The True Gospel | Galatians 1:6-10 | Pastor Jake Brown

Our passage of scripture for today's sermon is Galatians 1, 6 through 10.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Not that there is another one, but that there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

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, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

For am I not seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

This is the word of God.

Does our faith welcome everyone?

Or does it leave some people out?

Where are the dividing lines that determine who is a Christian and who is not?

Who decides what churches are faithful to the gospel and which ones aren't?

These are hard and heavy questions.

And here, early in the book of Galatians, Paul is already getting to them.

Last week we just started Galatians.

All you've missed so far was the heading of the letter.

We even said, and if you write a letter today, you might say, Dear so-and-so, that's basically what we hit on.

Paul is writing to the churches of Galatia.

Now he did remind them of the gospel.

There are some glorious truths in those first five verses.

But here he's going to quickly get to his point.

In most of Paul's letters in the New Testament, he spends time after the opening giving thanks to God, blessing the people.

And it is important that we look back and remember in verse 3 that he was wishing grace and peace to these people.

He's still seeing them as brothers and sisters.

But when we get to verse 6 in just a moment, we realize Paul's got some stuff he needs to talk about.

And he's not beating around the bush.

He's here to address it.

We'll see today's five verses broken up into three A's.

Astonished, accursed, approved.

Astonished, accursed, approved.

Some of you are like, how does he do that every week?

This time they're right in the passage.

This one wasn't hard, y'all, okay?

Right there.

Verse six.

I am astonished, see, told you it's in the passage, that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.

This is kind of a unique word in the Bible.

Paul writing to these churches turns from, remember, just before this, he's praising God the Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

I am astonished.

It's almost like he's like getting done with that first part.

He's like, all right, cool.

Now let's talk about it.

Now, if I called like a members meeting and I stood up in front of the church, folded my arms, and said, I am astonished.

Kind of sets the tone, right?

What we don't know for sure is like, hopefully, Paul is coming from love here and like almost wringing his hands a bit saying, I'm astonished.

You know, I don't know how we got here.

So why is Paul astonished?

He says, They're so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.

That's so quickly deserting reminds us of Exodus chapter 32.

Exodus 32 · chapter mention

And some of you are like, yes, I have Exodus 32 memorized.

I know exactly what you're talking about.

I'm joking.

I know most of us don't.

That's okay.

Y'all, in Exodus, you get the story of Moses.

If you haven't seen the Prince of Egypt, it's actually a pretty good animated version to check out and get the overview.

Um post the Prince of Egypt movie, you know, Moses comes down with the tablets.

I think it's really interesting they rolled the credits there.

Because if you know Exodus 32, you know when Moses is coming down with the tablets, he comes down and doesn't find things going so well.

Even though that God has just brought the people out of Egypt, even though they've just crossed the Red Sea, Moses goes up on the mountain for 40 days, and we're like, man, things are going to be great from here on out.

But it only takes those 40 days.

And he comes down and he finds that they've made an idol.

They're worshiping a golden calf and saying, This is your God who brought you out from Egypt, and people are going along with it.

Exodus 32, 7 and 8.

And the Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people who brought whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves.

They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them.

They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it, and sacrificed it, and said, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

Did you hear right there?

That turned aside quickly.

It's very similar language here, even though that would have been in Hebrew and this part's in Greek.

We have a Greek Old Testament called the Septuagint, and it uses very similar language.

They're so quickly deserting him who called.

That may just seem astonishing to us.

We're like, why would the Israelites do that?

They're just saved out of slavery.

They see the Red Sea opened up.

Like they've just been through a lot, right?

And then don't we honestly just do the same thing, though?

God miraculously saves us.

He brings us into a church of people who love us, and we are just like, oh, look, I'm going to run after this sin over here.

Like as quickly as we can.

Well, our flesh will lie to us, the world will tempt us, Satan is out to get you.

Paul says it's quickly because he was at these churches in Galatia.

He was the one sharing the gospel with them.

