Let's open our Bibles up to John 12. John 12 in your Bible, it will go Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then John. John 12, our focus will be verses 42 and 43. However, for sake of context, we will actually begin reading in John 12, verse 27, and then finish up in verse 43. So let's read this, John chapter 12, starting in verse 27, going to verse 43. The Word of God, it says this, this is the Lord Jesus speaking, and he says, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Therefore, the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said an angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, this voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. This he said, signifying by what death he would die. And the people answered him, we have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. And how can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man? Then Jesus said to them, a little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke and departed and was hidden from them. But although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke. Lord, who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them. These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him. And in our focus for today, verses 42 and 43. You and I, we're often, throughout the course of our day, making decisions. If I were to ask you this question, question being this, how many decisions do you think the average person makes every single day, what would you say? As I was thinking about this, the number that I came up with was 75. I thought to myself, and I said, 75 seems like a reasonable number, reasonable number of the amount of decisions that we make. every single day. And perhaps you're thinking it's something like that, something like 75, maybe 100. Well, if you're around that number, you couldn't be more wrong. You are so wrong, not even close. The research I was doing turns out that the average person makes 35,000 decisions every single day. And that's a lot of decisions being made. And you hear that and you start to think to yourself, you say, well, can that possibly be the case? Then you start to read up on it and it turns out This is the case. We are constantly making decisions. We make decisions as to what it is we are going to focus on in our minds. If we're having a conversation with somebody, we are constantly making decisions throughout the entire course of the conversation. When we wake up in the morning, and we go to eat breakfast, we make the decision as to which side of the refrigerator am I going to look at first, and say we choose eggs, we make the decision. How am I going to crack my eggs? Where am I going to do that? How am I going to boil or cook my eggs? What is the burner going to be on? Is it going to be medium, low? or high, make decisions for breakfast, for lunch, and for dinner. When you go out and you come back home and you put your keys not in the designated place where the keys are supposed to go. You know how we all do this. All of us have the designated spot where we want keys to go. And of course, we never ever use this designated spot. So then when it comes for us to go out again, you make the decision of where am I going to look first? Where in the world did I put my keys? Where am I going to look? We are constantly making decisions. And now, of course, not all of the decisions that we make are equal in their importance. And that seems kind of obvious, right? If we were to go to the grocery store, the decision between, am I going to get American cheese or cheddar cheese, is really not significant whatsoever. But many of the decisions that we make are indeed very, very significant. are indeed very, very important. This brings up a good point, and I think that it bears mentioning this, and it's this, that just because a decision that we make may not be the most important decision, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is an unimportant decision. I'm gonna repeat that one more time. Just because a decision we make may not be the most important decision, that does not necessarily mean that it is unimportant. Think about what's taking place even today. Since you've woken up this morning, since you've woken up, you've made some unimportant decisions, right? You made the unimportant decision of when am I going to brush my teeth? Is it gonna be before? or after breakfast, that is an unimportant decision. But then think about the very important decisions that you and I made since we woke up this morning. We made the very important and very good decision to come to church. And then we made the very important decision as to what it is that we were going to wear here at church. Then we made the very important decision as to what time we were going to leave our homes to come here to get to church on time. Now the most important decision in all of that was going to church, but you see how important all of the other decisions were as well. So something doesn't necessarily have to be the most important decision in order for it to be important. And it seems obvious. It seems obvious that we make decisions like this every single and we are constantly and continuously throughout the day being confronted with them. Nonstop just being confronted with decisions. Now I