Discover Your Purpose | Cornerstone Church | Pastor Linn Winters

You just have to make us through one more. But we've been talking about this thing of there's things that we say to each other all the time. I mean, it's just because it's common, it's part of our culture and we say them because they sound good, they sound encouraging

and it feels like we're being warm hearted toward them and so we say things like, hey, just you do you, hey, whatever makes you happy, that's what you go for. We say, hey, you gotta learn to love yourself before you can learn to love others. But if you paused, if we really thought for a moment,

we'd go, know, I'm not sure that's great advice. I mean, you actually live that out, if you did what I just encouraged you to do, there's a high probability that you find disappointment at the end of that, that you find heartache at the end of that. And so we're just examining things that sound good.

Today, the phrase that we're gonna talk about a little bit is phrase, hey, you can be anything you wanna be. I mean, you can you you can be anything you wanna be and it just sounds so uplifting when we say it, but is it actually true?

Can you and I actually be anything that we wanna be? What if I decided I wanted to be a supermodel? Ain't happening, right? Or or what if I said, hey, I'm gonna be a professional football player. And I can tell you, I loved sports, I did play a little bit, I never had the talent

or the commitment that I was gonna be a professional football, it was never gonna happen, even if I wanted to. If you've ever stood next to me during the service and heard me sing, you know, I'm not gonna be a worship leader, right?

And if you think about it, if we actually encourage this, hey, if you can be anything you wanna be, it actually has the potential to be harmful. Think about this, what if somebody takes that advice and goes, okay, I'm just gonna go be what I want to be and now they're 45 and

suddenly they realize, I don't have the skills to do this, I don't have the capacities to do this, I'm always gonna be sub average and now I'm 45, but I did what I thought I wanted to do.

Or maybe they did, maybe they had the talent, maybe they had the ability, they did the thing they wanted to do only to find out it wasn't fulfilling. And they're like, man, I mean, every day I go to work every it's just not what I thought it was gonna be.

And what do I do now? Do I like quit my job? Do I take my family and sell our house and sell our cars and move into some shack, I go back to school for six years and then start an internship, but more likely, I just live out the rest of my life in the thing that I wanted to do that actually wasn't the right thing

for me to do. And I think one of the reasons this gets even a little bit more confusing is that we have a tendency to confuse our occupation with our purpose in life.

Especially if you're a male, you consider the moment someone walks up to you says, Hey, tell me about yourself. And when someone says, hey, tell me about what's the first thing we usually say? Oh, I'm a student. Oh, I'm an architect. Oh, I'm a engineer. You realize being in isn't who you are. It's not your life's purpose.

And so the question we're just gonna kind of unpack a little bit today is to say, hey, what is it I was supposed to be? What is it that God created me to be? What is the purpose for my life and how would I go about discovering what I was made to be in this world? So here we go, grab your Bibles, go with me

to the book of Ephesians.

If you're not familiar, if you simply go to the back of your Bible, start working to the left, you're gonna find this book of Ephesians. It's Ephesians chapter

two and I just wanna say aloud that many of the verses that we're gonna go through today, if you've been in church for a length of time, you're familiar with these verses, we've heard them before. I'm just not sure we've heard them before. They we've actually sat there and considered the implications for our life's purpose,

the truths that these verses are speaking in us and toward us. So here we go, Ephesians chapter two, starting in verse 10, here's what it says, For we are God's handiwork. Some of our versions that we have say, we are God's masterpiece, which really actually is a pretty good translation because the idea behind this word is

the master artist is forming his creation. For you and I are his masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do good works. In other words, when I discover my purpose, when I figure out what is it that God put me on this earth to do,

other people are gonna be blessed. People's lives around me are gonna be changed and they're gonna be changed for the good, they're gonna be so thankful that I was in this world and that I lived out my purpose because of the good that I did in their lives.

