The second way you can try to discover your purpose is called the intellectual or philosophical approach. And that’s where you go to a university class or read a philosophy book and you sit there with your latte and your coffee and you ask questions like, "Why am I here? Where did I come from? Where am I going?"
I heard about a professor John Morehead, the Head of the Department of Philosophy at Northeastern University in Illinois. And he wrote to 250 well-known intellectuals and asked them, "What is the meaning and purpose of life?" These were novelists, scientists, well-known intellectuals, and most of the people said, "I have no idea what the purpose of life is." Some of them admitted that all they could do was guess, and some wrote back and said, "If you know the purpose, please tell me."
The third way you can discover your purpose is called revelation. If I were to hold up an invention that you have never seen before, you wouldn’t know its purpose. The only way you’d know its purpose was either talk to the inventor, the creator who made it or read the owner’s manual. The owner’s manual of life is the bible and our Creator is God. This is where we can discover the answer to "What is my purpose?" To know what our purpose is, it takes God’s revelation.
Col. 1:16 - For by Christ all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
We are created by the Lord and for the Lord. In other words, each of us has a purpose in life — that is why you and I are here. We are here for a divine purpose.
Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback church, California, has written a book called the Purpose Driven Life. To date is has sold 20 million copies!
Quote: Rick Warren begins his book by saying, "It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of min, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God." (p.17)
This is what Colossians 1:16 is teaching. We are created by God and for God.
In the book he outlines 5 purposes from the Bible that God has for each person. Over the next few weeks I would like to examine each of these purposes. Today I will start with purpose #1.
THE INITIAL PURPOSE: TO KNOW AND LOVE GOD in WORSHIP:
This morning, I would like to suggest four things that this passage of Scripture teaches about the kind of worship that God wants. Let’s take four main words/word groups that the apostle Paul gives here and see what each contributes to understanding a lifestyle of daily worship: offering, bodies, living sacrifice, holy.
- OFFER "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship."
Firstly, true worship happens when we offer ourselves to God completely. Paul says "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices . . . to God." This is the language of worship from the OT. In approaching God in the OT the worshipper brought a sheep or a bull or a pigeon and sacrificed it on the altar as an offering to God. There were different kinds of sacrifices but at the heart of it was that sin demanded punishment, and the slain animal represented God’s willingness to accept a substitute so that the worshipper might live and have an ongoing relationship of forgiveness and joy with God. But all the Old Testament believers knew that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin (Hebrews 10:4). They pointed beyond themselves to Christ, who was the final sacrifice for sin.
Hebrews 10:12 "When [Christ] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God."
So Christ brought to an end the Old Testament sacrifices for sin. He finished the great work of atonement. Christ died in our place.
That is "the mercies of God" that Paul talks about in v.1. Christ’s death shows how much God loves us. All we can do is trust him for that great work in our place. Have you put your trust in Him as your Saviour and Lord?
- BODIES. "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship."
Secondly, worship involves our bodies. Why does this verse stress the importance of offering our bodies in worship? It’s not that our mind or heart or soul is unimportant, it’s just that it is a way of saying that your body counts. You belong to God soul and body, or you don’t belong to him at all. Your body matters. Without our bodies we can’t do anything on this planet.
The Apostle Paul is saying that true worship involves what we do with our bodies. Someone might think: Why would God be interested in my body? It’s overweight, or underweight, wrinkled, blotchy, achy, diseased, impulsive, nervous, unattractive, lazy, awkward, disabled, near-sighted, hard-of-hearing. What kind of sacrifice is that? That kind of thinking totally misses the point. The sacrifice of offering our bodies to God is not a sacrifice for sin. That is done already in the sacrifice of Christ. The daily act of offering our bodies for God’s glory for God’s honor is what really pleases God. That is true worship. In the Bible the body is not significant because of the way it looks, but because of the way it acts. Our daily behavior, actions, words, and thoughts either honor God or dishonor God. God wants visible, lived-out, bodily evidence that our lives are lived for him.
Illustration: occasionally I like to read the Guinness Book of World Records. Maybe it’s because they borrowed my last name for their record book. I am fasinated by all the things that people do with their bodies. People work so hard to make their bodies do a one time feat. Ex: RECORDS: (1) most swords swalled and twisted; (2) most cobras kissed; (3) heaviest car balanced on head. There is I believe a great misconception to what it means to offer our bodies to God. People often think this means doing a one time great act like these records like going to Africa as a missionary, or giving up your job and going into ministry, or praying for 3 hours one day, or witnessing to 100 people in one day. But offering our bodies to God isn’t a one time thing. It is a daily act.
- LIVING SACRIFICE. "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship."
Thirdly, worship means we are a living sacrifice. The idea of a living sacrifice sounds like a contradiction of terms. If you sacrificed an animal in the OT, it wasn’t still alive after the sacrifice. But, the NT teaches that It is our living that is the act of worship. It is in the act of surrendering ourselves to God in everything that is worship. Every act of our body in living be an act of worship.
Col. 3:23
So, let every act of your living body be a demonstration that God is your treasure. Let every act of your living body show that Christ is more precious to you than anything else. Let every act of your living body be a death to all that dishonors Christ. This is a living sacrifice.
Surrendering to God is true worship. Surrender the right to rule our lives as we please, to call the shots, to do whatever we want. To surrender completely to the Lord isn’t an extra option for the really spiritual, surrendering completely to God is what it means to be a Christian.
I believe surrendering is best demonstrated in two things: obedience and trust.
- Obedience: do you remember the story where after a night of failed fishing, Simon Peter was about to give up, and Jesus told him to try again. Peter replies, "Master we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets." (Luke 5:5) Peter obeyed. To obey Jesus means that we are surrendering to Jesus.
- Trust: another aspect of surrendering to Jesus is to trust him. Abraham followed God’s lead without knowing exactly where it would take him. Hannah waited for God’s perfect timing for a child without knowing when. Joseph trusted God’s purpose without knowing why circumstances happened the way they did. To trust the Lord means we are surrendering to him.
Illustration: When I was a kid I remember one day walking with my dad along the beach. One day I climbed up the rock face and without warning threw myself down on my dad who was about 6 feet below. I had complete confidence that it would be okay because I trusted my dad.
I used to sing a song as a child that had the chorus, "trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey." What does surrendering look like? Trusting and obeying. Everyone eventually surrenders to something or someone. If it’s not God, it will be to the opinions or expectations of others, or to money, or to resentment, or to fear, or to your own pride or lusts or ego. But, we were designed to worship God, and if we don’t worship him, then we will worship other things (which become idols). To surrender to God is what it means to be a living sacrifice.
- HOLY. "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship."
Fourthly, worship in this way means our bodies are holy — ‘set apart’. Probably the best explanation of holy bodies comes from Romans 6:13 where Paul said almost the very same thing he says here, using the very language of "offering" our bodies to God, only he refers to our bodily "members" and not just our
Rom. 6:13 "Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness."
"Offering our bodies as a living holy sacrifice to God" means give all the parts of your body to do righteousness, not sin. God wants all of you. That means your mind, eyes, ears, mouth (tongue), hands, feet, heart, sexuality. That’s what would make a body holy. A body is holy not because of what it looks like, or what shape it’s in, but because of what it does. Is it physical "instrument" of righteousness? Or is it the physical instrument of wickedness? God doesn’t just want a part of your life. He asks for all. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." God wants all of us to worship him. Not 50%. Not even 90%. He wants 100% of us to love him and worship him.
WHAT IS THE RESULT OF WORSHIP IN THIS WAY?
It is pleasing to God. God is the center of worship. And true worship is what brings God pleasure. True worship is what pleases Him. What is really pleasing to God is our worship — worship that involves offering, our living bodies, as a living sacrifice, in holiness totally set apart for God. As I mentioned at the beginning, We were planned for God’s pleasure. And worship that involves our living bodies offered in a holy way is pleasing to God.
Story: One of the movies I watched as a kid was ¡®Chariots of Fire’. It tells the true story of the great Scotish Olympic gold medalist Eric Lidell. At the 1924 olympics Liddell won the gold medal for the 400 meter dash. There’s one part of the movie where he says, "I believe God made me for a purpose but he also made me fast and when I run I feel God’s pleasure."
Every activity can be an act of worship when we use our bodies for the praise, glory, and honor of the Lord. This is the kind of worship that brings pleasure to God. Our highest priority and first purpose in life is to know and love God by worshiping him.
You can read scriptures from the sermons or any other Bible passages on line at either:
Bible Gateway which has several translations and many languages from which you can choose
or
Crosswalk’s Bible Study Tools which has many English translations, including the NKJV.
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