November 14, 2025 • 47 mins
Is the pressure to post distracting you from living out your purpose?
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Let's look at John chapter seven together. I feel God's
presence in this place.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now. Even if I didn't feel it, I would know
that it was real.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
But it's good to feel it, and I feel God's
presence in this place.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
John chapter seven is a very interesting scenario, or more accurately,
episode in the life of Jesus. And I think you
probably will say I never really heard a sermon on
that story before, and then you won't be able to
say that after today.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
But it's a.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Really human moment in the life of Jesus, and it's
a great example to us today. So as we look
at this, we hope that we will see the example
of Jesus and how it applies.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
To our lives.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
In John chapter seven, the Bible says after this, Jesus
went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because
the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But
when the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus's brother
said to him, you ought to leave here. How many know,
there's always somebody to tell you what you ought to do, always,
(01:20):
and usually as people with your same last name, you
know you oughta well, you ought to leave here and
go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the
miracles you do. No one who wants to become a
public figure action secret. Since you are doing these things
post them on Instagram. For even his own brothers did
not believe him, and therefore Jesus told them, the right
(01:44):
time for me has not yet come for you. Anytime
is right, salty Jesus. The world cannot hate you, but
it hates me because I testify that what it does
is evil. If you haven't had a head on collision
with the devil lately, it means you might be headed
in the same direction. That's what Pastor Mickey used to say.
(02:07):
Of course, I'm in conflict. I am a contradiction of
the world's values, and so it's not easy for me
to live on this earth according to Kingdom principles. But
Jesus said, verse eight, you go to the feast. I'm
not going to control you, but you do what you
need to do. You go ahead and go. I am
not yet going up to this feast because for me,
(02:27):
the right time has not yet come. I wonder how
different our lives would be if we would learn the
power of those two words, not yet not yet. And
having said this, he stayed in Galilee. However, after his
brothers had left for the feast, he went also, not publicly,
but in secret.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Not publicly, but in secret.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Now at the feast, the Jews were watching for him
and asking where is that man the crowds. There was
widespread whispering, widespread whispering about him.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Some said he is a good man. Others replied, no,
he deceives the people.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But no one would say anything publicly about him for
fear of the Jews. The key for this message today
is in verse ten. However, after his brothers had left
for the feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.
And what I want to talk to you about today
is the pressure to perform, the pressure to perform.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And let's pray one more time.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Spirit of God, I thank you for the accuracy with
which you register in the hearts and the minds of
people who are open. Give us this openness that we
may receive whatever you wish to speak, and we give
you praise.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
In advance in Jesus name.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Amen, would you touch somebody on your way to your
seat and say, I don't have to post it to prove.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
It's so great to.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Have the opportunity now to apologize to my mom. For
my teenage years, I just didn't have an appreciation at
the time for the pressure of parenting. You really can't
until you are blessed with the same pressure of parental
responsibility for yourself, because like, really, my mom and dad
(04:35):
stretched their resources in order for me as a as
a I guess, like a spoiled, entitled brat of a
kid to not appreciate the sacrifices and really the pressure
that they were under to buy me those rebock pumps.
(05:02):
And since my dad was a barber and he started
out just five dollars a haircut six dollars, by the
time he quit cutting hair, he was up to thirteen
dollars a haircut, I believe.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And my mom had been.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
In education, teaching special education and then as an early interventionist,
which wasn't exactly a high paying job, but they provided
for me so competently that I never really thought about
the pressure that it must have been to try to
make sure that I.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Never really felt their pressure.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I remember going to this telephone office, the Berkeley Telephone Company,
and my parents would clean the office at night after
they would get off their other job, and all I
could do was complain, and I thought that it was
child abuse that they made me empty the trash. But
I just didn't understand when she was making me run
(06:04):
the vacuum cleaner while she was cleaning the toilets on Saturday,
just like I didn't appreciate the pressure, even emotionally. I
remember when my dad kind of quit coming home. I
didn't realize that the reason he was doing that was
because of not having a father example for himself when
I hit the teenage stage, he had no frame of
(06:27):
reference for how to deal with what he felt, and
I thought.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
He was lazy, so he went to go drink with
my uncle.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
But it wasn't so much laziness, I now have come
to believe, as it was the fact that he was
under a weight that he hadn't felt like he had
been built for. And there is a sense in which
his pressure in his own life paralyzed him, like pressure
often can. When you find yourself in a situation where
you have not been exposed to that particular responsibility and
(06:58):
now you are responsible or something that you've never been
exposed to, it can create a lot of pressure, not
only on the financial side with with with kids, but
just emotionally and how by the time you come home
from work where you're providing materially, you don't have anything
left to give emotionally, and even if you do. There
was this dude that came up to me Friday night
(07:21):
at the baseball game and he just looked. He had
the look on his face like all parents get from
time to time, like if you shoot me, I'll give
you half the insurance money. It was just a parent look,
and you only know it if you've been there. But
I just said to him, kind of randomly, I said,
you're such a good man, because I could tell he
was having one of those days and he was running
(07:43):
back and forth and it kind of stopped him in
his tracks.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And he's like, really, I don't feel like a good
man today, you know. I was. I was.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I was at work and then I left work at
four because I'm supposed to get off it for But
then the idiot who took my next shift, he didn't
show up in time for a shift. So who does
the manager call Not the person who didn't show up,
but me, because they know they can count on me.
Because the people we treat the worst are usually the
people that we know, we can count on the most,
and we expect the most out of them. But by
the time he had got off work, he was throwing
the ball with his daughter to get it ready for
(08:10):
the game. And by the time he finished throwing with
his daughter, he said, this is what he's telling me.
By the time I finished throwing my daughter, my manager
been blowing up my phone. Now my manager is mad
at me, and I'm walking in the house talking to
my manager who's yelling at me, and my wife's got
dinner ready, but I can't eat dinner because I'm talking
to my manager, and so my wife is mad because
the food is cold. But I can't help it that
the food is cold, because if I lose his job,
(08:30):
we're not going to have any food to cook. So
coal food is better.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Than no food. And all I'm matter on the baseball
team and I want to die.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And funny thing is he doesn't come to the church.
He doesn't come to the church. He's only been one
time that I know of, And when he came that
one time, he told me it was a good sermon,
so I knew that he didn't have like a Christian vocabulary.
The word that he put in there. But he didn't
know that I was preaching on pressure today. He didn't
(08:57):
know that he was giving me, he was helping me
that it's not just as a preacher, or it's not
just those of us who stand on a stage who
feel this pressure. Because it used to be enough if
you just provide for your kids. It used to be
enough if you just protect your kids. It used to
be enough if you would just prepare your kids. And
(09:19):
sometimes all of those things seem to be in conflict,
that while you want to protect your kids, you also
have to prepare your kids. And so sometimes I don't
know should I catch you or should I let you
fall a little bit so you don't fall a lot?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Should I?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Should I let you skin your knee now so that
you don't break your neck later? Should I let you
peter sink down into the water and let you sink
and not let you drown. Sometimes even Jesus, if you
read the scripture, he did not prevent the failure. He
allowed the failure so that the person could learn the
(09:59):
lesson and that would enable them later. Sometimes there's so
much pressure coming from so many different directions, and if
you stop to think about the life of Jesus. He
was he was under pressure from the Pharisees who wanted
to kill him because he threatened their political power, And
so they were watching everything that he did, and they
(10:21):
were watching him with very, very scrutinizing eyes, even to
the point that if he healed somebody, not only would
they watch him heal the person, but they would they
would find him healing on the wrong day, and if
he healed on the Sabbath, they would stand up and
accuse him for doing something good. How would you like
(10:43):
to get accused not only for doing the wrong thing,
but for doing the right thing at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
This is Jesus.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
He shows up and they follow him to see if
he's gonna wash his hands before he eats. How creepy
is it when you have people following you in the
bathroom to see One time I was at PF. Chanin's
and there was a man that was standing there watching me.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
While I was and it was threatening to me. It
was threatening to me.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
So I kind of looked at my fishes in the
bathroom and I washed my hands. I walked over to
him and he said, I was waiting to see if
you do wash your hands after you went I go
to your church. I'm like, bro, there's a lot of
(11:39):
other great churches I would like to tell you about
right now. But for Jesus, it was ceremonial. It wasn't
a hygienic thing. They were watching to see what he
breaked the law and not wash his hands.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
They weren't worried about the.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Fact that he was trying to eat with people that
they considered unclean, because he was righteousness and grace and truth.
