This one's for you, T-Mark!

TO MARK ON THE EVE OF HIS 32ND BIRTHDAY

I want to revisit Francis Chan’s sermon on Jeremiah 1:4. This won't sound like my writing style, because it's not. I pretty much transcribed the PodCast, except for my thoughts in red.

"The word of the Lord came to me saying,
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."

As if it weren't enough that God determined that you would come to FBC four years ago as our worship pastor, how incredible it is to know that you were appointed to come here BEFORE YOU WERE BORN!

God had something to do on earth, a work he wanted done, and he thought in his mind, I’m going to create a person for this purpose, and that is the reason you exist on this earth.

Ephesians 2:10 says you are his masterpiece, created to do good works that God has prepared in advance. God carefully designed you and crafted you just the way he wanted you for good works. The reason you are alive is because there are works you are supposed to do on this earth. That’s why you were created!

Do you ever look in the mirror and think to yourself, “I’m so weird. No one thinks like me. No one understands me. No one gets me. No one’s been through what I’ve been through. No one else has my faults and issues.”

God says, “Yes, there IS no one like you. You’re my masterpiece, and all the things that happened in your life weren’t accidents. I made you exactly the way I wanted you because there are works to be done that no one else can do. I had you experience things—those weren’t accidents." God was shaping you to do what only you could do.

You’ve experienced different things. There are different things about your personality that make you who you are, that God designed and crafted as his masterpiece. God said, “This is what I need. Let me design someone for it. Let me put him on this earth and let him experience certain things because I need someone to do something.”

Israel needed someone to confront him on their casual worship, so he created Jeremiah to confront them. When you begin to understand that God did that for you, it gives you a reason to wake up in the morning. You go, “OK, there’s something I’m supposed to do today that no one else can do."

Do you have anything else in your kitchen that can grate cheese like a cheese grater? No, there’s nothing like it! In the same way, there’s just one of you. There are things you can do that no one else can do, and God made you for this. You can’t find someone to copy because this is the first time he’s made a Mark Edington, so you can’t copy the last one. You’re the first.

Do you wake up each morning thinking “I’m a creation of Almighty God, and there’s this thing I can do on the planet that no one else can do.” When you walk up on the stage, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead will be up there, too, because you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. And when you speak, lives will be changed because God lives inside of you.

Thank you, Pastor Mark, for doing what you were created to do! You have changed FBC as a church, and you have changed my life personally.