“Fulfilling Our
Purpose”
LAGRANGE BAPTIST CHURCH
February 11, 2007
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Thank you Jenny. Let’s take our Bibles and turn to Ephesians
Chapter 2. I’m going to
read 3 verses very familiar to you.
We are going to look at fulfilling our purpose this morning.
I had the privilege of a couple of days away in study and
prayer and I knew one of two things would rise to the top, either
jumping back in to 1 Corinthians 11, or speaking one last time this
year, on the second Sunday in February, about our purpose, to remind
us of where we are. And
since 1 Corinthians 11 speaks of the man being the head of the woman
and women are to wear veils in church, or head coverings, I thought
this ought to rise to the top.
No, I would encourage you to read 1 Corinthians 11, the
first half of that chapter.
You will find it puzzling; some of it is rooted in its time,
but the truth of that passage is not rooted in its time.
So, I want you to look at, and, in all honesty I did study
hard in that passage, but I do believe the Holy Spirit has led me
and us to this today, and may it become evident in the way God would
want it to become evident as we go along.
Ephesians Chapter 2, Verse 8:
Ephes. 2:8
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and this is not
your own doing: it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that
no one may boast. For we
are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
This passage asks us a number of questions:
One of those would be, “Do you know grace?”
Do you know what it means to have been saved by grace through
casting all your faith on Jesus Christ alone for your salvation?
Second question is, if you know that experience, if God has given
you new life, as the first part of this passage tells us, that we
were dead in our trespasses and sins, but God who is rich in mercy
gave us life, if that has happened to you, then how’s the poem of
your life going?
That’s what the word, workmanship, is, and God is a great
poet. And He has already
scripted for you your life.
Now that does not mean that every little step of yours you
have to ask God, “Now am I supposed to step with my left foot, or am
I supposed to step with my right foot.”
I wish the ladies who were serving coffee this morning would
have listened to me when I said, “Decaf” instead of “caffeine!”
They were laughing about that because Joie told me later they
think they gave me the wrong thing and I’m going to preach real fast
this morning so you can hear me real fast this morning because I’ve
had a lot of caffeine.
No, I’m not saying in one sense that it was ordained from the
foundation of the world that I was served caffeinated coffee this
morning, but I am saying that I don’t think it took God by surprise,
and if He so chose to ordain it that way, I’m comfortable with that
because God is in control .
He really is! If
He’s not, there are some rogues in the universe out of God’s control
and I have no security, none.
This is a very insecure place to live, but what if I die?
What if you die? Well, if you know the Lord Jesus
Christ you are very secure.
But that’s not the question we are asking right now.
This is asking us where and what is our walk like?
Verse 10 says this:
“For we, [those of us who have placed our faith in Christ, those of
us who have been made alive by God], are His workmanship created in
Christ Jesus which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them.”
If that says anything it says that the believer in Christ is a
person that lives on purpose.
You understand what this plan of God is; you’ve dug in to
find out what his workmanship in you through Christ is, and you are
on track. But, I
know for a fact that that does not always describe our lives.
That is not always the way we live.
1 Corinthians 10:31 says:
“Whether you eat, or drink,
or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 9:24 tells us:
1 Cor. 9:24
“Don’t you know that all the runners in a race run, but only one
receives the prize? So run in such a way that you may win.”
Are you? And better yet,
are we? You know some of
you really are, and it is my joy to watch you run.
One of the most encouraging things in serving Christ as a
pastor is watching people in God working out in their lives these
works that he has created for them to do, and to see you run, and to
see you take the wind in your face and to take the challenge on,
it’s encouraging, and many of you are making that happen.
But what is our purpose?
I think it could be said this way:
To live a life
that reflects the reality of God.
The reality of a God who is sovereign; a God who is in control , a
God who is loving and compassionate, a God who is holy and just.
That there is a God at all.
Jesus described that life in this way, He said, “I am come
that you might have life and that you might have it to the full, or
that you might have it more abundantly.”
That tells me when we are living the Christian life there is
something to be seen about us.
It is visible, it is observable. So, before we get to what I
would call more of the meat, the solidness, the structure, the
undergirding, the foundation of doing these things, let me just
mention a few outside things that we have to think about. Since the
Christian life and the church are to live with intention, do you
have that? Things that
get your attention need your intention.
Things that God says He wants to happen, He has ordained that
they happen, many of them through us:
The growth of the church, the evangelic….(wait a minute ,
[laughter] evangelizing the world! WHOA!
My tongue was a rebel.
