Boasting in Christ

We're going to pick up where we left off last week, continuing from 6.11 where Paul is writing his own personal close to the letter. Let's go ahead and I'll read 11 through 18. We'll just read the whole close from Paul and then we'll move from there. He says, See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.

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. 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. 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. For neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. From now on, let no one cause trouble for me. for I bear on my body the brand marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. I thought you were going to finish today, huh? Well, we've got two more verses which Bob has. Let's talk about the last verse next week. But Paul in 13 is talking about people boasting in the flesh, and boasting in the works of the flesh. And then in verse 14, he says, but if I boast in anything, let me boast in Christ. In verse 14, Paul says, but may it never be that I would boast.

So anytime when you're reading and studying through God's Word, and you see something that is personal, It's directed, these are letters, so it's either directly applying to Paul or something that he's applying to other people. You have to ask yourself an important question, and that is, does this apply to me? Is this something I should appropriate in my own life? And I think there is lots of substance and argument that this definitely is not just something that applies to Paul, but it is something that should be true of all believers.

So while he says, may I not boast, he's also... Sir, are we good with handouts? Are we good? Bud's confused here. His resurrection life is a little... I haven't moved. yeah it should the top should say 10 10 12 12 you have to forgive me that's my computer nerd date format yeah this is the 12th month 12th day that way it sorts nice in a list yeah So when Paul says this, and he's saying, I won't boast, I wanted to take a moment to look at what Paul does boast in though, which is, I think, an interesting thing.

So if you've got your Bibles with you, and it looks like everybody does, so that's good. Let's take a look at 2 Corinthians 10, verses 7 through 18. That's really interesting. 2 Corinthians 10 verses 7-18 and that's a bit of a longer stretch. The Pharisees were very concerned about very Jewish things, about lineage, about the things that they could mark off as giving them particular purity and standing within the culture.

So Paul, when he brings these things up, in the Corinthians, because they were very concerned, and if you were in the main service during this passage, when my dad was teaching, he brought these things up, but they were very concerned with being able to lift themselves up and build up themselves within the community and make sure that they looked a little bit better than the guy next to them. So 2 Corinthians 10, starting in verse 7, he says, You are looking at things as they are outwardly. If anyone is confident in himself that he is Christ's, let him consider this again within himself, that just as he is Christ's, so also are we. For even if I boast somewhat further about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not put to shame.

For I do not wish to see him as if I would terrify you by my letters. For they say his letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible. Let such a person consider this, that what are we in word by letters when absent? I'm sorry, what we are in word by letters when absent. Such persons we are also indeed when present. For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves. But when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.

But we will not boast beyond our measure, but within the measure of the sphere which God apportioned to us as a measure to reach even as far as you. For we are not overextending ourselves as if we did not reach to you, for we were the first to come even as far as you in the gospel of Christ, not boasting beyond our measure, that is, in other men's labors, but with the hope that as your faith grows we will be within our sphere enlarged even more by you, so as to preach the gospel even to the regions beyond you, and not to boast in what has been accomplished in the sphere of another. But he who boasts is to boast in the Lord, for it is not He who commends himself that is approved, but he whom the Lord commends. And actually that was just one of several passages I could have read where Paul lists off things that were Jewish and things that were boastable. Fundamentally, Paul is saying here that boasting has no part in the life of the believer of our own merit and of our own works.

This is probably not a huge surprise. One of the things that I've always found in my own wrestling is that when I get excited, I tend to be one of those people that likes to influence other people with new exciting things. Like if I get a new gadget or something, look at how cool this new gadget is! It's really cool!

And I realize that while I'm not trying to boast, not like, look at how I have this new gadget, I just like this new gadget and it's really cool, you should check it out. that doesn't represent the humility of Christ. And that's not even my own righteousness and my own works like Paul has.

So when it comes to things like things I've done, how do we cope with the idea that we might have been involved and used by the Lord to do things? How do we share about those things? Are we allowed to share about those things? If the Lord uses you, should you share?

I think it's encouragement for other people that, I mean, it depends upon the way you did it. Sure. You know, here I am, you know, no spatial equipment, humble person, but I was able, I mean, I talked to somebody or I did something and it looks like they may have, at least a seed has been planted. Sure. Yeah, I think that it's necessary.

Not for our own glorification, but maybe to encourage somebody else to step out. It can be edification within the body. So there's a difference between sharing what the Lord's doing in your life and boasting. So in the context of Galatians 6, 11 through 18 here, he's talking about boasting about physical things that culturally gain merit. So the circumcision was an outward sign that had cultural merit. How do we look at those things in an earthly perspective where we see, okay, this is just a cultural thing. The merit may be there as far as what the world sees, but Paul says we don't need to boast about those things. What things do we have to boast in?

According to this passage and so many other in the New Testament. In Christ. The cross. The cross. The work that Christ did. Of those things, and the work of Christ in the cross, and the adding every spirit to blessing, and the 33 things that are true of us in Christ, Okay, which is another class, and I've got the link written down at the bottom of page one if you're interested in going and listening to that class. It's actually been recorded a few times, so that's just one of them.

What merit do the things that we can actually as believers boast in, what's their eternal merit? Because if you're boasting in it, there's some kind of merit involved that actually has eternal value. What is that? It's his merit. I'm not sure I understand. Basically, that's what I was getting at.

In an eternal sense, for the things that we boast in, if we were to boast in circumcision, like these Jews were doing, when they get their new bodies, He says, what good is that? It's a past thing. It's a very short-term, conditional, earthly thing to boast in. But if we boast in Christ, we have an eternal thing that is going to go and extend beyond this short life.

And so that's an important thing to think of. Paul says, hey, if I'm going to boast, I'm going to boast in Christ. The reason that it's worth boasting about is because it's not him. It's grace. And it's eternal. And that's a big thing. What is the source of boasting in most cases? For human beings? It's personal itself. It's carnal.

But Paul says, I'm going to boast in this spiritual thing, this eternal thing. What does boasting in Christ look like? I'll be honest with you, I can't answer that question. from a personal experience. It doesn't actually, in a sense, do what we do each Sunday, in a way. We look at the person of Christ and God's Word, and we, in a sense, talk to each other about that, and interact with each other about that. So it's, in a sense, that you can loosely describe that as boasting.

But we're making note, or bringing to light, or glorifying each other in Christ's accomplishments. It's edification through the Lord revealing how we're being sanctified and then sharing that in one another's lives and fellowshipping. So even though Paul is kind of exaggerating for the point of illustration, in our own lives it's the testimony of the Lord's work and his grace and his mercy and the things he's poured out on our own lives. In the context of Corinthians that you read, wasn't that a sort of an outline of Paul boasting at God's work in his ministry in virgin territory that nobody else had worked on?

Yeah. And so probably what he talked about was what God had done in those areas, sort of like a missionary telling us about what God had done in the areas that he had put them in. With the testimony. Yeah, but more of a witness of God, not of themselves. It was a witness of that. This is what the Lord is doing, and I happen to have been there, and he did happen to use me.

Yeah. You could use the expression of gratitude in there, couldn't you? our gratitude for what we believe. That's absolutely part of it. That's absolutely part of it. We respond to grace with grace. It's tough to report on what God has done and leave yourself out of it. Exactly, that's very true. Because it's a spiritual warfare going on in front of people that only the Holy Spirit can win. When the Lord does it, and you're a part of it, there is an excitement. It's exciting when you see the Lord does it.

The funny thing is, at least in my own life, and this is totally anecdotal, I often don't know that it's going on until after the fact. It's one of those things where I don't feel like, you know, oh, everything lined up and there were, you know, fireworks and fanfares. Ta-da! It happened. It's like later on the Lord says, I used you. And it wasn't something that you could toot your own horn about in the end anyways.

It is difficult when you share that with somebody, because if your tone and attitude aren't right, it can come across as boasting. If the Jews were concerned about culture and tradition, Paul is covered clinging to those things so that you can boast about them already in Galatians. He's talked about Abraham. He talked about Peter even in 2 verses 11 to 13 where Peter pulled away from the Gentiles because he wanted to do the things that were culturally normative so that he could make sure that he could say I've been a good Jew, even though he was called to walk in grace and stop seeing that delineation. The thing that's interesting is that boasting tends to lift us up. We've already discussed that.

Boasting lifts yourself up and it tends to put other people in a lesser light. In the Old Testament law, there is not an explicit mention of boasting. I spent some time reading all 613 of them. There's a good website I found that had all 613 of them and you can search them and I spent some time and read through it. There's nothing that explicitly mentions boasting.

