WHY DID GOD PUT ME ON PLANET EARTH?
Ps. 138:8, TLB.
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. There were three guys who wanted to be in the Olympics, but didn’t know how to enter. So they went to the gate of the Olympic Village to see how other athletes got in.
2. Soon a big, hulking guy walked up with bulging biceps carrying a large steel ball and said to the guards: “I’m Angus McPherson. Scotland. Shot-put.” The security team waved him right through.
3. The three guys said, “Cool. We can do this.” The first one went to the hardware store, bought a long closet clothes-rod, put on a gym suit and went up to the guards: “Chuck Wagon. Canada. Javelin.” The guards looked at his “javelin” and waved him in.
4. The second put on a gym suit and pried up a small manhole cover, and marched up to the front gate: “Dusty Rhodes, Australia. Discus.” Welcome to the Olympics, Mr. Rhodes.
5. So the 2 guys waited inside for the 3rd guy. A couple of minutes later, the 3rd guy walked up to the front gate with a huge roll of barbed wire painfully tucked under his arm.
6. “Who are you?” the guards asked. “Foster Bean,” he says. “Vermont, USA. Fencing.”
7. Like these guys, a lot of people don’t know what they’re here for!
B. THESIS A common question is…
1. "Why am I here?" "Do I really matter?" In our culture, there are those who don’t believe we’re created with any inherent potential.
2 If you go around and ask people these questions, you’ll get a lot of different answers. As to your purpose, Oprah Winfrey said, "Look inside yourself for the answer."
3. The Materialist would say, "Life is all about the acquisition of things." Those who are into self-help would say, "You’ve got to create your own purpose."
4. Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist said, "I don’t know the meaning of life…but it looks as if something were meant by it." How profound!
5. THESIS: We’re going to look this morning at what the Bible says about our purpose, the value of having a purpose, and what God says we’re supposed to be doing as believers.
6. The title of this message is “Why Did God Put Me On Planet Earth?”
I. DO WE HAVE A PURPOSE OR NOT?
A. NOT HAVING A PURPOSE IS BAD
1. DEATH PREFERRED TO NO PURPOSE
a. Rick Warren tells a story from World War II where the Nazis forced prisoners to take all this rubble from a blown-up factory, and move it from Point A to Point B.
b. The next day, they’d take the same wheelbarrows and put all the debris and bricks back at Point A. On Wednesday, back across the street to Point B. Back and forth, day after day.
c. They were just keeping the prisoners busy, wearing them out, breaking their will. And some of the inmates, with no purpose in life, just being mocked by the Germans for the emptiness of what they had to do, got suicidal.
d. Some of them actually tried to simply jump in front of the Gestapo guards, wanting to get shot. To live a life without purpose, without significance, was worse than death.
2. The most well-known shake-the-fist-at-heaven atheists out there have admitted: “If there isn’t a God, our lives really have no purpose.”
3. Frederick Nietzsche spent the last 11 years of his life insane once he realized that. Bertrand Russell, one of the most renowned, from England, confessed in these words: “Unless you assume the existence of God, the question of life’s meaning and purpose is irrelevant.”
4. Evolution is supposed to happen by chance. Yet because physics describes all matter in mathematical terms, chance cannot play a role in origin of the universe, because probability mathematics requires a "set" to start with. Anything times zero will always be zero. Creation can’t be by chance! So we’re NOT here by chance!
5. VALUE WITHOUT PURPOSE?
a. Several years ago, the Country Gazette in Franklin, Massachusetts had this listing in its classified section:
b. “Unknown item for sale. We know it’s valuable; we don’t know what it is. If you can identify it, we’ll sell it for $250.”
c. Now isn’t that interesting! How would they know the value if they don’t know what it is? Sounds like the world today trying to figure the value of a human without knowing our purpose!
B. GOOD NEWS – YOU HAVE A PURPOSE!
1. GOD HAS A PLAN FOR A SPARROW
a. Imagine if you drive down the highway and a sparrow flies in front of your car. If you hear the sickening sound of it hitting your grill, did either you or the sparrow plan for that to happen? No!
b. Yet, does Matthew 10:29 leave this event a matter of blind chance? “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care [will]” Mt. 10:29. God has a purpose for sparrows!
2. INDIVIDUAL HUMANS. Read Psalm 139:16; “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” This verse seems to say that from before the time a person is born, their life is mapped out, including the day of their death. You see, YOU DO have a purpose!
C. 5 BENEFITS TO HAVING A PURPOSE
Studies of people having and not having purpose have found 5 ways that having a purpose benefits the person who has it:
1. Purpose gives TRUE MEANING to our lives; “Where there is no vision, the people perish (cast off restraint)” Proverbs 29:18. We can see the value of our lives. We’re not a piece of driftwood floating on the ocean of life; we have purpose!
2. Purpose also SIMPLIFIES our lives; we don’t try to do everything, but we stick to what we’re called to do.
3. Purpose PREPARES us for eternity with God. Choosing a spiritual purpose brings us into line with what God values and helps us be more like God & accrues spiritual rewards.
4. Purpose keeps us FOCUSED. Rather than getting caught up in the cares and affairs of life – the rat race – we stay focused on what really counts for eternity.
