“What Needs You Most”

Series: “Do You Count?”

September 1, 2019, Labor Day Sermon

Abraham Maslow was a name you may have run across at some point during your college days.  An American psychologist of the last century, Maslow attained no small amount of fame from his theory of psychological health based on a fulfillment of a series of needs.  He explained his theory in terms of a pyramid, which begins at the bottom with one’s basic need for survival and safety and builds up to the top toward more developed needs such as belonging and self-esteem.  And of course, at the very pinnacle of Maslow’s pyramid of needs was something he termed “self-actualization,” which he defined as a person’s ability to live into his or her “full potential.”   

I certainly remember the first time I was exposed to Maslow’s model and how it reinforced for me what I had been taught growing up in church – that the path to fulfillment lies in finding a way to take the focus off of myself and to direct it toward others, especially the ways in which I might use my gifts and talents to make life more fulfilling for others.  That’s a pretty heady aim for one’s life and faith, which is perhaps that’s why Maslow never thought there were more than a handful of humans throughout history that had ever managed to attain it.  Maslow literally could count on one hand the number of people he could identity who had discovered the secret to unlocking their own potential in life by coming down off of their “high horse” so to speak in order to give of themselves in service to others.

As I thought, so you would as well that Maslow would have also connected religious belief to his theories of personal development.  After all, most religions do contain some element of selfless service.  But surprisingly, (and somewhat shockingly to me Maslow viewed most religion as “pathological,” in large measure because of how he saw religion as a huge constraint on human potential and something that prevents people from becoming their best selves.

How do we reconcile that observation with our own deep-seated religious beliefs?  I like to think that Maslow simply didn’t meet enough folk whose lives were ordered by the Bible’s liberating lessons, particularly its lessons on living graciously and generously, and sharing God’s abundance with those around them in great need.

We see one of those lessons from this passage before us this morning from the book of Deuteronomy.  Deuteronomy is a book in the Bible that has been unfairly tagged with the reputation of being constraining.  Indeed, Deuteronomy contains numerous commands by which God’s people are called to live as they ready themselves to pass over into Canaan, the Land of Promise, after their forty year sojourn in the wilderness.  But the purpose of the vast majority of Deuteronomy’s commands is to enlarge God’s people’s hearts and to loosen their souls by reminding them of their obligation to one another, especially those who for various reasons may have found themselves holding the short end of life’s stick.

For example, note the teaching I read for you from the fifteenth chapter of Deuteronomy.  Moses is speaking to the children of Israel and he is emphasizing the need for each of them to be ready to show support for those in their community who cannot make a way for themselves.  “Because there will always be poor people in the land, I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy.”  In other words, because there are those in life who are greedy and hardhearted and think there is only so much to go around, there will consequently be those who will be denied an opportunity to prosper and grow.  Therefore, people of deep faith must be always ready to do what we can with what we have to help those who are around us make their way.  God’s generosity must always flow through us so that it ultimately wins out over callousness and uncaring.

Interestingly enough, Jesus appealed to this passage on that occasion when he was visiting in the home of a man named Simon the Leper in Bethany, which was also the hometown of Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary and Martha.  It was Passover time, and Jesus could sense that the hour of his death was becoming more imminent by the day.  In fact, the chief priests and elders of the Jewish people were already plotting a way to arrest Jesus and silence him.  The Gospels tell us that while he was preparing for dinner, sister Mary approached Jesus with a pint of expensive perfume and proceeded to anoint the feet of Jesus with it, wiping them with her hair.  When Judas, the disciple who would soon betray Jesus, objected to what he saw as a waste of good money, Jesus chided him by quoting this passage from Deuteronomy: “The poor you will always have with you, (and then adding to it) but you will not always have me” (John 12:8).   

Ask most people what Jesus was saying and they will answer you with some nihilistic explanation about the inevitability of poverty in this world, which makes Jesus sound awfully cold, as if he was preferring to focus all the attention on himself.  But that’s not what Jesus was doing.  Jesus was instead honoring Mary’s faith for she understood and was proclaiming that which he was about to do – die for the sins of the world – and (here is the important point) seizing the opportunity to anoint his body in preparation for his death.  In other words, Jesus wasn’t saying that we should ignore the poor or give up trying to meet their needs.  By no means was he saying such a thing.  Jesus was saying instead that people of faith should emulate Mary’s example and be constantly on the lookout for chances to meet the needs that are right at our doorstep, seizing those opportunities when they present themselves so that through our generosity we might best reflect the heart of our generous God.

