SUMMARY KEYWORDS

god, life, purpose, relationship, solomon, called, feel, live, move, worldview, experience, christian, conversation, today, brother, work, hope, stress, series, cultural pluralism.

SPEAKER

Phil EuBank

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Well, Good Gorning, Menlo Church and welcome. We are so glad that you're here. You're here for the beginning as you've already heard, of a really important series called Explore God, where we're joining churches from all around the Bay Area who are also trying to provide a place to learn about faith, not only in weekend services, but special discussion groups that are being hosted through all of our campuses. We're so glad that you've chosen to be a part of this and a special welcome if this is your very first time at a Menlo campus. We're so glad that you chose to join us. If you're watching online for the first time, I hope whoever invited you if you're here with somebody also told you that they were going to take you to brunch afterwards, because they are and it's going to be great. And uh hopefully they're going to talk to you more about what your experience is, and what church experience and faith has meant to them, and if you're wondering what should I say I'm the person that invited somebody Phil, you just put me on the hook. Here's the question; what did, say it with me, what did you think? You're all capable so just give it a shot it's going to be great.

Now before we get started, I’m going to pray for us. And if you’ve never been here before or never heard me speak, before I speak, I pray kneeling, and the reason that I do that is because God tells us that if we'll humble ourselves He will uniquely meet us in that moment, and when we have conversations about other people finding and following Jesus, we don't want God to show up we need Him to show up. if He doesn't in your life, in my life, in moments like this, this is just an exercise in futility. So, no matter your story of Faith no matter where you are today would you humble yourself in the quiet of your heart and pray with me as we begin.

God thank you. Thank you so much that in all the different places that we could be today we're here. That in all the different ways we could be focusing today we're focusing on you, even for just a few moments. God, would you unlock something in our soul, something so ancient we never knew it existed; something so deep we had no idea the reservoir to you that we've always had. Use this time God to shape us, use this time to change our future together, in Jesus’ name amen.

So, over the next few weeks we are going to examine a question each week that will hopefully help spark a conversation maybe with your friends, your family your neighbors, your co-workers, and here's the thing; if this conversation starts and ends with 30-minute messages over the course of the next few weeks we have failed. Let me let you know my goal for today, here's my goal; if you're a Christian, I want you to invite someone to come with you next week.

Regardless of whether or not you did it this week I want you to do it again next week. And if you're not a Christian here's what I hope you'll do, I hope you'll come back next week and that you'll bring a friend with you. My goal this week is to earn another week of your time. Now here's why I know that that's difficult and I'm learning it for the first time this year, which is that Fall in the Bay Area is magical right? The weather is perfect. You're maximizing time personally or in a relationship or as a family and choosing to have a difficult introspective look into the underlying assumptions of life is harder than that, and I get it I understand. In the words of someone that lots of people in our moment think of as their personal role model/musical pastor Taylor Swift, she says “I'll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror,” some of you were singing in your head as I said it out loud right? That feels very literal for us, but it's also about a culture in which we have an assumption of constant consumption, to avoid the kind of silence and reflection I'm challenging you to embrace over the next few weeks. Our question today is Does Life Have A Purpose?

There are places throughout America where that question is probably a lot harder to come up with an answer to, places where it feels like some version of living a quiet life and enjoying life as much as you can while you have it to enjoy. But Silicon Valley and the Bay Area have a pretty quick and different answer overall. See we think creating a better tomorrow is not just a company tagline for us; it's fundamental to why we joined the startup that we did, to why we go to the school that we go to, to why we live in the town that we live in. We chose a harder life on purpose because we think there's a purpose that God's given us in the midst of it, but somewhere along the way for you, you sense that things weren't the way they were supposed to be. You wanted to solve a problem that other people had tried and failed to address. You wanted to address a need that lots of people had tried and failed to meet. It's incredible, I'm honored to live here but aren't you tired yet? There are certainly different groups represented here and a spectrum of how we relate to stress; on one extreme, we have some who have such a high level of stress avoidance that they are staying at a job, staying in a situation, maybe staying in a relationship simply because it's a comfortable known commodity and you have to decide if you really want more because it's going to require changing what you've settled for.

