Before we begin, I do want to say thank you to all those who helped with our kick-off event at the First Lutheran Church Friday night. Thank you to those who worked with music, tech teams, food preparations, set up and tear down, curriculum distribution… So many people helped, and were very appreciative. About 370 of our people showed up to kick us off, so over half of our [church] body was there. It was a fun night. The sanctuary [there] is a little hot. We appreciate our air conditioning so very much this morning, but we had a good day, and were off to a good start. You can go ahead and start reading [the book, 40 Days of Purpose]. In fact, Pastor Voss asked me to mention that each week, just for the 40 Days of Purpose, we have its own little bulletin here. There is a little tool for day one through day seven. Were going to read ours as a family. However you choose to read it, you can check that off and follow along, but this is not the kind of book where you just sit down and say, Oh, its so good, I couldnt put it down. Put this one down. This is one where you read for the day, and even if its good and you want to read on, you wait. You resist the temptation. I was once told that I dont eat my food; I inhale my food. My boss back in Rockford told me that. He said, Just slow down and enjoy your meal. You dont have to breathe it in. Actually, you get more nutritional value out of it if youll just take your time, chew the food, and absorb the nutrients. So, Im still not sure if Ive done that or not, but it was good counsel, especially in regards to the words here. Its not the quantity. Its the quality. Lets read through it bit by bit over these 40 days [and] process the Scripture that is given. There is a lot of Scripture given in this book. Take your time as you go through it. Meditate on what you read each and every day. Lets open our Bibles to the Gospel of Luke 12. Well begin our first installment in our 40 day journey-as far as our weekend services are concerned. Youre only going to get out of this what you put into it. Coming to weekend services, thats great, but its just one element. Join a small group. [Over] 70 different small groups exist and are available to you. If you enjoyed Pastor Rick Warrens message on Friday night, and that was a terrific message, hes going to be speaking to the small groups every week. We have new teachings that hes going to be bringing us in short video segments. You watch those as a group, and then you talk about them in your small group. You work through your reading, and then you do your Bible verse each week. In fact, those are available on the way out today, a little Bible verse. The first one goes on your keychain and will help you memorize it as youre waiting in line at the grocery store, or wherever you might be. You can read through that verse and memorize it. All of these things working together produce a dynamic that will help you to grow in the process and learn these truths; so by the time its done, you will have a firm handle on what your purpose is in this life. In Luke 12, the Lord is going to describe a man in a parable that very much resembles you and me. He doesnt live a purpose-driven life; he lives a self-centered life. Most of us today live self-centered lives. Madison Avenue appeals to that. It tries to sell us on how were worth it, and youre the best. You deserve the best kind of thing. That appeals to our narcissistic nature-our tendency to seek first our comfort, our pleasure and our security above all things. That is how were wired. Right off the get-go, the first line is, Its not about you. Its not about you. Thats a rude awakening, and if we can get that down-that one truth down-what a foundation that is! In order to really understand it, live it, and say, Its not about me as this sign around you here says; thats key. Thats significant to realize its not about you. So, if its not about us, whats it about? Who is about? Jesus is going to use a teaching moment here in Luke 12:14 to talk about that very thing. A man comes up and wants Jesus to be a judge between him and his brother in regards to an inheritance. Jesus was like (page 1031 of pew Bibles), Im not a judge. Im not an arbiter person… but He uses that as a teaching moment. Then He said to them, Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. When Jesus says watch out, we better what? Watch out. You had better beware. When somebody says to you, Hey, watch out! what do you do? Your spider sense goes on, Whats going on here? Something important can happen. When Jesus says watch out, you better pay attention to what Hes about to say. Hes going to warn us of three things that happen when a person lives a self-centered life. …a mans life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. Of course, our society would say, He who dies with the most poise wins kind of thing; but thats not the case. He told them this parable: The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, What shall I do? Now right there, were going to stop for a second because this is a defining moment, and thats a defining question. When a person says, What shall I do? What is my purpose? What direction am I going to go? thats a key moment right there. Its going to set the course of your life. Pastor Warren points out in the book that one of the first mistakes we make is when we ask that question, and we look to the wrong source for the answer. We look to ourselves for the answer. Because you didnt make yourself, how are you going to know what your purpose is? He said Oprah Winfrey was doing a show about (and this is not a knock on Oprah) what your purpose in life is. He said he wanted to hear what Oprah said was his purpose. He taped the show, came home and started to watch it. After the first break, Oprah said, After this commercial break, well be right back with your purpose. He thought, All right, lets hear it. He fast forwarded through the commercials, and they he watched the next segment. Oprah would again say, After this message, your purpose in life… He would stick around, and she kept baiting him. He kept coming back and watched the whole hour. At the end of the hour, they hadnt answered the question. They were rolling the credits, and Oprah said, Whats the purpose for your life? You have to find that out yourself. And that was the show. Its within you. He was thinking, I didnt make me, so how do I know what Im made for? Have you ever seen this happen-you go to the gym and somebody wants to get in shape? They go out and buy new leotards, and they come in and are ready to work out, but they dont know how to use the equipment. Have you seen that? Some of the equipment, if youve never seen it or worked it before or ever seen anybody use it, is somewhat foreign to you. I had that happen this week. I wanted to use something, and I said, Ive never used it, never seen anybody use it, so I said to somebody, Whats that for? Its an important question to ask. Usually, there is a sign right there on most machines, the new ones, and it has a diagram of a man or a woman seated in the equipment the way youre supposed to be seated in the equipment. The muscle group thats being exercised is highlighted in red in the picture. There are little instructions that say, Heres what youre going to push, and heres what youre going to pull. It will guide you through the work-out process. A lot of people dont want to take the trouble to do that. They say, Im just going to figure it out myself, so they sit in it incorrectly; they pull things that shouldnt be pulled, and they push things that shouldnt be pushed. The best case scenario is they end up working something but not as effectively as they could. The worst case scenario is they end up hurting themselves. Now Ive seen that happen. You want to step in and say, No, thats not the way to do that! You need to ask somebody or better yet, the manufacturer has told you exactly how to use this machine. [It says] where your head should be, where your arms should be, what the motion should be. Read it. What Jesus is saying here is this man consults in the purpose of his life, but he consults the wrong place. He consults within, but we should be consulting revelation. We should be consulting what God has said is our purpose, not what we think our purpose might be. So he comes to a conclusion. He says, What shall I do? This is what Ill do. Heres his answer [in Luke 12:18], I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. That was his answer. The self-centered life never has enough. Beware of that, Jesus says. (Here, Pastor is imitating what this greedy man is thinking…) I already have barns, and I already have them full, but thats not enough. Now I want bigger barns, so I can fill those too. The self-centered life never has enough. Its never satisfied. The purpose-driven life is satisfied because its doing the will of God. The purpose-driven life is satisfied because its living for something greater than itself. Did you read about the king in Africa this week? They were talking about this king on CNN. Hes 35 years old, and he has a kingdom of a million people somewhere in Africa. Hes a monarch. He is sovereign there. What he says goes. The slogan for his country is its all about me. Every year, I dont know how many thousands of young girls-like 10,000 or 50,000, something astronomical-come, dance, promenade and prance around the king, and he gets to choose a new wife every year. This year hes working on wife number 14. I think ones enough, dont you? (congregation laughing) I mean that in a good way. I better… I havent said anything about scheduling a birthday party during the Bears game next week. Thats just fine with me. Another subject… His whole point was its about me. Some of us want to be our own little kings and build our own little kingdom and amass, amass, amass. Why? Whats the end result of that? Whats the purpose of that? Whats that going to accomplish when its all said and done? Whats ultimately the significance of a life like that? Harry Conn, a friend of mine who passed away not that long ago, once said to me, The smallest package in the world is a person all wrapped up in themselves. I thought, Well, thats significant. Thats one of those things that if you hear it once, youre going to remember that, arent you? The smallest package in the world is a person all wrapped up in themselves. What the purpose-driven life is about is unwrapping that package. Its about saying, God, here I am. God, I realize its not about me. Its about You, so You show me. You give me directions. I dont want to be king. I want You to be king. I want You to call the shots. I recognize that Im never satisfied, but if its about You, I can be satisfied because I know Im accomplishing Your mission and Your purpose and living for something greater that myself. Theres a man by the name of George Eliot who said this, Its never too late to be who you might have been. That really spoke to me. Its never too late to be who you might have been. Another way to say that is to say, Its never too late to become who God intended you to become. Its never too late to do what God intended you to do. As he mentions in the book, this is just dress rehearsal. This is just the opening act. This is just for a brief period of time. This is just practice for whats to come. That was the warning in Verse 18. A self-centered life never has enough. If youre living a self-centered life today, you will never find contentment-never find contentment- because its never going to be enough. As soon as you get or acquire what you think it is you need, youre going to want more. It will lose its luster after awhile. Its never going to be enough. He goes on to give a second warning in Verse 19, a second beware. And Ill say to myself, You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry. The second warning is a self-centered life squanders its blessings. A self-centered life squanders its blessings whereas the purpose-driven life seizes the day. It says every day I have is another day to fulfill my God-given mission. Every day I live is another day to make my life complete. When the world looks at this guys life, what does the world think? Thats a good life. Thats a great life. Id like to live a life like that. I model my life after that guy. Look at him! Hes rich; hes successful; he can retire at a young age. He doesnt have a care in the world. The world looks at the guy and says, Thats who you want to be. Thats the guy you want to become, that self-made, independent guy who just has everything you could ever want. God looks at his life, and what does He say to him? He says, Youre a fool. Were going to read on, and God is going to call him a fool. You say, Is God calling names now? Thats kind of low of God to start using name-calling, isnt it? A fool meant a person who lived as if God didnt exist. Thats the biblical meaning of the word fool. We use it as a derogatory, and it is derogatory, name-calling kind of thing. It means a person who has no moral compass, and they live as though God didnt exist. Thats a fool. The world says, This guys a success. God says, Hes a failure. Hes a failure. How about that? Because the self-centered life squanders its blessings, [think of] all of the blessings he could have been, the people around him he could have blessed with what he had and the talents he had. He chose instead to squander it. He stored it, he kept it, and he died, and it was gone. God basically says to him, What was that all about? Thats not what I put you down there for. Thats not what I breathed life into you for. Its not what I designed you for. There is more to life than that, than stuff. No, thats not a successful life. Imagine this life with a different scenario. What if instead of saying to himself, What shall I do? What is my purpose? this same guy would have said, Okay God, you tell me what my purpose is? God, Im asking You, I dont know. You created me. You tell me what is my purpose? What should I do with the talents Youve given me, the resources Youve given me, the passions Youve given me? What do You want me to do, God? God would have given him a different answer than to build bigger barns and fill them up for yourself. God probably would have said something like you know that widow down the street who just lost her husband? Yeah, I know her. You know what? She has some little boys. I know them, yeah. I want you to first of all go give her some food because they dont know how theyre going to eat tonight. I also want you to teach those boys how to farm, teach them the techniques that have made you so successful, so they can be successful and not go hungry too. That man would have done that, and it would have been so contagious. [It would have shown him] so much joy if he saw their smiles and tears. As he saw their full bellies and knew he had a part in saving them and helping them in their future, he would have said, God, this is fun, this helping people and serving humanity! I think I want to do it again! Maybe he then starts putting on clinics to help people. Maybe he starts a food distribution center for the poor, and guess what? He never runs out. He never runs out. By the time hes finished, his silos are just as full as when he started because you cant out-give God. He starts offering himself up to God in worship-which is what we will talk about next week, and God just starts filling his life with blessing after blessing! He says, This is fun! That beats going, This is mine! Nobody else can have it! Its mine! I want more! Thats mine too! He could instead say, Im giving this to you, and this is to you. God is going to use my talents, abilities, and passions to help the people around me and build them up. [Think of] all the friends he would have gotten [had he followed God instead], all the relationships and community he would have established… How different a life [he would have lived] than this lonely life where he died by himself with all this stuff. He gets to Heaven, and God says, So what? Youre a fool. Thats a completely different scenario, this self-centered life that never has enough. The self-centered life squanders its opportunity. So he gets to Heaven, and he asks the question, What should I do? When he asked himself, his answer was Im going to build bigger. Im going to get more. God says, Is that your final answer? Is that the way its going to be? No, God says, I have the final word. God said to him, You fool. This very night, youre life will be demanded of you. You have no choice when God says your times up, its up. Then who will get what you prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. Anybody. This is your fate. This is your end here. The self-centered life ends in vanity. It ends in vanity, whereas the purpose-driven life ends in significance. Which would you rather have? Last weekend, Labor Day weekend, it was one last chance to get away for the summer. I gave my video announcement on Saturday night during the service, and then we took off Saturday night for a city called Bayfield up near Superior. Has anybody been up there? The Apostle Islands? Its a fun place. Lake Superior is just beautiful. Its clear because its so cold, and there arent a lot of things growing in there. Its very clear. We dove a shipwreck there a couple years ago, and its cold in Superior. Thats why things dont grow there right. It has a beautiful color. Whats interesting is I could see in Superior almost as far as I can see in Key Largo when youre diving. You can see about 50 or 60 feet down. It has a good visibility. There are many shipwrecks in Superior, and those are fun things to look at and explore. You wonder what the story was behind it. What were the men doing? How did it happen? We were taking a trip to Bayfield. We try to get up there at least once every other year. We decided we were going to take a kayaking trip and kayak on Superior to a shipwreck. So were kayaking away, and we look out and see what we think is a bunch of seagulls. As you get closer, you see theyre not moving. What it actually was was some of the wreckage actually was sticking out of Lake Superior. We get there. I cant remember if we were at the bow of the boat or where we were, but it was interesting because the boat was wooden. While we were heading toward it, I was thinking, Wow, this thing is old. He (the tour guide) says, This boat sank in 1870. It was at that juncture where prior to that all the cargo boats were made of wood. Later on, they would be made of medal, but this was a transition period where they just started to introduce medal into the making of ships. On one of its early voyages, it had caught on fire-somebody was careless and caught the ship on fire, and the ship sank not that far from shore. There were no causalities, but there it sat at the bottom of Superior. You can see everything as youre kayaking over it. You can see it perfectly. Its really not that deep. What really struck me was when he said how many years it took them to make the boat. It wasnt months; it was years. Men gave years of their lives to make this boat that sunk right away. That would be discouraging if I were working on that boat; we christened it and sent it out. You were all excited and [would have] said, Howd it do? It sunk! It burned up and it sunk! Its going to be there for the passage of time. Discouraging. You might be tempted to say, That was vanity. All that work, years of my life, and now its lying on the bottom of the lake. Jesus is saying here, I dont want you to live a vain life. Thats what hes saying. He says, Then who is going to get what you prepared for yourself? What was your purpose? What were you thinking? Why didnt you talk to Me first? Why didnt you ask that question of Me? Jesus is giving us a beware here. He says, Dont live for vanity. Dont live for the temporal. If you live for the temporal, its vanity. Its going to parish. Its going to be gone. Its gone. But if you live for the eternal, thats significant. Its not vanity, because youre living for that which is going to go on with you into eternity. Some of us are going to really be investing right now in friends and relationships. Weve invited them to our small groups and invited them to church. Some of those people are going to make decisions to follow the Lord this month. Theyre going to be with you in Heaven. Compare that to your car. Compare that to your vacation. Compare that to whatever it is, whatever tower you want to build and fill it with stuff. Having that friend you care about with you in Heaven, how can you compare that to anything? God says, I want your life to have significance, value, and meaning. In order to do that, you have to live by purpose. To know your purpose, you need to seek Me. For this man in the parable book, that was all she wrote. He was up before the Lord, and it was a done deal. He couldnt go back. You and I are right here. Were right here. You have to ask yourself the question, Which does my life resemble? Im not going to ask for a raise of hands today. I dont want to embarrass anybody, but in Luke 12, do you resemble this guy? At this point in time, are you living a self-centered life, or are you living a purpose-driven life? All of us have to take care of ourselves. All of us have to provide for ourselves. All of us should have goals. Im not saying that [we shouldnt], but the bottom line is from the way you live your life, is it about you? If the answer to that question is its about me, thats a self-centered life; thats a life that will never have enough. Thats a life that will squander the blessings. Thats a life that will be lived in vain. If I can say, Its about Him and God, I want to know what Your purposes are for me, [then Im living a purpose-driven life]. Just like that man said, Its never too late to become who God intended you to be. Start today. Were going to get out of it what we put into it. I hope we will take these 40 days, this spiritually-significant timeframe, in the Scriptures and say, Im going to apply myself to understanding, knowing and learning Gods purposes. Then we live them and walk them in my life so that when I get to Heaven, I dont have to hear the words, You fool. I can hear the words, Well done, well done good and faithful servant. Lets pray together: Father in Heaven, we thank You for this teaching from Luke 12 today. I know that Your Holy Spirit has spoken to some hearts. Some of us have some important decisions to make. The first one we need to make is to come to the realization that its not about us. We are created, designed, and put on this planet and draw a breath for a reason. That reason has so much more to do than building barns, filling them up with stuff, tearing them down and building bigger ones and filling them up with more stuff. Father, that we would live for Your purposes and we would be able to come to the end of our days and say, My life is not lived in vain. I live for the living God. I live for His purposes. Thats a life You bless. Thats the life You reward. Thats the irony. Those who seek to keep their lives shall lose them, but whoever loses their life for Your sake shall find it. I pray for those who have just begun the journey-theyre either seeking right now or just recently made a commitment to follow You. I pray that Your Holy Spirit, Lord, will guide them as they take these steps. Bring them into community and friendship in the body. Help them to know their spiritual gift and give them a continued hunger for Your word and Your truth that they might grow in the things of God. Lord, we pray for the spiritual babies who are going to be coming into this congregation. We dont even see their faces yet, but theyre coming. Theyll be here next week or the week after or the week after that. Somewhere down the road, theyre going to come and be born into the Kingdom. Theyre going to find this completely new world-[and find out] theyve been made with a purpose. Equip us as a church to be able to minister to them, love them, equip them, and grow them up in the things of God. We pray this, Father, in Jesus name, Amen.

09-11-05
Speaker: Pastor Jeff Williams
Series: 40 Days of Purpose