I know we live in a day of great need.  I know if we’re not careful, we can wear ourselves out thinking about what we can do to address what at times seem to be insurmountable demands.  But when we fail to take advantage of any of the many opportunities to meet the needs that are close by to us, we in effect become clogs in the arteries of God’s gracious heart; and while God will most certainly find others with hearts big enough to do His work, we will find ourselves spiritually and soulfully impoverished in the process.

Think about it this way.  How much more fulfilling would your life be if you simply started paying attention to the needs that are around you and began giving yourself to those needs that struck the deepest chords in your heart?  How much more purposeful would each day go if you began focusing your attention away from yourself and began opening your heart to what God might do through you to bless other people who are finding the way difficult?  As the Renaissance humanist and Catholic saint Thomas More once wrote, (When you come to that sort of place in life, it) “is like discovering your soul in the world.”   

Have you made such a discovery?  Have you found the need that needs you and have you become a better and more mature person for it?

Andrea  Jaeger was a world class tennis player in the 1980’s before her budding career was ended at age 19 by a shoulder injury.  At age 14 she won her first professional tournament and at 18, she reached the finals at Wimbledon.  For a while thereafter she struggled by her own admission to find her place in life.  But in her 30’s she began a nonprofit organization called Kids Stuff Foundation that brings hope and joy to children who are suffering from life-threatening illnesses.  Because of her success on the tennis court during her brief career, Jaeger is able to run the organization full-time and without pay.  As she explains her transition from being a star to becoming a servant, she says, “You get very spoiled on the pro tour.  There are the courtesy cars and the five-star hotels, and all the people clapping and cheering just because you hit a good shot.  It’s easy to forget what’s important in life.”  And as she thought for a moment about the life she is now living and the good she is now doing and the needs she is now meeting, she concluded in this way: “I forget a lot less lately.”

This coming week don’t you forget to notice the needs that are all around you and pick the one that needs you most.  What you’ll discover is that as you give your heart and soul to meeting it, your heart and soul will come alive.  And that’s what this world needs now more than ever – people whose hearts and souls have come alive with the love of God. 

There will always be poor people in the land; yes, that’s certainly true.  Let’s just make sure that we do our part to see to it that there will be enough people with hearts and souls that are alive to respond to them and their needs; for only then will God’s blessings flow freely to all and only then will everyone have the chance to experience what God sent Jesus to enable all of us to know – a full life, a purposeful life, life everlasting, life in all its abundance. 

Sunday's Sermon

1 Peter 2:9

“A Distinction with a Difference” Series: “Do You Count?” August 25, 2019

The Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was minted by the United States Department of Treasury in 1991 as a replacement for what they thought was the more cumbersome and therefore underutilized Eisenhower coin. Their reasoning was that the American public would jump all over the more manageable Anthony coin and begin using it instead of having to pull out dollar bills from their purses or wallets. It was instead a big bust, one of the biggest busts in the history of the U.S. Mint. The public refused to embrace the dollar coin, but not so much because of its metallic content or its odd eleven-sided edge, or even because it bore the likeness of a woman who was a social activist in her day, a century earlier. The overwhelming majority of American consumers refused to use the Susan B. Anthony dollar mainly because it just looked too much like a quarter. It was a distinct coin; but it wasn’t distinct enough to make a difference. You might have thought you were giving someone a quarter, when in fact, you were forking over to them a coin that carried a much larger value. I think you see the problem. It was just too confusing.

When I think about how we Christians today are, generally speaking, less respected and considered less relevant than our tribe was in past years, I wonder if it’s not for similar reasons. Yes, we are in so many ways distinct from those around us who do not claim to follow Jesus. We forego certain behaviors. We support certain causes. We spend our time on Sundays in a place like this instead of some other place. I could preach a sermon series on the distinctions (and at some point in my ministry, I probably have). But in spite of all of these distinctions, at the end of the day we fail to make a real difference. We fail to “move the needle” as far as our society goes, and more times than not, we are influenced more by our prevailing culture than we are able to exert upon it.

None of this, of course, is what God intended when He sent His Son to redeem us. When God sent Jesus to form a people unto Himself, God’s intent was that we, in the words of Peter in his first epistle, “declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.”

