Where Is Your Confidence?

We've found ourselves now up to Galatians chapter 5 verse 10 through 12. And David read 7, 8, and 9, which we covered last week, that the Galatians were running well. And Paul says, who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion didn't come from him who calls you. And then a little leaven leavens the whole lung. And today he says, I have confidence in you in the Lord. that you will adopt no other view, but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is."

So let's get this going. So, confidence. It's really interesting. Paul says, I've got confidence. And the way that this thing is structured grammarically is that he puts the emphasis on himself, meaning that he's the one that has the confidence. However, this word, confidence, is exactly the same word that we saw back in 7, where it said obeying the truth. So how do you meld those together? Well, we saw that the word in chapter 7 really meant to be persuaded. You can translate the truth, or the verse like this, you were running well, Who hindered you by the truth not to be persuaded about that truth? That's in the passive voice.

When you put it in the active voice, Paul says, well, I am confident, I am persuaded, that I am absolutely certain that you, confidence in you and the Lord, that you won't adopt any other view than the one that I've given you. So it seems like in the past, that they were operating in the past tense, that they were doing okay, although this leaven had come in, and leaven has a tendency to grow slowly, but eventually take over the whole lump. And he said, but I'm confident, and have been confident, that that's not going to happen.

In spite of the attacks on the Galatians by the legal beagles, Paul expected his belief that the saints of Galatia will remain solid in the gospel. confidence. Is Paul's confidence and certainty in these Galatian believers or is it in something else?

These are the people that deserted God. These are the ones who are being called by Christ's grace. These are the ones that Paul calls foolish Galatians. These are the ones who didn't perceive the truth. These are also the ones that Paul called bewitched. Remember we talked about what bewitched was?

They were charmed or they were misled and they were being wooed away from the gospel. These are also the ones who began the Christian life by walking in the Spirit who are now trying to fulfill it by walking in the flesh. So these are the ones who were walking by sight and not by faith. These are also the ones who had put themselves back under the beggarly elements of the law. These are the ones who had fallen from grace.

So Paul, does this confidence in them? It's a very interesting thing for us to look at the text and see what exactly what it says. I talked about this yesterday with some people and I just laid it out and said, where is the confidence? Is the confidence in the Galatians?

Or is the confidence in the Lord Himself. It's obviously in the Lord, and I think it's a good point for us to understand that the confidence can be in the Lord towards you. And that's the way the structure is. I have confidence and certainty towards you, but the performance is in the Lord. He's going to do it. I know that you can't, or that you won't, or that you might not, but I know the Lord will do it, and that's where my confidence is. It's a prepositional phrase that has to do with the direction of the confidence rather than in the people themselves. And in the Lord means that this is the location where the confidence is.

The location is nowhere else but in the Lord himself. And it's a good thing for us to think about that in terms of everything that we do in our lives, that the confidence that we have has to always be in the Lord for performance. It has to be there for spiritual growth. It has to be there for the conformity to Christ's image, which is Christ's purpose for each one of us.

Just the energy for service has to be in the Lord, the confidence, the presentation of believers spotless before the Lord. Any involvement in the walk or the work of the Christian life, the confidence is in Christ, not them, and not you. Notice Paul says in Philippians 3 3 same kind of thing for you are the true circumcision who worship God in the spirit and Glory in Christ Jesus now.

Here's the negative and have no confidence in the flesh so either one of two things happens you either have confidence in in in the Lord or or you have confidence in the flesh. And Paul says, no, you can't do it that way. It isn't the way it's supposed to be. You never have confidence in the flesh, which means you never have confidence in your own ability to carry out what God has called you to.

You have to trust Him. And Paul trusts these Galatians even though they're really under assault because of the influx of the Judaizers. Even though the Galatians may have been forming new opinions about things, and being led slowly into legalism, Paul would believe that God would keep them, and that they would eventually resist the Judaizers. So you have to ask the question, where is your confidence? Where's my confidence?

Am I focused in on my ability, what I can do? Am I focused in on myself? Am I focusing on my position in the community that I enjoy? Is Cordney's confidence focused in the fact that he's a board member at Camp Elam? Is my confidence in the fact that I have some sort of financial status? How about my confidence could be in my children or in my spouse? Or even worse still, your confidence could be in your pastor. or the elders of your church. If your confidence or my confidence is in these things or persons, we're going to be in for disappointment.

