Putting Others First // Essential Life Skills, Part 3

Christianityworks Official Podcast

If only you and I could always come first. You know, be numero uno in this world. But as much as that’s our desire sometimes, Jesus doesn’t give us that option. Because in order to be first, actually you have to come last. What a pain!!!

The Power of a Tender Heart

Kindness is a much underrated quality these days. Sure, we love it when other people are kind toward us in a world that seems to be moving ever faster, where things appear to be getting more and more transactional. In a world where people are retreating into digital, electronic friendships rather than real ones, yeah kindness when we experience it really stands out.

When you hear that word kindness, you know exactly what it means; no definition required, right? But exactly what is it? Well, it’s being nice to other people, surely. Hang on but which people? Because it’s ever so easy to be kind to the people who are nice to us but a dictionary tells me that kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous and considerate. Great, and I’m sure that there are people in your life toward whom you find it incredibly easy to be kind quite simply because they’re kind to you in return.

But what about the difficult people in your life? Conflict lies all around us and it’s conflict, in all its forms, that robs us of our peace and joy because we’re quite simply not made to be in conflict all the time. Ask anyone would you rather have peace or conflict? Well, you know the answer. So let me ask you again, what about those difficult people in your life?

Here’s what Jesus had to say on this very thing. Luke chapter 6, verse 35:

Love your enemies, do good and lend expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great and you’ll be children of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, eh? Well, he is. In fact he’s been kind over and over again toward you and me. Even when we’ve been ungrateful, even when we’ve done the wrong thing, even when we’ve been wicked over and over and over again. Love your enemies, then. Do good to them, lend to them, be to them just as God has been to you: kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked. Why? Well it always bring peace? No, not always although it will substantially increase the chances of peace.

Think about those times when you’ve been acting like a fool and the person you’ve been hurting turns around and responds to you in kindness. Nine times out of ten it’s enough to disarm any sense of hostility you may have had in your heart, right? And whilst that won’t always happen, what will happen is that God will notice. God will see you and your reward from him will be great.

Like I said, kindness is such an underrated quality these days yet it has the power to bring peace and blessing to your life. But it’s hard to be kind when you have bitterness and anger in your heart. One of the things that God’s word talks an awful lot about is what’s going on in our hearts, in your heart and in mine. There’s a reason for that. The heart is the seat of our emotions and when we have bad stuff happening in there, deep on the inside, we can’t help it, it bubbles to the surface. We end up speaking and acting that bad stuff out. So it’s easy for me to say to you be kind to other people. It’s easy to say but it’s incredibly difficult to do with anger and bitterness bubbling away in your heart.

Might I ask you today: who do you feel angry towards right at this moment in your life? Whose words or deeds have hurt you and left a root of bitterness in your heart? Toward whom have you hardened your heart in a defensive response against that pain? Because today I’m believing that God wants to set you free from that as only He can by his spirit and his word. Are you ready? Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31 and 32:

Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander together with all malice and be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.

It’s quite a list there of destructive emotions: bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander and malice. And if I said to you today: put them away, get rid of them, let me tell you it wouldn’t make an iota of difference in your life. But today, right here and now it’s not me that’s saying it, it’s God through his word and he, he has the power to help you to do exactly that.

When God speaks through his word as he is here, through Ephesians chapter 4, verses 31 and 32, when the Holy Spirit lifts that word off the page and writes it on your heart, He gives you the power you need to change. More power, in fact, than you’ll ever need.

So friend, take his word into your heart right now. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander together with all malice and be kind to one another, tender hearted. Forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. Replace all those negative emotions with a tender heart, as soft heart, a heart that feels and loves and gives. Just as God in Christ through His terrible suffering has forgiven you.

Because armed with a tender, gentle, kind, forgiving heart, you can change lives with God’s love. Armed with a tender, gentle, kind, forgiving heart, you can build bridges of peace, bridges into hurting, desperate lives that one day, one day, Jesus will walk across. Be tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Chris has forgiven you.

It’s one thing to talk about kindness and tender heartedness. They’re good things but words are cheap. A little bit of kindness here and there can be an incredibly powerful thing. When someone’s having a bad day and you come along with a word of encouragement it can light up their whole world.

But if all we ever do is speak, well it starts to wear just a little bit thin after a while because sometimes people need a helping hand and there’s nothing quite as powerful as doing love. Not just speaking it but doing it in a practical way, right into someone’s area of need. Actions, as they say speak louder than words. That powerful truth played itself out on the cross on Calvary 2000 years ago. 1 John chapter 3, verses 16 and 17:

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us. And so we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or a sister in need and yet refuses to help? We know that God loves us not just because he says he does but because through Christ’s incredible suffering on that cross, we know he does. As a direct result of that sacrificial love that God poured out through the suffering of Jesus for you and me, you and I are called to lay down our lives for one another.

