Father, we're grateful for the opportunity to study your word this morning, and we come to you with expectation that you would teach us. Lord, we are people who are easily deceived because we have an enemy that wants to deceive us. Then we have a flesh inside of us that wants to deceive us. We have minds and desires that easily stray from what they ought to be. And so Lord, we pray that as we study this portion of your word that you would make us more solid. Lord, we We don't want to be like the Galatians, where we're easily defecting from the truth. So we ask you to work in us. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Okay Galatians chapter 1 if you didn't hear last week It might be helpful. It gives a little bit of background into the book of Galatians and what the situation was when we started so We've got CDs of that if you want to hear that Galatians chapter 1 verse 1 Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, the churches of Galatia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 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. 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 preached 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 now seeking the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. We may get further than that, but I hope to at least get that far. So let's begin in verse one. Paul introduces himself and he says that he is an apostle and we need to define that a bit because even in scripture it can be a little bit confusing. We have the 12 apostles from the beginning and then Judas betrayed Christ and another apostle, Matthias, was appointed in the early part of Acts. And then we have the apostle Paul. Now in our day and time, there are certain movements who call lots of people apostles. And in some ways, an apostle could be defined as someone who is sent with a message, in some ways. It still makes me a little bit uncomfortable, but if people's definition of apostle is apostle little a, someone who is sent with a message, That's probably an appropriate usage, but I think it breeds confusion. So therefore, it would be my advice to avoid its use if you can. To distinguish it between Apostle A, these men who received revelation directly from the Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul fits into that. Paul fits into that category because of his experience with the Lord on the road to Damascus. And then though it's not clear for us in terms of it being laid out his experience with the Lord that we're going to read about later where he spends two or three years by himself as Christ teaches him about the gospel. So apostle we're only talking about those guys and Paul He wants to establish his identity early because the false teachers that are coming into the church at Galatia are attacking not only the gospel, but they're attacking Paul himself. So they are saying, well, you know, Paul, he doesn't count because he wasn't among the 12 that were with Jesus while he was on the earth. So Paul doesn't really count. He got his revelation some other place, and therefore we don't have to pay attention to him. And this is a common thing that happens. And we'll see it over and over again, and it can happen to you as well. The degree to which it happens is almost directly proportional to the degree that you want to share the true gospel. But a means of attacking the gospel is to attack the messenger. It's always been that way and it still is. So the issue is if if Paul is going to give a gospel to these people he started these churches we read this last week if he's going to give this gospel one of the ways that we can discredit what he's saying or add to it is to attack the messenger and say this guy is not qualified. And so none of these words drop to the ground when you read scripture even in the greetings and then the farewells and then all of those things. Everything that said there is very purposeful. Sometimes we read over things fairly quickly in the scripture without giving them much thought. And sometimes it's difficult for us to get why it's there. Sometimes it's easy here. It's easy Sometimes it's not as easy and we have to think and study and it may take us a while to get there but every word Every word of revealed scripture is important It's there for a reason and it's our job through the spirits help to find what the reason is Paul is an apostle and he says not from men but nor through man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Now in those words are some very important things and we're not going to get all of them but we'll get some that directly relate maybe to our situation. Paul is saying I'm an apostle and I'm an apostle not because a group of men said that I was an apostle. I'm an apostle because Christ himself made me an apostle. Now, he says that's not through men, it's not from men, and it's not through men, but it's through Jesus Christ and God the Father. Well, we'll get to that part in a minute. But first of all, this through men business. This is important, okay? There are some ways in which a person now who is called into some kind of ministry could say, I have been called of God to minister in this way. But in a sense, this is always now, past the apostles, this is always now has something to do with other people. It should have. If it doesn't, then we have to question