Telos (Part 5)

Recap Where We’ve Been: Our purpose begins with God at Creation and ends with our worship of Him. Everything in between life and death is all about focusing on Jesus. Our ability to grow into our purpose is dependent on community, living life in step with the Spirit and having Christ’s humility.

Today We Will Wrap It All Up With Our Final Purpose:

Why God Set The Whole Thing In Motion From The Beginning.

A GOOD MYSTERY

We all love mysteries don’t we? Whether it’s a good movie or a TV show, or even a book, for those of you that enjoy reading, there’s something inside of us that longs to get answers to intriguing and elusive questions. We can easily fall in love with characters in a drama and then we pine over what happens next in their fictional lives. This is why binge-watching TV shows on Netflix is such a common thing! Who can handle waiting a week to see what happens on a show? Let’s just watch the whole series in a weekend! Something about the human condition is enamored with the concept of discovering the answers to mysteries.

Believe it or not, that desire to understand and see the full picture comes from somewhere other than our need to complete the latest season of Pretty Little Liars. We ourselves are actually part of a giant mystery that began before Creation and is a far greater story than even that of our individual lives. In his letter to the church at Ephesus, the Apostle Paul unpacks the underlying purpose and mystery of our very existence, and tells us what should drive EVERYTHING about our lives:

Scripture

Ephesians 3:8-12

“…this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this MYSTERY, WHICH FOR AGES PAST WAS KEPT HIDDEN IN GOD, who created all things. HIS INTENT WAS THAT NOW, THROUGH THE CHURCH, THE MANIFOLD WISDOM OF GOD SHOULD BE MADE KNOWN TO THE RULERS AND AUTHORITIES IN THE HEAVENLY REALMS, according to His ETERNAL PURPOSE THAT HE ACCOMPLISHED IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD. In Him and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”

Pray

As we finish our series help us to see our purpose

Story

Rachel hates watching mystery movies with me because I always guess the murderer beforehand

Application 1

Did you catch that? Paul uses the word mystery! From the beginning of time there has been an underlying mystery about life that no one had understood. Until NOW! Paul drops a bomb here as he claims to know the answer to the biggest mystery of all: Why are we here?

Our purpose, God’s TELOS for US, is that the WORLD would KNOW HIM.

What began at CREATION was completed in CHRIST & now comes to US.

WHAT IS EVANGELISM?

Did you notice that Paul is specific to mention that God’s purpose for humanity involves the church? We get to play a huge part in rolling out the unveiling of God’s mystery. This concept of sharing the mystery of who God is in a relational way with others is often referred to as EVANGELISM. That’s a pretty big and intimidating word. Another phrase that makes a bit more sense to us is “TO PROCLAIM”. And, simply put, that’s what Paul is telling us to do here. Our Purpose Is To Proclaim Jesus. We see this in the book of Colossians:

Colossians 1:27-29 [NIV] “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of THIS MYSTERY, WHICH IS CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory. HIM WE PROCLAIM, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.”

There’s the word “mystery” again. If you’ve been paying attention during this series hopefully the idea of your purpose is less of a mystery now, but living out our TELOS, our end goal, can seem like a big mystery sometimes! That mystery is wrapped up in the simple 3-word phrase “Christ in you”. That is the essence of God’s mystery: that Jesus came to earth to swap places with us! Because of what Jesus did we have the chance to get back to where we should have been all along: in unity and intimacy with God forever. Now, as the church, we get to take part in PROCLAIMING that truth to the world!

Story 2

Being sent to water the horses without being taught how

Supporting Scripture

John 4:25-30 [NIV]

“The woman said, ‘I know that Messiah is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.’ Then Jesus said, ‘I, the one speaking to you—I AM HE.’ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, ‘What do you want?’ or ‘Why are you talking with her?’ THEN, LEAVING HER WATER JAR, THE WOMAN WENT BACK TO THE TOWN AND SAID TO THE PEOPLE, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’ They came out of the town and made their way toward Him.”

John 4:39-42 [NIV]

“Many of the Samaritans from that town BELIEVED IN HIM BECAUSE OF THE WOMAN’S TESTIMONY, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days. And because of His words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; NOW WE HAVE HEARD FOR OURSELVES, AND WE KNOW THAT THIS MAN REALLY IS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.”

Application 2

HOW DO WE DO IT?

If our purpose as Christ-followers is to PROCLAIM JESUS, how do we go about doing it? What training do we need? Where do we even start this thing? Let’s go back to a passage we looked at in week 2 and catch up with Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in the book of John.

Remember, Jesus meets this Samaritan woman at a well. He shouldn’t be talking to her because of religious and social barriers, but He starts a conversation up and they get into some pretty heavy discussion.

This woman meets Jesus because she is getting water in the middle of the day. She is choosing to be at the well when no one else would be there, most likely because she doesn’t want to be seen by anyone! But do you notice what happens when she realizes who Jesus is? This girl immediately dropped what she was doing and went TOWARDS the people who had considered her to be an outcast! Why did she do that? TO PROCLAIM! She finally unlocked the mystery of God and she did exactly what Paul tells us to do: she told her world! And the result of her actions is absolutely incredible!

This Samaritan girl instantly understood her purpose, her Telos. Now, she wouldn’t have phrased it that way. All she knew was that she had met Jesus, the Messiah, and other people needed to meet Him as well! It doesn’t appear that she even took the time to think much beyond that, since she dropped the bucket and took off! And because of her obedience to her role in the mystery, the whole town heard about Jesus, and many believed!

She Didn’t Wait For Training, A Bible Study Class, Or More Information About When The Church Would Be Meeting Again. She Didn’t Even Wait For Permission.

All She Knew Was That SHE HAD TO PROCLAIM JESUS!

Conclusion

Imagine how different our world would be if we were to actually do this: Not just agree that it’s good to do, or make plans that never actually pan out…but really DO THIS in our everyday lives! Here’s what would really happen if we did:

PEOPLE WHO ARE LIVING LIFE FAR AWAY FROM GOD’S LOVE RIGHT NOW WILL TURN TO RECEIVE IT, AND THEIR ETERNITY WILL BE CHANGED!

As this series of talks comes to an end and we look to see how our lives will be different because of God’s Word, please don’t let this just be an exercise in learning more information about the Bible. That’s a great thing to do, and we should always be doing it! But our understanding our purpose is not something that we seek to memorize and organize and categorize. It is something that is more CAUGHT than TAUGHT. You see, our purpose is only grasped when we begin to focus on our existence not as it relates to us, but as it relates to God.

God created us…BECAUSE HE LOVES US.

He wants our worship…BECAUSE HE LOVES US.

He urges us to focus our lives on Jesus…BECAUSE HE LOVES US.

He places us among others to experience community…BECAUSE HE LOVES US.

And He allows us to take part in the life-giving, eternity-changing, mind-blowing process of sharing His mystery with the rest of the world…BECAUSE HE LOVES US.

What we get to do on this earth is so special. The rocks and trees don’t get to do it. The angels don’t even get to do it. It is given as a gift to you and me. We get the honored purpose of growing in intimacy with God and sharing Him with the world He loves. That is a purpose that should supersede the smaller purposes of what career we will aspire to, or how many kids we will have. That purpose defines us to our core. And fulfilling it will bring challenges and joy that will never leave us empty.

Our Purpose On Earth Is To Be Found By God And Show Him

To The World. Not Just By Knowledge, But By Love.

Pray

God find us, capture our hearts and empower us to live out our purpose

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