Sermon: Why Am I Here?

If you'll take your Bibles, you can take a pew Bible there right in front of you if you didn't walk in with a Bible and flip to the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis one. So we said what we're going to do over the weeks of this fall semester, uh, we are going to preach through uh, 10 hard questions for Christianity.

Walk through some of the things that Maybe people think are a challenge for the Christian faith. What about evil? Uh, can you trust the scriptures? Uh, why would God send people eternally to hell? Uh, what about the Bible's view of homosexuality? Isn't that just bigoted and that a lack of love? And on a week ago, we're gonna look at a number of those, uh, over this semester and attempt to do so. Think through them together theologically.

So the scriptures have to say about these things. It seems appropriate that where we would begin is with the question tonight of why am I here? Is often one of the first things that people are wrestling with. Why do I exist? Why am I here? Why are any of us here in this room this evening? So we're gonna look at that together this evening. What I want to do is just read a few verses from Genesis and we'll look at them just kind of glancingly tonight.

But I wanna read Genesis one through five because that's the first day. And then I wanna flip over in two verse 26 and read about the sixth day. So let me pray before we open God's word here together this evening.

Father, we are thankful that it is true that the reading of your word is powerful and effective and thankful that the preaching of your word is powerful and effective. And we pray that that would be true this evening. Help each of us in this room that has to wrestle with what your word proclaims. Help us to wrestle with it by your spirit this evening or otherwise. Our wrestling will produce no fruit.

Do you help us to wrestle with the truth of this word and not fall on deaf ears this evening? Help us to think according to truth. Help us to think with heavenly minds. Help us to be stirred by the power of your spirit in Christ's name. Amen. Just one, one through five. And then we'll flip over to verse 26 and look at the sixth day. This is the holy and err sufficient word of God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. God said, let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, there was morning the first day and over to verse 26. Then God said,

let us make man in our image After our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image and the image of God. He created him, male and female. He created them and God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.

And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food and every beast of the earth and every bird of the heavens and everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I've given every green plant for food.

And it was so God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day the grass withers flower fades. The word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Why am I here? It's a good question. Why am I here?

My guess is is that this was the primary question that most people asked for generations upon generations. I don't think it's the normal and the first question that most people ask in our generation, I think that's changed. Like it's changed over the last, I don't know, maybe 10 years or 15 years. The question has become not why am I here, but who am I? And they're intimately related to one another. Why am I here? Who am I

And western culture is now racked with an identity crisis. Who am I? Am I male? Am I female? Am I straight? Am I homosexual? Am I transgender? And on week ago, in fact, our children are told that they're to question who, who they are. That's to be a pursuit question who you are. I've lost count over the last number of years, how many personalities I've heard on the radio, how many news stories I've read in newspapers and on the internet

that are lamenting the fact that there is a rise in depression. There is a rise in anxiety, there is a rise in drug abuse

in our culture. They're flabbergasted and they keep trying new things that are really the old things. Sinclair Ferguson once pointed out, he said, we have governments and institutions that are spending endless millions to help young people in the midst of an epidemic of depression, anxiety and confusion. And he said, our society is like the woman with blood in the gospels. The more she spent trying to get better, the worse she gned.

Why am I here? Who am I?

They're intimate related. Who am I there is who I am as others perceive me. They take into account my family of origin. They take into account my education, my profession, my experiences, my opportunities. And in many ways that that's who I am. It's true in a sense. It has shaped me. Then there is the identity that people ascribed in me based upon what they see, what they see on the outside, the habits that I do, the things that I am engaged in, the demeanor that I exert,

the ways that I act is that truly who I am. That could be

the way we act. These habits, these chosen ways of operating the world or not just what people identify with me. They're were my choices. They are who I chose to be. I choose to do these things and yet it can be an internal struggle that others can't see. Maybe it's not what actually is produced on the outside, but it's that internal struggle that pulls me to do this or to do that contrary to what I'm doing on the outside. Maybe that's actually who I am.

Or maybe it's both or maybe it's neither.

Start doing this and we can turn ourselves inside out and into knots with this kind of reasoning. That's what this world is doing to us. Western culture is doing to you, to me, to our children.

Let's make this simple. I'm not what others ascribe me to be. I'm not what I do nor what I primarily feel within. And none of those things,

our society sets young people on a personal project to find their identity or even to decide it. But we don't find it and we surely don't decide it. Our identity is given. I am who God made me

and with the purpose that he gave me.

What this world finds hard to understand is that we are absolutely lost apart from God. And so the world will keep throwing money and it will keep throwing lament and we'll keep throwing whatever it finds in the kitchen cabinet at it. But our problem is that we are lost apart from God.

Mankind's identity and purpose is tied up together, tied up together. It can't separate him. Therefore, it's no surprise that there is confusion about who we are when we get rid of God, when God disappears from the picture. So does our identity. When we lose God, we lose ourselves. And that's what we're witnessing. Genesis one and Genesis two make it clear that you and I, we were created in the image of God.

We out of all the creation, out of everything that he made, more so than the blades of grass, more so than the animals that roam the earth, more so than the fish, more than even the angels in the archangels. We occupy a place in creation that is distinct and different and unique set apart. We are created in the image of God.

You and I,

we are the imago de the image of God. We were created either male or female or gender is not fluid. It is not. My decision is very much tied to my biology. My biology, how I was created. Every single cell of my body has the d n A of my gender and so does yours. And as male or as female, we were each created to represent God in this world. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him. Male and female.

He created them your identity.

One of the fundamental flaws in the approach of modernity. But we could say every age of mankind is thinking that we are independent determiners, that we decide who we are. We decide our purpose why we're here. But I want you to go back with me very beginning of the Bible where we just started. It's it's, it starts this way for a reason. Genesis one, one in the beginning, God, that's it. In the beginning, God. And then we read of his creative acts,

his creating all things, creating the heavens and the earth, creating the light, separating the light from the darkness, creating the expanse and the waters. And on we could go until the sixth day when we read that he created man from the dust of the ground. He created a male and female. But again, in the beginning is God. There is nothing in the beginning but God, that's it. This means what the Bible is proclaiming to you and I is that

God alone is independent. He alone, he self exists. He is uncared. He is self-sufficient. In theology, we speak about as the asity of God. The awe say Latin say of himself from himself. God is uncaused. He's wholly self-sufficient in his own being. Therefore he cannot become some other actuality, something that he is not. He can't become something he isn't. He already is. Nothing is added to him. Nothing is subtracted from him.

Nothing can be taken from him. Nothing can be given to him. If it could, then that would highlight something lacking in him

or it made some kind of absence of being or goodness or perfection. You can't become something without it. Adding or taking away. God is being, he's not becoming you. Remember when Moses is up on the mount and he sees that burning bush and God sends him down to Pharaoh in Egypt and to save his people from Egypt and he will say, who do I say has sent me? And God will just simply say to him, I am who I am. That is I exist.

He's just Being. He's actuality, not potentiality. Actuality He exists.

He's pure act itself. Defining life, being life in the most absolute sense possible. A life that is not derived but true absolute life in and of himself. Now here's where it hits you and I. We are not like this.

That's not you. That's not me. We were created. We are inde. We are dependent beings. We were created. He shaped man from the dust of the earth. He formed woman from man's side. He breathed life into them. God formed, he created, he breathed. We are dependent beings created by him.

All that we are derives from outside ourselves. It's based upon something else we become because we became, we're dependent beings, dependent upon God. And here's the kicker.

That means we are dependent upon him for who we are and why we are here.

You don't get to determine it. You're dependent.

