Purpose Full: Redefining Success | Part 4

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

This morning we're continuing our series called Purpose Full.

Purposeful.

How do you live a purpose-filled life?

Or really, can you live a purpose-filled life after the last year, 18 months that we've gone through?

And here's what we've said so far.

We've said this that you are an unceasing spiritual being with an internal destiny in God's great universe.

This is a great summary by Dallas Millard of what the scripture says about who you are.

You're an unceasing spiritual being with an internal destiny in God's great universe.

Here's what this means you were made on purpose, not an accident, not a mistake, not here by chance, and you were made for a purpose.

There is something to give your life to of eternal weight and significance.

The last few weeks we've been talking through this.

Week two, we said three essentials for living a purpose-filled life in a post-pandemic world.

Week three, we talked all about disagreeing well.

If you remember this, and how we navigate disagreeing well will either make or break us in living a purpose-filled life.

Today we're going to talk about redefining success.

Would you just say that with me?

You may be the 9:30 service, but you're awake.

Well done.

Good to see that this morning.

If we're going to live a purpose-ful life, we actually need to redefine or have a brand new definition for what it means to be successful.

See how you define success will determine whether you actually live out a purpose-filled life because your definition, you know this, my definition of success of success, always is the thing that is leading us or directing our lives.

And so, let me ask you, what is your definition of success?

Like, how would you define success?

Maybe, maybe not like this way that you think about it, like, oh, uh, but really, maybe by the pursuits of your life.

I think one way that we define success today is uh maybe the idea of perfection.

You might not use that word, but we want the picture perfect life, right?

Perfect job, perfect uh kids, you want to raise the perfect kids, you want to have a perfectly clean and organized house.

Some of you said amen in your heart, right there.

And Instagram and social media has only exasperated our pursuit of perfection, hasn't it?

Because we see everyone's filtered, perfect lives, and so we want everything in our lives to be perfect.

Maybe you define success by fame.

You're like, no, not fame.

Okay, well, how about approval?

Maybe you write an approval there.

I want approval of others.

I want recognition, recognition.

I can't say that word.

Recognition.

There you go.

I want to be a somebody.

I want to be an influencer.

I want the prestige, the platform to be known in my industry.

Or how about happiness?

I think that's maybe the predominant way that we define uh success today, right?

Especially if you're raising kids, I just want them to be what?

Happy.

Thank you, two of you.

That was amazing.

You were awake and then you fell asleep.

That's okay.

Happiness, right?

We just want to be happy.

You want to live a happy life.

Do what makes you happy.

The goal is happiness.

As long as you're happy, and here's what I've seen: so many relationships, so many lives destroyed by the pursuit of happiness.

It's this pleasure-filled, experience full is the focus and the aim.

How about power, autonomy?

To do whatever you want, whenever you want, to have control, to be the master of your domain, to be in charge.

I want to be important.

I want to be respected.

Maybe you define success this way by prosperity.

It's the American dream.

It's, you know, being financially independent, having wealth, affluence, owning the house, the cars, the clothes, the trips, being upwardly mobile.

Maybe you define success as impact.

Something that I love about this generation and over the last year is the desire to make an impact.

To be fully woke, if you will.

Make a difference.

Live an enlightened life.

Maybe leave a legacy.

What is your definition of success?

Because whatever your definition of success is directing the very course of your life.

And the great reveal that I think has happened over the last year or so is simply this.

That the pandemic showed us that for many of us, I would say most of us, our definition of success lacks substance, didn't it?

It lacks substance to really weather the storms, weather the crisis, weather the circumstances of our lives, that our success then was so fragile.

And so, how do we redefine success to live out a purpose-filled life?

How do we embrace a new definition of success that that has the strength and the stability to weather whatever storms or circumstances you're going through?

To do this, we're actually gonna look at um what some scholars say it was the apostles Paul's like failure, uh not a moral failure, like where he just he was doing on his missionary journey, and where they say, you know, he he missed the mark.

Not so many people responded to the gospel, and we're gonna learn some, I think, critical elements and how to redefine success.

If you got your Bibles, open up to Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

Acts 17, we'll pick it up in verse 16.

