Boasting in Nothing Except the Cross | Galatians 6

Galatians 6. The Book of Galatians, as you've heard already, in some ways is the book in the Bible, that's the book of the gospel par excellence. Oh, not that you don't have the Bible in every nook and cranny giving you the gospel, not that Romans isn't a more fulsome exposition of the gospel, but there's no other book that is as conscious of the role of the gospel in the life and ministry of the Christian. There's no other book that talks about how important it is that the gospel be at the very center of the Christian's

life, not just simply something that the non-Christian uses for salvation, to get salvation, but it's in the middle of the Christian's life. In Martin Luther's commentary in the Galatians, in Chapter 2, verse 4, he says something that, I think, summarizes very well the point of the book of Galatians. Martin Luther says in that one spot, he says "The truth of the gospel is also the principle article of all Christian doctrine, wherein the knowledge of all godliness consists. Most necessary it is therefore, that we should know this gospel well, teach it to others, and beat it

into their heads continually." That's a very Luther kind of thing to say. And that is pretty much what the Book of Galatians is about. Now, when you get to Chapter 6, and I have to admit that I was in this boat up until very recently, like three days ago, you look at Chapter 6 almost like a set of detached statements. When you get to the end, it almost looks like Paul's just saying a number of different things he wants to say. They almost seem like standalone proverbs. And I have to admit that when I've preached

on it before, that's how I've looked at it, just a set of discrete statements about bearing one another's burdens and God is not mocked. But as I have been reading this and studying it, getting ready to talk to you about it, I actually think that Chapter 6 hangs together pretty well, especially if I cheat here, and read the last verse of Chapter 5, which many commentators, and I would agree with them, think should have been the first verse of Chapter 6. That it actually holds together pretty well. Because the first part is talking about a

heart condition that needs to be addressed at the behavioral level and the last part talks about how that heart condition can be solved by the gospel at the identity level. Let me read it to you, and then we'll go through it, but I'm going to start at Chapter 5, verse 26. "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you, who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so, fulfill

the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself, but let each one test his own work and then his reasons to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will have to bear his own load. Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will, from the flesh, reap corruption,

but the one who sows to the spirit will, from the spirit, reap eternal life. "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season, we will reap if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith. See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised and only in order that they

may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves, keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy upon them and upon the Israel of God. From now

on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen." Now, the reason I think that this actually holds together is up until now, Paul's had two basic concerns, a doctrinal concern, a situational concern. The doctrinal concern, of course, is a fear that the readers were losing a grip on the doctrine of justification by faith alone. On the other hand, the situational concern is for their unity, that they wouldn't be biting and devouring one another, that they'd

be living together in unity. And of course, he's using the gospel to bring about that unity and he fuses those two concerns here at the end. Because starting at 5:26 and through the first part of Chapter 6, he is calling for a kind of relationships. He talks about a heart condition that needs to be resistant at the behavioral level and then solved at the identity level. Now, what is that heart condition? Chapter 5, verse 26, which I read "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another." Now, here I'm following the old stalwarts,

people like F.F. Bruce, John Stott and Donald Guthrie, people you might say I teethed on when I was a new Christian and reading their commentaries on Galatians. And what they say, is that word conceited isn't a particularly helpful English way to convey the word there. Probably the older English word vain glory or vainglorious is a better way to get it across. It's the Greek word kenodoxia, which actually literally means "empty of glory." And the old English word vainglorious literally renders it, but it's not of much help to contemporary English speakers anyway. But what it means

is, I'm relying on F.F. Bruce, to be empty of glory means that you are desperate for recognition and affirmation, that you sense an emptiness and you're trying to fill it with other people's affirmation and recognition. You're desperate to prove yourself. And what that does is this. How do we do that? That's a heart condition. That's a natural human heart condition. I do know that... We all know that there's such a thing as an insecure person, right? But because Paul is saying to all of his readers, "Let's not have this condition in our lives anymore," I

think we have to interpret this at a theological level, not just a psychological level. Romans Chapter 1 and 2 tells us that all human beings know that deep down inside, we know that we were made to serve God. We were made to serve God. Romans 1 says "We were made to serve and honor God and nothing else." Which means every part of your being needs, has been created for, has been designed to hear God say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant." The approval of God. The recognition of God. "Well done, good and faithful

