I Don't Know

Why the response of “I don’t know”

Good morning everyone. This is the fourth and final week of our series looking at different responses to the question “What do you think gives life meaning and purpose?” Today, we are considering the response “I don’t know” … I don’t know what gives life meaning and purpose.

I think people might have this response for a couple of reasons. One reason could be that they have never thought about the question. Perhaps they are young and have their whole life ahead of them and so they’ve never considered what gives life meaning and purpose. Ignorance is bliss you might say.

At the other end of the age spectrum, some older folks might respond “I don’t know” because they used to have something that gave them a great sense of meaning and purpose, but those days are now in the rearview mirror. They’ve retired from their career. The kids are all grown up and moved out of home. And now in this new phase of life, they no longer know what gives their life meaning and purpose.

Then there are those people who have given the question a lot of thought and have spent a lot of time searching for something to give life meaning and purpose... but they’ve come up empty-handed. The needle in the haystack could not be found. And so somewhat dejectedly, they say “I’ve tried but I don’t know… I don’t know what gives life meaning and purpose.”

Another reason for the response of “I don’t know” could be because ultimately the answer to the question is unknown. It is a puzzle, a riddle, yet to be solved. For as much as the human race has collectively learned throughout the years, we must admit that there is a whole lot that we still don’t know.

For example, in the field of biology, we don’t know why there are different blood types. We don’t know what biological or social purpose yawning achieves. And so similarly, is the question of what gives life meaning and purpose an unsolved, perhaps even unsolvable, problem.

This is the premise for perhaps pop culture’s most well-known answer to the question of what gives life meaning and purpose. In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, written by Douglas Adams, a group of hyper-intelligent beings build a supercomputer called Deep Thought in order to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

It takes Deep Thought seven and a half million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be… 42.

Knowing that this answer is not genuine, people have searched for a hidden meaning and come up with many different theories as to why 42 is the answer. However, the author Douglas Adams later explained that his choice of 42 was very simple.

Adams says “It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one… I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ’42 will do’ I typed it out. End of story.”

Now while this joke is slightly amusing, we should not let it distract us from the overall seriousness of the question. We’ve just come out of October which is Mental Health Awareness month, and loads of research has been done in that space which shows the importance of having a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

The research shows us that having a sense of meaning in life supports overall well-being by contributing to people’s understanding of their identity and self-worth, their sense of attachment and belonging, and their goal setting and goal pursuit. And it is no coincidence that when people, especially young people, say “I don’t know what gives my life meaning or purpose” they are much more likely to experience the hardships of anxiety and depression.

(p) So today, my aim is to provide you all with an answer to the question of what gives life meaning and purpose that pushes beyond blissful ignorance. An answer that demonstrates that no matter what age or stage of life we are in, the search for meaning and purpose is not a hopeless quest. The mystery can be solved.

And perhaps most importantly, I hope that you will see that today’s answer is no joke, but rather is a firm and solid foundation which you can build your entire life upon. And given that I am a pastor, and we are gathered here as a church, unsurprisingly I believe that the answer to our search for meaning and purpose can be found in the Bible.

So where in the Bible should we begin our search for meaning and purpose? As Julie Andrews sings, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Back to the Beginning

The Bible begins with the story of creation and as we saw when we looked at the opening chapters of Genesis a few months ago, the creation account describes how there is one God who alone is the creator of creation, that he creates all of creation in an ordered, purposeful, and intentional way, and that the creation of human beings is the pinnacle which elevates creation from being good to very good.

And we can say that human beings are the pinnacle of God’s very good creation because it is humanity that is uniquely created in the image of God. Now being created in the image of God is a complex, multifaceted idea that I’m not going to labour on too much today.

But at least part of what it means for human beings to be divine image-bearers is that we were created specifically for relationship with God as well as one another. Unlike the rest of creation, human life is not an end in itself. It comes with the privilege of relating to God as his children, as those who bear his image.

And so the opening chapters of the Bible tell us what the meaning and purpose ‌of human life is. Our meaning and purpose is to be in relationship with God. Or to put it another way, our purpose is to know God, and be known by God. Let me say that again. The meaning and purpose of our lives is to know God, and be known by God.

(P) This relational knowledge of knowing and being known, see how it goes both ways. And see how it is different from purely information knowledge. We can know things about public figures – politicians, actors, musicians, sports players and so on from their Instagram or Wikipedia or anywhere else – but we don’t really know them.

And on the flip side, they don’t have a clue who we are and in all likelihood, they have zero interest in changing that situation. And that’s really different from the people in our lives – our family and our friends – who truly know us, and who we truly know.

So our meaning and purpose is found in knowing God, and being known by God… Sounds easy enough, right? Well as we know, sadly it’s not that simple, and it’s our fault.

Being the pinnacle of God’s good creation was not enough for us. Bearing the image of God was not enough for us. Rather, we wanted to elevate ourselves to God’s position and decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, good and evil.

And because of this rebellion and attack on God’s sovereignty and authority, the relationship between God and humanity was fractured. Whereas before the perfect Creator and sinless humanity could co-inhabit the same space, now there had to be distance between the holy God and unholy humanity.

And as Adam and Eve were exiled from God’s presence in the Garden of Eden, now there was a barrier to humanity fulfilling our purpose of knowing God and being known by him. And from that point onwards, the arc of the biblical story is about how this problem is going to be solved.

How will the distance between God and humanity be removed? How will the fractured relationship be overcome? With these questions in our minds, let’s return to today’s reading from the book of Colossians.

The Mystery Revealed

Reading from Colossians 1:19-23, it says:

19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behaviour. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

(p) The Bible’s good news, the gospel, is that the fractured relationship between God and humanity can be reconciled through Jesus. God takes the initiative of reconciling his fractured relationship with humanity by becoming one of us.

In Jesus the distance between God and humanity is overcome as the fullness of God comes to dwell in a human being, among human beings. And because Jesus is both fully God and fully human, he is uniquely placed to represent each to the other and to restore the broken relationship.

And so hear the good news that once we were separated and distant from God because of our hostile posture and actions towards him. But now, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, our relationship with God can be reconciled… if we believe this and continue in this faith. This is the gospel, the good news.

(P) Yet several times in the passage we read from Colossians chapters 1 and 2, the author Paul refers to it also as a mystery. A mystery that was once hidden for a long period of time but now has been revealed.

I spent part of this past week at Tea Tree Gully library and the mystery and thriller section there is quite large. True crime podcasts have become increasingly popular. For some people, something is appealing to our inquisitive natures about discovering clues and solving a mystery.

The second instalment in the movie series Knives Out is the most recent crime thriller that I have watched. If you’re not familiar, it’s a fairly typical murder mystery movie with the amusing caveat of having Daniel Craig, the English actor most well-known for his portrayal of James Bond, play a detective with a French name who speaks with an exaggerated Southern drawl.

If you can look past that concoction of nationalities, you get to the end of the movie and like any good crime thriller, the detective explains the solve and they show the hidden clues that were strategically placed throughout the movie. And the light bulbs in your head go ‘ping’ and the mystery is solved.

But then if you ever go back to watch or read a crime thriller for a second time, because you now know how it ends, you see things that you previously missed. Details that were seemingly irrelevant the first time suddenly stand out and grab your attention.

For the mystery of what is the meaning and purpose of life… Jesus is the solution. Jesus is the key that unlocks the problem of how our fractured relationship with God can be restored. Jesus is the one through whom we can be adopted into God’s family so that we can know God and be known by God. Jesus is the one who takes us in the quest for meaning and purpose from “I don’t know” to “I know”.

And knowing that Jesus is the solution, like re-watching a murder mystery movie, we continually come back to the Bible, to God’s big story, and as we do so we notice all the hidden treasures, all the details that we may have otherwise skipped over.

That is part of the joy of a lifetime following Jesus, continually returning to God’s Word to mine all the hidden treasures of God’s masterful plan to reconcile our relationship with him through his Son.

(P) So our meaning and purpose in life, our relationship of knowing God and being known by him, find their firm foundation in Jesus and our response of faith in him. But then where do we go from this foundation? How do we then go on living our lives?

Deeply Rooted and Built Up

Let’s return to the reading and pick it up from Colossians 2:6-7:

6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

The image being used here is a tree. And this image works really well because the roots are the foundation of a tree. The roots are where the tree gets nourishment and water from the soil. The roots are also what provide the tree with stability when external forces like wind and rain beat down upon the tree.

And so in the same way, receiving Jesus as Lord by faith and finding the meaning and purpose of our lives through him – that becomes our foundation, our roots. Being rooted in the foundation of Jesus is what provides us nourishment, our daily bread as he teaches us to pray. And being rooted in the foundation of Jesus is also what provides us with stability when the external forces and pressures of the world are against us.

But a tree doesn’t only have roots. Yes, the roots are there to provide a foundation, but the goal is for the tree to grow from this foundation. And we see from this verse that the way in which we continue to live our lives is to grow from our firm foundation, to be built up in Jesus, strengthened in the faith, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Another way of saying this is that we live our lives in response to God’s grace – his free gift of forgiveness and a restored relationship with him through Jesus – and we live for God’s glory. We live in response to God’s grace, for God’s glory.

And when we make it our goal to live in response to God’s grace and for his glory, we can actually find great joy and satisfaction in a lot of things we have talked about during this Big Question series.

We can find joy and satisfaction in helping others and making a positive impact on the world, doing good and combatting evil. Not because that’s where we find our meaning and purpose, but as branches that grow out from the foundation of Jesus’ goodness towards us in forgiving our sins and reconciling our relationship with God.

It means that we can have loving and meaningful relationships with our friends, our families, our children, not because this is where we find our identity, but as branches that grow out of a secure identity as a cherished child of God.

It also means that we want others to have the same secure foundation, the same meaning and purpose in their lives as we have. Because as I hope you can see from today, having the response of “I don’t know” to the question of what gives your life meaning or purpose… that’s not a good place to be.

But neither is mistakenly making one of the branches – things like positively impacting others of family relationships – a good place to find your meaning and purpose without being firmly rooted in Jesus. Because those things won’t provide you with the nourishment or the stability during hardship that only Jesus can.

This is why we’ve had this Big Question preaching series. And that is why we are running the Life Course at Sferas starting this Tuesday. Because we want you all to find meaning and purpose in life… in Jesus.

(P) If what I’ve said today still sounds like a bit of a mystery, or maybe even if you feel like a bit of a light bulb moment has happened for you today, please speak to either Luke, Carola, or myself. We’d love to chat with you more about finding life in Jesus.

And if you’re here today and your foundation and your identity are deeply rooted in Jesus and it has been for some time, let me read Colossians 2:6-7 as a final encouragement to you.

6 So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, 7rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.