Four Ways to Kill the Sin of Habitual Suspicion
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Eliza, a podcast listener from the Philippines, writes in, "Pastor John, thank you for your
00:00:09.160 | episode on praising others but not flattering them."
00:00:13.000 | That was episode number 719 in the archive.
00:00:15.880 | "The flip side of flattery is where I find myself.
00:00:19.400 | In receiving encouragement, I immediately question motives and assume that people are
00:00:23.720 | praising me only in order to get something from me, which is flattery, as you described.
00:00:30.480 | So how do I receive praise from others without doubting their motives?"
00:00:34.560 | Well, let's start with the biblical teaching that this kind of doubting or suspicion as
00:00:41.520 | a habit is unloving and therefore wrong.
00:00:47.560 | Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, verse 7, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes
00:00:55.680 | all things, endures all things."
00:01:00.800 | And the very least that Paul means when he says, "Love believes all things and hopes
00:01:08.160 | all things," the least that he means is that we should not be unduly suspicious about other
00:01:14.760 | people's motives.
00:01:17.920 | Love hopes for the best from people, not the worst.
00:01:22.820 | Love does to others what we would have done to us, and we don't like people to second-guess
00:01:30.160 | our motives.
00:01:31.160 | You don't like it when people impute to you motives that are not there, so you shouldn't
00:01:38.040 | do that to others either.
00:01:41.320 | He probably already knows this, but we needed to put Bible behind it.
00:01:45.820 | So what can we do if we find ourselves feeling these sinful suspicions when someone compliments
00:01:54.920 | or praises us?
00:01:57.340 | And I can think of at least four simple things.
00:02:02.480 | One, this is a kind of anxiety, namely the anxiety that people's praise is not real praise,
00:02:09.000 | but manipulation.
00:02:10.000 | They don't really think we're as good as they just said we are.
00:02:13.720 | So Jesus' words about anxiety, I think in Matthew 6:27, apply here.
00:02:19.760 | He says, "And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his span of life?"
00:02:26.420 | In other words, Jesus really did think that it would make a difference if we remind ourselves
00:02:34.640 | that this anxious suspicion of others' motives does no good.
00:02:39.880 | It doesn't help us.
00:02:41.560 | It doesn't add anything to our life.
00:02:44.180 | It only makes relationships harder and not better.
00:02:47.400 | Jesus thought that thinking that would help, so I think thinking it helps too, and I commend
00:02:53.960 | it.
00:02:54.960 | Don't do it because it's useless.
00:02:57.600 | Number two, search your own heart.
00:03:01.240 | Could it be that your suspicion of their ulterior motives of others is owing largely to the
00:03:10.920 | fact that you yourself are so prone to operate this way when you praise, and you are reading
00:03:19.000 | your own motives into theirs?
00:03:23.140 | So increase your own habit of praising others whenever there's real reason to praise them,
00:03:34.220 | just because you enjoy spilling over with admiration that you feel.
00:03:40.340 | And let thankfulness overflow to God when somebody does something good in your presence.
00:03:46.780 | Seek it out, and maybe the more you form the habit of praising others this way, the less
00:03:53.740 | you will automatically assume others would do anything differently for you.
00:03:58.980 | I'm really preaching to myself when I say that, because I think most of the times when
00:04:03.500 | I'm reading negative things into people, it's because I've seen them in myself, and I suspect
00:04:10.380 | if I felt them, they are feeling them.
00:04:12.780 | That's where that came from.
00:04:14.620 | Number three, resolve that when someone praises you, you will return genuine thanks, but will
00:04:25.580 | not even think of some kind of payback that they could get from you.
00:04:30.540 | You won't give them any payback.
00:04:32.820 | And if they are after something, maybe your authentic gladness in receiving the praise
00:04:39.340 | minus any payback will dry up the ulterior motives, because they don't work.
00:04:45.980 | Meanwhile, you get the pleasure of their praise without worrying about their motives.
00:04:52.340 | And the last thing would be to cover all of this with prayer.
00:04:57.660 | Pray and ask God to fill you with love and to take away the bent towards suspicion.
00:05:06.060 | Thank you, Pastor John, for answering this follow-up question.
00:05:10.300 | And we were talking earlier about APJ episode number 719, "How Do I Praise Others But Avoid
00:05:16.140 | Flattery?"
00:05:17.580 | You can check out that podcast in the archive at our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:05:22.300 | Again, that was episode number 719.
00:05:27.460 | Well, who is Jesus?
00:05:31.580 | That's a perennial question, and there must be as many diverse answers to that question
00:05:36.260 | as there is about any other person who ever walked on planet Earth.
00:05:41.580 | We'll be looking at that question closer, and more importantly, we'll be looking at
00:05:45.220 | the answer tomorrow.
00:05:46.220 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:05:48.300 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper.
00:05:51.820 | [music]
00:05:52.820 | [music]
00:05:52.820 | [music]
00:05:57.820 | [BLANK_AUDIO]