Who Am I—Why Am I Here—Insanity For Christ Part 2
Glenville 1-13-13 Psalm 139:1-16 2 Peter 2:1-10
Today we are in week 2 of our Insanity For Christ Series. Last week, we looked at Who Is God-Why Jesus. Today we are going to take a closer look at ourselves, “Who Am I—Why Am I Here”. Have you ever had the experience of not even understanding yourself? Have you ever said, “now why on earth did I do that? Or said, “how could I have been so stupid, or what’s wrong with me.” Those are all ways of saying. “Just Who Am I and Why Am I Here?”. We all are going to ask that question at some point in life.
If we never get around to answering the question correctly, we can not only lose our minds, but our lives and lose our souls as well. Quite often we define who we are by what we think” is our purpose in life.” I am a mother, a teacher, an administrator, a student.
If you asked some people what the purpose in life is, based on their actions they’re saying 1) It’s all about the Benjamins. Get as many as you can, however you can 2) it’s about finding a man of your own and having his baby 3) it’s about getting as many women in bed as possible with no commitment attached, 4) it’s about getting a good education and getting a good job for security 5) it’s about having a good time before your die, 6) it’s about discovering who you are on the inside and 7) it’s about getting to know God.
The party person thinks the purpose of life is pleasure – have fun, party, celebration time come on .” They live for Friday or Saturday night when they plan to go out and have a good time? But the good time often leaves them with a hangover or a broken heart, a phone number that does not work.
The look at me person says, “Life is all about the bling, bling, the designer clothes, and the fine cars.” Your life is measured by the things you own. You know the problem with that is that the person who dies with the most fine things, still dies.
Some people will tell you; “You’ve got to invent your purpose.” You’ve got to create your own purpose in life. And they all give the same basic approach – discover your dreams, go after your goals, have some ambitions, dream big dreams, aim high, believe you can achieve, have faith, figure out what you’re good at, never give up, involve other people. Now those are all good advice and they will, if you do those things, make you a success in life.
But being a success and knowing your purpose in life are not the same thing. You can be a raving success in life and still never know, “ Who Am I and Why Am I Here.” Look at how many famous people have had their lives destroyed or ended because of turning to drugs to find themselves or to gain a purpose. If they had only known who they were, and why they were here, a lot of tragedy would have been avoided
What did God put you on this earth for? The reason you are here is far greater than your own personal fulfillment. It’s far greater than your own happiness. It’s even greater than your own peace of mind or your own life. You were made by God and you were made for God and you were put here for His purposes. And until you understand that, life isn’t going to make sense.
God never made anything without a purpose in mind. We may not understand it, and at times we may have even forgotten it, but God made everything with a purpose.
To understand who you are, you have to understand why God made you in the first place. We are told, before the world was created, God chose us to t be made holy and blameless in God’s sight out of love. God wanted us as the focus of His love. God made you to love you. Love is going to do what is best for you. During the 49 days of transformation, you have to understand that God made you to love you, otherwise you will think God is out to get you. God does not have to get any of us, because left to ourselves, we produce our own misery.
God made you to love you. God will love you when nobody else will or can. You were created to be loved by God. Now God did this, even knowing how messed up some of us would become with our lives. God is love and God wanted to create something to love and so He created you. He didn’t need you or me.
God wasn’t lonely. But He made you in order to love you. He didn’t need you, He wanted you. And before we can talk about anything else, you have to understand this is what on earth you’re here for – to be loved by God.
So when did God decide to get directly involved in your physical life itself. God did it right where life begins which is the womb. Right there inside of your mother’s body.
We read today in Psalm 139 the words, For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderful made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of earth, you eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
God was at work in us before our mothers even knew she was pregnant. God did not just throw us together with globs of this and that. We see the words, knit me together and the words woven together.
