Keep in Step Being New Creations

Transcript

GR 2117
03/25/2018
Keep in Step Being New Creations
Galatians 6:15-18
Gil Rugh

We are going to the book of Galatians in your Bibles and we are in the closing verses of this great book. One of the things about the book of Galatians like some of the other letters, it is a smaller letter. As we have mentioned, in many ways it is a condensed book of Romans, covering some of the same material but not as elaborated. In that sense it is a little easier perhaps to get our arms around it and to digest the book. It is a great book to have under your belt, so to speak, emphasizing the clarity of the Gospel.

Verses 11 – 18, as we noted, formed the conclusion to this letter. Paul began in the opening verses with an introduction in the first chapter. Now he concludes and it is a little different than some of the conclusions because he doesn’t go into a number of personal greetings, personal remarks and thanks for what God is doing in their lives. It is not that he is not concerned but there have been serious matters. And he will even close on a serious note.

We were looking in verse 14 and 15 in our previous study and verse 14 is of crucial importance and the subject mentioned there needs to be understood. I want to review with you what he says here and in related passages. Verse 14 of chapter 6 saying, “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.” And that subject of our being crucified with Christ and the outworking of that. Being crucified to the world, to the flesh, to the old man and ultimately the effects of this crucifixion to the power of the devil over us. So let’s just walk through those steps again.

1: the believer is “crucified with Christ.” That was Galatians 2:20 and these are just passages that connect our crucifixion to the crucifixion of Christ. In chapter 2, verse 20 is foundational. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” When we placed our faith in Christ we were identified by the Spirit of God with Christ in His crucifixion, His death, His burial, His resurrection to new life. So we were crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live. It is not the old me but Christ lives in me and I have the life of Christ now in me in that newness but that crucifixion with Christ is foundational. That is why we don’t tell people to reform their life, to clean up their life, to try to live a life more consistent with the Ten Commandments or other things people think of. The only way to deal with sin is to die because the penalty for sin is death. Christ came to take our place so when we place our faith in Him, His death is credited to us and we are viewed by God as having died with Christ because His penalty is viewed as paying our penalty for “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” So the believer is crucified with Christ.

2: the world is crucified. And that is where we are in chapter 6, verse 14: “The world has been crucified to me and I to the world.” The point here to note; there has been some confusion generated among good people, solid believers, the idea that our crucifixion means that certain things no longer exist. It is not that they no longer exist; they no longer assert their power and authority over me. The world hasn’t ceased to exist. I have been crucified with Christ. The world has been crucified. Pointing that it no longer has power and authority over me but it hasn’t gone away and it still tries to insert influence but I am not under its domination or control.

3: the flesh is crucified. That was up in chapter 5, verse 24: “Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” And we saw the works of the flesh previous to that, verses 19 and following; sin, indwelling sin, the flesh, what I am apart from the work of Christ. I am no longer under its control. He that sins is the slave to sin but I am no longer sins slave. I have been set free. The power and authority and control of sin over my life is broken. This is foundational.

How do we seal with sin? We have all kinds of Christian counselling programs. This is God’s program and plan. You die with Christ and then you recognize what that means. Then you draw upon the power now available with the indwelling Spirit; the new life that you have in Christ to live accordingly. It doesn’t mean that there won’t be battles. There won’t be struggles.

Come back to Romans chapter 6 for another statement that is saying the same thing as the previous one, the flesh is crucified. In Romans chapter 6, verse 6: “Knowing this that our old self” (literally our old man) “was crucified with Christ in order that our body of sin,” it means our body is controlled by sin “might be done away with so we would no longer be slaves to sin.”

So the flesh, the old man, they are referring basically to the same thing. What I am as a fallen being, a fallen person. It is internal and as a result of it because, remember, “it is out of the heart Jesus said” in passages like in Mark chapter 7 “that all sin proceeds.” This is important.