say all that to you because the Word of God is constantly doing the work of confronting. It is constantly doing this. The Word of God constantly confronts believers. Believer, do you know this? Of course you know this. When you open up your Bible, you see that you are constantly being confronted by the word of God. What will we do as believers? Will we pray or will we not pray? What will we do as believers? Will we read the word of God or will we not do that? What will we do as believers? Will we, children, will we obey our parents or will we disobey our parents? What will we do? What will we do? Husbands, will we love and cherish our wives as Christ loves and cherishes the church, or will we neglect our wives? Christian wives, what will you do? Will you love and submit to your husband as the church loves and submits to Christ, or will you neglect him? Nonstop, all throughout the word of God, believers are constantly being confronted. And today in our text, we are confronted here with the question. And the question is this, do we love the praise of men more than the praise of God? You see, today in our text here, we are going to be told of these individuals who love the praise of men more than they love the praise of God. And that is not a good thing. That is a very, very bad things. And we have here in our text before us this morning, we have a great caution, a tremendous caution not to seek after the praise of men, but instead to seek the praise of God. Our focus this morning will be twofold. Number one, we will see what type of belief is being referenced to in verses 42 and 43. And number two, we will see that believers in the Lord Jesus Christ ought to seek to honor the Lord rather than seek to receive honor from men. That believers in the Lord Jesus ought not to love the praise and adoration of men. What's happening here in this section of John chapter 12, you'll recall that John the Apostle, what he's been doing is he has been extensively quoting from the book of Isaiah. He's been quoting the prophet Isaiah. He did it back in verse 38, where in verse 38 he went to Isaiah chapter 53 and made it very clear that Isaiah 53 is indeed about the Lord Jesus. He also did it in verse 40 where in verse 40 he went back to Isaiah 6 verses 9 and 10 and he made the comparison how just like in the time of Isaiah's day, just like how God judicially hardened the people of Isaiah's day to Isaiah's message. God judicially hardened them. He gave them over to what it is that they wanted, which was full-on rebellion against what God had to say. Well, similarly, that's what God did during the life and ministry of Jesus. He judicially hardened the people. He gave them over to what it is that they wanted, and what they want is full-on rebellion against the Lord and against the Lord's anointed. And then last week, we saw in verse 41, we saw John the apostle go back to the beginning of Isaiah chapter six, where in the beginning of Isaiah six, the prophet Isaiah, he has this glorious vision of Yahweh on his throne. One of the most glorious visions ever given to man in the Old Testament, Yahweh sitting on his throne, and we're told in John 12, verse 41, who it is that the prophet Isaiah saw. Who did he see? He saw Jesus. He saw Yahweh the Son. He saw the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus. And that brings us to where we will pick up this morning, John 12, verse 42a, which is just the first clause of verse 42. Here's what it says. It says, nevertheless, Even among the rulers, many believed in him." Now, at first glance, it seems like this is cause for rejoicing. At first glance, that's what it seems like. At first glance, it seems like despite all of the hostility that's out there to the Lord Jesus, despite all of that, it appears at first glance to be that there were these rulers, these higher-ups, who didn't care about any of that. They didn't care, and instead, they just truly believed in the Lord Jesus. But what we're gonna see, we are going to see that this was indeed not true belief. It wasn't true belief. Let's read the rest of verse 42 and verse 43. after that first clause, nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. I'll quickly pause here, and I will tell you that this is a passage that those who are proponents of carnal Christianity. This is a passage that they love to go to. Verses 42 and 43. Those who promote carnal Christianity, which you've heard from this pulpit, whether it be me, Pastor Doug, or Pastor Bob, you've often heard how awful carnal Christianity is. Carnal Christianity is the whole thinking that you could have Jesus as Savior but not have him as Lord. And we all know that to say something like that is indeed heretical, that that is not true whatsoever. You cannot have Jesus as Savior and not submit to him as Lord. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense for somebody to say, well, I am a carnal Christian. It doesn't make any sense because there is no such thing as a carnal Christian. It would be like this. It would be like if somebody who was the king of a country, if he were to say, well, I'm the king of this country and I'm also the queen, you would look and you say, nope, doesn't work that way. Or if somebody was the queen of a country and they were to say, oh, I'm the queen of this country. Oh, and by the way, I'm also the king. Again, you would look and you would say, nope, It doesn't work that way. And I know that there are people in our world today who applaud that and say, yes, that makes perfect sense. But we know that that doesn't make any sense. And as horrible as that is, as awful as that is, you know what's even worse? These guys who promote carnal Christianity are even worse than those people. Why do I say that? Well, I say it because they are claiming to be speaking authoritatively from the Scriptures. And what are they doing? They are preaching reprehensible doctrine. Reprehensible doctrine is what they are preaching. And shame on those pastors. Shame on those pastors who preach for carnal Christianity. Shame on those pastors who say that you could submit, excuse me, that you could have Jesus as Savior, but not have to submit to him as Lord. Shame on them. But what do they love to do? Well, they love to come here. They love to come here to verse 42 and verse 43. And they'll come here and they'll say, well, what's the big problem? What's the big problem? Look, it says that they believed and then it doesn't matter these other things that they do because it says here that they believe. So how could you say that carnal Christianity is unbiblical? And herein lies yet another reason as to why it is so important and so absolutely essential that we know our Bibles. So essential, so important that we know our Bible, that we study our Bibles, and that we read our Bibles. And so important that we know the context as to what is happening. At this point, So we've been making our way through the gospel of John. We all should know that John the Apostle, when he uses the word believe, oftentimes he means believe, right? Oftentimes he's air quoting it. Oftentimes when he uses the word belief, oftentimes he means belief. That is the case all throughout the Gospel of John. Just because the word says believe doesn't necessarily mean that it's true belief. We saw a few examples of this. We saw one, the end of John 2. The end of John 2, Jesus, he looks at the temple and he says, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again. And everybody thinks he's talking about the actual temple, but he's talking about the temple of his body. And then do you remember what happens at the end of John 2? At the end of John 2, it says that as a result of Jesus saying that, all these people started to believe in him. So we look at that and we say, oh, praise God. But then it says that Jesus did not commit himself to them. Or in other words, Jesus did not believe their so-called belief because he knew it wasn't genuine. We saw another example of this in John 6, where there it doesn't necessarily use the word believe, but what's going on there in John 6 is there are these disciples. So when you think of somebody who's a disciple of Jesus that you see in the Bible, you think, oh, this is somebody who definitely believes. But then you remember what happens at the end of John 6? Jesus, he starts to speak about the sovereignty of God over absolutely everything. And then it turns out those disciples were indeed disciples. These guys were dinos, they were disciples in name only. From the outside looking in, it looked like they believed, but it turns out that it was not true belief. More recently, we saw in John chapter eight, in verses 21 through 29, we saw there the Lord Jesus, he gave three things that lead to hell. He was giving a great caution to the people, And he said, essentially to them, I'm paraphrasing, but there were three things that lead to hell. Those three things were unbelief, worldliness, and not believing what the word of God says. And then in the very next verse, in John 8, verse 30, it says, and many believed in him. So again, we look and we say, oh, praise God. But then you don't have to read that much further to find out that the belief was false belief. And the evidence for that was the people, they weren't trusting in Jesus. Instead, they were trusting in their heritage. Instead, they were trusting in their lineage. It was belief, but it was superficial and ungenuine belief. And that is the same way that John the Apostle is using it here in verses 42 and 43. These rulers who believe, this is false belief. Now, quickly make this point. There are some who come to verse 42 and verse 43, and they take the position that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are perhaps counted amongst the rulers, and they indeed did end up believing. And I guess that that could be the case. But regardless, even if that is the case, even if that is the case, that this is including Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of these rulers are believers. They are false believers. And the evidence for us is right there in the passage itself. And there are two main things that stick out here. The first thing that sticks out is this. It's that they did not confess Jesus for fear of being thrown out of the synagogue. You see, at the time, the Pharisees, they had made it well known that if anybody was even hinting at Jesus being the Christ, they were going to be thrown out of the synagogue. They were going to be excommunicated. That's what happened at the beginning of John 9. With the blind