This morning we have before us this verse of Scripture from 1 Peter. Peter is a name familiar to you if you’ve spent a day of your life in Sunday School. He was one of Jesus’ closest disciples. He was the one disciple who after the resurrection was instructed by Jesus to “feed my sheep” (John 21:15-19).

This letter represents Simon Peter’s efforts to show obedience to Jesus’ command. Written later in Peter’s life, this first letter is taken up with important words of instructions Peter gives to new Christians, believers who have come to faith in Jesus Christ out of a pagan Roman setting. They’re Gentiles, not Jews. They’ve never been instructed in the ways of Abraham, Moses, David, or the prophets. They’ve been brought up instead with names like Jupiter, Minerva, Venus, and Mercury. But Peter, of course, was Jewish, and was therefore brought up with the belief that God had always had a people who would be about His business in this world. Thus Peter saw the need to help these new Christians comprehend both the privilege and the responsibility of what remarkable salvation God had made possible for them through Jesus Christ.

Drawing upon Old Testament passages in Exodus (19:6) and Malachi (3:17), Peter impresses upon his readers that they, too, are special people in God’s sight. Note the words Peter uses and imagine how these words would have swelled the souls of those new believers, who were no doubt being ostracized and ridiculed for their newfound faith in Jesus. “You are a chosen people. You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation. You are God’s special possession.” How these words must have come as a breath of fresh air after all the invectives and insults that had been hurled against them by the prevailing culture.

But note as well how Peter leverages this litany of acclamation to inspire these new believers to make something out of their distinct calling. “Yes, you are special. But God has set you apart so that you may declare His praises to your neighbors because of the changes He has brought about by bringing you out of your old darkness into the marvelous light in which you are now living.” What Peter wants his readers to understand and embrace is that their life is now marked just as much by responsibility as it is privilege. Their distinction is for a difference, that difference being their faithful service in representing God’s presence and extending God’s mercy in every place in their world where God might choose to put them.

Come to think of it, that’s also what God expects of us, is it not? You and I must, in the same way, take seriously our responsibility to illumine, as it were, the places we live, work, study, and play, with the light of Jesus Christ; for if we do not, who then will?

So, how do we do that?

This is a delicate subject, but I’m going to go there anyway. Let’s think about tattoos for a moment. Some twenty-five years ago, when I left the Huntsville area to assume the pastorate of a church in Tallahassee, Florida, there was a lot I wasn’t prepared for. Tallahassee was a different culture; it had a different “vibe,” if you please, from anything I had ever known. One difference was the number of people who sported tattoos, not the henna-type wannabe tattoos. I’m talking about the real thing – with needles and dyes and side street shops in the shady side of town.

I remember thinking to myself, “What makes a person go through such a painful experience?” My assumption was that those persons with tattoos just wanted to be different. It was a novelty (though that certainly is not the case any longer, at least not in the Florida Panhandle). I figured that most of them had made an impulsive decision that they’d probably later regret. (Indeed, the statistics say that a quarter of Americans who get tattooed will later have it surgically removed. If you’re looking for an investment opportunity, then that might be a good one.) That was my assumption, and it was not entirely correct.

I learned that for some people a tattoo was their way of declaring something to the world – something personally important and purposeful. Certainly, I ran across more than my share of people who were just acting out with their tattoo or trying to prove their bravado. But just as often I’d come across someone who saw their tattoo as a means of remembering something significant or commemorating something transformative. I met people who saw their tattoos as a way of expressing control over their bodies after having suffered some form of assault or trauma. I met people whose tattoos even served as a kind of visual timeline for life-changing events. I discovered that for many their tattoo had become a means by which they could express themselves and their stories, not just in a different way, but also in a distinct one.

Now, you can rest easy, parents. I’m not suggesting that you should allow your children to run down to the local tattoo parlor on the Southside and come back with their bodies covered in ink. Remember, my wife and I raised two children during our days in the Panhandle, one of whom was the freest of spirits. And listen carefully, young people, especially those who parents may not be here this morning. Don’t go home and beg for permission to get a tattoo because “Dr. Dortch said it was OK.” That’s a conversation you have to have with your parents on your own merits.

But what I do want to mark your heart with this morning is a reminder of that one whom I trust you have met who laid bare his holy arm and was pierced for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, that one who on Calvary’s cross took up our infirmities and carried all our sorrows, that one whom on the third day God raised from the dead to a place of power and glory so that through our faith in him we have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.

God has called each of us to a place where He wants us at this time. Our task is in those places to display not just the different but the distinct mark of a Christian whose life is a shining example of something that can only be explained in terms of God. Otherwise, our life and our witness aren’t worth a plugged nickel, much less a Susan B. Anthony dollar. But when we are faithful, Christ’s light shines in the darkness and the darkness, no matter how great, will be turned into God’s new day.

Women's Ministry Fall KickOff 2019

34Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said:

“Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take
up their cross and follow Me. 35For whoever wants to save their life
will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me and for the gospel will
save it. 36What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet
forfeit their soul? 37Or what can anyone give in exchange for
their soul?
Mark 8:34-37 (NIV)

I am old enough to remember when car alarms were a “new thing.” Some of you will remember that time as well. When car alarms first came out, they were super sensitive devices. You could walk by a car with no intention of trying to get inside of it and the alarm would go off. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant experience for an alarm to go off like that and have everyone be looking your way as if you were some kind of a car thief.   

I remember one time being in a parking lot and passing a Pinto that was being protected by such an alarm. It was an old car that had clearly seen its better days. The paint had dulled on the car. Rust had set in. The bumpers had been duct taped to hold them to the body. And sure enough, as soon as I got too close, the car alarm started blaring.   

After I had made it to a safe distance to where I was no longer a threat to the Pinto, I had to chuckle over the whole scene. Here was a car that you’d be hard pressed to get $500 for and it was being protected by an alarm system that cost much more than that. Talk about an absurdity. The owner had invested in an alarm system that had more value than the vehicle it was watching over.

I think that story is a parable of sorts as to where too many people are today in terms of what they value and how much they think some things are worth. In other words, sometimes the things that keep us up at night are the things we think may have immense value when in reality they have little to do with what matters most in life. They are fleeting things. They are things that have a shelf life and are therefore have little worth in the grand scheme of things.
 

Or consider those times when our curiosity gets the best of us when it comes to other people and we ask ourselves the question, “What are they worth?” And what are we asking about with such a question? We don’t mean, “How valuable is that person to the church or the community?” We’re not really pondering the state of that person’s witness or level of character. We’re asking the question from a purely economic standpoint? “How much is he worth?” “How much is she worth?” But don’t you think that we would be better served by asking such a question in terms of something more than money. After all, it’s quite possible for someone to be a huge success in life in one sense of the word and in another sense to be living a life that is really not worth much at all.

So spoke Jesus to his disciples in this passage that is before us this morning from Mark’s Gospel. This particular teaching is a part of a collection of teachings by Jesus on discipleship. Jesus has just shared with his disciples his first prediction of his impending death. Simon Peter responds by sounding an alarm as to how Jesus’ prediction hardly fits into the plans Peter had for their burgeoning enterprise. For his part, Jesus hears the voice of Satan in Peter’s rebuke and thus commands Satan to “get behind me.” After which, he essentially invites the disciples to do the same thing: “Get behind me.” “All  of the rest of you, get behind me as well.” “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.”

It’s not just a coincidence that Jesus would voice the same message back to back. No, Jesus is trying to impress a deep spiritual truth on his disciples. Jesus knows (and he wants his disciples to know) that the most worthwhile path in life, the path that holds the most value, is the path that is marked with self-denial and sacrifice because of how in terms of life’s ledger sheet, gains and losses must never be measured in the short term, but rather from the light of eternity. 

Consequently, Jesus launches into this teaching that is before us this morning that is couched in all manner of economic categories. Listen to his language. Jesus sounds like Larry Kudlow.  “What does it benefit a person to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? What can a person pay back in exchange for his soul?” I hear this passage and I can just see the two columns and the pluses and minuses, the credits and the debits, the assets and the liabilities. But when you get to the bottom double line, what Jesus is saying is that he is seeking to create a community of disciples who find ultimate value in life by following him more than anything else.

Are you a part of that community of disciples? Have you located your value in life through your relationship with Jesus? Or have you spent your time and energy chasing after things that might have proven meaningful for the moment but ultimately turned out to be of little value whatsoever?

Guy de Maupassant was a French author from the 19th century who was a representative of what has been called the “Naturalist School.” Authors from that perspective wrote stories depicting people who found themselves in alarming circumstances, often through no fault of their own

He wrote a number of short stories, but probably his most famous was the one he titled “The Necklace.” You probably had to read it when you were back in high school. It’s the story of an ordinary young woman named Mathilde who has this dream of making it in high French society. What she would give to be able to run in those circles. But her husband is a common man as well, so what hopes does she have of ever knowing any worth beyond what she already knows?   

But one day, lo and behold, Mathilde’s husband receives an invitation for them to attend an elegant ball. For Mathilde, it is a dream come true. But what is she to wear? How does she prove herself to be worthy of such an opportunity? She borrows a beautiful necklace from a wealthy friend, and to her immense delight, when she arrives at the party, her necklace draws numerous complements from the rest of the guests.

But then a terrible thing happens. She loses the necklace. Her husband and she look high and low, and panic-stricken at not locating the necklace they decide they must borrow the money for a suitable replacement, one that her friend will never notice as such. And so they do, shelling out a great deal of money to buy a necklace just like the one she had borrowed, and when Mathilde brings it to her friend, she simply returns it as if nothing had ever happened.   

For ten agonizing years, the couple slaved and toiled to pay back the money they had borrowed for the expensive necklace. They sold their home; they worked at two jobs; then even moved into a poorer part of town to put back enough money to raise the necessary funds.

Finally, they paid the debt and felt liberated – so much so that one day when Mathilde saw her friend, she felt the urge to confess what her husband and she had done. She spoke about all the sacrifices they had made to pay for the replacement necklace. When she had finished her story, it was only then that the friend explained to Mathilde that the necklace she had borrowed was only made of paste. It was a cheap imitation. It had not that much monetary value at all, and really even less emotional value.

Imagine how Mathilde must have felt. It’s probably not that much of a stretch for you to do so. All around us are people who are frantically slaving and toiling to get to some pasty place in life that has little real value. They have exchanged their souls for a life that has little worth and along the way they have cheapened themselves because of their wrong choices and their misplaced motivations.

Hear me carefully, please. People who follow hard after Jesus will never spend their life on things that cause them to lose their soul. They will never have to look back at their lives with massive regrets. They will never measure their existence by how much they receive out of life in comparison to what they give. They will rather find their worth by focusing on giving much, much more than they would ever hope to receive. They will lose their lives in order to find them; and they will thus be just like Jesus, the one they have chosen to follow, whose presence gives their lives more value than anything in this world money could ever buy. 

Dream A Bigger Dream

1 John 3:19-24 and 4:1-6

1 John 4:1

You’ve probably heard the story of the man who was sitting in a window seat on an airplane flying across the desert in Arizona. The desert sun was shining white-hot on the parched earth below and the man was the only passenger on that side of the plan who had not pulled down his window shade to keep out the glare. In contrast to the other passengers who were sitting in window seats, this man kept looking out the window and actually seemed to be enjoying the scene down below.  

After a while, the person sitting next to him in the aisle seat got curious and asked, “Excuse me, but what do you see down there in that wasteland that makes you smile?” To which the man in the window seat answered somewhat apologetically, “Oh, it’s just that I’m in the irrigation business, and I was sitting here thinking if we could only get water to this desert how we could turn it into a lush garden.”  

Now that’s a big dream, and I’m not so sure that most of us could join him in imagining such a thing. That’s because most of us struggle with small-sightedness. We don’t tend to take the time or go to the effort to see what could be. We don’t give much thought to how we might leverage our talents and abilities to work for big changes. We dream in wallet-sized categories and we’re pretty much content with accepting things as they are.  

In our defense, much of our small-sightedness is because of how we have had too many dreams shot down by the comments of others. It’s remarkable, is it not, how our hearts can get shrunken in size by the things that others tell us?  

For example, has there been a time in your life when you’ve harbored some big hope, only to have someone pour water on it by saying something like, “You have got to be kidding,” or “You’re getting too far out over your skis,” or “You don’t have the resources to pull that off.” Trust me when I tell you that as a pastor of a local church for over 40 years, I have heard more than my share of what I call “killer phrases” – phrases that can cut off a dream before it has any chance of growing legs.   

But in order for us to experience anything that resembles the largeness of life to which we are called through our faith in Jesus Christ, we must reject any such talk and choose instead to focus on the voice of the Holy Spirit, the One who will guide us into places of boldness and daring where we realize things that few people could ever know.  

That’s the encouragement we receive in this passage that’s before us this morning from John’s first epistle. 1 John comes from Jesus’ beloved disciple, who was at the time of this letter at what we might call an advanced age, but who, out of his vast years of experience following Jesus, offers counsel to his readers that they might know more fully what he calls in the first chapter of his letter “the Word of Life” (1 John 1:1) and the subsequent “complete joy” (1 John 1:4) that living for Jesus always brings. 

