What Do You Live For? 5/25/41
Scripture: John 17: 13-26.
Text: John 17: 19a; “..For their sakes I sanctify myself....”
In 1929 a book was published which, a couple of years later, was to become a record “best seller.” It was written by an author new at that time in the field of fiction. The title of the book is “Magnificent Obsession.” The man who wrote this book, Lloyd C Douglas, up to that time an active minister of the church, has since written several other interesting books. But though they are good I think none of them has been more popular than the first one.
“Magnificent Obsession” has to do with the story of a young man who had been born a well-to-do and rather pampered youngster. Though he had some fine qualities, he seemed to be growing up an irresponsible, hard-drinking, carousing young man. There lived in the same community with this young man a doctor - finest brain specialist in the country. The doctor had a little country home on a lake. He swam in the lake regularly while there, but, because of a heart ailment, had a special type of pulmoter at the house in case it should be needed. His care taker was carefully instructed in how to use it.
Across the lake, one day, the young man was sailing a boat. While out on the lake, he was knocked unconscious by a jibing boom and pushed into the water. His friends fished him out, remembered that there was said to be an inhalator across the lake at Doctor Hudson’s place, and sent for it in a high-powered speed boat. It was brought back in a jiffy and after an hour’s work the young man was revived and sent to the hospital where he was nursed back to health and strength.
Meanwhile the doctor went swimming, got into distress with a cramp, due to his overworked heart, went down, and had to be pulled out by the caretaker in a row boat. But the inhalator was not there, and by the time the unconscious doctor could be rowed across the lake to it, it was too late. So a great surgeon’s life was given for the life of a young man who seemed quite useless for anything except to spend his grandfather’s money.
But it so happened that the young man had better stuff in him than people had believed. He took seriously the thought that his life had been saved at the cost of the life of a great surgeon. So he deliberately set out to become a fine surgeon himself, in an effort to give back to the world what it had lost as the price of his life. The rest of the story tells of his adventures of mind and spirit as he set himself on that career. His life now had a definite purpose and he was a new and different man because of it.
I suppose that no one, if he stops to think of it, likes the idea of just drifting into life and out of it again. Most normal people, I suspect, have some sort of desire to get a worthwhile piece of work done while in the world.
One of my teachers was Arthur Cushman McGiffert, Jr., now president of the Pacific School of Religion. His father had been a distinguished teacher at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and he was at the time a teacher in the Chicago Theological Seminary. He used occasionally to tell his class that as a young man he had been fairly content to be just a student, like us, acquiring all the knowledge he could in his field. “But I think, gentlemen,” he would say, “that by the time you have reached middle age, if not earlier, you will want as I want, to do some worthwhile piece of work, some piece of original thinking, some masterpiece of fine accomplishment that will be a lasting contribution to the world.”
Probably the life of every man is an attempt, even though he may not think of it this way, to answer the question, “What am I living for?” Well, what do you live for? Why am I alive? Why were we all born into the life of this world? What is the end or purpose of mankind?
The old Presbyterian Catechism begins with the question: “What is the chief end of man?” And the answer given is: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
This would seem, at least, to suggest that life’s purpose for you and me is not to feed and nourish and magnify “number one” for selfish and ambitious ends, but to train and discipline and sharpen “number one” for some finer more worthy end.
Dr. Norman E. Richardson has given this as one form of answer to the question, “Why was I born?” “I was born to make available to God, Who created both me and the world in which I live, a free-will agent through whom He can carry on His eternal purpose. Thus I bring satisfaction and honor to Him.”
But just what is the eternal purpose of God? No living mortal knows. To try to answer that question is like trying to state definitely just what the universe is and where all of its parts are headed. However it seems that a man can know something about the purpose of God and can further some small portion of that purpose with his own life.
A man named Saul became convinced that the movement among those people who were followers of a certain man of Nazareth in Galilee was a bad movement. It must be stamped out. And he set out to do his level best to see to it that this thing was nipped in the bud. He must have had his secret or subconscious misgivings, however. For he suddenly changed his mind after a most moving experience which he had on the road to Damascus whence he had started in search of some of these “Christians.” From that time on he took his spiritual “signals” from God and apparently God used him for a much more exalted purpose. Instead of being a persecutor and destroyer of human life, he became a great leader toward, and guardian of, spiritual life. He became so thoroughly “on fire” with his message that the cause of Christian freedom of the spirit was spread all over the civilized world of that time. The organized beginning of the Christian Church was due very largely to the life of this man who, it seems, left his own self-sufficient determinations and fell in with a part of God’s purpose.
But suppose you or I want to fit in with the Divine purpose. How shall we find out what portion of it we can further?
1) First of all we will want to recognize some of our own capabilities and aptitudes. What a man is seems, in part, to determine what he can do. An automobile factory turns out autos, not ships. An orange tree bears oranges, not plums or avocados. A good tree bears good fruit and a poor tree bears poor fruit. Of course, it is possible to graft a good branch onto a strong root, but the root can not do the grafting itself. Some other force - usually the patience and ingenuity of an intelligent person or perhaps only the power of God has to do the grafting. I rather think that God can accomplish a great deal in using a good man in ways he is fitted for, or even in grafting something better onto his life. But only God can do it. As far as our will is concerned we are what we are and may offer our living talents for whatever uses God purposes for us.
2) Having thoughtfully examined our qualities and possibilities we may seek training in an academic way or in the school of practical experience. I think we need not be too concerned about great versatility, though we will want to know a number of things. But probably we will want to specialize some special talent. “This one thing I do,” said the great apostle, Paul. [Philippians 3: 13]. And again, “I am determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
[I Corinthians 2: 2]. Leadership usually involves a considerable specializing in a particular line.
3) Again, in the third place, you and I will want to have a firm belief in our particular mission or career. (Moody.)
Three lines of investigation, then, may help answer the personal question, “What am I here for?”
1) Find out basic needs of human beings; not whims, but fundamental wants from God’s point of view.
2) Discover what capabilities are wrapped up within your own personality.
3) Relate your ability to a job, or jobs, that bring blessings to your fellow men.
After some conviction out of this investigation, get busy! Be about the job! A great life is developed only in a career of fine service.
The questions, “What am I good for?” and “Where am I needed?” go together.
There are fine opportunities for the service of God in daily life in the school, office, home, field, shop and factory - service that is just as natural as eating a meal or speaking to one’s friends.
There are fine opportunities for service through your church.
Human effort, with God’s guidance.
G. W. Carver
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Dates and places delivered:
Pilgrim Church, September 11, 1938 AM
Wisconsin Rapids, May 25, 1941
W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, June 26, 1941