Today we’re going to talk about Loving God’s Great Purposes. God created this world with a purpose in mind and that purpose includes you and me. God purpose is not just a bunch of individual purposes, but it is a great purpose. God’s purpose encompasses the entire creation. The wonderful aspect of God’s great purposes is that you and I have the privilege of being part of them. When we’re part of something much bigger than ourselves, something conceived in the mind of God Himself, it gives us significance. Our lives matter for eternity as we see our individual purposes as part of God’s great purposes.
Our significance in life is not based on the things admired by our culture: wealth, prestige or power. All of those things will have no value in eternity.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NIV) This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD …”
Our significance is based on knowing the Lord and being involved in His purposes, not our own.
This morning, God wants us to take a look at His big picture. He wants us to take a view of life and history from God’s vantage point. As we do, He wants to encourage, inspire and motivate us to live our lives for His purposes. To live your life for God’s purposes is to die to your own desires and way of life.
Luke 9:23 (NIV) Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
In other words, we are to lay down our lives and desires to live for God’s great purposes. What are those great purposes? That’s what we’re going to look at today. God’s great purposes are centered around Jesus Christ. The only people that can participate in God’s great purposes are those who are “in Christ.” In other words, those who are believers in Jesus Christ. God’s great purposes involve both this life and the next. God’s great purposes find their culmination and fulfillment in eternity. Those who live their daily lives in light of eternity are those who are truly wise and whose lives have the greatest significance.
Today, we’re going to look at a passage in Ephesians 1. This is a letter written by Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit to the church in Ephesus. So it was written to believers. The first three chapters of Ephesians relate to understanding God’s great purposes in Christ and the last three chapters relate to practically living out those purposes.