Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "Whose Approval Do You Seek" by Neal Pollard

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"Whose Approval Do You Seek" by Neal Pollard · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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I guess if you count the sermon that my dad wrote for me in
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1979, the Bible says that
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I preached faithfully mimicking his words. The first sermon in
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my mind that I ever preached was in 1987.
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And even though that was so long ago, I can still remember the nerves that
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I felt and how intimidating that occasion was,
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that nerves. And my dad had told me that when you get nervous,
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you go and you stand and you face a wall and you talk
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to yourself and you get your hands and your feet moving so that you get
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all that nervous energy out, and it helps. And I thought by the
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time that I got to 2026 that all those nerves would be gone, but they're
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not. There's a lot of different reasons why a preacher
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would feel nerves, and I can't speak for any other preacher but myself,
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But there's all that's going on in your mind, and there's the time in which
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you're trying to get all of that preached. And there's
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making sure that what you say is said in the right spirit and received in
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the spirit that it was intended. Sometimes it's a difficult
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subject. And sometimes it is knowing that what you have to
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say is true to God's Word, and yet it's not what people want to hear.
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Hiram did a masterful job in Bible class in painting the picture of the
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Apostle Paul as just as human as the rest of us.
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And when he faced a congregation and had to speak to them about
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some subject that they needed to hear about, he also had those same
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feelings. I don't know what it was like for him when he delivered a lesson
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out loud, but in, in his interchange with people,
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he struggled through that the same as the rest of us. I wonder
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if that's what is on Paul's mind when he writes to a church full
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of new Christians. And he says, I want you to know that my coming to
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you was not in vain. He says,
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as we were approved by God to come among you to preach the gospel
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of God, we did so with much suffering and affliction in Philippi,
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and we did so with much opposition. But he said, but our exhortation
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did not come by way of error or impurity,
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or in deceit. He said, but as we were approved
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by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing
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men, but God who examines the heart.
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For you know that we did not come ever with flattering speech or with a
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pretext for greed, as God is our witness; nor
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do we seek the glory of men, whether yourselves or others;
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but as we were entrusted with the gospel, we spoke,
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though as apostles we might have used our authority, but we proved
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ourselves to be gentle among you, as tender as nursing
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mothers with their children. So great was our affection to you that
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we determined to impart not just the gospel of God, but our
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very lives, because you were so dear to us.
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1 Thessalonians 2:1-8.
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As he writes to them, I don't know if you can hear the trepidation,
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the hesitancy, the concern for how his words were
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going to be received. He had been accused apparently of not having
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honorable intentions, and certainly that happened throughout his preaching life.
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That the heart and center of this was, whose approval,
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whose pleasure, whose acceptance do
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I want? May I suggest to you that that's not just
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the concern of a preacher, but of every Christian who is trying to live their
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lives every day in the midst of other people. God made
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us social creatures, and so we care what other people think.
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We're concerned by how our words are going to be received, and so
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we try to give great care that what we say is received in the spirit
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intended. But there's also this part of us that knows sometimes we've got
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to say things that are right that the world disagrees with, and we're concerned about
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what kind of response we'll get in that. We care what
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other people think. We want the approval. Of others.
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When we think about our subject today and we look at 1 Thessalonians
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2:1-10, we're going to see some things that are said
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there that will help us with regard to that. But I think about a
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young man by the name of Zachary Nazario who was 15
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years old from New York, and he had seen this social media-driven
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trend known as subway surfing. It's simply when you
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get up on top of a moving subway train and you surf.
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There had been a lot of videos that had gone out and had been viral.
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And as the result of those viral videos, it grew—
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created this trend to want to do that. And so he found himself
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in February of 2023 being one who wanted to try it.
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And so with his girlfriend watching, he jumped up on top of a moving subway
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train, and just a few seconds later, that train hit a beam.
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And he killed— he was killed. His mother,
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Norma, made it her life's mission to try to tell everybody that
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there is a price too steep to pay in order to have the acceptance
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of other people. All you need to do is scour through the entertainment
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pages or through athletics, and you will find those who, in order
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to try to receive fame, they ruin their careers and
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their lives. And we find ourselves in that same situation
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sometimes. As social creatures who don't
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want to be isolated and who don't want our words to be perceived as negative
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or received in that way. And we shouldn't think the Apostle Paul was
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exempt from that just because he was a preacher. Do you remember on one occasion
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in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, the Apostle Paul says in that particular
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passage that he did all things for all men, he became all things to
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all men that by all means he might save some. 1 Corinthians chapter 9
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and verse 22, But even in those situations, in those circumstances,
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he was trying to please God and he was trying to save souls.
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But all we've got to do is to walk throughout the Scriptures and we will
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find examples of those who cared more about what people thought than they did
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about what God thought. You think about someone no less than Aaron,
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the brother of Moses, who as Moses goes up on Mount Sinai,
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the people are clamoring for a god to deliver them.
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Though the great God had already taken them so far. And so he made
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that golden calf to please them, Exodus chapter 32.
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Or you think about Saul, by his own words in 1 Samuel chapter
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15 and verse 24, he said, I spared Agag's
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life because I fear the people. And on how many
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occasions do we find the false prophets throughout the Old Testament
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as they bend their message to the masses or to please
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some important person. Or you think about Jesus and his
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ministry and how as he was teaching so effectively
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that many of the rulers of the synagogue believed in him.
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And yet because of their fear of being cast out of the synagogues, they would
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not confess him because they loved the approval of men rather than the
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approval of God. John chapter 12, verse 42 and 43.
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Enter the Apostle Paul who has a conviction
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that he wants to please God even if he has to risk
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the feathers. And so, he defends his integrity
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as a teacher of the gospel. But in the midst of that,
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he says, here's the approval of men and
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here's the approval of God. If you'll turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8,
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I want us to make just 3 observations today.
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The observations that I'd like for us to make are with regard
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to this very subject. Number one, I'd like for us to notice how we seek
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the approval of man. When we see Paul talking
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about his ministry, he said that, I came to you after suffering and
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after going through mistreatment in Philippi. All we've got to do is go back to
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Acts chapter 16 and we see what his truly preaching the
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gospel had cost him. And he said, after that, we came to you as
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you yourselves know. And he said, we preached the God through much
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opposition. First of all, notice the word much. There was a
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lot. There was not just opposition in Philippi, but everywhere
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he went on the missionary journeys. And as he goes to Thessalonica, he's going to
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face some more. But I want you to pay attention for a moment to that
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word opposition. It is from the Greek word agonai.
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You can hear the word in it, can't you? Agony. It is the
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idea that the Greeks used of fighting and striving
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and competing to win, whether it's boxing or wrestling or in running
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or whatever it And Paul says, this was how we were sharing the
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truth of God's Word, with this kind of strife.
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But he was accused of not being an honest teacher of the Word.
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And in the midst of all of that, we see— and guys, why don't you
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go ahead and kill that? We're going to distract me and everybody else. I appreciate
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that. I'll wait for you. When we look
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at what is said there, The quickest sermon
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I ever preached. All right. This thing
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here is not working and it's not talking to that. So in case you're wondering,
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when you think about Paul and what he says about how it is that we
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seek the approval of men, he is going to bring up some of the ways
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that we seek the approval of men. And the first way he says
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is by excusing error.
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When Paul says, we did not come to you by way of these particular means,
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the first thing he says is, is we did not come by way of error.
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There is an impulse inside of all of us that
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wants us to defend ourselves against every opposition,
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every accusation of sin and wrongdoing in our lives.
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Paul is saying that we didn't feed that. We knew that this
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impulse exists in you and that there's this default position to say, there's nothing wrong
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in what I did. And so, we can find ourselves every day
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trying to tell somebody, look, I know what the Bible says, or maybe some people
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say the Bible say this, but it's okay. You can do this. You can stay
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in this. So Paul says that that's one way
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in which we seek the approval of men is by
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excusing error. But another way in which we seek the approval
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of men is by endorsing impurity.
