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Boasting Only in the Cross: The Blazing Center of a Life Not Wasted · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed thinking. I want you to picture 2
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completely contrasting images placed side by side.
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OK, on the left you have this glossy brochure featuring a
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smiling silver haired couple. They're walking hand in hand on
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a pristine Florida beach. Sounds nice.
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Right, they're collecting seashells, the sun is setting
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and there's like a golf cart waiting for them in the
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background. The classic dream.
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Yeah. But then on the right side,
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placed right next to that serene image, you have a blood stained,
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splintered Roman execution rack. Oh wow.
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Yeah, the air around it smells of death, public humiliation and
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state sponsored terror. That is a harsh contrast.
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It is and our mission for this deep dive is to evaluate your
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life. We are looking at the concept of
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life well lived versus a life entirely wasted, and we're doing
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that by forcing these two images into a collision.
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Cause a heavy topic it. Really is we are analyzing a
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specific set of theological texts concerning Galatians. 6.14
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These materials strip away human pride, they elevate the glory of
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the cross, and they weigh the massive reality of
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substitutionary atonement. The contrast between those two
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images is It's jarring. And that is precisely the point
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the text makes. I mean, we are looking at a
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complete collision of world views.
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Modern society points at that image of the Florida beach, you
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know the couple collecting seashells and universally agrees
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there is the finish line. That is success.
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Yeah, everybody collapsed for that.
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They do. The cultural consensus dictates
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that the highest good a person can achieve is to labor in the
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workforce for a few decades, accumulate enough wealth, and
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then retreat. Retreat into like a final
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quarter of life that is just characterized by uninterrupted
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leisure and recreation? Yes, but the text we're
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analyzing today? Look at that exact culturally
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celebrated retirement and classify it as a cosmic tragedy.
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Which sounds incredibly harsh at first glance.
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It does to the average person on the straight.
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Clocking out after 40 years of hard work and moving to a warmer
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climate just sounds like a well earned rest.
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Sure. So why is this specific
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lifestyle targeted as a tragedy in these texts?
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Well, the tragedy becomes visible when you place that life
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before the judgment seat of the creator.
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OK, The material site data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
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pointing out that Americans over the age of 65 watch an average
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of 4 1/2 to five hours of television daily. 4 1/2 to five
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hours every day. Every single day.
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Let's do the map on that. If you project that across a 20
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year retirement, you were talking about 10s of thousands
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of hours spent staring at a glowing rectangle.
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That's wow. It equates to over 4 solid
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years, 24 hours a day of pure screen time.
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Good. Grief, Yeah.
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The text paints this terrifying image of a person standing
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before the sovereign holy God of the universe on the final day of
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judgement, pointing to an existence of trivial amusement.
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And saying, look, Lord, see my seashells, see my golf handicap,
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see my comfortable retirement. Presenting a life of just, you
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know, constant recreation to the God who breathed the soul into
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your lungs is the literal definition of a wasted
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existence. It really forces a massive
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question about the baseline purpose of human life.
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It does. We have to contrast that
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seashell retirement with a historical standard.
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Specifically, the texts bring in the Westminster Shorter
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Catechism. Which is such a brilliant anchor
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for this right The Catechism asserts that the chief end of
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man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
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Glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
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Yeah, that gives you a definitive framework for
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existence. If the chief end of your
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creation, the very reason you were knit together in the womb,
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is to glorify the Creator, then spending the final decades of
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your life maximizing your own comfort completely misses the
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mark. It's a total swing and a miss.
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It is a fundamental failure to understand what you were made
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for. You are not created to simply
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coast into oblivion. I want to look at the visceral
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counterexample the text provides to the whole Florida beach
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scenario because it highlights 2 specific women, Ruby Eliasson
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and Laura Edwards. Their story's incredible.
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It is. And these were not, you know,
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young, energetic college graduates going on a short term
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mission trip. Ruby was an octogenarian.
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She was a single woman who spent her entire life pouring herself
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out for others. And Laura was a widowed medical
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doctor pushing 80 years old herself, right?
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They could have easily taken the culturally approved route.
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They had earned the right to retreat to a quiet suburb, watch
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those five hours of television a day and just relax.
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Nobody would have blamed them. Nobody.
