WHAT’S YOUR GOAL IN LIFE?
LUKE 9:23-26
Introduction: What is your goal in life? When you come to the end of your life and look back what would determine whether you have been a success or not? When you have run the race what will determine if you have finished well and if you will hear the words from the King of Eternity, “Well done!”?
I. The World’s View of Success
A. Having achieved material wealth
1. Many believe that success is the foundation of a happy life. Success is wealth, wealth is happiness; therefore, success is happiness.
2. Luke 12:16-20 “Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’
3. A railroad magnate was dying. Addressing his son who stood by his bedside, the dying man said, “Son, take hold of my hand,” which he did. Then the man said, “My son you are holding the hand of the man who has made the greatest failure of any man that ever lived.” “But,” said the son, “Father, why do you speak thus? You are worth a million dollars. You are president of the railroad. You number your friends by the thousands. Your word is as good as your bond. Why speak thus?” The poor man looked up and said, “It is like this. I have lived for time and not for eternity. I have made no preparation for the next world. I must leave all here. It is all dark.” Thus he passed to the unknown world. He was right “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? – By William Moses Tidwell, “Effective Illustrations.”
4. Matthew 6:24 "You cannot serve God and wealth."
B. Having been a good family member
1. A young woman asked to define success answered “When I am 65 and I am still married and committed to the guy of my youth, and care as much then I’ll have been successful. Otherwise, I will say it was just life”
2. A professing Christian said “In the end I will consider my life successful and well lived if my tombstone can say: I provided for my family, I raised my children to be successful members of society, I contributed to the needy. I helped someone; by giving beyond my means (sacrificed), I worked toward leaving America better off than my generation inherited.
3. 1 Timothy 5:8 “But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
C. Having made the world a better place to live.
1. Some would say that success is taking the time to make the world a little better for having you in it.
2. "Humanism is a philosophy of joyous service for the greater good of all humanity, of application of new ideas of scientific progress for the benefit of all" – Linus Pauling, scientist, Humanist of the Year in 1961, Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1954, Nobel Peace Prize in 1962
3. 1 Peter 1:12 “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.”
4. The believer needs to realize that the world is not going to get better - 2 Timothy 3:13 “But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
D. Having the ability to look at oneself in the mirror and feel you have done right.
1. Proverbs 21:2 “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the hearts.”
2. One man said, “Success means looking in the mirror and liking what you see.”
3. Deuteronomy 12:8 “You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes”
E. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “What Is Success?”
To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To give of one’s self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived - This is to have succeeded.
II. The Believer’s Calling
A. Success is discovering God’s goal and purpose for your life and pursuing the same until you have with God’s help accomplished it to the maximum.
B. Paul in Ephesians 4:1 urges us “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
C. Philippians 3:13-14 “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
D. The Call of the Believer
1. To bring people to Christ
2. Matthew 4:19 “Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
3. Jesus didn’t say “Go out and hold seminars on the existence of God.” He didn’t tell us to hold prosperity workshops or socio-political action committees. He said, “Go and preach the gospel to every creature.”
E. The primary call of the church is carry on the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ who came to seek and to save that which was lost.
F. As such the believer is called to be an Agent
1. Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
2. As believer’s we represent the Eternal Life Insurance Company, the largest, oldest, and most reliable fire and life insurance company offering a policy which is fully equitable operating all over the world (John 3:16) and offer to all, young and old, rich and poor (Romans 10:13). Its management is rock solid and has never changed. It insures a man for more than he is worth. Most importantly it is the only insurance against loss from the fire of the Great Judgment Day (Rev 20:15).
3. To most people, the great depression of the 30s has been forgotten in the wave of prosperity that followed. Out of those hard times, however, came a story which has a strange ending yet teaches us a powerful lesson. When a timid old lady approached the first desk she saw in an insurance office in Minneapolis, she was asked what she wanted. With trembling hand, she took from her well-worn purse an old policy and explained regretfully that she was unable to meet the current premium. She explained that it was hard for her to get work and what little she did get was hardly enough to clothe, feed her and keep a roof over her head. After quick investigation, the clerk recognized that the policy was very valuable. He warned the old lady that she was making an unwise move to stop payment. Did not her husband have anything to say? It was his policy made out to her benefit, he explained. “My husband? Oh, he has been dead for three years,” she remarked sadly. Immediately the company officials went into action. They soon discovered that she was indeed telling the truth. What she didn’t understand was that the policy was her husband’s and that she was the beneficiary at his death. They were thus obligated to refund the overpaid premiums plus the full amount for which the husband had insured his life in her favor. The money was sufficient to keep her in comfort the rest of her life. The greatest life insurance policy of all time became due when Jesus Christ died on the cross! Thousands of people continue trying to make payments on their own salvation while all they need to do is accept the immeasurable gift that is theirs through the death and resurrection of our Savior. To become the beneficiary of God’s Life Insurance Policy, we need simply to acknowledge our need as sinners and thank Him for the gift of His only begotten Son who died on the Cross and rose again (2Cor. 9:15) that we might have God’s forgiveness. (Source Unknown)
G. He is called to be an Ambassador
1. 2 Corinthians 5:20 “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”
2. What is an ambassador? He is an authorized representative of a sovereign. He speaks not in his own name but on behalf of the ruler whose deputy he is, and his whole duty and responsibility is to interpret that ruler’s mind faithfully to those to whom he is sent. - Your Father Loves You, by James Packer, (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1986), page for July 24
3. As His Ambassadors we are not to entangle ourselves in the affairs of this world.
H. He is called to be an Arbitrator (Intercessor)
1. 1 Timothy 2:1 “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people”
2. Romans 10:1 “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.”
3. "God’s greatest agency for winning men to himself is the prayers of other men. How few ever enter into the positive, practical power of prayer. It is the mightiest force in the universe, and the Christian world is blind to this fact." – Courtland Meyers.
CONCLUSION: Most Christians are guilty of the sin of commission in carrying out the Great Omission. We have not been called to accumulate wealth or an inheritance for our heirs. We have not been called to merely live good lives. We have been called to go to those who will burn in the lake of fire for eternity if they do not come to Christ with the message of salvation. We may have success by the world’s standards; but if we are not actively seeking to share Christ with the lost, when our lives near the end of the road how dare we expect to hear Christ say “Well done.”?
