What does First B Jackson teach about meaning of life?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the question of what makes life meaningful gets answered from two different angles, but both land in the same place. In the Philippians series, Pastor Mark worked through Paul's famous declaration that 'to live is Christ, and to die is gain,' and he treated it as a personal and searching question, not a comfortable one. His point was that Christianity is about Christ first, not morality first, and that Paul's joy in prison, his ability to forgive rivals, and his calm in the face of an uncertain verdict all flowed from a single source: his life was anchored in Christ. Pastor Mark pressed the congregation to honestly fill in the blank for themselves, 'For to me, to live is _____, and to die is _____,' because the answer a person lives by reveals what they actually believe about meaning.
The Ecclesiastes series approached the same question from the other direction. Both Pastor Mark and Pastor Ray introduced the book by explaining that Solomon, writing from a position of unmatched wisdom and experience, was not simply being pessimistic when he called everything vanity. He was describing, accurately, what life looks like when God is left out of the equation. The phrase 'under the sun,' which runs through the book nearly thirty times, signals that Solomon is deliberately reporting life from a purely earthly vantage point. That vantage point, the teaching argued, only leads to two destinations: despair or hedonism.
The conclusion Solomon builds toward, and the conclusion both messages pointed to, is that meaning is not found by accumulating more experience or wisdom or pleasure, but by fearing God and keeping His commandments. That is not a moralistic add-on. It is the answer the whole book is arguing toward, and it matches what Paul wrote from his prison cell in Philippians: a life rooted in Christ is the only life that holds together when everything else is stripped away.
Taught from Philippians 1:21 · Galatians 2:20 · Ecclesiastes 12:13 · Ecclesiastes 12:8 · 1 Kings 3:5-14
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 11:23-25
23 For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread.
24 When he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in memory of me.”
25 In the same way he also took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink, in memory of me.”
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- November 19, 2017 To Live Is Christ, To Die Is Gain A sermon on Philippians 1:18-26 asking one honest question: if you filled in the blank, "for me, to live is ___," what would your answer be?
- April 21, 2013 Introducing Ecclesiastes, Morning Praise (3) A Wyoming pastor opens a three-week series on Ecclesiastes, showing why life looks meaningless without God and why fearing God changes everything.
- April 21, 2013 Introducing Ecclesiastes, Traditions Solomon called everything "vanity," but his conclusion was not despair. Pastor explores Ecclesiastes and what it means to fear God and keep His commandments.