Purpose
Tom Shrader launches a new series on life management by examining the life of Jesus as a model for living with clear purpose. Drawing from Matthew 1 and John 1, he demonstrates how Jesus had a crystal-clear mission from before His birth to save His people from their sins. Shrader challenges listeners to articulate their own life mission and understand that God has given them unique gifts, experiences, and a specific purpose that extends beyond marketplace success to bringing glory to God.
“God made you unique and different. He gave you a special set of gifts and talents, and a special set of experiences, and He put you and only you in this world for that purpose.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Life Management (2001)
Recorded: October 04, 2001
Duration: 42 min
Themes: purpose, mission, calling, significance, success, gifts, management, stewardship, searching for purpose, career transition, feeling directionless, young professional, business leader, mid-life crisis, new believer, seeking significance
Scripture: Matthew 1:19-21, Luke 2:52, John 1:26-29, Matthew 16:21, Acts 2:22-23, Mark 10:32-34, John 17:1-4
Theological Themes: christology, incarnation, divine mission, spiritual gifts, vocational calling, imago dei, stewardship, sanctification
Full Transcript
We today start a new series and you've got the outline in front of you. Let me just take you through this quickly. We try to change the way we teach through the year. By that I mean we'll almost always each year take a passage or a section of a book or entire book. We just finished the book of James. But the majority of the time we tend to stay on a topical basis.
What you see in front of you today is the new series. It's called Life Management. I say new. It indeed is new for probably all of you. We did this series six years ago. So even if you were here, you don't remember it. And if you do, you're smarter than me because I don't remember any of this stuff.
So it shows you that it is a 12-week series. We won't do 12. We'll do six, seven, or eight weeks, which will take us up into holiday time and then we'll do something as we... Isn't that amazing to be saying that already? And then into Christmas. Christmas Eve, those of you that get into this stuff, Christmas Eve is on a Monday this year, which makes it... If you're part of the church thing, that makes it pretty hard because you finish on Sunday, come back on Monday. But if you're in the workplace, it probably means nobody will make you work Monday, so you got a bonus.
Defining Success Beyond the Marketplace
So life management and probably the important part of this is the subtitle. Defining success beyond the marketplace. And you could remove the word marketplace and substitute anything that you really need in there. That whole idea of success and significance, those words are buzzwords now.
There was a book written, oh golly, I don't know, maybe five or six years ago now, maybe a little longer, called Half Time, where Bob Buford suggests that the idea of life is in two halves. It's actually a very interesting principle. The idea is basically this, that since the year 1900, our lifespan is such that God has really given us two adult lives. And the first is spent pursuing success and the second should be spent pursuing significance.
And the concept sounds really good. The only problem with it is, it means that the first half of my adult life isn't significant. That doesn't seem right to me. But I understand the distinction. What we're talking about is living a life that's worthwhile, that has value to it. And that whole process of being trained for that and prepared for that doesn't just naturally happen. It doesn't happen in the institutions.
You can go to school and graduate school and they'll prepare you to get a job and they'll prepare you to understand how to operate business efficiently and profits and take a company public and maybe even retire from there. They'll prepare you for success, perhaps in the marketplace, but we're talking about something far greater and far different than that. That success alone guarantees really very little.
The Problem with Success Alone
It is not unusual for me to meet somebody and we'll be talking and they'll say, you know so-and-so, don't I'll say, yep. I'll say, how's he doing? They'll say, well, his business is great. I'll say, well, how's everything? Well, his wife left him. His kid's on drugs. He's hooked on booze. He's got absolutely no friends and he's totally isolated. Other than that, he's doing great.
We find that frequently, that in what the world would define as success, people are doing well, but in the things that we might suggest are deeper and more meaningful, not doing so well.
Let me tell you what we don't want to do. We're not trying to remove you from that business world. You need to be there. That's part of what you are about. That's the mission field God's given you. You need to be there and you need to be successful there. You need to do well. You need to do all you can do. What we're saying is that life is much more than that.
Speaking to a Secular Audience
I had a chance Tuesday to speak over at the Biltmore to a totally secular group and my topic was leaving a legacy. I have no connection. I literally walk in the room. I don't know any of them. I look around and I'm out. That's how intimate our setting was.
