When I turn my eyes to the heavens and see the glory of the sun and stars, my gaze is directed to an even more glorious light. I think of the one who will completely redeem His people one day and bring them to a new earth of which it is said, “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Rev. 21:23). Unlike the beaming stars in the sky, He did not remain in heaven, though He had every right to. He could have shone from above for all eternity, allowing his glory to be seen but never felt, witnessed but never known. And yet, He condescended and became flesh, giving me all the more reason to stand in awe as I admire the sun and stars. They are the work of His hands and only a minuscule portion of His creation, yet they still inspire the worship of the Psalmist David and myself.
Why would such a mighty light care for man? What is man to Him? And why would he associate with such lowly creatures? These questions inspired by the knowledge of God also came to the mind of a humble shepherd. After taking in the splendor of God’s creation – from the mouths of infants to the glory of the heavens David asks a question to God. The question was this: What is man that you are mindful of Him and the son of man that you care for him? (Ps. 8:4)
David wasn’t actually inquiring of God why He was mindful of man. He didn’t want a list of good qualities that man possessed. Rather, as he looked at creation he saw the greatness God alone possesses and stood in awe of his Maker. As He breathed in the glory of God he recognized that all he had was from God – any power, worth, value, or dominion.
Here he was gazing upon such a glorious God and seeing that he was a mere man — a man of sin who only created from what the Creator has given Him. Could you imagine in a moment like this that David would be tempted to think of the greatness of himself? Perhaps, but how could he continue in such a thought? While praising God for His glory would he then think, “How great am I to be praised for my righteous rule as a king! How great is my glory in all of Israel!”? Would he have been fretting over the people in the kingdom he’s disappointed? Would he be thinking, “Oh no, I wonder what they think of me now!”? Surely he didn’t please everyone. What about all those commitments he said no to? Think about all those people who despised him for failing to meet their expectations of a king.
People Pleasing – the Good and Bad
These thoughts – whether about how great others believe we are or how little others think of us have the same root problem – a fear of man and a desire for praise.
I’ve found that one of the most commonly confessed sins among evangelicals is people-pleasing. While it is a real problem, we must first dispel the illusion of selflessness. When we wrestle with people-pleasing as a sin our problem is not that we are too self-sacrificial. Self-sacrifice isn’t a sin at all; this is a virtue. Our call as believers is to please people above ourselves. People pleasing becomes a sin when we seek to please people so that we feel pleased with what they think of us. The true desire here is self-pleasure which comes when we are not pointing people to the pleasures of God. Scripture forbids us from doing this, saying, “not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart” (Eph. 6:6). This sort of people-pleasing is concerned for our reputation so we do good deeds for eye-service; we fear that others will think less of us and therefore not praise us.
The people-pleasing we are to strive for is that which seeks to please people by pointing them to God's glory, not man's vainglory. This sort of people pleasing says with Paul, "Just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved” (1 Cor. 10:33). To please people in this way is to imitate Christ in becoming a servant, who put aside his own pleasure, and sought to please others. “For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me’ ” (Rom. 15:3).
The first type of people-pleasing is outwardly focused and most concerned with self-pleasure, but the godly type of people-pleasing is concerned with the salvation of others and the glory of God. And yet, we must admit, it is pleasurable to be made much of, so this is not an easy sin to stop. The problem of people-pleasing is deep-rooted in our desires, so we must pursue a greater desire. We must desire to bring glory to God above all else, and to do this we must first inwardly rejoice in the glory of God.
Finding a Greater Pleasure
In Psalm 8, we see a man who took so much pleasure in God that he could not help but express it in a song. His heart was overjoyed with the knowledge of God. And so he said elsewhere, “In your presence, there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11).
It didn’t matter if Michal thought his dancing was embarrassing; David was in love with His King. Just think of the moment David was found dancing, when his wife looked at him with scorn, what was the situation? The ark of the covenant was being brought home and he was rejoicing in his mighty God. I would venture to say that his attitude in Psalm 8 is similar to his attitude when he was dancing on the way to Jerusalem — he was so pleased with His God that the judgment of man meant little to him. And so our challenge is this: to find such great pleasure in God and be so in awe of Him that the opinions of others matter little. When our greatest pleasure is in the glory of God we will not seek the glory of man.
David was keenly aware of the finiteness of man and the infinite nature of God and was awestruck. When the congregation would sing Psalm 8 David wanted them to reflect on the greatness of God with him. He wanted them to sing with him, “How majestic is your name in all the earth!”. He wanted them to sit and ponder the simple day-to-day noises and nature that was around them so they would delight in God as well. When was the last time you heard a baby make a noise and shouted, “God, you are mighty!”? Or when the last time you looked at the moon and stars on your drive home and said “Why are you mindful of me, great God?” Perhaps it's been a while, and perhaps this is the reason why we fear man so much, because we fail to praise and delight ourselves in the works of God.
Imagine if we did, if we took every opportunity to delight ourselves in our great God, we would taste glory more and more each day. If we meditated on our God from day to night our appetite would only be satisfied by the pleasures of His greatness, and the thought of undue praise toward us would be like rotten food. It just wouldn’t appeal to us because we’ve found that the glories of God leave us happily full. And being satisfied ourselves we’d invite others to the table so they may feast on the glories of God with us.
And yet, so often we seek the praise of others, and in doing so we offer them what is distasteful. By seeking their praise we ask them to take part with us in our dissatisfaction. John Piper seems to perfectly catch this thought as he says, "When we desire to be praised by others, we encourage misery in others... We are not thinking about the good of others; we are thinking about our own reputation. We are not thinking about the glory of God; we are thinking about our own glory."
Why should they look at us? David himself asked in Psalm 8,"What is man that you are mindful of him?” because he rightly saw the chasm between man and God. If it is an amazement that God is mindful of man then we should consider too what sort of mindfulness and care man deserves, and we should give him the same sort of thought and care as God. If we saw man the way God does we would not esteem his thoughts of us so highly knowing that he is as sinful as we are. And yet, if we cared for man as God does we would not desire his praise because we’d see that all his praise belongs to the God that so loved Him that He laid down His life for man. If we so loved man as God we would desire his greatest good – that he would give God every ounce of praise and not ourselves. We, like Paul, would seek to please people not for our own advantage, but so they may be saved.
If we took seriously delight in God we would pray saying "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you" (Ps.73:25). Our eyes would be heaven-fixed and our minds would be filled with thoughts of the things above. Being that our focus would be so God-centered we would desire the same for others.
May we fix our gaze today upon the glories of God and be amazed at the works of His hands so we may lift ours in praise and encourage others to do the same. May we be amazed by God’s mindfulness of man with David so we may be satisfied with the pleasures at His right hand. And may we be so satisfied in God that any undue praise toward us is distasteful if it does not ultimately bring glory to the Creator.
"Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?"
Exodus 15:11
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