Galatians Chapter 1, I'll read verse one through to verse number ten, and consider this morning verse ten together. Galatians Chapter 1: Paul, an apostle not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead, and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you into the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
But do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
Let us pray. O God, we ask that You would send Your Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, righteousness, and of judgment for those who believe not, but also, Lord, to bring joy, peace, comfort, and blessing. Open the eyes of our understanding, we ask, that we might know the things that You have written in Your Word, and that we would do them, that they might touch us at our deepest point, and that they might bring us nearer to Yourself. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Last time, we considered verses 6 through to verse number 9 concerning the problem that existed in the church with regards to another gospel. And verses 6 to 9 we considered were one of the most strongest words that could be found in the entire scripture, that Paul would call those people that were troubling the church to be regarded as those that were cursed by God. And the words struck us as a great confrontation, and Paul was speaking to the believers there at Galatia, and he was calling upon them even to confront the Judaizers, that they might be accursed.
And we come now to verse number 10, where after Paul, as it were, defies the false teachers and defies the false gospel that was plaguing the church, he now, in verse number 10, explains to us, if we could say, or shares with us his motivations for doing so. You see, verse 6 to 9 make up that confronting challenge to the church, and those confronting conclusions that are made, but verse 10 lets us into the heart of the Apostle as to what motivated him to write what he wrote. He was defying the false gospel and the Judaizers without hesitation, and Paul wanted the believers to know that he did this as a servant of Christ, without consideration to pleasing men, but ultimately to pleasing God. And this is where we find Paul confronting the churches here.
Now let me give an illustration of a man also who defied error and that which is wrong. It appeared to me during the times of COVID, it was this picture going around, and I thought it was a fake picture, but later I realized it was a real picture, and you probably heard about it, and I'll share it with you. There's a famous photograph taken in 1936 in Hamburg during the launch of a new German Navy vessel, and there in that picture, which is a black-and-white photo, there is a multitude of Nazis giving the Nazi salute. But there, in the midst of that sea of people, is one man with his hands folded like this. He was defying the armies of Hitler, and he was not going to stand with the error and the falsehood of that evil regime. And his name was August Landmesser, and his arms remained folded while everyone's arms gave that salute. He once was a committed Nazi, you see, but he fell in love with a Jewish woman, and he married her and had children to her, and he obviously was not about to capitulate to the evil regime, having seen all of its corruption.
What August Landmesser's defiance reminds us of is the need to resist the fear of man, the multitudes that stand against the truth, and in one sense, to have our arms folded in the sight of evil. And in many similar ways, this is what Paul was doing with the multitude of the people that were at the churches of Galatia. In one sense, they were all starting to turn away from him. It was not just one church; it was the churches of the region. They were being taken up; they were, as he says in Chapter 3, foolish Galatians that have been bewitched. And Paul said, "I'm not going to compromise. I'm not going to make light of your moving away from Him who called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel."
So Paul, in his writing here, verses 6 and 9 particularly, puts his flag in the ground, as it were, does more than fold his arms; he actually pushes back against the corruption that was plaguing the church. He makes a fearless stance, and he does this not in love for his wife, as August Landmesser perhaps did it, but in love for Jesus Christ. Yes, he was married to Christ, and he was not going to give any way to evil and not going to in any way sit back while the church drank poison. And so he gives that fearless stance he makes in verse number 6 to 9.
And the way that he does is that he expresses himself plainly. He says, "I marvel." He displays great shock, verse number 6. Now, the fact that he marvels is a rebuke in and of itself. You've seen it before; a mother sees her children do something wrong, and she's in shock horror, and before she says anything, she's spoken by her shock horror. She's marveling that how could you do such a thing? Well, if she realizes that her sons are sinners, it wouldn't be such a shock horror to her, but nonetheless, that is what takes place. There is a shock horror that in and of itself, before she says anything to the child, the child senses that something bad's coming. And Paul's "I marvel" was that kind of shock horror, which something bad followed, if I could say, in that way, something negative. He challenges them following that, and he makes some sharp conclusions. He says, "You are turning away from Him who called you into the grace of Christ." He basically says to them, "You are being deceived." Once again, very strong terminology. "You're turning away from God. You're being deceived." And then he goes on to make clear expectations to the church, and he says to them, "Whoever these people are that are troubling you, you need to regard them as accursed by God, and you need to act and behave in such a way that puts them out of the church."
Now, this is not as easy as unsubscribing from a YouTube channel that teaches error or unsubscribing to an email chain of somebody that's coming to your inbox that's not helpful for your spiritual life. This is much harder than that. You see, these people have been hearing these teachers for quite some time, and there has been a sort of affiliation and love and a fellowship that they have shared together. These Judaizers have taught them things; they have opened their eyes to see things that they had not yet seen before. In one sense, they probably felt that they were being helped by them. And so when Paul says to them, "Let them be accursed," he's basically saying, "You need to cut them off." And like I said, it's more than just turning off the TV, or it's more than just unsubscribing or whatever it may be. This is actually going to involve a sort of separation of a relationship that once existed in the life of the church. And you can imagine the confrontation of such a statement, of such a charge that Paul was giving to the churches.
Now, the potential repercussions of his expectations and conclusions and what he said were great. You see, Paul writes verse number 6 to 9 at the expense of his own relationship to the entire church. Here he is saying to them, "Let those loved teachers of yours be accursed, and you, by the way, are following the wrong path and are being deceived and following another gospel, and I'm shocked at the way that you're behaving." Now, that could have absolutely ruined his entire relationship to the churches of Galatia. He went there and preached the gospel to them; he perhaps knew many of them by name. He would have seen the day that they believed on Jesus and the transformation that took place in their hearts. He had a love for them; he had an affiliation with them. But that was put on the line here by verses 6 to 9, and ultimately by this entire epistle. He could have lost his entire influence with the churches in that entire region. In fact, he could have been, by verses 6 to 9, regarded forever as a bigoted, narrow-minded man. Paul could have forever been considered as misunderstood by what he was saying here, so that they would have received this letter, read it, and said, "Ah, this guy Paul is too much." And there goes the gossip all the way through Galatia, all the way through the other churches, and Paul could have essentially lost a lot of his ministry that he had within the whole region. Remember, this is churches of Galatia together; they could have had an impact at standing against what Paul was saying, to the effect of his relationship to them and his name in the area that he was witnessing in. All these things were potential repercussions that were enormous for what Paul was saying in verses 6 to 9.
But in verse number 10, Paul tells us of his true allegiance. Verse number 10, he says, "For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ." Paul here, by this statement, demonstrates his ultimate allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His truth, no matter what it may cost him. You see, it is believed by many commentators that there were accusations being made against Paul, that Paul was some kind of compromiser who was becoming all things to all men, that he might reach some. And he says to the Jews, "I become a Jew," even though that was written after this epistle, but his philosophy of ministry, in one sense, comes out, and the people—there's an argument that the commentators are saying here—that Paul is saying, "Okay, I become a Jew to the Jew, to the Gentile I become a Gentile," and so then when the Jews hear about how he behaves in front of the Gentiles, and the Gentiles hear, there's like, "Ah, he's a compromiser. He's a man-pleaser. He's just going around trying to make everybody happy so that he can somehow bring the Gentiles into the body of Christ when they are not really the people of God unless they follow in the ways of Judaism and get circumcised and come under the covenant made with Abraham."
