Search Results

Boast Only in the Cross Prosper Christian Reformed Church Boast Only in the Cross Christ Alone Mitchell Leach Sunday, March 15, 2026 Audio Boast Only in the Cross Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 34:04 Sermon Transcript To all who are weary and need rest, to all who fail and desire strength, to all who mourn and long for comfort, to all who sin and need a Savior, this church opens wide her doors with a welcome from Christ Jesus, a friend to sinners. Welcome to an online gathering of Prosper Christian Reformed Church. And I can say this now preemptively, man, the roads are terrible out there. Can you believe this weather? We're pre-recording this on Saturday so that way when we needed it, because if you're seeing this, we did, because we canceled church because we— the weather was just so bad. We wanted to include this last sermon in our Galatians series, Christ Alone, that really encompasses the totality of what we've been looking at in this series. And so we wanted to make sure that this was available for you because it goes along with the devotional series that we've been going through, the devotional plan that you've been going through, and we felt like this was a really good way to end this series. There will be some announcements that we'll send out in the email that comes along with this and some songs that you can sing at home that will go along with the service. But this is going to be an abbreviated message, abbreviated video service that will include the scripture reading and then the sermon. So let's jump into that scripture reading now. Scripture Reading Galatians 6:11-18 Hear the word of the Lord. 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 might 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 for 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 be 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 you. Be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. In the past couple decades, baseball teams thought they knew exactly what made a good baseball team, what players made a good baseball team. They were certain of this. Things like batting average, pitching stats like ERA, RBIs, the look of a player, the sound that the bat made when it hit a ball. All of these things were key indicators that led a team to either choose or pass on a player, especially when replacing a player. And then came the Moneyball era. If you've seen the movie Moneyball, you'll know what I'm talking about. This, this idea of replacing players, not as a one-for-one, but replacing them with maybe a couple different players that, that kind of Frankenstein their way into making the replacement that a team lost. This happened with the Oakland Athletics. They were a team that could not afford to compete with the New York Yankees, the team that had tons of money. This team had hardly any. And so they figured out an algorithm, figured out an equation to make players, to make a team out of misfits, out of a team that really didn't seem to— that nobody wanted, players that nobody really wanted. And it worked. They were able to compete at a very high level and it changed the game of baseball. But it exposed something: old metrics were comforting but they were misleading. Things that teams were certain of were exposed. Even though they gave them a sense of control, even though those old metrics or a sense of control for these teams, they didn't actually produce results. They didn't actually produce wins. And once they saw that, they realized that you can be sure of something, but you can still be wrong. And that's not just true for baseball; that's true for us. You can be sure of things in your life and still be wrong. Because we all live based on a metric. We all have things that we try to trust in that tell us that we are okay. And that leads us into our big question for this morning: What are you sure of? What are you sure of? Big Question What are you sure of? We all live on something that we are sure of. Everyone has a righteousness. Everyone has a metric. Everyone has a boast. The question is whether or not you can hold onto those things, those things can hold you, while you suffer, when you suffer. If your certainty is built on performance, then your best day becomes your pride, will produce your pride, and your worst day will produce despair. Our culture offers dozens of different ways to produce these counterfeit certainties. Things like image: if I look put together, then I'm safe. Maybe it's morality. If I'm better than them, then I'm clean. It can be control. If I can plan it, then I can breathe. Maybe it's approval. If they like me, then I can feel secure. Maybe it's a religious marker. If I do the right things, if I obey the right laws, then God must accept me. But the reality is all of these things have the same flaw. They cannot carry suffering, they cannot carry guilt, and they cannot carry death. They never give peace; only more rules, only more things to check off our list, only more bars to jump over. And that's why Paul says false teachers want to show a good showing in the flesh. They want something visible, something measurable, a metric, a ruler, a proof that they can point to. That says, "Now I'm sure." So the question is unavoidable: What are you certain of? What are you sure of? The good news is that Christianity is not guesswork. God speaks to us. So keep your Bibles open to Galatians 6:11-18. We're going to see two major movements in this last sermon on Galatians. First, we're going to see false boasting exposed and then true boasting declared. This is the last all-encompassing kind of review of this sermon series that we've been going through in Galatians where we've been seeing Christ alone. That life in God starts in Christ Jesus, not in works. What we'll see in this passage is that the only legitimate boast for the Christian is the cross of Christ through which the world is crucified, a new creation has come, and peace belongs to those who walk by this gospel rule. Outline False Boasting Exposed: Confidence in the Flesh (Galatians 6:11-13) True Boasting Declared: Confidence in the Cross (Galatians 6:14-18) False Boasting Exposed: Confidence in the Flesh (Galatians 6:11-13) The Apostle Paul starts off by showing what false confidence looks like in real time—religious performance under social pressure. And that's what we see in this first section, this first section, Galatians 6:11-13. I'm titling this False Boasting Exposed. Confidence in the flesh. Let's look at Galatians 6:11. He says this: "See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand." Paul has been probably using a scribe to write most of this book and then he ends this last portion by writing it personally with his own hands. If you were to read the original letter from Paul, you would have seen larger letters. Scholars have speculated maybe it was the thorn in his flesh. Maybe it had something to do with his eyesight or maybe it had something to do with his hand-eye coordination. We don't know. But Paul is saying that he's writing this last portion himself. Paul wants the Galatians to feel, to see with their own hand, their own eyes, his handwriting and to know that this isn't a minor dispute. This isn't some secondary or tertiary church, you know, theology issue that we can brush under the rug. This is a gospel crisis and they must respond. It has to do with adding anything to the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And here's why people add to Jesus. Not because they're wicked always. But it's oftentimes because they're scared. And that's what Galatians 6:12 says, "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 might not be persecuted for the cross of Christ." The circumcision party wanted men who weren't Jewish, who weren't born Jewish by birth, to be marked by the old covenant sign. This sign, circumcision, was to hold Israel, to hold God's covenant people until the Savior came. Why would they want this? Maybe it was because they believed that God would not accept them, accept these new Christians, unless they held to everything in the Old Testament. Maybe it was a love for traditions; they loved the Jewish culture. They loved some of these things that were emblematic of the Jewish faith and they felt like they were losing them as new Gentiles came into the faith. But one reason, certainly, and what Paul says is that they were afraid of persecution, specifically Jewish persecution. These Christian Jews who came to saving faith in Christ, were probably influenced by friends and family. These relationships that had been ongoing that these friends, these people in their family, maybe neighbors, having conversations with these new Jewish Christians. I bet you they were called unclean; being associated with Gentiles, outsiders, people that they weren't supposed to eat with, Jewish people weren't supposed to eat with. And I bet that these conversations weren't some thoughtful theological conversation. It wasn't some debate between Christian pastors and Jewish rabbis. I'm certain that this was everyday conversations between everyday type of people. People, Jewish people, not Jewish Christians, but Jewish people who weren't certain. They were already kind of afraid of this new Jesus thing. But now that they hear about these Jewish Christians mixing with these Gentiles who weren't forced to follow all of the Jewish laws, I bet you these people were kicked out of their families or kicked out of these social circles that they were once in. I'll bet you Jewish people would say, "You know, I can't believe that you would do this." Maybe, maybe if you ask them to become Jewish and, you know, celebrate all of the purity laws and become fully Jewish, maybe then you, who are a Jewish Christian, could come back in and be accepted; that it would be okay. Paul isn't trying to slander anyone. But this decision on what to believe should not be based on social pressures. It should not be based on these external things, these relationships that even we have in our life. The flesh does not just want to be good. It wants to prove. It wants to be seen as good. Legalism isn't just trying hard. It is trying to get a verdict without the cross. It is trying to get external validation to see people say, "Yes, you