Shaped to Serve God
Purpose Driven Life #30
Cornwall/Montreal
March 13/20, 2004
Can someone, please, read the following verse?
Job 10.8- Your hands shaped me and made me.
And, another?
Isa.43.21- especially the last part. "The people I have shaped for myself will broadcast my praises."
These two verses tell you that God has been involved in your becoming the way you are, and He, in the shaping, has designed each of us for His purposes.
Think about the creatures of nature. What are some of your favourites? (Get responses). You’ll notice that these animals are different, right? They don’t look the same and they don’t have the same purposes or functions? Some are shaped for running, some for flying, some for jumping. Each has a different purpose, and the design of each corresponds with that purpose, which began in the mind of God, the Creator.
Look around yourself, here, today. What do you see? You see people of various sizes, shapes, genders, hairstyles, and dress. Even as you can look at a group of animals- yes, they are different animals, whereas we are simply different people- but you see differences that reflect differences in function, purpose, and design, so it is here. Each person here, on the outside and on the inside- at the most superficial level and at the deepest levels- is different from every other person here. You are not an assembly-line product. You may realize that Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motors was the first one to use assembly-line production to increase the number of cars that could be produced. In the process, he managed to decrease worker job satisfaction and had to deal with that and did so through higher wages. Each Model T Ford that was produced was the same as the one before. Henry Ford offered a wide range of colours of Model T’s to people, as long as their choice was black! There is no essential difference between Model T Ford cars.
However, this is not the way it is for people. Each of us has a carefully mixed DNA cocktail that makes us different from the person beside us, even if we are twins. God did this and God doesn’t make any junk! Do you know that, like snowflakes are different, so no two people have ever had identical heartbeats? We each have a different rhythm. God is the originator of this, and he’s made you unique because he has a purpose in mind for your life. God never wastes anything. He has not given you abilities, interests, talents, gifts, personality, and life experiences without an accompanying desire for you to use those in order to fulfill His purposes for your life. You are wonderfully complex and fully different from all others around you. You are a combination of many different factors, which you need to grow in understanding about yourself, so that you are able to mold yourself in an increasingly willing way, to the designs of your creator. God has designed you for your ministry, and you do well to understand what that is.
You are made up of five main capabilities. These are spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, and experience.
Today, I’d like to focus on the first two of these and, in two weeks, I’ll focus on the other three, with the goal being ’to help you become more aware of what God has in mind for your life.’
1. What are spiritual gifts all about? Simply put, God has given every believer spiritual gifts to be used in ministry.
Ro.12.4-8- is just one place where God speaks about spiritual gifts. These are special God-empowered abilities for serving him that are given only to believers.
1 Cor.2.14- someone without God’s spirit cannot receive the gifts that come from God. You can’t earn your spiritual gifts or deserve them- if you could, they wouldn’t be ’gifts’. These are like those gifts that a baby receives on coming into their family- at birth. These are an expression of God’s grace to you.
Eph. 4.7- Christ generously gives gifts to you. And you and I cannot decide what gifts we want to receive.
1 Cor.12.11- God, alone, decides what gifts you will receive. Because God loves variety and he wants us to be special, no single gift is given to everyone, and no individual receives all the gifts. If you had them all, you’d have no need for anyone else, and that would defeat one of God’s purposes- to teach us to love and depend on each other.
Your spiritual gifts were not given for your own benefit but for the benefit of others, just as other people were given gifts for your benefit.
1 Cor.12.7- God planned it this way so we would need each other. When we use our gifts together, we all benefit. If others don’t use their gifts, you get cheated, and if you don’t use your gifts, they get cheated. This is why we’re commanded to discover and develop our spiritual gifts.
I am making one, of many, tools available to you, today, so you can begin to understand what your spiritual gifts are. These will come in two parts, because I want you to be brutally honest. I’m giving you the first part, but not the scoring part and I want you to take the time on this. I want you to think about the way you are. This will be a valuable exercise toward your greater God-service over the years ahead. It’s important for you to appreciate ’you’, even as God does. When it comes to gifts of the spirit, many people fall into two problems. Some develop ’gift envy’- wanting the gifts that someone else has, and the other is ’gift projection’, which happens when we expect everyone else to have our gifts, do what we are called to do, and feel as passionate about it as we do.
The Bible says: 1 Cor.12.5- these two problems do not need to be ours when we appreciate that we are and have what God has in mind!
Too, sometimes, spiritual gifts are overemphasized to the neglect of the other factors God uses to shape you for service. Your gifts reveal one key to discovering God’s will for your ministry, but your spiritual gifts are not the total picture. God has shaped you in four other ways, too.
2. You need to listen to your heart. The Bible uses the term ’heart’ to describe the bundle of desires, hopes, interests, ambitions, dreams, and affections you have. Your heart represents the source of all your motivations- what you love to do and what you care about most. We use similar terms today.
Prov.27.19- as a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the person. Your heart reveals the real you- the you that is you, not what others think you are or what circumstances force you to be. Your heart determines why you say the things you say, why you feel the way you feel, and why you act the way you do. Again, think about that unique heartbeat you have and apply it to this which, again, points out how you are unique! You have a unique emotional heartbeat that races when you think about certain subjects, activities, or circumstances that interest you, but that might not interest others as much. This gives you a clue to where you ought to be directing some efforts.
When we think of ’heart’, we think of ’passion’, which speaks of energy, we might feel about something that others do not.
You need to think about what most interests you and what you feel strongly about. You were different than others in your family, growing up, for instance. In what ways were you and are you different from the rest of your family. Note the clues to ’you’ that lie in this understanding.
Eph.6.6, among other references, tells you and me to serve God with all our heart. God wants you to serve him passionately, not dutifully. People don’t do as well at tasks they don’t enjoy as at tasks they do enjoy. God wants you to use your natural interests to serve him and others. Listening for inner promptings can point to the ministry God intends for you to have. When you are serving God from your heart, you will have incredible enthusiasm for what you are doing. When you are doing only what you ’have’ to do, you’ll not have the vigor and energy you will have in doing what you really want to do- what you really have a heart for, in other words.
When you are serving from your heart, you will be very effective in what you do, as well. You need to set up your life to be doing those things in which you have ’heart’. You will always enjoy life more and give more benefit to others when that is the case in your life. So often, people settle in life and do something only to ’make a living’, for instance. That’s not what God wants for us. He wants us to be doing, with our hearts, what He leads us to be doing, and to be doing it all very well. You and I need to aim for serving God in a way that expresses our hearts.
Conclusions
Today, there are two assignments for the week ahead.
1. Complete your spiritual gifts questionnaire, to begin to have a framework from which to understand your spiritual giftedness. Next week, I’ll bring the scoring sheet and the explanation for you.
2. Think about what makes your heart race, positively. What excites you in life? What have you done that you have really, really, really enjoyed doing in your life? Are you in that field, now, for your work? Or are you in that field now, for your serving in the community? Think long and hard about this and pray long and hard, too, to ask God to help you.
As you begin to understand how God has shaped you, you’ll increase in your ability to serve or minister as God intends for you. There can be nothing better than being and doing as God intended. Too many people never discover any aspect of this. I don’t want you to be one of those.
