People Who Stand Out // Standing Out From the Crowd, Part 1

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

These days – everybody wants to be noticed. We want to somehow stand out from the crowd. Rise above the noise. What’s that all about? How can we stand out for the right reasons.

It seems some days that we live in a world where everybody wants to stand out from the crowd. Ask just about any teenager and they want to be a famous something. A tennis player, a singer or actor or whatever. As long as they’re famous. And it’s not just the young folk either. It seems that we’re only significant if we’re noticed. Millions of people have their own blog site on the internet. Suddenly people want recognition for what they do, at work and at home.

Everybody seems to be clamouring for attention. The more TV channels and websites and movies, the more of that stuff there is the less the average people like you and me are going to get noticed. There seems to be this growing gap between our desire to stand out from the crowd and the reality that we’re just one of the masses.

Don’t believe me? Well, I don’t know if you’ve caught up with it, but a few months ago the celebrity billionaire heiress in the US called Paris Hilton, (she’s involved in the Hilton hotel empire family) she was locked up for driving. I think it was drink driving or dangerous driving.

Now she was only in jail for a few weeks but there was this massive media frenzy. There’s a whole genre of press celebrity magazines that put Princess Diana on their front cover. These magazines exist to feed the seemingly insatiable hunger that people have for the sordid details of the lives of these so called celebrities.

You look at the game shows on television. Our hunger for famous sporting men and sporting women. We have hunger to stand out from the crowd, to be recognised. But you know, you look at the lives of some of those people, those celebrities, and I don’t know about you, but I think to myself, if that’s what it means I don’t think I want to stand out.

And just in our day to day lives you know, the world is becoming more and more transaction oriented. When you go to the supermarket and you go to the check out and you’re checking out the groceries and the young lady or young man is there scanning them through the scanner. How often to we interact with these people. Talk. How are you going, it’s a lovely day. We don’t. It’s a transaction. Neighbourhoods have become transactional. Kids tend not to go out and kick the football much anymore. Sometimes neighbours barely know one another. The more a country becomes developed and financially secure the more the people spend time working and being entertained and the less and less time they have for living. Life becomes a series of interactions, short and transactional, and in that there’s this hunger we have to be recognised, to stand out, to succeed, to make it, however you want to put it.

Of course there’s nothing new in any of that. It’s such an age old issue. We want significance, we want to be noticed. The question is, is it for the right reason? Jesus had this problem with His twelve disciples. It was exactly the same issue. Let me read you the story:

Jesus and His disciples came to Capernaum. When they were in the house, He asked the disciples, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ They kept quiet because on the way they’d been arguing about which one of them was the greatest.

Sitting down Jesus called the twelve to Him and He said this. If any of you wants to be first you must be the very last and the servant of all. He took a little child and had the child stand among them and taking them in His arms, He said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one of these little children in My name welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me doesn’t just welcome Me but the one who sent Me’.

John said, "We saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told Him to stop because He wasn’t one of us." "Don’t stop him", Jesus said. "No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me. For whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, if anyone gives you a cup of water in My name, because you belong to Christ, they will certainly not lose their reward."

Do you see the extreme opposite between what the disciples were thinking and what Jesus was thinking. These disciples, well, they were like a lot of us. They saw life as a competition. These people were walking down the road with the Son of God and arguing behind His back which one of them was the greatest. And Jesus said, No, No, No. I want you to stand out from the crowd for a different reason. For the right reason.

If you want to be first, if you want to be noticed, if you want to stand out from the crowd, be the last, be the servant of all. Just take a little child and welcome this child in my name. Just take a cup of water and give it to someone and serve them. See, the Jesus thing is so different to what the world screams at us as being success. Jesus said, “You know the way you become first. You fly under the radar of all this recognition and success and adulation. You fly under that into the hearts of people by serving them."

And you know, just a few verses later in the next chapter of Mark’s gospel, the same thing happens again. James and John the son’s of Zebedee came to Jesus and said:

'Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask’. ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Jesus asked. And they replied ‘That one of us sits at your right hand and the other at your left hand when you come into your glory’. Jesus said, ‘You have no idea what you’re asking for. Can you drink from the cup that I’m going to drink from or be baptised with the baptism that I’m going to be baptised with’.

When the other 10 heard about this they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know, that those who are regarded as rulers of the gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. But I don’t want to be like that with you. Instead, whoever want to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all for even the Son of Man hasn’t come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for the many’.

You wonder if these guys were thick or slow or something. They had to be taught this over and over again. You know why that is, because this is an age old problem.

We human beings think that we’ve made it when other people recognise us as being successful. We want to stand out from the crowd. We want to win, we want to be first and above and be recognised and be successful. What a contrast between that, our perspective, and His:

I didn’t come to be served but to serve and give My life as a ransom for the many. I’m prepared to lay My life down for You, prepared to lose in the world’s eyes.

And of cause Jesus went on from that to be the most significant person whoever walked Planet Earth.

We all have a natural desire for significance. And that’s ok. To make a difference. To impact lives, to improve, to change. But significance is so different from success. Success is about winning; success is about being patted on the back; success is about recognition; success is about someone saying, "Well look how big my bank is, or look how big my church is, or look how big my ministry is, or look …" No. And Jesus said, "That’s what those people out there do. I don’t want that for you. Instead if you want to become great among people, you have to be the servant. And if you want to be first you have to be the slave. Your significance or success, recognition or respect."