Today my message is entitled “Loving God’s Purpose for Your Life.” God has put in the heart of every person a desire to do something meaningful with their life. We want our lives to matter, we want to make a difference in our world. In other words, we want our lives to have purpose.
Now, if evolution is true, then each of us evolved from the primordial ooze by a series of random chemical events. Obviously then, our lives would have no purpose or point. But God’s Word teaches that you and I are not the product of random events. We have been created by the creator of the universe, God Himself. Since we have been created, our creator has a purpose for our lives. If your life has purpose, then there is a point in each day that God has given you. When you get up in the morning, God has a purpose for that new day.
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
This verse tells us that as believers, God has created us for a purpose. That purpose is to do good works. And God has done all the advance preparation needed for you to do something amazing.
When we are children, we have all kinds of dreams of the amazing plans and purposes that God may have for our lives. Yet, as we grow older, oftentimes those dreams fade in light of the reality of life. Now, as we grow and mature, our dreams must adjust to who God has made us to be. But we must not lose our desire to dream of what God has for us to do. This morning, God wants each of us to begin to dream again about His purpose for our lives. Our dreams from God must be realistic for where God has placed us, in a world that is often hostile and filled with evil. Yet, God wants us to make a difference.
1 Peter 2:11 (NIV) Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.
This world is not our home, we are just passing through as aliens and strangers. Our true home is in heaven, yet God has much good work for us to do on this earth, that’s our purpose. God wants us to dream again about what He has planned for us. He wants us to have the courage to risk following Him to do great things for Jesus Christ.
Matthew 5:16 (NIV) In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
The ultimate point of the good things that God has for us to do, is that what we do should point others to Jesus and bring praise to our heavenly Father. God wants you to love His purposes for your life.
Today, we’re going to look at the context around one of the most famous promises in the Bible concerning God’s plans and purposes for our lives. The nation of Judah had repeatedly over many years, worshipped idols and failed to follow the Lord God. They had not listened to the many prophets that God had sent to warn them. Finally, in 597 BC, Judah was conquered by Babylon, the reigning world power and many Jews were taken to Babylon in exile.
Imagine for a moment that you were one of those taken captive. Your nation had been invaded, many had been killed and you now were living in a foreign pagan country against your will. It would seem as though there was nothing left to dream about, no purpose in life in a foreign land. Yet today we’ll see that God would send a message to the exiles through the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 29:1 (NIV) This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
This is a message of hope, a message of purpose, a message to restore dreams.