Can People Pleasing Ruin Your Life? Why Approval Addiction is a Challenge for us all

so hmm my me well good afternoon and welcome to crowd church my name is mad edmundson and beside me is the exceptionally talented beautiful and all-round good egg which is sally birch sally how are we doing what an introduction thank you matt i'm doing good today how are you yeah really good i figure i should do the introductions i figure after a little conversation this morning at frontline it's probably best that i do the intros right are you worried about what i'm going to say about you matt if you let me do the introduction i'll have to jump in there first next time yeah yeah see what comes out of it next time uh but no welcome to crowd church if this is your first time here big warm welcome to you uh as i said we are an online church we uh are for those that might not see the point of church but you know you want to you're kind of curious you want to find out what this is all about well that's what we're going to get into this sunday afternoon oh yes absolutely well it's brilliant to have you with us this afternoon so i do hope you feel very welcome uh please feel free to comment we'd love to hear what you have to say join in with us feel part of us this afternoon now we have got usual things coming up today so we have got matt speaking so matt is speaking about people pleasing and does people pleasing ruin your life so looking forward to that and we've got some worship as well and matt and i will be joining together again after the worship to have a little discussion about his talk and we would love you to get involved with that as well so if you've got questions comments anything that you want to say about that get involved absolutely and before you ask me here it is he says actually the button's not working you figure out what are you going to use there we go i'll try that one oh yeah almost i just got there if you don't want to comment but you do want to get in touch with us another way to do it is that you can use the whatsapp number so do send us a message via that number we would love to hear from you and if you want anything for us to pray about as well we'd be happy to do that wouldn't we matt absolutely yeah we love it when we get your prayer requests because you know why not right uh you don't have to be a christian to send in prayer requests we just pray for everybody that asks uh so do send stuff in and we would love to pray for you so yeah and do that on the whatsapp number straight away why do you do why do you do it so easily and it takes me a while i i have lots of i don't know let's hypothesize why does it i don't know maybe let's not go there hey let's not go in it's reverse for those of you that are wondering why it's so hard for me to actually be able to control my body what you can see and what i can see is reverse so it's it's a bit different that's my excuse anyway and you should definitely stick with that as an excuse people might actually believe yourself as well i don't know but they might actually believe you listen it's great that you are with us uh welcome to crowd church uh as sales said do make sure you comment and you say hi be great to see who we've got who we got in the comments actually let's have a look we've got matt as usual uh ladies and gentleman's your glamorous co-host sally butch you're glamorous apparently glamorous i like it thank you matt it's glamorous yeah and it was awesome to see everybody at frontline yeah it was sally and i were at frontline uh this morning just so you know frontline is a church in liverpool and crowd is connected to frontline and it was the first in-person service this morning uh and so sel and i went along and got to talk to the folks down there which was great it's great to see everybody so enjoyed that and if you are in liverpool and you would like to go to a local church then try frontline because we're doing our in-service in-person services i said that right yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah i mean we definitely the value of being an in-person service is so good you get to see people and sing with people and just kind of feel that fellowship but we are here for your digital church if you can't go to a church service or if you want to find out a bit more first so yeah that was really good this morning wasn't it matt to be with everybody but we're here this afternoon as well so double whammy today double whammy yeah yeah matt and sally twice in a day wow oh sorry about that there's no there's no reason uh so antoine says hey hey how you doing antoine and priscilla good to see you guys nicholas in the house hey nicola how you doing i hope you guys have had a good week well i won't play you this week uh on ketchup because we didn't have a chance to do it but what i did get from nicola uh was did i tell you it was my birthday it was matt's birthday this week uh guesses of his age please put them in the comments anybody would like to guess matt yes i was going to give a prize to someone that gets us the right age we have no idea what the price is prize is but listen i don't know if i can play this actually whether you can hear this yesterday but for some reason it didn't can you hear that send so i'll redo it yeah so this is um this is nicola singing happy birthday to me so oh i'm not sure she would want to play that but thanks matt thanks yeah i'm liking um mike connolly's guess well done mike connolly yeah 52 cheeky little tigers well done yeah yeah thanks mike me and mike used to be friends we were laughing last week we were talking about matt's upcoming birthday and the fact that matt had already planned out all his presents and knew exactly what he was getting matt were there any surprises did you get anything else uh let me see were there any surprises yeah i mean a few people want me stuff that i wasn't expecting a friend of mine in new zealand sent me some um sent me some alcohol which i have no idea