And so, Paul, they believe—commentators believe—that he was accused of such things, and the reason why they get that is from the word "now." Look at verse number 10 here; he says, "For do I now persuade men or God?" And the commentators say, well, the fact that he says "do I now persuade men," he's essentially saying to them, "You judge now, in light of what you've thought of me, whether or not I am persuading men or God." He basically says, "Judge me now, in light of verses 6 to verse number 9, whether I'm here trying to just please all parties, or whether or not I'm here as a servant of Jesus Christ, proclaiming His truth, no matter the cost. You take me now as a man-pleaser after you read verses 6 to 9." In answer to the accusations that were made against him, but in verse number 10, he asks two rhetorical questions that help us understand where his ultimate allegiance lies. He said, "For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men?" Now, the answer is obvious; these are rhetorical questions. Of course, by verses 6 to 9, that's not the case. You couldn't conclude such things. I'm about to almost lose everything that I've worked for in that region for the sake of His name. And do not think that I'm out here to please men; ultimately, I'm out to please God. He says that in verse number 10, "For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men?" And the word "persuade" means to win over by appeal to the interests of. So, Paul's saying, "Am I trying to win over the approval or win over the support or win over your support or man's support, or am I really concerned about the interests of God? Am I doing what I'm doing because I'm trying to win over your approval, or does it look like what I'm doing here at this point is because I'm more concerned about the approval of God?" And then he goes on to say, "Do I please men? Do I seek to please men? Do I pursue to satisfy men, or am I pursuing the satisfaction of the truth of God?"
What Paul is essentially saying here to the churches is, "What motivates me? What motivates me? Do you really think that my becoming all things to all men has no limitations?" And what Paul is saying is, of course, it has limitations. Here is a limitation right here. And Paul is challenging this false gospel that was in the church, and the people that were reading this letter, now before we move on, I need to clarify some things here. We must be careful that when we come to a text of scripture like this, we do not lose sight of all the biblical data, and that we do not come to the point where we confuse all the biblical data. You see, some people come to a text like this and say something like this, "I only please God, and therefore I never please man." And to that person, I have a few scriptures that I'd like to read this morning. Bear with me as I read: Titus Chapter 2, verse 9, "Servants, be well-pleasing to your masters in all things." In marriage, in 1 Corinthians Chapter 7, verses 33 to 34, "But he that is married cares about the things of this world, how he may please his wife. She who is married cares about the things of the world, how she may please her husband." In evangelism, 1 Corinthians 10:32-33, "Give no offense, either to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God, just as I also please men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved." There's just a sample of scriptures coming from the mouth of this same person who is saying that I please all men in all things, that they may be saved, and that husbands are to please their wives, and wives their husbands, and that servants are to please their masters, and all these things.
So before we get to the idea, there are some people that come to this text of scripture and say, "Pleasing God means never pleasing men," as if the two are entirely antithetical, that you cannot, in one sense, please God and man at the same time. Well, Paul evidently teaches us that that is not the case; those two things are not antithetical; they're not opposed to one another. There are certain times and certain things that we do that are pleasing to men that are also pleasing to God, right? And so, before we come to a text like this and make a mess of families, make a mess of our relationship to our bosses, make a mess of our relationships to one another, and ruin our testimony for the cause of Jesus Christ, as many people have done, preaching Christ out of contention, only adding afflictions to the bonds of Christ, to the bonds of Paul, we must be careful to understand the scriptural data.
But on the other extreme, there are also people that come to those texts that I just read to you, and they say something like this, "Pleasing men a hundred percent of the time is always pleasing God." And simply what they do is that they take the opinions of men as the measure of whether or not they are doing right or whether they are doing wrong. There are many people in the world today, and we probably tend towards this in our sinful nature more so because we don't like, many of us don't like to be regarded in a negative light, where we take the opinions of people or the viewpoints of people, and we measure whether or not we are doing right or wrong by how they think or feel concerning us. And therefore, without consideration to God's Word, without consideration to what is truth, without consideration to what it is that God will have us to do, we simply bow and do whatever the dictates of men tell us to do because we are too afraid to displease those that are dear to us.
And here, the biblical balance can be found in Colossians Chapter 3, verses 22 to 24, where Paul says this, "Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; there you go, pleasing men in all things, your masters in all things, as Titus says it. But look what he says here, "Not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ." And here's the biblical balance, that there is a kind of obedience and a kind of man-pleasing that pleases God when we do it with an eye to God and not with an eye to man. And although the end result of our kindness would be the pleasure of man in their experience of their relationship and encounter with us, yet ultimately, where we are looking is to God, who has called us not only to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind but to love our neighbor as ourselves. And so, there is this balance that we should have in understanding this.
