Seeking Meaning and Purpose of Life
Talk it Over
Series: ENCOUNTER
Within each of us lies a yearning for significance and purpose. Discover the presence of a purposeful God who desires a personal relationship with you.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What are some common experiences or feelings that suggest a longing for something more in life? What was your experience? Share your story.
How do you interpret the idea of a "God-shaped hole" within us? Do you think everyone has this longing for something greater?
How does the account of Paul in Athens (Acts 17) relate to our search for meaning and purpose in today's world?
In what ways does nature and the beauty of creation point to the existence of a loving and purposeful God?
How has encountering God's love and purpose in your own life impacted your perspective on meaning and sharing the good news with others?
Who are you currently sharing the good news of Jesus with?
Transcript
We can strive for a whole bunch of things in life. We can strive for success and we can try to accumulate possessions and we can try different relationships, and yet if we're honest with ourselves, really deep down there can feel like there's something missing. And the idea of this hole in the soul, as Laura said, or a God shaped hole, is not new.
It's something that humankind has wrestled with for ages. Blaze, Pascal, anyone familiar with Pascal? All of the math students over there in high school, you know about. Pascal's Triangle. Yeah, I've got a few thumbs up. Probability theory, he actually invented one of the very, the world's very first mechanical calculators cuz his dad was a tax collector and he needed to make it more efficient to earn that money.
He was an incredibly smart guy. He even did a lot around hydraulics, you know, Pascal's Law of Hydraulics. So he's this intensely smart guy math. Physics, you name it. He was also a bit of a theologian and he wrote something back in the 16 hundreds that I think still resonates with us today. This is what he said.
He said, what else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim? But that there was once in man, a true happiness of which now all that remains is empty print and trace. This he tries to fill with everything around him seeking in things that are not there. The help that he cannot find in things that are though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only within infinite and immutable object, in other words, by God himself.
That is 1600 speak for, there's a God shaped toll in all of us. It's an infinite abyss that can only be filled by God. The fleeting and temporary things of this world will never satisfy. Ecclesiastes is another ancient manuscript and it dates back way further even than Pascal's writings. And it is most commonly attributed to wise old King Solomon.
And he has a really unique take and perspective on life and the pursuit of happiness and really the nature of existence. And we are gonna pick up Ecclesiastes in the chapter three. And it's a portion of scripture that you're gonna be. Very familiar with, even if you've never picked up the Bible before, because there's a old song, turn, turn, turn.
You know that song in every season? Turn, turn, turn. Yep. It actually uses this little passage of Ecclesiastes as the lyrics for the song. And so you'll read and we can we pop them up on the center screen? Possibly. I don't know if we can, if not sorry guys. They're only on the other screen. But he basically goes through saying there's a time for everything in life.
Like there's a time for every season and activity under the heavens. He says, there's a time to be born and a time to die, to plant and uproot, to kill and to heal, to tear down and to build. There's a time to weep and to laugh. And to mourn and to dance and to scatter stones and to gather them. He says there is a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and to throw away, a time to tear and to mend.
A time to be silent, and a time to speak. A love, a time to love and hate, a time for war and a time for peace. And so that's a passage that we are really famil familiar with. But a few more sentences down, he says this, and we might not be as familiar with this peace, he says that he has set a eternity in the human heart.
He God. Has planted eternity in the heart of humans. What does that mean? I believe that he's saying that God has put something within us that longs for something more, something more than this temporary life. There's a longing for a future, and back when this was written, that was still a mystery, but now we know that that future has come in the person of Jesus Christ who has enabled us to live in restored relationship with God, our Heavenly Father.
This God shaped hole cannot be filled by the temporary things of this world. There is an intrinsic longing, and I love Laura, that you actually used that word, that there's an intrinsic something within us that is pointing to God. He's the one that put that longing within us, and he is our creator. Let's take just a minute this morning to explore the idea that.
Something that the longing for something more is actually woven into the very fabric of who we are. Imagine with me just for a minute that you are living in first century Athens, looking around. You are seeing a city. That is filled with temples and statues and a whole bunch of alters to different guides.
It's filled with diverse beliefs and diverse philosophies and a bunch of people that are searching for meaning and purpose in life. Just like today, you know, the culture at this time. Really valued knowledge and they valued reason and intellect. And this was the context in the setting that we read about in the Book of Acts when Paul was basically a missionary and he documents that journey in the book of Acts.
So let's pick it up in Acts 17. And it says this. It says, Paul said people of Athens. I see that in every way. You were very religious for. As I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. So you were ignorant of the very thing that you worship.
And this is what I'm going to proclaim to you. So basically Paul is standing be before this crowd of people. He's seen this altar to an unknown God. The Greeks in Athens were so religious that they did not want to miss out on a single God. So they've got all these different al alters to all of these different gods.
And then one, just in case that they've missed all of the other ones it kind of reminds me actually of our current. Age, would you agree? We idolize, we don't have altars like they did back then, like the big old stone ones. But we worship and we idolize things in our lives and we can idolize relationships and success and a quest for knowledge and all of these different things.
Knowledge even. We can worship many things, but are we worshiping the one true God? But Paul doesn't attack the beliefs of the people at this point. He meets them where they are. Where they are, and he's speaking to their religious practices and he is speaking to their deep longing for something more.
So let's read on from verse 24. It says, the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth. And he does not live in temples built by human hands. He's not served by human hands as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
Paul is revealing to these guys, the one true God, the one that created the heavens and the earth, and that he doesn't need to dwell in the temples that they've made because he is far bigger than that. He is far greater than any structure that we could. Ever possibly make and build for him. And he emphasizes that this creative and purposeful God is the source of everything.
He's the source of our breath, and he is the source of our life. So continuing in verse 26, he says, from one man, he made all the nations that they should inhabit the whole Earth. And he marked out there appointed times in history and the boundaries on the lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him.
Though he is not far from any one of us, for in Him, we live and move and have our being. These words resonated with the people of Athens at that time, and they reminded them and they remind us today that our existence. Is intricately connected to God, that there is a God who loves us and sustains us and gives us purpose.
And God is not far from us. He's not a distant detached being that hovers in the sky, you know, living on some cloud. He, he is a loving and purposeful creator who actually longs to be in relationship with each and every one of us. If you find yourself constantly looking. For the next thing to try and fill you, if you are looking for, you know, the next pay rise or the next job, or the next relationship, or a different career, and wondering why you are still not satisfied, I want to suggest to you this morning that that God shaped toll can only be filled by our heavenly Father.
I also wanna say to you that you're not alone. Every single one of us has experienced that, and the evidence of that is all around us in the broken world that we live in, isn't it? We see broken relationships. We see shattered dreams, we see substance abuse. We see people who are really hurt because they're trying to satisfy something eternal with something of this world.
Russell Brand, anyone familiar with him, comedian and actor, he said this, drugs and alcohol are not my problem. Reality is my problem. Drugs and alcohol are my solution to fill up the hole inside of me, and that is what happens when we turn to the things of this world to try and satisfy the hunger that is in with each and every one of us.
We try and fill up a hunger in the pit of our stomachs that is actually in the pit of ourselves. In John's account of his time with Jesus, he records Jesus as identifying himself in some really unique and beautiful ways. Jesus says that he is the bread of life. He says that he is the breath of life, that he is the light of the world, and that he is the source of living water.
He Jesus is the one that completes us and sustains us and fills the longing in every human heart. God's love expressed through Jesus Christ is the answer to your longing. And just as we read in the scripture just before, he is not hard to find. He wants to make himself known to us. And on top of that intrinsic longing that each and every one of us have, I actually really believe that one of the ways that God makes himself known to us is through his creation.
Have you ever I mean, we read earlier in that passage of acts that Paul says that God created the world and everything in it. And I honestly believe that the beauty and the complexity and the design of our natural world are indicators that there is a creative God involved. It's been said that intelligent design requires an intelligent designer.
And looking around, I see nothing but intelligent design in our world. Anyone familiar with David Attenborough? Yeah. Famous British naturalist. He has basically dedicated his whole life to. Exploring the world and documenting the natural, the, the beautiful wonders of the natural world. He was quoted as saying this, we only know a tiny proportion about the complexity of the natural world.
Wherever you look, there are still things that we don't know about and don't understand. There are always new things to find out. If you go looking for them, to me, the wonders of creation and the continuing discoveries that scientists keep making about our own incredible bodies and the world around us, point to evidence of God's intelligent design.
I love to be in nature. I am a nature lover. It fills my tank. I don't think there is a place where I feel more connected to God than when I am in nature. And if I'm feeling down or I'm feeling tired, it's been a hard week. I just, even if I just want some head space, I just head out to nature. And I soak it all up.
Varsity Sunset
Anyone with me? Any na? Yes. You know what I mean? I will go out and I will watch a sunset like this one. This was a sunset that I took on a evening. Walk around my house at varsity. And I love sunsets and I love that sunsets look different each and every day. You know, you've got the colors and you've got the light and the shadows and the clouds and the reflections, and it just creates an absolute canvas, doesn't it?
It's like a, a master artist. Has just created that sunset. And when I see a sunset, I see in it the creativity and the magnificence of a God who delights in filling our lives with beauty just to simply enjoy. Have you ever dissected a flower? I know bit of an unusual question to ask. The intricacy of a flower is absolutely amazing.
When I went to uni, I studied environmental science a degree, which to be very honest, does not get much use in my day-to-day life. So indulge me just for a minute this morning to relive some of my favorite moments. There was this day that I went into a botany lab and. It is forever ingrained in my memory as just being a defining moment where I feel like I encounter God in a science lab whilst dissecting a flower daffodils.
A beautiful, and they're such a seemingly simple. This is not my drawing by the way. I found it on the internet. Mine did not look that good. But you know, like we were dissecting and we're drawing what they all look like, and I was astounded by the intricacy and the detail of such a simple flower. It revealed to me the fingerprint of a creative God.
I remember saying to my lab partner, who is a guy that I'd been sharing my faith with in Jesus with. I said, how can we look at the complexity and the. Artistry in something so simple and not believe in a creative God, like it just undid me. And for some young people, university can be a place where we are challenged and maybe our faith is shaken.
But for me, the ability to learn and grow in that environment and be introduced to the wonders of the natural world actually cemented my faith in Christ and in Jesus the pedals. Are perfectly formed and positioned. And when you look inside of the flower and you see like the intricate positioning of the stamen and the pistol and the way that they are intentionally designed for fertilization, it's just phenomenal, the perfect symmetry of every part of that flower.
And that's just what you can see. Like that's not even beginning to explore. The chemical processes and the genetic instructions that are woven into that flower to enable it to grow and to bloom the way that it does. I encourage you to look beyond a flower the next time you see one in your garden or see a bunch of them on your bench cuz your husband just bought them for you for no reason at all.
And see something beyond then, beyond just a flower. Like allow yourself to look at it and see its perfect symmetry and its complexity, even though it's so simple, and allow that to point you to a creative God who delights in the smallest details. What about the Majesty? Of the heavens. Psalm 19, one and two says that the heavens declare the glory of God.
When I look up into a starry night sky, I don't know about you, but I feel so small. I feel so, so small, and yet at the same time, I feel completely known. I feel completely loved. How is it that even in the darkest, expansive night, you can feel understood? And you can feel seen. It's because the God who created the awe-inspiring majesty of something like that loves you.
The heavens declare his handiwork. It is mind boggling to consider the scale of the heavens, to think about the stars and the sun and the moon, and yet, even though that is far beyond comprehension, to know that he loves you. Individually uniquely, he loves you. We can be captivated by the beauty of a night sky and a universe like that, and we can allow that to draw us closer to the God who created that.
While we're having a bit of a nature appreciation moment, let's just keep going. I'm, I'm watching the time, but got time for this. We could do this all day long, couldn't we? What about animals like. There are some weird animals on this planet. There are some very strange animals. Not this one. Can we go back to the other, is there another photo there of some trees?
Okay, this guys, last week I took my niece, Lucy, spotlighting. Have you ever been spotlighting. Yeah, it's so cool. You take a torch out at night and you go looking for nocturnal animals. Gold Coast City Council run these free events all across our suburbs and you just get to go and encounter. This is in varsity, just around the corner from my house, literally bush on one side and thousands of townhouses on the other side, and we were not even five minutes into our little adventure and in flies, literally flies.
This little dude, can you see him? You all got him. I'm just gonna, just in case you can't see him, look. Oh, it's a pretty terrible photo cuz I had like one whole second to capture it on my on my iPhone. But this is a sugar glider and we saw maybe four or five of these little sugar gliders in varsity within the hour that we were spotlighting.
