You know – life would be so much easier if everyone saw things my way and did things my way – don’t you think? Problem is that the world’s just not like that – and if we’re not careful, that can drive us nuts!

Great to be with you again at the beginning of a brand new week. There’s something about Mondays you know. People talk about Mondayitis as though Monday’s the beginning of another week. So what’s the alternative, not having another week to live out our lives? No, I love Mondays. For me it’s a great opportunity to catch up with you again, here on the program.

Now last week we were chatting together about getting over ourselves. Because there are so many people who spend their lives pandering to their own whims and desires and fancies. And you don’t have to live too long to realise the rest of the world doesn’t quite see things our way.

The rest of the world doesn’t want us to be happy, by and large. Oh the glitzy advertising for this and that that drags us over here and over there, it may seem to promise us happiness but they don’t want to make us happy, they just want our money.

And people, friends, family, work colleagues, the number one item on their ‘to do’ list, quite often, is not making us happy either. And so many people become all bitter and twisted in life because we’re kind of programmed to make ourselves happy. And the rest of the world won’t play the game. So this week we’re going to continue looking at how to get over ourselves so that we can actually live out a life that counts.

And I can tell you, when I was out there to please Berni, when that was the number one item in my whole life, the thing that most drove me nuts is that other people weren’t playing to my agenda. They weren’t there to please me. In fact what really annoyed me was that they were different and they saw the world differently. They behaved differently and they had different priorities.

And that’s the problem when we expect the world to revolve around us. Other people end up driving us crazy. I’ve always been someone to think and act and move quickly. I recently wrote a book on personality types with my good friend and colleague Keith Henry.

Keith’s been studying personality types over the last couple of decades now and as he came to know me better he began to understand my personality and his comment was, “I’ve never met anyone like you in all my years of doing this. With this personality type combination that you have.” (That always makes you feel good, like a freak). He said, and these were his words, “It’s like your personality is on steroids.”

And I guess that’s a fair description. I love grabbing the bit between my teeth and getting out there and doing things and achieving things. That’s me and I guess we need people like that in this world but imagine, imagine for a moment if everyone was like that. Now that’s a scary thought.

And in a sense, in those earlier years of my life, when life was about me, when the universe revolved around me, it used to drive me completely nuts that other people weren’t like me. Why can’t they get with my plan? Why are they moving so slowly? Why can’t they just get out of my road? Why can’t they just see it? It’s the way we’re going, come on!

And so I lived in this self righteous maelstrom of achievement and self gratification, a toxic combination if ever there was one. And I rolled over the top of people. I berated those who didn’t measure up to what I saw as being my standards.

That’s my story but however we’re wired on the inside we can end up with a similar attitude. The gentle hearted person, sensitive to other peoples emotional needs. That person can become very bitter and twisted and withdrawn and depressed when other people aren’t sensitive to their emotional needs.

They read things into situations that don’t exist. They think worse of people. They end up wallowing in their own emotions because other people don’t care. Other people aren’t like me. Now that’s the complete opposite of who I am but they end up with the same problem, the same outcome.

Who I am and my needs and my view and my attitudes, everyone should understand that and pander to that. Well guess what? The world’s not like that is it? And so we need to learn how to get over ourselves so that we can live a life that really counts.

Now the Apostle Paul is a great guy, he’s so insightful. He deals with exactly this problem. And through him God gives us an answer for dealing with this. Have a listen, it comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 12, beginning at verse 13. He writes:

For in the one spirit we’re all baptised into one body, Jews and Greeks and slaves and free and we were all made to drink of the one spirit. Indeed the body doesn’t consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, ‘because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body’, that wouldn’t make it any less part of the body now, would it?

And if the ear would say, ‘because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body’, that wouldn’t make it any less part of the body either. If the whole body were and eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?

But as it is Gods arranged the members of the body, each one of them as He chose. If all were a single member where would the body be? As it is there are many members yet one body. The eye can’t say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you’, nor the head to the feet, ‘I don’t need you’.

