You Don't Have To Prove Yourself.

And I think we live in a world that doesn't

know the difference between the public moments and the private moments.

I think we're increasingly becoming And this is just my

old man rant, So please let me do it right now, because,

like I said, I'm a parent now, and I'm so

scared for my kids who are growing up in a

world where now they're growing up publicly. Everybody has their

own broadcast journalism degree called Twitter. Everybody has a license

to express their own opinion.

And the phrase that got me is what his brother said.

They want to convince him, They say, you got to

get out of Galilee. This is too remote, This is

not the right place for you to become a public figure.

Put the verse back up in verse four.

No one who wants to become a public figure acts secret.

And see this just goes to show that even though

his brothers might have seen him do some really cool things,

they didn't believe in who he was and they didn't

understand the purpose for.

Which he came.

You can be impressed by Jesus but still not really

know him intimately. You can even have a relationship with

God but still be living out of the wrong place.

And his brothers present to him a temptation that we've

already seen him face before in the wilderness, when the

devil told him, if you really are the son of God,

turned these stones into bread.

He could have done it, but he didn't.

If you really are the son of God, throw yourself

off this high place, let the angels catch you. He

could have done it, but he didn't because if he

would have done it to prove something, If he would

have in that moment the need to prove, authenticate, or

validate who he was, it would have undermined the purpose

for which he came.

Can I preach about this? I think all of us,

in an area of.

Our life feel the pressure to perform.

I want to be a good friend. I want to

preach an excellent sermon today.

But I've got to get it really clear in my

mind who I'm doing it for, because if I do

it for the wrong audience, I'll do it with the

wrong motive.

I'll do it in the wrong spirit.

If I do it to please people, then I will

be dependent on people.

For my reward or justification.

Jesus knew if I turned the stone into bread to

prove to the devil who I am I'm performing for

the wrong audience. In other words, why am I going

to put on a show for my enemy?

I don't have to prove anything to you.

So when his brothers say, look, if you go to Judea,

there's a lot of people there, it's basically like Coachella.

Old Testament version of Kachella is the Festival of Boots,

or they call it here in your in a version

of the Bible, the Festival of Tabernacles is called both.

There are seven different festivals that we could talk about

that the people celebrated, but this one was only once

a year.

And he was going to go.

He was going to go, he just wasn't going to

go Publicly. He was going to go, but he just

wasn't going to go because they pushed him into going.

He was going to go, but he wasn't going to

go just to show off. He was going to go,

but he wasn't going to go because they said he.

Ought to go. He was going to go, but he wasn't.

Going to go because he was forced by an external

manipulative pressure to do something that wasn't in his heart

to do. And it was a seven day festival. Seven

days they they would thank God. It was a fall

festival where we would thank him for the water, thank

him for the grain, thank him for his provision for us,

you know.

And they would they would live in booths.

They'd have to build them when they got there, and

they'd live in them for the whole week because they

wanted to remember how their ancestors had been provided for

in the wilderness.

And so it's going to.

Be a big crowd there, and yet Jesus knew something

that we would do well to remember. The crowd is crazy.

The crowd will kill you. You spend your life performing

for a crowd, it'll kill you. And you're like, I'm good.

I'm not a preacher, I'm not a singer. I don't

perform for people. It's gotten much deeper than that now.

It's the feeling that we get when we start offering

ourselves up in a form that is more impressive to

people but is not authentic to us. Is the mo

that we all get tempted to get into when we

start trying to bring a version of ourselves to a

situation that we think will make a good impression. That's

what his brothers were saying. You need to get out

here and do some more water walking. You need to

get out here and do some more food multiplying. I mean, Jesus, Jesus,

if you really are hm, that's weird, because have you

heard about the fraudulence complex. It's a psychological term. It's

also called imposter syndrome, and they use it to describe

how many of us, even if we reach a certain

level of success, we're unable to internalize it. It's used

to describe how sometimes you can really be functioning in

a role, but deep down feel like you are not

capable and you are not really worthy of the role,

and so when people give you a compliment, you can't

even receive it because it feels like they're talking about

somebody else. Because you know so much about yourself that

you explain away your strengths and wallow in your weaknesses.

It's called imposter syndrome or fraudulence complex. It's a psychological

phrase that's been around for decades, but it's been around

as long as since Moses was standing in front of

God and said, who am I that I should lead

the people on this mission that you've given me.

I have a stammering tongue. I can't speak.

Very well, and even when Moses actually did what he

was called to do, there was a part of him

that still believed that he wasn't the one to lead

the people. And so while the next generation went into

the Promised Land, Moses's body was buried in an undisclosed location.

He stood on Mountain Nebo and Pisca looking at the

promise of God, unable to enter into the promise of

God because deep.

Down inside, he felt like a fraud.

Sometimes you don't really feel like you're qualified to be

a dad. Sometimes you feel like you are screwing.

Your kids up.

I told one of my kids the other day, just

start calculating your therapy bill so I can start making

prepayments on it, because I know I'm screwing you up,

but I am trying my dead level best right now.

It's just that you're thirteen, and I still feel thirteen sometimes.

And I never did this before, and I'm not a.

Hypocrite, but I kind of feel like a fraud. And

it's this feeling of waiting to see when are people

going to see through my false confidence to realize that

I'm really scared and I'm sinking down inside of myself

and with every syllable that I speak.

I'm wondering, do.

They know that I don't even really feel like what

I'm saying is very intelligent, And I don't even feel

like I should be in this room, and I don't

even feel like I should be in this relationship. When

you feel like a fraud, there will always be a

pressure for you to overcompensate and perform to prove to

people what you are really trying to prove to you.

There's the message.

See how it got quiet when I said that it

wasn't Jesus' brothers that were putting the pressure on him.

Jesus brothers were simply giving voice to the temptation.

That existed all along. It's one thing when the devil

was tempting Jesus.

It was another thing to be tempted by those living

in his own house.

Can I take it further?

It's another thing to be tempted by the voices in

your own head. Sometimes there's something inside of you telling

you that you were not enough, and since you feel

like you're not enough, you start trying to do all

this stuff to prove that you are enough. The problem

is the people that you're trying to prove it to

aren't even paying attention because they're so busy trying to

prove to somebody else who isn't paying attention, who isn't

paying attention to the other person. And now we're all

posting and proving, but inside we're dying.

Jesus said, I don't perform for popularity. I perform for purpose,

and there is a difference. And I'm not going just

because you want me to go. And it says something

so cool. It says he purposely stayed away from Judea.

I love that phrase because there are some places that

you need to stay away.

From on purpose, because if you go, it's gonna kill you.

It's gonna kill your joy, it's gonna kill your contentment,

it's gonna kill your sanity, it's gonna.

Kill your peace.

Jesus said, if I go to Judea, they are waiting

to kill me. And you've got to know the places

that you cannot go, whether it's on your phone, whether

it's in your mind, whether it's in your scenarios. Jesus said,

I gotta stay in Galilee right now. I'm gonna meet

you at the feast, cause if I go in there

right now, they'll kill me.

I gotta know where to stay away from. Hey, thank

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