And one of them actually glided right in front of us and landed on the tree directly in front of us. It was very cool. I did not have the best picture in the world, so I asked Chris to get a better picture. And seriously, how cute is he? He's so cute. But just think about the way that this little guy is designed like, huh, look at those eyes.
They're so cute. But they're actually perfectly formed for him to see. In the night when he's out and about doing his thing, like they're perfect, perfect low night vision eyes. The tail there kind of acts as a whole fifth limb. Like it works when he's gliding. It works like a rudder and a stabilizer.
God's designed his little body so that he's got like minimal it's, it's super streamlined, like low air resistance. And then see all of the folds of skin between his. We'll call it his wrist and his ankle. I don't know what the proper names are, but that's actually super, like a membrane skin that folds out and becomes like a wing, allowing him to glide at the top of the trees.
He is just, he's so complex and yet he's so functional and I think that, that, I look at him, he's so cute, and I see. An artistic creator, right, whose hand has been at work crafting every single creature with intentionality and care, reflecting his originality. He's good. And don't even get me started on the human body.
I mean, I looking around and I'm seeing people that work within sort of the health field within here, and they would be able to tell you better than me how amazingly complex the human body is. But I've been. Amazed lately at just the fact that we go to bed at night and we close our eyes and while we are sleeping, our bodies are healing like they are renewing themselves overnight as we sleep.
God is is phenomenal. Cats. I am allergic to and I love them less than the rest of God's creation. I will be honest, except for Sam and Pauline's cats, cuz I don't sneeze when I go to their house. They're cute. Romans one verse 20, verse 20 says that for, since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen.
So that. From what has been made, people are without excuse. In other words, the created world around us points us to a creative God. It is witness to God, and as we observe the intricacies of nature and it's beauty and its complexity, we cannot help but marvel and wonder at the God that we serve. I actually believe that in science.
We can see the hand of God at work. I believe that you know, the, the laws of physics and biology and chemistry were put in place by our creative God. The evidence of everything that we see in this world points to a creative guide. Maybe you've never thought about that before and my hope, Is that, you know, leaving this place this morning or as you sign off on church online, that you would look with fresh eyes at the wonders of our world and maybe even the regular everyday things that you see each and every day and that you would see them with a fresh perspective today and be pointed to a God who is so creative but that did all of that so that you would perhaps come to know him.
Cuz I think that God must enjoy us. Enjoying the things that he created. Have you ever thought about that? Yesterday in our devotions, we read that he richly provides us everything. For our enjoyment. And I often think about that when I'm, you know, when my senses are tingling and I'm enjoying the taste of something or seeing something beautiful or listening to the birds that are singing in the trees.
God did all of that for our enjoyment. That's how much he loves us. God's love for us is not abstract, it is tangible and it's personal and. You heard Laura share earlier about the revelation that she's had of God's love for her. Jesus is the embodiment of God's love for us. There's a verse that I would say everyone in this room is familiar with whether you know it or not, maybe you've only ever seen John three 16 held up at a football game, but it says that God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believed in him would not perish.
But that they would have everlasting life. That is the good news for each and every one of us, that God loves us so, so much that he sent his son Jesus for us. And way back in the beginning, in the garden, Adam and Eve, they walked with God. They were in relationship with God, but they chose sin. They chose self, they chose their own way instead of God's way and.
Brokenness entered the world at that point, and nothing has ever been the same since. And, but you and I, we were created in his image the same way that Adam and Eve were, and we were created to be in relationship with the loving God. And so he sent Jesus for us to find a way out of the brokenness so that we didn't have to try and figure it out on our own so that instead we could just turn to him and that we could have life here and forever.
That's why, and you will laugh, but that's why I love Christmas. And coincidentally, just in case you didn't know it, is June the 25th today, people six months until Christmas. That's just a side note. But the reason that I love Christmas is not because of the tree and the decorations and the carols and all of the things.
That I do love, but the main reason that I love it is because Christmas represents the beginning of the greatest love story ever told. He sent his son Jesus. He God is not just someone who who loves, he is love. It's the very embodiment of who he is. It's his character, it's his nature. And so in that love, he actually sent his son Jesus.
