Our goal in life - and how to achieve it

One of the challenges that I have faced as a pastor, although I don't know if other pastors have this problem, but one of the challenges I have faced as a pastor is:

When I am on holidays, where do I go to church?

You want to be in church on Sundays, of course, but your congregation says that you need to go elsewhere, because if you come "here", then you won't really be having a break. But come Sunday morning I know that there is really no other place that I would rather be than in the church where I am the pastor. So what do you do? Where do you go?

I remember one Sunday years ago while we were still at Wattle Grove, I was on holidays, but we still went to Wattle Grove that particular Sunday, which made the church elder very nervous because he was preaching, and you don’t want to make someone nervous.

Then there was the Sunday during one of our holidays when we were eighteen kilometres out in the bush from Walpole, with stormy weather threatening, so we felt it best to stay in our cabin, and we had a wonderful time of worship together in our cabin. We had our devotions and prayer time. We watched a couple of episodes of a Christian training course on DVD, and we had the chance to watch Songs of Praise on TV.

But there was one particular Sunday during that same holiday when we were invited by a friend of ours to attend her church. So we did, and it was great to catch up with people we hadn't seen for a while, and to meet some new ones, and it was wonderful to see how God was leading and using this particular congregation as they served God where they were, and how they were reaching out to the community with the Good News about Jesus.

However, this particular Sunday they had a guest speaker, after all, this was in January, and January is normally the time when pastors take their holidays. This guest speaker's background was in the field of business, marketing, and what this individual had done for a living was to help businesses formulate their "Mission Statement", that is, what that particular business believed was their purpose as a business, and having guided them in understanding their purpose, they then helped that business to discover how they were going to achieve that purpose.

This person shared how they had worked with the Commonwealth Bank, among many others, to help them to develop their business' "Mission Statements", which was fine, but then, still using their own background in business and marketing, what this individual said was that each individual Christian needed to develop their own "Mission Statement". Their own "purpose for existence”, and having determined their purpose for existence, they were then to determine how they were going to achieve that purpose.

So the speaker said that we each need to look at our own lives and determine what we are going to do with our lives. They said that we needed to look at what we were good at. What we enjoyed. What we had accomplished, and what others said about us. They said that we also needed to look at our successes, our failures, our past, our joys, our sorrows, our hopes, our dreams, and as we looked at all of that, we were to determine our own "Mission Statement", our own "purpose in life".

Finally, having determined our purpose in life, we were then encouraged to think about, and write down, how we would achieve our purpose. So to achieve my purpose I will go to University, or TAFE, or get an apprenticeship, change jobs, buy or sell a house, or move to another state or country, and by doing all of this, I will be helped to accomplish my goals.

Now as I listened to all of this I was getting "agitated", in fact, I nearly walked out. Why? Because through all of this, through all of this planning, determining, and sorting out my purpose and direction in life, and how I was going to get there, there had been precious little mention about "God, his will, and his ways".

In fact, there had been no mention of God at all.

It was all my plans. My dreams. My ambitions. My decisions. My purposes, but nothing about what God wanted. Nothing about what God desired. Nothing about the direction that God was leading us in. Nothing about listening to God, to God's voice, and to what God's purpose for us was. In fact, the Bible, and what the Bible has to say about God’s desire for us wasn’t even brought up.

Now, and this is why it is sometimes good to listen to someone or to read something that you disagree with because it will force us to think, and so as I listened to all of this, and as I disagreed with almost all of it because there was precious little mention of God or the word of God, but as I listened, I began to think:

If God were to develop a 'Mission Statement' for us, if God were to develop a set of goals for us, goals which informed us as to 'why we are here', and then if God were to tell us how to accomplish that purpose, that mission, what would he say?

As I thought about that, while this talk was still going on, as I was listening to the speaker and thinking at the same time, my mind turned to what we read in Mark 12:28-30:

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked [Jesus], “Which commandment is the first of all?”

Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'"

And as I sat there listening to this particular speaker, and as I thought about what the Scriptures actually said, I realised that that is God's purpose for humanity.

When God created us, when God placed our first parents in the Garden of Eden, when God fellowshipped with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and when God gave Adam and Eve all of the blessings that were there, his desire and his purpose was that Adam and Eve would respond to God and:

Love the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind, and with all their strength.

That is what God wanted for humanity.

