Your Purpose

One time in graduate school, they didn't have lectures like we sometimes have in regular classes, but in each of these classes, seminars, they called them, each person had an assignment to do. You would have a subject that you were supposed to present, and then you would come with a paper and you'd read the paper, and then the professor would lead the discussion on the subject. My assignment was made, and I'd worked hard on the paper and gotten it all printed, everybody had a copy of it in the room, and so I sat down and went over it to begin the class, which was to sort of launch the conversation that the professor would lead. When I finished with the paper, he didn't make any reference to it at all. He started discussion about the same subject, but in a whole different way than I'd presented it in the paper. It was pretty clear to me, pretty fast, that I'd missed the whole point of what he wanted to discuss, so that my day, to be in front of the class, was really a waste. It would have helped, you know, if I'd have sat down with the professor and said, well, you gave me this subject, how do you want me to present this, or what ideas do you want me to bring up? But I didn't think of his purpose. I simply sat down and did what I thought would be the best thing, to my embarrassment. The Bible makes it clear that all the people in the world have a purpose. God creates us with some purpose in this world, and many of us live our lives without ever considering or asking God what our purpose on this earth is. So we wrap our lives around family, recreational activities, jobs, and live our lives completely outside the purpose that God has for us. The story that I want to read talks about Jesus coming to grips with the purpose he has for his own life. And in this story about Jesus, we find a powerful tool by which we understand for ourselves how we discover and fulfill the purpose that God has for us. I want to read a passage of scripture from Matthew chapter 26. I want to begin reading it, verse 36, and read through 38, then skip to 47. In this story, Jesus has come to one of the most difficult, painful, and crucial days of his whole life. It's not an easy thing for him, it's one of the most difficult things that he faced. We think of Jesus as not having any worries, being perfectly calm and collected at all times, but he wasn't in this one. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. And he said to them, sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here. Keep watch with me. Then to verse 47, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs sent from the chief priest and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them, the one I kiss is the man, arrest him. Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, greetings, rabbi, and kissed him. Jesus replied, friend, do what you can for. Then the man stepped forward, seized Jesus, and arrested him. With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out, and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. Put your sword back in its place, Jesus said to him, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scripture be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way? We don't know very much about Jesus' life before he started his ministry. It's sort of hidden from us. There are just a couple of glimpses that the Bible gives us as to Jesus' nature and his lifestyle before he started his ministry. One of them was Jesus went to Jerusalem with his family, and there they celebrated the Passover festival and season, and when they got ready to go, they assumed Jesus was with the family around them, and they were a couple of days out of town before they realized Jesus wasn't with them. They went back, and they found Jesus, not playing with kids who were there, but he was in the temple with the scholars, Bible scholars, discussing the Bible and listening to what they had to say. His parents were, of course, upset, as any of us would be, and they said to him, why did you do this to us? And he said, didn't you understand that I needed to be about my father's business? In this short phrase, we see something very powerful in Jesus' life. We don't know what age he was, maybe around twelve. Jesus identifies at this stage of his life that he has recognized something very important about life. No one is living in this world, no one is living in this world who does not have someone to whom they'll be accountable. Jesus recognized at this early stage in his life that he was accountable to God. My father, that's the most powerful name that Jesus could possibly use to describe the authority of the father. This person had absolute authority over the lives of the family. Jesus uses this to acknowledge that he recognizes that the father has all power and all authority. And in recognizing that that's true, he's acknowledging the place of the father in his life. And then he says the second thing. Didn't you know that I need to be about my father's business? He gives another focus on saying, I understand that I'm here because there is something the father is doing in the world, and I have some obligation and responsibility to take up my part in that. This is the beginning of the life of discipleship for a person. To acknowledge the supreme authority of God and then to pledge yourself to live in obedience so that you're doing the work that God has placed you on earth to find. Now the beginning of finding a person's