I need to tell you about someone from my hometown, from the
Bidwell, Rodney Rd. area or the Rodney, Bidwell Rd. area,
depending on whether you're in Bidwell or Rodney.
That, that was our great hope when I was growing up.
Her, her name's Norma and, and Norma was, was great in school
from the time of kindergarten all the way on up.
She was an A+ student, got great grades in every subject and she
was a brilliant athlete. She lettered in four sports even
though we only had two girls sports in the school.
She was that good. She she went on to college with
everyone expecting great things. She left home.
We said, Norma, our, our hopes are on you.
We're depending on you to do something wonderful to change
this world. She she went to an Ivy League
school and she majored in majored in physics, pre Med
literature and, and international economics and, and
got A's all the way through graduated summa cum laude, went
on to get her doctorate degree and all of those subjects.
We thought, Norma's, she's our hope.
She's going to put us on Bidwell Rodney Rd. on the map and change
the world. After all of that school, Norman
was like, I need to take a break.
I need a little bit of a breather before I jump into
changing the world where we what we all understood and we wished
her well and she was going to take a trip around the world.
Well, on that trip around the world, she went through the,
the, the wonderful country of Luxembourg and, and happened to
have all people meet the King of Luxembourg.
And as they were chatting over Bratwurst, they, they, he, he
told Norma about his prize possession, which was his
aquarium. Now aquarium for you and me
might be a fish tank. He had like a whole water park.
He was the king after all. And his prize in that aquarium
was his dolphin, whom he named Queenie.
She was a wonderful dolphin. And Norma just fell in love with
Queenie. She stayed in Luxemburg for a
few days. She went on the rest of her
trip. But as she was traveling the
rest of the way around the world, her mind kept drifting
back to Queenie and how much she missed Queenie and how much she
wanted to be there. And when she finished her trip
around the world, she abandoned all of her plans.
No longer going to try to bring World Peace, No longer going to
try to create cold fusion, No longer going to bring a cure to
cancer, write the greatest novel ever written to transform the
world. She was going to go to
Luxembourg and take care of Queenie.
And she went and the king said, well, I'm not sure you're
qualified. She said I'm a quick learner and
she learned everything she needed.
She fed Queenie every day. She cleaned out her tank.
She was sick. She gave her the medicine.
She was a friend of her. She took care of Queenie.
But everyone back in my town was very disappointed because we all
had such great hopes and such great plan.
She was going to put us on the map.
She was going to change the world.
So we sent a representative over to talk to Norma.
Thankfully it wasn't me. I didn't want to have to deliver
that bad news. But the representative went over
to talk to Norma, said Norma, what's going on here?
We had such great hopes in you. You were going to change the
world. You were going to cure cancer.
You were going to solve the energy crisis.
What has happened, Norma? What has happened?
And Norma said, well, well, I believe I've served a noble
porpoise. Thank you very much.
I'll be here all week. Here's the reality, we all have
a noble porpoise. We are all children of the King
and we have a purpose in this life.
And the scripture I'm going to read this morning is going to
point us in that direction. So I want to read Matthew 2816
to 20 and Acts 1/6 through 15 as we talk about our noble porpoise
purpose here today. Then the 11 disciples went to
Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.
When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some
doubted. Then Jesus came to them and
said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to
me. Therefore go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything
I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very
end of the age. Then in Acts, just before Jesus
ascends into the heavens. Then they gathered around him
and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the
Kingdom of Israel? He said to them, It is not for
you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by his
own authority. But you will receive power when
the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be My witnesses in
Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth. After this, after he said this,
he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid them,
hid him from their sight. They were looking intently into
the sky as He was going, when suddenly two men dressed in
white stood beside them. Men of Galilee, they said, Why
do you stand here looking into the sky?
The same Jesus who has been taken away, who has been taken
from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have
seen him go into heaven. May the Lord add His blessing to
the reading and hearing of His Word.
We live an Easter life. We are followers of Jesus
Christ, the one who died, but not just died.
