How Jesus answers our essential questions …

What is my purpose?

Who am I?

What am I here for?

What am I supposed to do?

Those aren’t just the ponderings of ancient philosophers, but real questions every human being experiences just by being alive.

Understanding our purpose for being, knowing our authentic identity, and discovering what we’re here to accomplish frees us from a life plagued with an existential angst that can propel us to search for these answers in ineffective and unfulfilling ways. We need the answers to these questions to find fulfillment and peace in this life.

The good news is, Jesus provides us with the answers to these questions. In fact, He’s the answer to these questions! Let’s explore them a bit more together …

WHAT’S MY PURPOSE FOR EXISTING?
When Eve bit into the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, with Adam joining in, the first thing they lost because of their sin was their purpose.

Human beings were created for one specific purpose: To worship, glorify, and enjoy God.

When the first couple rebelled against God in the Garden, they lost their very purpose for existing. The reason God created you and me is the same reason He created Adam and Eve — to worship, glorify, and enjoy Him. When we chose sin, we also lost the purpose for which we were created (our “creative purpose”).

Most of us have had the frustrating experience of being on a road trip listening to our favorite radio station, when all of a sudden the radio signal begins to fade out. It usually happens during your favorite song or while listening to an interesting news story. You just crossed the boundary of the station’s ability to reach you. Before long, all you hear is static.

The same happens when we move away from our creative purpose. We move from the clarity of knowing what our purpose is to a life filled with static. The emptiness of that static leaves our lives unsatisfied and unfulfilled. That’s because there is a single relationship that gives life purpose; without that relationship our purpose is missing. Many people, even those who are well-known, can attest to that void of purpose.

For example, H.G. Wells, famous historian and philosopher, said at age 61: “I have no peace. All life is at the end of the tether.” The poet Byron said, “My days are in yellow leaf, the flowers and fruits of life are gone, the worm and the canker, and the grief are mine alone.” The literary genius Thoreau said, “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.” Ralph Barton, one of the top cartoonists of the nation, left this note pinned to his pillow before taking his own life: “I have had few difficulties, many friends, great successes; I have gone from wife to wife, from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four hours of the day.”

Without a relationship with our Creator, we find no real, lasting, satisfying purpose for existing. That’s because we were made for Him!

For through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see — such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. – Colossians 1:16

Life without Christ as our purpose for being is like the story told by Kent Crockett about a bodybuilder who was one of the guests on a late night talk show. The host asked the weightlifter if he would show off his muscles to the audience. With a big grin on his face, the body builder faced the audience and cameras and flexed his muscles.

“Boy,” the host said, “you sure do have the muscles! What do you use all of those muscles for?”

The body builder didn’t answer, but continued to flex and smile at the audience.

Again the host asked, “What do you use those muscles for?”

Still grinning, the muscleman remained silent and continued to show off. The answer was obvious. He didn’t use his muscles to do woeful work, but only to glorify himself.

From shortly after the beginning, humanity’s sin was to seek self-glorification, even though our purpose for being was to worship, glorify, and enjoy God.

WHO AM I?
With a loss of purpose comes a loss of our authentic identity.

There is a story about Margaret Thatcher visiting a retirement community while she was serving as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She walked around visiting with residents and shaking hands. When it seemed like one woman did’t recognize her, Thatcher asked, “Do you know who I am?”

“No,” the woman replied, “but if you ask the nurse, she usually knows.”

Sin has distorted our view of who we are; we only find an authentic identity through relationship with Jesus Christ. The New Testament has much to say regarding our identity in Christ, but through Christ we discover a new identity of being God’s very own children!

“But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God,” John 1:12.

“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure,” Ephesians 1:4-5.

“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is,” 1 John 3:1-2.

“For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:26.

When we understand our purpose and our identity, we can answer the next question …

WHAT AM I HERE FOR?
The answer to this question is one of the most distorted among Christians today.

Knowing that we exist to glorify God, and seeing ourselves as being His own sons and daughters, we should be able to grasp that we’re here to carry on the purpose of God! There is probably no place in scripture that gives us a better understanding of this than Paul’s description of what our spiritual vocation is.

Yes, a spiritual vocation!

Our purpose is to worship, glorify, and enjoy God …

… doing so as God’s very own children …

… and as His children we are to be His personal representatives who take up the “family business” of reconciling of humanity to God …

“And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, ‘Come back to God!'” 2 Corinthians 5:18-20.

We aren’t here to primarily be plumbers, school teachers, artists, doctors, real estate agents, lawyers, or any other career we may pursue. Our careers are our means of supporting ourselves, others, and the church, and for engaging the world. We may greatly enjoy these jobs and seek to excel at them, but they aren’t the primary work God has assigned to us. Our great life’s work is “… this task of reconciling people to him [God] …” as His personal ambassadors to humanity …

So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us … – 2 Corinthians 5:20a

Given this fact, it’s incredible — and incredibly disturbing — that research among Christians continues to show that the bulk of all Christians will never share the Good News of Jesus Christ with anyone in their lifetime! For that to be true is to completely fail to understand what we’re here for, which likely means such professing Christians don’t have a correct understanding of their purpose or their identity in Christ. Yet when it comes to vocation, many who claim to be children of God find little or no interest in being Christ’s ambassador and instead try to find fulfillment in worldly vocations. Such pursuits usually lead them away from their creative purpose, which then results in their lives filling with static and their not clearly seeing who they really are in Christ.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying the work we have in life that provides us with “a living” and even a level of enjoyment. But their is no work more important, nor as fulfilling, as representing Christ to the world and being available for God to make His appeal through us so that those who do not know Him can be reconciled to Him. Usually, it’s not a choice between our worldly vocation and our spiritual vocation; our work on earth is a platform from which we can engage the world as Christ’s ambassadors.

