There’s nothing worse than going to a coffee shop for a good cuppa, and getting bad service.  And it turns out that we’re all in the service business one way or another.  How we serve others makes a huge difference.  

Other people can frankly drive us nuts.  But they are who they are – and here’s a thought, when we let them be, God sets us free.   Now there’s a thought – but how does it work?

Over the last three weeks or so we’ve been talking about living the life God always intended. We have one chance at this life, that’s it. It’s not a dress rehearsal. And what’s so incredibly sad for me is to run into people, so many people, who aren’t enjoying their lives. That’s not to say we don’t go through some rough patches. Obviously, we do, but by and large, life’s there for living, for making a difference, for touching other people. There’s incredible satisfaction in that.

So this week, we’re kind of having a poke around in that, looking at what it means to live a life of serving other people. Today, we’re going to explore one way, a practical thing that we can do to serve other people. It’s so simple, it’s so profound it will touch people so deeply, it’s amazing. Here it is, just let them be. Let them be who they are. Let them be what God made them to be. And it turns out when we let them be, God sets us free.

We’re all different, have you noticed? We’re good and bad at different things. We like different things. I like this colour, you like that colour. You like that taste, I like this taste. You like those clothes, I like these clothes. So different. And sometimes we get annoyed by those differences. Maybe you’ve heard me talk about this in the past but it’s a big issue.

One of the biggest things that ruin our lives is other people being who they are. Their differences grate and annoy and drive us nuts. You know what I mean. But the fact is, we’re all different and the fact is, we always have to live with those sorts of people around us. God makes sure of it. God never puts us in a group where everybody is just completely the same. Let’s face it, that would be boring to start with, but God wants steel to sharpen steel. God wants us to learn to humble ourselves and to get on with other people.

I had a recent experience. I was involved in a really large piece of work, a big complex project. And I was the key man doing the job and there were other people around me, helping me. It was a huge job. It took a lot of months to do. And what I’m good at is communicating, telling a story. I think in concepts and stories not detail but the job involved an enormous amount of detail and what I really appreciated were the people around me. They quickly understood the things that I was good at and also the fact that I wasn’t good at ferreting out and sorting through a lot of the detail. And so they served me and they helped me with the things that I wasn’t good at.

They could have criticised me, they could have complained, they could have attacked me. Instead, they helped me and when that happens, it so validates who we are. It’s wonderful to work in an organisation like I do and to experience those things. The Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12, figures it out. He said (my paraphrase):

We’re all different. We all have different motivations and abilities. Some people are good communicators, others are good teachers, and others are good encouragers, others are good leaders, others are good at caring for other people and serving. Others are real givers and yet others are great at showing mercy. (Romans 12: 6-8)

But the flip side is, we all have weaknesses. Communicators like me, want to talk over people. Encouragers want to encourage so much that they end up running other people’s lives for them. People who are good at caring and showing mercy, well, sometimes are not the best time managers. And on top of that, we all have our own foibles; we all have our own ‘Achilles heel’, the things that we do wrong. So when we have people around who are different what does it look like to live the life God always intended?

How do you do that, when people’s weaknesses disrupt our peace and joy that God wants us to have? You know, you have a great time with God in the morning, Yes! Hallelujah! And then you deal with someone in the middle of the day and they drive you nuts and that peace has gone and that joy is gone. If we want to live the life that God always intended, we have to let people be. And when we let people be, God sets us free.

I have enough of my own faults without your faults ruining my day. In fact, if I let your faults and your weaknesses ruin my day then I’m adding your faults to mine. And if I let the next person’s weaknesses rub me the wrong way, I’m adding those to my load. And the next person after that, I’m adding those to my load. I’ve got enough of my own to carry around I don’t need to carry yours with me too… and the next persons and the next persons and the next persons.

My time with God in the morning is a powerful way of changing who I am and living the day for Christ, to be a blessing, to live a life of joy and peace. And when I pick up your load and the next person’s load, it ruins my peace.

I’ve made a decision. I’m going to let you be who you are, will you let me be who I am? When that weakness that rubs us the wrong way comes at us just let it be, just turn the other cheek and let it be. When we let people be, God sets us free. The moment we stop trying to change people, complain about them, whinge about them, get angry about them, get hurt because they offended us, our lives change.

