Sermon Transcript
Well, take out your Bible. We’re looking at Galatians. We started Galatians last week, and today we’re in chapter 1, verses 10 to 24. It’s a section that has to do with, you know, walking in the will of God, God’s will for your life, but it’s not gonna be easy. I think it’s safe to assume that at some point in life, what you do, what you say, what you think is going to be called into question by somebody.
Someone is gonna come along and they’re gonna question the why and what of what you’re doing. In other words, we’re gonna take some flak. We’re gonna take some heat, some criticism, some pushback. Even if your name is Jesus, you’re gonna take some heat, obviously, or Nehemiah, or the Apostle Paul. Now, I don’t know, this might be hard for you to believe, but even if your name is Pastor Dan, or Pastor Nate, or Pastor Steve or Pastor Dave.
Somebody, and I won’t name any names here, but somebody is going to come along and they’re not gonna like a song that you pick, or they’re not gonna like a ministry direction that you’re taking, or they’re not gonna like a letter that you write or a message that you preach, or they’re not gonna like you appearing in public with a scruffy beard. They’re just not gonna like it. Pretty much everyone is going to have someone who doesn’t like something. So, they might not like your teaching, they might not like your parenting, they might not like your friendship, your work, your faith, your play, your study habits, your eating habits, your sleeping habits, or that you drink beer and you call yourself a Christian. They’re not going to like it.
Now, the usual advice is, Well, just tough it up, you know, I mean, just get some thick skin, grow some thick skin, suck it up, deal with it, you’re just gonna have to get through it. Now I think that’s great advice for as far as it goes, but I like what we’re gonna look at this morning even better, because what we’re gonna be looking at this morning in Galatians chapter 1, verses 10 and following, is how Paul got through pushback, how Paul got through flak, criticism that came his way, and basically what we’re gonna see together is something that I think can help every one of us this morning, because if you are being used by God to do whatever it is he’s called you to do, there’s going to be a point there where you’re gonna experience some kind of pushback. This pushback, as I set a context last week, came not only during Paul’s ministry when he ministered to the Galatian cities and they founded some churches there, but this pushback came even after Paul left and some Judaizers came in and they basically said what Paul was teaching was wrong, that it wasn’t true. They brought a whole different gospel. We called it an un-gospel last week, which Paul called it a no gospel at all.
Paul called them out and said that their teaching was perverted, that they were eternally damned, he said. Now, that’s pretty strong language. But he wanted the people that he had ministered to in Galatia to believe the true gospel, not to be confused by this new information that had come their way, and not buy into the rejection of the Apostle Paul, his message, and his ministry. So in his opening words, he’s already called these false teachers out, and then he goes on and he basically processes for us how he dealt with their criticism, how he dealt with their rejection, how he dealt with their questioning of his his ministry. And he focuses on 3 matters that I think could really be helpful to all of us this morning when we have people come into our life and they push back on the calling that God has for each one of us.
So this is how he begins, verse 10: Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. The first thing that Paul does is he focuses on who, W-H-O, who, and essentially asks a basic question, and the question is simply this, who am I trying to please? The next time you find yourself in some kind of pushback situation, you’re facing some flak, one of the questions that you can simply ask that will help you process this information in a healthy way is just ask the who question.
Who am I trying to please? And what you can see here is that Paul essentially says, listen, I got 2 choices. It could be all about pleasing man or it could be all about pleasing God. And I’m after God’s approval, not man’s approval, but God’s approval. I’m serving God, I’m not serving man.
Now Paul, that was something that was just solid in his commitment. His work was done for the one with superior ranking, we might say. His allegiance was to God, not so much to man, so that when the flak came Paul’s way, he looked to God rather than to man. So he was focusing on pleasing God rather than pleasing man. And if in pleasing God it was fine with man, then he was fine with that.
In other words, the pleasing man piece would take care of itself as it worked out after he pleased God or in his pleasing of God. And we get this wrong so often where we’re looking to others instead of to God. And Paul is saying, I’m living for God, and however that plays out, so be it. So, when criticism comes, if we’re living to please man, it can result in a number of things that would not be pleasing in God’s eyes. For instance, compromise.
We could compromise the commitment that he has for us. We could compromise doing what’s right in his eyes in order to acquiesce to what’s right in other people’s eyes. For Paul, that would mean giving in to the religious establishment. If he gave in to the religious establishment, he would basically abandon the message of the gospel of grace for a gospel that included works, and he wasn’t about to go there because he was living for God’s pleasure. Now let me ask you a question.
Do we like others’ approval? Do we like others’ endorsement? Do we like others’ encouragement? Do we like to hear from other people, well done, hey, good job, great job, keep it up? I mean, do we like to hear that?
Yes, of course we do. But if that comes at the price of not pleasing God, then that isn’t the kind of endorsement that we want or need. In fact, the focus, when we focus on God and focus on pleasing him and doing what’s right in his eyes, his approval and his encouragement is that which is going to matter most. Doesn’t that make sense? That even though we want maybe the encouragement and approval of others, what matters most, the pat on the back that we most need is the one that will come from God and his approval and his encouragement.
When I was in college, there was a gas crunch across the United States. Some of you don’t even know about this. You’d probably have to go in the history books. You know, it was in the early ’70s. Because you weren’t born or whatever.
But so there were cars that were lining up at gas stations to get gas, kind of like right now if you’ve been following some of the hurricane situations, people are lining up to get gas. And in the same way as it was back in the ’70s, there are some people that have been unable to get gas. They’re trying to get gas, fill up the car, get out of town, that sort of thing. They’ve been not able to do that because the station ran out of gas or In the ’70s, they had an allotment for gas and how much they could, you know, sell that day. And so what would happen would be that the attendant would put a sign on a car as told by the boss, and this sign would say, last car, last car, meaning last car to get gas.
I still remember seeing these signs. By the way, the attendant, I know some of you have never even heard of that word either. Used to have service station attendants where, believe it or not, the service station attendant would come out and put the gas in your car, and at many of the stations, they would also wash your windshield, and they would check your oil, and they would also check the air pressure in your tires. The reason why I know they did those 4 things is because I was a service station attendant in high school, and that’s what my boss told me I had to do for every car that came into the service station. And some of us would like to go back and, you know, go to those kinds of service stations again.
But this service station attendant lived and worked under, of course, a boss there, and when he was told or she was told to go out, put the sign up, they did it. Why? Because their boss was paying their paycheck and they were more interested in pleasing their boss than they were the public. And essentially, that’s what the Apostle Paul is saying here. You know, the reason I said to you that your teaching is perverted is because it is.
And I called it out, Paul is saying to these Judaizers, or to these people that are listening to the Judaizers, because that which you are teaching is eternally damned. That’s what he said. He just simply called it. And why would he do that? Well, it certainly wasn’t because it was politically correct.
It was because it was biblically correct, we might say. It was because it’s what Christ had told him, and his desire in life was to please Christ more than it was to please anybody else. His desire was to live for Christ, not for Chuck.
There’s something more that he says with regard to how a person needs to view opposition. He goes on and he says in chapter 1, verse 11, I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it. Rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. This is interesting because Paul says it wasn’t something that I conceived, what I’ve preached, it is something that I received.
You might wanna underline or highlight that word there. I received it, and I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ. Can you imagine that? When I was in college and graduate school, I was expected in my papers, the papers that I was given, the assignments on these papers, I was expected to use, you’ve probably heard of this, primary sources, and there were times where I failed to use primary sources, in spite of all of, you know, my blood, sweat, and tears on these really pretty papers, I would get the paper back with a really pretty red pen that had marked up the paper. Why did the teacher mark up the paper?
Because the teacher expected me to use a primary source, not a secondary source. He expected, or she expected, me to use firsthand sources instead of second hand sources, and essentially that’s what you see here. This is the Apostle Paul, and he’s saying, listen, I have a primary source. That information, those teachings, that came from a primary source, and the primary source was not a man. In fact, it wasn’t even an apostle, but the source of my information came directly from Jesus Christ, the one who discipled the apostles.
So the second question he’s using to process the criticism, the pushback, the flak that was coming his way is simply this: What is my source of truth? What is my source of truth? Who am I trying to please? What is my source of truth? I didn’t conceive this.
This isn’t man-made. This isn’t even apostle-made. This isn’t something that I conjured up. I’m just telling you what it is that Jesus Christ told me. Some years ago, I heard John MacArthur, who’s a pastor down in Southern California, has a worldwide ministry in teaching the Bible, the scriptures, and so forth.
Maybe you’ve heard it, it’s called Grace to You. But I remember John saying that he felt that his task as a minister of the gospel was to get the bread the bread of life, the bread that we all need, this life-giving bread, he said that he felt that his task was to get the bread on the table without messing it up. That was his whole job as a pastor. He didn’t wanna drop the bread in dirt. He wanted to get the bread to people the way it was intended to be, so he saw himself as a delivery agent as a delivery agent.
It wasn’t his job to change the bread. It was his job to get the bread to people so that it could do its work in the lives of people. And so he saw himself simply as taking the Word of God, the Bible, which we call the Holy Bible. Why do we call it the Holy Bible? Because the Bible is set apart from all other books.
It is holy. It is unique. There is no other book like this book. And John was saying, I see myself as a person who’s taking the inspired Word of God, the without error Word of God, God’s Word, and I’m giving it to people so that they might feed on the Word of God. And what Paul is saying here is, when I taught you grace by faith, I wasn’t getting that from a man.
I got that from Jesus himself. And when we’ve talked about other matters, whether they be, you know, the day of the week you’re going to worship on or the diet that you, you know, have for your life, these are matters that Jesus Christ himself spoke to me about. I didn’t get the ideas from something that I made up. It wasn’t my idea, it was God’s.
I love what E.V. Hill said. He used to be a pastor in the Los Angeles area. He just, with regard to the word of God, he said, listen, trust it, don’t adjust it. Trust it, don’t adjust it.
Now let me ask you a question. Do we need to do that in this generation? You better believe it. I mean, we are living in a generation where being biblical is contrary to most people’s thoughts and opinions. Being biblical.
And so we can so easily set aside the Word of God because of the flak that comes our ways. We become political instead of biblical. And Paul is saying, you may not like it, you may not like what you’ve heard, it doesn’t fit your paradigm, it doesn’t fit your teaching, whatever, it’s okay. Because ultimately, I’m pleasing God, and I’m delivering, I’m delivering the primary source of truth, the primary source of truth. So the next time you take flak, you might wanna consider the flak in light of 2 questions.
Who am I trying to please? What is my source of truth? That who am I trying to please matter, by the way, concerns our motive. And what is my source of truth concerns the message. But then he goes on and he says this, verse 13, for you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.
I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. Now what begins here in this last part of chapter 1 is Paul basically gives us a biographical sketch of his life, and he points to 6 parts of his life. He first of all speaks about how he was a strict Pharisee, verse 14. He was zealous to do whatever the Jewish law called for. He was committed to the Jewish traditions.
He was trained under Gamaliel, which was a big rabbi of that day. He was also a religious zealot, verse 13. He was one who intensely persecuted the church of God in Jerusalem and Judea. He tried to destroy the church. He wanted to eliminate the church.
But then he was called by God himself. He was called by God himself to be a preacher, verse 15. But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles. We’ll continue that, but here’s the thought, is that there was a day where Paul was converted and he was also called on this day to a whole different life. It was a day where a blinding light came from heaven, knocked Paul down, he lost his sight, and God made it absolutely clear, Jesus made it absolutely clear that it wasn’t something that he deserved, this new life, new life, and Paul even refers to it here in verse 15.
He wasn’t called by his works. He was called by God’s grace. He was called because it pleased God to reveal Jesus to Paul so that then Paul would reveal Jesus to others. In this case, you can see here the Gentiles. And so God called Paul by his grace.
