 Well I think we've been challenged and we've heard the exhortation to not to rely on our own strength to walk our walk but to constantly be asking the Lord to help us to show us what his will is for our life so we can walk with him. My challenge for you this afternoon is to ask the Lord to really search your heart today after all the messages have been placed before you to ask him what your aim and your purpose in life is really all about. We can very easily say well my heart is to really please God and I want to serve him but is that what we're really doing? Is that how we're living? Is our aim and our purpose really focused on what Jesus Christ wants for our life? Webster's revised unabridged dictionary says this for the definition of purpose. Said that which a person sets before himself as an object to be reached or accomplished the end or aim to which the view is directed in any plan to purpose to oneself to aim to determine upon as some and or object to be accomplished to have an intention. So what is our intention as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? What are we supposed to be spending our time with and on? What are we doing with the life that God has blessed us with? What has your purpose been these last days, these last weeks, and these last months? If we really stop long enough and ask the Lord to take an inventory of our lives today would he find a woman who has a sole purpose of wanting to live their lives to please him? Some of us are steadfast in our goals. We know what our spiritual purpose is to life. We try to live for Christ. We want him glorified and that keeps us focused that motivates us on a daily basis as hard as it is but we make choices that will try to bring glory and honor to God. We know where our hope is and we try as we apply the spiritual disciplines in our life to grow in him and with him. So we read the word, we study his word, we meditate on the word, we pray and we ask God to give us all that we need to be pleasing to him. We stay in fellowship. We are faithful in coming to church and hearing the word of God and we press on. So we have an aim and we are shooting for that with everything that's within us. The Apostle Paul as already stated in Philippians 3 13 says this one thing I do but as I see the Apostle Paul and I love the Apostle Paul's life because he's so sacrificial but as he says this one thing I do how does he get to that point in his life where he is able to just kind of filter through everything that is unimportant in his life and just purposely aim to please God. Well as I look at the scriptures and I study Paul's life and I see how important living for Christ was to him one thing always sticks out as he considered his life nothing. He purposed in his heart he chose that whatever he was doing well however important he was before Christ came into his life that no longer mattered to him. This one thing he wants to do everything that was in him he was going to use to serve and bring glory and honor to Jesus Christ. He was a man who chose on a daily basis to die to self. He no longer allowed himself to be on the throne he placed God there and had in the rightly frame of life. He constantly aimed toward the heavenly goal. The prize that he would receive by keeping this goal is a fullness of all blessings that were going to be his not only in the age to come but as he was walking his life on earth and especially as he looked forward to having sweet fellowship with his Jesus Christ for all eternity. Are we proposing in our own hearts to live for him no matter what is going on in our lives as well. Are we willing to allow that goal to be set in our lives. Some of us don't know how to set goals we've never been taught how to do that in life. Some of us don't like goals or list or to aim for anything because we've done that before and we only end up failing like with diets. Some of us do like to have goals because we know what's going to happen at the end of the goal. We're going to accomplish something and it's going to be good so we'll do all we can to stick it out to make sure that that goal is going to be to fruition. Maybe in the last year some of you maybe some of you are in the last year of college and you're just about to get your degree and you have worked so hard for it nothing is going to get in your way. Nothing is going to stop you from attaining that goal that aim that you have spent the last four years in trying to get. You are determined so you're focused. So you push through and you sacrifice to make sure that nothing is going to interfere with that and you are going to make that dream come true for you. Maybe you're planning on getting married in a couple of minutes so your sole reason for living or existing right now is just planning and preparing for that wedding waiting for that day when you will be misses so and so. You want everything just right so you are motivated to do all you can to make sure that your plans are fulfilled and that your dreams really do come true. You are focused and determined because you will be married. Some of us aren't aiming at anything right now. We feel as if life is just doing what life is supposed to do and we just go with the flow. No particular