I was in the Otemachi train station the other day going to school when a thought hit me. As I was walking down the hall I noticed how monotonous train stations are. On one side there is a sea of people dressed exactly the same walking one way while on the other side the same is happening, only moving in the opposite direction. At that moment I was greeted by the age old question: "what is life all about". To many in Japan it is a job. You wake up at the same time, eat your breakfast, but your salaryman suit on and head out the door into the same routine, everyday. How unfulfilling is this right? Nothing new, just everyday the same monotone clothes, the same hallways, the same sea of people doing the exact same as you. It would seem that life in this day and age has no meaning. It would seem that all life is, is a routine we go through each day, each week, until we hit our eventual death.
Solomon deals with this same problem in the book of Ecclesiastes when he opens his writing with "Meaningless! Meaningless! ... Everything is meaningless" and with this idea, I want to start a study in the book of Ecclesiastes and humbly answer the question of what the meaning of life is.
The book of Ecclesiastes really can't be read in more than one sitting. Honestly, it is quite a beautiful book when read all at once but we are going to split it up which is why I'm going to start things off by giving an extremely short summary of the book and in doing so, I will not only answer the question of life's meaning but also share the thesis that will guide me over the next several weeks. In short, Ecclesiastes is a book that rants about how meaningless life is but then concludes by arguing that in God, life in fact finds its meaning. Simple, but yet so profound.
As Solomon begins to write, he is distraught by how meaningless life is. "Everything is meaningless" he says. He goes on in chapters 1 and 2 to say that labor, wisdom, pleasures, folly, toil, essentially life, is meaningless. I agree. Our lives need something to gain meaning or else just like Solomon says, our lives will not have meaning and nothing we do will have meaning. What good is it if we gain all the wisdom in the world, all the wealth, if we work hard, if we toil and labor, if we waste life away as a fool or if we live as a king when at the end of it all we will die and have none of it? We can't stop death with wealth or wisdom, pleasures are fleeting; I mean take a look at your Christmas gifts, in two weeks time I guarantee you will not feel the same way about them as you did when you received them. So how then do we give life meaning? How can our work, our wisdom, even our fun be worth something? Solomon answers this in chapter 3 verse 11 when he writes "...He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end". In verse 14 he writes "God does it so that men will revere him". So what then is the purpose of life? To revere God. To stand in awe of him and what he has done. But then take that further and set your heart on eternity with God which is only accomplished through Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ came to the earth, lived a perfect life and then died on the cross as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. He died in our place so that we could be made right with God. Through belief in this act we can gain entrance into life eternal with God because we are seen as clean, we are forgiven for our sin. So to be focused on eternity then is to be focused on Christ and what he accomplished on the cross, and to be focused on Christ is to hold him as Lord of our life and revere him! So friends, the way to find purpose in our lives is to revere and worship Jesus Christ. When we make the decision to follow Christ, when we follow his commands, it is then that we find meaning, it is then that our actions have meaning.
When we follow Christ it doesn't matter what we do, we will be glorifying God. That is not to say that we could sin and glorify God, but rather, that if we seek wisdom while following Christ, it glorifies him, when we take pleasure having fun with friends, it glorifies him and when we work, it glorifies him too. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God". When we are truly following the commands of Christ, everything we do finds meaning in him, and everything we do glorifies him and as Solomon says in chapter 3 verse 13, "this is the gift of God".
So despite my boring, monotonous walk each morning to school, I know that if I have my heart set on Christ, my life has meaning. The things that I do and the choices I make have meaning because when I choose to follow Christ, it glorifies God and this is the purpose of my life, to worship the creator along with all of creation.
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