Key points
1The cultural phrase "you can be anything you want to be" sounds uplifting but is not actually true and can be harmful.
Pastor Linn walks through examples — wanting to be a supermodel, a professional football player, a worship leader — showing that talent and reality limit what we can be. He warns that someone who chases the wrong dream on this advice can end up at 45 realizing they lack the skill or find the achieved goal unfulfilling.
2We often confuse our occupation with our God-given purpose.
Pastor Linn notes that when asked to describe ourselves we default to job titles — student, architect, engineer — but being that job isn't our life's purpose. This confusion is part of why discovering true purpose feels so elusive.
3We are God's masterpiece, formed for good works He planned before we were born.
Working through Ephesians 2:10, Pastor Linn explains the word behind "handiwork" pictures a master artist forming His creation, and stresses that God determined our purpose before we existed — meaning we don't decide it, we discover it.
4Living in your purpose glorifies God, blesses others, and brings deep fulfillment.
He points to professional athletes giving God glory on camera as an example of purpose pointing back to God, and warns that a plan limited to just yourself and your family is too small. He tells the story of Matt and Karen Trippoli, a former fireman and school teacher who now lead the church's Re-Engage marriage ministry, finding such fulfillment that they've led the fourteen-week program six times.
You and I don't decide our purpose, He does
Illustration
Story of Matt and Karen Trippoli's volunteer work in the church's Re-Engage marriage ministry
5God withholds revealing our purpose until we reach spiritual maturity.
Using Jeremiah 29 ("I know the plans I have for you") and the story of Moses being sent to Pharaoh, Pastor Linn argues God waits because we're not ready — we'd freak out, get prideful, or lack the maturity to steward it. He lists concrete markers of unreadiness: refusing to forgive, refusing to serve others, refusing to grow in community, and refusing to trust God with tithing.
God is not gonna reveal his purpose to you till you're ready to have his purpose revealed, which is spiritual maturity
Illustration
Reference to Jack Sparrow's compass from Pirates of the Caribbean as an analogy for purpose
6God formed our spiritual gifts before birth, and they act like a compass pointing to our purpose.
Reading Psalm 139:13-14, Pastor Linn describes David acknowledging God knit him together in the womb, including personality and giftedness. He illustrates by walking through a list of spiritual gifts (evangelism, prophecy, teaching, exhortation, shepherding, mercy, serving, giving, leadership) using a story of a child dropping an ice cream cone, showing how each gift produces a completely different reaction to the same moment.
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
Illustration
Anecdote of a child dropping an ice cream cone used to illustrate different spiritual gifts
7God also shapes our personality to fit the purpose He has for us.
He explains that being an extrovert or introvert, detail-oriented or big-picture, driven or laid-back, is not random but designed to match the purpose God intends, and points people to a free spiritual gifts test and personality test the church provides.
8Even our hardest experiences, especially disappointments, are part of how God forms and reveals our purpose.
Pastor Linn tells his own story of being rejected for a youth pastor job at the church he grew up in despite it seeming like a perfect fit, then mowing lawns in frustration, only to later be hired elsewhere and mentored for eleven years by George Bedlian. He connects this to a more recent disappointment over the church's kids' area being delayed six years, teaching him that God's timing, not his own, is what matters.
I promise when he shows you his purpose, it's better than your purpose
You could have never painted this yourself
A story from life
Story of being turned down for a youth pastor position, mowing lawns, and later being mentored by George Bedlian
A story from life
A story about teaching middle schoolers on tithing and a boy named Easton questioning the pastor's own giving
Application
Pastor Linn frames the response as turning the masterpiece around: stop deciding your purpose and start growing up so God can reveal it.
Stop trying to decide your own purpose
Let go of the idea that you can simply choose to be anything you want; instead ask God to show you what He already planned for you before you were born.
Grow in spiritual maturity
Deal honestly with unforgiveness, selfishness, avoiding community, and mistrust in giving, since Pastor Linn says God withholds purpose until you're mature enough to carry it.
Discover your spiritual gifts and personality
Take the church's free spiritual gifts test and personality test and attend the follow-up class to see how God wired you toward your purpose.
Revisit your hardest seasons and ask what God was teaching
Instead of asking God why a painful disappointment happened, ask what He wanted you to learn from it, since those seasons often reveal His timing and purpose.
Take it into your week
Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI