He Will Fulfill His Purpose for Me

“The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me. LORD, Your love is eternal; do not abandon the work of Your hands.” (Psalm 138:8)

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In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the task of saving a world falls to a hobbit, one of the smallest and least likely creatures in the story. Frodo is handed a ring of terrible power and told to carry it across enemy country to the one fire that can unmake it. The road grinds him down almost to dust. By the time he reaches the mountain, he can no longer walk, and his friend Sam lifts him and carries him up the slope. At the edge of the fire, Frodo’s strength gives out, and he claims the ring for himself. The quest is completed through an unplanned calamity, as Gollum, the creature they had spared out of pity, seizes the ring and falls with it into the fire. Tolkien invented a word for that kind of rescue, a sudden joyous turn he called eucatastrophe, the moment when a hand beyond the hero brings the ultimate purpose to completion.

You may know the feeling of a task greater than your strength. A calling you doubt you can complete, a recovery that stalls, a prayer you have carried so long it becomes routine. Psalm 138 sets this hope to poetic verse: “The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me.” This week’s Scripture gathers people whose circumstances looked impossible, and they show God who finishes the work with His own hands. He sets the purpose, and He sees it through to completion.

Exodus 1:8-2:10

The theme first appears in a moment of hopelessness. A new king rises over Egypt who has forgotten Joseph; he enslaves the Israelites, and he orders every Hebrew baby boy thrown into the Nile. God’s promise to make Abraham’s family a great nation seems buried under a Pharaoh’s death sentence. Then rescue comes through the courage of some very unlikely characters. Two midwives, Shiphrah and Puah, fear God and let the boys live. A Levite mother hides her son, sets him in a basket among the reeds, and Pharaoh’s own daughter draws him out and names him Moses. God fulfills His purpose to raise a deliverer through the hidden courage of women the empire deemed insignificant.

Psalm 124

Psalm 124 is Israel looking back and singing what God did in Egypt. If the LORD had not been on our side, the psalm says twice, the flood would have swept us away, and the raging water would have covered us. Then the picture is painted in freedom: we escaped like a bird from the hunter’s net, and the net is torn. The people name their rescuer in the final verse, “Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Deliverance that began in a basket on the Nile becomes a nation’s testimony, sung by people God preserved to declare it. God fulfilled what He promised.

Psalm 138

Psalm 138 puts the same confidence into the mouth of one believer. David gives thanks with his whole heart, remembering that on the day he called, God answered him, made him bold with strength, and staked his life on a promise: “The LORD will fulfill His purpose for me.” He adds a prayer that continues to the end of the verse, “Your love is eternal; do not abandon the work of Your hands.” God who preserved a whole nation cares about the purpose of a single life. David asks the Maker who tore the hunter’s net, freeing the bird, to finish the work He began in him.

Isaiah 51:1-6

Perhaps there is no more downtrodden a people than Israel in Babylonian exile. Isaiah calls a discouraged people to look back for their courage: “Look to the rock from which you were cut.” He points them to Abraham and Sarah, one aging and childless couple whom God multiplied into a nation when children seemed impossible. Then Isaiah lifts their eyes forward: God’s righteousness is near, His salvation is on the way, and it lasts forever, steady as the heavens fade like smoke and the earth wears thin. God who kept His covenant with one couple keeps it with His covenant people, and salvation He gives outlasts the earth itself. What God begins, He carries into eternity.

Matthew 16:13-20

So, what is the purpose He is fulfilling? At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks His disciples who people say He is, and then He reverses the question to them: “But you, who do you say that I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus tells him the Father revealed this, and then He makes a promise about His own purpose: “On this rock I will build My church, and the forces of Hades will not overpower it.” The rock Isaiah pointed to becomes the confession of Christ, and on it Jesus builds a church even the grave cannot overcome. Here the purpose God has been fulfilling all along reaches its pinnacle, a Savior confessed and a church that will endure.

Romans 12:1-8

For the impatient modern reader, Paul demonstrates how to live inside a purpose God is actively fulfilling. He appeals to us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind so we can discern His good, pleasing, and perfect will. Then he situates each believer in the body of Christ, many members joined as one, each with a gift given by grace, whether serving, teaching, giving, leading, or showing mercy. God’s purpose is fulfilled in people who offer themselves to Him and use their gifts for one another. The church Jesus builds in Matthew becomes the body of Christ Paul describes here, a living gospel work.

Conclusion

God shows Himself as One who fulfills the purpose He sets in motion, and the pattern comes to its fulfillment in Jesus. He received a purpose from His Father and carried it to completion, praying, “I have glorified You on the earth by completing the work You gave Me to do,” and from the cross He said, “It is finished.” The purpose God fulfilled in Moses, in Israel, in Abraham, and in David, He fulfilled fully in His Son, and He is building a church the grave cannot hold.  Follow Him. First, we trust that God finishes what He begins in us, and when the road looks impossible to traverse, we pray Psalm 138 back to Him and rest in the promise that He will carry the good work in us to completion. Second, we present ourselves to Him as a living sacrifice and let Him renew our minds, so that our lives line up with the purpose He is fulfilling. Third, we take our place in the body and use the gift He gave us, since the purpose God is completing is a people, built through ordinary members doing their part. Worship that trusts God to fulfill His purpose aligns itself with that gospel work.

Points to Ponder

• Name the purpose you cannot finish. What would change if you believed God intends to complete it Himself?
• The exodus turned on two midwives and a baby in a basket. Where might God be using your small, hidden acts of faithfulness in a purpose larger than you can see?
• Romans asks for your body as a living sacrifice and your gift for the body of Christ. What is one gift you can offer this week to the people God has placed around you?

Prayer

Father, You finish what You start. You raised Moses from the river, You tore the net for Israel, You multiplied Abraham’s family from one couple, and You built Your church on the confession of Your Son. Fulfill Your purpose for me. When my strength gives out, and the task looks impossible, carry the work Your hands began, and please do not abandon it. Renew my mind, take my life as a living sacrifice, and set me in Your body to serve with the gift You gave. Bring Your purpose to completion in me, for the glory of Jesus, who finished the work You gave Him. Amen.

“But My salvation will last forever, and My righteousness will never be shattered.” (Isaiah 51:6)