When God delivered Israel from Egypt, and when God spoke to them in the desert, God let the people know that the one thing he wanted from them was that this group of people would:

Love the LORD their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their might.[1]

In Joshua 22:5, after God had brought the people into the promised land, and God had settled the tribes of Israel in their own land, their own "inheritance", God told the people through Joshua that his desire for them, his purpose for them is that they:

Take good care to observe the commandment and instruction that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.[2]

When the Psalm writer sought to encourage the people in their relationship with God, he said in Psalm 31:23a:

Love the LORD, all you his saints.

And when the Lord Jesus came into this earth to be the sinless, spotless "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world"[3], Jesus said that the purpose of God in all of this, God's ultimate desire for humanity, is that we:

Love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength.[4]

God's purpose for humanity isn't simply that we get saved, rescued from sin and judgement. God’s purpose for humanity isn’t simply to give us a home in heaven and save us from eternal judgement. No! God's purpose for humanity is that we, as we see all that God has done for us in and through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, God's purpose for humanity is that as we see all of this, we might respond to God in love, and love him with our entire being, just as God loved us so much that he sent Jesus into this world to die for us, to bear our sins, and to be our saviour.

This was the challenge of Jesus to the rich young man in Mark 10. This young man came to Jesus with a goal. This young man had a personal "Mission Statement" for himself and for his life, and his goal in life, his mission in life, was to gain eternal life. So this young man came to Jesus and asked Jesus how he could reach his goal. How he could accomplish his purpose in life.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?[5]

"That is my goal in life. That is my ambition. That is what I have decided is the direction I need to go. Now what do I need to do in order to accomplish, to arrive at, to achieve my goal?"

However, Jesus' ultimate answer challenged him, not in what he was doing, because, in reality, this young man was doing everything right. He didn't kill, commit adultery, steal, lie, or treat his parents badly. Instead, Jesus challenged him about who, or what, he truly loved, for we read in Mark 10:21 that:

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

The first thing that we need to notice here is that when Jesus looked at him, he “loved him”. Jesus didn’t give this answer to this young man because he wanted to make his life difficult. Jesus didn’t say this because he was out to punish this young man, or to make him suffer. Jesus didn’t want to make this young man miserable. No. Jesus said all of this because he loved him, and out of his great love for him Jesus wanted to help this young man find the best way, the right way, the only way to live.

But how did this young man respond to the answer Jesus gave him? How did this young man respond to the love of Jesus, which sought to show him the right way? We read in Mark 10:22:

When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

What this shows us is that, for all of his wealth, this man lacked love for God. In fact, for all of his keeping of the commandments, this man lacked love for God. This man was unwilling to give up his love of things, his wealth, his possessions, and he was unwilling to love God with his entire being.

In spite of the commandment to:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

which no doubt this young man would have known, he did not love God with his entire being.

He may have determined his goal in life, his mission in life, his purpose in life. He may have desired "eternal life". But what he refused to accept was God's goal for him. What he refused to accept was that his true purpose in life was that he love God with his entire being. Instead, he chose to hang on to that thing which he truly loved – his money.

But not only did Jesus challenge this young man about what his goal in life was, about what his purpose and mission in life should be, but Jesus also showed him, and us, the only way to achieve God's purpose for our lives. Jesus said in Mark 10:21:

You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.

Here Jesus confronts this young man about what his greatest love truly is, for whatever this young man decided was his greatest love, that was the direction he would go.

Now, before people start to panic and think that I am about to tell everyone here to sell their houses, land, cars, and furniture, I am not. The challenge that Jesus gave to this man was about:

What do you love the most, and will you choose to love that thing, that object, that desire, that goal more than me?

Now that is the challenge that each of us must face. Whatever it is that stands between us and loving God with our entire heart, soul, mind, and strength, that is what we need to deal with. Like the rich young man needed to deal with his love of things so that he might love God with his entire being, so also we need to ensure that there is nothing that stands between us and a complete love for God.

But the way that Jesus showed us to deal with our need to love God, and the way that Jesus showed us we need to go in order to arrive at God's purpose, goal and mission for us (which is a complete love for him), is in that last sentence in verse twenty-one where Jesus told this young man:

Come, follow me.

God has said time and again that his purpose for us is that we love him with our entire being, with all our "heart, soul, mind, and strength". This was the essence of God's relationship with Adam and Eve in the garden. It was God's command through Moses. It was God's command through Joshua. It was God's command through the psalmist, and it was the teaching of Jesus when he was asked what the most important thing of all was.

But here we are told that that goal can only be accomplished, that goal can only be reached if we "follow him". Or, as Jesus said elsewhere, as we "take up our cross daily, and follow him".[6] God’s ultimate goal for our lives can only be accomplished as we die to the things of this world, as we allow nothing to stand between us and God, and we "follow Jesus".

Jesus said in Luke 14:26:

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Naturally, of course, Jesus doesn’t literally mean that we have to “hate” our parents or our siblings. He is using this extreme, this hyperbole in order to get us to see the seriousness, the importance, of having him as our priority, our goal, and our desire in this life. But then, in the very next verse, Jesus says:

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.[7]

As Jesus said in John 14:6:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This call to follow Jesus fills the Gospels. "Follow me" is the call that Jesus gave to Peter, Andrew, James, and John as they worked on their nets.[8] "Follow me" is the call that Jesus gave to Matthew as he sat at his tax collector's booth.[9] "Follow me" is the call that Jesus gave to Philip,[10] and after the resurrection, when Peter asked Jesus what was going to happen to John, Jesus said:

If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me![11]

Following Jesus is the only way that the purposes of God to love him with our entire being can be accomplished.

What we also read in the Gospels is that when Jesus gave this call to "follow me" to individuals and to the crowds, some of them, like Peter, James, John, Andrew, Matthew, and Philip left what they were doing, and followed him.

Some, like the rich young man, walked away "sad", because they were unwilling to pay the price, they were unwilling to "take up their cross", because they realised that the goal and purpose that they had decided for themselves was not the same as God's goal and purpose, and so they, like the rich young man, told God, “No".

Still others thought that following Jesus was a good idea, but . . . not yet. We read in Luke 9:57-62 that:

As they were going along the road, someone said to [Jesus], “I will follow you wherever you go.”

And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Some said, "Yes".
Some said, "No".
And some said, "one day, but not yet".

They each had claimed to have the goal of following Jesus, but the first one needed to count the cost of what it meant, while the second and third had other priorities, things that they wanted to do first, and after they had done that, then they would follow Jesus.

What is your purpose, your goal in life, and who has made that thing your purpose?

Are you following your own purpose, your own meaning for life, or are you following God's purpose, God's meaning for your life?

Have you determined how you will live, what you will do, and where you will go, or are you following Jesus, who will lead you into what God has determined is why you are here?

Do you "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength", and are you following Jesus, or have you determined what you will do, how you will do it, and when you will do it?

That is the challenge of discipleship.

That is the challenge of understanding what it truly means to love God with all of our being, to take up our cross daily, and follow Jesus.

Today’s message is the first in a series on “knowing and doing the will of God”. But knowing and doing the will of God starts here. It starts with following Jesus.

[1] Deuteronomy 6:5. c/f 11:1, 13, 22; 19:9; 30:16, 20

[2] Joshua 22:5

[3] John 1:29, 36

[4] Mark 12:30; c/f Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27

[5] Mark 10:17

[6] Matthew 10:38; 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27

[7] Luke 14:27

[8] Matthew 4:19-22

[9] Matthew 9:9

[10] John 1:43

[11] John 21:22

Our goal in life - and how to achieve it

One of the challenges that I have faced as a pastor, although I don't know if other pastors have this problem, but one of the challenges I have faced as a pastor is:

When I am on holidays, where do I go to church?

I remember one Sunday years ago while we were still at Wattle Grove, I was on holidays, but we still went to Wattle Grove that particular Sunday, which made the church elder very nervous because he was preaching, and you don’t want to make someone nervous.

In fact, there had been no mention of God at all.

If God were to develop a 'Mission Statement' for us, if God were to develop a set of goals for us, goals which informed us as to 'why we are here', and then if God were to tell us how to accomplish that purpose, that mission, what would he say?

As I thought about that, while this talk was still going on, as I was listening to the speaker and thinking at the same time, my mind turned to what we read in Mark 12:28-30:

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked [Jesus], “Which commandment is the first of all?”

Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'"

And as I sat there listening to this particular speaker, and as I thought about what the Scriptures actually said, I realised that that is God's purpose for humanity.

When God created us, when God placed our first parents in the Garden of Eden, when God fellowshipped with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and when God gave Adam and Eve all of the blessings that were there, his desire and his purpose was that Adam and Eve would respond to God and:

Love the Lord their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind, and with all their strength.

That is what God wanted for humanity.

When God delivered Israel from Egypt, and when God spoke to them in the desert, God let the people know that the one thing he wanted from them was that this group of people would:

Love the LORD their God with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their might.[1]

In Joshua 22:5, after God had brought the people into the promised land, and God had settled the tribes of Israel in their own land, their own "inheritance", God told the people through Joshua that his desire for them, his purpose for them is that they:

Take good care to observe the commandment and instruction that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.[2]

When the Psalm writer sought to encourage the people in their relationship with God, he said in Psalm 31:23a:

Love the LORD, all you his saints.

And when the Lord Jesus came into this earth to be the sinless, spotless "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world"[3], Jesus said that the purpose of God in all of this, God's ultimate desire for humanity, is that we:

Love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength.[4]

What must I do to inherit eternal life?[5]

"That is my goal in life. That is my ambition. That is what I have decided is the direction I need to go. Now what do I need to do in order to accomplish, to arrive at, to achieve my goal?"

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

But how did this young man respond to the answer Jesus gave him? How did this young man respond to the love of Jesus, which sought to show him the right way? We read in Mark 10:22:

When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

In spite of the commandment to:

Love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

which no doubt this young man would have known, he did not love God with his entire being.

But not only did Jesus challenge this young man about what his goal in life was, about what his purpose and mission in life should be, but Jesus also showed him, and us, the only way to achieve God's purpose for our lives. Jesus said in Mark 10:21:

You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.

Here Jesus confronts this young man about what his greatest love truly is, for whatever this young man decided was his greatest love, that was the direction he would go.

Now, before people start to panic and think that I am about to tell everyone here to sell their houses, land, cars, and furniture, I am not. The challenge that Jesus gave to this man was about:

What do you love the most, and will you choose to love that thing, that object, that desire, that goal more than me?

But the way that Jesus showed us to deal with our need to love God, and the way that Jesus showed us we need to go in order to arrive at God's purpose, goal and mission for us (which is a complete love for him), is in that last sentence in verse twenty-one where Jesus told this young man:

Come, follow me.

Jesus said in Luke 14:26:

Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.[7]

As Jesus said in John 14:6:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me![11]

Following Jesus is the only way that the purposes of God to love him with our entire being can be accomplished.

What we also read in the Gospels is that when Jesus gave this call to "follow me" to individuals and to the crowds, some of them, like Peter, James, John, Andrew, Matthew, and Philip left what they were doing, and followed him.

Still others thought that following Jesus was a good idea, but . . . not yet. We read in Luke 9:57-62 that:

As they were going along the road, someone said to [Jesus], “I will follow you wherever you go.”

And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”

Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Some said, "Yes".

Some said, "No".

And some said, "one day, but not yet".

They each had claimed to have the goal of following Jesus, but the first one needed to count the cost of what it meant, while the second and third had other priorities, things that they wanted to do first, and after they had done that, then they would follow Jesus.

What is your purpose, your goal in life, and who has made that thing your purpose?

Are you following your own purpose, your own meaning for life, or are you following God's purpose, God's meaning for your life?

Have you determined how you will live, what you will do, and where you will go, or are you following Jesus, who will lead you into what God has determined is why you are here?

Do you "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength", and are you following Jesus, or have you determined what you will do, how you will do it, and when you will do it?

That is the challenge of discipleship.

That is the challenge of understanding what it truly means to love God with all of our being, to take up our cross daily, and follow Jesus.

Today’s message is the first in a series on “knowing and doing the will of God”. But knowing and doing the will of God starts here. It starts with following Jesus.

[1] Deuteronomy 6:5. c/f 11:1, 13, 22; 19:9; 30:16, 20

[2] Joshua 22:5

[3] John 1:29, 36

[4] Mark 12:30; c/f Matthew 22:37; Luke 10:27

[5] Mark 10:17

[6] Matthew 10:38; 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27

[7] Luke 14:27

[8] Matthew 4:19-22

[9] Matthew 9:9

[10] John 1:43

[11] John 21:22