Aligning Our Mission with God's Divine Purpose
Devotional
Sermon Summary
Bible Study Guide
Sermon Clips
When I read the Bible, I cannot escape the relentless teaching that God has purposes. He has goals in everything He does. He's not a God who is coasting aimlessly. He's not going in circles. The God of the Bible is pervasively pursuing accomplishments of His own counsel. [00:01:24]
I don't think there would be any gospel, any salvation, any eternal joy if God were not a planner, one who lived with purposes and goals because Acts 4:27 says that all the enemies of God were gathered together in Jerusalem at the crucifixion of Jesus to do whatever your hand, O God, your plan had predestined to take place. [00:02:28]
If I could discern what His ultimate goal was, how can I join Him in it? I want to fit into His ultimate purpose and I want to strive against it. I want to be right in sync with what God is pursuing in the world. Nothing seems more obviously reasonable to me or hopeful to me than that God's creatures should gladly fit into His purposes. [00:03:54]
I think the particularities of life are too variable for our mission statement to be very detailed. I know our friend asked that it not be too general, and yet I might disappoint him because I find big, big general purposes really helpful if they're the right kind. [00:05:19]
God was infinitely full of every perfection and could not be improved and was the sum of all excellence, all beauty, all worth, all greatness so that His purpose never included people counseling Him or adding to Him or improving Him or providing for His needs since He doesn't have any. [00:07:08]
God's ultimate purpose is to be seen and savored and shown. Those are my three favorite words for describing it. God's ultimate purpose is to be seen and savored and shown as infinitely glorious. That's His ultimate purpose. This is not megalomania, by the way. [00:08:05]
The communication of Himself in all His glory is what the human soul was made to be satisfied by. So God is the one being in all the universe, and He's the only one for whom self-communication and self-exaltation is the highest virtue and the most loving act. [00:08:25]
Make me a means, God, please make me a means of the communication and the display of your beauty and your worth and your greatness. That is, may others hallow your name because I exist. That's why we come into being. That's the essence of every biblical personal mission statement. [00:09:29]
The Bible just seems to offer countless answers like whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God, give thanks to the glory of God, confess Jesus to the glory of God, do good deeds that God may be glorified, welcome one another to the glory of God, be generous to the poor for the glory of God. [00:10:00]
We do what we do in glad reliance upon God for everything we need in order to love people. In other words, we live by faith in the promises of God in the service of love. So I would say build your life mission statement by thinking through this much before you get to the details of your own gifting and your own calling. [00:12:36]
God is infinitely glorious. God means to communicate that glory to His people to see it, savor it, show it. He means for us to join Him in that purpose. That applies to absolutely everything we do, and we do it in humble reliance upon His grace and power which come through Jesus Christ in the service of others. [00:13:06]
When you have crafted an overarching mission statement built on those purposes of God, then you can make some short-term mission statement, say for a year you're going to write a book or you're going to change jobs or you're going to pursue marriage or whatever, some short term that then draws particularities up into that mission statement according to the season of your life. [00:13:33]
Ask a question about this sermon
I don't think there would be any gospel, any salvation, any eternal joy if God were not a planner, one who lived with purposes and goals because Acts 4:27 says that all the enemies of God were gathered together in Jerusalem at the crucifixion of Jesus to do whatever your hand, O God, your plan had predestined to take place. [00:02:28]
If I could discern what His ultimate goal was, how can I join Him in it? I want to fit into His ultimate purpose and I want to strive against it. I want to be right in sync with what God is pursuing in the world. Nothing seems more obviously reasonable to me or hopeful to me than that God's creatures should gladly fit into His purposes. [00:03:54]
I think the particularities of life are too variable for our mission statement to be very detailed. I know our friend asked that it not be too general, and yet I might disappoint him because I find big, big general purposes really helpful if they're the right kind. [00:05:19]
God was infinitely full of every perfection and could not be improved and was the sum of all excellence, all beauty, all worth, all greatness so that His purpose never included people counseling Him or adding to Him or improving Him or providing for His needs since He doesn't have any. [00:07:08]
God's ultimate purpose is to be seen and savored and shown. Those are my three favorite words for describing it. God's ultimate purpose is to be seen and savored and shown as infinitely glorious. That's His ultimate purpose. This is not megalomania, by the way. [00:08:05]
The communication of Himself in all His glory is what the human soul was made to be satisfied by. So God is the one being in all the universe, and He's the only one for whom self-communication and self-exaltation is the highest virtue and the most loving act. [00:08:25]
Make me a means, God, please make me a means of the communication and the display of your beauty and your worth and your greatness. That is, may others hallow your name because I exist. That's why we come into being. That's the essence of every biblical personal mission statement. [00:09:29]
The Bible just seems to offer countless answers like whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God, give thanks to the glory of God, confess Jesus to the glory of God, do good deeds that God may be glorified, welcome one another to the glory of God, be generous to the poor for the glory of God. [00:10:00]
We do what we do in glad reliance upon God for everything we need in order to love people. In other words, we live by faith in the promises of God in the service of love. So I would say build your life mission statement by thinking through this much before you get to the details of your own gifting and your own calling. [00:12:36]
God is infinitely glorious. God means to communicate that glory to His people to see it, savor it, show it. He means for us to join Him in that purpose. That applies to absolutely everything we do, and we do it in humble reliance upon His grace and power which come through Jesus Christ in the service of others. [00:13:06]
When you have crafted an overarching mission statement built on those purposes of God, then you can make some short-term mission statement, say for a year you're going to write a book or you're going to change jobs or you're going to pursue marriage or whatever, some short term that then draws particularities up into that mission statement according to the season of your life. [00:13:33]
Chatbot
-
I'm an AI bot trained specifically on the sermon from Nov 26, 2021. Do you have any questions about it?