The topic that I was given is, have you ever wondered why we long for happiness?
! Have you ever wondered why we long for happiness?
And already you may be wondering what I'm going to say about this.
What does the Bible have to say about happiness?
And it's a fairly intricate and complex subject for a Sunday evening.
And as I was preparing this week, I had to flow this week, so I wasn't in the best of conditions.
And as I was lying in my bed with my head pounding and my body aching,
I thought, well, this is a topic that is not one that I want to be thinking about.
How do I long for happiness? I was certainly longing for happiness this week.
But as I went down the rabbit hole, as it were, of what the Bible says about happiness,
that you realize it's actually not a rabbit hole, it's a whole warren.
There's a word from worship down, if you can remember that from your high school days.
It's a whole warren about what the Bible says about happiness.
Now, I've chosen the passage that we have read tonight from Philippians chapter 4.
And you might find, you might have already picked up on the clue about where we're going with this.
But let me just dive into a question for you.
So, have you ever wondered why we long for happiness?
Now, Nelson, not Samuel, but Nelson Rockefeller once asked, he said this, they asked him this,
how much money does it take to make a person happy?
And I'm sure this has actually been put on the screen here in Brunswick before.
But his answer famously was this, just a little bit more.
And I think this frank response gives us an insight into the human soul.
We are tempted to think that we'd be happy with just a little bit more.
But I think actually we'd be tempted to admit that for many of us, it's actually going to be a lot more to make us happy if we were to truly answer that question.
Let me share another rather shameful and shallow but true story of a conversation that I had over 20 years ago.
So, I was in a group of friends, Christian friends, and we were talking salaries.
I don't know if that's a taboo subject, but we were talking salaries.
And I had just come from a very meagre salary.
I was earning 5,000 pounds, 100 pounds a week.
And I sat in a new job and I was earning 10,000 pounds.
And I said, in that company, I said, you know what, I think I'd be comfortable if I was earning 30,000 pounds.
And I was kind of mocked at the time because the average age, believe it or not, in 2004, the average wage was 22,000 pounds.
That's the average wage in the UK.
And here was me saying, well, I'd be comfortable if I earned 30,000 pounds.
Well, it's not long.
30,000 pounds comes and goes and you realise that maybe you need double or triple that.
And then that comes and goes and, well, you could keep going down that route, right?
And that is probably a shameful story for me, just to repeat that.
But that was a conversation that we had over 20 years ago.
But what would it make, what would it take to make you happy?
You see, I don't think the question of do you want to be happy is a difficult question for us to answer.
It's a self-answering question in a sense.
But the more tricky question is this.
What would it take to make you happy?
You know, the lie, the lie, I would be happy if.
And it's not really a new thing, is it?
It's the same lie that the serpent whispered to Eve in the garden saying, yes, you know, you would be happy if you ate off that forbidden fruit.
And it's the same empty lies that he uses today.
You know, I'd be happy if I had a better job.
I'd be happy if I had more money.
I'd be happy if I had a bigger house.
I'd be happy if I had a partner.
Or I'd be happy if that partner treated me better.
I might be happy if I had a different partner.
I might be happy if I had a child.
Maybe I've had two children.
You know, and it's, I would be happy if.
And it is always just out of reach.
You know, we humans always seem to think that we want what we cannot actually have.
Though in many cases, in many senses, we've actually already got what we wanted.
But our, our, our, I'd be happy if moves, the goalpost moves very, very quickly.
You know, that's true with jobs.
It's true with houses.
It's true with talents.
And as I say, maybe even very often with spouses.
And I shouldn't say that in a Christian context.
But if we want to look at this question from a worldly point of view, then that would be the case.
You know, the job never seems to be enough.
The ideal job just seems to be slightly out of our grasp.
Or it is just not available.
You know, the house never seems to be big enough.
Or not in the right location.
Or it's not quite one that we want.
We might recognise even the talents that we've been given.
And that we have.
But there's just this niggling envy about somebody else's abilities.
