Intro
In this message, I want to give you a framework for understanding the events that occur in your life. What is God always doing in your life? Why does he have you here on planet earth? What is the real meaning and purpose of life? The Bible gives answers to these profound questions, and those answers give context to everything that you’re experiencing: in the past, in the present, and in your future.
That which I am about to share with you does not eliminate the need to trust God. It gives a foundation for doing so. It provides a framework for putting events in perspective. It provides assurance that it is all moving toward a worthy outcome. For the Christian, that outcome is glorious. The long-term future of the unbeliever is terrifying. But even for that person, God is working to provide opportunity to know him, submit to him, and receive eternal life through the cross of Christ. God is actively seeking and saving those who will receive his mercy. The salvation Jesus purchased is for “whoever” will (John 3:16). Will you receive his offer of eternal life? Have you received it? For those who have bowed the knee to Christ, God is managing the affairs of their lives working all things together for their good (Rom. 8:28).
We must live by faith because God does not tell us everything. He tells us in his word what we need to know in order to live a full and rewarding life. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”i
There will always be a degree of mystery in life. Wisdom teaches us to trust God with those unknowns. For example, you and I do not know the day and hour of Christ’s return. It is utter folly to fret over that. We learn what we can from the Bible and trust God with what is not revealed. We are told everything we need to know in order to be ready for that event. Our part is to be ready—stay ready. We do not have to know the day and hour in order to be ready.
Another example of “the secret things [that] belong to the Lord” is the day and hour of our own death or the death of our loved ones. Occasionally, God reveals that. I have an ancestor who was a Methodist circuit preacher. God told him when he would die. He sent the word out to friends and parishioners. Many came to say goodbye before his departure. Sure enough, God took him at the appointed time. But as a rule, we must trust God’s wisdom without knowing when God will take us home.
What I am about to share in this message does not answer those secret-thing questions. However, this message will help you make some sense of all the events in your life. In fact, you would do well to process your experiences in this framework.
Life is not a chaotic series of meaningless chance events. “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord” (Ps. 37:23). God is overseeing your life, ordering the events so that his good intentions toward you get accomplished. Life has meaning and purpose, and God’s purpose for you in this life revolves around three objectives:
1. Knowing God. Life is an opportunity to know God. Events occur so that you may know him better as you proceed. Deeping your relationship with God is extremely important.
2. Being Conformed to the Image of Christ. Life is a preparation for eternity. People go to college to get the education they need to equip them for the job they will do in their career. God is preparing you for an assignment far more significant than anything you have seen in this life. This life is a training ground for bigger and better things.
3. Helping Others toward Those Two Goals. It is about you, but it is not just about you. God wants to use you to help others know him. He wants to use the gifts in you to equip others for their ministries in this life and for eternity.
Those three objectives will provide the structure for this teaching.
I. KNOWINGS GOD
Our understanding of life must begin where the Bible begins. Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God....” The center of the universe is not me. Our humanistic society has drifted toward that error. As long as I am central to everything, life will be quite confusing. In fact, that is a formula for a miserable life. Paradoxically, he who finds his life by making himself the number one priority will lose it in the long run. Jesus said, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39). Most people fail to live a fulfilling, meaningful life because they do not heed this paradoxical truth. They make personal satisfaction, pleasure, and fulfillment their objective in life. They make their choices based on that objective. Ironically, they fail to achieve the goal because it is their top priority.
“The chief end [objective] of man [according to the Westminster Shorter Catechism] is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”ii To add clarity, the catechism goes on to say, “The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.” Notice how it all revolves around relationship with God. If you take God out of the picture, you remove the central point of it all.
For thousands of years, philosophers have wrestled with the question of what the meaning of life is. There is something innate in the human soul that wants to know. A cow munching on grass does not struggle with such issues. He simply lives to fulfill his physical desires. Sadly, that’s the way some people live. But most of us want to know why we are here and why events are happening in our lives. We need to know that somehow it all matters. That level of thinking is a result of being made in the image of God.
Modern philosophy has tried to find meaning in life without God. They don’t want the moral accountability that comes with acknowledging God (Rom. 1:28). So, they work very hard to explain him away. But once they do that, they are left with a deep void in the soul. To fill that void, they search for meaning outside the context of God. The problem is: Without God, life is ultimately meaningless. Short-sighted purpose may be found in social agendas, but if it ends at the grave, it is ultimately vain.
Solomon understood that when he wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:2: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The NIV says, “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." When you take God out of the equation, that is the ultimate conclusion: “Utterly meaningless!”
Solomon goes on to say in 1:14: “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” Solomon is expressing the meaninglessness of life when lived without a proper reference to God and eternity. The key to understanding the book of Ecclesiastes is that phrase in verse 14: “under the sun.” It is repeated 29 times in the book to remind us of the frame of reference from which he is speaking. You can try to find meaning in life by doing good works. You can try to find it by accumulating things. You can try to find it by pursuing pleasure. You can try to find it in building reputation before men. It is all a “grasping of the wind.” It is all meaningless if there is no God and no eternity. You simply live and die, and it was all for nothing in the long run. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon explores these futile attempts to find meaning in life “under the sun,” or without a proper relationship with God. After exposing all that, he concludes the book by pointing people to the Creator and exhorting them to find purpose in him. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man's all. 14 For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil.” For life to have real meaning, one must understand it in relationship to the Creator.
The rejection of God logically leads to nihilism. Nihilism is “the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless.”iii If God is not there, then life is meaningless. It doesn’t matter what you do because it all ends in nothingness anyway. That is the logical conclusion once you reject the existence of God.
Of course, that’s a hard pill for anyone to swallow. As we said earlier, people need a sense of purpose in life. So, they try to develop some form of meaning by developing a humanistic value system. After all, society cannot be sustained under nihilism. It ultimately self-destructs. So, they don’t want God, but they do want meaningfulness. What do they do?
They opt for postmodernism. A basic tenant of postmodernism is that nothing has meaning except for the meaning we humans assign to it and those meanings can change. So, in their minds, abortion is not wrong if we as a society decide that it is not wrong. This is one reason our society is at an impasse on the issue of abortion. We Christians say it’s wrong because God has said, “You shall not murder.” They say it is okay because they collectively say it’s okay. Without a philosophical change in one camp or the other, agreement is elusive.
Evangelism is challenging in our society because of the postmodern mindset. To be saved a person must acknowledge his guilt—his violation of God’s laws. But if the individual thinks that he’s the one who gets to define truth—if he thinks that he has the right to define right versus wrong without reference to God’s revelation of right and wrong, then he justifies his actions. He feels no conviction of sin because, in his mind, he has done what is right in his own eyes and that’s the standard. It’s a major barrier to evangelism.
However, we can find hope in these two realities:
1. Down deep most people know God is there. They may explicitly deny it (they may fervently deny it), but creation screams God’s existence, and inside at the very least, they
suspect he is there. And their conscience is not fully convinced that their behavior is okay.
2. The conviction of sin is in the hands of the most competent being on earth: the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in John 16:7-8: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter [Holy Spirit] will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. 8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (KJV). Of course, on the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit did come, and he continues to convict the world “of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” We can tell people those truths; we can reason with them and we should. But the Holy Spirit can reason with them at an even deeper level. He is ultimately the great convinced.
“In the beginning God. . . .” Without the right beginning point in your worldview, you will never make sense of life. As Christians, we (at least doctrinally) believe God exists and is the source of objective truth. Behavior is right or wrong based on the revelation of who God is in Scripture. To make any sense in life, we must believe that God is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him (Heb. 11:6). But intellectual assent to these truths is not the same that as knowing God in a personal way. Yes, we believe intellectually that God is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him. But beyond that, at a very personal level, we know him relationally. We commune with him spirt to Spirit (John 4:23-24). The first point in this message is that life is about knowing God, knowing him relationally.
As in any relationship, knowing God is a progressive endeavor. It begins with the new birth. Jesus said in John 3:7, “You must be born again.” Our inner spirt must be made alive unto God.iv When that happens, God’s Spirit “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God [that we have been born again]” (Rom. 8:16). So, make sure you have that inner witness that you have been born from above by the Holy Spirit. That is the beginning of your journey in knowing God.
For those who have been born again, they are on a pilgrimage to know God more and more intimately, deepening their relationship with him as they go.
Paul stated this objective in Philippians 3:7-14:
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death [that references the 2nd purpose of life that we will talk about in this sermon], 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Behind the events in your life, God is giving opportunity for you to know him better. One question that should be asked in any situation is this: How can I get to know God better through this experience? That one reason you’re having the experience. So, make the most of the opportunity (Eph. 5:16 NIV). Let it be a call to seek the Lord more diligently. God said in Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
Did Job know God better at the end of his ordeal than at the beginning? He struggled with the suffering. He questioned why God had taken him through it all. But the experience culminated in a much greater revelation of God than he had previously. When God appeared to him at the end of the book, Job realized how limited his understanding of God had been. In Job 42:5 he said to the Lord: I “have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You.” Why did God take Job through that horrific experience. One reason it happened was to prepare him for a greater revelation of God.
Sometimes God takes us through challenging circumstances so that we will seek him and get to know him more intimately. This increased knowledge and intimacy is not just for this life. It will make you wiser in this life and more effective in your testimony for him. But your relationship with God will continue in the life to come. You are coming to know God in this life and that is significant for your eternity.
One purpose for your experiences in life is that you may know God more and more intimately. The second purpose is closely related to the first. It is about:
II. BEING CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST
Not only is God revealing himself to you through your life experiences, but he is also using those experiences to shape your character at the core of who you are. Paul wrote in Romans 8:28-29: “And we know [It is important to know this.] that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” God is ordering the events of your life so that you can “be conformed to the image of His Son.”
Imagine the implications of that goal. To be like Jesus forever and ever. Not just existing in a paradise. But being something marvelous in your own personality. The old saying is: “Wherever you go, there you are.” Who you are is more important that where you are. A corrupted being placed in paradise would be miserable. He would not be able to fulfill his perverted desires. He would not be content in heaven at all. The individual must be changed, not just the environment. Everybody wants to go to heaven. But if you’re not conformed to that holy environment, it would not be so great. One of the greatest things God is doing for you is to make you like Jesus. Getting you to heaven is secondary. Getting you to be like Jesus is paramount.
But how does God work this transformation? He does it in conjunction with life’s experiences. Some of those experiences are glorious and exhilarating. When God parted the Red Sea for Israel and miraculously rescued them from the Egyptians, they had a Holy Ghost party—tambourines and all. It was a revelation of God’s love for them. It was a revelation of God’s power to save. It turned their hearts toward God with great joy. In Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the 120 in the upper room, it was a transformational moment in their lives. They were dramatically changed by the experience.
You and I have had times when God met with us and poured his love in our hearts (Rom. 5:5). Those experiences shaped our characters in a positive way. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Mountain-top experiences are events that contribute to the transformation of who we are. But what about the difficult experiences?
Does God use difficult experiences to shape our character? In 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 Paul wrote: “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” Paul had mountaintop experiences. He was once caught up into the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:1-5). But he also went through some hard experiences in life. God knows just the right mix of experiences that are needed to conform you to the image of Christ. Every good recipe has the right mix of ingredients. And God will order the right mix of experiences in your life—tailor-made for you. Sometimes he takes us through the furnace of affliction to refine us. In Isaiah 48:10 God told Israel: “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (KJV).
Peter told believers, “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you” (1 Pet. 4:12). When you have been on the mountaintop with God, it can seem strange that you would later find yourself in a valley. In 1 Peter 6, that apostle talked about the refinement God works in us through suffering. 1 Peter 5:10: “But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.” The NIV says, “after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” There is a firm steadfastness that can develop in a person’s character as a result of God taking them through challenging experiences. The furnace of affliction can be a place of refinement.
During his severe trial, Job saw something about what God was doing in his character. He said in Job 23:10, “But He [God] knows the way that I take [God is fully aware of your circumstances]; When He has tested me [KJV: tried me], I shall come forth as gold.”
Abraham went through testings; Joseph went through trials; so did Moses and David and all the apostles. It is a normal part of the Christian experience.v It is not a meaningless stroke of bad luck. God uses experiences like that to train us in humility and patience and faith. In Deuteronomy 8, Moses helped Israel to understand God’s objectives in the way he led them through the wilderness.
In Deuteronomy 8:2-4 Moses told them:
“And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.”
Here is the ups and downs of life: “He . . . allowed you to hunger, and fed you.” Why would a loving, all-powerful God allow his children to hunger at all? Why not just keep them full and happy? They needed to learn the source of their provision. They needed to learn dependence on the Lord. They needed to learn his faithfulness to them. It was an opportunity to know God better. Additionally, the process was a development in humility.
In John 9, Jesus and the disciples encountered a man who was born blind. The disciples assumed his problem was the result of some personal sin. In verse 2 they asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” This experience happened so that God could reveal his goodness in healing him. Through this experience, the blind man got to know Jesus. The disciples and others got to know the Lord better. The people’s hearts were changed by seeing God’s good works, and God was glorified. Through it all God revealed himself so that people could know him, and people were transformed by the work of the Holy Spirit. The blindness itself was a very negative thing. But the way God worked in that circumstance was wonderful.
So, we have seen these two overarching purposes in life: 1. Knowing God. 2. Being Conformed to the Image of Christ. What is the third one? It is simply:
III. HELPING OTHERS TOWARD THOSE TWO GOALS
While God is working the first two goals in our lives, he is using us to assist others in reaching those goals.
First, evangelism falls under this third goal. When we lead others to Christ, we are helping them know the Lord in their initial experience. In that new birth, they are also being transformed through regeneration. A radical change takes place. But the new birth is not the end of the matter. It is the beginning of a journey in which those people build relationship with God through knowing him more and more intimately. And it is the beginning of their journey in being changed from glory unto glory.
In your ministry to other believers, you are helping them toward those first two goals. Your intercession for them may help them get free from old habits and become more like Jesus. Teaching the word of God helps equip believers to be faithful followers of Christ. All the gifts of the Spirit are to build up and strengthen the faith of others.
Ephesian 4:11-17 talks about this mutual edification of one another:
“And He Himself [Christ] gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — 16 from whom the whole body,
joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”
Conclusion
The tendency is to view life experiences through the lens of how the experience makes us feel or perhaps how it advances or obstructs our personal goals. I am presenting to you a different paradigm for processing the events of life. The three questions to ask are these: 1. How can I get to know God better during this experience? 2. How can I cooperate with God’s development of my character during this experience? 3. Is there opportunity in this to help others toward those first two goals?
If you approach it that way, you will find it is much easier to give thanks in every circumstance. First Thessalonians 5:18 tells us: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” There may be things in your circumstances that you should not be thankful for. We are not thankful for the evil that Satan works through people. We are thankful for the way God works in the situation.
If a loved one is murdered, I would not give thanks for the murder. I would give thanks for God’s ability to redeem that atrocity and work positive things in people’s lives. Perhaps the family discovers a grace to forgive beyond anything they had previously known. Perhaps the criminal is caught and in prison hears the gospel and is saved. We don’t give thanks for the evil that is done. We give thanks for what God is accomplishing in the midst of it all.
Instead of focusing on our own feelings or our own goals, we turn our attention to the bigger picture. We set it in the framework of God’s purposes. So, remember God’s three goals for your life:
1. Knowing God.
2. Being Conformed to the Image of Christ.
3. Helping Others toward those first two goals.
ENDNOTES:
i All Scripture quotes are from the New King James Version unless indicated otherwise.
ii “Shorter Catechism,” The Westminster Standard. Accessed at https://thewestminsterstandard.org/westminster-shorter-catechism/.
iii Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.
iv See John 6:63 and Eph. 2:5.
v It is beyond the scope of this sermon to deal with the importance of one’s response to such testing that comes in our lives. We must respond in faith toward God to gain the benefit available in the experience (Heb. 4:2).