That's what that verse was talking about before. That's why I love Christmas. It is the story of the beginning of the rest of my life, the story of the redemption of all of mankind, that we would be able to be back in relationship with him. In Jesus. We can find the purpose and the meaning. That we are all searching for, and it's through his life and his death and his resurrection, that we can know forgiveness of sins and that we can know hope and joy, and peace and purpose and fullness of life.
Can you imagine what our families and what our communities would look like if people found their true purpose and their true meaning in God? Imagine a world. Where we no longer were searching for purpose in the temporary things that don't last, there would be less pain because all of a sudden the things that you know, that we search for and that we hope will satisfy us are no longer needed.
We don't need to numb ourselves when those things don't work. Can I ask the band to come back up? Pretty please. And I've used a lot of words this morning, and I hope that really all that I've expressed is that there is a longing. Within each and every one of us that cannot be satisfied by the temporary stuff of this world that can only be satisfied in the person of Jesus Christ and that this existence, the very fact that that longing is woven into the fabric of who we are actually points to a loving God who wants to be in relationship with you.
Maybe there's a void within your heart. This morning, and as I've shared, and as Laura shared so beautifully, her story, it may be resonated with you. Maybe at the moment you are feeling fear or loneliness or pain or de desperation, or maybe there's just this niggling feeling that just won't go away, that there has to be something more to this life.
There is, and his name is Jesus. And in him we find belonging. We find hope, we find purpose, we find meaning, freedom, love, completeness. These are all of the things that we find in him. You might still be unsure, but I wanna ask you this morning, kind of a ticky question. What have you got to lose? What have you got to lose?
What if all of life is not an accident, that there is an intelligent designer and that he enc he created not only the world around us, but he created you as well to be known by him. I would love for you to find in Jesus the same hope and purpose. That I have found, and I wanna invite you even now, just to pray something really simple with me.
You can use your own words or you could just pray along with me. Would you do that? God, I'm sorry that I've tried to do it on my own. I know there's something missing in my life and God, maybe you are the one who will complete me and fill that hole. Like we heard, Jesus, we thank you that God sent you his son and that you died on the cross and that you did that for me to forgive my sins.
I believe that you rose from the GA grave and I wanna make you the king of my life. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you for your love, and I choose to follow you with all of my heart and all of my life. Amen. And maybe you prayed that along with me this morning for the first time. Maybe you've just got a whole bunch of questions about what this faith journey could look like then.
That's why we are here. We're here to help you figure out that, that God part of life and to help you live life well. And I just wanna encourage you just to, to give it a chance. And you know, it's not a one-time prayer, it's a daily choice to follow Jesus. But what a journey it is. It is so life changing.
And so I just wanna encourage you this morning to. Chat to the person that invited you. If you're online, chat to your host online, or if you're in the room, you know, come and chat to me or anyone that you've seen this morning. We would love to help you on that journey. We're gonna sing a, a bit of an old song now, naan and Mike are gonna lead us in this song, but I really just felt during the week.
That this song would help us position our hearts to God. And it'll be familiar to some of you that have been around for a really long time. But for those that are new it's really simple and you'll pick it up really quickly. But just as we close, I wanted to leave you just with one last thought for those of you that are followers of Jesus, for people that have chosen to follow him.
You would agree with me that when we encounter the love of God, we cannot keep it to ourselves. The transformative power of his love compels us to respond and to live in a different way. And I love what Kev shared out of his devotions because our lives become living testimonies and stories of God's goodness and love and.
That is an incredible privilege, and it's something that we should never, ever take for granted. The fact that now as a follower of Jesus, we get to represent to other people that Jesus is alive and that Jesus loves them, and that just maybe in addition to that intrinsic longing that they have, and in addition to looking around at all of creation and seeing that point to God.
The life that you live also points them to God. What a privilege. What a privilege to allow ourselves to surrender to the Holy Spirit and allow him to transform us more and more into the image of Jesus. You know, to show his love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and kindness and gentleness and self-control, and all of these things that reflect God's love in us to the people around us.
And so my challenge to you this morning, if you are a follower of Christ, is to take that responsibility and see it as a privilege to point people to, to point people to God. May His Holy Spirit lead us. And guide us as we reflect his love and light to the people in our world. Amen.