August 24, 2008 Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Series: We are the Body
Sermon Title: “Shaped for Significance”
Text: Psalm 139:13-18
Dr.
Delivered on August 24, 2008
“You shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in
my mother’s womb.”
Psalm 139:13
Shaped for Significance
This morning we’re nearing the end of our series “We are the Body.” All month we’ve been looking at the unique ways God has shaped us as individuals and as a church to do his work on earth. We’ve mainly been doing that by looking at an acronym, credited to Rick Warren, which describes how each one of us has been shaped to serve God and others. In week one we talked about the “S,” spiritual gifts, which are special abilities or enablements, given by the Holy Spirit, to every believer to be used to serve others and build up the body of Christ. Last week we looked at the “H,” our unique spiritual heartbeat, which is what we love to do. We also looked at the “A,” which stands for our abilities, the unique mix of talents you have that can be used to serve. This week we’re going to finish up by looking at the “P” and the “E.”
A.
PERSONALITY
The “P” stands
for your Personality. Your
personality is the unique way God WIRED you. Psalm 139:13 says, “You
created every part of me. You put me together in my mother's womb.” Your
personality can be likened to the software – or better yet the operating system
of your body, because it refers to the unique ways which you and I think, feel,
and act. In other words your personality has to do with all the ways which you
relate to the world around you. But
unlike the operating system in a computer, in the case of personality – no two
are exactly alike.
No one on earth has exactly the same personality as you. I spoke last week about the heart and how we each have a unique physical and emotional heartbeat. Well the same thing holds true with your personality. Your uniqueness is a scientific fact of life. When God made you, he broke the mold. There has never been, nor will there ever be another you. Your DNA molecules are mixed in a stew that can have an incomprehensible number of combinations. The number is something like 10 to the 2.4 trillionth power. Your DNA is as unique as your fingerprint, voice print and eye print – so much so that DNA is now accepted as evidence in a court of law.
Most scientists agree that your personality comes from three sources: heredity, the environment, and through the choices we make as we go through life. Human personality begins to be evident as early as when a child is still in the womb; some babies are active, kicking all the time, while others are calm. According to these same scientists, your personality is pretty much formed by the tender age of five, but you can change your personality to some extent, which is good news for some of us.
There are other things we need to know about the personality though. Let me run through these:
First of all, your personality influences EVERY area of your life. Your personality isn’t something you can hide or behave or think differently about. It’s like the old country music song, “Wherever you go, there you are.” Some people spend most of their life fleeing from their own personality. But as that astute songwriter pointed out, you can’t get away from you. Oh sure, you might have times when you seem different. And yes, there are medications – legal and illegal – that will mask your true personality for a while, but eventually you’ll end up in the same place. In this sense your personality bears striking resemblance to your character.
And that segues nicely into the second thing to remember about your personality, namely that there is no such thing as a RIGHT or WRONG personality. Personality, or temperament, is amoral. Some people are quiet, others are outgoing. Some people love sports, others love to read. But these are not moral (right or wrong) issues. When we begin making moral judgments about one’s personality, we’ve moved over into character.
Still another important thing to remember about your personality this: The main way it shows up in your life is in how you RELATE to others. Personality is fundamentally relational. When you were a kid did you ever hear the old argument about if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Scientifically speaking that is true because even though sound waves are traveling outward from the point of impact, if there are no ears for that sound to begin vibrating in, no sound will be heard. But we all know a sound has actually been made.
The same thing is true with your personality. You have one whether or not there are others around to experience it or not. But it really comes into play when you are with others – personality is relational.
Finally, the most important thing to remember about your personality, especially in the context of serving, is this: Since it is your preferences that largely make up your personality, obviously your area of service should express your PREFERENCES. For example, if someone is shy or an introvert, he or she will be extremely uncomfortable speaking in front of hundreds of people. If someone is competitive, he or she will chomp at the bit when placed on a team of others who aren’t that way.