And as he writes to them now, he's like, How are things already going bad?

I was just there.

What happened?

They're quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.

Who is that who called them?

It's God.

God called his people into the grace of Christ.

Now, this calling language carries a lot in Southern culture, especially, churches.

When I was raised, there's a big thing to say.

You were called to ministry.

I'm very blessed that my dad's a pastor.

And when I told him that, he said, Great, we're going to pray about it and just tell a few people, and we're going to give some time for you to pray and consider that for several years.

Some of you know, and you were raised in churches, where if you went forward and said, I feel called to ministry, you might be seven, but they're like, You're preaching next Sunday.

And then, y'all, we can justify all kinds of things from there.

I know grown men even older than me who will say, Well, I can't get a job preaching right now, but I know I'm called.

Like, what are we what are we trying to justify there?

Some sense of something we were told young?

Is that a biblical idea?

Is that what Paul's talking about with this language of called?

Now, in some sense, the Lord does call out those who will serve as pastors.

I'm not here to deny that, or those as missionaries.

We don't want to go to the other side and say, hey, everything is a calling.

You know, wherever you were, like we're quickly, we either overuse the word or we underuse the word.

Let's look at what the Bible actually says.

Because in this passage, right there, he says, Him who called you in the grace of Christ, that's talking about salvation.

And most of the time in the New Testament, when we're using the language of calling, it's about being called to follow Jesus, called from death to life.

1 Peter 2, 9:10.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who?

Who called you out of darkness, into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

I think that's such a helpful passage for the language of calling.

Because it's showing that we've been brought out.

The Lord called to us in the darkness and brought us into the light.

Now, this gets us into a little bit of theology.

I know some of you turn your brain off when we start talking theology.

I want us to engage our minds, be transformed by the renewal of our minds, Scripture says.

So if you're if you're one who likes that kind of stuff, this is for you, okay?

In Christian history, there have been kind of two main strains of thought on calling.

The idea of a general call and the idea of an effectual call.

The idea of the general call of the gospel is me standing before you saying, repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Turn away from your sin and follow after Christ.

That's a general call.

The effectual call is that call of the Holy Spirit that reaches into your heart and gives you new life and brings you to God.

Now you can try to categorize these things into things that people want to debate all the time, but even people I know who say, I'm not reformed, I'm not Calvinistic, they'll still say, When I was saved, I felt something in my heart.

And I'm like, huh, that's interesting.

Because I think it's true.

That's that effectual calling of God as he draws his people to himself.

And that's why this is such a big deal.

Why is Paul astonished?

He's astonished that they're quickly deserting him who called.

That's not the way the calling's supposed to work.

Now, some of you may already be saying, wait, wait, wait, wait.

God calls everybody, that's not scriptural.

1 Corinthians 1, 22 through 24 says, For Jews demand signs and Greeks demand wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

That passage in 1 Corinthians differentiates the kinds of calls right there.

It's not just some theoretical idea, it's a biblical idea.

There's a call that says we've preached Christ him crucified to everybody.

And then there's a sense that the Lord is calling his people to himself.

That's good news for preachers like me or for folks like y'all.

Because y'all, if we're sharing the gospel, the Lord is working through that in power through the Holy Spirit to save his people.

And we can be confident in that.

It's not just about me getting all my T's crossed and my I's dotted and saying everything exactly right.

If it were, ooh, that'd be tough.

But instead, we can go and faithfully proclaim the gospel.

We get comfort in this from Romans 8, 29 through 30.

For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And listen to this great chain of what the Lord does.

And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.

God's work in salvation from beginning to end, him being glorified in the whole process, because he is the one who saves.

Why is Paul astonished?

He's astonished because he thought God had begun a good work in them, as he says to the Philippians.

And he's realizing maybe he didn't start something in them.

Maybe the word didn't take root.

Paul is astonished because he says in Romans 11, 29, the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

He thought these brothers and sisters were truly saved, and he's shocked to realize they might not be.

If in fact they abandon the gospel.

