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.
“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.
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