Uniquely Made to Serve God — Erlo Stegen

Jeremiah’s Calling Before Birth

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you, and I ordained you as a prophet to the nations. Then said I, Our Lord God, behold, I cannot speak, for I am a youth.

But the Lord said to me, Do not say, I am a youth, for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. And I said, I will speak to you.

And then he said, I will speak to you, and whatever I command you, you shall speak.

God’s Formation and the Call to Win Souls

Then Psalm 139, verse 4, for you have formed my inward parts, you have covered me in my mother's womb. You have covered me, or woven me. This is a marvellous thing which we find here. A few weeks back I pointed out to you and at the minister's conference I said that it has been shown statistically that if just one Christian wins one other person as a disciple of the Lord in one year, and then the next year another person, and so on, and that disciple wins one other, and it continues in 33 years the gospel will conquer the whole world.

The whole year spent on just one soul, it seems so vain, or so little. It seems like such a long time spent on one person, how will one stand before the Lord without even one soul you've won? Last Sunday I wasn't here, I was at a funeral, at the funeral of an Ngozi, or chief.

And so, it's been two or three weeks back that I said this statistic, now is there a person you have won to the Lord?

I speak this...

Receiving the Seed and Sharing the Gospel

I speak this purposely because so many people come into services and they hear and receive rich seed which they go out with but I don't know where it disappears to, whether the birds of the heavens come and devour it, where has it gone to?

The truth is, if the Lord Jesus has entered into your heart, the first thing will be that you go out to win other souls. You know before I became a Christian I had no concern for black people. But when the Lord Jesus came into my heart, the very first instinct I had was to go to our black people to let them experience what I've experienced.

And so, I went to our black people to let them experience what I've experienced. And so, I went to our black people to let them experience what I've experienced.

And so, I took my German Bible and I would read a verse and then read it in a Zulu Bible and I'd go and take that to the huts of the people living out in the hills. And I would go into these huts with the smoke which I was not used to.

I'd have to really go down as I shared the gospel of the Lord Jesus because of a passion to win them to the Lord. That was 52 years ago that I first began to do it. If you do not have a passion for souls, I say your Jesus is dead.

And when you get home, you go and tell the Lord that he is dead. The preacher said that he is dead because he has no passion for souls. We grew up with guns on farms. I remember once taking five bullets with me.

And I went and shot some birds. I came back with ten birds. With one bullet, I was able to kill two at a time. We were marksmen. It wasn't common for us to miss. And I went out with my gun and my Bible, went to some huts and I remember that first man who I won to the Lord.

I came home so brimming with joy. I said to them at home, just guess what happened today. They said, you must have shot a certain creature, a rittbuck. I said no. I said something much greater. I said there is a man whom I have led to Jesus.

And that was a greater joy than shooting. And by the way, shooting, we would go hunting, but we would never use it to shoot at people. Those are just criminals and they should not have a weapon. They are as violent as this girl who ran over her boyfriend.

Don't have your affairs. Have your affairs. Try and get what you want and you'll get even more than you want. It's far better to walk with the Lord Jesus and let him show you your marriage partner. Even your enemy, you should have a partner.

If you have a passion to bring that person to the Lord, but if there is hatred towards that person, then your Jesus is dead in you.

If you still got enemies, people you don't like, people that you don't treat as your own, let me tell you, your Jesus is dead. It's a different one to the one I serve and I don't want to have anything to do with him.

That Jesus won us was so that we would live for him and he would use us to win others. Now here in Jeremiah and in the psalm, we find this marvelous truth. The Lord says, Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you.

God’s Purpose in Human Formation

The Bible says even before he created heaven and earth, he had already seen you and had called you by his name. And he says here, I formed you, in fact, I weaved you in the womb of your mother. God has woven each one of us with a particular plan for you and for me.

He decided the exact time when you would be born. That wasn't chosen by us. No male can say that he decided that he would be a boy or a girl, that she would be born as a girl. You can't decide those things.

His highness was not made by himself, not formed by himself, but was knitted, woven by the Lord, saying at a certain time, you will be king there in Swaziland. And the Euro Choir, which is here before us, each single member of that choir was chosen and woven by God, knitted in a particular way.

