Purpose

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Well, you know, I am kind of tech challenged. I don't know how many of you also have that kind of disease, but I actually did. I Googled this information and it says this, in the United States, we spend 55% of our spare time watching television which, you know, if you do the math, equates to two hours and 46 minutes a day. And that's 42 full days in a year. By the time you're 65 years old, we've spent over seven years of our lives watching television. And I haven't even added to that calculating the time we spent on social media. So let me ask you, have you ever thought about what you're going to spend your time on? Have you ever thought about what you're doing? Well, what you're going to be doing, what you're going to be investing your one and only life, this side of eternity on. Every December 31st, if you're like me, many of us go through this little ritual, it's called making resolutions where our intention, at least, is that as far as we are going to try, we're going to do a couple of things differently. We're going to exercise more or eat better or hang out with different people or read more books or get married, whatever it is. You see, as we close out the chapter of one year and then we're kind of staring at the blank spaces, if you use a Franklin day timer or calendar like I do, the next 365 days, there is this desire to do something different, maybe to do something meaningful. And so people are searching. For example, there are 79.7 million 20 to 30 year olds in the United States. And there's been an incredible cultural shift going on. They are getting, this group is getting married later in life. 55% of college students are planning to move back home after they graduate. Sorry, parents. Partly due to finances and also because they're not quite sure of the direction that they want to go in. So some people have actually given this a label. They're now calling this quarter life crises. Others are calling it mid 20s breakdown. But what they're trying to describe is this group of 20 somethings who have had their higher education completed. And now they're at that point where they're about to begin what they wanted and what they thought was that they were going to invest the rest of their life in, but now they're not sure what that is. And so they've had, they've spent the majority of their lives in school, just studying. And then yeah, all of a sudden they're off ready to do something. They're just not real sure what that something is. But there is, I think, an even deeper question that not just 20 somethings are asking in our country these days. And that is, well, who am I? What is my purpose for, I mean, even being here? Friends, there has been, I guess, what I would call culturally a purpose seeking phenomena going on in the United States. And that's why Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life, which was actually released 23 years ago, has sold over 35 million copies in the United States alone and continues to be one of the best selling hardback nonfiction books in American history. You see, millions of people bought that book because they were and they are asking this simple question. Why am I even here? What is my purpose? What am I supposed to be doing? You can look them up. Dr. Hugh Moreland, Morehead, M-O-O-R-H-E-A-D, who is a philosophy professor at Northeastern University in Illinois. He wrote to 250 of the world's best known philosophers, scientists, writers, and intellectuals, asked them a simple question, which is what is the meaning of life? And he was planning on publishing a book about whatever he was able to discover from these 250 individuals. And he writes that some did respond and others gave their best guesses. Some admitted that they just made something up that they thought sounded good. Others were actually honest enough to say that they were absolutely clueless. And in fact, many of the 200, hear this, many of the 250 actually responded and said, hey, by the way, when you find out what it is, can you let us know? Friends, these are some of the greatest brains in our planet haven't really stopped to ponder what is the purpose for living. Brothers and sisters, if you look at your birth certificate, it has all the information about when we were born, but what is not on our birth certificate is why we were born. It would probably be kind of helpful information if it was there, right? Because I don't think any of us just wants to, we don't wanna just float through life. We don't wanna just go wherever the wind blows us. Listen to what Solomon, purportedly the wisest person who ever lived, the 300 wise was not a bad choice, but anyway, but listen to what Solomon, purportedly the wisest guy wrote, it's in Proverbs 29, 18, if you wanna write that down, Proverbs 29, 18, where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained. Where there is no p...