I thought I would start by sharing how I became a Christian. Probably not too many of you would have heard my testimony in the past, and there is a reason for that, as you will soon see.

    I was raised in a small rural community and was brought up going to church. I had a strong Christian heritage which had been passed down from my grandparents , through my parents and to all of us kids. I became a Christian when I was 7 years old, so as you can imagine my recollection of the event is a bit scratchy, but this is what I do remember.

    I remember I was sitting on my bed with my sister, Karen, who is three years older than me. We were reading the bible together and Karen was explaining to me the meaning of the verses that we had just read.I have no idea what the verses was, or what Karen had said about them but I can remember being blown away by how much God must actually love me; so I asked my sister what I could do to show God how much I loved him back.

    Karen told me what it meant to be a Christian, then she lead me through a prayer which pretty much went like this. "Jesus, if you loved me enough to give your life for me; then I love you enough to give my life to you."

    By the end of the prayer I was a blubbering mess and my sister was bouncing off the walls. She grabbed my hand and ran down the hall to the kitchen. Dragging me along behind her, she burst through the door and shouted " Mum, guess what, Michael has just became a Christian." Mum turned around and looked at me standing there with tears still tumbling down my cheeks and said, "So what are you crying for. That's wonderful news, you should be really happy, not crying." A few hugs were exchanged and that was pretty much all I can remember of the day.

    Throughout my childhood and my teenage years I was fortunate enough not only to have the support of a Christian family, but also to have Christian friends around me to encourage me as well. I was blessed in so many ways, but there were times in my life, especially during my teenage years when I wished my testimony had a bit more spice.

    I used to go along to youth for Christ rally's with the youth group every couple of months or so and there would always be the older guys or girls getting up and sharing how God had turned their lives around. Some of them came from abusive families or broken homes, most of them had broken free from drugs and/or alcohol. They had come into a relationship with Christ and found healing, wholeness and genuine joy.

    But you know , out of all those testimonies in all those youth rally's I cannot remember a single person getting up and sharing how they had come from a Christian family, become a Christian at a young age and remained one ever since.

    Why not? Well frankly because it's boring.

    When I was growing up, I used to read stories about guys like John Wesley, who prior to becoming a Christian was a slave trader; or Nicky Cruz who was the warlord of an urban gang in American; or C.S.Lewis who was a fervent and outspoken atheist before becoming a Christian and literally having his life turned on it's head. These men know the transforming power of God in their lives and anyone that knew them couldn't deny the change which had occurred in them.

    I used to think " Man, if I had a testimony like that; it would be so much easer to witness to other people." These guy's lives had really been change. Me on the other hand; before I became a Christian I was a toddler!

    It doesn't quite have the same impact does it?

    A man who had been quite influential on me during my teenage years was a Christian comedian by the name of Mike Wankie.This guy had the ultimate testimony. With God's help he had escaped from the occult, been freed from drugs and alcohol, and healed from the ravages of his traumatic childhood experiences. And if that wasn't enough, after becoming a Christian he had served in the Vietnam war. This guy had personal anecdotes coming out of his ears, and war stories to boot... and to top it all off he had a sense of humour as well.

    For nearly ten years this man used his sense of humour and his powerful testimony to entertain, challenge and inspire literally millions of people all around the world.

    Then one day it all came crashing down. One of his formed "associates" from his early life involvements with the occult publicly accused him as a liar. Among other things, he stated that, while Mike Wankie had been involved in the satanic church, he had never been a high priest, as he had claimed. If He had lied about this, how many other parts of his story, or indeed his "new life" were also false.

    The Christian marketeers dropped him quicker that the proverbial hot potato. It seemed like overnight his books, videos and tapes had literally disappeared off the shelves. And I knew that we had all been had. One way or the other we had been sucked in.

    Either we had been scammed into listening to lies for all those years, or we had listened to a lie which had lead to the demise of a message and ministry which had already influenced millions.

    I don't know which was the truth, but I do know that one way or the other we had swallowed a lie.

    Which begs the question: How can we know what is the truth from what is a lie. How can we discern what is a message from God, and what is false.

    And this question is the fundamental issue being addressed in the first chapter of Galatians.

    So lets read it together now.  READ Galations ch1 v1-10

    The purpose of this passage is not simply to give a historical account of Paul's early Christian life. Nor is Paul trying to brag by saying these things. The whole reason Paul is saying this is to convince the people in the church in Galatia that his message is the Truth; and by following the same logic and reasoning as Paul is using we to can devise a method of distinguishing The Truth from a lie.

    There are two major issues that Paul directs us to consider in this passage, the first of these is to look at the man who is speaking to you.

In this passage, Paul is not giving his testimony so much as presenting his Resume'. Since entering a relationship with Christ, Paul's whole life had changed. Both in the way that he thought and in the way that he acted. This difference was glaringly obvious to anyone who chose to look and this itself was evidence in support of the message he spoke. 

THE MAN.

    The person.

    In his letter to Timothy, Paul wrote "Don't let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you teach and in the way you live. In your love, your Faith and your Purity."

    And the Apostle James also wrote: "I can't see your faith if you don't do good deeds, but I will show you my faith through my good deeds"

    The way that a man behaves will always speaks far louder than anything that he can actually say. So what we need to be asking is does the way this person lives put an exclamation mark or a question mark at the end of what he has to say.

The Purpose.

    The next thing Paul wants to make clear is what his motivation is. In verse 10 he states "Obviously, I'm not trying to be a people pleaser! No, I am trying to please God..."

    To follow the framework which Paul has laid out for us, the next question we should be asking is : What is this persons Agenda? What is their purpose in saying and doing what they are saying and doing?

    I remember last year my wife and I went to another church one Sunday night to listen to a guest speaker from America. About 5 minutes into his talk  he said something along the line of: "I know that God has forgiven me and that after I die I'm going to heaven, but that's not very relevant for me here and now. I want to know what I can get out of being a Christian here and now..."

    As soon as I heard that; warning lights started going off in my head.

    A bit later, he said that when he died he wanted his family to cry for a couple of days then laugh for the rest of their lives as they revel in the financial wealth he had left behind. By now the alarm bells were screaming, and from that point on I wasn't listening to a sermon, I was listening to a seminar. A "Get rich" seminar from a man who saw faith in God as a means to bolster his personal wealth.

    It seemed obvious to me that this man's purpose in life was his own personal gain.

    Compare this with Paul's agenda expressed in his letters to the church in Corinth.

    "I have become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might bring them to Christ..."         (and in his second letter)

    "I don't want what you have; I want you... I will gladly spend myself and all I have for your spiritual good.."

    Paul's purpose in life was to give glory to God by bringing people into a relationship with Him and by encouraging their spiritual growth once they have entered that relationship.

    Which brings us to the next indicator of a "speaker of the truth".

The Product.

    And that is the results that they produce. In Matthew 7, Jesus warns us:"Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep, but are really wolves that will tear you apart. You can detect them by the way they act, just as you can identify a tree by it's fruit... A healthy tree produces good fruit, and an unhealthy tree produces bad fruit... Yes, the way to identify a tree; or a person; is by the kind of fruit that is produced."

    There are two " fruits" which we should be observing in those who we are placing in positions of spiritual authority. One is their personal fruits, the fruits of their life. These are described in Galatians 5 verse 22. Love Joy Peace Patience Kindness Goodness Faithfulness Humility and Self Control.

     The other is the fruit of their ministry.

    Ultimate fruit of ministry is stated in Galatians 1 vs 24 which says that "...they gave Glory to God because of me." By reading through Corinthians chapter 14 we can see more specifically what these ministry fruits are: Verse 3: Helping others grow in the Lord, encouraging and comforting them Verse 4: Strengthening the entire church Verse 16: Joining people together in giving thanks to God. Verse 24: Convicting unbelievers of their sins. Verse 25: Bringing them to a place of repentance and worship.

    In a nut shell, the fruits of ministry are that people are being saved, that believers are being comforted and encouraged, and that they are being grown into a deeper and richer relationship with Christ. If the fruits of the spirit are not evident in the man and the fruits of ministry are not being produced from his words and works. If his ministry is not resulting in God being glorified, then this should be signalling alarm bells as well.

    The next major area that Paul leads us to consider is the message which is being spoke.

THE MESSAGE

    Consistent

    `Going back to the passage in Galatians we see that Paul goes to great lengths to try and distinguish himself from the other Apostles who are based in Jerusalem.

