“WHAT ON EARTH AM I HERE FOR?”
TEXT: EPHESIANS 1:4, 1:11
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Welcome to 40 Days of Purpose. These 40 days may well be the most significant 40 days in your life; so I welcome you to this series as we discover the answer to the question: What is God’s purpose for my life? Imagine what would happen if we discovered the answer to this question, if the light came on for everyone in this room and in our entire church. Imagine what would happen in our lives and our community to answer this profound question which has plagued people for millennia. What on earth am I here for? What would happen if our lives came into alignment with our very created purposes, and I use that word on purpose – alignment.
Most of us have vehicles, don’t we? We understand the importance of getting the wheels of our vehicle in alignment, right? What happens if they are out of alignment? What happens? The tires begin to wear prematurely and things break or you have a sudden burst. The car can shake and rattle; the parts begin to become a little bit lose, kind of shimmy; and you don’t get the use of your car or the length of use of your car that you really could have.
The same thing is true in our own lives. If our lives are out of alignment with God’s purposes, than our lives, too will shake and shimmy, and parts will wear out prematurely. A lot of people’s minds, bodies, and relationships are wearing out prematurely. We are not getting real joy out of life; not getting the type of joy that God hopes for us or has for us.
Again what will happen if we get our lives, like our cars, in alignment? What would happen if we got our lives aligned with God’s purposes? In preparation for this message I decided to try to discover what people think about this issue: What is the meaning of life? I discovered a website called philosophyforum.com. If you want to go there, type in “meaning of life” and click on the www.philosophyforum.com. There are a lot of responses.
There is a young man who named himself (screen name) One Monkey. (It’s a cute term). He asked this question in England. He sent the question “What is the meaning of life?” to every philosophy professor in the UK. There are 656 of them either in universities or in public houses, and he wanted to know from them what the purpose of life is. Now let me read you some of the responses because they really are representative of our thinking – a person’s thinking today - on this question.
Several philosophy professors said the question is absurd, only human beings worry about this; and in response, one philosopher wrote, “Some philosophers disregard the question as nonsense, but I still say that there must be something that motivates humans so much to know it besides random nonsense.” I think this person is on to something. It’s like having an itch. Have you ever had an itch that’s in a place that you just couldn’t get to and until you scratched the exact spot the itch remained? I think this happens with this question of the purpose of life. We have this itch in our soul. It’s an itch that will not go away until you scratch the exact spot. How do you approach it in the exact way to get to it?
As a culture and a society, we have tried to scratch in many ways, many approaches, and we just haven’t reached it. The itch is still there. That is why I think for millennia people have been asking this question - every age, every time, and every culture- Why am I here? Could it possibly be that the reason why we have this itch as human beings and homo sapiens (we are the only ones that have this itch), could it be as the Bible describes it, that we are uniquely created to have a capacity to know God, and it’s this itch that we feel in our soul and our spirit, our very being? It requires an answer.
Again, we have tried a lot of approaches that simply haven’t worked. Some people have tried the philosophical approach. I think of the statue of man thinking. We try to reason for ourselves what the purpose of life is. We have thought about the question; we have reasoned it out and some have concluded (this is coming from some of the philosophy professors) that there is no meaning to life. Life is absurd. One philosopher writes, “As far as I am concerned, it is just some crazy improbable biochemical and molecular coincidence. I didn’t know that you eek meaning out of coincidence.”
Others conclude the purpose is to reproduce before you die. One philosopher writes in response, “I am not sure that if we can only come up with ‘the purpose of life is to reproduce life’ - I am not sure how helpful that is.”
If we really believe that life is ultimately absurd and has no purpose, then our lives are much like Sisyphus, the person from Greek mythology. Do you know who Sisyphus was? Sisyphus was the man that was condemned to live forever. He would spend each day pushing the same stone to the top of the same hill only to have it roll down to the bottom. For all eternity he would push it up and it went down, up and down. It’s the epitome of the meaningless life. Another person writes that “life is paradigmatically pointless and no less so in virtue of lasting forever.”
Having children to carry on after we die only makes things worse. Life still resembles one of Sisyphus’s climbs to the summit of this hill and each day of it one of his steps. The difference is that whereas Sisyphus himself returns to push the stone up again, we leave this to our children. Having children is as pointless as anything if all we accomplish is to pass on the same dreary struggle, the rock of Sisyphus, down to the generations. Our achievements, even though they are often beautiful, are mostly bubbles. And those that do last, like the sand-swept pyramids, soon become mere curiosities. So “what purpose is there for having children if that’s the only meaning to life?” concludes this one philosopher.
