What's My Purpose

Opening:

Few things in life are as important as finding your purpose. When you understand something’s purpose, you can put up with all kinds of inconvenience and pain because of it.

For example, say your boss asks you to come in one Saturday morning to open up a stack of 10,000 envelopes and sort through the contents. No overtime pay—just weekend work. You’d be resentful … that would feel like the worst weekend ever! But if he or she told you that in one of those letters was a $100,000 bonus check, for you, and you needed to find it, opening each of those envelopes you’d be opening them like wonka bars. Same tedious job; the difference is in your sense of purpose

Or how about this: Trying being a doctor and tell a woman that she’s got a condition that is going to make her waistline grow 10 inches and gain 30 lbs over the next few months, and she’ll likely punch you in the face. But my wife has heard that 2 times and she rejoiced at the news, because that means they are pregnant! Again: The conditions are the same; the difference is the perception of purpose!

Knowing that God has a purpose for you would transform how you see everything in your life—what you do with your blessings; how to interpret your pain. So how can you discover that purpose for you?

Open your Bible, if you have it …

Psalm 57 (ESV)

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness! My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts— the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves. Selah My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody! Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn! I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

He doesn’t ask for Change

only thing he asks is “God glorify your name in this situation.”

David displays incredible faith in God answering that prayer:

In vs. 2, “I know God will fulfill his purpose for me.”

In vs. 4, “I will lie down to rest in the midst of fiery beasts.”

In vs. 7, “I will arise early in the morning and sing and make melody to the Lord.” Instead of cowering in fear, David is getting a good night sleep and waking up to sing songs of joy!

I’m going to give you 3 things from this psalm that you can learn about your purpose.

It’s not not about you

Psalm 57:5, 11 (ESV)

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

David’s prayer is for God to be glorified

The ultimate purpose of your life is not. About. You.

You and I exist for God’s glory

this is a hard thing for people to get sometimes, but the ultimate center of all that happens on earth is the glory of God.

Why did God create the earth? Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

Why did God choose to save Israel? Psalm 106:8 “Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power.”

David says that the reason God continues to work in his life is for the glory of his name.

Psalm 23:3 “He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

So what is the ultimate purpose God has for us now?

Bringing him glory. That’s why he created us; it’s why he saved us.

Paul would tell us that in everything we do, whether we eat or drink, we should do all to the glory of God.

Let me give you an analogy: In order for life on earth to work, the earth has to rotate around the sun. If the sun was a person and it “loved” the earth, it would insist that it remain the center of the earth’s orbit. Because for the earth ever to lose the sun at its center would mean certain death.

That’s how we are with God. Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

The essence of the Father is love; God wants us to share in that, so he insists we put him at the center.

Our default setting in life is self-centered:

When you look at a picture … you determine how good the picture is based on how you look in it.

METAPHOR for life. If things are going well for you, things are good.

Even in our religion we are selfish:

summary of some of our prayer lives: “Gimme, gimme, gimme …” “God help me get this; stop him, smite her, make everyone behave the way I want them to so I can be happy … “Hey God, are you listening? I’m in the center. Take care of me.”

And when he doesn’t, you get angry at him. “Hey God. What’s the problem? Don’t you get it? It’s about my glory and my happiness.”

Jesus Shows us how to live for Gods glory

What did Jesus do when we had flaunted his glory? Crush us? Set up an arch of triumph in heaven and have angels sing song about how quickly he destroyed us? Let me show you

Philippians 2:6–8 “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

How did God’s Son react when we usurped his glory?

He did what you and I would never do! He came to earth and took the form of a servant and died for our sins in our place.

Jesus didn’t come to be an important planet in your solar system; he came to be center of it.

It’s about what God’s doing in you

Psalm 57:1 (ESV)

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.

God is more interested in your character than your comfort.

Life is just a warm-up act for eternity.

Life is about making you holy, Not happy

how many times in vs. 1 David talks about his soul finding refuge in God:

David’s refuge was not in the cave where he was hiding.

In his army he had gathered about him

It was not in his own abilities

It wasn’t in his innocence

His refuge was in God’s steadfast love and grace.

God’s purpose in all of this was to teach David to make his presence his refuge.

That’s his purpose for you, too.

You see, God’s purpose for you is not so much something you do for him but the way you learn to depend on him.

We serve a God who has no needs, so what we become in him is more important than what we do for him.

Isaiah 43:10–11 “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”  

We’re not chosen because God has something he needs us to do

but for something God wants us to understand and testify to: That God is the only reliable savior. Refuge.

So sometimes he attacks our places of refuge to teach us they aren’t permanent

All hman refuges fail. You have a refuge. It will fail.

Your own abilities.

money

pleasure

What God starts He finish’s

He will fulfill it

Psalm 57:2 (ESV)

I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.

Complete

“God will fulfill his purpose for me.” (V.2)

“Fulfills” in Hebrew: gamar “to bring to an end, complete.”

He makes the same statement in Ps. 138:8. “God fill fulfill his purpose for me, he will not forsake the work of his hands.”

“Finish what you start.”

I always tell my kids

Illus. Half cleaned room

God is a perfectionist

when it comes to his purposes, he will not let anything stop him

For David, this meant God would save him from the wicked plans of others

Vs. 3,6 , You overrule all their evil plans for good.

He also saves us from our own coices

like David we need mecry

Mercy implies that David realizes he has made mistakes.

I think back about how I got to where I am in life

Not saying it is ok to make bad decisions …\

just that when you surrender to God’s purposes, he has a way of weaving everything, absolutely everything … toward his purposes.

The irony … only when you say, “I don’t want to be the center of the universe,” that God reorders all things in the universe to fulfill his purpose for you.

Make yourself the center of the universe, and nothing will work for you. Make him the center of your universe, and the entire cosmos is realigned for God to fulfill his purposes for you.