MANILA, PHILIPPINES—Yesterday, at over one hundred worship services in fifteen Victory Manila venues, we started a sermon series about the ultimate meaning of life-based on the Book of Ecclesiastes. Dozens of Victory preachers asked some deep questions and hopefully provided some biblical answers.
Here’s an old story that I used to introduce the sermon. (This story was originally written for an article in Evangelicals Today magazine over ten years ago.)
While at my favorite beach in the Philippines, I overheard the following conversation.
“Come on, Daddy. Come down the slide with me.”
Splash!
“It’s fun . . . and see, the water’s not too cold . . .”
“Not now, son. I’m watching the sunset.” The overworked, stressed-out American executive mumbled to his energetic son while sipping some kind of crushed ice tropical concoction from a coconut shell.
Like any normal ten-year-old, this kid couldn’t even begin to understand how a human could choose to passively stare at a boring sunset rather than climb to the top of the slippery steps, stand in line behind a bunch of wet, shivering kids, then speed down a water slide, eventually splashing in a pool full of rowdy preteens. So he asked: “Why are you watching the sun, Dad?” The boy wanted a simple, practical explanation to this unsolved middle-aged mystery.
The dad waxed eloquent: “Because it’s the meaning of life, son.”
“The what?”
“The meaning of life.” The philosopher-dad explained to his perplexed son, “When you are a ten-year-old, water slides and swimming pools are the meaning of life. But when you are forty, watching the sunset over Sombrero Island is the meaning of life. Understand?”
I don’t think junior understood at all. I’m not sure Dad understood either.
That seaside sunset conversation started my mind racing. Just what is the meaning of life? Immediately I thought about the movie City Slickers. In my favorite scene, Curly, the leather-faced cowboy, pointed his index finger straight in the air and spoke of the “meaning of life.”
When the misplaced urban cowboy, Billy Crystal, wondered how one finger could be the meaning of life, Curly explained that one thing, not one finger, is the meaning of life.
“One thing. What one thing?” the city slicker inquired.
“That’s what you have to find,” Curly (Yoda on a horse) responded.
By the movie’s end, Billy’s character had found his one thing—his family.
What about you? What is your one thing? What does your life revolve around? What do you live for? What is the meaning of your life? Sunsets and vacations? Water slides and swimming pools? Family? Money? Fame? Popularity? Success? Survival?
David found his one thing. And, he did not find it in fame, fortune, family, success, survival, or sunsets. He certainly had all of these, especially fame, fortune, and family. Just what was David’s one thing? What was the meaning of his life? He left us a clue in Psalm 27:4:
One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
David’s one thing was the presence of the Lord. He was obsessed with the glory and majesty of his God.
Paul was another guy who found his one thing. Here’s what he said about it:
But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord . . . one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. (Philippians 3:7,8,13)
Paul was a brilliant and highly educated man. He had power and status in the Jewish religious system. He says he counted it all as nothing compared to knowing Jesus. He didn’t toss it all in the trash for money or for ministry, but for Jesus. His great passion in life was to know God.
According to David and Paul, the real meaning of life begins and ends with the pursuit of God. And just how does one pursue and find God? As always, Jesus is the answer: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
According to this Scripture, Jesus is more than the meaning of life; He is the life. Thus, any search for meaning apart from Jesus Christ is fruitless.
The Westminster Catechism summed it up as well as it could ever be summed up when it answered the question: “What is man’s chief end?” The answer: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”
There you have it, folks. The meaning of life in a nutshell. To glorify God and to enjoy him forever! Once you discover the real meaning of life, then the sunsets are much more spectacular and the water slides with your kids are much more fun!