Trip Lee warns Christians that serving only to show off is ‘poison’ that 'robs God of His glory'
Christian rapper Trip Lee warned against the “dangers” of only serving God to please people and to earn applause or “reality show righteousness.”
“One of the reasons it's not good to do everything to be seen by others is because we're robbing God of His glory,” Lee said at the Awaken conference held at Watermark Community Church's young adult ministry The Porch in Dallas, Texas.
The 34-year-old, whose real name is William Lee Barefield III, explained that if someone is focused on glorifying God when they're giving to the needy, serving and praying, they will be less likely to worry about how the “eyes of other people” are perceiving their actions.
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“A lot of us just like to have eyes on us. … We all get to star in our own poorly produced reality shows. … Part of the danger is that desire to be seen by other people [or] to have the eyes of other people on us, that can make it into our spiritual lives too,” warned Lee, who formerly worked as a youth pastor at Concord Church in Dallas, Texas.
“When we are obsessed with the eyes of other people on us, when someone is watching you, doesn't that change how you act when you know someone’s watching? … It changes what you’re thinking.”
Lee said it’s not wrong to serve others in public, but when the sole purpose that a Christian has for serving is to look holier in front of others, that is when a person crosses into “dangerous” territory.
“When we begin to do something for other people watching us, it can poison what we're doing," Lee said. "It's very difficult to be worried about the eyes of other people and worried about the actual goal in hand at the same time.”
Pointing the audience to Matthew 6, Lee explained that Jesus is not just concerned with what a Christian does, but Jesus also values the motives that come from a person’s heart.
“Jesus wants more from us than just doing the right stuff. Jesus also wants us to do it from the right heart. He's not just interested in us going down a checklist. And when something doesn't come from the right heart, He's going to tell us it also doesn't produce the right result,” he said.
“And when we do good things for bad reasons, we rob ourselves of good rewards.”
Lee believed that many Christians are more concerned with how the public eye views them at all times, rather than with how God views them all the time.
“God sees what is done in secret and that should be enough. That's the main thing. No, you won't get that praise, but God sees. Sometimes we feel like: ‘I've been laboring. Nobody appreciates me. Nobody sees.’ What Scripture reminds us about is that God sees,” Lee said.
“I want you to know God sees. … Your ‘labor is not in vain.’ God sees.”
Lee believes it's vital for Christians to honor God even when nobody's watching because He never stops watching. "There can be something scary about the fact that God sees."
"God sees what is done in secret. What does your life look like in secret? … Usually, when we see a secret, we think of scandalous things. Wouldn't it be amazing if what happens in your life in secret is not scandalous, but it's praiseworthy?” Lee said.
It’s important for Christians to avoid hypocrisy, he added, which includes working to look righteous in front of other people to impress them and get attention.
“‘Don't be like the hypocrites today who love to pray standing in synagogues.’ Here's a reminder: you can love prayer and still not love God. Some of us pray because we love ourselves so much and we want other people to love us as much as we do,” Lee said.
“This says something about the human heart that we can be so self-centered that we can even make service about ourselves. We can even make praying to God, which is supposed to be an acknowledgment that we need Him, that we're weak, we need Him. We can turn that into something about ourselves as well.”
Lee's comments were part of the 2022 AWAKEN: The Rehearsal Christian Conference, held Sept. 3-5 in Dallas, Texas, and hosted by Watermark Community Church and shared on YouTube Tuesday.
Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: nicole.alcindor@christianpost.com.
