Purpose, Process, and Promise
Notes
Transcript
Review ALL IN season. Purpose for the series: how where we are as The Shed is where they were then…
Review Last Week: Christlike Forgiveness… (Receiving God’s forgiveness, Forgiving Yourself, Forgiving others)
Contextualize before reading verses:
1 Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.
And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.
2 Some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him.
3 But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison.
4 Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
Title: The Promise, the Purpose, and the Process
Pray
Stephen’s death marked a turning point, leading to the scattering of believers.
The early church was thriving, but persecution came.
The early church experiences this kind of faith rocking persecution in response to Stephen preaching the word,
But the part that intrigues me about these few short passages that I just couldn’t move on from was their response to the persecution..
It was the preaching of the word that got them in the predicament they are in where Saul is ravaging the church.
What I don’t see is a pity party.
What I don’t see is them getting mad at God.
What I don’t see is them abandoning their faith.
What I don’t see is them turning on each other in blame.
Their response to the persecution of their preaching… the very persecution that scattered them abroad… IS TO KEEP PREACHING THE WORD!
That lies in stark contrast to the church of today where we have droves of believers doing all these things because their pattern was disrupted and their faith was reliant on their pattern…
Many people are disgruntled with God because they want Him to bless their pattern, but they have neglected their purpose.
The enemy can disrupt your pattern, but he cannot cancel your purpose.
The early church was compelled by purpose, not pattern.
People get obsessed with their pattern and lose sight of purpose.
A lost or undiscovered sense of purpose can derail us in both good times and bad.
In good times, lack of purpose will allow us to think we have somehow accomplished where we are ourselves, vanity sets in, and the purpose becomes a pursuit of more…
More money, more cars, a bigger house, more clothes, more comfort, more happiness, more more more…
But you soon find out that more stuff doesn’t fulfill the longing you have for your life to mean something.
(Solomon - all is vanity)
In bad times, a lack of purpose allows for the darkness to overtake our senses and we see no way out.
This is when people start to ask, “Why should I go on? Is it worth it to believe?
Why should we try at all? The world just keeps getting worse. Why give up my comfort when they don’t want to hear it anyway?
(Elijah in the cave)
Doom and gloom and agony on me…
Purpose is what allows us to persevere through trials and stay grounded in times of blessing.
But I think the commingling of our American culture and the gospel has led many to believe that finding your purpose is the goal.
But Purpose isn’t just a goal, it’s a perspective.
But Purpose isn’t just a goal, it’s a perspective.
Purpose is the filter through which you see the world.
Knowing your purpose helps you recognize what you should say yes (or no) to.
16 When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, “Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus could have stuck close to the religious leaders… After all they were the ones with influence.
He could have sought after political power by rubbing elbows with the governors…
He could have funded his ministry by only associating with the rich…
But He knew His purpose was to seek and save that which was lost!
10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
His purpose wasn’t to be a politician or to raise money to fund the ministry, or to convince the religious leaders of how right He was.
His purpose determined His priority.
His purpose shaped His perspective on ministry, His perspective on Himself, and His perspective on the process…
17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.
This charge I have received from my Father.”
In other words, this is my purpose in being here…
This death is just the process…
In John 12, Jesus refers to His crucifixion and resurrection as His glorification…
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
His purpose gave Him a different perspective on His suffering…
It is your purpose that gives perspective on the process.
In the early Church, when persecution came, they didn’t give up or get mad at God, because they had been given purpose by Jesus!
You can persecute me if you want to. Scatter us abroad if you have to… But it doesn’t change our purpose…
4 Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
I think we have so intermingled our purpose with God’s promise that the two are now used interchangeably, but there is a distinction.
If we see the promise as the purpose, we begin to think that we are just waiting on the arrival of the promise…
And if you’re just waiting on the arrival of the promise, then the process is just a delay in the arrival of the promise…
So we look for the fastest way out of the process so we can get to the promise…
At some point you get tired of the process and start wondering about the reality of the promise.
You’re in process, waiting on the promise because you think the promise is your purpose and you can’t fulfill your purpose unless the promise arrives…
But this leads to one of two outcomes:
The first thing that tends to happen when we are in process waiting on the promise is to grow resentful of the process and try to create your own fulfillment of the promise.
(Ishmael)
Or you give up on the process altogether and concede to passivity.
Conceding to passivity means just letting whatever happens happen.
There’s no reason for effort, it’s just wasted time until the promise gets here.
I’m just passing the days until the promise arrives…
This would be like the early church going home at the first sign of persecution and just waiting on Jesus to come back.
He said he was going to return, and I’ve got my ticket, so why would I keep putting my life at risk?
Let’s just go back and keep the peace and wait. There’s no reason to stir the pot.
Let’s just wait.
If God wants the whole world to know, He will make a way, He doesn’t need me…
LACK OF PURPOSE…
But the early church didn’t concede, they didn’t back down, and they didn’t retreat.
Everywhere they went, they preached the gospel!
Because their purpose was still their purpose, even in the process.
They weren’t passively waiting on the promise of heaven, they were fulfilling their purpose, even in the process.
I’ll say it this way: Heaven is your promise, but it is not your purpose.
Your purpose is given over and over again throughout the New Testament:
19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
8 Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.
1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
This is the purpose we have been given!
And your purpose isn’t waiting on the arrival of a promise to come.
Your purpose starts now, while you’re still in process…
I’m all for the promises of God… The promises of God are yes and amen,
but if we only see God in the promise, we will miss Him in the process…
Don’t despise the process…
It’s in the process where God will show up and reveal His glory…
71 It is good for me that I was afflicted,
That I may learn Your statutes.
Sometimes it is the process of hard times that God uses to propel you to purpose.
Joseph wouldn’t have made it to the palace had he not gone through the pit.
Expound/Explain
The early Church would not have spread so quickly had Saul not persecuted and scattered them.
Their growth happened in process…
We can look at the huge conversion events that happen in Acts 2 and Acts 4 and think, “Well if we could see a major event like that, we would be set!”
But the world changing growth didn’t come from big conversion events.
The growth that happened in the early church happened in the process of persecution when they were scattered, but carried their purpose…
Our growth isn’t going to happen in a special event…
No Easter service, concert, or series of meetings we label revival will cause growth on the scale God has promised…
The only thing that will fuel the growth like the early church saw is if we carry our purpose everywhere we go in whatever situation we face…
2025 is a year of growth for the Shed, which is exciting, but also challenging because growth happens in process…
Here’s what I know, the promise is sitting on the other end of the process…
But are we willing to endure the process?
Will we face the process that requires more of us?
Will we face the process that will unsettle our patters, disrupt our comfort zones, and challenge our perceptions?
Moreover, will we face the process and keep our purpose front of mind?
Even when the Hebrew people entered the promised land, there was process…
Look what God tells them about how it would go:
29 “I will not drive them out before you in a single year, that the land may not become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you.
30 “I will drive them out before you little by little, until you become fruitful and take possession of the land.
Your process is making you fruitful…
Your process is refining you…
Your process is taking you from Glory to Glory…
The problem is we live in a microwave generation, but we want slow cooked flavor…
We want to jump straight to the promise, but there’s a process…
Call worship team
When I was first called to the ministry, there was a group of guys who would go around and have prayer meetings during the time of revival we were in.
One of those prayer meetings happened on the side of a pond dam (I think we were supposed to be fishing or something, but it ended in a prayer meeting).
While we were praying, I looked up and saw the water shimmer in the moonlight, but as it did, it changed into a crowd of people and I felt myself standing on a platform with a microphone ready to preach the word to them.
When I looked at the people, they filled the whole area where the water was, and this was a huge place. There had to have been hundreds of people, jam packed into this little area, anxiously waiting on the word of the Lord.
But when I looked again, the sides I saw as walls melted away and revealed an even larger crowd that stretched in every direction as far as I could see and God spoke to me and said, “You’re not thinking big enough. My purpose for you is bigger than your perspective.”
I’ve never forgot the vision from that night, and it wasn’t about the size of the crowd, it was about the size of my perspective. The crowd was just God’s illustration of my purpose outgrowing my perspective…
But here’s the thing, that vision happened 14 years ago and I’ve been in process ever since…
Everyone looks at me and things, young pastor, first time as lead pastor, new in things, but God has had me hidden in process for 14 years, prepping me for this…
Preaching in process. Learning in process. Living in process…
Because growth doesn’t just happen when you reach the promise. You reach the promise through the process with purpose as your perspective…
Don’t resent your process!
Your process isn’t punishment, it’s development.
I want to encourage you this morning:
9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
The process isn’t permanent.
The promise will come, but while you’re in process, make the most of it!
Recognize your purpose in the process…
4 Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word.
Altar Call
