Joyce Meyer - The People-Pleasing Disease - Part 1

I wanna talk to you today about the people-pleasing disease. Anybody here tend to be a people pleaser? Well, we all are to some degree, and it's not always wrong. The Bible tells us to please people, but when we're displeasing God in order to please people, then we're doing something we should not do. Amen? So, I wanna asked a few questions. Do you often find yourself saying, "Yes," when someone asks you to do them a favor, and then regretting it later? Do you say, "Yes," to things and then complain about having to do them?

Now, don't be so quiet. Perhaps you said, "Yes," but you really wanted to say, "No," and you end up feeling like a victim, and then being resentful of the other person that you're doing it for, when you're the one that said, "Yes". I remember getting really upset at a person when I realized that they had been controlling me for a handful of years. God just said, "Why are you mad at them? You're the one that let 'em do it. Are you selfless to a fault? Do you feel guilty when you say, 'no'"?

Well, we all wanna please people. And in fact, the Bible tells us that we should live to please others. And we'll talk a little more about that later. But when pleasing people causes us to disobey God or to displease God, then we're doing it to gain approval, or we're doing it out of the fear of man. We're doing it out of the fear of someone not liking us, or thinking we're not good, or losing favor with them, or having them become angry with us.

And I grew up in a very dysfunctional home. A father, who was very sexually abusive to me, would regularly beat up my mother when he'd come home drunk, and he controlled everything in the household. So, he got angry very easy, and so I fell into a pattern early in my life of trying to keep him happy, so there'd be a little peace in the house. I kind of became like the resident peacemaker. And when you get something like that early in your life, a lot of things that we get imprinted on us early in life, you carry them all through life. And even though we are officially "Delivered" from them when we become believers, I find that some of those things don't just go away, but I become aware of them, and then I have to resist falling back into that same pattern. It's kind of like, we default to something.

So, if I'm with somebody close somebody that I love, specially family, or even a real close friend, if I think that I have made them angry, it's very difficult for me still, to not just stand on my head trying to fix it. I can resist it now, but I have to do it on purpose. So, if you have something like that in your life, where just because you have to resist it, and stand against it, doesn't mean you're not free from it. See, before you didn't know how to resist it or even that it was a problem maybe.

So, I just think that's good for you to know, that just because you still have to resist something. You know, I still every day have to resist saying things that I shouldn't say. I have to resist several times a day thinking thoughts that I shouldn't think. And so, the Bible never tells us that we will not be tempted. It says that we pray that we won't come into the temptation. Temptation itself is not sin. It's when you take the temptation and let it become a reality in your life that it becomes sin.

So, don't feel bad about yourself, because you get tempted sometimes. People pleasers are often people that were denied proper affection and love in their childhood. They may have only felt accepted and loved when they were doing exactly what parents, teachers, or peers wanted them to do, even if what they wanted was sinful or went against their conscience. If our actions are done to gain approval, I want you to listen to this, we will be disappointed, because we don't always get people's approval, even if we do everything they want us to do. In John chapter 2, verse 24 and 25, it says that, "Jesus [for his part] Did not trust himself to them, because he knew...[human nature]".

And I find that scripture to be very interesting, and it's helped me a lot in life because we do get disappointed by people, but we also disappoint people. And Jesus didn't say he didn't trust them. That's the thing I think is interesting. He said he didn't trust himself to them. And so, we always have to have a little bit of caution with people, not to just totally throw our whole self open to them. And don't ever look at anybody and think, "You'll never hurt me". Because just about the time you do that, God will be obligated to let you see their weaknesses.

So, you realize that he's the only one that you can put your full and complete trust in. And I think the fact that Jesus did not, trust himself to them, is why he did not get devastated when Judas betrayed him, when Peter denied even knowing him three times, when he specifically asked the disciples that he had poured so much into, if they would pray with him just one hour in his greatest time of agony, and they all fell asleep. He said, "Can't you pray with me one hour"? And yet there's no indication he got angry with them. There's no indication he blame them. But even in that statement, "Can't you pray with me one hour," you can hear a little bit of disappointment, I think. Couldn't you at least do that? But yet he wasn't devastated by it.

See, if we understand that people do not have the ability to never disappoint us or hurt us. Now, you can look at me from out there to here, or in your home watching me on television. And I don't know what you think, but if you came to my house and hung out with me for two weeks, we had meals together, and did things. I can pretty much guarantee you that in that period of time, I would do something that you would think, "Well, I wouldn't have thought that you would've done that"? And I think something we have to be very careful of today, and I'm thinking this more and more. You have to be very careful of sitting out there and get a worship attitude toward the person up here. You love them, you respect them, you honor them, you revere them, you pray for them, but they're not God. They represent God, they're speaking God's word to you, but God's a jealous God, and you belong to him, amen?

And so, let me ask a question. How many of you feel too stressed out in life? How many of you feel like you have too much to do? Okay, well, I'll just kind of slip this one in right now. If you have too much to do, I'll tell you what God told me. "You made your schedule, you're the only one that can change it". And furthermore, you'll find out today, if you would write down everything you're doing, and then ask yourself, "Why am I doing this"? You'd clear your schedule off. I mean quick, you'll have so much time you won't know what to do. Because one of the things we wanna talk about today with this people-pleasing business is motives.

And you know our motives are not something that we look at as often as we should. I read recently that spiritual integrity is the ability to be brutally honest with yourself. I'm gonna say that again. This is something to really think about. I'm gonna put some things out today, that are a little deeper things, but the early service had it great. I mean, I was the nicest in that early service I think I've ever been. I just loved up on 'em and told 'em how wonderful they were, just... I mean nobody could've found fault with that message. Well, yeah, somebody probably could've. This message is one of the ones that you have to think about what I'm saying.

Do you know that I think, very seldom do we really think about why we're doing something. We just make decisions and do things, or we do things because people ask us to, or because it's what's expected, it's the should and the ought. Now, listen to what I'm gonna say. God will never give you more to do than what you can do peacefully. And God will never give you more to do than what you can do and not have to hurry. Yeah, wow. Now, how many of you believe that? I mean, God is not the one putting this lifestyle on us that we have. It's the world that does that, and we're just kind of following along. And part of it is because we say, "Yes," to everything, and we need to learn how to say, "No," to some things. And you won't do that if you're afraid of making people mad.

As long as you still have to impress people, you're never free. If you live to please people, when you stop pleasing them, they will drop you like a hot potato. I know 'cause I've experienced it. I had a group of people that in a church that I went to prior to being baptized in the Holy Spirit, that I thought were really, I had worked really hard to get those friends. You know, they were the right group, and I wanted to be in with the right group. You know, even churches have cliques. And I wanted to be in the right group. So Dave was an elder, and I was on the church board, and we did everything with our little group that we thought really loved us.

And you know, it was the oddest thing. When God called me into ministry, they all dropped me like a hot potato. I got asked to leave the church, because even though God believed that women could do this, they didn't. Well, guess what? That's been 47 years ago and I'm still here. And I don't know what they're doing but, it's kind of interesting... The people that judge you for what you do are usually the ones that aren't doing anything. And judging you for doing something makes them feel better about doing nothing.

Now, the Bible does tell us to live to please God. Galatians 1:10, I love this scripture. Paul said, "Now am I trying to win the favor of men, or of God"? So, that's a good question. "Do I seek to please men"? Now, listen to what he said, this is amazing. "If I were still seeking to be popular with people, I would not now be an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ". Okay, think about how easily I could have missed the call of God on my life, if I would've bowed down to that pressure when all those people that I thought were my friends, I mean they just told me, "You're wrong". "Women can't be ordained". "Women don't do this". "You don't have the right personality". That's what one person, "We've talked about it". You know what that means? "We've talked about it, and we don't think you have the right personality".