man, Jesus, he healed that formerly blind man. And instead of everybody rejoicing that Jesus has healed somebody who's never seen ever before, instead, a bunch of people get upset. And the Pharisees are upset. And if you remember how it goes down, the Pharisees, they go to the formerly blind man, or better yet, the formerly blind man is brought to the Pharisees. And the Pharisees, they want the formerly blind man to say that Jesus is a sinner. And then the formerly blind man, he responded, and one of the most famous and best responses that we have all in the scriptures, he responded by saying, whether he's a sinner or not, I do not know, but here's what I do know. I once was blind, but now I see. And then the conversation went on for just a little bit longer, and then he was excommunicated. That formerly blind man, he was not afraid to stand up for the truth of what Jesus had done for him. He had courage. But these rulers here in verse 42 and 43, these rulers reference, they have zero courage. They don't have any courage whatsoever. Or maybe they intellectually thought to themselves something like this, something like, yeah, Jesus is the Christ. I acknowledge that as a true statement. But the truth of that is all intellectual. That's all it is. The truth of that never actually penetrated their hearts and never actually penetrated their souls. Did you know that stuff like that still happens today? Did you know that? Did you know that there are people out there who affirm true things, true things like, yeah, Jesus is the Christ, and yet those individuals are still unregenerate. Why? Because all they're doing is affirming a fact. The truth of that has never actually impacted them. in their souls and in their hearts. It never has done that. And this is the case, this is the case even, even for say somebody who's been in a church that has sound theology. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because we just finished in Sunday school, we just finished going through a whole series on the doctrines of grace. And we spoke at length during this series how somebody can even affirm, say, the doctrines of grace. Somebody can affirm the five points of Calvinism, which is what we mean by doctrines of grace. Somebody can know the arguments from the Armenians as they try to combat Calvinism. Somebody can know how to properly respond. And yet that person can still be unregenerate. Why? Because the truth of the gospel is not something that actually penetrated their hearts and penetrated their souls. Somebody can be a professor, but not an actual possessor of the truth. These guys though, these guys here in verse 42 and 43, these rulers, they don't even go as far as professing it. They don't even go as far as professing the truth. Why not? Why don't they do that? Well, the answer is it's because of the cost. It's because of the cost. They assess the situation. They realize that if they confess Christ, they'll be thrown out of the synagogue and they conclude that Jesus is not worth it. They conclude that Jesus isn't worth it at all. You know, when we pray on Wednesday nights, I'm always very encouraged and always very convicted by the voice of the martyr section. And I know that a lot of you are very convicted and very encouraged by that section as well. And I remember about four or five weeks ago when we were praying, for the country of Pakistan, this country that is very, very hostile to Christianity, very hostile to Christ. And I remember the story or the thing that we were told to pray for. It was a young man in Pakistan who was sentenced to death. And he was sentenced to death basically for just being a Christian. And I was so encouraged, so encouraged by this man's bravery, by this man's courage. It was a great picture of a man who has counted the cost of following Jesus. He counted the cost. He's grown up in Pakistan. He knows that the country hates Christians, and he counted the cost, and he concluded rightly that Jesus is indeed worth it. These people here in John chapter 12, they have concluded the opposite. They've concluded the opposite. False believers in the Lord Jesus, they have zero interest in upending their lives. Zero interest in doing that. Why? Because the cost is way too much. So the first piece of evidence here, that their belief is not genuine, the first piece of evidence, is that they were afraid of being thrown out of the synagogue. Second piece of evidence here that shows us that their belief is not genuine is this. It's that they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. They loved and they adored the praises of sinful men. They loved other men looking at them and applauding them. And they knew, they knew that if they publicly confessed Jesus, that the applause and the praise that they had garnered from other men, they knew that that would quickly turn to rejection. And that would quickly turn to humiliation, that these guys who once sung their praises, they would now come up to them and they would say things like, what are you doing? You threw all this away for Jesus. Why would you do something like that? What a foolish, foolish thing to do. They look and they say, nope, I value the praise of men so much more. Let's break this down a little bit. Let's break down what it is that the Lord Jesus