An Audience of One – Sermon – Pastor Marlee Page

Paul is always encouraging Timothy to be bold…. Why can Timothy, be bold in using the gifts God has given him: God has given him a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.

God has not given us a spirit of fear, and yet, so many people live paralyzed by fear, especially the fear of being rejected.  So, an important takeaway for us this morning is that any fear of being rejected does not come from God, and we are going to let God’s word empower us to overcome this fear.  

I must be honest and acknowledge that significant times of my life have been consumed with trying to please people.

Does anyone know anything about Enneagram?

The Enneagram is a system of personality typing that describes patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions.  

While working with my Spiritual Director, I have figured out that I am a Type 3 with a very strong 2 Wing, which basically means I am an Achiever and a Giver combined –

I am motivated by the need to be productive, achieve success, and avoid failure while taking care of everyone else’s needs all at the same time.

So this idea of fear of rejection ties right into my fear of failure and understanding this about me has been eye-opening and life-changing- not that I have it all sorted out but it helps me reframe my fear and anxiety into understanding the Why?

Scripture shows us the danger of living by the fear of rejection,

Proverbs 29:25 says:

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trust in the Lord is kept safe.

There are typically two rejection traps, two ways that we are ensnared as we are paralyzed by the fear of rejection.  

The first one is this, if you are taking notes.  We fear rejection. An outcome of that can be that we can easily become overly starved for acceptance. The sad thing is, when we are overly starved for acceptance, the very thing that we desire most is the first thing that we can lose.  We become so needy and so hungry for acceptance that we lose the very thing that we desire. Let me give you an example.

In the Old Testament, we saw a guy who had potential to be one of the greatest kings of all time, King Saul, but his greatest weakness, I would argue, is that he was paralyzed with the fear of being rejected.  He always wondered, “What are the people going to think?  Are they going to like me? Are they comparing me to my dad?”  

And at one point, because of fear of what people thought, he rejected God’s commands, and Samuel confronted him.  This is what King Saul said in I Samuel 15:24, he repented and confessed.  He said,

“I have sinned.  I violated the Lord’s command.”  Why did he do this?  Here’s what he said.  “I was afraid of the people, “So I gave in to them.”  

How often do you do that?  How often are you afraid of what people think, so rather than doing the right thing, you do what you think they would want you to do?  

And the sad thing is, so many people today live with the fear of man the writer in Proverbs spoke of.  Fear of man will prove to be a trap – we get distracted by our wants and needs of acceptance in our world.

• “Please accept me.” So, we spend hours on our body, and our hair, and our clothes, and our faces.
• “Please like me. If I buy this car, will you like me?  
• If I say this, will you like me?
• If I go to this restaurant, will you like me?
• If I join this club, will you like me?
• If I compromise my integrity, and don’t do what I believe is most important, but I do what you like, will you like me?

And beware…. this doesn’t live entirely outside of Religion or the Church.  So many great people today want to please God by saying all the right things and acting how we think He expects us to act when truly we are distracted by acting outwardly to put on a show, so we look Godly.

And so, we mix the same questions with both God and the culture around us. Will you accept me?  Will you approve of me?”  

I know so many people who live for their parent’s dream.  “Got to make dad happy.  Got to make mom happy.”  Or the focus is on Got to make my kids happy! Or Husbands!   

“Will you please approve of me?  Will you please accept me?”  

Fear of man. Fear of Woman – because guys aren’t immune to this either…. Fear of rejection –  It catches us up!

 We have become overly starved for acceptance & approval.  For those of you that are approval addicts, these thoughts could be a challenge for you.  Approval addicts, first, generally have an inability to confront.  They want to be liked so badly, so they don’t confront, put up with anything and are willing to compromise themselves and sometimes even the God we believe in.