He rose again from the dead, and we live in light of that
resurrection. We live a life because of Easter
that is different than we could live if Jesus had just died as a
martyr. That life we live in a world
that's turned upside down. It's a life of faith, it's a
life of service, and it's a life of purpose.
We have purpose in this world and and it is incredibly
important for us to to remember that and remind ourselves of
that because there is so much in this world that says the
opposite. The Easter life is a life of
purpose, but there are a lot of voices in the world that say
life is not purposeful, life is directionless, meaningless,
pointless and futile. Easter says no, life is not
directionless, meaningless, pointless or futile.
The, the, these kinds of voices, there have been those kinds of
voices that have said those things, as far as I know,
throughout recorded history. And, and they, they, they wax
and they wane. They go quieter and they grow
louder at times. And right now in Western
culture, in the United States and Europe in particular, those
voices are really, really loud that our entire existence is
just an accident, a random collection of atoms and energy
and explosions that that bring us here.
And nothing that we do matters because one day it's all going
to collapse into another black hole and then explode again.
And every single thing that has ever been said, made or done
will cease to exist forever and ever and ever.
It's all meaningless. That's one way.
It's phrased another way to phrase this, you know, well,
there's meaning, but we make up our own meaning, you know, truth
and meaning. That's that's a social
construct. And we have to decide for
ourself what our purpose is. That's another way of saying
there is no meaning. Just so we know, if we have to
make up our own meaning, then we don't have a meaning.
But we do have a meaning. There is purpose.
We are not here by accident. We are here on purpose, and that
purpose is God's purpose. See, the purpose is not ours.
We don't get to decide what our purpose in this world is.
I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later, but we
don't. The purpose is not ours.
It's not yours. It's not mine.
The Easter life is a life filled and directed by God's purpose.
God has a purpose for us. God has an intention for us.
God has a plan for us. There is a reason every single
human who has ever drawn breath, who has ever been conceived, has
done been drawn breath, been conceived by the will of God and
with the purpose of God behind them.
No one is an accident. No one is meaningless, no one is
purposeless. Everyone has a place and is part
of God's purpose in this world. Jesus said this when he was
talking to his disciples about purpose.
We get different witnesses, different evangelists, you know,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. We have 4 different main
evangelists who wrote the gospels and, and they, they
phrased the purpose a little bit differently.
And John last week, John at the end of Jesus's ministry and life
on earth before he ascended. John's primary focus was to
remind us that Jesus told his disciples they needed to serve.
Serve one another, Feed my sheep, take care of my lambs.
Life of service. And in Acts, which is a
continuation of the book of Luke written by Luke, before Jesus
ascends, he says this to his disciples.
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you
will be my witnesses. You will receive power.
That word in English that doesn't have any direction to
it. Power can be like the
electricity coming out of Gavin and Tiger Creek, which does work
in the world, very important work.
Or power can be the stick of dynamite in the coyotes hands
that just makes things go boom, which we're going to do.
We are going to do. Yeah, I got, I got potential
dates in mind, so I'll reach out this week.
We're going to blow stuff up. It'll be fun power.
That's how power works in English.
That word in Greek, that word power dunamis, It has a sense of
direction to it. It's not just explosive power.
It's power that's going someplace.
It's power that's taking us someplace.
When Jesus said the Holy Spirit will come on you with power, he
wasn't saying you will have the power to live your true life and
be your true self and do whatever you feel is most great
and most wonderful. That's not what Jesus did not
just hand his disciples to stick a dynamite and say go do it.
Jesus gave power for purpose. It's moving in a direction.
And the way Luke formulates that and emphasizing what Jesus said
was that you will be my witnesses.
It's a legal term, right? Witnesses tell what they have
seen. They tell what they have heard.
They tell what they have experienced.
And that's what our purpose is, to tell what we have seen of
Jesus, what we have experienced of God, what we have seen them
do and heard them do in the past, what we see and hear them
doing now so that we can follow. Our job is to observe, witness,
report and share what we see and hear and experience God doing
past and present and future. If we get that kind of
information from God, which we sometimes get now.
