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Human-ology series
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I want to have a conversation with you today based on Matthew chapter 3. When I was in school, teachers would say, "Put your thinking cap on." That didn't mean we weren't thinking—it meant what was about to be presented would require intentional attention. Today's message requires that same level of engagement.
This is part of the Humanology series, and we're going to explore something found in Matthew 3:16-17:
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my son, whom I love. With him, I am well pleased."
I want to start by exposing an issue that is unconsciously and exponentially impacting people sitting in sacred spaces all over the world.
There are people in sanctuaries shouting but still stressed. Worshipping but being worn down. Praising but still without peace. This is an emotional epidemic that is difficult to detect because it shows up looking like something other than what it actually is.
This epidemic is called hyper-independence: the compulsive refusal to acknowledge the need for help and the tendency to reject it when it is offered. It is the impulse to treat support as optional when it's actually essential. It ultimately leads to a tolling tax on your soul, the overwhelm of our nervous system, the undermining of God's intention for our lives, and the overextension of ourselves that leads to exhaustion and eventually self-destruction.
Hyper-independent people have not accurately distinguished the difference between having needs and neediness. They are not the same.
Neediness is the inability to function without excessive reassurance and validation or support from others. It is an expression of emotional immaturity and dysfunctional dependency.
Having needs, on the other hand, is the natural condition of a creature who was never meant to be self-sufficient. It is not immaturity—it is divine architecture. It is not a flaw—it is a design feature. It is the recognition that you are finite, that you are human, and that you were designed to receive and not just give.
Hyper-independent people have never been taught this distinction, so they erroneously assume that having needs means being needy. They wear hyper-independence as a badge of honor, treating it like a virtue, not knowing it's a vice.
For some of us, hyper-independence is taught. We were exposed to individuals with influence over us who had undealt with, unprocessed trauma. As a result, they overtly or subliminally articulated that people cannot be trusted, cannot be relied upon, and cannot be depended upon. So we learned to fend for ourselves.
For others of us, this is something that is caught, not taught. We went through a season where we needed help. We were actually open to help. We reached out for help. And we didn't get help. So we had to do it without help. And since we did it without help, we adopted an attitude: "I don't need help."
Now when we need help, we don't know how to ask for it. When people offer help, we don't know how to receive it because we see their offering as suspicious. That season where we did not get the assistance we needed becomes not just a stage of life—it becomes a state of mind called adaptive deprivation.
Adaptive deprivation happens when you've been deprived of a legitimate need for so long, you adapt to its absence. You don't get what you need, so you learn how to win without it, work without it, succeed without it, advance without it, and accomplish without it.
You reorganize your life around the empty space until the empty space no longer feels empty. This is what makes it dangerous. It's not that the need disappeared—it's just that your awareness of it did.
Adaptive deprivation often leads to dysfunction. Just because I don't know I need something doesn't mean I don't need something. I start looking for what I need even though I don't know I need it. So I'm looking for it in the wrong ways and wrong places. I think I'm looking for one thing when I'm really looking for another.
I think I'm looking for marriage when I'm really looking to be chosen. I think I'm looking for a partner when I could do this by myself—I'm really looking for security. I think I'm looking for one thing when I'm actually looking for another.
For those of us influenced by Pentecostal and charismatic streams, there's another conversation we need to have. In our community, there is an expectation that there will be supernatural liberation for every sort of dysfunction. Yes, the Holy Spirit is a liberating agent. Yes, Jesus came to set the captives free.
In our historic context, there was a place in our churches called the altar—a metaphor for a place that represented the presence of God. At the end of services, there would be altar ministry. Coming to the altar was a prophetic gesture: something you did physically that was a metaphor of something you believed was happening spiritually.
However, here's the problem: each week the same people would keep coming back. And since there was no explanation given for that, we made assumptions. We assumed there's a deficiency in me. But the issue is there's a deficiency in the theology.
Some people came down, felt like God moved, experienced temporary freedom, but then found themselves falling back into the same destructive behavior. So they came back to the altar because something must be wrong with them. But there's nothing wrong with the altar and nothing wrong with God. There's a deficiency in the theology.
Instead of raising self-esteem, this dynamic lowered it—not because there's a deficiency in the person, but because there's a deficiency in the theology. There was the absence of what I call root behavior theology.
Root behavior theology simply suggests that almost all dysfunctional behavior is an illegitimate attempt to meet a legitimate need. People pursue something they do not need in order to get something they actually need.
When there's no root behavior theology, you have a theology of the altar—representative of God's liberating work—that simply deals with fruit. It never deals with root. Most deliverance conversations are all about your actions, not the reasons.
Here's what happens when you deal with fruit and never deal with root: fruit goes back. When fruit goes back, I have to keep coming back because the fruit keeps coming back. But because there's no root behavior theology, the easiest thing to do is put the blame on you. "You don't want it bad enough. You're not fasting passionately enough. You're not praising hard enough."
True liberation isn't just changing the behavior. It's addressing the reason.
Jesus dealt with root behavior. People would be upset because he rarely dealt with fruit—he dealt with root. Many of his exorcisms were about root behavior. He would say, "You want me to deal with the sickness, but the sickness is because of the spirit. I'm not studying the sickness. Let me fix the spirit."
Consider the man with an infirmity. His four friends brought him to the house where Jesus was. The house was so crowded they couldn't get to Jesus, so they got on top of the roof, cut a hole in it, and let the man down through the roof. Jesus looked up at the man and said, "Your sins are forgiven." They didn't bring him all the way there for that. Jesus said, "I'm dealing with the root because I deal with root behavior."
In Acts 3, Peter and John were going to the temple when they saw a man sitting outside asking for alms. Peter said, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give unto thee." He told the man, "You're asking me for money, but what you really need is healing. When I give you this healing, you can get your own money."
Root. Root. Root.
Almost all dysfunction is an illegitimate attempt to meet a legitimate need. Until we allow God to show us the root—until we allow him to expose and address what is at the root of our deprivation, what are we being deprived of that's driving our dysfunction—we will live in a perpetual cycle of temporary victory and prolonged defeat.
For clarity on what some of these root needs actually are, they're right here in the text. In Matthew 3, we see God the Father have an exchange with Jesus the Son. In this exchange, he makes a statement that reveals three particular areas I believe are the cause of most dysfunction in believers' lives. Three particular root needs that, if there is deprivation here, will show up in dysfunction somewhere in our lives.
Matthew 3 records Jesus being baptized. In this encounter that Jesus has with the Father and the Spirit, God the Father says these words:
This is my son whom I love. With him I'm well pleased.
This statement reveals three root needs that every human has. If God the Father makes this statement to Jesus because Jesus needed this—what makes you and I think we don't need what Jesus needed?
A couple of weeks ago we taught from Matthew 4, when Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Did Jesus succumb to the temptation? No. One of the reasons—not the only reason, because Jesus experienced this temptation in his full humanity—but one of the reasons he didn't succumb to the temptation is because he didn't suffer from deprivation. What he got at baptism in chapter 3 actually prepared him for the battle in chapter 4.
The first temptation he dealt with in Matthew 4 was a temptation in the very area where there was deprivation. Jesus had gone 40 days without food. The first temptation was to turn stones into bread. The devil was saying, "I'mma tempt you to get what you hungry for in the wrong way."
The enemy will weaponize your hunger for what you've been deprived of.
If you've been deprived of support, he will weaponize it. If you've been deprived of partnership, he will weaponize it.
Satan waited 40 days. He didn't come in the middle of the fast. He didn't come at the beginning. He came when Jesus had been without food a long time. There's a season of deprivation, and here comes the temptation.
Temptation is intensified when there's deprivation. Now, deprivation is never an excuse for dysfunction. This is why spirituality has to partner with emotional maturity. Sometimes you don't grow at the same pace. So your spirituality can come in and help supplement with a ministry of restraint so that you are restrained from engaging in dysfunctional behavior, even when you don't have the emotional tools to manage the impulses properly.
