Repacking Your Bags on Purpose

A sermon preached by Dr. James Flamming
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, September 19, 2004 

Scripture: 1 Samuel 17 

God has an affinity for purpose. The cycles of nature happen for a purpose.

When it comes to people, people without a purpose, loose their spark, their life, their direction. God chose Noah for a purpose, and Abraham, and Ruth, and David, and Paul. Jesus came for a purpose. When a man or woman lose their faith, their purpose in life, they have lost the conviction that their lives are important.  

What an encouraging sign that millions of copies of The Purpose Driven Life have been sold and are being read. How encouraging that so many of our people have signed up to take the forty day journey. Not because you will agree with all of it. One of our finest, a leader in our church and in our city, was telling me how much that book had meant to him. When asked him what he thought about a certain piece in the book he said, “Oh, I don’t believe that. But this is a great book for a guy like me to read. I have had to ask some tough questions about myself and what I am doing with my life. I can’t tell you the changes that book has made in my life.” 

You see, when a person has discovered that they are here for a purpose, they are on the way to finding themselves. You can tell the difference. When a person has found their God-given purpose in life, it shows. It influences. It spreads hope. You may not agree with everything in this book. But you are going to have to confront some stuff you may have ignored all of your life, even if you’ve gone to church forever. A person who knows what he or she is here for is energized.  

Repacking Your Bags

Sometimes it is time to repack your bags on purpose because of where you are in life. The purpose God has for a seventeen year old is not apt to be the same as a 37 year old or a seventy year old. If you were a chef you might say, “It is time to change the recipes.” If you were a coach you might say, “It is time to change the game plan.” If you were a tour-guide you might say, “It is time to change the map.” In life, sometimes it is time to repack your bags on purpose. That can come at any age from the teenage years on to the afternoon times of life.  

Teenage Years – Face the Challenge

Let’s begin with the teenage David. You know the story of how David, a teenager, slew Goliath the giant. Teenagers these days have to slay lots of giants: drugs, drink, sexual promiscuity, drifting with the crowd, and maybe the biggest giant of all, a desperate need to be accepted and acceptable.  

Let me retell the story. The infant nation of Israel was in trouble. Saul, a King with much promise, had become all wrapped up in himself. God was now an afterthought. Things are coming apart. Samuel was the Wise Man of the era. God said to Samuel go to Jesse’s house near Bethlehem and there you will anoint the next King. Samuel went. Seven brothers were paraded by him. The oldest was especially bright, good looking, and of leadership caliber. But God said no. “Is there no one else?” asked Samuel. “No. This is all of them. Well, we do have the kid out in the field, tending the sheep. But you would not be interested in him.” “Bring him to me,” said Samuel. They did. God said, “This is the one.”  Samuel had learned not to question God but to obey. So he anointed David as the next King.  

What a strange day that was for Jesse’s household. The kid nobody paid any attention to had been anointed King. Then Samuel just said goodbye and left. Nothing changed. Saul was still king. David was still the runt, the youngest, the eighth son out tending the sheep. During this time the Philistines looked like they would occupy all of Israel. The Giant Goliath struck fear into everyone. He handled a heavy spear like a drum major handles a baton. Jesse, David’s father, sent David with food for his brothers who were in the army. You know the story. David saw the Giant and said, “I will fight him.” With Goliath taunting him and making fun of his age and size, David took five smooth stones from the brook. David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty. . .” On that day David, the teenager, felled Goliath with a slingshot and a smooth stone from the brook.  

I love the phrase, “As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he felled the giant. (1 Sam. 17:40, p. 447) Young people, I ask you these days to spend some time kneeling down selecting some smooth stones that you can use to fell the giants in your life. And then with the challenges of life before you, move to meet them.  

I was fascinated this week by an article about a UVA linebacker named Kai Parham. Twenty years ago he was born five weeks early and still weighed eight pounds, seven ounces. He is now 6-3, 250 pounds and must be solid muscle. He is a starting inside linebacker who his coach describes as being blessed with a physique and a muscle capacity that’s just different than most.” He has a David type spirit within him. Deeply religious he speaks often of his Christian faith. He teaches a Bible study in a campus ministry, the Impact Movement, which promotes evangelism and discipleship among African Americans at UVA. He was quoted as saying, “When I’m out there on the field, first of all I understand that God has definitely placed me here at this time to really touch people. Just though the life I live I understand he’s allowed me to play the game for his glory. 

Like the young man David, a purpose driven life.  

Survival

But David’s life took a radical turn. King Saul became jealous of his abilities and his success. At one point Saul had his whole army chasing him. It would be twenty years before David became King David.  Twenty years! In the meantime God’s purpose for David was just to survive. Sometimes God’s great purpose for you is just to survive. You’ve lost a loved one, been through a divorce, or you’ve lost your job, or you are battling cancer - God’s purpose for you is probably just to survive. Because if you don’t survive everything gets worse. What if David had not survived his years in the wilderness? 