For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prepared in advance for us to do. Before you were ever born, God determined your purpose, which simply means this, are you ready? You and I don't decide our purpose, He does. And what scripture is saying is this, that God is painting His masterpiece

in you. And the reality is for most, we don't know what that is, we haven't figured that purpose out, but that is our question and the reality is you and I don't get to decide our purpose, we need to discover our purpose. We need to say, God, would you just show me, would you reveal to me

what it is that you made me to be and that I could live that out in my life. Now here's the thing, I can tell you that for the most of us, your purpose is not to go in full time ministry. I just wanted to say that so you don't freak out.

Very few people are called to full time, matter of fact, if someone comes to me and says, hey, Lynn, I think I'm going into ministry, I do my best to try and talk them out of it. So chances are it's not full time ministry but here's what I can tell you about your purpose. Number one, when you live in your purpose,

you will glorify God, people will see you and they will see God in you. It's kind of interesting right now because it feels like there's kind of a movement right now within professional sports

and over and over again, I'm noticing professional athletes when they get the camera put in front of their face, they're going, hey, I just wanna give glory to God. Hey, I just want to thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Here's what they're realizing, hey, God gave me all this talent,

God gave me a platform where people are watching me and He didn't do that for me, He did that so I would leverage my talent and leverage my platform to give Him glory and when you find your purpose, people will see God's glory in you. Second thing, when you discover your purpose, people around you are gonna be blessed

and I'm just telling you, if right now you've got a plan for your life, you think you've got it figured out and your plan is, hey, I'm just gonna make sure that I'm good and my spouse is good and my kids are good. Your plan is too small because when you're living out your God given purpose,

I'm telling you that others around you are gonna be blessed by you. And then finally this, when you discover your God given purpose, it will actually be so fulfilling, so thrilling in your life, you won't be able to get enough of it. You'll literally say this is what I was created to do.

I would tell you about a couple in our church, it's Matt and Karen Trippoli and they're part of a ministry we have here at the church as volunteers that's called Re engage and if you're not familiar, Re engage is our marriage ministry

and it's this incredible thing, I don't care where your marriage is at, if you go through the fourteen weeks, your marriage will be better. Good marriages become great, struggling marriages become healthy. It's just an incredible, incredible program and Matt and Karen Trippoli are part of that ministry

and if you were to walk into the re engage room while that is going on, you will look and go, oh my goodness, man people's lives are being changed, this is incredible what God is using Matt and Karen to do. You would say, there's dozens, there's dozens of marriages that have been blessed by Matt and Karen.

Here's the interesting thing, Matt and Kimat by trade was a fireman, Karen by occupation was a school teacher. But if you saw them living out your purpose, here's what you would say, go, hey, you may have been a fireman, you may have been a teacher, but your purpose,

your purpose was restore and build marriages, that's why God put you on earth. And can I tell you that because they've found that in their lives, it's so fulfilling for them that they literally have done re engage six times in a row, Re engage is fourteen weeks?

Why would they do that as a volunteer? Because every night when they sit there working with couples, they go, this is what God made me for. And watching marriages get better and help is so fulfilling in our lives, sign me up again. And I'm just telling you, when you find your purpose,

you will have such incredible fulfillment in your life, it won't be your occupation, it'll be the purpose for which God puts you here. But here's what you need to know, our purpose is not something we decide, your purpose is something you will discover.

See, it's almost like you and I are looking at the God's masterpiece from the backside, well, God, what are you painting? And he says, not yet. Let me ask you a question, how come God doesn't just tell us our purpose?

Wouldn't it be fun if like God, like when we were born, wrote it out on a post it notes that some little angel down and put it on our foreheads, this is your purpose. Wouldn't that just make this so much easier for you and me if he would just tell us what our purpose is?

Matter of fact, grab your Bibles one more time, with me to Jeremiah chapter

29. And again, if you're not familiar, easiest thing, open your Bible right about to the middle, you're gonna start working to the right. You're gonna find this book of Jeremiah to Isaiah, you're almost there, Jeremiah chapter 29. Again, a verse that a lot of us have probably seen before, I'm not sure we've seen it before.

