I Decided to Serve

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We've been in a series called Story, My Story. All of us is going to have a story to tell. Our lives is going to be a story. Craig Groeschel said, the decisions you make today determine the story you will tell tomorrow. Think about that. The decisions you make today will determine the story you will tell tomorrow. That fits in with what I just shared about being the only Bible that some people will actually read and see. Is your story worth telling? That's the first thing I want to ask you this morning. If it's not, then you can do a do-over. In golf, they call it a mulligan. God allows mulligans. Matter of fact, He encourages them. I've done many in my own life where I've had to start over, make amends, do something different and change. And so I encourage you today, as we talk a little bit about starting to serve, deciding to serve, to remember that we talked about starting to start. John talked about one thing that we need to start that will help us in the battle. Then one thing we decide to stop. One thing to stop so that you can be doing what God wants you to do. And then last week, Phil talked to us about deciding to stay. Sometimes when things get bad or when things go south and we're discouraged, we want to run. We get scared and we want to run. We get discouraged and we want to run. We get frustrated and we want to run. Most of the time, if we stay, God's got a plan and all of that. And I think it fits a little bit of what we're going to talk about today, that I decided to serve. The Scripture verse we're going to talk about today comes from the second chapter of Ephesians. It's Paul's letter to Ephesus, to the church at Ephesus. And he's letting them know that they have not been saved by their good works. Apparently there must have been some discussion about being saved by works, being good enough, and that God would come. And so Paul wrote in the second chapter, beginning with the eighth verse, he said, for we are God's masterpiece. God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this. This is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for good things we have done. So none of us can boast about it. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. He was reminding them that we're not saved by good works. But then he was telling them, but you're saved for good works. That you are his masterpiece. When you come to know Christ, in Christ, you become God's masterpiece. It's when your story is begin to be written that's worth telling, is when you come to know Christ. You are God's masterpiece. And God don't make no junk. Turn to your neighbor, look at your neighbor right now and say, God don't make no junk. You were made to tell a story. As we read this from Paul, it says, so we can do the good works he planned for us long ago. He created you long ago as that masterpiece and he was getting you ready to be his masterpiece for his purpose. As his masterpiece, you were created for God's purpose to serve. In Psalms, David wrote it this way, for you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. You see, David wrote this and he knew that God created him and he knew that he ordained all the days of his life and that David didn't have to worry about being somebody he wasn't. He just had to be the person that God created him to be. God, good works that he planned for us in advance. You see, God made you for this moment in history. His design for you. He created you and gave you everything you needed for this time right now, today. That's kind of how this is going to relate to the game of golf. In the game of golf, we have a golf bag and we have a lot of clubs in it. If you've never played golf before or very little, you probably don't realize that that the reason there's all these clubs is not because you can wrap one around a tree and then you take another one out and get frustrated and wrap it around a tree. Each one has a design. Every one of these clubs in this bag has a purpose. All the way from the biggest club, which is the driver, on down to the smallest club, the putter. They're all designed for a purpose. To be used for a reason in this golf bag. And so I'm going to kind of share today. I want you to think of the golf bag as the church. All right? And I want to think, and and Hunter didn't like this idea, but it's the one God gave me. So Hunter, take it up with him. You're a golf club. Okay? Now some of you may be the driver. Some of you may be a long iron. Some of you may be a wedge. Some of you may be a putter. Okay? But you belong in the bag...