Gateway’s Core Values 2008
Check out these bumper stickers recently seen:
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.
Work is for people who don't know how to fish.
I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian.
Few women admit their age. Fewer men act it.
Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else.
Time is the best teacher. Unfortunately it kills all its students.
Women who seek to be equal to men lack ambition.
Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Yes, this is my pickup. No, I will not help you move.
Bumper stickers can be funny, they can be philosophical, or they can be political. Sometimes they can be a proud statement of heritage, or accomplishment or a boasting about a child in the military or in school. “My son is in the United States Marine Corps.” Or, “Proud parent of a Washington High School Honor Student.”
Have you ever seen one like this: “My child is a gifted and talented student at North High School”?
Let me throw out a thought that you may not have ever thought of before. If God had a bumpe sticker on His fiery chariot, it would say this about you:
“My child is a gifted and talented minister at Gateway Community Church.”
The Bible makes it very clear that every believer has at least one gift, and we are called to use that gift to serve each other in the body of Christ. If you have made a decision to follow Jesus, then that includes you. Paul makes it clear in I Corinthians chapter 12, verses 7, and 11-13:
“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all (vs 7)…one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills (vs 11)…for by the Spirit we were all baptized into one body (vs 12)…and have all been made to drink into one Spirit (vs 13).”
You are a gifted and talented minister of this church! Each one of us has been shaped to serve God by serving others. The Bible says, (Eph. 2:10) “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” In a very real sense, if we choose not to embrace the ministry for which we were created we are choosing to slow the advance of God’s Kingdom here. Have you ever thought about that? God’s purpose will not fail by our choice not to participate in Kingdom ministry, but through our participation with God’s purpose and plan we have the opportunity to bring God glory and advance His kingdom.
But many of us don’t believe we have anything to offer, we don’t feel much like a minister. We believe that we are defective and that our lives couldn’t possibly be useful to God. How many can relate to that? “How could God possibly use me?” we ask. We have to recognize this lie for what it is. It is a lie of the enemy aimed at discouraging us from using our talents and abilities to bless others and please God.
Have you ever seen any ball as strange-looking as a golf ball? All those silly looking dimples covering the surface of the ball really serve a purpose. The balls look like they should never be able to take flight, but the truth is that massive amounts of research and design go into the creation of a golf ball. An aeronautical engineer who designs golf balls says that a perfectly smooth ball would only travel about 130 yards off the tee. The same ball with the right kind of dimples will fly twice that far. It’s only when the nice, smooth surface is dented that it works best. When I hear something like that, I always ask myself, “Who thought of that? What guy had this crazy idea that if I put dents in a ball it will fly farther? It seems crazy!” But what look to you and me like “flaws” on the surface actually minimize the ball’s air resistance and allow it to travel much farther. Obviously, it was someone who understands a whole lot more about these things than you or me.
The point is this: the things that you think disqualify you from being useful to God or the things that you think make you flawed become useful tools for God in reaching others with his grace and love. It is obviously someone who understands a whole lot more about life who had designed us this way. Our weaknesses, our flaws, our difficulties all help to shape us into the people God needs us to be to that we can be used for His purposes. Just take a look at the verse on the screen. “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).
Our lives have been carefully and expertly designed by an Engineer whose understanding of life and the world far exceeds our own. He knows exactly where, when and how he wants to use us as a tool in his hand, and he uses our genetics, circumstances and the events in our lives to craft us into the perfect shape to meet that need.
In this week’s readings you will find that God has given you a unique SHAPE – a combination of Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality and Experience that allow you to be used by God in a way that no one else can be used.
Spiritual Gifts are supernatural abilities that have been individually given to every believer by God to be used in ministry. A spiritual gift is not a natural ability –we will talk about those later - it is a supernatural gift. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ – if you have placed your trust in Him as your savior, then you have been given at least one Spiritual Gift. Your specific gift has been given to you by God for a specific reason. Paul says in I Corinthians 12:11, “All these [gifts] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He gives them to each one, just as He determines.” Each of us individually has been given just the right gift or gifts that God has chosen for us. It is important for you to know what that gift is, and we have several ways for you to find out. On our website, you can take a Spiritual Gift assessment online that will instantly give you the results. When you take the test, an email is sent to myself and to our Ministry placement team, who are charged with matching gifted people to needs in the church. You will be encouraged to come to our Networking Class, which will help you learn more about your gift, the gifts of others, and how you can use them in the church.