I was reading a commentary with Martin Lloyd Jones before I came in and his comments on Romans chapter 6 are confusing. It gives the idea that the old man doesn’t exist any longer but it is the body and he tries to explain it out but I can’t understand where sin is coming from. It sounds to me like it is in the body. Jesus said sin originates in the inner person. So what he says and pick up this expression because it becomes important. It will become our final point, “The body of sin might be done away with.” In my Bible, you have in the margin, “Made powerless.” Made powerless, that is key. That is what he is talking about, katargeto, a Greek word. Some of you have taken Greek. To render powerless; its power has been broken so no longer does the parts as he goes on in Romans chapter 6 of my body need to be used for sin and sinful activity and sinful purposes because the old man’s power, the fallen being that I am, that power has been broken. I have been made new but the old has not yet been removed and eradicated, the old man, the old nature, the flesh. It is there but it no longer holds its power over me.

So our bodies are no longer to be used for sinful things. And he comes down, verse 18: “You’ve been freed from sin. You became slaves of righteousness.” So verse 16: “Present your bodies,” you don’t present your bodies to sin anymore because that would be enslaving. Sin enslaves. It still has that characteristic and as believers we know how that can get ahold again. It wants to re-enslave us.

I have shared with you I had a professor many, many years ago early in my studies and he said you need to remember, you never have to sin as a believer because you have been set free. He is not saying I never will sin but whenever I do sin, it is not because I didn’t have any choice or somebody did something that made me sin or something like that, no. I chose to sin because that freedom I have is complete. Now I never live in completeness but yet it is a process of growing. So the old man is crucified.

Now finally we have to deal with the devil. Come over to Hebrews chapter 2, Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14. “Therefore since the children share in flesh and blood He Himself,” (referring to Christ) “likewise partook of the same.” He was born into the human race. He became flesh and blood. “That through death He might” (here’s our word,) “render powerless,” the same word referred to in Romans chapter 6, verse 6, katargeto, “render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” So the power and authority of the devil over me was broken.

So you see the world, the flesh, the devil – what’s the solution, death. You have to die. That is why reformation isn’t a solution. Well certainly some people they have been ensnared in certain sins, unbelievers. It may be alcohol and so we call them alcoholics. When I was younger they called them drunks. But now it is something, some kind of disease. It is. It is the disease of sin and it enslaves and some people stop that but that doesn’t mean that they are free from the power of sin. The only way to be freed from the power, the control of sin, the world and the devil is to place your faith in Christ and die of Him.

This is why when you are doing personal work, counselling and I joke about it but it is serious business. This is what I want to talk about. You don’t need to come see me for six months of counselling. You say you are struggling with sin. Well, let’s just get to the foundational issue. Have you placed your faith in Christ? Yes, I have but I just can’t stop sinning. Well wait a minute, let’s back up here. Do you understand what it means to place your faith in Christ? You trust Him and Him alone as the one who loved you and died for you. You know what happens when you place your faith in Christ? You are identified with Him and we walk through this crucifixion. Now you have new life in Christ. You have the Spirit indwelling you to empower you and enable you in your new life in Christ. So now you are free to live for Christ, see in Romans chapter 6. We talk about, now free to serve the Lord, be His slave. Now you tell me you can’t not sin. You can’t give this up. You can’t stop. That is not true. You’re not telling the truth, one way or the other. You are not telling me the truth in telling me you are a believer and you are really not. You have really not been born again. Or you are not telling the truth because you could stop sinning but you don’t want to. That can become a problem. We can become attached to sin.

I told you we often referred to the Puritans, those 17th century men and they talked about bosom sins, sins we keep close to our heart. We really don’t want to indulge in them but we don’t want to get so far removed from them in case we want to do them because there is a certain pleasure in sin or we wouldn’t do it and so we choose to sometime.

You know, we don’t want to fog our lives and then we are in confusion. Oh what do I do? I just can’t give this up. Well let’s get into a six month counselling program and a 12 step program and do all this. Well that just confuses things. I am not saying that we don’t help believers who are struggling with a particular sin but we don’t help them by implying something that is not Biblical. There is freedom in Christ. Now if you don’t want to stop sinning as a believer because the pleasure you are enjoying is too great for you to want to let go, that is a problem. That’s a struggle but visiting with me for six months won’t help.

Certain things you can do, obviously. Put some distance between you and the sin. Don’t go. If drinking is your problem don’t go to the bar to get your hamburger. Well I like the hamburgers at the bar. And then what happens when you get there? Well somebody is drinking and I sort of like and I say and then I am in trouble. Well of course you are in trouble. In fact I tell you don’t even walk by the bar. In fact don’t even drive by that favorite bar. I mean some of these things are just practical things. Don’t provide occasions for the flesh but don’t act like you haven’t been set free and no wonder you are struggling. You are struggling because you don’t want to give up something you like, that God says you shouldn’t be doing.

I mean gossip. Well gossip I know is sin, it is wrong but I sort of like to hear what is going on and when I listen to what is going on that I shouldn’t be listening to I am encouraging sin. I become a participant. That person gossiping, he is not the only one sinning, I am sinning by listening and then I think, well I think it is nice to have something to pass on in case I can tell somebody something. Well don’t say it is not because you haven’t been set free. Just enjoy what you are doing. I love the Scripture. It is black and white.

A man in counselling in a Christian school; someone from our congregation was there. The problem with Gil Rugh is he is too black and white. I want to be just as black and white and clear as the Scripture, otherwise we just create all this fog in believers lives and then they are wandering around, what should I do, how do I do this?

So if you didn’t write those points down, fix them in your mind so they are there. “Lord, this is Your answer for me” and if you say I am just enslaved to sin, back up and say, “Lord I have to settle this. Do I really know You?” If I haven’t been set free by truly believing in Christ then no wonder I can’t live the Christian life. No one ever said you could live the life that is pleasing to God in the power of the flesh. “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” Romans 8. So these are just foundational.

The Christian church and evangelicalism has gotten taken over. Our schools and seminaries taken over by this idea that we pattern ourselves after the world. There is no end to it.

I have clipped an article out of this morning’s paper. They think that starting at 12 years of age doctors ought to be examining children for depression and asking certain questions like, “Do you ever feel bad about yourself? Do you ever feel like you don’t want to do things?” Good grief. Every kid in the world is depressed and a lot of us adults. Did you ever go for two weeks where you didn’t feel like doing what you should? I went for months not feeling like I wanted to do my school work. I just had some added motivation.

Alright, so the Scripture answers and these things back up into the church and pretty soon we are trying to create models in the church that follow the pattern of the world. Here is God’s answer and function accordingly.

Okay, come back to Galatians 6 whether we finish it or not we are done tonight so be encouraged. Alright, “Neither in this then,” you come to verse 15, “Neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision but a new creation.” We don’t create these external things. You have to be made a new creation. How do you become a new creation? “If any man be in Christ he is a new creation. Old things passed away; new things have come,” 2 Corinthians chapter 5. That is the answer. You have to be made new in Christ. You have to be born again. We are born again “by the living and abiding Word of God; the Seed which is imperishable and brings us imperishable new life.” Peter writes about this is I Peter chapter 1, verse 23. I mean it is not complicated. I am not saying it is easy but it is not complicated.

So those who want to impose circumcision. You know there is always that drift and that push to help us move to that point by those who corrupt the Scripture to externals. If it is not circumcision it is baptism, its sacraments, external things become the focus. We like tangible things but it is not intangible. It is an inner working of God in the heart and mind, what I am as a person, a new creation. That is the answer. That is God’s plan for my justification. That is God’s plan for my sanctification. Walking by faith so that is where he is going.

So he says in verse 16 and “Those who will walk by this rule,” walk by this rule, what rule? We get the word cannon from the word translated rule here. It is a measuring stick, a cane, used for measuring. So we talk about the cannon of Scripture because this is the standard by which all spiritual matters are measured. This is God’s Word. “Those who walk by this rule.” What rule? Well, the rule of being made a new creation. How? Verse 14: “By being crucified with Christ.” You don’t solve the problem by getting circumcised nor would you solve it by getting baptized or by what they call sacraments or external things. You walk by this rule and that word “to walk” it is the same word we had up in chapter 5, verse 25. Not the usual word for walk but we noted there it was keeping in line, step by step.

One person wrote a book on the Holy Spirit, keeping in step with the Holy Spirit and based on that. “If we live by the Spirit let us walk by the Spirit.” We keep in step with the Spirit. He controls and directs. We walk according to His will in our lives which is according to the Word of God. We walk by the Spirit. We keep in step with the Spirit. So those who will keep in step by this rule, walk according to this standard, being a new creation.

