What have we learned?

I was looking over my notes, my little records of my day-to-day activity, and I realized that on Thursday, July 14th of last year I was given a great opportunity. That day found me in my office participating in a conference call that would change my life, my ministry, and my church. The call was an informational meeting designed to give pastors and church leaders all over the country information on a little thing called 40 Days of Purpose. I was a bit anxious when I dialed in . . . but by the time I hung up I was excited. More than excited, I was enthralled, I was keyed up, energized.
I knew then that there were two paths before me: play it safe, carry on as usual, or take a risk, step out and make a bold decision. It was a decision where I wasn’t sure what the final outcome would be, a decision that would carry me—and carry you—down a new road, a road we’ve never traveled together before.
That decision, as you may have guessed, was whether or not I could commit to leading the church through a all-encompassing spiritual campaign. That decision eventually led us to this point, the final Celebration Sunday of 40 Days of Purpose: A Show of Hands. And as I looked back upon that day of my decision and the planning stages, I realized that it’s a bit like where we are today.
Today we stand upon something great. We have the opportunity to make a great step forward in the ministry God has given us to our community. And no, I can’t tell you what the final outcome will be. This is a road that we’ve never traveled together before. We’ve got a destination in mind, a dream of where we’re going, but frankly I have no idea how we are going to get there. But in the same way that God has been with us through these past forty days, He will continue to be with us as we move ahead. The lessons we learn in the future will be based upon the lessons we have learned here.
So what have we learned in these past forty days? If we’re going to move forward we need to know what our foundation looks like, so what did we learn?
Well, as first things should be first, we can turn all the way back to the beginning of Purpose-Driven Life and read the first words of the first chapter: It’s not about you. It’s not about you! It all begins with God. It ends with God. God’s in the middle. He’s our focus, our hope. There’s nothing we can do before Him and there’s nothing we can do without Him.
We learned that we have purpose in our lives, that God truly does have a plan for us. On that banner right there we read, “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10 Who’s workmanship are we? God’s. So, those good works that He has prepared for us to do . . . who do they begin with? Christ. Our purpose—our very lives, really—is centered around Jesus Christ. Those “good works” that God has prepared for us can be summed up in His five purposes for us.
When I say the word “worship” I am saying that I was planned for God’s pleasure. Worship begins with Christ. Christ first loves me, and then I love Him back. We gather together to receive His gifts of Word and of Sacrament, because that’s where worship begins, with God working in us. But this is not the only place we worship, we also worship God wherever we go as we love Him, lean on Him, and learn from Him. Our memory verse for that week was Mark 12:30. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” See, worship is centered around this gathering, but it extends into every aspect of our lives. Worship is a lifestyle, not just an event.
When I say “fellowship”, that’s saying I’m formed for what? Right—God’s family. Who’s family? God’s family. There is only one way to get into God’s family, and that’s through Jesus Christ. Fellowship, too, begins with Christ. Do we experience Christian fellowship as we gather together in church? You bet we do! But we’re also speaking of a deliberate kind of fellowship, a fellowship that occurs in small groups. As we gathered together in those small groups we learned more about one another, didn’t we? We grew together and we grew, together.
More than that, though, Romans 12:5 says, “So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” We have a bond to one another, a responsibility to one another. We each belong to one another. Look at someone near you and say, “I belong to you.” Fellowship is much more than just hanging out, it is truly belonging to one another in and through Christ.
You know what we just did? We just walked through a review of the first three weeks of 40 Days in just a few minutes. Three weeks . . . just like that! This stuff isn’t that hard, it’s actually pretty simple, isn’t it? Just believe upon God and respond by doing what He’s prepared for us to do.
Three weeks . . . who’s got week number four? What was week four? Discipleship. And discipleship means that I was created to become like Christ. Again, not to be Christ, but to become like Christ. Philippians 2:5, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Our third purpose is to have a Christ-like attitude towards all that we encounter.
Can you become like Christ all on your own? No, discipleship also begins with Christ. We need Him to live within us, to work within us, in order to become more like Him. Did you discover anything about yourself during these past 40 days that wasn’t particularly Christ-like? Something you wanted to change? I did. And I’ll tell you what; I’ve tried to change those particular behaviors before. But now, with Christ working within me, with Him developing a Christ-like attitude in my mind and in my heart, I’m finding that I now have the strength to turn those parts of my life around. Discipleship begins with Christ.
I was SHAPEd to serve God . . . what purpose does that describe? Ministry. I remember cracking some jokes that Sunday about how much I liked my wife’s shape, but let me tell you this: you each have a beautiful SHAPE. It’s beautiful because God has taken every aspect of your life in Him, your Spiritual gifts, your Heart, your Abilities, your Personality, and your Experiences, God has taken each of those and molded you into a special, one-of-a-kind person that is uniquely qualified to perform the ministry that God has given you. Our memory verse for that week was 1 Peter 4:10: “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others.” No one else can do your ministry, because no one else has your exact SHAPE. Ministry, too, begins with Christ.
