|
From 10:30 in the morning until 7 PM I stood on the steps
of the church and sat in the sanctuary of the church wearing my clerical
collar, talking with anyone who would make eye contact. We took prayer
requests. We handed out scripture from the American Bible Society. I
talked with over 80 people on the street that day, some for only a
sentence or two, others for much longer. Inside the church there was a
constant presence of 5-7 people, who stopped by to pray. I every one of
their needs was completely different.
The first gentleman I talked with was an agnostic of
Jewish heritage. He just wanted to sit in a peaceful place and read the
scriptures. He told me that he didn't believe in God, but after the towers
fell he desperately wanted to. We talked for about 45 minutes about the
Bible, life, baptism, about the intellectual barriers that kept him from
belief, that seemed to insurmountable to him. We prayed together. He sat
in the sanctuary long after we were done, about 3 hours, and he thanked me
when he left. He said it helped, and he would keep searching until he
found.
One woman told me she was from Puerto Rico, although she
was often mistaken as an African American or an Arab. She couldn't stop
crying. She interpreted the terrorists' attack as an assault on the
Constitution. She told me how she had dealt with racism all her life, how
she knew there were parts of our country where she wasn't welcome nor
safe. But she always knew, in the back of her mind, that she had to be
included, she couldn't' be refused admittance anywhere, because the
Constitution said so. She could take someone to the Supreme Court if she
had to and it would back her up and she was proud of that. But the
terrorists wanted a society with no constitution and she couldn't imagine
living in a world like that. She asked me to sing a spiritual with her
that she only half remembered from going to summer camp as a child.
Fortunately I knew it and it was in our hymnal- "I Want Jesus to Walk
with me." We sang. We prayed. We said goodbye.
What on earth am I here for?
If for nothing else, it was for moments like that, when my talents and
gifts and the needs of my neighbors and the call of God and the movement
of the Holy Spirit perfectly converged to produce a holy moment when I
knew I was doing God's will, I was held in the palm of God's hand. After
9/11 many were searching for meaning in life, for their purpose on earth.
Our churches were crowded for a week or two or three. Was West Chester
crowded? Man, it was as big as an Easter Sunday morning, the Sunday after
9/11 at my last church. I thought, here we go. All these neighbors are
finally hungering for it, a sense of peace and security in Jesus Christ.
But a few weeks later attendance was back to normal. An immediate need had
been met- they had touched base with God. But many weren't willing to go
further, to explore the important questions of life and find real
answers.
Why am I alive?
For the next several weeks we are going to be focusing on questions
like this, in the book The Purpose Driven Life, in over 20 small groups in
homes and at our church, and through Sunday morning worship and teaching
sermons. If you haven't signed up for a group yet, there is still time.
Jump right in today- sign up in the Gathering Area work together on these
important questions.
These questions have been around as long as there have
been human beings experiencing tragedy and loss. Jeremiah, thousands of
years ago, asked, Why was I born? Was it only to have trouble and sorrow,
to end my life in disgrace?
All of us have felt this way from time to time, but if we
really believed that, if we really believed that life was horrible and
then you died, what kind of life would that be? A hopeless one. A wasted
one.
Jeremiah would live through very difficult days- his
nation fell apart, was overrun by their enemies, and his job was to lay
the roll of the prophet, pointing out all of Israel's sins and
shortcomings. It was a tough job, but in the end he would search for God
and find peace. He would know that his great oak of a nation, even through
it would be cut down like a barren tree stump, still there was more life
to come. A shoot, a little budding branch, would one day pop out of the
side of that stump, and they would have the chance to grow into a Holy
Nation once again.
The Lord has made everything for His Own Purpose.
You've heard it said again and again that you have to look inside for the
truth, you have to find your way in this world by listening to your heart.
If I hear that one more time in a movie or on a sit-com on TV or in an
after school special I think I'm going scream. It's just not true. We
don't' create our own meaning and purpose. It isn't something innately
inside of us. We discover our purpose in by asking the source of all life,
God. God knows why you were put on the earth. You were placed here
haphazardly; you were placed with a family, in a time and place, with
certain strengths and limitations, special and unique, for a grand
reason.
"Long before He laid down earth's foundations, God
had us in mind, and settled on us as the focus of His love, to be made
whole and holy by his love." On you sermon notes insert circle,
"the focus of his love." If you only get one thing out of
today's sermon, or out of the next several weeks, get this-
You were created to be loved by God.
You can fill that in the blank there. God made you in order to
love you and to be loved by you. God, who is in very nature community,
father, son, and Holy Spirit, craves even more community. God created you
and me so that there are more and more people to love, so that holy love
becomes the all in all of creation.
That's the grand scheme. But what about your life, your
individual life.
Does my life matter?
Again, in your more depressed moments, when the job isn't going well, when
your relationships are becoming confused and painful, when your child
raising practices aren't producing the perfect child you dreamed of, it is
easy to think like Isaiah. My work all seems useless! I have spent my
strength for nothing and for no purpose at all.
