WHAT IS THE POINT OF LIFE?

River Road Baptist Church

Ecclesiastes 7:24

January 28, 2007

A first grader recently asked his mother "Where did I come from?" The mother took a deep breath and went into a detailed, explicit explanation of the reproductive organs, conception and birth. After about 30 minutes the bored first grader said, "Oh, Jimmy comes from San Diego."  The mother said, "I had the sinking feeling that I was answering the wrong question."

This Morning we're going to look at life's most important question, “What is the Point of Life”.   Ecclesiastes 7:24 asks it this way, “That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out”?  Or basically "How can anyone discover the meaning of life?"

It's important to know the meaning of life, because when We don't understand it, it causes all kinds of negative effects in our lives. 

In Ecclesiastes 1, Solomon says there are five negative results that happen in your life when you don't know what the purpose of it is. 

1.      Life seems useless (vs.2-4) (NIV). 

2     “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

3     What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun?

4     Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

Meaningless, and useless.  You spend your life working and what do you have to show for it.  If you don't know the meaning of life why not just sleep in?  What's the use?  The world just stays the same.  It's empty.  The word here is the same word used for soap bubble, cotton candy. 

2.      Life seems tiresome (vs. 5,8a) (CEV). 

3.        The sun rises, and the sun sets, and then it hurries back to where it rises again.

4.          Everything is boring, so boring that you don’t even want to talk about it. 

We seem to be spinning our wheels, running in circles.  We're like a treadmill; we're at a rat race. The sun rises and goes down.  He uses the rotation of the earth as an illustration.  The cycles of weather -- the wind goes round and round.  The cycles of evaporation and rain -- it rains, runs into the river and into the ocean then evaporates. Life just seems like one big circle.  Just about the time you take down the Christmas lights it's time to put them back up.  We're just going in circles and it seems tiresome -- everything leads to weariness.

5.      Life seems un-fulfilling (vs. 8b, 10). 

6.        The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor is the ear filled with hearing.

10     Is there anything of which one might say, “See this, it is new”?

  Already it has existed for ages, Which were before us.

"No matter how much we see, we're never satisfied; no matter how much we hear, we're not content.    Nothing is truly new." 

No satisfaction.  No matter how much we see, we're never satisfied.  No matter how much we hear we're not content.  History merely repeats itself.  People are restless.  They leave before the service ends.  If you don't realize how restless people are give them a TV control!  I’ve heard that the average person will change channels 350,000 times in their lifetime -- some of you may have already passed that!  Solomon says, history repeats itself, there's nothing new.  I've seen it all, I've heard it all, and I’m bored.  Its useless, tiresome, un-fulfilling.

7.      Life is insignificant (vs. 11) (GN). 

"No one remembers what has happened in the past, and no one in days to come will remember what happens between now and then." 

Life seems insignificant when you don't know the purpose of it.  No one remembers what's happened in the past and no one is going to remember in days to come what's happened between now and then.  This is the surety of obscurity.  Fame is fleeting.  Your name may be in lights today but nobody is going to remember you tomorrow.  You set the records on the track and tomorrow somebody else breaks them and you're forgotten.  There are people who spend big bucks to get their names on buildings trying to preserve their name.  Most of you who went to college went to a school where every building had a name on it.  Did it matter to you?  No!  Who cares?  Life just seems insignificant when you don't know the purpose.

8.      Life seems uncontrollable (vs.15). 

15      No one can straighten what is bent. No one can count what is not there.

You can't straighten out what's crooked.  You can't count the things that aren't there. He's referring to situation beyond our control.  Have you ever tried to straighten out something that was crooked?  A relationship that just refused to be straightened out?  Have you ever tried to solve a problem that you just couldn't figure out? Change somebody or a circumstance and you just can't do it?  He says eventually we'll all come to a point in life and say, life is uncontrollable.  There are some things in life, no matter how hard you try, you just can't fix it. 

Solomon comes to the conclusion in chapter 1 that if you don't know the purpose of life (v. 14) it's just all meaningless.  When you don't know the point of life, you have three options:

1.  You can try to make up some meaning.  A lot of people do this.  We were made to have something at the center of our life. If people don't have God at the center of their life, they try to put something else there.  They end up being addicted to making money, or sports, or having fun, or work.  People say, "I'm in to ... “ They are trying to fill their life with meaning.  People frantically try to find meaning for their life.  But inside they know that it doesn't work. 

       This is the fallacy of humanism.  Three of the greatest minds in western civilization were Marx, Freud, and Darwin and all three of them said the same thing.  They all said, "You came from nothing, and you're going to nothing."  You were a cosmic accident.  They also said, when you die -- that's it!  There's nothing left. 

