HHC Rewind: What's My Purpose? - Susan Craig

Father, I thank you for today.

I thank you for this opportunity to share what you want shared today.

So Lord, I just ask you to give me the words to speak today, Lord.

Only what you want, nothing more and nothing less.

And Lord, I pray that you just would soften our hearts right now.

Open our hearts to hear what you have to say to us.

We just love you, Lord.

Amen.

Alright, I taught dealing with fear in my Wednesday night class this week, and I didn't know I was preaching to myself.

And even in that class, God said, Here's how to deal with fear.

If it's in the middle of your path, you know that God has you on.

He wants you to keep moving.

And there's this big boulder right in front of you.

He said, Tell it to move in Jesus' name, and it will.

So all morning in the car on the way here, I'm like, fear, move in Jesus' name.

So I thought maybe I'd luck out and he would let me teach on that today, so I could be combating it as I'm teaching.

You know, that would be a good thing.

But he said, no, no.

So he he actually gave me what I'm supposed to share today, and actually he gave me so much that I had to split it right in two.

I tried to cram it all in there, but I knew I was full of myself because I'm a little long-winded.

So if you don't throw tomatoes at me today, I might come back and do the second half, you know, in a few weeks.

But well, you might want to listen first.

Alright, I'm really big on the Bible.

And so I even had to cut all my verses because I just had tons.

And what we're going to talk about today, there's tons and tons of verses from the Bible.

So I cut a lot of them.

So know, even when I'm sharing the ones that I picked out, there's tons more.

Tons more.

Okay, so let's start with uh Jeremiah 29 and verse 11.

A lot of you are familiar with this probably.

And this is God talking.

He says, For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

And the next verse I want to share is Acts 17, actually two verses, 26 and 27.

And it says, From one man, he, that's talking about God, made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the time set for them and the exact places where they should live.

God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

And so here's the thing, these are just a sampling of verses.

And what these verses say is that God really, really does have a plan and a purpose for each one of us.

I mean, to the point, that the second, the this verse right here is that he determined exactly where and when you should be born.

I mean, that's how specific it is.

So I just want to, this is not just me saying he has a purpose and a plan, which I go around all the time telling everybody that.

God has a purpose and a plan for your life.

This is the Bible backing this up.

It's not me, it's the Bible.

So believe that, because that's what we're gonna talk about today.

All right, I'll I'll start with my own little personal sharing on this subject because I didn't have that great of an upbringing.

And uh my parents did the best they could, but I had a lot of um hard times growing up, and um, like I'm sure a lot of you can attest to, and I didn't get a lot of my emotional needs met as a child.

And if you kind of look up in secular or Christian or anything, basically there's like four basic emotional needs that every person has.

Every person sitting in here has these emotional needs, and one of them, one of the four, is purpose.

They need a purpose for being alive, they want significance.

We are born with that.

We are born with that, and I'm I I can attest to that because I grew up feeling invisible.

Wondering, even when I was a teenager, I was very suicidal, to be perfectly honest, because I didn't feel like I would just even pray to God because I did believe in God, I didn't feel his presence at all, but I would say, why was I born?

What was I created for?

It seems like for nothing, nobody ever told me who I was or that I had a purpose.

And so if you can if that resonates with you at all, if you can relate to that at all, I'm here to tell you who you are and what you were created for.

And it might not be what you think.

Okay.

All right.

Probably when I was in my 20s, I spent tons of time trying to figure out what my purpose was and what I was created for.

And I'm telling you, I probably spent hours as putting it mildly, hours and hours and hours thinking and focusing on what I was born for, what I was created for, because I I just wanted so badly to be valuable and to be worth something.

And um, and so I it wasn't hours, it was probably days and weeks I spent focused on being frustrated and discouraged because I didn't think there was anything for me.

And I would even look at even how God made me, because I am a woman, and I would say a lot of the gifts he even put in me, I wasn't able to use because of the weird church subculture that I grew up in.

Okay, just to be honest.

I couldn't really do anything, I wasn't considered valuable, so I couldn't use any of those in the church, and and I couldn't really, I didn't really feel like I could use them anywhere else either.

And so, um, so that's just my own my own personal testimony.

But I I hear this nonstop, especially in what I'm doing right now.

I hear that nonstop from people.

What is my purpose?

What am I supposed to be doing?

What was I created for?

And there's just frustration, and I can't hear God on this, and he's not telling me.