are good." People-pleasing isn't just wearing religious clothing. It is when you make faith a badge. You turn sinners into trophies. And that's what Paul continues on in Galatians 6:13. "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." Boasting in the flesh here means this: it's the equivalent of what happens when Christians celebrate over conversion. When we see a sinner come to saving faith, we rejoice. But these people, these Judaizers, these Jewish Christians, would not celebrate over someone becoming a Christian. They would celebrate when someone would become a Jew. They do this not because they actually want more obedience to the law. The sad part about this is that they fear the persecution. They just want to avoid persecution. And Paul says this because we cannot have confidence in what we bring to the table. We can't— Paul's telling them that they can't say, "God, I know that you've saved me but I'm more faithful than those other guys who don't get circumcised." And maybe we don't struggle with this today; we don't struggle with circumcision today. We've kind of handled that issue. We know what we believe on this today because Paul has given us something. And yet, we struggle with other things like the idea of baptism or being rebaptized. So many people today believe, well, I need to be rebaptized again as an adult because I didn't make the decision as a kid. I've heard this over and over as a pastor. My question to them is, do you think that you had a choice? If you feel like you don't have a choice in baptism, in being baptized, do you feel like you had a choice in being saved? Did God choose you or did you choose God? No, God chose you even in your infancy. Our baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant, just like circumcision was for the Old Testament. And the beautiful part of our covenantal theology, our covenantal baptism as people who baptize infants, is that it doesn't have to be us saying we made this decision. We get to live into this reality that God chose us even while we were sinners. Our confidence cannot be in ourselves, cannot be even in our own decisions, but they must be in Christ Jesus. And Paul doesn't just criticize their boast, he shows you what his is. He puts it on the table as the only safe metric for the thing we can boast in. That's what we see in the second section, true boasting declared, confidence in the cross, Galatians 6:14. True Boasting Declared: Confidence in the Cross (Galatians 6:14-18) As people, we so desperately want credit. We want to feel like we did something, especially when it comes to our faith. We want to feel like we didn't leave Jesus alone on the cross. We want to believe that if we would have been in the crowd, we wouldn't have shouted, "Persecute him," or, "Crucify him." We wouldn't have been, if we were a disciple, we wouldn't have scattered when Jesus was crucified. If we would have been Peter, we would have never denied him. And this comes from pride. But the reality is we are sinful. We don't have hope. We would have exactly done the same things as everyone else. This pride that we have that makes us believe that we would have been different is a faulty one. It leads us to want to add to our salvation. To try to prove to Jesus that we really mean it; that we are truly his. But we owe a debt. The Bible says that we owe a debt. And if you've ever been in debt, you know what that feels like, especially if it's been significant. If you've ever found out that all of a sudden you're in some serious financial hardship, some serious hole financially. The dread that comes from that is overwhelming. It can cause you to lose sleep. It can cause you to become depressed. It can cause a litany of emotions. But there is no greater feeling than discovering that you've missed something; discovering that there is hope or finding out that there might be someone who can rescue you from this financial hard spot. And the same is true with our faith. It is never fun to admit that we are in such a spiritual or financial debt that we can't get out of it ourselves. It's humiliating, in fact. And yet, that feeling is dwarfed when we realize the freedom, the relief that comes from being rescued. Paul says this in Galatians 6:14, he says, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." When the cross becomes your boast, the world's scoreboard dies. You stop needing old trophies. Why would Paul say this? That our only boast is in Christ? Why would he have to say this? Because boasting in the cross in the first century, in the first century world, would have been a crazy thing to do. It would have been so, so weird. The cross was a torture method. It was a way to crucify, to kill criminals. It was shameful and everyone saw it that way. Every other person who had been crucified had been guilty in some right. You look at the people who were on the cross, who would be crucified, they were criminals, thieves, murderers. They were bad guys. Yet, for Paul, this wasn't shameful. It was the only reason for his boast. We cannot boast in anything. As people who are Reformed, who believe that God is sovereign over everything, even our own salvation, we can't boast in anything other than the cross. I won't be able to get to heaven someday and look at fellow Christians and say, "Well, you know, I came to saving faith when I was 15 and you waited until you were 18. Therefore, I chose Jesus a little bit sooner than you did and therefore I get a chance to boast." No, no, no, no, no. That's how people fall. That's how people become corrupt, being overconfident and not watchful. Because God is sovereign over everything. He chose the time, the exact right time for me to follow him. He chose the exact right time for my wife who was 18 to follow him. There will be no boasting for either of us. What is my only boast? Or what is my only comfort? That I with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. My only boast is in Jesus. My only comfort is in Jesus. My only hope is in Jesus. Let this be our prayer, Prosper. Let this be your prayer. Far be it from us to have anything pull us into confidence apart from Jesus. Life with God comes by faith in Christ, not by the law. And that's been our whole theme throughout this series in Galatians. Life with God comes by faith in Christ, not by the law. Far be it from anything to pull us into confidence other than the cross of Christ. Paul continues on in Galatians 6:14. He says, "By which the world has been crucified to me and I to it." Paul is saying, "I have a new allegiance." And that alludes back to Galatians 1:4. It says this, "He who gave himself," Jesus, "who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age." That present evil age is the same idea that Paul's talking about that the world has been put to death. There is this age, this era, that is no longer. We are now under the reign and rule of Christ. Paul continues on, "For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." The cross is the only place that pride and shame die together. The world says, "Prove yourself." The cross says it has been proven for you. The cross does not just forgive you, it frees you from needing credit. New creation means this: you don't need old markers to feel clean. You don't need old metrics to feel sure. Scars, for Christ, are not evidence that God has abandoned you. They are evidence that you belong to Jesus in a world that doesn't. And that new creation does not just change what you believe, it changes what you are willing to bear. It changes what will mark you. The only marker that counts is being sealed by the promised Holy Spirit. In fact, Paul continues in Galatians 6:17, "From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Paul is saying if you want a physical mark, if you want to mark your body physically, I'll show you one. Look at my scars. I am branded with the sufferings of Jesus. All of Galatians has been leading up to this point, has been leading up to this final paragraph, this final all-encompassing paragraph. Paul has been pleading with the churches that they cannot add anything to the gospel. They cannot require circumcision. They cannot require anything that would replace Jesus. Jesus. All, any of these things are things that people can do. All of these things that people could have pride in and use to rank themselves against other Christians, against other believers. If the way that we are saved is by any work of our own, then we have some reason to boast. I could have done more. I could be enough. For God to save me. You could get into heaven and say, "Yeah, we're all here in heaven, but, you know, I was the one who never missed church in 30 years," or, "I was the one who gave more than anyone else," or, you know, "I really, you know, I accepted Christ before you. You had waited until you're in your 20s, 30s, or whenever you did." No, that is not what we get to boast in. And this is our main idea. Paul says, "Boast only in the cross." That's our main idea. Boast only in the cross. Main Idea Boast only in the cross The gospel is not just how we start as Christians. It is a daily necessity. We are all sinful people, even after accepting Christ, even after being marked by the promise of the Holy Spirit. We need the gospel daily. We never graduate from the gospel. If you get tired of hearing messages or songs about the gospel, about the saving grace that comes from the gospel, then you don't understand the gospel. We are not saved by what we've done. We're saved and held to Christ by the cross. If we are saved by what Christ did for us, on our behalf while we were sinners, then what right do we have to claim that we are better than it or better or worse than any other Christian? How can I make rules for entrance into the kingdom if someone else has paid the price for me to get in? I can't. I get in. I get into the kingdom. I get in because he said so. He's the one who took my place. The cross is the only hope for every and any sinner. Application Stop letting the fear of people edit the gospel — Galatians 6:12 So what does boasting in the cross look like for us tomorrow? It looks like refusing people pleasing and it looks like reinterpreting our suffering. So let's look at our first point of application; it's this: Stop letting the