And you just need to look at divorce rates in this country to notice that there is always something that we're looking for more in marriage.
And that is quite a sad place to be.
You know, the problem is made worse, I think, by the fact that we think that if we had the right job or the right house or the right skills or the right partner, then we'd be happy and content.
But these things are always just out of our reach.
And so is contentment.
Or so the world's wisdom would have us believe.
The search for happiness based on our circumstances in life creates this restlessness and this discontent in our souls.
And that brought me on to thinking about this passage that we read tonight.
And I'm just going to reread it because you might just see where we're going to go with this.
And in verse 10 it says this,
I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.
You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.
Not that I'm speaking of being in need.
For I have learned in whatever circumstance I am to be content.
I know how to be brought low.
And I know how to abound.
In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
And I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Well that's the Apostle Paul.
He testifies that he has learned to be content in any and every circumstance.
His is not a constant search for the right circumstances that will bring him happiness.
He is content wherever he is.
But that's not the position of so many in the world today.
And it's sadly so of many Christians too.
I want to share with you a quote of C.S. Lewis.
And he says this,
If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy,
the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
And I know that that has been on the screen downstairs before.
Or it's certainly a quote that many of us will have heard.
You see I think this is the crux of the matter.
You know when we preach the gospel to the lost,
we tell them that they have a God-shaped hole in their lives.
That there's only one who can save them from themselves,
from their sin and from a certain eternal death.
And that is Jesus.
And yet Jesus is not only the answer to man's sin problem,
but Jesus is the answer to tonight's question as well.
You see, Paul isn't some kind of self-help guru
who's taught himself to be content for being contentedness,
or for being content's sake.
So that he might be able to say that he's happy
in any and every circumstance that he finds himself in.
No, Paul is pretty clear that it is Christ within him
that has enabled them to learn to be this way.
And I use that word learn because that is a word that we find in here.
And Paul uses that in his passage in verse 11 there,
for I have learned this contentment.
You know, Paul is pretty clear that it is Christ in him
that has enabled them to be that way.
There's another quote that Rachel did contribute.
I will give her that.
So there's another quote that I'll use tonight as well.
It's from Elizabeth Elliott.
And I'm sure some of you guys will have read this as well.
And it says this,
The secret is Christ in me.
Not me in a different set of circumstances.
And she is speaking on the same line.
She's speaking about being content as well.
You know, I could fill, any of us could fill pages and pages
of I would be happy if.
But here's the truth.
Our ultimate happiness will only be found
in a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You know, the answer to our question about why we long for happiness.
Well, tonight we're going to focus on the word happy.
But the adjective, or rather the noun,
the word longing is maybe where the root of the question lies.
Why do we long for happiness?
And I don't think that I'd probably need to tell you this,
but it is just good to reaffirm it to ourselves tonight.
But we are created in the image of God.
God says that.
He says, let's make man in our own image.
And God wants to have a relationship with us.
In fact, there's another verse in Scripture that would say
that the dwelling place of God is with man.
But our sin has separated us from him.
And so in the very heart of our souls lies this void
that we as humans so desperately want to fill.
Now, I've kind of skipped from the word happiness
to being content without really covering it.
And as I was going through this, there's a lot of verses.
In fact, you'd be amazed.
There are thousands of verses that covers the words
that we might associate with happiness.
And some of them will be joy, or joyful, or cheerful,
or happy, or pleased, or sometimes the word merry.
Okay.
And they each have a slightly different aspect to them,
whether it is something that is caused by a set of circumstances,
or whether it's coming from within.
Or I'll give you a verse that I'm going to read just now.
It's in Esther chapter 5.
And it's not one that we should take any lessons for.
But it's this.
It says,
So not every time that we come across a word about joyful,
or gladness, or to be glad,
it's going to be always in a positive context.
Because, well, if you read the story of Esther,
you'll find out that Haman's so-called happiness was very short-lived.
But it is interesting when you start to just look at where all the words,
and you just need to read through Paul's letters,
as we've read Philippians, and as we're going through Galatians,
every time the word rejoice, or joy, or pleasure, or delight,
that comes up in Scripture.