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When you hear Paul say impurity, he's talking about that which is dirty, that which
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is impure, that which is immoral. And if
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there is one area in which people want their immorality to
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be defended, it has to do with the sexual decisions that
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they make in this life. You may have seen a picture of a WNBA star
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flash across the screen a moment ago. She is drawing a lot of fire,
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not because of her play on the court, although there's some controversy in that league
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this season anyway, but simply in many arenas because
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she says that a girl is a girl and a boy is a boy.
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No one wants to be told that they are an adulterer or
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a fornicator or homosexual or an immoral person.
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And we live in that atmosphere where there's very little tolerance for talking about
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that. And so, we're pressured, as Paul might have been, to bring a message
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with impurity. But he said, we did not do that.
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But he said, it also did not come by way of deceit.
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We are tempted to practice deceit. That's one of the ways in which we try
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to please men. The word that's deceit there is a word
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meant to catch with bait, but it came to mean to say something to
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gain an advantage on someone else. When we
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think about deceiving someone, this is the idea of telling them that,
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that what they're doing is okay when it's not okay,
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that perhaps a religious decision that was made in the past
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that is in contradiction to God's Word is in harmony
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with God's Word, or religious practice that they're a part of is
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okay even though the Bible says that it's not. Deceiving is
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to lead someone to think that something is true, to not tell the whole
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truth or the whole story, or to say something to leave
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an impression. And you think about how we find ourselves
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in circumstances like that all the time where
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someone is engaged in error. And John's
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going to say in 1 John 4:6, hereby know we the Spirit of truth and
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the spirit of error. And knowing that something is true and something is erroneous
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is one thing, but then facing somebody who is living in error is something else.
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And then there's the matter of impurity, especially with regard to personal lifestyle
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decisions, especially with regard to one of our basic drives and telling
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somebody in a circumstance. And I wonder in that there are those
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in the Bible who face the pressure to give into that. Do you ever
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think about John the Baptist and how much, how difficult it must have
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been for him? John the Baptist was speaking to Herod and
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his— not really his wife, his brother Philip's wife,
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Herodias. And he was saying that it was unlawful for Herod to be
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married to her. And so John— I mean, Herod went and got him and bound
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him in prison because he preached that. And Herodias had a grudge against
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him and wanted to put him to death, but could not, Mark 6:17-19.
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Or I think about Nathan. Would you like to have had
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the mission that Nathan was given? David has committed
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adultery with Bathsheba. He has put Uriah to death and
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now Nathan is called to go to him. And in 2 Samuel chapter 12
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and verse 9, he says, you have disregarded the word of the Lord and done
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evil in his sight and you have put to death Uriah the Hittite and
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have taken his wife to be your wife and you have killed him with the
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sword of the sons of Ammon. And then
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there's deceit, leaving someone with the impression
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that they're okay. In 1938,
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if you would've asked who is the greatest leader in Europe,
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in Great Britain, is it Neville Chamberlain or is it
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Winston Churchill? You'd had a hard time finding anybody
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who would've said Churchill. They would've all said Chamberlain. And here's what happened in
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1938. There was a conference, a Munich Conference,
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in which he went and he met with the representative of Nazi Germany.
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Adolf Hitler. And Hitler wanted to annex Czechoslovakia.
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And because we had just gone through a world war in which over 20 million
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people died, he appeased Hitler. He came back and
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even bragged about it to the press. But here's Winston Churchill
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who's saying, no, we've got to fight against this evil, this encroaching aggression.
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And he was isolated. There was nobody more unpopular among political leaders in
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Great Britain than Winston Churchill. He was called a warmonger.
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2 years later, ironically, Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister
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in place of Neville Chamberlain, and he awakened the need to oppose evil
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in his country and around the world. And if you look back at
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who was the greatest leader today, nobody would say Chamberlain. They'd say he's an
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utter failure. They would say the hero is Winston Churchill.
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And it's easy for us to look back, but think about how
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we live out each and every day, and we're
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faced with the temptation to tell people what it is that they want to hear.
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It's easier in the short term, in the here and now, for us to say,
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look, it's okay, just do what you want to do,
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and the world may applaud us. We can stand up
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and say the very difficult, and there may be those who will say those things
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about us that are unflattering and that hurt. But in
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retrospect, which perspective do we want?