You know sometimes when you have a dream from God to be honest, you're just better off to keep it to yourself. Because if you think everybody's gonna be happy for you, they may not. Isn't it interesting that God picks people that nobody thinks he could use? And I was really a very unlikely candidate, and they were right, in the natural I didn't have the right personality. And you know, my voice is not the sweetest little thing in the world, and yet God's blasting it around the world. And so, all I can say, and maybe it's a tiny bit of a bad attitude, I don't know. I hope, because I'm on a lot of television, so I hope those people who judged me can't watch their television without running across me. Got asked to leave my church, because I got filled with the Holy Spirit. Wow.

John 12:42 and 43. "And yet [in spite of all this] Many even of the leading men (the authorities and the nobles) believed and trusted in Jesus". Now listen, "But because of the pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that [if they should acknowledge Christ] They would be put out of the synagogue". Wow! So, they gave up a relationship with Jesus, because of fear of not being part of the group. Can I tell you that you can survive, even if you're not part of the group? Matter of fact, sometimes you're better off, just hang with Jesus.

So here we have Paul who says, "I wouldn't even be an apostle if I would've been trying to be popular with people". I would've totally missed the call of God on my life, and missed all these wonderful things that God has let me do to help people, if I would've preferred to keep my friends. And it wasn't easy. It was not easy to lose our friends and have family members turn against us. Don't think for one minute that the devil's gonna roll out a red carpet for you, when God calls you to do something. And one of the biggest weapons the enemy uses against you, is the fear of what people are gonna think, the fear of what they're gonna say. The Bible does tell us that we should live to please God, not men. We wanna please men, but if that means that we have to displease God, then we've gotta choose God. Amen?

Now, motives. My, my, my. You know, God is not nearly as interested in what we do, as he is in why we do it. And one of the reasons why God can be so merciful with people, is because he sees the why behind the what. Why did God choose to use somebody like me? Because honestly and truly in the natural, I was not and probably still am not qualified to do this. I mean, I had a 12th grade education. Now, I've got a whole bunch of degrees now, because they were honorary degrees. But I wanted to go to college. I wanted to go to college. My teachers wanted me to try for a journalism scholarship because they recognized that I could write. I didn't get to go to journalism school, but interestingly enough, I've written 150 books. About 70 million books have been sold and distributed around the world. And so, now, I saw a lady say, "That's amazing. You're absolutely right".

I mean, I've never taken a class on how to write a sermon. Never had a public speaking class. Never had any kind of professional training. Haven't been to seminary. But God saw something that people didn't see. He saw the "Why" behind the "What". I realized that people looking at my behavior then, and not that I was doing a lot of bad things, but just the harshness. God knew "Why" I was that way. And he knew that I loved him, and that he could work with me. And he saw me down the road, and that's the way he sees you too, amen.

Let me tell you something. God can change anybody if they'll let him. Anybody! Motives, be brutally honest with yourself about why you're doing things. When somebody asks you to do something, don't just say, "Yes," right off the bat. Tell 'em you wanna check your schedule, and you'll get back to 'em tomorrow. And then actually think about what all it's gonna take for you to do it. See, it's very easy for somebody to say to me, "Oh, God told us that you're gonna be the keynote speaker at our conference". Well, that used to just really move me because I thought, "Well, if God told them, I guess I better do it". And then I finally thought, "Well, God didn't told me"! He may have told you, but he didn't tell me.

And so, I finally started taking time to go home and find out if God wanted to tell me. 'cause I found myself doing so many favors for so many people, that then I still had to do everything I needed to do, to keep Joyce Meyer Ministries running and operating right. And we want to do favors for people, but you can only do so much. And anybody that wants to hear, "Yes," is not gonna like hearing, "No".

But if people, now, you've gotta hear this, if people really love you, if they're true friends and they really love you, they will want you to follow God, not them. I've had a couple of occasions where I've asked people to do something and they said, "I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to say, 'no'. I just don't feel like it's what God wants me to do". And I'm like, "Hey, that's great, I want you to follow God". If you really love people, you're gonna want them to follow God, not you, if what you want is not what God wants. Amen? So, don't put that pressure on people, just to try to get 'em to do what you want them to do. Encourage them to hear from God.