servant." That is what you need. You've got a cave, a cavity, a God-shaped hole, as it were. I know Augustin talks about a God-shaped hole. I'm being a little more specific than that. What you need is the recognition of God, as it were. The well-done of God. And because we don't have that, because we've turned away from God, we are desperately trying to fill that cavity at the expense of everyone else. In other words, we go out into all of our relationships, instead of going out to serve, we go out to use people. We go

out into all of our relationships, in a sense, with a logic of the market, which is "How can I profit from this person? How can I profit from this relationship? How can I bolster my fragile sense of being a good person? How do I build myself up at your expense?" John Snott says if you take a look at the verse it says, "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another," and he says "Well, envying one another is the inferiority complex. You're comparing yourself and you're angry because you feel like you're inferior

to this person so you resent it." Provoking actually means, in a sense, to compete with. It's a word that means, in a sense, to be aggressive, but the way John Stott reads it is, here's a person with a superiority complex who says "I could beat you," and the envying person...here's the person with the inferiority complex, which is "I can't beat you and I hate it." But the fact is you're going into every relationship not to serve, but asking "How does help make me feel? How does this help me or not help me bolster myself? How

does it help me fill that emptiness, so I feel like I'm an important person, so I feel better about myself?" So we go out into every situation and we're comparing ourselves constantly and therefore, we're actually going out to use people and to exploit people, not to serve people and not to love people. Now, what you have in verses 1 - 5 and 6, really. What you have there is you have, in a sense, Paul saying "Here's how I want you to live instead. Here's how you resist that condition at the behavioral level." Look, he says,

"Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you, who are spiritual, should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, but keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted." Now, by the way, "You, who are spiritual." Almost all commentators think he's really trying to say "You with the Holy Spirit," so he's not talking about elite spiritual types. He's talking about Christians. But notice when he says "If anyone is caught in a trespass, restore them. This is not Matthew 5 or Matthew 18. This is not saying "Restore the relationship." He's not talking about someone who sinned

against you. It says "Restore him." And it says, "Only if the person is caught or trapped in a trespass." What's that? A transgression. If you look at a person who obviously has a bad habit, has a character flaw and it's pulling them down, maybe they're always blowing up relationships because of their abrasiveness. Maybe they can't keep a job because of their irresponsibility or whatever. You look at a person and you see, here's a person who's in trouble. Here's a person who's constantly screwing up. Here's a person who actually is caught in some kind of character

flaw. What does it say? If you have a right attitude towards yourself, It says if you're humble, if you are not self-righteous, in other words, if you have the proper attitude toward yourself, you can move in that relationship to serve him. Now, if you actually are a vainglorious person, you look at someone like that and you say "Just get me away. I'm not going to get anything out of this relationship. A vainglorious person goes into every relationship, like I said before, with the logic of the market. You add it up on cost benefit. "Am I

going to get as much out of this relationship as I'm putting into it, at least, or more? Is this person going to help me meet other people I want to meet? Is this person going to make me feel good about myself, you know?" sometimes you do get into relationships, they are called enabling.... Pardon me The old AA group... The old AA approach was right about sometimes we actually do want to get into a relationship with somebody who's a mess because we can constantly rescue them so they need us and that makes us feel good about

ourselves, but that's vainglorious. You know why? Because we don't want to restore them. We want to keep them dependent on us. Or maybe we just don't want to have anything to do with them because we're too busy trying to reach our goals. We don't want to spend a lot of time with a person who's kind of a black hole. You give and you give and they just don't seem to get any better. If your attitude toward yourself is right, if your weren't vainglorious, you would move out into relationships as a servant, not using the person,

either by keeping them dependent on you and not restoring them or by not getting involved with them at all because they're a wreck. He's calling for a kind of relationship that takes a unique sort of heart, a unique sort of identity, one that's been healed of the vain glory, which is the characteristic of all sinners. The need to use other people to bolster your inner sense of your self-worth to cover over the feeling you actually do have that you're alienated from God to try to make up for the fact that you don't have God saying

to you "Well done, good and faithful servant." So you're out there trying to find everybody else to tell how great you are, and you can either use a person by keeping them dependent on you or you can use a person by going to find somebody else who's not a mess. So in verse 2 when it says, "Bear one another's burdens," usually we talk about that almost as a standalone, but it's almost certainly talking about verse 1. And that means... Here's the metaphor. If somebody is struggling with a 100-pound load and they can't get it, if

you come to help them, how do you help them? You can only help them by taking... "If you take that end, I take this end, now you've got 50 pounds on you and... I mean, the reason why the two of you can carry it, you grab this end of the chest, he grabs the other end of the chest, is because you're both actually carrying 50 pounds now. You're not really carrying 100 pounds. It's not all on you. If you had to pick the whole thing up, you'd have 100 pounds. If two of you pick it

up, you've got 50 pounds. If four of you pick it up, you've got 25 pounds each. So, the metaphor is, you can never help somebody without some of that person's burden falling on you. And that's the something that a lot of us don't want to happen. Jonathan Edwards has a great place in his great essay on helping the poor where he deals with objections, that when he has preached to people and said, "You need to help the poor," very often people give him objections. And one of the objections was, "I cannot afford it. I'd love

to help the poor, but I cannot afford it." And Jonathan Edwards, as usual, puts it like this. He says, "If we're never obliged to relieve other's burdens, but when we do it without burdening ourselves, how do we bear our neighbor's burdens when we bear no burden at all?" What he's trying to say is, when you say "I can't afford it," what you mean is "I can't afford it without burdening myself." He says, "But that's the whole point. Galatians Chapter 6, verse 2. When you see someone in trouble, in this case, financial trouble, there is no

way to help that person without some of that person's financial burden falling on you. It's called a sacrifice. Paul is talking about a kind of relationship here that we are actually not really capable of. We can only help people when it helps us feel good about ourselves. Those of us who go out raising money for various charitable purposes, ministry purposes, helping the needy and the poor in our community and all that, you know how people do that so often. You know that they're giving so that they can feel good about themselves. You know that they're

doing it to the degree that it doesn't burden them but simply builds them up because they're vainglorious. Paul says, "I want a whole different kind of relationship." Even verses 3, 4... Listen, I'll just be brief because we need to get to the meat of this. but even like verses three and four are often read as standalones and I think it's supposed to be one idea. He says, "For anyone who thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself." That is not a standalone. It's true, of course. Of course, it's a proverb. It's a

standalone proverb. Anyone who thinks you're better than you really are, you're in self-deception. Okay. But he's connecting it here and he's really saying, "You're never going to live this kind of servant life. You're never going to move out into relationships where you're really trying to serve and not using that person to build up your self-image, unless there's a humility about you." I love how categorical the Bible is about this. Paul says, "Now don't forget, as a Christian, remember what the gospel says, you're nothing." I love the drive-by that Jesus does in Luke 11. It's a

drive by. He's talking about prayer, remember? In Luke 11, to his disciples and he's trying to say "My father will give you things if you ask for them." But at a certain point, he says, "After all..." he says to his disciples, his apostles he's talking to. He says, "If you who are evil give good gifts to your children when they ask you,, how much more will my Heavenly Father..." You who are evil." He's talking to the apostles. Oh, by the way, you're evil. You're evil. The apostles, "You're evil." That's half the gospel. "You're evil." That's

half the gospel. "You're nothing." And the way to overcome that is not by getting out there into relationships that only make you feel good about yourself. That's desperate. That's sad. That's pathetic. But for you to move out into every relationship basically figuring out, "How does this person's dependence or independence, how does this person...my relationship. How does this build up my flagging, fragile, sense of self-worth, which is flagging and fragile because I'm not related to God like I should be. And therefore, I've got to fill that hole with the acclamation and the applause and the accolades

if everyone else in the world, it will never do it. Nothing will heal your heart except God himself looking at you with the light and saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant." It just isn't going to happen. Even verse 4, by the way, and 5, every commentator, I'll just say something about this. Every commentator, every preacher I've ever heard, always takes these two verses a little bit differently. He says, "But let each one test his own work and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor, for each will

have to bear his own load." It's a little bit of a side...almost a footnote. But Paul's trying to say "If you really, really were healed in your heart, if you need to always compare yourself to other people as a way of bolstering that fragile ego you've got, then, you still could have a sense in which you make progress. You can still feel like "Hey, I'm making progress, not because I'm better than him or better than her." But rather it says, "Every person knows you've got your own load to bear." The word load there is not

the same as the word burden. The word burden is a word that gets across the idea of a crushing weight and the word load is more of a cargo, a luggage, something that you have to take on a trip. The best way to explain this is something somebody years ago, an older pastor helped me. I guess I must have expressed a certain amount of irritation with somebody. This was somebody in my church and they were professing Christians, but they were very flawed people. It was a very flawed family. And one minister put it like this.

He said, "Well, you know, there's common grace, there's special grace and some of us, because of God's common grace, have had great families and we got a lot of love growing up, and we have a fair amount of self-control and we're kind of well adjusted. You come in, you might say, on a character scale from zero to 10 and when you become a Christian, you may come in at a 3. At five years of growing in Christ, you've come to about a 3.5. But then, here's this family, and they've had a... both the husband and

wife come from terrible families themselves. At the common grace level, they come into the Christian faith, they give their lives to Christ, they come in at about a zero. They're wrecks. And after five years in the faith, they're now 1.5. They really have made some changes, but you look at them and you say "I'm twice as loving and self-controlled as you are." You're forgetting... Look, they've got their load and you've got your load. Why is it that when Jesus says to Peter at the end of John, he kind of hints at... "Guess what? You're going

to die for your faith." I don't know whether Peter quite gets what Jesus is saying, but Jesus basically says to Peter "You know, there's some bad stuff that's coming." And Peter looks at Jesus, then he sees John walking along and he says 'What about him?'" And I just love how Jesus says "What is that to you? Follow me." And I'm almost sure that C. S. Lewis had that in his mind when he had Aslan constantly in the <i>Narnia</i> <i>Chronicles</i> say to people "I only tell you your own story. Don't ask me about that person's story.

That person, they have their own load." So you see, what Paul's doing here is he's saying "Get your eyes on God. Don't keep looking at everybody else. Stop using everybody else." Another way... Here's the principle behind this first part of the book of this chapter. Some years ago I read a meditation by Tom Howard. Tom Howard is a Catholic Writer. He's a brother of the famous missionary, Elizabeth Elliot. And Tom Howard wrote a little meditation that really made a difference to me. He was saying, "Look at the temple. What is in the middle of the

temple?" You know, God architected every little detail about the temple or the tabernacle and everything is laid out just according to his specs. But when you get to the center of the temple, which in a certain sense, is the center of the universe, the center of reality, what do you get? No image. There's no image to bow down to. In fact, what Tom Howard says, "There's really not a person, there's an event because at the heart of reality, is a gold slab, the mercy seat." Oh, on the top of the Ark of the Covenant, over

the law, where the blood is sprinkled. And Tom Howard said, "God is saying to us that the very heart of reality, the very heart of actually creation and redemption is, my life for yours." What sin does, is it makes us operate everything on the principle "Your life for me. I'm gonna make you sacrifice for me, for my interest, for my self-image, your life to serve mine. You will sacrifice your needs to serve mine." But Jesus Christ came into the world saying, "My life for you, my life to serve you, my life poured out for you.

I sacrificed for you." And he says, those are the two ways in which you can live your life. And every single day, every hour, you can decide on which of those operating principles to work. Parents, you have this wonderful plan for the day and then your kid gets sick, has a need, melts down, and you really need to spend time with your child. Which is it going to be? You can die and say "My life for you." You can have that child grow up feeling loved. And even though in a sense you sacrificed, that child...

