Years ago, in a meeting with an old, retired pastor in Nevada, he pulled me aside and said, “I want to tell you God’s purpose for your life.” I found that somewhat intrusive but said okay. He said, “God’s purpose for you is to be where you are to be, when you are to be there, doing what you are to be doing, the way God wants it done, and doing it all for His glory.”
As I’ve considered this over the years, I’ve discovered these principles aren’t steps but the process of stepping - walking. You don’t do one, stop, then the other, stop, then the next. Like walking, all the motions are combined into the action necessary to walk. We don’t send separate commands to our feet and legs. We just walk. To do so, several things are taking place at the same time. These principles are a collective package of doing what connects us to a single purpose, and that is to glorify God.
I offer this to you as your (our) purpose in life as Believers and as a Church. And though they are this collective package, we need to break them down individually to get a handle on how all of this works.
· Be where we are to be – It’s the principle of abiding – John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. Abiding means to stay or remain connected in a position of readiness for the actions the Master wants from us.
o Like a well-trained dog told to stay as he awaits the next command
o Like a branch attached to the vine, waiting for the juices to flow that will produce fruit: the evidence of faith – what’s produced when we trust God.
· To be where we are to be, when we are to be there – Timing
I was to catch a flight once. I’d made specific reservations because I had an appointment at the other end. I was at the airport, had my confirmation number, my bags. I was trying to check in and the computer wouldn’t let me. I was 12 hours early. Apparently, when I booked, I clicked PM instead of AM. I was at the right place but at the wrong time. By disconnecting the when from the where, I messed up the appointment.
Being where we ought to be does no good if we’re early or late when it’s a timed action.
Draw a line across your mind, marked off by years. Let’s call it a life-graph. Each of us can plot out where we’ve been and what we’ve gone through to get to where we are today. Where we grew up, vacations we went on, where we went to school, who we dated, when we married, where we lived, where we worked, where our kids were born, what were our tragedies, what were our successes, when we retired or plan on retiring, loved ones we’ve lost. We can graph out our history.
But when we look back, if we’re not careful, we might say it was all a matter of being in the right place at the right time as though our life was a result of good luck or chance. But for those of us who know God and know He has plans for our lives, there’s more to our life-graphs than luck.
Though we exercised choice in much of what went on – like college or vocation, most of what went on just seemed to happen. How many, other than me, picked your wife out of a catalogue, then had her delivered? No, we just met and things developed. We didn’t plan it or schedule it. It just came along and we embraced it. Which has made our lives a journey and not a trip.
A trip is the action of getting from one place to another. A trip draws a line between two points. Connecting point A with point B. A journey is everything that goes on between point A and point B. The process of getting there. In a journey, much more happens than just arriving at our destination. Much more than we plan.
Like the turtle on the fence post. How on earth did he get up there? At the end of our lives, we look around and ask: How on earth did we get here? There seemed to be an invisible hand guiding us along, which also explains the turtle. There has to be some plan connected to our lives.
When God said: Jer 29:11 For I know the plans that I have for you, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope, He was saying our lives are significant to Him and therefore worthy of Him investing His plans into our lives. To accomplish those plans, He attaches to them a strategy.
Strategy is intended action designed to achieve an overall aim. In other words, the job of strategy is to help us hit the target.
Put in simple terms, strategy is the instruction: Ready, Aim, Fire. That order is crucial to the success of hitting the target. If we, instead, go: Ready, Fire, Aim, we still shoot the gun, experience the noise and feel the recoil, but the bullet isn’t going anywhere near the target.
Within the strategy God sets, there is a target and a time frame by which to hit the target. That timeframe becomes the framework upon which He builds our lives. It’s how God fills the life-graph between our birth and death giving meaning to why we’re here and what He has planned. My life-graph is different from yours and yours from mine.
Which means, though the purpose of our lives is the same – to glorify God – the way that will be accomplished will be different. God’s plans are specific to each of us.
It starts with vision. Vision is the view from the top down. The whole picture from beginning to the end. Seeing the parade from a bird’s view, not from spectators along the parade route. God sets the vision. He’s the only one who can see our whole life, where everything is going and how it all fits together.
Gen 15:7 And He said to Abraham, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it."
“Abraham, I know where I found you, where I brought you from and where I am taking you. I’m working out a strategy for your life-graph. I’m going to use you to help Me accomplish a greater plan. So, together, this is what we are going to do.”
The whole Bible reveals God’s plan. But it’s not until the NT that the plan becomes more obvious. When we get to the Gospels, we notice there is a timing factor connected to the plan. That within the plan is a schedule.
John 7:3 Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. 4 For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." 5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him. 6 So Jesus said to them, "My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. 8 Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast [as you suggest] because My time has not yet fully come." 9 Having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee. 10 But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as if, in secret.
Jesus was working from a schedule. Though much of what we read about Him seems to be just happenstance, there is a clock attached to His life. Each thing He did moved the story toward its scheduled climax. Each moment held significance in the overall story.
