This site requires flash

Crossing Out Your Negatives

Galatians #19

Galatians 6:11-18
 
The book of Galatians contrasts life full of liberty through a relationship with Jesus Christ to life based on law and legalism. 

In this final passage, Paul is personally wrapping up his letter to the Galatians.  He reminds them that the cross is an act that declares something significant from the heart and mind of God. First – that sin really is serious.  Second – that He is willing to take the blow of judgment on our behalf. 

As a result of the cross working on our behalf, we are liberated in four different ways:
 
1. Liberation from erratic flesh
 
“But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”   – Galatians 6:14
 
There is no way you can maintain a relationship with God based on your own capacity to do right.  This doesn't mean that we can call wrong right, but we cannot depend on our own ability to keep the rules.
 
I always have to go to the cross as my righteousness.
 
2.  Liberation from the limitations of this world
 
I am not confined to this world – the system of thoughts, ideas and attitudes that leave God out of the mix.
 
I'm free from the mentalities that shape the world – and liberated to the mentalities that shape the kingdom of God.  I'm coming from another world - a world of peace, joy, love, abundance, generosity, faith, and confidence.
 
3.  Liberation from the old me
 
When I embrace the cross – the old me dies there.  Now I rise as a new creation being! 
 
“For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”   – Galatians 6:15
 
 “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”   – 2 Corinthians 5:17
 
Ephesians 2:10
Ephesians 4:24
Colossians 3:10
 
4. Liberation from Isolation
 
“And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.”   – Galatians 6:16
 
Ephesians 2:11-16        
 
God has a purpose He is establishing on the earth.  I'm not an isolated lone ranger - I'm a part of a great cause championed by a great nation, the church.
 
Ephesians 2:19-22
 
I’ve been to 18 nations – 18 different cultures, 18 different worship styles.  But because of the cross as our common ground – I share in the life of so many people, and they share in my life.  The cause is big enough to include as all!