A Moment in Time (Good or Bad) Doesn’t Define Your Life’s Purpose

Biblical Scholar M.M. Bakhtin said, “The text lives only by coming into contact with another text (with context). Only at the point of this contact between texts does a light flash, illuminating both the posterior and anterior, joining a given text to a dialogue.”

Today I want to join two texts together (with context) and hopefully a light will flash and illuminate the Scriptures and become alive inside of us.

As I’ve been praying, studying and asking God to direct my steps through this series of messages on Finding our Purpose, God kind of illuminated in me some very personal and very painful experiences in my own life. So as best I can, I will not attempt to share a 3-point alliterated message with you this morning, but I’m simply going to share my heart. This is probably going to be one of the toughest messages I think I have ever shared – so bear with me. I’m asking you from the offset to extend a little grace to me this morning, as this is going to be a very difficult and very vulnerable message for me personally.

Job 1:1 says, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.”

The truth is, when most of us think about Job, we don’t think of Job as a “perfect and upright man.” Most of us don’t think about Job as a man who “feared God and eschewed evil.”

Most of us, when we think about Job, we think about verse 6, “Now there was a day . . .”

• “There was a day” when Satan went before God and said he was “going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it.”
• “There was a day” When God said “Hast thou considered my servant Job?”
• “There was a day” when Job lost all 10 of Jobs children.
• “There was a day” when Job lost all of his livestock.
• “There was a day” when Job lost his wealth.
• “There was a day” when Job lost his health.
• “There was a day” when Job’s wife said, “Why don’t you just curse God and die.”
• “There was a day” when all of Job’s friends came to him and said that there was some sin in his life that cause God to allow this calamity to come into his life.

When we think about Job, we tend to think about the sufferings of Job. But these bad things that happened to Job were just “a day” in his life – they were not the context of his life.

Let me illustrate this to you: Any football fans here? By a show of hands, how many of you remember Doug Flutie?

• Does anyone know where Doug Flutie is from?
• Does anyone know where he lives now?
• Does anyone know his mother and father’s name?
• Does anyone know his wife’s name?
• Does anyone know his children’s names?
• Does anyone know that in one singular moment, he threw a “hail Mary” pass in a game that was caught in the end zone for a national championship?

Most of us only know Doug Flutie for that one pass, that one day, that one moment in his life – but that “One Moment” is not the context of his life.

So, when we think about Job, in that moment, losing his children, it’s easy to dismiss the fact that he had 10 children – 7 sons and 3 daughters. Now, do you think that happened overnight? I would venture to say that it took years to have 7 sons and 3 daughters. And in fact, at the time he lost them, they were all grown, they all had their own jobs and their own homes. Why do I say that, because verse 4 says, “His sons went and feasted in their houses.”

Job didn’t accumulate his wealth, or his possessions overnight, he worked hard his whole life. So, when God refers to Job as a “perfect and upright man, one who feared God and eschewed evil,” that was not a reputation Job earned in a day – but over the course of his life.

Now here is where I’m going to get personal. While I was pastoring a church in the metropolis of Scranton, South Carolina, at 6 pm, August 16^th, 1997, my little brother Sonny was tragically killed in a single car accident. What I discovered over the course of the next few days was that there were multiple beer cans all over the floor of my brother’s car. The sheriff told me there was no reason to add that in the report as there was no reason to add anymore heartache to the grief we were already experiencing.

But that didn’t change the fact, to the first responders on the scene, my brother was just another drunk driver tragically killed while drinking and driving. To them, his life was defined in that single moment. But to me, his big brother, that was just a moment in his life, and that didn’t even begin to define my brother’s life.

• To me, my brother’s life is defined by the moment, as a 5-year-old, when he took his big brothers hand, and together we walked down the aisle of 4^th Street Baptist Church, and together we knelt and ask Jesus to come into our little hearts.
• To me, his life was being defined by us being baptized together.
• To me, his life was being defined when I travelled all over the world for long periods of time and he would constantly travel for hours at a time to ensure my wife and kids were OK while I was gone.
• When I pastored a church that was in the oldest building in South Carolina, folks would talk about how the floors needed to be redone – but did nothing about it. So, me and brother, alone, carried every pew out that church, and on our hands and knees we sanded and refinished the entire church building.
• To me, his life was being defined just the weekend prior to his death, when our church bus broke down at camp, 3 hours away, when none of the deacons had time to come get us, but my brother did.
• And his life was being defined by the conversation he and I had that day.
• My brother’s life was being defined two days prior his death, on his 33^rd birthday when he came to our house, and we walked over to the church and practiced singing a song together we planned to do that Sunday. Ironically, the title of that song was “The Last Mile of the Way.”

To me, my brother’s life was not defined by that single moment in his life, but by the life that he lived. Was he perfect – no. But that final moment was not his defining moment.

Remember at the beginning of the message I stated I wanted to join two text together to give us context? In Galatians 2:20, Paul, a man who at one point in his life persecuted Christians; a man, who after his conversion, was beaten, shipwrecked, stoned, abandoned, imprisoned, yet when it came time to define his life, Paul says these words, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

Paul is saying, “My life is not defined by what I did in the past, but my life is being defined by “The life that I now live . . .”

Satan has convinced some of you that a certain moment in your life prevents you from God’s love and saving grace. Satan has convinced some of you that God has no use for you anymore.

Let me ask you, are you allowing the moment that you are in, maybe you are in a great moment, maybe you are in a sorrowful moment, maybe you’re in a regretful moment – are you allowing that moment to define your life’s purpose?