The title of our sermon today is “Who do you serve?” This is the question for every man since the Garden. When tempted Adam and Eve faced the choice of who they were going to serve. When staring down the Baal prophets Elijah challenged the whole Israelite crowd, saying “Choose this day whom you will serve. If God is God, then serve Him. But if Baal is God then serve him!” Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters.” In Galatians 1:10 Paul declares he serves Christ, not man.
After Paul condemns people who push a false gospel, why does he immediately say that he is not serving men but that he is serving Christ? Verses 8-9 indicate that he is distinguishing himself for these false-gospel pushers. He is not trying to please them. In verses 11-12 he goes on to say that the gospel he preaches is what Jesus personally gave him to preach. So he is in service to Jesus and his whole life is to please Jesus – not man – not the men who preach a different gospel. Apparently also however The issue in Galatians revolves around circumcision being pushed on the believers. There were Judaizers who told the Galatian Christians they needed to get circumcised along with their faith in order to be right with God. How do we know that this is the issue? How do we know that this is the false gospel that Paul says let them be cursed over? Reading the rest of the letter shows us. In chapter 2 Paul explained that circumcision was being pressed on Gentile Christians by some Judaizers in Jerusalem (v3-5). Then in chapter 5 Paul gets intense and warns them not to get circumcised because it would mean they had to follow ALL the Mosaic Law, and by getting circumcised it would alienate them from Christ (v3-4). He even says that circumcision and uncircumcision don’t mean anything, but instead it is faith in Christ that counts (v6).
Paul’s battle included also having to assert that his motivations were not at all to please men. The issue of circumcision was related to pleasing people. Paul apparently has to clear the air by saying he is not trying to make people happy by preaching circumcision, but that he is accepting all the persecution he’s getting because he refuses to preach circumcision.
Lets go under 3 headings: 1) Serving Christ, 2) The Sin of Man-Pleasing, 3) Serving Christ by Pleasing Man
SERVING CHRIST
Paul says he is a servant of Christ. The word for servant is the word “doulas,” which means bondservant or slave. The same word is used in 3:28 in contrast with people who are free and do not have a master, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free…” A slave has a master and that slave has given up their own interests, their own will, to be completely in service to their master and His will. This is the relationship with Christ we have: He is our Master and we are His servants.
This was the paradigm for Paul that defined his relationship with Christ. This is different than the man who thinks of himself as “his own man.” This is the opposite of a man who lives thinking he is “running” his life, he calls the shots, he dictates his world. That’s not Paul, that’s not Christianity, that’s not us. We are all wholly and entirely owned by Jesus Christ and in service to Him. Jesus is our Master and has complete rights to us to do with us whatever he pleases and whatever command he gives our lives are dedicated to carrying it out.
APPLICATION: See yourself as Christ’s slave. See yourself as owned by Him, bought with a price – His blood. Sacrifice your own interests, your own will, your own ambitions and give up yourself up to Jesus as your Lord.
A couple months ago when I was on vacation I was paying attention to myself and I noticed a number of things I needed to pray for regarding myself. I’ll share one with you: submission. I wrote down “My attitude of submission, see myself as God’s servant, not self-willed, total abandonment of my own rights, seeing myself as totally owned by God, ready to follow willingly and wholeheartedly every command.” I felt “good” that I had identified that. I have come to the realization that while I like the “idea” of that kind of submission, I don’t know if I truly like it. I mean, really deep down in my actual way of feeling and thinking about something. I think I identified that in truth I resist it. Its not even in relation to sinning so much as it is related to control. I like being in control – or at least the idea of it. I like seeing my way come about. I like what I plan to happen. I like doing what I want to do how I want to do it. I don’t know how I REALLY feel about actual submission. I don’t know how I REALLY feel about not being the guy in charge of me at the end of the day. But that’s on my prayer list now.
I find it it interesting how at this point Paul has identified himself in 2 ways: here as Christ’s slave and in verse 1 as Christ’s apostle. I would suggest that in verse 1 the picture he wanted them to see right away was that he was a man who had authority from Christ and so his letter should carry weight with them. In verse 10 here he wanted them to see that he was a man who was UNDER authority. He was under Christ’s authority, and therefore he was accountable to Christ for what he preached. So he would not be accommodating any other gospel than the one that Christ gave him, because he didn’t have to give an account of his ministry at the end to men – but to Christ. So he is an apostle and a slave for Christ – he has authority and he is under authority.
APPLICATION: True freedom is in slavery – slavery to Christ. One commentator points out how paradoxical it is that Paul declares he is a slave in a letter where he emphasizes freedom. The teaching of Scripture is that true freedom is found in slavery to Christ. When we turn to Christ we are set free from slavery to sin, from the clutches of death, from the dominion of Satan, from the condemnation of the law AND our obligation to the law.
THE SIN OF PLEASING MAN
Paul says he does not live to please man, but he lives to serve Christ. You can see how he sets it up as an either/or contrast. “If I were still trying to please people I would not be a servant of Christ.” He could not simultaneously be pleasing people and serving Christ. Its one or the other – like when Jesus said, “You cannot serve two masters.” So we have to choose. The opposite is true too: If we are living to please Christ then we are not living to please people. It is a dichotomy.
