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[0:00] Well, it has been three weeks, and since we've met in the Sunday School Hour, we are going through the book Pleasing People by Lou Priolo.

[0:30] As we embark on our new topic or continue this topic that we have, Dave gave us five dangers to inordinate people-pleasing.

[0:41] Five dangers, and we're going to go through those very quickly, just as a way of reminder, and then we'll see three more dangers of pleasing people. The first one, the first danger that we talked about last week, is that people-pleasing enslaves us, or enslaves you, to other people.

[1:02] It enslaves you to other people. In Christ, we've been set free from other men. And Peter says in his first epistle, Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil.

[1:16] Live as servants of God. We are free men. We are free from all men. But we are to live as God's servants. And people-pleasing is going back to our old master, handing him the chains, saying, Here, put these chains back on me.

[1:34] Now tell me what to do, master. And we are not to live like that. We are free men, and people-pleasing is slavery. People-pleasing. Number two, the number two danger.

[1:48] It ironically takes from you the honor that you seek. People-pleasers are seeking honor from other people. But in a strange twist, it actually takes that honor from them.

[2:03] The people-pleaser, by all his sniveling and sneaking and rooting about for the honor of men, just gets scorned. That's what he gets for his efforts.

[2:13] There's a girl at my work where she likes to tell stories, and they're clearly lies. And the reason she's telling these stories is because she wants us, her fellow workers, to think well of her.

[2:27] But you can see right through her stories. And so the result is that no one respects her. She wants the honor. But people-pleasing doesn't get it for her.

[2:39] The lies don't help her. She doesn't get the honors she so desperately wants. Number three, people-pleasing costs you eternal rewards. It costs you eternal rewards.

[2:52] Remember the Pharisees. They did all their good works before men. And Jesus said, see the applause that those men are giving those Pharisees.

[3:02] That is all the reward that they're going to get. But you do your works in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And I think it would be apt to remind us of Jim Elliott's well-known adage that a man is no fool to give up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

[3:26] People-pleasing trades eternal rewards that we would keep forever and ever, and we exchange them for something that is so fleeting.

[3:38] People-pleasing turns us into fools. Number four, the fourth danger that we talked about last week, it blinds us to our own sin.

[3:49] People-pleasing is a form of pride. And pride is like having telescopes for eyes. Okay? If you can picture this. If you have a telescope, you can see the moon, and it's very far away, and you can see it up close.

[4:03] But you can't see yourself. And pride is like that. I can see with my prideful eye little tiny flaws in other people, but I don't see any flaws in myself.

[4:16] It blinds us to our own sin. And lastly, people-pleasing makes you favor men's opinion over God's. People-pleasing trades the thoughts of our almighty, blessed, caring God for the opinions of mortals.

[4:35] Mortals who are but a vapor. They get up in the morning, and they grow, and then by evening, they're gone. And it's like my daughter Eowyn listening to another three-year-old and this three-year-old's opinions and holding them more than my opinion.

[4:54] I mean, that's foolishness. But that's what we do. We trade wisdom for folly when we try to please people. And those who walk like a fool, those who walk in folly, will suddenly be destroyed, and wisdom will laugh at them.

[5:12] And so people-pleasing turns us into fools in another way. So we need to keep continuing to talk about the different dangers that the people-pleaser has.

[5:24] And we have three points this morning, so we're going to see eight dangers overall, but three points this morning. And the first one is that the sin of people-pleasing makes you susceptible to flattery, to manipulation, and deceit.

[5:41] People-pleasing makes you susceptible to manipulation, to flattery, and deceit. People-pleasing turns you into an ox ready for the slaughter.

[5:53] That's the picture the Bible uses. That when you are flattered and you hear that smooth talk and you take it in and you live according to it, you become an ox.

[6:05] Now, think about before there were big factories and things like that to take care of how to slaughter an ox. In the biblical times, what would you do? One or two men would take an ox out and they would smooth talk him, keep him calm, tell him what he wants to hear, and then they would slaughter him.