aim. So whatever gets done it gets done. We aren't really feeling any direction. We're not really motivated for much. Life as a matter of fact has become pretty routine and mundane and boring. Maybe we think that setting goals is a good thing but some of us are just being pushed to our limit. We are being pushed and pulled by all the demands of our very busy lives. We cannot fit in one more thing. Even making a list can become overwhelming for us. It has become so easy for us to allow the demands of the day to set our goals without any regard for what the Lord might have for us to do. All we can look forward to is just resting and relaxing. Any one of these scenarios that we might find ourselves in, we can miss the very purpose of our existence. As believers, Christ has purposed for us to know him and to make him known. That is what we are supposed to be busy on this earth as a Christian woman doing. In chapter four of second Corinthians, the Apostle Paul talks about the hardships that he endured as he lived his life for Christ. But he tells us that even though the hardships came, it's hard to walk in a world that is so against Jesus Christ but he knew that he didn't have to lose heart. He was able to endure because of the hope that the resurrection had provided for him. He reminds us that suffering is only temporary but soon we will see glory. We are outwardly wasting away but inwardly we are renewed day by day. He reminds us. So he tells us that we should continue to grow in the knowledge of God and to be transformed into the image of Jesus as we prepare for his return because sweet sisters, the Lord Jesus is coming back and it could be at any moment. And we say amen and we clap but sisters, are we living like that? You see, it's one thing to say, yeah, he's coming but it's another to have our heart set on the fact that yes, he can really come here at any minute because if our heart and our attempt was to really know that he might, here's the trumpet at this second, wouldn't our goals and purpose for life be completely different? Wouldn't it, wouldn't that change our outlook on life? And that's exactly what happened to the apostle Paul. He was preparing for the return of his Savior. Eternity had to be his perspective so his daily goals and aims have the right perspective. In chapter five we see that Paul talks again about being with the Lord as our earthly tent, the reality of the earthly tent just withering away, dying as God is building a home that's going to last for us for all eternity. And we do look forward to that and we do groan and I'm telling you the older we get the more we groan because we understand that this body is not like it used to be. So which is a good thing. I think that is a great reminder for us. You know what? We're not all that. We might think we're all that but we're not. And we need those little reminders of those aches and pains that sometimes they cause us to really groan. It's like, God, please come back quickly. I want that new body. But Paul says while we are alive on this earth or whether we're away from Christ when we die and leave this physical body, we will enter the presence of the Lord. And because he understood that in second Corinthians five nine, he says so for this reason, we make it our purpose whether in body or away from it to be well pleasing to him. See that's what got his aim right. Okay, I know that Christ is coming back. I know whether I'm going to meet with him. He'll wrap for me to be with him or if this earthly tent dies and I'll be with him that way. It doesn't matter because my aim is to please him. I want to be found well pleasing to my savior, the very one who gave his life up for me. I am willing and I am ready to live my life to pour out my life for his glory. Are we there? Do we even want to be there? Is that even a slight intent in our hearts? Are we so consumed with the life that we are living today that maybe there really is no thought for the afterlife? Yes, we're believers. Yes, we're excited. You know that we're no longer going to hell. But really is is at the extent of our hunger and thirst for Christ? See, I love Paul. I love how he words things as the Holy Spirit kind of gives us insight into his personality and his zeal and his passion and quest for Christ. He says for this very reason, I know that I'm going to be with Christ. So because of that, my aim is to please him. You know, I really don't care what's going around going on around my life. You know, I don't care what the political things are doing. I don't care about the clothes I wear. I don't care what I'm going to eat. You see my aim, my purpose in life is to please God. That's what I want to do. I want to be found while pleasing to the Lord. So that was his intent. That was his ambition in life. First Corinthians 10 31 tells us whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do, you do it all for the glory of God. Every aspect of a Christian's life should aim to be God honoring. How often do we go about our day with no thought of God at all? We get up and our day begins and off we go. Oh, maybe we'll throw off a quick prayer to God. Oh, God bless me today. You know, Father, I have all this plan. Can you put your