what it is i've never had it before it's quite an unusual play with alcohol um yeah there's a theme actually jen bought me some gin so you know there was a little bit of alcohol which was purchased for me which was you know it's all very welcome isn't it so yeah there was a few things there was a few things it wasn't totally planned out you know like you think it was but i i did have a fantastic day so thank you very much for everybody that said happy birthday uh i did have a superb day at doing absolutely nothing it was a really lazy day uh and most enjoyable brilliant oh that's good that's what you need sometimes we hope that you've all had a good week as well and if you're in england the lockdown is sort of slightly eased this week so hopefully you are um enjoying going shopping or doing some of those things that we haven't been able to do for a long time yeah anytime soon matt yeah no no no no i did go into town no no you did i did i went into town this week uh i went in on friday because um i'll give them a shout out barbaritos they sent me a thing saying come get a free burrito on your birthday so so i did nice i went in and got my free burrito and sat and read in town for a little bit on friday it was heaving so i just sat in my little corner and left everybody alone um didn't need to buy anything i just cycled in and cycled out so yeah it was don't go to town would be my advice uh it's just crazy down there um but yeah it's good to see everybody out and about enjoying the sunshine so what's mike put here was it a surprise that liverpool scored at anfield for your birthday week yes starting early with the football bands uh you know let's not go there yep absolutely i need to come up and check it's okay for you to drink what the gin okay so yeah everyone's now wanting to come around my house uh for a bit of a gym looking forward to those invites matt let's crack open the new zealand whatever it is that you've been given i definitely think we need to have a little bit of a share of that well come try it anytime so you're more than welcome obviously but um yeah no well shall we should we jump into it i think we should okay so uh we have been working our way through mark's gospel for like it seems ever it feels like a long time every crowd livestream i was thinking about this this morning when we were talking about it from line every live stream we've done with the exception of christmas and mother's day on remembrance sunday has been our journey through mark's gospel and we are still going through it so we are going to carry on uh with our study of mark's gospel which is one of the four gospels in the new testament which sort of outlines the life of jesus and we're kind of picking up the story uh following on from what james talked about last week where jesus was arrested we're kind of getting towards the end of the book now jesus was arrested and so now this week it's the trial uh as he stands before pilate so here we go okay so this week we are looking at the trial of jesus and we are going to see how people pleasing brings out humanity in all its ugliest forms oh yes and as we go through it we are going to be asking ourselves why approval addiction is going to be a challenge for all of us what can we learn from these lessons and does people pleasing actually ruin lives that's our title question isn't it now i would like to say right here at the start that i think all of us you me we are at times people pleasers right and let's be honest it's not always a bad thing to be a people pleaser i want to please my wife for example happy wife happy life a mantra that makes a lot of sense right but it's when it goes beyond that when it brings out the worst in us it's the negative side that we've all experienced that i want to dig into now the bible tells us that fearing people is a dangerous trap i mean that's pretty clear isn't it this whole idea of addiction approval this idea of people pleasing is a dangerous trap i just love that phrase and one that we need to be aware of so how does this relate to today's passage how does it relate to the scripture of jesus being on trial well there's only one way to find out let's read it shall we very early in the morning the leading priests the elders and the teachers of religious law the entire high council met to discuss their next step they banned jesus led him away and took him to pilate the roman governor pilate asked jesus are you the king of the jews jesus replied you have said it then the leading priest kept accusing him of many crimes and pilate asked him aren't you going to answer them what about all of these charges they are bringing against you but jesus said nothing much to pilot surprise now it was the governor's custom each year during the passover celebration to release one prisoner anyone the people requested one of the prisoners at the time was barabbas a revolutionary who had committed murder in an uprising the crowd went to pilate and asked him to release a prisoner as usual would you like me to release to you the king of the jews pilate asked for he realized by now that the leading priests had arrested jesus out of envy but at this point the leading priest stirred up the crowd to demand the release of barabbas instead of jesus pilate asked them then what should i do with this man you call the king of the jews they shouted back crucify him why pilate demanded what crime has he committed but the mob broad even louder crucify him so to pacify the crowd pilate released barabbas to them he ordered jesus flogged and with a lead tipped whip and turned him over to the roman soldiers to be crucified wow right happy reading on a sunday afternoon that's today's passage and in this story i mean there's lots that we could talk about right but there are specifically three people groups that i want to look at and see how this idea of people pleasing affects the unrolling of all these events so the first group to look at are the religious leaders they