Episode 152 – Why Am I Here – Part 1: God Knows

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script:

In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was already with God in the beginning. Everything came into existence through him. Not one thing that exists was made without him.

The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, God’s Word Translation

********

VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re excited to be with you as today as we begin a new series on Anchored by Truth. So, to announce the series and tell us why we are doing it, we have RD Fierro back in the studio. RD is an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, you’ve entitled this series “Why Am I here?” I think that’s a question many people have asked at one time – and for Christians the answer may be pretty straightforward. But my guess is that there is more to the question that you want to look into.

RD: Exactly. But before we get into our discussion I would like to say just a word of greeting and thanks to everyone who is joining us here today. Anchored by Truth is not the typical kind of program that’s heard on many radio stations. Our singular focus is to help people understand that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. We do so in the hope that if people will come to realize that the Bible is the Word of God they will begin again to give the Bible a central place in their lives. I don’t think it’s too strong a statement that the world we see around us - and our own country - is in a mess. So, it’s fair to ask how it got that way. And while simple answers always carry some danger it is undeniable that the basic stability of our way of life has declined as Biblical illiteracy has grown.

VK: And we are well aware at Anchored by Truth of the admonition that statistics professors always give their new students – that “correlation is not causation.” But it is also true that examining correlations can often point you to causation.

RD: Yes. And we try to avoid painting with too broad a brush – but you simply can’t avoid the basic conclusion that as the Bible has faded in its role in the daily life of people – not just in America but in a great many western and democratic nations – the cultures and societies of those countries have seen many, many undesirable social developments. A simple example that is often mentioned is that when the Bible was taught in schools there were no mass shootings in schools and there was lot less substance abuse when there was more paid to our spiritual condition. And one of the things that a great many surveys of contemporary life styles has revealed is that recent generations have experienced greater prosperity that their parents and grandparents yet they report being far more miserable and less satisfied with their lives.

VK: In other words our material prosperity had not led to increased levels of happiness or satisfaction – which is directly counterintuitive to our expectations. Without a doubt the steady drumbeat of our world, especially in the mass media, is that if we just get our dream home, dream car, dream career, and dream mate our lives will be happy and fulfilled. But the reality that has emerged in recent decades has been far different. We have better and more comfortable homes, cars that can do things prior generations couldn’t have conceived, and a greater choice in careers than any group in world history – but it hasn’t produced contentment or cheerfulness. Is that one of the reasons you wanted to undertake this series on “Why Am I Here?”

RD: Absolutely. Far too many people these days either see little or no meaning in their life or they are trying to draw meaning for their life out of causes and purposes that only wind up letting them down. And this happens at all levels of the economic and social spectrum. People better off economically are in no better shape than poorer people. And an inability to find meaning in their life is particularly problematic for some of the youngest among us.

VK: But, as we often say on Anchored by Truth, the good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way. In the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse 10 Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” That’s the New King James Version. So, obviously, Jesus’ intention for His followers is for them to have full and abundant lives. And a person with that kind of full and abundant life might ask the question, “Why am I here” but they’re not doing so out of despair or desperation the way another person might.

RD: Yes. There is no problem with us asking why we are here. There are probably not very many people who haven’t wondered that from time to time. But your starting point for deriving your answer is going to make all the difference in the world.

VK: So what should the starting point be?

RD: The starting point must be to acknowledge the reality that we point to so often on Anchored by Truth – that we live in a universe created by a loving God but that creation was marred when our first parents, Adam and Eve, brought sin into a created order God had pronounced “very good.” So, the created order which had been made without sin or death is now a fallen creation. As Paul says in Romans, chapter 8, verse 22 “For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” That is a very important point for us to understand as we ponder our place in the created order, as we ponder why we are here. People who ponder why they are here without acknowledging the existence of God and the fallen nature of creation are always going to wind up with an unsatisfactory answer. It’s like trying to navigate a pathway but having no idea whether the path consists of a paved road, a dirt road, goes through a swamp, or will cross a canyon.

