Why Am I Here? Discovering Your True Purpose | Erik Luchetta and Jeremy Marrone

Pastor Jeremy, how you doing? I'm doing great. Good to be here. Awesome. So, tonight we're going to talk about Mark chapter 11. And uh let me turn it over to you. What's going on in Mark chapter 11? Great question. So, tonight I want us to think about the phrase, embrace the God life.

Embrace the God life. And then the question we're going to answer is simply this. What's so good about the God life? What's so good about it? I want to talk from from Mark 11 where uh where Jesus gives us this picture of what it means to live the God life, a purposeful, fulfilling human life, right?

Um but we got to define what that means. So a as we read on in this book and really look at the gospels in the life of Jesus, Jesus is really reflecting what it means for human beings to to be the image of God. We were created in Genesis chapter 1 in the image of God to bring his rule to the earth so that the earth reflects heaven.

So that heaven and earth match so that there's abundance and life and peace and the rule of God is his goodness wherever it lands. And I think that's how I would define the god life. Let me say it again. When we say god life, what do we mean by the god life?

The godlife is human beings who have embraced their calling as the image of God in the earth to bring the rule of heaven to earth so that earth reflects heaven. It is the embrace of a human being to be who God's called us to be. That's what the God life is.

So when you say image of God, you're it sounds like what you're saying is that human beings are meant to be in the world. Yes. in such a way where heaven and earth look like one another as opposed to not look like one another. Yes. And it's what you and I refer to as we use this phrase if somebody's taking notes out there.

Our dignified status. Yeah. Our dignified status in God's creation is that we would bear his image. We're the only creatures that bear his image in such a way that we rule over his creation. In chapters 1 and two of Genesis, we start the story of the Bible, which is is a narrative from beginning to end.

It's a story. What God called us to as human beings when he created us was to rule over his creation and to do it through his nature and character. That is the the calling, our dignified status. And in chapter 11, what Jesus does is he actually demonstrates this dignified status.

But he does it in such a way that he shows what it means to be a ruler as a human, a ruler in the earth, a very self-sacrificial servantlike humanity. So let me answer it again. What's so good about the god life? Well, the god life is simply us fulfilling the purpose to which God created us.

And how do we define the god life? Well, it's human beings embracing and living out the image of God, our dignified status in the earth so that the earth reflects heaven. And I want to start with the beginning of this chapter. At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus rolls into town or actually kind of rides into town on a donkey.

He rides into town on a donkey. And it's this imagery, this picture in Zechariah chapter 9 is actually the fulfillment. It's it's an Old Testament passage being fulfilled by Jesus. And it says that when he comes, this is the Messiah. When he comes, he will be riding on a donkey.

So what's this picture? Well, Jesus is hailed as this conquering king. The people actually say, "Hosana, hos." They actually say, "Look, look, look at him, the king. Hallelujah to the king." Yeah. And um and what Jesus is doing is Jesus is demonstrating a dignified status, that all human beings were called to, but yet he's doing it a way that shows that by serving and going low instead of bossing and bullying and manipulating and using our status for our own glory. that we would in humility live out the God life.

And Jesus demonstrates at the beginning of the chapter. But here's what I want to do. Um I want us to to read verses 22- 25 in Mark 11. And I want to land here and then we can have conversation. In Mark 11:22-25, and I'm going to read it in the message version, Jesus actually shows us what it means to live the God life.

It says this in verse 22. Jesus was matterof fact. He says this, "Embrace this God life." Really embrace it and nothing will be too much for you. this mountain in front of you for instance, just say go jump in the lake and it's as good as done. That's what I urge you to pray for absolutely everything Jesus said.

That's why I urge you to pray for absolutely everything ranging from small to large. Include everything as you embrace this God life and you'll get God's everything. And when you assume the posture of prayer, remember that it's not all asking. If you have anything against someone, forgive. Only then will your heavenly father be inclined also to wipe your slate clean of sins.

What is Jesus saying here? He's saying the god life, the dignified status of ruling that human beings have been given by God only comes through humility. M it only comes prayer is the language of humility. Prayer is the language of us putting ourselves under the authority of God and then doing it in such a way.

And then he says forgive. We we live a life in such a way that not only are we humble toward God but then forgiveness is a sure sign that humility is in the heart of a human being. And that's the only way to live the God life. And Jesus demonstrates this by riding into town on a donkey.

So what are we talking about? We're talking about embracing the god life. And what is the god life? The god life is again human beings ruling over God's creation with his image with his goodness and character so that the earth reflects heaven. And this is an interesting calling because from the very beginning in the garden, God made Adam, human beings, to rule, but they failed because they tried to rule their own way.

Let's say it like that. Adam and Eve tried to rule their own way. And God removed them as the rulers of the garden. And then he chose a new people later on in the scriptures, Israel. And he said,"I want you to be the nation that shows all other nations what it means to be truly human.

What it means to rule along with God, to to be under his authority as his people, being the rulers that he's called us to be." And then Israel failed. And then Jesus came to fulfill both Israel and Adam's calling. all human beings and the specific nation that God had chosen.

So Jesus is really saying this is what it looks like to be truly human. Now why is that important? Because when God chose Israel, he gave them the temple which is the building where he would meet with them. And it was supposed to be the hope for the world.

It was supposed to be out of the temple was supposed to flow abundance and life and forgiveness and flourishing and blessings. And it it became a house of selfishness and greed. And in the gospels, Jesus spends a lot of time calling out the leaders of the temple to say, "You were supposed to be the temple rulers.

You were supposed to rule over this temple in such a way that it blessed all the nations of the earth, but you've been greedy and you've made it only about yourself. Yeah. So Jesus is calling to a new group of humans to say, "Why don't you come along and be the humans that God wants?

Why don't you come along and in his image bring his rule to the earth the way God desires?" That's embracing the God life. And so when Jesus enters in on a donkey, what he's saying is is this dignified status of being human that God gave you is not about your own good, your own blessing, your own greed, your own bank account.

It's not about your own power and your own status such as the world does, but it's about blessing the nations. And that was Israel's calling. We see in the chapter as well that Jesus actually curses a fig tree. The fig tree is a symbol. It's actually an image of the nation of Israel in Jeremiah chapter 8.

So when Jesus curses the fig tree, what he's saying is let no more fruit come from you, he's saying Israel's time for being God's image in the world has come to its completion. I'm fulfilling it. Jesus is pointing at himself saying, "I'm the fulfillment of Israel's story. And now I'm opening up to all humans, not just Israel."

But Jesus came to open it up to any human, Jew or Gentile, who would put their faith in him and live, embrace this God life the way Jesus lived the God life. And Mark is illustrating this for us through Jesus cleansing the temple, through Jesus cursing the fig tree.

And here's what I want to say. the god life. When we embrace the image of God and rule over his creation the way God intended from the beginning, what we're saying to all human beings is there is a hopeful future. Yeah. See, everything has gone sideways. God created human beings in a beautiful world.

He called it good. The problem is is it it went sideways. Mhm. But Jesus came to restore all of creation and we are in the in between right now. Now Jesus inaugurate it through his inaugurated the the new creation through his resurrection. But this life as a human being right now in the present we are showing signs of that future life when everything will be made right.

God will remove sin and death and corruption from the earth. Heaven and earth will come back together and the earth will once again look like and mirror image heaven. It will be God's rule once again perfectly. So what's the point? The point is the people knew that there was something special about Jesus.

They threw their cloaks, their coats in this chapter. They throw him down in front of him as he comes in on the donkey. He's revealing this dignified status. But Jesus himself is communicating to us that the life we live right now in the present, showing signs of that hopeful future, the potential that God has given to human beings, he wants us to fulfill now and start showing signs now.

But the only way to do that is to embrace the god life. To embrace the God life is to live humbly in such a way that we are here living selflessly toward all in the love of God, living toward all human beings, all of creation and ordering the world the way he wants.

And he wants us to bear fruit where he told Israel by cursing the fig tree. He's like the fruit is no longer going to come from you alone. It's going to come from any human beings, Jew or Gentile, who will embrace this god life. And so God is calling us in this chapter in Mark 11.

Jesus is saying, "Embrace this God life." Yeah. The only way to do it. And here's what I love about prayer. Okay. I want to I want to hear what you think about this. Here's what I love about prayer. Prayer, the words that we speak are not physical, right?

Words are immaterial, right? Well, the only way that the world was created was by the immaterial word of God. He spoke in seven different passages in Genesis 1 and everything came to be. Right. Right. So through the spoken word, God creates and orders his good world. So what is it when we pray?

We're taking immaterial words and we are connecting with God's word because when we pray, we want to pray God's word, right? We want to pray the scriptures. We want to pray what God has already said. We want to pray God's promises and his purpose. We want to pray the life of the scriptures in our words.

