Why Was I Born?

You will remember that I have been going through the fundamental beliefs of the church. And I've been doing this because I feel very strongly that we need to have our beliefs really anchored. You need to know what you believe.
You need to know why you believe it and be able to prove it from the pages of your own Bible. So don't take my word for it. Take your Bible's word for it. You know, truth is revealed to us divinely by God. And so as we seek that truth, you know, the United Church of God has codified 20 fundamental beliefs. Now, I didn't want to I didn't want to walk through them as point number one.
We're going to go through. Instead, I wanted to just sort of present them. And so, as time allows, I'll present another fundamental belief. Today, I'm going to present another one of our fundamental beliefs. So, the title of the message is why was I born? Why was I born? Kind of an interesting question when you think about it because we can ask the question why any human being was born.
But even more profound is the question of why me personally? Why am I here? Right? What's the purpose of my existence? What's the purpose of any human's existence? I was doing some research here uh this week to I was asking myself the question, what what have do people think about why we're here? What's our purpose? And and what is the result if people if they're unsure why they're here? If they don't really know how human beings came about, what is the purpose? How does a person have purpose in their life? So I I began to do some research kind of
along that line, thinking down that path because this question of why we're here, that's that is an ancient question. like human beings have wanted to know this since Adam and Eve were first created. But that question is often met with confusion today. And that confusion is what has consequences.
People don't really know. In 2024, a Gallup survey uh re released says 58% of Americans said they believe human life developed through some form of evolution. This is 2024 and 58% of the people pled, which were Americans, said they believe mankind evolved somehow. That's staggering.
24% attribute it entirely to random natural processes. Think about that. 24% of Americans, 1/4 statistically, you can average that all the way out, 1/4 of the of Americans believe that we literally randomly developed. 34% accept the idea of what's called theistic evolution. And I remember many years ago when I was in high school, I had a teacher who was preaching us all about evolution.
And I told him I didn't believe in evolution because I was a kid. And you know what kids do? they'll just tell you flat out what they think sometimes. And that's what I did. I don't agree with that. And he was like, "Why not?" And I said, "Because it's impossible." And he says, "Well, isn't it possible then?" And this is the first time I'd ever heard of this.
He says, "Isn't it possible that God started everything and then let it all evolve? That's called theistic evolution." And I said to him, "No, I don't think so. I don't even remember what grade I got. Probably not great. It probably wasn't great." All right. 37% still hold to a form of direct creation. Only 37% of Americans hold to a form of direct creation by God, by a god, by any God within the last 10,000 years.
This number, by the way, is the lowest ever recorded in Gallup's history. That doesn't bode well for us, does it? We're moving in the wrong direction. We're not moving towards biblical understanding. and we're moving away from it. But here's the thing, we look pretty good compared to globally. Yeah.
In European nations such as France and German and Germany, only 9 to 12% believe God created mankind directly. 9 to 12% onetenth of of our French brothers and sisters and our German brothers and sisters think God created human beings. Only a tenth. That means 90% do not believe that. At the same time, surveys consistently show that most people, more than 80% believe that there is some purpose to life. Now, that's an interesting dichotomy to think about.
I I don't know how we got here, but we've got to have purpose. That's what 80% of people believe. Well, what's the purpose? Well, they don't know. That's what's interesting about that. When asked to define that purpose, answers range from family, self- fulfillment, career, success. Those are the reasons for our purpose.
Those are the purpose for us existing. Only a small minority, fewer than one in five Christians say that life's purpose is to know, love, and serve God. So of all the people who identify as Christians, 20% believe the purpose of life is to know, love, and serve God. Remarkable, I would say astounding. This disconnect between belief that we must have a purpose and a being that I exist by intent. Virtually incompatible.
Either I was created with intent, which means I have a purpose, or I evolved and I therefore don't have purpose. There's no alternative to those two answers. If we chased evolution all the way back, this is why evolutionists always lose. You have to chase all the way back to something where we realize that something came from nothing.
Every ounce of our scientific research proves that you cannot get something from nothing. It's impossible. Something can only come from something. Evolutionists are aware of this. They hate that argument, but it's real. It's true. It's the only thing they have no answer for. They think they have an answer for every step between the nothing to something.
