Performative Christianity: Why So Many Christians Feel FAKE Online

Nathan (00:01)

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host Nathan Rittenhouse.

Cameron (00:04)

and I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister.

Nathan (00:06)

Cameron, I want to get some wisdom from you today on a topic that I think is floating around in the back of many people's minds. And this is the short version of it. And then I'll give you the, where this is coming from. Here's the question. How do you have a faith that is public without it being performative? So let me give you the background of where this phrase even comes from in my mind. So I've been preaching a series of sermons out of Matthew chapter six, a sermon on the Mount.

has a lot of have heard that it was said, I say unto you. And then we don't think about the pattern here, but Jesus then moves into a series of three mentions of being rewarded by humans and being rewarded by your father who sees in secret. And so in the first one, giving to the needy, this is Matthew 6.1, be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your father in heaven. And then the end of that pericope ends

talks about not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing so that your giving may be done in secret, then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. So it's you're rewarded by people or you're rewarded by your Heavenly Father. Footnote for the nerds out there, ⁓ different Greek words for reward. You can look down the etymological significance and the connotations of the different types of reward that you receive from people in your Father in heaven. But that pattern is repeated three times, same two words for reward used also in response to public prayer.

and then in response to public fasting. The challenge is this, is I think we all get that, okay, don't do your public prayers, your public giving, your public fasting. Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. That's Matthew 6.1. However, if you flip back in the Sermon on the Mount to Matthew 5.16, in the same way, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

So you have in Matthew 5, and there's an answer to this. You'll be easily able to pick out the response to the question here. But in Matthew 5 you have, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds. So make your good deeds public. And in verse 1 of chapter 6, be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them. So, how is it that we are supposed to live out our faith

Cameron (02:01)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (02:30)

publicly without it being performative. And go.

Cameron (02:35)

Well, let's make a distinction between practice and performance, first of all, before we dive into the biblical vision here. And also, your motivations behind this are going to play a key role. So when Daniel, for instance, as a Babylonian exile, is praying, and people can see him praying, when there's been a specific circumstances of military...

Nathan (03:01)

He should have gone into his

inner room and shut the door and this whole thing would have been solved Cameron. No, I'm

Cameron (03:05)

Right. So the

question here is, that a social performance? And the answer, yeah, no, it's not. He's simply praying. He's not hiding it, but he's simply praying.

Nathan (03:16)

he was continuing

a practice that was already in play.

Cameron (03:20)

Right. And so that's one instance where you can see that. But again, the motivations here are key. You're to have to remind me of the specific details of what the Pharisees did with the... What was that black box practice that they...

Nathan (03:35)

All the phylactery,

yeah, when you had written scripture inside a box strapped to your head. I mean, there's Old Testament scripture about binding scripture to your forehead. ⁓ That's where that comes from.

Cameron (03:46)

Yeah, so the Pharisees

would have the phylacteries and they would go prancing down the streets and loudly announcing through a megaphone to everybody how devoted and pious they were. I think there's a phrase that Jesus uses here that... Yeah. Well, there's a phrase here that Jesus uses, truly, they have their reward in full. And what's the reward? The reward is the veneration of human being. want...

Nathan (04:02)

Just get a big gold cross. That's easier today.

Cameron (04:16)

adoration from men. And scripture has a lot to say about what, I mean, it doesn't use this phrase, living your life before the audience of one. Meaning living your life before God and resting in his love and his estimation. And basically trying to please God. But the Pharisees here are one example of they're trying to please people. it's true, some people, if you can do these displays of

Nathan (04:38)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (04:44)

these social performances and people will ooh and ⁓ ooh. I mean, today we have a word for this. We use the word virtue signaling.

Nathan (04:51)

Well, that's where this conversation needs to go because the real backdrop to this topic comes not well, it's so I've been thinking about this stuff because I've been preaching on it, but also multiple conversations in the last week I have talked to. think Christians roughly our age who are just so done with Christian responses online to things that even seem to be, ⁓ and that's not to say that there's not.

