Rick Warren - Standing Out At Work — Part Two

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Audio Broadcast Ministry of Pastor Rick Warren.

Today we continue with our series called Doing Business with God. In this

series, Rick helps you understand why you work, what you should be working

for, and how God can use you in your workplace. Right now,

here's Pastor Rickwood part two of a message called standing Out at Work. This

last week I sent a letter showed a letter to my staff that was written

ten years ago and as a letter telling me from the publisher of Zondervan by

the head publisher there, the head editor guy editing my book that Purpose Driven

Life was a terrible book and that it would never sell. And I sent

him the original manuscript and I got this letter. I preserved the letter,

and he systematically goes to the book and says, these are all the things

why it won't sell. It's got forty chapters. Nobody reads forty chapters.

It doesn't have enough stories in it. And I said, I'm not putting

stories in it because I want it to be an international book and I don't

want it to just be for Americas. It's got too many scriptures in it.

I said, I trust the scripture more than my words, and he

had a whole list of things, it's choppy here and on and on and

on. And I wrote them back and I had to say, you know

what, I value your opinion. And I showed the staff the letter that

I sent back to them. I value your opinion, but I believe this

is the way I'm supposed to do it, and I believe I've been directed

by God to do it. And if you don't want to do it this

way, that's okay. I'll take the book back. I'll publish it myself.

You don't have to publish it. We don't have a contract yet.

And I basically held the line, thank you, Oh no, no,

no, we want to publish it. Are they glad today? But sometimes

you just have to go with a little bit of audacity because God has told

you Joseph had a dream. So let me ask you this question. Where

do you need to be audacious? I'm not talking about arrogant, I mean

audacious. Where do you need to believe God? Where do you need to

trust God? Where do you need to step out in faith? Where do

you need to think big? Where do you need to take initiative? Where

do you need to show risks? Take risks. This is the first characteristic

of Joseph. And you see it if I had time to take you through

his entire lifetime where he makes one audacious decision after another in faith, and

as a result, he got the promotion of a lifetime. Okay, that's

number one. Number two, the second key to getting promoted is not audacity.

It's likability. Like ability. People have to like you. If you're

going to get promoted, people trust you if they like you. If they

don't trust you, they're If they don't like you, they're not going to

trust you. And by the way, I tell us to preachers and the

teachers, if you want people to listen to you, first, they got

to like you. They're not going to listen unless they like you. If

they like you, they'll listen. If they don't like you, it doesn't

matter how good it is, they're not going to listen. So likability is

the second quality for being promoted. Now, the Bible doesn't use the word

likability. It uses the word favor. It also uses the word honor,

and it says if you do these things, you'll have the favor of God

and men. If you do these things, you'll be favored by men.

If you do these things, you'll be honored by men, you'll be respected

by men, You'll be likable on each of these six traits. I could

have given you fifty or sixty verses out of the Book of Proverbs, but

the sermon would be two hours long, so I just kept it to Joseph.

But this concept of likability is all through scripture. Now, a lot

of people think that likability is just a matter of personality. You're just You're

either a likable person or you're not. You're either born with it or you're

not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Likability is not personality.

It's character. It's choice, it's behavior. It's how you choose to relate

to other people. Do you want to be liked by other people? Here's

the big secret. Okay, I'm gonna tell you the big secret. How

do I be liked by other people? Here's the secret. Like them?

That's it. If you like people, guess what, they're gonna like you.

If you don't like people, they're not gonna like you. We like

people who like us. It's not rocket science, folks. To be likable,

you just have to like people. You have to genuinely enjoy them.

That's not personality, that's character. It's a choice. It's choosing to be

interested in others, choosing to not think about yourself, choosing to be interested

in that their lives, things like that. Here's the definition of likability.

You might write this down possessing the attractive attitudes, possessing the attractive attitudes,

and those are choices, and the relational skills that cause others to want to

work with me. That's likability. You have the certain attitudes and you have

the certain skills that cause people go, I want to work with that woman,

I want to work with that guy. They're fun to work with.

There I enjoy being around them. They're likable. And if you are likable,

then you have the attractional or attractive attitudes and the relational skills that cause

people to go, I want to team up with that person. I want

to hitch my wagon to that star, and those are important things. Here's

a good example. Joseph in Genesis thirty nine, verses two to four.

Joseph lived at the home of Potiphar, his Egyptian owner. Soon Potiphar realized

that the lord was helping Joseph to be successful in whatever he did. Potiphar

took a liking circle that took a liking to Joseph. He was likable.

He took a liking to Joseph, and he made him his personal assistant.

Now he takes a guy who starts off as a slave. He's probably doing

all he's probably cleaning toilets and taking out garbage and stuff like that. And

Potiphar notices this guy's good. He's really good. He's audacious, but he's

good, and he's good, and he takes a liking to him. And

so what's he do? He gets promoted? What's he get promoted to his

personal assistant? This is not a bodyguard. This is the guy who's running

his household. He's his manager, he's his vice president, he's the guy

in charge of everything. He's the coo of Potiphar ink he took a liking

to Joseph and made him his personal assistant. Now, he says, when

we talked about likability means you got to have attractive attitudes. What are attractive

attitudes? Are the attitudes that attract people to you? How about this one?

Is humility attractive? Oh? Yeah? Do you like being around egotists

or humble people? Humble people. Right, Yeah, so when a person

is humble, then you like to be around them. How about cheerfulness?

Would you rather be around somebody who's cheerful or a hag? No? No,

no, you know you don't want to be around somebody who's nagging you

all the time and you know, just negative, grumpy, grouchy. You

know, do you wake up grouchy in the morning. No? I usually

let him sleep. You know. The pott of mine is, we want

to be around cheerful people. We want to be around optimistic people. We

want to be around helpful people. We want to be around humble people.

We want to read around empathetic people. When you tell you say, you

know, I'm not really feeling good today. Oh that's too bad. That

didn't make any friends. So he says, oh, I'm really sorry,

you know what's going on, and they're empathetic. Is empathetic an attractive attitude?

Yes? And when you find somebody at work who's empathetic to your stress,

When you're empathetic with your boss's stress, guess what you're likable. Bosses

like people who are empathetic to their stress, who understand, who look at

it not from their viewpoint, but from somebody else's viewpoint, when you help

somebody else succeed, then you're going to be likable. And when you're likable,

you're going to go far. Those of you who are younger, Two

things I would give you as advice just starting out in a career, in

your job, in your vocation. One is, whatever job you get into,

find as many mentors as you can. A young person in a business

who has four mentors is almost unfirable because those four mentors are going to stand

up for you no matter even if you really make a mess. So you

get some defensive backs in there who are older than you, who will stand

up for you, who will run and block and tackle for you. And

if you get three or four mentors in a business, you're going to go

far because not only are they going to protect you from being fired, but

they are going to likely help you get promoted because they see themselves in you.

Another thing is, if you find somebody in a business who looks like

they're going far, hits your wagon to them. Hit your wagon to a

superstar, and you'll go along the ride with them. So you got to

have likability. Joseph was like number three. The third key to getting promoted

is capacity, not audacity, but capacity. Now, capacity is the amount

of abilities that you've got. And if you're already using all of your abilities,

you're not going to get promoted. If you're a four cylinder person,

that's all you've got the capacity for, and you've got a four cylinder job,

you're not going to get promoted. But if you keep developing, and

you keep growing, and you keep learning and learning and learning and sharpening your

skills, then you become an eight cylinder or twelve cylinder person and you're still

in a four cylinder job, you're going to get promoted because you have more

capacity. You've got to show that you've got capacity capacity to do more.

Let me give you definition of this third quality. Capacity is my potential for

growth, my potential for growth. What is your potential for growth? Are

you just going to be the same ten years from today as you are right

now. You're going to read any books between now in the next ten years,

You're going to take any seminars, You're going to grow, You're going

to develop any skills, You're going to learn any relationship skills. It is

the potential for growth. It is the desire to keep learning. That's what

capacity is, the desire to keep learning. Why so I can increase in

competence and so I can handle greater responsibility. I have a friend who walked

into a church one time. He was following a pastor wo had been there

for many, many years, like twenty thirty years. And this guy went

his young guy, and he walked in and here was the staff, and

he drew a line on the board and he wrote a thousand, because the

church was running about a thousand and attendants. And then he drew another line

that said two thousand. He wrote out here, and he said, now,

I know you all have the capacity to take a church to a thousand

and attendance and to love and to care for and to help and manage a

church that size, because you're already doing it. We've got a church of

one thousands. What I don't know is do you have the capacity to take

the church to two thousand? And are you willing to learn and grow and

develop your capacity so you can. We have staff who've been in our church

now for almost thirty years, who've been with me almost thirty years. Why

the number one characteristic of staff that has stayed all these is the ability to

keep growing and learning, to do new things, not doing the same thing

I've always done, but to do new things and new things and newer things

and grow. And all leaders are learners. The moment you stop learning is

stop leading. Growing businesses require growing people. The moment you stop growing,

then the business can't grow. So you've got to have capacity, my potential

for growth, the desire to keep learning, so I increase incompetence and handle

greater and greater responsibilities. Now, this is what happened with Joseph, And

if I had time, it show you how he keeps growing in capacity.

First he does this, then he's able to do this. Then he's able

to do this. Then he's able to do this. Then he's able to

do this, and he keeps stretching himself and he keeps learning and growing.

He's not the same guy he was ten years before. He's somebody totally different

because he's got capacity and he's growing and growing. Look at Genesis thirty nine.

Joseph naturally became quite a favorite with Potiphar. Soon, Potiphar put Joseph

in charge of his entire household and entrusted him with all of his business dealings,

and from the day that Joseph was put in charge, from that day

the Lord began to bless Potiphar for Joseph's sake. Let me stop right.

There is God blessing the business you were for for your sake? Is that

blessing? Is that church? That business? That organization is? Is that

church or blessing organization or business prospering? Because you're there is God blessing that

business for your sake? Are you that kind of person? Do you have

that kind of capacity? Joseph was put in George, and the Lord began

to bless Potiphar for Joseph's sake. All his household affairs began to run smoothly,

and his crops and livestocks flourished. Why because Joseph had capacity. Now,

I'm going to tell you, when Joseph was a slave and taken to

Egypt, he wasn't able to handle all that stuff. He had to grow

in that he had to learn how to manage livestock, He had to learn

how to manage a household. He had to learn. If you keep learning,

you'll keep growing and God will keep blessing. But if you stop learning,

you think, well, that's all I need to know. You don't

learn any new skills, you don't take it on yourself to keep growing,

It's not going to happen. You're limited capacity. Okay, Number four.

The fourth key to getting promoted, we find in the next few verses of

Joseph's life is reliability, reliability, audacity, likability, capacity, reliability.

Now, of all people, Christians should be the most reliable people in the

workplace. Hoybe, I agree with that. We ought to be the most

dependable. We ought to be the most trustworthy. We ought to be the

most consistent, the most stable, the most not flaky, steady, consistent

people. Christians should be known for. That person's reliable. If they say

it, you can count on it. They if they say they'll do it,

it'll get done. It may it may take them, you know,

extra hour hours or whatever, but it will get done because that person is

reliable. The Bible says reliable communication permits progress. Here's the definition of reliability,

earning the trust, earning the trust of others. How by always keeping

my promises and fulfilling my responsibilities even if it requires sacrifice. That's reliability.

Keeping my promises, fulfilling my responsibilities, even if it requires sacrifice. In

other words, this project was given to me, and the boss tells me

it can be done in ten hours, And at ten hours, I'm only

halfway through it, and I'm going to have to put in the extra time

at personal sacrifice to me? Am I reliable? Am I going to get

it done? Sorry, it's his job. He should have given it to

me sooner. He should have given it to me earlier. He should have

given it to me a month ago. Yeah, okay, maybe that's right.

Maybe you're exactly right. But reliability means I get it done, even

if it means personal sacrifice for me, and that earns the trust of other

people. Genesis thirty nine six tells us this. So Potiphar gave Joseph complete

administrative responsibility over everything he owned. This is okay to the slave a few

minutes ago. With Joseph there, Potiphar didn't have a worry in the world

except to decide what he wanted to eat. How'd you like to have a

job like that? I'm CEO. What do you have to decide? Where

we having lunch? What ells? Yet? Nothing? Why? Because Joseph's

handling it? Wait a minute, you're getting all the profit. He's making

all decisions. Yeah, what's what decision you have to make? I don't

have to make one decision? What is it? What do I want to

eat? Really? That's it, that's all you. Yeah, I trust

this guy so implicitly. I trust this guy to reliability, I trust his

dependability. I trust his trustworthiness so much. The only decisions I've left to

me is what I want to eat today. Every other single decision is being

made by Joseph, the slave I bought, who came from another country.

I trust this guy that much. That is a huge promotion. Every single

decision Potiphar had to make. And he's a very wealthy man. And this

phrase here, he didn't have a worry, no worries. That's about the

greatest compliment a boss could pay you. You don't have to worry about it.

Why because she's handled You're worried about that coming in now? Why because

he's got it taken care of the greatest compliment a boss can pay you is

I'm not worried. That is the greatest compliment a boss can be because it

says I would trust them when my life. They are reliable, they are

dependable, they are trustworthy, They are steady and stable. They are not

flaky. They are reliable. I can count on them. And that's why

Joseph kept getting promoted because he his bosses later on, each of the in

each of his lives, could say, I trust this guy with my life.

When he was working for the warden in the prison, it says Joseph

had favor with the prison warden, and the warden put the entire prison under

Joseph's care. So you had a prisoner running the prison. Yeah, and

what did the warden have to worry about? What am I gonna eat today?

This man knew how to be reliable. He kept his word even if

it meant personal hurt, personal loss, personal sacrifice, and he got it

done. He fulfilled his responsibilities. That is what gets promoted. Capacity,

responsibility, reliability. Number five. The fifth character equality we see in Joseph's

life is and it's fifth key to getting promoted is loyalty. Loyalty, and

Joseph demonstrates this one in black and white starkness, when the chips are down.

Loyalty is a quality that is in short supply in our society day.

Nobody is loyal to anything anymore. There's no such thing as brand loyalty.

It's what's cheapest. And people aren't loyal to companies or to bosses or to

leaders. They're loyal to themselves. It's an old fashioned quality, but it's

a quality that it's so rare that when you find it in somebody, that

person gets promoted. Now, when it comes to loyalty, one of the

keys to loyalty is you don't talk about your boss behind her back. You

don't talk about your boss behind his back. That's called loyalty. Disloyalty.

There's another word for disloyalty, gossip. The Bible says God hates gossip.

Do you don't want to do a study, study the word gossip through the

Book of Proverbs, and write down all the negative things God thinks about gossips,

gossips. God can't stand gossips. God detests God despises gossips, and

he goes on and on and on about it, and he says it destroys

families, it destroys lives, It destroys nations, and on and on and

on. Now, let me just tell you something you already know. If

you work in an office, there are no secrets in an office. Quickest

way to get something spread to say, this is confidential. Put that on

an email. Guess what it'll be on Twitter in five seconds or Facebook,

this is confidential. There are no, oh, zero secrets in a workplace.

Why because knowledge is power and people like to think they have power by

sharing knowledge with other people that they're not supposed to share it with. So

I'm telling you this since there are no secrets at an office or at a

workplace. If you're talking about your boss, he knows it. He already

knows it. Because there are no secrets in an office, it gets out

and people who gossip to you. You take this onto the bank will gossip

about you. Anybody who gossips to you will also gossip about you. And

the Bible says if you listen to gossip, you were as bad as the

gossiper. Do you know that? In California? In fact, in most

of the United States, it is a crime to accept stolen goods. In

fact, the penalty for accepting buying stolen goods that you know are stolen,

ripped, off, pirated is the same penalty as the person who stole it.

Gossip deals in stolen goods. It's stolen information, it's stolen reputation,

and when you accept it, you are as guilty as the gossiper. God

says. So you don't want to get involved in that one. You want

to be loyal. Loyal people don't gossip. Now here's a definition of loyalty

I wrote down for you. Loyalty and particular work is being faithful to my

boss and to God when difficulty tests my commitment, being faithful to my boss

and to God when difficulty tests my commitment. Now circle the word difficulty,

because it's easy to be loyal when everything's going great, when we're not having

to lay anybody off, and when there's tons of money and we're making a

great profit and things are going well. Everybody's happy. Everybody's loyal when things

are going great. But when the ship goes into the storm, that's where

real loyalty comes out. Friends walk in when everybody else walks out. Those

are real friends. And when you're down, truly loyal people don't kick you.

Loyal people are there not just in bad and good times and easy times.

They're there in bad times. And I will tell you this, because

God's more ensured in your character in your career, your loyalty will be tested.

That was Pastor Rick Warren with his current series Doing Business with God.

Right now, here's Pastor Rick with a closing thought. You know, as

we close today, I just want to say thank you for joining me in

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