Matt Tuckson - Faith & Anxiety - Class 4 - What is My Purpose?

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:05

   Good morning, brothers and sisters. Good morning. So we’ve made it to our final class and this one’s going to be slightly different than the other ones. That’s why we’re doing it after the exhortation, which is kind of weird. It was for our typical way of doing things. That’s the reason is because while our last couple of classes and exhortation, we’re dealing with anxiety and and kind of the greater scale of it, looking at in a very big picture view, how do we deal with anxiety? This one’s going to get a bit specific. We’re dealing with a specific anxiety and kind of work through at least process step #2 and a little step #3 and kind of step #4 on how to deal with that, how to deal with this very specific anxiety that some people have have to deal with and have to struggle with.

2. 0:50

   And that anxiety is understanding our purpose, feeling purposeful, like our life has some sort of fulfillment in it that we feel fulfilled in our day-to-day. This comes from a conversation that I had with gnomes when she was down in Norfolk. I asked her, what would people our age say is the thing that they are most anxious about if you had to think? And she said having feeling like they’re, they have a purpose like they’re fulfilled in the day-to-day. And so at first I was a bit surprised about this. This is not something that I particularly struggle with and I’ll talk about why I think that is later in our class. But it started to make a lot of sense as I thought more and more about it.

3. 1:29

   There was a major shift in kind of generations at large when we got to the age of the millennials and specifically in the work environment. This happened where for millennials, people generally, when they got into work, head down, did what they were told, didn’t think too much about it, very dedicated and loyal to their jobs.

4. 1:48

   When millennials came into the picture, millennials quit more, they complained more and they wanted more out of their jobs. And at first this was viewed as like millennials are lazy and complainers and, you know, really poor workers. And this is a there’s a lot of articles out.

5. 2:10

   That was the initial view. However, upon examination, what people realized was that millennials just wanted to feel purpose in their jobs and they wanted that really bad. Compared to earlier, where that wasn’t a real main focus, Millennials needed that. Millennials tended to really want a sense of purpose or fulfilment from their jobs and they weren’t getting that in entry level jobs, which makes sense. But that was the problem.

6. 2:35

   And that was a thing that there was a stage in kind of the working world where CEOs and bosses and managers had to figure out how do we infuse purpose in entry level jobs to fix this problem. And so it makes sense that although that’s a work situation that in our lives as most of us are millennials, that yeah, we need more purpose.

7. 2:57

   We struggle with this. This is a star that seems to be very in tune with our generation. So I could go on and on about the work stuff. We’re not really going to dig more into that too much. But I think the reason we struggle with our our day-to-day struggles with purpose is because by and large we’ve been sold a lie on what purpose is and how we should experience it, how we should feel fulfillment and how that all looks and works. So what we’re going to do today is we’re going to start examining what is our purpose.

8. 3:27

   To do that, we’re going to have to start with what is God’s purpose and we’re going to see how does that relate to our purpose. And then from there, we’re going to ask the question, how do I evaluate like I’m doing my purpose? How do I get that sense of fulfillment? Am I supposed to at certain stages? Am I not in certain stages?

9. 3:44

   How does that work? So that’s the goal for today. What is God’s purpose? How does that relate to my purpose? And how do I get this, the sense of fulfillment? Once I understand my purpose, it’s a lot to cover, and I’m going to be hopping around a lot of scripture. So I’ve kind of asked for forgiveness in advance because we’re going to be doing a lot of hopping around. We’re going to start in Hebrews 6, but we’re not going to end there by any means.

10. 4:10

    So let’s go ahead and get started. So we first start off with what is God’s purpose? And the reason we’re doing this is the Step 2 of dealing with this anxiety that I was talking about, the idea of saying what God’s view on things is. So we start off with what is his purpose. We have to start at a foundational level. And I want to approach this in two different ways because this is a golden thread throughout a little scripture. The 1st way is going to be springboarding. Springboarding from our reading and our reading in Hebrews 6, it says for when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater whom to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you and multiply you. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise.

11. 4:50

    For people swear by something greater than themselves and and all their disputes and oath is oath is final for confirmation. So when God keepers here, so when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath. According to verse 17, God’s purpose is the promises to Abraham. Specifically.

12. 5:15

    When is it the promises to Abraham? Well, it’s when God swore by himself. When God swore by himself, He was expressing to Abraham. This is my my promise, I’m sorry, my purpose. This is my purpose with the world. This is the character of my purpose. That conversation with Abraham is his purpose, and that conversation is in Genesis 22, verses 16 to 18.

13. 5:38

    By myself I have sworn, declares Yahweh, Because you have done this and not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand of that is, that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gates of their enemies. And in you, your offspring, shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. Again, in essence, the promises to Abraham are God’s purpose. Let’s bring about a day where all the nations of the earth will be blessed, where it will be part of Abraham’s seed or offspring, and we’ll they’ll have the land of Israel. And we know when this is.

14. 6:17

    This is the Kingdom. We know that because of the work of Jesus and how it’s talked about in Galatians 3. Now I know I’m hopping all over. Try to bear with me because we’re trying to get a really solid foundation on what is God’s purpose. So Galatians 3 verses 27 to 29 say for as many as you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ neither is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. For you all in one one, all at one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

15. 6:51

    So this gives us kind of a full picture of what God’s purpose is. Essentially, it’s from Hebrews to say that the purpose was told to Abraham from Genesis. The purpose is the promise, and through Galatians we know that purpose is talking about the Kingdom as achieved through the work of Christ. That is God’s purpose.

16. 7:08

    It is to bring about the Kingdom. OK, that’s thread one. I want to go through another thread now, and it’s going to be a similar, similar way of going about it. But at least for me, I connect a whole lot more to the second thread because the first thread seems very theoretical, seems very like logical.

17. 7:24

    It’s not a lot of for me, it’s not a lot of connection. I don’t connect to that throat a lot. The second thread, I connect a lot because there’s a lot more relationships between God and people who follow him, and that is through his name. His name contains his purpose. His name is expressed very plainly in Exodus chapter 3.

18. 7:43

    And I don’t have time, unfortunately, to break this down as much as I want to. I highly recommend listening to Roger Lewis’s classes on God Manifestation. They they nail this way better than I’m going to nail it here because I got to do it in 10 minutes. He did it in five classes. But they they really, really open up the understanding of why do Christopher say the name Yahweh? Why do we say Yahweh when we pray? Why do we say Yahweh when we read? Why don’t we just say, Lord, It’s easier for people to understand and there’s a reason to it. That’s because when you understand the name Yahweh, you connect to God’s purpose a whole lot better because His name contains his purpose.

19. 8:18

    So how do we get that? How do we get that? His name contains his purpose. Nexus 3 verses 13 to 14. His name is expressed very plainly to Moses. It states, If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your father’s has sent me to you, and they ask me, what is his name, What shall I say to them?

20. 8:39

    God says to Moses I am who I am. And he said, say to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. And God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel. Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.

21. 8:56

    This is my name forever. And thus I am be remembered throughout all the generations. So I’m going to break this down a bit, and to break this down we’ve got to get into some Hebrew. I am who I am. There’s a bit of a debate and mostly mainstream Christianity I will say of is this I am who I am or I will be who I will be.

22. 9:18

    And funny enough, the answer is both. And the reason it is, is because of how tenses work. In Hebrew there’s a perfect tense and an imperfect tense. While we have past, present, future, they have perfect or another way to think about it is completed or imperfect, incomplete. Has it been finished or not finished? And we need to understand this for understanding that I am who I am because in the imperfect tense it is incomplete. It is currently happening and will happen. The I am is also I will be.

23. 9:54

    It’s not specifically I have or I was. That’s the the weird thing with Hebrew When we compared to English Hebrew 2 tenses, it’s kind of essentially it’s present and future tense and then one past tense. It’s kind of how you would split that one. So the I am who I am really should be.

24. 10:13

    I am and will be who I am and will be a little bit complicated, but that’s how we should really understand this. When you understand a bit more about Hebrew. On top of that, the actual Hebrew is aya, Asha, aya, and there’s some really cool stuff. When you break that down South, aya is the I am or I will be, The Asha is The Who or the that, and then aya I am or who I will be.

25. 10:40

    So the aya the I am is masculine and singular. God’s referring to himself. I am He typically takes on the role of the masculine and he is referring to himself in the singular. The that or The Who in the middle is masculine and feminine and it’s plural. Now the reason that’s really weird in Hebrew is that’s rare to have a masculine and feminine word.

26. 11:04

    It’s more often that if you’re not masculine or feminine, you’re feminine, You’re actually gender neutral. And as far as the language goes, there’s a few words that are both, but typically you’re neutral. There’s a few words, though, that are both masculine and feminine. And this is one of those words. It’s both a masculine and feminine word.

27. 11:21

    And the reason and it’s plural and the reason is because it’s referring to a group of people. I am or will be the group of people who I am or will be. God doesn’t. If God was referring to himself in that middle word, the The Who or the that, it would be singular because he’s still saying I’m going to be who I’m going to be.

28. 11:41

    He’s actually referring to a group here. It’s the I will be those who I will be. Now, to kind of break that down a bit more, we can see we can connect a few other verses or a few other sections to get a better understanding of the name. So in Exodus 33, this is the conversation between Moses and Yahweh on Mount Sinai. And verse 18, Moses says please show me your glory. He asks that question to God.

29. 12:07

    Yahweh, I want to see your glory. Please show me your glory when we get to verse 34. I’m sorry, chapter 34. It’s so interesting because it starts in verse five. Chapter 34, verse 5. Yahweh descends from the cloud and stood within there and proclaims the name Yahweh. The answer to what is your glory is Yahweh. This is my name.

30. 12:32

    This is this is who I am. I am Yahweh. That is the glory. And then the expression of the name is Yahweh. Yahweh God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands for giving iniquity, transgressions, and sin. But who will know by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers, of the children on the children and the children’s children to the third and 4th generation.

31. 12:59

    So Moses says, Yahweh, show me your glory, Yahweh says, That’s fine, I’ll tell you my name. My name is my character, so we start seeing some connections here. Yahweh’s name is his character, which is his glory. And then we connect sections that we know well. Numbers 1421, Habakkuk 214. That state. But truly, as I live and as the earth shall be sorry, but truly as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Yahweh, or for the earth will be filled with the knowledge and glory of Yahweh. As the waters cover the sea.

32. 13:37

    The glory, the character, the name, they’re all referring to the same thing. The name is the promise of manifestation of God. Manifestation, the character is what’s going to be manifested, and the result is God’s glory is spread throughout the whole earth. That is all wrapped in the name. I will be manifest in those who I will be manifested in. I will be those who I will be.

33. 14:04

    It’s a promise of manifestation. It’s not just a name to call them by the same way you call me Matt or Tuck, the same way you call someone else by their name. It actually has a meaning. It has a promise. And so when I say the name Yahweh, I’m not just saying Yahweh is a placeholder of God.

34. 14:20

    I’m saying this is the character, purpose, glory and promise that I connect with. And that’s what I say when I think of the name Yahweh. And so if that’s God’s purpose, we can summarize that in really 22 elements. One, he wants to create a sorry, He wants to create a nation where people have his glory, and he wants to bring about that day where the Kingdom comes. His goal is to create the Kingdom. That’s his purpose, to spread his glory, his character, his name throughout the whole earth.

35. 14:55

    So what does that have to do with my purpose? Then? Where do I fit in with that? Why did we just spend 10 minutes going through God’s purpose when I’m trying to figure out my purpose? And to do this, we’re going to look at a few different characters in Scripture to see what were their purpose and why was their purpose their purpose. And it starts in Second Timothy.

36. 15:16

    We’re going to read verses 8 to 10 of Second Timothy, chapter one. So, so far, just a reminder we got God’s purpose is to create the Kingdom, to set it up. In that Kingdom he wants to have his glory, his character, his name spread throughout it. He wants to bring out a group of people that manifest his character.

37. 15:40

    And in Second Timothy, chapter one, verses 8 to 10, it states, Therefore this is Paul speaking to Timothy. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, His prisoner, but sharing suffering for the gospel of the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of the Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

38. 16:18

    Verse 9 is the key verse. They had a holy calling, and for Paul owes to be a like the Gentiles. He was teaching Timothy to do the same. That holy calling was their holy calling. Their purpose was their purpose. Why? Not because of their works. Not because they’re particularly skilled at it. Not because they had the abilities to do this. Because of God’s own purpose and grace. Their purpose was their purpose, because it was part of God’s purpose.

39. 16:48

    They formed their purpose. They figured out their why because they first understood God’s why his purpose and then made that theirs. This doesn’t just happen with Paul and I’m going to read a lot of or to hop around a few characters here. So if you feel like if you want to hop around with me, you can, but I’m going to be going fairly quickly through them. John the Baptist in John One states. I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptized in the water that he might be revealed to Israel. John the Baptist’s purpose was his purpose because it fit within God’s purpose.

40. 17:23

    It helped accomplish God’s purpose. Jesus about his own purpose, says now is my soul troubled? What shall I say father? Save me from this hour. But this is but for this purpose I have come to this hour. Jesus purpose was his purpose because it fit within God’s purpose and helped accomplish God’s purpose.

41. 17:46

    It’s even true in the negative case when God talks through Moses to Pharaoh in Exodus 9, it says But for this purpose I have raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed throughout all the earth. Pharaoh’s purpose, as unfortunate as it was, was his purpose because of how it fit within God’s purpose.

42. 18:06

    So even in the negative case in in unfortunate purposes they’re true because of how they fit within God’s greater purpose. And so this means, brothers and sisters, for us, my purpose and your purpose will be our purpose. Not because it’s what I want it to be. Not because it’s how I feel about it, or because of my skill sets, or because of what I’m particularly good at.

43. 18:29

    It’s because of how it fits within God’s greater purpose. My purpose will be my purpose because it accomplishes God’s purpose, or else it attempts to. So what does that mean? Well, I can break that down into two very simple statements. My purpose is to personally change, to be like God and to take on his character. To do my part in manifesting his glory. To spread his name throughout the earth, to do my part in that process.

44. 18:54

    And secondly, to help, as many other people do the same. To take on Christ, to take on Yahweh’s name, to take on God’s character, to do as help as many people get there as well, because that is God’s purpose. It is to manifest his glory throughout the earth. And so I need to do what I can personally and in my community, to do the same.

45. 19:15

    To spread His glory, to spread His name. Now, this sounds great talk, but I work a full time job. I’ve got responsibilities at home. I’ve got to cook dinner every night. I’ve got to clean the laundry. I’ve got to clean dishes. I’ve got to If I’m married, I have to keep up with a spouse and a relationship. If I have friends, I have to people I have to keep up with. How on earth do I make every moment about personally changing to be like God and helping as many people as I can’t get there when I have to do things as menial and useless and purposeless, like driving to work? I don’t want to answer that question with a potentially jarring statement.

46. 19:54

    I hope it’s not, but it might be. And I want to dig into this a bit. And that statement is if we don’t feel like we have purpose in our life, if we don’t get that sense of fulfillment, there

47. 20:06

    we go. If we don’t have that sense of purpose, I would argue that one of two things is going on. Probably a mix, but one of two things. One, we actually have a lot of purpose going on in our life. We’re just not getting the fulfillment. We’re not feeling that purpose. It’s there.

48. 20:23

    You have purpose. You’re just not getting that feedback. And I’m willing that most of us actually fall into that and we’ll see how that works. The other potential is that, yeah, there’s a whole lot going on in your life or my life that just doesn’t have purpose. We have filled our life with a lot of purposeless things and we need to change that. So it could be one of the two, potentially a mix. And it’s kind of jarring because sometimes the answer that has to be on the table, we have to consider it. That maybe this is true is I don’t feel purpose because I haven’t filled my life with things relating to purpose. But I’m willing to bet most of us fit in the first, which is we actually have a lot of purpose and we do a lot of things that are purposeful, that have meaning. We just don’t feel it.

49. 21:07

    We just don’t have the the understanding properly to really get that fulfillment, that feedback loop that we want. I want to spend some time dealing with that first scenario. How do we fix that? How do we make it so we feel purpose if we have it how do we make it so that we get that proper fulfillment and to start that process. I want to start by re examining that kind of initial statement I made made of you know about talk. I have a full time job and I have to do the dishes and all those menial tasks.

50. 21:39

    What I actually heard when this theoretical person said that to me was there’s a whole lot of purpose in your life. Those are all very purposeful and meaningful things that you just said and this is how we can look at that. Working a job allows me to be able to spend time being helpful to my ecclesia instead of a burden.

51. 21:58

    It allows me to be able to provide potentially for a family and provides me personally with the financial stability to be able to focus on trying to be like God. And I think a really useful way to look at it is look at it in the alternative. What if I wasn’t working a job?

52. 22:11

    What if I was struggling financially? What if I was in a really low point? Well, if I’m in that spot, I’m really stressed about that. That becomes a priority to me to fix that solution. I I’m really focused on that, which leads to less focus on things like helping others to be like God.

53. 22:26

    Now there’s a new temptation that’s entered my life that I have to work through of prioritizing. Do I work on my finances or do I work on helping other people? There’s all this battle that I have to deal with, and so having a job, being stable and financially working on, trying to set yourself up in a career that allows you to have the breathing room to focus on God’s purpose.

54. 22:45

    It in itself is not God’s purpose. Working a job does not fulfill spreading God’s glory around, but what it does do is allow me to have the breathing room to do that for the rest of my life. So yeah, it facilitates God’s purpose in itself is not, but it facilitates it. Keeping up with friends and relationships.

55. 23:03

    By all means, if we are together in Christ like and trying our best to be like Christ, that’s fulfilling God’s purpose. Hanging out with somebody doesn’t necessarily feel like I’m doing this great task of of spreading God’s glory, especially when we’re not directly talking about God. But that’s fellowship that is helping that brother or sister work their way towards the Kingdom step by step.

56. 23:25

    And when we view it in that light, it actually helps direct our conversations. Because instead of just getting together and talking about the sports or weather or how’s your job going, we’ll actually talk about things that matter. Because there’s meaning in this, there’s purpose in this. There’s value in these conversations. Taking care of our home allows us to be welcoming to others, allows us to be be, have an environment at our house that allows people to feel welcomed and able to come over and have good conversations. If we are chaotic and have a mess everywhere, people aren’t going to feel like they want to come over. Well.

57. 23:58

    That’s part of God’s purpose is getting people together and spreading, helping, spreading God’s glory and talking to them about different parts of God’s character. It creates a space where you can think about and process life’s events and not be distracted by maps. I know personally I don’t get too terribly flustered, but there’s a lot of mess around me. But Silla does, and if I leave dishes on the counter, she has a hard time focusing on things.

58. 24:23

    And so by me doing dishes, what I’m actually doing is providing a space or environment where Silla is able to think and process God’s character and glory better, which she can examine her life in the context of all these things better. So there’s actually not a lot of purpose and meaning to me.

59. 24:40

    Doing something as meaningless, at least that’s what it seems at first as doing the dishes. Most tasks in our life have meaning and purpose. They facilitate basically God’s glory and purpose being spread throughout the earth. They might not directly be it. Me doing the dishes isn’t saying, hey, this is God’s glory, but it helps it so that each other can actually process and work on that.

60. 25:05

    It makes the space for it. And if we aren’t feeling purpose in these events, in these small day by day, the daily grind, there’s two things potentially going on. One, and this is what I think is often the case, we haven’t actually given these events purpose. We haven’t thought through all of this stuff.

61. 25:25

    We do delicious because, well, we ate and so we have to do delicious. We do laundry because logistically, I need clothes for tomorrow. We cook our dinner because yeah, I have to eat and it’s what I do. We go to work because, well, everyone has a job, so might as well We haven’t thought through an assigned purpose and figured out the reason we actually do all these things to all these seemingly meaningless tasks.

62. 25:49

    This is why I said in the beginning, I don’t really struggle with this too much. Not because I’m some special person who’s thought through everything, but actually because I’m a really combative person. And so when people say, hey, you should do this, my initial gut reaction is no, until you give me a really good why. But what that does is make it so when I’m doing something, I know exactly why I’m doing it, because I’ve combated that thing to before I let it into my life.

63. 26:16

    Now there’s there’s definitely problems with that. I can create some interesting and awkward conversation sometimes, but the benefit of this is that, yeah, I really understand my why to what I do and why I’m doing it because I’ve had to process that way a lot before I’ve let it into my life, even as meaningless as do I lift the carpet when I’m vacuuming. That’s something that I really will have to understand why I’m doing that before I am willing to do it. But it makes it so that in every step in my life, I know why I am doing this.

64. 26:42

    And that is what purpose is. It’s a why. It’s the reason you’re doing what you’re doing. And so if you can understand the why to why you work and go past. I’m doing it because it’s what I’m supposed to do and give it purpose and say I’m doing it to help facilitate my ecclesia.

65. 26:58

    I’m doing it to help facilitate my life in a way that I can work on God’s purpose and that I can work on glorifying His name. But I can give myself a space where I don’t have to stress about the the financial or financial challenges that can come in life when we don’t or when we’re not financially stable. I can actually choose to use that time wisely or use that time well and working on the truth. Working in the truth.

66. 27:21

    That’s meaning instead of making dinner because I have to eat, I’m making dinner to provide conversations with me and Cilla. Or I’m making dinner to provide a place where we can have conversations with our brothers and sisters where we can go and hang out with each other. I’m instead of doing the dishes because that’s what we have to do, and you know, they’re dirty and someone’s got to do it. I’m doing it to provide a space where we can be clutter free and focus on what actually matters.

67. 27:48

    You can give purpose to these meaningless tasks and make them not that meaningless. And it will feel purposeful. It will feel, it will feel like it can give you a sense of fulfillment. The other potential barrier to feeling fulfilled in these small tasks is that we were sold a lie by the world on what purpose is and how it works.

68. 28:11

    See, the world sells purpose. Like it’s a thing of success, like it’s related to to achieving something. Like it feels good and it’s full of hype. Moments like, yeah, it’s awesome. And that’s just not true. When you think of Scripture, none of those things are. They’re sometimes true, but not consistently. One of Hezekiah’s act, their greatest acts, dealing with the success idea, was bringing together Judah and Israel for the Passover.

69. 28:41

    His goal was to try to unify the nation. That was what he wanted to happen. He wanted to unify these two groups. Very, very related to God’s purpose. By all means. Did he succeed? Not really. Yeah, they had a really great Passover, but they weren’t unified afterwards. They went on with their life separate from a.

70. 29:03

    From a practical point of view, he failed his goal, But did God look at it as like a failure? No. This was a good thing. This was something that was talked well about Hezekiah. And the reason is success at our goal isn’t actually the thing that Yahweh says is part of your purpose. It’s the principles that you use to start your goal. It’s the why you made the goal, your goal in the 1st place. Hezekiah’s attempt to unify the nations wasn’t a a success because he actually achieved.

71. 29:35

    It was a success because he had the right why? Because he had the right goals and principles in mind. So while the world says you have to succeed to fulfill your purpose, God says you have to be like me to succeed and fulfill your purpose. You have to have the right why you have to have the right goals.

72. 29:56

    It’s not about what you actually did, it’s about the principles you used to decide what you want to do. That’s what determines if your life should have purpose and you should feel fulfilled on top of it. The world says that fulfilling your purpose will feel good, that you’ll have the sense of achievement.

73. 30:11

    I think of things like, you know, finishing that degree or you you finish that project at work, you close the deal. Those are all-purpose sort of awesome events and it feels great. But that didn’t happen to Jesus. We just talked about it in our exhortation and the fulfillment of his purpose. He didn’t feel good and it wasn’t intended to feel good. And in fact when we have think about what purpose really gets us to do.

