The world is full of superstars – sports stars, soapy stars, rock stars and these days, even social media influencers, with hundreds of thousands, even millions of followers. Now in many instances, there’s nothing wrong with that per se, but what happens when superstar syndrome starts messing with our own self esteem?

We live in an era of superstars – men and women who have been pumped up by the media until they are larger than life. Whether sports stars or singers turned lingerie designers, or business gurus, or personal development magi, they command unfathomable salaries for minimal output. They go from person to phenomenon, from soapy star to superstar. Their faces are instantly recognised, people flock to get a glimpse of them.

But the superstar coin has two sides to it. The side that we like to look at is the shiny side, the one that speaks of celebrating success. But the other side is, well, kind of dull, you have to rub it to read the writing, but it says something like, if they are a success, you’re not. They’ve made it, you never will. But we don’t like to look at that side too much, so we flick it up in the air with our thumb and hope that it comes up heads.

Well, in a sense there is nothing wrong with superstars, there is nothing wrong with admiring people. There are some sports stars and entertainment stars and contemporary philosophers, and commentators and you know, we look at people and we think, gee, I really like that person. I love the actors, and the writers and the directors on the television show The West Wing. I think that is clever and I love it.

There are some cricketers – I am a great cricket fan. I don’t know whether you like cricket, know what cricket is, hate cricket. There are just a few cricket players that I look at and think they are really, really good guys. And there’s the odd politician and it’s okay to admire, to respect, to enjoy their achievements.

People like that can have a good and a positive impact on our lives. They can be good role models, they can teach us things, they entertain us, they lead us and most of them come from humble roots. All of them were unknowns once. And somehow they have been good at what they do and they’ve made it.

Who are the people that you admire? The names, the faces, the achievements? That’s good, its right that we should look up to certain people as role models. But here’s how it starts to go off the rails. Fame these days equals fortune. Recognition equals the opportunity to make big, big bucks. That’s why soapy stars become singers, become lingerie brands. That’s why generals who fought in the Gulf War, travel the world speaking at conferences, where people pay thousands for a seat to listen just for two hours.

People – when they become famous, become a commercial commodity. They become a commodity that can make money. And so, the media pumps them up and they become larger than life. Larger than you and me and something inside us secretly aspires to being like that. Because we live in a world that suffers from “celebrity syndrome”, from “superstar syndrome”, something inside a lot of people says, ‘I want to be like that too’. But for 99.99% of us we can never achieve that.

It’s not just in rich and affluent cultures. It’s true in Africa, it’s true in very poor parts of Asia, it’s true in poor black communities in America. They elevate a black sporting star and they pay that person megabucks, to sell shoes and sporting clothes into the black ghettos with a message that says, ‘Well, you can get out of the ghetto too. You can be like this sporting star too’. As though a pair of runners can do that for you. You see the cycle?

So back to your and me. It may get us to buy whatever they are selling, and they are always selling something. But what’s the message it sends to you and me about what we’re worth? Well, let’s go back to that superstar coin; look at the other side for a minute. Look at all the people you admire in the media, in sport, on television, in the movies and so on.

Now put yourself up next to them. How do you stack up? How valued do you feel? How successful are you? I mean, in your own eyes, what’s the image that you carry around of yourself in your heart?

That can be a scary thing to answer. Because when we suffer from ’superstar syndrome’ we look at those superstars with more than admiration. We look at them as something we aspire to but we know deep in our hearts we can never achieve. And all of a sudden our sense of worth becomes messed up.

It may sell sporting shoes and t-shirts but it’s easy to see where low self-esteem comes from. And so when it comes to God, whoever God is to you, it’s easy for us to impose that whole superstar syndrome thing on Him. We imagine somehow that He would show up for the superstars – the big people, the people with value and importance, the people who can wave their arms and command crowds of tens of thousands. The people who are BIG, even if they’re big in Christian terms.