I’ll try to say that at home and I’ll get it out and I’ll say
it tonight at church.)
He’s going to do that through us, so if we are not intentional about
that, he has given us a head to think with, so let me ask a few
outside questions, then we are going to come inside.
When we think about our church, us,
So, in simple terms, what does this look like?
What does it look like when we together are fulfilling God’s
purpose? Formally and
corporately we say it this way:
We exist to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the glory of
God and the good of all peoples.
Nicely framed, concise statement.
But, again, in simple terms, what does this look like.
For me, I had to even make it more personal.
And let me just speak from
the personal pronoun of “I” for a few minutes and then we’ll move
back to “We.”
If I say it for Tony, when I’m walking with the Lord and obedient to
His voice, this is my mission.
I want to help you become a Christian.
That’s all of life.
That encapsulates all I do.
I want to help you become a Christian.
Why is that so, and how can that affect us corporately?
Because that invades every single area of my life.
We are going to talk about that in just a minute.
But, in Matthew 28: 18-20, you’ve got that familiar passage
we call The Great Commission.
And why is it so great?
Because if follows right on the heels of the life of Jesus,
His crucifixion, His resurrection from the dead and then He meets
with His disciples and He tells them, “All authority is given unto
Me in heaven and on earth.”
You are listening to the Sovereign Lord of the Universe. And
he says,
“Go therefore and
make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things
that I have commanded you, and I am with you always to the end of
the age.”
Well, if Jesus really lived and died, and lives again, and He really
does have all authority and that’s what He said do, well…. I think
that would be the way to fulfill your purpose and to be fulfilled.
So let me unpack this statement, okay? It’s very, very
simple, it’s just to make us think, alright?
The whole statement is “I want to help you become a
Christian.” I want,
does this describe your heart?
Is this part of your life?
Now, just back it up for a little bit.
Don’t put yourself in a churchy situation. Put yourself in
your home, put yourself, yes maybe in you Sunday School class, put
yourself in the desk, or in the area you live in at work where you
perform your vocation, because all of us have a mission in life, we
have a passion, what drives us, and we have a vocation.
Mine is being a pastor.
Being a Christian is way higher above being a pastor.
Being a Christian is what you are. What your vocation is, is
what God has designed and called you to do.
So, in that is where I’m talking about this.
This is not churchy, this is life!
So, let me unpack the statement, I want to, that means
your heart’s desire and prayer.
How did Paul say it, “My heart’s desire and prayer for
Sometimes all we want to do is hide when people come around.
Life would be really easy if it weren’t for us, wouldn’t it?
People! They just
get in the way. You ever
go to a restaurant and you just feel like the server is really
disgusted because you are there?
[Laughter] Now,
that’s not really the right approach for business is it?
Have you ever been to a church where you feel like one of the
long-term members is really disgusted you are there?
The first neighbor I met 13 ½ years ago in
You know, sometimes we want to hide from people.
Sometimes, frankly we want to hurt people.
Especially when they’ve hurt us.
Somebody wrote the book, “Hurt People Hurt People.”
We lash out, but this says, “I want to help.”
A servant’s heart…. willing to get into people’s lives and
speak so they can hear.
Paul said to the Corinthians, “We not only want to give you the
gospel but our lives as well.”
You know, sometimes our actions speak so loudly that people
can’t hear our words, our Christian actions to say we want to help,
ought to prove that without us saying a word.
I want to help you.
That makes it personal.
That takes away saving the world and puts somebody’s face
right in front of you, your neighbors, your friends, or the guy who
lives across the hall in the dorm, the person at the desk next to
you at school, the next cubicle at the office.
You’ve got a face and a place.
You know this Persons life.
You’ve heard them talk about their marital troubles or their
trouble with their children.
I want to help you.
I want to help you become.
We never lose sight of what we’re after.
We are after what God is after and that is life change.
He created us in Christ Jesus.
We are remade into the image of God’s dear Son.
He described the conversion of the church in Thessalonica
as “turning from idols to serve the true and living God.”
Become. We are
after life change. We
don’t want to share half a gospel that says, “You know what, you
come to our church we’ll tell you how to pray a secret prayer and
you can go to heaven when you die.”
That’s not life change.
If you are getting, right now, prepared to go to heaven, then
you need and I need a lot of adjustment.
That’s what salvation is, you know?
Getting prepared to live with God.
Therefore, I and you are always to be in the process of
changing. I want to help
you become a Christian. Somebody centered on Christ.
Somebody who is gospel centered, understanding the wonder of
what God did in sending His Son to die in their place.
