This recording is from Willow Creek Church in Winter Springs, Florida, where Dr. Pete Owensen is our senior pastor. This sermon is part five in our Purpose Driven Life series and is called Shape for Serving God. Now here's Pete with today's message. And Jeff, anybody thinks you're too white? You tell them to come to me. All right? That was good. Well, that really set the stage for us as we look at this fifth week in the 40 days of purpose as we continue to look at the whole idea of service. And we've been used, of course, we can be used. God wants to use us and he wants to use us in powerful ways and that's what we're going to talk about today. But before we get into that, I must say, of course, Happy Mother's Day and mothers are used in powerful ways as servants, aren't they, moms? You guys serve over and over and over and over again. And we've learned so many lessons about that from you. I reminded the story of the three guys who grew up, had a strong mother who raised them. They became successful men in the community and they got together at a mother's day party for her when she was quite elderly. And they were talking about the gifts that they had gotten their mother and the first one said, see, I built this house for mom and in an incredible second son said, you know, I got mom and Mercedes and a driver. The third son said, you know, how mom loves the Bible and loves to read it, but she's getting older and can't read as well anymore. The elders of our church trained a parrot to memorize scripture. It took up 12 years to memorize all of this scripture. I bought that parrot for her. So all she has to do is name the verse, the chapter in the verse, and there it is, so she can read the scripture. So they were gathered together talking about this and the mom said to all of her sons. She said, Milton, the house you build is so huge, and I only used one room. I only live in room, but I got to clean the whole thing. She said, she said, Gregory, the Mercedes is nice, but I'm too old to travel and the drivers. He's a nerd. I hate being around him. She said, but Donald, that little chicken you gave me was delicious. Mom, you are worth all the gifts that you get. You know, someone long time ago said, he who rocks the cradle, rules the world. Mom, you have far more influence than you think. Your influence is incredible. In fact, one lady in our church sent me this poem that shows in a touching way the influence of a woman, poem for women. He didn't like the casserole, he didn't like my cake, my biscuits were too hard, not like his mother used to make. I didn't perk the coffee right, he didn't like the stew. I didn't mend his socks the way his mother used to do. I pondered for an answer. I was looking for a clue. Then I turned around and smacked him like his mother used to do. Women you are very influential in the lives of your children. Well as we talk about this whole idea of serving God today, I want to move from mothers to Elvis. Elvis, a couple of years ago, Elvis Presley and who's been gone for a long time. He's been dead for 25 years and he was 42 when he died but just a couple of years ago one of his albums, it was the best, the greatest hits of Elvis Presley was on the top of the charts and he's been gone for 25 years. And some of you are Elvis Presley fans, closet, Elvis Presley fans. We don't always know who you are but we find it out from time to time. And the interesting thing was in an interview with his wife, Priscilla. She said this about her husband and you remember that Elvis died when he was 42 obese, unhappy, unfulfilled, he died of a drug overdose. She said this, Elvis never came to terms with who he was meant to be. He never came to terms with who he was meant to be or what his purpose in life was. He thought he was here for a reason, maybe, maybe and those of you who are Elvis fans know this is true. He thought maybe he was here to preach, maybe to serve, maybe to save, maybe to care for people. That agonizing desire was always with him and he knew he wasn't fulfilling it. So he'd go on stage so he wouldn't have to think about it. What an amazing thing. Here's a picture of a guy who made millions and millions of dollars but never really grasped what he was on this earth. To do. Today we're going to focus on how we are shaped to serve and guys, let me tell you a story. It's Mother's Day. Guys, I got to talk to you about my dad. My grandfather was a missionary doctor to Venezuela who married a Venezuelan woman. And that's why I have a little bit of this dark in me left. But my dad was raised on the mission field with this missionary doctor in front of him who he loved and idolized as a man who he thought was closer to Jesus than anybody else. My grandfather died when my dad was 11. The vision that my grandfather had given to my dad was come back to the United States, get your medical degree. Come to the mission field too and serve. And that was my dad's deepest desire. I got through two years of medical school at the USC in Southern California, the right one. And then got drafted into World War II and he was gone. And when he came back, they said, you have to repeat that second year of medical school. And through the trauma of four years at war on all of that, he didn't do it. He didn't finish. He was in an education and quite successful in that. I'm proud of what he accomplished, but he never did what his heart's desire was. What is called, I believe, got called him to be a missionary doctor. To the day he died, he died when he was 86. He could still remember things that went on. He could talk to you about the eye and the nerves around the eyes. He could explain anatomy to you. I was his heart's desire and he never fulfilled it. And it is a tragedy. When a man doesn't know why he's here, he makes life more miserable for his wife and his kids. Well, we make each other miserable. And so today, we really want to focus on this because we need to understand why we're here, Ephesians 2.20. Let's read this together. That's a starting point for us. Together we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. Underline, if you do, underline the word workmanship, we were created. We were put here on this earth to make a contribution not to just consume. We were created here to make a difference. God has something before the foundation of the world that he has put you here to do your unique. And he's put you here for that. The point is not how long do you live. The point is how well do you live? That's the point. Are you and I living in the way that God intended for us to live? That's what really matters in this whole thing. Now, this is absolutely crucial. Job 10 8 says, your hands shape me and made me and I love the acronym shape. I believe that's on your outline. Shape stands for spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality and experiences. Every one of you are unique in those ways. Who you are. You are so important in the kingdom of God because of your shape and nobody is like you. And you are absolutely indispensable. God is infinite. That means there are no limits to his being. And that means that in his infinite ability, he has a place for you. And part of your joy in living is coming from fulfilling the purpose that God has for you. Set up before the foundation of the world. Let's read that other verse to us together. First Peter 410, each of us should use whatever gift he's received to make a lot of money. Oh wait, no. Hey, it's okay to make a lot of money but you and I were created to serve. Serve others. Our talents are not for our self. God did not give you a spiritual gift and I love to sit down with brothers and sisters in Christ and talk about spiritual gifts. Some in the family believe that some spiritual gifts are to be used for themselves in private and I say no way. God has given us all of these gifts for the benefit of the body. What was the first line in the first chapter of a purpose driven life? Remember it is not about you. It's about him but in a sense, it's about how he has called us to be a part of what he's doing in the world. And our shape and our joy gives us, our joy comes as we fulfill our shape. This afternoon at 4 o'clock, I'm going to be a part of a Holocaust remembrance in Madeland at the Jewish Community Center, a Jewish physician, a friend of mine asked me to be the Protestant minister who praised for our country and also then leads them in a response of reading. Ray, I don't mess this up and I'm privileged to go and be a part of this. I want you to know this week I read Ellie Weisel's book Knight as I read again about the awful of the awful experiences of the Jews during the Holocaust, it's a 60 year remembrance of World War II. And then I thought about standing in front of those people today and I thought what an awful thing to be the chosen people of God and to not know why you're on this planet. And God isn't through with them. God's got a plan for them and he's going to fulfill it but what an awful way to live your life as the people of God and to not be the people of God. It could happen to us and I don't want that to happen and that's why we're studying this together. Okay, so right down the fourth purpose in life is to serve God by serving others. To serve God by serving others. That's why we're here, that's what we're a part of. And the Bible has a word for serving God by serving others and that is the word ministry. So we're called to be a part of ministering to other people, to want another and to our community. And as you look around you and do that right now, look around what you see are a bunch of people who are ministers, you're all ministers in the body of Christ. Sometimes I've been asked why I don't wear robes as a minister after all you're a Presbyterian minister. They say why don't you wear a collar? And I say listen, I'm going the other way, I don't even have a tie on today. Here's the reason why I don't, I don't wear a robe and I don't wear a collar because I don't want to send a false biblical message. And the false biblical message is you're a religious type and you're supposed to do religious things and good things, you are a minister. You're paid to be a minister, you know, it's the old line, I'm paid to be good, you guys are good for nothing. The reality is, I don't want to send a message that is unbiblical at its core and what is unbiblical at its core is to think that I'm the only minister or the staff or only ministers. The reformation brought the teaching of the priesthood of believers which says that all of us are ministers, messengers and managers even of the time, treasures and talents that God has given us. And I have a great deal of guilt about this because I see so many needs around me that I think because I see this need, I've got to fulfill it and I can't always. I need you, the church needs you, the kingdom of God needs you, needs every Christian to understand that they're a minister, that's the way this thing's supposed to work, that's the only way it can work. So service, ministry and the same things and we have been called by God to serve him because by the way, what are we going to do in eternity? We're going to worship but we're also going to serve it and we're going to serve each other. Yo, is that right? Yeah, some of you thought when I get to heaven, I'm going to have my own butler, no more dishes, I'm going to be served, no, we're going to continue that on, we're practicing in the here and now. People will be a whole lot easier to serve then. As my minister friend said, ministry would be a whole lot easier if it weren't for the people. Now, in heaven, heaven, the people will be easier to serve but God has given us a model to follow in this whole area of service, our Lord Jesus. And he said this, your attitude must be like my own and for I did not come to serve, to be served but to serve. Now here's the point, your shape determines your ministry, your shape, your spiritual gifts, your talents, all of it, your personality, all of that, determines what ministry you want to be a part of. There's some ministries in this church, I would bungle if I were in them, I shouldn't be in them. Your shape determines your ministry but catch this, your attitude determines your maturity. This is important. Your attitude determines your maturity because some of us get the shape, we understand where we're supposed to be involved in ministry but we never get the attitude of being a servant and that's hard and that's difficult for me and we're going to talk about, I'm going to confess my sins to you in a couple of minutes here but the reality is we're looking for self-esteem and significance and you aren't going to find them in success, you're not going to find a self-esteem in your success or in sex or in your accomplishments, any other way. But in service, you can find them in service and that's what God wants us to understand. Now, how do we grow to become servants of God who fulfill our personhood, our calling in Christ, in service? I've got three points and a poem for you and I already gave the poem, didn't I? So I've got three points, let's take a look, number one, serving like Jesus means being available. Now, the text for this really comes and this is a topical sermon, are all of these topical sermons in the 40 days of purpose. We're looking at many different verses rather than going through one book of the Bible but in Matthew 20, verse 30, it tells us about how Jesus was walking along and two blind men came up to Jesus and they said, Jesus, have mercy. It says this. When men shouted, Lord, have mercy on us. It says, Jesus stopped and called them, what do you want for me to do for you? The operative word in that text is, stopped, Jesus stopped. He was going along, doing his thing, going from one place to another place and people interrupted him and his life was a series of interruptions, wasn't it? Think about it. There was Jesus when he did his first miracle, his very first miracle. Where was he? Is it a wedding? Mining his own business, enjoying the time, doing his own thing and who interrupts him? Mother's, you are especially gifted at doing that, by the way ladies, it's your calling in life. You have the gift of interruption and stop doing what they're, and anyway, Jesus was interrupted and he had to do that miracle of creating the wine out of the water. Then we see that he's walking along the road and he runs into these guys and the blind guys and the lame guys. They're always interrupting Jesus everywhere he went. He went from thing to thing and he was interrupted. His whole life was a life of interruptions and yet it says about him that he was a servant, right? If you're going to be a servant, you've got to be available and if you're going to be available, you've got to be willing to be interrupted and I absolutely hate this. I hate it. It's from the pit of hell. No, it's from the center of heaven. But if your temperament is not wired this way, you will rebel against this. Bob Beale wrote a book years ago that I came across. Help me understand you guys. It is entitled this way. Stop setting goals if you would rather solve problems. Stop setting goals if you would rather solve problems and that helped me understand you guys. Some of you guys are goal-setters and I know who you are and some of you are problem-solvers and you drive me crazy but we need you. You know what interruptions are? What are interruptions? Interruptions are problems that get into the way and in the way of solving, of reaching the goals. It's not a goal-setter and there is nothing that irritates me more than an interruption. I confess that. There it is. I set my schedule and who is God to interrupt it. I would never say that. But this is what God is saying partly to me in this 40 days of verb. Do we need goal-setters? Do we need visionaries? Absolutely. Do we need problem-solvers? Absolutely. Do we all need to allow God