Just one verse of Scripture for this morning's message. It is found in Galatians chapter 1 and verse 10. Galatians chapter 1 and verse 10. I'll be reading out of the Revised Randall Version, meaning I translated this verse myself. It won't be much different than your translation, but just for word order from the Greek text, mine is worded this way. So I'll read it slowly and then we will begin and hopefully the Lord will help us from this text. It reads this way in Galatians 1 10. For do I now persuade men or God? You have to ask yourself these questions as well. Do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? If I still pleased men, I would not be a slave of Christ. If I still pleased men, I would not be a slave of Christ. So I want to preach this morning upon the fear of man in regards to evangelism, the fear of man. Now, evangelism is not something we do. Evangelism is not an event. Evangelism is not a quota that we try to meet. I have to share the gospel with three people a week to be a good little Christian. That's not how it works. It's not something we sign up for and check a block each week. I passed out one track this week, so I'm a good little Christian. It's out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. That's the way it works. And so the logic here is when the heart is full of Christ, that's just what seems to come out of the mouth. whether at the gas station or whatever venue I'm at or at my work or if I'm in my hobby and I'm doing my hobby, it's just that what else am I going to talk about? What else is there? See, I don't know your context. I only know mine. But in my context, it's like the only thing people know to talk about is the weather and politics and the pandemic. Well, if that's all that's in your heart, your heart's just really shallow. And so, somehow, look, nobody at the community coffeehouse is changing the conversation to be about Christ. That's not their agenda. That's not what their heart is full of. Now, if they talk about the weather and you respond with the weather, you can talk about the weather all day. That's normal conversation for people in our world. It is us, the Christian, who brings Christ to the table. We're the ones that bring Christ to make Him the subject, and we do so, why? Not for an obligation, but because that's where my heart is. It's what I'm about. It's who I worship. It's who I live for. It's where all my joy, all my satisfaction is all found in Christ. And so, somehow, it just naturally comes out in daily conversation. I just want to encourage you with that. I'm going to share just a couple of stories in this message. I could tell you lots of stories where things don't go well and people get mad and all of that, and that's fine because that's what happens when you talk about Christ often. But I also want you to know that there are genuine things that happen that show God's hand and you meet people and have wonderful experiences you'd never have had you not talked about Christ. So I want to share some of those with you as we progress through the sermon. If you want to take just a quick note, these are not my sermon points, but if you want to take a quick note on evangelism, I'm just going to give you three quick notes on evangelism and then proceed with this text. But number one is preparation. Just be mindful that when your heart is prepared in the morning before you go out to face the day, you're much more likely to talk about Christ. If there is no preparation to talk about Christ, most of the times, you don't talk about Christ. And so, a situation comes up and you miss it because you're not prepared to talk about Christ. Whereas, if you woke up that morning and you had a genuine time of prayer, of Scripture reading, and you had a prayer such as, Lord, I want to be a vessel today to be used by You. Give me an opportunity that I could speak for Your glorious name. So if you went out the door with that type of attitude, you're much more likely to have a divine encounter with someone who needs Christ. Secondly, I would say a purpose. A purpose that you would purposely go forward intentionally looking for the opportunity to share Christ. I have a track in my pocket. I have a track in my glove compartment. I have a track in my truck. I have gospel literature with me, Lord. I have a purpose today. I'm just looking for you to give me the opportunity. You can't share with everybody. Go to Walmart, you'd never leave, right? But God has people out there, and when you're purposeful about it, it's amazing how God will show you the one that you're supposed to share with. And then thirdly, I would give you the word praise. That you live out your day with a praise-type attitude. There's enough bitter, complaining, vulgar people in our world. We don't need any more, especially people who confess to be Christians who act like that. It's a wonderful, refreshing thing to have a heart full of praise about your day. Like, just for instance, it's really good. I like to race bicycles, and this is the line I use all the time. It helps you to create space in a bicycle race as well. And so, like when you're racing and you've got like 20-something people around you, and they always race early in the morning, the sun's coming up, and you begin to say, the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork, and day to day they pour out speech, and night to night they reveal knowledge, and there's no words where their voice is not heard. Their words go out to the end of the world. You can just say that while you're in the middle of the race, you see, and all of a sudden, you know, they kind of give you a little