       The humanist comes along and says, You came from nowhere and you're going to nowhere but while you're here on earth your life has meaning and value and dignity.  I have no respect, intellectually, for humanists.  It is intellectually dishonest to say, I didn't come from anywhere -- it was an accident -- and I'm not going anywhere but while I'm here I matter!  No, it's not true.

If there is no God, no eternity, no day of accounting we're not accountable for our lives.  If God didn't create us and there's not any eternity, then have the intellectual guts to admit that your life doesn't matter!  It just doesn't matter if that's really true.  You're just a complex germ. 

I don't see how anyone in their right mind could believe that.  The Bible tells differently.  The Bible says you do matter.  But when people don't know the purpose of life they just try to make up some meaning and it doesn't work.

2.  Just escape.  If life has no meaning, then just escape from it.  Use TV, become a couch potato.  Use food, sex, drugs, movies.  The ultimate escape is suicide.  We have an epidemic of suicide right now.  Suicide is the third largest killer of people in America and the second largest killer of teenagers.  Why?  If you don't know the meaning of life, the ultimate thing is despair.  What am I doing?  Life is useless, pointless, repetitive, unfulfilled and insignificant.  What are the alternatives?  Try to make up some meaning?  That doesn't work.  Try to escape?  That's a cop out. 

3.  Discover what the real meaning of life is.  Fortunately, God told us.  He told us what the meaning of life is.

Ephesians 1:4-5 Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

What is the point of life?  What was God's purpose in creating the world?  In creating you and me?  It says here that you were made to be loved by God.  You were created as an object of God's love.  God made you just to love you.  The Bible says that God is love.  It doesn't say he has love.  It says He is love.  If I have love but don't bestow it on a person or thing or animal, that love is useless.  The Bible says that you were created by God simply to be loved. 

And "to adopt us into his family" ... you were made to be a part of God's family.  In Isaiah 43, he says, "I have made you for my glory."  That's not all of his plan. 

Eph. 1:9-10. "  He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times,

"And this was His purpose; that when the time is right he will gather us all together... to be with him in Christ forever!"  Eph. 1:10 (LB)

Forever!  History is moving toward an appointed destiny and you personally are moving toward an appointed destiny.  Life is not a cycle, just round and round in a treadmill.  There was a beginning and there is a point of destiny.  There is eternity on the other side of that.  Life is not circular; it is linear.  The Bible says that you are moving toward an appointed destiny. 

God first made you to love you, He wants you to be a part of His family and He says that one day He's going to gather everybody who is a part of His family and we're going to live forever with Him.  Forever!  If you don't get anything else get this:  What is life?  Life is preparation for eternity.  You were made to live for eternity.  It says, "He has set eternity in the hearts of men."  You were made to last forever.  Ps. 33 says, "His purposes last eternal."  It is an understatement to say that God has long range plans for your life.  It's not for the 60,70,80,or 90 years you live here but forever and forever and forever. 

If I were to hold up a yardstick, imagine your life to be the first inch.  But the yardstick goes on and on and does not end. Your life is just the first inch of that yardstick.  You will spend far more time on the other side of death than you will in the years you live here.  Life is preparation for eternity. 

The Bible teaches that life is a prep school or a dress rehearsal for eternity.  It's not just here and now that matters.  You need an eternal perspective.  You need to realize that what you're doing now is preparation work.  You've got to be prepared for eternity.

Heaven is a perfect place and you have to be perfect to go there. Jesus Christ is the only perfect one and through Him we can go. We put our trust in Him. 

You need to use this life, God says, to prepare for all the rest of eternity.  How do I do that? 

There are some things God wants you to do with your life and this is the purpose of life.

1.  Get to know God.

Establish your relationship with God.  That's the first step. How?  The same way you do with anybody else.  To have a relationship it involves knowing the person, trusting the person, sharing with the person, enjoying the person, listening, spending time with the person.  Communicate.  You establish a relationship with God the exact same way.  Spending time with Him, talking with Him, listening to Him through His word.  God wants you to have a relationship, not a religion. 

John 1:12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name

Accept what Christ has done for you and get into God's family.  You establish a relationship with Christ -- that's the first thing you're here on earth to do.  God wants you to know Him.

Once you know Christ, why doesn't He just take you on to Heaven? Because He leaves you here for other reasons:

2.  Become like Christ.

Once you're in the family, God wants you to spend the rest of your life developing family characteristics.  The Bible teaches that life is a school of character development.  God wants to use everything that happens in your life to build character in you for eternity.  Honesty, integrity, thankfulness, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control.  God wants to build character in your life.  He wants to make you like Jesus Christ, to have the character of Jesus Christ who was a perfect example.  If you want to know what God wants you to be like, just look at Christ. 

