“For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13).

“To be or not to be” (Shakespeare, Hamlet)?

What is our purpose? Why do we exist? Or as the French would ask, “What is our raison d’être?” (Our “reason of being, reason for existence, purpose).

One popular approach is to look within ourselves for purpose.

“What do I want? What makes me happy or comfortable?”

Answering these questions, we set as our purpose the acquisition of these things. Therefore, our purpose for living is this: “I have desires and I exist to fulfill those desires.”

We see this view work itself out today when people view their identity through the lens of desire. They allow their appetite for sex or food or pleasure to determine purpose. Many contemporary social movements find their origins in this desire-driven approach to life.

But what if our reason for being is found outside rather than inside ourselves? What if we are creations of a Creator God? And what if He made us for His own purposes?

If God made us for a purpose, then don’t you want to know it?

I believe that God made us for a purpose. I believe that He calls us back to that purpose through His Son, Jesus Christ. When we believe in Him and receive Him as Lord and Savior, God gives our life new purpose.

The first question in the Westminster Catechism (Written in 1647 to teach biblical doctrine.) addresses this important matter. It asks:

     Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?

     A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, [a] and to enjoy him for ever. [b]

[a]. Ps. 86:9; Isa. 60:21; Rom. 11:36; I Cor. 6:20; 10:31; Rev. 4:11

[b]. Ps. 16:5-11; 144:15; Isa. 12:2; Luke 2:10; Phil. 4:4; Rev. 21:3-4

So, the best diagnostic question for purpose-filled living might be this: “Does my life glorify God?”

Or to paraphrase Shakespeare’s words, we all have to decide “to be or not to be” what God wants us to be.

“… You belong to God’s family” (Ephesians 2:19 NCV).

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

When we first learned that the company I worked for was transferring me to Wilson, NC, we weren’t excited. Both my family and Robin’s lived within easy driving distance. We both came from very close and connected extended families. Holidays, vacations, birthdays and weekends revolved around being with them. We didn’t want to leave.

When we arrived in Eastern NC we didn’t know anyone. Our children were ages five, two and one. Robin was a stay-at-home mom and I worked a corporate job that averaged 70 hours a week. We were overworked, overwhelmed and lonely.

I’m glad we found a church. We soon got very involved. I started teaching Sunday School for young couples. Before long, teaching this class became the catalyst that moved me to answer God’s call to preach. So, I quit my job, went to seminary and planted Wilson Community Church.

Now over 23 years have passed, 19 since we planted the church. When we first moved, we thought we’d only be here a little while. Surely, we would move back home to Virginia in only a couple of years.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, my children have grown up here. They have married spouses here. We have two grandchildren born here. And God has given us an extended family here too. Actually, it’s much bigger than the one we left behind. And it’s daily growing!

I’m thankful that God never calls us to leave something that He doesn’t replace a hundredfold. What at first seemed to us a temporary transfer has now become our home. We once felt that we were leaving family to be here. Now, we have family in both places.

On top of all these blessings, God has also given our Wilson family a home of its own. I’m thankful to God for a family that would work and wait together for this wonderful day. After 19 years of being a “portable church,” we just cut the ribbon on our very own building on April 30, 2011!

Have you left family or houses behind somewhere? Are you overwhelmed and lonely? Call out to God. He wants you in His family.

And if you live near Wilson, come join us. We’ve found family here.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3-5 NIV).

“I hope so.” I said.

I often respond that way when I wish something would happen, but actually have very little confidence that it will. In these instances I’m not really hoping, I’m really just wishing. But hope is more than a wish.

The real meaning of hope is much stronger than the way we often use it. The dictionary defines hope as follows:

Hope, noun hōp – 1. archaic : trust, reliance; 2. a: desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment <came in hopes of seeing you>; also : expectation of fulfillment or success <no hope of a cure>; b: someone or something on which hopes are centered <our only hope for victory>; c: something hoped for.