So what we're doing is we're connecting and embracing the God life with our own mouth when we pray. Is it a way for us to ask for things from God? Yeah, absolutely. Is it a way for us to connect with God in such a way that he refills us and he gives us that that God life and energy? 100%.

But I believe what we're doing is I believe we're practicing bringing order. Now we're not God, right? He alone. He alone creates everything. But what we're doing is we are taking our immaterial words, connecting with his immaterial words and saying this is how we order things. So I believe when Jesus says pray about everything, he's saying you take this very vehicle, these immaterial words that God used to create all things and agree with him.

Agree with God. Get and embrace this God life. He's the source of truth. He's the source of good. He is the source of order. So when you pray and agree with him, what you're doing is you're fully embracing that in the immaterial world. And we begin to see things happen in the material world because of that.

So we can agree with God both in our words and in our actions. First John 3:18 John tells us don't don't just love people in words alone but in deeds and in actions. So we love people by praying and we serve people and love people by doing. And I think that's what Jesus is saying.

Embrace this God life. He's saying this mountain you have the authority. you have this dignified status to tell this mountain to flee into the sea. He's saying, why don't you use it? Why don't you embrace the God life, connect with God, embrace your calling and purpose to be the image of God in the world, and bring order in such a way that it blesses everything.

Yeah. Yeah. I think what's what's interesting is like you're saying, Jesus is basically revealing and making available what it means to be truly human. Yes. And what it turns out to be truly human is that as rulers over creation, we do through we do it through service. Yes.

Instead of being served, we're serving others. And so humility humility is a revelation of power. And I think Jesus is saying that in various ways throughout the gospels is if you want to know what it looks like for somebody to be in charge. Find the one who's serving the most.

They're actually the boss. That's good. And it's more than just turning things upside down. It's turning things right side up. It was always meant to be this way. That's right. What I find interesting is why did so many of the people in Jesus's day reject it? Because at the end of the day, the Jewish people were waiting for these things to happen.

They were waiting for the restoration of all things and they were waiting for themselves and for all human beings to finally be the human beings that God intended where they rule over the world with justice and generosity. And now that it's here, they reject it. Yep. Many of them do anyway by and large.

And I just think that that's fascinating is is that by faith we take a redefinition of power. Do you want to know what it means to be in charge? It looks like service. It looks like forgiving. It reminds me years ago somebody I know um at work he he was at his job.

He was running into some issues with this one coworker. And this coworker was always trying to get him in trouble. kind of like magnify every single issue and get him into trouble. And my friend was telling me about what was going on. And I'll never forget what he said to me.

He said to me, "Eric, he doesn't know who he's messing with." And I looked at him and said, "Who's he messing with?" And you could tell by the look on his face, like, in other words, what are you going to do? Vengeance? Is this what we do as Christians?

Is this the true humanity? And it takes guts and it takes maturity. It takes spiritual strength to go into that place of saying,"I think real power is humility." That's right. And I think forgiveness is actually the solution to this problem here. I love that. And and I think it it it puts us in a position to be this is the phrase one of the phrases that I pulled out of this chapter as we were talking.

This gives us an opportunity to be a mediator of hope. Yeah. to be a mediator of hope. If we embrace the God life and then we give that life, that hope to other people, especially here at Lakewood, that is our heart. It's to be hope for people to say there's something better coming in the future.

Wherever whatever is happening in your life right now, it can change. God can heal. He can deliver. He can restore. He He can bring you into abundance. he can bring you into. He wants to bring you into those things. And if that future life for us that we talk about every week, um, every time that you and I get together and and have one of these discussions for Bible study, um, if that's the future hope that we're looking at, then we get to be mediators of that hope now, like you just said, cuz that's what we're communicating.

Right. Right. And that was supposed to be the temple in Israel. It was supposed to be a mediator of hope. Yeah. between heaven and earth where God would bless the temple and the temple would bless the nations. Yeah. Well, we've become the temple now. Yeah. Through Jesus. 1 Corinthians 3, you and I are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

We're a mediator of hope to other people. And so I say to anybody out there, if you are lacking hope, if you need the word hope in the Greek means confidence. If you're lacking confidence in the future, if you're lacking confidence in tomorrow, then it's the opportunity for us through prayer to embrace the God life to say, "God, you can do this." years ago when we first came to Lakewood, Tara and I were in debt a lot.

