Winning God’s Approval

We usually think of Job as a book about suffering, but it begins with a commendation. No less than God himself is speaking about a man to the accuser, Satan.

"Then the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.'"
Job 1:8

What a testimony to receive, from the one who knows the hearts of men.

Notice what God is confident about. He is not only describing what Job has been. He is describing what Job will be. Satan is about to strip him of his children, his wealth and his health, and God speaks this testimony before any of it happens. God knows what Job will do when the trial comes.

And the book does not leave it there. After the trial, after the friends have been wrong about him for chapter after chapter, God speaks again, and he says to Eliphaz:

"I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has."
Job 42:7

It is the same verdict, spoken after the wreckage, in front of the men who spent the book accusing him. Job was not sinless. In 42:6 he repents in dust and ashes. But God's approval did not wait for Job to be perfect, and it was not withdrawn when Job was corrected.

That is the kind of testimony we should aspire to win. Not from a man. From the Lord.

# A word before we go on

"Winning God's approval" can be misheard, so let me be clear about what I mean and what I do not.

I do not mean earning God's acceptance. Our standing before God is a gift, received by grace through faith in Christ, and no work of ours adds to it. God commended Job much before he humbled himself. Notice that at Jesus' baptism the Father says "with him I am well pleased" before Jesus has performed a single miracle or preached a single sermon. Acceptance comes first.

What I mean is the commendation that God gives to those he has already accepted: the "well done" that a faithful servant hears. Acceptance is the gift. Commendation is the reward for living in it. This sermon is about the second, and about whose voice we are listening for while we live.

# A theme that runs through the whole Bible

This idea is not parked in one book. It is sprinkled across scripture.

When Aaron and Miriam turn against Moses, God himself steps into the argument. He does not defend Moses by pointing to his achievements. He says, "he is faithful in all my house" (Numbers 12:7). It is God's own assessment of a man, spoken in the middle of the accusation.

Then there is Jesus, at his baptism:

"And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'"
Matthew 3:17

And again, on the mountain of transfiguration:

"While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!'"
Matthew 17:5

The same words, spoken at the beginning of his ministry and again near the end of it. The Father's approval was not a single event. It was a standing verdict.

The parable of the talents ends the same way:

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'"
Matthew 25:21

Paul trained for the same thing:

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever."
1 Corinthians 9:24-25

And near the end of his life he could say, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Timothy 4:7).

Even the early church chose its servants this way. When the apostles needed seven men to serve tables, the qualification was reputation: "known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom" (Acts 6:3). A good name matters. The Proverbs say, "A good name is more desirable than great riches" (Proverbs 22:1).

When a centurion asked Jesus to heal his servant, the elders pleaded on his behalf, "This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue" (Luke 7:4-5). His generosity was done quietly, and it spoke for him when he needed it.

Reputation. Approval. From men and God. If the Bible talks of so many examples, then it clearly indicates, it is expected of us.

In this sermon, let us look into three parts:

• How to live for God's approval, not people's
• How to live our own calling, hidden and faithful
• How to give that kind of approval to others

# First: win the approval of God, not people's

Many people believed in Jesus because of the signs he was doing. And then we read this:

"But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person."
John 2:24-25

He knew the human heart is fickle, so he did not hand his identity over to the crowd.

Jesus knew how quickly a crowd changes its colours. On one Sunday they are waving palm branches and shouting that the king has come. Within a week the same city is shouting, "Crucify him." People will say one thing today and another tomorrow. If our lives are aimed at their approval, we are aiming at a moving target. The psalmist describes the wicked as "like chaff that the wind blows away" (Psalm 1:4). Chaff has no root of its own. It goes wherever the wind goes, and a life run on other people's opinions looks the same.

Paul asks the question that settles the matter:

"Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ."
Galatians 1:10

# Working to please the boss

I see the same pattern everywhere: the young person trying to win the youth leader, the church member trying to win the pastor, the employee trying to win the manager.

In the office it is easy to spot. An employee arrives just before the manager and leaves only after the manager leaves. He agrees with everything, and if gossiping about a colleague will buy him a little more standing, he will do that too. It works for a season. Over a longer period it damages his career, his character and his relationships with the people he stepped on.

It happens in churches as well. People attend to please the pastor, serve to be noticed by the pastor. That is a heavy burden for a godly leader to carry, because he never asked to be anyone's god.

# Please the Lord instead

But hear me carefully. I am not telling you to work less hard for your manager. Scripture commands the opposite:

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."
Colossians 3:23-24

The diligence stays. What changes is who you are working for. The first employee works hard to be seen by the boss. The second works hard because the Lord is watching, and that employee will keep working the same way when the boss is on leave, when the credit goes to someone else, and when the appraisal is unfair.

When we live for God's approval, our obedience will often please the people around us. A husband who honours his wife will please her. A church that carries one another's burdens will feel like home. Scripture is full of this: "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2). Husbands are told to be considerate and treat their wives with respect (1 Peter 3:7). Children are told to honour their parents, and fathers are told not to exasperate them (Ephesians 6:1-4). We obey all of it, not to please the people in front of us, but to please the Lord. The respect that follows is a by-product, not the aim.

If a wife lives to please her husband, she will fail, because in one way or another he will be unpleased. If a husband lives to please his wife, the same. But if we obey the Lord, we slowly win back the heart of the person we were trying so hard to manage.

# Grace and truth together is strong

There is another cost to living for people's approval. We lose the ability to hold grace and truth together. John says of Jesus that he came "full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Both, at full strength, at the same time.

When we are trying to please people, we slide into counterfeits of each.

The counterfeit of grace is flattery. Somebody sings in church and misses the tune, and we tell them it was wonderful. They know it was not. They learn that our words carry no information, and they stop growing.

The counterfeit of truth is harshness. We name every flaw plainly, the person is wounded, and they stop listening.

These look like opposites, but they share a root: we are thinking about ourselves. The flatterer wants to be liked. The harsh critic wants to be right, or to be seen as rigorous. Neither is thinking first about the good of the other person. When we are living for the Lord's approval, we are free of that. We can do what Paul describes, "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15), because we have nothing to protect.

# Second: Run your own race, and stay hidden

Paul says, "Run in such a way as to get the prize," and that means knowing which race is yours:

"Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air."
1 Corinthians 9:26

Not every husband has the same role. Not every wife has the same role. Not every church member has the same role. Not every child has the same role. You have to find out what yours is.

There are two levels here. There is the calling we all share: we are disciples of Christ, and we live as a witness to him.

Paul prays that the Ephesians would know their calling: "I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received" (Ephesians 4:1). Read that letter and you will know what a worthy life looks like. It will not tell you whether you are called to sing or to prophesy. That part you have to work out, in prayer, with the gifts God actually gave you and the people he actually put in front of you.

Knowing your specific calling is not optional, because the promises and the talents were given for that calling. God does not hand you a talent and then ask you to run somebody else's race.

Do not reduce ministry to singing, playing an instrument or preaching. Anything done for the good of the church is ministry. A prayer prayed in your room is ministry. A lift given so somebody can come to church is ministry. When Paul was a prisoner on the road to Rome, brothers and sisters travelled a long way to meet him, and "at the sight of these people Paul thanked God and was encouraged" (Acts 28:15). We don't know who they are. But their ordinary effort carried an apostle through hard times.

Run in the lane allotted to you and you will excel, and you will win the approval of the Lord.

# Be salt, and stay invisible

Then comes the honest question, especially if you are used to being measured: if nobody can see the salt, how does anybody know you are doing your job? And there is a harder question. In the very next verses Jesus says, "let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). So which is it, hidden or seen?

The answer is in the last words of that verse: glorify your Father. Good works are meant to be seen. The question is who gets the glory. In chapter 6 Jesus names the danger exactly:

"Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven."
Matthew 6:1

Seen by them is the problem, and seen so that they glorify the Father is the purpose. The same act can be either one. The difference is in the heart, and only God can read it.

So Jesus tells us how to protect the heart: give so quietly that your left hand does not know what your right hand is doing, and pray in your room with the door closed (Matthew 6:3-6). Then the answer to our question comes: "your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." Your Father sees. Nobody else needs to.

The Lord of the church showed us the posture. He took the towel and washed the feet of his disciples:

"Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you."
John 13:14-15

I have seen young people washing toilets, washing dishes and cleaning the church when nobody was watching. Most of that church will never know their names.

This is why I do not encourage the photograph of the gift. A photograph is not a sin in itself, but it changes what the gift is. The moment it goes up, the reward has been collected from people scrolling past, and Jesus has already told us what that means. The gift becomes an advertisement, and an advertisement is aimed at the audience this whole sermon has been warning you about. That goes for the church noticeboard, and just as much for LinkedIn, the CSR photo-op and the social media post. Give your tithe quietly. Do your charity quietly. Believers through the ages have done good works that nobody applauded, and the Father saw every one of them.

When a whole church carries that mind, it becomes a community, and people want to belong to it, because there is a bond there that nothing else produces.

# Third: Give approval to others

Now the other direction. We are to be people who give approval, in our families, our churches and our workplaces.

Here is the pattern. A team comes together on their own time for something they are not paid extra for. They deliver it. The boss points out the one flaw and asks for more, and says nothing about what was done well. Next time, the team gives a little less. Nobody decided that. Discouragement simply walked in through the gap.

In a church the same thing is even more costly, because most who serve are volunteers. They serve out of their own devotion, and encouragement is the only wage they will ever receive. So leaders must encourage. And leaders must serve first, because people need to see leaders do what leaders expect of them. This is not a contradiction of what I said about hidden service. Jesus washed the disciples' feet in front of them, because they needed an example. A leader serves visibly for the sake of the people who are learning from it, not for the sake of his own reputation, and the test is the same one as before: whose glory is it for?

Encouragement is specific. When you praise someone, say exactly what they did well, and say it publicly, in the team meeting, the youth meeting or the Slack channel, so that others learn from it and follow. "Great job" teaches nobody. "The way you walked the client through the fallback plan when the demo failed is exactly the calm we need" teaches everybody. If you manage people, this belongs in the performance review too: write down the specific thing, not only the rating.

When you have to point out a fault, do it privately. That is the instruction of Jesus himself: "go and point out their fault, just between the two of you" (Matthew 18:15). Paul did once confront Peter publicly (Galatians 2:11-14), but that was an exception: Peter's conduct was already public, and it threatened the truth of the gospel. For ordinary faults, the private word is the rule.

Paul describes what speaking into someone's life is for:

"But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort."
1 Corinthians 14:3

Paul is speaking here of the gift of prophecy, but the direction he names, strengthening, encouraging and comfort, is a fair test for any word a Christian speaks to another, and certainly for a leader.

So when you have something good to say, say it specifically. When you have feedback to give, give it in a way that serves the person first. That is how we will improve.

# The verdict after the trial

Let us come back to Job. He never received an explanation. God never told him about the conversation in chapter one, or the hedge, or the wager. He got a whirlwind, a long list of questions he could not answer, and a verdict:

"After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, 'I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.'"
Job 42:7

God defended him in front of the men who had accused him, and he did it after the ashes, not before. The testimony at the start of the book was God's confidence. The testimony at the end of the book was God's answer.

That is what we are working for. Not a reputation with the people in the room. Not a record that survives a transfer. A verdict from the one who saw what nobody saw, and who says it out loud at the end.

One verdict matters. Everything else is chaff.

If you liked this, you might also like my other sermons.

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