are the church leaders at the time the righteous men the stand-up men the community leaders they were the people that the town kind of looked up to do you mean everyone admired them because they were men of god yet here they are lying through their teeth i mean lying in massive ways how often is people pleasing at the root of lies i mean it's a great question isn't it are we lying to please the people in front of them in front of us telling them something we think they want to hear or are we lying to make something look or sound better than it actually is so that they will think better about us or our product or our company or our service or our family or our church the next person on our list is pilot and what a dude this guy was i find him absolutely fascinating right and the lessons of leadership here are just incredible especially when you read about what he actually did i mean here is a man that knows jesus is innocent that he's been arrested because of envy i mean underline that statement in your mind pilate is a man that knows jesus is innocent but sends him off to be crucified can you imagine such a thing especially in this day and age right i mean crucifixion was well it was horrific form of death and to add to it he doesn't just send jesus to be crucified no no for good measure he sends him off to be flogged and whipped as well but jesus is innocent and pilate knows it i find this utterly bonkers i mean talk about unjust and in reality it's murder okay a powerful man who should have known better who could have done better didn't so why didn't he do the right thing why did he do that most heinous of things and condemn an innocent man and i wonder if it's the same reason perhaps that the religious leaders did it and if i take a stop and a pause here that in itself is an interesting point you see on one side you've got the church leaders the religious leaders on the other side you've got the non-church right pilate wasn't part of that church he didn't have the same religious beliefs that those religious leaders had yet they both acted in the same way in the most ugliest form of humanity condemning an innocent man to death now the text tells us that pilot asked the crowd for their opinion right and he thought they made a mistake when they answered but they just kept shouting him down and they kept shouting and shouting until pilate did what they wanted he capitulates under the pressure it's not great leadership is it i mean pilot was so concerned with public opinion that he does the exact wrong thing he wanted to please the crowd knowing that the crowd was fundamentally wrong which caused him to do the wrong thing so people pleasing stops you leading right we see that with pilot it causes you to act and do things that you know are wrong but you do them because people pleasing is more important than doing the right thing we have a word for this it's called cowardice right because it's hard to be brave when you want to please people so i've got the religious leaders i've got pilot and then i think about the third group i think about the crowd maybe just maybe it's the crowd the ordinary everyday people that are that are at the root of all of this you see a few days ago they were worshiping jesus they were praising him they were gathered to witness his miracles and hear his teaching then in an instant i mean in an instant the crowd forgot all of that and i mean all of it and they suddenly turn and they want to see him crucified i mean that's a big switch right a big change so you have pilot the so-called leader you have the religious leaders who are let's call them the key influences the instigators but did you notice that they didn't actually influence pilate the leader they didn't well i mean they influenced him a little bit but not much it was more the masses the crowd that was the key stirring up the crowd yet the crowd didn't have all the information they had the power but not the information they didn't have the facts of the trial they were just following along they'd been manipulated quite easily now i don't know if it's you or me but does this sound like some of the things that we see on social media some of the complaints we hear about fake news right one day or even in our press one day we kind of think someone is great amazing and wonderful and we love them and we dote on them and we applaud them and in the next instant we change our we shout for their downfall and we keep shouting until it happens it's cancel culture in an instant right because of something they have done wrong or at least something we think they've done wrong maybe or maybe we're not entirely sure if they did do it wrong but we heard a friend of a friend of a friend who had posted on social media so that must be right that they did something wrong some influencer somewhere kind of has manipulated the crowd to believe in a certain way and now we all cry in unison why did the crowd not tell the religious leaders to naf off right that was the right response why did they let themselves be so easily manipulated why did they want to fit in with the rest of the crowd so much that they'd lost their ability to think for themselves and you know what i see me in the crowd so we can see that people-pleasing is a cause of a number of problems in today's story there's injustice right there are good people doing crazy then there's a death of an innocent man so if we answer the question does people-pleasing ruin your life well i think it can but i think more importantly it can also ruin other people's lives now sure this may be a tad extreme i will grant you that you know i don't want to kind of over dramatize uh what's going on because you know i appreciate this is not true every time that pleasing people happens someone doesn't always have to be led away to be crucified but i do wonder if when people pleasing is at the expense of our own integrity our own values whether some part of our soul is quashed every time i wonder