And they're what it really is, what they're looking for, they're they're asking the question, why was I created?

What is the purpose I was created for?

Okay.

And I think I get kind of accused of being a little uh anti-religious, if you know what I'm talking about when I say that, because I'll say, oh, religion this, religion that.

So people kind of tease me about that.

But but here's the thing.

When I think about religion, this is kind of what I think it fits in here, in your mind.

It's anything, it's that nice, neat little box that you can fit right here in your mind.

Okay, and it feels kind of safe and comfortable.

We can get our head wrapped around, like even what we're talking about today, what our purpose is, then we can we can be okay with that.

And so I think that's what we try to do.

We try to fit in our mind.

But here's the thing God is so much bigger than that, and He gave us, He created us as a spirit man.

Okay?

And so His purpose for us is not gonna fit in here.

You can try all day long to make it fit in here and try to make it black and white.

Oh, this is what I was born into.

Here's the thing: God cares about the real deep part of you, he cares about your mind too.

He gave you that to use.

Nothing wrong with that, and we're gonna talk about that too.

But he created us as a spirit man, and that part of you is bigger than your mind man.

And your purpose is gonna be about your spirit man, not your mind man.

Okay, so here's my I Steve said I don't think you should say promise or guarantee.

But here's the thing: I really believe that everybody can walk out of here today knowing what their purpose is.

You can just put that to rest, that whole wondering and and and plotting and planning and asking other people and looking at other people and wondering if that's what you're supposed to be doing.

Okay, you can put it to rest today.

You can walk out of here knowing you.

Well, you already know that because I told you that you are created for a purpose.

But you can walk out of here today knowing what it is.

All right.

Yeah, okay.

It's pretty exciting.

You know why it's exciting to me?

I like to share on things that mean something to me.

Because why would I share on stuff that doesn't?

Okay.

But but but this is the deal.

This is exciting to me because I spent years, years feeling like a nothing, a big fat nothing.

And nobody told me any different.

And so here's who taught me this.

I'm telling you, when when there is anybody in your life, see, God gives us each other to help each other and to teach each other and inspire each other and encourage each other.

That's why we're the church.

We are the church.

But here's the thing God Himself is the best teacher.

And so there's nobody around you that can help you.

He will teach you.

It's called direct deposit.

Direct deposit.

All right.

Okay, so here we're gonna start off.

We're gonna start off where I feel like most people think they kind of, this is the mind part.

Uh what most people think their purpose is, is an it.

A do.

A role, a function, a job, a position, a title, whatever you want to call it.

Because I know that's what I did.

That's what I was looking for.

I wanted to put in a nice little black and white box.

So we're gonna talk a little bit about that.

And here's what I'm gonna talk about.

You might be surprised what I'm gonna talk about spiritual gifts, which are awesome.

Spiritual gifts are just gifts that God has given us that that are have to do with our spiritual nature and they have to do with uh with what we do.

And so they're awesome and important, but I tell you this right now they're not our purpose.

They are not our purpose.

Okay, so let's read uh, and actually I'm not gonna put up on the screen because it's too many verses.

I think Chris back there was like, ah, you can't put 20 verses up there at a time.

So I'm just gonna read them quickly because this isn't the point anyway.

I'm just getting to another place.

But here's the thing, I don't want to take anything away from gifts at all.

Because here's the thing, they are from God.

I actually have some gifts and I like them a lot.

They're cool and I use them for good stuff, okay?

So so gifts are really important.

So even as I'm reading some of these, there's three ways you can go with this.

You can either notice with your mind and your spirit that you might have some of these gifts and say, thank you, God, for giving me those gifts.

Number two, if you don't notice you got any, you can ask God to stir some up in you, because I guarantee you got some and show you what they are.

Okay?

And number three, if you don't notice that you have any, and you're not feeling any getting stirred up, ask him to give you some.

All three work.

Okay.

All right, real quickly, 1 Corinthians 12, and it's a lot of verses, but just listen for the main points.

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same spirit is the source of them all.

There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.

God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

To one person, the spirit gives the ability to give wise advice.

There's one right there.

Wise advice.

Did you know that was a spiritual gift?

Yep.

To another, the same spirit gives a message of special knowledge.

That's when you know something that God told you that could help somebody else.

All right, the same spirit gives great faith to another.

Those are the people you want to go to for prayer.

Those people on the side, they got great faith.

God gave it to them.

