Plan to use your gifts.
Use your gifts to engage in God’s plan for you.
Psalm 139 is a great Psalm, penned by David as he had this revelation of the greatness of God the vastness of God’s abilities and the thoughts of God. King David produced this amazing piece of prose.
A very personal prayer to the creator of the universe, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me “, “Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord”, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” This is a passage where the writer makes it all about themselves and God, and all about God and themselves. Me, I and my, are used over and over again as David the King speaks out his understanding of his place before the King of Kings. In this passage we are able to understand David’s relationship with God…that even the King of at the time a mighty nation desired to understand his creator and wondered at the mind of God.
Again we read that David understood that, if he believed that in darkness he could hide, even in that place he was not hidden from God. He follows this by explaining that it was God who created him; knit him together in his mother’s womb. That he praises God because he is fearfully and wonderfully made.
This Psalm is noted among theologians as being the crown of Psalms, and one of the best loved of all the Psalms and I could go as far as to say parts of scripture. It points us to our place before God, it tells us of how we stand before Him, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. That even in this fallen world; God still made us, still recognises our worth as being immense, all his works are wonderful. None of us are random events, we may come from families that are dysfunctional. Some may have had starts we would rather forget, insecurities that dig us in the ribs, disabilities that impede but we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. Unique and here for a purpose, for such a time as this!
As a species our uniqueness in things such as speech, upright statue, our ability to move our thumbs across our hands and small and ring fingers to our thumbs give us a remarkably strong grip (interestingly many primates have opposable thumbs but unlike them we do not have opposable big toes). We don’t have the largest brains relative to body size — many birds have brains that make up more than 8 percent of their body weight, compared to only 2.5 percent for humans, (http://www.livescience.com/15689-evolution-human-special-species.html) (So I guess when someone gets called a bird brain it’s a compliment). But we are able to think and reason beyond the rest of the animal kingdom. On God’s good earth we are the only creature that wears clothing, unless we have made it for them. We have the ability to control fire, mmm cooked food, we are the only species that blushes, we have very long childhoods, most animals don’t live long after reproducing but we do.
God has plans for us! David knew this. God wants to see us all fulfil our purpose. Your role in his kingdom is unique and required.
Where I want to take this passage is to look closely at verse 17. For in verse 17 we get this understanding of the value of Gods thoughts to King David. While I’m looking at this I want to point out that David was not as aware of God’s thoughts as what we have the ability to be, something well worth considering. We have the rest of the old and the New Testament that he did not have.
Verse seventeen: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I am awake I am still with you.”
The mind of God must be an amazing thing, Proverb 16:9 tells us.
“The mind of man plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.”
The thoughts of God are so vast, when we think that all of our thoughts are known to God, all six billion-ish of us, what we will say is known to God, how a Jelly fish operates is known to God, all the days of Methuselah the oldest known individual living tree at 4845 years old, he knows the furthest reaches of the universe. God with all this thinking going on, still [God] has plans for each, fearfully and wonderfully made one of us.
So what? Well the prophet Jeremiah tells us this from God “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) So while the world advances against you, while darkness may want to overcome you, hold onto that promise God has plans for you! Positive life granting, life fulfilling plans.
John the Baptist said this about Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11b-12) We are able to engage with the Spirit of God himself.
We humans tend to come to blockages and stop. The other day I was using a vacuum cleaner, the nice new yellow one here at the hall, I turned it on and it worked (tuned it on made all the right noises). But it had no suck. It had become blocked and jammed with hay where the hose met its body, thanks to the Christmas manger. What to do, get down on my knees and unblock it, it then worked really well. Like the vacuum, we humans have a fault that when we get blocked instead of sorting the blockage we either try to keep going achieve nothing and burn out or we, say that’s too hard turn off and put ourselves away in a cupboard. When all along we should get down on our knees engage with God in prayer and sort out the problem, then continue to move forward.
God has plans for us all. The plans He has for Rochelle and I include the City of Dunedin. Being that this is my penultimate sermon here at Sydenham, I want to rant on a little about what God has in store for you as individuals and as a congregation.
He has great plans for you! You have the word of God, his Holy Spirit is with you, get into it! Engage in life as Jesus directed you to, “Living for God, serving all people.” God has plans to take you to a new level in living as you build His kingdom in this place. Grasp that truth, in your personal lives, your private lives and as community. Within each of you are gifting’s, that you are born with and other gifts you are given by the Holy Spirit. I want to ask the question of every individual here what is the thing that God asks you to do, what is your holy discontent? That thing that really makes your blood boil, the ministry that God is asking you to engage in, what is it that rattles your cage? Many of you are aware of it, if not seek after the answer in prayer, in engaging in the scriptures, what is it that floats your boat? Use your gifts to engage in God’s plan for you.(SBI)
But remember, there’s a saying that goes “Don’t ask God for guidance if you are not willing to lift your feet.”( anonymous ).
God wants that we engage in doing His will, so that in our lives we can engage with others for positive life change. So that social justice occurs, so that kingdom growth occurs. There comes a time to put aside the stuff that drags, the stuff that binds, the addictions, the stupidity of on-going sin and be guided. Guided in our thinking, guided in our understanding. By the God whose mind is beyond our understanding. To walk in the plan that God has for our lives. To use those things, the gifts and discontent that God has given you, the abilities that you have to be a world changer, to engage in that thing that pulls at your heart and wakes you in the night to live a life fulfilled and satisfied in the knowledge that you are doing the will of God. Use your gifts to engage in God’s plan for you.(SBI)
Today could be a day of change as you come to a point of acknowledging the thoughts of God, the plans he has to take the gifting’s and desires he has given you and to use those things to bring about a full life, a life that is beyond your own understanding but is definitely within God’s understanding.
