Shaped for Serving God

I don’t know if you’ve heard but Elvis Presley has a new hit song at the top of the charts. It’s called “Rubber Necking”- must have something to do with traffic congestion! Apparently this never-before-heard original Elvis recording was found in a storage closet in some studio somewhere and its selling like hot cakes. They’ve even used old clips of Elvis to develop a modern music video version of the song and it’s getting a lot of play on music television channels. Well, the fact that it has become an instant hit shows the amazing popularity of this hip-swinging singer from yesteryear. I mean think about it-a hit song nearly 30 years after his death!

Now, you’d think that someone that popular would have been happy, that he would have been satisfied with his life-but Elvis Presley wasn’t. In fact a recent Reader’s Digest article says that in spite of his enormous success, Elvis was basically an unfulfilled, miserable man. The story chronicled how Elvis’ fruitless search for a source of significance led to his death from obesity and drug dependence at the age of 42. His wife, Priscilla, commented on this saying, “Elvis never came to terms with who he was meant to be or what his purpose in life was. He thought he was here for a reason, maybe to preach, maybe to serve, maybe to save, maybe to care for people. That agonizing desire was always with him and he knew he wasn’t fulfilling it. So he’d go on stage so he wouldn’t have to think about it.”

Now, Elvis knew he had a purpose. He knew deep inside that he had something unique that he was supposed to do in life, but he never found what it was because he looked in all the wrong places. Well, that’s a mistake these 40 Days of Purpose will help us to avoid, because every day of this campaign we are setting aside time to look to God’s Word for guidance when it comes to discovering our purpose. After all, God promises us in His Word that if we go to Him for guidance in life, “He will direct our paths.” (Proverbs 3:6)

And that’s what is happening. So far our study has helped us to see that every human being has five specific God-given purposes. We’ve looked at three of them. In fact, let’s take a minute to review what we have learned. What is our first purpose?

Worship-The greatest thing we can know is that God loves us and the greatest thing we can do is love Him back and that is what worship is expressing our love for God, to God.

What is our second purpose?

Fellowship! And this is basically nurturing the love we have for God’s family. It’s loving each other in the same unconditional, sacrificial way that God loves us. Then, last week we looked at our third purpose and it is what?

Discipleship, which is doing all we can to become more and more like Jesus, committing to that life-long process of learning to act and think and love just like our Lord.

Well, that brings us to this morning’s study of the fourth purpose that God has given us ,and like the others it is mentioned frequently in the Bible. But the verse I want to look at first this morning is the same one we memorized four weeks ago: Ephesians 2:20, where it plainly says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do what? Good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” In short, this verse, and others like it, tells us that we were not made just to consume. We were made to contribute. God intends for each of us to make a difference in this world.

God has given wonderful blessings to each of us and we are called to give back by doing good works, by serving others in His name. So, as Warren puts it, “What matters is not how long you live, but how you live. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of your life. The Bible says we’re created to serve, we’re saved to serve, we’re gifted to serve, we’re shaped to serve. We’re commanded to serve God back.”

Go ahead and write that in your outlines: “My fourth purpose is: to serve God by serving others.”

Now God never gives us an assignment-a purpose-without first equipping us to do it. And in this familiar verse from Ephesians, that is exactly what it says that each of us are “…prepared in advance…” by God to do certain good works. Job expressed this same truth when he said to God, “Your hands shaped me and made me.” (Job 10:8) In other words, the Bible teaches that each of us is uniquely gifted and talented-shaped- “hand-made” by God to help other people in unique ways.

In fact, at Warren’s church they have taken the word “shape” and made it into an acronym to remind them of five ways God makes each of us unique five factors that go into our individual design:

• Spiritual gifts
• Heart or passion
• Abilities
• Personality, and
• Experiences.

And I like the way Saddleback has done this because I believe God does indeed use different combinations of these five things to craft each of us such that we are different from anyone else in this world. Each of us is custom-made for the purpose of serving Him in some unique way. As Warren says, “God designed each of us so there would be no duplication in the world. No one has the exact same mix of factors that make you unique. This means no one on earth will ever be able to play the role God planned for you.”

Now, this morning we are not going to deal with these five things that make up our unique shape because you have already done that this week in our study of Warren’s book. But I do want you to understand this: We are not uniquely designed and gifted in these five different ways for our own benefit. No, as 1 Peter 4:10 admonishes, “Each of us should use whatever gift he’s received to serve others!” And, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, spiritual gifts are given for “the common good.” In other words, like Warren says in the first sentence of His book, “It’s not about you.” We are not gifted by God for our own good but rather to help other people.

Now the Bible has a word for this activity, this 4th purpose: ministry. And unfortunately, like worship and fellowship and discipleship, the words we have studied for the last three weeks, ministry is often a misunderstood word. If I were to do an “on-the-street interview” and ask people what they thought the word “ministry” meant most would say, “Well, that’s what priests or pastors do…” and they’d say this because when most of us think of ministry, we picture someone who wears a clerical collar or a robe someone whose job it is to shepherd a church.

Well, as we have said repeatedly here at Redland, the Bible teaches that ministry is not something done just by pastors. No! It says that every Christian is a minister. All Christian women are ministers. All Christian men are ministers. Children, senior adults, if we’re Christians, we’re ministers called to serve in the name of Jesus Christ. You see ministry simply means using our particular shape to help someone. Any time you to that, any time you use your talents, your abilities, your background, your experiences to help somebody else in the name of God, that is ministering. And all Christians are supposed to do that every day of their life.

Now the good news is that God not only gave us this third purpose. He also gave us a Model to follow, and of course I am referring to Jesus, because in the way He did His earthly ministry He gave us a perfect example as to how we are to minister to other people. As we said last week, we were created to be like Christ, and one way we do that is when we serve in the same way that He served. After all, in Matthew 20:28, Jesus said, “Your attitude must be like My own, for I did not come to be served, but to serve.”

This morning I would like us to look at three of the attitudes that Jesus had as He served-the same ones we must embrace if we are to SERVE as He did. And the first is this…

1. Serving as Jesus did means being grateful.

You see Jesus had an attitude of thankfulness in everything He did. So to be like Him, we must embrace this same mind set. Our attitude of gratitude for all God has done should manifest itself in the way we serve others in His name. As the Psalmist says, we should “serve the Lord with gladness and thanksgiving.” (Psalm 100) In fact, this Godly gratitude is the main motivation for our fulfilling this fourth purpose. You see, when we truly understand the staggering cost of our salvation, we respond with a desire to give back to Him any way we can. This is what Paul was saying in Romans 12:1-that, “…because of God’s great mercy we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice dedicated to His service.”

And you know, this is part of what it means to be Grace-Driven. If we let it, our experience of God’s grace will change us. It will make us gracious, giving people. E. Stanley Jones said, “Grace binds you with far stronger cords than the cords of duty or obligation can bind you. Grace is free, but when you take it, you are bound forever to the Giver and bound to catch the spirit of the Giver. Like produces like. Grace makes you gracious…the Giver makes you give.”

I wish the contemporary hymn, Because I Have Been Given Much was in our hymnal, because it’s lyrics express this truth so beautifully:

The truth is every act of service to others is also an act of thanksgiving to God. In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey mentions several Christians who have showed their gratitude to God with some amazing acts of service.

Millard Fuller, a millionaire entrepreneur from Alabama was a rich but miserable man. Then he visited Americus, Georgia where he met Clarence Jordan and became involved in his Koinonia Community. Jordan led him to Christ and Fuller responded by giving away his personal fortune to found Habitat for Humanity, an organization that we are familiar with here at RBC, an organization that is based on the simple premise that every human being deserves a decent place to live. Habitat has built thousands of homes for the needy all over the world. Fuller once said, “The reason I do what I do and so many of our volunteers do what they do, is because we are being obedient to Jesus.”

Another example of this principle is Chuck Colson. Shortly after he experienced God’s grace and became a Christian he founded Prison Fellowship which today operates in almost 80 countries. To this date the families of more than 2 million U.S. prisoners have received Christmas presents thanks to Colson’s Angel Tree ministry. Overseas church members involved in Prison Fellowship bring pots of stew and loaves of fresh-baked bread to prisoners who would otherwise starve.

Then there is Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon who was shocked to find that in Third World countries many children go through life with cleft palates that never get treated. They cannot smile, and their lips curl open in a constant sneer, making them the object of ridicule. Well, Magee and his wife organized a program called Operation Smile. Through this ministry, plane loads of doctors and support personnel travel to places like Vietnam, the Philippines, Kenya, Russia, and the Middle East in order to repair facial deformities. So far Magee and his group have responded to their own experience of the grace of God by operating on well over 30,000 children and in so doing they have left behind a legacy of smiles. So, to serve in the nature of Christ we must be grateful. And then second…

2. ….serving like Jesus means being available.

This is another attitude that we see constantly reflected in Jesus’ life. For example in Matthew 20:30-32 it tells that one time as Jesus was traveling to Jericho, “Two blind men shouted ‘Lord, have mercy on us!’.Jesus stopped and called to them. ‘What do you want Me to do for you?'” Now if you have your Bibles I want you to circle the word “stopped.” Jesus had business elsewhere. He was on the way to Jericho, but He still stopped to help these two blind men. And, this should remind us that if we want to be used by God, if we want to serve God, then we must be available. We must be willing to be interrupted. We must be open to the times that God’s Spirit will tap us on the shoulder and tell us to stop what we are doing and help someone in need. Because as Warren says, “Being a servant means giving up the right to control your schedule and allowing God to interrupt it any time He needs to.”

The truth is, most of Jesus’ miracles were the result of interruptions. His first miracle happened when He was interrupted at a wedding. His second as He was interrupted on the way to Galilee. In fact, when you think about it, all the people He healed: the blind man, the lame man, the sick people, the paralyzed man, the dead child-all of them were interruptions. I like what Warren says here. “A lot of people like to follow the steps of Jesus…when they should follow the stops of Jesus.”

And He makes a good point. You see our Lord was always interruptible. He was always willing to stop and help someone in need. And if we are to fulfill this third purpose, if we are to serve like Jesus, we must embrace the same attitude and follow the guidance of Proverbs 3:28 which says, “Never tell your neighbors to wait until tomorrow if you can help them now.” Okay, what keeps us from embracing this attitude. What keeps us from being available? There are a number of things, but let’s review the three most common barriers to our always ready and willing to help other people in Jesus’ name.

A. The first is simple self-centeredness.

You see many times we ignore texts in God’s Word like Philippians 2:4 which says, “Forget yourself long enough to lend a helping hand.” We are so focused on our own to-do lists that we don’t see the needs of others. This is sad because the truth is, the number one enemy of compassion is self-centered busyness-constant activity that leaves us no time to serve. I read somewhere that a good way to define the word “busy” is to make it an acronym which says, “Being Under Satan’s Yoke.” And I like that because that is what Satan does, he makes us busy doing things we think are important but are really trivial in comparison to helping someone in Jesus’ name. The sad truth is we even can crowd our lives with “spiritual” things to the extent that we are too busy to help someone. John Ortberg tells the true story of a husband whose wife was facing an important operation. The woman asked her husband if he would look after the children over the weekend while she recovered. He refused saying he was going to attend a huge Promise Keepers rally, an event that would teach him how to live as a Christian husband and father. Think about it, this guy refused to serve his wife on the grounds that he had to attend a conference where he would be taught and inspired to serve his wife.

And before we jump at criticizing this guy let’s ask ourselves: Have we ever hung a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door of our hearts because we were busy doing “spiritual” things? Well, friends nothing is more “spiritual”-nothing is more Christlike-than dropping what you are doing to help someone. Genuine Christian servants are never too busy. Like Jesus, they are always available to help someone who needs it.

B. A second barrier to our availability is materialism.

And this is important to note because we can’t hoard our material wealth and at the same time serve others in the name of God. As Jesus said in Luke 16:13, “No servant can serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and money.” Now, circle the word “cannot” because Jesus didn’t say, “you should not serve both God and money.” He didn’t say “It’s hard to serve both God and money.” No Jesus said, “You cannot do this. It is impossible.” You can’t focus your life on getting more things and at the same time give to help people as Jesus did. So in essence we have to decide whether we want to be rich or be a blessing to others whether we want to get or give whether we want to “lay up for ourselves treasures on Earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break in and steal….” or in “Heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

The truth is, if we want to fulfill this third purpose, we have to decide if we are going to give to further the Kingdom of God or get in an attempt to further our own kingdom! In fact, the most important decision we have to make in life once we become a believer is “Am I going to be a kingdom-builder or a wealth-builder?” We can’t be both.

C. A third barrier to our making ourselves available to be used by God is perfectionism.

And when I say this I mean some people never try to serve others because they think they aren’t talented enough or smart enough. They have it in their minds that they have to be perfect before God can use them. Well, the truth is if God only used perfect people, nothing would ever get done because none of us are perfect. But that’s okay because as 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, “God purposely chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the powerful.” In other words, God delights in pouring His strength into weak, imperfect people. As Warren said on day 35, “God is never limited by our limitations. In fact He enjoys putting His great power into ordinary containers.” In 2 Corinthian 4:7 the Apostle Paul puts it this way: “We are like clay jars in which this treasure is stored. The real power comes from God and not from us.”

And to illustrate this point, I’d like to introduce someone to you. Her name is Shari Mays and she was a close friend of my wife Sue before we met back in the days when Sue was attending Del Tech in Dover, Delaware. Now, Shari was far from perfect because she had Muscular Dystrophy. Here’s a picture of Shari next to a special wheelchair-accessible van that was given to her by the local Lions Club.

PICTURE 1 – Shari, her parents, Sue, and Rick with van

Those are her parents kneeling next to her and a friend named Rick at the wheel and that’s Sue standing behind Shari. Well, in spite of her “imperfection” God used Shari in a powerful way to proclaim His love and the greatest example of that was a summer that she spent serving with Sue and another co-ed, Arlene Bonjanie, as a missionary to Baltimore’s inner city. That summer Shari and her two companions led Backyard Bible Clubs and did puppet shows. They worked with children and teens. They served at the Canton mission center and spoke in local churches, and they learned very quickly that Shari’s weakness was actually one of the strengths of their team because Shari and her wheel chair attracted the kids. It even made adults more open to hear the gospel. I mean, they wanted to hear what Shari had to say. Things worked out this way because God’s power shone through Shari precisely because of her imperfection. Here’s a shot of her at the Canton Center…

PICTURE TWO-black and white…Shari in wheel chair and girls sitting at her feet

Here’s a picture of Shari and Sue and Arlene crammed in the back of the van with some of the neighborhood kids.

PICTURE THREE-children…Sue and Shari in background

Shari and Sue and Arlene had an amazing summer. I am still moved to hear Sue tell me of the powerful things God did in and through them. Shari died only a few months after her stint as a summer missionary. And at her funeral the minister read from her summer missions application. Listen to what Shari had to say about the relationship between her imperfection and her ability to have the power to serve in Jesus’ name:

PICTURE 4 – Black and White of Shari (Leave up during the following excerpt from Shari’s testimony.

“At the age of three, my family learned that I had muscular dystrophy, a cruel disease that strikes young children and usually kills them early in life. The doctors told my parents that I would probably not live to be older than four or five years old. Little did they know that God had a purpose for me with that disease and that He intended to use my life as a witness to His works. As I grew older, I developed an awareness of God and a deep love and respect for Him. At the age of eight I publicly accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. I was baptized and began to grow as a follower of God. There have been many times in my life that I have had the chance to witness to people because of my handicap. Many people wonder how one such as I can continue to strive and work towards our life goals and accomplish as much as we seem to. But I can only tell them that it is not me that is able to accomplish these things, but Christ working through me. Many people have asked me if I feel as though God is punishing me or if I would rather not have lived and this really opens the door for me to share with them how God has used me and provided me with such a happy life and many valuable experiences that others have never had. I continue to look forward to the opportunities God has in store for me and when I have fulfilled my purpose in life, I will go to be with my everlasting Father in Heaven.”

By the way, Shari’s favorite verse was, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” (Philip. 4:13) And she obviously understood the principle of this verse; that when it comes to serving in God’s name our power has nothing to do with it, it is God’s power. Shari’s comments remind me of something another great missionary, Hudson Taylor, once said. “All God’s giants were weak people.” And they were. The truly great servants of the world are people who realize their weakness and imperfection and therefore rely on God’s strength. So, you see, we don’t have to be perfect to serve in Jesus’ name. As that old cliché puts it, when it comes to serving God it’s not about your ability, but rather your availability, because God’s power, “…is made perfect in weakness…” So follow Paul’s example and rejoice in your weakness. Don’t use it as an excuse, but as an opportunity to tap into the power of God.

If we are to care, if we are to serve in the nature of Christ, we must overcome these three barriers that keep us from being available to help others, because that is one servanthood lesson that Jesus taught us by His own example. And a third is this…

3. Serving like Jesus means being faithful.

As 1 Corinthians 4:2 says, “The one thing required of servants is that they be faithful.” In other words, as I said earlier, Christ-like servants can always be counted on to help. They finish their tasks and fulfill their responsibilities. They complete their commitments. At the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth, Jesus said this in John 17:4, He said “I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work.” Well, if we want to fulfill this third purpose we need to serve every day of our lives such that when we Get to heaven we can say the same thing, that we have been faithful to complete every task God gave us to do.

What is it that keeps us faithful? What is it that motivates us to keep serving others? Well, there are several things. We’ve already mentioned one, gratitude for all God has done for us. That keeps us faithful. As 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says, “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all and that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.”

And then, another motivation for our faithful service to God is the reward that waits us in heaven. In Matthew 16:27 Jesus says, “For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what he has done.” But another thing that keeps true Christ-like servants serving is the fact that they know that what they’re doing really matters. Now let’s be honest folks, most of what we do in life doesn’t matter. The things we spend most of our time doing aren’t going to matter next week much less in eternity. But any time you’re serving in Jesus’ name, no matter how small, it matters. 1 Corinthians 15:58 says: “Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for Him is a waste of time or effort.” This text and others like it teach that even the small, seemingly insignificant things that we do to serve others in Jesus’ name matters. Why? Because in God’s book, there is no little service. He said “even if you give a cup of cold water in My name to a child, that counts.” (Mark 9:41) In fact, if you’re going to learn to be a servant of God, you must learn the difference between significance and prominence. They are not the same thing. For example: on my body my ears are quite prominent. I’ve always been kind of self-conscious about them. But I could lose both my ears and still live the rest of my life, because while they are prominent they’re not significant. On the other hand, if I lost my liver or my heart, neither of which is very prominent because you can’t see them, well if I lost either of these parts, I’d be dead.

This is an important principle for us to grasp because many of us think that if something is given a lot of visibility, it’s the most important but that’s not true. In fact, many times the stuff behind the scenes is actually the most important. This is hard for us to understand because with our limited perspective we can’t see how our small acts have big consequences, but they do! In the early 20th century two teenage boys tried to come into a revival service, only it was packed out. So they turned around and decided to leave but one usher said, “Come on, guys. I’ll find you a seat.” And that usher personally escorted them down to the center and set them in the middle and found them two seats. That night both of those boys accepted Christ and became Christians. One of them was Billy Graham who has led tens of millions of people to Christ.

You see, we usually have no idea how significant small acts of service really are! But once we do-we embrace every opportunity to serve with equal dedication because we know that everything we do in Jesus’ name has eternal implications. This motivates us to faithfully serve others for the rest of our lives.

Invitation:

In closing, let me give you one more bit of Elvis trivia. Bill Wehunt tells me that in spite of his popularity, Elvis received only one Grammy Award. It was for a religious album on which he recorded the song, “He Touched Me.” One of the verses to this much-loved gospel song says this:

The question I would pose to you is this: “Is God going to be able to say ‘Well done My Son’ or ‘Well done My daughter’ to you?”

I want all of you who are members of RBC to pay close attention to the words of our closing song this morning, and as we sing let’s recommit ourselves as a church to this 4th purpose:to let God’s grace drive us to care in the nature of Christ. If you have a public decision to make, to profess your faith in Jesus or to follow His leading and join our church, please come and share those decisions with me now as we stand and sing.