Now there are some big Christian artists, performers, preachers, media personalities. We think, well, God would definitely show up for them. But me? You flip over onto the other side of that coin and you look at the darker side, you give it a rub with your thumb, you really think about what you’re worth, one of the little people.

Surely God wouldn’t show up for me? Surely God wouldn’t show up for you? It’s sad but it’s true. Many people have this unspoken belief in their hearts, that that’s how God behaves. That God shows up for only the superstars.

Over these next couple of weeks on A Different Perspective, we are going to be doing a little mini-series of programs called ‘Little people used by a big God’. And this week, in particular, over the next four days, I’m going to share with you some of the people in my life. If I shared all of them it would take me months. Some of those little people who actually, for me, are superstars. Some of the little people that I have met along the way, who’s face you will never see on a television screen, whose name you will never hear anywhere, who have had such an impact in my life.

Now I could preach to you about this stuff, but I don’t want to do that. I would just like to share some real life stories about some so called little people. My prayer is that you will discover that God shows up for little people – especially for little people.

And the ultimate little person for me is a baby that was born in a stable, a baby who was the Son of God. The only baby in history that could choose where and how He would be born. And God chooses for His Son to be born into a humble carpenter’s family in a place called Nazareth, which is the pits as far as first century Jews were concerned.

God chose humble circumstances for His Son. I think God has something to say through that. I think God is telling us that He is a God for little people. Not just for little people too, but especially for little people. And my prayer is over this next week or so, if you can join us over that time, that God will do some work in your heart and in my heart too – to speak to us about His heart for little people. God is not a God that shows up for superstars alone.

I’m sure there are some superstars on this planet who believe in Jesus Christ and God shows up for them. But He doesn’t have favourites. God doesn’t show up for someone because they are a good singer. God doesn’t show up for someone because the world sees them as being important, or they can run quickly or they can play sport well or anything like that. God doesn’t show up for someone because of the salary they get paid, because of the brand they wear on their chest, because of how they play sport. That’s not now God’s economy works.

Over the next few days, I’m going to share with you some of the superstars in my life, who have made a difference that I’ll carry on into eternity.

Imagine that you’re a refugee from a war-ravaged African nation, on the run from forced subscription as a teenager. What could you ever make out of your life?

Superstar syndrome is something that touches just about every corner of the globe. You know larger than life media personalities that somehow, well, so many people secretly aspire to that sort of recognition and status. And when we look in the mirror at our faces, we discover not only aren’t we like that, but we will never be like that. So is there any hope for little people like you and me?

I was talking to a dear friend of mine the other day, Joseph. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa. He is 28 years old, and he has had the most incredibly destructive start to his life. His story begins in Liberia and in 1989, at age 12. He was faced with the ravages of war. Now Joseph is no superstar in the world’s eyes. He is one of the little people, but to me, to me he’s a giant! Have a listen to Joseph’s story

Joseph’s father is a pastor in Liberia. In most parts of the world, pastors don’t earn a lot of money. Well, that’s especially true in Liberia. At age 12, civil war hits and Joseph became a refugee. Now I remember my parents, who were in Europe during World War 2, talking about what it was like being refugees during wartime. I can’t imagine it, I’ve never experienced it, and I pray to God that I never will experience it. But Joseph did.

In the West, we so often see images of African refugees, starving African children. Most of the people who watch those images on the news day after day, week after week, sadly become desensitized. Joseph is one of those. He fled to different countries, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Guyana, Togo, I gather not with his parents. And at one stage in the Ivory Coast, he lived in a car for almost a year with some other kids. Today, fifteen or sixteen years on, he still talks about those days with some difficulty.

When he was in Guinea, he spent days and nights in the forest, hiding, escaping from forced recruitment as a rebel fighter. Remember, he’s twelve or thirteen years old. He was hunted like an animal. He recalls living on a riverbank with lots of other kids his age and then fleeing on to yet another country. I, for one, cannot imagine the trauma of that, can you?