Look at the seasons of David’s life: First, David takes care of the sheep. Then he is a warrior. Then a survivor. Then an organizer. Finally a king. For our musicians, at every stage he seems to have been a musician. Each part of David’s journey built upon the past. Your purpose in life enlarges as the journey changes.  

Ruth – Commitment is Crucial

Now, sometimes God’s greatest purpose is in raising children. It involves the grand purpose of being a mother. I think of the Old Testament story of Ruth.  

The story begins when a Jewish couple moved to Moab during a severe drought in Israel. The man’s name was Elimelech and the wife’s name was Naomi. They settled down and raised their two sons. Then tragedy hit. A plague swept the land. Naomi lost her husband and her two sons. All she had left were her two daughters-in-law. One was named Orpah (not Oprah but Orpah) and Ruth. Both were The famine was over in Israel and Naomi knew she must go home where she had family. Ruth, her Moabite daughter-in-law, wanted to go with her. Ruth said, “No, you must stay. Your family is here in Moab.” But Ruth knew she had a spiritual family which was as important as her birth family. She turned and said to Naomi the words of commitment which have been passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years: “Where you go I will go. Where you lodge I will lodge. Your people will be my people, and your God my God.” So they go together, both in compounded sorrow.  

When they arrive in Israel, Naomi goes to the area where her family is. Boaz is her, kinsman-redeemer, the one who could take her in as part of his family. She sends Ruth to glean in his fields. He sees her. In time they fall in love. In time they have a family. The great purpose of Ruth was to raise that family. In Ruth 4:16,17 we discover that their son is named Obed, who is the father of Jesse, who is the father of David. A thousand years later the Gospel of Matthew will point out that Ruth, the gentile Moabitess, is in the lineage, the ancestry of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Moses – Crowned with Purpose

You may be saying to yourself by now, “I’m retired. Purpose is for younger folks. At my age, I’m just living out my days.” Carl Jung, the great Swiss Psychiatrist, suggested that all of us will step into “the afternoon of life.”  

The question is not whether, but how. Consider Moses. Moses was a herdsman. Raised in Pharoah’s splendor and wealth, he develops a conscience about the way his people, the enslaved Hebrews, are being treated. One day in defense of a Hebrew man who is being beaten, he killed an Egyptian and had to run for his life. He hid out in the land of Midian and eventually married into the priestly family of a foreign religion. His father-in-law’s name was Jethro. (Ex. 3:1-3, p. 90) Moses is, frankly just living out his days. He is a herdsman in the afternoon of his life.  

As all herdsman did in those days, he spent lot of time with nature. But God shakes him up through a bush, burning but not consumed. Many of you have heard that story countless times. But have you caught the symbolism of it. The bush is burning but not burned up. Moses still has a fire burning within him, and it is not burned out. God knows this even if Moses doesn’t.  

In the afternoon of his life, Moses became a purpose driven man, leading his people out of bondage in Egypt, across the desert, and to the edge of the Promised Land. All of this was done in the afternoon, the final third of his life.  

In the New Testament, when our Lord is transfigured on the mountain top, two join him: Moses and Elijah.  Both were way past middle age when God’s purpose for their lives reached fullness. If you think living a purpose driven life is only for younger people, you’d better look at Moses and Elijah.   

Esther – Circumstances Matter

Now suppose you say to me, boy, this is all beyond me. I was not raised in the church. I do not know the Bible. Asking about God’s plan for my life is way beyond me.  

Well, God’s purpose doesn’t always have to come with religious wrappings. Take the Old Testament story of Esther, which is told in the book that bears her name. In Esther religious words are almost non-existent. The only one is when Esther asks the people to fast three days before she goes before the King. All of the story takes place in Persia during that time when the Jews were carried away from the Promised Land into exile. 

Esther was raised as an orphan by her Uncle Mordecai. She grew up to be a talented and beautiful young adult woman.  

Mordecai got word that a terrorist plot was being hatched up. It involved ethnic cleansing – killing all of the Jews. Mordecai knew two things about the King. He tended to listen to the last person who spoke to him. And he was partial to beautiful women. Mordecai went to Esther and asked if she would be willing, as part of the King’s court, to seek an audience with the King. It was very risky. Her life was on the line. Then come some lines that have spoken through the centuries: Esther 4:14b – p. 780) “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this.”  Esther asks Mordecai to ask all the Jews to fast for three days for her and then she would go before the King. She did. The Jews are spared. Esther did come into God’s plan for such a time as this.