As I'm starting to talk, and I have no credentials. I mean, all these other guys, they'll bring Barry in and they read all this resume and all this stuff and then they bring these doctors. It's doctor, doctor, doctor, doctor, and then it's always, they go, Tom, I don't know what he does, but you get up and talk for a while. I have zero credibility. I spend all this time in the area of credibility and I have no relationship with them.
When I was talking about legacy, I was making a point strikingly similar to what you have in front of you today, and that is the same point that Jesus makes. That life consists of more than stuff, and I can have the stuff compartment all figured out, but if the rest of it's not in order, I'm in real trouble. I'll tell you something conversely. If I have the rest of these things figured out, stuff tends to handle itself.
Doing the Right Things the Right Way for the Right Reason
So here's what we want you to do. We'll spend a little bit of time in the introduction here. Here's what is really simple. We want you in your life to be doing the right things the right way for the right reason. It's really as simple as that.
So you can be very efficient doing a lot of things the right way, but they're the wrong things. Or you can be doing the right things the right way, but for the totally wrong reason. We want to line these things up.
As we look at this series, we're going to talk, as I said, about six or seven or eight different things, but this is the beginning of it. I believe with all my heart that your life should be an adventure, and there should be excitement with it, and you ought to be passionate about it. If you're old enough to remember, the term we would use would be e-ticket ride. Life should have with it a sense of excitement. It's a life worthwhile. It's a life where you say, I wouldn't trade places with anybody.
My daughter Haley was probably six or seven years old, and I was working through this thing at the time. I wish I could find the book, because I was making notes.
This is my creative note-taking days, and I was thinking of all these questions to ask, and one of them was, if you could be anybody in the world, who would you be? Haley was in the family room, laying on the couch watching TV. Like I said, she's about six or seven, and I went in and I said, "Haley, if you could be anybody in the world, who would you be?"
She didn't even think for a minute. She said, "Anybody in the world?" I said, "Yep." She said, "If I could be anybody in the world, I'd be Haley Schrader. I'd be me. Look at this, Dad. I'm on the couch. I got the TV. I got everything there is for life. I don't want to be anybody else."
I'll tell you what, that's a pretty cool thing to be able to say. Can you say that? See, I think that you ought to be able to say, "I want to be me." And the reason is—and this isn't blowing smoke at you, this is truth—God made you unique and different. He gave you a special set of gifts and talents, and a special set of experiences, and He put you and only you in this world for that purpose. You ought to want to be you, not to get there and stay there. You've got to get the big picture.
Seeing the Grand Scheme of Things
Several years ago, as he was getting ready to celebrate the occasion of his 3,000th hit, Paul Molitor was talking. Here's what he said: "Baseball is a day-to-day game. You don't have time to see the grand scheme of things." Well, take out baseball and put in sales, or engineering, or law, or homemaking, or parenting. Put anything you want that you do on a daily basis. Life tends to be a day-to-day thing, and you don't have time to see the grand scheme of things.
I've become, in a sense, a spokesperson for saying, you've got to see the grand scheme of things. It's the grand scheme of things that makes the day-to-day worth living. I've got to understand the whole grand scheme of who we are, why we're here, and where we're going.
The Crisis of Directionless Living
There's that old term, and we used to hear it all the time. I would say 15 years ago, you would hear this every week. In fact, if you go down to the used bookstore, go down to Central Christian, and go to the used book section, you'll find volumes written on this topic. Today, nobody even talks about it. It was midlife crisis.
You used to hear that term over and over again. I can't tell you when somebody last said to me, "I'm having a midlife crisis." I think part of that is, we're just in constant crisis now. We've evolved to the point, and grown to the point, where we just stay in crisis. We don't wait for midlife anymore.
But to me, what a midlife crisis was, was when all of a sudden, I came up for air, and I realized that I had this whole set of goals, and I'd achieved them, and they were empty. Or I had this whole set of goals, and I was nowhere near them. It was a time when I stopped, and I realized, I'm way off course, for whatever reason.
It may be that the course was never defined. It may be that I never set sail. It may be that somehow, I misnavigated in the process. I don't know. I never charted it. I never understood the big picture. That's what we're trying to get in front of you today.
Articulating Your Life Mission
You've got it on your outline. We're talking about purpose. Here's what we're saying: you need to be able to articulate and restate your life mission, and all the things that come from it.
If you say to me, "What's Priority Living about?" Priority Living exists to cause biblical life change in businessmen and women, by teaching the timeless Word of God in a contemporary context. That's what we're about. So now, we can evaluate things as they come along for us.
