These days – everybody wants to be noticed. We want to somehow stand out from the crowd. Rise above the noise. What’s that all about? How can we stand out for the right reasons.

It seems some days that we live in a world where everybody wants to stand out from the crowd. Ask just about any teenager and they want to be a famous something. A tennis player, a singer or actor or whatever. As long as they’re famous. And it’s not just the young folk either. It seems that we’re only significant if we’re noticed. Millions of people have their own blog site on the internet. Suddenly people want recognition for what they do, at work and at home.

Everybody seems to be clamouring for attention. The more TV channels and websites and movies, the more of that stuff there is the less the average people like you and me are going to get noticed. There seems to be this growing gap between our desire to stand out from the crowd and the reality that we’re just one of the masses.

Don’t believe me? Well, I don’t know if you’ve caught up with it, but a few months ago the celebrity billionaire heiress in the US called Paris Hilton, (she’s involved in the Hilton hotel empire family) she was locked up for driving. I think it was drink driving or dangerous driving.

Now she was only in jail for a few weeks but there was this massive media frenzy. There’s a whole genre of press celebrity magazines that put Princess Diana on their front cover. These magazines exist to feed the seemingly insatiable hunger that people have for the sordid details of the lives of these so called celebrities.

You look at the game shows on television. Our hunger for famous sporting men and sporting women. We have hunger to stand out from the crowd, to be recognised. But you know, you look at the lives of some of those people, those celebrities, and I don’t know about you, but I think to myself, if that’s what it means I don’t think I want to stand out.

And just in our day to day lives you know, the world is becoming more and more transaction oriented. When you go to the supermarket and you go to the check out and you’re checking out the groceries and the young lady or young man is there scanning them through the scanner. How often to we interact with these people. Talk. How are you going, it’s a lovely day. We don’t. It’s a transaction.
Neighbourhoods have become transactional. Kids tend not to go out and kick the football much anymore. Sometimes neighbours barely know one another. The more a country becomes developed and financially secure the more the people spend time working and being entertained and the less and less time they have for living. Life becomes a series of interactions, short and transactional, and in that there’s this hunger we have to be recognised, to stand out, to succeed, to make it, however you want to put it.

Of course there’s nothing new in any of that. It’s such an age old issue. We want significance, we want to be noticed. The question is, is it for the right reason? Jesus had this problem with His twelve disciples. It was exactly the same issue. Let me read you the story:

Jesus and His disciples came to Capernaum. When they were in the house, He asked the disciples, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ They kept quiet because on the way they’d been arguing about which one of them was the greatest.

Sitting down Jesus called the twelve to Him and He said this. If any of you wants to be first you must be the very last and the servant of all. He took a little child and had the child stand among them and taking them in His arms, He said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me doesn’t just welcome Me but the one who sent Me’.

John said, “We saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told Him to stop because He wasn’t one of us.” “Don’t stop him”, Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me. For whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, if anyone gives you a cup of water in My name, because you belong to Christ, they will certainly not lose their reward.”

Do you see the extreme opposite between what the disciples were thinking and what Jesus was thinking. These disciples, well, they were like a lot of us. They saw life as a competition. These people were walking down the road with the Son of God and arguing behind His back which one of them was the greatest. And Jesus said, No, No, No. I want you to stand out from the crowd for a different reason. For the right reason.

If you want to be first, if you want to be noticed, if you want to stand out from the crowd, be the last, be the servant of all. Just take a little child and welcome this child in my name. Just take a cup of water and give it to someone and serve them. See, the Jesus thing is so different to what the world screams at us as being success. Jesus said, “You know the way you become first. You fly under the radar of all this recognition and success and adulation. You fly under that into the hearts of people by serving them.”

And you know, just a few verses later in the next chapter of Mark’s gospel, the same thing happens again. James and John the son’s of Zebedee came to Jesus and said:

‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask’. ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked. And they replied ‘That one of us sits at your right hand and the other at your left hand when you come into your glory’. Jesus said, ‘You have no idea what you’re asking for. Can you drink from the cup that I’m going to drink from or be baptised with the baptism that I’m going to be baptised with’.

When the other 10 heard about this they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know, that those who are regarded as rulers of the gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. But I don’t want to be like that with you. Instead, whoever want to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all for even the Son of Man hasn’t come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for the many’.

You wonder if these guys were thick or slow or something. They had to be taught this over and over again. You know why that is, because this is an age old problem.

We human beings think that we’ve made it when other people recognise us as being successful. We want to stand out from the crowd. We want to win, we want to be first and above and be recognised and be successful. What a contrast between that, our perspective, and His:

I didn’t come to be served but to serve and give My life as a ransom for the many. I’m prepared to lay My life down for You, prepared to lose in the world’s eyes.

And of cause Jesus went on from that to be the most significant person whoever walked Planet Earth.

We all have a natural desire for significance. And that’s ok. To make a difference. To impact lives, to improve, to change. But significance is so different from success. Success is about winning; success is about being patted on the back; success is about recognition; success is about someone saying, “Well look how big my bank is, or look how big my church is, or look how big my ministry is, or look …” No. And Jesus said, “That’s what those people out there do. I don’t want that for you. Instead if you want to become great among people, you have to be the servant. And if you want to be first you have to be the slave. Your significance or success, recognition or respect.”

It’s interesting how concerned we can be about outward appearances. About looking good and dressing for success and impressing people. But our outside, depends so much on what’s happening on the inside.

Imagine for a minute, you go into a coffee shop – you know, when you just feel like a good cup of coffee – and you sit down and you order your coffee and you grab a magazine and eventually it comes out and you think ‘Oh great’. it smells great and it looks like a good coffee and just as you’re about to take the first sip you watch a waiter pick up an empty cup from the next table and without washing it, take it to the coffee machine, fill it with another cappuccino and serve it to a customer at another table.

Just think about that, what does that say about the coffee they just put down in front of you? I mean, you look around the coffee shop and everything looks fine and the waiters are friendly, at least they appear to be but they don’t wash the inside of their cups. So let me ask you, are you going to drink this cup of coffee they just served up to you?

This week we’re talking about standing out from the crowd. We all need a sense of significance, a sense of ‘well I’m having an impact; I’m making a difference’. But somehow that’s become so twisted into today’s world.

Maybe, maybe it’s the mass media thing or the entertainment culture, I’m not sure but people somehow walk that significance thing into wanting success and these things are two entirely different things, significance and success. You know we’re so focused on outward appearances and what other people think of us and how we look.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it but there’s a TV show that comes out of the UK that’s called What Not To Wear and it’s mostly about these women who want to change their look, to dress better, to do their make up better, to change their hairstyle. Nothing wrong with any of that, I mean that’s great but what you notice is that for so many of them their deepest hurts and fears and emotions and insecurities are tied up in how they look on the outside. They somehow think that if they can look better on the outside, if other people will think better of them on the outside then that will heal all the problems they have on the inside.

Outward appearances are the most important thing if what we’re after is success rather than significance. People want to win, they want everyone else to think the most of them and look up to them and for that to happen you have to look good, you have to dress for success. It’s about what’s happening on the outside. If you look good, if you speak well, if you have lots of money you could be successful and you’re going to stand out from the crowd, you’re going to be noticed, you going to make it and you know you see this everywhere. You see it in business, you see it in social and sporting clubs, you see it in families, you see it in Churches.

In fact there’s a great record of Jesus tearing into the religious leaders of His day and the issue was the gap between what they presented to be on the outside and who in fact they were on the inside. It’s just like that cup in the coffee shop, everything looks fine in the coffee shop but the inside of the cup is dirty and that does something to whether or not you want to drink the coffee.

Let’s have a read of it, it comes from Matthews gospel, chapter 23, it’s a great story. You see people often think of Jesus as some religious icon but it’s awesome to see what He thinks of religious hypocrisy:

Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, ‘The teachers of the law and the Pharisees,’ (they’re the religious leaders) ‘They sit in Moses seat so obey them and do everything they tell you but do not do what they do because they don’t practice what they preach.’

‘They tie up heavy loads and put them on people shoulders and they themselves won’t lift a finger to help those people. Everything they do is done for others to see.’ (That’s powerful isn’t it?) ‘Everything they do is done for others to see. They make their phylacteries wide and their tassels on their garments long, they love the place of honour at the banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues.’

‘They love to be greeted in the market places and to have men call them Rabbi but you, you are not to be called Rabbi for you have only one Master and you are all brothers and don’t call anyone here on earth father because you have one Father and he’s in heaven. Nor are you to be called teacher for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant because whoever exalts himself will be humbled but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.’

‘Woe to you, you teachers of the law and you Pharisees, you hypocrites. You travel over land and sea to win a single convert and when he becomes one you make him twice as much the son of hell as you are.’

‘Woe to you teachers of the law, you Pharisees, you hypocrites, you give a tenth of your spices of mint and dill and cumin but you’ve neglected the more important matters of the Law; justice, mercy, faithfulness. You should have practiced the later without neglecting the former you blind guides you strain out the gnat but you swallow the camel.’

‘Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites because you clean the outside of the cup but inside you’re full of greed and self indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the dish and then the outside will be clean also. You snakes, you brood of vipers, how will you escape being condemned to hell?’

Jesus doesn’t mince His words here does He? And you and I both know He’s right. We have this thing that’s been dropped into our brain that says standing out from the crowd is all about what happens on the outside. It’s all about what people think of us, it’s all about how we look.

But Jesus is saying “no” because if what we present to be on the outside hides darkness on the inside. There’s a word for that, there’s a name for that, this gap between the inside and the outside, it’s called hypocrisy. Jesus is saying, “What’s happening on the outside is nowhere near as important as what’s going on, on the inside, what’s going on in our hearts, what we’re thinking about, brooding over, what we’re plotting and scheming”.

Let me ask you something, if you were going to stand in that coffee shop. Let me ask you something, if you were in that coffee shop and you were served that cup of coffee and you saw how they don’t clean the inside of the cup, would you drink the coffee? Of course not. And when people look at us, you know and they see that we present to be something on the outside but actually on the inside we’re rotten, on the inside there’s greed and self indulgence and plotting and scheming, do they think well of us? Are we really going to stand out? Not on some awards night for being the top salesman in the company, that’s not what I mean. Are we going to stand out in their hearts? Because that’s what Jesus is talking about here!

You want to be the greatest, become the servant of all. You want to be the first, be the slave and as hard as that is, as much as we may not want to hear that, you and I in our hearts know that Jesus is right.

Let me ask you something, if you were going to be stranded on a desert island with someone, would you want that person to be someone who looks great on the outside or someone who you know is good on the inside? So why are we slaves to outward appearances? What’s that all about? Why do we waste our lives trying to be first? Jesus tells us, “if you want to be first be the servant of all.”

What we do with our mind – our thinking time – each day is really important. What do you think about? How helpful or harmful are your thoughts. How do they influence who you are and what you do?

One of the things I really love to see in people is that they’re the same on the outside as they are on the inside. Of course it can take a while to find out whether that’s actually the case because we really have to get to know someone before we discover whether what we see on the outside is really what we’re getting.

I actually don’t mind people who are blunt or direct, I’d much rather have that than have them say one thing to my face and another thing behind my back and one of the key things that we each have on our inside is our mind.

What we do with the old grey matter between the ears, how do we spend our thoughts? Or what do we think about? Because so often what we think about is reflected in how we behave. And while we can fool some of the people some of the time we can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

This week on the program we’re talking about what it means to stand out from the crowd, looking at that, I guess, from a bit of a different perspective.

We’ve looked at the difference between significance and success, I mean the difference between actually making a difference in peoples lives verses being noticed and big noting ourselves and being concerned with what people think of us and we’ve seen that so often there’s an incongruity that occurs between who we are on the outside and who we really are on the inside. We’re going to unpack that a little bit more on the program today.

Who am I on the inside? Who are you on the inside? You know that place where other people can’t see. A lot of that has to do with how we use our minds, the things, bluntly, that we think about. I mean some people spend a lot of time worrying about things, ‘what about this? What about that? Oh, what’s going to happen?’ or criticising people, ‘well, well, well I wouldn’t have done it that way, absolutely not. Can you believe that she did that?’ Or being threatened by people and their minds just go around and around this mountain called fear.

A lot of people spend time scheming against other people, thinking about how they can come out on top. Well, I guess you probably recognise some of those things, I certainly do. And you know the really scary thing is that the way that we think and the things that we think about end up being really entrenched patterns of behaviour. Some of the strongest patterns of behaviour we have are how we think and what we think about.

The apostle Paul talks about strongholds and that’s exactly what he’s talking about, things in our minds and we hang on to them so strong that they have a hold on us. We can spend most of our time worrying and it grips us like cancer. If we spend most of our time criticising other people it ruins our relationships. If we spend most of our time thinking about how we can succeed and win and claw our way to the top, sure we’ll stand out from the crowd but not for the right reasons.

Some people want to abdicate their responsibility for how they use their minds. ‘Well, well that’s not my fault, it’s just my personality type’ and that’s true, we’re all different. Psychologists have identified the different traits and identified different personality types but you know it’s also true that we can make up our minds, we can change our minds.

We can choose to think about some things and not about other things. As entrenched as our thought life might be we can change it. Have a listen to what the apostle Paul wrote on death row. He’s in chains, he’s in a Roman dungeon, he’s waiting to be executed. He’s writing a letter to his friends in a place called Philippi; this is what he says from his prison cell. He says:

Finally, whatever is true and noble and right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about those things. Whatever you’ve learned or received or heard from me and seen in me, put them into practice and the God of peace will be with you.

That’s a pretty amazing thing to write when you’re on death row. I don’t imagine his cell was air conditioned, I don’t imagine it was comfortable; he was probably tied up in chains. Paul, for me, is one of those people who really stands out from the crowd. He was abused, they tried to kill him, he was beaten, he was locked up, he was on death row and it was often his fellow Jews and Christians who plotted against him. And he comes up with this here on death row, Paul’s secret with how he copes with it all on the inside as well as the outside. Look at the first part of that again:

Finally, whatever is true or noble or right or pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about those things.

You see, what we think about makes such a difference. If Paul had been sitting there in the dungeon worrying about this and being afraid of that and thinking about this and chewing over that and mulling. You know when you sometimes go to bed and problems just go round and round and round in your head, Paul would have been a wreck, Paul wouldn’t have able to write this stuff.

The things that we think about make a difference and you know something, we can choose what we think about. I might be working with someone and they’re driving me nuts and in the natural flesh what I want to do is saw them in half. You know, your mind goes that direction and you start thinking, “Ugh, you know, I’m going to get this per …”

At that point, we have a choice to make and this is the choice that I try and make. I say, “You know something; I’m just not going to think that way. I’m going to think of something that’s true or noble or right or pure or lovely or admirable or excellent or praiseworthy and I’m going to think about those things.”

When we’re thinking, when people are getting us down or they’re giving us a hard time, we can think badly of them or we can think well of them. We can think, ‘How can I destroy this person or how can I constructively solve the problem or the issue at hand?’

When we’re afraid we can think about God’s goodness and God’s grace or we can imagine all the bad things that are going to happen to us. “But how?” There’s only one way, if something wrong comes into my mind I just choose not to think about that. If I feel the bad thoughts coming on I quite simply reject them and think about the good things, the true, the noble, the right, the pure, the lovely.

Our thought life has a lot to do with who we are and you know the thing is, because our thought life is hidden from everybody else, it’s the one place where we don’t have accountability. I don’t have to account to anyone, in the natural here on earth, about what I think about. I just let my mind roam wherever I like and when we don’t exercise discipline over the things that we think about, those thoughts end up impacting what we do and who we are and what we say and how we feel.

So the first part for Paul sitting here on death row is think about the good things and the second part is:

Whatever you’ve learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put those things into practice and the God of peace will be with you.

In other words, live it out and you know what happens? When the goodness on the inside reflects in who we are on the outside, the peace of God starts happening in our lives even if, like Paul, we happen to be stuck on death row.

What we say – and how we say it – is really important. We can build relationships or destroy them. We can dominate people, or we can pull alongside them. It’s an area we all need to pay some attention to.

One of the symptoms of the busy, busy world, this transactional world that we’re living in is the way that we talk to one another. Maybe you know that old school yard ditty, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me”, but the reality is that what people say to one another and how they say it can really hurt.

How many of us can point to something somebody said to us either last week or maybe half a life time ago, something that really hurt. I never cease to be amazed at how we people talk to one another, almost like the other person doesn’t matter. We all do it, the words that come out of our mouths and the tone of our voices and the expression on our faces, those are the things that truly tell people who we are – it’s scary isn’t it?

This week on the program we’re talking about standing out from the crowd and I guess the sub plot to that is standing out for the right reasons not the wrong reasons.

So many people want to be noticed and they want to be on top and they want to win and they want to be successful and they want to have people think well of them and pat them on the back and this whole success culture, celebrity culture that we go with, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about standing out in peoples hearts, I’m talking about people looking at us and our lives and how we behave and how we speak and saying, ‘that person has really impacted my life for good’.

Communicating is something that all of us do many, many times each day. We communicate in a whole bunch of different ways, our facial expressions, our body language, the words we use, the tone of our voice, what we do and we’re going to look at that in the next program and you know one thing we often don’t add to that communication list, the most important one is how we listen because how well we listen shows what we think of the other person.

But lets just concentrate for the moment on what we say and how we say it. Words are such incredibly powerful things; they can be so uplifting or so destructive. Just one or two different words can turn something from being a compliment into an insult or the tone in our voice can turn something from being encouraging to being cynical and damaging.

We can all think of examples in our lives, I can think of examples in my life, you know when people use judgemental language towards us, “why did you do it that way? Why did you let this happen?”

I was just on the phone to a builder recently who was doing some work for me and something had been seriously delayed and that delay was causing me quite some inconvenience. Now I really don’t like delays and the easiest thing, in fact the thing that I really, really wanted to do was rip his head off and we all know words that we could use to do just that. “Why haven’t you done this? How could you let this happen? This isn’t good enough! I’ve had enough!”

Think about that, it’s victim language, it’s aggressive and it accuses him and it damages the relationship. Actually, what I had to do was summon up all my self control and let me tell you it wasn’t easy and let him know firmly that this was causing me pain and that I really needed something done urgently without tearing him apart, without attacking him, this guy is actually a good builder.

You know what, Jesus said:

From the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. From the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

Isn’t that profound? In fact He said, “What goes into a mans mouth doesn’t make him unclean, it’s what comes out of his mouth that makes him unclean.” One of the biggest things that we can do to really stand out from the crowd, I mean for the right reasons, is to look at what comes out of our mouths, what we say and how we say it.

There are so many times in life when other people deserve a caning for how they’ve treated us or how they’ve forgotten to do something or how they’ve failed us. That’s life, it is always going to happen but we get to choose how we respond, we get to choose what we say and how we say it.

We can still assert ourselves without being aggressive, without accusing, without damaging relationships and like with me and the builder, some days, can I tell you, some days it is just not going to be easy. At the same time we can be people who encourage others, to ring them and say, “gee, I saw you do this or that and I just wanted to say how blessed I was or how impressed I was or how encouraged I was.”

