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Over the next week or two, I’m going to publish some of the talks that I have shared at Bikers’ Church. There are a few that have been requested many times by people, and I thought this would be a great way of making them available.

This first talk is from a series I did based on Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life“. I hope you enjoy it.

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If you look up the word drive in a dictionary, you would find that is says, “to guide, to control, or to direct.”

• Drive a car – you guide, control, direct it down the street.
• Drive a nail – you guide, control, direct it into the wood.
• Drive a golf ball – you guide, control, direct it down the fairway.

Every life is driven by something. Every human is driven by something.

• Some people are driven by guilt.
• Some people are driven by worry or fear.
• Some people are driven by insecurity.
• Some people are driven by anger.
• Some people are driven all through life by resentment.
• Some people are driven by their past and they spend their whole life running from their past.
• Some people are driven by their possessions and the desire to acquire overwhelms them.
• Some people are driven by their parents. Even 20, 30, 40 years later. Even after their parents have passed on, they are still trying to please them. To do what they would approve of.

I believe that God wants us to be purpose driven people, driven by His plan, His purpose for our lives. That’s where meaning and significance come.

The Bible teaches very clearly that God has never made anything without a purpose.

Proverbs 16:4 says, The Lord has made everything for His own purpose. Everything. There’s nothing that God has created that He’d say, “I didn’t have a purpose for that.”

Now, if there is a purpose for everything He creates, then if you are alive, if your heart is beating, then you are not an accident. Regardless of the circumstances of your birth – whether or not your parents even wanted you – you were planned by God. And if you are alive, He has a purpose for your life and a reason for your existence.

Three Levels Of Existence

Every person lives their life at one of three levels.

The first level, the lowest level, is what I call the Survival Level.

• Most people live in survival mode.
• They get by life.
• Not really living, just existing.
• Put in their time, punch their clock, and live for the weekends.
• Never really had any major goals, major drive in life.
• If you constantly find yourself dreaming about escaping to Tahiti, you’re in this mode.

The second level, which is where many of you are, is the Success Level

• The very fact that you live in Canada, in the Nation’s Capital, means you’re in this group.
• Much of the world would love to have your problems.
• We worry about paying our mortgage, other people worry about having food for their kids.
• At this level, you have a fairly comfortable lifestyle.
• You have achieved a certain level of success; your needs are met.
• You have a home, possessions, perhaps even prestige.
• You have pleasures in your life: riding the open road on a bike, Starbucks.

Many people at the success level discover that they still feel empty inside. “If I’m so successful, why do I feel so unfulfilled?”

The answer is because success never ultimately satisfies. It takes more than success. Take a trip through a book store, and you’ll find dozens of books with titles like, “The Success Trap”, “If I’m So Successful, Why Do I Feel Like a Fake?”, “Beyond Success”, “Coping With The Fast Track Blues”.

All these books say the same thing: it takes more than success to satisfy.

It is my hope that all of you will ultimately find yourselves at the third level, the Significance Level.

• When you know why you’re here on Earth.
• You have a purpose for your life.
• You know that your life matters.
• You know that there’s meaning behind what’s going on in your life.

The sad thing is that many, many people have no idea what their purpose in life is. They may be successful, but they don’t really feel significant on the inside.

Over the next few weeks we are going to look at a number of lives of purpose-driven people in the Bible. We’re going to look at the practical steps on how to develop a life plan. Many people spend hours or days developing a business plan, I hope you will end this series with a life plan.

Tonight I want to take you through the benefits of living a purpose-driven life.

1.   It Will Reduce My Frustration.

If you don’t know your overall direction in life, daily decisions become very difficult, because you have no basis for making them. You end up making “spur of the moment”, “impulse” decisions.

As Alice in Wonderland puts it, “If you don’t know where you’re headed, any road will get you there.”

This is not a series about how to fill your calendar, or how to set goals. Goals can be accomplished and then you go, “So what?!?”

I’m talking about knowing what the general direction of my life is. What is my “North Star”? What’s the objective? Why am I here? Where am I going? What is the purpose of my life?

If you don’t know your purpose, then day-to-day decisions become very frustrating. If you DO know your purpose, you simply ask, “Will this activity fulfill my purpose? Will it aid my purpose?” If it does, then you do it. If it doesn’t, you don’t.

James 1:8 tells us, “The double-minded man can never keep a steady course.”

James is saying that to try to live without a clear purpose is live driving in a heavy fog. We live in a society that is bombarded with choices. There use to be one kind of Coke. Now it’s an endless choice: Coke Classic, Cherry Coke, Diet Coke, Vanilla Coke, Cafferine-free Coke …

Every year over 200 new magazines hit the market. Every week over 200 new grocery products hit the stores! If you don’t have a general, overall view of life … even day-to-day decisions can be overwhelming.

A lot of people think we are overworked these days. I don’t think that’s the problem. It’s not that we are overworked, it’s that we are doing meaningless work. People don’t know why they’re doing what they are doing! It gives a great sense of hopelessness.