Notice the three ways hope is manifest: 1) as the expectation itself, 2) as the basis on which it is centered, as in something or someone, 3) as its object.

When the apostle Peter wrote about the “living hope” we have in Christ. All three of the implied meanings of hope are in view. First, our hope is “living” and not dead. It is filled with faith and belief. Second, the basis of our hope is in Christ and in His resurrection. Finally, our hope is focused on the future fulfillment of being co-heirs with Christ. Learning to really place all our hope in Christ is the key to having a living hope.

There’s one area that our hopes are finally being fulfilled. After 19 years of existing as a church that met in rental facilities, we’re finally moving into a home of our own. I have to admit that when people have asked whether we would ever see this day, I have usually responded, “I hope so.”

Now, it’s more than a wish. Praise the Lord! We’re cutting the ribbon this Saturday at 10:00 A.M. and then, our first worship services will be on this Sunday, May 1, 2011!

“They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (John 12:13)!

This coming Sunday we begin our remembrance of Passion Week with what Christians call Palm Sunday. So called because the crowds present on that day 2,000 years ago cut palm branches and waved them in the air shouting praises to Jesus as he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

This particular week is given more space in the Bible than perhaps any other, except maybe the week of creation recorded in Genesis. All four gospels give almost daily details of what Christ did during this week that began with praise and ended with suffering

Have you ever compared these two weeks?

Day                Creation Week            Passion Week

Sunday            Light                         Triumphal entry
Monday           Sky/sea                     Cleansing the Temple
Tuesday          Land/plants               Teaching in the Temple
Wednesday      Moon/stars                Anointed in Bethany
Thursday         Birds/fish                  Last Supper/Garden of Gethsemane
Friday             Animals/man             Crucifixion and death
Saturday         God rested                 In the tomb

8th Day           Man’s fall                   CHRIST’S RESURRECTION!

The Bible mostly records history in broad strokes, occasionally zooming in to focus on certain events. But there are two weeks recorded in the Scriptures where greater detail is given– Creation week and Passion week.

Why do you suppose God wanted these two weeks so carefully recorded?

I think it’s because when we rightly understand both, we rightly understand the gospel. God created a good world, but sin entered in and polluted both humanity and creation. Then, God’s Son entered in to this fallen creation, becoming the second Adam, paying for our redemption on the cross, and offering us the possibility of being a new creation in Him.

Starting this Sunday, I plan to remember what Christ did on each of these days. Since God inspired all four gospel writers to carefully record this week, I plan to meditate every morning on what Jesus did that day.

Will you join me in remembering the week that Christ answered our prayer of “Hosanna” (God save us!)!

“I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me” (1 Corinthians 16:8-9).

We have been praying for over 19 years that God would open a door for us to reach the city of Wilson for Christ. Through the years our church has met in homes, schools, parks, and even in some church buildings that we rented. We have seen people come to Christ. We have grown little by little. But we have yet to see a movement, a great season of exponential growth.

This has never stopped our praying, “Lord, open a door for us.”

Recently, it has happened. It seems a door is swinging open in Wilson. Have you noticed it?

The door to having a home of our own has been closed for 19 years. We’ve tried and tried, but we’ve remained portable. Suddenly, this past year, God gives us this new home. We’re moving there in three weeks!

On top of that there’s this great sense of spiritual receptivity. Everywhere we turn people are ready to respond to the gospel. Believers are ready to increase their commitment. People are visiting the Wilson County Jail to deliver Bibles. People who never trusted God to tithe, are starting to give. New small groups have been started. People are reading through the Bible. Ministry and mission are on our members hearts like never before.

Where in the past we encountered closed doors and hearts, these days it seems everywhere we turn, the door is swinging open!

Now, the question is how do we respond? I don’t want to take this time for granted. With opening doors comes greater and greater need for those who will walk through them. There is work to be done while the sun is shining because the night may return when no one can work. Open doors don’t stay open.

So, let’s rally ourselves and pray for more workers. Let’s walk through the doors that God is opening. Where are some of these doors?

• Saturday, April 9th, 10 AM – Food Drive “Hanging the Bags”
• Sunday, April 10th – Compassion Sunday “Sponsor a Child”
• Saturday, April 16th, 10 AM – Food Drive “Picking up the Bags”
• Saturday, April 23rd, 11 AM – Easter EGGstravaganza
• Sunday, April 24th – Easter Sunday/Baptism/Last day at CCS
• Saturday, April 30th, 10 AM – Parade/Ribbon-cutting Ceremony
• Sunday, May 1st – First Sunday at 2301 Montgomery Drive!

Some would say that we’ve put too much on our calendars, but to me, it seems like 19 years of perseverance and prayer are all coming to fruition.

When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the church at Corinth, he must have felt this way. He had been in many cities where the people rejected the gospel. He’d been beaten, stoned, imprisoned. But in the city of Ephesus people were receptive. There was an open door. He was finding that the work of ministry was suddenly effective. He knew he couldn’t leave and he couldn’t let up. He knew he had to stay “on.”

I don’t know how long this door will stand open, so I’m not letting up, I’m staying “on.” There will be time later to take time “off.”

Let’s stay “on” together while God has opened the door.

“Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew…To those not having the law I became like one not having the law …To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23).

We’re having an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, April 23rd and we’re inviting the whole city to attend! It’s going to be pretty amazing.

The day will include:

• An egg hunt with 10,000 filled eggs!
• Easter bunny arriving by helicopter to start the hunt!
• Wilson Fire Dept. Ladder Truck #1 on site.
• Wilson Police Dept. offering Child I.D. program
• Wilson County Sheriff Dept. vehicles
• Wilson County EMS/EMT Services vehicles
• Free hotdogs, drinks and cotton candy
• Games (Corn Hole, Basket Toss, Cake Walk, … many more.)
• Children’s crafts (Cross necklaces, Cross key chains, etc.)
• Guess the number of Jelly Beans (prize given for winner)

Sometimes people ask us why a church would sponsor such a day. That’s a good question. Why go to all the trouble and expense to attract a crowd and just give everything away?

We call events like this “bridge events.” These events are designed to build a bridge between our church and the city to which we’ve been called. Our vision for bridge events is stated as follows:

“Building a bridge of trust that will bear the weight of truth.”

What we hope to do is make friends with our community, letting them know that we love them and are willing to serve them. Some have called events like these “pre-evangelism” events. That’s a pretty good description. What we hope is that people will come to our new campus, feel the friendship and excitement of being around authentic Christ-followers, and then be willing to visit one of our worship services at WCC. That’s where we’ll tell them all about Jesus.

We’re not the originators of bridge building as a preparation for gospel sharing. The apostle Paul described his willingness to communicate the gospel into the culture to which he was called. He said he was willing to “become all things to all men so that by all possible means” he might save some.

We could just stay in our comfort zones and expect people to come to us, but we’ve decided to be a church that is willing to speak the language of our culture. We do this as prayerfully and wisely as we can, balancing our freedom to engage the culture with our responsibility to be salt and light. But we’re also willing to stretch ourselves and challenge our comfort zones as we seek to build a bridge to those who need to hear about the love of Christ.

“The women said to Naomi: ‘Praise be to the LORD, who this day has not left you without a kinsman-redeemer'” (Ruth 4:14).

Have you ever noticed that you really don’t appreciate something until it’s gone? We have this terrible tendency to take things for granted. We start off taking our parents for granted.

“I must really be cute and special.” We think to ourselves as our parents coo and care for us. We assume that we are the center of the universe and that they will always be there caring for us.

We take our homes, our cities, our schools, our churches, our nation for granted in the same way. We forget that they are not promised. That we are not owed these benefits. We weren’t there when the price was paid to buy these things for us.

As we get older, some of us begin to understand the price of things. Someone had to pay the price for all the grace we get.

