Mike Breaux - Freedom From People Pleasing (01/13/2026)
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Summary:
In this message from Acts 14, Mike recaps the explosive growth of the early church through the power of the Holy Spirit and dives into Paul and Barnabas’s ministry in Lystra, where a miracle heals a lame man but leads to wild crowd swings—from worshiping them as gods to stoning Paul nearly to death. The core idea is that true followers live for God’s approval alone, deflect praise to Him, and persevere with joy because Emmanuel—God with us—is always present in every high and low. Ultimately, knowing God’s constant presence fuels resilient faith and courage to make goodness attractive in a new year.
Welcome and New Year Greetings
All right, happy New Year, everybody! Great to see you all. Welcome to Lakepointe, and thanks for showing up today. I want to welcome all of you who might be joining us online today; I’m so grateful for you, as well as all of our campuses. We have so many cool campuses going on around here. Would you guys help me welcome all of them today? Mesquite, Forney, Firewheel, East Dallas, North Dallas, Rockwall, man, love all you guys! And a special welcome to all of you who might have shown up to one of our Christmas services and decided to come back and check this out in January. I’m so glad that you’re here and hope that you will find this place to be a real home for you.
We’ve got so many awesome things, as you’ve seen, kicking off here this month. Groups are launching, students are regathering, and a super important night of prayer and worship is happening on January 22nd. Pastor Josh is going to be kicking off a new series and a new weekly podcast in just a couple of weeks. Man, I can’t wait to see what God does in and through all of us in 2025.
My name is Breaux, by the way, and I get to be on the teaching team here. We’ve been jumping in and out of the book of Acts for months now, and we’re going to continue to do so throughout this year. We’re going to land in chapter 14 today, so if you’ve got a Bible, you can turn to chapter 14 of Acts. Or if you have an app that you use or want to follow along on the screens, we’ll have that as well.
Jesus' Lasting Impact
You know, when normally someone dies, their impact on the world immediately begins to fade. Somebody wrote that just 20 years ago, the world had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, and Steve Jobs, and now we’ve got no jobs, no cash, and no hope. That’s not true, but everybody leaves some kind of legacy, right? But catch this: Jesus' impact was greater 100 years after his death than even during his life. After 500 years, his influence had absolutely exploded throughout the ancient world; after a thousand years, his legacy laid the foundation for much of Europe and eventually this country. And after 2,000 years, he has more followers in more parts of the world than ever before, and it’s because of what happens in the book of Acts.
Quick Recap of Acts
Now, I thought that since we’re starting a new year together and some of you might be totally unfamiliar with where we have been, let me just do a really quick kind of five-minute recap to get us to where we are today. Acts is the fifth book in the New Testament section of the Bible. It’s right after those books that are called the Gospels, which just means the good news about Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They’re all about what Jesus did, who he was, what he said, who he hung out with, who he encountered, the lives he touched, the miracles he performed to validate what he said about himself. And then the book of Acts picks up after the resurrection of Jesus.
Now, Luke is the author of this book, and Luke was a physician and a meticulous historian who was directed by God’s Spirit to write all of this down. You know, one of my favorite names for Jesus that we talk about during the Christmas season is the name Emmanuel; it just means «God with us.» And the Gospels close with Jesus telling his followers that he would always be with them. Then the book of Acts opens with Jesus telling his followers that they would be his witnesses all over the world. He tells them that in order to pull off that enormous task, they would need to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come upon them with power. Then Jesus ascends back to heaven in front of their eyes, and they all huddle up in a room somewhere and do what we all hate to do: they wait.
In Acts chapter 1, we find 120 followers of Jesus who are weak, anxious, and overwhelmed. In Acts chapter 2, we find them empowered, bold, and strong. In chapter 1 they’re scared to death and hiding in the dark; in chapter 2 they’re courageously sharing the good news in the streets in broad daylight. You say, «What changed?» Well, the one they had been waiting for showed up! The Holy Spirit of God blows into their lives like a fresh wind and fire, and they experience his supernatural power in and through them. As they boldly tell people about God’s love through Jesus, thousands come to know him, and the Church of Jesus Christ is born. There was nothing quite like this new community called the Church.
I was watching a documentary a couple of weeks ago on a flight; it was a documentary about «Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.» You remember the show? It was intriguing—pretty inspiring, actually. I heard Fred Rogers say something that I had to hit pause on and just put it in my phone real quick. This is what he said: «We must courageously take up the gauntlet to make goodness attractive again.» I thought that was great! We must courageously take up the gauntlet to make goodness attractive again. And that’s just what these followers of Jesus in the early church did. They lived such good lives, such countercultural lives. They were just generously serving and loving each other and their neighbors. I mean, it was so attractive, and the church continued to just grow like crazy.
At the end of chapter 2 of Acts, it says that they were praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people, and each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. I mean, there was nothing like this new family of God anywhere in the world: no class systems, no egos, no power plays, just a bunch of grateful people trying to live like Jesus, taking up the gauntlet to make goodness attractive.
However, not everybody is happy about what’s going on. Those guys who had Jesus crucified are still around, and they are still in power. This new, inclusive, joyful, other-centered movement is a threat to their political and religious empire. They hated Jesus, so they hated his followers as well. Starting with a good man named Stephen, they began to kill and imprison Jesus' followers, and great persecution breaks out against the church. I mean, things were going so well in Jerusalem, and now they’re running for their lives.
You might remember how Jesus told them back in chapter 1, «You’re going to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.» Now guess what? They were not only in Jerusalem; they were scattered to all those places that Jesus told them they would go. As they were dispersed to those various places, they didn’t hide; they didn’t cower in fear. They boldly and joyfully became his witnesses and shared the good news of God’s love wherever they landed, and the church continued to grow, grow, and grow in spite of the threats from evil men.
In chapter 9, we hear about one of those evil men, a really treacherous dude named Saul, who was hell-bent on destroying this thing called the church. Although he’d never met Jesus, he hated him. One day as Saul was taking his tour of terror on the road, he unexpectedly and supernaturally encounters the resurrected Jesus and sees the light; literally, his life does a 180. Not only is this guy Saul forgiven and changed, but he is also chosen by Jesus to carry the good news of God’s love all over the world, and you can read all about that in chapter 9. Every time I read that chapter, it gives me such hope that God can save anybody; he can change any willing person.
Then chapter 10 is one of the most pivotal chapters in all the Bible. God shows one of Jesus’ original 12 disciples, a guy named Peter, how inclusive his kingdom actually is. As a Jewish guy, Peter assumed that the Messiah, the Savior, would come exclusively for them. I mean, when the angel announced the birth of the Savior, that would have been great joy to all the people. In Peter’s mind, he’s thinking, «Not all the people, just my people.» Well, God gives Peter a vision and tells him that Jesus died not just for the people of his race, but for everybody, no matter their ethnicity, skin color, social standing, gender, or past.
Well, the Holy Spirit connects Peter with an outsider, a guy named Cornelius, who was a Roman soldier. He was a good and God-fearing guy who, up to this point, was considered someone on the outside. Peter tells him all about Jesus and the good news of salvation through him, and Cornelius and his whole family believe and are baptized. The Holy Spirit comes upon them just like he did with all the others in Acts chapter 2 to show everybody that their conversion was legit and that the door to the kingdom of God had swung wide open—that God’s desire has always been for everyone to come home. So now, men and women from all over the place are starting to find faith in Jesus, and the church is exploding like a wildfire.
For instance, there was a city called Antioch, which was the third-largest city in the Roman Empire at the time, full of all kinds of pagan gods and lots of darkness. Well, the good news makes it all the way up there, and people are brought into the light. Reports start trickling back to the church leaders in Jerusalem that God was doing amazing things way up in Antioch, and they decide to send somebody to check it all out. Well, they send this guy who was nicknamed Barnabas, who was described as a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith, and he’s known as an encourager—in fact, that’s what his nickname means.
So, he makes the trip about 300 miles north and sends back a report that what God was doing there was simply amazing. He tells them, «Hey, I’m going to stick around a while and teach these people, just to try to encourage them.» And he does. As a result, lots more people come to know Jesus Christ. While he’s there, he gets thinking, «You know, I could use some help up here, » and he starts thinking about this dude that he had previously kind of taken under his wing, this radically changed guy who used to terrorize the church, this guy named Saul. So, Barnabas recruits him to come up to Antioch to help him, and Saul agrees.
The two of them form this incredible dynamic duo and begin to take the gospel not just to Jerusalem, not just to Judea and Samaria, but to the ends of the earth. Because of those two guys, the good news eventually makes it all the way to Texas. So, that brings us to where we are today. I really encourage you to read that whole thing; it is riveting reading and will fire you up as you see God just using ordinary people like us to do extraordinary things—and God still does that today.
Paul and Barnabas in Lystra
So, let’s pick it up in chapter 14. Saul, to better connect with the non-Jewish people that he’s trying to reach, is now going by his Latin Roman name, Paul. He and Barnabas are going from region to region, town to town, preaching the good news about the love of God through Jesus, and people are responding and finding hope, and so many cool things are happening.
Now, I remember when I was just a young pastor at one of my first churches. Our church was thriving; it was growing like crazy, it was doing so great, and I remember this old country guy taking me aside and giving me this piece of reality. He said, «Now, son, just remember that every time a door of opportunity opens, the flies come in.» And as door after door after door opens for Paul and Barnabas, guess what happens? Yeah, the flies come in.
We’ve seen it before. Those same guys that killed Jesus, the same kind of guys that Paul used to be, stir up trouble and threats everywhere Paul and Barnabas would try to go. But it doesn’t stop the two of them at all. They just keep moving on with passion and joy. They follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, courageously taking up the gauntlet to make goodness attractive.
So here in chapter 14, they come to this town called Lystra, and Paul is preaching. As he’s speaking, he notices this guy sitting down front. By the way, as we speak from the stage, we notice y’all. We know what you’re doing; we can see you playing Candy Crush on your phone. We know you’re playing Block Blast. We know when you spill your coffee. We know when you’ve been sleeping. We know that you’re awake. We know when you’ve been bad or good… but honestly, every now and then God will just connect with somebody in the crowd where we just kind of lock eyes, and it just feels like God’s saying, «This person really needs to be encouraged today. This person needs some hope today.»
I’m telling you, it’s a cool feeling from this perspective when that happens. And so Paul is preaching, and God draws his attention to this guy, which the text says had never walked; he was born that way. This guy is sitting there, and he is just riveted on the good news that’s being shared. It says that Paul could see that this man was full of expectant faith.
So Paul stops preaching mid-sermon, looks this dude straight in the eye, and says loud enough for everybody to hear, «Hey, stand up and walk!» He goes, «Me? Yeah, you!» And the guy does! He jumps to his feet and experiences something he had never experienced in his entire life—he walks!
The Miracle and Expectant Faith
Now, we’ve talked about the miraculous quite a bit over the past few months, so I’m not going to spend much time here, except to say this: faith doesn’t always produce a miracle, but it always precedes one. I mean, many of us have experienced the thrill of new life through the miraculous touch of Jesus. Some of us have even experienced some kind of miraculous physical healing. Many of us have experienced emotional wounds that have been healed; we’ve had our shame erased, we’ve had forgiveness replacing all the bitterness rolling around the depths of our soul. We’ve had strongholds broken, we’ve been set free from addictions, and families have been put back together. Plus, so many of us have experienced this supernatural, unexplainable, miraculous peace right in the middle of some hard things when the miracle that we’ve been praying for didn’t come.
And gang, all of that comes through the same power that made this guy get up and walk. Faith doesn’t always produce a miracle, but it always precedes one. And this guy lived with such expectant faith that Paul noticed him. God noticed him. It’s just a good word for me in 2025—I felt like I was reading that this week, and God was speaking to my soul, saying, «Bro, I just want you to live your life with a grateful and expectant heart this year—a heart full of faith that just trusts me no matter what happens in your life.»
You see, whether we receive, quote-unquote, a miracle here or not, we just live by faith knowing that the greater miracle has already been done through Jesus Christ for those who believe.
Crowd Reaction and Deflecting Praise
Well, this particular miracle makes the crowd go wild. The people who were following the mythological pagan gods of Greek and Roman culture start yelling, «Oh, these men are gods in human form!» Since Paul was the main speaker, they claimed that he was the Greek god Hermes and that Barnabas must be Zeus. They start shouting, «The gods! The gods have come down to visit us!»
Now, what a rush to your ego, right? I mean, many politicians, many celebrities, many athletes would bask in that kind of adoration, as would many soccer moms, CEOs, factory workers, and pastors. While encouragement and affirmation are good things and it feels good, and we all need appropriate amounts of that, I’m just telling you: living for the applause and approval of other people is such a dangerous trap to fall into. I’ve been learning through my life that when I chase approval and applause, when I’m always checking opinion polls and basing my worth on what other people say or think about me, allowing other people to put me on a pedestal, all of it jacks with my identity and leads to some really unhealthy relational junk.
It reminds me of a quote I heard one time by the enormously insecure Michael Scott of Office fame. He said this: «Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not! I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked, but it’s not like this compulsive need to be liked, like my need to be praised.» And gang, there’s a little of Michael Scott in all of us, right? When we start heading down that road, we often end up striving, people pleasing, and approval seeking, and we fail to put up appropriate boundaries, or we’ll compromise our beliefs, or we’ll stay in a toxic relationship.
We start powering up on people or cowering down from people. We start enabling or exhibiting codependent behavior, and many of us have lived that kind of life, right? So we know it’s exhausting; we know it’s anxious; we know it’s uneasy, and it’s sometimes a depressing way to live your life. I like how Lecrae puts it: «If you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection.» Proverbs 29:25 says it like this: «The fear of human opinion disables; trusting in God protects you from that.» Another version of that verse calls people-pleasing a snare or a trap. Once you’re in that trap, man, it’s hard to break it.
Paul would later write this in 1 Thessalonians: «Our purpose is to please God, not people, because he alone examines the motives of our hearts.» He’s saying, «We’re not falling into that trap. I’m not going to be chasing likes. I’m not chasing five-star reviews. We’re not after a four-chart tier turn. We just play our lives to an audience of one.»
So I love it: as people are showering all kinds of praise on Paul and Barnabas, they don’t flex; they don’t pose. They don’t say, «Y’all want some more of that? Making a lame guy walk? Piece of cake! Just our warm-up act!» They don’t do any of that. They don’t sign autographs; they don’t promote their latest book or their podcast. They don’t let any of it go to their head. In fact, it says they tear their clothes, revealing their humanity, and as the people are about to offer sacrifices to the two of them as gods, they run among the crowd shouting, «Friends, why are you doing this? We’re just merely human beings just like you! We have come to bring you the good news that you should turn from these worthless things and turn to the living God who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them. We’re here to tell you there are not many gods; there is only one God, and he has made himself known to everyone from the beginning of time. Every sunset, every sunrise, every chirping cricket, every singing bird, or crying baby—he did all of that.
In the past, he permitted all nations to go their own ways, but he never left them without evidence of himself and his goodness. For instance, he sends you rain, he sends you good crops, and gives you food and joyful hearts. Just look around at all the goodness—it’s him! It’s certainly not us, and it’s not Zeus, and it’s not Hermes, and it’s not Poseidon, Apollo, or Aphrodite. Those are all just made-up gods. There is only one God, and he is the Great I AM, and he loves you. Plus, the good news is that he did come down to earth in the person of Jesus—Emmanuel, God with us. He tells them, „We know him, and we encourage you, like this man that you now see miraculously walking around in front of you, to have faith in that God, the one true living God who made this guy walk.“ And lots of people do! I mean, you’ve got to love this: just two ordinary guys filled with God’s Spirit, courageously taking up the gauntlet to make goodness attractive, being used by God in amazing ways, and then deflecting all the credit and all the glory to him.
The Stoning and Perseverance
I mean, this is such a cool scene. Now, there’s a scene change coming. You ever been watching a show, and you’ve got the closed caption on? Anybody need that like I do? Yeah, you’re watching it, and it’ll say, in parentheses at the bottom, „ominous music playing.“ That’s what happens here. That little closed caption just popped up and said, „ominous music playing.“ In the middle of all this joy and excitement, those Jewish religious leaders that have been showing up in every city, consistently harassing Paul and Barnabas show up. I mean, the ones who were like Paul used to be back in his Saul days are just hell-bent on snuffing out this Jesus movement. They show up in Lystra, and they start inciting these crowds just like we read about back in chapter 7. Saul/Paul, when he applauded the stoning of Stephen, these guys start whipping the crowd into a frenzy. Some of these people, who just a few minutes earlier were wanting to offer sacrifices and worship Paul and Barnabas as gods, start stoning Paul. They drag him out of the city and leave him for dead.
You see how fast opinion can turn? You see why you shouldn’t put all your eggs in the crowd basket? It reminds me of Jesus riding into Jerusalem to the adoration of the masses. They roll out the red carpet; they’re waving palm branches; they’re chanting, dancing, singing, and cheering his arrival, and a few days later, man, they’re shouting, „Crucify him! Crucify him!“ Jesus endured the fickleness of the crowd because he understood human nature, but he also knew who he was and what he was called to do, and whose approval alone really matters. Paul does the same thing here, and I just wonder, as he lays there like a bruised and bloody mess, if he flashed back to the stoning of Stephen and saw himself there, holding the coats of people and applauding his execution. I wonder if he laid there, if he thought about how far Jesus had brought him. Like Jesus, now he knew who he was, what he was called to do, and whose approval alone really matters.
Well, spoiler alert: God wasn’t done with Paul—far from it! It seems like he miraculously heals him. Check out verse 20: „But as the believers gathered around him, he, Paul, got up and went back into the town.“ First of all, he got up. Secondly, he went back into the town—really? Now, maybe to get his wounds washed and dressed, but I’m guessing most likely to encourage these brand new believers in their faith! And then you know what the two of them do? It says that they go to this town called Derbe next—not the Kentucky Derby, although if you’ve been in the infield of the Kentucky Derby, it’s quite the mission field, I’m just telling you. They go to this town called Derbe, and then they decide to go back to every town that tried to kill them and proclaim the good news again. They just continued to share the good news everywhere they went, and because of their resilience and perseverance, many people who were far from God find hope and life through Jesus Christ.
I love what Paul would write later to a bunch of brand new followers in a city called Corinth. He said this: „We’re pressed on every side by troubles, but we’re not crushed. We’re perplexed, but we’re not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we’re not destroyed! Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.“
Emmanuel — God With Us
What is it that gives people like that that kind of courage and perseverance? What was it for these two guys that produced that kind of confidence and that kind of hope? I think it’s not only the fact that they knew who they were and what they were called to do; I think it’s not only that they really believed that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life, but they also personally knew him by that name that we talk about at Christmas: Emmanuel. They knew he was with them. They knew that God wasn’t out there somewhere but that his presence was with them every day, in every city, and in every circumstance.
I’m just telling you, if there’s one thing that could change your new year, just live in the awareness of God’s presence this year. Just know that he is with you in every circumstance. My daughter Jodie sent me this from a pastor friend of hers; this is what Emmanuel means to all of us in this new year: God is with us in the ER, in the divorce lawyer’s office, during finals, changing diapers. God is with us in prison, on the first date, during the ugly cry, in the drop-off line. God is with us working the graveyard shift, working the 12-step process at the office, in the gym. God is with us in therapy, at the checkout, in the delivery room, doing dishes. God is with us on the bus, at the custody hearing, at the table in AA. God is with us in the waiting room during chemo, in recovery, at the funeral. God is with us at the altar when we thought we’d be married by now, when „till death do us part“ turns into, „There’s someone else.“ When we’re missing the one who’s not here, God is with us when the pregnancy test is positive, when it’s negative, when it’s everything we hope for, when it’s nothing we anticipate.
God is with us when they can’t find the heartbeat, when it’s cancer again, when the kids stop coming home, when they reject what they once believed. God is with us when we’re not sure we believe, when we can’t sing the songs, when we’re frustrated, overwhelmed, betrayed, when we feel like we’re on the outside. God is with us when we get knocked down, when we don’t understand, when we want to quit. God is with us today, tomorrow, and every day after. He is Emmanuel!
So, what do you say? This new year, we just walk in the awareness of his presence with us in all circumstances, every day, all day. Like these guys, like the people in the book of Acts, let’s courageously pick up the gauntlet to make goodness attractive again and live our lives with faith, gratitude, passion, joy, and resilience—always playing our lives to an audience of one.
Closing Prayer
Let’s pray together. Father, I’m so grateful for a new year. Thank you for new beginnings, and those new beginnings, just like your mercy, they’re new every day. Living our lives in your presence and just knowing that you’re with us every day, God, is just… there’s nothing like it. There’s a power like nothing else! You told us, Jesus—you told them, that „I will be with you always, ” and you sent your Holy Spirit to live not only with us but in us. So Jesus, we start this year so grateful for that—that we don’t have to do this on our own.
And God, I thank you for that promise that no matter where we are in our spiritual journey, no matter what struggles we got going on internally, you’re still with us, and you’re waiting for those little opportunities for you to reveal yourself-that you love us, that you’re powerful, that you can make change in us, that you can point us in a new direction. And God, I pray that happens in somebody’s life today. And I pray, God, that we will be people in 2025 who just courageously pick up the gauntlet to make goodness attractive again, just like Paul and Barnabas did. And I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.