Somebody who is grace centered, who understands that this
salvation is a free gift of God.
It is not worked for, you can’t earn it.
Somebody that is Christ’s, the person-centered, somebody
that’s cross-centered, somebody that understands because of Christ,
God says, “You are made whole.” Unpacking that statement, “I want to
help you become a Christian.”
Now why is this my aim and why should it be our aim?
There is a verse that captures what I want.
I always feel so far from this verse, but, Oh, I want it. The
reason that is my aim is because I want to be able to say with the
Apostle Paul, “I count all things as loss in view of the surpassing
value of knowing Christ Jesus My Lord.”
I want to say that.
I want that to be true of me and I want it to be true of you.
Why? I wish I
could have come up with this statement, but John Piper has said it
better than anybody I know of, “God is most glorified in us when
we are most satisfied in Him.”
When I am glad because of the goodness of God, God is
glorified in me. When I
am happy about what God has done all because of His love for me, a
sinner, then God is honored in my life.
So, when I see Christ as above all things, this has nothing
to do, by the way, with selling your home and becoming a missionary
in the darkest part of
Now, let’s move down to the level of practicality, okay?
And I want to encourage you at every level.
Let’s lasso this idea of being satisfied in God, and
glorifying Him, of saying with our lives by what we talk about and
by what we do, “I want to help you become a Christian,” and wanting
to say that corporately as a church, let’s lasso it and bring it
down to our lives. At
every level, we need to think about how this is going to happen.
We need to think about it in our church as a whole.
Let me give you an example:
How would a church begin to think, okay, I want to help you
become a Christian.
Remember the waiter at the restaurant that was aggravated because
you were there? Have you
walked into our church lately and noticed, well, since we’ve been in
this building and before, how wonderful our greeters are?
How many of you have been met by Gary Veach in the parking
lot when it’s raining?
You know
What if, let’s think of a practical way to apply this.
Suppose that we instituted a new rule for after church once
we’re all in here and welcomed, that for the first 3 minutes after
the last Amen, you didn’t talk to people you knew, you talked to
people you didn’t know.
Don’t you think that would be a wonderful way to tell people who are
visiting us, “You know, we really are interested in people.”
Especially the person who hasn’t been in church for a long time.
We forget what it is to go to a new church building where you
don’t know people and you walk through the door.
If you would like a feeling of that, imagine yourself going
with us to
So here’s a question for you.
You know what Sunday School class you are in or what ministry
you are involved in.
What responsibilities you now have.
So, what one, two or maybe three things, small things, little
bitty things, could you do in your life, in your areas of influence
to make a big difference?
When you get to Sunday School class first, are the chairs in
place? Is there dirt on
the floor? When you
leave and you’re the last one, is the light left on or turned off?
You say, “Boy this is really helping me, Tony, I’m really
getting stimulated mentally this morning. I’m learning how to turn
off light switches and pick up trash.” No, you’re learning how God
invades every area of our lives, and when we come together in
fellowship, we become aware of his presence among us and we become
aware of one another’s needs.
Something as simple as turning a light off is going to save
whoever closes the building up a trip upstairs.
That’s caring about other people.
Pretty simple, huh?
But those little bitty things can make a huge difference.
So why don’t you, if you are not a note taker, go ahead and
get a pen out, get one of those that doesn’t write on the back of
the pew, and scratch it so it will be at least indented, [laughter]
not on the wood, but on your bulletin, and write one thing down that
you could do. Maybe you
want to ask your Sunday School teacher, how can I help? Maybe you
want to become a part of a Sunday School class.
You come and worship with us every week, you don’t know the
intimacy of a small fellowship group, try that out.
Some of them are pretty scary but you’ll find the ones that
aren’t.
Then act on what you have already thought about doing.
Go ahead and send that note.
Give that money to the person that you know needs it and help
your neighbor out with what you know they need.
Why is this our aim or our purpose?
All of these are really nice things, but we are not about
being nice. We are about
life and life change.
Three simple reasons:
Because God is a God who is sovereign.
The psalmist wrote in Psalm 115:3:
“Our God is in the heavens, He does all that he pleases.” It
is my honor, my delight and my privilege to bow before such a God.
Do you understand the fulfillment that comes when you begin
to get a vision, a sight, a spiritual sight of the size and the
glory and the splendor of God and to know that He now calls you by
name and you can kneel before Him and call Him, Father.
We live this way and act this way because God is a sovereign
God; He’s worth it. But,
beyond that and along with that, this God is a God who speaks.