I first met Joseph in June last year at a broadcasting conference in the UK, Stoke on Trent. It was a ‘chance meeting’ and the thing that struck me about Joseph when I first met him, was the sparkle in his eyes. I guess it is accentuated by the deep black skin. When we got talking, I had no idea about his background, or even his current situation.

He heads up a Radio Broadcasting School at a Christian Media Training College in South Africa. He was so excited to meet me. He interviewed me for a radio program. He was excited with what I was doing. He listened to radio programs that I was producing and listened to what we were doing on the internet, and had a look at one of our internet sites, www.whosjesus.com. He’s just an overwhelmingly delightful, enthusiastic young man.

And so the conference finishes, and we head back to our respective homes, he to South Africa, me to Australia. Now don’t know if you have ever done conferences. But how it normally works is, people make all sorts of promises – I’ll keep in touch with you, we’ll catch up, we’ll do this, we’ll do that, at conferences, and ninety nine percent of them never do. So Joseph went back to South Africa, and I thought, ‘Oh well, I might hear from him and I might not’.

Well, Joseph really made a point of connecting with me. Joseph made a point of not only connecting with me but trying to connect me with people of influence that he knew in Africa, with his boss, at the Media Village, where he works, with thirty or forty radio stations right across the continent. And still I had no idea of the circumstances in his life right at that time. It was only much later, in fact, only just recently that the life story of this bright eyed, well-dressed, enthusiastic connector of people, came to light.

Today, as I said, Joseph is connecting us with dozens of radio stations around Africa. So that this program right now is being heard by tens of thousands of people right across Africa. Here’s this little person, a person that most of us will never ever meet, Joseph, having an influence in the lives of tens of thousands of people. Isn’t that exciting?

Well, what’s the point? Joseph is one of the little people. He looks like Tiger Woods, the American golfer. But, I tell you he doesn’t get paid US$130 million a year to wear a certain brand of sports clothes! He’s a little person with a tragic background, and right now, his current circumstances are that he’s not particularly well off at all. I didn’t find that out until somebody else, from Ireland of all places, visited me who knew Joseph, who told me his story.

Joseph works fifteen, sixteen hours a day and then works all weekend, in order to make ends meet. Yet he has that sparkle in his eyes, the sort of sparkle you see from someone who knows Jesus. He could have let his background get him down. He could have let his current finances get him down, but, oh no, this guy has a fire in his heart. He has a sparkle in his eye; he has a smile on his face.

When I met Joseph at that conference in the UK, he was smartly dressed but I would never have guessed what his background was. And he came with the attitude, ‘I’m here to serve’.

God took that young man, and taught me a thing or two. God took that young man and made him a superstar in my life. God took that young man and used him to reach tens of thousands of people, across Africa with his love. This little person, Joseph, is loved by a big God. This little person, Joseph, is used by a big God.

I trust that you find Joseph’s story a blessing and an inspiration. But it’s not the main point of the story, because this is not just Joseph’s story. This is also God’s story. This is a story about a real God who calls His real grace into the real life of a person who was a refugee, of a person who was hunted like an animal, of a person who fled wars.

This is a story about a God who loves Joseph so much that He would pour His own Spirit into Joseph and give him that smile on his face. This is about a God who puts a sparkle in Joseph’s eyes. This is about a God who takes a life from such adversity and says, ‘This Joseph is one of mine, this Joseph is someone that I can use’. This is a story about God’s grace. And as I read through the Bible and I see how different people react to God, how different people interact with God, what I see is God’s story woven through that.

Joseph has a namesake in the Old Testament. There is a Joseph in the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis. You read through the second half of the book of Genesis and you read about Joseph, who is Jacob’s son, who is Isaac’s son, who is Abraham’s son. And Joseph had a life of adversity. And he just carried on and followed God and loved God and God used that Joseph mightily. Just as I believe God is going to use this Joseph, in Africa, mightily.