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But instead they were in Cameroon, spending their final
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days serving the sick, the poor and the unreached.
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And their story concludes in a way that the modern world finds
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utterly horrifying. Yeah.
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The texts detail that while these two elderly women were
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driving through the rough terrain of Cameroon, their car's
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brakes failed. Oh man.
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The vehicle plummeted over a Cliff and they were killed
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instantly. If you read about that event in
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a mainstream newspaper, the headline is going to use words
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like catastrophe or senseless loss.
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Absolutely, because the secular humanist worldview operates on
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the strict assumption that this physical life, these 80 odd
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years, is the only reality we get.
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That's the boundary line for them.
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Yeah, so looking at two women dying in a violent car crash in
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a foreign country instead of dying peacefully in a
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comfortable hospital bed in America, the secular mind sees
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an unmitigated disaster. Yet the text we are analyzing
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look at that exact same event, the failing breaks, the sudden
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drop, the violent death and labeled it a glory.
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A glory. Yes, they view it through the
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lens of Mark 8.35, where Jesus states that whoever would save
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his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for his
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sake and the Gospels will save it.
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Wow. According to this theological
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framework, Ruby and Laura did not waste their lives, they
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spent them. That's a huge distinction.
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It is, and they spent them on the single object worthy of such
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an immense cost. It makes me think of like an
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athlete training for a grueling 10 event decathlon.
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You spend decades building your muscles, agonizing over your
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diet, refining your techniques, and pushing your physical
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endurance to the absolute limit. Sacrifice everything.
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Everything for the conditioning. And then the morning the Olympic
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Games begin, you decide the ultimate victory is just to sit
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on a folding chair in the stadium parking lot eating junk
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food for the rest of the year. That would be absurd.
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But society conditions people from a very young age to view
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rest and leisure as the final finish line of a successful
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career. We tell children to get good
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grades so they can get a good job right, so they can save
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enough money, so they can eventually stop doing anything
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meaningful. So how does this theological
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framework dismantle that mindset, forcing you, the
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listener, to audit your own definition of what a successful
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life actually looks like? Well, it shatters that mindset
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by introducing an object that obliterates self-centered
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leisure. OK, to escape the trap of a
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trivial life, the texts argue, we must be driven to the blazing
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center of the glory of God. We.
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Have to look at the cross. Yes, the materials argue that
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the modern church has been saturated with a superficiality
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that peddles the American Dream disguised as theology.
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And to break that open, we have to look at the historical text
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that anchors this entire perspective.
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The Apostle Paul's letter to the Galatians, right?
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To comprehend how to escape that tragedy, you really have to look
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at the historical flashpoint that birthed this entire
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theological framework. We have to go back to the 1st
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century context of Galatia. Specifically the years AD 48 or
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49, which is right before the Jerusalem Council took place.
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Right. The timing is crucial.
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Paul had planted early Christian churches in the southern region
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of the Roman province of Galatia, cities like Antioch of
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Pasidia, Iconium, Lystra and Derby and.
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Understanding that specific historical setting is vital
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because it reveals the exact nature of the conflict Paul was
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addressing. The primary threat to these
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early churches didn't come from outside Pagan armies.
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No, it didn't. It came from inside.
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A group known as the Dutyazers had infiltrated the Galatian
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congregations. These were false teachers
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pushing a highly specific, highly dangerous agenda.
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And what makes the Judaizers so insidious is their their method.
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I mean, they didn't walk into a church gathering in Lystra and
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announce Jesus of Nazareth is a complete fraud, abandoned him,
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and go back to the synagogue. Their strategy was much more
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subtle and therefore much more lethal.
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Right, they didn't subtract Jesus.
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They added to him, Yeah, the Judaizers demanded that Gentile
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converts submit to circumcision and strict adherence to the
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Mosaic Law as mandatory conditions for justification
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before God. So faith wasn't enough.
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To them, no. They essentially claimed that
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faith, faith in Christ, was a fantastic starting point, a
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necessary baseline, but full acceptance by God required human
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performance on top of that faith.
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The texts position this conflict as the eternal struggle between
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the religion of human achievement and the biblical
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religion of divine accomplishment.
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That is the core issue. The religion of human
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achievement. That means if I do the right
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rituals, if I bear the right physical marks on my body, I can
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pat myself on the back. You did some of the credit.
