Sermon Tone Analysis

Subject: Overcoming the Fear of Rejection

We’re going to look at the one that’s in your mind that causes you to make yourself crazy, which is fearing the disapproval of other people, fearing the rejection of other people, fearing too much what other people think about your life.

When you do that, when you have that fear in your life, it lets all kinds of crazy makers in.

You’ve left the door wide open.

And all kinds of crazy makers can dominate, can control, can manipulate, can cajole, can cause you to say yes when you want to say no, and cause you to say no when you want to say yes, and miss all kinds of things in your life.

At the top of your message notes outline, there’s a verse in Proverbs 29:25.

In Today’s English Version it says this: “It is a dangerous trap to be concerned with what others think of you, but if you trust the Lord, you are safe.”

It is a dangerous trap.

The Bible calls it a “snare” in the King James Version.

So today, I want us to look at the concept of Overcoming the Fear of Rejection.

What we’re going to do briefly is two things.

Look at how it traps you, why it’s a trap and what you need to deal with this issue in your life.

Why it’s a trap.

Then, how to escape and how to avoid it.

The Bible is very, very clear about both of these issues.

Before we look at it, I need to explain to you that the desire to get the approval of other people, that’s not a bad thing.

That’s a legitimate need in your life.

You do need the approval of others in your life.

You just don’t need it to dominate your life.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to please your parents.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to please your husband, your wife.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be loved, liked, and approved of by friends, by family, by neighbors.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

Actually, you need an amount of approval in your life.

The Bible tells us and actually commands us to try to please other people in many ways.

In other words, don’t just live for yourself.

So there’s nothing wrong with wanting the approval of other people.

So let me give you five things, why you need to deal with this.

Maybe you’ve had it all your life.

You’ve worried too much about the approval of other people.

It is a trap the Bible says.

How is it a trap?

Five dangers of being a people pleaser...

1.

I miss God’s purpose for me.

It causes me to miss God’s purpose for my life.

You cannot be worried about being what everybody else wants you to be and focus on what God created you to be at the same time.

If you’re always worried and you’re always trying to be what your parents wanted you to be, what your husband, your wife wanted you to be, what your friends/your boyfriend/girlfriend… whoever it is.

If you’re always trying to meet their expectations, if you’re always trying to fulfill their purpose for your life, you will miss God’s purpose for your life.

God didn’t put you here on earth to please other people.

Our purpose is to please God, not people.

“He is the one who examines the motives of the heart.”

2. I don’t grow in my faith.

When we try to please everyone, it stunts our ability to grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

I want you to think about this for just a minute.

When God is big in our lives, when God is big, people have less power in our lives.

Their influence is a little bit diminished when God is big in our lives.

But on the flip side, when we allow people to be big, what ends up happening is God becomes diminished.

And we give to people in our lives what really only belongs to God.

We give to people authority, we give the people influence, we give the people what God deserves to have.

God and people can’t both be equal sized in our lives.

A people pleasing mentality hinders our ability to grow in faith.

3. It leads to sin.

Trying to please everyone leads me to sin.

When I try to please everyone, I inevitably end up giving in to peer pressure.

Time and time again when teenagers are talked to about their biggest struggle: “My number one struggle is peer pressure.”

My hunch is, for those of us who are a little bit older, that might be the same struggle that we have.

It looks a little bit different for us, but it’s the same struggle.

It’s the desire to please.

And when we have the desire to please, we end up doing things that we know we shouldn’t do.

Example of allowing a teenager to ride in the car with me.

God seems to be of the opinion that we have a strong propensity to do what others are doing.

When you look at Scripture, time and time again, we see people who love the Lord and yet in their own way jumped off the bridge because other people wanted them to do that.

Pilate.

When Jesus was brought before Pilate.

Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent.

Pilate even said, “I find no fault in this man.”

But as the crowd became more and more insistent, Pilate gave in.

He knew what he should do, but he just couldn’t do it because he wanted to please people.

When I read these verses, when I look at the lives of people in Scripture and I see their experiences, it causes me to ask myself the question that might be worth you asking yourself the same question: In what area – areas – of my life, am I caving in to the expectations of other people?

In what areas am I doing what I know is wrong in order to win the approval or to avoid the rejection of other people?

4. I become a hypocrite.

When hypocrisy invades our lives, we start to wear masks.

We adapt to our environment.

Few things are as exhausting as trying to figure out what masks you’re trying to wear in front of which people in which context.

It’s completely and entirely exhausting.

And God doesn’t want us to spend our energies there, trying to please everyone by wearing a mask.

No. There’s far too much that God has for us in our lives

When we wear masks, we fake it.

We pretend.

We don’t reveal our true selves.

We just love to make ourselves look better than we are.

Jesus knew this about the tendency of the human heart.

Luke 16:15 (NLT)

15 Then he said to them, “You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts...

God wants us to be consistent inside and out regardless of who we’re around, what context we’re in.

Not wearing masks.

The fear of disapproval can cause us to compromise things that are so important.

The truth.

This is why we say things that are socially acceptable rather than what is true.

This is why we say things that are politically correct rather than the truth.

Integrity is more important than popularity.

5.

I lose my spiritual influence.

It silences my ability to share the simple truths of who Jesus is and how he’s changed my life.

When we’re pleasing everybody we don’t do this.

We find a story that illustrates this perfectly in John 9. Jesus rolls into the scene and he heals a man who’s been blind all his life.

You would think in that moment, wow!

What a place to celebrate and declare God’s glories, God’s greatness.

It doesn’t roll out that way.

It doesn’t happen.

Some religious leaders are around and they go to this man’s parents, the man who has just been healed and they say, “What do you think of Jesus?