What is the purpose of life? That is the age-old question. Did God create us for the lives that are currently living? In our new series, we are going to discover God's plan for our lives and see that we are made for more.

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OC Church of Christ

My name is Marcel Hall and, , I'm a minister and, , my wife Karina, , we've

been married now almost 18 years.

Wow.

I don't know.

That was a good wow or a bad Wow.

Hopefully that was a good wow.

Like Marcel, y'all look so young that you must have gotten married when you were 13.

No, that's not the.

But yes, we've been married now almost 18 years, and uh, we have three

kids, uh, two daughters, 12 and 11.

Baby girl, baby doll, and my son, baby boy.

What did I say?

12 and 10.

There you go.

12 and 10.

You have to forgive me.

I've been sick, it feels like for two months now.

You know what I'm saying?

And, uh, I haven't slept in about three months either as well.

I need some prayer.

David, please pray for me.

Okay?

We'll see if you're a righteous man.

Okay.

And see how my prayer works.

Uh, or your prayer works if I sleep tonight.

So 12, 10 and four.

Yes.

Amen.

I got that right.

He'll be five next Sunday.

Okay.

All right.

So baby boy, that's Dominique.

We'll go reverse order Desiree and Sinnia and, uh, again, I, we

need all the prayers we could get.

Okay?

Because those who know my kids, look you, you nod your head a little too much.

Uhhuh, we know your kids.

Just pray for us please.

The house is active.

I was talking with another family yesterday.

Sorry, I'm going on this tangent here, but this is just how it is with me.

And I was like, man, our house is active.

And then I asked the guy, we're at the swim meet for my daughter.

And I said, how many kids do you have?

He says, five.

I said, well, I'll be quiet then, because if you got five, okay,

then I, I can't say anything.

He's like, yeah, it's pretty active.

But anyhow, uh, you know, we've been, uh, at, we've been at

the, we've had the privilege.

It's coming and it's approaching about two decades almost, of

being able to preach the gospel.

And so I'm excited to be able to continue to preach the gospel this morning.

And so I wanna ask you maybe the biggest question that has been asked for ages,

no matter what country, what the culture, this question has been asked and has been

asked by every one of us at some point, and maybe we believe we've had the answer,

we're still searching for the answer, or we've been convinced of the answer.

But here is the question.

And the question is, what is the purpose of life?

What is the purpose of life?

And really what we're asking is why did God create us?

Why did God create you and me?

You know, there's all kind of answers.

If you go on Google or, or, or whatever it is, or you, you're going,

Bing, tell me like, what's Bing?

That's Microsoft version.

That's the one I use.

I'm sorry.

I'm like one of the three people that use that.

Okay.

All right.

And so if you go on any search agent, you type it, you'll

find all kind of crazy answers.

You'll kind of find all, all you'll find kind of answers that that are ridiculous.

Some that are thought provoking, but many of us have asked these questions.

Maybe we had a philosophy class or in school or just talking with somebody and

we've heard some things that are obviously wrong, or we've heard people humbly say,

you know, I don't know the answer to that.

Yes.

And so many are searching for meaning and purpose through college, through

jobs, through money achievement, through dating relationships,

through good old classic TikTok.

Let me just say something real quick, quickly about TikTok.

There's a lot of good information you can get on TikTok.

I, I like TikTok.

Did you?

I learned how like to properly put in a trashcan bag through TikTok.

Did you see that one man?

Check that one out.

That one's cool.

You're like, oh, I've been doing it wrong my whole life.

But you don't wanna depend on TikTok for the meaning of life.

And no, there might be some people that say something good, but just

don't depend on TikTok for your life.

Save meaning the purpose.

Okay?

Now some here and some online, you will probably say, you know, I don't know the

answer to that question, and I'm confident that there are many in here who will say,

I do know the answer to that question.

You.

So then the question would be, for those of us who would say we do, the

question is, do we still believe it?

Or maybe the question is, are we living like we know what the

meaning and purpose of life is?

So we are beginning today a series that we are calling Made for More,

in which we're going to explore and discover God's plan for our lives.

And we're gonna look at several aspects of life and see how God has made us for more.

Even when we think about relationships, how God has made us for more than what

we think when it comes to relationships, our significance, we all want.

And our life to matter.

We see how God has made us for even more than we can thank or consider.

And maybe the one I'm looking forward to the most is talking about

how God made us for more than just money, sex, possessions and titles.

Come back for that one.

Amen.

Lord willing, I'll be able to preach on that one.

And so we're gonna start off today by looking at how God has made us four more.

And so this will be a little bit of an introduction.

So a little bit of a general look at the things that, so we might repeat a couple

things here over the next couple weeks, but we wanna really discover, and not so

much our personal, what does he want me to do, but what has he made all of us for?

What has the general idea and desire that God had when he made us?

And so we're gonna study this for the next several weeks churches.

So let's go ahead and let's go to God at prayer.

Father, thank you so much for this chance to get into your word.

God, I know.

I'm excited about what you have, uh, uh, been reminding me of,

uh, over the last couple days.

And God, I pray that you will not only inspire, but you will ignite in us

a desire and a conviction about why you created us and God, how we don't

wanna settle for for less, but God, we want to really be aligned with your

will and live out our true purpose.

We pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

All right.

First thing off, we have to understand here, before we can talk about being made

for more and different aspects of life, we have to establish the very foundation.

And that is this, that God created us for His purpose, you and I, all

of mankind, from the beginning until the end, we were all created for his.

Purpose.

Let's look at a couple scriptures here.

Colossians chapter one, and in in this passage here, we won't have

enough time to read all of it, but it's talking about the supremacy of

Christ, and it says, for in Him all things were created, things in heaven

and on earth, visible and invisible.

Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have be, have

been created through him and for him.

Did you catch that for him?

Let's go on over to Ephesians chapter one, and this is talking about the

riches in treasures that we have of being in Christ, meaning we're in a right

relationship with God through Jesus.

It says He predestined us for adoption, the sonship through Jesus Christ, in

accordance with his pleasure and will.

We jump over to Revelation four, we get a glimpse of of, of the heavenly seen.

And it says, you are worthy, our Lord and our God to receive glory

and honor and power for you, created all things and by your will they

were created and have their being.

We are created for his pleasure and will.

We are created by his will.

We are created for him.

And so this is so pivotal in understanding our purpose and our

meaning in life because if we veer from that, we're gonna get messed up.

And what this reveals here is this, that it's not about what we were

made for, but who we were made for.

It's not about what we were made for, but who.

We were made for.

You see, we weren't made for something.

We were made for someone.

I'll say that again.

We weren't made for something.

We were made for someone, and as someone is our creator, our God, the ruler

of all creation, you know, I love the quote in the Purpose-Driven Life book.

He says, we were made by God for God.

We were made by God.

For God revealing here again, our very existence is for God and his

purpose, what he deems, what His will and what his pleasure is.

That's our very existence.

We are made for him and not the other way.

Did you catch that we are made for him and not the other way around?

You see, God is our creator and we are the created

creation's.

Purpose is for the creator.

Let's think of technology for a second.

We all have phones or laptops or whatever it is.

Those days were created by man for man's pleasure and will.

Correct.

But some of us, we switched it and we're a slave to our phone, aren't we?

Where's my phone?

Where's my phone?

But those things were made.

They tho those things were made by man for man's design.

Pleasure and will.

Do you guys get what I'm saying?

So we are made by God for God's purpose, pleasure and will.

Let's pause on that.

How does that make you?

Take a note.

We're go ahead and write down, honestly, how does that make you feel?

Happy, bad, sad, offended, disappointed, excited, grateful.

You see, this question hits at our very core because usually when we

think or study, read, or discuss or learn or listen to, when we talk about

purpose, it usually starts with us as the starting point and the destination.

We start with us and the destination is somehow us again.

You know, there's this song that I love here.

It says, in his pride, the wicked man does not seek him in all his thoughts.

There is no room for God.

You see, we don't have to necessarily even be quote unquote wicked

to be able to relate to this.

You see, when we start off thinking about our purpose, we always, what?

We start with us?

What do we want?

What do we like?

What do we desire?

And how will it what benefit us?

And we exclude or crowd out our creator who's actually the one

who designed and made us with his specific purpose in minds.

And so when we start with us, we go in the wrong direction.

And so that means we need to start with God, so we can start off on the right.

And remain there.

You guys get me?

Like marriage or a family?

I mentioned my family in marriage earlier.

Let's say I started with the purpose that, you know what, Karina and the kids, yeah.

They're there to serve me.

How you think that's gonna go?

He said Good luck.

Yeah, good luck.

If you know Karina, you know that ain't gonna go well for me.

Think about it.

If I go, you know, I wanna get married so that it will help me in my taxes,

it would, I wanna get married cuz it'll provide someone to comfort me, to be

there for me, to love me, to help me.

Do you see something consistent in my thinking?

Where did I start with me?

Where did I want to end up with me?

So if I start with my kids, oh, I can't wait to have kids, kids.

Guess what they're gonna do all the.

You better hurry up.

Come on, Dominique.

Well, you can vacuum.

I know you can't lift that thing, but you can vacuum.

Yeah, I might get served, but long term there's gonna be a significant problem.

Is it there?

But also what I'm not actually gonna achieve what I even desire because there's

gonna be frustration and challenges that will prevent even what I want.

