[The Easter Life is] A Life of Purpose (Rock Springs UMC)

I need to tell you about someone from my hometown, from the

Bidwell, Rodney Rd. area or the Rodney, Bidwell Rd. area,

depending on whether you're in Bidwell or Rodney.

That, that was our great hope when I was growing up.

Her, her name's Norma and, and Norma was, was great in school

from the time of kindergarten all the way on up.

She was an A+ student, got great grades in every subject and she

was a brilliant athlete. She lettered in four sports even

though we only had two girls sports in the school.

She was that good. She she went on to college with

everyone expecting great things. She left home.

We said, Norma, our, our hopes are on you.

We're depending on you to do something wonderful to change

this world. She she went to an Ivy League

school and she majored in majored in physics, pre Med

literature and, and international economics and, and

got A's all the way through graduated summa cum laude, went

on to get her doctorate degree and all of those subjects.

We thought, Norma's, she's our hope.

She's going to put us on Bidwell Rodney Rd. on the map and change

the world. After all of that school, Norman

was like, I need to take a break.

I need a little bit of a breather before I jump into

changing the world where we what we all understood and we wished

her well and she was going to take a trip around the world.

Well, on that trip around the world, she went through the,

the, the wonderful country of Luxembourg and, and happened to

have all people meet the King of Luxembourg.

And as they were chatting over Bratwurst, they, they, he, he

told Norma about his prize possession, which was his

aquarium. Now aquarium for you and me

might be a fish tank. He had like a whole water park.

He was the king after all. And his prize in that aquarium

was his dolphin, whom he named Queenie.

She was a wonderful dolphin. And Norma just fell in love with

Queenie. She stayed in Luxemburg for a

few days. She went on the rest of her

trip. But as she was traveling the

rest of the way around the world, her mind kept drifting

back to Queenie and how much she missed Queenie and how much she

wanted to be there. And when she finished her trip

around the world, she abandoned all of her plans.

No longer going to try to bring World Peace, No longer going to

try to create cold fusion, No longer going to bring a cure to

cancer, write the greatest novel ever written to transform the

world. She was going to go to

Luxembourg and take care of Queenie.

And she went and the king said, well, I'm not sure you're

qualified. She said I'm a quick learner and

she learned everything she needed.

She fed Queenie every day. She cleaned out her tank.

She was sick. She gave her the medicine.

She was a friend of her. She took care of Queenie.

But everyone back in my town was very disappointed because we all

had such great hopes and such great plan.

She was going to put us on the map.

She was going to change the world.

So we sent a representative over to talk to Norma.

Thankfully it wasn't me. I didn't want to have to deliver

that bad news. But the representative went over

to talk to Norma, said Norma, what's going on here?

We had such great hopes in you. You were going to change the

world. You were going to cure cancer.

You were going to solve the energy crisis.

What has happened, Norma? What has happened?

And Norma said, well, well, I believe I've served a noble

porpoise. Thank you very much.

I'll be here all week. Here's the reality, we all have

a noble porpoise. We are all children of the King

and we have a purpose in this life.

And the scripture I'm going to read this morning is going to

point us in that direction. So I want to read Matthew 2816

to 20 and Acts 1/6 through 15 as we talk about our noble porpoise

purpose here today. Then the 11 disciples went to

Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some

doubted. Then Jesus came to them and

said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to

me. Therefore go and make disciples

of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of

the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything

I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very

end of the age. Then in Acts, just before Jesus

ascends into the heavens. Then they gathered around him

and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the

Kingdom of Israel? He said to them, It is not for

you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by his

own authority. But you will receive power when

the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be My witnesses in

Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the

earth. After this, after he said this,

he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid them,

hid him from their sight. They were looking intently into

the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in

white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, Why

do you stand here looking into the sky?

The same Jesus who has been taken away, who has been taken

from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have

seen him go into heaven. May the Lord add His blessing to

the reading and hearing of His Word.

We live an Easter life. We are followers of Jesus

Christ, the one who died, but not just died.

He rose again from the dead, and we live in light of that

resurrection. We live a life because of Easter

that is different than we could live if Jesus had just died as a

martyr. That life we live in a world

that's turned upside down. It's a life of faith, it's a

life of service, and it's a life of purpose.

We have purpose in this world and and it is incredibly

important for us to to remember that and remind ourselves of

that because there is so much in this world that says the

opposite. The Easter life is a life of

purpose, but there are a lot of voices in the world that say

life is not purposeful, life is directionless, meaningless,

pointless and futile. Easter says no, life is not

directionless, meaningless, pointless or futile.

The, the, these kinds of voices, there have been those kinds of

voices that have said those things, as far as I know,

throughout recorded history. And, and they, they, they wax

and they wane. They go quieter and they grow

louder at times. And right now in Western

culture, in the United States and Europe in particular, those

voices are really, really loud that our entire existence is

just an accident, a random collection of atoms and energy

and explosions that that bring us here.

And nothing that we do matters because one day it's all going

to collapse into another black hole and then explode again.

And every single thing that has ever been said, made or done

will cease to exist forever and ever and ever.

It's all meaningless. That's one way.

It's phrased another way to phrase this, you know, well,

there's meaning, but we make up our own meaning, you know, truth

and meaning. That's that's a social

construct. And we have to decide for

ourself what our purpose is. That's another way of saying

there is no meaning. Just so we know, if we have to

make up our own meaning, then we don't have a meaning.

But we do have a meaning. There is purpose.

We are not here by accident. We are here on purpose, and that

purpose is God's purpose. See, the purpose is not ours.

We don't get to decide what our purpose in this world is.

I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later, but we

don't. The purpose is not ours.

It's not yours. It's not mine.

The Easter life is a life filled and directed by God's purpose.

God has a purpose for us. God has an intention for us.

God has a plan for us. There is a reason every single

human who has ever drawn breath, who has ever been conceived, has

done been drawn breath, been conceived by the will of God and

with the purpose of God behind them.

No one is an accident. No one is meaningless, no one is

purposeless. Everyone has a place and is part

of God's purpose in this world. Jesus said this when he was

talking to his disciples about purpose.

We get different witnesses, different evangelists, you know,

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We have 4 different main

evangelists who wrote the gospels and, and they, they

phrased the purpose a little bit differently.

And John last week, John at the end of Jesus's ministry and life

on earth before he ascended. John's primary focus was to

remind us that Jesus told his disciples they needed to serve.

Serve one another, Feed my sheep, take care of my lambs.

Life of service. And in Acts, which is a

continuation of the book of Luke written by Luke, before Jesus

ascends, he says this to his disciples.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you

will be my witnesses. You will receive power.

That word in English that doesn't have any direction to

it. Power can be like the

electricity coming out of Gavin and Tiger Creek, which does work

in the world, very important work.

Or power can be the stick of dynamite in the coyotes hands

that just makes things go boom, which we're going to do.

We are going to do. Yeah, I got, I got potential

dates in mind, so I'll reach out this week.

We're going to blow stuff up. It'll be fun power.

That's how power works in English.

That word in Greek, that word power dunamis, It has a sense of

direction to it. It's not just explosive power.

It's power that's going someplace.

It's power that's taking us someplace.

When Jesus said the Holy Spirit will come on you with power, he

wasn't saying you will have the power to live your true life and

be your true self and do whatever you feel is most great

and most wonderful. That's not what Jesus did not

just hand his disciples to stick a dynamite and say go do it.

Jesus gave power for purpose. It's moving in a direction.

And the way Luke formulates that and emphasizing what Jesus said

was that you will be my witnesses.

It's a legal term, right? Witnesses tell what they have

seen. They tell what they have heard.

They tell what they have experienced.

And that's what our purpose is, to tell what we have seen of

Jesus, what we have experienced of God, what we have seen them

do and heard them do in the past, what we see and hear them

doing now so that we can follow. Our job is to observe, witness,

report and share what we see and hear and experience God doing

past and present and future. If we get that kind of

information from God, which we sometimes get now.

The witness is one person in the whole trial process, right?

The witness is not the investigator.

Jesus didn't say. The Holy Spirit will come upon

you so that you might investigate what your neighbors

are doing wrong. That's not what Jesus said.

My Spirit will come on you with power so that you will be my

witnesses. We're not the prosecutor.

Jesus didn't say. The Holy Spirit will come on you

with power so that you can make your neighbors start doing

things right. He didn't say that you will be

my witnesses. The you didn't say the Holy

Spirit will come on power so that you can judge your

neighbors whether they are right, wrong, going to heaven or

hell. You will be my witnesses.

That's the power we get. That's the purpose we have.

Matthew phrases it. It's very similar, but he

phrases, we Jesus phrases a little bit different.

In Matthew, Jesus said all authority in heaven on earth.

I've got the power, I've got the authority, Jesus saying has been

given to me and here's my job for you.

Here's your purpose. Go and make disciples of all

nations. That's another one of the spots

where English makes it. We got to work at it in English

because different there are no word for word translations of

the Bible or or really anything of complexity from one language

to another because different languages do things differently.

And Greek uses a lot of verb tenses that do not are not easy

to translate into English. They make for very awkward

sentences. A a more literal translation of

this would be therefore go and disciple all nations.

But that's awkward. And what does it mean to

disciple a nation? And it doesn't quite capture

what he's trying to say. Another way to say it is go and

bring into discipleship people of all nations.

And, and so it's tough to get one phrase or one word that

captures all of that in English. But however we phrase it,

discipling all nations, making disciples or bringing people

into discipleship, there is action for us to do.

And Luke, Jesus's primary concern is that we observe and

witness and experience and share that.

In Matthew, Jesus's primary concern is he's communicating

purpose is to say you've got a job to do.

And that job is to go out and make disciples, bring people

into discipleship. And what does that mean?

That means bring him into the family, baptize him, and that's

a sign of a covenant relationship that anyone can

receive and anyone can share. Unlike the covenant of

circumcision, the sign of circumcision, and the covenant

made with Abraham, everyone can be baptized, not just the men.

Unlike circumcision, which was a visible physical sign.

Someone would say I'm circumcised.

You can prove you're circumcised.

You can. If you are, you can baptism.

It's not a physical sign. I mean, we put the water on the

body. Once that water dries, the only

way you know whether someone has really been baptized is the

condition of their heart, how they're treating other people.

Are they loving and serving the way Jesus calls us to love and

serve? So it's it's a sign that anyone

can receive, but has to go a lot deeper than our skin, all the

way into our hearts and into our minds, baptizing them and

teaching them to obey everything I've commanded.

Faithful, living faithfully, hearing the Word of God,

obediently following the Word and the teaching of our Lord and

our Savior Jesus Christ, our Father who is in the heavens.

This is what it means to be making disciples.

This is our purpose, witnesses who are bringing people into

discipleship to be followers of Jesus.

That word, disciple itself is a fun word and it gets interpreted

a lot of different ways. It it, you can think of it, it,

it, it strictly speaking means learner.

But but for us, learning is primarily a head thing.

You know, we got to study our notes and learn our math and

learn our science and learn our geography and those kinds of

things. A disciple was much more of an

apprentice than as in a learner than than an than an an

intellectual as a learner. There's intellectual things to

learn, but what you're learning is not just information to be

able to repeat, but you're learning a way of living life,

apprenticeship with Jesus, following Jesus.

This is why we're here. This is the purpose that every

single one of us has is not just the pastor whose job it is to

make disciples. It's not just the pastor whose

job it is to be a witness. It is like Rick was saying, it's

all our job. Whether we're standing up here

in the front or we're sitting down in a Pew or we're out

serving somewhere, it's all our jobs to be witnesses and to be

making disciples. That is our purpose.

Now, I've been preaching and teaching about purpose long

enough to do it badly. And, and, and I, I, I feel like

I'm doing a little bit better. I feel like that's the right way

to, you know, you when you're younger, you don't know as much

and you'd mess up and you learn as you go.

I think that's the way life is supposed to work.

And, and, and so one of the things I realized as I've taught

this in the past is that some people have a really strong

sense of God's purpose in their lives.

They can just feel it. I know God's got a purpose for

me. I know God's got a plan for me

and they hear a sermon like this or messes like this.

Amen, Amen, Amen. I feel it.

I believe it. Let's go do it.

But not everyone has a strong sense of God's purpose in their

lives. And if in the the risk of the

way I've taught this in the past is that for folks that don't

have a strong sense of God's purpose in their life, they

begin to wonder, maybe I don't have a purpose.

Maybe God hasn't saved me. Maybe I'm not part of God's

Kingdom because I just don't have this sense of purpose that

Blevins and other folks seem to have.

But there's a world of difference between sensing God's

purpose and acknowledging God's purpose.

And I now have the perfect illustration for this teaching.

It's my dog Bruno. I love Bruno, Bruno's favorite

pet I've ever had. He's a 70 LB knucklehead.

He's a big Herfy Durfy teddy bear.

He's a coward. He's afraid of everything that's

not on the other side of a door and and particularly loud

noises. Bruno's purpose is to be my

buddy. That's his purpose.

That's why I adopted Bruno. That's why I brought him home.

That's why I give so much food to that crazy nut, why I give

him his flea and tick medicine, why we take him to the vet to be

my buddy. The best thing Bruno can do as

far as I'm concerned is when I am sitting on the couch, he can

put his head on my lap and I can scratch his ears.

The best thing Bruno can do? Hang out with me.

I go place. I could put him in the truck and

goes with me, hangs out with me. We can do stuff.

He can hang around and just be there and I, he gets his belly

rubbed once in a while. I climbs up on my lap, He's

heavy and I'll rub his belly and he'll just, he loves it.

He loves it. That's Bruno's purpose.

That's not what Bruno thinks his purpose is.

Bruno thinks his purpose is to defend our household from the

mortal threat of Shelley, our mailman.

We have a mail slot, so Shelley has to come all the way up on

the front porch to deliver our mail.

And according to Bruno, Shelley is the most dangerous thing in

the world, and he will run from anywhere in the house, barking

furiously at the door to chase Shelly away.

But he's not picky, really. Anyone who walks along the

sidewalk in front of her house, particularly if they have an

animal of any size, a mortal threat, and Bruno is convinced

his job is to chase them away. Bruno is so committed to his

purpose. We have a long house.

We got a smallish backyard. If we're in the backyard and

Bruno looks and sees someone walking down the sidewalk and

going to pass in front of our house, he will run in the house

to the front door and bark at them.

And he doesn't go around the house because he's a coward.

He needs a door between him and whoever he's trying to scare

away, but it's a glass door so we can see him and he just barks

furiously and for you would think he would going to RIP

that, but he's not. He's not.

He's a big teddy bear. You open the door.

Was it really me barking? He tries though, like we got our

neighbors straight to the back. We got a fence across her

backyard and the neighbors straight to the back have a

great big old German Shepherd. And again, I've, I've never met

it on the other side of the fence.

So I don't know whether it's kind of barrier aggression or

whether it's just a big teddy bear, whether it really is

ferocious. But you get close to the fence,

it'll bark like it's going to rip your head off.

And he's got a German shepherd's, got a great big

bark. I was out mowing.

Bruno is afraid of loud noises. Motorcycles terrify him.

I have an electric mower and it's too loud for Bruno.

He will run in the house to stay away from the electric mower and

and I'm out mowing in the backyard and that other dog's

barking and I could barking like that sound of man, if that fence

wasn't there, I'd probably have a dog on my throat right now.

And Bruno came running out of the house to get between me and

that other dog. Now his tail was between his

legs and his ears were down and he was shaking a little bit.

But he ran out and got between me and the other dog for two or

three minutes and then he ran back inside.

