The Need of Man and the Purpose of God (Part 1 of 3)
Based on Ephesians 1:3-14
This is the first in a three-part series exploring God’s ultimate purpose in the world and how it should transform our understanding of the church’s mission.
The date was December 17th, 2010. Bouazizi, known as Babusa to his friends, was a 26-year-old fruit and vegetable salesman on the streets of Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. Babusa earned about $140 a month selling vegetables. On December 17th, 2010, his wares and his produce were confiscated by local police. When the authorities at the municipal council refused to meet with him, Babusa went across the street, bought a can full of petrol, poured it over himself, and set himself on fire. Babusa died on January 4th, 2011.
This event is said to have set off what has become known as the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring would rock the Arab world, seeing the overthrow of governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and the ongoing conflict in the country of Syria.
What Is the Great Need of the World?
I want to ask you this question: What is the great need of the world today? Our world is rife with corrupt governments, oppressive regimes. The thought that someone would feel so brought to such a point of despair and frustration that they would pour petrol over themselves and set themselves on fire—it’s beyond my comprehension.
If we were to ask that question to the politicians, they would certainly tell us that the great need of the world today is a better political system and better forms of government. We can clearly see in recent history the great efforts to democratize the developing world.
If we were to ask that question, “What is the great need of the world?” there would be many that would say, “No, you see, education is the great need of our day. Ignorance is the biggest problem.” The World Health Organization over the past 20 years has spent hundreds of millions of dollars providing HIV/AIDS education—and this is very important, I’m not minimizing it—but there are those who would suggest to us that the greatest need of the developing world is that we have an improved system and delivery of education. “If we can just educate people, we can change the fabric of society, and this is the great need of the world today.”
Others have given their lives and would suggest to us tonight that the greatest need of the world is to eliminate and eradicate poverty. I live near Faith Baptist Church of Chipata Compound, one of the churches that was planted some 15, 18 years ago—a community in which the average person, I am told, makes around 20 kwacha per day. The terrible effects of poverty: sickness, children dying from simple diseases that are easily treated. Many in our city who will only eat one meager meal per day because they do not have the resources to do anything else. Many times I’ve been called to the hospital in Kitwe because someone has passed away, only to find out that there were no medicines in the pharmacy. It’s the middle of the night and the family is running around trying to find IV fluids and other necessary medications, and in the process the person dies.
What is the great need of the world?
A News Bulletin About the Church
As we come to our text in Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is reminding us what the church is all about. The church is about God and what He is doing in the universe.
I have a news bulletin for some of us: The church is not about you. The church is not here to serve you and to make you feel comfortable and to meet your needs. In many places, the evangelical church has become a service industry. And we come to church for what we can get out of it. We come to feed. We’re like mosquitoes. We buzz in and we suck what we want and we buzz away. This was never God’s intention for the church.
Far too often the church is viewed as something we do, not what we are. When church is reduced to nothing more than a consumer-driven society of religious people, this living, breathing organism in which Christ Himself dwells ceases to fulfill the purpose for which it exists. It becomes nothing more than another social club.
If the church of Jesus Christ is not fulfilling the mission of God, it has no purpose for existence.
We live in a day in evangelicalism where “if I like the music, if I like the pastor’s sermon, if it makes me feel good, if the church youth program meets the entertainment needs of my children, if everyone treats me kindly and with respect, I’ll patronize the place. If on the other hand, I’m made to feel uncomfortable, made to feel responsible or otherwise convicted about my life, I’ll just move on somewhere else.”
You see, the church is not about you. The church is not designed to make us happy. It will, but that’s not its design. The church is not designed to make us successful in our relationships, in our marriage, in our ministry. That is not the purpose of the church. It was not designed for that. Now, it will make us successful in our marriages, in our relationships, but that was not its design.
You see, the church is not primarily about fixing what is wrong with us. Now, it will fix what’s wrong with us. You see, the book of Ephesians is about what God is doing in the heavenlies, through the church, in His Son, by His grace, for His glory forever.
God Has a Purpose in the World
So what is the need of man? What is the great need of humankind in our generation? What is the great need of man and what is the purpose of God? Look at Ephesians 1:11.
The first truth that I want to make sure that we have very clear in our thinking is this: God has a purpose in the world.Look at verse 11. Paul says, “In Him, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him.”
God has a purpose in the world, and His purpose is being manifested, His purpose is being worked out through the church. “And we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will.”
You see, He is ever at work, sovereignly working all things together according to the counsel of His will. God has a purpose in the world. No one can frustrate that purpose and no one will defeat that purpose. Notice it says “all things.” He is working all things according to the counsel of His own will.
Psalm 76:10 says that “Surely the wrath of man shall praise You, and the remainder of wrath You will gird Yourself.” In other words, in the midst of a depraved and desperately wicked culture and world in which we live, the sovereign Creator of the universe allows the sinful desires of men’s heart to be released and to be acted upon only to the degree that it will further His eternal plan. Even the wrath of man will ultimately bring glory to God. And then the remainder of those desires and that wickedness that man just longs to act upon, God restrains that which will not fulfill His eternal purpose.
The Center of God’s Purpose: Jesus Christ
Secondly, at the very core of God’s purpose in the world, at the very heart of that purpose is Jesus Christ. Did you see that in the text?
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing.”
“Even as He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.”
“In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His own will.”
“In Jesus Christ, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”
“Making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time.”
“In Christ, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ may be to the praise of His glory.”
God has a purpose in the world. No one can frustrate it. No one can defeat it. And at the very core, at the very center of that purpose is Jesus Christ.
God’s Purpose Involves His People
Now, all that being said and all of that being true, I want you to notice verse 4. God’s purpose, though centered in Christ, involves men. Look at verse 4: “Even as He, God the Father, chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.”
God’s purpose, though centered in Christ—it is not an ethnocentric purpose, it is a theocentric purpose—and yet it involves men. It involves us.
God not only has a purpose in the world, but God has a purpose for the church in the world. Ephesians is all about what God is doing in the heavenly places through the church, in His Son Jesus Christ, by His grace, for His glory forever.
What Is the Role of the Church?
I’m going to ask you a question: What is the role of the church in the 21st century? Is it to build bigger hospitals? Develop more efficient systems of Christian education? Build orphanages? Reduce more languages to writing? Print more Bibles?
Before you start throwing tomatoes, all those things I listed are good things. Each of those are good things. But none of them by themselves constitutes the role of the church today. In fact, any one of those things can become and easily become an end in themselves.
Some few years ago I was writing a paper and I did some interviews. I came down here to Lusaka and I interviewed one of the large evangelical denominations. At that time I was told that this particular denomination had 700 churches in Zambia. They boasted 50,000 members, but only 33 of their churches had pastors. 700 churches! 50,000 members and only 33 churches have pastors.
What is the role of the church? Let’s even make it more specific: What is the purpose of missions? Why in the world are you people doing all this stuff that we’re hearing reports about? Why are we doing this?
In our next post, we’ll explore what Scripture reveals as God’s ultimate purpose—and it might surprise you. It’s not primarily about winning souls or planting churches, though those are important. God’s purpose goes much deeper than that.
Sermon transcript edits by Claude AI
Zambia Hunt 
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