BECOMING A PERSON OF INFLUENCE
Victory In Jesus – Part 1
Galatians 1
September 19, 2004
Introduction:
This morning we will be starting a new series based on the book of Galatians. Paul wrote to the Galatians to show them how they can experience victory in their lives. How they can have victory over sin. This victory is made possible only because Jesus Christ died on the cross. This is truly victory in Jesus.
This morning I want to talk to you about becoming a person of influence. What is influence? John Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence.” Influence is leading people. W.M. Taylor said, “Influence is the exhalation of character.” So influence means to lead people according to your character.
Everyone has character. Some have bad character. Some have good character. Some people are honest while others are deceitful. Some are trustworthy while others are unreliable. Some have a great work ethic while others are slackers. No matter what you character is like you all have character. And your character will influence those around you for good or for evil. The Bible says, “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Cor. 15:33, NIV). In other words if you hang around with people who are a bad influence you will begin to adopt their character. I believe that the opposite is also true – that good company influence good character. We tend to rub off on others.
What the world today is desperately in need of are people of godly character who will influence those around them to live holy lives. If we in the church fail to do this, then who will? J. Oswald Sanders wrote: “If those who hold influence over others fail to lead toward the spiritual uplands, then surely the path to the lowlands will be well worn. People travel together; no one lives detached and alone.” (Spiritual Leadership, J. Oswald Sanders, p. 19)
It is essential that we as Christians stop complaining about the way things are and start changing the way things are. It will not happen through an election no matter how qualified the candidate. It will not happen through a court decision no matter how righteous the ruling. It will not happen through legislation no matter how good the cause. Change in our culture will happen as we influence those around us for Christ.
You say that you are not a leader – that you are not in a position of influence. Not true! We all have influence on others. Paul J. Meyer said, “Everyone leaves a legacy, whether you have children or not.” How do you leave a legacy? Through influencing those who come behind you whether they be your children or your nieces and nephews or your neighbors or coworkers or friends.
It is important to understand the difference between controlling someone and influencing someone. Too many people make the mistake of trying to control people rather than seeking to influence them. What do I mean?
Parents need to influence their children to live right because they can’t always be there to control their kids. If you are physically present with them, you can control them. If you are in the room you can control what they watch on TV or what websites they surf on the Internet. If you are in the store with them you can control what kinds of magazines they look at. If you are with them in the car you can control how fast they drive and what kind of music they are listening to.
But what happens when you aren’t there with them? You are no longer in a position to control them. If you have not made a godly influence on them, they will make the wrong choices when you are no longer there to make them make the right choices. Influence is much more important and much more powerful than control. It is also much more difficult to do.
This principle works much the same way with employers. You can make sure that your employees are giving 100% when you are there to personally supervise them. But what happens when you are out of the office or away from the store?
Teachers can make sure that students study hard and don’t cheat when they are in the classroom. Students will work when the teacher is looking over their shoulder. But what happens when you step out of the classroom for a minute? Influence is much more important and much more powerful than control.
A few years ago a NFL coach was fired because his team wasn’t winning and this was primarily because the defense wasn’t playing well. They weren’t tackling well. Two ESPN analysts were discussing the firing. One said, “Why fire the coach. That is not right. Do the owners expect him to run out on the field and make the tackles for his players?” To which the other analyst responded, “No, but a good coach knows how to instill in his players a passion for mastering the fundamentals.” Essentially what that analyst was talking about was influence. If a coach doesn’t have the ability to influence his team to do their best, then he isn’t doing his job.
The same could be said for the church and for the Christian. If we are not influencing our world for God, then we are not doing our job. Now do you see the importance of influence?
In the book of Galatians chapter one, we find that Paul was a person of influence.
21Then I began my ministry in the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22After all that time and activity I was still unknown by face among the Christian churches in Judea. 23There was only this report: “That man who once persecuted us is now preaching the very message he used to try to destroy.” 24Their response was to recognize and worship God because of me! (The Message)
I want you to focus especially on the last sentence. “Their response was to recognize and worship God because of me!” Here we see that Paul influenced the Galatians to recognize and worship God.
Let me ask you an important question. Who is worshiping God today because of your influence upon them? Who has come to recognize Christ as their personal Lord and Savior through your influence? Has anyone? Who would you like to be influencing to worship God? Of course you do.
How was Paul able to be such an influence in their lives? Let me share with you three principles from Galatians chapter one that will enable you to become a person of influence to those around you.