I’ve been unwell recently and a very good friend of mine is travelling overseas in the United Kingdom and just a couple of times he’s sent me a SMS message to say, “Been thinking of you, how are you doing? I’ll be back next week.” I mean that costs nothing to communicate like that – nothing but when we do those things it builds the other person up. Or simply we show appreciation and we say “please” and “thank you”, and what we’re saying to them is, “You know something, I value you. I value who you are, I value what you do”. Or we just notice that someone looks exhausted and we empathise with them.

The apostle Paul was not one to mince his words; he was very direct with people. You read any of the stuff that he wrote in the New Testament and sometimes he can be very direct but this is also what he wrote. It happens in Ephesians, chapter 4, he said:

“Do not let any evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building other people up according to their needs so that it benefits those who are listening.”

Isn’t that really profound? “Don’t talk rubbish, don’t talk angry stuff, don’t talk destructive stuff, only let things come out of your mouth that builds other people up however they need building up, things that benefit those who are listening.”

Get rid of all the bitterness and the rage and the anger and the brawling and the slander along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.

In fact …” he goes on to say, “… in this be imitators of God as God’s beloved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

You see, what Paul’s saying there is you know, when we stop ourselves from tearing someone apart, when we say, “I’m not going to say that to the person” it can be hard, it’s a sacrifice sometimes but in this we should be imitators of God and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.

I am not a naturally patient person. It’s something I’ve had to learn and I have to tell you it’s a skill that I am still learning but just think for a minute, think, “how do we want people to talk to us?” Well isn’t that the way we should talk with them? Gentle, kind, loving because when we do that it builds a bridge into their hearts and then, when we do have difficult things to talk about, there’s a point of connection, there’s a bridge, a relationship to walk over.

What happens in our hearts is so often reflected through our mouths. What we say matters, we can make it count or not. We can speak for good or for evil. One way or another, you know something; we will end up standing out from the crowd.

What we do says so much about who we are. We can do things – selfishly or selflessly. We can stab people in the back, or give them a helping hand. In fact it’s what we say and do that makes us stand out from the crowd.

When was the last time someone did something for you? I mean something really special, something that they planned and executed purely because they knew that it would delight you and help you or touch you in a really special way. Maybe that’s happened recently or maybe it’s been a long while but when someone does that, don’t they just stand out from the crowd.

It may only be the smallest thing, a kind look, a word of encouragement, cooking a meal when we’re sick, but the recognition, the gratitude in our hearts can last a life time. When we do something good, kind or generous or encouraging for someone, it makes us stand out from the crowd in a way that words can’t describe, don’t you think!

This week on the program we’ve been looking at what it means to stand out from the crowd for the right reasons. We live in a world where everybody is trying to get noticed, at work and at home and in our social groups. People want other people to notice them and to think well of them, we want to look good; we want to put our best foot forward so that other people will admire us.

Celebrities have become larger than life; you know the beautiful crowd or the beautiful set. The TV shows reinforce this stuff; you know the home renovations shows. Whatever culture we live in there is an epidemic of recognition sweeping the planet, people wanting to be recognised for the wrong reasons. Success – I made it, I’m there.

Earlier this week we looked at what Jesus said to His disciples when they were squabbling for recognition. Let’s have another quick look at that because it’s a great story. If you want to have a look at it, it’s in the New Testament in the Bible, Mark chapter 9:

Jesus and His disciples, they came to Capernaum. When He was inside the house, he asked them, ‘What is it that you guys were arguing about on the road?’ But they kept quiet because on the way, they’d been arguing about who was the greatest.

Sitting down, Jesus called the twelve to Him and He said, ‘Look, if anyone wants to be first, you have to be the very last and the servant of all.’ He took a little child and had the child stand among them. Taking this child into His arms He said, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me doesn’t just welcome Me but the one who sent Me.’

‘Teacher,’ said John, ‘We saw a man driving out demons in Your name and we told him to stop because he was not one of us.’ ‘Don’t stop him,’ said Jesus, ‘No-one who’s doing a miracle in My name can in the next moment turn around and say a bad thing against me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, if anyone gives you just a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ, they certainly will not lose their reward.’

This is this topsy turvy thing. Jesus did it all the time and it’s so counter intuitive but when you listen to Him you’re going, “Yeah, He’s right.” He said, “You want to be first, if you want to be really first, be the servant of all.” Gee, isn’t that just what we were talking about at the top of the program? We can all point to people in our lives, people who have done incredible things for us, who have sacrificed, who’ve been there for us, who’ve picked us up when we were down, who held us when we wept. Those people are the ones that are first in our hearts aren’t they?

My wife, Jacqui, has done so much for me, loved me when I was feeling kind of unlovable and sacrificed for me and been there for me and supported me and encouraged me. It’s the people who serve us at the greatest personal cost who end up being the first in our hearts. Now if we want to stand out from the people in a crowd, we have to be servants and you know something, there is a cost to that, there is a sacrifice. It’s about stepping out of the limelight, flying under the radar of recognition, not doing things to be seen, doing things just to serve.

I’ll never forget moving house once and I couldn’t afford a removalist so I was lugging furniture and one of the neighbours where I was moving in, walked over across the street and said, “Gidday mate, I’m here, do you want a hand?” And he worked so hard, I’ve never forgotten that, “I am here, can I help?” Not, “Lets catch up some time/ nice to meet you/ if you ever need a hand give me a call.” Not that, he walked across the street, he said, “I’m here, I’m ready, can I help you?” but you see there’s a catch. It’s going to cost us something to do that, it cost him his afternoon and I’m sure he was pretty tired and sore when we finished.

There’s always a cost. When we get of our pedestal, when we get off this success, “I want to be first, I want to be the top of the heap” and we say, “You know something, Jesus is right. I’m going to do something for someone.” There is a sacrifice and a cost, Jesus put it this way, He said:

Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains only a single seed but if it dies it produces much grain.

You see, standing out from the crowd isn’t about being first, it’s not about being on top of the pile, it’s not about people saying, “Isn’t he wonderful/ isn’t she wonderful.” It’s not about recognition, it’s not about how well we dress, it’s not about the outer things. In this dog eat dog world standing out from the crowd is rolling up our sleeves and loving people with what we do. It’s true in families, it’s true in our social lives, it’s true at work.

Can I tell you after I became a Christian fifteen years ago and I was still in business, how much more business I won because I learned how to serve people instead of having this ego that had to be fed by everyone else and I thought, “If only I’d had this attitude of a servant earlier”. And what happened for me in this consulting practice where I’d go into organisations and help people, is it became such a joy to be able to fly under the radar, under public recognition and just help people and organisations do things and succeed. If only I’d had this attitude of being a servant, being last to be first so much earlier.

Jesus is the Son of God and He came to serve not to be served, to give His life as a ransom for many. It cost Him everything, His reputation, it cost Him pain, it cost Him His life. God wants us to love people not just with words but with our actions, with the goodness of getting in there and sacrificing and doing things for other people and sometimes they’re just little things, sometimes they’re just getting off our backsides and walking across the street and taking a meal to someone who’s just come home from hospital.

It’s those little things, those things we do with other people and for other people, that’s what makes us stand out from the crowd. It’s not about success, it’s about significance and the paradox is that standing out from the crowd happens when we step out of the limelight. Standing out from the crowd is not about being first but by being last. Standing out from the crowd, by ultimately, being prepared to lose everything.

Can I encourage you to hear Jesus words today, “If you want to be first, you have to be the servant of all.” The greatest one among you will be the least, the one who’s prepared to lose their reputation and just fly in under the radar and love people with the love of Christ. Jesus’ way is so different to the world’s way but in our hearts, in our hearts it rings true. He has it right – Jesus.