They were so focused on the cosmetics, and so everything
that he did was under scrutiny. Who he's talking with
a woman, Oh, he's touching a leper. He's not supposed
to act like that. He's not supposed to speak like that.
And then sometimes for Jesus, he would perform a miracle
(12:15):
for the crowd, but they would miss the deeper meaning,
which is what has just happened when we read on
chapter seven. Because he just fed five thousand men and
women and children, and he provided for their needs in
such a great way that they.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
All ate and had their fill.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
But after he filled them up physically, he turned to
fill them spiritually. And it turns out that they were
following him, not for the spiritual dynamics of who he was,
but for the physical benefits of what he could provide.
And when he began to speak at a deeper level,
the Bible says that many of them didn't want to
(12:59):
hear it.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
After he fed them the.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Bread, he turned around and said, now that you've had bread,
recognize that I am bread. The miracle that I just
performed was not about what I did. It was to
point to who I am. I am the bread of life,
and if you eat my flesh and drink my blood,
you can remain in me. Well, they didn't like that
(13:22):
very much. It's like he had the crowd and then
he lost them. He had the following, and then he
lost it. And the Bible says in John six sixty six,
sixty sixty six, I always remember that like it's a
bad number, sixty sixty six. I always remember it because
it said many then deserted him and followed him no more.
(13:42):
Many then went away because this is a hard saying,
and followed him no more. And as they're walking away,
Jesus turns to his disciples and says, do you want
to walk away too?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And Peter said, we don't have no options.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I already gave my boat away for a little while,
and I already put my investment you and I got
to see where this ends, even if it ends at
a cross. That's the context of John chapter seven.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And it's one thing.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
To kind of have to deal with opposition from the devil.
It's another thing to kind of have to deal with
it from inside your own house.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And Jesus had seven siblings.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Some traditions infer these are his human brothers, And whether
or not Jesus had any sisters, it's interesting to me
that it was his brothers who pulled him aside with
the strategy watch this for how to get his followers back.
And they've got it all figured out, and they've got
(14:45):
it all calculated, and they say, Jesus, do more of
the stuff like where you're feeding people, and less of
the cannibal stuff that you say in your speeches. Take
out the cannibalism. And why don't you go to Judea
because the Feast of Tabernacles is about to start and
(15:08):
you can come with us and you can do the
kinds of things that you've been doing here in Galilee,
which was in the northern part of Palestine, which was
not as densely populated as Jerusalem and Judea. You can
do publicly what you've been doing privately. You can take
this show on the road. We can get you a
(15:28):
headlining spot at the Coachella. Of the Old Testament, this
was the feast where they would come and build booths.
It was actually called the Festival of booths or tabernacles.
And they would build the booth when they got there,
and they would stay for a week, and they would
thank God for the water that he gave them, and
they would thank God for the sustenance that he gave them.
(15:50):
They would remember in the wilderness how God saw his
people through even though they didn't have quail or grain.
But he made manna, which literally means what is it,
and it means what it is? So God meets what
is it with what it is and it shows that
He can show up in any situation and take what
it is, and when He fills what it is with
(16:12):
who he is, it will become what you need it
to be for the season that you're in.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Two people recognize good preaching when.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
They hear it, and they say, come on and do
some of the flashy stuff that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You've been doing. Here in Nazareth and.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Take this show fifty five miles south to Judea. And
if you can do these public things in front of people,
you can become a public figure. In fact, that's the
phrase that drew me to the text. It said, no
one who wants to become a public.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Figure acts in secret.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
We live in a time where everybody wants to be
a public figure. We live in a time and please
don't get mad at me for saying this where even
people who have a private account spend their whole LIFs
posting stuff and commenting on stuff to create an image
(17:11):
and a projection of a reality that may bear no resemblance.
The awkward golf collaps really help me. I appreciate that
to the reality of their situation. And Jesus's brothers pull
him aside and say, we've got a great idea. Why
don't you show the world who you really are. The
interesting thing about the text, and I'm gonna give this
(17:33):
to you quick, because the nexus of this text is
in verse five. It says that even Jesus' brothers did
not believe in him, and since they didn't believe, they
were trying to get him to perform any time you
have unbelief in your heart, it will cause you to
(17:55):
try to perform to prove something that you don't really believe.
In psychological terms, it's called the fraudulence complex, or some
call it the impostor syndrome, and it speaks about how
many of us have an inability to internalize our strengths.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And our accomplishments.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Psychologists call it the impostor syndrome because they say that
many of us secretly, deep down feel like we're a fraud.
Many of us, secretly, deep down feel like we have
so much less to offer than what people expect, and
that even when people compliment us, we figure that the
(18:40):
reason that they're complimenting us is because they don't really
see us for who we are. And if they ever
saw us for who we are, if they ever saw
how stupid we feel, if they ever saw how inexperienced
we feel, if they really saw how nervous.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
We really feel, they would kick us out thereat room.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It happens to fathers, It happens to mothers, It happens to.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Leaders, it happens to teenagers. It is the.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Fear of being found out to be less than they
thought you were. It is the fear that keeps you
in a performance mode. It is the fear that keeps
you spending money to look like something important, because deep
down you're afraid that you're really not. It is the
fear that keeps you overcompensating, and you get in situations
(19:32):
and rather than letting other people be the center of attention,
you feel the need to overcompensate to show how intelligent
you are because deep down you don't feel intelligent enough,
so people think you're cocky.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
But you're really not cocky.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
You're scared with the conflict between who they think you're
supposed to be and who you feel like you really are.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's called the imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
It means that sometimes, even as I'm trying to fulfill.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
My purpose, I feel like a fake.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
It's not that I'm a hypocrite, it's not that I'm insincere.
It's just that, deep down inside, I'm a man who
sometimes feels like a little boy. I'm a preacher who
sometimes feels like a sinner. I want to be wise,
but sometimes I feel like a fool. And I'm wondering,
is there anybody here who lately has been up under
(20:22):
the pressure of an expectation, and when you feel that,
the temptation and the tendency is to prove it.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I gotta prove I'm a good dad. I gotta prove
I'm a good mom. I gotta prove I'm a good preacher.
I gotta prove it. When you do it to prove it,
it takes the joy.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Out of it. See Jesus, Jesus didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Mind performing miracles, he just wasn't going to do it
for the wrong motives. Jesus was going to Judea. He
just wasn't going.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
To make a public spectacle out of his power.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Jesus was ultimately determined to show the world who he was,
but he wasn't going to do it for the gram.
I think the key thing that he says in the
(21:32):
text is not now, I'm going to Judea, which is
the region where he would ultimately give his life, but
not now. And it's such a weird world we live in,
isn't it. I mean, I'm so scared for my kids. Honestly,
I don't even know what to tell him about growing
(21:56):
up in a time where we've always had the.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Pressure the performance.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Now everybody gets to experience performance anxiety. Because we all
perform our lives for one another all the time, just constantly.
I mean, if you if you cook a good meal
for your family, it does not count unless you make
an Instagram story out of the meal. This is a
(22:24):
very common thing to preach about. It is common because
it's killing us. Jesus said, if I go to Judea
for the wrong reasons, and if I show up with
the wrong motives, and if I live my life to
perform for others rather than to glorify my father, it'll
(22:47):
kill me. The religious leaders were waiting to literally kill Jesus.
But I wonder, what are the things that are killing you?
It says that he purposely stayed away from Judea. What
do you need to purposely stay away from in this season.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Of your life?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
What do you need to purposely stop thinking about in
this season of your life? Who do you need to
purposely stop comparing yourself to in this season of your life?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
For me, it's buck.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I was doing squats the other day and Chunks Chunks
was watching me do these squats and I was doing
them deep deep squats. I only do leg day once
every six weeks, so I got to make it count
when I do it, and I don't know if I
can do it in these genes.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I should have tested this.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I hadn't done this illustration yet, but I mean, I
was down deep.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
On the squad now. Buck wasn't there that day.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Chunks was there, and Chunks was spotting me and he said,
what are you doing? And I said, I'm doing I'm
doing my squats like Buck. But he said something so important,
He said, don't do them like Buck. Buck is built
different than you. You're gonna break your back trying to
(24:15):
be like Buck. And I wonder how we look to
God trying to. You are gonna snap your hamstring. You
are gonna pop your quads, trying to trying to be Buck,
getting getting trying to try, trying to. I went on
(24:39):
Instagram the other day and I saw I saw Kevin Hart,
and I felt like a failure in my whole life.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I felt like, what am I doing with my whole life? What?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
What is the point of my existence? Within fifteen seconds?
Here I am with a burden on me that I
wasn't built for by comparing myself to someone with a
different calling, and please don't judge me while I am
(25:17):
in this vulnerable position because the truth of the matter
is some of you are hurting in ways that you
don't have to hurt, because you are putting yourself in
a position that you were not built to live in.
Jesus said, I'm not going to Judea because you want
me to go to Judea. I don't have to post
(25:39):
it to prove it. I don't have to turn stones
into bread to show that I'm the son of God.
I live out of purpose, not for popularity. I live
out of purpose, not for the praises of men, but
for the praise that can only come from God. And
I wonder if there's somebody today who is content to
stay in Galilee to know that it's my season to
(26:03):
be obedient.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
And that's all I have to do. All I have to.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Do is be obedient in this season of my life.
And Jesus said, you'll go. I'm not going. Not now,
you'll go.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I'm gonna stay.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
I'm purposely staying away because if I go here to
impress people with that motive, it'll kill me. And trying
to impress people and trying to measure up to arbitrary
standards that are changing so fast it'll kill your contentment.
It'll kill your joy, it'll kill your marriage, it'll kill
your ministry, it'll kill your family. And now even Jesus
(26:56):
couldn't please everybody, and he was sinless and spotless. Jesus,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, couldn't please everybody, and
we expect that we can. Even Jesus had to say,
y'all are my family. I love you, but it's not
(27:16):
for me, and just those words, it's not for me.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
You ought to go down there to Judea, show them
what you've made of because I think.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
They were under pressure too. Honestly, I think probably it
was a lot of pressure to be a sibling of
Jesus and you're bringing home sees in chemistry, you know,
and he's turning water into wine, like affecting molecular structures
in real time.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
A lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
You got that weird brother, you know, the one who
stays at the temple teaching people at age twelve.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's a pressure to feel special.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And sometimes the pressure that we feel to be special.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Does not come from God. It comes from culture, who tells.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
You that you've got to be so special, so different,
so unique, so set apart.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
But you already are you already are you already? Are already?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Am set apart? Jesus?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
If you go down to Judea, you could, you could, really,
you could show them who you are.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
You could, you could show them who you are. I
don't need to show them.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I know. When you live out of that place, it
affects you to be able to do it for purpose
and not for proof, because really, who are you trying
to prove it to. I mean, whoever you're trying to
prove something to isn't paying attention because they're trying to
(28:57):
prove it to somebody who's not paying attention. And they're
proving it to someone who's not paying attention. And so
while we're busy posting to each other our results to
prove to one another what we're worth, our purpose is
dying in the place of our insecurity. When you know
(29:20):
it's real, when you know it's authentic, it enables you
to do it from a place of purpose.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I'm going to Judea. I'm going to go. I'm just
not gonna go because you pushed me into it.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Be careful what you let people or cultural norms push
you into. You'll never be pushed into purpose. You will
be pulled from within. If it's pushing, it's not purpose.
God does not drive, he leads. They are very different.
Jesus said, I'm going when it's time for me to go.
(29:55):
I'm not going for clout, I'm going for cairos. That's
the Greek word that means the timing of God. In
Greek philosophy, fate determined timing. In Kingdom philosophy, God determines timing.
It means I'm where I need to be right now,
and I'm good in Galilee. I'm good in Galilee. I'm
(30:16):
good if nobody knows my name. I'm good being anonymous.
I was listening to a podcast the other day with
a former First Lady of the United States, and she
said the number one sacrifice that she gave to serve
the country was the loss of anonymity. That isn't it
crazy that everybody else is trying to climb out of.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The thing that she wishes she could have back.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
And now we've got a whole generation that's just trying
to be a public figure. I went on somebody's Instagram
account the other day. They had seventy followers, and it
said public figure under the name.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Why do you need a label so bad.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Why do you so badly need to be perceived by others?
It's the pressure to be special, So it's the pressure
to be important. But when you belong to God and
you are living on assignment, and you know your anointing
and you know your gift, it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Takes the pressure off.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Because I'm good in Galilee.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I'll walk on.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Water in Galilee. I'll heal blind eyes in Galilee. I'll
teach in Galilee, I'll pray in Galilee.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I'm good in Galilee. I see it even seep into
our ministry.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
In very subtle ways when we sit down to measure
our ministry. If I'm not careful, I will become so
performance oriented in the way I pastor this church that
I will get my priorities more on.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
The statistics than the substance.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And I felt it happening the other day because we're
looking at all of these Instagram that we put out
and we use it all. I promise you Jesus would
have had an Instagram account. It would have been the
dopest Instagram account that you've ever seen in your life.
You would have swiped up and got healed. You wouldn't
even had to click on anything after that, it would
have been but swipe up and lose your leprosy, it
(32:17):
would have been an amazing Instagram account. But what I'm
saying about it is I was in this moment where
we were showing how this.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Post perform, perform, perform, perform.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Now, for me, that's a dangerous word, because I am
performance oriented by nature.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't know why I would ask for your prayers
for that.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I sometimes feel like I'm just showing up to regular
conversations and oh God, I hope I say the right thing.
I had a friend who got in trouble the other day,
and it took me a week to call him, not
because I didn't care about him, but because I didn't
think I would have anything valid to say, so rather
than call him and say what I had, I waited
and hurt him by not calling him because I didn't
think i'd have something to say. And when I finally
(32:55):
called him, I realized he didn't need my performance.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
He just needed my presence. He didn't need me to
say anything. He didn't need me to say anything, He
just needed me to be there. And when you don't
believe that, it kills you. Unbelief always leads to performance.
(33:22):
They didn't believe in him. They thought he was a fraud.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
When you think you're a fraud, when you get unbelief
in your heart, when you go to those those places
in your mind, you kill yourself trying to prove something.
You know, we're we're analyzing and and and you can
look at it. You can look at how many how
(33:46):
many people like this post. And here's a sermon clip
we put out in here's a here's a song that
we put out, and here's another sermon clip. And this
one performed better than that one. And that's good to know.
I think you should look.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
At all that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I mean, I definitely want the person who's managing my
retirement account to look at the performance of the retirement account.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I don't just want them to pray about it. Amen.
Now it's losing money, but it's a great company.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
We believe in their values, and I want to make
some money. But with ministry, you can't always measure that,
can you. And I don't really know if the one
that got the most likes was the one that God used,
because who am I to say that the one that
(34:28):
didn't get as many likes. Maybe it came across somebody's
feed when their hands were shaken too bad to click
like or to comment because they had a bottle of
pills in their hand, and something that was spoken through
that screen just really hit their situation.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And you can't measure that.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
When you do it for the wrong audience, when people
don't clap, you quit and they don't say thank you,
or when you get the feeling like they don't even
appreciate me, they don't even notice, they wouldn't even miss me,
they don't even they don't even know what I bring
(35:12):
to this. They don't really Jesus wasn't doing it for
the people, and he certainly wasn't doing it for their praise.
He was doing it for a purpose, and the people
were not his audience.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And when the brother said.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You need to do it so they'll see, you need
to do it, so they'll know you need to do
it to prove it, Jesus said, I believe. Twenty nineteen version.
Jesus said, I don't have to post it to prove it.
I don't have to do it because they're clapping. I
do it because I'm called. I'm not doing it for clout,
(35:59):
I'm doing it for calling I am not chasing their approval.
I am fulfilling my assignment. Now this message is for
our generation. And I do not mean people that are
my age. I mean the time that we live in
is consumed and obsessed with chasing clout, approval and publicity.
(36:22):
But some things ought to stay private. Some things that
God does in your life are not for ppa. Some
things are not for a public display of ability or
a public.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Display of affection.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
You know, back in my day, if you were making
out with somebody in public, they.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Would holler at you. Get a room. And I heard
Jesus say, when you pray.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Don't do it out in public like the Pagans do
trying to impress somebody or the Pharisees do. But get
in a secret place, Get in your closet, get a
room where you get alone with God. Ask God, what
am I called to do? What am I called to be?
I can't take my cues from culture or the crowd
(37:09):
is killing me. God, what do you want me to
do in this season? It's too much pressure to please people. God.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I just want to please you. I do it for
you God.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
I show up for you, I stay late for you,
I forgive for you. I love for you, I serve
for you, I breathe for you, I live for you,
I worship for you. It's not for an audience of film.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
God is my audience.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And when God is your audience, the opinions of people
are no longer your sustenance.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I don't turn stones into bread.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
We so need this word from the Lord because we're
sure not going to get it from the world.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It's getting weirder and weirder and weirder.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
How we're all performing for each other all the time.
It's exhausting and it sucks, and it's worthless and it
doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
And God sent me today watch this with a word
of sanity. The crowd will kill you. I love the
phrase that he put.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Jod said, there was widespread whispering about Jesus. Everybody had
a comment to make, but nobody had the courage to
say it out loud to his face. Everybody was whispering.
And this is the world that we live in. And
when we give too much weight to the whispers of
(39:01):
people and not enough weight to the word of God,
it will kill us on the inside. So the impostor
syndrome was coined as a phrase several decades ago in
(39:23):
psychological terms, but it's as old as Moses, who stood
up one day just to see a burning bush that
wasn't consumed talking about who am I that I should
go stand before Pharaoh. No matter how many miracles God
did through Moses, he still had trouble believing that he
was enough to lead the people. That's why he struck
(39:45):
the rock insteadus speaking to it. That's why he was
still trying to prove at the end of his ministry,
I am something, I am somebody I can't do it.
And now I'm spending too much money over here, and
now I'm spending too much energy over here, and now
I'm becoming something that I don't even like to prove
it to.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Who to who?
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Jesus said, I'm going to Judea when it's right for me,
and God give us the clarity to know what's right
for us, what we're built for, so we stop finding
ourselves and compromising positions that do not even fit our
(40:32):
build God give us the wisdom to know when people
are pushing us. Just because it's normal doesn't mean it's wise.
God give us the wisdom to know our timing. Give
us the wisdom to know when we need to put
something in a journal not on Facebook. Give us the
(40:54):
wisdom to know when it's your voice. Father, I thank
you for what you've spoken today, and I believe that
I will be hearing for a long time how it
was applied in individual lives. With everyone standing, I want
to pray a prayer or a blessing over you today
(41:17):
that if you can receive it with your spirit, it
will save you so much pain and consternation and agony.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
To be able to receive that.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You don't have to live on bread alone, but every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
And just to know in this moment.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
That it's okay to stay in Galilee, it's okay to
operate in your gift. It's okay to do it the
way you need to do it. And that proving stuff
to people never produce the power of God.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Never.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Even when Jesus hung on the cross, they were still
trying to get him to prove it, if you are
the son of God, come down from that cross. But
he couldn't come down. He wasn't up there to prove it.
He was up there to do it for you and
for me. To despise the shame and to endure the cross.
(42:25):
The presence of the Lord is here to remind you
of your righteousness and to remind you that you don't
have to perform a religious act or a behavior modification
program to be accepted by your heavenly Father. With your
head's bowed and your eyes closed, there's somebody here who's
(42:47):
been feeling like you're not enough, and it has caused
you to enter into modes of communication and methods of
life and paces of lifestyle that do not even fit
your assignment or your And there are some places that
you're going to purposely need to stay away from in
the coming days, places in your mind and places in
(43:10):
your imagination. There are places that you will need to
stay away from on.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Purpose in order to live in peace.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
And you've been under a pressure that did not come
from God to live up to something that was not
even originated in his heart. Today, I pray that the
peace of God would be your portion as you enter
this next season of your life, and that whatever you do,
you would not do it for popularity or for praise,
(43:39):
but that you would do it on purpose, That you
would do it on purpose, with an intentionality like Jesus
had as he set his face toward the future with
destiny in his heart, praying, even under pressure in the
garden of gethsemone, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.
May God give you this spirit of and determination to
(44:02):
raise your family and to run your race, and to
live your life, and to ignore the whispers to come
out of unbelief. Stop trying to prove it. You don't
have to prove it. It's already spoken. It's already settled,
with heads bout and eyes closed. This is the moment
(44:24):
of our service where we give you the opportunity to
begin a relationship with God. If you are here today
and you are far away from God, you don't have
to leave that way, and you don't have to perform
up to a standard. That's what they tried to do
through the law, but nobody could keep it.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
There is none righteous, no not one.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And you can make plans to change your life, and
you can have better priorities, and you could try to
be a better person, but none of it will get
you there. It all comes down to the grace of God.
It all comes down to believing and surrendering your life
to Him.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
And I believe there are.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
A special few today, that God brought you here for
this moment, for this moment, that He can make you
his child, that He can give you a new beginning
in your life, that you can begin to walk with Him,
that you can give your life to Jesus Christ. And
with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, we pray
together as a church family, out loud on every campus
(45:19):
for the benefit of those who are coming to God
or coming back to God. The Bible says, if you
confess with your mouth Jesus's Lord and believe in your
heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
It is by grace. You are saved through faith. It
is the gift of God, not of work. So no
one can boast. It's not about what you can do.
It's about what has already been done. He died for you,
(45:41):
He rose for you. You can rise today. This can
be your moment with head's bout and eyes closed. If
you want to give your life to Jesus Christ, repeat
this prayer after me. Church family pray along. Heavenly Father.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
and the savior of the world. And today I make
(46:02):
Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died
that I could be forgiven and rose again to give
me life. I receive this new life. This is my
new beginning. On the count of three. If you prayed
that prayer, shuit your hand up high, one, two, three.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
I want to celebrate with you. Bless your gods, Bless him,
bless him. I think we can celebrate better than that.
Let's do it like a family. Let's do it like
the angels.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Let's throw a little party, a little birthday party.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Come on, let's throw a little birthday party. Welcome to
the Family of God. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for more
information and enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Let's look at John chapter seven together. I feel God's
presence in this place.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now. Even if I didn't feel it, I would know
that it was real.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
But it's good to feel it, and I feel God's
presence in this place.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
John chapter seven is a very interesting scenario, or more accurately,
episode in the life of Jesus. And I think you
probably will say I never really heard a sermon on
that story before, and then you won't be able to
say that after today.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
But it's a.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Really human moment in the life of Jesus, and it's
a great example to us today. So as we look
at this, we hope that we will see the example
of Jesus and how it applies.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
To our lives.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
In John chapter seven, the Bible says after this, Jesus
went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because
the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But
when the Jewish feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus's brother
said to him, you ought to leave here. How many know,
there's always somebody to tell you what you ought to do, always,
(01:20):
and usually as people with your same last name, you
know you oughta well, you ought to leave here and
go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the
miracles you do. No one who wants to become a
public figure action secret. Since you are doing these things
post them on Instagram. For even his own brothers did
not believe him, and therefore Jesus told them, the right
(01:44):
time for me has not yet come for you. Anytime
is right, salty Jesus. The world cannot hate you, but
it hates me because I testify that what it does
is evil. If you haven't had a head on collision
with the devil lately, it means you might be headed
in the same direction. That's what Pastor Mickey used to say.
(02:07):
Of course, I'm in conflict. I am a contradiction of
the world's values, and so it's not easy for me
to live on this earth according to Kingdom principles. But
Jesus said, verse eight, you go to the feast. I'm
not going to control you, but you do what you
need to do. You go ahead and go. I am
not yet going up to this feast because for me,
(02:27):
the right time has not yet come. I wonder how
different our lives would be if we would learn the
power of those two words, not yet not yet. And
having said this, he stayed in Galilee. However, after his
brothers had left for the feast, he went also, not publicly,
but in secret.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Not publicly, but in secret.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Now at the feast, the Jews were watching for him
and asking where is that man the crowds. There was
widespread whispering, widespread whispering about him.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Some said he is a good man. Others replied, no,
he deceives the people.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But no one would say anything publicly about him for
fear of the Jews. The key for this message today
is in verse ten. However, after his brothers had left
for the feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.
And what I want to talk to you about today
is the pressure to perform, the pressure to perform.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
And let's pray one more time.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Spirit of God, I thank you for the accuracy with
which you register in the hearts and the minds of
people who are open. Give us this openness that we
may receive whatever you wish to speak, and we give
you praise.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
In advance in Jesus name.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Amen, would you touch somebody on your way to your
seat and say, I don't have to post it to prove.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
It's so great to.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Have the opportunity now to apologize to my mom. For
my teenage years, I just didn't have an appreciation at
the time for the pressure of parenting. You really can't
until you are blessed with the same pressure of parental
responsibility for yourself, because like, really, my mom and dad
(04:35):
stretched their resources in order for me as a as
a I guess, like a spoiled, entitled brat of a
kid to not appreciate the sacrifices and really the pressure
that they were under to buy me those rebock pumps.
(05:02):
And since my dad was a barber and he started
out just five dollars a haircut six dollars, by the
time he quit cutting hair, he was up to thirteen
dollars a haircut, I believe.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
And my mom had been.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
In education, teaching special education and then as an early interventionist,
which wasn't exactly a high paying job, but they provided
for me so competently that I never really thought about
the pressure that it must have been to try to
make sure that I.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Never really felt their pressure.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
I remember going to this telephone office, the Berkeley Telephone Company,
and my parents would clean the office at night after
they would get off their other job, and all I
could do was complain, and I thought that it was
child abuse that they made me empty the trash. But
I just didn't understand when she was making me run
(06:04):
the vacuum cleaner while she was cleaning the toilets on Saturday,
just like I didn't appreciate the pressure, even emotionally. I
remember when my dad kind of quit coming home. I
didn't realize that the reason he was doing that was
because of not having a father example for himself when
I hit the teenage stage, he had no frame of
(06:27):
reference for how to deal with what he felt, and
I thought.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
He was lazy, so he went to go drink with
my uncle.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
But it wasn't so much laziness, I now have come
to believe, as it was the fact that he was
under a weight that he hadn't felt like he had
been built for. And there is a sense in which
his pressure in his own life paralyzed him, like pressure
often can. When you find yourself in a situation where
you have not been exposed to that particular responsibility and
(06:58):
now you are responsible or something that you've never been
exposed to, it can create a lot of pressure, not
only on the financial side with with with kids, but
just emotionally and how by the time you come home
from work where you're providing materially, you don't have anything
left to give emotionally, and even if you do. There
was this dude that came up to me Friday night
(07:21):
at the baseball game and he just looked. He had
the look on his face like all parents get from
time to time, like if you shoot me, I'll give
you half the insurance money. It was just a parent look,
and you only know it if you've been there. But
I just said to him, kind of randomly, I said,
you're such a good man, because I could tell he
was having one of those days and he was running
(07:43):
back and forth and it kind of stopped him in
his tracks.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And he's like, really, I don't feel like a good
man today, you know. I was. I was.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I was at work and then I left work at
four because I'm supposed to get off it for But
then the idiot who took my next shift, he didn't
show up in time for a shift. So who does
the manager call Not the person who didn't show up,
but me, because they know they can count on me.
Because the people we treat the worst are usually the
people that we know, we can count on the most,
and we expect the most out of them. But by
the time he had got off work, he was throwing
the ball with his daughter to get it ready for
(08:10):
the game. And by the time he finished throwing with
his daughter, he said, this is what he's telling me.
By the time I finished throwing my daughter, my manager
been blowing up my phone. Now my manager is mad
at me, and I'm walking in the house talking to
my manager who's yelling at me, and my wife's got
dinner ready, but I can't eat dinner because I'm talking
to my manager, and so my wife is mad because
the food is cold. But I can't help it that
the food is cold, because if I lose his job,
(08:30):
we're not going to have any food to cook. So
coal food is better.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Than no food. And all I'm matter on the baseball
team and I want to die.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
And funny thing is he doesn't come to the church.
He doesn't come to the church. He's only been one
time that I know of, And when he came that
one time, he told me it was a good sermon,
so I knew that he didn't have like a Christian vocabulary.
The word that he put in there. But he didn't
know that I was preaching on pressure today. He didn't
(08:57):
know that he was giving me, he was helping me
that it's not just as a preacher, or it's not
just those of us who stand on a stage who
feel this pressure. Because it used to be enough if
you just provide for your kids. It used to be
enough if you just protect your kids. It used to
be enough if you would just prepare your kids. And
(09:19):
sometimes all of those things seem to be in conflict,
that while you want to protect your kids, you also
have to prepare your kids. And so sometimes I don't
know should I catch you or should I let you
fall a little bit so you don't fall a lot?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Should I?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Should I let you skin your knee now so that
you don't break your neck later? Should I let you
peter sink down into the water and let you sink
and not let you drown. Sometimes even Jesus, if you
read the scripture, he did not prevent the failure. He
allowed the failure so that the person could learn the
(09:59):
lesson and that would enable them later. Sometimes there's so
much pressure coming from so many different directions, and if
you stop to think about the life of Jesus. He
was he was under pressure from the Pharisees who wanted
to kill him because he threatened their political power, And
so they were watching everything that he did, and they
(10:21):
were watching him with very, very scrutinizing eyes, even to
the point that if he healed somebody, not only would
they watch him heal the person, but they would they
would find him healing on the wrong day, and if
he healed on the Sabbath, they would stand up and
accuse him for doing something good. How would you like
(10:43):
to get accused not only for doing the wrong thing,
but for doing the right thing at the wrong time.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
This is Jesus.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
He shows up and they follow him to see if
he's gonna wash his hands before he eats. How creepy
is it when you have people following you in the
bathroom to see One time I was at PF. Chanin's
and there was a man that was standing there watching me.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
While I was and it was threatening to me. It
was threatening to me.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
So I kind of looked at my fishes in the
bathroom and I washed my hands. I walked over to
him and he said, I was waiting to see if
you do wash your hands after you went I go
to your church. I'm like, bro, there's a lot of
(11:39):
other great churches I would like to tell you about
right now. But for Jesus, it was ceremonial. It wasn't
a hygienic thing. They were watching to see what he
breaked the law and not wash his hands.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
They weren't worried about the.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Fact that he was trying to eat with people that
they considered unclean, because he was righteousness and grace and truth.
They were so focused on the cosmetics, and so everything
that he did was under scrutiny. Who he's talking with
a woman, Oh, he's touching a leper. He's not supposed
to act like that. He's not supposed to speak like that.
And then sometimes for Jesus, he would perform a miracle
(12:15):
for the crowd, but they would miss the deeper meaning,
which is what has just happened when we read on
chapter seven. Because he just fed five thousand men and
women and children, and he provided for their needs in
such a great way that they.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
All ate and had their fill.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
But after he filled them up physically, he turned to
fill them spiritually. And it turns out that they were
following him, not for the spiritual dynamics of who he was,
but for the physical benefits of what he could provide.
And when he began to speak at a deeper level,
the Bible says that many of them didn't want to
(12:59):
hear it.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
After he fed them the.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Bread, he turned around and said, now that you've had bread,
recognize that I am bread. The miracle that I just
performed was not about what I did. It was to
point to who I am. I am the bread of life,
and if you eat my flesh and drink my blood,
you can remain in me. Well, they didn't like that
(13:22):
very much. It's like he had the crowd and then
he lost them. He had the following, and then he
lost it. And the Bible says in John six sixty six,
sixty sixty six, I always remember that like it's a
bad number, sixty sixty six. I always remember it because
it said many then deserted him and followed him no more.
(13:42):
Many then went away because this is a hard saying,
and followed him no more. And as they're walking away,
Jesus turns to his disciples and says, do you want
to walk away too?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And Peter said, we don't have no options.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I already gave my boat away for a little while,
and I already put my investment you and I got
to see where this ends, even if it ends at
a cross. That's the context of John chapter seven.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
And it's one thing.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
To kind of have to deal with opposition from the devil.
It's another thing to kind of have to deal with
it from inside your own house.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
And Jesus had seven siblings.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Some traditions infer these are his human brothers, And whether
or not Jesus had any sisters, it's interesting to me
that it was his brothers who pulled him aside with
the strategy watch this for how to get his followers back.
And they've got it all figured out, and they've got
(14:45):
it all calculated, and they say, Jesus, do more of
the stuff like where you're feeding people, and less of
the cannibal stuff that you say in your speeches. Take
out the cannibalism. And why don't you go to Judea
because the Feast of Tabernacles is about to start and
(15:08):
you can come with us and you can do the
kinds of things that you've been doing here in Galilee,
which was in the northern part of Palestine, which was
not as densely populated as Jerusalem and Judea. You can
do publicly what you've been doing privately. You can take
this show on the road. We can get you a
(15:28):
headlining spot at the Coachella. Of the Old Testament, this
was the feast where they would come and build booths.
It was actually called the Festival of booths or tabernacles.
And they would build the booth when they got there,
and they would stay for a week, and they would
thank God for the water that he gave them, and
they would thank God for the sustenance that he gave them.
(15:50):
They would remember in the wilderness how God saw his
people through even though they didn't have quail or grain.
But he made manna, which literally means what is it,
and it means what it is? So God meets what
is it with what it is and it shows that
He can show up in any situation and take what
it is, and when He fills what it is with
(16:12):
who he is, it will become what you need it
to be for the season that you're in.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Two people recognize good preaching when.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
They hear it, and they say, come on and do
some of the flashy stuff that.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You've been doing. Here in Nazareth and.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Take this show fifty five miles south to Judea. And
if you can do these public things in front of people,
you can become a public figure. In fact, that's the
phrase that drew me to the text. It said, no
one who wants to become a public.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Figure acts in secret.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
We live in a time where everybody wants to be
a public figure. We live in a time and please
don't get mad at me for saying this where even
people who have a private account spend their whole LIFs
posting stuff and commenting on stuff to create an image
(17:11):
and a projection of a reality that may bear no resemblance.
The awkward golf collaps really help me. I appreciate that
to the reality of their situation. And Jesus's brothers pull
him aside and say, we've got a great idea. Why
don't you show the world who you really are. The
interesting thing about the text, and I'm gonna give this
(17:33):
to you quick, because the nexus of this text is
in verse five. It says that even Jesus' brothers did
not believe in him, and since they didn't believe, they
were trying to get him to perform any time you
have unbelief in your heart, it will cause you to
(17:55):
try to perform to prove something that you don't really believe.
In psychological terms, it's called the fraudulence complex, or some
call it the impostor syndrome, and it speaks about how
many of us have an inability to internalize our strengths.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
And our accomplishments.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Psychologists call it the impostor syndrome because they say that
many of us secretly, deep down feel like we're a fraud.
Many of us, secretly, deep down feel like we have
so much less to offer than what people expect, and
that even when people compliment us, we figure that the
(18:40):
reason that they're complimenting us is because they don't really
see us for who we are. And if they ever
saw us for who we are, if they ever saw
how stupid we feel, if they ever saw how inexperienced
we feel, if they really saw how nervous.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
We really feel, they would kick us out thereat room.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
It happens to fathers, It happens to mothers, It happens to.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Leaders, it happens to teenagers. It is the.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Fear of being found out to be less than they
thought you were. It is the fear that keeps you
in a performance mode. It is the fear that keeps
you spending money to look like something important, because deep
down you're afraid that you're really not. It is the
fear that keeps you overcompensating, and you get in situations
(19:32):
and rather than letting other people be the center of attention,
you feel the need to overcompensate to show how intelligent
you are because deep down you don't feel intelligent enough,
so people think you're cocky.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
But you're really not cocky.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
You're scared with the conflict between who they think you're
supposed to be and who you feel like you really are.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
It's called the imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
It means that sometimes, even as I'm trying to fulfill.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
My purpose, I feel like a fake.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
It's not that I'm a hypocrite, it's not that I'm insincere.
It's just that, deep down inside, I'm a man who
sometimes feels like a little boy. I'm a preacher who
sometimes feels like a sinner. I want to be wise,
but sometimes I feel like a fool. And I'm wondering,
is there anybody here who lately has been up under
(20:22):
the pressure of an expectation, and when you feel that,
the temptation and the tendency is to prove it.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I gotta prove I'm a good dad. I gotta prove
I'm a good mom. I gotta prove I'm a good preacher.
I gotta prove it. When you do it to prove it,
it takes the joy.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Out of it. See Jesus, Jesus didn't.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Mind performing miracles, he just wasn't going to do it
for the wrong motives. Jesus was going to Judea. He
just wasn't going.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
To make a public spectacle out of his power.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Jesus was ultimately determined to show the world who he was,
but he wasn't going to do it for the gram.
I think the key thing that he says in the
(21:32):
text is not now, I'm going to Judea, which is
the region where he would ultimately give his life, but
not now. And it's such a weird world we live in,
isn't it. I mean, I'm so scared for my kids. Honestly,
I don't even know what to tell him about growing
(21:56):
up in a time where we've always had the.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Pressure the performance.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Now everybody gets to experience performance anxiety. Because we all
perform our lives for one another all the time, just constantly.
I mean, if you if you cook a good meal
for your family, it does not count unless you make
an Instagram story out of the meal. This is a
(22:24):
very common thing to preach about. It is common because
it's killing us. Jesus said, if I go to Judea
for the wrong reasons, and if I show up with
the wrong motives, and if I live my life to
perform for others rather than to glorify my father, it'll
(22:47):
kill me. The religious leaders were waiting to literally kill Jesus.
But I wonder, what are the things that are killing you?
It says that he purposely stayed away from Judea. What
do you need to purposely stay away from in this season.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Of your life?
Speaker 1 (23:07):
What do you need to purposely stop thinking about in
this season of your life? Who do you need to
purposely stop comparing yourself to in this season of your life?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
For me, it's buck.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
I was doing squats the other day and Chunks Chunks
was watching me do these squats and I was doing
them deep deep squats. I only do leg day once
every six weeks, so I got to make it count
when I do it, and I don't know if I
can do it in these genes.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I should have tested this.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
I hadn't done this illustration yet, but I mean, I
was down deep.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
On the squad now. Buck wasn't there that day.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Chunks was there, and Chunks was spotting me and he said,
what are you doing? And I said, I'm doing I'm
doing my squats like Buck. But he said something so important,
He said, don't do them like Buck. Buck is built
different than you. You're gonna break your back trying to
(24:15):
be like Buck. And I wonder how we look to
God trying to. You are gonna snap your hamstring. You
are gonna pop your quads, trying to trying to be Buck,
getting getting trying to try, trying to. I went on
(24:39):
Instagram the other day and I saw I saw Kevin Hart,
and I felt like a failure in my whole life.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
I felt like, what am I doing with my whole life? What?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
What is the point of my existence? Within fifteen seconds?
Here I am with a burden on me that I
wasn't built for by comparing myself to someone with a
different calling, and please don't judge me while I am
(25:17):
in this vulnerable position because the truth of the matter
is some of you are hurting in ways that you
don't have to hurt, because you are putting yourself in
a position that you were not built to live in.
Jesus said, I'm not going to Judea because you want
me to go to Judea. I don't have to post
(25:39):
it to prove it. I don't have to turn stones
into bread to show that I'm the son of God.
I live out of purpose, not for popularity. I live
out of purpose, not for the praises of men, but
for the praise that can only come from God. And
I wonder if there's somebody today who is content to
stay in Galilee to know that it's my season to
(26:03):
be obedient.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
And that's all I have to do. All I have to.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Do is be obedient in this season of my life.
And Jesus said, you'll go. I'm not going. Not now,
you'll go.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
I'm gonna stay.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
I'm purposely staying away because if I go here to
impress people with that motive, it'll kill me. And trying
to impress people and trying to measure up to arbitrary
standards that are changing so fast it'll kill your contentment.
It'll kill your joy, it'll kill your marriage, it'll kill
your ministry, it'll kill your family. And now even Jesus
(26:56):
couldn't please everybody, and he was sinless and spotless. Jesus,
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, couldn't please everybody, and
we expect that we can. Even Jesus had to say,
y'all are my family. I love you, but it's not
(27:16):
for me, and just those words, it's not for me.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
You ought to go down there to Judea, show them
what you've made of because I think.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
They were under pressure too. Honestly, I think probably it
was a lot of pressure to be a sibling of
Jesus and you're bringing home sees in chemistry, you know,
and he's turning water into wine, like affecting molecular structures
in real time.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
A lot of pressure.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
You got that weird brother, you know, the one who
stays at the temple teaching people at age twelve.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It's a pressure to feel special.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
And sometimes the pressure that we feel to be special.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Does not come from God. It comes from culture, who tells.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
You that you've got to be so special, so different,
so unique, so set apart.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
But you already are you already are you already? Are already?
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Am set apart? Jesus?
Speaker 1 (28:28):
If you go down to Judea, you could, you could, really,
you could show them who you are.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
You could, you could show them who you are. I
don't need to show them.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
I know. When you live out of that place, it
affects you to be able to do it for purpose
and not for proof, because really, who are you trying
to prove it to. I mean, whoever you're trying to
prove something to isn't paying attention because they're trying to
(28:57):
prove it to somebody who's not paying attention. And they're
proving it to someone who's not paying attention. And so
while we're busy posting to each other our results to
prove to one another what we're worth, our purpose is
dying in the place of our insecurity. When you know
(29:20):
it's real, when you know it's authentic, it enables you
to do it from a place of purpose.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
I'm going to Judea. I'm going to go. I'm just
not gonna go because you pushed me into it.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Be careful what you let people or cultural norms push
you into. You'll never be pushed into purpose. You will
be pulled from within. If it's pushing, it's not purpose.
God does not drive, he leads. They are very different.
Jesus said, I'm going when it's time for me to go.
(29:55):
I'm not going for clout, I'm going for cairos. That's
the Greek word that means the timing of God. In
Greek philosophy, fate determined timing. In Kingdom philosophy, God determines timing.
It means I'm where I need to be right now,
and I'm good in Galilee. I'm good in Galilee. I'm
(30:16):
good if nobody knows my name. I'm good being anonymous.
I was listening to a podcast the other day with
a former First Lady of the United States, and she
said the number one sacrifice that she gave to serve
the country was the loss of anonymity. That isn't it
crazy that everybody else is trying to climb out of.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
The thing that she wishes she could have back.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
And now we've got a whole generation that's just trying
to be a public figure. I went on somebody's Instagram
account the other day. They had seventy followers, and it
said public figure under the name.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Why do you need a label so bad.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Why do you so badly need to be perceived by others?
It's the pressure to be special, So it's the pressure
to be important. But when you belong to God and
you are living on assignment, and you know your anointing
and you know your gift, it.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Takes the pressure off.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Because I'm good in Galilee.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I'll walk on.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
Water in Galilee. I'll heal blind eyes in Galilee. I'll
teach in Galilee, I'll pray in Galilee.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I'm good in Galilee. I see it even seep into
our ministry.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
In very subtle ways when we sit down to measure
our ministry. If I'm not careful, I will become so
performance oriented in the way I pastor this church that
I will get my priorities more on.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
The statistics than the substance.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
And I felt it happening the other day because we're
looking at all of these Instagram that we put out
and we use it all. I promise you Jesus would
have had an Instagram account. It would have been the
dopest Instagram account that you've ever seen in your life.
You would have swiped up and got healed. You wouldn't
even had to click on anything after that, it would
have been but swipe up and lose your leprosy, it
(32:17):
would have been an amazing Instagram account. But what I'm
saying about it is I was in this moment where
we were showing how this.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Post perform, perform, perform, perform.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Now, for me, that's a dangerous word, because I am
performance oriented by nature.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't know why I would ask for your prayers
for that.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I sometimes feel like I'm just showing up to regular
conversations and oh God, I hope I say the right thing.
I had a friend who got in trouble the other day,
and it took me a week to call him, not
because I didn't care about him, but because I didn't
think I would have anything valid to say, so rather
than call him and say what I had, I waited
and hurt him by not calling him because I didn't
think i'd have something to say. And when I finally
(32:55):
called him, I realized he didn't need my performance.
Speaker 6 (32:57):
He just needed my presence. He didn't need me to
say anything. He didn't need me to say anything, He
just needed me to be there. And when you don't
believe that, it kills you. Unbelief always leads to performance.
(33:22):
They didn't believe in him. They thought he was a fraud.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
When you think you're a fraud, when you get unbelief
in your heart, when you go to those those places
in your mind, you kill yourself trying to prove something.
You know, we're we're analyzing and and and you can
look at it. You can look at how many how
(33:46):
many people like this post. And here's a sermon clip
we put out in here's a here's a song that
we put out, and here's another sermon clip. And this
one performed better than that one. And that's good to know.
I think you should look.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
At all that.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I mean, I definitely want the person who's managing my
retirement account to look at the performance of the retirement account.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
I don't just want them to pray about it. Amen.
Now it's losing money, but it's a great company.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
We believe in their values, and I want to make
some money. But with ministry, you can't always measure that,
can you. And I don't really know if the one
that got the most likes was the one that God used,
because who am I to say that the one that
(34:28):
didn't get as many likes. Maybe it came across somebody's
feed when their hands were shaken too bad to click
like or to comment because they had a bottle of
pills in their hand, and something that was spoken through
that screen just really hit their situation.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And you can't measure that.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
When you do it for the wrong audience, when people
don't clap, you quit and they don't say thank you,
or when you get the feeling like they don't even
appreciate me, they don't even notice, they wouldn't even miss me,
they don't even they don't even know what I bring
(35:12):
to this. They don't really Jesus wasn't doing it for
the people, and he certainly wasn't doing it for their praise.
He was doing it for a purpose, and the people
were not his audience.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
And when the brother said.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You need to do it so they'll see, you need
to do it, so they'll know you need to do
it to prove it, Jesus said, I believe. Twenty nineteen version.
Jesus said, I don't have to post it to prove it.
I don't have to do it because they're clapping. I
do it because I'm called. I'm not doing it for clout,
(35:59):
I'm doing it for calling I am not chasing their approval.
I am fulfilling my assignment. Now this message is for
our generation. And I do not mean people that are
my age. I mean the time that we live in
is consumed and obsessed with chasing clout, approval and publicity.
(36:22):
But some things ought to stay private. Some things that
God does in your life are not for ppa. Some
things are not for a public display of ability or
a public.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Display of affection.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
You know, back in my day, if you were making
out with somebody in public, they.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Would holler at you. Get a room. And I heard
Jesus say, when you pray.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Don't do it out in public like the Pagans do
trying to impress somebody or the Pharisees do. But get
in a secret place, Get in your closet, get a
room where you get alone with God. Ask God, what
am I called to do? What am I called to be?
I can't take my cues from culture or the crowd
(37:09):
is killing me. God, what do you want me to
do in this season? It's too much pressure to please people. God.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I just want to please you. I do it for
you God.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
I show up for you, I stay late for you,
I forgive for you. I love for you, I serve
for you, I breathe for you, I live for you,
I worship for you. It's not for an audience of film.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
God is my audience.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And when God is your audience, the opinions of people
are no longer your sustenance.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I don't turn stones into bread.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
We so need this word from the Lord because we're
sure not going to get it from the world.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
It's getting weirder and weirder and weirder.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
How we're all performing for each other all the time.
It's exhausting and it sucks, and it's worthless and it
doesn't matter.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
And God sent me today watch this with a word
of sanity. The crowd will kill you. I love the
phrase that he put.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
Jod said, there was widespread whispering about Jesus. Everybody had
a comment to make, but nobody had the courage to
say it out loud to his face. Everybody was whispering.
And this is the world that we live in. And
when we give too much weight to the whispers of
(39:01):
people and not enough weight to the word of God,
it will kill us on the inside. So the impostor
syndrome was coined as a phrase several decades ago in
(39:23):
psychological terms, but it's as old as Moses, who stood
up one day just to see a burning bush that
wasn't consumed talking about who am I that I should
go stand before Pharaoh. No matter how many miracles God
did through Moses, he still had trouble believing that he
was enough to lead the people. That's why he struck
(39:45):
the rock insteadus speaking to it. That's why he was
still trying to prove at the end of his ministry,
I am something, I am somebody I can't do it.
And now I'm spending too much money over here, and
now I'm spending too much energy over here, and now
I'm becoming something that I don't even like to prove
it to.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Who to who?
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Jesus said, I'm going to Judea when it's right for me,
and God give us the clarity to know what's right
for us, what we're built for, so we stop finding
ourselves and compromising positions that do not even fit our
(40:32):
build God give us the wisdom to know when people
are pushing us. Just because it's normal doesn't mean it's wise.
God give us the wisdom to know our timing. Give
us the wisdom to know when we need to put
something in a journal not on Facebook. Give us the
(40:54):
wisdom to know when it's your voice. Father, I thank
you for what you've spoken today, and I believe that
I will be hearing for a long time how it
was applied in individual lives. With everyone standing, I want
to pray a prayer or a blessing over you today
(41:17):
that if you can receive it with your spirit, it
will save you so much pain and consternation and agony.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
To be able to receive that.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You don't have to live on bread alone, but every
word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
And just to know in this moment.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
That it's okay to stay in Galilee, it's okay to
operate in your gift. It's okay to do it the
way you need to do it. And that proving stuff
to people never produce the power of God.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Never.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Even when Jesus hung on the cross, they were still
trying to get him to prove it, if you are
the son of God, come down from that cross. But
he couldn't come down. He wasn't up there to prove it.
He was up there to do it for you and
for me. To despise the shame and to endure the cross.
(42:25):
The presence of the Lord is here to remind you
of your righteousness and to remind you that you don't
have to perform a religious act or a behavior modification
program to be accepted by your heavenly Father. With your
head's bowed and your eyes closed, there's somebody here who's
(42:47):
been feeling like you're not enough, and it has caused
you to enter into modes of communication and methods of
life and paces of lifestyle that do not even fit
your assignment or your And there are some places that
you're going to purposely need to stay away from in
the coming days, places in your mind and places in
(43:10):
your imagination. There are places that you will need to
stay away from on.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Purpose in order to live in peace.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
And you've been under a pressure that did not come
from God to live up to something that was not
even originated in his heart. Today, I pray that the
peace of God would be your portion as you enter
this next season of your life, and that whatever you do,
you would not do it for popularity or for praise,
(43:39):
but that you would do it on purpose, That you
would do it on purpose, with an intentionality like Jesus
had as he set his face toward the future with
destiny in his heart, praying, even under pressure in the
garden of gethsemone, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.
May God give you this spirit of and determination to
(44:02):
raise your family and to run your race, and to
live your life, and to ignore the whispers to come
out of unbelief. Stop trying to prove it. You don't
have to prove it. It's already spoken. It's already settled,
with heads bout and eyes closed. This is the moment
(44:24):
of our service where we give you the opportunity to
begin a relationship with God. If you are here today
and you are far away from God, you don't have
to leave that way, and you don't have to perform
up to a standard. That's what they tried to do
through the law, but nobody could keep it.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
There is none righteous, no not one.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
And you can make plans to change your life, and
you can have better priorities, and you could try to
be a better person, but none of it will get
you there. It all comes down to the grace of God.
It all comes down to believing and surrendering your life
to Him.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
And I believe there are.
Speaker 1 (44:58):
A special few today, that God brought you here for
this moment, for this moment, that He can make you
his child, that He can give you a new beginning
in your life, that you can begin to walk with Him,
that you can give your life to Jesus Christ. And
with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, we pray
together as a church family, out loud on every campus
(45:19):
for the benefit of those who are coming to God
or coming back to God. The Bible says, if you
confess with your mouth Jesus's Lord and believe in your
heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
It is by grace. You are saved through faith. It
is the gift of God, not of work. So no
one can boast. It's not about what you can do.
It's about what has already been done. He died for you,
(45:41):
He rose for you. You can rise today. This can
be your moment with head's bout and eyes closed. If
you want to give your life to Jesus Christ, repeat
this prayer after me. Church family pray along. Heavenly Father.
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
and the savior of the world. And today I make
(46:02):
Jesus the Lord of my life. I believe he died
that I could be forgiven and rose again to give
me life. I receive this new life. This is my
new beginning. On the count of three. If you prayed
that prayer, shuit your hand up high, one, two, three.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
I want to celebrate with you. Bless your gods, Bless him,
bless him. I think we can celebrate better than that.
Let's do it like a family. Let's do it like
the angels.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Let's throw a little party, a little birthday party.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Come on, let's throw a little birthday party. Welcome to
the Family of God. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
You can click the link in the description to give now,
or visit Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for more
information and enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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