The Purpose Test

Welcome to Worshiping the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm your host, Patrick, and today we're concluding Pastor Robert's series, From Dream to Destiny.

This series has been truly incredible. Joseph and Genesis as he went from a young boy with a dream to his destiny as a powerful, life-saving leader. It wasn't an easy ride. He had many trials, successes, and mistakes, but in the end, the tests he went through equipped him to truly step into the destiny God had for him.

It's the same with each of us. We've all been given a dream, and there's a journey we need to take to prepare us for where God will place us. Today, we'll close this series learning about the purpose test, which is about discovering and faithfully using the gifts God has given you. This is a great word, so let's tune in with Pastor Robert now.

Open your Bibles, and thank you for bringing your Bibles. Open your Bibles to Genesis 45, and then put a marker at Romans chapter 12, and this is the last message in our series, Dream to Destiny, and today it's called the purpose test. How can we know what God's purpose is for our lives? Is His purpose, is it our job?

What is His purpose, and how do we know God's purpose, and how do we fulfill that purpose? And we're backing up a little bit from last week. Chronologically, last week we were in Genesis 50. If you remember, Joseph's father, Jacob, had died. Okay, in Genesis 45, this is the first time that Joseph sees his brothers since they sold him as a slave. He is now 39 years old.

They had seven good years from the time he was 30 until he was 37. Now they've had two years of famine, and the brothers have come to Egypt to try to buy grain, all right? So that's where we pick up the story, and Joseph recognizes them and has them come into his presence. Genesis 45, verse 3. Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph.

Does my father still live? But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. And Joseph said to his brothers, please come near to me. So they came near, and then he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me. Please remember those three words. God sent me before you to preserve life.

For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me, he says it again, before you to preserve a posterity or a remnant for you and the earth and to save your lives by great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God. Third time he references that God sent him.

And he's made me a father to Pharaoh and lord of all his house and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Joseph finally realizes, I believe at this moment that his purpose in life, that God had this purpose for him. So how can you know and discover your purpose? Here's number one.

I'm gonna tell you four things, all right? Number one, believe that you have a purpose. Believe that you have a purpose.

Do you realize this is the number one question really deep down in all of our hearts? What's my purpose? Does God even have a purpose for me? Please understand, God is a purposeful God. He is not a purposeless God. God, everything he created has a purpose. God didn't create anything without a purpose. Ecclesiastes 3, 1 says to everything, there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. When you look at everything that God created, you can see God created trees with a purpose, animals with a purpose, people with a purpose.

I don't know what the purpose for insects was, but anyway, everything else God has a purpose for. He is a purposeful God and he has a purpose for your life. Now, the best way to discover your purpose is to look at how God made you, because God made each of us unique. So how did God make you? I went to the store yesterday and I bought something and I'm trying to figure out what its purpose is.

And maybe you can help me. I'm thinking if we look at it, we could figure out, we could decide what is the purpose of this thing. So look at it with me. Tell me if you know what the purpose of this is. See, I'm thinking if we look at how it's created, we could figure out the purpose.

Now, I have some hypotheses. I think if you put it on the ground like that and stood back, you could use it as a ring toss game. Maybe that's the purpose of it.

Or if you put it in the ground like this, it could be a hummingbird birdbath. Possibly. Or I thought again, there's something that makes me kind of want to do like this with this. So I'm thinking maybe it's a large cookie cutter.

Would you like for me to make some cookies? OK. All right. So anyway. Now, I thought of one other purpose. Possibly it looks like it has suction. Possibly it's a hat for bald men that won't blow off in the wind.

I'm sorry, guys. OK. No. What is the name of this? A plunger. OK. We're not going to go into the details of its use, but I think we all know what it's for. But the point is, you can look at it and see that the designer had a specific purpose in mind when he designed this.

Listen to me. The designer had a specific purpose in mind for you when he designed you. Here's what you want to do is figure out what you look like in the spirit, not in the natural. What do you look like in the spirit? By the way, if you have the ministry of deliverance, you look like this.

That tells you what I think of demons, doesn't it? All right. So number one, believe you have a purpose.

Here's number two. Understand that God is in control. Understand God's in control for you to be able to fulfill your purpose. You're going to go through some difficulties.

You're going to have some setbacks. People are going to say things and do things that are wrong or rumors or lies. But you have to understand that God has a purpose for your life and that God is in control. Think about this in verse five. Joseph said, Don't be grieved or angry, but for God sent me.

What a great attitude. Verse seven. And God sent me. And verse eight. So it was not you who sent me, but God. These are the same guys that sold him to be a slave when he was 17 years old for the rest of his life.

Joseph was sold as a slave and then he was wrongfully accused and went to prison. But the whole time he understood that God was in control, that God had a plan for his life. I've said this throughout this whole series. I want to say it again. No one can derail you from your destiny but you. Get over it.

If people said something about you or did something to you or somehow caused some sort of offense, and all of us have had that, get over it. Stop believing that you're not going to be able to fulfill your purpose because of what someone else did. Romans 8 28 says, And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. God has a purpose for your life. And even when things go wrong, He is working everything for our good. Isaiah 55 verses 10 and 11 says, As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater.

Now watch this. So is my word that goes out of my mouth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I said it. You know what God is saying there? When I speak, my word will never return without accomplishing the purpose for which I said it. Do you believe that? God's word has the power to produce the purpose for which He said it.

Now, here's the good news. He has spoken over you. God has spoken a purpose for your life.

He has spoken something over you. And if you will allow these character traits, humility to be developed. We talked about the pride test.

I've seen more people derailed from the destiny God has for them because of pride. Or purity test or the power test. All of a sudden something comes in and instead of passing that test, we are derailed.

But here's the great news. Remember with God, if you fail the test, you can take it again. You can take it again because God wants to get you to your destiny. You realize if you believe that God is in control, you're an optimist. That's really the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that the optimist believes, hey, God's in control.

It's okay. God will turn this situation. But a pessimist is always looking at the bad side, always expecting the worst to happen, and always looking at things like, yeah, that's the way it is.

That's the way my life works out. I don't know if you heard about the pessimistic parachutist. But the sergeant said, now listen, there's going to be a plane that's going to get up to 10,000 feet and you'll jump out and you take your right hand, put it on your left shoulder, pull the ripcord and your chute will open. If for some reason it doesn't open, you take your left hand, put it on your right shoulder, pull your emergency cord, and your emergency chute will open and you'll land in a field about 10 miles north of town and there will be some trucks waiting for you there that will bring you back to town. So the guy, sure enough, he gets on the plane and he says to the guy beside him, I bet this plane can't even get up 10,000 feet.

Well, sure enough, it did. So he jumped out. He took his right hand, put it on his left shoulder, pulled the chute, it didn't open. He said, I knew it. I knew my chute will not open. So he took his left hand, put it on his right shoulder, pulled the emergency cord and it didn't open. And he said, I knew it.

And then the last thing his buddies heard him say while he was passing was, and I'll bet them trucks are going to be late too. If you're just tuning in, this is Worshiping the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. Today we're concluding Pastor Robert's From Dream to Destiny series with a message about discovering our purpose. To get a copy of this or any of Pastor Robert's other messages, visit pastorrobert.com or call 833-933-4.

Now let's return to Pastor Robert. So number one, believe that you have a purpose. Number two, understand that God is in control. Number three, discover your gift and your direction.

Now this is very, very important. If you are going to fulfill the destiny God has on your life, find out what your gift is. God has given your gift. Now flip over to Romans 12 and I'm going to show you a list of what we call, pastors, leaders, teachers, theologians call the motivational gifts. These are gifts that motivate you or that are natural for you.

They're the way you look at life and you have one of these gifts. Romans chapter 12, look at verse four, Romans 12 verse four. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. And now he's going to list seven gifts. If prophecy, if that's your gift, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith or ministry, let us use it in our ministry. He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality, he who leads with diligence and he who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Now what I did was I gave these seven gifts names to kind of describe their function.

All right, so if you want to write these down, we'll put them up on the screen so you can. First of all, number one is a motivator. A person with a gift of prophecy is a motivator. He or she desires to motivate people to serve God. That is the motivation of his life or her life is always trying to motivate others to serve God. Number two is a servant. The Bible says ministry, but the Greek word for ministry here is diaconia, which means serving. So a servant, a servant desires to meet needs of people on a practical basis.

This is the person, you know people like this. These are the people that at the restaurant, now this is in a restaurant, when we finish eating and we're just kind of sitting around talking, they'll begin to gather the plates up, you know, in a restaurant and they'll start cleaning. Okay, because they just have to serve.

They can't just sit there, right? Here's number three, a teacher. A teacher desires to study and present truths to people. This is a person that reads more than one book. This is a person who, you know, gets a Bible software program and loves things like this. And they love, they just love to write me emails and to say, Pastor Robert, I know that you're busy, but just one theological question. Could you explain please the book of Revelation?

