I want us to turn to the book
of James. And I want us to look at a couple
of things there. Back before everything went haywire
in the pandemic, I was teaching Wednesday night out of the book
of James. And one day soon, maybe next year, I may finish that
along with the latter chapter, the last chapter of 1 Timothy. There's a lot to think about
every day. There's a lot to desire. There's a lot to seek. There's
a lot to hope for. There's something I've found
in my own life, maybe it's true for you, is that we spend a whole
lot of time trying to be happy. A whole lot of time. And when
we get up, we think, ugh, it's a terrible day. Or maybe we get
up and say, man, it's an awesome day. Or maybe we get up and we
don't think at all because our brains aren't turned on. But
there's one thing about it is most people either want to be
happy or are complaining about not being happy. Either externally
or internally with someone else or by themselves. It is a mantra. It is a drumbeat of our life. I want to be happy. I want to
be happy. I want to be happy. I want to be happy. And this pursuit of happiness
is something that is foundational to our culture, foundational
to the ideology of our religious experience as a nation, historically. I mean, even our Constitution
gives us that right, the right to life, liberty, and the what?
Pursuit of happiness. The trials come, though, is when
we think that happiness is found in a place that it isn't. Or
we say to ourselves, okay, happiness for me is X. So you didn't think
you'd need algebra. So you solve for X. You try to
figure out what is it that's going to make me happy. Aha,
I found it, or I found out what it would be, now let me pursue
it. If I was just in better health. if I was just in better financial
health, if I just had a better relationship with my family,
if I just had more friends, if I just had a spouse, if I just
had a better job, if I just felt like I made a difference, if
I just had purpose. And this isn't new, we've all
been there. And we all think that finding
happiness sometimes means how other people view us. How accomplished we are, what
is success, what is purpose? I mean, you know, you name it,
it's there. And if you wanna find somebody asking that question,
just throw a dart in the air and see where it lands. The world
is full of those questions. But the world is also full of
even manifold answers. And yet, have you ever met someone
that says, you know, all I ever wanted was this. I solved for
X, I found it, and I've been happy my whole life. No. A lot of posers, a lot of posturing,
a lot of fakers, a lot of actors, hypocrites, you know, too blessed
to be stressed, too anointed to be disappointed. You know
them. I love these guys. They're always
excited. I just want to see what happens at home or when they
run over a nail and the tire blows out or they get the bad
phone call or they get into an argument. You get a speeding
ticket. What happens to that jolliness? See, that's the misunderstanding
a lot of times. People, we think that there's a hierarchy in life
and that happiness is at the top of it. And I'm not quite
sure that I don't disagree. I think happiness is at the point,
but what holds the point up but the foundation. So to seek out
happiness really needs to understand, I believe, where it stands. In
my scale of how this looks in my life, it may not be the same
for you, but I believe scripture would agree with me, and hopefully
I agree with it, is that happiness is just the tip of the iceberg.
That joy sits underneath that. And now we're talking. Now we're
getting spiritual. Joy, joy, joy. Where is it? Down
in my heart, right? But let me tell you something,
guys. A lot of times we talk about the joy of the Lord is
our strength. It is, at best, platitudes. It is, at best, just
a lot of good verbiage that sounds good, much like the same guys
are saying, too blessed to be stressed. God is good when? All
the time. All the time what? God is good. And the next thing
you know, it's just this wave of spiritual nonsense that's
actually not spiritual at all. It's just emotional, oh, Band-Aids. And there are a lot of people
who are not here with us this morning who are part of our spiritual
family because they're not happy. And because they're then hearing
the preacher and the pastor and the elder and the culture of
Christianity say, well, you're not happy because you don't have
your joy in the right place. And that's not wrong. So then
we seek out to find a place where joy is, and then when we find
some joy in the solace of the gospel news, of the good report
of Christ, then all of a sudden we still find that it's wanting
because it's just this head space that we live in. And so we're
fighting constantly the voice inside our head and the spirit
that supposedly lives in there, which we've yet to feel, understand,
or enjoy. So we come back to church, or
we go to ourselves, or we seek out something else, and at best,
and I talked about this a few weeks ago, at best we learn that
joy is found in distraction. Let me just not think about it.
Listen, if happiness is the dopamine of life, then comedy is the drug. And I love comedy. I've used
comedy. I used to think that comedy was
just something that naturally was part of my personality, but
it's not. It's a band-aid. It's a drug.
It's something that helps me, one, laugh, and laughing, no
matter what it's about, makes me feel happy. And then, two,
comedy. Personally, if I can be funny
and make you laugh, then I've done my job of making you happy,
despite how ridiculous the source may be. So then we get to the
joy. We get to this compounding thing
of like, okay, you know, and what happens when we really try
to establish happiness in the joy of spiritual things? We become
stoic. And that's why, I mean, could
you imagine, I don't know what comedian said this years ago,
but since late 80s, And we're talking about how everybody,
Christian's supposed to be free, Christian's supposed to live
the best life now, Christian's supposed to be all this, that,
and the other. Jesus is our freedom, our liberty, our savior, our
glory, our joy, all this kind of stuff. But yet we walk around
with such mindset that there is not one person within a thousand
feet of us who would say, I want to have the joy of that person. And so we fake it. And then we seek after whatever
means would make us joyful. And then we get to the place
of thinking, well, you know what? Joy is just an inner, it's just
an inner settledness. I've just got to... You don't
think Jesus smiled and laughed? He wept. It's okay. But then we get to a place of
being taught in Christian culture, well, you don't really have joy
because you're discontent. And doesn't the Bible teach us
that? Be content. Be content. Do all things without
grumbling and complaining. So then we internally grumble
and complain about the fact that we can't grumble and complain.
Don't lie. You do. Yes, we do. We feel it.
