Formed For God's Family Series

FORMED FOR GOD’S FAMILY

Purpose #2 FELLOWSHIP — 40 Days of Purpose

1 Peter 2:17

Adapted from Outline by Rick Warren—Saddleback Church

INTRODUCTION:

A couple years ago Adelina Dominguez died in San Diego. Why mention her? Well at the time she died Adelina was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest living American at the age of 114. In living over a century she had outlived all of her children and even some of her grandchildren. Adelina was interviewed in an Associated Press article and asked about the secret of her longevity. Adelina gave all the credit to God and His plan for her life; she said, “I knew God had a purpose for my life.”

Few of us will ever live to be 114. Yet regardless of how long you may live God has a purpose for your life.

We are now at day 15 of 40 days of purpose; together we are discovering the answer to the question, “What on earth am I here for?” Through the last week we have studied our first reason for being. Our primary purpose in life is to know and love God.

The Bible calls that WORSHIP. You and I were made to bring pleasure to God as we choose to love God back—worship is responding to God’s great love for us by loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We choose to give God our affection, our attention and our actions. Everything we do is to please God; that’s a lifestyle of worship.

Today we are going to look at our second purpose for life. Until we find out what God wants us to do with our lives we will never be satisfied; our life will be empty. So let’s get out our Bibles and discover why God has made us.

• Hebrews 2:10a (NCV)

God is the one who made all things, and all things are for His glory. He wanted to have many children share His glory...

God wanted a family. That’s why we’re here. If you want to understand your purpose for life, you need to know God wants you to be a part of His family.

• Ephesians 1:5 (NLT)

His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.

God is our heavenly Father—Abba Father—our Daddy God. And guess what. Our Daddy God loves His kids. As members of His family, we make God happy.

Our purpose for life begins by loving God our heavenly Father. We continue to fulfill our purpose by letting His love for us overflow to others. Here then is your second purpose for living.

• Stand with me as we read God’s word together: 1 Peter 2:17 (MsgB)

. . . Love your spiritual family. . .

God’s purpose for your life is simple. Number 1—God wants you to learn to love your heavenly Father; that’s worship. Number 2—God wants you to learn to love the other members of the family, your brothers and sisters. God wants us to learn to love each other; that’s your second purpose for life.

Now the Bible has a word for loving each other; it’s FELLOWSHIP. Write this down, “Me second purpose in life is fellowship.”

Like worship, fellowship is often misunderstood by people today. What do you think of when you hear the word “fellowship?” Some might say casual conversation, some would say eating out together, and others might say going to church.

o Imagine this a couple of guys meet either before church with a cup of coffee, or out in the lobby after church and their conversation goes something like this:

 Hey how are things going?

 Oh good; how ‘bout you?

 The same, although work has been a little crazy.

 Say, who do you like in the big game today?

 Oh I like the Eagles; this is the year for curses to be broken. You?

 I think the Pats will repeat; they’re going to clip the Eagles wings.

 Well I guess we’ll see soon enough who’s right and who’ wrong.

 Yep; I’ll be sure to check in with you next week, and I promise not to rub it in too much when you see that I’m right.

 Na, I’ll bring you a piece of humble pie.

 Well we’ll see next week—love ya brother.

 Yea, have a good week; been nice fellowshipping with ya.

Now, did they just fellowship? No! They are just shooting the breeze; that’s just talking. That’s not fellowship. Write this down, “Fellowship is loving God’s family.”

Now, why does He want us to learn to love each other? First, it makes us more like God, because God is love. Second, he wants His children to learn to get along. Parents will agree; we all want our children to learn to love each other (hopefully before they kill each other). And number three, God wants us to love each other because it’s practice for eternity. When we’re all in heaven we are going to love God and guess what—we’re going to love each other too.