Are We Serving God’s Purposes?

We all have a job to do:

To start things off on a lighter note, in the hit 1980 film The Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood tell folks, “We’re on a mission from God.” For the committed Christian, this notion should ring true. We ARE here on a mission from and for God. We may not always know just what that is, but we are in fact here for a purpose.

We were not saved just so that one day we can go to be with our Lord and enjoy him forever. Yes, that is our blessed hope, but until that time, we all have a job to do. We are all here on assignment. We each have a heavenly calling which is unique to us, and which no one else can do in the same way and in the same sense.

Sure, often the believer is busy simply doing the stuff of life: working at a job, raising a family, and so on. And those are all high and holy callings indeed. But we must always keep the bigger picture in mind. Even if you do work at a regular job some 40 or 50 or 60 hours a week, we are a part of something much bigger and grander than ourselves.

Sometimes discovering what the purpose of God for us is can be part of a journey, and it can take some time. Perhaps some will not be able to fully articulate or discern just what their mission and calling is, but by the end of their life – and certainly in the next – they will be able to look back and see just what God had them on planet earth for.

I have been a Christian for a long time now, and have not always known exactly what it is God has wanted me to do. And we all need to remember that of course in God’s eyes who we ARE is often more important than what we DO. The latter flows out of the former.

All this has been going through my mind again of late, having just read a key text on this in my daily reading. I refer to the words of the Apostle Paul concerning King David as found in Acts 13:36: “he had served the purpose of God in his own generation”.

The question we all should be asking ourselves is this: Are we doing the same? Are we serving the purpose of God in our generation, whatever that might be? Are we aware of a calling on our lives that comes from above? Are we able to say, “I’m on a mission from God”?

Again, it need not be some grandiose thing. Most of us will never be a megachurch pastor, or an international Bible teacher, or a New Testament scholar at a Christian divinity school, or an overseas missionary, or a best-selling Christian author.

Most of us will just do what we have been allotted to do in life: being a good parent, a committed spouse, a hard-working employee, or a respectful son or daughter. But in all these “little” things we are to be found faithful. We are to do everything for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). We are to fulfil the purpose of God in our lifetime – in our generation.

We have been saved to serve, in other words. We are not here for ourselves, but for the work of Christ and the good of others. What exactly our individual service is will differ from that of others. But we are called to serve diligently and faithfully. As Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 4:1-2: “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”

Simply being faithful in our work, our calling, our mission, is enough. We can leave the results up to God. But we want to live such a life that when we die, those around us can say, ‘He served the purpose of God in his own generation.’ Is that your aim? Is that your desire?

Let me finish by quoting one great and faithful servant of God. The English preacher Charles Spurgeon delivered a sermon on “Serving Our Generation” on October 19, 1890. It was based on Acts 13;36. And he had it read at his funeral when he died two years later. This is part of what he had to say:

First, then, WHAT IS IT TO SERVE OUR OWN GENERATION? This is a question which ought to interest us all very deeply. Though our citizenship is in heaven, yet, as we live on earth, we should seek to serve our generation while we pass as pilgrims to the better country. What, then, is it for a man to serve his own generation?

1. I note, first, that it is not to be a slave to it. It is not to drop into the habits, customs, and ideas of the generation in which we live. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not only for one generation, it is for all generations. It is the faith which needed to be only “once for all delivered to the saints”; it was given stereotyped as it always is to be. That man serves his generation best who is not caught by every new current of opinion, but stands firmly by the truth of God, which is a solid, immovable rock. But to serve our own generation in the sense of being a slave to it, its vassal, and its varlet — let those who care to do so go into such bondage and slavery if they will. Do you know what such a course involves? If any young man here shall begin to preach the doctrine and the thought of the age, within the next ten years, perhaps within the next ten months, he will have to eat his own words, and begin his work all over again.

2. In the next place, in seeking to answer the question, What is it to serve our own generation? I would say, it is not to fly from it. If he shall shut himself up, like a hermit, in his cave, and leave the world to go to ruin as it may, he will not be like David, for he served his own generation before he fell asleep. If you do not take your stand in this way, it can never truly be said of you that you served your generation. Instead of that, the truth will be that you allowed your generation to make a coward of you, or to muzzle you like a dog.

3. If we ask again, What is it to serve our generation? I answer, it is to perform the common duties of life, as David did. David was the son of a farmer, a sheep-owner, and he took first of all to the keeping of the sheep. Many young men do not like to do the common work of their own father’s business. The girl who dreams about the foreign missionary field, but cannot darn her brother’s stockings, will not be of service either at home or abroad. But serving our generation means more than this.

4. It is to be ready for the occasion when it comes. In the midst of the routine of daily life, we should, by diligence in duty, prepare for whatever may be our future opportunity, waiting patiently until it comes. Look at David’s occasion of becoming famous. He never sought it. If you are to serve God, wait till He calls you to His work: He knows where to find you when He wants you; you need not advertise yourself to His omniscience. If you want to serve the Church and serve the age, be wide awake when the occasion comes. Jump into the saddle when the horse is at your door; and God will bless you if you are on the lookout for opportunities of serving him. What is it, again, to serve our generation?

5. It is to maintain true religion. This David did. He had grave faults in his later life, which we will not extenuate; but he never swerved from his allegiance to Jehovah the true God. No word. or action of his ever sanctioned anything like idolatry, or turning aside from the worship of Jehovah, the God of Israel.

6. To serve our own generation is not a single action, done at once, and over forever; it is to continue to serve all our life. Notice well that David served “his own generation”; not only a part of it, but the whole of it. He began to serve God, and he kept on serving God. How many young men have I seen who were going to do wonders! Ah, me! they were as proud of the intention as though they had already done the deed. Some, too, begin well, and they serve their God earnestly for a time, but on a sudden their service stops. One cannot quite tell how it happens, but we never hear of them afterwards. Men, as far as I know them, are wonderfully like horses. You get a horse, and you think, “This is a first-rate animal,” and so it is. It goes well for a while, but on a sudden it drops lame, and you have to get another. So it is with church members. I notice that every now and then they get a singular lameness. Yet more is included in this faithful serving of our generation.

7. It is to prepare for those who are to come after us. David served his generation to the very end by providing for the next generation. He was not permitted to build the temple; but he stored up a great mass of gold and silver to enable his son Solomon to carry out his noble design, and build a house for God. This is real service; to begin to serve God in early youth; to keep on till old age shall come; and even then to say, “I cannot expect to serve the Lord much longer, but I will prepare the way as far as I can for those who will come after me.”

 

II. In the second place, let us ask a question even more practical than the first: WHAT PARTS OF OUR GENERATION CAN WE SERVE? It is truly written, “None of us liveth to himself”: we either help or hinder those amongst whom we dwell. Let us see to it that we serve our age, and become stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks to those by whom we are surrounded. We shall serve our generation best by being definite in our aim. In trying to reach everybody we may help nobody. I divide the generation in which we live into three parts.

1. First, there is the part that is setting. Some are like the sun going down in the west; they will be gone soon. Serve them. You that are in health and vigour, comfort them, strengthen them, and help them all you can. Be a joy to that dear old man, who has been spared to you even beyond the allotted threescore years and ten, and praise God for the grace that has upheld him through his long pilgrimage.

2. The second portion of our generation which we can serve is the part that is shining. I mean those in middle life, who are like the sun at its zenith. Help them all you can.

3. Specially, however, I want to speak to you about serving your own generation in the part that is rising; the young people who are like the sun in the east, as yet scarcely above the horizon. In them lies our hope for the future of God’s cause on earth. In the first place, they are the most reachable. Happily, we can get at the children. Moreover, the children are the most impressible. What can we do with the man who is hardened in sin? The salvation of the children ought to be sought with double diligence, for they will last the longest. Remember, too, that those who are converted when children usually make the best saints. We ought to look after the children, again, for they are specially named by Christ. He said, “Feed My sheep”; but He also said “Feed My lambs.” Look after the children of this generation, again, for the dangers around them at the present time are almost innumerable.

You can find the full sermon here: https://ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons38.vii.html

We Christians are on a mission from God, and we are called to serve the purposes of God in our own generation. Is that our prayer and our desire?

[2128 words]