Building Value In Others: Who Switched The Price Tags? Series

INTRODUCTION

• SLIDE #1

• Today we will conclude this series on Learning to Lead. I hope you have found some things through this series what will help you to grow as a person, and a leader.

• Today I want to close this series with one of the most important lessons in this series, Building Value in people.

• We live in a time in which we are encouraged to look out for number one, take care of oneself, to watch your back, to get all you can because one day you will die.

• I believe this message goes to the core of who one is deep inside. This message goes to the core of how we see ourselves, the world around us, as well as other people.

• In life, one has to decide how they are going to view people. We can either see them as a blessing from God, as God’s creation, or we can see them as tools to be used for our own glory.

• The difference in views can be labeled as selfless or selfish.

• The selfless person will understand that people are one of their greatest assets one have have around them.

• The Selfless person realizes that investing in people will benefit not only the person they are investing, but also the investor!

• When I worked for Square D, I wondered why they would pay for college for their workers. Other than tax issues, I was told that a more educated workforce, would be more beneficial for the worker and the company.

• The SELFISH person sees people as objects or obstacles. The selfish person will use people and toss them aside like a dirty paper towel. They will keep them around as long as they can do something for them. We see this in problem marriages by the way!

• They will always seek to draw from their account and not make much if any investment back into the person’s account from which they are always drawing from.

• Today I want to take us through a couple of verses in the book of Philippians chapter 2.

• In verses 1-2, Paul encourages the church to build unity. Verses 3-4 give insight ahs to how to do that, verse 5-ff explain why.

• In the passages that follow our text in verses 3-4, Paul talks about the selfless nature of Jesus and what He did to benefit, or to help build value in humans.

• When we learn to see value and build value into others, we will enjoy more unity within the home, church, school and business worlds.

• At some point we may have switched the price tags from something of value, worthy of investing ourselves into to valuing stuff and self above all else.

• In the verses we will cover, we will see three things we can do in order help build value in other people.

• SLIDE #2

• Philippians 2:3–4 (HCSB) Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

• SLIDE #3

SERMON

I. Realize that life is not about the unholy trinity, me, myself, and I.

• When we are born, we cry when we want to be fed, when we need a diaper change, when we are tired, when mom tries to get close to dad.

• When we are born, our world is all about self, it is all we know, it is how we survive because we need others to take care of us.

• Over time, we learn that the world is does not revolve around us, we learn to share, and that was a traumatic experience.

• Have you ever seen a group of small children together, they all seem to want the same toy, they fight over it and cry, and scream and hit each other for the toy?

• Then an adult walks in and makes them all share. All is good!

• When we get self-absorbed, we do not care about anything but self.

• Now, we usually do not see adults crying on the floor because someone took their toy away from them; however, the same scenario can play itself out over power, position and authority.

• Paul tells the Philippians to do NOTHING out of rivalry or conceit.

• Rivalry is translated as SELFISH AMBITION in many translations.

• Some versions use the phrase EMPTY CONCEIT for CONCEIT.

• The Greek text simply states the double negative without a verb: “neither rivalry or conceit.” The addition of a verb of action (do nothing) correctly indicates that the phrase has the force of a moral imperative.