By way of context, Paul the apostle is going on his second missionary journey from the city of Antioch, and he took along with him uh a guy named Silas, a fellow uh helper in the ministry.

Then he brought a young protege named Timothy.

They've been traveling to the different cities where they had originally planted churches and just encouraging them, strengthening them.

And then they continued on as they were traveling and began to reach new cities.

They went to the city of uh Philippi in the Macedonian area, uh, and then and they saw just incredible success there.

And then they went to Thessalonica and uh they saw God do incredible things and they had great opposition because like so many people were coming to Christ, and so there's like some Jewish people that are jealous, and they were just trying to, you know, stop what was happening.

And and then the apostle Paul goes to Berea, and again, incredible success, but then there's also yet again incredible opposition, and so they had to get Paul out of the way, and and so they said, Hey, let's take you from Berea.

We're gonna send you to Athens and travel down there and and kind of keep you, you know, out of the heat for a little bit.

Let Paul let Silas and let Timothy do the work up here, and you just kind of hide out over in Athens.

And so this is where we pick up the story of the Apostle Paul in Athens by accidents, and where he's never intended to come, and where others would say he really didn't fulfill or was very successful in Athens.

Verse 16 says, while Paul was waiting for them, that is Silas and Timothy, and Athens, he was greatly distressed to see the city was full of idols.

That's no understatement.

In fact, Athens was the cultural city, uh uh the center city for culture, philosophy, uh, and um uh religion in this day.

Even when Rome overtook it, Rome so wanted to be Greek uh that they continued to populate or perpetuate uh the Greek philosophy.

I mean, this is the home of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.

And in Athens, it was said that there was more idols in Athens than all of Greece combined.

I mean, it was said that you could actually find or run into an idol more than you could run into a person there.

I mean, it just was piled upon piled.

There's one road that had so many, you couldn't really walk through this street.

There were so many idols.

No understatement.

The city was full of idols.

So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks as well in the marketplace, day by day, with those who happened to be there.

And while he's seeing what's going on and seeing the pain in the city and their pursuit for uh God, but not really knowing how, he's like, I'm gonna reason with you.

I want to bring the gospel and the good news.

And so he's reasoning with Jews, he's reasoning with God-fearing Greeks, and then some Epicureans and Stoic philosophers begin to debate with them in the marketplace, and they they have this incredible debate going back and forth.

And in fact, they start to make fun of Paul, say he's a babbler, and then others uh actually lodge a very serious uh you know accusation that he was promoting other religions.

And this is actually the same accusation that Socrates, if you remember, 450 years later or before, had that he eventually was killed for.

And so they said, Would you come to the Aragapus and would you come here?

And this is this in world-famous center like uh of supreme counsel for religion, for philosophy.

Uh, and this is not just a casual conversation, it's as if Paul is being on trial in this moment.

I mean, it's incredible.

He is in the Supreme Council of Athens that's known around the world, invited into this moment to share what he's been talking about on the streets.

And so Paul then, verse 22, stood up at the meeting of the Aragopis and said, Uh, people of Athens, I see that in every way you're very religious.

For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God.

So you're ignorant of the very thing you worship.

And this is what I'm going to proclaim to you.

And then he talks about the God who created all that there was.

Then he talks about the God who sustained and is the sustainer of all that we have, that he's the ruler and that he's ultimately Father.

He, in his speech, he actually quotes their own prophets and their uh the philosophers, rather.

And he closes with the God who's revealed in Jesus through the resurrection.

And this is where he kind of lost his audience because they didn't believe in a resurrection.

And when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, We want to hear you again on this subject.

At that, Paul left the council.

Some of the people became followers.

If you have your Bibles, that word some, it just means some.

This is where people go, like, yeah, Paul, you missed the boat.

You didn't reach your audience here.

Among them, Dionysius, a member of the Arapakus, and also, I can't say that word either.

Also, a woman named Demaris and a number of others.

What do we learn about redefining success from the Apostle Paul in Athens from his quote, maybe failure?

Well, as we begin, I just want to give you a new definition for success.

Uh take it from Pete Schizero's book, Emotionally High, uh, Emotionally Um Healthy Disciples.

In it, he says, according to Jesus, success, success is becoming the person God calls you to become and doing what God calls you to do in his way and according to his timetable.

What is success?

It's becoming, first and foremost.

It's who you are becoming.

And then it's simply doing what he's called you to do.

We talked about that in week one, divine calling.

And so I want to highlight three incredibly important areas for us if we're gonna really live a purpose-filled life where we need to redefine success in our lives.

The first is simply here, here's what we learned from the apostle Paul and redefining success.

Be present where God has placed you.

Be present where God has placed you.

The Apostle Paul had no intentions of going to Athens, it was not part of the plan.

He had a plan, and it got completely messed up.

He had a plan to follow this road and actually work his way all the way to Rome.

Eventually, Rome got closed off.

I don't know if you know, but Nero uh, you know, expelled all the Christians uh at one point, and uh he wasn't able to go to Rome even that way.

But but because of persecution, because of what was happening, his plans got changed.

He finds himself, he's not even with his team anymore.

Silas and Timothy are still in Berea.

And here's what he didn't do.

He didn't go, well, you know, throw himself a pity party.

This sucks.

This is terrible.

I'm stuck in Athens.

Look at all these idols.

I don't even have my team.

He didn't go, well, whatever.

You know what?

I'm just gonna take a vacation.

It's been long, it's been hard.

I I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna vacation for a while.

What did he do?

He did what he did everywhere else.

He did what God had called him to do, and everywhere he went, he began to speak with people about this Jesus who changed his life.

He couldn't help it.

He just went to, you know, first to the synagogue, then to the God-fearing Greeks, and then into the marketplace.

Anyone who would hear him, he just did what he always did wherever he went, he was fully present where God had him placed.

He didn't choose that place, he wasn't intending to go to that place.

That wasn't the place he really ever wanted to go, but he said, since I'm here, I'm gonna be present and do what God has called me to do in this place.

I think some of us are missing out on what God has for us because we're complaining about the place we're in.

We're complaining about I want to be in a different place, I want to live in a different place, I want to work at a different place, I want to have a different spouse.

Oh, wait, did I just say that loud?

Some of you thought it.

And you're complaining about your place.

And redefining success is actually, no, no, no.

Here is the place.

My work.

I may be looking for another job, but as long as I'm here, I'm gonna be present where God has me placed.

Your location.

How about how about as a parent?

I think so often, you know, especially you have kids, and then you realize there's so many things you can't do anymore.

You're like, oh my gosh, it's so fun to watch everyone else live their best life on social media on Insta, and we can't go anywhere because we go anywhere, it's just a hot mess and nap time and all those other things.

God says, be present in that place.

You know, one of my biggest regrets, my kids, I have three kids, 16, 14, 11.

Got that last one right.

One of my biggest regrets is I was so focused on what I thought was success of being a somebody in my younger years that I was not present in my home with my kids.

I look on my phone all the time.

I love those like highlights that they have, you know, of um pictures on the iPhone where it just shows you.

Oh, there's a beautiful picture of my daughter who has like four.

And I go, I wish I would have been present of what I missed.

I don't take it for granted now.

Be present where God has you placed, students.

We're always wanting to be, you know, in the next thing ahead.

See, many of us, our version of success goes something like this when I get blank, then I'll be.

When I get, then.

And we live in the when then, and we're never present because we're we never arrive.

See what happened for the apostle Paul was his circumstances changed, but his calling didn't.

His purpose, his plans changed, but his purpose didn't.

See, you go, okay, God, you have me placed here.

I am here for a purpose in this season, and so I'm gonna be present to it, and you have the freedom to work through me in this moment.

You've made me a mom, you've made me a dad.

I'm gonna be present with my kids and work through that.

You've put me at this job.

I'm gonna be present here and allow your calling to work through me.

You've put me in the Silicon Valley.

I can't afford a Silicon Valley, but you've put me here.

It's far from our family, it's far from our friends, but you've put me here, and instead of complaining about it, I'm gonna be present here with what you have for me to do.

And here's what's amazing this is so cool.

The apostle Paul had the great opportunity to preach the gospel to the world-renowned Supreme Council of Athens.

