Secrets To Life Well Lived Part 3: Secrets to Finding Purpose.
Insignificant .
Insignificant means unimportant, trifling, of no consequence,
no influence, no distinction, no value
Insignificant means its not worth the time to pay it any
attention.
I think one of the sadder things that can be said during a person’s eulogy is that
they lived an insignificant life.
They were born, they worked, they procreated, they consumed,
They died, nice person, but really just another brick in the wall,
another social security number.
There was no significance to their lives,
They left “nothing to show they were here.”
(Psalms 103:16)
A life well lived is a significant life.
I want you to live a significant life.
A significant life is a life that made a difference for others.
one that produces for the benefit of others.
one that blessed others.
Don’t you want to live a significant life?
Or would you like to settle for an anorexic life? (Cloud, Integrity, p. 211)
The kind of life that just withers away into insignificance.
Do you want to live a significant life?
Or would you like to settle for a stable but nonpassionate life?
(Cloud, Integrity, p. 213)
A life that is in a dull state of maintaining, (Cloud, Integrity, p. 212);
Enthralled by mindless television and surface relationships and
conversations that swap clichés. (Cloud, Integrity, p. 213)
You get to choose between an insignificant life and a significant one.
Doesn’t matter how old or young you are,
you get to choose today the kind of life you want to live.
In order to live a significant life you need to learn the secrets of finding your
purpose.
There are four secrets that will get you started on your journey of living a
significant life.
Secret Number One:
It all starts with your Creator
Secret Number Two:
Invest in your true self
Secret Number Three:
Discover your gift mix.
Secret Number Four:
You need to go all in.
What I would like to do with the remainder of our time together is to fill you in on
the details of each secret so that you can start putting them to work today.
Secret Number One to Finding your purpose in Life:
It all starts with your Creator
Psalms 139:14-15 (MSG)
Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
The Scriptures reveal that you are not a random accumulation of genetic code,
God made you.
You need to bank on that truth.
You need to believe it, not just with your head,
But because of an encounter with God, in your heart.
To invite a truth migrating experience,
That would be truth moving from your head to your heart,
Where something becomes not just an intellectual
proposition but a way of perceiving life.
You need to practice the 7 Habits of a Disciple.
Bible Study, Prayer, Fellowship, Service, Worship,
Obedience and Contemplation.
History is witness that the habitual practice of these spiritual
disciplines lead to personal encounters with your Creator.
Here’s the proposition--
God made you, so He knows what He made you for.” (Cloud, Secrets, 142)
God knows what your purpose is.
God knows what you are especially designed for so that you
can live a significant life.
You will never live a significant life without God being at the very center of it.
A life well lived is one that God is guiding and empowering.
The key to activating this secret is “Surrender.”
In order to live your life well you have to surrender the life you are
living now and trade it for His life. (Cloud, Secrets, 143)
Matthew 16:24-26 (MSG)
Then Jesus went to work on his disciples. "Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat; I am. Don't run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I'll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?
Accept the fact that you are living an insignificant life.
Believe that Jesus can redeem your life.
Surrender your way of doing life and commit to doing life
God’s way as a disciple of Jesus.
Accepting, Believing , Committing, makes room for God in the command
and control center of your life, you surrender the driver’s seat to Him.
Its only then that you will be empowered to discover your
purpose.
God will take you there.
Secret Number One:
It all starts with your Creator
Secret Number Two to Finding your purpose in Life:
Develop who you are as a disciple of Jesus, as a Christ follower. (Cloud, Secrets, p. 147)
Our next series of messages is going to be focusing on this very thing.
“…who we are on the inside creates much of our outside life.” (Cloud, Secrets, p. 145)
“Who you are on the inside has everything to do with what your life looks
like on the outside.” (Cloud, Secrets, p. 147)
Recorded in Matthew’s gospel are seven woes pronounced by Jesus upon the
Pharisees.
Notice the big problem Jesus is identifying.
Matthew 23:25-28 (NIV)
"Woe to you,
teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the
cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind
Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also
will be clean.
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like
whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are
full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside
you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy
and wickedness.
What is inside the person determines whether or not they will live a significant life.
Your thoughts, your attitudes, you inclinations, your dispositions are all
inside.
Character the inside stuff creates conduct the outside stuff.
This secret encourages you to do what it takes to grow as a human being.
It’s a call to invest time in becoming the person God created you to be.
If you’re honest you can identify deficits in yourself. (Cloud, Secrets, pp. 152-153)
that are keeping you from being the person that you sense deep inside
that you are supposed to be.
How you do relationships,
your relational style is a great place to start looking.
If you think you don’t have any deficits just ask someone close to you to
be very honest with you.
Feedback helps us identify our blind spots.
Trust issues, anger issues, perfectionism, driveness, fear,
Control issues, authority issues, avoidance, failure to thrive,
Self medicating problems, present themselves when something
is broken inside of us.
We tend to work on correcting the outside behavior,
But it’s the inside that needs to be cleaned up.
The best cleansing agent for this job is love.
Don’t think this is self-help I’m encouraging you to delve into.
