The Void of Approval

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Over the next 6 weeks or so I’m going to cover a series on the Book of Galatians.

I’m labeling the series Filling the Void. Will, after last Sunday’s sermon inspired this series. In our conversation he mentioned some studies he had been doing and how the sermon kind of hit on that study. He recommended I do a sermon on the void we all have at birth.

How about a series on that subject instead of just a sermon Will? So everyone, if you enjoy the series you can thank Will, if you don’t enjoy the series well…, then you can blame me for lackluster content. With that let’s jump in.

We are created in the image of God. However, one important aspect of how we are created doesn’t get discussed or taught enough. Just as God is a triune God, we too are triune in creation. We have a body, a soul, and a spirit.

Our body is the physical aspect of our creation. God molded the body from the clay of the earth. He then breathed life (our soul and spirit) into that mold.

Our body is the physical attribute of our creation. It’s the one piece of our triune creation that we are most aware. Just think of the snap, crackle, and pop you felt and heard as you got out of bed this morning.

It’s where we deduce most of our information, where we seem to place the highest value towards what we call reality. Anything outside of what our physical senses can explain, suddenly becomes speculation instead of reality.

Our soul is our character. It is the core of our being. It is our personality, our wants, our wishes, our desires. It is our mental and emotional state of being. Our soul also works in correlation with our spirit.

Our spirit is what allows us to have a connection with God. It is our spirit that informs our soul about God and the truth. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God our spirit’s connection with God was broken.

We are born with this broken connection and it creates a void in our soul. Every soul seeks to fill that void in worldly ways. One of the ways we seek to fill that void is by being relevant to those around us.

We do everything we can to seek approval from others. We want recognition for our accomplishments and want to be viewed as valuable.

In Galatians 1:1-10, Paul gives us an understanding to how that void is filled through Christ when we follow these principles.

Disciples by Christ not Men

Recognize Only One Gospel

Reject False Gospels

Humbly Serve Christ

I know following these principles sounds easy, but we all fail every day. Maybe you don’t but I fail to follow them several times a day.

It’s interesting how we are so intent on proving to others in the church just how Christian we are. Those who strive to be leaders in the church try to seek the approval of the congregation.

We pick leaders of the church by how much we approve of them.

Disciples by Christ not Men

Paul says in Gal 1:1-5 that he doesn’t care what other people think.

Galatians 1:1–5 CSB

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men or by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me: To the churches of Galatia. 3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. 5 To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

As I was preparing this sermon I thought back to all the churches I’ve attended, been an elder, and applied to be their pastor.

In those I’ve attended, when we were looking for a, deacon, Elder or pastor we, I say we because I was included in this, wanted to know what they would do for us.

We had a laundry list of agendas we wanted to see happen. They weren’t necessarily bad things, but they were our agendas.

We wanted those deacons, elders and pastors to please us by fulfilling our demands. We might have believed and in most cases sincerely believed that those agendas were God’s agendas.

In only one case where I sought a pastor position did anyone ask about my own fulfillment in Christ. They asked what I did to ensure my own relationship and growth in Christ.

As a pastor I have found in every church people claim they want change in certain ways. They might want a robust youth ministry, better Sunday school programs, and most will say they want to grow their church.

Churches don’t look at whether the person they want to put in leadership is serving God or pleasing man. They want the leader who pleases them.

Especially when the people they please are the congregation members themselves. It’s human nature to seek a leader who will give us what we desire.

I have yet to find a church that doesn’t have an agenda other than just finding the leader who just lives to serve Christ. Any leader who just serves Christ is not interested in their personal agendas. So, they don’t want that leader.

Jews, presumably from Jerusalem, were telling the Galatians that Paul was just a disciple of disciples. And not even a very good one at that.

They had ulterior agendas revolved around Jewish tradition and Paul didn’t serve their ideology. They didn’t want him leading any part of the church.

Paul refutes them by saying “I didn’t receive my commission from any man, I received it from Jesus Christ and God the Father.

I believe what Paul is really saying is that God the Father is where he recieved his commission through the resurrected Jesus Christ.

The truth is we all receive our disciple commission from God the Father through the resurrected Jesus Christ.

We see this exact message in Jn 6:37 where Jesus says,

John 6:37 CSB

37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.

People may share the gospel message with us. People may point us to Jesus. They may even lead us through the sinners prayer.

But our call to be disciples of Jesus Christ comes from the Father through the resurrected Jesus Christ.

We see Paul remind the Galatians of this truth in a shortened version of the Gospel. The Galatians received God’s grace from God the Father, through Jesus Christ.

When Paul says, “according to the will of our God and Father,” the Galatians are reminded of whom they are supposed to serve whose approval they already have. They are to serve God in a way that gives God the glory.

He was setting up what he was about to say next.

Recognize Only One Gospel

Let’s look at Galatians 1:6-7

Galatians 1:6–7 CSB

6 I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

The Jews who presumably came from Jerusalem were so hung up on tradition that they were serving men not Christ. They were serving a gospel riddled with Jewish ideology based on their Jewish doctrine (the Law).

These Judaizers were saying you know this Paul character isn’t really an apostle. He’s just a disciple of disciples and he doesn’t even preach the whole gospel to you.

They were telling the Galatians they must be circumcised and convert to Judaism to be saved. This happened rather quickly after Paul and Barnabas had started the churches in Galatia.

Paul and Barnabas planted the churches in AD 47 or 48. Paul wrote Galatians in AD 48. So it happened in as short a time as a few months to about a year.

With our modern technology that would probably be equivalent to less than an hour. When you consider how fast information traveled then verses now.

The verb translated “amazed, or astonished, or marvel” expresses an attitude of criticism, doubt or even rejection. This isn’t just a mild scolding, Paul is giving a stern rebuke.

A rebuke over believing “a different gospel” a distorted gospel. A gospel that is not the gospel at all because there is only one gospel.

We must be cautious about following distorted gospels. We have the obvious distortions seen all over in the church today.

There are those who force rules upon the church (legalism) and those who preach if you believe you’re saved, you don’t have to change how you live (hedonism).

The first are very doctrine oriented and you must follow and live the doctrine stringently or you’re not saved.

The second say you’re saved just because you say you believe in Jesus. So, you can continue living in sin and it doesn’t matter.

Those are the extremes, but what about the subtle distortions of the gospel. The personal agendas of the congregation.

The one everyone overlooks and just waves off as trivial, is clinging to traditions within the church. Every church I have attended are complicit in this distortion of the gospel.

I know what you’re thinking. But Bill, Paul is talking about preaching the gospel not church traditions.

However the very thing that led to this false gospel was church traditions. It’s not just what we say the gospel is to the world, it’s also how we present the gospel to the world.

Every church today has traditions they don’t want to give up the exact same way the Jews didn’t want to give up their traditions.

The Jews didn’t want to give up the Law. They presented the gospel to the Gentiles in the lens of their traditions.

Gentiles must be circumcised and convert to Judaism. It was a barrier that caused a lot of Gentiles to not want to be part of the church.

Churches today don’t want to give up how they conduct services. How they teach kids ministry. How they do the worship portion of service. The list goes on and on.

Those traditions cause barriers to people wanting to be a part of the church. It sounds harmless but it’s no different than the Jews not giving up their traditions.

Church traditions can be just as much a distortion of the gospel. They are all false gospels and we must be willing to reject all of them.

Reject False Gospels

Look at verses 8-9.

Galatians 1:8–9 CSB

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him! 9 As we have said before, I now say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him!

Notice how far Paul goes in rejecting false gospels. Paul even includes himself in the list of those who should be a cursed for preaching a false gospel.

Every one of us are responsible for the gospel we preach. For the way we present the gospel to the world.

Paul is telling the Galatians if anyone including yourselves are not preaching and presenting the one true gospel, then let them be a cursed.

We must reject anything that distorts the gospel being preached. But we must also reject anything that places any barriers on that gospel bringing people into the church.

Everything we do should be uncompromising to the one true gospel. Everything we do should not place any undo hinderance on people coming to the church to hear that gospel.

How many Gentiles do you think were not willing to attend the church? They might have heard the true gospel and believed.

But they were like, “nope, I’m not getting circumcised to be a part of that social club.” I believe in Christ but I’m not going to suffer through their traditions to attend the church.

We may not require circumcision, but when we hold onto outdated traditions we are doing the same thing to society today. They might believe in Christ, but they aren’t going to attend a church that is out of touch with their generations.

Jesus should be our example. He changed the way He presented the gospel depending upon the people He was trying to reach.

Paul says in 1 Cor 9:22 I become all things to all people, that by all means some might be saved. Paul isn’t talking about pleasing people here. He’s not talking about seeking their approval.

Paul is saying without compromising the gospel we are supposed to do whatever it takes to connect with the world around us.

In the very next verse 1 Cor 9:23 Paul says, “Now I do all this because of the gospel.”

This is Paul living out what he says in verse 10 of our passage today.

Humbly Serve Christ

Look at verse 10

Galatians 1:10 ESV

10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

It seems those who were opposed to Paul’s gospel and his methods of delivering the gospel were religious people. People stuck in traditions and ideologies.

The Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were so stuck in the Jewish traditions that they couldn’t see the true gospel. We are guilty of the same thing today. We can point out the obvious extreme legalism and hedonism.

But, we fail to see how clinging to our own church traditions become a distorted gospel to younger generations. What do we say when people don’t want to attend our church?

Well, they just aren’t serious about Jesus. Or we say, God will bring the people. What if the people who came and wouldn’t stay because of our traditions are the ones God brought?

Think about it. I’m sure the Jews were saying the same things. Well if they won’t be circumcised then they aren’t serious about following Jesus. God will bring the serious ones who are willing to suffer circumcision we don’t need to worry.

We don’t really want the Gentiles in our church anyway. Look at how they dress provocatively. They don’t even know the Psalms we sing. Their kids are unruly.

Probably a lot of the same excuses we make to validate our lack of serving Christ. We don’t change anything for their approval. We aren’t seeking any man’s approval.

But we do change so we can communicate the gospel to them. We do change because of the gospel.

Paul says in 1 Cor 9:18

1 Corinthians 9:18 CSB

18 What then is my reward? To preach the gospel and offer it free of charge and not make full use of my rights in the gospel.

If we seek to fill the void of approval we must have God’s approval. We don’t seek God’s approval, we have God’s full, unwavering approval in His grace.

You see we can either serve man by seeking their never fully satisfied approval. Or we can accept God’s full, unwavering approval by serving Him in Christ.

That service is discovering how we can best communicate the gospel to the world around us. That means we become them without compromising the gospel so some might be saved.

Empty ourselves to the point of being willing to let go of our ideologies and traditions. Letting go of any Kind of hinderance to communication.

Serve God by removing the barriers to their coming to our church. Remove the barriers to their hearing and responding to the gospel.

If we do that we will find two things happen. Our church will grow naturally with new believers and baptisms. And God’s grace will fill our void with His approval.

The only response we could have to that is what Paul says in verse 5. To Him be the glory forever and ever. And all the people said?