A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Have you ever found yourself under the gun, under a whole bunch of pressure? Stressed beyond words, – wondering how you're going to get through the day? And someone comes alongside and through a simple act of service, lightens your load. What a blessing, eh?!
So let's continue our journey discovering how you and I can be more of a blessing than we are a burden in the lives of people around us. It's awesome to be a blessing, it's awesome to see the impact of good that we can have in people's lives.
The problem is that sometimes we just don't think of the little things we can do. Sometimes we don't know what we can do nor do we realise the impact that just the smallest blessing can have in someone else's life and sometimes we're more of a burden than a blessing because of our lack of maturity.
And it's that last one that we're going to check out right now because it's really important. None of us like to think of ourselves as being immature but the reality is that we all have some growing up to do somewhere in our make up. We all have room to learn and to grow and to develop into more mature, effective, loving, helpful people, right? I know I certainly do and so today I want to explore just one area of immaturity and it's in the area of serving others.
And what I mean by that is doing the practical things that we can do to help them to make their lives better and learning to serve others is something that, well some of us aren't so good at.
I remember when I was young growing up in my parents house, there was just Mum and Dad, my sister and me. Now Cori, my sister, is two year older than me so she was my big sister and she was a pretty good big sister too, but you know what it's like in a family, brother and sister they're always competing against one another. You compete for attention, you compete for food, I mean you had to make sure you got the bigger slice of cake, just the tiniest bit bigger than the other one. Not necessarily because you like the cake or you need it or you want to eat it but you just don't want your big sister to get more than you.
Do you remember those silly childhood games? It doesn't matter how much our parents tried to divide things equally we always managed to find something to compete about and one of the areas I distinctly remember competing is making sure I didn't do more of the chores than Cori did. Heaven forbid that I should spend thirty seconds more helping with the washing up after dinner than she did, that would be completely unthinkable.
And so as children we make it our life's objective to do as little around the house as we possibly can but our parents role is to teach us to grow up and become more responsible and to do things around the house not because we're told to or forced to or threatened with punishment if we don't do it but because we see that the bin in the kitchen is full and we just go and empty it because it needs emptying.
That's why giving children chores around the house that they have to do no matter whether they feel like it or not, they have time to do it, no matter whether they're tired or not, no matter whether they're feeling a bit off colour today or not, is such an incredibly important thing to do.
See most parents, at least in the western world, are struggling to get their children to tidy up the mess in their bedroom but what I'm talking about here goes way beyond that, its about helping them to grow up and become effective adults by serving other people.
If I see an adult, young or old, who's trying to do the least they can possibly get away with then I look at that and say, 'there is a sure sign of immaturity'. That person in a practical sense is being more of a burden than a blessing, they're taking more than they're giving but lets flip that over the other way, if I see an adult who sees something that needs doing and just goes and does it because it needs doing and because it's going to lighten someone else's load then that is a sure and certain mark of maturity.
Children by their very nature are mostly takers but as we transition from childhood to adulthood we're meant to become mostly givers rather than takers, mostly a blessing rather than a burden. The immature person is the one who's worried more about what they're entitled to than they are about what they can achieve by serving someone else.
An interesting quote that I come back to again and again is something that Jesus said to some men who were arguing way back then about which one of them would be the greatest. And Jesus said:
"Whoever wishes to become great among you must become your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all." (Mark chapter 10, verses 43 and 44).
Now my parents worked so hard to serve me, something I didn't really appreciate until I had children of my own. They are great in my heart because they served me. My wife Jacqui is the same, she does so much for me, she is truly great in my heart. My mentor and dear friend Graham who served me and took me from immaturity to maturity is a great man in my sight and it will be the same in your life, in your heart.
Serving people is a sign of maturity and a path to greatness. The people who served you the most are the greatest ones in your life and it's an awesome way in which you and I can be a blessing. See if we sit around expecting others to serve us not only are we putting our immaturity on display for everyone to see and see it they do, but we're being a burden.
And yet when we quickly do things that are so easy to do to lighten someone else's load then we're being the most incredible blessing. It's a huge blessing when you're tired at the end of the day and you come home expecting to have to do this or to do that only to discover that your daughter did it before she headed out for work that morning.