You don't get to determine it. You're Dependent. He decides who you are and why you are here. He fashioned you. He created us in his image as we see there in Genesis two where he gives his command be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, have dominion over all this earth. What is it? We are his image bearers whereby we are to reflect his glory throughout the earth, where to populate the earth so that when he looks down upon planet earth,

he sees himself reflected back to himself.

Why you're here. We exist to glorify him. To exalt him. Paul will famously say in one Corinthians to the Christians, you are not your own. But you see, we could say that to every single person that has ever lived on the face of the earth, you're not your own. You were created with a purpose to glorify him. That's why you're here.

Your very identity is that you are an image bearer of God.

You don't get to decide that's what you were created to be.

We were all created by him and through him. And for him,

I'm an image bearer of God. That's who I am. What is my purpose? To glorify him.

Stephen Charnock, the old Puritan said this. He said he was before all things meaning God and therefore depends on no other thing. And as we said, one clear implication of this doctrine is that God derives nothing from his creation. So even as we worship him, even as we glorify him, even as we exalt him, he does not receive anything that he does not already possess. We don't add anything to him. God has all fullness in his own divine being.

Then why do we exist to glorify and praise him? Why? Lemme give you two reasons why this is why you are here. Two reasons. First, because God's fullness is worthy of worship. Because God's fullness is worthy of worship. God is a perfectly moral being. He's perfect in wisdom. He's perfect in holiness. He's perfect in righteousness. He is perfect in goodness. He is perfect in beauty and in truth. Everything He wills, everything that he does is because it is the right thing to will or the

right thing to do. And as a perfect moral being, if something is to be exalted and praised, it must be that which is in itself deserving of the most exaltation and praise. That's right.

There is nothing more worthy than God. He's the most beautiful. He's the most right, He's The most good. He's the most true. And so he is deserving of the most praise, rightfully so.

If we are moral creatures, which we are and we are going to esteem something or someone, which we will do because you are a moral creature, you can't help but do so.

We will find that we are only doing so rightly when we find we are esteeming and honoring and praising that which is most worthy. That's him. You're a moral creature. You're going to ascribe praise to something. The thing that you are ascribe praise to should be the thing that is most worthy of ascribing praise to you're going to worship something or to worship the thing that is most deserving of worship

alone is worthy of the highest praise

world. Creatures do this. We can't help but do this. In fact, it may be pleasure or health or the environment or this or that cause or this or that person or music or art or your home or security or self. But something will receive the highest praise. Your worship, your person, your devotion. You see what the scriptures are telling you And I over and over that voice outside of ourselves, it's saying over and over to us that he alone is worthy of the highest praise

And he is worthy of all of your praise.

And give an example, if we just finished the Macker basketball tournament that U R C has been doing the past couple of years that Blake puts on over here and let's say that uh, that Alan Nat back there won the U R C basketball tournament, we might say, well, Alan is the greatest basketball player and we would ascribe him that praise.

Now it'd be silly if we were sitting at a Spartan alumni dinner and Alan is in the room and someone says, well, Alan is the greatest basketball player. And someone would say, who? I'd say did, did you know about Magic Johnson greatest basketball player? And there would be a form of embarrassment for Alan to think, oh, what should not be ascribed to him as being ascribed to him is should be ascribed to Magic Johnson. But even Magic Johnson, you put him in the right room

and you put him in the room with Michael Jordan and someone says, well Magic Johnson, you are the best basketball player. He would demur, I've seen him do it, say, ah, ah, I'm not worthy of that praise. Uncle Jordan is the best basketball player. There's all kinds of things that you and I may give praise to that we may be drawn to that we may delight in that we may say, oh, this is an excellent and true and right thing.

But in creation, in this universe, in all of existence, there is one thing that deserves praise and glory and adoration above all. And everything else is demure in its sight. 'cause he's worthy,

he alone is worthy to be given all praise. He's far superior to all. As Jonathan Edwards said to him, belongs the whole respect that any intelligent being is capable of to him belongs all the heart. He is to be regarded above all beings, all things, all entities because he's far superior to all he is worthy. Why are you here

to worship and glorify and give praise to him? That's why you're here. Second, you and I glorify him to no fullness. You and I glorify him to no fullness.

Our Westminster shorter catechism that we use here at U R C that we abide by famously says, and rightfully ask, what is man's chief end? And man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Now let's say this before we consider the shorter catechism, sometimes we present the Christian faith as if it's a formula for happiness and there's a rightness to that. There's a wrongness to that as well.

When we do this without first acknowledging the first thing that we just pointed out, that God is worthy of all praise, that he is worthy of all glory, that he is worthy of all adoration. If we don't primarily make it ultimately about him, then all we do is we present Christianity as if it's some kind of self-help project like everything else else. It's just about self-improvement. Another self-help program. And we promise self-absorbed sinners a gospel that is still self-absorbed. No,

Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me. It's not ultimately a self-help program whereby we're still consumed with ourselves. It requires repentance, it requires turning from our self focus. We exist to glorify him. But having said that, and all of us in this room, understanding that first, having said that, I want you to notice what the Westminster Assembly rightly does.

It's very careful with its language here in the first question and answer of the shorter catechism, they say man's chief end notice it is not end. It's not plural. There is one chief end, one principle end, one great banner over all of human life to be lived under and aimed at one thing. Yet notice that one thing has two verbal elements to glorify God and to enjoy God.

Let's break this down together. We have two actions that make up the one ultimate end. Two actions to glorify and to enjoy both of these two actions. They have an object and they have the same object. God glorify God, enjoy God. So let's summarize what we see here. One end made up of two actions with the same object of those actions. Our chief singular end. Singular end is to glorify and enjoy the person of God. Not two distinct things. One thing,

one ultimate end. In two actions, they are inseparably tied together, glorifying God and enjoying God tied together. We glorify him and enjoy him. We might even say that it's impossible to break them. You cannot enjoy God without glorifying God. And you cannot glorify God without enjoying God. They go together two sides of the same coin.

One end united by a singular action of glorifying and enjoying. Now this has gripped me for years, for close to two decades now

remember the first time I ran across this, I was reading Jonathan Edwards uh, treaties, the end end for which God created the world. And it changed my life.

And he was pointing out this very thing.

I exist to glorify God. He's worthy. It's why I exist. But what moved me and what has gripped me for close to two decades now, decades, is that God has tied together his glory and my enjoyment forever.

He put 'em together,

his exaltation and my good together. Now, he didn't have to.

He didn't have to.

He could have made what he created us for sheer drudgery.

He could have been like Pharaoh in Egypt who said, ah, make these bricks without straw to my praise and glory so that there is erected me something great. But he didn't.

He's so beautiful and good and right and true. He ties together His glory and my enjoyment

makes the very thing we were created for worship and everlast in delight.

And that is an eternal kindness.

An eternal kindness from an eternally good God.

His glory, our enjoyment. Let me give you four quick applications here at the end. First, know that you're here with purpose. You're here with purpose. I've never met anyone that doesn't want their life to be meaningful.

Everyone wants their life to mean something.

He gives it purpose.

He gives every single one of our lives in this world purpose.

J Packer said this, he said, living becomes an awesome business. When you realize that you spend every moment of your life in the sight, in company of an omniscient, omnipresent, creator, all of a sudden today matters. All of a sudden tomorrow matters. All of a sudden, what I'm doing in the office matters. What I'm doing with my children matters. What I'm doing washing these dishes matter. It all matters because I'm a participant in this grand story.

I'm a character in it existing to give glory to him. And whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, I'm to do to his glory. And I can. And I participate in this grand symphony of all of creation that is mixing together all of these notes to give praise to him today matters. It matters I matter.

Second, you'll only find true joy when you're fulfilling your purpose. You happiest when you are doing what you were created to do.

