"Standing on the Truth"
Notes
Transcript
Take your Bibles and Turn with me to Galatians 1:10-17 -
It it import that we remember that Paul wrote Galatians, around 49 AD, this is the first letter that he wrote. He's writing to a cluster of churches in the Roman province of Galatia (in modern-day Turkey), churches he had personally planted on his first missionary journey (Acts 13–14).
Not long after Paul left, a group of Jewish-Christian teachers — often called "Judaizers" — came in behind him and started telling the Galatian believers something like this: "Faith in Jesus is a good start, but it's not enough. You also need to be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses to really be saved."
This wasn't a small tweak. It struck the heart of the gospel. If you need faith plus your own performance to be right with God, then grace isn't really grace — you're back to earning it.
By the time you get to verse 6, Paul skips his usual thank-you and compliments (he opens every other letter that way) and goes straight to: "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you… and are turning to a different gospel" (Gal. 1:6). He's not annoyed — he's alarmed, like a doctor watching someone drink poison because a con artist told them it was medicine.
You live in a world of constant pressure to adjust what you believe based on who's in the room — friends, social media, even well-meaning adults. Paul's answer to that pressure is exactly what this passage is about.
Proposition - As we continue in our study of Galatians we will be learning about how believers are to stand firm. We will examine: 1) the foundation of standing firm, 2) the focus of standing firm, 3) the evidence of standing firm, 4) the call to stand firm, and 5) the patience to stand firm.
Interrogative question - How can you ensure that your identity is built on Christ rather than seeking the approval of your friends?
1. The Foundation of Standing Firm - vs. 10
1. The Foundation of Standing Firm - vs. 10
10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.
Paul had just been accused by his opponents of being a people-pleaser — of softening the gospel to make it easier to swallow. Take note of how Paul responses in verse 10 if I were still chasing approval, I wouldn't be serving Christ at all. You can't do both.
illustration: Think about a group chat where everyone's making fun of something, and the second someone says "honestly that's kind of messed up," they get roasted for it too. That's the moment where you find out who you're actually trying to please. Paul says you can't build your identity on Christ and on the group chat's approval rating at the same time. One has to lose.
42 Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.
2. The Focus for Standing Firm - vs. 11-12
2. The Focus for Standing Firm - vs. 11-12
11 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. 12 For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Paul's authority for what he taught wasn't "I heard it from someone smart" or "I workshopped it with a committee." It came directly from Jesus. This matters because his opponents were trying to say Paul's gospel was a watered-down, secondhand version. Paul says: no — mine is straight from the source.
1 Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead),
Paul already opened the letter this way: "an apostle — not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ." He says it twice because it's the foundation for everything else he's about to say.
3. The Evidence of Standing Firm - vs. 13-14
3. The Evidence of Standing Firm - vs. 13-14
13 For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; 14 and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.
This is Saul of Tarsus before he was Paul the apostle — a rising star in Judaism who hunted down Christians. Acts 8:3 says he was "ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women" to prison. Acts 9:1 says he was "breathing threats and murder" against believers. He wasn't a guy who drifted into faith out of boredom. He was the last person anyone expected to become a Believer, let alone the guy who'd write more than half the New Testament.
Illustration: Imagine the most outspoken atheist debate-team kid at your school — the one actively trying to talk people out of their faith — showing up a year later leading the Bible study. That's roughly the shock level of Paul's testimony to people who knew his history.
15 It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 16 Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.
The Sermon on the Mount: (Matthew 5–7): An Expositional Commentary (The Right to Retaliation)
The black evangelist Tom Skinner was converted to Christ while he was leader of the largest, toughest, teenage gang in New York City, the Harlem Lords. His conversion was so real that he left the gang the next day, turning from a life of fighting and violence to preach the gospel. There was an immediate victory over crime and cruelty. Soon there was victory over hate and bigotry also. Several weeks after his conversion he was playing a football game in which, as his assignment on one play, he blocked the defensive end while his own halfback scored a touchdown. As he got up from the ground to head back to the huddle, the boy whom he had blocked jumped in front of him in a rage and slammed him in the stomach. As he bent over from the blow he was hacked across the back. When Skinner fell the boy kicked him, shouting, “You dirty black nigger! I’ll teach you a thing or two.”
Skinner said that under normal circumstances the old Tom Skinner would have jumped up from the ground and pulverized the white boy! But, instead, he got up from the ground and found himself looking the boy in the face and saying, “You know, because of Jesus Christ, I love you anyway.” Later Skinner said that he even surprised himself, but he knew that what the Bible had promised was true. He was a new creature in Christ, and it was no longer necessary for him to operate on the old level of tit for tat, hate for hate, or retaliation. Moreover, when the game was over and the opposing end had some time to think about it, he came to Skinner and said, “Tom, you’ve done more to knock prejudice out of me by telling me that you loved me than you would have if you’d socked my jaw in.”
4. The Calling to Stand Firm - vs. 15-16
4. The Calling to Stand Firm - vs. 15-16
15 But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased 16 to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood,
CSB Study Bible: Notes (Chapter 1)
1:15 The phrase God, who … set me apart and called me sounds like Is 49:1, which refers to the messianic servant, and Jr 1:5, which refers to the prophet Jeremiah. Paul knew that his callings to salvation and apostleship were both undeserved (Rm 1:5).
This is a huge statement: God set Paul apart before he was born. Before Paul ever hated Christians. Before he ever chose anything. God's calling on Paul wasn't a reward for good behavior — it was grace, full stop.
5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
God tells Jeremiah, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you." Paul is deliberately echoing the language used of Old Testament prophets — he's saying his calling has that same divine origin.
If you sometimes think "I've messed up too much for God to use me," Paul is the loudest counter-example in Scripture. God didn't wait for Paul to clean himself up first. Your past — whatever's in it — is not disqualifying information to God.
5. The Patience to Stand Firm - vs. 17
5. The Patience to Stand Firm - vs. 17
17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.
ESV Global Study Bible (Chapter 1)
1:17 The journey to Arabia and back to Damascus occurs between Acts 9:25 and 9:26. On the city of Damascus, see note on Acts 9:3. Roman Arabia included much of modern Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and southern Syria.
Instead of immediately running to the apostles in Jerusalem to get his teaching approved and polished up, Paul went into the Arabian desert — likely for a stretch of quiet, direct time with God before he started his public ministry. He wasn't rejecting the other apostles (he does go meet Peter later, v.18). He's making a point: his gospel wasn't manufactured by a human committee. It came from Christ.
SO WHAT?
1. You were made for an audience of One. (that is God)
2. Your past doesn't get the final word — God does.
3. Get your convictions from Christ, not from the crowd.
Picture a compass and a weather vane sitting on the same rooftop. The weather vane spins with whatever direction the wind happens to be blowing that day — loud, visible, always moving. The compass doesn't care what the wind is doing. It points one direction no matter what.
Verse 10 is Paul telling the Galatians — and telling us — be the compass, not the weather vane. The wind of what's popular changes daily. What doesn't change is Christ. Point there.
How can you ensure that your identity is built on Christ rather than seeking the approval of your friends?
In what ways do you feel the pressure to conform to the beliefs and values of those around you?
How can you actively remind yourself that your worth comes from God's approval, not from social media likes or peer acceptance?
Reflect on a time when you stood firm in your faith despite peer pressure. What helped you to do so?
What does it mean to you to be a 'compass' rather than a 'weather vane' in your daily life?