1. Be A God-Pleaser, Not A People-Pleaser.
Paul became a man of influence because he knew the difference between trying to please people and trying to influence people. He knew the difference between being a people-pleaser and being a people-leader. Look at what he had to say:
10Obviously, I’m not trying to be a people pleaser! No, I am trying to please God. If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant. (NLT)
It goes without saying that this is something that is far easier said than done. I have certainly experienced this in my own life and ministry. As a pastor and as a person I certainly try to do what God wants me to do. However, as a pastor I don’t want to rock the proverbial boat too much. I don’t want to unnecessarily stir things up. I want things to go along as smoothly and simply as possible. I’m just like everyone else in that I don’t like it when people get mad at me so I do everything I can to not make them mad. Consequently if I’m not careful it is easy to get more concerned about what other people will think of me than what God will think of me. It is easy to be thinking more about what does the LBA or the membership want than about what God wants.
This is what I’m trying to say: if it can be tough for a pastor to keep this balance in order then I can certainly understand how this can be tough for you. In your job you might be torn between pleasing your boss or pleasing your God. At home you might be torn between pleasing your spouse or pleasing your God. And in your personal life you may well be torn between pleasing yourself and pleasing God.
I know some of you are thinking right now that there must be a loophole somewhere. Maybe I can please God and everybody else at the same time. God is really the only one that you are able to please. First of all, he is the only one who says point blank here is what I want from you. This is what I expect from you. You can read through the Bible and come away knowing exactly what God wants from you. Other people don’t give you such clear signals. They say one thing and actually mean another and expect you to figure it. (Guys, our wives are really good at that aren’t they.)
Secondly, God is the only one who enables you to do exactly what he expects from you. Only God says I want you to love me and then fills your heart with love. He is the only one who says I want you to be kind and then fills you with kindness. He is the only one who says I want you to stop committing that sin and then gives you the power to turn away from it. With everybody else you are on your own to meet their expectations. Your spouse says that you have a bad habit that is annoying them and asks you to stop. But does he or she give you the power to break that bad habit? Of course not. With everybody but God you are on your own to meet their expectations.
This doesn’t mean that Paul never tried to do anything that was pleasing to someone else. Nor does this mean that you can go home today and dismiss the needs of your spouse in the name of pleasing God. The same Paul who said, “I’m not a people-pleaser,” also said, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22, NIV).
How can those two statements be reconciled? Simple. Paul never sought to please people at the expense of pleasing God. He knew who is master was and he knew where to draw the line. He knew whom it was most important to please. Remember that he said in verse ten, “If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.” Why couldn’t he be Christ’s servant and please people? Jesus gives us the answer in Mt. 6:24, “No one can serve two masters. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other.” (NLT/Mes)
You cannot have two masters in life. That means that you will end up serving only one person. That person could be Jesus or your spouse or your boss or even yourself. But you can only serve one. You have to choose one to serve. If you try to serve them all you will end up breeding contempt for them as Jesus said. Who are you serving right now? Who will you choose to serve from this day forward?
Here is the key: Who you want to please most in life is going to determine how much and what kind of influence you have. If you choose to try and please your spouse and your boss and your friends you will have only a limited influence on their lives that will ultimately lead to frustration and failure. But, if you choose to please God, then you will have a God-sized influence on your world. You will have a God-sized influence on your spouse and your boss and your friends.
There are basically two kinds of people. There are the kind of people who just don’t really care what other people think of them. If you are that kind of person then this should be fairly easy for you. However, if you are the second kind of person, who is always worried about what other people think, then this is going to be a little tougher. And truthfully I think that most of us fall into that second category. We don’t want people to think that we are boring or stupid or weird. We want people to like us.
For some of you your whole self-esteem is wrapped up in what others think of you. If that is you, then you need to be continually reminding yourself whose opinion will ultimately count. Remind yourself that on the day of judgment you will not have to answer to your spouse or your boss or your friends, but to God. You have to readjust your way of thinking and accept the fact that to please God you will have to do some unpopular things.
If you want to be a person of influence, you must be a God-pleaser, not a people-pleaser.
2. Let God Set The Agenda For Your Life.
Let’s begin with verses 11 and 12.
11 Let me tell you, my friends, that the gospel I preach is not of human origin. 12I did not receive it from any human being, nor did anyone teach it to me. It was Jesus Christ himself who revealed it to me. (GN) The Message says, “I got it straight from God.”
Paul strives to make a couple of very important points in these verses regarding his mission. First, his mission was not of human origin. It wasn’t something that he or some other man made up. Secondly, he did not get this message from any other man, but from God himself. Even if the message was from God it could have been transmitted to Paul through someone else, but it wasn’t. That is the way that you and I received the gospel. It is God’s gospel that we received, but it was passed on to us by a pastor or a parent or a Sunday school teacher or a friend.