This has been God's goal from the very beginning.  It's not anything new.  In the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, God says when He created the world, "Let us make man in our image." From the very beginning of time it's been God's plan to make people like Himself -- not little gods, but Godly and having the characteristics of God.  That plan has never changed.  From the very beginning of time, God has wanted to make man in His own image.  We kind of messed in up with sin.  Christ came and He started restoring that image.  The Bible says that everything that happens in your life, once you are a believer, God is using to help you get to know Him and become like His son Jesus Christ.

Rom. 8:28-29   And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

                          For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many children;

Everything that happens to you is not good, but it fits into a pattern for good.  That pattern is to make us like His Son Jesus Christ.  God wants a bunch of people like Jesus, so He can be the oldest brother in the family.  That's what God wants to do in your life.  You need to understand that so that when things are unfair in your life and things are painful and things don't count in your life and you can't understand it, it's all confusing, then you can realize what God is doing.  He's working on your life to make you like Jesus Christ.  That purpose has never changed.

You say, "Doesn't God want me to be happy?"  Of course He does here and now.  But not at the expense of preparing you for eternity.  And God is far more interested in your character than He is in your convenience and comfort.  This is just the first inch of life.  The character you build now you'll enjoy for the rest of eternity.

3.  Practice Serving

I can prepare for eternity by practicing serving.  God has plans for you in eternity.  He has plans for you to serve.  He has a place for you to serve. See, you're not just going to set up in heaven and strum harps.  That idea is certainly not in the Bible.  The angels might play harps but people don't. You're going to be working in eternity.  The neat thing is you'll enjoy it.  It will be perfectly suited to you.  You'll find fulfillment and meaning in it. 

God says you're going to serve in eternity.  He wants you to practice serving while you're here.  He wants you, while you're here on earth, to learn to think of other people and not just yourself.  He wants you to learn to be a giver and not just a taker. 

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Eph. 2:10 (NASB) 

If you don't do this then you're missing the point of life.  This is the third thing God wants you to do -- practice serving.   God has given you talents and abilities and He wants you to develop them.  Meaning in life comes from serving.

Jesus said, "If you try to save your life you'll lose it, but if you give your life away, you'll find it."  The person who holds on to his life, who tries to just live for himself, is the person who is unsatisfied, unfulfilled, finds no meaning in life, bored, doesn't find the true existence.  But the person who gives his life away, who is willing to give up his life here and now for eternal rewards, in the meantime, that person gets to enjoy his life here.  He learns how to really enjoy life.

Matthew 25, Jesus said that if you've been faithful in a few things, you'll be faithful in much.  And that God is watching how you serve and how you serve here determines the level of service you get in eternity.  God says Give your life away, Serve.  Don't live for the temporary, get an eternal perspective.  There is more to life than just here and now. 

There is a term for living for just the here and now. Secularism.  Secularism comes from the Latin seculum meaning "the here and now".  If you think like the commercial, "It doesn't get any better than this" -- Wrong!  It does get better.  And you need to understand that God made you to know Him, to become like Him, to practice service.  Get an eternal perspective on life.

4.  Share life's purpose with other people.

2 Corinthians 5:19  “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.”

Why does God leave you here on earth after you become a believer?  He wants you to share the good news.  What is the purpose of life?  To tell others.

The greatest waste is to live your entire life without ever knowing the point of it.  That's a waste.  Actually there's a bigger waste than that.  The bigger waste is to know the point of life and still just give your life for temporary things --new cars, new stereos, etc.  The best use of your life is to invest it in something that outlasts it. 

The fact is, you will live for eternity, in one of two places. Man was made to last forever.  The choices you make here determine that.  We call living for eternity with God, heaven. We call living for eternity separated from God, hell.  Jesus talked about it and He knows more about it than you or I do. It's real.  If you were to die tonight and you haven't already developed a relationship to Jesus Christ, you'll stand before Him and He's going to say "Why not?  What were you waiting on?  I love you, I created you, I made you for a purpose and you ignored it!  I even came to earth and died on the cross for you.  But you made your choice.  Now you're going to live with it for eternity." 

God doesn't send anybody to hell; you choose to go there.  You have to do almost the impossible; you have to reject the love of God.  Take that first step and begin that relationship with God today.  Begin living for the purpose God made you for.  This is the first inch of eternity.

Prayer:

            God, sometimes life has seemed useless or tiring or un‑ fulfilling.  Sometimes life has seemed out of control.  But I realize today this is not the end of it all but there is more to life than just the here and now.  I realize that you made me to love me. I thank you for that.  Today I want to take the first step in preparing for eternity and I want to get to know You.  I want to establish a relationship.  I want to accept what Jesus Christ has done for me.  I don't understand it all but I want to get to know you.  Then I want to ask you to help me start becoming the person you want me to be and to practice serving and to share the good news that life does have a purpose. Today I want to take that first step of commitment.  Amen.