Pressure to Perform

Automatically generated from the video captions and lightly tidied, so expect the odd misheard word.

My family and I are not very outdoorsy type of people. We don't like outdoors. Our idea of going outdoors is actually to go to the cinema. That's what we consider going to the outdoors because actually anytime we go to the outdoors there always seems to be some sort of So one time we went we were like oh we should go see the Baron. So we live close to the Baron. So we're like all right, let's go see it and we get out there and we get out of the car and we start walking towards them and as we were doing that it started to rain.

And we just looked at each other when we I think it's best we go to the cinema. And we went to the cinema and we didn't do that. Then another time this is maybe a couple years back maybe four or five years ago. We were in Dublin and then our family got invited to go on a forest walk. Right? So you can only say no so many times.

So this time we said yes but honestly cannot be 100 okay let me be truthful. It was a church that I worked for and the working group was from that church. So when I got asked I was like I got to go otherwise my senior leader will come and have a word with me. So I was like we're going out but not to the cinema. So we went out and whilst we whilst we were there it was pleasant. It was actually nice.

You know when you're up in those Wicklow the air actually you know you know kind of smells quite nice and it's fresh there's a good breeze. So we were all having a good time up until we lost our 9-year-old son. So, you do what you naturally do as parents, right? We started to blame each other. And I said, he was with you. My wife goes, respectfully, he was with you the last time.

I was minding these three, so it's on you. You know, so I tell you, after the blaming, the panic starts to set in. You know, it's one thing to lose your son like in the shopping mall, right? You know, you can tell maybe the security guard, you know, might just to close the doors. But this was up in the mountains. Just full of like beautiful useless trees.

And the light was fading at this time. So, we probably said in missing him around maybe 4:00, and the light's going down. So, we start to panic. I mean, we called in anyone we could get to try and help. Like we called the guardi, we called the mountain rescue, we told anybody we found up there, we got another walking group and said, could you come and help us cuz our son's So, he was missing for what felt like 5 But it was maybe 2 hours or so. So, we were just running around, you know, scouring the whole mountain looking for him.

And then, we got a phone call. And the phone call said, "We found your son." I was like, yeah! We were all elated because we had found But then, the next question came. "So, where are you?" And I said, oh, let me look around and figure out where I am." So, I looked and I didn't know where I was. I didn't know where I was. So, I double back.

I was like, "Where am I?" The question came again on the phone, "Your son is here waiting for you. Could you come back? You know, he's a bit shaken, so could you come back? So, where are you?" I look around again and I was like, "Honestly, I don't know where I am." I take out my phone, newsflash, Google Maps doesn't work in the forest. Like, it couldn't tell me where I was. So, I was actually lost myself.

I didn't know it. So, this leads us to a story today of being lost, but you actually do not realize that you are lost. So, this is where our story comes in. So, we're continuing this story from last week. This is a story that's commonly called the prodigal son. So, we read about this young man who essentially went to his father and said to his father, "Hey, Dad, you're kind of taking too long to die there.

You know, you know, I can't just wait for you to die and then I'll be gifted, you know, my share of the inheritance from the will. Could you just Could you just give it to me?" So, the father gave it to him and he goes away, goes to the big smoke in Dublin and he spends it all on reckless living, right? And then he began to be in need, then he comes back. And then there's elation, there is celebration, but this is where you think the story should stop, right? Because if you think about it, in Luke chapter 15, there are these three stories that Jesus A shepherd loses one sheep. He goes to look for it, he finds it, and there's celebration.

Same with the coin. The lady loses a coin. The coin's found, there's celebration. Then again, you go to the son, right? The son is lost. The son is found.

And then there is celebration. So, this should be the end of the story. But the story doesn't end there. So, if you've got your Bible, take out your Bibles. If you've got them on your smartphone, that's okay, too. Or if you just want to sit there, just kind of look at the screen, that's all right, too.

Or you can just listen in as I read the story. So, starting in verse 25. Meanwhile, the older son was in the When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So, he called one of the servants and asked him, "What was going on?" "Your brother has come home." They replied. "And your father has killed a fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound." The older brother and refused to go in. So, that's sort of like weird when you ever you have such a drastic contrast like that.

Because we said it was lost, found, celebrate. Lost, found, celebrate. Lost, found, celebrate. But this is lost, found, and angry. This is almost like Genesis. In Genesis, you've got this pattern again.

Like God creates something, you know, let there be light, and there was light, and God said it was good. And then you go to day two, he creates something, and it was good. He goes day three, he creates something, it was good. And there's this cycle of good, good, good, good, good until there is one time when God said something wasn't good. This is when the man was alone. And that teaches us that we are created to be in community together.

So, that's just a free one. That's an aside, you know, so you get that one for free. It's a bonus. But then, in 28, the older brother became angry and refused to go in. So, his father went out and pleaded with But he answered his father, "Look, all these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you have never Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours, who has squandered your property with prostitutes, comes home, you kill a fattened calf for him." "My son," the father said, "you were always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead. For this brother of yours was dead and is alive again, and he was lost and is found." the title of my sermon today is called pressure to perform. So, pressure to perform. When I was starting dating with my now wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, we started on the 3rd of February. When I go back in hindsight, that was not a good choice to have asked her out on the 3rd of February.

Do you know why? In a couple weeks, it was Valentine's. And I was like, "No, man, you should have asked her out on the 15th." You know, you know, so notes, guys, if you're single, don't ask out a lady just before Valentine's. Do it straight after the 15th day. And it gives you a whole year to prepare. So, I'm not very good at buying gifts.

And I was now afraid that if I don't buy the right gift, she's going to dump me. So, I had this pressure to perform. Oh my goodness. It was just crippling. So, then what I did was I just went to the shop and I bought everything, I tell you. I became almost bankrupt.

I mean, I went in and I was like, "Chocolates, I want Teddy bears, I want those. Jewelry, I want those." I mean, I bought so many things for her that when I gave it to her, she's like, "Oh my goodness, you didn't have to. You didn't have to." She regrets that because she's never got anything since. Valentine's is gone. She's like, "Oh man, I shouldn't have said that." But anyway, that's that's for her to regret. But we all have pressure to perform, right?

It's because we live in a society that values us by what we do. Just think about it. Those who they're going to be doing the Leaving Cert, it's going to It literally be like, "What points did you get?" Or if you don't get these points, you don't go to university. If you're working, oh I used to hate these ones. You'd have a yearly review, and you go in there, they're like, "Oh, just relax. It doesn't matter, just relax." But you all know that it matters because it affects your bonus.

And if you do really bad, you get fired. Or when it comes to, you know, exams in school, oh man, do you know those teachers? I'm sorry if you're a Like random kind of pop tests from They're bad. Don't do that. Like you like you're just going to school to have a good time and the teacher just comes and sort of like shuts the door and it's like, "Oh, random quiz." What? They're just measuring us by our And here's the thing.

Because everything else around us is just measuring us for what we do, we bring that to church. We bring that when it comes to God. So, we start going, "God, I need to perform for you. I need to attend church so many times so that you are happy with me. God, I need to give so much so that you are happy with me. God, I need to serve so much so that you are happy with me." But then, you've got this pressure, right?

Cuz how much is enough? Well, when do you know you've given God enough? Is it 100? Is it a 500? Is it a thousand? No.

How many times do you have to attend church for you to go, "Ah, God, I think you're happy with that." It is tough. You don't know. And this is where parable comes in of you cannot perform for God for him to love you. And here's an uncomfortable truth that I'm going to say. In this parable or this story, there are two brothers, right? The younger brother, where do you find the younger brother?

You will find the younger brother at the pub, right? Maybe at the club or maybe in Vegas, right? That's where you will find the younger brother. That's outside the church. But I ask you this, where do you find the older brother? You find the older brother in church.

The older brother is not going to be clubbing or in pubs. The older brother is in church. But the older brother you're going to see is angry. The older brother thinks that God owes them. The older brother is constantly with other Christians, and you find them in the church. So, my question for you today is, how are you relating to God?

Are you performing for God so that he will see you and owe you? I'm just going to go through now the parable so like in a systematic way, kind of line by line. And then you've got this thing, right? Where the older brother, he comes home. And when he comes home, he hears music. So, one thing I need to know for instance in 26, he calls one of the servants and asks "What's going on?" So, already the line of questioning is not good because why didn't he just go into the house and figure it out himself?

But he kind of knows. So, he questions. He questions one of the servants. And then the servant kind of happily replies, "Your brother has come." He replied. "And your father has killed the fattened calf." Oh, no, not the fattened calf. If it was the thin one, right?

I think he would understand. But he killed the fattened calf because he has him safe and sound. And now here There go. The brother became angry and refused to go in. So one of the things I want to do with this sermon is not to say you are older brother, you are younger brother, or not to say what you are. I don't want to label anything, but I just wanted to be a way to evaluate for yourself.

I'm not a very DIY person. Like I'm really terrible when it comes to DIY. I mean my nightmares would be me sort of like receiving IKEA furniture and have to put it together. I mean that's my nightmare. I'm telling you my children will tell you because it takes me, I kid you not, like 4 hours or give or take to assemble something that takes like, you know, 30 minutes for any kind of average competent person. I'll tell you this story.

One time my son was like, "Dad, could you help me just put up these shelves? I want to put up my records. Can you just put up these shelves? I just need to put two screws, right? One on either side." I'm like, "Ah, son, I think I can do that one." So I go to our next door neighbor. I was like, "Hey, can I can I can I have your power drill so I can just get these screws in?" So I go get this power drill I put one screw.

