On Purpose
As we focus our attention on this Scripture for the next 30 minutes or so, let’s consider the word ‘purpose'.
Ephesians 3:11
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Has it occurred to you that God has an eternal purpose which is the primary focus of his actions on the earth?
Have you ever pondered what that purpose is, and how it’s being worked out?
With all that has happened and is happening in the world, it’s rather easy to lose sight of this… to be distracted from seeing it and appreciating it.
Paul’s words in Ephesians 3:11 are like putting your eyes to a pair of binoculars. Suddenly everything blurry and distant comes back into sharp focus. His words help us see clearly that God does not act randomly. We worship and serve a God of eternal purpose. But what is that purpose?
The eternal purpose of God was and is to make people of all nations the recipients of his blessing through faith in Christ Jesus.
Ref. Ephesians 3:11 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Taking Paul’s words literally, they tell us that God’s purpose was accomplished in Christ Jesus.
They also tell us that this purpose has been revealed by God’s intent to the church. And it is being revealed to the world (and to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms - that is the powers of darkness and Hell) through the church.
And finally, they tell that all of this is according to the manifold wisdom of God. That means that God is his vast wisdom saw this is as the best way to fulfill his eternal purpose on the earth. There was and is no better way. It is by God’s wisdom that Jesus would fulfill his purpose, and it is also by God’s wisdom that the church would reveal that purpose at work.
Quote from Steve Hawthorne, Perspectives Study Guide, p.1: “God is a God of global purpose…. The later it gets in history, the better God looks, because it’s all coming about as He promised. Because He is a God of grand purpose, and because there is a mission He has set Himself to fulfill, our God is a missionary God."
This is what I call “big picture thinking.” It’s seeing the vast purpose of God at work in the history of mankind on the face of the earth. To use a phrase right out of the sixties: “This is totally cosmic!
Quote from Carl Sagan, the famed secular astronomer: “If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.”
This sounds nice, but is it really true? Think carefully about this. Sagan’s words suggest that cosmic purpose is found and determined by each one of us. If we set a worthy goal in life we create our own cosmic purpose.
Is that right? Not according to Scripture. To the contrary, God’s Word tells us that The Cosmic Purpose was set in motion by God himself, and we can only discover it as he reveals it to us. We don’t create it, we have to discover it. And it can only be discovered as it is revealed to us by God.
Sagan was not a theist, though he rejected using the term atheist. He basically said there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to embrace faith in God.
To Robert Pope, of Windsor, Ontario, Oct. 2, 1996
“I am not an atheist. An atheist is someone who has compelling evidence that there is no Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. I am not that wise, but neither do I consider there to be anything approaching adequate evidence for such a god. Why are you in such a hurry to make up your mind? Why not simply wait until there is compelling evidence?” [It’s a bit puzzling that Sagan specifies the Abrahamic faiths in his definition of an atheist.]
To Stephen Jay Gould, Dec. 18, 1989, after a newspaper editorial referred to Sagan and Gould as “dogmatic” on the question of whether there is a God:
“Do you understand how – assuming either of us ever did say ‘The universe can be explained without postulating God’ – this could be understood as dogmatic? I often talk about the ‘God hypothesis’ as something I’d be fully willing to accept if there were compelling evidence; unfortunately, there is nothing approaching compelling evidence. That attitude, it seems to me, is undogmatic.”
Does this wait-and-see attitude make Sagan an “agnostic”? That word seems inadequate to me. Yes, he held out the possibility of a God, but believed that possibility to be very small. His position was the strictly scientific one: Knowledge is always provisional and contingent upon further data.
David Grinspoon, a planetary scientist whose father was Sagan’s best friend, and who referred to Sagan as “Uncle Carl,” tells me by e-mail:
“In his adult life he was very close to being an atheist. I personally had several conversations with him about religion, belief, god, and yes I agree he was darn close. It’s really semantics at this level of distinction. He was certainly not a theist. And I suppose I can relate because I personally don’t call myself an atheist, although if you probed what I believe, it would be indistinguishable from many who do use that term.”
In the end, if you want to see the cosmic purpose behind all that God does, it can only be seen by revelation from the Holy Spirit. This is exactly what Paul says in verse 5: "it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.”
But where and when did that revelation begin?
God’s promise to Abraham first revealed and began the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.
God’s purpose is revealed to human beings through God’s word, both spoken and written.
God’s purpose is eternal… that means it has always and forever been set in his heart. He didn’t just think it up one day when he was bored. But even though His purpose is eternal, it has not always been clear to human beings. In fact, it only becomes clear as God reveals it to people, as his did with Abraham.
Quote from Steve Hawthorne, Perspectives Study Guide, p.1: “God chose to reveal his purpose in the form of a promise: a promise that was both personal and immensely global: to bless all the families of the earth… This promise gives emphasis to what God would do far more than what Abraham was expected to attempt.
Ref. Genesis 12:1-3
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you;
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Since this promise was first given to Abraham it has been progressively fulfilled in three primary stages:
According to John Stott:
“First, it was partially fulfilled in Abraham’s day and throughout the period of the Old Testament (among the Jewish people).
Second, it was fully portrayed in the life of Jesus.
Finally, the promise will be perfectly fulfilled at the end of the age. It is even now being fulfilled as Christ builds his church.”
The revelation of this fulfillment is precisely what Paul is referring to in Ephesians 3, as he describes his own experience and ministry.
Ref. Ephesians 3:2-5 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you, 3 that is, the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly. 4 In reading this, then, you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets.
In these words Paul speaks of God’s eternal purpose as a mystery that has been revealed. Notice that three times he uses the word mystery.
Why was it a mystery? Because it was partially hidden from the people of earlier generations. It was not fully revealed and fulfilled more completely until the coming of Christ Jesus.
And what is so mysterious? What is the mystery that has not been revealed to Paul?
Verse 6 clarifies exactly what Paul means, and connects us right back to the Abrahamic promise from Genesis 12.
Ref. Ephesians 3:6 This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.
As we read these words, we have to remember that we are Gentiles. What Paul was rather shocked and surprised to discover is that God’s purpose was not limited or confined to the Jewish people. In fact, God’s purpose was to make his grace known to the Gentile peoples of all nations through the Jewish people, and specifically through Jesus. The mystery is that God has brought Jews and Gentiles together as members of one body, the body of Christ. We have become sharers together in the promise… that is the promise God originally extended to Abraham.
To live our lives "on purpose" is to align our lives with the eternal purpose of God.
When it comes to ‘purpose’, it’s one thing to know and understand the eternal purpose of God at work in human history.
It’s another thing altogether to live your life ‘on purpose’.
Have you ever noticed the classic response of any kid when they’re caught doing something wrong? “I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident.”
In the most basic sense, doing things on purpose means they are an act of the will. They are chosen.
But in a broader sense, doing things on purpose means living with purpose. It means that your values and your behaviors line up with your own sense of purpose in life.
The trouble is many people don’t have a clear sense of their own purpose in life.
There is a famous quote from the Westminster shorter chatechism that has been popularized by Christian author John Piper that goes like this:
“The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.”
This means living with purpose and on purpose starts with our own faith in Jesus Christ.
Ref. Ephesians 3:12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
But having faith is meant to lead to sharing the blessing of faith. Like Abraham, we are blessed to be a blessing.
It is more blessed to give than to receive!!
Quote from Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life: “You cannot fulfil God's purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans. ”
This statement is about alignment. If our plans are not aligned with God’s purpose then we will drift off course.
Like a car with wheels out of alignment, the pull is always to the right or to the left.
Illustration: George Banks - an example of misalignment and realignment
As the movie “Saving Mr. Banks” illustrated, the character of George Banks was actually based on the real life father of the author of the Mary Poppins children’s books. Her given name was Helen Lyndon Goff, though she took the pseudonym P.L. Travers. And her father’s name was Travers Robert Goff.
Her mother, Margaret Agnes Goff (née Morehead), was Australian and the sister of Boyd Dunlop Morehead, Premier of Queensland from 1888 to 1890. Her father, Travers Robert Goff, was of Irish descent and born in Deptford, south-east London, England. He was unsuccessful as a bank manager due to his chronic alcoholism, and was eventually demoted to the position of bank clerk.[2] The family lived in a large home with servants in Maryborough until Lyndon was five years old, when they relocated to Allora in 1905. Two years later, Travers Goff died at home at the age of 43.
The story of Mary Poppins was written as the dream of a girl whose life was shattered by a Father who lived with no clear sense of purpose.
In her daydreams, the practically perfect nanny, Mary Poppins, came along and solved all that by giving her father and her family it’s sense of purpose again.
In her imagination, Mary Poppins literally saved the Banks family.
Whether she intended it or not, this is a great illustration of what God actually does for people. We don’t have to day dream about it, or imagine it.
Jesus came to restore our sense of purpose in life by saving us from ourselves.
In the famous words of Mary Poppins, “Antying can happen if you let it!"
But there’s another aspect to living with purpose that I want to close with.
The problem with many Christians is that they mistake the blessing of God on their lives as a gift merely and purely for them... for their own benefit.
God always to two other motives in mind: the glory of his own name, the blessing of others.
There's a huge difference between a glass and a hose. Water flows into both, but it flows through the hose.
Paul's Example:
Ephesians 3:2 Surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you
Ephesians 3:7-8 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given methrough the working of his power. 8 Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentilesthe boundless riches of Christ, 9 and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.
If you want to live on purpose, you have to submit your life to alignment with the eternal purpose of God.