I mean it's a huge blessing at work when you're faced with some really difficult task and you have someone pull along side you and offer to help you. We all know that having experienced blessing from other people but remember the mark of maturity is being more of a giver than a taker, more of a servant than one who wants to be served, that's how we can bless others in such practical ways.
All we need to do is open our eyes to the need. There's no shortage of need out there I have to tell you. Anybody that you know there are some things that you can do for them that's going to lighten their load. It will vary from person to person, it will be different, some of it will require a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice, other tasks will be much easier but there is a lot of need out there and you and I can make an incredible difference by helping people.
And that's exactly what Jesus did. Let's go back to that thing that Jesus said about being a servant and read it in the context of the surrounding verses, it all then becomes clear.
"See Jesus called to them and said to them, 'You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognise as their rulers lord it over them and their great ones are tyrants over them but it is not so among you. Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, whoever wishes to be first among you must be the slave of all for the son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark chapter 10, verses 42 to 45).
See He puts this whole servanthood thing into context. There He is the Son of God who came not to be served on hand and foot but to serve and not just to wait on tables, not just to stand up and preach amazing sermons, not just to wash His disciples feet all of which He did but to be beaten and nailed to a cross and to die for you and me. No greater love has any man than to lay down his life for a friend.
That's the sort of service Jesus is teaching those disciples about and that's the sort of service that He's teaching us about through His Words. The sort of service that costs us something, the sort of service that's inconvenient, the sort of service that's unfair, the sort of service that really hurts some days. It's that sort of service that displays our maturity and delivers most blessings to those who are served.
Let me ask you again; are you a blessing or a burden?
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Let's face it – we all need encouragement. Doesn't matter how strong and independent and together we think we are, we all need encouragement at some point along our journey. And at the same time, we have the opportunity to give encouragement, to be encouragers too.
I love stories, good stories. Great story-tellers make us think and Tolkien is one of the best. Just that one line,
'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us'
is an absolute beauty because if the truth be known most people simply never decide. They just live life day by day; they let it all drift by. It's a day-by-day proposition for most of us, just get through the stuff we need to get through and then drop exhausted on the couch by the end of the day.
But the people who have real impact in this world, the people who are the real blessings in other people's lives are the ones who at some point make a conscious decision about what they are going to do with the rest of the time that they have left.
And one of the things that each one of us can decide is to be more of a blessing than we are a burden. Can I ask you quietly but plainly, have you made that decision with your life yet? One of the ways that we can be an incredible blessing is to be an encouragement to other people.
Here's the exciting thing about encouragement, it's something that costs us nothing, it's incredibly easy to do and yet because we live in a world that's so harsh and unforgiving and performance driven, when we do encourage someone they value it so highly.
A word of encouragement can be like gold at the right time, here's why. Have you ever had one of those days? You know the sort that I'm talking about, those days when nothing seems to go right and nobody seems to appreciate you and you've been trying so hard, working so hard but it feels like no one's for you and everyone is against you. Huh, of course you have, we all have.
So put yourself back in the middle of one of those days and now imagine that you get a phone call from a friend to thank you for something you did and not only do they thank you but they tell you what an amazing impact that seemingly small act of yours has had on them and how much they appreciate you. In other words this friend just called to encourage you.
On a scale of zero to ten how much do you value that encouragement? It's right up there right? It's a ten out of ten at least because when we're having one of those days, encouragement is the most incredible antidote to the blues. It doesn't matter how strong or mature or independent or together we may think we are we all need encouragement from time to time.
There's another great story-teller whom I really love, A A Milne who wrote the 'Winnie The Pooh' books about some fictional characters who lived in a young boy's imagination. Have a listen to this short excerpt
"One day Pooh Bear is going for a walk in the hundred acre wood and it's about 11.30 in the morning. It's a fine time to go calling just before lunch. So Pooh sets out across the stream stepping on the stones and he gets right in the middle of the stream and he sits down on a warm stone and thinks about just where would be the best place of all to make a call."
"He says to himself, 'I think I'll go see Tigger'. No he dismisses that, then he says, 'Owl'. No Owl uses big words and hard to understand words. At last he brightens up, 'I know, I think I'll go see Rabbit, I like Rabbit. Rabbit uses encouraging words like, 'how about lunch', and 'help yourself Pooh'. Yeah I think I'll go see Rabbit."