offers. What is it that Jesus offers? Jesus offers eternal life. Jesus offers reconciliation with God by faith and faith alone in him. What Jesus offers is invaluable. It is precious. It is priceless. And yet, what is it that unconverted man clings to? Well, unconverted man clings to so many things, but when unconverted man clings to the praises of men, that is so, so limited in its value. It's so limited in its value. And yet, this is what unconverted man clings to. Allow me to explain further via illustration. Allow me to explain how people often value things to them that is really not valuable at all. About nine years ago, I went to purchase my first new vehicle from the car dealer. And if you've ever purchased a car from a car dealer, which under the assumption that most people in here have, You know this is like the worst process ever, right? It's not a process that you actually enjoy having to go through. But I go to purchase this vehicle. It's a 2015 GMC Terrain. And prior to this, I was driving a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am with 150,000 miles on it. And I'd also crashed it three years prior by hitting a fire hydrant. So I go to trade in this car. And when I go to trade in this car, I thought to myself, I said, well, surely they're gonna give me like five, six, $7,000 for this car. So you could imagine my shock when the guy I was dealing with, when he said for the trade in, he said, your trade in came to $100. And I was shocked. I said, this is ridiculous. I said, I just put an oil change in this like a week ago. And he said, yeah, like that doesn't really matter. And I got him to come up to $125. So I said to him, I said, you know what, I'll just sell it on my own. So I attempted to sell it on my own. I go on the internet and start to do some research, and it turns out nobody was interested in buying a 2000 Pontiac Grand Am, that there were newer Pontiac Grand Ams, like 2004, 2005, with less mileage, that hadn't been in accidents, that were going for like $1,000 at the time. So what I eventually did was I just gave the car away to a brother in my church at the time. But you see what I was doing. I was valuing this thing that everybody else looked at and said, that has no value at all. Now, maybe that's an insufficient illustration, but hopefully you see what I'm getting at. In light of what it is that the Lord Jesus offers, the things that we cling to, like the praise of men, it is like nothing on the value scale. In light of the praise of God, the praises of men is so worthless. Listen to Matthew Henry. He said this about verses 42 and 43. He said, see here the power of the world in smothering convictions. This is what the world does. The world smothers the convictions of so many. And an unconverted individual is quick to allow the world to come. and to smother his or her convictions. An unconverted person sees no issue at all with compromising their convictions for personal advancement. And by the way, that personal advancement doesn't necessarily mean personal advancement in advancing up the corporate ladder. It can and often does mean personal advancement in the eyes of sinful men, saying and doing what they want in order for them to be impressed. and in order to receive their applause. Listen once again to Matthew Henry. He said, love of the praise of men as a by-end, and that word by-end, it's a word we don't really use in modern English. It just means a hidden ambition or a selfish motive. Love of the praise of men as a by-end, as a selfish motive, will make a man a hypocrite when religion is in fashion. And love of the praise of men as a by-end, as a hidden ambition or selfish motive, will make a man an apostate when religion is in disgrace. The consensus of the world says to reject the Lord Jesus Christ and the person who loves the praises of men, they go right along with that. Two main reasons as to why we can be confident that the ruler's belief was false belief. Reason number one, they did not confess Christ for fear of being thrown out of the synagogue. Reason number two, they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. Now, at this point in the message, at this point here in our sermon, we've been talking primarily about non-believers. We've been talking primarily about non-believers and the belief that they have. and the belief that being false, ungenuine belief. But what about believer? What about for you and I? How does the text apply? Well, does the text apply to believers? And the answer to that is yes. The text does indeed apply to us. You see, as we've been talking about loving the praise of men thus far, the text is speaking about those who continuously and nonstop love the praise of men. This is their goal. This is the goal of the unconverted man, of the unconverted woman, to seek up as much of the praises of sinful men as possible. That is their goal in life. But for the believer, we know what our goal in life is. We know what our goal is. Our goal is to glorify God. Our goal is to honor Him. This is our chief end, our ultimate purpose, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And yet, "'You and I, believer, we still struggle from time to time "'with wanting and desiring the praises of men.'" Listen to Matthew Poole, he does a good job here of