purpose in life is right here. No one finds their purpose in life until they come to the recognition that God is in charge of everything that there is. The acknowledgment of his supreme authority over all the world and the universe and the acknowledgment of our dependence on him is critical. That's what it means to start this life with God. And that's where Jesus started. Now not everyone's like Jesus. They recognize at an early place in their life that God has supreme authority. You heard Paul talking about the fact that he started off in a religious life and he was a very religious man but he wasn't really following Jesus. He wasn't really following the father's purpose. Instead he was off doing something that was religious but not really the purpose God had for him. In that one moment he came to see when Jesus spoke to him and said, why are you persecuting me? Why are you against me? In that one moment he came to recognize that it was not the Jewish faith or the temple but it was God who was the supreme authority for his life and that God spoke to him through Jesus so he had to listen to Jesus. It changed all of his life. That's what happens to a person that comes to that place. Some people are different than that. Matthew, for example, grew up in a Jewish home and a godly home but he went off and joined the Roman Empire and became enemies of the Jewish people. But until that day when he was sitting at his table and Jesus said, I want you to come and follow me, that he recognized the voice of authority in his life. What God does for us is he confronts us with himself to say, I am the Lord, the ruler of heaven and earth. When you acknowledge that, you acknowledge the authority of God, it is the beginning of discovering your purpose for only God knows the purpose for your life. And only God knows how to guide you from where you are to fulfill that purpose. And whenever you don't have it, when you don't know who's in charge of your life, what you do is you end up doing one day what feels right, the next day what looks good, the next day what seems right, and your life just goes in circles from one place to another to another to another without ever accomplishing anything. The beginning of finding your purpose is to acknowledge my purpose is found in submission and surrender to Jesus Christ who's the Lord of my life. Now Jesus, the rest of his life is not very clear to us because it's sort of empty. We do have one other story about Jesus as a young man. Luke tells us that Jesus grew in stature and in favor with God and the people around him. Now there's three things in this story, these simple phrases that are important to us. One is Jesus was like a human being, all other human beings, he grew physically, he was small as a baby when he started, he couldn't speak as a baby when he was young and he didn't know how to do things as an adult. He was a human. It's important to understand this. And so Jesus' knowledge of life and how to live grew as it does in all human beings. And even though he may have acknowledged the authority of Christ as a young boy, it was up to him to allow God to develop in his life all those things that would make him the great person he was. We don't know what happened between 12 and 30 when Jesus started his ministry. We know by his ministry some things. One is that he learned how to talk to the Father and get direction and advice because every big decision he made, he went and talked to the Father a lot. We know also that he knew the Scripture because many times when he got in tight situations, he was able to draw on the Scriptures, the words of God, to get him out of those circumstances. We know by the result of Jesus' life that those years between 12 and 30 were spent knowing, getting to know God in a personal and powerful way. And next, learning the Scriptures. What has God said to people in the past? What great truths are found there so that he gleaned from all of this the knowledge and wisdom of the past and he gathered together the presence of God so that he'd know how to come to him? Now when we come to this story in Jesus' life, all these things are wrapped up in this story. Jesus is facing the toughest day in his life. What does he do? He goes out to a place where he can be alone with the Father. The Father has all authority for me in life and in death. And in this moment of my greatest need and his fears, Jesus was afraid. In his fears, he called on the Father. He had learned in his life the supreme authority of the Father. He was the one that could be trusted so in his darkest hour, he didn't go talk to his friends, he didn't go read a book, he didn't take a survey of what he should do. He went and knelt and laid himself flat before the Father, seeking the direction of the one person he knew he could rely on at all times. We don't know what the Father said to him. There are a couple of things in this story that lead me to think that we do have some idea. For when Jesus starts talking about what he's going to do with his disciples in this story, he quotes the Scripture, he talks about the Scripture. I can't fight against the people who come to take me, he said, because the Scripture then would not be fulfilled. Jesus had been thinking about the Scriptures and about his situation. I think he went and knelt down to the Father and began to talk about all this. I think the Father reminded him about the prophecies in Genesis about the coming of the Messiah. I think he reminded him about the prophecies in Isaiah about how the Messiah would have to suffer. No one would like him, he'd be turned away, he'd be killed. And Jesus began to see that in this issue there was something bigger than him and his own fears. It was the whole story of the kingdom of God was at stake here. And promises had been made from the very beginning that the day would come when God would send a Messiah into this world. And he knew he was the Messiah, so he knew that this had to be done. And suddenly it became clear to him from the Scriptures that he was standing in a place that God had planned for for years and he had to take that step. I think we can see here that Jesus learned in his prayer time with the Father. The Scriptures came back to his mind as the Father and Spirit directed him to think. And I think in those moments of fear that the Father did what he always does to the people who belong to him, he reminded them of who he was. Son, I know it's scary for you, I know it is. I want to remind you though of what's happened. Remember when your people were in Egypt and it was hopeless, they had no way to ever get away, I stepped in. Remember when they were gathered at the Dead Sea or the Red Sea and I parted the water and they walked across dry? You remember what happened to their enemies? They were all swallowed in the water. I have power that you don't even imagine. Whatever is going to happen to you, my power is with you. You worry about what you're going to say? Remember the story of Moses? When I asked him to go and talk to Pharaoh, he said, I don't know how to talk. I gave him the words. He said the right things. He knew when to speak and when to quit and I'll do the same thing with you. When you're on trial and standing in front of those people, I will put the words in your mouth or I will tell you not to speak, you will know exactly what to do. I know that this is going to be painful and difficult, but I just want to say to you that every man who's ever served me and has given his life for me, I have given them the grace to be faithful even in the pain of death. Trust me, son. So Jesus comes out of that time of prayer to stand with his disciples and when they come to get him, one of them decides he needs to fight to protect him. Jesus then says to him something very strange. In his prayer time before, Jesus had said to the father, if there's any way possible that this cup can be taken from me, would you please let it happen? In that prayer, it sounds like Jesus is saying, I am inevitably placed in this situation, so I have to die on a cross. Is there any way out of this? Now, whenever Jesus responds the second time, the second story, he says to the man who gets the sword, put the sword back. Do you not think that if I would ask the father, he would give me 72,000 soldiers to protect me, if I just ask him? Before Jesus was like saying, please, stand between me and this terrible thing. Now he's saying, no one has to stand between me and this terrible thing. For the father has said, it's my choice. I can ask for 72,000 soldiers and escape, or I can say, do with me whatever you choose. For the father has given me the choice. Why would a man make that choice, except he looked in the face of that fear, and he heard from the person who he trusted, trust me. I will give you strength. I will give you power. You can go through anything that you face by my strength and my power. And now, once when he'd said, please take it away, he said, let it come. Inside of me, I know that the father is going to take care of me. What a transformation from fear and uncertainty and discouragement and turmoil to perfect peace and comfort. I could ask anything I wanted. I don't need you with your peony sword. But the father has made it clear to me that the scripture must be fulfilled in this way. There's a song that we sing sometimes that talks about on the cross, Jesus thought of us or thought of me. I think you see from this story that that's really not exactly what happened. What happened to Jesus was he was thinking about this great stream of history where the father had said, I'm going to bring a Messiah. And when he stepped into that place, all he could think of was, I am here for the purpose that the father has planned for me. His eye was not on people around him and human needs. I'll tell you something about life. If you help people because they need you, you'll be run ragged and nobody will end up appreciating it. But if you do what the father tells you to do, regardless of what people think, you will find your purpose in life. Jesus was determined to be obedient to what the father had planned for him. What Jesus does in this second story was say, I have come to see what my purpose is here in the world. God has sent me here for this very thing and I cannot do anything but be obedient to him. What Jesus shows us is that there's a simple way by which we discover our purpose. We come to acknowledge the supreme authority of God over everything that there is. Whenever you start there, then you have the future in front of you that's good and perfect. Because if you don't know who's in charge of your life, if you think you are, then one day you get up and think one way and the next day another. Think your friends are, they'll tell you what to do. You think your boss is or your job is, you'll be run from one side to the other. The only constant you have in your life is to say, Lord, what do you want me to do? He'll always be right, it'll always be good, and it'll always be perfect. The second thing Jesus did to prepare for this was this long time he spent getting ready for the mission that God had for him. He spent 18 years in the construction industry, but what he was really doing was getting ready for his purpose to be fulfilled. Now when a purpose says, I'm ready to live my life the way God wants me to, it doesn't happen automatically. Like with Jesus, you need to get to know God. How do you do that? By talking to him and thinking you've heard him and then acting on that. Then when you see you didn't understand, you go back and say, what did I get wrong? And slowly you learn through this process of talking to God, listening to him, doing what you think he's told you, reflecting on how it turned out, you learn what God is like and what he wants and how you know when he's talking to you and how he really does direct you. And then you have to learn the scriptures. All the things in the scriptures give us guidance. So many times and places Jesus quoted to Satan, quoted to the people around him, quoted to the people who are listening to him, the words of the scriptures. They give us some idea of what God wants and what he's like and what he's trying to do. If you commit your life to Christ and you often try to start living your life for God and you don't make your life, yourself a student of the scripture, you will not know when God's talking to you. You won't understand what he's saying to you. But the scripture gives us this picture of God so that we know what he does and what he doesn't, what he wants and what he doesn't want. And Jesus found that. What you've asked me to do here is terribly difficult but now I see this is what you promised all along and I'm here for this very purpose. I know it will be horrible but if I know you are guiding me, I can have confidence. If I trust your power, then I know I don't have to do it myself. If I trust the fact that you can take care of me even if I die, then I have no fears about that. If I can believe that you are going to give me all the strength that I need. What makes us afraid is when we face a situation where our brain is not big enough to figure it out, our physical strength is not strong enough to make it take place, our own lives are not strong enough to do something that's painful or difficult. When you step back and God says to you, here is your job and here is what you can do. I want you to look at the distance between those two. I will fill it. All of a sudden, there is no distance. Not because you are bigger, stronger or better but because God is sufficient and when you know that no matter what happens, they are going to take care of you, your fears disappear. Sometimes the absence of fear is just the ignorance that we don't know how dangerous the circumstances are for us. Sometimes kids do things and they play in ways that are dangerous to adults because we know what can happen but they don't. So they are fearless. Sometimes we get in situations and we are not afraid because we think that we know more than we know and we think we can do more than we can do and to our discouragement and to defeat we learn how our limits are. Sometimes we get in situations where we are not afraid because we trust someone who is not capable of helping us. But in the situation with God, none of those are true. He knows everything that there is to know. He has all power and authority in the world even over life and death. He can give you wisdom that you don't have, strength that you don't have and words that you don't have. So there should never be any fear. Now, when it comes for us, what is your purpose in this world? What's mine? There are all kinds of things that people tell us that we should be careful about and that we should do. But if we believe in the words of God and in the scripture that he has given us, we should be able to find out for the follower of Christ exactly what that purpose is. So Jesus, when he was getting ready to leave, gathered his disciples around him, all of them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He starts with that. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And if you recognize my authority, here's what you should do. If that's true, or therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And I will be with you always to the very end of the age. You don't have to wonder what your purpose on this earth is about. It's not your job. That's not your purpose in this world. It's not your family. That's not your purpose in this world. It's not yourself. That's not your purpose in the world. It's not your recreational activities. That's not your purpose in this world. If you've said to God, I give my life to you, he's told you what your purpose is. It is to make disciples. Wherever you are, wherever you go, whatever you're doing, you're to make disciples. The first thing you do in making a disciple is bring people to the awareness that God is the supreme ruler of the world. When they acknowledge that, then you try to help them learn the scriptures and what God says to them. And then you help them learn how to talk to God and listen to him. And then they come along and beside you, they begin to make disciples too. A church that does not do this, no matter how big it is, is a failure. A group, whether it's a small group outside the church or inside the church or a prayer group or whatever it is, if they don't make disciples, they're a failure. A person who claims to be the follower of Christ is not making disciples is a failure. For this is our purpose on earth. Now it's filled with fears. The number one fear of people making disciples, I don't know what to say. Well, you have to ask yourself, does God know what you should say? If God knows what you should say, all you have to do is you go and say, God, I think you've asked me to do this, so you put words in my mouth. That's what trust in God is. You can do something else, but being obedient to God is necessary for disciple making. The process of disciple making, three things, getting a person to acknowledge the supreme authority of God, teaching them the scriptures, teaching them how to pray, talking and listening to God, and then putting in practice the purpose that they're here for, to begin to live that message. Teach them what I've taught you and live that in front of them, and they will learn it too. That's what God asked for us. Some things in being disciple making are more difficult than others, and some things are very simple. I've asked you many times to simply ask God to tell you the names of some people you think might not know him, and to begin to pray for those people. What you're asking is, God, I want you to bring this person to the place where they acknowledge your supreme authority, that first step. And then to say to God, if there's some way that I can tell them what you've done in my life as a supreme authority for my life, open that conversation to me. And when it's open, you tell them. Get rid of your fear, he'll tell you what to say, he'll put words in your mouth, he'll make it clear. He can make a donkey talk well, he can certainly do it for any of us. Get rid of that fear, trust God to fulfill his purpose. When that purpose person comes to say, I'm ready to commit my life to Christ, we bring him here and say, we'll put you in the water to show that your old life, self-controlled life is over, and we raise you up to say, the new life in Christ is started now. Learn the Bible, learn how to talk to God, put it in practice in your life, and become a maker of disciples. Those of you who are members of our congregation, you heard me talk about praying for three people and encouraging those people in their walk with the Lord to come to find him. I'm asking something else for you today. Out in the vestibule, there's yellow sheets like this out there, I want to ask every member of this church to do something, I want you to take one of these, I want you to put it in your Bible, well, wait a minute, if you open your Bible regularly during the week, put it there, if you don't, put it by the bread or on the refrigerator, I know you're going to go there, so you'll see it every day. And what I want you to do is to say to God every day, you'll show me a child that lives around me or that I meet somewhere, I'm going to ask them, their parents, if they'd like to enroll their child in Vacation Bible School. It's a small step, but to get a child in this Vacation Bible School, we're going to be talking to them about how to face the fears in life, what do you do when there are changes in your family? You're afraid, moving, new people in your family, what do you do whenever you see someone picking on another person, bullying them around, are you afraid to speak up? God will give you strength and courage to face those things. When you're around other people who are doing bad things, you feel like you have to do it with them, are you afraid to say no? God can give you the strength to face that fear and to overcome it. How do you trust God when you're in trouble, real danger, and you're really afraid? We know that children face some powerful fears in their life, just like adults do. We also know that they're more open to hearing the facts of God and who He is, and are simply better to trust Him than adults that have lived a long time without Him. In our Vacation Bible School, we have a hundred kids who come. Many of them don't go to any church, the families don't go to church. We have them for one week, and we have people who are teaching those classes who have Christ in control of their life, who have faced the fears of life, who are explaining to the children who God is, the supreme ruler of the universe. And we want those children for this week here with us. God has people around you who'd like those children to be in Vacation Bible School. He needs you to be a bold disciple-maker. It doesn't take a lot of courage to say, our church is having Vacation Bible School. Any child, four years old, up to what grade, sixth grade, can enroll. I'll even come by and pick them up. We have somebody in the church who'll do that. Would you allow me to enroll your child? If they beat you up and put you in the hospital, I promise to come visit you. God needs people who know what their purpose is. The world cannot be changed unless the people who belong to God live their purpose. When we get the names of the kids who come, we go to their homes and talk to their families. We talk about the importance of facing fears with the presence of God. He gives us an open door then to those homes where people may not have a church family. I want you to understand why you're in this world. All the other things that demand your attention and time are insignificant to you compared to the purpose God has for your life. And it is, he said, to make disciples. Will you accept God's