The Problem of Life
Text: I Peter 3:10-12
Series: Restoration Sermons
Date:
Speaker: Ed Rangel
Location: Waupaca Church of Christ
Bible Version: NASB 1995
Sermon Type: Expository
Learning Objectives
By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:
- Define the Christ life from John 17:3 and explain in their own words what it means to know God and Christ.
- State why the Christ life is "the only life we were created to live" and support it from Eccl. 12:13 and Micah 6:8.
- Identify the six reasons why the Christ life is the only satisfactory life and state at least three from memory.
- Explain why every other life is a "failure" — not in the worldly sense but in the sense of what life was designed to produce.
- Name the two scripture texts used to define the life that insures eternal happiness.
Thesis
The problem of life is not which strategy to use to maximize it — it is which life to live at all. There is only one life that is not a failure: the Christ life, which is the only life man was created to live, the only life that honors God, the only life that develops character, the only life that carries the promises of God, and the only life that insures eternal happiness.
Burden
The sermon frames itself as a solution to the fundamental problem: What is the right way to live? Not in the sense of technique or discipline, but in the sense of ultimate orientation. Every person who does not live the Christ life is living a life that will fail — not necessarily in material terms, but in the terms that matter: what the life was designed to produce. The six-section structure answers the question from six directions, each one supplying an independent reason why the Christ life is the only satisfactory answer.
Introduction
"For, 'The one who desires life, to love and see good days, must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. He must turn away from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears attend to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil'" (I Pet. 3:10-12). The text frames the question structurally: there are those who desire life and good days, and there is a condition for receiving them. The condition is not prosperity; it is righteousness. The problem of life is not what will make it pleasant — it is what will make it what it was meant to be.
The question before this lesson: What is the problem of life? The problem is not material or social — it is spiritual and fundamental. The problem is to discover which life is the right life: the one life that, when lived, produces what a human life was designed to produce.
I. What Is the Christ Life? What Is a Christian?
The question must be answered before the argument can proceed.
"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). This is the Lord's own definition: eternal life — the Christ life — is knowing God and knowing Christ. Not knowing about them; not being acquainted with the facts of their existence; but the knowing that is relationship, that is ongoing encounter, that is trust and love and communion.
The Christ life is the life of a child of God (I John 3:1-2). The person who lives the Christ life has entered a family relationship — they are not merely subjects of a king or citizens of a kingdom, but children. The intimacy of the relationship is the defining characteristic.
The Christ life is the life of a joint heir of Christ (Rom. 8:17). The person who lives the Christ life shares in Christ's inheritance. Everything that belongs to the Son, by the Father's designation, is shared with those who are in him: the glory, the kingdom, the eternal life.
What is a Christian? A person who has entered the Christ life through the new birth — through belief, repentance, confession, and baptism — and who lives that life in daily communion with God and practical conformity to Christ.
II. The Only Life We Were Created to Live
This is the foundational claim. Every other life is not simply inferior — it is a failure, because it is not the life the person was designed for.
"The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person" (Eccl. 12:13). Koheleth examines every alternative — wisdom, pleasure, labor, accumulation, achievement — and finds that apart from the fear of God and the keeping of his commandments, all of it is vanity: vapor, breath, nothing that lasts. The conclusion is not pessimistic; it is precise. The person who pursues these things as ends in themselves is not simply making a strategic error — they are pursuing what they were not made for and cannot be satisfied by.
"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8). The question "what is good?" is the same question as "what is the right life?" The answer Micah gives is not a program — it is a posture: justice, kindness, humility before God. These are not additions to a life already being lived well; they are the definition of the life worth living.
All other lives are failures. Not necessarily in the sense that they produce misery — some produce material comfort, social approval, intellectual satisfaction. But they fail in the fundamental sense: they do not produce what a human life was designed to produce. The person who lives them fully and successfully is still a person who has missed the point of their own existence.
