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Preached in Markham Baptist Church, September 26, 2004 A distinguished American historian, James Adams once made a very interesting suggestion. He said it would be a good idea, fantastic though it sounds, if one day we could muffle every telephone and stop every car, turn off every computer and stop all activity so that people might have a few moments of quiet to ask the question, “What’s it all about?”1 If people could stop everything and think about what they’re really living for and why they are living. What is the purpose of life? Well, for the next number of weeks that’s just what we plan to do. We are looking to ask ourselves what’s it all about? What is the purpose of life? It is a question that humanity has asked again and again. People in every age and every generation have asked this question. Wise men and women have probed deeply into life and sought answers. And as one surveys the history of the world it’s interesting to see the answers that are given. One wise man by the name of Solomon endeavored to answer the question what is the purpose of life and his findings are recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes. Open your Bibles to the book of Ecclesiastes and we will discover some of his answers. Ecclesiastes 2:1-3: I thought in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 'Laughter,' I said, 'is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?' I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly – my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.” So, Solomon tried laughter (verse 2) and drink (verse 3). His first attempt to answer the question, "What is the purpose of life?" was to avoid the question! He sought to escape from life. He tried to escape from the pain of life by entertaining himself by laughing all the time. It all sounds very contemporary. We are part of a generation, according to one social commentator, that is “amusing itself to death”. We are always looking to be entertained. We are part of a generation that says, “I go home at night and watch T.V. because I don’t want to think about the day, I just want to veg.” Unfortunately that’s just what we’ve become a generation of potatoes, couch potatoes. Then Solomon tried to escape the question in drink. He was not the first nor was he the last. For some it is pure escapism. Asked why he drank so much one British drunk replied; “It’s the fastest way out of Manchester”. But escapism is not the way to answer the question, what is the purpose of life? For eventually the reality of life comes crashing in on us. Laughter, alcohol, drugs they don’t help us escape reality, the only shatter reality.2 And in the end there’s no satisfaction. For you see our minds and spirits want to know the answer to the question. We say yes to Rick Warren when he writes, “Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, events without reason. Without purpose, life is trivial, petty and pointless.”3 Or in the words of Solomon without purpose life is meaningless, “a chasing after the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 2:11) Well Solomon continues in his search for the answer at verse 4: “I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces.” In other words Solomon looks for purpose in life through success. Look at all he built. Look at all he accumulated. Solomon endeavoured to find meaning in success. And so in our day - it was William James who said we all worship at the shrine of the goddess of success. How many people there are who are like the man with the mud rake in the classic story Pilgrim's Progress. He keeps looking down and doing his job, but never looks up to see the stars, or the clouds, or the sky. He knows nothing higher than the mud and himself. That’s what we do. “We keep our head’s down, our noses to the grindstone, and keep on working to succeed. We never stop to ask ourselves, 'Is success the purpose of life?' And because we never ask the question after we have reached a level of success in our business or profession, or career we discover that we have succeeded in making a living but have failed life!”4 This is the conclusion that Solomon arrives at in verse 11: “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” So what is the purpose of life? Solomon continues in his search in the next part of verse 8: “I acquired men and women singers and a harem as well – the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.” Solomon searches for purpose in happiness and comfort. Happiness? It is enshrined in the second draft of the American Declaration of Independence as an inalienable right. Comfort? So many people see life as a pleasure cruise where everything must go their way, every sexual appetite must be satisfied, their desires must be catered to and their every need met. But do these answer the question, Why am I here? For happiness? For comfort? Surely there must be something bigger and grander than that. Don’t you agree with C.S. Lewis when he writes, “We are half hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far to easily pleased.”5 So what is our purpose? What is this infinite joy that is offered to us? We know it’s not what Solomon tried in Ecclesiastes all of that is like mud pies. So what is the purpose of life? And it is this, summarized for us in an old document called the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” That’s it. That’s why you were created. This is what we read in Colossians 1:16: "For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him." And so because we were created by Him and for Him we are to “give the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due his name.” (Psalm 29:1,2) And in Isaiah 42:6,7 God calls to His people saying, “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth everyone who is called by name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Why were you made? "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Now to understand this fully we need to understand what “glory” means. We know that to glorify means to boast of, to praise and adore. It means to exult and revere. And that certainly fits with our purpose in life. We are to revere God, to exalt Him as the king of kings and Lord of Lords. But can I suggest something - that it’s more than this? Now this is not explicitly in the book, it’s a little something extra that you will only find here. I have shared this with you before but it bears repeating here. The word “glory” in Scripture has a few shades of meaning depending on the context. But essentially the glory of God is the character of God. So Rick Warren states that the “glory of God is who God is. It is the essence of his nature, the weight of his importance, the radiance of his splendor the demonstration of his power and the atmosphere of his presence.”6 In essence the glory of God is the character of God. This is how it is chiefly used in the New Testament. So when John states in his gospel about Jesus Christ that the “Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth,” (John 1:14) he does not mean there that we have seen a bright light radiating from Jesus’ body. He is saying that when he looked at Jesus he saw what God was like. In the way He dealt with people and related to those who hurt Him, in the way He treated children, the sick and the lost, we saw what God was like. “For the son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” (Hebrews 1:3) That is, Jesus reflected God’s moral character. Now this brings us back