St. Paul's Sermon 2004
Purpose Driven Life Sermon Two- February 29,2004
Lessons:
Romans 12:1-2; Mark 12:28-34We’re in this series called "40 Days of Purpose" and today we’re going to look at the first of God’s five purposes for your life. Number one, let’s read Revelation 4:12 out of the Bible. Would you read it with me?
"You (God) created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created." Look at the phrase "for your pleasure." The Bible says you were created for God’s enjoyment. God planned you for His purpose. The only reason that you’re alive is God wanted you alive and He gets enjoyment out you being you!How many of you are parents? Can I see your hands? How many of you enjoy watching your kids? Most of the time! And I think the same thing is true with God, most of the time He enjoys you. You were made for God’s pleasure. God smiled at your birth because He created you to enjoy you. He made you for His purpose.
Last week we talked about how you were created to be loved by God. This week we’re looking at the flip side, the first purpose of your life, which is God wants you to love Him back. He has created you, He wants you to love Him back. One day Jesus was walking down the street and a guy came up and said, "Lord, what’s the most important command in the entire Bible?" Jesus says, "Okay, I’m going to give it to you." Let’s read it together there in Matthew 22.
He said, "Love the Lord your God. This is the first and greatest commandment." God says if you don’t get anything else, here’s what you’re supposed to do in life: you’re supposed to learn to love Me back, because I made you to love you and I know you. And I want you to know and love me back.Now, there’s a word for this. It’s a word a lot of people misunderstand. It’s the word "worship." Worship is knowing and loving God back. Worship is almost universally misunderstood today. When I say the word "worship," what do you think of? Well, you may think of prayer. You may think of singing. You may think of ritual or communion or going to church, something you do in church. But worship is far, far more than all those things.
My first purpose in life is to worship God. It is your number one purpose in life. We’re going to talk about what that means today because, unfortunately, as I said, most people don’t get it.There are a lot of ways to worship God. Today we’re going to look at what does it really mean to worship. The best verse that defines worship, your very first purpose is this-Romans 12, verse 1. Let’s read it aloud together.
"Because of God’s great mercy to us… offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him." There’s the pleasure part. "This is the true worship that you should offer."You’re going to be studying this verse all week in your small groups in the 40 Days of Purpose groups, so I’m not going to cover it much this morning. I do want to point out two things. First, worship is
my response to God’s love. Worship is just the way I react, I respond, to God when He loves me. That’s what worship is. Notice it says "because of God’s great mercy," He gives his love to us, then we worship Him back. You see in this case, God takes the initiative. God always makes the first move. God doesn’t ever ask you to make the first move. He always makes the first move. And He creates us. He saves us. He forgives us. He blesses us. He protects us. All these things and then because of all these things, we worship. And notice what we do - we "offer." That word describes worship.Secondly, worship is giving back to God. He gives to us, and we give back to Him. Whenever you give back to God, whenever you offer anything to God, that’s called worship. When your kids are grateful to you, as a parent, that brings pleasure to you. When we’re grateful to our Heavenly Father, that brings pleasure to Him. Now, the question is, when it says, "offer" – offer what? I mean, what do you give a God who has everything? I’ll tell you what you give Him…you give Him your love. He’s very specific about how to give it. We’re going to look at this today. In Mark chapter 12, would you read this verse with me? "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength." Now, in this verse – which, by the way, this is the memory verse for this week in 40 days.
In this sermon, I want to point out that God wants me to love Him, to worship him, two ways: First, God wants me to love Him thoughtfully. It says, "love Him with your mind." Thoughtfully. In other words, He wants you to think through, to not just do it without thinking. He wants you to worship Him thoughtfully, know and love Him thoughtfully. Second, God wants me to love him passionately. He says, "with all your heart and all your soul." I want you to love Me passionately, because I passionately love you.
Whenever you take the things God has given to you and you give them back to God, that, friends, is the heart of worship. We’re going to look at it today after this song. Let’s sing the song "Heart of Worship."
