9 Essentials to Living the Christian Life: Purpose

He was in Israel when it happened. This is another event, not the event of yesterday. His name was George Kirsten. He was pastor of a 1,400-member church called the West Bowles Community Church, located in southwest suburban Denver. He was there in Israel when he heard there had been a shooting at the local high school.

Of the 200 high schoolers in his youth group, about 40 attended the high school where the shooting occurred. and when he got home, he learned there was tragedy. But out of tragedy came glory. And I'll tell you the end of the story at the end of the lesson. Today we go to the fifth essential of living the Christian life.

So far we've had the following. Christ the center, Philippians 1.21 The word on which we stand, John 8, 31-32

Prayer, Philippians 4, 6-7

Community, Hebrews 10, 24-25 And today, the fifth essential of the Christian life or for living the Christian life, I am calling purpose. Purpose. And using the text of Matthew 5, 16. So if you're doing the little chart, this is what it now looks like.

Christ is the center. We stand on the Word. We pray to the Father above. present our prayers and petitions to him. We do it in community.

But you know there's a real sense all of these things we've talked about so far we can really do without touching the outside world. But today we're going to go to the outside world and we're going to talk about our purpose in life. And to do that I want you to turn with me to Matthew 5, and let's read verses 13 to 16.

Matthew 5, 13 to 16.

I like to hear the pages rustling. I was teaching a class at North Greenville one time, and I mentioned to my students how I like to hear the pages rustling when we were turning to Scripture. And one student said he thought that was a bad thing to hear the pages rustling. I said, why is that? He said, well, if you've got to look it up, you don't know it well enough.

So maybe we can aspire to that, but right now I like to hear the rustling of the pages.

You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.

Instead, they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. Let's pray.

Guide us, O Lord. May your spirit be with us. Open our hearts, illumine our minds, inspire our wills to be all that you want us to be, to do all that you want us to be for your glory. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

Well, the context of the passage is fairly familiar.

mount. Jesus is talking to his disciples, but not just the 12. If you read the beginning of the passage, it is pretty apparent there is a larger, wider group of folks who are his, quote, disciples to whom he is speaking. And in probably one of the most moving sermons ever given, maybe the greatest sermon ever given by Christ, he begins to lay out for us what are we to be like as his followers. What is his call on our life?

And it is to that call we want to turn today. And I want to ask the question, why are we here? Why are we here?

The short answer, and I'm going to give you the short answer first so you'll have it. Why are we here? It's not a small purpose. The reason we are here is in A and B in your handout. We are here to change the world, to change the world.

That's A, and B is for the glory of God. That's why we're here, to change the world for the glory of God.

that's why we are here that's why the community is here that's why is the church is here we have no small purpose we have a mount everest purpose to change the world for the glory of god i want us to see the big purpose god has given us and i want us to embrace it individually yes but more as a community

to change the world for the glory of God well the fact that the world needs changing tells you something doesn't it there is a need for change the fact that the world needs salt and light implies that there's something wrong with the world that makes it need salt and light. So the first thing I think we have to recognize is the need for change in the world. The world is a place of decay. That's why it needs salt. And it is a place of darkness.

darkness. The fact that it is a place of decay implies that there are evil influences in the world that are leading the world in the wrong direction, causing it to deteriorate, to break down, to putrefy, to become something that is not wholesome. There is decay in the world. And the notion that there is darkness in the world means that the world has lost its direction. It can't see clearly in the darkness.

It's moving in a direction, but it can't see clearly where it's going because it's in the darkness. So decay implies evil influences. Darkness implies loss of direction. And the notion is that the values, the morals, the desires and deeds of the unbelieving world are opposed to the things of God. And those desires, those values, those evil deeds are destructive and harmful to humanity.

Is the world not a place of decay and darkness?

some would say no. Some would say we are enlightened. The world is enlightened. We have accomplished great things. We go to the moon.

Our reason is greater than any time in our history. We are great and we are good. The scripture says no. The unbelieving world is in darkness and in decay. Who can doubt that if you look at the history of this century?

Has the evil just not been abundantly apparent?