He tries, but Bruno was not a guard dog.

That is not his purpose. It's not his purpose.

Now here's the thing. Bruno will never understand his

purpose. In Bruno's mind, I know that to

the day he dies, he's going to be convinced that his purpose is

to keep us safe from the mailman and all other mortal threats.

But that's not his purpose. His purpose is to be my buddy.

His purpose is to be my companion.

Bruno will fulfill his purpose whether he is aware of his

purpose or not. Bruno has a purpose whether he

is aware of his purpose or not, and that is the same with us.

Jesus did not say if Holy Spirit will come upon you and if you do

everything just right then you will be my witnesses.

Jesus just said you will be my witnesses.

He wasn't. He wasn't giving them a job at

that point. He was telling them what was

going to happen. God's purpose is for us like

that. Sometimes we need to be aware of

it. I'm, I'm more and more convinced

that that if, if, if we have a sense of God's purposes just

because for that moment we need that sense of God's purpose.

But even when we don't have a sense of God's purpose, God

still has a purpose for us. And God will still accomplish

that purpose through us even when we're not aware of it.

Bruno's going to be my bud, even when he thinks he's got another

job. We've got that purpose now.

I, I want to tell you this story is I, I keep finding these

amazing stories and I, I, I don't know, I love true stories

and I love modern true stories. And this is another one.

Tiffany Whittier and Michael Kent, I don't know if you're

familiar with the website iamsecond.com.

If you've never visited that website, I encourage you to.

It's, it's a Christian based website and the notion is God's

first and I am 2nd and, and it's got tons of videos, some of

regular ordinary folks, some of very famous folks you would

recognize about how God came in and and changed their life and

transformed their life and they went from making themselves

first to putting God first in their lives.

Beautiful stories on iamsecond.com.

This is 1 and sometimes it's easier to find their stuff.

Their, their search on their website isn't great for this

video. You'll find it easier on YouTube

if you go to YouTube and search for Tiffany Whittier and Michael

Kent. I am second.

I'm not going to show the I am second video.

It's too long. It's like 12 minutes long.

But after they did their testimony on I Am Second, some

news organizations, national news organizations picked up the

story and this is one of those reports.

It's only three minutes long and we're going to watch it, but I

don't want to give you any more introduction than that.

This is Michael Kent and Tiffany Whittier, and we're going to see

God's purpose working in people's lives.

My name is Michael Kent. I'm over here at Fallen Heroes

to get a swastika covered up. I've never, never, never been in

a inside of a tattoo shop getting a professional tattoo.

It's a lot different than the prison style one.

It's not done with guitar strings.

It's painful to get it out. Yes, but it's going to be worth

it. Tell me your story.

Behind that shirt is a lot of ink.

I was part of a Skinhead group, a very violent group.

My first tattoo, the racial tattoo was my white pride when I

got 2 swastikas, 1 on my chest. How long have you had that on

your chest? Over 20 years.

Talk about that transformation process.

This is kind of a good story, but odd story.

I got my caseload transferred to a black woman.

She just marched up to my house. If it wasn't for her, I probably

would have been deep back into it.

You feel like she became much more than a probation officer.

Yes, she's much more than that, so I would look at her as

family. I'm Tiffany Whittier.

I haven't seen him in over a year.

He doesn't know that I'm here. We're going to surprise.

Him say hello hi.

She gave me a chance and it opened my eyes.

You 2 are unlikely. Friends.

Yes, yes, I had a German war flag, she says.

You need to take that crap down and start putting up more

positive stuff, Put up smiley faces so when you wake up, you

see positive instead of hate. That's a big difference.

Yeah, that's a big change. When you wake up and you see a

:) you're going to go to work and you're going to smile.

Before all this, I wouldn't work for anybody or with anybody that

wasn't white. 13 people that work with me, I'm the only white

person there. We have company parties or they

have quinceaneras or barbecues or birthday parties.

I'm the only white guy there. Last night we were with him and

he got a tattoo taken up, he said.

