Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

Welcome to our 40-day spiritual journey called Developing a Servant’s Heart. If you’re not sure what’s going on, this is a church-wide adventure where we are chasing after the kind of life that God desires for us to have. We’ve been reading through a devotional book each day to help reinforce our theme each week. It’s not too late to get in the game. We’ve got a few books left if you’d like to participate in this journey with us.

In the first message in this series, we’re really just setting the table for what’s to come in the next few weeks. Today we're going to recognize how God has uniquely created each one of us. God has created each of us with specific shape and purpose in our lives.

There’s a story about a guy who had just reached the end of his rope. He was ready to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. He climbed over the railing and prepared to end his life. Just before he jumped, a police officer grabbed him around his neck and pulled him back. The guy said, “Look officer, you have no idea how meaningless my life is. I have no purpose for living. I have no reason to continue on. Just let me jump.”

The police officer was pretty kind-hearted and said, “I'll tell you what. I'll make a deal with you. I'll give you five minutes to tell me all the reasons why your life has no purpose. Then you give me five minutes to tell you all the reasons why life does have purpose. If at the end of ten minutes you still want to jump, I won’t stop you.”

The man agreed to the deal. He took five minutes and told the officer all the reasons why his life had no purpose. The police officer then took five minutes and told him all the reasons why he thought life did have purpose. At the end of ten minutes they stood up, joined hands and jumped off the bridge together.

The good news is they were talking about purpose. The bad news is they didn't discover a purpose that could sustain them in their lives.

I look around our culture and I see tons of people who are wrestling with purpose in their lives. Many of them have yet to find a purpose that can sustain them. Purpose cannot be found in work, or money, or toys, or vacations, or power, or friends, or husbands, or wives, or children.

All of us will come to a place where we ask the purpose questions. Why do I exist? Why am I here? What on earth am I doing here? What's the point of my life?

I’ve told you before that I’m a fan of the show Everybody Loves Raymond. In one episode, the Raymond character really captures what some of us have experienced. He has a crisis of purpose. He doesn’t feel that he fits anywhere. And so he asks the key questions, “Who am I? What do I do now? Where do I belong?” Of course, his mom, Marie, says, “Right here!” and she runs and hugs him and blubbers all over him.

A lot of us have experienced this crisis of purpose in our lives. We’ve tried one thing and it didn’t work. We tried another and that didn’t work either. And life begins to feel disconnected, we feel disillusioned, and everything seems ultimately pointless.

In the Bible, there is a word in the Old Testament that's translated “meaningless” or “lack of purpose.” That word could literally be translated like a sigh. Have you ever been there?

I’ve had some “sigh” moments this past week. We found out early last Saturday morning that some of our water pipes had frozen up during the night. We had to have a bunch of holes cut in our walls to thaw out our pipes. Our washer and dryer were sitting in the middle of our kitchen all week. And then the drywall repairmen didn’t show up on their schedule day to fix the holes in the walls. Sigh.

But I’ve also had some bigger “sigh” moments in my life. The thing with our water pipes was a pain, but it was also temporary. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But I’ve experienced moments when I wasn’t sure about my purpose. When my life seemed to be spinning its wheels. When I wasn’t sure that God had a plan for my life or even cared about my life. Sigh.

The good news is that God created us with purpose. Listen to what the Old Testament book of Proverbs says: “The Lord has made everything [catch this] for his own purposes.” (Proverbs 16:4, NLT)

It’s for his purposes. Not for my purpose, not for your purpose. Not for my pleasure and not for your pleasure, but for his pleasure and His purpose He's created everything. He had a plan when he created everything. The cow was created with a plan. So were the elephant and the oak tree and the Pacific Ocean and the housecat (although I’m still waiting to see the purpose of that one). Now all the cat people are mad at me and won’t listen to anything else I say.

Everything God created was made with a purpose. But God reserved his greatest purposes for his creation of mankind. In the book of Genesis, when God looked at everything in his creation, he said that it was good. But then he created mankind.

After that, the Bible says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31, NIV)

You are part of God’s “very good” creation. Every person who has ever lived was created with a purpose, including you. If you're alive, you're breathing and your heart is ticking and your brain is waving, that means that you have a purpose in your life. God created you with that purpose. You are not here by accident. You didn't just show up. You had a divine appointment to be here. God wants you to use that purpose to impact others for Him.

During this 40-day adventure, we're going on a journey where we learn together what our purpose is, individually and corporately. We're going to explore together during our class times, our memory verses, and our devotionals how God has wired us up with purpose. It's going to be an awesome time.

Today we’re going to spend some time in Psalm 139. In this chapter, the psalm writer began to get a picture of his own personal purpose. It started when he began to realize that he was God's masterpiece. God had created him uniquely and individually for His own purpose.