The witness is one person in the whole trial process, right?
The witness is not the investigator.
Jesus didn't say. The Holy Spirit will come upon
you so that you might investigate what your neighbors
are doing wrong. That's not what Jesus said.
My Spirit will come on you with power so that you will be my
witnesses. We're not the prosecutor.
Jesus didn't say. The Holy Spirit will come on you
with power so that you can make your neighbors start doing
things right. He didn't say that you will be
my witnesses. The you didn't say the Holy
Spirit will come on power so that you can judge your
neighbors whether they are right, wrong, going to heaven or
hell. You will be my witnesses.
That's the power we get. That's the purpose we have.
Matthew phrases it. It's very similar, but he
phrases, we Jesus phrases a little bit different.
In Matthew, Jesus said all authority in heaven on earth.
I've got the power, I've got the authority, Jesus saying has been
given to me and here's my job for you.
Here's your purpose. Go and make disciples of all
nations. That's another one of the spots
where English makes it. We got to work at it in English
because different there are no word for word translations of
the Bible or or really anything of complexity from one language
to another because different languages do things differently.
And Greek uses a lot of verb tenses that do not are not easy
to translate into English. They make for very awkward
sentences. A a more literal translation of
this would be therefore go and disciple all nations.
But that's awkward. And what does it mean to
disciple a nation? And it doesn't quite capture
what he's trying to say. Another way to say it is go and
bring into discipleship people of all nations.
And, and so it's tough to get one phrase or one word that
captures all of that in English. But however we phrase it,
discipling all nations, making disciples or bringing people
into discipleship, there is action for us to do.
And Luke, Jesus's primary concern is that we observe and
witness and experience and share that.
In Matthew, Jesus's primary concern is he's communicating
purpose is to say you've got a job to do.
And that job is to go out and make disciples, bring people
into discipleship. And what does that mean?
That means bring him into the family, baptize him, and that's
a sign of a covenant relationship that anyone can
receive and anyone can share. Unlike the covenant of
circumcision, the sign of circumcision, and the covenant
made with Abraham, everyone can be baptized, not just the men.
Unlike circumcision, which was a visible physical sign.
Someone would say I'm circumcised.
You can prove you're circumcised.
You can. If you are, you can baptism.
It's not a physical sign. I mean, we put the water on the
body. Once that water dries, the only
way you know whether someone has really been baptized is the
condition of their heart, how they're treating other people.
Are they loving and serving the way Jesus calls us to love and
serve? So it's it's a sign that anyone
can receive, but has to go a lot deeper than our skin, all the
way into our hearts and into our minds, baptizing them and
teaching them to obey everything I've commanded.
Faithful, living faithfully, hearing the Word of God,
obediently following the Word and the teaching of our Lord and
our Savior Jesus Christ, our Father who is in the heavens.
This is what it means to be making disciples.
This is our purpose, witnesses who are bringing people into
discipleship to be followers of Jesus.
That word, disciple itself is a fun word and it gets interpreted
a lot of different ways. It it, you can think of it, it,
it, it strictly speaking means learner.
But but for us, learning is primarily a head thing.
You know, we got to study our notes and learn our math and
learn our science and learn our geography and those kinds of
things. A disciple was much more of an
apprentice than as in a learner than than an than an an
intellectual as a learner. There's intellectual things to
learn, but what you're learning is not just information to be
able to repeat, but you're learning a way of living life,
apprenticeship with Jesus, following Jesus.
This is why we're here. This is the purpose that every
single one of us has is not just the pastor whose job it is to
make disciples. It's not just the pastor whose
job it is to be a witness. It is like Rick was saying, it's
all our job. Whether we're standing up here
in the front or we're sitting down in a Pew or we're out
serving somewhere, it's all our jobs to be witnesses and to be
making disciples. That is our purpose.
Now, I've been preaching and teaching about purpose long
enough to do it badly. And, and, and I, I, I feel like
I'm doing a little bit better. I feel like that's the right way
to, you know, you when you're younger, you don't know as much
and you'd mess up and you learn as you go.