to mess up our life and stop us so that we can serve. And all God's people said, Amen. I mean, we can be baptized a little bit here this morning, I mean, after what Jeff's saying this morning. And you know, Proverbs 328 says this, never tell your neighbors to wait until tomorrow if you can help them now. John Wesley's motto was, do all the good you can, by all the means you can, by all the ways you can, in all the ways you can, and at all the times you can, to all the people you can, or as long as you can. Good motto, the statement of greatness, and he lived that way, and God has to pull us out of our comfort zone. How does he do this to make us people who are willing to be interrupted and available to God? What are some common barriers? There are three of them. Number one, self-centeredness. The Bible says, forget yourself long enough to lend a helping hand, Philippians 2.4, from the message. There it is. That's what gets in the way, self-centeredness, and busyness. And I believe, by the way, that the options in America, the devil is in the options in America, we just have so much we can do. We feel guilty if we don't do them all. And we get so busy, I can't be available, I've got to schedule the key. And maybe you do too. One of the great, the ladies in our office are a real benediction to me. I heat the stuff on their plate, and I say, I'm sorry, I interrupt you, but, and then I give them 20 things, and they say, no, no, glad to be interrupted. And we'd be dead without them. Servants are people who are willing to be interrupted. A second barrier is not only busyness and all that, but it's perfectionism, perfectionism, and we have developed this into an art form in America, perfectionism, everything has to be done first class, right? There's a Greek word for that, hogwash, but we have that as an art form in America, almost an idol that everything's got to be done first class. Ecclesiastes 114 says, if you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done, right? See, I struggle with this too. Remember the saying, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing well, or correctly, all right, but I have friends who tell me the other side, they say, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly, what is the right way? Here it is, I finally got it. If something's worth doing, it's worth doing, right? And the good enough principle is simply this, it doesn't have to be perfect for God to bless it. Thank God. All right, never taught my first Bible study. What he wants is for us to just say, I'll do it, I'll do it, it doesn't have to be perfect, I give myself to you, and if you can use me, use me, I'm going to step out there and go to, and the exhibit A on this, the proof of this is some of you who are leading small groups. You opened up your house, you don't have the perfect house, you don't have the perfect landscaping, you don't have the perfectly clean house, right? But you did it anyway, you don't have the perfect schedule, but you did it. God's blessing it, because God loves to use imperfect people, who else is there? There are no super Christians, not on one of us, not on one of us. The third objection, or the gets in the way of servanthood, and I miss this in the first service, so you're getting a little bit more for your money today. Number three, materialism, it gets in the way, Jesus says you cannot serve two masters, you cannot serve both God and money, you cannot, not that you should not, you cannot. You only have one master, you've got to determine, and I have to determine the same thing. We have to determine, do we want to pursue kingdom blessings, or do we want to build, or that work? God can make you wealthy, and that's great, that's wonderful, God uses you. That can't be your number one goal, because if you do, it'll get in the way of your character and your servanthood. All right, serving means being available, secondly, serving means being grateful. That means being grateful, to serve like Jesus means to be grateful. And I think of that time when Jesus said no, when his friends said, let's go, because Lazarus is sick, and he's going to die if you don't go see him, and Jesus said no. And then Jesus said yes, but it was humanly speaking, too late, Lazarus was gone. He had died. Jesus looked at, he's standing right outside, Lazarus tomb, and it says in John 1141, Jesus looked up and said, father, I thank you, that you heard me. I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of those people standing here. Jesus was grateful and thankful to the father, even in the midst of all of his difficulties, the same with the apostle Paul. Even though Paul was being criticized, even though he can list a whole long list of, you know, those areas where life was not perfect, he was thankful, and Psalm 100 verse 2 is one of those great verses. I think that's on your outline, too, is it Psalm 102? No? Yes, it is. Good. Good. Let's say it together. Lord, let's say that again, serve the Lord. You're awake in this second service, a lot better than the first one. You know what the first service was filled, and you know why? You know why? It's not normally as full as this one is. They are at your place at the restaurant right now. You're probably not too glad about that. But our service to the Lord ought to be out of gratefulness, out of gladness, why? Because of what he's done for us, simply because of what he's done for us, in calling this out of darkness and delight, for giving us a purpose, for living, guys, I got to talk to you. Remember, when you were in elementary school and there was after school games, the intermurals or during recess and you were being chosen for a team, or hope to be chosen for a team, kickball, dodgeball, softball, and you got the two captains. And they're calling out the names and you're sitting there just going, I hope they call me. I mean, you don't really care if they don't call you first, you just don't want them to call you last. All right, I'll take Al Winson, if we have to, Al Winson, you're on our team, come on, I was horrible. Here's the cool thing. The gospel is this. God didn't have to choose any of us. The great news, the really bad news is that Sin so separated us from God, that God could have walked away and washed his hands of us for eternity, but he said, I'm going to call you. You respond to Jesus Christ, it's because he puts up in your heart. He didn't call you because you're good and you're always do it right. He called you because it was his plan, 2 Timothy 1.9. It is he who saved us and chose us for his holy work, not because we deserve it, but because that was his plan, I'm just glad I want his team, is this plan? And it's out of that that we're simply thankful, not out of duty, but just out of his call. There are a couple of things to get in the way of serving God out of gladness and gratefulness. One of them is comparing and criticizing. One scripture says this, who are you to criticize someone else's servant? The Lord will determine whether his servant has been successful. We compare, we criticize, and you know what it doesn't matter. You can criticize me and that's all right. What I have to learn is it doesn't matter what you think. And you have to learn what matters is not what I think about you or what M.A.L. thinks about you. What does Jesus say? That's what matters, that's all. So when we compare, let me tell you, there's always some, you guys are incredibly talented people, good looking, wonderful, educated, I love being around you guys. But there's always somebody, a little bit more money, a little bit more talented, right? That's just the world we live in. And so we can't compare and contrast whether the people, it simply doesn't matter. The second thing that gets in the way of gratefulness is wrong motivations. Matthew 6.1, Jesus said, when you do good works, don't try to show off. If you do, you won't get a reward for your father in heaven. It doesn't matter, we're not here to show off. We're here just to serve. So servants like Jesus are available and they're grateful thirdly, lastly, get the engine started. Those of you who have automatic ignition, just press the button, we'll have you out of here in time to get to lunch. Here it is. But don't miss this third point. Serving like Jesus means being faithful, means being faithful. That's it. John 17.4, I have brought you to glorify, I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work that you gave me to do. I am just now getting this, that what God has called me to do is to be faithful, not successful. He's calling me to do my best. He's calling you to do your best. He's calling you to be grateful and available and faithful to your gifts, to your calling, to your shape, to your Lord, to other people. That's what he's calling us. Colossians 1 Corinthians 4 2, the one thing required of servants is that they are faithful. And we're going to be rewarded. That's the amazing thing about this whole thing. He's that God enables, he brings us to himself, he calls us to serve, he puts us to work, and then he rewards us after he uses us. That is grace. That is grace. And we have got to learn that there is a difference in the body of Christ between significance and prominence. And it's very, very important. There is a difference between significance and prominence in the body of Christ. Now I know that the nose on my face is somewhat prominent. I had to live with that. And it's genetically been passed down to the male heirs in the Owlonson clan. So it is, right? And it's prominent, but is it the most significant terms of why? You guys are just thinking of jokes and all this kind of stuff. I don't want to get any nose jokes this week, all right? Just keep them home. I lost my nose. I could live, right? Be ugly, and I probably couldn't stand up here in front of you every week, but I could survive. But if I lost my liver, or my kidneys, or my heart, I'm dead. That's it. And there is a huge difference between prominence and significance. And sometimes because we're Americans and we're so externally oriented that we think that the person who is up front, or the things that are the most prominent, are therefore the most important. And God says, look at the human body. That's not true in the human body. And it is not true in the spiritual body. It's not true among my people. Servants are crucial. Those of you who do things that nobody else sees are absolutely crucial in the carrying out of Kingdom work. I got an email a couple of days ago from a kid in the youth group. I hadn't even become a formal youth pastor yet. I was an intern, and there