To someone else, the one spirit gives the gift of healing, which is what we got prayed for today.

People actually, God gives them that gift that they can pray for people and they'll be healed.

Isn't that awesome?

He gives one person the power to perform miracles and another the ability to prophesy.

He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the spirit of God or from another spirit.

That's kind of like, you know how when you they call it women's intuition a lot of times and stuff, but you know how like when you get a bad vibe, like I don't think that's from God.

It's not.

And that's because you probably have the gift to discern whether a spirit is from God or not.

Okay.

Still, another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages or tongues, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said.

It is the one and only spirit who distributes all these gifts.

He alone decides which gift each person should have.

All of you together are Christ's bodies, and each of you is part of it.

Here are some of the parts God has appointed for the church.

So here's some more spiritual gifts I'm about to lay out for you.

And we we can have another message on this if you want to hear more about this, but this is just to make a point.

So here is here's some more.

First are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles, those who have the gift of healing, those who can help others, that's a gift.

Right up there.

Right up there.

There's all those other ones.

Those who have the gift of leadership, those who speak in unknown languages.

And then Paul says, Are we all apostles?

Are we all prophets?

Are we all teachers?

Do we all have the power to do miracles?

Do we all have the gift of healing?

Do we have the ability to speak in unknown languages?

Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages?

Can you tell him trying to get through this fast?

Have you ever heard Steve speak this fast in his life?

I figure I can get twice as much content in the same amount of time.

Okay.

Okay.

So Paul finishes up and he says, of course not.

We do not all, we're we don't all have the same gifts.

That's why we need each other.

And so here's what he ends with.

So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts.

And so that's what I was talking about, where you can ask God to give you some.

To give you something, something.

So you can help other people.

All right.

Okay.

So here's the thing.

I want to go back and say these gifts are really awesome.

They're from God Himself.

And He's given these gifts to each of us, and if you ask Him, He'll give you some more.

But here's my question.

Is what we do our purpose?

Even the even I'm talking spiritual stuff.

I'm talking about that stuff I just listed.

Even that, what we do.

Is that truly the most important thing?

Is that our purpose?

No.

But I think most people think it is because we're trying to put it into the box.

If I can have this role or title or job or whatever, that's my purpose for my whole life, and then I can feel valuable.

Then I can feel worth something.

Okay, and here I just kind of wrote out some of those that I see, most of them myself, trying to get my my significance and make my purpose.

Here's some of them.

We might think our purpose is to make as much money as we can.

We might think it's to learn as much as we can.

That might be our purpose.

Or to experience all that we can.

Do you get what I'm talking about?

It also and and none of those things is necessarily bad at all.

But that's not our purpose.

We might think our purpose is our career, our status in a relationship, like I'm a wife, I'm a husband, I'm a mom or dad.

And here's the thing, like I already mentioned, we can transfer that onto spiritual things.

And here's the thing, a lot of y'all haven't been in church for your whole life.

I'd say it's about 50-50.

That's what I'd say.

And so just disregard if you don't know what I'm talking about.

But in churchdom, for you churchdom, previous churchdom people, here's the thing.

You might think your purpose is to be a teacher, a prophet.

I want to be that.

A pastor.

Which really, here's the thing about pastor that's a shepherd.

It's not that glory of a role.

It's become a glory role, unfortunately, in the church, sad to say.

Do you know what a pastor is?

It is a shepherd who literally feeds and takes care of and cleans up after and helps and guides the sheep.

It's not a glory role, okay?

But but unfortunately, that seems like what we want to be.

I want to be something important, something that makes me feel significant and valuable.

Even in church, it's become that way.

And here's the thing: I I wanted it.

Me bad.

I wanted it.

Okay.

Well, not the pastor thing.

Okay.

But I'm saying I wanted to be something important in the church.

I wanted to be valuable.

I wanted to make a lot of money.

I wanted to have a career.

I wanted to be considered smart and beautiful and important even in the church.

I wanted people to think I was something.

All right.

And here's the thing: I bugged God mercilessly.

I kept saying, tell me who I am.

Because nobody did.

Tell me what I was created for.

Tell me what my purpose is.

I bugged him.

I bugged him.

And I didn't really hear God too well at this particular time.

Not very well at all.

And uh I just wanted him to make it happen, you know, to just pave the way for me to be important, to be valuable, to have a purpose.

And so here's what he said to me, because I did actually hear him.

