What is God's Purpose for My Life? - Powerful Sermon

when i was a kid i had a huge collection of legos uh if you don't know what legos are they're little plastic pieces that uh are shaped in such a way that they stack on top of each other and they build um all of these different toys like uh like we had this one huge ship like a pirate ship we could build out of legos we had a castle we had uh you know mountains and forests and space ships and all of these things that we could build out of these lego blocks but one problem we always had was we would take all of the different pieces from all of the different sets and we would just throw them all together in this massive box so we had this huge collection of pieces you know and we could get really creative with the things that we built but anytime i wanted to go back and reconstruct one of the original sets like let's say i wanted to build that pirate ship i had to go through that whole box and i had to find every single unique piece that had been specifically designed for that set every single piece was designed for a unique purpose my point is so are you so are you you might not know this but you have a reason for being here you have a specific purpose that god has placed you on this planet for and so i want to share three truths to help you find that purpose the first one is we have to let god reveal our purpose to us god himself chose your purpose before you are even born so if you've ever wondered if you've ever had that thought am i here for a reason or not the answer is yes and god actually knew that reason before you even existed ephesians 2 10 says for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them the problem a lot of us have is that but because we have such a deep longing to know why we're here we go searching for our purpose we go looking for it i can't tell you how many nights i used to stay awake on my bed lay there trying to fall asleep but at the same time fighting this urge to ask that big question why am i here i was bending all of my thought toward discovering my reason for being and i was haunted by that question i was haunted by that lack of purpose but the day that all of that changed was the day i met the purpose giver and one of the first things that god began to show me after i met him was that my purpose was connected to my calling and god reveals our calling in two ways the first way he reveals our calling is he reveals a general calling in scripture to all believers the second way is that he actually reveals a specific calling through his voice so your general calling it's what all believers are called to do jesus sums it up in mark 16 15 when he says go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation so no matter what your specific calling looks like it's going to be attached in one way or another to the great commission to this this commission that jesus has given us to share to take the good news of the gospel that he has shared with us and to share it with the world but when it comes to your specific calling we often think we often you know a lot of times we think it's tied to our talents or our gifts or our intelligence or maybe you know some credentials we have but the truth is god can use those things he's not discounting them but he's also not limited by them i've known since people specifically who received a prophetic word about their purpose but then you know for years after that they ran from that word but the problem is when we run from his word when we whether it's his written word or whether it's the the leading of the holy spirit the problem is when we run from his word we run from his presence paul the apostle was a christian hater uh he he hated christians he was persecuting them left and right he was going into their houses and dragging them out and putting them in jail and yet jesus completely changed the direction of his life with his voice in acts chapter 9 while paul is on the road to damascus he's suddenly confronted with this bright light from heaven and jesus begins to talk to him and paul asks this question lord what do you want me to do what do you want me to do jesus replies arise and go into the city and you will be told what you must do so paul he goes to the city and he waits for a word from god but what i want you to see is what he does while he's waiting he actually prays and he fasts he sets aside everything else and he waits for god to speak and then god ends up sending ananias to baptize paul and then paul immediately starts preaching christ so what happened here he went from being a christian hater to being a christ promoter i'll tell you what happened paul found his purpose the funny thing about paul is that he was literally the worst choice in in man's eyes so like to all the christians that paul had been persecuting it probably felt like god should have picked anyone else except for paul to start the early church but god picked the person that people would have considered the worst choice and god was able to use him to fulfill a great purpose sometimes we put way too much pressure on ourselves by thinking that we have to meet some standard of good deeds or intelligence or talent or resource or natural spunk whatever it is you don't you don't god uses those things and the more you seek him the more he'll help you develop those things but god does not purpose you for what you're best suited for in the natural realm he purposes you for what is going to bring him the most glory truth number two we have to stop trying to live out someone else's purpose the apostle peter and the apostle paul were two major evangelists in the new testament but but though these two men of god shared the same general purpose like all believers to preach the good news and to build up the body of christ their specific purposes looked very unique in galatians 2 9 paul says in recognizing the grace that had been given to me james and cephas another name for peter and john who were reputed to be pillars gave to me and barnabas the right hand of fellowship so that we might go to the gentiles and they to the circumcised god sent peter and paul with the same message of grace but he sent them to different people to different groups i i personally believe one of the secrets to peter's success and paul's success is that they both recognize the differences in their calling but also that they accepted those differences so if paul had spent all his time trying to convince peter to preach to the gentiles too he wouldn't have had time to do what god was asking him to do or on the other hand if peter had decided that his ministry needed to look more like paul's he wouldn't have been walking down the path that god had for him here's my point even if we know our purpose we won't be able to walk it out if we spend our time comparing ourselves to others envy and covetousness are liars they'll attempt to try to stop you from living out the purpose that god has for you stop comparing yourself stop trying to find your purpose based on what you see other people doing when you hear that voice that says but look how good they're doing they're better than you and you need to be more like them you need to understand that that is a distraction and it's from the devil it is not meant to help you it's meant to paralyze you instead of listening to the voice of comparison listen to the voice of the holy spirit let your purpose grow out of what god is saying not what other people are saying not what the devil is saying first corinthians 12 17 and 18 fights against the lies of comparison when it says if the whole body were an eye where would the hearing be if the whole were hearing where would the sense of smell be but now god has placed the members each one of them in the body just as he desired if you feel like god made a mistake when he called you look at that verse one more time it says god has placed us in the body of christ just as he desired god placed you where you are for a reason he created your brain to think a certain way for a reason he gave you specific spiritual gifts for a reason if you're looking around at the picture of someone else's calling and you're wondering why it seems so beautiful in comparison to your own the problem is not that your calling isn't any good the problem is that you haven't looked through the eyes of the painter yet so when i was in college i i had to take a lot of art classes and one of the classes i took was this illustration class where we did some painting we did some some charcoal coloring we did some color pencil drawings we did a lot of different illustrations uh and and i remember this one day when i was doing this uh charcoal sketch of a live model so there's a person standing up in the middle of the room we're all standing around on our easels and we're all you know just drawing away you know and trying to create our own versions of what we see and i remember the professor walking around the room and he kept going from easel to easel and saying oh that looks nice oh that looks good oh that looks good and i remember when he began to walk over to my easel i'm standing there and i'm drawing and i'm thinking to myself this looks amazing i'm thinking i don't think i've ever drawn anything so good in my life i was so proud of what i was drawing i was thinking i love this so much i love the look of what's going on here and yet when the professor comes over and as soon as he looks at my drawing immediately he's been quiet the whole time and then suddenly he bursts out and he he suddenly yells are you even measuring at all and and i'm just kind of standing there in shock and i'm thinking like uh and i say i think so and i'm thinking wow he hates my painting he hates it uh you know and then he then he goes okay and he walks away and and i'm thinking wow i'm gonna i'm gonna fail this class right or at least i'm going to fail this project you know because he hates this drawing even though i love it but the more i looked at that and the more i thought about it the more i realized i love this i love this drawing i love what i've created here and it doesn't matter what he thinks about it the point i'm trying to make is that god has painted the picture of his plan for your life and he has said it that it is good he loves it instead of trying to tell him that he messed up on the painting my encouragement to you is to wait upon him and let him show you his perspective let him reveal the importance of your purpose to you one way that i personally try to apply this practically is by listening to other teachers from different denominations so if you know anything about my ministry you know i write books i make videos i do several different things but i don't just allow myself to be influenced by one specific denomination or one specific teacher and the reason is because god can use people in different ways to reach different people so the truth is i'm not perfect at this so don't think that that's what i'm saying but my hope is that i'll be able to look at the people throughout the body of christ no matter what denomination or group they are in and appreciate the purpose they are serving even though it happens to be different from my own see i understand that there are teachers and groups of christians who might never accept me based on some of the things i talk about things like healing or spiritual gifts but that's okay because the truth is i've come to realize that if i allow the fear of what they think or even the desire to be liked by them to lead me if i allow those desires to push me in a certain direction then i'm not fulfilling the purpose god has placed in my heart and that doesn't make me better than anyone else it just means that god is going to use me in a different way the one thing i do look for though is that they are preaching the same message see god uses a lot of different people in different ways but the thread that stitches us together is the message of the gospel jesus died on the cross to demonstrate god's love to us to offer us forgiveness of our sins and to bring us into fellowship with god the less time we spend comparing ourselves to other believers and the more we place our hope and our worth in that simple truth the better we will be at living out the purpose that we were designed for truth number three we have to allow god to empower us for our purpose many people are missing their purpose not because they're running from their calling but because they're actually running from the very presence of god think about jonah for a second it says in jonah 1 3 that jonah ran get this says he ran from the presence of the lord so when jonah hopped onto that boat you know god told him go preach to nineveh and tell them to repent he didn't want to do it he goes and he he gets on this boat and he sails out to sea to run from his calling but really what he was running from was not a task that god had given him he was running from the very presence of his creator please understand that i'm not saying this in a condemning way i'm not trying to be judgmental because i'm not perfect at seeking god either but the way i believe many believers run from god's presence today is by choosing to ignore or to devalue the fellowship of the holy spirit many of us want to fulfill our purpose but when we shut that door in our hearts to the spirit of god the presence of god cannot invade our lives and empower us to do what god is asking us to do first corinthians 12 4-5 says now there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit and there are varieties of ministries and the same lord verse 7 goes on to say but to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good the word manifestation just means the experience of and right after this paul begins to list out various spiritual gifts that the holy spirit gives us and then in verse 11 he says but one in the same spirit works all these things so all of these gifts are