An Ant, A Bee, And Man

"An Ant, A Bee, And Man"
Isaiah 42:1-9

A fellow minister stood up in his pulpit one Sunday and started his sermon by saying,

One of the unquenchable truths about our world is that we are all going to die.  It just so happens that some of you may already be dead.  It's just that we won't get around to burying you for 20 years or more.

The point he was making in his sermon was that there is a lot more to being alive than just walking around in an upright position, or breathing, or being able to keep your eyes open at the appropriate times.  There has to be something else.  Something not in the way of physical activity, although that's important.  But something intangible, yet very real.

I think the best word I can think of that can act like a peg on which I'll hang everything else I have to say this morning—that word is "purpose."  Purpose.  That intangible reality, that strategic ingredient that must be in the recipe of everyone's life in order for there to be life, must be purpose.

The problem is, so few know their purpose.  So few have a purpose.  Too many live life without purpose.  One motivational speaker once said, "You've removed most of the roadblocks to success when you've learned the difference between motion and direction."  So many go through the motions of life, but have no idea what direction their lives should be taking.  "Life," whatever that is, is making the decisions for them about their direction.  This happens not just for young people, but to all of us at different stages of life, such as when parents get to the "empty nest," or at the time of retirement.  At those times you have to define, again, your direction and purpose, not just be in motion.

The most basic questions about individual purpose are attempted to being answered in flurries of activity and motion.  You go no where and in the end accomplish little.  Or, more importantly, such busy, busy, busy-ness doesn't give a person a sense of accomplishment in life.  That kind of busy activity doesn't allow a person to look back on their lives in any measure of time and feel a sense of fulfillment about the purpose they served.

Dr. Will Menninger of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka once wrote,

It is so easy just to drift along.  Some people go through school as if they thought they were doing their families a favor.  On a job, they work a long in a humdrum way, interested only in their paycheck.  They don't have (purpose).  When anyone crosses them up, they take their marbles and walk out.  The people who go places and do things make the most of every situation.  They are ready for the next thing that comes along on the road to fulfilling their purpose.  They know what they want and are willing to go an extra mile.

At our "Grow the Church" team meeting this past week, I asked the team to watch a You Tube video that was a talk about millennials—that generation of people born after 1985.  In the "Vivid Vision" the team wrote at the start of our process, we decided we wanted to grow our congregation with a percentage of millennials.  So we better know who we're talking about.

In the talk, the speaker said most millennials want to have a purpose, they want to make a difference, they want to have an impact on their world.  But the reality is, this generation has the least joy of any generation.  I would define joy as the fulfillment of having made an impact, of making a difference.  Instead of joy, when asked how their lives are going, millennials simply say, "Fine."  But it's different than when most of us reply, "fine."  It's more like the millennial generation is fine with fine.  Even though they want to make a difference, if they aren't, that's "fine."

Somehow, we in the church need to help the millennial generation realize fine is not fine.  That we are ready to stand by them and work with them to have the kind of impact on the world they dream about.  To fulfill a purpose that makes life good, and joy-full.

The trouble is, that as humans, unlike the animals, we have choices as to purpose.  The ant knows its purpose.  It is instinctually born into it.  Build the anthill.  Gather food.  Protect the queen and her eggs.  The same is true for bees.  Build a hive.  Collect pollen.  Protect the queen.

Ants, bees and all other animals don't have to bother with the big existential problems of purpose and meaning we humans face.  Only people are confused about his or her purpose.  We all live under the same sky, but as humans we don't all have the same horizon.  Therein lies the trouble.  There are so many purposes in life we could choose.  (Vanessa wanting to be a doctor, but what kind of doctor?)  But we get so easily overwhelmed with the enormity of choices we could make, and thereby make no choice at all.  We settle with, "fine."

When Jesus rose up out of the waters of baptism, he had a purpose.  He knew what it was.  He saw the Spirit of God descending, he heard the Voice and everything was clear.  The same statement that is spoken to Jesus is also spoken by God in Isaiah read from chapter 42 earlier.

Most people expect that their purpose in life will be communicated to them in some way.  That they won't find it within themselves, but that it will come from outside themselves—hopefully from God.

The Biblical story is consistent in presenting God as the one who speaks, and Israel or the Church as a people who listen.  But how can you hear if you're not paying attention?  If you're not listening?  If you haven't for a long time?