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Yeah, I can stand before God and say you provided the cross, but
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I provided the obedience. We partnered up to secure my
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salvation. And that is the theological core
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of their error. But there was also a deeply
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pragmatic, highly social motive behind the Judaizers theology.
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The texts point out that they wanted to make a fair show in
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the flesh. Yes, mandating circumcision was
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a way to appease the Jewish communities.
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Why did they need to appease? Them to avoid the intense
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violent persecution associated with the cross of Christ, they
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wanted to claim the name of the Messiah, but they desperately
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wanted to avoid the social stigma of his execution.
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Let's talk about that stigma, because I think modern listeners
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have a massive blind spot here. They definitely do.
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We see the cross every single day.
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It's stamped in gold foil on the covers of Bibles.
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It's perched on top of church steeples.
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It's tattooed on forearms. It is worn as a gilded piece of
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jewelry around the neck. Yeah.
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Over 2 millennia, it has become a completely harmless, sanitized
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cultural logo. But in the ancient world, it was
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an instrument of sheer, unfiltered horror.
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To capture that horror, the material cite the Roman
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statesman Cicero. Ciceros words on this are
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chilling. He argued that the punishment of
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crucifixion was so hideous, so degrading, that the very word
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crux should be banished from the bodies, minds, eyes and ears of
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Roman citizens. Polite society did not even
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speak the word aloud. It was a method of execution
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explicitly designed for slaves, rebels, and the absolute lowest
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enemies of the state. It wasn't just about killing a
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person. No, it was meant to strip a
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human being of every ounce of dignity, subjecting them to
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hours or days of public torture, asphyxiation, nakedness and
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mockery. And that's just the Roman
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political perspective, right? The Jewish perspective adds A
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terrifying theological layer to the.
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Physical agony? Yes.
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Deuteronomy 21.23. It declares that any man hanged
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on a tree is cursed by God. So to a 1st century Jewish mind,
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a crucified Messiah was not just a tragic political failure.
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It was an oxymoron. It was a blasphemous
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contradiction in terms. It meant the man hanging on that
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wood good was enduring the direct, unmitigated wrath of
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Yahweh. He was an object of divine
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cursing. Exactly.
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Or well, I should say precisely. When you combine the Roman
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disgust with the Jewish theological horror, you see why
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the Judaizers compromise the message.
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Because proclaiming A crucified God as the sole means of
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salvation was cultural suicide. It invited mockery from the
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Roman elite and violent hostility from the Jewish
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religious establishment. So the Judaizers tried to
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domesticate the message. They tried to sand down the
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rough, blood soaked edges of the cross by adding respectable
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historic religious rituals like circumcision to the mix.
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It was an attempt to make Christianity socially
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acceptable. Yes, understanding the physical
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and social horror of the cross makes Paul's linguistic choices
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in the text all the more striking.
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It alters the entire weight of his argument.
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He's not just picking a theological mascot, he is
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planting his flag on an instrument of state sponsored
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terror and divine cursing. To see how he does this, we have
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to look at the exact words he used in the original language.
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The analysis zeroes in on the literary climax of the epistle
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Galatians 6.11 through 14. The physical context of the
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letter is fascinating here. In verse 11, Paul actually takes
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the stylist from his amanuensis, his scribe, to write the
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conclusion in his own large handwriting.
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He drops any polite Thanksgiving or gentle greetings that you
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would normally find in in a letter of that era, and he
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launches into a fierce, urgent defense of the gospel.
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You can almost feel the parchment tearing as he writes
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it. He is fighting for the souls of
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the Galatians. We are focusing heavily on
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Galatians 6.14. I want us to get under the Greek
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hood of this passage because the syntax is stunning.
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The specific Greek syntax of Galatians 6.14 contains an
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emphatic, violent rejection of the Judaezer's mindset.
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OK, lay it on us. The phrase is in Washington de
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Moi genoito. The materials unpack the mood of
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the verb here, the opposite of mood of moijanuito.
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The optative mood. Let's break that down for the
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listener. What does that specific mood
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convey in ancient Greek? The optative mood is used to
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express a strong wish, a desire, or, in this negative
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construction, the strongest possible negation.