[Song: "Heart of Worship"]
We just said that God calls us to worship with our whole mind, heart and soul. To worship with our whole mind means to focus my attention on God. It is focusing my mind, my thoughts, my attention on God. You know, in a lot of religions, the idea of worship is to put your mind into neutral, sort of lose your mind to the universe. But the truth is, God wants us to worship Him thoughtfully. It takes getting our mind focused on God; not just going through the motions, but really, really thinking about it. That isn’t always easy to do. Have you ever prayed on autopilot? You know what I mean? You pray before a meal, and somebody asks you ‘Did you say grace? you’d have no idea. You just prayed on autopilot. Do you ever zone out in church, not when I’m speaking, but sometimes, do you ever zone out in church?
So, how do focus? Well, you have to realize, first of all, that we are very easily distracted. There are two things that distract us from focusing our attention on God. First, just the truth, we are self-centered by nature.
Romans 8:7 says, "Focusing on yourself is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, and ends up thinking more about self than God." The second thing is, we live in a self-centered culture. Romans 12:2, "Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God." Our whole culture says ‘Take care of Number One!: God desires to move us away from being turned in on ourselves, and desires to turn us outward to him and neighbor.What are some ways God can turn us away from ourselves? First you can start doing that by establishing a daily time with God. Just a few minutes during the day. I don’t care when you do it -- beginning of the day, middle, end of the day, where you decide I’m going to stop everything else and just be with God. Talk to Him, read His Word.
The Bible talks about that in Matthew chapter 6, verse 6, when it says this,
"Find a quiet secluded place, so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense His grace." Look at the word ‘place.’ You need to find a place to do this. You just find a place -- your car on the way to work, someplace in your backyard, a corner of your living room where you can focus on God. Look at another important word , "simply." Just be with God simply. No ceremony, no fancy words. You’re just there with Him, talking to Him. And then look at the word "honestly." Just be yourself. I want to relieve some of you of some pressure. Don’t try to be spiritual. It doesn’t work anyway. Just take a time to get to know God better. He’ll take care of the rest. So you just be there with Him honestly, establish a time with God.There’s a second thing that you can do to focus on God, and that is develop a constant conversation with God. Look at the next verse. The Bible tells us in Psalm 105, verse 4, "Worship him continually." Just think about Him throughout the day. You can pray all day long, or every hour, or every time you see someone with a need. I always pray when I hear a siren go by, for those going to help as well as for those needing help. Whatever you do, you develop this constant conversation throughout the day. As we do this, focusing on God, he has wonderful promises for us!
Look at the next verse - the Bible tells us in Isaiah 26, verse 3, "you will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on You!" When you focus on yourself, the inevitable result are thoughts of worry, insecurity, anxiety, guilt, fear, discouragement. But when that focus shifts to God, you begin to sense gratitude and hope and confidence and love.
Not only is worship focusing my attention on God, it’s also expressing my affection to God. This is loving God with your heart and soul. For some of us, this is difficult because you grew up in families that weren’t really affectionate, weren’t really expressive, didn’t say I love you a lot. Maybe you’re the "strong, silent" type. It’s not real easy for you to express affection to God without feeling strangely about it. Even you can learn to say, "I love you God".
Do you remember the first time you ever said "I love you" to somebody? Probably scared to you death. You had sweaty palms, stomach was in a knot. You were all nervous…are they going to accept it or are they going to reject it; because you were worried about – are they going to say it back to me? It’s risky to say, "I love you."
But the neat thing about God is He’s taken away the risk. He said it first. God said it first to you. God said, "I love you." God has said it in a thousand ways. He created you. He’s taken care of you. Even when you didn’t know it, He was showing love to you. God has said over and over and over to you, "I love you." So you don’t have to worry about who is going to say it first.
Notice this verse, the Bible says, "We love Him, because He first loved us." You know, in many religions, God is this angry tyrant. You have to appease God and be afraid of God. That’s not the real God. The Bible says God wants to be loved. Have you ever said, "I love you" to God? God wants that from you. Notice this next verse. God is talking here in the Bible, Hosea 6, God says, "I don’t want your sacrifices -- I want your love! I don’t want your offerings -- I want you to know me!"
Look carefully at the word "love" and the word "know," because that, friends, is the first purpose of your life -- to know and love God. If you get that done, you have accomplished the most important thing in life. God wants you to know Him and love Him because you were made to be known and loved by God. Responding is worship. When you get up every morning before you get out of bed, sit on the edge of your bed and say something like this, a little prayer. "God, if I don’t get anything else done today, at the end of this day, I want to know You a little bit better and I want to love You a little bit more." Because if you do that, at the end of your day, no matter how bad the day has gone – if at the end of the day, you know God a little bit better and you love Him a little bit more, that day was a success.
