*A note on the sermon: We are in the “Forty Days of Purpose” series from Saddleback Church. The sermons in this series are adapted to one degree or another from sermons preached by Rick Warren and the pastoral staff at Saddleback. About 60% of this sermon is adapted from the Saddleback sermon though it is considerably shorter.

Mike Royko reported this true story in the Chicago Tribune. A man named Bill Mallory traveled to India to discover the purpose of life. But he didn’t find the answer there. So after returning, he noticed a sign at Chevron gas station that simply said, As you travel, ask us. So every time he pulled into a Chevron station, he would look to the sign and say, I’m a traveler. I’d like to ask you a question. What is the purpose of life?

These were answers he got. The first guy said, Sorry. I’m new here. The second guy said, I don’t remember anything in the manual about that. Another guy said, I’m not much for church myself, sir. One guy gave him a leering look and a wink, whatever that meant. However, most people just gave him a blank stare. But he kept asking at all the Chevron stations.

One day Mallory got a phone call from Chevron Customer Relations. The representative said, We understand you’ve been asking our dealer questions and getting unsatisfactory answers. The company representative suggested that Malllory write out his question and send it to Chevron Corporate with a self-addressed stamped envelope. So Bill Mallory wrote, What is the purpose of life? and sent it to Chevron. A couple of weeks later, the envelope was returned. The only thing in it was an application for a credit card!

If you want to know the purpose of life, you’re not going to find it in a gas station. You’re not going to find it on a talk show. You’re not going to find it in a self-help book. You’re not going to find it at some seminar. If you want to know the purpose of life, you have to either talk to the One who created you, or look in the owner’s manual.

You were made by God and you were made for God. And until you understand that, your life isn’t going to make sense.

God has five reasons for creating you. Here’s one from Revelation 4:12. You (God) created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.

The Bible says that you were created for God’s enjoyment. God made you to enjoy you. The only reason that you’re alive is God wanted you alive and He gets enjoyment out of knowing you.

How many of you are parents? Can I see your hands? How many of you enjoy being with your kids? Most of the time! And I think the same thing is true with God. Most of the time He enjoys being with you.

When you were born, God was there in that room. He wanted you made. God smiled at your birth because He created you to enjoy you.

That hasn’t changed.

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200 he asked, Who would like this $20 bill? Hands started going up. He said, I’m going to give this to one of you, but first let me do this. He proceeded to crumple the bill up. He then asked, Who still wants it? Still the hands were up in the air. My friends,” he said, “you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease its value. It’s still worth $20. Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or will happen, you will never lose your value in God’s eyes. To Him, dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to Him.

God loves you. He made you for His purpose. And as much as He has loved you, He wants you to love Him back. That is the first purpose of our lives.

Probably the best verse that defines this purpose is Romans 12, verse 1. Because of God’s great mercy to usY offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to His service and pleasing to Him. (There’s the pleasure part.) This is the true worship that you should offer.

Note how this verse starts. What’s the motivation for me loving God? Paul says, because of God’s great mercy.

God takes the initiative. God always makes the first move. He creates us. He saves us. He forgives us. He blesses us. He protects us. He does all these things and then, because of all these things, we worship. And notice what we do - we offer ourselves Love is my response to God’s love.

Jesus says that same thing. One day Jesus was walking down the street and a man came up and said, Lord, what’s the most important command in the entire Bible? Jesus responded, Okay, I’m going to give it to you. Love the Lord your God.

Jesus, God in human form says If you don’t get anything else, here’s what you’re supposed to do in life. You’re supposed to love Me back.

Then Jesus tells us that He wants our love in three ways: First, God wants us to love Him thoughtfully.

First, love me with your mind. Thoughtfully. In other words, He wants you to think through, to not just do it without thinking.

Second, God wants us to love him passionately. He says, with all your heart and all your soul. I want you to love Me passionately, because I passionately love you.

And Third, He says, I want you to love me practically. Love Me with all your strength -- with your abilities.

You see, the truth is that even though God created the entire world and the universe and He created you, there are three things God does not have unless you give them to Him. He doesn’t have your attention unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your mind. He doesn’t have your affection, unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your heart and your soul. And God doesn’t have your ability, unless you give it to Him. That’s loving God with your strength.

Albert Einstein was once asked by a student: Dr. Einstein. How many feet are there in a mile? To the utter astonishment of the entire class, Einstein replied, I don’t know.

The students were sure the great professor was joking. Surely Einstein would now a fact that every school-child is required to learn. But Einstein wasn’t joking. When a student pressed for an explanation he answered, I make it a rule not to clutter my mind with simple information that I can look up is a book in five minutes.

Albert Einstein’s passion was to explore the deep things of the universe. We are called to a similar passion -- a passion to know God -- the architect of the deep things of the universe.

That’s why we’re here. And, like Einstein, we need to minimize all the clutter that gets in the way or us doing what we came to do. If at the end of the day you don’t know God a little bit better and you don’t love Him a little bit more, that day was wasted. It’s a failure because you weren’t put here on earth to check things off your to-do list. The first reason God put you on earth is to get to know Him and to love Him back. So that is the primary goal of your life,

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to miss your primary purpose.

So let me ask you a question, what do you think about most? Because whatever you think about most is what you love the most.

What do you think about when you just let your mind drift? You let it wander, what does it naturally gravitate toward? Whatever that is, is what you worship.

Did you know that your checkbook and your schedule, are your autobiography? Without even knowing you, if you were to show me your checkbook stubs and your credit card receipts, and you were to show me your schedule, I could tell you right now what you love, because the way you spend your time and the way you spend your money.

The Bible says you were planned for God’s pleasure. You were made to know and love God. So I challenge you to make as the No 1 goal of your life before everything else, getting to know and love God, because that’s why He made you.

Let’s start with the mind. That’s where Jesus starts.

In a lot of religions, the whole idea of worship is to put your mind into neutral, sort of lose your mind to the universe. But the truth is, God wants us to worship Him thoughtfully. In Romans 12:2, Paul says that giving ourselves completely to God is the most reasonable thing we can do. It is our rationale service of worship. In other words, worship isn’t just going through the motions. It is really, really thinking about it.

That’s not always easy to do.

Have you ever prayed on autopilot? You know what I mean? You pray before a meal, you pray. And if somebody asked you what you just prayed, you’d have no idea. You just prayed on autopilot. Do you ever zone out in church, not when I’m speaking, but sometimes, do you ever zone out in church? Do you ever suffer from what a person in our new member class calls ADP – Attention Deficit Praying? That reminds us that it takes energy and attention to focus on God.

You know why God wants your focus? God wants your focus because He is focused on you. The reason God made you is to love you. He made you to give you His attention. Attention is often the greatest expression of love.

I read about a father who was working in his home office. His young daughter came in and asked, Can I tell you something, Dad, if I tell you quick? He replied, You don’t have to say it quick. You can say it slow. Then she said, Okay, but have to listen slow. That was quite a powerful wake-u about his style.

Attention is an incredible expression of love. And God puts His attention constantly on us.

He wants our attention in return. He wants our attention when we come to worship. He wants our attention when we pray. He wants us to spend private time with Him. We’ll talk about this in our small groups.

There are two things that distract us from focusing our attention on God. First, just the truth, we are self-centered by nature. And the second thing is, we live in a self-centered culture. That’s why Paul writes in Romans 12:2, Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.

We must choose. We must choose to stop thinking about some things. We must chose to start thinking about God.

But, worship isn’t just focusing my mind on God., It’s also expressing my affection to God. This is loving God with my heart and soul. That’s the second thing Jesus says.

For some of us, this is kind of difficult because we grew up in families that weren’t real affectionate. Our parents weren’t real expressive. They didn’t say I love you a lot. Maybe you’re kind of the silent type. It’s not real easy for you to express affection to God without feeling weird or kind of kooky about it. Or you may be afraid because you’ve felt burned in the past.

Love is a risk. Do you remember in junior high when they played this game called Who’s going to say it first? And before you kind of get together with a boy or girl, you kind of sent emissaries out and say, Do you know so-and-so likes so-and-so? And you kind of check it out before -- I mean, you’re not going to just walk out there and lay it on the line and say, You are cool, you know? No, you’re going to wait and find out if they think you’re cool first.

But the neat thing about God is He’s taken away the risk. He said it first. God said it first to you. God said, I love you. God has said it in a thousand ways. He created you. He’s taken care of you. Even when you didn’t know it, He was showing love to you. And God has said over and over and over to you, I love you. So you don’t have to worry about who is going to say it first. And in response, God doesn’t want duty. He doesn’t want ritual and religion and rules and regulation. He wants a relationship. And He’s passionate about it! And He says, I want you to love Me as much as I love you, because I made you and I created you.

Finally, we love God with our strength C with what we do.

Romans 6 says, Give yourselves completely to God since you have been given new life. God gave us life, then He gives new life in Jesus. And He says I want you to give yourself completely back to Me.

When I was serving a church in the Bay Area, we had a teenage girl in our church who attempted suicide. She was one of those girls who kind of always stayed at the far edge of the youth group and kept God at a distance. But all the time she was looking for love. She attempted suicide because she felt that she would never find the love she wanted.

I visited her in the hospital and talked to her about the gospel. I suggested that she give God control of her life -- especially seeing that she seemed to have no use for it herself. But she couldn’t do that. She was afraid that God might cramp her personal style -- and could not understand that suicide would prove to be even more personally limiting.

We don’t tend to go to such extremes. But we also hold ourselves back and play it safe with God. Do you know why we do that? Well, I’ll tell you, it is one word -- fear.

You’re afraid to give your life to God because if I give my life completely to God, is He going to turn me into some kind of religious nutcase? You know, I’ll become one of those fanatics that I see on some of those TV channels and I’ll walk around having to say things like -- and it changes your pronunciation -- you start saying Jeeesus. Kind of a little spooky there B Jeeesus. Not Jesus, but Jeeesus.

But remember, God doesn’t want to turn you into a freak. He made you to be you. You know what? God likes you the way you are, that’s why He made you that way, with that personality -- whether you’re an introvert, extrovert, like routine, like variety. He made you the way you are. And God doesn’t want to you turn into some nut. He wants you to be you.

And In fact, you’re not going to be fully you until you’ve got God in your life. You’re just existing. You’re not living the glory of God as a human being fully alive. And the more you know God and the more you love God, the more normal you become -- the more you become what God meant for you to be in the first place.

Liz Curtis Higgs was one of the best-known disc jockeys in America, and she lived quite a wild life -- a really wild lifestyle without God. In fact, Howard Stern was the a.m. show, and Liz Curtis Higgs was the p.m. show. And one day Howard Stern said to Liz, You know, you need to get clean up your act. Now, that really says something if Howard Stern is saying it, okay? I mean, she was a little on the wild side. And because Liz Curtis Higgs had been burned by so many men and her heart had been broken and she had been hurt by so many men, she became a militant feminist.

However, she had a Christian girlfriend who kept inviting her to church. So one day after a long, long time, she said, Okay, I will go to church one time and ONE TIME ONLY. So she went to church one time with her friend. And that week, the pastor just happened to be teaching on the Bible verse from Ephesians that says Wives submit yourselves to your husbands.

Now, that’s not exactly a good verse to start with a militant feminist, okay? And she got a little uptight, a little ticked, a little angry. But she continued to listen and she actually heard the second part of the verse. You see, the second part of the verse says and husbands - you sacrifice yourself; you give yourself for your wives just as Jesus Christ sacrificed Himself for the church and died for her. People don’t ever hear that second part, okay? Who is asked to give their life up? The husband or the wife? The husband.

Well, when Liz heard that part, she leaned over to her friend and said with a little cynicism, well, shoot, I’d gladly give myself to any man if I knew he would die for me. And her friend leaned over and said, Liz, there is man who loved you enough to die for you. His name is Jesus Christ. That’s how much He loves you. And it was not long after that that Liz dropped her guard, surrendered her life to God in love, became a believer. Today she is a well-known Christian author and speaker. Carol heard her tell her story a couple of years ago at the MOPs convention.

Now I know what some of you are thinking, you’re saying, Dave, this thing about loving God. It’s true. I just don’t love God enough.

But that’s not your problem. Your problem is you don’t realize how much God loves you. That’s your problem. If you really knew how much God loves and cares about every detail of your life, you’d throw yourself at Him, and go Oh, how could I not love a God like that? You just don’t know how much He loves you.

Worship is always a response. It’s we love God because He first loved us. When you understand how much He loves you, loved you enough to even come to earth and die on a cross for you, then you say Okay, God, I surrender myself to You, my soul is in Your hands.