There is a man-pleasing that is motivated by man, for man, for the praise of man, the glory that we receive from the praise of man, that is at the compromise of God's truth. This is what Paul is speaking against. But there is also a man-pleasing, if I could use that term, motivated by God, for God, that is in accordance with God's Word, and this we must hold in balance.
Well, in verse 10, Paul concludes in verse number 10 with an explanation that helps us understand his point clearly. Look what he says in verse number 10, "For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ." Paul's issue here is about slavery. His issue here at hand regards this question: Whose slave am I? You see, the man-pleaser is a slave of man; man becomes his master, and he does everything that he does to satisfy man, and the ultimate dictator and authority in his life is man, the opinions of men, the thoughts of men, the ideas of men. But what Paul is saying here is, "Who is my slave? Whose servant am I?" Because what Jesus said in Matthew Chapter 6, verse 24, still stands, and Paul's probably got this in mind: We cannot serve two masters. You love the one; you hold fast to the other; one you despise, the other you cannot serve God and man. And Paul's saying here, ultimately, "I am not the servant of men, but I am God's servant."
You see, whoever it is that Paul seeks the approval from is who he serves, and what Paul is saying here, "I do all things for Him, and whether I do things for your sake, I do it ultimately for His sake, whose servant I am." Look at verse number 10, where he says in this part of verse number 10, "For if I still pleased men, I would not be the bondservant of Christ." What Paul is saying here is, "If I still pleased men," or "If I yet pleased men." You see, Paul used to be a man-pleaser. How do we know that? Well, Paul was a Pharisee, and Pharisees were known for man-pleasing. Jesus summarizes the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23 in these words: He basically says in Matthew chapter 23, verse 5, "But all their works they do to be seen by men." You get exactly that; that's man-pleasing. "All their works they do to be seen by men." They pray on the corners; they blow their trumpet before they put the money in the offering box; they want people to see, "Look what I'm doing. Oh, yes, very good." Nice big broad phylacteries, garments there, and all of a sudden, the man-praise is flying into the air, and they're like, "Yes, I am a good Pharisee. I fast twice in a week. I give all the tithes that I possess, and I'm better than that guy down there." And Jesus says they're man-pleasers.
Paul says, "I used to be like that, a man-pleaser. I used to please men." But you know what happened to Paul? Is that when Paul was on the road to Damascus, pleasing men in the destruction of Christians, and he was going to destroy Christians, he was met by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus with a bright and shining light, who said to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?" And Saul replied to Jesus on the road to Damascus these very words; he said, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" And this man, that all his days was crafted after the pleasing of men for the praise of men, met the Master on the road to Damascus, and there, with a clear vision of the grace of Jesus Christ reaching to him, he that day took Christ as his Master, his Savior, his Lord, and from that day on, Paul said, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord." His mind and his heart were revolutionized. It wasn't about how many people gave him applause for the things that he did; his eye was toward his Master, whom he desired to please.
And his question was, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" So when Paul comes to the believers at Thessalonica and he preaches the gospel to them, he says this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 4, "As we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts. For neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness—God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others." That is opposite to the Pharisee. So this is what Jesus did in my heart; He became my Master, I am His servant, and therefore, wherever I took the gospel, I took it for His praise, for His sake, for His glory.
He's not the man that he used to be because he has met the Lord, his Master. And this is the whole principle of the passage here. Paul is saying, "Do I seek to persuade men or God? To please men or to please God?" He says, "If I please men, I will not be the servant of Christ." And what he's telling us is simply this: The ultimate motivations for all that I do, no matter what it may cost me, is for the glory of God. And the challenge comes to us, obviously, quite naturally from this: What motivates us in the things that we do? Whose approval is it that you and I ultimately seek? When do you feel most secure, when your obedience is aligned with men or with God? When do you feel most safe and secure and most loved, when man applauds you, or when you know that your heart and life is aligned with the will of God?
