Successful Flawed People - Purpose

Well, we've been working our way through these essentials of faith

to answer this question.

Christianity of false is of no importance.

If it's true, it's of infinite importance.

The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.

Said by C.S.

Lewis.

Thanks for your attentiveness to these chapels.

I really appreciate it.

And today I want to talk about your purpose.

Why did God put you on this earth?

And then I want to tell you, as I told you in the intro, about

the greatest discovery in the Bible.

So that's kind of where we're headed today, because we're getting

close to the end of this series and today looking at successful,

flawed people.

And where's our purpose?

You see, we looked at God and his nature and heaven, and then we

looked at how we're separated from God because of sin.

And then we're reconnected to God because of grace, and we grow

in him because of truth.

And then we looked at how we build character in those gifts of

the spirit, fruits of the spirit, and how love is central to

everything we do.

And then you've got to be able to trust God through the good times

and the bad times, because he is sovereign.

So you put all that together, and that brings us to our purpose.

Why did God put us here?

God did not create you to fill space.

God did not create you because your mom and dad needed another kid.

God did not put you here just to fill a seat.

God created you uniquely with your gifts to do something that only

you could do.

He didn't create you to do something somebody else could do.

He created you to do what only you could do.

And God has a plan for what that is in your life.

And that plan is filled with promise and with purpose.

We read about this in Jeremiah.

When Jeremiah the prophet says to the people, for I know the plans

I have for you, says the Lord.

They're plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future

and a hope.

Well, I hope you have a future and a hope and feel that way.

But you have to understand what the promise comes from.

The time of Jeremiah, when Nebuchadnezzar had exiled the leaders

of Israel into Babylon, which is modern day Iraq, and Iran, he

exiled them into that territory.

And in the middle of that, God says, I have a plan for you.

I think they could have said, well, God, that's really good, but,

you know, let's wait till we get out of this thing and then I'll

do your purpose.

No, he had a plan for them right now, and I think a Lot of Christians

sit on the sidelines of life because they're waiting for that

time when everything comes together.

And finally, I can do God's purpose.

If I can just get this degree, then I'll do God's purpose.

If I can just go to graduate school, then I'll do God's purpose.

If I can just get married, start a family, then I'll do God's

purpose.

If I just get enough money, I'll do God's purpose.

It doesn't work that way.

God has a purpose for you right now in your place, right where

you are.

And that purpose will grow and change over time as God unleashes

those gifts in your life.

So I want to talk today about fulfilling God's purpose in our lives.

And I use that word, fulfilling on purpose.

A lot of people say I'm finding God's will for my life.

And I don't believe that.

God does not hide his will for our life.

So you're not finding God's will.

You're fulfilling what he's already determined you're gifted

to do and what he prepared you to do.

You see, God doesn't hide his will, but he only reveals as much

as we can handle at the time.

Hear that?

He only reveals what you can handle at the time.

When I was in your place, sitting in chapel many years ago,

we didn't have phones for distraction.

We had studied sometimes, but we listened.

So sitting in chapel, I didn't really know what my purpose was.

I didn't really know why I was in college other than that's the

next thing you do.

My dad had to be president, school, so I better show up.

I was interested in soccer, and I was interested in playing tennis,

and I was interested in Dayton, Mary Lou, and that was about

it.

I didn't have much purpose after that.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do, what I wanted to be.

People would tell me, you're going to do this, you're going to

do that.

And God began to open some little doors in little tiny steps.

Eventually got to graduate school and found out I was a lot

better at academics than I ever applied myself to to be as an

undergraduate.

And I got pretty good at it.

I appreciated what campus life was about because I'd grown up on

a campus and I wanted to be involved in Christian colleges somehow.

So I got a PhD in higher education and wound up at a really

young age being a college president when I was 34 years old.

You know, I'm in my 36th year as a college president.

I have been a college president more years of my life than

I've not been a college president.

And that's really weird, but that's how life came out for me.

But here's the thing.

When I was sitting back there in chapel as a sophomore, if God

had said, you're going to go and be a college president and you're

going to run this organization and you're going to help educate

people and you're going to build this and build that and manage

the budgets to do that, I would have been scared to death.

I, I was scared to even talk in public.

I remember my public speaking class, we had to give a five minute

speech.

I about wilted.

I couldn't do it.

God at that point knew I couldn't handle what his plan was

for me.

But over time, God revealed it and opened it to me so that I could

fulfill it.

It's amazing how God does not hide his will.

He just doesn't show us all of it when we can't handle it.

If he had told me at that time I'm going to do all that stuff, I

would have run and signed up for the greeter training program

at Walmart because I would have thought that'd be a stretch

for me.

That's about the best I could do.

Instead, God wanted me to do these things, but I never in a million

years expected it or thought I could.

So God doesn't hide his will, but he will be slow to reveal it

until you are ready to accept it and act on it.

Secondly, what you do is worthless without love.

If you don't love, whatever you do really doesn't matter.

You could have the greatest accomplishments of any graduate who's

ever come to Belhaven.

And if you don't love, we don't think it's great.

But God doesn't.

You've been reading First Corinthians 13.

I know you have, because I'm hearing a lot of good stories about

how you're sticking with it and hang in there.

I know you feel like, well, I know it so well, I don't have to

read it anymore.

Yeah, you do.

Stay with it until Thanksgiving and God will continue

to work in your life as you do.

But First Corinthians 13, because you've read it so much now,

you know the first three verses are this contrast between

love and doing some amazing things.

So you can do amazing things in your life.

But if you don't love, it doesn't matter.

In God's perspective of success, here's what scripture says.

If I could speak the languages of the earth and of angels, if I

can communicate with everybody so that I could really connect with

them and help shape their lives and help make their lives better.

And if I could do that, but I didn't love them, I'd just be a noisy

gong or clanging cymbal.

Or if I had the gift of prophecy and I understood everything

about the Bible, wouldn't that be an amazing accomplishment?

But without love, it doesn't matter.

Or if I gave everything I have to the poor, and if I really gave

them sacrifice my own body for serving others, but I didn't love

them, the scripture says it would be nothing.

See, there's this huge contrast between these accomplishments

that are remarkable and when we don't love in our lives and this

image that God that the scripture gives us, I think is pretty

remarkable.

And I borrowed this from the music department, kind of show it

to you.

That's a gong.

So the scripture says that you can accomplish these things, but

if you don't love, you're drowned out by the gong.

So if I could speak with the languages of earth and of angels,

but didn't love others, I would be a noisy gong or a clanging

sipple.

And if I had the gift of prophecy and understood all God's

plans and possessed all knowledge and the faith, I could

move mom but didn't love others, it would be nothing.

And if I gave everything I have to the poor, he would sacrifice

my body and boast of it, but I didn't love others.

It would have gained nothing.

You see?

You see, all your accomplishments don't matter because

it's drowned out if you don't love.

That's why that image is so strong there.

And the people of that day would have understood that image.

They would have understood that that noise was so loud that

they couldn't hear anything else.

That's what God is telling us.

That's how important love is.

So when you're looking for your purpose, it.

If your purpose is not built in love, then it really doesn't matter.

In God's estimation of what is significant.

Love is the core.

Now, you can love in a lot of professions, whatever your profession

is, God's still calling you to the same thing, to love others and

do for the least of these.

Remember that from back when we talked about heaven, do for the

least of these.

Those are the measures of purpose that he says.

So that's your purpose.

And then your other work is a vehicle for accomplishing that purpose

of Love and doing for the least of these.

So maybe you're going to the medical world.

That's great.

If you're going to.

You can really show people that you love and care for them as

individuals.

They're not just the next appointment on the schedule.

Or maybe you're going into education, you're going to teach,

you're going to prepare to work in colleges.

Great place to serve and to love others.

Or maybe you're in the arts and you can bring joy to people and

you can tell stories that help them grapple with the big questions

of life because of your gift and in that you love them.

Or maybe you're going into business.

And if you're going into business, you can still love people,

but because there are a lot of people in your business who don't

make the money you make.

And you can be kind and gentle and supportive of them.

And you can also make a lot of money and give away a lot of money

in order to help a lot of people because you love them.

Or social worker counseling, or, you know, being a pastor or a

coach or a scientist.

In all those professions, you can do things to show your love for

others and to serve the least of these.

You can even do it if you don't do a profession that requires

a college degree.

I was on campus one day and a couple of our maintenance guys were

fixing a water leak right in front of the student center.

They were way down the hole.

They were up to their knees in mud and water and the whole thing.

And I came up to the edge of it, and I look over and I say, guys,

what are you doing?

They said, we're educating students for Christ.

And that's exactly what they were doing.

Now, they were doing it by fixing a water leak.

But if they don't fix a water leak, campus shuts down because the

restrooms don't work and we don't have any air conditioning.

So we're all done.

So that's exactly what they were doing.

They were doing it because they love you and they care about

you and they wanted to use their gifts, their calling to serve

in that way.

What you do is worthless without love.

But love makes all the difference.

And when you take your gifts and your uniqueness and you put it

all together and it's motivated by love, that's when God

will really surprise you.

I think one of the greatest illustrations I've seen of using

your gifts is Doug Ellsworth, who does our music.

Doug's pretty remarkable.

But Doug, a few years ago, got into Looking at developing a better

tasting coffee.

Kind of started as a hobby and it kind of grew into a business.

He hadn't really planned it, but it kind of grew into a business.

And the business got pretty big because all the best restaurants

in Jackson wanted his coffee.

And then he took that interest in it.

But.

But he was also really a.

A music person.

He writes a lot of songs.

He was a pastor at heart.

Doug's really good at bringing together community and one on one

engagement.

And he came to me a few years ago when our Shuberg, you don't remember,

but our Shuberg Cafe was one of the dingiest, most inactive places

on campus.

It was horrible.

We kind of had it open to serve a little bit of this and that,

and it was costing us a lot of money to run the thing.

And nobody cared.

Nobody came.

Doug said, would you be willing to let me take that over?

And it was so bad, I thought, what have you got to lose?

Yeah, help yourself and take the thing over.

And Doug, because he wanted to connect with students, because he

loves you, took all those gifts of his ability to make great

coffee and to serve and to run a business and music and pastoring

and community and one on one, brought it all together to make that

one of the greatest spots we've got on campus.

And people love to congregate, that that's being responsive to your

gifts that are driven by love.

When your gifts are driven by love, God will surprise you in what

he's going to do.

So the next idea is this.

There are many choices to be in God's will.

Many choices.

When I was your age and I was sitting in that chapel, I was scared

to death I was going to miss God's will.

They say you got to find God's will.

Oh, I'm going to miss God's will.

I'm going to choose this profession, this profession.

And my life will be ruined because I miss God's will.

No, it doesn't work that way at all.

It doesn't work that way at all.

His will is that you love people.

His will is that you do for the least of these.

And there are a whole lot of paths to getting there.

There are a whole lot of ways you can do that.

And for each of us, it is different.

There's not a right or wrong answer.

Because his will is to love and to serve the least of these.

And as long as that's what motivates you, then there are lots

of different ways God can use you.

It's not a single path.

And often that changes over time, and.

And it changes with seasons of life and family obligations and other

kinds of things.

And it changes as your gifting grows and develop, you have more

opportunities to do other kinds of things.

But two things I'd recommend to you are, first of all, listen

to your gifting.

Listen to your gifting.

What are you good at?

God made you, and he made you good at something.

And because of that, God gifted you to begin to develop that

gift, to use it for his honor and glory.

And if you will listen to your gifting and follow that path of your

gifting, it's kind of amazing what God will open up.

Now, some people say, well, I can't do that.

It can't be my profession.

It's too easy.

It's too easy for me.

Yeah, it may be easy because you're gifted at it.

I got folks who help me with the finances of this school, and

it's pretty complex.

You know, we spend a million dollars a week.

It's pretty not an easy place to run.

And they look at it and they go, is this, this, this, this.

It's really simple and easy for them.

And they explain that to other people.

It totally goes over their head.

And they say, I don't know what you're talking about.

Well, because they're working in their gifting, and that's why.

Listen to your gifting.

God made you, and God designed you for a purpose, and he gave you

gifts.

And if you follow those gifts, God will open up a path for you.

Second is this.

Listen and learn from mentors.

Mentors are really important in your life.

If you don't have mentors now, make sure you get some people who've

got more experience, who are wise.

They don't have to be even a lot older, but they usually are.

And it doesn't need to be formal.

You know, a lot of people are interested in God, want to be in

a mentoring relationship.

Well, that's fine if you want to do that.

That doesn't work.

That's never worked for me.

I've had mentors my whole life.

But my mentors are people I just watch, I listen to, I really

pick up on their cues.

I learn a lot from them because they're people I respect.

And so you can be in mentoring without it being a formal mentoring

kind of thing.

If you have a teachable spirit.

You know, I hire a lot of people here, and the number one thing

I look for in every single employee at every level is, do you

have a teachable spirit?

If you think you know it all.

You're not going to work here.

I don't want you working here.

You got to be learning and listening to what God's saying and

developing in your life.

So if you have mentors, great.

If you don't have mentors, find mentors, people you can learn

from.

Well, there are many choices to God's will and many directions

of how we can get there.

And that path won't be one thing and then you're kind of set

forever.

Don't expect that.

The key is this.

Yeah.

You got a plan?

I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and I'm gonna go to grad

school.

I'm gonna do this.

Great, wonderful.

Nothing wrong with that.

That's all good.

Just don't hang on to it so tightly that God can't change it.

That's when we miss his best for us.

When you hang on so tightly that you can't adjust from the plan.

God has a plan, but he hadn't revealed it all to you yet.

He will, but it will come over time.

Well, the fourth thing I'd suggest to you is God uses flawed

people.

God uses flawed people.

Nobody in the history of the Christian world has ever done it

all right?

Nobody in life ever gets a free pass.

Everybody gets beat up.

That's how life is.

Because it's a sinful world and we all have sinned and fallen

short.

The scripture tells us very clearly.

And when you understand that God uses flawed people, it opens

up a whole opportunity of purpose that some people shut down

from because they assume that that their flaws keep them from being

used by God.

Now one of my mentors is Steve Brown.

I love Steve Brown.

He's a faculty member down at RTS in Orlando.

Speaks on the radio a lot.

He's got these one minute things.

If you ever want to sign up for something that's really helpful.

He's always smart, he's always on target.

He really helps me.

I love Steve and I don't get to be with him that often, but every

time I'm with him, he enriches my life.

And Steve said this, he can say it better than I can.

It's pretty short, but he can say it better than I can.

So here's a video.

Very rarely uses obedient, faithful, self righteous people.

He almost always uses screwed up, sinful people who know it.

So why discern on the mount?

Well, it's to give us a guide about some things that are helpful.

But more important than that, Jesus is saying, if you want me to

do amazing things with you.

Cry out for mercy and the angels will sing.

You see, God uses flawed people.

And when we can cry out for mercy and know that we're flawed

and go before him, we can take our flaw and turn it into something

significant.

Abraham was old.

Jeremiah was young.

A lot of people think I'm too young to do anything.

No, you're not.

Moses stuttered.

Noah was a drunk.

Jacob was a cheater.

David was a murderer.

Elijah was suicidal.

Joseph was abused.

Gideon was afraid.

Samson was a womanizer.

Rahab was a prostitute.

Job went bankrupt.

Jonah ran from God.

The disciples fell asleep while praying.

And Paul persecuted Christians before he became one.

Every one of them is a flawed person.

And those are our heroes of faith.

Those are people that God felt were important enough to tell their

stories so that we would know them in the scripture.

There are millions of other stories, but he included those on

purpose because they're flawed people, just like you and me.

And if you're waiting and say, well, God can't use me because I'm

flawed, you miss a point.

The greatest discovery in the Bible is to understand that God uses

flawed people.

When you understand that, then you can open yourself to to be a

person used of God and have a purpose and a significance.

If you love God and you love his people, there's no telling what

God will do in your life.

You don't have to be perfect because you're not.

And I don't have to be perfect because I'm not.

But God will use us if we love and if we're willing to serve.

And it'll be way beyond the best we can imagine.

You know, we used to close chapel every year with a verse we'd

say together in unison, out loud.

And we stopped doing it this semester.

And I'm going to bring it back next semester and I'll tell you about

it.

Start of the spring.

Why we're going to bring it back.

But it reads like this.

No eye has seen, no ear is heard.

No mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.

Whatever your best plans are, you haven't yet seen them.

Whatever you think your direction is and you've been counseled

to do, you haven't yet heard it.

Whatever you conceive as a perfect future for you, you haven't

yet conceived it.

God's got more for you.

Because our minds cannot conceive what God has prepared for

those who love him.

And in that our purpose becomes fulfilled for what God designed

us to be and to do.

Well, next week we're going to talk about the event that puts this

whole thing together.

All these essentials come together.

God in eternity, you and me, our purpose, everything is built

around one pivotal moment of history, the resurrection of Jesus.

And so we're going to finish this series on the essentials, looking

at this moment and how everything in history up to that

moment and everything after that moment is built around the resurrection,

as is eternity.

Let's pray together.

Thanks, dear Lord, that you made us for a reason.

You gifted us for a reason.

Even though we're flawed, as long as we come to you and ask for

mercy, you use us for a reason that's way beyond the best we can

imagine.

Help us to trust you for that.

In your name, we ask it.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening.