SHAPED FOR SERVING GOD
The
Bible says this,
“We
are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared
in advance for us to do.” Eph. 2:10 (NIV)
Circle “workmanship”?
made to make a contribution, not just to consume. On
this planet nobody gets a free ride.
We’re all meant to give something back. Equipping
us first. God uses five things to shape
you:
Spiritual gifts, Heart,
Abilities, Personality, and Experiences.
God make
you, and uniquely shapes you, different from anybody else in the world, for a
purpose. And that purpose is to serve Him. But
I do want you to notice this, God made you unique and your uniqueness is not
for your benefit.
1Pet.
4:10, “Each of us should use whatever gift he’s received to make a lot of money”. ??
No: “Each one should use whatever gift
he’s received to serve others.” 1 Pet. 4:10
(NIV)
He
gave you talents and and background experiences for the benefit of other people.
Our
PURPOSE IS TO SERVE GOD BY SERVING OTHERS
You
want to know why you’re alive? You
weren’t put here just to take up space, consume and get a free ride through
life. Now,
some people want to serve God; they just don’t want to serve others.
“Ministry”
is a…misunderstood word. Every believer is a minister. Any
time you use your SHAPE to help somebody else, you know what that’s called? Ministering.
You’re a minister. All
women are ministers. All men, All little
kids & all old people; if we’re believers, we’re all called to serve
Jesus Christ.
Good
news, He gave us a model. “This is how
you do it. I want you to watch Me”. Jesus:
“Your attitude must be like My Own, for I did not come to be served, but
to serve...” Matt. 20:28
(LB)
And
I know a lot of people who figure out their SHAPE, but don’t get this second
part down, and so that’s what we’re going to focus on today. We’re
going to look at learning to serve like Jesus.
The
greatest thrill in life is to be used by God, to be used in serving Him.
And
what does it take to be used and to learn to serve like Jesus? Well
it takes 3 things.
1. SERVING LIKE JESUS MEANS BEING AVAILABLE.
One day Jesus was walking down to go to
Jericho and some blind men start yelling at him. And the Bible says this:
“Two blind men...
shouted, ‘Lord, have mercy on us!’ ... Jesus stopped and called them.
‘What do you want Me to do for you?’He asked.”
Matt. 20:30-32 (NIV)
Jesus
could have said; I have a schedule to do, busy…or later. Circle
the word “stopped”. . If you want to be used by God, you must be
willing to be interrupted. Most
of Jesus’ ministry and most of Jesus’ miracles were interruptions. All
the people he healed…the blind man, the lame man, the sick people, the
paralyzed man, the dead child. His
first miracle - interrupted at a wedding.
The
Bible says this, Prov. 3:28, read it with me,
“Never tell your
neighbors to wait until tomorrow if you can help them now.” Prov.
3:28 (TEV)
Servant-hearted
people don’t procrastinate. spontaneous,
sensitive, and they say “OK, let’s do
it!” must be willing to step out and
say “OK, God what do You want me to do?”
There
are hurting people all around us, and the wounded will not wait. You
see a lot of us say I’d like to serve
God, but I’m just not available.”
And
what is it that keeps us from being available?
3
reasons why we are not available:
1st Barrier: SELF-CENTEREDNESS
“Forget yourselves
long enough to lend a helping hand.” Phil.
2:4 (MSG)
Any
time you have a need right in front of your face, and it’s real obvious,
somebody needs help. God is giving you
the opportunity to learn to serve to practice serving. You
see the number 1 enemy of compassion is busyness. We
just get too busy! And because I’m so
busy, I don’t have time to serve.
I’ve got my agenda,.. plans,..dreams,..goals,…ambitions. You
know what the problem is? ( “Do Not
Disturb” sign) on the door of our heart, all the time. If
you really have a servant heart, you don’t mind being interrupted because your
agenda is God’s agenda, and you get up in the morning and you say “OK, God, you
want to bring somebody in my life today? Bring them in!
Bring them on!”
Ex.
Man: I was too busy, and I found that I was being caught up by trying to meet
the demands of family, job, a career, that type of thing. And it
carried me away from my focus, and I wasn’t allowing God to direct vme because
I got too busy.
A
2nd barrier to being used by God is….
2nd Barrier: PERFECTIONISM
Wanting every thing to be perfect. You know, when it’s all just right, when things settle down, then I’ll serve.
“If you wait for
perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.” Eccl. 11:4 (NLT)
Do the best of what you have for Jesus Christ today. America,
is we have a made an idol out of excellence.
And
many people worship excellence, even Christians. And
they say “Well, you know if you can’t do it first class, don’t even try”.
We
practice what we call “the good enough principle”…it doesn’t have to be perfect
for God to bless it. If God only used perfect people, what would
get done in this world? Nothing,
zip, zero! We’re all a bunch of
misfits.. have weaknesses. faults.
failures. handicaps. But
guess what? God uses us all.
Because God doesn’t use perfect people because
there aren’t any. God
uses normal people. Why? Because normal, ordinary, average people said, “My
house isn’t perfect, and I’m not perfect, my schedule is not perfect. I
don’t perfectly know the Bible, but I could do this!” And guess what? You
could! And you did.
Ex.
Woman: I thought I had to be very well-schooled in the Bible to even volunteer
for anything.
3rd Barrier: MATERIALISM
Jesus
said, “No servant can serve two masters... You cannot serve both God and
money." Lk.
16:13 (NIV)
Circle
the word “cannot”. Decide whether you want to be rich or you want
to be blessed. You cannot serve both God and money. It’s an impossibility. You
see, you get so busy taking care of things; you don’t have time to take care of
people.
And
that’s a problem. The most important
decision you’re going to have to make in life once you become a believer is “Am I going to be a kingdom-builder or am I
going to be a wealth-builder?” Now
if God wants to give you wealth, that’s great. …but it is not the number one
goal of your life.
If
your job is keeping you from having any kind of service, you need to make some
kind of adjustment.
2. SERVING LIKE JESUS
MEANS BEING GRATEFUL.
“Serve the Lord with gladness.” Ps.
100:2 (KJV)
We
serve Him with gratefulness because He’s given life to us through Jesus
Christ. He
saved us! And if He never did anything
else for us, that is enough to be grateful for the rest of our lives to serve
Him.
“It is He who saved
us and chose us for His holy work not because we deserved it but because that was
His plan...” 2 Tim. 1:9 (LB)
He
saved us, and out of the gratefulness of that, what He has done for us, we
serve Him.
Barrier: WRONG MOTIVATIONS
The
Bible talks about this in Matt. 6:1, Jesus said
“When
you do good deeds, don't try to show off. If you do, you won't get a reward from your Father
in heaven.” Matt. 6:1 (CEV)
The
wrong motivation of showing off. Self-promotion
and servant hood don’t mix, A
lot of our service, can be self-serving at times. We
serve to get others to like us… to be admired.
… to achieve our own goals. We
serve as sort of a bargaining chip with God…”God I’ll serve and You take care
of me here”. Our way to try to manipulate God.
How
do you know if you have a wrong motivation?
Gratitude. This very attitude.
3. SERVING LIKE JESUS MEANS BEING FAITHFUL.
It means you don’t give up. You keep on going. You don’t quit. 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 You gave me to do.” John
17:4 (NIV)
I
want you to be able to say that when you get to heaven. You completed the work that God gave you to
do. Jesus was faithful in fulfilling His
service. He didn’t give in. He was persistent. Serve
as long as you’re alive. Now
you may retire from your job someday, but you’re never retiring from ministry…
service. Because God wants you to serve
the rest of your life.
What
motivates us to stay faithful in serving God over the long haul? I just talked about, being grateful for all the
past that God’s forgiven in our lives. If God never did another thing for me, I owe
Him the rest of my life for what He’s already done for me.
So
we have gratitude for the past and we have faith in the future reward. We
also know that what we’re doing really matters.
But
any time you’re serving in Jesus’ name, no matter how small, it matters. The
Bible says this, 1Cor. 15:58, let’s read it aloud,
“Throw
yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for Him is a
waste of time or effort.” 1 Cor. 15:58 (MSG)
Notice
“nothing”, that means it all matters even the little stuff. in God’s book,
there is no little service. Real
servants do every task with equal dedication because they know it all
matters. It doesn’t matter if you’re
doing something important that is well known or ….
A little quiz.
Do
you know the name of the person that helped you find a parking spot ? Who is teaching your children right now? The names of the musicians? Who are
in charge of this projector & sound system? The people who stuffed the bulletin you’re
holding? The person who arranged the
seat, wiped it clean,? The truth is all
of them were done by anonymous volunteers.
And it’s all important.
Have
you ever wondered why you’re here at Folsom Community Church? You’re here because God knew you had
something to give back. He did not bring
you here just to sit and soak and enjoy. He knew
that you have something, background, talent, skill, ability, contact, network,
or whatever, interest, hobby, whatever.
Application:
I want you to take this home this week and I
want you to look at it and I want you to study it and I want you to say, “Where might my niche be in my church family?"
I want you to turn it in so that we can know
what you’re good at, so that we can know you’re here in the family, you have
something, God brought you here, where you could find serving
possibilities.
You
can do two things with your life…You
can waste it or you can invest it. The
best use of life is to invest it in that which is going to outlast it. Not
every investment here on earth pays off.
One
day you’re going to stand before God and He’s going to say to you “What did you
do with what I gave you, the talents, the abilities, the background, the experiences,
the freedom, the education, the family experiences? “Well, God, I was a little busy with my
ambitions and plan. I never got around
to serving You.” And
God’s going to say, “Wrong answer! What
were you thinking? Do
you think I put you on earth to live for yourself? I put you here to serve Me by serving
others.”
Now
you may be thinking nobody’s watching you.
And
nobody’s noticing what you do, but God’s watching.
“He will not
forget how hard you have worked for Him and how you have shown your love to Him by
caring for other Christians.”
Heb. 6:10 (NLT)
And God keeps His promise. You know on earth they give awards for 10 years of faithful service? In heaven you’re going to get eternal rewards. Look at the next verse:
“'Well done, good and
faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things so; I will put you
in charge of many things. Come and share your master's
happiness!”
Matt. 25:21 (NIV)
You know, family, more than anything else I
want God to be able to say that about you.
Question
- Is God going to be able to say “well
done” to you? “You
spent your life in serving Me. Well
done!” Is there anything in your
schedule where you’re giving back unselfishly, or are you too busy? Are
you waiting for things to slow down? Or
do you have other priorities.
If
everybody who came here served here, what kind of enormous, spiritual, nuclear
reaction would we see in Sac.County and California and the world?” I make no apology in saying to you that the
most important thing you’ll ever do with your life is serving God in ministry.
It’s
far more important than your career, it’s far more important than your hobbies,
it’s even more important than everything else you can think of because they
aren’t going to last. But this is. Let’s
bow our heads. Would you pray this?
Father
I realize that I was shaped to serve You by serving others. Forgive me for the times I’ve put a “do not
disturb” sign on my heart. Help me to
see the interruptions as opportunities to serve. Help me to make time for what matters
most. You’ve been so good to me. I want to give something back. I want to serve You freely and gratefully and
faithfully, so one day I can hear You say “Well done, good and faithful
servant”. In Your name I pray, Amen.
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