Some others have thought about this question and concluded (on the same website), that it’s sex and food. It’s party - party hardy! We have billion dollar industries to accommodate us, to enjoy all the pleasures of life. We have all kinds of sexual pleasure out there. We have Hollywood to entertain us. We have taverns to give us spirits. We have restaurants to quench our physical hunger or appetite, but it doesn’t seem to be satisfying in that the suicide rate is still climbing. In fact, it’s the number two cause of death in youth, and now the number one cause of death in those over 65.
Some have concluded that the purpose of life is the acquisition of wealth. “He who dies with the most toys wins” as the cliché goes, but the problem with that is that “he who dies with the most toys,” still dies. So what purpose is that?
Others have tried the self-help approach. They have gotten books and tapes. We have shows -- Oprah, Dr. Phil. We have all types of approaches to helping ourselves, but it is not working. The question still remains. Then we have, as a culture, looking within; trying to find the divine within. We have tried transcendental meditation, the new age movement, chants and mantras, horoscopes and the occult, but the itch remains. And in tapping into the spirit world, and in discovering “the force,” we have discovered that we are turning out to be more like Darth Vader than we are Yoda.
What’s the answer? The answer is in our approach. Could it be that the reason why we are not finding the answer, the reason why we can’t get to this itch in our soul, in our collective soul, in our cultural soul and our personal soul, is because we haven’t scratched in the right place? Maybe the answer does not lie within: within our mind, within our reason, within our experiences, within religion, within us, within our relationships, within our psyche, within our body, within our emotions. Maybe the answer lies outside of ourselves. Not in the stars, but in the creator of the stars.
Now, I am going to show you several inventions and you tell me what they are used for. Does anyone know what this is used for? A corn cutter. Yes, for canning corn. Now if you didn’t know this was a corn cutter you may abuse this thing. What’s this? It’s a circuit tester. What’s this used for? [holding up a mixer]
How do we know what some of these things are used for? How do we know? Because we know what they were created for and, in fact, they make manuals to be sure we use them the proper way. Have you ever read these owner’s manuals? No? No wonder things burn out at your house. There are lists of things to do and not to do. In fact, some of them are a little silly. “Do not operate toaster in bathroom while you’re in the tub. Do not chew on the power cord”. It’s important because if you do not do the things they tell you to do, and you do the things they tell you not to do, what will happen? What would happen if you tried to mix cement with this mixer [holding up the mixer]? If you didn’t know that this wasn’t a cement mixer, but you believed it to be a cement mixer, what would happen if you tried to mix cement? You would break it; you would burn it out. It would have a very short lifespan.
The same thing is true in our lives. The reason that a lot of us aren’t getting the most out of our life is because (1) we don’t know what we were created to do. As a result, we do things that we weren’t created for and it’s harming our lives and our children’s lives. There are some of us who know that we were created, but (2) we haven’t discovered what the purpose is for our creation, and as a result, our lives are out of alignment. We’re trying to mix cement with the wrong mixer (our lives), and it’s burning out. It’s not working. We are frustrated. We are dissatisfied.
What’s the answer? The answer is to discover that we were created for a purpose. And then, to discover what those purposes are so we live within the limitations and the safety of the do’s and don’ts so we don’t burn out, so our lives are enjoyable, so we do get meaning and purpose and satisfaction and contentment out of life.
This brings us to today. We are going to, in the next 40 days, look at the owner’s manual and discover what we were created for, and what we were not created to do, so that we can enjoy the fullness of our lives. We are going to look to God for the answer; God, who is the creator of all this.
People, the purpose of your life and my life is far greater than our own personal fulfillment and it’s far greater than our own happiness; it’s far greater than our own peace of mind or intellectual satisfaction. You and I were created by God, we were created for God, and we were put here for his purposes. The reason we are frustrated, even as Christians, is because we have been seeking our own purpose, our own happiness, our own goals, our own material pursuits; and it’s not satisfying. Until we realize that we will never be happy until we get in touch with God’s purposes for our lives, until we realize that we were created for his purpose, life will continue to be frustrating for us. Proverbs 16:4 says this: “The Lord has made everything for his purpose” not our purpose, and in the next 40 days we are going to look at five purposes, five purposes that we were designed for. Unless we live them out we will never really enjoy the life that God intended. There constantly will be discontent; things in our lives will break down. Proverbs 9:10 says this: “Knowing God results in every other kind of knowledge and understanding” which means if you get to know God, you discover the answer to this question: “Why on earth am I here?”