Jeremiah 29, here's what God says to us, He says, Hey, I know the plans I have for you. Well, that's really cool God, but what are they? What is my purpose? And then He goes on, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Well, I like that, but what is the plan? I mean, what is your purpose for me?

And then he says, To give you hope and a future, but what is it? Isn't it interesting that God says to you and hey, look, I've got a plan. I've got something that you are uniquely created to do. It's an amazing plan. It's an incredible plan, but you're gonna have to trust me for the plan. Why?

Because the reality is simply this, most of us aren't ready to hear our purpose yet. If God was to tell you what He's gonna, you'd freak out, you'd be like, oh, you got the wrong person, I could never do that.

Some of us, some of us would not freak out, we'd be so excited about God's purpose that we'd be like, okay, let's do it now, let's do it now and we're not ready now. Some of us, if God told us what he was gonna do with us, we'd get prideful. Oh, your purpose, your purpose, you should see my purpose.

And God is not gonna give you your purpose till you're ready for your purpose. And guys, you're ready for this? The number one thing that God is waiting for before He reveals your purpose, spiritual maturity.

You've gotta be mature enough in Christ to handle the purpose when he had, remember when God went to Moses and he says to Moses, hey Moses, I'm gonna send you back to Egypt and you're gonna talk to Pharaoh and you're breathe. He goes, I can't do that. God is not gonna reveal his purpose to you till you're ready

to have his purpose revealed, which is spiritual maturity, which is why there's some of us in the room and you're struggling with forgiveness, there's somebody in this world who hurt you deeply and you've heard the messages over and over again and your answer is no. I'm not gonna forgive them till their life is messed up.

And you know what God says, then you're not ready because in my purpose, you're gonna have to forgive half a dozen people. And if you can't forgive this first one, you're not ready for your purpose. Hey, there's some of us and we've heard message after message about how we should be serving others.

And we go, you know what, that's nice and maybe someday, but I'm busy, I'm a student right now or I'm trying to climb up the corporate ladder or we just had kids and Lynn, you don't understand and God says, well then you're not ready because when you live out your purpose,

you will be blessing other people's life. It won't be about you, it'll be about blessing them. And if you're so self consumed, if you're so self focused, if you're so selfish, you're not ready for your purpose.

Some of us have heard, hey, need to join groups and we need to start growing in our faith and we're just like, you know, I'm good, Sunday makes And God goes, you realize you don't know enough, you haven't grown and if you're not ready to grow, then you're not ready for your purpose. We've heard about tithing and we go,

God that you know, no, no, it doesn't make sense. You don't see my finance, you don't get it. I don't think I trust the church. And God says, then you're not ready for your purpose because if you trust pieces of paper with green ink, more than you trust me to provide,

Man, if you could in your purpose, you're gonna have to trust me bigger than that. And guys, I'm just telling you right now that if if you wanna know why God created you, why he put you here on earth, you wanna discover your purpose that glorifies him and helps other people and fills your heart with meaning,

you're gonna have to be mature enough for him to tell you his purpose.

So the question comes, okay, let's say I get in, let's say I start obeying, let's say I start going, how is God gonna reveal His purpose to me? What's gonna cause Him to turn around the painting so that I suddenly go, oh, I see it, I get it, I understand

it. And I'm just gonna suggest to you that there's three things that God's gonna do in your life that He did in order to equip you for your purpose, that will actually point you toward your purpose. How many of you saw Pirates of the Caribbean? Okay, good, three of us, that's great, okay. I picked the right illustration.

In Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow has a compass, but the compass doesn't point north. Lots of people in the movie make fun of Jack Sparrow's compass, what they don't understand is that his compass points to his heart's desire

and it actually points to a ship called the Black Pearl, which is his desires to be captain of the black pearl. You and I in our lives, if we take into account how God made us, how God formed us, seeing that, understanding

that will be like a compass and maybe we're over here and then we look and we go, well, wait a minute, that's not how God gifted me, it's more this way or or maybe we're standing over here and we go, hey, that has nothing to do with the personality that God gave me in my life, it's more this way

and those things that God has formed in you, you ready?

