Planned for God’s Pleasure
The Purpose-Driven Life, pt. 2
Wildwind Community Church
David K. Flowers channeling Rick Warren
October 21, 2007
We’re in this series right now 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. Number one, let’s read Revelation 4:11 out of the Bible. Would you read it with me?
Rev. 4:11
You (God) created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.
The Bible says you were created for God’s enjoyment. God made you just to enjoy you. God planned you for His purpose.
Raise your hand if you are a parent. How many of you enjoy watching your kids? Most of the time! And I think the same thing is true with God, most of the time He enjoys watching you be you. You were made for God’s pleasure. When you were born, God was there in that room, and he was happy, because He wanted you made. He made you for His purpose.
Now, last week Dr. Joe talked to you 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 that God wants you to love Him back. One day Jesus was walking down the street and a guy came up and said, “Lord, what’s the most important command in the entire Bible?” Jesus goes, “okay, I’m going to give it to you. This is the most important thing. If you don’t get anything else, get this. It’s the most important.” It’s Matthew 22. He said,
Matthew 22:35-38 (MSG)
(35) One of their religion scholars spoke for them, posing a question they hoped would show him up:
(36) "Teacher, which command in God’s Law is the most important?"
(37) Jesus said, " ’Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’
(38) This is the most important, the first on any list.
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 I want you to know and love me back.
Now, there’s a word for this. It’s a word we misunderstand so a lot of people don’t use it. It is the word “worship.” Worship is knowing and loving God back. Now, the problem is, worship is misunderstood today. When I say the word “worship,” what do you think of? Well, you may think of prayer. You may think of singing. You may think of ritual or communion or going to church, something you do in church. But worship is far more than all those things. See, your first purpose in life is to worship God. It’s your primary objective. It’s your highest priority. We’re going to talk about what that means today because, unfortunately, as I said, worship is misunderstood.
Mark 12:30 (HCSB)
(30) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
This is the memory verse for this week in the 40 Days Campaign.
I want to point out that God wants us to love Him three ways: First, God wants us to love Him thoughtfully. It says, “love Him with your mind.” Thoughtfully. In other words, He wants you to think it through, to not just do it without thinking. Second, God wants me to love him passionately. He says, “with all your heart and all your soul.” I want you to love Me passionately, because I passionately love you. And third, God wants us to love him practically. “Love Me with all your strength”, with your abilities. You see, the truth is that even though God created the entire world and the universe and He created you, there are three things God does not have unless you give them to Him. He doesn’t have your attention unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your mind. He doesn’t have your affection, unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your heart and your soul. And God doesn’t have your ability, unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your strength. Of course, all those things He gave you first. Whenever you take the things God has given to you and you give them back to God, that, friends, is the heart of worship.
So worship is focusing attention on God. Now, how do you do that? Well, you have to realize, first of all, that we are very easily distracted.
Romans 12:2 (MSG)
(2) Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God…
We must choose, my friends – choose to stop thinking about some things and start thinking about God.
Now, how do you do that? Well, first of all, you can start doing that by just establishing a daily time with God. Just a few minutes during the day, like some of you have been doing for your Purpose-Driven readings. I don’t care when you do it -- beginning of the day, middle, end of the day, where you decide I’m going to stop everything else and just be with God. Talk to Him, read His Word.
Matthew 6:6 (MSG)
(6) "Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
I don’t want this sermon to go on for four hours, so I’m going to move on, but I want you to notice all that’s in here. First, it’s Jesus saying, “Here’s what I want you to do.” The question is will we be obedient to Jesus or not. Second is that we must find a place. Just find a quiet place to be with God. Third is just to be simple. You don’t have to act all spiritual and make it something it’s not.
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. And for some of you, this is kind of difficult 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 (or maybe anyone) 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”. Remember in junior high when you did that thing where you would kind of send out emissaries and say, “Do you know my friend likes your friend?” You would kind of check it out beforehand -- I mean, you’re not going to just walk out there and lay it on the line and say, “I like you,” you know? No, you’re going to wait and find out if they like you too before you say it. Now hopefully as we grow up we stop playing those games, but one thing doesn’t change. It’s always risky to say, “I love you.” But the great thing about God is He’s taken away the risk. He said it first. God said it first to you. God said, “I love you.” God has said it in a thousand ways. He created you. He’s taken care of you. Even when you didn’t know it, He was showing love to you. And God has said over and over and over to you, “I love you.” So you don’t have to worry about who is going to say it first.
Have you ever said, “I love you” to God? God wants that from you. God says,
Hosea 6:6 (MSG)
(6) I’m after love that lasts, not more religion. I want you to know God, not go to more prayer meetings.
This verse contains the word “know” and the word “love.” See, the first purpose of your life is to know and love God. The most important thing you can know in life is that God loves you. And the most important thing you can do in life is to love Him back. So when you get up every morning before you get out of bed, sit on the edge of your bed and say something like this, a little prayer. “God, if I don’t get anything else done today, at the end of this day, I want to know You a little bit better and I want to love You a little bit more.” Because if you do that, at the end of your day, no matter how bad the day has gone, and no matter how many plans fell apart – if at the end of the day, you know God a little bit better and you love Him a little bit more, that day was a success. That’s why your heart is still beating. The purpose of your life is to know and love God, first, before anything else.
On the other hand, I don’t care what you get done in a day, and if you knock off 24 things off your to-do list and you accomplish great accomplishments and you achieve amazing goals in your life; if at the end of the day you don’t know God a little bit better and you don’t love Him a little bit more, that day, my friend, was wasted. It’s a failure because you weren’t put here on earth to check things off your to-do list. The first reason God put you on earth is to get to know Him and to love Him back. So that is the first primary goal of your life. And you do it by focusing your attention and by expressing your affection to God. You see, the fact is God has deep feelings for you. Did you know that? Some of you think God is too busy. That he doesn’t care about you. That God doesn’t even know your name. But he does! God is intimately acquainted with every area of your life. He’s never too busy for you.
Exodus 34 says “He is a God who is passionate about his relationship with you.” God is passionate about you. He longs to know you. He longs for you to know Him. I’ve been married a while. How about if I walked up to my wife one day and I said, “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? She wants me to love her passionately. She doesn’t want duty. She wants desire. God doesn’t want your duty. He wants your desire. God doesn’t want – “Oh, okay. I better go worship.” He doesn’t want ritual and religion and rules and regulation. He wants a relationship. And He’s passionate about it!
So how do you get started expressing affection to God? Well, you can start by saying “Thank you.” “God, thanks for all you have done, for my family and friends, for clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. For my car and my house and my iPod and whatever else means something to you. Just start by being thankful. The more thankful you are to God the more you will sense affection growing in you.
Of course, the greatest way to express affection to God is by giving your life to Him, by yielding yourself to Him. When you go to a wedding and you see two people stand up in front of each other, they do these things called vows. What are vows? Vows are where a couple says, “I give you my life. I surrender myself to you. I’m committing myself to you.” Why do they do that? Because that’s the essence of love. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. You have to give. So when you say, “God, I want to express my love to You,” you say, “I give You my heart. I give You my soul. My soul is in Your hand. I want You to take my life.” That’s the greatest way to express your love to God.
Romans 6:13 (NLT)
(13) … give yourselves completely to God…
Why do you not give your life completely to God? Well, I’ll tell you, it is one word -- f-e-a-r. You’re scared to death. You’re chicken. You’re afraid to give your life to God because “if I give my life completely to God, is He going to turn me into some kind of religious nutcase?” You know, “I’ll become one of those fanatics that I see on some of those TV channels and I’ll walk around having to say things like” -- and it changes your pronunciation -- you start saying “Jeeesus.” Kind of a little spooky there – “Jeeesus.” Not Jesus, but “Jeeesus.” But God doesn’t want to turn you into a goof ball. He made you to be you. You know what? God likes you the way you are, that’s why He made you that way, with that personality -- whether you’re an introvert, extrovert, like routine, like variety. He made you the way you are. And God doesn’t want to you turn into some nut or fanatic or some religious zealot. He wants you to be you. In fact, you’re not fully you until you’ve got God in your life. You’re just existing. And the more you know God and the more you love God, the more normal you become. Not more kooky or whacko; the more normal and the more you become what God meant for you to be in the first place. But it is fear that keeps us from giving ourselves completely to God.
So we’ve talked about how worship is focusing my attention on God. We’ve looked at how it’s expressing my affection to God. And worship is also using my abilities for God. This is loving God with all your strength. You see, God wants us to see Him with our minds. He wants us to sense Him with our heart and soul. And he wants us to serve Him with our strength. I have been married long enough to know that it takes more than just words and kisses to express affection. Yes, my wife likes me to tell her, “I love you, honey.” And I try to tell her that every day. And she likes me to kiss her and express affection physically. But there’s another kind of love that you need, too, to back it up. That’s practical expressions of love. Sometimes there are chores to be done. Sometimes there are things that need to be fixed. Sometimes there are errands to be run. Sometimes there are responsibilities to be shared. And that’s the practical thing where I use my abilities to show, this is not just words, I really do love you and I show it by my action in practical ways – fixing, helping, serving, sharing, those kinds of things. And that’s part of worship, too.
Read this verse with me:
Colossians 3:23 (NLT)
(23) Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.