[6:26] And that's the picture that the Bible uses. Solomon tells us a story in Proverbs 7 of a youth who lacked judgment. And he met an adulterous woman.

[6:38] And the adulterous woman used smooth talk. She used flattery. And this is what Proverbs 7, 21, 23 says. With persuasive words, she led him astray.

[6:50] She seduced him with her smooth talk. And all at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.

[7:09] So how do you become an ox? How do you become a fool? Well, you listen to the flatterer. You try to please people. And so you open yourself up to be flattered.

[7:22] And if you're eager to please other people, then you're going to be eager to listen when they say something nice about you. So flattery comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.

[7:34] It's like presents under the Christmas tree. Right? Some are big and some are small. They're shaped this way. They're shaped that way. They have different wrapping. But underneath, flattery has one goal, and that's manipulation.

[7:48] And if you want to be manipulated, if you want to be deceived, then listen to the flatterer. The Bible says, the man that flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.

[8:01] Spreads a net, and you capture the person that way. Listen to our author. Flattery is a verbal snare. It's a cunning and deceitful kind of praise intended to trap and hurt the unsuspecting and to benefit the one who laid it.

[8:20] Flattery makes the good about you seem better than it is, and the bad about you seem less than it is. So that's what flattery is. And like I said, it comes in all sorts of different shapes and sizes, and we're going to look at some of those different kinds of flattery this morning.

[8:37] It will help you to see how dangerous people-pleasing is. If you can see how deceptive and how many different ways people will flatter and manipulate you if you're a people-pleaser.

[8:51] The author gives seven or eight different kinds of flattery. We're going to go over a few of them. The first one that he gives us is, he calls it the devilish flattery.

[9:03] The devilish flattery. And this kind of flattery is, it comes with a package, it's called the temptation. When temptation comes, this is part of temptation.

[9:13] You are flattered. And he calls it devilish because this is the tactic that Satan uses when he comes to someone to tempt them. When Satan came to Eve in the garden, what did he tell her?

[9:29] If you eat the fruit from the tree, what will happen? What will you be like? You'll be like God. Is that true?

[9:39] In a way, maybe, but in most ways, no. It was flattery. He was telling her that the end will be better than what it really was going to be.

[9:52] That you will be better than what you really will be. Satan flattered Eve. And he made the end seem better than what it was. And she fell.

[10:03] And Adam fell. Satan used this form of flattery when, remember during the temptation, in the wilderness. At one point, Satan took Jesus to the highest point of the temple.

[10:15] And he quoted scripture concerning Jesus. But it was cunningly used. It was wrongfully used. It had the wrong intentions. This is what Satan said.

[10:28] He, that's God, will command his angels concerning you. And they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. So he was saying, Jesus, you can jump because God has promised that if you do this, that not one of your foot, not any of your feet will strike a stone.

[10:48] You won't die. You won't perish. You're special. Those were the words that Satan was using. Jesus, you're special. You can put God to the test. And you can get away with it.

[11:01] Well, Jesus was special, wasn't he? And those were true. But Jesus was not so special that he could test God and not sin. And so, Satan used flattery against Jesus.

[11:18] And it didn't work. When others are tempting you, listen for the flattery. They are making the end. They're making it seem better than what it is.

[11:29] There's also revengeful flattery. This is the kind of flattery that someone uses when they want to destroy you, to hurt you.

[11:39] Proverbs 26, 24 says, He who hates disguises it with his lips, but he lays up deceit in his heart. When he speaks graciously, do not believe him, for there are seven abominations in his heart.

[11:53] See, the person who's really wise or cunning about revenge isn't going to show his cards.

[12:05] He's going to hide them in his heart. And he's going to slowly build up the destruction that awaits you. Genesis 34 tells the story of how a Canaanite ruler raped a daughter of Jacob.

[12:21] Her name was Dinah. And she was raped. And her brothers, Simeon and Levi, took it upon themselves to revenge their sister. To avenge their sister.