And then from that something all the way forward, they think they've got the evolutionary answers all down and pat. But if we literally evolved ultimately, then we exist simply as a sequence of random chemical interactions destined to end only in death and oblivion. No real purpose to something that just evolves on its own. That's the natural outcome of naturalistic evolution and it is increasingly being lived out by those who believe it.
A 2023 study in uh that's titled evolution education and outreach found that individuals who believe in unguided evolution experience higher levels of existential anxiety. Existential is a fun word, isn't it? It just means exists. Okay? That it's real. So they have existential anxiety defined as the persistent awareness that life may have no objective purpose.
So the people who truly believe in evolution struggle the most with the idea that there's no real purpose in life. Among young adults with no religious affiliation, okay, no religious affiliation, 30% report seeing no meaning in life at all. Of course, unsurprisingly, depression and emotional, yeah, flatness maybe are increasing, especially among those who no longer believe they are part of any greater design.
But again, most people want to believe they matter. They want to believe there's purpose. 80% of people want to believe that we have a purpose, even if they can't explain what it is. They sense that human life must mean something. They feel there is more to existence than survival and consumption. Many uh you know many in this in the sociological psychological world it's not unknown that human beings have this longing for purpose or something greater. They call it some have called it the um sort of like this vision that's inside of each of us about
eternity like there is eternity in our hearts. of scripture kind of talks about that we were created with a desire for something better than this life because as it turns out this life isn't the only thing available God has a purpose for us but if you don't have any belief in a greater design then you are going to struggle with purpose in this life 14:12 just as a sort of a starting point or a reference place this is where man is this is where man lives proverb BSA 14:12.
Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death, and this is this is how people think. We think we know. In the absence of God, we'll decide what's right." This takes us right back to Adam and Eve, doesn't it? because they chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. And so there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.
And we keep proving that over and over again. Today, people are encouraged to find your own truth. Live your truth. Follow your heart. I love these sayings because the Bible always comes up with a counterposition to that. your heart is evil and wicked above all things.
Right? There's only one source of truth which is the word of God. So there isn't my truth. We don't get to define our own identity because truth is not subjective. Purpose is not self-generated. We did not give ourselves purpose because we did not create ourselves. We exist. And so we're left with a binary choice. But here's the thing that I started looking at today.
I shouldn't say today, this week. But it's interesting to think about it because I had Beck look some stats up while we were driving over here from Olympia because I was curious. I was looking at what are the major philosophical, religious, or whether what are the alternative explanations for our purpose? Why are we here? So, I looked up what is the answer from Buddhism.
What do they think? Buddhism teaches that life is suffering caused by desire and that the goal is to escape the cycle of rebirth through enlightenment. The ultimate hope is to reach nirvana, a state of nonexistence where the self is extinguished and all craving is dissolved. In this view, the highest aspiration is not to become something greater but to cease to exist entirely.
Do you know how many people are Buddhists? Over 500 million people. Okay. Over 500 that's like 6 and a half% of the world's population today believe that the ultimate aspiration of human existence is to not exist at all. Okay. How about Hinduism? Hinduism presents life as a cycle of birth, death and rebirth with the goal of achieving moka which is liberation from the physical world through realization of one's unity with the divine whatever that means.
Again, individuality is not preserved. The person is absorbed into the impersonal brahman. Don't even know what that is. The self is not fulfilled. It is erased. You know how many people are identified as Hinduists? 1.2 billion people believe that. So out of the first two religions of this world which account for 1.
7 billion people, one quarter of the world's population believe the ultimate purpose of mankind is to become nothing. Secular humanism teaches that meaning is something we invent for ourselves. There's no higher power, no divine purpose. Life is what we make of it. And when it's over, it's over.
So in this view, the best we can do is pursue personal happiness, contribute to society, and hope our lives have some small impact before we return to dust. because there's nothing more. That's a joyful thought to me, right? That's a human's perspective without any belief in a god. How about Islam? The second most populous religion in the world is Islam. It teaches submission to the will of Allah with purpose found in obedience to divine law and earning favor for the afterlife.
But the nature of that afterlife is physical, not spiritual. The idea of becoming like God or being part of his family is absent because Allah is not a father. He's a master. Relationship is one of servitude, not sunship. In Islam, you probably heard that um that that those who kill themselves are often taught that the promise of committing essentially suicide by killing other people that are the enemies of Allah.