Now, if you get this verse, it will absolutely revolutionize your life. You’ll never be the same once you understand this verse. In fact on January 27 we’re going to do a whole sermon on that topic, we’re gonna devote a whole Sunday to it! 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.” You see, you don’t have to join a monastery to worship more. Some of you will go home from this thing saying, if my No. 1 purpose is to get to know and love God, then I should have a quiet time with God, five hours a day. No, you don’t need to do that. Well, then I should come to church every day of the week. No, you don’t need to do that either. It is not about that. You just change who you’re working for. And when you change who you’re working for, your work becomes worship. You see, many of you compartmentalize your life, saying, “Okay, here’s my worship. I go to church once a week. Maybe I go to a small group once a week, and maybe I have a daily time where I’m reading a little bit every day about God and trying to learn from Him, and that’s my worship. And then over here, I’ve got my career and then over here I’ve got my social life.” No! God says I want you to invite me into every area of your life. I want to be involved in all of it, invite me into the whole thing.
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, or 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. A lot of people get hung up on this and go, “What is God’s will for my career? God, should I do this or do that?” God says, “I don’t care. Whatever you want to do. I wired you up in a certain way to have certain interests. Why don’t you go and do what you’re interested in doing?” God doesn’t care whether you’re a truck driver or an attorney or a doctor or nurse or whatever. God wants to know, “Are you doing it for Me?”, whatever you’re doing. And so if you’re good at repairing things, you go out and say, “God, I want to repair things this week as if I’m doing it for you.” And if you’re good at cooking, “God, I’m going to cook this meal, whether it’s for my family or for a restaurant, as if I’m doing it for You.” And if you’re good at filing and organizing, “God, I’m going to file these things away as if I’m doing it for You.” And that turns work into worship, and then you’re worshipping God 24 hours a day. Not just in church. God doesn’t want worship to just be a church thing. He wants it to be your whole life, to worship God with your life.
Romans 12:1 (MSG)
(1) … Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering…
“Offering.” There’s that word again. We said “offer” is the essence of worship. I’m offering my life to you. Now, folks, this is where the rubber meets the road. Real purpose-driven living doesn’t happen in a 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, “God, I’m going to take out the garbage for You.” You can make beds to the glory of God. You can milk a cow to the glory of God, which I’m sure comes as a relief to all you cow-milkers. Everything can be turned into an act of worship. Notice, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,” putting your heart and soul in, as though you were working for the Lord.
Now, what if you decided today, you said, “God, tomorrow morning, I’m going to get up and I’m going to go back to work and it is the same old work I’ve been at for 10 years or 20 years or whatever, but this time I’m going back with a new boss. I’m going to do it for you.” That will turn mundane, trivial things that don’t seem to mean a whole lot into worship. And honestly, that’s the kind of worship God loves. I don’t want to bust any bubbles here today, but God really isn’t into incense and candles and ritual. He’s into this kind of worship that says “God, whatever I’m doing, I’m going to do it for You.” And when you do that, then your life becomes an act of worship. You see, real worship is a lifestyle.
The truth is everybody worships something. You were wired to worship by God. He put it in your DNA. You couldn’t stop worshipping if you had to, because it is part of being a human. Everybody worships something. That’s why you can go to any culture in the world and find people worshipping. If you don’t worship God, believe me, you’re going to find a substitute real quick, even if it is just yourself. Whatever gets your attention, your affection, and your life, that’s what you worship. You’re gonna worship something – why not worship the God who created you for a purpose, loves you, and WANTS a relationship with you?
Can we pray together? Father, what we have talked about today is no minor issue. It is the most important thing in life. Getting to know and love You. I realize that there are people here at all different stages in their spiritual journey, some perhaps here for the very first time. But help each of us to take the next step that we need to take.
Now, you pray. In your mind say something like this; you don’t have to say it aloud. “Dear God, I wouldn’t even exist if it weren’t for you. Forgive me for all the times I think and act like You don’t matter. Today I’ve realized You made me to love me and that the first purpose of my life is to know and love You back. I’m amazed that You long for a relationship with me and I’m amazed You’re interested in the details of my life. But most of all, I’m amazed You would come to earth to die for me. I don’t understand it at all. But I say wow! Please forgive me, God, for not worshipping You. I want to learn how to focus my attention on You throughout my day. I want to turn my work into worship. I want to learn to love you with a love that You deserve, thoughtfully with my mind, passionately with my heart and soul and practically with my abilities. When I go back to work this week, I’m going to be working for You, doing my job as if You are the boss. Because you are, and today I acknowledge that in my heart and willingly give you my attention, my affection, and my life. Thank you for deserving it. Amen.”
