Here I Stand
Here I Stand
“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.”
GALATIANS 1:10
In 1521, Martin Luther was ordered to take back what he had written about the gospel. His answer has echoed for five centuries: "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me."
This year, students across HGCS are learning what it means to stand for Christ when it would be easier to please people. Through chapel, devotions and Bible classes, we're studying men and women of the Bible and of church history who stood firm in their faith, and we're asking God to make our students that kind of people.
High School Devotions
Every Wednesday this year, our high school students gather for a devotion in Here I Stand: Mentors · Missionaries · Martyrs, a series on thirty-four witnesses who stood firm for Christ across twenty centuries. Each week a teacher or pastor tells one witness’s story, and students follow along in a chapel journal with that witness’s signature quote and a question to discuss.
The one-page recaps below are for families. Each one gives the passage, a short summary of the devotion, the main points in the speaker’s own words, and the line to remember, so you can ask your student about it at dinner or in the car. Recaps are added as each week’s devotion is written up.
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Ephesians 6:13–14
The series begins with the early witnesses who would not bow: Martin Luther, Augustine, Polycarp, Ignatius, Perpetua and Felicitas, and Cyprian. Across sixteen centuries, they shared one conviction: that Christ is Lord and no earthly power may claim what belongs to him. They did not stand because they were strong; they stood because Christ held them.Week 1 – Martin Luther
Week 5 – Perpetua & Felicitas
Week 6 – Cyprian of Carthage
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Jude 3
Justin Martyr, Athanasius, J. Gresham Machen and C. S. Lewis answer a lie students hear every day: that faith is what you use when you run out of thinking. Each loved God with all his mind and defended the truth against the popular ideas of his time. The point for students: Christianity is not true because it works; it works because it is true.Week 9 – J. Gresham Machen
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2 Timothy 4:2
From Jan Hus’s pulpit in Prague to John Bunyan’s cell in Bedford, this part follows the people who put Scripture into ordinary hands and hearts, including William Tyndale, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and George Whitefield. They staked everything on the power of God’s Word, and some died to give students the Bible they now carry so casually.Week 13 – John Calvin
Week 14 – Jonathan Edwards
Week 15 – George Whitefield
Week 16 – John Bunyan
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Acts 5:29
John Knox, Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, John Newton, and William Wilberforce carried their faith into throne rooms, parliaments, and public squares, and Latimer and Ridley carried it into the fire. The lesson is a balanced one: Christians honor authority but obey God above it, and God’s grace restores those who stumble under pressure.Week 17 – John Knox
Week 18 – Thomas Cranmer
Week 19 – Latimer & Ridley
Week 20 – John Newton
Week 21 – William Wilberforce
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Matthew 28:19
These are the pillars of the modern missionary movement: William Carey, Adoniram Judson, George Müller, John G. Paton, Hudson Taylor, and Amy Carmichael. A cobbler, a scholar, an orphan-keeper, a villager, a doctor, and a single woman: none were extraordinary by birth, but all were extraordinary in trust. This part is preached with the expectation that God may be calling some of the students in the room.Week 22 – William Carey
Week 23 – Adoniram Judson
Week 24 – George Müller
Week 25 – John G. Paton
Week 26 – Hudson Taylor
Week 27 – Amy Carmichael
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2 Corinthians 4:16–17
The series ends in the dark on purpose, because every student will one day need a faith that holds in suffering. John Owen, David Brainerd, Charles Spurgeon, Richard Wurmbrand, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie ten Boom, and Jim Elliot and the Ecuador Five held on through prison, illness, depression, and loss, and they show that grace shines brightest where it is darkest.Week 28 – John Owen
Week 29 – David Brainerd
Week 30 – Charles Spurgeon
Week 31 – Richard Wurmbrand
Week 32 – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Week 33 – Corrie ten Boom
Week 34 – Jim Elliot & the Ecuador Five