And literally, there are thousands and thousands of verses
that you could read.
And as I say, as you start, as I was going through this in the week,
there are so many different avenues that we could take tonight
to think about why we long for happiness.
And what does happiness really mean?
And where does it come from?
And you could spend hours and hours on it.
I actually hope that you go away and you start to maybe,
if you highlight your Bible, you may even just pick up on this,
if you've got a Bible that you do that with.
But as you start to read through and you start to look for those words,
I mean, even just on the page that we've just read there in Philippians,
you'll see that word numerous times in each of the verses about Paul's joy
and his rejoicing, and the fact that he encourages other people to rejoice.
So seeking for happiness and longing for happiness
really is because we are made for that.
We were made by God.
We have got a God-shaped hole in our lives
because we have rebelled against him,
and man is desperately trying to fill it with so many other things.
And yet, if we want to know what lasting joy looks like,
then we'll come to Scripture.
And I want to think about that over just five points tonight.
So we'll be fairly brief, but there's five points that I want to think about.
And that is out of so, so many points that we could have.
The first one I want to think about is the source of happiness.
What is the source of happiness?
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a quick look
at either a worldly type of wisdom and then what the Bible says,
or we'll have a look at what the Bible says,
and then we'll have a look at what the world would say.
You know, modern culture would say that the source of happiness
is an external source, and it's emotional.
You know, happiness is often seen as a feeling or a state of satisfaction,
and it's dependent on our achievements or our pleasure,
our comfort, our self-expression.
And in that kind of wisdom, you know, happiness is temporary,
and it's easily lost when our circumstances change.
And I think if you just think about the world today,
you just see that you don't have to necessarily...
In fact, you can pick up any newspaper and see that,
that in circumstances, people, happiness is either made or broken,
and that is the world's wisdom.
But when we come to the Bible,
we see that the Bible would teach us that happiness is internal.
I want to use that word guardedly, but I'll explain what I mean.
And it's not only internal, but it's spiritual.
You know, true happiness.
And often, when we come to Scripture,
we see that word used as joy or blessedness
comes from a relationship with God, trusting Him.
It comes from gratitude, not from external circumstances.
You know, it's described in Scripture as something that is stable,
something that is steadfast, that is enduring,
and something that we can have even in suffering.
Philippians 4 and 4, if we just looked earlier in our chapter,
it says this,
Rejoice in the Lord always.
True happiness comes from God, not from our circumstances.
Derek didn't know this, but Psalm 16,
the verse that Derek quoted tonight, said this,
You make known to me the path of life.
In your presence, there is fullness of joy.
At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
You know, real joy is found in God's presence,
not in worldless success or in comfort.
You know, Jesus teaching on happiness.
It equals this.
You come to Matthew chapter 5,
and we're dealing with the Beatitudes.
And each of the Beatitudes begins with blessed are.
Now, that word blessed,
it can also be a word that's translated as happy, satisfied.
But blessed are the poor in spirit,
those who mourn, those who make,
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Jesus redefines happiness as being connected with
a spiritual quality,
not an external success.
You know, the key difference between a biblical,
what the Bible says about happiness
and what the world says about happiness
is this, that biblical happiness is rooted
in God's presence.
Now, that might not seem apparent on the face of it,
but there are a few verses that I want to leave further on.
When you cast your mind back,
I want you to think about this.
What is the source of our happiness?
What is the source of biblical happiness?
And it is found in God's presence.
Not what the world would say happiness is found in,
which is often rooted in our personal circumstances
that are so prone to change.
So, the first one I want to think about
is just the source of happiness.
The second thing I want to think about tonight
is just life goals.
So, what is the goal of life?
What are our life goals?
You know, the modern view is this,
that happiness is the primary goal in life.
Do whatever makes you happy.
And it's associated with self-fulfillment
and personal freedom.
You just need to look at what comes across
our television screens or your X feed
and you'll see that people just do what they like
because they think it will bring them
some source of happiness.
