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

Welcome to the fifth week of our Developing a Servant’s Heart journey. We have embarked on a quest to find out how God wants to use us in his service and ministry.

Today we’re talking about surrendering our past; how God can use our past experiences in his service.

People over the age of ninety-five years old were once surveyed about what they would do differently if they could live their lives over again. One of the top three answers was this: “I would take more risks.” I wouldn’t have always played it safe. I would have taken a risk more often.

In our Developing a Servant’s Heart journey, we've been learning how we can step out and allow God to use us. Sometimes to serve from our experience or even talk to someone out of our experience can be a risk. It’s a risk because we feel inadequate. When we share some things from our past, we make ourselves vulnerable. We’re opening up a door to a past that has some hurt and pain in it. It’s a risk. But when we begin to open the door on our experiences and serve out of that, God can use us in a tremendous way.

The Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (NIV)

This is so rich. Paul says that God is the Father of compassion and He's the God of all comfort. Compassion and comfort are not the same thing. You can have compassion with inaction. You can sympathize with what somebody is going through and still not do anything about it. Comfort puts feet on compassion. Comfort takes compassion and allows you to come alongside of this person.

Do you know the word comfort literally means to come alongside? When you comfort somebody, you come along side him or her with compassion.

This is what we learn about God from these verses. He is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” God is not just a God of compassion. He’s not just someone who looks out and sees what we are going through. He doesn’t just feel sympathy or pity for us. He’s not just a God of compassion. He's also a God of comfort. He's willing to come alongside us in the midst of our troubles and difficulties. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is literally called “The Comforter.” God is a God of compassion and comfort.

Let me ask you, how many of you in this room can look back over your life and see a time where you were going through a lot of trouble, a lot of difficulty and pain, but in that season of your life, you sensed that God came alongside you? If you’ve experienced that, just slip your hand up. See that? God comes alongside us in our difficulty. And there’s a reason that he does that. Here's why He comes alongside us: Not just so we can be healed. Not just so we can be put back together. Not only so we can have a new start at life.

Verse four: “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:4, NIV)

God comes alongside us, and then he challenges us to come alongside someone else who is going through a similar, significant struggle in their life. That's God's plan. That's His cycle.

We're going to learn more about that today as we talk about serving God from experiences. Experiences allow us to do a lot of things.

First, experiences allow us to accomplish God's purpose. We've been talking about our S.H.A.P.E. during the 40-day journey.

Remember our S.H.A.P.E. acrostic: S: spiritual gifts, H: our heart, A: our abilities, P: our personality and the E: our experiences. You put all of those together and you have God's unique shape for your life and mine. God wants us to use that shape to serve others and make a difference in their lives. Our past, our experiences, are a big part of our shape. Today, God is telling us, “Don't waste your experiences but step out and take a risk. I will move in that.”

Our experiences are really important. Our experiences teach us a lot of things. As our devotional book said this week, “Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.” Experience may be a tough teacher, but it is a very effective one.

When Ryan was a baby, he was a spitter-upper. We hardly have a single picture of the boy during his first year when he wasn’t wearing a bib. He just spit up constantly.

Well, one day I was laying on my back playing with Ryan. I was holding him up over my head, jiggling him around. He was laughing, having a great time. And then it happened…just as I opened my mouth to say something, Ryan spit up and bullseye! Right in my mouth and I swallowed it before I knew what happened. Guess what? It was a painful experienced, but it was also a teaching experience. I learned from it.

Our experiences teach us. They help us frame up life in different ways. We’ve said all along in this series that each of us is different, unique. Part of that is because our experiences form us differently. God wants to use those experiences to accomplish His purpose.

The apostle Paul found himself heading to Rome. He was going to go to Rome as a great missionary. He was going to come in and share the good news of the love of God with people. Yet in the midst of this travel, he is shipwrecked. He goes through all this stuff, and eventually he finds himself in Rome, but he's handcuffed to a Roman guard twenty-four hours a day. Not exactly how he planned his trip. You would think that it would be a terrible scenario. He could have been out on the streets reaching people for Christ and sharing the good news. But here he is handcuffed to a Roman guard.

Yet Paul says this about it in the book of Philippians: “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.” (Philippians 1:12, NIV)

Isn't that incredible? Paul is in prison, chained every second to a Roman guard. But here's what really blows me away. God still used this situation for his purposes. Paul is chained to a guard twenty-four hours a day. These guards would rotate in shifts. Through it all, with each new guard, what do you think Paul is talking about all the time? Jesus. Who do these guards report back to? They report back to Caesar. History tells us that within a few years of Paul’s imprisonment, members of Caesar's own family began to become followers of Jesus Christ. Because God used this situation to accomplish His purpose even though it didn't make any sense at the time.

Have you ever gone through something and it just didn't make any sense? We can all say, “Yes. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.” I’ve had experiences where, when I look back on it five years, ten years out, hindsight is 20/20. It all makes sense. It clicks together. I see what God was doing.

Then, to be honest, I've had other experiences that I've looked back over and it still doesn't make sense. I still don't have any idea why I went through that. But here's what I've learned: Through it all God is going to accomplish His purpose. My responsibility is to be faithful to God, to be faithful to His word, to continue to grow and let God use me in the midst of that scenario.

I love these verses from the book of Isaiah. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NIV)

God has a purpose and a plan that is greater than mine. Sometimes his plan is greater than what I can understand. I have to be willing to take a risk and allow God to use my experiences to help others.

Experiences also allow us to trust in God's faithfulness. I love the story that Bill Wilson tells about his own life. (Not the Bill Wilson who is the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's a different Bill Wilson) Bill was a man who was walking with his mom in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age of fourteen. He said he could remember his mom was tired that day. She had a hard day. She wasn't saying much. They came to a particular street corner not far from where she served as a barmaid. His mom looked at him and said, “Son, I can't do this anymore. I need you to stay right here and wait for me.” Then she left. He stayed and waited. He waited until the sun went down. His mom never came back. He waited all night. He stood there on that street corner another full day. His mom never came. He stood there another night. Three full days Bill Wilson stood at that street corner waiting for his mom to come back. She never came back.

There was a guy who walked by periodically on his way to work. One day he said to Bill, “What are you doing here? I've seen you here the last couple days. What's going on?”

Bill said, “My mom said to wait here for her. She's going to come back.”

The man’s heart broke for the boy. He brought Bill some food so at least he could eat. The next day he walked by and Bill is still standing there. Finally this guy says, “Look, why don't you come and stay with me? I'll take care of you. We'll keep watching for your mom. Maybe something happened? We'll find out what went on.”

This Christian guy ended up taking Bill in. He took Bill to a Sunday school retreat. They went out and Bill surrendered his life to Jesus for the very first time. God used a horrible experience to bring Bill into a relationship with him.

Do you know what Bill did with that experience? When Bill grew up, he went to Brooklyn, New York. He went to one of the worst neighborhoods in New York. In fact, it was one of the worst slums in America. Bill went to a place where the streets were filled with crack vials and drug syringes, where prostitution is through the roof, where there is all kinds of difficulty and abuse, where children are orphaned on a daily basis, just like he was. Bill Wilson started a Sunday school to reach out to kids who had been left and abandoned and didn't have anything, kids who were just like he was when he was fourteen years old.

Today it is the largest Sunday school in the United States. They bring in twenty-two thousand children every week. Isn't that awesome? It's called Metro Ministries. They bring them into this huge warehouse and they do this full-blown Sunday school program for these kids. They don’t call it Sunday school anymore, because now they are doing it six days a week. They have fifty buses and thirty something vans that go all over the Brooklyn area and bring kids in. For many of them it's the only time they hear a message of hope. It's the only time they get real life skills. It's the only time they are encouraged to stay in school. It’s the only time they are exposed to God’s grace and his love. There are so many things that Metro Ministries is doing to make an impact. It all comes out of Bill Wilson discovering that God is faithful in the midst of a circumstance that would make no sense.

That's what He can do in your life and in mine. In our 2 Corinthians passage, Paul tells us that God comforts us so that we, in turn, can comfort others. In this chapter, Paul talks about the fact that they were at a place in the province of Asia where they were struggling. Things weren't working out. They were going through hard times, so much so he literally said they despaired of life itself.

He says this in 2 Corinthians 1:9: “Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. [That's pretty low.] But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (NIV) Paul is looking back and realizing they went through a nightmare of an experience and the purpose behind that experience was that they would rely not on themselves but on God.

Sometimes God allows the legs to be kicked out from underneath us. Sometimes He allows the rug to be pulled out from under us so that we realize that He is all we have.

When you realize God is all you have, you realize God is all you need. He can sustain you in the midst of that scenario. Don't waste your experiences. Use them to develop trust in God's faithfulness.

And then use them to unpack life's lessons. When I was a kid, my mom warned me constantly about the hot iron. Don’t touch the iron. It’s hot. Well, one day when she was ironing, she turned around for a split second and I touched the iron. Guess what? It was hot.