Read this next verse out of the Bible with me. Exodus 34, it says there, "He is the God who is passionate about his relationship with you." Look at word "passionate." God is passionate about you. He longs to know you. He longs for you to know Him. He longs passionately for you to have a relationship. God says, -- come on, people, I made you to know and love me. Why are you ignoring me like this? He is passionately in love with you. I’ve been married a long time. How about if I walked up to my wife one day and I say, "Honey, here are some flowers for you. And I am giving you these flowers for three strategic reasons: Point No. 1, I am your husband. Point No. 2, it is our anniversary. Point No. 3, husbands are supposed to give their wives flowers on their anniversary. So here."
Wouldn’t she be thrilled? I don’t think so. Why? She wants me to love her passionately. She doesn’t want duty. She wants desire. God doesn’t want your duty. He wants your desire. God doesn’t want – "Oh, okay. I better go worship." "Oh, I love you, God" [said in a monotone voice]. God doesn’t want duty. He doesn’t want ritual and religion and rules and regulation. He wants a relationship. And He’s passionate about it! And He says, "I want you to love Me as much as I love you, because I made you and I created you." Now, again, this is hard for some of you because you’re not naturally expressive people.
So how can I express my affection to God? If you have never done it before, start by just saying "thanks." Thank him for all the goodness he has shown you- think about all the good things God has given you in life. You could go on and on. Everything you look at is here because of God. "God, thank you for electricity." A lot of people don’t have electricity. Everything you look at is a gift from God. So you just start by being thankful. That’s a good way to start expressing your love to God. You could sing praises- God loves joyful noise!
Of course, the greatest way to express affection to God is by giving your life to Him, by yielding yourself to Him. In every wedding, people exchange vows. Why? They’re saying I give you my life. I surrender myself to you. I’m committing myself to you. Why? Because that’s the essence of love. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving. So when you say, "God, I want to express my love to You," you say, "I give You my heart. I give You my soul. I want You to take my life." That’s the greatest way to express your love to God.
Look at this verse, Romans 6. It says, "Give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life." Again, remember, it’s always a response. That’s grace. God gave us life, then He gives new life in Jesus. He says I want you to give yourself completely back to Me. So you do that. What holds us back? Why do you not give your life completely to God? Well, I’ll tell you, it is one word -- f-e-a-r. We’re afraid that if we surrender to God, we’ll be disappointed. Maybe we’re afraid God will ask us to do something we really don’t want to do. Maybe we’re afraid of losing control. Maybe we have a hard time with Christianity because we’re bitter toward a Christian or some church.
Why would you be afraid of what God desires for you, if he
created you for his best? God doesn’t desire to you turn into some nut or
fanatic or some religious zealot. He wants you to be you. In fact, you’re not
fully you until you’ve got God in your life. You’re just existing. Until Christ,
you’re not fully alive. The more you know God and the more you love God, the
more normal you become. Not more kooky or whacko; you simply become exactly what
God meant for you to be in the first place. But it is fear that keeps us from
giving ourselves completely to God.
The greatest mistake you can make in
life is to miss your primary purpose. So let me ask you a question, what do you
think about most? Because whatever you think about most is what you love the
most. What do you think about when you just let your mind drift? You let it
wander, what does it naturally gravitate toward? Whatever that is, is what you
worship. Did you know that your checkbook and your schedule, your calendar are
theological documents? Without even knowing you, if you were to show me your
checkbook stubs and you were to show me your schedule, I could tell you right
now what you love, because the way you spend your time and the way you spend
your money shows what you love the most. The Bible says you were planned for
God’s pleasure. You were made to know and love God. So I challenge you to make
as the No 1 goal of your life before everything else, getting to know and love
God, because that brings Him pleasure. You make as your goal what Paul said in
the last verse on your outline, he said, "So we make it our goal to please
Him." There’s not a better goal in life to have than that one right
there.
Invitation, Amen
[24] "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
[25] "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. [26] I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."