“Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.” (Galatians 1:10)

It’s not hard for us to believe these words that Paul declared about himself. When we look at the selfless life Paul lived in service of our great God, it is abundantly clear he lived to please God, seeking His approval above the approval of people. But Paul wrote those words about himself after writing this:

“Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of gospel than the one we preached to you.” (Galatians 1:8)

The word Paul uses here in the Greek for “gospel” is “Evangélio” or “euangelizētai,” which is where we get our word “evangelism” or “evangelize”— which literally means “the act of publicly preaching the gospel message of Jesus Christ.” Paul knows that is a bold statement that will bother and offend a lot of people. There are plenty of people preaching a different gospel today, whether it is a prosperity gospel or an American liberalized gospel. Can you imagine the outcry if someone said this today? They’d be called bigots or be accused of making threats or using hate speech!

It all comes down to this: whose approval are you seeking? Seeking the approval of people doesn’t have to be a bad thing, necessarily; you may be seeking the approval of your boss and this drives you to work harder. Sometimes we can get caught up in seeking the approval of people without even realizing that we are doing it. We laugh at an inappropriate joke so that we don’t hurt the person’s feelings or we listen silently to the gossip without defending the person being gossiped about. But this behavior pales when compared to the context of Paul’s words; he’s talking about those who hide, water down, or change the gospel message for fear of offending people or in pursuit of their approval.

You may think, “When am I going to be in a situation where I might hide, water down, or change the gospel message?” Well, Thanksgiving is only three days away and that may mean, for some of you, that you’ll be getting together with family members who do not share your faith. I have been to Thanksgiving dinners where everyone was expected to say one thing they were thankful for—but with one rule: you couldn’t say you were thankful for God or Jesus or anything “sappy like that—it had to be real.” Right then I was faced with this very question: whose approval am I seeking? Do I please the family member who doesn’t want to hear about God or do I please God by speaking the truth about being thankful for His grace, mercy, and forgiveness? Some of you might face a similar situation this week. Maybe you’ll be around family members who are hostile to the faith and they’ll want you to stay quiet about it. You’ll have to decide whose approval you are seeking.

“For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile.” (Romans 1:16)

“Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.” (Ephesians 4:15)

“We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)

Who is it you want to please? As Paul said, “If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.” We have great freedoms in our country, the greatest of which is our freedom to worship God, the very freedom the pilgrims were seeking. Let’s give thanks to our God, not just on Thanksgiving this Thursday, but every day, for the freedom we have in this country to worship Him and for the greatest freedom of all, that of the freedom from our sins through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Happy Thanksgiving!

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

—Redeemed