Sometimes the only way we learn is to get burned, isn't it? People can tell us, we read it in books, the pastor can stand up and preach about it but until we get burned, we won't learn. Some of you have been burned recently. You've gone through a difficulty, an illness, a loss - you've gone through pain.

But now that you’ve been burned, it’s up to you what you’ll do with that. You know how many times I touched my mom’s iron? Once. I chose to learn from my experience. It's really about you and what you choose to do with your experience. Sometimes when I’ve gone through a difficult time, I found myself asking the “Why?” question. “God, why me? Why am I going through this? There is a whole world full of millions of people. Share the agony.” Ever felt like that?

What I've found is that is really not the right question. It can be a valid question but it's really not the right question. I think the right question in the scenario for a follower of Christ is not necessarily, “God, why?” but instead, “God, what?” What do you want me to learn in this experience? What do you want me to do in this experience so that I can grow more to become the type of person you would have me to be? How can I use this experience to help somebody else? What do you desire for me?

Sometimes I've perceived what God has wanted me to learn and understand in that experience. To be honest with you, there were other times when I never have really figured it out. But I still think it's the right question. God, what do you want me to learn in the middle of this? Begin to unpack those lessons. Begin to look back through your life and say, “What have I learned?” Just in this room alone there are so many lessons that you could share with other people. There is so much wisdom and experience. There is so much pain and heartache. There is so much hope and recovery, right here.

Our problem often is that we don't unpack life's lessons. We don't look back over our experience in how God has moved in our heart and in our life.

In Deuteronomy 11, God is speaking to the Israelites. He says, “Remember what you have learned about the Lord through your experiences with Him.” (Deuteronomy 11:2a, GNB)

God reminded the Israelites to unpack their life lessons because they were the worst at this. God would do an amazing thing for the Israelites and they would forget. Look at some of their experiences recorded the Old Testament. They are living as slaves in Egypt. God unleashes ten plagues on Egypt and Pharaoh lets them go. God delivers them out of Egypt. They get right up to the base of the Red Sea. They’ve seen the plagues, all this stuff has happened, it's amazing and miraculous. What do the Israelites do? “Ah, the sky is falling. Here come the Egyptians. Where's God? He brought us out here to kill us!” Why would God bring you out to the desert to kill you? If God wanted you down, He'd take care of it. But that’s what was going through their minds.

Bu God opens the Red Sea. They cross the Red Sea just like God promises. He delivers them. They get to the desert and the very first thing they say is, “Oh my goodness, there is no water now. We're going to die of thirst. Moses, you brought us out here so we could die of thirst. The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” Again, God brings water and proves Himself faithful.

Then they say, “Food– we're going to starve. We don't have food.” Again, God brings food. He shows He is faithful consistently again and again. If they would have looked back and unpacked that experience of life they would have learned that, even in difficult times, God is good and God will remain faithful to come alongside us in those difficulties.

When we learn that lesson, it will make a difference when we face challenges in the future. When we go through a difficulty or hardship, we should learn from the past difficulty or hardships how to handle that and how to go through it.

And the last piece in the experience puzzle is simply to use your experiences. Our experiences allow us to use life’s lessons.

The Bible challenges us with this 1 Thessalonians 5: “He [meaning Jesus] died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. [Look at this] Therefore [in other words, because of the fact that Jesus died for us] encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:10-11, NIV) Use your experiences to encourage other people around you.

Lisa had a baby six years ago. The excitement of the new birth was quickly tempered with the news that her baby had multiple birth defects, one of which was deafness.” Lisa said that she and her husband were devastated and didn't know what to do. They were in shock. They didn't know how to deal with it. As it began to unfold, God began to work in her life through that experience. Today, her daughter, who was her greatest challenge, has been the very person who has led her into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Lisa is a court reporter. She has a unique ability to type very quickly and to capture words that are spoken and get them into print. After the experience of her hearing impaired daughter, coupled with the love of Jesus, Lisa found her place of service in the church. She does the closed captioning for the hearing impaired during her church services. She says, “I use my hands to be the ears for people who can’t hear.”

Look at how God used her experience. Because she was willing to surrender her past and serve from her experiences, God took an incredibly challenging situation and used it for his purposes.

What experiences have you had that could be used to serve someone else. Are you willing to take the risk, allow yourself to be vulnerable, and minister to someone else through your experiences?

Mike Edmisten

Tags: Developing a Servant's Heart, 2 Corinthians 1, ministry, service, experiences, healing, hurt