Sheryl Brady - The Mystery of Purpose

On your way down to your seat, talk about the mystery of his purpose. Just say «the mystery of his purpose.» You have heard me say this often, probably over the last three or four weeks since we have been back. If you haven’t heard it yet, you’ll hear me now. One of the phrases that I keep repeating, which I began saying early in the pandemic, is that if you are still here and if you have survived, then there is an absolute reason why you are still here and why you have survived. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to God to discover what that reason is. He did not have to let you live. I have heard that phrase all my life: «He didn’t have to let you live.» But after coming through a pandemic and seeing what has happened, it has become very real to me. He didn’t have to let me live, but He did, and it was not by accident or by chance that you have survived some of the things that God has brought you through. You have truly survived on purpose.

What we have experienced and what we have come to call a virus is really much more than a virus. It has affected the systems of the entire world, and if all you see out of the last 18 months is a virus, then you’re not seeing enough. In fact, if all you perceive is what you see, then you don’t see all there is to be seen because there is much more to it than meets the eye. Our world has experienced a divine disruption. I said our world—your world, my world—has experienced a divine disruption. Personally, I feel like God disrupted everything that was normal and everything that was natural. He disrupted all the things that we would prefer, and He did it on every level. The Bible puts it like this: He shook everything that could be shaken so that that which could not be shaken would remain. Thus, what would remain— that word means to be kept—was something that we might be preserved, present, and accounted for. If you are happy to be present today, just close your eyes, clap your hands, and tell God thank you.

Because He let us live, we can say with great confidence that God is intentional about the life you are given. If God is going to be intentional, mindful, and purposeful about my life and about your life, then we need to be purposeful as well. He told Jeremiah, «Before I formed you in the belly, I knew you, and before you came out of your mother’s womb, I sanctified you.» He said, «I ordained you.» I cannot lay hands on the people we prayed for today and make them into anything that God has not already made them to be. I can lay hands on them and confirm what God has done in their life. He said, «I ordained you as a prophet to the nations.» It was in eternity that He said, «I formed you.» Jeremiah, He said, «I knew you before anybody ever knew you. I knew you before you ever knew your mama. I knew you before your mama ever knew your daddy. I knew who you were.» He set you apart, sanctified you, and ordained you. While you were in eternity, He made you a prophet. People didn’t make you a prophet; you didn’t make yourself a prophet. You didn’t just take on a title and say, «I am a prophet» or «I am a prophetess.» He said, «I made you that in eternity.» He did all of that before you ever came into the earth, before you ever had your first birthday, and before any of whatever happens to you in life. He did that for you before you ever got there.

Well, I guess if I were Jeremiah, I would probably have gone through a season or two in my life where I would have said, «Well, God, that’s awesome that you did all of that in eternity, but what do I do right now?» Because I’m not living in eternity; I am living in time. What is Your purpose now for my life on earth? What is Your purpose, Your plan, Your destiny? What is Your will for my life? Has anybody ever asked God, «What is Your will?» Because you don’t want to waste time doing your will when you could be doing His will, and you don’t want to waste your life doing what other people want you to do. People can manipulate you into doing things that were never the will of God, and when you fall into that trap, you are wasting your life. So we ought to pray every day, «God, what is Your will? If You let me live to see this day, there must be a reason that You let me live. I want to know Your will for my life. I need to know because in You I live and move.»