Summary of Live God’s purpose
Preamble
Brent starts by recapping a previous message about “turning outward.” He said that over 260 people committed to being purposeful about creating meaningful relationships with someone with the desire to show them who God is. Brent tells a story of a person who met with a family member and the conversation led to this person into believing in Jesus.
Ephesians 4:1
Paul writes a letter to the Ephesian church. He is currently in prison. He urges the people of the church to live a life worthy of “the calling” of God. We must decide to either be with Jesus or move apart from Jesus.
What does “being with Jesus” actually involve?
Often we assess “being with Jesus” on criteria like:
- Will following Jesus make me money?
- Will following Jesus make my wife (or husband) happy?
- Will following Jesus help my schedule or hinder my ability to do other things?
Jesus and our children’s schedule
How are we, as parents, making “being with Jesus” a priority in our children’s lives? We must make Jesus a priority for ourselves and our children. Brent admits this is a delicate balance as sometimes sports can get in the way of corporate worship experiences (church, SRKids).
Ephesians 4:11-13
Brent discusses how we can often dismiss this portion of the letter since we aren’t “Apostles” and “Prophets”. Brent argues these roles still exist, but not in the traditional sense. Everyday people can have these qualities. Brent focuses on the other roles as well and then points out that all these roles are connected to ” proclaiming the word of God.“
Roles that are gifts to the church
Brent discusses how the younger generation is searching for their roles within our church. It is an exciting time! But this searching for “a role” isn’t for the younger generations. Everyone must figure out what God is asking us to do — and it can change overtime. There is no age limit on searching for God’s purpose for us in our lives (and even in certain situations.) This is simply called “serving.”
We are all called to serve
The problem with the North American mentality is “I’ve hired someone to serve on my behalf — that’s the pastor.” But this isn’t what Paul is saying Ephesians. When we all serve together creates unity, leads to knowing Jesus better, and then leads to maturity in our faith.
We must have a serving attitude
We must “die to ourselves” (put our own priorities second) and focus on serving others.
Closing
Brent closes with an interesting story about a violin collector.
About this Message Series
This is a message in the message series This is who we are. You belong here. The goal of this series is to discuss and explain SouthRidge’s mission statement — Love God, change the World, one life at time — and introduce the new 2020 vision statement. This series was started in September 2015.
About the Speaker
Brent is the lead pastor here at SouthRidge. He and his wife Pam were part of the original church plant.