Why Am I Here? - Purpose
Notes
Transcript
Last week we started a new series
We want to answer three fundamental questions that everyone seeks to answer in the search for meaning
The questions:
Who Am I? - Identity
Why am I here? - Purpose
Where am I going? - Destiny
A worldview must deal with and answer these questions.
Postmodern world view - Self, relative, no absolutes
Christian worldview - Not about you, truth is an absolute, able to better understand reality
We have answered - Who am I?
I was created by a loving God, in His image
My identity is in Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me!
Today we move the second Question - Why am I here?
This question seeks to answer our purpose
We will consider the same two worldviews - postmodern and the Christian
Let us read together Romans 1:21-25
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless hearts were darkened.
22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
23 and they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible mankind, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling creatures.
24 Therefore God gave them up to vile impurity in the lusts of their hearts, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Are you ready for the message God has for us? - Cool let’s begin
The problem with randomness evolution
The problem with randomness evolution
In the postmodern worldview evolution is the answer to why I am here.
The problem is evolution devalues human life.
Charles Darwin wrote, “My object in this chapter is to shew that there is no fundamental difference between man and higher mammals in their mental faculties.” - Charles Darwin The Descent of Man Chapter 2.
Darwin makes two central claims:
All things are descended from a universal common ancestor
All creatures were produced by an unguided and impersonal process of natural selection acting on random variations found in nature.
This kind of thinking takes glory away from the creator, as Paul stated in our passage.
Dr. Peter Jones retired professor at Westminister Seminary in Escondido CA. and director of TruthExchange - oneism and twoism.
Evolution removes human dignity and purpose!
George Gaylord Simpson was an American paleontologist wrote, “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.”
This removal is having a profound influence in every area of society!
Unfortunately the church is not immune.
John West, Vice President and a Senior Fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute wrote, “Darwinism…has had a transformative effect on many Christians and their view of God, especially in academia, as they have tried to meld darwinism and theism into something usually referred to as theistic evolution.”
The view takes away not only human dignity but removes God as the creator
It denies that God actively guided the development of life.
It contradicts article one in our articles of faith and the statements of faith of almost all branches of Christianity.
Let alone it contradicts scripture - Genesis 1:1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.”
27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
The John Polkinghorne was an English theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest wrote, “An evolutionary universe is theologically understood as a creation allowed to make itself.”
Leading theistic darwinists contend that evolution is an undirected process and that not even God knows what the process will produce.
So the problem of randomness in evolution is it takes away human dignity and removes our ability to answer why I am here.
There is no purpose for my being here in this world.
God is dead and in His death any purpose for being here dies with Him.
This is not an answer to the question. They remove my ability to ask it.
The Christian response to the question
The Christian response to the question
In the Christian worldview we are not the product of a random process but created in the image of a loving God.
Several passages call attention to our being created
We have seen already Genesis 1.
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. On the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them “mankind” on the day when they were created.
7 Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”
Everyone needs a sense of significance and identification with someone or something greater than themselves.
In asking these questions people seek to feel worthwhile and their life is meaningful.
Evolution and postmodernism leave them unfulfilled and worthless.
Life becomes meaningless.
The night I wanted to end my life - I felt worthless, hopeless, and helpless, then God spoke.
The Christian worldview shows that we are valued and loved by God.
He watches everything and is not removed from what happens in our world.
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him.
11 For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
God had a plan for Israel, rest assured God has a plan for you.
You are here for a purpose and place in the kingdom of God.
If we no longer listen to the world, instead listen to God we will find our purpose.
I found this out, I am here now, I can look back over my life - share a little
Finding purpose in the search for meaning
Finding purpose in the search for meaning
In 1902 Meyer Kubelski, a jewish immigrant from Russia, gave his son a violin for his eighth birthday. It cost Meyer fifty dollars, a small fortune in those days.
His son loved music and soon was playing well enough to give concerts at the Barrison Theater in Waukegan, the town where the Kubelski’s lived.
By the age of eighteen he had teamed up with a woman pianist in vaudeville.
On the night of Benjamin Kubelski was playing, he felt compelled, between numbers to tell the audience about a funny incident that had happened to him during the day.
He later recalled, “The audience laughed and the sound intoxicated me. That laughter ended my days as a musician.”
Jack Benny, was born that night.
Many will never stumble into a path that so happily meshes ability and passion.
For me it was giving something a try and feeling a call from God and the support of the church!
When we can lay hold of purpose this can be significant in motivation, but sometimes God wants us to not look in the temporal but the spiritual.
It’s on us to be willing to look.
Whatever our purpose it is to be all to God’s glory, because it’s not about us, it’s about Him!
17 Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
31 Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all things for the glory of God.
10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the multifaceted grace of God.
11 Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking actual words of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
It is God who made us, it is God who gifted us, it is God who gives us a purpose, it is God who gets the glory and praise.
Kenneth Boa in his book Conformed to His image wrote, “We cannot lay hold of God’s unique purpose for our lives without spending time with Him and inviting Him to clarify His purpose for us in His timing and way.”
It is only God who can reveal to us our purpose and place in the kingdom.
Conclusion
So if you are looking for purpose in your life seek the presence of God.
Come to the altar and pet’s pray together that God will begin to reveal your purpose.
Maybe you have been looking in the world for your purpose, the world takes away dignity, significance, and value. It does not have the answer you are looking for!
The World is full of lies and brokenness and can only produce the same