So I was like, "Yeah, I got the left side in." And then for the right side it kind of went in just half way. And then the other half I could not for the life of me get it in. And my son is like, "Dad, you can't leave it like this." So then I was like, "Ah, okay." So I went back to our next door neighbor. I was like, "Please, could you help me?" So our next door neighbor, he's very handy man, and he comes over and with a power drill, just kind of like with one hand he just goes bam. He gets it in. Can you just forget about the Just like the embarrassment.

Just the embarrassment. So, DIY is not my thing. So, the other day I was walking around the house and I saw a carbon monoxide you know, detector, one of those making a funny sound saying that you need to replace the you know, the I'm not a DIY. So, I'm like, "Oh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?" so, I got my wife to do it. No, I didn't.

The reason I bring that up monoxide is they say it's tasteless, right? It's breathless, odorless. You cannot detect it just with your nose. So, you need something that can detect it. So, this is the same thing with this kind of elder brother syndrome is what I'll call it. You can't just detect it.

But, I'm going to give you signs that maybe will help you detect it for yourself, right? So, the first sign is there's just this anger, right? There's just like this anger. And at this point, right, the anger has manifested, right? The anger has just reached boiling point at this point. But, before it was probably just a little bit of kind of maybe neediness.

Because if you've got the pressure to perform, guess what? You're going to be needy. You know, you do something, you'll be like, "Is that good enough? Is that good enough? Is that good enough?" And when you don't get the validation that you need, then it will burst into anger. So, it's like, are you just being who you are?

Are you comfortable being who God created you to be? Or are you constantly measuring yourself? Like when you put up a post on Facebook, if you don't get like three likes, like that just ruins your day because that post didn't perform the way that you wanted it to perform, so then you take it down and you put another one with a different angle. It's like that to perform is not good for you. But here's the thing, so that's the thing, do you have that just that anger? And like I'm saying, it doesn't necessarily just show itself as anger.

It usually will show itself as kind of cynicism. You know like you just have like a negative attitude. Like it's like you know, nothing is kind of good. It's like you know, have you ever kind of met a person who's always down on, you know, the current generation? In my time, you know, we used to do this. In my time, you know, we used to walk to school.

And in my time, we didn't have feet and we still made it to school. But you guys have got like school buses and you even can't make it to school, right? It's like you just have this kind of Debbie just on the current. It's like just this disposition that's not right. And then like on the next slide, Oh yeah, so this is just kind of I just wanted to show you. And then on the slide after that, All right, yeah.

So this is a good one here. So when it comes to So the things to detect, right? He answered his father, "Look, these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders." So that word slaving is very important because it actually has this connotation of it's even below the hired help. Remember we got sons, we got servants, and this like slaving is even below. Like this guy felt like it was a chore to be around his father. And sometimes in church it can start to feel like that.

You feel like you have to give, you have to attend, you have to serve, you have to pray, you have to you know, to fast. You have to read your Bible. And when you just feel that having to do stuff, it's already a sign that things aren't right. Cuz it's not like that you have to give, you get to give. It's not that you have to fast, you get to fast. It's not that you have to pray, you get to pray.

Just think about it. You get to communicate with God and he listens. What a privilege that is. I mean, God could have just done stuff himself. He didn't even need to involve us. Like, you know, like when you read the Bible, there's this guy I can't think of the term.

I've got I've got the term in my original language. Shorna, you know, it's like when everybody you know, listen football, everybody kind of does all the passes, you know, they do all the intricate through balls, and then you have the striker at the end. All they have to do is just kind of, you know, just move a leg and they score, right? This is like us when it comes to God. Like God kind of does everything, but yet he just involves us in the end, you know, to share the privilege. Just think about Moses.

Right? God could have parted the Red Sea But he goes to Moses, "Hey, just use your staff, right?" And then Moses does it. Why? Because it's a privilege, you know, for Moses to do that. God didn't have to do that, but he involves him. This is the same thing when it comes to just you know, things in church, you things in life.

You don't have to do stuff, you get to do stuff. So, when you just have that kind of attitude of like, "Oh, I have to do this." That might be a sign that something is not right. That maybe that carbon monoxide is starting to infuse stuff in your house. And then the second one on the next slide Yeah, so it doesn't get to do this. We get to do this. And then we go to the next one.

So then the next one is this one. Even, right? So yet you have never given me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. Right? So the first one is you feel like that you have to do it like things like a chore. Like I mean I like if I ever hear from someone like on that one like my kids go, "Oh, I have to take out the bins.

Oh, I have" No, no, no, you don't have to do that, but because you're part of the family, you get to do stuff. And then the second one, so even a young goat. So what this means is like is this idea of you believe that God owes you. All right, so that's what this older brother believed. He believed that his father owed him for what he had done. And sometimes this is like you know one's walking around going, "God owes me.

Oh, God owes me." No, it's not like that. It'll come up usually like in a crisis. Right? You're about to lose your job. Your health is maybe starting to fail. Things are not going right.

And then you start to just see it kind of sip in and just start to go, "God, how could you let this happen to And the idea being, "God, I've done so much for you. Why would you let me get fired? Why would you let that person be mean to me? Why are you not answering my prayers?" Because you're believing that God owes you. So those are the two sides. So you think that life is a chore and you think that God owes you.

And then the third this one is like it's a comparison one. So, when you start seeing yourself just compare comparing yourself like you go like in verse 30. "But when this son of yours, who has squandered your property with prostitutes, comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him." Just think about it. In this whole parable, we're not told what the younger son does when he goes away to the village country. We're not told anything about But this guy makes sure that the father knows what was perhaps going on with the son. It's like "Look at me compared to the younger son.

I'm good." So, now you've got this comparison. So, again, this is the thing like when you start comparing yourself to other Christians, maybe you'll be "Why is he preaching? Why not me? Why is that person singing? Why not me? Like everything then becomes a comparison, and you just have this so like negative spirit.

That might be a problem that you have maybe a bit of this kind of older brother syndrome. Because here's another thing as well that people often kind of get wrong about this whole parable here. It was actually for the older brother. I know this parable is often called the parable of the prodigal son or the parable of the lost son, but really the parable is more about the older brother. He's the main character cuz in verse one of chapter 15, you read this. "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus." "But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Then Jesus told them this parable.

And then when you actually go to verse 11, that Sorry, can you go back to the previous one actually? Then Jesus told them this parable. So, these three parables, they're really one in the same. So, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and this parable that we're reading, they're really one in the same. They're just saying the same thing. It's like when Pharaoh in Genesis has two dreams, they're really one in the same.

This is the same. These three parables are really one and the same. But you know, when you go to verse 11, Jesus continued, "There was a man and he had two sons." So, we already know that this parable was about two sons. And it's really about the older brother. So, in 28, the older brother became angry and refused to go in. Right?

So, so the parable is really about the older brother because that's the one that is really hard to detect. So, I think this parable really should be called the parable of the older brother, or you could say the parable of the two lost sons. But it's really focusing on the older brother because he's the one with the issue that's really a bit hard to detect. But in verse 28, you read, "The older brother became angry and refused to go in." So, his father went out and pleaded with him. So, here's the younger son needed repentance. And the same goes for the for the older son.

And here's the thing. Both for the older and the younger, performance wasn't going to fix it. The younger son kept looking at his past, his regrets. That won't fix it. The older brother kept looking at what he had done, the good that he had done. So, they're all relating to the father based on performance.

And that's not right. They should be relating to the father based on relationship. So, for so, for myself and my wife, just to like close it off, we know we are in trouble. We know our marriage is in trouble when we start compare notes, right? When we start to count records. So, when we start to go I took the kids to school this time.

I washed the dishes. I Like, when we start to list everything we have done, we know we in trouble. Because no amount of sitting down and dividing up the chores and saying, "Okay, so these are the 50 things that you do, and these are the 50 things that you do. Let's make sure it's all equal." No, no, no. When we get in trouble, we know that it is the relationship that's in trouble. It's not the chores that's the problem, it's the relationship.

So, then we intentionally say to each other, "We need to spend time together." Because relationship comes before And performance follows from relationship. It's not that performance is not important, but it follows out of a relationship. Like, I want to do good things for my wife, not for her to approve me and not to doubt me. No, but because we are in a relationship. This is the same thing with God. Performance comes after relationship.

All these things as I say you get to You get to serve. You get to pray. You get to read your Bible because that's after relationship. So when we get in trouble we're like we need to spend time We need to set date night together. I just need to hear from you and you hear from me. This is the same when it comes to God.

You might be struggling with the elder But the way to fix it is not to perform It is to look at the relationship. So you need to spend time with God. And the thing that fixes relationships is communication. You need to with God. And when it comes to communicating with there are two ways you can communicate. When we talk to God it's prayer.

When God talks to you primarily is the Bible. So you need to spend time in your Bible. I would even recommend the book of Luke. It's a really good book to start And here's the thing maybe it's start maybe you're not familiar with the Bible and maybe it's so Greek to you. But here's the thing. Quantity makes quality.

The more you read it the better you start to understand. Like for instance when I first started to look a little bit of for of Gaelic and hurling I didn't understand Like even the scoring system was different. Like there were two numbers on the screen for one team. I was like what's going on there? But the more you watch it the more you understand. And this is the same when it comes to a relationship with God.

Read your Bible more and more and invest in relationship, not