Christ is Our Purpose

I want to start this morning by asking: “Why are you here?”, not just in church this morning, although that would also be a good question, why do you think you’re on planet earth right now? What’s your purpose? What is the meaning of your life?

Lots of people have tried to answer this over the years, when I looked up common questions on the internet there were so many answers, and I think that some of them show an interesting insight into how people live.

Some of the answers were:

The purpose of life is to be happy

The purpose of life is to be successful

The purpose of life is to be wealthy

The purpose of life is to gain knowledge and understanding

The purpose of life is to follow all of the religious rules

For a long time Christian’s have also tried to answer the question, and in the 1600s the church of England formed a board and they wrote out a document called the Westminister Cathecism, and this document for centuries now has been what Christian’s turn to to answer the question. Their answer to the question was simple, but profound: “The chief end of man [the meaning of life] is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever”

This morning I want to tell four stories from the gospel of John that each show how Jesus caused the people who interacted with them to reevaluate this question.

But before we begin I think we need a little bit of context into the minds of first century Jews.

Like we talked about last week the Jews, previously known as Israelites, were descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons, you may recall the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers but then saved Egypt from a famine, following this story, the Israelites are slaves in Egypt for 400 years, by the 400 year mark the bible shows us a man named Moses. Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and into the wilderness where they get the 10 commandments, among a ton of other laws, rules, and commands from God. These rules were meant to set the Israelites apart from the other nations, to make them holy for God, and also to show them that on their own they would never be able to fix the problem of sin. However, the Israelites missed this last part and for hundreds of years their identity was tied to the laws. They defined themselves by it, it was the legacy that their people set, and it was how they defined their purpose in life. They were to follow the laws and wait for God to save them through the Messiah. And so through hundreds of years of history, all the way up to Jesus, the Jews thought that their meaning in life was tied to their religious rules, practices, and festivals.

Story 1:

We’re starting in John 2:1-12, all of these should be familiar stories, but I want to challenge you to think about them slightly differently than maybe you have before. In this first story Jesus, his disciples, his mother, and likely other friends and family all attend a wedding. Weddings were a massive event for Jews in the first century, like Cass and I thought our wedding was big and expensive last summer, we had 150 people or so, and it ran all day…

Their weddings were close to a week long, one of the commentaries that I read said that they invited “as many people as possible”(1)

It was expected that the groom and his family would provide food for all of the guests for the entire week, in fact to not be able to provide financially for this was seen as shameful, and to run out of food or drink, especially wine, was a grave dishonour to the groom and his family.

From the text, it seems as though Jesus and his mother have a close relationship with the bride and groom, it’s unlikely, given the notion of dishonour, that word would have spread that they had run out of wine, and so for Jesus’s mother Mary to know this, and then also want Him to fix it and cover it up, likely shows some level of deep relationship with them.

And at first Jesus is hesitant, he doesn’t feel like it’s time for him to show his miraculous power yet, but Mary insists, and so He chooses to help the couple.

And so He turns the water in the jars into wine, but something that I had never realized was just how much Jesus made. John 2:6 “Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.” So if we do some quick math, we see that Jesus made between 120 and 130 gallons of wine, now the average wine bottle is 750ml. Now I had to look this part up, because going to school they taught us the metric system so I had no idea how much a gallon was, but a gallon is close to 3800ml, which would be 5 bottles of wine, Jesus makes about 150x this.... Jesus close to 1000 bottles of wine… and we know from the next couple verses that He made high quality wine.

In this first story, we see a man who was likely very concerned with his reputation, and his relationship. I can’t imagine the fear felt by him as he realizes that they’ve run out of wine. The shame he must have felt on behalf of his family, but also the embarassment he would feel if he had to face his new in-laws. It was common for grooms at that time to find their purpose in the honour and reputation that they were bringing to their families and their wives. I wonder how tied this is to how many people feel today. They think that they are defined by their reputations, by whether or not they’re doing good by their families, and even though these aren’t bad intentions when we think that this is our purpose we lose sight of Jesus, who really gives our lives meaning. We forget to trust Him, and when we choose to try and fend for ourselves and for our families through our own efforts then we don’t get to witness the incredible and immense power of Jesus.

