Believe it or not, you have a purpose and a higher calling on your life from Jesus. You are destined to do great and wonderful things. Whether you live your life according to this purpose is up to you. However, your life will be filled with unbelievable greatness that you cannot possibly imagine if you live your life according to God’s purpose and calling for your life.
You might be thinking, “God has a purpose and calling for my life. I had no idea. What is it?” Well, that’s an incredibly valid question. And the great news is that you don’t have to overthink it or try to figure it all out on your own because God will reveal His plan for your life as you seek Him. Live your life with faith and trust in Him, and He will guide you every step of the way.
One thing is for sure: when you live according to God’s purposes for your life, there is no limit to what you can achieve or accomplish. You will be able to do things that are beyond your wildest dreams and imagination because God will equip you with everything you need to succeed. So, whatever He calls you to do, know that He will give you the power and strength to do it!
Referenced verses:
Romans 8:28
Matthew 27:32-56
Mark 15:16-32
Luke 23:26-43
Matthew 26:14-16
Luke 22:3-5
Jeremiah 29:11
2 Thessalonians 2:14
1 Peter 2:21
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries, my name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for tuning in with us today. If this is your first time here, hit that subscribe button down there, hit the bell icon also to be notified when we post new videos.
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Let’s dive in. We have got a great message. As I mentioned, Social Media Ministries’ purpose is to share the Word of God with as many people as possible. That is an organization, but you also have a purpose, I have a purpose, everyone has a purpose and that is what we are talking about today.
No matter what, don’t be confused because every single person out there has a purpose, and whether or not they live that purpose, is really up to them. God has a big plan for your life. You can choose whether or not you follow that plan and really some people go through their whole life, they live, they die, and they never achieve their full purpose. I can’t think of anything more sad than the fact that some people never do what they were supposed to do here on earth. Their life was supposed to be here and they were here. Don’t make that mistake, achieve your full purpose.
How do you know what your purpose is? Well, that is tough, but we do know that we have a purpose. How do we know that? Well, it says so in the Bible. We are going to turn to Romans 8:28. If you have your Bible, go there with me.
If you don’t have your Bible, listen up and also check out the description below at a later time when you can. Have your Bible? Look it up. Read the verse. Here we go, Romans 8:28, ‘And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’
All right, so what does this mean? Well, it means that no matter what is going on in your life, God is working. He is up to something and He is working for the good of all of those people who love Him according to His purpose, it says so. What does that mean about your purpose? Well if you truly align yourself with God, your purpose and His purpose become the same, because He has a purpose for you which is also His ultimate purpose.
For example, let’s get into some stuff. The soldiers who crucified Christ. Heavy topic. A lot of people think they were sinning. They weren’t accomplishing their purpose. They had a better purpose, but they chose not to listen. They were corrupted by the devil and Satan thought he had them and that is what was going on.
Okay, but if they didn’t crucify Christ, He wouldn’t have died for your sins and you wouldn’t be able to go to heaven, So maybe their purpose was to do that. You could argue back and forth all the time and I hope that you use that as a topic of discussion maybe in your next Bible study or your small group, but think about it, if those soldiers didn’t crucify Christ, Christ wouldn’t have been crucified.
I mean someone else would have done it, but those specific soldiers, that was their purpose and it might not have been God’s purpose for their life, but it says in Romans, ‘Remember God works for the good of those who love him and who have been called according to his purpose.’ So His purpose was to have Christ to die for our sins, we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.
Obviously, that was for the good of those who love Him, because people who love Him are going to believe in Jesus, that He died for their sins. The soldiers were crucifying Christ and that crucifixion is a bad deal, but God was using it for good and His purpose was Christ died for your sins. The soldier’s purpose was to execute Christ or crucify Christ for the greater good of those who love Christ. Those soldiers might not have loved Christ, but it wasn’t for their good that they did it.
I know it is kind of like a ding ding ding back and forth, but it makes sense when you kind of connect all these dots together and start really thinking about it. A great small group topic, their purpose really was to do that. If they didn’t kill Jesus you wouldn’t be able to go to heaven.
Let’s take a look at another one. What about Judas? All right Judas had a great purpose, Judas Iscariot. He was a disciple of Christ, he was traveling with Him, he was the money man, the money manager keeping track of different things and accounting for their finances. That was a good purpose. He was also supposed to help Jesus but in the end, he ended up betraying Jesus. Was his purpose to betray Jesus or was his purpose something else, like to work with Christ and bring more people to Christ? Well somebody had to turn Jesus over in order for Him to be crucified.
Maybe that was Judas’s purpose. Because if Judas didn’t betray Jesus, then how could Jesus have been turned over? Another very interesting topic for discussion, it is something that you don’t really want to think about and have it be true, but it is, think about it.
If Judas didn’t betray Jesus, we couldn’t go to heaven because Jesus couldn’t be crucified, it is a lot of ‘if thens’, and that is some type of fallacy reasoning and logic and rules. If Judas didn’t do it someone else probably would have, because it is part of the plan. God had a great plan for Jesus to die for our sins and that plan was known. Jesus knew that when He came here, even from a little boy, He said He was tending to his father’s business.
Now there are a few Bible passages that I want to read relating to these two strange scenarios. Number one is about the soldiers of crucified Christ. I will put them in the description below. Matthew 27:32-56, Mark 15:16-32, and Luke 23:26-43. All three of those passages are about the crucifixion and the soldiers and their role.
We are going to read the part in Matthew 27:32-56. This is the whole story of the crucifixion. I will skim through, but you should read this on your own. Right here verse 32, ‘As they were going out, they met a man named Simon and they forced him to carry a cross. They came to Golgotha which is to say, a place of a skull, where they offered Jesus wine mixed with gall, but after tasting it he refused to drink it.
‘The soldiers when they had crucified him they divided up his clothes by casting lots and they kept watch over him. There above his head, they placed the written charge against him, THIS IS JESUS KING OF THE JEWS.’
These soldiers did all of this stuff and even before, ‘The governor’s soldiers took Jesus.’ We are talking about the soldiers, all these horrible things that they did were a part of God’s greater purpose and it could be those soldiers, His purpose, to follow that plan.
Let’s go to Judas. Here in Matthew 26:14-16 and it is also in Luke 22:3-5. ‘Then one of the twelve, the one called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priests and asked, what are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you? So they counted out for him 30 silver coins. From then on Judas watched for an opportunity to hand him over.’
Judas was again the money man. We will get more into Judas. I will have a whole sermon series about all the disciples coming up at a later date, but Judas was the money man, greed was probably one of his sins that he struggled with, one of his main struggles or his addiction if you will, greed and money. He managed the money. The finances for the ministry. He could have been skimming some of it and he got the silver coins he wanted, to get paid for handing Jesus over, because that was his greed talking.
Now, of course, the devil corrupted him. Satan got in. Satan thought he was winning but it was again called according to God’s purpose. That was part of God’s purpose and it was part of Judas’ purpose to serve God’s purpose, of betraying Jesus. Everyone has a purpose and even though this was a bad thing, God used it according to the good of those who love Him and it was Judas’ life and purpose.
Does everyone only have one purpose and Judas’ one purpose was to betray Jesus? No, we don’t all have one purpose, we have many many purposes in life and we have a calling. You have one great calling? What is my calling? Well, I don’t know. But my calling could very well be Social Media Ministries and preaching and bringing more people to Christ, or that could just be my purpose and later on in life I will have another purpose and another purpose and another purpose, and all of that will go to what I finally figure out is my life’s calling.
Judas, he had a purpose, to betray Jesus. Well was that his calling? No, his calling was the ministry. Something else, the purpose was sideways from the calling, to be used for a greater good, just like these soldiers. What was their purpose? To crucify Jesus. What was their calling? To be a Roman soldier. So it is kind of like your profession and your job.
If you are in a profession, maybe you are a bricklayer and you might have different jobs bricklaying along the way, but your purpose could be this job or this job or this job, and then your calling is a bricklayer. I hope that is a good analogy for this and really every single purpose, whether it turns out good or bad, God uses it for the greater purpose of His grand plan, which helps develop your calling.
How do you start finding your purpose? Well, it could be hard. It could be easy. Basically, you got to read the Bible, you got to pray and talk to God, you need to be in the Word and it has to be revealed to you. You have many purposes and everyone has it, whether or not you know it or not, you are living your purpose right now. Your calling is a lot harder to figure out.
But let’s go to Jeremiah 29:11 because that is a really cool verse, you no doubt know it. It is a very popular verse that a lot of people memorize, it says, ‘For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD Yahweh, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ He knows the plans He has for you, you just need to figure out those plans.
How do you do that? Well if God knows the plans, the best way to figure out what those plans are is talk to God, pray, read the Bible. This is His Word speaking to you, it is living and active, which means if you read the same verse a few different times, you could end up with a few different meanings or takeaways from that same scripture passage.
Because no matter what is going on in your life, at a different time, maybe every single day, every single year, you read the same chapter of the Bible, every single year that same chapter says something different to you because there could be something going on in your life and the Word is living and active. It is reaching out to you or speaking to you in different methods to help reveal it to you.
How do you know what your purpose is? Talk to God, read the Bible, God knows your purpose, He has the plans, He knows them, great plans all according to His purpose. You are called to God’s purpose, you have a purpose, you have many purposes, you are living those purposes right now and you need to find what the calling is to God’s true purpose.
Pretty much wherever you are right now you wouldn’t be there if God didn’t want you to be there. Back to the Roman soldiers, did God want them there crucifying Jesus? It is not like He said, yes I am excited about this, but He wanted them there to do that because He knew it had to happen in order for you and me to be saved.
It is interesting, do you want your child to go through a struggle or to fail or to do something that is hard? You don’t want to see your child do that, but you want to give them that experience and to have them learn and do it on their own, to get to where they need to be.
You don’t want them to suffer, you want the end result and you know that this other part is going to be good to achieve that end result, just like God knows that this part is going to be good for achieving the greater purpose or the calling that He wants in your life. Until you really find out what your true purpose is, you have to have faith and complete whatever work God is giving you. You are where you are right now because God has placed you there.
We are going to check out 1 Peter 2:21. I want you to turn there if you don’t have your Bible turn there later. ‘To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.’ Does that mean you need to go get crucified? No, it means you were called to do greater things. Christ suffered for you. Don’t let Him die in vain. Do what you are supposed to do and make sure that you follow His example.
We are going to turn to another verse, 2 Thessalonians 2:14. We are going to go there. It says, ‘He called you to this, through our Gospel, that you might share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Now this is a section about standing firm in your faith and when you go through trials and something might not be good, remember God called you to this so that you might share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
All these verses go hand in hand. We have got the soldiers and we got Judas doing some bad things for God’s greater purpose. Why did that happen? To show the glory of Jesus Christ. You are called to your true purpose. God knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you. You can live according to this purpose. Wherever you are, do what you are supposed to do.
Know that Jesus suffered for you and know that you are to follow His example. You are called to share that with others according to these verses, we read that support this point. What is your calling? Well, you could have more than one. Your ultimate calling you may not know, but one calling that will help get you there, is sharing the Gospel with others, the great commission. Be disciples, share this with everyone you can type of a thing.
Your purpose right now you don’t know, but you have one. Right now your purpose could be being a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, a parent. It could be any of that type of relationship right now in your life. It could be doing the best job you are doing at your work or wherever your immediate purpose is.
Wherever you are, God has a plan and you are there for a reason. Work hard at it, find out what it is. The only way to continue finding out your next purpose or your true calling is right here, read the Bible and talk to God, because He knows the plans He has for you. Everyone has them, find out yours.
Let’s pray. Lord Jesus thank you so much for the calling and the purpose you have put on the lives of each and every one of these individuals. Please help them to dig into your word and to talk to you more so that they will begin to find out what their purposes are and what their ultimate calling is in their life. Please reveal that to them and help them live it to the fullest capability and to the best of their ability.
Lord, thank you so much that, no matter what happens you are always working and turning it into good and we ask that you would continue to show us the goodness that you do each and every single day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thanks again for tuning in. Remember you have a purpose and wherever you are at this point in time, continue living that purpose and strive to find your ultimate calling. Please again use those share icons, click on the subscribe button and the like button below. We would really appreciate it if you could help us achieve our purpose of reaching more people on social media. God bless.