God’s Purpose for my Life (Gaining an Eternal Perspective)
Col. 1:15-16 (NIV)
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for
him.
01/11/04
Introduction:
Because of God, my life has profound purpose and significance!
Because of God, my life has infinite value and worth!
Because of God, my life has unlimited power and potential!
And that makes me very special and precious…
Repeat these often and allow these truths to transform you. That your life has profound
significance and purpose. That your life has infinite value and worth. That you have
unlimited power and potential with God. That you are very special and precious to Him. Isn’t
that awesome!
There a book by Rick Warren entitled, “The Purpose Driven Life” that asks the question
“What am earth am I here for?” He answers the question in the book. I recommend that
you take 40 days out in the New Year to work through it with somebody if possible. I’ve
done it with my wife and then later a small group and it has changed my perspective on
life. A lot of what I will be sharing with you in this message has been adapted from
that book and my personal interaction with the material (See P. 17-40).
George Barna has released a statistics of how many Americans actually live according to
a Biblical worldview. He says that it’s only 4%. That’s pretty pitiful. I think he was
talking about American Christians. In a room of this size of about 70 persons, that would
be about 3 of you. I don’t have the statistic for the Chinese or Asian context but I don’t
think its much different. What kind of perspective do you have? Do you think like the
rest of the world? Or Do you think like a Biblical Christian? Here is a basic test for you
if you want to know what kind of worldview you have based on how you answer two
questions:
1. What do you think is the purpose of my career? (you have a minute to answer)
Or What do you think a good job is?
A lot of parents would think that a good job or career is one that is well paid and have
prospects of promotion and advancement. I am sure my parents thought that way. It is a
job with comfortable conditions, one that will mean material advantage. In other words,
what we really mean is that our best ambitions for our children are purely material.
However, as Christians, our one overriding ambition for our children should be that they
know the Lord and be found in the center of His will for their lives. What they do or
what they earn, where they live or go, whether they prosper in this world or not are
entirely beside the point.
2. What do you think is the purpose of life?
My parents thought that the purpose of life was about being happy, healthy, better yet
wealthy. They do this to the exclusion of God. And for many Chinese families in my
generation, that also included filial piety putting parents and family at the center of
relationships.
The purpose of life for the Christian is also about relationships. But it is about our
relationship with Jesus Christ. It puts Jesus Christ at the center of all our relationships
including that of our families. And how we relate to others in our family and in the world
is based on our relationship with Him. And it is God’s purpose that I come to know
him intimately and in such a way that I can enjoy His presence in an intimate relationship with Him and glorify Him. Are you
pursuing that daily? This is so easy to miss.
Joseph Stowell of Moody Bible Institute compares the biblical worldview with a
humanistic worldview as follows.
The humanistic worldview (Man Centered worldview)
It’s a very temporal and materialistic worldview:
1. Man is at the center of the world. It’s about me, myself and I. Everything starts with
me and revolves around me. The man centered worldview says that this is the only life
we have and you only go around once. Live it up and end up feeling hollow and broken
and on a deadend street in your heart. The biblical worldview says that this is not the
only world that we have and the better world is yet to come. This is the short, nasty,
brutish one and I live in this world for the benefit of the world to come. There is an
eternal perspective.
2. The humanistic worldview says that my career is the vehicle that will advance my goal
for personal life fulfillment. It says that my career is my endgame. It is here to flatter my
ego, to make me rich, to make me secure in my retirement. The biblical worldview says
my career is a means to a larger end of advancing the cause of Christ so when I walk in to
my office, I ask “What can I do to honor and glorify Christ in my workplace today?
What can I use with the money that I make to advance the cause of Christ?”
Personal illustration:
My wife who is Chinese tells me a story about how in China, there are these mothers in
the summer time chasing their kid around with a fan to keep them cool. I guess with the
one child policy, the one child is treated almost like a god in the family. It’s like we
worship “Mother’s little daring princes.” I don’t know if you are the only child in
your family growing up. But often, we think we stand at the center of the universe!
That is a very humanistic worldview but that is what a lot of us have grown up
learning in the world we live in today.