Story 2:

John 2:13-16 “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.””

This passage takes place shortly after the wedding. Jesus goes into a temple and He finds all of these people selling animals for sacrifices inside the temple. Now, being Jewish, they would have needed the animals for their sacrifices like commanded in the law by Moses, so it wouldn’t make sense why Jesus would be so angry about this…

Until we understand something about money-changers. The currency used in regular use was issued by the Roman government and had Caesars face on it, but in the mind of the Jews using this money was not acceptable for the temple treasury because it was pagan. And so the moneychangers were in the temple to switch people’s Roman currency for Jewish coins which were acceptable to use to buy animals for sacrifice. Now, these money changers often had a practice of collecting an additional sum for the exchange (think like an early Jewish version of that extra fee you have to pay at some ATMs before you use them).

And Jesus gets angry at this, they’re taking this practice that should be used for worshipping God, and they’re distorting it, they’re making money off of people unfairly, and they’re doing it all in the place where people should be praying.

But notice a small detail, Jesus specifically calls out those selling pigeons (other translations say “doves”), why? Leviticus 5:7 ““But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation for the sin that he has committed two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.” So pigeons were a sarifice bought by the poor to repent of their sins as worship to God, and these money changers are taking advantage of the poor, and are charging extra fees to the poor, to make money for themselves.

This story shows us a group of people who let their own success and wealth consume them. They lost sight of what it meant to take care of other people, instead they were taking advantage of the poor. They lost sight of what it meant to hold God in reverence, instead they turned his house into their own market. Their purpose boiled down to just making money, and they didn’t care what it took to make that money. I wonder how many of us can relate to that, we wish there were things in our lives more important than money and success, but then we look at our time, and how we make our decisions and it’s clear that in the end money became the most important thing.

Story 3:

A little bit after this, Jesus has an encounter with a man named Nicodemus, and even if you don’t know or don’t remember him, I’m positive you’re familiar with their conversation.

Nicodemus is a Jewish rabbi, He is a Pharisee, and a very popular and wise teacher. And he comes to Jesus in the night to ask Him questions, because He’s supposed to be the one with all the answers. He can’t ask Jesus in the daytime, it’ll ruin his reputation. But at night he comes in secret, because he knows that He doesn’t fully get some of Jesus’s teachings, and having spent his whole life in pursuit of knowledge and understanding he really wants to.

And then they have this conversation:

John 3:3–21 ESV

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

So Nicodemus is starting to get what’s going on with Jesus but we can see that He’s still confused.

He’s supposed to have the answers. He’s chased after knowledge and wisdom for so long. He’s followed the rules, he’s studied the rules, he teaches them, enforces them, demonstrates them in his actions. He’s respected for his knowledge and wisdom, and then He meets Jesus and he sees that even the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom came up short, understanding the laws, and being a good moral person ultimately has done nothing for him. It doesn’t make him born again, His knowledge does not save Him, the laws and rituals do not save Him. How is he saved, that famous verse: John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

We are saved simply through believing in Jesus, and making Him our purpose.

Story 4 (last one)

A little after this Jesus and his disciples travel through Samaria. And Jesus meets this woman, and they also have a really interesting conversation.

John 4:3–9 ESV

he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)

Ok so for the rest of it to make sense we need to understand a little bit about this phrase. Why did Jews have no dealings with Samaritans?

Jews vs Samaria

Explain Davidic kingdom break

Northern/Southern Israel split.

Assyria takes over Northern, start to intermarry and they become the Samaritans.

Intermarriage brings wildly different religious ideas

Jews thought that they were”half-breeds”

Both were extremely prejudiced against the other

Ok so the Samaritan woman asks: John 4:9 “The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?””

John 4:10–26 ESV

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

In this last story, this woman, asks a really important question. Of all of these people she seems to be the one that comes the closest to understanding the purpose of life. When she sees that Jesus is what she calls “a prophet”, she says: John 4:20 “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”” It’s clear that she thinks that one of the most important things in life is worship. But she, like the others, misses the point. She thinks that the purpose of life is to finally just be good enough, to worship the right way, to get right with God by trying to do everything right. We can infer some of this by what Jesus says to her right before this, she has already had five husbands. I can’t imagine how much pain she must have felt, being condemned by her community, thrown out like an old rag by each husband, how intensely this must have affected her self-esteem. And so after all of this she just wants to get it right. That has become her purpose.

So, why have we read all these stories? Because I think that they answer the question we began with. What is the purpose of our lives? In the stories that John lays out in these chapters the people in them consistently seem to not understand their purpose. They find things that they think will fulfill them but Jesus shows them that ultimately they don’t.

Jesus shows each one of these people that no matter what they have made their purpose it falls short. He shows the groom that without Him, the groom can’t even provide for his wife, He shows the money changers that no amount of money will ever satisfy their thirst for wealth, He shows Nicodemus that all of the knowledge in the world ultimately comes up short when it comes to being saved, and he shows the Samaritan woman that no amount of trying to do the right thing will ultimately save her.

Instead through these stories we see what our purpose actually is, it’s not reputation, or wealth, or knoweldge, or even good moral living. Our purpose is found solely in Christ. We find our purpose in trusting in His power like the couple getting married had to do. We find our purpose in the process of recognizing sin and having to be corrected by Him like the money changers were. We find our purpose in learning to build a relationship with Him, and accepting that we need to be born again like Nicodemus had to learn. And we find our purpose in worshipping God in both Spirit and Truth like the Samaritan woman discovered.

The purpose of both their lives and ours, is to trust in Jesus, recognize our sins before Him, allow Him to change and transform us, and to worship Him for all of this.

People try to find fulfillment from so many things, and I think we ourselves can often lose sight of what really fulfills us. But each of the people in these stories shows us that all of the effort that we could ever put into finding meaning will come up empty.

Jesus is the only thing that brings fulfillment, and if you haven’t discovered that for yourself I want to invite you to consider it. Have you learned to trust in Jesus, to allow Him to do things for you that you can’t? Have you felt convicted by Him for your sins, and have you allowed Him to make a change in you? Have you discovered that trying to learn about and understand God isn’t the same as having a personal relationship with Him? Have you decided to set aside everything to worship Him?

Because Jesus made it very clear to the woman at the well, where she went for worship whether it be Jacob’s well or the temple, it didn’t matter. Just going there was not going to give her a genuine fulfilling relationship with God. Just going to church does nothing for us! It’s nice, but if this is the only time during the week that you’re connecting with, or learning about or worshipping God than you need to fix that. Jesus told the woman those who worship God must do it in spirit and truth. That means that we need to constantly be learning and connecting with God. We worship God in spirit when we spend time in His word. That’s why the bible is so important, we need to be in it constantly, learning more about Him. Learning about Jesus than allows us to worship Him in spirit, we connect with God with our hearts and with our souls. We use prayer and worship music, not just at church, but everyday in our own lives to connect us to Him. To allow Him to change us, like Jesus told Nicodemus we need to be born again, and once we’re born again then He continues to teach us, and we continue to learn from Him and give praise back to Him, and we learn how to enjoy His presence with us all the time. Because He is the only one that can change and fulfill us.

Your reputation can’t fulfill you, wealth and money can’t fulfill you, knowledge and wisdom can’t fulfill you, even doing the right things, coming to church, and following all the rules can not fulfill you. Only Jesus can.

And that’s why when asked what is the purpose of man, the writers of the Westminister cathecism said: “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever”. We were made to worship God, to be in constant relationship with God, and to be radically transformed by God. That is the essenece of our faith, and it’s what we need to belief for us to be a part of His kingdom and family.

And as we take communion in a few minutes I think that it is a vital question for each of us to ask ourselves, are we allow Jesus to be the person that gives our lives meaning? Or are we trying to use some man-made substitute instead? Because taking part in communion is us allowing ourselves to be reminded that His body and blood, broken and poured out for us are the only things that have the power to save us, and they are the only things that truly fulfill us. And if you’re at a place this morning where that isn’t real to you yet, and where you’re still trying to find your purpose in something else that isn’t a relationship with Jesus then as I close in prayer I hope that you will consider reassessing your priorities, and allowing Jesus to be the most important thing in your life.

(1) IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament