Living with Purpose and Passion

TRANSCRIPT

So I just want to ask this question to every single one of you. Is, are you living life? Really? Are you living life? Really? Because for a lot of us, we actually go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm living life and this is great, this is great and then perhaps in the quiet times, we go, oh, what am I doing with my life?

What, what's happening here? Or we think we've got the best job in the world and it's like, yeah, yeah, I'm living life because I got the best job in the world, but am I actually living my life in that environment? Whether it be at school or whether it be at our workplace or with our friends, with our family, am I actually living life?

You know, I've heard it sort of said before and many of you would have heard this before is, am I actually just a passenger of life? Just watching life go past and I just do my thing, you know, I hop on the train and I'd go to wherever the train takes me and I hop off and I go to the work and I go to this and I go to that.

I'm just a passenger, just going along for the ride. Or am I a player in the game? Am I actually the one on the field, actually having a go at it? I love, Phil said to me this morning, he said, Tim, you're giving it a nudge this morning. I was like, yeah mate, I'm going to give it a nudge. Let's give it a go.

Because what have we got to lose, hey? When we truly live life, what have we got to lose? And so that's my question, is are you living life really? As I said, my family, you know, my kids aren't perfect. You know, and that's not to shame my kids at all. Because actually, my wife and I, we're not perfect either.

And as what was said on the screen just a minute ago, is that we're all sinners. The Bible's really clear on that one. It actually says that we all fall short. That none of us can actually live up to the standard, the highest standard that God has for us. That's why we need saving for. Saviour. Because God actually says to us that His kingdom is open to all people, as they said.

But only few choose it. Only few choose to actually seek it out and go, well what is this life all about? And it's either about me or it's about this other thing that I can't actually tangibly grab hold of or, or see. Am I actually part of this kingdom? And we wonder about it. So I'm a broken person before you.

So please don't think that myself or, or, or Kev or Ruthie or Anita or, or anyone that you see up on the platform are perfect. Cause none of us are. None of us are. But we're just in this together, trying to do the ride together in life. It's interesting, my mind, if I had to recall what my mind is like, especially growing up.

Is, I'm a kid of the 70s, right? We got any kids of the 70s out there? Come on. People born in the 70s, you know, like, because I was living in the 70s. That's right, yep. And then the 80s as a teenager. So this is how I relate to my mind, okay? My mind is like a pinball machine. Right? So it's like the pinball that's sort of just sitting and waiting, you know, and it's like, oh, I'm just in switched off mode, and then ping, I'm on, you know, and round the ball goes, and all of a sudden, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ting, ping, ping, ping, ping, and then it wants to go down and go down through the middle, and all of a sudden, bang, it's flapped back in the game again, and so my mind is actually like that.

It races from this to that thought, to this thing, and, and you know, like, oh, I'll be reading. I'll be reading the word of God and be like, oh, this is great revelation. And all of a sudden, I'll hear something, or think about the beach, or think about going for a surf, or take my, oh, what? And I'll get distracted.

Or for many of us, maybe it's like we're driving along the road and we're, oh yeah, concentrating, oh that car, oh busy, busy. Next thing you know we're thinking about what we're having for dinner or next thing you know it's like, oh that song, I love that song. And we've thought about all these things and it's like, we've gotten kilometres down the road or near home and it's like, oh, I can't even remember driving.

You know, I switched off on the driving and I'm actually in thinking mode here and there. So I think most of us can relate to our minds. That's it. In this busy world, it races everywhere. It gets distracted on so many things. And in this fast paced, task filled world that we're all living in here, in this modern world, that we easily get distracted.

Our minds easily race off. And so, my heart, it's all over the place. My heart is actually divided as well. So my mind's all over the place and my heart is actually divided. My heart sort of goes, Oh, I just love my wife and I love my kids and I love my work and I love doing mission and I love this and I love that.

