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PLANNED FOR GOD'S PLEASURE
THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE - PART 2
April 30, 2006

Now, we're in this series called "40 Days of Purpose." Today, we're going to look at the first of God's five purposes for your life. God has five reasons for creating you.

You (God) created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.

Revelation 4:12

You were created for God's enjoyment

• God made you just to enjoy you.
• God planned you for His purpose.
• And the only reason that you’re alive is God wanted you alive and He gets enjoyment out of watching you.

How many of you are parents?

How many of you enjoy watching your kids? Most of the time! And I think the same thing is true with God, most of the time He enjoys watching you be you.

You were made for God's pleasure. When you were born, when you came out of your mother's womb, God was there in that room, smiling from ear to ear, because He wanted you made.

God smiled at your birth because He created you to enjoy you. He made you for His purpose.

Last week - you were created to be loved by God.
Today - God wants you to love Him back.

He wants you to bring enjoyment back to Him. As much as He has created you, He wants you to love Him back.

One day Jesus was walking down the street and a guy came up and said, "Lord, what's the most important command in the entire Bible?"

Matthew 22 He said, "Love the Lord your God. This is the first and greatest commandment."

God says if you don't get anything else, here's what you're supposed to do in life:

1. You're supposed to learn to love Me back.
2. Why? Because I made you to love you and I know you.
3. And I want you to know my love and love me back.

Now, there's a word for this.

It's the word "worship." Worship is knowing and loving God back.

And when I say the word "worship," what do you think of?

1. prayer
2. singing
3. ritual
4. communion
5. going to church
6. something you do in church.

But worship is far more than all those things.

My first purpose in life is to worship God.

1. It's your primary objective.
2. It's your highest priority.
3. It is your number one purpose in life.

What does a person look like when they worship?

Example

If you read the newspaper, they always have the exact same picture of somebody worshipping. It is this - [Pastor demonstrates comically holding hands up and mouth wide open] Okay? Now, that may be one legitimate form in millions of different ways. But worship is far more than - [Pastor demonstrates again].

Because of God's great mercy to us... offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him.

Romans 12:1

There's the pleasure part. "This is the true worship that you should offer."

Worship is my response to God's love.

Worship is just the way I react, I respond, to God when He loves me. That's what worship is.

Notice it says "because," "because of God's great mercy," His love to us, then we worship Him back.

You see,

1. God takes the initiative.
2. God always makes the first move.
3. God doesn't ever ask you to make the first move.

Why does God always makes the first move?

1. He created us.
2. He saves us.
3. He forgives us.
4. He blesses us.
5. He protects us.
6. He initiates the first move to love you.

Worship is Giving back to God. He gives to us, and we give back to Him. And whenever you give back to God, whenever you offer anything to God, that's called worship.

And that brings pleasure and enjoyment to God.

Example

1. When your kids are grateful to you, as a parent, that brings pleasure to you.
2. When we're grateful to our Heavenly Father, that brings pleasure to Him.

Now, the question is, when it says, "offer"? What am I supposed to offer?

What do you give a God who has everything?

1. He made the world.
2. He made you.
3. He made the universe.

What do you give Him? You give Him your love. And He's very specific about how to give it.

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

Mark chapter 12

God wants me to love Him three ways:

First, God wants me to love Him thoughtfully. It says, "love Him with your mind." Thoughtfully. In other words, He wants you to think through, to not just do it without thinking.

Second, God wants me to love him passionately. He says, "with all your heart and all your soul." I want you to love Me passionately, because I passionately love you.

Third, He says, I want you to love me practically. "love Me with all your strength", with your abilities.

There are three things God does not have unless you give them to Him.

He doesn't have your attention unless you give it to Him. That's loving God with your mind.

He doesn't have your affection, unless you give it to Him. That's loving God with your heart and your soul.

And God doesn't have your ability, unless you give it to Him. That's loving God with your strength.

Worship is focusing my attention on God.

You have looked deep into my heart, Lord, and You know all about me. You know when I am resting or when I am working. You notice everything I do and everywhere I go.

Psalm 139:1-3

God has focused his attention on you. Did you know that?

1. That God pays constant attention to you.
2. He never takes His eyes off of you.
3. He never stops thinking about you.

The reason is He made you is to love you. He made you to give you this attention. And the greatest expression of love is often giving attention.

The Bible tells us His love for us is eternal.

1. He is always focused on us, and
2. He wants to teach us to focus our heart and our attention on Him.

And that's difficult sometimes. It is difficult to focus on God.

The easiest thing to do in life for us as human beings is to lose our focus.

We have to decide to focus.
We have to choose to focus.

How do you do that? You have to realize, that we are very easily distracted.

There are two things that distract us from focusing our attention on God.

1. We are self-centered by nature.
2. We live in a self-centered culture.

Focusing on yourself is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, and ends up thinking more about self than God.

