The Life That Purpose Built by Apostle Emmanuel Iren: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Knowledge Must Translate to Impact

Somebody calculated energy and found E equals MC squared. That eureka moment created the theoretical foundation for atomic bombs, GPS, and so many other things. E equals MC squared changed world powers as we knew it. Knowledge is not meant to stay theoretical.

There are many things in your environment that were built with the mind of Christ, with this same doctrine that you learn. Jesus was showing how awkward it is to be ever learning and never able to come to the point of truth. You cannot be in the temple 24/7 learning the word of God, and have it not translate to social impact. Coming from the temple and seeing somebody dying, it should not be the good Samaritan — who does not have your doctrine — who takes the initiative you should have taken.

A theologian described how we should handle theology in a way that is unforgettable. He was in a barn on the farm — an aluminium shed with punctures here and there. When the sun came out, through a hole came a ray of light. Two things immediately happened: he saw the ray, and by the ray, he saw everything else.

Some people's approach to theology is just looking at the ray and examining it. But the knowledge of God, the light of the gospel, is supposed to become a perspective by which you see everything else. You don't just look at it every Sunday, learning different theological concepts. Those theological concepts should frame a worldview by which you see everything else. With that light, you should build policies in society. That light should influence how you act in your home, training your children, acting in your marriage. It should translate to societal impact.

Purpose Is Practical

When talking about purpose, we're talking about something practical. There are people who live life aimlessly — they wake up almost literally like zombies, walking around. They are awake but they are not alive. There is a phrase for it: doom scrolling. Some people are doom scrolling through life. No aim, no objective. They just wake up and follow the vision that others have for them. Following a person or an idea can be your destiny, but you can be so aimless that you are just doing whatever you see.

If God has given you a purpose for your existence, your life ought to be clearer, more intentional, and more precise than the average person. You are not here to hear another theological concept — you are here to receive insight that will practically change your life.

The moment someone gets filled with the Spirit, there are things they can no longer do. There is a way they can no longer live. A sudden intentionality sets in — in spending, in appearance, in the pursuit of knowledge. All of a sudden there is an insatiable hunger because the conviction has settled: heaven is counting on me. This is how purpose changes your life.

Living Life on Lease

Some of you are living in houses you don't own — you entered a rental or lease agreement. A man of purpose believes he is living his life on lease. It is God's life. God sent you to the earth as his representative, so everything you do with that life you must do with care.

When signing lease agreements, the owner says no permanent changes — you cannot wake up and break a wall. A man of purpose carries the same understanding. God is literally watching the way you handle money, the way you handle relationships, because your life is not your own. This is the mentality of a life of purpose. Paul said, Galatians 2:20: "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. The life I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." That is the mentality of purpose.

A man's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses. A man of purpose realizes and reckons that there are things in life bigger than comforts.

One of the ways to investigate your perspective of purpose is to ask: what are the things in your life that you can suspend comfort for? If you don't have any such thing, every single privilege in your life came for a reason. Even beauty and handsomeness — they afford you access that should impact those around you.

Mordecai did not hear from God, but he reasoned: to whom much is given, much is required. And who knows if you were here for such a time as this? In retrospect, how right he was.

How God Reasons About Elevation

Let me show you two recurring statements — one God speaking to Saul, the other to David. 1 Samuel 15:17: "When you were little in your own eyes, were you not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?" God picked you up when you were little in your own eyes.

In your own context: when you were little in your own eyes, did God not give you that job, that car, that house? No matter how little, has anything ever happened to you where you took time to adjust and ask, "Is this me?"

2 Samuel 7:8: "Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the sheepfold." There are things in your past that speak to how far God has brought you. From that beginning, God builds a life.

So if this is the title of the message — The Life Purpose Built — let me share some practical ways purpose can change your life.

Many people outselling you in business do so because they do business from a purpose standpoint. Tooth paste adverts are selling confidence, not product. They have made it about purpose. When others in the same line of business are just selling a commodity, a purpose-driven life changes everything. It is not your goal to manipulate people — you are living a life of purpose, you really want to change lives. And then inadvertently, all the things others are dying to get come to you.

Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord — thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." When you don't have a purpose, you don't have an expected end. You are living aimlessly.

Proverbs 29:18: "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

One of the greatest tragedies in life is not failure — it is an aimless life. When you have purpose, failure is not a disadvantage. Purpose gives you direction, meaning, endurance, and structure.

What Purpose Builds in Your Life

1. Purpose Gives You Grit

   There is something called the paradox of purpose: when you discover something worth dying for, you have discovered something worth living for. If you don't have anything worth dying for, you also don't have anything worth living for. Paul put it this way: Philippians 1:21 — "To live is Christ, to die is gain."