Even if we don't cognitively know in our conscience that it's
there, we are doing that. Then we begin to place ourselves
for contentment in a place of self-righteousness because we
fear the Lord's wrath when the wrath of God has been poured
out on Christ. We fear the judgment of others because we're not,
in our own view, looking at ourselves like a movie. We're not watching,
we're not living in a really holy way according to our neighbor. And so we strive, and we strive,
and by God, if I can just be as measurable as Jesus on the
cross, I'll be content, and there I'll find my fulfillment. And it's funny, but look at church
history. Look at the poets of the 15th,
16th, 17th, 18th century. Look at the theologians who went
from whipping themselves literally with scourges to whipping themselves
emotionally with self-deprecation, to whipping on everybody else,
to where it became the church service in the 1900s. No wonder Charles Finney was
able to create the mourner's bench. It was just an extension
of the hearts of the people. So I believe that if we are to
find happiness, we must understand joy. In order to really live
joy, we must have contentment. And in order for contentment
to be there, we must be fulfilled. But that's in the reverse order.
Fulfillment is both the beginning and the end of the Christian
life. How do we get it? How do we get
it? James chapter four warns us against
what the world has to offer. First John does the same thing.
Do not love the world or the things in the world for the things
of the world, the pride of life, the pride of possessions and
all these things are passing away, right? And so, and they're
not. This love, this affection, this
adoration, this pursuit. You know what I've found in my
own life is that maybe this isn't true for you. That's the second
time I've said that because I don't wanna put things in your life that
aren't there, but I'm just gonna share, be a little vulnerable.
What's really amazing to me is that if there were something
more fulfilling and more enjoyable and better for me, I would be
doing it. When? Every day, every second
of the day. So when we're sitting there and
we're watching like nine hours of television or we're just staring
at the ceiling or we're doing something destructive because
we're like going to Krispy Kreme or whatever it is that might
be good for us or bad for us, if there was anything better
for us or more fulfilling to us, we would be doing it. Now
I'm not talking about in a literal sense. I don't want in a personal
sense that we've evaluated life, we've evaluated the options,
we've evaluated the day, we've evaluated the calendar before
us and we've said, okay, I've got 168 hours this week and I'm
going to spend it doing X. That is your fulfillment. That is what we think finds us
fulfillment. I need to rebuild a carburetor
on a lawn tractor for three weeks. But I can't rebuild the carburetor
on my lawn tractor because I really don't want to do it out there
in the middle of the yard and I don't want to take off all the stuff so I can take my
other tractor and pull the lawn tractor up to my patio and I
don't want the thing on the patio because it's right out the back
door and there's already two or three grills and some other junk up
there for the last six months. So I don't really want that there.
But I could just take it down and pull it on the trailer and
carry it to the guy and for a hundred and something dollars he could
probably fix it but that's a waste of money. When I could fix it
in an hour? I could rebuild that carburetor
in just a second. Oh, but I can't because I really
can't find the tools for the carburetor because they're in
the garage and the garage has got a bunch of boxes in there because I've
just been cramming stuff in there for the last year. I can't get in. So if I
get in there, then I'm going to have to organize that. But
what am I going to do? Where's that wrench? What's that number 8
millimeter? My gosh, I haven't organized these wrenches in days,
in years, in months. I have to do that. So before
I can ever even move the yard tractor, I've got nine months
worth of work to do. So I'm going to grill hot dogs
and play with the dog and find me something sweet to
eat. And then I'm going to get on the phone with one of you
because I want to know what's happening in your life. So we're like, I'll fix the carburetor.
You see what I mean? And there we go. So we find something
else to do. So for me to feel happy, to find
joy, to be content, be fulfilled, I just decided I used to. Some people might call that ADD.
Some people might call that normal. Some people might call that,
listen, that's OK. Whatever you call it. The New
Testament gives us a roadmap for moving from fleeting happiness
to enduring joy, to through fulfillment. In the book of James, we hear
these words in chapter four. Let's just read chapter four
for a minute. It says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights
among you? Is it not this, that your passions
are at war within you? You desire and you don't have,
so you murder. You covet and you cannot obtain, so you fight
and you quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You do
not, and you ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly
to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people. Now see,
all of a sudden now, the tone of what I'm talking about has
changed because everybody in here has tried to find fulfillment
in the last 45 seconds of this. And thought to myself, okay,
I know what fulfills me. I know what gives me contentment.
I know where my joy is. I know what the Lord wants. And then you
hear this, and you hear James say, James the apostle and James
your pastor, you adulterous people. And now all of a sudden we're
back in this cycle of, oh, see, I really need to watch out, what
am I doing? And we get too focused on what we're not rather than
focused on what we are. Verse four, do you not know that
friendship with the world is enmity with God? Or do you suppose
it is to no purpose that the scripture says, he yearns jealously
over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us? but He gives
more grace." You see, there's the out. Never, ever, ever stop
with you adulterous people. But that's where we want to stop,
right? Because that's what we do in our arguments. That's what we
do in our internal arguments. And quite honestly, the context
of this passage deals with relationships, deals with the church, deals
with the community, but it also deals with the exact same thing
that Paul talks about in Romans chapter 12, which is the internal,
and Romans 6 and 7, which is the internal quarrel, the internal
fight, the internal desires of our own minds. And it's so superficial
to think, well, I just love, you know, Tom and I were talking
about big houses from this past weekend, or last weekend. Some
big houses. There's some nice houses out
there. And sometimes we think, man, if I could just have a house
that somebody else maintained, I'd be fulfilled. Until tax season. And then I'd be like, man, I
missed the little RV I used to live in. There's never going to be enough.
And so when we think about these things, we need to recognize
that it goes deeper than just the surface tension of possessions,
the surface tension of culture, the surface tension of keeping
up with the Joneses, the surface tension of wishing that I was
the best dad, the best husband, the best teacher, the best pastor,
the best this, the best that. He gives more grace. So we find
ourselves sitting here today and we're just wringing our hands
and we're just tearing our clothes and pounding our chests. Oh God! And the Bible says, God says,
I give you more grace. So what does that mean? That
means we're not here today to figure it out and get it right
and walk it. We're here today to understand
it. We're here today to apply it in a way that in God's timing,
with His grace, we will walk in a manner worthy of the calling.