It's important to realize if you are feeling purposeless, and if you are waiting for God's Voice to speak, those who hear God's Voice have taken the time to develop a real and intimate relationship with God.  What they hear comes out of that relationship, not out of the blue.

What can you expect to hear, in terms of your purpose from God?  Specifically, I can't really say.  Generally, based on my experience and that of others with whom I have talked, I think there are a couple of things you can expect.

First, you will hear that you will have to make choices and concentrate yourself and your efforts.  Discovering purpose means coming to terms with the fact that you can't divide yourself amongst many purposes.  Divided concentration will never bring one to a sense of accomplishment as does a single-minded purpose.

In Isaiah 42, God says of the special Servant:
…he will make sure
that justice is done.
He won't quit or give up
until he brings justice
everywhere on earth.  (vs. 3-4)

Notice the single-minded mission that creates the purpose in the Servant's life.  "Bringing justice" is that single minded mission.  Because the Servant is single-minded in that mission, he will be able to have a global impact.  Things will happen.

In the Peanuts comic strip, Lucy demanded that Linus change TV channels, threatening him if he didn't.
"What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?" asks Linus.
"These five fingers," says Lucy.  "Individually they're nothing.  But when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold."
"Which channel do you want?" Linus stuttered.
Turning away, he looks at his fingers and says, "Why can't you guys get organized like that?"

Purpose can be an effective power in life if there is a sense of cohesive singularity about it.  Purpose is hard to find when there are a lot of little purposes all clamoring for attention, or going in several different directions.  Dwight L. Moody once said, "I'd rather have a man who says, 'This one thing I do', rather than, 'These hundred things I dabble with.'"

But there is a grief process involved here.  Some purposes, around which we would like to build our lives, which may be noble in their own right, must be let go of in order to pursue a singular purpose.  There is grief in coming to terms with the fact that we can't do all the things we wish we could.  (Back to Vanessa and her future choices.)

I was talking with Benton about this over Skype last month, when we were having one of our deep discussions.  If you choose this purpose to give your life to, then that means you can't choose something else.  By choosing this, you have excluded that.  By grasping this as a noble purpose, you have to let go of your grasp of that as a noble purpose.  There's where the grief process comes in.  You end up grieving the loss of a choice you can no longer make.  But you have to do that if you are going to concentrate on one, singular, noble purpose for you life.  As the Lord's Servant chose:  bringing justice everywhere on earth.


And the other thing I think you will hear from God about your purpose is that it will be action, outward, other oriented.  God's purposes for people are not primarily for their own self-fulfillment.

At one point in this message to the Servant, God said, "…and I sent you to bring light and my promise of hope to the nations."  Do you hear anything in there about the Servant finding his own self-fulfillment?  The Servant is to be outward oriented to the nations (which is a code word for the other heathen, non-God believing people).  Not only is God asking the Servant to be other oriented, but those others are people who have nothing to do with God.  Doesn't sound very personally fulfilling, does it?

At another point in this message of God in Isaiah 42,
You will give sight to the blind;
you will set prisoners free
  who sit in darkness.

One of the first times Jesus preached in a synagogue, he opened the scroll of Isaiah and read these very words.  He told the people, "This is my purpose.  I am that Servant whom God spoke about.  This is the purpose to which I call all of you who want to follow me.  To extend yourselves beyond yourself to meet the needs of others.  To help people really see, and to set people free from their own self-imposed darkness."  In other words, a self-centered purpose does not qualify as a noble purpose.  Nor a Godly purpose.

What God promises is that you (yes, you) have the power to effect other people's lives in an eye opening, freeing, and releasing sort of way.  The poet, Swinburne, had a line in one of his poems:

…sealed as the voice
of a frost bound stream.

It's a wonderful image.  Image a running stream, but in winter time, the water is frozen over on the top so you can't hear the chattering of the water as it flows over the rocks, underneath that layer of ice.  The "voice" of the stream is still there, but can't be heard because of the ice on the surface.

Just like this stream, so are many people's lives.  Some kind of coldness covers the voice of their purpose.  They need someone like you to start chipping away at the ice, so they and their greater purpose can be released and heard.  You can free them from their frost-bound stream and help them move towards their singular, Godly purpose.  Your purpose, given by God, will not be for yourself, but for others.