What Is the Meaning of Life?

00:00:00.000 | We field some pretty huge questions on the podcast like this one from a woman named Abijah,

00:00:08.840 | who's going through a lot.

00:00:10.600 | "Dear Pastor John, hello.

00:00:12.240 | So I've been dealing with much in my life, which has been really hard for the past three

00:00:16.360 | years.

00:00:17.360 | Normally, I could face life's challenges with the assurance that God was in control and

00:00:21.360 | that I could trust him.

00:00:22.880 | But beginning in 2018, I started to get really depressed about the whole meaning of life

00:00:27.560 | and my own life purpose.

00:00:29.480 | It was in the midst of my challenges that I lost someone I really loved, and it broke

00:00:34.240 | me like nothing ever has.

00:00:36.620 | My entire view of God and life has been shattered.

00:00:41.240 | I can't seem to get myself out of wondering why life is even a thing.

00:00:45.120 | Life, at least my life, often feels like it has no meaning.

00:00:50.760 | Can you renew my vision for life?

00:00:52.700 | Can you explain to me what is the meaning of life?"

00:00:57.800 | Abijah, I hear three distinct and interrelated sorrows that have brought you to this place

00:01:07.360 | of doubt about the meaning of your life.

00:01:09.840 | I hear depression.

00:01:12.120 | I hear loss.

00:01:13.680 | I hear a kind of fixation in your mind.

00:01:17.560 | You say, "I can't seem to get myself out of wondering why life is even a thing."

00:01:25.160 | In other words, the tape keeps playing over and over in your mind.

00:01:30.720 | Is life really significant at all, or is it just a meaningless jumble coming from nowhere,

00:01:37.040 | going nowhere, nothing in between but randomness?

00:01:41.240 | So I take your question, your plea, very seriously.

00:01:47.680 | I have tasted a little bit of what you're talking about, and I know others who have

00:01:53.000 | tasted all of what you're talking about.

00:01:56.160 | I have seen myself come through.

00:01:58.200 | I have seen others come through, and I believe you can come through.

00:02:03.460 | You can come out into the light of confidence in God, confidence in Christ, confident in

00:02:12.080 | the certain purpose that God has for this world, the wise, good, just, holy purpose

00:02:21.600 | that God has for this world and your place in it.

00:02:25.840 | Even in the words that you use, Subbiah, you put your finger on the meaning of life.

00:02:32.100 | You say you are depressed about the whole meaning of your life and your own purpose.

00:02:40.440 | And I think that's right.

00:02:41.440 | I think you're absolutely right.

00:02:43.240 | That meaning consists in purpose, a good purpose, a wise, just, satisfying purpose or design

00:02:52.240 | for you, for the world.

00:02:54.000 | So the whole question is, does the world, with all of its beauty and ugliness, gladness

00:03:02.680 | and groaning, love and hate, pleasure and pain, nobility and vulgarity, kindness and

00:03:12.480 | abuse, selfishness and sacrifice, does such a world as ours have a wise, good, just, satisfying

00:03:24.480 | purpose under the providence of an all-wise, all-powerful God?

00:03:31.120 | Or was the atheist Bertrand Russell right at the end of his life when he said, "There

00:03:38.640 | is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within.

00:03:42.900 | There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment and then nothing"?

00:03:51.880 | Are the words of Macbeth in Shakespeare's play when he hears about his wife's death,

00:03:57.000 | are those words true?

00:03:58.000 | Are they a reflection of reality?

00:04:00.200 | When he said, "Out, out, brief candle!

00:04:04.040 | Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage

00:04:11.640 | and then is heard no more.

00:04:14.480 | It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

00:04:22.160 | Abijah, I think one of the common strategies of Satan, whom you know is a thief and a murderer,

00:04:32.880 | he steals truth from the mind, he kills the soul.

00:04:36.720 | One of his common strategies is to fixate our mind on such possibilities.

00:04:43.360 | Life is a tale told by an idiot, isn't it?

00:04:46.720 | Full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

00:04:50.320 | Satan doesn't even care if you believe that.

00:04:52.360 | He just wants you to be fixated on it, to think about it all the time and wonder if

00:04:57.680 | it might be true.