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Like a forceful no. Yes, it translates roughly to
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May it never come to be or perish the thought, or even, God
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forbid, Paul's expressing a holy revulsion at the very idea of
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boasting in anything else. It's a visceral reaction against
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human pride. And the word he uses for
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boasting is kochami. Yes, and there is a fascinating
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history behind this word. Ancient Pagan philosophers,
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specifically the Stoics, absolutely condemned the concept
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of boasting. They saw it as arrogant hubris.
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Right. A character flaw that disturbed
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the tranquility of the mind. It was the language of pompous
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politicians and vainglorious generals seeking the applause of
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men. Yet Paul takes this dirty word,
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this concept of arrogant bragging that light
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Philosophical Society rejected, and he completely redeems it.
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He does. He draws from the Old Testament
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Septuagint concept of halal. Which is the root where we get
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the word Hallelujah praising Yahweh.
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Paul transforms this Greek word for arrogant boasting to mean a
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blood, earnest soul satisfying exultation in God.
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He takes the concept of taking total pride and placing ultimate
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confidence in something, and he directs it entirely toward the
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work of God. He's not saying.
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Do not boast. No, he is saying boast with
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everything you have, but direct it at the correct object.
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But wait, I have to challenge this logically.
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OK, go ahead. If Paul is effectively swearing
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a violent oath against human pride, if he's saying, perish
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the thought that I should ever boast in my own flesh, my own
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circumcision, or my own accomplishments, isn't it wildly
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paradoxical that his solution is to boast loudly in a Roman
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execution device? It seems that way, yes.
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How does celebrating A torture rack solve the problem of human
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pride? The resolution to that paradox
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lies in the conditional particle Paul uses right after his
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negation I MO, which translates to accept.
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Accept. She says far be it from me to
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boast, except in the cross, OK? This little particle
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functionally funnels all human joy, all confidence, all
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identity and all hope into the single bloody event.
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It narrows everything down. Yes, the cross is the sole
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object of boasting because it is the one place in the universe
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where human achievement is completely zeroed out.
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Because you can't save yourself there.
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Right. You cannot boast in your own
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merit, your own intellect, or your own moral track record
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while standing at the foot of an execution rack where someone
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else is dying to pay for your crimes.
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The object of the boast fundamentally kills the pride of
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the boaster. That is the brilliance of it.
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That makes the paradox brilliant.
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He does not just boast in wood and nails, he boasts in the
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specific identity of the person hanging there and what that
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person accomplished. Yes, the text says the cross of
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our Lord Jesus Christ. He does not just use the name
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Jesus, he invokes the full majestic title.
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And that full title acknowledges the Hypostatic Union.
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Let's define that for anyone who isn't familiar.
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It is the staggering reality of the infinite God Man, the
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sovereign King of the universe, who spoke galaxies into
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existence, willingly stepping into human history to bear the
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curse of the law. The object of the boast isn't a
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piece of wood, it is the Divine Person and his finished work.
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Yes. And we have to center this
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discussion on 2 heavy theological concepts that the
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materials insist are absolute non negotiables.
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Penal substitutionary atonement and total depravity.
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Correct. The cross is not a mere moral
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example. It's not just Jesus showing us
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how much he loves us by suffering in solidarity with the
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pain of humanity. If you view the cross chiefly as
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an inspiring display of divine sympathy without a demand for
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the satisfaction of God's justice against sin, you
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completely empty Paul's boast of its saving efficacy.
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The texts reference the Westminster Confession Chapter
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11 here. They do, arguing that the Cross
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is the exact specific place where infinite Justice and
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infinite Mercy meet. God's justice demands that sin
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be punished. And God's mercy desires to save
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the Sinner. So kennel substitution means
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Jesus took the penalty as a substitute.
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Yes. Now let's unpack total
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depravity, because it connects directly to why Paul forbids
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human boasting. Total depravity means that man
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is entirely dead in his sin, completely unable to will work
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or contribute to his own salvation.
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If man had even a tiny fraction of innate goodness, if he just
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needed a little bit of help to cross the finish line, he would
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have ground to boast. He could say God provided the
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cross, but I was smart enough or humble enough or good enough to
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choose it. But because man is totally
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depraved, because he can contribute absolutely nothing to
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his salvation, the reality of the cross is completely
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monarchistic. Monarchistic, meaning God works
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alone. Yes, monogism means God works
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alone in the act of regeneration.
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The texts point out that this reality completely refutes
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synergistic systems like Arminianism, which suggests
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salvation is a cooperative effort between God and man.
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If salvation is entirely A sovereign work of grace applied
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to a spiritually dead Sinner, the Sinner is left with absolute
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0 ground for self boasting. God gets 100% of the glory
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because God did 100% of the saving work.
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The sources trace this concept of substitutionary atonement
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through history, showing how it was baked into the biblical
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narrative from the very beginning.
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It didn't. Start in the 1st century now.
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Look at the Old Testament shadows.
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It starts in Genesis 3, right after the fall.
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Adam and Eve realize they are naked and they try to cover
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themselves with fig leaves. That is the first religion of
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human achievement. Trying to cover your own shame
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with your own work. And God rejects the fig leaves.
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Instead, he provides animal skins to cover their nakedness.
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Blood had to be shed to cover human sin.
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That is the first shadow of the cross.
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Then you move to Genesis 22, the Binding of Isaac.
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Abraham is walking up the mountain ready to sacrifice his
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son, and God stops him. What does God provide a
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substitute ram caught in the thicket, taking the place of
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Isaac on the altar. We see the shadow lengthen in
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Exodus 12 with the Passover lamb.
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The Israelites are instructed to slaughter an unblemished lamb
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and paint its blood on the doorposts of their homes.
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When the Angel of death passes through Egypt, the wrath of God
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passes over every house covered by the blood of the substitute.
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And perhaps the most vivid shadow is in Leviticus 16, the
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Day of Atonement. The high priest takes 2 goats.
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One is slaughtered as a sin offering for propitiation.
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Partitiation satisfying the wrath of.
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God the high priest then lays his hands on the head of the
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second goat, the scapegoat, confessing the sins of the
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people over it, and sends it away into the wilderness.
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For the expiation of sins, removing the guilt.
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All of these ancient shadows, the animal skins, the ram, the
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Passover lamb, the scapegoat, they all converge perfectly at
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Calvary. Jesus is the ultimate final
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substitute. To illustrate how this reality
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should Orient a person's entire life, the texts introduce an
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incredible analogy from CS Lewis's essay Meditation A Tool
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Shed. I love this analogy.
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Lewis describes standing in a dark tool shed.
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Above him, there is a crack in the roof and a beam of sunlight
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is shining through that crack, cutting through the darkness.
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Lewis notes that you can stand in the dark and look at the
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sunbeam. You can watch the dust motes
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floating in it. You can admire the light itself.
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But then, Lewis describes taking a step forward.
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He steps into the beam of light and lets it strike his eye.
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Suddenly, he is no longer looking at the beam.
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Right, he is looking along the beam, through the crack in the
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roof, directly up at the blazing sun itself, and beyond that, out
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into the vastness of space. It completely changes his
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perspective. The application here is massive.
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When we look at the beam, we are looking at the temporal
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blessings God gives us. Worldliness is standing in the
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dark and worshipping the beam itself.
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A cross saturated life steps into the blessing and looks
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along the beam to the blazing sun, tracing every single
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earthly blessing back to the cross of Christ.
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Think about your daily life, your own circumstances.
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How can you enjoy the good gifts you have?
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A great meal with friends, a healthy family, career success,
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a beautiful sunset without those things morphing into idols that
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steal your affection from God. The tool shed analogy provides
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the specific mechanism. If you just stare at the healthy
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family or the career success, you are looking at the sunbeam.
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You are worshipping the gift instead of the giver.
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You are turning a temporal blessing into an idol.
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But if you realize that because of your fin, you deserve nothing
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but swift condemnation, your perspective shifts.
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The texts argue that if it were not for the penal substitution
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of Christ absorbing the wrath we deserve, we would have no good
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meals. No healthy family.
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No sunsets to enjoy. Therefore, every breath we take,
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every meal we eat, every moment of joy we experience is a blood
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bought gift. You step into the joy of the
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meal and look along it to the cross, praising the Savior who
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purchased that moment for you with His life.
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Tracing every single blessing to the cross also means recognizing
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that the cross suffers our allegiance to everything else.
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This brings us to the final radical clause of Galatians
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6.15. By which the world has been
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crucified to me, and I to the world.
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This leads to an intense linguistic analysis of the Greek
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verb esterte, translated as has been crucified.
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It is in the perfect passive indicative tense.
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We need to break down why that specific tense is so vital to
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Paul's argument. The perfect tense in Greek is
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fascinating because it is not just describing something that
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happened in the past like the Aorus tense often does.
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It signifies something much more permanent.
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Yes, the perfect tense indicates a completed action in the past
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with permanent ongoing results in the present.
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Paul is not saying he is currently trying to crucify the
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world. Or that he hopes the world will
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be crucified eventually if he just tries hard enough to avoid
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sin. He is declaring A settled,
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irreversible historical fact. Because Christ was crucified,
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the world's hold on Paul's permanently broken.
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Furthermore, examine the double date of construction in the
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Greek and Wah to me and Cosmo to the world.
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It creates a mutual, irreversible death, a chiasm of
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crucifixion. It does.
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The term cosmos refers to the fallen system, organized and
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rebellion against God, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
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eyes, and the pride of life. Paul is saying that this entire
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rebellious system is a dead, rotting corpse to him, and he is
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a dead corpse to the cosmos. There is no possibility of
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relationship between two corpses.
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If the cosmos is a crucified corpse to the believer, that
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reality completely destroys several modern church movements
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that try to blend Christianity with the world.
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Let's look at the fierce critiques, the text level
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against these movements, starting with the prosperity
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gospel. The materials completely condemn
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the prosperity gospel, arguing that it fundamentally
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misunderstands the cross. The prosperity gospel treats
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Jesus as a cosmic. Bellhop.
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A bellhop. That's a vivid image.
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It is, it suggests that God's ultimate desire is to give you
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physical health, financial wealth, and your best life now,
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right here in the cosmos. It uses Jesus as a means to
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acquire the very world that Paul says is crucified.
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The text argues this is a theological abomination because
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you cannot boast in accumulating the worldly idols that your
24:49
savior was stripped naked and nailed to a tree to save you
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from. It's like finding the man who
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murdered your family and instead of demanding justice, you invite
24:57
him to live in your guest room and ask him for financial
24:59
advice. That is a chilling way to put
25:02
it. But yes, the world system killed
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the author of life. Why would we try to hoard its
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treasures? Then there is the critique of
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the pragmatic seeker sensitive movement.
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The texts argue that the Seeker sensitive movement tries to
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mimic the world to attract crowds.
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It relies on therapeutic pep talks, concert style lighting,
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and cultural relevance rather than confronting sin and
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preaching the blood of Christ. The logical question the texts
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pose is this. If the world is a crucified
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corpse to us, why are we trying so desperately to entertain
25:31
courses by removing the offense of the cross?
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You do not win the world by becoming like the world.
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You win the world by showing them a savior who rescues them
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from it. The materials also note that
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trying to blend the cross with modern worldly philosophies is
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highly destructive. They specifically mentioned
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frameworks like critical theories or egalitarianism.
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Substituting the finished sufficient work of Christ with
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worldly philosophies built on Marxist victimology.
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Endless grievance or cultural rebellion is attempting to
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bridge an impassable chasm. The texts argue that the cross
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stands as a permanent dividing line between the old creation
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and the new creation. You cannot drag the decaying
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philosophies of the cosmos across the bloodline of the
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cross. No, you can't.
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I want to connect this back to the Judaizers we discussed
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earlier. They compromised the gospel
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specifically to avoid social friction.
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They wanted to blend in. They wanted the approval of
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their culture. In our modern culture, a culture
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that absolutely demands compliance, a culture that is
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incredibly quick to cancel, mock, or destroy the livelihood
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of anyone who steps out of line, how does treating the world's
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approval as a crucified corpse practically fortify a Christian
26:43
against that fear? We'll think about the nature of
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a corpse, OK? If the world is dead to you,
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it's threats, it's mockery, and it's withdrawal of approval.
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Hold 0 leverage over your soul. You cannot threaten a dead man
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with loss of status, and a dead man does not care if you mock
27:00
him on social media. The texts argue that treating
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the cosmos as a crucified entity produces a profound, unshakable.
