God's Telos: Our Hope

We live in a world of pessimism, negativity, and doom and gloom. This world preaches despair and hopelessness. The prevalent worldview is fatalism. The philosophy of the world is that this world, and life itself is awful.

Are you familiar with the nove Don Quixote, or its musical version Man of La Mancha? In the story Alonso Quijano loses his mind. He goes insane, and the lines between reality and fiction become blurred to the point that he believes that he is a knight. He changes his name to Don Quixote of La Mancha. The, he declares a neighboring farm girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, to be his lady love, and renames Dulcinea del Toboso. He does this without her knowing anything about it. He goes out on a knight's adventure, ends up at an inn he thinks is a castle. He gets into a fight because someone insulted his dear Dulcinea. The fights results in Don being severely beaten and left by the side of the road. Most famously, he gets into fights with windmills because he thinks they are giants.

The story of Don Quixote would simply be a comedy if not for the worldview the author is trying to community through the story. The point of the novel is that life is hard, unfair, miserable, and intolerable. There is no hope. There is no relief. And because life is awful and hopeless, it's better to go insane and live in a fantasy world; that's preferred to sanity and to dealing with the reality of a miserable world.

That's the exact same philosophy behind the T.V. show House. The show is based on the worldview that life is terrible. Therefore, for the main character, Dr. Greg House, it is better to be under the haze of painkillers than to be sober and deal with the brutal harshness of the world.

Why does the world teach this? It's because according tot he world this world has no purpose. The world teaches that the world is here by accident--the result of random accident after random accident--the consequence of time, heat, mutation, and chance. And it that is the case, then there's no purpose to life. And if that is the case, then if and when you find life to be pure misery, tough...that's just the way it is...just find a way to cope with it.

The world teaches this lie, and too many have bought into it. That's why there's so much depression and addiction. Addiction is nothing more than people trying to escape from misery (ironically making life more miserable). It's using alcohol, drugs, pornography, sex, relationships, money, shopping, food, etc. as a coping mechanism to temporarily relieve the pain and despair of life.

This is the lie that the entire advertising industry is built upon: "use this product and you'll feel better about life," "buy this new toy and feel better about your life," "purchase the latest and greatest and take the edge off of life's problems." This world does nothing but promote temporary relief to life's despair and hopelessness.

But Christianity offers an alternative. While the world offers a lie, Christianity offers the truth. There is hope! This world isn't random. The universe is not an accident. All of this, all of us, are here on purpose. God created the world and everything it; and God doesn't do anything accidentally, randomly, or arbitrarily. God has a telos, an intended goal/end for this world. God created the world on purpose and with a purpose. And that being the case, we can have hope.

What is God's telos? God's purpose for making the world and all of us is to have a people for His own possession (1 Peter 2:9). Jeremiah 31:33 tells us God's telos for the world: "I will be there God and they shall be My people." God doesn't want us to live in misery. He wants to live with Him and to enjoy His grace and love. God's goal, even before the words "In the beginning" (Genesis 1:1), is to have a people close to Himself. God created all of this, all of us, that we may enjoy Him and that He may enjoy us -- for all eternity! This is God's telos, and it is our hope!

How do we know this is true? First of all, God created everything. Secondly, God saved everything. The reason there is so much misery is because of sin. Through sin, we (all of us - every person) foster misery. Sin breeds despair and hopelessness. But God's plan is joy, peace, and hope; and that is why the Father sent the Son (Jesus Christ) into this world. Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross in order to fix the mess we have made. Through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the world was re-created. That is the gospel. The gospel is what transforms hopelessness into hope. The gospel is what proves that God has a telos for the world: a people created and re-created to be close to God.

In awe of Jesus,

Pastor Rick