Whose Purpose are you In? - By Steve Yoder

In Ephesians 3:9-11, Paul tells how he was given the grace to preach to the Gentiles the "unsearchable riches of Christ." God's plan was hidden in mystery until its fulfillment in Christ; now through the church it is made known "according to the eternal purpose which He has purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God, through his church, has a plan and a purpose. He has something great in mind. You may scorn that, but don't be so sure you are right. We have brought this whole gospel of salvation down to a level that is way too low. We think Jesus came just so we could be saved. We make ourselves the center of God's plan, but the center is God. Jesus has come for the purpose of God.

In this passage Paul calls it an "eternal purpose which he has purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." An eternal purpose means that it has always been there, and--this is an awesome fact to me--God in his greatness and magnificence and infinite wisdom has called out to man and said, "I am inviting you to enter into my purpose."

God's purpose will be fulfilled. It is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, and will be fulfilled in Christ Jesus. We try to make his purpose center around mankind, but it centers around himself. We get bogged down in the temporary and the finite: "If I can just make it through this struggle" or "If I can just make it through this life." We've lost the eternal purpose, the wonderful and infinite plan of God into which God invites us to enter.

This passage tells us that the principalities and powers will be put to shame when they see who the church is and what Christ has brought forth. When they see that the people who have walked by the spirit of the world and the spirit of the devil have given their hearts to Christ, being transformed by the Spirit of God, they will be shamed, for they once knew that fellowship with God and now have fallen.

Those who once were in a league and in a contract with the devil are now part of the eternal purpose of God.

I remember hearing a story about a man walking down a street who came upon a construction site. He walked up to a worker and said, "Sir, what are you doing?" "Can't you see?" came the reply. "I am laying bricks. Are you ignorant?" The man went a little farther and asked another worker the same question. The reply was much different: "I am building a cathedral," said the worker. "I am part of a great work. Maybe I'm just putting these bricks in place, but I am entering into a much bigger purpose."

We are far too near-sighted when it comes to the great purpose of God. We have lost the vision of what God has intended to do through his church. He set out with a plan from the beginning and the call goes out: All who will may come and enter into his purpose.

In Matthew 3:10, John the Baptist said of Jesus, "Now also the ax is laid unto the root of the trees." Every tree that doesn't bring forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. When Jesus comes, he deals with the root of the problem. He gets to the source. He doesn't look at the present circumstance but at all eternity.

At my home in Ohio I have a couple of acres with a fenced-in area where I keep some cattle. Near one part of the fence a thorny little bush has grown up. Last spring I cut it off, but about the middle of the summer I noticed the thing was growing again, so I cut if off again. Then a while ago I walked through my pasture and lo and behold the thing was there again. I thought to myself, "At some point I need to deal with that bush." If I want that thing out of my life I'm going to have to deal with it. I'm going to have to dig down under the surface and cut it off at the roots.

You see, the thorny branches on top are not the problem. They are the results of the problem. We spend too much of our life running around trying to deal with the results of our problems, not with the problems themselves. We chop off branches and chop them off again. "Why, I thought I had dealt with that thing. Why is it coming up again?"

What we think and what we do are the results of a much deeper problem, a heart problem. Hebrews 3:10 talks about the wayward Israelites and says, "They do always err in their heart." It doesn't say "in their mind" or "in what they do" but "in their heart." Later we are exhorted to take heed, lest there be in any of us "an evil heart of unbelief."

What an awesome thing that God would even notice us, much less speak to us; and then we ignore him and say, "We don't want it." We have the audacity to turn away. That's the deceitfulness of sin.

II Timothy 4 talks about those with a seared conscience and then gets into hypocrisy. As we resist God and grow cold in heart, we begin to build up an image to maintain what we used to have. The image isn't real; we only pretend that we're still warm and intimate with God. We try to do good things to prove we're all right.

When our hearts are right with God, we don't have to try or do--we can just be what God wants us to be. But when we stray from God we aren't content any longer and must do this and that to cover our restlessness.

We also develop problems with authority. By resisting God's authority, we grow antagonistic to any authority, whether it be our boss, our father and mother, or other leaders. And if we ourselves are in a position of authority, we begin to abuse those under us.

Balaam is a good example. He was a priest of God and heard God's voice, yet he resisted God's authority and God became his adversary. When Balak sent for Balaam to come and curse Jacob, Balaam took matters into his own hands. God told Baalam to go if the men of Balak came and called him, but Balaam rose up and went on his own. He had his own plan to pursue.

We know that Balaam began to lose his spiritual vision. His donkey could see the angel of the Lord, but he could not. He came to a place of narrowness between two walls in a vineyard, and the donkey, fearing the Lord's angel, crushed Balaam's foot against a wall. They went a little further to an even more narrow place, and the donkey fell down.

Balaam's path was becoming more and more constricted. That's where we find ourselves when we resist God. Our freedom in the Spirit is gone. Things begin to press in on us as they pressed in on Balaam.

Bristling at God's authority, Balaam abused his own authority. He took his rod and beat the donkey. When God opened the donkey's mouth to speak rebuke, Balaam wished for a sword to kill the beast. It's amazing to me that a donkey would speak, but it's even more amazing that Balaam was so blind he spoke back to the donkey. He was so bent on his own way that he couldn't even see the miracle before him.

Many times we really are no different than Balaam. He despised what God spoke, and God's communication was cut off. God speaks to us and gives us direction, and when we blindly ignore him he begins to speak in other ways, letting things press in on us. Then we may speak back to him and despise him. We say, "You dumb old thing. What are you doing in my way? Move!" We hit and kick and beat at whatever's in our way.

All the time God is trying to get our attention. He wants to speak to us, but when we reject His word and His Spirit, how can he? It's in mercy that He brings in circumstances to turn us from our selfish ways. We are called to an eternal purpose, but God must first turn us from our selfish purposes.

Church, we have to understand. This is no game we play. We enter God's purpose by invitation; it's not a right. It's not to be flaunted or despised. When the God of all creation speaks to us, it's an almighty thing.

When Jesus saw the crowds following him, he knew they weren't coming for him but for what they could get. "You seek me because you ate of the loaves and were filled," he said in John 6. He told them not to labor for food that perishes but for that which endures unto everlasting life.

The people asked how they might work the works of God, and Jesus answered: "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." The word "believe" is often misinterpreted as meaning we agree with our minds, we acknowledge the fact. But here "believe" means to have confidence in, to commit one's self to. It is an action of the heart.

Jesus said his Father would give them not the kind of bread that perishes but the true bread from heaven. Back then when they made a loaf of bread they stamped a seal on it to show where it came from. A seal is a mark of ownership, an indentation in your life. That's what God is calling us to. We must allow him to own us completely, to let him put his mark on us. In Timothy it says the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal: God knows them that are his, and let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. We leave our own way and walk in the way of our owner.

We will not know the power of God until we give ourselves to him in that way. We won't find his mark on us by begging or by praying longer. We will find it only by obedience, a complete giving over of ourselves.

Before I learned to swim I would stick to the edges of the pool where I could keep hold of the side. I couldn't seem to get the knack of swimming. Finally one day I decided it was time to just do it. I looked into the deep end of the pool and realized the only way I would learn was to commit myself to that water. Somehow I worked up the courage to jump, and I knew if I didn't swim I was going down. Lo and behold I learned how to swim. We need to entrust ourselves to God like that and dive in. He is worthy to be trusted.

Whenever great multitudes began to follow Jesus, he would turn and say the hard thing, and people would leave. Jesus wasn't after crowds. He came only to do the will of the Father and cared nothing about his own reputation. He told us to do the same: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-27).

The only way to be a Christian is to be born one, as Jesus made clear to Nicodemus. But the only way to be a disciple, is to follow in Christ's footsteps. Disciples are not born but are made by following and taking up crosses and seeking the will of God .

We are to be salt, but salt that has lost its edge is good for nothing. It's not good enough even for the dunghill, Jesus said.

A gospel without a cross is a gospel with no edge. It has no power, because it is only the cross that can deal with the root of our problem--our rebellion.

A gospel without a cross is a powerless gospel.