Had he not been present in that moment, he would have missed out on one of the greatest opportunities of his entire life.

I would just wonder, I just wonder if few of us are missing out on incredible opportunities because we're just looking and living in the win-thens of life.

First, and redefining success, be present where God has placed you.

Second, only a holy God can wholly satisfy.

Only a holy God can wholly satisfy.

I want you to notice Paul's sermon.

And he remember the city is filled with idols, and he finds one and he he talks about to the unknown God.

Where all of us are searching for someone or something to fully satisfy our soul.

We are pursuing it's that if I have this, then I'll have meaning.

If I have this, then I'll finally feel valuable or significant.

Only a holy God can wholly satisfy.

You know, holiness.

He begins to talk about the holiness of God, not using that word, but his creator, sustainer, ruler, uh, father.

And he says, God did this so that they would seek him and reach out for him and find him, though he's not far from any one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being.

Like there is something set inside of you that longs, that has this longing and searching, will you satisfy me?

And is put inside your soul and my soul so that we'll actually reach out and discover that no thing and no person will ever fully satisfy.

We were created for a God who can only satisfy our soul.

I like how John Stott talked about Paul's sermon.

He says he proclaimed God in his fullness as creator, sustainer, ruler, father, and judge.

Only a holy that means completely other, set apart, fully good, all-powerful God that is intimate, personal, relational, that can fully satisfy your soul.

I like how C.S.

Lewis said it.

He said, if I find in myself a desire which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.

You know, we kind of tend to think that idols are a thing about way back then.

Right?

We don't have graven images.

Oh wait, we have bank accounts.

Um we don't have graven images.

Oh wait, it's that plaque on the wall.

For some, it's your fantasy football trophy.

See, an idol for us is anything that we're pursuing that we hope will actually fully satisfy our soul other than God.

I like how uh Tim McKeller in his book Counterfeit Gods defines an idol.

He says, An idol is anything more important to you than God.

Anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God.

Anything you seek to give you what only God can give, anything that is so central and essential to your life that should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.

I mean, isn't that why when we're talking about those definitions of success, success was so fragile?

Success didn't lack its substance.

Because once that thing got pulled away, for many, you felt like your purpose was on pause or you lost it altogether.

See, only God, only God, only God can fully satisfy.

Only Jesus can satisfy the deep longing of our soul.

And for some, you get that intellectually, but you got to get it practically in your bones.

I've sat with someone that I love dearly who would say over and over again, oh, my values rhyme.

It's it's faith first, it's God, it's family and friends.

I've had this conversation, but you know what?

We live in such a driven, success-oriented culture.

Practically, you know what it is?

Upward mobility.

Practically, you know what it shows by how you spend your time, your energy, where you give your best effort for this person.

He sacrificed it on the altar of his work.

And so many of us are sacrificing our lives on the altar of something, hoping that it'll satisfy us.

And I've just had the vantage point of being a pastor and talking to so many people who are, quote, successful yet empty.

And where you get to the spot, okay, God, okay.

I have been searching.

That search reveals something in my heart.

Those things aren't necessarily bad, they just can't be ultimate things.

In fact, God, you're the only one who will fully satisfy.

When we're defining success, first, be present where God has placed you.

Second, recognize only God can wholly satisfy.

And then finally, abandon outcomes to God.

Abandon outcomes.

Dallas Willard, in his book, Renovation of the Heart, I like, he says this, we are not meant to live under the burden of outcomes.

Oh, that our lives would be so different.

If we didn't live under the burden of outcomes.

I don't think he walked away discouraged.

I don't think he walked away disappointed.

We have no indication that he somehow thought this was a failure, though other people looked at it and just said, hey, by the numbers, you just didn't quite meet your quota.

You didn't just quite hit what you had in Berea.

I mean, man, you were cooking there, but over here, I mean, you had your chance in front of the big hot shot philosophical council.

Missed it.

There's going to be recorded for all of time.

Just some of the people became followers.

He left the outcome and results in God's hands.

See, we have to be clear on our responsibility.

This is not saying don't work hard, don't do your best.

Here's what's just saying.