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Do we want God to praise us at the end for having stood up for
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Him, or in that moment, bend to the will of others and please them.
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And so the Apostle Paul shows how we seek the approval
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of men. We do so in the ways that we just saw, through endorsing
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error, by endorsing impurity, and by practicing
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deceit. But the second thing I want us to notice that is equally
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important in my mind is why is it that
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we seek the approval of men? If Scripture is so plain that
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it's wrong for us to do, why are we tempted to do it so often?
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Now, maybe there are some answers that you have in your mind that you would
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answer that, but as you consider them, Paul gives 3.
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It's not exhaustive, but I think it's representative of
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why it is that we want to gain the approval of others.
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One of the reasons why we seek the approval of men is
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we want to gain an advantage.
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Paul says that we never spoke to you with flattering speech.
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When you consider what flattery is, flattery is saying something nice about
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somebody that you don't mean in order to win or influence
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them. Paul said, never ever did we
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do that. It wasn't our motivation. We didn't try to get an advantage
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over you by saying what it is that you wanted. You know, the Bible has
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a lot to say about flattery. I think about Ezekiel who writes
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in Ezekiel 13:16, and he talks about the prophets who prophesied
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to Israel and Jerusalem, and they say a message of peace peace when
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there is no peace. Ezekiel chapter 13 and verse 16.
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Well, you think about Rehoboam, he's following his father Solomon and
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he's faced with a decision of what we should do for the kingdom. Should we
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lighten their tax load or should we continue to have it as it was?
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And the wise men who were with his father Solomon gave him some good advice,
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but then there were some young men that came along and flattered him and spoke
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to his vanity and said, your little pinky will be thicker than your father's loins.
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And through that That flattery, by saying something
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to win his favor, a kingdom was split. 1 Kings 12:10-11.
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Or you think about in the New Testament, there's Tyre and Sidon,
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and Herod comes to them in Acts 12:22,
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and they praise him with flattering words, saying, these are the words of
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the voice of God and not of men. And that flattery in this occasion
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hurt the one who embraced it and accepted it, and he lost his life.
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In Acts 24:2, you have Tertullus, who is a
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lawyer representing the Jews who are trying to have Paul condemned, and they practice
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flattery in order to try to reach the heart of
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the vain and brutal Felix. Flattery is used by false
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teachers to deceive, Romans 16:18, to gain an advantage,
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Jude 1:16, and David calls it plain old-fashioned wickedness,
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Psalm 5:9.
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And yet we find ourselves perhaps thinking that if we
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will say words to flatter somebody else, we can grease the wheels of some
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advantage that we can gain. It's a temptation
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that we face. Another temptation that we face
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as to why we would seek the approval of men is greed.
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Paul says that we never came with a pretext for
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greed. Now, for this, he says, God is my witness.
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Paul could say, you can listen and hear that there was never flattery in our
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speech, but what about our motivation? Were we moved by greed?
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He says, God knows that we didn't. Now,
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you may remember if you're old enough that Madonna had the hit Material
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Girl in 1985, and she said something that is certainly true
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of the '80s. She said, we are living in a material world.
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This became known as the anthem of the '80s. It represented the
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desire and the drive for money and consumerism that was so true in
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the '80s, but it's just as true today as it was then.
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Greed is not simply the desire to have more or more
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of what is needed, but to have more, to have more than others have.
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And through that, to be able to be seen as those who are to be
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admired and respected because we've accumulated more of the things of this
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life. You know, Jesus was focused on how that can complicate
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the life of a disciple. In Mark 7:21-23,
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he calls it coveting. And he says it's evil and he says it
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defiles. And then in Luke chapter 12 and verse 15, he says, take heed
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and be aware of every form of greed, for a
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person's life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he
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possesses. Luke 12 and verse 15. And then he follows that up with one of
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the more sobering parables in all of the gospels in which a
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rich farmer because of his greed loses his soul. And Paul says in Ephesians
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chapter 5 and verse 3, that greed is not once to be
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named among you. It is not proper for those who have been set apart by
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God. Our desire to have the things of this world
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can cause us to say whatever it is that we think that people want to
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hear. Now, it's easy for us to see how a preacher might bend his message
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in that way. In a public forum or in a one-on-one conversation,
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perhaps we want to make sure that we don't say the wrong thing to somebody
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that we're trying to persuade or win over. If it
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might hurt our pocketbook. But I don't care who you are,
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if you find yourself trying to live in this world, there are going to be
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moments when you've got to make a choice as to what do you want?