In other words, you died so the child will live. Or if you never sacrificed, if you've never died yourself in your parenting life, if you constantly say, "Sorry, I've got my needs, I've got my schedule, I've got my goals, you can't get in the way," your child will grow up broken. You know that. All love, all real love is a substitutionary sacrifice. My life for yours. Heart of the world. Heart of the universe. And Paul says, "Look, you can live life that way and you can go into relationships that way or you can go the

old way, you know, the vainglorious way, not my life for yours, but your life for me." Well, okay, that's wonderful. What a lovely picture. But how do we get there? How do we fill that cavity? And that's what the last part talks about. And here, of course, it says "It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh, who had forced you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they

desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world for neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." Now, right here at the end, this is like a summary, but I believe this is where he's fusing the doctrinal and the situational. And essentially, he's saying, you're a whole new person, a new creation, a whole new person if you learn to boast,

not in anything else, but in the cross of Christ. What is a vainglorious person? Someone who is always boasting in all kinds of other things. If you learn to boast in Christ, that really makes you essentially a new person, a new creation and that's what heals you. and then the world can't control you anymore. Let's break this down. That's what he's saying. It's amazing. Let's break it down. First of all, here's what he's saying. If you want to have this deep healing that the gospel can do to your very heart and your very identity, number

one, you've got to understand the doctrine of the cross. See, when he says, "God forbid, or far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ," what does it mean to boast in the cross?" Before we get anywhere else. Before we talk about boasting or anything, we got to realize he's saying you've got to understand the cross, which means that's a doctrine. Your life will not be changed, the world will not be changed unless you understand the doctrine of the atonement. Before you get anywhere else, before you do all

the psychological moves, before you talk about whatever else, you've got to understand the doctrine of the cross. Doctrine comes first. You know, when Jesus says to Peter in Matthew 16 "Who do you say I am?" and Peter says "Oh, you're the Christ, the son of the living God," Jesus is rather happy about the answer, and he says "Peter, that's a revelation from God. Flesh and blood did not teach you that." And then, Jesus immediately starts talking about what? The cross. It says, he immediately started teaching that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer and

be tortured and be killed and rise again. He starts talking about the cross. Immediately, Peter starts to get very upset about this and he starts to rebuke Jesus. I loved you... "You're the son of God. That's pretty good," Peter says. "And you're a great teacher and you're the Messiah, great." But as soon as Jesus starts talking about the cross, Peter says "No, no, no. Wait a minute. I don't get that. I don't get that. What are you talking about?" And he starts to rebuke him. And Jesus does not say, "Get thee behind me, Peter." Remember?

He doesn't say, "Get thee behind me, Peter." He says "Get thee behind me, Satan." You know why? Because when you get the doctrine of the cross wrong, you're in the grip of Satan. When you get the doctrine of the cross wrong, you are doing Satan's bidding. You are Satan's missionary, not mine. Wow. There's a lot of people in the world, including in the church, that get the doctrine of the cross wrong and yet it's the basis for everything. Jesus says, "I can't deal with you until you get the doctrine of the cross right and not

only that, you're doing Satan's will." So it's extraordinarily important. If you read the gospels and if you think of them as biographies, you start to read them and you say "This is kind of nuts. why would the gospel... If these are biographies, why would they give 30%, 40% or even 50% of the entirety of the book to the last week of Jesus' life? That doesn't seem like a very good biography. And the answer is, they're not really biographies, but you know why they give...most of the book is the last week of his life? Because of

the cross. Jesus Christ came to go to the cross. It's central. So unless you understand the doctrine of the cross, none of the other things we're about the say, none of these incredible things...there's no new creation, there's nothing else, number one. Number two... By the way, and to understand the doctrine of the cross, you've gotta be willing to embrace, accept and feel the offense of the cross. You do not get the cross, you do not understand the doctrine of the cross, you have never really, truly come to grips with it unless you feel the offense

of it. I'm even talking to those of you who were raised in the faith and you never remember a time in which you didn't really believe. But I'm still saying look, in verse 12 it says, "Those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised and only in order that they may not be persecuted to the cross of Christ." He's saying the same thing he said back in Chapter 5, verse 11 when he says "Brothers, those who preach circumcision, they want to remove the offense of the cross."