74. 30:37

    When we think about the idea of I’m supposed to try and manifest God’s name and what that often encourages us to do. It’s not stuff that feels good. It’s stuff that’s hard. It’s stuff that’s challenging and and their trials and they’re working through things that are against our human nature and our flesh. We’re not doing what feels good.

75. 30:53

    We’re often doing what is hard and that’s what actually purpose and what we should be fulfilled from often encompasses. It’s taking on things that are challenging and difficult and feel awkward. The first time I I gave a prayer in our in our meeting. I’m not going to say the prayer, but it was bad and it was awkward and it felt weird and not not normal, but it was by all means part of the growth process of God’s purpose. The first time I gave an exhort, I fumble over my words. I didn’t know what I was saying.

76. 31:27

    I think it was like 15 minutes or something for me that was really short, but I but I’ve got through it. It felt awkward, but by all means it was part of God’s purpose to help people learn more about the truth. God’s purpose in our lives isn’t always going to feel good. In fact, often it won’t. Sometimes it will.

77. 31:44

    Fellowship weekends like this feel great, but it’s not a requirement to have a sense of purpose or a sense of fulfillment. It’s kind of like a happy sometimes this happens and often times it won’t. Feeling good is not a requirement to feeling fulfilled. The last one is hype. Moments again, thinking about finishing that project or finishing that degree. This is often how purpose is sold in the world, and even sometimes in the Bible it’s sold that way. You think of Moses leading the people of Israel, you think of Jesus on the cross.

78. 32:16

    These are hype moments. These are like, yeah, awesome. These are stories to be told about this. This is legendary stuff. But with Moses, he didn’t just get to that hype moment randomly. He spent 40 years in the wilderness working with sheep, and he spent 40 years being a shepherd to prep him for that moment. Those 40 years had purpose.

79. 32:41

    Yeah, the hype moment had a lot of purpose. The leading of the people had a lot of purpose. And we read about it and study it because it’s awesome. That’s some really fun stories, lot to learn from. But by all means, those 40 years had purpose. The long grind of monotony of sheep had purpose.

80. 33:01

    It set him up for the hype moments. So your day-to-day often times is that long grind. It is that slow, monotonous process that is filled with purpose. The question for us is do we feel it? Yes, you will have hype moments. My first exhort, while it was a bit of a fumble, was also a bit of a hype moment. I think about that.

81. 33:26

    I remember it just felt really good afterwards. But I had to do a lot of prep for it. I had to do a lot of days of studying for it and thinking about stuff. And those are the grind. Yes, when I got married to Silla, that was a hype moment. But there was a lot of work put into that relationship prior that required grind in day-to-day.

82. 33:46

    I’m not saying that in a bad way. That’s just, that’s just life. Yeah, they that’s just part of how life works. We have to we have to go in and put in the hard yards, the grind, the day and day, the monotony to be able to get to the hype moments. That’s how our life works. And so hype moments are not a requirement for fulfillment. They will happen sometimes, but they’re not a requirement. What is the requirement as being connected to God’s purpose? It’s knowing his why and making that your why. It’s understanding God’s reason for doing something and making that real reason.

83. 34:26

    And sometimes that will be hype and sometimes that will be successful and sometimes it will feel good, but not always. I’d actually argue not often. The other side of this is that, again, dealing with the other side that sometimes, and in some cases, the reason we don’t feel fulfilled, the reason we don’t feel like we have a lot of purpose, is because we actually haven’t filled our life with a lot of meaningful things.

84. 34:52

    It could be that I’m working a job where I work 8090 a hundred hours a week and I work so much that I actually don’t have time to work on myself, to try to be like Christ, to help others, to be like Christ. I don’t have time in my life to work on these things. Well, that Job’s kind of lost the point of its purpose because the point of that job was not to just give you money and to fill your days.

85. 35:18

    It was to give you the opportunity and the freedom and the ability to work on God’s purpose. And so, yeah, there are times where we’ve kind of filled our life with things that aren’t purposeful. Could be the job, could be a hobby. If I spend all my time on a hobby, that really doesn’t have a lot of reason. So, for example, I play a card game, I play it and I love it. It’s fun, but it’s not part of my purpose. And if I spent all my time doing that, if I do that when I get home, from when I get home from work to when I go to bed, and that’s all I do all the time, there’s no purpose in that. There’s no God related purpose and reason. The purpose in that is I enjoy it. It’s not because God said it’s good, It’s not because it’s related to God’s purpose.

86. 35:57

    The purpose is I enjoy this feeling of playing this game. And if that’s all I do in my days, then yeah, my life’s not full with true purpose and it’s not AI need to realize that the day-to-day grind has purpose problem. It’s AI need to change my day-to-day grind. So what? It has purpose, actually, to change what’s in my life. I need to reconsider what’s going on in my day-to-day. Regardless of the why.

87. 36:25

    It’s important to ask ourselves in, in the situations we’re in. Is this related to God’s purpose, or is it something that I just enjoy? Is it something that I find comfortable or something I enjoy and find comfortable? And it’s not related to God’s purpose? It’s not that you necessarily have to remove all those things, but yeah, they’re not supposed to make you feel fulfilled.

88. 36:44

    That’s not the point of them. And so we need to make sure that our life is filled with fulfilling things, things related to God’s purpose. When we approach life starting at the found, like the foundation of God’s purpose of what is that? And then we build our life with events and things going on and and activities that either relate to that purpose or facilitate that purpose.

89. 37:07

    All of a sudden the day-to-day has a lot of purpose. The reason, as I said, that I don’t tend to struggle with this as much, it’s not because I’m some. I filled my life with all these great purposeful things. It’s because I ask why a lot. And then yeah, like I said, that can cause them awkward conversations.

90. 37:26

    But when you really know your why to everything you do, you know the purpose to them. You set the purpose for them. Purpose is not something that events just have. Events aren’t self-evident with purpose, they’re assigned. I give something purpose, I say. This has this reason in my life we get to choose. Are we assigning things purpose based off God’s purpose and the purpose that I’ve chosen in baptism? Or are we doing the day-to-day the monotony without thinking about her?

91. 37:57

    Why? So what I would suggest to those who struggle with that anxiety of what is my purpose and why don’t I feel fulfilled? Examine everything. Ask why a lot. Why do you do what you do? Most of it probably is related somehow, shape or form to God’s promises, to God’s purpose and to trying to facilitate or directly is caring the name of God from you and to others.

92. 38:25

    And if that’s the case, you should feel purpose from that. But you have to connect to that. Why You have to connect to that reason? Because if you don’t, then yeah, you’ll go through life without thinking about purpose, without thinking about your why. And you might not feel fulfilled. But I promise you brothers and sisters, when you connect to that Y you will feel and connect to God’s purpose. And also we have to consider, am I actually filling my life with things?

93. 38:53

    Because again, potentially we might not be. We might be filling our lives with things that don’t have God’s purpose. And if we do, the answer isn’t to change and re evaluate. It’s actually sorry to change and re evaluate how we look at things. It’s actually to change what’s in our lives. It’s to change the life. So these are our two kind of ways of looking at purpose and looking at how to how to feel fulfilled. And that’s really how I go about Step 2 when dealing with anxiety in almost everything that I’m dealing with anxiety on is I started the foundation.

94. 39:24

    I started out how does God view this? How does God’s views on it apply to me and what does it relate to me? And then step four, act on it. So how do we act on the the sense of purpose? Well, if we have things in our life that need to be changed, we change them. That might be hard, but it’s what we might need to do. And if we have things in our life that are purposeful and we’re just not feeling that purpose from it, we ask why. We ask why is it in our life in the 1st place? And we really work at that answer. That’s and you’re not going to feel right away. You will not feel yet purpose woo right away. That’s not how that works.

95. 40:01

    But when you connect to that Y over and over again and you make sure you understand it. That’s changing that internal belief of the dishes have no meaning to. There’s some meaning here that’s changing and challenging those internal beliefs. So rather than such as I encourage you ask why?