What is the Purpose of Mankind?

All peeople everywhere want to have a purpose. We as humans want to have meaning. To know why we are here and what we want to make out of being alive.

People in the world today are desparately seeking and searching to find purpose. Anything that will give them an identity.

Empty Heart Drama?

We are always seeking to fill our hearts with something and anything to give us a sense of identity. We want to be known and do something important with our lives.

So like always, with life’s greatest problems and questions, the Word of God has still not failed to give us an answer!

So to understand our purpose, we should probably look at our origin!

What does God say to us from the very beginning?

Lets see:

God made everything in creation and said that it was good!

Then with a smile on his face, he reached down to the dust of the earth and perfectly formed a man. He then breathed into the dust the breath of life. And so the first man was created. We know his name as Adam. From Adam, God fashioned and made Eve.

Now upon looking at people in addition to all other creation, God said: It is very good!

God looked upon man and in essence says:

Look around you. All of this is for you. Look at me, I am for you!

And I will look at you and see in your face the reflection of my glory! That is your end. That is why you were created.

That you might glorify me and enjoy me forever.

Adam and Eve just found out that they had been gifted by God something that nothing else in all of God’s new creation could do. They could worship God.

They were set apart from creation. They were made in the likeness of God. And what do I mean by that? I mean that they have will, intellect and emotions.

Animals lack these things. They are driven by instincts and sometimes attachments to the ones who care for them.

But they are unable to properly worship God in the way that He expects and anticipates. Only we are capable of such!

We do not read anywhere where God stepped down to walk with the animals, or talk to them. Rather He did this with man!

Don’t you ever wonder what God and Adam and Eve talked about when the scripture records that God would come into the Garden to walk and talk with them? The weather was perfect, Adam and Eve were in perfect health, sports did not exist. So it makes you wonder what it is they could have talked about. Obviously their conversation was based upon compatibility between the two parties: God and Man. Something in man responded to the presence of God in a way that nothing else could.

Adam and Eve’s unique purpose in the garden was to bring joy and fellowship to God, which is the foundation of all genuine worship.

Now y’all should know the story. God stepped away for a moment and in that moment, Satan came and deceived us. He convinced Eve and consequently Adam to eat of the fruit which God had forbidden.

The worst thing in creation had happened in this moment. Man had now become infected with the worst plague to ever exist: Sin.

One of the side effects of this disease is: spiritual amnesia. Mankind forgott their purpose.

Disoriented in this moment, all Adam and Eve could manage to do was try to hide the result of their sins… with fig leaves! Not a very effective way to hide what had happened.

Satan has robbed mankind of their purpose. We now wander around as though in a fog. Wondering why I am here? What am I to do with myself today or tomorrow? What goal or standard must I create and live up to in order to feel worthy of something or to find meaning?

So what did we do, but use the intellect, will and emotion that God gave us to reflect Himself, and we actually use those things to try to find other meanings. Some try to find purpose through education. Get the higher degree, keep learning so that you are smarter than others. That will make you valuable.

Or maybe it is with your free will that you try to create something. Be creative, work with your hands, invent new things. Make music, build machines, work on computers. Always push to be the best and use your skills and creativity to make it happen. Then alas, you will find your meaning and identity.

Or maybe lastly, it is emotions. You just want to be in love, or you just want to have a family and your life is all about who you can surround yourself with because there is not enough inside of you to be happy. So you must amass those you love around you and never let go.

Or perhaps, as I would imagine, you might merge all three of these things to become a rather impressive, driven, creative and lovable person.

However, it is never quite enough is it?

Don’t believe this for yourself?

How about an interview from someone who has achieved such high levels of success and fame: Modonna.

In her interview, she explains the struggle in her life which has pushed her to where she is. She always felt inadequent. She is afraid of being mediocre. Her own personal justification relies on the performance which she can deliver to others. This is why she has gone to such lengths and extremes to always try to be extra. To be noticed. To be heard!

Yet at the end of her interview, she recognized that this battle and this drive to always be more will always continue. Its a restless fight to not be mediocre.

Let me tell you what, for all that Madonna is, according to this interview, she seems to know herself better than most people

So How Do We Find Out Purpose?

Today, people often try to find their purpore through one of two main categories.

1. Science (or human study)

2. Religion

Science?

What does science do? Well Science seeks to discover the meaning of things and their relationship to each other, their interaction and effect upon one another. That is science. I have nothing against science. Science has accomplished a lot of wonderful advancements. Especially in the medical field, it is wonderful that we have advanced to the ability to have procedures, surgeries, and learned the advancements of basic sicknesses and how to overcome what once would wipe out a population. But when it comes down to it. Science doesn’t not help with the why or what? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?

It may help you live longer so that you can think about the question, but it does not help you answer life’s most basic questions.

Religion?

Let me make a clarification before I advance in this subject. I know that Christianity is clasified as a religion, but Jesus is not about us being religious. He desires relationship.

Continuing…

Some once observed about Christopher Colombus:

“Colombus went out not knowing where he was going; and when he got there he did not know where he was: and when he got back he did not know where he had been, and he did it all on other people’s money.”

This is the way of religion today. People go to and from place to place doing work along the way, yet they have no idea where they are and why they are doing what they are doing. Mindless activity in an attempt to ease the conscious.

Man in the state of spiritual amnesia has lost their purpose. Their life is like one giant philosophy class. And it is very hard for us to find our purpose, because we are looking in the wrong directions. We don’t create our purpose of existence. The one who made us determines that for us.

Just as an iphone has the purpose of making calls, taking photos and videos, etc. So the iphone itself does not decide for itself that it would rather be used for something else. It is an Iphone, and the one who made it is the one who determines what it should be used for.

We are God’s creation, made to reflect and glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. That is our purpose. And I can promise you that nothing else in life will give you the peace and the confidence that understanding this truth about your identity can.

Some of you might hear this and think that this is enslaving. Reducing us down to something maybe you don’t want. However, I can personally tell you from experience that that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Finding Jesus and learning my purpose was such a relief. The pressure of trying to measure up to the world’s standards. The pressure of creating some purpose is all lifted. And finally I remember. Finally I find the peace that comes in knowing myself. Having an identity in God!

Identity Restored:

So then, if we are to have our identity restored, what should we do with it?

Once we know who we are, and our purpose, we as followers of God must now learn how to live out that purpose.

Remember what that purpose was?

To worship/glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

So how do truly worship God?

Is worship only something you do at Church when you sing songs? No!

Worship on Sunday is very biblical! Through out the bible we see where singing to God and playing instruments to Him is a great form of worship!

But we must not be confused into believing that worship starts when you enter the sancuary and finishes when you leave. Worship is not a one-day a week activity.

Rather in Romans 12:1 we see that our life is worship to God.

Romans 12:1 ESV

1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Paul is sharing that the way that we live and use our mind, intellect and will are the way that we honor God through worship.

So during the week when you are working hard at work and being a light to others, you are worshiping God!

When you choose to love the person who does evil towards you, you are worshipping God!

When you are raising your children in the fear of the Lord, you are worshipping God!

God is not interested in a once per week relationship with you. What happens in Church on Sunday should be corporate worship as we all come together. But then we should be leaving encouraged and ready to honor God throught the way that we live.

Be Encouraged!

So please let me encourage you with something here:

Just as a father looks at their newborn baby, scrutininzing their face to see if they look like him, so does God your Father look at your life and seeks to see resemblances of Himself. We are created with likeness of Him, but do we act in a way that also reflects Him?

I want to also share a few facts about God:

God is totally self-sufficient and He does need anything or anyone

Yet God made us to worship Him and He desires it!

Can you believe that? The God of the universe does not need a single thing, yet He wants me to fulfill the purpose He gave me. This creates a little bit of a spiritual oxymoron. The creator greatly desires/needs something out of the creature! Not that we sustain God in any way. But hear me on this: God makes everything with a purpose. The purpose in making man was to have somebody capable to properly and sufficiently worship Him and satisfy His heart.

I have a question for you:

Why is it that the birds still sing their songs to the glory of God. The flowers still display their color. The sun still shines its light. The mountains still display their majesty, yet mankind, God’s chief creation fails to fulfill its purpose.

We are the most equipped and actually the only ones able to truly worship and the ones who fail the most.

This saddens my heart greatly. I want to honor my God!

Praise God that when we failed to do that, God did not choose to wipe us out or block us from His memory, rather He provided Jesus to restore us back to Himself and to further glorify Himself. Our falling led to His ability to show an even greater grace by rescuing us.

My last point of encouragement is this:

DO NOT believe the lie that Satan tells us and the one that we often preach to ourselves. And that is that God doesn’t or couldn’t desire me. I mean just look at you right? The things you have done. The places you have been. The things you have said....

Yet God in all His mercy WANTS YOU!!!! Has anyone ever told you that? GOD WANTS YOU! Our worship, adoration, and praise is enjoyable to God. He delights when we live in the reality in which He designed us to live in! Fellowship with Him!

If you have been saved by the grace of God, a new harp has been placed within your heart! Play it loudly with all of creation so that God is glorified and others may come to find the peace in having their identity found and their joy restored.

Please also don’t think of worship as hard work. As a burdensome task that you do out of obligation.

No when a person spreads out their hands towards heaven to worship and call upon God, He is doing the most natural thing in the world.

Ephesians 1:12 tells us that our salvation is for the glory of God!

Ephesians 1:12 ESV

12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

Lastly, remember that there is difference between true worship and artificial worship! If any of my youth are here, they have probably heard me say about 100 times by now: God looks to your heart! We have been going through the sermon on the mount recently in youth group, and Jesus made it abundantly clear the false worship and artificial living is displeasurable to God. God desires your heart.

God does not desire lip service in church. If you do not mean what you are singing, it is probably best that you don’t sing at all.

God wants your heart, not your outward motions. We don’t do things for others to notice or to impress others, we do them out of a thankful heart that desires to please God.

This is the ONLY worship that God accepts!

Let your heart be His! He looks to this first and foremost. Once your heart is His, your actions and everything else will be soon to follow in suit.

Remember, GOD WANTS YOU! HE DESIRES AND ENJOYS YOUR DEVOTION AND WORSHIP!

Let’s Pray!