Psalm 139 says, “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.” (Psalm 139:13-14, NIV)

The psalmist is realizing, “God knit me together in my mother's womb. You were right there in the beginning, God. You created me and crafted me individually, purposely, and specifically to accomplish what you want to accomplish through me in life.” That's an amazing thought. We are not some random collection of biological particles and cells that have become human beings. The Bible is saying that God was involved from the start. He authored our DNA. He created us individually and uniquely for a purpose.

God broke the mold on you by creating you uniquely. The psalmist says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderfully could be translated as “distinct” or “marked out.” The meaning of the word is that the Psalmist is realizing his uniqueness in life.

Look around the room. We're all of different make up, different sizes, some have more hair, and some have less hair. We are all unique. There never has been and never will be another you. We are uniquely designed and wired by God for a purpose. Here’s a cool thing about God: he loves variety.

Do you realize there are over three hundred thousand species of beetles? See, you come to church and you learn new facts all the time. Three hundred thousand species of beetles! You would think that ten thousand species is enough. But God loves variety.

I shoveled quite a bit of snow this week, as did a lot of you. If you were to take the average cubic foot of snow, there are eighteen million snowflakes in just one cubic foot…and no two of them are alike. They are all unique and different. Even if you hate snow, you’ve got to admit that this is a pretty astounding creative work of God.

Psalm 104:24, “How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” (Psalm 104:24, NIV) In wisdom you made them all. You crafted and created them.

Just think about the wisdom that God used in making the human body. Take something as simple as our foot. There are twenty-six bones that make up our foot. Do you realize the average person that plays a full game of soccer puts an accumulative force on each foot of a thousand tons? That's per foot. We are made to deal with amazing stress and pressure on our bodies. The femur in the leg which is the strongest point in our body endures twelve hundred pounds of pressure per square inch with each step that we take. It's stronger than reinforced concrete.

The human brain is three pounds of the most intricately pieced together matter in the entire universe that we know of. Do you realize in the average brain you can store up to twenty-five million books worth of information? You say, “Man, I read a page and I can't even remember what I read!” You can actually store twenty-five million books worth of information. The brain can hold three trillion images. God made all of that with wisdom and He made it to accomplish His purpose.

Sometimes we beat ourselves up, we get low self-esteem, and we think we're worthless and insignificant. We get frustrated because of failures in our lives. We get frustrated when our bodies don't work the way they used to. They don't move the way they used to. However, we forget that we are this complicated, intricate design and a masterpiece of the living God. He wove us together in our mother's womb to accomplish His purpose. God created you uniquely. God broke the mold on you. There is no other you. He did that because He wants to use you in his service and to accomplish his purposes.

As we start on this servant’s heart journey, we also need to know that God created us with shape. When we hear the word shape we often think of physical shape. We are a culture who is obsessed with external appearance and shape. It's all about what you look like.

A couple of years ago NBC had a reality show called Average Joe. I don't know if any of you have seen it. I never watched it because I hate these “reality” shows. But anyway, I do know the premise of this short-lived reality show. They bring in this pretty girl. They bring in these average Joe's for her to date. Some of the guys are overweight, some are really thin, and some are geeky or nerdy. They're average.

Then about half way through the show, they threw a curve ball in. They brought in all the hunks, all the super model guys with six packs. The question is: What will she do? Will she chose an average Joe or will she go for the super model?

What we need to realize is that, in God's economy, there is no average Joe. We are all created specifically and uniquely by God to accomplish his will in our lives. He created us with shape. I don't mean physical shape. I mean that we are created with spiritual shape.

Let’s go back to Psalm 139 again. “My frame [or my shape] was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:15-16, NIV)

I love that last sentence. “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” God saw your shape in the beginning. God wired you up. He even determined your days.

What the psalmist realized and what we also need to understand is that God is sovereign. God is in control. We are his design and it is God who wants to use us in the shape that he gave us.

There’s a great little acrostic to help define this shape that we’re talking about. It’s an awesome way to remember how God has created you and I with a unique shape.

“S” means spiritual gifts. God has given each of us spiritual gifts. The Bible clearly teaches that when you become a follower of Jesus Christ, you receive one or more spiritual gifts from God. There are over twenty of them mentioned in the Bible. We are going to explore our spiritual gifts during this Developing a Servant’s Heart journey. Many of us are going to learn what our spiritual gifts are.

“H” stands for heart. Heart is what drives us, what motivates us, and what our passion is. It gets to the questions of what do I love to do? What fires me up? That's our heart. Your passion, your heart was given to you by God. And it is supposed to be used for God. Through this series, we'll discover more about our passions and our heart.

