MAN’S PURPOSE
ECCLESIASTES 12:10-14
INTRODUCTION: Both Job and David asked the questions “What is special about man? Why was he created?” In Psalm 8, David wrote “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen – even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!” Solomon, David’s son, sought out to answer the question of life and man’s purpose. In Ecclesiastes 12:13, he gives us his conclusion. Let us consider the biblical worldview of the purpose of life.
I. Man was created to be an object of God’s Love.
A. Man was created in God’s image and is the supreme object of God’s love.
B. Job acknowledged this love for man in Job 7:17 “What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him”
C. "To be loved by God is the highest relationship, the highest achievement, and the highest position in life." – Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God: Knowing & Doing the Will of God (Workbook), p. 49.
D. In Jeremiah 31:3, God says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
E. You and I were created as objects of God’s love. We were made to be loved by God. One reason for our existence on this earth is to be loved by God.
F. That love is constant. It is ceaseless. It is changeless.
G. The greatest demonstration of that love was in God sending His Son to die for us.
H. Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
I. It was "in love" that the God the Father chose His children before the foundation of the world according to the good pleasure of His will.
J. Ephesians 1:3-6 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.”
K. No matter how bad you are, how evil you are, or how sinful you are … God loves you. God is crying out to your soul and heart. "I love you. I love you. I love you." What is your response to the love of God? Will you say no and laugh in the face of God? Will you refuse God’s love and spit into his face? Or will you say yes to God, yes to Jesus, and yes to the Holy Spirit? – Billy Graham, at 1982 Southern Baptist Convention
II. Man was created to love God
A. Not only was man created to be the object of God’s love but he is to be a source of love to God. Man’s life is to be centered on God.
B. Job said in his summation of man’s purpose “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man’s all.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13)
C. The word “fear” means to stand in awe of, reverence, honor, and respect. It is to have a heart-filled with wonder, adoration and love for God.
D. This is what Christ meant in Matthew 22:37 when He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
E. God created man to love Him. If man does not have that love, he does not meet his reason for being created. Our primary purpose is to love God and be loved by Him, to know God intimately and have a loving relationship with Him.
F. Our love to Him can only be acceptable to Him when we accept the provision that He has made for us through His Son on the cross. Realize that the Scriptures declare in 1 John 4:10 “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. “
G. Fearing and loving God means the recognition that He is holy and awesome, that we cannot have the fellowship that He intended for us due to our sinfulness, desiring that relationship to the point that we abandon all human attempts to make ourselves acceptable, and accepting His provision through the blood of Christ and surrendering both head and heart to Him.
H. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1)
III. Man was created to demonstrate his love for God.
A. Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
B. The third purpose of man is to show God’s love for man to man in the demonstration of his love for God.
C. "I do love God," said a little girl to her papa one day when he had been talking to her about loving God. "Perhaps you think so, Maria." "Oh, I do, indeed I do, Papa!" "Suppose, my child, you should come to me and say, ’Dear Papa, I do love you,’ and then go away and disobey me? Could I believe you?" "No, Papa." "Well, dear, how can I believe you love God when I see you every day doing those things which He forbids? You know, the Bible says, ’If ye love me, keep my commandments.’" - William Moses Tidwell
D. John 14:15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
E. John 5:10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”
F. One reason for the success of the University of Miami basketball team in 2002 was forward James Jones. The 6-foot-8-inch, 211-pounder was as successful off the court as on, building a reputation as a generous member of the Miami student body. He said: “My desire is to live out my faith in such a way that people can see Jesus Christ in me without me ever having to say a word. I’ll be the first person in the middle of the night to go pick someone up from the airport. I love people. Whoever I come in contact with I just try to display and express God’s love.” – Citation: "The Insider," Sports Spectrum (1-3-02)
G. Ecclesiastes 12:13 “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.”
H. This is the whole duty of man. This is man’s purpose – literally, "this is the whole man," the full ideal of man, as originally conceived in love by God – to have a loving fear of God and to honor Him by keeping His commandments.