Every attribute, even their height, was chosen, decided by the Lord. God formed your nose and your ears, your lips, your skin, your feet, all. And above that, your mind, your brains. Each one, to each one he gave talents.

And to one he gave this, and to one he decided this for them. Why? So that you would enter into his plan, which is unique for your life. You who try and imitate someone else, you attempt and try, a certain black man in America tried to behave and be like a white man?

Is there one that you can think of? No. Is there any black man here who doesn't know him? Even the whites know him.

Even his somewhat flattened nose, he had... He had his nose modified somewhat to sharpen it a little bit. The problem is that his modified nose keeps on troubling him, it peels off, it comes apart, and the plastic surgeons need to repair it again and again.

Now I'm not telling you a fairy tale. It is really like that. And even if I don't say his name, you know him. Don't trouble yourself. If God has made you a Swazi, or a Zulu, or an Indian, or a white, whatever, that's how God made you, with full intention.

Don't try and make yourself to be like them. You'll find a white person turning in the sun, trying to get as dark as possible, so that he looks like a tramp that's been wandering on the road, and he looks like he's really so dark, he's a colored.

Let's be thankful and satisfied for what we are, with what we are. The white wants to be brown, the brown wants to be white, and nobody seems satisfied with the way God has made him. And we dye our hair, the one with white hair makes it dark and the one with dark hair makes it blonde, etc.

And a person simply is not satisfied and content with the way God has made him. People without homes. Wanting homes. Those with homes, not wanting homes. We found in Switzerland a group of young rich people who have homes, who had left their homes and are sleeping on the roofs in a very poor area where people are homeless.

And they would inhabit homes that were dilapidated and where there were no people, and they would go into these broken down homes and they would be like spooks, and oh, how many spooks there are around.

And you'll find some men will try to get them to leave their homes. They will try and change their form and will go to a surgeon to enhance their memory glands to be like a girl, a woman. Some men even want to give birth to children.

Well, we'll see.

Because if a man has the first and the woman the second, there will be no third. That's what they want. I don't know whether God will ever allow such a thing to happen. But if it does, I hope that they suffer from birth pains like never before, like it is unknown, and that they will skrk vaka through it.

Why do we say such fairy tales, such strange things, weird things? Because people have become weird. People together. If you're not satisfied with what you are, and you do not live for the Lord who made you, you will be like a fish out of water.

And where do fish out of water go? Into the frying pan. But let me say, Woe to you if the Lord has molded you and created you for something in particular and you are not found in that.

Your future will be bad in hell.

Remember that hell was not created for humans, it was created for the devil and his angels. But if you so identify with the devil, then you'll go where you want to go. So be satisfied with what you are.

Be content with what you are. The one who is unmarried is craving to get married. But you should be satisfied with the way God has made you. And one who is married, but you'll find a married person who is praying, Lord, get rid of my spouse.

Or a woman says, oh, if only my husband would die. For she already has eyes for other men. Get out of that which is wrong. Stop with this type of thinking and enter into the plan of God for your life.

Maybe you decide on your own, I'm going to be a doctor. But it could be that you die of AIDS even at university from AIDS. You die before you finish your studies. If it's the plan of God that you should be a doctor or a professor, that's wonderful.

But if not, that will be heavy upon you. So realize who you are and what the Lord has called you to and say, Lord, thank you. There's a plan which you have made for me. If your feet are size 9 or size 12 or size 4, then be satisfied with what you've got.

Don't try and get surgery to modify you for a different size to make it bigger or smaller. Say, Lord, I'm thankful for the way you have weaved me, woven me.

I've got an English lady's foot, size 2.

I remember around about 1950, 51 or so, a lady came in to the shop there and said, I have an English lady's foot, size 2 only. If the Lord has given you size 2, then use your size 2. Don't try and imitate someone else.

Peter and Paul: Different Gifts for the Same Mission

If you're imitating other people, who's going to be you? Let me illustrate with five people. Let's take Peter in the Bible. Peter was always forward in his doing things, always the first. He was direct, bold and to the point and consequent.

Sometimes he was wrong, sometimes right. That's the way God made him to be. On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up and the others stood up with him. Why? That was his position. That was what he was. He didn't have to try and imitate John.

No, he was who he was. Release Jesus to work in you, that he would bring other souls to himself. Peter was also uneducated, but he had Jesus. But the Jerusalem Council marveled when they acknowledged that he was uneducated, yet spoke with such authority and wisdom, and they recognized he had been with Jesus.

Paul was an intellectual. He had studied under the professorship of Gamaliel, of the best professors in the world. He was gifted intellectually. Academically, he was very gifted. He was studied in the art of logic and debate, and he was able to debate with those who rejected the Scriptures.

He was able to show theologically from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ. God also used his mind, his intellect. But astonishingly, Paul, as academic and intellectual as he was, was not sent to the intellectuals, but to the humble people, the uneducated.

Peter, not a theologian. God sent him to the theologians. Do you see how God can do this? God does things that are opposite to our minds. That's how he formed and molded Peter and used him, and he won souls.

Paul, he molded and he formed and he used him in that unique way. That blind man who had been sitting, hearing that Jesus was coming by, cried out, saying, Son of David, have mercy on me. And after being healed, the Pharisees and the scribes said, Who made you to see?

They even challenged his parents and said, Who's to blame for healing his eyes? John 9 .24, you'll read that. Why he said,.

What? How? And coming to him.

The second time, they interrogated him yet again about who had healed him. And he said, What? Do you also want to be disciples of Jesus? Jesus, as you can see, I was blind, but now I can see. He was no theologian.

He wasn't a scribe.

He knew one thing, I was blind and now I see. That was his testimony. And through that, he testified and won people.

The Samaritan Woman’s Simple Testimony

A certain lady, which I knew very well, who I knew very well. And she would often say, as she was with us boys, she would say, If only I was a boy. But no, she was made to be like that. That is her calling.

If she would have been a boy, I wouldn't have been born. It's utter foolishness. If you like to be something else, be what you are. But fit for the Master's use.

You might say, I'm not a preacher, I'm not an evangelist, I'm not a minister. Well, be what you are. Like this blind man who was healed, he gave his testimony and the Lord used it mightily. The Samaritan woman left her pots of water right there.

Running to her town, she called out to the people and said, Come and see the man. See if he's not the Christ. He who has told me everything I've ever done.

That's all she knew. She had five men and one didn't even belong to her. Belonged to another woman. Ah, women can be naughty. But men are not excluded. All she could do, she ran to them. Come, he told.

Look at him, whether he isn't the Christ. He told me everything that I have done. What a marvelous weapon in God's hands. How she won people. Maybe you'll be judged by her one day. How easy it is to testify.

You just tell them what Jesus has done to you.

It should be easy for you to win someone else. You should be busy with winning souls. And that's why I emphasize this point. Should you not, you are a rotten egg. And it'll have a terrific smell one day when the egg breaks.

Matthew Leaves Wealth to Follow Christ

Now I've illustrated with a few. Because God made them and wove them so that they would be perfectly formed uniquely to fit his plan. We read also in the Bible that Jesus went to the shore of a certain sea.

At Gennesaret. And there he found a tax collector. Now I don't know whether he had gotten to the boat to cross the sea.

Maybe he was a tax collector at the sea. Where the people went over to the other side of the sea. Maybe there was a ferry. Like in the olden days, Tugela Ferry. And then when you came there, they charged you money to go across the river to the sea.

He had been with Luke. And this man was a tax collector. His being called Levi. In the gospels of Mark and Luke, he is called Levi. One of his names was Matthew. Matthew means gift of God. Some theologians speculate that perhaps he received that very name from Jesus.

Now, but that could be, as you also might have more than one name, as I have my name Erlo and Stegen. Maybe his surname was Levi. Could be that his name was Matthew. He had a wonderful name meaning gift of God.

Do you know that the tax collectors in the time of our Lord were despised people? They were hated and looked down upon. They were in government service, in the state service of Rome. And the Jews despised them.

Many of them were corrupt. If there was two rand, if there was one rand tax, they would take two and pocket one rand for themselves. As you can see, as you can see in state offices today, you don't get anything right unless you pass a bribe or something under the table.

Now, this was a Levite. That signified that he was of the tribe, the priesthood tribe.

Now you can ask the question, Matthew, what happened to you? How were you so degraded? How can you be in the service of the Roman Empire? A businessman? And you from the priestly priesthood? Levi indicates that Matthew sprang from a priestly line.

