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Well, I'm grateful to be with you today. God is good and faithful and I want to have a conversation with you today based on Matthew chapter number three. When I was in school at certain times our teachers would say, I want you to put your thinking cap on. And that didn't mean that we weren't thinking. It meant that what she was about to present to us was going to. Was going to require us to be intentional about giving attention to it. And so today's message is along those lines. We're getting ready to have a grown folks conversation and I want us to go together. This is part, well, this is, I think part 10 of humanology. It is the eighth message that I preached in this series. And Matthew chapter 3, verse 16 records this. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was open 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. We're going to stop the reading of scripture there and talk from this subject in our time together, family. I needed that. Come on, clap your hands, everybody, everywhere. I needed that. I want to start this sermon by exposing an issue that is unconsciously and exponentially impacting individuals that are sitting in sacred spaces like this literally all over the world. It is an issue that has many people sitting in sanctuaries shouting, but still stressed, worshiping, but being worn down, praising, but still without peace. It is an emotional epidemic that is unconsciously impacting people and pushing them into a degree and a dimension of dysfunction because it's difficult to detect. It shows up looking like something other than what it actually is. It's an issue, but it shows up looking like an answer. It's a liability, but it shows up looking like an asset. It's a problem, but it shows up looking like a solution. It's actually a weakness, but it shows up looking like a strength. And if you're curious about what I'm communicating today, this emotional epidemic I am referring to is an emotional epidemic called hyper independence. And hyper independence is 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. And it ultimately leads to a tolling tax on your soul, the overwhelm of our nervous system, the undermining of God's intention of our life and the overextension of ourselves and our schedule that leads to exhaustion and eventually self destruction. Hyper independence is an indication that 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 a form of dependency that has become dysfunctional. But having needs altogether is something different. It 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. And the hyper independent have never been taught this distinction. So they erroneously assume that having needs means I'm needy. And therefore they wear hyper independence as a badge of honor to treating it like a virtue. Not knowing it's a vice. And for some of us it is a vice that has been taught. It means that we were exposed to individuals who have influence with us. But those individuals have undealt with unprocessed trauma as a result of them probably having disappointing experiences in their life. And as a consequence they overtly or subliminally articulated that people cannot be trusted, they cannot be relied upon, they cannot be depended upon. So you need to learn how to fend for and depend on yourself. And for others of us, this isn't necessarily something that was taught for others of us. This is something that is caught. In other words, it is an attitude that we adopted because we went through a season of life where we needed help. We were actually open for 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 that says I, I don't need help. So now when we need help, we don't know how to ask for help. And when people offer help, we don't know how to receive help. Because now I see your offering as suspicious. So instead of that season where I did not get the assistance I needed, being a stage of life, it became a state of mind. And this state of mind, of mind is called adaptive deprivation. This is what happens when you've been deprived of a legitimate need for so long. You adapt to his absence is when you don't get what you need so long. You learn how to win without it and work without it and succeed without it and advance without it and accomplish without it. It's when you reorganize your life around the empty space until the empty space no longer Feels empty. And this is what makes it dangerous. It's not that the need disappeared, it's just your awareness of it did. And the danger of adaptive deprivation is that adaptive deprivation often leads to dysfunction. Did you hear what I just said? Okay. Adaptive deprivation often leads to dysfunction because just because I don't know I need something doesn't mean I don't need something. And what ends up happening is, I don't know I need something even though I need something. So 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, in the wrong places. So 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. Oh, my. I'm. I'm thinking. 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. And I think this conversation is uniquely important. Although Change Church is like Noah's Ark, we're like. We're Christian ecumenical. We got all sorts of everything in here. We got Baptist and Methodist and Pentecostal, and we got some people who don't know what they are. I don't know what I am yet. I'm just. I'm a Christian, right? But for those of us who have been impacted by or influenced by Pentecostal and charismatic streams, where there is a unique emphasis on the liberating ministry of the Holy Spirit, there's another conversation that we need to have. Because in our community, there is this expectation that there's going to be supernatural liberation for every sort of dysfunction. And yes, the Holy Spirit is a liberating agent. Yes, Jesus came to set the captives free. And in our historic context, there's a space in our churches that was called the altar. And the altar was a metaphor. Was a metaphor for a place that represented the presence of God. And so at the end of our services, coming up in these kinds of settings, there would be what's called altar ministry, and we would be invited down to the altar. And the coming down to the altar was what was called a prophetic gesture. It is something you did physically that was a metaphor of something you believe was happening spiritually. So the closer you got to the altar physically was a metaphor for getting closer to God spiritually. Now, it wasn't necessary. It was just helpful for some people, because when God wants To get a hold of you. Do I have a witness? He'll grab you in the parking lot. Come on in here. Some of you have been driving in your car, and you've had an authentic encounter with the Father in your car. You had to catch yourself because people are looking at you weird and strange, and you forgot you were on 285. It was just you and Jesus. And then all of a sudden you're, oh, my God, let me get myself together. But if you grew up in those kind of environments, then there's something you would probably find familiar. And that is, each week we would have these moments, and then each week the same people would keep coming back. And. And since there was no explanation given for that. Where there's no explanation in church, we make assumptions. And the assumption often is there's. There's a deficiency in me. When the issue is there's a deficiency in the theology. Did you hear what I just said? So we were talking. There's something wrong in me because I came down and I felt like God moved, and I had a space of temporary freedom. But then I found myself falling back into some of the same destructive behavior. So now I'm back at the altar because something must be wrong with me, because there's nothing wrong with the altar and there's nothing wrong with God. So there must be a deficiency in me. So the place that's supposed to be introducing me to the meat God's called me to be is the person is the place that now has me questioning the authenticity of who I, I am. So instead of raising my self esteem, my self esteem is lowered. Not because there's a deficiency in me, there's a deficiency in the theology. There was the absence of what I call y', all, okay, so you got to put on thinking caps today. There was the absence of what was called, what is called root behavior theology. And, and root behavior theology simply suggests that almost all dysfunctional behavior is an illegitimate attempt to meet a legitimate need. It is when people pursue something they do not need in order to get something they actually need. So when there's no root behavior theology, you. You'll have a theology of the altar, which is representative of God's liberating work that simply deals with fruit and it never deals with root. So this means most deliverance conversations are all about your actions, not the reasons. Did you hear what I just said? And so here's what happens when you deal with fruit and you never deal with root, what happens? Fruit goes back. And when fruit goes back, I have to keep coming back because the fruit keep coming back. But because there's no root behavior theology, we will not acknowledge the deficiency in the theology. The easiest thing to do is to put the blame on you. And you don't want it bad enough. And you're not fasting. But y' all aren't talking to me, and you aren't fasting passionately enough. You're not praising hard enough. You want me to sweat my hair out every week just to get a break. Y' all aren't talking to me. When true liberation isn't just changing the behavior, it's addressing. It's addressing the reason. And I don't have time because I got a long way to go and a short time to get there. But if I had time, I'd walk you through the Gospels, and I'll show you where Jesus dealt with root behavior, that people will be upset and agitated. Because he would rarely deal with fruit, he would deal with root. Y' all missed it. A lot of his exorcisms was a root behavior. He's saying, 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. Come on in here. That's root behavior. Come on here. Yeah. I would take you to where his friends, where there was a man who dealt with an infirmity that had an immobile. And that immobile man had four friends that took him to a house where Jesus was. And there was. That house was so congregated with people that they couldn't get to where Jesus was. So they get up on top of the roof, cut a hole in the. Dig a hole in the roof, let the man down through the roof. And Jesus looks up at the man and said, you, sins are forgiven. They didn't bring him all the way over there for that. Jesus said, I'm dealing with the root because I deal with root behavior. I take you over to Acts, chapter three. When Peter and John are going to the temple in the hour of prayer, and he see. And they see a man sitting outside the temple asking for alms. And Peter says, silver and gold have I none. But such as I have, I give unto thee. He says, you're asking me for some money, but what you really need is a healing. And when I give you this healing, you can get your own money. Somebody throw your hands up to heaven and say, heal me. Yeah. Cause there's some stuff I'm asking you to do for me that I could do for myself. If you would Just heal me. Root, root, root, behavior. Root, root and almost all dysfunction is an illegitimate attempt to meet a legitimate need. Need. And until we allow God to show us root, until we allow him to expose and address what is at the root of our deprivation, what am I being deprived of that's driving my dysfunction, then we will live in a perpetual cycle of temporary victory and prolonged defeat. And for those of us that want clarity on what some of these root needs actually are, they're right here in the text. In Matthew chapter three, we see God the Father having exchanged with Jesus the Son. And in this exchange he makes a statement. And this statement reveals three particular areas that I believe are the cause of most dysfunction in believers lives. Three particular root needs that if there is deprivation here, it will show up in dysfunction somewhere in our lives. It's right here in the text. Family Matthew Chapter 3 records Jesus being baptized. And in this encounter that Jesus has with the Father and the Spirit, the Bible says that 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 now? A couple of weeks ago we did a teaching From Matthew chapter 4. When Jesus was led in the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, did we not? I said, did Satan tempt Jesus in the wilderness? Okay. Did Jesus succumb to the temptation? Okay. One of the reasons, it's not the only reason, because you got to remember, Jesus experienced this temptation in his full humanity. One of the reasons he didn't succumb to the temptation is because he didn't suffer from deprivation. What he got hallelujah at baptism in chapter three actually prepared him for the battle in chapter four. Because the first temptation he dealt with in Matthew chapter four was a temptation in the very area. Watch this. Where there was deprivation. I'm in the book. He had gone 40 days without food. Am I right? And the first temptation was to turn these stones into bread. I'mma tempt you to get what you hungry for the wrong way are y' all. Okay? Okay. You got access to stones, so I'm going to tempt you to misuse what you got access to so you can meet a need you hungry for that you hadn't had in 40 days. Because the enemy will weaponize your hunger for what you've been deprived of. Did you hear what I just said? If you've been deprived of Support, he will weaponize it. If you've been dep. If you've been deprived of partnership, he will weaponize it. Watch this. Okay, can this service handle this? Because. Right. No, no, seriously, because I, like. I. There. It takes. You have to be in certain places in your spiritual journey to be able to handle certain conversations. Because if not, you'll be offended by something you need. If you get it too early, y'. All. Okay, okay, I'm gonna try it then. The fact that Satan waited 40 days, he didn't come in the middle of the fast. He didn't come at the beginning of the fast. He came. When you've been without it a long time. It's too quiet. Y' all tense. But I'm gonna come right here and look, this whole section got tense. I'm gonna come right here. I said. He had gone without food a long time, And here come the devil when it's been a long time. I said he had been without food along time. And here come the devil after he had been deprived of something a long time. 40, representing season. There's a season of deprivation. And here comes the temptation. Okay, let's have a grown folks conversation. Because 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. Because sometimes you don't grow at the same pace. So your spirituality then can come in and help somebody 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. Come on. Here. You might be pouting, but you're still not going to do it. You might be upset, but you're going to stay in the house. Come on. This is why spirituality is important. So 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. Come on in here. Come on. You know, I got a legitimate, logical, verifiable, justifiable reason to tell you everything that is in my heart and in my mind to tell you. But the Holy Spirit, who is my convictor, has reminded me that the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. And so even though I have a legitimate reason to go off, the Holy Spirit is restraining my impulse. Because deprivation increases the intensity of temptation. It's not an excuse for dysfunction, but it increases the intensity of temptation. So 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 and not a pursuit. So it means your whole spiritual existence is going to be waking up every day obsessed with not sinning. Every day, your obsession is what you got to run from. As opposed to who you need to run to. Hallelujah. So it's not just a life of avoidance, it's a life of pursuit. And when I pursue, I avoid. Am I making sense here? I don't know. Can y' all handle this? Now? I'm just thinking about if I want to do it. Deprivation. I'll leave it alone. Deprivation increases the intensity of temptation. But. But here in the text, what you see is the enemy trying to exploit Jesus's deprivation, trying to intensify the temptation. But Jesus not succumbing to the dysfunction in chapter four because of what he got in chapter three. What did he get, Darius? Here it is, right here. Go back to verse 17. Says, this is my son. Y' all see that? So what did Jesus get? This is my son. He got affirmation. This is my son. Look at me. This is a need. No, I don't need it. You don't need what Jesus needed. I won without it. That's adaptive deprivation. You see where you won with it, but you don't see where you're losing with 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. Are you. Are you here? Okay. He says, this is my son. Now, the original. Watch this. The individuals who. Who received this letter originally would read this completely differently than we do. We live in the Western part of the world that's characterized by hyper individuality. They. They had a much more communal construct socially, so it's a much more communal identity as opposed to hyper individuality. So when they read this text, they read it differently than us. Being a son means something. But in our Western world, where we got to do everything on our own and be our own, everything, being his son not enough. Why is it quiet in this church? Yeah, this is a revelation of sonship. And in the Western world, we know how to be sinners. You ain't forgot. Let me go back to my real side. I know where to go when I can get some real help. I said, we know how to be sinners. We have. You hadn't forgotten how to do anything you used to do. So we know how to be sinners. And we know how to be servants. We'll work you under the table, but we don't know how to be sons. Did you hear what I just said? Yeah. So it means we find our identity in our morality or in our ministry. So if morality is not good, going good, or ministry's not going good, then we don't see ourselves good. But the first thing God the Father gave, I'm not. Yeah. Being his son not enough. Are we so infected with hyper individuality that being his son, not enough of me. Notice this now he says this right here, this my son. This is my son. It's an affirmation of his identity because he is not the Messiah they expected. They expected a military ruler who was going to engage in military warfare and overthrow Roman oppression. And what they got was a king who said, my kingdom is not of this world. And so Jesus's watch this. Jesus's very. Jesus's ministry was a disruption to the expectations of people in that particular context. He wasn't who they thought he was the way they thought the Messiah was going to show up. And 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. And you'll be a chameleon based on your context. And when people say you too much of this, you go over here. And when they say you're too much of that, you go over, y' all aren't talking to me. If he would have without affirmation, he might have suffered the succumbed to the temptation. I'm going to give you these kingdoms of the world when he's clear, my kingdom is not of this world. And there are always going to be expectations when it comes to the way people think you should show up. And without becoming a son that receives the affirmation of your identity of the Father. That dysfunction will play out in one of two ways. One, it will play out in the form of you becoming what's called a people pleaser and what we call, what we call people pleasing. The Bible calls the fear of man. Proverbs 20. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So which means it's rooted in fear. 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. And the genius of this of a snare is this. It's not in his strength. It's not in his strength. It's in his hidden nature. Like the animals don't even know a trap is a trap until they're trapped. And this is the way people pleasing works. Come on. Here you end up trapped in a cycle where our decisions are no longer governed by conviction, they're governed by other people's approval. So we start editing ourselves to be accepted. We start silencing ourselves to be like. We start shooting, shrinking ourselves to appease other people's dysfunction. We start shaping our life not into the image and likeness of God, but into the image and the expectation of others. And before you know it, you look up and you know are no longer living your life. You are performing your life because you've made yourself smaller, more agreeable and more accommodating. So you've outsourced your identity to people who don't even know who they are. And they trying to tell you who you should be. Well, you need to do more of this and you need to do more of that. And you need to tell some of these people, well, based off the fruit that's coming from the tree of your life, it will be irresistible. Responsible of me to take your advice. My recommendation is you stop taking your own advice based off of the fruit I see in your life. You want me to listen to you and you shouldn't be listening to you. People pleasing. Because when I'm not clear, 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? Do you? Do you understand what I'm saying? Like David, do you not know if you're not clear that you're supposed to use a slingshot? Do you know how tempted you're 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, It leads to people pleasing. I don't know if y' all ready for this conversation or at least the clout chasing. Are y' all ready for this conversation? And the word the Bible uses for clout chasing is vain glory. Philippians. Here's what Philippians says. It says, do nothing. Somebody say nothing, nothing out of selfish ambition or vain, vain, vain conceit. How am I supposed to do it? In humility? Valuing others? Are you hearing what I'm saying? So this word here, this word here is a combination of two words, kinos, which has roots in what we call In Philippians 2, this Greek word, kenosis, which kind of speaks of Jesus, kind of emptying Himself. Jesus the Son, God the son, emptying himself, right? And making himself in making himself a human, taking on the likeness of man and this word doxa, from which we get glory. So it's empty glory. It's glory that's empty of God. Did you hear what I just said? I can't go where I want to go. It is. It's vain. It's vain glory. 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're so hungry for fame, you will drop your morals. Y' all aren't talking to me. 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. Did you hear what I just said? Now notice. Notice now what Paul rebukes Rick is selfish ambition. He's not anti ambition. You can't even improve your life without ambition. So God places ambition in the hearts of humans. You can't build anything and you can't do anything without ambition. But there's a difference between healthy ambition and ambition that's vain. 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. Because God was not after making Abraham's name great. God was after making his name great. And he chose Abraham because he knew Abraham would make his name great. God says, abraham, I'm gonna 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 don'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. And 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 when what you're asking for is vain, It's vain. And a biblical example of this is Saul, who was a people pleaser. That's why, remember, he's a people pleaser. That's why he didn't. When the Bible says, wipe out all the Amalekites and all the animals, that's why he didn't do it. He said, well, the people said, right. He was a people pleaser, and he was a clout chaser. He built a statue unto himself. Watch this. And clout chasers are chronic competitors. So this is why he's obsessed with David. So when people say, saul has slain his thousands and David slain his tens of thousands, Saul is upset because people that are clout chasers are always comparing. I got to go. Yeah. You can't be happy for David. We in the same kingdom, but you can't be happy for David. You 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. Of the season you currently in. You have. Good God Almighty. You are taking for granted the favor that is already on your life, the blessing you already walk, 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. When God's like, I'll do it another way. Did you hear what I just said? God said, ask Daniel, won't I do it another way? When they wanted him to eat a diet that violated Hebrew dietary laws. And Daniel said, if you let me eat my king's food, I'll not only come out in a way that's comparable to your service, I'm gonna come out better than your servants. God is gonna 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. Not. Y' all aren't talking to me. God's gonna 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. Tess, play. We got to. I know who I am. I know who I am. I know who I am. 