We just are. If the Galatians were truly saved, nothing could actually harm their position. In John 10, 28, I give them, the Lord Jesus says, I am constantly giving them eternal life. And they will never perish. And no one will ever snatch them out of my hand. That's us he's talking about all the time. The confidence in the Lord.

Now, the verse also says, and no otherwise or no other tells us what. Paul expected the Galatians not to take any other view. And the message that the Judaizers were giving him was trying to get them to take another view. And he said it didn't, he told us in the previous verse, well that didn't come from the one who called you. That comes from somebody else.

And leaven is what they were planting. And the issue of be minded or view is the word that means denote a general disposition of the mind rather than a specific act. And what it means by that is that we all have in our own minds kind of a disposition that we have about certain things and especially about our relationship with the Lord Jesus. We all have a confidence that we're saved and based on the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's not a specific thing we have to keep repeating. We just have that in us. And that's what this is talking about.

Paul is saying, look, I am settled on this idea that you won't succumb to this false doctrine. However, those who are responsible for the trouble wouldn't escape divine judgment, because he said, those who are disturbing you are going to bear his judgment, whoever he is. Interesting warning, isn't it? It kind of puts the focus and the onus on, if you're going to teach the Word of God, you better make sure what you're teaching.

That it's grace-based, that it's faith-based, and it's not in any sense legal. The word trouble and disturbing is from terrazzo, which means the act of disturbing someone's faith. Gee, there's people that are actually out trying to disturb my faith. The word dare here is from bastazo, which means a grievous burden. So it's interesting to understand that if he who touches God's anointing in a negative way, there's a consequence for that. God will judge the man who disturbs the faith of his children, and that judgment will be severe.

Back in Galatians 1.8.9, Paul says, But though we or an angel of heaven preach any other gospel to you other than that which I have preached, let him be accursed. And he said before, as I say again, if any man preach any other gospel to you other than what you have received, let him be accursed. That's pretty severe language, even including himself. So, the ministers of legalism Themselves can appear as the ministers of righteousness because it sounds good But the end shall be according to their works in 2nd Corinthians 11 Paul says for each for such a false Apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and no more and don't marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light and therefore a It is no great thing for his ministers also to be transformed as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works."

There's a judgment placed on those who teach the Word. And, you know, as we have spent a year now in the Book of Galatians, it becomes pretty apparent to me that those who teach and those who reveal the Word of God You have to be careful that you're revealing the right thing, that you are talking about grace, that you are talking about what God has put precisely in His Word, and you can't intergene into it.

Well, maybe I'll add a little bit of law here, get a move in there. I'll do something that's not scripturally sound. I have to let the Word of God teach me what His Word is. In that day, all the false teachers are going to be unmasked and they're going to be punished. So it's pretty tough. It's pretty tough when the consequences you realize that are coming, how careful God is to have his word presented practically and spiritually.

To expand the translation of verse 10, Paul says, as for myself, I've come to a settled confidence in the Lord with respect to you, namely, that you will take no other view than the one that I've given you. But the one who troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he is. He's settled about that. Verse 11.

But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. So it's interesting. This question is so carefully crafted that if I'm the one actively proclaiming the doctrine of circumcision, would they deliberately keep on tracking me down to persecute me? You know, it's one of those questions where you say, well, no, they wouldn't be, I don't think. Because the answer is obvious, that there wouldn't be antagonism against me if I was still preaching circumcision. In other words, there was still something, some ritual or something that had to be done in order for us to be saved.

So the question is that the relentless persecution against him is present tense, it's going on all the time. It's happening to him and it's reality. It's what's going on with him. You probably remember in the book of Acts that whole part about Stephen and Stephen was talking about he was being persecuted and railed on by the Sanhedrin, being persecuted himself because of his break with the Mosaic economy.

It was as a Pharisee that he had preached the circumcision. Paul as a Pharisee preached circumcision. But as a believer, circumcision went out the window. He didn't preach that anymore. So Paul's persecutors might have told the Galatians that the Apostle himself preached circumcision.

