The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Like A Fishing Net Series

And so we need to ask ourselves “What is our purpose? Why are we here? What do we want to accomplish in life?” You do have a purpose don’t you? A goal, as a parent, as a Christian, as a human being? I am a contributor to sermoncentral.com an online service that provides sermons to pastors as a resource. It is a place that depending on your scruples you can use it to research messages or to plagiarize messages. I use it for research, my commitment to you is that other people may preach my messages but I don’t preach other people’s messages. As I told one colleague, some of us have to keep writing them if the rest of you are going to keep stealing them, but I digress. When you are doing your contributor profile on sermon central one of the questions they ask is “What would you like written on your tombstone?” Good question, perhaps one we each need to ask ourselves.

It was Dwight L. Moody who said “Give me a man who says, “This one thing I do,” and not, “These fifty things, I dabble in.”“ It is the athlete who has a purpose who ends up on the podium. Not in the past winter games but in the 2006 winter games I heard a Canadian athlete say “I don’t expect to finish in the top three but if I could place 11th or 12th I’d be happy.” And my thought was “Lady why are you even there? I hope my tax dollars didn’t pay for your trip.”

Life is changed by people with a purpose, and the Kingdom of Heaven has a purpose: To introduce people to Jesus. What is the purpose of Cornerstone? To help depopulate hell.

Do you know what your purpose is? Have you ever sat down to decide your purpose in life? Paul writes to the church in Thessalonica 1 Thessalonians 2:4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.

And if you asked others could they tell you what your purpose is? When Paul was writing to Timothy he makes this comment 2 Timothy 3:10 But you, Timothy, certainly know what I teach, and how I live, and what my purpose in life is. You know my faith, my patience, my love, and my endurance.

And people will know our purpose not by what we say but by what we do. Author Leo Buscaglia wrote “Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.” In other words it’s not what we say we will do that makes a difference, it’s what we do.

Matthew 13:47 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that is thrown into the water and gathers fish of every kind.”

It Was a Net Used for Its Purpose Not only was it a fishing net, it was a fishing net that was thrown into the water. Not only did the net have a purpose it was used to achieve that purpose. There are all kinds of people and institutions out there who if you asked them what their purpose was could tell you. My purpose is to make the world a better place, our church’s purpose is to reach people for Christ, our company’s purpose is to build a better widget, but they don’t actually do anything to accomplish the purpose. Washington Irving wrote “Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.” The difference I guess is whether you take the next step and actually do something to achieve your purpose.