if sometimes the consequences of our people pleasing are also bigger than what we think a seemingly nothing statement on social media for example well i've seen that cause all kinds of issues that we don't know about that we don't talk about and so the way we get around this in our head the way we justify this is to kind of act like pilot in some respects when we find out we're part of the crowd when we find out we've been we'll just kind of go along and say well i'm just going to wash my hands with the guilt i'm going to go along with it but i'm not really party to it right but let me tell you that doesn't work does it it just doesn't we have to take responsibility we have to take responsibility for our own actions we can't just get away with that so all of that said right if i see this people pleasing in effect how do i deal with people pleasing how do i deal with it in my own life what are the lessons that i can learn from today's passage well i think there are three key things that would have helped everybody here right and we can learn from them and one of them the final one i think has been the undercurrent to everything that we've talked about so far today i think is actually the key to it all if i'm honest so the first is this the first principle make space to find knowledge now proverbs 19 2 says enthusiasm without knowledge is no good haste makes mistakes now notice that last line right haste makes mistakes we see that don't we with the crowd one minute they are worshiping christ the next minute they want him crucified haste we don't take a moment at a moment we don't take him i don't know what a mormon is but we don't take that or a moment we don't pause we jump straight in with both feet and it can cause problems right so maybe just maybe i should delay before i act before i speak before i say anything before i agree to anything maybe a delay before i repost stuff on social or before i send that email would be what the doctor ordered just a little bit of a delay it might not be long it might just be a few seconds it might be a few minutes might be a few days i don't know but i think it's gonna help right and it's gonna help me do one thing if i use that time wisely that pause wisely what's that to find knowledge to make the space to find knowledge notice the first line of that proverb enthusiasm without knowledge is no good right the crowd were enthusiastic everybody was enthusiastic but they had no knowledge and it didn't lead to any good so we need to take responsibility for knowing it's how we don't get manipulated by crazy influences trying to stir up trouble and we get knowing we get understanding by asking questions right don't just accept the facts given to you by the people that you want to please or by the crowd that you want to fit in with especially on social media don't just repost because it tickles your itch because everyone else in your tribe or in your crowd is reposting it stop don't make haste and get knowledge for yourself by asking questions find out the facts for yourself now i can't begin to tell you how important this actually is and i appreciate this is this is me speaking to me more than to anyone else watching this right now i have had to learn from this i appreciate this because i've i've changed recently um what i do share and repost on social media right it has actually affected my behavior i just take the time to question the facts and i'm glad i do because sometimes even well-meaning christians or well-meaning christian websites will post stuff that is a bit click-baity right it's a bit incendiary it's kind of the church isn't immune from this the religious leaders weren't immune from this and they've not really checked out the facts before posting it sounds good it kind of tickles their rich now i don't think any of us are immune from this right and i think it's practical advice that we can follow because the bible well let's just be clear it's fundamentally fundamentally practical isn't it and i like that so the second lesson that i can learn is maybe not hanging out as much with toxic people right so let's bring another character into this story let's look at a guy called the apostle paul before he converted to christianity he was very much a people pleaser right which led to the death of a whole bunch of christians let me tell you he was he was an instigator he was involved in all kinds of things because he was trying to fit in to please his crowd to to please his tribe his group right but then he gets converted to christianity and after his conversion he wrote this bad company corrupts good character wow that is something we should put on our mirrors bad company corrupts good character so if we head back to our story the we can think for example about the religious leaders now not everyone in that group would have had the same opinion i'm sure some of them would have had questions some of them would have known that they were breaking god's commands um to do what they were doing right it's just natural human behavior not everyone's going to be the odd enthusiast but they capitulated to the extremists so that they could fit in and i wonder in hindsight you know if they would now say that they should have walked away much earlier on in the process to sort of extract themselves from that group you see it's the people who don't listen to our opinion that shout us down constantly because of their cause no matter how noble or great those people that crowd that convinces us that wrong is right it's bad company and you know what they corrupt good character and sometimes a way to deal with people pleasing and approval addiction is to move away from the people you're trying to please a little bit give yourself a bit of space a little bit of distance and maybe just maybe let's not hang out with them as much now one of the things that i've started doing taking my own advice right was i started to unfollow people on social media specifically people that kept