Stay Focused on God's Purposes - I Peter 4:17-19

As Christians we have learned some of the attributes of God that are undisputable. He is all powerful, all knowing, all seeing and ever present—he created all things and maintains control over them. He is without sin…therefore; he has never made a mistake. He created you and me and we are not mistakes. He has in his mind a total plan that is so complete that it contains his reason for each of his created beings. You were created to fulfill God’s planned purpose for your entire life while living here on earth and then he has a specific purpose for you as a member of his heavenly family throughout eternity. A side bar is appropriate here—and it is that I believe that the work ethic is so deeply rooted in the teachings of Christ that it will be carried forward into heaven. There will be no idle moments there and if you are a lazy Christian, you have a sad awakening just ahead.

Do you know what God’s purposes are for your life? Peter insists that Christians must stay focused on God’s purposes. How can you be sure you are focused if you are not sure what the purposes are?

Two or three years ago our church family sponsored a forty day study based on the book, The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren. I have heard several of the TV evangelicals criticize this book and the study materials prepared to guide a church through the study called Forty-days of Purpose. The critical remarks caused me to revisit the written material in this study only to find that it is a book written by a man [it is not an inspired gospel] but very relevant to one of our basic needs for understanding why God created man. We must understand who we are in Christ and we must know what God expects us to do as we live this life for him.

One of the first things we must remember is that God created man to fulfill his desire and not to please man. A Christian life is nothing more than people letting Jesus use them for his purpose. There is no doubt that God intended for man to use his mind to think and plan, and he allows us to choose our career, our spouse, number of children and their names, and make many other decisions that are acceptable to God …but we did not get to choose our purpose in life…God did that before we were conceived. We were made by God for God—therefore finding God’s purpose for my life has nothing to do with me but is all about me doing what God purposed for me to do during my life time here on earth.
From Genesis to Revelation, the core of the message is that God is Love and; he loves us and he wants to be loved. God is worthy and deserves all the glory from his creation. It actually sounds too simple to say that man’s one and only purpose is to bring glory to the Master…however, this is the truth. And since there are several way for you to bring glory to God—it is entirely possible for you to accomplish everything this lesson sets out for you to do—which is to Stay Focused on God’s Purposes.

· Jesus told the father that he brought glory on him by doing everything that God told him to do—there is no difference—we bring him glory when we obey him.

· We give God his greatest glory when we truly worship him. True worship is a lifestyle wherein we enjoy our relationship by accepting him and giving ourselves to him completely and without reservation.

· God loved us so much that he gave his only Son to die for all who would believe and trust him. We bring God glory when we express, and prove our love for other believers.

· We bring glory to God when we serve him and other believers.

· We bring him glory when we witness for him.

Our lesson today starts with the seventh verse of chapter four in First Peter and it shouts out loud and clears why it is so important for us to be in focus as we microscopically examine each duty we must perform for as long as we live. “The end of all things is near.” Every writer in the New Testament refers to the fact that the end of time is very close. “The night is far spent and the day is at hand” [Romans 13: 12]. “The Lord is at hand” Phil. 4: 5]. “The coming of the Lord is at hand” James 5: 8]. “The time is near” Rev. 1: 3], and the list could continue on to over one hundred instances that refer directly or indirectly to the end time and the return of Christ.

There are many who study the bible and find all of these passages a problem. I happen to be one that thinks the bible says what it means and means what it says, that it is literally truth. I also believe that there are statements in the bible that are to be taken as being figuratively true, and this in one teaching that meets this criteria. It is plain for us to see that some 1,940 to 2,006 years have passed since the apostles wrote and since Christ preached, and time is still rolling along, so literally speaking, Peter was wrong. But wait one minute—the bible plainly states that a day with God is as a thousand years with man—it may be that it has been only a couple of God years since Peter wrote this book. Our ways are not God’s ways—therefore, our clock may run faster than his or vice versa. There seems to be no reason for us to be confused or concerned in thinking that any of the writers were wrong…they wrote truthfully.
There is one simple fact behind this teaching…God deals with each one of us personally…one at a time…and there is only one thing that is important and that is that each individual must prepare to meet God. Even with a huge stretch of imagination, we have no more than 120 years from birth. As far as the members of Faith Builders Class we do not know the day or hour, therefore, each day we have left is in the shadow of eternity. The day of the Lord may come before we get home.

“The end of all things is near.” Why do you think Peter broke his train of thought and wrote this simple statement? He had been talking about the necessity of suffering and the rewards it brings. He switched to the subject of God’s purpose for our lives…he is reminding us that we are to pray for each other…above all we are to love each other deeply…be hospitable to each other…don’t grumble…use our gifts to serve God and others. This sounds to me as though he is telling us to focus on God’s purposes for our lives. Are any of these things going on in your life? If they are not…you need to search for God’s purposes in your life, and get busy.

When you look at all that Peter is trying to convey to us it is that we should not continue to live in sin. Because the end is near…it is near for each one of us all of the time, and could be within this hour, we are to live in Christian love toward others all of the time. This could be a good word and a pat on the back or in some cases a few dollars for food or medicine for a needy family. If suffering still comes your way…do not doubt, fear or quit…but continue to do good.

For us to live the will of God means for us to have the same perspective on suffering that Christ had. All of us have spent enough of our time in life sinning, or at best doing only what we want to do for ourselves. We must realize that God will judge the sin in our lives, and he will determine if we have lived a self-centered life and the way for both of these to have a positive outcome…we must simply live for God each day.