As an author, speaker, or your average Christian trying to share the gospel with someone, it’s hard to know how to please God and not chase the praise of men.
I mean, if you aren’t relatable, likeable, or at least moderately proficient, no one will hear the precious message entrusted to you to share.
So, how do we walk the fine like between getting people to listen to us and not becoming men pleasers?
I came across this conundrum while reading 1 Thessalonians chapter two in my personal devotions earlier this month, and to be honest, I was really, really stumped.
Let’s jump into our text, shall we?
But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. 1 Thessalonians 2:4 KJV (see full chapter here)
The first thing I noticed about this verse is how precious the gospel is. God has entrusted it to us. It is a privilege.
Did you see the word ‘allowed’? Take a moment to think about the implications of that. God allowed us to share the gospel. It’s not our right. It’s a precious gift.
Do we remember that about the gospel? That sharing it is a precious gift entrusted to our care?
I think sometimes we forget, and if we focus a bit more on that, we might just figure out how to please God who tries our hearts rather than chase the praise of fickle men.
But how can anyone trying to get and keep another person’s attention NOT be men pleasers?
If you fail to be engaging, no one will discover the wonderful message you hoped to share at the end.
Pleasing your audience is part and parcel of the entertainment and public speaking industry. How can a Christian do otherwise?
At first, I thought quite a lot about Jesus. He told a lot of stories–we call them parables. He used language and tropes his audience were familiar with. He spoke with authority and often had a captivated audience. Even his critics couldn’t help but be amazed at His skill.
Those are things we should emulate for sure. We must practice and improve the skills God has given us.
Also, we need to pay attention to our audience.
For example, I used to set the timer for my oldest son if I needed him to do something quickly. He loved the challenge of racing the clock. My youngest son dissolved into tears when I tried it on him. Total backfire.
You need to know your audience, but that’s not enough on its own to successfully share the gospel.
Many entertainers have great skill, they are personable, and they know their audience well, but Jesus had something more. So, what was I missing? Because I was definitely missing something.
What was that elusive element which made Jesus different from the successful entertainers of today?
Thankfully, the next day I read more of 1 Thessalonians chapter two, and Paul shares what I’d been missing.
It’s not just talent, practice, and education. It’s not just sincerity and being yourself. Nor is it just being selfless and not chasing glory (v.5-6). It’s all those and one more very important thing.
Here is how to share the gospel without becoming a man pleaser:
But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children: 1 Thess. 2:7 KJV
Jesus’s motive was love, and not just any love. A deep, abiding, sacrificial kind of love.
So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. 1 Thess. 2:8 KJV
How much do you love your audience?
I think I’ll leave you with that for a moment. So, please stop and ponder this:
How much do you love your audience? Like a parent willing to sacrifice anything for their child?
—-
It’s sacrificial love that makes all the difference.
We work tirelessly for our children, not because we want their love. Not because we want their praise (most of the time we’re still reminding them to say thank you!). It’s just because we love them no matter what they do (even if they don’t listen). We just keep trying, keep reaching, keep going because we love them.
Everyone has someone they can share the gospel with, a neighbour, a family member, even the check-out lady at the shop.
Someone is your audience. Do you love them? And I mean really love them with the love God has for us?
For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? 1 Thess. 2:19 KJV
Are you feeling discouraged that your reach for the gospel is too small?
Oh, those pesky numbers. Did I sell enough? Did enough people come to my event? Has NO ONE ever got saved because of me?
If the numbers are low (or non-existent), we can become discouraged.
But just remember. The widow’s two mites never did much if you look at them solely from their monetary value. The greedy priests in the temple couldn’t do much with two mites and probably just pocketed it anyway (so why bother?).
And the Bible doesn’t say that Jesus came up to commend the widow in person. In fact, I’m pretty sure she had no idea the impact God was going to do with her two mites, not until she reached Heaven.
I can only imagine how gobsmacked she felt when she got to Heaven and went, “You did what with my two mites?”
You have no idea how far your two mites can go in God’s hands. So, just do your best, and let God handle the rest. He knows how to stretch two loaves and a few fish to satisfy thousands. He can reach far beyond what we can see.
But just before we finish, Paul had one more thing to share.
What is best for my audience?
As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. 1 Thess. 2:11-12 KJV
We do what we do so that our audience will be worthy of God. Not just closer to God, but worthy of Him. That brings us full circle right back to the start.
The gospel is a precious treasure entrusted to us. We share it with a deep, abiding love like a parent has for their child. We travail and labour in this endeavour (9), and we keep ourselves holy, just, and unblameable (v10). Not for man’s glory but because we deem serving our Lord and Saviour the worthiest endeavour of all.
I don’t know about you, but this chapter reminded me of the awe of the gospel, and how humbling, how awesome that He entrusted me with the important task of sharing something so precious that it is beyond words.
“Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” 2 Cor. 9:15 KJV
Great message, thank you Dienece.
I love the line “you have no idea how far your two mites can go in God’s hands”. A good reminder to keep trying, to use what we have in our hands and trust God with our efforts.
I wonder what we will find when we get to heaven? Will that story that we put our heart and soul into (that sold less than ten copies) have a far reaching and meaningful impact for the kingdom? Will it have saved one precious soul, setting the angels rejoicing?
Ah, what we can achieve if we love our audience more than sales!
;o)
Thank you, Suzie. God’s been working on me with this, and I’m working on trusting Him with the outcome! To make sure my head and heart are in the right place. Thank you for letting me know it was an encouragement to you.
Hi Dienece and Suzie, yes! I came to the same conclusion as Suzie—one of the biggest challenges we face as Christian writers is to love our readers more than sales.
To write for God’s glory means that we view our readers as precious people who are loved by God.
The worldly perception is to view readers as either an asset or liability depending on whether they love our books or read our books or review our books or buy our books.
The worldly perception is our readers are a liability if they post one star reviews and publicly say negative things about our books. The Christian perspective is we love and respect all of our readers who spent their precious time (and most likely money) reading our books, remembering that Jesus was hated by many who didn’t like what he had to say.
Seeking likes and adulation and glowing 5 star reviews and bestseller status from our readers is a slippery slope that can lead us astray if we’re seeking our own glory and validation from worldly success. If we’re writing for God’s glory then His love and care for us is enough.
Irrespective of whether the gospel message in our books is overt or very subtle, when we’re writing for His glory we let go of worldly concerns that we can’t control and we let Him do His good works in the lives of our readers.
We have opportunities to reach readers with our writing in a myriad of ways and we may never know the impact of our work on readers.
Dienece, thanks for sharing your inspiring and thought provoking post. 😊
In an earlier (and much longer!) version of this devotional, I had included that we should pray about that slippery slope because it’s so easy to fall down it!
It ended up needing to be removed in the edits, but I’m really thankful you mentioned it!
It’s a hard line to walk and such a slippery sloop. I’ve had to remind myself a lot lately that it isn’t about the results I can see. But about being faithful and trusting God with what I can’t see. And loving people where they are not where I wish they were. Thanks for your encouragement, Narelle!
Hi Dienece, You’re welcome, and it’s complicated when money is involved. We naturally desire to be paid and compensated for our work in writing books—and there’s nothing wrong with seeking financial rewards for our labour. It’s a Biblical principle that a worker deserves to be paid for their labour.
There’s wisdom in knowing, from the get-go, whether our book is marketable (has an identified target audience) and whether we can reasonably expect to eventually cover our initial costs and time investment in publishing our book.
If we can reduce the costs of indie publishing a book without impacting on quality (or traditionally publish where we don’t pay any money to publish our book) then the earnings needed to break even are smaller and there’s a lot less financial pressure to sell more copies of our book.
The financial pressure is when the temptation to slide down the slippery slope becomes our greatest challenge. Do we trust God with our book sales? Can we market and promote our books in a way that doesn’t compromise our desire to seek His glory first, above our own glory?
Yes! All that. 🙂 Well said.
Absolutely agree with all this. God knows exactly why He has asked us to write and who our work will impact. We may never know, so we need to simply keep our eyes on Him and be faithful.
That was meant to be a reply to Narelle, by the way.
Hit the wrong reply button. 🙂
I’ve done that before! LOL