00:04:59.360 | He wants to steal from you and me every vestige of confidence that God is wise and good and

00:05:08.560 | just and holy and that God is working everything together for a great purpose.

00:05:15.800 | So my purpose right now in this past Pastor John is to pray for you that you would have

00:05:25.120 | power to resist the devil and that I could put a sword, the sword of the Spirit, in your

00:05:34.520 | hand so that you could do battle valiantly and triumphantly against the darkness.

00:05:40.960 | The sword of the Spirit, you know this, the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.

00:05:46.400 | God knew when he wrote his book, God knew that you would go through this.

00:05:52.360 | God knew about your depression.

00:05:53.720 | He knew about your loss.

00:05:55.440 | He knew about the fixation of doubt in your mind.

00:05:58.960 | And he wrote about these things over and over again in his Word to help you and all of us.

00:06:06.320 | The meaning of life according to that Word, God's Word, is to know God as he really is

00:06:15.840 | and to enjoy him and all that he is for us in Christ and to reflect in this dark world

00:06:25.080 | some of the light that he has shown to us when Christ, the very Son of God, died in

00:06:31.160 | our place precisely that we might know God and enjoy God in spite of our sin and then

00:06:38.120 | one day see him and know him perfectly unendingly.

00:06:42.480 | Let me say it again.

00:06:45.760 | The meaning of life is to know God and to enjoy God and reflect some of the beauty of

00:06:56.040 | God as we know him in Christ and one day see him perfectly and unendingly enjoy him.

00:07:06.900 | The meaning of life now, the purpose of life in this age is not comfort in this world now

00:07:16.900 | nor escape from suffering now nor the avoidance of loss now nor the maximizing of physical

00:07:26.580 | pleasures now nor the amassing of riches now nor the achievement of any fame now nor the

00:07:35.060 | right to any health now nor that we would be treated with respect and justice now.

00:07:43.260 | Those are not the meaning of life in this age for God's people.

00:07:48.940 | Once sin entered the world and everything was corrupted and once God's saving purposes

00:07:55.480 | began to rescue people from sin, the glorious and beautiful purposes of this creation were

00:08:02.720 | thrust forward into the time when Christ would come again and set everything right, a time

00:08:10.980 | of perfect righteousness, a time of perfect peace, a new creation with no crying or pain

00:08:18.100 | anymore so that over and over again in the scriptures we are told to rejoice in hope

00:08:26.620 | like Romans 5 to rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

00:08:33.260 | This present world is primarily a season of testing and a refiner's fire.

00:08:44.060 | If this world is all there is, then life is surely meaningless.

00:08:49.520 | The Bible says, "Let's eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die if there's no resurrection

00:08:54.700 | from the dead."

00:08:56.420 | That's Corinthians 15.32.

00:08:59.420 | So the apostle Paul said, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not

00:09:06.100 | worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us," in Romans 8.18.

00:09:13.380 | And again he said, "This light momentary affliction," I'm thinking of your loss,

00:09:20.100 | Elijah, for example, "This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal

00:09:28.300 | weight of glory beyond all comparison," 2 Corinthians 4.17.

00:09:35.340 | And the apostle Peter put it most fully and clearly.

00:09:38.780 | He said in chapter 1, verse 5, "By God's power you are being guarded through faith

00:09:47.660 | for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, in this, this coming sure remedy

00:09:58.260 | for all ills, this salvation, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if

00:10:06.020 | necessary, you have been grieved by various trials."

00:10:10.940 | Oh, Elijah, that's your life, right?

00:10:14.860 | That word "various trials" means all kinds of trials, literally many colors of trials

00:10:21.740 | and tests.

00:10:23.620 | "So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, which though

00:10:31.900 | perishable is tested by fire, may result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation

00:10:37.940 | of Jesus Christ."

00:10:39.660 | What an amazing interpretation of this world and our place in it.

00:10:45.260 | The meaning of suffering in this life is the refinement of faith by the fires of various

00:10:53.900 | trials that we might know God, love God, show God as more precious than everything that

00:11:02.180 | the fires consume.

00:11:04.460 | Jesus Christ suffered precisely to bring us through these fiery trials, refined and purified

00:11:15.540 | into the very presence of God for our eternal joy, 1 Peter 3.18.

00:11:22.060 | So I close, Elijah, with an illustration.

