Jesus Changes our Purpose

Jesus Changes our Purpose

Matthew 6:9-13

JCE

Good Morning! Welcome to our final Sunday in our churchwide series, Jesus Changes Everything!

Here at First Methodist, we are firm believers that Jesus changes everything. That means Jesus changes everything about us and our life… but we have to let him! Through the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus changes our heart, the core of our being, our innermost self. This happens when we receive God’s Justifying grace… that grace that comes when we respond to the grace God has been showering us with all along. We call that grace that comes before, Prevenient Grace. We don’t even recognize that it is there, but it is wooing us to God.

Then, maybe it’s during worship, or on a retreat, or out by the lake, or in a conversation with a friend, or whatever… we come to recognize that grace and accept it for ourselves… that moment is the moment of Justifying grace, that moment when we say yes to Jesus and the change in our lives begins. In that moment, our heart is change. It’s like The Grinch… you know, he had a heart like a lump of coal until he felt love, and his heart grew and grew.

Then, over and over through our life, God continues to woo us to who and what we were called to be, constantly taking steps and saying yes to God, receiving that Justifying Grace… but it is God’s Sanctifying Grace – that grace that guides us to become like Jesus… it is in that grace we find our minds are changed to the mind of Christ Jesus. Through changing our mind, we begin to see the world like Jesus sees the world. We begin to treat others differently. We begin to love differently. We are transformed.

As we are transformed, we begin to change the patterns of our life. Jesus changes our rhythms. As we become like Jesus our lives are changing into a reflection of God’s kingdom. As our relationship with God through Jesus changes, He changes our relationships with our family, our church, and our community. Through the grace of God we are going on to perfection, living into and receiving that Sanctifying Grace… And finally, it culminates with Jesus changing our purpose! As we become like Christ, as our mind becomes that of Christ… as we see through the eyes of Jesus… As Jesus changes everything, suddenly our purpose begins to align with that of Christ!

That is where we are this week as we wrap up the series… Jesus changes our purpose.

Jesus Changes our Purpose

Our testimony this week comes to us from one of our Youth Ministry staff and a graduate of our youth program, Mr. Luke Moss.

Luke Video

Turn with me to Matthew 6:9-13. This is a part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and a crucial part of the teaching of Jesus, something we recite regularly, but maybe we’ve missed something in it.

Matthew 6:9-13

<Prayer>

In 2006, on the heals of such movies as The DaVinci Code and other religiously influenced cinematic releases came Brian McClaren’s book, The Secret Message of Jesus. Ohhhh... Ahhhh… Mystery… secret… intrigue… right?

Now, there’s a lot that Brian and I don’t agree with, but I found this book helpful. No, it wasn’t because of the catchy title, like we had missed this secretly coded message from Jesus for 2000 years. Not because of his focus on the Social Gospel. It was because it made me look at who I am in Christ and why I am here just a little differently. And, as we know, Jesus changes everything, and Jesus used this book to change me.

It all goes back to that prayer we prayed a few moments ago…

Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,

On earth as it is in heaven.

On earth as it is in heaven…. Not, “Thy kingdom come in the sky bye and bye…”

Not, “Lord, let me survive this life until I can get to your glory…”

No… it is saying, “Lord, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

“Lord, may my will on earth, match your will in heaven, so that I can continue the work that Jesus started on earth, as he brought a glimpse of heaven to earth.”

There is another seminal book on Purpose that swept the country in 2003. Many of you read Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life. I am lifting a few themes from that book as we look at how it is that we align our purpose with that of Christ. Like everything else, it all starts with our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

1) Relationship with God – Your relationship with God is not dependent upon the circumstances around us. Your relationship with God depends upon the decision you make regarding the Lordship of Jesus.

Romans 3:23 reminds us that we have all messed up… we’ve all sinned. But… that’s not the end of the story.

Romans 3:23-24

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.

And Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages… the outcome… the reward for our sin is death, - then that is followed by another Big But! BUT God’s gift to us in Jesus Christ is that we have eternal life… not in the sky when we die, but now…. Beginning now. Your eternity with Jesus Christ begins with your next breath. The life you live in Jesus Christ is NOW.

Finally, Romans 10:9-13 tells us:

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

This is where it all begins. When we accept Jesus, when we believe in our heart and openly declare our faith in Jesus, then we are saved… at that moment, Jesus begins to change us, to change you, to change everything.

But, you have to receive that free gift of Jesus Christ. You have to say “Yes” to a relationship with Jesus.

It all starts with your relationship with Jesus and living into the plan that God has had for you all along… Yes, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, that that leads us to point 2.

2) You are not an accident or an amalgamation of cells that just happened to exist. God knew you from the beginning.

Jeremiah 1:4-5

The LORD gave me this message: “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations

Psalm 139:13-15

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body

and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!

Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,

as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

Galatians 1:15

But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace.

Ephesians 2:10

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

You are not an accident. You aren’t the result of evolution that crawled from a primordial soup and evolved into the complex life form that you are today. You were created, by God, you are not an accident. You are the result of the fact, that like I said before, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life… You have a purpose! God created you with a Purpose. And that is our final point today.

3) God designed you in a specific way and you will wander until you find that purpose…. Only when you find that purpose will you live fully.

We are designed in specific ways that work together to bring about God’s Kingdom… to reveal God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

1 Corinthians 12:4-11 lists some of the unique ways we have been created.

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have.

Each of these gifts come together as many parts of one body. You have a purpose and that purpose is a part of something much larger than you by yourself. Our previous church wide theme was that “We can do more together” and that is so true… when we work together, putting your purpose… and your purpose… and your purpose together… we become the body of Christ present in the world, and we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can do amazing things.

JCE

So, what is your purpose? What is God’s calling on your life? How are you revealing God’s kingdom to earth as it is in heaven.

I love what Luke said, that he had build this foundation out of things that were not substantial. He was building a life on things, on accomplishments, on titles… anyone else tried to live that life? Some of us have spent decades building and living on these shaky foundations… but now is the time to strip those things away and look to Christ for our purpose.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will begin talking about how we serve together, how we support this church, how we minister in this community. Who we are as a church, who I am, and who you are as an individual all come together in this reality! Jesus changes everything… even our purpose in life…

May God’s Kingdom come…

May God’s will be done…

on earth as it is in heaven.