fear of people edit the gospel. Just like in Galatians 6:12, Paul's saying that these Judaizers, they don't want you to get circumcised because they want you to be more obedient. They don't follow the law themselves. They want it because they don't want Jewish people to persecute them. They want to be able to be in relationship with their friends and families and neighbors who look down at them. When you feel the pressure to fit in, with your friends, with your coworkers, with your friends or your families. Ask yourself, "Am I avoiding offense of the cross to keep my approval?" This is the most dangerous way heresy creeps into our life. It's not through false teaching, mostly. It's through those everyday conversations we have with people that we don't really want to offend them. And maybe we know that what they're saying might not be biblical but it's easy for us to go along with them. We like the people that we're talking to. We want to stay in those same kind of relationships and so we subtly change what we believe in order to fit in. This is a dangerous, dangerous thing for us. And so the challenge for you is this: When you feel yourself going against what Scripture says? Well, stand up for the word. Stand up for what Christ did. Let your boast only be in the cross, not in your relationships with others. Jesus says that he comes not to bring peace but with a sword. He will divide us against the people we love because the world will naturally want to fight against truth. And we need to be people who believe in the Word. I've been in many conversations like this where people will say, "Well, you know, Paul said this and Jesus said this and they seem like they contradict. They seem like, you know, they don't get along. So we got to go with what Jesus says. We got to be red-letter Christians." And there hasn't been a bigger or maybe more subtle undermining belief system in the church. We are not red-letter Christians. Every word in God's Word, in Scripture, is spoken, is breathed out by God. The words of Paul are just as authoritative as the words of Christ. We have to be people who come back to his word and believe even if it offends the people around us. Reinterpret your suffering — Galatians 6:17 The second point of application is this: reinterpret your suffering. If you carry hardship, if you're going through a hard season, don't assume this is God punishing you. Sometimes the marks of Jesus are what faithfulness costs in a world that resists the cross of Christ. There are going to be times in your life where you're going through a trial, where you're going through hardship, but that doesn't necessarily mean that God is disappointed in you or something's wrong. Sometimes when we fix our eyes on the cross and we see the narrow road, the narrow path that lies before us that's marked with suffering, we have to choose it. We have to choose to walk through hardship knowing that the joy that is set before us in the cross of Christ is more beautiful, is more satisfying, than anything else. If your treasure, if your boast is only in Jesus, then the trials and sufferings along the way will be nothing, will be light, will be an easy affliction. Oftentimes, those trials are there as a filter to weed out people who are lukewarm in their faith. So persevere. Do not run away. Paul calls these marks the marks of Christ. The things that can refine us into the Christians, into the people that God is calling us to be. Why is it that we can boast only in the cross? Why is it that we can boast even in our suffering? It's because Jesus became a curse. He wasn't a boast; he wasn't something that people bragged about when he was hanging on the tree. In Matthew and in Mark, it says that we aren't supposed to look past people; it says that we're not supposed to call out, "Raca," against people. It was this word that meant You nobody. And as Jesus was hanging on the tree, that was what he was called. He was not a boast. He was not something that people had confidence in. He was something that people said, you no one. He took our place. We were supposed to be called no ones. We were the people who God was supposed to look at and say, depart from me, I never knew you. You are no one. Yet that's what Jesus heard while he was crucified. Jesus took our place. Jesus was treated like us so we could be treated like him. Therefore, we can boast only in the cross. Closing Prayer As you're sitting there at home, let's pray together knowing that we are bound more than just by being gathered together, but we can gather together in the spirit this morning as the weather prevents us from meeting in person. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for who you are. We praise you for this series that, that taught us that life in you comes only through the cross of Christ, not in our works. God, thank you that we are able to have faith in you and that it is separated from works; that we do not need to earn our way to have a right relationship with you but you have made it possible by sending your Son. God, I pray that if there is anyone who does not believe this, that they would come to this saving faith. God, that they would believe this gospel because it transforms every single part of who we are. God, whether we've heard this for the first time today and are accepting Christ or we've believed our entire life, let us be transformed not by my words but by the words that you've given us in this letter. God, your gospel, your good news, is so satisfying. God, let our only boast be you. Be the cross of Christ. A thing that should be a shameful thing, but God, it is the most glorious reality in all of human history, all of the world, all of eternity. God, let us bear these marks. Let us boast in you alone. God, we love you and we love to do your will. So help us do that today. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Hear this blessing, this departing blessing that comes right from the end of this book. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

No Other Gospel Prosper Christian Reformed Church No Other Gospel Christ Alone Mitchell Leach Sunday, January 25, 2026 Audio No Other Gospel Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 46:17 Sermon Transcript In the early 1900s, a Dutch painter named Hans van Maeger pulled off one of the most famous art fraud schemes in the history of the world. He would paint lost paintings in the style of a famous painter named Johannes Vermeer. They were so convincing that these paintings that he painted, hung in museums, hung in galleries. They were authenticated. They were displayed in wealthy people's homes. People paid a fortune for these. They praised them. They defended them. They built reputations on these paintings. But after World War II, van Merger was accused of selling these paintings to the Nazis. And to prove that he wasn't a traitor, he made a startling confession that they weren't authentic paintings, that they were his, that he was the one forging these paintings in this famous Johannes Vermeer's name. To prove this, he painted them under supervision, and they realized that this was all a fraud. The startling part of this is that this isn't just about art, but this is about who we are. This goes to our hearts. The counterfeit didn't succeed because people hated the originals. The counterfeit succeeded because it looked close enough and people wanted it to be true. That's something that we can relate to. Part of what we believe, if we're honest, is what we want to believe about this or that. It's what we want to be true. And that's what's so dangerous about a counterfeit gospel, because it uses Christian vocabulary. It feels It feels spiritual. It feels maybe even more obedient. But it suddenly shifts the foundation away from Christ into your performance. It asks, that's what Galatians will ask us this big question today and throughout the entire eight-week series that we're in. How do you know you're not trusting a counterfeit gospel? A counterfeit gospel is anything that makes your standing with God depend not on Christ, but Christ plus something. Jesus saves, but you're the one who finishes. Grace gets you in the door, but your performance, your works, they are what allow you to stay in the room. It's subtle because you can say all the right words about Jesus, but then quietly believe or start putting your trust in Jesus plus. So what is your Jesus Jesus plus? Is it Jesus plus being a good parent, being morally consistent, being well respected, being theologically correct, having your life under control? Here's how you can tell whether or not that's true for you. When you pray, do you find yourself silently listing reasons why God should answer? When you sin, do you avoid God until you've cleaned yourself up enough and then you can go back to him? If someone criticizes you, it's not their words that hurt. It hurts because your reputation might be tied with your righteousness. When you're having a good week, when you feel like you've been obedient to God, do you feel more confident that God will be pleased in you? This feels spiritual, but it's not maturity. It's actually Jesus plus something. And that's what Paul says in this passage. This is not growth. This is abandoning the gospel, which is why Galatians begins the way it does, with not a list of demands, but with an announcement, grace and peace, because the gospel is not Jesus plus something. It is in Christ alone. In this series, we are going to see... It's an eight-week series starting today through Galatians. And why this series? Why now? Why go through this? Because counterfeit Gospels are prevalent, and they confuse us. They don't just make us question things. They slowly change what Christian we are. Galatians is an emergency letter written by Paul to these churches. It's written to Christians who have started to believe, Yeah, Jesus saves, but there's something else that I've got to do. Paul says, That's not growing, that's not maturity, it's desertion, because the gospel is in grace alone. What Galatians will show us is this, God justifies and forms his people by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, creating a church that lives free without drifting back into performance. What we'll see in this passage is two main movements. The