    In verse 18 Paul emphasises that it was not until 3 years into his ministry that he finally went to Jerusalem for a visit with Peter, and even then he only stayed for fifteen days. Why did Paul feel it was so important to emphasis his remoteness from the other apostles? It wasn't because he was trying to distinguish his teaching from theirs because he refers to it in verse 23 as the very same Faith. It was in fact just the opposite. The point he was trying to make was that he was preaching the same things as the apostles in Jerusalem, even though they had seldom met. He wanted to make it clear that the reason their messages were the same was not because of any collaboration that had taken part. They preached the same message because it was the same God who had given it to them.

    This consistency of teaching was to be taken as a sign that the message being preached was indeed from God. But this consistency should not only be sought between the various modern teachings being presented today. There should also be a clear consistency between the message being given and the Scriptures. 2 Timothy 3 vs 16 states that "all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true..."

    If we compare the teachings of two men and they support each other, we still do not have any evidence as to whether they are both right or both wrong, but because we know that the Scriptures are inspired by God, we know that we have a yard stick which is true.

    Did you know that in the book of Hebrews, (a letter Paul was writing to the Jews who had become believers in Christ), he directly quotes old testament Scriptures no less that 36 times. And in his letter to the Church in Rome he quotes old testament Scriptures 43 times. What's more even Jesus is recorded as having used Scriptures to validate his teaching on at least 19 occasions.

    We see this process practically demonstrated in 1 Corintians 14 vs 29. Where Paul tells them to let two or three people prophesy, and then let others evaluate what is said.

    We actually had an example of this in our worship service a couple of months ago. One man stood up to give a message which he had received from the Lord, then another Lady stood up to reinforce his message by recollecting a similar vision which she had received on an earlier occasion, then both these prophetic messages were further validated by other men in the church who stood up to read passages of Scripture.

    Consistent messages which are also consistent with Scripture. But having said that we also need to be wary of falling into the trap of simply massaging our ego's with the same comfortable messages we have always had.

    Challenging

    Remember the warning of 2 Timothy 4 vs 3 against looking for teachers who will tell you what you want to hear...

    It is easy to fall into the trap of knowing what we believe to the point that we are no longer prepared to listen to anything which might be outside of our current world view. While this is one way to ensure that we are never lead astray, it will also ensure that we never grow any further.

    In Hebrews we read that "there is so much more we would like to say about this. But you don't seem to listen, so its hard to make you understand.... You are like Babies who drink only milk and cannot eat solid food. And a person who is living on milk is not very far along in the Christian life... So let us stop going over the basics of Christianity again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding.." Remember one of the fruits of ministry is that believers are being grown into a deeper and richer relationship with God. For this to occur, the messages which we are receiving need to be continually challenging, and sometimes even convicting us. If a message is not pushing your boundaries and challenging you to rethink the way you are living then this to should be sounding alarms.

    If you have been feeling comfortable for any length of time, then you should be starting to feeling a bit uncomfortable about the fact that you are so comfortable, and about who and what you are listening to. Are they endeavouring to inspire you to Grow and spur you on to greater achievements, or are they simply telling you what you want to hear.

    But the purpose of this challenge is not just that we should grow, but that we should grow IN CHRIST.

    Christ Centred

    In fact Paul describes his mission as proclaiming the Good News about Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. And the Good News which he proclaimed was this: That the Lord Jesus Christ died for our Sins, just as God the Father planned, in order to rescue us from the evil world in which we live. And that is why all Glory belongs to God through all the ages. Christ is the center of out faith and as such He will be at the center of any message of truth. It is through Christs death that we are able to receive forgiveness from our sins. It was his sacrifice that fulfilled all the requirements of the law so that through Christ we are set free from the constraints of the law.

    It is through Jesus that we are able to enter into a relationship with God the Father; not as servants but as his children. Christs teachings revealed a radical new life philosophy, and his life served as a practical demonstration of how this philosophy could be applied to our lives. Christs life is the example for us to follow, His death secured our salvation and through his resurrection, death no longer has any power over us. Christ is our salvation, our motivation, our inspiration and out aspiration. And any message which does not acknowledge Christ as the central tenant of our faith is not of God.

    Having the wisdom to discern can be a delicate balancing act. We need to be critical enough not to allow ourselves to be lead astray, but not so cynical that we miss Gods attempts to speak growth into our lives. We need to make sure we are not so soft headed that we get sucked in, while ensuring that we don't get so hard hearted that we miss the truth. This is by no means easy; but by trying to base our own lives on these  same six principles the task is made a lot simpler.