When we look at our lives sometimes, and we look at our circumstances, we look at the adversity, we look at ourselves and we say, ‘Well, I’m not a superstar, I don’t have what it takes to do superstar type things’. I think we are kidding ourselves. And I think we are missing out on the whole point of God’s story right through the Bible, which is, God takes little people like you, like Joseph, like me, little people who will make a decision just to follow God. Just simply with who they are and what they are and what they have and God uses people like that, mightily. Just as He’s used Joseph.

What about you?

We’re all different, aren’t we? Each with different strengths and weaknesses. The problem is though, that we can spend so much time comparing ourselves with the next guy, that we lose perspective on our own gifts and abilities.

One of the things we tend to do a lot is to compare ourselves with other people. We live in an age of superstar syndrome. It’s sweeping the globe and frankly, it’s more insidious than bird flu. And that’s a dangerous thing. We look at the people around us and we see how clever they are, how talented they are. So and so is so good at that, I wish I was that good. So and so seems so confident and poised, I wish I was like that. You know what I’m talking about.

When we’re in that sort of a mood, and that sort of a frame of mind, we kind of see their strengths but we ignore their weaknesses. Somehow we hold them up as paragons of virtue, and forget that they have failings. They make mistakes. I’d like to introduce you today to a good friend of mine, Max, who seems to have this part of his life pretty well sorted out.

Max is a knob twiddler extraordinaire. He is the producer of all the radio programs I am involved in. Every time I’m sitting here in the studio, behind the mike, Max is sitting on the other side of the soundproof glass panels, doing what he does. You hear the intro music to the program, well, that’s because Max put it there. You hear the ending music of the program, well, he put that there too.

You think, man, that Berni could talk under water, he never stumbles. I’ll let you in on a secret, that’s because Max takes out all my stumbles. You will probably never see or hear Max but he makes me sound good. Listening to radio, we never think about production quality, but we sure would if it wasn’t there. Well, that’s Max’s job. Put it simply, no Max, no Berni!

Every now a then I get in behind the mike to voice something. And you know something, he doesn’t like doing it, but he does have an ear. He knows what it sounds like. I can be sitting in the studio and he’ll come on in my headphones and say, come on, Berni, you can do much better than that, try that again.

Max is, well, he’s fifty something, he’s a lanky Australian, he has chooks in his back yard and he farms bees. So every now and then I get some eggs and some honey. He’s got a grey ponytail, he’s sort of an arty-farty, trendy sort of a guy, a gifted musician, a worship leader and there are any number of things that Max could be doing with his life.

He could be doing more commercial work, which would certainly bring in more dollars than the work that we do together. He could do more up front muso worship type stuff and he’d get a lot more recognition. He could do more work with the ministry that he’s involved in, LL, which is involved in healing. And he would get much more one on one relationship and recognition and maybe satisfaction. Yet he chooses to twiddle knobs for me on this program. In fact, he loves it. I’m the only one who ever notices he’s hidden. He unrecognised, he unsung, yet he still does it. Max, why do you do it?

“Gee, Berni, I guess because it’s the sort of thing the Lord asks me to do. I was working in the commercial area, over twenty years ago now, working in theatre – working in live theatre, getting lots of kudos, working with lots of very big name people. And I just felt as though God was saying to me, I want you out of all of that and I want you to build a little studio under your house and I want you to do work for Me.

Now my ticket out of that situation was a regular job with a fairly large client, doing educational work. They were employing me six months of the year, so in a way it was pretty easy for me to give up a full time job and go freelance, but they dwindled. Work kept coming from different quarters and what was twenty years ago, work on to cassettes, now I work on to CDROM, and all those sorts of things.

 I still find myself sitting in the control room thinking, I actually enjoy doing this. There are some moments of it, like every job, ninety percent of it is just hard work, but there are moments, particularly with you, Berni, that I think, this is what God wants me to do.

There are other things in my life. I am involved, as you said, in music, and worship leading, with LL Ministries, with praying with people. We’re doing all sorts of things, but there’s something about this job that I really enjoy doing and I know it’s making a difference to thousands of people around the planet.”