[12:32] They didn't charge into the city with their swords drawn and their hacking and hewing, trying to kill as many people as they can. And they came with deceit and with flattery.

[12:43] And it worked better, as far as that goes, than any amount of sword fighting would have done. They said, they were friendly and they said, We would like to give you Dinah as your wife.

[12:57] I mean, you raped her and now you want to marry her. We would love to give you her as your wife. We would love for our peoples and your people to become one.

[13:07] And we could be one group. But the one problem is you're not circumcised. And if you would just circumcise yourself and you're in the whole town, then we would be glad to give you Dinah and form an alliance.

[13:23] So totally, like, the only person I could think of who would fall for something like this would be like Gomer Pyle. And they're like, okay, that sounds like a good idea. And so they're all circumcised.

[13:35] And as you can imagine, what happens then? Well, they're all laid up. They're all recovering. Simeon and Levi do come to town. And this time they do bring the sword.

[13:46] And they kill everyone. They kill all the men. They kill the men who raped their sister, the man who raped their sister. And they kill every man in the whole town. Flattery hid the sword on that day.

[13:59] And to this day, flattery still hides the sword. If you let someone flatter you and just let it go on, they're going to end up destroying you. There's slavish flattery.

[14:12] And this is the kind of flattery that when the flatterer is enslaved to some sin, to some lust, that he will use to get what he wants.

[14:25] How many women have fallen to men who flatter them and they sin sexually? Or how many people crawl up the corporate ladder using flattery to get more and more money?

[14:38] Paul said about the false teachers, For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of naive people.

[14:51] The people are naive. The flatterer wants money. And so the flatterer flatters the naive person in order to get money. So pleasing people, inordinate pleasing people, makes you naive.

[15:06] It makes you easy prey when the wicked come calling. There's cowardly flattery. And that happens all the time.

[15:18] It's probably in places like this where we're too afraid to tell someone the truth. And so we flatter them and don't rebuke them. We're so eager to please people that we miss opportunities to actually do them good.

[15:33] That's what cowardly flattery is about. There's covetous flattery. He wants money. And he flatters those with money in order to get it. Paul was defensive about this because a lot of people were accusing him that, Paul, when you come to town, you flatter everyone.

[15:52] And so that's how you make your living. And we've gone over this in previous times. But Paul was defensive about this because he wanted to make sure that everyone realized that he was not using flattery.

[16:04] That he was being honest. And he said, for neither at any time did we use flattering words, as you know, nor a cloak for covetousness. God is witness.

[16:15] He calls God in as a witness to bear to the fact that we've never flattered anyone for financial gain. But people pleasers are ready made.

[16:26] People pleasers are ready made to be flattered, to have their money taken from them, to be milked dry, to be scammed, because they want to hear what the flatterer says.

[16:42] So our topic today, of course, is pleasing people and the dangers of pleasing people. And we're talking about flattery. So how does the people pleaser get to accept the flatterer's words so easily?

[16:58] Why is the people pleaser so easily duped by the flatterer? And our author gives us six steps of how the approval junkie goes from pleasing people to being totally taken in with flattery and all of its dangers.

[17:18] There are six steps. We're going to go through them quickly. Step one, the people pleaser has a desire for man's approval. That's what we're talking about. The people pleaser has a desire for man's approval.

[17:32] And that's to say that he secretly wishes that everyone thinks he's better than what he is, that all his best and good things are better than what they are, and that all of his bad things are not really as bad as they seem, that they're actually knowable in a way.

[17:47] He likes to be thought of better than he really deserves. Then you go from step one to step two. He's eager to hear exaggerated accounts of himself.

[17:58] He wants to be thought better of, so he's really eager. His ears are wide open. He wants to hear when people say good things about him. He wants to hear glowing accounts of himself.

[18:13] Paul had the opposite desire. He said in 2 Corinthians 12, So no one will think more of me than what is warranted by what I do or say.