“A” stands for abilities. We all have different abilities. Some of you are awesome mechanically. You can just look at something and fix it in your mind before you ever touch it. Then you go work on it and immediately it's fixed. Others of you are more like me and you are mechanically challenged. If we get a drip in the kitchen sink and I work on it, it becomes a stream of water. The door is a little crooked, I work on it and now you have to kick it to shut it.

Some of you are wonderful in the kitchen. When you are in the kitchen the ability kicks in and you have it going on. The rest of us are so thankful that you are good in the kitchen because we don’t have that ability.

Some of you have tremendous gifts with people. People drain others of you and you're not good with them. Some of you have tremendous abilities with the arts, singing, or painting. The important thing is to discover our abilities and learn how God can use us in those abilities.

“P” stands for personality. We're going to discover more about our personality make-up and how God can use the personality he gave us to serve him.

“E” stands for experiences. God has allowed us to go through a lot of things in our different journeys. Some of those things have been good and some have been very difficult. It's not that God necessarily brings us through difficult things intentionally, but that God allows us to go through difficult things. Because of that, God can use us to touch other people when we surrender our experiences to Him.

Not only did God create you with shape, but He created you to serve from your shape. When we talk about our shape and how God has designed and wired us up, it's not so we can just set it aside and continue to live as if nothing changed. Sitting idle, not changing anything, not doing anything are not options for the Christ-follower. The things we discover about our gifts and abilities, what we explore about how and why God created us should have a life-changing impact on us.

I've learned that the more comfortable I become in my own skin, the more I understand how and why God created me, the more significant and fulfilling my life becomes. If I spend half my life trying to be like someone else and compare myself to other people - am I as good as they are, do I hold up to their standards and what they do - it will be a very stressful life. But as I begin to live out of my own shape, lean into my own strengths and work on my weaknesses, then God can use my life in a more effective, powerful way. And that is the point of this whole journey of Developing a Servant’s Heart. The point is that God wants to use your life and my life. He has service and ministry appointments for us. A lot of us are ignoring those appointments. We’re much more concerned about what we get than what we give. We’re more concerned about being served than about serving. And if that’s the camp that you’re in, God is going to do his best to rattle your cage over the next few weeks. Christianity is not a spectator sport. Sitting and not serving is missing the entire point of our faith.

We need to understand that when we don’t accept God’s appointments of service and ministry for us, it can have long, if not eternal, consequences. God has people he wants to touch through us. There are people that he wants to reach, and teach, and serve through us. The point of this whole thing is that God wants to use you and he wants to use me to accomplish his purposes in our world. And in turn, we get to live a life full of significance and purpose. If someone ever tells me that they just don’t feel like they’re worth much, they don’t feel like their life is significant, it’s a pretty good bet that they are not serving. The paradox is that, when we serve, we feel significant. The more we focus on ourselves and demand to be served, the less significant we feel.

Back to Psalm 139. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! [Understand when he says that he's not talking about God's thoughts in general. From the context, we know that he's talking about God's thoughts about him.] How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.” (Psalm 139:17-18a, NIV)

He's saying, “God you think about me. You know me.” How awesome is that? We are all a masterpiece of God, created by Him to fulfill His purpose. God really did break the mold on us.

As we go through this process of becoming the servant that God has called us to be, we will all be challenged to put our hands in God's hands and allow Him to do a great thing in our lives.

Think about it. A basketball in my hand is worth $29.99. A basketball in Shaquille O'Neil's hand is worth about three million dollars. A golf club in my hand is a very dangerous weapon. A golf club in Tiger Woods' hand is a tool to win a championship. Tennis rackets in my hand won't get the ball very far. Tennis rackets in the Williams sisters' hands and you have a Wimbledon champion. A football in my hand won't give you a run for the Super Bowl. A football in Peyton Manning’s hands will give you the Vince Lombardi trophy. A brush in my hand will give you a terrible excuse for a painting. A brush in an artist's hand can create a masterpiece. A life in my hands will lead to a lot of headaches and heartaches. A life in God’s hands will lead to a life of purpose.

Hold out your hands and look at them. Your fingerprints are unlike anyone else's. For some that's good, for some that's not good. These hands you are examining are absolutely unique. God has given them to you. Through this forty day experience, what we are all committing to do is say, “God I'm going to put my hands in your hands. I'm going to surrender my hands to you. I’m going to surrender my life to you. I’m going on a journey to discover how you want me to use my hands, and my heart, and my mind, and my life to serve you. I’m done looking out for myself. I am ready to live a life of all-out, 100% service to you. I’m here by your design and I want you to fulfill your purposes through me.”

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Developing a Servant's Heart, ministry, purpose, SHAPE, service