They might have done that. They might have said that, hey, you know, this guy Paul is not teaching the truth because he used to preach circumcision all the time. And the answer is, yeah, he did before he was a believer. So why? Why would they do that? Paul says, if I'm actively proclaiming the doctrine of circumcision, why would they be persecuting me?

Once I went to their side they would leave me alone. Now let's talk a little bit about probably the real issue in this verse. It's the preaching of the cross and the fact that it's offensive. It was that message which was a stumbling block for the Jews. Paul was standing on the truth of redemption through Calvary and upon that he exhorts the Galatians to stand with him. Paul's, the persecution of Paul had its basis in fact that the cross was offensive. Well what makes the cross so offensive?

Romans 9.33 quoting from Isaiah 28 says, just as it is written, behold I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense and he who believes in him will not be disappointed. Who's that stone and who's that rock? It's the Lord Jesus Christ and His cross. Why is the cross so offensive? Why is it so tough for non-believers to realize that the cross can be offensive?

It's because... What does the cross represent? It represents a place of suffering. It's an offense because it humiliates man in the flesh. Because it says to man, because of the cross, there's nothing you can do to accomplish your own salvation. Nothing. You have to depend on the person and work of Christ and His death. Your efforts don't count. Well, is there any one thing in your life and my life that bothers you the most is to find out that you're irrelevant. We all want to be relevant somehow. We want to be noticed somehow in our family, in our relationships, in what we do. But the cross of Christ says when it comes to salvation and your relationship with God, you don't have anything to contribute.

I, God, did it all. Being persecuted for circumcision. Circumcision says, well, this is what I'm contributing. And that's why the cross becomes an offense. The teaching of circumcision is an offense to those who live under grace. The teaching of grace and the cross of Christ is an offense to those who live under law. So, back to the Sanhedrin.

When they were after Stephen, in Acts 6.13, here's what the issue was. They put false witnesses who said this man increasingly and incessantly speaks against the holy place and the law for we have heard him say that this Nazarene Jesus will destroy this place and alter the customs of Moses handed down to us. Are they offended by Christ or are they offended by their system? When Stephen was talking about And if you've read in Acts, it's terrific because he takes them on. Boy, what a man of courage he was. He takes them on and it makes them so angry that they jump him. And they take him outside and they stone him to death. And Paul was holding the coats for the guys that were doing the stoning.

And he was agreeing with them that this This offense that he was talking about didn't have to do with the person and work of Christ. It had to do with the fact that it was putting the Jewish system and the Mosaic economy aside, and they didn't like that. Saul the Pharisee persecuted the church the same way.

He said in Galatians 1.13, For you have heard of my former manner of life. You heard about that? in my life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the Church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.

Why? Because of the offense of the cross. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. Ancestral traditions. The offense of the cross goes right against ancestral traditions.

It set aside the entire mosaic economy and it offered salvation by grace through faith alone without an added factor of work performance at all. And the effort to merit salvation, in any sense, the cross stops that in its tracks. And it shows that the Jews of the first century really were mistaken about what their religion was, and that the system never taught that the sinner was accepted by God on the basis of good works. If you study Judaism, you won't find that God accepts a Jew based on his good works. He accepts them on the basis of faith only.

So, as I was saying, the cross is a place of death. It's a place of suffering. It's a place of separation. It separates you from your sins. It separates you from the consequence of your sins. It also separates you from your old sin nature. It's a place of atonement. It's where the penalty was paid totally and completely.

One of the interesting questions I always ask somebody who thinks that there's something they need to do to help out their own salvation is, did God in Christ, when Christ died on that cross, Did He take care of all of your personal sins or did He leave something for you to do? Do you have to go around and clean up? Do you have to somehow deal with your own sins in a way that would be pleasing to God or not? Or did Christ take it all? Did He do the whole thing? The answer is that the cross did the whole things and the fact that I adopt the idea that there's something left for me to do makes the cross an offense to me. Because I want to be relevant. I want to do something. Well, you can believe. Oh, that's right. Faith is a non-meritorious act. Well, that doesn't make me relevant. No, but it does save me.

So, the word ceased means to render idle or imperative. You know, we've talked about in the past when we study identification that the reason When we talk about identification, the reason for the cross being the end of your sin nature, the whole idea is to put it out of business. That's what this word means. It's the same word as katergeho. It means to render idle or be inoperative.

