Two
Keys to Discovering Your Mission
Steve W. Reeves
INTRODUCTION:
A. I
can still hear the music from the TV show and movie, “Mission Impossible.” Each
week an episode would begin with a tape
recorded message, “Good morning Mr.
Phelps, your mission, should you decide to
accept it” and concluded with, “This tape
will self-destruct in five seconds.”
Between those two statements was a daring
mission of international intrigue. Somehow
Jim Phelps and his team always found a
way to accomplish what seemed to be an
impossible mission.
B.
What is your mission in life? The people who live the fullest lives are those
who
pursue a specific mission in their life. Christians
who experience the greatest joy are
those who understand their mission in life.
Churches who effectively reach out into
their community and make a difference for
the sake of the Gospel are those who
pursue their mission with relentless
determination and passion.
C. There
are two great challenges all of us face in life. These challenges are the keys
to
discovering and pursuing your mission. It’s
is matter of finding and losing.
1. The first of these is to find your
purpose in life. You need to understand why God
has created you as a unique individual.
2. The second great challenge is to lose
ourselves. We lose ourselves when our
purpose is bigger than we are.
3. Many people never find their purpose.
Some people find their purpose but never
lose themselves in it. There are very
few people who actually find their purpose and
lose themselves in it.
C.
This great challenge is not only for those who are young. One of the greatest
entrepreneurs in American history was a man
who was over sixty years old. He had
worked in a succession of jobs such as,
salesman, insurance agent and gas station
attendant. While working these different
jobs there was always one constant. He like
to eat and cook. Chicken was his specialty.
He experimented with various recepies
until he found a blend of seven herbs and
spices. In 1952 he opened his first
restaurant called, “Kentucky Fried
Chicken,” now KFC. He was sixty two years old!
1. Whether you are young or old is not the
issue.
2. The challenge is to find your purpose
and lose yourself in that purpose.
D.
Jesus addressed this issue with His disciples in Mark 8:34-35.
1. Mark 8 is a pivotal chapter in Mark’s
account of the Gospel. The first 8 chapters of
Mark ask the question, “Who is Jesus?”
The second half of the book describes how
Jesus impacts our lives. In Mark 8:27-29,
Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do men
say I am?” In verse 29 Peter answered,
“You are the Messiah.”
2. Verses 34-35 describe the impact of this
truth on our lives.“Then he called the
crowd to him along with his disciples
and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple
must deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants
to save their life will lose it, but
whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel
will save it.”
I. HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR PURPOSE?
A. A year before my Dad passed away he had
cancer surgery to remove a kidney.
Several days after surgery I went to his
hospital room early one morning as the sun
was creeping up past the horizon. My Dad
was standing at the window. As he
turned to me he had tears rolling down
his cheeks. He said, “I have never seen
such a beautiful sunrise.” He went on to
tell me how he felt he had lived his life
without a real sense of purpose.
B. God has a plan for your life!
1. Jeremiah 29:11 – “’For I know the
plans that I have for you’ declares the Lord,
‘plans for welfare and not for
calamity to give you a future and a hope.’”
a. How do you feel when someone
sends you a text message and says, “I am
thinking of you?” Do you like it
when someone texts you and says, “I love you,”
or “I have some wonderful news
for you?” The Bible is the ultimate text
message.
b. Here in Jeremiah 29 God spoke these
words to Jeremiah in a dark, difficult
time when Judah and Jerusalem
were being destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar
and the Babylonians.
2. How can you know God has a plan for
your life?
a. He has created you with unique
abilities.
b. He has given you a unique sphere
of influence among your family and friends.
c. He allows you to live in unique
circumstances. Remember the story of Esther
who came to the kingdom, “for such
a time as this” (Esther 4:13).
C. There are two questions you need to ask
to determine your purpose.
1. What are you passionate about?
a. You may be interested in many
things but what are you passionate about?
There are some things I am
interested in but I am not passionate about. I
recently saw an infomercial
about the plight of penguins in the artic. I was
interested in that. However, I
am not passionate about the perilous plight of
penguins.
b. Some of you are passionate about
hunting, fishing, raising cattle, research,
medicine, finances, cooking,
baking, etc. What are you passionate about?
2. What are your abilities? Some people
are passionate but do not have ability? I
knew a young man who was passionate
about being a country music singer. He
bought a cowboy hat like the one
worn by Garth Brooks. He wore western shirts,
blue jeans and cowboy boots. He
drove a pick-up truck. He had a Gibson guitar.
and was a good guitar player. There
was only one problem. He could not sing.
Listening to him was like listening
to the EBS tone on the television.
3. God has provided each of us with
unique abilities. Paul describes some of these
in Romans 12:6-8. “Since we have
gifts that differ according to the grace given to
us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy,
according to the
proportion of his faith; 7 if
]service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his
teaching; 8 or he
who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality;
he who leads, with diligence; he who
shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”
D. At the intersection of your passion and
your ability you will find purpose and
direction in your life.
II. LOSE YOURSELF
A. You must lose yourself in a purpose that
is greater than you are. A purpose that is
so great and so challenging that it
demands your dependence upon God.
B. Consider the life of the apostle Paul.
1. In Philippians 1:21 he wrote, “For to
me to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
2. For Paul, Christ was everything.
Christ was the higher purpose in whom Paul
was willing to lose himself.
a. In Galatians 2:20 he said, “I am
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet it
is no longer I who live but Christ who lives
in me.”
b. In Philippians 2:17 he wrote, “But
even if I am being poured out as a drink
offering upon the sacrifice and
service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy
with you all.”
c. In Philippians 3:4-8 he added, “Although I myself might have confidence
even in
the flesh. If anyone else has a
mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more:
5 circumcised
the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a
ebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a
Pharisee; 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the
church; as o the righteousness which is in
the Law, found blameless.
7 But
whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for
the sake of Christ. 8 More
than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the
surpassing value of knowing
Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things, and
count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”
C. In our “win at all costs” society we
often find it hard to equate loss with anything
good or beneficial. Many times over
people have demonstrated how loss has been
transformed into good.
1. Some of Beethoven’s greatest music
was written after he had lost his hearing.
2. Fanny J. Crosby wrote over 6000 hymns
even though she had lost her eyesight
as an infant.
3. Franklin Roosevelt led the United
States through the Great Depression and
World War II even though he had lost
the use of his legs.
4. Lose yourself and you will find a
greater purpose!
CONCLUSION:
A. The
world is so full of apathy, mediocrity and average mindsets. God is not
average.
I do not believe he wants us to settle for
average. In everything we do as individuals
in our lives, our marriages, our families,
our church family, our business and our
world we should strive for excellence. When
people saw Jesus they said, “He has
done all things well” (Mark 7:37).
B. A
little boy was at home on a rainy day. His father wanted to help him use his
time
wisely so he found a picture of the earth
in a magazine and cut it up into tiny puzzle
pieces. He gave the pieces to the boy and
said, “put this together.” He thought it
would take the boy a long time but in a few
minutes the boy had the world put
together. “How did you do that so quickly,”
asked the father? “Look Dad,” said the
boy. On the back is a picture a a man. I
figured if I got the man right the world would
be right.” The way to find your mission and
lose yourself in it begins with losing
yourself to Jesus Christ. Die to yourself,
confess your faith in Him. Turn from your sin
and be buried with Him in baptism. We
invite you to come to Him today!