A couple of other important points need to be made here about Paul’s message. First, it didn’t contradict scripture. It is beyond the scope of our lesson today to get into this too much. But throughout his writings we will find Paul quoting Old Testament scripture to support his teaching. And secondly, as we will see in chapter 2, his message didn’t contradict the teachings of the church. He actually went to the church leaders and had them examine his message to insure that it was accurate.
What does this have to do with my life’s agenda, you ask? The agenda for your life cannot be something that you or some other person made up. You can’t make up your own agenda. Your parents can’t make up your agenda, nor can your spouse or your children or your pastor or anyone else. Only God has the right to se the agenda for your life.
Secondly, your agenda can’t come to you through other people. Paul said, “I got it straight from God.” You need to get alone with God and his word and allow him to reveal to you what his plan and his purpose is for your life.
Then when you believe that God has revealed to you what your life’s agenda is to be there are a couple of litmus tests that it must pass in order for you to be sure that you heard God correctly.
First, God’s agenda for your life will not contradict scripture. For example, if you think that God has called you to promote the right for women to have abortions and murder their unborn children, you can be sure that it wasn’t God’s voice you heard. If you think that God has called you to divorce your husband or wife and go start over fresh with someone else, you can be sure that you didn’t hear God correctly for in his word he says, “I hate divorce.” Your God-given work won’t contradict God’s will.
The second litmus test is this: God’s agenda for your life will be recognized by God’s seasoned leaders. Those who have been walking with God for a long time will reaffirm his agenda for your life. When God called me to be a pastor and I was running from that call it was reaffirmed to me by my pastor. She wrote me a letter and said, “Steve I am not writing this to tell you something that you don’t already know. I am writing this to reaffirm what God has already told you.”
Now let’s look at verses 15 and 16.
15God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles. (NIV)
Paul was able to be a person of incredible influence because he devoted his entire life to accomplishing one thing. He says that the whole reason why God saved him was so that he could preach about Jesus to the Gentiles. Paul was saying this is my purpose. This is the reason why I exist and I am going to devote my life to it.
Have you ever thought about how many things we devote our lives too? Or maybe I should say how many things we try to devote our lives too. These things can get in the way of God’s agenda for our lives.
We are dedicated to being a Christian, except when it gets in the way of what we really want to do. We are dedicated to tithing, except when we need the money for something else. We are dedicated to going to Church, except when there is something better to do.
You need to become to convinced of God’s purpose and consumed by his plan that you wouldn’t even consider deviating from it no matter what else came along. I am talking about being so consumed by God’s agenda for your life that not even work or business deals or sports could derail you.
Now you need to know that I am not saying that those other things are wrong. They are perfectly fine as long as they are put in their place. And that means that they must come 2nd or 3rd or 4th because God and his agenda for your life is always in 1st. I want to share with you a paraphrase of Psalm 23 that shows what happens when we fail to put God’s agenda ahead of our agenda.
The clock is my dictator, I shall not rest.
It makes me lie down only when exhausted.
It leads me into deep depression.
It hounds my soul.
It leads me in circles of frenzy, for activities sake.
Even though I run frantically from task to task, I will never get it all done,
For my ideal is with me.
Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.
They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule.
They anoint my head with migraines,
My in-basket overflows.
Surely fatigue and time pressures shall follow me
All the days of my life.
And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration
Forever.
(Source unknown: Contributed by: Bruce Howell – SermonCentral.com)
You might be worried that if you let God set the agenda for your life you won’t like what he plans for you. You might not at first, but you will. I didn’t like the idea of being called to be a pastor because the thought of standing up in front of people and talking absolutely terrified me. But now I cannot even imagine doing anything else. Here is the principle: When you let God set the agenda for your life that agenda will set your life on fire for God.
To be a person of influence you must get alone with God and allow him to reveal to you what his agenda is for your life. Then make sure that what you think God is telling with you lines up with scripture and is reaffirmed by Godly leaders.
3. Stick With It For The Long Haul.
You have to become a God-pleaser before you will be willing to let God set the agenda for your life. And then when God sets the agenda you have to stick with it for the long haul. Becoming a person of influence doesn’t happen overnight. There really isn’t such a thing as an overnight success. That is just a pipe dream that they sell on infomercials for more than you can afford.
There is a tale told of that great English actor Macready. An eminent preacher once said to him: "I wish you would explain to me something." "Well, what is it? I don’t know that I can explain anything to a preacher." "What is the reason for the difference between you and me? You are appearing before crowds night after night with fiction, and the crowds come wherever you go. I am preaching the essential and unchangeable truth, and I am not getting any crowd at all." Macready’s answer was this: "This is quite simple. I can tell you the difference between us. I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction." (G. Campbell Morgan, Preaching, p. 36.)