That implies sacrifice, that implies suffering. It’s not always convenient to lay down your life for someone else, in fact I’d go so far as to say it’s rarely if ever convenient or comfortable to lay down your life for someone else. And then, just to remind us that we’re not talking about some lofty theory here, the Holy Spirit guided the apostle John to bring it down to our level, to apply it practically to our lives and to our relationships.

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need yet refuses to help? The more economically developed a society becomes, the more self-sufficient we become, the less likely we are to help one another in practical ways. In places where life is an economic struggle, look people routinely help one another in practical ways because they have to to survive. But the wealthier we become the less likely we are to help.

Listen Before You Speak

Now when it comes to life skills that really make a difference, knowing how to listen, how to shut up and then when to speak the truth, well I think that they would have to be right up there in the category of absolute essentials. So why is it that so often we get this so wrong?

Isn’t it just the most amazing thing when somebody actually takes the time to stop and listen to what you have to say? I don’t mean that they stop talking just long enough to figure out the next thing that they’re going to say, I mean when someone actually takes the time to listen to you and really understand what it is that you’re trying to get across.

I have to confess, I am not naturally a good listener. I’m born to talk, to do what I’m doing right now. As a brash young IT consultant I used to think that communication was all about me talking and showing other people how clever I was. Fortunately, I had a mentor, a man 20 years my senior who took the time to teach me the incredible power of listening.

It’s something, by the way, that I’m still learning and I suspect that many of us need to keep working on it because listening, stopping, taking the time to understand someone else even if you don’t agree with them, is one of the most important, the most powerful, life skills that we can ever learn. James chapter 1, verse 19:

You must understand this my beloved, that everyone be quick to listen but slow to speak.

We live in a world where the exact opposite is true. Whether it’s face-to-face or on social media, everybody it seems is talking but very few are actually listening.

Recently a good friend of mine in his 80s passed away and his widow asked me to take his funeral service. I was sitting with her, her daughters and the funeral director in their home planning the funeral and for the most part I just listened. At this point I quietly gave thanks to my mentor who all those years before had taught me the power of just listening. There were times in that two hours or so where frankly I thought they could have made up their minds much more quickly about this detail or that, but that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t about me, it was about them, their grieving process and the way they wanted to say farewell to their husband and father.

I noticed too that even though she had a job to do, the funeral director was an incredibly good listener. I walked away from that time feeling so privileged at having been able to be there and just listen to them talk. Come on, it’s a privilege to hear what’s going on in someone else’s heart. And it so honours the other person, it shows them such respect when we simply sit down, shut up and take the time to listen.

Let everybody be quick to listen and slow to speak. But of course listening isn’t something that comes naturally to many people. Most of us, I think, are uncomfortable with silence. We think that in order for the conversation to flow somebody needs to be talking and if nobody else is we’d better say something. Anything will do, just something to get rid of that uncomfortable silence.

How often have you stupidly blurted something out just to break the silence? Pretending that you know about something that really you have no idea about? We’ve all been there and the people around you don’t know whether to laugh or just be embarrassed for you. The more we speak, our thinking goes, the more knowledgeable it makes us look. When in reality the exact opposite is true. Along with the skill of listening, the skill of simply being silent is one of the most important life skills that we can ever learn. Proverbs chapter 17, verses 27 and 28:

One who spares his words is knowledgeable; one who is cool in spirit has understanding. Even fools who keep silent are considered wise; when they close their lips they are deemed intelligent.

At this point, I’m reminded of the young man by the name of Ben with whom I’ve been working recently. He’s an expert in social media and digital communications. And of all the people I’ve met in my life, he more than anybody embodies this scripture. I recall we were in a meeting with some web developers planning something new. I jump here and ask a question there, share a thought. The head developer asked Ben whether he had any questions. ‘No’, he said, "I’ll just wait". He sat there without saying anything for quite a while, observing, thinking, listening. But when he did open his mouth, his few words displayed a wisdom and an insight well beyond his years. Instead of being keen to impress he was very much cool in spirit, calm, measured. Let me tell you, very, very impressive.

At what point did we start thinking that talking was the most important part of communicating? At what point did we begin to imagine that battling on about things that we really don’t understand, showing off with our many words, was the way to impress other people? This proverb is spot on. The one who speaks fewer words ultimately comes across as the more knowledgeable one and even the fool when he sits silent appears to be wise.

In a world where everybody’s trying to put their best foot forward, where so many people are trying to impress us with what they have to say, silence, knowing when not to speak, is more important than ever.

The Bible is full of life skills, essential life skills. And these skills are very rarely taught explicitly in our upbringing. We’re meant to pick them up I think by osmosis. But God doesn’t leave these things to chance. One to spares words is knowledgeable; one who is cool in spirit has understanding. You’ve no doubt heard that old saying: we have two ears and one mouth so we should use them in the same proportion. In other words we should listen about twice as much as we speak. It’s a good adage that remains every bit as true today as it was back when the pace of life and the pace of communication were much slower.

But when we do finally speak, when we do open our mouths having listened and understood other people, what should we say? Well, let’s start with another question. What do people usually say? In my experience it’s one of two things. They either tell me what they want me to hear or what they think I want to hear.

All too often people are pushing their own agendas so they tell us what they want us to hear, trying to get us to agree with them. That’s why the shop attendant invariably tells you that you look fantastic in that item of clothing you’ve just tried on because what they want is the sale.

Other times they’ll tell you what they think you want to hear, to butter you up and gain favour that they can call upon at a later time because frankly, telling someone something that they don’t want to hear often doesn’t get good results. It’s awkward, uncomfortable and often time leads to conflict. So when you open your mouth what should you be telling people? Ephesians chapter 4, verses 14 and 15:

We must no longer be children tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness and deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.

What should we be telling people? Answer: we should be speaking the truth in love. Not what we want them to hear to get them to agree with us and not what they want to hear to curry favour with them, but the truth. And not the truth in a rude, confrontational, disrespectful way. The truth delivered that way will rarely be accepted, even though it is the truth. No, we’re called to speak the truth in love with kindness, with gentleness, with the other person’s interests at heart.

The older I get the more I find myself looking for people who’ll tell me the truth. I want to know what they really think, what they really feel. I want to be dealing in the facts that will help me to make the best decisions even when the facts happen to point out one of my weaknesses, mistakes or faults. I respect that. What should we be saying when we speak? The truth, in love.

Be the Hands and Feet of Jesus

Now in the few minutes that we have left today I’d like to chat with you about the single most important, the single most powerful life skill of all. It’s a skill, no perhaps skill’s not quite the right word, it’s a sacrifice that Jesus demonstrated on the cross toward you and me and it’s a sacrifice that he’s calling us to live out for the rest of our days on this earth. And that thing, that one most important thing is unconditional love. So let’s dive back into God’s word because this is truly powerful stuff.

The thing about the unconditional love of God is that it’s proactive. God stepped out of heaven in the person of Jesus Christ while we were still sinners. He didn’t wait for you and me to clean up our acts, he didn’t sit back like the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus’ day and judge and criticise us. God looked down on the likes of you and me and said, hey, they need help. I’m going to do something about this.

Of course that was no surprise to him. He didn’t wake up one day shocked at the sin that was ruining humanity, the sin that was ruining your life and mine. From before the beginning of time he knew, he always knew that one day he’d have to do something radical for you and me. Romans chapter 5, verses 6-9:

For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, oh perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Most more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God.

That’s what love is, that’s what love does. It doesn’t sit back and wait, it steps forward and acts and love is proven in the suffering of Jesus Christ which was decided upon and which happened before you and I ever cleaned up our respective acts. In fact it happened because God knew that without that act of radical love you and I would be doomed to the consequences of our sin.

And that very same love, that very same proactive, radical love, the sort that steps out in sacrifice rather than sitting back in criticism, is the love that you and I are called to live out in the this world. Nothing more and nothing less. Radical, unconditional love. Jesus said this about you and me: very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and in fact will do greater works than these because I am going to the father.

Sometimes we just apply that saying to the miracles that Jesus performed and that’s great. When God performs miracles through us that’s awesome but the greatest miracle, the greatest work that Jesus performed was his sacrificial love on that cross. And over and over again we, you and I, are called to live out that sacrificial love. The sort that steps forward and acts instead of sitting back and criticising.

Jesus is calling you to great acts of love in a world that’s hurting, in a world that’s desperate to receive the love of Jesus Christ. Now I know, I know absolutely that living out that love isn’t easy. We do it, you and I, so imperfectly, so often we feel completely inadequate to the task, completely overwhelmed. And when you do feel that way remember so did Jesus. John chapter 12, verses 27 and 28:

Now my soul is troubled and what should I say? Father save me from this hour. No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name!

Yes his soul was troubled yet still his focus was on glorifying God through his suffering. Living out the unconditional love of Christ towards other people is going to trouble your soul, it’s going to bring you pain just as it did for Jesus. Loving sinners always, always involves sacrifice and pain and yet it is to the father’s glory that you do that very thing for him.