[18:24] Paul wanted to be known for what he did and what he said honestly. But people pleasing loves to hear others. The people pleaser loves to hear others embellish the truth about him, about his character.

[18:37] Step three, the people pleaser starts believing what the flatterer says, the flatterer's interpretation. He knows that the flatterer's not being totally honest, but there's just something really attractive about it, and he starts believing it.

[18:55] He actually starts believing the lie. Step four, he puts his heart onto the lie. He sets his heart on the lie, which means he falls in love with it. He loves that the flatterer is telling him these good things.

[19:11] He tells me what I want to hear. And so his opinion is more important than other people's opinion. He puts value in the flatterer's opinion.

[19:23] So the flatterer lies, and he thinks the lie is very important. Step five, the people pleaser seeks opportunities for others to flatter him.

[19:35] So it's not enough just for a few people to be telling the lie and believing the lie. He wants more people to believe the lie. And so he starts to act that way.

[19:46] He starts fishing for compliments. He creates opportunities where people can flatter him and tell this lie about him. He starts living for the flatterer.

[19:58] He wants the flatterer to think well of him, so he starts living in order to please him. And then step six, and this is the final one, he chooses friends who are willing to lie about him to others.

[20:11] The flatterer wants this lie to be as big as possible, to take in as many people as possible, because he wants to be thought well of by as many people as possible. And so he starts choosing his friends who believe the lie and who are willing to tell others about the lie and spread the message.

[20:30] And soon the people pleaser only has friends that encourage him in his delusion. So think of some fabulous pop star or something like Britney Spears or someone like that.

[20:46] Do you generally think that they have friends that really care about them, or do they have friends that flatter them, that flatter the star in order to get what they want?

[20:59] Listen to the 17th century Puritan pastor Henry Hurst. This is not a new thing. Many thousands among great ones and rich ones cannot live without such extravagant applauders of their persons and conduct.

[21:15] And we justly wonder how they bear with patience the extravagant, notorious, incredible falsities of these parasites. Parasites.

[21:27] That's what the flatterer is, and it's a good word for them. They suck the life out of you one way or the other. They live to destroy you. And people pleasing puts a big handle on your back and lets you be manipulated by the flatterer, by anyone who wants to come and tell you a lie.

[21:46] And if you are a people pleaser and the flatterer gets control of you, they can do whatever they want with you. They can push you this way. They can push you that way.

[21:58] The flatterer manipulates and deceives the person into getting what they want. And it might be money. It might be sex. It might be revenge. It could be any number of things.

[22:11] But people pleasing enslaves you to the flatterer. It enslaves you to men. And it turns you into a dupe. That was a long first point.

[22:26] Do you have any questions? Any opinions? Anything? Okay. People pleasing makes you susceptible to flattery, manipulation, to deceit.

[22:41] That's point one. The second point is that sinful people pleasing makes the people pleaser susceptible to many other temptations. It makes you susceptible to many other temptations.

[22:54] Our author gives us ten other temptations that you could be easily ensnared with if you're a people pleaser. But we don't have time for that. We've talked about some of them before.

[23:05] So we're just going to pick out a few and talk about them. And these might be a little bit of review. But it'll be a good reminder. People pleasers have a hard time saying no when they should.

[23:20] People pleasers have a hard time saying no when they should. And as we're going through these temptations, examine yourself. I mean, do you have a hard time saying no sometimes?

[23:31] I know I do. They say yes when in reality they really should say no to something. Saying yes to legitimate things is a good thing as long as your priorities are straight.

[23:46] But the people pleaser doesn't have any of his priorities straight. His priorities are all confused. And he wants to please the other person. And so he puts a high priority on that.

[24:00] It's possible to say yes to teaching Sunday school when I really should say no. It's possible to say yes to taking a sermon when I really should say no.

[24:13] It's possible to say yes to helping someone when I really should say no. There's always the possibility that when we say yes to someone, the reason we're doing it is because we want to please them and we want them to think well of us.

