Pleasing God or Man?

This morning I was reading Galatians chapter one, where I read this, in verse 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."

Typically, when I think about deciding whether I will please God or man, I think about my actions - whether I will do things that please people (and I struggle with my tendency to be a "people pleaser") or God.  But I noticed that the context in which Paul brings this up is not our actions, but our words - specifically our preaching of the Gospel. 

This got me thinking about how we preach the Gospel.  It seems that in Paul's day, there were people who preached what amounted to a different gospel than the one that Paul (and the other apostles) preached.  And Paul suggests that at least part of the reason they did this was that such other gospels (not capitalized on purpose) were more pleasing to the people who listened to the preaching.  

Now, I am all for not offending people any more than we have to.  But we must not go too far in trying to make sure that our "preaching" (what I do on Sundays or what we all ought to do all week) pleases people.  I fear that some churches and some preachers have tried so hard, with good intentions, to see people gladly receive the Gospel, that they have left out some of the parts that make it less pleasing.  Have they begun to preach "another gospel"?

Whatever words we use to explain the Gospel, when we mention the concepts of sin, God's wrath, judgment, repentance, submission, self-denial, etc., many people will not be pleased.  But God will.  And when we please God by preaching the true, sometimes offensive Gospel, we prove to be genuine servants of Christ.