He continues verse 6.

Some of you are looking at this, you're like, man, we're halfway through a verse.

Are we going to get through this in time?

I think we're going to get there.

Just hold on.

We're going to try, okay?

Back half of this verse.

And are turning to a different gospel.

So they're abandoning God, who has called them to the truth, and turning to a different gospel.

That is more than a difference of opinion.

It's more than a difference in secondary doctrines.

They're not just arguing over do we baptize babies or those who profess, you know, do we sing these songs at church or do we sing these songs?

That's not what's going on here.

First order, first tier, are you a Christian or not issues.

They're abandoning the gospel for something else.

Now, Paul immediately tells us and corrects himself, the beginning of verse 7, not that there is another one.

So he initially says they're going after a different gospel, and here he says, there's actually not another gospel.

There's one gospel.

One gospel.

I've heard from many wise preachers before.

Because a common thing that people throw against Christianity, and maybe you're here and you have this doubt, and that's okay if you have it, but we want to address it and say, hey, you've got reasonable questions, okay?

We're not mad at you for having good questions.

God can handle those.

But if you say, why would God only give one gospel?

Why is there only one way to be saved?

I've heard from wise preachers that if the Lord gave us a thousand ways, we would want a thousand and one.

He is gracious to even give us one.

Something we often forget, that's a good reminder from my own heart, is that God didn't have to save anyone.

Have you wrestled with that in a while?

He's perfectly holy and just.

If he said, the best thing for this creation is for me to just start over, he would be right to do so.

But what does that tell us about his character?

He's gracious, he's merciful, he's loving, he's kind.

Because he looks at sinners like us and says, I'm gonna claim some of those for my own name's sake.

I'm gonna call them my family.

And then he carries it out for us.

He doesn't even say, hey, you're invited, you gotta meet this standard, and I'll bring you in.

No, he comes to save us.

That's the good news.

It is good news of rescue, of deliverance that's only found in this one gospel.

Paul continues in verse 7, but there are some who trouble you.

Some who trouble you.

Some there being plural.

He's referring to false teachers.

We're going to learn that throughout Galatians.

That can be a harsh-sounding word because it immediately sounds judgmental to our modern sensibilities, right?

We don't want to draw lines like, oh, we can't we can't call people false teachers.

That feels icky.

Folks, there are lines drawn in scripture over what is true and what is not.

And it is for our good that Paul is writing this carried along by the Spirit.

It's important for us to know these lines.

There are false teachers who want your money and your clicks online and your eyeballs on their videos.

And I don't say that to make you look around to everything, but y'all weigh what I say against Scripture.

Weigh what any teacher you hear says against the Bible.

If it doesn't line up with the Bible, don't keep listening to that same teacher, okay?

There's your standard.

It's not go with what Jake says, it's not go with what Pastor Matt or Pastor JD says.

Go with God's word.

And if you find a teacher and you're like, ah, that just doesn't line up, I would be cautious about that teacher.

Now, if it's a teacher who they just disagree with you on something, they're still holding the Bible up high and saying, hey, this is how I best interpret scripture, let's be gracious, let's be kind.

But y'all, there are way too many examples of teachers.

They may start and say, This is my Bible, God gave it to me, that kind of thing, but then they set it down on the podium and they walk away from it and give their sermon.

It's a pretty specific example that maybe only two of you know, but that's a thing that happens every week on TV.

Y'all, that's bad news.

There are false teachers just like there were then, but they creeped into the churches in Galatia, and Paul is calling them out.

There's some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Distort the gospel of Christ.

We're gonna learn later in Galatians how they were distorting it, how they're attempting to change the gospel.

They were adding law to the gospel.

They were saying you must follow the laws of circumcision and follow the Old Testament law to actually be saved.

I got bad news for all of us in here.

If that's true, none of us in this room are saved.

We're not following the Old Testament laws perfectly.

I haven't sacrificed a bull or a goat lately.

Not sure if you have.