It was a call of salvation. It was a call to salvation, but it was also a call to ministry, to proclaim the gospel. And that was an essential change in Paul’s life because of the Lord’s work in him. He became then a devoted learner, a devoted learner. Verses, the last part of verse 16 and 17, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia And I later returned to Damascus.
And what’s Paul talking about here is immediately what happened after this calling and conversion experience. What happened was, is instead of checking in at Jerusalem with the other apostles, or going to Jerusalem for, you know, Christian theology training from the apostles, or something along those lines, he instead spent the next 3 years, if you look at verse 18, He instead spent the next 3 years in Arabia. And while he was in Arabia, down in the Egypt area there, he studied and he meditated on the scriptures and received further revelation from the Lord. So his learning, which he’s trying to communicate to these people who are naysayers of his ministry, his learning was not man-made. His learning did not come from man.
His teachings that he ultimately ended up teaching down in Damascus, it wasn’t man who gave it to him, it was Jesus himself. And he, as a learner, you know, took it in. And then he says that he was also a fellow apostle. In fact, you get this first here in verse 17 where he’s talking about the apostles and he says, before I was, which is to say, He’s an apostle, he’s a fellow apostle. You see that actually in Galatians chapter 1 and verse 1 where it speaks about the fact that he was an apostle.
He came right out and said it. But Paul writes this in verse 18, then after 3 years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him 15 days. I saw none of the other apostles, only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing to you is no lie. What’s he saying?
He’s saying, you need to know that after 3 years in obscurity, I went to Jerusalem finally. Okay, after 3 years he went to Jerusalem and he hung out with Peter. Peter, spokesperson for the church, right? So he hung out with Peter for 15 days. He also had some time, it says, with James, who is Jesus’ brother, and evidently he didn’t have time with any of the other apostles over that 15-day period of time.
What do we know about that period of time? Well, it was an important time because when he came to Jerusalem, there was fear that Paul was there, and the last time they saw him, he was persecuting Christians. So he came to speak about his conversion, evidently, but they didn’t hear it until Barnabas came alongside. Maybe you’ve heard of Barnabas, and Barnabas introduced Paul to Peter and to James and spoke of his conversion and his call and his commission by Jesus as an apostle, an apostle to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, which is something after 15 days he went off and did in Damascus. So what is Paul saying?
Again, what he is trying to say to these Judaizers is, I’m not doing this because this is something that, you know, I conjured up, that I made myself an apostle or something like that. No, this is something that God called me to. He called me to this. And he also then went on to talk about he was a persecutor turned preacher. Verse 21, later I went to Syria and Cilicia.
I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report, the man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy, and they praised God. Because of me. So after his 15-day visit in Jerusalem, God took him to Syria. Why should we think about Syria, or, you know, what’s the importance of mentioning that?
Well, Syria is not in Judea. Syria is north of Judea and Galilee. And then the Lord took him to Cilicia, which also is northwest, in this case northwest of Judea and Galilee. In other words, these are places outside of Judea. Why is he mentioning that?
Because the apostles were in Judea, and it says here that he didn’t go to Judea to have a ministry, but he went outside of Judea, which is why he was unknown, it says here, to the people in Judea. But nonetheless, word about this persecutor spread so that now the people everywhere were hearing that this guy who was a persecutor of the church He’s now in the church. He’s now the church. And he’s now preaching the gospel that he once persecuted, that he once tried to destroy. He’s now preaching the gospel.
Well, that’s enough to make you wanna rejoice, isn’t it? As you see at the end of the story. Because this guy has gone from a persecutor now to somebody who’s been called by God and somebody that we wanna praise God for. Now why did Paul bring all of that up? I mean, why even bring up, you know, my former life, my conversion, my new life in Christ?
Well, because essentially what Paul’s doing here by looking at his, reflecting on his bio, is he’s giving us a why for what it was that he did. A why. A why behind the mission. A why that he needed to pass along to others, a why that was driving his life, a why that he was using to process the criticism that was coming his way. Essentially, put it in a question, it’s this: why am I doing this work?