That your reward in their version of heaven is that you have a bunch of virgins physical. There's no spiritual afterlife if you believe in Islam. What about Eastern mysticism and new age thought? Very creative for us human beings. These teach that life is about spiritual energy, self-discovery, and becoming one with the universe.
It offers vague promises of peace and enlightenment, but has no consistent source of truth, no clear definition of right and wrong, and no personal God. Meaning, it's whatever you want it to be. So in all of these, whether religious or philosophical or secular, two things are notably missing. A clear origin for humanity rooted in divine purpose. It's not there in any of those explanations.
Number two, a destination that preserves personal identity while elevating it to something greater does not exist in those beliefs. Thru unique in the world. that we have divine purpose, a destination that preserves your personal identity. You are not going to be lost to the cosmos at the end of your life. You know, it's only the Bible that gives a coherent and complete explanation for human existence.
And it doesn't begin with us. It begins with God. Genesis chapter 1. Genesis 1:es 26 and 27. When we open the pages of our Bible, we're not first introduced to mankind or even human creation. A lot of creation happens long before humans. But God is as God is introduced to us though then we begin to realize that he is a God of creation that he has purpose in his creation.
That means that when we find him creating man he's going to have purpose for man. Verse 26 and 27 of Genesis 1 26 says then God said let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. So from the very first chapter, we're told that human beings were made in the image and likeness of God. No other creation is that set of only human beings are made in the image and likeness of the creator that sets mankind apart in from every other created thing whether animals, flora, fauna, mankind is unique among all of the creation of God.
The language of Genesis then is not poetic metaphors. It's an actual description of what God intends to do ultimately with his creation us. So he created mankind physically yet in his image with mind, will, emotion, moral capacity and spiritual potential. No animal has that. So he didn't create us just to exist. Then we're created in his image, in his likeness with purpose.
He created us to become spirit beings just as he and Christ are. Notice over in Genesis chapter 5, we see a literal physical example of this likeness issue. Genesis 5:es 1 through3. Genesis 5:es 1 through3. It's just interesting what that we get an explanation of what it means. This is the book of the genealogy of Adam.
In the day that God created man, he made him that is man in the likeness of God. He created the male and female and blessed them and called them mankind in the day they were created. And Adam lived 130 years and begott a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. This same language in his likeness after his image is used to describe the relationship between a father and his son.
And that's the implication of Genesis 1:26. It's not just about outward form or intellect. It points to a father bringing forth children. It's the first glimpse into a plan that stretches from the dust of the garden of Eden all the way to the throne room of God. A plan and purpose. The Apostle Paul later explains this clearly.
Let's turn over to Acts 17 28 and 29. Acts chapter 17 verses 28 and 29. It says here in verse 28, "For in him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring." Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, what we make as human beings that we call idols, that there's anything in them, something shaped by art and man's devising, because that is not who God is. God is not an invention of mankind. He's the creator of mankind
and we are his offspring, his children by design. Though we're physical today, so we have not yet achieved the nature which we will one day have. But we are still human, but as physical beings, we're made to resemble him. We're just not yet like him in fullness yet because we're still physical human beings.
We require a transformation, a change from this to something else which is spirit because God is spirit. And we look forward to that in the resurrection. Paul wrote about this in Romans chapter 8. You might want to mark Romans chapter 8. We'll we'll hop back and forth here a couple of times. Romans chapter 8 16 and 17. Romans 8:16 says, "The spirit itself," remember the spirit is not an individual. It's not a male. It's not a female.
So the spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint hes with Christ. with a caveat. If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. That's what we're doing today as first fruits, suffering with Christ, resisting this world and the God of this age, changing and transforming ourselves to have the very character of Jesus Christ. That's what we're supposed to be about.
over 40 years, some 40 years later. So, John talked about this as well over in 1 John 3. 1 John 3:es 1 and 2. 1 John 3:es 1 and 2 it says, "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know him.
" Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." This has been the the desire of man since any man ever believed in God. Going all the way back to Moses who God said, "I know you want to see me, and I will only show you my back as I shove you into the cliff of this cliff.
" We've all want to see God, but we're not going to be able to see Jesus Christ fully until we change, until we at the resurrection become like Christ as he is. So, we don't today know exactly what he looks like. They've never really revealed what they fully look like to human eyes, nor could we see him if he did, as he explained in scripture. Yet, that's our desire.
And you, we will be able to do that when we are changed, when we become spirit beings, spiritborn beings at the resurrection. So the goal of God's creation was never just moral improvement or temporary happiness. No, God has a divine purpose for our creation. He's always been about building a family. The language here is not ambiguous. It says children.
We are children of God. And John repeatedly makes that statement. And that's why Paul refers to Christ as the firstborn among many brethren over in Romans chapter 8 29. Romans 8 29. Verse 29 says, "For whom he forneew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he," capital H, that's Christ, "Might be the firstborn among many brethren, brothers and sisters.
" To be made in the image of God is not merely to reflect him in this life. is to be destined through repentance, through faith, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to be conformed to the image of his son. That means being made like Christ in character right now and then later when at his return, we will be like him in glory at the resurrection. But of course, that's not automatic, is it? There's no entitlement here.
Being called isn't a guarantee in and of itself. We have to do our part if we want to be there. We also know that we are not going to be in God's kingdom unless we are changed from flesh and blood to spirit. from this corruptible body to something incorruptible which you will if you go over to 1 Corinthians 15:50 Paul reminded the Corinthians 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 50 he says now this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God nor does corruption inherit incorruption. So we
have to be changed. We're not getting into the kingdom like this. There's no kingdom future for these bodies. So that means that our flesh and blood creation has always been step one in a process. Step two is the change. Eternal life in the family of God. That's purpose. That's a purpose the world does not understand.
As the scripture tells us over in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10, God's divine purpose for human beings. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 10. For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, that is Christ, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.
So Jesus Christ is that way. And this is the purpose, bringing many sons to glory, sons. That's what God wants. Now, I use the phrase sons and daughters because, well, we have sons and daughters here. But this is the astounding purpose for which mankind was created, not to go to heaven. Nowhere in scripture do we ever go to heaven. That's not our future.
That's not our destiny. But eternal life is. becoming a spirit being is. So, we're not going to meditate ourselves into nothingness. We're not going to define ourselves as something or follow our own truth. Our destiny is to become like God in mind, heart, spirit, and ultimately in nature. Human life was never meant to be meaningless. It was never meant to be lived and lost.
We are not destined to become a part of the cosmos and cease to exist. That is not why we were created. So God created us with purpose, eternal purpose. This understanding gives us a very unique view of why we are here in all of this world. When the world is absolutely blinded to the truth of why human beings actually exist. God has revealed it to us.
As I said earlier, truth is divinely revealed. We only understand because God has let us understand that we have a purpose. But if we're going to become that eternal spirit being, we have to realize that something stands in the way between us and that. And it's us. It's our sins. But God, having had a plan and purpose for man from the beginning, knew what to do about that.
If mankind was created by God to become part of his divine family, what explains the condition of the world today? Why is human history soaked in war, injustice, grief, confusion, violence? Why do even the best lives end in death? The answer is found in a single word and it that word is sin. It's it's moral failure.
But you know, we have a definition for sin, don't we? First John 1 John 3:4 1 John 3:4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin is lawlessness. Like you can't have a more clear description of what sin is than when God says, "Well, this is sin." Sin is lawlessness. a nomian against law. What law? Well, it isn't the law of love in the sense that those who believe that the commandments of God were hung on the cross with Christ, if that were true, then when they when words like this John is saying in the '90s AD, he's saying lawlessness. Well,
what law? Well, they say, "Well, it must be the law of love." No, it's not. It's the law of God. It's always been the law of God. The same being who came in the flesh was the being who gave that law to Israel in the covenant. There's been no change. Yes, that same being when he walked this earth said not one jot or tit from that law will pass away.
That is the law. Not some invented human idea of what the law is. It is the law of God. And it is our breaking of that law either deliberately or inadvertently by being a human being and just making bad choices that we sin from the very beginning. It's this choice between God's law and sin that has been put before mankind.