“But I’m not a minister, how can I be used as an ‘ambassador’?” some ask.

This “ministry of reconciliation” that God has given us was given to all of His children, not just “ministers.” In fact, a primary responsibility of leaders in the church is to equip God’s children for the work of ministry!

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ,” Ephesians 4:11-12.

Throughout history, God has often used the least likely people to do great things! If you think God can’t use you, maybe you’ll be encouraged by a story told by pastor Jay Winters …

There was once a water carrier in India whose job it was to bring water from the river to his master’s house. Day after day, he would take two pots on a long pole down to the river, fill them up, and bring them back to his master’s house.

One fateful day, the water carrier stumbled and fell. When he fell, one of his water pots cracked a little.

The water carrier resumed his vocation, going down to the water, filling up his two pots and going back to his master’s house. The difference now, was that one of the pots – the cracked pot – only took back half of the water that it had been endowed with at the river.

One morning, before the water carrier went down to the river, the water pot spoke to the water carrier. It said, “I am ashamed of myself.” The water carrier asked “why?” The pot explained that it had felt bad ever since they day that they had fallen. Ever since that day, the water pot had only been able to bring back half of the water it had been entrusted with.

“I long to go back to the days when I could bring back the full contents of what you had filled me with. Since I cannot go back to those days, I ask that you simply break me on a rock and throw me on the rubbish pile.”

The water carrier, seeing that the pot was distressed, said “I see that you are feeling bad. I tell you what. Today I will not fill you up with any water. Relax, take it easy. Today all I want you to do is to enjoy the ride to the river and back and to watch for the flowers along the way.”

Sure enough, the water pot watched all the flowers go by, but all the while it was fuming. “Watch the flowers? You have to be kidding me! You want me to watch the flowers and be even more ineffective than what I have been before? Now I can’t bring ANY water. I just have to wait and watch these stupid flowers.”

At the end of the day, the water pot again spoke to the water carrier. It said the same thing, “I feel ashamed of myself. I want you to stop using me. Just break me and leave me on the rubbish pile.”

The water carrier smiled a little and asked the pot, “Did you notice the flowers?”

The water pot shot back, “Of course I noticed the stupid flowers, but that has nothing to do with me.”

“Ahhh,” said the water carrier, “but it does. You see, two weeks after I had fallen I noticed that I was leaving a trail of water behind me. That day I took some wildflower seeds and I spread them along that side of the path. You have watered those seeds, which have become flowers, which I pick every day now when I am coming back. Now I do not only grace my master’s table with water, but with beautiful flowers as well.”

As God’s children, we are still imperfect, but we’re being transformed day-by-day by the Holy Spirit. Even in our imperfect state — like cracked pots — God can use us to make His appeal to a lost world through us.

“You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name,” John 15:16.

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago,” Ephesians 2:10.

Okay, then, so …

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?
Yes, just as Adam had work to do in the Garden by tending it, we have work to do as God’s children and Christ’s ambassadors.

But relax for a minute!

Remember that your purpose isn’t found in your work, and neither is your identity!

The late comedienne and famed fashion critic Joan Rivers was notoriously fond of plastic surgery, yet she was also the first to laugh at herself over it. She often joked about how Botox had left her face stiff and expressionless. Rivers said she once attended a Botox-themed birthday party with a cast of Hollywood socialites, but when it came time to blow out the candles, no one could pucker their lips enough to blow them out!

Just as you can overdue or miss the point of cosmetic surgery, we can easily miss the point of the work God has for us. It is not to earn His love, earn a way into heaven, or earn forgiveness. Our reconciliation to God cannot be earned! Our work for Him comes because of His grace, that He has reconciled us to Himself through Christ, that He has adopted us as His very own children, and He has given us a ministry — a work to do — as Christ’s ambassadors.

I encourage you to study the New Testament closely to gain a strong and clear understanding of the specific work God has called us to, all under the umbrella of living as His children and Christ’s ambassadors. That work includes the primary work of making disciples, being a light to the world, being the salt of the world, caring for widows, orphans and the “least” among us, and in loving everyone.

CONCLUSION
With such BIG questions as “What is my purpose?” “Who am I?” “What am I here for?” and “What am I supposed to do?” much more could be written than we’ve taken time for here. But I hope its been enough to start revealing some important answers and stir you to asking questions like …

Is God’s purpose for your existing the purpose you’re currently living out?

Have you surrendered your life to God so that He could adopt you as His own child? Do you live your life each day as a son or daughter of God?

Regardless of what your job is, are you living out your spiritual vocation of being an ambassador for Jesus Christ?

Is the work you do in Christ’s name a reflection of the relationship you have with Him, or an attempt to rack up good deeds to try to earn something from God?

Scotty