Our Purpose: “Doing Three Things With Excellence”
1/24/2010 Psalm 46:1-11 Colossians 3:12-17
In Life-sharing and Pioneers, we have been looking closely at our purpose statement, and what we as a church mean by it. Let’s say it together: Our purpose is to enter into a right relationship with God and to be equipped for the ministry of Jesus Christ to make a difference in the lives of others.
When we tell someone, “my purpose on this job is to ----“, we are about to tell the person what we are going to be doing and what we are not going to be doing.” A purpose gives us focus. If our purpose is to win a game, or get a degree at graduation time, or to find a job, we have to have a specific strategy for how to get it done. If your purpose is to win the game on Saturday morning, your team is not going to stay out late Friday night getting drunk. The behavior negates the purpose.
If your goal is to find a job, you don’t spend the day playing video games when you should be filling out applications or going on interviews. Your behavior should not be the opposite of your purpose. Your purpose is going to determine how you act in a given situation.
Our purpose is to enter into a right relationship with God. This automatically means there are going to be some things we will do, and some things we will not do. If we are going to enter into something, it always means leaving something else behind. You can’t enter a room, without leaving another room or outdoors behind.
If you are going to enter into a right relationship with God, that means you are going to leave a wrong relationship behind. Now the biggest entering we have to do in terms of the right relationship with God, is that first you have to agree with what God says about each of us.
God starts with the view that all of us are pretty pathetic and basically bent toward evil, selfish, and deceitful. Is there anyone here who has never done anything wrong, never insisted on getting his or her own way, and never lied in any form or fashion? So we have to agree with God’s knowledge of us, who we are, and what we are capable of doing. The first step in getting into a right relationship is knowing that God says, “I have broken God’s laws and the penalty for it, is spending eternity in hell.”
But, even though God knows me better than I know myself, God still loves me and has made it possible for me to escape hell and to have eternal life starting now. That plan involves asking forgiveness for the wrong I have done, and accepting that when Jesus died on the cross, he paid for my wrong. When Jesus rose from the dead after three days in the grave, He guaranteed that I could rise to a new life.
The first time we enter into a right relationship with God is when we give our lives to Christ, and we start to live our lives for God. That’s what we mean by being saved. Being saved is that moment of coming into a right relationship with God. But that my friends is only the first step in being a Christian. If you have not noticed, entering into a right relationship with God is an ongoing process. To be in a right relationship with God, means that God is totally pleased with what you are doing and how you are doing it.
When we are in right relationship with God, God’s favor is upon our lives. God does things for us just because. God blesses our relationships with others. God empowers us to do things we thought impossible. God multiplies our finances. We receive blessings we were not expecting. We talk to God on a regular basis, and we feel his presence in our lives.
Being in a right relationship to God, is the safest place to be on this planet. No matter what happens, the Lord has your back. You’d think once we entered into that right relationship we would stay there. We would except there is this little thing called life, which keeps pulling for our attention into another direction.
How many of you have discovered that thanks to the devil, temptation, other people, and our own selfishness, it is fairly simple to get out of a right relationship with God. We have a weakness that says, “now God you wait over here for a minute while I go and deal with this situation.” Any time we leave God to the side, we get out of a right relationship and enter into a wrong relationship.
Now how long we stay wrong, depends on how long we insist on being wrong, before we repent. Repentance means, admitting we were wrong, asking for forgiveness, and choosing to stop it and go in the other direction. There is no genuine repentance until we choose to go in the other direction.
God wants us to be in right relationship with Him, and if we are willing to say yes to God, God by the Holy Spirit will give us the power to leave whatever it is, and enter back into a right relationship with him. The first part of our purpose statement means that each day, our purpose is to enter into a right relationship with God. It does not matter where we are, or who we are with.
Our purpose is the same. So there are some people I just can’t hang with because they will not allow me to do my purpose. There are some places that will keep me from doing my purpose therefore I won’t go there. There are some activities that will keep me from doing my purpose. So I will not do them.