bit of space to get some weirdo in the pack, right? But that's perfectly free. What the people around you, what are they talking? Well, all the worldly stuff. So the Christian is just a heart of praise that you're able to offer in the midst of each situation. And I want to encourage you in that sense that these things that it is our responsibility to bring them before men, that they may be confronted with the glorious gospel of Christ. The fear of man will silence you. The fear of man is a snare. So let's look at this this morning. Number one, the fear of man, chapter one, verse 10, and we're looking at two phrases here from, am I now seeking the approval of man? And then we're skipping over to the next phrase, am I trying to please men? Am I seeking the approval of man or am I trying to please man? This is a great trap for many a preacher and for many who would need to be about sharing the gospel. So let's talk about Paul and his motive here. Fear causes action or inaction, but fear has an effect upon you. There's an effect upon me, and that effect will be seen in how we relate and communicate, whether in preaching from a pulpit or talking to someone one-on-one. What causes the Apostle Paul to preach the way he preaches? If the cause or the motive of Paul's preaching is men, if that's his motive in somehow trying to appeal for the attraction and the favor of men, then his message will reflect his motive. If it's this fear of man that's driving him, you will see that come out in the motive of his preaching. Let me give you a couple of examples how this works for preachers. If you have the fear of money people in your church, it will prevent the preacher from preaching upon things that might offend the people who give the most money in the church. So there's this group, and they give this much money, and they hold this position. I'll just skip over those texts lest I offend them, and they withhold their tithes, which might shortchange my check. So that fear of man would cause us to deviate around texts that might trouble them. Or if you have the fear of reputation, it might prevent you from preaching on things that would hurt your rankings. If you have influential people in your church and their daughter happens to be a lesbian, or you have influential people in your church who happen to have had several abortions in their family, we just won't touch those, because then my reputation would be tainted, and they would take up an attack against me, and I might actually get fired if I preached on that. I mean, I know what God's Word says, but there's a lot of other texts I can preach, and I just won't preach that one, lest my reputation be hindered within the church. The fear of men will prevent the preacher from dealing rightly with doctrines that are contrary to the powers that be." It's like, man, don't stand in the pulpit and preach on predestination in a freewill Baptist church. I mean, it's probably not going to go well. I remember one time a pastor invited me to preach at his church, and it was a winter Bible study, and throughout the sessions there, he finally said, I'd like for you to preach upon predestination. I found out later the reason was because he was afraid to preach upon it himself, so he had let me preach upon it. And so I stood up and I said, tonight's lesson is upon predestination. The guy on the second row stood up and he says, well, we know that word's not in the Bible. I thought, this is a great way to start the sermon. So this is not going to go well. And my response was, I said, well, except for the places where it is in the Bible. And so we went on from there. But if you allow the fear of men to affect you, then you just pull back from those areas lest you offend someone. In the book of Proverbs, you don't have to turn there. It's a very short verse, but Proverbs 29 and verse 25, the fear of man lays a snare. It's a trap. It traps you. This fear hinders you, this fear silences you, this fear inhibits you from interacting one-on-one or with a group, and it certainly makes a trap for the man in the pulpit trying to preach to people whom he's afraid of. And so the fear quenches what maybe he thinks he believes within his heart. The interesting thing about pastors I've learned over the many years of ministry is their doctrines and theology is a lot better in their office than it is in the pulpit. It's a shame you lived your whole life hiding your office, loving glorious truth, but afraid to proclaim it from the pulpit lest you offend someone. Look, it's God's Word. We are to exposit this Word, preach this Word, and we're to please God, not men. It will be a trap if you succumb to this. But whoever trusts the Lord, he's safe. If you trust the Lord, you are safe. So think about these traps just very quickly again. The preacher is trapped by his desire for people to like him. The preacher is trapped by his desire for people to pay him. The preacher is trapped by his desire for people to speak well of him. You have to evaluate for yourself as a preacher or as a Christian. Why do you say or not say what you say? Why do you preach or not preach what you preach? What is the motive that is lying there? Do you honestly sit in your office and scratch out lines, remove phrases, and play around with the text lest you offend someone? Newsflash! When this deal is done, you and I must give an account to God for what we've done with His Word, in His church, with His people. We're accountable to a thrice-holy God for what we're doing with truth that He gave us to give to others, in the pulpit, or as an individual Christian. You have to give an account why