Title Galatians 06:11-14 We should boast
Contents
Title: We'll Be Proud
Text: Galatians 6:11-14
Children's pride...
Collecting a lot of Digimon tickets, getting better grades, fighting someone and winning...
When we were young, we had these things to be proud of.
But as we come of age, our pride changes...
Going to a good school, and going to a good job. Nice car, live in a big apartment. The children are fine....
As you get older, things to be proud of change.
You get rid of childish things and have the pride of being an adult.
Of course, in essence, human self-centered pride does not change. Only the shape is different, but the fundamental aspect of its pride is extremely worldly and extremely material.
Being proud is ultimately related to what the person considers important. After all, that person's value system is contained within it.
There are changes coming into our lives. It could be a change in age or a change in circumstances. Such a change could change our pride.
In that sense, being Christians means that our boasting changes. It means changing what we value, what we value.
In that respect, what we should boast about as Christians should be fundamentally different from what the world boasts.
What are you proud of as a Christian?
How has your value system changed after becoming a Christian?
The Apostle Paul explains in the book of Philippians the change of life and the change of value system after he met Jesus. It is a word we know well.
(Philippians 3:4-6) But I also have confidence in the flesh, especially if anyone thinks that anyone else has confidence in the flesh, and I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the house of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As for the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to the righteousness of the law, blameless.
This was the pride of Jesus before he met him.
He boasts of his religious status, merits, and worldly merits. For that he has dedicated his whole life.
Then he met Jesus on the road to Damascus.
It was the big bang in his life. It was an event that changed his life forever.
And his pride changed.
(Philippians 3:7-9) But whatever was useful to me, I count not only as all loss for Christ's sake, but also as loss of all things, because the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord is the noblest, because for him I lost all things and lost everything for him. I count it so that we may obtain Christ and be found in him, which I have not of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God by faith.
Everything that was important to me before was thrown away like excrement.
Everything I once boasted about is now thrown away like dung.
And to him the knowledge of Jesus Christ became the noblest.
He confesses that he lost everything for him and counted it as excrement in order to gain Christ.
It's a story of a change in his pride and his value system.
The words we read together today also record such a change in Paul.
He is saying that today he writes these words in large letters.
This means that it is an important content that cannot be replaced with anything.
Who is he attacking here?
They are the ones who want to take the shape of the body.
What does the shape of the body mean?
It means human merit or the worldly standard of judgment.
What was the situation in Galatia at that time, the recipient of this letter?
There were those who insisted on the circumcision of the flesh and said that keeping the law perfectly was the condition for salvation. These were mainly Jews who became Christians and insisted on keeping the laws they had been keeping completely.
They could not give up the legal merits they had been keeping.
By demanding this law from the Gentiles, they wanted to boast of the law they had kept.
These are people who say they believe in Jesus, but their pride or value system has not changed.
They believed in Jesus in appearance, but their actual life was independent of Jesus, and they still remained in the world of the law, the world of merit, and the world of judgment of human values.
To this end, Paul now commands you to put away the boasting of your flesh.
It calls for the renunciation of the boasting of the works of the law.
And the only thing he can boast about is the cross of Christ.
It is not through human merit or human judgment that one can stand before God, but only through the grace of God revealed through Jesus Christ.
So he confesses that he only boasts of the cross.
And then he says again.
'The world was crucified to me, and I to the world'
He is confessing his feelings of abandoning all worldly standards of value and worldly pride and relying solely on the Lord of the Cross.
Are we really proud of the cross?
Do we really depend on the grace and power that comes from the cross?
Aren't we too proud of the circumcision of the flesh more than the grace of redemption of Jesus?
Like the people of the Galatian church, don't you value the appearance of the body more?
They boasted more about the circumcision of the flesh that was given to them than the redeeming grace of Jesus from God. She was more proud of her body shape.
Many people focus on the visible rather than boasting of the invisible grace that comes from God.
Even the church is full of human pride.
It is full of those who want to shape the body.
Isn't the world's standard of judgment still being applied in the church?. Doesn't the world's standard of judgment take precedence in the church over the standard of judgment of grace or the standard of judgment given through the cross?
Those with great authority in the world do the same in the church.
A member of the parliament in the world is a member of the church in the church, and the president in the world is the president in the church. The richest people in the world act more than anyone in the church. Those who are knowledgeable in the world act as if they are knowledgeable even in the church.
The standards of evaluation of believers are not based on the grace of redemption that God gives, but the standards of worldly values, worldly positions and pride.
If he makes a lot of money in the world, he is a person who has received much blessing from God, and if he is poor, he is becoming a person who has not received God's blessing.
A lot of money is the standard of judgment in the world, but over time it has been degenerated into God's standard of judgment and is becoming a standard of faith.
The same goes for evaluating the church.
What kind of church is the church where God's grace is great?
Is a church that gathers a lot, has a large building and has a lot of property, a church where God's grace is great?
Of course it could be. However, if God's grace is evaluated by worldly standards, that is, whether it is large or small, many or few, it is to say that God's grace is in vain.
If all judgments in the church are based on human and worldly standards of evaluation, it can be a human community, but not God's community.
The church should not be the circumcision of the body, that is, a place to boast of one's own body. The church should not be the one where the world's judgment standards and world standards are applied as they are.
It must be thoroughly built on God's evaluation and God's grace.
We also have higher expectations of the guarantees of our lives than the promises of Jesus.
He told us not to worry about anything, but we are always concerned about our reality. More easily than God's word of promise, we are very easily placing our high expectations on human safeguards.
We believe in the power of one card more than the Word of God.
The present is more important than the future promise. We do not hesitate too easily in the face of reality.
We always put realistic life situations ahead of beliefs.
Our mouths speak of promises and beliefs, but our judgments are always based on reality.
The life of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
They stand in front of the realistic command that Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar will throw him into the burning furnace if he does not bow down to his image. Many people would have told you to compromise in moderation. He would have pretended to do it and later said it was right to live a proper life of faith again. He would have said it was wise. I would have said it was real.
But their priority was not real life. It was faith and a promise to God. He will save us. But even if not, it is said that we can never bow down to the golden image.
We choose the path of apostates in the name of reality rather than Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
He says the situation was unavoidable.
They also expect the power of the world rather than the power that Jesus gives.
The three temptations Jesus faced while fasting in the wilderness for 40 days...
If you bow down to me, I will give you all authority in the world.
We depend on the powers of the world.
How many people kneel before the devil and gain power in this world?
The truth about the clothes lobby case.
They also went to the prayer center, but their interest was not in prayer. was power.
They believed in the power of those in power more than the power of their God, and they flocked to each other like that.
It was not God's ability or God's standard of judgment that mattered to them. They had the name of believers, but they depended more on worldly power and wealth than that.
We do not rely on worldly wealth or power. Not the sword of the world.
All of them are just shells that will soon wither.
Last week, ahead of our youth rural mission, a pastor from the countryside came and gave a special lecture. It was a really big surprise.
Fruits can be divided into several categories.
It has a shell, a core, and a seed.
By the way, most of the fruit peels are very colorful. No matter how colorful the skin may be, it is not an important part of the fruit. it will be slashed.
What is important is the seed planted in the center of the fruit. There is the power of life.
However, the lives of many believers are becoming a life of splendidly adorning only the shells.
They are living under the illusion that everything is in the shell. So I'm doing my best to decorate the shell. A good house, a good car, a lot of wealth, a great job...
The seed of life within me is now choking and dying.
Isn't our religious life a life of adorning the outer shell according to worldly standards?
Are you boasting only of its shell, that is, the shape of your body, and mistakenly thinking that it will last forever? But that's not the point.
The seeds are important. The seed that conceives life is important. should be proud of it.
The shell has no life. There is no future there. It looks gorgeous on the outside, but it dies when it comes off. it will dry out
Jesus Christ is our seed. it is our life
Showing off our outer shells should not be the life of our faith.
The world makes all kinds of noise and adorns the outward man, but we must boast of the inner man, that is, the seed of Jesus Christ within us.
We must boast of God's work of life that began in us, and of the amazing work of life on the cross. We believe that faith with a clear essence, faith with the power of life, should be our faith.
What have you been proud of so far?
Have you boasted of your worldly status, worldly riches, and worldly superficialities?
We are Christians.
There is only one thing we are proud of.
It is Jesus Christ who died on the cross and became our life.
I believe that he should be proud of in our lives.
I pray in the name of the Lord that the cross of Jesus Christ and His cross become the center of our lives and that the work of grace that becomes our life will be with us in our lives.