What’s the fifth and final purpose God has for us? Evangelism—I was made for a mission. Can you guess who evangelism begins with? Do you know why?
World without pain is hell, parent says
Kids with rare disorder don't know they're hurting themselves
(CNN) -- When you first meet 4-year-old Roberto Salazar, you can't help but notice his unwavering smile and constant laughter. By all accounts, he's a very happy boy.
It is only when he rams his head violently into walls or plays a little too roughly with a schoolmate, all the while smiling, that you are reminded that he suffers from an incredibly rare genetic disorder.
Roberto is one of 17 people in the United States with "congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis," referred to as CIPA by the few people who know about it.
According to specialists, the levels of pain vary. “For some children it's a mild degree such as breaking a leg, they'll get up and walk on the leg. They feel that something is uncomfortable but they keep on moving," she said. "For other children, the pain loss is so severe that they can injure themselves repetitively and actually mutilate themselves because they don't know when to stop.”


If you were one of the very few people who had that disease, you would live a life in which you were literally killing yourself bit by bit . . . but you wouldn’t know it. You wouldn’t know it. You’d need someone who was there, who saw what you were going through, you’d need a doctor, a physician, to heal your sickness. It wouldn’t make a difference whether or not you knew what you were doing to yourself, you’d still be dead without someone to diagnose your illness and come up with a cure.
That’s why evangelism begins with Christ. Because the simple fact of the matter is that you and I were killing ourselves by violating God’s rules and laws, we were heaping guilt upon ourselves at every single turn, and we didn’t even realize it! And while we were still dead in our sins, God chose to make us alive in Christ. He forgave us all our sins, He looked at the rulebook and decided to re-write it, He looked at our record book and threw it away. And He did it before we could ever ask Him for it, before we even knew we needed it. Evangelism is simply telling others about Christ, but we can’t tell until we first realize what we’ve been given ourselves.

Well, there you go. There’s five big things we’ve learned. God’s five purposes for our lives and our church. We’ve learned about them, and what’s more . . . we learned we can do them. We’ve learned that we can work together to do something significant. This campaign, this 40 Days of Purpose, this wasn’t just something where we got together for an hour or so on Sunday and maybe for a bit of time during the week; we had something like forty or more people working together in team ministry to pull off all the different events, we had over 84 people meeting in weekly small groups. Twelve of those—that’s one out of seven—were people from outside the church that you invited. And we had eight team leaders working selflessly behind the scenes to bring value and benefit to others. We worked together, and together in Christ we did something really, really great. God did something great here!
So now what? What’s next for you? Now that you’ve learned your purposes, will you ever be content to letting things go back to the way they were before? I think that would be pretty hard to do. You just don’t learn the things we’ve learned and back away from them. You don’t just retreat from living what you’ve learned. We’ve not only learned about the five purposes, we’ve been doing them. So continue to live what you’ve learned! Don’t stop thinking about the five purposes, don’t stop thinking of ways you can implement them into your lives! You can continue to have a purpose-driven life, a life that fulfills it’s God-given purpose. Continue to live what you’ve learned.
And what about for us as a church? Rick Warren wrote another book, you may have heard of it, called The Purpose-Driven Church. It does for churches what Purpose-Driven Life did for you. And in Purpose-Driven Church Pastor Warren lists 10 ways for a church to be purpose driven.

Assimilate new members on purpose.
Program around your purposes.
Educate your people on purpose.
Start small groups on purpose.
Add staff on purpose.
Structure on purpose.
Preach on purpose.
Budget on purpose.
Calendar on purpose.
Evaluate on purpose.


What does this mean for Our Saviour as we complete 40 Days of Purpose: A Show of Hands? It means that we will press on on purpose. We’ll keep implementing what God has called us to do; we’ll keep implementing these five purposes into the way we do church, the way we think about church, the way we approach new ministries. It means that what we do, we do on purpose. Not haphazardly, not randomly, but each thought, each event, each plan is done purposefully and in service of the greater cause.
The five purposes aren’t just for you, they’re not just for me . . . they’re for us, as well. As we worship, as we fellowship, as we become better disciples, as we enter into ministry, and as we reach out into our community and to the ends of the earth with the saving news of a God who loves us, we’ll continue to live out what we’ve learned. We’ll continue to do it on purpose, and we’ll continue to give all the glory to Jesus Christ, because it all begins with Him. To Him be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever . . . Amen.

You Were Made For a Mission

We’ve got a really important event coming up following church. Today at our Mission and Ministry fair you’ll each have a chance to discover a bit more about where you can put your God-given SHAPE to use. I want you to be able to take some time with that, to look into every possible avenue of service here at Our Saviour, so let’s get right to the point today, shall we?
Your first purpose in life is what? Worship. Your second purpose in life is Fellowship. The third? Discipleship. The fourth is Ministry, and the fifth is evangelism. Evangelism: That’s what we mean when we say that you were made for a mission. Your fifth purpose in life is to share the Good News.