In the very beginning, God gave Adam and Eve a choice. He placed a tree called the tree of life in that garden. And he did not give any restriction about the fruit of that tree. But in that same garden, in the midst of that garden, he placed another tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that tree, he gave a very specific command. Do not eat of it.
Eve ate of it. We just heard in the sermonet what happened at that time, didn't we? She ate of it. She claimed she was deceived and she was Adam. What was Adam's excuse? As we read through that, he had no excuse. He knew. So what did he do? He blamed God for giving him Eve. But notice Romans 5:12.
The accountability here lays at the feet of Adam and his choice. The deliberate action of rebelling against God. Uh Romans chapter 5 and verse 12. Notice what it says. Who's to blame here? It says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men." Why? Well, because Adam sinned.
You all own his sin. I have my own sins to account for. It says, "Because all have sinned." Each of us has sinned on our own. So we're accountable for our own choices, the sins that we have voluntarily committed. And this word translated death refers not only to physical death, but also to the separation that happens between us and God when we sin.
We're virtually dead to God through our sins. And of course, this is what we rehearse before Passover every year. Paul explains in Romans 6:7 that sin enslaves the mind. It warps the will and it produces fruit leading to death. Notice what happens when we sin. Isaiah chapter 59. Isaiah 59. This is what has to be resolved when we commit sin.
Isaiah 59:2, sorry, verse two, where it says, "But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he will not hear." That should be very sobering to us. It's why we repent because when we sin, we separate ourselves from God and he will not hear us.
That's why every day we look at that man in the mirror and we get on our knees and we ask God for forgiveness of our sins. I don't want to be ignored by God. I've already sinned and separated myself. The only way back is by repenting. The word that's translated iniquity, your iniquities have separated you, carries the idea of perversity or moral distortion. It's twisting what's right. That's what that's about. Twisting what's right.
And separation from God, as we just saw, is not a passive state. That's an active result of decisions made in opposition to his law. This is what we do to ourselves when we sin. And that has happened to all of human society. This is why the world suffers. It's not just because of ignorance or flawed systems in the world. Those exist. But it's also choice.
Because humanity is fundamentally cut off from its creator. When the world rejects God's commandment, it reaps what it sows, which is what? Corruption and violence and oppression, despair. What's interesting, too, if we go all the way back to Genesis, I'm not going to go to Genesis. I'm going to go instead here to Romans chapter 8.
Again, God created a world that had purpose, and he created mankind in that world with purpose. Look what we've done to this world. Even the world itself is groaning as a woman in labor for something better. I was talking to Olympia today and I was rehearsing something that I that's part of my job. It was kind of important to know because it was wastewater related.
We've not treated this planet very well over the years. 1969 there's a river in Ohio called the Kyhoga River. It caught fire for the 13th time. 13 times that river had caught fire. That's not the only river in the United States that had caught fire. Now you think to yourself, water can't burn. Well, it isn't water that's burning. It's oil.
Kent State University studied this strip of of the Kyhoga River and described it as utterly dead with 3 in of oil on the surface. All of the industries that used water in any sort of manufacturing process discharged directly to the river with no treatment. That's one example. And the dichotomy that's really amazing to consider is at the same time that year Neil Armstrong was stepping on the surface of the moon.
Think about the remarkable nature of our ability to both escape the atmosphere of our own planet and to destroy that planet at the same time. And so when we read here in Romans chapter 8 verse 22, Romans 8:22 says, "For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
Everything God had done with purpose yields itself in its ideas, its cravings for that purpose to be fulfilled. God didn't create the earth to be destroyed. Created it to be our home. It's us that are destroying it, misusing it. Every human war, every act of injustice, every sorrow is a symptom of a world that does not know its purpose because it does not know its creator. It's God.
But God has not abandoned his plan. In his wisdom, God allowed mankind to go his own way. But that's not out of indifference. That's to show us that every choice we will make will never yield what we hope for, something better. We're human and we sin and we're going to sin and we're going to separate ourselves from God over and over and over again.
And there's no path forward unless God does something. Romans 6:23. Romans 6 verse 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Some want to say that well this is talking about physical death. God says no, eternal life is the context. Our sins create only one future for us, eternal death.
And there's only one way out of that destiny. That way is through Jesus Christ, which allows for eternal life. That's the only way we will have eternal life because of our sins. Obviously, wages is compensation. what you're owed for what you've earned, the payment that is due to you. And that's what sin earns.