In other words, the cross, if you do not buy, he's saying to the Judaizers, if you do not buy the grace and the fact that Christ's cross was everything, then you're going to reinstitute, bring back into operation that the cross is irrelevant. You don't need the cross. If you can do something, what do you need the cross for? You don't need it. So, a couple of things the cross did.

It triumphed over Satan. It culminated his whole program, terminated it. By entering into death and rising again, the Lord Jesus judicially destroyed Satan and his whole hierarchy. Hebrews 2.14 says, For as much then as the children of partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him, that's the same word, or put out of business, he that had the power of death, that is the devil. That's a done deal. Slide that over on this side. At the same time, the cross of Christ wrested the usurper's kingdom from him.

1 John 3.8 says, having spoiled principalities and powers, he made an open show of them, triumphing over them in the cross.

Colossians 2.15 says, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Slide those over to this side.

But the work of the cross on our By the work of the cross, our Father has not only freed us from the penalty, but also the power of the sin nature. We're free. Because he said he has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. Move that over here.

Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ has been tested like we are, apart from sin. Wherefore, in all things that behooved him to be made like us, his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people, in that he himself has suffered being tempted or tested, he is able to help them that are tested." So, translation, expanded translation. If I'm still preaching circumcision, why am I, in spite of this fact, being persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been done away with. I think that's a pretty clear verse. We'll close up on verse 12 because I'm running out of time. I know. Just give me a couple minutes, right?

So Paul says, I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate or cut themselves off. Is there a verse in the Bible that's more expansive and has such, what's the word I'm looking for, such impact as a verse like this? Paul is really being strong here. when he talks about circumcision and those who promote it.

In Philippians 3.2 he says, beware the dogs, beware the evil workers, beware the false circumcision or the concision. In other words, watch out for these guys that are preaching circumcision. What he's really saying is, you know those people that mutilate themselves? Watch out for those guys. Stay away from them.

There isn't a more severe expression in the Bible than this one phrase when it comes to Paul and his opinion about what they're doing, even greater than anything he ever said in the Corinthian books about the sinfulness of the Corinthians. Legalism is a bigger deal to Paul than sin, because he knows that legalism promotes sin. The whole expression shows that circumcision had become, from Paul's viewpoint, purely just a physical act and had no spiritual meaning whatever.

And if performed for such a purpose that for which the Judaizers used it, it became bodily mutilization. And it's not indifferent from character from what happens with some of the heathen religion. I looked up one. There was this town, Pessinus was the home of the worship of Cybele, in honor of whom bodily mutilation was practiced. If you were a priest of Cybele, the first thing you did is get castrated. That's the first thing you did. This was recognized as a form of heathen self-devotion to God and would not be shunned in ordinary conversation. Can you imagine having a religion where, okay, we want to invite you to be an elder, but the first thing you've got to do Oh, I think I'll pass.

Paul says that this trouble is designed to upset you or to overthrow your thinking. And the point being here that he would actually, if it came down to the logical outcome of circumcision, that they wouldn't just stop there. that they would complete the job. That's really what he's saying. So I would that, the translation of that works, I would that they who are upsetting you would even have themselves mutilated or castrated. That's what he's talking about.

So it's very simple to sum up. What's really going on here is the offense of the cross. And we all know about the offense of the cross. We sit down and talk to non-believers or believers that are steeped in law, and we start talking about grace, we start talking about the totality of the effect of the cross, and it's just more than a disagreement. There's an offense thing there. And you think, well, gee, am I really being that offensive? If you're talking about the cross, you are.

Because the natural man wants to survive. He wants to live. He wants to be relevant. He wants to do something. And we think, well, the natural man is not doing evil, he's okay. No. What the cross did was put the whole man out of business. His goodness and his evilness.

Because we now live in this new place that was talked about in Genesis. We live in the tree of life. And you know what's interesting about the tree of life? There's no good or evil branches. There's just life. And that's where we live. So the contrast isn't there.

We just rest because that's where the Lord put us. Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for your word. We thank you for your carefulness to teach us who we are and where we are and what we live under. And we're thankful for that. And we may continue to grow in the knowledge and the grace of the Lord Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.