stamp of approval on it? And then even if we do ask God to stamp his approval on it, if something alters our plan, our agenda, we get all flipped out. Don't we? It's like, no, I can't do that. You know, I can't have 10 minutes of coffee to go minister to our friend because I have to do this. It's like, are we opened or willing to do whatever God wants us to do? We say we are, but when it comes right down to it, are we? See, and that's what I think the Lord, as he did with me, wants us to really be aware of. We claim to belong to Christ. We claim to want his way in our life. We claim to want to live our life to bring him glory. But do we really? I think those are questions that we really need to ask ourselves as we ask the Lord to search our hearts. If our aim would really be to please him on a daily basis, it would affect where we go, it would affect what we do, and it would affect how we do it. Author Johnny Erickson Tata, who is the founder and chief executive officer of Johnny and Friends. She's an international advocate for people with disabilities. She's a best-selling author, she's a speaker, she's an artist, and at the age of 17 years old, in a diving accident, she dove into the water and hit her head and became a quadriplegic. Can I want you to kind of think back when you were 17? All of life is before you, isn't it? You have these grand schemes and ideas and just all these plans because the door of life is just really coming into view. So this is huge for a 17-year-old girl to dive into a water who was an athlete, to end up a quadriplegic in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. I want you to listen to what this sweet, sweet woman says. I was angry that my life had been reduced to the basics of eating, breathing, and sleeping, day in and day out. But what I discovered was that the rest of the human race was really in the same boat. Their lives revolved around the same meaningless cycle. Except with them, it wasn't as obvious. Peripherial things distracted them from the fact that they were caught on the same treadmill. Their jobs, schools, families, and recreation occupied them enough so they never consciously recognized that their lives were the same as mine. Eating, breathing, and sleeping. Joni came to discover the true meaning and purpose in her life, not despite her circumstances, but through them. Eight years after that seemingly tragic event, Joni readied herself to mount a stage at a Use for Christ rally to speak to an audience of young, impressionable teenagers. Most of whom, no doubt, had yet to discover their own purpose in life. I hear the voice of the director introduce me. Suddenly, the purpose of my being here is brought sharply into focus. In the next 30 minutes, I will speak to 2,000 kids telling them how God transformed an immature and headstrong teenager into a self-reliant young woman who is learning to rejoice in sufferings. I will have a unique opportunity. What I share with them may determine where they will spend eternity. I will be pleased if only one person is drawn to Christ. Even one person would make the wheelchair worth all the past eight years have had to cost. Without Christ, this is huge. Without Christ, we are all spiritual quadriplegics living robotic lives of meaningless existence. Okay, listen to this. With him, even our wheelchairs become a pathway to meaning and purpose. Now that is huge, ladies. I want to read that again. Without Jesus, we are all spiritual quadriplegic living robotic lives of meaningless existence. But with him, even our wheelchairs become a pathway to meaning and purpose. Wherever we are in our life, whatever the circumstances, good or bad, with Christ, we have meaning and purpose. Don't we? Do we really believe that? Our life is not wasted on this earth. God wants to use us. God has already set plans and motions to use us. But are we willing to follow his plan? Our goals as directed by God are important because they determine what we do with the life that God has given to us. It has been said, aim nothing and you will hit it every time. People don't plan to fail, they just fail to plan. Without defining goals and then the objectives needed to accomplish those goals, most people accomplish very little, certainly very little by the standards of eternity. But it is not just the matter of having goals, but having the right type of goals and the right purpose, the right aim that keep up with the truth of scriptures. As a Christian woman, do you find your life lacking in clearly defined biblical purposes? What are we really seeking? Are we looking for greatness in the world, or are we looking for spiritual greatness? Are we looking for worldly success or are we looking for spiritual success? Because see, those are our aims and depending where we're aiming, depending how successful we're going to be. This is what A.W. Tozer says, very convicting. He says, the laws of success operate also in the high field of the soul. Spiritual greatness has a price. Eminence in the things that the spirit demands a devotion to the things more complete than most of us are willing to give. But the law cannot be escaped. If we would be holy, we would know the way. The law of holy living is always