The next time somebody comes up against your calling, your work, one of the healthy things to do is to process what you’re hearing with a why. Why am I doing this work? And Paul’s answer, his why for the work that he was doing, was it was God. God took me, somebody who was going the opposite direction, he turned me around and he gave me this work. I would not be doing what I’m doing, Paul is saying, without God having called me to do this work.
See, God’s will was at the center of what he was doing. Now, don’t lose that, because every one of us in this room have a call. We have a calling. We are here because God has a call on our lives. He has a purpose for every one of us.
He has, said differently, he has a will for every one of our lives. And hopefully, whatever it is that we are doing, that call is connected to God’s call. It’s not just my call, it’s not my call, it’s God’s call. A week ago I was speaking to Felicia Larson about her call in life. Felicia Larson is a family member of Sue Larson family.
Some of you know Charlie and Sue Larson. Well anyway, we were having an interesting conversation and she said to me at one point, she said, Dave, you know, I would not be doing what it is that I’m doing doing without God’s call on my life. What she’s doing is she’s going to seminary right now, and she’s also on staff at a church. And she was talking about how challenging it is as a mom to be going to seminary and to also be on staff at a church. And she was saying though, but you know, I believe I’m right where God wants me to be, that this is God’s call on my life right now for what it is that he wants me to do.
Now you might ask, you know, how does a person know God’s call on one’s life? I mean, how do you know what God’s call is? How do you know if you’re in the center of God’s call? Well, you could talk to Felicia, I guess. That’d be one way, ’cause she’s got a sense that, yeah, I’m right where God wants me to be.
You can pray that you could have like a Paul experience, you know, that there would be a blinding light from heaven that would come and it’d be pretty obvious and God’d speak directly to you and he’d give you his, his words directly, and man, wouldn’t that be great if you’re a pastor, you don’t have to anymore prepare sermons, you just, hey, listen, this is what Jesus said to me, so, you know, I’m just telling ya, putting the bread on the table, just a delivery agent. Of course, that’s what you’re trying to do anyway, we’re just trying to take the word of God and teach that which the Lord has said. But I think the simplest way is just to follow God’s lead. How do you know God’s call on your life? You just follow God’s lead.
Don’t close the doors that God is opening. Go through ’em. Don’t fight it, don’t resist it, don’t quench the Spirit, don’t turn away from what it is that God wants on your life. Just go through the open doors. Sometimes it’ll be a front door, sometimes it’ll be a back door, sometimes it’ll be a side door.
It can be any kind of door. But don’t fight it, just go through the open doors. That’s what Bernice and I have done our whole married life is we just, have seen God open door after door, and most of the times it surprised us, it really has. The reason I’m standing here this morning is because of the calling of God on my life. Now, I never heard God say to me, Dave, I want you to be a pastor, I want you to be a pastor at Bridges Community Church.
I never heard verbally God say that, but he confirmed that through open doors, and he’s confirmed that in my life through open doors. I thought, some of you’ve heard some of my story, I thought that I was going to be in architecture. That was the thing I loved the most in high school. I absolutely loved drafting and architecture and all of that. Maybe one of the reasons I loved all of that was because that was the one thing in high school that I got, you know, I really knew how to put all that together.
It really worked well for me. So I was going into that in college, and for 2 years in college, I was all about architecture. After that second year in college, I thought I was gonna go to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which is a college that some of you have gone to, and you know how wonderful the architect program is there and so forth and so on. I thought I was going there. I was in the final stages of completing the application process and hopefully being accepted, but God got ahold of my life and opened a different door, and it was just very obvious that he wanted me to go through a different door, and I think that’s how God works.
I could still remember saying to my father, Dad, I think God wants me to go into the ministry. I don’t know what that means. I just think he wants me to go into the ministry, I’m really not sure, but I think he wants me to say goodbye to the pursuit of a career as an architect and go into a vocational ministry position. I can still remember my father going over to the wall where there was a rendering that I had drawn, a rendering, a picture, an image, call it whatever you wanna call it, a coloring. He pointed at it and he said, you mean you’re going to leave Give up this for the ministry?
These are always interesting moments when you have a conversation like this with your parents, right? Or whoever. You mean you’re going to give up? And then he said, do you know how much a pastor gets paid?
I said, I’m not really sure, but I just think that God wants me to do something different than I’m pursuing right now.
This is one of those moments where it could be tragic for you or it could be a wonderful tender moment with your parents, son. Because my father at that point sat down, thought about it for a moment, and then he said, okay, if that’s what God wants for your life, I’ll support it. And God from there just opened doors, door after door after door. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. Why are we here?
Because God called us to Bridges Community Church. He called us. And what we want more than anything else is to be right where God wants us to be. And isn’t that what you want? You wanna be right where God wants you to be.
See, this is a very important moment in Paul’s life because the first missionary journey was a tough one for him. It was, go back and read it again. Go back and find out that the guy got beat up, that he got stoned. I mean, not the stoned the way you may be thinking right now. We’re talking about like with real stones.
They left him for dead. They thought he was dead, but, you know, God brought him back to life, and he continued that missionary journey, and having got to the farthest point in his geography, he actually turned around at one point in the journey and came right back through the same cities that beat him up, that didn’t want anything to do with him. And so, after all of that, and then he gets back and he hears people talking about how what Paul said is a bunch of baloney, It’s to be rejected. His ministry was man-centered. It was all about what he thought, and so to hear all of that flak after all that he had gone through, at that point in time, it was either gonna be a breakthrough or a breakdown moment for him.
And think about this, if Paul would have broke down at that point and said, fine, I know God’s put a call on my life, but I’m gonna just Walk away from it? If Paul had walked away from it, there would have been no second missionary journey. There would have been no third missionary journey. There would have been no ministry in Rome. This was just the first book of 12 books that the Apostle Paul wrote.
No, 13, 13 books that the Apostle Paul wrote. Can you imagine? None of this, we would be benefiting by none of this had the Apostle Paul said, I’m done. But he wasn’t done. You know, so often in the scriptures you see how challenged God’s people are to do God’s work, to do the work that he’s called us to.
You remember the name Nehemiah? Nehemiah. Remember how he was burdened about the city of Jerusalem and he felt that he needed to go to Jerusalem and be a part of rebuilding the wall. So he spent some time praying about that, asking God to open the door if that’s what he wanted for him, and so God opened the door. The leader that he was serving under said, sure, go, and even provided all that he needed to do this work.
And you would think when Nehemiah came to Jerusalem that everybody would have been on board with that. I mean, this is a guy who’s coming to build a wall around their city that would add protection to the city, that everybody would have joined in on that. Wonderful, we’re so glad you finally came, Nehemiah, or, you know, thank the Lord for sending you. But not everybody was in on that. He was called into question.
There’s always a Sanballat, there’s always a Tobiah, there’s always a Geshem. There is always somebody that’s going to call into question the good work that you’re trying to do. So how did Nehemiah handle it? In Nehemiah 2:19, it says this, but when Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, heard about his coming, they mocked and they ridiculed us. What is this that you are doing?
they asked. Are you rebelling against the king? I answered them by saying, The God of heaven will give us success. We, his servants, will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it. I mean, where do you get that kind of courage?
He got it from God’s call on his life. He got it from living in the center of God’s call on his life. And you and I, we have a call on our life, and we want to live that call out to its fullest.
Even when the flak comes. And I don’t know what that means in your life today. I have no idea. All I know is that we are living in a time where it is tough to stand up for Jesus Christ, where it would be easy to run away, to compromise. And Paul is showing us here that we can process that kind of thing with a mindset, a mindset even that might ask questions like, so who am I trying to please?
And what is the source of the truth I’m teaching? Where am I getting this? And why am I doing this work? Why am I doing this work?
In other words, the next time your call is called into question, recall God’s higher call.
Let’s pray.