The Bible tells us, though,
that happiness is not our ultimate goal.
It actually says this,
it says that happiness is a by-product
of living righteously and loving God
and, by extension, loving others.
Matthew 6, verse 33 says this,
Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and all these things will be added to you.
Which is contrary to what the world would tell us
about happiness and that happiness is not the ultimate goal,
but it is a by-product.
You know, obedience to God brings happiness.
We probably know that in our own lives.
Psalm chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 said this,
Blessed, there's that word blessed again.
That can be translated as happy.
But blessed is the man who does not walk
in the counsel of the wicked,
but his delight, in verse 2,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord
and doing what God would have us to do.
You know, it brings about this deep sense of well-being
that comes from living according to God's ways.
And there are so many scriptures
that I could take you to tonight
that would show you this,
that if we did what the Bible said that we should do,
we would probably avoid a lot of the circumstances
that make us unhappy.
You know, there's loads of choruses
that we're going through my mind as we're preparing,
but you remember that one that we used to sing,
trust and obey, trust and obey.
There's no other way but to be happy in Jesus,
but to trust and obey.
And obedience brings about this sense of well-being.
And I'm using slightly different words,
but you'll see how they're all connected
to what we might just refer to
as an umbrella term as happiness.
So the key difference between what the Bible says
and what the world would say
is that the Bible would say that happiness
is a fruit of godly living.
But the kind of modern world would say
that, you know, happiness is the purpose of life
rather than the by-product.
So we've thought about the source of happiness
is in God's presence.
God's presence itself brings about
that deep, enduring joy and peace and rest
as different words that you will see will come up
in relation to happiness.
And then second of all, life goals.
So our life goal is not to be happy.
Our life goal is to be obedient to God
and the by-product of that is happiness.
But I want to think about something
a little bit more deeper than that.
And it's this, what is happiness's relationship
with suffering?
Because life is not a bed of roses.
And if you were ever in a Bible study
with my granddad, he would say,
well, I don't know why you call it a bed of roses
because I wouldn't like to land in a bed of roses.
But what is happiness's relationship to suffering?
Well, the modern view would say this,
that suffering is typically seen
as an obstacle to happiness.
It's something to be avoided or to be minimized.
And happiness often means being free from pain
or difficulty.
Life is a breeze.
That's what the world would have us think.
But when we come to the Bible,
we see that suffering can produce joy
because it develops faith and character and hope.
You just read about that in Romans chapter five.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance
and endurance produces character
and character produces hope.
And hope does not put us to shame
because God's love has been poured into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
You'll see that some of the references
that I've used will help us to just underline
the point that I made earlier,
that happiness is found in God's presence
and God's presence comes to live
within each and every child of God.
You know, there's joy in trials.
It's something that we don't often want to think about.
But again, you come to James chapter one
and it says this,
count it all joy, my brothers,
when you meet trials of various kinds,
for you know that testing of your faith
produces steadfastness.
You know, the Bible acknowledges suffering,
but it teaches that even trials
can lead to deeper joy,
deeper reliance on God.
And as we are put through some of these trials
of various kind,
then the testing of our faith on God
produces this steadfastness.
And that is what, when we ask people,
excuse me,
why we long for happiness,
we're not just longing for some kind of,
some kind of merriment on a Friday night,
but most people are looking for something
that is deep and lasting and enduring.
A peace, a rest, a happiness
that carries them through life
rather than bouncing from one weekend
to the next.
Again, we can come to 1 Thessalonians,
reading chapter five,
verses 16 to 18,
and it says this,
rejoice always,
pray without ceasing,
giving thanks in all circumstances.
You know, trusting and thanking God,
even in hardship or trial,
leads to a lasting kind of joy.
And that is so contrary to what the Bible,
what the world would believe,
which is this,
that modern happiness usually requires
the absence of these things,
but yet biblical joy can exist
through pain and hardship.
Only on point three,
and I hope they can last to the last two.
The first point was about the source of happiness.