Now there are two types of Christians that I know of: those who have the gift of evangelism and those who have a mortal fear of it. If you have the gift of evangelism you are among those happy few who seem to be able to naturally turn any conversation into a discussion about Jesus Christ and having a personal relationship with Him. If you are not one of those people . . . well, let’s just say it’s probably true that you’d rather have a root canal than try to evangelize. You’d rather do just about anything in order to avoid having to . . . actually . . . tell . . . some total stranger about Jesus Christ. Right?
So what’s the point? Why take the risk of actually doing evangelism, anyway? If it causes us such emotional pain, such trauma, then why do it?
Can I give you an illustration for that? Take a look around . . . is there anyone here today you love? I mean, really now . . . someone that you look at and your heart just wells up a bit thinking of what that person means to you. There’s not much you wouldn’t be willing to do for that person, is there? You’d sacrifice a lot for that person, wouldn’t you? If you lost them somehow, it wouldn’t be acceptable. Not acceptable at all.
When you think of that person, you are thinking of them in the way Jesus thinks of them. That person you love: Jesus died for them so that they could have life. For Jesus, they were not an acceptable loss. See, even if you were the only person Jesus had died for, you’d have enough reason to tell His story to everyone you meet. But it’s more than that: Jesus paid the way for the ones you love, as well, and because of that, our joy in Christ can be made complete. For Jesus, the only life that was acceptable to lose was His own. Everyone you meet, from the bank teller to the guy at the gas station . . . they’re all precious to Jesus Christ. And you are God’s tool for reaching them.
There’s this story you might have heard on occasion. God is preparing to create mankind, He’s fashioning the earth together in what’s going to become Adam. An angel sees this strange-looking creature and asks God what’s going on. And God says, “This will be the pinnacle of my creation. There is no other creature that will be more precious to me than mankind.” And the angel says, “Wow . . . that guy must really be able to do some great stuff for you, huh?” And God says, “No. As a matter of fact, he will betray me. He and his wife will plunge all of my precious children into sin from which there can never be any escape. But I have a plan: I will send my Son to live as one of them. He will live the perfect life they cannot live, and those who put their trust in Him will have eternal life through Him. I will give the Good News to my children on earth, and I will ask them to share it with those who have not heard it, so that they too can be saved.”
And the angel says, “But God . . . what if they don’t? What’s Plan B?” And God says, “There is no Plan B.”
There is no Plan B. You are God’s tool for reaching the lost. Romans 10:12-14, says this, “‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ 14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”
How can the lost hear without someone—someone just like you—telling them the Good News? The answer is that they can’t. And if they’re never told, they’ll never believe . . . and they’ll die without Christ.
You are missionaries. You are on a mission. Your mission is to tell the Good News. Well, that’s simple enough . . . who do I tell it to? Look up at the top of your interactive sermon sheet. Read that verse with me. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8
Our Lord sent the Apostles on a three-fold mission. In the same fashion you, too, have a three-part mission. But we’re not in 1st Century Palestine, so let’s break down what that three-part mission means for us today.
Now, if you were a 1st century Jew, where is the one place you could go in all the world and be assured there would be people just like you? Right—Jerusalem! There would be people who talked like you, who looked like you, who shared similar experiences and tastes and likes and dislikes. That’s who our “Jerusalem” is for us today—those people who are most like us. The first part of my three-fold mission is to deliberately share with those in my world.
That’s really the easiest part of evangelism; sharing Christ with those whom we are most comfortable with. As you look for people to share the good news with—start with the people you know! Start with the people whom you share common experiences, with the people who like the things you like and live the way you live. That’s your Jerusalem.
This is the way we typically do church here: with those who are most like us. I mean, look around, we all pretty much look like one another. But what would happen if we broke out of our mold? If we were to reach beyond our comfort zone?
Well then, we’d be fulfilling the second part of our mission. For a first-century Jew, to reach into Judea and Samaria would means we would have to courageously dare to reach those beyond our world.
This takes some initiative on our part! Christians are called to build bridges, not walls. In other words, I just don't spend all my time hanging out with people just like me. Paul put it to the church in Corinth this way in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23, “19 Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”
This is a question for you to answer: Who’s just outside your world? Who are the people that you occasionally come in contact with but have very little in common? Christ asks you to reach out to them. It may be the prisoners behind bars that need to hear the Gospel, but remember God doesn’t have a Plan B. It may be that person around town with the horrible reputation, someone that it just wouldn’t do to be seen with . . . but remember God doesn’t have a Plan B. It may be AIDS patients or young kids or single moms or people of a different color or language . . . but remember God doesn’t have a Plan B! You’re it. You’re the plan! And if you’re nervous or afraid, just ask God to let you see those people with His eyes. Once you see them as He sees them, you’ll be more than willing to cross the tracks, to reach beyond your world.
I deliberately share with those in my world. I courageously dare to reach those beyond my world, but all the while I consistently care for those in the whole world.
You have the highest impact in your world—your immediate circle of influence. That’s true. You also have the ability to reach just beyond your world and make a significant impact. But did you know you can also reach into the whole world and spread the Good News, leaving a legacy for Christ?
Repeatedly in the Bible told to reach out. Over and over again God says it in one word: "Go." I want you to go. You can't spell “God” without “go.” You can't spell “Good News” without “go.” You can't spell “gospel” without “go.” Somebody has to go!
But I once heard a wise preacher say that if you’re not called to go then you’re called to send. Not everyone is cut out to be a full-time foreign missionary . . . but there are a few whom God has equipped for the job, and it is our duty to care for the whole world by supporting the work of the Gospel in places where we could never reach. This is not the Synod’s job . . . this is not the church’s job . . . this is your job. If you’re not called to go, you’re called to send.
In Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth we have but one message to proclaim: 1 Corinthians 1:22-24 says, “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
We preach Christ crucified. We preach it because nothing else satisfies. Rick Warren tells this story about a time when he was in China. His team of pastors was invited to come and dialogue with the professors at Peking University. Every communist leader in China is educated at Pekng University. About 50,000 students.
They went and had some great dialogue and talked with a number of faculty. And after it was over, Rick took the provost, the No. 2 man over the university, out to lunch, Professor Joe. He had been a professor there for 50 years in mathematics and economics or engineering. They began to talk and during that discussion Professor Joe told how he was dying of a brain tumor. At that time, Rick Warren’s dad was also of cancer. So Rick said, “Professor Joe, my dad is dying of cancer, but he's not afraid to die because he's made his peace with God. He knows where he's going when he dies.”
And Rick began to tell him a story. He said there was a man who took his son and his son's three best friends to the carnival. He bought a roll of tickets. And at each of the carnival stops, he would stop at the ride, give his son a free ticket and three best friends a ticket. They would ride the ride and go to the next ride. He would give his son a ticket and give his three friends he had brought with him another ticket. Next ride, do the same. He said on about the fifth ride, he looked down and there was a fourth little hand sticking out for every ticket. And he looked down at this little kid and said, "Who are you?" The kid said, "I’m your son's new best friend; and he said that if I was his friend, his father would give me a free ticket.” The dad said, “You think I gave him a ticket? You bet I did. I gave him a ticket.”
Rick told Professor Joe that his Heavenly Father, God, has a ticket for him to heaven. It is a free ticket. You can't earn it. You can't buy it. You'll never deserve it. It is free. The only way you'll get it is by being a friend of His Son, Jesus Christ. And this man, this man who had been the provost of the leading institution in China for 50 years, he looked over at Pastor Warren and with tears coming down his eyes and with trembling lips, he said, “I would like one of those tickets.”
We preach Christ crucified . . . a stumbling block and foolishness to the world, but to those of us who are being saved it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because to God, there is no such thing as an acceptable loss. There is no Plan B. You were made for a mission.

You Were Shaped for Serving God

The Scriptures say in Ephesians 2:10, “10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” It says in Psalm 119:72-73 72 The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold. 73 Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.” And it says in Genesis 2:7 7 the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
To form us, to shape us . . . this is God’s fourth purpose for us. He shapes us for a ministry. You were shaped for serving God.
What’s your shape? J Now of course we each have different physical shapes, and I’m thankful for that! I’m a big fan of diversity, I’m glad we each have different shapes. If my wife had the exact same shape as I do . . . well that’d be just weird. As it is, I think she has a very pleasing shape, one that I enjoy. I’m glad God has given us different shapes.
But—at least for right now, today—when I ask you about your shape it’s not your physical shape that I’m concerned about. Today, as we talk about how God has shaped you to serve Him, we’re talking about your God-given spiritual shape. We’re talking about how God has formed you as a whole person—your mind, body, and spirit—to mold you into a one-of-a-kind individual, one that’s uniquely qualified to do the ministry that God has prepared for you to do. Your total being, from emotions to experiences, is what we are calling your SHAPE.
Now whenever God gives you an assignment to do something, He doesn’t just hand you the assignment and then say, “Go to it!” God doesn’t leave us high and dry, He gives us the ability to do what He has asked. As a matter of fact, a very Godly man once told me just that. When I was debating whether or not to enter seminary and wondering whether I could really become a pastor or not, this man told me, “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.” And I’ve found that to be true! God calls us into His service and then equips us to do the work for which He has called us.
How does God equip you? By giving you your SHAPE. SHAPE is an acrostic, and the five letters stand for the five things that God uses to give us our shape for service. They are: Spiritual gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences. Don’t worry if you didn’t get those, we’ll come back to each of them in just a minute.
Your God-given shape is what God has chosen to equip you for His service. They are gifts to you, not to use for your own gain, for your own benefit, but for the benefit of others. As a matter of fact, that’s in the memory verse for this week. Let’s read that together: 1 Peter 4:10, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others.”
Let’s get into how God has shaped us to serve others. First, God has given each believer a spiritual gift. The Apostle Paul, speaking to the church in Corinth, runs down a list of a number of different spiritual gifts, and at the end of that list he says, 1 Corinthians 12:11 “11 All these [gifts] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.” So if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have a spiritual gift! Did you know that? Do you know what yours is?
A few things are important to remember regarding spiritual gifts. One, every believer receives at least one. Some receive more. Two, not everyone is given the same gift. There is no one gift that God gives to everyone. Ephesians 4:11-12 says, “11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” Not everyone gets the same gift, which leads us to number three: no one gift is superior to all the others. They’re all important! In Kingdom matters, it doesn’t matter if your gift is serving up in front or quietly behind the scenes, what matters is that we all work together in the way God has gifted us. See, God’s gift to you is just that; your gift, and He intends for you to use it.
Which brings up another point: you need to know what your gift is to use it! That’s why, following the 40 Days of Purpose, we’re going to devote the Sunday Bible class to a study on determining our God-given SHAPE. That begins next month, 9:00 a.m., Sunday mornings. Come and discover your SHAPE. The next thing God gives us is a heart. This is pretty straightforward. God has given us each something that we get passionate about, something that, when we think about it, it just breaks our heart, or it gets us pumped up to do something, to change something, to reach out to someone. You may have a heart for kids, for the homeless, for people who’ve suffered a serious loss. You may have a heart for hunter safety, even, or something like that. I’m always on the prowl for someone who has a heart to see preachers drive really cool cars . . . but that’s the point: if you have a heart for something, it motivates you to do something about it. It’s your passion, it’s your drive. You gotta have a heart.
The third thing is our God-given abilities. These are different from, but related to, spiritual gifts. Whereas spiritual gifts are something we’re given when we are born again, abilities are those things that God gifts us with when we’re born. It’s those things that you just seem to have a natural knack for, that you could do in your sleep or falling off a log. Every one of us gets different abilities, none of us are alike. If you’ve ever taught in a classroom or had more than one kid you’ve already noticed that.
Now maybe you’ve never thought about that, but do it now. What’s your natural ability? Cooking? Talking? Cleaning? Do you have mechanical skills or a certain knack for computers? Maybe you’re an artiste or just an ordinary house painter. Whatever abilities you possess, God wants you to use them to serve others. By serving others in the way God has made you, you also serve Him.
Next item: Personality. This one’s interesting. Historically, we’ve divided up people into four basic personality types, called the sanguine, the choleric, the melancholy, and the phlegmatic. If you’ve never heard of these personality types, the basic breakdown is this: The sanguine is the happy-go-lucky type. Very outgoing and friendly. Good salesman. The Choleric is the practical one, making quick decisions. He’s the guy who’s got all the answers. Loves to start new projects. The Melancholy is the analyst—a bit reserved but thorough. Likes to think things through and come up with solutions. The Phlegmatic is the easy-going one. Nothing rattles a phlegmatic. Solid and dependable.
These are the four basic personality traits that God gives to us. Now the question is, which do you think is the best one for ministry? Right! All of them! Each of them has their place in God’s plan, and the dominant personality trait that He’s given you is the best for your ministry. Your personality is uniquely fitted for the ministry for which God has shaped you.
The last item on the list is Experiences. Not just experience, but experiences. And really, we talked a bit about this last week as we talked about how God uses the circumstances in our lives to make us more like Christ. Those circumstances we’ve lived through, the good times and the bad times we’ve been through, those are the experiences which God has used to shape our outlook, the ones He’s used to mold our hearts.
Rick Warren is careful to point out in The Purpose Driven Life that it’s the experiences we would most like to forget—the painful ones—that God uses most. The reason for this is simple: those painful experiences that you lived through in the past let you minister in a deep, deep way to someone who’s experiencing the same thing now. Through your shared pain, you have an immediate bond, and you are uniquely positioned to let them know that God is there for them, that God does hear their cries. God uses your pain to minister to them. That’s what we call “purpose.”
It’s your SHAPE that God uses to serve others. He’s molded you into a unique, one-of-a-kind SHAPE, given you talents and abilities and background and experiences and all these things for the benefit of other people. This is why you are alive. This is your purpose.
John Boehk has some words about ministry that I’d like him to share with you. Please give him your full attention.

When we serve others with our God-given SHAPE, the Biblical word we use to describe this action is “ministry.” And just like the last three purposes we’ve studied—worship, fellowship, and discipleship—this one is often misunderstood.
Here’s a good Lutheran question for you: What does this mean? What does the word “ministry” mean? I’m the guy who preaches and teaches here, I’m the guy who administers the Sacraments . . . am I the only minister here today?