reposting fake news not because i didn't like them not because they weren't my friends but it removed me from the temptation to get drawn into and that that was actually very very helpful for me right it was actually helpful for me not to get drawn in it's good for my soul i'm trying not to corrupt my and i so i you know take it from me that helped right so number one make space to find knowledge number two stop hanging out with toxic people but neither of these really mean anything without the third and final point i think it's the key and it's this it's finding approval in the right places so let's go back to the apostle paul right he goes from being part of the death of christians to becoming a christian and radically changing the world but what caused that what was it that changed in him that sparked massive change in the world right well he wrote this we speak not to please man but to please god and i think therein lies the secret to his change to the success of the transformation of the world if you like he was doing what he was doing to please god and not to please man he is finding approval in all of the right places and if i head back then to our story of christ on trial then i look at that and i see that the only person who knew he was actually approved by god that did actually get their approval from the right source that was living out this whole i'm trying to please god not man thing was jesus now jesus is more concerned with doing what pleases god we're doing what we call the will of god what god wants us to do and when we understand that we're approved by god well i think it stops us seeking so much the approval of man because we've got the approval of god why do i need the approval of men now i appreciate this sounds very simple in theory and not always that straightforward to work out i will grant you that but when we seek to please him we stop living out of this need to please people so let's think about the religious leaders right i think they would have known they would have known if they was trying to please god right that obeying god's laws about lying and not giving false testimony were definitely way more important to god than what they were actually doing right pilate would have known that god was about truth and justice that god was about a different type of leadership much more than about the opinions of a crowd he would have led a different way you see finding approval in the right place in god would have made him secure as a leader it also would have meant that the crowd wouldn't as if wouldn't have capitulated in quite an astonishing way and following kind of everybody else in that crowd now as i said this is not easy to do is but i do think this could be the answer to our insecurities to our fears which is often at the root of people pleasing you know that people pleasing is kind of based on our low self-esteem is it our insecurities and our fears and need for approval sort of approval addiction and if somehow we can take our focus away from that and know that god approves of us and that he accepts us actually if our lives become about pleasing him rather than man about getting that in the right place what a difference that would make to humanity what a difference that would make to our self-esteem right and we see this in the apostle paul's life when he switched his source of approval he changed the world i mean he actually changed the history of the world in which we're living now it may be for us that we just change our own lives or the lives of the people around us we may not change that what we might do i don't know but what we don't do is we don't ruin our lives we don't quash our soul anymore in fact we start to live and breathe and feel free in a way that we've never done before because we know fundamentally god approves of us i mean that's quite astounding isn't it just say to yourself god approves of me i mean god would you help us please to live out our lives in a way that is pleasing to you and would you give us the courage to do the right thing even when we're faced with the difficult choices and the scorn of public opinion lord would you help us i ask in jesus name wow brilliant talk thank you so much matt loads to think about that we've already got a few comments but if you would like to ask some questions or put your comments in please do that now we're going to go into a time of worship now um we're going to have a song you can sing along if you know it or if you don't then just read the words use it as a time of meditation to think about what the words mean to you and this song is called overcome and there's a little bit in it that i wrote down and the lyrics say for every fear there's an empty grave for the risen one jesus has overcome so if you've got fear in your life today then think about this think about these lyrics and and the truth in this and how jesus could help you with that now the darkness fades into new beginnings as we lift our eyes to hope beyond or creation wait with an expectation to declare the reign of the lord our god we will not be moved when the earth gives way father is the one who's overcome and for everything there's an empty gray for there is a one who's overcome now the silence breaks in the name of jesus as the heavens cry let the earth respond all creation shouts with a voice of triumph to declare the reign of the lord our god gives way father is overcome shall reign forever strongholds now surrender for the lord our god has overcome who can be against us jesus our defender he is lord and he has he shall reign forever strongholds now surrender are defended he is lord and he has overcome father is overcome and for every fear there's an empty grave for there is a one who's overcome way father is someone who's overcome and for everything there's an empty grade well there we go yeah thank you so much john and anna grace for another breeze love that as always i really like that trek for every fear there's an empty grave brilliant yeah brilliant brilliant brilliant and a great talk as well well done matt thanks for that oh you're welcome too that was meant for samson's dear sorry sometimes i am cursed with a sarcastic tone of voice sorry genuinely i thought that was really great loads of practical stuff and lots for us to talk about so brilliant thank you no worries i tell you what there's no there's no case of an ego getting inflated in crowd churches there so let's just put it no well you know i'm here to help as always with with anything i can oh brilliant brilliant brilliant brilliant love it love it love it well uh yeah get right in your questions thoughts comments in the comments i see some people have put some stuff in there already uh yeah in the talk what stood out to you guys uh and what questions do you have get writing that in the comments now uh i believe it is conversation street time i think it is that time yeah you know what we need so i need some kind of conversation streak kind of intro with a little bit of jazz music or something that we can yeah that would be good maybe not jazz but yeah let's let's talk about let's talk about that we can have a little kind of yeah some graphics and stuff i think we should do a bit of that definitely yeah okay yeah i i found it really really helpful matt i think it's a tricky one for me because i would say i'm definitely a people pleaser okay um i i like people to like me and i find it really difficult if i think that i've offended someone or don't like me and i kind of then think about it all the time and think about you know how i can kind of fix that and and that's not that's not helpful to kind of be that way so following your three points i think is really is really helpful it doesn't necessarily mean that you can turn off that part of your personality no um because if you are naturally a people pleaser that's a really difficult thing to kind of to come against i thought as i got older that i would care less i don't know about some things yes about some things definitely but i still yeah i still have this kind of oh you know this need kind of people to kind of like me and things so that's that was really helpful i wondered if you could give us an example about from your life about when you've struggled with people pleasing perhaps yeah i'd say it's the same thing i think naturally i quite like it when people um like me i think we all do do i mean that's it's not a bad thing to when people like you you know um and i it's like i said at the start i think sometimes people pleasing can be a good thing you know it's good when people do like you it means you're doing something right if all if everybody thinks you're a complete nutter then there's there's probably there's probably something to that do you mean and we need to have a little look at that um so like q i like it when um when people like me i think where i first started to notice this was actually in business with um with clients and you we had a company at the time where it was quite service oriented and so you're always really twitchy about clients that didn't like you if they stopped liking you during the project because ultimately they they paid you during me yes and and so you were always kind of like i need to please all of these clients but i think as i've grown older one of the things i've learned in business which i think is carried on over into life a little bit is actually i'm not they're going to be clients for whatever reason that don't like me um and some of that is my fault some of that is their fault but that's just the law of humanity in some respects and so um i would say it's been the biggest lesson i've learned in business the sign of a mature business is to understand actually some clients you know if i go down those three points they they apply in business just as much as they play in the real world and so um and so yeah that for me has been a big big learning curve would be in that whole area right there okay brilliant thank you i'm just having a little look at the comments here i know nicola put some comments in a little bit earlier on about um that she struggled in the past with tying yourself up and not she describes it trying to please everyone making herself ill and i know and i know nicola quite well and so i know nicola that you were the sort of person that would you know do anything for anyone and that's a brilliant attribute to have and i'm not suggesting you should change that but sometimes you know if you do that to the detriment of your own health to the detriment of your own well-being um that's not a good thing i think lots of people kind of get stuck in that that feeling if i say no to something um you know that is that person still going to accept me if i you know so i think actually learning to say no to things is a really is a really good and healthy thing yeah yeah it is it is matt here hasn't he uh and i agree with you matt people-pleasing is good if you do it to make them feel good it's not good if you do it to get acceptance and i think that's a really interesting it's a really interesting split isn't it because there's this really interesting thing in christian circles and let's just call it serving right as christians we all like to serve it's part of the christian faith is serving and so doing stuff that in effect costs you to do right which is what it affects services and servitude is um is actually part of the christian faith uh but again i think we just have to look at our motives as to why we're doing what we're doing do you mean yes absolutely and i i don't know what what do you think on that side of serving things yeah i kind of agree i think serving is really important you know if none of us did then you know who would help the person in need or who would kind of you know do the things that need to be done but sometimes we do it with the wrong attitude don't we if you know i'm just going to say yes to everything and do more and more and more and more um and then we can be doing it for the wrong reasons that actually is going to cause us harm and not be helpful for other people because then we get resentful don't we and then we start thinking ah you know i've done this and i've done that and i haven't nobody's kind of thanked me and and then we get into kind of doing things for the wrong reasons and i think some people in the past might have fallen into the trap saying yes to everything that they've been asked to do because they want to serve and then actually to the detriment of perhaps their own family then you know not there they need to be or or for themselves for their health and things so i think there is definitely a balance to be had here of yes doing things to help other people not being selfish but also it's okay to say no sometimes yeah it is it is i think the thing that stood out to me the most from this story because when i was reading and prepping you know and you're reading through and you've got the jewish leaders you've got pilot and you've got the crowd and they're all doing it and you're looking again these are all crazy and so then you kind of spot actually everyone's trying to please everybody else in the midst of all yes okay let's talk about people-pleasing the thing that stood out to me the most was pilate um yes the roman governor the leader that jeremy the man who knew christ was innocent yet did what the crowd wanted he did entirely the wrong thing yeah because of his fear isn't it his fear of what would they think what would they do if he did the right thing make him do completely the wrong thing yeah and i think i think anybody who's in a position of leadership any kind of leadership whether it's church leadership whether it is um you know work whether it's in a community whether it's whatever it is do you mean wherever you are whatever kind of leadership there is there is a temptation i think to to do this sort of people people-pleasing aspect do i mean when actually leadership calls i think sometimes for you to be brave and um and i said that i don't think you can be brave and people please at the same time and i think that's when you know it's going yeah when you're compromising your own values yes yeah what what would you get in the comments here i'm matt says i'm in my absolute flow when in service of those i see i can help and it nourishes my self-worth and purpose yeah yeah yeah i mean there's actually a lot of a lot to be said for that actually uh we should probably do a live stream on serving at some point because that would be quite an interesting thing to and i think that can give you a real energy can't it and purposely as well yeah definitely yeah absolutely absolutely sharon i like what one john 4 19 we love because he first loved her received the love give the love yep yep love that scripture uh one of my gifts is acts of service so it's hard sometimes to see where the line is yeah i totally agree and like uh like they always used to say to me at bible school it's better to have a little wildfire than no fire at all do you mean i'd probably rather serve a little bit too much than not do any serving if that makes sense balance yeah absolutely and yeah lots of really tough things to kind of think about there a really good reflection to have um like fear of people you know that's kind of one of the big things isn't it we were talking about that song saying about um about jesus overcoming fear and i think we are so afraid aren't we of what people will think of us but actually you know it doesn't matter what they think of us easy to say difficult to actually live in [Laughter] that's that's basically the nutshell right there isn't it it's like we know what to do but then doing it is an entirely different thing because circumstances and and pressure and so on and so forth yeah absolutely but even just your even just your tip there of sort of saying you know pause think reflect that's so important isn't it and that that can just stop us that instant kind of perhaps the wrong thing in that moment so yeah brilliant shall we um shall we have a little look at nicolas question yeah yeah wow nicola at this time after we've had a few sort of the deep and meaningful questions nichola likes to give us um a little nudge in the right direction of something a bit lighter so nicolas questioned today and it's worth saying sorry matt before you carry on sal i saw your question on facebook but nicola got precedence on the text messages it's just the way it worked out this week sorry dude nicholas question is would you rather 30 butterflies instantly appear from nowhere every time you sneeze or one very angry squirrel appear from nowhere every time you clock the wonderful question is this nicola you have had some thinking time this week my goodness yeah i think you need to get out a little bit more nicole i'm not gonna lie got to be the butterflies an angry squirrel is a terrifying prospect i mean imagine a poor person who's got covered and has got a continuous cough and every time they're coughing yeah you know an angry squirrel is appearing that's just terrifying no thank you whereas butterflies it should be like being a disney princess wouldn't it if you sneezed and butterflies appeared a disney princess yeah this is what we're living in a disney movie i have enough issues with squirrels in my garden okay i'm i i i'm sorry i'm now going to go to matt's question um which children's tv character do you most identify with and do they possess any christ-like attributes um okay i'll go with banana man because i wasn't expecting this like jesus he's ever alert to the call to justice wow well i was gonna go with he-man and i was not gonna say any reason why oh no wow okay skeletal maybe oh and on that note let's watch ketchup shall we hello and welcome to this week's sunday catch up for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is josh edmondson i am one of the members of the team here at crowd church and i'm a student at the university of saint andrews studying physics if you have never watched the stream before welcome it's so cool to have you here let me just explain what catch up actually is every week we get in pictures and videos from members of the community and we put them up in this little segment called catch up just so that we get to see what everyone else is actually getting up to in usual fashion i will kick off something i have done this week so this week was my first week leading my university hall impact group at most universities across the uk there is something called the christian union which is just a society essentially but it's all about sort of evangelical outreach at universities and things like that and so within the cu they have something called impact groups which are groups based in university halls and the idea is that you reach out to the other people living in that hall to share with them the love of christ that's pretty much what the impact groups are for i had the first session this week which i was leading and yeah it was really cool really looking forward to see what god does with that i also have a fun physics fact for you this week and i promise it is actually quite a fun one normally when i say that my sister rolls arrives or my family groans but this is actually quite interesting turns out tractor beams are a real thing if you've ever watched a sci-fi movie that has aliens in it or something you'll have seen tractor beams before which is just like that beam of light that the the ufos would use to pick up a person and zap them into their ship i thought they were completely fictional but no at the university of saint andrews there is a research group that specifically uses tractor beams to hold particles in place which i thought was just really cool it doesn't look like you'll be able to use these tractor beams to lift anything or yourself into a flying spaceship anytime soon though unfortunately they only seem to really work with things that are about a thousand millionths of a meter so like a single molecule of water kind of size so you know we've got a bit of a ways to go but i thought that was quite interesting anyway that's enough from me let's get on to the catch-up clips back to master the liar say we cover inspiration i know you're wondering what is integration you're about to find out integration is the opposite of differentiation when we integrate the curve y equals f of x come with a new equation to work out the area underneath the curve got the b and the a dx always in respect to dnx that's important that's how we integrate so now you know what's up what's practically used to me today lies absolutely nothing great thank you very much for sending all those in it's so cool seeing what everyone is getting up to if you want to have your stuff on catch up you can send in your pictures and videos either to the whatsapp number that you would have seen on the bottom of the screen throughout this stream wow that was a lot of rhyming or you can use crowd catch up on instagram that's all from me this week thank you very much for watching and i will catch you next time very good so now i know about differentiation what is it with the math and physics flipper neck we go back to puppies and kittens please it definitely seems to be a theme doesn't there uh so elijah's teaching is about math joss about physics uh and josh bless him he's full of cold there so ah yeah that's why he was doing that deep croak although apparently i've had a bit of a deep croaky voice according to matt sounding a bit weird but um thank you josh uh and well done for smashing her driving theory sam i know brilliant that's my daughter has passed her driving theory test this week she's had it planned twice before and it's twice been cancelled because of lockdown so finally she managed to do it and pass so brilliant news well are you going to loan her the car that's the question well she got past the practical first so yeah but once maybe if i need her to drive me somewhere or pick me up that's how it works right that's how it works i remember when josh passed his test and we got him put on the insurance it was an eye-watering amount of money so just brace yourself that's all i'm saying just just brace yourself so that was ketchup so thanks guys for doing that and thanks for joining us week uh next week we are going to be carrying on our series through mark's gospel uh both sally and i will be back to host and like i said at the start if you're around i will be at frontline next week doing the talk in the morning so the 10 30 service if you want to come join us uh in liverpool you're more than welcome be great to meet you there uh but i think that wraps it up from me sell anything from you no i think that's great i hope everyone has a brilliant week let's hope we get a bit more sunshine and yeah just enjoy a little bit more freedom absolutely absolutely thanks everybody thanks for being part of the stream uh thanks for all your comments and questions and interactions do come and join us again next week sunday at 4 p.m as we carry on just live streaming church it's awesome oh and make sure you kind of connect with us on facebook and instagram and email and all those kind of things it'd be great to see you there so thanks oh yeah thanks mr matthew cox thanks nichola thanks sarah everybody's saying thanks good to see everybody thanks so much everyone thanks for being with us have a good week see you soon bye as we lift our eyes to a hopion now the silence prays all creation shouts with a voice of triumph to declare the reign of the lord our god we will not be moved when the earth gives way and for everything there's an empty grey for there is a warmth is overcome who can be against us jesus our defender he is lord and he has overcome sue anderson our god has overcome who can be against when the earth gives way for there is a one who's over curve and for every fear there's an empty grave