Mattering Week 3: Pitfalls | Pastor Bryan Jarrett | Northplace Church

pastoring North Place Church in the Dallas Fort Worth area for almost 20 years. We're one church that meets in multiple locations even on multiple continents and today you are one of those locations. The church is not about buildings it is about people and we have the privilege today of sharing the hope of the gospel with you right where you are. There is no way I can know exactly what you're going through or dealing with right now but for almost 30 years I have preached about a God who I know I am confident knows you your struggles knows the very hairs on your head and the thoughts that you think before you think them and he is passionately in love with you and our prayer today is that in our time together you feel our love for you and his presence and we pray that this time together gives you hope. Thank you for joining us. You stand with us and let's worship together today. ♪♪♪♪ ♪♪♪♪ ♪ It's the battle you see my victory ♪ ♪ When all I see is about you ♪ ♪ You see about you ♪ ♪ And as I walk through the shadow ♪ ♪ Your love surrounds me ♪ ♪ There's nothing to fear now ♪ ♪ For I am safe with you ♪ Come on, team, let's out. ♪ Soon I'll fight on ♪ ♪ Fight on my knees ♪ ♪ With my hands lifted high ♪ ♪ Oh God, the battle belongs to you ♪ ♪ In every fear I lay at your feet ♪ ♪ I'll see through the night ♪ ♪ Oh God, the battle belongs to you ♪ ♪ And if you are for me ♪ ♪ You can be against me ♪

♪ For Jesus, there's nothing impossible ♪ ♪ All for you ♪ ♪ When all I see are the ashes ♪ ♪ You see the beauty ♪ ♪ When all I see is a cross ♪ ♪ God, the peace ♪ ♪ Soon I'll fight on ♪ ♪ Fight on my knees ♪ ♪ With my hands lifted high ♪ ♪ Oh God, the battle belongs to you ♪ ♪ In every fear I lay at your feet ♪ ♪ I'll see through the night ♪ ♪ Oh God, the battle belongs to you ♪ ♪ All my fortunes ♪ ♪ You go before us ♪ ♪ Nothing can stand against the power of our God ♪ ♪ You shine in the shadows ♪ ♪ You win every battle ♪ ♪ Nothing can stand against the power of our God ♪ ♪ Sing that again ♪ ♪ And all my fortunes ♪ ♪ You go before us ♪ ♪ Nothing can stand against the power of our God ♪ ♪ You shine in the shadows ♪ ♪ You win every battle ♪ ♪ Nothing can stand against the power of our God ♪ ♪ And all my before us ♪ ♪ You go before us ♪ ♪ Nothing can stand against the power of our God ♪ ♪ You shine in the shadows ♪

♪ You win every battle ♪ ♪ Nothing can stand against the power of our God ♪ ♪ So when I'll fight ♪ ♪ I'll fight on my knees ♪ ♪ With my hands lifted high ♪ Every fear I pray at Your feet, I'll sing through the night. O God, the battle belongs to You. O God, the battle belongs to You. If you want to Lord, can we thank the Lord today? I'm so grateful that the words of the song ring true, that the battle belongs to the Lord. We already have the victory in Jesus, and when we find ourselves in moments where we're walking through heavy seasons, we feel like we're walking through valleys. Not only can we claim the victory of Jesus, but He's given us the gift of the church. And I'm so grateful for the gifts of the people who are in this room today, and so I want you to say good morning to each other today, and appreciate the gifts in the body of Christ this morning. So turn to your neighbor, tell them this morning. Before the earth kneel and start, God, You were in God, You were before You were. It filled the door, God, You were in God, You were in for Your church, You were spoken. You took on for You, You took the cross, and I have come to know You, how will You worship all You are, Holy, Lord Almighty, all of heaven filled with praise. Jesus' worth is Your name, Holy, and we cry, Holy, stand in wonder of Your grace. Every nation, every name, we stand in wonder of Your, before I fall, my way back home. You call me Yours, and now I know, in every season, God, near, before, how will You worship all You are, we sing, Holy, Holy, Lord Almighty, all of heaven filled with praise. Jesus' worth is Your name, Holy, and we cry, Holy, stand in wonder of Your grace. Every nation, every city, Holy, Holy, Lord Almighty, all of heaven filled with praise. Jesus' worth is Your name, Holy, and we cry, cry, Holy, stand in wonder of Your grace. Every nation, every name, Oh Jesus, Jesus, we stand in wonder, hide Your name, the angels by all.