And then other times it's like, Oh man, what, what's the, what's the point to this? And I can't believe this. And why did she say that? And why did he do this? And what? And so my heart, it's sort of like divided from things that are really good and things that aren't so good. So my mind's over the place, my heart's divided, and my soul, my soul, it grabs hold of whatever it can to satisfy itself.

Whether it be that, you know, I just want a little coffee and a chocolate, or I'm just going to stop tonight and put my feet up and have a glass of wine, or hey, I'm just going to satisfy myself however I can. Maybe it even might drift into those spaces which are really unhealthy. I just want to satisfy my soul.

See God created us with a heart, with a mind, with a soul, and with a body, our strength. God created us with these things and our heart is the center of who we are. The innermost being that every single one of us operate from. The center of our heart. And it's from this centre that we have our life, we have our being, that things are deep within.

And so God's given us this heart, and he's given us a mind, a processor, where our thoughts, where our words, our actions come from. So He's given us this heart, the centre of who we are. He's given us a mind where our thoughts, our processes, our words, our actions come from. And He's given us a soul. The living part of who we are.

The living part of who we are that goes on for eternity like what was just expressed. And that soul is so closely aligned to our spirit. The Bible actually describes it like bone and marrow. You can't have one without the other. For it to be alive, a bone needs the internal marrow to keep it alive, to nourish it.

And so our soul and our spirit nourish one another. But here's the kicker. Our soul yearns for things to satisfy it. And our spirit yearns to be connected with the Spirit of God. So they're so closely aligned but yet sometimes, a lot of the times, there's tension between the two. And our body, we know our body, our strength of all of who we are and sometimes our bodies get older and older, actually everyone's body gets older and older and starts breaking down.

It's like, I wish I had my body of my younger self and oh no, but it's about our strength. That no matter what we feel within our body, no matter how bad our knees or our back are, but we, our strength, continue on in life. So God created us with all of these things. And He also created us in His image. His image of love and of mercy and of grace, forgiveness, of goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, peace, self control.

He created us in the image of these things. So we know that God's created us in these things. And we know that He's also placed within us a piece of His kingdom. A little slice of heaven for us to seek out. It's like a little beacon of hope within every single one of us. No matter who we are, whether we've heard about this Jesus before around the world or not, every single one of us has been made with these things.

And this little beacon of hope, this little slice of heaven is there just waiting for us to tap into, to find, to seek after, to look for, to To grab hold of, and to live with, to give us that eternal perspective. Because otherwise we're just stuck in the worldly perspective. It's a bit like a homing beacon.

Just calling us home. Just waiting for the day that the faithful ones say, Yeah Jesus, I not only believe in you, but I'll follow you. And Lord, when I meet you face to face, I'm returning home. It's almost like we're spiritual beings, just having an earthly existence, in a little flesh suit. But we get so caught up in the flesh suit, don't we?

How we look, how we behave, how we act, how we relate to other people, who our friends are, how much money we earn. We get so caught up in the flesh suit. And Jesus says, no, don't worry about that. Have an eternal life. perspective.

We also know in psychology, and most of you probably understand and know this as well, is that we have basic needs. That every single one of us, so not as God created us with all these things, but he's also created us with these basic needs. And as what's already been referred to as well, and we saw some pictures from the Philippines there as well, that every person needs as a baseline, a survival.

Every single person needs to survive in some way. And if our survival level is really low, that's when we don't thrive, that's when we don't flourish, that's when things start just getting worse and worse. And so no wonder when we see those survivor type shows and they're out in the wilderness for a month, two months, three months, they're just degrading rapidly.

So God knows and he made within us that every single one of us need a base level of survival. And so no wonder we all seek after a comfy bed, a room and a house and a place where we can sleep and lay our head and get a good night rest, where we can eat well and eat what we want when we want and that's just part of the luxuries of living in this 5 percent of the population of the world where we get to do it so freely.

So most of us handle this survival one really easy. The next level is the safety level as well. We all need to feel safe emotionally and physically, spiritually, mentally. We all actually want a baseline of feeling safe. And if we don't feel safe, it's hard for us to move up the scales in our, in our needs.

So most of us get a good night's sleep, generally ish. Most of us have a bed and etc, eat food, etc. Then if we feel safe as well with our friendships, with our community, with our workplace, with our conversations, we actually can feel better about ourselves. And if we don't, it actually once again brings us back down.

We slide back down. But then on top of that, so once we start feeling we're good, we're safe, we've got this survival under control, well then God's placed within us this need to feel worthy. This need for acceptance. This need to be valued. Now we can say those words, and it's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But if you dig down into those words, of feeling worthy. Of actually being accepted. Of actually feeling like you belong, like a sense of belonging. That's deeply ingrained inside of every single one of us. If you don't feel loved, you're going to look for that love. If you don't feel worthy, you're going to look for that worth.

If you don't feel accepted, you're going to be looking for that acceptance.

And see, within our needs, unfortunately, God's placed them within us And He knows that we need them. But that's the good part, because only He can fulfill them. But He knows that we're all broken and we're all sinners, that we all fall short, that we're in this world that distracts us and our minds are racing everywhere, our hearts are divided, that our strength is depleting.

And He knows these needs are sitting there and every single one of us are yearning for them, we're looking for them, we need them. And if we don't turn to Him to satisfy them, we look to other things. We look to things of the world that will satisfy our needs. And see, as kids, if we don't grow up with these unhealthy measures, when we become teenagers, it's just extreme, isn't it?

We sit in teenagers all the time. They're, they're, they're looking at the, why should I? And how come? They want to know the reason. They want to know. They're thinking in concepts now. So how come? Why should I? My dad, he was an awesome man and, and when I was a teenager and, and I was in that rebellious stage and I was just so action based, you know, like I was like full ADD and couldn't keep focused and was always out playing sports and all that sort of stuff.

And then I'd be wanting to my mates, my mates would say, Hey Tim, Tim, come on, we'll go over here. And I'd go, you know, mom, dad, oh, hey dad, you know, I just want to go out with my mates and blah, blah, blah. No, I'd say, well, why not? And he said, because I said Yeah, yeah, try it. Oh, come on, Dad. Why not? No. Ah, ah.

Why not? Because I said so. It wasn't good enough for me. That didn't wear with me. Anyone else with me on that one? That didn't wear with me. That was old school. You know, like, that's where, that's where things were old school, and it was like, nah, nah, nah. So, me, Mr. Experimental, I just went out and found what life was all about.

So I thought. And that's it. Our heart, our soul, our mind, our body yearns for these things and if it's not in healthy measures given by God, we'll go for it in what the world has to offer. Because we'll search the world until we can find it. We'll search the world until we're satisfied. But remember I said that slice of heaven is sitting inside of every single one of us?

Some say it's like a God shaped hole. Like only He can actually fill that.

And so no matter what searching you do, you're never going to find life. Only God can fulfill that. And so I just, I heard this one along the way, from a good mate of mine. It's because we know the soul and the spirit are so closely aligned. And they're in this tension, the Spirit wants to listen to the Spirit of God and our soul is pulling back the other way and wanting to satisfy itself from the things of this world, generally.

And this good mate of mine said to me this one day, he said, are you listening to your soul? Or are you listening to your spirit?

So I'm gonna ask you guys that. In life, when things are going your way, not going your way, whatever's happening around ya. When you stop and reflect, are you listening to your soul, which craves for the things of the world? Or are you listening to your spirit, which craves for the things of the spirit, the Holy Spirit?

So I want to let every single one of you guys know it's not your fault. It's actually not your fault. We've been designed this way. We've actually been set up this way to win.

We've been set up to win. Not to fail. We've been set up to win. It's not your fault. We have this enemy. We live in this broken world. Every single one of us were born into this sin. In John 10. 10, Jesus actually says, the thief comes to rob, steal and destroy that which I've given you. He said, but I've come to give you life and life abundantly, life to the fullest, life to the max.

That's the gospel. That's what Jesus came for. To give you life and life eternal. Not just here with a fluffy warm life and your nice little car and all the rest of it and the nice house and whatever it looks like. Going on great holidays. Hey, I'm not disregarding any of them. It's awesome that we get to do that.

But God's saying, that's not what I came to save you from. Sure, I'll save you from yourself. But, I'm going to save you for all eternity. We try on so many things to satisfy ourselves, that's the problem. What if I do this? What if I just get that? What if I have this car? What if I have this job? What if I earn more, then I'll give more?

Huh? Oh, but if I just work harder, I can earn more money so I can have a better holiday. Huh? I don't know. What are you striving for? What are you yearning for? What is your soul crying out for? It's a bit like this. I enjoy fishing. I'm not a good fisherman, okay? I'm not a good fisherman, okay? I actually brought a because I can't help myself, you know, like, I brought, I brought one of my rods in today.

with this little fella on the end of it and No, it's not real. No, it's not real. It's a lure. It's a lure. It's not a lure. It's a lure. So, actually, actually, there is lots of lures of life that distract us. Let's have a look at some lures here, on the screen. Rightio, so, so, lures, They come in many different shapes and forms and sizes and that sort of stuff.

And you can look at them and you go, ah, that's easy, you know, like, yeah, I know they're not the real thing, you know, but you put them in water to a fish, they look like the real thing. See, a lure is actually meant to get the attention of the fish. A lure is actually not the real thing. It's just pretending to be the real thing.

See, a lure is the thing that imitates what it's representing. It's a lie to fish. It's a trick. That's what a lure is. They imitate the real thing. And a lure is actually made by the fishermen to deceive the fish into thinking it's actually a fish.

And a fisherman's got to work really hard, generally, I do anyway, to have to catch a fish. You've got to cast it out and you've got to spin it and do what you've got to do with it. This one, for example, is called a popper. And it's actually made in a way that it actually skims across the top of the surface.

And it tricks a fish into thinking it's like a flying fish or something that's scattering along the top. And the pelagic fish, the ones that love to hunt other fish, it actually bang and goes for it hard and they nail it. See lures are just like lures of life. They're not the real thing. It's a trick.

They're there to deceive you. It's a lie. See they lure us away, it looks close. It reminds me of when Satan was actually talking to Jesus. When he was tempting Jesus. And the first words he says to him, he says, If you truly are the Son of Man, well then. He goes for his identity, straight up. He's trying to deceive him.

He's the great deceiver, the father of all lies. Lures, these things shouldn't be called lures, they should be called satans. Huh? That's a better word for it. In our lives, the lure of life should be called a satan, a devil, a demon. What's the thing that's distracting you from life? That's lying to you? It's calling you away from life.

I wonder if I flick this out, would I catch anyone with it? Oh, I don't know if you noticed on this. Megsie, can you have a look? Oh, sorry Megsie. Oh Hey, this thing is gnarly. This thing, look at it. It's got these, there's these hooks on it. Man, if I put my hand or a bit of clothing near that, it's going to catch me.

That's exactly right. A lure in life will catch you. It'll catch you like that, and it'll grab hold of you, it'll sink its teeth into you, it'll sink its prongs into you before you know it, and you'll be struggling to try and get it off. When a lure catches a fish, man, it grabs hold of them. There's no return from that.

I was fishing with my son for his schoolies. He finished grade 12, and And he said to me, Dad, I, I don't want to do that schoolie thing with all my mates and go down the, it's when we're living up in the switch. And he said, I don't want to, I don't want to go down with all my mates and and go down to surfers and, you know, they're just going to be drinking and carrying on that sort of stuff.

And he said, I'd love to do something different. And so me, you know, just being an old school surfer and fisherman, that sort of stuff, I, I dropped the seed of like, Hey Hey mate, what if. We went to like a Pacific island somewhere and did some like surfing and fishing and hey, let's call it a mission trip.

Hey, what do you reckon? Anyway, so we're over there and and we're out surfing this one time and we get back to the boat as big long sort of banana boats, they call them. And there's a bunch of dudes in there. There's about 14 of us. 10 of us were out surfing, four were back on the boat fishing away and they were fishing, they were fishing.

Anyway, I was one of the last ones to come back in. I jumped back in the boat. And in the boat is, I kid you not, about 10 to 12 of these GTs, giant trevallies. Now they're huge. They're, they're, they're almost like top of the line pelagic fish that just fights for other things. They're massive. And these things are littered in the boat.

And so anyway, my son and I thought, oh give us a go. Give us a go. And so this is what we pulled in. Wow. So, so this thing, it doesn't look like it much, but it's only just off the ground. And as you can see, it's like tails up around there. This thing, I kid you not, was, oh, at least 120 kilos. Ahem. LAUGHTER Sorry, no, the fish, it probably was about 35 kilos.

That thing was so wide, so fat and thick, it was just like a thing, a slither of muscle. My son actually caught it. I didn't actually catch it. It took him 25 minutes to bring this thing in. He was sitting on the boat like this, the rod was bent over like this, and I'm hanging on to him so it's not pulling him and the rod over.

The dude who owns the rods, look at him saying, you better not let go of that rod, you know, like. Anyway, the lure on it was three times the size of this. It was kicking, it was massive. And eventually we bring this thing, it took three people to reel it, bring it back into the actual boat. See it takes a big lure to catch a big fish.

No matter how big you are, no matter how strong you think your faith is, a big lure can also catch you as well. A big lure, a big temptation you. Something that we all fall victim to, can grab any single one of us at any single time. There's many lures of life. So what are you chasing after? If there's only one, there's only one life, there's only one author of life, there's only one giver of life, and life eternal in his name is Jesus.

And He says that I've come that you may have life and life to the fullest. To not give in to the deceptions of the enemy. To not grab hold of or get caught up in those lures that just want to grab hold of you and rip you in the boat. Take you away from life. So I'm so thankful that God made us for a reason and for a purpose.

He actually made us His masterpiece. He actually said to every single one of you that you're His. His masterpiece. And we see that in Ephesians 2. 10. It says for we are God's masterpiece, that He created us anew, a new person. He created us anew, in Christ Jesus. So that we could do the good things He planned for us long ago.

That's that everyday living out the gospel. We know there's only one who can save. We know there's lures of life. We know our heart is divided. We know our mind is distracted from things. We know our soul yearns for the things of this world. But we know the spirit inside of us yearns for the things of God's Spirit.

We know that these lures in life are trying to distract us and take us from living life to its fullest. From living a real life. A life that God says is worth living. as a masterpiece. A masterpiece created to do good things in him. See when we start to understand that we're made in his image, we're made as a one off, a one of a kind, for a purpose and for a reason, well then we can truly start to live.

We don't have to give in to what everyone else is doing. We don't have to give in to what everyone else is saying. We We don't have to be led astray by what our friends have got or what someone else has got or what the news is telling us or what social media says or what the internet says. We don't even have to give in to the things that are trying to control us and we're seeing polarity in the world even greater now.

As the kingdom of God is growing more and more, advancing more and more, the polarity, the great divide is getting further and further apart. People are getting even louder in their minority groups of saying, no you can't say that, no you can't do this. But we know the kingdom of God, the real author of life, the real thing, says that's okay, my kingdom advances and it's open to all, but only few choose to listen.

Only a few choose to accept and follow. So what are you doing? Are you choosing to believe and follow? To not get caught up in the lures of life? Because Satan wants to deceive you. He wants to tell you you haven't got enough. You haven't got enough, you need to get more. You're not really accepted. You don't really feel worthy, do you?

What about some shame in your life? You're not really loved, are you? But what about all those mistakes? What about that guilt? See, He preys on us, especially when we don't get things right. He's like a lion that prowls looking for that weak little member that's off the pack and He wants to grab us and take us out.

But here's the cool thing, it's not personal. It's not personal. Satan doesn't care for you at all. He just wants to destroy anything of God's kingdom within you. See, he's only going after God. And the only way he can get God is to go after his people, us, who are weak. Hence, that's why we need a saviour, people.

Come on! This is why we need a saviour, because we are weak, because we are broken, because we do get distracted. That's why, as he said, Jesus, save me. Jesus, I need you. I've got to have you. See, Jesus warned us of this over and over again. And I love how it's recorded in Matthew, how he says, seek first his kingdom and being right with him and all these other things will be added.

He says, don't worry about whether you have enough or not. The father already knows what you need and he will give them to you, but seek first the kingdom. And he'll add this to you.

I just want to invite the band back up. Because God knows you.

I want you to hear this. God knows you.

He knitted you together in your mother's womb.

He created you, intimately. For a reason and for a purpose. Not to be distracted from this world. But to actually live life to the fullest, both here and now, and for eternity to come. Despite the circumstances around us. That God sees you.

Maybe you need to hear that this morning. That God sees you.

God knows your heart. He put it there.

He knows your mind. He put it there. He knows your soul. He put it there. He knows your spirit. He knows your body. He knows everything about you.

He knows when we're doing things right. He knows when we're doing things wrong.

And He loves us the same.

No matter how far we run to the east or to the west or to the north or the south, He's there. No matter how attractive we get to the lures of life that take us away from His purpose, He's still there.

No matter how you're living your life, He's still there. He loves you and He sees you. He knows you and He calls you by name because He doesn't want to be separated from you. For all eternity. He made you to live life every single day, outworking His love, outworking His life here on earth in all that we do, in all that we are, wherever we go.

We live, we breathe, we dwell within Him. And Him within us.

So how's your heart this morning?

How's your heart this morning? Because wherever your treasure is, there your heart and your thoughts will be also.

How are you living your life? What are you living your life for? Is it your kingdom? Or is it His kingdom? Because your kingdom is going to dissolve. It's going to be gone. Real soon in a blink of a night. But his kingdom, it's eternal. It's forever. It's always

are you allowing the God of love to shape your heart, the center, the innermost being of who you are.

See, it's a heart issue. It's a heart issue.

Oh God.

I just feel.

That we should respond. That we always should respond. That we should be willing to say, God, you can have my heart. You can have my mind. You can have my soul. You can have all of who I am.

Can I just invite everyone just to stand for a second. Is that all right? Just stand.

And let's all just pray. Heavenly Father, We know that You made it us with this heart, soul, mind and strength in Your image of love and goodness. So once again, we come before You, Jesus, and we say, You can have my heart.

I give it to You freely here once again for You to fill me, fill me fresh, renew me from the inside out, Father God, in all the days of my life. Lord, Have your way in me, Jesus. You can have my heart, Jesus. I just give it all over to you, in your beautiful name. I thank you, Jesus.

The speaker reflects on the question of whether we are truly living life or merely existing as passengers, emphasizing the importance of being active participants. They discuss human imperfections and the need for a savior, underscoring the Bible's teachings that everyone has shortcomings. God's creation of humans with a heart, mind, soul, and body is highlighted along with the notion that each person has a divine purpose. The speaker warns against the 'lures' of life that may distract and deceive, comparing them to fishing lures that seem appealing but are ultimately false. They encourage the audience to seek fulfillment in God, who provides true worth, acceptance, and purpose beyond worldly distractions. The script stresses the importance of focusing on God's kingdom and purpose rather than getting caught up in material pursuits. It closes with a prayer inviting the audience to surrender their hearts, minds, and souls to Jesus for a renewed and meaningful life.