Am I Special? Our Gifting in Christ

  

Good morning everyone!  We are closing in on the end of our series “In Christ, With Christ, and For Christ” about “Our Identity, Belonging and Purpose.”  We’ll have one more message after today.  If you remember, our last two messages were specifically about our purpose and about how we grow.
 
Fred shared that our purpose is demonstrated in the life of Jesus.  We are created for God’s pleasure, to reflect His image.  If you know incredibly talented people, you may have recognized that they just create abundantly.  I’m always interested by actors and actresses and sometimes wrestlers and other athletes that suddenly pop up as impressive singers.
 
We were listening to some Disney songs one evening this week, and Dwayne Johnson starts singing.  Dwayne Johnson is a wrestler, but he can also sing and rap for that matter.  He’s also a successful actor.  He just seems to have abundant talent and creativity.  It is like it oozes out of him.  There are many entertainers who seem to be able crossover, not in styles but into entirely different genres of talent.
 
A little closer to home, I think of Nataliya.  She’s always doing something creatively amazing.  If you asked her about it, I think she would say that it’s almost unavoidable.  She creates beautiful things whether music or tatting or artwork or I know not what because it would be nearly  impossible not to do those things.
 
I don’t want us to get caught in the comparison trap, but rather to think about God and His creativity.  If we readily know people who are so expressive in a broad palette of talent and creativity, how much greater is God’s creative capacity than any person we know?  One of the key ways that God’s creativity is expressed is through us.  We are each uniquely, fearfully, and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14) God creates us each individually out of his omni-creativity.  Omni- means all, like in omnipotent which means all-powerful or omniscient which means all-knowing.  God is also omni-creative.  He creates each of us at His choosing and for His pleasure.  It gives Him joy to create us. (Genesis 1:31) And, we glorify God when we are creative.
 
That leads right into our topic today, answering the question, “Am I special?”  I think you know the answer, and that’s okay.  But, we are a forgetful people because all people are forgetful. (Psalm 106:13, Hosea 13:6) So, let’s be reminded together of our gifting in Christ.  And, let’s pray.
 
Father God, You are omni-creative, and out of your all-creativity, You have created us.  I pray for each one here to grasp that reality.  Of all the things You could have done, You created us.  May we continue to recognize the great honor and love You have shown to each one of us.  Teach us now from Your Word, we pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
 
I have to tell you that when I looked at the title of this message, the first thing that popped to mind was … VeggieTales.  Do you remember the tag line at the end of every episode?  Bob, Larry or some combination of the two would say, “God made you special, and He loves you very much.”
 
I did a little research, and I found that VeggieTales contains at least 70 occurrences of that phrase.  I was also disappointed to find out that the line was edited out of the TV version of the series aired by NBC.  In those episodes, Bob instead says, “Thanks for coming over to my house, kids. See you next week.”
 
That’s the opposite of what Philippians 4:8 exhorts us to do.  It says there …
 
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. – Philippians 4:8
 
Broadcast television stripped away the beauty and loveliness of the truth that God made us, that He made us special, and that He loves us, very much.
 
If I hadn’t read it, I don’t think I would have ever thought of this, but the reason why the vegetables say “God made you special,” and not “God made us special,” is the originators of VeggieTales did not want to imply that vegetables can have redemptive relationships with God.  That’s kind of an aside, but I think it also reinforces the message.  People have a specialness that is unique and relational that vegetables do not have even if they are animated.
 
What we’ve been talking about up till now is the gifting of God of our lives, the fact that we are here and uniquely created.  But, God’s gifts to us do not stop there.  We can reflect on Jesus words from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7.
 
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! – Matthew 7:11 
 
The Greek word that gets translated evil has that connotation, but it can also mean full of trouble, hardships, or problems.  So even people with all our messed up thinking know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more does God know how to give good gifts to us?  Jesus says “gifts.”  So, we are here and uniquely created.  Let’s continue to examine several of these gifts.
 
Staying in the gospels, let’s consider Jesus’ exchange with the woman at the well in John 4.  After Jesus asks her for a drink from the well, and she rebuffs him asking in return how a Jew can ask a Samaritan for a drink because Jews were supposed to think of Samaritans as unclean.
 
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” – John 4:10 
 
The gift in this case is the gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.  Romans 5 gives us a deeper explanation contrasting the gift of God to the trespass or sin which separates us from God.
 
The gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!  Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.  For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! – Romans 5:15-17
 
This is our greatest gift from God, His gift of righteousness or right standing before Him.  How do we gain this gift of righteousness?  It is through Jesus Christ.  He is our source of eternal life, the living water that Jesus told the Samaritan woman about.
 
God created us to be in relationship with Him, but humankind fell into sin and separation from God.  In response to that, God created the solution to our problem and gave us the gift of salvation and restoration in our relationship to Him.
 
If God’s gifts stopped there, I’m afraid we would still be in a bit of a pickle.  Okay, so it’s a really big pickle.  How can we stay in a right relationship with God from that point of receiving the gift of salvation in Jesus?  Well, at the time of Pentecost, Peter gave a sermon to a large group of people, at least 3000.  As he concluded, it says the people were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
 
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” – Acts 2:38 
 
And so, after turning away from sin (that’s what repent means) and being identified with Christ and His death (that’s what baptism is) and receiving the forgiveness for your sins, then you also receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
 
Jesus introduces us to the gift of His Holy Spirit in several passages in John 14-16.  We are told that the Spirit is with us forever (14:16), He helps us (14:16), He is the Spirit of truth (14:17, 16:13), He is our helper, comforter and advocate (14:16, 26), He will teach us all things (14:26), He will remind us of everything Jesus said (14:26), He will testify about Jesus (15:26), He will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment (16:8), He will guide us into truth (16:13), He will tell us what is yet to come (16:13), and He will glorify Jesus (16:14).  In fact, I Corinthians 2:12 says that Spirit allows us to understand what God has freely given us.
 