For others, it's an obsession with stress; it's actually affecting your brain; in one condition called toxic stress, we can damage our limbic system in our brain to the point that we can't regularly process emotions or interact with others on a healthy level because we have embraced so much stress in our life.

The goal isn't to avoid it altogether but to have a pain but have a positive relationship to stress where it can press us to more without being something that we have to live for constantly or something that we have to avoid universally. Your purpose should bring a relationship to stress that is sustainable ;how's that going? One of the downsides of trying to change the world without the maker of the world involved is you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders every day don't you? We have watched statistics on anxiety skyrocket in recent years. Even before the pandemic we were watching this problem get worse and worse every time we looked at it, and now we wonder why. We shouldn't. We weren't made to carry the weight. The good news is that you probably don't have the wrong purpose entirely, you're probably just depending on the wrong person. Jesus, He saw this altruistic pursuit in the first century too and he invited his earliest followers to a different relationship to their purpose. He said it this way, He says, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

See creating a better tomorrow by yourself it's impossible, and trying it is only going to make you more tired and frustrated in the end. Our purpose is to live in a relationship with the God who made us, and to enjoy that relationship forever as we live connected with Him together. That's why you were made. That's the purpose for which you exist today and every day, whether you realize it or not, whether you call yourself a Christian or not. But maybe, maybe this doesn't make any sense to you because life seems pretty good right now; what I'm saying is a problem doesn't feel like a problem, everything in your life is working, and here's what I would encourage you to do. I would encourage you to file these words away, because a life built on a purpose that doesn't have your creator in the middle of it will eventually collapse under the weight of your expectations. And God will be waiting for you when it does. Or maybe in your life you feel like you are really close to achieving what that purpose inside you has been pressing you toward for years. But what happens when you get it? What happens when all your dreams come true and you find out that they were empty the whole time?

We live in a place of great disparity where some people can barely survive, and other people have more money that they would need for lifetime after lifetime, and the thing is without a bigger purpose than our circumstances, we will be left empty and lonely either way. There was a man in the Hebrew scriptures, what Christians often call the Old Testament, named Solomon. Solomon, he lived with extreme wealth, extreme status, extreme accomplishments. Solomon today he would be living in the best houses, in the best communities, getting driven around in the best cars, hanging out with all the celebrities, going to party after party and experiencing the best that was available on the planet, and here's the way he described this way of life. He says, “I said in my heart, I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceive that this also is but a striving after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” He did everything from TMZ to TED talks, to generational leadership and wealth, and his description of a life without purpose is that it's like chasing after the wind; you'll never catch it. And here's the thing, the more you get without God, the more you'll have to have. It will never be enough and some of you know that you've never said that out loud, you've never admitted it to yourself but you know it. Actor and comedian Jim Carrey he echoes Solomon thousands of years later when he said “I wish everyone could get rich and famous and everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that's not the answer.” And here's the thing; I know what you're thinking, that all might be true but can we like try it to see if it is? You know?

I grew up in a home with abuse nearly constantly, and the heart of it was my dad's desire to acquire and achieve more. He had been abandoned by his Hollywood starlet mother at birth and he would spend his life trying to make sure he was wanted by others and seen as successful. The hole inside of my dad would not be filled with status or stuff; sure the next promotion or the next possession it would serve as a temporary dopamine hit but the older he got the shorter those upgrades satisfied. I remember when I was in high school, he was more successful than he had ever been. He had his dream car, he lived in his dream house, he had his dream job, he had a dream boat he never used, he had memberships to places he never went, and he had friends he didn't really like. Because if our purpose is something that wasn't given to us by God, and we are trying to satisfy something inside of us without the creator of us, it can be taken by the circumstances of our lives overnight, and that's exactly what happened to him.

