The Purpose of Life

Sunday, 1 June 2014 - John 17:1-11

Rev. Bruce Skelton, Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Highlands Ranch, Colorado ☩ www.hclchr.org


Whenever I read this text, which is a portion of what the early church fathers called Jesus High Priestly Prayer, I am immediately struck by the majesty and the profundity of it.  What we have here is nothing less that God speaking to himself. Jesus Christ the second person of the Holy Trinity is talking to God the Father the first person of the Holy Trinity and in it we see the great mercy and love of God.  We see the stated purpose for Jesus life, death and resurrection. He came into this world for one reason and one reason only and that was to glorify God the Father by doing His will, and His will was and still is to save us and all of sinful humanity.

I don’t know about you, but when I look at the perfection and holiness of Jesus’ life, His thoughts, his words and his deeds as they are related to us in Scripture, and I look at my own thoughts words and deeds, I cannot help but feel very small. Jesus knew the exact meaning and exact purpose of his life and he carried it all out to perfection. He kept the whole of the law and he did the whole will of God perfectly.  He left nothing undone or unfinished.

How different he was and is from us, for if we take an honest look at ourselves and the people around us, it is easy to see a lot of purposelessness or meaninglessness.  For instance, how many people do you know who just seem to be drifting through life without any real objective or goal to what they are doing?  I don’t know about you, but I have met quite a few people just like that. They are just living for the moment with really no thought about what the point or the purpose or the meaning of their life is. They are like Alice in Lewis Carroll’s  book,  Alice in Wonderland, who came to a fork in the road and stopped then she saw the Cheshire cat up in a tree nearby. “Which road do I take?” She asked. “Where do you want to go?”  was his response.  “I don't know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn't matter which road you take.”

I would submit that anyone who is living their lives in such a manner is living a tragedy, because we are not here by accident.  Contrary to what the evolutionists and atheists teach, and what many of our societies elite and effete believe, we are not just poor creatures of chance. We are not just an accidental collection of atoms in a pointless and chaotic universe. We are immortal souls, placed here in these bodies, in this world, in this time for a divinely appointed purpose and that purpose is believe in, worship, and live for God.

That, beloved, should not only be our goal in life it should be our all consuming desire, just like it was for Jesus, but the sad fact of the matter is that even we as believers often fall short.  Ever since the fall into sin, people have not sought to live for God, but for themselves.  Instead of thinking how we might please God we selfishly think only of ourselves. St. Paul prophesies about these days in his second letter to his friend Timothy:

But mark this: There will be terrible times in these last days.  People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.

Beloved I must warn you, that the Scriptures clearly say that the only outcome of such a purposeless life is eternity in hell.  So where do we go?  To whom do we turn?

You know the answer.  The only way we can live for God is by believing in Him and the One whom He has sent and that is Jesus Christ, fully God and at the same time fully man.  Jesus alone glorified God perfectly.  Everything He said, everything He did was in accordance with the will of His father, even to the point of offering himself up as a sacrifice upon a cross, so that by his shed blood our sins might be wiped out forever.

He also glorified God by rising from the dead to show that his victory over sin, death and the devil was complete and he ascended into heaven, he returned to where he came from, to show his disciples and us that he is now at the right hand of God interceding in our behalf.  And because Jesus has so glorified God His Father, God his Father has glorified him, and given Him the name above all names that at his name every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess him Lord to the Glory of God the Father.

Now you might be saying to yourself that’s fine, but what does that have to do with me and the answer is, “everything.” It has everything to do with you and me because it is by faith in Jesus Christ and him alone we are told in the Scriptures that we will one day be glorified as well. As St. Paul writes in Romans 8:

And we know that all in things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.  What the, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us who can be against us? He who spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Wow, what a powerful assurance of the grace of God, what a wonderful statement of the purpose and the value of our lives as Christians in this sin fallen world.  God has a plan.  It is a plan of salvation that He is working out to our eternal good and eventual glory as well.  And it all can be seen in the person and the work of Jesus Christ, especially His work upon the cross, where we see God’s love for us most clearly. And this brings up the great irony of the high priestly prayer of Jesus, which is that he prayed it right before he went to the cross, that is where He would glorify God the Father.

Now the reason why I point this out is because it is important for us to remember that we glorify God not when things are going well and our life is a cakewalk, but when we are under the greatest trials, temptations, and tribulations.  It is at times like those when by the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts we resist sin and overcome adversity that God gets the most glory.

As I thought of this I couldn’t help but think of a woman named Monica.  Monica’s life was a difficult one She was a Christian woman married to a pagan husband, but her pride and joy was her son whom she loved very much.  She went to great trouble to raise him as a Christian, but when the boy grew to manhood he rejected her faith and went out into the world seeking after other gods and other ways to live.

Now many mothers might have given up on such a thankless son, but not Monica.  She prayed and prayed for her son.  Even when it looked hopeless and her son kept going astray, she steadfastly offered her supplications and intercessory prayers on his behalf, until after 30 years, one day by the grace of Almighty God, her son’s stony heart and rebellious spirit was broken by the Holy Spirit and he became a believer again, and not only a believer, but a pastor, and not only a pastor, but a doctor of the church.  Her son’s name was Augustine, whom you might know as St. Augustine of Hippo. Augustine wrote some of the most powerful defending the Christian faith of all time and it was his writings that centuries later impacted a young Augustinian monk named Martin Luther, which led to an event called the Reformation.

But it all started with a poor afflicted Christian mother on her knees, praying steadfastly and unceasingly, for her wayward son.  Just as her Lord God’s Son prayed and still prays, still intercedes before His Father’s throne for steadfastly and unceasingly for us.

So what else can we but continue to live our lives unto Him, fighting the good fight of faith, resisting the devil and seeking to do what is good and pleasing in His sight, giving Christ the glory, because he deserves it all, and knowing that in the end he will glorify us in heaven.  What greater purpose, what more profound meaning, could our lives ever have than that?  So to him to our God, the only true God: Father, Son and H.S be all the glory, honor, power and might now and forevermore. Amen.