Romans 8:7

Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.

Romans 12:2

You must choose to stop thinking about some things and start thinking about God.

How do you do that?

Worship is also expressing my affection to God.

This is loving God with your heart and soul.

4 Examples

1. And for some of you, this is kind of difficult because you grew up in families that weren't real affectionate, weren't real expressive, didn't say I love you a lot.

2. Maybe you're kind of the silent type. It's not real easy for you to express affection to God without feeling weird or kind of kooky about it.

You're going to have to learn how to grow, how to develop, how to say "I love you God".

3. Do you remember the first time you ever said I love you to somebody?
Probably scared to you death.
You had sweaty palms, stomach was in a knot.
You were all nervous... are they going to accept it or are they going to reject it; because you were worried about - are they going to say it back to me?

4. Do you remember in junior high when they played this game called "Who's going to say it first"? And before you kind of get together with a boy or girl, you kind of sent emissaries out and say, "Do you know so-and-so likes so-and-so?"

And you kind of check it out before - I mean, you're not going to just walk out there and lay it on the line and say, "You are cool," you know? No, you're going to wait and find out if they think you're cool first. And so it's risky to say, "I love you."

But the neat thing about God is He's taken away the risk. He said it first.

1. God said, "I love you."
2. God has said it in a thousand ways.

He created you. He's taken care of you. Even when you didn't know it, He was showing love to you.

God has said over and over and over to you, "I love you." So you don't have to worry about who is going to say it first.

We love Him, because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19

The Bible says God wants to be loved. Have you ever said, "I love you" to God? God wants that from you.

In Hosea 6, God says, "I don't want your sacrifices - I want your love! I don't want your offerings - I want you to know me!"

Notice the word "love" and the word "know," because that's the first purpose of your life - to know and love God.

I don't care what you get done in a day, and if you knock off 24 things off your to-do list and you accomplish great accomplishments and you achieve amazing goals in your life; if at the end of the day you don't know God a little bit better and you don't love Him a little bit more, that day, my friend, was wasted.

Life's a failure because you weren't put here on earth to check things off your to-do list. The first reason God put you on earth is to get to know Him and to love Him back. So that is the first primary goal of your life.

God has very, very deep feelings for you.

Did you know that?

1. Some of you think God is too busy.
2. He didn't care about me.
3. God doesn't even know my name.

Oh, yes He does! He's never taken his eyes off you. God is intimately acquainted with every area of your life. And He loves you so much and He wants you to love Him back. He's never too busy for you.

He is the God who is passionate about his relationship with you.

Exodus 34:14

Three ways God is passionate about you

1. He longs to know you.
2. He longs for you to know Him.
3. He longs passionately for you to have a relationship.

How about if I walked up to my wife one day and I say, "Honey, here are some flowers for you. And I am giving you these flowers for three strategic reasons:

Point No. 1, I am your husband.
Point No. 2, it is our anniversary.
Point No. 3, husbands are supposed to give their wives flowers on their anniversary.

So here." Wouldn't she be thrilled? I don't think so. Why?

1. She wants me to love her passionately.
2. She doesn't want duty.
3. She wants desire.

God doesn't want your duty. He wants your desire.

God doesn't want - "Oh, okay. I better go worship." "Oh, I love you, God" [said in a monotone voice].

God doesn't want duty, ritual, religion, rules and regulation. He wants a relationship.

Example

So how can I express my affection to God?

Well, if you have never done it before, let me tell you how to get started. Start by just saying "thanks." Just start by saying "thank you."

Start looking around at everything and start thanking God.

• God, thank you for a beautiful sky today. That's gorgeous.
• God, thank you for green trees.
• Thank you for clean air.
• Thank you that I'm still breathing.
• Thank you that I live in America and I have freedom.
• Thank you that I woke up this morning.
• Thank you that I had something to eat.
• Thank you that I'm not freezing to death right now.
• Thank you for electricity. A lot of people don't have electricity.

Everything you look at is a gift from God. So you just start by being thankful. You could probably think of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of things just to start thanking God more for. That's a good way to start expressing your love to God.

Give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life.

Romans 6:13

Again, remember, it's always a response.

God gave us life, then He gives new life in Jesus. He says I want you to give yourself completely back to Me. So you do that.

What holds us back?

Why do you not give your life completely to God?

Well, I'll tell you, it is one word - f-e-a-r.

You're scared to death.
You're chicken.
You're afraid to give your life to God because "if I give my life completely to God, is He going to turn me into some kind of religious nutcase?"

I know what some of you are thinking, you're saying, "this thing about loving God. You know, I just don't love God enough." That's not your problem. You say, "I don't love God enough." That is not your problem!

Your problem is you don't realize how much God loves you. That's your problem.

Worship is using my abilities for God.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.

Colossians 3:23

Now, if you get this verse, it will absolutely revolutionize your life. You'll never be the same once you understand this verse.