Thanks for that Max. But it is great. You know Max and I spend a lot of time together in the studio and not only does he do the technical things brilliantly, but he has got such an ear, such an intuition for sound, and how we put things together.

Again, they’re not things that you would normally notice when you are listening to radio but they are really, really important. Now, on the days when I come in, and maybe I’m not feeling on top of my game, Max prays for me, Max encourages me. He’s just good at this thing. He is just cut out to do it.

Put him behind the mic, as I said, he doesn’t really like being there. Now I’ll tell you, I couldn’t really be in the control room most of the time, because twiddling those knobs would just drive me absolutely nuts. I know I couldn’t possibly do it. yYt he’s cut out for something. In the world’s eyes, Max is not a superstar; Max is not one of the people whose faces you will see on the television or at the movies. He’s got the face for it though, not like me, but you’re just not going to see that.

He’s good at what he does; he has a gift in this whole recording and production area that I could never dream to have. And together Max and I are a team, together we do something, and Max is happy to be a silent servant. Max is happy to do the thing that he’s good at, that he’s blessed to do, that he is gifted to do and he gets fulfillment from that. Even though he’s not a superstar in the world’s eyes.

I just wonder whether there isn’t a lesson in that for us. God uses Max, one of the little people in the world’s eyes, to touch hundreds and thousands to people around the world every day with His love. Just let that sink in for a minute.

God uses Max, uses the gifts and the motivations that Max has to do what he does so well, to touch lives all round the world. Max didn’t have to give his time over to do this; Max didn’t have to become involved in recording all these programs, and producing them and all that stuff.

But the bottom line is, God can do so much with people who don’t want the glory. Max is good at something, not just the techo kind of things, but with his ear and his encouragement, and his prayer, is a gift that he chooses to use for God’s glory. He has a gift that he lays down at God’s feet and God uses him. It’s a partnership between God and Max. It’s a partnership that brings deep, deep satisfaction.

You! You aren‘t good at what Max is good at, probably. You aren’t called to do what Max is called to do. But you are good at something, you are very good at something, and it’s something that probably, you really, really enjoy doing. Now give that one thing to God, give that to God for Him to use. That doesn’t mean run away from your job and do something totally different, maybe it does, but probably it doesn’t. God uses who we are, where He’s planted us, to touch other people with His love.

When we offer up the gifts and abilities and resources that God has put in our hands, that God has put in our hearts, that God has put in our DNA, when we offer that up to God, and say God, You use it, I don’t want the glory, You get the glory, God does amazing things.

When you give your abilities to God, you watch how God shows up.

When you give your ability to God, you see how He uses little people to achieve BIG things – that’s God!

There’s nothing as fulfilling, there’s nothing as exciting, there’s nothing as wonderful, as letting God use our gifts.

Go on, I dare you!

Every now and then you meet someone who just has this knack of serving you and blessing you in the most incredible way. They’re not some great superstar whose name is on everybody’s lips, but instead they’re a wonderful, silent, servant who touches one heart at a time.

Every now and then in life you meet a person, someone who has a particular gift to serve you. You can probably think of just a handful of people in your life, who, you know, just serve you. They’re the sort of person who if you put them in a customer service role, in a large department store, or in a call centre, well, they’d stand out head and shoulders to the customers, above everybody else. Their gift is to serve.

These people are not only rare but are worth their weight in gold. And as much as we value them, we don’t recognise them in society. They are not superstars, in terms of our superstar syndrome mentality, but we value them in our hearts. Silent servants! I met one on the 22nd June 1997, and I married her.

On the 21st June 1997, I was a very sick little puppy dog. I had a temperature of around forty degrees Celsius, which makes you really sick. It was a Saturday and I was scheduled to preach and lead worship at my Church on the following morning. Now that means about an hour and a half on your feet, singing and speaking.