Creation cries out, Holy, Holy, with one voice, which want the soul of heaven above. Holy, come on, can we sing that together? ♪ Creation ♪ ♪ Right now ♪ ♪ Oh we are coming with one voice ♪ ♪ We join with the soul and soul ♪ ♪ Of heaven above ♪ ♪ We sing you, oh we go ♪ ♪ We sing at your name ♪ ♪ The angels bow ♪ ♪ Creation ♪ ♪ Right now ♪ ♪ Oh we are you ♪ ♪ In with one voice ♪ ♪ We join with the soul ♪ ♪ Of heaven above ♪ ♪ Oh we are you ♪ ♪ Oh we ♪ ♪ The Lord Almighty ♪ ♪ All the heaven above ♪ ♪ In praise ♪ ♪ Jesus word is your name ♪ ♪ Oh we ♪ ♪ We cry, oh we ♪ ♪ We stand in wonder of your grace ♪ ♪ In every nation and every ♪ ♪ So holy is the Lord ♪ ♪ So holy is the Lord ♪ ♪ You're sons and your daughters ♪ ♪ They sing so holy is the Lord ♪

And Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Holy, Forever, in your people's seat, Holy, to the King of Kings, Holy, Your name is the highest Your name Is the greatest Your name Stands above the wall All rows and dimensions All powers and positions Your name stands above the wall Your name, Your name Is the highest Your name Is the greatest Your name Stands above the wall All rows and dimensions All powers and positions Your name stands above the wall And it entails pride Holy, more creation pride Holy, you are lifted high Holy, holy forever And your people sing Holy to the King

Holy, you will always be Holy, holy forever You will always be Holy, holy forever And as we join our campus family together for a time in God's Word I want to just celebrate a couple things with you It's hard for us to always tell you For you to know the significance of the impact Our church family is making around the world In a given week, but let me just quick hit some things This happens because of your heart to give And your heart to go and serve Just the last few days We have had teams scattered around the world We had literally every one of our campuses Here in the DFW area went to South Texas We have a partnership there with a children's home Called Pleasant Hills Children's Home They were able, I think they put together 130 shelves and a warehouse to store goods They sorted clothes, they sorted food Working with that organization as a heart for the orphan Just like we do, every campus was represented there And then uniquely, something that's never happened before We had a team from Texas go to Namibia On an international missions trip But because it was in Africa A delegation from our Durbin South Africa team met us in Namibia

And as the first time we all got to serve together like that It was a really neat experience for us Impacting the lives of people there in Namibia And then you've seen in the news recently All the devastation that is happening in Nepal With the mudslides and all the things that are going on Right after it happened, Convoy of Hope was deployed They were on the ground If you don't understand Convoy of Hope That is our largest, our most significant international partner When it comes to disaster relief They are Christ-centered, they do everything based off the local church But they're one of the most respected disaster relief organizations in the world We support them on a monthly basis Last time I talked to Hal, the president and founder He said we were the largest church sponsor of Convoy of Hope in the world And we don't wait until disaster happens We give out of our kingdom builders to them every month So when something happens like in Nepal They have the resources to go And so I want you to know they are there We are there, we have a missionary family We support long-term there, the Loper family And so when the disaster is over Because it's connected through the local church And our missionary family on the ground The impact of what God is going to continue to do in these people's lives Is going to go beyond when the disaster is out of the news So just three real ways that your love, your generosity Is impacting both neighborhoods and nations