And what is that manner? Faith. Faith. We trust and rest.
We rest. Have you ever ran a race in a
restful state? No! It's oxymoronic. But it is
the truth of fulfilling of a fulfilled life in Christ. Therefore it says God opposes
the proud but gives grace to the humble. I mean think about
that for a second. See for the last three minutes
I've given illustrations about how we, you, I can do, I can
change, I can be, I can think, I can process, I can perform,
I can, I can, I will, I do, I want. And where do we see the example
of a someone, a person saying I will in the Bible? It's the
fall of Lucifer. And so James is reminding us
that we need to be humbled. We need to recognize that it's
okay to have dreams and visions and goals and plans. It's okay
that those plans aren't evangelical. It's okay that those plans don't
include being an extreme missionary. Because quite honestly, the world
hasn't been changed by extreme missionaries. The gospel has
not been spread by extreme missionaries and preachers. The gospel has
been spread by the nobodies of the world doing nothing but what
they were called to do day to day and living life with purpose
and fulfillment and joy. You take that to the bank. Being a radical Christian is
the dumbest thing that ever came out of the mouth of a pastor. We want to be an influence. We
want to be an influence. Influence your own thoughts by
the grace of God and influence the own household that you live
in and influence the friends that you have without posturing
this ridiculous spiritualized conversations. Just be you, resting
in the sufficiency of the Lord and the gospel of grace that
is sovereign and free. And that is a battle, and you
might do it once a month. Well, and the other 29 or 30
days, depending on what month it is, or 28 if it's a leap year,
whatever it might be, you probably are like me, and you're in a
state of just sort of limbo. But you put your foot down on
a foundation, and that foundation is the Lord Jesus Christ. And
you don't have to apprehend it. You know, Christians need to
learn theological truths and need to apprehend and understand,
and they will, but those understandings, that apprehension and that application
is not required of you. It's not required of you to feel
or to know that you are a child of God. It's not required of
you. God's not going to just hoosh all that in our minds and
keep us from distraction when He regenerates us. He's going
to bring us to a childlike faith that knows when I wake up tomorrow,
mommy's going to be there making my breakfast. Daddy's going to
be there making my lunch. They don't fret over it. Child
wakes up in the middle of the night. Daddy! They're not saying,
is my daddy here? Where is my daddy? I don't know.
Do I have a daddy? No, they're calling because they
know that daddy and mommy are there. That's the faith of God. That's the faith that God grants
His children. And yeah, oh boy, all these well-meaning
people who want to take that and put it in a, what do you
call that thing that you spit out blood with, you know, in
the lab? I can't even think now. And you get it all and you pull
it out and you get this big microscope and you pull it out and you get
a bigger microscope and you start getting into the real nitty gritties
of the microscopic. If you don't understand the programming
and the sequencing of the mitochondria, then you are lost. You're not lost, you're free.
If that's your hobby, go get it. If it's not your hobby, don't
find it. He gives grace more and more.
He opposes the proud, gives grace of the humble. The very illustration
of Jesus telling the story of a tax-collecting, robbing publican,
piece of trash human being, robbing his own mama. Terrible, terrible
political piece of garbage. And the epitome of epitomes of
social highness, the Pharisee. And the Pharisee, oh, thank you,
goddess, that I am not like the republic of the middle. The King
James prayers, thank you that I'm not like that person. And
I tithe, and I pray, and I'm coming to church. You know, you
know. And then the publican can't even look to heaven. That's how
we started praying with our heads bowed. By the way, that's the
Puritan idea of closing your eyes. You pray like this in the
first century. And by the time we get to Bunyan,
we're digging a hole like an ostrich, putting our head in
it. He can't even look to the heavens.
He can't even open his eyes. He just tears his clothes. He
beats his chest. I'm not worthy. And he says these
words, propitiate me. Satisfy your wrath for me. Have
mercy on me. And Jesus says that man went
home justified before God the Father in holiness and righteousness.
This man went home condemned. Why don't we marry that into
our present day? To be fulfilled is to be the
highest of all highs. The word for that is Elohim.
We say God. Making themselves to be God. To be like Romans 1, ringing
a bell. Submit ourselves, therefore,
to God. Resist the devil. And we know the devil, right?
We know the word enemy there, the word adversary. Resist this
temptation. But it's so easy for us as Christians
to just take this temptation and go, oh yeah, I'm tempted
to do this, I'm tempted to do that, I'm tempted to say this,
I'm tempted to say that, I'm tempted to think this, I'm tempted to
think that, blah, blah, blah. Things that I want, things that I wish
I didn't want. A lot of us live in that Romans 6, Romans 7. Why
do I do the things that I wish I didn't want to do? Why do I
want to do the things that I don't want to do? Blah, blah, blah. It's okay.
That's called human nature. It's just the way things are.
And God has not promised that those things are going to ever
stop. He has promised victory over them in this body of death. And it's amazing that when we
focus on that rather than focus on stopping or doing or changing,
we actually change. The adversary, you know, those
are simple things. Those are obvious things. But what about the internal
things? What about the self-righteous things? Not even like the pharisaical
self-righteousness. Like the self-righteousness of
just thinking, I've got to do better. What's wrong with that? I've taught my children their
whole lives to do better. But you know what? If all you're
ever taught is to do better, then what's good enough? What's good enough in your Christian
world? Oh, look at Tiffin's up there preaching mediocrity. I'm
preaching submission to God. This is submission to grace.
This is submission to the Lord. This is submission. This is fighting
also the adversary in the context of certain types of self-righteousness. I remember early in my ministry, You know, you get to a church
that has prayer meetings, you just do prayer meetings. And
people are like, we don't have enough prayer meetings. Well, you know
what? I've never been to really a productive prayer meeting.
