"The Pursuit of Purpose" by Lamar Showalter | KFW 2024

Well, good afternoon and welcome to the Youth of Kingdom Fellowship Weekend. I am very thankful and privileged to be speaking to you this afternoon. I always really enjoy speaking to young people. It's actually literally my favourite group of people to speak to, and I'm not just saying that because you're young people. I'm saying that because that's actually how I feel. So I think that being a youth is a very important time of life, a very special time of life. I actually have very fond memories of being a youth myself. At the moment, I don't have any teenagers. I'm here with my three boys. My oldest one is nine. So I am not in the stage of parenting teenagers yet.

But sometimes people make jokes about kind of parenting teenagers and how difficult that is, or how problematic that is. And I never really jive with that, or never really appreciate that. I personally am looking forward to raising teenagers, and I tell my wife that. She's like, "Wow, it's—I don't know—as strong-willed as they are now or whatever, what is it going to be like when they're teenagers?" And I say, "Well, I'm actually looking forward to that. I think it is a challenging time of life, but it's actually a very special time of life. And so if the Lord wills, I hope to be a dad of teenagers someday."

So as a bit of introduction to my thoughts, we are here today to think about pursuing purpose, which is a tremendously big topic. It's a topic that the brightest human minds have been grappling with, the question of meaning and purpose for centuries. Basically, since the dawn of time, the brightest philosophers, the smartest people that this planet has to offer, have been asking questions about what our purpose and meaning is in humans. What are we here for, and why are we where we're at? Here's a picture from my local library when I was preparing for this talk. I went to the library to get some resources, and everything that you see in this picture could fall in the category of people attempting to find purpose and meaning in life.

All four rows of those books. And there's actually more than that that aren't on the picture. These are the books on philosophy, and religion, and psychology, and self-help, and everyone trying to sort through what it means to be a human and what our experience here on Earth is all about. So it's been very difficult to figure out how to take this big picture question and narrow it down into a one-hour topic, but I will attempt to do that here today.

It says in Ecclesiastes—I'm reading it from a different version—the KJV says, "Vanity, vanity." I'm reading it from a version that says "meaningless." It says in Ecclesiastes, "Meaningless, meaningless," says the teacher, "utterly meaningless. Everything is meaningless. What do people gain from all their labours at which they toil under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever. All things are worrisome, more than one can say. I have seen all things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. Then I applied myself to understanding—think of all these books—then I applied myself to understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this too is chasing after the wind."

So that's what the wisest man on Earth had to say. That was Solomon speaking. "Meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless." But I'm thankful today that that isn't the conclusion of Ecclesiastes. There is a meaning and purpose to life, and we do have a reason for our existence. One of the books that have bumped into in my studies is this book called "The Meaning of Life According to Our Century's Greatest Writers and Thinkers." There was a philosopher—a professor of philosophy, I should say—by the name of Dr. Hugh Moorhead that decided he wanted to write letters to 250 of the most noteworthy people alive in his time. This was in the 1980s, 1988 that he wrote the book. He decided to write letters to 250 of the brightest philosophers, and writers, and scientists of his time, and asked them the question, "What is the meaning of life?"

And they were supposed to write back to him, and he was going to compile it in this book, which he did. And it's an interesting book. I wouldn't necessarily recommend reading it. Most of what's in it is not helpful. And a lot of the people that wrote back straight up said that they were just guessing. Some said they were clueless. They didn't have any idea. Others wrote back and asked the professor to let them know if, in the process of his research, he discovered the answer to the question.

Another book I bumped into in the library is a book called "What Makes Us Human." I'm not sure if you can read the subtitle, but it says, "An Artificial Intelligence Answers Life's Biggest Questions." So this is someone that had the bright idea of taking all the difficult life questions they could think of and asking them to ChatGPT and then putting them in a book. It was a pretty unnerving thing to look at. I didn't check it out. I didn't waste my time reading the whole thing. But the bottom line is people are desperate for answers as to what our meaning is all about, and if you're down to asking computers to answer that question for you, you're in a pretty bad position.

