Good and Bad People-Pleasing

00:00:04.000 | Good people pleasing versus bad people pleasing.

00:00:09.000 | There's a difference between the two, so how do we know the difference?

00:00:13.000 | We need to figure it out, and we will today thanks to yet another excellent email question from a listener.

00:00:18.000 | This time a listener named Nathaniel.

00:00:20.000 | "Pastor John, hello. I need your help on something.

00:00:22.000 | How do I quit seeking to please every person in my life and focus on pleasing God?

00:00:28.000 | I want to apply Galatians 1 10 to my life. Can you walk me through what this means?

00:00:33.000 | I'm unable to discover God's plan for me because I'm constantly making decisions

00:00:38.000 | based on how it pleases or displeases everyone around me. Thank you."

00:00:44.000 | People pleasing is a great problem for many people.

00:00:49.000 | I would say probably for most people because nobody likes to be criticized.

00:00:57.000 | Nobody likes to be rejected.

00:01:00.000 | We want to be affirmed and admired and accepted,

00:01:05.000 | and therefore everybody is vulnerable to this temptation.

00:01:10.000 | And when we don't get victory over this temptation of people pleasing,

00:01:17.000 | it can become a very unhealthy, controlling neediness that keeps us in bondage

00:01:27.000 | rather than liberating us to do God's will with joy.

00:01:31.000 | The first thing I think we need to do is to clarify what aspects of pleasing others are good

00:01:41.000 | and what aspects of pleasing others are harmful.

00:01:45.000 | Nathaniel, who asked this question, has his eye on Galatians 1 10, where Paul says,

00:01:52.000 | "Am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

00:01:57.000 | Or am I trying to please man?

00:01:59.000 | If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."

00:02:04.000 | Paul says the same thing, the same kind of thing elsewhere.

00:02:09.000 | For example, 2 Thessalonians 2 4, he says,

00:02:14.000 | "As we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel,

00:02:19.000 | so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts."

00:02:28.000 | And he tells slaves in Ephesians 6 5, "Obey your earthly masters,

00:02:32.000 | not by way of eye service as people pleasers,

00:02:36.000 | but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart."

00:02:42.000 | And people said of Jesus in Mark 12 14,

00:02:45.000 | "Teacher, we know that you are true and do not care about anyone's opinion,

00:02:54.000 | for you are not swayed by appearances, but truly teach the way of God."

00:03:01.000 | So clearly, Paul and Jesus put a high premium

00:03:07.000 | on not being controlled by what other people think.

00:03:13.000 | Both of them say or imply that if you live to please other people,

00:03:20.000 | you will not live for the sake of the truth,

00:03:23.000 | which clearly means you won't live for the sake of the will of God.

00:03:27.000 | The opinion of others will become your God

00:03:30.000 | and will lead you around as if you had a hook in your nose

00:03:34.000 | and you will not be authentic and you will not be obedient

00:03:40.000 | and you will not be able to fulfill God's purpose for you on the earth,

00:03:44.000 | which is to glorify him rather than to esteem the opinion of others so highly.

00:03:50.000 | However, having said all that against people pleasing,

00:03:55.000 | that's not the whole story, is it, when it comes to pleasing others?

00:04:01.000 | Because Paul said in Romans 15, 2,

00:04:04.000 | "Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up."

00:04:11.000 | And in 1 Corinthians 10, 32, he says,

00:04:14.000 | "Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God,

00:04:18.000 | just as I try to please everyone in everything I do,

00:04:24.000 | not seeking my own advantage,

00:04:27.000 | but that of many that they may be saved."

00:04:32.000 | Now, here's the reason those two sets of teachings

00:04:37.000 | about people pleasing are not contradictory.

00:04:42.000 | The efforts to please people in both Romans 15 and 1 Corinthians 10

00:04:47.000 | are not to curry the favor of others nor to avoid criticism.

00:04:55.000 | This effort to please in those two texts is not self-exalting

00:05:02.000 | and it's not self-protecting.

00:05:05.000 | It is entirely in the service of doing good to others,

00:05:12.000 | not enhancing one's own position or protecting oneself.

00:05:16.000 | In the one text, Paul says he pleases others to build them up,

00:05:21.000 | and in the other he says he pleases people in order that they may be saved.

00:05:27.000 | This is not evidence of an insecure, unhealthy person

00:05:33.000 | who needs the approval of others.

00:05:36.000 | This is evidence of a very healthy, strong, loving person

00:05:40.000 | who lives for the good of others.

00:05:43.000 | Sometimes he's able to commend the gospel by pleasing people.

00:05:48.000 | Other times he must defend the gospel by displeasing people.

00:05:53.000 | And in both cases, his own identity remains constant.

00:05:59.000 | He's not a chameleon changing colors in order to fit in

00:06:05.000 | for the sake of his own enhancement or protection.

00:06:09.000 | He's living for others, whether that calls for displeasing them or pleasing them.

00:06:16.000 | So what needs to happen if we find ourselves in bondage to the opinion of others?

00:06:24.000 | The first thing that needs to happen is that our God needs to become bigger.

00:06:31.000 | In our lives and in our minds and in our hearts,

00:06:35.000 | God must increase and people must decrease.

00:06:40.000 | Ed Welch wrote a whole book called "When People Are Big and God Is Small."

00:06:47.000 | That's a great title.

00:06:49.000 | That's the basic problem.

00:06:51.000 | People and their opinion loom large in our minds and hearts,

00:06:56.000 | while God is a distant, scarcely discernible influence on what we feel and do.

00:07:05.000 | That has to change.

00:07:07.000 | So by prayer and study of God's Word,

00:07:12.000 | we should focus on the majesty and glory of God in all his attributes and all his ways.

00:07:21.000 | We need to preach to ourselves that there really is no comparison

00:07:26.000 | between knowing God and knowing people,

00:07:30.000 | between pleasing God and pleasing people,

00:07:33.000 | between treasuring God and treasuring people.

00:07:36.000 | God is infinitely greater, more glorious, more satisfying,

00:07:41.000 | more rewarding than all the people in the world put together.

00:07:46.000 | So that's our first task.

00:07:48.000 | Pray and study the greatness of God into our hearts and minds.

00:07:55.000 | The second thing that needs to happen, and it happens by means of the first,

00:07:59.000 | is that when God becomes big, our identity in relation to God becomes secure, firm, glorious.

00:08:11.000 | If the creator of the universe is your father,

00:08:15.000 | and you are an heir of everything he owns,

00:08:20.000 | how could the opinion of, say, oh, a million people, a million mere humans,

00:08:27.000 | control your sense of destiny, your sense of who you are?

00:08:32.000 | Listen to Paul's logic in 1 Corinthians 3.21, following.

00:08:38.000 | "Let no one boast in men."

00:08:41.000 | Now remember, what was happening was some were saying, "I'm of Christ.

00:08:44.000 | I'm of Apollos. I'm of Peter. I'm of Paul,"

00:08:46.000 | meaning I'm getting my strokes and my identity from lining up with the really famous guy,

00:08:51.000 | the really good guy.

00:08:53.000 | These are needy people.

00:08:56.000 | Okay, so, "Let no one boast in men," he says.

00:09:00.000 | Here's the argument.

00:09:02.000 | "For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death

00:09:10.000 | or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."

00:09:20.000 | What an argument.

00:09:21.000 | The fact that Christians own everything, all are yours.

00:09:25.000 | The fact that Christians own everything as the children of God

00:09:31.000 | and that it's only a matter of time until we come into our inheritance

00:09:35.000 | shows how utterly foolish it is to boast about famous people that we know

00:09:41.000 | or whose favor we have obtained.

00:09:44.000 | It's ridiculous.

00:09:46.000 | It's a sign that we don't really believe who we are as the children of God.

00:09:54.000 | And thirdly, which is simply an implication of the first two,

00:09:59.000 | we need to be deeply persuaded that our reward is great in heaven, very great,

00:10:06.000 | precisely because we incur the displeasure of other people in our faithfulness to Jesus.

00:10:19.000 | Listen to Jesus in Matthew 5.11.

00:10:22.000 | "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you

00:10:29.000 | and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

00:10:37.000 | Rejoice."

00:10:39.000 | You can't do that if you're a people pleaser.

00:10:41.000 | "Rejoice and be glad."

00:10:44.000 | Why?

00:10:45.000 | "For great is your reward in heaven."

00:10:48.000 | So instead of being depressed or controlled by the rejection

00:10:53.000 | and the disapproval of others, Jesus says,

00:10:56.000 | "If you're walking in obedience to me, that very rejection will result in a great reward."

00:11:03.000 | We need to believe that.

00:11:05.000 | We need to believe that our reward in heaven is great.

00:11:08.000 | I get so sick of people talking about pie in the sky,

00:11:12.000 | bye-bye, having no relevance for this life.

00:11:15.000 | Good grief!

00:11:16.000 | What could be more relevant in Jesus' argument here?

00:11:19.000 | If you have the resources to rejoice in the face of being scorned, persecuted, reviled, rejected,

00:11:26.000 | you've got resources to love your enemy like crazy.

00:11:29.000 | We need to believe that our reward is great in heaven.

00:11:33.000 | It's a lot better than pie.

00:11:36.000 | So those are my three steps toward being set free from the bondage of people pleasing.

00:11:45.000 | May God make your identity as his child, who will inherit everything, firm.

00:11:53.000 | Make your identity as his child stable, firm, deep, unshakable.

00:12:01.000 | And realize how great your reward is while walking in obedience to Jesus

00:12:08.000 | precisely because you incur the displeasure of others, not because you avoid it.

00:12:15.000 | Yeah, very helpful trio of steps.

00:12:17.000 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:12:18.000 | And thank you for joining us today.

00:12:19.000 | You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast,

00:12:24.000 | all at AskPastorJohn.com.

00:12:27.000 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and I will see you back here on Wednesday.

00:12:30.000 | Actually, both of us will see you back here on Wednesday for a special episode, Pastor John.

00:12:34.000 | And I will both be in the studio to give you a year-end update on our ministry year at Desiring God.

00:12:41.000 | We have a lot to share.

00:12:42.000 | Looking forward to that.

00:12:43.000 | And that is up next time.

00:12:45.000 | We'll see you Wednesday.

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