Finding Purpose: The Temple of God

Introduction (Me/We)

I read a health study online which said that “only about 25 percent of American adults report having a clear sense of purpose.” That means that 75 percent of Americans are struggling to find out what they’re here on earth to do. That’s three-quarters of a whole pie! That’s a lot of pie!

This is why I don’t think it’s any accident that the song of the year was Billie Eillishe’s: “What Was I Made For.” Granted, the song is from the Barbie movie and I haven’t seen the movie, though I wanted to. This song speaks to the felt need that everyone’s feeling deep, down in within the core of who they are and it’s the need to find purpose (the reason why something exists)

This is sad to me.

It leads to believe that there are so many in this life that spend all of their lives trying to find fulfillment in their jobs and titles and families and relationships, you name it… but won’t ever find out what their ultimate purpose is in the first place.

Actually, I just recently received another email from my school about a student committing suicide this school year, and this is the second time I received an email like this, ________ it quits. I’m sure there’s many reasons why these two students ended their lives so young and so early, but I do think it’s related to their lack of finding their purpose.

Maybe there are some of us out there that are trying to find some semblance of your life’s menaing. And, I wanted to briefly touch on what the Bible has to say about this very thing.

The Bible Says (God)

Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, stated in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”

This scripture, in its context, is a reminder to those believers that their bodies were not made for sexual immorality, but rather designed to be a holy house where God was meant to dwell. And it’s here that we can extrapolate our purpose as Christians today:

That we weren’t made to be party houses of sin or mere beasts that solely exist for life’s pleasure, wealth, and success. No, our ultimate destiny is to be holy habitations where God makes his home and where we engage in intimate fellowship with him.

In the Old Testament we get a better picture of what the Temple represented for the Jewish people:

The Temple was a sacred space, a dedicated place unto God, a place of healing, it was a house of real and honest sacrifice and worship. The Temple was the dwelling place of God, the place where God’s presence was made manifest and real, a place that God called home.

And it’s interesting that as the Jewish people consecrated themselves more fully to God, God’s presence and his glory was made manifest to them in the Temple as a sign of his good pleasure towards them.

And it’s in this Temple description that we see what we were destined for: once again, not a houses of sin, but holy habitations for intimate fellowship with a totally set apart & infinite, yet completely knowable and relational God. We were meant to be a place where our consecrated human hearts are marked by God’s Divine Glory.

When we take seriously the idea that we are destined to be the Temple where God makes his home, when we make it the sole aim of our lives to live a connected life to God through our unceasing worship and daily rededication to him, the result of it all is that we live according to our truest purpose.

It’s in this purpose that we find our ultimate fulfillment in this life because, if we’re honest with ourselves, what we are really longing for deep, deep down within our beings is solely a real and intimate connection with Jesus, nothing more and nothing less.

So… (You)

To all the ministry leaders who are burnt out in the quagmire of “doing good things for God,” you’re there because your truest purpose was never meant to be found in your title or “ministry.” It’s found in an abiding fellowship with Jesus.

To the young people listening to this, your life’s destiny will never be found in the acceptance of your friends and the approval of a girlfriend or boyfriend, your life’s meaning can only be found in intimate connection with Jesus.

To all the professionals listening to this, your life’s destiny will never be found in the acceptance of your friends and the approval of a girlfriend or boyfriend, your life’s meaning can only be found in intimate connection with Jesus.

To that single mother hearing this message today, your life’s fulfillment is not in a “man” it’s in that man Jesus. Who loves you and is calling you into deeper fellowship with him.

Application (We)

I wonder what it would be like if we all lived into the reality that we were destined to be the Temples, the holy dwelling places in which God takes first place in our lives. Isn’t it there, in our cultivated friendship with Jesus, as we get lost in him, that we’re marked by his distinguishing presence and glory?

I wonder what would happen if we longed for God again and, instead of banking our identity on “doing good things for him,” or knowing only about him, we found our true meaning in being a consecrated Temple where God dwells and reveals Himself to us in the context of intimate friendship.

This is where we’d finally find that meaning and purpose we’ve been longing for.