In addition to specific spiritual gifts, you have a heart that helps to determine your unique shape. When we talk about our heart, we are talking about those things that we feel passionate about. Paul talked about “Serving the Lord with His whole heart” in Romans 1:9. Paul did what he was passionate about. He was driven to do what he did. His heart was so focused on reaching those people who had never heard the gospel that he spent his entire life planting churches all over the Roman Empire. It was his passion, his heart, that allowed him to endure stoning, shipwreck, beatings, imprisonment, ridicule, poverty, and eventually death, and still be able to write, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
Within each of us there is a passion – there is something that breaks our heart or gets our blood boiling. For some it is feeding the hungry, or helping the homeless. For others it is reaching out to addicts. For others it’s ministering to children, or senior citizens. Some of us are energized by social or environmental issues. You may have a passion for evangelism, or teaching a skill, or working with computers or electronics. Whatever that passion may be, God has placed that heart within you to help you accomplish His purposes in your life.
Along with gifts and passion, God has entrusted us with abilities with which we can serve Him and each other. Exodus 36 and the chapters following show many people, each using their individual abilities – seamstresses, wood workers, gold- and silver-smiths, even security guards! Our abilities are the natural talents that God has given us. Some of us can speak well, others can paint a wall or hang wallpaper like a pro. Some can play piano, others can make a computer keyboard sing.
Whatever your natural abilities may be, from driving a nail into a board or driving teens to a concert, using those abilities to serve in the body of Christ is so vitally important. Do those things that you love to do – we had a situation this week when a person who loves to host and organize parties heard about the desire to do a Pot Luck night at Awana, and said, “I would love to do that!” Folks, do what God has created you to do – you will love what you do, and you will do it well.
In addition to our Spiritual Gifts, Heart, and Abilities, God has given each of us a very unique personality that defines so much of who we are. Some of us our outgoing, gregarious people, others are introverted and reserved. The amazing thing is that God uses our personalities to serve His kingdom. Sometimes those who are introverted, or who feel like they don’t do well with people, just assume that God can’t use them – but the reality is that He can!
Just look at the Disciples – if you look at Mark 3, you will see a list of the disciples – and you will recognize half a dozen of the names, but many of them are men we never really hear anything about. They don’t have big activities or stories centered on them in the gospels, but you know what? Jesus chose all 12 – the outgoing, and the introverts alike!
The church is not meant to be a cookie cutter, where everyone comes out with blue suits, white shirts, red ties and short hair cuts speaking perfect Christianese, listening to the same music, watching the same movies and going to the same restaurants! No! God loves diversity! He loves the timid, and the brash, He can use the book worm and the super-jock. Recognizing and understanding your personality will help you best determine those places where you can best serve, but they can not be an excuse NOT to serve!
Lastly, God uses the experiences of our lives to shape us for service. Some of our life experiences have been pretty unpleasant, but good or bad, God is able to use those experiences to build His kingdom. In fact, it is most likely that it will be those difficult circumstances that will make us a better tool in the Master’s hand. Paul went through a lot of terrible things in his life, which we talked about earlier, but when he listed them in his letters for us to read, it wasn’t a complaint list – he was using those experiences to build up the readers. For example, in II Corinthians chapter 1, Paul writes,
4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 You can be sure that the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ. 6 So when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your benefit and salvation! For when God comforts us, it is so that we, in turn, can be an encouragement to you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer.
Paul knew that he could best minister to those in need because he had been in need himself. He could comfort the hurting because he had been hurt. He could support the persecuted because He had been abused. The same is true of you and I. Until I went through the almost unbearable pain of losing my brother, I could not have understood what people go through in that circumstance, and I am able to share with them the very comfort from God that I received when I was overwhelmed by that grief.
Maybe you’ve lost someone close, or been through a divorce, or dealt with an addiction, or faced the horror of abuse. Those things are all terrible, and no one should have to go through them, but God can use those terrible tragic events to His glory when we offer them to Him and build up others out of our experience. We can take the best and the worst of our lives and use them to encourage and serve others.
The bottom line is this: You have been uniquely shaped to serve God in His family in ways no one else can. You are a vital part of His plan, and your participation in His plan directly impacts the effectiveness of the church. In His sovereignty, He has chosen to entrust to you with His work and mission. He gives you those gifts, talents, experiences, and all the rest, because He knows you can accomplish His work – unlike anyone else.
“My child is a gifted and talented student at North High School.”
You know, those bumper stickers weren’t designed to discourage or browbeat kids – they were designed to recognize achievement, and encourage those kids to keep moving forward.
You are gifted, talented and shaped uniquely by God to serve Him. He’s thrilled to have you in His family! He wants you to use the gifts, talents, skills, personality and life lessons you’ve learned to serve Him and serve others. If God’s throne had a bumper, and if that bumper had a sticker on it, it would say, “My child is a gifted and talented minister at Gateway Community Church.” Allow His gifts to you, and His investment in you, encourage you to serve Him joyfully and confidently as only you can.