You might be upset, but you're still not going to do it. You might be frustrated, but you're going to stay in the house. This is why spirituality is important. Even when I'm deprived of something and I've got a legitimate impulse, spirituality helps me exercise restraint.
Fruit of the Spirit: temperance, self-control. Not to act out although I got a legitimate reason to want to. I might have a legitimate, logical, verifiable, justifiable reason to tell you everything in my heart, but the Holy Spirit, who is my comforter, has reminded me that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So even though I have a legitimate reason, the Holy Spirit is restraining my impulse.
Deprivation increases the intensity of temptation. It's not an excuse for dysfunction, but it increases the intensity. If we don't deal with the deprivation, it doesn't mean you'll fall to temptation. It just means you're going to spend your whole life in avoidance, not in pursuit.
Your whole spiritual existence is going to be waking up every day obsessed with not sinning. Every day your obsession is what you've got to run from, as opposed to who you need to run to. So it's not just a life of avoidance; it's a life of pursuit. When I pursue, I avoid.
The enemy tried to exploit Jesus' deprivation in the wilderness, trying to intensify the temptation. But Jesus didn't succumb to dysfunction in chapter 4 because of what he got in chapter 3.
This is my son.
He got affirmation. This is a need. You don't need what Jesus needed? I want to say without it that's adaptive deprivation. You see where you won without it, but you don't see where you're losing without it.
If God the Father gives this to Jesus the Son, and Jesus the Son is the ultimate expression of what it means to be a human, you need this.
The individuals who originally received this letter would read this completely differently than we do. We live in a western part of the world characterized by hyper-individuality. They had a much more communal construct socially. So when they read "This is my son," being a son meant something.
But in our western world where we've got to do everything on our own and be our own everything, being a son seems not enough. In the western world, we know how to be sinners. We know how to be servants—we'll work you under the table. But we don't know how to be sons.
We find our identity in our morality or in our ministry. If morality's not going good or ministry's not going good, then we don't see ourselves as good. But the first thing God the Father gave Jesus was an affirmation of his identity.
Notice: He says, "This is my son." It's an affirmation of his identity because Jesus is not the Messiah they expected. They expected a military ruler who would engage in military warfare and overthrow Roman oppression. What they got was a king who said, "My kingdom is not of this world."
Jesus' very ministry was a disruption to the expectations of people in that context. He wasn't who they thought he was. The way they thought the Messiah was going to show up was different from how Jesus showed up.
If you don't get affirmation from your heavenly Father, you won't show up as the person he created you to show up as. You'll be a chameleon based on your context. When people say, "You're too much of this," you go over here. When they say, "You're too much of that," you go over there.
Without affirmation from your Father, you might have succumbed to the temptation. The devil said, "I'mma give you these kingdoms of the world." But Jesus was clear: "My kingdom is not of this world." There are always going to be expectations about the way people think you should show up. Without becoming a son that receives the affirmation of your identity from the Father, that dysfunction will play out in one or two ways.
It will play out in the form of you becoming a people-pleaser. The Bible calls this the fear of man. Proverbs 29:25 says:
The fear of man will prove to be a snare. Whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
That word snare refers to a trap, specifically the kind used to catch birds or animals. The genius of a snare is not its strength—it's its hidden nature. Animals don't even know a trap is a trap until they're trapped. This is the way people-pleasing works.
You end up trapped in a cycle where your decisions are no longer governed by conviction—they're governed by other people's approval. You start editing yourself to be accepted. You start silencing yourself to be liked. You start shrinking yourself to appease other people's dysfunction.
You start shaping your life not into the image and likeness of God, but into the image and the expectation of others. Before you know it, you look up and you are no longer living your life—you are performing your life because you've made yourself smaller, more agreeable, and more accommodating. You've outsourced your identity to people who don't even know who they are, and they're trying to tell you who you should be.
When I'm not clear about my identity, do you know how much in life is going to shake your sense of self? Do you know how regularly that's going to be threatened? If David's not clear that he's supposed to use a slingshot, do you know how tempted he's going to be to use Saul's armor—especially when it worked for Saul? You'll start dropping what worked for you and picking up what worked for them when you're not clear.