The scriptures in Hebrews 1: 1-2
say this, “Long ago and at many times and many ways God spoke
to our fathers by the prophets.
But in these last days, He has spoken
to us by His Son.”
Paul said, “All scripture is breathed out by God.
He speaks. Some
of you, and I don’t mean to be irreverent, some of you have been
following with great interest the story in the news of a woman of a
horrible reputation, not even knowing who the father of the baby she
had, just a few years ago, and you want to read with interest what
the writers in the paper are saying.
You have the privilege every day of hearing God Almighty
speak. His words
transform your soul.
They are living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword.
They divide from soul and spirit, joints and marrow , they
judge the thoughts and intention of our heart, they give us life,
they give us spiritual wisdom, they make us wiser than our teachers,
they enlighten our eyes, they shed light on our path, they keep us
from sin. If we want our
lives changed this sovereign has spoken a sovereign word, we need to
listen to Him. That’s
why it is our aim. God
has not left us without a witness and direction from him.
He is sovereign; he speaks, but in addition to that, this God
saves. For everyone.
That’s exactly right, everyone who calls on the name
of the Lord will be saved.
People really do need to know God.
Will you help?
Does it matter to you if they know or not?
Does it matter to us?
The only way I know for it to matter is if Jesus matters to
us. I don’t tell
anybody anything about things I don’t like.
But I tell a lot about everything I like.
When I get a nice steak at a nice restaurant, I love to tell
somebody about that.
When I have a great experience, when I go somewhere I love to tell
somebody about that.
But, if it was unimpressive, kind of neutral, I don’t talk about it.
Evidently, God is really plain vanilla and kind of neutral to
a lot of His people. God
is not like that. How
does this occur in you?
How can it really happen?
Now this is a lifetime’s worth of work.
I’m only going to give you three little things to keep in
mind.
This is literally how it works.
First by learning.
If God is there and God has spoken, then it gets through your
head, your mind, and, like any other kind of knowledge, though the
Spirit has to give it life and light in us, it comes into us like
any other kind of knowledge.
God doesn’t zap us from heaven apart from his Word to give us
new life. He does it
through the learning of His Word in our head.
But once we have been given that life, then we use that same
means to listen and learn from God and we become disciplined as we
know this truth. You
cannot follow God if you have not heard Him speak and know what he
wants. Otherwise you are
playing
How does this occur in you?
You’ve got new life and you’ve got this knowledge.
It begins to affect not only what you know, but now what you
are, and it affects how you love.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength, and your neighbor as yourself.
This gets to your heart.
The inner part of you, and not only are you then disciplined
but you are devoted to this person, and because of your learning and
your loving, it comes out in your living.
What you know and what you are is seen in what you do, this
is your hands and your feet.
The practical part we are talking about and that makes you
distinct.
I got a letter.
I’m not going to mention any names, because I haven’t asked
permission for this. It
was a good letter; it was an excellent letter.
It was from a family in our church whose daughter was at one
of our state schools in a sorority.
Doing fine, making good grades, living for Christ, sharing
her faith. The sorority
as a whole had a party and behaved in a horrible way.
This young lady, because of her standards for Christ, wrote a
very nice, but firm letter, to the leadership of her sorority and
said “because of your compromise of what our standards are to be, I
can no longer be a part of this organization.”
Everybody around her knew why she couldn’t be.
She had made a commitment to Christ.
Her life was distinctly different and that’s what happens.
Okay, when and where does this actually take place?
Howard Hendricks said, “If your Christianity doesn’t work at
home, it doesn’t work and don’t export it.”
That’s a good word.
Now, before those of you who are in tough situations at home
and have an extra scrupulous conscience, he is not saying that if
you are a parent with a rebellious child then you haven’t applied
your Christianity rightly.
That is not true.
You can give your children education, you can give them church, you
can give them the Word of God, but you cannot give them grace.
At this point, I am talking about what you do at home.
Not what your children do, not what your spouse does, not
what your parents do, but what you do at home.
When does this, “I want to help you become a Christian” life,
when does this learning, loving and living?
When does this Christlikeness take place and where does it
take place? It takes
place at home.
There are four fields of application:
Isn’t it really strange that we have trouble praying with
our wives or our husbands and reading the Bible with them?
It would be a really scary thing if we took a survey and we
really had to say, “Do you read your Bibles together and do you pray
together?”
We say that we have given our entire life, our soul, to
Jesus Christ to save us.
