Not long ago I read an amazing story. A man named Bill Mallory traveled to India to discover the purpose of life.
But he didn’t find the answer there.
So after returning to the United States, he noticed a sign at Chevron gas station that simply said, “As you travel, ask us.”
So every time he pulled into this Chevron station, he would walk up to the clerk, point to the sign and say, “I’m a traveler. I’d like to ask you a question. What is the purpose life?”
These were the real answers he got. I’m not making this up. The first guy said, “Sorry. I’m new here.”
The second guy said, “I don’t remember anything in the manual about that.”
Another guy said, “I’m not much for spiritual stuff myself, sir.”
One guy gave him a leering look and a wink, whatever that meant.
However, most people just gave him a blank stare.
One day Mallory got a phone call from Chevron Customer Relations.
He said, “We understand you’ve been asking our dealer questions and getting unsatisfactory answers.”
The man suggested that he write out his question and send it to Chevron Corporate with a self-addressed stamped envelope.
So Bill Mallory wrote, “What is the purpose of life?” and sent it to Chevron Gas Company.
A couple of weeks later, the envelope was returned. The only thing in it was an application for a credit card!
If you want to know the purpose of life, you’re not going to find it in a gas station.
You’re not going to find it on a talk show.
You’re not going to find it in a self-help book.
You’re not going to find it at some seminar.
If you want to know the purpose of life, you have to either talk to the creator who made you, or look in the owner’s manual – the Bible.
You were made by God and you were made for God. And until you understand that, life isn’t going to make sense.
We are now in our second week of this series called “40 Days of Purpose.” Today, we’re going to look at the first of God’s five purposes for your life.
God has five reasons for creating you, and today we’re going to look at the first.
Psalm 149:4 says “the Lord takes pleasure in his people.”
The Bible teaches that we were created for God’s enjoyment and pleasure.
As you know, I was not here last week. I expected to be, but because of Hurricanes closing airports in Florida the mission team of our church stayed a wee bit longer than we expected.
However, I am told that last week Will preached about how you were created to be loved by God.
This week we’re looking at the flip side, the first purpose of your life, which is God wants you to love Him back.
The first purpose of your life – God loves you and wants you to love Him back.
He wants you to bring enjoyment back to Him.
One day Jesus was asked, “Lord, what’s the most important command in the entire Scriptures?”
The answer that Jesus gave was, “Love the Lord your God. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
God says if you don’t get anything else, here’s what you’re supposed to do in life: you’re supposed to learn to love Me back, because I made you to love you and I know you. And I want you to know and love me back.
Now, there’s a word for this.
It is the word “worship.”
Worship is knowing and loving God back. Our first purpose in life is to worship God.
It’s our primary objective. It’s your highest priority. It is your number one purpose in life. We’re going to talk about what that means today because, unfortunately worship is misunderstood.
Perhaps the best verse that describes worship is from Romans 12, verse one:
Romans 12:1-2
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship.
2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-- his good, pleasing and perfect will.
(NIV)
I hope everyone is in a small group for our 40 Days of Purpose. Those of you who are will be going into great detail about this verse this week. You will all be studying and thinking this week about what it means to worship.
But I do want us to think this morning about five important elements of worship.
If you look at your bulletin, the way we divide the section of this morning’s worship service is actually the outline of today’s sermon.
The first thing I want to share about worship is that it is focusing our attention on God.
We were created for a purpose, and part of that purpose was that we were created for God’s pleasure. Giving pleasure to God is called worship. Worship is not about us as much as it is about God. So step one of worship is to focus our attention on God.
Have you ever been to a worship service and then left thinking, “That worship inspired me, bored me, excited me, put me to sleep…
But how often do we leave asking if God found our worship pleasing?
And that is what worship should be – an offering we make TO God. It is not for our entertainment. It is for God’s delight.
And worship begins by focusing our attention on God.
Sometimes guys will ask me, “my wife, my kids, they say I don’t love them. But I do things for them. I work every day for them, why don’t they feel loved by me?”
Because they want your attention. Attention is an incredible expression of love.
God puts His attention constantly on us. He wants us to put our attention on Him.
Unfortunately, that is easier said than done.
For one thing, we are very easily distracted.
We are self-centered by nature.
And to make matters worse, we live in a self-centered culture.
In Romans, chapter 8, Paul writes “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death. To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” Then Paul goes onto say, “those who set their minds on the flesh cannot please God.”
What is the first thing that we do when we come into the Sanctuary here at Good Shepherd?
We probably come rushing in so we can secure our familiar seat!!!
We come in and perhaps feel some relief that there is room near the back row and we don’t have to sit on the front pew.
We might chat with our neighbor. Say hello to a few of the folks we haven’t seen lately.
But eventually we need to begin to worship.
And worship doesn’t begin with preaching, or a prayer, or a hymn.
It begins by our moving our attention from ourselves, and toward God.
That is what the prelude is for. It is not background music like you hear on the elevator that soothes us during our conversation. That is why when we begin the prelude, I invite you to be silent and to turn you attention to God.
The other elements of worship – the music, the introit, a prayer, a call to worship, all of these can help us focus our attention to God.
Now, not only is worship focusing my attention on God, it’s also expressing my affection to God.
Expressing my affection.
This is loving God with your heart and soul.
For some of you, this might be difficult, perhaps because you grew up in families that weren’t real affectionate, weren’t real expressive, didn’t say ‘I love you’ a lot.
Maybe you’re kind of the silent type. It’s not real easy for you to express affection to God without feeling weird or kind of kooky about it.
You’re going to have to learn how to grow, how to develop, how to say “I love you God”.
In our worship services here at Good Shepherd, once we begin to focus our attention on God, we then begin to express affection to God.
The Bible says, “We love God, because He first loved us.” I John 4:19
Expressing that affection is one of the first things we do.
Our opening hymns are always hymns of praise. We don’t sing to pass the time. We don’t sing to entertain ourselves. We sing as a way of expressing affection to God.
Those of you who are married, have you ever told your wife or husband that you love him or her? Of course you have!
Now, how many of you have ever told God that you love him?
I hope all of you. It is part of worship.
Now, those of you who are married know that how you say hello is as important as the fact that you say it.
Imagine the husband who goes to his wife and says in a mono-toned voice, “Honey, here are some flowers for you. And I am giving you these flowers for three strategic reasons: Point No. 1, I am your husband. Point No. 2, it is our anniversary. Point No. 3, husbands are supposed to give their wives flowers on their anniversary. So here.”
Wouldn’t she be thrilled?
I don’t think so. Why?
People want their spouses to love passionately and intensely.
That is the way we should sing our songs of praise.
He doesn’t want us to stand and stare at the hymnal with lips that barely move, or that don’t move at all. He wants us to be enthusiastic about every way we express our affection to him.
Music is just one way we express affection to God.
We do it with giving thanks to God while watching a sunset.
We do it with prayers of praise.
We do it by telling God how much we adore Him.
One of the things we always include in the worship service is the reading and proclamation of the Word of God.
How many of you are in relationships with someone in which one person does all the talking.
Hmmm, come to think of it, that might be a pretty common relationship. But it is never, ever a good relationship.
If you are in a marriage and you do all the talking and never listen to your spouse, eventually your marriage is going to be in trouble.
Paul, in writing to the church of Rome, said, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
(NIV)
We were created by God for his pleasure, and in the act of worship, we give God pleasure. Part of this worship must be to listen to the Word of God.
Worship is many things – and one component of worship must be an expression of using our abilities for God.
It is expressing my affection to God, and it is using my abilities for God. Using my abilities for God.
Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, wrote, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for people.” Colossians 3:23-24
Now, if you really understand and embrace this Word of God, it will absolutely revolutionize your life.
You’ll never be the same once you understand this verse. Notice it again. “Whatever you do” – that means anything – “work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.”
The number 1 purpose in life is to worship God, and part of that worship means being active FOR God. Using your abilities for God.
Last week our church went to Haiti. I was one of 9 people in our church who used their abilities for God. Electrical work and medical work was the primary focus of that mission. That’s worship. The ability to use your skills in the service of God is part of worship of God.
Now, if you don’t get anything else we’ve said today, I want you to get this one truth, because it will revolutionize your life. In life it’s not what you do that matters; it is Who you do it for. It’s not what you do that matters; it’s Who you do it for. You give it all to God.
And all of your work can be turned to worship.
I don’t care if you’re a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. You can do it for God. You say, “I’m going to do this as if I’m doing it for you, God.” Now, you may be a carpet cleaner, you may be an attorney, you may be a nurse, you may be an at-home mother raising children, you may be an executive or a manager or sales person, or a truck driver or a nurse. It really doesn’t matter what you do. It’s Who you do it for.
Paul said in his New Testament book of Romans, chapter 12, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is your spiritual act of worship.”
Present you bodies as a living sacrifice – present everything about who you are and what you do – as a living sacrifice.
Real purpose-driven living doesn’t happen just in church.
It doesn’t even happen in a small group.
It doesn’t even happen in your personal time of quiet time with God every day, of prayer and reading the Bible.
It happens in the ordinary, routine, mundane, things of real life where you go,
You work in your jobs to the glory of God.
You study in school to the glory of God.
You function in your family to the glory of God.
The final element of worship is to experience God’s love.
Worship is focused on God. In worship we express our affection to God. But in a relationship, there must be a two-way experience of love. And so while worship is primarily an activity in which we are focused on God, it must also include a time when we experience God’s love for us.
We experience this throughout worship.
When we confess our sins to God, we always hear a comforting passage from Scripture that reminds us that God forgives us – and in that forgiveness we experience God’s love.
In prayers of thanksgiving, we experience God’s love.
In the offering we affirm that what we give to the offering is a response of God’s generosity toward us.
But nowhere is God’s love more visible than at the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which we will be celebrating in just a few moments.
It is here at this Table that we are reminded of God’s love for us.
The bread on that table is for us the body of Christ, and we remember how that body was broken for us and for our redemption.
The wine on that table is for us the blood of Christ which was shed for our redemption.
Jesus told his disciples just hours before his death on a cross, “Greater love has no one that this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13
And Jesus did just that, and at the Lord’s Table we remember that, and we experience God’s love in the most dramatic and visible way possible.
You were planned for a purpose. The first purpose is that you were planned for God’s pleasure, and worship is the primary way we express pleasure to God.
Let’s pray to God…
Copyright notice: Much of this material comes from the Rick Warren Program, 40 Days of Purpose. It is adapted for the Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church.
For more sermons and worship materials, visit www.pittendreigh.com