Gaining an eternal perspective:
(From a humanistic self-centered viewpoint to a Biblical God-centered viewpoint)
1. It all starts with God. It’s not about you. It’s not about me. You must begin with
God because that‘s is the true starting point. It would be silly if someone in here says
“everything begins with me”. The world was here way before you came into existence. I
was born probably before most of you so I can say that I was here way before you were.
And there have been people before me. But the point I am trying to make in our self
centered world is that it’s not about you or me. The purpose of your life is far greater
than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far
greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you
want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were
born by his purpose and for his purpose. Bertrand Russell, atheist, states that unless you
assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless. If even an atheist realized
this, then we really don’t have any excuse.
The search for the purpose or meaning for life has puzzled people for thousands of years.
That’s because we typically begin at the wrong starting point - ourselves. We ask self
centered questions like “What do I want to be?” What should I do with my life? What
are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But this kind of focusing on
ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose. Job 12:10 (TEV) says, “It is God who
directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s life is in his power.”
Contrary to many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won’t discover your
life’s meaning by looking within yourself. You’ve probably tried that already. You didn’t
create yourself, so there is no way you can tell yourself what you created for? If I handed
you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn’t know its purposes, and the
invention itself wouldn’t be able to tell you either. Only the creator or the owners’
manual could reveal its purpose. It is not something you choose. You may choose your
career, your spouse, your hobbies, but you don’t get to choose your purpose. And the
way you discover that purpose is through a relationship with Jesus Christ. The purpose
of your life fits into a much larger cosmic purpose that God has designed for
eternity. You discover that meaning and purpose only when you make God the
reference point of your life.
2. You are not an accident. Some of you may not feel this way because you think
your birth was a mishap. I once thought that because my parents did not plan to have
me and because my birth was not their intention that I was an accident. I felt bad
for a long time because of this unconscious belief. When I was a teenager, I even
heard from a family member that there were neighbors in our building in Hong
Kong who wanted to adopt me and my parents actually considered offering me to
them because we were so poor then. But I tell you that long before you were conceived
by your parents, you were conceived in the mind of God. Isaiah 44:2a says, “I am your
Creator. You were in my care even before you were born.” He thought of you first. It is
not fate, nor chance, nor luck, nor coincidence that you are breathing at this very
moment. You are alive because God wanted to create you! God prescribed every singe
detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, the color of your skin, your hair,
and every other feature. He also determined the natural talents you would possess and
the uniqueness of your personality. Psalms 139:15 (msg) says, “You know me inside and
out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.”
Contrary to theories on evolution and what they may be teaching in some of your schools,
your life is not a result of astronomical random chance in the universe. If that were true,
you could stop listening to me because life would have no purpose or meaning or
significance. There would be no right or wrong and no hope beyond your brief years here
on earth. Unfortunately, a lot of what we are seeing happening in our decadent society
today is a result of this kind of teaching. People don’t want to deal with the fact that
there is a God often because of they enjoy their sinful practices so they have to come up
stuff that denies that there is a God.
Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born and how
long you would live. He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact
time of your birth and death. The Bible says in Psalm 135:16 (LIV), “You saw me
before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every
day was recorded in your Book!” God also planned where you would be born and where
you would live for his purpose. Your race and nationality are no accident. God left no
detail to chance. He planned it all for his purpose. Acts 17:26 (NIV), says “From one
man he made every nation, … and he determined the times set for them and the exact
places where they should live.” Nothing in your life is arbitrary. It’s all for a purpose.
Most amazing, God decided how you would be born. Regardless of the circumstances of
your birth or who your parents are, God had a plan in creating you. It doesn’t matter
whether your parents were good, bad, or indifferent. God knew that those two
individuals possessed exactly the right genetic makeup to create the custom “you” he had
in mind. They had the DNA God wanted to make you. While there may be illegitimate
parents, there are no illegitimate children. Many children are unplanned by God. God’s
purpose took into account human error, and even sin. God never does anything
accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates.
God’s motive for creating you was his love. Eph. 1:4a (Msg) says, “Long before he laid
down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love.”