the call. What I mean is that someone who is going to be recognized to be a minister of some kind or to do a certain thing, the issue is that the church itself, a group of believers itself, is behind that, recognizing those gifts in people, supporting them, encouraging them, exhorting them, telling them where they get off base and those things. That's our base of support. Yes, God ultimately is the one that calls, but that sort of calling that we receive now is a different sort of calling. It comes through God's people. But at this point in time, when we talk about the apostles, what Paul is saying is, there was not a church that told me that I was an apostle. And quickly, your mind should go to, well, then what happened at Antioch? if you're thinking about scripture. The issue is there is that Christ had already put his call on Paul's life told him what it is that he was supposed to do. Paul already knew that the issue was then the brothers there at Antioch and the church the sisters were praying for him that he would be sent out. God made the calling clear through his people but there is a difference when someone has a visual Manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ. People claim that all the time I know now. I'm very skeptical of those things. Because the apostles themselves, they were the ones who actually spent time with him in bodily form. And we have to be really thoughtful about folks that claim that thing and look at the fruit of what it is that they're getting at after that happens or they think that that's happened because I have actually met with people who think that they have seen the image of Christ in a tortilla. There are Weird things that that go on and that's not the same thing as this So Paul is saying Jesus himself came to me in a bodily form Knocked me off a horse and said you are set apart to be an apostle and that's different than the way That people come into ministry now Now the latter part of that he says Christ through Jesus Christ and God the Father Paul is making a Huge point here. It's a doctrinal point to equate the Lord Jesus with God the Father And this is important because this bears on the false teaching that was going on in the church. They wanted to separate those two things. Jesus was going to be an example that we should follow. Jesus, yes, he did make some atonement for our sins, but that was not enough. You have to do other things on top of that. That's what it is that the false teachers were claiming and God the Father Raised Christ up from the dead to indicate that the true, pure gospel of Christ was the most important piece of all of this, and that it was affirmed by God the Father himself. And we're not going to separate the Trinity. We're not going to separate the Godhead in terms of saying, well, part of it disagrees with the other part. And that's what was going on here. Now another thing that you should know, in verse 2 he says, and all the brothers that are with me. So Paul's got some folks with him. Now I want to point out something to you also about this greeting. And maybe we won't spend too much time here, but it's like this. Paul goes through all of these places and starts churches. Starts churches in all of this region of southern Galatia. This would be like let's say that Ron The Lord wants him to go somewhere for six or eight months and he leaves us here and he hears that there are some things going on here that are not good and The reason that those things are not good is because the scriptures have been attacked but not only that the thing Ron himself has been attacked so that people are convincing us that he's not what it is that we thought he was. He's somebody else. And he has led us down a path that is not a good path. And so now Ron is having to write us a letter, and his letter starts like this, if I just put it as crudely as I can. Hey, you guys, remember me? The guy who's been here for 30-some-odd years? The guy who preached the word to you, who led you in these ways? Hey, you remember who I am? The guy who the Lord worked in your life through, you guys remember that? You get how ridiculous that kind of is, that Paul now, being an apostle, which is of course a lot greater case, is having to remind these churches, hey, you guys remember me? Like, the guy who first preached the gospel to you to start with? Like, the guy who appointed leaders in your churches? The guy who gave you a foundation? You forgot that? Remember and now he's having not only to introduce himself to them again, but he's having to He's going to have to list his credentials for them again He's gonna have to say hey you remember me. This is who I was This is what I said when I was there. This is who I was before you knew me I told you all these things, but apparently you forgot them all Because the false teachers Starting with attacking Paul. They're attacking Paul and saying you shouldn't listen to him. You should listen to us So already, even in the greeting, we see that the Galatians are in trouble. There's mass defection going on. Now, ultimately, we know that it's not right for us to follow men, right? In other words, we don't do hero worship. We don't do that sort of thing. And that's a dangerous thing that can happen in churches. At the same time, we can tell from the scriptures that God uses people in order to teach us, to bring us closer to himself. It's not enough for you to take your Bible and read it and on your own to determine what it says and then therefore live your life by that. Okay? And there are a lot of people who think it is. There are groups of people who think it is and they read it and they decide what it says for themselves. That's not how it works. While certainly God has given us individual responsibility to relate to Him through His Word, The Word has always been communicated to God's people through the church. And I don't just mean the local church, though that's a big part of it, but I mean the historical church. These are what things mean. We have historical precedent to go back. Because you and I both know that you can go into Scripture and find all kinds of things there that are odd, if taken out of context and by themselves. This is what's happening here. You say, well, we would never do that. Well, I think not only would we do that, I think we do do that. So who's the letter to? We're going to get to that part about how the thing gets twisted. Well, we're in the verse two, and it says the letter is to the churches of Galatia. Now, in many of Paul's letters, he gives a commendation. He says, he says something to them and praises them about their love or about their zeal for Christ or something like that. But here Paul does nothing of the kind. He does nothing of the kind. He doesn't give them any condemnation. I mean, commendation. We're going to get to the condemnation, but he just gives them no commendation at all. He doesn't say, well, you guys are doing good here. We appreciate your zeal. You're giving to the poor. You're doing something that's, you're doing, there's nothing good that he says to these people here. What he does say to them is grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is a fairly standard greeting, but in this situation, it has a whole lot more punch to it. When Paul greets these people by saying, I want you to experience grace and I want you to experience peace. He's not making some light little greeting. Grace is the issue of what the problem is. It's the core root issue of what the problem is in Galatia. It's a misunderstanding of grace. And because there's a misunderstanding of grace, there's not peace. There's false teachers that are going in. And there's people that are appropriating things that God never intended them to appropriate as Gentiles. And so the problem is, there is trouble. There's tumult. There's confusion. All of these things are happening. And so when Paul says, I want you to experience grace, and I want you to experience peace, he is then going to go into Here's how. Here's what this looks like. It's important in our own lives that when we look at our state, where are we in life? How am I feeling about what's going on around me? What are things looking like? What lenses am I seeing my world and my circumstances through? That the words grace and peace surround those things. If they don't, if worry and anxiety and anger and jealousy and bitterness, if roots of those things are there, they crowned out grace and peace. If there are false ideas of our own self-worth, If there are, I'm okay as long as someone else in the world somewhere thinks that I'm okay, someone that's important to me, then that's where I'm going to derive my ability to be okay. Then that's not the grace and peace that Paul is wishing for the Galatians here, nor for ourselves. Well, we need to define those things, but, and we will because Paul's going to do that for us, but we need to also get a handle on the fact that Grace and peace are always going to surround those people who are believers in Christ. They have to. And they're not just words. They're not just concepts. They are those things, but they are actual real experiential things. Grace and peace. They can be misidentified. So we want to be careful that we don't do that. We can call Certain things grace we can call certain things peace that are really not because they're being derived from some other place outside Of the gospel of Christ outside of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ Okay Now I have a question before we get to verse four. I I'm going to make a statement and you're going to tell me whether or not you agree with my statement or not, okay? A Christian is someone who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ and emulates his example. Is that true? Yeah, you don't commit chickens. Is that true? Okay. Everybody okay with that? Partially true. Yeah. Okay. This is why I'm teaching through the book of Galatians. Because what I just said, that statement, that's a poison pill that'll kill you. Okay? That's like having a fresh gallon of water and putting two or three drops of cyanide in it. Okay? And you're not even going to know it's there. And you're going to hear somebody preach you a sermon about that. and it's going to kill you, because it sounds so good. Christians are people who follow the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and emulate his example. And we do have the humility to agree, well, we're not going to get there. This is exactly the gospel that was preached at Galatia. It was more specific than that, but that's what it was, was that. And you say, well, what's the problem? That sounds so good. Let's read verse four. The end of