To Encourage You

Ecclesiastes 12:13 “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

Many years ago, I asked the following question to an adult Sunday School class I was teaching, and the answer one of the class members gave has stuck with me ever since.  I asked the class that if they could summarize the gospel in just a few words, what would they say?  And the reply I most remember is this one: “It’s the answer.”  It was this that came to my mind as I read an email this morning from a friend I have known for many years, and whose life has been a struggle for much of that time. As I read the email and thought about my answer to their current struggles, it occurred to me that the answer I was about to give her was the same answer I’ve given her in one way or another regarding almost every struggle in life she’s ever asked me about. In fact, it’s the same answer for everyone – for every struggle, every anxiety, every overwhelming trial that comes into a life. We must look to Christ. We must look to the gospel, for it’s always the answer to life.  It’s the answer in one way or another to everything.  It’s always been that way and it always will be, for the God Who created us always knows what’s best for us.  It’ll never change – indeed, it never can change, for it’s the truth.  

Solomon, who was known as Israel’s wisest king, said essentially this very thing in his summary of life in the passage above.  Solomon looked at life from a purely human viewpoint in much of the book of Ecclesiastes, and his conclusion from that perspective can be summed up in the following words: “Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).  Pretty dismal, wouldn’t you say?  Solomon looked at life and saw emptiness – for that’s what vanity is.  It’s the purely secular view. It’s the view of an atheist who believes the universe, including man, is nothing more than a cosmic accident.  It’s all meaningless. Life is just an endless, monotonous cycle.  We eat, we drink, we play, we work, we sleep, we get old, and we die – and the cycle continues for those we leave behind.  In the end, it’s all meaningless, it’s vanity, it’s nothing more than impersonal fate.  And if that is all there is, then that’s all there would be to the question of why we are here.  

But that’s NOT all there is, and because of that, there is a better answer – a much better one.  It’s the answer of the gospel.  It’s the truth of God’s Word. It’s there that we learn that we were created in the very image of God and we were made to have a relationship with Him.  It’s why we’re here.  It’s not just about us! There’s another Being in the picture – in fact He’s the source, the purpose, and the very object of life.  But then there was the Fall, when sin entered the world – and with that sin came all the hopelessness, the emptiness, the vanity of a life separated from God.  And if that was the end of it, vanity is all there would ever be.  But for Jesus.  It was because God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life. It’s a life of purpose, a life of joy. It’s the opposite of vanity, for it’s a life that is full (John 10:10).  

Paul’s letter to Titus summed it up in these words: “our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). It’s the same answer as Solomon’s. It’s the same answer time and time again. It’s the gospel that gives us purpose, and it’s the answer to every problem of man.