And we were talking to somebody someday and and they knew that um we we had a desire to to homeschool. We had a desire to do some other things in ministry. Um but financially we were in a position where it just it wasn't happening at that moment. And so we prayed and we asked God, God, will you will you wipe this away so that we can engage fully the way we want to in ministry?

And a couple months later, somebody came, I still to this day, don't know who, and wiped our slate clean. Wow. They paid our entire debt. Every bit of it. And we're talking a lot. Wow. Every penny. And I I remember that day that the person who we had been talking to, they didn't do it, but they knew who it was.

And they said, "We want you to know um that that this person, well, somebody we know, they didn't tell us who it was. This somebody came and paid for your debt." Wow. And I just remember Tara weeping in that moment, like falling to the floor and weeping because she had a desire in her heart and our kids were starting to get to the age where we were going to start schooling.

And and I just remember that the hope that it gave us just that sense of like God, you heard us. You heard our prayer. you you painted us a picture of hope for the future. And I think that's what we get the opportunity to do when we embrace the god life.

It's not just blessing people with material things. It's it's blessing people with immaterial things in their soul, in their heart to say, I want to give you hope for the future. That's what Jesus came to do is to give a hope of the future. That he came to restore and make everything right and to bless the entire creation and all of the world to say this is all going somewhere.

I'm restoring all of these things. But yet he then says, I want you to pull this into the now. Don't don't wait. Let's not wait. Yeah. Till the future just sort of, you know, like wave a magic wand and it just happens. No, no, no. He's like, I want you to start slowly.

I want you to start bringing it to fruition. I want you to pray and ask heaven as a mediator of hope. God, work through us. Bless people through us. Give hope through us. And so that we can bless other people with it. And and so in this chapter, you see Jesus invite them in to say, "Embrace it.

Embrace this God life because you are now the mediator of hope to the world." And Jesus said, "This work that I've been doing, I'm, you know, John 4, I'm I'm calling you to do even greater things. I'm calling you to do even what I've been doing and more."

And so, um, I want to wake up every day. This is what I think is the God life for me. I want to wake up every day and be filled with hope to say, I want to I want to share this verbally and physically with somebody today. If I can bless somebody with with something, with a meal, wi-i with with a with a hug, with a handshake, with a with a kind word, if I can bless somebody's world today, if I can bless somebody in business, if I can bless somebody in ministry, if I can bless somebody, my girls do dance and we go to the dance studio all the time.

Can we bless another family? You know, the holidays are coming up on us. Can we can we bless somebody? Right? And so um this is embracing the god life is is the mediator of hope. It is the opportunity for us to to like Jesus to reflect the loving abundance and goodness of God into the earth such that earth looks like heaven.

And I think more than anything people need hope today. People need I mean we're we're at a place where people need two things right? Two things. They need meaning and they need hope. And I think when they find meaning, it gives them hope. So yeah, I mean, if there's nothing more than we can give than to like what we're talking about right now, the very dignified status that God has called humans to, the very purpose that he created us for is the meaning and purpose that we have as humans.

And so many people are ignorant. They just don't know. They don't know. They're like, why am I here? Right? And I have this I have this compelling vision, this compelling future in my mind's eye. When I pray, I ask God, I I want every human, this is two things I want personally.

I want every single human being on the planet to know what the Bible is about. Whether they follow Jesus ever or not, I want them to know what the Bible is. Now, I want them to follow Jesus. I want them to be the human to which God's called him to be, and that's only through Christ.

But if even if they don't, I want them to understand the story of the Bible. I I want to live my life uh the next, you know, 160 years, however long I live, I want to live the next whatever it is to say this is what the Bible is about.

And this is what you've been called to as a human being. It is about Jesus. But Jesus is demonstrating what it means to be fully human. And so we embrace this purpose. And in doing that, um, in in in embracing this life of I want every human being to know what the Bible is about, that leads to the second thing, which is I want every human being to embrace their purpose.

Because out of that, whoever's watching right now or listening right now, out of your purpose and meaning comes all of this abundance and hope. Because we actually have a reason. We have a why. And you talk about all the time. Go back to your why. And it's got to be a big why.

It's got to be a big why. Why do I want to get out of debt? So I can pay my bills better. Well, I mean, that's a good thing. So I can have more money to buy stuff I want. Well, I mean that there's nothing wrong with that.

God's blessing comes with with no repentance, the Bible says. But what if it's bigger than that? What if what what if what if living this and embracing this God life is so much bigger than just whatever I need or want? Like pastor says a lot of times he's like, "You've paid off your debt.