it is that you will not engage your mother or your grandmother with the gospel. You must give an account as to why you will not say something at your family reunion with a person you know that is lost and on their way to hell. You've got to give an account why you won't even broach the subject about Christ. What's prohibiting you? You say, well, if I say something, they may be offended. Look, they're on their way to hell. How much more offended can they be? You're going to offend them to hell number two? I mean, well, I might scare them. It's scary. You ought to scare them. They're going to wake up in hell. And you're worried about scaring them? I know a man in hell, and a man in hell is begging someone to evangelize his five brothers that they don't have to come to this place. The creature is trapped by his desire to have the approval of man. It works the same way in evangelism. The fear of man assumes the worst. Well, if I do this, this is what's gonna happen. You don't know that's what's gonna happen. If I give a track, well, somebody else has probably already given them one. You don't know that, and possibly they need two. If I say this in this situation, they're gonna be really upset. You don't know that. You have no idea what they're gonna do. It actually may happen that you speak up for Christ, and it turns into being a glorious opportunity. Think about how marvelous God is. This is off the charts in my mind as to how God can do anything he jolly well pleases. So I'm in Guadalajara the other day. and last week, and so it's called the heart of darkness. It's the most unreached place in Mexico. It's a very unchristian area, if you will. Here's what God does. When you live out evangelism and you just speak for Christ, So we go to Guadalajara, we land at the airport, we pre-rented a car, we get to the car rental place, and we didn't get there quick enough, so they already rented our car to someone else. So we don't have a car, right? And so, you know, you're a little bit upset, but what are you gonna do? And so you go to another car rental place, and they say, oh, okay, yeah, we got a car. You go to the car rental place, then, and you go to pick up your car. And you go up, and there's this guy at the counter. Now listen, there's no tourism where I go. I mean, this is true Mexico. You can't even buy some kind of tourism type things. This is the heart of Mexico. We're not close to the border here. And so everybody's Mexican. Everybody speaks Spanish. That's the way it is. And so if you don't know Spanish, you're kind of like just hoping you can find a taco, right? But you go up to the deal, and you start talking to this guy. And here he is, we're talking Spanish, and I've got my buddy Jonathan, he's speaking Spanish, and we're going back and forth. And here's what God does. You know who this guy is that's renting us a car? He's from Morocco. And I'm just sitting there thinking, why is a guy from Morocco at a car rental place talking to two white dudes from Texas in Guadalajara? It's strange, is it not? And then the guy speaks five languages fluently. I'm like, there's a newsflash. Who speaks five languages? And so, my friend, we stink at apologetics. I don't know how to do apologetics. Me and my friend, we work kind of the same. And my friend Jonathan says to him, here's the difference between your God and our God. Just like that. It's full of evangelism. Here's the difference. The difference is the issue of justice. See, he tells him, with your God, you've got to do all these things to appease your God in order to satisfy his wrath. But with our God, our God satisfied his own wrath by sending his son to be a substitute for sinners. So that progresses, and then when I find out he speaks five languages, I get to engage him in the gospel. My friend Jonathan goes to get the car, and I get to have this long conversation with him in English because he speaks English. After I leave that place, it turned into be a fruitful conversation and I left there going, what kind of God puts a devout Muslim from Morocco in Guadalajara to talk to a white dude from Texas? It happens. Then I go, we get up, we turn right to go eat breakfast. It's the wrong way. We get lost. We turn around, we go to another city. I don't even know the name of the city, never been there in my life. And we get to the city and we're like, where do we eat? And somebody on the side of the road says, go down this road. We go down this road. They say, go down this road, go down this road, go down this road. I have no earthly idea where I'm at. I just want something for breakfast. And lo and behold, we end up in this restaurant. It's what Christians do. You sit down at the table. Everybody puts their Bible on the table. Everybody's got their Bible out. We're all reading Bible verses. We're sharing back and forth just openly, because that's just what Christians do. And then we have a little morning devotion. And as all that's going on, here's this woman hovering around the table, you know, the waiter, the waitress. And she sees all of this. And at the end, guess what? In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the city, this woman speaks English. What are the odds? I said, ma'am, I said, you're fully committed to Catholicism. She said, yes, I am. I said, what you believe and what I believe are totally different. She said, yes, that's true. I said, well, we need to agree on something. She said, what's that? And I said, let's agree on this. Both of us are gonna die. She said, well, I agree with that. I said, we're both gonna spend eternity somewhere. Yes, one of us is going to heaven, one of us is going to hell. Or both of us are going to heaven, and both of us are going to hell. I said, eternity is a long time. You don't want to be wrong on this. And just the most solemn look upon her face, she's like, yeah, we don't want to be wrong on this. And so then it just unfolded the gospel, showed her the gospel, told her to repent and believe in Christ, that he was her only hope. She thanked me for sharing the gospel, and we left that place, and I'll never see her again the rest of my life. But God will provide the opportunities when your heart is full of Christ and you purpose to go out and live for Christ. God brings people across your path and it's a natural outflow of who you are. But if you live in the fear of men, You will be silenced, you will engage no one, and you will see no fruit or no reward because you never experienced the joy of making Christ known to the nations. The fear of man is a trap. Now, the apostle Paul is preaching here in Galatians 1.10 and to the church of Galatia, and he has critics. And no matter how you do this thing, you will have critics. Now, what are Paul's critics criticizing him for? Well, they're saying he's double-tongued. He speaks with a forked mouth, if you will. They accuse him of what? Over here in this situation, you circumcised Timothy, Acts 16, 3, to adapt to the Jews. But then you refused to circumcise Titus in Galatians 2, and so you're vacillating. Over here you do this, and over here you do that. Paul, you're just a simple people pleaser. Well, they have clearly misunderstood 1 Corinthians 9, that Paul was all things to all men. They didn't understand. But my point in that is, critics will find a way to criticize you. Wake up, dear preacher. I don't care how you preach. No matter how you do it, somebody will find a way to criticize you. Take that in and absorb it. It is impossible to please all men all the time. So you're better off just seeking to please God. His critics had focused on his supposed changes with different groups. Liberty over here, restrictions over there, yet they were unable to see his overriding consistency. I do all things, everything I do is for the sake of the gospel. It's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9. He has a one-track agenda. Everything has some tie of allegiance to the gospel, and that's all that Paul is concerned about. Could I submit to you that Christians ought to be this way at work, in travel, in church, and everywhere we go, that we have dedicated our life to say that everything is about the gospel. Every conversation, every prayer, every action, everything we do. If I'm getting my hair done, if I'm putting gas in my car, whatever we're doing has a connection with the gospel. We are the only living, breathing gospel that is out there in the world. And if we don't breathe it out, they're never going to hear it. And in none of this am I saying that you have to be a street preacher on Main Street on the corner with a half-mile hailer and a bullhorn. That's fine, and I have one of those, but I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying as a Christian, do not let the fear of man silence you and allow your grandmother to go to hell, your grandchild to go to hell, because you're afraid of losing them as your friend if you share the gospel with them. We are gospel people. That's what we do. And by the way, just to throw the excuse away, I've heard so many people say that they don't have the gift of communication. They don't have this and they're not able to do this. That is hogwash. That's what we call it in Texas. You have no trouble talking about fishing. You have no trouble talking about shopping. You have no trouble talking about crafts. You have no trouble talking about coffee. You have no trouble talking about the weather. You talk about all those things and you want to tell me you can't communicate? You can communicate, and you will communicate about that which is dear to your heart. And if the Gospel's dear to your heart, it'll find its way out of your lips. And Paul says, in the other question, he says, do I seek to persuade men? Do I seek to persuade men? This word, this Greek word for persuade, to cause to come to a particular point of view, to a particular course of action, You could use the word convince, appeal to, win over. Am I trying to convince men? Am I trying to appeal to men? Well, in some regard, yes. Yes, we are. As a matter of fact, I am trying to convince you of something. As a matter of fact, I am appealing to you for something. Not trying to gain your favor of me, but I am trying to persuade you. As King Agrippa would say, I was almost persuaded. Let me give you a couple of texts. 2 Corinthians 5, 11. Knowing the fear of the Lord, we do something. Because we fear God, We persuade men. I've got to give an account to God, and because of that account, I want to persuade you to believe something. I want you to believe Christ. Because if you don't believe Christ, you're going to end up in hell. I want you to believe Christ because He's worthy to be believed. I want you to believe Christ because He's glorious and He's beautiful and He's awesome and all of His splendor and all of His glory, and you ought to love Him with all of your heart. I'd give anything for you if you would believe Christ. I want to persuade men. 2 Corinthians 5.20 Paul says, we implore you, O King James, we beseech you on the behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God. Here's holy God, here's sinful man. God is angry with the wicked every day. Man's in enmity with God. And Paul's standing in the middle imploring that there could be reconciliation. Come together. Be in unity. And the only way that's possible is Christ. 1 Corinthians 4 3 and 4, I love this about Paul. We need to hear this. Paul is in the soul winning business, not the self-interest business. And so he says this in 1 Corinthians 4. But with me, it's a very small thing that I should be judged by you. Some of you may be judging me even while I'm preaching. It's a waste of time because I don't even care. And that's what Paul is saying. It's a small thing I should be judged by you. As a matter of fact, even by any human court, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter, because you're not my judge, and you're not gonna have the final voice over me. He says, in fact, I don't even judge myself. Even self-judgment has no application here. He says, look, I'm not even aware of anything against myself, but I'm not acquitted. He keeps this healthy perspective. It is the Lord who judges me. And you have to take that personal. It's the Lord who judges you. Your Christianity and how you're living and interacting with the world, you must give an account to God. You don't get a bypass because you're a woman, because you're a man. You don't get a bypass because you're young or because you're old. As Christians, we must give an account to God, what we've done with this gospel He's given to us. We've got to own up to these things. Interestingly, do they honestly think that Paul has changed the gospel in order to produce Gentile converts? Do just a light study of Paul and his ministry. I don't think he was trying real hard to win friends. Martin Luther said this, and I can't put it in any better words. I'm gonna quote him a couple of times this morning. Luther said it in his day, and this is the way Luther said it. We seek not the favor of men by our doctrine, We teach that all men are wicked by nature and the children of wrath. We condemn man's free will. We condemn his strength. We condemn his wisdom. We condemn his righteousness. We condemn all religion of man's own devising. And to be short, there is nothing in us to deserve grace and the forgiveness of sins. But we preach that we obtain this grace by the free mercy of God only for Christ's sake. It's not how you win friends. Everybody's wicked, born in depravity, twice born the sons of hell, dead in their sins. They're trying to win favor here, trying to wake people up for their need for Christ. Well, he does try to persuade men, for sure. But does he try to please men? This is the difference. Persuading men, trying to convince men, versus trying to please men. We have to think about this in our Christianity. Do you live honestly trying to please men? What would they think of me? How would they respond to me? These are questions that are asked by people who are concerned with pleasing men to seek the word to seek, to devote serious effort to realize one's desire or objective, to try, to desire, to put all of your effort into something. Do you honestly think that Paul's gospel preaching rests on the foundation of seeking men? Now, the word please, this is interesting. To please men, the Greek word for please, to act, in a fawning manner, to try to win favor, or here's the great one, to flatter, to flatter you. I'm gonna use such type of speech that would flatter you and you will be impressed with me because my grammar is so eloquent. I wanna speak in such a way that you really end up liking me. I'm gonna flatter you that you'll think highly of what a great person I am. What a miserable, sick way to live. Paul is no flatterer. Paul is not seeking to flatter anyone. I can assure you of this, of course this is dated, but he is not looking for likes on his Sparsebook account. He cares not if anybody ever likes what he says in that regard. He is not looking for some type of response to his Twitter feed. He doesn't get a buzz because three people said something positive about something he put on some Twitter thing. He didn't get some kind of uplift from that because he's not a flatterer. Look, that's not the way men of God and Christians live. We say what we say and we do what we do in order that God would say amen. Even if nobody ever gives us the old thumbs up or all of a sudden we got to go into a spiral into depression because somebody gave us a thumbs down, I can help you all a lot here. You just do away with all social media and you'll be fine. I have no social media and I seem to be getting along okay. I have no friends or no likes or no kudos on any of it. Just live for Christ. Don't be a flatterer. Paul is not a man-pleaser. And to prove that, in Colossians 3.22, he knows that man-pleasing is not acceptable for a slave of Christ. In Colossians 3.22. Bondservants obeying everything those who are your earthly masters not by way of eye service as people pleasers But with sincerity of heart and hear the phrase again Fearing the Lord and then Ephesians 6 6 he says not by the way of eye service as people pleasers But as bondservants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. That's what we're doing. And then you look in 1 Thessalonians 2, 4 and 5, Paul is very clear here. But just as we have been approved by God, there's a phrase, is your ministry and your Christianity on a daily basis approved by God? to be entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak. How do we speak? Not to please men, but to please... Anybody? To please God. That's why we speak the way we speak. Because we want to be pleasing to Him. Why? Because He tests our hearts. And so we want to make sure that our hearts are right before Him. So He goes on to say, we never came to you with flattering