.960 --> 00:32:01.520 You cannot imagine the depth of sin and the sinfulness of sin until you look at the cross. 319 00:32:01.520 --> 00:32:06.060 It was at the cross that the great love of God was shown to us. 320 00:32:06.060 --> 00:32:09.240 He did not withhold his son. 321 00:32:09.240 --> 00:32:14.600 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. 322 00:32:14.600 --> 00:32:17.580 He did not withhold his only son. 323 00:32:17.580 --> 00:32:26.460 “For this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 324 00:32:26.460 --> 00:32:29.740 God is incredibly beautiful, and he is glorious. 325 00:32:29.740 --> 00:32:33.220 Jesus Christ is glorious. 326 00:32:33.220 --> 00:32:46.620 I skipped over a lot of verses, but one of them that I should have read is in John 12, when Jesus explains that he is going to the cross because of the glory that is set before him. 327 00:32:46.620 --> 00:32:49.160 God is going to glorify him. 328 00:32:49.160 --> 00:32:54.660 “My hour has come,” he says, “to be glorified.” 329 00:32:54.660 --> 00:32:58.840 He goes to the cross for his glorification. 330 00:32:58.840 --> 00:33:02.100 All that follows it is glory. 331 00:33:02.100 --> 00:33:03.390 Glory. 332 00:33:03.390 --> 00:33:07.430 That is something to boast about. 333 00:33:07.430 --> 00:33:11.720 That is something to take joy in when you understand it. 334 00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:13.900 Jesus Christ accomplished it. 335 00:33:13.900 --> 00:33:24.060 He did this most amazing thing, beyond anything that we can comprehend. 336 00:33:24.060 --> 00:33:31.160 The reason that if it does not resonate in our heart, it is because we do not get it. 337 00:33:31.160 --> 00:33:37.780 If this does not stir our heart to joy and love for him, it is because we treat it as nothing. 338 00:33:37.780 --> 00:33:42.400 We are probably still thinking, “What is in this for me? 339 00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:46.960 What is it about this that I need to get? 340 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:49.300 How do I benefit from this?” 341 00:33:49.300 --> 00:33:52.560 Do you know what the benefit is, the ultimate benefit? 342 00:33:52.560 --> 00:33:53.940 It is God. 343 00:33:53.940 --> 00:33:56.420 God is the treasure . 344 00:33:56.420 --> 00:33:58.940 God is the treasure . 345 00:33:58.940 --> 00:34:18.620 The most glorious thing is that we were created to glorify God , and we have lost the ability to, but Jesus restores that ability by taking the debt that we owe and gives us new life to restore us so that we can take joy in God, so that we can love him. 346 00:34:18.620 --> 00:34:20.880 Do we love him? 347 00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:30.140 When we see these outpourings of God’s glory, of his nature, the fact that he is, he loves us with a mighty love. 348 00:34:30.140 --> 00:34:36.140 The fact that he is not just a God of justice, but he is a God of justice, which is wonderful. 349 00:34:36.140 --> 00:34:37.740 But he is more than a God of justice. 350 00:34:37.740 --> 00:34:42.920 He is a God of mercy and love. 351 00:34:42.920 --> 00:34:51.300 When we really get it, in Revelation chapter 5, it pictures a future. 352 00:34:51.300 --> 00:35:12.600 It looks into heaven, and you hear all the hosts of heaven, the angels, the living creatures, the elders, and then myriads and myriads and thousands of thousands of redeemed. 353 00:35:12.600 --> 00:35:13.650 What are they doing? 354 00:35:13.650 --> 00:35:27.150 They are saying with a loud voice, they are singing, they are saying with a loud voice, “ Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 355 00:35:27.150 --> 00:35:30.730 They are giving glory to Christ for what he has done. 356 00:35:30.730 --> 00:35:34.150 They are giving glory to Christ for what he has done. 357 00:35:34.150 --> 00:35:37.270 They are rejoicing in Christ. 