What On Earth Am I Here For?

Sunday, September 26, 2004

PASTOR BURCHAM'S SERMON

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Something was given to me and actually this same thing is going to be given to you when you leave worship this morning. I wonder if you can help me kind of figure out what it is and why somebody would give this to me.

Now it's metal. I'll let you know that much. And you can see it's circular, and it has a hole in the middle of it. I'm not exactly sure what it is. I suppose it could be a very large washer for tightening something down. Maybe it's part of a new extreme form of Frisbee golf. I don't know. That could be rugged, though, let me tell you. Maybe it's part of a very large wind chime. I don't know. I suppose what we have to start with is what do we know about this thing I have in my hand?

Well, we know it looks to me like it's perfectly round. We know it's made out of metal, and we know it has a hole in the center of it. Now much beyond that we don't really know anything about it. We don't know who made it or, for that matter, was it actually made? For all we know, this could be the scrap that was left over of something else that was actually manufactured and, just by accident or by chance, this happened to come out in a circle with a hole in the middle of it. We don't know whether this has a purpose, in other words, that it's going to be used for something or whether it just needs to be tossed off to the side. We just don't know without talking to the person who made it.

That's really where we find ourselves this morning in our own lives. It's quite possible that we really don't know why we're here. There are certain things we know about ourselves. We know we're human beings. We know we're one of a couple billion people around the world and all of us essentially the same. All of us have flesh and blood. All of us have a heart that's beating. All of us take in air and breathe out. All of us are alive. But are we part of something that was created? Or are we just an accident, per chance, something that happened? Is there a point to our life? Is there a purpose to our life? Or do we just live for a while and then die and that's all there is to that?

You see, one of the most core questions, one of the most probing questions we can ask and I believe each one of us in some stage of life ask that question, “What on earth am I here for?” And that question really has three parts to it. It has three dimensions to it. When we ask the question, “What on earth am I here for?” there are three facets to that question. We're going to answer two of them this morning, but the third one we're going to spend the next 40 days discovering the answer to that one.

You see, first of all, when we ask the question what on earth am I here for, in that question what we're actually asking is, “Why am I alive?” It's a question of existence. Why is it that I exist or, even more globally than that, why do human beings exist? Why are there human beings around? You see, we're asking a purpose question but we're asking in more general terms. Why do human beings exist? What is the purpose of the human race?

It's a question that has been asked by many people in the past. In fact, it was a question that was posed to some of what would be considered the most intellectual people of the world. Dr. Hugh Morehead, head of the Philosophy Department at Northeastern University, several years back wrote a book in which he had sent out a letter to all the leading scientists, philosophers, writers, intellectuals of the day, asking the question, “What is the purpose of life?” The answers he got back were astounding. Some people took a stab at it. They admittedly said they were guessing. Others wrote back and said, “I have absolutely no idea.” Some wrote back and said, “Dr. Morehead, if you know, would you write me and tell me.” A couple of the samples of that. Carl Young, famed psychologist, said this, “I don't know the meaning, the purpose of life, but it looks like something is meant by it.” Well, thanks, Carl, that's helpful. That's great. Or Isaac Azma, the writer, wrote this, a little more depressing. He said, “As far as I can see, there is no purpose.” There is no purpose? Now that's depressing if you think about it. We're just here. We just live. We breathe. We go through the rituals of our day. We try to trudge through life, go through the ups and downs, and then we die. And there's no point to it. There is no purpose to it.

You know, Isaac Azma wasn't the first one who thought that. Several thousand years before him, the prophet Jeremiah was lamenting before God. In the 20 th Chapter of Jeremiah, he says this, “Why did I ever come out of the womb? To see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in distress?” In other words, is that all life is about? Is life just a series of events? Most of them we have to struggle our way through. We have to live through all of the pain. Maybe have a few joys along the way. And then it's all done. That seems pretty empty to me.

There's something within us that says there has to be something more. There has to be a deeper meaning of why we occupy time and space on this earth. There has to be something more, some other reason why we're here. But you see, the problem is we keep looking for the answers in the wrong places. We keep looking for the answer to that question either through science, philosophy, or, most of the time, just through introspection. Just asking ourselves and trying to determine why on earth am I here. When, in reality, if you want to know why something was made, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. You have to ask the most essential question. Was it made with intent or did it just happen to be? If we go back to the disk that all of us are going to be given today, is this just something that was left over from something else that was actually made? Was this on the scrap heap and it happened to be picked up? Or did the creator of this disk intentionally and, with purpose, form it into a circle and put a hole in the center of it? Was this created for a purpose?

That's the question we have to ask ourselves. We have to go back to the beginning to when we came into existence and then ask the question. Was it just by chance or was it with intent? We have to go back to the very beginning of time. And, for us, the beginning of time is recorded in Genesis 1. And it says, “In the beginning, there was God. And God created the heavens and the earth. And God created all the vegetation. And God put the stars in the sky. And God took His hand and He formed man out of the dry ground, and He breathed into Him the breath of life. And He did the same with woman.” We have to go back to our Creator. And did God create us with intent or are we just a chance, just something that happened?

