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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

The Purpose Of Life

Do you ever have a hard time trying to figure out what's most important?

I was driving home just yesterday trying to figure out how to introduce this topic of priorities and what's most important.

And I thought about a home movie from, I'm gonna call her my niece, I don't know if she is technically or not.

It's Elizabeth's cousin's daughter, they live over in Knoxville.

And I called them up, I said, could I share this video with our church?

I think it's about a minute and a half long and it's their little girl her name is Lily and Lily's trying to decide what her favorite color is and I think you'll catch on pretty quick But if we have that queued up, let's go ahead and watch.

Lily trying to figure out what's her favorite color.

But if you had to pick 1, which would you pick?

But if I gave you Purple and pink and said you can only have 1 which would you pick?

Lily if I got you 2 bicycles 1 was pink and 1 was purple.

Purple, so purple's really your favorite.

I've probably watched that a dozen times.

And it just gets cuter and cuter every time.

You know, as kids, it may be something like what color bicycle you want.

And I failed to ask what bicycle color she ended up with.

But have you heard the saying, if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.

Invariably, when we say yes to something, we're automatically saying no to a lot of other things.

And as we get older, it's not just what's our favorite color, but what are we going to do with our time, with our resources, the choices we're gonna make, what schools we're gonna go to, who we're going to date, who we're going to propose to, a whole list of things.

Is it a big deal to me that God is on this campus or is not?

Is it a big deal to me that I have to get off work early to go to this ministry event or to do this thing in the community?

And it all comes down to priorities, making those choices.

But a lot of times in our humanness, I want both, I want 2.

We have a hard time deciding which way we're gonna go.

You know, we've been looking at 3 eternal principles over the last 2 weeks, and we're gonna introduce the third 1 today.

And so just in a way of review, it's been a little time, but the first eternal principle that we looked at was God, what is your will?

That is the fundamental, or 1 of the fundamental questions that we need to ask with any given decision, whether it be big or even if it's just small.

How do you want me to spend my time today?

How do you want me to run my business or my practice?

How do you want me to interact and who do you want me to interact with?

For that we looked at John chapter 4, the woman at the well, and talked about how Jesus said I must go through Samaria because he had a job to do.

He had to complete his father's will and his father had communicated to him in no uncertain terms that he had to go through there.

He had to have this conversation, even though it was out of the way, even though it wasn't convenient.

He says, it is my job to do the will of the Father.

In fact, in John 17, it says, I finish the work that you have given me to do.

And we talked about how it doesn't necessarily say what I want to do.

I'm sure Jesus wanted to do a lot more things.

But he says, no, I finish the work that you have given me to do.

And we talked about how it doesn't necessarily say what I want to do, I'm sure Jesus wanted to do a lot more things.

You're in charge of my schedule, my to-do list, my time, everything.

And so to glorify God is to fulfill the task we were born for.

To glorify God is to accomplish the mission that God has in mind for your life.

To glorify God is not to finish the work you want to do but to finish and complete the assignment that God has given you And that takes some faith It takes some trust because it sure seems like God is doing a bigger better work with somebody else and he's doing with me But maybe that's not the task for me.

Maybe God wants somebody else to literally convert hundreds of people over here, but he says, no, for you, I want you to keep working on that same grouchy neighbor again today.

Jesus' life purpose was to daily seek the Father's will and to do it.

The second fundamental principle that we talked about a couple weeks ago, Lord help me to distinguish between the urgent and the eternally significant.

The urgent, the things that are pressing, the go, go, go, and everybody else trying to tell you, you need to do this and you need to do that.

And they may be a bunch of good things, but are they great things?

We looked in John chapter 11, when Christ raised Lazarus back from the dead, but he delayed for 2 days and then took another day to travel and they said Jesus where were you if you would have been here but it was urgent to heal a sick man but it was eternally significant to raise him from the dead wasn't it the healing of Lazarus would have been a good thing but raising him from the dead was a great thing.

The problem is we're the ones that think we know exactly what the great things are.

Lord, if you would just bless my plans, the things that I feel are so urgent.

No, the prayer needs to be, Lord what is your will?

Help me to decipher in the maze of this busy schedule and calendar and time of year between the urgent and the eternally significant.

Because like in the story of Lazarus, things aren't always as they appear to be, are they?

If his people are watching the Indications of his providence and stand ready to cooperate with him.

They will see a great work accomplished God's not trying to hide his will from us He wants to impart and to tell us and to give us that we may receive but a lot of us aren't even listening We're not spending time on our knees, we're not spending time in his word, we're not listening for that still, quiet voice to impress us, what is your will?

What is the difference between the urgent today and the eternally significant today?

The phone may be ringing off the hook, but maybe the eternally significant thing right now is to connect with my child in this way for the next 30, 40 minutes.

Continuing with this quote in volume 6 of the Testimonies, page 24, their efforts rightly directed will produce a hundredfold greater results than can be accomplished with the same means and faculties in another channel where God is not so manifestly working.

It's this idea of following where the Spirit is moving and being in tune with the Holy Spirit and saying, Lord, use me to accomplish your means and your purposes.

So we have 3 eternal principles, and the third 1 that I wanna look at today at the bottom here, Jesus' life purpose was to know God and to make him known.

Jesus' life purpose was to know God and to make him known.

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The Purpose Of Life

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