I believe that everyone wants purpose and meaning in life. It's something that we're all looking for and we're all seeking, but I'm not confident that everyone even realises that that is what they're looking for. I know we're all looking for it. I'm not sure if we're all how aware we are that we're looking for it. So I want to ask you a couple of questions just to get your thinking started. Initially here, I'm just asking these questions as sort of introductory thoughts, but I'm warning you that you better actually really think about them because here in a little bit, I'm going to expect a response from each and every one of you on some of these questions.

So just thought-provoking questions to get your wheels turning. My first question is just very basic. Are you experiencing purpose and meaning in your life? How do you know? Is your answer to that yes or no? And if yes, then what is your basis for saying yes? What do you mean by it if you say, "Yes, I'm experiencing purpose in life"? Do you just mean that you're happy? Do you mean you have a full schedule? Do you mean you have lots of friends? Do you mean—I don't know—do you mean you don't have any problems right now? What does it mean to you that you have a purpose and meaning in life?

Is purpose and meaning in life something you even think about? Is that a question you even consider? Is purpose just a feeling, or is it something greater than that? Is it something that I need to go and find, or is it something that sort of exists outside of myself? Is there a purpose out there, whether I realise it or not?

What is your reason for being? What on earth are you here for? What is driving you? I think we all know that there can be different things driving us. There can be hobbies and passions. I have a list of things here that are sort of bad things that can drive us. There's lots of good things that can drive us, but looking at some negative things that we could be driven by that are certainly not going to help bring purpose and meaning to life: guilt, resentment. Are you driven by anger, driven by fear, materialism, the need for other people's approval, pride, greed, addiction? Those are all things that can drive our lives, and if something is driving us, it's certainly going to have a bearing on where we end up and what our purpose is with it all.

So the question simply is, what is driving you? And if you haven't answered that question in your mind, my next question is, what would your friends and family say is driving you? Would their answer be the same as your personal answer is? Would the people around you have the same conclusion about what your drive in life is as what you wish it was, or think it is?

We kind of tend to think well of ourselves and give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Another really big question: how much pleasure do you think God is getting out of your life? Each of you personally and individually, you are a creature of God, and God made you. Do you feel like God is getting pleasure out of your personal life? Are you happy? That's a hard question to answer. There's about as many books written on happiness as pursuing meaning in life. So are you happy? And my follow-up question is, is happiness even a legitimate pursuit? Is that something that we as Christians should be aiming for?

What is your life metaphor? This is something that lots of authors talk about. We all have sort of this metaphor for life, and if you think about what your life metaphor is, it might help you to analyse yourself and understand how you picture your life, where you're thinking your purpose and meaning is. So a life metaphor can be a lot of different things. Some people say life is a circus. Maybe you think of your life as a roller coaster, a puzzle, a journey. Some people refer to life as a rat race. Maybe you say it's a battle, or a dream, or a gift, or a river, or a canvas. There's lists and lists of things that people refer to as their life metaphor or think of when they think of what their life is and what it's all about.

So I want to start with defining a couple of terms. When I looked at the subject of pursuing purpose, my immediate thought was, what are sort of the synonyms of that? What does it mean to pursue purpose? I have a list of words here. I've been thinking long and hard about how are they different, how are they same. My conclusion is it's a complicated bundle of things that are hard to separate. So we have purpose, meaning, fulfilment. Personally, I think fulfilment is something that a lot of us are a lot more aware of than maybe purpose even. Satisfaction, motivation, personal worth, happiness.

The dictionary definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created, or for which something exists. So if we're asking what your purpose is, we're asking what is the reason that you exist? Why were you created? Why did God make you?

Trying to separate out a couple of these, just looking at purpose versus fulfilment, I believe that purpose is something that exists whether you realise it or not. It's the reason you were created. You didn't create yourself. So apparently, the being that created you had a reason or a purpose for creating you. So purpose is something that exists outside of yourself, whereas fulfilment may be more of an internal experiential thing. Do you feel full, or a sense of satisfaction, feeling whole? It's sort of the opposite of emptiness. Think of being super hungry, eating a meal, and you just feel satisfied. That's fulfilment. So are you finding fulfilment in your life?

The other thing that I thought of right away when I thought of this idea of pursuing purpose is the concept of a midlife crisis. How many of you know what I mean when I refer to midlife crisis? Do you know what that is, or are you familiar with that term? So a midlife crisis is something that middle-aged people tend to get. It's hard to nail down an exact age. 35 to 50 is the number I'm going to throw out there. And different people experience this to varying degrees. But to just kind of nutshell it, the idea is that you can be going through your life, all is going well, you feel like you're happy and accomplishing your goals, and suddenly you get to the middle of your life and your focus starts changing a bit.

Your children are getting older, your parents are aging, and you start—kind of all the goals you set out to accomplish are behind you. You're married, you have your children, you have your job and your business and all that. And suddenly you just sort of start reconsidering what is the point of this all? What is the meaning of life? And I think it's a result of there can be lots of things that we can focus on in life that give us a temporary sense of purpose. We can be driven by many things, and I think it's possible to find purpose in things that are not of God. So we can find purpose in our business, our work, or whatever, and just really pour our heart into that, really just let that drive our life until one day we wake up and find out exactly like Solomon said in Ecclesiastes that it's all meaningless.

Reading a definition here, it says, "A midlife crisis is a period or phase of life transition when a person begins to question the things that they have accomplished or achieved, and whether these same things still provide a sense of fulfilment and meaning."

Reading a quote from just a random person I found online I was trying to read about different people's experiences with a midlife crisis, this person says, "I find myself in my mid-30s, solid career with good money, healthy relationships, financial stability, all the things you expect to have by this age. The last few years, though, I've been struggling with the idea of purpose, something that makes me get out of bed each day. I keep going round and round in my head, but I can't find that something that really jumps out at me as a defining thing. I originally thought it may have been work, so I changed roles, but it hasn't made me feel any happier or more fulfilmed."

And this was on a forum where someone was asking other people, "Have you experienced this? What's the answer to this question?" So one of my objectives here today, I don't think I'm going to be able to answer all the nuanced questions of the purpose and meaning of life, but I do hope to at least inspire you to think about it and contemplate it. And I want to inspire you, or induce you, to have your midlife crisis early, ahead of schedule. Go ahead and have it now. So thinking of it in terms of campaign, it's what am I campaigning for?

I'm often captivated by these short little campaign slogans. And so I was thinking, what is my campaign slogan for today? I'm trying a couple of different options out here. "Crisis Now, Thrive Later." "Fast Track Your Midlife Crisis." "Life Is Short, Crisis Sooner." Whichever option you want to go with there, the point is that I think the sooner you figure out in life what is important and what actually has eternal value and eternal meaning, the fewer years of your life you'll waste trying to pursue other things only to, in the middle of your life, find out that they're meaningless and empty. And I really believe—I'm probably not old enough to be saying this—but I really believe that the more founded you are in true purpose when you're young, the less likely and the less critical your crisis will be when you hit your midlife, because you'll already be anchored in what has value and what has eternal purpose.

There's a definite need for purpose. Without purpose, we're completely at sea, completely adrift. Without purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty, and pointless. I don't think any of us want to be living that life.

So as I said earlier, I was asking a few questions to kind of get your thinking started, and along with that, I want to actually give an opportunity to allow you to give feedback. So I'm set up here today to do a poll. Usually, preachers tell you to keep your phones in your pockets in sermons, and this time I'm going to tell you to get them out. So I realise not all of you may be able to text, and that is perfectly fine. You're probably the ones that have the most purpose and fulfilment in life. But for those of you that are able to text, I would really appreciate your participation. So I've noticed already when I'm speaking to an audience—and I think every speaker does this—we make assumptions about where we think the audience is coming from.

So when I'm speaking about this topic to you, I'm sort of forced to make an assumption about where I think you're coming from, what your perspective on this topic is, what I think your starting point is. And I came up with this idea of polling the group because I was really struggling to make those assumptions for this talk. I wasn't sure. I actually don't know. On some of my questions, I don't know whether you all feel like you have purpose in life or not. I don't know whether it's something you even think about, or whether you think about it frequently. And so I decided the simplest and best way is just to simply ask, and then I'll know.

So if you just text KFW to 22333, you'll get a little welcome message. And I know there's other people listening in the audience here. I prefer participation from just age 30 and under. I'm looking for the younger end of the spectrum.

And then later, when we're actually answering the questions, only text the letter, like just A, B, or C, no other characters or anything needed. And also, this is completely anonymous. Even I, as the organiser, cannot see the numbers the data is coming from, so please be honest. The more honest you are, the more interesting it will be.