To get to the answer for that question, let’s talk about what the Bible means when it says, “ministry.” We understand there are two kinds of ministry that God has established. One is pretty obvious—the guy who stands up in front of the church on Sunday wearing the funny collar and the robe is a “minister.” That’s what we call the Office of the Public Ministry. A church calls a pastor to publicly preach, teach, and administer the Sacraments, and they place him into the Public Ministry. It’s “public” because it is done on the church’s behalf—the pastor is doing the ministry of the church for the church.
But there’s another type of ministry that we need to talk about. The Scriptures say that every believer is a minister. It’s there in your outline in I Peter 2:9. Let’s read that together. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
This simply means that not every believer is a pastor, but every believer is a minister. Ministry simply means using my shape to help somebody else in the name of God. God has uniquely shaped me for my ministry of preaching, teaching, and administering the Sacraments publicly on behalf of the church. That’s my SHAPE, my purpose, my ministry. But any time you use your talents, your abilities, your background, your experiences to help somebody else, you know what that’s called? Ministering. And you know what you are? You’re a minister.
You see the difference there? You see how the two are related, but different? Which one do you think is more important? It’s neither. That’s right—neither. My ministry is no less nor more important than yours. The reason is this: The church that gathers is also the church that scatters. When you come here on Sunday morning you are gathering together as a church to receive the unique ministry for which God has shaped me. But when the end of the worship service comes, you don’t just leave. No, you do not leave, but you are you are sent out to do the unique ministry for which God has shaped you. My ministry is really for the benefit of the church, but your ministry is for the benefit of the world.

As we finish up today, there are three final things we need to talk about in order to learn how to use our SHAPE to minister to others. One, a minister is available. Your week cannot be so choked up with events, meetings, plans, and the like that you can’t stop and take the time to minister to someone who needs it. John Wesley had a motto:
Do all the good you can by all the means you can by all the ways you
can in all the places you can and at all the times you can to all the people
you can as long as you ever can.
Now that, my friends, is an available minister! You must be available! You must be willing to step out and say “OK, I’m out of my comfort zone, God. What do You want me to do?” There are hurting people all around us, and the wounded will not wait. We’ve got to help them now. If you refuse to make yourself available for the wounded, how will they ever learn what healing is like?
The second crucial item for ministers is that you must be grateful. In the English Standard Version, Psalm 100:2 reads, “2 Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!” A minister has a glad heart, a heart that is grateful for the opportunity to minister. Now what would happen if I got up here with a grumpy, pouting look one Sunday and said, “Well, I’ll preach today . . . but I’m not gonna like it.”? You’d get turned off pretty quick, wouldn’t you? In the same way, as you go out to minister, approach it with an attitude of gratitude, a heart that says you are grateful for the opportunity to minister to those whom God has placed you in contact with.
The third and final item of importance for ministers is that you must be faithful. You must be faithful. Ministry is not something you do only when you want to. It’s something you do when God brings you the opportunity. You need to discipline yourself to do it regardless of whether or not you feel like it today. You know, even if I didn’t feel like preaching today, it’s still my ministry to do it, right? And why? Because God’s people need it. People need my ministry . . . and they need yours. Don’t give up. Keep on going. Don’t quit in the middle of your assignment. Be faithful, because God doesn’t want us giving up on ministry, He wants us to keep on giving out in ministry.
These are the things ministers should be. You are a minister; we’ve already decided that. Look at someone next to you and say, “You are a minister.” Now, take those three things and think about them in your life. Are you faithful? Are you grateful? Are you even available? Can you still look at that person in the mirror and say, “You are a minister”?
Well, stop looking in the mirror for a second . . . and instead look up here. Look at the cross. Are you always faithful? No. Are you always grateful? No. Are you always available? No.
But Jesus was. Come on now . . . doesn’t that list sound just like Jesus? Yeah, of course it does. Because He knew we couldn’t get all that stuff down on our own. He knew that we’d try and try but we’d fail and fail. But that doesn’t mean He gave up. For (Colossians 2:13-14 ) when you were dead in your sins and in your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code of the Law with its regulations that stood against us and He took it away, nailing it to the cross.
Let’s admit it now: We’re not very good ministers. We’re selfish, we sin. But Christ both did and does His perfect ministry on our behalf, forgiving us for our sins when we fall short. But when Christ first does His ministry for us, He then gives us the will and the ability to go out and do our ministry for others.

You Were Created to Become Like Christ

Everybody needs a purpose. What’s more, everybody has a purpose. That’s why we’re spending 40 Days of Purpose, looking at God’s purposes for our lives. So let’s do a quick review. In the first week we asked the question, “What on Earth am I here for?” and we discovered that God does indeed have a purpose for our existence. In week two we talked about your how you were planned for God’s pleasure, about how our first purpose is to be known and loved by God and to know Him and love Him back—that’s called what? . . . right—Worship. Then last week we talked about how you were formed for God’s family. Remember what the Biblical word for that was? Right—Fellowship. In Christ we are made part of God’s family, and we learn to love one another. We learn to get along.