So again, when we start with our purpose being about, and for us, we're

starting off on the wrong path and we're never going to end up to, even

to the good things that we desire.

So this is why we must remember we are created for God's purpose.

I go back to that question, how does it make you feel if there is a little bit

of a rumbling or a, a pause, a hesitation or a a, something that might be negative.

I believe that we would come to that state or conclusion when we might

consider God to be somehow in his character or nature to be either bad

or simple terms mean in some way.

Like I would be fearful or hesitant to wanna follow a God if I think that he

is somehow mean bad, corrupt, or unjust.

So therefore, the idea of being made for his purposes, that

doesn't sound too appealing.

But here's the thing.

We have to remember.

God's nature and character First John four says it twice that God is love.

It doesn't say that God has love.

It doesn't say that God is even loving God is.

Love his very character.

His nature is love.

So there's no need to fear Be sad because that's who he is.

So let's think about this for a second.

If God is love and we were made by God for God, then we can easily rephrase

this and come to this statement that we were created by Love for Love.

Marinate on that for a second.

We were made by, we were created by Love for Love because God is love.

We could also say this as well, that love created you for love's purpose.

Is that still scary?

Is that still disappointing?

Is that still somehow, wow, I have to relinquish all of this for love.

Again, we're not talking romantic love, we're talking about love in its totality.

So let's remember this purpose for a quick second.

Church, are you still with me here?

Let's remember, what is love's purpose there?

What is God's purpose?

Well, we know there's several things, but the main one, the first one,

the greatest one, is a relationship, is for us to be relational.

Relational with each other, but most of all relational with our creator.

Let's look at what Jesus says.

He's asked this question, teacher, what is the what?

Which is the greatest commandment in the.

Jesus replied, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all

your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the first and greatest commandment.

And the second is like it.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.

The greatest commandment that Jesus reveals is to love God with

all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, basically with what?

With everything.

Now, when you love God, with all your heart, mind, soul is strength.

What does that do to you and God and your connection to each other

comes together, doesn't it?

But it's not just we come together.

There's the most intimate in depth of relationships.

So in essence, what Jesus reveals the number one desire, the number one thing

that God has in mind for you and me, and our purpose and our very existent.

Is to have this loving relationship with our creator, for us to have

depth, for us to have intense love and devotion and loyalty.

That's love's purpose when love created us.

But some challenges come in our lives.

Would you agree?

I see Chris nodding his head Yes, he is.

Some challenges.

Here's one challenge or one problem that occurs is when we don't view

our relationship with God like this, but we start to have the,

uh, Aladdin and Genie relationship.

Y'all remember Aladdin number?

You do.

If you don't, man, the movie's been out like 30 plus years.

Okay, so I'm gonna spoil a little bit for you.

Look, just go ahead and watch it.

Okay?

All right.

It's 30, you're 30 years late.

Okay.

But so we know from Aladdin, right?

Aladdin ha.

He begins, you know, we can't get to the whole thing, but Aladdin comes up

on a little, what's that little thing in Majig that the lamp, there you go.

All right, come on.

Hallelujah.

All right.

The lamp, right?

He's got the lamp.

The Jie pops out.

He's supposed to get three wishes.

Now, during this time, they start to build a friendship

with a famous song comes, right?

You ain't never had a friend like me.

Can we go ahead and sing that afterwards?

Hey man, I do wanna sing it, but you know, my nose is still a little congested,

so I feel like I can't hit that note.

All right.

So any household during this time, they have this relationship.

They're building a friendship, but now Aladdin has what he thinks he

wants, even though he's been lying.

He has what he thinks he wants, and then it gets to the point where he goes

back on what he promised to Jeanie.

He said, with my third wish, I'll set you free, but when the time

comes he, he goes, I can't do that.

I need you.

To be there so that I can have what I want.

And he's hurt by this.

I thought we were friends, but Aladdin's heart is exposed.

No, no, no.

We're not really friends.

You're just there to serve me, to give me what I want.

And desire.

Desire.

We can view God as one who is there like a genie, to grant us our desires and wishes.

The one who is to serve us instead of us being created for him.

He's created for us and our purposes will and pleasure.

And so he's supposed to give me what I want and pray for.

And whenever I go and I do my religious thing with my religious

lamp, therefore God is supposed to come and say, I'll grant you your.

But then what happens when he doesn't grant you that wish?

Get bitter.

We get bitter.

Well, God, why did it you I did this.

You promised this.

Why?

Because our view of God is he's supposed to serve us.

So now the Christianity thing, I don't know if it really works.

I don't know if his promises are true.

You know what?

Maybe I'll quits and leave God so I can get what I want.

I will make it happen.

And you relate it on.

Again, it can lead to also say, you know what?