And then one last thing. On some phones, it will warn you when you text a number. It will say this number may charge you or whatever. There's no charge for doing this other than just normal texting fees, which most plans include, but since it's a commercial number, it gives you that warning. So without further ado, I want to start into the questions. So the first question is, what is your age? And I'm going to use this data later to kind of make some correlations between different things. So if you could just tell me what your age is, that would be great.

There we go. All right. Let's try this. Now you can see. So there's the age distribution. It looks like the majority of people here are 21 to 24. And then the next question, what is your gender? It looks like there's more males participating than females, so whatever that's worth. And the next question I have is, do you feel like you have purpose and meaning in life? And once again, just A, B, or C, yes, somewhat, or no.

That is really interesting to me. I had no idea what to expect. I really didn't know whether I really didn't know whether people feel like they have purpose in life or not. It looks like the majority of you do. Some of you aren't quite sure, which I don't think that should be anything that we're surprised about at your stage of life, being youth. I think you're still figuring a lot of things out. So I don't think that's odd that some of you are not certain about that.

How often do you contemplate your purpose and meaning? One of the questions I had is, is this just like a brand new thought to think about this, or is this something you think about all the time, or what does that look like?

So one of the things that I cannot show in real time here, but that I hope to do later, is go and look for correlations. So is there a correlation between how often people think about purpose and meaning and what kind of level of purpose and meaning they find? Or is there no correlation there? I don't know if those two are connected or not, but I'll be able to look at that after the fact and figure that out. I do find it interesting that about the same percentage of people that say they don't have purpose also say that it's not something they think about, but I don't know whether it's the same people. So once again, I can't really draw a correlation there.

I'm just making an observation. And one of my goals with this talk is to increase this percentage. It's the hope that after you're done here today, it's something you think about more often, a question you consider more seriously. My next question, this one takes a little bit of explanation, do you think your peers are finding purpose in life? So I wondered to myself whether we all look out at each other as human beings. We each only have our own experience to go off of. Do we look at each other and think everyone else is experiencing more purpose and meaning than we are, or not necessarily? So this was something I was really curious about.

Well, it looks like for the most part we have a nice little bell curve there. Seems like the majority of you feel like your peers are experiencing about the same level of purpose as you are. So that's good to know.

And then one last question that I have in this set of questions, do you feel like your role models are modelling a life of purpose? So when you think about your parents and teachers and church leaders, your elders, I realise that the answer may be different for those different roles. So it might be kind of hard to know how to answer, but just kind of average it out. In general, do you feel like the older people in your life are showing you what it looks like to live a life of meaning and purpose, or do you feel like you're surrounded by adults that haven't really figured it out either?

So I guess this question is mostly for the benefit of you older people in the room. That's actually kind of sad. Almost 37% of the people here aren't certain or are just saying no that the older people in their life have purpose and meaning. So that's some food for thought for you to take home. If you're a parent here, or a teacher, or someone older in a leadership position, do the people around you feel like they are seeing you modelling a life of purpose and meaning?

And then last of all, if you want I'm going to go home and make more reports with this data. If you want that, you can send me your email address. You can text it because I don't have your contact information any other way. So it may interest you, it may not. I really enjoy working with data. I love getting large datasets and making charts and graphs and all that stuff. So that's why I do stuff like this, because I enjoy that. So thank you for your participation in that. That's very interesting to me, and I'm going to enjoy digesting that later. But I want to get started into talking a little bit about purpose. One of the things that I or the thing that I want to do is talk about purpose principles.

I have five principles that I'm calling purpose principles, and I want to go down through those and kind of look at each of them and what some of the places that we can find purpose in life. Just switching back to my slideshow here.

All right. First of all, we have an enemy that offers many decoys for purpose. That's purpose principle number one. This started in Genesis 3. It wasn't long at all after the earth was created that a decoy for our purpose as humans came up. It says in Genesis 3:5-6, "For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when this woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. So there, from the very beginning, was the first decoy or deception of purpose.

The devil came and said, "Are you sure God really knows what he's talking about? Are you sure that that's actually what's best for you?" It says in John, verse 10, "The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I have come that you may have life, and that you may have it more abundantly."