In the book of Ruth, a widow named Naomi had her world emptied. She lost her home in Bethlehem, her husband, and her two sons. She was homeless, widowed, and hopeless. She changed her name to “Mara,” or “Bitter” because of the sorry state of her soul.

But the book closes with Naomi’s arms and heart full again. What began with a famine ended with fullness, what started with a funeral climaxed with a wedding, and a baby. Naomi was “Naomi” again, except even better.  Naomi had experienced redemption. Her heart was full of praise.

If you’ve never known emptiness or loss, it’s hard to know redemption. Sure, we can say that we appreciate what Christ the Redeemer has done for us, but until we come to the end of our self-centered selves, we can’t really praise Him.

Have you come to the place in your life where you finally appreciate your need for redemption? In Luke chapter seven, Jesus taught that the one who is forgiven most, loves most. When we experience the emptiness and death of our own situation apart from Christ, we are finally ready to receive and rejoice fully in the redemption He offers.

I’m praising God today that He has not left us without a kinsman-redeemer!

“So she went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law told her to do” (Ruth 3:6).

“His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:17).

The threshing floor was the place in ancient times where the grain was separated from the chaff. The threshing floor was often located on a hilltop to catch the prevailing breeze which aided in this separation.

In this photo there are three implements for this process laying against the circular wall of a threshing floor. The large flat board with rocks imbedded in it was called a sledge. It would be pulled across the stalks of wheat or barley to begin to separate the grain kernels from their husks. The sledge might be pulled by hand or by an ox. Sometimes they would use a stick called a flail instead of the sledge, to beat the grain free by hand.

The other two implements are the winnowing fork and the winnowing basket. They would be used after the threshing process to toss the grain into the air, letting the wind blow away the chaff and allowing the heavier grain to fall back to the threshing floor.

The imagery of the threshing floor is found throughout the Bible. In Ruth it symbolizes the place where we lay down at the feet of our Redeemer and surrender ourselves to His work on the cross. In Luke we see it as the place where Christ the Judge separates the good from the bad, believers from those who don’t believe.

The threshing floor might also be applied to us individually. Just as the stalks are beaten, then tossed into the air, and the grain separated from the chaff, so Christ does His work in us. He cleanses us of our unrighteousness and makes us like Himself.

Our call is to go down to the threshing floor, to lay at the Redeemer’s feet. We can rest there. The work is His. He has finished His work on the cross and now as we submit to Him, it is He who will finish His work in us.

Have you been down to the threshing floor?

“Why have I found such favor in your eyes” (Ruth 2:10 NIV)?

Have you ever been someone’s favorite? Favorite son, employee, player, student… have you ever been the “apple” of someone’s eye?

I recently read about an experiment with underperforming elementary age students that they divided into two groups. They took the first group of underperformers and changed their files to show that they had extremely high IQs but were not living up to their potential. The second group was designated the control group and they left their records unchanged. They assigned both groups to new teachers and classes.

What happened? The first group’s performance improved significantly, but the second group’s performance was relatively unchanged. It seemed that the teacher’s expectations of the students greatly affected their work. The favor they showed the students that they expected to do well, ended up doing much better than before.

Apparently, it pays to be teacher’s pet.

In the book of Ruth, a foreign widow woman from the land of Moab moves to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law. She is a nobody– no husband, no children, no property, and no hope. Yet, she goes out to work in a local man’s field to pick up the leftovers that his servants have left behind hoping that God will show her favor.

God does. He leads her to the field of a man who shows her favor in spite of her situation. She had nothing, but he was the most wealthy, eligible bachelor in Bethlehem. God caused Boaz to show Ruth favor.

What is favor? It is the gift of grace. It is what God offers to us through the Bethlemite who loved us while we were still “underperformers,” sinners alienated from God (Romans 5:8). We had nothing, but through His death, burial and resurrection He offers us everything. He offers us unmerited favor.

Why would He show us such favor?

Love. We who believe are the “apple” of Christ’s eye.