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  Religion
Pleasing Man Or God? By Pastor Phillip Howle web posted May 12, 2010 RELIGION – Alright, I am going to be very transparent today. I got slapped in the face this morning by a little phrase of a little verse in the Bible from 1 Thessalonians 2:4 “Our purpose is to please God, not people.” As a pastor, one of the daily hurdles (wrongly and sinfully) I face is seeking to please people. If you have never been a pastor you don’t really know how it feels to have 250 people who all know how to do your job and spend your time better than you, and many of them have no problem telling you this often. One thing I ask, for each of you reading this is, don’t you be that person. Instead, love, pray for, and encourage your pastor daily, especially if it is me! Nevertheless, so my desire to please people poisons the good I seek to do. I find myself going to visit the sick and the elderly in the church, and then seeking to go to enough ball games for this child and that child, wondering did I get to speak to so and so Sunday morning, and was my sermon good enough and resonate with enough people. Then I wind up wondering are people happy with me instead of asking is God happy with me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love and desire to be with the people that make up Christ’s church, that is why I became a pastor, but I find at times I end up seeking the approval of others above God. Part of my drive to please people comes from the fear that if a person is not pleased with me they will then gripe “He only saw me once” or “He did not speak to me.” Then they will tell their friends all about what I did not do for them; I just wish they told people the good their pastor did do for them. So in my head I get to believing that keeping people happy is what grows the church, and even pleases God. But this is wrong, dead wrong. I know it. Thankfully I have not had to compromise my integrity or God’s Word over it, but I don’t want to live like this! Ed Welch, in his great book “When People are Big and God is Small,” writes we fear people for three reasons. “1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us. 2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us. 3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us. These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as “bigger” (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do. (p.23)” People, in essence, become an idol in our lives that replaces God. The book then further exposed my heart as he wrote on page 46 “What is the result of people-idolatry? As in all idolatry, the idol we choose to worship soon owns us. The object we fear overcomes us…the idol becomes huge and rules us. It tells us how to think, what to feel, and how to act… what to wear. The whole strategy (of people-pleasing) backfires. We never expect that using people to meet our desires leaves us enslaved to them.” So when I read from 1 Thessalonians 2:4 “Our purpose is to please God, not people” and thought about making people an idol that replaced God I became very convicted. I mean this is not the way life and pastoral ministry should be done. Constantly worrying over what someone will say or think about something I do. But instead I should be excited and be liberated to serve God, striving to please Him, and let people say what they will. I want to be free to do this; I am going to work on this. It will take courage and faith in God, because I know that pleasing God first may mean that some people may not be as pleased with me as they were when they were an idol in my life. I am encouraged by the Apostle Paul who said in Galatians 1:10 “Obviously, I’m not trying to be a people pleaser! No, I am trying to please God. If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.” I want to live out the old song that George Beverly Shea would sing: I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause; I’d rather have Jesus than worldwide fame, I’d rather be true to His holy name Than to be the king of a vast domain Or be held in sin’s dread sway; I’d rather have Jesus than anything This world affords today. Now, I tell you this because my assumption is that many of you live in constant fear of what people think. This is not all bad, as we are called to live holy lives and not to unnecessarily offend people or turn them off from Christ. But, I am guessing right now many adults reading this are struggling with elementary school peer-pressure. People have become idols in your life. You worship them by buying stuff you can’t afford, by compromising your morality at a party, staying silent when God is mocked, and going with the flow when the flow takes you away from God. Many of you are far more concerned about looking stupid (a fear of people) than you are about acting sinfully (fear of the Lord). The Puritan writer William Gurnall addressed this as he wrote “We fear men so much, because we fear God so little.” What is the fear of God? Paul David Tripp sums it up “To fear God means that my life is structured by a sense of awe, worship, and obedience that flows out of recognizing Him and His glory. He becomes the single most important reference point for all that I desire, think, do, and say. God is my motive and God is my goal. The fear of God is meant to be the central organizing force in my life.” (Age of Opportunity, p. 217) Notice people are removed from the equation. So let me close with a list of reasons of why you should seek to cultivate fear of God and let go of fear of man. The fear of God brings amazing benefits: 1. “The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant” (Ps. 25:14). 2. “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them” (Ps. 34:7). 3. “The Lord has compassion on those who fear Him” (Ps. 103:13). 4. “The Lord favors those who fear Him” (Ps. 147:11). 5. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7; 9:10). 6. “The fear of the Lord prolongs life” (Prov. 10:27). 7. “The fear of the Lord leads to life, that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil” (Prov. 19:23). 8. “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor and life” (Prov. 22:4). 9. As David says to the Lord, “How great is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who fear You” (Ps. 31:19). So, clearly, fearing God is to your great advantage and fearing man a trap. (Taken from Daryl Wingerd, The Importance of Fearing the God You Love) So, pray for me and I will pray for you that we all may be liberated from the shackles of trying to please man and be free and happy to please our God and Savior! Pastor Phillip © Copyright 2010
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