Now, he's talking about people who are afraid the Jews would reject them if their converts weren't circumcised, the gentile converts weren't circumcised. But it's bigger than that. The cross is not just offensive to Jews. The cross is offensive to everybody. You know, Alfred Jules Ayer who was a very prominent British philosopher in the 20th Century. Bertrand Russell, also a prominent philosopher. These are what these men said. These were British philosophers. Here's what they said about the cross. Alfred Jules Ayer said, "The doctrine of the atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross was 'intellectually contemptible and

morally outrageous." This is just typical. Bertrand Russel says that "No one who is profoundly human can really believe God would punish sin like that," and he called the cross, "The doctrine of cruelty." That's typical. But let me get down to earth. You know what the doctrine of the cross does? A lot of people in the world think religion's okay, not bad. Morality, religion is good for us. The doctrine of the cross, offensive. "Are you saying," they say to us, "that those of us who have worked our entire lives to keep ourselves out of the gutter

are in the exact same place spiritually as the people who are in the gutter? So that we both have to be saved in exactly the same way? How dare you? Or they say to us, "Are you saying that good people in other religions who have lived good lives and are extremely moral in all these ways, if they don't believe in the cross of Christ, they're lost? How dare you?" The cross of Christ is offensive in all sorts of ways. And if you haven't come to grips with it, if you haven't felt it, if you haven't

ever struggled with it, I don't think you get it and, therefore, it's not going to change you. But how does it change you? Thirdly, you got to boast in it. Now, one of the things I've found really interesting over the last few years is... In fact, just last year, when I was preaching to my own Presbyterian General Assembly on I Corinthians 1, I came to realize that so many of the great Pauline passages about the cross or about the gospel, like Ephesians, pardon me, like Philippians 3 or 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 or Romans 3

and 4 or right here, the end of Galatians. Every time it seems like Paul starts talking about the cross or the gospel, he starts talking about boasting. Actually, it was fairly recently I began to realize the boasting thing. Wait a minute. What's this boasting thing? Because he brings it up all the time. And here, he's actually saying if you boast in the cross, that's what turns you into a new creation, and if you boast in anything else, that's what makes you vainglorious. Well, what's boasting? First of all, originally, a boast was part of warfare. How

do you get people to charge into almost certain death? How do you get soldiers to go, "Let's go?" You start with a boast. A ritual boast was where the captain or the general or the king got up and said, "Our hands are strong enough, our spears are sharp enough," and everybody goes "Yeah," and they charge. It was a ritual boast. I mean, actually, the Bible talks about it quite a lot. Exodus 15 says "Egypt boasts. We will pursue them and draw our swords and destroy them." 1 Kings 20. "One who puts on his armor should

not boast like one who takes it off." Which is a great little proverb. 1 Samuel 2, Hannah talks about "I will boast over my enemies." A boast was how you got yourself ready to charge, how you got yourself the confidence to charge. Now, there are very different kinds of boasts. There's a Shakespearian boast, you know, where Henry V, the St. Crispin's Day speech, fairly eloquent. "And gentlemen, in England now a-bed will think themselves acursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speak, who fought with us on St. Crispin's Day." Then, in

"Ghost Busters," there's Bill Murray saying "This chick is toast." And they're basically... Remember? Yeah, one is a little more verbose. And now if you're English, you probably like the first one more. If you're American, you probably like the second one more. But essentially, a boast is getting you to say "We've got what it takes. We've got the cannon, we've got the spears, we've got the champion, we've got Goliath." That's always a big help. We boast. Now, Paul is saying everybody has to actually boast of something. He takes a military idea, which is what it is,

and he begins to say "Well, now wait a minute. You need to stop boasting in other things and start boasting in something else." Jeremiah 9, a very famous place, it says "Let not the rich, wise man boast in his wisdom or the strong man boast in his strength, or the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts, boast about this, that he understands and knows me." There's no sense in that verse that there's such a thing as not boasting. You had to boast in something. What does that mean? Well, you see, a

boast at a sort of psychological, theological level is your identity. What do you look to that validates you, strengthens, you and makes you confident to face things? Where does your confidence come from? Where does your strength come from? Where does your validation come from? Everybody has to boast in something. You see what a brilliant metaphor this is? Paul takes, as it were, something from the military world and brings it on into our life and says, there's a certain sense which everybody has to boast in something, which is a way of getting an identity because everybody's