The church that I go to—why do you exist? What's your purpose? To glorify God, by helping one another learn God's truths, and live biblically changed lives. So now, we can evaluate our day-to-day activity on that.
We tend to think that's okay with organizations. I was in a plane, talking to this lady, and she's pumping me about her company, and how great her company is. I said, "What's your purpose?" So, she had this laminated card, and had purpose, and mission, and core values, and all this. I said, "No, that's not what I asked. What's your purpose?" She said, "Well, right here. It's the mission." I said, "No, no, no. You. You, personally. What's your mission? What's your purpose?" Well, I don't have one.
Not trying to be a jerk—just kind of comes naturally, in some instances—but I said, "Isn't it interesting, that the organization feels, to accomplish its goals, and to make a profit, it needs to be able to articulate them, and line list them, and be able to explain them to everybody. But you, in your life, don't need them."
Long time ago, I sat down, trying to come up with this mission statement. Basically, it ended up being, "to develop a lifestyle that caused others to come to Christ, and grow in Him." The way I got there was a lot of work, and some key words, but at least now, I've got a basis to begin to evaluate things in my life. You've got to be able to understand this whole idea of purpose.
Purpose vs. Goals: Understanding the Difference
Remember, some of you were here not long ago, when we talked about it. A purpose and goals are very different. Purpose is something that's long-term. It's unattainable. It extends beyond life. It gives definition to life. So, "to know God, and grow close to Him," would be a purpose.
A goal is something that's short-term, attainable, stepping-stones. "To read through the Bible in a year," that's a goal.
Don't Just Go With the Flow
Somebody, not long ago, said to me, "You appear very easy-going," which I'm not. "But you appear very... you look like you could just go with the flow." And I said, "Well, I hope not." You don't want to just go with the flow. What if the flow's not going where you want to go?
See, what we're saying is, I don't just go with the flow, because the flow can be taking me in the wrong direction. I've got, in my life, a purpose, a direction, something of grand proportion. I know, you may not think of your life that way. You may say, well...
I'm just slugging it out, day-to-day. I'm doing everything I can to get through till five o'clock today. I'm saying that's not worth living. There's got to be a grand scheme. There's got to be a reason for what you do.
Let me give you a couple of side benefits. Number one, it's going to make your life easier. Number two, you're going to be way more effective. Number three, you're going to be way more efficient. Number four, it's going to give you the ability to say no.
Virtually everybody I talk to, when we talk about whether they can do this or that, they'll say, "No, I can't do that. I'm..." What's the rest of the sentence? Too busy. "I'm too busy. I've got all these things to do."
God Has Given You Enough Time
Hang in there with me, because I think this is right. As a Christian, I should never be too busy. Everything that God's given me to do, I have to assume He's given me also the time to do it. God's not going to give me these things to do and not give me the time to do it.
So if I'm too busy, I'm either allocating that time wastefully, or I've bitten off way more than God intended for me to. One of those two things. But for me to say, "I don't have enough time," I think is a misstatement. God's given me all the time I need to accomplish the things He's given me to do.
He's not going to give me something to do and not give me the time or the ability to do it. So this whole idea of purpose is about all of that. It's for you to be able to stop and be able to answer the question, not what do you do, but why do you do it.
Jesus as Our Role Model
As we work our way through this series, I think it's helpful to have a role model. So our role model, if you will, for this series is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Now if you're like me, when I hear that, I need a little bit of definition. Because to say, "Jesus is my role model," is a little bit too big, too large, too broad. Plus there's a significant difference between Jesus and me. He's God, I'm not. We've got to grasp that.
I don't know if you saw Larry King Saturday night, but Saturday night he had on a rabbi who wrote "Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?" He had on Bruce Wilkinson, who wrote "The Prayer of Jabez." He had on Deepak Chopra. He had on a guy who is a follower of Islam and John MacArthur. So he had these guys on.
One of the questions was this: who is God? So he asked them, "Who is God?" And he said, "Okay, now John MacArthur, who is God?" He said, "Well, God was the creator. He's the original. He's the supreme being. He's the sovereign one. He's the one who spoke the world into existence, who created all that's here. He created man. God is the one that man has sinned against. God is the one who works His way through redemptive history. God is the one who personified Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. God became man, keeping His deity, but He became man. He lived the perfect life. He died on the cross. He rose from the dead. And He still has an intimate relationship with this world today."