Well, I have to tell you, I was in no shape at all to be able to do that. On the Saturday, I wrote the sermon, about a minute or two at a time, because that’s all I could sit up. The next morning, I woke up and I was still so sick. I still had a high temperature, but I just felt that God wanted me to get up and go to the Church and lead the worship and preach. And so I had a shower and hopped in the car and very slowly I drove the mile and a bit up to the Church.

I went inside and I just knew that couldn’t stand up in this state, so we went into the Pastor’s office and a few friends laid their hands on me and prayed for me. Nothing happened … nothing happened. Then all of a sudden, one of the women, her name was Kim, she’s English, laid her hand on me, and she prayed for me and I felt the temperature drain out of my body, from my head to my feet. Now, I wasn’t perfectly well, I still had a cough, but I felt I could stand up and do what I needed to do.

I did, I led worship. I began to preach and about half way through the message, in the middle of a sentence, I looked out and there was this beautiful woman and I just felt God say to me, ‘That’s her! She is going to be your wife‘, and unbeknown to me, she was having exactly the same God experience from the other side, saying, ‘He is the guy that you are going to marry.’

Well, one thing led to another. It’s all history now. In six months we became engaged, and about a year and a bit later, we were married.

And before we were married, someone said to me, a wonderful Christian woman, she said, ‘This woman, Jacqui, whom you are about to marry, will be able to help you in your ministry, in ways you can never imagine.’ Now, I wasn’t even involved in full time ministry then. I had no idea what God had before me.

Jacqui’s worked in all sorts of different rolls. She’s worked as a personal carer in aged care. Now those people have a tough job and they get paid peanuts. You know, there’s heavy lifting, it’s messy, it’s smelly, people with dementia who try to take a swipe at them, and hit them. It is a really tough job. And when she left her job, all the elderly people in the home were so sad to see her go, because she just has a gift for working for the elderly, loving them and caring for them and being gentle with them.

She went on to a role as a rehabilitation assistant, where she was again dealing with older people, who had hip replacements and were doing rehab. And it was the same, she was dealing with people in pain, and she just had this ability to love them and care for them and walk them from their bed up to the rehabilitation unit and back again. When she left that job they were so sad to see her go.

From there she moved on to a large department store, where she ran the bridal register. You know, when people get married they have a bridal register at a store and then you can buy the gifts from that store. Now it all looks really wonderful and romantic, but the truth of the jobs is, it’s a tough job. It’s complex administratively, it’s about bringing gifts together from right around the country, and getting them there on the day. It’s a tough job and she had this real client focus, of looking after the couple that was getting married. Making sure that everything went well on the bride’s special day.

There is a pattern emerging here – this gift. Here is a little person. Now, you will never see Jacqui up on a platform speaking. You will never hear Jacqui behind a microphone speaking. That is not her gift. Wild horses could not get her to do what I do, and I have to tell you, wild horses could not get me to do what she does.

And here we are in this great ministry, Christianityworks, where we are sending radio programs right around the world, we are building internet sites, that tens of thousands of people come to each month. And if you happen to call our ministry, on one of our toll-free numbers, in Australia or New Zealand, chances are, you’ll end up speaking to Jacqui.

She handles the data bases, she is so passionate about getting peoples names right, she’s passionate about getting the radio program CDs to the stations before the due date, and making sure that when someone gives to the ministry the thank you letters get sent out on the same day. She remembers people’s names and their situations, she cares so much, she gets back to people quickly when they ring and they get the answering service. Everything you’d expect if you called a Christian Ministry.

That’s what she does; she works long hours, she loves it, her satisfaction is not in external recognition, because nobody notices outside. Her satisfaction is in meeting the needs and expectations of listeners, supporters and prayer partners. She’s got it figured out – I’m really good at this, I really enjoy this, I don’t need to be a superstar. I love one on one, just to touch people in the way that God made me to be.

You know something; I reckon we’ve been duped. We’ve been duped by society into thinking that money and recognition and fame is where it’s at. Yet when we exercise our gifts, the simple everyday gifts and motivations that God has given us, it is such a joy, it is so fulfilling.