got to find their confidence in something. Everybody's got to do something that says "I can do it. I can do it." Well, what is it going to be? You know, Martin Luther was extremely canny about this because in his preface to Galatians, his epistle on Galatians, he actually says that when the chips are down we almost instinctively point to something that is our confidence. Say, "Well, I'm a good father." Or, "I'm a good mother." Or, "I really worked hard." In other words, when something comes... he says when Satan accuses us, we turn to whatever we

boast in, and he essentially says the devil will always outflank you if you do that because you can say "Well, I do this." Or, "I do this," but the fact is our righteousness is as a filthy rag. There's holes in it. Deep down inside, it's fragile. The modern self-esteem is all about boasting. You tell yourself you're beautiful. Tell yourself you can do anything you set your mind to. Social media is filled with boasts. But what does the Bible say? What does Paul say over and over? Philippians 3:3. "We boast in Christ Jesus and put no

confidence in the flesh." 1 Corinthians 1:31, 2 Corinthians 10:17. "Let one who boasts boast in the Lord." In other words, Paul takes the Jeremiah 9 passage and applies it to Christ. What does it mean to boast in the cross? It means three things, let's say. Number one, it means you're seeking the applause of God. In fact, you know, Paul says when he's also talking about boasting in Romans. In Romans 2:29, he says, "Those who are circumcised in the heart by the spirit and not by the written code, such a man's praise is not from men

but from God." And the word praise there is actually the word for applause. And C.S. Lewis does a bit of a riff on this in his <i>Weight of Glory</i>, where he says "Let's sit down and imagine what we're talking about here, that when you become a Christian, because you're in Christ, God looks at you and doesn't see your sin, doesn't see your flaws, but sees you as perfect in Jesus Christ. That's what the gospel is. And as a result, he looks at you, sees you in Christ and applauds." And that's what Paul says. Here's what

Lewis says, "It is written that we shall stand before him. The promise of the glory is the promise almost incredible, and only possible by the work of Christ, that we shall please God. It seems impossible. A weight of glory, which our thoughts can hardly sustain, but so it is. It means good report with God, acceptance, response, acknowledgment and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we've been knocking all our lives will open at last." All your life you've been knocking on a door. "Affirm me. Love me. Tell me I'm okay." You've been

sucking it out of people, trying to get it out of people. You've been exploiting people. You've been working all of your relationships so that you can somehow steal self-acceptance from other people. It never works, but in the gospel, the door on which you are knocking will open at last. He's got a future reference to it. I think that's fair because justification by faith well means, right now I know this, but on the last day I will actually experience it fully. It means good report with God, acceptance, response, acknowledgment, welcome into the heart of things, the

door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last. It means at least one more thing, I said it means applause with God, but it also means this: It means seeing what Jesus Christ did to get this for you. See, the boast in the cross is not just to boast in our justification. He doesn't say that, though certainly, there's no reason why we can't. But the boast in the cross means to look and see what Jesus Christ did to get that for you. Look, he was beaten and mocked. They hit him

and they said, "Prophesy, Christ. Who hit you?" They spit on him, they jeered at him. They jeered at him when he was on the cross, right? Robert Murray McCheyne, maybe a little fancifully, thinks that when Jesus Christ was on the cross, maybe, and he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." Maybe he really did actually hear God say the curse. Maybe he actually heard God say to him, "Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting torment. Maybe a little fanciful, but here's the point, Jesus Christ was jeered so we could get the

applause of God. Jesus Christ heard "Depart from me," so you and I can hear, in Christ, God say to us "Well done, good and faithful servant." To boast in the cross is not just to boast in the fact that in Christ "I finally... The only two pair of eyes in the universe whose opinion counts, God, looks at you and sees an absolute beauty." Finally, the door on which you've been knocking all your life has been opened at last. You know, it's not just to revel in that, but also to see what Jesus Christ did for

you and that will enable you to move out into all relationships saying "My life for yours." And when it says "The world is crucified to be and eye to the world," Donald Guthrie says "That doesn't mean the world's been put to death. It means it's been put to death to you." Donald Guthrie says, "It means the natural world has ceased to have any claim on you." Who cares what they think? Money is no longer an identity. It's just money. Now you can give it away, you see. Even love relationships are not like the very breath