first is verses 1-5, the truth from an apostle. And then we'll see in verses 6-9, a call to believe in no other gospel. Let's look at this first section, Truth from an apostle, verses 1-5. Before Paul confronts the counterfeit gospel, he reminds them what the real one is. He starts with three anchors. Who sent Paul? What has Christ done? And who gets the glory? When we start a new Book of the Bible, it's always good to step back and try to look at it from maybe a 10,000-foot view. So we're going to ask ourselves some questions that apply to this whole letter that we'll see here. First, one of the questions that we should ask is, who is the author? Changes a lot. Who's writing this? The nice thing about a letter is it says it right at the beginning. Look with me at verse one. It says this, Paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. The author is Paul. Paul, who is an apostle. An apostle is someone who is sent by God, who is taught by God. What Paul wants us to see is this is not my authority. This is not second-hand. An apostle is a man commissioned by the risen Jesus, authorized to speak in Christ's message with Christ's authority. Apostles are the only people who are allowed to write scripture. So Paul isn't giving us his take on what's happening in these churches. He's not giving his opinion on what's happening. This is Christ's truth being claimed through the apostle Paul. If the message is from heaven, then we don't get to edit it. Paul is saying this message did not come from human, from human opinion, and so it cannot be edited by human opinion. No committee, no crowd, no culture wrote this, revised this, or approved this. We don't get to inject our feelings into our faith. We don't get to inject how we feel about Christ as if it's truth. We have to come back to the source itself. That's what we'll talk about next week a lot. But let's move into another question. What book is this? This is a book of the Bible. What book is this? We said it earlier. It's a letter. A letter has some different unique parts to it. And one of those unique parts is the introduction to it. This follows a typical start to a Greek letter. There is an author, who it's from, and then there's some qualifications, that he's an apostle, and then it says who it's to. I think it's good just to pause there and realize that there is a recipient to this letter. There was an original audience for this letter. As we read this, as we interpret this, as we understand this, how we understand this has to be the same way that Galatian churches understood this. It can't mean something else to us today that it couldn't have meant to them. These are churches in Galatia, in this region of the Middle East, in modern day Turkey or back then in Asia Minor. This is actually a unique letter because it's not to one particular church. Like Ephesians was to the church in emphasis, one church, or to the Corinthians, there was a church in Corinthians. This is to the churches or a collection of churches in this region. Galatia is a Roman providence, not a city. What else makes this a letter is that there is a purpose to it. There is an intended response that is invoked by this passage. Anytime you write a letter, I know that we don't really write letters anymore. So anytime you write an email or a text, there's a purpose to it. There's something that you're trying to communicate. There is an intent on what you're trying to get across. And that's what we'll see in this passage. The intent is actually written right in the greeting. That's what we'll see in verses 3 through 5. Verses 3 through 5 show us the gospel in just a short couple of verses. So let's look at verse 3 and 4 right now. Grace to you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. Notice how Paul starts here. He starts with grace, peace. He doesn't start with a list. He doesn't start by, Here's a list of things you need to do to try harder to be better. Not works, but grace. It begins with an announcement that the center of Christianity is not what you do for God, But what Jesus has done for you. That Jesus did not come to improve you. This is not a moral betterment program. He came to rescue you. Grace is not God helping good people. Grace is God rescuing helpless people. Paul doesn't say that Jesus came here to give you 10 tips on how to live a better life. Jesus came to bring you back to life. He came to resuscitate you, to bring you out of cold death, not by removing you from the world, but by breaking the world's claim on you. Paul wants the Galatian churches to understand from the start that this is about not your works, but the work of Christ Jesus, and that there is no other way. That we have sin, we have an issue, we needed to be rescued. But Paul clearly tells us that Christ is the one who gave himself up for us to deliver us from that sin. We cannot continue in this series until we understand that. Paul cannot continue in this letter until the Galatian churches understand what the gospel is because he's going to spend a great deal of time, the rest of this book, confronting false beliefs. Paul ends this greeting with a focus on the glory of God. Look at verse 5 with me. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Legalism always looks religious, but it steals God's glory. Because performance If performance is the difference maker, if our effort is really what brings us over the edge to be able to be saved, then we get some of the glory. Paul starts with worship because the gospel ends with worshiping Jesus because he is alone the one who did it all. This letter is written in an important time. This is actually the first New Testament book in the Bible. This is the first writing in the New Testament. The church is in a really early stage. It's really young, and it's being assailed by Satan with counterfeit versions of the gospel. If this is the gospel that Jesus gave himself and that God gets the glory, then you can see in this next section why Paul gets so shocked, he gets so angry, because the moment we add anything to the gospel, it's not an upgrade to Christianity. It's an attempt to try to replace it. That's what we see in this next section. Believe no other gospel, verses 6-9. In every other letter that Paul writes, it starts off with Thanksgiving. I I thank God, my God and Father, for you. I remember you always in my prayers. I'm so thankful for the way that you've done this or that. But not this letter. This letter starts off a little different. It's an alarm because it's an emergency. Look at verse 6 with me. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you into the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Paul is saying, Galatian church, you've abandoned the gospel, the one and only gospel. There isn't another one. It happened so quickly that I love the word that Paul used here. I'm astonished. It's almost surprising. It's like when your kids are naughty and they do something so naughty that's almost like beyond their capabilities that you're almost impressed how naughty they were rather than being mad. I don't know if you've ever been there as a parent, but I have. Paul is almost saying, I'm astonished at how fast you went from believing the gospel to something else. It's almost impressive. Not only are they deserting the gospel, but Paul says they are deserting the one who called them into grace. To change the gospel is not a preference issue. It's not what we want. It is a relationship issue. You don't just leave doctrine when you abandon the gospel, you leave a person. To To tweak the gospel is to walk away from the one who rescued you. That word called in this verse, or to call, is a pretty broad word. It really could be translated just really the way that we talk about calling people, to call to someone, the way that you call to your kids. It's time for dinner, or it's time to leave, or it's time to do some chores, and your kids will say, I'm coming. They never They never are. And then you say, Okay, for real now, come on downstairs. And they say, I'm on my way, but they're not on their way. And eventually, what has to happen, you have to go up to your kids and say, Come on, it's time to go. I mean, come on, wear your socks. That's a big deal in our house at I don't know about you guys, but socks seem to just disappear. But it's different. The call that we see in this passage is different than the call that we use in our household. When God calls It's not passive like when we do it. It is active. When God calls, creation responds. When God said, Let there be light, he didn't have to try to convince the light to shine. It happened. When Jesus calmed the storm, he didn't have to say, Wind, would you mind calming down? Waves, could you just even out a little bit? No, it immediately calmed. There is power in the call we see from Christ, the power that the Galatian churches have abandoned. The Galatian churches have been plagued with false teaching. The main issue in the Galatian churches was legalism or adding to scripture, taking God's word and saying, Let's put more on top of it. And on the surface, it seems like a neat idea. God's word is so important. What God commands is so good. Let's not even get close to But what we're saying is God's word isn't sufficient. I need to put more on top of it. When God said, Thou shalt not commit murder, what he meant was that we shouldn't have any weapons. I know that wouldn't go over in this church at all, but I like guns, so I thought that was good, but whatever. The message that these false teachers are proclaiming is Jesus is important, but really, he's not enough. You You need to be able to do something to really make God happy. Believe in Jesus, yes, absolutely. But then you need to do these other things. You need to take on these Jewish identity markers, primarily circumcision, but also these food laws and the calendar laws and other things that go along with it. In other words, grace gets you in, but really it's your obedience. It's the law that keeps you there. They weren't just rejecting Jesus. These false teachers were redefining him, saying, Yeah, he's important, but he's really not sufficient for you. I think we hear this and we say, This sounds obviously wrong. Come on, Galatian church, what were you thinking? But