This week we jump into another misunderstood purpose of living life. The word for the week is discipleship, and in many ways I think it summarizes all of the five purposes. In general, to be a disciple means to be a follower, it means that we follow Christ. But there is a special way in which we want to apply the word today. In God’s 3rd purpose for our lives, discipleship means to become like Christ.
Now, notice very carefully what I just said. We are to become like Christ: we are not called to be Christ. For instance, every time I hear the letters WWJD mentioned I kind of wince. For those of you who don’t know what WWJD means, it’s an acronym for What Would Jesus Do? And it’s suppose to make us stop and think about what our actions should be. But the first thing I always think of when I hear that is: WWJD? Well . . . He’d die on the cross for the sins of the world. See, God doesn’t want me to do that—Jesus Christ already did that for me. Discipleship isn’t merely aping the actions of Jesus, it isn’t trying to be “Jesus with skin on” for other people—they’ve already got a Savior, and we’re not it! But discipleship is becoming like Christ—it is having His mindset, His worldview . . . His attitude.
That’s what our memory verse for the week teaches us. Let’s read that together: Philippians 2:5, “5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” What is the attitude of Christ? The Apostle Paul says in today’s epistle reading that although Christ was—and is—truly God, possessing all of God’s power and authority, He still chose to humble Himself, to serve others, to be subject to common, everyday laws such as gravity, hunger, and death. Though He was Himself God, Christ chose to live a life on Earth in which He, too, was entirely dependent upon the Father.
Therefore, if we are to become like Christ, we need to learn how to take on His attitude towards life, towards Himself, and towards others. How do we do that? How does God accomplish discipleship in our lives?
Well, He doesn’t just give it to us. One of the things that we understand from the Scriptures is that God always works through means, He chooses to work through channels. For instance, He chooses to work through the means of grace—the Word and Sacraments—to give to us the gifts of faith and life so that we can worship. He often chooses to work through other people—sometimes quite difficult people—to teach us to love one another in fellowship.
For learning to be like Christ, we’d expect to see God working through nice, good things. Maybe you’re thinking that God uses prayer, or good, Scriptural teaching to make us like Christ. Christ loved a good party . . . maybe God uses that to make us more like Him?
Yeah, I’m sure that God uses all those things—even the parties—in His effort to make us more like Christ. But as He shapes us into the image of His Son He chooses some unexpected tools. Today we’re going to look at three things that you may have not thought God uses, but He does.
Let’s look at this next verse, Romans 8:28. “And we know that in most things, God works for the good.” Oh . . . did I read that wrong? “28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
Now, what is His purpose? Well we read it. What did we just say? God works all things for good to make us like Jesus. And still you might say, “Oh, what does that include?” Yeah, it does include “all”. Does that include bad things? Painful things? Does it even include mistakes we make from sinning? Yes, it does. And still I hear you out there, “No . . . no . . . God couldn’t be using this to make me more like Christ. Not this.” He’s working it all out for your good, to make you more like Christ. “But what about my financial problems?” Yes, all things. “But what the death in my family?” All things. “But what about” . . . ALL things.
No matter what you may have gone through, no matter what you may be going through now, God says that in all things He works for the good of those who love Him. It doesn’t say all things are good because there’s a lot of bad in the world, but what He says is that God uses all things for His purposes, to make me like Christ. Everything. He can redeem everything and make it turn out for your good.
In one of those strange twists that life in Christ often involves, God often chooses to invert the world’s system, to turn things upside down in order to accomplish His purpose. And so, just as Christ suffered as He walked upon the Earth, so we too must learn to suffer. I’m not talking about being a martyr or anything, I’m not talking about walking around saying, “Woe is me!” I’m simply saying that Christ’s character, His voluntary dependence upon God, was formed by and through suffering. In order for us to become more like Him, God must take us through the same purifying crucible of suffering. He uses three unexpected tools to fashion us into the image of His Son, to make us more like Christ.
Now when I say that, right away I know we’re going to get a few volunteers to help other people become more like Christ. I can hear it now . . . “Oh, yeah . . . it involves suffering? I’ve got a few people that I’d like to help out with that!” But that’s not the way it works. In fact, those few people who you’re thinking about? Did they cause trouble in your life? Well, that trouble was one of the tools God uses.
God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him. Ever thought about that? Maybe not in the midst of your trouble, but on the other end of it, when it was all over . . . did you feel that you had learned to trust God more? If you approached your trouble with the right attitude, then I would say that you did.
Take this, for example: Other than the cross, what was Christ’s single greatest trouble? What was His most agonizing emotional moment? I think we could safely say that it was in the Garden of Gethsemane. On the night before He was crucified, our Lord wrestled with God’s will for Him, He struggled between His desire to escape the pain that He knew was to come and the Lord’s will to offer Him as a sacrifice for all of mankind. He pleaded with God, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me!”
You need to know that’s okay. You need to know that your troubles really do hurt, that your pain matters to God. No matter what it is you are going through, you have my permission—and what’s more, you have God’s permission—to tell Him you don’t like it, that you’d prefer He took it away. Be honest with God.
But to be more like Christ, we also need to be able to trust God in the midst of that trouble. Christ didn’t end there, He also went on to say, “But not my will . . . but Yours be done.” In other words, Christ trusted the Father with the final outcome. He trusted that God’s will was good, even if it wasn’t what He would have preferred for Himself.
God uses trouble to teach us to trust Him. It’s easy to trust God when everything is going great in your life. The real test of your faith is, how do you hang out with God when you don’t feel good? When everything is going wrong? The next time you get into some troubles and you ask, “Why is this happening?”, remember that in the midst of your troubles God is teaching you to trust Him. He’s giving you the opportunity to trust Him.
Rick Warren makes a good suggestion for getting through those times of trouble. He suggests—quite rightly I think—that during those times of trouble you keep a spiritual journal. Nothing elaborate, just a record of your dealings with God and the world. Anyone ever done this? Kept a spiritual journal? There’s been times that I’ve done things like this, and in the process I realized that I can look back over them and see how God’s hand moved through my life. One of the benefits of a journal is . . . well there lots of them, actually. But here are two. One: that you can vent on a piece of paper, get that stuff out of your system. And two: you get to see how God used those troubles to make you more like Christ, how those trials—when used as God’s tool—have made you more spiritually mature.
God uses troubles to teach us to trust Him, but He uses temptations to teach us to obey Him. Now James, the brother of Jesus, reminds us in James 1:13-15 13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.” God Himself does not tempt us, but what He does is utilize that temptation to teach us to become more like Christ.
Jesus faced temptations. Hebrews 4:14-15 says, “14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin.”
Jesus faced every kind of temptation that we face, but was still without sin. So it’s important to remember that it is not a sin to be tempted. Temptation becomes sin, however, when we linger over it, when we toy with it and stay in the midst of it. There’s a saying, “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair,” It’s not a sin to be tempted, but don’t linger in the temptation lest it gives birth to sin.
This is never something you’ll outgrow, either. Martin Luther once wrote, “Young fellows are tempted by girls, men who are thirty years old are tempted by gold, when they are forty years old they are tempted by honor and glory, and those who are sixty years old say to themselves, ‘What a pious man I have become!’” You never get to a point in your life where you become so spiritual or so old that you’re not tempted anymore.
But it’s important to remember that each time we are tempted is an opportunity for God to make us more like Christ. As we lean on Him and obey His word, He trains us to reject that temptation to turn away from Him. And when we fail? He is also right there, ready to hear our confession, to hear us say to Him, “I’ve disobeyed You” and forgive us in Christ. Whether we stand or fall, Christ is there, ready to teach us what it means to obey Him.
God uses trouble to teach us to trust, and God uses temptation to teach us to obey, and He uses trespasses to teach us to forgive.
Now, if you’re going to grow up spiritually and if you’re going to become like Jesus Christ, you’re going to have to learn this. The truth is in life you’re going to be hurt. This is not heaven. This is a fallen world. Everybody sins. You hurt other people. Other people hurt you. And whether it’s intentional or unintentional, you’re going to be hurt a lot in life. And frankly, you’re going to hurt a lot of other people.
Now let me be real clear. This is not a good thing. This is evil, it’s called sin, and God is not the author of sin or evil. God is not the cause of these things, but He does use them to teach us, and He does redeem us from them.
How does God teach us forgiveness through this? Ephesians 4:32 says, “32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” The very first place He teaches us forgiveness is from Himself. God forgives you completely—that’s 100% forgiveness, no grudges, no reminders of what we did last week or the month or year before, no constant harping—He forgives us completely in Christ. Just like everything else in our lives in Christ, forgiveness begins with God. And when we stand forgiven before Him for the enormous debt of sin that we owe Him, we get a picture of what it means to forgive others for the comparatively small debt of sin we have against them.
Now, notice something: We’ve got troubles, we’ve got temptations, and we’ve got trespasses . . . How many of those are something we bring on ourselves? At times it’s all three of them, isn’t it? That’s the fact of the matter, that because of our bad choices, because of our sin, we often bring these harsh consequences upon ourselves. That’s not Christ-like . . . He didn’t do anything to bring those types of things upon Himself. So again, it’s not the fact that we have these problems in our lives that makes us more like Christ, but how He teaches us to relate to them, to grow through them.
And in every single instance—whether self-inflicted or brought about by some other way—it is the power of Christ that propels us forward, that gives us the strength to push through, to grow, that carries us on, causing us to rely upon Him even more and so become more like Him. If you put a chameleon on the side of a tree his color will change slowly, bit by bit, until you can hardly distinguish him from the tree. It’s the same way with us—the more we lean on Christ, the less you can see of us and the more we start to look like Christ. We become invisible, with Christ showing through in our weaknesses and in our strengths. And in all things and in all ways we can then truly say that “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”