If you could just send me, okay. And I can't explain it because I don't understand it. All right, so verse four, not verse four, number four, encourager. These are people who desire to admonish and encourage people.

You know them. They're always encouraging. They love to encourage. I mean, it doesn't matter what happens in your life, they're going to say something encouraging and say, well, I lost my job. Well, God will give you a better one. You say, well, my house burned down.

Well, it was old. You know, it's just, they're just constantly, you know, encouraging. All right, number five, giver. This is a person who desires to meet needs of people on a financial basis. They absolutely love to help people financially, but please hear me. They don't want to help someone who's not going to work hard and obey scriptural principles because they know that really that person's going to wind up right back where they are.

They don't mind giving money, but they also want to give wisdom and counsel to help the person truly, truly help them. Number six is an administrator. Desires to lead people through organization. Now, this is a leader, but it is a very organized leader. Pastor Tom Lane is one of these people. Pastor Tom is absolutely incredible, but he is very, very organized.

Very organized. I'm going to tell you something about him. I'm not saying this in a critical way, but just, Pastor Tom, this is true. Todd, his son is here, can verify. Pastor Tom lines up his french fries. No, this is true.

Is this true? From larger to smaller, and he thinks everyone does that. He doesn't know. He really does. He comes in my office, and when he and I meet, he will literally, while we're meeting, he will reach over and move something one inch on my table. Because it's not lined up. You know, it's got to be lined up.

And when he's not looking, I move it back just to mess with him. But he oversees the staff of over 300 people. So you have to have people like this, and they're wonderful gifts to the body of Christ. Number seven is a sympathizer. This is a person who desires to identify and sympathize with people. You want the mercy people and the encouragers around you when you're going through a difficulty. You don't want the prophets around you, because they don't help.

But the encouragers and the sympathizers, that's who you want around you. Now, let me tell you how you can really see these gifts. If you ever serve on a team in the church, if you ever serve on a committee or a team, you will see these gifts operate. First of all, the leader, the administrator, he's leading the meeting, and he passes out an agenda, and it's a very detailed agenda, and he spent all night working on this agenda. It's very important.

The agenda is very, very important to him. And then somewhere in the meeting, he'll bring up a situation like, now, so-and-so in our church lost his job. Okay, listen, as soon as a person is brought up, gifts go into action.

You have to understand, if you look at all my definitions, they're all about people. Please hear this, your gift has to do with serving and helping people. No matter what your gift is, it has to do with people. So as soon as a person is brought up, the gifts go into action. The leader says, so-and-so in our church lost his job.

Immediately, the gifts go into action. The prophet says, well, he may have sin in his life. We ought to talk to him about this, because it'll help him. Once he gets the sin out, then God can help him. The teacher says, well, if he would do the five steps in 1 Timothy 3, then he'll get another job, because there are steps about how to get a job in the Bible, and they all begin with the same letter, by the way. And so he would tell him that. And the encourager, he's already texting him, hey, Dave, we're praying for you.

Don't worry about it. God's going to take care of it. He's already doing it. The giver, he said, let's take an offering.

I'll give the first hundred. Let's just give an offering. He immediately thinks that way.

The servant has already left the meeting to go buy groceries for the guy. And on the phone, getting people to clean his house, you know, and things, and the mercy person's just over in the corner crying. You know, I mean, that's just, there's your gifts right there. Here's the point I want you to notice about Joseph. Joseph's gift was leadership, and his gift worked everywhere he was in life.

Everywhere. And he didn't wait until he got in a place of authority to lead. He administrated, remember, in Potiphar's house.

He administrated Potiphar's house. Then he goes to prison. He's the chief administrator in the prison. Then he goes to Pharaoh's. But even before that, he was in the pit.

Now, we don't know this for sure, but I'll bet that was the most organized pit you'd ever fall into. He got the whole thing cleaned up and organized and had it all set up, because that's his gift. Here's what I want you to hear. Many, many people say, well, when I get a position, then I'll minister my gift. Now, no, the way you get the position is ministering your gift.

You start now, wherever you are, you start now in your gift, and then that is what opens the door for you. So let me read you, and I thought it was very interesting, President Fox being here today, let me read you about a leader in our country and a little bit of his history and what happened to him, and in a moment I'll tell you who it is. At 22, he failed in business. At 23, he was defeated for the legislature. At 24, he failed in business again. At 26, his wife died.

At 27, he had a nervous breakdown. At 29, defeated for speaker. At 31, defeated for elector. At 34, defeated for Congress. At 39, defeated for Congress again. 46, defeated for Senate. 47 years old, defeated for vice president. 49, he was defeated for Senate again, and at 51, he was elected president of the United States, and that's Abraham Lincoln, who led our country through the only civil war we've ever had and righted the greatest atrocity we ever had in our country. God put him in the right place at the right time, but he didn't wait until he was elected to lead. He knew his gift was leadership, and he just kept moving toward that gift, no matter how many setbacks. Here's what I want to tell you.

I know you've had setbacks. I know you've had difficulties in your life, just like Joseph had, just like Abraham Lincoln had, but please keep being faithful. Keep ministering in your gift, because that's what will open the door. If you remember, the butler and the baker had a dream. Joseph interpreted their dreams.

That's what got him out of prison. What if he had been so consumed with his own problems, he didn't have time to minister to someone else? So no matter what you're going through, be conscious of people around you, minister to them, and your ministry now will cause you to step into your destiny. And here's number four, determine your direction and be faithful.

Determine your direction and be faithful. Now, I'm talking about God's purpose and destiny for your life. I'm talking about that God's given you a gift, which is a direction to move in, all right?

Now, here's what some of you are probably wondering. Well, Pastor Robert, I want to know the specifics of my purpose. I mean, am I supposed to have this job or this occupation or this position? I mean, what are the specifics of my purpose?

And you might even say it this way. Can I know the specifics of my purpose? Yes, you can.

Yes, you can. So your next question might be, when can I know the specifics of my purpose? Okay, here's when you will know after you do them. After you do them, you just begin moving in the direction one step at a time. The Bible says, thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light to my path. Thy word is a bright spotlight that I can see way down the road.

You just take the next step. You be faithful in what God has called you to do and all of a sudden you find yourself as our guest president of a nation affecting thousands of lives because you simply step out and begin moving in the gift that God has called you to do. I want to encourage you. I can't tell you your specific purpose and I'm not sure that God will even tell you all the specifics because that might mess us up. He didn't tell Joseph his specific purpose. He just said, listen, your gift is leadership and you start leading and being faithful where you are and one day you're going to have great influence that's going to help a lot of people. And when Joseph did what God called him to do, that's when he said, listen, it wasn't you who sent me here, it was God. And it was God's purpose to save many people.

Let me read you one more thing. And these are entries from John Wesley's diary. These are actual entries John Wesley wrote in his own hand in his diary and this is over about a month period of time and I want to read these to you to just show how if you'll be faithful in your gift, God will move you into your destiny. Sunday morning, May 5th, preached in St. Anne's, was asked not to come back anymore.

Okay, that's the morning, watch the night. Sunday night, May 5th, preached in St. John's, deacon said, get out and stay out. Here's the next week. Sunday morning, May 12th, preached in St. Jude's, can't go back there either.

And then I like the way he describes this next church. Sunday morning, May 19th, preached in St. Somebody else's. Deacons called special meeting and said I couldn't return. Sunday night, May 19th, preached on street, kicked off street. Sunday morning, May 26th, preached in meadow, chased out of meadow because bull was turned loose during service. It's not going well for this guy, is it? The next week, Sunday morning, June 2nd, preached at the edge of town, kicked off the highway.

Keeps getting farther out. Watch this, Sunday night, June 2nd, preached in a pasture, 10,000 people came to hear me. 10,000 people came to hear me. Listen, God has a specific purpose for your life. Find out what your gift is. Be faithful, and you will find yourself in the destiny God has for you one day. This message was so encouraging. We each have a specific purpose and giftings, and it's so important that we believe that.

So where do you thrive? What gifts has God placed within you? Like Pastor Robert said, be intentional to discover what your gifts are, and then faithfully use them, no matter what obstacles you face.

Joseph was a young boy sold into slavery who became the right hand of a king. No matter where you come from, if you're faithful to use the gifts he's given you, God only knows what kind of beautiful purpose you'll walk in when the time is ready. Well, we want you to just take a minute and think about what Pastor Robert shared today and really listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. If you would like to get a copy of this or any of Pastor Robert's other messages, come visit us at pastorrobert.com or call 833-933-word. So be sure to visit pastorrobert.com or call 833-933-word. You can also follow Pastor Robert on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We hope you've enjoyed this series, and we pray that God continues to deepen your relationship with him through it. Until next time, have a great week.