Because, you see, when God creates something, he never creates it without a purpose. Proverbs 16 says this, “The Lord has made everything for His own purposes.” Everything God made in His creation has a purpose. He did it for a reason. He doesn't just create something just for no particular reason at all, for no particular purpose. Everything God makes He makes with a purpose. And what that means for us is God created us. We are not something that just happened by chance. We happened by choice. And that is a message that needs to get out in a world that has sold out to evolution. You cannot turn on the television, you cannot look at a textbook and not find out the world has sold out to the belief of evolution which says that you're here just by a roll of the dice, folks. You're here just because some cosmic explosion happened. Just because the slime happened to come together in just a certain way, it could have happened a million other ways; but it happened to come out this way and so you're here. Well, if you're here just by chance, if you're here just by the roll of the dice, we have no purpose.

But that's not the truth of the matter. The truth of the matter is we are here because we are created by God. We were created with intent. God purposefully formed man out of the dust of the ground. God, with intent, gave him the breath of life. And God says that every human being since then, He's had a hand in their creation. We read it in Psalm 1:39. What did God say to us? David is talking about the fact that you knit me together in my mother's womb. You saw my unformed body. God takes a hand in your creation. God formed you in your mother's womb, and He brought you together. There is no person who is into this world by accident or chance. No surprises for God. All of us were planned by Him.

You know, for the longest time, before my mother went to heaven, I used to tease her and I used to say, “I must have been the biggest surprise of your life.” I said that because there are eight years between my next brother and me and ten between the oldest. And, of course, this was back in 1960 when she became pregnant with me, which means she was in her 40's. Women in their 40's didn't give birth back in the 1960's if I understand it correctly. So I said to her, “I must have been the biggest surprise you ever had.” Now she denied it because she was a loving mother, and I still don't buy it. But the point is I wasn't a surprise to God. You see, there are no unplanned or surprise children to God. They may be to the parents but not to God. God created you. You want to know why you exist? You exist because God created you, and He created you with intent and with purpose. And God created you so He could love you and you could be part of His family.

If we look at Ephesians 1, it says, “Long ago, even before the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy without fault in His eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into His own family, bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ.” God, with intent, created you in your mother's womb. God, with intent, brought you to life. And God, with intent, wants to love you and He wants you to be part of His family. That answers the question why we exist. There is something larger out there. There is something deeper out there to life. We are here because God wants us to be here, because God created us to be here. We are here because God loves us and God wants us to be part of His family. That's why we're here. That's why we exist.

The second question then that comes to mind is, “Does life matter?” In other words, “All right, God created me with intent and He loves me and I'm part of His family, but is there any significance to my life? Does my life matter to anyone else? In other words, would it make any difference whether I'm here or whether I'm not, whether I live today or whether I die tomorrow? Does my life matter? Because, if my life doesn't matter, if it doesn't serve some purpose, if there isn't something I'm supposed to accomplish, then I'm liable to throw my life away.

This could be made intentionally by somebody, set out to make a perfect metal circle with a hole in the center. But if it's not going to be used for something, then more than likely, you're going to take it home, you're going to place it up on a shelf and say it's another silly thing the church gave me and, about two years from now, when you're out cleaning, you're going to notice it and you're going to say, “What is this thing for? It's going to go in the garbage.” A significant question we ask ourselves then is, “Is there a point to my life?” If there's no point to my life, if it's not making a difference, then that leaves an empty feeling inside.

There's a story that came out of World War II, one of the prison camps. In one of the prison camps, they had all the prisoners working in a factory. That is, they were working in that factory until the allies bombed the factory and blew it to smithereens. So they took all the prisoners out the very next day after the building had gotten blown up, and they had them pick up all of the rubble, piece by piece, and move it to an adjacent field. And once they had all the rubble from the original field moved into the adjacent field, the very next day they marched all the prisoners back out there and they had them pick up the rubble from the adjacent field and move it back to the original field. And once they got all the rubble from the adjacent field moved back to the original location, they marched them right back out the next day and had them move it from the original field to the adjacent field. And they just kept doing that. It drove the men literally insane. There was no point to it. They were accomplishing nothing. Some of the prisoners intentionally ran at the guards, for all purposes, committing suicide because they couldn't live a life that was so senseless, that accomplished nothing.

The second question we have to answer then is, “Is there a point to my life? Why is it that I'm here? Do I make a difference?” You know, for many people in the world, the reason they live and what drives them is just pure survival. Not here in the richest nation of the world. But for many around the world, it's just pure survival. “How am I going to eat? How am I going to live? How am I going to protect myself?” I would guess for most of us here, we've notched up one level from that. And we live for success. What I mean by that is we always have something out there we're going after. We're going to complete high school. We're going to complete college. We're going to start working at a career, and we're going to move at something. We're going to start raising our family. We want to accomplish certain things there. We're driven by, we're motivated by, and we're living for success, keep looking for that next level. And yet, even that leaves us empty. How many incredibly successful people do we see in the media who have completely empty lives? They're void of any meaning and they're lost.