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. I said watch me get there. I say 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. Watch me get there. I want somebody to scream to your future and say, I'm on my way I'm on my way I'm on my way. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for thou art with me. Me. I'm on my way. Let's play Tess. This is my son, Affirmation, who I love. Affection. Now, notice the sequence. This is my son, who I love. This is Matthew 3. This is before his public ministry. So he's done nothing. He's. He hadn't done a thing. So this is. Look at me. This is affection without a transaction. Look at me. 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. See, people who don't have affection without transaction become what's called love performers. What's an example of a love performer? A lady in the Old Testament named Leah who kept having babies for Jacob and said, surely now Jacob will love me. I don't want you to see pregnancy there in the text. I want you to see production. If I keep on producing for them, Gifted people, look at me. You will be loved for your gift, and that's okay. But you need places in your life where you are love beyond it, where you will be just as loved if you weren't as good. I need a place where I don't have to perform. This is my son, Affirmation, who I love. Affection. With him, I'm well pleased. Approval me. Remember, look at the sequence. He's done nothing. He's accompanied of what? I hadn't done anything. So Jesus now is starting ministry, Rick, from a place where he has nothing to prove. Look at Pastor. What? What are you trying to prove? Who are you trying to prove wrong? And is that what you want to be the driving factor for your life's ambition. To prove them wrong? I'm trying to prove something to me, Pastor. Why? That's real. See, here's what happens when we don't deal with this. We become either the abandoner. This is the person who can't finish anything. You start strong and you abandon the project before completion. Because completion means evaluation and evaluation means potential rejection. So if I don't complete it, I can't evaluate it, and if I can't evaluate it, I can't reject it. Or the person becomes the perfectionist. And this is the person. Watch this. Who thinks perfectionism is a personality type, but it's a protection strategy. So 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 the achiever. This is the person. You finish everything, but you feel nothing. How much more of that 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 concerned about many things, but only one thing is needful. What do you have to prove? This isn't a sermon against ambition. Like, I'm going to talk to you like a human is supposed to be generative. I think to not produce is to be selfish. The question is, what's driving your production? And 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 said, 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'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna steward my gifts to the best of my ability. But when the rubber meets the road, I have nothing to prove. This book did this, I'm gonna write this book. But when I write this next book, I have nothing to prove. And when I record this next album, I have nothing to proof. And when I start this next business, I have nothing to prove because I already got approval from the place that matters. So I'm getting ready to pray for us. Because everything that Jesus got is. 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 affirmation. You need affection. You need love without strings. And this is why some of you, this, this message is so important. Because this revelation, even as I'm speaking, the spirit is showing you things. Because some of you now you're even in spaces where you no longer have to perform. You with friends, you don't have to perform for now. You with family, you don't have to perform for now. You, you. You had a church, you don't have to perform now. But you've been so trained to perform, you're performing when you don't have to. And the spirit wants you to see you already in a season where there are no strings, you've just been hurt so many Times you can't believe it. And some of you right now. Thank you, Holy Spirit. You have been so unsupported, so doubted, so sabotaged, that part of yourself. Success is a consequence of proving people wrong. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Yes. Even on Father's Day. Come here, brother. Even on Father's Day, some of your success, even your approach to parenting, has been driven by his absence. You haven't. Come on. Speak, Holy Spirit. Let it go, brother. Let it go. No, no, no, no, no. Let it go. I feel you. Let it go. No pretension here. No mask. I'm coming right to your street. You've been arguing with him in your head. You've been arguing with him in your head. You've been telling him off in your head. I'mma prove him wrong. I can do it without him. And you perform it for a man that ain't watching. Let it go. Come on in here, Holy Spirit. He not watching. Look at me. And maybe God in his providence made a hard decision. And maybe God in his providence said, I would rather you deal with the pain of his absence than the consequence of his presence. You mad at him? You gotta 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, of affection. Not for affection, because I'm already approved. Not because I'm trying to prove. You need that. I'm getting ready to pray. Because 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. Watch this. 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. So the Holy Spirit wants to teach you how to receive, Pastor. How? How can I do that? I don't know how to do that with you. Everybody different. I don't know what your blockages are, 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. Because 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. In Jesus name, let him just minister to you. You're dismiss. On this Father's Day. If you're a man in this room and you say, pastor, that part that you talked about about dads, that was for me. I want you to come down here and meet me. At this stage, the Holy Ghost is to going getting ready to set you free. Come on, brothers, Even as y' all leaving, clap for these brothers that are coming. Sa.