The Wonder of God
There’s a Superman in all of us.
July 25, 2004
Ephesians 4:1-16
Introduction:
Video: Superman II
Inside of each of us is a desire to be a superhuman person, capable of leaping a building with a single bound, bend steel with our bear hands, or have the ability to fly at supersonic speeds to save someone from utter destruction.
Within each of us is a superman cloaked as a Clark Kent.
I hope by the end of this morning you will begin to find the superman hidden inside you waiting to express him/her-self.
What is hidden inside is precisely what is striving to get out, to express itself; deep within each man and a woman is a superman or superwomen.
The hardest part of this morning’s message is deciding whether or not you want your superman or woman to emerge and become who God intended you to be, and to do what he intended for you to do.
Deep inside the heart of every person is a superhuman person waiting to emerge, to be become there true selves.
God made you with a purpose and a plan. He intended for you and me to use our special gift for God’s glory.
QUESTION: What is this special gift?
Before I divulge this gift God has for us, let’s first look at what keep our gift from emerging.
I need to paint a pretty dark picture of what it is that I need for us to hear and see.
Turn with me to Ephesians 4:18
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19Having lost all sensitivity; they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more…bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”
What keeps us from this gift is the malicious living.
We were created with a purpose and a plan designed by God before we were in our mothers womb, but that purpose has been thwarted by us because we have chosen our own desires over the desires of God.
Our purpose is to serve God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. When we harden our hearts to the things of God, and deny his gift to us, in so doing we deny God his blessing and we deny God’s blessing toward his Children.
You were made with a purpose. Everyone who sits in this room has the same purpose. That purpose can be found in your S.H.A.P.E.
YOU ARE SHAPED FOR SERVING GOD.
Rick Warren, in his book, The Purpose Driven Life speaks “about how God formed every creature on this planet with a special area of expertise. Some animals run, some hop, some swim, some burrow, and some fly. Each has a particular role to play, based on the way they were shaped by God. Warren says, “The same is true of humans. Each of us was uniquely designed or “shaped” to do certain things” (pp. 234).
Remember Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
“You are God’s handcrafted work of art. God deliberately shaped and formed you to serve him in a way that makes your ministry unique” (ppt. 235).
Not only did God shape you before your birth, he planned everyday of your life to support his shaping process.
King David said, “Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Ps. 139:16).
God never wasted anything. He would not give you interests, talents, gifts, personality, and life experiences unless he intended to use them for his glory. By identifying and understanding these factors you can discover God’s will for your life” (pp. 235).
You have been SHAPED to do good things for Jesus. Rick Warren develops this idea with the acrostic SHAPE.
These five factors can help you identify your gifts of service.
Shape is defined as:
S ~ Spiritual Gifts
H ~ Heart
A ~ Abilities
P ~ Personality
E ~ Experience
Before I quickly develop the SHAPE model, let me explain the reason and purpose for your shape.
Paul is impressing upon the Ephesian people that they are to:
First, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” (Eph 4:2)
God never made us to be a Clark Kent, He made us to be superman.
I Corinthians 13:1-3 expresses this idea. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Spiritual Gifts expressed without love do not reflect who God is and do not have a kingdom impact.” (Network, pp. 106)
Often times men without God us there spiritual gifts for profitable and destructive gain rather than for God’s service.
Example: Porn industry. Over 17,000 porn movies are produced in a given year. There are approximately 200,000 pornographic websites.
Understand this point. The use of media equipment is not sinful, what is produced by hard hearted people is.
They have taken there God given talents and used them to produce destructive material.
The kind of love spoken about here is seen in the second half of I Corinthians 13:4-8a).
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love never fails.”
This kind of love is found in the second greatest commandment which states, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)
TRANS: If we love our neighbor as ourselves, we then will seek:
Second: To be unified. Paul states, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Eph. 4:3)
• Unity is not conformity.
I Corinthians 12:17-20 says, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”
• Unity is NOT achieved by being all alike.
In other words,
DIVERSITY IS NOT DIVISION
“As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!”
“…so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (I Cor. 12:20-21a, 25-26)
• Unity is achieved by having The purpose: to glorify God and edify others.” (Network pp. 31)
ILLUSTRATION: We see this example in the Ten Commandments [in Exodus 20:1-17.] The First four commandments describe how we are to love God – glory him; while the remaining six commandments describe how we are to love one another – edify.
“Spiritual Gifts are special abilities distributed by the Holy Spirit to every believer according to God’s design and grace for the common good of the body of Christ.” (Network pp. 32)
TRANS: But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it for the common good of the Body. You see…
UNITY COST CHRIST EVERYTHING.
EPHESIANS 4:7-10, But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8This is why it says:
“When he ascended on high,
he led captives in his train
and gave gifts to men.”
9(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? 10He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)
QUESTION: What does it mean he descended?
Philippians 2:6-8 says, Christ, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Jesus humbled himself, became a man, was obedient to death and then God blessed Him by setting him in the place of prominence.
I like to think of it this way: Jesus glorified God by being humble and obedient and blessed humanity so that we might be blessed and be a blessing to others as we have the same attitude as that of Christ. (Phil. 2:6)
TRANS: Therefore, “It was he (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers...
QUESTION: WHY THESE SPIRITUAL GIFTS?
Third, “to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph. 4:12-13)
Those spiritual gifts are those the Christ has set apart for the use in developing and equipping the saints to do good works, which glory God and edify others.
These folks inside and outside the Church are gifted to train us and equip us to find our shape and use it to serve God’s Kingdom.
So then, what is SHAPE?
SHAPE is unwrapping your spiritual gifts.
In other words, God has given to each one of his Children special gifts to be used by God. “It is God who has generously divided out his gifts to us.” It is up to us to unwrap our gifts and begin to figure out how to use them for God’s Kingdom.
H is for your Heart which the bible describes as the bundle of desires, hopes, interests, ambitions, dreams, and affections you have. Your heart represents the source of all your motivations. Bill Hybels calls this your passions. It’s what drive you.
A is for abilities or those natural talents you were born with. In other words, all your abilities come from God and are to be used for God’s glory.
P is for personality. I know what your thinking. If everyone is supposed to have Gifts, not every one has a great personality.
What we are speaking of here is your personality traits. Those can be Sanguine, Phlagmatic, Melancholy, Choleric. What ever you are, there is no wrong or right, or better or worse personalities. It’s a matter of how you use your personality that matters.
E is for Employing your Experiences.
Using and utilizing your experiences can help you to determine what your spiritual gifts are.
Such things as family, educational, vocational, Spiritual, ministry and painful past experiences can help to determine your spiritual gifts. Each one of your experience help you in serving God in ministry.
In conclusion
The spiritual gifts you possess are given to you by Christ so that you may equip the saints for acts of service to God, to build them up so that they may grow in maturity and utilize there gifts for acts of service as well.
CONGREGATIONAL SAYING: “I’m gifted and needed in the kingdom to do good works.” (3X)
