8 Sermon Illustrations on Purpose

A person without goals in his life is like a ship without maps and a compass. He will drift aimlessly from day to day hoping to arrive at the nebulus port of "somewhere." His voyage though life will be left to chance. Without goals life is uninteresting and without challenge. Goals are decisions to action. Goals are maps which give the routes to distant ports in life. Goals help a person know where he is going and how he is going to get there. A goal is more than a dream; it is a dream being acted upon. It is more than an "Oh, I wish I could." A goal is a clear statement of "This is what I am going to do." Goals are not fanciful doubts; they are declarations of faith. 14 Reasons for Setting Goals Do you have a list of goals that you are working on at this moment? If you do, congratulations, because it places you in a small group of achievers. If you do not have goals for your life, let me share some basic reasons why you need to set goals. Goals will give your life purpose. They help you to specifically know where you are going. They provide a clear target for your life. Goals will help you develop a plan of action for reaching your goals. Goals are exciting because they keep you active. Work is a sure way to success and happiness. Goals are biblical. Paul said, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14). Goals produce results. They are not just exercises in futilities. Goals help keep you young and interested in life. There is hope and expectation in the future. When you work on your goals you help to encourage others to do the same. Good goals help you know where you are at each month. You have planned your journey in life. You have a map to check each action by. When you set meaningful goals you are following the pattern of all great leaders who have gone before. They work. Goals are essential if you are going to accomplish things in life. Whether on the job, in the home, or in the church, goals are vital to success. Goals get us involved in the present. The steps to accomplishment must be taken today. Goals provide a procedure for doing things decently and in order. It eliminates the "hit-and-miss" approach to life. Goals provide a framework for evaluating our progress. Nothing will happen until you set some goals for your life. This is the major advantage of failure: you do not have to do anything to achieve it.

A man's purpose of life should be like a river, which was born of a thousand little rills in the mountains; and when, at last, it has reached its manhood in the plain, though, if you watch it, you shall see little eddies that seem as if they had changed their minds, and were going back again to the mountains, yet all its mighty current flows, changeless, to the sea. If you build a dam across it, in a few hours it will go over it with a voice of victory. If tides check it at its mouth, it is only, that, when they ebb, it can sweep on again to the ocean. So goes the Amazon or the Orinoco across a continent, — never losing its way, or changing its direction, for the thousand streams that fall into it on the right hand and on the left, but only using them to increase its force, and bearing them onward in its resistless channel. Beecher.

On one bright summer day, the boy Warren Hastings, then just seven years old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten years later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme, which, through all the turns of his eventful career, was never abandoned. He would recover the estate which had belonged to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intellect expanded, and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but indomitable force of will which was the most striking peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical sun, he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long public life, so singularly checkered with good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die. Macaulay.

Half the failures in life arise from the pulling in one's horse as he is leaping — Chapin. — The world estimates men by their success in life, and, by general consent, success is evidence of superiority. — Everett. — There is nothing like a fixed, steady aim, with an honorable purpose. It dignifies your nature, and insures your success. — Beecher. — David Ricardo, the celebrated political economist, had what he called his own three golden rules, the observance of which he used to press on his friends. They were: "Never refuse an option when you can get it. Cut short your losses. Let your profits run out." Many a man has lost being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. — Phillips.