Ephesians 2:1-10
Pastor Justin preached on the rest which we have in Christ last week. He ended the sermon with a series of questions which, interestingly enough, mostly get answered in today’s passage. He asked us:
- What will God do through you
- How will you step up to be used?
- What ministry will you serve in?
- What neighbors will you love?
- Who will you bring the Good News to?
- How can you show love to newcomers that arrive at our church?
- When will you spend time with your creator?
Looking at the title of this sermon, some of you are hoping that I will be able to fill in the blank spot of your God-given destiny. Some of you are squirming in your seats because you think you know what that destiny is and don’t want it. Many of you young adults have been asking these sorts of questions for a while and not been getting any good answers. If you go to a bookstore (Bible or not) to look for help in this direction, you will come up with titles like, “The Purpose Driven Life” or “Destiny: Step into Your Purpose”.
One of the problems you will rapidly discover if you follow my original instruction of comparing what anyone says to the Bible is that you cannot find the theology in the Bible of my need to discover my unique dream destiny or purpose. It’s just not there.
So let’s follow the life of a fictitious new Christian, for some of you this might be pretty close to what happened to you. You have only recently made the decision to make Jesus the Lord of your life. You show up at church and you are ready to learn because you are now a disciple. A disciple is a learner. You are sitting in the pew with your Bible open beside you and a notebook in your lap with a flower pen in hand (if that is your thing). You might even have a tablet or laptop with a Bible app or two opened up and you are ready to learn. Now you are told as a new Christian that God has created you, specifically you to solve a unique problem on planet earth.
And you think to yourself, “YES! I knew it! I knew I was important! The Barbie movie was right!”