Psalm 139:1-10, 14-16 Luke 4:1-13

There was a truck driver who was carrying a load of penguins to the Cincinnati Zoo when his truck broke down. While he was standing on the road trying to figure out what to do, a second truck came along and he flagged it down. He said to the man, “I'll give you $500 if you will take my penguins to the zoo.” The man agreed to that. Later that day, the first truck driver finally got his truck going and drove into downtown Cincinnati. While he was down there, he saw the second truck driver walking on the street with the penguins walking behind him. He stopped and said to the man, “I thought I had given you $500 to take the penguins to the zoo!” The man said, “I did. I had money left over so now I am taking them to the movies.” Sometimes we have difficulty communicating our purposes!

It is hard to believe but six years ago I asked the congregation to study the book, The Purpose Driven Life. Hoping not only could I communicate our purposes here at Pilgrim but with the help of that book written by Rev. Rick Warren, everyone would discover their purposes, too. Rev. Rick Warren said that we should review them every year. I am feeling a little guilty because it has been six years since I have gone over them. I do need to go over them again now. It's time. It is true that we all ask the question, “What am I here for?” “Who are all these people?” “What am I supposed to do with my life?” I know that since my illness exactly a year ago, I wake up some mornings asking that question, “What am I here for?” and realizing that I am here for the same reason I was before my illness. It is the same reason we are all here and that is to give God glory. Rick Warren says, “You were made by God, you were made for God and unless you understand that, you will never understand your life.” Now that makes a lot of sense to me. I've shared with you before that when I was in seminary, we studied the works of a French existential philosopher named Jean Paul Sartré. He wrote a book that was highly discouraging. He said that because he had no purpose and because he had no meaning, everything in life made him nauseous. If he reached for a doorknob and touched the doorknob, he felt like throwing up because it was meaningless. If he went through the door, it was meaningless. If he stayed on the other side of the door, it was meaningless. The gist of it was that without purpose and belief in God, there is no meaning to life. So purpose gives us direction. Purpose gives us motivation. Purpose gives us focus and focus gives us meaning. It becomes extremely important that we learn our purpose and we focus on our purpose and we celebrate our purpose and we live our purpose.

God explained our purpose in a way that I didn't understand until six years ago when I was reading Rev. Warren's book and reading scripture along beside it. I discovered that God wanted company. God wanted friends. So he made people and he made angels to be His friends, to be His company. It is fairly clear in the Bible once you see it. It is in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, where God wanted to walk with His first people, Adam and Eve. He wanted to talk with them. He wanted to spend the evening with them. Then in the very last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, it says that God is making His dwelling with people and when all things come together, His purposes are fulfilled. Once again, the people who have been faithful and baptized and have belief will be with Him. He will walk with them; He will share His life with them.

Throughout the rest of the Bible, there are other instances where this revelation is made known as well. In the book of Exodus, God tells Moses to create a dwelling place, a tabernacle, a tent, where His presence can be felt and He can be recognized as dwelling with His people. We come to the New Testament and what is one of the words used to define Jesus Christ? Emmanuel. Emmanuel means God with us. So in the person of Jesus Christ, God was making it known that He wants to be our friend, that He wants to dwell with us. I want to read you just a short little phrase that appears in John 15. Jesus is talking to His disciples. It is coming close to His end time here on earth. He says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lays down his life for his friends. And you are my friends.” So, our purpose is to become a friend of God. We might do that through Jesus Christ, recognizing and seeing Him as a brother; not only as a brother but a close brother that we have and share a friendship with. Or we might see it through the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us and makes us His temple. We might see it in the community of faith where He resides within all of us. He said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there.” As we go to communion this morning, we make Him present among us. He wants to be our friend. He wants to dwell with us&even in our own hearts.

So what do you do with a good friend? You share your thoughts, your feelings, and your troubles. You listen to that friend and let that friend share whatever message that friend has for you. So those are the kinds of things that we are trying to do with God. Some of you may have been exposed to a book that is on the best seller list that came out this past year called The Shack. Have any of you read it yet? Some of you have. It is a fascinating book and I want to recommend it to all of you. Of course it is just one man's opinion. In this book (it is a fictional book) he describes a dad, a father, who lost a daughter who was murdered. The murderer carried the body off and hid it some place in the woods after killing the little girl in a shack. The dad finally gets up the courage to go to the shack. He wants to look for the body of the little girl so she can have a proper burial. He held himself responsible for her death because he was out saving another of his children whose canoe had tipped over at the time. I am not going to give you the whole story or I will ruin it for you but as he is in the shack, he meets the triune God in three fascinating ways. As I read this, overwhelmingly, I thought, (Paul Young is the author) “He's really captured the essence of God wanting to be our friend and we needing to be God's friend. He's captured the purpose of the human being in a very unique way. For some people, you'll find that it is very comforting as it gives you a whole new understanding of the Trinity - the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you don't read it, it is OK, too, but I highly recommend you get it and read it. It does give quite an interesting way of framing the Trinity, explaining the Trinity, and getting the message across that God wants to befriend us. It is fascinating. So think about buying the book and maybe run out and get it after the service today or some time during the next week or so.

The message is clear. God is crazy about you and about me. If we were to take the word GOD and substitute the word LOVE as it appears in scripture (because He reveals in the first epistle of John that His very essence is love), we would get phrases like this&”Love created us.” “Love sustains us.” “Love saves us.” “Love destines us for eternity.” “Love wants to walk with us in this life.” “Love wants to give us love.” “That love is our friend.” That love is God. Admit it. He loves you. He wants you for friendship.