However, when Christ is asked by the Pharisees, what are the most important laws, what's his response? Love the Lord your God. And then what's the second one? Love your neighbors. So those are the two most things. How does boasting fit into loving the Lord your God? Not at all. And how does boasting fit into loving your neighbor? Not at all. So even though it's not explicit, it's an implicit thing that even in the Jewish context really doesn't have any business being in there.

But culturally it had become a point of contention where there were so many issues where I'm going to apply the law to myself that they wouldn't find opportunity to boast. There's a lot of verses that cross-reference boasting. So if you were to choose to do so, you could do a study on that in the New Testament and explore it. For the sake of moving on and continuing on through the passage, we'll keep going. So let's talk about this crucifixion, because Paul says, 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 he uses this, the text I wrote in there is reciprocity, but this idea that not only was the world crucified to you, but you were crucified to the world, for emphasis.

He says these two things have both died to one another and they're dead. So that relationship is no longer a substantial and substantive relationship. What's death again? Separation. So before we are separated from God and joined to the world, but now we are separated from the world and joined to God.

As I was preparing for this, I kept thinking, you know, this is one of those verses that you point to when you're teaching so many other verses and passages, because at Holly Hills here, because we understand grace, maybe, and we teach it more explicitly than other places. Every time we come into a logical imperative or a command sort of passage, what do we do? Where do we go as believers? to take that in the context of grace. We go to this concept of identification truths. We go to this concept of grace and we come here and we say, hey, you died to the world, so the logical imperative is that you should walk in the spirit. And so this is one of those passages where we would go to, to point out the simplicity of this death. It is a a core doctrine at Holly Hills, that we have this death with Christ and we're crucified with him.

It's identification truths. So when I came here to teach this I thought, oh my gosh, here it is again. Even when we're not teaching identification truths, we're teaching identification truths at Holly Hills. If you can find a lesson in which identification truths haven't been taught, it's a rare one. Because every lesson somehow ties to our identification with Christ and his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. So Paul, he brings this out.

One of the things that I find is that when we talk about crucifixion and our being dead to the world, where is the application of that? In your own life, where is that application? This is a very open-ended question and that's on purpose. Gail? Yeah, this probably isn't the answer you want, but probably not right. I think in terms of my value system, my value of family, home, everything, nitty-gritty, what do I value more? Deep in my heart. That is exactly the answer I was looking for. So that's good. Fundamentally, here's the problem.

When you talk about our crucifixion with Christ and being identified with Him, there is not an area that that doesn't reach. If you can think of a place where that could reach, it probably does. If you think of a place where it couldn't reach, let me know. But because it is your life, it is the entirety of your being and who you are and your position, it impacts every part of who you are. And that's the thing. Gail? Yeah, I was thinking about that just this morning at home when I was getting ready to come. I think it was a take-off from today's hungry hearts.

But the idea of he who doesn't hate his family, that we're to love the Lord more than, in a sense, to hate. this and this and this. And I think that points to my value system, which is more important to me. And I think it's something that I'm dealing with personally right now as well, because my brother's coming to town. I'm intimidated by him, and he's not a believer as far as I know. But, you know, where's my value system? What's really important?

The thing that I have found is that the Lord, if you think about sanctification as being, and I always like to draw this as a picture, if you think about sanctification in a conditional sense as being, boy that's an awkward line, here's the cross or something to that effect, and the Lord is growing us, and this is a moment where we're walking the flesh, just visually that's what that is. If you think about growth, The Lord is revealing to you practical application of our being identified with His Son in death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding throughout all of our sanctification. At no point in time does He stop revealing His grace, but also an area where He applies this in our own lives. There's not a point when when we can say except for you know here when we're identified with him in our physician and conditioner unified at death, again that's what this line is, there is no point at which the Lord isn't showing us an opportunity to recognize these things. Randy. Yeah, so But basically, the Lord's already done this. Positionally, it's solid. And so that line right there, there's actually two lines right there. Yeah, there's two lines. I was drawing the least amount of lines possible.

