What Is My Purpose Series

What’s My Purpose?

Created for Significance- Week 1

March 7th, 2021

Scripture-Luke 14:1–24

Today we're going to start a journey in discovering one of the most important things you need to know for your life.

One of the reasons we have so much disfunction in our culture is because most people wander through life without purpose, so they are willing to latch onto anything that gives them a reason for being.

This is why so many end up walking down a road that God never intended for them and they end up shipwrecking their life.

Before I became a Christian, I placed much of my identity in what I did for work.

But never found satisfaction in any of them.

A few of the positions I’ve held in life

Assistant restaurant manager

infantry soldier

mechanic soldier

nuclear biological chemical warfare soldier

a brief stint in radio as an intern

gas station attendant, mailroom at a newspaper, electronics assembly and repair, call center supervisor and quality control person.

Paramedic

Firefighter

Pastor

Soon to be RN

Before I became a Christian, I looked to my career to find fulfillment, and it was never enough

Like a song from one of my favorite secular bands- U2 says- “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”

And you could see that in my life. Even though I had jobs, I was still wandering through life, no real plans, living day by day with no eye on the future.

It was because I didn’t recognize a simple fact- I was created for a purpose, and that purpose is significant both to me, and more importantly to the God who made me.

It’s my hope that over the next several weeks we will all learn to discover that God has a plan for your life, and it’s not too late to find it and start living for eternity.

That’s the core of what we will be studying over the next few weeks. Today we will look at a few things that might hinder us from discovering the future God has for us.

I want you to keep that idea in the back of your mind as we go through the message today. It begins with Jesus being invited to a party.

[Read Luke 14:1–6.]

Luke 14:1-6

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?" 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away.

5 Then he asked them, "If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?" 6 And they had nothing to say.

NIV

Prayer

There's a whole lot wrong with this isn't there?

The Pharisee’s invite Jesus to a Sabbath meal- something in their culture that was a pretty common way to honoring a guest.

But in this case, they use it to try and trap Jesus into breaking on of their rules by also inviting a very obviously sick man to the dinner so that Jesus might be tempted to heal him- breaking their interpretation of the Sabbath Day law by “working” on the sabbath.

First thing I want to say- That's pretty dumb isn't it?

I know many of us think we're pretty clever but you're not smarter than God.

You can't outwit him because he knows what you're going to think or do before you're going to do it. You can't beat that. The only thing you can do is bend your knee and worship and say your will not my will God.

But the Pharisees give it a shot here- they're thinking maybe if we can catch him breaking our rules we then have a reason to try him, jail him or put him to death.

Jesus doesn’t fall for it. He does what is in the heart of His Father- heal this man and bring relief to his suffering.

The Pharisee’s are probably thinking- “Got ya!”, but then Jesus flips the situation on them by saying if there was a great need on the sabbath- like a valuable animal or a son in danger, you would work to save them.

I don’t think it’s a random example- I can’t say this with certainty, but knowing Jesus I think he was describing a recent event. I think it probably happened the previous Sabbath, and Jesus is pointing it out to expose their hypocrisy.

I was thinking to myself, “Go get ‘em Jesus,” when God’s Holy Spirit said to me, “Find yourself in this story.”