We say we believe God is personal, and that He has come to this
earth and even into our lives and all we have is His, and we can’t
in the intimacy of our homes, talk about his Word and speak to Him
together? That’s how odd
we have allowed Christianity to become and I want it back down into
the realities of life.
If talking about Jesus is weird or odd to you, you need to get to
know Him better. You
need to let that name fit comfortably in your mouth.
You need a checkup on your soul.
When, where does this actually take place?
At work, and I can tell you what I don’t mean by that, I’ve
told you before. I don’t
mean carrying your Bible to work; be sure you read it so people can
see you reading your Bible and put Christian stickers all around
your cubicle. [laughter]
I won’t put a Christian bumper sticker on my car.
Will you? Do you
ever get angry in the car?
Do you ever blow your horn?
“Follow Me to Church”
I would if I could keep up!
ZOOM….ZOOM. “Honk
if you love Jesus” HONK,
HONK, HONK!
Reminds me of the bumper stickers I saw all on one truck; there was
like some kind of spiritual sticker, the other one says, “This
vehicle protected by a 0.357 magnum” and the other one says, “You
toucha my truck I breaka your face.”
All on the same vehicle [laughter].
So, what I don’t mean is that you put on some kind of
plastic, that people can’t even understand what you are.
You communicate this truth in their language by being an
excellent employee, by showing up on time, by being supportive, not
argumentative, not critical, by being honest, having integrity,
being dependable in the workplace is what a Christian is.
Those things were so important to Paul in early Christian
society. There were some
people who thought Jesus was going to come back, they got really
spiritual and just wanted to wait around and do nothing.
He said, “Look our policy is if a man does not work, he ought
not eat.” I like that.
Take the food away they’ll go to work.
We just need to be Christian in our workplace.
This happens at church.
By the way, can I back that up at work just a minute .
Whether you are in an office, whether you are digging a
ditch, whether you travel a lot, what do you do at work when nobody
else is around? All of
these in one way are spheres that are separate.
Don’t have one personality in one place and one in another.
Don’t do things when you are out of town that you don’t do
when you are in town.
That’s not having integrity.
At church. Are
you engaged in service?
Or do you just come and soak?
Do you spend time building one another up?
Are you dependable at church?
Committed? Can
the church body depend upon you?
The fourth realm that is often left out is the realm of
play. Sometimes
that’s where we really go off in a different world.
I filled out a survey thing, in analyzing gifts and ambitions
with the staff, and one of the areas we filled things out allowed
you to describe yourself in certain words, and one of mine said
adventurous. And the guys kind of looked at me and said,” You’re
not much of a risk taker. How does that describe you?
I said, did you notice the line at the bottom.
It said there are the kinds of things that may describe you
at recreation and play that don’t describe you at work.
All I can say is follow me down the ski slope and then you’ll
know….through the trees, over the hills, yeah, I fell down plenty
but I was adventuresome. But, did I do that to God’s glory?
Can you play, enjoying the presence of God?
You better believe you can!
You better believe you should!
Sometimes in our recreation that’s as if it is okay to just
check out from God and say, “Well this is playtime God, I can’t be
serious about you!”
Everything is to be done to His glory.
So, if I can say my life passion is to count all things as
loss in view of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus My
Lord, and if I or you can say, “My life mission is that I want to
help you become a Christian,”
then let’s not waste our time today.
What one thing can you do, what one thing can you do
in each of these four areas that will make a visible and measurable
improvement or change in your life or surroundings?
Is it something as simple as your tone of voice at home,
which isn’t simple at all since out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaks? Is it
getting to work a few minutes early instead of a few minutes late,
all because of Christ?
You see, when you begin to see those details of life with Christ
involved, the larger things come into play, but if you are always
after experience and the large things of God, you never get Him down
where life really counts, and people can’t understand that kind of
faith, but when they see it affecting your home and your
Church and your play, they want to say, “What’s that hope
you’ve got in you anyway?
What makes you so distinctly different?”
So, as a church, that’s essentially what it means to exist
to make disciples of Christ for the glory of God and good of all
peoples. As an
individual, that’s essentially what it means to say to others, “I
want to help you become a Christian.”
So what’s our future hold?
Five years from now what will we be?
Five minutes from now, what will you be?
Walking out the door, unchanged?
Or can you sense that the Holy Spirit of God is speaking to
you through His Word in this very practical simple message is a way
in which God has set His Word and His Spirit and His Son right in
front of you, and is saying, so what?
What are you going to do about it?
Does my Son have any affect on you at all?
May He open our eyes to see, may He give us life and may we
understand the good works that he has ordained for us to walk in.
Let’s pray together.
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