three is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ, that's where the grace and peace comes, and it says, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. Okay, I'm going to make this really, really simple, and I don't mean to pick on you, but this is how you're going to get led astray, this stuff. That statement that I gave you, this is where you're going to get God. If you're going to get God. Because it sounds so good. If you define Christianity in any other terms, besides, maybe the best one, this translation says deliver, some say rescue. Okay? Whenever you define Christianity, and Christianity cannot be defined, cannot be defined, very far away from the Gospel being defined, right? We would agree on that. You have to be thinking in your mind. I'm going to give you one word, and you always think of this. The word is rescued. Christians are rescued. Do you notice that the definition that I gave you had absolutely nothing to do with sin? Did you notice that? Somebody would have come up here and preached that to you, you would have thought, maybe that's a good sermon. And maybe part of it would have been. It's not like we can cover the whole thing. I'm not saying that emulating Christ is a bad thing. But a Christian, a Christian is someone who has been rescued. Always. And you start there. Because if you start any other place, where you're going to get to is some place that's not very good. And then you're going to have to be written a letter. And God has written you one here. And you're going to have to be chastised, because you're going to get to a place that's not a good place. Now, I'll admit, I set you up. But it was necessary. Because how good did that sound? It's not all bad, it's not all incorrect. The problem is, it's where you start. And we always start with the character of God, we start with sin, and we start with being rescued. And the reason I use the word rescue, we'll study the verse in a moment, is because some of the words that the scripture uses They become kind of dead to us. I feel like they kind of pass over us. They hit a wall and we don't we don't get it so When we hear verses like, by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourself, it is the gift of God. We've heard some of that so much that we don't internalize it maybe like we did at one point, or we think that we're past it. So I would encourage you at some point, sometimes when you're reading the scripture, when you see the word saved, particularly in that context, substitute the word rescued I'm not saying saved is a bad word, but I think sometimes we've got to be turned a little bit to get back to where we always have to come back to. We are never, ever, ever going to get very far if we define Christianity as following the teachings of Christ. Now, of course, if we define the teachings of Christ enough, we could say, Well, yeah, he does talk about the gospel. And yeah, he does do that. But that's a pretty good extrapolation that most people are not going to understand. When they hear we're going to follow the teachings of Christ, the world is going to agree with that very, very nicely. Well, that means you be nice people. That means you take care of the poor. That means you don't do bad things. Right? They don't mean And I fear sometimes we don't mean what we think. Because we don't like to think of ourselves as helpless sinners that need a rescuer. And Christianity is always going to start there. The Galatians forgot that. And we can never forget that. Because as soon as we do, we will be led astray someplace. Everybody understand? Does that make sense? You want to argue with me? Now's the time. I can take it. It's okay. Paul in verse four gives this synopsis of the gospel to remind them where this all starts. So he says, Who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age, this present darkness. Why? It was according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Christ came to deal with sin. Christ came to deal with sin. Because God His will was that Christ come to deal with sin. And the reason that it was God's will for Christ to come to deal with sin is primarily for his own honor and glory. That doesn't take the love that he has for his people out of the equation. But Christ comes to deal with sin to rescue helpless sinners like us who can't do anything We have no ability to make ourselves acceptable to God. Christ comes and he deals with sin. And what happens then is God gets glory forever and ever. Amen. And Paul starts his letter this way. So verses one through four, Paul has to remind everyone of who he is. He has to remind everyone that he is an apostle that was assigned to be an apostle by the Lord Jesus himself. God raising the same God who was raised from the dead and the same God who raised him from the dead was responsible for that. This is to the church at Galatia who he wants to have grace and peace but right now estimates that they don't. Grace and peace from who? From God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sin to deliver us. Grace and peace is all wrapped up in a right understanding of the gospel. And that's why you can't ever get away from the gospel, you have to stay right there with it. Grace and peace is all wrapped up in the gospel. It's wrapped up in being rescued and recognizing you day by day, moment by moment. Not just at the point of salvation, but always. And if I can hammer that through this study of Galatians you will then be much less likely to be led astray. Because that whole thing of being a helpless sinner before a holy God and needing to be rescued is hateful to all people. It's hateful to our flesh. And I can prove that to you even within yourself. Because how often do you meditate on that part of it. hopefully maybe quite a bit but for me I can I can meditate on definitions and doctrine and church stuff and all of which are good and biblical and and in a sense have their place. But I will get in a lot of trouble if I don't always couple everything that I study, everything that I think about the scripture, if I don't always couple that right back to the gospel itself, which means God is holy. I'm helpless. He rescued me. So I'm going to say that a little bit again, because I want to give you a simple gospel. God is holy. I am helpless. and he rescued me now when you're going to then explain that gospel to somebody if you will hang it on that framework all of you I know know the rest of it all of you can fill in that structure okay but that's Christianity and as long as you hang it there you won't get in trouble like the Galatians did because That whole thing of having to suck up my pride and say I had to be rescued is something that's filthy to us as as unregenerate people. We don't like it. We want to take care of ourselves. This is the Galatians problem. All right. Six. He doesn't wait very long before he just hammers him. OK. Now. I will tell you that this is an anomaly, right? Most of the time he's more gentle. But when it comes to a gospel issue, he's not gentle. I mean, he just hammers. He'll get a little gentle later as he writes in the letter, maybe a little more. But he won't back off of this because here's our problem, and I think we fall into this too. Paul doesn't allow for this problem. We have this whole thing where we want to live and let live, right? Well, you could believe something a little different and it'll be okay. You could maybe not understand the whole thing and still be okay, right? There are some things that are like tertiary issues that are kind of out there a little bit. We can have disagreements about it. God can perhaps even lead us in different ways as we deal with those things. But the gospel itself, there is no margin for error in the gospel. Now, I will submit that there are some people who have gotten benefit from the gospel without being able to articulate it as well as they should be able to. But that's because most of the time they're in a place where they've not been taught well and God's been gracious anyway. But in terms of our understanding of the gospel, Paul is not allowing you to have your own interpretation. And so you remember the statement that I made about following the teachings of Jesus? That would be aberrant. And if we said that we believed that, to start with, Paul would come unglued. Because that's what these people did. That's how they got to where they got to. I'm astonished that you so quickly are deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. That's a huge charge to make against somebody. But Paul sees it, and he calls it like it is. He hammers him. He said, I'm astonished. I just can't believe it. Now that word deserting in this ESV, it speaks of defection. In a military sense, it speaks of desertion. You were It looked to us like you were part of the military. You put your name on the line, and you found a better deal, or you didn't like how it was, so you just went AWOL. You left. That's what these people are doing. And the interesting thing about it is, is obviously they didn't leave physically, because he has to have somebody to write the letter to. So, the people are still there, in terms of that they're showing up, they're still around, because he has to have somebody to write the letter to, but they're AWOL. And they're AWOL in terms of the real gospel. They've forgotten what it means to be rescued by the blood of Christ. And they have turned to other things in order to gain them merit. To a different gospel. A different gospel. I'll teach this as we go through this in a minute, but I think it's important to just say this part plainly. The false teachers who came into Galatia, I'm just going to give you a synopsis of what they said so that you understand. It wasn't as though they came in waving signs and picketing and saying, guess what? We're false teachers and we're going to lead you astray. Come with us. False teachers don't do that. That's the first thing. They had the right decorum. They stood up. They look like devout people. If you asked them if they love Christ, they would absolutely say that they love Christ. We are often, and should be to some degree, but we think sometimes, and Christian culture sometimes irritates me a little about this because it's not that it's not important, I guess, but everybody is so concerned about what the atheists are going to do to us. Okay? It's the bad people on the outside. The bad people on the outside, if we have the gospel right, won't get to us. It's the bad people on the inside that we don't recognize that are going to get us. That's and that's always been true all throughout church history. The outside won't get us. We but it's the ones who come on