[24:28] We don't really want to serve them. We just want to serve ourselves. And everyone struggles with that, don't they? I mean, we all struggle with getting our priorities straight.

[24:40] But if you're a people pleaser, you're going to be especially open and exposed to falling into this temptation. And so if you have an especially hard time, if you're always saying yes when you should say no, if you're always having a very difficult time balancing your priorities, that you never seem to be getting the right things first and the wrong things last, then you should examine your heart and see if there's not really an inordinate desire to please others instead of God.

[25:15] Another sinful temptation that easily besets the approval junkie is to give in to peer pressure. And it's funny. You never outgrow peer pressure, do you? I'm sure in the retirement community there's peer pressure.

[25:28] I don't know what it would be, but I'm sure it is. But the approval junkie is enslaved to other people.

[25:41] And so he's really ready to give in when peer pressure comes. Romans 12.2. Does anyone know what Romans 12.2 says?

[25:51] It says, Do not, Right. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. To conform, or to not conform, like this verse says, is really risky business.

[26:07] Isn't it? I mean, if we don't conform, we're going to be persecuted. All those who want to live godly lives will be persecuted. And the people pleaser is not ready to come under attack.

[26:20] They're not ready to come under ridicule. And so, when peer pressure comes, the power is put on you to conform.

[26:32] The people pleaser has no protection. He can't handle the temptation. And so how do you protect yourself from being conformed to this world? What's the second part of the verse say?

[26:43] Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. that you may prove what God's will is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

[26:57] When we are focused on what God's will is for us, then that protects us from what other people think we should do. When we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, when our minds are stayed on what God wants for us, then peer pressure, while it still comes, it's not so powerful.

[27:19] The biblical answer to peer pressure is not insulation. So parents, if you want your kids to not be like the world, if you don't want your kids to be like the world, the biblical answer is not hide them away and don't expose them to anything, but it's to teach them how to dethrone the idol of man's approval in their hearts.

[27:42] So when you see that idol ruling in your children's heart, you confront that idol. You say, you are living for the wrong thing. You should be living for God's will and God's approval.

[27:53] And when they learn to take the idol off the throne, and when they learn to put God on the throne in their hearts, then peer pressure and conforming to the world is not such a problem.

[28:04] Another sin that easily entangles the people pleaser has to do with our mouth. How much do we talk? Solomon says, when words are many, sin is not absent.

[28:15] The people pleaser easily falls into talking too much. He talks so other people will laugh. He boasts. He flatters.

[28:27] He laughs and jokes and all sorts of other things. He talks endlessly throwing out bits of gossip, trying to make other people like him.

[28:40] And everything is to feed his own ego. Now, not all blabbermouthery, not all talking too much is rooted in the sin of people pleasing, but a lot of it is.

[28:54] So if you have a hard time talking too much when you're with others, maybe it's because you're trying to please them rather than God.

[29:04] And on the flip side, so we have on the one side we talk too much, but then on the other side the people pleaser has a hard time talking when he should. And what I mean is he's tempted to not even share the gospel ever.

[29:19] He will talk about anything you want, but he will not talk about the gospel. So when was the last time that you spoke the gospel to someone? When you shared your faith, when you shared your testimony, when you told someone about Jesus, has it been a long time?

[29:38] And if it has been a long time, why? Is it because you want to make them happy and you don't want to make God happy? Telling the gospel is an offensive thing in our culture.

[29:51] People don't want to hear that there's a hell, that there's a God that is actually just and will send men to hell. They don't want to hear that they're not good enough.

[30:03] If you try to tell someone that you're just not good enough to go to heaven as you are, they're going to be offended. They don't want to hear that Jesus is the only way. We live in a pluralistic culture where everything's right if that's what you want.

[30:19] And if we go in and we shatter that notion and say Jesus is the only way, then people are going to be offended. And so, are you going to risk offending someone and not pleasing them in order to obey your Lord?