before us. The prophets of the Old Testament, the apostles of the new, and more than all of that, the teachings of Christ are there to tell us how we are to succeed. The amount of loafing practiced by the average Christian in spiritual things would ruin a concert pianist if he allowed himself to do the same thing in the field of music. The idle puttering around that we see in church circles would end the career of a big league pitcher in just one week. No scientist could solve his exacting problem if he took as little interest in it as the rank and field of Christians take in part of being holy. The nation whose soldiers were as soft and undisciplined as the soldiers of the church would be conquered by the very first enemy that attacked it. Triumphs are not won by men in easy chairs. Success is costly. And then he goes on to pray this prayer, oh Father, give me a willingness to pay any cost which you may exact in my service for you, amen. Are we lazy Christians? Are we in a point in our walk that we think that we kind of just float through the rest of life? We come to church but we aren't acting like the church. We read the word but we're not allowing the word to penetrate our hearts. We vocalize to God that we love him but we aren't willing to live our lives to please him if it's going to cost us something. It is time for us to be serious, my sweet sisters. We've messed around way too long. Time is short and I think the enemy as we look around our nation and our culture we see how horrible our world is becoming. And if we aren't armed and ready for the battle we're going to find ourselves blending in to the rest of the world and being a casualty of war. We need to not be lazy and get ready and be about the Father's business. If we could reduce our lives to one goal what would that be? On a day-to-day basis what are we really looking forward to accomplishing? Be honest. Don't answer this question with what you think the answer should be such as my chief aim in life is to always glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Now we might say that and maybe we really mean it but see we have to live it so others can look at us and say you know what I see what her aim is. I know what she's shooting for. I know she is trying to really live her life for God to bring him glory and honor. We need to be really honest with ourselves as we ask God to search our hearts for what's really going on within us. It has been said that man's chief purpose is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever and it's true and this should be a great desire of our heart but in reality if you reflect over your last week what were your thoughts set on when you got out of bed? Were they on how you might change your husband? Maybe they're on the promotion that you're seeking to get at work. Maybe you are tired of your old clunker car and all you want to do is get a new one. Maybe you want your financial problems fixed. Maybe you want to think about how you can move away from that annoying neighbor that lives next door to you or you want to just get the grades and get out of school so you can get on with your life. See the Lord knows all about those cares and concerns and he even tells us in 1 Peter 5-7 to cast all your cares on him because he cares for you. He doesn't want you to check out of life. He knows those things are important to us but see they can't consume us. His life is way more than that stuff. Losing sight of God's purpose or goal we fail to see life in accord with God's plans and goals for our life. What his overall purpose for our life is. Ephesians 2-10 says we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works and I love that because we are God's workmanship. God is working on me. He's taking all my failures all of this junk all of the stuff that I have to keep repenting of and and pouring out to him and say God I am so sick of myself please fix me and so he's like okay you ask for it look come here I want to work on you. I want to I want to make you so precious and so awesome I want you to look like Christ so when people look at you they're going to see my son how glorious is how I you if we are believers in Christ Jesus we are his workmanship. I love that picture about Michelangelo the story where there's a huge slab of marble laying there and and there's a little crack in it and one of his apprentices said you want me to just throw that that piece of marble out and he goes no you know to you it might look like a piece of junk but I see what it's going to become see the world can look at us and say oh what a piece of junk you don't mean anything you don't matter and God says no no my sweet sweet one you're my masterpiece I'm working in you I want to build you up I want to give your life meaning and purpose and worth he makes it all worthwhile as we submit to him and allow him to have his way so we are his workmanship in Christ Jesus to do good works that he's already prepared beforehand for us to do now if we have our own plans and agenda if we're not aiming to please him how do I even know what he wants me to do how do I embrace what he wants me to do you see wherever we are in life whether you're married or you're single or you're