Stop Chasing Purpose — You Already Have One

Ephesians 1:11-14

Whether people realize it or not, every human being is searching for purpose. The self-help world offers its answers — find your passion, be true to yourself, ask what makes you happy. These aren't bad questions, but they are pointed in the wrong direction. They are questions that orbit around us. And the problem with making ourselves the center of our own story is that we were never meant to be.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, written in 1647, opens with the most important question a person can ask: What is the chief end of man? The answer is both simple and staggering: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever (1 Corinthians 10:31; Romans 11:36; Psalm 73:25-28).

That single sentence reorients everything.

Glorify God and Enjoy Him — At the Same Time
Here's where many Christians quietly get stuck. We know in our minds that we are supposed to glorify God. And yet, if we're honest, what we really want — what we can't seem to stop wanting — is to be happy. These two desires can feel like they're in tension with each other.

They're not.

Glorifying God and enjoying God are not competing pursuits. They are the same pursuit. As John Piper has written, the goal is "a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all spheres of life." He goes further: if we display the excellence of God without joy, we slide into legalism and hypocrisy. If we claim to enjoy God but nothing of Him overflows into our lives and outward to others, that too is a kind of hypocrisy. We must enjoy and display at the same time.

Jesus promised abundant life to those who follow Him (John 10:10), and the psalmist knew this satisfaction firsthand, declaring that there was nothing in heaven or earth he desired besides God (Psalm 73:25). Abundant life is not found by chasing it. It is found in Him.

What It Actually Means to Glorify God
There is a common misunderstanding worth clearing up: when we glorify God, we are not making Him more glorious. God cannot be improved. He cannot be made more beautiful, more powerful, more worthy. He is already all of those things perfectly and infinitely. Even creation itself cannot stay silent about it (Luke 19:40).

So what does it mean to glorify Him?

Think about standing at the top of a Colorado 14er. If you pull out a magnifying glass and start examining the square yard of dirt and rock at your feet, you are technically magnifying — but you're missing everything. Now imagine pulling out a pair of binoculars. Suddenly, an unimaginably vast and beautiful landscape comes into clearer view — and yet, the more you see, the more you realize there is so much more to see than you can possibly take in.
That is what it means to glorify God. Our lives are meant to be binoculars — helping the people around us see glimpses of a glory that is already there, already infinite, already breathtaking. We don't create His glory. We display it.

And when we actually see it for what it is, the response is awe. We take pictures that don't do it justice. We try to explain it to people who weren't there. We know full well that they won't fully understand until they see it for themselves. That is the invitation of the Christian life — not just to have seen the view, but to bring others to the top of the mountain.

The Danger of the Mirror
Now consider a different scenario on that same 14er: instead of binoculars, you ask for a mirror. Surrounded by mirrors, you can only see yourself. The view is still there — vast and glorious — but you have no desire to look beyond your own reflection.

This is what sin does. It turns us inward. It convinces us that love is about making us feel good about ourselves, that life is about what's in it for us, that God exists to serve our comfort. It is a man-centered gospel, and much of what passes for Christianity in America today is exactly that — a substitute product that looks and sounds similar but fails to produce deep reverence, true repentance, genuine humility, or any real giving of glory to God.

The truth is harder and better: God is more concerned with our growth than our comfort. He is the center — not us. And paradoxically, it is only when we embrace that reality that we find what we were looking for all along. A God-centered view of life is not one that diminishes us — it is the one that rightly orients us, reminding us that we are fallen, that we need salvation, and that the same God our sin offends is the One who loved us enough to provide a way out.

In Him — Everything
Paul makes the case for all of this in Ephesians 1. Notice how many times he uses the phrase in Him or in Christ across just a few verses. It is relentless and intentional. And look at what those "in Hims" bring: every spiritual blessing, being chosen, redemption through His blood, restoration, an inheritance, hope, the word of truth, the gospel of salvation, and the seal of the Holy Spirit.

All of it — every blessing — flows from being in Him. And then Paul tells us twice why (Ephesians 1:12, 14): everything is to the praise of His glory.

We were not an afterthought. God's sovereign plan — worked out according to the counsel of His own will — leads to this: His glory praised, His children blessed, His name honored throughout all of history and into eternity.

The picture of heaven in Revelation says it all. The four living creatures never cease declaring the holiness of God (Revelation 4:8-11). The angels, elders, and living creatures fall on their faces in worship, ascribing blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might to God forever (Revelation 7:11-12). That is where all of history is headed. That is the crescendo the whole story is building toward.

The Question Worth Asking
So here is the question the Westminster Catechism drives us back to, and the question Ephesians 1 answers: What are you living for?

If the honest answer is mostly yourself — your comfort, your reputation, your happiness — then the invitation today is to fix your center. Not because God needs your glory, but because you need to give it. Because in glorifying Him, you find the abundant life Jesus promised. Because the joy that overflows from truly knowing Him is the very thing your neighbors, your coworkers, and your family are desperate to see.

Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.

These are not two things. They are one. And they are yours — in Him.