why this is dangerous is that it sneaks up on us. It feels like seriousness. It feels like Holiness. It feels like maturity. But it's not. It's not growth. It's subtraction. It takes away from the gospel. Because every time we say Jesus plus something, Jesus is actually not enough. This was a threat to the church. This has remained a threat to the church, adding something to Jesus. But the truth is that this came from within the church. This wasn't outside persecution coming in. This was people within the church saying that. And I promise you that if were there hearing this for the first time, it wouldn't have seemed obvious to you. It wouldn't have been alarming. It wouldn't have been like, you wouldn't have stood up and said, No, that's false teaching. You can't say that. It would have been absolutely incredibly subtle because the danger of false teaching, and in this case, heresy or a belief that puts you outside of saving faith. The danger of false teaching is that is never a blatant denial of the Trinity or or God, or the Deity of Christ, or the Virgin birth, any of those core tenets. It is much more subtle than that. False doctrine would have looked like obedience. People would have said, We're just protecting Holiness. We're really just trying to make sure that people really are committed that they're really belonging to what they're covenanting to belong to. I'm sure that there would have been those who would have said, We're just trying to follow what we've always believe, what we've always said That is true. Martin Luther says this about these false teachers. The false teacher pettles his deadly poison as the doctrine of grace, the word of God, and the gospel of Christ. That's the strategy. Dress up slavery, which is really what it is, as maturity. False Gospels don't look like rebellion. They feel like taking your obedience to another level. They feel like leveling up in Christianity. Satan disguises as false teaching as something that looks godly. That's the danger of this, is that this is a false gospel. The gospel means good news. It looks on the surface like it's good news. But this good news isn't outright denied. It's distorted. You cannot add Christian language to an alternative message and repackage it as good news as the gospel. If this happened today, if this heresy wouldn't have popped up when it did in church history and it made it all the way to 2026, I guarantee you that we would be hearing people in this saying, This is a secondary matter. We shouldn't divide on this. We shouldn't make this a big deal. And yet Paul is emphatic that this is a big deal. He calls it desertion. It's a big deal because it undermined the good news of the gospel. It goes back to our salvation. That's the reason that this is so important. It's not because we're just redefining Jesus in a different way. We need to make sure we're theologically correct. No. If we believe this false gospel, our salvation is not based in what Christ has done. It is back to Morganism. It is Islam. It is based on what you do, not what has been done for you. It's a belief that says, believe in Jesus. But really, you got to do these other things. Let's keep more rules on top of the finished work of Christ. It makes Christ a liar when he hung on the cross and said, It is finished. If we add into our faith Jesus plus, what we're saying is, he didn't really mean that. Adding rules to grace nullifies grace. Grace is given as a gift. It's fundamentally, it's not earned. Paul would have rather divided the church than allow it to be damned. And that's what we see in this next section, in this next passage of scripture here in verses 8 and 9. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, I say now, or so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel, contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. This is strong language. That word accursed means to be cursed. It means to be placed under God's judgment, not in a surface-level way, not like, Oh, I'm going through a trial. No, this means to be damned. It means to be cut off. It means anathema. Paul wants to be clear here that you must believe this gospel so clearly that I could come and visit you again. And if I am preaching something different, you would tell me to get out of town, to go away, and that you are actually cut off from Christ. That you are anathema, that you are cursed. Paul says not just him, but he says an angel. He doesn't even appeal to the other apostels. He doesn't even mention James or John. He says, going right to an angel. If an angel, seemingly a revelation from heaven, were to come to you and preach something different, usher them out of your sight. No messenger outranks the message itself. This is serious. Paul is cursing people here. He's cursing those who are pointing people, directing people away from the curse remover. Paul has a right to be mad, not because he's trying to protect his reputation, because there are souls on the line. The people who are doing this are the people inside the church. Paul has a right to be furious at these people. People inside the church, in the name of Jesus, are pointing people away from the grace, the freedom that comes from Christ alone. The gospel is so important that it cannot be added to. We are saying that it has to be Christ alone. We are saved by Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. No rule, no authority, no tradition, no leader, no Pope, nothing. No one can add to the gospel. Nothing is allowed to. Nothing is able to make the gospel better than it actually is, than it already is. We were saved. So here's the diagnostic for you. To feel at peace. It needs something besides Christ to feel at peace. You've been handed a counterfeit. You've been handed counterfeit gospel. And that leads us to our main idea. This is life with God comes by faith in Christ, not by the law. Epistle, the main idea, this is the melodic line that will weave itself through this entire by the law. Entire letter. Life with God comes by faith in Christ, not by how we actually read. The gospel is received, not achieved. It's a moment that we have. It's not by some feelings, some spiritual moment that we have. It is because we stop trying to save ourself and being our own savior. The gospel doesn't just comfort you. It replaces what you're trusting in. If Christ is enough for your standing before God, then you can finally stop adding to it, proving yourself and trying to earn it. John Stott has this quote that says, The gospel is not good advice. It is good news. That good news does not come with a list of upgrades. You You don't improve it. You receive it. There's a story that I like to tell about the idea of a farmer and a carpenter who are good friends, two friends. The farmer understands this alone is the faith through, or being justified by faith that Christ elites. It feels like he has to earn a way to be saved. And yet his friend, the Carpenter, really struggles with the Carpenter to build them. So one day, the farmer asks his friend, the Carpenter, to build him a for one of his fences. The thing about a fence or a gate is that it has to be perfect. It cannot be too long, otherwise it'll hit the post and it won't latch. If it's too short, it won't hit the latch at all. So the Carpenter finishes it and the farmer goes out to inspect it with him and it's perfect. It works great. And as he's thanking the Carpenter for building this gate, he goes over to one of the hinges and starts unscrewing it and starting to add a four by four to it. The Carpenter says, No, No, you can't do that. That will ruin it. You can't add anything to it. If you add to add to it, it'll actually break it. The farmer says, Exactly. Actually anything to it actually takes away from it. To add anything to the gospel on what takes away from it. Justification is the main hinge. Another gospel is not in which religion turns. This is what John Calvin says. Another gospel is not a small tweak. It doesn't give it an upgrade. It breaks the hinge. So the question isn't whether you believe in Jesus. The false teachers here believe in Jesus. They said, Yes, absolutely believe in Jesus. We're not saying don't believe in Jesus. The question is, Whether Jesus is the whole reason you believe you're accepted by God. And that leads us into our points of application. First point of application is this. Sorry, it's hard to read. We'll fix the slides for next week. The The first point of application is this. We'll always know the gospel by spotting Jesus plus. A counterfeit gospel, for your faith, sound like this. Jesus started it. He's important. He's the most crucial thing. But here's how you finish it. Here's the list of to-dos. If your answer is anything yourself, what do I treat as proof that God accepts me? If your answer is anything but Christ, then you've started to add to it. And maybe your plus might be Jesus plus being a good parent, being morally consistent, being theologically correct, being productive, being respected. Sometimes the plus isn't rules. It's just vibes. It's Jesus plus my sincerity. It's Jesus plus my spiritual intensity, plus my prayer life, plus my church involvement, plus my devotional life. Legalism isn't always rules. It's any attempt to make Christ insufficient. Too many Christians are pulled away by false doctrine, by false teachers, by false Gospels. Employees who have family members, coworkers, friends, who are children, parents, even yourselves, being exposed to different Gospels every single day, being exposed to different Gospels which are distorted, which in actuality are Gospels of no worth at all. Every day, Satan will try to pull us away from something ultimate to something that seems good, something that seems like obedience, something that seems like another level in our Christian faith. He pulls us from the pre-eminence of Christ, from the ultimate salvation, which is found in Christ alone, to something good. And that's the difficulty that we have to watch out for. We have to know the gospel and be pulled away from it into something that says, Here's Jesus, Jesus plus my slavery on top of it. If your gospel is circumstances, performance, then is that leads us into our next point, then even in a dark age, it won't own you. That leads us into our next point of application. It says this, The world not scare us, and then in parentheses, or as much as it does. We are rescued from the evil or the present evil age. That's what Paul says. It doesn't say that we will be sucked up, beamed up into another reality. It says that it won't have its hold on you. It won't have rule over you. There's this lie that we believe believe as humans, and it's as old as humans have been around. It's this lie that we believe that the world is just getting worse and worse and worse, and that we have to solely, we have to be the ones who stop it. I feel this. We talk about things in culture. We talk about the things that we see, and we go, Man, it's never been this bad. We forget that at one point in Genesis, that one-third of the population were murders. It's never been that bad. But We think it's bad. And we do. We see the world doing evil things. I don't want to minimize that. There are things in this world that are evil. There are public figures acting in ways that they shouldn't. Wars starting. Everything that's happened in Minneapolis in the last couple of weeks. There is brokenness all around us. I don't want to deny that. But what the gospel gives us is the ability to stop living like the headlines are sovereign. Stop acting like cultural darkness means that somehow Christ is losing. The world is still broken, yes, but it's not ultimate. It doesn't mean that we need to isolate ourselves and withdraw from everything. We still actively need to be a part of making God's kingdom come, his will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. What it means is that terrible things can happen in this world, and we can know that we've already been redeemed, we've already been rescued from it, that we've already been delivered from it. What the gospel shows us is that Jesus, he took the curse that Paul pronounces so that way we could receive the grace Paul announces. The warning in Galatians is real because the gospel is real, because the cross was real. Jesus could have been the one on the cross, even in the garden of Gethsenevi, to turn He could have been the one who deserted us. Maybe there's an argument that said that he should have, but he doesn't. He remained on the cross. Jesus became forsaken. He he became the one who was deserted. Jesus took everything that we should have received, the desertion from the Father, and took it in our place. He became forsaken. So that way we could remain. So as we leave, don't add to the gospel. Don't try to improve it. Remain in it. The gospel is not something we graduate from. Life with God comes by faith in Christ, not by the law. Let's stand and pray together as we prepare our hearts to respond in worship. Let's stand and pray. Father God, we praise you for who you are, that you are a God worth worshiping, that we can rest knowing that our salvation is secure because we don't hold ourselves to you, that you hold ourselves to you. You hold us to yourself. God, that life with you, freedom in you cannot come from our own worship, our own righteousness, our own devotion, but it comes by faith in you. God, help us to find that freedom from the law and a freedom that we can find only in you. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Upcoming Events Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Contact Us Go Interested in Serving? Go Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Interested in Serving? Go Go Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates.

Heading 2 Upcoming Events Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Heading 3 Heading 3 Contact Us Go Interested in Serving? Go Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Heading 3 Heading 3 Interested in Serving? Go Contact Us Go Get Started Heading 3 Heading 3 Get Started Heading 3 Heading 3 Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates.

Never Alone Marriage Conference Christmas Eve Times Come celebrate the birth of Christ with us at Prosper CRC’s Christmas Eve Candlelight Services! Services will be held on December 24th at 5 PM, & 7 PM . Nursery will be available for children birth-5 years old. We invite you and your family to join us for this special evening of worship and reflection. Breakout Speakers Name Name Name Name Name Name Frequently Asked Questions What is the theme of the 2025 Marriage Conference? “Never Alone” is the theme for the Peace Church 2025 Marriage Conference. We are never alone; we walk through life with our spouse, with our church, and with our Savior. How do I register? You can register for the 2025 Marriage Conference here . What is the conference schedule? Friday 5:30 PM | Doors open 6:00 PM | Session One & Worship Night 7:30 PM | Resource Shop Opens Saturday 8:00 AM | Check In, Breakfast, and Resource Shop 9:00 AM | Welcome and Worship 9:45 AM | Session Two 10:45 AM | Breakout #1 11:30 AM | Lunch + Resource Shop Open 12:30 PM | Breakout #2 1:30 PM | Session Three 2:30 PM | Q/A Session 3:00 PM | Concluding Worship 4:00 PM | Resource Shop Closes Can I bring my children? Childcare is offered only during the Friday night session. Will meals be provided? Breakfast and lunch will be provided as well as snacks throughout the day. Who can I contact for more information? Contact Nicole Baumann for more information. What if I have a food allergy? You can select your lunch choice in your registration. We will have dairy and gluten free options available! Does this conference celebrate same-sex "marriage"? No. Click here if you'd like to learn more about our biblical views on sexuality. Will we be in the new worship center? Most likely! Will this be live-streamed? No, however we will have the Keynote recordings available for a limited time after the conference to attendees. Can I attend this if I am engaged? Yes! Vision To see the Gospel embraced and passed on for generations of Kingdom impact. Mission At Peace Church, we are Gospel-Centered, Family-Focused, and Kingdom-Minded. Sponsors Sponsors 2024 Conference Messages

Upcoming Events Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Contact Us Go Interested in Serving? Go Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Interested in Serving? Go Go Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates.

Terms and Conditions

Custodian Bonna Baas Contact the Office Admin

Judgement and Mercy Prosper Christian Reformed Church Judgement and Mercy Come Thou Long Expected Mitchell Leach Sunday, December 14, 2025 Audio Judgement and Mercy Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 56:58 Sermon Transcript While they're being seated, would you please take your Bible and turn with me this morning to Genesis 6. It's right in the beginning of your of your Bible. Genesis 6. We're going to read a few verses, and I'll try to direct you because we're not going to read consistently. We're going to read, skip a few verses, then read and skip a few and go again. So I'll try to help you understand where we're going. Genesis 6, beginning with just verses 5 through 8. Passage of scripture we don't read all that often in scripture, but listen carefully to what God has to say to us this morning. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regreted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. I want to pause there. Does that surprise you at all? So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I'm sorry that I've made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Now, if you will, go with me to verses 13 and 14. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. Then drop down with me to verse 16 of chapter seven. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded, and the Lord shut him in. Would you pray with me for just a moment? Father God, we give you thanks for your word. Lord, it hurts that you looked at us, human beings, and said, I'm sorry I made them. Father, help us to understand you want a love relationship with us. And then Lord, help us to open our hearts and to literally love you with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength the way you want. Introduction Some stories stay with us because they say something true about us. This morning, one of the stories comes from an unlikely place. It comes from the movie Groundhog Day. I bet you didn't think I was going to say that this morning. Groundhog Day, for the four of you who haven't seen the movie, is a movie starring Bill Murray. He plays a character named Phil Conners, a man trapped in an endless loop. Every morning, he wakes up. It's the same day over and over again. The same mistakes, the same temptation, the same patterns. Nothing he tries can break the cycle. No indulgence, no escape, no effort. It's funny on the surface, but the reality is it's haunting. It teaches us a haunting truth that we can relive the same day thousands of times and still be the same people. We are all like Phil. We need more than just a new day. We need a new heart. And that's exactly the problem that Genesis 6 shows us. Humanity didn't need another opportunity. It didn't need another reset. It didn't need another try better next time. The world had been given a second chance after Eden. And sin simply went with it. And that's the big question that this passage asks us this morning. Big Question Do we just need a second chance? Isn't this what we believe in as Americans in the West? Isn't this what we believe in in second chance? Is the power of second chances? We tell each other that people are basically good, that we're shaped mostly by our environment, and that deep down we're capable of becoming our best selves if we just get a fresh start. If we We have a new year, a new habit, a new relationship, a new school, a new career, a new resolution, we tell ourselves, if I could just start over, I can fix myself. And it sounds hopeful. It even sounds compassionate. And we want to believe that this is true. We see this language all over in our culture saying everyone deserves a second chance. We all just need a clean slate. People change. Give them a chance. Give it time. And it feels It feels right because we want this to be the solution. A second chance is simple. A second chance is manageable. A second chance keeps the problem out there in our circumstances, in the environment in which we're in rather