We have to move to the next level of significance, that we live because we matter. And our lives matter. And God, once again, says, “Your life matters.” God says He has plans for you. You remember the prophet Jeremiah who was lamenting, “Why do I do? Just live through a bunch of trouble and then die?” God answered him in Chapter 29. God said to Jeremiah, “Jeremiah, I have plans for you.” And this morning, He says, “Ron, I have plans for you.” He says, “Tom, I have plans for you.” “Gail, I have plans for you.” God says to each one of us, “I have plans for you. There's a reason why you exist in this place, in this time. And there are things you're going to accomplish.” God has an idea of what He wants to see accomplished in your life. There is a deeper purpose to you. There are some things you are going to accomplish, and you make a difference. How important is your life to God? He was willing to give up His own life so you could live forever. That's how important your life is. That's how important the plans are that God has for you. Your life is so important that the Father was willing to sacrifice His Son. Your life and the plans God has for you are so important that Jesus was willing to go to the cross so the sin that separated you from your Maker could be forgiven and wiped clean, so you wouldn't have to walk around with a guilty conscience or shame anymore. But you could walk hand in hand with God, that He could reveal to you His plans for you. That's how important you are to God. In fact, you're so important that life doesn't end for us. God says He has an eternity planned for you. Not just the 70, 80, 90, 100 years here. That's just the beginning. That's scratching the surface. God has an eternity planned for you.

Does your life matter? It matters to God. More than we can even comprehend. And that leads us to the third question then. “Then what's my purpose?” This is the practical side of the whole thing. “What is it I'm supposed to do?” If I know God created me and He loves me and He wants me to be part of His family, if I know my life has significance, and God has plans for me, then what is it I'm supposed to do? What is the purpose of my life? What is it that God wants me to be involved in? How does God want me to respond to Him and all the love He's shown to me?” That's a deeper question than what maybe we first see it as. Many times, when we ask the question, “What is the purpose of my life?” we limit it. We limit it to just the activities or the things we're going to do. But we need to go much deeper than that. This isn't about what your major is going to be in college. This isn't about what career path you take. This isn't about whether you should stay at home or whether you should work outside of the home. This isn't about whether you should be in business or in sales or in retail. This goes much deeper than that. This goes to the heart of the matter. “What is it God wants me to do? What are the purposes God has outlined for me in His Word? Could that affect my career? Could that affect my major? Certainly it could but not necessarily so. We can do a wide variety of things and still fulfill the purposes God has created us for. But knowing those purposes, knowing what God wants us to do will certainly guide and lead our decisions and our judgments to make sure nothing we do interferes with those purposes.

Well, that's a huge question for us to answer. What's the purpose? What are the things God wants me to do in response to His love for me? And it's a question we're going to spend 40 days answering. Over the next 40 days, through the study of God's Word, it's going to unfold in front of us. The same is true from the little disk you're going to be getting today. You probably will go home this morning wondering what in the world is this? And you may go home this morning wondering what in the world am I here for? But as the weeks progress and as each week you'll receive another piece that goes along with this, some of you may understand. Others of you may not. But as the weeks progress, it's slowly going to unfold why this was created and what purpose it has.

In a much more significant way, as we study God's Word, slowly it's going to unfold and we're going to discover God's purposes for us. Why in the world we're here. Why God put us here. We're going to do that through a variety of ways. Through each week, we're going to have a message that sort of lays down the foundation. Each day you're going to read just one chapter in the book The Purpose Driven Life because I think it's a very enlightening book. It has some great things in it to sort of make us think and to lead us along the way. You're going to get involved in a small group because, in that small group, is when you really start to open up God's Word and it starts to become practical. You're going to do it by memorizing the scripture passage which will be given to you each and every week with the additional pieces to our disk here and to memorize that and to put it in your brain. But there's only one way you're going to accomplish this, and that's if you make a commitment. You make a commitment to yourself and a commitment to God that you're going to spend the next 40 days. You know, on an average, in life we have 25,550 days. Can you take 40 of them for God and discover why He put you here? It seems pretty insignificant. I know you can.

Last night, a number of you made that commitment and you put it in writing. You put it in writing on a little leaf you all got today. And those leaves are going to go on that tree that's in the narthex. That tree is a live tree. It's not fake. And that tree is going to get planted on our property someplace. The symbolism there is that tree is alive and it is growing. Our faith is alive and growing, and we want to make sure that it continues to grow, that it's going to grow throughout these 40 days. But it doesn't stop there. It continues to grow throughout our entire life as we deepen our relationship with God, as we grow closer to Him and gain a deeper understanding of what He has in mind for us.

So if you didn't fill out a card last night, I want you to do that right now. In fact, I challenge you to do that right now. Pull the leaf out, that symbolism of life and growth. Put your name on it and check the appropriate boxes. And when you leave this morning, deposit it in the box that's out there. And we're going to hang those leaves on that tree. Now I hope we don't kill the tree with all the leaves that are put on it, because it would just kill the illustration.

But I hope there are that many so we can visually see that we, as the body of Christ, the family of Gloria Dei and our guests in our community, are coming together and we want our faith to grow and prosper and to be healthy. Take the challenge this morning. Join us on the journey. I know you won't be disappointed. Amen.

Copyright 2004 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church