He said, Okay, I thought it was my own thought, but now I look back and see it was God saying this to me.

I started waking up every morning.

I shared this with my class a few weeks ago, and I said, God, I don't know what I am.

I would like to be in a box.

But since you're not telling me, here's what I'm gonna do.

Every day when I wake up, first thing in the morning, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk to you, and I'm gonna say, I will be whoever you want me to be today, and I will do whatever you want me to do today.

That is scary.

I challenge all of you.

I challenge you will go on the biggest God adventure you've ever been in your entire life.

Um, okay, and guess how long God took me on this adventure?

Well, I'm still on that adventure.

Thanks, thank you, God.

I'm still on that adventure.

But here's the deal.

For two years, that's what I did.

Woke up every morning, alright.

I wish you'd give me like a title to put on this, but I'll just be whoever you want me to be, and I'll do whatever you want me to be today.

So it was just crazy for two years.

I mean, I'd wake up in the morning and and I would get into the path of homeless people that needed help.

And I and I mean there was nowhere else to look but me, okay?

So I have to help them.

There would be witches and people involved in all kinds of things that I really didn't know anything about.

But here's the thing: the funny thing is, God would either show me exactly what to share with them, or how to help them, or how to love them, mainly love them.

But I would have the exact thing.

It would be the only thing I could have given them.

And but I had it because I had had an experience before.

It was always so strange.

He would even put me in the path of people that I considered like spiritual legends and church them.

That I was like, oh, I'm not worthy to even speak to those people because I know how bad I am, okay?

I was like that.

And he would put me in their path, and literally they would come and they would have this problem, and it was literally no joke.

How could I help them?

It was literally the one area that I had actually walked through and had some victory in so I could help them.

So that was like an exciting, scary and exciting time in my life.

But here's the problem.

Here's what he showed me during that two years.

He never did tell me exactly what I was or my purpose or whatever, but here's what he showed me.

He cared way more about the who than the what.

He cared way more about the who than the what.

And I was kind of bummed out because I wanted him to tell me what I was, and all he cared about was people.

And here's the problem.

I wanted a purpose, but his purpose was different than what I thought it was, and this is what he was starting to reveal for to me, his purpose for me, and I actually really believe for all of us.

For all of us.

Alright.

So here's what I'm talking about right now.

Think about Mission Impossible.

Y'all remember that old show?

I think I said this to somebody, and there were everybody in there was like 20-something, and they were like, What?

So I think anybody 40s and over knows what I'm talking about.

But Mission Impossible, not the Tom Cruise movies and stuff.

I'm talking about the oldie, okay?

And you get the tape recorder, you know, the little real tape recorder thing, and it would show up, and they would, and you know, it would say, Susan, if you choose to accept this mission, and if not, you know, it's gonna blow up in 30 seconds or whatever.

Okay.

Okay, now that's kind of goofy and everything, but that's just what I liken to.

So here's the thing all those specific tasks and roles, positions, job, title, all that stuff that I covered earlier that I said isn't your purpose.

And it even includes spiritual gifts.

Here's what I call those things: missions.

I'm not talking about the kind where you go over to Africa, I'm talking like mission impossible missions.

Okay?

And here's the thing about missions.

They are cool.

Like I said, they are God adventures.

Some fun and some not so fun.

But here's the deal: because God made you, like he knows you.

You know, there's a proverb that says uh a man's own heart deceives himself, and what that means is we don't even really know us.

Here's the thing God created us.

And here's the cool thing.

Like he like here, I'm looking at Cindy.

He knows Cindy way better than Cindy even knows herself.

He knows what he created her for, he knows all the gifts he's put in her, and so here's the thing what he's gonna give her for her missions, are gonna be exactly what she was created for.

I mean, they're gonna be just unique to her, and so whatever he gives her, whatever mission he sends her on, is gonna be way better than what she could pick for herself.

So here's the thing, I'm not dissing missions or gifts or tasks or roles at all.

Because they are fun.

They're exciting.

Like I didn't want those tears in.

When God set up the end of those tears, he started getting us ready to do the church.

I was like, no.

I just want to go on missions with you every day, God.

And he's like, yeah, but I need you to do this now.

And that's my point.

Like, I'll use this church for an example, which we're just the church.

I don't hate to even say the building, but that's all part of it and all this.

But here's the deal: this church is one of mine and a lot of other people's missions.

This church is not my purpose.

