Be A Lifemaker
Last Thursday night at the company where Diane works (Turner Machine Co.) they had an open house for employees and their spouses to talk about the state of the company and where they were headed in the near future. And one of the things that Jeff Turner ( the owner of the company) talked about was a book that he had read that’s called “Life As A Daymaker”. The premise of the book is to inspire us a people to be kind to one another and do things that will make someone’s day. That could mean anything from something huge to something as small as a smile or a kind word.
Now, for me it seems like we shouldn’t have to have books written about how to be kind and nice to people and have seminars on this but apparently as a society we seem to have strayed away from the simple basics of human kindness.
How many of you here today have said these words “You just made my day!” Sometimes the littlest things will get us to say that phrase. A helping hand, a visit from a friend, word of support from a spouse, a phone call or a card will get these words to come out of our mouths. And these things make us smile. There is a saying that says that a smile will increase your face value and that’s true enough but that same smile can also make someone’s day too.
It’s also biblical to be a Daymaker. In the Book of Galatians chapter 6 verses 9&10 we read this: 9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary. 10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
So even if the world and American society both fall away from treating people with respect, kindness, and goodwill it’s plain here that the Apostle Paul is telling us not to follow their leads. We are not to lose heart in doing good. But what does that really mean to us today? Let me ask you a question, have you ever said or thought these words or some very much like them, “why should I be nice to other people when they don’t treat me well?” In our flesh these are the words and thoughts that we have even if we don’t want to admit it.
Verse 9 tells us to not lose heart or grow weary in doing good. Why? Because if we keep doing what we’re supposed to be doing, what the Word of God tells us that we should be doing, then we will reap something or some things. What could we possibly reap from not growing weary in doing good and not losing heart in treating people with kindness and goodness? The Bible tells us that we reap what we sow right? In Galatians chapter 6 verse 7 we read this: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap”
These words, for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap are both a warning and an encouragement. Which one you get depends on what you’re sowing doesn’t it?
If you’re sowing from the flesh or as it applies to this message, if you are not being good and kind to your fellow human being then guess what you will reap at a later time and in a greater amount than you have sown? Exactly what you have sown or invested in the people around you. If you sow meanness and ill will then you will reap meanness and ill will in due time too. You can’t expect to plant a crop of mean spiritedness and expect God to give you a reaping of His blessings can you?
The reason that I say that it will be more than you sowed is because of how sowing works. When a farmer plants a crop he plants one seed to grow one plant right? But what if that plant only produced one seed or one kernel of grain? What would be the point of planting the crop? What really happens is that from that one seed comes many, many seeds and kernels of grain. The same is true about what we sow in others.
The encouragement part works exactly the same way just in a good way. If you sow goodness and kindness in the people around you then in due time you will reap God’s blessings and people will remember how nice you were to them and be nice back to you and hopefully they will learn to be good and kind to other people as well. And in the process you will have undoubtedly been a Daymaker for a lot of people.
But why should we stop a just being Daymaker’s for people? Why can’t we go big with this idea and do more than just make people happy for a short time? I believe that Jesus was way more than a Daymaker for people and since we are all as Christians, supposed to be letting God make us to be more like Jesus everyday then let’s do what Jesus did and is still doing to this very day!
But before I get ahead of myself here I want to make it plain that Jesus was also a Daymaker for the people of His day as well as being one for people today. When you pray for strength and Jesus gives it to you guess what, He just made your day didn’t He? When you needed help and you had no idea where it was going to come from and then just at the right time someone gives you the help that you needed and how blessed you felt at that moment. These are just two examples of Jesus being a Daymaker and there are lots more examples in all of our lives too.
Just look at the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand for example. In the Gospel of Matthew chapter 13 verses 15-21 we read this: 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to Him and said, “This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away; you give them something to eat!” 17 They said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”
18 And He said, “Bring them here to Me.” 19 Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed the food, and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds,
20 and they all ate and were satisfied. They picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets. 21 There were about five thousand men who ate, besides women and children.
Can you imagine how many of these people really had no idea that they were part of a miraculous event? And at the same time Jesus made all of these men, women and children’s day by simply giving them a little bread and a little bit of fish to go with it. They may have just thought that some people had been very generous with their food not realizing that they were eating food that Jesus had just spoken into existence!
But Jesus was more than just a Daymaker He was a Lifemaker. He changed many people’s lives in Scripture and even greater than that He has changed the lives of Billions of people over the ages including you and me!
I could list all the people in Scripture that Jesus healed physically and at the same time healed them spiritually as well. I could talk about the lives of the Apostles and Jesus’ inner circle of disciples because of how He touched them physically and spiritually and turned them all into fishers of men. But I want to look at the life of one woman who was touched by the words and the heart of Jesus and it not only made her day but it made her life too!
In the Gospel of John chapter 4 verses 17-19 and 27-30 we read this: 7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”
8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
11 She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?
12 “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.”
16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’;
18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”
19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
And in verses 27-30:
27 At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?”
28 So the woman left her water pot, and went into the city and said to the men,
29 “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?”
30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.
Here was this Samaritan woman who was despised by the Jews meeting Jesus at a well. At first, she had no idea who Jesus was and what He was doing there but it didn’t take her long to understand that she was standing in the presence of THE LIFEMAKER!
I believe that when the woman was told by Jesus that she was living in sin that at that point she repented of her sins in her heart and she got saved. Jesus changed her life physically and spiritually. Jesus made her day and made her life new and clean all at the same time.
Then she did what we’re all supposed to be doing and she went and told everyone who would listen to her about Jesus and told them to go and see a man who had told her all about her sins and even told them who He was, The Christ!
This dear woman, she wanted to be a Lifechanger too. And this is where I wanted this message to take us. I wanted this message to first introduce us to how to be Daymakers. Because when we get this concept down then we can use the bridges and relationships that we have built with the people around us to go to the next level and become Lifemakers and Lifechangers! Jesus was and is a Lifemaker and a Lifechanger to us and we need to be those very same things in the lives of those around us. Being a Daymaker is really a basic concept. Just be nice, kind and good to the people around you. When you do this you will reap blessings. And being a Lifemaker and Lifechanger is a command from God. It’s really just a different way of looking at the Great Commission isn’t it?
So whose lives can we each start to impact and change today, tomorrow and from here on out? Look around it won’t take you very long to find someone who needs a good word or a hug or a smile. And there are lost people all around us who need to hear the Gospel and they also need to SEE the Gospel in action around them. So in the famous words of Clint Eastwood “Go ahead, make my day!” Amen!?