In the Psalms, there was a person by the name of Asaph that was also struggling with this question. And I'm going to read some verses out of Psalm 73, not the whole thing for the sake of time. But as I read across this, think of people that you see, especially think of sort of wicked people you see out and about that look like they're being very successful and are very happy. And I think especially for any of you that expose yourself to social media, you see lots of stuff on social media where it's wicked people that look successful and look happy. They look like they have purpose. They look like they have meaning. And what do you make of that all?

It says in Psalm 73, "A Psalm of Asaph. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like other men. Their eyes bulge with abundance. They have more than heart could wish. Behold, these are ungodly who are always at ease. They increase in riches." So when I read that, I right away think of social media influencers. They are ungodly who are always at ease in the increase in riches. That's what it looks like. "Surely I've cleansed my heart and vein and washed my hands in innocence.

For all day long I've been plagued and chastened every morning. When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me. Until I went to the sanctuary of God, then I understood their end. Oh, how they are brought to desolation as in a moment. They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakens. So, Lord, when you awake, you shall despise their image. Nevertheless, I'm continually with you. You hold me by my right hand. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides you. For indeed, those who are far from you shall perish."

So the devil is very deceptive. He will give us lots of things. He'll put lots of things in front of us to make us think that we can pursue purpose and that item when it won't bring true or lasting purpose. So as a baseline of finding our purpose in life, we need to accept God as our Creator and trust that he knows what is best for us. And that sounds like a very basic statement. You're all Christian people, and I assume that you know the fact that God is your Creator, and I assume you would know the Sunday school answer that he knows what is best for us. But sometimes you have to stop and consciously tell yourself that.

And sometimes you even have to tell yourself when you see things that look otherwise, you have to say, "No, God is the Creator. He knows what is best." And if someone isn't in that, they aren't finding everything that they could find in life. So when you look at people that appear to be successful, appear to be finding meaning, if they are not fitting into what God created them to be, you can guarantee yourself, regardless of how they look like on the outside, regardless of what they present on social media or to the public, you can guarantee that they are not finding the fulfillment in life that God made possible for us to find. It's just a given.

And you can just rest in that fact, even when what your perception is telling you looks differently. "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." That's a quote by a prominent atheist. Remember the book I showed you that had 250 letters written to it? This is out of that. "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless." That's what an atheist wrote back.

Psalms 100, verse 2 says, "Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture."

1 John 5, "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know him who is true. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen."

C.S. Lewis said, "The more we let God take us over, the more truly we become ourselves because he made us." And that is just the exact opposite of what the majority of worldly wisdom would tell you today because we're taught or we're told to discover ourselves and be ourselves and pursue our purpose, pursue our passion. But that's not the way it works. God made us. We are his creatures and his creation. And so the more we become like God, the more we'll become ourselves.

Principle purpose number two, this is what I call the Pat answer or the Sunday school answer. We are created for God's glory. And I think I didn't ask you this when I started, but I think most of you could have came up with this answer on your own, that we're created for God's glory. And personally, when I was thinking about this topic, I actually barely liked that real well because it felt too abstract. It felt like if someone is struggling with purpose and meaning in life, it didn't feel practical enough to actually apply. But the more I studied and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that just because something is a Sunday school answer doesn't mean it isn't the correct answer.

And I think that this is the answer in a very deep way, that our purpose in life is for God's glory. And it goes back to what I was saying earlier about him creating us. God says himself in Scripture, in Isaiah, God says, "Everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory." So there's God speaking. He's stating it, that he has created us for his glory.

So what does it mean to glorify God? I feel like Jesus defined this as good as anyone could. When Jesus was praying to God in John 17, he said to God, "I have glorified you on earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do." So that was how Jesus glorified God, by doing what God gave him to do. It means to fulfil the purpose that God created for us. A bird collecting worms and sitting in the tree singing or building a nest is glorifying God because it's doing exactly what God made it to do. The planets in their orbit, the constellations, the celestial events, all those things are glorifying God because they're doing exactly what God created them to do.

They don't have the freedom of choice. That's all they will ever do because God made them to do that. For us, it works the same way. We are glorifying God when we are doing what he created us to do. But the element of variance with us is that we have a freedom of choice. We can choose whether we're going to cooperate with that planet or not.