Personal illustration:
My wife and I recently had a baby. She is three months old now. But before she was
born, we started thinking about what we needed to do in preparation before her arrival. I
spent a lot of time to prepare the room where the baby would live. I even sand the
wooden floors by hand and coated it with a layer of polyurethane to make it shiny.
It brightened the room considerably. Then my wife began to decorate it with our
photos and other neat pictures. Because we didn’t want to spend too much money,
we decided to get a very good condition baby crib from my brother. My wife put the
mattress in and also knitted some clothing for the new baby. All this was done in
preparation for our new baby. We planned the environment long before baby
Maureen’s arrival. And in the same way, I have come to understand that God made
this planet earth in preparation for us to live in. He made the sky, the moon, the stars,
the ocean, the seas, the mountains, the trees, the whole environment for us. That’s how
much He cares for us.
God was thinking of you even before he made the world. In fact, that’s why he created it!
God designed this planet’s environment just so we could live in it. We are the focus of
his love and the most valuable of all his creation. James 1:18 (Cev) says, “God decided
to give us life through the word of truth so we might be the most important of all the
things he made.” Of all the things in creation He has made, we are the most
important to Him. That is just awesome when you think about it. This is how much
God loves and values you! You were created as a special object of God’s love! God
made you so he could love you. This is a truth to build your life on. 1 John 4:8 tell us
“God is love.” It doesn’t say God has love. He is love! And because of that, your life
has profound purpose and significance.
This Poem by Russell Kelfer sums it up:
You are who you are for a reason.
You’re part of an intricate plan.
You’re a precious and perfect unique design,
Called God’s special woman or man.
And no matter how you may feel,
They were custom-designed with God’s plan in mind,
And they bear the Master’s seal.
No, that trauma you faced was not easy.
And God wept that it hurt you so;
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into his likeness you’d grow.
You are who you are for a reason,
You’ve been formed by the Master’s rod.
You are who you are, beloved,
Because there is a God!
3. What drives your life? What motivates and controls you?
Everyone’s life is driven by something. Most dictionaries define the verb drive as “to
guide, to control, or to direct.” When you drive a car, you guide it down the road or the
street to your destination. Right now you may be driven by a problem, a pressure, or a
deadline. You may be driven by a painful memory, a haunting fear or an
unconscious belief. Recently I got married. My wife and I have been married for a
little over a year now. In the beginning I think I was mad at God because I thought
He might have made a mistake in our marriage. She is from Panama and Spanish is
her first language. And we had all kinds of communication problems in our first year of
marriage.
Once, when we were in Hong Kong at a shopping mall and Hong Kong has a lot of these
shopping center, my wife had made an appointment at 1pm to meet his brother at a
certain location. He had something he wanted to show us and we were supposed to meet
him at this supposed entrance of this mall (The mall had multiple entrances). We waited
for about a half an hour and I started questioning her about the location. She said empathically that
was the entrance but after another half an hour went by, and no one showed up, I told her
that she must be wrong. She insisted that she was correct but I insisted that she was not
and a huge argument ensued. I thought it was such a little thing but we could not come to
an agreement. I think I blew up and for the rest of the day, anger was driving me. I think
I was praying to God, something like, “How could you let this happen to me?!” And I
was angry with God. What drives your life? Is it anger and resentment?
Another huge driving force which motivates our life is the need for approval. My guess
is that even now, about 80% or more of you are driven by this need for approval.
I believe this is a major stronghold the devil uses to control our lives. What will he or she
think? I pray that God will break this stronghold in your life. Almost my entire life was
controlled by this. I think I spent about 30 years of my life trying to earn the
approval of my parents. But the problem was they were unpleasable. No matter
what I did, they were not satisfied. We allow the expectations of parents or peers or
spouses or children or teachers or friends to control their lives. I remember that I
would practically not allow myself to do anything unless I had the approval of
someone. What people thought of me absolutely controlled everything I did. It was
this bondage that kept me from doing what God wanted me to do for a long time.
Unfortunately, when we follow the crowd, we usually get lost in it. One sure way to
failure is to try to please everyone. Being controlled by the opinions of others is a
guaranteed way to miss God’s purposes for your life.