III. The Only Life That Honors God
The creator is honored when the creation fulfills the purpose for which it was made. A tool that is used for its intended purpose honors the maker who designed it for that purpose; a tool that is misused does not honor the maker, regardless of how successfully it is misused.
Man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). The image is not physical; it is relational and moral. The human being was created to reflect God's character in the world — to be a representative of what God is like in the domain entrusted to human stewardship. The person who lives the Christ life is recovering and restoring what sin damaged: the image of God in the human being.
The life that honors God is the life in which the human being is oriented toward God — in worship, in obedience, in love, in service. Every other orientation is a misdirection of what was created to point toward God. The person oriented toward pleasure, power, approval, or self-fulfillment has pointed the compass at the wrong destination; it may feel directed, but it is not moving toward what honors the creator.
IV. The Only Life That Develops the Character Man Ought to Be
The Christ life is the only life with the resources to develop the character that human beings were designed to have.
"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age" (Titus 2:11-12). The grace of God is not passive — it is instructive. It trains. The person who receives God's grace is being shaped by it into the pattern that grace was designed to produce: sensible, righteous, godly. No other resource produces this pattern; only the grace that comes through the Christ life.
"And have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him" (Col. 3:10). The renewal is ongoing — the Greek present tense indicates continuous action. The person living the Christ life is in a continuous process of being renewed toward the image of the creator. Character development of this kind is not a self-improvement project; it is the work of God in the person who has surrendered to it.
The person who does not live the Christ life does not have access to these resources. They may develop discipline, skill, and social virtue — but they do not develop the character that reflects the image of God, because that image is being restored only through the renewal that Christ effects.
V. The Only Life That Has the Promise of All Blessings
"Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12). This is the description of the life outside Christ: no hope, without God, outside the covenants of promise. The covenants of promise are not supplementary — they are the source of every blessing that God has promised to human beings.
The person who lives the Christ life has entered the covenant of promise: the new covenant in Christ's blood, which gives access to forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and the hope of eternal life. Every promise God has made is available to the person in Christ and unavailable to the person outside.
The life outside Christ may accumulate what the world offers — comfort, pleasure, security, companionship. But it cannot accumulate what God has promised, because those promises were made to those in covenant with him. The person outside the covenant may live well by worldly measures and still die without the promise, because the promise was never theirs to receive.
VI. The Only Life That Insures Eternal Happiness
"Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ... having no hope" (Eph. 2:12). The absence of hope is the absence of eternal happiness, because eternal happiness is what the hope of the gospel promises.
"I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). The insuring condition is abiding — remaining in Christ, maintaining the life of union with him. The person who abides bears fruit; the fruit is the evidence of the life; the life that abides insures the eternal happiness that Christ promises to those who remain in him.
"Apart from Me you can do nothing." This is the sharpest possible statement of the case: not "you will do less" or "you will struggle more" — you can do nothing in the direction of eternal happiness without Christ. The person outside Christ who attempts to secure eternal happiness by their own means is attempting the impossible. The means are available only through him.
Application
The application is not complicated: no other life solves the problem.
The person who is living for pleasure has chosen a life that will fail at the point where pleasure becomes unavailable — age, illness, loss, death. The person who is living for achievement has chosen a life that will fail at the point where achievement is no longer possible. The person who is living for approval has chosen a life that will fail at the point where the approval is withheld.
The Christ life does not fail at any of these points, because it is not anchored in any condition that can be removed. The person who knows God — the knowing of John 17:3 — possesses the one relationship that no circumstance can sever (Rom. 8:38-39).
Conclusion
"The problem of life: what is the right way to live?" The answer is not a method; it is a life. The Christ life — the life of knowing God and Christ, of living as a child of God and joint heir of Christ, of being renewed toward the image of the creator — is the only life that does not fail. It is the only life that honors God, the only life that develops the character man was made to have, the only life that carries the promises, the only life that insures eternal happiness.
Every other life, however successful it appears, is a failure in the terms that matter. The problem of life has one solution.
Invitation
"The one who desires life, to love and see good days" — this is everyone in this room. The desire is universal; the solution is specific. To desire life and pursue it by any means other than the Christ life is to pursue an answer to the wrong question. The right question is the one John 17:3 answers: to know God and Christ.
The knowledge of John 17:3 is entered through the new birth. Believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Repent. Confess his name. Be baptized for the remission of your sins (Acts 2:38). And enter the only life that does not fail.
Word Study
| English Term | Greek Term | Basic Meaning | Usage in This Sermon | Sermon Significance | Key Texts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Life | zōē | Life in its fullest sense — not merely biological existence (bios) but the life that is worth calling life. | Used in I Pet. 3:10 for the life the hearer desires, and in John 17:3 for eternal life itself. | What the hearer "desires" is not longer biological existence but the life that zōē designates — the life God gives and death cannot end. The problem of life is which zōē to pursue. | I Pet. 3:10; John 17:3 |
| Know | ginōskō | To know relationally and experientially — not the knowledge of facts (oida) but the knowledge of personal encounter and ongoing relationship. | Used in John 17:3 for the knowing that constitutes eternal life: "that they may know You." | The same word appears in the LXX for the marriage relationship (Gen. 4:1). Knowing God in John 17:3 is the deepest possible intimacy with the person of God, not mere theological acquaintance. | John 17:3 |
| Renewed | anakainoumenon | Being renewed continuously — the present passive participle indicates ongoing divine action in progress. | Used in Col. 3:10 for the person who has put on the new self being continuously shaped toward the image of the creator. | The renewal is not a past event but a continuous process. The passive voice indicates the reshaping is done to the person, not by the person. The Christ life is a life of ongoing divine transformation, not a one-time conversion. | Col. 3:10 |
| Abide | menō | To remain, stay, continue — not a single act but a sustained posture. | Used in John 15:5 for the branch that remains in the vine and bears much fruit. | "Abide in Me" is not "come to Me once" but "remain in Me continuously." The person who abides bears fruit; the branch that does not abide is cut off. The Christ life is defined by continuous abiding, not episodic contact. | John 15:5 |
Scripture Interlock Table
| Theme | Boles' Outline | Supporting Scripture |
|---|---|---|
| "Desire life, love good days" — the universal desire | Intro. | I Pet. 3:10-12 |
| "Eternal life is knowing God and Christ" — definition | I | John 17:3 |
| Children of God — identity of the Christ life | I | I John 3:1-2 |
| Joint heirs with Christ | I | Rom. 8:17 |
| "Fear God and keep commandments" — only life we were created for | II | Eccl. 12:13 |
| "Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God" | II | Micah 6:8 |
| Grace instructs — develops the right character | IV | Titus 2:11-12 |
| "Put on the new self renewed to the image of the creator" | IV | Col. 3:10 |
| "Excluded from covenants of promise, having no hope" | V, VI | Eph. 2:12 |
| "Apart from Me you can do nothing" — abiding condition | VI | John 15:5 |
| "Nothing separates us from the love of God" — anchor | App. | Rom. 8:38-39 |
| Baptism for remission — entry into the Christ life | Invit. | Acts 2:38 |
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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 131. Primary text: I Pet. 3:10-12 (stated by Boles). OCR corrections: "INTRODUCTI ON" → "INTRODUCTION"; "Eccl. 12:12" → "Eccl. 12:13" (verse 13 is the conclusion of Ecclesiastes, not verse 12); "lll." → "III."; "lV." → "IV."; "Vl." → "VI." Doctrinal audit: the Christ life defined from John 17:3 without Calvinistic overlay — it is the life of knowing God, entered through the new birth; the life outside Christ described from Eph. 2:12 as "having no hope and without God"; the conditional nature of eternal happiness (abiding in Christ, John 15:5) retained; invitation retains full obedient response (Acts 2:38).
