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Preachers Collective- North England Conference of SDA

Naison Chitiyo

The Purpose

Dearly beloved Father, I thank you so much for the blessings that you give us each and every day, each and every week, many of which, most of which we do not deserve, but you are merciful to us, Lord, each and every day.

And I just pray, Lord, that you may be with us 1 more time as we are opening up your scriptures.

That your Holy Spirit whom you promised to be our teacher may lead us into all truth and help us to just see something maybe perhaps that we had never seen before or maybe just remind us of the things that we already knew about it, have not always fully understood.

I just ask God that he may deal with us, and that might be my greatest thanks in Jesus' name.

The title for my sermon this morning is the purpose.

I know you're going to say the method, but I thought before we speak about the method we should speak about the purpose for which the method is utilized.

And our theme for this youth day is proclaim.

When we were having our summer school class for the youth at the front, we had an exercise where we thought about some of the biggest questions that ever come up in life.

And among the questions that were proposed, 1 of them was, what is the purpose for which I am alive?

How many of you have ever asked yourself the same question?

What drives and what pushes you on each and every day?

There are many things that can become our purposes.

You want to attain the highest heights of education.

You want to be a doctor in something, or a professor in something else.

For some of us, we want to be rich, or for some of us, we want to be famous.

You know, there are many different things that drive us, from which we derive our purpose.

But the question is, what should be our purpose in life?

When we ask ourselves these things, it helps remind us that, as human beings, we want to know that our existence is much more meaningful than just simply existing.

It reminds me of a quote that was once said by Martin Luther King.

It was June 1963, and he was at a rally in Detroit.

And in the middle of his speech he says the following words, he says that, There are some things so dear, some things so precious, some things so eternally true, that they are worth, what?

And I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something for which he will die, he isn't fit to live.

When I first came across that thought, that's a bit strong.

It seemed a bit extreme that unless you find something for which you're willing to die, you're not pleased to live.

But then over the years I've thought about what this statement might mean.

It occurred to me that perhaps what the Reverend was trying to say is that a life that is lived without a purpose is a purposeless life.

When your life has no purpose, your life becomes meaningless.

And so the question is, what is your purpose in life?

So when you think about the things that you devote your time to, are they worth your life?

For Martin Luther, he himself found a purpose for which he was willing to die.

The idea that he should fight to free men and women from the prisons of discrimination and despair, he thought that was worthy of him losing his life.

But he thought that was worth it, because that was his purpose.

It reminds me of the disciples in the Bible, the apostles.

You think about the great men of Christianity, and women.

You think about Paul, Peter, you think about John and James.

All of them, they thought that the idea of going from door to door, from city to city, country to country, proclaiming the love of Jesus and helping to free men from the chains of sin and from the bondage of despair, That was something that was worth dying for.

There is a statement that is made in the book, Education, chapter 31, page 263, says that the heaven-appointed purpose of giving the gospel to the world in this generation is the noblest that can appeal to any human being.

Think about all of the different things that somebody could live their life for.

And he would be told that the heaven appointed purpose of preaching the gospel is the normless that can appeal to any human being.

The same applies to saying, since the orphans are fulfilled of what?

Efforts to everyone whose hearts Christ has touched.

This morning I asked you the question, has Christ touched your heart?

You should know, if Christ has touched your heart, then I ask you the question, why did he help us?

Our scripture reading for this morning was Matthew chapter 5, if you tell the way, Matthew chapter 5, verse 14 to verse 16.

And it reads, you are the 1, the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket or a bushel, but on a candlestick or a lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house.

Then he goes on to say, let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good work and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

If you're like a light bulb or a candle, what's your purpose?

Jesus says that we are the light of the world.

In describing us as the light of the world, he gives us our purpose.

If it says you're a lamp set or you're a lamp, your purpose is to give light.

How well are you giving light to the people who are around you?

Or are the people who are around you, who you associate with, still feeling as much of the depth of darkness as there was before you found Jesus.

Jesus says that we are the light of the world, that we should let our light shine before them.

Now, I perceive that this is not a new idea to all of us.

This is something that we've heard many times before.

The question really is, what is the purpose of this purpose?

What is the purpose of Jesus asking us to give the gospel, what does that have to do with my own salvation?

Like with many things that are important in the Bible, God always likes to give object lessons.

Today I want us to look at 1 of the symbolic parts of the Bible that helps us to understand the purpose of the purpose of giving the Gospel.

Tell your Bible to me is the book of Hebrews chapter 9.

We're reading Hebrews 9 verse 1 to verse 5.

Hebrews chapter 9 verse 1, this is Paul speaking about the gospel as it was presented in the Old Testament.

He says, then indeed, even the first what?

Covenants had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.

I'm reading from the New King James Version.

For a tabernacle was prepared, for the first part in it was the lampstand, the table and the shulbert, which is called the what?

And behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the what?

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The Purpose

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