For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and decayed, but he whom God raised up did not decay. Acts 13:36-37
Last week we were sitting at Cracker Barrel after a loss at the state tournament when some sweet friends asked us if we'd join them at the FCA banquet. To be honest, I did not want to go because I didn't want anything to do with sports or the like for a good while. I wanted to eat my chicken and dumplings and go home and build a fire because I'm all about the comforting myself with food and fires.
But we decided to go and were we ever in for a sweet surprise.
Sometimes it's so easy to just get wrapped up in the rat race and forget all the reasons why it is that you do what you do.
You get up and put on your clothes (or stay in your robe if you're me) and drive kids to school, go to work and then a few activities afterward, find something to call dinner and fall into bed just to do it all again the next day. It can all seem a little monotonous sometimes. And then when you don't get the outcome you'd hoped for like Tanner did not last week, finding purpose in what you do can be a little hard.
So when Jonathan Evans got up and spoke about this very issue the timing wasn't wasted on us. The gist of his message was his story of "Do it for Him" and that the reason we do anything that we do regardless of whether it is with sports or not-is to give God glory.
When we do it for ourselves it is in fact all meaningless. The only reason that we're alive and breathing, on our way to heaven, moving our bodies for the purpose He's given us this side of heaven, is to bring glory and honor to the One who created us in the first place.
Acts 13:36-37 says, "For David after serving God's purpose in his own generation, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers and decayed. But the one God raised up did not decay."
I love that David's life is recorded as serving God's purpose in his own generation. I've spent a lot of today reflecting on my own purpose and thanking God for the things He's entrusted me to do well while I'm here.
That means that the pile of socks I spent matching up this morning was time well spent because my family will indeed need them this week. It's a blessing to put socks together.
That time that I put into cooking chicken this morning and then wondered what in the world I was going to do to turn it into dinner was time well spent because my family will need to eat. Preferably something delicious but the verdicts still out on if I delivered on that one. Sometimes I get it right and more often than not I don't.
The miles that we will travel after school today taking the kids to sports and then church will be miles well spent because they're sowing seeds of worship. They're glorifying God with the gifts He's given each of them. They're serving Gods purpose in their own generation.
Even David though, in all that he did right, after serving the purposes of God in his generation he decayed. But the One that God raised up did not decay.
At the end of the day I think that David was good at realizing it wasn't all about him anyway. He just lived, worshipped, messed up, repented and then worshipped again to serve his purpose in his time. And he spent a lot of time magnifying the One coming after him who would not decay.
And because of Him we can live and move and have purpose in all of the little things that we do today and every day. When we make those little things about ourselves, whether they be hitting a little ball far into the distance or Ubering kids across town in a mini-van, or matching socks, or running a business or shooting a ball through a hoop, they become pointless.
But when those things are done for Him, what we do becomes small and He is magnified. Less of us and more of Him. It's how the world see's Him in us.
It is Gods purpose for anyone's life to use the talents and gifts that He's given each of us to the best of our ability and further His kingdom with that gift until we're called home. And at the best we can do our physical bodies will decay at the end of this life. But thanks to Jesus and the power of the resurrection we will indeed one day rise in victory where death and decay will be forever defeated.
That victory gives purpose and meaning to every task, every job we will ever do this side of eternity. If we do it for Him then we live for another Kingdom. One that is so much more fulfilling than our own.