bringing out the distinction between unbeliever and believer. He says this about the unbeliever, about the false believer. He says, "'They,' the false believers, "'were not willing to part with their great places, which brought them respect, honor, and applause from men. They value this more than God's honoring and praising them." Ultimately, this is what it comes down to, and I think that this is very, very helpful. Ultimately, it comes down to this. A Christian can struggle with the desire to want the praise of men and even give into that desire from time to time, but a Christian cannot live a life continuously devoted to wanting the praises of men. I'm gonna repeat that because it's very important. A Christian can struggle with the desire to want the praises of men, and a Christian can even give into that desire from time to time, but a Christian cannot live a life continuously devoted to wanting the praises of men. That cannot happen. And I'll pause here, and I will ask the believers in the room a question. You can answer the question. in your mind. Which is easier? Is it easier to live for the praise of men or is it easier to live for the praise of God? And the answer is obvious. The answer is obvious. It is way easier to live for the praises of men. It's way easier. Hence the reason why Jesus says to count the cost. It's so easier to live for the praises of men. But we don't want to live for the praises of men. Instead, we want to live for the praise of God. And so we want to know, we want to know how do we do that? How do we live for the praise of God? Well, there are a plethora of ways in which we can do this, but a few of the ways that I would like to highlight are as follows. How is it that we live for the praise of God rather than for the praise of men? First thing worth mentioning. Believers, let's be heavenly minded and focused on the Lord. Let's be heavenly minded and focused on the Lord. Let's turn in our Bibles to the right. Let's go to the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter three. Colossians three, verses one and two. It starts off here in verse one, it says, if then you were raised with Christ, which I'll just pause here and say this, Christian, this is something that has happened. We have been raised up with Christ. If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. Believer, do this. Believer, set your mind on things above. Don't set your mind on things of this world. Don't set your mind on things like wanting the approval and the applause and the praise of sinful men. Don't do that. Do not do it. Second thing worth mentioning here is this, as we continue to talk about how is it that we live for the praise of God rather than the praise of men. Second thing worth mentioning. Believer, know and meditate on the fact that you are loved by God. Know and meditate on the fact that you are loved by God. Know and meditate on the fact that what God says in his word about you, believer, is actually true. What God says, say, in Isaiah 62, which I know we go to Isaiah 62 often, but it's because it's a great chapter, Isaiah 62, where it talks about Jesus delighting in you, believer. He delights in you. Meditate on that. Knowing this, knowing how much it is that Jesus loves us, how can it possibly be that I would want and desire the praises of sinful men? Like, how does that make any sense? If we were to do this, which of course we never do, but it wouldn't necessarily be like a bad thing to do this. If we were to do something like this, if we were to write down all of the blessings that we have in Christ, and all the ways that Jesus loves us, and all the ways that he cares for us, that list would be so long. I mean, that list, it would go all the way up to the ceiling and then some. And then if we were to compare that list, we'd say, well, oh, here are the benefits of seeking up the praises of sinful men. Here are the benefits of doing that. It would be like this. It would be no comparison. We would look and we would say, what in the world am I even doing? This is a no-brainer. What am I doing? Believers, we are loved by God, by the triune God. He loves us. Christian, is that enough for you? Is that enough for you? Do you even believe that? Do you even believe what we've just been talking about, that Christ delights in you? Do you even believe that? Or do you hear that and then do you simply say, nope, he delights in every other Christian except for me. Or do you hear that and then do you simply say to yourself something like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that. Is that what you do? Will you be like the wife who refuses to ever take a compliment from her husband? You know, this happens sometimes. And it's really, really sad when it happens, when you see couples going through something like this, where the husband will say to his wife, say, wife, you look so beautiful. You look gorgeous. You're stunning. And she responds by saying, why are you saying that to me? I know you're lying. Why are you saying that? And he says, what do you mean? I'm your husband. I love you. I think you're gorgeous. I think you look stunning. She says, no, no, I don't believe you. It's horrible when that happens. And then could you imagine if that woman, if she goes out and then somebody else