In this section of his letter John challenges his readers to scrutinize carefully every word of instruction that comes their way, because not all of them will have their best interests at heart. “Dear friends,” he writes, “do not (continue) to believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.”  Evidently there were some in John’s day who mistook gullibility for good counsel and ended up buying in to ideas and viewpoints that were keeping them from knowing the power of divine love that had come into the world through the very person of Jesus Christ. Instead of living boldly and brashly, they were living tentatively and fearfully. Instead of undertaking major tasks, they were wallowing in minor matters. Instead of knowing life, they were having life sucked right out of them. Perhaps that’s why a little later in this chapter, John seeks to embolden them by reminding them of how “there is no fear in love. But perfect love (the kind of love that God has shown us in Jesus Christ) has a way of driving out all fear” (1 John 4:18).  

I think all of us understand how vulnerable we are to the constraints others seek to place upon us and, even worse, the constraints we tend to place on ourselves. I think all of us understand how exasperating it is to get to a place where on the verge of finally doing something meaningful and significance, but then a voice (or as John would put it, a spirit) gets into our heads and our hearts, telling us that we’re being silly ever to consider doing such a thing.   

What John would remind us is that dreaming a bigger dream for our lives is something that God must awaken in us. Dreaming a bigger dream requires our openness to God’s love for us and our confidence that God wills the best for us. Dreaming such a dream means that we are drawn into something much larger than ourselves, something that involves activity that only the power of the Holy Spirit could produce.   

What about your life this morning? What are some of the possibilities that are calling to you, which you would gladly undertake if you were not so afraid? What are others telling you or what are you telling yourself that is keeping you from seizing those possibilities?   

Or let’s think about it another way. When have you experienced a time in your life that was so profoundly of God that it stopped you in your tracks or moved you to tears? How did it change your life? How did it fill your heart with “complete joy?” I dare say that most of us tend to be driven by the first series of questions that are marked by fear and trepidation, nervousness and apprehension. But when we choose instead to reject those evil spirits for the truth of God’s Holy Spirit and the loving voice He speaks to us, we have nothing to fear and we have everything to gain.  

No doubt John, the author of this epistle, remembered this truth from his time following Jesus, as Jesus gave his disciples teachings that would change them and then move them to change the world. One of those teachings is recorded in the 10th chapter of John’s Gospel, where Jesus is describing himself to his critics as the Good Shepherd and his disciple are overhearing the exchange. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “the man who enters the sheep pen by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.  He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice” (John 10:1-5). And how does John recall the response of Jesus’ opponents? “They did not understand what (Jesus) was telling them” (John 10:6).  

Do you understand? If so, then you will never be content with a little dream. You’ll know that little dreams never stir up anything or anyone and fall far, far short of the business to which God calls us as His people, a work that involves, in the words of the Psalmist, “turning the deserts into pools of water and the parched ground into flowing springs” (Ps. 107:35).   

Ernest Campbell was the pastor of the great Riverside Church in Upper Manhattan back in the 1970’s. In one of his sermons he offered what I think is a most memorable line. “It has been said that the two most important days in every person’s life are the day on which that person was born and the day on which he discovers why he was born.”   

The reason that line is so memorable is not so much because of one’s birthdate. The fact of the matter is that we rarely miss celebrating our birth date. The more memorable part is the second part – the part that has to do with understanding the purpose for which we were born. Sadly, there are too many people walking around today who have no clue as to “why” they were born. They have no clue as to what their purpose in life really is.  

As with most things in life today, or so it seems, experts in this area tend to hang this millstone on the millennial generation – that segment of society that reached young adulthood in this century. The charge they make is that this group has such a sense of entitlement that the topics of purpose and significance have no way of ever becoming front-burner issues. But I think that charge is unfair. Granted, there may be some in their twenties and thirties who have yet to give thought to why they are on this planet taking up precious space, but there are also plenty of us older folk who haven’t come to a clear understanding ourselves, which may be why the older some of us get and the more birthdays we have to celebrate, the more anxious and unsettled we become – even to the point of not paying attention to birthdays anymore. In other words, if we haven’t figured out what our life’s purpose is by our fifties or our sixties or even older, then we ask ourselves the question, “Will we ever figure it out, or will we end up running out of time?”  