I think that's the way life is supposed to work.
And, and, and so one of the things I realized as I've taught
this in the past is that some people have a really strong
sense of God's purpose in their lives.
They can just feel it. I know God's got a purpose for
me. I know God's got a plan for me
and they hear a sermon like this or messes like this.
Amen, Amen, Amen. I feel it.
I believe it. Let's go do it.
But not everyone has a strong sense of God's purpose in their
lives. And if in the the risk of the
way I've taught this in the past is that for folks that don't
have a strong sense of God's purpose in their life, they
begin to wonder, maybe I don't have a purpose.
Maybe God hasn't saved me. Maybe I'm not part of God's
Kingdom because I just don't have this sense of purpose that
Blevins and other folks seem to have.
But there's a world of difference between sensing God's
purpose and acknowledging God's purpose.
And I now have the perfect illustration for this teaching.
It's my dog Bruno. I love Bruno, Bruno's favorite
pet I've ever had. He's a 70 LB knucklehead.
He's a big Herfy Durfy teddy bear.
He's a coward. He's afraid of everything that's
not on the other side of a door and and particularly loud
noises. Bruno's purpose is to be my
buddy. That's his purpose.
That's why I adopted Bruno. That's why I brought him home.
That's why I give so much food to that crazy nut, why I give
him his flea and tick medicine, why we take him to the vet to be
my buddy. The best thing Bruno can do as
far as I'm concerned is when I am sitting on the couch, he can
put his head on my lap and I can scratch his ears.
The best thing Bruno can do? Hang out with me.
I go place. I could put him in the truck and
goes with me, hangs out with me. We can do stuff.
He can hang around and just be there and I, he gets his belly
rubbed once in a while. I climbs up on my lap, He's
heavy and I'll rub his belly and he'll just, he loves it.
He loves it. That's Bruno's purpose.
That's not what Bruno thinks his purpose is.
Bruno thinks his purpose is to defend our household from the
mortal threat of Shelley, our mailman.
We have a mail slot, so Shelley has to come all the way up on
the front porch to deliver our mail.
And according to Bruno, Shelley is the most dangerous thing in
the world, and he will run from anywhere in the house, barking
furiously at the door to chase Shelly away.
But he's not picky, really. Anyone who walks along the
sidewalk in front of her house, particularly if they have an
animal of any size, a mortal threat, and Bruno is convinced
his job is to chase them away. Bruno is so committed to his
purpose. We have a long house.
We got a smallish backyard. If we're in the backyard and
Bruno looks and sees someone walking down the sidewalk and
going to pass in front of our house, he will run in the house
to the front door and bark at them.
And he doesn't go around the house because he's a coward.
He needs a door between him and whoever he's trying to scare
away, but it's a glass door so we can see him and he just barks
furiously and for you would think he would going to RIP
that, but he's not. He's not.
He's a big teddy bear. You open the door.
Was it really me barking? He tries though, like we got our
neighbors straight to the back. We got a fence across her
backyard and the neighbors straight to the back have a
great big old German Shepherd. And again, I've, I've never met
it on the other side of the fence.
So I don't know whether it's kind of barrier aggression or
whether it's just a big teddy bear, whether it really is
ferocious. But you get close to the fence,
it'll bark like it's going to rip your head off.
And he's got a German shepherd's, got a great big
bark. I was out mowing.
Bruno is afraid of loud noises. Motorcycles terrify him.
I have an electric mower and it's too loud for Bruno.
He will run in the house to stay away from the electric mower and
and I'm out mowing in the backyard and that other dog's
barking and I could barking like that sound of man, if that fence
wasn't there, I'd probably have a dog on my throat right now.
And Bruno came running out of the house to get between me and
that other dog. Now his tail was between his
legs and his ears were down and he was shaking a little bit.
But he ran out and got between me and the other dog for two or
three minutes and then he ran back inside.
