You Don't Have What It Takes : "You Can't Please Everyone"

Pastor Phillips’ Sermon

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

You can’t please everyone. We know that’s true, don’t we? You can’t please everyone but still sometimes it just seems like our life is a series of desperate attempts to please the people around us. You can’t please everyone. Think of it. Jesus, the only one who ever lived and never sinned, Jesus, you’d think He never sinned so everybody must have loved Him, right? Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. He was perfect in every way and yet they hated Him. You can’t please everyone.

We know that’s true but sometimes it seems like the message doesn’t get from here to here. It seems like we can intellectually know it but in our hearts, we keep attempting and striving to get approval, seeking to please everyone. It’s one of those struggles that I’ve had throughout life, to try to please people. I think maybe it comes from having a strong father who was a Marine, who knows why? But I just have this struggle. I want everybody to like me. I want everybody to be happy. When I make my visits in the hospital or I go to see our shut-ins, members of our church that are homebound, I want them to have a good experience. I want them to feel good.

When we have our support groups for people who are grieving or going through a hard time of divorce, I want those groups to go well and I want people to think I’m doing a good job. I want my children to think they have a good dad and as I parent them, sometimes I feel like, “Oh, I just have to tell them how it is but I can’t because I want them to like me.” I want them to think I’m a good dad and I want them to think I’m fun.

I want my wife to think she’s married to a wonderful man so that our life will be great. I want to please people. And I know some of you struggle with that, too. You want people to like you. Who would want otherwise? We all want people to like us and that desire to please can be a big problem.

I remember a few years back when Kim’s cousin got involved in one of these pyramid schemes and the whole family felt like they had joined a cult. Nobody wanted to talk to them but everybody talked about them and talked about how troubling it was and frustrating that anytime they got together, all they talked about was this pyramid scheme. Well, I didn’t like it either but I never came out and told them. “Please don’t talk about that. Let’s talk about the Hawkeyes or something else.” I just kind of kept it to myself.

That’s not a new problem, though, wanting to please people. In fact, the earlier reading from Galatians shows that Paul struggled with this, not in his personal life, but the church. There were all kinds of things where people were trying to play politics and they were struggling with an idea of how to become right with God. It was a brand new church in Galatia. Some people said that in order to be a Christian, you had to be circumcised. Other people said, “Well, circumcision’s not that important. What’s really important is maintaining all the Jewish traditions and culture and obeying all their rules. And other people said, “Well, actually, both of those are important. You need to obey all those rules and you need to be circumcised to be a Christian.” And still other people said, “You don’t need to obey any of that. Just trust in Jesus.”

So Paul entered into this situation with his letter to the Galatians and he went there to fix the problem. So what do you think he did? Well, his goal was to go there and preach that it’s Jesus alone. That’s all you need. You don’t need all this other stuff.  Oh, it’s nice to carry on tradition. It’s nice to have the culture of our ancestors and it’s nice to follow some of those Jewish rules. I think they’re good rules. They’re not bad rules but they’re not necessary for faith in Christ. They don’t save you. It’s Jesus only that saves you.

So he came with this bold message and he preached it with all his heart but as he preached, he realized some people weren’t happy. In fact, a pretty big group wasn’t happy. And the next day, he saw his approval rating was plummeting and it was the year of elections and they were going to vote for the new apostles and he wanted to get reelected and so he kind of changed his message and softened things and even skipped some parts of the gospel just to get people to like him. Just kidding. Paul would never skip any of the gospel.

Remember our reading earlier? “If anyone preaches you a gospel different than the one we preach to you, let him be anathema.” Anathema. That’s the Greek word. It means “under God’s curse.” Paul wasn’t going to compromise the message, but the pressure was there. And this is what he says, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

That’s how critical this issue is. If we’re trying to please people all the time, whether it’s our children or our spouse or our coworkers or our boss or the family, whatever it might be, if we’re trying to please people all the time, we’re failing to please God. We’re failing as servants of God because our focus is not where it ought to be. Our focus needs to be on Him.

In fact, becoming obsessed with what people think about you is the fastest way to forget what God thinks about you. Why is that a problem? Well, think about it. It’s a problem because the opinions of all people are different. They’re subjective and arbitrary. One person loves one thing. Another person despises it. One person likes the Hawkeyes. Another person likes the Cyclones. Everything is subjective. You can never please everybody. You spend your whole time catering to all these different interests and different feelings and never finding peace in yourself. And in your efforts and in this process, you forget what God says about you, that you are precious and worth dying for.

So there are four basic characteristics of people pleasers and if you want to raise your hand along with me when one of these hits home, you can do that. The first characteristic of people pleasers is that they take most criticism personally. Anybody in that club? I’m in that club. If somebody says something mean or unkind or offhand, it can take me out of the game for awhile. I really have to struggle with that and get my focus back.

Think about that. How often has somebody ruined your day with an offhand comment at work? How many times have you lost sleep over your job review? Do the words of your childhood friends haunt you sometimes thinking of the names or the things they said. We take criticism personally and it might not be personal at all. It might be kids being kids. It might be a coworker having a bad day. It might be a good job review but that one word sets us off and we struggle with it.

The second characteristic of people pleasers is that they have an extraordinary fear of rejection. What will you do to keep from being rejected? Have you ever compromised something really important just so that you wouldn’t be rejected?

Third characteristic: They find it hard to express their true feelings. Hum. “If I say how I really feel, you might not like me.” “If I say how I really feel, you might not think I’m doing a good job as a father.” “If I say how I really feel, we probably won’t be having lunch together.” Do you ever find yourself stuffing your feelings instead of letting people know how you feel? Do you ever share your feelings with a third party rather than the person who caused those feelings? That’s because you’re a people pleaser. You don’t want to upset the person you’re really upset with so you’re going to talk to somebody else over here. You want that other person to like you. You don’t want to mess up that situation.

The fourth characteristic of people pleasers is they have a hard time saying “no.” Is that you? When somebody asks you to do something and you really don’t want to do it, do you have a hard time saying no?

Trying to please people is a big problem, not just today. It was a problem for the people who heard Jesus speak earlier when we read the gospel. Remember the story? Jesus was preaching and “many who heard Him believed in Him. Even some of the leaders of the Jewish faith believed in Him but they would not confess their faith.” Remember why? They were afraid if they said they were followers of Jesus, they would put out of the synagogue because they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Wow.

People pleasing is a form idolatry. Now idolatry is the worship of idols or false gods and you can turn anything into a god if you want to. Anything that you give power over you becomes a god. Anything that you give control in your life becomes a god. If you devote yourself entirely to something, you are worshiping an idol. If something or someone causes you to compromise your Christian values or beliefs, then that something or someone has become a false God to you because you have put it above God.

Luther writes an explanation of the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods.” What does this mean? “We should fear, love and trust in God above all things.” Fear, love and trust in God above all things. What or who are the false gods in your life? We all struggle with them.

In your attempts to please people, what has it cost you? Everything has a cost. What have you lost because you wanted desperately to keep everyone happy? What integrity have you sacrificed? What innocence have you given up? What pain have you suffered in your attempts to please people? What did it cost those who were listening to Jesus? They feared the rejection of the Pharisees. What did it cost them? Their salvation. Their salvation. They were afraid to believe in Jesus and trust in Him. They lost their salvation.

So this disease to please has a great cost in our lives and we need to battle it. We need to fight against it and win. Faith in God is the best antidote for the fear of people. Remember this expression: Fear knocked at the door; faith answered. No one was there.

It is true that we can’t please everyone but we can please God. How? Well, we could obey the Ten Commandments. It shouldn’t be too hard. There are only ten of them. The only thing is you have to get a perfect score, not just today, your whole life. You want to hear Plan B? Plan B is that God knew we couldn’t obey His commandments perfectly. We could not please Him by our behavior and so He sent His Son, Jesus. The whole purpose that Jesus came was to die on the cross for our sins. When He died on the cross, He took all of our sins upon Himself. When He died on the cross, He took all of our sins, every time we try to please people instead of Him, every time we compromised our faith, every time we said yes when we should have said no, every time we put something ahead of Him. When He died on the cross, He took it all upon Himself. He paid for them with His precious blood.

No, we can’t please everyone and Jesus died for every time we tried to. We can’t please everyone but we can please God. Do you remember the story of Jesus’ baptism? Remember, John was baptizing Him in the Jordan River. Matthew 3 tells the story, “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John, but John tried to deter Him saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you and do you come to me?’ Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now. It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then John consented. As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened and He saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son whom I love and with Him, I am well pleased.’” Did you hear that? What is it that God the Father said about Jesus? “This is my Son whom I love. With Him, I am well pleased.” When we became Christians, when the power of the Holy Spirit created faith in our hearts, when we were transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son, when we became Christians, God said those words about us. “You are my child whom I love. With you, I am well pleased.”

Every time we confess our faith, He repeats those words. Every time we confess our sins, He repeats those words. So let’s take a moment right now to apply them to ourselves. Repeat after me: “I can’t please everyone.” I can’t please everyone. “But I am God’s child.” But I am God’s child. “He loves me.” He loves me. “And is pleased with me.” And is pleased with me. It’s not too complicated, is it?

Because we are believers in Christ, because of God’s mercy and grace, we have become pleasing to Him. It kind of begs the question then, why do we do anything that’s good or right? Why do we do anything that might please Him? It’s as simple as this. We look at Jesus on the cross, the pain He endured, the sacrifice He made, how humiliating it was, how painful it was and you see His loving face looking at yours. Isn’t it worth saying “thank you?” Isn’t it appropriate for us to do what’s right in God’s sight as a way of saying “thank you?” That’s the purpose of our efforts, to live as His children in this world. And when we do, we reflect His love and His mercy to the world around us and we teach them that God is pleased with them. Amen.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church