Many of you have heard the Greek word for helper, comforter, and advocate.  It is parakletos.  I was looking at the word on Friday, and the bible dictionary called it a root word.  But it just looks like a compound word para- and -kletos.  Para- in the Greek has the meaning of beside.  Kletos means called or invited.  The name parakletos is in the noun form and literally means the one called beside us.  He is indeed a gift of God in Christ to be with us forever.
 
In addition to the Spirit Himself, most of us have heard about spiritual gifts.  I think this message would be incomplete if we didn’t at least touch on spiritual gifts.  I also am reminded that at the beginning of the message I said it wasn’t good to fall into the comparison trap.  But, it is clear in scripture.
 
We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. – Romans 12:6 
 
There are going to be differences among us with respect to spiritual gifts and giftings.  But at the same time, Paul also explained to the Corinthians …
 
I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.  For in him you have been enriched in every way … Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. – I Corinthians 1:4-5, 7
 
Yes, we have different gifts.  And yet, we do not lack any spiritual gift.  How does that work exactly?  Well, we’ve talked already in this series how we are part of a community, a family, a body of believers.  Through that body, gifts are distributed according to the needs of the body and the Lord’s plan for us.
 
Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed … There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them … Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. – I Corinthians 12:1, 4, 7
 
After this, we have a list of spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12.  Romans 12 also has a list.  Ephesians 4 has a list of roles or callings which some also view as spiritual gifts.
 
To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He distributes them to each one, just as He determines. – I Corinthians 12:8-11
 
All these spiritual gifts exist and others besides.  I have at least heard from people who have either performed these sorts of spiritual gifts or they have seen them performed by others.  In many cases, the miraculous powers are seen in times and places where they validate who God is (glorify God) in addition to meeting a specific need only although that also happens.  (Hebrews 2:3-4)
 
These gifts are important, but they are not the most excellent.  Paul goes on to explain in I Corinthians …
 
Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. And yet I will show you the most excellent way … If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing … Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy … So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church. – I Corinthians 12:31, 13:2, 14:1, 12 
 
We are not discouraged from desiring gifts, but it is important to keep the right view.  The gifts apart from love are nothing.  The focus is to follow the way of love.  Eagerly desire the gifts that build up the church.
 
There is one other particular spiritual gift that I wanted to draw out.  Romans 1:11 says a curious thing …
 
I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong. – Romans 1:11
 
Believers have the ability to impart spiritual blessings or gifts to others.  The giving of those gifts will strengthen others.  This is a real thing.  I’m sure we all have remembrances of how others have strengthened us through their own faith.  In the next verse, Paul expresses his desire to be mutually encouraged by the Romans.  I think this is good to keep in mind.  Yes, spiritual gifts are for glorifying God, and they also are one way we build one another up.
 
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. – I Peter 4:10 
 
Strength is for service not for status. – Romans 15:2 (The Message)
 
Abigail and Matthew are staying with us for a few days.  Friday morning, I’m running a little late to work.  Matthew happens to get up before I’m ready to leave.  To start with, Matthew is an incredibly encouraging person to talk to.  And, he’s most definitely a morning person.  As we’re talking, he tells me that he has two songs that he wants me to write down before he forgets them.  I didn’t really have time to spare on Friday morning, but you can be sure I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to transcribe Matthew’s creative works. 
 

Never Give Up

 

Never give up because thy God is always with thee, all the time.

 

Never Be Afraid

 

Never be afraid. God is with you all the time.  No, no, no, never be afraid

 
Matthew woke up Friday with those songs on his heart, special creative expressions that glorified God and encouraged me.  And even though Matthew wasn’t trying to display his gifts, we can still say, “Well done good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:21, 23)
 
As one final word of encouragement, I want to conclude with Romans 11:29.
 
God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. – Romans 11:29
 
These gifts we have talked about are real and true in each person who is a follower of Jesus.
 
1.    Our lives – body, mind, and soul uniquely created to display the image of God
2.    Gift of salvation in Jesus Christ
3.    Gift of righteousness before God
4.    Gift of the Holy Spirit who is with us forever
5.    Spiritual gifts to glorify God, to make Him known, to strengthen and encourage one another
6.    Gift of Irrevocability of God’s gifts
 
And that in itself is a gift, these gifts of God cannot and will not be revoked.  They will not be taken away.  God’s call and His purposes for our lives will not be taken away.  The word call there is the Greek word kletos that we talked about earlier.  The same word that is part of parakletos, the Holy Spirit who is called to be beside and in us forever.  You are made special by God, you are eternally special in Christ.  Let’s pray.
 
Lord Jesus, help us to live out the call that You have placed on each of our lives.  May we follow Your commands and glorify Your Name because “every good gift comes from above.” (James 1:17)  Amen.

How do I grow? Training in Christ

 

Welcome! Today we continue our series on identity, belonging, and purpose, looking at a very practical question: How do I grow?
 
Growing is an interesting thing. Even with ostensibly secular areas of life, growth is often slow, and easily missed, until a new perspective causes you to see things that you had not noticed. Now, I say “ostensibly secular” because, in reality, there is really no such thing as a secular area of life. All of life is spiritual, as, no matter what we are doing, we are doing it in God’s world, under God’s watchful eye, and God greatly desires to be involved in every part and aspect of your life. If a part of your life seems secular to you, it is maybe only because you are choosing to do that part of your life apart from God. But we are already getting off track – as I was saying, a new perspective or experience can cause you see growth that was previously hidden to you.
 
I had one of these experiences in my work as a professor at Clemson over the past two weeks, as I received a request to serve another department seeking to establish an undergraduate program.  This request made me realize that, in my role as undergraduate coordinator for my department over the past 7 or so years, I have indeed grown in understanding some key things that make a program run smoothly and run well. I had never really thought about this, as I am usually feeling like I am dealing with what some call “the tyranny of the urgent” – the next “crisis”, big or small, real or imagined, that is set before me.
 
I think Christian growth can be like this as well. In fact, it is probably unhealthy to be overly focused on your own growth. This is especially true if you are constantly comparing yourself to others. But at the same time, it is undeniable that some people seem to grow consistently and substantially in their faith over time while others either stagnate, or worse, seem to regress or even fall away.
 
Because of this, I think that “How do I grow,” is an excellent question, one worthy of even more than one message. But that is true, I believe, of all of the questions we are exploring in this series.
 
Let’s start today by briefly discussing what growth means in a Christian context. I really like what Paul says in Colossians 1. I am going to start this mid-sentence, starting with verse 10. In effect, Paul says to the Colossians, “I pray for you” (although he is more specific about his prayers than this). He says, “I pray for you”…
 
so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. – Colossians 1:10-12
 
What does it mean to live a life worthy of the Lord? I like what John MacArthur has to say about the Greek word translated as worthy:
 
"Axios (worthy) has the root meaning of balancing the scales—what is on one side of the scale should be equal in weight to what is on the other side. By extension, the word came to be applied to anything that was expected to correspond to something else. A person worthy of his pay was one whose day’s work corresponded to his day’s wages. The believer who walks in a manner worthy of the calling with which he has been called is one whose daily living corresponds to his high position as a child of God and fellow heir with Jesus Christ. His practical living matches his spiritual position." (MacArthur)
 
Note that although balancing the scales is at the root of this word, we cannot possibly even begin to balance the scales of what Jesus has done to save us. But I don’t think that can be the meaning here – Scripture has much to say about how salvation is a priceless gift that cannot be repaid, and I think it is unproductive at best to think along such lines. At worst, we can fall into a works-based gospel, which is a false gospel (by which I mean a false “good news”) and is in fact no gospel at all. But MacArthur equates axios not with paying back, but instead with responding in an appropriate manner, in a way that makes sense, that is consistent with what is true. I think this is right.
 
We are to live a life that is appropriate to the fact that God loves us and that we love God. This is a mature way of living, a way that reveals someone who has experienced real Christian growth. Paul then goes on to say that we should be pleasing God in every way. What does he mean by “bearing fruit in every good work”? I think we can tend to have a narrow meaning of “fruit” that focuses on being involved in leading people to Christ. But I don’t think that you will find that this meaning of fruit really makes sense when you look at its use in other passages in the New Testament. The best word translation and explanation of the word fruit I have ever seen was from a Christian teacher on the internet in the relatively early days of the internet, someone who went by the name Metachoi. In case you are curious what that word means, it is translated in the New Testament as “partaker,” as in we are all “partakers of Christ.” In any case, Metachoi equated “fruit” with “results”, and I still remember the study where he looked at verse after verse, and indeed, this makes sense. Note, for example, that the “fruit of the Spirit” refers to the results of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It also makes sense of the passage we are looking at today – so “bearing fruit in every good work” can be understood as “showing good results in every area of life. 
 
Paul goes on to describe growing in the knowledge of God, and then he describes one aspect of Christian maturity as experiencing the power of God so as to have endurance and patience. I find this interesting – it seems that endurance and patience are never things that we just grow to have, intrinsic to ourselves. Instead, we always have to depend on God’s power for these things. As someone who can struggle with both endurance and patience, I find this oddly comforting. But to back up to higher level view, this passage is saying that a mature believer should both be continually growing to know God and continually depending on the power of God in daily life.
 
And the final area of maturity mentioned in this passage is “joyful thanks” – the perfect combination, much like peanut butter and chocolate – joyful thanksgiving. As I and others have taught previously, joyfulness is not just happiness – and it is possible to be joyful despite mourning and grief, for example – having a hint of a smile among the tears. And not only joy but also thankfulness, gratefulness, being in a state of continually thinking of the Lord’s mercies and kindness. All in all, I find these few verses a beautiful picture of what Christian growth should lead to. There are many other passages that we could have used to explore the results of Christian growth, but I particularly love the breadth and the conciseness of this passage.
 
So now that we have a picture in our minds of what growth should lead to, how do we get there? How do we, in fact, grow?
 
My first answer to this question might be the most important. If this answer seems circular, or maybe disingenuous, trust me when I say it is not. What is the first way we grow? We grow by wanting to grow.
 
This kind of answer is not true in many areas of life. If you want to be taller, I’m sorry – wanting to grow in height won’t make you taller. If you want to be rich, again, I’m sorry – the world is filled with poor people who want to be rich.
 
Now I am certainly not saying that wanting to grow is all you need in order to grow in Christ. But I believe it is a necessary first step. And I believe that it is one that many people struggle with, although they may believe otherwise.
 
