Question to be asked: Why does God need our worship? Is that our purpose - only to live and praise God?
Intro: Why are we here? I hope that by the time we’re done here this morning you don’t leave saying, “Why are we here, again?”
I’m driving in Canada some years ago, and every once in a while I’d notice little piles of rocks. Usually, they looked like a person. Some were by the roadside. Some were on beaches. Different shapes and sizes of rocky sentinels. I couldn’t tell what they were just by looking at them.
As I saw them, some thoughts came to mind:
Who built these? They aren’t there by accident. Those rocks didn’t just happen to fall there that way. These pebble-y people must have some purpose. Their builders had something in mind when they stacked them. What was it? For the large ones, it took a lot of thought and effort to create them. As it turns out, they do have a purpose for being there.
Those mineral men are a northern thing - started thousands of years ago, and still an important part of the Inuit culture. They’re typically known as “inukshuk” - in the Inuit tongue, that means “to act in the capacity of a human.”
Often times, the inukshuk were markers that helped people travel, or they pointed out a good place for hunting or whaling, or maybe a warning about thin ice. Often, they were a reassurance that a person was headed the right direction. Some were built to have a “window” through them, which a person could look through and be directed to another waypoint ahead. Some were built as a memorial, or for religious reasons. And, more lately and in other places of the world, some are built just for the builder to enjoy. There you go - something you can do with the rocks in your flowerbed at home this spring!
I look around at people-shaped people and I have a similar thought process: Someone put them here. People don’t “just happen.” They aren’t here by accident. There’s design and some purpose behind something so complex. And, the Bible tells us, they are more than just material. People have a soul that will last forever. It doesn’t seem so crazy to ask, “who put them here, and what is their purpose?” does it?
Why are we here?
There’s another way to ask this big question:
What is the meaning of life?
People joke about answering that question, because philosophy hasn’t answered it for millennia, but God’s word has had the answer to that question all along, and it answers it right up front. That’s what I want to do this morning, and then from there discuss what to do about it.
Our purpose for existence is found in the fact that we are created. Without creation, there is no purpose. Instead, we have been created, intentionally, by the Creator, with a purpose for existing. No creation is without some purpose, and that includes us, as a part of God’s creation. We, along with all the rest of creation, are here for the purpose of directing glory to God. God isn’t shy about making that clear: (breeze through these)
Isaiah 43:6-7
I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”
Ephesians 1:12-14
…so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
Revelation 4:11
“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Romans 11:36
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
In 1646 English and Scottish theologians wanted to bring about some unity in the Church of England and they compiled the 107 questions and answers known as The Westminster Shorter Catechism. It’s very first question is:
“What is the chief end of man?”
“Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
That’s a pretty good short answer, actually. It’s spelled out in Scripture:
We glorify God by being good stewards of the rest of creation.
Genesis 1:27-28
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Psalm 8:6-8
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
God is glorified when we use His creation for good things, and He expects us to enjoy that!
Real science is good! Studying how we can use the resources of earth for good is a good thing!
Harnessing the richness of creation for good is a good thing. When farmers grow things, when builders build things, when discoverers discover things, when people show the image of God in which they are created by being productive and creative, it points to the genius and power of the Creator! Just like a pile of rocks in the shape of a man tells something about the people who put them there, we tell something about the God who put us here when we fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion over it, and do it well. No other part of creation has that privilege, but we do! We are stewards of the rest of creation, and that’s one way we direct glory to God.
Another way we bring glory to God is by our worship and obedience to Him. We’ve been created for this purpose. In fact, when Solomon concludes the book of Ecclesiastes, which is basically about a man’s search for the meaning of life, he reaches this end:
Ecclesiastes 12:13 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
Jesus spoke about it in vineyard terms:
John 15:8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
Once again, that’s why we’re here. No other part of creation has the choice to either obey or disobey God. (All cats and a few dogs may be the exception to that!) No other part of creation has a soul that’s able to revere God like we are able. Think about that! This is the whole of man - fear God and keep His commandments. That’s a description of why we’re here.
Just like someone might build an inukshuk for the sheer pleasure of creating something and enjoying it, it seems that God has also made us for the purpose of His own delight, if you will. God not only created a creation, He is also from that creation building a Kingdom. We are here to be the citizens of God’s Kingdom, elements of a building, the sheep of His flock, the fruit of His harvest, members of a family, parts of a Body. That’s the way He describes it in…
1 Corinthians 12:18-20 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
Charles Darwin pointed to certain organs, dubbed them the vestigial organs, and called them evidence that we evolved and those organs were no longer necessary.
As it turns out, most all of them serve a purpose, and a few others are simply what’s leftover after we’re done developing in utero, like your belly button, for instance. The point is, every part of the body is there for a reason. That’s how God describes people in His Church. And those different parts of the Church are supposed to work together, just like your body parts work together…
Ephesians 4:15-16 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Here's another reason that the Bible flat-out says we are here: to live forever with the Lord.
Jesus told His disciples that He was going to come back and take them to be with Him so that they would be where He is.
Jn 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
That’s what God is preparing us for - life with Him forever.
2 Corinthians 5:5
He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
So, the answer to the big question is that God chose to make us, and along the way, He has given us some specific purposes for our existence:
To bring Him glory
To be stewards of His creation
To obey and worship Him
To build His Kingdom, and ultimately
To live with Him forever
OK. One of my professors told us to always ask, “Oh yeah? So What?” It’s called application - or OYSW? We exist for some very lofty reasons. Great. So what?
1. We take a creationist worldview into a world that really needs it!
Bertrand Russell was a rationalist philosopher. He rejected the existence of God, the moral goodness of Jesus, and the hope of anything beyond this life. In 1903, he wrote an essay called “A Free Man’s Worship.” In it, the anti-Christian skeptic gave one of his most famous quotes. Listen to his conclusion about what has to be true of the meaning of our existence:
…That man is the product of causes which had no provision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collections of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins - all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. - Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship”
Why are we here? We just are. That’s the best there is.
But when we understand that God created it all, then we can begin with the most basic answer: God created us, for a reason, and every person has a part in that!
Think about that for a moment - many of the people you encounter in Rockford this week are people who believe our existence has no real meaning.
Imagine getting up every morning with that on your mind!
Imagine getting an education, starting a family, having a job thinking that there isn’t any reason for your existence! Then, imagine the difference it would make in a person’s life to turn that around.
April 26-27, 2 weeks after Easter, Bryan Osborne of Answers in Genesis is going to be here to do a 2-day conference for us. Answers in Genesis is doing a good job making a case for creation. There’s a reason that a whole ministry is focused on that important issue. There’s a reason we’re going through the effort to make a big deal of it this year.
We have a worldview that includes a Creator; where every person has a purpose for existing - born or unborn, old or young, weak or strong, beautiful or goofy-looking, brilliant or not. More than ever, that message needs to get out.
And here’s a 2nd OYSW…
2. We look at every person as someone who has a purpose
Every person you look upon has a purpose for existing. Every person you see was created by God.
Just think how important this is today when we look at 3 little babies and dedicate them to the Lord and dedicate ourselves alongside their parents to help those children fulfill their reason for existence!
Think how important that is when you see some addict on the street in town, when you read the words of some cynical skeptic, when you struggle to forgive someone who has wronged you. These are all people who, in God’s economy, have a purpose for existing. They are potential members of God’s Kingdom, potential citizens of Heaven forever.
Every person is here for a reason. Every person you look upon has a purpose in life.
Here’s a 3rd OYSW: when we consider why we’re here…
3. We remember that our own lives have purpose
The person you look at in the mirror has a reason for existence too. Are you fulfilling it? Does the way you spend your hours this week reflect it? You’re the one person whose choices you actually control. God has something for you to do…
Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
“Prepared beforehand” - that means, before you even thought of it, before you even existed, God’s perfect wisdom had hand-picked good works for you to do. I wonder, are you doing them? Have you asked God to direct you toward them? Are you living your life on purpose?
Here’s one more OYSW:
4. We experience life as it’s supposed to be when we live it according to God’s purpose, and only then
1. It’s why the people of God are still longing for something better - because we’re “subjected to futility” along with the rest of creation. We are not yet fully living what God has made us to be.
Romans 8:20b-23
…the creation was subjected to futility…the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
2. It’s why you, if you’re outside of a relationship with God, are looking for something better right now! Something brought you here! You may not understand everything, but you understand this at least: that there’s more to life than just what you’re hearing everywhere else; that there’s quite possibly the answer to many of life’s questions to be found among a community of believers - a body, made up of many parts - people who are trying to live out God’s purposes for us. I dare to say, that’s why you’re here - right here, right now.
Conclusion:
So, why not become what God has planned for you to be? Why not make this the day that you actually step into the reason you were created? Why not glorify God and enjoy Him forever?
