Made For God's Enjoyment Series

Living a Purpose Driven Life part 2

(Made for God¡¦s Enjoyment)

Brian A. Moon

(Based on the book Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren)

A rich man was determined to give his mother a birthday present that would outshine all others. He read of a bird that had a vocabulary of 4000 words, could speak in numerous languages and was able to sing 3 opera numbers. He immediately bought the bird for $50,000 and had it delivered to his mother. The next day he phoned to see if she had received the bird. "What did you think of the bird?" he asked.

She replied, "It was delicious."

Obviously she did not know the purpose of the bird!

Tonight though I want us to discover the very first purpose of your life because missing the purpose of your life is a big deal. You were made for a reason and that is what we are trying to understand in our 40 Days of Purpose campaign that is looking into the purpose of life. Before we mentioned that you can look for the purpose of life in many places from self-help books to the new age movement and come up empty every time. All of these fail to fully unlock the mystery behind why we are alive because of one simply truth that we found last week¡K

You were made by God and for God!

The Bible says, ¡§You (God) created everything and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.¡¨ Revelation 4:12 NLT

You were not made simply to find yourself and please yourself and serve yourself! You were made to be loved and enjoyed by God and he has five purposes for your life, five reasons that he made you and placed you on this earth. Five things that you should spend your life doing. The first purpose of your life is the natural response when we are loved, and that is to show love back.

I hate to admit this but the other night I was watching The Bachelorette on TV and the scene was the final rose ceremony where the Bachelorette has to take 3 roses and pick between 4 guys that she has some obvious feelings for. She dries a tear from her eye and then calls out one of the guy¡¦s names and as the camera zooms in to catch his reaction you can see his face go from uneasy, torture to a big ole smile.

As he walks over and gets his rose he tells her thank you gives her a big kiss on the cheek. It may be really lame reality TV, but it makes a great illustration of what God has done for us.

We were sitting there confused and lonely and then all of a sudden he picks us and then you discover the first purpose of your life and that is to show God you love him in return for his love for you! God made you for his enjoyment and he has given you the purpose of giving him as much enjoyment as you can with all that you can. You were made to love God! So what were you made to love God with? Good question¡K Onetime this guy asked Jesus the same kind of question he asked him what is the greatest commandment, or what is the one thing that pleases God the most. Jesus thought for a second and told him this,

¡§Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment.¡¨ Matthew 22:37-38 CEV

Underline the words ¡§First and most important¡¨

Jesus told this guy that the first thing, and the most important thing to do, is to make sure you are loving God. That is the first purpose of your life, to love God and enjoy him forever! And what does Jesus say to love him with¡K well he says to love him with all you got, heart, soul, and mind. Love God with all your possessions, all your affection, all your intellect, all your passions, and all your abilities. Love God with all you are, and with all you will ever be! That is the most important thing you can do with your life, to love him. The word that is used for this love for God is worship.

I can remember hearing my dad say onetime that he worshiped the ground my mom walked on and that is the best advice I can give any man on relationships, and it is a picture of what worship is all about.

Worship is a word that brings up all kinds of pictures from singing songs to God, to a Sunday service at a church, to maybe even praying¡K but worship is simply expressing love for God just like a man expresses love for his wife. Worship is more than the ¡§churchy¡¨ stuff that we think of worship is life!