Do You Have Purpose and Meaning in Your Life? | Billy Graham

And I want you to turn with me to the 2nd chapter of John's Gospel. The 2nd chapter of John's Gospel. In the 23rd verse, Jesus said, or the Scripture says, Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover and the feast days, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, and needed not that any should testify of man, for he knew what was in man. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that you do, except God be with him. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. I remember the first day that I ever went to school. I was scared to death. We had to walk to school in those days, about two or three miles, and walk back in the afternoon after the school was finished. And my mother had fixed me a little lunch to take and eat at lunchtime or the recess time. No one told me that there were two recesses, so they had one recess about 10 or 10.30 for us to go out and stretch ourselves a little bit. And so I ate my lunch very quickly at that time. But when the real lunchtime came at 12.30, I had nothing to eat. And I'll never forget that day as long as I live. I got on the bus the wrong way. This was four years later. I got on the bus the wrong way. And the principal came out and he grabbed my ear. And I think part of it is still gone. But sometime ago, Bill Hybels said in one of his sermons that there are so many changes happening rapidly that we don't even realize how many of them are affecting us. He said that this is an era of information overload. You and I have access to more information, data, facts and news and knowledge than anybody in history. And the information in the world is doubling every five years. And then we get information through magazines and newspapers. We're told that we forget up to 80% of it in 24 hours. And virtually all of us will be forgotten by the time we reach eternity. Nicodemus, the man that we were just reading about in the Bible, was a great religious leader. And he came by night. He probably was afraid of criticism. Or he had a desire for a private conversation with Jesus. And maybe that was the only time Jesus could give him. Or maybe he thought about committing himself in a new way. Many of you have thought a long time about religion and Christianity. We're living in a revolutionary and changing world. Man's ability, man's moral ability is lagging behind his technological ability. And it could mean disaster and catastrophe for the whole human race. And many people have a feeling that something is about to happen. I'm asked more questions wherever I go today about the end of the world than I ever have in all of my ministry put together. People look at our world with all the crime and all the headlines screaming at us about the killings. And we see the moral depravity on so much of our entertainment. And we ask ourselves, are we nearing the end? Are we living in the days of Noah as Jesus predicted would come someday? I heard about a drunk in London. He was under a streetlight. And he was looking for his wallet that he had lost. And somebody came by and said, did you lose it here? He said, no, about a half block back. Well, why don't you look there? There's no streetlights back there, he said. Searching is important. Searching for purpose and meaning is very important. Do you have purpose and meaning in your life? I told many times about the 10-year-old boy who went to his mother and said, mother, how was I born? And she said, the stork brought you. And he went to his grandmother and said, grandmother, how were you born? Said, the stork brought me. Said, how was my mother born? Said, well, the stork brought her. And he was to write a little paper in his class on birth. And he wrote in his paper and said, there hasn't been a natural birth in our family in three generations. Now, Nicodemus was surprised and stunned when Jesus turned to him and said, Nicodemus, you must be born again. If Christ had said that to Zacchaeus, who was cheating the people out of money, you could understand that. Or the woman at the well who had had five husbands, you could understand it. Or the thief on the cross who was guilty of robbery and mugging and all kinds of things, who said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Or the woman taken in adultery. But to say it to a religious leader like Nicodemus surprised everybody. You see, Nicodemus was a ruler. He was rich. He was religious. And yet he was searching for reality. And that's why he was there. He wanted fulfillment in his life, which he hadn't found in all of his religion.