How does a person be made new in Christ? “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. It is not I. It is Christ who lives in me.” That is being a new creation. I have been made new. That is the rule. That is the standard, walking by the Spirit, having been made new in Christ. “Those who walk by this rule peace and mercy be upon them.” Those are the true believers. They have God’s peace, God’s mercy; very similar to grace except mercy has more of an emphasis of our need. Both grace and mercy are something undeserved but mercy carries more the emphasis on how needy we are of God’s help. “Peace and mercy be upon them.” That is God’s provision for us as His people.

He started out the letter, go back to chapter 1, verse 3. He said, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” and what does that lead right into? “Who gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us from this present evil age.” Now as he comes to the conclusion, he is talking about the same thing. The world has been crucified to me. I have been crucified to the world. I am made a new creation. It is God’s peace and mercy and down in verse 18 he will bring in His grace back to where he was in chapter 1, verse 3: “Grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” And you have to understand He gave Himself for us and He did that to rescue us from this present evil world.

How are we going to live godly in this present evil world? By faith in Christ and what He did for us having been made new in Him. And if you haven’t, there is no hope. I don’t want to talk to the unbeliever about cleaning up his life. Oh, how terrible it is that you do this. You can’t clean up your life to make it acceptable to God. You have to be made new. God is looking at the heart. You clean up some of the outside, you are like the white washed tomb that Jesus said the Pharisees illustrated. You think you make the outside look good and God is looking at the inside. It is like a tomb full of dead men’s bones, defiled, defiled, defiled.

You know the church delights in moving toward renovation, something external again we can do. We can help the poor. We can clean up this. We can do this. That is not what we are about. I don’t say individual believers get involved in what they think the Lord would have them do. That is not what the church is about. That is not the message we have. We haven’t done anything to the true problem of people unless they have been made new in Christ.

So “peace and mercy” in chapter 6, verse 16 “be upon them.” Them are those who keep in step with the Spirit, who “have been made a new creation” in verse 15 “by being crucified with Christ” and thus having them crucified. Their relationship to the world, to sin, to the devil has been broken. In a sense that is no longer the power, the master they serve. And it can be said of people until they are new in Christ, “You are of your father, the devil. You always do his will” but now God is our Father and we delight to do His will.

So it is “peace and mercy upon them and upon the Israel of God.” It is just amazing. You read that and the simple statement at the end of a letter and you can read pages in commentaries. Some take the Israel of God in this passage to refer to all believers so the churches of Galatia are now the Israel of God, the new people of God, Jew and Gentile alike in the church form the new Israel. And some would translate verse 16 the “and” is “even” but you know it amazes me how clear some commentators can be. Here’s some that don’t make the distinction between the church and Israel that we do so I wrote down for them, they blend the church and Israel but they also note, “It is also important to note there is in fact no instance of his using Israel except of the Jewish nation or part thereof.” We agree so he is not talking about the church here because nowhere else in the New Testament including here does he.

Here’s another writer: “In fact there is no explicit identification of the church as the new Israel anywhere in early Christian literature until about A. D. 160 when Justin Martyr used this language for the first time. So we are 100 years after Paul wrote this and someone came up with the idea.

What Paul is saying here, he is sorting out these Judaizing teachers who were teaching the necessity of circumcision for salvation and sanctification, weren’t truly in the line of the promises God gave to the descendants of Abraham. It was not enough to be a physical descendant of Abraham, to be an inheritor of the promises God gave to Abraham. You had to also be a spiritual descendant. That doesn’t mean being a physical descendant is irrelevant. No, the promises to Abraham’s descendants were to his physical descendants through his son Isaac, to Isaac’s son, Jacob, through his 12 sons but only to the believers that came out of that line, believing Jews.

So that is what he is talking about here. “Those who walk according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” So my condemnation and attacks on these Judaizers and those who were corrupting the use of the law are against all Jews. The Israel of God or those like Paul who had believed in Jesus and we are in that line.

Come back to chapter 3, verse 7. We talked about this here quoting from Genesis 15:6, “Abraham believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness.” Then verse 8: “The Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles was by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying “All the nations shall be blessed in you. So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer.”

No doubt Gentiles were included in the promise but when God gave the covenant to Abraham, when He said that “All nations will be blessed in you,” he wasn’t wiping out the promises directed toward Abraham’s physical descendants. There was provision in that promise to Abraham even for his non-physical descendants to those who would be spiritual descendants having his faith. But there were special unique promises that are given only to those physical descendants but only to those physical descendants who have the faith that Abraham had. This is what the Jews didn’t believe anymore.