5. And purpose MOTIVATES us to do more. Because we know we’re making an eternal difference, that will last forever, we don’t mind sacrificing to accomplish it. We get up each day knowing we’re changing lives!
II. WHY GOD PUT YOU HERE
A. GOD HAS PLANS FOR YOUR LIFE
1. “The wicked lie in ambush to destroy me, but I’m only concerned with your plans for me” Ps. 119:95 Msg.
2. “The Lord will work out his plans for my life” Ps. 138:8, TLB.
3. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jer. 29:11.
4. God “determined the times set for them [all individuals] and the exact places where they should live….so that [they] would seek Him” Acts 17:26-27, NIV 1984.
5. God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” – Jer. 1:5
B. ALL CHRISTIANS SHOULD WORK FOR HIS KGDM
1. PARABLES OF TALENTS & MINAS [Luke 19:11-27]
a. “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven can be illustrated by the story of a man going on a long trip. He called together his servants and entrusted his money to them while he was gone…. “After a long time their master returned from his trip and called them to give an account of how they had used his money.” Mt. 25:14,19, NLT.
b. Jesus said all the servants were given some share of the Master’s money. We all have abilities, opportunities, possibilities we’re supposed to use for God. The servants who didn’t use theirs got in trouble later!
2. VINEYARD OWNER & HIS WORKERS
a. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard… About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’” Matt. 20:1,6 NIV.
b. The Vineyard Owner asks the idle workers in the town why they haven’t been working. This again tells us God expects us to be working for His Kingdom.
C. REASON FOR THE URGENCY OF OUR WORKING
1. C. S. Lewis talks about how we just bump up against other people. We work with them, we play with them, we say this or that to help or hurt them.
2. What’s the big deal about that? Well, that person is going to be forever in one of two kingdoms: Christ’s or Satan’s.
3. It gives cosmic hugeness to our daily encounters. We are significant, and so are our neighbors. You and I play a formative and critical role in the lives of others every single day of our lives.
III. 2 SOURCES OF PURPOSE
Someone has said that there are 2 sources of motivation or purpose: passion and pain.
A. PASSION
1. We all have something we’re passionate about. It might be auto racing, football, gaming, hunting, fishing, raising children, doing crafts, crochet, bingo, cooking, etc.
2. Your passion excites you, motivates you, and is something you love to do and to talk about. Usually there are many other people that also share your passion.
3. Do you think God might have a hand in you having that passion? Why would He? So that you would use that passion to reach others with the same passion for Christ!
4. In this way your relationship with Christ intersects with your passion. One definition of our life purpose may be when our passion meets the world’s need.
5. So if you have a passion, you should ask God how to turn that passion into a ministry for Him!
B. PAIN
1. Another potential source of a purpose/ministry for you would be from some area of great trial/pain in your life.
2. We might call it your REDEMPTION STORY. You came to Christ out of some addiction, or you experienced abuse and God healed you of it.
3. Or you suffered a debilitating illness or lost a loved one – and God came and rescued you from despair and healed you.
4. Because you experienced healing, victory, and freedom, you can now walk alongside others still hurting so they may also experience the same liberty.
5. My daughter Susanna was addicted to Meth for 6 years and then got saved and delivered. Now her heart is always on others who’re addicted and living on the streets. She’s now doing that ministry in Dallas!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION
1. A group of men were carrying on a friendly conversation. One of them remarked that he had learned to be especially careful about small things.
2. “Would you believe,” he said, “that a little thing like a pair of socks changed the entire course of my life?” “I can hardly believe that,” replied another man. “Well, it’s true!”
3. “Once I planned to take a trip with some of my friends on a canal boat, but two days before we intended to leave, I injured my foot while chopping wood.
4. “It was only a small cut, but the blue dye in the homemade socks I wore poisoned the wound, and I was compelled to stay at home.
5. “While my friends were on their journey, a powerful preacher came to our town to hold revival meetings. Since I didn’t have anything else to do, I decided to attend.
6. “The message touched me deeply, and as a result, I surrendered my heart to the Lord. Afterward I saw that I needed to change my life in many ways.
7. “New desires and purposes took hold of me. I determined also to seek an education, for I trusted that this would enable me to live more usefully for my Lord.”
8. The man who made these comments was none other than the former President of the United States — James A. Garfield!
9. Jesus inspired him to some changes and he impacted his nation!
B. THE CALL: "Did I live a meaningful life?"
1. Integrity VS Despair is the 8th and final stage of Erik Erickson's theory of psycho social development. This stage occurs during late adulthood from age 65 through the end of life.
2. During this period of time, people reflect back on the life they have lived and come away with either a sense of fulfillment from a life well lived or a sense of regret over a life misspent.
3. If your life ended now, how would you feel about what you’ve done for the Lord? There’s still time to change things.
4. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” 2 Cor. 5:10.
5. Can we start off 2017 by surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ and repenting of our sins?
6. How many will resolve today to endeavor to start living your life for God’s purposes? If so, stand. Prayer.
[This message incorporates snippets from many other people's thoughts, so no claim to originality is made for it.]