358 00:35:37.270 --> 00:35:39.160 We are made to do that. 359 00:35:39.160 --> 00:35:42.780 We are made to take joy in God. 360 00:35:42.780 --> 00:35:44.910 Do we take joy in God? 361 00:35:44.910 --> 00:35:46.400 It is essence. 362 00:35:46.400 --> 00:35:56.320 It is the very essence of our salvation. 363 00:35:56.320 --> 00:36:03.700 “Far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of Jesus Christ.” 364 00:36:03.700 --> 00:36:14.740 Jeremiah chapter 9, God says, “Let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me.” 365 00:36:14.740 --> 00:36:18.920 The cross of Jesus Christ, he redeemed us. 366 00:36:18.920 --> 00:36:21.320 He saved us, and we have life today. 367 00:36:21.320 --> 00:36:25.300 If you have life, you have life because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. 368 00:36:25.300 --> 00:36:32.140 You share in his resurrected life. 369 00:36:32.140 --> 00:36:35.160 Do you rejoice in him? 370 00:36:35.160 --> 00:36:37.780 Do you take joy in him? 371 00:36:37.780 --> 00:36:42.360 Do you celebrate God? 372 00:36:42.360 --> 00:36:56.440 Isaac Watts, “When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.” 373 00:36:56.440 --> 00:36:58.410 That is where we need to close. 374 00:36:58.410 --> 00:37:02.930 That is what we need to stop with. 375 00:37:02.930 --> 00:37:10.340 There is nothing that we, we come to God with empty hands. 376 00:37:10.340 --> 00:37:13.560 We trust him for his work. 377 00:37:13.560 --> 00:37:31.110 We receive it with joy, and we come to know him in an eternal relationship where from now on, we learn more about him, and the more we learn, the more our heart grows in joy and love for him. 378 00:37:31.110 --> 00:37:33.750 It is an eternal relationship. 379 00:37:33.750 --> 00:37:37.520 That is the message of the cross. 380 00:37:37.520 --> 00:37:45.060 The greatest, the brightest moment in the history of mankind was in those dark hours. 381 00:37:45.060 --> 00:37:57.100 More is revealed about God to us in those three dark hours than any other thing that takes place in the Bible, in biblical history. 382 00:37:57.100 --> 00:37:59.320 It is a glorious moment. 383 00:37:59.320 --> 00:38:04.420 When you think about the cross, think about him. 384 00:38:04.420 --> 00:38:07.800 Think about the glory and who he is. 385 00:38:07.800 --> 00:38:12.440 Think about what is revealed to us and praise him and take joy in him. 386 00:38:12.440 --> 00:38:13.900 Let’s pray. 387 00:38:13.900 --> 00:38:17.780 Father, we thank you for this truth from your word. 388 00:38:17.780 --> 00:38:27.920 We pray, Father, that by your merciful grace to us, your spirit would take some of this and teach us with it. 389 00:38:27.920 --> 00:38:32.840 May we learn to love you more. 390 00:38:32.840 --> 00:39:00.260 Father, if this merely exposes to me in my heart how little I love you, would you make that a conviction so that I repent of it and think about you, spend my time praising you, learning to love you, to get to know you? 391 00:39:00.260 --> 00:39:13.600 Father, as I reflect on the cross of Christ and the incredible agony that Jesus suffered under your wrath, what a light thing all of my suffering is. 392 00:39:13.600 --> 00:39:20.240 What he endured for us, what an expression of love, laying down his life. 393 00:39:20.240 --> 00:39:27.840 No man can give a more precious gift or a better expression of love than what Christ has done. 394 00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:34.600 Thank you, Father, for all that you have done for us in revealing yourself to us through the cross. 395 00:39:34.600 --> 00:39:39.960 Help us, Lord, to celebrate you today. 396 00:39:39.960 --> 00:39:51.460 I pray that Jesus Christ would be glorified throughout this day, and Father, throughout our lives as we live them to bring glory to you. 397 00:39:51.460 --> 00:39:52.880 Help us to do that. 398 00:39:52.880 --> 00:39:58.180 May we glory in your name, praise you, and give you glory. 399 00:39:58.180 --> 00:40:00.840 We ask this in the name of our Savior, Lord Jesus. 400 00:40:00.840 --> 00:40:02.840 Amen.