Speaking of stewardship I'm going to ask something a little selfish here Ask you to pray for Haley and I this week I'll tell you this, I say this all the time The greatest gift you're ever going to give to God Has nothing to do with your money and everything to do with your kids When you give God to your kids You've given God the most valuable thing you have And I'm getting ready for those of you that were here a few weeks ago She's a worship pastor in Florida. Haley left this morning, getting on a plane to go to Florida to hear her lead worship the last time in the US. I will go tomorrow, help them get everything loaded up, moved into a storage building Thursday morning. Haley and I will start driving Addie's car back home. Uh, she will get on a plane, uh, to go to Norway. And I'm, I'm kind of like, I, I have a feeling Thursday morning is going to be harder than when we dropped her off for a freshman year of college, you know? And so, um, so I've been wrestling with the Lord and, and I really felt like the Lord said, did you mean it when you brought her to me at that baby dedication? Did you mean it? Yeah, Lord, I'm in it. Then he said, trust me. And that just, I dedicate her to the Lord and really she's not mine. Anyway, she's his and I've just been given the grace to steward her and disciple her all these years. And so parents, the greatest thing you'll ever give to the Lord is your kids and just entrust them to the Lord. And so we're going to do that this week. Pray, pray with us about that.

Lord, thank you. Uh, thank you for the impact at Pleasant Hills over the last few days. Thank you for what's happened in Namibia with literally all of our campuses serving together. Thank you, uh, for what you're doing, um, in the hearts of people in Nepal. We pray for convoy and the missionary family as they continue to serve broken hearted people in this moment, open our hearts to your word today. Let us be changed. May we mature and grow because we've been together in this moment. And Jesus name a man and a man. Last week on the quest to build a life that matters. Pastor David powerfully reminded us there's a cost living a life that experiences mattering a life that experiences meaning is going to cost you something. It's not free and easy to live that kind of life. It's not supposed to be. It's going to cost you energy, time, money. It will cost you your convenience and somewhere along the way is going to cost you your will because God's will is going to interfere with your will. And you've got to give up yours to do his somewhere along the way. It's going to cost you to live the kind of life that we're talking about. And behind that question, this was a question you were forced to wrestle with last week, am I willing to pay the cost to live a life that matters? But behind that question is a second question. The one we're going to answer today, what happens when you're actually willing to pay the cost, but you still end up somewhere you didn't mean to go. You stepped into a pitfall, you took a detour. It felt like the right road, but the detour led you somewhere far away from where God ultimately wanted you to be. I've always had a decent sense of direction.

Like if you if I go somewhere and I'm driving and I'm not following somebody, I can just about always get back there on my own pretty easy. But the more dependent that we have become on our phones for navigation, the more I've noticed my sense of direction diminishing. So now when I'm approaching a busy interchange like we have here in DFW, it's rush hour, there are 10 different lane options and five different exit ramps all in about the same place. Not to mention lane closures and construction and a last minute wreck. My phone is telling me to do one thing. My gut is telling me to do something else. So in my last few seconds, I'm switching back between maps and ways to see which one agrees with me because the goal always for most males is to cut as many minutes as possible off of the original stated arrival time. It is the unspoken mission of our lives. So at this interchange where my instincts are telling me to go one way and my phone is telling me to go another way, I always pick my instincts. And most of the time, my phone says rerouting and it adds another 15 minutes to my arrival time. I should have just trusted the map. I can't tell you how many times my feelings and my instincts have led me to a dead end gravel lot behind some sketch Waffle House somewhere. OK, that is not a bad way to picture what we're talking about today. Every life quest has a road, but every road has pitfalls and detours that look like the right road to the point where often fooled in choosing the wrong path. It feels like the right road. Our gut says it's the right road. Plenty of other people are taking this road, but it's not what the map said. And the map, in this case in our life, is the word of God. And if you don't stick to the map, you're going to wake up one day, no matter how right it felt in the moment and realize you've been on the wrong road this whole

