Last weekend I attended my nephew’s wedding and it was wonderful. Here is a picture of Matt and Kayla and I think the weekend went exactly as they planned it. I do not envy couples having to plan a wedding. You have so many people that you have to think about: parents and grandparents, siblings and friends, who do we invite and who do we not invite. Those are not easy decisions. And then there are all the choices that they have to make: where do we get married, how long should the ceremony be, how long do we make people wait before the reception, what about the menu at the reception and people’s dietary restrictions, do we get what we like or what we think others will like. What about flowers, music, dj, table favors, cake…
You want everyone to be happy at your wedding, you want everyone to like every detail, and yet the reality is that you know somewhere along the line someone will complain about something. For example, who chooses to have glazed carrots at their wedding? Sorry Matthew but really, glazed carrots? Why not mixed vegetables or roasted cauliflower? Why not fresh green beans or broccoli? Of course, I’m kidding, the food was wonderful, but seriously, glazed carrots??
The truth we all know is that we can’t please all the people all the time. We can please all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time but we can not please all the people all the time because some people just won’t like glazed carrots. Pastors face this all the time. We want everyone to be happy with the decisions that we make, but I quickly learned that you can’t please all the people all the time.
Some people like the old hymns, some people like new hymns, and some people only want contemporary music. For some people the sermons are too long, but believe it or not, some have even said that the sermons are too short and I should preach longer. Or why don’t you preach on this topic or this book of the Bible. Why don’t we sing more songs? Why don’t we sing less songs? The lights are too bright, the music is too loud, or too soft. You get the idea.
We face issues like this everywhere. Have you ever asked your family what they want for dinner and get 4 different answers. You can’t please everyone. Or in your circle of friends one person decides to do one thing but everyone else wants to do something else. What do you do? Whom do you please? You can literally drive yourself crazy trying to please everyone and we know we can’t do it, but we keep trying anyway. We keep trying to make everyone happy all the time. Why? Why do we suffer from this “disease to please”?
One of the underlying reasons we try to please everyone is a fear of rejection. If we don’t do what someone else wants, then they might not like us. They may speak poorly of us and then others will reject us. Fear of rejection can cause us to do things we would never normally do so that we can fit in. No one likes to be rejected, no one likes to feel like a failure, so we work hard to please everyone.
People pleasers also have a hard time saying no. They don’t want to disappoint anyone, they don’t want to deal with the criticism of others, and they don’t want others to look down on them so they fill every moment of every day doing things for others and end up feeling bitter, resentful, and empty. The disease to please can destroy us physically and emotionally but it can also destroy us spiritually.
The more we try to please others, the less we think about trying to please God. The more we live for the approval of others, the less we are able to fully live for God. When we obsess over what other people think of us we fail to remember what God thinks of us. We need to stop trying to please people and focus on living for God. The Apostle Paul said, We are not trying to please people but God. 1 Thessalonians 2:4. We need to start living for an “audience of One” and trust that when we focus on God first, everything else will fall into place.
Again, the reason we often try to please other is that we are afraid of rejection. We fear what people might say or think about us. Proverbs 29:25 says, Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
The word “snare” is really the word for a noose that you would put around an animal to lead it around. It is also the word for a hook that would be placed in the nose of an animal so that you could make the animal go where you wanted it to go. Think about it, if you had a large sharp hook in your nose and someone started to pull you in one direction, my bet is that you would quickly go. And if they changed direction, so would you. If they sped up, you would speed up too. They would be in control.
When we try to please everyone, we are literally allowing others to control of our lives. We are letting others lead us around and take us to places we might not want to go. Trying to please others leads us into three specific traps that we need to identify and overcome.
#1. I will compromise for you. When we try to please people at work by laughing at their inappropriate jokes, we are compromising our values. When we spend more money than we have to impress others or win their approval, we are compromising our financial future and creating an image of our lives that we can’t sustain. In dating relationships, when we try to please others it often leads us to actions and behaviors that we might not be ready for or might not honor God. At some point we will compromise what is important to us when we always try to please others.
#2. I will overcommit for you. Have you ever found your calendar so full of doing things for others that you fail to take care of yourself or your family? I’ll be honest, this is hard for us to talk about as people of faith because part of what it means for us to follow Jesus is that we put the needs of others before our own. We see the example of Jesus who sacrificed himself for others and we hear teachings like, consider others better than yourself.
We honor service and sacrifice so why shouldn’t we fill our days with doing things for others at the expense of ourselves.
The answer isn’t focusing our lives on one or the other, it is striving to find the right balance. We don’t say no to everything, but we also can’t say yes to everything. We need to ask ourselves, what does God want? What are we most passionate about? Where do we feel being called to serve and give? Where do we need to step back so that others can serve and use their gifts? If we overcommit and try to do everything, we will end up doing nothing well. We simply can’t do it all and if we try, there will come a point when everything falls apart.
Even Jesus said no at times. Jesus didn’t heal every person who came to Him for help. Jesus left a crowd of people who came to him to be healed so that he could go to other towns and preach the gospel. I’m sure there were people unhappy with Jesus because they had traveled all night to see Him. Jesus didn’t try to please everyone. Instead, He prioritized His time and energy and did those things God called Him to do.
You may have heard the expression that the enemy of what is great isn’t what’s bad, it’s what’s good. Good is the enemy of great. We can fill our lives with lots of good things for others and squeeze out the one great thing God is asking from us. Doing more and more good works for others isn’t always the answer, doing the few right things, the truly great and important things of God, is what we need to strive for.
#3 I will limit my faith for you. There is no way we can follow Jesus and have everyone like us because not everyone likes Jesus. You don’t have to look too far to find people who don’t like Jesus and if we try to please them we will limit our own faithfulness and witness. Jesus even said that a day is coming when, You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. Matthew 10:22
When we try to please everyone, we place limits on our faith and what God wants to do through us. Trying to please everyone will also limit our own success and leadership. You can’t be a leader and please everyone. It just can’t be done. Whether it is in business, school, sports, or our faith, when we try to please everyone, we limit our growth, our leadership, our faithfulness and our success.
When we try to please everyone, we are literally being dragged by a hook to a place of compromise, a place where over commitment is destroying our lives, or a place where we limit our own growth, witness, leadership, and faithfulness. We have to work at overcoming this disease to please.
So what is the answer? Let me say that the answer is NOT to harden our hearts and simply not care about the thoughts and feelings of others. The best answer, the answer that can help us and free us and save us, is to Fear God. I don’t mean being afraid of God as much as I mean living in complete awe and reverence of the Almighty God. If we could see the true holiness of God, and if we could experience the lasting power of God’s love, we would be more concerned about what God thinks of us than what any person here and now thinks of us. And if we fear God and seek to please God and live for God first, we will experience freedom, wholeness and blessing. Psalm 34:9. Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing.
Those who fear God lack nothing. When God becomes bigger in our lives the opinions of others become smaller and we are set free from a need to please everyone. When we fear God over others, we are set free and begin to find that we have in God all we need in life. The approval of others won’t matter to us as much as knowing that we are walking in the way of the Lord.
I said earlier that pastors like to be liked and so we often work hard at pleasing people. I really felt this way as a new pastor. I wanted everyone to like me. Things were going well until some of the church leaders decided that we needed to make some changes to try and reach new people. We added different songs, took out some of the older traditional elements of worship and added some new things. Guess what, not everyone was happy. The criticism was harsh and at times cruel. Instead of talking about what we were doing, the attacks became personal. It hurt to be rejected by a group in the church that I genuinely cared for. It hurt to get hate mail and be asked to leave people’s homes. It was hard.
I struggled for a long time until a friend asked me what it meant for me to be a pastor. Was it just to please the people in the church or to do what we could as a church to bring people to Jesus. I started asking myself what it meant for me to truly fear God. Once I got that straight in my heart, once I got to a place where I said to the church leaders, this is what it means for me to be a pastor and I because I fear God, I can’t compromise on this, or limit what God wants to do in me or through me, I found freedom.
While it still wasn’t easy to get critical mail or know people were talking about me behind my back, I didn’t let that destroy me, I just kept looking to Jesus who always wasn’t always liked. I feared God. I lived in awe of God. I made my focus living for an audience of One and found I had all that I needed and all that I wanted. Things were NOT instantly set right, there were still difficult days, but with the help of others in the church, I made it through, and we saw the church grow. Lives were changed, and I experienced some healing from the disease to please.
Fear God first. Live for God first and you will begin to experience freedom from the disease to please. The strong desire to please others doesn’t instantly go away, but I do believe that as God gets bigger in our lives, our fear of others and what they think of us will get smaller. It’s a journey, for many of us it is a lifelong journey, but it is a journey well worth taking because when we fear God and not people, we lack nothing.
Now let me be clear that pleasing God first doesn’t mean doing more work for God. God is not impressed when we fill up our schedules and run ourselves ragged doing things for Him. Pleasing God has nothing to do with how busy we are.
God is interested in our faith and trust in Him. Are we trusting God to forgive us? Have we accepted God’s love and what God has done for us in Jesus? That alone can set us free from a need to please and finding all our approval and value in others.
It’s important that we know that allowing God to be bigger in our lives doesn’t mean doing more and it doesn’t mean doing all the right things. We are not loved by God or saved by Jesus because of what we do? We are loved by God because of who God is and we are forgiven and saved by what Jesus did for us on the cross. All God asks is that we have faith in Jesus and trust in His grace.
If you have been trying to please God by doing more, please stop doing and simply be secure in knowing that God loves you and Christ has died for you. Allow God’s grace and peace and power to touch your heart. Allow God to change your attitudes and actions. Feel the disease to please begin to fade as you grow confident and secure in God’s love and that start doing those things that truly please God. Let God get bigger in your life.
We can’t please everyone, but we can please God. We can please God today and everyday by trusting in God’s love and allowing God’s power to work through us.
Next Steps
You Can’t Please Everyone
Spend some time reflecting on these questions. Be honest!
● In what ways are you a people pleaser?
● Do you often find yourself overcommitted?
● Why do you try to please all the people all the time?
● When have you compromised your values or integrity in order to please others?
● When have you missed a great opportunity because you were too busy with good things?
Read: Proverbs 29:25, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, Psalm 34:9
What do we learn about the causes and remedies of always trying to please people?
What does it mean to “fear” the Lord?
Pastor Andy said: When God becomes bigger in our lives the opinions of others become smaller.
● List a few ways you can make God bigger in your life?
● What can you do this week to make God bigger?
For further reflection:
As followers of Jesus, we are called to put the needs of others before our own. Ephesians 2:3-4, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
How can we do this, live sacrificially, and yet not get caught in the trap of “people pleasing”?