It's like an hour of everybody gossiping and like 10 minutes
of somebody closing it out in prayer. And never once have I
ever heard him say, Lord, forgive us for all the gossip we just
did. We just talked trash about every one of our loved ones and
all the people who aren't here. I mean, I had to take up a bulletin
one time at one of the churches because Just trying to be helpful. Posted some trash on the back
and the prayer list at the back with the name with the comment
on the side of why we should pray for this person. And it
was deprecating, it was actually almost incriminating about what
this person had been doing and who they were involved with and
why they shouldn't be. I'm like, no, no, no, give me
those back. This isn't how that works. No
more prayer list in the bulletin. We'll announce it. See, even
stuff like that, we're trying to help sometimes, but our flesh
just gets in the way. Because we really want to know,
we don't really want to pray. So our lives lived as Christians
seeking fulfillment and happiness and joy and contentment, sometimes
we even act self-righteously in that pursuit. It's a crazy
thing. But James continues. resist the
devil, he'll flee from you. Draw near to God and He will
draw near to you. Now these aren't prescriptive,
this is just explanation of our mind and our lives. We draw near
to God, God draws, God never separates from us. Well the reason
it's so bad is because God's left me. No, you've left Him.
But you can't escape Him. Nothing can separate us from
the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The devil can't.
The angels can't. Powers can't. Principalities
can't. The government can't. Time can't. Before time can't.
Eternity can't. God Himself can't. There are
things that God can't do. And the Bible says it. God cannot
lie. God cannot fail. God cannot dispose of His people.
God cannot destroy those for whom Christ died. God cannot hold you guilty for
your sins because they've been paid for. I mean, you see what
I'm saying? He can't renege on that. He can't go back on his
word. He can't void that contract.
It's paid. It's done. It's in the bank.
It's full. So we draw near to God. Cleanse our hands. There are things that we know
we ought to be doing. Things that we should wash away. There's
things that we know, but let's not focus on those. Purify our
hearts. Don't be double-minded. Now there's
a context here for James. In verse 9 of James chapter 4,
it says, be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be
turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Holy cow. Isn't it
amazing how generations for centuries have taken that text without
remembering God gives more grace. What James is talking about is
this haughty attitude, finding joy in one's self-righteousness,
finding joy in one's stature, finding joy. He's talking about
finding joy and fulfillment in earthly things. Humble yourselves before the
Lord, verse 10, he will exalt you. You want to be lifted up? You want to be something special?
Just lay before the Lord, you're something special. You want somebody
to know your name? No, you don't. You know who you
want to know your name? Jesus knows your name. You see that illustration? There are those that will come
to me and say, Lord, Lord. I'll say, who are you? I never
knew you. Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. Didn't we
preach? Didn't we pray? Didn't we give?
Didn't we serve? Didn't we love? Didn't we cast out demons? I
never knew you. So being famous in the world, being famous in
the work of God, being famous for the things that we do, being
known in our company, being known in our community, being known,
it's not important. It's not fulfillment. If it happens, it's a lot harder
to stay humble. Do not speak evil against one
another, brothers. You're not speaking evil against
one. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother
speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge
the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge. I'm not
going to preach on that. I just want to get the full context
of this to get to the point that I'm getting to. There is one lawgiver
and judge he was able to save and to destroy, but who are you
to judge your neighbor? See, that's another element of
when we are able to find fulfillment, rest, and hope in the grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ and in the gospel, we destroy ourselves. We beat ourselves up. Then we
conform or perform in such a way that we now measure ourselves
against what other people have said is good Christian living,
is fulfillment, is happiness, and we find a bitter joy, a distasteful
fulfillment, and by God, we want other people to be as happy as
we are. My God, if you'd live like I
did, you'd have joy. Just look at my face. Happy all
the time. I got joy, I got joy. I mean,
you know, you can see it. I'll let the caricatures roll. Come now, come now, come now,
come now. I know what all of you are saying,
James says. You're gonna do this, you're gonna do that, I'm gonna
be successful, I'm gonna be happy, I'm gonna be fulfilled. Today or tomorrow
I'm gonna go into such a town and spend a year there and trade
and make a profit. Woo, we got it, let's go. Nothing wrong with
that, go do it. Hallelujah. Start a business,
get a job, do something for fun, find a hobby. Get active, work
your mind, enjoy life. Yet you do not know what tomorrow
will bring. Verse 14. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears
for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if
the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. Now think about that for a second.
Sometimes, remember I said, sometimes even in our pursuit of fulfillment
and holiness and joy and all these things, we end up becoming
self-righteous, self-effectual. It's not the point. I talk to
people every week who can't leave the house, who can't walk, who
can't breathe without machines. Their life isn't over. Their
life hasn't lost its purpose, it's just beginning. Happiness is fleeting. I say
all that to say this one thing. Happiness is fleeting. The transient
nature of happiness, when it's aligned to the world that we
live in, and everything in it is going away. The pitfalls of
seeking material or superficial sources of happiness are just
a fool's errand. The scripture teaches us a different
happiness. And sometimes when we look at
the Bible, it misaligns with modern pursuits. Am I doing this
because it's what I want, it's what's good for me, it's what's
gonna build intimacy, it's what's gonna make true fulfillment,
or am I doing this because I really don't like me? And I wanna be seen, I wanna
be productive, I wanna look in the mirror and know that I've
done more. Listen, that's the plot of all the good movies that
sit right there in my soul. And I won't name some of them,
because some of them may bother your conscience, but these true
stories that turn to cinema, I love good cinema, but it's
gotta be good. I mean, it's gotta be good. I have an amazing talent of turning
a movie off after 10 minutes or walking out of it after I've
paid for a ticket, so I don't go to the theater much. And I
have another talent of going to sleep if it's boring. And
I have a third talent that I can watch a whole movie because I
just want to give it the good Boy Scout try, and then three
years later I'm watching it and I go, I get to the end and go,
I've already seen this terrible movie. I block it out. The trauma. So we've got to reflect on the
sources of happiness in our life, and we need to consider their
impermanence. It doesn't mean we remove them, we just need
to consider their impermanence. There's application number one. Why? Because the Bible teaches
us to set our minds on things above. Colossians 3, 2. 2 Corinthians
chapter 4. As we look to the things that
are unseen, not the things that are seen. In the midst of looking
at the things that are seen, we put them in their proper perspective.
So if happiness is like the silly little sprinkle on
the top of the cake, then where does joy fit in? Where does joy
fit in? Well, in John chapter 15, Jesus
says these words. You can go there if you want. John chapter 15, I read out of
this text probably a couple of months ago. I think I might have
read the entire thing. These things I've spoken to you,
starting in verse 11. I hate reading verses. I'd rather
just read the whole thing. Verse nine, as the Father has
loved me, so I've loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep
my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I've kept
my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things
I have spoken to you that my joy. Now look at this comparison
here. Everything I've just said, you're
like, eh, but you know, you don't know my life. Jesus does. Hebrews
tells us that he has understood and knows every way experientially,
not just divinely and sovereignly in his omnipotence, in his omniscience. But experientially, in his humanity,
he knows and understands everything that any human being has ever
gone through or ever will go through. He understands it. Beloved,
that is the best friend you could ever have. You ever try to talk
to a friend about something you've gone through and they're just
looking at you like you're speaking some other language? And worse, sometimes they try
to give you advice and they don't even know what time of day it
is. As I used to say when I was a kid, you all know the Kool-Aid
but all in the mix don't know the flavor. And sometimes I hear people and
they talk about things and I've never experienced them and I try and
I have great empathy. I can feel their suffering. I can feel it
to the core that it becomes mine. I know what it means. I know
what their fear feels like. I know what their depression
feels like, but I cannot understand the journey. Christ does. These things I've spoken to you
that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. See, joy emanates from a deep,
abiding relationship with a best friend that's been there and
knows everything that you're feeling. When you talk to them,
you know they get it because they've been there. There's some things in life that
I know about. I know what it's like to have loss as a man, as
a brother, as a son, as a husband, as a father. I know what it's
like to feel pain. physically, emotionally, financially. But not in the same way you do. But Christ does. He understands
every piece of that. He understands every piece of
that. And so when we grasp this reality,
when we really start to put our minds in this type of thinking,
and become mindful of where we are and what we are and whose
we are. Biblical joy is resistant to
external circumstances. Happiness, fleeting. Biblical
joy, resistant. And Christ's teaching provide
a path to this lasting joy. So what does that mean? Well,
the first application is we need to look very clearly and have
a good, well-rounded understanding that happiness is temporal. And we need to have an equal
understanding about our spiritual practices and disciplines. And
know that when we are running after, I've had this, listen,
it's like an epiphany over and over and over again. You'll say,
yes, I get it, three times this week. I get into the Word. as
much as I can, and then I've got a whole bunch of other stuff
to do, and then I find myself navigating this to do, not to
accomplish the tasks, but to be fulfilled in it. To quit answering
the question that constantly rings in my conscience, why,
what good is it, what's the end game? Oh, this, you gotta do
this, you gotta make this, you gotta produce this, you gotta
be this. Now some of you may not have
that issue. And I hope you never do. But
I think most of us do. Every now and then. And the simplistic
way that the Lord brings us back is by reminding us, just read
my word and watch. Just watch. Just stand down and
watch me. Look at me, the founder and perfecter
of your faith, is what Paul says to the Hebrews. The one who's gone before, the one
who's gone into death, the one who's raised to life, the one
who's at glory, who is going to share his glory with you and
make you as he is. Breathe and think on that. Think on that. Joy is a fruit
of the Spirit. It's a divine quality. And it's
within our grasp. How? By grace, by the work of
Christ. And the way this is truly manifest
is in the midst of the pain. In the midst of the stress. In
the midst of the day-to-day. In the midst of the Monday. In
the midst of the what in the world? In the midst of the suffering. There would be no glory to see
in the sublime if there weren't the minutia of the ridiculous. And so, when we put our minds
there, the day-to-day minutia becomes manageable, and in my
mind, it becomes meaningful. Wow, there's a reason that I'm
doing this. And I don't have to know why. God has given this to me. James
says that too. All good things come from the
Father above, the Father of lights. So we need to understand the
depth of joy. Now go over to Philippians 4.
I think I might have been in there. I've been all over these
texts. I just wanted to put it all together
today. Paul talks in chapter 4 verse
10, well verse 8, 9, you know that, whatever is true. We talked
about that a couple of weeks ago. This is where we need to
put our minds, whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely,
commendable. See, we put our time and focus
on that which is best for us, according to us. The Bible disagrees
and says whatever is here. Think about these things, whatever's
worthy of praise. That doesn't mean we have to
throw out every little happy kick that we enjoy, but we need
to make sure that we put it in perspective, that it's fleeting,
but that biblical joy has a depth that cannot be overcome. And
finally, or not finally, but almost finally, the root of contentment. Paul says, I rejoice greatly,
verse 10, in the Lord at length that you have revived your concern
for me. I said to somebody last Sunday at a brunch that there's
a worse place to be than alone. And they looked at me and I said,
ignored. To be ignored is awful. To be alone is bad. But to be
with someone and be ignored, that's indifference. That's tough. Beloved, God does not ignore
us. And when people revive their
concern for us, it feeds us. And that's why dopamine is so
powerful. That's why people would rather
get likes on Facebook for foolishness than produce a quiet, invisible
benefit. Quiet, invisible benefit. In verse 11 he says, not that
I'm speaking of being in need. I've learned. I don't have a
need. Now he had a need, right? Paul had a need. He says, but
I don't have a need. In whatever situation I'm in, I'm supposed
to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how
to abound and in every circumstance I've learned the secret of facing
plenty and hunger and abundance and need. I can do it all through
Christ who strengthens me. I can do it all through Christ
who strengthens me. See, contentment, is how I put
it, is a state of equilibrium. Contentment is what keeps us
from falling into the ditch. Contentment is what takes away
the tightrope and puts a big, broad bridge with sharks that can jump out
of the water over our heads and scare us. But contentment is a state of power, a state
of purpose. And the Stoics? Man, if the Spirit
of God had not brought me to the truth of Christ, I could
be Stoic. I could put it all down. I could
stand and walk in a way that my body and my mind could function
like a steamroller going one mile an hour. Nothing can move
it. But God the Spirit has brought
me to life. And so when my natural flesh stands there as a place
of solidarity, I realize that contentment is truly the foundation
that's found in Christ alone. What is that contentment? I can
do all things, I can manage, I can endure all things for the
sake of Christ. And it can exist in any circumstance. But contentment is not liking
something. Contentment is not being happy about something.