I'm not sure if any of you like making things or building things, whether you, I don't know, do any woodworking or sewing or whatever, just any sort of creativity. Maybe it's even something like art, making painting or a song or whatever.

None of us can truly create things. We can just reassemble the pieces that God gave us. But we are created in God's image, and we do have creativity. And I think that if you think about it from the perspective of you being the creator, you making something, and how that thing turns out, that reflects on you. If it does what you made it to do, it brings a lot more glory to you than if it doesn't. I personally am interested in robots. I made a robot one time. It was supposed to be a self-balancing robot on two wheels. It was supposed to have code, and it kept itself balanced as it drove along. It didn't work.

It just flopped over flat on the floor. Didn't bring me very much glory. Just laid there on the floor. And so we are not robots. God gave us the freedom of choice. But the bottom line is God created us, and he created us for a specific purpose. And if we don't fit into that, we're not bringing him glory.

I believe that self-centredness is one of the huge hindrances to glorifying God. Self-centredness is just flat out incompatible with bringing God glory. There's so much content, so many books. Do you remember that picture of all the bookshelves I showed you? 99% of those books are completely worthless to a Christian because they have a very humanistic and self-centred perspective. Just completely wrong. They're starting from just a wrong basis. We're taught to ask self-centred questions like, "What are my goals? What do I want to be? What should I do with my time? What are my dreams?" And we're taught to kind of pursue those things. But as it says, as Rick Warren says, "It's not about you.

The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It is far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose." So when you think of pursuing purpose, God created you for his glory and for his purpose. And it's not really something you get to invent or choose or decide what your purpose is. God has decided that for you.

It says in Corinthians, "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's." And Jesus says in Mark, "Whoever desires" actually, I have it here on the slide. "Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospels will save it. For what will profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"

So once again, I think most of us know that verse. We're Christian people with Christian education. And I think a lot of us are familiar with this verse. It's a very familiar one. But we don't always remember the reality of it, that we have to deny ourselves to find purpose. It's not about us and our fulfillment. Focusing on ourselves will never reveal life's purpose to us. Self-help books, even Christian ones, often offer this generic path to purpose of dreaming big, setting goals, figure out what you're good at, aim high, be disciplined, believe that you can achieve your goals, never give up, all those things. And often, if you follow those recommendations, it will actually work in an earthly sense.

You may accomplish some level of success. You may accomplish your goals. But you could do all those things. You could reach the goals you set out to reach and still miss God's purpose for you. And when you get to the middle of your life, you could still be having a severe midlife crisis.

Purpose principle number three, lasting purpose can only be found in the eternal. Outside of the eternal, there is no meaning or there is no purpose. Everything is just meaningless and a rat race. There is nothing new under the sun. It's just a cyclic event without meaning. And I think this is especially important for youth to think about. The reason why people start having a midlife crisis later in life is they realise that they're finite beings. They aren't going to live forever. Their time is limited. And so I just want to remind you again to have your midlife crisis now. You aren't going to live as long and be as invincible as it feels like at the moment.

It says in Psalms sorry, it says in Psalms, "Lord, made me to know my end and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am. Indeed, you have made my days as handbreadths, and my ages as nothing before you. Certainly, every man at his best state is but a vapour." So I think I'm talking to people here today that are at their best state. And you're but a vapour.

William James, a popular psychologist, said, "The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it." And there's very, very few things that will outlast your life. In fact, the only thing that will outlast your life is the kingdom of God. And that includes some other things like the souls of people and things like that. But it's very few things. The kingdom of God is the only thing that's going to last. So if you want to find your purpose in life, it has to be spent for something that will outlast it. There are many things that make us happy, make us feel good, but do not bring lasting value, even if they have a temporary sense of purpose.

You were not put on the earth to be remembered. You were put here to prepare for eternity.

It says in Ecclesiastes 1:11, "No one remembers the former generation, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them." So that's a sobering fact. If your goal is to make a splash in life and make a difference in the world, no one's going to remember you.

I'm curious, how many of you here know the name of one of your parents' grandparents? So that would be like your great-great-grandparent. Raise your hand if you know a name. There's actually more than I expect. There's like half of you probably would know a name of one of your great-great-grandparents, which is amazing. The other half of you didn't raise your hands. I didn't raise my hand because I actually don't I think if I thought long enough, I could come up with it. But off the top of my head, I don't know. So the point is that two or three generations from now, the people will forget you. There's many accomplished people that few people remember.

So I'm going to do just a little raise-of-hands quiz here to see. How many of you know who Millard Fillmore is? There's a couple. I don't know. Maybe 15 to 20 percent. That was the 13th president of the United States. So there you go. You can become the president of a country, the country that you all live in. And a few generations later, just a handful of people will even know who you were. Does anyone know who Gideon Sunback is? I don't see a single hand. I didn't really expect it. This is kind of an odd trivia fact. All of you benefit from him probably pretty much every day of your life. He invented the zipper.

Did he make an impact on the world?

Chester A. Arthur, can I see hands on that one? Okay. That's pretty good. I would estimate it with 30 percent. That is the 21st president of the United States.

Samuel Brown, I see a few hesitant hands. It's probably like 2 percent of the people raising their hands. He patented the first combustion engine in the United States. That's a pretty big accomplishment. That's a pretty big achievement. We benefit from it every day. All of you drove here in cars. And like 2 percent of you even recognise his name. Benjamin Harrison, I hope I see a few more hands on this one.

There's more on that one than some. Trying to get them easier here as we go. He was the 23rd president of the United States. And last of all, Tim Berners-Lee. He's a little more modern, but in a specific industry.

Okay. There's only like maybe four or five hands up. I expected to see more than that on this one. He is credited with basically there were multiple people contributing to it, but he was a computer scientist that basically invented the World Wide Web. And so once again, making a huge impact on the world. And there's hardly anyone here that recognises his name. So the point that I'm making is just the truth of Ecclesiastes, that no one remembers former generations, and you will not be remembered by the generations that follow. So don't use vain accomplishments for your purpose in life.

Actually, that is what I wanted. So it says in Luke verse 12, "Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses." And then I'm kind of skipping some verses, going down to the parable of the rich fool. It says, "But God said to him, 'Fool, this night your soul will be required of you. Then who will these things be, which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.'" Pursuing wealth and materialism and earthly possessions will never bring meaning. I'm involved in search and rescue with Christian Aid Ministries pretty heavily. And we do a lot of drowning recoveries.

And I would say probably about 50 percent of the recoveries we do are people who have decided to take their own life in the water. And so that adds a unique perspective on life to be doing that. And probably the one that made the biggest impact on me and kind of just was the most sobering to me was one time we were searching for a man who left his multimillion-dollar waterfront property in his couple hundred thousand dollar boat, wearing a $50,000 Rolex watch, and decided that his only option or his only purpose in life was to end his own life. And weeks later, his lifeless body was recovered, still wearing his $50,000 Rolex. And to me, it just epitomised what it means that life or sorry, life does not consist in the abundance of things that we possess.

If you would have seen that individual on the street before his tragedy, you would have thought he looked like a successful person that had life figured out, was achieving things. He probably looked happy. I don't know. I didn't see him. But he was probably the kind of person that if you just saw him face value from a worldly perspective, you would have thought he had it figured out. But he didn't.

The Bible portrays life here on earth as being aliens, pilgrims, foreigners, strangers, visitors, travellers. And this explains why we experience difficulty and sorrow, seemingly unanswered prayers, bad circumstances, painful experiences. This life is not the end of the story, and earth is not our home. Our reward is in eternal. It says in James that when we have stood the test, we will receive the crown of life.

So I want to think a little bit about what could be encapsulated in this idea of focusing on what is eternal, because that is literally the only thing that will bring purpose to your life. One is a relationship with God and other human beings. Basically, what Jesus said in Matthew, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. "You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Relationships with others are incredibly important. Humans have eternal souls. And they are one of the few eternal things that we brush with here on our stay on earth. Relationships, not achievement or things, are what matter most in life. And unfortunately, when our schedules get full and we get busy, it's one of the first things we start cutting back on or cutting out. Reading a quote once again from Pastor Rick Warren, he says, "I've been at the bedside of many people in their final moments, when they stand on the edge of eternity. And I've never heard anyone say, 'Bring me my diplomas. I want to look at them one more time. Show me my awards, my medals, the gold watch I was given.'" When life on earth is ending, people don't surround themselves with objects.