On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are in fact indispensable and those members of the body that we think less honourable, we clothe with great honour and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect. Whereas the more respectable members don’t need that.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior members that there maybe no dissention within the body but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it. If one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And Gods appointed to the Church first Apostles and then Prophets and teachers and deeds of power then gifts of healing and forms of assistance and forms of leadership and various kinds of tongues.

Are all of you Apostles? Are all of you Prophets? Are all of you teachers? Do all of you work miracles? Do all of you possess gifts of healing? Do all of you speak in tongues? Do all of you interpret? Strive for the greater gifts and I will show you a more excellent way.

In other words, of course we’re all different people. That was always God’s plan. What’s the matter with you? Just because I’m this and you’re that, that’s no excuse for us getting annoyed with each other. Why? Because I need you just as much as you need me. You can do things I can’t and I can do things you can’t. And unless we have each other, we’re nowhere.

Get it! That’s what Paul’s saying and that’s what God’s saying to you and me today through the Apostle Paul. You know there are people who encourage others and show compassion and stick with those in need in ways that I never could. And those people tend to move a tad more slowly than I do and think about, if they didn’t they wouldn’t hang in there and show compassion to all those who need it.

Imagine if we didn’t have them in this world. And when I complain about them and belittle them and reject them, as I used to do, I’m just demonstrating pride and arrogance. I’m saying, “I don’t need you.” But what Paul’s saying, what God’s saying to me is this. Yes you do. Are you nuts? Of course you do. What’s the matter with you? You can’t do this all on your own. You can’t.

That was always God’s plan. You just can’t do it on your own, we need others. And it was when I finally realised that I needed these other people, I was able to get off my high horse. It was the deep realisation and in fact a humbling realisation that they can do things I can’t that finally helped me to get over myself and begin to discover the still more excellent way that the Apostle Paul talks about.

There are so many gifted and talented people on this earth. Take you and me – we both have gifts and abilities that other people don’t have. But there’s something else. something more that we need, to make those gifts and talents count for something.

The biggest problem with other people is that they seem to be everywhere in this world. You just can’t get away from them. And so often they drive us crazy because, well, they’re just different. They see things differently, they move at a different pace to us, they have different priorities, they go in different directions. You know what I’m talking about, right?

And many, many people find that so annoying, it drives them so crazy that relationships – important relationships, like husband and wife relationships, parent child relationships, manager employee relationships – end up deeply in the red, bankrupt.

That’s why there are some people in our lives where it’s like there’s a brick wall between us and them and it seems as though it could never be any different. For instance, the closeness and understanding and intimacy that was once there in a marriage is gone and it seems as though it can never come back.

But it can because there is a way of doing it. There is a way of getting it back. There is a way and it’s a way the Apostle Paul calls, “The still more excellent way”. Today on the program we’re going to chat about that. This ‘still more excellent way’.

The thing that so often drives us nuts about other people is that they’re different. Funny how differences can be annoying. I move quickly, you move slowly. You’re more gentle, you’re more compassionate but I’m not. You love to have fun, I love to study and think things through. You’re able to think through and fix a practical problem, I’m hopeless at that.

This list of differences is endless. And just because you can’t do the things I can do and I can’t do the things that you can do, we can end up annoying one another. Instead of rejoicing in the fact that we each bring a different and complimentary skill set to the table, we end up getting annoyed with one another because you can’t do it the way I do it and I can’t do it the way you would do it.

When we look at it this way you realise how dumb that is, the way we carry on. But so many people live their lives that way even though it’s dumb. In fact it’s so common and so dumb that God makes sure that there’s almost a whole chapter in the Bible about this very thing. It’s 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

That’s exactly what the Apostle Paul is saying when he paints this picture that together we’re a body. Even though we’re all different, we’re all part of that one body. We look different. We behave differently. And we have different functions and purposes and skills and abilities but we’re all meant to be part of that one body. Have another listen to this, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, beginning at verse 14:

Indeed the body doesn’t consist of just one member but of many. If the foot would say, ‘because I’m not a hand I don’t belong to the body’, does that make it any less part of the body? And if the ear said, ‘I’m not an eye so I don’t belong to the body’, that wouldn’t make it any less part of the body now would it?