The destructiveness of an Adolf Hitler, the destructiveness of a Joseph Stalin, whole cultures and societies that would follow men like that, willingly, in many instances. How about the sexual mores and behavior of our culture? Can you watch even a PG or PG-13 movie? Maybe they don't have explicit nudity, but can you watch one of those movies and not the dialogue and the content just be all about illicit sexual behavior? And is there any show these days that doesn't in some way elevate homosexual behavior?

There may be some, but I'm beginning to wonder. Ellen broke the barrier. But boy, when she broke it, she broke it, didn't she? Huh?

How about greed? Greed is good. The desire for more stuff is of noble virtue. A bigger home, a bigger car. What's wrong with that?

Isn't that our goal in life? Some of us believe it, at least by our actions. It's all about us, the self, me. I am the most important person in the world. Everyone should cater to my needs and my wants and my desires.

You deserve it. And the advertisers know how to tug and pull at us. They play on our selfishness and self-centeredness. How about the injustice in the world? The voiceless are slaughtered.

42 million and counting.

The poor get poorer. The rich seem to get richer. And most people just don't give a rip.

the world is a place of decay. But God has an answer. He has a means by which to change the world. And that means that He has chosen is us, the community of faith. In this text, every one of the yous, Y-O-U, is plural.

Now, I mentioned this last week. In English, you can read the word you, and you don't know if it's talking about me, the individual, or you, plural, right? You can be singular or it can be plural in the English version. But in the Greek text, and this passage was originally written in Greek, there are two different words for you, depending on whether it's singular or plural, okay? So in this passage, every one of the you's or yours is clearly, without question, plural.

So when he says you are the salt of the earth, he's talking to the community of his disciples. You are the salt of the earth. Now that means we individually need to be our little bit of salt. But unless we are all salt, we can't change the world. You cannot do it alone.

God has not intended for you to do it alone. He has intended for this community called the church to be the salt of the earth. He says you are the light of the world. That is a plural you. One candle can light a little bit, but God wants the world filled with candles so that the light just pours out so it takes the entire community of faith.

You are to let your light, plural, shine before men. plural good deeds. You know, God has given other institutions to help preserve the decay of society. He's given us government. Government is here for a purpose.

And it's largely to maintain order so that sinful humanity doesn't break down and just run amok. And government has laws and helps control, in general, evil. there haven't been evil governments, but in general the purpose of government is to restrain and control evil. God has given us another institution. He's given us the family, that family unit where children are raised and their parents there to set some control so that the evil just doesn't run amok.

Sometimes it's hard to control that evil, isn't it? But you know the state and the family are not distinctively Christian institutions. many governments that do maintain order, but they don't have a Christian dimension to them. There are many families that help maintain order, but they are not distinctively Christian. The means by which God intends to change the world is of the big family.

It's the community of faith. Because it is from that community that the light goes forth in a way that other institutions do not do it. Do you realize it's us, folks? It's us in this room. We're the ones that are here to change the world.

That's what God intended.

So how do we do it? Well, we've got to be salt.

Salt flavors food. But more importantly, particularly in Jesus' day, salt, preserved food, right? to keep the meat from decaying, you salted it. Salted, retarded the decay. So the picture here is that the community of the faith is to be a preserving influence in the world.

The values we bring to the world, the morals we bring to the world, the message we bring to the world is to be a preserving influence. We are to try to persuade the world that there's a better direction, that there's a better way, in life than the one they're following. The other means is we are to be light. That is, we are an illuminating presence in the world.

We are here to let the truth shine forth because we know the truth will set free.

what is our salt and what is our light in this passage i think it's pretty apparent as you read the whole passage that our salt and light is our good deeds let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father who is in heaven so what are we to be about to spread this salt and this light we are to be doing good out there in the world in order to preserve it in order to illuminate it and that doing good can take all sorts of forms

it's evangelism taking the gospel so that they can hear the truth of jesus christ who changes the hearts and minds of people and is the greatest retardant to decay and the greatest illuminating presence that can exist in a person's life.

