The Triumphal Entry

The Approval Trap: Why Your Identity Cannot Afford to Be Democratically Determined

Scripture: "The crowds that went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!'" — Matthew 21:9

I. A Story from Akasia

Let me take you to a morning not so long ago. I was standing at the corner of Ben Schoeman and Sophie de Bruyn, waiting for a taxi to take me into the city. You know the scene—the hooting, the shouting, the chaotic symphony of survival that is our daily bread in Pretoria.

A young man approached me. Clean suit, polished shoes, the confidence of someone who has just been promoted. He recognized me from a talk I gave at a men's conference in Mamelodi last year. "Bra Harold," he said, his voice carrying that particular vibration of someone who needs to offload something heavy, "I need to ask you something."

We stood there, taxis swerving around us like iron fish in a concrete river, and he told me his story. Six months ago, he was the darling of his company. The board praised him. Colleagues wanted to be seen with him. His WhatsApp status was a parade of invitations to speak here, to consult there. He was, in the language of our townships, the one who had arrived.

Then came the restructuring. New management. New priorities. Suddenly, the same colleagues who laughed at his jokes now walked past him in the corridor without a glance. The board that praised him now questioned his every decision. Last week, they called him into a meeting and handed him a letter. Retrenchment, they called it. But he knew what it really was: exile.

"What happened to me, Bra Harold?" he asked. "One day I was a king, the next I am a beggar. Did I change? Did my talent disappear overnight? Or was I never what they said I was?"

I looked at this young man—this image of God dressed in a cheap suit, standing on a dusty street corner in Akasia—and I saw the whole world reflected in his confusion. For is this not the great disease of our time? We have handed our identity over to a democracy of opinions, letting the crowd vote on our worth, forgetting that the same crowd that shouts "Hosanna" on Sunday will be screaming "Crucify" by Friday.

II. Let Us Define Our Terms Clearly

Before we go further, we must establish what we mean by "approval." For the sake of this meditation, let us define it precisely:

Approval is the external validation of one's worth, competence, or identity by another person or collective.

Identity is the fundamental answer to the question "Who am I?"—the core sense of self that persists across circumstances.

Here is the critical distinction that the world refuses to make, and that many Christians have tragically forgotten: Approval can be given or withdrawn by others. Identity is determined by God alone.

The young man at the taxi rank had confused the two. He believed that because the board approved him, he was someone of value. When they withdrew their approval, he became a nobody in his own eyes. His identity had been outsourced to a committee that had no authority to define him in the first place.

This is not merely a psychological insight. This is a theological truth with the weight of eternity behind it.

III. The Argument from Reason

Let me construct this logically, for the God of Abraham is also the God of logic, and He does not ask us to check our minds at the door of faith.

Premise 1: No finite being possesses the authority to define the ultimate identity of another finite being.

Premise 2: All human beings are finite beings.

Conclusion: Therefore, no human being possesses the authority to define the ultimate identity of another human being.

The syllogism is simple, but its implications are devastating. If no human can define who you ultimately are, then seeking your identity from human approval is like asking a traffic officer to determine your blood type. It is a category error. The traffic officer can direct your movement, but he cannot define your composition. Likewise, the crowd can cheer or boo, but they cannot determine who you are.

A common objection arises: "But surely the opinions of others matter? Are we not social creatures, meant to live in community? Does not Proverbs say, 'Where there is no counsel, the people fall'?"

I hear you, and I affirm the importance of community. But let us distinguish between counsel and constitution. Counsel gives wisdom; constitution gives being. You can receive counsel from others without allowing them to constitute your identity. The error is not in listening to others—the error is in letting others write the definition of your existence.

IV. The Biblical Foundation: What the Scriptures Declare

Let us turn to the Word, which is our final authority in all matters. The Palm Sunday narrative is instructive not only for what it reveals about the crowds, but for what it reveals about Jesus.

Notice: When the crowds shouted "Hosanna!" Jesus did not swell with pride. He did not update His social standing in His mind. He did not begin to believe He was someone He had not always been. And when the same crowds, days later, shouted "Crucify!" He did not crumble into despair. He did not question His mission. He did not wonder if perhaps they were right.

Why? Because His identity was not determined by the democratic process. It was determined by the divine declaration.

Consider the baptism of Jesus. Before He performed a single miracle, before He taught a single parable, before the crowds ever shouted anything about Him, the Father spoke: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).