VK: So, to help people be sure about that fundamental starting point, not long ago we completed a series that we entitled “Truth and Proof” that is a 10 episode discussion of four critical facts that frame reality. First, absolute truth exists and cannot be reasonably denied. Second, that one absolute truth is there is a necessary, personal Being – a Creator God – that is responsible for everything that exists. Third, the existence of that necessary, personal Being can be discerned through logic, reason, and evidence but we can only know a limited amount about His attributes by what is termed “general revelation.” We need a special revelation to go further. The fourth point is that special revelation exists in the Bible which can be shown to be a book that corresponds to the physical creation and human history but also possesses a supernatural point of origin.

RD: Which means that if we want to develop an answer to the question of why we are here that will fully satisfy us we must start with a firm grounding in the nature of reality and we must be prepared to study the Bible. Now I would hasten to add that we must always approach these subjects in an age and audience appropriate way. A distressed teenage doesn’t need to master the nuances of the Levitical code or probe the mysteries of Revelation to get some comfort about where they are in life and where they are going. The same thing is true for people are recent converts or struggling with their need for a Savior. More often than not people who are dealing with life crises or struggles just need to know that God loves them and has a plan for their life which includes trust and dependence on Him.

VK: But the statement “God loves you” is meaningless if you don’t believe that God exists. So, we must always be mindful that when we comfort people we have to address all their needs and one of those needs may be a reasoned assurance that the God of the Bible isn’t just a mythological grandfather or a gauzy kind of spirit drifting about the universe. While many people won’t initially think about it in these terms unless God is sovereign over the affairs of humanity and the physical conditions of the universe there ultimately would be little reason to seek him out for help.

RD: Right. So, to begin our answer to the question of why we are here it’s important to know what our starting point is. And as we’ve been discussing our starting point has to be that there is a God who was the Creator of everything that exists. Because if we don’t start there we would be starting our understanding of our role in this life at a fallacious starting point. In effect, we would be trying to base the discovery of our purpose on a lie. It would be like trying to get from Virginia to California but facing east instead of west. Understanding that we live in a universe created by a Supreme Being is absolutely key to understanding why we are here.

VK: And that thought takes us straight to our opening scripture from the Gospel of John. In the opening of his gospel John is clearly opening his book about the life and ministry of Jesus by making a reference to the first verses of Genesis. The first verse of the first book of the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s the way the New International Version phrases John 1:1. We heard the God’s Word Translation in our opening at the God’s Word version says, “In the beginning the Word already existed.” So, what John is saying quite clearly is that not only are the earth and heavens created objects but also that Jesus was involved in their creation.

RD: Right. John starts his gospel where we must begin our own search for a true answer to the question of why we are here. John starts by reminding his readers that God created the heavens and the earth but quickly proceeds to the point that he is going to emphasize throughout his gospel – that Jesus was not only fully human but also that Jesus was fully divine. In the incarnation the 2nd person of the Trinity adopted a human nature in order to fulfill a divine commission to save the group of people who were, in the words of Ephesians 1:4, chosen before the foundation of the world. It has been said that the gospel of Matthew was written to show that Jesus was the son of David and Abraham, that the gospel of Luke was written to show that Jesus was the Son of Man, and that the gospel of John was written to show that Jesus was the Son of God. So, knowing all of that is a predicate to us being able to truly discover why we are here.

VK: I think that a lot of people would find some of that confusing or at least frustrating. I wouldn’t want to over simplify the issue but many people who might ask the question “why am I here” probably just want to know that their lives have meaning. Do you think it is really necessary for them to begin thinking about the nature of reality, the existence of God, or what the Bible says in order to get an answer?

RD: To get an answer, maybe not – but to get an answer that will sustain them in times of trial - yes. This does not mean that if we were trying to help someone who is experiencing a time of depression or crisis you would want to get into all the concepts we’re discussing in this series. But one of the reasons people enter seasons where they wonder why they’re even alive is because their worldview is either not based on a relationship with Jesus or they have not understood the true love Jesus has for each of His children. Our goal on Anchored by Truth is to help people begin to develop their own anchor to truth, one that will be strong enough to withstand the storms and gales that inevitably arise in this life.

VK: In other words, to continue the metaphor, we have to make sure that we are firmly anchored before the storm arrives. And that’s why we’re doing this series – to help people start to think through the question of why we’re all here before they get a health scare, or a financial or family shock, or encounter another event of the kind that rocks our world.

RD: Yes. In the midst of the storm such as the one described in the gospel of Mark chapter 4, verses 35 through 41 Jesus did not go on an extended theological discourse with his disciples. Jesus provided His disciples what they needed at that moment – safety from the storm. In verse 39 Jesus told the storm to “be still.” Various translations say Jesus told the sea to either be quiet, silent, or at peace followed “be still.”

VK: Which is why you will often hear ministers or counselors say Jesus will either calm the storm or his child.

RD: Yes. And that’s the part of the story everybody focuses on. But Jesus went on to say to his disciples in verse 40 “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” In effect Jesus was saying to his disciples if you had been paying attention there would have been no reason for their fear. At this point in his ministry the disciples had already seen Jesus perform a number of miracles of healing.

VK: Including healing the paralytic who was lowered through the roof of a house by 4 of the paralytic’s friends. That incident is recorded in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 2. When Jesus healed the paralytic he initially said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” But the man wasn’t healed at that point and there were some in the crowd who thought Jesus was guilty of blasphemy because it was well understood among the Jews that only God had the authority to forgive sins. So verses 8 through 12 read, “Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

RD: Right. So, by the time the storm in Mark 4 occurs the disciples already knew – or should have known ¬– that they were riding in the boat with God incarnate. Jesus had already claimed to have the prerogatives that only God possesses and He had proven his claim by providing instant healing to a paralyzed man. And if you’re riding in the boat with God incarnate even though you may not understand all that that means you should know enough to know that as long as He’s there you can turn to Him for help.

VK: What you’re saying is that the disciples might still have needed to wake Jesus up to deal with the storm but there was no need for their fear.

RD: Exactly. The disciples already had evidence of who Jesus really was. Now some of the people who had seen a miracle of healing may not have known, at that point, that Jesus was God in the flesh, but the disciples should have had a pretty good idea. But they didn’t. And that’s why Jesus said to them “don’t you have any faith yet?” Well, the point of all this is that when we come to those times and places in our lives when we start wondering why we are here – maybe because we’ve just entered a storm of our own – it’s ok to turn to Jesus and just ask him to bring us His peace. And Jesus certainly has a record of providing the peace we’re seeking. But on a longer term we can’t or shouldn’t be content to remain in our ignorance of who Jesus really is. We need to grow in faith.

VK: So, the first major point of being able to provide an intelligent, satisfactory answer to the question “why am I here” is to recognize that we exist in a universe that was created by an Almighty God. Because if we don’t recognize that we won’t have a firm anchor from which to begin to understand where we fit in the created order. But we must also recognize that the created order does not possess the character with which it was first established. When Adam and Eve ushered sin into the cosmos the cosmos itself was affected. And while we might greatly object to that fact we still have to deal with it.

RD: Yep. We can have no reasonable idea of what our world and cosmos would look like if Adam and Eve had simply walked away from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as they had been instructed. Certainly, our answer to the question we’re wrestling with would be vastly different. But that is all moot. To know why we are here in this – a fallen cosmos – we have to recognize that the fall did occur. The good news is that immediately after the fall God began a plan to redeem a people for Himself from the consequences of the fall. We are not, and cannot be, immune to all the effects but God began a plan of redemption and salvation that one day will deliver us from those effects. And that plan has, from time immemorial, is centered around Jesus. So, the second point we need to recognize as we probe for our answer to the question is the role that Jesus played and plays in the now fallen creation – and how those of us who live in the creation are related to Jesus. As our opening scripture plainly stated Jesus – the Word – existed before “the beginning.”

VK: Which literally means that Jesus existed before time as we know it existed. John said “In the beginning the Word already existed.” A slightly different way of saying this is that Jesus in His divine nature as the 2nd person of the Trinity created time. Notice that the Apostle John began his gospel expressly with the declaration that Jesus was God. John said, “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Why was John so emphatic about that declaration?

RD: Well, of course, John did not write his gospel in English. He wrote in Greek and in Greek the word John used that is translated as “Word” is the Greek word “Logos.” It’s the same word from which we get our English word “logic.” The New Geneva Study Bible explains John’s use of the term “logos” in this way. “The term ‘Word’ designates God the Son with respect to His deity. ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’ refer to His incarnation and saving work. … In Greek philosophy the Logos was ‘reason’ or ‘logic’ as an abstract force that brought order and harmony to the universe. But in John’s writings such qualities of the Logos are gathered in the Person of Christ.” John wants his readers to start their education about Jesus at the very beginning – in fact before the beginning.

VK: John is, in effect, telling his readers that understanding Jesus’ nature and role in creation is necessary for them to understand Jesus’ life. And John would say the same to us. If we want to understand our own role in the created order, why we are here, we must know who Jesus is – and we must know how we are related to Jesus. You know, I don’t think most people who start out asking the question, “why am I here” probably move very quickly to thinking about their relationship with Jesus.

RD: They may not but they should. And, of course, that’s the reason we’re doing this series. Look. I’m not naïve. I’m well aware of what’s going on the culture in this country and all over the world. We live in a society that is becoming increasingly secular. And if increasing secularization was producing better lives maybe we could all pretend that questions about how we are related to Jesus don’t matter. But as we said when we started this episode there are very few people, if any, who would claim that our society is improving in the ways that most people value. Our society is becoming more dangerous, our institutions less compassionate, and our communal government less effective every day. Part of the reason, and I believe the reason, is because we have as a society exchanged lives based on transcendent truths for lives completely enamored with temporary substitutes.

VK: But – it doesn’t have to be that way. God and His truth hasn’t gone anywhere and isn’t going anywhere. And Jesus stands ready to bring about revival and reformation, not just to the lives of His children, but to our land. That’s the promise we have in 2 Chronicles, chapter 7, verse 14. “… if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, search for me, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear [their prayer] from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their country.” So, that verse actually points out that more people asking the question “why am I here” could be a very good thing. Nothing will cause someone to make an inventory of their life like beginning to wonder why they were put on this earth in the first place.

RD: So, all this reinforces the first two points that we have been making about finding a true and sustaining answer to the question of “why we are here.” As a brief review the first point is that to know why we are here we must recognize that we exist in a universe that was created by an Almighty God. The second point we must recognize is the role that Jesus played and plays in the now fallen creation – and how those of us who live in the creation are related to Jesus – who is Himself the Son of God who came to earth as God in the flesh. It should be obvious that we are not going to believe in the Son of God if we don’t believe in God. And we are not going to have much interest in wanting to establish a relationship with Jesus if we do not know who He is.

VK: You know, you don’t think about it very often but if Jesus were, as is sometimes alleged, just a famous philosopher from the past there really wouldn’t be any reason to have a relationship with him. People might study the ideas of past religious or philosophical figures but they are not going to have any interest in establishing a relationship with the person. How could they. The person is dead. But Jesus is not. Jesus is alive at the right hand of the Father. So, we can have a relationship with Him – and we should.

RD: Exactly. So, before we close for today this points to a subject we’re going to take up in future episodes of this “Why am I here series” – the fact that a person’s answer to that question is going to vary depending on whether they are already a Christian and if they are whether they are a relatively immature or mature believer. The basic answer to the question of why we are here is going to be the same for all people.

VK: And it’s a pretty simple one – because God made us in His image. But that answer, while true, is not what most people are seeking when they ask the question.

RD: And we want to give people some tools and suggestions for how they can go about developing a true and sustainable answer. And while it’s easy to be casual or flippant about a teenager who wonders if their life has meaning or an adult having a mid-life crisis that’s not what God wants of us. Throughout His ministry Jesus showed that He wanted to meet the needs of His children and He was willing to meet them where they were. When they were sick, He healed. When they were hungry, He fed. When they needed wisdom, He taught. And when they needed salvation – which we all do – He gave His own life to obtain it for them.

VK: Amen. So, next time we are going to continue to probe how we can develop a truly satisfy answer to the question of why we are all here. Many people asking that question undoubtedly are doing so because they want to be sure their life has meaning. For Christians it is obvious that our lives have meaning because God, the Creator of everything, not only made us in His image but He also sent His only Son to die for us. God’s plan and Christ’s sacrifice demonstrate that we are important to the Holy Trinity. In other words our lives have meaning if for no other reason that the most exalted Being in the universe thinks that we are significant enough to make plans specifically for us. This sounds like a time to go to God in prayer. Today let’s listen to a prayer for our first responders – men and women who are willing to serve others even if it means placing themselves at risk. We should be grateful to them and to the God who has placed them in our midst.

---- PRAYER FOR FIRST RESPONDERS

VK: Before we close we’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes in this series or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quote from the God’s Word Translation)

The Gospel of John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 3, God’s Word Translation