Reading:
 Psalm 139 v1-24

Main Themes: 
 Purpose Driven Life
 What we are driven by
 God knows all about us
 Building a Purpose Driven church
 

WHAT DRIVES YOU?

We talk about driving a golf ball; driving the car; we meet people who drive a hard bargain; in fact some people just drive you crazy or drive you to distraction.

My starting point today is that everybody is driven - we may not like to hear it, but it's the truth. In fact its always been so. 

And secondly if we are driven people we have the choice of where and by whom we are driven. We can choose the purpose and direction our lives take rather than just be directed by subconscious needs and desires.

Stanza 1 of Psalm 139 takes us through verses 1-6
v1 O Lord you have searched me and You know me
v2 You know when I sit down and when I rise
v2b You perceive my thoughts from afar
v3b You are familiar with all my ways
v5 You hem me in behind and before
v5 You laid Your hand upon me
v6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain

There is a love-hate thing happening here ... I'm afraid to be so intimately known and yet hemmed in by it ... I've no privacy, even of my inmost thoughts; this intimacy is beyond conception, unbelievable. Yet I gladly also welcome "Your hand laid upon me", Your knowledge of my every move

These verses tell me why I'm here: to have a relationship - You know me

Stanza 2 is Psalm 139 v7-12
Here King David, the author, speculates about the impossibility of escaping from God's presence.

v8 If I go up to the heavens….if I make my bed in the depths
v9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn….if I settle on the farthest seaside
v11 If I say 'surely the darkness will cover me, even darkness is not dark to You

These verses describe the inescapability of intimacy - East or West, Height or depth; even the darkness He would turn into daylight. This relationship is Real and for real

Stanza 3 is Psalm 139 v13-18
v13 You created me
v15 my frame was not hidden from You
v16 Your eyes saw my unformed body (is that conception? - quite possibly)
v15 (or is it ) when I was made in the secret place

Either way I was well known from my very earliest days and well before I was born !!

In fact: v16 All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious Your thoughts are to me O God. When I awake I am still with You. Your Presence is permanent

WHAT, THEN, AM I HERE FOR?

Many of us are concerned about our Purpose - even preoccupied with it. All those self-help books in the shops focus on ourselves. Yet the Bible says very clearly:
"We were created by Him and for Him…and in Him all things hold together" Colossians 1v16-17. In fact outside Him or without Him all things fall apart. This maybe a good description of our world's insecurity today.

Well known Christian writer Selwyn Hughes, focussing on the same truth in his readings set out for January 2007 in the Bible study notes called "Every day with Jesus", says "Christians seem preoccupied with knowing more about themselves instead of being anxious to know more about God. Ask any Christian bookshop manager what are his best selling books. They will be on self-image, how to manage money, how to find inner healing. All important, but the most important thing is to know God better" he concludes. (1 January 2007) 

On the 4th January he writes: "We may want to know more about these issues, but what we need, primarily, is to know God." He quotes Isaiah 40v22 "God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth and its people are like grasshoppers"

People then are driven by their Purpose - even if only subconsciously. More often its by very conspicuous pressures - exam deadlines, financial constraints, sickness, unhappy relationships, to name but a few. 

Significantly and below the surface many are driven by Guilt

Such people can spend their entire lives running from regrets and hiding their shame. They basically allow the past to control the present, even unconsciously punishing themselves for that past. Remember how God said to Cain after he had murdered his brother Abel "You will be restless wanderer on earth", and Cain, the Bible goes on, "went out from the Lord's presence" though in His mercy God "put a mark on Cain" so no one finding him "would kill him" Genesis 4v12-15

Yet others are driven by Resentment and Anger

These people hang onto their hurts and continue to be hurt by them. Listen: hanging onto your hurts instead of releasing those who offend you, hurts you. In most cases the other person has forgotten or may never have realised they offended you in any way in the first place. 
Job 5v2 records the chilling warning: "Resentment kills a fool"

Many people are driven by Fear

Perhaps a childhood trauma, or growing up in a heavy-handed home with high expectations. Regardless of the origins such fear causes these people, they miss many marvellous opportunities in life because of that fear. They play safe and avoid risks; maintain the status quo rather than upset the apple cart. Yet the Bible uses that often quoted text in 1 John 4v18 "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out all fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love".

Materialism

When the Sales are on, indeed on any Saturday after a busy and stressful week, that slave-driver Materialism pushes us off to the shops. "The more I possess the happier I'm going to be". Actually we quickly become bored with things simply because they do not change. As Jesus puts it in one of His parables: "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. "You fool this very night your life will be demanded of you. This is how it will be for anyone who is not rich towards God " Luke 12 v15, 20, 21

And finally we are driven by the Approval of others

Teachers, our spouse, or peers, Unfortunately those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. "No one" says Jesus "can serve two masters" (Matthew 6v24)

Driven then by Guilt: "you'll be a restless wanderer" Genesis 4v12
Resentment: "kills a fool" says Job 5v2
Fear: "there's no fear in love" 1 John 4v18
Materialism "be rich towards God" Luke 12v21
Man's Approval "no one can serve two masters" Matthew 6v24

Instead of being subconsciously, even knowingly driven by such emotions, we can and should be driven by those purposes God created us for:

Knowing your Purpose - Gives Meaning To Life

"Christ is Life: the rest is detail" goes a memory card our son has over his computer
"I have laboured to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing" records the servant in Isaiah 49v4
"My life drags by day after hopeless day" says Job 7v6, continuing later "My life makes no sense" Job 7v16

Hope, a reason to live, is essential if you are to live; it gives Life Meaning

"I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope" promises Jeremiah 29v11 to the hopeless exiles in Babylon
"Now to Him who is able" promises Ephesians 3v20 "to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us"

Knowing your purpose - Simplifies your life

It defines what you don't do as well as what you do
It separates the good from the best
Without a clear simple purpose you've no foundation by which to evaluate your decisions, use your time, allocate your recourses.
You will end up making decisions on the hoof, under pressure or according to the mood of the moment - all very stressful, tiring, and conflict-inducing
"You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You" Isaiah 26v3

Knowing your Purpose - Prepares you for eternity

Stanza 4 of Psalm 139 says:
v19 remove me from those who'd tempt me away from godly living 
("Deliver us from evil" of the Lord's Prayer)
vv 20-21 the reason they are enemies is that they speak evil of the Lord's name
"do I not hate those who hate You…who rise up against You" King David's passion for integrity stretches him beyond normal words making him speak of hate because of God's great love
vv 23-24 "search me O God" cries out his vulnerability before God "know my heart, see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting"

Knowing your Purpose - Gives Meaning

"I know the plans I have for you … to give you a future and a hope"

Knowing your Purpose - Simplifies your life

"You will keep him/her in perfect peace who mind is steadfast and who trusts in You"

Knowing your Purpose - Prepares you for eternity

"Lead me in the way everlasting"

Life is relationships: 
You've always known me
Your Intimacy is Inescapable
Your Presence is Permanent
Your way is best, lead me in it