are worked through the holy spirit it's him doing the work and then it says distributing to each one individually just as he wills don't miss the subtlety of this truth paul is saying every believer should be experiencing the holy spirit but also that the experience of the holy spirit is based on the will of the spirit not our will so there's this fence that sits between these two separate ideas be a bird with me on this fence on one side of the fence is the idea that the holy spirit doesn't work in the lives of believers anymore at all some people believe the gifts of the spirit have ceased they believe god no longer speaks through the holy spirit and they think that our relationship with god is all about what we can do for god it's all about the you know putting the effort in my heart is not to attack believers who believe this but you do need to understand this if god cannot speak to us personally that's not a healthy relationship healthy relationships require personal communication paul confirms this in first corinthians when he tells us that every believer should be experiencing the holy spirit so remember we're birds on this fence so so now i want you to look at the other side of the fence for a second there are other people on the other side of the fence who get excited about the gifts of the spirit and they get so excited that they attempt to operate in the gifts of the spirit apart from the personal leading of the spirit so a good example of this is maybe an end times prophet who keeps making these predictions about when the world is going to end and they say that god is speaking through them and yet every single time they make a prediction they end up being wrong the point is we cannot separate the gift from the gift giver paul he addresses this as well in the same verse when he says the holy spirit distributes his gifts to each one just as he wills the working of the holy spirit is not some secret mystical power that we discover when we get enlightened or when we become holy enough it is simply the overflowing of god's power when he is living inside of us in luke chapter 10 jesus sends out 72 followers of his and he sends them out with authority in verse 8 jesus tells them as he sends them out if you enter a town and it welcomes you eat whatever is set before you heal the sick and tell them the kingdom of god is near you now jesus sends this group of people out to preach the gospel and he tells them to expect the gifts of the spirit like healing to confirm the message they are preaching some christians have received the burden of the task but they have not accepted the gift of the spirit and and when we are in that position we're attempting to fulfill our purpose in our own strength the good news is if you've been stumbling through your christian walk god wants to empower you to walk with authority in ephesians 4 8 paul says about jesus when he ascended on high he led captive a host of captives and he gave gifts to men when i was a young child i i had a great grandma that we called mimi and she was my grandma's mom on my dad's side and i remember anytime that mimi was in town or anytime we would go to where she lived and we would visit her she would always bring a bunch of one dollar bills with her and all of the grandkids or great grandkids all the young children before she left she would make sure to give each one of us a dollar bill and i remember when i was really young i would get so excited to see mimi right because i knew whenever she was leaving she would hand me a dollar bill and i was always so excited about it there's a picture here i want you to see is that when any time i was in her presence i would leave i would be sent back out with a gift right god does the same thing when we go into his presence he pours out his gifts upon us but there was also a certain age where i suddenly i got to a certain point where i was old enough to appreciate the relationship i had with my meaning and and i suddenly didn't care about the gift anymore i suddenly didn't care about the money anymore i just wanted to see her and and the same thing i believe happens with god when we begin to mature in our faith we get to this point where you know what it doesn't matter if god is handing me a gift or not all i want is him all i want is to be in his presence and suddenly our focus is not on the gift so much as it is now on the gift giver and that's god's heart for us to take our focus off of the gift and to put our focus on him but what's amazing is he still wants us to expect to receive from him you know even even after the point where i didn't care about the money anymore even though i was really just excited about seeing her i would still leave with a dollar in my hand god still wants us to expect to receive from him but he also wants us to desire him more than we desire what he can give us when i was first filled with the spirit i was so excited about spiritual gifts they still excite me but not as much as the simple truth that god wants me to be in his presence he wants to hang out with me he wants to reveal himself to me in a deeper way what i found is that he gives good gifts and he equips us for our purpose but the greatest purpose we have is just to know him it's just to walk with him see the truth is even though you get to enjoy your purpose through what you do you cannot find your purpose in what you do you must find your purpose in who you know has has someone ever introduced you to jesus have you ever heard that phrase to be introduced to jesus the precedent to introducing someone is to know them yourself to to to fulfill the purpose of making god known we must first be fulfilling our greatest purpose to simply know him the good news is as we get up every single day and we put our hope in jesus christ and we put our hope in the truth of the gospel and we continue to press in to know god to get close to the purpose giver fulfilling our purpose will become that much easier in fact it'll be what we're naturally doing so i want to leave you with a simple encouragement today whatever it is you've been focusing on in your christian walk or maybe in your career or maybe in your ministry or whatever it might be whatever the focus has been on my encouragement to you today is to examine the heart behind it to look at your heart and say am i focused on the person of jesus christ and am i focused on knowing him am i focused on knowing his heart and not just accomplishing something not just fulfilling something or not just completing a task when you decide to put the focus back on jesus he will point you in the direction you need to go he will empower you to do what he's asked you to do and he will himself help you to walk out your purpose [Music]

Channel: Troy Black

Views: 29,046

Rating: 4.9449964 out of 5

Keywords: sermon, powerful sermon, God, purpose, inspirational sermon, Troy Black

Id: sU5BaaZvWDU

Length: 21min 41sec (1301 seconds)

Published: Wed May 27 2020