than in here in our hearts. But then real life happens. We get a second chance, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and we keep finding ourselves in the same loop in the same situation. We can resolve to be different people, yet slip back into the same sins. Tim Keller has this quote. It says, If our problem was only our environment, God would have sent a teacher. If our problem was only ignorance, God would have sent a philosopher. But our problem is sin, so God sent a savior. You can change your environment, but temptations still come with you. You can turn the page with the same heart writes the next chapter. Human history had second chance after Eden, and it didn't get better. It got worse. Which brings us to the tension that Genesis 6 confronts head-on. Do we just need a second chance, or do we need something greater? Fortunately, the Bible has answers for us, so keep your Bibles open to Genesis. We're actually going to cover Genesis 6 through 9. We're not going to read the whole thing, but this is the whole story of Noah. And so we're going to see three movements in this story. Outline: We're going to a second chance a second Eden a second fall Let's remember where we're at in this story so far. In Genesis 3, sin entered the world. In Genesis 4, sin spread to a family. Cain murdered his brother Abel. By Genesis 5, sin had taken root in a genealogy in generations of people. And by Genesis 6, sin has infected the entire world. What began with a whisper now roars across the earth. Instead of the seed of the woman crushing the serpent, the seed of the serpent fills the earth with violence, corruption, and pride. This is no longer a broken couple or a broken family or a broken community. This is a broken world, and God sees it. What we will see in this story is as human wickedness multiplies and creation is corrupted, God grieves and brings judgment through flood, yet he preserves his redemptive promise through Noah, the righteous man who walks with God. A Second Chance And that's what we'll see in this first section, a second chance, Judgment and the Ark, chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 5 showed us a genealogy from Cain and a genealogy from Seth leading up into Noah. When we arrived to Noah, the trajectory set by Cain has become full-fold It has fully blossomed and corrupted the world. Look at Genesis 6:5 with me. Genesis 6:5 says this, The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. Humanity had become totally evil, totally wicked. They had become tyrants. That's what the word nephilum means. These people were tyrants, ruling over people in an There were men using women to satisfy their lust instead of seeing them as image bearers. The Earth was filled with wickedness, with selfishness, with pridefulness. That's what we see in Genesis 6:6-7, if you look at that with me. "And the Lord regreted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I've created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them." God's heart is pined by the evil the world has come to love. This is not the fury of an irritated deity. This is the grief of a father whose children chose to love violence than him. Cornelius Planteca has this quote that says, "Sin is not just the breaking of rules. It is vandalism of Shalom." This is why advent begins in the shadows, because the savior we wait for comes into the world that God himself judged for its violence. The peace that was once in the Garden of Eden is perverted. And because of this, God declares that he will cleanse the Earth. But notice this, that God is not abandoning his promise that he made in Genesis 3. He is purifying the stage on which that promise will unfold. God does not start over completely. He has every right to, he has every right to wipe everyone off the face of the Earth and start over again. But he doesn't. God had promised to bring salvation into mankind through the seed of the woman. And God is a faithful God. That's actually the first time we see this in scripture. God God's faithfulness coming out in a clear and direct way, at least. God's faithfulness to his promise here because he won't go back on his promise. Genesis 6:8-9, it says, "But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God, and Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japhoth." Grace appears before obedience. Favor precedes faithfulness. And that's the pattern that we see in scripture. That's why we see this pattern here. Anytime God commands obedience, he saves first. He shows grace first. You look at the Ten Commandments, that's the way that it happens. God saves He saved Israel from the Red Sea, from the Egyptians. He delivered them and then calls them into obedience. So he chooses a family. God chooses a family here. God looked at all the people of the Earth, and he chose Noah. The word in this passage that says found favor is really a word that means that God's heart was moved. Noah didn't earn this. This wasn't something that he did enough good in order to earn God's favor. This is actually the same word that we use throughout the Old Testament and New Testament for grace. This is the first mention of grace. And it's interesting because it's in the context of judgment. Before God saves through a manger, he saves through an ark. I think some of us still think that God loves us because we're better than most or that we're better than these other people. I think it's easy for us, and maybe we don't say that confessionally or we don't say that outwardly. But deep down, I think in everyone's heart, we believe that we're better than them. We're better than those people who don't follow God, or we're better than those people who do this thing. At least I don't do that. Noah reminds us that grace is never earned. It is only received. If you're tired this advent season of trying to clean yourself up for God, this passage invites us to rest in God's grace. This verse doesn't mean that Noah was without sin. When it says that he is righteous or blameless, what that means is that Noah's righteousness was given from God to him because he believed in the promise, that his blamelessness was based on his worship because he walked with God. God had every right to wipe the whole world clean. Sin had pervaded every inch of the world, the perfect world that he had created, and that included Noah. Noah's righteousness is imputed to him. Not a righteousness of his own, but a righteousness of faith, God's righteousness. And so God makes a covenant with Noah. Look at Genesis 6:18 with me. He says, "But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you." This is the first time the word covenant appears. And there is a huge sensation for me to stop and do 15 minutes of talking about a covenant right here because covenant is such a huge part of our faith. But we're going to talk about that in 2026 a lot more. So I'm going to limit myself to this brief explanation. A covenant is more than a legal contract. A covenant is even more It's not even just a promise. It is a promise against your own life. It is a promise marked by blood. It is like a promise, but you have to put a deposit down. And imagine that deposit being your own life. That is what is happening here. God is promising Noah and his family against his life that they will be saved while everyone else dies. What we see here in this story is that the Ark is a type of Christ. It's the only place of safety when judgment comes. We must be found in Christ just as Noah was found in the Ark. But even after the waters recede, we are left asking, Will Will this cleansed world cleanse the human heart? And that's what we see in this next section. The second Eden, a new world, a new covenant in Genesis 8, the whole chapter of 8, and then Genesis 9:1-17. God brings all the animals to Noah, and the flood begins. Everyone boards, and God shuts the door. When he closed the door to the Ark, he sealed the coffin on humanity. And this might offend our modern sensibilities, but we have to remember what's happening. This was justice. This wasn't God punitively punishing people. But this was justice. This was creation had gone so arrived, so wrong, that this was justified. In the Bible, judgment and salvation always travel together in the same waters that destroyed the wicked, the same waters lifted the boat, the Ark, to safety. The same act that shut the doors brought Noah and his family in. That's what we see in Genesis 8:21, Genesis 7:21-23, it says, "And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, livestock, bees, and all swarming creatures that sworn on the earth, and all mankind." Everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and the birds of the heaven. Sin had become so violent, so corrosive, so dehumanizing, that God would no longer allow his creation to rot unchecked. This is why in chapter 6, he says, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. This word abide, that God's spirit would not abide in man forever, really means to strive or contend. Really, what God is saying is, I will not try to negotiate with mankind anymore to try to follow me. They are a lost cause. It is futile. They are flesh. They only want what they want, and what they want is not a relationship with me. And so the water subsides. Noah and all the animals get off the boat. And for a second time in humanity, there's a chance to obey God, to follow him, to follow what he says, and to live by how he defines right and wrong. Moses wants you to hear. Moses is the writer of Genesis. Moses wants you to hear the echoes of Genesis 1 in this. Look with me at this. A world covered by water, wind sent by God, dry land appearing, animals multiplying, man standing as the head of humanity. This is a second Eden, a fresh start, a new creation. Many of us, we love this time of year because It's a chance for us to think about something new. New Year's is right around the corner. There's a lot of new things happening. Kids, we're about to get a lot of new toys. It feels like a great way to start over. In fact, this is probably a time where we even think back about our year. If you have Spotify, you get a Spotify wrapped, you get a chance to look back at your year and think about what your year was. And many of us maybe feel like we have things to