In John chapter 8, we won’t go back there for time, but the Jews were disagreeing with Christ. “They said, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ And Jesus said, ‘No, you don’t.’” Now they were physical descendants of Abraham but what did Jesus say, “Well if you had Abraham as your father you would believe.” That’s it. You don’t have the faith of Abraham; you are not really a descendant of Abraham and in the line of promises.

Come back to Romans chapter 2, Romans chapter 2. This becomes an issue and most of you here tonight are aware of this because those who blend Israel and the church then have to not interpret prophecy literally because all the promises given to Israel in the Old Testament won’t be fulfilled in the physical nation Israel. They have been absorbed in the church. So now we don’t take the promises of Old Testament prophecy literally except of course those that have already been fulfilled because we know Christ came and died on the cross and was raised from the dead but he is talking about a spiritual kingdom that exists in the hearts. There is no future necessarily for the physical nation Israel because the church is the people of God. They use the expression like one people of God because Israel has been absorbed into the church and so now the church is the “New” Israel.

Look at Romans chapter 2, verse 28: “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly. Nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew who is one inwardly and circumcision is that which is of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter” (not by the Mosaic Law.) “His praise is not from men but from God.” He is not denying the reality of the promises to physical Israel but being a physical descendant of Abraham in and of itself is not enough. And this is argued repeatedly and it is exemplified by the fact, what? Well, Abraham, Isaac but Abraham had another son older than Isaac but the line of promise doesn’t come through him. And then Jacob, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but Jacob had an older brother too, Esau but the promise doesn’t come through Esau. It is not enough to be a physical descendant. You must be in the line of promise as a physical descendant and to be in the line of promise you must not only be a physical descendant, you must be a spiritual descendant having the faith of Abraham and the circumcision of the heart. When we have studied this passage we have gone to the Old Testament. God condemned Israel and told them “circumcise your hearts. Without that physical circumcision is nothing to me.”

Come over into chapter 9 of Romans, verse 6: “It is not as though the Word of God has failed.” What has happened with Israel? Paul is concerned for the Jews and the promises, the covenants that belong to the Jews and before we read further there if you come over to chapter 11, verse 1: “I say then, God has not rejected His people has He? May it never be!” The idea that the church has replaced Israel in some way, I just can’t understand how people can claim to believe in the Scripture and do the twisting it does, but it goes back. Reformers did. It began early in church history and it became that the church accepted certain teachings and doctrines and it gets promoted down to today.

Come back to chapter 9, verse 6: “It is not as though the Word of God has failed.” Now note this. “For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” It sounds at first the person who wasn’t familiar with the Old Testament would be confused. “They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.” Remember who Israel is in the Old Testament? Jacob and in chapter 32 of Genesis God changes Jacob’s name to Israel and then that is repeated in chapter 35. “Your name will no longer be Jacob. It will be Israel.” That is where the name Israel comes from. So they are not all Israel in the line of those promises to Israel who are descended from Jacob because why? “Nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants.” And this is where he is going, what we just did. You have to be a descendant through Isaac. And it is not that the children of the flesh are children of God but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants and it had to be because God promised that Abraham and Sarah would have a descendant. The line of covenant promises are narrowed to only one descendant of Abraham and after Sarah dies Abraham marries Katura and in chapter 25 he has a number of other children but the line of promise only goes through Isaac and that is where he is going.

So the argument is – it is not enough to be a physical Jew. You have to have the faith of Abraham. Jesus said that was the problem with the Jews. So that is what we are dealing with.

You come over to Galatians chapter 6 again; the Israel of God. And you will read somebody’s comments that says “this is the church” and they make a statement like that settles it. It doesn’t settle it. What he is saying is, “These Jews that are coming to you aren’t the Jews in line of the Abrahamic Covenant and promises because they are unbelieving Jews and I am speaking God’s peace and mercy are only upon those Jews who believe. That is the Israel that belongs to God. The rest of the Jews are going to hell.” It is not that complicated. You don’t try to twist Scripture.