time. And here's what makes this so dangerous. The biggest threats to a life that matters are almost never obvious. takes a long time on the wrong road to get to that place. The real threat to us is more subtle than that. The pitfall doesn't always lie in doing something bad. Sometimes the pitfall or the detour to the real path is doing something that looks and feels completely right all while our hearts are quietly being moved in the wrong direction shaped by the wrong motives. Today we're going to look at three of those pitfalls detours that run parallel to the real road. They are populated by really good people doing really good things but the detour takes us somewhere else entirely than where God wanted us to be. These three pitfalls were first arranged this way by a man named Henry Nowyn in his book The Selfless Way of Christ. We refer to it this week in your study guides and if you haven't read the book I encourage you to, it is brilliant and it's very challenging to any of us in ministry or any of us that have a heart to serve others. The three most dangerous pitfalls. Number one, the need to be needed. This is our desire to feel useful. The need to be noticed. This is our desire to have influence. The need to be in control. This is our desire to be or to appear responsible. Now none of that is a sin on the surface. Being useful to people having some influence. Carrying responsibility. That's all the raw material of a life of impact. So this isn't a message about these things being bad. It's a message about questioning the aim and the motive of our heart while we're doing good things. Before we look at the three pitfalls individually I want to answer a deeper question. Why does this happen? Why is it that people who genuinely want to serve God genuinely want to love others end up without ever noticing the turn inward somehow we start making serving about ourselves. Where serving others actually becomes a manipulative way of serving ourselves. There's an old phrase for this. Martin Luther used it. He borrowed it from Augustine. It's a Latin phrase in kravatus in say means curved inward on oneself. It's the idea that sin isn't just committing the obvious most evil acts. Sin is also the bending of the human heart back on itself especially in the

middle of doing good things. I'll be honest with you. This is going to be an uncomfortable conversation for good moral religious people. Because this is the place where we most often lie to ourselves. This is where we hide our hypocrisy because we do good things but we never stop and question our motives and a lot of things get done for hypocritical reasons. But the lie can be exposed by asking the simple question. What is the real motivation for the good things I do? Prayer can be motivated by the need to appear spiritual. Taking that volunteer role or that board position can be motivated by the need to feel important. Generosity can be motivated by the need to gain influence. Serving others can quietly be motivated by the need to prove our own worth. Yes, selfish people occasionally do good things for selfish reasons but this is a bigger conversation than that. The human heart, both your heart and my heart, is fully capable of taking something that is genuinely others focused and slowly bending it back toward ourselves. We start out serving them but somewhere in the process their gratitude feeds an unhealthy need in us. Their dependence starts stabilizing us. Their admiration starts telling us who we are. On the outside, the acts of serving and good deeds appear healthy but inside under the surface, our hearts are being curved back inward on themselves and without knowing it, the motive of our serving, our adding value becomes less about the other people and more about meeting our own needs. Now here's what I want us to understand today before we talk about each of these pitfalls individually. These three pitfalls are not three ways to fail at serving people. They're three ways to succeed at serving people while it suddenly remains about you. And the telltale sign isn't in the work. The work can look identical but regardless of what your motives are, the sign is what your motives are. What is the true motivation of your heart? Today, I'm gonna do something intentionally that I usually try to avoid. This week, I am leaning in more so

to the material that is in your study guide. Most weeks, I try to make the Sunday sermons complimentary too, but not redundant or repetitive. But the issue this week is different. It's deceptive enough, it's important enough that hearing it in one place isn't enough. It has to get drilled into our heart for more than one direction. So I'm being repetitive with the guide today on purpose. And it all starts in Matthew chapter three. Jesus comes up out of the water at his baptism and a voice from heaven says, "This is my son, whom I love, with him, I am well pleased." Now watch what happens next. Not eventually, but immediately after Jesus' baptism, verse one of chapter four, then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The sequence here, the baptism, and then the temptation, the Father's blessing and approval, and then the temptation. That sequence is not an accident. Jesus is able to respond to the temptations that we read about in the wilderness experience in chapter four, because his identity was settled before the temptations came. If the word of God is not your foundation and your identity is not firmly established in Christ, the enemy of your soul is going to rip you to shreds. That is the first principle we learned from this before we ever look at the actual temptations.

Notice this, every single one of the three temptations of Christ is disguised as a serving opportunity. They're all ministry proposals that they're always to add value. Number one, turn the stones into bread. That's verse three, number two, throw yourself from the temple at the angels rescue you. That's verse six, bow down and receive the kingdoms of this world, that's verse eight and nine. Temptation one, to turn the stones into bread, if you did, you could feed the hungry. Temptation two, throw yourself off this temple and let the angels rescue you. And if you did that, that would be an incredible, supernatural, unmistakable sign that God is real. There's temptation number three, Satan says, okay, bow down, I'll give you the kingdoms of this world. You can use that authority and influence to govern. Now, a lot of people read that last temptation and they say, well, the devil was trying to offer Jesus something he didn't possess. Oh, but he does. The Bible says, in second Corinthians four, four, that Satan is right now the God of this world. In this dispensation and age, Satan has a certain level of influence and power over the kingdoms of this world. And he was telling Jesus, I can give you a platform to rule and govern now. You don't have to wait on your father's timetable.

Now, I know this is gonna be hard for us 'cause we're so familiar with this story, but for a second, try to strip away Satan, try to strip away who's talking here and just take what's being offered at the surface level. Every one of these things Jesus has offered sounds like a strategic plan for a significant life. With more bread, you could feed the hungry. With power and influence, you could prove that God was real. With this platform he's offering, you could govern. Not one of them in and of itself is a temptation to do something bad. Every one of them is a temptation to do something good. But in this case, the enemy was using the good to bait Jesus into doing the right things for the wrong reasons and on the wrong terms. You see, he never shows up in your life with a pitch for selfishness. He comes at Jesus with a pitch for his life to make an impact and he uses good things to try to turn the heart of Jesus back on itself and compromise his motives. The three temptations of Jesus are in a sense, three pitfalls or detours that are the most dangerous to us, pitfall number one, being needed. The first temptation of Christ turning stones into bread is the temptation to feed yourself and others and Satan is playing on our need to feel useful. Being needed can feel like one of the most meaningful things in the world,

helping people solving problems, becoming the person that others rely on. It can give real, legitimate purpose to your life and there's nothing wrong with being useful. But serving others gets unhealthy. The moment your own identity starts depending on somebody else needing you. At that point, helping isn't wrong. somewhere underneath. You start needing them to stay a little dependent on you because their need for you is what's currently making you feel like you matter. Here's a question to help expose the true motivation of our heart in this area. Am I adding value to them or am I using them to feel valuable? We have a word in the English language that describes when doing good things for others and not expecting anything in return. That word is called altruism. And behavioral scientists have studied altruism. They say that good intentions are not proof of good outcomes. They say that our desire to be liked and our sincere conviction that we know what's best for somebody else can create what they call the illusion of helping. You can genuinely believe you're helping somebody but still be helping them in a way that keeps them stuck. We've all seen it. The parent that needs to be needed so badly, they keep bailing out their adult child

in the name of love and compassion but never realize their enabling behavior is protecting their adult child from the consequences of their actions which is the one thing that can actually bring them to a place where there is the power to finally change their life. We've seen it in the leader who needs to be so needed that they've set the whole organization up to need them to the point it would fall apart if they weren't there. They never delegate responsibility. They never develop any other leaders because they have this need to be needed. Or we've all had that exhausting friend, the one that thinks it's their job to fix everybody's life and they become the self-appointed parent within the Fin Group. I mean, they're helping. And on the outside, the efforts look innocent enough but it's often driven by their own need to feel needed. Good intentions are not proof of good outcomes. Pitfall number two, being noticed. The second temptation of Jesus to throw himself off the temple, let the angels catch him. That is Satan going after our need to be noticed. Our desire for recognition can dress itself up better than almost anything else. We do genuinely good things. But somewhere underneath, we're also hoping

that somebody notices. And that's why Christian people that go out to serve the poor or they go out to serve at the homeless shelter or do anything along those lines. Somehow, it always seems to make it to our Facebook post or our Instagram reel or our TikTok story. But if our motives are completely pure, nobody has to know we did it. And definitely, it doesn't have to show up and be celebrated on social media. But the fact that we do proves we crave the things. We need the recognition. We need somebody to confirm that what we did actually counted. But the moment recognition becomes the thing we're chasing, our serving stops being ministry and it becomes a performance. Jesus put words on this plainly. I mean, it's so plain, it's almost rude, okay? He says this in Matthew six, verse two. When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets to be honored by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. Now, I just want to pause for a moment about that last statement, what it means for them to receive their reward in full. That's a whole phrase in English. It is one single word in Greek.

It is apocussum and it's a Greek verb that means paid in full. And when Jesus uses this word, he's not talking future tense. He's saying, he's not saying they will be paid. He says these people he's talking about have already been paid. This is the word that was written on first century receipts when a debt had been paid off. It was done, it was closed on the receipt apocussum, means paid in full. Notice the significance of this. Jesus is basically announcing judgment on the people who were being generous to the needy so they would get noticed. He's telling these applause seekers, they have already received their full reward. He says, you want to be noticed? Good, you got noticed. That's all the reward you're ever going to get. You've already been receded. You got what you wanted. God is not on the hook to bless you for anything you do that's driven by your own need to be noticed. Jesus is saying, your motives determine who rewards you. If what you're after is earned, becomes your payment. And when you go after that and get that, then you have stopped.

Heaven's flow of blessing into your life. You've already been paid. You've already been receded. You got your full reward already. If what you're after is being noticed, congratulations. You got noticed. It's done. There is nothing left owed to you from heaven because heaven wasn't the approval you are after. You are after earthly recognition. Pitfall number three, being in control. The third temptation of Jesus to bow down to Satan so that he could gain influence over the kingdoms of this world. This is Satan going after our desire to control. This is one of the sneakiest of all three because it never announces itself as control. It comes into our life posing as our need to take responsibility. We're responsible people or our desire to help others. But somewhere along the way, we start believing that we know better than God what the other person needs, exactly how they should change, and exactly what the outcome is supposed to look like in their life. And when that happens, helping people has turned into managing and controlling people. But the desire to control doesn't always show up with us trying to manage somebody else's life. Sometimes it shows up as you trying to manage

the terms of your own exposure in a relationship you're supposed to be fully invested in, like a marriage. And we usually dress up our control in religious language. Jesus actually names a religious version of this. In Mark chapter seven, he's talking about how people are avoiding caring for their aging parents in that culture and they were using God as an excuse. He says in Mark seven, verse 10, "For Moses said, 'Honor your father and mother, "but you say, if a man tells his father or his mother, "quote, whatever you would have gained from me is Corbin, "that is given to God." In order for us to fully grasp what Jesus is saying here, we gotta know what Corbin means. There was a Corbin law in the ancient Jewish world. Corbin is a Hebrew and Aramaic word that just simply means a gift or offering that is dedicated to God. And here in Mark seven, Jesus is criticizing people for misusing that tradition to insulate themselves and control their exposure in relationships, in this case, the relationship with their parents. It is basically a religious loophole where people could declare that their money and their property was Corbin. They could declare that it was dedicated to God and the temple. But the catch was the person kept control of and use of the property all the rest of their lifetime. But because it had been given to God, the money couldn't be used for any other purpose,

like caring for your aging parents. And here's the hypocrisy. A man could legally declare Corbin that his money and property were dedicated to God and that single declaration released him from the messy, exhausting, costly obligation of caring for his own aging parents. He didn't have to move them in. He didn't have to sit in the room with them and watch them decline. And the thing, the very thing, he used his way to buy himself out of that responsibility was dressed up as a gift, generosity, a gift to God. The gift was real, but the actual function of the gift was to gain control over his exposure in his relationships with his parents. Now listen, this isn't just about money. Every one of us has something, some kind of currency we're willing to hypocritically exchange in an attempt to insulate ourselves and control an outcome. It looks like the husband who works extra hours to provide. Nobody can criticize provision. It's actually commanded in the Bible. But when the overtime keeps showing up exactly when things at home get emotionally hard, the paycheck starts functioning as Corbyn. A real gift, a real value added to the family, but the actual function of the gift is keeping the man out of a conversation that would cost him more than his time, his vulnerability.

