Living on Purpose

12/15/2002

In February 1980, the U.S. Olympic hockey team slipped its foot into a glass slipper and walked away with a gold medal at Lake Placid, New York. Those collegians had shocked the world by upsetting the powerful Soviet team, and then they grabbed the championship from Finland while the crowd chanted, "U.S.A.!" Before his team's victory over the Soviet Union which advanced them to the finals, the coach of the U.S. hockey team told his players, "You are born to be a player. You are meant to be here at this time. This is your moment."

Today in the Word, July, 1990, p. 11.

Proverbs 20:5

The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.

1. YOUR LIFE MUST HAVE PURPOSE

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Charles Kingsley, Bits & Pieces, December 9, 1993, p. 16.

"More men fail through lack of purpose than lack of talent."

Billy Sunday.

Dr. Bernie Siegel found he could predict which cancer patients would survive by asking them if they wanted to live to be 100. Those with a deep sense of life purpose would answer yes. They would most likely make it.

_The greatest tragedy in life is not dying, it is living life without a reason, without purpose.

Acts 13:36

“For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep….”

-David, in spite of his failures, was able to lay hold of God’s purpose and live it out in the context of his time-his generation.

-That is the challenge we face, what is God’s purpose and how do we live it out in our generation?

2. NOT JUST ANY PURPOSE WILL DO

The Tower of Babel

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, [1] they found a plain in Shinar [2] and settled there.
3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel [3] -because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

-Any organization can learn from this model.

-They had:

a common goal

communication

unity

-The problem was, they were missing the most important ingredient, GOD’S PURPOSE.

-They were following their own way.

-There is a way that seems right to a man but it ends in death.

-We don’t get to decide our purpose, we must discover it.

-God gets to pick our purpose.

-Why are you here? God gets to decide.

3. GOD GIVES US AN INDIVIDUAL PLACE IN HIS PURPOSE, BUT IT IS LIVED OUT CORPORATELY

-In other words, my purpose must be lived out with others.

-My purpose is wrapped up in your purpose.

-We couldn’t have seen over 500 people come to the Lord without a team effort.

Quote by Warren-community*****

-God has a specific call on us as a church.

-We are called to impact East Central Missouri and to some extent, the world.

-East Central Missouri needs you.

-The world needs you.

-We need you.

4 HOW DO WE LIVE ON PURPOSE AS A CHURCH

-This is where it gets personal.

-This is where you check yourself and make adjustments.

THE PURPOSE OF FCF OF WARRENTON IS GROWTH-GROWING UP/GROWING TOGETHER/GROWING OUT.

-I want to look at what the bulletin calls values.

-Another way to say it is prerequisites or conditions to live on purpose.

*WE MUST HAVE A PERSONAL AND GROWING RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

-Of course we need to know Jesus. It goes further than that. We need to be growing in that relationship.

-We have to examine our lives and see if we are further along this year than last year.

-Are we honest and open with God?

-Is He the theme of our thoughts and songs?

-Last night the sermon was terrible. I laid in bed and said “WHERE WERE YOU?”

-I FELT LIKE Israel after they fought at AI.

-Paul was consumed with knowing God. Even after years of ministry he was focused on Jesus.

Philippians 3

8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.

-What do you need to do to grow closer to God?

-When Kurt Warner was speaking at the Super Bowl, he said “FIRST THINGS FIRST”.

· WE MUST BE RELYING UPON GOD’S POWER.

-We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

-God has called us to live beyond our ability.

-We need you to press into God beyond your intellect and best efforts to the gifts and callings upon your life.

-Thank God for our prayer language and the gifts.

-Even more specifically, are you living daily in that power?

Ephesians 5 says, DO NOT GET DRUNK ON WINE…. BUT BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT.

-Are you there yet?

-Is your life growing in the knowledge of God and in His power?

-Next week we are going to look at Jesus’ purpose and focus on Him at Christmas.

-Then we will come back and finish these things we need to look at to live on purpose.

PRAYER: LIVING ON PURPOSE

-videotapes from Debbie pederson