Because when you're talking about crucifixion and you're talking about the identity truths and the new creation, the only part that we had in that is that we believed. And once that happened, once you spoke that with your mouth, as it says in Romans, and you truly do believe, then then all you need to do, all, excuse me, what you need to do then is listen to the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit controls the mind of the new man, the Spirit frees the believer, the Spirit desires against the believer, sin, nature, etc. etc. etc. So through the Spirit, that bottom line comes closer and closer to the top line as we recognize who we are in Christ. Absolutely. But the principle of sanctification conditionally is simply that the Lord is revealing the things that are already true of us to us and we continue to grow.

Now this is overly simplified and I recognize that. Right, because if we had anything at all to do with that bottom line then we would have basis for boasting. Because I can say my line is higher than your line. The funny thing with that is that in the end fundamentally the imperfection of our growth means that maybe this line looks a lot more like this anyways.

It depends on the believer and obviously the Lord has his story. The picture of that conditional line is It can be flat for extended periods. That's an oversimplified drawing, but the Lord uses our condition and our environment. When we look at things in the light of sanctification, it means that we can be gracious with one another more readily, because we understand that I was in the bottom, that flat line. I was there for a while. You can even have a recession in that body of mine. You're here, we're all at different points.

And the way I kind of have envisioned spiritual growth within a local church body is more like the twisting of fibers on a rope, where your fiber in that rope is for as long as the Lord gives you on this earth. but it's intertwined with other believers. And those things happen, and we encourage one another, and we come alongside, and we strengthen one another. Each one of those fibers isn't strong enough within a rope to do much by itself, but when it's wrapped up and entwined with the lives of the other believers in the body, the Lord uses us and keeps each other strong. So it's kind of like a spiritual, it's a wonderful life.

I haven't seen that movie in so long. I don't even remember that reference. It's vague in my recollection. It just basically says everybody's interconnected. Oh, yeah. Well, hopefully because of our identification with crisis, it's deeper than that. Yeah.

I see it somewhat like the gifts of the body. Each heart has its important job, but they're not all the same. the hand, the eye, the ear, the nose, anything like that but they're so intertwined that it's the same way with spiritual growth. Maybe some people are the same place but the majority of people are at different places and it just comes along as your places are different so is your place. I am so grateful to be part of the church body and have so many people of different ages and backgrounds and everything else to interact with because the Lord uses that over and over again in my own life where if I come into a new situation that I am not familiar with, I don't have to do a carnal fleshly thing. I'm like, well, I'll just go out and buy the self-help book or the whatever book. I can come within the body and say, how did the Lord grow you in this?

I don't know how many times I've had great conversations between the end of this class and the main service or after the main service until finally Jessica says, Sweetheart, if we don't feed the children, they're going to die. But we have these conversations and it's so edified. It's so rich because we share with one another this crucifixion. And we share with one another the things that the Lord has done in our own lives, things that are worth boasting about His work.

Randy, even following the commandments, the first commandment and the second commandment, if you really think about that, say there was two people in the same house, and one could say, well, I love my neighbors more than you'd love your neighbors. No, seriously. You could. And you could even come down to those first two commandments being something you could boast about, unless you look at it and say for the fact that God actually loved us while we were still enemies, and so through His love we're able to do this.

And so it's a matter of receiving from Him and then giving to others. And that's the only way you can't boast about it. Because if it comes from you initially, then you can boast. And I think that's what Paul is saying. That's why he is so adamant about the fact of boasting. Because it does come from the self and the hush.

Nothing that we can do or say or have done or will do is worthy of boasting. The fundamental element of our having died with Christ is that there's nothing left for us. The part of us that was capable of boasting has been crucified with Christ. And that is a tremendous truth.

And the Lord, like I said, I asked, and Gail said, this is probably not the answer you're looking for, but the true answer is that there is no part of our lives that the identification truths don't apply to. There is truly no place where we can't find ourselves setting our minds on things enough.

That's why it's a new creation. And the new creation is definitely going to go into that, and maybe that's why you're bringing that up. But when he talks about these things, there's a whole element of being a new creation that is part of the identification truths and part of our spiritual growth truths, that you can spend your lifetime growing in the application of those things. It ties in with that sanctification process. Paul has not mentioned this only once in Galatians.

How many of you have Galatians 2.20 set aside in your memory? 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 and gave himself up for me. So we have repetition in Galatians.