Tiffany was one of the people that helped me make this

transition. I'm not here to judge him.

That's not my job to judge. My job is to be that positive

person in someone's life, try to make a difference.

I'm getting trucked up again. If you got a strong support

system and you have people that believe in you in a positive

way, you can change. Oh wow, you're touching before

and after. Now, did you ever think they'd

come off and have you been a part of that?

Not many years I would have ever guessed that Michael changed his

life for the better. She gave me the strength and the

courage to do what I'm doing and changing my life because I know

it, she can do it and she believes in people, good in

people. I know I can't too.

So that's ABC News's take on the story.

And of course, in their in their edit, they take every element of

faith out of it. But if you watch their interview

on I am second, then then you'll see that that what motivated

Tiffany every step of the way was God through Jesus Christ.

That that what transformed Michael was God working through

doing his purpose through Tiffany.

And they're very open and very explicit about that.

And it's very interesting because Michael says in that

that interview, when I am second, he says, why did you do?

Why did you even do this for me? And Tiffany's response was,

well, it's my job, it's my job. And Michael's like, it's not

your job. She says, yes, it is my job.

And there's a very real sense in which they're both right.

I've known some probation officers over my life.

Their job description says nothing about loving they're

probationers. Their job description says

nothing about sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with their

probationers. So there's a very real sense in

which it's not their job. But Tiffany understood and

acknowledged God's purpose in her life and in that, and

through that, she was able to, rather than judging Michael,

loving Michael, encouraging Michael, giving Michael hope

rather than condemnation. And you know what initially

opened the door for her to be there?

Literally, she got his file when her case was transferred to him,

she could see in his file the tattoos.

She knew his background. She knew it was.

And he done some really awful stuff.

By His own word, He has destroyed people's lives.

And and she had all of that in front of her and she went to see

him the first time alone. She said she just had a sense in

her gut that she should go alone.

She drove up to his house. She got out of the car, she

knocked on the door. He came to the door.

She told him who he was. And his first words to her were

are you alone? She said.

Her response was, yes, I am. Is that going to be a problem?

And he said no. He said no one's ever had the

courage to come out here alone before.

Even white folks always come out with backup.

But you came out alone. The courage, the willingness,

the faith, the hope that opened the door for Michael's life to

be transformed by God from a life of hate and bigotry and

destruction to a life of love and compassion and community

reconciliation. This is the testimony, this is

the purpose. And, and, and it doesn't matter

what your particular job is, whether, whether it's homemaker,

probation officer, police officer, firefighter, school

teacher, medical professional, construction worker, blue collar

worker, farmer. It does does not matter if, if,

if, and I can tell you, I, I, I don't know Tiffany at all.

I've never met her in person. I've just seen several

interviews with her. But I, I would bet my next three

paychecks that Michael's transformation is by far the

exception rather than the rule and her probationers.

And she said herself when she was asked, did you think he'd

ever get these tattoos removed? And she said, no, I never

thought it would happen. So this is not like this is an

everyday occurrence for her and it's not going to be an everyday

occurrence for us. But if in her job with the folks

she is working with, she can have and acknowledge that sense

of purpose even when you're not feeling it.

If we can acknowledge that God has that purpose in US and do

our jobs out of that sense of acknowledgement, whatever that

job is, maybe it's just going to school right now.

You know, doing that, understanding that God has a

purpose for us and leaving room for God to work that purpose out

in US and through us as we are loving and as we are serving

others in Jesus name. We all have a noble porpoise.

Most of us aren't going to change the world in a dramatic

way that everyone in the world will know.

I, I It's possible that someone in this room will work out cold

fusion. It's possible that someone in

this room will work out a cure for cancer.

It's more likely that none of us will do those things.

But we still have purpose. God still has A and it's not to

spend our time looking up in the sky waiting for Jesus to come

back. Our purpose, our purpose is to

be sharing with others what we see Jesus doing and bringing

other people in to be his disciples.

In Jesus name, let's do that together.

Amen. Amen.