divorced or you are a young mama with children with no daddy at home maybe you have a house full of children or you're longing to have a child whatever you are in in your moment of life God wants to take that and let you find fulfillment in that not to waste that time away not to say oh gosh in 10 years then this or in three years then this no today today he wants to take your life and show you how you can be used for his glory and how you can bring him honor when we live to fulfill the purpose that God has for us it's easier for us to say no to the things that lead us astray or away from him when we live for his purposes we will learn to use time wisely and boy ladies am I trying to get that one into my heart Warren Wearsby says God has God can give us wisdom to know what to do and the strength to do it the tragedy is that we are wasting today by worrying about tomorrow or regretting yesterday and the sad thing is that we will do the same thing tomorrow Benjamin Franklin wrote do you love life then don't squander time for that's the stuff that life is made of to put it another way the person who kills time will soon discover that time is killing him time is God's gift to us and it is a sin to waste it or to merely spend it we must invest it by doing his will living our life for his purposes God doesn't expect us to be oblivious to life's needs but when our goals are God's goals we are better able to look at life through God's eyes when our focus is on the Lord something wonderful begins to happen to us inside God begins to change us and to make us more like his son when we are truly focused on the Lord and trusting in him we will also be resting in God's purposes even if we have no clue what's happening at that particular moment in our life but because we are students of the word we can trust in his promises to know that all things work together for the good to those that are called according to his purpose and that good is being conformed to his image because we know the first chapter of James we know that when we're in those trials and hardships God can use those things to mature me to complete me to grow me up spiritually so I can trust him with whatever is going on in my life again Paul says in Philippians 3 10 my aim is to know him to experience his power of resurrection to share in his sufferings to be like him in death that's his purpose that's his goal our goal not only says a great a great deal about us from a christian's perspective but our goals our aims show us who we are they will affect how we live one way or the other but you see our aim to fix it can't be the goal okay we can't say oh god I know I've been messing this up for so long so just fix this help me keep that that um aim in view it has to be so much more Robert McGee writes this many of us tend to approach christian living as a self-improvement program we may desire spiritual growth or we may have one or more fairly serious problems from which we desperately want to be delivered while there is certainly nothing wrong with spiritual growth or desiring to be rid of a problem what is our motivation and wanting to achieve goals like these perhaps we desire success or the approval of others perhaps we fear that god really can't accept us until we have spiritually matured or until our problem is removed perhaps we just want to feel better without having to struggle through the process of making major major changes in our attitudes or our behavior motivations such as these may be mixed with a genuine desire to honor the lord but it's also possible that very deep within us is a primary desire to glorify ourselves when self-improvement becomes a center of our focus rather than christ our focus gets out of whack it is important to understand that fruitfulness and growth are the result of focusing on christ and desiring to honor him when growth and change are our primary goals we tend to be preoccupied with ourselves instead of christ am i growing am i getting better is this sin getting under control am i more like jesus today am i am i am i and it all turns around to become all about me and god says no your focus needs to be all about me that's when the change comes personal development isn't wrong but it can be very misleading and it can be very disappointing if that's our top goal as we grasp the unconditional love grace and power of god then honoring christ will be an increasing consuming passion for us god wants us to help us have a healthy self-awareness and to ask him to search our lives but he doesn't want us preoccupied with ourselves the only one who is worthy of our preoccupation is jesus christ himself our sovereign lord the goal for a christian is to know christ this means pursuing jesus christ which results in our growth our character becomes matured and grows in him we grow in his love and his grace and his mercy endurance and his pri his values his priorities his pursuits instead of our own to experience christ's life is also to begin to experience other goals like pleasing him and seeking to bring him glory no matter what we're doing it's a good thing to have an aim that will bring glory and honor to god because that keeps our purpose and focus in check we need to rest in