What’s being described is the action of the ladies in our prayer shawl ministries, who make the beautiful prayer shawls. At first when they start out, they don’t look like much, but give them enough time and the very shawl that existed first in their minds, become a reality to be a blessing in someone’s life. Every life in the womb of a mother is precious, because God is at work in that life. Every child in the womb is a child in the hand of God.
You can’t understand who you are without realizing, the potential you had at birth to be loved by God and in a relationship with God. But the reality that we are fearful and wonderfully made, very quickly became the ability to make a choice to serve God or to reject God. Sure God has a plan for all of us, but most of us will never receive it. Not because God did not desire for us to have it, but because we loved ourselves more than we loved God. We chose to please ourselves, rather than to please God.
So Who Am I? I am person who chose to walk away from God. But as we saw last week. God does not choose to walk away from us. Because when God created us, God created us to live forever. If I do not understand that I am a person who will live forever, I might start making stupid choices with my life based on the erroneous belief that once I die in 80, 90, or 100 years, that’s it and life is over. When we don’t understand the purpose of something, we ignore it, we might abuse it, we might even throw it away?
Suppose you took your i-phone back to 1960 without the charger. Who would you be able to convince all that the I phone could do. People would think you were crazy? They would say you were insane especially when the power ran out. But no one thinks that from this time period. Why? Because we have seen the I phone in action.
When God talks to us about eternity and life after death, it seems crazy and insane. But not to God because God is already in eternity. It does not seem insane to someone who has come back from the dead like Jesus. That person knows there is something else in life after death. It didn’t seem insane to the people who actually saw Jesus after he was raised from the dead and chose death rather than deny the truth of what they had seen.
The reason you and I are here, is to put us into a right relationship with God to get us ready for eternity. When you go the department store and try on an outfit, you’re not putting on the outfit just to stay in the dressing room and say, oh wow this looks nice on me. You are trying on that outfit, in order to use it for a much greater long term purpose. You know that trying it on is just a first step to wearing it long term.
The amount of time you spend in the dressing room is very small compared to the amount of time you intend to wear that item. It’s the same way with the amount of time we spend, in this life to the amount of time spent in eternity.
Now the only way to get ready for eternity where God is going to be, is to get ready now. The only problem is, you can’t get ready on your own. The wrong stuff in our lives pushed us out of a relationship to God. Even though God created us, remember, we chose to reject God and go our own way. God’s creation of us, did not guarantee us a part in God’s family. Our disobedience put us all in the kingdom of darkness, making us a child of the devil who was all the more eager to adopt us into his family.
But God loved us so much, he made it possible for us to change families if we wanted to, but it had to be done on God’s terms. You see we can’t adopt ourselves into somebody’s family without their recognition. I can hope, I can believe, I can say that I am a child of Mr. Billionaire. But that does not give me access to any of his money, any of his favors or any of his wealth. But the moment Mr. Billionaire acknowledges me as one of his adopted children, my whole status changes, and all of a sudden I have some money coming my way.
God has an adoption process. God sent Jesus Christ in the world, to pay for wrong that we have done, and God raise Jesus Christ from the dead. God then told us, that whoever received Jesus, would be adopted into the family of God. To receive Jesus is to enter into right relationship with God. All that stuff I did before is not going to matter.
I get an entirely new status. I am told in 2 peter, “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. I went from not having a real attachment to anyone, to being part of the people of God.
I was told by the apostle John, that when I received Jesus, “I received the right, to become a child of God.” We all need to have the right restored back to us and that leads us to why we are here. Remember God is preparing us to live in this life and in the life to come.
Peter tells us where our new status is and what our mission is in 2 Peter 2:9. He says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praise of Him, who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.
What does this mean. Who Am I,. I am a child of God. I am a chosen person. I am a royal priest. I am a holy person. I am God’s special possession. This is what God had in mind when God was creating you in your mother’s womb. Now you are to live out your life in different arena’s of life based on where you are.
You cannot forget these sixth truths about yourself when you are making decisions. What does a holy college student look like when temptation is calling? What does God’s special possession look like on the job when others are goofing off? How is a high school student suppose to serve as a priest in bringing others before God? How does a chosen person live at home? What does a child of God spouse do in an argument? That’s what we will be learning during the next five weeks.
God has invited us in the family , not simply to feel good about being in the family. God wants us to let others know that they can receive the same right that we received to become children of God. The second part of verse nine tells us why we are here. It says that we are to declare the praise of Him, who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light. I want you to notice it did not say for us to limit our testimonies to those who are already saved. God wants us to tell others, that He is willing to give them the right to become children of God .
There are people who have no hope of their lives ever changing, some are right here in this church. They are bound up in stuff that they want to be set free from but don’t know how. They have no idea that they are special to God nor do they know that Jesus died and rose again from the dead so that they can have life.
Many of them do not know that eternity is out there, and most do not know they are headed for destruction. But friends Jesus told us more about hell than he did about heaven to let us know there is a consequence for having loved ourselves more than we loved or desired to know God.
When God says that He loves us, God means it in the totality of what love could be. God really wants the best for your life. He has paid dearly for each of us to have the best we can have. But it all is going to boil down to us being willing to trust God. As long as our hope for our lives is in our limited knowledge of ourselves, we are going to fail. God is the only one who knows who you truly are and truly can become.
We have given you a button to open the door for a discussion about God. If someone asks you from your button, “who you are”, be bold enough to say, “I am a child of God, and you can have the right to become one as well.” If we are to grow as a church, it will happen only if we are bold enough to see how we are part of God’s plan to reach others for Christ. Next week we are going to see some of the cost that is involved in serving Jesus.
If you’re willing , please read with me, this letter to God to end the service.
“Dear God, I realize that if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive. But because you made me, you must have a purpose for me. I admit that I focused on my plans for my life, not yours. But I want to know your purposes for me, so I commit to being open to you during the rest of Insanity for Christ. Thank you that you made me so you could love me.
Thank you that you cared for me even when I didn’t know you. Thank you that I was made to last forever. I want a life filled with meaning. I want to start by getting to know you better. So as best as I understand, I ask you, Jesus Christ, to come into my life and help me to understand your purposes for me. I want to take the first step today. In your name I pray, Amen.”
Pastor Rick
Who Am I—Why Am I Here—Insanity For Christ Part 2
Psalm 139:1-16 2 Peter 2:1-10
A. Ever Did Not Understand Yourself—Who Am I, Why Am I Here
1. What Are Some Purposes In Life
2. Party Person-Look At Me Purpose
3. Finding Your Own Purpose
4. Success Not Always Finding Purpose
B. Why God Made You
1. Looking For Love
Psalm 139 the words, For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderful made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of earth, you eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
2. Life Begins In The Womb
3. Learn From The Prayer Shawls
4. Counting Up The Years Incorrectly
5. Taking I Phone Back To 1960
6. Preparing For Eternity
7. Checking The Dressing Room
C. How Do I Get Adopted
1. Can’t Claim Family Ownership 2 peter 2:10, “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy
2:9. He says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praise of Him, who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.
2. Sixth Things About Who I Am
3. Why Are We On The Team
4. People Need The Lord
D. Who Am I
“I am a child of God, and you can have the right to become one as well.”
If you’re willing , please read with me, this letter to God to end the service.
“Dear God, I realize that if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive. But because you made me, you must have a purpose for me. I admit that I focused on my plans for my life, not yours. But I want to know your purposes for me, so I commit to being open to you during the rest of Insanity for Christ. Thank you that you made me so you could love me.
Thank you that you cared for me even when I didn’t know you. Thank you that I was made to last forever. I want a life filled with meaning. I want to start by getting to know you better. So as best as I understand, I ask you, Jesus Christ, to come into my life and help me to understand your purposes for me. I want to take the first step today. In your name I pray, Amen.”
