I recently challenged many of you to make a resolution this year to study to be able to answer a few foundational questions related to the gospel that I found are common questions asked by doubters and skeptics. Those questions were:
- How do you know that God exists? What evidence could you give to a skeptic? (do you know any of the basic arguments for God's existence?)
- What evidence is there that Jesus actually existed? (be ready to show evidence beyond the Bible and to defend the Bible as a historical document)
- Why should we trust the Bible?
- Doesn't the Bible contradict itself?
- How can a loving God allow evil?
Last week, our college pastor did an overview of the book of Ecclesiastes. A book that was written about the struggle to find meaning in life. The author had the opportunity to pursue all avenues to find meaning and concluded that all was vanity or, more literally, a vapor (like that which comes off of your cup of coffee and disappears.) However, the author was a committed monotheist and never wavered in that belief throughout the exposition of his struggle. He also informs us that God has put eternity into man's heart. All people are in a quest to find meaning for their lives, some more consciously than others. When we think of the life of the author of Ecclesiastes, we can see subsets of that life in people all around us. While none of us will experience everything that the author experienced, and few, if any of us would actually want to experience all that he experienced, we do see people trying to fill their lives with the things of this world only to end in despair.
Last year it was the actor Heath Ledger, a rising star whose acting ability could be seen in a number of popular movies last year, and even one coming out this year. By all outward appearances he had it all going for him, until he was found dead of an apparent overdose in his Manhattan apartment about a year ago. This story is not an uncommon one. We see other famous people whose lives become a living train wreck as they crash before our eyes. More recently we heard news of Steve Jobs who has made Apple Computers what it is today. However, recurring cancer threatens to end his stellar career and even shorten his life , and although Jobs will be remembered, will he look forward to his eternity?
The author of Ecclesiastes takes us through many of these dilemmas by telling us that there are good aspects to the pursuit of wisdom and there ultimately is vanity in the pursuit of wisdom. There are good things about work and ultimate struggle and toil in work. The bottom line is that this life will never provide the fulfillment that we ultimately desire because there is nothing satisfying enough, big enough, or lasting enough to bring that fulfillment. Wisdom comes and wisdom goes. I recently read a review of some books about Francis Schaeffer, one of the great Christian thinkers of the 20th century. One of the authors interviewed people associated with Schaeffer during his lifetime (he died in 1984) including his wife Edith who is her 90s. Edith was a tremendous thinker and writer herself, having written a biography of their lives together entitled The Tapestry (652 pages), which my wife recently read. However, now Edith is only able to smile and nod her head due to her advanced age. Wisdom is not lasting.
We all know these days, as we watch our 401Ks diminish, that riches are also fleeting. We see people walking away from homes that they had purchased and for which they can no longer pay. We see former Wall Street tycoon, Bernard Madoff (how approprate is his name) who, it is estimated, lost or stole upwards of $50 billion from his investors. Riches do not last
Even relationships do not last. Divorce rates are extraordinarily high in our society, even within the church. We may have to move from one place to another, making it difficult to maintain relationships as we once knew them. And, we are all going to die someday. So, we cannot even count on earthly relationships to last. So, is that it, are we all destined to nihilism (belief that life is without objective meaning)? If God doesn't exist, then that is the logical conclusion with which we are left. Life from an earthly, finite perspective is, as the writer of Ecclesiastes wrote, meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
Yet, God has not left us in this place and with no hope. The Apostle Paul writes in the Letter to the Ephesians that we "were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (2:1-3) Paul then uses two words that bring hope to us in verse 4, "But God," and continues, "being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus." It is God that gives us hope that even though this world cannot fill our desires, he can and did through his Son, and one day we will be seated with him in the heavenly places. That is to be our ultimate pursuit, with our secondary pursuit being to tell as many people as possible that this should be their ultimate pursuit as well.
In the coming weeks, I will address these questions and help you to better answer them for those people to whom you will share this great news.
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