Another challenge is this.  Approval addicts generally give in to others, but inwardly, they can be angry and resentful.  “Okay, I’ll do what you want because I want you to like me, but inwardly, I’m ticked and it’s getting worse by the minute.”  And it becomes that the cycle of my happiness depends on being liked. But I’m frustrated and angry because this isn’t good for me or what I want to do.

The second rejection trap is this.  It is the opposite.  It is those who become overly cautious.  

• “I’ve been hurt before, and I’m not going to let anyone hurt me again.  I’m not going to trust.  
• I’ll keep you at an arm’s distance because, by golly, I’m not going to let you do to me what someone else did to me.”  

This is what the Bible says about that kind of person.  

Proverbs 28:14 (ESV), scripture says,

Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.

How often do we know someone that has a hard heart?  

Who doesn’t let others in?

For some, it starts when you have the sneaking suspicion that your parents favour another sibling over you.  “I don’t want to get hurt.”  

For others, it’s on the athletic field when you don’t get picked, and you are the last one that don’t want to get hurt.  

For some, it’s when you don’t fit in a certain crowd, or when someone tells you they are going to be there forever, and then they crush your heart, and you become overly cautious.  

For others, you’ve got people that you know and love, family members, maybe your parents, maybe your children, maybe brothers and sisters, maybe people that you work with, people that you’ve grown up with who do not have a relationship with Christ, and you are afraid to tell them about Jesus.  Why?  Because you are afraid that they would reject you.  

…and then this, which is one of the things that must be so sad to God, others want desperately to know God, but they’ve been hurt & rejected by people within the church so they step away from God… fearful that God must not want them either because these people are Christ-followers and know more than me and they say I’m not welcome!

Rejection and the fear of rejection even in the Church – It can be a snare.  It is a trap.  We become overly cautious, or we become overly starved for Him.

So, the question is “How do we overcome these traps?”

The Bible teaches us two principles that God’s equipping of Holy Spirit will empower us to live out in our lives.

The first one is this- By the help of the Spirit of God, we will learn to say yes to pleasing God.  More than anything else, our heart will beat with a desire to say “yes,” to pleasing God above all others including ourselves.  

In the Old Testament in I Kings 22, we see a great story of Jehoshaphat, who was the king of Judah, and he was having a conversation with the king of Israel.  And the king of Israel said, “Jehoshaphat, will you go into battle with me, and we will partner up to help take back what rightly belongs to us.”  And Jehoshaphat responded this way in verse 5.   But Jehoshaphat also said to the king of Israel, “First seek the counsel of the Lord.”

This is an important style of leadership.  What did he do?  “First, we seek God.”  Not, “First, we seek our advisors.”  Not, “First, we poll the people to see what opinions they have.”  But “First, we seek the counsel of the Lord.”  

So, when you are faced with deciding, what do you do?  You don’t ask, “What will people think?  What will my parents think?  What will my friends think?  What will my co-workers think?”  The first thing that we ask is, “What will God think?”  We seek to please God in all that we do.  

Have you ever heard the story about the evangelist G. Campbell Morgan.  True story, in 1888, he stood before three men who had the power to determine, “Is he called to preach, or is he not called to preach?”   You would preach a message to these three men and then they posted an “accepted” and “rejected” list.  Campbell Morgan went and looked for his name on the accepted list, and it was not there.  Some of you know that feeling.  You poured out your heart and your life in a certain direction, and then, some person said, “I reject you.  You don’t have what it takes.”  And he was crushed.  He looked on the second list, and there his name was as one who was rejected.  Devastated, he sent his dad a telegram, and he simply had one word on the telegram: rejected.  A few days later, though, his very wise dad sent a telegram back, and the message from his father changed his life forever.  The telegram simply said, “Rejected by men, accepted by God.”

Isn’t that where we all want to fall?

Here’s the truth. I get rejected by people. I will be rejected by people in the future.  You will, too, if you are following Jesus- it’s gonna happen.  You know that, right?  If you are following Christ, you will be rejected by people.  

In Isaiah 53, it was prophesied of Jesus that He would be despised and rejected by men.  So, if our Lord himself was rejected, why would we think that we could follow His example and still please people all the time anyway?  He couldn’t! We can’t either!!

So, the first thing that we need to do is to learn to say, “Yes,” to pleasing God.  

The second thing we need to learn is to say, “No,” to pleasing people. That’s right, the word ‘No’ belongs in your vocabulary.

Now, please don’t take this out of context and say, “The Pastors told us we are supposed to be rude!”  No, we are always supposed to show love and to show the grace of God in all relationships, but what we are not driven by is becoming people pleasers.  I love the way this question is asked in Isaiah 51.  

Isaiah asked the question.  He said, “Who are you that you fear mortal men?  Who are you that you fear the opinions of people, the sons of men, who are but grass? Why do you fear people,” he says, “that you forget the Lord God your Maker.”  

Who are we that we fear people?  Do you know what’s crazy?  It’s how often I get caught up in my own approval addiction, and I can be preoccupied by what people think, so much so, that I forget God.

 Every single day the world gives you an opportunity to cave in and live for the approval of people, or you will have the opportunity to surrender your heart at that moment to God and say, “I live for You, and You alone.”  

So, what will it be?  

Ask yourself, “Am I living for the approval of people, because if I am, chances are, I’m not living for Jesus. 

Am I trying to please people, or am I trying to please God?”  Fear of man, it is a trap.  It is a snare.  Say yes to pleasing God.  Say no to being a people pleaser, and that leads to our purpose.  

Our purpose as Jesus followers, is to live for an audience of one, not for the audience of people but to live for the only One who’s opinion really matters.  

That’s why Jesus said this in John 5:30. He said,

“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just,  for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”

WE need to seek to live for an audience of One.  Fear of people, it’s a trap, but he who trusts in the Lord is found secure and is kept safe.  

It’s a lot like this.  How many of you when you were young, grade school, the glory days, first grade or second grade.  How many of you were ever called on by your teacher to leave class and to go on an errand, maybe say to the principal, and you left all the other kids behind as you were given a duty to perform on their behalf!  I can remember walking proudly to the teacher’s desk, with a little hitch in my giddy-up! So excited to be the one called on to go do their bidding wherever it might take me!  Walking down the hall, hoping some teacher would question what you were doing so you could respond, “I’m on an errand for Miss so and so.  Doesn’t matter what you think.  You can’t stop me.  I am here to please the one who sent me, and the one who sent me said I have got permission to do this.  Doesn’t matter what you think.  I’ve got permission to be out in the hallway & roaming the school.”  Those were Good Days!

So here’s the deal for you and for me…. We’ve been granted God’s permission to be on Assignment for Him!  I am not subject to your opinion, or your judgment.  Nor you, mine!

No matter what you think about me, God says I am acceptable through Jesus Christ.  

No matter what you think about me, God says He loves me just as I am, and I am perfect in His sight.  

When I believe what He says about me, it frees me from dancing for others.  It doesn’t matter if you think I am not good enough.  

God says, even in my weakness, His strength is made perfect.

God says that He is working everything for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.  

God says that I am an overcomer by the blood that His Son shed for me

God says, that He has plans for me to bless me and to prosper me, plans to give me a great hope and a great future.  

Whenever people doubt you, you get to say the same thing.  God says you are a special.  You are called.  You are equipped.  “You are just the way I wanted you.”  People’s opinions do not matter.  When God says you are free to go, you go.  When God gives you an assignment, you do His assignment.  We do not live for the approval of people.  

I want us to finish this morning together – together in front of the audience of One that counts most! Say this with me….

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name, I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.” – Psalms 63:1-8

You see, when we say yes to pleasing God and no to being a people pleaser, and our purpose is to live for an audience of One.  In that and in His presence, he upholds us and we no longer need to fear rejection or disapproval.