Many people are also driven by fear. Our fears may be a result of a traumatic experience,
unrealistic expectations, growing up in a high-control home, or whatever. Regardless of
the cause, fear-driven people often miss great opportunities because they’re afraid to
venture out. Instead they play it safe, avoiding risks and trying to maintain the status
quo. But fear like a self imposed prison will keep you from becoming what God intends
for you to be. You must move against it with the weapons of faith and love. 1 John 4:18
(Msg) says, “Well formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life - fear
of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed in love.”
Many people are driven by materialism. Their desire to acquire becomes the whole goal
of their lives. This drive to always want more is based on the misconceptions that having
more will make me more happy, more important, and more secure, but all three ideas are
untrue. Possessions only provide temporary happiness. Because things do not change,
we eventually become bored with them and then want newer, bigger, better versions.
Another thing that is untrue about money is that having more of it will make me more
secure. It won’t. Wealth can be lost instantly through a variety of uncontrollable factors.
Money or materialism don’t not make you happy. What makes a person happy is
relationships. A good and right relationship with God and the people around you.
Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken from you - your
relationship with Jesus Christ. There are other things that can drive our life but all
lead to the same result: unused potential, unnecessary stress, and an unfulfilled life. If
you want to live a fulfilled life, you must live with an eternal perspective and know God’s
purposes for your life.
Rick Warren says:
Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life.
Knowing your purpose simplifies your life.
It also focuses and motivates your life.
And most importantly knowing God’s purpose prepares you for eternity.
Romans 14:10,12 (NLT) says, “Remember, each of us will stand personally before the
judgment seat of God… Yes, each of us will have to give a personal account to God.”
That will be an awesome time when one day, we will have to stand before God and give
an account of our lives before His throne. Everything we’ve ever said, thought, done,
everything in this life that has been recorded will be opened before Him. It will be like
taking a final exam but fortunately the Bible already has the questions that He is going to
ask on the exam. Here are two absolutely crucial questions God is going to ask you:
1. What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ? God won’t ask about your religious
background or doctrinal views. The only thing that will matter is, did you accept
what Jesus did for you and did you learn to love and trust him?
2. What did you do with what I give you? What did you do with our life - all the
gifts, talents, opportunites, energy, relationships, and resources God gave you?
Everything He has put into you and me, what have we done with it? Did we spend
them on your self centeredness? Or did we use them for the purpose God made you for?
The way you answer these question will determine your destiny, where and how you will
spend eternity.
Maybe you are sitting there thinking “I am still young and have many years left to think
about those question perhaps later when I get older.” Let’s say if you are 20 years old
and you still have maybe 50 years left. Well then I still have a lot of time to waste. But
let’s say we cut that in half to 25 years left, then maybe I would become a little more
serious about God’s purpose for my life but not much because I still have a lot of time
left. But if we kept on cutting our life in half down to our last year, our last month or
even our last week, than it becomes crucial. By that time, it’s too late to consider those
two questions. You will have wasted your entire life because you missed God’s purpose
for your life. Thomas Wang, a pastor-missionary who travels extensively to preach was
in Canada conducting a meeting. At this meeting, he gave an altar call for full time
service to God. Among a group of people who came forward, there was a man in his 60’s
or 70’s perhaps. God had spoken to him and he came forward. But he was weeping as
if almost in anguish. Thomas Wang spoke to this elderly gentleman later to find out
why he was crying so much. And with much regret, he told him that he wished he had
responded when he was younger and had more time to serve the Lord but now it was too
late for him because he had waited so long. Don’t make that mistake! Live each
day as if it were the last day of your life. Live with an eternal perspective!
If you don’t feel that your life is significant or if you don’t feel that your life has much
value. Or if you feel your life has no real purpose, I’d like to pray for you…
Dear Father,
Thank you for loving us and for sending your Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins as the
ultimate proof of that love. I now pray for healing for all those who feel that their lives
have no real significance, no purpose, no value, or no worth. I ask you to help them to find your true
value and purpose for them and to live life with an eternal perspective.
Amen