Contentment is not saying, well, this is great, yee-haw, let me
just. But contentment is in the midst of whatever it may be,
good, bad, or indifferent, that we know that our source of fulfillment,
our source of joy is not in these circumstances. And more, not
more, but as important as that is we recognize that our identity
and our worth and our value is not found in these circumstances. We are not what we do. We are
not what we accomplish. We are not what we think, even
though Descartes would say otherwise. In Christ, we are found in Him,
you see. I've been talking with a lot
of seniors lately about legacy. And the premise of my approach
in this is that legacy is something we live today, rather than something
we leave behind. A memorial is what we leave,
and it only points to something we've done. It doesn't point
to who we are. If we are truly to make a difference in life,
then we need to be who we are in Christ, that the lives around
us may be changed. Remember what I said at the beginning
that God's gospel has never actually powerfully been effective with
the hyper awesome evangelist missionary? I mean, if that were
the case, then where are all these tens of thousands of people
who are constantly on fire for Jesus for six months? I mean, when somebody can stand,
I used to be an itinerant speaker, I used to be a conference speaker,
I used to be a motivational speaker. I know what it's like to stand
in front of a crowd of 15,000 people. You know what it is? Impersonal.
You can't even, in certain venues, you can't even see that there
are people there. You're just standing and talking into a light. You
can't see them. And you say something profound
and it changes some minds and then we go out to dinner and,
you know, six months later, it's over. But what really has sticking
power is you. The Lord working through you
in the lives of people you don't even know are listening. That's what matters. That's what matters. But it doesn't
feel good. It doesn't find it. We're not
content. We're not seeking content. We're
just seeking escape or like, woo-hoo, we want that kick. At
least I do. Now I can actually be honest
about it because I've discovered that was true for me. What is the one thing that contentment
has that other things don't? Gratitude. I mean, think about that. Mentors in my life used to say,
I just thank God for the whole mess. I'm like, whatever, you're not
thankful for this. And you go through some of this,
and you think, I'm not thankful for this. Then you learn through
the knowledge of scripture what contentment looks like, and then
you start seeing the example, and when you practice it, then
all of a sudden something changes. You know if you're 70 years old,
and you experienced trauma when you were five, or 10, or 20, And you've carried that trauma
with you and you've carried the emotions and the stress of that
trauma with you all those years, that within just three to four
weeks of refocusing your mind on the reality of where you are
and who you are, that that goes away. It goes away. Paul says, renew
your mind. And we don't, do we? We don't
ever change the batteries. We don't even get enough sleep.
Sleep is the number one way that our mind heals and grows. We don't meditate on the word
of God. It's the last thing I want to do when I'm upset. Let's just
be, let's be honest. I mean, if y'all think I'm this
like real pious guy that floats around and you got another thing
coming. You come to my house and you
start hanging out with me, you're going to realize that I'm a human
being. And if you've got an expectation
of me being Jesus, you're gonna be sorely disappointed, if not
appalled, especially who I am today, because I'm not hiding
anything. I'm not gonna pretend like I'm
not thinking or feeling the way I'm thinking or feeling, and
neither should you. We can't hide from God. But you
know what, when we do that, what happens is other people look
at us and they go, oh, you know what, look at that. Oh, poor
soul, let's have a prayer meeting. Let's talk about all the things
that I saw, all the things that I heard, and let's pray for God
to help each and every one. Matter of fact, let's give a
list of these things in front of everybody and pray exactly
how we know God should answer these prayers. Yeah, you've been
there, right? I've been there. I've even been
the person talking like that before. It just happens. And
here's the cool thing is that when we're content and gratitude
is a foundation of our life, we can thank God even for that
nonsense. And when regret comes along and
gives us a punch to the solar plexus and we can't breathe for
just that tiny little, that's right here, the stomach. Some
of you are like, what? What is this, astrology now?
Anyway. We can't breathe, it just lasts for a second. When
regret punches our gut, we just need to thank God for the feel.
Thank God for the stress. Thank God for the circumstance.
Thank God, God, you have this. Because by and large, the life
we live is self-fulfilled prophecy. The mind we have is self-fulfilled
prophecy. We think about it, we say it
to ourselves, we verbalize it to others, and the next thing
we know, everything that we say is bad is bad. And it's in direct
disobedience to the scripture. Do everything without complaining
or grumbling. What? That even means in our
own thoughts. Because it, you know, I don't
even know what to call it. My personality lends itself to
extremes. My verbal personality, my antics. And sometimes when that gets
turned on, it's just like, I can not even be upset or even care
much, but I just get excited about the conversation and can
bring the entire tenor, the entire feel, of a circumstance, a room,
a relationship in a half a second to a screeching halt. Can't you? And if we can do that
to the people around us, what are we doing to ourselves? How
did Paul maintain contentment? He says, I have learned in whatever
situation I am in to be content. I know what it means to be brought
low. I know what it means to abound and have everything I
need and have lack nothing. He said, but I'm learning to
be content. How? Because Christ gives me strength. Christ gives me strength. Commitment is a manifestation
of submitting to, like James told us earlier, submitting to
the Lord, humbling ourselves before the Lord and His will,
and that means trusting in His sovereignty and His providence
in our lives. It doesn't mean we don't ask, it doesn't mean
we don't labor, it doesn't mean we don't feel awful and that
we don't have a complaint. We can complain to the Father,
it's okay. But we can stand up. And we can look and we can see
that we have a lot to be thankful for. And that God is with us. He's
with us. See, we don't believe that every
day. I don't believe that every day. I know it, but I don't rest in
it. Faith is resting. I don't rest
in it every day. So I have to go through these
silly little trials. And then finally, fulfillment
is the goal of life. But it is the beginning and the
end of life. All these other things are gonna come and go. Contentment, not as much. It
needs to be the status quo. It needs to be the 55 or the
cruise set. If you get down to 40, you get up to 70, that's
okay. Just don't stop and don't go off the cliff at 100. That takes practice. It takes
discipline. Maybe by the time I die, I'll get it. I hope you
can get it before then. In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus is
preaching in verse 6. Y'all know this. Trey's been
here many times in the last few years. Not Malachi, Matthew chapter
5. He starts to teach these attitudes
that we ought to be having, to be attitudes. And he says, blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. I really need to preach another
hour, y'all. They will be satisfied. Fulfillment. I mean, we go to
a restaurant, we order food, and we leave, and sometimes We're
not full. And Robin and I have left restaurants
before and went, we gotta go buy McDonald's. That just wasn't
enough food. Or we've gone to like a reception
and there was like a tomato a piece for 40 people, you know. We need
to go somewhere to eat. Like the wine running out of
the wedding in John chapter 2. You're not full. Or sometimes,
you know, you go experience something. You go to a play or you go to
this like, oh, that sort of left me empty. You have a conversation. It's like, ah, I feel dead inside. Or you leave the church assembly.
You leave the gathering. You're like, I'm just not getting
it. You're not full. But when you are full, you know
it, right? When you go to that buffet and you're like, this
is $9 and they got shrimp and New York strip, I'm about to
get $50 worth. See, that's how I used to think.
Because the kids are going to get a strawberry and a biscuit
and a piece of cake and some ice cream. You pay $10 for them.
I've got to get that $10 times four plus my $10. That's $50. I'm going to get
it. And so you eat nine pounds of
shrimp. And you count them, too, by the way. If it's an 18 piece
shrimp plate, you count. Hey, hey, hey! It's a half a
shrimp. I want the other half a shrimp.
But when you leave, you can't breathe. Now this is gluttony,
friends. I'm not prescribing it. I'm just
explaining it. You're full. You know that you've
had food and you're settled and you might even have to like unbuckle
your belt. You know? That's why I like these sliding
belts. They just sort of Get your, like, hey, Robin, you
got a hair bow? You know, tie it around your
butt for a minute so you can let your pants out some. Because
you got to drive an hour back home. You're full! Or you see
a movie, or you hear a song, or you read a book, or you have
a conversation, or you enjoy some comedy, or you have, or
whatever it might be, and you're just full. Your child brings
you this card they made. And it don't look like you, but
it's you. And you save it. And every few
years you have to like throw some of it away because you can't
save it all, right? And they come in, they were four,
they're 12 now. No, you're going to throw away
my gift card. I mean, oh God, okay, I'll put it on the refrigerator
again. But it makes you full. It makes you full. Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness, they shall be satisfied. What
is fulfillment except ultimate satisfaction? In whatever context
it's there. And friends, we should seek fulfillment
in anything that we do, but we should understand that it's not
going to last. And when it comes to the pursuit
of happiness, we need to remember that joy has depth. And the contentment
is the standing place. It's the glue that holds it all
together. But fulfillment is where it comes from. It's not
what takes us there. Happiness, joy, contentment doesn't
take us to fulfillment, but it does. It comes from fulfillment.
So think about all these other things as the sandwich and fulfillment
as both breads. How do we get that? Fulfillment is derived from a
life that is aligned with God's will and purposes. Now let me
go back to the very beginning. How in the world are we supposed
to align with God's will and purposes when we have so many
iterations of what God's will and purpose is for us? We have
this invisible audience that we're worried about looking at.
We have these people who are constantly, maybe unspokenly,
telling us how we ought to live and how we ought not to live.
To the point that there are people that have been in my life that
have told me that I was wicked and missing out on the blessings
of life and blessings of God because I had pictures of my
family hanging in my house. Or that I dared read a book by
Plato. Or about a wizard. Or that I fed my child an Oreo. Ask Robin about that one, that
was her battle. Ridiculous. We're free of all
that. And we can just go, wow, that's
not fulfilling, that's not fulfilling. Being a Puritan is not fulfilling.
You're hungry. But if we thirst and hunger for
righteousness, we shall be satisfied. The question then remains, what
is righteousness? Well, righteousness is the fulfillment
that sustains and feeds back into the contentment and the
joy, making it an end and a beginning. So what do we do? We examine
our life and our purpose in light of the Word of God. And our ultimate
purpose in life, and you've heard this, this is so cliche, is to
give glory to God and enjoy Him forever. Do you know what? If the God of my culture is the
God of heaven, I don't enjoy Him at all. If the God of evangelicalism,
as He's been caricaturized for so many years of my life, is
really the God of the Bible, He's a killjoy. Not only that, he's sexist and
racist and hateful. But we know that's not true.
How? Because we have the Word of God. So when we see the implications
of all these things, we know that something's wrong with the
way the world and the Christian world is portraying the God of
the Bible. And it's not going to change. It's not going to change. We have to look at the blueprint. Some months ago, Trey preached
on this very text out of Ephesians chapter 1, verse 22 and 23. And here's what Paul says. And
he, God, put all things under his feet, Christ, and gave him
as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fullness of him who fills all in all. Now think about that for a second.
So if I'm lacking satisfaction and fulfillment, I'm going to
be lacking contentment, purpose, and joy, and happiness. And if I'm lacking in joy and
contentment, I'm going to be lacking in fulfillment. Colossians, Paul says, is a similar
thing, for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
but in the fact the fullness of him who fills all in all,
that in everything, in every circumstance, in every crevice,
in every atom, in every molecule, in every epoch, in every idea,
in every fathomable expression of eternity, in everything that
could ever be in the world and in our life and in our minds
and around us and near us, even if we don't know it, Christ fills
it all. How can we teach that theologically
to minds that can't grasp the infinite? As Brother Mike said earlier,
songs sometimes teach us how to apply our theology. And as silly as it may sound,
the song that always pops into my head when I think about this
is a song that I sang as a little kid at summer camp, at whatever
church it was, I don't know, but he's got the whole world
in his hands. You remember that song? I mean,
that's the only lyric, and then you change the world to me and
you and brother and socks and shoes and mother and whatever
it might be that rhymes. But He's got the whole world
in His hands. He's got the whole world in His hands. He's got the whole
world in His hands. Can you rest in that? You know
it, but can you believe it? Believing is resting. We stop
our striving. We stop our... pressure. We stop
our nonsense. Jesus is the cosmic Christ, not just a figure of history. He fills all things and all dimensions. Paul would say that he upholds
the universe, the cosmos, the infinite everything. Do you know
that's what universe means? Immeasurable, infinite, eternal,
ever going, never stopping, never beginning. The mathematician
in the room, I don't know how you do it. I would be calculating
forever. It would drive me insane to be
able to have the mind to even begin to fathom that from a scientific
perspective. Christ holds everything. Are you part of everything? Yes. So our individual fulfillment
is a reflection of Christ's own fullness. Our collective fulfillment
is a reflection of Christ's own fullness. His glory that we will
share, that He will bestow upon us, His righteousness that He
will give us in our recreated selves without sin, without the
mind of sin, we will then also be as He is in the sharing of
that fullness. And so anything else to find
fulfillment in is just really not gonna take root. You don't go to the steakhouse
and eat the butter mints. Only, you do eat the butter mints
afterward. Sorry. Take these for the next six weeks,
they're gone before I get home. thousand calories of sugar. We don't need to find filling
in anything but Christ so that when we are fulfilled in Him
then everything is just dessert. Makes sense to me. How do we bring this area of
our life that are unfulfilled to a place of fulfillment. James
said it. James said it. Go back to James
and we're done. James chapter four. Number one, we don't ask for
it. You do not have because you do
not ask. But I have been asking. I've been asking for God to do
this and to give me that. Yeah, but the reason that you're
asking, the way that you're asking is that you want those things
so that you will be fulfilled. That's what we do. Not saying,
Oh Lord, these things would be a great icing to the cake of
your fullness, if it be your will. See, that's James instruction.
It's a huge difference. But ultimately the reason we
can't be satisfied in that and settled in that is because we're
not resting in this. In verse 6, He gives more grace because
the pressure of just that instruction makes me want to do differently
and be differently and pursue a path of fulfillment in my own
feet, breath, and mind. Oh, I'm such a fool. We're all just hopeless in that
thing. Let's not make us bad or wrong
or sorry or lazy or worthless when we can't do it because we
can't do it. And I would say to you that I think the people
that say that they are doing it and posture themselves in
such ways are lying to themselves. As difficult as vulnerability
is, as difficult as authenticity can be, we can only be authentic
and vulnerable as Christians together. And I know that not
everybody who claims Christ is in Christ. Not everybody has
the Spirit, but those people will flesh themselves out because
they can't handle that raw intimacy. They can't handle that, and that's
not our fault. Quit pursuing that relationship
as a way of fulfillment and stand in Christ and let Him bring people
into our lives who will add to Him. Not that He needs adding to,
you see what I mean there. If we seek after righteousness
and hunger after righteousness and thirst after righteousness,
we will be full. What is the righteousness of
God? 1 Corinthians 1, Christ who is our wisdom and our righteousness. Fulfillment is not just personal,
it's cosmological. And our individual, tiny, little,
hard, Little war-torn stories are part of a greater fullness
that Christ has purposed for us as His people. Share that
with each other. Because I think the greatest
thing, like Paul said in Philippians 4, I'm content, but I am so full
knowing that you cared that I was in need. It didn't make Him fulfilled,
but it poured Him over. We've got a glass of water and
it's all the way to the top and we add more water and it just
flows over and it just wells up. Sharing life together wells up. It's a great blessing being the
church of Christ. It's a great blessing being intimate
with Christ's people, but if we're not intimate in fulfillment
and with contentment and thankfulness, with joy and happiness, we're
never going to live true. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord,
for the blessing of your grace, for the glory of all that you
are, to see you for who you are, Lord, is a miracle. And even though we can peer into
the text of scripture and we can have ideas and we can come
to a place of understanding and resting, Lord, it is not permanent. We are always struggling. And
so we thank you for this moment, just this moment, if nothing
else, that we can have a sense of peace. Father, as we continue into this
year, into this holiday season, and things can get strange, things
can get lonely, things can get frustrating. There are many who
are suffering among us. You know them. Many who have
turned away from what is good and prudent and wise and fallen
down in a path of destruction. Father, bring them to you that
we may rejoice with them. And we thank you, Lord, for loving
us in such a way that there's nothing we could do, no sin we
could commit, no attitude that we could have, no words that
we could say that would ever separate us from you. Lord, you
love us anyway. And you're not angry with us,
Father. You don't despise us. You're not seeking to hurt us.
Help us to rest in that and to live that way, and Lord, to tell
others of the goodness of you who are also bound into the shackles.
of your caricature. Father, help us to lay aside
every sin that ensnares us, whether it be an idea or an action, so
that we may run free and not look over our shoulders, but
look to Christ, who is perfecting us as we stand before you this
day. In whose name we pray, amen.