There are some things I cannot have or cannot afford because they will keep me from my purpose. If I’m going to enter into a right relationship with God, I have to be ready to let Christ live in me when I’m angry, hurt, or upset. If I can be in right relationship with God at those moments, I’m on my way to growing as a Christian.
The Second part of our purpose statement is to be equipped for the ministry of Jesus Christ. Once we enter into a right relationship, God wants to equip us to do something specific. Suppose a great basketball coach came to see you and he said, “I am going to teach you how to dribble, how to shoot, how to play defense, how to pass and how to dunk.” Suppose after the coach equips you to do this, and you’re really good at it, you go out on display. You tell the world to come see you dribble shoot, pass and dunk. You are out on the court all by yourself doing these things whenever you feel like it. How many of you think that it why the coach equipped you with the skills he gave you?
The coach equipped you, because the coach intended for you to be on his basketball team so that the team would have a better chance of winning a championship. God does not call us into right relationship with him, just so that it can be “God and me” doing our own thing. God calls you, to place you on His team called the church.
He then gave you various gifts and talents, to make the team shine so that God would be glorified and others who are not in a right relationship with God, would have the opportunity to enter into a right relationship with God. Everything we do as a church is rooted in us and others entering into a right relationship with God.
God’s game plan is to use the people in the family of God, to bring other people into the family of God, who will then help other people come into the family of God. It is God’s will for our church to increase in size and numbers. The whole reason we are being equipped by this church, is to do the ministry of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said, “he came to seek and to save the lost.” Our church then should be seeking to reach people who do not know God. Your singing in the choir is not to demonstrate how wonderful you can sing, but to help somebody come to know Jesus Christ. So if you sing superbly, but leave the choir stand and walk past a person who is lost without saying a word of greeting to them because you did not know them, you defeated the very reason for why you should have been singing.
The ministry of Jesus Christ always involves drawing people closer to God one step at a time. Everybody here has a gift and talent from God. You are using that gift to help with ministry or you are wasting that gift. If you are wasting the gift, then you’re not staying in right relationship to God. We enter into a right relationship in order to be equipped for the ministry of Jesus Christ. The ministry of Christ is active. It is doing and it is being.
You’re doing the ministry when you let your light shine at work. You’re doing the ministry when you take a stand among your friends. You’re doing the ministry when you clean up after others. Jesus did not go through life trying to please himself or to make sure everything was fair. If your goal in life is to make yourself happy or to be treated fairly, you will miss a lot of opportunities to do the ministry of Jesus Christ. Do not think for a moment that your ministry ends at the church. Jesus did most of his ministry outside the walls of the building and after the service was over.
How does Glenville Equip you for the ministry of Jesus Christ. True Love waits equips you on how to have successful relationships, how to graduate on time from high school and college, and how to protect yourself from sexual temptation through a game plan. Marriage Sensation equips you on the changes you need to make in yourself rather than simply praying your spouse will change.
Life-Sharing & Pioneers equips you with a knowledge of the word of God so that you can apply it to your lives and have God’s favor with you at all times. Our church equips us with opportunities to use our gifts and talents in various ministries which reach people all over the world. Our church provides avenues for us to give our money to causes that lift up the name of Christ Every believer is called to be engaged in some way in the ministry of Jesus Christ.
You know something. We only have one life. One life and soon it is going to be over. It is going to past. Of all the things we have ever done, only those things which we have done for Christ is going to last. Think about all the rewards and accolades you have picked up over the years. The world has forgotten most of that, and you don’t even recall some of it yourself, though at the time it seemed really big.
When we die, we’re not going in front of our boss for inspection, we will not be standing before our coach to learn one more play, and we won’t be in front of a banker asking what is our balance in our account. We will stand before Jesus Christ, and he will say, “I gave my life for you, because I loved you. What do you offer me in return?” Is there anybody here who wants to say, “Lord I gave my best with what I had all for the cause of Christ.”