The key to the answer begins with God. Ephesians 1:11 says this: “It is in Christ, it’s in relationship with Christ that we find who we are and what we are living for.” So again if you want an answer to the question “what on earth am I here for”, begin with the four simple words that begin the Bible - “In the beginning, God…” It all begins there. But, you might say, I don’t believe that. Well you don’t have to, but if you really want an answer to this itch, I encourage you to scratch around in this place and look to God for these answers. You can always go back to your other pursuits. You can always go back to your other approach to this question, but I encourage you for the next 40 days to seek God for this answer.
Someone has totaled the fact that we have 25,550 days on average to live. I am asking for just 40 days. You can always go back to Oprah, but take 40 days to discover how you are going to use the other 25,510 days. Isn’t that a worthy investment? You might ask why, why did God create us? Does God need us? The answer is no. Take out this orange outline and read with me Ephesians 1:4 which is under number 2. Read it with me. “Long before God laid down the earth’s foundation, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love to be made whole and holy by his love.” Underline “the focus of his love.” God created us so he could focus his love on us. God created us so he could love on us. This is part and partial to the very nature of God, the very nature of love.
1 John 4:16 says “God is love” and love, if it is really love, demands expression. You can’t know love until you express love. Now for proof of that I challenge you to, on Valentine’s Day, not express your love to the people you love. Is it possible for you to love someone and never express it, never show it, never say it? How would you feel if no one ever expressed it; or even though they told you that they love you, they never demonstrated it? Is it really love? One poet says “love isn’t love until it’s given away.” That’s how we experience love; we know that someone loves us because they demonstrate it to us, particularly on Valentine’s Day. If you try to get away with not expressing your love, you get in trouble.
So God created us not because he needed us, not because he was lonely, not because he has an ego problem. It’s not as though he needed to create a bunch of these earthly ants to bow down and worship Him as though God has an ego that needs to be smoothed or stroked. God wasn’t unfulfilled. God wasn’t unable to become self-actualized apart from us.
He created us out of love. You are the object of God’s love. I want you to say that with me. “I am the object of God’s love. I am the object of God’s love.” Think about that. Say it again. “I am the object of God’s love.” Then why am I not experiencing God’s love? I ask the question, are you allowing God to love you? Are you allowing God to love on you or have you been pushing him away?
I think one of the reasons a lot of us don’t experience the love of God is that we are much like the Prodigal. What did the Prodigal do? He wanted to go and live his own purposes so he left the household. Have you experienced the rejection of a son or daughter in your life? Do you have children who want nothing to do with you? What effect has that had on you? Imagine if that was true. Wouldn’t your heart yearn, just break to express and to lavish love on your son or daughter?
A lot of us don’t experience the love of God because we are not in his household. We left it, living our own ways and our own purposes. God desires to love on us but we have to come home. 1 John 3:1 says this: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God.” Paul prays this prayer that I pray for myself and for my children and for you as well. Ephesians 3:14-19 says this: “For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love [referring to his love], may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Is that how you would describe your life? Do you feel “filled to the measure of the fullness of God”, the fullness of love, the fullness of joy, the fullness of contentment, the fullness of peace? If not, come home, come home to God and let him love on you.
I think another reason why we don’t experience God’s love is our image of God. Again this one young man on line said, “You know, I always thought of God as the Wizard of Oz.” You know the movie The Wizard of Oz? What was the wizard like? You would go the wizard and he would say, “I Am Oz!” Then this big, ugly, bald guy appears in front of you. It scares the begeebers out of you. You expect this wizard, whom you hear is so nice and so pleasant, to care about you; but he doesn’t care. He just wants to get rid of you, and he’s ominous and he’s frightful and he’s demanding. He demands standards that are impossible to meet. “Go get the broom of the wicked witch - that one that I just dropped the house on.” That’s an impossible task.
A lot of us see God that way, but if you can only pull the veil back of our image of God and discover that behind that veil is this warm and gentle man of a God, and that he really does care deeply for you and desires to love on you, I think it changes how we approach God and the answer to this question.
The third thing that is important in order to derive meaning from our lives is to discover that you and I were created for eternity. We were made to last forever, That is an important point because what good is God and experiencing love and hope and being good, if all we have in this life is 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 years, and if there is no heaven or hell, if there is no God, there is no accountability? It doesn’t matter if we live like Mother Teresa or Adolph Hitler, the result is the same, it doesn’t matter. Life then becomes extremely futile.
Even Paul picks up on this in 1 Corinthians 15:19: “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” Why? Because if there is no God, and there is no heaven, or there is no eternity, then there is no accountability. If there is no accountability, then there is no meaning to this life. It doesn’t matter what we do or how we live. Why would we even think about it? It makes no difference. But if there is eternity, and there is a God who holds us accountable, than it makes every decision and every lifestyle choice meaningful and purposeful because it has an impact upon our future; it has an impact on our destination.
If we live under the shelter of God’s purposes in this life, we will live under the shelter of God’s purpose in the next life. If we choose to live outside the purpose of God in this life, than we will live outside the purpose of God in the life to come. Eternity makes this life, and how we live and the choices we make, highly significant, highly important, and extremely meaningful. You may believe that we die and that’s it, and John Lennon and Gene Rodenberry and a lot of agnostics and atheists have believed this, but it doesn’t matter what you believe. You don’t have a choice on this. None of us has this choice. We will all wake up in eternity. The only choice we have is where -- the location, our destiny. We were all made for eternity.
Well I don’t believe this. Well you don’t have to. Ecclesiastics 3:11 says this: “God planted eternity in our hearts.” It’s a seed God has planted in us. There are funeral services for those who don’t believe there is a God. There are a lot of people who get angry when they lose a loved one. Why? Because whether you believe there is a God or not, or whether there is an afterlife or not, when you look at the person you’ve lost you say something is wrong about this. This shouldn’t be. People who don’t even believe in God get angry at God for this, and use it as a reason to separate themselves from him; when in reality, what they really are saying in their heart is I believe there is a God and this is wrong. Because we believe deep down, truly, that we were made for eternity.
I think another proof for this is the compulsion to memorialize everything. If this really is all there is in life, than why, as human beings, do we try to eternalize every human achievement there is? Why do we try to pass on our memory to the future unless, deep down in spite of what we think, there is a seed- an eternal seed within us-that cries out to have our life matter, to be significant beyond ourselves and beyond our time? They would say that there is a sense of the eternal.
Have you ever wondered: am I important? We often use the label “significant” -significant others. Do you have a significant other? What’s a significant other? Well, it’s a person you love; it’s a person you want to spend a lot of time with. If you are really serious about it, you marry them. Now, think about this people, how significant are you? You are so significant that God wants to hang around you forever. God loves you and he wants you to be with him for all time. John 14:1-3 says this: “Do not let your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me, and in my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Now if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am.” Proverbs 9:6 says this: “Leave then your impoverished confusion and live. Walk up the street to a meaningful life.” If you want to discover the answer to the question ‘what on earth am I here for’, if you want to experience meaning and purpose in your life, then realize that you were created to last forever and that there is eternity- an eternity - and what you do in this life determines your location in the future. It makes everything we do now very important.
Steven Hawking – you know who Steven Hawking is – he’s a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. He wrote a book called “A Brief History of Time”, and in this book he writes that his entire life’s purpose, his entire life’s work is to answer this question: What is our place in this universe and why is it the way it is? What’s his answer? In this book, by this great brilliant professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, he has no answer. His wife writes in the Sunday Times Magazine when asked the question: what’s his answer?: “You can’t actually get an answer out of Steven regarding philosophy beyond the realms of science. I can never get an answer and I find it quite upsetting.” Why is this brilliant professor unable to answer this very simple question? Early in the article it notes that he is willing to pursue the answer only through physics. Now, have you ever lost your keys, and you looked in one room and they weren’t there? You can’t find them there. What do you do? You go to a different room.
Steven Hawkings has been looking for the answer in physics alone. If he can’t find the answer there what should he do? Look in a different room. If we can’t scratch the itch that we feel, what’s the answer? Try a different approach. Instead of looking within the realm of this world, the realm of experiences, the realm of religion, I encourage you to look on the outside and look to God, then perhaps you will discover your purpose.
If you are hungry to know God’s purpose for your life, what I want you to do is turn to the back of this insert and make a commitment. I am asking you to commit to three things. Now, if the best you can do is number 2 and number 3, it’s better for you to do 2 and 3 than none at all, but it’s best if you can commit to all 3. Read it with me together, “I will participate in a 40 Days of Purpose Host Home or Sunday school class. I will read each day’s chapter from The Purpose Driven Life book and I will do my best to hear all seven messages in the series The Purpose Driven Life.” If you are ready to make that commitment or if you can only make #2 or 3, circle just 2 or 3 and then sign it and date it. Make that a commitment to God. Someone has calculated that to do all three only takes 48 hours out of 40 days. 48 hours to answer a question that has plagued people for a millennia - isn’t that worth it?
[Let’s pray.]