There are a number of different ways to classify personality types going all the way back to Hippocrates and forward to Meirs-Briggs and beyond. For our purposes in looking at your SHAPE here at NewSong we’re going to use a simple continuum with six opposites where we’ll ask people to gauge themselves along the continuum. [Show slide]
Strong Mild Strong Introverted-----½------½-----½------½-----½------Extroverted Self-Controlled-----½------½-----½------½-----½------Self-Expressive Thinker-----½------½-----½------½-----½------Feeler Routine-----½------½-----½------½-----½------Variety Competitive-----½------½-----½------½-----½------Cooperative Task Oriented-----½------½-----½------½-----½------People Oriented
Bottom line, your personality should clearly be taken into account when choosing the ministry you believe God wants you to have. God also wants us to appreciate other people's personality differences; all kinds of personalities are needed in the church to give it variety. If it were up to me the only flavor coffee any Starbucks would carry is a tall, mild, regular coffee; the only flavor ice cream Cold-Stone would have is moose tracks; and the only thing on television would be football games and old movies 24/7. But life would be boring and miserable for a whole bunch of folks if that were to suddenly be the case. God loves variety, and we need all personality types in the church. Even yours!
B. EXPERIENCES
Let’s turn to the “E” in SHAPE now, which stands for your life experiences. Your experiences are those parts of your PAST, both positive and painful, which God can use. In Romans 8:28 Paul writes, “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.”
There is no denying the fact that we’ve all been shaped by the experiences, good and bad, that we’ve experienced in our lives over the years. There are three important ways God wants to use your life experiences if you’ll recognize what he’s doing and allow it.
First, God wants to use your life experiences to teach you to TRUST him. It’s easy to trust God when the sun is shining and the birds are singing, but it’s when you’re in crisis mode that you enter the proving ground of genuine trust in God. And the more of these episodes you have in life, the more your trust and faith in him grows.
I broke both bones in my lower leg playing softball several years ago. It took months to totally heal, but now there is a ridge of bone encircling that part of my leg – it’s noticeable. Going forward I may break that leg again but I’ll guarantee you one thing; it won’t break in that spot again. The bone there is much thicker than it is anywhere else. It’s solid. I may break it above or below that point, but that point, which has been tested, is stronger than ever.
In like manner God wants to use the breaks in your life, the good and the bad to test your faith – to teach you to trust him and not yourself or anyone else.
A second way God wants to use your life experiences is to build your CHARACTER. You may be asking yourself what’s the difference in this point versus the point I just made. Well it’s this. The first point, about God using our experiences to trust in him is about perspective – it’s about letting go of the myth that everything in life is all up to you – it’s about getting a healthy perspective that without God you aren’t going to make it. This second point, about God using your experiences to build character is about perseverance. It’s about the ways in which God uses what you’re going through to teach you to keep on keeping on and to not give up. It’s more about discovering what you’re supposed to do with what has come your way. As a wise man once said, “It’s not what happens to you that matters, it’s about how you handle whatever comes your way.
Back in May Christian recording artist Steven Curtis Chapman and his family experienced an unthinkable tragedy. During the week one son was to graduate from high school, and his daughter graduated from college and announced her engagement to be married, his son arrived home and ran over one of their adopted children, a little five-year old girl. One of two things could have happened to that family. They could have lost their faith in God, and/or they could have lost their character – their strong witness for Christ – by their reaction to the tragedy. Thankfully neither happened. I read an article just this week where Chapman admitted that both of these possibilities were on his mind as he raced to the hospital hoping his daughter could be saved. Instead they’ve reacted to this senseless tragedy by trusting God more and by using the experience to draw closer together as a family and to fan into flame their hope that they will again see their beautiful daughter in heaven. I’m sure there are countless stories we could share here today with each other of how God has used situations in our lives to teach us to trust him and to build character.
But there is a third way God wants to use our life experiences; to ACCOMPLISH his purposes as we allow him to minister to others through us. God didn’t cause the unique set of circumstances that caused that boy to drive up at the precise moment he did which led to a little girl dying. He drove a certain speed, he hit certain lights and he didn’t others, the little girl happened to be outside playing – think of the circumstances that led to the tragedy.