[30:35] And there's all sorts of excuses that we can use, can't we? And if you just think about all the things that you tell yourself before you don't share the gospel, what do you say when to yourself right before there's that opportunity and you could share the gospel but you don't, well, you say, I don't want to look like a fanatic.

[30:58] I mean, there's too many fanatics out there in this world, those crazy Muslims there. I don't want to be fanatical like that or I don't want to be too pushy.

[31:09] God wants us to be gentle and not pushy so I'm not going to be pushy. And Jesus said, don't throw your pearls before the swine. So I don't want to do that because these people are clearly swine.

[31:24] You know what? You laugh but you've said it. Or I just need to show Jesus in my life.

[31:35] I need to live Jesus before these people. I don't need to tell them about it. It's really important that I get my life right and when I get that taken care of then I'll share the gospel.

[31:46] There's a thousand excuses not to speak but if you struggle to share the gospel with others look in the mirror and you're probably going to see an approval junkie staring back at you that it's not really any of those things.

[32:02] You don't really believe all those excuses. You're afraid and you want that person to like you. There's other sins that easily beset the people pleaser.

[32:13] We could talk about hypocrisy, discontentment, indecisiveness, choosing the wrong friends, showing partiality and there's a lot of others. There's a footnote in the book.

[32:26] Priolo has a footnote that says if you really haven't had enough so this is for all you people that are just haven't had enough you want to know all about the sins that you can commit if you're a people pleaser.

[32:37] Check out Richard Baxter's section on people pleasing in the Christian directory pages 183 to 213. Now, if you haven't seen the Christian directory by Richard Baxter it's this thick it's four columns and it has microscopic print and he wrote 30 pages of extremely tiny print about all the things that you can do wrong if you're a people pleaser.

[33:01] The point is if you're a people pleaser you're opening the gate for all sorts of sins to come in. It's not just the ones that we've talked about.

[33:12] All sorts of sins are going to plague you if you struggle with this idol. That's why it's so dangerous. It's not just a little ordinary sin.

[33:27] It's the door to all sorts of other sins. So we've seen that people pleasing sets us up to be manipulated and deceived through flattery and that people pleasing is the gateway for a host of other temptations to come to us.

[33:44] And our final point is this. Point three. Immoderate people pleasing robs the approval seeker of his peace and joy. Now as I was preparing this lesson and I'm spending time studying the book and I'm sitting there thinking and thinking about all sorts of different things when I thought about the people pleaser something of scorn came up in my heart.

[34:10] You know that? That I was thinking about how they grovel about and how they're flattering people and how they're so easily duped that they're just so foolish. And I started thinking oh those people are so pathetic.

[34:24] pathetic. But this section kind of cured me of that because as pathetic as they are they're really very miserable.

[34:35] They're very unhappy. Their friends don't really love them. Their friends tell them what they want to hear and they're cowards. They're yes men.

[34:46] They're just they're not good friends. And they're so servile. They're going around trying to make everyone happy. they don't have any dignity. And so you think ugh ugh who would want to be like that?

[35:01] And what about those people? Ugh well they're miserable. They're very unhappy people. And so instead of scorn there should be something of feeling sorry for them because their idol has turned them in to very sad joyless anxious people.

[35:23] their idol takes a heavy toll on them and is a hard taskmaster. So can you think of any Old Testament characters that struggled with people pleasing that had everything he wanted and yet because people didn't like him as much or one person didn't like him as much as they thought or as much as he thought they should that in his desire for praise in his desire for glory it cost him everything he had.

[35:52] Can you think of anyone Pastor Aaron can you help us out? Haman yeah we like to see Haman getting his comeuppets don't we? We love the irony of the story and how it all turns around and Haman's destroyed but what a miserable figure he is isn't he?

[36:10] I mean he has the king's favor he is rich beyond imagination he has family that love him I suppose and there was one person that wasn't going to fall in line that wasn't going to worship at the Haman idol and it was Mordecai and so he went insane with unhappiness and with anxiety and with rage and anger and discontentment and he goes and he tells his family all this stuff and he's like I'm so I have it so good and yet none of this satisfies me every time I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate he had everything in the world and he wasn't happy he was miserable and if you worship at the idol of people pleasing you're going to go the same way you can have everything in the whole world and you'll be miserable too your good things won't be good enough and your bad things will just be horrible there'll be no perspective anxiety will fill your heart you'll worry about what this person thinks about that and what this person thinks about this what do they think if

[37:25] I may may may experience in our lives. We can't be plugged in to other people for our ultimate approval.

[38:19] It's like sticking a fork in the outlet. When you put them together, it's explosive. There's destructive consequences. But Isaiah 26 says, you will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in you. We weren't meant to worry about what a thousand other people think about us. We weren't meant to worry about what one person thinks about us. We can't please everyone all the time. We can't please everyone most of the time. But if we live to please God, we can please him most of the time. And that's what we're going to be talking about next week.

[38:59] But when we live to please God, instead of anxiety, we get peace. We get joy. Because God isn't some lesser idol that destroys us when we serve him. We're able to serve him and he blesses us.

[39:18] So, a book, this is in conclusion, a book has the advantage that if you are getting bored or tired or depressed from reading it, you can skip ahead, can't you? And you can tell the good, that there's going to be a good ending, right? And so, we're sort of in the middle of a lot of hard things. We still have three chapters to go of exploring the problem of people-pleasing before we even get to the solution.

[39:47] And so, I kind of want to just peek ahead. There is a solution to people-pleasing. We're not just left here, being servants to everyone and being slaves to everyone. There is a solution. It's a very good solution. And it's the gospel. The gospel worked out in our lives. And when the gospel is worked out in our lives, people-pleasing is dethroned. And we're able to serve God and know peace and joy.

[40:15] So, the Son of God became man. He took on the likeness of sinful man. He became one of us. And then on the cross, he became sin for his people. And he died for those people. He died to make them all his own.

[40:34] We talked about this last week. We are meant to be a gift to the Son of God. We were made especially for him. And that's what he earned on the cross. He earned a people all of his own. But right now, our hearts are still divided, aren't they? We still have that flesh living in us. We're not totally all together willing to serve God as our only master. We want to serve other people sometimes.

[41:03] But we can praise the Lord that because Jesus died, that ensures us that one day we will be everything that Jesus wants us to be. We'll be all his own. And he will be our only master. We won't be enslaving ourselves to anyone else again. Our hearts won't be divided. There won't be any more slinking about trying to please others. We will seek to please Christ alone. And so, what do we do with these hearts that we have now that are divided, that are sinful? What do we do with these sinful, man-pleasing hearts?

[41:35] Well, Jesus' death ensures that one day we won't have these divided hearts. But for now, we go to the cross again and again. We go to the fountain of blood and we cleanse ourselves. We go to the crimson perpetual tide and we kneel down on the shore and we are cleansed. And we own up to what we are.

[42:01] We say, I'm a people pleaser. I'm a sinner. Lord, forgive me for Jesus' sake. Let his righteousness and his death cover me and keep me clean. And day after day, we renew our repentance. And day after day, we renew our trust. We renew our commitment to live for Christ alone again. Isn't that what we need to do? And so, we're not stuck here being people pleasers forever. We are going to live for Christ one day. And praise the Lord, the Holy Spirit has come. And he can help us to put to death the sin of people pleasing. So, let us walk worthy of the gospel of our Savior. Let's pray.

[42:44] Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have loved us, that we were not bought with perishable things, but with the precious blood of our Savior. And I pray that we would walk worthy of the gospel.

[42:59] We would walk worthy of the one who paid such a dear price for us. Father, forgive us for being so sinful, for having such undivided hearts. Pray that you would give us grace to renew obedience and to renewed repentance. Father, will you help us to worship you in the coming hour? Will you keep our minds stayed upon you? And give us the peace and the joy of knowing that you are our God and that we are your people. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.