Jesus came into the world not just to teach, but to pay the penalty for our sins. You know, I I mentioned when we did the message about Christ is not a created being that you if you if you want to pay for your sins, there's only one choice, eternal death. That's it. You can pay that.
You will not have salvation if you have to pay the price. No created being is any more valuable than any other single created human being. That's why Christ cannot have been created because the only life, the only single life that is equal to all created life is the creator of that life. Only the word could come down and lay his life down for all of our sins and pay that eternal penalty for us.
That's what's so important about his death is it paid the eternal price so that we could have a path to eternal life through his resurrection. Hebrews 9:es 27 and 28. Hebrews 9:es 27 and 28. Verse 27 of Hebrews 9 says, "And it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many to those who eagerly wait for him.
And he will appear a second time apart from sin." Why? For salvation. because he's bringing salvation with him in the resurrection. That's why he's coming. Yes, he's going to establish the government of God on this whole earth. But he's coming to bring salvation, eternal life to who? The sons God has created. And of course, we talk about this when we go through Passover that this path that we're on towards this purpose God has given to us to become eternal sons and daughters requires repentance or Christ sacrifice can't be applied to our sins. And so I die with my sins
unless I repent. So this repentance which means a turning away from sin and a return to God's law requires belief in Jesus Christ. It requires baptism. Through that process we enter into the new covenant with God. And that requires us to have the Holy Spirit indwelling.
That's how we are begotten into the divine family of God. Now, Romans 8 11. Told you we'd be hopping back to Romans a few times here. Romans 8:11, verse 11 says, "But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit which dwells in you.
" This is that down payment of eternity that God has given to us with his Holy Spirit. This is why baptism and having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is required to become a first fruit for us today. And by the way, during the millennium, it will be what's required for anyone to be changed.
And after the second resurrection, it will still be required for anyone to have salvation. Always the same process. Every human being is going to have to choose. choose to fulfill the purpose given to us by God because he created us for that purpose or to reject God's purpose. This world we live in is not the world God originally made. It is the world man has chosen.
It's a world of confusion and self-will and suffering and violence. But this world is not permanent. God is not finished. He's calling a people now to come out of the confusion of this world. You and I have been invited to become first fruits, separated from this world for a better purpose, not for ourselves, but for all of mankind.
And notice again, we get to the end, Revelation 21. This is beautiful. Revelation 21 where God once again expresses his desire for the creation he called mankind. Revelation 21 and verse 7. He who overcomes shall inherit all things and I will be his God and he shall be my son. That's what God wants. Not just eternal spirit beings. He has angels or just eternal spirit beings.
He wants family. He wants sons and daughters to be a part of that family. That's the end of the story and it's the beginning of eternal life for us. Despite sin, despite suffering, despite death itself, the purpose for which mankind was created is going to be fulfilled.
God will have a family and those who walk the narrow path that he has revealed today will be part of that family. So we began with this question. Why was I born? Why do I exist? Why human beings? That's not answered by science or philosophy or even imagination or invention. That's answered by revelation of the scriptures because the truth is divinely revealed. We see it not because we're special because God has opened our eyes to see it. So we understand.
So the purpose of human life is not mysterious. It's not unknowable. It's been revealed. Notice, let's finish up here in Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes 12 verse 13. Solomon goes through this entire experiment of his early life trying to figure out what is the purpose for mankind. And he gets to the bottom. He gets to the end and he writes us this in verse 13 of Ecclesiastes 12.
Let's hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments for this is man's all. This is what's summed up when Christ called the law of love that we would love God by responding to him, by obeying his commands, by doing what he said. For those who might still be searching for the truth, this might seem like it's overly simplified, but you know what's funny about the truth is it's generally pretty simple.
God at the very beginning created human beings. He created them to have a purpose, which is to become eternal sons and daughters in the family. He gave us human nature and because of that, we've made mistakes. We've sinned. We've separated ourselves from God. So he sent his only begotten son to pay that eternal price to give us a path back so that we could become those eternal beings that God wants us to be. Those sons and daughters that he is looking forward to having in his kingdom.
That's our purpose. That's why we were born.