What is your purpose?
What are you doing here?
A few years ago our family headed out on Sunday night to go to a friend’s house for Small Group.
We got to their house, walked in & started talking to our friends. Everyone was enjoying coffee & refreshments. Then Alisha & I remembered that we had forgotten something back at our house that we needed.
I ran home, grabbed what we needed, then came right back.
I’ll never forget what happened next. I parked the car on the street close to where I had parked before. Then I headed back up to the house. I had just been there a few minutes before so I didn’t feel the need to knock. I decided I would just go ahead & walk in.
I opened the door, walked in about 2 or 3 steps, & then realized something was very wrong.
First, I didn’t hear the conversations that should have been going on with all of our friends gathered for small group.
Second, for some strange reason, everything looked different.
And last… there were two people staring at me that I had never seen before.
That’s when I realized, I just walked into the WRONG HOUSE!
The people who lived there were looking at me & they only had one question: What are you doing here?
What’s Your Purpose?
Maybe that’s the way you feel today. Maybe you’re wondering, What in the world am I doing here?
This may be the biggest question people are trying to answer these days.
What am I doing here? What’s my purpose? Why do I exist?
In 2002 Rick Warren published the book, The Purpose Driven Life & by 2007 it had sold 30 million copies. Why? Because people want to know, even people of faith want to know, What’s my purpose? Why am I here? Why do I exist?
We all know people who are struggling in their lives & when we think about them or talk about them it always comes back to the same thing… they just haven’t found their purpose yet.
Alisha & I, through all of our years working with children & students, have always come back to the same conclusion, that one of the greatest things any parent can do for their kids is to help them find their thing, help them find their purpose.
Whatever it is, everyone needs to know their purpose, needs to know what they are good at, needs to know why they were made & why they are here.
The Good News about your PURPOSE
The good news is that God has a purpose for your life.
Your purpose is more important than you think.
You don’t know what hangs in the balance of your decision to live into God’s purpose for you.
[Tweet “You don’t know what hangs in the balance of your decision to live into God’s purpose for you.”]If you don’t believe me, just listen to how Mark starts his story about Jesus…
1 This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.
It began just as the prophet Isaiah had written:
“Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
and he will prepare your way.
3 He is a voice shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!
Clear the road for him!’”
4 This messenger was John the Baptist. He was in the wilderness and preached that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven. 5 All of Judea, including all the people of Jerusalem, went out to see and hear John. And when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. 6 His clothes were woven from coarse camel hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food he ate locusts and wild honey.
Mark says, this is how you know that the Lord is on the way: Someone is coming to PREPARE the way for Jesus to come into your world & into your lives. That person was John.
7 John announced: “Someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not even worthy to stoop down like a slave and untie the straps of his sandals. 8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!”
Here’s what I find interesting about the way Mark begins his story about Jesus. According to Mark, before Jesus made his first first move God made a move to prepare the way for Jesus to move in the hearts & lives of others by sending JOHN.
God sent someone ahead of Jesus to move & PREPARE the way for Jesus to make His move.
Edward Kimball
You may have never heard of Edward Kimball. He lived & worked in Detroit in the 1800’s. Edward was a follower of Jesus & he wanted to do something, so he began to teach the boys at his church in Detroit.
One of those boys wouldn’t listen & was always causing trouble in the class. But Edward Kimball started praying & was determined not to give up on this young man.
He learned that this boy worked in a shoe shop for his uncle during the week. So one day, on his lunch break, Edward went down to the shoe store where this kid was working.
Edward didn’t need a pair of shoes. He was such a shy guy that he had trouble even walking into the shoe store to visit this young man, but finally, he got up the courage to walk into the store to talk with this boy who wouldn’t listen in his Sunday school class.
Edward didn’t know what to do or what to say to the boy in the shoe shop but he kept telling him about how much God loved him. Somehow, the love of God filled that shoe shop & that day something changed for that boy. That young man became a follower of Jesus.
His name was Dwight Moody. Maybe you’ve heard of him? He went on to become an evangelist & they say that 100 million people came to faith in Christ in his lifetime because of his ministry.
Edward Kimball was a businessman who decided to teach a group of school boys at church about Jesus & took it upon himself to make sure the one kid in class that didn’t seem to get it would know just how much God loved him by stopping by his shoe shop one day. He never imagined what that one young boy would do for Jesus.
But there’s more to the story… DL Moody went on to meet a professional baseball player by the name of Billy Sunday. Billy Sunday came to faith in Jesus & goes on to become one of the greatest evangelists in America in the early 1900’s. Billy Sunday saw hundreds of thousands of people come to faith in Jesus during his ministry.
But there’s more to the story… Billy Sunday would come to know & disciple this guy name Mordecai Hamm who lived in Charlotte, NC. Mordecai Hamm decides that he wants to hold a revival meeting in Charlotte. A group of High School boys hear about the meeting & they decided to come to the meeting that night. One of them came that night to see what was going to happen and what happened that night was that someone had prepared the way for him to have an encounter with Jesus. His name was Billy Graham.
Maybe you’ve heard of him?
They say that Billy Graham preached to 2.2 billion people during his lifetime. Who knows how many have come to faith in Jesus Christ because of his life.
100 years before, Edward Kimball had no idea what hung in the balance that day when he decided to take his lunch break to visit a kid in his Sunday School class in a shoe store to talk to him about the love of God. He had no idea what hung in the balance of his decision to prepare the way for someone else to encounter Jesus.
No one knows who Edward Kimball is. But how many people know Jesus because of Edward Kimball?
This is WHY You are Here
Who was it who prepared the way for you to encounter Jesus?
Was it a parent? A friend? A youth minister? A coach? A teacher?
Chances are God put someone in your life that somehow, somewhere along the way, helped you, led you, put you in a position to have an encounter with His Son Jesus Christ.
This is the way God works. And this is WHY you are here!
It’s how God worked from the very beginning when He sent John the Baptizer to prepare the way for people to have an encounter with Jesus.
God is constantly at work to use His disciples to prepare the way for other people to become His disciples.
And when all is said & done, no one may know your name or remember your name. Just like Edward Kimball, no one may ever know that you had a role to play in their story. You may never be famous. You may never be known. But how many people will know Jesus because of you?
Here’s a simple but profound truth you may have never thought about.
Your faith isn’t just about you.
God moves in you so God can move through you to others.
[Tweet “God moves in you so God can move through you to others. “]Jesus made in a move in your life so you can help prepare the way for Him to make a move in the life of another.
God’s move for you was never just about you, He made a move for you so that you could prepare the way for Him to make a move for others.
And God is still moving in us & through us to use us to reach others for Jesus.
So who do you need to make a move toward so Christ can make a move in their life?
You never know what hangs in the balance of your decision to prepare the way for others to have an encounter with Jesus.
What are you doing here? God wants to use all of us who claim to be His disciples to prepare the way for others to encounter Jesus.
Will you make a move to prepare the way for someone else to meet Jesus?
It’s your move.
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