I read one man. I think he’s got perhaps the best commentary on Galatians. It is very recent and he is good but when he gets to this he says, “Nowhere else is Israel used of God and here not used of the church. And here it doesn’t have to be either but I think in the context of Galatians it is valid to say Israel here refers to the church of God not physical…” I think in the context of Galatians it is more consistent to see a physical Israel here, believing physical Israel, because he has already said what? These Judiazers teaching you have to keep the law or anathema, cursed to hell. Well they are certainly not the Israel that inherits the promises of God and the covenant of Abraham. No. So he ends the letter where he began in chapter 1. These Jews, teaching salvation by faith in Christ plus the Mosaic Law, are anathema. They are not the Jews who were in line to receive the promises given to Abraham because we already saw you have to have the faith of Abraham to be declared righteous as a Jew. You are not righteous as a Jew because you were born a Jew but neither can you transfer this and say, “well here is the use of Israel for the church.” Belabored this but the church is being permeated with what we call covenant, reformed theology. That is one thing that I will talk about in my Sunday nights to get it off my chest.

You know, you can’t do it. We have churches in town and that is where they are. They are reformed. They pride themselves in being reformed. The basic issue is they just don’t take the Scripture literally.

Alright, so it is upon the Israel of God. Paul is ready to close. “From now on let no one cause trouble for me.” And you get the sense this is rather abrupt and it is a command. “Stop causing me problems.” And I take it here, it is a burden for Paul. What is going on?

The word trouble, we talked about this in our study in Revelation earlier today, the word kopos. It is the word for toil, labor that brings weariness and you know those who die in the Lord we saw in Revelation 14, their labors are done. They rest from their labors. That is wearisome. Paul is wearied. Stop wearing me out. Stop causing me all these problems. He is not giving this as a command. It is an imperative, present tense. It ought to be something they continue not to do. He is not writing to the Judaizers because these unbelievers aren’t going to pay any attention to Paul saying “stop it.” You know what happens? Unbelievers are saying things, they are lying, They are undermining the truth. They are undermining Paul’s ministry and believers in the church at Galatia are listening. You know what happens when they listen? Now they are in confusion and they believe lies. Paul says, “Stop it; from now on stop causing me the trouble.” This is so wearying. He can’t put a stop to the Judaizers but you know what would stop the problems in the church, if believers didn’t listen to the lies.

I clipped an article out of the paper a couple weeks ago. This is March 10. It was in the Omaha paper. “Fake news spreads farther, faster, deeper than truth a big study finds.” Now I am not getting into fake news but “Twitter loves lies. A new study finds that false information on the social media network travels six times faster than the truth and reaches far more people.” This was researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They looked at more than 126,000 stories from 2006 to 2016. They found that fake news spread through Twitter farther, faster, deeper and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information. Their conclusion, falsity wins out. On average false information reaches 35% more people than true news. In fact as these stories get passed on the truth got passed on to fewer than 1,000 people; the false ones to as many as 100,000 people.” They go on to talk about it. It is a rather long article.

The sad thing to me is this happens in the church. The lies get passed on and passed on and passed on. We are just like the world. I begin to scratch my head and say, this is the problem at Galatia. These Galatians had listened to the lies and they get involved in passing on the lies and Paul has to write the letter and hear he is a couple of lines from being done. He says, “Stop troubling me.” How could they stop it, quit listening to the liars.

Why do Christians listen to lies? Well, how am I going to know what is true if I don’t listen to a lie? You need to go back and start over. Is this where we are? We are just like the world. The lies fly.

I went back to my file and looking at some of the things that had been written. I have read that I have said things and been places I had never been. The meetings I had that I never attended, I don’t know where they get this information. Somebody just creates it and then puts it out there. Then it just gets a life of its own and I am not even on social media. I didn’t even know it was there until people printed out copies and gave it to me. Wow! At least I am important enough to make the news. But who starts these lies? I say “How did that get started?” I mean somebody made it up and then it gets passed on and for some reason Christians think there must be some credibility to it. Besides I heard it a number of times. It is like the lies go on and the truth reaches 1,000 people and the lies reaches 100,000 people. How do we suppress that? You get up and you try to….you know we like to hear some things, what Proverbs warns us about. And so we listen to things and we think, “well I have heard it from a number of people. I think there must be something to it.” Well the devil is the father of lies.