The approval came from the only source that mattered, and it came before the performance. This is the pattern. This is the foundation. God's approval of you is not a reward for your achievements; it is a revelation of your identity.

The Scripture declares unequivocally: "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1).

Did you catch that? The love came first. The identity came first. The calling came before the doing. You are not a child of God because you performed well enough to earn the title. You are a child of God because the Father lavished His love upon you and named you as His own.

V. The South African Context: Where the Crowd Shouts Loudest

We live in a nation that understands the power of the crowd. From the struggle songs of the liberation era to the #FeesMustFall protests, we know that collective voices can move mountains. There is something beautiful in our communal spirit—the ubuntu that says "I am because we are."

But here is where we must sound the alarm against cultural compromise: Ubuntu without Yahweh becomes a prison.

When the community becomes the source of your identity rather than a context for expressing it, you have created a new god. And this new god will demand sacrifices. It will demand that you conform. It will demand that you shrink yourself to fit the group's expectations. And when you refuse, it will excommunicate you as surely as any ancient temple cult.

I see this in our churches across Pretoria, from Atteridgeville to Soshanguve. We have congregations where people live in terror of what the pastor might say, what the deacons might think, what the women's fellowship might whisper. We have created a culture where church approval has replaced divine approval, and the result is a generation of Christians whose faith rises and falls with the temperature of their congregation's affection.

We must confront this idolatry. The church is the body of Christ, but the body does not define the head—the head defines the body. Your pastor cannot give you what only God can give. Your small group cannot speak what only the Father has spoken. Their approval is valuable for encouragement, but it is worthless for identity formation.

VI. The Prophetic Confrontation: Who Is Really Speaking?

Let me be direct, as the times demand. There is a spirit operating in our nation that masquerades as community but functions as control. It is the spirit that tells you: "If you are truly blessed, the ancestors will approve." Or, in Christian guise: "If you are truly anointed, the church leadership will affirm you."

This is witchcraft dressed in Christian clothing. It is the old lie of Eden repackaged: "You shall be as gods, determining good and evil." Except now it is "You shall be as gods, determining who is worthy and who is not."

The Scripture declares: "Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10).

Paul is not being anti-social here. He is being prophetic. He is drawing a line in the sand and saying: The approval of humans and the approval of God are not on the same spectrum—they are in different universes. You cannot serve both. You cannot build your identity on both. One will always betray the other.

VII. A Personal Story: The Day the Crowd Went Silent

I want to tell you about 2008. I was in full-time ministry, speaking at conferences across Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and Limpopo. My name was on posters. My face was in church bulletins. People would stop me in malls in Menlyn and say, "Are you not Harold Mawela? I saw you on television!"

Then came the collapse. A financial scandal in the organization I was associated with—nothing to do with me directly, but close enough that the stench reached me. The invitations stopped. The phone went quiet. The people who called me "Apostle" now crossed the street when they saw me coming.

I remember one Sunday morning, sitting in my lounge in Akasia, listening to the church down the road singing. I could have been preaching there. I had preached there. Now I was sitting in my slippers, a cup of rooibos going cold beside me, wondering if I had ever been anything at all.

It was in that silence that I heard the voice I had almost forgotten. Not the roar of the crowd, not the praise of men, but the still, small voice of the Father. And He said to me—not in audible words but in a knowing deeper than sound—"Harold, you are my son. I was pleased with you before anyone knew your name. I am pleased with you now that no one remembers it. My approval does not rise and fall with the opinions of men."

That morning, I learned what Jesus knew on Palm Sunday. The crowd's "Hosanna" is a pleasant sound, but it is not the sound that holds the universe together. That sound is the voice of the Father, spoken over you before the foundation of the world, declaring you to be His.

VIII. The Practical Laws of Identity

Drawing from the wisdom of Scripture and the experience of walking with Christ, let me offer you three immutable principles. These are not suggestions; they are laws, as certain as gravity, as unchangeable as the sunrise over the Magaliesberg.

Law One: What the Crowd Gives, the Crowd Can Take

This is the first law of human approval: it is temporary by nature. The same crowd that praises you today will forget you tomorrow, not because they are evil but because they are finite. They have their own lives, their own struggles, their own need for approval. You are a passing character in their story, not the author of it.

If you build your identity on their praise, you have built on sand. And when the rain comes—and it will come—the house will fall. Not because God is punishing you, but because sand was never meant to hold weight.

Law Two: Your Identity Is Decoded in Your Devotion

This is the corollary. If you want to know who you truly are, do not look at the crowd. Look at what you worship. Your identity is not found in the opinions of others but in the object of your devotion.

If you devote yourself to the approval of men, you will become a shape-shifter—always becoming what others want you to be, never arriving at who you actually are. But if you devote yourself to Christ, you will find that you become more yourself, not less. For He is the one who made you, and He knows what you were designed to be.

Law Three: You Will Never Possess What You Are Unwilling to Pursue

If you want an identity rooted in God's approval, you must pursue that approval as the pearl of great price. You must be willing to trade the cheap applause of the crowd for the costly affirmation of the Father. And let me be honest with you: this trade will cost you. It cost Jesus His reputation. It cost Paul his status. It will cost you something too.

But what you gain is worth more than all the approval the world can offer. For the approval of God is not temporary; it is eternal. It does not fluctuate with the stock market of public opinion. It does not depend on your performance. It is a gift, freely given, irrevocably sealed, waiting for you to receive it.

IX. The Resurrection Logic

Let us take this to its theological conclusion. If our identity is rooted in Christ—and it is—then we must understand that Christ's journey from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday is the pattern for our own.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem to the praise of the crowd. By Friday, that same crowd had abandoned Him. By Saturday, He was in the tomb—forgotten by the world, remembered only by a few weeping women and a frightened disciple hiding behind locked doors.

But Sunday came.

And this is the resurrection logic: the crowd's rejection does not have the final word. The cross is not the end of the story. The tomb is not the conclusion. The one who was praised and then crucified is now seated at the right hand of the Father, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.

Your story follows the same pattern. You may experience the Hosannas today and the Crucifys tomorrow. But Sunday is coming. The approval of the Father, sealed in the resurrection of the Son, is coming to vindicate you. Not because you earned it, but because you are in Him.

X. The Call to Action

What shall we do then, brothers and sisters? How shall we live in a world that offers approval one day and withdraws it the next?

First, audit your affections. Ask yourself honestly: Whose approval do I crave? Whose rejection do I fear? If you are honest, you will find the altar where you have been sacrificing. Perhaps it is your boss's approval. Perhaps it is your spouse's. Perhaps it is your church's. Identify the idol, and name it.

Second, rehearse the divine declaration. Every morning, before you check your phone, before you read the news, before you listen to anyone else's opinion of you, hear the Father say: "You are my beloved child. In you, I am well pleased." Say it aloud if you must. Let it be the foundation of your day.

Third, pursue the approval that matters. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let His opinion be the only one that ultimately matters. This does not mean you become indifferent to others—it means you become free to love them without needing them to validate you.

Fourth, walk in costly discipleship. There will be moments when you must choose between the approval of the crowd and the approval of God. Choose God. Let the crowd shout what they will. Their shout cannot un-child you from the Father.

XI. Conclusion: The Sound That Matters

We return to the young man at the taxi rank in Akasia. Before we parted, I told him something I want to leave with you:

"The crowd will always be fickle. Today they praise you; tomorrow they will bury you. But there is a sound that never changes. It is the sound of the Father's voice, spoken over you before the mountains were formed, before the foundations of the earth were laid. He said then what He says now: 'This is my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.'

"The world's approval is a vote. God's approval is a verdict. And the verdict has already been delivered. It was delivered on a cross, sealed in an empty tomb, and confirmed by the Spirit in your heart. The case is closed. The identity is settled. You are His.

"So let the crowd shout. Let the board decide. Let the church whisper. You are who God says you are. And what He says, stands."

Prayer

Father, I come to You with empty hands and a hungry heart. Forgive me for building my identity on the shifting sands of human approval. I have chased the praise of people as if it were bread, only to find it was stone. I have feared the rejection of the crowd as if it were final, forgetting that You are the final judge.

Today, I receive Your verdict. I am Your child. I am loved. I am approved—not because of what I have done, but because of what Christ has done for me.

Plant my feet on Your approval alone. Let Your favor be the only applause I seek. And when the crowd shouts, whether Hosanna or Crucify, let my heart be anchored in the one voice that spoke the universe into being and spoke me into being as well.

In the name of Jesus Christ, who rode into Jerusalem to the praise of the crowd and rode out of the tomb to the power of an endless life. Amen.

Remember: "The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!'" — Matthew 21:9

But the Son of David knew what the crowds did not: His identity was not democratically determined. Neither is yours.

Harold Mawela

Akasia, Pretoria

South Africa