Or at least to clout chasing. The Bible uses the word vain glory for this. Philippians says:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. In humility, value others.
This word is a combination of two words: kenos, which speaks of Jesus emptying himself, and doxa, from which we get glory. It's empty glory. It's glory that's empty of God.
It is a life where you get your value from your visibility. It is a life where you are not driven by being faithful. You are so hungry for fame, you will drop your morals. You will abandon your values to accomplish notoriety. In our cultural context, you can be called an influencer with no impact. You can be an influencer just because you're known. And here's what's scary: Christians clout chase and then blame it on God.
Notice what Paul rebukes: selfish ambition. He's not anti-ambition. You can't improve your life without ambition. God places ambition in human hearts. You can't build anything without ambition. But there's a difference between healthy ambition and ambition that's vain. Healthy ambition says I want to accomplish something. Vain ambition says I simply want to be visible. I simply want people to think highly of me.
So I'll use scriptures like "God will make your name great" without exploring why God told Abraham that. God was not after making Abraham's name great. God was after making his name great. He chose Abraham because he knew Abraham would make his name great. God said, "Abraham, I'm going to make your name great not because I want to elevate you. I'm going to make your name great because I want to elevate me. So that when I run into people that didn't meet me that didn't know me, I'm going to introduce myself to them saying, 'I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.'"
It was never about you. It's about me.
Some of you are asking for what you cannot be trusted with because you will take credit that belongs to him. You cannot be trusted with what you're asking for. It's vain.
A biblical example of this is Saul. He was a people-pleaser, which is why he didn't wipe out all the Amalekites when God commanded it. He said, "Well, the people said..." He was a people-pleaser and he was a clout chaser. He built a statue unto himself.
Clout chasers are chronic competitors. This is why Saul was obsessed with David. When people said "Saul has slain his thousands and David slain his tens of thousands," Saul was upset. People that are clout chasers are always comparing.
You can't be happy for David. You're in the same kingdom, but you can't be happy for David. You're satisfied until you scroll. And then all of a sudden, your scrolling has you unhappy. Your scrolling has you discontent. Your scrolling has you missing the miraculous nature of the season you're currently in.
You have good God Almighty. You are taking for granted the favor that is already on your life, the blessing you're already walking in, the doors God has already opened because you have been captivated by the perfectly manicured, falsified highlight reel that somebody else posted online. And you are wearing yourself out.
But God says, "Ask Daniel—won't I do it another way?" When they wanted him to eat a diet that violated Hebrew dietary laws, Daniel said, "If you let me eat my diet, I'll not only come out in a way that's comparable to your service, I'mma come out better than your service."
God is going to do it another way. I'm speaking that prophetically over somebody in this house. You will not have to violate your values, abandon your faith, get in the bed with somebody you shouldn't. God is going to do it another way. He'll open doors no man can shut. He'll close doors no man can open. God can do it another way.
I know who I am. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. I'm the salt of the earth. I'm the light of the world. I'm a king's kid. I'm a royal priesthood. I'm a chosen generation. I know who I am. Watch me get there. Watch me get there with joy in my heart. Watch me get there with peace in my soul. Watch me get there with the Holy Ghost all on me. Watch me get there and not lose my anointing. Watch me get there and not shame the name of Christ.
Who I love.
He got affection. Look at the sequence. He says, "This is my son who I love." This is Matthew 3. This is before his public ministry. He hadn't done a thing. This is affection without a transaction.
You need that. You need that not just from heaven, you need that on earth. You need places and you need people. That's a need. That's not neediness.
People who don't have affection without transaction become what's called love performers. An example is Leah in the Old Testament. She kept having babies for Jacob and said, "Surely now Jacob will love me." Don't see pregnancy there—see production. "If I keep on producing for them, I will be loved."
Gifted people, listen: you will be loved for your gift. And that's okay. But you need places in your life where you are loved beyond it. Where you would be just as loved if you weren't as good. You need a place where you don't have to perform.
With him I'm well pleased.
He got approval. Remember the sequence. He's done nothing. He hasn't accomplished anything. So Jesus now is starting ministry right from a place where he has nothing to prove.