purpose for your life? I don't mean just name only. I mean to say, I will do it. Would you bow your heads, please? If you're a member of this congregation, I want to challenge you to make a commitment to God, to be a disciple maker. I'm asking you to enroll children in Vacation Bible School. In spite of your fears, I'm asking you to believe God is powerful enough to do what he promised he'd do. In spite of your fears. I can't pass this up without saying to you, your life is in turmoil. You have a hard time figuring out what's going on, why you're here, what you should do. There is one clear thing that is important for you to begin. God made you and he put you on this world for a purpose. And he alone knows your purpose. And what he asks of you is that you come to him whatever your age and say to him, God, I give my life to you. You tell me what to do and I will do it. If you will do that, everything in life will change for you. And you can do it right now. If you believe what I've said and you long to have the certainty that God promises, right now you just say, God, I've lived my life doing my best, but it isn't enough. I turn over everything to you. I will do from this moment on in my life as best I can what you tell me. In your mind, that's all you have to say to God. In a moment we're going to have a hymn, sing a hymn. This is a time in which if you feel you need people to pray for you or you want to share with someone a promise you've made to God, you can come talk to me or to Marla. But God listens to your thoughts. What you've been thinking is already a conversation with him. So Lord, I told people what I thought you wanted me to say. It's in your hands that your spirit come to each one of us and tell us, this is what I want from you. Jesus in the most difficult hours of his life found peace when you helped him through it. So we ask today that your voice would be clear and plain to us. You would tell us what you want. We would be ready to say, okay, Lord, your will be done. In the name of Jesus, I ask this, amen. Would you stand please while we sing? If the Lord has made it clear to you that there's something he wants you to do and publicly share it, I'll be here at the front to pray with you. And Marla will be here at the front to pray with you. Follow the Lord's guidance. It's the way of life. Come ye sinners poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and slow. Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. I will rise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms. In the arms of my dear Savior, all there are 10,000 jobs. Come ye thirsty, come and welcome God's free bounty, glorify true belief and true repentance. Every grace that brings you nigh, I will rise and go to Jesus. He will embrace me in his arms, in the arms of my dear Savior, all there are 10,000 jobs. I want to remind members of the church this afternoon in our evening services, our business meeting, we have a couple of proposals that we need wisdom about. So we invite you to come to be a part of the discussion and decision making. We ask you to be praying for those who are doing vacation Bible school or planning next week. We start on the Sunday evening and many are working and studying and preparing. So we ask you to pray for them. Marla, is there something you need to share with us? Okay. Jack said I think he had a small seizure a while ago and he was kind of concerned about that and we prayed that God would be with him and calm his fears and to heal him according to his plan. And Brad comes and you know this morning in Sunday school we talked about how the Israelites wouldn't listen to God and they were stubborn and they wouldn't turn away from their sin. And finally he had to discipline them and then just take them out of their country and make them slaves. And you know Brad comes last Sunday and this Sunday and I think it's a really wonderful thing that he's listening to God and wants to shape his life into an image of God. And he has trouble with people at work and he feels that people don't like him. And so I think we just pray for Brad. We prayed for Brad that he would know that God loves him and that there are people that love and care for him. And he's a special creation. We do have a Vacation Valley School Workers meeting this afternoon across the alley. We'll have some working time and there will be something there for the workers to eat too. Father, we're thankful that you hadn't just plopped us in the world without some direction for us. You know why we're here. You know what we're supposed to do. Give us the courage to trust you, the willingness to be obedient. We do pray for Jack and ask him that you would give him peace in the middle of having physical difficulties. And we do pray for Brad. He needs to find in his own life a way to build better relationships with people. Show him how you want to change him so that he would be more like you. We ask for all of us who've made promises this morning that by your strength we would do exactly what you ask of us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. God bless you. Be strong in the Lord and be of good courage, your mighty defender is always the same. Mount up with wings as the eagle ascending, victory is sure when you call on his name. Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord and be of good courage for he is your guide. Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord and rejoice for the victory is yours.