words, with words of flattery. We never preach like that. We never share the gospel like that. We never interact with the lost world like that. We're not trying to flatter them. All these churches have lost their ever-loving mind trying to make all the people out there be comfortable in church. If the world can be comfortable in your church, you don't have a church, you have a nightclub. It's just not comfortable here. They should be uneasy here, because this is a sanctuary. We worship the living God, and if they're not Christian, they're probably going to feel like they don't fit. Right? I mean, we're going to read the Bible, and we're going to sing, and we're going to pray, and we're going to exalt Jesus. Of course an unbeliever's not going to feel comfortable. If you want a large crowd, just go somewhere there's an event. They'll have a crowd, and you can just preach there. Church, it's not to make unbelievers feel comfortable. If unbelievers come, they should be brought into the awareness that we worship the living God of heaven. And he goes on, we never came with words of flattery as you know, nor did we come with a pretext for greed. And then here's those words that should haunt us. God is witness over my life. God is a witness over your life. Motives, what you do, what you don't do, God's bearing witness about your life. Now, the questions are intended to drive home the reality that Paul does not preach for men, but to men. Luther, one more time, Luther explains this in Pauline words. In other words, Luther acts like he's Paul and then writes this statement. It is because I condemn men's works, how that men are sinners, unrighteous, wicked, children of wrath, bond slaves of the devil, and that they are not made righteous by works or by circumcision, but by grace only and faith in Christ, that I procure for myself the deadly hatred of men. Paul is definitely not a flatterer. Any logical examination of Paul's life will find that his preaching did not win him any public applause. Rather, a healthy dose of persecution led to his execution just outside of Rome. Now ask some rhetorical questions. What about you? Do you seek to persuade men? I hope so. Persuade them to Christ. Do you seek to win the approval of man to flatter them? I hope for God's sake, no. And if you're living that way, do yourself a favor and repent and value God's view of you more highly than you view man's view of you. It's a terrible trap. to live in the fear of man. You think about the dilemma. Some of you got up and put on makeup this morning because you was worried about what somebody else would think about how you look. You put on this clothes, that clothes, because somebody might say this and somebody might say that. How can you live in a world where you're always concerned about what everybody thinks of you? get dressed. Does God approve of my apparel? Does God approve of my hair? Is God pleased with what I'm doing? That's the driving motive. It's what does God think about me? That's far superior than what any man may think of me. And if God says, Amen, brother, you look good, go to work, then just go to work. No matter what the world says. Whom do you live for? These questions are not just for preachers. For Christians. This is a haunting question. Does the world love you? Why? Why do they love you so much? Point number two is far shorter. The fear of God goes back to the beginning of verse 10. Am I now seeking the approval of God? The fear of God. Do I now persuade God Paul and the other apostles and all those who preach the true gospel are endeavoring to please God and not men. As a result, they stir up against themselves the malice of the devil and even hell itself. " Note, there is a line between genuine gospel preaching that causes persecution and being a self-righteous religious jerk who causes persecution. I say that to the street preaching friends out there that may listen. There's a lot of people who can be persecuted for doing something on the street or doing something out in the world. You can get people to be mad at you. Look, it'll take five minutes. I get somebody cussed me out. But are you being cussed out because of your love and overflowing nature of the gospel or just because you're an idiot? You have to weigh that out. Make sure that if you receive persecution, it's because of your faithful stand for the purity of the gospel. Paul is asking his hearers if they think he's trying to persuade or convince God. Do his hearers believe that God approves of his Gospel? Could these Galatians examine the content of Paul's Gospel and find that it's the same Gospel that Jesus preached and the rest of the apostles preached? Here's the question that matters. Write it down, soak it in, take it to yourself, be convinced of it. Grab this question. Every preacher in the room, every Christian in the room, here's the question. Is God convinced that the gospel being communicated is His gospel? That's what matters. It's what I'm communicating in a written gospel tract, a gospel declaration verbally, a gospel declaration from a pulpit. The gospel that I'm communicating will the God of heaven say, Amen. If I have amen from heaven, then just preach. Just put it out there and trust the Spirit of God to do whatever He wants to do. It's His gospel. I'm just an ambassador. I've just been entrusted with something. I'm supposed to carry it to someone else. Is God pleased with the way that you do evangelism? Do you do evangelism? Is He pleased? with your heart for evangelism. You've got to say, man, that boy's giving his all he's got. She's doing the best she can in the situation. I can't talk about