For a long time, we have been conditioned to ask the questions that are being presented to us in places like our education or our careers, but we were at least exposed to other viewpoints. This was first distorted in our recent memory through social media where echo chambers became normative. We began to be conditioned only to see the things that we like, only to listen to the things that we agree with, and as a result of it the byproduct is that we now find opposing viewpoints even more foreign than we did before. With artificial intelligence there's something called prompt engineering, where we can tailor a response to make sure we get exactly what we want out of it. Is that the life you want? A prompt engineered life that denies reality? Again, for some of you this feels totally unnecessary. You're killing it at work, at school, with friends and relationships, but without God, I'm telling you the purpose, that pursuit that you have will eventually crush you, and when it does God will be waiting for you with loving arms, with a path back, and I hope if all this is, is a seed planted for that day that God will grow it inside of you. A pastor who literally wrote a book on this put it this way, he says “Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Wthout meaning, life has no significance or hope.” We know that. God shares with His people over and over again, that regardless of the cultural measuring stick of success and how far you or I clear it, at our core we know there's more that we were made for. There's more than the things that you have built in your resume, there's more than the house you've acquired or the car you drive, there's more that God made you for.

So maybe you're wondering, this idea of purpose where I live my life with God forever and I try to create a better world inspired by and in relationship with Him, isn't that just indoctrination? Aren't I just trying to brainwash you into my way of thinking? Yes. Pretty much, but there's a really good reason to do it. A brilliant Christian, probably best known for his books called The Chronicles of Narnia he put it this way, C.S Lewis said “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance, the only thing it cannot be is moderately important,” and we live in a culture where we want to make all of this moderately important. We have convinced ourselves that we can simply be respectful to one another, and my choice is to either be a Christian, or maybe choose another religion, they're all the same right? Or maybe choose nothing because “none’s” the religiously disaffiliated are the fastest growing religious group in America anyway right? Wrong we are all people of faith; maybe your faith isn't in God, but you have faith we all do; in something or in someone, and the bigger thing about our faith, regardless of where we place it, or what we place it in, or who we place it in, is that living with our faith as a filter for our life, which we all do, is something called a worldview, which we also all have. So how do you view the world?

If you aren't giving much thought to it, then let me assure you that the advertisers on social media, cable news, and sports; they have a worldview that they are constantly trying to sell you; here's the worldview that you are constantly being spoon fed every moment of every day, just a little bit more; if you'll spend a little bit more time, a little bit more money then you will finally have what you're looking for.

Have you ever paid attention about the things that you thought would make you happy five years ago, and you got all of them and it didn't work? And the goal line moved just a little bit, and the goal line moved just a little bit, and the goal line moved just a little bit; that's what will keep happening if that's as big as our status and purpose ever get. But remember that guy we talked about Solomon? The richest and most powerful person Israel had ever seen? He offers us another helpful and challenging perspective this way, he says “Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man's envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind. The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh. Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after the wind.” Does that feel like your life? Inexhaustible and yet exhausting? It's frighteningly close to us isn't it; spending all of our days to acquire things we don't really need to impress people we don't really like, for a life we aren't really enjoying. It doesn't seem like a purpose that's necessarily worth pursuing does it? But we don't pay enough attention to even notice. Instead, this idea of a life of inner peace, a life fueled by God, not greed, that's worth considering even if it feels like a pretty big departure than the one you've been chasing so far. But that worldview? That worldview that we're constantly scrolling, swiping, and sitting through is very tempting; it promises something that well over time you will realize it never actually delivers on. It will keep making the promise.

The idea behind all of this is something called cultural pluralism, which is actually really helpful. Cultural pluralism says that we all have a right to believe different things. As a Christian, I am in favor of cultural pluralism. I'm in favor of you having the personal choice to believe all of this or not, I have no interest in twisting your arm and neither does God. But there's this subtle shift that's taking place, and if we don't realize it we think it's the same thing and it's not. If cultural pluralism is the idea that you have the right to believe something we have moved to metaphysical pluralism, which says your belief is right regardless of what it is, and that is a problem right? Because it's not logically possible. That means that we say to one another well it's true if you believe it; it's true to you. What does that possibly mean?

As we'll get into in future weeks, most of us we don't look too far into those contradictory claims that we all live with every day. Most of us we don't look much at all but let me tell you, on the topic of eternity and God objective reality exists, and we will be held accountable for it. And for me not to tell you that, that's not loving.

I had a friend in college named Billy. Billy was energetic, fun, he's a great person to hang out with, life of every room he walked into, and it seemed like overnight his energy plummeted. He was living in constant pain. I remember the medical path that he started to head down, and it was what some of you have experienced, where you're looking for questions and seeing anyone that will see you. Billy went in for test after test, and when they finally diagnosed him, they began an aggressive form of treatment; handfuls of medication and therapies to try and treat the underlying condition that his body was fighting, and none of them worked. For a few weeks it seemed like he was going to lose the fight. He went to a specialist to get a second opinion on everything as everything was falling apart, and the specialist gave him a different diagnosis. With little to lose given the lack of progress in his life, he tried the new treatment, and the turnaround was nearly immediate. He was able to return to class and now decades later he is healthy and thriving and the condition has never relapsed.

Billy, he could have kept doubling down on the treatments that he was offered that weren't working. He could have. He could have like Solomon, just tried to muscle through even when he felt inside like it wasn't working, but I'm so glad he didn't. But I think some of you are, and if all this series is, is just a spiritual second opinion. I hope you'll try a different treatment plan. I hope you'll explore that maybe there's something you were made for beyond what you're settling for. I don't know your story, but God does, and I'm guessing that there are days that even when everything looks great on paper it doesn't in private, and you're wondering if this is it, and I have good news for you; it's not. And I believe that God has written that truth on your heart. At your core I think you know there's more you were made for.

Many of you have been journeying with my family over the course of this year, and a tragedy that we have been living through is the loss of my brother James. James grew up in the same abusive home that I did and because of that at age 16 he left home and he was gone for 15 years, we thought he died. After 15 years, and a set of God-sized miracles he was released from a lifetime sentence in prison and re-entered our family's life. My brother had become a survivor at a very young age out of necessity, and one of his coping mechanisms was partying and drugs; remember he's looking at the sun and never in the mirror, whatever it was to distract himself. As our relationship became closer in the last few years of his life and my mom's life, we would have long conversations about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life and the role that, whether he wanted to admit it or not, God had already played in his life, to keep him alive, and the invitation that God was giving him for a different future with Him.

Ultimately my brother, he couldn't shake the weight of his patterns and addictions, but I hope that his life serves as a wake-up call for us. Look, your addictions and my patterns at times they may be less chaotic, less destructive on the surface, but they can easily head in the same destructive direction. My brother was not a Christian to my knowledge, and neither were most of his friends. But many of them reached out to me in the days after my brother's passing, and they made statements like this, they said I'm glad he's in a better place now, or they would say, I'm just glad he's not suffering anymore. And here's the thing, those are Faith Statements, those reflect a worldview. They are assumptions that people are walking through, where did they get those assumptions from?

Here's my question, what if my brother is in a much worse place? What if the consequences of unbelief in this life are devastating in eternity? Wouldn't that be worth having a conversation about? Isn't that worth calling out in our own lives and the lives of one another? Isn't that worth a second opinion about our life and the direction that we're choosing? Look I know it's not popular but popular thinking isn't working. We're watching a world cave in on itself with a purpose by itself that it can't hold by itself. One of my brother's very favorite bands was the Grateful Dead, and an ironic lyric that was one of his favorites was this one, it says “Since it cost a lot to win and even more to lose, You and me bound to spend some time wondering what to choose.”

We all have a choice Menlo, for whom will we live, and what purpose does that choice reveal? If you are lying to yourself to believe you have not made that choice, you have; it is always a choice to go from what, who, and how we live, to God. Are you feeding the wrong symptoms? Are you chasing the wrong prizes? I hope that this series can be a beacon that calls you back to your creator and an invitation to a relationship that you don't have to earn because it's being offered. You couldn't earn it if you wanted to, and the good news is you don't have to.

As we think about the rest of this series, I want to be really upfront with you about something; the more total freedom that we want for our lives, the more we want to be able to do everything under the illusion that it will never have any consequences for us; the more you want total freedom, the less purpose you will experience. And the more purpose you embrace with Jesus at the center, the more the way of Jesus, the pattern of Jesus, and the parameters of your life will come into place. Not for you to experience total freedom, but for you to experience true freedom.

There's a Greek myth that centers around Sisyphus, the king and founder of Ephyra, and he was punished for repeated treachery and deceit; he cheated death twice and his punishment? He was forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill every day only to have it roll back down and start again the next day. As tragic and exhausting as that sounds, imagine a scenario where instead of a boulder, you have a project that you are pushing up the hill of miscommunication, bad programming, stiff competition, only to have that project or product immediately lose relevancy after it shipped. Sure maybe for you, you can look at something hanging on your wall or you can look at something on a bookcase and remember the incredible work that you have done, but if that is your purpose, every day you see it is the day that that technology, that accomplishment, that achievement, fades further and further into the background because you were made for more than you're settling for. Just like we learned from Solomon when our purpose has its origin and its end in ourselves we are chasing wind, and even if you catch it like the dog that catches the car, we don't even know what we would do with it. In this series we will explore the purpose that we were made for with a God we can actually know, with a God we can have a relationship with.

Total freedom or a life without limits, actually isn't freedom, it's bondage and we will see it for what it is; just another version of Sisyphus. But true freedom; freedom to our purpose, freedom to relationship, is worth everything. It will actually satisfy us. Here's the thing, the newest version of Solomon's dilemma is something that we see in people in Silicon Valley when they reach a certain age and a certain net worth. Their goal goes from disrupting dilemmas in startups, to disrupting the dilemma of death. They see that even with all the things they've amassed there is a clock that can't outrun, there is a problem they can't through their own sheer power of will solve or fix. And here's the thing, there is a way to disrupt death. There is a way to live forever; it's more costly than you can imagine but it's already been paid for.

There's a way for you to live forever and to live that way with the God who made you and loves you, and I'm going to pray that you come back and that we get to keep talking about it. Maybe you'll be in one of those discussion groups at your campus to keep the conversation going, maybe you're gonna be back in service next week with a friend, I hope you are. And let me just tell you, if you're a part of Menlo Church; you call yourself a follower of Jesus. The shift for us as followers of Jesus will always be to look more and more and more internal, and the people around us who are close to us and far from God that without intervention are going to spend eternity apart from Him. God put them in your life on purpose. Jesus said that the fields are white with harvest and they're just waiting for us to plant seeds and be faithful. And so, my encouragement to you is; that burden you feel for someone in your life don't try to shake it, don't try to spend it away, don't try to distract yourself. Who knows what could happen in your life if you would be obedient to that pull of God?

If you're not a follower of Jesus and you're just going you know what, this is going to mess up my life; it is. This is going to change how I have to make decisions; it is. But that aching feeling you have in your heart and life, that you were made for more than you're settling for? It's true, it's real. And I think God wants you and me to discover a purpose that will last forever. Can I pray that you will? Let's pray together.

God thank you so much. Thank you for the gift that it is, that even though you would have been absolutely morally justified to walk away, to give up on humanity time and time again, for our rebellion, for our choices to live a life that settles for the less that we were really made for, that you died to provide. You keep loving us. You keep pressing in. And so, God I pray for men and women, boys and girls, students at every campus watching online; that God you would wake us up. That for those of us who are followers of you, you put a burden on us to walk closer and help people who are far from you but close to us know you. And God for those of us that are listening or watching God that don't know you yet, like the loving hound of heaven would you chase them down? Give them your love. Tackle them with your grace. Show them God that the purpose and the path they're on, while it may do some incredible things, none of them will last forever, and you've built us God to have a purpose and a relationship that will last forever.

Would you give us that hope? In your name today amen.

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