Lesson 1: The Life Worth Living

“I find personal significance only in relationship with my Creator.”

To see how sin destroys the wholeness and purpose of life, and how conversion begins restoration.

► What can make a person’s life seem worthwhile?

It seems that many people never wonder what life’s purpose is. They go through their routine of work and entertainment, and live as if this life will never end.

Other people are very concerned about their purpose, or the significance of their life. Some live with a sense of desperation. They wonder if they have the right goals, and feel unsatisfied even if they do achieve them. They feel that somehow they are missing the main thing in life.

Some people deny that there is any purpose to life.

We know that we have purpose because we know that we were created. If God made us, he must have had a purpose for us. That purpose is the way of fulfillment and satisfaction. Using our life for something else would be only a waste.

I don’t want my life to be wasted. I don’t think that you do either.

► What purpose did God have for us?

We can find the answer in the Garden of Eden, the place that God set up for the first people he created. Before sin changed anything, everything was as God designed.

So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion...” (Genesis 1:27-28).

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18).

These verses show us something about God’s design for human life. The first man was made in God’s image, and was in relationship with God. He was given a wife to love and be in relationship with. That first marriage was the beginning of a family and further relationships among people. He had the task of caring for the garden, and ruling over the rest of creation, so he was also in relationship with the world God made.

So we see relationships in three dimensions:

• Relationship between people and God

• Relationships among people

• Relationship between people and God’s world

The relationship with God is the one that sets the others right.

Try to imagine what the world would be like today if there were harmony in all three of these relationship dimensions.

► How would things be different between people and nature? (People would use the earth properly. Nothing in creation would be harmful.)

► How would things be different among people? (No crime, no war, no oppression)

► How would things be different between people and God? (No sin, no guilt, people directed by God)

I don’t want my life to be wasted, so I need to fulfill the purpose I was created for. The reason you and I exist is to be in relationship with God, his people, and his world. If I do not follow that purpose, I might as well not exist!

It’s easy to see that the world today is not what God planned it to be. So what happened?

The explanation of the world’s present condition is in Genesis 3. Notice the following aspects of this record. (Briefly tell the story of man’s fall into sin.)

1. The probation: God’s original plan was interrupted by man’s sin.

2. The temptation: Satan tempted Adam and Eve with the prospect of being independent of God, able to govern their own lives, when he said, “…you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).

3. The doubt: Satan’s questions were designed to make them doubt God’s wisdom and sincerity. A person who sins doubts God—that he knows and intends the best. Before their act of sin, they first yielded to the temptation to disbelieve God—unbelief.

4. The rebellion: By Adam and Eve’s action, they rejected God as the authority and guide of their life.

5. The separation: Sin destroyed the harmony in all three relationship dimensions. They tried to hide from God. Their attitudes toward each other changed, and there would later be a murder in the family. They would struggle with nature to make it produce what they needed. All future humanity would be born with a sinful tendency, commit acts of sin, and live with damaged relationships in all three dimensions.

God did not just abandon the first people to their fate because they had sinned. He came and called to them with the question, “Where are you?” He didn’t ask that question because he couldn’t find them. He asked it because he wanted them to realize and admit what had happened to their relationship with him.

God still seeks to bring lost people back to himself. He desires reconciliation—renewal of the intended relationship.

Now God asks you the same question: “Where are you?”

If you are out of relationship with God, that is the reason for your sense of lostness and purposelessness. Separation also causes fear of the future, of death, and of judgment.

The Bible is a large volume about prophets, prophecies, kings, laws, and history, but it has one theme all the way through. The message of the whole Bible is that God wants to bring sinners back into relationship with himself and his people.

The most important thing about you is your relationship with God.

Ask someone to share how getting into relationship with God brought meaning to his life.

Ask these questions for voluntary responses:

► How would you answer the question, “Where are you?” in relation to God? Are you in relationship with him, or is he still a stranger to you?

► Does it seem that you once knew God but have broken your relationship with him?

Ask for reflections on the statement, “The most important thing about you is your relationship with God.”

► Do we tend to forget that? Do we live in a way that is consistent with that truth?

Heavenly Father,

I thank you for creating me, making me for the purpose of knowing you.

Thank you for bringing me back from my sin into a renewed relationship with you. Thank you for your forgiveness.

Because I want to live in the joy of knowing you, I will live in obedient love for you. Make my obedience possible by your Holy Spirit within me.

I pray in the name of Jesus, who died for me.

Amen

Read Genesis 1-3. Look for references to relationship. In chapter 3, look for the aspects described in this lesson in the section “The Biblical Record of Man’s Fall.” Write a few paragraphs about what you see.