· Matt 5:17 Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
o God used the prophets to share details of His plan. Primarily, so that when the things prophesied happened, people could check and see, “Oh, this is the Lord’s doing.”
o Alfred Edersheim found 456 prophesies in the Old Testament that point to or describe or reference the coming Messiah. About 80 prophesies relate to the 2nd Coming, but he found that Jesus fulfilled at least 375 prophecies during His earthly ministry.
o A professor used 48 prophecies to estimate the probability of them being fulfilled in one person. He came up with 1:10^157 – 10 with 157 zeros.
o Jesus came to fulfill prophecy as proof of who we was.
· Also, He came to fulfill the Law.
o Rom 11:26 THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. 27 THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.
o The Law established the sacrificial system. Within that system was the all-important Day of Atonement. Atonement didn’t mean forgiveness. It meant covering.
o The Law has no expression that sins are forgiven. Always – sins will be forgiven.
o Lev 16:8 Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for the scapegoat. 9 Then Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the LORD fell, and make it a sin offering. 10 But the goat on which the lot for the scapegoat fell shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make atonement upon it, to send it into the wilderness as the scapegoat. 22 The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.
o Scapegoat taking away sin was a picture of what was to come.
o John 1:29 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
You don’t do that in one setting. It takes time and events to orchestrate. Jesus couldn’t have just walked up to Pilate and announced, “Okay, I need to be crucified to take away the sins of the world. How about this Thursday?” There was a schedule, an alignment, and players that needed to be put in place.
Not seen better than in Laz: John 11:1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick." 4 But when Jesus heard this, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it."
John 11:14 So Jesus then said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead, 15 and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him." 17 So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off; 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother.
John 11:21 Martha then said to Jesus, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You." 23 Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." 24 Martha said to Him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." 25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" 27 She said to Him, "Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world."
John 11:39 Jesus said, "Remove the stone." Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, "Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?" 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me." 43 When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." 44 The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go."
John 11:45 Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary, and saw what He had done, believed in Him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. 47 Therefore the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council, and were saying, "What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. 48 If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." 49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, 50 nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish." 51 Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. 53 So from that day on they planned together to kill Him.
John 12:9 The large crowd of the Jews then learned that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead. 10 But the chief priests planned to put Lazarus to death also; 11 because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.
Story with many twists: love of family and friends, hope, promise, identity of Jesus, instructions and resurrection. But mainly timing.
What if Jesus had gotten there when everyone wanted Him there? He would have healed Laz and it would have been no big deal. Jesus healed a lot of people but only a few got mentioned. A large crowd wouldn’t have been there. They came because Laz had died not because he was sick. Many who believed would have missed their opportunity. Word wouldn’t have gotten to the Council to stir them up. The death plan wouldn’t have been initiated.
Had He come early, Jesus would have missed the window of God’s plan. That miracle, at that time, took those that wanted Him removed, all the way into their plot to when God had scheduled Him to die. Timing was crucial.
Mid-air refueling – a strategic plan that requires timing.
Chronos (clock-time) and Kairos (timing). Kairos time means making the right decision at the right time.
John 5:6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time [Chronos] in that condition, He said to him, "Do you wish to get well?"
John 7:8 Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time [Kairos] has not yet fully come.
Kairos – the time when conditions are right for accomplishing crucial action: the decisive moment.
We’re more “by the clock” people. You do realize how much of a hindrance that is to faith? Faith is trusting in a God who works on His own time schedule. We watch the clock. He watches the calendar. He doesn’t just send an answer but prepares the right moment for the answer to come.
We want to know how much longer? God says: however long it takes. Because to Him life isn’t a trip but a journey. Some really important things may be scheduled to happen along the way that He doesn’t want us to miss.
Since we don’t always know when those are, we set our lives into a readiness mode - abiding, anticipating God to work in and through us as He chooses - timing. Being where we are to be, at the time we are to be there, is an attitude of anticipation. I stay, awaiting the next command, ready for what God plans to do, anticipating what comes next.
Jesus had a schedule. Moments within that schedule were strategic to the story. But that schedule was connected with the Father’s plan. His Goal remained the same: to do the Father’s will. Which made it essential that He was where He needed to be, when He needed to be there. Each moment held the expectation and anticipation of the Father’s work in His life. It’s the same for us.
Keep Me in the Moment – Jeremy Camp
Oh Lord, keep me in the moment
Help me live with my eyes wide open
'Cause I don't wanna miss what you have for me
Oh Lord, show me what matters
Throw away what I'm chasing after
'Cause I don't wanna miss what you have for me
Keep me in the moment
Oh, keep me in the moment
Keep me in the moment
'Cause I don't wanna miss what you have for me
TAKEAWAYS:
- Timing is as crucial as the plan.
- God works on a schedule of Kairos - when the time is right.
- Since He is never early and never late, we cannot put God on our time schedule.
- At the same time, however, God wants us on His, by us living in anticipation that we will see His goodness in our lives.
- Faith keeps us in the moment.
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