Notice it again. "Whatever you do" - that means anything - "work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people."

Some of you will go home from this thing saying, if my No. 1 purpose is to get to know and love God, then I should have a quiet time with God, five hours a day.

You just change who you're working for. And when you change who you're working for, your work becomes worship.

I want you to get this one truth, because it will revolutionize your life. In life it's not what you do that matters; it is Who you do it for.

You give it all to God. And all of your work can be turned to worship.

God doesn't want worship to just be a church thing. He wants it to be your whole life, to worship God with your life.

Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, your eating, your going to work, your walking-around life - and place it before God

Romans 12:1a

- as a what? - "Offering."

We said "offer" is the essence of worship.

I'm offering my life to you. Now, folks, this is where the rubber meets the road.

Real purpose-driven living doesn't happen in a church.
It doesn't even happen in a small group.
It doesn't even happen in your personal time of quiet time with God every day, of prayer and reading the Bible.
It happens in the ordinary, routine, mundane, things of real life where you go,

1. "God, I'm going to take out the garbage for You."
2. You can make beds to the glory of God.
3. You can milk a cow to the glory of God.
4. You can clean your garage to the glory of God - and some of you ought to!

Everything can be turned into an act of worship.

Notice, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart," putting your heart and soul in, as though you were working for the Lord.

The truth is everybody worships something.

1. You were wired to worship by God.
2. He put it in your DNA.
3. You couldn't stop worshipping if you had to, because it is part of being a human.
4. Everybody worships something.

That's why you can go to any culture in the world and find people worshipping. If you don't worship God, believe me, you're going to find a substitute real quick, even if it is just yourself.

What are you worshipping? I'll tell you what it is. It is whatever you're giving your primary attention to,

1. whatever you're giving your primary affection to,
2. whatever you're giving your primary abilities to.
3. Some of you worship your career. You worship your career, and you're living for that job.
4. Some of you are worshipping making money and
5. you're worshipping retirement.
6. Some of you are worshipping pleasure,
7. some of you are worshipping sex.
8. Some of you are worshipping another person who so dominates your life - your total attention, affection and ability goes to that person.

The greatest temptation of your life and the worst sin you could possibly commit is the temptation to worship something other than God.

Whenever you love something more than God, you're going to have chaos, conflict, stress and problems in your life.

The worst of the greatest temptation is the one Satan pulled on Jesus. If he had a bigger tool, believe me, he would have used it. He said, "Why don't you worship something else?"

The biggest temptation in life is always going to be to worship something else other than God, to give your attention, your affection and ability to something other than the Creator who made you.

If we focus our attention and we express our affection and we use our abilities for the one who made us, God says, "I'll take care of everything else. You don't have to worry about it. I will take care of it all."

God pays attention and God delights in every detail of our lives.

Psalm 37

Every detail.

Now, the greatest mistake you can make in life is to miss your primary purpose.

So let me ask you a question, what do you think about most? Because whatever you think about most is what you love the most.

What do you think about when you just let your mind drift? You let it wander,

What does it naturally gravitate toward? Whatever that is, is what you worship.

Example

Did you know that your checkbook and your schedule, your Daytimer are theological documents? Without even knowing you, if you were to show me your checkbook stubs and you were to show me your schedule, I could tell you right now what you love, because the way you spend your time and the way you spend your money shows what you love the most.

The Bible says you were planned for God's pleasure. You were made to know and love God. So I challenge you to make as the No 1 goal of your life before everything else, getting to know and love God, because that brings Him pleasure.

So we make it our goal to please Him.

2 Corinthians 5:9

There's not a better goal in life to have than that one right there.

Prayer.

Father, what we have talked about today is no minor issue. It is the most important thing in life. Getting to know and love You. I realize that there are people here at all different stages in their spiritual journey, some here for the very first time. But help each of us to take the next step that we need to take.

Now, you pray. In your mind say something like this; you don't have to say it aloud.

"Dear God, I wouldn't even exist if it weren't for you. Forgive me for all the times I think and act like You don't matter. Today I've realized You made me to love me and that the first purpose of my life is to know and love You back. I'm amazed that You long for a relationship with me and I'm amazed You're interested in the details of my life. But most of all, I'm amazed You would come to earth to die for me. I don't understand it at all. But I say wow! Please forgive me, God, for not worshipping You. I want to learn how to focus my attention on You throughout my day. I want to turn my work into worship. I want to learn to love you with a love that You deserve, thoughtfully with my mind, passionately with my heart and soul and practically with my abilities. When I go back to work on Monday, I'm going to be working for You, doing my job as if You are the boss."

If you have never opened up your life to Jesus Christ, why don't you add this sentence, "Jesus, thank You for giving Your life for me. As much as I know how, I want to give my life back to You. In Your name I pray, Amen."