God gave me a lot of gifts and stuff like that, and he built them up and everything.

I never knew what they were going to be used for.

And then one day he said, Oh, okay, this is what it's for in this particular mission.

But that is not my this church is awesome, and I'm glad to be a part of it.

It is not my purpose, and it does not give me significance at all.

At all.

And that's so cool.

And some of our missions are daily.

Or you might run into a homeless person or someone may be down and out, and you just need to smile, give them a hug, encourage them.

Some last your whole life long.

I think my kids might be here, so I shouldn't say this.

And you know what I'm talking about.

They last your whole life long, being a mom or dad.

Okay, but those are still your missions.

They are not your purpose.

So now I know you're going, okay, so what is it?

I think you kind of are getting a feeling for what it is.

All right, a few minutes ago, you know, I read all those tons of verses about the spiritual gifts.

Well, here's the thing, I did not finish reading that.

This is really funny.

I read 1 Corinthians 12 through verse 31A.

You know what that means, the first half of the verse.

I did not read 31b.

Do you want to hear what that says?

Okay.

And then I'm going to read parts of the whole next chapter.

Here's what 1 Corinthians 12, 31b says.

It is so cool.

Now you understand what we just read in all those verses was about, I'm talking the biggies in churchdom.

Apostles, prophets, teachers, people who speak in tongues.

People who discern spirits.

I'm talking the biggies.

Okay?

This is 31B right here.

But now, but now I've talked all about that stuff, and it's important and awesome and good.

It is from God for you to walk in.

But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

So what I'm about to share with you is a way of life that is best of all.

It is gonna, this has to do with your purpose.

It's not the gifts, it's not what you do, it's not your job, role, position, none of that.

Here's what it is.

I'm gonna read 1 Corinthians 13, 1 and 2, which are the next verses.

Here's what it says.

If I could speak all the languages of the earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have the gift of prophecy, which is awesome.

And if I understood, think about this, if I understood all of God's secret plans, can you even imagine that?

Even if you did all that and you possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing.

It's saying without love at all the biggies that we think are the biggies, and I'm talking in your regular secular life, you know, career, you know, money, what we do every day, being a mom and dad, all that stuff, none of it's bad.

And even in the church, in the spiritual, all these awesome things, they're wonderful, good things.

But here's the thing without love, it is nothing.

That's how far apart they are.

They're this, they're far, far apart.

So you're starting to see that your gifts and what you do, your jobs and your roles, they're important.

Okay?

This is still in the category of importance.

But they don't compare.

They don't compare to love.

Okay, I'm gonna read it.

I can't read this whole chapter because 1 Corinthians 13, where he introed it by saying, but now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

1 Corinthians 13, the whole chapter, it's like the famous chapter on love.

The entire chapter.

So he goes on nonstop for an entire chapter on love, love, love, love, love.

Okay, so let me just share a couple of those.

1 Corinthians 13, 7 and 8.

It says, so no matter what I say, what I believe, now listen to this.

It's comparing this, no matter what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will eventually become useless, but love will last forever.

And then I'm gonna read 1 Corinthians 13, 13.

This is the last verse in this chapter.

It says, Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.

And the best of the three is love.

Are you starting to sense what your purpose has to do with?

It doesn't fit in a nice neat little box.

You're kind of like love.

Hmm.

It's hard to get your mind wrapped around love, and here's why.

Love has to do with what you think about and what you say and your behavior.

It does.

Those are all parts of love.

But here's the thing, love, it is so much deeper than that.

You cannot fit it into your mind.

It is a spiritual thing.

All right.

Read a couple more verses, and here's what Jesus says about this.

Is what I believe it all comes down to.

And y'all are gonna think, oh, that's so simple.

It's not easy, what I'm about to say, but here's the thing: it is simple.

Love is our ultimate purpose.

And let's read what Jesus says about that in Mark 12, 28 through 31.

Steve read this a few weeks ago.

And this is Jesus talking to a man.

And this man, one of the teachers of religious law, was standing there listening to the bit to the debate.

And he realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, okay, of all the commandments, which is the most important?

I just want to stay right there for a minute.

Which is the most, go back, Chris, if you don't mind, which is the most important?

Because you know what he was asking?

I mean, think about this.

This guy was like a religious teacher, and so this is what he was interested in.

What I do and what I don't, what I do and what I don't, what I do and what I don't.

You think he was maybe looking for, is observing the Sabbath the most important?

Is giving your tithe the most important?

Is if you make the sacrifice on this particular day?

Do you think that's kind of what he was going for?

He wanted, I think this man actually cared.

I'm not sure he was trying to catch him on something.

I think he wanted to know.

And here's what Jesus says.

The most important commandment is this.

Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one and only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.

And the second is equally, that's shocking, that word right there.

The second is equally important.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

No other commandment is greater than these.

Do you know that's how much that's how much God cares about other people?

That's how much that he says it's equally important as loving him.

That's how much he cares about people.

Okay, and you really can't get more bottom line than that.

Love God, love people.

Love God, love people.

I'm gonna read Galatians 5 14.

Here's what it says.

Another shocker, in a way.

For, you know, here's the thing.

I love my Bible.

I mean, I'm telling you, I I could stand here and read verses out of the Bible, and that would be the best thing I could do.

I could just shut up and read verses out of the Bible.

Because the Bible is God's awesome, unbelievable, amazing gift from Him.

I really believe that.

And here's the thing, and it's there's also something supernatural because His Holy Spirit is in that Bible.

And so when I read it, it does something to me.

I'm just telling you.

It does something just by reading it.

But here's the deal.

I don't worship my Bible.

And I've been to churches where they do.

Okay?

I do not worship my Bible.

God did not create me to worship my Bible.

Okay, it's about Him.

And this truth, even though I kind of have a relationship with my Bible, like I love reading it and all that, I do not have a love relationship with my Bible.

The point of God's word is to have a love relationship with Him.

Okay, but this is actually in the Bible, so I want you to understand what I'm about to read is in the Bible.

Here's what it says Galatians 5, 14.

For everything we know about God's word, that's the Bible, is summed up in a single sentence.

Okay, I want to know what that sentence is.

Love others as you love yourself.

Does that not seem huge?

Here's what we've done.

All the stuff we do has kind of worked its way up here.

And we kind of go, love, love, la la.

You know what I mean?

It's like, I don't know if that word gets overused or what it is.

I think it gets underused, honestly.

But here's the thing, we've put it down here, and it's almost like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

It's all the do's and everything have worked their way up here, and I'm telling you, it is way messed up.

And here's the thing.

We can it can start here, and a lot of other places where God is sharing this message, but here's the thing.

We've got to put love in its rightful place, back in its rightful place.

Back in its rightful place.

All right.

So that's why I was saying you can walk out of here knowing what your real purpose is.

And I will tell you this because I tried this for a while.

I tried to get out of this whole love thing.

I wasn't the most loving person.

I was kind of mean.

That whole hurt people, hurt people thing.

I was kind of mean.

And here's the thing, I just kept trying to make it be the purpose that I wanted it to be.

And here's what here's what happened.

As long as I stayed in that, and if you're there today, it's like that that uh trying to put a square peg in a round hall.

You're trying to make what you want to be your purpose or what you think is important and valuable, what God's purpose for your life is, and you just keep trying to fit it in, and it will not fit in, and that's why you feel, even if you're getting some satisfaction out of it, you feel a little unfulfilled.

You feel a little empty.

That's why.

Because you're trying to make it the purpose that you think is important and valuable.

You've we've got to change our perspective and get it in line with God's perspective.

Get it in line with God's perspective.

All right.

I'm gonna read Ephesians 1, 11, and 12.

We're getting close to the end.

I don't even know how I am on time.

Here's what it says.

It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.

Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.

And here's the thing it's what we just got done saying, what Jesus said to that teacher.

His law, he says it, his law is not about rules and regulations.

You know what he calls his law?

The law of love.

The law of love.

And honestly, even just his example we share in the Lord's Supper, you know, the fact he was like the perfect example of giving yourself for others.

The perfect example of that love.

And I will tell you this.

I think missions are awesome.

God adventures are awesome.

I want to hear God every day.

But here's the thing: all the missions that you do, I will guarantee you this.

You still try to keep going back there, they will all, every single one, daily, long term, your whole life ones, or anywhere in between, they will all, every single one, involve, every single one loving God and loving other people.

Because that's what he cares about.

And I also want to address one thing, I had God had me go back and put this in here.

There's five gazillion good things to do out there, speaking on missions and God adventures, tasks.

And there's five gazillion good people who will try to tell you which good thing you ought to be doing.

Who's experienced that?

Okay, so here's the thing: you have to drop those expectations because our missions are important.

