Men-pleasing.
I. Deliverance from the fear of men and from the necessity of always seeking to please men may be taken as a general description of the liberty of Christians; while, on the other hand, the necessity to please men represents, as it were, in a very typical manner, the non-freedom of a natural unredeemed man. All social relations involve a desire and an endeavour to please, to be accounted by other people as reposing a certain worth in them and as having a corresponding worth for them. That is a necessary thing, and therefore, of course, it is not in itself a wrong thing. Respect for others and due regard for the respect which others may pay to us is a necessary foundation of social life. If there is any man on earth for whom you have lost all respect, you may be sure that the fault is yours not less than his. It is plain, then, that slavery of the fear of man and bondage, the desire of pleasing men, is not the same thing as regard for the esteem of our fellow-men, with true respect for them. The real tyranny of men-pleasing which runs through natural society is this: that we are constantly constrained to do something, not because the action has any value towards God or man, but simply because usage and custom demand it of us, and if we did otherwise, we should give offence, be misunderstood, and so forth. The regard for what our neighbours will say or think constrains us to do things which we know are not our right work, things that are really a waste of the strength that God has given us. But what we have here to observe is, that this bondage is part of the bondage of sin.
II. How are we to be freed from this yoke of men-serving? Observe that even in a state of nature the slavery of men-pleasing does not press equally on all. Most persons have definite hard work to do, and they have to do it without looking either to the right or to the left; but that is not a true deliverance, because the work takes up every energy of life, cuts the worker off from all human fellowship, and so lays him under a more galling bondage. So, on the other hand, when I have done my day's work, part of life remains, and this part is sure to become more or less subject to men-pleasing. The only true deliverance is the plan of life large enough to take in both the hours of work and play, a scheme in which a man can find his own day's work laid out and plainly set before him, so that he may set himself to do it unswayed by what men may say or think, and yet with an assurance that just in doing this work, and doing it without any men-pleasing, he shall realise a true and full fellowship of life with his fellow-men; and this, I say, no man can realise till he becomes a servant of Christ. The true life can only be a life for God and in God; but then a life to and in God is only possible in Christ, for however noble and clear a plan God in law and providence may set before us, still sin can prevent us following the plan. We must have the forgiveness of sin, the promise of the Holy Spirit, the assurance of a Divine grace strong enough to conquer sin, of a power surrounding our life and keeping us close to God, in spite of all our weakness and all our sin; and this we can only have in a personal relation of faith to Christ our Saviour.
W. Robertson Smith, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xii., p. 241.
Reference: Galatians 1:20. T. T. Carter, Sermons,p. 386.