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February 13, 2005
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The Purpose Driven Life
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"What will be contribution of my life?"
Ephesians 2: 1-10
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As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature£ and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
NIV
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Last night was the sweetheart banquet. Wasn't that a special time of just blessing one another really? We work hard pulling it all together, many here worked to make it happen. And the banquet focuses upon a couple or single individuals in the congregation to whom we give a "valentine" - a statement that we love them. This year our "sweethearts" were three wonderful women who are all seated here together. Would Helen, Trudey and Cecile stand please stand for you are all of our sweethearts?
I want you to know how much I appreciate you. You know the message today centers around the question "What will be the contribution of my life?" and when I think of you three, I am astounded at the contributions you have made to my life and to our lives. You are each significant to me and to God's kingdom in many ways. I thank God for you. (you can sit down again).
Of people I have encountered I have met few who did not want to make some sort of an impact with their lives. As people we want to make an impact. Now I know there are some wicked people who want to make a negative impact - create the worst virus, hackers and now phishers who want to break into personal computers and steel identities and steel funds. But for the most part God has wired people to want to do something to benefit others.
In my view the sweetheart banquet is built upon this desire to impact and bless. There were countless people giving time and ability to make a difference-chopping veggies, BBQing, decorating, planning behind the scenes, to create something beautiful, to encourage and bless.
The fourth purpose of the Purpose Driven Life centers upon the donation rather than the duration of our lives. It asks the question from this sermon title. It positions us around the theme of our ministry. We have looked with Rick at the center, the community, and the character of our lives, and now we focus on the contribution.
Our joy at the banquet is such a small glimmer of the similar joy and excitement God had as he planned from before the foundation of the world to orchestrate your rescue. Talk about giving valentines - we may have given one to these dear sisters here today, but God has given us an even greater on, as Paul tells of in the Ephesians passage.
First, we were in the place of needing something. Chapter 2 begins that you and I were dead, bound to our passions and driven by the pressures exerted by the world, the devil and the flesh.
Here's where God's valentine comes in the form of the word: "BUT". Now in some sentences "but" is a negative. "I love you, but…" or "When I was pulling into the parking lot, I missed the tree, but…" means there is bad news following. In the New Testament especially this little word sets up a contrast between us and God.
That's what it does here.
I was in a hopeless mess - without God and without hope in the world, but God loved me. It says because of God's great love and mercy he made us alive with Christ and raised us up in Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.
That's a lot of love. There is an old wonderful song called "The Love of God" which speaks of this great love with these words:
"The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell,
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
The chorus sings:
"Oh love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure,
The saints' and angels' song.
Now hear the third verse:
"Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Tho' stretched from sky to sky.
(by Frederick Lehman, c'17 by Nazarene Publ House, ubp ccli#877311, p. 286 HoF)
Doesn't that song declare it well?
So, God's love reached out to you and to me. God saw my mess and said: "Child, I have already made you alive! Child I have raised you up! Child I have seated you with my Son."
Thus God sent the first valentine. God threw the first sweetheart banquet with you as His guest. God decorated and threw a party in the hopes that in response to the outpouring of His grace you would simply receive.
For the passage says you are saved by grace through faith. Salvation is not of your making not by works so that no one can boast on how they saved themselves, but as God has done all to make us alive, raise us up, and seat us with Jesus, we simply believe.
We "open God's valentine".
We sit down and eat at the banquet table.
Thus seated, as the passage says, then good works will flow from our lives. The good works do not come to produce salvation, but show the effect of salvation upon our lives. We are created for good works which God prepared in advance for us to walk in. This does not mean that there is only a plan A for me and those are the works that I will and must walk in. But that God has gifted and equipped me to respond to his grace and I will respond in the Brian Shimer way, and the life I live will manifest the good works God desires.
An apple seed is planted in the ground, could it imagine that it would one day become a tree and produce apples? So, we, unable to imagine what God will bring forth from our lives, but can be confident that God will.
All we need to be is available, ready for the opportunities that God brings to us. And readiness is produced by a lived relationship with Jesus day by day. We align ourselves with Jesus and then discover what God has planned.
But the passage does not say we will produce things we will be conscious of producing.
You remember in the parable told by Jesus when the righteous and wicked come to stand before Him on that final day that he will say to the sheep on his right, "Come into my Father's Kingdom… for I was hungry… I was thirsty… I was a stranger… I was naked… I was sick… I was in prison…"
They had done all these good works to Jesus, but they respond, "When Lord., When were you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick or in prison?"
And the Lord says, "When you did it to the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:31-46).
So for us, we may not be conscious of what we have done for Jesus, but God will remember.
What we do may also be unknown to us. We may never know what good seed God planted through our lives.
This reminds me of missionary Robert Morrison in the late 1800s traveled from England to China to be a missionary there. Well once the Chinese found out he was a missionary, they kicked him out. Robert went to Macao a Portuguese colony, stayed there a little while, and then returned to China only to be deported again, so he found a job as an accountant with the East India Company there and periodically would travel to China, only to be expelled each time. Morrison worked hard all day for the East India Company, which hated missionaries, and at night he translated the Bible into Chinese. Eventually he finished translating the Bible and later died in Macao. For days after his death, there was no agreement on where to bury his body. The Chinese did not want a Christian buried in their cemetery, and the Roman Catholics were not about to have a Protestant buried in their cemetery. Finally, someone negotiated with the Roman Catholic Archbishop, who sold one cemetery plot so they cold bury Robert Morrison. He was rejected all his life and rejected in his death.
But in 1982 then president of Asbury College, Dennis Kinlaw, was in China and noted how many Chinese had copies of the Bible. He asked how they got them, and was told that a relative was a Christian, or neighbors or parents were, and they led another to Christ. And the salvation of those children and adults came from reading the Bible that Robert Morrison gave his life to translate. It remained unknown to Robert, but was known to God and not a work that was wasted but used gloriously.
Friends you are called to make a contribution with your lives. It is the donation not the duration that matters. And that contribution will flow out from your relationship with Jesus. It is not something you tack onto your life in the hopes of making God love you more, but something that flows from your life in order as you receive his valentine from you and become a valentine to someone else.
You may be unconscious of the works God does through you and they may remain unknown to you, but God will know and God will use you according to his great plan.
Indeed, just this week Dee Appel told me that when I had bumped into her at Jim's one day months ago and had been the first to hear the news that her cancer had returned, I had said, "God is not surprised," and that simple statement, which I frankly did not recall having made, had made a world of difference for her. Somehow it had birthed faith and hope and has carried her through to the beginning of treatment.
How many other cups of cold water in Jesus' name have you offered to people and not known it?
I certainly don't know, but I do know one thing, those are the works God notices.
So, receive God's valentine for you and be blessed beyond blessed as you open it and walk in the gifts God has planned to flow through your life.
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