Are exactly what you need in order to carry out his purpose. So when I take a self of it, when I say, hey, what is it that God has made in me? It will literally be like the compass heading toward my purpose. So let me tell you the three areas that you and I need to look at. Number one, spiritual giftedness.

You may or may not know this, but before you were born, God actually formed you and gave you spiritual gifts in order for you to carry out your life purpose. Matter of fact, grab your Bibles real quick, go with me to Psalm 139. And again, if you're not familiar, just go to the middle of your Bible,

chances are you'll be in Psalms and then head to chapter 139. Psalms 139,

starting in verse 13, this is David talking to God about how he was formed for His purpose. Here we go, Psalm 13nine 13, here's what he says to God, For you created my inmost being. He's not saying, hey, not only did you create my body, you know, and how tall I was gonna be and what color, you created my inside,

you created my personality, you created the things that were gonna bother me, you gave me gifts, capacities that were gonna be exactly what I needed to fulfill my purpose. You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb, you literally formed who I am inside of my mother's womb before I was even born. I

will praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. One of the biggest mistakes we make is we go, I'm not like them, you're not supposed to be, you are absolutely perfect for God's purpose for you, which means you're perfect. Well, no, you're not, you need some work, but anyways, you're on the right track.

All right, I will praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made your works are wonderful, I know that full well and guys, here's what you need to know that while you were in your mother's womb, God equipped you with spiritual gifts

that actually are part of why you do and respond the way you respond in this world differently than, have you ever noticed husbands and wives, your kid disobeys, your response is this direction, his response is that direction. And sometimes it has nothing to do with how you, why?

It's probably because your spiritual giftedness is different and you're actually responding to that disobedience out of your spiritual giftedness. How many people in the room go, I know exactly what my spiritual gifts are, I could tell you. Look around, far too few

and if you and I are ever gonna turn the masterpiece around, if we're ever gonna figure out, hey God, this is my You have to figure out, Hey God, how did you build me? What are my spiritual gifting?

So here's what gonna do, I'm gonna read for you a list of spiritual gifts, while I'm doing that you can just kind of think to say, maybe that one's mine or maybe that one, it'll be some you'll go, oh, that one's not. Here we go, if you've got the gift of evangelism, some people have the gift of evangelism and if you do,

you find ways to bring Jesus up in everyday conversation. Someone says, hey, the sky is blue and you go, yeah, looks just like Jesus.

Who doesn't? People with evangelism do that. Gift of prophecy and it's not what you think, prophecy is not foretelling the future, prophecy is foretelling. In other words, you have a huge

sense of right and wrong and when you see something or you hear something, you immediately feel that your responsibility to say something about it, to do something, you're like, I'm gonna write the producer of that show, that was wrong. Prophecy, teaching,

if God is giving you the gift of teaching, you absolutely love gathering information and then you enjoy giving it to other people whether they want it or not, gift of teaching, exhortation or encouragement. If you've got the gift of encouragement, then you're a person who somehow has the words

to say the right thing at the right time to lift someone else's heart. We're all wondering what to say and you're going, oh, let me encourage you. Gift of shepherding, if you've got the gift of shepherding, you find yourself absolutely drawn to feed, protect and care for other believers.

You're like a shepherd with sheep and you're drawn to do that. Mercy, if you've got the gift of mercy, chances are you're the first person to notice somebody in the room being left out or somebody being and you'll immediately go to them, because you've got the gift of mercy. Serving, if you have the gift of serving,

it means, hey, you don't wanna be, if I brought you up on the platform, you would melt because you don't wanna be, just wanna serve, you wanna quietly be behind the scenes, but you wanna help others and make others lives better because you served them. Gift of giving, if you've got the gift of generosity,

you go beyond what's required, you believe that God put that money in your hands so you could bless other people, So you're always looking, hey, how can I make somebody else's life better by being generous to them? None of us have that one, but no, I'm teasing. Administration or leadership. Leaders,

if they have that gifting, when they walk into the room, they ask this question, who's the leader and why isn't it me? Leaders actually, ready for this? Leaders actually enjoy problems because it gives them the opportunity to solve problems. And here's what you need to get as they go down that list, based on your gifting,

you will react to the same situation completely different than somebody else who has different gifting and you're not doing that because your life experience, you're doing that because the gift God put in you is influencing you that deeply.

So let me give you just a little anecdotal story. I want you to imagine that you're with your friends, you've gone out to eat somewhere and your friends have brought their 10 year old son and he announces after you get done eating, hey, I'm gonna go get an ice cream cone.

He goes and gets the ice cream cone, he comes back and as he gets to the table, he drops the ice cream off the cone. If you've got the gift of evangelism, then you're gonna say something like this, hey, if you were that ice cream and you died today, would you go to heaven? Gift of evangelism.

Gift of prophecy, remember a truth teller. Hey, you know the reason you dropped that ice cream cone is because you were distracted, just wanted to tell you the truth. Gift of teaching, hey, you understand that was actually because of gravity.

You tilted the cone and it got to a certain apex and then gravity took over, that's why it fell. Gift of teaching. Exhortation, hey, hey, hey, it could have happened to anyone. Don't feel bad, man. If you're a shepherd, could you just confess that you dropped the ice cream?

And then we'll talk about how not to repeat that again. Gift of mercy, come here, man, I know, I know how bad you feel, I'm sorry. Can I hug you? Gift of serving, gift of serving didn't say anything and they've already grabbed a towel, they're wiping up the ice cream. Gift of giving,

the guy with the gift of giving went over and put a couple bucks in the boys pockets, said get another ice cream cone. Gift of leadership, gift of leadership said, hey Tom, go get the mop, Alice, you grab the towel, hey, go sit over here with the gift of mercy so they can help your heart. Isn't it, think about this,

we thought the reason we reacted differently to that moment was because of how we were raised, what if the reason you acted differently was because the spiritual gift that God put in your life for his purpose is so powerful that in that moment you could do nothing but react with your gift and two people like that.

But guys, they're saying, if that's true, then we need to know our gifts. Second thing, as David talks says, hey, you formed me in my mother's womb, you realize God gave you your personality. So the next time your wife says you're a jerk, just go, it was God, He gave me this personality. But you understand

because God intended you for your purpose, He gave you a personality that fits your God given purpose. Some of us are extrovert, you're an extrovert because your purpose requires you to be an extrovert. Some of you are introverts because that's the perfect way to be to fulfill your God given purpose.

Some of us see detail all over the place, some of us only see big picture, some of us are driven, everything's type A, some of us are laid back, we're musicians but you understand that it's because it fits your God given purpose. God literally gave you the personality that was right for your purpose.

And here's the deal, think about this, when I start to understand the giftedness God gave me, all of sudden there's an arrow in my life pointing me to what God's intended me to do. When I start to understand that God made my personality, all of a sudden there's a compass pointing me toward,

oh my God given purpose requires an introvert. That's why God made me this way. And so guys, we wanted to help you out a little bit, so here's what we've done for you, is we got together a free

gifts analysis test and a free personality test. And you can get that by if you pull out your phones real quick, you gotta unlock them, you gotta open them and then on the seat backs behind you or yeah, in front of you, I'm sorry, there's a thing and you can tap it, right?

And it'll pull it up, you can push on the gifts test, you can push on the personality test. At the bottom, as you go down, there's a thing called, what's it called? Oh, discover your gifts,

it's more than that, it's a class and once you've taken the personality test, once you've taken the gifts test, if you'll go to that class, they'll actually walk you through and say, hey, based on your giftedness, based on the personality that God, these are probably potentially some purposes

that God has directed you or that God would use you in, okay? So we just wanna make that available to all of you. All right, we said there was a third thing, a third compass point as it points me to my God given. And the last way that God forms me, not only in my personality, not only in my giftedness,

God forms us by our experiences. You ready for this? Even our bad ones. Matter of fact, I'm gonna suggest to you that it may be our hardest experiences that do the most forming in our lives, that teach us the most in our lives. I

surrendered to ministry when I was 15 years old, I started chasing ministry all the time. Lee I'd finished my bachelor's degree. Lisa and I had moved back to Phoenix. Nobody was hiring youth pastors. I was discouraged. And then I heard about this little church.

It just so happened it was a little church that when I was a kid, I had gone to that church and they were looking for a youth pastor. I thought, okay, that how could it be more clear? I mean, that's amazing. And so I went and applied.

I thought this is like my life coming to full circle. I'm you know, I grew up as old and now I'm coming back to be on staff and they were offering more money than I had ever made in my life. I went, man, this has got to be God's will. They didn't hire me.

I got to be honest, I was pretty frustrated with God because I'm like, God, this was obviously your will and you didn't do it. How could you have missed?

To make ends meet, I ended up mowing yards in Arizona during summers. And can I just tell you, there was many a time pushing that lawnmower that I said to God, you know, you missed it? I I could have been doing ministry. I could have been changing lives. I'm mowing grass.

And I was frustrated.

A year and a half later, there was a church that needed a youth pastor. They gave me a call, and I ended up getting hired. It's there at that church that I met a gentleman by the name of George Bedlian. And if you've heard my story at all, it began an eleven year journey where George Bedlian mentored my life,

poured into my taught me so much leadership, taught me so much ministry. And suddenly there came the moment when I looked back and went, you know, if that little church had hired me, their pastor wasn't a leader. He would he would have never invested in me.

I was angry with God because God had the wrong timing and the truth was it was the right timing and that's what God was trying to teach me. Hey, Lynn, this isn't on your schedule. This is on and what had been one of the hardest seasons of my life was one of the greatest learning seasons. Hey, God, it's your schedule.

It's not mine. And guys, can I tell you that as I've come and pastored, God's had to take me through that a dozen more times?

If I hadn't learned that lesson then as a young man, I wouldn't have been prepared for the moments at our church where it felt like God's timing was off. Can I tell you that the chairs that some of you were sitting in, the kids adventure port, I wanted that six years ago?

I worked really, really hard to have it happen six years ago, and God shot shut every single door and rather than get frustrated and angry, I was able to say, God you've taught me this one. Your timing is better than my timing. And guys, I'm just telling you that one of the ways you figure out and discover God's

purpose for your life is to go back to those moments, maybe moments you've been angry with him about and frustrated with about and stop saying, hey God, why did you do that? And instead you ask, hey God, what were you teaching me? What did I need to learn in that really, really difficult time?

Because when you uncover that, it's very possible that the painting turns around and you see your purpose. And guys, here's what I promise. I promise when he shows you his purpose, it's better than your purpose. You could have never painted this yourself. It'll bring him glory, people will be blessed,

and your heart will be full. Let's pray. Hey, when I get done praying, if you need prayer, there'll be people at the front. They'll come and meet with you. Hey, God. We thought we could be anything we wanted to be. We we thought we get to decide what our purpose is in life.

We are your masterpiece. You are the divine artist created for good works so that people around us, when we discover our purpose, will be blessed out of their minds and people will see your glory in us. And our hearts will be filled and will know this is what I was created to do on this earth. May not be my occupation,

but it is my purpose. And God, I pray this for everyone in the room. Would we step in and say, hey God, I'm gonna start obeying. I'm gonna grow up. I want to be mature enough that you can reveal this to us. And then God, would you show us

the painting? Would you show us the masterpiece? Would you show us the purpose for which we are here on earth? We pray this in your precious name. Amen.