How many of you work at a company that tries different things to motivate you to accomplish more and make a bigger impact in your world? You go into a meeting and they will tell motivational stories or they hang posters and signs on the walls. Some of you have heard it all – and you may be a little worn out by all that. You may be like the cynic whose self-help advice I ran across this week.
-I want to share with you the Top 10 motivational tips of the cynic.
1) Motivation – If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job, the kind robots will be doing soon.
2) (Snowflakes). Individuality –Always remember that you are unique, just like everybody else.
3) (Lounging leopard) Indifference –- It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile, but it doesn’t take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face.
4) (The Great Pyramids) Achievement –- You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.
5) (Here’s Butch the soccer player with little Cody). Goals –It is best to avoid standing directly between a competitive jerk and his goals.
6) (A football receiver being laid out by a tackler). Success –Some people dream of success, while other people like to crush those dreams.
7) (Taj Mahal in India). Discovery –A company that will go to the end of the earth for its people will find it can hire them for about 10% of the cost of Americans.
8) – (A bear about to catch a salmon). Ambition The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly.
9) (Two runners - a male running behind a female). Persistence –It’s over man. Let her go.
10) (Rowers) Get to work - You aren’t being paid to believe in the power of your dreams.
This morning I want to to cut through all the years of self-help advice you have gotten; the corny and cheesy sayings; the endless stream of self-help and motivational books and get back to the best motivational advice from Someone who we can easily say is the most successful being ever - from the #1 bestselling book of all time – the Bible – This morning we are beginning a new series entitled - “The 7 Secrets of Highly Influential People - God’s Ladder to the Top”.
-The series title is a spin on the still wildly popular book by Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I am not recommending this book but I am recommending the all- time #1 bestselling book in all categories – the Bible.
My Goal for this series - Grow in your relationship with God and others so that your light will shine brighter everywhere you go. - at work, in your neighborhood, in your schools. Influence. God has asked us to be His witnesses and to let our light shine that people may glorify Him. We need to influence other people. You may think that your light is kind of dim right now –you are not influencing anyone. We are going to try to set you free; lighten your load in the next seven weeks.
So let’s get into it: Are you ready for the First secret? “They experience the promotion of God because they are (Pause) humble.” God does things differently. His ways are not our ways. His ways are secret until we dig them out of the Bible. We won’t find these tips on the evening news or on Leno or on Oprah. The world says “Stand up for your rights” – “Strut your stuff” – “If you don’t toot your own horn, how will you get noticed?” – “If you got it flaunt it”.
How to get promoted by God:
1) Get down to go up (James 4:8-10).
James 4:8-10 - Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.
This is a very, very encouraging promise - if we draw near to God – He will draw near to us
James is talking about experiencing God’s Presence – this passage tells us how - Submit our whole heart, confess and admit and turn from our sins and our bad attitudes, quit covering over our sin and our pain and our sorrows with comedy and entertainment. Cleanse ourselves before Him in His forgiveness. -In short to v. 10 - humble ourselves in His presence
Now humility before God will come very easy to us if we recognize Who we are dealing with –
-a couple of weeks ago I was playing basketball and I stubbed my finger really bad and I hollered and rolled around on the ground for a while and a few of the guys started milling around me and asking me questions – are you OK? Do you want me to yank on it? One guy said “let me see it” and I thought – “leave me alone – can’t you see this hurts” – but then I realized the guy was a dentist and though he is not a radiologist, he was trained in medicine so I showed him my finger and he said “It’s not broken or dislocated, you should probably get some ice on it”, which didn’t make the pain go away but I realized that he knew what he was talking about and that I would be all right. When I realized who I was dealing with I was more open to his advice.
–I need to realize that the Lord of the Universe is tapping me on the shoulder while I am busy and distracted dealing with my problems. He is saying “let me see” – He is the smartest, wisest, kindest being ever – my greatest cheerleader; my best advocate – He is on my side like no one else – why wouldn’t I want to draw near to Him and work out my problems
-in fact the Lord is probably on my side more than I am – What do I mean by that? –when I blow it or do something dumb or make a huge mistake -God doesn’t condemn me - but I condemn myself.
-Let me ask you a question - How much time do you spend with God? Do you feel like you need Him? If you do spend time with Him do you rush through it just so you can say you did it? Do you avoid making any decisions in the morning until you ask Him and consult with Him?