Why don't you go pay off somebody else's mortgage? Why don't you pay off their car? Why don't you put their kids through college?" Like that's those are the kind of prayers I want to pray to say, "God, I want to embrace this God life in such a way that one day I can I can write a $100,000 check to somebody's kid to go to school.

That's where I want to live." Yeah. And embrace the God. And those are the prayers I want to pray. Yeah. I want I want my words my immaterial words to match the immaterial words of heaven and say I want to live in such a way that we bring hope to the people around us.

And the way that we can do that is right now we're having this conversation about what does the Bible really mean? What is it really saying to us? And what does it mean? Yeah. It means that we have a purpose as human beings in this earth. God has created us to reflect him in the earth.

And and I want to live that life and I know you do too. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the the greatest challenges and the thing and and yet the thing that's most inspiring is that through Jesus and in our self-giving love, we we get to experience what it means to be human.

Yeah. I think a lot of times we don't I don't know if value is a good word, but we don't get excited about being a human being, right? You know, you and I are teachers and so we talk about a lot of different things, but how many times have you and I run into something where we've talked along these lines about being a human who brings order into the world.

And when you start using the word human, there's almost a pullback from it. Like almost like human is not really a great thing. It's icky. Yeah. It's sinful. Well, yes. And we need to be redeemed from that. But Adam and Eve weren't sinful in the garden before they disobeyed God.

And in the end, well, now even through Jesus, we are made right with God. So now we get to experience what it means to be human. Yeah. And I think that being people of hope who are showing that what what God's love and kindness and generosity does is the big why, right?

And living that way is true meaning and purpose. And what you just said, I mean that that is a very 500 BC viewpoint on the world. What you just explained, the ickiness of human form. Yeah. The ickiness of being human. Yeah. The the the Greek philosophers long before Christ came, they they believed in the in the Greek gods and goddesses.

The Greek gods and goddesses would have never come in human form because they were spirit and only spirit was good and flesh was bad. Right? That's the way they viewed the world. They would never condescend, which means just come down to their subjects. They would never put themselves among their subjects like Christ did because they viewed human just the very idea of human nature gross.

Mhm. And somewhere along the way in the last few hundred years of the church, we have adopted some of those views from the Greek philosophers before Christ. We literally have brought it into our Christianity. And we have to go back and we have to peel back the layers of some of the ideas that we have about our human flesh being gross.

What we do in our human bodies according to Romans 12:1 is either lifegiving or not. Yeah. It's either righteous or unrighteous. That's the point. What we do in our body, but our our actual created bodies is good. God called it good in the garden. Yeah. But because of sin, we've been pulled away and enticed to do what's not good.

Yeah. In the flesh, but the flesh itself is this body was given to me to this body was given to me to embrace the authority and rule that God has given us on the earth. I can do very good with my eyes and ears and my thoughts and my hands and my mouth.

I can do very good or I can hurt. Yeah. And so Jesus says, "Embrace, like you said, the good." Yeah. And uh I I would challenge anybody out there to if you've ever if you've ever, you know, felt like, man, just being human is is is less than.

It's it's gross almost. It's dirty. It's I would challenge all of us. And I've had to repent of that. I've had to repent means just just to change my thinking. I've had to change my thinking about what it means to be human over the last five years again and and renew my mind to what does God really think about humans?

Um he wants us to do good and right and just. But the human form itself is not gross. We make choices in this human experience in this human flesh. Well, like Paul says, use your bodies as instruments of righteousness like that. they can be used in the service of God in the world and to practice that um and to develop in that is Christian maturity.

You know, that's growth growth right there. Yeah. And so that's um I know that's the understanding what it means to be human, to be God's people in the world, to work in such a way where the earth better reflects heaven is the Adam calling. It's the literal definition of the phrase image of God.

Human. Human. image of God is a is is an amazing creature so to speak who gets to work in the world and reflect God into it. And um that is the highest honor that he's given any of his creation. Turtles don't do that. Dogs and cats don't do that.

Human beings are the only people who can reflect God into the world and to order the world so that it looks like heaven. And to embrace that calling um is really a lifelong process. Yep. Love it. That's that's it. Embrace the God life. Yeah. Amen. Well, that was awesome.

Um, you know, this series on uh the the Gospel of Mark is just life transforming and it's such a such an honor to do these with you. But all right, we'll see you next time then. Yep.