Crowned For A Purpose: Identity And Divine Placement by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Crown and Its Responsibility

The theme of this conference is Crowned for a Purpose. Immediately upon seeing that theme, what becomes clear is that beyond the fanfare, beyond the glory, beyond the elevation, beyond the publicity of being crowned is the responsibility to walk in the purpose of that crown. There is no crown that sits on anybody's head for fashion. Every crown that sits on a head is there for a reason. There is a purpose for it.

The Queen of England wears a crown on her head when she shows up for official duties. That crown on her head makes her shoulders heavy because the shoulders have to carry responsibility. The crown makes her stand out but it also gives her authority to make certain statements and decrees — and if she makes those decrees, they have to be obeyed. To become a queen is not a walk in the park.

Once you are crowned, the job does not end there.

Many of us, once we achieve what we are pursuing, end it there. We do not see beyond.

Our theme scripture is Esther 2:17.

What Happens When the Crown Leaves

The king loved Esther more than all the other women and favored her over all the other virgins, so he put the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. He took the royal crown from one head and put it on another head. And the moment the crown left Vashti, we did not hear about her anymore.

• The moment the crown left her head, authority left her.
• The moment the crown left her head, relevance left her.
• The moment the crown left her head, visibility left her.
• The moment the crown left her head, favor left her.
• The affection of her husband left her the moment the crown left.

The crown can come on your head and if you do not recognize why it is on your head, it can be removed. And once it is removed, you are voiceless, faceless, powerless, loveless, and visionless. Never push walls and push boundaries and push limits until you lose your power, until you lose that which gives you the right to speak.

Esther's Qualities

For Esther to find the favor of the king after he had seen many women — and the Bible describes Vashti herself as beautiful — it was not beauty alone that Esther was going to use to mesmerize the king. She had to have some qualities.

Remember that she was taken against her will. Esther did not offer herself. Some of us are in places we did not willingly enter. But we are not discerning the purpose of that space. And please do not think that crowning is only for good or pleasant events. Sometimes the space where you are suffering is a crowning, but we do not see it because we are in pain.

She was taken against her will, but she did not sit in bitterness. She did not become uncommunicative. She did not withdraw from people and sit with her pain — brooding on it like a chicken brooding on eggs, waiting to hatch bitterness so she could use it to wound others.

The little servant girl in the house of Naaman was taken against her will. She could have become bitter. She could have cried every day. But she was serving in joy and paying attention. One day she said to her madam, "Your husband may be the commander of the army, but in my country he is an outcast" — because this man had leprosy. She said, "If he can go to my prophet, this leprosy will leave him."

When Naaman came back from Israel healed, do you think that girl remained a slave? She was taken from the ranks of slave to daughter. That is a crowning. But if she had said, "Since you carried me as a slave, stay with your leprosy" — she would have remained a slave.

Rizpah: Purpose Inside Adversity

Rizpah had only two children. They came and took both of them on the same day, killed them, and hung them for birds to eat their bodies. Rizpah could have curled up and died in grief. She was not even a wife — she was a concubine. She did not have access to the king's inheritance. Her two sons were her only hope of someone to take care of her in old age. They killed them and her life could have stopped that day.

But Rizpah decided: I did not give birth for adversity. I did not give birth uselessly. I refuse to let this story end at this point.

Any woman who will bring purpose to her crown has to be a woman who will think outside the box.

Rizpah went to where her children were hung. She wore sackcloth and stayed there, chasing birds away in the daytime and wild animals at night — for three months, from the beginning of harvest to the end. She stayed while those bodies were decaying. A tiny woman confronting wild animals. Why? Her purpose was staring her in the face. She refused to let her children fizzle away without effect.

She stayed there. And it reached the ears of the king. And the king came and gave the sons of Saul a proper burial. 2 Samuel 21.

Inside your adversity is a potential for a crown.

Counterfeit Identities

There are false identities that get in the way of walking in the purpose of the crown:

• Trauma identity — thinking "I am what happened to me." You are not what happened to you. What happened to you is separate from who you are.
• Performance identity — "I am only valuable when I succeed." Your value remains the same whether you succeed or fail, whether you are known or unknown. You have been bought by the blood of the Lamb. An old tattered $10 bill and a brand new $10 bill buy exactly the same thing in the market. Your value does not change.
• Relationship identity — "I am only complete if someone chooses me." Do not wait for somebody to choose you. Choose yourself.
• Social media identity — "I am what people approve of." That is not your identity. That is an image.
• Comparison identity — "I must become her to matter." There are 7 billion people on the earth and 7 billion different fingerprints. How intentional can God be? Every time there is a union between a husband and his wife, millions of sperm cells are released, but the egg is designed to accept only one. You were that one. The rest died. You were a winner before you knew yourself.

Nobody shows up here by accident. And before you showed up, God already programmed you for greatness.

Divine Placement and the Will of God

This morning the focus is on divine placement and influence. The scripture that shifted the direction of this message is Philippians 2:13 — "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

The crown that is sitting on your head is not for your pleasure. It is for the pleasure of God. And because we do not have that perspective, many times we lose the purpose for which God has crowned us. We think we got the appointment to buy a bigger car. We think the purpose of finishing the PhD is to show up in church wearing designer clothes.

God is working on your will. Many of us have our will rigidly in our own hands. "It is either my way or the highway." But it is God that is wanting to work in you. Paul is assuming that our wills are submitted to him.

Samson said to his father, "Get that woman for me, for she pleases me." She pleases me. One of the reasons many of us do not submit to the call of God is because we are afraid of what God will demand from us. But the life that you have — who owns it? If he collects the life, what is left?

God works in you through your mind. Philippians 2:5 — "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Christ's mind was always focused on doing the will of the Father. The word "let" implies permission — it is a conscious act you choose. The devil wars against you at precisely this point: don't let God in, don't let him direct you.

How does God speak to you? He can speak audibly. He can speak through his word — but how much time do you give to the word? When last did you open your Bible simply to read and study about God? The Bible says be filled with the Spirit by singing to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You get filled with the Spirit by spending time with the word.