To be honest if I was going to be stranded on a desert island and I could choose a companion to be stranded with me I wouldn't choose some great leader or a teacher or a athlete or a university professor necessarily, I'd choose someone who's an encourager.
A few thousand years ago a wise old king, a guy called Solomon wrote down a whole bunch of proverbs, one of them says this:
"Pleasant words, encouraging words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body."
You can find that in Proverbs chapter 16, verse 24.
It's true isn't it? Encouragement is like food for the soul. In an instant an encouraging word from someone else can turn our whole day around. An encouraging word can soothe the pain and wipe away the tears. That's why encouragement is so valuable and that's exactly what this Proverb means.
See these days we can get sweet things just about anywhere at anytime, not so good for us but sweetness is very common. Sugar is everywhere, it's in drinks and desserts and lollies and cakes and sauces, it's almost in every processed food we can buy.
But three thousand years ago when this was written sweetness was extremely rare, sugar wasn't being mass-produced, that only started happening early in the 20th century. The only way you could taste something sweet was to be near a fruit tree for those very few weeks in the year when it dropped its fruit or to fight off the bees to get some of their honey and of course that has it's own challenges.
So when Solomon compares encouragement to a honeycomb what he's saying is that it's extremely rare and very precious and that still holds true today. How often does someone encourage you? For most of us the answer is very rarely.
Imagine if we changed that. Imagine if each of the seven billion plus people on the planet encouraged one other person just once a day, that would be two and a half trillion encouragements a year. Would that make the world a different place? You bet it would.
Encouragement heals the soul, encouragement helps people overcome their misconceptions about themselves, just a bit of encouragement could eradicate low self-esteem in a person's life. We may not be able to change the world but we can change our little part of it. You can decide how to spend the time given to you and one of the things that we can each decide to do is to encourage just one person every day.
A quick phone call, maybe a card in the mail, perhaps just a cuddle or a kind word or a kind look, you and I can change the way people feel about themselves simply by being an encouragement. Just let that sink in for a moment. What a mighty, mighty impact we can have on one another with this simple inexpensive yet exquisitely valuable thing, a word of encouragement.
Wow! And that's exactly what the Apostle Paul wrote a thousand or so years on from Solomon's Proverb, Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29:
"Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is useful for building up as there is need so that your words may give grace to those who hear."
What a great measure for deciding the things we should say and the things we shouldn't say. That the only words that pass our lips are those that are useful for building people up, so that our words give grace to those who hear them. What a mind-blowingly powerful concept, our words can and indeed should build other people up. That's what parents are meant to do for their children, to give them a solid foundation of confidence as they become adults.
That's something we should all do for one another, to give out grace to those who need it. Grace by definition is something we don't deserve so our decision isn't whether or not a person deserves encouragement but whether they need encouragement and we can give it freely by grace. Again back to Solomon's Book of Proverbs, chapter 12, verse 25:
"Anxiety weighs down the human heart but a good word cheers it up."
You and I have the power to build up, to lighten the load, to cheer someone up deep down in their hearts, the power to change their day, the power to transform their lives through simple inexpensive valuable words of encouragement.
Are you a blessing or a burden? That's the question we're asking ourselves at the moment on the program, well here's one way that you can be the most amazing blessing, be an encourager.
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Arguments, conflict. It's something that we all go through. But there's some point – a flashpoint – where every argument begins. And it's right at that flashpoint that we can do something amazing to create peace instead of conflict.
Last week we were chatting about this very thing, whether you and I are a blessing or a burden to the people around us and how we each can become more and more of a blessing because none of us wants to be a burden. So we're going to continue with that theme again this week, it's a big subject. Why? Let's face it, opportunities are bound in life for us to be either a blessing or a burden.
Every time we interact with someone – our spouse, our children, friends, family, work colleagues, the boss, our subordinates, the person who serves us at the check out of a supermarket, whoever it is – each time we interact with someone we can be either a blessing to them or a burden in their lives.
And I have to tell you it's actually much, much easier to be a burden. See being a burden doesn't take much effort at all. Relying on other people to do things for you, things that you could really do for yourself is the easiest thing of all. Doing them yourself is much harder; it takes effort, it takes initiative.
Being short with someone, not giving them the time of day, not interacting with them, not showing any interest in them. I mean come on, let's face it, that's much easier than engaging with someone, finding out their problems and helping them. Yup, opportunities are bound to be either a blessing or a burden and it's much, much easier to be a burden.
And yet, I don't know, the older we get the more opportunity we have to look back on the life we've lived thus far, the more we wish that we'd have been more of a blessing than a burden and the more we want to leave a positive mark in the lives of the people around us. Maybe it's something about maturity, maybe its something about the realisation that there's less and less of our lives left to live, less time to be a blessing.
Whatever it is, even though sometimes we get lazy about this, we all do, in our heart of hearts most of us yearn to be a blessing in this world. That's why we're talking about this stuff because it's important; I mean it's really important, would you agree?
So let's kick the week off with a really practical way that we can be a blessing. It's by being a shock absorber in the middle of a conflict. See conflict is something that most of us have to deal with on a regular basis, in fact probably on a daily basis.
When imperfect people rub up against one another in a home or a work place or a shop or wherever it is, when imperfect people bump into one another then from time to time you can be pretty certain that sparks are going to fly. It happens in a marriage as the husband's habits start to annoy his wife and the wife's little foibles and weaknesses start to drive the husband around the twist.
It happens in just about every relationship because we're all imperfect and we all have the capacity to annoy one another. I know I do. So let me ask you this, the last time you were in the middle of such a conflict, big or small, it doesn't matter, how did you react? At that flash point, at the point where there's a potential for this thing to escalate or to go away how did you react?
Here's how most of us react most of the time. Someone says something or does something that we find annoying so we punch straight back, why did you do that? Why did you say that? How could you think that, you're an idiot? Isn't that what we do? We may not say it but we certainly think it.
Or when someone throws accusations in our face we ratchet up our response, we escalate the conflict, we come out boxing and defending ourselves and it may not be with words it maybe with stony silence, it maybe with an angry look or maybe with negative body language.
See this is how arguments start, that's how relationships are ruined, this is how marriages start to fall apart, this is how murders happen, and it's how wars begin. At some point it was nothing much but then we had to escalate the conflict. Look at it from that perspective and we can start to see how absolutely crazy this step of escalation is. We do it out of pride or whatever but we do it and bang, it's on for young and old, we're off and racing folks and it's not much fun.
So I'm going to share with you right now the secret of how you can be a blessing right at that point of ignition, are you ready? The secret lies buried in a Book that was written about three thousand years ago by a very wise old king called Solomon, the king of Israel. He wrote down this secret as a Proverb, chapter 15 and verse 1, here it is:
"A soft answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger."
See at that flash point of the conflict our most natural response is the second half of that Proverb, it's to give a harsh word which will absolutely 100% of the time stir up anger. See that's the anatomy of the escalation. Until that angry response there was no argument there was only the potential of an argument but we have to open our big mouths, we have to give a harsh response and that's what causes the argument.
The alternative is the first part of the Proverb; it's the soft answer, why? Because almost always the soft answer turns away wrath, it averts the conflict. At this point you might be thinking, 'but hang on, I don't want to be a victim, I don't want to be someone else's doormat where people walk all over me, that's crazy'. But that's not what I'm talking about, that's not what the Proverb says.
Actually it takes a very secure person, a mature person, a wise person to give a soft answer that turns away someone else's wrath. First we have to have our own anger under control and second we need the wisdom to know that if there is an issue that needs dealing with then we're much more likely to deal with it effectively and get the response and the result we're looking for in an environment free from argument than we are in a situation of anger and conflict that we ourselves have stirred up.
And whilst your adversary may never have appreciated what an incredible blessing you were by giving a soft answer to turn away their wrath instead of a harsh word to stir up their anger, hey you'll know. You'll know what an incredible blessing you've been in that place by avoiding a conflict that really, come on, never had to happen.
See all too often you and I are driven by what we think we're entitled to. I'm entitled to some respect, I'm entitled of this and that and the other, how dare they talk to me like that, how dare they walk away from me, I'm going to fix them. Isn't that the self-talk that runs through our head at the flash point of a conflict? I'm entitled, I am. Oh okay, maybe you are but there's a whole bunch more that we're entitled to.
See you and I have both rebelled against God at some point in our life; in fact it's something we manage to do over and over again. What we deserve for that is Gods punishment, really we do, so why doesn't God's anger and wrath fall upon us every day of the week?
Well here's why, because He doesn't deal with us according to our sins nor does He repay us according to our iniquities. Psalm 103, verse 10.
In fact He does the very thing that we've been talking about, God holds back His punishment, He shows us mercy, He withholds the one thing that we deserve out of love for us and when we take that same mercy that God shows us, the mercy that had Jesus brutally punished on that cross two thousand years ago instead of you and me for what we deserve and we apply that mercy to a conflict situation.
A situation where someone has, as far as we're concerned, sinned against us then we are being a blessing to them the way Jesus is a blessing to us. Does that blow you away? Do you see the power of a soft answer? It's absolutely awesome.
You and I can be such a blessing with a soft answer instead of an angry word. Flashpoint – gone. Argument – gone … Peace. Now that's what I call a blessing.
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There's nothing worse than having people gossip about you, stab you behind your back. Well, actually there's one thing worse. It's when we gossip about others, when we're the ones stabbing someone else in the back. Yep –actually … that's worse.
One of my favourite TV shows of all time is "Yes Prime Minister" – a very, very funny British comedy show about the behind the scenes, wheeling and dealing that goes on in politics. One of the characters is the very smart and conniving senior civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby.
In one episode called, "A Conflict of Interest". The Prime Minister wants to appoint a new governor of the Bank of England to clean up the financial scandals happening in the financial sector. He settles on a man with a great reputation for honesty and integrity, someone who is fearless in tackling corruption.
The junior and inexperienced civil servant Bernard arrives at the Cabinet office and relays the PM's message. He tells Sir Humphrey that the PM is keen to appoint this man Jameson to the Governorship. Sir Humphrey says his appointment would be appalling and it's his firm intention to change the Prime Minister's mind.
He gives young Bernard a quick lesson in how to achieve this. Express full support for the candidate, Jameson, pointing out all his qualities but over-praising him to the point that the PM will also be concerned since he could undermine his own perceived qualities. As Sir Humphrey points out "it's necessary to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back".
That's a great line isn't it? You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back. And as things turn out it's something that Sir Humphrey does extremely successfully.
It's great to laugh at that idea in a sitcom but have you ever been stabbed in the back? Have you ever had someone praise you and then go behind your back to undermine you? It's not very nice is it? In fact, it can be devastating. When you know that people are whispering and muttering about you behind your back it's a terrible thing and you see it all the time especially where those people have something to gain.
In my twenty or so years as a consultant, working in hundreds of different organisations, I can't tell you the number of times I've seen this ruthless back-room knifing of people in the back so that the person who is doing the back-stabbing can get his or her way or climb up another rung of the corporate ladder.
Over this week, we've been chatting about how you and I can be a blessing rather than a burden to people, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I have to tell you being the honest broker behind someone else's back, dealing honestly and openly defending people is one way.
I was once on a committee as the treasurer. My predecessor had handed me a terrible budget and so there wasn't enough income to run the operations of this organisation. After a lot of hard work on the budget and the finances in reducing costs I had to recommend to the annual general meeting of the members a very substantial increase in their annual levy fee.
The following year I stepped off the committee and some of the new people on it apparently wanted to blame me for the problem and run me down behind my back. But there was one woman Sasha who took them to task, confronted them about the unwarranted criticism, set the record straight, told them that I was in fact the guy who had sorted out the problem and not created it. It took quite a bit of courage for her to do that but she did it.
So have a think about this, how do you think I feel now towards Sasha? It's obvious isn't it? As far as I'm concerned she is very much a blessing and not a burden. She has my trust and if she asked me for something, if she asked me to do something I'd do it for her if it were at all possible.
There's a Proverb in the Old Testament of the Bible that goes like this, Proverbs chapter 19, verse 1:
Better is a poor person who walks with integrity than one who is crooked in speech and a fool.
The Bible talks a lot about human plots and contentious tongues too, Psalm 31 verse 20. It's horrible when people are like that, isn't it?
So here's how you can be an incredible blessing to someone. Be like Sasha. When people are gossiping or running down a person when they're not there, firstly don't be one to throw fuel on the fire, don't nod passively and contribute to the gossip but to the contrary pull people up. Hang on a minute, that's not quite fair, not sure whether we have all the circumstances straight here, did you know what actually happened?
Sometimes people pull someone down simply because of that person's natural weaknesses or limitations. Hey, we all have those right? Sometimes they criticise someone by twisting the facts and sometimes they make fun of someone or find fault with them when that persons going through a really difficult personal trouble.
None of those things are right; none of them are fair. If someone has wronged you then the way to deal with it is face-to-face, one on one, not by gossiping behind people's backs. Defending someone when they're not there to defend themselves is a huge blessing. Eventually the person you defended, it's going to get back to them somehow and when it does their trust in you, their admiration for you will grow immeasurably as mine did for Sasha.
And those people whom you held to account for their gossip, hey they may not like it, in fact they may well start to gossip behind your back but in their heart of hearts they'll have a new found respect for you, they'll know that you are someone of integrity, someone with courage and someone not to be messed with.
At the end of the day people like a person who plays with a straight bat, someone whom they can depend on, someone who's honest and direct and open even if they disagree with you. Again, there's another Old Testament Proverb that says this, Proverbs chapter 16 verse 13:
Righteous lips are a delight of a king and he loves the person who speaks what is right.
So I want to encourage you – when you have the opportunity to defend somebody's reputation when they're not there to defend themselves – I want to encourage you when you have the opportunity to speak straight up and down, to hold people to account for their gossip. I want to encourage you when you have the opportunity to bring the facts to the table, to be the person that does that.
It's a thing of great leadership, it's a thing of great value and if we want to be somebody who is a blessing rather than a burden, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than part of the problem this is one of the ways that we can do that. Let me tell you, God takes this stuff really seriously too, just quietly. Commandment number nine in the Ten Commandments says:
You shall not bear false witness against a neighbour.
What we say about each other matters to God. Again in James chapter 4:
Do not speak evil against one another. The one who speaks it against a brother or judges his brothers, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law you're not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbour?
God has a different way that He wants us to behave, not by stabbing each other in the back but by lifting one another up.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you along with all the malice. Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. (Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31 and 32)
I can tell you I look out for this sort of integrity and goodness in people. Gossip is a terrible thing. Demeaning people is a terrible thing and one way that you and I can shine the light of God into some dark places and bless people is not to participate in gossip and instead do what God's calling us to do, to be kind and tender hearted and here's the crunch for me, to forgive people just the way that God's forgiven us.
Jesus paid a price, a huge price, so that you and I could be forgiven. What an awesome thing it is to bring that forgiveness and goodness into the world through our behaviour.
Want to be a blessing rather than a burden? Here's one way.

When someone else makes a mistake, when they fall short of expectations, our natural reaction is to criticise them, or perhaps punish them. Ostracise them. But consider this – what if our first reaction was to compensate for them – to make up for their shortcomings with our natural gifts and abilities? How different would this world be, if we all did that?
People's mistakes can be so annoying especially, let me say, when they make the same mistake over and over and over again which of course we all do. Now you might protest and say, "I don't make the same mistake over and over again." And my response to you would be "sure you do, we all do." Here's why ...
There are some things that you're naturally good at and some things that you're not and there are some things that the next guy is naturally good at and some things that he isn't. So there you are the two of you good at different things and bad at different things.
So you see the mistakes that he makes at the things you're good at, and you say to yourself, 'how can that guy keep on making the same mistake, it's so obvious?' And right while you're thinking that he's thinking exactly the same about you.
My friend Keith is a great encourager, the sort of person you really enjoy spending an hour or two with over lunch. You come away feeling so much better about yourself. He recently sent me a document we'd both been working on; it was an 18-page contract that I'd developed meticulously with some lawyers.
While I was away on holidays he needed to make a few changes but did he turn on the Word Processor's change-control feature so that I could see the changes he'd made? Nooo. Now I was about to get annoyed and then I remembered, hang on, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is Keith, we're talking about Keith here. He's a great encourager but when it comes to technology and admin and all that stuff he's a dead loss. It's the way he is and he's never going to be any different.
Now I can't do what he does and he can't do what I do and that's the way, folks, it was always meant to be. And so I'm at that point confronted with exactly the same question that I hit you with at the top of the program, am I going to criticise him or am I going to help him? Which will it be?
See this is a question that confronts each one of us at least several times a day. Think of the people you've been annoyed with over the last twenty-four hours, what was the source of the annoyance? How did you respond? Did you criticise them or did you help them?
The series of message we're in right at the moment is called "Are You a Blessing or a Burden?" inspired by a great quote from Dr Tayo Adeyemi in the UK. He said:
You are either a blessing or a burden, an asset or a liability, a problem solver or a problem. It's your choice.
And so we're on a bit of a journey to discover some practical rubber hits the road kind of things that you and I can do to be more of a blessing than a burden; to be more of part of the solution rather than being part of the problem. And this is really a practical thing we can do.
When someone makes a mistake, we can stuff our pride back into our pocket and choose to help them instead of criticising them. And when you think about it as much as it maybe a counter-intuitive thing to do it actually makes an enormous amount of sense both for them and for us.
I'm going to read you a short passage from the Old Testament, a Book written about three thousand years ago called the Book of Ecclesiastes. It's purported to have been written by one of the wisest men who's ever lived, King Solomon of Israel. Its Ecclesiastes chapter 4, verses 9 to 12:
Two people are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. If they fall one will lift the other up but woe to the one who is alone and falls and doesn't have another to help. Again if two lie down together they keep warm but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two withstand one, actually a three fold cord is not quickly broken.
I was sharing this with a bunch of people once and I did it visually. I had two people hold a single piece of rope tight and then I cut it in the middle, well of course at that point the rope failed. Then we took two ropes and wound them around each other and around and around and around, then I got the people to hold them again tight and I cut one rope on the right and I cut the other rope in the middle and I cut the first rope on the left.
See the ropes pretty much hung together because what happened was that the second rope compensated for the first in the places where it was cut and it had failed and vice versa. Then we took three ropes and plaited them together as a woman would plait her hair.
I got the people to hold this thing tight, I cut each of the three ropes in two different places and you know what, you could pull as hard as you like and the ropes didn't fail. I could actually sit on them and they wouldn't come apart. That's the picture here.
You and I have the capacity to compensate for the failures and the weaknesses of others and because we're all different, we're all strong in different places, we're all weak in different places, when we're bound together in a relationship as a team we can compensate for one another in those different places just as the ropes did.
I cleaned up the mess with the contract that Keith couldn't, and you know what, he goes out and encourages members of our team in a way I couldn't do. And you know something, that's how it's meant to be, it's exactly how it's meant to work.
The beauty of that, the reason that it makes so much sense is that together in a mutually supportive relationship in a team of two or three or four or even ten people we can achieve so much more. Now some teams don't achieve anything because they're always fighting and criticising.
If we want to be a blessing rather than a burden, an asset rather than a liability, a part of the solution rather than the problem there are two parts to this. The first is bringing all our skills and abilities to the table with energy and gusto and dedication and hard work. That's the first part.
The second part is having the wisdom and the humility to use those skills, to use those abilities, to compensate for the weaknesses of others. If we each have that level of wisdom and maturity then our team, our relationship, I'll tell you, it's going to be completely unstoppable. A team with people in it who are prepared to compensate for one another is going to achieve some amazing things.
Now serving one another takes humility, a much under rated attribute these days is humility. It's about laying aside what we think we're entitled to and pitching in and serving anyway. Humility is serving people even when in our superior judgement they don't deserve it. Humility is rising above the petty bickering and the point scoring and the recognition and the reward seeking and just getting on to achieve the aim.
Humility is shutting our mouths when we feel like complaining, when others around us are behaving like two-year olds and by the goodness of our example, by our faithfulness, by our quiet assurance, showing people the way forward. That's humility. Takes a strong and mature and a wise person to live out that sort of humility.
The best leaders are the humble ones, 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 5:
All of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another for God opposes the proud but he gives grace to the humble.
Hey that's powerful stuff. We often think when we read stuff like that in God's Word, hey I know someone that that's meant for. You know who it's meant for? It's meant for you and me today. It's meant for us to take to heart. Listen, God opposes the proud. Is it really the way to go, to live our lives in a way that God is always going to oppose us with all His might and all His power?
And yet He gives grace to the humble. Humble yourself therefore under the mighty hand of God. That's how we become more of a blessing than a burden, more of an asset than a liability and more of a solution than part of the problem. That's exactly how we do this stuff.