to our purpose in life. It is a fact that what was true of Jesus was to be true of each individual that ever walked the face of this earth. The son is the radiance of God’s glory, that is to be true of you and me. You see we don’t have to read very far in Scripture to discover what our purpose in life is. We find it in Genesis 1:26 the chief purpose for you and for me is to glorify God. But you say that’s not what the verse says – no but that’s what it means. Genesis 1:26 says “let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” That means that when God created us He created us in His moral likeness. So if you were a giraffe in the garden of Eden and you watched Adam and Eve how they related to one another, how they treated the animals, how they did their work, you would have seen what God was like. You would have seen the character of God. That’s why you and I were created, that’s our purpose – for the glory of God, yes for His praise, but ultimately our purpose in life is reflect what God is like. And this is true of all creation. Psalm 19:1 says “The heavens declare the glory of God.” That is, when you look at the heavens you see something of the character of God, of His might and power and love for creativity. In Isaiah 6:3 we read “The whole earth is full of his glory.” That means that when you look at creation you see something of the character of God. This is part of the reason God choose the Israelites. He choose them to “declare his glory among the nations.” (I Chronicles 16:24). Yes, they were to sing His praises, but ultimately they were to declare to the nations what God is like by how they treated one another, how they cared for the land by giving it a rest every 7 years. By how they forgave and restored the slave and the indebted during a year of Jubilee. By the way they turned away from false gods, and did not lie and did not steal, they were to show what God was like. Did you ever consider that the Ten Commandments are really a reflection of what God is like? We are not to steal, because God is not a thief; we are not to murder because God does not murder and man is made in His image. We must not commit adultery because God is always faithful. The law is not an arbitrary set of rules but a portrayal of the image in which humanity was made.7 And this is our purpose. This is why we were created. To show the world what God is like to reflect His life, His character, the world. You see that’s why were you created so that when people look at you playing with your kids, relating to your spouse, they see what God is like. In the way you give generously to those in need, the way you treat those who hurt you, the way you work and relate to your fellow workers and to your neighbour whose kids play the drums in the garage, they see what God is like. That is the purpose of your life, to give glory to God. But something happened, didn’t it? In the book of Romans we read that “all of have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23). If the purpose of life is to glorify God and to glorify God means that we reflect God’s moral character it means that we have not fulfilled our purpose. We have sinned, we have fallen short, we have missed the target, that is what sin is, it is missing the target. “Sin is not necessarily how bad we are but how good we’re not.”8 We have not revealed the character of God, and thus have missed fulfilling the purpose in life. So what are we to do now? How will we fulfill the purpose for which God created us? Well we need help. We cannot do it on our own, we cannot fulfill our purpose of glorifying God on our own, we need help. And it can’t be just anyone who helps us. We need someone who is perfect, someone who has revealed the character of God fully. We need someone who can really help us. Well the good news is that while we have all fallen short of the glory of God, there is one who revealed the glory of God fully, and His name is Jesus Christ. And He has done two things for you and for me. First He died for us as one who perfectly reflected God’s character. He died as our substitute for our missing the mark. And you can know His forgiveness by believing that he went to the cross for you and instead of you. That’s the first thing He did. The second thing He did was rise from the dead and now He lives forever more. Now for all who believe in Him, for all who receive Him, he says, He will come into them and live in them and as we allow Him to control of our lives, He shines God’s character in us. You see it is no use telling me that I should play the piano as well as Howard. It just will not happen. But if somehow the spirit of Howard could enter into me. If somehow the Howard himself could take up residence in my then, then I could play like Howard. So we read in Colossians 1:27 that Christ in us is the hope of glory. That doesn’t mean heaven. It means that Christ in us is our hope of fulfilling our purpose for which we were made. He not only cleanses you and gives you a fresh start. He comes and lives in you and enables you to fulfill the purpose for which you were made – to glorify God. He lives in you and He reflects that image in you. Christ in us is our hope of fulfilling our purpose in life, of glorifying God, of showing the world what God is like. This is the first step in fulfilling your purpose – it is that when others look at you and look at me that they see what God is like, that is what it means to glorify God. The neat thing about this is that it is Jesus living in us that enables us to fulfill our purpose. It’s not something that we have strive to do. It is a life of complete surrender, a life of yieldedness. We will in the weeks to come be studying the five purposes of life. And it is helpful for us to keep this definition of glory in mind because it helps us understand their meaning. That is the purpose of life. And out of that purpose grows 5 others and they are understood better when we know that to glorify God means to show what God is like. These can be understood, that we glorify God through worship, giving our all to Him. Because that is what God is like. We glorify God by loving others because that is what God is like. We glorify God by becoming like Christ, because if you want to know what God is like you need only to look at his Son, Jesus Christ. We glorify God by serving others, because that is what God is like We glorify God by telling others about Him because that is what God is like. So this morning – stop all cars, stop all noise and ask yourself what are you really living for? What is your purpose? Success? Happiness? Comfort? Then now that you were made to glorify God. Are you doing this? Have you believed Jesus? Have your received Jesus? Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - September 2004 ENDNOTES:1. Quoted by John Gladstone in his sermon entitled, “What’s It All About?” 2. Michael Cassidy, Chasing The Wind (Wilton, Connecticut: Morehouse- Barlow Co. , 1985), p. 18. 3. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michegan: Zondervan, 2002), p. 30 4. Maurice Boyd, A Lover’s Quarrel with the World (Burlington, Ontario: Welch Publishing Co., 1985), p. 99. 5. Quoted by John Piper, Desiring God (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Books, 1996), p. 17 6. Ibid., p. 53. 7. For a more complete study of the ideas expressed here see Charles Price, Alive In Christ (Grand Rapids Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1995) . p. 66-78. 8. Ibid., p. 67. |
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