God’s Purpose in Your Generation

God has purposes for you in this generation – purposes that He has called you and equipped you and prepared in advance for you to fulfill. Our loved ones – our friends and family – our everyday connections in the world – they are hungering for the grace, the truth, the deliverance, the victory, the identity and purpose which we all know they are only going to find in Jesus. And Jesus is saying to us what he said to the man healed in Luke 8, “Go to your home. Go to your loved ones back home! Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”

Transcript

I want to revisit the verse we referenced a couple episodes ago, Acts 13:36 – it says this, “Now, when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his ancestors and his body decayed.”

Can I shoot super-straight with you guys about something today?  I work to keep these episodes short for you, so I’ll just jump right to the point today:

It is extraordinarily unlikely that any of us will be remembered 4 generations from now.

I wonder how many of you personally knew and can remember any 1 of your 8 great-grandparents…  I personally knew my great-grandmother on my maternal grandmother’s side.  I still have memories of her.  I have just one distant memory of my maternal grandfather’s dad…  I think he died when I was maybe 4 years old…

But that’s it.  I never knew any of the other 6 of my great-grandparents...  And think about it: our great-grandparents are just 3 generations from us.

I wonder if anyone listening today personally knew and remembers any 1 of their 16 great-great-grandparents?  That would be going back 4 generations…

Collectively, as a planet, we remember extremely few people from just 4 generations ago: from our great-great-grandparents’ generation, which lived in the second half of the 1800s.

Think about it: how many people can you name from that period of history: 20?  Maybe 30?  I can think of 1-2 composers… A few artists… A few philosophers & scientists…  Mainly we remember the historical figures from the past – but, remarkably few of those… just a few presidents & emperors & such…  I know of maybe half-a-dozen evangelists, authors, and missionaries from that time period… But that’s it…

Did you know that literally billions of people around the world have been born – lived their entire lives – and died – just since the time that our great-great-grandparents were alive?

It is highly unlikely – listen: statistically speaking, it is astronomically unlikely – that any one of us will be remembered just 4 generations from now.

But this is not a sad story!

I am not telling you these things to discourage you…  Actually, I am bringing you a message of encouragement today – and this is it: it is unlikely that God has called you to impact people who will live 4 generations from now. But I can tell you with absolute Biblical certainty that He has called you to serve His purposes in this generation.

The Bible says that even King David – even Israel’s mightiest and most victorious & memorable king! – even King David, the Bible says, fulfilled the purposes of God – when? – in his own generation!

God is not calling you to impact the generation of your great-great-grandchildren.

God has set you in the context of today, and He wants you to fulfill His purposes in your own generation.  Yes, God has purposes for you in this generation – purposes that He has called you & equipped you & prepared in advance for you to fulfill.

Our loved ones – our friends and family – our everyday connections in the world – your oikos and mine – they are hungering for the grace… the truth, the deliverance, and the victory… the identity and purpose which we all know they are only going to find in Jesus.

And Jesus is saying to us what he said to the man healed in Luke 8, “Go to your home.  Go to your loved ones back home!  Go home to your own people (your oikos) and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”

God has called you to fulfill His purposes in your own generation.  This is our context.  This is our generation.  This is our calling from God.