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The treasures that can't be taken away are the ones that can, Matthew 6:19-21.
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And then he gives a third reason why we seek the approval of men,
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and that's glory. Someone might say that the
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greed is the means to an end and glory is the end.
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We want to be envied by others. We want them to see and look at
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us and see popularity and status. And so the Apostle
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Paul could say, when you look at our lives and the ministry that we did
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among you, we did not do that. And so it challenges each
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of us. Am I trying to gain an advantage on
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someone else when I talk to them about especially spiritual
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things? Am I motivated by greed? Am I trying to make sure
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it doesn't hurt my bottom line? And that may be as we do business,
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that may be in our friendships, in our relationships that we're trying
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to cultivate. And are we seeking the glory and
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the admiration of others? You know, the business world
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and corporations have picked up on that.
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They realize through social media platforms, they feed into this
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desire for glory that we have. You know, 30 years ago,
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if you wanted to seek fame and glory, you'd have to move out to Hollywood
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or go up to New York or go to Nashville. And try out and
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to try to live the life and make the sacrifices in order to do that.
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But now all you need is a smartphone and a social
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media account, and everybody wants to be a star.
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The devil understands that. One of the 3 avenues of temptation
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is the pride of life. 1 John 2:16,
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and Jesus says, woe unto you when all men speak well of you,
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for so did their fathers, the false prophets, Luke 6:26.
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Now, Paul is saying we didn't do these things, but these
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are some of the ways in which people seek the approval of
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men. And then he comes along and he says, here's why. There's these basic drives
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within us that would move us to do that. But the third thing I want
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to observe before we close is that Paul
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shows us how we can seek the approval of God. You know what I love
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about Paul? He doesn't just present the problem, but he gives some practical tips,
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some principles that can help us. And I
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want you to notice as we walk through these that some of these are easier
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than others, but all of them are effective. Here they are very quickly.
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Number 1, he says, in essence, be bold.
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He says that by saying that we preach the gospel to you with boldness,
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as you know. Boldness does not mean rudeness
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and crudeness and sarcasm and insults and putting other people
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down. Paul is going to demonstrate that later in this paragraph.
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But here's the boldness that's under consideration.
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When God needs me to speak up for him, I can't
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be afraid of what people are going to think. We mentioned this passage
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in Bible class this morning, Matthew 10:28. The Bible says, do not fear him
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who is able to kill the body but is not able to kill the soul,
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but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.
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In John, at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21:8, he talks about
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these activities that we might give into that will cost us our eternity with God.
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And headlining that list this is cowardice,
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and it goes right alongside of murder and fornication
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and idolatry. And so the boldness that he calls for is a boldness
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that causes us to stand up even in difficult
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moments. But what will help us to do that? What about a gratitude
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for the cross? What about an appreciation of
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how deeply and profoundly God loves us?
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What if we will make his priorities our priorities?
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What if we are set on responding to the love and
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the sacrifice of heaven by being willing to do so? All of this
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and more can feed a boldness in us that God
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is counting on us to have. Be bold. But then number 2,
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be aware. In verse 4, you know, Paul has said a lot about God
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knows, he's our witness. He says,
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God examines the heart. He said, we're approved by God and so we speak not
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as pleasing men, but God. Who examines the heart.
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It is so easy for me to convince myself that I'm fine
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where I am, but God tells us to go deeper. He says, every way
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of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.
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Proverbs 21 and verse 2. Proverbs 16 and verse 2.
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God sees and searches the heart. 1 Samuel chapter
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16 and verse 7. And God who sees down tells us, you need
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to examine yourself. 2 Corinthians 13 and verse 5. Be aware of
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how you're thinking and what you're thinking. Are you seeking God's
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approval or man's approval? But then he says,
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be genuine, verse 5 and verse 6.