say, wherever she's at, says, oh, you look really nice today. And then that makes her day. She believes that, but she didn't believe what her husband said. You say, that sounds so horrible. Or think about it like this, to make it even more general, but even worse. Think about, imagine a wife dressing to get the attention of another man who is not her husband. Wanting the praise from another man who is not her husband. We all hear that and we say, that is awful. That's so terrible when things like that happen. And yet, you know what? This is exactly what we do when we seek after the praises of sinful men. It's exactly what we do. And don't we so often do things like this? Don't we so often make excuses for seeking after the praises of men? The answer is yes. We so often do this. And you hear the excuses. They're really bad excuses, but they're excuses made by believers nonetheless. People say, yeah, listen, I know, I know that, you know, I'm seeking up the praises of men. I know I'm very, very concerned with my status amongst other men around me. But you know what? It's because of the culture I was raised in. It's because of that. This is just how things are in my culture. Well, okay, that may be the case. Nonetheless, that shouldn't be how it is for you, believer. Shouldn't be how it is for you. Or sometimes people will say kind of something similar. Well, I'm from this area and that's just how it is where I'm from. Say, okay, well, shouldn't it be that way? Or sometimes if there's a generational gap, sometimes younger people will say to older people, say like, you don't understand, you're from a different generation. And my generation is just really, really concerned with status, really, really concerned with seeking up the praises of sinful men. Okay, that may very well. be the case, but that should not be the case for believers. We are not to seek after the praises of sinful men. You know, in Scripture, there are a number of people who seek after the praises of men, and they are never painted in a good light, obviously. Think of somebody like Absalom. Absalom, who loved the praises of sinful men. He loved the praises of sinful men. And what was he doing? He was rebelling against the Lord. He was rebelling against the Lord's anointed at the time, King David. Let's not be like Absalom. Let's not be like him. And you know something? When we aren't being diligent in our prayer lives, we aren't being diligent in reading the Word of God, it's so easy to fall into this. It's so easy to fall into it because what do we end up doing? Well, we end up forgetting. We end up forgetting about the goodness of God. We end up forgetting about how much it is that the Lord loves us. And we end up being like the people in Malachi chapter one. This is what we read in our first scripture reading. Listen to this. We're in verse two. It says, I have loved you, says the Lord. And then here's the response. The response is, yet you say, in what way have you loved us? Isn't that crazy? Isn't that ludicrous? God says, I have loved you. And then the people respond and they say, in what way have you loved me? This is what happens. This is what happens to us when we aren't being diligent. God says, I love you. And we say, how? How is it that you love me? On this point here, on this point, Christian, guard your heart from this. Now you hear that, and maybe somebody's thinking, saying, well, is it really that bad to want the praises of men? The answer is yes, it is that bad. Why? Because at the root of it, at the root of it is a lack of contentment. At the root of it is unthankfulness. It's saying, God, I am not content with what you have given me and instead, I need the praises of sinful men or the praises of sinful women for validation. And I'll just say this, if you are tempted in this area to a large amount, if you're hearing this, believer, and you're thinking to yourself, you're saying, Dan, you're kind of describing an issue that I've had for a while. Like I'm constantly doing this. I'm constantly desiring the praises of other people. I'm constantly desiring that. And I want help. What can I tell you? Probably a very good practical first step would be to get off of social media. If you're struggling with this, a very good practical first step would be to get off of social media. I'm not saying social media is sinful. I'm not saying that. Our own church uses social media, right? So social media can certainly be used. for the glory of God, no doubt about that. But if you are struggling, you're saying to yourself, saying, I am constantly doing this, constantly desiring the praises of sinful men, constantly concerned with my status in the eyes of other men. If that's the case, then you probably very likely need to get off of social media. There are some people who can be on social media, and there are some people who cannot. And if you're struggling with this, you fall into the category of somebody who cannot and should not be on it. Social media is a breeding ground for wanting and desiring the praises of sinful men. Two ways thus far that we've seen, two ways as to how it is that we live for the praises of God rather than the praises of men. The first way was believers, we are to be heavenly minded and focus on the Lord. Second way was to know and