I don’t know of anything more our faith in Christ has to offer this day in which we’re living more than a means by which people can discover their purpose in life. From the book of Genesis all the way to the book of Revelation, the Bible is filled with verses and stories of men and women, boys and girls, “created in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27), who have discovered the immeasurable bliss of being in the center of God’s will and bringing His Kingdom purposes to pass.  

This morning we have before us a passage from 2 Peter, where believers are being encouraged by instruction that will prepare them for the demands of discipleship in a world in which those who follow Christ are in the minority. Peter begins his letter by reminding his readers that God’s power has provided everything necessary for what he calls a “godly life.” All that is required of us who call ourselves Christians is that we open our hearts to “the knowledge of him” that our faith in Jesus has made possible so that we might be in a good place to answer his glorious and good call.   

What’s most striking to me about this teaching is that our answer to God’s call in Christ is not simply a “one-time affair.” It’s not a “one and done” decision. It’s instead an ongoing confession so that as Peter spells out all of the qualities that demonstrate a believer’s heart for the things of God, he also emphasizes the importance of developing them in a continual way. Notice in particular verse 8: “For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  

Might it be that one of the primary reasons so many confessing Christians fail to live with purpose and significance is because of at some point along life’s way their witness became stagnant and slothful simply because they quit growing in the gifts and the graces that faith in Jesus makes possible? Might it be that whereas at one point those persons felt alive and useful, as one day led into the next other concerns and commitments began to creep into their hearts so that before long they “lost their first love” (Rev. 2:4) and the power to make a difference for Christ in the places where they lived, worked, and played?  

If I hear Simon Peter correctly, the main difference between merely “living” and “living with a purpose” is first believing and then acting as if God has put you in a place where things there depend on your faithful obedience to Him. Unfortunately, too many folk occupy spaces in this world where they don’t actually believe that God cares whether they’re there or not, when the fact of the matter is that God intentionally calls us to certain places and certain tasks so that in those places and through those tasks we might channel (as Peter writes) God’s “divine power” so that those places might be ones in which God’s redemptive purposes come to pass.   

Is that how your life looks? Can you honestly say that you have claimed God’s call in the places where He has put you so that His divine power flows through you and you are having an impact for God in ways that enable you to be productive and effective and to know the bliss of being in the center of His will? Does your life reflect a growing maturity so that the power of Christ’s resurrection is evident in everything you say and do?  

As you can tell, I spent a good part of my sabbatical leave in the sun. (My dermatologist will most likely be telling me I spent way too much time there.) Judy and I went to the beach a good bit, and since both of us are major league people watchers, there was a lot to observe. After all, people are fascinating, are they not?   

One of the things I noticed about people at the beach is that everyone has a certain threshold when it comes to getting into the water. Some people never leave the safety of their beach umbrellas. The water holds no attraction for them at all. Others are content only to stick their feet in the water and go no more. But there are still others who cannot wait to plunge out into the deep end, either with the help of a surf board or a paddle board or some of them with nothing at all other than the mortal bodies God gave them.   

The preacher in me couldn’t help but wonder why this is so. I concluded that some of the people in the shallow end are children, who have to grow up a bit before they can venture out any farther. Others of them may have had some bad experiences in the deep end and don’t care to go out that far from the shore anymore.  But there are some beachgoers who have either grown up enough or managed to overcome their fear of the deep end or have found some implement or gismo that could help them launch out in ways that never thought they would be able to do.   

I hope you can see the application. Too many Christians are content with the merest smattering of faith.  They never desire to get out into the deep end of life. But no doubt as Peter was writing this letter he couldn’t help but think about the time that the other disciples and he were out fishing when early toward dawn they saw a figure coming toward them walking on the water. At first they thought it was a ghost, until they heard Jesus encourage them with his words: “It is I.” You remember the rest of the story, do you not? Peter asked Jesus to invite him to join Jesus on the surface of the water, and when Jesus did so, Peter did fine, until he took his eyes off Jesus and quickly began to sink.   

Most sermons and Sunday School lessons chide Peter for taking his eyes off Jesus, when in truth it was only Peter who dared leap out into the deep in order to experience for himself the divine power that Jesus knew.   

Where is Jesus calling you this morning to join him in a work that might change this world into the world God created it to be? The day you will be able to answer that question will be the day that you will come to know “why” you were born, and it will also be the day that your life takes on even more the life of Jesus.  

What a truly great day that will be, and there’s no reason whatsoever that by trusting your life to God’s divine power, today can’t finally and forever be it.