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Be who you say that you are. Be right. Be the same person everywhere
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that you are with whomever you find yourself.
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Don't use a pretext. He said, we weren't beset by flattery
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and these other your motivations.
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Then number 4, be gentle. Paul never
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sacrificed love and compassion in order to tell people the things
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that they needed to hear. If you want a contrast
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of being driven by compassion and love and being driven otherwise,
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even in religion, think about the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8.
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Who was this woman? This woman was an object of curiosity
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and amusement for the bystanders who were watching everything take place in
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John chapter 8. Of sexual attraction
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to one man. She was one that was a pawn in the hands
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of the scribes and Pharisees, but to Jesus, she was a person
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to defend, a soul to save, and a forgiven person to send on
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their way. And Paul is expressing this kind of compassion.
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You don't have to sacrifice one whit, one iota of love in
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order to share the truth with somebody. You know, medieval blacksmiths
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departed from the normal way of shodding a horse with a smooth
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horseshoe. They decided they would put cutting edges
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on them and jagged points. And to a dying man
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on the battlefield, the approach of a warhorse was terrifying. And the idea
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of running over somebody who is already down and out has been now
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known as running roughshod over a person. And it comes from that practice.
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You ever known somebody who was very— would profess themselves to be very
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spiritual, but they would stomp on somebody who was already spiritually
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down and out? Paul would say, we've got to be
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careful to be gentle with those who are lost, 2 Timothy 2:23,
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and be gentle with those who are wayward, Galatians 6:1.
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And so Paul says, even as we were motivated to do God's will God's way,
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we were gentle. But then we look
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and we see that he was— he would say, be sacrificial.
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In verse 8, Paul says that when we came and we preached
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to you, we not only imparted to you the gospel of God, but our very
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lives because you were so dear to us.
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The sacrifices of the Apostle Paul are abundantly illustrated
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throughout the New Testament, and it points out something that's helpful to us When
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we try to live in this world, we're not trying to compromise
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the truth, but we are going to spend and be spent. 2 Corinthians 12:15,
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we're willing to put in the time and the energy
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and the resources to help somebody who's struggling.
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And you know, when you do that, when you invest in people,
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they'll allow you to say even very difficult things because they know that you
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care about them and you've demonstrated that. How do we do that? Paul gives some
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great tips that will help us to want to please God.
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You know, when you think about the Apostle Paul, he points out this idea
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that we, we have a choice to make and
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we're going to make one choice or the other. Moses was in
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this predicament every day of his life. By faith Moses,
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when he came of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter,
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choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the
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pleasures of sin for a season. Esteeming the riches of Christ greater treasure
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than all in Egypt because he had respect for the reward, Hebrews 11:24-26.
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And it would seem to me that of all people living in this world,
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the one who should have a good, clear image of self
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and should have a confidence to try to please God above men,
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it should be a child of God. We know we're an image bearer
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of God, Genesis 1:26-27. We can read in God's Word
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that the favor and the attention and the approval of men
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is fleeting. We know and understand that of all relationships
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that we cultivate, none is more important than our relationship with God,
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2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 18. And we
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realize that what God prioritizes must be what we do
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as well. The choice that we face as
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we live and go from this place out without the insulation of
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our brothers and sisters in Christ is whose approval am
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I seeking? Paul shows us some of the ways that we do that and why
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we do it, but then he gives us even more reason to seek
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the approval of God. Whose approval are
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you seeking today? You know, when it comes to what God says
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to do to be saved, men say a lot of different things.
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But we've got to go with what God says. God tells us to
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respond to the great love and sacrifice and grace of the cross through
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obedient faith. It includes believing that Jesus is the Son
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of God, repenting of sins, and being baptized.
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And for those of us who are children of God, as we fight that battle
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every day, we've got to be sure that we're trying to please him. And when
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we don't, we need to draw on the resources he gives us to find
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that courage again. One of the ways that he does that is when we have
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struggled to walk in the light, that we can make that known, turn away from
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it, ask our brothers and sisters to pray for us. If that's a
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need you have today, we would encourage you to respond even right now as we
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stand and sing.