I think we would all agree that Paul wanted to grow. Listen to how Paul describes how much he wants this:
 
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. – I Corinthians 9:24-27
 
How much do you want to grow? This much?
 
I think there are a lot of people who do not really want to grow in Christ in all that this entails in the passage we just looked at. For example, there are people who want to see God help them grow in certain character qualities, but they don’t want to overcome a sin area in their life. They may rationalize the sin, saying it is not that bad, or even declare that it is not sin at all. They may find all kinds of ways to rationalize this, perhaps finding a teacher on the internet who teaches what they want to hear. The Bible talks about this in 2 Timothy 4:
 
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. – 2 Timothy 4:3
 
And there are others who have almost the opposite problem. To their credit, these people are deeply distressed about an area of sin in their lives, but they try to fix the problem in their own strength, or they block God from growing them in other areas of their life, such as in becoming a regular reader of Scripture, or in becoming someone who prays regularly, not only about this one sin area, but prays intercessional prayers for others, or they ignore God’s instructions to join up with a local group of believers. There are people who won’t admit this, but the reality is that if God would just fix their own issue, they would then drift away and live an increasingly secular life apart from God. It should be no surprise, then, that God may choose to not answer their prayers to help them overcome this one issue.
 
And then there are people who have, for a wide variety of reasons, allowed their love of God to cool. This could because they have idols in their life, things they love more than God, or they could simply have neglected seeking God for a while and allowed the constant noise of the world to fill their thoughts and their hearts.
 
How do we grow? We grow by wanting to grow. And what if we don’t have enough “want to”? We should confess this to God. Because the truth is that even our “want to” is a gift of God. We cannot maintain even our “want to” in our own strength apart from God.
 
And this leads to my second point. How do we grow? We grow by maintaining a lifestyle of self-awareness and repentance. A few of my favorite verses that speak of this:
 
Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord. – Lamentations 3:40
 
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. – I John 1:8-9
 
Repentance is not based on how loudly we cry. Repentance is not about trying to convince God that we will really change this time. Repentance is not about making promises we cannot keep.
 
Repentance is, first, about agreeing with God as to what we have done, and then, agreeing with Him that it is sin. The most common Greek word for sin is fascinating to me – each time I explore it, I feel like I learn more. The Greek word is “hamartia,” and it means literally “missing the mark.” The context of the word is archery. Picture an archer pulling the bow and aiming for the target. When he releases the arrow, it either comes up short or otherwise misses the mark. But there is a deeper context – the main point, I believe, of this word picture for sin. Picture an archery competition. Hamartia doesn’t only mean that you miss the mark; it means that you miss out on receiving the prize. You come up empty. Apart from Christ, this is a key message of the Bible: sin separates us from God because God is perfectly holy. And unless our sin is dealt with, we will forever be separated from God; that is, we will miss out on receiving the prize of eternal life. But Christ has died for our sin, and so when we put our faith in Him, our position of eternal separation from God is reversed, and we are reconciled with God. Yet we continue to sin. Does this sin return us to a point of eternal separation from God? No. As Jesus tells Peter via analogy when washing His disciple’s feet, Peter no longer needs a head-to-toe bath; but he does need his feet washed. In the same way, we need to continually restore our relationship with Christ through self-examination and confession – not for the sake of our salvation, but so that our relationship with God is fully again restored.
 
What about when we are stuck in patterns of repeated sin? These behaviors may be broken in many cases by consistently returning ourselves to prayer, self-examination, and confession. We need to understand that our repeated sin is a symptom. Why are we giving way to temptation? There can be many reasons. If you are finding no success in overcoming sin in an area, even for short periods of time, I encourage you to talk with one of the pastors. What you are experiencing is not uncommon, and many people have overcome their sin patterns through Christ. In some cases, we may recommend that you see a Christian counsellor who has more specific training in a particular sin area.
 
Perhaps the most important thing I can say is that there is certainly hope for you to overcome your sin through the power and grace of Christ. It may be a battle, and not a battle in the areas that you may expect.  
 
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” – Matthew 26:41
 
The battle is best fought before you come close to falling. Related to this, and so important, I believe, is this verse:
 
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. – Philippians 4:8
 
The battle is won if it never begins. The more you fill the moments of your thoughts with Christ, the fewer opportunities Satan will have to tempt you to sin.
 
Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. – Romans 13:14
 
Again, the way you do not think about something is to think about something else.
 
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. – I Corinthians 10:13
 
And so we grow by maintaining a lifestyle of self-awareness and repentance. It is indeed a lifestyle, and it is indeed something to maintain, once you have established it, for the rest of your life. Because as you progress through life, new temptations will come; Satan will use new ways to tempt you, your flesh will find new ways to betray you, and the world will offer new sources of temptation as well. As the previous verse of I Corinthians 10 says,
 
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! – I Corinthians 10:12
 
A third way we grow is through cultivating a multifaceted, continual prayer life. A key verse, and a surprising one, I think, in terms of its context, in that it comes immediately after discussing putting on the armor of God, is the following:
 
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. – Ephesians 6:18
 
Is prayer then a part of the armor of God? It is not clear, but I think so. At a minimum, it is every bit as important a thing for us to do as putting on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the footwear figuratively tied to the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit.
 
There are so many important details in this verse. Pray in the Spirit – this powerful idea is echoed in Romans 8:26, where we are told that although we do not know how to pray as we should, the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Does this mean we are to pray without understandable words? No, but it means that if we are abiding in Christ, filled with the Spirit, our prayers will be powerfully enhanced by the simultaneous prayer of the Holy Spirit on our behalf. This is amazing, incredible!
 