But it's also going out there and doing those things to help the poor, to help the needy, the homeless, the imprisoned, to fight injustice, to seek justice.

and we could start to enumerate all sorts of good deeds that we can do to be salt and light. But there are dangers for us that we need to be careful about. The first danger, the text says, is that we can be unsalty. We can lose our saltiness, the text tells us.

and if we lose our saltiness we're no longer good for anything it says you know salt those of you who are uh know something about chemistry salt is a very stable compound in other words salt is always salt it doesn't break down typically. It's always salt. So how is it that salt becomes unsalty if it's always salt? Well, the way salt becomes unsalty is by other substances getting mixed in with the salt, by impurities getting into the pure salt.

so how do we as the church lose our saltiness we lose our saltiness when impurities begin to seep in when we let impurities get into the pure salt in other words we begin to lose our Christian character and our Christian values we begin to lose that single loyalty to Christ by letting influences of the world come in. We are to be different. And when we lose our distinctiveness, we are no longer different. We are to march to the beat of a heavenly drummer. Not to the beat of the world.

So let me ask you, are you distinctive? Are you different from the world? Do you care more about golf or the gospel?

Do you care more about football or the faith? Could you prove it by how you spent your time in the last couple of months? Where have you focused more attention, more effort, more planning?

is shopping on a higher list of priorities than the needs of lost sinners. Did you spend more time at the mall last month than in the book? Did you spend more time in the mall than thinking about how you could influence someone for Christ? Did you think more about yourself last month than you did about the sick? Did you work more at your pretty home and keeping up your pretty car than you did thinking about or helping the poor and the oppressed and the imprisoned?

Is your first desire in life to be happy or to be holy? Are you more interested in getting rich or getting righteous?

Are you more influenced by the movies you watch or the scriptures you read? I submit to you the answers to these questions and others we could formulate. Helps us to know if we have lost our saltiness. We're supposed to be different, not the same. There's another danger.

the danger is not only that we lose our distinctiveness but there's a danger that if we sort of maintain our distinctive saltiness that we fail to be in the world

I actually dealt, on your handout I dealt with little number two first, didn't I? Loss of distinctives but there's also a danger of our failure to be in the world salt doesn't do any good if it's not applied to the food or the meat, right?

Becky Pippert wrote a book called Out of the Salt Shaker and Into the World. And the point she was trying to make with the title of that book and in the book itself, which is an excellent book to read, Out of the Salt Shaker and Into the World, is that there's a real danger as Christians that we can become either isolationists, we just have our little circle of Christian friends and go to our Christian churches our Christian schools and we always gather at parties with only Christian friends and we never ever ever have to touch those evil people out in the world well what good is salt if it doesn't get out into the meat what good is salt if it's not applied and there's a real danger that we sort of go into our little bunker mentality the world is decaying the world is dark take me out of the world and the danger is we lose our ability to influence the world another danger is that if we're in the world we're just silent we're not willing to speak up we're afraid we'll ruffle feathers if we speak the truth so we kind of are those silent christians

sneaking through the world keeping our banner furled instead of unfurled never, never declaring who we are and standing for the truth there's no need, one writer said of saving salt for heaven it won't be needed there its mission is to permeate, season and purify things here on earth so have we lost our distinctiveness Have we failed to be in the world? Those are dangers for those of us who want to be salt. The other danger is that our light is hidden.

Hidden light, the text tells us two things. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house.

So I think that passage right there is telling us two things. Genuine light, number one, can't be hidden.

Light, by definition, is seen. It shines. It illuminates.

so the only reason we wouldn't be shining is if we've lost our true Christian character if we're not really light but if we're true light we will shine the second thing this tells us not only that true light cannot be hidden the second thing is true light should not be hidden nobody goes and buys a lamp for the home puts it in the home and then covers it over so it won't give light nonsensical. And God did not create you to be hidden. He created you to be seen. You are his lamps in the world. You're supposed to be out there glowing. He wants you to be seen.

He wants your good deeds to pour forth so people will see them.

so our light is hidden if we lose our true Christian character, and our light is hidden if we fail to engage the world. That's letting our light be hidden. We're not engaging the world. We're not letting the light of what we know pour forth. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow Him.

you're not to be hidden, you're to be seen.

Well, we know the purpose in the passage is that we are to be seen for the glory of God. The reality is that our good deeds are one means by which God gets glory.

