Good morning and welcome in today. Today we’re going to take a look at some scripture from 1 Thess 2, but before we do that I had a question for you.
In your daily life, do you try to please other people? When you please somebody, you’re trying to make them happy and satisfied. Think for a moment about being a child and trying to please your parent in everything that you do. To please your parents, you need to obey them. Isn’t it wonderful when you tell a child to do something and they do it?
Isn’t it nice when you have a puppy dog who you are training to sit, and after a lot of practice, he finally learns how to do it. When you say sit, he sits right down. How do you feel at that moment? You smile and your happy because he has learned to obey you. The thing that we are going to talk about today is wanting to make God feel happy and satisfied with what we do in our daily lives to show our obedience unto him. Instead of pleasing people, we want to be God pleasers.
1 Thess 2:4-6
4 But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.
5 For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness:
6 Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ.
I have always felt that love ultimately will speak the truth with people that you care about. Truth can be a sword that pierces the heart. Truth can hurt. The Apostle Paul had been put in trust with the gospel, and that is exactly what he preached to other people. Numerous times, people didn’t like him. People would turn away and didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Some of his own disciples abandoned him. The Apostle didn’t want to please men by telling them what they wanted to hear. He was preaching the things that they needed to hear. He wanted to be pleasing to God.
Look at the sufferings that our Lord Jesus Christ went through while He was here upon the Earth. He spoke the truth of God’s Word to others, and he was persecuted and hated. There are many people that you will meet in this world who will only tell you the things that you would like to hear, but hearing just the things that you want to hear isn’t going to transform you into what God wants you to become.
Ultimately, we are transformed by biblical truth and teachings. What we have to do is open our hearts and our minds and trust in Christ and what he teaches us. Jesus Christ pleases His Heavenly Father completely.
To help people become better you have to tell them the truth. If a child is doing something wrong in a home, you have to correct them if you care about them at all.
In order to help a wife to become pleasing unto you, you have to correct her when she is doing something that you don’t like. That is what the teachings of the Bible are there for, to correct us, to admonish and instruct us in the way of righteousness and Truth. There are many people out there in the world today who don’t even preach from the Bible anymore. They stand in front of a church service and just tell people the things that they want to hear. They don’t address any issues that are important to the people’s salvation because they don’t want to raise any waves. They don’t want to lose any money in the offering plate or have people walking out of the church upset because of what they’ve been told.
If somebody actually opened up the scriptures and started preaching from it during some of these Church gatherings, 90% of the people might get up and walk right out of there.
Remember that the Lord Jesus when He went to the cross was left with 11 Apostles. The size of the church group is Irrelevant in the eyes of God, it’s the size of their obedient faithful hearts. What’s important is preaching truth.
People-pleasers desire to make people happy and joyful, but that is not going to be the response at times. When you speak the truth to others, it’s more than likely they’re going to get upset with you. Chances are they are going to cast out your name as evil.
Many people who profess Christianity today simply want their ears tickled. They cling to five or ten different verses in the scriptures, and then completely ignore the rest. Love speaks the truth and when you speak the truth of God’s Word to others, it pleases him.
The ultimate goal is to bring people to spiritual maturity in Christ. That is not going to happen if you don’t preach the gospel. The word gospel actually means the truth. You’re not going to have soldiers for Christ who are mature Warriors for God unless God’s Word is in their hearts and minds.
Abraham was called the friend of God. To be a true friend, we want to please God in all things. Pleasing God comes first before anybody else.
About 20 years ago I was approached by someone to come and preach at a gathering somewhere. He told me that in order to allow me to do so he was going to restrict certain things that I could talk about. I told him I couldn’t do that and I never went. The gospel is all truth, every bit of it. You can’t take bits and parts away from it and simply accept a few verses and skip the rest. We are won to Christ through the conviction of God’s truth.
When you tell somebody that they are doing something wrong, and neither you nor God agree with what they are doing, it shows that you care about their soul. Would you warn your own children and family about the consequences of their behavior? That is the charge that is given to a dad in his home.
James told the church, cleanse your hands you sinners! The Apostle taught Timothy to rebuke the people sharply so that they would be sound in the faith. The Lord Jesus referred to some people as snakes.
Sometimes the people will accept the truth through a simple admonition, but sometimes it takes a spiritual sledgehammer to the heart of a stiff neck and hard-hearted person.
4 But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.
5 For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloke of covetousness; God is witness:
When you flatter somebody, it means you lavish insincere praise and compliments upon somebody to further your own interest. It’s like going up to your dad and telling him that he is so wonderful and so great
You call him a super amazing dad, and then ask him to use the car for this weekend. That is what you call flattery. It was only said to get what you want. It’s a sin.
When you flatter someone, it is simply done to get something back out of them, or in order to win favor or regard with them. The Apostle simply spoke the truth to the people. He wasn’t covetous which means showing a great desire to possess something that belongs to somebody else. Someone who is covetous is very very greedy and has an inordinate desire for another’s things.
One other definition says that covetness is to want something that belongs to somebody else and be a little jealous because they have it and you don’t. The Apostle had none of these qualities. He teaches, God is witness.
6 Nor of men sought we glory, neither of you, nor yet of others, when we might have been burdensome, as the apostles of Christ.
It teaches us in the scriptures that fame followed Jesus, but he was not seeking that. Glory is high regard or Honor. It’s praise and honor and distinction. The apostles were not seeking those things. Many people out in society are. They are seeking the glory of men.
What you should seek after is the glory that comes from God someday when he says well done thou good and faithful servant. No matter how much people sit around a room and pat each other on the back, those things are not going to matter at all come judgement day. The things that are going to matter is did you serve Christ? Did you do the things that He taught? Did you preach the truth to others?
Noah was a preacher of righteousness. After years of preparing for the Judgment that was coming up on the Earth, all that remained were him and his family in the end.
Before we go today, I want you to think about something. Think about being in a school somewhere and there are two people that you have a close relationship with. One asks you to do one thing and the other asks you do something completely different. You can only choose one.
In our lives Jesus has to be first before any other relationships. If you love Jesus first you’re going to love the things that he taught. If you love Jesus first, you will give the truth of the Gospel to other people. It will be completely unvarnished so that through faith they can save themselves from this sinful generation. Whether people believe it or whether they reject it, what matters is that you did God’s will and planted that seed of truth into their hearts.
People pleasing happens because you care more about hurting people’s feelings than you do then God’s truth.
The Apostle Peter spoke the truth. The Apostle Paul spoke the truth. The Apostle James and the Apostle John spoke the truth, so that others would believe the truth and gets saved.
They were not people pleasers but on the contrary, they were God pleasers. They were carrying that banner of truth to the world.
And that’s where I think I’m going to stop for right now, but Lord willing we’ll talk to some more tomorrow. Till then, bye-bye everybody.
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 