meditate on the fact that we are loved by God. Third thing worth mentioning here, Christian. Be on guard for subtle ways that this potentially creeps up. Be on guard for subtle ways that this creeps up. And allow me to give you some examples of subtle ways that this creeps up. Let's say you're at your place of employment, and let's say you've already gone to your boss, and you said to your boss, you said, boss, listen, I see that you've given all of the Muslims Friday off, and you've given all of the Jews Saturday off. Well, I'm a Christian, and you need to give me Sunday off. Say it a little bit nicer, right? But hopefully you've already done something like that. Or maybe there's no Muslims or no Jews at your job. Well, you should still go to your boss and say, I need Sunday off so I could go and worship the Lord with my church. But let's say you've already done that. And then let's say there's somebody that you work with. And this is somebody that you get along with. This is somebody that you have a good relationship with. And this person, this man, this woman that comes up to you, and says, hey, listen, I see you're off Sunday. I need you to switch with me. I need you to switch. You see, I have something to do on Sunday. I got a birthday party. I have tickets to this thing, so I need you to switch. And then you may say to yourself something like, Yeah, okay, or not even to yourself, you'll say it to them, excuse me, you'll say, yeah, okay, no problem, let's do that. But then to yourself, you may try to rationalize it and say, well, you know, if I said no, then this person may not like me as much, might create some hostility at work or I could say yes here and I could be a good witness for Christ by saying yes, which by the way, we are never ever being a good witness for Jesus when we contradict what his word says to do, right? That is never ever the case. So that's just one subtle way that it creeps up, because we look and we say, well, I want the praises of this guy more than the praise of God. Another way that this sometimes creeps up, you see this from time to time where let's say there's someone and they're struggling with the desire, they're struggling with loving and desiring the praises of men. And they may say something like this. They may say something like, you know what? I can't commit myself to just one local church. I can't do that. You see, I need to go to a bunch of different local churches in the area because I need to be the one who impacts all these people over there. These people are in desperate need of me and I need to go to all of these churches so I can impact them. Now on the outside looking in, it seems noble, but you know what that seemingly noble thing is just masquerading as? So often it's just masquerading as wanting and desiring the approval of sinful men, wanting to go to places and wanting people to say, hey, thanks so much, you're so wonderful, thanks for being here. That's so often the case. By the way, as the saying goes, being committed to every single church is the exact same as being committed to zero churches. Christian, let me ask you a question here. Are you able to serve Jesus without the praise of men? Are you able to do that? You know, I'm very thankful. I'm so thankful for the wonderful brothers and sisters in our own church who are able to do this. For the wonderful and dear brothers and sisters here who I won't mention from the pulpit, because I don't want to embarrass them, but I'm sure we're all thinking of the same people. These men, these women, faithful believers, who just serve the Lord, and they love to serve the Lord. Why do they serve? Well, they serve because they want to serve the Lord. That's the reason. They do all they do for the Lord. They would be perfectly content if no one said anything to them. They'd be perfectly content because they're doing it for the Lord. They'd be perfectly content if nobody said anything to them. Now, saying that, of course, we should encourage one another. It's a good thing to go up to one another and say, hey, brother, hey, sister, thank you so much for all you do for our church family. But praise God for these believers. Praise God for them. Praise God for their desiring to just serve God with all their hearts and not seeking after the praises of men. Believer, we'll end with this question. At the end of our lives, would we prefer to have the praises of men, or at the end of our lives, would we prefer to hear those sweet words from the Lord himself, well done, my good and faithful servant? Let's pray. God, thank you for what you've done for us in Christ, and I thank you, Lord, for what your word says over and over about how dear we are to you, about how we are precious in your sight, and about how much you love us. God, forgive us, Lord. Forgive us for when we desire and want the praises of sinful men. God, we know that this is something that we all struggle with. Help us, Lord, to put this sin of wanting the praises of men to death, and help us, God, to seek your praises. Help us, God, to seek to honor you and glorify you in all that we do. God, we thank you for your word. We thank you so much for what we've seen today in your word. And we thank you most of all, Lord God, for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen.