April 9, 2025 • 15 mins
Jesus's approach to flattery and praise provides a profound contrast to our own susceptibility to manipulation through ego and pride.
• Most people can be manipulated through flattery that aligns with what they want to believe about themselves
• Different forms of manipulation target men and women based on their specific insecurities and desires
• Many of us struggle to receive compliments comfortably, either dismissing them or feeling uncomfortable
• Jesus had legitimate reasons for praise but never allowed it to distract him from his mission
• Christ prioritized service and hospitality, ensuring people's physical needs were met before spiritual ones
• He created welcoming environments where everyone felt valued regardless of background or status
• Unlike modern tendencies, Jesus never "put on airs" despite performing extraordinary miracles
• Christ's consistency came from his focus on his mission rather than others' opinions about him
• We can learn to recognize flattery as an attempt to manipulate us away from our purpose
• True leadership follows Jesus's model of service without expectation of praise or reciprocation
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jesus wasn't susceptible to flattery like we
are.
Whenever you watch a movie, youcan see the characters
manipulated into place by theiregos, what they want to believe
about themselves, what they hopeothers see in them, and they're
just kind of led around bytheir nose, like in movies.
(00:22):
A guy that's interested in agirl, the girl can stroke his
ego, tell him he's fantastic atthis, he's wonderful, he's
brilliant, he's every girl'sdream.
And as she says this, most ofus are susceptible.
Most of us, you can get to usbecause these are things we want
(00:46):
to believe.
Right, there are things in ourego that feel so important and
so integral to our status andour desirability With women.
You'll see in movies where aguy will be love, bombing them
or making them feel great aboutthemselves, or making them feel
(01:09):
seen or providing some type ofsupport that they're not getting
from other places.
So it can look a little bitdifferent between guys and girls
, but we are susceptible to thattype of manipulation.
And so as I watched this moviethe other day and I watched
these characters beingmanipulated and I had started to
(01:30):
think to myself like gee, wouldI be manipulated that easily If
she had said that to me?
Like, would I be so caught upin my pride that I wouldn't see
through what was happening, thatI wouldn't see through what was
happening that I would lose mysense of focus?
How easy is it for people toflatter you into some position,
(01:55):
some feeling, some decision.
This happens even in committedrelationships or marriages.
Right, we all learn that peoplerespond to different things and
whether it's like that, theperennial question, would you
rather be feared or loved?
There's also this dynamic of wewant to be liked, we want to be
(02:17):
thought well of.
So I started thinking like okay, how does this line up with
Jesus?
Or how did Jesus deal withflattery?
Here's somebody who actuallyhad a legitimate claim to some
exceptional traits.
Right, if someone came to youand said, gee, you're such a
(02:38):
wonderful healer and you'resetting people free and you're
bringing salvation, and you'rebringing salvation and you're
breaking bread and feeding themultitudes, if you start to
believe like you're God orsomething most of us would say,
either you run a cult or you'redelusional or, best case
scenario, maybe you're some typeof prophet or special figure
(03:02):
that somehow God's using, itwould be a puzzling situation.
But you know, we really needn'tworry about it, because none of
us have met anyone thatmanifested everything that Jesus
did People debate about.
Are there healings, are theremiracles?
And the point of this videoreally isn't even to go into
(03:22):
that.
But I think we can agree, though, that most of us just the
average Christian or the averagebeliever stumbling around.
We're nothing special.
Some of us may be moreattractive than others.
Some of us may be brighter ormore accomplished in some way.
Some of us are more popularthan others.
(03:42):
Some of us are stronger andbetter shaped than others.
There's all these ways that wecan define ourselves, and for
most of us, we would like tohear compliments on any of those
.
Finds right, break them on.
But the truth is that for manyof us, even when we're given
(04:03):
compliments, and even if they'recompliments that are like not
far-fetched, like they'rereasonable for what we actually
are or have accomplished, a lotof times it's hard to just take
that compliment right.
A lot of us, we have so manyself-doubting demons that we
find ourselves downplayingcompliments or we find ourselves
(04:26):
just kind of trying to quickly,oh, thank you, and just kind of
brush it off.
Like most people are great atjust digesting the compliment
and just taking it in and beinglike wow, yeah, that's great.
Yeah, thank you.
I appreciate you saying that.
I really feel good about that.
(04:46):
That's made my day and I'mgoing to run with that For
myself.
There's a lot of compliments innumerous areas.
When people give me acompliment, I'm kind of
uncomfortable with it and Idon't even always know exactly
why that is.
What is it about that feelingof being acknowledged in some
way that creates that discomfortfor so many of us?
(05:10):
And that's a good question.
But for this video I want totalk about how did Christ who
people would be kind ofstarstruck with a guy that's
showing up?
He's loving, he's kind, we'respeaking with great wisdom,
right?
He knows the word, he knows thelaw, and it's unusual for
someone at such a young age tohave that type of wisdom and
(05:35):
insight.
And people take note of that.
So he's healing peoplemiraculously right, bringing
sight to the blind, people ableto hear people, able to walk.
He's coming into situations ofdeficit and paucity of food and
resources and multiplying theloaves and the fishes and
(05:58):
feeding the multitudes.
All are examples of the type ofabundance that Christ brought
with him to places, andparticularly when people had
come essentially for a sermon orto hear him speak on a topic,
or maybe they were coming to gethealed, or maybe they were
(06:20):
coming for salvation, or theywere coming to be loved on in
some way and they had heardrumors are going around about
this guy and they're showing up.
Who knows how far they'retraveling from A lot of people.
They don't have the money andthey're not stocked with food
and all this stuff.
So when people start gatheringaround this guy, what does
(06:47):
Christ do?
Like?
One of the things he's doing ishe's facilitating those
meanings, and one way he's doingthat is by serving the people.
And he's serving them not justin the sense of serving them
love, serving them salvation,serving them wisdom, serving
(07:09):
them generosity and belonging.
He's also literally servingthem, right, he's serving food
or he's turning water into wine.
This is a guy you want to havea trip party, right?
He's serving food or he'sturning water into wine.
This is a guy you want to havea trip party, right?
He's providing for people,because the truth is that and my
mentor showed me this in termsof in the men's group that he
(07:32):
ran he would come with all thesefoods and drinks and donuts and
fresh fruit and coffee andorange juice.
I mean like quite a spread forthis group of 10, 15 guys and
(07:53):
they'd have it all decked out.
And when you came in, do yourealize that really take
advantage of learning orfellowship, or whatever is going
on has to do with thathospitality.
People are coming in andthey're hungry and they're
thirsty, and we're in the churchthere's no vending machines or
(08:19):
it's not like you were likeordering pizza or something.
People were coming in hungryand by having that refreshment,
he told me that he was reallyjust trying to model after what
Christ was doing, because Christwasn't like a slob about the
(08:42):
Word or what he was presenting.
He wasn't like hey, I'm talkingabout something really
important, so stop your stomachrumbling.
Or, oh, you're thirsty?
Yeah, so what?
Man, wait a few more hours, andwho cares?
I'm only going to be here for afew years, or I'm just passing
through town.
How dare you bring up who hassome water or who has some wine
(09:03):
or who has some bread to goaround?
See, Christ didn't have thattype of attitude.
He both is a matter of love interms of wanting to see the
people fed and fulfilled, andalso just in the sense of like
practically.
I want the people to feelcomfortable.
(09:23):
I want them to feel welcome.
I want them to have somethingto eat, something to drink, I
want them to have time to talkwith me and listen to what I'm
saying and ask questions andinteract with me.
Jesus had such a service mindsetthat we could all learn a lot
(09:45):
from it, because most of us arejust too self-centered or just
too in a hurry or just toowhatever.
We're just not thinking on thatlevel where we're putting
people ahead of ourselves.
But Jesus was hosting thesemeetings right, just like my
mentor was hosting these men'sgroup meetings.
(10:07):
And so, yeah, come and partakeof everything.
There's no donation box,there's no write me a check or
hey, we're going to take thisout of your ties, or anything
like that.
No exchange and no exchangenecessary.
No weird transactional thinggoing on.
(10:30):
And surely, with Jesus, jesuswasn't even remotely interested
in people's money or anythinglike superficial.
So obviously he is no likeulterior motive or expects to
get paid or get reimbursed orany such thing.
Right, providing all of thisout of love and out of a sense
(10:54):
of service and out of sense ofhow do I make the most of the
time with my children?
I'm not here for long and I'mnot going to get a chance to see
all of them.
I may only be passing through atown, you know, for a day.
So how can I provide anenvironment where they can sit,
(11:16):
no matter, true, gentile, young,old, wealthy, poor, sick,
healthy?
How do I create an environmentwhere everybody is welcome and
well taken care of?
And that's what Christ wasdoing?
And we see some of thoseexamples in the Bible and I
(12:05):
don't think those examples aremeant to be focused on that.
Sometimes they're letting youstay at the end.
Sometimes you're just stayingin like a lean-to or camp.
You can imagine like he's comingdown for whatever right.
He wasn't going around and justbasing where his conference was
(12:26):
going to be, on where the FourSeasons hotels are right.
He was just out there servingand whatever he had to sleep on
or eat or drink or bear, peoplewere after him, evil was around,
or just where he just wasn'twelcome.
None of these things kept himfrom loving and extending that
(12:49):
type of hospitality to people.
But let's get back to the pointof flattery, right?
So here, in many meaningful ways, you could be giving Jesus
compliments.
I mean, imagine if you're therewith Jesus and he's doing this
and he's doing that.
I mean he's changing people'slives, he's opening eyes,
(13:11):
physically and spiritually.
And just try to imagine, I mean, this is more extraordinary
than anything you ever thoughtyou would see in your lifetime.
So, in the midst of peopleshowing gratitude or thanks or
all that, it's certainly easy togive a guy some legit
compliments.
(13:31):
Right, it made Jesus deservesome compliments.
But you'll notice, though, thatJesus is never moved by his own
feelings about things, becauseyou can imagine, right, for most
of us, once we become importantor celebrated or something like
(13:52):
that, we quickly put on airs ohwell, I'm not going to stay at
a Motel 6.
I need to stay at the Hilton.
I don't drive secondhand cars.
I lease new luxury cars, I'mselling, so I would never be
caught dead driving that orsleeping there or wearing those
clothes.
(14:13):
But just imagine, like none ofus are going around performing
miracles, and here's a guythat's actually doing all that
and he's still not letting anyof that get to his head, and you
see his consistency in terms ofmy father sent me this is what
I'm going to do.
Yes, it's ultimately going tolead me into danger and to
(14:38):
rejection and to torture.
I'm going to go through thisbetrayal.
All this stuff is on the roadahead.
So you can keep complimentingme and telling me this and that
and I should avoid this and that, this and that and I should
avoid this and that.
But Christ was quick to saydon't try using the sweet tongue
(14:59):
on me to get me caught up in myfeelings or my ego or distract
me from what I'm here to do.
What I'm here to do is serve.
What I'm here to do is sufferis sacrifice is suffer is
sacrifice.
So, one, he had to be resolvedto that in his own mind.
And two, when well-meaningpeople, including some of the
(15:23):
people that were very close tohim, like disciples, he would
have to say don't get into allthat.
Christ wasn't dragging an egoalong with him.
Jesus wasn't susceptible to flattery like we
are.
Whenever you watch a movie, youcan see the characters
manipulated into place by theiregos, what they want to believe
about themselves, what they hopeothers see in them, and they're
just kind of led around bytheir nose, like in movies.
(00:22):
A guy that's interested in agirl, the girl can stroke his
ego, tell him he's fantastic atthis, he's wonderful, he's
brilliant, he's every girl'sdream.
And as she says this, most ofus are susceptible.
Most of us, you can get to usbecause these are things we want
(00:46):
to believe.
Right, there are things in ourego that feel so important and
so integral to our status andour desirability With women.
You'll see in movies where aguy will be love, bombing them
or making them feel great aboutthemselves, or making them feel
(01:09):
seen or providing some type ofsupport that they're not getting
from other places.
So it can look a little bitdifferent between guys and girls
, but we are susceptible to thattype of manipulation.
And so as I watched this moviethe other day and I watched
these characters beingmanipulated and I had started to
(01:30):
think to myself like gee, wouldI be manipulated that easily If
she had said that to me?
Like, would I be so caught upin my pride that I wouldn't see
through what was happening, thatI wouldn't see through what was
happening that I would lose mysense of focus?
How easy is it for people toflatter you into some position,
(01:55):
some feeling, some decision.
This happens even in committedrelationships or marriages.
Right, we all learn that peoplerespond to different things and
whether it's like that, theperennial question, would you
rather be feared or loved?
There's also this dynamic of wewant to be liked, we want to be
(02:17):
thought well of.
So I started thinking like okay, how does this line up with
Jesus?
Or how did Jesus deal withflattery?
Here's somebody who actuallyhad a legitimate claim to some
exceptional traits.
Right, if someone came to youand said, gee, you're such a
(02:38):
wonderful healer and you'resetting people free and you're
bringing salvation, and you'rebringing salvation and you're
breaking bread and feeding themultitudes, if you start to
believe like you're God orsomething most of us would say,
either you run a cult or you'redelusional or, best case
scenario, maybe you're some typeof prophet or special figure
(03:02):
that somehow God's using, itwould be a puzzling situation.
But you know, we really needn'tworry about it, because none of
us have met anyone thatmanifested everything that Jesus
did People debate about.
Are there healings, are theremiracles?
And the point of this videoreally isn't even to go into
(03:22):
that.
But I think we can agree, though, that most of us just the
average Christian or the averagebeliever stumbling around.
We're nothing special.
Some of us may be moreattractive than others.
Some of us may be brighter ormore accomplished in some way.
Some of us are more popularthan others.
(03:42):
Some of us are stronger andbetter shaped than others.
There's all these ways that wecan define ourselves, and for
most of us, we would like tohear compliments on any of those
.
Finds right, break them on.
But the truth is that for manyof us, even when we're given
(04:03):
compliments, and even if they'recompliments that are like not
far-fetched, like they'rereasonable for what we actually
are or have accomplished, a lotof times it's hard to just take
that compliment right.
A lot of us, we have so manyself-doubting demons that we
find ourselves downplayingcompliments or we find ourselves
(04:26):
just kind of trying to quickly,oh, thank you, and just kind of
brush it off.
Like most people are great atjust digesting the compliment
and just taking it in and beinglike wow, yeah, that's great.
Yeah, thank you.
I appreciate you saying that.
I really feel good about that.
(04:46):
That's made my day and I'mgoing to run with that For
myself.
There's a lot of compliments innumerous areas.
When people give me acompliment, I'm kind of
uncomfortable with it and Idon't even always know exactly
why that is.
What is it about that feelingof being acknowledged in some
way that creates that discomfortfor so many of us?
(05:10):
And that's a good question.
But for this video I want totalk about how did Christ who
people would be kind ofstarstruck with a guy that's
showing up?
He's loving, he's kind, we'respeaking with great wisdom,
right?
He knows the word, he knows thelaw, and it's unusual for
someone at such a young age tohave that type of wisdom and
(05:35):
insight.
And people take note of that.
So he's healing peoplemiraculously right, bringing
sight to the blind, people ableto hear people, able to walk.
He's coming into situations ofdeficit and paucity of food and
resources and multiplying theloaves and the fishes and
(05:58):
feeding the multitudes.
All are examples of the type ofabundance that Christ brought
with him to places, andparticularly when people had
come essentially for a sermon orto hear him speak on a topic,
or maybe they were coming to gethealed, or maybe they were
(06:20):
coming for salvation, or theywere coming to be loved on in
some way and they had heardrumors are going around about
this guy and they're showing up.
Who knows how far they'retraveling from A lot of people.
They don't have the money andthey're not stocked with food
and all this stuff.
So when people start gatheringaround this guy, what does
(06:47):
Christ do?
Like?
One of the things he's doing ishe's facilitating those
meanings, and one way he's doingthat is by serving the people.
And he's serving them not justin the sense of serving them
love, serving them salvation,serving them wisdom, serving
(07:09):
them generosity and belonging.
He's also literally servingthem, right, he's serving food
or he's turning water into wine.
This is a guy you want to havea trip party, right?
He's serving food or he'sturning water into wine.
This is a guy you want to havea trip party, right?
He's providing for people,because the truth is that and my
mentor showed me this in termsof in the men's group that he
(07:32):
ran he would come with all thesefoods and drinks and donuts and
fresh fruit and coffee andorange juice.
I mean like quite a spread forthis group of 10, 15 guys and
(07:53):
they'd have it all decked out.
And when you came in, do yourealize that really take
advantage of learning orfellowship, or whatever is going
on has to do with thathospitality.
People are coming in andthey're hungry and they're
thirsty, and we're in the churchthere's no vending machines or
(08:19):
it's not like you were likeordering pizza or something.
People were coming in hungryand by having that refreshment,
he told me that he was reallyjust trying to model after what
Christ was doing, because Christwasn't like a slob about the
(08:42):
Word or what he was presenting.
He wasn't like hey, I'm talkingabout something really
important, so stop your stomachrumbling.
Or, oh, you're thirsty?
Yeah, so what?
Man, wait a few more hours, andwho cares?
I'm only going to be here for afew years, or I'm just passing
through town.
How dare you bring up who hassome water or who has some wine
(09:03):
or who has some bread to goaround?
See, Christ didn't have thattype of attitude.
He both is a matter of love interms of wanting to see the
people fed and fulfilled, andalso just in the sense of like
practically.
I want the people to feelcomfortable.
(09:23):
I want them to feel welcome.
I want them to have somethingto eat, something to drink, I
want them to have time to talkwith me and listen to what I'm
saying and ask questions andinteract with me.
Jesus had such a service mindsetthat we could all learn a lot
(09:45):
from it, because most of us arejust too self-centered or just
too in a hurry or just toowhatever.
We're just not thinking on thatlevel where we're putting
people ahead of ourselves.
But Jesus was hosting thesemeetings right, just like my
mentor was hosting these men'sgroup meetings.
(10:07):
And so, yeah, come and partakeof everything.
There's no donation box,there's no write me a check or
hey, we're going to take thisout of your ties, or anything
like that.
No exchange and no exchangenecessary.
No weird transactional thinggoing on.
(10:30):
And surely, with Jesus, jesuswasn't even remotely interested
in people's money or anythinglike superficial.
So obviously he is no likeulterior motive or expects to
get paid or get reimbursed orany such thing.
Right, providing all of thisout of love and out of a sense
(10:54):
of service and out of sense ofhow do I make the most of the
time with my children?
I'm not here for long and I'mnot going to get a chance to see
all of them.
I may only be passing through atown, you know, for a day.
So how can I provide anenvironment where they can sit,
(11:16):
no matter, true, gentile, young,old, wealthy, poor, sick,
healthy?
How do I create an environmentwhere everybody is welcome and
well taken care of?
And that's what Christ wasdoing?
And we see some of thoseexamples in the Bible and I
(12:05):
don't think those examples aremeant to be focused on that.
Sometimes they're letting youstay at the end.
Sometimes you're just stayingin like a lean-to or camp.
You can imagine like he's comingdown for whatever right.
He wasn't going around and justbasing where his conference was
(12:26):
going to be, on where the FourSeasons hotels are right.
He was just out there servingand whatever he had to sleep on
or eat or drink or bear, peoplewere after him, evil was around,
or just where he just wasn'twelcome.
None of these things kept himfrom loving and extending that
(12:49):
type of hospitality to people.
But let's get back to the pointof flattery, right?
So here, in many meaningful ways, you could be giving Jesus
compliments.
I mean, imagine if you're therewith Jesus and he's doing this
and he's doing that.
I mean he's changing people'slives, he's opening eyes,
(13:11):
physically and spiritually.
And just try to imagine, I mean, this is more extraordinary
than anything you ever thoughtyou would see in your lifetime.
So, in the midst of peopleshowing gratitude or thanks or
all that, it's certainly easy togive a guy some legit
compliments.
(13:31):
Right, it made Jesus deservesome compliments.
But you'll notice, though, thatJesus is never moved by his own
feelings about things, becauseyou can imagine, right, for most
of us, once we become importantor celebrated or something like
(13:52):
that, we quickly put on airs ohwell, I'm not going to stay at
a Motel 6.
I need to stay at the Hilton.
I don't drive secondhand cars.
I lease new luxury cars, I'mselling, so I would never be
caught dead driving that orsleeping there or wearing those
clothes.
(14:13):
But just imagine, like none ofus are going around performing
miracles, and here's a guythat's actually doing all that
and he's still not letting anyof that get to his head, and you
see his consistency in terms ofmy father sent me this is what
I'm going to do.
Yes, it's ultimately going tolead me into danger and to
(14:38):
rejection and to torture.
I'm going to go through thisbetrayal.
All this stuff is on the roadahead.
So you can keep complimentingme and telling me this and that
and I should avoid this and that, this and that and I should
avoid this and that.
But Christ was quick to saydon't try using the sweet tongue
(14:59):
on me to get me caught up in myfeelings or my ego or distract
me from what I'm here to do.
What I'm here to do is serve.
What I'm here to do is sufferis sacrifice is suffer is
sacrifice.
So, one, he had to be resolvedto that in his own mind.
And two, when well-meaningpeople, including some of the
(15:23):
people that were very close tohim, like disciples, he would
have to say don't get into allthat.
Christ wasn't dragging an egoalong with him.
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