was a kid in our youth group, and the church I grew up in. And he tracked me down. He's Riverside, California. He's an MD now. And he said, is this the Pete Allenson who was in Southern California? Can there be any others? Should there be any others? He said, write me back, and it's Mark Bernhardt. I said, yeah, he said, you made a big difference in my life. I'm following Jesus, and I've got a great family doing all these things. I start thinking about that and thinking about, I don't remember him. I remember him. He was a surfer kid from Southern California. He went to sleep every time I taught the Bible. I spent some time with him, but the only thing I really remember him is surfer hair and his pretty sister. I remember that. Yeah. But I must have done something. And you know what? Who's of you who think that you're not making an impact or probably making an impact far greater than you could ever? We've got these inserts in the bulletin, because next week we're going to have a ministry fair out there and tables out there where you could get involved in different ministries. And I'll tell you, I'm not ashamed to call you to ministry. And I'm not ashamed to call you to obscure ministries. I'm not ashamed to call you to something that won't lead you to prominence because I know that you can find significance there in blessing from your God. One of the least prominent ministries that we call you to is children's ministry because you will impact lives of kids are probably so young. They won't even remember to email you when they get older. It's okay. We need servants who understand that it's all about being faithful, not prominent. Over years ago two teenage boys went to a church service and special evangelist was speaking and the usher looked at these two guys and went into place to sit. They couldn't see any. And he said, guys, I'll find you a seat, follow me, took them up to the front, sat them right down in the front where they were just two seats left. But nobody could see them. One of them was Billy Graham and he's influenced tens of millions of people. Who knew? Did this usher know? Now, what he was about was that this guy was going to come to Christ right then and then be used of God and the power of what? No, you don't know either. But I know that this is one of the greatest purposes of our life. If we understand that God wants to use us, our community needs us. Our community is a community of up and outers, not down and outers. They need you guys. They need me. Just to serve so that they can see Jesus. He brews 610. He will not forget how hard you work for him and how you've shown your love to him, how by serving others. You know, one of the great things and this church is to work with the people that I get to work with on a daily basis and Jeff Smith has just said yes to becoming our new administrator. He's a ruling elder. He's been a friend of mine for 12 years and one thing about him is that he's a servant who knows how to help other people serve. It's going to be fun to work together. It's going to be fun for us as a body to grow more in this area of serving and see what God does. Back to Elvis. Back to Elvis. He won one Grammy award out of the 250 million albums he sold us one Grammy for a religious album that he recorded called He Touched Me. And here's the song. After the lighting and the thunder, after the last bell has rung, I want to bow down before Jesus and hear him say, well done, my son. He is my reason for living. He is my king of kings. I long to be in his possession. He is my every thing. I think Elvis knew that and he didn't live it. I want to live it, don't you? One time Napoleon was looking at a map of the world and he put his finger on China and he said that's a sleeping giant and if it ever wakes up the world will be changed. Guys, you are servants, so many of you, servant ways that I don't even know, but Jesus does. But I'll tell you this, the Church of Jesus Christ is a sleeping giant. If we ever wake up, we all get mobilized. We all use our shape. The world will be a different place for good. You take it to heart. What was the one thing that God has said to you today? I'm telling you what God has been saying to me in this. And I know it now is at the top of my prayer list and what I've got to work on this week. And I hope that you're listening to him. He may have not made it clear yet this morning what that one issue of servanthood is that he wants you to focus on, but maybe this week he will. And I just, I long for you to live a life of real joy and productivity knowing where he has fit you, long for you to know that. Father, we come to you as children, come to their incredible Father who has loved us before the world even began and who has a plan for us. So Father today, we pray because of Jesus and all that he's accomplished, that you would speak to our often hard hearts and help us to see our shape. And those things that are getting in the way of service and Lord help us to say yes. And find joy and fulfillment where you've called us. Our ears are going to be open this week. We're listening and we pray these things because of Jesus in His holy name. Willow Creek Church is associated with the Presbyterian Church in America. Our website is www.willowcreekchurch.org and our phone number is 407-699-82-11.