It's almost like he wanted the Galatians to understand this truth. It seems like maybe he wanted them to get that. When we look at crucifixion here, let's take a look at this. I'm missing a parenthesis here. Who has the believer been crucified to? Or what? He says the world. Is the cosmos the world's system? Yes, the world's system. It's not just a who. It's not just a what.

But it's the flesh, in particular. Technically, Randy, it would be the curse, right? the fact that the world is put under a curse, the world in itself, until the curse was not bad. Then when it was cursed, according to Romans 1, then it became evil, or whatever you want to call it. And so, I think that's what it's talking about, is the cursed earth. Yeah, and we have a doctrine, well we have the eschatological end times doctrines, and we have The thing is that the interrelationship between crucifixion and so many other Christian doctrines is pretty tremendous. So you have things like federal headship, where Adam was the representative federal head of all mankind in creation, starting from the beginning. So when he fell, everyone that came after him had to carry the curse. And Adam says that. Romans 8 talks about creation being under the curse and groaning and waiting.

I always think that's really cool, that creation is waiting for the Lord. Because I have dogs that don't talk, but I always wonder, okay, they're waiting. It says they are. I believe God's Word. Okay, they're waiting. The bears are waiting. The lions are waiting. Because you realize that All of the Lion King, Hakuna Matata, garbagey reincarnation stuff that is culturally prominent today, and even biology with this whole scientific mindset of evolution, is going to be destroyed in the millennium as the Lord restores things and brings them back to peace between the animals.

And I think that's just a really amazing thing. It's all part of this new creation concept, but we're not there yet. I'm sorry, I've got to hold off on that for just a minute. I get excited about the new creation. Personally, one of the things I think is pretty tremendous.

So, we have death to the world positionally. When we die to the world positionally, our position is secured with Christ. And I think it's really important to recognize for eternal security that this crucifixion is a one-way deal. There's no un-crucifixion. Paul doesn't warn the believers, like, watch out for the un-crucifixion! That's really awkward. But he does continue on and he says in verse 16 I'm in the wrong place. I flipped to an earlier part of Galatians. I almost read the wrong verse.

16. Those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. So he's closing out the letter here with this blessing. The blessing of peace and mercy. What is he talking about when he says those who walk by this rule?

I'm sorry, I totally skipped circumcision. Not only circumcision, but new creation. I got this in the wrong order. Apologies in the handout there. Those two sections should be swapped. Since being circumcised or not being circumcised holds no value eternally, Paul tells the Galatian believers that the thing that matters, or things that matter, is being a new creation. So what's this new creation? The Body of Believers. Let's flip over to... It's also the new man, is it not? It's the new man.

Let's flip over to Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 through 18. If you have not done so, I totally recommend reading through Colossians and just take note of every time it describes a characteristic or an attribute of Jesus Christ. I did that one time and I just found myself just in awe. In part because there's something that Paul says in Colossians that I think is maybe under-mentioned, if you will, within Christian circles.

But let's start in verse 15 here and we'll He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church, and he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything.

And verse 18 there, I think, is what underlines this new creation concept. He's the firstborn from the dead, which is really, it's an awkward term for our modern western minds. He's the firstborn from the dead. How do you be a firstborn from the dead? Born again. He was resurrected. He's the first one. He was the first and all of creation existed because of him.

And Colossians 2.7 tells us that he sustains it.

Is it Colossians 2.7? Did I get my verses mixed up? Nope, it's not 2.7. We'll move past that for now, and I'll get the right address later.

But he's the first born from the dead, and then who's born from the dead after that? The church, because we're identified with him. He was the first, and then he could bring us along with him through identification. So he's preeminent in creation. setting things up so that our federal head Adam that we had before our identification with Christ could have an amazing environment to start out in and then screw up.

Which is a little weighty. Oh, that's a lot of burden to have on anybody's shoulders. Hey, you screwed up. Everybody else is going to be messed up because of you moving forward. And then he's the firstborn from the dead, making us new creatures, making us a new creation in Christ. Where does that not apply or impact your life if you recognize that in your own law? It's tied in with the identification trees. It's there. It doesn't leave anything untouched.

If you're a new creation, that means that the whole environment and the whole way that you approach the world around you is impacted. If I know that you're a new creation and I come to you and I come alongside you and I encourage you, like Galatians 6, 1 suggested we do, come alongside and I take that in context, it's not going to be a punch in the face, this correction that I have for you. If you come alongside me and you say, hey Randy, you know, Let me tell you this thing you might need to consider in growing. I'm not going to take that as a punch in the face. Oh, okay. Let's grow in this together. Stan?

I don't know if I can bring this up appropriately, but we were listening to the radio this morning at 8k085 and the stuff the professor guy was on there. And this guy's really quite intelligent. And this other guy called in and he was talking about the the universe, and the creation of the universe, and the fact that it had a shape like a ball. And the professor said, no, it's infinite, it doesn't have a shape. And so, they went into this, and every time the guy would bring something up, the guy on the radio would say, no, that's not true, because this isn't by gravity, but the message of this whole thing, and I hadn't really thought about this before, but the universe was a new creation, and is a new creation, and will continue to be a new creation because it's expanding outward and it's infinite.

So we, as a new creation in Christ, I think, and I thought about that this morning, we try to put ourselves in this ball and limit what that truly means as far as a new creation. We are only this and that and such and such. But if we're a new creation, we are in Christ, we are infinite like that universe is infinite and expanding outward constantly into infinity, which absolutely makes no sense to the finite mind, but it does show the greatness and the fact of what we are and who we are. I mean, we can't even put our hands around that. And to limit it is limiting the creation. Does any of that make sense? I mean, it does in my mind. I don't know if I can say it.

If we take it in the context of this Galatians passage where he talks about boasting, in the flesh the Jews were boasting in circumcision. But the Gentiles outside of that were boasting in their knowledge. And it is incredibly presumptuous the number of things that are theorized within science. And I'm going to say that very carefully because not all science is based on hypothetical things. There are things that the Lord sustains and puts in place. But there are a number of things that we cannot know, so we operate under assumption.

The funny thing is that computers introduced a whole new level of granularity for mathematical research. We could calculate numbers Longer and deeper and faster than we had ever been able to do and yet they're finite You know, I work in one programming language and I won't get into the too nerdy details of it But you have to be very careful if you're doing banking information because it always rounds numbers at the very end Even if you round it and maybe it's got 16, 17 places and you just need two decimal points for monetary things, okay, so that we don't have banking errors, you can make mistakes because the computer is finite and it still has to make an assumption.

It still is reflective of its maker. Aren't we? Well, and we're reflective of our Maker. Studying Genesis 1 through 3 is... But our Maker is infinite and eternal. Yeah, well, but the thing that's interesting is that we have the sin nature brings in these things and when it comes to science, we have so many presumptions. If you outright reject the Bible and God, then there's a whole number of things you have to substitute for the text of Scripture. you know, is the universe infinite or finite? Well, it depends on who you talk to. All I have to be concerned about, though, is that God and Christ and the Holy Spirit are infinite, and infinity is a very long time. Yeah. That's all I care about. Well, you have that in the context, but if you are operating in a carnal, fleshly environment, how can you prove that? How can you prove the Big Bang? Well, you can't. How do you go back in time? I don't have to. Well, exactly.

But that is part of the presuppositions in the system of the scriptures. But if you look at what the world offers, it becomes boasting. It becomes an arrogance. Hey, listen, I know this has got to be right. Well, prove it. I can't. Oh, okay. Well, then let's not get too proud about this. Let's not fight about this as though it is infallible truth. But I'm an idiot for having faith in the Bible and whatever it is.

So, that's the rabbit trail, as you can tell, I'm a little passionate about it. But there's not an area about being a new creation that it does not impact in our own lives. It impacts the lives of the people around us, how we interact with believers and even non-believers. I'm a new creation. I'm not drawn to those things inherently. That's the flesh. And I don't have to submit myself to the flesh. I'm called to reckon, which is ignoring those things. So we have this in the wrong order.

I had the closing blessing. But Paul says those who follow these rules or this rule, peace and mercy be upon them. What's the rule that he's talking about there? I thought it referred back to verse 14, which is the rule of not boasting and what he had talked about previously. With the crucifixion. Basically the idea is that we've been crucified with Christ. Those who follow this, may they have peace and mercy. That's a conditional blessing. May the Lord bless you conditionally with peace and mercy. Because positionally, we know those things are true.

And he says, and this I think, this is a part of Paul's love letter to the Galatians, when he closes with, and upon the Israel of God. Israel of God has been used metaphorically by theologians and they've derived all kinds of awkward theology which, due to the time constraints we have, we won't get into some of the exploration of bad theology that's come out of that. But the Israel of God has to do with believers who are a descendant of Israel, Jews, but they're believers. But he loves these Galatians. When he started out the letter, who did he write to? the Jewish believers in Galatia who had been corrupted.

Their theology had been destroyed or distorted by this other gospel, which of course was erroneous and legalistic and problematic. But he writes and he says to the Israel of God, because he wants them to know that, hey listen, you are Jewish, that's okay. It's alright to be Jew. That's your ethnicity. That's your descent. That's alright. But more importantly, you're of God. You believe in Him and you have this relationship with Him.

This isn't a reference to the church. This is a reference to Jews within the church. And if we look at Colossians chapter 3, he says there's no Greek nor Jew. If we look at Ephesians, he says there's no Greek nor Jew. The fact that there is no distinction, and even in Galatians chapter 2 when he's talking about how the Lord had broken down the barriers between the Jews and Gentiles within the church, and Peter had kind of compromised that temporarily. The relationships we have are not defined by our ethnicity, but he's not being negative towards someone recognizing their Jewish heritage. And that's one of those things where there is a I have noticed, at least in the American church, there is a tendency towards creating denominations that are one ethnicity. Yesterday I went to H-Mart. I don't know if you've ever heard of that. It's over by Yale. This is at Parker. It intersects where Hamden curves. It's H-Mart and it's an Asian market.

And if you've never been in there, it will blow your mind. I didn't know that they sold parts of cows and sheep and pigs. I just thought some of that stuff got thrown away. It turns out they sell it. at least at this Asian market. And there's all kinds of other cool things that I've never seen before. I didn't know that there were like many varieties of bok choy and they have all that.

But when I was exiting the store, I'm not just trying to tell you to go to an Asian market, there was this big plexiglass contraption that you could stick your receipt into these boxes that were labeled with various Asian churches names. And apparently if you put your receipt in there, they would take a percentage of whatever you spent and give it to the churches. But it was like New Methodist Korean blah blah blah church.

And it was like, why is it Korean? Why are you a Messianic Jew? And you've got to go to your Messianic Jewish church that happens to be on Friday night because that's a Sabbath. Why? It's not that it's inherently wrong and sinful that it exists, but it's more that if there's no Greek or Jew, Why do you cling to that? Why separate yourselves?

Now, I understand language barriers. It's not like there are completely irrational reasons to do certain things. But it is one of those things where, as believers, ethnicity is not the problem. It shouldn't be the problem. It shouldn't be the thing that comes and divides. Any other thoughts on that? If you want to take a look at Paul's outline and doctrine in Romans, he mentions three times, to the Jew first and then to the Greek. Why does he say to the Jew first and then to the Greek in Romans?

Because that's what Jesus did. Okay, Jesus did that. The other thing is that when you're going to evangelize, would you go start with a people who had any context of God that was looking forward to the Messiah? Yes, that would make a lot of sense. To go in and establish a connection with people, be able to have a home base, and then be able to reach out to the Gentiles. Paul appreciated the Jewish heritage that allowed him to establish the gospel in all these places, including Galatia. Obviously the Judaism came as a result of those things.

But this is God's Israel and don't let anybody argue that this is some reference to replacement theology where the church replaces Israel and so now he's being metaphorical and spiritual about who Israel is. Randy, isn't that interesting because that's exactly what Paul did when he was on Mars Hill and he walked through the, what was it, these gods, all these gods with names and everything else, and he didn't begin to try to disciple people by one of those gods with an already given name, but he went to the unknown god. And then he said the unknown god is Yahweh, and so then he was able to lead them from that point of demarcation into a belief system. He couldn't do it with one of the other gods, because they're idols. Yeah, he had to start with a, or his tendency was to start with a cultural connection that was familiar and then draw a line or show a line how God had set things up for them to be prepared to hear the gospel and respond to that gospel.

We should close because the second bell is rung and I have to go make sure my guitar is tuned for the music during the main service. Heavenly Father, thank you for this time that we have. to study your word. Thank you for identifying us with your Son in crucifixion so that we could boast in what you're doing, so that we can encourage one another with what you're doing. Thank you that you grow us conditionally so that our position and condition may be one day united. And Lord, I just thank you for the fellowship that I have with this body here, my brothers and sisters. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.