the inside. They get us so deserting faith. Yeah this is what I was going to do if. Here's the message that they preached. They would have affirmed the atonement without any problem. They would have said that Christ died for people's sins. They would have affirmed that. They would not have had any disagreement with them. If you said that he rose the third day, there would have been no disagreement about those things. There would have been no issue about Christ substitution, even mostly when we talk about the nature of God. A great deal of the understanding of the Old Testament scriptures, there would have been a problem. So then where's the issue? Don't they just have a little different slant on this? The different slant is that they would have affirmed all of those things, but they added something. They said, yes, it is true that Christ died for your sin. But if you really want to be a true Christian, if you really want to do what God wants you to do and be acceptable to him, you need to follow the Mosaic law, particularly the ceremonial law when it comes to dietary issues and circumcision. That's what they said. Now, I didn't tell you that as well as I would like to have told you that, because I'm too blunt. But the way that that would have been presented would have sounded very similarly to that statement, very similar to that statement that I made to you a little bit ago. They didn't come in and say, guess what? We're going to change it. Pay attention. We're going to change this. No. It was reason. They spent time in people's homes. They ate with them. They seemed like very devout people. We should, we should, they came in and knew people by name. All of those things. It was not some hardcore thing where this is out there and it's going to get us. This cancer started growing from the inside. And nobody recognized it. Nobody saw it. So, what's the problem? You're saved. You're rescued. Through grace, by faith, plus nothing. But they said plus something. And they made it sound very, very good. That's the problem. That's what they preached. And because of that, Paul said, you don't even have the gospel anymore. I'm telling you, it was there in its entirety. They just added a little. They said, well, you want to be really good, you need to follow these original things that God said in his word. Look, I can show it to you. You should do these things. No, that's another gospel. And Paul says that. He says, you're turning to a different gospel. Verse 7, not that there is another gospel, but there are some that trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. This point is important. We can and should use different terminologies to explain the gospel, to give the gospel out, to make it, to give people the ability to think about it and understand it. All those things are good and right. We should do that. But we can't get back, we can't ever get away from the core of it. So our framework, God is holy, we are helpless, all of those things, and we need rescued, those three, you never get away from that. You never get past that. You don't add anything to that. That's the gospel. And really, think about it, because this is another place that people get confused, and so I just want to deal with it here, and then we'll move through the rest of this text quicker. It's not just how you get saved. And I think sometimes we make a, I think sometimes this is how we get messed up. Okay, I was saved, and that means I was rescued, and it was true I couldn't do anything then, but now that I have been saved, now I can. Now I'm going to, now God is going to be pleased with me. Let me set your mind maybe at ease or maybe at turmoil, depending on where you're at in life. You are sanctified. That is, you are brought to maturity in Christ in the very same way that you were saved. Oh yeah, you understand more. You get more of the character of God. That's a necessity. But it must start with, this is God's character. I can't do anything about my issues, my lack of understanding, my sin, and I need somebody to rescue me. You will grow through your Christian life through that same message, the same way that you started it. And if you take any other path, and that's what happens with the Galatians, and if you take any other path, you'll get lost. You'll get lost. Okay. And we'll move more quickly because these are a little more simple. Verse 8. this is not a different gospel, this is not a gospel at all, Paul says, and in verse eight he says, but even if we, or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed, as we have said before, so now we say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel that is contrary to the one that you received, let him be accursed. So what he's saying is, if I fall off my nut myself, and I say something different than what I told you before, don't listen to me, because I'm wrong. If an angel in all his glory were able to come down and contradict the gospel of Christ, don't believe him. God is holy? I'm not. I need rescue. And I'm not going to go through all the rest of it. I mean, obviously there's more, but you guys know the scriptures well enough, you know the deal well enough to hang everything else that needs to be hung on that. But you've got to stay there. And Paul says, I don't care who says it, I'm telling you twice, pay attention to me. If anyone says