The second point was on about the,
you know,
the goal of life.
The third point was its relationship with suffering.
The fourth point that I want to just cover briefly
is around the focus.
The focus,
and this is around our focus,
and what I'm thinking about here is,
is our focus on ourselves,
or is it on others?
And when I say others,
again,
the chorus that we used to sing in Sunday school,
if you were brought up in a,
if you were brought up,
going to Sunday school,
you might have sang a song that says,
Jai,
so Jai for Jesus,
Jai,
O-I,
Jai,
O-I,
this is what it means,
Jesus first,
yourself last,
and others in between.
They might not have sung that,
but that was one that came to mind
as I was thinking about this,
but it's the focus on ourselves,
or is it on others?
You know,
the Bible says this,
that joy grows from,
joy grows within us
from loving and serving others.
Happiness comes through
humility and service.
You read in Acts chapter 20,
verse 35,
it says it is more blessed.
That's that word,
blessed again,
it's more happy.
People are,
you're more satisfied to give
than to receive.
The modern view is this,
that happiness is very self-centered.
It's what we're taught in school,
it's what we're taught on our TVs,
it's how we've been conditioned,
and it's very self-focused.
It's about maximizing our own pleasure,
our own comfort,
our own success.
However,
I just want to slightly caveat that,
because
modern psychology would,
as it kind of starts to align with scripture
in a sense,
because it supports
what the Bible teaches
around gratitude
and purpose,
and anybody who's been on
any kind of mental health,
whether you're in a
line management position at work,
and it's dealing with
employees with mental health,
or in other circumstances,
and we've all been touched by this,
you'll have heard of these things,
about being grateful,
and about journaling,
and about serving other people,
that makes us happy.
So,
actually,
we've kind of come through,
maybe like the last,
I mean,
for all times it's been the same,
we're very much self-centered people,
but some modern psychology
would maybe affirm
some of the things
that the Bible would say,
but they're not right
because they're right enough themselves,
they're right because they agree
with what scripture says.
So,
maybe both nowadays
the world's view
and the biblical view
are slightly aligned,
but the Bible
tells us that
that
is God's
design for love,
and
love is demonstrated
by serving others,
by
looking after others,
by being selfless
in a way,
and
you'll even
see some of the rhetoric
that came out of
Turning Point USA
after the death
of Charlie Kirk,
where that was very much
his
motto,
which was
faith and family
and sacrifice
and serving others,
and I'm sure
many of us have
seen some of that
recently
is very much
taking away
focus from ourselves
and putting on
other people.
You know,
in the day
in which we live,
that is the way
that we have been
conditioned very much
to focus on self,
and we live in a day
of comparison,
you just need to
flick through
your Instagram feed
for any length of time,
and you're always comparing,
and I've actually
looked at some of yours
this week,
not that I want
to compare,
but you know,
I wish I had
the legs
and the bikes
that some people have,
or I wish I'd been
on the holiday
that other people
had,
or whatever it is,
that nice restaurant
that you went to,
you just compare
what you've been doing
to what somebody else
has been doing.
It's a natural thing
that happens to us all,
but we live in a world
where comparison
is really
a dangerous,
dangerous thing,
and we start
to compare what we have
to what other people have,
and I don't think
anybody has been
affected on this,
not been affected
by this,
but it's certainly
affected my family
over the last few years
where,
and I want to say
this very kindly,
but setting aside
the clinical
and the medical issues
that may be associated
with this,
a number of people
in my family
have taken their own lives
in the last few years,
and some of the,
some of the things
that they,
and I'm going to use
the word guilty of,
but say that carefully
and it's affected me
rather than anyone else
in these circumstances,
but they were very
self-absorbed.
Now, as I say,
set aside the clinical
and the medical issues
that may have surrounded
some of these incidents,
but they very much
were focused on
how they were different
to other people,
and it was,
I'm saying,
I use the word game,
but it was a,
it was a,
it was a game of comparison
in that sense,
and it was a very dangerous
and a disastrous outcome
to be caught in that
where you're always comparing
and you always think
that you don't have
what other people have
and you'd be happy
if you had what they had,
and it goes back
to what we said
at the beginning
of this,
this topic tonight
that we,
we think we would be happy
if,
and that can have
disastrous,
disastrous outcomes,
and I'm sure
that everybody will know
people who have been
affected by that,
but I say that kindly
because,
as I say,
that has affected
our family
in many ways
over the last few years,
but lastly,
I just want to think
about this,
number five,
and it's about duration,
what is the duration
of happiness?
You know,
I think we,
in our world,
we see people
that bounce
on a Monday morning,
they are not happy,
when you come
midway through the week,
they're a little bit
more happy,
and when it comes
to a Friday afternoon,
they're absolutely elated
to get out the door
at whatever time
that they are skipping
out slightly early,
but then they just
do it all again
week after week,
and they bounce
through this,
almost from a crisis
to a crisis,
and they turn to things
to fill that void,
and it never really
fills the void,
but happiness,
what the Bible teaches
this,
happiness is something
that is eternal
and unchanging,
I want to be careful
when I say that,
because what I mean
by that is that
it's anchored
in God's promises
and in eternal life.
John chapter 16
verse 22 says this,
no one will take
your joy from you,
and that is the lot
for us as Christians,
that is our lot,
we can have
a deep-rooted
and a steadfast
and a stable happy,
a stable joy,
a rest,
a peace,
I'll come on to
some of these words
in a little second,
and it's not necessarily
the circumstantial happiness
that the world thinks
is happiness,
but it is something
that is much more
deep and meaningful,
and as God gives us that,
we find that that
is amplified
when we're in His presence
and when His presence
is in us.
You know,
as I say,
the modern world view
is this,
that happiness
is often temporary,
it's a fleeting emotion,
and it's tied
to changing circumstance.
Excuse me.
So I guess the question
is this,
should we be happy?
Well, actually,
I've got a little
curveball in here,
right,
but should we be happy
if we are rebelling
against God,
right?
Three people
that I want to think about,
two have definitely
been rebelling,
one hasn't,
but remember
the question
that God asks Cain,
and he says this,
why are you angry?
Why has your countenance
fallen?
And it's because
he was trying to do things
on his own way,
how he thought
he should live,
rather than how
God would have him.
You then come to David,
and the same question
can be asked,
you can read several Psalms,
and you know,
Psalm 13,
34,
51,
different times
where David
has gone out,
and he's rebelled
against God,
and he's committed adultery,
and he's lied,
and he's committed murder,
and he poses the question
about why the joy
of his salvation,
why the joy of the Lord,
why just the joy
that he should have
within him
has been removed from him,
and he pleads with God
that that might be restored,
and some of these circumstances
are very much
David's own doing,
some of them are
other circumstances
that David finds himself in,
and he's away from Jerusalem,
and we've covered that recently,
and,
but,
the question about
should we be,
expect to be happy
when we're rebelling
against God,
well,
the fact is,
if we are actively
rebelling against God,
if we're not living
according to his word,
if we're not obeying him,
then we'll not know
the joy of his presence
in our life,
we'll not know the joy
of the salvation,
and therefore,
there should be
some kind of trouble
within us,
there should be something
that is restless within us,
as we long for God
to be part of our lives,
to be in our lives,
to be controlling,
to be guiding,
to be sustaining us,
to be comforting us,
and if we are,
if we have chosen a life
that is pushing God out,
and we're actively sinning,
then,
maybe that,
maybe that rest,
and that peace
that he affords
might just be absent.
I was also thinking
about Mary Magdalene,
she comes to the tomb
on that morning,
and she meets the angels,
and they ask why
that she has been crying,
and she says this,
they have taken my Lord.
Again,
the Lord was taken
from her presence,
and that's what had upset her,
and that should upset us too.
When the presence of the Lord
is not with us,
we should be,
I would use the word troubled,
you know what I mean by that?