And then he said to the guy from Islam, he said, "Who's God?" And he said, "Well, everything John said except Jesus." Well, there's the dividing point right there.
The Dividing Line of Christianity
Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that in the last three weeks, everybody and their uncle and their dog wants to talk about God? But when all of a sudden, they can all belly up to the bar, and we'll all have a pleasant conversation about God. But the minute you say, "Well, Jesus was God," they go, "Oh, I don't know. That's narrow, and it's intolerant."
So all I'm saying is, we who are Christians believe that Jesus was God come in the flesh. Fully God, fully man, like us in every way except sin. So when we say Jesus is our role model, here's what I'm saying to you. You can't model the God stuff He did. But I think we can pull out some general principles, and I'm sure we can abuse this, but at least get some general things that we see in His life that may be helpful to us.
The greatest selling Christian book of all time, other than the Bible, is a book called "In His Steps," written by a guy named Charles Sheldon. And what Sheldon wrote was a fictional book. It was an account of a pastor who'd grown very weary with his flock and communicated to them. So one Sunday he got up, and the congregation was made up of the newspaper publisher, and a druggist, and a doctor, and a student, and a homemaker, and he simply said this to them. He said, "For the next week, in every decision that you make, I want you to ask, 'What would Jesus do?'"
A Better Question Than "What Would Jesus Do?"
And I always hated that, because if Jesus is walking along and sees a blind man, He's going to go, and He's going to heal him. So all I'm going to do is give the guy germs. And I understand the point of that question, but I think the question's better stated, and I know I'm not smart, but I'm hung up on this. The question's better stated, "What would Jesus have you do?"
But still, I want to cling to this idea of trying to use Jesus as a role model, at least His life, and some key points in His life. Because I think we get, and again, I'm going to spend just one more second on this, almost as a disclaimer. I have a certain group of people that have so focused on Jesus' deity, that they've missed His humanity. And there's another group of people that are so focused on His humanity, that they've missed His deity. What we want to try to do is that unlikely possibility of finding truth or balance in the middle here.
So let's make sure you understand that the God things Jesus did, we can't do. But we can learn from His life.
Jesus' Clear Mission from Before His Birth
Here's the first thing. We use the word mission, but we can use the word purpose as well. We may not get all the way through this, but we'll get pretty close to this. His mission was very clear, even before His birth.
Matthew chapter 1: "Because Joseph, Mary's husband, was a righteous man, and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind the idea to divorce her quietly."
Remember the story. Joseph and Mary were engaged. So you may go, "Engaged? How come they needed a divorce?" Well, in that culture, engagement was virtually identical to marriage, minus a few things, including the sexual part of it. And to break off the engagement, you need a decree of divorce.
Joseph had discovered Mary was pregnant, and Joseph knew that he'd never been with her physically. Again, can you spend a second on this? We're so familiar with this story that we probably missed the humanity of it. Can you imagine that couple?
My daughter Haley's dating a young guy now, and can you imagine this guy going out with Haley, and they're over at Mimi's having a cup of coffee, and Haley says, "Tyler, I got something I gotta tell you." "What is it, Haley?" "I'm pregnant." Well, Tyler knows he's never laid a hand on her, and he goes, "Well, who's the father?" "Tyler, the Holy Spirit's the father." That's a hard sell. That's hard to get down.
The Importance of the Virgin Birth
The whole idea of the virgin birth, by the way, is just foreign to all of us, isn't it? I was born and raised in a religion that talked about the virgin birth but never explained why it might be important to us. So we tend—in fact, one of the leading theologians from that denomination was in town one time, and we talked about it, and he said, "The virgin birth itself really isn't important. It's the product of the birth, meaning Jesus, that's important."
Well, the virgin birth is critical. If Jesus isn't born of a virgin, then Jesus has a sin nature. And I don't mean this to be disrespectful, but if Jesus has a human father, then I might as well have died on the cross for you. Because Him dying on the cross wasn't going to do you any good anyway, if He has a human father. But He doesn't have a human father.
And I know this is hard. You know how I know this is hard to believe? The first person to question the virgin birth was Mary. The angel appears to her and said, "Mary, you're going to be with child." And Mary said, "How can this possibly be? I've never been with a man."
Joseph is told by Mary that she's pregnant. Joseph decides that he's going to put her away quietly. And then an angel appears to him in a dream and says, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what is conceived is hers from the Holy Spirit. She'll give birth to a son, and you will give Him the name Jesus."