Why is it that God makes such a big thing about forgiveness? Jesus, when He was teaching His Disciples the Lord’s Prayer said,

Forgive us as we forgive others. (Matthew 6:12)

Wake up! Let those others be! Accept them just the way they are. And you know something, that’s a form of service. When we do that it puts them before us and people sense that, they notice that. When I say, “You know something, it’s okay for you to not be a really good time manager, even though that rubs me the wrong way, because you know something, I’m not very good pastorally but you are and we need both of us on this team.” When I say that, I’m validating who you are or who the next person is.

Get a revelation! You and I have enough weaknesses and failures of our own without letting our next person’s weaknesses and failures ruin our day. Come on! I know people who are smart and clever and intelligent and good at what they do but they spend their whole time whingeing and complaining about other people. They’re touchy, they’re sensitive. When you are touchy and sensitive, you don’t have joy, you don’t have peace. You’re setting yourself up in the centre of the universe and saying, “Because this person doesn’t fit with my view of who they should be, I’m going to get offended.”

Well, just as well Jesus didn’t do that on the cross with you and me. If I sound like maybe I’m getting into your face today, maybe that’s because it’s time to do that. Living the life that God always intended is about living our lives with other people and for other people just the way Jesus lived His life for you and for me. And as we lay down our lives for them, our rights for them, our self-righteousness for them, God changes us, God sets us free. Doing this stuff costs us. It costs us our lives but the prize is life itself.

Bottom line … if we want to live the life God always intended we need to accept people just the way they are – willingly, kindly, gently, patiently, day after day, week after week. When we let people be, God sets us free.

What’s Providence? Well, it’s when God goes ahead of us and prepares the way.  Pretty cool. Hmm – what if – what if we could do that for other people?  What if you and I are God’s providence for someone else? 

I was looking up in the dictionary the other day the word “providence” because I wanted to know exactly what the word meant. Like most people, I’d always thought that providence was God’s provision, but literally, the meaning of the word is this:

Care and preparation that takes place in advance. Foresight, wisdom that goes ahead of you.

Isn’t that cool? God’s providence is Him going ahead of us, with all His wisdom and knowledge and love and grace, and preparing the way, smoothing the path so that by the time you and I walk into that place everything’s ready. Ah, it’s awesome! That’s what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote:

We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works that God prepared beforehand for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10)

Well, imagine just for a minute if we could do that for other people, if God used us to be His providence for someone else. What would the world look like then?

Over these last few weeks we’ve been looking at living the life that God always intended. Now, sometimes when I say that, people picture one long holiday, luxury and wealth and health and happiness, but that’s not it. Life’s for living, all the ups and downs, all the good times and the bad times. There’s this rich fabric that we call “life”, and you and I, we’re people with gifts and talents and unless we exercise those in life, there’s no satisfaction.

And no matter what our gifts and talents are, real satisfaction comes from serving other people. Whether you’re an artist or a musician or a brain surgeon or a shop attendant or a mum or whatever. Isn’t it about impacting other people’s lives? When you’re a parent and seeing your kids grow and become wonderful and mature adults who contribute to society, as they say, to give to other people.

This week we’re looking at living a life of service; serving other people, practical ways of doing that, of making a difference just like Jesus did. When Jesus came and He said:

I didn’t come to be served, I’m the Son of God, I came to serve you, I came to die for you, I came to give my life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

Yesterday, as a really practical way of doing that – of living a life of service, we looked at the fact that when we let people be – when we let them just be who they are with all their strengths and weaknesses, when we let people be – God sets us free. I don’t think my day is meant to be ruined by other people’s weaknesses. There’s enough in me of my own that I have to deal with without putting up with someone else’s. And so there are people who are quite different to me in my life and I value their strengths and I love them in their weaknesses.

And ninety-nine times out of one hundred those weaknesses just wash straight past, because God wants us to be mature and lacking in nothing. God wants us to have joy and peace and that comes when we lay down our lives and we say, “That person drives me nuts some days, but I love them and I’ll serve them and I’ll bless them.”

Today, we’re looking at going ahead of people, exceeding their expectations. And if we’re going to live the life God always intended, what if God intended for us to be His providence in other people’s lives? Remember, providence is when God goes ahead – when He sends His wisdom and His love and His mercy and His grace and His power ahead of us to get things ready – so by the time we walk into them they’re exactly the way God meant for them to be.

What if God used you or me to be His providence in someone else’s life? When we think about it, that’s what we do for our kids. As mums and dads we have greater wisdom because of our years of experience, so we let them walk through things and experience consequences while being there for them. We think ahead for them. That’s how they learn, that’s how they grow in a safe, loving situation. We do that. We’re programmed to do that as mums and dads.