But where do we find him? With the tax collectors, the publicans.

Lost all self-respect. He had become a nothing.

Some young people are born of Christian parents, but today they've lost everything. They are nothing. They're like Matthew. Maybe you're a daughter of Christian parents, and now you're smoking, you're wearing worldly clothing, you're having love affairs, and we say to you, what happened to you, Matthew?

Maybe born of a preacher, but now you're into lies, you're deceiving others, and we have to say to you, Matthew, this is not your position, this is not your calling.

We are actually shocked that a Levite could be found in such business. And you call yourself a Levite as well, more than a Levite. You say you're a child of God, you're a Christian, and where are you to be found?

But amazingly, Jesus came. Jesus arrives. Jesus the evangelist. And he says, Matthew, follow me. Matthew simply got up and did what he was told. And he followed Jesus, leaving his business and his trade behind.

What an astonishing man. He had been a sinner. Had been one with the tax collectors. Had been a wealthy man. Some people... Some people, poor people, seem to think that being poor is a merit system for getting into heaven, and by that they automatically will find entrance into heaven.

No, poor people can be full of thieving, lies, and deceit. And you might find a rich man, as difficult as the Lord says it is to get into heaven, who is in heaven, like this Matthew who had been rich.

You might be poor financially, but when it comes to evil, you are wealthy. This man, this Matthew, who was called gift of God, was found inside paganism and not in the things of God. But amazingly... When Jesus' call came, Matthew simply stood up and left all and followed him.

He didn't say, well, let me first arrange a manager for my business. No, he left all and followed Christ. This Matthew is a hero of heroes, and no wonder that the first gospel, the first book in the New Testament is Matthew's.

This Levite, this Matthew, left all to follow Christ. We know nothing of his friends and their whereabouts. We know nothing is recorded of them. But this Matthew, he followed Jesus. Jesus called him, and leaving all, he followed Jesus.

Matthew’s Feast and the Mission to Reach Sinners

Then what did he do? What did he do? He held a great feast, which Luke records as a great feast.

Luke says a great feast. When Matthew speaks about himself, he said he just made a meal. He didn't boast about himself. He didn't boast about himself.

But Dr. Luke records that Matthew held a huge feast for everyone. It was, as they would have been, the old friends, other tax collectors, unbelieving people, so that they would get to know Jesus.

You can read the story in Luke 5, 29. He had money. He could prepare the best banquet. Most probably he wasn't just a small tax collector. And he called all his friends. He wanted them to be at the feast.

He wanted all his friends to be there as well. His best friends. He seemed to be a man of means. And he wanted them to know Jesus. The Pharisees. And the scribes. They were very upset. They said to the disciples, why does this Lord of yours, this Jesus, allow the plebs and these sinners, these publicans to be here?

Jesus answered them simply, he said, well, the healthy people don't need a doctor, only the sick need a healer.

Wherever a person is found by Christ, he sets himself to find others. It's just like a red pom-pom seed inside here. Move your head and you'll hear the pom-pom seed. It's just like a pom-pom seed. God can also use the pom-pom seed there.

If you are found by Christ, you'll set it as your goal.

To find others as well. If not, it is difficult. We were molded. We were woven, knitted by God. One was made to be a black, another made to be a white, another made to be a colored, another person made to be an Indian.

Molded, knitted by God, not by yourself. Never complain and say, oh, pity me that I'm like this. Since you were made as you are by the Lord purposefully, with his intent in mind, therefore be what you are, what the Lord made you to be, working for him, winning others.

A Final Charge to Bear Fruit

Go out and testify of the Lord Jesus. Bring those who are far off near. Maybe if the Lord keeps us before next Sunday, you will have won a person. That you can come to a service with someone. Propagate the gospel.

Do you hear you women, your wives and your husbands, young people, children, school children? How many have you won? Haven't you won anybody at school? Are you spiritually barren? What will you say to God when you meet with him?

He molded you, he knitted you, he made you to be what you are in this present generation. So shine for him, be a lamp for him. I've illustrated with five different people and you've seen for yourself how uniquely God worked in each situation it was different.

Now to Jeremiah God said, I knew you before you were born and before you were molded and knitted, I chose you.