It looks like the wife who serves everywhere at church. She leads ministry, she runs the women's group, she's at the church building four to five nights a week for the Lord, all while her marriage at home has gone south and nobody's addressed it in months. Her serving is real, but it's also the most respectable, possible reason to not be at home in this difficult season. They lead the family devotions, they pray over their kids at night, but they've never once sat with their teenager through a hard conversation about what's going on in the teenager's life and actually listen. The devotional time is genuine, but it's a safe, controlled, respected way to present a structured version of your presence as a parent that never requires an unscripted, vulnerable, exposed version of you. Each of these examples are our own versions of Corbin law. None of them are wrong on their own. Providing is good. Serving at church is wonderful. Leading your family into devotions is incredible, but here's the question. Was what you gave chosen because it helped them most or because it cost you least? There's actually well-established psychology that addresses this. Researchers have been looking into this for decades, and one of their central findings is environments that support another person's autonomy, produce healthier growth than environments that try to control outcomes. And here's what that means. Healthy help doesn't make people more dependent on you. The goal of parenting was never to raise kids that need you to make every decision in their life forever. The goal of leadership was never to build teams that can't function when you're not around.

The goal of discipleship is to never disciple someone who is always dependent on your insight for every single choice they make. There's a measuring question here to figure out where we are with this third pitfall. Is my influence increasing their agency, their autonomy, and their dependence on God, or is it increasing their dependence on me? Because if your version of helping people is a subtle way for you to remain indispensable in their life, it may still look like adding value. But to use Augustine's phrase, your heart is in kavatas in sei. Your heart is being turned inward on itself. It has become more about you than it is about them. And just bluntly, that's selfishness. So if being needed, being noticed, and being in control, are all pitfalls, detours, counterfeit roads that run parallel to the real road, where's the real one? Jesus showed us the real road. He modeled the only kind of life that never gets curved back on itself. It's the road of downward mobility. And it's described beautifully by Paul in Philippians 2. He says, "In your relationship with one another, have the same mind as Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage." Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself by being obedient to death,

even death on a cross. Jesus never grasped for position. He didn't seek to be noticed. He didn't need to control the outcome of how any of this went. He willingly took the posture of a servant. Nevertheless to my will, your will be done. He said he humbled himself all the way to the cross. It was a life that was constantly moving downward in a world that keeps shouting to us to climb upward. But the path that Jesus took is the right road, not just doing more good things, but becoming the kind of person who can actually serve somebody without needing our service to come back around and validate us in some way. But here's the deal. You're not going to fix this by trying harder to have pure motives. Nobody has ever white-knuckled their way to a pure heart. The only way anybody, any of us, avoids these pitfalls is by what we've been saying this whole series. You've got to already know that you're valued before you can give value away to others with a pure heart. A person that is secure in their identity doesn't need the applause. A person who is secure in their identity can let somebody else grow up and not need them as much. Need them a lot less, and that doesn't destroy them. A person who is secure

doesn't look for hypocritical ways to avoid responsibility. Here's another question you can carry out of the room today, and it's simple enough, it'll still be relevant Wednesday. When I help someone this week, what am I really hoping to get back? If the honest answer is nothing, okay, the heart of man is deceitfully wicked, the Bible says. So just make sure you don't rush to the answer. you really want them to flourish, then you're on the right road. Keep walking it. But if the brutally honest answer is something else, don't lie to yourself. If the brutally honest answer is something else, just bring it to Jesus. The same way you would bring anything else to Jesus when you sense that your heart is being curved back on itself and you're selfish in one another area of your life, bring this to Jesus. He's not shocked by it. He's the only one that has ever walked into that wilderness and been tempted by these same kinds of temptations and never fell into any of the pitfalls, which means he's the only one that can lead us out of this wilderness and transform our own hearts. When we want to do good things, we keep doing good things for selfish reasons. He can change us. I finished the message yesterday like finishing touches and Hailey was getting on the plane to go to Florida early this morning and wasn't going to be in church trying to make it to church in Florida to be there with Addie tonight. So she's like, "Hey, I'm not going to be there and I'll be on a plane. I can't watch the live stream." So I know you always preach over your sermon. So just preach it to me. I'm like, really? When we throw down and preach, right here

she said, "Yeah, just go. I know you like to preach. There's just do it with me listening." I said, "All right, there's going to be 27 minutes or so just going all out." She said, "Go." So just me and her, I just laid it into her. I'm just like, "Bam, when I got done," she said, "Will you just mess me all up?" She said, "Now I'm questioning everything. I'm questioning what I do when I do for the kids. I'm questioning why. Like I'm all messed up." I said, "That's the point." We lied to ourselves about this. We can see the wrong and everybody else's motives, but we never question our own. The point is to step back and say, "God, am I doing good things for the wrong reason? Is my heart in karvatas and say, "Is it turned back on itself?" And I don't even know it. Show it. Show it in me. I don't want to get to heaven and stand before you and you say, "Oh, you already got your reward. It's already been paid. You've been receded for that because you did it for the wrong reason. You didn't do it for me and you didn't do it for them. You did it for you. So may God expose our hearts today and mature us and grow us so that our motives are pure. We want to honor him and love them without the expectation of anything in return. Would you stand with me today across this room and across our campus family and I'm going to ask our entire prayer teams at all of those campuses if you can come and prepare yourself today to pray. Listen, we're going to be here to serve you in prayer. Whatever your needs may be, you need miracles. Maybe you feel the Spirit of God pulling your heart toward Christ and you've never surrendered to him today is the day. That's why we're here in this moment. We'd love to introduce you to Jesus and you can respond to him today right here in this moment. We want to pray with you. I realize the heart of this message

is leaving this room and maturing, discipling. So let me challenge you in your groups this week. This material is in your study guides. Get into this. James 5 says that we're transformed when we confess our faults one toward another. So in your own private time and in your groups you're like you know what? To be honest I think I was doing this to not feel guilty. I wasn't doing this to love my mom. I wasn't doing this to serve my kids. I wasn't doing this for so-and-so. I honestly was doing it so I wouldn't feel guilty. And if I'm doing it so I won't feel guilty, I'm not really doing it for the other person. I'm doing it for me. If the whole reason I'm doing it so I don't feel guilty, it's about me. So God, search me. Try me. Know my heart. Change me. Mature me. And as we confess those things to the Lord and one to another, James 5 says that's how we're healed and changed. So Lord, from today through the hundreds of groups and thousands of people that will be meeting to study this throughout the week would you let deep work be done in our hearts to make us more like Jesus. Don't let us light ourselves anymore. Don't let hypocrisy live here in this space anymore. Pull the curtain back. Expose it. Change us today and let us love people well. Healthy help. Lord, for you and for them. Lord, will you bless them and keep them. Make your face shine down on them. Be gracious to them. Turn your countenance their direction today and give them peace in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. - Hey friends, I just wanted to spend a second with you at the end of this message today and just encourage you if in some way you've made a spiritual decision, maybe you've given your life to Christ today, you've recently given your life to Christ, you wanna talk to somebody about giving your life to Christ,

our team would love to help you. We're on the Pando app and have several ministries into various prisons because God has called us to you. We have a heart for forgotten people and forgotten places and that means we serve widows and we serve orphans and we serve special needs, kids and God has given us a heart for men and women in the prison system because I believe Jesus died for you, He has a plan and a purpose for your life and we wanna help you know that and discover that. There is an address on the screen that you can communicate with us, we have a team of people that would love to hear from you especially if you've made a decision to follow Jesus so that we can resource you and point you to tools that can help you grow. Just know that we're praying over you and we're genuinely honored that you've taken time to watch our channel and these messages from North Place Church. (gentle music) [MUSIC PLAYING]