If the whole body were an eye where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is God’s arranged the members in the body, each one of them as He chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?

As it is there are many members yet one body. The eye can’t say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you’. Nor again the head to the feet, ‘I don’t need you’.

See here’s the problem, stated so clearly, we’re all bickering at one another because we’re different. So what’s the answer? Well Paul finishes this chapter off with some rhetorical questions and a teaser that takes us on to the answer. He says:

Are all of us Apostles? Are all of us Prophets? Are all of us teachers? Do all of us work miracles? Do all of us possess gifts of healing? Do we all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

To which the answer is, “No, obviously not”. And then he says:

But strive for the greater gifts and I will show you a still more excellent way.

Okay, so what is this more excellent way that he’s talking about? What is it? How do we finally get over ourselves and start living a life that really counts? Well Paul comes straight off the back of this teaser with the answer. The very next chapter, chapter 13, and he shows us this more excellent way. 1 Corinthians chapter 13, beginning at verse 1. He says:

If I were to speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but didn’t have love, I’m just a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge. If I have all faith so as to remove mountains but I don’t have love, then I’m nothing. If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but I don’t have love then I gain nothing.

Paul’s saying it don’t matter how clever, how talented, how wealthy you are, unless you live out who you are in love, in genuine love, it doesn’t mean diddly squat. But how do we live out our lives in genuine love? What does love look like? Well Paul goes on to tell us. He says:

Love is patient, its kind. It’s not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It doesn’t insist on it’s own way. It’s not irritable or resentful. It doesn’t rejoice in wrong doing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. And now there are faith, hope and love, these three but the greatest of these is love.

You know something, as we let those words sink in, all our arrogance and self importance just melts away, doesn’t it? All of a sudden we realise, man, this person who’s been driving me nuts, look at what they’re capable of. Look at how truly wonderful they are. If I can just get over myself and stop carrying on like a pork chop then all that will open up to me.

Sure, they’ll still annoy me sometimes but that’s okay. I don’t have to win anymore. I don’t have to come out on top. They don’t have to be like me. I don’t have to be the one who gets my way so I can tell other people about it. And the love that God’s put in my heart, it bears all things.

You know what, I really can believe the best of them. I really can bring out the best in them. Do you get that? Isn’t this so much better than the old way? Isn’t this so much better than the hand saying to the foot, “I don’t need you?” Isn’t this so much better than whinging and complaining about people just because they’re different to us.

And when they do that thing that really annoys us, we can smile to ourselves and know that we can cope with it and love them through it. Because when we let Gods Word have sway in our hearts, we just end up doing some serious growing up.

Our life only counts when it counts in the hearts and the lives of other people. And we can only make a difference in their hearts when we accept them and love them and honour them and cherish them just the way they are.

And then, when that happens, something really strange comes out of that. Something really weird goes on. All of a sudden God sets us free to be who God made us to be. Right there, in the middle of the body, we can do the thing that we were made to do.

If we’re an eye, we can see. If we’re a nose, we can do the smelling. If we’re a foot then we can make the body walk. If we’re an ear then we can do the hearing. All of a sudden we’re free to be who God made us to be. John chapter 12, verse 22 says this:

Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

When we start valuing these people around us, over and above ourselves, when we die to self all of a sudden we start bearing fruit. It’s only when we finally get over ourselves that we can live a life that truly counts.

We’ve all had a chip on our shoulders at some point in our lives – you know when you just feel that you’ve been dealt a bad hand and the world – well, the world owes us something. Problem is – it doesn’t and the longer we sit in the corner and sulk, the worse it’s going to get.

There’s an advertisement running on TV at the moment where I live for a well known brand of cosmetics. And they show a woman pampering her skin and putting make up on and all that stuff, a typical cosmetics commercial. “You can all look like me if only you’ll part with your hard earned cash and buy this brand of make up.”

Now, the punch line for this ad is this, “Because you’re worth it”. Now this particular company’s been using that same punch line in different ads for quite a few years now and hey, there’s nothing wrong at all with advertising your product and getting people to buy it. But it’s the punch line, “Because you’re worth it“, that seems to me almost a motto for today’s consumer generations.