But…even though God didn’t cause that accident, or any other one to happen, he can use it to accomplish his purposes if we’ll recognize it and allow ourselves to be used that way. Who better to minister to the parents of a car accident that has claimed the life of a child than another couple who has experienced the same thing? Who better to help an alcoholic recover than someone who has fought that demon and found freedom? Do you see what I’m saying?
I realize I’ve talked a lot about painful experiences this morning, but since our greatest testimony often comes out of our weaknesses, and not our strengths, we need to take a good look at what our trials have taught us. God never wastes a hurt or bad experience. That’s not to say there aren’t any other experiences to draw on however. In determining your shape for serving God, you should examine at least six kinds of experiences from your past [Show Slide].
Family
Experiences – What did you learn growing up in your family? Educational
experiences – What were your favorite subjects in school? Vocational
experiences – What jobs have you been most effective at? Spiritual
experiences – What have been your most meaningful times with God? Ministry
Experiences – How have you served God in the past? Painful
experiences – What problems, hurts, and trials have you had?
The point of this last letter, the “E” is this: We should examine our past experiences to see what God may want to accomplish through them. I remember seeking counseling during a rough patch in my life and the person I talked with gave me a nugget of wisdom I’ve keep since then, she said, “Look for the gift in what has happened to you.” In every situation in life – the positive and the painful, there is a gift that can be claimed, something that God can use to transform you and others. And so I pass that nugget on to you; look for the gift in whatever experiences come your way.
As I close this morning allow me to summarize what we’ve learned this month with a sentence, and with an illustration.
The sentence is this: You were SAVED to SERVE. Otherwise, when you were saved God would have just taken you on to heaven. He has us here for a purpose: “for good works which God prepared in advance for us to do” Eph. 2:10. Before you were ever born, God had something in mind for you and he has SHAPED your life accordingly. That’s why something is desperately wrong in any church where people show up week after week with their hands in their pockets, just sitting and soaking instead of standing and serving.
Allow me paint this picture for you….. Some people come to church wearing one of these (a bib). We all know what a bib is – a bib is what babies wear. It says “feed me, burp me, hold me, take care of me…., in short, it’s all about me.” When some folks go to church they go wearing a bib and say, feed me, entertain me, make me cry, make me happy, sing my favorite song – because it’s all about me.
There are, of course, instances when wearing a bib is appropriate. If I’m going to feed an infant, I’m going to do so with them wearing a bib. When people are just starting out in their Christian walk as “babes in Christ,” it’s OK to wear a bib – it’s appropriate because they are just learning to feed themselves and sometimes we need help. Maybe that’s why some of you are here today. If so, we’re glad you’re here; keep on coming, and by all means, keep that bib on!
But… when a person has been a Christian for years, if they claim to know Jesus and have been sitting in churches for years, then that bib should be something of the past. Adults in Christ shouldn’t be wearing a bib – it’s inappropriate; in fact, it’s downright embarrassing!
Instead, you should be wearing what Jesus wore; one of these (an apron). Why? Because somewhere along the way you got it; you understood it wasn’t about you. You found a place to serve you feel good about and have found joy in serving. And so you’re wearing what Jesus wore when he washed the disciples’ feet.
One of our goals as a church is to eventually see every single person at NewSong move from this (bib) to this (apron). Why? Because of what Jesus said. He said, “The son of man did not come to be served, but to serve others” (Mark 10:45). That’s his way of saying he didn’t come wearing a bib, but an apron instead. Besides, when you get into an apron, you’re never going be the same again. Your faith will come alive. Our church will come alive! It’s what God wants for you and it’s what he wants for us.
What about you this morning? Is it time for you to put an apron on? You were shaped for serving God. You belong in an apron, not a bib. And there is nothing you can do that will bring you more peace than serving with the spiritual gift, the heart, the abilities, the personality and experiences God gave only you.
I’m going to ask