You know it does get confusing when believers then get attached to lies and start to pass it on. This is the problem at the church in Galatia. Tru, the Judiazers are foundational, but the problem wouldn’t spread in the churches in Galatia if the believers didn’t pay attention, didn’t listen and as they start to talk about it you begin to lose the clarity between truth and lies and now they are even confused on the Gospel. It is any wonder that Paul has to say to them, “Stop it! I don’t want anybody wearying me with this kind of trouble any more. There is no excuse for it. They are lies.” I don’t know what those who profess to be believers are going to say to the Lord when they listen to lies. God doesn’t lie. The devil lies and is the father of lies. You don’t have to listen to him.

It bothers me that the church looks like the world. This could be an article on Christian churches, evangelical churches. “Fake news spreads farther, faster, deeper than truth.” What, we are like the world? That is what Paul is dealing with at Galatia.

I want you to stop wearying me with this. The Judaizers, they won’t go away but they won’t have any audience if the believers don’t listen. In fact they will get walled off and believers will recognize them. You are telling lies, you are a child of the devil because God’s children don’t lie. You lie. If they dealt with the Judaizers like that this would have been a shut-down matter. Paul wouldn’t have to write this letter.

And he says, “And I bear on my body the brand marks of Jesus.” I am a genuine article. You want to compare battle scars and these are brand marks. Paul used them as identifying him as a slave of Jesus Christ because he paid the price. He had been beaten times without number. He had been scourged repeatedly. He was stoned. What would Paul’s body look like? It has all kinds of scars from different places and the mistreatment. He says, “I’m not ashamed of that. That brands me because Jesus said, ‘If they hated Me they will hate you. If they reject My Word they will reject your word’” because we are passing on His Word.

So that is fine. I stand. I am genuine. That is why it is a rebuke to them. “Stop causing me trouble, wearing me down. I have the brand marks. I have brought you the truth. You choose to believe lies. I can’t do anything about the Judaizers but you believers ought to stop listening to lies. That casts doubts on the ministry, casts doubts on my ministry. It undermines the truth. Put a stop to it.”

That is a pretty strong way to end the letter. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit brethren, amen.” We are done. This has been a strong letter from beginning to end but it needs to be said and the church needs to listen to it today and he wants “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to be with your spirit, brethren;” the only one of Paul’s letters that in closing he calls them, “Brethren.” He still loves them. He still considers them God’s family.

You know it is like with our children. They get older. Sometimes their conduct you just tell them. This conduct has to stop. It can’t go on. That is what Paul is saying, “You know I love you, you are family members.” But he has authority from God. It has got to stop. I don’t expect you to continue troubling me anymore. He gives it as a command. What will the solution be, don’t listen to the Judaizers and those who lie tell them they are not welcome anymore and I don’t want to be around you and I don’t want you around me if you are going to tell lies. That’s it.

The grace, he wants God’s grace to sustain them along with God’s peace, God’s mercy in verse 16. He hasn’t given up on them. God is our enabler, empowerer, that amen. It’s settled, it’s steadfast, it’s true. God’s grace will give you the enablement. So call on the church. Get back on track. Walk, keep in step with this rule as a new creature, a new creation, one now walking by the Spirit, having the new life in Christ characterizing you so that the works of the flesh are not being produced and manifest but His beautiful character is manifest there. He doesn’t give up on them but he expects there to be adjustments, changes and then conduct themselves accordingly.

We want to be a church that lives in light and consistent with the Word of God. We keep in step with what it means to be a new creation in Christ. This is the guide for our life. We live by the power of the indwelling Spirit having been set free from sin. I no longer have to serve sin. I no longer have to participate in sin and I don’t want to have anything to do with it and that ought to be our position as a church as we serve Him.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the riches of Your Word. Lord, it is simple. It is clear. Your provision is more than adequate in every way in every area for every believer. Lord sometimes we hold these truths lightly. We become careless and then we come to confusion and we suffer disorder, disarray. Our testimony is marred. Lord we have the letter to the Galatians churches. There is no excuse for us not learning, taking it to heart and having Your Spirit conform us more and more to these wonderful truths. How awesome it is that we have been crucified with Christ. The life which we now have is the life Christ lives in us. We are new. We are free. We belong to You. We desire to manifest that in all we do and in all we say. We commit ourselves to that end in Christ’s name, amen.