It seems that more and more we’re developing an attitude that we’re worth it. You and I, we deserve it, the world owes us something. There are so many people wandering around planet earth with the attitude, ‘The world owes me something. It owes me a living. It owes me this. It owes me that.’ And why not? Isn’t that what we’ve been told on TV and through the media?

Over these past few weeks we’ve been looking at this whole thing about how to get over ourselves so we can live a life that really counts. Well, if we’re going to get over ourselves then probably we’re going to need to deal with this, ‘I’m worth it, I deserve it, the world owes it to me’ attitude. Don’t you think?

I spent twenty years in the corporate world. Jetting around all over the world. Some weeks in three or four or five different places. Now I don’t know if you’ve noticed but Australia is a long way from anywhere. Fourteen hours from Sydney to Los Angeles, twenty four hours plus from Sydney to London. A long way.

And so when I was working for a petrochemical giant in Rotterdam or consulting for a firm in Chicago or the international agency in Singapore or jetting off to a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, I invariably flew business class. Wider seats, more leg room, good food, good service. You know what, here’s what I thought.

I worked hard, I was doing these people a favour. International travel on business is tough, it’s hard work. When you land there, on the other side of the world, you have to go straight into a meeting and I thought to myself, ‘You know something, I deserve it’. I used to tell myself as I sat upstairs in the 747, ‘I am worth it’.

I wonder how all the poor people down there are doing in economy like sardines, packed in. Well these days, since I went into full time ministry and there aren’t large corporates or governments paying my way, I found out how the poor people, the sardines are doing down there in economy because I’m one of them.

And as much as flying business class makes a lot of sense when you’re on a brutal schedule, travelling a lot and working hard, I mean it really does make sense, that’s a luxury that’s no longer available to me. I’m over it now but when I first had to make the transition from my ‘corporate jet setting business class’ lifestyle to an economy seat down the back of the plane, something interesting happened.

I discovered something in my heart that God had to deal with and it was this. This selfish, prideful attitude of “I’m worth it”. It’s not so much that travelling in business class or first class is wrong or immoral. It’s the heart attitude that builds up inside us, the pride, the sense that we’re better than all those plebs down the back. That’s what’s wrong.

So, here’s the thing, this ‘I’m worth it’ pride thing pops up in the most unexpected places. It can pop up when we’re driving our car on the road. It can pop up when we’re trying to team up to do something together with our family or at work. And it rears its head in a way that’s, well, completely unexpected.

I frankly never imagined that when I first started flying economy again that I would have this attitude to deal with. That’s because the shroud of self that covers our hearts is opaque. It’s there but we don’t notice it. And even if we do we’re pretty good, you and I, at rationalising it away.

And this whole ‘I’m worth it, the world owes me, I’m better than you’ attitude is one way in which the self manifests selfishness into our lives. I wonder how affective I will be in ministering God’s love into your heart if I come across as thinking that I’m better than you.

Unless I get over myself, unless I’m prepared to use myself as a bad example in the illustration on the program, unless I’m prepared to be real with you, what right do I have to share the love of Christ with you? Well? And that’s the point.

This attitude that the world owes me is like a brick wall when it comes to me having an impact in your life or you having an impact in my life. It completely immobilises us. No matter what great gifts and abilities and talents we might have. This stinking attitude switches them off.

That’s why we need to get over ourselves and what’s the answer? Well here it is. Paul the Apostle wrote it down in a letter to his dear friends at a Church in a place called Philippi. You can read this in the Book of Philippians, in the New Testament, chapter 2, beginning at verse 1. He says:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, then make my joy complete. Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Don’t do anything from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.

Let each of you live not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus who though He was in the form of God didn’t regard equality with God as something to be exploited but instead He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness and being found in a human form, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name so at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.

Now isn’t that powerful? Jesus is the Son of God yet He humbles himself by becoming a man and to the point of death on a cross for you and me. And all Paul’s saying here is, “Be like that, the world doesn’t owe you anything. You may well be worth it but lay it down anyway.”

Let’s bring that back down to something real and tangible. Let’s bring that down to Berni flying, yet again on a long flight, squashed up in the back of the plane. When I get on that plane and walk straight past the stairs that go upstairs to business class, what do I feel? Well here’s how it goes.

My flesh, the old Berni, still tugs away at me and says, “Why are you doing this? You deserve the comfort of upstairs. Look at how hard you’re working.” See the flesh doesn’t die easily. It always screams out. It always tries to survive.

But the new man in me, the one that was born again through Jesus Christ, you know what, he smiles, he laughs, he rejoices. It’s uncomfortable down the back. Yeah I have to start work the moment I hit the ground in LA or in London, wherever I’m going but you know something, I in my own little way, I’m learning to be Jesus.

I’m doing this for Him and frankly, if I had to row across the ocean I’d do that too. For me it is a great joy to have learned this lesson. And with you, it may not be flying around the world, your circumstances might be quite different but whatever it is that makes you rise up and think, ‘I’m worth it. The world owes me.’ Whatever it is for you I so want to encourage you to lay it down.

I so want to encourage you to get over yourself because in that place of surrender a peace and a joy happen and they’re so sweet, so worth it. It’s time for you and me just to get over ourselves, don’t you think?

Sometimes – sometimes we just need to hear it straight. Come on – tell it to me the way it is. And sometimes what we need to hear – like it or not – is that it’s time for us to get over ourselves – and God has a sure fire way of making that happen!

Now it never ceases to amaze me how many things we can find to be proud of, at least I can. I used to be proud of my wealth, such as it was, the car that I drove, the house that I lived in, my gifts, my abilities, my talents. Not that I’m anything special mind you, not that I’m some great mega rich businessman, not that I had one of those really, top of the range, super dooper expensive cars.

Not that I lived in a multi million dollar house with water views. Had none of those things but I still had pride in what I had and who I was, as though I had anything that God didn’t give me in the first place. Have a look around and it’s amazing how pride rules the roost in many a person’s life.

Whether or not they believe in Jesus. I know plenty of Christians who suffer deeply from this disease of pride. And here’s the crazy thing, pride ultimately leads to our destruction. Pride ultimately brings us down. The Old Testament, Proverbs chapter 16, verse 18, says this:

Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

But still, pride is one of the most prevalent, most destructive diseases doing the rounds today. And there is one, one sure fire way to deal with pride. One trump card if you like that will knock pride out of our lives like nothing else. That’s what we’re going to be talking about on the program today. God’s trump card in dealing with our pride.

I was at an investment seminar recently. Just interested, went along, read a book on investing in the Stock Market and wanted to hear the author speak. Probably, I guess, there were a couple of hundred people there. I sat in the aisle seat in the last row just so I could make a quick exit if it proved to be a waste of time.

And there was an older man, I’m guessing in his late 60’s, sat in the opposite aisle seat. We got chatting before the presentation. This was not long after a major Stock Market crash and recession. He was telling me about a friend of his who’d been a top merchant banker, earning huge amounts of money.

This man had gone and bought a house worth 4.4 million with a down payment of $400,000 and a mortgage of 4 million. That was okay, he had the income to service the loan until the Stock Market crash. Where he lost his job and property values plummeted. That man had to sell that same house, to let it go in a fire sale for 2.6 million dollars. That’s a loss, just quickly doing the maths, of 1.8 million dollars.

Can you believe it? What’s going on here. Is there anything wrong with borrowing to buy a house? No, it’s something that lots of people do. We don’t own our house, the bank owns about 20% of it and so we have a mortgage.

What’s wrong though is that when we get to having such an over inflated sense of pride, we imagine that it’s okay to borrow these outrageous sums of money just so that, well, so that we can make ourselves and our friends think that we’re someone important.

Years ago I used to live in big houses with gold taps, before I became a Christian. And I’d also lived in small apartments. Can I tell you something? Provided that you have a reasonable roof over your head, the size or the grandeur of that roof makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to your level of happiness.

What’s going on here is that our pride, our sense of self and self importance causes us to worship things that we want to worship. We worship our reputations. We worship our wealth. We worship our cars or the success of our children. We can find so many things, impostors, to worship but inevitably they all come unstuck.

So, what’s the sure fire way of dealing with this pride? What’s the one thing that you and I can do to finally get over ourselves and live a life that counts? What’s Gods trump card that will deal with pride every single time? Do you really want to know? Well here it is, Exodus chapter 20, verse 2. It says:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make for yourselves an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth below or in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.

What’s the sure fire answer to pride? Worship God instead. Worship the one true God above all other things. Instead of finding little tin pot gods in money, houses, prestige and worshipping those impostors, go for the real thing. Jesus put it like this, it’s in Luke chapter 10, verse 27. He said:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself.

Now, let’s just think about that for a moment. What does it mean to worship someone or something? What is it that actually happens when we worship? Because worship isn’t a term that’s particularly popular in today’s vernacular anymore.

Well here’s what a dictionary on my PC tells me what worship means. “Adoration or devotion, comparable to religious homage, shown towards a person or a principle.” Interesting, we think of the term of worship as being related to God but it’s entirely possible for us to worship something or someone other than God.

But the Hebrew original word in Exodus chapter 20, verse 5, that first and second commandment that says we shall not bow down or worship idols, literally means, ‘we will not labour or work for them. We will not serve as their subjects. We will not make ourselves their servants.’

Here’s the thing, we all worship something. We all labour for something. For that man with the 4.4 million dollar house that he lost, he poured his life out for something that failed him. He worshipped it. But when we worship God, when we do that with all our hearts, you know what we’re doing, we’re placing God above ourselves and oddly enough that’s exactly where He belongs.

Think about this, worshipping God is the single most selfless thing that we can do. You know one of the reasons I love being part of a Church is that the whole thing of joining together with fellow Christians, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and worshipping God. Singing does that. I pour my heart out to God and lift my hands and bow down my life and worship Him with all that I am.

You start doing that, I mean not just singing songs but worshipping God with all your heart and something happens inside. The big house and the flashy cars, they don’t seem worth it anymore and for me, you know what I discovered, my reputation, that thing that I, in my pride, valued so highly, it doesn’t matter much anymore.

All of a sudden, when I stop labouring for the impostors and start setting about labouring for God, my whole world changed. The worship of God is Gods tool to deal with our pride once and for all. It’s powerful, it’s mighty and it’s affective. Because when we worship God from our hearts, what we do with our hands starts to change too.

That’s what we’re going to be looking at tomorrow on the program. God sets to work in us, enabling us both to want to live for Him and then actually to live for Him. Worshipping God with all that we are and all that we have, as it turns out, is the greatest medicine for the pride in our hearts.

It’s God who helps us to get over ourselves and live a life that truly counts.

There is one sure fire way of dealing with pride – and that is worshipping God, not just worshipping him with our lips but worshipping him with our lives, worshipping him with our hands.

Yesterday on the program we talked about what was, I guess, part one of a sure fire method for overcoming pride and selfishness and arrogance. And it was simply this, worshipping God. Now it sounds weird I know but here’s the thing, worship is the most selfless act that there is. When you and I worship God we’re putting Him above ourselves, above everything. And as we saw there are two forms of worship. What we do with our hearts and what we do with our hands. Yesterday we looked at worshipping God with our hearts.

The adoration, the singing of songs at Church, the worship and joy of knowing and believing that God is God, that Jesus is His Son, that He died for us on that cross, you and me, that He rose again to give us a new life. Man, I can’t help but sing in my heart when I think about that. But worshipping God in our hearts isn’t enough. What’s going on, on the inside ultimately has to work it’s way out to what we do and what we live on the outside from our hearts to our hands. From what we believe and feel and know to what we say and do when we go. And it’s that second part of what we do that we’re going to look at and unpack today in this, the last of our programs in this series that I’ve called, ‘How To Get Over Yourself And Live A Life That Counts’.

I know you’ve probably heard me say this a few times over the last couple of weeks if you’ve been with us but the biggest thing that God ever saved me from was me. My selfishness, my own tendency to put myself at the centre of the universe and expect everything to revolve around me. Expect everyone to dance to my tune and meet my desires and see things my way.