What if we did that for other people too? What would that look like? What if we just compensated for their weaknesses before they happened? What if we covered up for them when they fail? What if we supported them when they fell over? What if we opened doors for them to other people? Pro-actively doing things that go ahead to help them? What a world, what a relationship!

Let me share a story with you. When God laid this whole radio thing on my heart I didn’t know anyone in radio. I just had a call from God, “Oh God, where do I start?” The answer was, I started recording programs in a studio and not a single station had agreed to take them. We’d put down three or four months worth of programs. You had to have a few months worth done before any station would even talk to you.

One day Christianityworks, our ministry, was moving offices from office A to office B and I was carrying some really heavy boxes, down the corridor. I had recorded these few months of programs and I’m lugging this box down the hallway talking to God, “Lord, how are you going to get these programs out there? What’s the plan, Lord? I have no idea!” Truly I didn’t, and God spoke to me so clearly that day. He said, “Go and talk to the guy behind that glass partition.”

You see our old office was in a shared office area where there were other ministries and that guy was a man called Nathan Brown. He was the Australian head of Michael Youssef’s ministry, Leading the Way. Now traditional wisdom, worldly wisdom says, “Well that’s kind of the competition. He’s another radio ministry and they try and get their programs on radio stations.” Now I don’t see the world that way, didn’t particularly know Nathan very well but God just impressed it on me to go and talk to him.

So I put the box in my car and came back in again and knocked on Nathan’s door. And I sat down and I just shared my heart with him. Nathan was overjoyed. He said, “I would love to help you.” And he opened doors for our ministry through his relationships with so many stations. Chances are you’re listening to this program because Nathan was involved somewhere. Today, our programs are being heard in over 1200 radio stations around the globe.

Nathan was God’s providence for this ministry and for me. This man had an open heart, a heart to serve, a heart of enthusiasm, a heart to share his wisdom and experience and relationships and to open doors. Now he looks at what God’s done through that and the guy is just overjoyed at having been used by God to be a part of that. Isn’t that a beautiful story?

It’s hard sometimes to help people, it’s difficult sometimes but God’s love and God’s wisdom is pro-active. That means God just doesn’t sit around waiting for us to get our act sorted out. God goes ahead of us before we even think of things, and He does things for us so that when we walk into them we’re blessed.

We know love by this, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Providence is pro-active and it’s not always easy to do. And sometimes people don’t appreciate it and sometimes people are difficult. But when God taps us on the shoulder and says, “Go help that one. Go open a door for that one. Go bless that one”, you’d better go.

Because like Nathan, you know, it’s just an awesome feeling when you get a sense that God touched you by His Spirit and called us into a place just to do something little that we could do. And then God uses that and multiplies it and blesses so many people when we do that. Come on! It’s not always easy but are you living the life that God always intended? Come on!

Everyone goes through stormy times in life.  We all do. And when we’re bobbing around like corks in the ocean, what we really need is solid rock beneath our feet.  And so do the people around us. So, what if God means for you and me to be that rock in someone else’s life.

I hate being on the water in a boat. I don’t mind swimming, I don’t mind being beside the water looking and I don’t mind diving under the water but I absolutely hate being on the water in a boat. Up and down, up and down … I get sick! I can just feel the waves of nausea crashing over me … up and down. I’ve always preferred terra firma, the more firma the less terra … up and down.

Now, if you enjoy the water, God bless you but not this little black duck. No way! I like to have a rock beneath my feet, solid, firm, no movement, no up and down. To me there’s nothing more terrifying than looking out over an angry, stormy ocean, grey water, white caps, wind howling. The ocean’s a scary place in a storm don’t you think? There are storms in life too. And today on the program we’re going to spend a little bit of time looking at what it means for us, for you and me, to be the rock beneath someone’s feet.

This week, and over the last few weeks, we’ve been looking at what it means to live the life that God always intended. God has this great plan of joy and peace and grace and wisdom for us to live through all the things – whatever they are, ups and downs – that God has planned. Life has its downs. There’s beautiful poem called ‘The Weaver’. You may have heard me read this before but let me share it again.

Life is but a weaving between my Lord and me,
I cannot choose the colours as He weaveth steadily.
Sometime He chooses dark threads and I in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper and I the underside.
Not ’til the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll His canvas and explain the reasons why
The dark threads were as needful in the weaver’s skilful hands
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He hath planned.