I I can't live under the weight of what the out of outcomes.

I can't live under if I'm trying to raise my kids, here's what I do.

I'm going to, I'm called to raise them, help them know Jesus.

I can't live under the outcome of raising perfect kids, raising godly kids.

That's God's part.

That's their interaction.

And for some, how would it change your parenting if you didn't live under that outcome?

Because isn't it true that when they act out, then you feel like it's a reflection of you?

And so instead of helping guide them, helping them grow, we often punish them or discipline them in a way because it made us look bad.

The outcomes of successful work.

The outcomes.

I know for me, even that preaching, my job.

I can't be married to outcomes when I am.

I'm preaching for your applause instead of God's approval.

I like how Dallas Willard says it.

He says, the secret to peace, as great apprentices of Jesus have long known, is being abandoned to God.

We accept that we do not have in ourselves, in our own heart, soul, mind, and strength, the wherewithal to make this come out right, whatever this is.

Instead, let us entrust our souls to the faithful Creator in doing what is right.

See, redefining success means I'm going to be present where God has placed me.

I'm seeking him as my sole satisfaction.

And through that, I'm going to entrust to him the outcomes.

I'm going to entrust to him the people that I love in my life, the outcomes that are going.

I like how John Ortberg tells a story of not into Dallas Willard.

And Dallas Willard had just got done preaching at Ortberg's church up in Minlo.

And I like how John says it.

And he gave this picture and it's always stuck with me.

And he was just humming an old hymn as he's walking to the car.

And he said, as if like he he preached and he did this thing, and it's like a healing balloon, and then he just let go of it and let it float up.

I just wonder what would change in your life instead of living under the weight and under the pressure and feeling like everything rests on your shoulders, instead abandoning it to God and just going, I'm just gonna, I God, I'm becoming who you made me to be, and I'm doing what you called me to do, and I'm gonna entrust the outcomes, the results to you.

You know, um as we close, we're gonna take communion together, and uh at the front is uh the elements, and they're in their little pre-packaged areas, and at the back, there's two spots as well that you can grab the elements.

So during worship, we'll get up and come forward and grab those, and then you can go back to your seat and take it on your own.

But I was reminded of um this whole idea of outcomes, and and it gets messy in the church.

It gets messy in my own soul.

And it's really hard to practice what you preach sometimes, isn't it?

Yes, it is.

And I I happen to be um I had coffee with a young church planner up in Oakland.

It's awesome as a church.

We've gotten to support them financially, and and we're just meeting, he's talking about all his you know, goals and all his um metrics and all the things and how the pandemic threw it all off.

And like, what do I do now?

What do I and and I and I said, Jesus told us like the fruitfulness, impact, success, if you will.

It actually comes in John chapter 15, he explained, by abiding in him, resting in him, remaining in him, staying deeply connected to Jesus, and he'll take care of the results, he'll take care of the fruit, he'll the fruit will come, the fruit will happen.

John 15 · chapter mention

You're not tied to the outcome.

Let Jesus be tied to it.

And then he texts me this week.

He said, Do you really believe, and this is what I said, this question, do you really believe that your fruitfulness in ministry comes from your ability to lead or your abiding in Jesus?

And then he wrote, Can't tell you how much these words have been an encouragement and refreshing for me in this season.

Some of you need refreshed, and you've been living under burdens you were not uh meant to bear.

And we're gonna take a moment and remind ourselves only Jesus will satisfy the deep longing of our souls, and we'll sit and you'll take, okay, what are the things that I've been living under?

And I'm just gonna bring them to you and remind myself.

I gotta remind myself daily, only you, only you, only you, Jesus.

And so would you take this moment as we continue in worship and just pause, be present, go, okay, Jesus, what do you have for me here?

Would you speak to my heart and my soul, my mind?

Would you lift the burdens that are yours?

Heavenly Father, I I thank you for this moment.

I thank you that you've came for us, that you are the creator of the universe and all that we see, and and that you're Father, that you're intimately caring, involved in our lives.

God, in this moment, may we meet you, Jesus.

May we bring the things that we're carrying to you.

Would you reorient our lives around you and your ways?

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

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