The passage also says to pray on all occasions. This means to pray before you freak out. Have you lost your keys? Pray. Has the police car behind you turned on its lights, wanting you to pull over? Pray. Have you started a test, and you don’t have a clue about the first problem? Pray. All occasions. The happy ones too. All kinds of prayers and requests.
 
But then it goes on to tell us to pray not only for us, but for all the Lord’s people, for others. I love this. I believe, in general, developing an others-centered life is an extremely powerful way to grow. Yes, we are also told to pray for ourselves, for example what Jesus Himself said in the Sermon on the Mount:
 
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. – Matthew 6:9-13
 
But even this prayer focuses quite a bit away from self, as the praying person praises the Lord, and prays for God. “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” This is such an interesting prayer – clearly the Lord does not need our help, or even God’s help, as the Lord is God. Yet we are asked by Jesus to pray for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done. Some say that this means just in our own lives, but I think it goes beyond this. Prayer in general is at least as much about aligning our hearts and wills with God as it is about asking God to do something for us. When you pray for someone over time, you automatically become closer to them. It is no surprise, then, that as you pray for God’s kingdom, for God’s will, you become closer to Him, and you grow.
 
Let’s now talk about a fourth way that we grow: we grow through reading and obeying the Bible. The Bible is God’s inspired Word. A familiar passage on this comes from 2 Timothy. In this book, Paul is instructing Timothy, in effect, on how to grow. In Chapter 3, after discussing the many trials Paul has experienced, and reminding Timothy that persecution “goes with the territory” of trying to live a godly life, says this:
 
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:14-17
 
Timothy may be our earliest example of someone who grew up in the church, in a Christian family, like many of you. In this passage Paul really talks about two benefits of reading the Scriptures: one, that it contains the information you need for becoming saved through faith in Christ, and two, that it equips you “for every good work” – that is, it helps you grow.
 
Scripture helps you grow through a variety of techniques or methods. Before I get into those methods, let me first point out that this passage describes the Scriptures as “god-breathed”. That is an interesting phrase, as the Holy Spirit, is literally the “Pneuma”, or breath, of God. That Greek word pneuma is the root of multiple medical words we use today involving the lungs; pneumonia is an example. God’s breath is repeatedly used in Scripture as an illustration of God’s will being carried out perfectly. God breathed into Adam the breath of life in Gen. 2:7; that is, God breathed on Adam, and he became alive. And in John 20:22, we are told that God breathed on the disciples as He told them “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and receive the Holy Spirit they did. 2 Peter 1:21 and 1 Cor. 2:13 reinforce the teaching that although the pages of the Bible come to us through the hands of men, fallible men, the content of that writing comes from the Holy Spirit.
 
The Bible is a miraculous gift to us. People like to joke that “life doesn’t come with an instruction manual” but they are wrong. The most important things God wants us to know are indeed written down in a love letter to us, the Bible, and it is foolish for us not to revere it, but more importantly, continually read it.
 
The Bible is deep. Even when one reads it over and over, God’s Spirit will bring out new things to you, deeper connections, greater understanding, and more ways to apply it to your daily life. As for commentaries, I only recommend reading them when you are stuck on the meaning of a particular verse or verses; but even then, I would remind you that commentaries are not inspired by God in the way that the 66 books of the Bible are. You will find contradicting opinions in commentaries, but the message of the Bible is astoundingly consistent despite being written by many different people in many cultures from many different walks of life over many centuries.
 
The Bible is useful for “teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training.” Teaching: Learning about God, both who He is and what He has done, learning about humanity, who we are and what we have done, and learning how God expects those who follow Him to live. Rebuking: This goes beyond teaching “about” and means that God speaks to us through His Word. As we read about something about how to live, the Holy Spirit nudges us and says, “Hey, buddy, this applies to you, too.” And our response should be “metanoia”, a change of heart followed by confession and a change of behavior. Correcting: The Greek word is “epanorthosis,” which literally means a straightening up again. The Bible not only tells us what to do, but it tells us how to do it. I have been struggling for years with the fruits of poor posture, including pain in my neck. It obviously isn’t enough for me to just know that I shouldn’t have bad posture. I also need to know how to practice good posture, and in addition, I need to know how to reverse the negative effects of bad posture to the degree that is possible. The Bible is like this; it helps us with practical steps, both as instruction and through examples, of how to correct ungodly living and how to live in accordance with God’s will. And training: Indeed, I see this aspect of growing as a believer so important that it is the subtitle of today’s message.
 
To use an analogy from another sphere of life: How do you grow muscle? By training. By using them. It is interesting to me that training involves more than just the use of a muscle, though. You likely have long-neglected muscles in your body. It is not enough to just use them to make them grow; you have to first carefully isolate their use, and, in effect, train them (or train your mind-body connection) in how to use them. In physical therapy, there were multiple times where I simply couldn’t do a new exercise at first at all because my muscles didn’t have a clue what to do. Growing as a believer through training is like this. The Greek word translated here as “training” is also used to describe training little children. Spiritually, we all start off as babes in Christ, and in many ways we are as clueless to proper living as both toddlers and unused muscles. The Bible provides instruction for all levels, from advanced to absolute beginner.
 
And note that these latter terms all imply not just head knowledge – far from it! They are all about doing what we learn. The well-known passage from James 1 comes to mind:
 
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. – James 1:22-25
 
There are two additional important ways we can grow. I will not expound much upon these, because one of these we have looked at previously, and the other we will look at later in this series. But it is good to include them here because I think they are both incredibly important.
 