If you have, like maybe I should call the police.

I'm not sure.

Also, hopefully that eases some of you if it's your first time here.

Like, we don't have any bulls in the back that are coming out later.

Um, not what we're doing.

Y'all, to add to the gospel is to lose the gospel.

To take away from the gospel is to lose the gospel.

And that can feel like a burden of like, how do we get it right?

But let's first of all consider some ways we could get it wrong.

Because when we change the good news, it becomes bad news.

I want to point out to you that nowhere in Galatians does Paul say that these false teachers got the Trinity wrong.

They were most likely still saying Jesus was the Messiah.

So, what were they getting wrong?

They were getting wrong Jesus' finished work through his life, death, burial, and resurrection.

They were trying to add to the work of Christ.

They were attempting to add law to the gospel.

That may leave you saying, How do I know I'm not doing that?

How do I know Jake's not doing that right now?

First of all, we have God's word.

You can go to 1 Corinthians 15 and find kind of the laid-out historical facts to the gospel.

Paul tells us that it's the gospel he received from Christ.

We learned last week the gospel comes from God, not made up by any humans.

And that's the good news that Jesus lived without sin, died on the cross for our sins, burying the wrath of God for us, was buried, was dead three days, and was raised to life.

That's right.

If this is your first time here, welcome.

We are a church that believes someone died and was dead three days and is alive now.

Christianity 101.

We believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15 really hits that home.

Interestingly, though, in this instance, Paul's focus is less about the historical facts of the gospel and more about who does the saving in the gospel?

Do we save ourselves with our own works, our own choices?

Does God do his part and the rest is up to you?

Or does God save his people?

Does Jesus need our help or is he a sufficient savior?

That's what we're getting to here.

And I want to tell you that according to Scripture alone, salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.

And that's not just some catchy statement.

Listen to Ephesians 2, 8 through 10.

For by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Folks, we're saved totally by God's unmerited favor, his enacting grace to us that he takes the initiative to save.

And it is through the vehicle of faith that is trusting in Jesus as the only savior.

Fully putting our trust in him, not in ourselves, not in our church, not in our tradition, in Christ alone.

And we are justified by faith before God.

If you trust in him, when you stand before God one day, he will welcome you as his child.

Yes, we will give account for our deeds.

We will.

Scripture makes that very clear.

But we will not be saved by those deeds.

Again, Ephesians 2, 8 through 10 talks about good works, but we're not saved by good works, we're saved for good works.

You get the difference?

Those good works don't actually save us, but God has good works for us after He saves us.

If we are saved by works, and you want to say that, if you're just like, we absolutely are, then it's only Christ's works.

Christ's work saves us.

This is the true gospel.

It's fairly simple to understand.

Jesus' life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, salvation by grace through faith in Christ.

It's not that hard to summarize.

And yet it's so easy for us to drift or act like there must be more to it.

Paul was astonished.

The churches of Galatia were deserting God to turn to a false gospel.

And he was so astonished that he had to warn them of hard consequences.

And these next two verses, we turn to our second A, which is accursed.

And this might be heavy for you.

If you come from a fire and brimstone background, I kind of want to give you a, hey, stick with us for a second.

We're thankful for grace and we're glad you're here.

And we think God is merciful and compassionate and can save all kinds.

But this is a little bit heavy language from Paul.

So we're just looking at the text together.

Verse 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we've preached to you, let him be accursed.

Notice Paul includes himself when he says we.

He's saying, even if I preach to you, something different than the one that's in God's word, a gospel different than the one that comes from God, let me be accursed.

He says, if an angel, this appears to be some hyperbolic language a little bit.

We don't have any evidence that the churches in Galatia were thinking an angel had come to talk to them, but that is instructive for us.

There are other religions that may even call themselves Christianity today who say they've received extra word from an angel.

Folks, this tells us plainly in Scripture, it doesn't matter who it comes from if it's not the biblical gospel.

If it comes from anyone, let them be accursed.

Now that word is heavy.