What are you trying to prove? Who are you trying to prove wrong? Is that what wants to be the driving factor for your life's ambition?
Here's what happens when we don't deal with this. We become either the abandoner: the person who can't finish anything. You start strong and abandon the project before completion because completion means evaluation, and evaluation means potential rejection. If I don't complete it, I can't evaluate it, and if I can't evaluate it, I can't reject it.
Or we become the perfectionist: the person who thinks perfectionism is a personality type, but it's a protection strategy. The perfectionist lives in a permanent state of inadequacy because you're always aware of a gap between what you produce and the impossible standard you set to protect yourself from disappointment from you or others.
Or we become the achiever: the person who finishes everything but feels nothing. How much more do you have to get to see that that is not going to give you what you think it is?
This is Martha, who's upset with God because he's not impressed by her performance. Jesus, aren't you going to tell Mary to help? He says, "Martha, Martha, you are concerned about many things, but only one thing is needful." What do you have to prove?
This isn't a sermon against ambition. Humans are supposed to be generative. I think to not produce is to be selfish. The question is: what's driving your production? For many of us, it's something we're deprived of.
Because the sequence in the text is just as important as what's said in the text. Everything God the Father says about Jesus the Son is said before Jesus does a thing. Do you know how freeing it is to live your life from a heart posture that literally says, "I have nothing to prove"?
I'mma do my best. I'mma steward my gifts to the best of my ability. But when the rubber meets the road, I have nothing to prove. I'mma write this book, but when I write it, I have nothing to prove. When I record this next album, I have nothing to prove. When I start this next business, I have nothing to prove. Because I already got approval from the place it matters.
Everything that Jesus got is everything you need as a human. You need affirmation. You need somebody who says, "Do it your way. That's the way God made you." You need affection. You need love without strings. And you need approval. Not because you're trying to prove anything, but because you already have it.
This message is so important. As I'm speaking, the Spirit is showing you things. Some of you now are even in spaces where you no longer have to perform. You're with friends—you don't have to perform. You're with family—you don't have to perform. You're at a church—you don't have to perform. But you've been so trained to perform that you're performing when you don't have to.
The Spirit wants you to see you're already in a season where there are no strings. You've just been hurt so many times you can't believe it.
Some of you right now have been so unsupported. So doubted. So sabotaged. That part of your success is a consequence of proving people wrong. Even on Father's Day. Some of your success, even your approach to parenting, has been driven by his absence. Let it go.
You've been arguing with him in your head. You've been telling him off in your head. "I'm going to prove him wrong. I can do it without him." And you're performing for a man that ain't watching. Let it go. He's not watching.
Maybe God in his providence made a hard decision. Maybe God said, "I would rather you deal with the pain of his absence than the consequence of his presence." You're mad at him. You got to let it go. You have nothing to prove.
Everything you build from this point on, everything you accomplish from this point on, and everything you do from this point on is driven from a place of affirmation—not for affirmation. Affection—not for affection. Because I'm already approved—not because I'm trying to prove.
You know how to be a servant. You can work under the table. But in this season of your spiritual journey, the Father is inviting you to be a son. And sons know how to receive.
He's like, "I died to give you all this. Why are you trying to get it yourself? I died to give it to you. But you want to go build another cross and hang yourself on it."
Sons receive. The Holy Spirit wants to teach you how to receive. How? I don't know how to do that. Everybody's different. I don't know what your blockages are, what your barriers are. That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit—to show you: "Hey, this is in your way of receiving. This is in your way of receiving."
For some of us, it's not hyper-independence. For some of us, it's just we weren't taught. "I didn't even know I needed this, Pastor. I didn't even know I was looking for this in the wrong place."
Would you show me where I've been looking for affirmation in the wrong places? Holy Spirit, will you show me? Beyond you, who are those that you have graciously already placed in my life to love me without strings attached? And Holy Spirit, would you free me from the desire to live my life having to prove anything to anybody? Because in you I have nothing to hide and I have nothing to prove.
Let him minister to you.