I'm not trying to diminish them, I'm just trying to put them in their proper place.

Okay?

You have got to drop the expectations that other people have on you for what is important.

You can't buy into what they're saying anymore for you.

Do you understand that?

And here's the other one you have to drop: the one you're saying about yourself.

Because sometimes we're harder on ourselves than other people.

Like we do not feel like we're important unless we have this task, we have this job, we have this role, we make a lot of money, we whatever, we're married, whatever it is.

We have to drop those expectations and get them in line with all God is saying to us.

Really, if we walked around every day and that was our only filter, today, I'm just gonna love God.

I'm gonna love other people.

Here's the thing: the most free I've ever felt in my life was the end of that two years.

Because it he transformed me and he changed my heart that I didn't care about the what anymore.

I cared about the who.

The who, him and other people.

And this true, he uses me for a lot of what's.

I'm actually fairly good at what's, I'm real task-oriented, goal-oriented type person.

But here's the thing, he changed my heart on that big time.

He changed my heart on that big time, and I do think it's more in line with him.

All right.

The other point I wanted to make on that, don't let other people tell you who you are anymore.

You're not a child growing up, because your parents actually, that is kind of their role is to tell you who you are and that you were created for this awesome purpose.

But if you're not a child anymore, physically, because we are a child, let your real dad tell you who you are.

Let your real dad fill you up with his love so you have love to give him and other people.

Let him tell you what your purpose is.

Because he will.

And he'll also tell you what your missions are.

And if you're not getting a tape recorder, I've heard this this week a lot too, so I know I was supposed to share, but if you're not getting a tape recorder delivered to your doorstep every day, because I hear that so much.

I can't hear God.

What are you talking about?

I don't know what you mean.

How do you be led by God?

That's a whole nother message, too, and it's awesome.

But I will tell you this.

Even at the beginning of that two years, I didn't get a tape recorder.

I even look back now and I thought it was me and it was God leading me.

He could be leading you and you don't even know it.

So here's the thing: if you don't get a tape recorder, you will eventually if you do this.

But if you don't get a tape recorder and you feel like you're not hearing God good, just wake up every day and step into your purpose.

Just wake up every day.

Make it easier on yourself.

Do you know how freeing that is?

Just let all that stuff go, all the job, all the title, all the function.

I mean, we still have to do all those things in life, but what I'm saying is, wake up every day and say, you know, I'm gonna love God and love other people.

And if he sends me a tape recorder, I'll do that too.

All right.

I want to end with a couple of verses, and it's Ephesians 5, 1 and 2.

And Paul says, Steve shared this a month ago or so, and it's kind of like the core for my class on Wednesday night, but it says, watch what God does, and then you do it.

Like children who learn proper behavior from their parents, and mostly what God does is love you.

Keep company with him and learn a life of love.

Observe how Christ loved us.

His love was not cautious but extravagant, and he didn't love in order to get something from us, but to give everything of himself to us.

Love like that.

You know, the Bible says God himself is love.

He actually is love.

And so it makes total sense that his purpose for us is love as well.

One more thing.

I thought when I was getting ready, and then we're done.

We do a song here, and it's actually not even one of my favorite songs, although I love the words to this song.

And the words of it are I want to live like today could be my last day.

To give all I have before it's too late.

So goodbye to all the fear and doubt, because this love is what life's about.

This love is what life's about.

And I tell you, on your deathbed, not to get all dramatic and everything, but here's the deal.

On your deathbed, we want to live like we would be on our deathbed, if you get what I'm saying.

On our deathbed, are you gonna be saying, and this sounds cliche, but how much money did I make?

How successful in my career was I?

Boy, that message on that Sunday at his hands, I really gave a great message.

Do you get what I'm saying?

Are we gonna care about that?

No, no, no.

Not that it wasn't important at the time, but we are not gonna care about that.

And what we're gonna care about at that point in our life is if we loved God and if we loved other people.

That's your purpose.

So let's go live it.

All right, let's pray.

Father, I just thank you so much for creating each one of us and for loving us so much.

And Lord, I do just thank you for all the gifts you put inside each one of us, Lord, and I ask you to send us on missions and adventures with you.

Lord, use us with those gifts.

And Lord, I ask you most of all to help us find peace and rest and contentment, Lord, in your purpose for us in loving you and loving other people more.

And Lord, fill us up with your love so we have it to give.

We thank you and we love you.

Jesus' name.

Amen.