anything but that, They're wrong. And Paul, now then having to defend himself in verse 10, says, Do I now seek the approval of men or of God? Am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I couldn't be a servant of Christ. What's that bit about? I think we're going to stop here, but we'll deal with that. It's first of all a jab at the false teachers who are doing what they do to get followers. They are doing what they do to get followers. You say, well, that's horrible. Yeah, it is. But most people that I know in Christian ministry would like to have a lot of people there. Wouldn't we? Yeah, but based on what? See how dangerous that is? If I say it in one way, it sounds as though you're just trying to get people to come. If I say it in this way, we just want to have a lot of people here so they can hear the Bible and be part of the community and those things. We have to be really careful. We do. We do want a lot of people. But Paul says, I don't preach the gospel for people to make them happy. And why does he not do that? Because if I preach the real gospel, it won't. Unless God supernaturally works in someone's life, you don't win friends and influence people by being true to the gospel. It's never going to happen. Okay. People don't like it. So when we talk about Paul saying, I'm not trying to please men. If I were trying to please men, in other words, let's say it another way. If I were trying to please men, if I just wanted to claim you as followers, if I was just trying to get notches, you know, I wouldn't be writing you this letter, because obviously it's not going to make you happy with me to write you this letter. I'm not trying to please men. And the last part of that, he says, I'm not trying to please men. I am trying to be a servant of Christ. The word for servant is slave. And it really does mean slave. And this is his desire is to be a slave. And then we have something about the real gospel that's very important that we should judge ourselves and our leaders and people that we come into contact with all the time. Start with ourselves start with those around us. People who want to please other people cannot serve Christ. Because they're telling people the character of a God, saying that he's holy. They want to think of God as someone else besides who he is. And then they're being told that they're helpless, which is the last thing they want to believe. And then we're saying that they need to be rescued, which is also something that they don't want to believe. And if you're going to be true to that message over time, people will not be ultimately pleased with you. Christ will be. And you say, well, does that mean that I have to be obnoxious? Does that mean that people will never like me? They love me. They need to love me. You gotta get over that stuff. In your closest relationships, honestly, you gotta get over that stuff. Because you only have one master, and he has one message, and you can't dilute it, and you can't distort it. And if you do, you're not a servant of Christ. You're not a slave of Christ anymore. Do you see, I don't have time to develop this right now, but do you see how easy that is to creep into your life. If I just don't major on this part enough, this little part right here, then I will be acceptable to this person. If I just don't point out this person's helplessness or their sin in the same way that I'm pointing it out in my life, then they'll listen to me. If I just don't present God as quite who He is, then they'll maybe accept Him a little bit. If I just tell them that if you would just do these things, the biggest thing that we need you to do is if you'll come to church. If you just come to church, everything's going to be okay. Well, of course we want people to come to church because we want them to hear the gospel. Be aware, though, when you invite somebody to church, they may hear what we do here and leave, even before the service is over. That happens. We hope not. We hope God works. But we want God to do the work. We don't want our personalities. We don't want their personality. We don't want to tailor it so much so that it fits them so that they'll come be a part. Okay? Because that's not Christianity. Christianity is, everything that you are is no good. That's why you need a rescue. That's why you need to be rescued to start with. If you were a pretty good person who just needed a little bit of a tweak, then we wouldn't really need the kind of gospel that we have. But the kind of gospel that we have says, there is nothing good about you, and there is nothing about you that would move God to do anything other than damn you to hell. But there is everything in his Son. There is every merit in His Son. There is every beauty in His Son. And when His Son applies that love, that atoning blood, that covering to sinful creatures like us, we can be rescued. Alright. I think we're going to stop there. Remember, though, that you can be fooled. You can be fooled. Stay with the Gospel. Character of God who's holy. Character of me. Character of us. We're helpless. We must be rescued. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word this morning. I ask you, Lord, to drive this home so that as we study the book of Galatians that we'll get everything out of it that you have for us. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.