He tries, but Bruno was not a guard dog.
That is not his purpose. It's not his purpose.
Now here's the thing. Bruno will never understand his
purpose. In Bruno's mind, I know that to
the day he dies, he's going to be convinced that his purpose is
to keep us safe from the mailman and all other mortal threats.
But that's not his purpose. His purpose is to be my buddy.
His purpose is to be my companion.
Bruno will fulfill his purpose whether he is aware of his
purpose or not. Bruno has a purpose whether he
is aware of his purpose or not, and that is the same with us.
Jesus did not say if Holy Spirit will come upon you and if you do
everything just right then you will be my witnesses.
Jesus just said you will be my witnesses.
He wasn't. He wasn't giving them a job at
that point. He was telling them what was
going to happen. God's purpose is for us like
that. Sometimes we need to be aware of
it. I'm, I'm more and more convinced
that that if, if, if we have a sense of God's purposes just
because for that moment we need that sense of God's purpose.
But even when we don't have a sense of God's purpose, God
still has a purpose for us. And God will still accomplish
that purpose through us even when we're not aware of it.
Bruno's going to be my bud, even when he thinks he's got another
job. We've got that purpose now.
I, I want to tell you this story is I, I keep finding these
amazing stories and I, I, I don't know, I love true stories
and I love modern true stories. And this is another one.
Tiffany Whittier and Michael Kent, I don't know if you're
familiar with the website iamsecond.com.
If you've never visited that website, I encourage you to.
It's, it's a Christian based website and the notion is God's
first and I am 2nd and, and it's got tons of videos, some of
regular ordinary folks, some of very famous folks you would
recognize about how God came in and and changed their life and
transformed their life and they went from making themselves
first to putting God first in their lives.
Beautiful stories on iamsecond.com.
This is 1 and sometimes it's easier to find their stuff.
Their, their search on their website isn't great for this
video. You'll find it easier on YouTube
if you go to YouTube and search for Tiffany Whittier and Michael
Kent. I am second.
I'm not going to show the I am second video.
It's too long. It's like 12 minutes long.
But after they did their testimony on I Am Second, some
news organizations, national news organizations picked up the
story and this is one of those reports.
It's only three minutes long and we're going to watch it, but I
don't want to give you any more introduction than that.
This is Michael Kent and Tiffany Whittier, and we're going to see
God's purpose working in people's lives.
My name is Michael Kent. I'm over here at Fallen Heroes
to get a swastika covered up. I've never, never, never been in
a inside of a tattoo shop getting a professional tattoo.
It's a lot different than the prison style one.
It's not done with guitar strings.
It's painful to get it out. Yes, but it's going to be worth
it. Tell me your story.
Behind that shirt is a lot of ink.
I was part of a Skinhead group, a very violent group.
My first tattoo, the racial tattoo was my white pride when I
got 2 swastikas, 1 on my chest. How long have you had that on
your chest? Over 20 years.
Talk about that transformation process.
This is kind of a good story, but odd story.
I got my caseload transferred to a black woman.
She just marched up to my house. If it wasn't for her, I probably
would have been deep back into it.
You feel like she became much more than a probation officer.
Yes, she's much more than that, so I would look at her as
family. I'm Tiffany Whittier.
I haven't seen him in over a year.
He doesn't know that I'm here. We're going to surprise.
Him say hello hi.
She gave me a chance and it opened my eyes.
You 2 are unlikely. Friends.
Yes, yes, I had a German war flag, she says.
You need to take that crap down and start putting up more
positive stuff, Put up smiley faces so when you wake up, you
see positive instead of hate. That's a big difference.
Yeah, that's a big change. When you wake up and you see a
:) you're going to go to work and you're going to smile.
Before all this, I wouldn't work for anybody or with anybody that
wasn't white. 13 people that work with me, I'm the only white
person there. We have company parties or they
have quinceaneras or barbecues or birthday parties.
I'm the only white guy there. Last night we were with him and
he got a tattoo taken up, he said.