It means anathema.

It's more than just removing somebody from church membership, it is eternal condemnation.

That is why this is such a serious section and why I gave you the warning.

And you may think, well, if Paul is being hyperbolic, he's being hyperbolic again.

Don't worry, in verse 9, he's going to reuse the same word to make sure that we get that that's what he means.

Folks, what matters is not the nobility of the messenger, but the integrity of the message.

That's what matters.

Again, Paul's inclusion of himself in that we makes it clear he's not just zealous for his own reputation.

It's not about, hey, I was the one who evangelized you.

This is embarrassing for me.

The gospel's at stake.

He cares about the reputation of what God has done in Christ.

That's why he is so passionate about this.

That's why he gets so serious with the word accursed.

He's convinced that people who go after a different gospel won't be saved.

Church.

One purpose of church membership is to guard the gospel.

Why do we say, hey, we want you to go through the process of hearing what we believe?

We want to make sure that you believe the gospel before you come a member.

It's because we want the witness of this church to be one that shines to the world the gospel according to the scriptures.

Remember who Paul's writing to.

We saw this back in the first few verses there in verse 2.

To the churches of Galatia.

Church, he's talking to you.

He's not just talking to the elders there.

He's not talking to deacons there.

He's not talking to other apostles.

He says, hey, church members.

So church member, do you know the true gospel?

When you hear a false one, are you able to identify it?

We talk at our church membership classes about how if someone is hired at a bank, they don't teach you how to identify every single fake bill.

They teach you what the real, genuine article is, so that when you get a fake one, you may not even know why, but you're like, this one's wrong.

That's what we want to do with the gospel.

That's why we hammer this home every week in our readings, in our songs, in our preaching, in our prayers.

We remind each other of it through the Lord's Supper and through baptism.

Because we want to get the gospel so right that when you hear a false gospel, you may not even be able to say, this is why, but you can go, uh, something's off there.

That just doesn't hit me right.

And we can be slow on this today.

Sometimes we don't think twice about singing songs from churches or organizations that preach a false gospel.

Maybe we don't see what the big deal is if a member joins a church that doesn't preach the gospel.

It is serious.

It's weighty.

This church is so kind to support me and the other pastors, and so many of you send me encouragements, and a lot of times it's about like, you know, blessing our marriage, which we're so glad to have, or our parenting, which we're so glad to have.

Or just like, you know, something going on in the church, a decision being made, and you're like, oh yeah, you know, we're praying about thinking through a building or whatever.

Y'all, I'll be honest with you, whether or not we have a building isn't the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.

This kind of stuff keeps me up at night.

I long for all of you here to know the gospel and to rest in Jesus Christ.

More than I long for you to be a member of this church, I want you to know that you know, that you know Jesus and have confidence in him, that you can stand before God.

And if you don't hear that from this church, I'm so sorry.

Because this is good news that you can be saved, that God's people will be saved in Christ.

Again, Paul says there in verse 9, as we've said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

There he uses singular language, so we don't know if he's talking about a specific person or if he's just kind of covering his bases, but he uses that anathema again.

Now, in case you didn't know, pronouncing curses on people, preaching false gospels, if you if I start naming names, naming churches, that doesn't really win popularity contests.

Just want you to know.

I think that's an accusation that gets brought up sometimes.

Like, that church just does it because that's what people want to hear.

Like, no.

You want to like shrink your membership size real quick?

Preach the true gospel, say that there are wrong ones.

Paul is being dogmatic.

He's being narrow.

I would ask you, is he being intolerant?

Or is he speaking the truth in love?

Is he just willing to say the hard thing?

Is he willing to have people displeased with him in order to please God?

The uh theologian, preacher, rapper Shia Lin once said, Today the only heresy is saying that there's heresy.

Today the only heresy is saying that there's heresy.

Folks, there is heresy.

And I hope that most of what you get from me personally and from our church is what we are for, not just what we're against.

But occasionally it does come down to us having to say, it's not that.

And we say it out of concern, out of love, not out of puffing out our chests.

But because we want people to know the true gospel.

Certainly we don't want to become judgmental or harsh.

We want to be gentle, we want to be loving.

Church members, even if you are perfectly gentle and loving, speaking truth will be off-putting to many in our culture.

You may say it and do it just right.

And some people may reject you anyway.

As much as it's up to us, we want to be at peace with people, we want to love them.

But we can't control how they receive that message.

So we need clarity on what the gospel is, and we need courage to say what it is and what it isn't.

We also need to realize, coming back to that question at the beginning, that the gospel is both inclusive and exclusive.

Inclusive and exclusive.

If you're sitting here like, I don't know what either of those words mean, we're gonna help you in just a moment.

Don't worry.

The gospel is inclusive, meaning it welcomes people in that it says every person on the planet is made in the image of God.

Every single person.

That's why we're worthy of inherent value and dignity and protections, every single human you meet reflects the image of God.

Imperfectly, yes, because of sin in this world, but originally there is a goodness there that the Lord has implanted.

Okay?

So every human is created in the image of God.

Another way is that since Adam and Eve, every human, every one of us, myself included, we're all sinners.

Inherently and by choice, by our actions.

Another way the gospel is inclusive is it says all those sinners, all of us who will repent and believe the gospel, that is, turn away from our sin and trust in Jesus and his work, we will all have equal standing before God.

I've heard it said before, there's level ground at the foot of the cross.

I know sometimes I can sit out here and just look at these musicians and I'm like, how on earth does Matt Hingeveld play drums and sing at the same time?

Like, that's that's absurd.

But y'all, do you know that when we stand before God, we all get to stand before God together?

It's not gonna be like rank and file that way, where they're gonna be like, well, Pastor Matt, you know, he's very talented, so he gets to be up close to the front.

Maybe Pastor Matt gets to, but not most people.

You know, there's level ground.

We all have confidence before God because of Christ.

That's inclusive.

And I'm gonna tell you something that is better than modern notions of inclusivity.

The modern notion of inclusivity is a good instinct, it's a good desire that says we want to include people, but it ultimately fails.

Because today's inclusivity says we welcome everyone, but it sacrifices the truth.

And it then excludes anyone who believes the truth.

So it actually doesn't include everyone.

Does that make sense?

The gospel tells a better story, a more inclusive story.

The gospel is also exclusive in its proclamation that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, not a way, not a truth, not a life.

He's the only one.

Salvation is in Christ alone.

There is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

These are all Bible verses telling us about the exclusivity of Christ.

And it's what Christians have believed throughout history and around the world.

Again, modern thought pushes against the scriptures.

And it says, oh, that's narrow.

You can't say that other people are wrong.

You can't say that other religions aren't as valid.

That's not good.

Now, we want to be kind to our neighbors and love our neighbors and serve our neighbors, whether you are religious or practice another religion, if you totally reject the gospel, we still want to love and serve you.

But we can't all equally be right.

That's impossible.

Tim Keller helps us here.

It is no more narrow to claim that one religion is right than to claim that one way to think about all religions, namely that all are equal, is right.

We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways.

So if you're here and you say, hey, all religions are pretty much the same, I need you to know that you didn't just offend Christians, you've offended Muslims, you've offended Jewish people.

Because other religions don't think that either.

We follow after our religion because we think it's true.

So the gospel is both inclusive and exclusive in its own ways, and we're okay to admit it as long as we stay scriptural.

Again, it takes courage and boldness to speak and stand in these truths.

But folks, if those sound hateful, I just want to remind us that nothing could be more hateful or selfish than withholding saving truth from our neighbors so that we can be comfortable.

That's not loving to people.

To see people heading for destruction and know that you have the answer and go, oh, that would be awkward.

I'm not gonna say anything.

That's selfish, y'all.

And I know that's a hard truth.

That's a that's a mirror for me.

That's a something I have to work on with the Lord as well.