I'm still, I know this is right and I can't leave it,

but you know what I'm gonna do?

We don't say this consciously.

What we say it subconsciously is, I'll hold back some of my loyalty.

Do I still come to.

I'll still go ahead and clap.

I'll still pray.

I'll meet up with people, but I'm not fully devoted cuz you haven't given

me what I think you should give me.

So we can have this view.

We could also have this kind of view in our relationship with God.

This is, I know some of you are like, what is that?

There was this thing called an ATM machine back in the day when we used cash.

Remember those days?

So here's the cool thing.

All right?

So maybe it's this section over here.

So this thing called a ATM machine, right?

So you would take this card, you would put it, and it would

give you money back, right?

Coolest thing ever.

You know what I just discovered?

I, I'll be honest, I'm, I'm telling on myself like two years.

If I found that you could actually deposit money in there

at two, I didn't even know that.

I'm telling you I only had withdrawals.

Okay.

You know what I'm saying?

Andre's like, just deposit.

Like, what do you mean you can deposit at atl?

I always go inside the bank.

This is crazy.

Sorry again.

I'm going on a tangent.

All right.

So what happens when we view God like an ATM machine?

It's a transactional, transac transactional relationship.

You see at the atm, you don't sit up here and talk and have a conversation.

Hey, atm, how you doing?

You would look foolish.

You know, this ATM serves a specific purpose.

There's a transaction that takes place.

Either I make a deposit or I have a withdrawal.

And so we treat God like this.

We go to God.

I'll give my deposit, I'll give my prayer, I'll give my offering,

and I expect a bigger withdrawal.

I'll go to you when I'm in need.

Oh, I'm in indeed.

God, my life's a mess.

So let me run to you, and as soon as God gets it,

you're the atm.

I'll go to you when I need you.

But when I.

So there's no real relationship.

The transaction, and this gets in the way of us fulfilling our true purpose.

And we don't experience life to the fool the way Jesus says

we would when we follow him.

And I've had both of these in my life.

We used to watch a lot of health and wealth preachers growing up.

And so we would see this and I'd think, yeah, you know, God should bless me,

or I'd run to God when I needed things.

Or I say, God, you, you, man, I, I've heard all my life how

you're supposed to bless it.

Let me, let me claim by blessing.

It was all about me and mind purposes.

This is why it's so vital that you and I, we remember that we are

made and created for his purpose.

You guys get what I'm saying, brothers?

And.

We're created for his purpose.

We're made for someone, not something.

We have to remember this, we have to accept this, we have to understand this.

And most of all, we have to embrace this because we're not serving

the worshiping, the following.

The God who is mean and just and cruel for the guy who is what?

Love.

Love created us for love's, purposes, and here's the thing, Christianity, our

faith, but honestly just, just the world.

It makes more sense when we have the vantage point or the viewpoint

and the lens of we're made for God.

Even take our worship what, what we realize that we, we

embrace, Hey, we're made for God.

Then worship actually becomes about God and not about styles and

preferences or selection of songs.

Yes.

Not talent but me experiencing and worshiping my creator.

Our peace, our quality of life through our peace, joy.

A clear conscience comes from living for God and living in response

to our relationship with God.

Through our quality of life is viewed differently and experienced differently.

Even if we think about our priorities and our daily life choices, what we

realize and embrace and follow that we're created, then we're actually are

aligned and directed on the right path.

Instead of having the wrong view of living for ourselves, we get

aligned with our true purpose and instead of veering, we go right into

the middle of the path of eternity.

And so as we conclude, I have two questions here for you.

How is God ministered to you today?

Take some time today to go ahead, reflect on it, answer that, pray about

it, have a discussion over lunch about it, and this next one here as well.

So what steps should you take next?

How has God minister, what has he said to you today and what

do you believe is the next step?

Again, we are made for God's purposes.

Not about what we were made for, but who we were made for.

And it starts with the relationship with God.

And if you don't have it today, whether you're online or you're here with us

today, I, I'd encourage you to seek help and to trust me, the brothers and

sisters here in the church will be more than happy and more than willing to

help you to discover and have a real relationship with God for some of us.

It's time to get back to treating God like he's our creator.

Again, not as an ATM and not as a genie, but as the one who loves us.

It created us for a relationship and others.

As you reflect on this, you may rejoice, may you are experiencing this.

You are you.

You are living this out.

You can testify to it, then hallelujah.

Here's my encouragement.

Then go and share that with others and help them to have it

as well through rejoice in it.

But then bring somebody along with you.

We'll close out in Colossians chapter one.

For In Him all things were created, things in heaven and

on earth, visible and invisible.

Whether thrones or powers or rulers, or authorities, all things that be

created through him and for him.

Brothers and sisters, we are made for more.