The Mission of Mankind
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, – act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;-
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
“A Psalm of Life”
What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Who am I?
What is my purpose?
When is this all going to make sense?
Where am I going with my life?
Why was I created?
These are the 5 W’s that humans have continually asked themselves from Adam’s generation, to Jesus’ generation, to Longfellow’s generation, to our generation. I suspect all of mankind will ask these, and similar questions, until the end of time as we know it.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow did an outstanding job of answering these age old questions. Time and space will not allow me to pick apart every passage of this poetic piece in great detail, but allow me to briefly summarize the heart of it:
– Wake up! There is a purpose to life on earth.
– This temporal existence is not all there is.
– Life is more than a meaningless series of ups and downs…we are made to grow and flourish through these.
– We are all going to die a physical death no matter how hard we try to escape it.
– Don’t go along with the worldly herd. Be a soldier for Christ!
– Don’t live in the past or future. Live in the here and now.
– Let us take heart from the ones who have gone on before us and succeeded.
– No matter how hard life gets, let us use our trials to bring others to victory.
– Work hard and never give up…it will all be worth it in the end.
Friend, you may at times feel like you are just a drop in the ocean…small, insignificant, and unnoticed. Yet you are a vital part of God’s story…the one He has been unfolding since the dawn of creation. You have a mission…you just may not realize it yet.
Who are you?
What is your purpose?
When is this all going to make sense?
Where are you going with your life?
Why were you created?
You don’t have to guess the answers, and you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. Let us look to God’s word to unveil the three-fold Mission of Mankind.
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to…
Do justly.
(From Micah 6:8)
The first mission of mankind we will look into is the mission to Glorify God.
Glorifying God with our lives sounds great in theory, but how do we accomplish such a feat? What glorifies the Lord, anyway? In Micah 6:8, we discover that God is glorified when we “do justly“. This makes a lot of sense, because our God is a God of justice…
We find in Job 37:23 that the Lord has “justice in plenty“. Psalm 89:14 calls justice the “habitation of God’s throne“. Believe it or not, justice is even “more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice“, according to Proverbs 21:3.
Just as “God is love” (1 John 4:8), God is also justice. When we as God’s children do justly, we are acting in accordance with our Father’s image, which we were made to represent. Thus, God is glorified.
But…
What exactly is justice? How might one go about “doing justly“? When we think of the word justice, we might visualize a criminal being apprehended and locked behind bars. They have been “brought to justice” for the crimes they have committed. This is indeed one aspect of justice. Yet in a more complete sense, justice is godly equality. Justice is a righteous equation. Are you seeing a pattern here? Justice is moral mathematics…
A just weight and balance are the Lord’s: all the weights of the bag are his work. – Proverbs 16:11
By contrast, “Divers weights are an abomination unto the Lord; and a false balance is not good. – Proverbs 20:23
As a teacher of mathematics, reading these well-known verses recently hit me anew like a ton of bricks. Weight? Balance? Why, those are mathematical terms! We all know that justice is when bad guys get bad things, and good guys get good things. This is easy to see in a practical sense. Yet how do we know these things are just? Because, with justice, just like with mathematics: one plus one will always equal two, and two plus two will always equal four. Justice is unchanging every bit as much as these sums are. We can know that a criminal going to prison is just, because all we have to do is check the equation: Person + Crime = Punishment. If the sum is correct, then we know that the outcome is just.
Want to glorify God? You have to do justly. Want to do justly? You need to be a good math student. Want to be a good math student? You must master the skill of solving spiritual math problems.
Does our spiritual life add up with God’s word? Do we rightly divide the word of truth? Do we subtract sin from our life and multiply godly attributes?
Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity. – Job 31:6
A just man or woman provides all things equal in the sight of God. A just person knows they can never deceive God into accepting faulty equations! Consider a math teacher asking their student to recite the sum of two plus two, and the student answers “three”. Will a learned teacher accept three as the appropriate answer? Of course not. The answer always has been, and always will be, four. The answer three is a false balance…it doesn’t add up. The student only has two options: change their answer to the answer that is true, or continue to be wrong. So it is with us as students of God’s word. We can accept that the sum of His word is truth (Psalm 119:60) and follow it obediently, or we can do things our own way…continuing to be the class dunce and ultimately failing. Which do you think will glorify God?
Glorify God and so fulfill the Mission of Mankind.
If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. – Malachi 2:2
Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? For thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee: for thy judgments are made manifest. – Revelation 15:4
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to…
Love mercy.
(From Micah 6:8)
The second mission of mankind we will look into is the mission to Edify others.
What does it mean to edify? Edification is the act of bettering another person…to improve their present state and encourage growth.
Edification is a primarily Christian attribute. I say this because it is not an altogether natural instinct to take interest in the betterment of others. It is natural to look out for yours truly, but it is only Christ’s spirit in us that compels us to look beyond ourselves to edify another! Our main text (Micah 6:8) says that the Lord requires us to “love mercy”. When we love mercy, we don’t want to see those we love being eternally punished for their sins…rather, we want to see them repent and turn their lives over to the Lord so He doesn’t have to take such measures. A Christian is not content to wash their hands of others with an apathetic “not my problem” sort of attitude. Lovers of mercy take the salvation of others seriously, and therefore place a high priority on edification.
Why should we love mercy? Well, just as we want to be just because God is just…we want to be merciful because God is merciful.
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. – Psalm 103:8
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. – Luke 6:36
Another reason to love mercy is the fact that God has made it impossible to receive mercy unless we are willing to give mercy!
With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful… – 2 Samuel 22:26a
The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh. – Proverbs 11:17
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. – Matthew 5:7
Like I mentioned previously, we can show God’s mercy to others by edifying them. We show mercy when we gently speak the truth in love while correcting error…when we attempt to keep passive church members involved…when we engage in personal ministry…when we aren’t overly sensitive and choose instead to believe the best about our brethren. Lovers of mercy know that there’s more to life than simply looking out for yours truly…we have a responsibility to edify another guy!
Edify others and so fulfill the Mission of Mankind.
Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. – Romans 14:19
Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. – Philippians 2:4
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to…
Walk humbly with thy God.
(From Micah 6:8)
The final mission of mankind we will look into is the mission to Sanctify ourselves.
Our text in Micah 6:8 goes on to say that we are to “walk humbly with our God”. What does it mean to walk humbly? To do something in a humble manner is to do it with an attitude of servitude/submission. When we walk humbly, we are in essence saying, “my position is lower than yours, Lord. YOU are the master, and I the slave”. It is sometimes said of a female who has given her virginity over to her husband, that she has been “humbled”. While this analogy may come across as crude, it’s not all that different from what should happen to us as the bride of Christ (in a symbolic sense, you understand). When we commit our life to Him, as a bride does to her husband, it is only fitting that we should be stripped bare and exposed to our “groom” who now owns the right to every bit of us. We become humbled the selfsame day that we give ourselves to Him, imperfections and all. Furthermore, as a husband should have the right to his wife on a daily basis, so should the Lord enjoy the right of us “walking humbly” with Him daily – a continual, ongoing act on our parts!
If we want to “walk humbly” with God, we have to sanctify ourselves. To sanctify something is to set it apart – to cleanse and purify it for a holy use. When a bride declares to her husband through the act of marriage, “I am yours and yours alone”, she is sanctifying herself for her man. She is giving a message to the world that she is not available, and that she will only be humbled by her husband. In a marriage, we sanctify ourselves with a wedding ceremony…in Christianity, we sanctify ourselves with a baptism.
Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. – Romans 6:3-5
Many reject the idea that one must do anything for their own sanctification. The world is saturated with denominations teaching that all one must do is believe to be saved, and God will take care of all the other details. This concept is simply not in alignment with God’s word! We are told to save ourselves (Acts 2:40)…and scripture tells us repeatedly how we are to do so. Salvation is a free gift, that much is true…but just as a bride may have an all-expenses-paid wedding ceremony, if she does not show up and follow through with the ceremony and each rite it entails, she is no bride at all…but remains a single woman. In like manner, a bride who does not consummate her marriage by giving her body over to her man is no wife…but an impostor. To be a true wife, first she must sanctify herself, and then she must continue to walk humbly (in a humbled fashion). Will our heavenly “groom” expect any less?
Sanctify yourself and so fulfill the Mission of Mankind.
Sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. – 2 Chronicles 29:5b
For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. – Hebrews 2:11
In conclusion…
What is the mission for mankind? It’s no mystery! With God’s word as our guide, we don’t even have to guess. On second thought, though, you might say that we do have to “G.E.S.” – for all of us are here on this earth with the mission to Glorify, Edify, and Sanctify. Are you with me?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? – Micah 6:8
For God’s Glory,
Mrs. Dustin Bolks
Mrs. Dustin Bolks is a church of Christ preacher’s wife, and the home educating mother of two children. She and her family currently reside in Northwest Iowa.