Unselfish

Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey, this is Mike Zwick with If Not For God with Mike Zwick. And Robbie, we were just talking about before the show, and we said, what are we going to talk about?

And I said, you know, recently I've seen a lot about how the Christian life. should be an unselfish life. And you know, I've seen many Near-death experiences. I've watched them. I don't want to say I've watched them all, but I've watched a lot of them.

And who knows what to think of all of that? You know, I believe some of the people had real experiences. And there's several of them that I do believe. There's some of them that I say, is this real or is this just maybe some bad tuna that they had one night? I don't know.

But one of the common themes that I've seen in many of the near-death experiences have been when people have gone, you know, had a trip to heaven or, you know, gotten to meet Jesus or whatever it was, they said that Jesus told them that one of the keys to life was to be unselfish. And so in Galatians 5, 22 through 23, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. And so When I think about unselfishness, I was reminded, Robbie, when I first started to sell insurance, and I was trying to understand and trying to figure out how to sell more insurance. You know, I needed to make a living.

And so the problem. President of the company actually came to me one day and he said, Mike, he said, in my life, He said, I've seen that there were times where I was extremely. selfish. And he said the natural part of me My natural inclination was to think about myself, and to look out for number one, so to speak. He also said, He said, the times in my life where I was the happiest.

was where I was the most unselfish.

Now, just like everything, there can be a ditch on either side of these issues. And so one of the ditches is where you're constantly being unselfish and you don't look out for yourself at all. And then you can really get taken advantage of. But I think maybe the other end of the spectrum is where you're just looking out for number one, and then you can also be very unhappy as well. And I'm sure you've seen that as well.

But you were talking about something before, too. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, it's amazing that you start out with Galatians 5. You know, many people would quote that. In another version, and maybe you've heard it this way: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, which I've always thought was hilarious because. Yeah.

Do you know anybody that has self-control?

Now, the mere word self in there just kind of tells you that we're going off the rails somewhere. I like the version of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and God control, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you're trying to control yourself, good luck with that. I mean, I've tried.

for nearly 70 years. And I'm thinking that There is a big, huge secret. That that the The more you can Remember, right? Jesus said, Do this in remembering me. If you can remember God, immediately it takes some thoughts off yourself.

And of course, if you begin to think of others, that too helps you get your thoughts off yourself. But it's this simple for me. Like, Robbie, you think you can control yourself?

Well, go to a church dinner, right? And I'm diabetic. And those people who know me know I'm diabetic. And here we'll have the most unbelievable desserts that you've ever seen loaded with what? Right?

Sugar, fat. Oh, you got it all, right? And man, how are you going to get self-control over that? Good luck. I'm just saying.

But. With God. If not for God, right? All things can... can bec become possible.

And I have just Seen so much fruit lately in trying to, um, as it says, take up your cross and deny yourself, right? And as you deny yourself, whatever that may look like. You've got to take up your cross as part of the package. You do. And I heard a story years ago about the guy who actually started the Salvation Army, William Booth.

Yeah. And they said there were. Go ahead. No, no, you said go ahead.

Okay. And there was, uh, there was one, there was one time where they were going to send out a telegram and they were trying to do an advertisement to, you know, to share with all of their, I think they called them soldiers or their army or whatever it was. And they said, all right, we got it. We got the paragraph. And the guy said, nope, that's too long.

You don't have enough money for that. And they got it down to two sentences. Nope, you can't do that. Got it down to one sentence. They said, you can't even afford that.

And all they had money for was one word. You know what that word was? Others. others. You know, and so When I first started off selling insurance, I was having a tough time and I was trying to figure out: how do I do this?

How do I make more money? How do I sell more? How do I, I, I, I, I. And my boss, the guy who really taught me a lot of what I know. He said, Mike, he said, you're never nervous when your mind's on service.

So in other words, the job becomes a lot easier when you're just there to help people. And so not only is it godly, not only are we supposed to do it, but I believe it can make our lives a whole lot easier. when we're not constantly focused on ourselves. Oh, and sales it's it's it's it's basic, basic, right? People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

And when when you begin to really engage in what do they need, what do they want, and take your mind off of what you're trying to sell them, and trying to serve them, that that you you know as well as I do that that's when the doors begin to open and you begin to see this idea of like, oh my goodness, what an opportunity to actually make a difference, to have a purpose, right? Yeah, and it's a lot of people are searching for purpose. And yes, you know, we say, well, tell them about Jesus, tell them about Jesus. And that's the first thing that we do. We want to point people to Jesus.

But I believe it was attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi. He said, preach the gospel constantly, use words when necessary.

Now, of course, we're going to have to use words. Of course, we're going to have to share the gospel. Of course, we're going to have to talk to people about the Lord. But people People, yes, they may listen to our words, but they're going to watch what we do a whole lot more. I believe it was Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said it like this: He said, Who you are, speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That idea, and especially in today, like you said, when you look around and your people that are. thinking about their Versus those people who think about others in a certain situation. I have this amazing story to share along these lines that I think of all the time.

Especially on this idea, that there was a man who worked for Wild at Heart, which is John Eldridge's ministry in Colorado, by the name of Craig McConnell. And he was a phenomenal, phenomenal boy. Bible teacher and Just that wonderful ministry. Um he got Cancer, bad cancer. And it was a type of lymphoma or leukemia, as I refer, whatever it was.

He had to have all that bone marrow by. transplant and all that crazy stuff that goes with that. Which is horrible and very, very painful. And he got a really bad infection. And the way he described it, he said, you know, he had a fever of 104 and he was convulsing.

And he was in such pain like he'd never experienced in his life. It's like his whole body was on fire. And he was screaming out to God. He was sweating so bad that it was just. Sweat was pouring out of him.

You know, you can imagine he's in intensive care, he's close to death. And he's screaming, God help me, God help me, God help me. And he hears in his spirit. Craig. There's never been a better time in your life.

to pray for other people. Mm. Like this is the main and he was like, uh God? Uh Isn't this a good time for me since I'm the one in all the pain? I'm the one that's dying of cancer here like he's doing.

You don't understand, Craig. That's right. At this moment, and somehow or another, God gave him the grace. to be able to pray like that in that moment. And what he described was the most intense, beautiful prayer.

He ever prayed for the series of 45 minutes or whatever point in time. He said it was just so amazing the chance to intercede while he was experiencing all that pain and that fever and that sweat and all that stuff. He said it was clearly the worst of times, but it was the best of times. That's right. That's right, yeah.

Well, Jesus put it like this: He says in Matthew 11, 28 through 30, He says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burden, and I will give you rest. He says, 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. And one of the things that I see with you, Robbie, is a real humility.

And you're not out here trying to promote yourself. As a matter of fact, when you do your show or when you do the Truth Talk Live, you don't even mention your name. Why why is that? I never I don't I don't it it's I try my best. um to leave myself out of whatever show I'm doing.

I don't mention it Unless I'm asked or somebody refers to me by name, but it's just never, I always felt like Robbie died at the point in time I came to Christ. And so it should be hopefully, you know, what can I do for either my guests or for me? for my audience. Whatever it is God gave me a chance to do this, how fun, you know. It's not about me.

And I bet God rewards you for that, right? I mean, have you seen the rewards and the benefits from that? Oh, my goodness. I mean, just like. Honestly, one of my great rewards from my perspective is your ministry.

I've been around you for four or five years now, and to see How God took somebody who's just on fire and it's. Matured you and given you scripture, and again, your hunger for God's word and your Um You know, he's given you the grace. to to begin to digest it and and to be able to offer it To other people, and there's nothing of all the things that we can do in any ministry is to offer up God's word, and it is what will make all the difference in anybody's life. It will, you know, it's funny. You got to be careful when you Google or AI or anything like that, but.

When I googled unselfish Bible, this is what it says. Unselfishness or selflessness is a core Christian principle emphasized throughout the Bible, exemplified by Jesus and mandated by the love your neighbor as your self-commandment. You see, the difference between, I would say, Christianity and let's just say Islam. Yeah. Christianity, we are taught to love our neighbors.

We're taught to love our enemies. And with Islam, I guess you could say it's all about conquering in this world.

Now, they do some good things, they give, I'm sure they give money to the poor, they do this or that or the other. But at the end of the day, Muhammad, when he was teaching, he said, you know, you can. You can be violent against your enemies to overcome them or overtake them. And he says, at some point you should. And what Jesus said is he said, no, don't do that.

He said, if someone slaps you on the right cheek, he says, you turn the other cheek. And if you, Jesus even said it like this. He said, if my job was to conquer this world, he said, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. He said, but my kingdom is not of this world. And so when people see that, hey, we're not after the same stuff that everybody else is.

Everybody else is chasing after. They want to be rich. They want to make a name for themselves. They want to be famous. They want to do this, that, and the other.

But when they see us truly serving other people, they go, Man, there's something about that that's different. And there's something attractive about people who are humble. There's something attractive about people who are genuinely trying to help others and genuinely unselfish. Oh, yeah. And and and You can see it in his whole ministry that, you know, how many times did Jesus tell people, don't tell anybody?

Yeah. Keep this to yourself. There are certain people that he knew had the gift of evangelism, like the woman at the well, and like the man who was healed, the demoniac, that had a very specific gift. challenge to to go evangelize. But for the most part, It was.

You know, I don't want this to necessarily be Um You know, I don't know what you want to call it, a blockbuster movie, you know, where he's flashing the name Jesus out there. Although it's kind of cool that we get to do that now because we know that the power that's in that name is unbelievable, but not. from any other standpoint, but that Oh my goodness, his love. which is what God is, is is an accepting Like the amazing part of that is that I can feel so accepted that I don't have the need to promote myself, right? Uh-huh.

Well, and what it tells me is that if you don't have to promote yourself, the Lord has given you confidence. Confidence, not that, hey, I'm Robbie, I'm a great guy, but it's a confidence that you have in the Lord. Yeah, and you get that from from in my opinion The Scripture. You get that from the Word, and as you begin to... You know, really invest your life in it and read it every morning and discern it that that word brings life.

And with life, Um You see what it's done for you, and you're like, oh my goodness, I can help somebody else with this scripture that just helped me this morning. That's right. And when I can do that, then... You know, you get to see the look on their face, you get to see the life come there, and it's an amazing. thing that that obviously or maybe not it's so obviously Like Craig McConnell.

when we're really hurting If we see God's work in somebody else's life, it's unbelievably rewarding. You know, I don't know how many people in ministry that, when they're suffering a huge loss and whatever, and they find. Through service. Like a perfect example is Bob Young, right? The Christian Junkyard guy you may know.

He dials 788-9122. Bob Young.

Well, when he lost his son, I mean, he he he lost his son. Yeah. And it You can't imagine the grief that he was going through. I can't I don't want to imagine the grief he was going through. You have children, Mike.

You know what I'm talking about. Oh, I don't even like to think about that stuff, to be honest with you. Yeah. And I actually told there was a guy that we had on one time, Pastor Ron Aires. And he said, I think he lost his daughter or something, or something.

And I'm going off of memory, but he did lose a child. And I was sitting in the car with him. We were driving. We came down to do a show here. And I looked at him and I said, Pastor Ron, I said, Somebody can tell you that they understand.

As much as they want to. I said, but unless they've actually been through that, especially with losing a child, they really can't understand until they've been through it. Right. And but the the scripture in Second Corinthians chapter one says the God of all comfort comforts us with comfort that we might comfort others with the comfort we are comforted with. That's right.

And so as he went through that, he realized that he now is given a ministry to help people that had lost a child. And I can't tell you how many times he's called me, etcetera, so encouraged that he could help share what had happened in his life through this unbelievable tragedy, unbelievable tragedy. Um That God used that in order to allow him to see what could happen in selflessness and the whole idea of coming out of part of that, part of the grief. came from serving others with a similar situation. Yeah.

You're never nervous when your mind's on service and Zig Ziggler, I'm sure you probably used to listen to him years ago. But he said, you'll never really experience the joy in life. Until you have helped somebody else succeed. I think he gave the analogy of somebody who plays tennis. And he said, when you're playing tennis, you try to expose, you try to find the weakness in the person you're playing.

So if they have a weak backhand, you expose it and then you go after it. And you attack it, and that's how you win. And he said, but when you're in sales, Or, I would say, if you're doing ministry, then you try to find out what somebody's weakness is. They're going through depression, they have anxiety. He said, but then you strengthen it.

By sharing the gospel with them and telling them the good news that Jesus can help them. Because ultimately, I mean, you can look to secular science, you can look to even, you know, going to a counselor, all these other things, and they may help temporarily. But unless you have the Word of God, unless you have Jesus Christ living in your heart, unless you have the Holy Spirit, ultimately, you're not truly going to be happy. No, it's an amazing thing, right? And again, when you can see it in others and In a really cool place to see it from my standpoint is if you look in Luke chapter 5, you know, you're going to see Jesus.

Um goes to teach on the shore of Galilee or They call it Garrett in in in Luke. And What he finds there is Peter and John, they're drying their nets, right? They've been fishing all night and they caught nothing. And they're kind of frustrated and they're probably concerned about who at this point in time, themselves, right? And they're thinking, you know, what am I doing?

Even being a fisherman, because there's no more fish in this lake, and they're totally discouraged, and whatever. And up walks this guy, and he says, You know, hey. He's trying to teach these people, and they're trying to dry their nets out, and he's like, well. Can you let me go out in the boat?

So Peter finds himself what? all of a sudden going from the shore where the crowd is, now he's he's going out into the shallow water.

Okay, right off the shore, and now he's in the shallow water with what? The Word of God. And what does the Word of God do? It sits down in His boat. Right, okay, gets a whole bunch of fish.

Well, when he sits down in the boat, what you may not realize is that when rabbis sit down, it's kind of a picture of sitting on the throne. Right? And so when Jesus sits down in Peter's boat, what is it really a picture of? It's sitting down. on the throne of your boat, your heart, right?

And all of a sudden he's teaching. And a Yeah. Peter's listening, and obviously we don't even know the message because this is one of those times, like you said, Jesus was preaching a sermon, but he wasn't necessarily doing it with words. That's right. Right?

And so, what does he tell these guys that have been fishing all night? Which, by the way, these guys are fishermen, and so they know. How to catch fish. And in their line of work, they fish all night. They don't fish during the day because the fish in that part of the Sea of Galilee don't come out during the day because the birds will come eat them.

And so they wait till night to go into the shallows to feed. And that's where they fish is down in the shallows. And because of that, they have nets that are for shallows, not for deep water. And so when Jesus says, hey, Let's go out to the deep water and let out your nets for a catch. Peter's saying, What are you talking about, Willis?

We caught all night. We fished all night and caught nothing. Don't you know that you don't fish during the day? And I certainly can't use these nets in deep water. This isn't like, what are you talking about?

But he says, Lord, at your word. Right? And so all of a sudden He went from me, me, me, me, me. to your word. To your word, not Me.

Yeah. Yeah. And he says, you say it, and he lets out his net. And what happens? Like, oh my gosh, you know, you know the story that they catch enough fish.

Now, these are 26-foot-long boats. This is no small little thing. And they're catching enough fish to sink these boats. There were two boats full of fish, and they're sinking. Like, what are you talking about?

And of course, what does Peter do? He falls down. That's right. and says Get away from me, sinful you know, I'm a sinful man. And at at this point in time, who's Peter thinking about?

Me. I'm a sinful man. Yeah. Right? And and from that place of he feels guilt and shame.

Right. He's right there on the he's on the deck, right? On the deck at Jesus' feet. in complete surrender, by the way. Saying okay.

I d you know. And Jesus says what? He says I'm going to make you a Fisher of Man. Get your mind off you. Mm-hmm.

Because it's just going to be more than amazing what I'm going to do, but he did it. by taking the Word of God into deeper water. Yeah. So as we all study our Bibles, it's a challenge to us. To like, when's the last time you read the word of God and you found yourself where Peter is?

Yeah. It's like, oh my gosh, get away from me. I'm a sinful. Because all of a sudden, you read that passage, you realize, oh, that's me, that's me. Oh, man, that's me.

And I got some serious repenting to do like mate. When's the last time that happened?

Well, it's not going to happen in the shallow water. Yeah. It's going to happen in the deep water. And when you get out there with the Word of God and you get in the deep water, then you can find yourself in that position to surrender and that position to go catch some fish. Right.

That's true, yeah. And I remember. For me over the years, whether it's going up and praying for that person who needs healing, you know, there's been so many times there's somebody who I've seen who had the need, but I didn't want to feel uncomfortable by going up and saying, Hey, do you need prayer? I see you're in pain or whatever. And then there's been so many other times where I've just gone up to somebody and prayed for them, and they got healed.

Of course, there's been times where it didn't happen, but you know. How I feel sometimes like I'm being selfish. If somebody has a need and I can help them, and I say, Well, this is going to be uncomfortable. I don't want to do it. The same thing with, hey, I want to tell you about Jesus.

Well, People don't want to hear that. I don't want to, it would make me feel uncomfortable. But, you know, Fred Hagee wrote his book: What was the name of the book? Give Him Jesus. And one of the things that he said is he said that the Barna group did a study, and he said that 70% of people.

who are not religious at all, he said they would be willing and open to listening to an enthusiastic presentation of the gospel. And it tells me that people really do want help. People really do have issues and they do have problems. You know, one of the things that Jesus always dealt with, and one of the things that I saw was every time Jesus performed a miracle, it always started with a problem. You know, I mean, there was somebody who had a problem.

The lady who was at the well, she had, what, four or five husbands, and she was living with a guy who wasn't, you know, so, but Jesus came, he said, look, this is your issue. He's like, you can drink this water that you're drinking from, you'll be thirsty again, but I'll give you water where you'll never thirst again. Yeah. Or just take the Peter thing we just described, right? Because what was his problem?

He wasn't catching any fish. Right. And all of a sudden, he was like. Number one, where are you supposed to fish? You've been fishing in the shallow water.

You need to go deep. And. Oh man, you're going after the wrong species. Yeah, yeah. If you go out there.

And say to yourself, Well, gosh, I need to talk to people about Jesus, or I need to pray for whatever. I think it's a little bit harder, but I think if you go out with the mindset, I just want to help people. I want to be a humble servant. then I really I really feel like the Lord will bless that.

So, yeah. Oh, it's it's it's an amazing thing as we can do it. But it it to me it takes If we've talked about it many times on this show that I can think of, that idea of discipleship and discipline, of. spending time in God's word because Apart from him, we can do nothing. Nothing at all.

And so, you know, if that's a place you want to be or you find yourself on the deck right this minute, like, man, I really would love to be in that position to get my mind off myself and to get it on fishing for other people, right? It requires salvation. It does. You have to ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins. You surrender your life to Him.

And I've met so many people who have come to the Lord by just reading the Bible. You know, if you want to start, just start in the New Testament, start in the book of Matthew or 1 John or whatever it is. But, you know, that way you're hearing directly from the source. It is the word of God. And where would you start, Robbie, in the Bible?

Oh, I started in Genesis myself. Genesis 1:1. I went right on through. God met me in the middle in the book of Job, and I was saved there. But Again, the uh the idea is that if What I was told by Norman Vincent Peel, it was not a person, it was a book.

That You know, if you'll get up an hour earlier every morning and you will... Devote yourself, but pray before you try to read it because it's hard to understand without the Holy Spirit.

So you're going to need the Holy Spirit's help. But if you'll pray, devote yourself an hour. That that you're gonna find out that oh your life will be radically different. White Peterby. It's not forgotten though.

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