What I want for you is transformational experiences.
One of those ah-ha moments that radically changes the way you think.
Transformational experiences occur when you have encounters
with God.
We usually invest our time and energy into the urgent stuff of life.
That’s why God gave us the Sabbath.
The Sabbath is the day of resting from working for a living,
And living the day instead.
It’s a day to invest in your relationships—
With God, Others, and your self.
Sabbath: Rest, Reflect, Renew
I encourage you to spend part of each Sabbath asking God to show you how
to invest in yourself so that you can fulfill the purposes that He has
created for you.
Ephesians 2:10 (MSG)
He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
You’ve got two secrets for discovering your purpose in life
It all starts with your Creator
Invest in your True Self.
Secret Number Three to Finding your purpose in Life:
Discover your gift mix.
I’m sure you have all heard that God gives to each of His children spiritual gifts.
I’ve likened these spiritual gifts to your job description in the Kingdom.
So discovering your gifts leads to using your gifts which is going to
lead you into discovering your purpose.
1 Corinthians 12:4-7 (MSG)
God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people!
In your notes you find three websites that offer you free spiritual gift inventories.
You will answer a series of questions about yourself,
Your answers will be tabulated revealing your probable gift mix.
http://www.churchgrowth.org/cgi-cg/gifts.cgi?intro=1
http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgift/
http://mintools.com/spiritual-gifts-test.htm
You will probably find out that you are already inclined towards using these gifts.
No surprise since God designed you,
He has something specific in your make up that doing it will fulfill
your purpose and satisfy your heart.
Doing your spiritual gifts well will result in living a significant life.
That leaves you with some homework to do.
If you don’t have access to a computer—the public library has them along
with someone who can show you how to use it.
Any of those three tools will help you identify the things that just might be
your spiritual gift.
Once you have an idea as to how God has already equipped you ,
You need to start developing your skills in using your gifts.
Some of you have already taken a gifts inventory,
Have you acted on it?
The Apostle Paul gives us some good advice about developing your spiritual gifts.
Romans 12:1 (MSG)
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Romans 12:2 (MSG)
Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out.
Romans 12:3 (MSG)
I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
\
Romans 12:5-8 (MSG)
So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't. If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.
Then some advice not from Paul
Proverbs 15:22 (MSG)
Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed.
Your spiritual gifts point you in the direction of your purpose.
Discover your gifts, develop your skills and get to work,
Its how significant lives start.
Secrets To living a significant life
It all starts with your Creator
Invest in your True Self.
Discover your gift mix.
Secret Number Four to Finding your purpose in Life:
You need to go all in. (Cloud, Secrets, p. 166)
There is a card game that is very popular right now called Texas Hold em.
It’s a gambling game and we Nazarenes really frown on gambling knowing
the destruction it can lead to not to mention the poor stewardship of
your resources that it can be.
And with that said I was playing at one of our board members home and
when you get a hand that you think you can’t loose on,
you do something called “All In”
and push all your pretzels into the pot.
Going “all in” is a total commitment of your resources.
Not an act of desperation, but an act of confidence.
You know you have a sure thing so you make a total
commitment based on that belief.
That’s an act of faith.
It’s going to take you going all in to discover the purpose of your life.
You have to go all in banking on God’s faithfulness.
The way you live your life to the full,
The way you live your life well,
Is to go all in with God.
James 1:5-8 (MSG)
If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who "worry their prayers" are like wind-whipped waves. Don't think you're going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open.
As you continue to rely on God,
Continue to invest in yourself,
Once you begin to see your gift mix,
You’ve got to start doing what your gifts enable you to do.
Don’t be like the third guy in the story of the talents, (Matthew 25:20)
Boss gives a different sum of money to three of his employees
according to their abilities and sets them free to increase what
he’s given them.
First two guys took the money and doubled it.
The last guy didn’t do anything with what the boss gave him.
He got fired.
If you are a believer, God has already given you gifts according to your
abilities, what are you doing with God’s investment in you?
Going all in, means once you’ve discovered your spiritual gift, you do what is
necessary in being effective to carry out the ministry that the gift enables
you to do.
You can’t get from where you are today to living out your purpose without a
whole-hearted commitment.
You must make a whole-hearted commitment to being a disciple.
Everything rises and falls on your relationship to God.
You must make a whole-hearted commitment to activating the
Secrets 2 & 3
Invest in your true self,
Discover your gift mix.
You must make a whole-hearted commitment to take advantage of the
opportunities, resources, new experiences that living the first
three secrets create.
If you are going to live your life well, a life of significance you need to start doing
the stuff you were created for, you have to start fulfilling your purpose.
To find your purpose in life you need to activate four secrets
It all starts with your Creator
Invest in your true self
Discover your gift mix.
Go “all in.”
Activate those secrets in our life today and you will start living a life that will be a
blessing to others.
Because of you someone’s life will be better.
Because of you someone may come to know the love of God.
And when this life is all said and done the final word is
because of whose you are,
who you became and
the contributions you made,
you lived a significant life.
God, Me, Gift, Go