Full Transcript

All of the people who are addicted to pleasing people. How many of you are recovering approval addicts? Raise your hand along with me. I am the leader of the group. And if you would, open your Bible to 1 Corinthians. Find chapter 4. I’ll meet you there in just a minute.

Hey, last week, I was not with you. Thanks for those of you that were praying for me and my family. We had this horrible, traumatic, awful experience of dropping our two oldest children off at college. A little family update for the Griffiths. Here we are. And we’ve got some weird math going on in the home. I haven’t quite figured this out. I have four children. I dropped two of them off at Cedarville University and I came home, I still have three. We just keep adding them on the back end there.

So, some of you that pay real close attention to what’s going on up here on Sundays, some of you may have asked, like, “How does Pastor Trent pick his messages and what themes and what series of messages?” If you pay real close attention, sometimes what I’m doing up here is not preaching. What I’m doing is parenting.

There are certain times and certain seasons and certain series where I’m actually just talking to five people. I know 1400 people show up, but I’m really only concerned with 5. Their names are Brooke, Zac, Alli, Leah and now, Scott. And so this past weekend we dropped them off and we cried like little girls and we formed puddles under our feet and slung snot everywhere. It was really a drippy mess. But we’re really sad to see them go.

But if you’re understanding what’s happening, I realized I had just a couple more shots before we sent them to Cedarville. And I knew that what was going to happen when they got to Cedarville was going to look like this. (Shows picture of Cedarville freshmen class.) There’s the incoming class for what Brooke and Zac are getting themselves involved in. So there’s the freshman class at Cedarville. And if you look real close, kind of like a “Where’s Waldo” thing, Brooke and Zac are in there somewhere. Brooke is somewhere in the 3 o’clock position. I haven’t found Zac yet. If you see him, let me know.

But anyway, can you imagine the peer pressure of being thrown into the middle of 850 people that you’ve never met before? And can you imagine all of the measuring and the evaluating to see “Does this person like me? Does this person accept me? Does this person even notice me because if I don’t do my hair right, and what if I don’t dress a certain way? Will I fit into this certain group? And what about that person?” Well, you see, I was trying to prevent that. I was doing parenting up here by launching us into a series called Approval Addicts. Because I don’t want anybody to be an approval addict, especially my children.

And I know I’m a recovering approval addict, and so I’m trying to do some parenting up here. So hopefully you appreciate that. But in reality, we all struggle with this. Right? I’ll give you another shot at that. We all struggle at this, right? (Congregation says, “Right.”) That’s right.

They’ve been great calling back home and I’m so excited about where they’re at. They told me on this past Wednesday night at Cedarville, they’ve been having a spiritual emphasis week to kick off the year, and on Wednesday night, the gospel was presented to these 3,600 at Cedarville, and 109 of them came forward to give their lives to Christ.

You say, “Wait a minute. I thought Cedarville is a Christian university.” Yeah, so what you tend to attract is people who grew up in Christian homes who have never personalized faith for themselves, and so they’re real smart. It’s like, “We need to get these guys to engage Jesus personally.” And so 109 of them crushed peer pressure and crushed approval addiction and came forward, stripped off the mask and said, “I’ve been a phony and I’m going to commit my life to Christ.” And that is the kind of atmosphere we want to cerate around here.

We’ve looked over the past couple of weeks at the biblical understanding of what it means to be an approval addict. Remember on the first week I showed you in Proverbs 29:25 it says, “The fear of man lays a snare.” It’s a trap. We get caught in traps. It entangles our feet. And the Bible says if you want to be free from that here’s what you have to do. You have to trust in the Lord because that’s where you find safety.

Approval addicts never feel safe. They’re always fearful of losing their status or fearful of not fitting in or not getting attention or acceptance or approval from somebody else. And so the only way to be safe is to get all of that from the Lord.