So Number 5 is this: We grow by being a part of a community of people who love and live for God. Proverbs 27:17 says,
 
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. – Proverbs 27:17
 
People in community can do those same things we said of the Bible from the 2 Timothy verses: They can teach us, rebuke us, correct us, and train us. And equally important, we can do the same for them. Beyond this, God is love, and it is critical for us to likewise grow in love. Being a part of a community of fellow believers teaches us perhaps more than any other thing how to love and how to receive love. One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture is Romans 12:15, which says,
 
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. – Romans 12:15
 
It is impossible to do this, and indeed, it is impossible to carry out many instructions of Scripture, if you are not in community with other believers. But we have said a lot more about being in community in our message on this topic a few weeks ago. I encourage you to go back to that message if you missed it.
 
My final suggestion for how to grow as a Christian is this: We grow by sharing the gospel with unbelievers. We will talk more about this in the larger context of discipleship in two weeks. Tom Short, a pastor in one of our sister churches, has joked (but is actually serious) that when people come to him with issues seeking counseling-type advice, his first impulse is always to tell them to go share the gospel with someone. Having marriage problems? Go share the gospel together. Struggling with sin? Go share the gospel. I can tell you in seriousness that this actually works. Often our struggles are related to pride and to selfishness, and that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you knock on the door of a stranger makes you quickly realize how needy you are of God in your life, knocking pride down a few pegs. And likewise, talking to people who are truly lost in the deepest sense of the word, people who have never had any relationship with God, makes you realize that your problems or conflicts are not nearly as important as you thought they were. As you reach out to others in this way, your heart bursts, and your selfishness is likewise knocked down.
 
Sharing the gospel also helps us grow because it gives us a different perspective on what we know. Nothing solidifies a belief like explaining it to someone else. And of course, we should share the gospel because God instructs us to do so:
 
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. – I Peter 3:15b
 
And I hope that this message has helped to boost your hope. God has abundantly given us all that we need to grow as believers. Let us use all that God has given, and may we grow abundantly, together, in Him.
 

What is my purpose? Our Part in the Story of Christ

Good morning saints,
 
Let’s Pray and ask God to help us apply this message today.
 
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor – Isaiah 61:1-2a
 
Jesus read this passage from Isaiah after He had been tempted in the wilderness by Satan as recorded in Luke 4:13-20 it says that He returned to Galilee in the Power of the Spirit, and He went into the synagogue and as was His Custom He stood up to read. And they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and He found the place that this passage was written then He read it. Then He sat down and said today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
 
Now I referenced Isaiah verse 1 and the first part of verse 2 here because that was what Luke recorded. But there is more to verse 2 and the thought continues into verse 3.
 
to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. – Isaiah 61:2-3
 
So why did Jesus not read the rest of verse 2 and all of verse 3? Apparently, even though the rest of verse 2 and all of verse 3 applied to Him, His purpose and His ministry, on this day He wanted to reveal only four of the purposes that He was anointed and sent.
 
1.   To preach good news to the poor.
2.   To bind up the brokenhearted. The third was
3.   To proclaim freedom for the captives
4.   To proclaim release from darkness for the prisoners.
 
Now Jesus had many more purposes for His being anointed and sent. These are revealed in other places in the book of Isaiah and also in the rest of the books of the Bible. But on that day Jesus chose only to reveal these four.
 
In Rick Warren’s book titled “The purpose Driven Life” subtitled “What On Earth Am I Here For?” Warren suggests that we have five purposes for being here on this earth.
 
Purpose # 1 You were planned for God’s Pleasure.
 
Warren sites Isaiah 61:3 that says in the Living Bible “For God has planted them like strong and graceful oaks for His own glory” (LB) (Note: This is from the same section in Isaiah that Jesus chose to read).
 
Purpose # 2 You were formed For God’s Family. Warren sites John 15;5 that says in the Contemporary English Version of the Bible “I am the vine and you are the branches” John 15;5 (CEV) and Romans 12:5 that says in the God’s Word Translation of the Bible “Christ makes us one body connect to each other” Romans 12:5 (GWT)
 
Purpose #3 You were created to become like Christ. Warren sites Colossians 2:7 that says in the Living Bible “Let your roots grow down into Christ and draw up nourishment from him. See that you go on growing in the Lord, and become strong and vigorous in the truth.” Colossians 2:7 (LB)
 
Purpose #4 You were shaped for serving God. Warren sites 1 Corinthians 3:5 and 6 that says in the Today’s English Version of the Bible “We are simply God’s servants…Each of us does the work which the Lord gave Him to do; I planted the seed, Apollos watered the plant, but it was God who made the plant grow.” 1 Corinthians 3:5 and 6 (TEV)
 
Purpose #5 You were made for a mission. Warren sites Proverbs 11:30  That says in the New International Version “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who is wise wins souls.” Proverbs 11:30 (NIV)
 
Now God has made everything and everyone for a purpose.
 
According to A. W. Tozer in the book “The Purpose of Man” “If you major on knowing God and cultivate a sense of His presence in your daily life, and do what Brother Lawrence advises, ‘Practice the presence of God‘ daily and seek to know the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures, you will go a long way in serving your generation for God. Now Warren’s Purpose #5 correlates directly with Tozer’s view on this (i.e., serving your generation and winning souls) Tozer also said “No man has any right to die until he has served his generation.” Correct doctrine was not enough for Tozer. He also said that “You can be straight as a gun barrel theologically and empty as one spiritually.”
 