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Courage. You stop seeking the applause of
27:11
men because you realize that applause is coming from a system
27:13
that is fundamentally opposed to the Creator.
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You are freed from the tyranny of cultural approval.
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If the world is dead to us and we are dead to it, that reality
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must radically alter how we spend the hours of our days.
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This brings the massive theological weight of this deep
27:27
dive into intensely practical application for you, the
27:31
listener. The materials demand a rigorous
27:34
audit of 1's life. This is not just a theoretical
27:36
exercise for theologians in an ivory tower.
27:38
No, the text challenges the listener to physically examine
27:42
the metrics of their existence. Pull up your bank statements.
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Review your daily schedules. Scroll through your Internet
27:48
browsing history. Do those metrics reflect a soul
27:51
whose single passion is the cross of Christ?
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If a stranger looked at your calendar and your credit card
27:57
statements, would they conclude that you are boasting
28:00
exclusively in the substitutionary atonement of
28:02
Jesus Christ? Or would they conclude you were
28:05
desperately trying to build a tiny, comfortable Kingdom for
28:09
yourself? Are you storing up treasures in
28:11
a graveyard? To frame the posture required
28:14
for this kind of living, the texts introduce a massive quote
28:17
from the 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon.
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I have a great need for Christ. I have a great Christ for my
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need. That encapsulates the daily
28:25
mindset required. It is a constant acknowledgement
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of your own total depravity, the great need.
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And an absolute joyful reliance on the infinite provision of the
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Savior. The materials also point out
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Paul's mention of his physical scars in Galatians 6.1 Teen.
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He writes, I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
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Cross centered living is not sentimental, It is not an
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abstract feeling of peace you get while listening to soft
28:50
acoustic music. It guarantees hostility from the
28:53
world. The false teachers, the
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Judaizers, avoided suffering by compromising.
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Paul carried the suffering on his actual flesh.
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He had been stoned, beaten with rods and whipped.
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The text makes a crucial point here.
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God often sanctifies his people through loss rather than earthly
29:10
triumph. A life not wasted is not a life
29:13
free of scars. It is a life whose scars bear
29:16
witness that Christ is worth more than comfort, more than
29:19
reputation, and more than safety.
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How does this cross saturated perspective change the way a
29:23
believer experiences mundane everyday suffering?
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Because most of the people listening to this are not facing
29:29
literal stonings or physical persecution like Paul did.
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They are facing the grind of ordinary life.
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It completely redefines the mundane.
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You do not have to wait for ideal circumstances or grand
29:40
moments of persecution to display the worth of the cross.
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Think of a mother changing diapers at 2:00 in the morning
29:46
by faith, pouring herself out and hidden sacrifice for her
29:49
child. Think of a worker refusing
29:51
dishonest gain at a corporate job, accepting a smaller
29:55
paycheck or a missed promotion to maintain integrity before
29:59
God. Think of an elderly St. praying
30:01
in the weakness of chronic illness.
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When viewed along the beam of the cross, all of these hidden
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losses, all of these quiet sacrifices, become acts of
30:09
radiant worship. The texts conclude with a
30:12
sweeping reminder of the imminent premillennial return of
30:15
Christ. Redemptive history is moving
30:17
toward a specific culmination. They paint a vivid
30:20
eschatological picture. When the skies split and the
30:23
trumpet sounds, the world's trivialities will be exposed for
30:26
what they are. The stock portfolios, the
30:29
academic degrees, the political tribalism, the carefully curated
30:32
social media personas. All of it will burn up in the
30:35
unapproachable light of the Creator's holiness.
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In that terrifying moment of absolute clarity, the only thing
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that will withstand the judgement of a holy God is the
30:43
blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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A human boast. Every resume, every trophy will
30:48
be turned to ash. The text pleads with the reader
30:51
not to coast through their fleeting years without a single
30:54
soul satisfying passion. Do not arrive at the judgement
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seat with a collection of seashells.
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Exactly. If the Cross permanently
31:02
crucified the world's value system to you, consider the
31:05
anxieties that kept you awake last night.
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The fears about your financial status, your savings account,
31:10
your reputation at work. How many of those fears are
31:13
rooted in a desperate desire to protect, to seashell that the
31:17
Cross has already called you to abandon?
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Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into the text.