Isaiah also served Israel as it was about to be overrun by
an enemy. He felt like all his talking, all his hard work trying to guide
his country back onto the right track, had been a waste. There is nothing
worst than feeling like you have wasted your life.
During WWII, there were prisoners in a concentration camp
in Hungary, there were prisoners working in a factory. The allies came
along and bombed that factory and blew it apart. So the prisoners had
nothing to do. The Nazi soldiers needed to keep the prisoners working, so
they had the prisoners take the rubble of that factory and move it to a
field nearby. Then the next day they had them move the rubble to another
field. The next day, back to the first field. The next day back to the
second field. Meaningless, purposeless work. Something strange began to
happen. The prisoners began to go crazy. They began to lose their will to
live because there was no meaning and purpose in their work. They were
just moving bricks back and forth, building nothing, helping no one. Many
of them began to throw themselves in front of the guards to be shot, in
essence committing suicide. Because you and I were made to do meaningful
things, to have a meaningful purpose.
Many in our church are very successful people. But that
doesn't necessarily mean you feel fulfilled in life. Fulfillment comes
when you know that your work will last, when it is a part of something
greater.
Ponder these next two scriptures.
Maybe they will help put your life and work in perspective.
I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you
were born.
From the Palmist as mused on his life in relations to
God's life- You scheduled each day of my life before I began to
breathe. Every day was recorded in your book.
Now, some of us are going to have trouble with Rick Warren
here, because he comes across as a predestinarian. Predestinarian means
that each person's life has bee fore-ordained by God, for better and for
worse, and that we cant' help but live these days out. It seems to squelch
any idea that we have any free will at all to choose how we will live.
Don't get too sidetracked in this discussion. United Methodists are not
predestinarians, although John Wesley said he was a hair's breadth away
from it. Take these verses for what they really mean, that God is
intimately involved with your life, deeply concerned with who you are now
and who you are becoming. What you do every day, every moment, has eternal
significance, so live everyday as if eternity mattered, because it
does.
I was made to last forever.
You were made to be loved by God and to last forever. This life isn't all
there is, it is an extremely small and imperfect taste of all that is to
come.
Read this next verse together with me, please.
When this tent we live in,
our body here on earth, is torn down, God will have a house in
heaven
for us to live in, a home He
Himself has made, which will last forever.
You matter so much to God that God wants to be your
partner, your friend, your host, your Lord for all eternity. When you look
in a mirror, all you see are the flaws- the wrinkles, the scars, the
weight. When God looks on that same face, God sees nothing but beauty,
nothing but a person who is special and holy and who is so important that
God sent his son to share our suffering to that we could have eternity in
God's presence without suffering. Today, we life in a leaky tent. God's
plan is for us to live all the rest of our tomorrows in a beautiful house
in heaven with God.
What is my purpose?
That's what we'll be examining in depth for the next several
weeks. You were made for love. You were made for eternity. You were made
to play a part in God's growing reign, in God's master plan for all of
creation.
Why did you create us? For nothing the Psalmist
cries.
This is David talking in one of his several weaker
moments. But many people believe this today. Many people question whether
God exists. They believe that we're are just here because we are here, as
simply a part of the evolutionary process, as a lucky accident, or just
simply because this is the way it is. When you believe that life
ultimately has no meaning or purpose there is great danger that we will
start treating others as if their lives had no meaning or purpose, that
they are only valuable for what they can do, not for whom they are, that
they are expendable, replaceable. Human beings are made in the image of
God. That's why no one is expendable or of lesser value. And to truly know
our purpose we have to get to know this One whom we are created in the
image of.
I find my purpose by getting to know God.
It all starts in God and ends in God.
For everything, absolutely everything, above and below,
visible and invisible… everything got started in Him and finds its
purpose in him.
The Bible starts- In the beginning God. It's all about
god. If you want to know your individual purpose in life start getting to
know God. It's that simple. Now, of course, getting to know an omnipotent,
omniscient, Creator of the Universe, who is Holy Love, known most clearly
to us as a Trinitarian presence in the person and work of Jesus Christ is
going to take some time. Actually a lifetime and longer. It is going to
take a small group. It is gift to have a group of searchers and believers
around us as we study the scriptures, getting to know God, listening to
our ideas and affirming many of them, telling us we are crazy about some
of them. The small group keeps us on track- please sign up, and find a way
to be a part of one weekly.
It makes no difference who you are or where you are from-
if you want God and are ready to do as He says, the door is open.
Your life is important, your thoughts are important, your
struggles are important. Share them with God, share them with your
neighbor these next several weeks. George Herbert once said, it's never
too late to be who you might have been." It's not too late to change
your life and to ask God to remind you why you are here.
Let's join together in prayer…
2006,
Rev. Dr. Truman T. Brooks
West Chester United Methodist Church
129 S. High St, West Chester, PA 19382
www.WestChesterUMC.com
|