You see, the challenge for us faces us almost every day. We are confronted with sin; we are confronted with temptation; we are confronted with peer pressure that comes from our colleagues, our friends, our spouses, even those that are most dearest to us in our lives, our own children. We are challenged on every side as to our ultimate allegiance day by day. And the natural inclination of our hearts is to satisfy those that we love most. The natural inclination of our hearts is to seek approval from those whose opinions mean most to us. And the trouble that we have as God's people, time and time again, is that so often we capitulate to the opinions of men without consideration to what God thinks of our behavior, of our actions, of how we live in this world.
We are like those people that sit down, and we calculate, "If I make this step in obedience to God, what will it cost me? Will it cost me this friend? Will it cost me this family member? Will it cost me this job if I obey Jesus Christ at this hour? What will it cost me?" To you, this text, to us, this text speaks volumes, does it not? "For who do I persuade, men or God? Do I seek to please men? For if I yet please men, I would not be the servant of Christ." What Paul is saying, if your motivations are altering, your actions are ultimately motivated by the opinions of men, you cannot be the bondservant of Christ because you cannot serve two masters. And there's no other way to have it. The people of God, Jesus Christ takes preeminence in our lives. He is Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all. And it is important for us as God's people to understand, in a biblically balanced way, but understand nonetheless that our obedience supremely belongs to Him who called us into the grace of Christ, belongs to God.
You see, the gospel is exclusive; we've looked at that. The authority of the scripture gives no room for any other authority; it stands ultimate because it's God's authority. The gospel is one message which cannot be corrupted and perverted and still remain the gospel. And the gospel teaches us that there is only one way to God the Father, and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. The gospel teaches us that there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. The gospel teaches us that it is the only means by which God brings the sinner to salvation, and that there is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ.
Now, if you have a man-pleasing mentality, as soon as you are met with someone of another religion, you immediately are challenged—if you haven't already been challenged with this question already—"Aren't we all serving the same God and going to the same heaven?" And at that point in time, you have to ask yourself this question: Is that true, or is that false? Now, if you conclude, as you should conclude, that it is false, that the only way of salvation is through the Lord Jesus Christ, then you're in a situation, aren't you, where your response of honesty to that person could potentially put you at risk in your relationship to that person. I'm saying, do it as gracious as possible; there may not be the time at that moment, but if you're asked a direct question, what do you do? What do you do? And to speak in this society, in this culture, of the exclusivity of the gospel is to put yourself at odds with the popular opinion of the people around us, of the world around us. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is exclusive, and so if we let man's opinions dictate our responses, we will soon find ourselves turning away from Him who called us into the grace of Christ to another gospel, and our gospel will start expanding to include other mediators between God and man. Our gospel will start to expand to include other ways to get to heaven. And if we let man dictate to us, and their opinions cause us, and we want to satisfy and please them, then that would eventually be the end result of our gospel. We will have no gospel. We won't call sin sin; God won't be as holy as He says that He is.
You see, if you make man-pleasing your aim, you will turn away from Him. You see, man-pleasing is one of the greatest snares of the human heart. You see, the people that believed on Jesus, the Bible teaches us that they didn't want to confess Him openly because of the Pharisees, and they'll get kicked out of the synagogue. They were more concerned about whether or not they could rock up to their traditional worship the next week in the synagogue and be accepted by their family and friends and community, rather than confessing Christ openly. And Jesus basically says, "It can't really be this way. You're either," Paul says here, "you're either a servant of man or a servant of God. You either please men, or you please God."
You see, our society is geared towards man-pleasing. I mean, there are many ways in which we could bring this up, but let me just bring this up in one way, and that's social media. Social media, although it is not wrong in of itself, it has a lot of snares with regards to man-pleasing. I'll tell you how: You post something online, and you check it all the time because what are you waiting for? Thumbs, thumbs, thumbs, yes, likes, clicks, smiley faces, right? Nothing wrong with the smiley faces, and it's fine, but what happens is you love that, and so then you think, "What am I gonna post next in order to get that response?" And what happens is there's a snare there that some people fall into where they start posting for the praise of men, for the likes of men, for the clicks and the views and the thumbs and the smiley faces and the love hearts, all because that satisfies them and gives them a strong confidence and assurance. Now, of course, some of those things may not be wrong, of what's being posted. Let me ask you this: Let's say you were the Apostle Paul, and this whole epistle was written in the 21st century, and Paul says, "I'm going to post on the South Galatian Facebook page verses 6 to 9. I'm going to post it on the South Galatian community, you know, Facebook page. There it is, the churches of Galatia, you know, you're moving away from Him who called you into the grace of Christ. I marvel, I'm amazed." And he posted. Did you think of all the emoticons that he'd get? Angry face, "Get out of here." Probably ban the post, block it, right?