-the Lord has nailed me with this truth – I realize that my tendency to wake up and make a list and get busy is nothing short of huge and presumptuous pride, a total lack of humitity, if not just plain dumb
-if we slow down and spend time with God we may go through a sense of vertigo where we think we are going down when we are really going up - (Show optical illusion picture of guys climbing ladders) – we basically climb down!
-But it says here in James that God will exalt us when we humble ourselves – we can accomplish way more in 30 humble minutes with God than a full year on our own
How to get promoted by God:
1) Get down to go up (James 4:8-10).
2) Get over yourself and you will get over it (Matthew 11:28-30).
Matthew 11:28-30 Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.
30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
-Jesus uses some farming imagery here – yoking – now when I look into our audience here I don’t see many farmers we may not understand this very well. - The picture that Jesus presents here is of a yoking of two oxen. In Jesus’ day they would take a strong experienced ox and yoke it with a young inexperienced ox. The older ox would basically teach the younger one how to pull without totally wearing itself out. How to pace and how to relax. Today we might make an analogy of trying to cut your grass with a hand sickle.
-So Why do we get weary, why do we get overwhelmed and burdened down? Is this just part of being human or is there a way out? Jesus is saying here that it doesn’t have to be so hard. Jesus claims in v. 30 that we can can trade in our heavy burdens for His light and easy ones.
-It is clear that Jesus considers a large part of human weariness and burdens to be self-imposed. In others words we bring the burdens on ourselves. We drive ourselves to exhaustion because we think we are so important to fix what is broken, to prevent bad things from happening. This is nothing but a lack of humiltity – notice He says in v. 29 that we should learn from him because He is humble in heart
-we take on yokes of responsibilities that God never gave us – in short we take over God’s role.
-I don’t know about you but I often think that the faster and harder I push and the more I get done - the better things are going to be. But the Lord has given us the cure for workaholism in Psalm 127:1-2 (And I think Solomon – knew a thing or two about accomplishing things). "Unless the LORD builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep".
- The cure for drivenness and workaholism is trust. In my case, I really need to see how unimportant I am when it comes to leading this church – God uses teams of people – one man cannot do it himself -
-Jesus also called Himself "gentle" in v. 29 -also translated “meek” – Moses was said to be the meekest man in the whole earth – this meekness is in regards to relationships with people - when he was challenged by his brother Aaron and his sister Miriam, he did not fight back with them or get defensive – he prayed for them, that God would not punish them. He was secure in the Lord. -instead of fighting with others – we should pray for each other
-so often we get overburdened because our spouse or a co-worker or our boss or a parent or child doesn’t seem to appreciate us or doesn’t agree with us or challenges us – we get so knocked out of balance by this –
-Let me ask you a question - Remember the last time you felt insulted or put down. Maybe by a boss; a co-worker; a family member; a child; a parent; a spouse? How did you handle it? Were you defensive? Did you fire an insult back at them?
Jesus offers -Rest - He promises rest to them who come to Him and learn His ways. He invites us to learn from Him and lean on Him.
How to get promoted by God:
1) Get down to go up (James 4:8-10).
2) Get over yourself and you will get over it (Matthew 11:28-30).
3) Give in to get in with God (1 Peter 5:5-6).
1 Peter 5:5-6 You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.
-Young men often think that older men are slow and not very wise but there is a huge step of humility that God asks of younger men and of all of us in genereal – to submit ourselves under imperfect people.
-God has called me to work with a group of men who are the leaders of this church – our elders – I have grown to realize that they are a protection for me – they are a help to me – I went to a conference last week and came home with a million new ideas. They helped me sort through what we really needed to implement and the pace at which we should move. If I see them as an obstacle to my goals then all we would do is argue. But if I see myself as a catalyst, humly presenting what God may want us to do it creates a whole different atmosphere.
-how do you handle authority? Wives? teenagers?
How do you know if you are submissive – One test – what do you say about the person behind their back or under your breath? Do you complain about the boss to co-workers or to your wife or husband at home? Do you complain to your friends about your parents or your boss or about a co-worker?
-Peter ends with God will exalt us in the "Proper time" - Humility makes no deadlines.
GOSPEL