his life as a source for our life and we need to trust him we can get so caught up with the question that i hear so many times yeah but if i just knew what god's will for my life is and usually when we're asking that question it's not a spiritual question it's a question of well who am i going to marry how much money am i going to make what kind of house am i going to have what kind of car am i going to drive what kind of children do i have is this divorce really going to affect my life or data data data i want the will of god known so my life can be at ease i want answers to my hard questions and like lenya said this afternoon sometimes we don't have the answers we just have to trust god and if we have again his will his purposes in sight whatever happens with us in this life because we trust in his sovereignty we know he can work it out to bring glory and honor to him and to mature us god's will is much more than just asking can you show me where i'm in the live or what i'm going to do it's more based on this scripture that we're supposed to be looking at this morning at a second corinthians chapter five verses seven through nine says we live by faith and not by sight it's a faith of christ that we're trusting in to give us guidance in this life god's goal in saving us is not just heaven although heaven is assured for believers through the finished work of jesus christ his desire is to make us like his son he wants to conform us into the image of the lord jesus christ and that happens as we live our life to please him fall in love with him and abide with him on a daily basis then we find our purpose then it's a glorious thing to serve him and to live our life to please him author randy ally says this a violin string lying upon the table is a helpless inanimate thing it has no power it has no purpose it can produce no beauty nor can it produce music but then the master violinist comes to the table and he picks up the string he fits it into the proper place in the violin he turns the key and he perfectly tunes it then he strokes the string with a bow and he brings forth the most beautiful music that we've ever heard and his application is this before we come to christ our life was much like that violin string it had no structure nor purpose when the master took control of our life he brought us into harmony with his purposes once we were in god's control he began to produce beautiful music in us and through us see we have to be willing to be picked up and tuned up by him so we can be used for his glory in a magazine called joy joy and strength there is a quote by william huntington and he asks us this question are we willing to give ourselves entirely to god to let him do with us whatever he pleases to follow anywhere at his bidding to renounce anything at his call asking only in return that he will give us himself with all infinite love to be ours from this time now till forever if we are willing let us kneel down and tell him so alone with god let us give him ourselves all we have all we are and all we shall be to be unreservedly his are our hearts at that place yet see i know that pastor david and marie's heart isn't just to have stuff to do on a saturday afternoon to have an auditorium filled with women just so we can say wow this place was packed out there were so many women here it's not what it's about it's not so we can have the best speakers or the best worship or whatever it is see i know their hearts they want you to know and love god so things go well with you see that's god's heart for us as well that if we would just embrace his life for us things go well for us doesn't matter what's happening linya dealing with cancer some of you prodigal children some of you on the verge of divorce some of you in financial ruin some of you having a life of ease see it doesn't matter whatever it is if we embrace god's purposes for our lives ladies our lives would be glorious like nicole said we will learn to be content because he's in everything whether with a lot or with a little we can learn that our jesus our god supplies all of our needs we can do all things to christ who strengthens us in those weak moments of our life bill hole in his book jesus the disciple maker says this there is nothing quite as exhilarating as getting out of bed in the morning going back into the world and knowing why do we know why we're here he goes on to say enthusiasm is derived from the certainty that for this i was born and i'm doing it it is thrilling knowledge that i am fulfilling god's intended purpose for me so the question that we started with what are we aiming for what truly is your aim in life are you are am i really willing to become a woman who is used solely for god's purposes if you are if you want a purpose in your heart to do that today from this day forward will you stand up with me don't be ashamed this is your commitment to christ if you want to be a woman be solely used for god's purposes stand up we sing earlier when emily was leading us in worship it will be my joy to say your will your way really praise god i'm so thankful that you are all standing this is so amazing to your father see if your heart is willing he wants to do it you just have to let him