00:11:26.060 | When COVID-19 shut up my wife and me, someone gave us a puzzle with a thousand pieces.

00:11:35.260 | They thought we would need something to do.

00:11:37.620 | I spread it out on two card tables, and in the interludes between my work, I would just

00:11:44.700 | pause there and try to find a piece or two to put together.

00:11:47.620 | I began with the confidence these thousand chaotic pieces piled in the middle of the

00:11:54.340 | table would one day be that beautiful picture on the box from bedlam to beauty, from chaos

00:12:01.900 | to order.

00:12:02.900 | Yes, that's going to come.

00:12:03.900 | I saw the picture on the box.

00:12:05.700 | It was a kind of promise.

00:12:08.060 | But one day I had the border almost entirely completed.

00:12:13.020 | That's the way I started, do the board, almost entirely completed, everything fitting together,

00:12:19.020 | but it wouldn't fit.

00:12:20.020 | It was just one or two pieces that wouldn't fit.

00:12:23.620 | And I was sure a piece was missing.

00:12:25.300 | I looked all over the floor, or maybe they've made the puzzle wrong.

00:12:30.100 | It's defective.

00:12:31.100 | And I went through time after time, systematically looking at all the pieces.

00:12:36.300 | I put them in rows so I could see.

00:12:38.340 | I became fixated on the fact this puzzle is not going to work.

00:12:44.240 | This puzzle is defective.

00:12:46.180 | Then my wife came over and she sat down and she looked at all the edge pieces that I had

00:12:52.980 | put together.

00:12:54.460 | And she said, "I don't think these two pieces go together that you have fastened here.

00:13:00.980 | They almost go together.

00:13:01.980 | I don't think they go together."

00:13:02.980 | I looked and said, "They're perfect.

00:13:03.980 | They go together."

00:13:04.980 | And she said, "No, I don't think so."

00:13:09.080 | And she took my puzzle apart and she uncoupled the pieces that I had spent hours finding

00:13:16.140 | and she rearranged the pieces and she put them back together and it fit.

00:13:21.580 | Perfect.

00:13:22.780 | There was no lost piece.

00:13:24.180 | There was no defect.

00:13:25.180 | It was just fallible me.

00:13:28.540 | So my prayer is that this asbestogen would perhaps come to you the way my wife came to

00:13:37.060 | me and showed me, "Johnny, your fixation on the imperfection of this puzzle and that

00:13:45.140 | the makers blew it, that's out of place.

00:13:49.780 | They really do fit.

00:13:51.660 | This is going to be a beautiful picture.

00:13:54.220 | Just keep at it.

00:13:55.740 | Trust the promise that's on the box there."

00:13:57.940 | It's true.

00:13:59.180 | The sufferings of this life are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed.

00:14:06.180 | Great perspective.

00:14:07.180 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:14:08.180 | Sobering situation, but God is sovereign good, and for his children he is doing eternally

00:14:12.700 | good things in all of our lives, even in the hardest of life situations.

00:14:16.700 | Thank you, Pastor John, for that reminder.

00:14:19.540 | We now break for the weekend, and next week we will begin with a very simple question,

00:14:23.220 | but a great one from a listener named Maxine.

00:14:26.260 | Maxine wants to know, "Who wrote the Bible?"

00:14:31.660 | Who wrote the Bible?

00:14:33.140 | Man, some great questions of late coming into the inbox.

00:14:36.620 | Pastor John will explain his answer to us on Monday.

00:14:39.700 | I'm Tony Reinke.

00:14:40.700 | Thanks for listening to the podcast, and we will see you then.

00:14:42.980 | Have a great weekend.

00:14:43.740 | [End of Audio]

00:14:44.740 | 1. Who wrote the Bible?

00:14:45.740 | 2. What is the Bible?

00:14:46.740 | 3. What are the different ways of understanding the Bible?

00:14:47.740 | 4. What is the difference between the Bible and the Bible?

00:14:48.740 | 5. What is the difference between the Bible and the Bible?

00:14:49.740 | 6. What is the difference between the Bible and the Bible?

00:14:50.740 | 7. What is the difference between the Bible and the Bible?

00:14:51.740 | 8. What is the difference between the Bible and the Bible?

What Is the Meaning of Life?

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