   • A person of purpose is harder to kill. This has been psychologically proven. Many people who died gave up first. The will to live is a powerful thing. It affects your subconscious and sends signals to your body. Viktor Frankl — a psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor — researched and found that people can endure enormous suffering if they have a purpose in life, if they possess meaning. Under anaesthesia during a medical operation, one man's subconscious kept repeating: "I cannot die. Who will take care of my children?" That will to live is a powerful force.
   • It is harder for a person of purpose to fail. A researcher spent her professional career discovering the underlying factor behind success. She found it had very little correlation with IQ. The people who were most successful even in education were not those with the highest IQ. The common denominator she found was grit — people who would just keep coming. The same challenges that kill others fuel them. In a house with two children raised under the same abusive, irresponsible father, one grew up wayward and the other became responsible and achieved greatly. When asked why their lives turned out so differently, the successful one said: "I knew early that help was not coming from anywhere, so I carried myself by my bootstraps and worked harder than the average person." The same problem, different life outcomes.

   Purpose streamlines priority. Paul said: "I count not myself to have apprehended, but one thing — I do. Forgetting the things that are past, reaching out to things that are in the future, I press on." Philippians 3:13-14. That is grit.

   The same challenges that kill others fuel you. This is what makes athletes wake up every morning without fail at 5:00 a.m. and put in three hours at the gym.

   The thing that makes the difference in life is what you think about when you sleep — the first thing that comes to mind when you wake up. When you live your life like that for ten years, it will show.

2. Purpose Gives You Clarity

   It streamlines your priority. Jesus said to Martha: "You are careful, troubled, and encumbered by much serving, but one thing is needful." One thing.

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   Paul said: "I desire to know nothing among you save for Christ and him crucified." One thing. That one thing you master very well can make you a contributor in life.

   If everything matters equally to you, you are doing something wrong. You must be able to separate what is urgent from what is important. Some things are urgent but not important. Some things are important but not urgent. That is how you schedule your priorities and distinguish activity from productivity.

   Purpose is like a GPS connected to a particular destination. There is an internal GPS — purpose is that internal GPS. It gives your life direction. Not every turn is the right turn.

3. Purpose Gives You Resistance to Temptation

   Many people who have been trying to overcome habits do not know this: the habit came to fill a void. The idle mind is the devil's workshop. There were things some people thought they were struggling with — they died the moment they got a job. When you come home tired, sleep and rise, and do it again, there is no dead time for temptation to operate. What you are trying to steal only needs to be replaced. Get healthy habits and bad ones will die.

   Nothing fuels you and prepares you to fight temptation like focus. Purpose.

   Do not think that because it is your destiny, it will happen automatically. Purpose puts in you a fight for what is yours. You must fight for it. Even when it comes to salvation — there are loved ones still in the world because you have not compelled them. Listen to the parable of Jesus: the master told the servants to go into the streets and compel the guests to come. Not advise. Not sweet talk. Compel. There will be determination. There will be a sense of urgency.

   You cannot tell the church will grow because God destined it to happen and do nothing. The people in the church need to act like soldiers — determined in their prayer, their fasting, and their inviting. We have a lot of church-goers but very few disciples.

   So God reduces the size. Gideon was told to reduce to 300. And notice: God chose the soldiers by how they drank water. Not by prophetic word. The ones who knelt and drank with their full attention down were sent home. Those who stood and drank — keeping watch — were kept. God is looking for a natural intuition of tenacity in all that you do. So that people can look at you and say the zeal for the Lord's house has consumed him, consumed her.

   Add your voice. Evil thrives when good people keep quiet.

   In your destiny, wake up, confess the word, go out with determination. If it does not work Monday, show up Tuesday. If not Tuesday, show up Wednesday. The parable of the persistent widow: even though the judge did not fear God, because of her importunity — because she would not give up — he attended to her. Some people are too respectful for their destiny to amount to anything.

   Do not think that because it is God's will, it will happen irrespective of what you do. There are absolute things in God's will that will happen no matter what. But there are things God has destined for you that you will have to fight for. Purpose will make you stand out.

   There are two types of people in offices: those who beg, pray, and fast for promotion — and those whose companies have had a meeting to figure out how to keep them. Sometimes what we call favor is actually mediocrity in disguise.

My Father Worketh, I Work

One of the most powerful statements of purpose is this: Jesus said, "My Father worketh hitherto, I work." The mentality of stewardship is: I am on the earth as the physical expression and manifestation of the work that my Father in heaven is doing. I am in divine partnership. My work is God's work.

2 Corinthians 5:18: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." In whatever it is we are doing, God is doing something. If you are in insurance, in ministry, in fashion, in event management — God is doing something in that space. The average Christian lives his Christian life on theories. That must change.

What is the word of God framing in your life? What is it framing in your industry?

Philippians 3:13-14: "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do — forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the mark for the prize of the upward call of God."