Pleasing man means living for the approval of people. What does this look like? Its when my motivation is the approval of others. Its when the applause of people matters most to me and rules how I act and talk. Its when the fear of rejection or condemnation or disapproval from people so grips my heart that I compromise what I know is right to fit in or see people nodding towards me. Its when in my insecurity I try to live up to the standards other people have of me because my greatest fear is people not being happy with me or respecting me.
The issue in all of this is the heart: the heart that fears man more than God. The heart that fears what man thinks and says over and against what God thinks and says. I’ll share two examples of pleasing man that might help illustrate.
First is the Apostle Peter. Look at Galatians 2:12-14 with me. The Jewish Christians, that early on in the Church, were still very accustomed to the Jewish/Gentile divide. Associating with Gentiles was very very wrong before Jesus came. So Peter when the Jewish Christians came from Jerusalem to see all that was happening there, Peter drew back from those Gentiles he was fellowshipping with. Notice the reason Paul gives for why he did it: “he was afraid” of the Jews that came. Fear. Fear of what they would think. Fear of man and what man thinks won in Peter’s heart so that it led him to sin against his Gentile brothers and against Christ by separating himself from them along racial lines. Peter was acting out of pleasing man in that instance, and he was motivated by fear of man. Had his fear of God been first, he would not have done it. There is someone else we see the exact same thing happen with.
Second is King Saul. Turn to 1 Samuel 15:20-24 with me. God gave the command to completely destroy the Amalekites. Leave nothing alive. Saul disobeys, Samuel the prophet shows up and rebukes him. Start following along in verse 20-24…
Saul knowingly went against what he was told to do and the reason he did it? Fear of the men. Fear of man. Just like Peter, fear of what man says won King Saul over.
APPLICATION: Rank and position does not insulate a man from having fear of what people think. This was the Apostle Peter and King Saul. They were the highest ranking men – one in the Church and one in Israel. Yet they sinned against God by being man-pleasers. It can happen to any of us.
APPLICATION: Machoism and tough talk is not the opposite of fear of man. Often its just cover for insecurity. Often its actually another way fear of man and pleasing man operates because the person acting macho or tough talking wants really badly for others to see him as tough. His obsession still is what man thinks of him.
APPLICATION: Fear God – not man.
- Pray God would change your heart to fear Him and seek to please Him, and not man (1 Cor. 4:3).
- Remember Christ is your Judge to whom you will give account (2 Cor 5:9-11)
- Remember Jesus’ example (Mt 22:16)
- The praises of man are a test (1 Thess 2:4; Pvb 17
- Remember Christ bought you so you wouldn’t be slaves to men (1 Cor 7:23)
- Realize people-pleasing is insincere and our hearts need to be purified from it (Col 3:22)
- Embrace the consequences of serving Christ over pleasing man.
Paul was not going to change the gospel to please any man. He wasn’t going to add circumcision to the gospel to please the Judaizers. And he wasn’t trying to “please” the Gentiles by deleting circumcision. The Gospel Christ gave him did not include circumcision and since he served Christ, and not man, and since he would give an account to Christ and not man, he vehemently protected the Gospel message from corruption.
SERVING CHRIST BY SERVING MAN
The final point I would make is that sometimes, in a different context, serving Christ in fact means serving man. Turn to 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 with me….
Paul is explaining that in the work of reaching people for Christ we adapt to them in ways that helps open doors for the Gospel. In this way, sometimes pleasing people is done in service to Christ. I’ll give two examples.
First is Timothy. Here Paul was vehemently arguing against circumcision, yet when Paul enlisted Timothy into missionary work with him, Paul circumcised Timothy. Why would he do that? Is this the same Paul? How could he circumcise Timothy when he argued so fiercely against circumcision? The reason is because it had nothing to do with the Gospel and Timothy’s salvation. Timothy was half Jewish and going into ministry to spread the Gospel to Jews. Circumcision was removing obstacles to Jews believing the message. There is not a Jew alive back then who would have given Timothy the time of day if they knew he was half Jewish and had not been circumcised. So, in order to remove any objections from Jews, and to become all things to all men in order to win Jewish men to Christ, Timothy was circumcised. This was a totally different situation than in Galatia where circumcision was being imposed on believers in order to be right with God and to properly live for Christ.
Another example is the legendary Hudson Taylor – the English missionary to China. He too became all things to all men in China so as to win as many Chinese as he could to Christ. In his biography he tells how after being in China for awhile he took a radical step and adopted the look of Chinese men. The author says,
It was growing clearer. For Hudson, the right thing was a closer identification with the people, including chopsticks, Chinese cooking and Chinese dress at all times – even the queue (the braided pigtail men wore with the front of the head shaved) (p98).
With the Chinese it worked. More and more Chinese were willing to come to him for medical help, he was able to distribute more and more Gospel literature, and he was able to travel further and further into the land reaching more people with the Gospel. All because he sought to please people so as to reach them for Christ.
APPLICATION: How can we humbly, and in faithfulness to Christ, remove barriers with people by pleasing them? This does not mean we become willing to do sinful things. But it does mean that we thoughtfully consider ways to “become like others” to help them come to Christ.
Couldn’t we say this about our Lord and what He did? Didn’t He come from the Father and become like us by becoming human? And didn’t he do this so as to win us and bring us to God?
CONCLUSION
Who do you serve? Do you serve Christ? Or the opinions of people? Do you serve Christ, or your own flesh and appetites? Do you seek God’s praise, or man’s? Let each of us say with Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Let all of us determine today that it is Christ that we will serve.