Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : August 15, 2004
Christ Makes Life Meaningful
Pentecost 11
A few years ago, a company made a list of the top 100 movies ever made -- the movie at the top of the list was a 1941 movie called Citizen Kane. The opening scene pictures a man on his deathbed -- Charles Foster Kane, a millionaire. But Kane's fortune came at a price -- to get to the top, he had to step on a number of people. Now Kane is alone with no friends in his luxurious mansion. He mutters one word and then dies. The word is "Rosebud." The rest of the movie centers around a reporter who tries to interview people who knew Kane to find out what the word means. Now I don't want to give away the meaning of the word, but it has to do with what this multi-millionaire found most important when he died -- it wasn't money; it wasn't fame; it wasn't prestige or power. He found that he had wasted his whole life and never really found what he needed most.
You and I know what every person needs most -- to know Jesus Christ through faith. But even we will one day be on our death beds, and what kind of attitude will we have when we look at what we've done with our lives -- one of contentment or of regret?
King Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, looks at life from the vantage point of old age. This is what wise King Solomon finds: Christ Makes Life Meaningful, because living to please yourself is meaningless, but living to please God is everything.
Ecclesiastes is one of the most unusual books in the Bible. Instead of looking at life from a believer's viewpoint, we get a look at life from an unbeliever's point of view. And just as in the movie Citizen Kane, one word is repeated as the theme: meaningless. Listen to the theme verse of the book of Ecclesiastes: "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." The teacher is Solomon himself. He describes himself trying to find out the meaning of life. And after seeing everything that this world has to offer, Solomon has to say that life is meaningless. Does that strike you? It should, especially when you think of who is talking. Humanly speaking, Solomon had it all. He was king; whatever he said went. Under God's blessing, Solomon lived in Israel's heyday. He had wisdom, power, prestige, money -- you name it; Solomon had it. And he said it was all worthless! All of it!
Even the word "meaningless" brings out the idea of what Solomon is saying. The word means, "breath" or "vapor." On a cold day, you can see your breath, but it only lasts a few moments, and then it dissipates into nothingness. Why would Solomon say this? Because he was looking at all the world had to offer, and without God, it was worthless. Adam and Eve, after they fell into sin and cast the whole human race into sin, named their second son Abel. Abel means "breath" or "vapor" or "meaningless." Adam and Eve's lives had become basically meaningless because now their lives would be filled with difficulty and pain and sorrow and then they would die. James in the New Testament said, "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 4:14)
Solomon gives a specific example of why everything in this world is meaningless. He says, "I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool?" After you work your whole life, you will have to leave whatever you made to others. You can't take it with you, first of all, which shows just how meaningless the material possessions in this world are. But on top of that, to add insult to injury, you have to leave it to someone who didn't work for it. After you slave away your whole life through physical pain and anxious striving of mind and sleepless nights, it will one day be gone. That is meaningless -- an empty life.
Think of all the things you have amassed during your lifetime. What will your closest relatives do with it when you are gone? They'll keep a few things as momentos. They'll use up the money somehow. The rest, the things that you treasured, will be sold or thrown in the trash. Eventually, what you accumulated in your life will be gone. Isn't that depressing! This happened very soon for Solomon after he died. His son Rehoboam lost almost everything. Solomon discovered how meaningless life is when you are trying to live it to please yourself.
Why are we here? To live to please ourselves? No. Thank God that we know what's beyond this world. Notice that a number of times Solomon says, "I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun." Solomon is speaking only of what this world offers. Solomon explored all the world has to offer. But he didn't find happiness. He didn't find contentment. He found only a life without meaning. He ran into a wall. The thing that gives our lives meaning is beyond the wall, beyond this world. And God was the one who showed us what we need to give our lives meaning. He showed us his Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus gives our lives meaning.
In Greek mythology, a wicked king named Tantalus died and went to hell, or Hades. There for his punishment for his wicked life he was confined to standing in a lake with fruit dangling just beyond his reach. Whenever he was thirsty, he would bend down to get a drink, but the water would recede so he couldn't drink. When he was hungry, he would reach out for the fruit, but it would recede just beyond his reach, so he would continue to starve. What an empty, meaningless existence!
We might think, "What a poor, sorry sap, but he got what he deserved for being such an evil person in his life." But it's also a perfect description of us. We know from the Bible that we have to live a perfect life. If we do it perfectly, we will have life. But perfection is easier said than done. When we look at our lives, we see only failure. We find ourselves succumbing to the world's temptations and putting wealth many times in a more prominant place than God and his Word. We get caught up in looking at how we can grow more rich in this world and meanwhile our spiritual lives are poor, rotting on the vine. What did Jesus say? "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:15)
Instead of loving this world and what it has to offer, Jesus said, "The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (John 12:25) Following the things of this world will bring us only a meaningless existence. It's kind of like getting a job that you hate but you do it because it pays a lot of money. After your life is over, all you can say is, "I hated my life, but I earned a lot of money." What an awful way to live! "Meaningless," Solomon says.
But even if you find an occupation you love, you still won't find contentment -- true contentment and enjoyment -- unless you have Christ. Solomon says, "A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?" God is the only one who can give us enjoyment and a meaningful life. And he did. He gave us his own Son. Paul said it this way: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9) God knew that, left to ourselves, we would be poor for eternity. That's a nice way of saying we would have been in hell. But even before we reached hell, our lives would be poor, empty, meaningless.
So he reached out to us. He came into our world to live as one of us and die as one of us. His love caused him to become poor -- not just a poor human being born in a stall and living a life where he didn't have a place to lay his head. But he became poor when he went to the cross and there died for every time you and I have been selfish, have lived for our own pleasure, have looked at money and the things money can buy as the most important things in life. But through his poverty, we have become rich because through faith in Christ, we now have what Christ earned for us -- the rich robe of his righteousness.
That's what gives meaning to our lives. Now we stand in a right relationship with God. Solomon says that we can now please God. Isn't that a dramatic change? Before we knew about God and his mercy, we could only live for ourselves. Now we know Christ and his forgiveness, God gives us the ability through his gospel to live a God-pleasing life. God no longer sees us as sinners, as Solomon says. Instead, "to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God." Solomon isn't talking about earthly riches here. No, he is saying that even if you know a lot of unbelievers who are rich, and there are plenty, believers are the really the rich ones. We are rich right now because "whoever believes has eternal life." That is the meaning for our lives that we need. We have life right now. We will live eternally with our Savior-God. We have everything we need. Now our lives are not lived in trying to make our own lives more happy and more comfortable and more luxurious. Now our lives are spent living to please God, make him happy. God saved you so you could live your life for him. Paul says, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:10)
When you are on your death bed, how will you view your life -- with contentment or with regret? What did you accomplish? Did you make a difference? Don't wait until you are on your death-bed before you decide to live a meaningful life. Christ already made your life meaningful and he continues to make you life meaningful in service to him. One day you will be lying on your death bed. At that time, may only one word be on your lips: "Christ." And May God lead you to live your life for Christ until that day when he calls you home. Amen.
