Week 3: The Purpose of God
Ok, we’re on week three of this “epic” journey. And now we get this question: What is the purpose of God? Now, I don’t mean, why does the “concept” of God exist at all. No I mean, what has HE said His purpose is? I had a conversation with a person recently that felt like God’s reason for being was to make their life miserable. When asked how they came to that conclusion, they answered that everything was going wrong in their life so therefore God was dumping on them. But that’s an interesting place to start isn’t it? I mean, could it be that the reason things were going bad for them was their crummy decisions? Maybe it had less to do with God and a lot to do with them. Now I mention this simply to point out that sometimes, we start in the wrong place. What my friend was doing is starting from their experience and then extrapolating out to God. May I suggest, that starting with “me” or self to understand what God is up to…just might be the wrong place to start! That would not be unlike me having a headache and them blaming the government for it. Never mind that I stayed up way late, drank three “grande” expressos and hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday lunch. No, it’s clearly the government’s fault. And while this sound ridiculous, that’s exactly the logic. So, maybe, when we think about God’s purpose, we should…umm….ask God. So lets look at God’s purpose:
READ: Hebrews 2:6-10
Q: Bonus Points: In verse 6, the writer says “But there is a place where someone has testified” and then they go on to quote the verse. For bonus points….”who” is the “someone” and where do you find this verse in the bible?
Q: OK, what does this tell us about the “Son of Man” (i.e. Jesus)? What was His purpose?
Q: What did He do for “all of us”?
Q: What does it mean to “bring many sons to glory”?
Q: So briefly, give us your thoughts on God’s purpose. In other words, what difference does this make in your life?
Ok, to start, we’ve broken a major blogging rule here by overloading the topic with so many questions. For no other reason than simply wanting to get starting…. after swimming through my thoughts for a while… I try and surface by answering the bonus first – Who is the “Someone” spoken about in the passage? To not completely give it away, that would would be none other than the man after God’s own heart.
Thanks for the comment! Sorry about the “overload”. I guess I missed the “10 Commandments of Blogging” course. But, glad that you are thinking. That is the purpose…AND so glad you answered a question.
The overload comment was just in fun. I forgot the
at the end which I usually deploy as a post jab just for fun indicator. “10 Commandments of Blogging”.. sounds like a great up and coming course for Chirstian Growth Hour. Thanks for the responses.
According the text, God purposes that Christ’s life be filled with intentional suffering in order to “bring many children(us) to glory”, cauterizing his leadership over the church. e.g.
v9b – “By God’s grace, Jesus tasted death”
10b – “It was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader”
OK, I get it. I understand the book answer on this, but I”m human and gee whiz, does anyone else besides me out there think that Jesus just had a tough way to go from the start on this earth? Hypothetically What if you or I were Jesus and we were told the following by God: “Son, I have some news. My purpose for you life is to save mankind through suffering, specifically, your going be brutally tortured and die… and it’s gonna hurt…(pause) Afterwards, I ‘ll raise you from the dead so it’ s all Good. I’m glad we had this talk, so let’s go for a round of golf” I mean wow! Its easy for me to loose touch with Jesus a human and always think of him with the glowing circle around his head, you know, always God-like. I really struggle thinking that God’s purpose was for Jesus to… suffer….. sounds fun doesn’t it. Yea…NO! What’s harder is that this suffering was on my behalf.. what’s harder still.. is trying to figure out how God will use suffering in my life to both change me and rescue others. One things for sure, whether I sign up or not, suffering is the prereq that I must takes. Jesus however, majored in it.
I’d like to hope that as I’m working this thing called God’s purpose out in my life, that I can come to a better appreciation or at least a Jesus-sense of perspective relating to the more difficult circumstances that certainly will present themselves.
Yes, clearly Jesus had it tough. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll every truly understand His Incarnation….this side of heaven. However, I do think one helpful thought is this: “Sin is bad”. In fact, it’s worse than we could imagine (although we see the fallout and experience it all the time). And clearly, this wasn’t what God desired. In fact, sin is the enemy and the reason, Jesus suffered. And in His suffering, I find that I can make sense of my own and actually find hope in the midst of it.
I love your closing comments above…that in Christ’s suffering, we can find peace, understanding, and hope in the midst of our own.
Briefly…God’s purpose is salvation and sanctification, placing His very nature in us, leading us into all truth. The difference this makes in my life, by the purpose and will of God is to purify my faith-testing it by fire, possessing genuine faith, resulting in living hope, praise, glory, honor, love, salvation of my soul…all resulting from the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1Peter Ch1) “May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”