Basically Macready was telling this pastor that he lacked credibility with the people and that until he had established credibility or believability he shouldn’t expect people to listen to what he had to say. What does this have to do with sticking with it for the long haul? Simply this. It takes time to establish credibility. When you are a rookie at anything you have to first prove yourself before you will be taken seriously. This was even true of Paul. It took him a long time to establish credibility.
Look at verses 18 and 19.
18Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19I saw none of the other apostles – only James, the Lord’s brother. (NIV)
For three years Paul ministered in Arabia and Damascus before meeting with any of the leaders of the church. Then look at chapter 2.
1 Then fourteen years later I went back to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas; and Titus came along, too. 2 I went there because God revealed to me that I should go. While I was there I talked privately with the leaders of the church. I wanted them to understand what I had been preaching to the Gentiles. I wanted to make sure they did not disagree, or my ministry would have been useless. (NLT)
Most scholars agree that based on the timeline of Paul’s life he is not talking about fourteen years after his first visit to Jerusalem, but fourteen years after his conversion. During this fourteen-year period Paul was not sitting on his hands waiting for the full approval of the church leadership. On the contrary he was very involved in ministry. Paul was converted to Christ in the year A.D. 35. From 35 to 38 he ministered in Arabia and Damascus. Then from 38-43 he ministered in Syria and Cilicia. In the year A.D. 43 Barnabas went and got Paul and took him to Antioch where they ministered together for a year. Then in 46 through 48 Paul went on the first of his four missionary journeys. All of this took place before going to Jerusalem in A.D. 49 for the conference described in the verses we just read.
Why did he go to this conference? Because God told him to go so that the leaders of the church could evaluate his ministry and message and give him there approval. Paul was concerned that his ministry would have been useless had his message not been right. Or as the NIV renders it “…for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain.” The bottom line is this. It took the apostle fourteen years of ministry before he received the full endorsement of the church. In other words it took him fourteen years to establish credibility.
From the time that I was saved and God called me into ministry it was eight years before I received the full endorsement of the church. The first two years I spent clarifying the call personally. Then I spent four years in Bible College training and preparing. Then I spent two years in full time ministry after which I was evaluated by the District Board of Ministerial Development and approved for ordination in The Wesleyan Church. It took time for me to establish credibility.
Paul was not bitter about this lengthy delay in gaining full recognition and approval from the church leadership. In fact it was Paul himself who later told Timothy, his young protégé, “Don’t be too quick to accept people into the service of the Lord” (1 Tim. 5:22, CEV). Paul is basically saying that we shouldn’t make a rush to judgment because it takes time to establish credibility.
Paul’s message and ministry were not based on a short-term whim. He and his ministry stood the test of time. And if you want to build credibility for your life’s agenda then you must stick with it for the long haul. Don’t expect that it will be popular or accepted by everyone right away. First you must prove yourself and that means investing the time to build credibility. Be prepared to hang in there and stick with it for the long haul and if it is of God it will happen.
A piano teacher has said that her average student sticks with the lessons for about six months. However, the University of Chicago once did a study of accomplished pianists and found that they were in training for an average of 17.1 years before winning their first major competition. Clearly it takes time.
For as long as I can remember my mother was our church pianist. So when I was in grade school and expressed interest in learning to play my mother began to teach me. Now I don’t know if I stuck with it for even six months. I do know that I stuck with it long enough to learn to play “Mary Had A Little Lamb” and “Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater.” And that was it.
Here is the point. If you approach your life mission with the same half-hearted effort that I put into my piano lessons the sum total of your life’s effort will be the equivalent of “Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater.” But if you are prepared to stick with it for the long haul and establish credibility, then your life’s work will be the equivalent of a concert pianist’s masterpiece.
Conclusion:
You may remember several years back when NBA superstar Charles Barkley made this controversial statement: “I don’t want to be anyone’s role model.” In his defense his point was that some guy on a TV screen shouldn’t be the role model for the youth of America. He thought parents and teachers should be role models not athletes. But whether he liked it or not – whether he wanted to be or not – he was a role model to many.
We are all role models in some way, shape or form. We are all people of influence. Everyday you influence your children, grandchildren, employer, employees, coworkers, friends, neighbors, and even people you meet on the street. Unless you live in complete isolation, and the fact that you are here this morning proves that you don’t, you are having an influence on others. The question is: What kind of influence are you having? Positive or negative? Good or Bad?
If you want to be able to say, “They recognized and worshiped God because of me,” then don’t even thinking about trying to please people. Focus on being a God-pleaser. Then devote yourself to discovering God’s agenda for your life and be dedicated to it for the long haul so you can establish credibility. That is how you become a person of influence.
Please email me if you use this sermon or a revison of it. Thank you!
steveamanda8297@hotmail.com