people in my church. I'll never stop. I have great people. But it's the gospel nature of widow ladies, the gospel nature of deacons that go out and take the gospel into the marketplaces. Deacons in a Baptist church taking the gospel outside the walls. Praise be to God. This is normal Christianity. Great priority of the preacher to seek to please God. Not asking for messages to be approved by men or by the congregation. Here's the question. Will King Jesus say amen to your sermon tomorrow? Will He say amen? If He says amen, then praise God, preach it. But if He won't say amen, get a new sermon. Preaching is a God-honoring business. It's not a man-pleasing enterprise. It's not, and it'll never be. Last point, point number three, the facts of motive. This is still in verse 10, the last part, and it's the condition, the conditional contrast. You see it there in verse 10. If I were still trying to please man, the conclusion is I would not be a slave of Christ. Pleasing men, in this conditional statement, is the negative. Slave of Christ is the positive. Pleasing men, negative. Sometimes we think pleasing men is a good thing. That's not the case. That's the negative. The positive is that Jesus is master, I've submitted to his lordship, and I am his slave. Whatever he says, I say amen to. Wherever he sends, I have to go. I assure you, if there's one thing I hate to do, it's travel. For something I hate worse than that, it's wearing one of those goofy masks. But they won't let you on the airplane unless you wear it. And I'm not taking a COVID test for nothing, well, except for you have to have one to get back to America, because they won't let you in the country, right? I don't like any of that, but if he says go to Mexico to preach, you have to go, because that's what slaves do, whatever the master says. Carnality says, is it dangerous? Will this happen? Will this happen? Will this happen? It doesn't matter. If the Lord calls, you must go. If the Lord gives direction, you must follow because you're a slave of a great Master. If Paul was still trying to convince or pill over men, he would be ultimately disqualified. There's a haunting word for the preacher. Disqualified as a slave. Christ as Paul says in Corinth first Corinthians 927 I Discipline my body. I Keep it under control lest after preaching to others I Myself should be disqualified have to think through things like that and Paul knows this truth that Jesus spoke in Matthew 6 and No one can serve two masters. You cannot do it. You'll either hate the one and you'll love the other. You'll be devoted to one and you'll despise the other. You can't have God and something else. I'm gonna serve God and man, man and God. You cannot do it. It's an impossibility. You know this is the truth of Scripture. Don't waste the rest of your life trying to harmonize men and God. Make a resolve in your heart today. Look, for the rest of my life, I've only got just a few years left. I've already crossed over 50. I'm halfway to 100 here. I don't have much time left. I just want to spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to be pleasing and honoring to God. Because this avenue of trying to make men like me is just not working. It's never going to work. Live for the glory of God that he would be pleased. He was a confirmed slave, the Apostle Paul. If he pleased people, ask yourself this, would he open this letter of Galatians by pronouncing a curse on people? Not a good way to win friends. Later on in the letter, would he be a people pleaser if he said these troublemakers, they would be better off if they were emasculated or if they were castrating themselves, that'd be a better option. That's not a great way to win friends. In the end, the apostle was beheaded just outside of Rome for his position. So he definitely is not a people pleaser. In conclusion, preaching, living out Christianity, is no light task that wins the approval of the world. And any man who seeks the approval of the world has no business standing in the pulpit of God. A man that is infected with the fear of man will be forever trapped in a world of disappointment. Men can never be pleased. By the way, I can't even make myself happy. No matter how hard you may try, you can't please men. There is only one that the Christian or the preacher should concern himself with, and that is, is God pleased? Is God pleased? If so, then go forth valiantly, like Paul, and herald the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is always pleased when His Son is exalted, and the Holy Spirit will always assist the preacher who seeks. to exalt Christ. And by the way, to end on another good note of things that happened, last night I told you we left two steaks and a gospel track on the steps of an RV trailer at Petty Gene Park. What will they think? Two steaks laying on the step. They just left them on the doorstep. What will they think? You can come up with all these things, or you can just go and do something for God. Last night we went out of the service, and I looked at my phone, and they wrote me this long message. Thank you so much for the stakes that you brought. Thank you so much for praying for us. I hope this leads to a lifelong fellowship between us. Guy lives in Houston, Texas. I live up by Dallas, Texas, and we meet at Petty Jean Park and two stakes and a gospel track. Possibly we'll be communicating for the rest of our lives. It's not always that you get cussed out or somebody gets mad at you. Sometimes you meet another person who is genuinely moved because somebody loves the Lord. Go forth with the gospel and trust your God and seek to please him. Amen.