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at 1 Samuel 15. We see the story of King Saul who was an approval addict. And he sinned. He disobeyed. He didn’t obey God. And the prophet Samuel came to him and said, “Why did you not obey the Lord?” And he gives the answer. He’s real honest. “Because I feared the people.” Well, that’s a problem because pleasing people is one of the greatest obstacles to people pleasing God. And if we’re going to please God, we’re going to have to crush people pleasing. So that’s where we’re going this morning.

So you got your Bibles open to 1 Corinthians 4? Let’s read the first five verses. And it deals with this subject of approval addiction. It says in verse 1, “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small [itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny] thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court…For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me [verse 5]. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.” So our goal is to be set free from this approval addiction.

So this is what I’m going to do, I’m going to give you three main points to the message as we unpack that text. But throughout it, what we’re going to look at is the things that you would have to say about yourself in order to claim that you are free from your approval addiction. There’s six of those. So on the back of your page, there you’ve got the six things.

We’re going to kind of look at the outline from three different points. Here’s the first one, it’s this:

 

• I will minimize the value of what people think of me. (1 Corinthians 4:1-3)

 

Do you see the phrase there, “It’s a very small thing that I should be judged by you…”? You see, that’s the thing. Most of us think that what people think is a very big thing. If you’re going to be free from your approval addiction, you’re going to have to get what people think of you into a very small box.

Now, think about the context that this was written in. This is the Apostle Paul. Before he was the Apostle Paul that wrote almost half of the New Testament, do you know who this guy was? This guy was the greatest opponent to Christ and Christ’s church. He was such an opponent, he was on a murderous rampage killing Christians.

And so, for years, he tried to stamp out Christianity. And he tried to discredit those that were preaching the gospel and throw them in jail. And so that’s his story until he has a dramatic experience with Christ and he is completely transformed by this encounter with Christ. And he now becomes the greatest evangelist and the greatest proponent for the gospel. He becomes a church planter. He’s the greatest theologian the world’s ever seen, and half the New Testament, humanly speaking, by this man named Paul.

So now he has a ministry, and he’s writing a letter. Remember, the Bible is a series of letters, or this particular part is a letter, that he’s penning to a particular church in ancient Corinth. A city where there was a church, Harvest Bible Chapel in Corinth was there. And he was writing this letter, and he was saying, “Hey, I’m gonna come hang out with you guys.”

Now, what if I announce that next Sunday, the guest speaker would be a guy who has a criminal record, who murders Christians, and was the greatest opponent to Christ until Christ supposedly changed his life? Would you be a little suspicious of a guy with a criminal record that was going to get in the pulpit? Yeah. And unless you were absolutely convinced that there had been this dramatic transformation.

Well, apparently, there was a religious crowd in the church that didn’t give Paul their approval. And so, we read over and over in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, Paul is always presenting his resume to these guys. “Here’s my testimony.” He gives it three different times. He tells them about how Christ changed his life and how he’s now preaching the gospel. And yet, no matter what he did, no matter what he preached, no matter how many churches he planted, no matter how persuasive his arguments were, apparently there was a group of people that just never approved of Paul.

And Paul in this verse says, “Hey, let me just go on record here. It’s a very small thing that I don’t get your approval. The approval that I want comes from God. And so, it’s a very small thing what you think of me.” You see, that’s how you recover from an approval addiction. You take what people think of you and you make it a very small thing.

So, just turn to your neighbor right now and just look them in the eye and say, “What you think of me is a very small thing.” Just do that right now. All right? Now this is weird. I see some of you like kissing each other and like hanging out. And it’s like, “Oh baby, that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, all right? So can we still hang out?” That’s good.

Now if you are like a thirteen year old, and you’re sitting next to your parents, you were dying for that moment. “What you think of me is a very small thing, and Pastor Trent said I don’t care what you think of me.” All right, you missed the whole point, all right? So don’t be throwing that back on me. Remember, we want the approval of God, and God wants you to please your parents.

So anyway, don’t take that to an extreme there. But the idea here is, “I‘m living for the approval of God, not for the approval of any human court.” Do you see it there? You get the picture of a courtroom, right? And there’s these twelve jury members there and they…what do jury members do? They hear the testimony, they weigh the evidence, and they give the verdict.