Jesus' Core Purpose
Here's Jesus, in a sense, if we want to be it—and I don't mean it in a crass way—here's Jesus' purpose statement. Jesus will save His people from His sins. Jesus is going to do a whole lot of things in His life, but what He's going to do that is at the core of His whole purpose is to die on the cross. We've talked about it before. The epicenter in the history of mankind is the cross. The key point in Jesus' life drives to the cross.
That whole mission was clarified yet again at the beginning of His public ministry. Jesus lives in relative anonymity for about 30 years. Thirty years in that culture—it was at age 30 that a boy, in a sense, becomes a man in that culture. For 30 years Jesus lived in anonymity. What did He do?
Luke tells us in his gospel, in Luke chapter 2 verse 52. Luke simply says this: "Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man." Jesus grew. Jesus grew physically, intellectually, socially. He didn't become any more God. Remember, He's God-man.
Jesus' Hidden Years
I'm also convinced that He didn't do any miracles in those 30 years. I could be wrong, but I don't think He did. I saw some movie a while ago where they had Jesus depicted. He's out playing with the other kids and the kid had fallen, break his arm, and Jesus healed it, and the bird had died, and He'd shake it to life and throw it away. I don't think He did. I think that's why at Cana they went, "Wow, that's pretty incredible," because they'd never seen anything like this before.
In fact, when He goes away and then comes back to Nazareth, remember the response of the people in the town? They said, "Hey, I thought this was Joseph and Mary's son. Where did He learn to do this stuff?" If He's doing this stuff when He's a kid, He's in Vegas with a lounge act, okay? They're not going to be doing this stuff. It's not happening. He grows.
And then He has this moment. It's recorded in John chapter 1. He said, John says, "I baptize with water, but among you stands the one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the thong of whose sandals I'm not worthy to untie."
The Chasm Between Us and God
Let's stop there a second. This John is just not some slug. Here's Jesus' account of John. He said, "There has never been anyone greater than John." So you take your Abraham, and you take your Joseph, and you take your David, and you take your Elijah, and you put them all—let's say they're here. By Jesus' estimate, John's either right there or above them. And yet, John says, "When you compare me to Jesus, I'm not worthy to perform the lowest task for Him." That's the chasm that we have.
I love the fact that John seems to understand that there's this chasm between us and God. We have a very different view of God now. It's become almost commonplace. We're familiar with Him. He's the big guy upstairs.
There was a guy on Christian television not long ago, and he's talking. And he's talking about one morning shaving. And he's shaving, and God appears to him. And he said, "Hey God, what's happening? What are you doing, God? What's going on?" He has this dialogue with Him. I don't believe he saw God. I just don't believe it. He's either deluded or he's lying. Because we don't get that reaction anywhere.
When Isaiah sees God, he doesn't go, "Hey, what's shaking?" When Isaiah sees God, what's he say? "Woe to me, for I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips." When these people have an encounter with God, they're driven to their knees. Not, "Hey, how you doing?" That's the chasm that's there. And we've lost that.
Understanding True Identity
God. Our whole mission, if we want to talk about God, what we need to do is to understand who He is, and what He is. And how we're going to get it is from this book. He's not just the big guy upstairs. He's the holy, righteous one. He's holy. He's totally other than us.
John gets this, and then he sees Jesus coming, and here's what he says. "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world." There's that statement again. Then he takes that statement, and he says, there it is. Don't forget it. That's why He's here. And then we look at Jesus as He lives. His mission and His identity are all tied in this one thing. Behold the Lamb of God. He's God.
The Danger of Misplaced Identity
Let me give you the practical thing for us. We sometimes become so identified and attached to what we do, that our identity's tied up in that. So, if what we do changes, we lose our identity. Sometimes we're so tied up in our identity with our spouse, that if the spouse leaves, we're totally destroyed. I know parents, moms in particular, who are so tied up with what they do as they relate to the kids, that when the kids are gone, they've got real trauma in their life.
I've got a very good friend who just retired about two months ago. And he was very attached to what he did. And he loved what he did. And he was good at what he did. But you know what? Over the last five or six years, the transition that took place in his life, where he began to understand, he wasn't what he did, he was who he was in his relationship with Christ. He moved into retirement. And I think his life has taken on an entirely new dimension. That doesn't always happen.
It's so important for you to answer the question. Not, what do you do? But, why do you do it?
When Others Don't Understand Your Purpose
So now here you are, and you're this person with this clear purpose. Do you see this point in your outline? That doesn't mean everybody's going to understand it, or embrace it, or expect it, or rejoice with you. You may have a person who is in your life who won't embrace what you're doing. That's okay.
I was at Forrest's home a couple of years ago, teaching some college students. And we were talking about this whole idea of purpose, and life, and grand things, and what college students do, and contemplation, and really heavy stuff that's theoretical and makes virtually no difference. And so we're talking about these things. But they talked about life.
I remember two kids in particular. One, I said, what do you want to do? And he said, I want to be a missionary. And he had a specific place he wanted to go, and some specific things he wanted to do. And I said, well, why don't you do it? And he said, my parents told me it's a waste of my life. And I said, well, are you sure? I'm convinced this is God's prepared me for this.
And another kid who said, I want to be a teacher. I want to be a high school teacher. I said, well, that's great. And he said, my dad's told me I can't. Because I won't make any money. My dad sent me to a private school. He's got over $100,000 in loans on this thing. I'm not even going to be able to pay back the loans. Well, first of all, your dad's an idiot for spending that money. Because all he did was send you to that school, so somehow he'd feel better about himself. Could have learned the same thing at MCC and ASU. Well, maybe not ASU. U of A. Okay. Well, one of them. NAU.
But you see that? You see that whole process?
The Necessity of Christ's Mission
Jesus says, listen, I've got to go. We're in Matthew chapter 16. Jesus, from that time, began to explain to His disciples, "I must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders and the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and I must be killed, and I'll rise in the third day."
Let me hit the pause button a second, because there's a word in there that's used twice I want to focus on. Jesus says, "I must go." Jesus says, I came to this earth to save my people from their sins. I must do this.
We had a small group once, and we were fairly intense, and we broke up over this issue. Could God have saved man any other way? And there were two camps. There was one that said, yes, He's God, He can do many things, and He could have just forgiven them. There was another camp, the correct camp, my camp, that said no. In fact, the night before He died, isn't that what Jesus said? Father, if there's any other way. Father, if you've got a plan B, let's try it. But there was no other way, because a holy, righteous God had been offended by sin, and the wages of sin is death and judgment, and so somehow that wrath had to be satisfied. Not just forgiven, but satisfied. Some payment had to be made, and the only adequate payment was for a perfect man to live a life, thus Jesus' God-man.
See that? Jesus tells His disciples, I must go, and I must do this. It's not part of an accident, it's part of God's plan.
God's Predetermined Plan
In Acts chapter 2, let me just read this to you. Peter's delivering this sermon to the Jews, and he said this, "Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus of the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs." His point here is that God has done miraculous things in His life. "God performed these through Him in your midst. Just as you yourself know, this man," speaking of Jesus, "delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to the death."
When Jesus died on the cross, that wasn't just that He had a plan that went awry. That wasn't just that His plan was to become an earthly king, and somehow that was going to make God forgive us or satisfy His wrath. No, He had to die. When Christ died on the cross, that was part of the predetermined plan of God. That's why He came.
In your own life, as you figure these things out, make sure you understand not everybody is going to understand this and embrace it.
Commitment Broadens Impact
And we'll close with this. His commitment in this process begins to broaden His impact. Mark chapter 10, they're on the way to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way, and
Understanding Purpose Through Christ's Example
The disciples were astonished while those who followed were afraid. And again He took the twelve aside and He said, "We're going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be betrayed by the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and they will hand Him over to the Gentiles who will mock Him and spit on Him. Three days later He will rise."
Jesus gives them this information. Jesus understands. These guys are following Him. They don't understand the whole program yet. Jesus said, "Here's how this is going to end. I'm going to die. And I'm leaving. And they're going to kill Me." He's already had the encounter with Peter where Peter says, "Don't go." And Jesus says, "Get behind Me, Satan. This is God's plan. Don't talk that way." And now Jesus says, "I'm going to die. This is all crumbling in." And John tells us in his gospel that here's what Thomas said: "Let's go die with Him."
The Power of Understanding Your Purpose
Let me tell you something about understanding a purpose. Once you understand why you're here and understand too that God saved you. That when He saved you, His whole purpose in life was not just to get you to heaven. If that's all He wanted to do, at the moment of conversion, He would have taken you. But He left you here for a reason. When you understand that, there will be passion in your life.
And let me tell you something, that passion is contagious. It's one of the key characteristics of a leader is passion.
Let's do this exercise. If I say to you, "Give me somebody who's a leader," who would you say? George Bush, we'll get that. Who else? George Bush, the junior, not the senior. Who else? Rudy Giuliani. Who else? Colin Powell. Michael Jordan is a leader. You get into Churchill, Lincoln.
The Contagious Nature of Passion
Let me give you a leader. Let me give you a guy that galvanized the nation to a real leader. Adolf Hitler. There's a leader. Isn't he a leader? People lined up for Hitler. What do these guys have in common? What they have in common is passion. And it's contagious.
I went to a guy's house one night, and I get there, and I hear this noise. I knock on the door. I'm there to see him. He doesn't answer the door. I knock on the door. He can't get in. I knock on the door. He doesn't come. I hear noise in there. I open the door. I go in, and I hear this sound. I go around this corner, and this guy's sitting in the chair, listening to this voice.
And I recognize that it's a language or something, and so I talk to him. "Oh, I didn't know you were here." He turns it down. I said, "What was that? What language was that?" He said, "That's German." I said, "Really? Do you know German?" He said, "No." "Well, what was it?" He said, "It's a speech of Adolf Hitler." He said, "I listen to that regularly."
And I said, "Really? Why is that?" And he said, "Listen for a minute." And he turned it up, and I have to admit, it did not grab me like it did him. But what it did was, there's such passion there, that almost like an opera, that just supersedes the language. I'll tell you my friends are Nazis. They're not. But do you see how contagious that is?
Leadership Through Hardship
See, I really believe this. In your life, I think you'll become a leader. As you understand, it may not be a big flock. I'll tell you another thing, and we've got to go here. One of the things I've observed about leaders, the guys you mentioned, those first ones were George W., nobody would have said leader a month ago. Colin Powell.
When you look at a Lincoln, or you look at a Washington, or you look at a Churchill, all of their ability to lead, all of their identification of leader, came in times of hardship too. When there's something about times of hardship, that gives you a great opportunity to be a leader.
Bringing Glory to God Through Completed Purpose
One last point. We've got to stop. In this whole purpose, you bring glory to God. Look at John chapter 17. "After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed, 'Father, the time has come to glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do.'"
You want to take some time and look at John chapter 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. And as you look at them, if you have a red-lettered Bible, where the words of Jesus are in red, you'll see that almost all those words are in red. This is Jesus within hours of His death. And in John 13, 14, 15, 16, He's talking to His disciples. I think thus to you, giving us very important instruction. But in John 17, He begins to pray, and He says this, "Father, I brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do."
I cannot fathom how exhilarating it must be to be able at the end of your life to say, "God, I brought glory to You by doing everything You called me to do." I can tell you this, it won't happen if you don't define it. It's not going to take place.
When Life Is Complete
The last point on your outline, and when is He done? When Jesus cries out, "It is finished." That's when your life is over. So many of the groups we're in and around have people in them who are a little bit older, maybe even retired. God is not done with you until you take your last breath.
All of that to say that as we look at life management, all of these things we'll talk about are important, but the absolute most important is what we looked at today. I have to be able to do the right thing the right way for the right reason. I have to know why God's put me here. I have to know what God's gifted and called me to do. And now I'm ready to live life. Do you know that?
A Plea to Live with Purpose
I really, as powerfully as I can, I plead with you to think about this. Because I'll tell you, if you don't, you're going to waste your life. You're going to get it to the end, and you're going to say, "I should have." You're going to wake up one day, and you're going to go, "You know what? I thought I was on this path, and I'm all the way over here." You're going to live that unexamined life. And your heart is going to be broken.
Don't live that way. Don't die that way.
Let's pray. Father, help us see this. God, thank You for the gift that we
have of eternal life that we find in Your Son, Jesus. And God, if what You wanted to do was get us to heaven, You could have done that when we were saved. But You left us here for a reason, for a purpose. God, reveal to each one of us why we're here, what You'd have us do, how we should live.
God, help us see that in our life there will be passion and adventure as we begin to see You do mighty things through us. All these are of You. The strength is from You. The wisdom is from You. You call us to obey. God, let us be humble, obedient servants. We pray that to You in Jesus' name. Amen.