But what we're seeing here, through this, Paul was not measuring up the responses of men and letting those results dictate what he posted or what he preached or what he made known or what he communicated. What Paul was simply saying is, "When I look to heaven, and when I say what I say or do what I do, whether it hurts men or doesn't hurt men, do I see God, as it were, clapping His hands, saying, 'This is My son, whom I love'? Of course, He says that of Jesus, 'This is My beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased.' But do not understand this: What does He say when Jesus comes again? He says that of His servants, 'Well done, good and faithful servants.'"
And what we have to realize as God's people is that ultimately, we must be careful of our hearts that so easily grab on to the praise of men and that slowly starts to filter in the way that we behave, that dictates our responses and how we live, and then we shape our Christianity to suit the praise of men so we can hold these two things in balance somehow, and we start to compromise the truth of God in order to receive the praise of men, and we do not please God with our lives.
You know, I thank God for the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is called in the scripture God's servant, "Behold My servant, My anointed one." And Jesus Christ, as God's servant, did, as He said, all the things which pleased His Father. He said, "I always do those things which please Him." He was the servant of the Lord, the servant of servants. He did those things which pleased the Father. Yes, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, bruised for our transgressions, wounded for our iniquities, for the transgression of His people was He stricken. You see, the Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ, as God's servant, did those things which pleased the Father, no matter what it cost Him. He was not looking to man for the praise of man; He was looking at the Father's will and submitted Himself wholeheartedly to it, no matter what it cost Him.
It was the will of the Lord to bruise Him, and even that will He submitted Himself to, the bearer of our iniquities. And I thank God that our Savior did not please man. For when Peter shook Him and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Not so, Lord, You shall not die," Jesus said, "No, no, Peter, I'm not here to please you. Get behind Me, Satan. I'm going to that cross." He said in the previous verse, "The Son of Man must suffer in accordance with the will of God." And He's not going to please Peter, even though Peter's request may have come from a genuine love for and affection for Christ. It was nonetheless not in accordance with the will of His Father. So no, Peter, I thank God He said no to Peter. I thank God that our Savior was single-eyed towards God, His Father, and the will of the Father, that when He was on that cross, and they jeered at Him and sneered at Him, saying, "If You be the Son of God, come down from the cross," that He said, "No, I'm not going to come down from the cross. I'm doing the will of the Father."
"Oh, He saves others, but He Himself He cannot save." He wasn't concerned about their approval or what they might think of Him, or what any of the religious leaders, all the kings and governors thought of Him. He was concerned about what His Father thought of Him. And I thank God that Jesus Himself submitted Himself to the will of the Father and He did not turn away from any of those hard things that put Him at odds with the world around Him, that He might be our Savior. He said, "Behold, I come to do Your will, O My God."
And shall we not do His will, no matter what it cost us? Shall we not submit ourselves to His authority? Shall we not bow before our Master and seek the pleasure of His name and the glory of His name and to satisfy His name? Love Martin Luther and his fearlessness. It reminds me of Paul's fearlessness. He said, "That word above all earthly powers is evermore abiding. The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Jesus with us siding. Jesus was on our side, His side. Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also. The body they may kill, God's truth is with us still. His kingdom is forever." He says, "And though this world with devils filled would threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through us. The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him." Why not tremble for him? Because he feared God more than Satan and more than man. And as it were, alone he stood and defied another gospel. And praise God, because of men who stood like that, the truth of the gospel continues with us to this very day.
Let us not fear man; let us be the servants of Christ. Let us pray.