Do you ever feel like you go before a human court? Do ever feel like maybe your family or your in-laws or your workplace or your school or the team you’re on or the coach you play for… you ever feel like you go before a human court?

Can I give you a little insight into my life? One of the occupational hazards of what I do all week long is I go before a human court of about 1300 or 1400 people every week. I don’t know what you do for your job. I don’t know what you make. Maybe you’re in manufacturing or sales or whatever. You know what my job is? I spend my week getting ready for this moment where I come before all of you and all of you come to inspect the thing I do.

And it’s an occupational hazard for a preacher to be thinking, “I wonder what she thinks of that? I wonder if I just offended her? I wonder if he’s going to come back? Where were those people that were here last week? Did I make them mad?” And so, it’s an occupational hazard for people in ministry. You have to conquer the approval addiction and be more concerned with what God thinks than what people think.  You’ve got to make what people think a very small thing.

And so let me give you three reasons why you should minimize what people think of you. First of all, people want different things. Different people want different things. Sometimes mom wants this and dad wants that. Sometimes this co-worker wants this and this co-worker wants that. Different people want different things. Some people want you to be more serious. Some people want you to be more funny. Some people want you to be more nice. Some people want you to be more bold. Some people want you to be more accepting. Some people want you to be more assertive. Some people want you to be more practical. Some people want you to be more theological. Some people want you to be more causal. Some people want you to be more formal. Some people want you to be louder. Some people want you to be quieter. Some people want you to talk more. Some people want you to talk less. Some people want longer sermons. Can you believe it?

Some people want shorter sermons. Some people want the auditorium to be bigger. Some people want the auditorium to be smaller. There are smaller auditoriums that other churches have. Some people want you to be more outgoing. Some people want you to be more reserved. Some people want you to be more intelligent, more athletic. They want you to be smarter, they want you to be taller, they want you to be shorter, they want you to be skinnier. They want you to be friendlier. They just want something other than who you are.

And if you live your life for the approval of people, you will be a professional juggler, juggling flaming bowling balls. And you’re just never going to keep them all in the air and you’re going to be enslaved to the expectations of others. And you’re never going to feel like you are who God wants you to be if you are an approval addict. So don’t worry about what people think, because people want different things.

People want wrong things. Some of the voices in our head are asking us to do things that are sinful. They’re wrong. One of the verses that got me through high school was Proverbs 1:10. It says, “My son if sinners entice you, do not consent.” And so we have to evaluate the source. “Who’s in my ear? Who’s putting pressure on me to do these things? Do they want me to do wrong things? I’m not willing to do wrong things to get your approval if it means I have to lose the approval of God.” So people want wrong things.

And people want impossible things. People want you to do things that you are not capable of doing. People want you to perform in a way that is superhuman. And you cannot do certain things. You have limitations. Your time is limited. Your creativity is limited. Your intelligence is limited. Your ability is limited. So, if you have performance-based relationships, you’re always going to feel like, “I don’t measure up.” Because people want impossible things.

People are never satisfied. Even if you get the approval from the person you so want it from today, they will have a different set of expectations for you tomorrow. Because people are never satisfied. Proverbs 27:20 says, “Never satisfied are the eyes of man.” There’s always going to be something else they want from you. So people want different things, people want wrong things, people want impossible things. Just give it up. Minimize what people think and maximize what God thinks.

So, how can you know if you’ve broken your addiction to approval? Here’s six evidences. I’m going to give them to you two at a time through these three points. First is this:

 

I know I’ve broken my approval addiction when:

1. I can detect and destroy the subtle power of flattery. (Proverbs 29:5)

 

How do you respond when someone gives you a flattering statement about your performance? Do you bow up and lean in and say, “Give me more. I like that. No, no really, but yeah, tell me that again? I didn’t quite hear you. Would you tell my friend?” Do you feed off of the flattery of other people?

What is flattery? Flattery is complimentary statements that people use to get something out of you. And it’s sinful. And it spreads a trap. Look at Proverbs 29:5. It says, “A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet.” And so, you don’t want to get caught in the trap of feeding off of flattery. If someone begins to give you complimentary statements, you thank them. But then you begin to discern, “Why did they tell me that? Were they trying to build me up? Or are they trying to get something from me?”

This past weekend when we took Brooke and Zac and dropped them off at Cedarville, we also took with us our third child, Alli. Alli’s fourteen years old. She wanted to see the campus. Great! We had a great time with Alli. We sent Brooke and Zac off to some meeting they were supposed to be involved in, and then Andrea and I and Alli went to the chapel where there was a service with Dr. Thomas White, the President of Cedarville. And he was going to address all the parents and the rest of the families there.

And we got there a little early, and we sat down on the front row, because that’s where godly Christians sit. Hi back there, how you doing? So, we sat down on the front row and we were a little early. And I noticed there was another fourteen-year-old girl that came up behind us, and she engaged my fourteen-year-old daughter, Alli, in a conversation. And she was just really bubbly and smiley, and she said, “Hi! I just wanted to come and say hi to you because I just saw your shorts and your shorts were the greatest shorts I’ve ever seen. Those are just the greatest shorts. And the shorts, I just thought those were just great shorts. And I just wanted to come and tell you you had awesome shorts.”

I’m like, “This is weird.” But they’re fourteen-year-old girls, so maybe that’s normal in fourteen-year-old girl land. And I was thinking, “There’s nothing special about Alli’s shorts.” And so I just kind of listened just a little bit longer. And as she was there, she said, “Hey, we’re from Colorado and we’re a family, we’re dropping off a kid here too, and it’s my brother, and we should stay in touch, and do you have an Instagram?” Like, “Yeah, I have an Instagram.” “Could I have your Instagram?” It’s like, “Okay.” So Alli gave her the Instagram.  And she turned and left, and sixty seconds later, Alli got a Instagram follower that was a guy.

I’m like, “Okay.” So the girl was the scout for the guy that wanted to start some kind of relationship through Instagram with my fourteen-year-old daughter. I’m like, “Where is this guy?” Now fortunately, about ten minutes after that, Dr. White stood up and addressed all the families. And he just said, “Hey, I want you to know something from the very outset. I know many of you are dropping your daughters off here at college. I want you to know they will be safe.” I’m like, “Oh that’s good.” Then he said this, “I am a fifth degree black belt. I am in the Karate Hall of Fame. If any guy on this campus starts to mess with one of your daughters, I perceive that God is calling me to prison ministry from the inside.”

I’m like, “Bam! That’s right. Where’s that guy? You know, if Dr. White doesn’t take him out, I will.” So anyway, understand that people will use flattery to feed your approval addiction and get you to lower the guard so they can get what they want out of you. If you can’t detect that and destroy it, you’re still an approval addict.

Here’s the second thing:

 

I know I’ve broken my approval addiction when:

1. I can detect and destroy the subtle power of flattery. (Proverbs 29:5)
2. I can appreciate and welcome the refining power of criticism. (Proverbs 27:5-6)

 

You see, flattery and criticism are opposite sides of the same coin. People give you feedback, right? So what do you do with the feedback? Well, if the feedback is flattery, you detect and destroy it. If the feedback is criticism, you appreciate and you welcome it.

So, how did you respond the last time someone gave you some criticism? They loved you enough to tell you the truth. That was not your finest moment. Your tone was not good. You did this right, but you left this undone. Can you appreciate and welcome that? You say, “No, I detect and destroy that.” See you’ve got it backwards. You appreciate and you welcome it.

Look at this verse. Proverbs 27:5, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” So do you have the kind of relationships where people love you enough that, if necessary, they have to punch you in the nose to get you to understand you are wrong? And I’m going to help you get right. You say, “Well, I’m not concerned. I don’t care what anybody thinks of me. It’s a very small thing…” No, you missed it. People that love you and are trying to get you to please God are God’s tools to help you.

And sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it feels like a wound. Sometimes it feels like they stabbed me in the heart. That’s better than stabbing you in the back. They’re trying to produce in you godly behavior. Better is open rebuke than hidden love. And so you don’t bow up and get angry and push back and defend and justify and excuse and blame and rationalize. When people give you criticism, you say, “What’s God trying to teach me through this?”

But if you’re so addicted to approval, you can’t handle it. When you know somebody has a problem with you. Have you broken your approval addiction? You’ve got to make what other people think a very small thing to you.

So, we have a little theme song in our little recovery unit here. It goes like this (to the tune of ‘It’s A Small World’): “It’s a small thing after all, it’s a small thing after all…sing it with me…it’s a great hymn of the faith…it’s a small thing after all, it’s a small, small thing.” So the next time somebody doesn’t notice you, the next time someone is critical of you, the next time somebody flatters you, the next time somebody leaves you off the team or doesn’t remember to thank you for your great accomplishments…“It’s a small thing after all…” It’s not a great big thing; it’s a small thing. Why? Because I don’t want to be an approval addict.

Here’s the second point:

 

• I will minimize my focus on what I think of myself. (1 Corinthians 4:3b-4)

 

I will minimize my focus on what I think of myself. Look at the end of verse 3. Paul was saying, “I do not even judge myself…” Now, do you know the difference between examining yourself and judging yourself? So later on in this same book in chapter 11 before we’re to receive the elements of the Lord’s Supper, the Apostle Paul says, “Examine yourself.” Chapter 13 he says, “Examine yourself to see whether you’re even in the faith.”

And so there is a sense in which I should examine myself. But some of us cross the line and begin to judge ourselves. And there’s two dangers that happen when we begin to judge ourselves. First of all, we could be too quick to condemn ourselves. Look here in verse 4. “For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.”

You know what he’s saying? It’s like, “As best I know, I have a clear conscience before God and before man. As best I know, I have a short list of sins that I have confessed to the Lord. As the Lord shows me those things I repent, I confess and I get right with God.” And to this point, Paul was saying, “You know what? To the best of my knowledge, I’m up to date.”

But he says, “That doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily sinless and faultless. There could be a huge blind spot in my life, and I’m waiting on the lord to reveal that to me.” And so he says, “That doesn’t mean I’m acquitted.” And then he says, “It is the Lord who judges me.” He says, “I don’t even judge myself. I’m not the judge of me. I’ve given that right to the only just judge, our eternal God.”

Some of us are too quick to condemn ourselves. By that I mean, some of us, our biggest problem is not pleasing people. Some of us, our biggest problem is that we can never please ourselves. You’ve set the bar so high in your life and you have established a performance-based relationship with God that you are always feeling a false sense of guilt. You are always beating yourself up. You are always condemning and punishing yourself. And you have stopped short of receiving the grace and the mercy and the love and the forgiveness and the positional righteousness that you have as a child of God because of what Christ did in his performance on the cross and through his life.

And if you are so quick to condemn yourself, you have not accurately understood the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you are on a morbid search for whatever the next area of sin is in your life, and you can never sense the freedom and the joy of knowing him with the assurance of a place in heaven because of what Christ has done, you’re too quick to condemn yourself. And that’s your greatest problem. And so you need to accept and understand afresh and anew the grace that is offered to you through the positional righteousness of Christ.

Now this is tricky because you do need to examine yourself. Let me tell you the proper way to get this right. It’s to constantly be praying the prayer of Psalm 139:23-24. In that prayer, the psalmist prays this, “Search me o God…” Not, “Oh God, I’m going on a search.” It’s “Search me, O God. I’m giving you complete access to my life. I want you to try me, I want you to know me, I want you to look in every dark crevice of my heart, and I want you to shine the spotlight on it. And God, as you show me things, God I commit to repent and confess and change so that I can be right with you. But God, I’m going to trust in your ability to search my heart. If I try to search my heart, I will skip around things. I will miss things.” And I’ll go looking for something that God’s not even concerned with because you don’t want to deal with the big area of your life. So don’t be too quick to condemn yourself.

Some of you have been told or maybe you’ve even said, “Well, I just have a low self-esteem. I just have poor self-worth.” And somebody may have even told you that. And the world’s answer to low self-esteem is to do what? Tell you, “You’re special.” Right? You’re not special. You’re an ordinary, dirty, rotten sinner. Just like everybody else. Right?

So, the gospel’s answer to low self-esteem is not high self-esteem. That’s a problem too. Some of you think too low of yourself. Some of you think too high of yourself. Do you know what the gospel’s answer to those of you who are too quick to condemn yourself is? The answer to low self-esteem is not high self-esteem. The answer to low self-esteem is no self-esteem.

Stop thinking about yourself! Why is your self-consuming space in your head that should be filled with thoughts of God and thoughts of other people? Your problem is not self-esteem. Your problem is selfishness; that you’re consumed with yourself. So some of you are too quick to condemn yourself. But the flip side is true too. Some of you are too quick to acquit yourself.

He says, “I don’t acquit myself.” You see, there’s another group of people. It’s like, “No. Low self-esteem is not my problem because I mean, I’m awesome.” Right? Yeah, you’re way too quick to acquit yourself. When was the last time you went before God and gave him access to every corner and crevice of your heart, and he showed you something specific that needed to stop or something that needed to start, and you said, “Lord, I am guilty here. And I confess. And I repent. And God, I need you to change me”? And so don’t be too quick to acquit yourself either.

So how can you know if you’ve broken your approval addiction? Here’s the third way:

 

I know I’ve broken my approval addiction when:

1. I can detect and destroy the subtle power of flattery. (Proverbs 29:5)
2. I can appreciate and welcome the refining power of criticism. (Proverbs 27:5-6)
3. I can glory in my weaknesses and I can glorify God in my strengths. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

 

So we all have different weaknesses and strengths? What’s your worst thing? Don’t tell anybody, but what’s your worst thing? It’s like you try to do, it’s like everybody you know does it better than you do. You’ve read books. You’ve trained. You’ve worked out. You still can’t get the bar above your head. And a thousand different ways, right? Whether at school, or whether it’s in the job or in the workplace or maybe it’s even in your walk with Christ. You walk a few steps. You fall. What is the area that you’re weak?

And then what is the area that you’re strong? It’s like, for whatever reason, you have ability, a skill, a gift that when you do that, it just happens. It’s not hard for you. It just works. That’s strength. So what do you do with your weaknesses and strengths?

We glory in our weaknesses. What does that mean? It means that I’m not ashamed of those areas. I’m not even ashamed to admit them. I don’t hide them. They’re just right out there for everybody to see.

Look at what the Apostle Paul said. Did you know the Apostle Paul had a weakness? He had a physical weakness. Apparently there was some things he wanted to do physically that he couldn’t do. He was constrained. And he said he’d asked God to change that. God said, “I’m not changing that.”

So this was his conclusion. “God said to me my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In every one of those areas that’s your worse thing, that’s the area where you have the most potential to reflect the glory of God. That’s the area where you can’t rely upon your resources. You have to cry out to God and watch God do something you can’t do.

And then he goes on and says this, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” And so, an approval addict can’t ever admit his weakness. He’s always hiding, covering up, masking, pretending. But when you’re set free from your approval addiction, you don’t care what other people think about your weaknesses. You just want Christ to be made known through your weakness. So you can glory in your weakness and glorify God in your strength.

Here’s the fourth thing:

 

I know I’ve broken my approval addiction when:

1. I can detect and destroy the subtle power of flattery. (Proverbs 29:5)
2. I can appreciate and welcome the refining power of criticism. (Proverbs 27:5-6)
3. I can glory in my weaknesses and I can glorify God in my strengths. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
4. I use people less. I love people more. (Luke 6:32, 35)

 

So if a person says, “I’m a drug addict,” what do you know they’re using? Drugs. It’s not a hard question in church this morning. You want another shot at that? If a person says, “I’m a drug addict,” what do drug addicts use? They use drugs. If a person says, “I’m an approval addict,” what do approval addicts use? They use people to get what they want to feed their approval addiction.