Cameron (04:54)

Alright, let's go there brother.

yeah.

Amen. I'm with him.

Nathan (05:20)

that there's not bad stuff that's happening out there, just people are just like seeing through this thing that you're doing. It seems like something a little different even than virtue signaling, Cameron. And I'm making this all in house. I'm not talking about political theory, just like stuff that Christians are saying online about other Christians or you're like, guys, what's going on here?

Cameron (05:27)

Mm-hmm.

Branding.

Well, let me give you an example.

I'll be a little bit vague, but so some controversy happens and then someone chimes in, makes a big post about it and says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, this is just terrible and I'm sick and to see this and I wrote about it all in this book. What's your takeaway from that kind of response? Is it, I care deeply about this brother or sister in Christ, I want to see them...

Nathan (06:08)

Yeah, that's

Cameron (06:16)

You know, I want to see, I want to pray for them. I care about the life of the church. Or is it by my book?

So I think there's that hollow aspect where, yeah, so virtual signaling, but then on the other hand, just marketing. Let's use something that's even more crass. And just trying to get across your,

Nathan (06:26)

Hard to know sometimes.

Well, yes. Well, so, oh,

that's an interesting. So is.

Okay, so help me work this out. So virtue signaling is the old phrase But is it is there a sense in which all of our what's is is that? ⁓ As everyone kind of develops their own brand so your identity your personality your online persona becomes a brand That now we basically it just does feel like we've gone from virtue signaling. Hey, I'm a good person to look at my brand

Cameron (06:46)

Relatively old.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (07:09)

that it

is closer to marketing than it is. Because not only do I want the adulation of the masses to know that I'm a good person and I'm on the right side of this, but I also want to benefit from, or I have something that I'm selling that kind of goes along with my virtue.

Cameron (07:30)

Mm-hmm. But again, let's go back to the, we're making a distinction, if we can make a distinction, which I think we can, between practice and performance, we also have passages where Jesus says, you know, He who loves me keeps my commands. Now, as He's saying, He who loves me is, you know, has performative faith so that other people will know that He follows. No, the motivations of your heart are absolutely crucial here.

He's talking about if you are aiming to be like Jesus, you're His disciples, you're His disciple and you want to obey Him. So that's going to result in a certain mode of conduct. And one word for that would be love. We also have Jesus saying, they will know you are mine by the love you have for one another. So right there, stop, full stop. We got a problem with people who are throwing other Christians under the bus and trying to sell books.

Nathan (08:28)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (08:29)

That

sends a message to the world, not of love, but of just ruthless competition. It might mean it just looks like same old, same old. Somebody else trying to get ahead in the packing order.

Nathan (08:37)

Yeah, there's

a, uh, don't know if you would have seen this. There was a clip going viral. It seems like about a month back. Um, older guy driving for Domino's and did you see this? So the, the, family, the family ordered Domino's and it was a Pepsi. They wanted Pepsi and the person said, Hey, so sorry, we're out of Pepsi. Can we, you know, replace it with something else? And they said, I think it'd be fine. Anyway, their delivery driver.

Cameron (08:50)

Yeah. Yeah.

Nathan (09:06)

stopped in at a store on the way to their house and bought them Pepsi. Just thought, you know what? This family wanted Pepsi. I'm just gonna stop and get them a Pepsi to go with it. And yeah, so brought them their Domino's order, but also on his own initiative and on his own dime, stopped and bought the family Pepsi, dropped it off and left. I think that was an act of somebody just being gracious. And then of course the whole thing exploded and then there's a GoFundMe and just like this kind of secret

Cameron (09:28)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (09:35)

⁓ Just the comportment of this guy. It became public knowledge, which is splendid. That's right. We should we should laud and and do like clearly he wasn't trying to do it for it. He didn't he didn't take a selfie of himself doing it and then post it out there. And so this was somebody who got caught doing the type of thing that they normally do and they were honored for it. I think that's different than doing it. So so we're not saying

People shouldn't be rewarded for the good that they do. We're saying you shouldn't do stuff just for you to feel good about how people feel about you.

Cameron (10:14)

Well, there's a motivation there. So a performer is looking for an audience. Somebody who is practicing something is concerned with the integrity. If it's a good practice, they're concerned with the integrity of the practice itself. They care. a person, so my son is obsessed with organs right now. I mean, not bodily organs, the church organs. Yeah, old fashioned church organs. Don't even ask me where this interest came from. So we've been watching this documentary on

Nathan (10:33)

you

Cameron (10:43)

church organ nine years old on this gentleman who rescues organs from churches that are being shut down in the UK. He's an English gentleman named Martin. And so he goes into these churches that are either going to be converted into housing or that are going to be torn down for something else to be built. And if they're demolished, these beautiful old English organs that are marvels of craftsmanship are just thrown away.

So he goes and painstakingly dismantles them. Sometimes they have up to, they can have hundreds of pipes and they're incredibly complicated to put back together again. He rescues them, stores them, resells them or restores them. But he's concerned with the people who made these organs were concerned with the craft of the integrity of the instrument that they were making. And he's concerned with preserving them. Somebody who is practicing Christianity in a genuine way,

is not dissimilar. They're concerned with faithfully obeying their Lord, and they're committed to it on the basis of the relationship with Jesus Christ, and they're concerned about the inward integrity. They're not looking for an audience. And if people happen to see them, it's a witness, and it's a powerful witness. But that's why we've courted the danger of this so much in recent years, especially in the evangelical church where you have

Nathan (11:43)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (12:05)

We've just been on, we've been able to see how dangerous celebrity can be, but then we've seen other instances of people who have gained some recognition through no fault of their own, so to speak, who just happened to be, I think of somebody like Tim Keller or Eugene Peterson or let's get some ladies in here, Elizabeth Elliot, these people who were not performative.

I mean, there's nothing performative about Elizabeth Elliot, but who were faithful practicing Christians and the integrity of their faith came to a wider public kind of view. People saw it and they gained some notoriety, but that shouldn't be the goal. The goal is to serve Jesus and to please him. And I'm not...

Nathan (12:59)

So the.

Cameron (13:00)

Yeah, one quick note here, Nathan, I want to say this too. I'm not saying that we shouldn't care at all about what others think of us. I think that's completely wrong. There's a whole cottage industry devoted to that. There's this book out there called The Subtle Art of Not Giving A, and you have great creative imaginations listeners, you can fill that in. that's not the answer. mean, if you cultivate apathy about what other people think, that's contempt. But care more about...

Nathan (13:18)

Metalypsis, fill in the gap.

Wow, so

Cameron (13:30)

pleasing God than people. That's the trick. Anyway.

Nathan (13:31)

Well, here's the thing. Here's

the thing. Yeah. There was a, one of the, one of the really special mentors to me in life who's long past, but was a retired seminary professor. And whenever he saw me, he would say to me, Nathan, are you living a doxological life? Which is about the most retired seminary professor thing you can say, are you living a doxological life? So, so doxa being the Greek word for glory, doxology, praise God. It's about glorifying God when you sing a doxology. So to live doxologically.

Cameron (13:50)

Yeah, on brands.

Nathan (14:02)

Is this Matthew five therefore let your light shine? So that they will glorify your father in heaven. So to live doxologically would be living in such a way that God gets the glory For what it is that's been what's happening in your life And so the question is are you getting the glory for the good that's happening in your life? Or is God getting the glory for the goodness that's happening in your life? ⁓ In that I think Alan noble calls it the two-step or the double step ⁓ in his book disruptive witness

where he's saying, because Jesus does this, think about it, like Jesus will do a miracle and the crowd praises the God of Israel.

That's an interesting ability that Jesus had. Somehow, was able to act in such a way that God got the credit for it.

Cameron (14:48)

Yeah, and there's an interesting contrast there that you can draw between. in Israel, that's the response, they give God glory. But then there's confusion in Acts 14. Yeah, so talk a little bit about that, the contrast there, because I think that's... Yeah.

Nathan (14:57)

⁓ very good.

Well, yeah, so yeah, is it? Paul and Silas are out and

somebody's healed and the whole city is in an uproar. They're bringing in animals to slaughter thinking that is Zeus made manifest. ⁓ and Paul, they're running out of the crowds, ripping their garments, shouting, no, we're just men just like you. ⁓ they, they were freaked out by the thought that people would start worshiping them. Cause it was undue credit. ⁓ but, see the thing of it is Cameron is that I think when you look into the idea of what is the unforgivable sin.

Cameron (15:23)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (15:31)

It's a state of being. It's not a specific sin. It's the inability to properly attribute good and evil. Because remember, this is in the context of Jesus casting out a demon and they say it's by the Prince of Demons he does this. And that's when Jesus kind of flies off the handle on him and says, if you can't understand that the power that you see at work is from God and you attribute that to evil, that's when he talks about the unforgivable sin. And so this ability to

Cameron (15:38)

Mm.

You're utterly lost.

Nathan (16:01)

to appropriately

connect the actual sources of good and the actual sources of evil is a very crucial distinction. that's why it's not like, oh, God is this maniacal, petty God who wants to take all of the credit for the good stuff that we do. That's not what's going on here. But there's a healthy...

Well, there's a destructive warp that happens in our own lives whenever we feel like we are the end goal of goodness being manifest in the world. It blows us up.

Cameron (16:41)

Yeah, mean, think it's also, I mean, we were called to spread the gospel as well, which can be a, that can be, that's a public practice in some cases. But most of the time, by the way, it's not. It's worth pointing this out. we, you know, we're saying this to you on a podcast that gets broadcast to, you know, a wide audience.

Nathan (17:04)

There's some ironies baked in here, sure.

Cameron (17:07)

Yeah. And we've both been involved in evangelistic meetings, and I know many of you listening have as well. But most evangelism, at least in my life, takes place in day-to-day mundane settings where you're just talking to neighbors or acquaintances, people you know. And there's very little fanfare. it's not a very glamorous pursuit at all. I'm the son of missionary parents, and we lived in Western Europe. They were there for 22 years.

Europe is hard ground. Western Europe is hard ground. It's largely, most people there would never, it would never occur to them to even go to church. They think of Christianity as just something that's passed its sell-by date. Why would you even talk about it? So you're there, you're doing long, slow, patient work, day in and day out. And there's very little glory in it. So it's worth sometimes asking ourselves, because we have social media these days,

That throws a wrench in the gear sometimes. When we're go out there thinking about making some sort of a post or weighing in or something like that, the question is, would it be better to just do this? Maybe if this is something that's on my heart and I have something to say, can I do this on a personal level with somebody face to face rather than, or do I really need to air this publicly? And if so, what are my motivations? Are they to genuinely help or is this more about me expressing myself?

Nathan (18:22)

⁓

Cameron (18:34)

If it's about you expressing yourself, then you're entering into performative territory.

Nathan (18:37)

Well, there's

a sadder read on this too. So while we're being pessimistic here about this, here's something that I recognize. You and I work for RZIM, we watch the whole thing implode, and we've seen other crises unfold, everybody has in the world around us. Here's what I recognized. Where you choose to process a crisis shows you where your actual community is.

Cameron (18:46)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (19:00)

So what you find is that the people who have, if you're part of a group of 20 men or women who get together on a routine basis, study the scripture, pray together, you trust them, you're gonna pull them aside and say, hey, help me think through this. This is what's going on in my life. I'm trying to make sense of this. Help me out here. Not recorded, not necessary for that to be public. If you actually have deep, rich,

community around you, you will have less of a desire to make a spectacle of your opinion online. That's not to say that God doesn't call people to public forms of ministry. It's not to say that we brush sin under a rug or that we don't speak about it. But it does come back Cameron to what you're pointing us to is what is the motivation? And that is the whole key to this kind of false dilemma that I set up between Matthew 5 and Matthew 6. It specifically says

not to do your acts of righteousness to be seen by them. I mean, the motivation is baked right in there. ⁓ But the challenging thing is that we can so easily deceive ourselves in this category, Nobody goes out there and blast off or condemns or promotes or something thinking, I'm doing this in order to be seen by other people. But a lot of people looking at it, it sure looks like that. So how do we...

Cameron (20:09)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (20:25)

How do we have a level-headed approach to this? It comes back to my original question. How do you have a public faith that isn't performance?

Cameron (20:31)

Yeah, well, we're very good at rationalizing what we're doing. I mean, and that's just like any addict. I think thinking about sin in terms of addiction is really, really helpful. It can give us a profound clue into what we do. And addicts are really good at rationalizing their habits and explaining away their behavior. And the same thing is true of being performative in our faith. Well, you know, I care about the public witness of the church.

or I'm trying to weed out some of the bad elements. It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. You can keep going down the list. How do we guard against that? We have to talk less, especially when we're younger. And I'm at a point now where I'm a little older, so I can finally say that with some authority and conviction, just the authority of gray hairs on my head. But I remember years ago, somebody asked Tim Keller, what advice would you give to

aspiring Christian authors. And he said, wait until you're in your 50s, wait till your fifth decade. And he's talking specifically to Christian authors. So he's not, this is not, you know, novelists. These are Christian authors. And he said specifically, life experiences are going to do their work on you and your views are going to change. But also you want maturity in your faith. And because if you do gain some notoriety, you want a character that can handle that.

And I think there's just, we live in a moment of such ambition. Get out there and make a name for yourself. A similar question came to Alistair Bagg at Trinity Divinity School when he gave the Carl F.H. Henry lecture there. And it was a very sincere question from one of the seminarians about to graduate saying, you we're told on the one hand if we want to seek a job as a pastor now that we're graduating, we need to put our best foot forward.

You know, say, here are all the great things about me. Here's what I, you know, I need probably a, you know, I'm a very driven person, need a church with a big staff and all of that. And, and Begg just said, look, when I was a boy growing up in Scotland, I played soccer and I just wanted to play. I was not nowhere near the best player on the team. And when they would come, you know, they'd have us seated in a science room and they would hand out jerseys to the people who get to play. And my attitude always was just let me play.

just let me play. I'll do anything. Just let me come out on the field and play." And he said, I'm looking for people with that attitude who are applying or looking for internships. I'm just privileged to be part of God's team. Just let me play. Just let me out on the field. I'm not necessarily Augustine. Just let me play. So I don't know if that helps here a little bit, Nathan, but just the spirit and the attitude that we have. Let's be more humble. Slower to speak is a big one, especially when we're younger. Listening more.

rather than always shooting our mouths off. I I look back, Nathan, to my early days of ministry, and I'm so grateful that most of what I was saying wasn't recorded. And I'm so grateful also for the graciousness of the people, the audiences, who endured what I had to say and gave me a chance for the man who is my mentor, John Charogé, who heard a lot of really foolish things cross my lips, but was so gentle and gracious with me.

Nathan (23:35)

Yeah

Cameron (23:56)

I benefited from that massively, I sat, mean, the hours I just sat at his feet in his office and just hearing what he had to say that made a big difference. So long answer to not really a roundabout way of not really answering your question, Nathan, but just trying to get at the spirit of the thing.

Nathan (24:12)

Well, let

me me let me me touch drive a pithy statement on you that I've been thinking about that might Some summarize some of this which is that you've heard the phrase practice what you preach. I Think most Christians have heard this and remember. Why do we say it that way? Why maybe this would bring some of the humility into it is to say how about we just preach what we practice?

Cameron (24:16)

I love your pithy statement.

Hmm.

Nathan (24:38)

So there's this assumption that we have to live up to our words. Why don't we live and then speak out of that experience? Let's just preach what we practice. It's gonna limit what we say because we don't know what we're talking about the other way around sometimes.

Cameron (24:49)

That's going to limit what we say.

Yes.

C.S. Lewis has a quote about that somewhere where he says basically, it's in the Four Loves, where he basically says, if we're not careful, we're gonna preach as though we've reached heights that we haven't. And if we get good at talking about those heights, we may deceive ourselves into thinking that we've been there.

Nathan (25:18)

let me confess. I'm getting ready to preach this weekend a sermon on the Lord's Prayer. And at one point this week, I recognized that I was studying Lord's Prayer, but not praying the Lord's Prayer.

Cameron (25:25)

Mm.

Mm-hmm. These are interesting moments, aren't they?

Nathan (25:33)

How dumb is that? And it's not to say that

I haven't prayed the Lord's Prayer before, but I just got so in the study of it that I'm like, wait a second. The purpose of the Lord's Prayer is not for me to be able to parse all the words here for you. It's for me to inhabit this as a posture of my actual life and then to share in the light of that.

Cameron (25:49)

Yeah.

So I love preach what you practice. So that's going to put a little bit of a muzzle on you. It's at least going to humble you because there are certain things that if you're, yeah, temporarily. I mean, this also assumes that you're growing in your faith. But another one, Nathan, I think this is a big one for all of us, whether we're in public ministry or not, all of us, read your Bible devotionally too. Don't just, I think my danger, Nathan, along the lines of what you were saying is,

Nathan (26:03)

Temporarily, temporarily, not not permanently.

Cameron (26:23)

with regard to the Lord's prayers, not only can I get too theoretical, but if I'm really in sort of work mode, I approach the text and think, all right, what can I do with this? Precisely wrong. It's Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, have your word, your scriptures do their work on me and open my eyes and make me receptive to it.

I mean, there are times, of course, when you're reading the Bible and you're wrestling with the text, if you have to preach on it, you're going to wrestle with the text, and you will put on your critical lenses sometimes, you'll do word studies. There's a place for all of that. But that should never replace just reading it devotionally in a doxological posture. ⁓

Nathan (27:08)

Yeah, well, and what will

happen is that the chief response to engaging scripture is usually confession, not proclamation.

Cameron (27:16)

Yeah, that's well said. Yeah.

Nathan (27:19)

So I look at this and say, good Lord, help me. more so than like, can't wait to tweet this one out. ⁓ and Cameron, I don't do things that I want to minimize. There are, there are people who do have wonderful digital public ministries. So this is not, not, we don't want to confuse the method because you can do all of this without social media. mean, the Pharisees didn't have.

Cameron (27:25)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (27:48)

YouTube channel But they were they were still so the principle is not wrapped up just in the digital format in the social media area in which we live So let's separate that out ⁓ Yeah, you could have no electricity and and mess this up just fine So there's that the flip side is before we bring this to conclusion. I want to end on Actually the the reality of because because we don't want to say don't do this when Jesus gives us a do do this side of it and

I made a I'll share my corny joke with you in this passage. So your father who sees in secret Greek word, there's crypto crypto. makes sense secret. So I, at just one point in the sermon said the sentence and your heavenly father who can see through the blockchain will reward you, which got to chuckle out of a certain age group demographic in the church. But this idea that, that God sees and God knows, let's say something about that. As we bring this to a conclusion.

Cameron (28:35)

Sure.