The third part of the purpose statement is “to make a difference in the lives of others.” When God saved us, there was great joy in heaven. When we gave our lives to Christ, it was as though a party broke out in heaven. It wasn’t just that we got saved, but rather we joined the army to make a difference for God. The word of God tells us on our outline in Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
The works God had in advance for us to do involved people. Why? Because people are the most important part of God’s creation. God loves people, and if we are to be like God, we must love people. Why do we care about the Least of These? Why do we send wheelchairs to people we don’t know? Why did we take up this offering for Haiti? Why does it matter to us if a child in Nigeria gets an education. Why do we go into prisons every month? Why do we help you with your rent? Why do we volunteer out time?
Because all of it involves people whom God loves. God has given us life, not to be selfish with it, but to share it with others. There is some person in India, praying for their pastor’s wife to get the medicine she needs. They have no idea, that medicine is coming from you thousands of miles away because you are willing to share your social security check. It’s your choice to make a difference in the lives of others.
God did not equip you with your college degree solely for you to have the most expensive car you can find. God has blessed you to have a great car, but God also wants you to look beyond that car to how you use that degree to make a difference in the lives of others.
It’s not an accident that you were born into the family you were born in. It’s not an accident you work where you work, or live where you live. God has placed you there as his own personal ambassador to be a witness for him. The bible tells us that we are ambassadors of Christ. An ambassador represents the country he or she is from. The ambassador takes the position of the country he or she represents or that ambassador is quickly removed from office.
Now God has you where he has you, in order to make a difference in the lives of others. You may say, “but you don’t know these people I have to deal with”. I know I don’t, but God does know them. I also know that God has equipped you to do the ministry of Christ in your situation. Because if God did not equip you, then it would be impossible for you to be in right relationship with God, because those people would drive you out of it. God loves us all too much to not properly equip us to make a difference in the lives of others. As a matter of fact, God is begging us for the opportunity to use us, to make a difference in the lives of others.
When you really love someone, isn’t there that desire to do something for them to make them happy. We are told to love God with all our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength. The way we do this is to follow the second great commandment which is to love our neighbor as ourselves. Part of our purpose this year is to love those that others have forgotten.
You see we didn’t have to have an earthquake to start loving our brothers and sisters in Haiti. We have been supporting Haitians in our ministry for the past 10 years. Before we began our remodeling of this building, we took a tithe off the first $170,000 and sent $17000 to Haiti to build a New Life Center for them. Our love does not have to wait for a tragedy to strike to be compassionate. We love people because God first loved us.
Each one of us here today is making a difference in the lives of others. Each one of is making a difference in Glenville New Life Community Church. Each one of us is making a difference in the kingdom of God. But at some point we have to look and ask, “what kind of a difference am I really making.” Is your home a kinder place because you are there? Is our church a more loving place because you are there? Is the kingdom of God advancing on the devil’s territory because you are ther?. If the answer to each question is not yes, then we need to go back to the place of repentance so that we can enter into a right relationship with God.
All of our behavior comes out of our relationship to God. When that relationship is right, the other things start to fall into place. A close examination of our lives, will usually reveal a place we need to repent of, so that we can thoroughly enjoy God’s favor upon our lives. Repentance does not have to involve some huge sin. It can be the sin of irritability or impatience. I am a time clock person. The weakness of this personality type is the need to confess my impatience with others who are not like me.
I have to confess my sin of complaining and my sin of being irritable. None of those things in me make my home any happier, my church any stronger, or the kingdom of God to advance. All three of them put me out of a right relationship with God and consequence out of right relationship with others.
Our purpose statement is not something that merely belongs on the walls of our church, or in our bulletins, or tucked away in our memory banks in our heads. It is there to help us refocus on our lives on what truly matters in life which is being in a right relationship to God so that we are equipped to make a difference in the lives of others for the cause of Jesus Christ. My friend you only have one life to live. What purpose are you going to give your life to before it’s gone?
We declare that, our purpose is to enter into a right relationship with God, to be equipped for the ministry of Jesus Christ, to make a difference in the lives of others.