So they use people. And if you use people, you can’t love people. It is diametrically opposed. You can’t use and love people at the same time. Jesus said it this way in Luke 6. “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you?” He said you’re just using people. “Even the sinners love those who love them.” So it’s like a barter trade thing going on. You love me, I’ll love you. I better not stop loving you, because you might stop loving me. And your motive is purely selfish. You hook them up right there. It’s like, “Feed me, feed me. Feed my approval addiction.” And until you break that cycle, you’re not free to love people who can’t give you anything.

He goes on and says this, “[You want to show your love? Then]…love your enemy, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be the sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” So what is he saying? In order to love people, you’ve got to go find some evil, ungrateful people to love. If you’re just interested in using people, you will avoid ungrateful, evil people like the plague. Because they can’t do anything for you.

So do you put yourself in the path of disadvantaged people? It’s one of the reasons every person in our church should be plugged into our Compassion ministry. Because we go into the hard places and we rub shoulders with people who can’t give us anything. Just to love people. Approval addicts are not real interested in Compassion ministry. Because you just want to use people to feed your addiction.

So here’s the third point.

 

• I will maximize the value of what God thinks of me. (1 Corinthians 4:5)

 

Hey, did you know that the mind of God is filled with thoughts about you? “Aw, not me. I mean, he’s probably thinking of the President and you know, some other really important people.” Oh yeah? Psalm 139 says God’s thoughts toward me are more than the sand on the beach. So that’s another reason why you need to come to the picnic this afternoon. Find out how much God thinks about you. You need to count some sand.

Like, “Man, sure God couldn’t be thinking about everybody at the same time.” You see, that’s the problem. You think that God’s mind is like your mind. All right? Say it with me. My mind is a very small thing. Right? My mind is a very small thing. The mind of God created your little finite mind, right? And so God’s thoughts toward you outnumber the sand on the sea. He’s thinking about you. He has opinions about you. He’s aware of you. He knows what you’re going through. He knows the way you think. He knows you’re an approval addict. And he wants to be pleased with what you involve yourself in.

So look at it here in verse 5. He says, “Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes…” So, here’s the thing. If you’re going to be free from approval addiction, you have to constantly be thinking, “One day, I’m going to stand before God. He will bring me into judgment. And on that day, I want the approval of God.”

Does anybody not want the approval of God? Like the first second after you take your last breath? I mean, people that don’t even believe in God. Like, “If there is one, I want his approval.” Right? So that’s why they’re reaching for like rabbits’ foots and crescents and everything else. Whatever it is, I want to know that after I’m dead, I’m good with him.” Right? So, everybody wants to know you get the approval of God. And so how do you get it?

You get it by understanding his will for your life, surrendering to him and understanding that through Jesus Christ, we have complete approval from God. We’ll talk more about that next week. So I need to maximize the thought of what God is thinking of me.

Now listen, let me give you some reasons why you need to maximize what God thinks of you and minimize what people think of you. Because only God judges at the right time. Have you ever watched a football and game and like one team was like crushing the other team? And it’s like, “You know, I think we can leave. I don’t think we’re going to miss a whole lot of action.” And you packed up your blankets and your stadium chairs and you went and got in the car and then you heard a big roar in the stadium? And you’re like, “What’s going on in there?”

You get in the car, and you’re driving home, and you turn the radio on, and your team scores a touchdown. And you’re like, “Whoa!” And then your team scores another touchdown. “Whoa! We left too soon.” Right? “Our team made a comeback!” Well, here’s the reality. Most of the people we are living our lives to get the approval from, they are leaving too soon. They are passing judgment too soon.

If you’re a parent, you have to be on guard against this. Because your approval or disapproval of your kids is coming in like the first five minutes of the game. You only see the ten-year-old or the twelve-year-old or the fourteen-year-old version of them. God is not finished with them.

And we need to understand that when people disapprove of us or are critical of us or put us down or don’t treat us right or they pass over us, they didn’t wait long enough. Because God is not finished with what he’s doing in my life. There’s unfinished business. Only God judges at the right time. When he comes, he will set it all straight.

Another reason to maximize what God thinks is: only God knows all of the facts. People think they know. They don’t know half of what happened in your life to bring you to that point. There are people in here that the stories in this room of the way that we grew up, and the influences that we had, and the environment that was poor – all of that shapes us and affects us. And so that doesn’t excuse our sin, but it could explain our sin. And if people had all the facts, if we had all the facts, we would look at each other very different. Only God has all the facts.

Look at what it says. It says he will “bring to light the things now hidden.” There are things hidden in this room. Things that nobody else knows about. Some good things. Some bad things. God knows. One day those are coming to light and God will use the hidden things either to approve or disapprove of our lives. Only God knows all the facts.

Only God knows all the motives. Not only the things that we did, but why we did those things. And why we didn’t do those things. Notice it says he will “disclose the purposes of our hearts,” in verse 5. So not just the things, but the reason behind the things that we did. Only God knows all the motives.

And then finally, only God’s approval matters anyway. Who cares what the crowd of people think? Who cares what your employer thinks? Who cares what your in-laws think? If you have the approval of God, it makes no difference who disapproves of your life. And if God disapproves of your life, it makes no difference who approves of your life if you’re living for the approval of God.

So how can you know if you’ve broken your addiction to approval?

 

I know I’ve broken my approval addiction when:

1. I can detect and destroy the subtle power of flattery. (Proverbs 29:5)
2. I can appreciate and welcome the refining power of criticism. (Proverbs 27:5-6)
3. I can glory in my weaknesses and I can glorify God in my strengths. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
4. I use people less. I love people more. (Luke 6:32, 35)
5. I will allow the approval or disapproval of others to be based on my identity in Christ.

 

So here’s a simple thing. What label would you need to receive to feel approved? Some of you, it’s “smart.” Some of you it’s “productive.” Some of you its “funny.” Some of you it’s “cute.” Some of you its “rich.” You’re living your life to get somebody to slap that label on you.

There’s two labels that you should seek, and they’re right here in the text. Look back up here at verse 1. It says, “This is how one should regard us…” Here’s the label that Paul was living for. “…Servant of Christ…steward of the mysteries of God.” You want to put a label on me? That’s the one I’m living for.

So, somebody may look at you and say, “Well, he’s not real smart. But man, he’s a servant of Christ.” Would you be okay with that? Would that be all right? “Man he’s weird. He’s a nerd. He’s so awkward. But man, he is a wonderful steward of the gospel. Nobody can deny he loves the Lord and the Lord loves him.” Would that be okay with you? Is that enough? Is it enough for you to be known as a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of Christ? If that’s not enough for you, you’re still addicted to approval.

And here’s the last thing.

 

I know I’ve broken my approval addiction when:

1. I can detect and destroy the subtle power of flattery. (Proverbs 29:5)
2. I can appreciate and welcome the refining power of criticism. (Proverbs 27:5-6)
3. I can glory in my weaknesses and I can glorify God in my strengths. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
4. I use people less. I love people more. (Luke 6:32, 35)
5. I will allow the approval or disapproval of others to be based on my identity in Christ. (1 Corinthians 4:1-2)
6. I regularly ask God if my life pleases (Ephesians 5:10)

 

Great verse here in Ephesians 5:10, “Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.” We spend way too much time trying to discern what is pleasing to everybody else. But how much time, how much thought? For me, I’ve got to do that every day. I’m such a recovering approval addict, I got to go before God, “God, what would please you today? What do you want me to do with my time? Who do you want me to see? What do you want me to involve myself in? Who do you want me to say no to?”

For me, that’s a big one. It’s like I’ve got no shortage of things to do. A lot of times, I’m like, “I’m going to have to say no to that. And somebody is not going to like it. But Lord, would it please you for me to say no to that in order for me to do what you want me to do?” Are you willing to do that? So, have you broken your approval addiction? I trust you have.