Those of you who are parents,

If your child does something that is exceptional, that reflects well on the child, the child is a good example, the child makes good grades, it makes you parents look good. Doesn't it?

because when the child shines brightly it says something about the father and the mother of that child and the reality is that when we stand as good examples when our light shines our heavenly parent gets glory

because he who is the light with a capital L When His light is reflected in us little lights, our Father gets the glory.

I can remember growing up wanting to not fail, to not do something bad, but instead the opposite, to do good because I wanted my parents to be proud of me. I wanted them to be able to look at their son and know he had been a good boy. And that notion of not wanting to disappoint parents was a good influence for me.

And the same sense is true for us. We don't want to disappoint our Heavenly Father. And in fact, we want our Heavenly Father to get glory because His children are doing good. Now, there's an important point here, and maybe you've already thought of it as possibly a problem. That in order for our Father to get the glory, our good deeds must be seen.

Okay?

Now, some of you who know your Sermon on the Mount are going to say, now wait a minute, wait a minute. If I turn over to Matthew 6, verse 1,

it says, if you've got your Bibles, look at this.

Matthew 6, verse 1. Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men to be seen by them.

Look at verse 5. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Verse 15.

Verse 16. When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. In other words, to be seen by men. Jesus, it seems like in chapter 5 says, let your light shine before men, let your good deeds be seen by people. But then he goes to chapter 6 and says, wait a minute, don't be like the Pharisees who want to be seen by people doing their acts of righteousness.

So what's the point here? Well, we must recognize there is a danger in wanting to be seen. And the danger was the danger the Pharisees fell into. And the danger is we want to be seen for our own glory. The Pharisees wanted to be seen not to make their Heavenly Father look good.

They wanted to be seen to make themselves look good. They wanted people to look at them and say, Oh, how righteous that person is. Or how holy that person is. Or how good that person is. So the danger is we do the good deeds for the wrong purpose and the wrong motive.

glory. What God wants us to do is to be seen by men, not for self-glorification, but for His glory. So do we want our good deeds to be seen by people? The answer is yes. Let your light shine before men so that they may see your good deeds, but the purpose of it, and what we must always hold before us is we do those good deeds not for our glory but for His glory.

God is abundantly clear in Scripture. He has not one whit of interest in sharing His glory with you.

He did not create you for your own glory. Go read Isaiah 42 verse 8, Isaiah 48 48 11 the scripture makes it clear we were made for one purpose for his glory not our glory and the text of isaiah says has god saying i will not share my glory with another he is only interested in his own glory because he wants humanity to be drawn to him not to others

so we must be sure that God gets the glory when we do these good deeds but how do we do it how do we if we're the ones doing the good deed out there in the world letting our light shine how do we make sure that God gets the glory and not ourselves well two or three are two or three are the ideas

our desire must be not self-glory, but His glory. We've got to have that desire. I love the prayer of a Norwegian theologian named Ola Hallesby who said this prayer, wrote this prayer. Lord, if it will be to Your glory, heal suddenly.

If it will glorify You more, heal gradually. If it will glorify you even more, may your servant remain sick a while. And if it will glorify your name still more, take your servant to yourself in heaven.

That's someone who really desires God's glory. Lord, whatever you need to do with me, do it so long as it brings you glory. I think another way, not only do we need the desire for God to get the glory, we need by our words to help people know that we do want Him to get the glory. So when we do good deeds for people, let's let them know why we do it. We come in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We come to help the poor. We come to help the sick. We come to help the oppressed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I think we have to do some verbalizing if we want God to get the glory. We can't just do the good deed and be silent about why we're doing it.

We come in the name of Jesus Christ. We come for His glory. He has sent us. He is the one who created me, who gave me any skills or gifts I have. I have no worth in and of myself.

It's only from His hand. And I come to help you in His name and for His glory. Now, depending on who you talk to, you might not dress it up in too theological a language. but you've got to point them up. And I think lastly, God gets the glory when others begin to see that our light is a radical dependence on God.

That we live in such a way that people know it's not through our own strength we're living, but it's through the strength of the one we serve. Well, let me close with several lessons for life.

number one you need to learn the first question of the catechism i wish we i'll be honest i wish we did the catechism in church these days catechism some of you know is a question and answer way of teaching people the faith people used to learn it we i don't know if baptist ever did unfortunately but i think probably baptist did it one time in our history but it's a question and answer way of learning about the faith what's the first question the catechism What is the chief end of man in more modern day parlance? What is our chief purpose in life? And the answer is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. What is the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy Him forever? If we are going to lead purposeful lives to bring glory to God, we need to know the answer to the first question, the catechism.

The second thing I would encourage us to do is to study the Beatitudes, Matthew 5, 3 to 12. I think they're worth memorizing. And I think if we're going to be light and salt in the world, we need to reflect those qualities of character that are set forth in the Beatitudes. Louise and I are going with a group of our young people to Bolivia in July, and Sunday night, February 9th, we're going to talk about the Beatitudes. do we want to be like before we can help change people. If we're going to change the world, we've got to be different people. So read the Beatitudes and learn those. Thirdly, you are first and foremost a Christian. All other aspects of who you are should pale by comparison.

You know, we identify ourselves in a lot of ways, don't we? I'm an American. I'm a South I'm a father. I'm a husband. I'm a mother.

I'm a wife. I'm a lawyer. I'm a plumber.

Our identity, first and foremost, is I am a Christian. I am a Christian so far above being an American that to be an American pales by comparison to what it means to me to be a Christian.

so many of us have lost our central identity our central identity is we are christians and as christians we follow a new a whole set of commands and have one who is at our center it's jesus christ if your americanism ever gets over your christianity god help you that's idolatry and sometimes i fear we tread dangerously close

find a mission for Christ and do it

this would carry us into the issue of gifts and abilities that the Lord has given you but folks each of us has a purpose a mission for Christ I don't know what yours is exactly but I know it isn't just to sit here and listen to me every Sunday there is some affirmative positive mission you have for christ if you haven't found it i'll be glad to try to help phil ellenberg will be trying to try to help but there's a mission you have for christ you may in the scheme of things it may seem very small in the scheme of things it may seem big but i don't care how big or little it is if it's your mission for Christ, that's what you're to be about.

I think about Hubert Lynch who every week is getting the sound system going in church and making sure people can just hear. That's his mission for Christ. He is helping evangelize the world and change the world because he makes sure the sound works on Sunday. I think about the ladies in the kitchen on Wednesday night who are back there serving meals so we can gather together as a family. you know many would say that what's the big deal about it they're they're helping change the world because they're doing their mission for christ find your mission and do it and then my next is focus focus focus focus focus do not let yourself be distracted from your mission do it with a wholehearted abandonment this means you've got to make time for your mission this Keep your eyes on what you're to be doing and not get distracted.

We're too busy with so many other things in life. We're not doing our mission. Develop friendships with non-Christians. You've got to find out ways to do that. You've got to be interacting with non-Christians.

Maybe you need to be in some group, club, I don't know. But you've got to find a way to interact with non-Christians. And then lastly, you've got to speak up for Christ. You can't just be silent.

Well, I started the story. Let me conclude the story. The pastor, George Kirsten, heard about the shooting at Columbine High School. And one of his students, a 17-year-old girl named Cassie Bernal, was one of the victims in the shooting. Do you remember this shooting?

Cassie was in the library with dozens of other students when the shooters arrived. One of the shooters tossed a pipe bomb that sent books flying in the library.

Then they began killing people.

Time Magazine reported on the event and told us that eyewitnesses in the room in the library heard one of the gunmen ask Cassie Bernal if she believed in God. knowing full well the safe answer Time Magazine reports that she responded quote, there is a God and you need to follow along God's path, close quote. The shooter looked down at her and said there is no God and then shot her in the head. How much glory did God get from Cassie Bernal? immense.

Sermons were preached to a nation because of her standing for Christ. Books have been written. People have been inspired because she knew her purpose in life and in death was to live for the glory of God.

My guess is she got a grand reception.

Let's pray.

Lord, forgive us because we are so self-centered, seeking our own glory that we've forgotten our real purpose in life. It is to glorify you. May the name of Jesus Christ be lifted up. May the Lord of the universe be known. And may we be ambassadors for Christ in this world to lift up the name, the one whose name is above every name, and before whom one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess.

May the name of Jesus Christ be lifted up. In his name we pray. Amen.