The Importance of A Purpose - Matthew 2:1-12; Luke 9:51
In a small Southern town there was a “Nativity Scene” that showed great skill and talent had gone into creating it. A gentleman from out of state stopped by and was admiring it. One small feature bothered him. The three wise men were wearing firemen's helmets. Totally unable to come up with a reason or explanation, he left. At a “Quik Stop” on the edge of town, he asked the lady behind the counter about the helmets.
She exploded into a rage, yelling at him, “You darn Yankees never do read the Bible!”
The man assured her that he did, but simply couldn't recall anything about firemen in the Bible. She jerked her Bible from behind the counter and ruffled thru some pages, and finally jabbed her finger at a passage. Sticking it in his face she said “See, it says right here, ‘The three wise men came from afar.’”
Last Sunday when my family and I left church, we left with the purpose of joining my parents and my sister and her family in Williamsburg, Virginia. After finishing up getting the house in order and completing the complex puzzle of fitting everything we wanted to take for the week into Anita’s Honda Civic, I set up the GPS on my phone to get us to the resort my parents had reserved, and we started heading northeast, and without missing a beat or a turn, in under four hours we achieved our purpose.
The wise men did not have a GPS, but they did have a star…and with that star, they had a purpose. They had set out from the Orient as they had witnessed the appearing of a strange new star in the night sky. Having read or heard of the prophecies, accompanied by their apparent study of the stars, they knew the appearance of this star was significant…in fact, they understood that it marked the location of the King of the Jews. They began their trek with a singular purpose in mind…to find this King, to bow in worship to Him, and to present gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The refused to let anything interfere with their purpose, even the great king Herod who tried to play up to being fellow royalty, along the lines of, “Hey, come back and tell me what you find so that I can go and worship him too.” They had a purpose and they stayed focused on it, and eventually found young Jesus in the small town of Bethlehem, at home with Mary.
Jesus didn’t have GPS or a star…but Jesus had a purpose and to guide Himself, He had the will of God. In the Gospel of Luke, we read, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus knew His purpose, He set His goal. His purpose was to bring salvation, to the nation of Israel, and to the world. That was His sole purpose, and to achieve that purpose, He had to make His way to Jerusalem. Christ “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus knew…and was determined that nothing would stop Him from reaching His goal and achieving His purpose.
What’s the significance of having a purpose...what is the importance of having a purpose? Having a purpose gives us a focus for what we need to be about. It keeps us from wandering aimlessly.
Had my family and I gotten in the car last Sunday with no purpose in mind, we may have never left town, we may have just sat in the driveway, gotten out of the car, and gone back in the house. If we had started driving with no purpose in mind, we might have been easily swayed to go anywhere, possibly ending up at the beach somewhere, and missed spending time with my parents and my sister and her family.
Had the wise men set to their journey with no purpose, well, they may have not started on their journey and simply remained at home. They may have started on a journey, looking for a king, and wandered aimlessly around the world, never finding anything. They could have allowed themselves to be distracted by those they encountered, like Herod, and gone from a plan to worship Jesus, to aligning with Herod, who eventually sought to eliminate Jesus. Had the wise men not reached Jesus and presented him with their gifts, we would lose the foreshadowing of the cross in the second chapter of Matthew, where the gold foreshadows the Kingship of Jesus, the frankincense, commonly used in worship, to signify Jesus’ role as priest, and the myrrh, used to anoint the dead, signifying the role of Christ as the Sacrificial Lamb, born to die, to take away our sins.
Finally, if Jesus had lived with no idea of His purpose, He may have never left Nazareth. He might have remained under Joseph’s tutelage until He became a master carpenter, and made some of the finest furniture the Middle East had ever seen. Had Jesus not “set His face to Jerusalem,” determined to achieve the purpose of fulfilling the Will of God, Jesus might have easily done something else. Opportunities to get off-track abounded…He was rejected; He was slandered; He was questioned and challenged; He was tempted and tested, arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. With opportunity after opportunity to turn aside, take another road, try another method, and even the opportunity to be the warrior king that the people expected, Jesus refused to be swayed, because He understood His purpose, knew his goal, and “set His face to Jerusalem.” Had Jesus not made it to Jerusalem, we would still be slaves to sin and headed toward nothing but death and eternal separation from God.
With a purpose in mind, I made it to Williamsburg, and had fun with my family…the wise men made it to Bethlehem, and honored Jesus…and Jesus made it to Jerusalem and the cross, and with His resurrection brought us salvation and the promise of Eternal Life.
My brothers and sisters, it is important that we, as the Church, as the Living Body of Christ, understand our purpose.
In 1955, Fountain Place and Grove Park Methodists determined that they would share a joint purpose. They saw a need for a Methodist presence to be established in the Grove Park community of Burlington and through their efforts, after prayer and discernment, St. Paul’s Methodist Church was established. (The establishment of our congregation happened prior to the 1968 merger which resulted in changing the name from St. Paul’s Methodist to St. Paul’s United Methodist.)
The need to understand our purpose is why, back in October, several of our leaders and other members came together for our purpose retreat. We spent the day in prayer, worship, Scripture study, and conversation, in order to determine what God’s purpose might be for St. Paul’s in 2012 and beyond. After our efforts that day, a new purpose statement was developed, and has since received the blessing of our Church Council to be the guiding force, the GPS, the Star, and hopefully in sync with the Will of God, for our Congregation. We have seen it in our bulletin since early November. We prayerfully discerned purpose of St. Paul’s United Methodist Congregation is: “To make ALL disciples of Jesus Christ through love and service.” What does this mean exactly…over the next several weeks, we will look to understand the biblical roots of this purpose statement and how it can and should guide our lives together as we seek to live out the will of God.
My brothers and sisters, just as it is important for the church to understand its purpose, it is important for each of us to understand our purpose, as individuals, in God’s Church. How often have we wondered why we are here? How many times have we wondered if there really was an reason for us being around? How much effort have we put into filling our lives with so many other things, hoping that it might bring us fulfillment? My friends, our purpose is inextricably tied to the purpose of the church. Paul writes, “For as we have many members, and not all members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members of one another…”[i] and, “…just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, as it is with Christ…the body does not consist of one member but of many…Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”[ii] My brothers and sisters, if we wonder about our purpose, we find it in living our lives fulfilling God’s design, God’s purpose for the Church. This is not just about the leaders of the congregation, but it is for all of us…we are all designed to be an integral part of God’s Church.
Why is it important for that we and our congregation have and understand our purpose? It is so that we can make sure that we are not just sitting in the driveway, not going anywhere. It is so that we can make sure that we do not find ourselves in collusion with the King Herod’s of this world. It is so that we don’t find ourselves turning aside for the easy path if things get tough on the road that we are traveling.
And, my friends, as we seek to live out God’s purpose for our lives and for the Church, we will find that God will give us what we need for our journey in living out His Will. He will give us the strength and guidance we need. He will feed and nourish us with His Spirit…and this morning we will come forward and share the meal that He has provided for us to strengthen us for the journey. My brothers and sisters, let us enter 2012 not standing still, not walking down our own individual paths, and not wandering aimlessly in the wilderness of our society, but “setting our face” toward the will of God, live out our lives together, as One Body, in according with God’s purpose and will for our lives.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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