Nathan (28:48)

for the person I think who is out there who is faithfully day after day, ⁓ small church, small ministry, faithful family, getting up going to work this morning, just doing the thing, doing the deed, living for the Lord in a non-flashy flamboyant attention-seeking way. Maybe long-suffering in a relationship, caring for somebody who is difficult.

Cameron (29:15)

Mm. Yeah.

Nathan (29:17)

⁓

tidying up the Sunday School room after all the hooligans have spilled the markers on the floor. ⁓ Just that your father sees. God knows. There has to be a realization of that in our lives too.

Cameron (29:34)

Mm.

Nathan (29:36)

that God sees.

Cameron (29:39)

Yeah, I think a lot of the good stuff we do is earthly, in earthly terms, thankless work. And you're pouring yourself out for people as you should. We need to take to heart and internalize the fact that our Heavenly Father sees and is deeply pleased with this because it's so counter-cultural. Everything else will say, what's in it for me?

Am I being compensated for this? Is there some sort of remuneration for this? What do I get out of this? That's a very human response. And so because that's so deeply ingrained, that's the air we breathe, in order to press against it, practice is going to be vital. Prayer is going to be vital. so prayer is one of the most practical ways.

that we can keep before our minds and hearts the fact that our Father is pleased with us when we serve Him and serve others. It's the place to check our motivations and also to allow Him to speak to us. And the main place He speaks to us is in His Word, so we have to be in the Word. And then we have to be mingling with fellow believers, you know, meeting together with Him on Sundays, yes, don't forsake the gatherings or going to church.

Nathan (31:03)

Yep, by his spirit and through other people.

Cameron (31:08)

Yes, and worshiping. Worship is so, important. There's a reason it was such a massive emphasis for the early church because worship, I think that they saw more than anything else, is the central activity that reorients the heart and pulls us out of the constellation of city of man practices that will distract us, get us, yeah.

Nathan (31:31)

Me, myself, and I.

Cameron (31:38)

Worship helps us to, yeah, the me, myself, and I helps us to get the self out of the way. So yeah, more could be said there, Nathan, but yeah, you're right. I think often when we're doing events, Nathan, the people I think of in this regard are the people who are, so you go up and people hand you water, you speak, and people wanna talk to you afterwards, and everybody sees you, but what they don't see are the, they don't see the people who,

hand you the water. They don't see the people who driving you around from airports all over town and making sure that you get food or letting you stay in their homes. Vacuum this, clean everything up, set up all the chairs. That's the thankless side in some ways, but those those people are doing wonderful salt and light worshipful work that glorifies their heavenly father. And it's beautiful.

Nathan (32:14)

vacuumed the sanctuary and cleaned the windows and

You know what, let's give a practical ending to this, because I ended the sermon in this way also, is to say it would be a good practice for me, for Cameron, for everybody listening, to think of something to say, my concluding idea was we should practice sneaky righteousness. We always think of the things done in secret as bad, shady, black market, untoward. No, Jesus is saying be sneaky here.

for righteousness sake. So practice sneaky righteousness. think about, maybe think about, hey, how can I slip somebody a $20 bill? Could I buy a meal for somebody? Could I drop off? Could I leave an anonymous note? ⁓ What is something that, pray on this and think, what is an act of sneaky righteousness that I could do in the next week that would really be a blessing to somebody and do it in a way that ensures that they will never find out it was from you? And then after you do it, tell no one.

Cameron (33:18)

Mm.

Nathan (33:32)

and just delight in your Father seeing in secret. So, maybe there are some ways to practice this in some little baby step ways that will end up, think, I think you will experience the pleasure of the Lord and you will be rewarded by having a righteousness that is just between you and the Lord ⁓ and delight in that. And then as we grow in that relationship, He at times will use you in ways that are disproportionate to your actual ability so that people will glorify Him.

for what it is that he's doing in your life.

Cameron (34:04)

Wonderful, wonderful word. You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope. As always, like, share, and subscribe. And if you'd like to support us financially, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.