I don't think we should necessarily be,
there's no despair,
but certainly we should be like David,
and we should be seeking
to restore that,
and a verse that I'll often use
in 1 John,
if we are faithful,
if we confess our sins,
he is faithful and just
to forgive our sins,
and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness,
and our relationship
is restored,
and God's presence
can come back in,
and even though the Holy Spirit
never believes a believer,
once they are saved,
we definitely experience
the loss of the joy
of the presence of the Lord,
when we follow a path
that is not in accordance
with the scripture.
Then sometimes other than that,
just the normal cares of this life
can get us down,
and it comes down
to the last three verses
that I want to leave with us.
One of my favourite verses
that I used to,
again,
if you grew up in a Sunday school,
you would remember this,
in Matthew 11,
the Lord Jesus says,
come to me,
all who labour
and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
And this word rest
is associated with the word
that we've been thinking about,
about the happiness,
that underlying joy
and peace and rest
that comes from the Lord Jesus.
The Lord Jesus often also says,
my peace I give to you,
John 14,
but the helper,
the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send
in my name,
he will teach you all things
and bring to your remembrance
all that I have said to you.
Peace I leave with you,
my peace I give to you,
not as the world gives peace.
Jesus is acknowledging
that the world does give peace,
does give happiness,
but nothing that is lasting,
nothing that is true,
nothing that can compare
to the joy and the peace
and the rest
that can come from him.
He says,
let not your hearts be troubled,
neither let them be afraid.
Which takes me to the beginning
of that chapter in 14.
It starts like this,
let not your hearts be troubled.
Believe in God,
believe also in me.
In my Father's house
are many rooms,
if it were not so,
would I have told you
that I go to prepare
a place for you.
And if I go and prepare
a place for you,
I will come again
and will take you to myself
that where I am,
you may be also.
You know,
in a sense,
true,
enduring,
godly,
God-honoring happiness
will only be ours
when we are removed
from this world
and we are present
with Christ.
But we're given the ability
and the resources,
the Holy Spirit,
I've just read that
in the last few chapters,
the last few
verse quotations there,
the resources
to be content
in this world
with what we have
and with what we do.
So I just want to ask tonight
that it might be
our desire
that we may live lives
that encourage,
that challenge,
that support,
that we pray for each other,
that we become like Paul,
that we be contented
in each and every circumstance
that we find ourselves in
and that we are not contented
when we don't have that peace
and that presence
that only God affords us
when we come to him.
Now let us pray.
Heavenly Father,
we come before you tonight.
Thank you for this opportunity
that we've had to think about
this subject of contentment.
Our Father,
we remember that Paul
would write to Timothy
that contentment
with godliness
is great gain.
Our Father,
something to be sought after,
something to be treasured.
And our Father,
we thank you
that you have given us
the ability
to experience
this contentedness
in our lives
by sending your Holy Spirit
into our lives
to help us,
to guide us,
to keep us.
And our Father,
as we have just considered
why we long
for happiness tonight,
our Father,
we just pray
that these scattered thoughts
may be helpful,
that we might just think on them
and ponder them
and that it might just help us
to answer some of the questions
that our unbelieving friends
may have.
And even when,
Father,
we as your people
find ourselves
in times of difficulty,
that we just draw
close to you
for your comfort
and your care,
that you may support us,
that you may lead us
through the difficult
times of life.
And our Father,
we thank you
that you have given us
this hope
that is within us,
that we will one day
go to be with you
and that we will be like you
for we will see you
as you are.
And our Father,
we thank you
that all of that
is promised to us
in and through the person
of your Son,
the Lord Jesus.
And so,
our Father,
we just ask
that we might remember
what we have thought
about tonight.
And our Father,
as we ponder this
during the week,
our Father,
we just ask
that you would
bring us into the knowledge
and the good of this,
that we might be happy
and contented people,
happy to serve you
and happy to serve others
as we make our way
through this life.
And so,
our Father,
we just ask
that you be with us.
We thank you again
for our time together.
We just ask
for these things.
Give them thanks
in Jesus' name.
Amen.