run from. The story of Noah shows us that a new start is not enough. We can try to run away, but sin and guilt and shame will always follow. What we need is a redeemer. And that's what this advent season is It's not about a fresh start, but salvation coming in the form of an infant. A washed world is not a new world. Water can cleanse creation, but it cannot cleanse the human hearts. C. S. Lewis says this, "No clever arrangement of bad eggs ever makes a good omelet." And I think that's true here. No matter how hard we try, no matter how many fresh starts we have, we cannot change who we are. So God makes a covenant with Noah as he steps off the boat. In chapter 9, verse 11, he says, I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by waters of the flood, and never again shall I Why shall there be a flood to destroy the earth? So God gives Noah another covenant. And why a covenant here? Because the second Eden will fail for the same reason the first one did. Unless God binds himself to all humanity with grace, humanity will walk away. The truth is Noah is not holding on to God. This covenant shows us that God is holding on to Noah. God is holding on to all humanity. The rainbow that we see here is not a sign of human progress. It's a symbol of divine restraint. God's showing that he will no longer judge the world in this way. For a moment, it feels like Eden is restored. A righteous man, a renewed world, a fresh covenant, a new start. If anyone can crush the head of the serpent, if anyone can get it right, Noah surely has to be the one. But unfortunately, that's not what we see in this next section. A Second Fall The sin that returns. Genesis 9:18-29. Genesis 9:20 says this, Noah began to be a man 'Man' of the soil. He planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 'And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. ' This, admittedly, is a confusing passage, and it is not clear what happens. But it is clear that both Noah and Ham sinned. Moses wants us to see the big point, not the details here. The man who walked with God stumbles. The righteous one falls into shame. The new Adam lies naked in a garden-like setting, just as the first Adam did. Noah goes from the righteous one to the drunk and shameful one, allowing something clearly evil to happen. Just like Adam and Eve, Noah brings sin back into the picture. Do you hear the echoes of the fall? Adam eats the forbidden fruit, Noah abuses the fruit of the vine, Adam's nakedness is exposed. Noah's nakedness is exposed. Adam's son rebels. Noah's son rebels. Martin Luther says this, The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent, that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ. This message is unmistakable. You can restart the world, but you cannot restart the human heart. Noah Noah looks like he would be the one to crush the head of the snake, but he isn't the one to do it. A clean world with the same old heart is still a broken world. And that's where advent becomes necessary. If all it was was an environment, God could fix the environment. If all it was was our circumstances, God could fix the circumstances. But the problem is us. It's our hearts. It's what we love deep down. So salvation cannot come from inside the ark. Salvation cannot come from inside of us. It has to come from inside of heaven. And that leads us to our Main Idea Judgment can cleanse the Earth, but it cannot change the human heart Only the one who bears judgment for us can bring lasting salvation. We need more. We need something more than a fresh start, more than a do-over, more than a try better next time. And subconsciously, unfortunately, we believe this, that we just need a do-over, even in our relationship with God, even in our salvation. As a former youth pastor, I can say this without a shadow of a doubt. There is an epidemic of people rededicating their lives to Christ. And I don't want to throw shade on people whose hearts are convicted by sin and that there's a desire to get right with God. I think that there is a lot of good in that. The danger in rededicating our hearts to Christ is it puts people in this spiritual limbo of, are they saved? Aren't they saved? I've seen countless times where people feel the conviction at a conference or during a sermon or at a retreat. People understand that their sin is evil, but they maybe grew up in the church, and they don't want to confess that maybe they weren't a Christian or that they had been walking in this way and feeling like They have to admit that maybe they really had something wrong when it came to their salvation. Unfortunately, this is a way... The rededication can be a way to ease our conscience about how we've been living, that we can do this and continue to live the life that we've been living and still keep a Bible verse in our Instagram bio. This might last for a couple of years, but nothing changes. We use rededication or dedicating our lives to Christ as a way to have a fresh start, a do-over. This Christmas story, the Christmas story, isn't one to make you feel better about your sin. The reality is that it's here to judge. It's here to judge you. It's here to judge me. We should feel judged by it. We cannot fix ourselves, even with unlimited do-overs, even if we had a Groundhog Day experience, if we relive the same day over and over. If we don't feel the weight of this in this passage, we've missed the point. Jesus came to fix the Earth, to fix what we couldn't fix, to fix our hearts. I think there are churches, there are pastors, there are Christians who would revolt against what we just talked about. They love to say things like people in the Gospels never felt judged around Jesus. Jesus was so accepting. Jesus was so open to people that he never made people feel judged. And unfortunately, that's just a lack of biblical literacy. That's a lack of seeing what happens in the Gospels. I mean, goodness me, if you were one of the Pharisees, I hope you felt judged by Jesus. If you've read the Gospels, you would have seen that. A few other places in the Gospels where Jesus makes people feel judged around him is: in Peter's confession after the miraculous catch the rich young ruler the disciples after the storm John in Revelation Dietrich Bonhoffer says this, "The coming Becoming of God is not only glad tidings, but first of all, frightening news for everyone who has a conscience." We feel judged by God because of his righteousness, because of who he is. He's perfect. Just being around him would make us feel judged. But the good news is for us that we don't have to stand in that judgment. We do not have to be the people who live in that judgment. The one who was born in the manger came to be condemned in our place. All of God's The wrath fell on the head that Mary held. And because the wrath fell on his head, he could crush the head of the serpent. That leads us into our application. Application Identify one place where you keep giving yourself second chances and replace it with accountability The first point of application is this. Identify one place where you keep giving yourself second chances and replace it with accountability. Instead of saying to yourself, I'll do better next time, pick one area in your life and tell someone, I need help with this. Some practical steps would be telling a spouse, Telling a friend where you're failing. Ask them to check in on you this week and choose a specific time when to talk about it. We can't go through life continuing to walk in the same sin over and over. We have to be willing to say we need more than a second chance. Our second point of application is this. Practice one act of generosity that stretches you this week The world before the flood was filled with people who wanted to exploit it, exploit other people for their own gain. Advent shows us the infinite nature of God's gratitude, of God's generosity, that God himself gave us himself something we needed desperately, but we could have never earned, never deserved. So this week, do this. Give someone something or give to someone who can't repay you back. Buy groceries for a struggling family, leave a gift card anonymously, Tip generously. Fill a need in the church without being asked. Generosity loosens the grip that sin strengthens in our heart. Of sin, and it strengthens our heart towards worship. One thing that we didn't talk about in this story so far is the rainbow. It was a sign that was given to Adam and Eve, is the sign that was given to all of humanity. It points directly towards the manger. When we see a rainbow, we associate it with positive feelings that it's happy, it's a good thing. And yet we forget that the rainbow is a sign of a weapon. That God chose to hang up his bow, to hang up his weapon. The next time that God would judge the world, the judgment wouldn't come down. It wouldn't be facing down. Look at the shape of a rainbow. This time, the next time that God would judge the world, the bow would take aim directly at the heart of heaven. And that's what we see on the cross. God's wrath, God's judgment coming down directly towards his son. Judgment can cleanse the earth, but it cannot change the human heart. Only the one who bears judgment for us can bring lasting salvation. Would you stand with me as we pray and prepare our hearts to respond in worship? Let's stand and pray. Father God, we thank you for who you are. God, you are so good and good to us. God, I pray that as we prepare our hearts for communion, for worship, God, that you would ready us for more than a way just to remember you, but to commune with you to enter into your presence, to identify you so deeply inside of us that we want to consume you. God, because we know that we can only be saved by entering into you, by entering into the Ark like Christ. It's the only place safe from wrath. God, thank you for sparing us. Thank you for saving us. Help us to respond in worship. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Upcoming Events Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Contact Us Go Interested in Serving? Go Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates. Newsletter Sign Up Interested in Serving? Go Go Stay Connected Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media for the latest ministry updates.