This is not a new problem. Look at Isaiah 49, “I’ve labored to no purpose. I’ve spend my strength in vain and for nothing.” Maybe you can relate to that. If you don’t have a purpose, you are going to be very frustrated.

2.   Having a Purpose In Life Will Increase My Motivation.

It decreases frustration and increases motivation. If I don’t have a purpose, why get out of bed? Why get up in the morning? Why make any effort?

The fact is, most people just drift through life. They’re kind of battered around. They’re controlled by circumstances. They feel like Job, “My life drags by. Day after hopeless day. I’m tired of living. My life makes no sense.”

I read this one article on motivation that had this incredible sentence: “Learning what motivates people to change and stay changed is a billion dollar question with far reaching implications for the nation’s health and happiness.”

What’s the secret of lasting change? What’s the secret of energy, of motivation, of enthusiasm in life. It’s so simple! Discover your personal purpose in life!!! It will motivate you in all you do in your life. It excites you to get up each morning and wonder how your purpose will be fulfilled that day!

Why? Because having purpose gives your hope!

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “The plans I have for you, ‘says the Lord, ‘are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.’”

3.   Having a Purpose Will Allow You to Focus.

It will give you a focus for your life. It will give you a track to run on.

Are you trying to do everything? Society says, “You can have it all!” That’s a lie. You can’t have it all! We must choose what we are going to build our life around.

The good news is that there are only a few things worth doing in the first place!

When you get a purpose, it allows you to focus, to concentrate your life. When you develop a purpose statement for your life, it not only defines what you do, but what you don’t do. It eliminates a bunch of the trivial.

Many business people have heard the statement, “There are only two questions in business: One, What is my business? Two, How’s business?”

Likewise, you can ask yourself, “What is the purpose of my life? And how am I doing? Am I moving forward?

Proverbs 4:25-27, “Look straight ahead and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet. Then stick to the path. Don’t get sidetracked.”

It’s easy to get distracted. Most people don’t start out planning on wasting their life. They don’t intentionally mess up. But they do it because they get sidetracked from what is really important. We’re going to talk next week about how to clarify what values are important to you.

Focused people find fulfillment.

The Apostle Paul is a good example of this. Philippians 3 – “I’m bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting what is behind and looking forward to what lies ahead.”

When you know your purpose, it keeps your priorities straight. It keeps you from majoring on the minors. Just a few kilowatts of light can burn through steel if they are focused correctly.

There is nothing quite as powerful as a focused life.

4.   It will attract Cooperation.

It’s amazing how people want to come along side someone with a clearly defined purpose. You will find that others want to jump on your bandwagon. The world is looking for people of purpose.

I’ve seen that with this church. As people hear what we are doing, and how we have clearly laid out our vision for having a church By Bikers For Bikers, people want to have a part of it.

Look at Proverbs 1:27 – “If your goals are good, you will be respected.”

If you want to look at the people who have made the greatest impact in this world, they weren’t the smartest or the wealthiest or the best educated. They were those people with purpose and passion. Another word for that is conviction.

Whether they were right or wrong, their deep conviction made the greatest impact in our world. People will follow those with a purpose.

Ezra 10:4 says, “Tell us how to proceed and we will fully cooperate.”

Do you want to impact those around you? Live a life full of purpose.

5.   It will prepare me for God’s Evaluation.

Let’s review the facts of life:

1. God made you for a purpose because He doesn’t make anything without a purpose.
2. He has invested in you certain talents and abilities and gifts. He put those in you.
3. One day God is going to ask for a return on that. On those talents, abilities and gifts. He didn’t give you the freedom, opportunities, abilities, giftedness, special things just for you to live a selfish life. He wants you to use them for the purpose He designed them for.
4. One day God will do an audit on your life. That’s the big final. One day we stand before God and He asks us two major questions:

1. “What did you do with My Son Jesus?”

Not, “what denomination are you?” Not “are you Baptist or Catholic or Buddhist or Muslim”.

But Who is in charge in your life? Do you have a relationship with Christ?

2. “What did you do with the talents that I gave you? Did you live the purpose I set out for you?”

I don’t want to have to answer that question by saying, “I never really took the time to figure out my purpose in life.”

Let me give you some simple steps to getting started on this journey of discovering your purpose. These are three things that you can get started on this week:

1.   Identify what’s been driving my life so far.

• Has it been guilt? Fear? Worry? Other people? The Past?
• Ephesians 5:15 – “Pay close attention to how you live …”
• Figure out what’s driving you right now.

2.  Believe God has a purpose for my life.

• Remember, God doesn’t create anything without purpose.
• Ephesians 2:20 – “God is our Maker and in our union with Christ, He has created us for a life of good works which He has already prepared for us to do.”
• He planned you – and your purpose.

3.  Receive God’s Son into my life.

• Ephesians 1:4-5 – “Long ago, even before He made the world, God chose us to be His very own through what Christ would do for us … His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family by sending Jesus Christ to die for us. And He did this because He wanted to!”

Finally, take some time to pray this week and ask God to reveal to you His purpose for your life. Ask Him to show you how to live a purpose-driven life.

Trust me, God loves to answer a prayer like that.