Now God made man in his own image and blew in Him the breath of life to live in His presence and worship Him. God sent man out into the world to increase, multiply and fill the earth with men and women who would worship Him.
 
According to A. W. Tozer our #1 purpose. i.e., is to reflect God’s image.
 
Throughout the Bible the prophets and apostles all testify that God made us for a purpose and, according to them, that purpose is to sing His praises before the hushed audience of all creation. According to Tozer’s Purpose of Man, ultimately man is to enter God’s presence and unashamedly worship God, looking upon His face while the ages roll. That is why man was created, that is man’s chief end. …God gave you a harp and placed it in your own heart. God made you in order that you might stand up and charm the rest of the universe as you sing praises to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why you are made in His image.
 
When a baby is born, the father and mother look intensely at him or her to see if the baby looks like the father or mother. Everything we create is a reflection of our personality. In the world of art, a Monet is easily distinguished from a Rembrandt. Each painting reflects the personality of the artist.
 
God made man to be like Him so that man could give more pleasure to God than all the other creatures. This correlates with Rick Warren’s Purpose #1 You were planned for God’s pleasure. Only in man, as created by God can God admire Himself. Man is the mirror image in which God looks to see Himself. Man is the reflection of the glory of God, which was one of the purposes and intention of God originally. Man’s supreme function/(Purpose) through all eternity is to reflect God’s highest glory, and that God might look into the mirror called man and see His own glory shining there. Through man, God could reflect His glory to all creation. This is even more evident at the moment of our salvation when He gave us the Holy Spirit as a permanent guarantee of eternal life. According to His WORD, He and the Son and the Holy Spirit are One and will live inside of us for all eternity.
 
So, you are a mirror of the Almighty and, this is the reason you were created in the first place. This is your purpose. You were not created so that you might only take something from here and put it there (i.e., only to do work).
 
According to Tozer a second purpose of God in making man was to have somebody capable to properly and sufficiently worship Him and satisfy His own heart.
 
All the prophets and the apostles teach that man fell from his first estate and destroyed the glory of God reflected image in man, and the mirror was broken. God could no longer look at sinful man and see His glory reflected. Man failed to fulfill his created/planned purposes of reflecting God’s glory and worshiping his creator.
 
It is terrible what people will worship if they lose God. They were created to worship God but since in there fallen minds, they believe there is no God or they refuse to worship Him as God then they substitute something else to worship. Be it money, fame, music, cars, pleasure etc. or even self.
 
God made man to reflect His glory, but unfortunately, fallen unforgiven man cannot. The flowers still shine as beautiful as God meant them to be. The sun still shines yonder with spacious firmament on high. Evening shadows fall and the moon takes up the wonders and tells us that the hand that made us is divine. Bees still gather their honey from flower to flower, and birds still sing a thousand songs, and the seraphim still chant “holly, holy, holy” before the throne of God. Yet fallen man sulks in his cave. Due to the fall man who was made more like God than any creature, has become less like God than any creature. Man made to be a mirror to reflect the deity, now reflects only his own sinfulness.
 
Change the figure or metaphor now from a mirror to a harp. God has put in man a harp bigger than anything else and He meant that harp to be tuned to Himself. However, when man sinned and fell in this tragic terrible thing that we call the “Fall of Man”, man threw the harp down into the mud and the strings were broken.
 
The mightiest disaster ever known in the world was the soul of man, more like God than anything, and more fitted to God’s sweet music than all other creatures, with the light gone from his mind and love gone from his heart, stumbling through the dark world man endeavors to find himself a grave. From God’s point of view, man needed redemption. What is the purpose of redemption? Redemption is to restore us back to God again; to restring the harp, to purge it, cleanse it and refurbish it by the grace of God and by the blood of the lamb.
 
A friend of mine Bill Hollis told me recently that I should watch the movie “Hacksaw Ridge”. This movie is based on a true story of a man named Desmond Doss that put his trust in God and fulfilled one of his purposes. Bill only had a 4K DVD of the movie, but I didn’t think it was worth me going out and buying a television set with 4K picture quality capability just to watch it. But while I was at the library with Christine the other day, I found that the library had a standard DVD version of the movie available for checkout. So, I checked it out of the library and watched it. Now let me say to all of you up front that, this is not a mommy movie or a children’s movie and if you have a weak stomach, you should definitely avoid watching it altogether because it has some scenes that are very gory. Much the same way the movie The Passion of the Christ has scenes that are gory when the scenes depict Jesus being beaten and crucified. Thus, both movies earn the R movie rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating system.
 
As I said this movie was based on a true story. The following are some excerpts of the true story from a book that I own titled Medal of Honor Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty:
 
In April of 1942 Desmond Doss was drafted into the army. Because of a vow that he had made to God he chose not to bear arms, so he joined the Army’s Medical Corps. He served as a medic with the 77^th Division on the islands of Guam and Leyte in the Philippians in 1944. On April 29^th 1945 on the island of Okinawa his battalion was assaulting a jagged cliff rising up four hundred feet whose summit was commanded by a well-entrenched Japanese force. The battle lasted for nearly three weeks. At one point Desmond treated four men who had been cut down while they were assaulting a strongly defended cave. Only a few yards away from the Japanese guns, he dressed their wounds and made four trips to drag them to safety. On May 5^th he was the only medic available as the ongoing assault met heavy resistance. They seemed on the verge of finally taking the position when the enemy concentrated massive artillery, mortar and machine gun fire on them, driving most of them back down the face of the four-hundred-foot cliff and leaving dozens of casualties behind. Desmond alone stayed with the fallen soldiers. Under constant fire, he tended the wounded, dragged them to the edge of the cliff and lowered them down in a rope sling. Each time he got one of them to safety, he prayed “Dear God let me get one more man. By nightfall he had rescued seventy-five wounded GIs. Several days later he was seriously wounded in the leg by a grenade. He treated himself and then waited five hours to be rescued. As he was being carried back to the aid station on a stretcher the enemy counter attacked. Along the way Desmond insisted on giving his stretcher to a badly wounded GI. Another soldier who was slightly wounded came along and suggested that the two of them try to reach the aid station together. As they were making their way a sniper’s bullet struck Desmond in the arm, entering at his wrist and traveling to his upper arm. Desmond improvised a splint out of a rifle stock, and he and the other wounded man eventually made it to the aid station. In the meantime, the stretcher bearers had returned for him. When they couldn’t find him, they assumed he was dead. The news of his death made the front page of the hometown newspaper in Lynchburg, Virginia. Desmond now at a field hospital had a nurse help him write a letter to his mother to let her know that the reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated.
 
So why did I say earlier that Desmond fulfilled one of his purposes? I am going through a series on the book of Acts of the Apostles both at the Dominion Dependent Senior Care Facility and at the Everlan Independent Senior Care Facility. In the book of Acts each time a miracle is performed more people turn to the Lord. They don’t turn to worship the person performing the miracle, but they turn to worship God. They see that God has worked through these men to glorify Himself and His Son Jesus. They became believers through seeing or hearing of the miracles that God did through Jesus. And Jesus reflected the image of God’s glory. Hebrew 1:3 says:
 
“And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” – Hebrew 1:3 NASB
 
Paul says the following in Romans 12:1:
 
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. – Romans 12:1 NASB
 
So, our spiritual service is living our lives for God and our lives should point to God and not us.
 
Now I know the director Mell Gibson took cinematic liberties in some of the scenes of this movie. However, it was interesting that in the movie the General was asking the company commander by radio why he had been delaying the resumption of the assault that he had ordered. The general was upset because the commencement of that resumption of the assault was ten minutes late. The battlefield commander replied to the General by radio that they were waiting for private Doss to finish praying. The battlefield commander and all of his men knew that they were going to face an untold number of casualties again when they resumed the assault. But they also had witnessed the fact that God had worked a miracle through this young medic to save 75 wounded men’s lives by himself and they wanted what he had (i.e., the protection of God). God had revealed Himself through this young man’s actions and prayers. The other men that were preparing to renew the assault became believers through that revelation. It was God not Desmond Doss that was glorified through these miracles.  Although Desmond ended up being honored by receiving the Medal of Honor for Valor above and beyond the call of duty his actions glorified God above all. Desmond attributed the strength and outcome of those actions to answers from God to his repeated prayer of “Dear God let me get one more man”.
 
Now, Warren’s purpose # 5 says You were made for a mission. and Proverbs 11:30 says “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who is wise wins souls.”
 
Now God has many different purposes for each of us here on this earth. Warren listed five, Tozer listed two. The first was our supreme purpose i.e., to be a mirror to reflect God’s glory and the second was to worship God. I believe both Warren and Tozer are correct in these purposes, and I believe that God has many more purposes for each of us to fulfill in our lifetime.
 
However, I believe Warren’s purposes number 1 add 5 and the two that Tozer listed are the most important and are related to each other.
 
Remember Tozer also said, “No man has any right to die until he has served his generation.” Now there is no greater service to this generation than to tell them the truth of the Gospel. The good news that Jesus the Son of God died on the cross in order that their sins could be forgiven.
 
I believe that when we have fulfilled completely all the purposes that God has for us here on this earth, we not only have a right to die but we will also have the privilege of dying and standing unashamed in the physical presence of God worshipping Him and His Son for all eternity and reflecting His image. Once we have fulfilled all of God’s purposes for us there will no longer be any need for us to stay in this fallen world any longer and God will take us home. But only God knows when all of the purposes in this world have been fulfilled. Desmond Doss lived another 60 years after he saved those 75 GIs and died on March 23, 2006, at the age of 87. Apparently, God had many other purposes for Desmond to fulfill between the time that he help save the lives of all those wounded GIs on Hacksaw Ridge and the time that he died.
 
Now what about you? What are some of the purposes that you have already fulfilled in your lifetime for God in reaching your generation with the Gospel? Though they may be many, do you still have the attitude to pray like Desmond? Are you still asking God to let you give one more man or one more woman or one more child the truth of the Gospel that they too may be saved?
 
Remember that Jesus said in John 15:8:
 
“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” – John 15:8 NASB
 
When we as Jesus’ disciples win souls, we are wise, and we bear much fruit, and we reflect as in a mirror the Father’s glory.
 
So, Tozer’s two purposes and Warren’s purposes 1 and # 5 are related and as Jesus’ disciples they should be our purposes.
 
Actually the 4 purposes that Jesus said He fulfilled in the peoples hearing in Isaiah 61:1-2a He wants us to fulfill also in our lifetime as His disciples. Thus, we shall glorify His Father as He did.
 
Again those 4 purposes are:
 
1.         To preach good news to the poor.
2.         To bind up the brokenhearted.  
3.         To proclaim freedom for the captives.
4.         To proclaim release from darkness for the prisoners.
 
Let’s pray.