When we put those gifts and abilities and resources and time into God’s hands, God takes little people like you, like me, like Jacqui, and like Max that we talked about yesterday and like Joseph, that we talked about the day before, and He has this amazing plan.

You would not believe the number of people walking on this planet thinking, ‘I’m not good at anything, I’ll never succeed,’ yet they have this incredible ability, this incredible gift locked inside them. And when we look at ourselves sometimes, we think, yeah but, my abilities are so ordinary. Of course we think they are ordinary, because we live with them all the time. You look at someone else’s ability and I look at Jacqui’s ability to do what she does in our ministry, I think it’s amazing because I certainly couldn’t do what she does. But to her it’s ordinary.

Our own gifts always appear ordinary. To me getting up and speaking to two or three thousand people, getting up behind a radio microphone and speaking to you, to me that’s ordinary. Because that’s who I am, it’s a joy for me. Just because we think our gifts are ordinary doesn’t mean that they’re not a gift. It doesn’t mean that when we put them in God’s hands for Him to use, for Him to touch the hearts of other people, that He won’t do that. That’s what He wants to do. Not just bless us but use us to bless other people.

God see us with the abilities that He has wired into our DNA. The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians Chapter 2 and verse 10, that:

We have been created in Christ Jesus to do the good things that God planned beforehand for us to do.

So we kind of walk into them, bump into them because God’s already put them in our path.

Jesus picked disciples that were fishermen and tax collectors, they were bumpkins, they were uneducated. He took the ordinary and with them He did the extraordinary.

You and I have gifts and when we let Him take them the ordinary, He will take those and do extraordinary things with them.

We seem to live in a world that all too often, is devoid of encouragement. Some days, it feels like all the encouragers out there must have been wiped off the planet. Extinct. And then you meet one.

We’ve been looking this week at being a little person used by a big God, and in particular, I have been sharing some stories about some little people, who God has been using so mightily, in my life.

A young man called Joseph in Africa, Max who works in the studio here with me, my wife, a silent servant. It’s amazing how we suffer from superstar syndrome. We see all these larger than life media personalities, people who aren’t really people, they’re brands, and think, ‘I can never be like that. I can’t have significance like that’, when all along, God has a crazy plan.

He’s looking for little people, little people like you and me, who He can use in the lives of others. I’d like to finish up this week as we look at significance by talking about a man in my life called ‘Ton’, as he likes to call himself. He is a few years my junior, but he is the most excellent encourager you will ever meet.

Tony is this tall, gangly, curly redheaded guy and he himself would say, ‘I’m no oil painting’. He’s kind of right, he should be in radio with me. He’s a Queenslander, that’s a little bit like being a Yorkshire man in the U.K. or a Texan in the U.S., right? Queenslanders are kind of special, something different and wonderful about them. And he runs an advertising and design company. They do the most amazing, creative work.

I met Tony when he was really, really down. He’d done some free concept work for a particular ministry who were doing a media campaign and they took some of that and then didn’t use his company any more. God had really laid something on his heart at the time to support a media ministry, and one thing led to another and now he supports our ministry. Now he’s on our board and he has this passion and fire for what we do.

His creative company helps us with brochures and newsletters and just stuff that a ministry like this has to do. And as I said, they do the most wonderful creative work. We have recently put a website together, called www.whosjesus.com. They did all the printing and promotional stuff for that and it’s just stunning. You know, the work they do is just wonderful.

Now this guy was full of disappointment because he thought God was leading him down one path and that fell over, when all along God was getting him ready to work with us, to be with us. And in the middle of this disappointment, God was getting things ready for him to not only be a ministry supporter of Christianityworks, but also a personal friend and supporter to me.

We live in a world where very few people encourage one another. Encouragers are like dinosaurs, they seem to be almost extinct, in the work place, where people give you the credit when credit is due.

I was talking to a young man by the name of Mike and he is the assistant manager of a large organisation, well known and they just opened a large new iconic store in the middle of a large city and the regional manager visited and gave the credit to the store manager. The store manager, in reality didn’t really do much. He left it all to his assistant manager, Mike. But the store manager never passed the credit on. The store manager never said to the regional manager, ‘You know, this guy, Mike, has done such a good job we could never have done it without him’. Not so much as a ‘thank you‘! No, ‘I could have never done it without you, Mike’.

Have you ever noticed that? Sometimes it feels like we live in a world devoid of encouragement. Like you have been wiped off the face of the earth. And then God goes along and gives me Tony.

Now Tony is a visionary guy. Tony lifts my gaze. I think big, this guy thinks huge. And in a ministry, when you are working day to day and you’re managing the detail and the nitty gritty, sometimes you loose your strategic vision.

Well, I organise to have coffee with Tony once every three, or four or five weeks and this man is so passionate for God. He focuses me, he lifts my gaze, he lifts my focus up to remember what God has really called us to do. So he doesn’t just help the ministry, he encourages and builds me up. I don’t know if you have ever thought about it, but being a person who does radio, who lives in a studio and does programs, you don’t exactly have a million people around you.

Not that I get lonely, but it is naturally a lonely way of working. Now fortunately for me, I am cut out to do that. But it is so wonderful to have Ton in my life, to get me over a cup of coffee and give me a shake and encourage me and bless me with his stories and pray for me and support me.

Doesn’t matter who we are, we all need that, and you know something, the people around us need that too. They are needful as well, they need support, they need encouragement, they need kind words, they need people to help them make connections, they need people who exercise their own gifts in their favour.

This week I’ve spoken about four different people – Joseph, a young African man whom I met in the UK, who’s been through the most horrendous life as a refugee on the run for his life, hunted like an animal. And he stepped into my life and has just blessed me. Because of Joseph, our programs are now going right across Africa.

A gifted sound technician and producer Max, a knob twiddler, as I call him. You know, Max sits here in the studio every day with me and encourages me and blesses me with his gifts and abilities.

A gifted, silent servant, in my wife, who does so many things in our ministry, that I could never do, looking after the supporters and looking after people who call in after programs and looking after our prayer partners

And now, Tony an advertising executive. You know advertising and marketing people, they are kind of a different breed to the rest of us. They’re creative and you know, wear different clothes to me and all that sort of stuff. But this guy takes everything he is in his business, everything he is as a person, everything he is as a follower of Jesus Christ, and lays that at my feet and supports me and encourages me, and blesses me.

Just four people we have talked about this week who so bless me. If we talked about them all, we’d be here for months, because God has just been so good by putting these people in my life.

Have you ever thought you and I are meant to be those people in other people’s lives? Have you ever thought that your ability to encourage, just to write a kind email, just to pray for someone and say, “I’ve been praying for you.” Just to say to someone, “You are doing such a good job, keep going.” Just to say to someone, “You blessed me so much.” We are put there to bless other people, you and I, little insignificant nobodies.

We’re not superstars. We’re not going to have our faces plastered all over televisions, and we’re not going to earn $130 million dollars a year for wearing a particular brand of sporting clothes. That’s not us! If it is, ring me, I’d love to talk to you. But, it’s just not us, right?

God takes little people, and in my case, just a small number of little people who have a number of things in common.

First, they are little people, they’re not famous. Second, I happen to know them. Third, they put their gifts in God’s hands and use them for my benefit. And fourth, He has taken the ordinary things that they do, the ordinary gifts that they have, the ordinary people that they are, and done extraordinary things with that in my life, and the lives of so many other people, touched by these programs.

I believe God is calling you today, to put your ordinary gifts, your ordinary resources, your ordinary abilities at His feet and say, ‘Lord Jesus, how do you want me to use this for You?’

I believe God is calling us to lay our gifts and our abilities down at His feet so that He can take us, little people, to be used by a powerful God.