Used this illustration before, but it's what goes through my mind. I drove a Toyota Corolla for

close to 20 years. Uh, you know, it's a little jobber, little four cylinder, uh, little tiny car that some of you would have to fold up in the backseat to sit in the backseat. And uh, I liked my little Corolla. We affectionately called it Speedy Pete. He wasn't so speedy, but that's what we called him. Speedy Pete, we name our cars at the Olis house. And uh, speedy Pete, I loved him. But I always felt a little awkward,

right when I would pull up to a a stoplight. And next to that it's always in East Lansing, that Ferrari or that Lamborghini. And we start off at the stoplight and speedy Pete, I'm just blowing past that. Lamborghini doesn't feel right because the Lamborghini was made to go fast, speedy Pete we're just mocking him with the name. It's not speedy.

The Lamborghini's meant to go fast. It was created for that purpose. Don't let the Corolla beat you off the line.

You were created to be a glorify and worshiper of God.

That Lamborghini was happiest when it was going fast.

You'll be happiest when you're a glorifying and enjoying God.

And you will find no contentment, no fee peace, no delight till you are

third. You're still here, but you are. You wouldn't be hearing the sermon tonight. You're here with purpose. You're still here for a reason. It doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter how feeble you are. Doesn't matter how sick you are. Doesn't matter how lonely you are. It doesn't matter how ungifted you feel. It doesn't matter how rich you are, how poor you are, how neglected you are, how pained you are. It doesn't matter. You're here with purpose

as long as you are here. The Lord has you here for a purpose.

And when you no longer serve those purposes, he takes you home. But until that day, you're here with purpose. So live with that purpose to glorify and enjoy him. Fourth,

every person you meet has dignity, purpose. Everyone,

every single one, they were created the image of God for the glory of God. And many don't know it. They don't understand it. And yet every single one of them matters. And we know you know now tonight, you know,

you know that they're in the image of God designed with purpose. And it should affect how we consider them. It should confe. It should affect how we treat them. It should affect how we hope for them. It shouldn't lead us to despise them regardless of their sinfulness or rather to mourn for them.

Walter Gerin said it this way, he said, every time you meet another human being, you have the opportunity. It's a chance at holiness for you'll do one of two things. Then either you will build him up or tear him down. You will create or you will destroy. There are no useless minor meetings. There are no dead end jobs. There are no pointless lives. Swallow your sorrows. Forget your grievances and all the hurt your poor life has sustained.

Turn your face to the HU human before you and let her for one pure moment shine. Think of her as important and then she will suspect that she is fashioned of God. Every person you meet, you have that opportunity. I And don't leave it there. Tell them so many people that are ha lost in the Ss starkness. You got a western world that's telling them to figure out who they are, question who they are. And you know, people walking around and

watching a video this afternoon, it shouldn't have been, was of the all these people that were on the streets in Seattle, that are hooked on fentanyl, just trying to find an escape.

And we know it's much better than that. You exist as an image bearer of God. You have the chief place in all of creation and you can know complete joy and peace and everlasting life. In Christ.

In Christ. Gotta share Christ.

Finally look forward to heaven. 'cause it means only a more fully realized reality of this purpose. You were made by God. For God. It might as well get used to it, Christian 'cause you're doing this for all of eternity where we're just delighting in him day after day after day, giving him glory and praise day after day after day.

And it will be absolutely delightful,

beyond delightful because it's what you were created for. It's why you're here and it's why you'll be there. And it's why you will exist for all of eternity. Why Are you here to glorify God? Who are you or an image of God meant for him? Let's pray together.

Our Father, we are thankful that you created us with purpose.

How awful it would be to go through this life and the pains and miseries of this life and think it was all purposeless. But it's purposeful. Give you praise and glory.

Do pray that you would help each of us to to know the delight. It is. Be worshipers of yours and have that image of yours fully restored in us by becoming a new creation in Christ Jesus. And to look forward with great expectation of worshiping you for all of eternity. Help us to live now for your glory and praise and help us to delight in you of all other things. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.