It’s the reality of life isn’t it? Amongst the richness and the joy and the blessing, sometimes there’s the odd dark thread as well. And so much of what we do in life is about being servants rather than being served. I spent most of my life living for “me” but I was never satisfied. And these days I’m living for Him – for Jesus and other people, and for you – and I am the happiest man, the most blessed man on this planet. I wouldn’t be doing anything else because God is just blessing me through this life of laying it down so that I can take it up again in Him. Jesus said,

“I didn’t come to be served but to serve.“(Matthew 20:28)

And that’s where the satisfaction is in life

Today, we’re going to look at another practical way that we can serve someone else. One of the most wonderful things that we can be for someone is a rock beneath their feet in the midst of one of life’s storms. A storm out on an angry ocean is a horrible thing but a storm when your feet are on solid ground, well it’s not overly pleasant but it’s not as bad as being on the ocean.

Looking back at my life, I hated Christians and everything they stood for, before I met Jesus. The important things in life were clearly money and career and the big flash car and the success. And that had consequences. They caused a storm of mammoth proportions in my life. And on the dark days I felt like a cork bobbing around in this angry ocean in the middle of a storm. And here’s the funny thing, the Christians, who I hated in my life (there were three of them), they were the ones that stepped up to the plate and gave me a home to live in, gave me support, gave me encouragement and gave me Jesus. They were the rock beneath my feet. I can’t much remember what they said but I will never, for all eternity, forget what they did for me.

We all need solid foundations. So many people have cracks in their foundations. So many people are living life-like that cork bobbing around in an angry ocean feeling as though they’re going to drown. A storm comes and people struggle. You see it, don’t you? And often those people aren’t the easiest people to be around. I know I wasn’t when I was like that. Often they’re dysfunctional and they’re not pretty and they’re not nice and they’re upset but we can step up to the plate and we can be their rock in a storm. What an amazing privilege!

Jesus said:

Everyone will know that you’re one of my disciples if you have that sort of love for each other. (John 13:35)

Unconditional love, love that hangs in there, love that’s solid, love that’s immovable, love that says to someone, “Doesn’t matter how bad your life gets, it doesn’t matter how bad that storm blows, it doesn’t matter how much you feel like you’re going to drown, I will be your rock, I will be the solid foundations beneath your feet.”

What about someone near you? Someone in your life – a family member, a friend, a work colleague, a neighbour, someone at your local Church or football club or dance class, or one of the parents of the other kids at school – who is going through a storm and just needs a friend, just needs unconditional love, just needs someone to put their arms around them and say, “I understand. It’s okay, I’m here.”

That’s part of living the life God always intended. It’s being Jesus to them. And it’s difficult some days, it’s not beautiful some days. Those people aren’t pretty some days but what an incredible privilege, what an incredible satisfaction.

Those three Christians I was talking about before who were my rocks, now look at what God has done through me and is doing through me and continues to do in me and they know they were a part of that. Every time I open my mouth on this side of the microphone, their ministry is ministering to you. Their love to me is flowing to you, because I learned what the love of Christ was from them. I learned who Jesus was through them being the rock beneath my feet.

It’s amazing! And when we live the life God always intended, Jesus calls us into that place to serve in a practical, hands-dirty, sleeves-rolled-up love to give them the love of Christ. Jesus said to Peter, the Apostle:

On this rock I will build my Church. (Matthew 16:18)

And Peter was this impetuous man who opened his mouth before he engaged his mind and he was a fisherman but he was passionate, he was real, he wasn’t perfect but he was prepared to step out of the boat and trust Jesus and walk on the water through the storm and Jesus said:

Now this is the sort of man that I can use as a rock to build my Church on.“

Get out of the boat, get out in the storm, go be a rock that someone else can stand on. That is living the life God always intended.

When the people around us start behaving badly, as they do sometimes, we often try to use them as an excuse for us stooping down to the same level, for us responding by behaving badly as well.  But at the end of the day – it simply doesn’t work.

We pretty much all understand the concept of the lowest common denominator. You look across a group of people and you pitch your message or your idea or whatever at the lowest common denominator. TV does that all the time. It dumbs down the complex issues of life. It turns values into spin, people into stereotypes. And you know something? We do it too. We have a tendency to pitch our approach or our behaviour or our principles or our ethics at the lowest common denominator.

We can be in a group of people, say at work, and we can have the best intentions, the best ethics. But when things start getting competitive or feral, when people start tearing one another apart (as they do in work situations), we want to stoop down to that level and get involved. Principles, ethics – out the window. It’s the law of the jungle buddy. Kill or be killed.

This is the last program in a four-week series that I’ve called, “Living the Life God Always Intended”. Living life to the full, living a life of deep satisfaction, of peace and contentment, even through the bad days, and the good days. God has a plan. God has a plan for your life, God has a plan for my life. It’s a good plan. It’s a plan of blessing, it’s a plan of peace, it’s a plan of joy, it’s a plan of love, a plan of grace. And for me, it’s all about getting close to Him.

I used to think it was self-help, hard work, trying to change myself and it doesn’t work! Change this, change that in me. It would last a while but I’d always end up going back to my bad habits. I’m as smart as they come but I discovered I couldn’t change me. And then when I met Jesus, finally the penny dropped. Duh!

It’s about getting close to Him. It’s about drawing close to God and spending time with Him in the morning. I’m a different person after that. His living water just washes over me, it’s fresh, it’s life, it’s peace and I can go into that jungle and you know, I don’t much feel like devouring people anymore. Being first, being top dog, winning is no longer my number one priority. I love that saying that “It’s a dog-eat-dog world and there’s plenty of dog to go around”. Some people just live to win: to beat others, to make money, to be the top salesman, whatever.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great to set goals and to achieve things. But when we get this competitive spirit, this spirit that says, “I have to win at all costs and if you have to lose in order for me to win, then so be it. I’m going to devour you and chew you up.” When we live life like that, it doesn’t bring us peace and joy and satisfaction. Now, we may not naturally be like that but we get into that sort of environment and other people tend to drag us down. We want to become one of the pack.

I used to have a saying, “Don’t get angry; get even.” And finally God gave me a revelation. If you live that sort of life you won’t have God’s peace, won’t have God’s joy, and won’t have God’s satisfaction in life. When we tread on people and beat them and defeat them and drive them into the ground, come on, where’s the joy in that? Where’s the peace in that? Whatever happened to living the life God always intended?

And when other people are behaving badly we have this tendency to behave badly too; not to let them drag us down. We rationalise that. We say, “Well, I need to protect myself.” Jesus said:

He who lives by the sword will die by the sword. (Matthew 26:52)

Paul the Apostle in Galatians said:

Don’t grow tired of doing what’s right because we will reap a harvest in due time. (Galatians 6:9)

When other people are off their rockers and behaving badly that’s precisely the time to be different. One of the things I learned in seventeen years of consulting in the IT industry, is that behaviour is often situational. In other words, when people are in pressure cookers, when people are under stress they do things and they say things that will hurt us. But those things are driven by the circumstances, by what’s going on in their lives, by the argument they had at home with their spouse, or the difficult kid, or the pressure they’re under to make money, or the growing interest rates on their mortgage or whatever.

Situations drive people’s behaviour. And so when you have a set of circumstances of commercial pressure or work pressure, that’s when you will see what people are made of. And while they are all tearing one another apart, you and I can be the peacemaker. We can refuse to play that game. We can go on doing good, go on delivering, go on speaking well of people behind their backs, go on being kind and reliable and honest and frank and decent. Don’t grow tired of what is right for we will reap at harvest time. God is in that place.

James writes in his letter in the New Testament:

God’s wisdom, the wisdom from above is pure, it’s peaceable and gentle and willing to yield and full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. (James 3:17)

You know our problem sometimes? We’re not willing to yield, we’re not willing to come second, we’re not willing for someone else to get the better of us, we’re not willing for someone else to win, we’re not willing to lose our reputations by not playing the ugly game. The wisdom from above is pure and peaceable and gentle and willing to yield and full of mercy and good fruits, wouldn’t you want to be around someone like that in a crisis?

Imagine that you and I are that person when everyone else is doing that ‘dog eat dog’ thing. Now that’s living the life that God always intended. That’s where you get peace and joy and contentment and God honours that. The people around us mightn’t, and maybe by living like that we might appear to lose. We might lose a battle, we might get laughed at, we might … everything. But it’s living the life God always intended. Peter the Apostle wrote:

Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

When the world is having a go, when people are going berserk and tearing one another apart … in the middle of that place we put our trust in Jesus and He will give us a harvest at harvest time.

Living the life isn’t about winning every battle. Some battles aren’t worth winning, and some battles give us hollow victories. It’s not about being dumbed down and dragged down and stooping down to the lowest common denominator. Jesus has got a plan for my life and for your life. It’s a plan of victory and peace and joy and sailing through the storm with a certainty and a faith and a relationship and a trust in Jesus. That’s life … that’s living … that’s the life God always intended.