Healthy Home - Created on Purpose & for Purpose

The speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding one's purpose in life through a relationship with God. He discusses how each person is unique and created with a specific plan by God. The main message is that our purpose is found in knowing and serving God, not in our own accomplishments or characteristics. He shares a personal reflection on transitioning roles and discovering his new calling. The key takeaway is to seek truth and purpose through God rather than relying on human opinions or achievements. Well, good morning. Good to see you. Dawson, good to see you. Cindy. Sam. These are our folks that are in and out of difficulty physically. Always glad to see you guys. Well, I think maybe you all were kind of like we were. We didn't get our car out of the garage from Friday of last week to Thursday. So it may make a long, long time. So it's good to be back together. I'm going to, Brother John preached the lesson this morning. So if you, you can kind of, tune me out, I guess, if you're not too interested, because he really covered everything. Of course, the bottom line is we're created for fellowship with God. Now, that's the truth. It's the bottom line. And whatever we do is part of our relationship with God. And you don't find your purpose by looking at yourself. The only way you find your purpose is by looking at God, because your purpose is wrapped up in your relationship with God. Now, that's it. We're out a little early today. You know, we'll try to look a little deeper at it. But this Healthy Home emphasis has included for five years now. And Brother John mentioned it this morning, that we've looked at five questions. Who is God? What is truth? Who was I made to be? Who are my people? Where do I belong? Do I purpose? Do I pursue healthy relationships? And then the last one that kind of sums them all up is, why am I here? What is my purpose? And so I didn't know that Brother John was going to reference Psalm 139. But that is the obvious starting place for us, because it is an incredible passage of Scripture dealing with us and how God created us. And verse 16 through 18, Your eyes saw me when I was formless. All my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. Sounds like purpose, doesn't it? God planned our lives, and he recorded in his book everything that we're going to do. God knows exactly how we're going to respond. That doesn't make us do it. We have a choice, but he knows what choice we're going to make. And our lives, from that standpoint, were planned before a single one of them began. How precious, God, are your thoughts of me. How vast their sum is. If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I wake up, I'm still with you. A healthy home begins with a relationship with God. That is the context of this whole area. Psalm 139 tells us that we have been created by God, planned by God. I love to read Jeremiah. In fact, if I happen to have written you a note recently, I always sign my notes Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24. And that says, this is what the Lord says. The wise person should not boast in his wisdom. The strong should not boast in his strength. The wealthy should not boast in his wealth. The one who boasts, now it's interesting, he doesn't say don't boast. What are you bragging about? He says, if you're wealthy, don't brag about that. If you're smart, don't brag about that. If you're strong, don't brag about that. But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I'm the Lord showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth. I delight in those things. This is the Lord's declaration. God made us for himself. Our purpose in life is to enter into a relationship with God. And it's out of that relationship with God that we function. Now, I've said to you many times, I'll say it again, and maybe in two or three different ways today, that all of life for the believer is sacred. You don't have faith and relationship with God here and then, oh, here's something. No, all of life for the believer is sacred. And God tailor-made each one of us, every one of us. Each of us is unique. No two people have the same fingerprints. No two people have the same DNA. You were made on purpose. I call this created on purpose and for purpose. In other words, we were not accidentally show up in the emergency room or the birthing room. We were planned by God. God created us. He planned us. He was with us in the whole journey of our lives from the conception all the way to the birth and to every day of our lives. Each of us is unique. He has determined your height, your weight, every detail of your being. You were made on purpose right down to your unique skills and talents. God has a master blueprint in mind when he chose the details of your life. He chose who your parents would be. He chose where you would be born. He chose how you would grow into adulthood, your personality, your strengths, even your weaknesses. In order to really understand your life purpose, you need to understand who God is and follow his blueprint. He had planned for you before you were born. Now, you need to be happy with who you are. God created you the way you are. You are unique, meaning you are valuable. David gave me a copy of a book, a Bible, a family Bible that is 172 years old. Brought it back to him today. Amazing. The preservation of that book was 172 years of family Bible. Every one of us was made in detail, planned carefully, and we need to be content with with who we are. And we need to know God. You'll never be content by looking at yourself. You'll only be content if you look at God first. You have to start there. That's what, when we're saved, we become new creations, new creatures. And God made us that way, and he had a blueprint in mind for us. And he says, don't brag about things, physical characteristics, don't accomplish much. You don't find your purpose in what you do. You find your purpose in who you know. And you start with God. Each of us has the purpose, and that is that we should understand and know him. That is the basic purpose of our lives. Everything else goes from there. Every other thing goes out. It is out of our relationship with God that he assigns us what we are to do. We're to go to God in prayer and to ask him, what do you want me to be and to do? Ask him to help us with that. Surely if God has a plan for your life, and he does, he's big enough to show you what it is, and he will if you realize that you only discover your purpose through your relationship with God. That's where you start. You miss that. It's kind of like in the youth revival days. We're old enough to remember revivals. Ralph Langley used to be a part of that movement. I mean, he had a sermon called, Don't Die on Third. And he had first base was this, and second base was that, and third base was that. But you don't die on third. And scripturally, and in our relationship with God, don't die on third. So you got saved. Now what? Well, you can't do anything to get you saved. You didn't create yourself. God is the one you go to to find reason and purpose for your life. And so we want to look at that today a little bit closer. How do we know truth in the first place? Just think about it. How do we know something is true? Well, there are three basic reasons why we know something is true. One is relativism or reason, rationalism, humanism, public opinion. That's one way we can evaluate truth. Number two is religion. Whatever my church says, that's what truth is. And the other is revelation. That's what God says. And we really have only two choices, ourselves or God. Now, don't look at yourself to try to figure out your purpose. Look at God. I've told you this before, but it was a vivid moment for me when flying at 35,000 feet to Nashville when we moved from here. I suddenly realized I am not what I have always been. I've always been a pastor. I never was a minister of youth. I never was a minister of education. I never was a minister of music. I never was a missionary. I've just been a pastor. And all of a sudden, I'm president of a $170 million corporation. And I thought to myself, have I forsaken my calling? I mean, I'm not what I've always been. My favorite word to be called is pastor. I always said that's who I am. All of a sudden, I'm not what I've always been. And at 35,000 feet, I had to face that and realize, this is a different world now. I'm about to enter a world that I know nothing about. Never had any business classes in college. Only had one math class in high school, and that was general math. I took my first class in algebra in high school, and I raised my hand to ask a question. The teacher let me know she was not going to answer any of my questions, so I dropped the class. Because I've got lots of questions. So I took typing and shorthand. My favorite class, me and 49 girls. It's great. And I had to quit. I agreed by secretary of shorthand. So when they took shorthand, I finally had to quit doing that because it was intimidating to them. I can still type 100 words a minute. Isn't that nice that we have the computer and keyboard now that we need to do that? I hate texting because I do about one word a minute, it seems like, texting with my index finger. But I can type 100 words a minute because I couldn't stand a teacher that wouldn't tell me what algebra is all about. So I had no experience. Never had worked beyond just things that young people do. I was a stock boy in a grocery store for a while when I was a teenager. Worked for a construction in the summertime. A good friend had a construction company and he'd pull that truck up out in front of our house about 6 o'clock, 536 every morning in the summertime. I'd hop in the back of the truck, it's legal then, and we'd ride out to the construction. I've done a lot of things, but never had anything to prepare me to be president of anything. And yet, here I was. And I'm 55 years old. Oh me, how did I get there so fast and what do I do now? I want to make a confession to you. I still can't read a spreadsheet. I pay people to do that. Why should I learn how to do it? Let them do it. They know what they're doing. In fact, Lifeway's looking for a president again. And the most knowledgeable person about Lifeway is now the interim president, Joe Walker, who's a CFO. And they called me on my birthday, the retirees did, and sang happy birthday to me. I saw Joe, it was a Zoom thing they set up. And I told them, I said, Joe, I still can't read a spreadsheet because we pay people to do that. So I learned that I went to Lifeway thinking I could pastor the board, Sun School board. And I got there and found out they didn't need a pastor. They all had pastors. They needed a president. So I decided I could be president and a pastor away. So for 16 years, I wrote handwritten birthday notes to every employee, some 2,000 of them, and sent the birthday note, handwritten birthday note, many, many, many deeply personal things, walking through deep valleys that the experiences employees had. I don't remember a lot of the business things that we did while at Lifeway, but I do remember the personal things, like talking to one of our editors, John, on his daughter's graduation day. She was killed going home from graduation. And I'm in Grove Park in Asheville, North Carolina, standing on the parking lot, crying with him and praying with him. That's what I remember. So I realized that I wasn't forsaking my calling, but it was different. Now, listen carefully. We may not get to it, but I want to say, whatever you are doing, you are in a relationship with God and he puts you wherever you are and whatever you're doing. And Scripture says, whatever you do in word or deed, do all to the glory of God. You are just as called as I am. God calls you to be where you are and who you are, and you'll never find your purpose until you get comfortable with the fact that you belong to him and you're to follow his orders. And that's what really this emphasis is all about today. The truth is, we're dealing now with something that is beyond our ability to understand. The mystery of God's nature is beyond our ability to comprehend. One God, three persons. Now, explain that to me. We don't have the mental capacity to fully understand that. God is Father, God is Son, God is Holy Spirit. That's the Trinity. All three of them are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, abide in perfect holiness. Rob Phillips writes, we may rightly say the Trinity is a term used to describe the one true and living God who exists in three distinct but inseparable, co-equal, co-eternal persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, that's beyond our imagination. In fact, God's Spirit, that's a mystery to us. And the Scripture is given to us through the faithfulness of this God in three persons. The Trinity is a perfect, every member of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a perfect participant in the divine nature and a perfect likeness of the one divine God. And the three persons of the Trinity cannot be separated, isolated, or diminished. Every person in the Trinity is fully distinct and yet fully God. Now, I just told you something none of us can understand. We don't have any point of reference, but we know it's true. The Bible never really defines the Trinity. It just assumes it. It just speaks naturally of the three of them. Anytime the three of them are mentioned, it's referring to God. And like that, that is just beyond our ability to understand. But 2 Peter in the first chapter said, above all you know this, no prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man. Instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along, borne along by the Holy Spirit. Now, this idea of being borne along by the Holy Spirit as they recorded Scripture is a picture of the wind in the sail of a sailboat. The wind catches the weight, is caught by the sail, and the sail then guides, pushes the boat forward, and skills sailors can even make progress, sail against the wind. They learn how to master the use of the sails. And what Paul further expanded the same thing in 2 Timothy 3, 15 and 16, where he said, all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. The word inspired there is a fascinating word. It's in the passive tense. Passive tense. That means it was not some action that the writers of the Scripture took on their own, but they were moved by the Holy Spirit to record what God wanted to record. They were not just stenographers taking dictation from God, but God used the personality. I mean, you can tell when the Apostle Paul writes because he never uses periods. I mean, you'll have sentences that are, or pages, seems like long. He doesn't use, you can tell when John writes. He's the easiest Greek in the New Testament to read. Every one of them had distinct personalities, distinct backgrounds, and God used all of their experience and all the things that they were created to become. And then he breathed through them. He breathed his word out through him so that when I pick up this Bible, I have every confidence that God is the one who authored it. That God is the one who caused it to be written. And I can believe it and I can trust it. The word of God is literally the words of God. Now, we don't know exactly how that happened. Profitable, in verses 15 of 2 Timothy 3, means useful or beneficial or applicable. The root word for that, the original word for that description is, it means economical. It means it's worth the investment. The scripture is worth your time. Any time you spend in the word of God, it is useful. It is beneficial. It's economical. It's a good investment. Now, Jeremiah 36 is the only text that I know that gives us the mechanics of inspiration. Now, we don't have a picture of Moses writing Genesis or Mark writing his gospel, but in Jeremiah 36 in verse 4, God tells Jeremiah, take a scroll and write on it all the words that I've spoken to you. So, Jeremiah called Baruch, who was his secretary. He wrote on the scroll all the words of the Lord that God had spoken to Jeremiah. That shows us the mechanic of God spoke the words that he wanted and inspired Jeremiah to record exactly what he wanted him to say. Now, that's why I love expository preaching and teaching. If you want to argue with me about anything, well, I want you to be arguing with God, not me, because God's the one who gave us a book that's infallible. It's inerrant. It's dependable. It changes lives. It is a great love letter of God to us, and we can believe it. We can trust it. And God breathed out of those writers what he wanted them to say. Now, when God breathes, that into which he breathes is more than just parts. For instance, man is a living soul. He's more than just two eyes and two ears and two arms and two legs. He's a living being. And the Bible is full of nouns and verbs and adjectives and tenses and moods and all of these things, but it's much more. It gives life. It is through God's word that we come to know who God is and what truth means and what our purpose is in life through our relationship with God. J. I. Packer, in his book, Knowing God, reminds us that there are five living principles, five foundational principles of the knowledge about God. He says, first, God has spoken to man, and the Bible is his word given to us to make us wise unto salvation. Secondly, God is Lord and King over his world. He rules all things for his own glory, displaying his own glory, displaying his perfections and all that he does in order that men and angels may worship and adore him. Third, God is Savior, active in sovereign love through the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue believers from the guilt and power of sin, to adopt them as his sons and to bless them accordingly. Four, God is triune. There are within the Godhead three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the world of salvation is one in which all three act together. The Father proposes redemption, his Son secures it, and the Spirit applies it. Number five, godliness means responding to God's revelation in trust and obedience, faith, worship, prayer, praise, submission, and service. Life must be seen and lived in the light of God's word. Wonderful, wonderful summation of the purposes of God's word and what it means in our lives. Now, each person of the Trinity possesses all the attributes of deity. They live in a loving relationship with each other that is eternally unique and distinct, yet each one of the three persons are equally God and none is inferior to the others. The Trinity is the doctrine, by the way, that separates Christianity from Judaism, Islam, and all other world religions. Virtually all our cherished biblical beliefs, values, and doctrines start with the doctrine of the Trinity. It's basic to it. You were made on purpose and for the purpose of God's choosing. In his book, Purpose-Driven Life, I've known Rick Warren since he was in seminary, and his first book was Purpose-Driven Church, and he sent me a copy of it before he published it. I got to read that. I didn't get to read Purpose-Driven Life, that came out next, but this is what the Rick Warren writes about this. You cannot arrive at your life's purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. You must begin with God, our Creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God, and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other past leads to a dead end. Great book. I don't know that it's been translated into 60 or 70 different languages. Fifty million copies of it have been sold. I'll give you an illustration. When Purpose-Driven Life came out, there was an issue before our Nashville council, city council. Nashville, Tennessee, doesn't really have city councils. The mayor of Nashville was the mayor of the county, and so it's not just the city, so it's a little bit different than what we see. But the city council was facing something. I don't recall the issue. It probably was something that had to do, perhaps, with some sexual issue like homosexuality. Transgender hadn't been thought of back then, so we didn't know about that. And the council was pretty well divided on whether to adopt the thing, to promote it, accept it, and make it legal or not. Weeks before it came before the council, we had given the vice chairman or the vice mayor, an African-American friend, Purpose-Driven Life, Mike Arrington. Many of you know Mike. And I went to his office and we gave him a copy of Purpose-Driven Life. When the issue came before the city council, the mayor happened to be out of town, and the vice mayor was presiding over the call. It was presented to the council, and when they took the vote, it was a tie vote. The vice mayor simply picked up the gavel and tapped it on the, whatever you call that little thing you tap gavels on, and said, motion failed. He cast the deciding vote, and he later said it was because I had read Purpose-Driven Life, and that book changed my life, and I knew that's what I had to do. Rick couldn't really have written this book. He's smart, but he's not that smart. I mean, it's one of those things that God did, and it is a special book that you can get it online. In fact, since we have moved, I can't find my copy. I gave away about seven or eight thousand books to my son-in-law and my grandson, and no telling where my copy is at Purpose. So, I ordered one myself, and you can order it on abebooks.com, and it'll come to you within 24 hours, maybe. Mine did, and it'll cost you more to pay the postage than it will to buy the book, but it's worth it. But I just couldn't find my copy, so I had to order me a copy and get it, and it's worth reading because it deals with who we are and what our purpose is, why we're here. Purpose-Driven Life, that's what every one of us ought to have, a Purpose-Driven Life. You can trust God. You can trust His plan and purpose for your life because that is superior to anything we can devise. His power is sufficient for the fulfillment of His commands. If He asked us to do something, He's going to tell us how to do it and give us the power and carry it forward through us. He has called us to experience a transformational relationship with Him, and it's out of that relationship with Him that we hear His heart and we're led to fulfill His purpose for His will for each of us. You're not a preacher. You still have a call from God. If you've been saved, you have a call from God. You can trust His plan and His purpose. God's call is on your life just as surely as it is in mine. Instant obedience to His leadership is the key to reaching His purposes as we increasingly become more like Him and accomplish the purpose that He has for us. We are in a relationship with Him, and whatever, wherever He leads us, we're to represent Him there. If you're a plumber, you have a call from God, and He wants you to obey that call. And you have the privilege not just of helping people get their plumbing fixed, but of glorifying God, magnifying Him, and being true to where He has put you. And you can wake up in the morning, every morning, saying, thank God I have customers so that I can practice what you've made me to do. In our relationship with Him, He may send us many different places, but listen, there are no unimportant places. There are no unimportant people. Every day, every day, God's plan is for us to represent Him, to be faithful and true to Him, and in doing that, we will make impact on others. I got a phone call two weeks ago from a young man, 73 years old. I was his pastor when he was a teenager, and he called me. His name is Alan Yoakam. You know his uncle, Mark Yoakam, a member of our church, led the entire Yoakam clan. His dad was a plumber, big guy. I mean, he was hard to get under. I mean, I baptized him. I mean, you almost had to climb up on top of him, you know, to get him down. Someone asked Bill Wiggins, who was Jack Taylor's associate pastor in Kansas City, in San Antonio. At pastor's conference, he said he'd baptized a 360-pound man. Pastor said, well, how'd you get him up? He said, I figured if I could get him down, it's natural inclination to bring him up. So anyway, but anyway, Alan Yoakam called me, and I had not heard from him in nearly 50 years. Hadn't seen him. He's my brother, Jimmy. He said, I was just thinking about you today, and I was thanking God that you led me to Christ, and you baptized me, and I want to say thank you. You know, that makes a lot of rough spots smooth. Erlen says, what's happening to me now is you're attending your own funeral. Everywhere I go, someone tells me stories like that, and they're not going to be reserved. I'll be observing, but from a great distance when my funeral occurs. But, you know, we all have a purpose in life, and that purpose is to know God and then be obedient to God. That's his purpose, and obedience is very, very important. Well, we're not going to go into all these other questions that we have already looked at in these last five years. What is my purpose? Throughout history, people have asked that question. They've searched for purpose, and I'll give you an illustration. John Newton. Does that name ring a bell to you? John Newton was once captain of a slave ship. He was an investor and participant in the slave trade, and upon his convergence of faith in Jesus Christ, he became a strong believer. He became a slavery abolitionist and an English evangelical Anglican cleric. He had previously been deeply involved in the slavery world. He served as a sailor in the Royal Navy, was himself a slave at one time in West Africa. He wrote the lyrics to Amazing Grace. Now, nobody knows where the melody came from, because, you see, hymns were often written without music. They were set to a standard meter that could be sung by any tune using the same meter. Beginning in the 1820s, folk music, Negro spirituals, later gospel music in the American South, greatly impacted the melody that is most popularly assigned to Amazing Grace. We all know it. We sang it, but it didn't come quickly. The song was constantly changed and shaped for over a hundred years later when we entered the early 1900s. Now, John Newton, I could take a lot of time giving you some of his quotes, but I'll give you a couple of them. He was known for his quotes reflecting his dramatic conversion from slave trader to a clergyman, emphasizing God's grace and humility and perseverance. He once said, I'm not what I ought to be. I'm not what I wish to be. I'm not what I hope to be, but by the grace of God, I'm not what I used to be. John Newton. His deep reliance on Christ's saving power is summarized by his recorded or his reported last words. He said, I'm a great sinner and Christ is a great savior. He wrote the lyrics that we sang in Amazing Grace as a compliment, or we would say probably as a special music for his 1773 New Year's sermon at the church on 1 Chronicles 17 verses 16 and 17. He called it Faith Through View and Expectations. It was on that day in Lord Dartmouth's Great Hall that Newton and his congregation first sang Amazing Grace. Well, after time, he decided to use his interest in Christian writing and teaching to pursue a ministerial position in the church, Church of England. But without any formal education, he was denied. Over the years, he shared the account of his dramatic conversion and his past and two friends, John Fawcett and Thomas Howis convinced Newton to finally write his story in a series of letters in 1764, published under the title An Audible Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable Particulars in the Life of Reverend John Newton. And impressed by the story in that book, Lord Dartmouth recommended him for an appointment to a church. And eventually, he was appointed to be the priest, the preacher at Aldi, England. And for the next 43 years, he ministered to that church at Aldi at St. Mary Woldoff in London, attending many, authoring many books, sermons, letters, and hymns. And he wrote the epitaph for his funeral, for his graveside. This is what he wrote. John Newton, the clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy. Now listen carefully. Every one of you, if you are saved, have been preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith. Every one of you. If Jesus is your Lord, you have been preserved, restored, and pardoned as well. If you have submitted your life to him as your Lord, then you will preach the faith in everything you do. It will be an inevitable and empowering consequence of the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Again, we come back to the fact that if we're going to fully understand our purpose, we have to have a constant growing, maturing relationship with God. Now I'm going to make an assumption. It's not a good one. I'm going to assume that very few of you, or many of you, do not wake up first thing in the morning and say, okay, Lord, I'm up and ready. What's ahead? What do you want me to do? I kind of doubt if that happens very often, but it should. It should. Scripture says we're not our own, we're all at the price. So we ought to glorify God in our body, our spirit, every way that we can. You have been preserved, restored, and pardoned. The Lord holds the reign through your life. When you see the greatness of God, the question of why we exist naturally follows. Every other purpose life may offer some good things, but no other purpose can fully deliver what it promises when pursued as the ultimate purpose of life. When you place anything other than your relationship with God as the highest place in your life, it usually eventually leaves you restless, disappointed, or empty. Any other purpose results in life becoming vague or elusive, pleasant, but shallow. Life becomes something to drift through, rather something to do God's purpose. Rick Warren's book, Purpose Driven Life, that we have mentioned, also makes some further comments that when people stop worshiping God, they never stop worshiping altogether. They simply redirect their worship towards something else, yet nothing else ultimately proves worthy of that devotion. The Bible does not leave us guessing about why we exist. We have a purpose. Relationship is to be with Him. He started that early in Genesis 1, 27, 28. God created man in his own image that he blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion. That sounds like a pretty tough, hard job. Healthy people are formed when people know God rightly. They are when people not only know God rightly, but they understand who they are in Christ, and they live in a meaningful community and practice healthy relationships and live with a clear God-given purpose. Rick Warren again, and I quote, God never does anything accidentally, and He never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything He creates. Every plant, every animal was planned by God, and every purpose was designed with a purpose in mind. God was thinking of you even before He made the world. In fact, that's why He created it. God designed this planet's environment just so we could live on it, and we're to focus on His love and the most valuable of all, His creation. God created you. You are not something other than yourself. You are who God made you to be. God is pleased with that. Remember, after the days of creation, He said, it's good, until He made man. Then He said, it's very good. We're not made by accident. We were created on purpose and for purpose. There are three purposeful reasons for my existence. First, to know God through a relationship. Jeremiah 9 again, the wise person should not boast in his wisdom. The strong should not boast in his strength. The wealthy should not boast in his wealth, but the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord showing faithful love and justice on the earth, for I delight in those things. The first thing is for us to know God through a relationship. It's sad to me that many professing Christians don't realize that they have the privilege every day of living in a vibrant, active relationship with God Almighty. Incredible. Second reason in our purpose is to grow more like God in our characters. Philippians 3.10 says, my goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death, assuming that I don't, I will somehow reach the resurrection from the dead. We want to be like God, be like Christ. I have time for one other rabbit. When I was at the Sunday School Board at Lifeway, we had two conference centers. Ridgecrest was in North Carolina, Glorietta out in New Mexico. And so we did a lot of things and we built two hotels at Ridgecrest while I was there and made a lot of changes in the conference center. And I had a group of pastor friends who having a trip together, probably to play golf, but they showed up at Ridgecrest and just wanted to look around. Well, at Ridgecrest, they had on the gate, Ridgecrest Conference Center, WWJD. And they said, you know, said, can we come in? So we just like to look around and said, we said, what does WWJD mean? And the employee said, the wonderful world of Jimmy Draper. They called me after they said, you got to hear this. And I did not know it. You know, listen, WWJD, listen, it's WWJC. We belong to Jesus Christ. That's our purpose. Every time I teach, every time I preach, my first prayer is, God, don't let me mess it up. Don't let me misrepresent you. Don't let me do this in a way that's not consistent with your word, what you once said. So we have to grow more like him in his character. And then the last thing is, we manage all that God entrusts to us. Second Corinthians 6, 1 to 5 is one of the most remarkable scriptures. And I'm through now when we get through with this. Don't worry. We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that was given to the churches in Macedonia. During a severe trial brought about by affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. I can testify that, according to their ability, and even beyond their ability, of their own accord, they begged us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in the ministry to the saints. And not just as we had hoped. Instead, they gave themselves first to the Lord, and then to us by God's will. Your purpose? Give yourself first to the Lord. Pay attention, be obedient, and you'll live a purposeful life. And that's the only way you will. You don't start with your discomforts. You don't start with your anxieties. You don't start with your uncertainties. You start with the certainty of who God is. And he has entered into relationship with you, and whatever he gives you to do, do it as unto the Lord. If you teach school, you ought to be the best teacher at school. If you simply shovel dirt, take care of physical property, you ought to do it best in the world. You ought to be the best employee or the best employee that God ever made, because everything you do, you're doing as unto him. And that is your purpose in life. Thank you, Father, that we weren't created by accident. We didn't just randomly show up and try to figure out what to do with this network. You planned it. You created us. You knew every detail of our lives and even wrote it down in a book before we were ever born. Thank you for your sovereignty. Thank you for your love and your grace. Thank you for your salvation and for giving us a reason to live. We do it joyfully in Christ. Amen.