So I'm not just pointing at anybody.

Point at me, pointing at us.

And to courageously speak in love.

Paul recognized this tension and wraps up this section with verse 10.

We've seen the astonished and we've seen accursed, and now we're gonna see approved.

Verse 10 for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Now stick with me.

We're gonna wrap up.

This point is not as long as the others.

I know it's hot in here today.

Those of you who got the bulletins, you're like, oh, they're fans.

Those of you who didn't get one, you'll get one next week.

We don't control the thermostat.

Sorry, y'all.

Whose approval are you seeking?

If you follow Jesus and you are the kindest, most gentle person, you will still displease some people.

Paul knew that.

I love that he brings this up.

He's gonna move into it as he tells his story in the next passage.

But it's almost like Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, anticipates our questions.

Am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man?

It comes down to a question of who are you trying to please?

Well, let's be honest.

In our flesh, we all want approval.

Nobody wants to be cast out from their friends or coworkers, or like that's that's not what we want.

We want to be welcomed in, right?

We want to be seen as enough.

Only the gospel allows us to say, hey, because you're justified by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and you have right standing with God, you already have that approval.

The greatest approval you could ever need.

So now you can walk in this world not needing it from others.

Now you may say, well, emotionally we still need it.

Yes, that's why we have the church, and we have a lot of support.

But I don't have to go around seeking it from everyone I talk to.

I don't have to worry about it every time I share the gospel and think, oh, I just hope this person likes me when we're done.

Christians, it's a hard truth.

Again, I want us to be gentle and I want us to be kind.

I'm not telling us to go pick fights or be mean Christians.

Lord knows we don't need any more mean Christians.

But there is a hard issue here.

Whose approval are we seeking?

Who are you trying to please?

God or people?

Paul says, if I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Your translation might be a slave of Christ.

It's the same word.

So we are either going to be slaves to Christ, receiving the approval of God through him, or we are going to be slaves to seeking the approval of other people.

Now, some of you are like, I don't need people's approval for like social stuff.

Okay, maybe you need it for promotion.

Maybe you need it so that you can marry somebody's daughter or something like that.

Different phases of life, we look for approval for different ways.

The point is we can idolize it, and it will fail us.

Paul says, if I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

How do we please God?

How does a person please God?

Romans chapter 8, verses 6 through 9 tell us, for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

Romans 8:6–9

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.

For it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Christian, if you have trusted in Jesus and you are following after God with everything you are, that's not from your flesh, that's the Holy Spirit in you.

You can please God.

Your trusting in Jesus does please God, and now with your life you can please him.

Hebrews 11, 6 says, And without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Do you believe that God exists?

Are you seeking after him in Christ?

And you believe that he's going to reward those who do, then you can please God.

We went through Ecclesiastes for a long time.

Some of you are like, I've tried to block that from my memory.

That was a hard sermon series.

We got to the end of the matter, right?

What does it take for us to glorify God?

This is getting to that similar idea.

But I do think it's something we wrestle with.

And if you're here and you're asking questions about God, maybe that's something you've wrestled with.

Like, if there is a God, how do I know if I'm making him happy?

How do I know if he's pleased with me?

Folks, if you're trusting in Jesus, then when God looks at you, he sees his own son.

He sees his own child.

Like the prodigal son, like the father running to meet him.

That's how God runs to meet you and embraces you.

God's not in heaven just waiting on you to mess up so that he can guilt you and shame you.

That's Satan lying to you.

God wants you to come to him even when you fail.

Cast your sins, cast your burdens on him.

You please God in Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for the truth of your word, even when it is heavy truth.

We thank you that you tell us the gospel, the one true gospel.

Help us to believe it and to live in light of it, that you may be glorified in us.

That you may be pleased with us.

God, move us to compassion for people who are led away by false teachers.

Help us to speak with clarity and kindness and boldness, to call people to the one true gospel, that you save by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

We thank you for this good news that there is rescue, there is deliverance from sin and from death.

And we look forward to life with you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.