Living like that is just downright awful because it’s about disappointment after disappointment. Pride, arrogance, touchiness. A lot of people are so touchy, so sensitive, so wrapped up in their own emotions. However this works out in our lives when we put ourselves at the centre of the universe and expect everyone else to pander to us.

Well, there’s only one outcome. It’s all going to come crashing down because there are 6.75 billion people alive on this planet. And we can’t all be at the centre of the universe. Shocking as that may appear, I can’t be and you can’t be.

And the thing with worshipping God is that we’re worshipping the creator of the universe. That’s what we’re made to do. I simply can’t put into words how worshipping Him instead of me has utterly transformed my life.

You know what happened when I decided to put God first in my life? That was a huge decision for me. Given that I used to be my own little god in my own little world. And now I had to give some of these things up to worship God, the God of the universe, you know what happened?

All of a sudden a thousand minor ailments disappeared overnight. There were a few bigger ones that have taken a lot longer but all my grumbling and complaining, it’s not that somehow I was clever and overcame these things, it’s just that when I had the joy of the Lord alive in my heart, I didn’t need to grumble, I didn’t need to complain anymore. They just didn’t make sense anymore.

Yesterday we looked at what God has to say about worship and how that impacts in our lives. The first two out of the Ten Commandments actually say this. Exodus chapter 20, beginning at verse 2. The first Commandment is:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

And the second Commandment is:

You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them and worship them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.

And we saw that this word ‘worship’ literally means to serve, to toil, to labour. And when you and I worship our status or our career or our position or our wealth or our house or our car or our clothes, what we’re doing is we’re bowing down to them through our toil and through our labour.

There are people who work incredibly long hours to pay for an outrageous mortgage on a house that has rooms that (A) they can’t afford to furnish and (B) they wouldn’t even go into even if they could afford to furnish them.

There are people who sacrifice their marriages and their family life for a high flying career. There are young women who spend all their income on buying a pair of sunglasses or a skimpy dress or a pair of shoes for outrageous sums of money even though each of those items was produced for almost nothing by virtual slave labour in the developing world.

Do you see what I’m saying? It’s what we do, what we work for, what we sacrifice for that actually shows us what we’re worshipping. And self and reputation and material things, together they’re a cocktail that becomes a harsh task master.

That’s why Jesus said to us, Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 to 30, He said:

Come to me all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens for I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because I’m gentle, I’m humble in heart and you’ll find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

This is exactly what He was talking about. We’re out there thinking we’re living a great life but actually, as we labour for all these impostors, we’re under a yoke of slavery and that’s why people are exhausted. That’s why people have had enough. That’s why they wake up some mornings and wonder, ‘man, why am I doing this?” That’s why.

King Solomon, one of the wisest and wealthiest men in the Bible, in his later years, became carried away with his wealth and at the end of it listen to what he says. Ecclesiastes chapter 2, verse 11:

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it and again all was vanity and a chasing after the wind and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

I don’t know about you, I don’t want to live like that. And in fact, I don’t live like that. I used to live like that and I came to exactly the same conclusion as Solomon.

For me there are two parts to getting over myself. Firstly, worshipping God in my heart but then getting on and worshipping Him with who I am and what I do. Using the resources, the abilities that He’s placed in my hands because all good things come from Him, taking those things and using them for Him for His glory, for other people, for you.

Can I tell you? That’s been hard work and there have been sacrifices and there have been set backs and there have been disappointments along the way and no doubt there are going to be more. But I have never, ever been so content, so fulfilled in my life as I am now. Never.

As we saw yesterday, the most important thing according to Jesus is to:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind and your neighbour as yourself.

In other words, let the complete love that you have for God flow out into what you do for your neighbour. You know how much you used to love yourself and serve yourself? Jesus is saying, “That’s how I want you to love and serve your neighbour. Love them as much as that. Serve them as much as that.”

Let that flow out of your heart which you’ve completely given over to me and then and only then will you have gotten over yourself and you’ll be living a life that really, really, really counts. I mean really counts. And let me tell you, it just doesn’t get any better than that. It just doesn’t.