of life to you, and therefore, you don't melt down when somebody has a problem, you know? You realize ultimately your affirmation, your recognition, and your glory, as it were, comes from God and you're not trying to suck it out of everybody around you. Criticism doesn't kill you. But by the way, we need to end like this. It's not true that boasting in the cross is only something you do inside. You also need to do it outside, and so many of us are in ministry here, so let me close with an exhortation to you. What does

it mean to boast in the cross? In your ministry, it does mean to remember that ultimately, you're only boasting in the cross and you're not trying...well, let me give you an example. A lot of people, by the way, say to me "Gee, I'd love to preach like you." I say "Why? What do you mean?" They say, "Well, you quote so many great books. And I don't know how you read so much. I wish I could quote so many great books." Look, I've got a good memory and I want you to know this, that's no virtue

at all. I didn't cultivate it. It's something you're born with or you're not. It's not a fruit of the spirit. Okay, I gotta a good memory. That's great. I sound smart. Okay. If anything, I have to watch about that. I have to make sure I don't believe what people say about me...the good things, too much. But here's what you have to be careful. That's not boasting in the cross. That's boasting in how much you've read. That's boasting in your end notes and footnotes. That's boasting in "Look how much I know." Now, look, Billy Graham...I heard

an old Dick Lucas sermon. Dick Lucas was a minister in Helen's Bishopsgate some years ago for many years, actually. I listened to a sermon in which he told this story at the end of it. He said that in 1955, Billy Graham came to Cambridge to do the university mission. He was preaching every night at Great St. Mary's in Cambridge. And he got a lot of criticism in the press before he got there, in the London press. Saying "What in the world is this backwoods American fundamentalist doing coming and talking to our best and brightest?" Well,

that intimidated Billy Graham to some degree. And so, the first several nights, he boned up on his Kierkegaard, his Nietzsche, and his Sartre and he had all kinds of these quotes and he was trying real hard to not look stupid. And according to...I'm getting this from his biography as well as what Dick said in that sermon. He didn't do very well the first four nights. And the last night, he decided he was just going to preach about the blood. He was just going to preach about the blood, forget about everything else. He was going to

boast in the cross. This is what Dick said. This is what I got off the tape. He said, "I'll never forget that night. I was in a totally packed chancel, sitting on the floor with the Regis Professor of Divinity sitting on one leg, the Chaplin of the College who was a future Bishop on the other. Now, both of these were good men in many ways, but they were completely against the idea that we needed salvation from sin by the blood of Christ. And that night, dear Billy got up and started Genesis and went right through

the whole Bible and talked about every single blood sacrifice you can imagine. The blood was just flowing all through the Great St. Mary's. Everywhere for three-quarters of an hour and both my neighbors were terribly embarrassed by this crude proclamation of the blood of Christ. It was everything they disliked and dreaded, but at the end of he sermon, to everybody's shock, about 400 young men and women stayed to commit their lives to Christ. By the way, at that time, there was a student body of about 10,000 people. 400. And Dick remembers meeting a young Curet some

years ago, a Cambridge grad. He was at Birmingham Cathedral, and over a cup, he said to the man, Dick said, "Where did Christian things begin for you?" "Oh," the guy said. "Cambridge, 1955." "When?" "Billy Graham." "What night?" "The last night." "How did it happen?" He says, "All I remember is I walked out of Great St. Mary's for the first time in my life thinking, "Christ really died for me." And Dick said, "It was unbelievable to the Dons and the Professors, that a man like that, preaching a sermon like that could have totally changed a life

of a young person like that and so it did." Don't be ashamed of the cross. Boast in the cross, not just in your inner being, but in your ministry, and watch mountains move. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for this remarkable, remarkable promise, and maybe we should say to the degree that we can boast in the cross, to that degree the world will be crucified to us and us to the world, and we will really be new creations. Now, Lord, the reality is we so often...we have an old self and a new self.

We go back into the old ways of getting glory and honor. We go back. We don't live my life for yours. But we pray, Father, that because we've sat here and opened your word and your word has come home to use through the Holy Spirit, that more and more we can say, "In the cross of Christ I glory and I boast in nothing except that cross." Make us new creations thereby. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.