Boasting Only in the Cross

Galatians 5:25–26, 

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. 

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

As we step into Easter Sunday, and finish Galatians, I want to make sure we see an important connection between Galatians 5:25–26 and the rest of the letter.

Notice that verses 25–26 include two first-person, plural exhortations. That’s what the “let us” is doing — Paul, the exhortation-giver, also includes himself as a recipient of the exhortation. He doesn’t say, “Hey, y’all, Galatians, do this.” But he says, “Hey, let us do this.” 

And there are two things he says specifically, one positive and one negative.

The positive “let us” is “Let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” 

Then, in verse 26, the negative “let us” is “Let us not become conceited.” 

This is straightforward enough, but now what do each of these mean?

“Keeping in step with the Spirit” — which we talked about on April 3— means to live a cross-centered life. It means we look at the cross as the origin story of our new life in Christ. The Holy Spirit makes us see that the cross is everything to us. Let us do that, Paul says. Let us keep in step with the Spirit — and let us not do the alternative. 

What’s the alternative to keeping in step with Spirit? That’s verse 26. It’s to become conceited.

And that word “conceited” is only used here in the entire New Testament. It’s a combined word that literally means “vain glory.” 

So get this: the alternative to keeping in step with the Spirit — the alternative to living a cross-centered life — is to live a “vain-glory life.” 

Which means: we must understand that the issue is not whether you boast, it’s where you boast.

Where you boast.

Where. 

So let us keep in step with the Spirit, let us not have vain glory — and when we together obey this command, it has implications for the church community. If we have vain glory, that means we’re gonna provoke one another and envy one another. That’s going to have a disruptive, harmful effect on the church, eventually leading to the church’s self-destruction (see Galatians 5:15). 

But if we are keeping in the step with Spirit — submitting to the Holy Spirit, yielding to his guidance and his fruit and the centrality of the cross in our lives — or we might say, if we are boasting only in the cross, it will have a good effect on our church. It will mean health and depth and multiplication and mutual care and living witness — really just all the things we pray for.

It all comes back to the cross. To Good Friday.

See you Sunday.