Tiffany was one of the people that helped me make this
transition. I'm not here to judge him.
That's not my job to judge. My job is to be that positive
person in someone's life, try to make a difference.
I'm getting trucked up again. If you got a strong support
system and you have people that believe in you in a positive
way, you can change. Oh wow, you're touching before
and after. Now, did you ever think they'd
come off and have you been a part of that?
Not many years I would have ever guessed that Michael changed his
life for the better. She gave me the strength and the
courage to do what I'm doing and changing my life because I know
it, she can do it and she believes in people, good in
people. I know I can't too.
So that's ABC News's take on the story.
And of course, in their in their edit, they take every element of
faith out of it. But if you watch their interview
on I am second, then then you'll see that that what motivated
Tiffany every step of the way was God through Jesus Christ.
That that what transformed Michael was God working through
doing his purpose through Tiffany.
And they're very open and very explicit about that.
And it's very interesting because Michael says in that
that interview, when I am second, he says, why did you do?
Why did you even do this for me? And Tiffany's response was,
well, it's my job, it's my job. And Michael's like, it's not
your job. She says, yes, it is my job.
And there's a very real sense in which they're both right.
I've known some probation officers over my life.
Their job description says nothing about loving they're
probationers. Their job description says
nothing about sharing the hope of Jesus Christ with their
probationers. So there's a very real sense in
which it's not their job. But Tiffany understood and
acknowledged God's purpose in her life and in that, and
through that, she was able to, rather than judging Michael,
loving Michael, encouraging Michael, giving Michael hope
rather than condemnation. And you know what initially
opened the door for her to be there?
Literally, she got his file when her case was transferred to him,
she could see in his file the tattoos.
She knew his background. She knew it was.
And he done some really awful stuff.
By His own word, He has destroyed people's lives.
And and she had all of that in front of her and she went to see
him the first time alone. She said she just had a sense in
her gut that she should go alone.
She drove up to his house. She got out of the car, she
knocked on the door. He came to the door.
She told him who he was. And his first words to her were
are you alone? She said.
Her response was, yes, I am. Is that going to be a problem?
And he said no. He said no one's ever had the
courage to come out here alone before.
Even white folks always come out with backup.
But you came out alone. The courage, the willingness,
the faith, the hope that opened the door for Michael's life to
be transformed by God from a life of hate and bigotry and
destruction to a life of love and compassion and community
reconciliation. This is the testimony, this is
the purpose. And, and, and it doesn't matter
what your particular job is, whether, whether it's homemaker,
probation officer, police officer, firefighter, school
teacher, medical professional, construction worker, blue collar
worker, farmer. It does does not matter if, if,
if, and I can tell you, I, I, I don't know Tiffany at all.
I've never met her in person. I've just seen several
interviews with her. But I, I would bet my next three
paychecks that Michael's transformation is by far the
exception rather than the rule and her probationers.
And she said herself when she was asked, did you think he'd
ever get these tattoos removed? And she said, no, I never
thought it would happen. So this is not like this is an
everyday occurrence for her and it's not going to be an everyday
occurrence for us. But if in her job with the folks
she is working with, she can have and acknowledge that sense
of purpose even when you're not feeling it.
If we can acknowledge that God has that purpose in US and do
our jobs out of that sense of acknowledgement, whatever that
job is, maybe it's just going to school right now.
You know, doing that, understanding that God has a
purpose for us and leaving room for God to work that purpose out
in US and through us as we are loving and as we are serving
others in Jesus name. We all have a noble porpoise.
Most of us aren't going to change the world in a dramatic
way that everyone in the world will know.
I, I It's possible that someone in this room will work out cold
fusion. It's possible that someone in
this room will work out a cure for cancer.
It's more likely that none of us will do those things.
But we still have purpose. God still has A and it's not to
spend our time looking up in the sky waiting for Jesus to come
back. Our purpose, our purpose is to
be sharing with others what we see Jesus doing and bringing
other people in to be his disciples.
In Jesus name, let's do that together.
Amen. Amen.